SAVED from HERSELF; OR ON THE EDGE OF DOOM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 160, 8 July 1899, Page 6 (Supplement)

SAVED from HERSELF; OR ON THE EDGE OF DOOM.

Bjr-SAHELAIDE STIKI-INGi,

_tn__oi^ot The Purple Mask,' 'Nerine'a

Second Choice,' etc.

CHAPTER XXVII,

'; THE TRUTH THAT LIED! It was all so black, so terribly obvious as he looked at it.

Cylmer thought long that night, in a' weary circle that led back to the same horror. The original of that photograph had been Mrs. Trelane, and if Abbottsford's death lay at her door, Ismay had known it. That little cry of hers came back to him.

' I never saw it before.' A lie and a foolish one, that looking

back was damning

And Wray—she could deceive him for a brute like that ?

And then there rushed over him the awful thought of the disgrace to come; the wheels that he had set in motion that were even now out of his power to stop. . Even in his disenchantment, with that raging pain at his heart that she was false who seemed so true, he was glad that that one clue, that one fatal bit of evidence, the bluegreen beetle, was in her hands. The detectives would never see it again; Mrs. Trelane warned in time would destroy, it and the .bracelet he was "certain it had belonged to—and Ismay. ; * ' 'Ismay can be consoled by Mark ?' Yet at the thought his forehead was 'wet. He would have given his soul not to have seen her to-night, to have, gone on believing in her; as he would never believe in any one again.

' And yet if had all been so simple; if fate had not played into the spiteful hands of Cristiane le Marehant, .would have been another link to bind him to the girl who for his sake was •fighting, with the world against her. . At eight o'clock Ismay had waked from a long sleep; waked weary and languid .in. body, but with her brain more qii.ick and clear than it had been for two.days. She was alone, and she lay for k little, thinking, remembering

What had made her so drowsy, so strange all that clay? Had Wray, to keep her,out of the way, given her anything ?

'There was only breakfast; he could not ! We had all the same, even my coffee Thomas poured out at the sideboard. Besides, he doesn't suspect me at all, thanks to' Thomas' ver_iori of my midnight promenades. She smiled to herself.

Had hot Thomas met, one night, face to face, and had not Jessie ■told.her in deepest secrecy of how the lady had walked, with the very blood stain that was'the mark of her crimes on her breast. That blood stain she had made in, serving her ghost's gown, with fingers that were torn by Cylmer's rpses. )

'Jessie.' Conviction flashed over her at the woman's name.

.Jessie^hadiput her. early tea down outside the door this morning. Ismay was sleepy and too lazy to get up and let the woman in.

'T said to leave it, and I heard her gd away,' she thought. 'When I took it in it' was cold, and I thought it wasn't nice, but I drank it. He had plenty of time to put anything in it. If.he passed and saw it there he would not hesitate one second. Even if he did not suspect me, I am much too agile a person to have taken out on his business, and he must have been determined I should have to stay at home. OdeTmore score against him.' • Her anger lent her ..strength. She got out of bed and clothed herself in a warm1 dressing gown, utterly heedless of. the doctor's orders. Something that was not herself made her think of the scarabaeus and Marcus Wray. Could she have in her hands the destruction of her enemy, and not know it?

She took it out of its hiding place, and saw the flash of Cylmer's ring, where it., lay beside it.

' When Marcus Wray was routed,- she could put it on—she turned away that she might not see it, but the sight of it had deepened her hatred'of the man who stood between her and happiness, whom fqr her mother's sake she dared not defy.

. A step outside startled her. She had just time to throw the scarabaeus into the drawer and lock it, when her mother.whs in the room. Her mother in white, in that very gown she should have burned long ago ! _ \_ ■■ y

'Why are you up ? You'll kill yourself Mrs. Trelaue said sharply.

' 'I'm all right. I couldn't stay in bed. Mother, in heaven's name, why have you got on that ?' she pointed like an accusing judge at the tawdry white dress.

'Because I was sick of looking like a fright in black.lt shows out: every line i^my'-'fajce. And there's no one here but. MareuSi'

' Who Syyour-worst enemy,', helplessly.'^' it' isn't decent, with Sir Gaspard not dead a month.'

'Oh, bother ! I told Cristiane my black one was torn,' lightly. 'But Ismay ,: are,you really quite well ?• I was terrified about you this morning.'

