Her Ransom

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 238, 5 October 1904, Page 11

Her Ransom

By CHARLES GARVICE.

Author of "Leslie's Loyalty," "Elaine," "A Wasted Love," " Hep. Heart's Desibe," etc.

_ SIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.., 81 •Hβ Lffone, the second son of an baronet, disgraced through the S^Ktians of his elder brother, emlpjemna." Austra ja. On the goiuuelds, r* 465 Ms name is never disclosed, he buys n-liere ""■ , . gfteen whose father has ' U frrfveU in the camp to die. The enir "" ~c this ready way of disposing "ftp orpbane ,l child as a means of proet Ac rZ w jth a home. It is only after fidm - S itpd contest with one of the worst * rtrrs in tbe can 'l J - ODe that the guardian of little s<J*i a,™) The hcpn desire of Lavarick =- ri possess' o,l of the girl is shown t0 .subsequent offer to purchase tier, b - T Cadence of the frightened child in ?!fIS£» S Sadness ts touching* evik Pd While this Is transpiring in Aus- **£?» Jordan L.vuue is making a name 1 him«eif in Enslisn politics, the father Crfmr died. Anion? his other schemes i one to marry Andrey Hope, whose -nitfrtv adjoins his own, bat when he P te her after a ccniriderable absence 5? evinces a preat deal more interest in I fate of the absent brother than Sir fla-m liKes. Another suitor, Lord Lorri'\Z> a different and engaging type of Sn«a'sh gentleman, does not appeur to h,Vp made any greater impression on the S«rt of Andrey than Jordan Lynne, Sir inrdan returning to his rooms from the mention wn« e he has had au "nsatisfsrtorv interview with Andrey. is wayi , b " T tt girl whom earlier he has ruin d Had who he has just written to to break :* his relations. She upbraids him for bis broken promises, Out without in any iegree moring him. CHAPTER VII. —(Continued.) '•Xow. fiachel,' . He said, with something approaching his ordinary smooth2 e=s "tell mc what this extraordinary proceeding means."' "Is it *o extraordinary. .Jordan? Did tou think that 1 should receive that fetter and do nothing; that I should submit to be treated like—like a dog—ah! porse: a toy you hid got tired of?" ■'Bush, hush!" he s-aid, for her sad roice had grown louder, and a policeBan paused in his heavy tramp and looked at them. "For Heaven's sake, my rood girl, don't make a scene. It can io no possible good; quite the reverse, b fact, and —confound it! you have attracted attention already. Hero, take my inn. We must walk on. I suppose." She declined his arm with a gesture, jnd walked beside him. her trembling band holding her shawl together. "Now tell mc all about it. and what ■-what you hope to effect by dogging mc in this way.'' he said with barely concealed impatience: "and for goodsess' sake speak quietly, and don't give ■viT to hercics. I thought I had explained everything in the letter.'' "That cruel letter!" she exclaimed, her roiee trembling. "How could you write it, Jordan, knowing, remenibering all lhat we were to each other, and so short I time ago?' , ■'What is the xi?e of harping on the past*" he said, with a sudden burst of irritation, which he subdued by a palpable effort. "The past, my dear Rachel, end the present are very different things. When you and T—er—er — unused ourselves by playing at lover? two years ago down at that infernally itupid watering place. I was only Jordan Lynno.. the son of ;i man who might disinherit mc any moment, and you "

"And I," ?he said, in a voice hoarse with suppressed emotion, "what was 1, Jordan? An innocent, ignoraut girl, m> believed in and trusted the man trio told her that he loved ber. Yes, trusted, Jordan."

Sir Jordan bit his lip.

