MARY ELWYN'S SECRET.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 132, 5 June 1900, Page 6

MARY ELWYN'S SECRET.

ALAN ST. AUBYN ;(Author of "A Fellow of Trinity," &c)

[COPYRIGHT..]

(Concluded.)

CHAPTER IV.

Mary Elwyn was not well enough to take her place in the Sunday School •the following morning, which happened to be Sunday, and she did not come to church during the day. Her banns were called for the third time that day, and the wedding was to take place early in the week. When Air Elwyn came back that nio-ht from taking the Sunday evening duty at Rose-Ash, he found his housebold thrown into confusion.

Mary had run away. It was all over the village the next morning. She had left her home while the family were at church in the morning, and had not since returned, bhe had been seen hurrying along the road in the direction of Beestou Junction, and the stationmaster there remembered a lady answering her description, taking a ticket by the afternoon mail for a station some thirty miles distant, and there all traces of her ceased. Mrs Brown went over to the Court at once, directly she heard the news, to see Mrs Elwyn, but she only saw iher maid, who said her mistress was too ill to see anyone; and consequently she came home very hot and angry. "I believe that Blue-beard cupboard is at the bottom of it!" she said to her ihusband with quite unusual warmth. "The poor girl has not run away from ber lover; she has run away from some cruel family secret that she could bear jao longer." Mr Elwyn bore his daughter's disappearance more 'calmly than any one would have supposed. "Mary was always self-willed," he explained, "and Bhe was averse to the marriage from (the first. There was a previous attachment, which we hoped she had got over. She has been very unhappy since !her engagement to poor Forbes, fretting, I'm afraid, for her old lover, and she has gone away to escape marrying a man she does not love." This was all the explanation that was ever given of Mary Elwyn's sud-> den disappearance, and there were no efforts made to follow her. She had found an asylum, it was stated, with a distant relative of her mother's. It was not the place of the bridegroom elect to follow his recalcitrant bride when this story of the former lover got about, so Forbes packed up his things and Went to India a week fearlier than he had intended.

But before he went he came to say good-bye to Mrs, Brown, who had stood his friend all through the piece. "Dtm't you believe that cruel story about an old lover," she said to him at parting. "Mary has a cause for tmhappiness that we know nothing about. She is the best and truest girl in the world. She has gone away because she loves It was not many^veeks after Mary Elwyn's disappearance that business caUed the Rector tip to town, and on the wfty, at Beeston Junction, he met hi-. Gui-ite, who was,going, lip by the game train. Mr. Elwyn had his" ton with him, a lad of fourteen,. and between them they Wete carrying across the rails a big black portmanteau. Thefe were plenty of porters about the station, and one of them came tip to him and offered to caiTy the .bag; but he sent the man off with a [bundle of wraps, which were no jveight at all. The bag was evidently heavy: the lad, who' held one of the handles, tottered beneath the weight, and stopped in the middle of the line to rest. BroVvn hurried across the rails to offer his assistance, and as he came ■up to him unexpectedly in the permanent way, Mr Elwyn started back in affright as if he had seen a ghostBnd dropped the bag on the line. "I never saw a man so panic-Strickfen in my life," Brown told his wife when repeating the incident to her later .bn.

"Let me help yoii," said JBrt. .vn goddEattifedly. There was no time for further greetings, for the train was in eight, and everyone Was shouting to them from the platform to Idolc*out. "]S.O,no, thank you," Mr Elwyn said, Jrurriedly. "We can manage it very {well. Come along, Arthur." Brown pushed the boy aside-^there was hot a minute to lose—^and took hold of the handle of the bag. But he was not at all prepared for its weight. He fairly staggered under it, and when he reached the platform and the train rushed by the perspiration stood out Jn great beads on his forehead. "Whatever could that bag cOfitaifi?" [Brown asked himself that question all (the way up to London. There were jew things of that bulk that could Jtveigh so heavily—only metal indeed. Was ElWyn returning the wedding presents? He had not come back by the end of the week, and on the Saturday levelling, quite late, a letter was sent to the Kectory from -his wife asking Brown to fill her husband's place the next day, as he was unexpectedly detained in town.

A few days later, while Mr Elwyn still delayed his return, news reached ,the Kectory that. Sir. Giles Fawley and his family were coming home, ffhey had gone abroad for several years, and they were comingback quite unexpectedly. The curate would have to look' out for another house, and another cure, for; if the truth must be told, a growing dislike and suspicion of him. had been in Brown's paind for some time past. He could not reconcile those fine *'Amens" and the stirring sermons .with a general reluctance on the part of Mr Elwyn to pay his debts, which, had been made painfully evident since jthe abandoned wedding".

But a few days later more startling news reached the Rectory: the bailiffs were at the Gourt.

The news spread like wildfire through the village, and every little

i tradesman in the place crowded up to ■ the great house with his bill, Mr Elwyn had not returned, and his wife was confined to her room. The poor woman was too terrified and over-; whelmed with this calamity to see . any one. i She wrote a very piteous note to : Brown, begging him to let her hove a few pounds, as her husband had left ', her without any money in the house.

He had only paid Elwyn his quarterly stipend a few days before he went away, but he sent the poor woman a five-pound note, and begged her to communicate with her husband immediately.

I No doubt she did so, for the next ; thing he heard was that she and the • children had gone away. The bailiffs jhad stopped the luggage, but they had let the Weeping woman and her ehildjren go. I The luggage left behind was all that ! really belonged to Mr Elwyn. The and the plate—and the j china, the beautiful old china—bej longed to the Squire. Brown teleI graphed at once to Sir Giles' lawyer jin town to come down without delay. He came down by the next train. Brown never could be persuaded to tell the sequel of the miserable story. It is best told briefly. When Sir Giles' lawyer went through the house, the plate safe—the lock of which had been forced—was found emptyl And all the beautiful old china was gone! Brown's wretched egotistical story had aroused the miserable man's greed: his wife had read aright the revelation of the cupidity it had awakened in his glittering eyes. The humiliation of poor Brown during that terrible time was dreadful! His wife declared that he went grey in a week.

- No wonder! It was he who had brought Mr Elwyn into BeestonRoyal. It was he who gave his old friend, Sir Giles, confidence to let bis family place, with its priceless heirlooms, to his wealthy curate—and it was he who had helped him to carry them away! The bag that Brown had assisted to carry at the risk of his life, and with the sweat of his brow, contained his old friend's family plate! There was very little left for the bailiffs to distrain upon. The poor girl's trousseau—a collection of M.A. hoods of different Universities—and some volumes of printed sermons by eminent divines. Brown looked through these by accident, and recognised many of the affecting discourses that had been preached from his pulA warrant was issued for Elwyn's apprehension, but he hod already-left the country a week before the miserable denouement. Let the curtain fall. The actors have all, like Macbeth's witches, suddenly disappeared.

"The earth hath bubbles, as the water And they are of them.-Whither are they vanish's?"

But they were not all bubbles. Months after, Mrs Brown heard by accident that Mary Elwyn was employed as a nurse in a London hospital. Of course she found her out without delay—and of course she w^rote to the lover that she had run away from in that unreasonable—she always insists Upon calling it, that honourable—way, and told him her story, and the story of that Blue-beard cupboard, of which the unhappy girl had the key. Th<TdayS of Quixotism are not quite over. Kenneth Forbes came home from India oh leave the following year; and this time he took a wife back with him. , ~ , , , "You were quite right." he wrote to Mrs Brown on the eve of the wedding, "if Mary loved me she had no alternative but to run away."

THE END,