■ ' Terrified!' Ismay threw back her head with her old laugh of mockery. She knew quit^e well the depth of that terror. A horrible sight, the awe of death that lies in all of us; but if death had been there her mother Would have drier her tears as useless, aging things ; forgotten her daughter as soon as the earth had closed over bar.

'If you are going to be so brutal I shall go away,' Mrs. Trelane said angrily. 'If you have no feelings you might give me credit for some.' , ..

'Don't go.' Ismky caught her dress. 'Come into the sitting-room. Tell' me about this morning—what happened, who carried me home ?' -.■

'Mr. Cylmer. Tell me, Ismay,' with quiet curiosity, 'how well do you know Mm ?' He looked like death when he carried you. And how did he happen to be there ?' .

'He just "happened," I suppose,' pdovokingly. And I don't suppose I was an engaging sight. What did Cristiane do ?' .

-'Had hysterics, I think. I wasn't lifstening. I thought you were dead ; _o did Marcua.l • , .

'You didn't l_t him touch me '?' 'He went straight off for the doctor. It was "that man .Clymer who ffot you out of the water.' 'That man Cylmer!' The girl flushed^with pride and joy. How she would thank him when she saw him,

with the strong arm that had saved her close about her shoulders.

'Marcus wants to see you. That's why I came up,' Mrs. Trelane remarked. 'Do be civil ■to him, Ismay, he tried to help you.'

'Me ? Yes '?' enigmatically, and her mother shivered with a suspicion of the girl's knowledge, that died on the instant at her placid face.

'See me?' Ismay amended. 'Very well, send him up. No, don't stay. I'll be civil, you needn't worry.'

Her eyes alert, her cheeks feverish, she watched him come in.

'What do you want ?' she inquired calmly, as he hesitated on the threshold.

'To see for myself that you're all right,' his cold sneering manner all gone. 'Ought yon to be up ? But you look quite well, quite yourself.' 'I am quite myself. "What made you think I shouldn't be ?' she said, dryly.

'The shock, the wetting,' he hesitated.

'Neither the shook, nor the wetting, hove affected.me,' she assured him.

Could she suspect anything about that tea ? He gave her a searching glance with narrowed eyes. But her face was as openly hostile as usual, with no underlying doubt. 'Tf you're going to stay, sit down,' she yawned'"laughingly. 'You make me nervous fidgetting there by the door.'

He drew a seat near to the sofa, and she let her eyes close sleepily. Through their dark fringes they looked him all over searchingly. Evening clothes, a shirt and collar us .immaculate as usual, a neat black tie, two pearl studs, rather flawed and too large. So he has a taste for jewellery. His hands, long, deceitful, cruel, lay on his knees. On one of them was a diamond ring, too big for a man, too sparkling. 'His cuffs.' she thought with inspiration. But they were hidden under his black coat sleeve. One day she had laughed at Cylmers plain mother of pearl cuff studs, and he had said that there was nothing a man was so wedded to a peculiar kind of cuff stud.

' 'If he wears links, he always wears links, generally of' the same pattern. If he wears studs, he never changes the make.'

The blood beat hard in her temples. That blue-green Egyptian beetle could well have been half of a cuff" link, florid, expensive, odd, as were those shirt studs of pearls and greenish gold. 'Why are you so thoughtful, Tsmay? Why will you go on hating me ?' Wray asked, slowly. 'Don't you know it's no use ?'

There was a biting answer on her tongue, but she kept it back. She must say something—anything—that would make him hold out his hand to her with a sharp, hasty gesture that would clear his shirt cuff, links upward, from his sleeve.. _\.nd if I did not hate you, what would you do for me ?' she moved her hand toward him as if by accident.

The next instant he had seized .it, was holding it in a grasp that was loathesomely hot and strong. Words she did not listen to poured in a low whisper from his lips. Intent, her face alight with eagerness, she was gazing at his wrist, moving her hand till his palm lay upward under hers. But if she expected to see the scarabolus, of which she had one, she was, wrong. And yet her heart leaped. For he did wear links, not studs, and they -were showy and costly. Ovals of pink coral set around with seed pearls. As she gazed, his low voice in her ears killed the sound as Cristiane parted the curtain. Wray. with his back to the door and off his guard, saw nothing, and Cylmer, cut to the heart, had seen enough. Oh, if she had known, to fling that loathed hand from her like a snake !

