The GAVE MAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 256, 26 October 1907, Page 15

The GAVE MAN.

B"Z" JOHIT COEBIK.

XXXV. Tt was the evening of the wedding rebusal- but as Mr. Sears sat .in the , rtrarv 'siPP in g his coffee it became cviSVnl the eager and light-hearted, , ZL' that he was in no cheerful mood. ; «§h the imperfect sympathy of girl- j i«a she endeavoured to gladden him , Srtilkine of the event that to her was , and all-joyful; but his reshe found, was not all the sub- ■ •■ deserved. Even Onderdonk was , limn- Slipping her arm into his, she led | fim out of doors. "What is it all about ?" she demanded. BTf I had stayed in there another second I should have been stifled!" i "j. little business worry," he said evasively, fingering his unlighted cigar. <&c looked at him reproachfully. "Re- ' member! We're to share everything, troubles as well as happiness, little and "jn their long engagement Billy had ]earned to play a good husband-like hand at affectionate dissimulation. "Stocks ■ are down," he said, as if imparting a secret of state. "But aren't they always going up and Scren! Isn't that what they're made for?" ' 'Ton're right there!" said Billy. "Weil, then, you might be just a little Cheirtnl for my wedding rehearsal!" He laid his arm about her shoulder, and, with his head well above hers, risked a smile. She slipped away from him, and, with an enraptured glance at the heavens, exclaimed, ""What a perfectly lovely night for it! I do hope it'll be like this next month V Beyond the distant palisades the sun had "set in clear splendour. Upon the verdure-covered crags beneath the western heavens a crimson mantle had fallen like the bloom of a damask plum. "It certainly is a corker!" said Billy, fitting on the bench beneath the tree. May slapped a mosquito on her delicately modelled and athletic forearm. "Come along," Billy said, starting toSard an arbour on a knoll out beyond. I'll smoke up and drive away the mosquitoes." ' But-May aid not go, for just then the alken purr of a motor stole up through ihe gathering dusk from ttie sunken road fceneath them, and presently Wistar mounted the stone steps. He wore a dinner-jacket and straw hat, and held a neam-white motor coat over his arm. Slav blew him a delighted kiss. "Now \re're all ready!" she exclaimed, and ran jnto the house. "Any news from the Street? - ' asked Billy. Even when he had left the office to catch an early train everybody was faMng Motor, and he had run a gauntlet of reporters. The same, only more so. And they're luring no end of trouble with that plnnge in rubber. It looks now as if it jrere off." According to Wistar's reports from Sonth America, Ryan and his. associates were throwing down their hands in disgust It is one thing to buy a LatinAmerican republic, and another to make it stay bought. Wistar had done his best to noise abroad the rumour of the proposed monopoly, and the effect was what he had planned. Already in two cases.the very men who had profited by the sale of a concession had headed a iwolution against their own government for tie purpose of capturing it and selling the concession again. The great rirers of the rubber countries were bordered with quicksands for the sinking of ilmeriean millions. "If ire keep to our plan," Wistar concluded, "we shall have to come out in the open to-morrow and sell to bust them. Are you still game?" "Still game. And you?" "I should like to put it up to Mr. Eear3 once more." The door opened, and May came out, leading her father by the hand. "Where do.ymi think Judy is?" she cried. "In the kitchen, arguing and persuading tfith a tipsy tramp. Wait just a minute fill I get her!" And she vanished into the house. "Can you leave us just a minute?' flistar said in a low voice to Billy. Billy started to follow May, but with a glance at his cigar he lighted it, and. thrusting his 'hands in the pockets of iis dinner-jacket, turned on his heel toSard the arbour. The two men faced each other in si- •™«- The lines about the old man's u&r-cnt and delicate lips were drawn fad haggard. The soft wrinkle that once tad pleasantly framed his refined and jointed cam had become a furrow, and hp mild blue eyes were without expression. * But it was he who spoke first. "Your promise not to tell Judith." he said, in a My, metallic voice—"you have kept it. and I thank you. You have fought hard, out yon nave fought fair."' . TM I promise?" Wistar asked. "I'd "Si?™-" The fact that -^ r - Sears Ml treasured such a promise would have asmed contemptible if it had not been Pnable. Two years ago he would have ewjra that there was no need of such a pledge. '"Au the more," Sears said, "I thank F>» for sparing her." ■ "?P arin g her?" Wistar cried. "Do you ; -fiat it is costing her—what "life ""mean to such a woman, married to suca a man!" A look of surprise came into the pale ™face, and with it a look of terror. can't care for him!" , "Me has told mc that she does! I we co right to warn her But you : aefn than that " if you wi ll permit T^ 50 -» is your duty:" lmt»t«. Cc became te with pain, «tt the same time set with obstinacy, ■sith ~n a moment Wistar regarded him SyT ße £ swn - Then be c - om '- aZr hlmse lf, and delivered his ulti2tt Bill - V " s " Another day would *»> all Mr " SearS ha d hOped would do that?" c insists on it. Once your sole aid •-JtMdit" I*1'** 70,11 ** A t, !f n I T e 1 . that May led ■ Pr ot a^ out to join them, been mJ£ ■ to time the oi <l man had ' fa« wS brushi »? the mosquiatta< *s on his delicate ■ lad lent Which ' to Wistar's mind, B ?. t - "'appropriate touch of a a excSL f fisure " Now he made and ;vith~ i the pests to S° iniioors ' %B to f ~ ow ' s P°ken word bade Pen*>Piiur«, Wis tar could not help '"Korf ti. WOrds had had weight. &ve\p;J v !! ' Judith, as she F*Pl= ufa hand ' " Ho ' s g°t al, the * a tni-t countr 7 round to combine Zero's >T a§amst the mosquitoes. But "O s-put a " c °. os, : in ate farmer won't let Onr nej^rj , Oi kerosene on his marsh. : sil!-^s 1 7 D ? ars over on the Pocantico Wed te^ ard Oil, you know!-they've *ad tuft £s hua int <> selling his land, the mosquitoes from his

