THE HOUSE IN THE FOREST.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 87, 13 April 1927, Page 22

THE HOUSE IN THE FOREST.

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. j Author of "A Mad Marriage," ''Denys. j The Dreamer,''"The Moated Grange," etc.

CHAPTER Xlll.—(Continued.) Bridget luul been describing it all for' Sir Philip, and lie bad kept looking from I side tii side as though be saw it all. "What more, my dear Eyes":"' he a.-ked whimsically. I "There is a woman coming from the] Forest Lodge. She walks with short , steps in the snow. It is Mrs. Ware.'' "She has been visiting that poor creature. What devotion. Antoine has told; j 1110 that she goes every day. wea: :i.u j I snow-.-hoes. Some mail should do u. but. apparently she will not deputise." The woman with her mincing gut audi the movement of the shoulders and arms, which was so easily recognisable, passed I out of sight. j '•Do von think we might get back that | way" Bridget suggested. "She seemed | to have no difficulty. It will be slippci\ going down from this ridge. ' "Let us try," lie said. The dogs* went before them, leaping | and barking, in ccstaeies at being out I again for a walk. "It does seem heroic," said Bridget.] with a feeling as though she must i.ot • grudge praise to the woman she dis-I liked. "Poor creature it seems a pit v that he must be kept alive. He looked i to me more animal than human. ' : "Ho was a brave soldier in the War.", i said Sir Philip. "It is the terrible wreckage of the War." I Tliev stepped into deep snow —it was I a drift. When they tried to get out i again the drift seemed to enclose then..; The snow had softened during the slight, thaw. 'Tt would be a pity," said Sir Philip.! "to be lost in a snow drift within sight of one's own home. The dogs have found firm ground. We had better follow tlicmj and return the way we came. 1 am not i minded for more experiments." I They made they way out of the dntt j > into which they had not plunged very deeply, and went back the way they had come, slipping and sliding now and again, j but without further mishap. They wei'C| very wet. They had been in the soft i snow above their knees, and they had, fallen more than once in their efforts! to extricate themselves. "You will change immediately," Sir Philip said as they got near the liou-e "There will be time for a hot batlr ! before lunch." I "And you'. - "' i "I shall change. Xo use committing] i suicide, even though I am in dry dock J ; for the rest of my days. You would ' miss me, Bridget, and Tony would be ! sorry." j She glanced at liim sharply. '"You should not talk like that." she j said, and had a sudden sense of the (desolation his death would mean. Why i should he talk of death? "I cannot think jof Wildwater Forest without you. You shelter so many people. You are good to so many people. I am not your secretary to be unaware of all the help you give." 'Tt is nothing for a man like me," he said, almost roughly. "It is not as though I had anyone to spend it on. I deny myself nothing. You would be safe. Bridget, if I was to die, and I have provided for Peter's education. I have left poor Madelaine a thousand pounds. She is a good creature, though you do not like her, Bridget, and she nursed me through an illness three years ago. She wept when I told her, while she liopiil that I should live many years." '"I would you would not talk of such gloomy things," said Bridget fretfully. "\ou are in the prime if life, and you have a splendid physique. There is only your poor eyes. Am I not your eyes": You have told me so." Her voice trembled a little as she sail it, and site was shy. "My dearest Eyes. Oh. if only I could be Mire of keeping Bridget's eyes, life would be worth living. It would be too cruel. And what would Tony sav :" Biidget was in perplexity. It was no? tho first time Sir Philip had said such things, as though he thought Tony had a claim on her—a right of veto—Ton v had not allowed her to say "Xo." lie had bidden her wait till he came back. Apparently Tony had a happy faith ii: tho effect of absence, or he refused to be sent away without hope. Hp had written to her from the first port of call, letters in which tho expression was not just that ot an accepted lover. 