But Fate—like Death—strikes noiselessly, and from behind, and chooses just the nick of time. If Cylmer had been • one moment later he would have seen her scw-tcli her hand away ; wipe it with insolent care on her handkerchief ; laugh, with utter scorn in Marcus Wray's furions face; as, her aim attained, she spoke out :

'You might give me the whole earth, and I should hate you,' she cried out with insane bravery. 'I hate death, but I would die before I married a man like you.' Dazed, taken aback, he looked at her.

'You can go,' she said, smiling like Circe, treacherous and merciless ; 'I'm done with you.' In the long moment's pause a door shut somewhere, and she could not know it was Miles going away. And Wray did not hear it. His hands .trembled, his face full of evil he looked down at her insolent beauty.

'But I am not done with you,' he said, very low. CHAPTER XXVIII. 'MY NAME IS YESTERDAY. I AM ALSO CALLED TOO LATE. NO MORE. FAREWELL.'

Ismay was gay as any lark that next morning. Her path, that had been so hard to tread, seemed sure and easy now; her course of action plain. When Miles came, as of course he would come to see how she was, she would tell him all—everything. With those .showy cuff links of Marcus Wray's in her remembrance, that broken jewel in, her keeping, that had never been her mother's, she had something to go on. Miles should know all; she would keep nothing back, and then they two, together, should bring guilt home to Marcus Wray.

For, with the certainty of a person whose intuitions are never wrong, she was sure that it was he who had poisoned Abbottsford, he who had managed so cleverly that if anything were discovered it was Mrs . Trelane who should bear the whole brunt.

But the morning passed, and no Miles. The waiting, the hope deferred, made her pale. And there was too much at stake—she could not affordto wait. She slipped out to the stable and sent a groom with a note.

'Please come to the stile at four. I'm quite, well to-day, and I must see you. I have something to tell you.

ISMAY,

Something to tell him! Cylmer's face hardened as he read. He heard beforehand the smooth, plausible story she would have made ready when Cristiane —as Cristiane was sure to do—had told her of the night before.

'I won't go. I can't see her,' he thought wretchedly, and yet his longing was too much for him. He would see her once more —once more feast his eyesohithatrfatal beauty that had weaned him from all simple loves forever; he would tell her that he knew, iand bid her save herself and her mother, and go. ■

'I will be there at four,' he wrote, without beginning or signature, and Ismay as she read it only thought how

careful he was to write nothing that could matter if other hands opened his note. 'He hates writing. He never even says he is glad I'm all right.' She j kissed the little note before she burned it, never thinking that never again , would Miles Cylmer write to Ismay ; Trelane. She evaded the others that after- \ noon with some trouble, so that she i was late at the stile. Miles was there \ I before her, very tail, very handsome , in the grey light. For the day was j thawing drearily. j 'Miles,' her voice rang out sweetly, j joyfully, as he had heard it in his i dreams"; 'I'm here! I'm quite well. ; Aren't you glad?' She stopped ab- j ; ruptly as she reached his side, saw his ; face.' 'Miles, what's the matter?' An j ! agony of terror such as all her hunted j life had never known made her dizzy j as she looked. j He could not answer. He was fighting with that worst pain on earth when a man has learned to distrust { and hate all that has been most dear j and sweet and true.----j 'Aye you sorry you saved me?' She I tried hard for his old light mirth. 'Is that it?' j Cylmer shivered. Truly he would rather she had 'died than that he should have known this, of her. 'I don't know,' he said under his moustache, never moving a. step towards her. his hands, that were wont to clasp her so eagerly, lax at his sides. 'What's ihe matter? Look at me.' she cried desperaely. 'Why are you like this, when I've come all this way to tell you .something that will take all my courage to tell?' 'Then you can spare your courage, for 1 know.' 'Know? You can't.' She was panting, wild. 'What can you know that has changed you so?' "I know that it was your mother's whose photograph was in Abbottsford's room,' he said hoarsely. T know why you tainted here in my arms when I talked of it. 1 know how you and she have made a fool of me; how you have deceived me for Wray.' 'Wray!' She stared aghast. What did he mean?

