HIS WIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 79, 5 April 1926, Page 11

HIS WIFE.

BY MBS. VICTOR RICKARD.

Author of "The Light Above the Crossroads," "The House of Courage," Etc.

CHAPTER XXV. When Crakenthorp went down the hill towards the works, he was unable to think. Madness had swept him like fire rising in his heart. His eyes were burning hot, and he could visualise nothing but the flying whiteness of Orange's slender figure running away from him. He stopped stock still, then staggered as though he was drunk. She had escaped from him, thanks to Katherine Thorpe. Otherwise lie would have caught her; caught her in her snowflake softness, her terrified trembling. Ho went onwards again.

How he got back to his rooms lie did not know. He was only dimly aware that people stared at him strangely and that his landlady had spoken to him, though he had not heard what she said or given her any answer.

It was growing dark outside, and the noise of the streets rose up to where he sat by his open window. Soon it would be quite dark, and he would still be alone, always alone. He thought again of Staveling, and the thought was like suit on an open wound. Walter, the fool, had asked this smooth, impudent corsair into his house. It was tantamount to him his wife. Crakenthorp hated his old friend as he brooded over the~ situation. Walter would shut his eyes and allow Staveling to steal what, could never be returned.

His mind, which had been as blank us a dead wall, became curiously active and alive, and his heaviness fell away.

He got up, and, opening a drawer in his table, took a small object from a corner, where it had been pushed out of sight. He slipped it into his pocket.

Before he left the room he stood looking back at it. A dark room, with one window wide open. A bookshelf with a few books. A reproduction in colour of the Sistine Madonna, over the fireplace, and so little else. Not a very hard place to leave when one considered it. Somewhere in that room his youth had already died, and the pale streak of green evening sky outside was like the sight of a streaming banner going swiftly into the dark. He lingered to put the picture quite straight and set the chair back by the writing table again. "Suddenly he emiled, a smile of mystery and pathos. Love was the only thing which made life desirable, and love was denied him.

Closing the door very gently he went clown the staircase into the street.

Walter ■ pushed Ada aside and turned the handle of the door, but it did not open for him, and he waited; silent and blanched by an awful misgiving. The door was locked. Staveling and Orange were shut in there. He put his shoulder against it, but it resisted his strength, and Ada, forcing herself in front of him, knelt on the ground, her ear to the crack.

"Walter," she said breathlessly, "I hear someone moving," and as she spoke a sound, definite and unmistakable, came to them both. It was the heavy thud of overturned furniture and the crash of breaking glass; and then the shout of a man's voice calling for help.

Neither Walter nor Ada spoke. Ada had quickly retreated to the wall and stood there, terrified and shaken. Walter throwing all his force against the door, heard it crack as he loosed the lock from the jamb which held it. He was in a frenzy of excitement. The sound from the room warned him that something violent and awful was in progress. Orange was in physical danger. He must get to her and protect her. ••

Once again he made a heroic effort, and at last "the door gave way-and swung open, carrying him into the room.

Everything was in wild confusion. Staveling was lying limp on the floor, bleeding copiously from a wound.on his head. Crakenthorp stood over him, his face distorted and his eyes blazing. "I swore I'd do it with my own hands," he said in curious, muttering tones. "No other way." He leant drunkenly against the bed. where the coverlet had been dragged to the ground.

"Orange!" round wildly you 1"

Walter called, looking "Orange, where are

Adn, half fainting, still remained out side in the passage.

Walter caught Crakenthorp by thr throat. "What have you 'done with her?" he shouted.

J "Done? With her?" Crakenthorp's ! eyes were dull and strange. "Why, j nothing. She isn't here." He began !to laugh queerly. "I came into her ' room by the balcony. I hid myself behind the dressing table and waited ! for Staveling. It seemed a long time !to wait, but he came in the end. Very, 'very softly.*. . He slid in like the snake ho is, and locked the door, arid ■ then he returned and called her. But she • wasn't there." Crakenthorp's voice ! rose. "He sat on the bed and lighted a cigarette, watching, the window. He I walked to the balcony and looked out, and then he heard you outside, and he ' slid behind the curtain to hide. . . And i then I got him?" . He laughed again. '< "I hunted him like a rat, and I've finished him. Done what you weren't man enough to do. Walter. . . And now I'm at the end."

