LITERATURE. WINNIAN'S LOVERS.

Bush Advocate, Volume XI, Issue 865, 30 November 1893, Page 4

LITERATURE. WINNIAN'S LOVERS.

<c ■ "'. Chapter 111 (Continued ) ' Then, my lord, I promise you ■'"> that if ever help of mine can aid >' Miss. Fane that help shall not be ;-. wanting. But I pray you are misx taken, and that if I return safe •-.,- from Egypt I may find you here to giro me a welcome. 1 ' Why say 'in 1 ; 'The odJs are great enough.' 1 You will come back,' said the old man, musingly, ' and you will '■ bo kind to my child. Something tells me so.' And then Bertram went to Lon--1 don, sceptical of all woman's truth, and yet touched more than he , could have believed by the giilish pleading of "Winnian Trevanon. He did nob eveu know her Christian name — to him she was simply ■.' • Miss Trevanon.' He had seen her but once. She was nothing to him— nothing in the world— and yet the strangest :•' part of it was, that however .often he told himself this, the giiTs blue eyes still haunted him. '". ' Just four months after ho left England he returned. The campaign was not ended, but he had received sufficient injuries to mako sick leave indispensable. He was so ill when he left Egypt that some pnoplu declared he would never reach England ; but reach it he did one bleak November day, a little thinner, a littlo paler than when he went away, his left arm in a sling, and a general air of illhealth pervading his whole being. He drove straight to Clargesstreet. It was a chance if the old roems were to Ist, yet he felt they : would bo more like home to him than any place on earth now Castle Netherleigh was closed ;o him, for the old carl's prophecy had been ; . • fulfilled. He slept with his fathers now, and a slight, black-robed girl ruled in the old halls Bertram had loved '■■-.. ■ so well.' The rooms in Clarges-strect were \ : vacant, and Captain Deney installed himself there at once; He had a strange longing in him .-' to go to Dorrington and seek the : welcome that had been promised him at the Grange ; but ho had ■' " business that claimed attention, and *" ' it seemed best to halt first in Lon- .; don. ... He drove lo his solicitors the '.- • very day after his return. Mr Carpenter, a genial, shrewd lawyer, ' who had been Bertram's friend as well as adviser, wrung his hand as he congratulated him on his safe re> ./-' turn from the Egyptian campaign. v . .. ' And covered with glory, too : 'j. you're to be' a full major at once, I hear. If. only poor Lord Neth erloigh had lived a little longer ?' . « Can you tell me anything of •■""« him ?' 'He died almost suddenly at the X last, and, left the straDgest will 1 .have ever heard.' ' - • All his property went to his grandchild, I suppose ? He toid mo that was his intention, and 1 .■ . thought it just.' ' She has ten thousand pounds outright, -and everything, else, or one condition.' ' And that V ' Don't start ; that she marries : you within three years of the earl's decease, or twelve months after you : return to ilngland, should that be delayed.' ' Poor child ! she won't touch hei inheiitance.' ' Should you refuse, the whole property is sequestered ■ for more than twenty years, except an annual income of five hundred. Should the young lady take the initiative she loses all but the same five hundred a year — and even that if she marries •without her guardian's consent. The rest comes to you absolutely. 1 ' I don't want it.' ' You can't help it. I think Lord Netherleigh must have understood you very well.' ' How f ' He knew yon were too generous to 'make his grandchild penniless ; you see. only in the event of her marrying you can she enjoy her inheritance.' ' And if I refuse, I suppose it goes to found some asylum for idiots V said Bertram. 'No; it goes to your eldest son or Miss Fane's — whichever first attains the age of twenty-ono.' ' The earl must have been anxious for us to marry. to try such a bribe.' ' Yes.' ' Have you seen her V ' Miss Fane 1 I have not had that pleasure— she is iv Yorkshire,' said the lawyer. 'I suppose she knows all V ' She knows nothing save that she inherits the property under certain conditions ; they are to be made known to her next March, on her nineteenth birthday, which, oddly enough, is the day on which the first half-year after the earl's death is completed. 1 'What a muddle he. made of things V ' Not at all, if you marry Miss Fane.' •But I shall not.' ' Then you deprive her of a fortune' 'I can't help that.' ' I have other news for you. You remember theDorrißgton mortgage? Remember it ! He did indeed. Ho had tried pretty hard to forget it, but without the slightest avail ; but he was a man of the world. lie nodded assent as carelessly as though the question had been * utterly indifferent. ' I thought at the time you were foolish to extend the time, but, to •my surprise, the whole has been paid off, interest and principle.' • When 1 ' October — six weeks ago. Mr Trevanon come up himself to see me about it — a most distinguishedlooking man, and so well informed it was a treat to talk to him.' Captain Deney had certainly found it a great treat to talk to his daughter. ' Had Mr Trevanon come into a gold mine, or received an unexpected legacy !' To be continued)