WHO SEARCH FOR STARS

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 215, 11 September 1925, Page 12

WHO SEARCH FOR STARS

[AU Fdghts Reserved.] j

' n BY MARJORIE BOWEN. CHAPTER X. Anne did not think this worth answer- C ing: her smooth face had an expression of t amused irony as she regarded the tall, 1< rather stately figure of the man outlined h against the rain. * "After ail." he added, defiantly, "I sup- " pose it would be quite easy to discover if Elizabeth is married or not —that would he part of the detectives' work, t Eve got detectives looking for her," he iI 1 added, with more assurance. "Is hers such an uncommon name?"]l< "Well. Elizabeth Skalkcld—yes, be- .-* sides, if they find no such person was * married recentlv —it proves absolutely j—" ' ' \{ \ "Nothing." finished Anne, coming up, behind him. "She might have gone abroad, and you don't want to search every church and town hall and registry F office in the world, do you?" J He was moodily silent. "Besides," continued the woman's voice behind him, "if you did find the entry, Elizabeth fSkalkeld, somewhere, you n wouldn't believe it was your Elizabeth." «" He stubbornly withstood her quiet 9 mockery. i "Xo, I shouldn't. I really shouldn't." c Anne came beside him now and stood ' with hands locked i>efore her in the big l loose gloves, looking at the thinning veil of rain that was now finer and appeared 1 to come from a greater distance. ' The clouds, too, looked more remote, J an even greyness overspread the sky, and the drift of the rain softened the outlines of the trees and the distant orchard < and the rising fields beyond. Only the mausoleum stood out with ' an impression of weight and bulk in this ! landscape of misty half tones. 1 Anne pulled the thick white scarf, on ! which the drops of moisture hung on : the wool, closer round her shoulders. "I wish I could find Elizabeth for you," she said. "I would if I could." ' "I know," he resented her tone, "to laugh at us." He was sorry that he had told her the story: that was the.worst of being lonely so long and having so' few friends; . one became nervous with reserves and' solitudes, and plunged into confidences with the -wrong people. "I never laugh at anything." saitfl Anne Fardel. "You don't understand mc, of course. I should like to find your Elizabeth." "I shall find her myself—l feel sure of it. Of course, I shall* find her." "Don't forget," Anne warned him, "that she does not want to he found." He never did forget this; it remained the hitch, the difficulty, the blank in all his surmises. "And. if you won't have it that she is married, what is your solution of her wanting to be lost?" Courtoys had a solution to this puzzle, but it was not one which he was going to tell to Anne Fard' 1. As he hesitated, not being adroit enough*to cover his reticences at once, she amazed him by quietly telling him what he was deliberately keeping from her; and this with her usual indifference and as a matter of course. "I know what yo." think, that i -or Elizabeth, worn out with waiting, and poverty, and general, negation of life, became so sunk and depressed, so plain and laged, that she made a desperate renunciation of her one romance, and disappeared rather than face the rending of the final illusion, rather, in fact, than read in your face that you no longer wanted her." "How did you-guess that?" asked Courtoys, vexed. . "It is so exactly what you would think," she answered. "And perhaps it is exactly what happened," he retorted, roused by the little sting of contempt beneath her smooth tones. "I tell you, you didn't know Elizabeth, ,you. can't for all your cleverness, judge her." "She, I take it, was not clever?" "No. I daresay that you would call her,a dull, ordinary person. But she was so sweet, so humble, so tender, (nfthfiii, and kind, ttyit there seemed to be a sort of divinity about her." He added, stiffly, "I daresay that sound* like silly hyperbole, out there is no other way of impressing you with what I mean." . ."Yet you left .her?" This pearl? Perhaps she was hot pretty as well as not clever. You have not told mc what she was like." " She was pretty enough," he answered, curtly, " fair, soft, young, just a woman." If he*had meant this as a bait Anne Fardel was not drawn. "1 think the rain has nearly stopped," she said, "and I at least shall go home." He could not refuse to accompany her across the sodden, lonely park. "Will you tell your brother about the maps?" he asked. "Yes. I am 6ure he will be glad." She was indifferent again. "He can — come without disturbing you." They passed the-< 1 mausoleum, and,, though the day ■\yas > sliadowless, there seemed to be a shadow here. A shadow across them both as they crossed the soaked grass towards the orchard. " I suppose," asked Anne Fardel, "you do not care to sell Whethamstede?" This iwpersonal question, so out ofi tune with what they had. been talking about, vexed Courtoys. "No, I don't mean to sell." he replied, "though it is what all practical people would advise, no doubt." "I only asked," said Anne, "because I know a woman who is very anxious to buy such a place, and she would, I am sure, give a good price—she came to see us a few weeks ago, and took a great liking to Whethamstede." "I suppose," thought Courtoys, "you had the impertinence to show her over the place—the two of you—fingering everything!" ' Aloud he repeated: "I have no wish to sell, not at least till I find Elizabeth and Skalkeld—then, she must decide." Their roads parted here—one to the Gate House, one to the Manor House; Anne paused under the trees; the rain dripped, starkly from the bare branches. and the loose curdle .of clouds seemed toTOof in the gaunt fields. Something expectant yet too quiet in her face made Courtoys, with intent to vex. ask: '"Can I lend you that book you were reading the night I came home—that ugly book about devils? Did you finish it?" She was unruffled. I "The book on black magic? Didn't I you think it was amusing? I know a great deal about magic—well, I shouldn't talk of'such things with you. CiOod-hye, Mr. Courtoys." She went on her way slowly, soon blurred, soon eclipsed by the drive and drift of the rain.*

