Levallion's Heir.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 135, 7 June 1907, Page 6

Levallion's Heir.

CHAPTER XVI. ; THE SIN OF SYLVIA ASXKSLEY. "My ring—it was my ring he wore all the time, with the stone turned in-side his hand!" Alone in her dressing-room, Ravenel"s head whirled. "But how did he get it, and why did he wear it after the way he treated* mc? I can't make the two things match." All dressed for dinner, she stood look- ! ing at herself in the glass as being a ladylike and thoughtful occupation to be discovered in by Tommy or Levallion; and the silver-strewn luxury of her toilet-table suddenly reminded her oi' another table, in the one sumptuous room of a poverty-stricken house. ] "Sylvia!" she gasped. "It must have' been Sylvia."

A light flashed into her eyes that had not been there for many a day. Adrian was in the house, must get better, and the very first day he was fit she would have the whole story—his story—out of him. And then - Lady Levallion, with a sudden numb-

ness, a curdling of her young blood, dropped heavily into a chaiV. Xot even God's own truth could matter to her now.* The work, whether her ladyship's or Adrian's, was done—and done thor- i oughly. And Levallion— she straightened herself as at a sudden wound—" Levallion had been a friend of Sylvia's: : But the thought passed as it had come. ' and left her ashamed. Levallion could : have had nothing to do with Adrian's j passing himself off for an unmarried ,' • man. ; "Adrian lied to mc and threw mc overboard," she said to herself, "and Leval- < lion picked mc up out of the sea. That's j all I dare remember now out of the j i whole jumble. But I'll find out about s the ring, anyhow. Even Levallion." . 1 dinging obstinately to that senseless trust hi him that had grown up in her. 11

-'would not mind my knowing the truth —if Adrian can tell it." And. with that queer numbness in her that she did not know was despair, she went down-stairs to face the new world she had made for herself, which the sight of a battered ' ring had shattered in her very hands. But to get at the root of the matter was not so easy. There was Levallion, who had nearly annihilated Sister Elizabeth • and forbidden her on pain of instant dismissal ever to allow Lady Levallion to behold horrors. And there was Tommy. Tommy, dogged, cheerful, and übiquitous: his sister's aching impatience almost turned to hatred of Tommy, who drove and rode and talked with her—on indifferent subjects—till he nearly sent her frantic. And Adrian was mending every hour: any day might take it into his head to get up and go away with a bare good-bye. Pale and big-eyed. Ravenel stood by the library window and stared out. so that her back was turned to the policing gaze of Sir Thomas. It was a fine day. but she never noticed. She twisted her ringless hands hard together that she Slight not turn round on Tommy and. j tell him. for Heaven's sake, to let her be for one-half hour. Le\-allion, coming in. spoke to her twice before she heard him. "Yes!" she turned guiltily, for of all tlie things that hurt her the most was the look on Levallion's face, where happiness and content seemed to have ironed out the sardonic lines. There was no guilty conscience at work in Levallion— and once she bad thought Gordon a Detter man than he! "Yes! I was looking at someone. Who's that"" She had that very minute caught sight of a figure in the garden. "Gad!" Lierallion's hawk eyes looked over her shoulders. 'The fellow's cool. That, madam, is your cook, and, if I am not mistaken, he is picking your flowers | and smoking a cigarette on your lawn. j Delightfully at homo is Carrousel! But." i his quizzical gaze darkened suddenly. j The chef, arrayed in tweeds remarkably like Levallion's own, and bearing a large bunch of the best of the late autumn flowers, had let himself out of the garden by a gate sacred to the use of his master and mistress and departed, leaving behind him. under their very noses, a half-smoked cigarette and a copy of an old, pink newspaper. Tbp window open, and to his lordship's nostriis came the dying aroma of - his own tobacco-, the while the pink and atrocious newspaper fluttered softly in the breeze. "That gentleman requires occupation." In withdrawing his head Levallion i bumped it, which did not allay his irri- ! tation. "I don't require my cook as an ornament in my private garden, nor his garbage papers on my iawn. and so I shall inform him. I wonder where the devil he is going! I'm certain he's got on my clothes." Sir Thomas forgot he was Sherlock Holmes. "Gorgeous, 3in't he?" he observed rapturously. "He can be as gorgeous a 9 he likes; — in the kitchen," Levallion drawled acidly. "Which reminds mc, Ravenel: Houghton says there is no need to put i off having people here any longer; Adrian won't mind a noisy house; he'll !be quite recovered in a day or two. So j I suppose we'd better ask some people | for the pheasants—a house-party will be 'an excellent tonic for Monsieur Carrouj sel, and cheer up Adrian." ! A house full of people! Ravenel's heart contracted. Farewell to all chance of speaking to Adrian then! I "Cowardy. cowardy custard!" remarked Sir Thomas, with more tact than elegance. "Ravenel is afraid of being a hostess, ain't you, my dear?" "I am. I'm terrified," snatching at anything that was true. "I don't want them much. Levallion!" "I don't want 'em at all," returned his lordship dryly. "But, being over head and ears in debt for invitations to every soul I know, 1 don't see bow we can < avoid asking them. And Tommy and I can shoot all the pheasants ourselves." "Tommy has to go back to his crammer's !" ungratefully. he hasn't," with a 1 glance of real liking, which the boy re- • turned. "I forgot to tell you. "Two of the men there have scarlet fever: and ' | the house is quarantined. Therefore, Sir Thomas and the inestimable Mr. Jacobs" : I —who had killed two rats and broken < ; three priceless vases in the business!— "will have to stay with us. Sad, isn't it?" "You bet!" said Tommy cheerfully. | "Til help you through, Ravenel. I like ' women; it's funny ( most women don't!" ] thoughtfully. ' "Have I got to write the invitations?" her voice was curiously sullen, unguarded; for surely it was tbe very irony of fate that should make her summon a < Jot ot people, under yhose eyes she and <

