THE BLACK BETRAYAL

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 162, 10 July 1926, Page 32

THE BLACK BETRAYAL

CHAPTER VIII. "Only fagged." was the reply in a tone of exhaustion. "But you do look ill," Sophie persisted. "It is nothing. Please don't distress yourself. Sit down." "Can't I get you something? You may faint." "You can give mc a second cup of tea. I am merely tired out." Sophie poured the tea, and Mrs. Talbot commented on the beauty of a rose geranium on the window sill as a hint to Miss Brant that her looks were to be ignored. Had Luke sent It? Miss Brant as nearly snorted as a nice girl can, and said her geranium came from a Dublin florist's. Her compassion cooled. If Mrs. Talbot didn't want sympathy, she should have none. Women with such superb solf-control that they could decline to faint at will were unlovable freaks, cold-blooded automata. Fagged indeed! A white lie. Marmaduke was the cause of her corpse colours, and Mrs. Talbot wouldn't tell what he had done. They were all horrid .secretive people in Sleepy Hollow, rousing a girl's interest only to fob her off with white lies and evasions. They wore one's patience threadbare. Icily composed, Mrs. Talbot kept a thin rivulet of chatter flowing, passing from the iniquitous prices of city florists /.derailed) to a description of the Court gardens and a gracious promise to ask Luke to take Miss Brant through them -if she hadn't been yet. It was a pity Miss Brant wouldn't be there in autumn when the dahliae made a magnificent splurge of colour. The gardens, alas, were not the eight they used to be, though still lovely in their wild neglect. Luke's grandfather had kept three gardeners. A recital of the achievements of the three gave her listener an attack of fidgets. The late Charles in affluent days employed a couple, one of whom he enticed away from a Duke. Now Ichabod wae written over the gates, but the glory wasn't gone for ever. It would come Here Sophie stiffened her spine and dammed the exasperating flow of the rivulet. "I'm glad you have. recovered enough to bemoan the Ichabod. Gueee It wouldn't have gone if it hadn't been chased. A large sum of money was paid to the Besaemers by the British Government as compensation for the division of their landSi Where ia that money? Spent! I'd ask you how?" Mrs. Talbot's lack-lustre eyes grew piercing. . "The manner of its spending isn't my affair or yours." "It's mine more than you think," said Sophie inwardly. "And we ought to respect our neighbours' reticence concerning matters which' are private. The money melted as money has a habit of doing, and for a man of his brilliant abilities Luke is eadly crippled." "He should exercise his brilliant abilities." '*Are you sure that he isnt exercising them?" "I can see and/hear." '" "Especially hear," sub-acidly. "One cannot enut one's ears." "One can, provided one isn't eager for gossip." . The insinuation brought the quick blush" to Sophie's cheeks. "- "I'm not fond of gossip, evil or otherwise." "My dear child, I believe you are not, but youth is cruelly hasty to condemn on flimsiest evidence. If Luke didn't repel you you'd be gfe'nerous to him for your nature is generous. He's hardly the type of man to draw a pretty girl accustomed to the truckling homage always paid to a pretty face with a backing of wealth. Luke wouldn't truckle, wouldn't notice your prettiness even, if you and he were not affinities, and it's apparent you are not." "Kathleen has been peaching. That isn't cricket." "Iβ your unfairness to Luke cricket?" "It's a case of tit for tat," Sophie muttered. "Mutual antagonism," Mrs. Talbot smiled resignedly. "I'm grieved it's there. I'd have everybody like him. Luke is dearer to mc than my own daughter. Shall I tell you why? I loved his father passionately, and married a Talbot in a fit of pique following a quarrel." "Well, you've an excuse for championing him. "Have I not? He is his father in everything except his finer brain, and his solid qualities. He hasn't Cha-rles' happy-go-lucky disposition, which is a blessing. The happy-go-lucky cheer us, but their names are inscribed in sand. I love Charles undyingly, yet am not blind to his faults. What he cast down, his son, thank God, will build up." "Didn't Charles Bessemer die in some tragic fashion?" Launching the abrupt query, Sophie watched in vain for signs of perturbation. Not to be caught twice in an emotional side-stepping, Mrs. Talbot replied stolidly in the affirmative. "Heart disease?" murmured Sophie. "A great proportion of sudden deaths are due to heart disease." "Was Luke with him when he died?" "During the final moments he was." ' "Were they much attached to each otheri? "Theirs were the ordinary affectionate relations of father and son." . The blank wall agajn v Sophie eyed the stoical Sphinx resentfully. If Mrs. Talbot could disperse the clouds hanging about Leuke, why didn't she do it? Perhaps she thought that Miss Brant, being antagonistic to him, didn't care what was said of him-, didn't want to hear his praises sung, wasn't hungry in her very soul for a feast of warm praise of him. It occurred to the girl with a feeling of chill that everybody, herself included, was like that, presenting blank walls to the world's gaze, concealing the real personality in the inner fastnesses where the soul .hugs to itself an awful, solitude. "I hope you'll strive to be tolerant to Luke," Mrs. Talbot gently urged. "He has trials, and bears them bravely. N I particularly desire him to know Mre. Fanning when you fetch her to Violet Lodge. She would interest and stimulate him. The La Touches have the power of pleasing and stimulating.- They are women with charm." Sophie pleated the lace border of the tea-cloth, a shadow on her face. Oh fortunate women who have the gift of charm." • - - _

By MADGE BARLOW. Author of r Married in May." "Flower of Aβ Bog," " A Fool For Love* Sake," Etc.