Courtoys looked after her. but only, j ts he >told himself, because she was the | t mly human thing in ..the-...blank landscape. ...... L. When he reached the Manor House he j E round a letter for him which contained i v lews of Elizabeth. | n ■ " CHAPTER XI. |s The letter was from the detectives | Courtoys was employing, and gave him i v the information which they had col- I <- lected without much trouble, that they j r had found out who had been sending j' the letters with the Camberwell \ T mark after Elizabeth Skalkeld had left j * Myrtle Grove. ... C These letters" had been forwatded by ' the woman who kept a small local news- v paper and "generaF shop. Before leaving Camberwell Miss Skal- j . keld had made an arrangenjent whereby she sent in another envelope letters to this shop that were to be forwarded as ( directed, always to be posted in the pillar box at the corner of Myrtle Grove. She paid a few shillings a month for , this favour, and sent the money in postal orders regularly, but she 'never ] wrote, and once she had left the neighbourhood she had never again visited , the shop. . There remained only the clue of the ( outer envelopes and the postal orders. The first the shopkeeper had destroyed," ( but she had had the curiosity to iook . at the office stamp of the orders; yet ( remembered them only vaguely, and could only say that they had bpen all ] different, and mostly, she thought. Lon- , don. , This woman also admitted that she I had been instructed to call at 17. Myrtle Grove and collect and forward any let- ; ters left there for Miss Elizabeth Skalkeld. But here there was. just where the clue seemed again sound, chaos. The woman had lost the address to which she was to send the letters, which she could not even remember, except that it was "Care of" a post office somewhere, and this after she had only sent on one or two. Then there had come some difficulty • with the landlady of 17, Myrtle Grove, and the shop-keeper, ignorant and stupid, weighed down by the sordid worries of her own life, had let the matter drop, and especially a3 no more postal orders would come.; _She had always been expecting, she had- said, not unreasonably, that the lady would send an address or call. But nothing had come, no message, no visit, and after that last letter, addressed to "Poste Restant, Rome," now in the possession of Courtoys, there was nothing to forward. It was evident that Elizabeth knew of the return of Courtoys, and hail ceased the attenuated correspondence. The detectives' search had come to a dead end; this was the sole morsel of information that they could offer, save that they added that no Elizabeth Skalkeld had recently been married in the United Kingdom, thinking •■ that she might have resumed a maiden name, their search had extended back several years. .. v . This was Anne Fardel's explanationanswered. For the rest, the matter was unsatisfactory enough. Elizabeth's disappearance, the deplorably clumsy arrangements she had made about her correspondence, her indifference about the letters at Myrtle Grove,'remained alike.inexplicable; most curious of all did it seetn to Courtoys that she should have ceased to write from the moment of his return to England, although she had never received the news of his fortune and his homecoming. Unless, indeed, as Anne Fardel had suggested, there were still letters accumulating for him in Rome. He resolved to discover if this 'were so, and meanwhile he wrote to "the detectives telling them io discontinue their researches, which, indeed they.had practically told iiim were" at a deadend. He had always disliked the idea of this cold-blooded method of tracking Elizabeth, and how, it seemed, it was useless as well as distasteful. And expensive. '.•■ ' If Courtoys wished to keep Whethamstede Manor House and all that, was in it, he would have to be very careful in the matter of expense. It was the daj- after the receipt of this letter that Sebastian 'Fardel rather diffidently called at the Manor House. The rain, that had not ceased for. a week, still blotted the landscape, and the light that filtered through the latticed windows into the big dark rooms was bleak and colourless. Courtoys, involved in dreams, feeling ; curtained from actuality by solitude and the rain, greeted his guest briefly enough, and did not accompany him to the attic with the maps. "I don't know what you can see in them," he said, drily, "but please yourself With them as long as you like." Looking at the smooth blonde face of Sebastian Fardel he thought of his sister, and with an odd sense of comfort. ' • It suddenly occurred to him that he would very much like to consult Anne about the newspaper shop clue. "I hope," he said, impulsively, "my inhospitality hasn't frightened away'your .sister. This is a new world to mc, and I haven'i found my feet in it. I'm in a queer position," he added, half defiantly. "I've got this place, and I don't quite know, what to do with iti" Mr.. Fardel paused by the newel post. "My sister says that you don't want to .sell," he remarked. "Xo, I don't. The place has got hold of mc. I thought-1 hated it. but now— besides. I'm looking for someone"' — He paused. "Aren't we all?" suggested Mr. Fardel gently. Corn-toys glanced at his suspiciously. "I'm looking for someone definite," he answered. "A practical affair, ' you understand? I can"t quite get things adjusted—this house," he frowned, "and the search." YOUR FEATURE'S DON'T MATTER Hair as much as your complexion a woman with indifferent, even liomelv re-i tures. can be exceedingly attractive ir she has a line complexion. What constitutes a really lovely skin" Look ut a child's complexion; all the pa n't and powder in the world won't produce just that freshness or tint and delicacy or texture. The loveliest skin is a natural Nature's Way. In perrert health the outer skin is perpetually being- "thrown on"' or renewed disclosing the clean rresh tissue 'underneath. In time this action becomes weakened and sometimes lost altogether, with the result that the complexion becomes coarse, wrinkled, and "muddy." Mercolised wax prevents this ip a scientific way By smearinsr the wax on every night, tiie" old soiled outer skin is made -,to tlake'&waV j Invisibly, and the cfar. .rre,-h cqjnnicstoh '• beneath is revealed...,' .; * >"o other treatment acts jii fxactjy tills. way or produces exactly.-.theianje result Natural" perfection is 'the a-reatcst bciiutv or a complexion. Mercoilsed wax assists your skin to perfect itself, keepinjr it clear and free to breathe, and imprejri nating: it with oxyg-en, with the result that i any ..woman who uses lt systematically can couimon having- a sort, clear', and deltcat* 1 »Kin./up to quite an advauced age cAdj