Walter stood looking down at Staveling, who moved painfully and opened his eyes, moaning as he tried to raise his head. He bent over him and called to Ada. "Ring up Dr. Haverford," he mid. "and tell Brandon to bring water. Wo must get Staveltnsr to his room."

"What is all this?" Walter turned as a voice spoke from the door, and lie e.iw ]iis mother looking in dismay at thp niftnre before her.

"Good-bye, Walter." Crakenthorp touched Priestlv's shoulder.

"For Gotl's sake lend a hand."' Walter pad desperately. "Stop, Hubert—«• But Crakenthorp was at the open window and did not turn. He went onwards, running swiftly down the steps into the garden and away to the" wood.

Once before that evening lie had said to himself that love was the only thing which made life dpsirable, and love was denied to him. He ran on, to the darkest thicket , of the sleeping woods.

Mrs. Priestly came to where her son knelt beside Staveling. "Walter." she said, in a quavering voice, her hand on his shoulder. "We must find some ■ reasonable explanation of all this. Surely there must have been "an " alarm of burglars, and Lord Staveling came to the assistance of Orange." Walter did not look up. He was examining the wound on Staveling's forehead. . Beyond the . fact that it would leave a sear, it -\vaa not grave. In a few days at most he would be over i the worst of it, ,

"Brandon," he heard his mother speaking to the manservant, who had come running in answer to Ada's cry for help, has been a very terrible tragedy here to-night. A burglar broke into Mrs. Walter Priestly's room, and Lord Staveling. who heard her call out, has been seriously injured. .The doctor has been sent for and all danger is past." Brandon hurried to his master's assistance, and carrying Staveling between them, they brought him back to hi a room at the farther end of the passage.

"I did hear Rover barking," Brandon said anxiously. "I hope Madame isn't frightened, sir."

"She is not easily frightened," Walter said, his hidden anxiety overtaking him afresh.

Brandon withdrew silently, and Walter waited by the bed, looking down at Staveling. After a time he stirred and opened his eyes, glaring up at Priestly with a look of recognition.

"So this was a trap," ho said in a, low, incoherent voice. "Your sister.

. . She wrote the letter that brought mc to Lyinpton. . . You invited mc to your house, and your man did mc in. . . You've pulled it off. Priestly, He raised his hand and fumbled blindly over his face. "It's clever, very clever." "Where is Orange?" Priestly bent, over him. " Tell mc, for C4od's sake." . Staveling closed his eyes and did not answer.

" I will sit with Lord Staveling," Mrs. Priestly said, coming through the open door and taking a chair by the bed. "It would be better for all parties concerned, Walter, if you leave the management of the present situation in my hands."

CHAPTER XXVI. Thinking only of Orange, Walter searched the house, Ada trailing behind him. He had told her what Staveling had said, and at first she lied weakly, and then admitted the truth. She had begun to care for Crakenthorp, and — then the long, rambling explanation followed. Crakenthorp was mad about Orange, and she acted as she had to let him see what 6ort of woman he loved.

Walter heard her out with set lips. " This finishes it," he eaid. " After tonight, Ada, you and mother will leave Cedarwood. I don't want to say more, but, perhaps you see the ghastly thing you have done?" She wept unrestrainedly, with awful hearings of her shoulders and noisy grief. She did see; she was sorry; she never meant that it should come to this. Wrapped in her dressing gown, she looked so beaten that, though she had betrayed and wounded him, and it was her hand which had wrought havoc, he softened a little. " I'm sorry, Ada, but even yet we do not know where this will end," he said slowly.

Hβ left her and returned to Orange's room. It was all set in order and ready for her to come, but she did not come. He walked out on to the balcony and far away he heard the echo of a ehot, a single shot ftred in the night. The sound was so significant, so terrible in its swift passing, that, for a moment, Walter felt as if paralysed.