'I saw you last night —with Wray.' And at the look on his face tho girl's heart died within her. 'You saw me?' Ismay repeated. 'Last night—with Marcus Wray?' 'Last night,' he echoed, 'with Marcus Wray.' He was alone with you in your sitting-room, holding your hand. And you, who say you hate him, lay looking at him so intently that you never knew I was there.'

•You were there!' her eyes wide, dilated, were almost stupid as she stared at him. 'What brought you

there?' 'To see you! But as it was an inconvenient moment,' with a short, angry laugh, 'I did not intrude.' 'Miles,' she cried, 'I had a reason; I held his hand for a purpose.'

' I do not doubt it; you always have, I should fancy,' hardly. 'Had you the same purpose in the morning, when you let: him kiss you in the hall, where the whole house might see?' 'Kiss me? He never kissed me,' her lips, no longer scarlet, were parted, her forehead suddenly livid.

Kissed her, Marcus Wray? With a sudden dread she remembered she had dreamed, dreamed of Cylmer, felt the tweed of his coat under her cheek. 'Miles! Miles!' with a revulsion that was agony. 'I was asleep. I thought, I dreamed,' falteringly, 'it was you.' 'You forget, he never kissed you,' disdainfully. 'You say you slept. Do you think I, who loved yen, would take advantage of your sleep to kiss you? But, why talk of it,' with a quick, slighting motion of his hand, 'since it is true?'

Yes, it was true. Just as holding his hand last night was true, and yet hell was no falser.

'Who told you?' she asked quietly, without denial or protest. 'The person who saw you. And because I would not believe I went upstairs to see you, and I saw—but I did not come to talk of what you know so thoroughly.'

'Then why did you come?' For the first time her voice was unsteady. To his informant, as to Wray's kisses, she never gave a thought; .any one

might have seen her as she slept. 'I came to tell you that I knew it all, everything; that I see- now that from the first day you have been your mother's daughter. Forgive my rudeness; it is an easy way—of putting it.' T don't understand.' How cold it was growing, and how dark, she thought irrelevantly. Why could he not finish and go? He pulled a card from his pocket. 'Who kept this from Cristine?' he said, roughly. 'Was it you?' 'So you want to go back to yohr Cristiane?' For one second her eyes flashed. 'I don't care if I never see her again,' impatiently.' Yesterday, God forgive me, I would have let her die for you.' Yesterday! The utter change in his voice hurt. 'Don't you sea it isn't Cristiane who is in question. It's what you did or did not. Tell me, did you keep that card?' 'I kept it,' very evenly. 'I loved you, and I was afraid of her.' 'You loved met he laughed,, unbelievingly. ' 'Why, yoii had .only seen me once!' The contemptible thought of his money, his position, crowded into his brain and maddened him. 'Oh, not me!' he ended in a tone that waa an insult. But she never noticed it. ' She sat down on the stile, as if she were tired. That stile where the gate of heaven had been closed on her. 'So you came about that note and Wray!' she said. 'Well, I did both tilings! What next?' It was Cylmer's turn to wince. 'This next,' he answered, and he could not meet her eyes, that once had been so sweet, so serene. 'It was for your sake, because I pitied you, that I told nothing of all I knew about your mother. When, you asked me, I was silent. And all the time you knew that she was not only unfit to have charge of an innocent girl, but was a murderess.' 'I thought so! Yes.' , 'And then I loved you. And you used my love to find out what the police were doing. But even your nerves could not keep you from making mistakes. You fainted when I told you the police were on the murderer's track, and I was too blind to know you had an excellent reason. And because I was a fool I gave you that scarabaeus, and I suppose you have profited by my folly and destroyed the others, though you had "never seen it before"!'

'Miles, she was my mother.' Yet there was no pleading in her voice.

