k Leap in the Dark

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2338, 3 February 1913, Page 2

k Leap in the Dark

OR, WED, BUT NO WIFE.

By MAY AGNES FLEMING,

Author of "The Secret of Bantry Hall," Etc., Etc.

TART 10. CHAPTER XVII. THE ROAD TO RUIN. And then at last she said her prayers and went to bed. But the bright broad day was shining gloriously in before the happy eyes were sealed by sleep. The nr.v day —the beginning of a new life. Early on the following morning Mr. Augustus Stedman "took a run up town." And late in the evening Mr. Guy Earlscourt was driven dov n frem the Priory to catch the last express. The grey of the summer evening was fas-t deepening to darkness as Guy Earlscourt jumped out and ran to the office for his ticket. In two minutes the train would start. One of those minutes he spent at the ticket-office, the other in lighting a cigar and looking about him. Half a dozen loungers were scattered about the platform, and save himself there was but another passenger, who wore a close black veil, and who carried a small bag in her hand. Something in this lonely female figure, standing there in the gloaming—something familiar —made the >®ung grardsman look again. She saw the glance, and came gliding up to him, and laid one hand upon his arm. "Mr. Guy." "Alice !" She had not lifted the close mask of black lace, but he recognised the voice, the whole form, the instant she spoke. "'Yes, Mr. Guy—l am going to London, and—and I am- frightened to go alone. Might I —would you " "Now, then, sir!" cried the guard, holding open the door of the firstclass compartment. "Look sharp, if you please." "This way, Alice, exclaimed Guy ; and the three words spoken in half a whisper, reached the ears of the gjuard to be graven on his professional memory and destined to be repeated years after with such deadly peril to the unconscious speaker. There was no time for, parley, no time for questions or remonstrance. He assisted her in, sprang after, the whistle shrieked, and the express train flew away through the darkening night.

"Now, then, Miss Alice Warren, explain yourself ! What does a young lady from Speckhaven mean by running away to London at th'is unholy hour, and alone ? I give you my word, I should as soon have expected to behold the Czarina of all the Kussias at the station as you." The veil was still down—its friendly shelter hid the burning, painful blush that overspread the girl's face, bat he could see she shrank and trembled.

"I am obliged to you, Mr. Guy."

"You are—eh ? I hope for everybody's sake ray old friend Matthew knows all about it. And if he does my o'd friend Matthews ought to be ashamed of himself letting his pretty daughter run wild up to London. Where is Peter Jenkins, too —the, sturdy miller —that he doesn't look better after his little affianced ?" '"I am not his affianced," Alice replied, between a laugh and a sob; "I never was. And my father a nd mother don't know I've come. Please don't blame them, Mr. Guy." "Then. Alice, are you quite sure you ought to have come at all ? It is no business of rnina, that is certain, but, for old friendship's sake — we were always good friends, Alice, you know—-I should like you to tell me what is taking you to London."

There was a gravity and earnestness in bis tone and face very unusual. He was the last man in the world to turn censor of other men and women ; if they went all wrong and came to grief, why, it was only the usual lot, and what had happened to himself. Frank might do precisely as he pleased. It was no affair of his or any man's ; and with a woman of the world Guy would ha-yjjl thought it a pretty equal contest, where a fair field and no favour were all either had a right to expect. But this, was different — this fresh hearted little country girl whom he had known from childhood. "As in a glass elarkly" he saw the truth, and for once in his life felt actually called upon to remonstrate. '''Alice," he said, "I don't want to pry into any secret of yours. You know your own afiairs best, of course, but is this a wise step you are taking 7 Think be'ore it is too late, and turn back while there is yet lime." '"There is no time. It is too Uite. And I would not turn hack if I :ould." She s'pokc more firmly than he had jver heard her. She was thinking •hat this time to morrow she would je Frank's wife. "You Know best. Pardon my interference. At least you will permit me to see you to your destina:ion." She took from her purse a slip of japer and handed it. to him. "I am going there. If you will ake me to it I Will be very, very :hankful." Mrs. Howe's lodgings, 20, Gilbert's gardftis, Tottenham Court•oad," read Guy. "Ah, I don't mow. Mrs. Howe's lodgings, Gilbert 's-gardens, sounds rural, though. i'es, Miss Warren, I shall certainly =ec you there ; and now, with your lermission, I will read the evening 3aper." And then silence fell between them. It was close upon midnight when :he countless lamps of London first shone before the country girl's dazed ;yes. The bustle and uproar of the jtation terrified her ; she clung in

atirlg&t to Mr. Earlscourt s arm ; and then they were in a four-wheel-ed cab, whirling rapidly away to Gilbert's gardens. "It's rather an unearthly hour." remarked Guy, looking at his watch. "I only hope Mrs. Home—no, Howe —is prepared to receive us."