By ADELAIDE STIRLING, Author of " Abore All Things," " When Lo«. Daw**," •' A Sacrifice to Love," etc.

"'This is extremely kind of you." he said awkwardly. "Will you excuse my not getting up." and even as he forced out the words he was thankful he had let Levallion's man shave him clean of his scrubby, week-old beard, and bring him decent clothes instead of a dressinggown. But Lady Levallion's eyes were on his haggard, weary face and not on his toilet.

"Are you better?" she asked, standing yards away from him, and he remembered how she had come closer indeed last May. ' : ls the nurse here?" "No!" wondcringly. "At her tea. Won't you—sit down?" She shook her head, and he saw with a queer listlessness that she was shaking from head to foot. ,: I didn't want to come," she cried, as if his indifference had thrown her back on herself. "Levallion sent mc. I was to ask how you were, and—give you this!" Flushing, trembling, she heid i out his ring. Gordon held his tongue- No wonder she had not wanted to come. And then i his temper nearly betrayed him. "'He could not have found a messenger more charming." he said, with icy politeness. Ravenel caught her breath. "Oh. I know you hate mc!" she cried. "I know how you changed your mind at the last minute—though that was the only decent thing you ever did—and never came for mc: left mc like an old shoe for anyone to pick up after you had made my name a by-word. But I mean you to tell mc one thing in spite_. of my—self-respect." Her voice shook'like her body. "Where did you get mv ring?" He gazed at her in blind stupefaction. I "You sent it back to mc," he said! bluntly, "in your anger. I can't see why' you ask." "I?" said Lady Levallion. "I sent it; back to you!" The ring fell from her' hand and rolled where it would on the floor. Her grey eyes seemed suddenly to come alive, to blaze in her pale face. "Where's the letter?" she cried scornfully. "Show mc the letter." •*I can't; it's in town with my things. God knows why I was fool enough to keep it, but I was. And more fool still, for I know it by heart. But you can't, need to hear it." "Say it!" She stamped her foot. you very much for your present." In spite of his puzzled anger, he obliged her, in a Mice utterly, fist and j

Adrian would have to meet, day in and day out, with everything unexplained between-them. I Levallion chuckled, but his eves were , very sweet. '-You are not a beast of burden." he i observed, in that slow, soft way of his. "11l summon the heathen for next week, in your name. And I trust their re- • quirements will occupy our cook—at what's left of him after I see him," looking with unabated annoyance •at the scurrilous sheet the breeze had fluttered to the very window. Sir Thomas, seeing Levallion in possession, bad retired on business of his own; and Lovallion laid his fine hand, that, if it were not young, was still j beautiful, on his wife's bronze head. I "You're not really afraid of your ! party, are you?" he said with a tender-

ness that sat oddly on him. "For you know it is 1 who should be that! Ii I were wise I'd shut you up alone with mc. and save trouble. You're too goodlooking, little mouse, for women not to hate you, and men"—he shrugged his shoulders—''and you've only my bat-

tered old bones between you and a somewhat over-rated, civilisation." There was something wistful in his voice, despite its cynicism, and it hurt her. "Don"t speak like that!" she cried, sharply, passionately. "It wasn't that I meant. Only that. I'm eighteen and an ignorant fool. How do 1 know how to" entertain people? Suppose I disgrace you ."' He laughed, still stroking her hair; and the laugh had the ring of Adrian's, and hurt her. -- "I will frown at you when I see you eating with your knife. Dearest. I wish you would do a little now in the hostessing way. if you don't mind! Go and see .Adrian: he's up. and it doesn't seem kind not to take any notice of him. Would you go ? 1 know you hate illness, I but he really does not look very dread- j

