MY LADY'S SIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 230, 26 September 1903, Page 6 (Supplement)

MY LADY'S SIN.

By the Author of "The Branded Foot/>

"Carlie's Sacrifice," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXVI.

SURPRISING THE TRUTH

"And by the heavens above us both, I swear you shall never execute Lady Beauchamp's plot! I swear that Nina Beauchamp shall live!"

In those passionate words Dr. Ailingham declared his unalterable purpose. In those passionate words Nina learned the frightful doom to which, she had 'been consigned.

' Mrs. Allinghanfs voice instantly arose kx as passionate a reply.

''You are mad!" she cried. "\lad or sane, I swear it shall be so!" Mit Allingham went on, heedless of the interruption.

"Ysu are 'mad! Am I not pledged to finish the work Lady Beauchamp has so effectively begun? Are not your own best interests concerned in its full and speedy execution? Ungrateful boy! Is it not for you, and you alone, that I have consented to bexjome a partner in Lady Beauchamp's -well laid plot? Is it not that you may be enriched, and so withdrawn from th? dangerous associates, and more dangerous life, which you have "

At that point Dr. AJlkigliam suddenly silenced her. Leaning across the little table at which they wexe seated, he cried, quickly, exultingly:

"You mistake, mother. My best intereats lie in a different direction. My game is worth, to us, a dozen of Laijj Beauchamp's! Mother, I intend to marry Nina!"

Mrs. Allingham burst into an angry, mocking laugh.

"Marry Nina!" she echoed. "Why, you know she has been engaged to Norman Devereux for a long time! More than that, she loves him! My son, you will find it far easier to destroy Nina than to marry her."

For the second time Dr. Allingham in terrupted her.

"Nina Beauchamp will marry me," he said, "or she will "

The deadly menace just trembling on his lips was suddenly and startlingly checked.

Before them stood Nina, half shrouded among the hangings she stUl unconsciously grasped, and erect and motionless as a piece of sculptured marble.

Her face gleamed white, and her lovely hazel eyes stared at the guilty pair in a cold, changeless stare, that never altered and never swerved.

For a little while not a sound was heard, save the hushed, hurried breath of the mother and son.

Dr. Allingham was the first to recover himself.

"My sweet Nina! My beautiful darling!" he panted, striding toward her with passionate haste. "Banish your fears, my love. Trust yourself to me without a doubt, for not a hair of your head shall be harmed!" He got no further. Mrs. Allingham was the one to anticipate what followed. "Beware, Berthold! Beware! ,, she cried. It was a useless warning. Indeed, its very utterance precipitated the event she feared. v Almost as the words left her lips, Nina, with a lightning-like movement, darted backward, the friendly curtains falling together in a blood-red screen behind her. Dr. Allingham shopped short in his impetuous advance, gazing, at the tremulous folds in a sudden mortification. Under its spur he cried, quickly, flushing as he spoke: "Gone, and without so much as a " Mrs. Allingham interposed upon the complaint. Springing to him with the fierce impetuosity of a tigress, she burst out, breathlessly: 'Tool! She has fled! The givtes tire open! Follow her, while I try to head her off from the rotunda!" With these words she pushed him roughly toward the hangings, and flew to a door at the extreme end of the room. Those last moments were precious ones to Nina. With feet winged with an immeasurable terror, she flew across the drawingroom, dashed into -the reception-room, and thence to the echoing corridor, which she had traversed with such different feelings less than four hours beIfore. She reached the rotunda. There a solitary servant was busy polishing the great brass lamps swinging from the lofty ceiling. She never saw him. She only saw the open door, and the open gates without. In an instant she had passed both. The man, a shrewd fellow—and only shrewd fellows wore employed at the castle —dropped his sheet of chamois and started after her. But he as suddenly stopped. His mistress' voice at one door and hie master's ringing voice along the stone corridor brought him to an undecided halt. "Did yon see her?" panted Mrs. Allingham, her face white to the lips, and her sapphire eyes blazing a thousand fires* "Mies Beauehaiapl Did ahe pass

through here?" "She did^mistress." "Follow! Bring her back!" cried Mrs. Allingham.

Again the man started for the door Again he was stopped.

"Hold! Stay where you are!" thundered young Allinghaia, bounding into the rotunda and spinning the fellow back with the ease with which he would have turned a top. The man, good-naturedly, shook himself straight in his garments again, and looked irresolutely at Mrs. Allingham. She was still ,nshy white, but there was an open pride in her blazing eyes now. As the doctor disappeared, she answered the man's look. "Your master will need no help when he is like that, Bernard!" she smiled. "But," she continued, rapidly, "follow him with the quietest horse and the easiest carriage." ' ■ Dr. Allingham's first flaming glance, as he dashed through the gateway, caught a fluttering glimpse of Nina's white dres3, curving to the right from the tower gates.

It was only a glimpse. In a moment it was lost amid the sinuous windings of the steep, shaded descent that led to the little plateau below.

CHAPTER XXVII, THE FLIGHT.