"All that, as I say. was two years ago, Mid, in short, the dreams you and I indulged in cjunot be realised. Great

Heasrtn! " It was seldom Sir Jordan permitted himself to use strong language, and hi.s doing so on thh oeea<ic!i showed how much upsel lie was by this inconvenient interview—'"Great Heaven! wra—you didn't suppose that I was going to mam' you. alter —after "'

''After you became a rich man with a title," she hni-hed with a catch iv her voice, her dark eyes fixed on his face. *bich looked mean and sneaking at that moment, ,-md quite unlike the intellectual countenance which shone in the House of Commons. '"Yes, Jordan, that is what I thought; what, you led mc to think when jou promised mc with oaths (hat would have deceived any girl. Jordan"—she causht his arm —"you "will not be fo unjust, so cruel, so heartless uto desert mc now!" and she stood >till, panting and searching his pale, downcast face for one faint sign of ielenting.

He shook h*r nm.l off his arm

'■"Desert you": Ortainly not," be said. *I am not capable of sueh —such conduct. As I told you in my letter —in which I am sure f endeavoured to be explicit enough, and viuch I thiak you must have understood- "

''Ah. yes " .-he said, with a bc-avy sigh. *It was easy f o understand."'

"Very well, then."' hi> resumed. '"I pointed out to you plainly that it was not possible that your " Well, under tie circumstance*, really unreasonable wishes could be realised. I have no intention of marrying. Hut. as 1 said. I «m anxious—anxious, my dear Rachel.' , cis voice grew softer and smoother, and Terr like the voice in which h-s address*4 a charity meeting, "that your future Aonld be provided lor. I mentioned a ttrtain -uni of money which 1 deemed sufficient, amply sufficient, to maintain you—in— cr— c-omfort—and I expressed 1 hope, which you will allow mc to rej'ttt, that some day and before very ' OB S- I trust:, you may meet with some wnest, respectable man who will make ron a devoted and affectionate wife. lj ne moment, please."' he < ontinued. 'moothly. for she had opened her quiver["g lips as if about to interrupt him. 1 think if you will ron-ider 1110 whole from a—er—rational point of view. r°n Will admit that I have done all that " e s in niy pr.wer to—to—atone for the -er—folly of the past. I certainly exacted that you would have received my "aer in the spirit which dictated it. and •~€r—would have accepted it with, if *0t gratitude— tor lam aware, my dear h »ehel. that we must noi look for graii™dp in this world—at least wit.h sati-<- - appears, however, that m.V not unreasonable expectations were c °omed to disappointment, and instead £_ acquiescing in the—er—deci-ees of "evidence, and falling in with my view °> our mutual obligations, you* have fought tit to follow mc to London, and «re in the public streets—ray dear Kaehel, I did not deem you capable of ■ to force yourself unon mc and —er *Je a scene. 1 " He had finished at List, and stood looking at her steadily from under his ■~." an expression of "mock indignation suffering on his pale face. But c could not meet her eyes; eyes which *1 grown darker with the sombre light Ko an injured woman's anguish and

Come," ho said, '-let us part friends, tnv Pwachel - will not exchange ttore harsh words. Yon will see ' *"saom of the step I have taken to—

to—end our little friendship, and lam sure you know mc better "

-Know you! Yes, I know you now!" came pantingly from her writhing lips. 'I know you now! Oh!"—she raised her clinched hands and let them fall again heavily—"oh, that I should ever ■have been deceived by you! How my God!—how could I ever have believed in you for one single moment? "Why couldn't I sse that you were a devil and a monster instead of a man? But I was alone in the world, and innocent—no father, mother, friend, to warn or gnard mc, and " She broke down and leaned against the park railings, covering her fa«e with her hands, and shaking with sot>3 that brought no relief.

Jordan gnawed at his under lip and looked round watchfully. ''Come, come, my dear Rachel," he said, soothingly. "Permit mc to *&y that you take too black a view of—of the case. Now let us be more cheerfuL Your future, as I have pointed out, it provided for. The money I have offered you "

She turn-ed on him so suddenly that the amiable Sir Jordan started back from her blazing eyes and upheld hand.