Sebastian Fardel took no notice of this broken speech. "You don't seem to care much for the old maps," he suggested. "You might sell those; the collection is j worth a great deal, though it was much neglected.'' Courtoys shook his bead. "It is good of you. but I don't care to sell anything—not yet." They exchanged smiles,' and Courtoys, when his visitor had disappeared up "the dark stairs, took- his old cap and mackintosh from the hall and went out into the drizzle, not without hope of meeting Anne, who. like himself, seemed to wander lonely through the wet park. Courtoys found Anne, however, seated inactive, but with no idle look, by the j wide open hearth" of the Gate House. j ■She.saw him at once; indeed, she was' looking at the window as if she expected him, and she smiled a quiet welcome. I The window was unlatched, and Courtoys asked: "May I come in?'' "Yes." said Anne, without moving. And Courtoys opened the cottage door which led directly into the parlour. Anne did not rise to greet him; she had a big white cat on her knee. "Please sit down."' she said. "Brini up Sebastian's armchair. lam glad that you have come. All night I was dreaming of you and your Elizabeth." Courtoys, with some awkwardness, divested himself of his wet mackintosh and cap. and brought the old chintz chair up to the fire. A kettle was boiling over the piled-up logs, hung by an iron chain, and Anne sitting thus in her plain tweed, without any vestige of pretence or pose, looked homely and ordinary enough. Yet Courtoys could not think of her as either a homely or an ordinary woman, and there seemed to him somethins grotesque in sitting here with her in this intimacy. "I have had news of Elizabeth." he said with diffidence. "I would really like to know what you think about it." And he told her of the contents of the detective's letter. It seemed, in the telling, such a poor and even sordid piece of information that Courtoys was almost ashamed; for the second time he was near to wishing that he had not taken this stranger into his confidence. Anne offered her advice, or consolation, or both combined, with her usual indifferent impartiality. "Of course, there is not much in. it, one way or another, but why don't you go to London aud see this woman at the shop?" (To be continued daily.)