1 hey were at the house door and they parted. Neither had been aware of the steady malignant gaze directed at tli-m from a grouud-lloor window from behind a lace blind. It was the window of the housekeeper's room. That night Bridget wakened to a sttange, terrifying sound. In the silence of the night there was the sound of something that dragged a chain going under her window. It, was something that ciied wietchedly, cried with a sound half-animal, half-human. She had time to remember that her window was open under the thin curtain. Oddly enough, she was not so much frightened after coming wide awake, as troubled with an aching pity for the creature that cried. What"could it be? She slipped oout of bed and lifted a corner of the window-blind. There was a heavy black shape on the snow. She eould not have told if it was an animal or a man. It moved like an animal over the snow. It came to her that a day or two earlier a couple of wild-looking "men had come to the liall-iloor. She had been comink down stairs and had heard Pierre, the butler, order them oil", else he should send for the police. They had not seemed to understand. She had come forward. She disliked the butler's hectoring and insolent way. she could never bear to see a weaker thing downtrodden, and the men were bumble and deprecating. They were standing meekly before the well-fed servant, pouring out a Hood of ijucer speech, in which a few Engli-h words were hardly recognisable. She came up behind M. Ticrre. What did they want? The man looked at her with sullen eyes, glowering. She did not like this ill-will which she guessed to be of Mrs. Ware's making, but she had not thought of being cowed by it. The men—Russians she judged by their clothing, the long unkempt hair and Calnnick faces—turned to her eagerly. She made out what they were saying. It had been repeated over and over. Hay for the bears; the bears were hungry. She understood then. The snow had held up a troupe of Bosnian gipsies, who with their wives and children and dogs and wretched horses and dancing bears, were somewhere in the neighbourhood. Tho police had been driving them from one district to another, over the borders of one county to another. Her heart had been pitiful when she heard the story. Poor things! What was to become of them, driven so from Place to place. I hey will be sent back to their own country,' Sir Philip said. "As for hardships, you couldn't force them to

It must be one of the bears she had seen with the gipsy troupe the day before. Jhe sound of the dragging chain made it certain. She looked out again. The thing, man I (>r ben«t. hud vanished. It might have been only a dream. I UIAPTER XIV. I Ihe ilovvcr beds under Bridget's j windows showed traces iic.\.i morning ot a heavy dragging body having been! ;here. 'J here v.as another trace where it j had dragged it.-elt through the snow into I lie pincwood. Another lieavv fall of -now co\ercd the tracks within a few hours. At bivakla-t -lie told what she had heard and seen in the liiglu, choo.-ing this time when <laci|iics was out of the room. hl-pi-th had taken I'eter a'.vav. >!ie would not have told the story in Peter"- hearing now that he had connto picking up what was said and storing it away to bring out at some unexpected moment, ller little Peter inn-t not be frightened. lie was rather a nervous' and imaginative child. I " 1 suppose it was a bear, Bridget," he said, and put down his cup to stare at her in that strange seeing wav which j made his eyes like no other blind eyes Kriduct had ever seen. It dragged a chain," Bridpct said, •'otherwise 1 might ha\e thought it a man."' j " And you were not frightened, you 1 in? l epid child 1 was frightened when the noise awoke me. After that 1 was so sorry for the poor thing that I forgot to lie : [l ightened. 1 thought—might they have | more hay '.' And the women and children [ inn*t be in a bad case." on want me to feed them n« well I as the bear-? How do you know tbe| nun will not oat the food? They will) be like the crows and the gull- that i siM/e all the food from the little birds j when you are trying to feed them. You I inu-t give your commands, Bridget and I -hall order them to be obeyed. 