Mrs Howe was. Mr. Stedman had arranged that, as well as other matters ; and Miss Warren was affably received by a thin little woman, with a pinched mse and a wintry smile, and shown to the lady's sitting-room at once,, She gave her hand to her companion, with a glance of tearful'gratitude. "Thank you very much, Mr. Guy ; I don't know how I should have got here but for you. Good night ; and oh, please"-—piteously—"don't say anything to anybody down home about having met me." "Certainly not, Alice. Good-night." He had reached the door when a sudden impulse struck him, and he turned back. He took both her' hands in his own, and looked kindly, pityingly down in the sweet, tearwet face.

"Little Alice," he said, " I'm a good-for-nothing fellow, but. I have a very tender regard for you. If ever you find yourself up a tree —I mean in trouble of any kind—l wish you'd come to me. I'll help you if I can. Here is an address to whi'h you; can write at any time, and if ever you call upon me I will nsver fail you." The dark. handsome face, the brown, earnest eyes, swam before the girl in a. hot mist. If he had been her brother he could hardly have felt more tenderly towards her than at that moment. Trouble ! He knew,, if she did not, what dark and bitter trouble was in store for her, and he was helpless to ward it off.

"I've had the fortune to come across a good many inscrutable cards in my time," he thought, as ho ran downstairs, "but for inscrutability, Monti puts the topper on the lot. What an internal scoundrel he is ! and what an inconceivable idiot that poor child ! Of course, he's going to marry her ; nothing else would have induced a girl like that to take such a step." Mrs. Howe led the way upstairs with a simper on her faded face. '•'l know all about it, miss," she whispered, confidentially; "the younrf man as was here this morning--a most genteel young man he is—told me that you was going to be married, you know, miss, and that is the gentleman, of course, a military gentleman, as one may see. and the very 'andsomestj as I ever set eyes on." Alice shrunk away, almost with dread. How dare Mr. Stedman tell this strange woman her secret ? She entered her room —a neat little apartment enough, but 'insufferably close and stuffy as it seemed to the country girl, used to the fresh breath of the German Ocean and the sweet breeze of the Lincolnshire wold.

When Guy Earlscourt told Alice Warren that he was '" a good-for-nothing sort of fellow," he uttered a fact in which he would have found a great many people to agree. As fast as man could tread that broad, sun-lit, flower-strewn way known as the "Road to Ruin," Lieutenant Guy Earlscourt had been treading it for the past three years. Just one year and a half ago his father had died, away 'in Syria, of typhoid fever. Amid strangers, in a strange land. Nugent, Baron Montalien's long exile of sixty years had abruptly ended. He drifted out of life as quietly, as thoroughly selfpossessed and gentlemanly as he had drifted through it. His will had been made before he quitted England. All that it. was -n his. power to leave his second son he had left. It was not much as that son lived—but a drop in the vast ocean- of his debts and expenditure.

He had but one trouble—the thought of the girl whom Robert Hawksley had left in his charge. Whom should he appoint guardian in his own stead ? He thought over all the men he knew, and there was not one among them suitable, or, it suitable, willing to undertake the troublesome duty. He had almost given up the problem in despair, when Sir Chartei'is suddenly appeared upon the scene. It was no premeditated meeting ; it was the merest chance—if there be such a thing as chance—if tho destiny that was shaping the ends of Paulina Lisle had not driven him thither. He was the one man wh 0 m his lordship had not thought of. A vague dislike and distrust of him had been in his mind ever s'incc the day upon which Lady Charteris bad made her passionate declaration that ho had insulted her, and that she w o uld never forgive him. Poor Lady Charteris ! it mattered little whom she forgave now ; she was the inmate of a madhouse. She had never recovcreel from that sudden illness down at Montalien ; and three weeks from the time when her husband had taken her up to town her mind had entirely given way, and she had been ever since an inmate »f a private asylum. Her delusion was a singular one. Sir Vane Charteris was not her husband, she persisted. Her lawful husband was alive and in America, to whom she was always trying to write. And having placed his insane wife in safe keeping, and his daughter at a fashionable, boarding-house, Sir Vane Charteris also set out—to drown the great trouble of his life—sight-seeing, in distant lands. At. the close of a bright summer day he entered the little Syrian village where my lord lay dying. It seemed Providence to the sick man. Almost the first words spoken was tiie question—would he assume '.at his stead the guardianship of Paulina Lisle ? There ruse up over the swarthy l* a ce of the baronet, a Hush that was not the rosy light of the eastern sunset. Me had never thought of this. Among all the chances that were to place Mis wife's elder daughter in his power, he bad never thought of this.