"Money! Do you dare 10 thinK 1 would touch it—that 1 would accept one penny? No, not if I were starving! You offer mc money! Jordan Lvnne, you don't know what you are doing! You are driving a "brokeuhearted woman desperate! Desperate! Do you hear? Do you hear? Do you know what that means? Do you?' She drew nearer to him and glared into his shrinking eyes. "You—you coward!" She drew a long breath. "With all my misery, in this the hour of my humiliation, the bitterest pang of an is the thought—the thought that burns, burns into my heart—that I once trusted you; yes, and loved you! And you offer mc money! The woman who should be your wife, but whom yoj have betrayed and deserted! Look at mc, Jordan; look well at mc. You remember what I was. I've heard from your own lips often enough—those lying ]ips!—that I was pretty, beautiful. Look at mc now, look at your handiwork.' . She drew the shawl from her white face, distorted by passionate despair and indignation. "Do you think money can restore mc to what I was—give mc back all I have lost, all you have robbed mc of? No, not all the riches of the world! There is only one thing you could do for mc, now that with a sneer you have told mc that you will not, never did mean to, make mc your wife; you can kill mc! You shrink from that!"—for Jordan, biting at his lip, had shrunk. "Is it worse to kill the body or the soul? What is there left for mc but to die?" Her voice bro-ke into a wail, a moan that might have touched the heart of a satyr, then suddenly grew fierce and hard and determined. ''But, no, I will not—l will not die! I will live, Jordan Lynne: live frr the hour in which God shall strike the balance between yon and mc. The hour will come!"—she struck her breast—"it will come, sneer as you may.*' Jordan was net sneerinjr, he was far too uncomfortable to manage a sneer. "And when it comes, I will show you as much mercy an r i prty as you have this night shown mc."

She looked at him full in the eyes her face distorted by tiie conflicting emotions—despair. resentment and humiliation —which tortured her; then, dragging the sha-wl round her. turned and left him. Before she h.od gonmany yards he saw her stagger and fall

against the railings, by which she sup ported herself liy one hand.

Sir Jordan Lymie did not jro to her assistance, tm-t waited until she had recovered and movwl on ajrain; tlien he, too. turned on his wav home.

He was very much annoyed; very much upsec indeed. He had actually offered this fo-olish. young creature, who really had no—no claim upon him fifty pounds a year, and she had treated him thus!

It was quite an agitated face upon which the policeman who had been ■watchinjr the interview from the corner turned his lantern. lie recognised Sir Jordan and saluted him. and Sir Jordan smoothed the harassed lines from his fa-ca and acknowledged the salute graciously.

"Hope that young ■woman hasn't been annoying you, sir," said the consta-ble.

'•No, no," replied Jordan. ''She is a pensioner, the daughter of a servant in our family, and I am sorry to say she has fallen into evil ways. I have just been saying a few words in season, constable, but I am afraid " and he Shook his head and sighed. "If—if you should meet with her loitering about near my place, perhaps it will be as well to point out to her that the poi;<c have instructions to protect persons froun annoyance. You understand mc, I have no dotabt."

The poli<'Prtian's hand, with Jordan's half sovereign in the palm, went to his helmet.

'•I understand., sir," he said. 'Til give her a word of warning if I see her loitering about." "Thank you. Good-night, constable," murmured the good and moral baronet, and v.-ith a glance behind him to ascertain if Rachel was in sight or not, he opened his door with a latch/key and passfd in to the repose which so estimable a. gentlesna-n deserved. It to.- on this same night, -tie night Jordan bad turned a deaf ear to the praypr of the girl he had ruined, that Neville, his half brother, "the scape-oTa-ce of the family," as Jordan called him. had spent every penny he pos=essed in the purchase and rescue of tbe orphan of Lorn Hope Camp.

CHAPTER VIII

Before a month had passed Sylvia showed signs of marked improvement. Sho still looked rather like a colt, but like a colt that is well fed and cared for: whereas when Neville—or Jack, as he had re-christened himself—had bought her she was like a colt that had been left to the mercy of the cold winds and bitter weather on some bleak moor. Her face had lost the wan. Eorrow«tricken expression which had gone so straight to the heart of Neville that ever-memorable nisrht on which he had first seen her, and though at times she was quiet and though.L.l, and the gr?y eves dark with melancholy, showed thai she was thinking of her dead father, it was evident that time, the consoler, was passing his healing hand over that wound and soothing its aching. Meth, who had at first merely tolerated the girl's presence, and scarcely looked at her without mumbling "nine hundred pounds!--' got used to her, and,

in a way, fond of her; at any rate, she ■was good enough to permit Sylvia to do most of the work of the hut, and would have extended her kindness to the length of allowing Sylvia to do it all-, but Neville interfered and informed Meth that he had not bought a domestic servant, but a "sister. .