marsh to get even. Another of father's poor syndicates bust!"

They laughed, with what gaiety they could command.

"It's worse than pigs in clover," May complained, "to get you all together. Now, where's the Bishop to stand?" She took up a garden rake, and stuck it upright in the bed of roses. "There," she said, "that's the Bishop!" "That!" laughed Wistar. "The good Bishop a rake! You slander the lawn sleeves!" Taking his overcoat from the bench, he draped it over the head of the rake, and then paused, a smile beaming in the hollows of his cheeks. Yet we need just a soupcon of the rake!" He spread the collar so that the teeth were visible. "There!" he said. "No! Wait!" He picked up a flower-pot and perched it on top. There you have the Bishop to the life! Now we shall be married!" "First,'" said Judith, looking mysteriously at a card in her hand, "I"think we'd better be invited! The engravers have just sent this back to know if it's all right." May looked at the card with a critical eye. •"Stupid!"' she said. "Of course it's all right. I wrote it out myself! 'The wedding of his daughter, May Honoria Rhinelander, at Suncliff, Ar'dsley-on-Hudson'—l think it reads beautifully!" ■' Judith looked over her shoulder. "Is it your idea that at a wedding a groom is superfluous ?" A look of horror came into the girl's face. "I clean forgot to put Billy in! That's why they sent it back!" She took a pencil Wistar offered her and scribbled in. "to William Van Rensselaer Onderdonk." Then she cried, "Well, now j everything's ready!" She ran up the steps and called, "Come, father! Come, Mr. Penrhyn!" "Is everything ready?" asked Wistar. '"Except the cup, and Boyser is mising that!" "And the music—l brought it from town with mc; it will be here in a minute. And is that everything?" "Music?" she cried. "How sweet of you! It's more than I dreamed! You regular lambkin pie!" She leaped lightly up on her toes and kissed him on the lips. Wiui his two hands on her shoulders, he held her on tiptoe a moment. "Ncrw I agree with you," he said. "At a wedding a groom is superfluous!" She sank to the ground in consternation. "Billy? Isn't he here? I know Donkey will spoil my wedding! Where did he go!" "He seems to be aware how superfluous he is." Wistar laughed. "Perhaps you'll find him out in the arbour, smoking." She stood still, half afraid to leave them. "Until I come back, don't you dare stir from this spot!" Then, with her lithe, girlish stride, she fled toward the arbour. "We'll call you," Wistar cried after her. "when the music comes!" Then he turned to Judith, and in the moment his mask of gay spirits fell from him. XXXVI. Judith smiled at him a little sadly. "It pleases my lord to be merry. Very soon, now, they say, you will stand alone again, your own master, and fighting against us, as you were before we came meaning by. Don"t you expect to win ?" "Unfortunately, I do!" " Unfortunately ?" "Times have changed—and I with them. Oh, I have learned something. The things I have been able to do, and the vastly greater things I have come to hope for —they make my old ambitions seem petty enough. I have known the strength and security of well-regulated industry, and I have to go back to the old. haphazard conditions. Worse than that, I am driven to violence—to slaughter! Day and night I think of you—in poverty!—of myself, when I have brought you there." The crimson of the sunset had deepened to purple, and now the twilight was rising from the valleys like a mist, dim and mysterious, in the increasing effulgence of the moon. From the road below them came low, guttural voices, and presently the musicians panted up the steps toward them, carrying their instruments beneath their arms. "A lidtle mooseek, poss?" asked the leader, puffing. Wistar distrusted German bands. "Yes," he said, "but don't make a racket." "Racket! And sooch an effening! He disposed his men at a distance in the shrubbery, and struck up an old, soft evening song— so poetically, so exquisitely attuned to the moment that it seemed like the very atmosphere transmuted to sound. Judith had passed to the bed of roses, and her long, agile fingers were busy among them. The perfume from them seemed to Wistar the perfect attar of the hour, and of her. "What would you think," he said, "if to spare you I were to join them in ruining Minot?" She glanced up at him archly, yet sadly. "What do you suppose?" "I am a man, and I am striking at those you love best—at you!" "And I am a woman! If I choose not to say what I think?" She did not cease plying her fingers. "That you cared for mc very much," she said. "And now you think " "You told mc once—the cave man, brutal and merciless!" She looked at him, wavering between her old fear and a new audacity. Audacity conquered. She plucked a rose and. "standing straight beneath his chin, guided the stem through the loop in his lapel, her draperies brushing his coat. But in c, moment her coquetry vanished in an outburst of comradely goodwill. "No! Not brutal, not merciless! Poor father —I have always loved him above everything else in the world. But to save" him by making you false to what you hold right—by making you ruin "your friend, my friend . . . you have not offered "to do that for mc, and I thank you! Blow after blow, as it falls —it will be terrible —terrible to feel your hand in it all! Yet I shall not "blame you." She gave him both hands impulsively. The passion of the blood faded before the mightier passion of the spirit. He took her hands, and looked down into her eves, shining with moonlight and with "tears. "You are a woman!" he said, his voice vibrating like a viol. "How you make mc love you! For your justice and your honour, for your grace, your beauty, for yoiir loyal heart! Always I shall love you! Miserable as I am. more miserable as I shall bo, it means much that with every thought, every feeling—l don't use the word lightly—l worship you!" His voice choked, but he presently managed to Bay.