'And I thought I was your lover. But it seems I was mistaken. There is Wray. I will leave the field to him.' For the 'first time her temper rose. 'And then you will tell what you

i i know of my mother —and me—to the l police, and the country side?' she said 1 scathingly. To hear her cut Cylmer to the quick. j i 'That is what I will not do. To my ; 1 shame, I will help you both to go.I will j i let my friend lie unavenged. I will' | baulk the investigation—if I can, and, I for my shame I shall know I am aj ! party to a crime. This is what I came 'to tell you. it is not safe to stay here a day. You have that searabaeus; but . ;by this time a description of it is with j all the police in England, and any day ; ! they may be on you. If they ask me • I again on my oath if I can identify that ■ photograph what can I answer? For ; II saw your mother in that very atti- j I tude, that very dress, admiring her j ! reflection in a mirror last night. If you | |v__'it money I will give it to you; but I in.T.ke an excuse to Cristiane, and get j | your mother away. Let me never see, her again, that I may forget her.' 'And. me? You would forget me?' her.i voice oddly flat and lifeless 'Forget you? I would give my soul if | I could,' simply. But there was noth- j ing in his bearing to comfort her. ' 'You don't love me—now?' she per- j sisted. I ! 'No, not now. It will hurt you very j little, as you have Wray.' There was no taunt in his voice, only misery and conviction. She sat dumb and quivering. 'If you ever loved me, go!' he cried. _yum no.? .inoq _.ue iihu .us no., be tracked?' Like lightning she was on her feet, facing him. Her eyes were splendid in the dusk, her beauty appalling as he spoke. 'If I ever loved you!' she cried. 'I who loved you as a mm adores the cross; who was wicked, heartless, altogether evil, till you made me see that truth and goodness were things tc live and die for. It was for your sake I fought for my mother. 1 hated her till I knew you; now I pity her v. ith all my heart. 'Miles, If yon listen now, I can tell you what would make even you pitiful. I can show you what a lying truth yesterday was—only hear me.' 'I would not believe you,' he cried wretchedly. 'I should go home and

know it was only another act in the play; that you- '' With a gesture she stopped him; she had raised both her hands with a movement that was magnificent. She spoke solemnly as a priest who calls down the wrath of Cod. 'Then it is on your head,' she said, and he could just hear her. 'The sin, the crime, all that will come if you send me away. If Igo from you

St will be to become all you think me; neither truth nor honour nor pity will ever spring in me again. You

will hear of me, and know that it was you who made me that thing that 1 'shall be; the memory of it shall haunt you in life; it will cry out against you at the judgment day. 'As i'or my mother —'—superb,

powerful, she held him with her eyes —'1 will bring that crime home—but not to my mother. I would have told you all 'the truth to-day, but you sealed my lips. I could tell you of a thing so wicked that even I could not see it done—but why should I warn you. when you think 1 am a. liar?' 'My Cod, Ismay! What are yoii saving?' A thought so awful in his mind that he caught her by the arm till her flesh was bruised. 'Let me go!' She wrenched herself free. 'Cod—l believed in no God till 1 knew you.' Now I believe, and as He hears me, I swear the day will come when for this day's work you could kill yourself. No, don't answer; don't speak!' contemptuously. 'By and bye you will know that once I was true, and by then I shall be a thing to shudder'at, with death on my hands ' Her voice broke wildly. 'But the guilt of it will be on you. I wash ray hands of it. Take your ring. I was never fit to wear it. But when I am dead and in hell, for what only I could have stopped, you can remember that you put me there.' 'Tell me what you mean!' authoritatively". 'I came to tell you—and you would not hear me. Now it is too late.' All

her excitement was gone, her words were as quick and irrevocable as Fate. 'Ismay, love!' the man fairly groaned. 'Do you mean me to believe all

you've been saying? Wait a minute; speak to me; forget everj'thing but that I loved you and you drove me mad!' 'Loved me? A thief, a liar, the daughter of a murderess, whose name is a bye word!' Her voice rang out clear and wicked. 'Oh, no, Mr Cylmefr. You did' not love me. You thought you loved me yesterday — and to-day is called too late! No more! No more! Farewell.' His ring lay unheeded on the ground between them, as he sprang to stop her. But she was quick and elusive as a shadow. Like a shadow she was gone in the dusk. Clymer, his courage gone, his heart faint within him, leaned on the stile, as weak as a woman. In all her words there had been only one meaning to him. It was she who had done it, and not her mother. And it was he who had' stirred the lagging investigation to fresh life. . Girl, sorceress, woman! Whatever she was, she had been a child in his hands till to-day. And it was he who had set the noose about her neck! 'Ismay!' he sobbed once sharply, as a man does, from his very core. Her blood would be on his head, and he loved her still. And yet she had been right. Not all she could have said or sworn would have blotted out those facts that, true or false, stood out so blackly against her. * (To be Continued.)