1 agree with you that it would be a shameful and horrible tragedy if the poor wretches starved. Madelaine will have fits, but 1 1 lion t think she will make anv trouble. \nd Kite will be your ally." Kate had ! ■een conk at Wildwater Forest for thirty ear<. and bad grown so mon-t roii-lv fat hat -he could not leave the kitchen premises. There was a standing fen I between her and the houseki eper. 15rii.get pave the orders to Kate. Sir Philip had given ],er plenary power. I lliat wan will elnp her wings and j -ereech. Mi--." said Kate with satistaetion. \ c'd think the ma-ter was •join' to the workhouse next week the way she does be coin' on about peononiv. I I never blame her «>r throw it up to her. 1 the tilings she does ISe taking to that j poor object at the l'ore-t Lodge. No. j indeed. I'm a christian woman, and many i time the thought of that poor object j and lier tenderness to him has robbed | me of my lawful jeer. I'll have hampers j ]iaekcd lor them poor haythens when i I hey ••nine again."' Bridget wa< not to get o(T scot free, l.ater on in the day she was over taken by Mrs Ware in the corridor, coining -o softly and gently that Bridget was unaware of her till she spoke. There I had been a curious sudden terror in the girl's mind as though something had sprung upon her unawares from Itehind. Mrs. Ware was breathing hard. She must have come freshly from an encounter with Kate. Her nostrils were dilated, her eyes hard, her hands closed and tinclosed. She seemed to Bridget to be on the verge of hysterics. ""It is you!" she said. "You!" es, it is I,' Bridget said with no I intention of offence, but Mrs. Ware took 1 it otherwise. j Mon l)ieu, you mock me!" she said, l in a pale fury. " I could kill you —kill i you. That woman in the kitchen, and her insolence, great fat pig! It is von— : you, who have put it into her mouth to say. AH was well before you came. Now, now, all is wrong. You will quit — or 1 shall (]tiit, (pie je votis dete-te!" Bridget stared at her in horror. She very much wanted to turn and rnn away for protection—where? It was ill living ill a house with a woman who so hated her Yet she must stay. She could not desert her post. She did not want to.' To leave Sir Philip in his blindness at i the mercy of this virago: it was unthink- j able. And she loved Wildwater Forest. | it would be desolate to leave it- ' [ have never done you any harm," she said. oti have hated ine from the! beginning without cause." Suddenly Mrs. Ware burst into tear—tears that extinguished the flame of! her eyes and released her sobbing breath. I "I am the most unhappy of women." j she said, and hurried on her way before Bridget could speak. I She went to the library where Sir] Philip turned his patient eyes towards. tl*> door as she came in. "I have been listening for your light! foot, Bridget," he said. ''Two letters have come, and I have been waiting for von to read them." Bridget took tlie letters. Tliev were from Tonv from his lirst port of call, one for Sir IMiilip, one for herself. "They are from Mr. Meade." she said. "One is for you and one for me. 1 will read yours." "And put by your own Bridget till, you have no eyes on you when you read," he said jealously. j-'here would be no need for that," she said valiantly. "I will read you mine after this." Xo, don t, Bridget." he said, and there was a note of alarm in his voice. | lony has written to me—it is enough.' Besides—you haven't looked at it. It may be only for your eyes. Tell me if there is anything that you think would interest me." She read him his own letter, thrusting hers into the little pocket of the overall | she wore when at work, a prettv thing jof sprawling roses on a black lwckj ground which I ony had described one day while Bridget. laughing and shv. reminded them in vain that it was rude to talk about people in their presence. lie did not say anything more about her letter. They went on with the work, lie dictating, she typing. There was no; sound in the room for a long time beyond his rich voice—lie had a singularly beautiful voice—and the clicking of the machine. Now and again a coal dropped from the lire, or Bobbie lying on the hearth side by side with Loup, the Alsation, hunted in his dreams, or Loup sighed uneasily. The house seemed very still. The falling snow outside seemed I to mtillle all sound. Bridget went on mechanically typing what the beautiful voice dictated. She was troubled and disturbed. Mrs. Ware had shaken her nerves, and that strange creature in the night.. She was not sure that it was a bear. It might have been j a man, a half-savage man. Iler mind went uneasily to the poor creature n the Forest Lodge. Could he have escaped? But no. The thing had dragged a chain. It must have been a bear, after all. (To be continued daily.)