Glancing at the clock, Mrs. Talbot rose and buttoned her coat, saying that she had to call at the Court. In the living room ehe dallied to admire the hired furniture and general snugness, and took a peep into the dainty bedroom, admitting reluctantly the cosiness of Miss Brant's nest. She kissed her at parting, and invited her to continue her daily visite to the Lodge, and consider it another home. "Your bright presence will chase the dulness," she said, her arm embracing Sophie. "We are dull creatures compared with you, but we are sincere and loyal in our friendships. You can't come too often." The widow had retreated to the yard while Mrs. Talbot inspected the catim, Creupinpf in towards the close of the leave-taking, she missed not a fragment of a honeyed phrase, and spat violently into the hearth ashes. ' - She"s pluniausii where the money is," was her caustic comment. Sophie turned on the doorstep. "What on earth is plamaiish ?" " 'Tis butterin , up thim ye don't care tupence, for, miss." "Fie, Widdy darlint. Wasn't yer ladyship ma'am plamaiish?" Her wistful eyes went back to the tall figure walking the road, going to the Court to see Luke. He had not been down that roadeince she made him chop her firewood. He avoided the cabin as he woulil a plague-spot. Was it true that she and he had nothing in common, and he hadn't noticed her looks, wasn't interested in her. She had looked her prettiest that day. What did it profit to look one's prettiest if nobody noticed. Leaning her face to the jamb of the door, Sophie saw the turnip fields and the thorn hedge opposite her through a blurr of teare, felt in her breast a gnawing ache, and tried to persuade herself that the grey lonesomeness was responsible for both tears and ache. A landscape consisting wholly of turnips and thorn hedges under a slither of rain was bound to be depressing. Hiret and Sharman were sketching plans of the grounds in shelter of a clump of bushes near the valley path when Mrs. Talbot went past like a gliding tragedienne, sheathed in black. They peered at her wondering who she was. "Put her beside the pool this misty evening and we'd swear she was a haunt," said Sharman. "She had a wraithy appearance and sort of floated by. Maybe she is a haunt, Otto." "Lady Macbeth to the life, if sh'd rub her hand and mutter 'Out, d d spot!" , said Hirst, staring after her. "Haunt or not, she's heading for the Court." "Perhaps she had something to do with the commotion up there hist night." "I haven't heard of a commotion." "I didn't tell you, Otto, lest you'd say I was tipsy, and I sure wasn't. I strolled along here, about midnight to take a quiet survey of the locked room they talk of in Lanigan's bar. It's in the gable next the road, on the top storey, and it was brilliantly lit, but the rest of the house all dark. The upper sash was down three or four inches. A growth of tough stemmed ivy covers the gable, and the stems of itare thicker than my wrist. An agile chap could have shinned up to that window mighty click." "And risked his neck for a glimpse of Bessemer burning the midnight oil, or his servant lying awake and keeping the light in. It's waste of time to hunt mare's nests, Harper." "Wait and listen to mc before you get sarcastic. I stood on the gravel watching the window for a matter of fifteen minutes, and everything was silent as the grave. Then a man lurched across that room to the window. I could see him swaying between it and the light, his shadow big on the blind. He moved away, and there was shouting, excited shouting, mind you, as of a person calling for help." "Owla hooting. The grounds are full of owls." "Owls be hanged 1 Have owls human voices? The shouting brought a second man on the scene, and two shadows bent together over a thing that cast no reflection, wasn't close enough to the window to throw a reflection. They -were a goodish while in that attitude, lifting their heads and speaking to each other. The rumble of their voices was audible, and the men were Bessemer and old Roberts. 'Twould be every tick of fifteen minutes from the shouts to the extinguishing of the lights." "Sounds fishy. What do you think is wrong?" "The room has a hidden tenant, who was being roughly handled." "Far-fetched, but occasionally truth is stranger than fiction. We can't finish the plans in these atmospheric conditions, and as we are not approaching the Dail again for a week we can afford to lie off, and go right now to see the weird window. Better walk on the grass, and make a circuitous detour in case Bessemer is interviewing Lady Macbeth at the house-front. He has been amiable, and it would be awkward to be caught prowling." The mist was dense in the valley, the grass and ferns were soaked, but they had on gumboots and mackintoshes. Snapping an elastic band on his sketchbook, Hirst led the way through a shrubbery that wept sooty tears upon him, and as he strode he hummed a tune and wore a merry grin. Their prospects were highly satisfactory. They had increased the number of their Dublin supporters, and the Dail, it was whispered, would not discountenance their scheme. Hirst believed the whisper, and in other respects had solid foundation for his optimism. Luke was the chief obstacle to progress. Although affable, 1 and ready to respond to sociable over- ! tures, he froze at the slightest hint of a broaching of business, and kept them wriggling on tenterhooks of anxiety. Beneath hie suavity of speech and aspect Hirst was savagely furious at Luke's elusiveness. Reaching the terrace, they skirted a side-patch of lawn ' and went round close by the garden wall. Taking Hirst up to the gable, Sharman pointed out the window, and the place where he had stood to spy. j ' Hirst crossed the gravel and fingered the ivy. Its interwoven stems, twisted and knotted by centuries of growth .into the semblance of stout ropes,

seemed capable of bearing a weight of many pounds avoirdupois. His face wrinkled meditatively. His eyes measured the distance to the window, and twinkled with malice. He caressed his chin as he ruminated. If hanky-panky work were afoot in that room, the wondow of which was left carelessly open, and he or Harper discovered what it was by having recourse to the scaling rope of Nature's providing, they would have the whip hand of Luke Bessemer, and might coerce him into selling if they couldn't persuade him. (To be continued daily.)

The letters of a certain motion picture producer were the admiration and envy of his colleagues. The secret was that they were written by a young college graduate, who acted as the producer's secretary. The secretary finally quit his position, and a succesor was engaged. The producer, having acquired pride in his correspondence, inspected closely the first letter submitted by his new assistant. After long consideration, he spoke, " That ain't near up to my usual standard."