As Sylvia grew stronger she became happier. Those wondrous grey eyes of hers grew bright with a light that seemed to illuminate the hut, especially at night, when the solitary candle shone on them as she sat at needlework; the said needlework consisting of repairs to "Jack's" clothes, which sadly needed them.

Her voice, too, altered, and though it was still low pitched and refined, there was a ring in it which reminded Neville of bells heard at a distance, of an Aeolian harp, and sundry other kinds of music. But if her voice was like music, her laugh was music itself. It is true that she laughed but seldom, but when she did Neville found himself obi g?d to laugh too or die, and he caught himself setting traps for that laugh, and rejoicing when he succeeded in catching it.

It was a strange life for a young girl. Besides her "brother" Jack and Meth she saw no one excepting at a distance, for the miners, taking the hint which Neville had given Loekit, avoided the neighbourhood of the Young 'tin's and left \\\m alone more severely than ever.

But Sylvia did not appear to find it dull, and seemed perfectly content. Neville had found two or three books at the bottom of his trunk. A volume of Tennyson, Macaulay's England, "Wild Sports in the West," and "The Fanier's Vade Mecum," and Sylvia devoured of an evening, when she felt disin li ed for needlework, and sometimes IrouLht one down to the edge cf the claim a-d read it there; very often, however, letting the book lie disregarded in her lap, while her eyes dwelt on ihe handsome face and stalwart form of "her brother," as he picked and dug and toiled in the dusirv hole.

Indeed, her eyes were seldom off him when he was within her sight, and she followed him about unob ruaively whenever she could, and seemed quite contented if he would allow her just to keep him company, and did not mind his long fits of silencs.

Neville was not a great talker, but often when Sylvia thought that he was unaware of or had forgotten her presence, he was thinking of her. Half unconscionsly he liked, to have her near him, and if she remained away from the claim longer than usual he found himself looking out for her.