A new fear came upon him. Orange had been strange in manner, and unhappy. . There had been her unexplained visit to Staveling at the hotel. Was she driven down to some point of desperation which he had not dreamed of? These two men, Staveling and Crakenthorp, had made "brutal love to her, ajid he had been there, a syphcr, useless and helpless. He* knelt by the bed and flung his arms across it. The little ornamental clock on the mantelpiece struck 2 a.m., and the house was still all alight and the servants up. Mrs. Priestly was interviewing Dr. Haverford, the lights of whose car throw long rays over tho gravel drive. Everyone else had forgotten Orange in the excitement of a wild nocturnal adventure, and his growing belief that Orange had deliberately left Cedarwood and might even have thrown herself into the lake sfrengthened terribly. Then that shot? Whose hand had fired it?

He got up and went slowly into the passage. Mrs. Priestly was saying a few last words to Dr. Haverford in the hall below; he could hear her

"'My daughter-in-law is a very independent young lady," she said. " She needs nothing in the way of restoratives, I can assure you, doctor. I will tell my son what you say, and he will be relieved, greatly relieved. Oh, no, I am not tired or alarmed. It takes a great deal more than this to frigenten mc!"

Dr. Haverford made a complimentary remark, and a minute later, Walter heard his car go off down tho drive.

Lights went out in the house and windows grew blank. Sounds receded gently before silence, and finally Walter realised that he and the nurse who had come with Dr. Haverford to look after Staveling. alone were awake. And still Orange did not return.

Caught again, as before, in the net of his mother's artifice and subtlety, he paused at the head of the staircase. Should he awaken them all again' and send out a search party, or should he go alone with his electric lamp, looking for his wife in the grounds. Surely, surely she'had not left him at the last like this.

Making up his mind suddenl','. he went down to the dark hall and aiong the passage to his own room. He intended to change out of his evening clothes and then go out to look for Orange until he found ■ her.

His room was quite dark, except for the faint light of early dawn which penetrated softly through the window; in a tree close by a bird was singing with all the piercing sweetness of solitary song. A dim primrose yellow to the east spoke of corning day, and. Walter hesitated before he turned on the light.

His restlessness and hurry dropped from him, and he stood looking out. It was like a fragment of a dream; some old dream he had dreamt when he was a little boy, and through which he approached a magic moment. It did not carry him further, but dissolved like gossamer, as the memory of tho violent incidents of the night, and his own anxiety returned. He walked to the bed and turned the switch of the lamp beside it.

As the light shot out, filling the room softly, Walter looked at the hed. In one second all the passion and longing of his life flooded upon him. He stood trembling and with bowed shoulders.

With her head on his pillow and her arm hanging over the side of the bed Orange slept like a weary child. Her face was flushed from erring , , and her hair rumpled and tossed, a white negligee covered her silk night gown, and she had pulled the coverlet over her.

She was there! Orange, with the sweetness of wild roses, and her young beauty, and she was asleep, still as a dreaming lily in the garden.

•Dawn was strengthening outside, and a hundred birds had joined their singing to the first silver purity of the lonely thrush*. ' '

Walter knelt beside her and kissed the round arm lying over the coverlet. She moved a little and draw a short, sobbing breath, as if her trouble of heart stirred also. He had awakened her to the old despair and the old misery. She opened her eyes and sat up staring round her, and then she saw where she was and saw Walter kneeling beside her.

He did not speak, he held her in his arms and kissed her. She melted in his clasp, and at last he knew the trembling of her arms folding round him. holding him to her. She was laughing and crying, and yet they neither of them spoke, and she closed her eyes and rested her head on his breast.

"But I meant to tell you that if you cared most for Katherine Thorpe you must get rid of mc," she said, looking up at him. " That's what I came here to say to yon, Walter."'

"Katherine," ho laughed. '"Why Orange, you foolish, foolish child. Katherine is going to marry Arthur Mount. She's been engaged to him for a year or more. Why should you think such wild, extravagant things?" " Oh, I don't know. I don't care. - " She curled herself up e«oser to him. " I've forgotten. You were so long coming that I suppose I fell asleep." He stroked her hair and riaid nothing. It would all keep, all the story of the night, because, eet beside what had really happened, it was only a nightmare, and nightmares cannot last once it is dawn.