It was a moment before he could) answer—a moment during which his face was turned far away from the dying man. and his black eyes gazed at the rainbow light in the Syrian sky. Then he spoke very quietly :

'lf it will relieve your mini any, my lord, I willingly -accept the charge. With my unfortunate domestic affliction, I had no thought of ever again making England my home ; but .my duty to my daughter, perhaps, should be paramount jover every mere personal grief. I will become Miss Lislc's guardian and fulfil my duty to the best of my ability. She and Maud will bt companions, and my sister Eleanor—Mrs. Galbraith, you recollect will preside) over my home.

The necessary documents were immediately drawn up ; and that night when the great white moon rose up out of the orient, Nugent, Lord Montalien, lay white and cold in death.

Sir Vane Charteris lingered in the Syrian village long enough to perform his last duties to his friend. The body was embalmed and transported to England ; and perhaps among all who stood bareheaded around while the great vault down at Montalien opened to receive another inmate, Guy Earlscourt was the only mourner at heart. It had not been the way of father and son to speak of it. or even much to think of it. but in their secret hearts they had loved each othir wonderfully well. For Francis, the newLord Montalien, he looked, as he always did, the model of all filial virtues and quiet grief ; but the daring spirit within him exulted. His was the power now and the glory—the, not the dead man's favourite, reigned in Monta'icn.

He listened with the same expression of subdued sorrow when the will was. read, and knew that his father had not left him one memento of fatherly regard. Ail h«d gone to Guy—a trifle, perhaps, hut all. He grasped', his brother's hands wh ?n when they were alone together, and looked at him with glistening eyes. "'Guy, old fellow," he sftid, "thirteen thousand is not much to you with your habits and tastes, but when you are up a tree call upon me without fear. The income Montalien is a noble one. and I shall share it as a brother should. Stint yourself in no way ; your debts shall ,jG paid." Guy lifted his dark eyebrows and pulled his moustache in dense bewilderment. "Has Frank gone irad, I wonder?" he thought,: "he jay my debts ! Why, the selfish beggar would not give me a sou to keep me from starving. What the deuce idoes ho mean by gushing in this way?" But aloud he was answered, •'•Than'cs, very much. You're not half a bad fellow, Frank !" and had straightway proceeded to squan ler his legacy, which he managed very completely to do 'in a year.

CHAPTER XVIII AT BRIGHTON.

Great was the rejoicings and many the greetings with which th? appearance in society of Sir Vane's charming ward was hailed. Amongst the. first to welcome, her return was Lord Montalicn, a nd he at once became the object of her rooted aversion. Sir Vane Charteris took his family to Brighton to spend the remainder of the autumn. He had hired a la r KC furnished house on the East Cliff. The situation was (harming ; the broad bright sea spread away and away until it melted into the broad bright sky. On very clear days you saw the bold coast of Dieppe from the windows, an 1 the Chain Pier glimmering in the f:o-dy November sunshine below the Cliff. Miss Lisle, for whose benefit the removal had chiefly hern, rn'oyed Brighton ama'ingly. In the first

i place there was the sea -and Paulina. j loved the sea ; then there were long J canters over the golden Sussex downs jiuit.il the young lady's eyes shone I'ke diamonds, and the usua'ly pale cheeks like August roses. And so Miss Lisle was fairly launeh;ed upon the sunny sea of society i for which she had been made. There I was only one drawback to all this ' blissfuh enjoyment—Lord MontaHcn, | her ogre, who persisted in escorting i them everywhere, on being the com ' panion of her gallops over the downs, | her drives, her walks, and hanging ■ on the back of her chair at the the ai tie all the evening long. He was iat the baronet's house by night and | day.; he dined invariably with the j family whenever they dined at home, ! and half worried Paulina into a i fever with the zeal and oppression of ! his devotion. People began to link I their names together. Montalien was a shrewd follow —alj ways liked money, and lie was going jin for Miss Lisle. A miser at heart, not a bit like the Earlscourts—a : shabby beggar, too, at bottom- it, ! was a pity so glorious a girl should Ibe flung away upon such a fellow ! At a grand ball in the Pavilion, | Miss Lisle met. Guy Earlscourt for j the first time since her return from school. A long and eargest convcrsa- ; tion took place between them, while ] Lord Montalien watched at a disi lance, eating his heart out with j vain curiosity. The ball was over, Sir Vane's carriage was. ordered, and to Paulina's . intense disgust she found that Lord Montalien was to accompany them

home. The pallid dawn was already overspreading the sky when th;y reached the Past Cliff. His lordship followed them into the house. Miss Lisle and Mrs. Galbraith went at once to their respective apartments, and Sir Vane, yawning very much, looked well disposed to follow, but his lordship laid his hand familiarly on his shoulder and detained him. '"Rather an unanswerable hour, I know," he sa'id, blandly ; "'but could I have a word with yon in private, Sir Vane, before you retire ?" The baronet looked at him in surprise, and led the way towards his study. A fire burned in the grate, two easy chairs were placed before it, a pair of wax lights burned on the