ful. And would you give him this?" ' : drawing something from his pocket. "I t daresay he would rather you knew of his love-tokens than I," smiling. Haveners heart banged against her ribs. He was holding out to her that ring that was her own. "If—if you want mc to," she said. Almost she could have let Adrian go with that ring unerplained rather than have had Levallion—Levallion!—put her opportunity in her hand. "Tie will think it odd if you never gn near him. I fancy. But just as you like!" and his hand with the ring in it moved toward his pocket. "I'll go," she said quickly, involuntar. j ily: for after all she was not brave enough to let the knowledge she longed j for go by forever. She dared not look at Levallion's face, lest she should forget hprsclf and pour out the whole reason of her reluctance to be sent—by him —to Adrian. An appropriate and delightful confidence it would be, too, for her husband's ears. But if she did tell he would not hear h.r; he had no opinion of confessions. Had he not said once that "he wanted to know nothing about her that ..e did not know already—nothing!'' She held out her hand for the emerald ring. At the quick faint knock on the door a man looked up from a paper he was pretending to read. "Come in." he said impatiently, wishing Sister Elizabeth and her messes elsewhere. But it was not Sister Elizabeth. Gordon jumped up and sat down again, furious at finding how weak he was. and how bis heart jumped at the sight of her lace. For Ravenel stood m the doorway; and yet not Ravenel but Lady Levallion. His eyes went over her, losing not a point of the dainty, artificial look she had in her fine clothes. Her bronze hair she had been used to : twist carelessly was dressed exquisitely, in the rippling smooth yet Huffed outlines that were the fashion: her gown, that had been cotton, was finest whitserge now. and tne frou-frou of its silk lining reached him as she closed the door behind her: her little feet—but he couid no; look at those little feet. Truly, she had done well to leave him for Levallion; he could never have given her shoes with silver buckles like those!

lifeless. "But I don't want to keep' xo ur ring. I send it back in this. You" had better wear it yourself.

"Ravenel." """And, as you see, I did, as I said, a fool."

"Lady Annesley! It was Lady Annesley-. ring," she said, standine' as if her wits had "one from her. wild, shamelessly truthful. "Listen! I never wrote to you; I didn't know your address, since you never gave it to mc. And if I had written I couldn't have sent you back your ring, for I lost it the day before the duchess' garden party. Yes, two days," marking them off on her fingers, "before that afternoon I waited for you and didn't know you'd thrown mc over to sink or swim!"

"You waited —you!" Sister Elizabeth would have screamed with wonder to see the invalid get up like another man, cross the floor between him and his hostess in three strides, and catch her by the shoulder with his sound hand. "For God's sake, Nel, speak out, since you've begun!"

The old name; the old voice with the passion in it broke down her courage, made her forget for one short while that more than lost rings lay between him and her. With a lump in her throat that made her hoarse, she told him all the sorry little story in quick, husky whispers, lest someone might overhear.

i ''So when you said in your note that I you'd be at the duchess' I went. Lady 1 Annesley gave mc a gown. You were - not there, and I came home. You said _ you would come the nest day, and you s never did. And Levallion told mc you - had sailed —without a word to mc. And - I'd lost that ring." passionately. 8 "Levallion! How did he come across - you?" with a ghastly wonder if Levallion were quite clean of the business, , and heedless that he had never said why I, he was not at the duchess. But Ravenel i ! noted. )" I "He was at the party and was kind to > '. 1 mc." With a sudden aside she remem- | bered, and faced him stonily. "But ; there's no earthly sense in all this! Of , course, when I heard you had a wife already I knew you had excellent reason ito leave mc. It was the first honouri able thing you ever did." "A wife—me.'" His hand on her [ i shoulder relaxed suddenly. ""Who told i you a lie like that? And how in the name of God did you dare to believe it?" "Mrs. Murray —Hester Murray—told mc. As for believing it, it seemed all ' of a piece.'" i "Hester Murray told you—Hester!" , j His face had been pale enough, but itr jwa* blanched now. He remembered suddenly that he was in Levallion's hou.e. talking to Levallion's wife—that at any cost no one must come in and find her like. this. "Sit down," he said. "'And I can't stoop; would you mind picking up that ring?" ior it looked like a glove cast down for battled "Now. tell mc about Mrs. Murray. What did she say?" "That you found Mrs. Gordon very expensive and a drain on you, and that it had been a boyish folly of yours," she said- from her chair at a decent distance from his. "Who did she mean, if not your wife?" Adrian Gordon was dumb. In Levallion's house Levallion's wife asked him this! (To "be continues Gaily.)