For the rest he treated her as a young man of nearly 20 always treats a girl of 15. She was a mem child in his eyes, a child to be petted find humoured and "taken care of," but sometimes he found himself startled and bothered by some of speech or turn of though in the child which savoured very strongly of the full-grown woman; and at such times —when, for instance, she would quote Tennyson, as she had quoted Shakespeare, and let fall some bit of worldly wisdom from her soft lips —he -would straighten his back and wipe the perspiration from hi> bro-.v, and at her meditatively, and tho quts'ion would ri?e in hi? mind une-'-sily: "What on r.arth shall I do with her v.-!-<n she grows up?" But he always put it aside with the refl<*-~tioii that she was only a child ar.d that she wouldn't "grow up"' for years vet, and so end with laughing at her precocity. As to the light in which Sylvia regarded him—who can describe or even divine it? This muck may, however, be said, that she regarded him as her brother, and in the recesses of her girlish mind thought him the best, the h-nd-somest, the bravest, and altogether the noblest specimen of man. Besides, he was something more than her brother. She never forgot for a moment, though since his injunction she had never again referred to it, that he had "bought" her. and she regarded him as her owner and master. She considered that she owed him not only sisterly love, hut implicit obedience. Neville had only to express a wish for her to set about gratifying it; indeed, very often Neville found that she had supplied his desires before he had given them voice. If he had tod her to climb up the rugged hill that overlooked the valley and throw heraelf from the highest pecipicc, she would have done it. She was his by right of purchase, and something more, and this conviction, which in her mind was as s f rong as a religion, brought no pain with it. but. rather, a vague kind of pleasure and satisfaction. During the month things had been looking up in Lorn Hopo Camp, an«l, though no one had found a nugget as big as Neville's, the men had had better luck, and some of them dec!-red thai; the "orphan," a-s they called Sylvia, had brought the luck back again to Lorn Hopo, and that they were all going to be rich. Neville's claim only just paid for his labour—at very low wages—but he sti'l "stuck to it, and ■with more contentment than he would have imagined possible. Working by one's self, with no one to ■share hopes and fears, was a different thing from working w'th Sylvia's sympathy always turned on, and the du-.t and the. heat, though they were really quite as bad as before, did not seem half so unendurable and aggravating with Sylvia sitting by the edge of the pit. just out of the dust, and in the shade of an awning he had rigged up for her. She was never tired of sitting there, and sometimes, after a long silence, Neville thinking she had fallen asleep, would turn and look a-t her, and meet her grey eyes fixed upon him, as if she found him more worthy of her attention than the book. One day, in the midst of one of these silences, she began to sing. At first she sang in a low, subdued voice, then, as if she had forgotten his presence, her voice grew fuller, but not less arweetj and she sang like a nightingale. Neville wais startled, but he "was ctt<>ful to'kcep his back to her. and not frighten the bird that had suddenly filled the hot silence with sucb delicious melody. He waited until she had finished, the.i he said a3 carelessly as he could, as he scraped the dust from his spade: "Bravo, Syl! You don't pipe badly. Thought it was a thrush at first —au English thrush, you know " "I know," she said, with an utteT absence of self-consciousness, without even a blush. "I remember." Her eyes grew absent and thoughtful. '""Yes. I remember. It must be a long time ngo " '•"When you were in England?" said Neville. She nodded. '•"Yes. It vras in the country I heard the birds sing." She pressed berlins together and knit her brows till they made a straight line over her eyes. "Yes, it was in the country, and—l can remember, now I try. that I wae riding a little pony, and—and " She put her hand to her forehead and sighed. "It's all gone Jiawl Wait a minute/ , gad she

knitted her brows. "Never mind," said Neville. =So," she said contentedly. "It doesn't matter, does it? And do you like to hear mc sing. Jack?" "I do indeed, very much;" he replied. "What , was it you were singing? I seem to have a recollection of it." " Uid mc discourse,'" she answered, promptly. "It was"—she hesitated a moment, hut only for a moment—-"'it 'was one of my father's favourites. He taught it to mc, and some more of Bishop's." "Let's have another of the Bishop's then," said Neville. "Not the Bishop's ; it's a man's name Did you never hear of him, Jack?" "Never," said Neville, placidly. She pondered for a moment or two over this confession of ignorance. "You don't seem to know much. Jack." she remarked; not in a tone of censure, but by way of recording a simple fact. "You're right, Syl," he assented, cheer fully. "What I don't know would make the'biggc3t book you ever saw. My ignorance is—sublime. If I hadn't been such a complete duffer I shouldn't be here grave-digging." "Where would you have been, Jack?' she inquired, leaning her head on her little brown paw, and looking at him with her great grey eyes. "In the army," he said, shovelling up the dust. "I had my chance, but—but I threw it away. I might have had another, for the governor was as fond of mc as I was of him, but for " He stopped suddenly; he had been ' speaking more to himself than to her. '•Poor Jack," came a soft murmur like ! sweet music. Neville looked up. "Oh, I don't deserve any pity, Syl, and he laughed. "I only get my de- '< serts; many a better fellow than "Than I " said Sylvia. "Eh? Oh. ah, yes. I'm not much on grammar. That's one of the reasons I'm here." "Then it's a lucky thing for mc you are not," sho said, naively. Neville laughed. "That's one way of looking at it, lie said. "Now sing something else, Syl." She sang to him again. This time an old French ballad. Neville leaned at?sinst the sides of the pit, and listened with all his ears. He was passionately fond of music "Hallo!" he" said. "What's that, French? Who taught you that—but, of course; I beg your pardon, Syl." "Yes," she said, in a low voice. "He taught mc that —everything. He said knowledge is power —to the person who knows how to use it. And yet he was so poor," sho mused, thoughtfully. She was already beginning to discover that there is no greater fool than the maxim maker.

(To be Continued Daily.)