Dr. Allingham's deep blue eves flamed with a new lustre. He swept on like a resistless whirlwind. Step by step he advanced nearer to the fleeing girl. Nina, turning her white face over her shoulder, east one quick, despairing glance backward. Only too well she recognised the tall, fair-haired pursuer.

"Oh, Heaven help me!" she thought, "my strength is failing! Death would be preferable to falling into his hands! But I may not take the life Heavec "

The thought ended in a low cry of thankfulness. On the little wooded plateau, to which she had nearly descended, she had suddenly descried a rude cottage. "The toy-maker's!" she gasped, recalling Mrs. Allingham's answer to a question which the lonely habitation had drawn from Dr. Jeffries the previous evening. Inspired with fresh hope and courage, her feet ,bore her swiftly toward the haven. As she neared the cottage her flagging strength was plainly evidenced in her reeling steps and diminished speed. Dr. Allingham watched her with a maddening anxiety. "She will kill herself!" he thought. "I shall lose her, after all! Ten thousand curses on Lady Beauchamp and her cursed pellets." Almost as the thought framed itself in his mind, Nina pulled open the rough gate leading to the toy-maker's humble, tenement. In a moment more she had flown across the porch and tottered into the room. At the sound of the gate latch and the sight of the pale vision of loveliness that instantly confronted him, the artisan dropped his tools, arose hastily from his seat, and exclaimed, in German:

"Ah! What is this? What is this?" With a wild, anguished cry, Nina flung herself at his feet.

"Oh, save me—save me! For the love of Heaven, save me!" she cried. "They are poisoning me; They are plot "

The words died on her lips in a frantic seseam.

Tiie rush of feet, the loud bang of the gate, told her that her close at hand.

In the extremity of her terror she clasped the toy-makers knees with the desperate clutch of the drowning.

"Oh, save me from him! Pity me! Protect me!" she shrieked, turning a swift, shuddering glance backward to the door.

As the wild appeal broke from her lips the doctor bounded into the room and to her side, and bent over her in a glow of passionate tenderness. '

• "My poor Nina! my darling girl!" ho cried, hia voice tremulous in its caressing fervour.

The words, the look, the tone, com pleted the girl's terror.

As her shuddering, abhorrent gaze met his, she uttered a low, moaning cry, and the next instant swooned at his feet.

The toy-maker, warned by her relaxing grasp, hastily extended his arms; but before he could do more young Allingham had caught her and lifted her to his breast.

"Water, Rudolph! water!" he shouted, imperiously, bearing his insensible burden to a rude, cushioned settee against the wall. "Water, wine! brandy!—anything that you hay be quick!"

Almost before the command was spoken the artificer had disappeared, running hastily into the little kitchen beyond.

He returned v*jth a bowl of water and a bottle of Rhenish wine.

Hastily drawing a compressible little silver cup from his pocket. Allingham poured a spoonful of the Rhenish wine into it, and putting aside the remainder, gently raised Nina's head and pressed the cup to her lips as she opened her eyes.

Too weak to resist, or even to think of resisting, the girl sipped its contents, and again sank back to her former position.

For a moment Dr. Allingham gazed down upon the white, exquisite face with eyes of mingled ardour and fear. Then all at once, softly turning away, he motioned the toy-maker to follow him to the porch.

"Rudolph," he said, rapidly, in low tones, "you must go up to the castle for me. It won't do for me to leave the lady, and a carriage " He stopped short. The air of hesitating doubt with which the man was looking at him recalled. Nina's accusation.

A half scornful, half angry smile, curled his moustached lip.

"You idiot!" he exclaimed, "you are thinking of what she said!" adding, more quietly, the next moment: "You can banish her words from your mind. She is insane. More than that, she is my patient, and my betrothed wife." He paused again, ejaculating, quickly, an instant after: "And Heaven grant she may be spared to me!"

That aspiration was spoken with such a depth and fervour of passion that Rudolph's last doubt vanished.

"The master loves her," he said to himself. "It's all right. ■ And, true enough, she looked crazy as need be, poor, pretty thing." That conclusion had barely been reached •when a struggling sigh from Nina struck upon their ears. Pausing only long enough to silently and imperiously wave the man on his errand, young Allingham at once hurried into the room and to.her side. She still lay as he had left her, her eyes closed, and her face deathly pale. "1 wish," he thought, uneasily, "I cbxild move her now, before she is able to *ay

more. Rudolph is shrewd, and far too honest to "

The anxious thought was suddenly lost in a smothered ejaculation. His quick par had caught the beat of hoofs on the distant road. He east a glance at the doorway, and then, with another at Nina, bounded lightly to the yard. f "The" sight of Rudolph's sturdy figure was enough. The man was hastening across the plateau, shouting and gesticulating as he went. With a satisfied smile, the doctor ran back to the room.

"I'll get her out of this," he said to himself. "The colour —or such colour as she ever has, poor darling—is coming back to her face, and I won't risk her sweet voice against me. The sooner she is safe at the castle the better." With that thought, he stooped and took her gently in his arms. At the first touch the girl's eyes flew open wide and stared at him. (To be continued on Monday.)