"You forgive mc for telling you this?— It is our last hour!" "If you are so determined to say goodbye " "Can I bear to see you happy—happy with Penrhyn ?" "It seems I'm not to be happy!" "Then Heaven help me —if my path crosses yours!" "What I meant was that—since you are determined to say good-bye—you'll have to let go my hands!" He looked down at her palms which he held as a child might hold them. Then he blushed like a child, and let them fall. "Bugaboo!" she laughed. "To think I ever was afraid of you! You great big bear! You huge boy! Hasn't anyone ever called you Jim?" He shook his head. "I once told you —I'm a very serious person." "If it will make you any less serious I'll call you Jim." "Then it is good-bye —Judith!" Somehow he had got hold of her hands again. Mockingly she lifted their united palms between them, and held them up to his gaze. He loosened his grasp, and her hands slipped gently out of his. She stood a moment, as if not quite knowing what to do with them. Then, with a sudden impulse, she caught the tips of his ears and drew down his head until his cheek lay upon hers. "Good-bye, Jim," she said. Then she laughed and added the rest of the poetical line: "Take keer of yourself." What she might mean by this she did not make known, but fled from him, and paused only when she had passed out beyond the musicians toward the arbour. Then, "May! May!" she called, and her voice rang clear and gay through the twilight. "Don't you hear?— The music!" Sears and Penrhyn came out and joined her. "They don't hear!" she cried, still on the wing of wilding gaiety. "Look at them! Or rather, don't look at them!" She took lirst Penrhyn and then Wistar by the shoulder and swung them about. '"Daddy! Will you get them? In such cases, I believe, it is always the stern parent who intrudes." "Why intrude?" said Wistar. "Isn't that the most important rehearsal of all? Let them be happy in it—music, moonlight, love!" "Right you are!" said Penrhyn. "Come, everybody; we'll do the rehearsing for them!" He took Judith by the arm. "You are the bride," he said, and led her up to the rakish Bishop. Turning to Wistar: "The best man, I believe," he said. "Mr. Sears, you give Judith away!" Then he bade the musicians play the '"Wedding March." The measured strains rose softly on the evening air. Penrhyn took his stand I beside Wistar, and Judith, taking her father's arm, stepped lightly toward them, mocking the conscious demureness of a bride. Then she joined Penrhyn, and stood with him as if before the altar. t Wistar fixed his eyes upon Sears, and then on the bridal pair. "There you see it!" he said, with vehemence suppressed: "the end of your unholy alliance! She has a sense of honour like a man. You can't make her suffer what she will suf- i fer with that ——" He fell silent; but his fingers, clenched behind his back, contorted with agony. "Don't!" plecded Sears, his face haggard and ashen. "There is one way to prevent it!" The old man shook his head and turned away. A ghostlike form sped toward them from the arbour. "Stop, stop!" May cried. "How horrid of you! This is my wedding!" Peals of musical laughter fell upon the spacious evening air, and Penrhyn j shouted for a waltz. With the first measure he seized Judith, and together they glided over the even turf. As they passed Wistar she swung free and held out her arms to him. He caught her, but, as he did so, he stopped short. Over the wall by the roadside Andrews had raised his pale face, spiritual in the moonlight. Even his brick-red sidewhiskers shone with the mellower hues of stained glass. Slowly and unsteadily he clambered up, until he stood on the wall. With one arm he clutched a maple sapling, and swept the other before him to command silence. The little party stood dumb. '"Ladies ! n' genulums," he said, in a voice which, though husky with drink, was all the more ghostlike and awful. "I'm not the handwriting on the wall. I'm a voice up a tree! You're all weighted in the balances, and all found wanting." (To be continued next Wednesday.)