CUT by the COUNTY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4615, 21 May 1886, Page 4

CUT by the COUNTY.

BY M. E. BRADDON,

CHAPTER IV. (Continued). "I cannot trust you," she answered, not in unkindness but in despair. "I have been often deceived. I know your nature too well. I will do what I can for you, but it must be in my own way. Oh, Vulentiue, why do you follow in the fatal road that your father trod to his doom ? The habits of the gambler and the drunkard ruined him, and they will ruin you if you do not reform. Think of his dreadful end—a murderer, a lunatic. Be warned iv time. No, my poor son, it is not too late. I will help you. I will visit you, befriend you in every way, if you will only show a real purpose of amendment. And now, for pity's sake, leave this hou.e, before Sir Allan overhears anything. Are you lodging in the village ?" " I have been lodging under hedges and haystacks since yesterday evening. When I landed at Newhuvcn yesterday morning I had just enough to pay for third-class ticket to London, and another third-class ticket to Scadleigh. I have been roaming about ever siuce with empty pockets and an empty stomach, watching for a chance of au interview with you or Grace."

"Thank God you did not see Grace—in this dreadful plight. Poor creature—poor unhappy boy," said Lady Darnel, glancing at the clock. "Ten minutes to twelve; they will hardly have gone to bed at the Coach and Horses, for they seldom close until after eleven. You bad better go there and get v room for the night. There is a sheltered lane at the back of the inn garden —a narrow lane with tall hedges. I will meet you there at seven to-morrow morning, and we can talk quietly, we can make some plau for your future. And now, go. There is not a moment to be lost, if you want to get shelter to-night." "I don't want to sleep under a hedge," he said sullenly, moving slowly towards the window, reluctant, undecided. At this moment the door leading into the corridor was opened a little way, and a sweet girlish voice said, "Mother, are you still up ." Lady Darnel rushed to the door, aud met Grace before she could enter the room. " Yes, dear child," she said, going out into the corridor, and shutting the door behind her. "Oh, Grace, why are you not in bed ? It is close upon midnight, and you were up at four." '' I couldn't sleep a wink, if I went to bed. Mayn't I come into your room for a few minutes' chat ?" "Not to - nigh t. It is too late." " How pale you are, mother ! Are you ill?" " No, no, not ill, only a little tried. I hare sat up too long. Now, Grace, I shall take you back to your room, and you must go to bed instantly." The girl was in her dressing gown, her splendid brown hair hanging loose upon her shoulders. Lady Darnel put her arm round her and led her along the corridor. Grace's and the the visitors' rooms were at tho end of the house, just beyoud those inhabited by Sir Allan and Lady Darnel. These three had the exclusive occupation of this southern wing. The central portion of the first floor was taken up by a picture gallery and a billiard room. Miss Darnel's rooms were in the northern wing. " What has made you so wakeful, Gracie?" asked Clare, when she had taken the girl back to her room.

Grace hesitated for a few moments, looking at the ground, and playing nervously with the lace frilling of her dressing gown. She was longing to tell all her troubles to her stepmother, yet dare not. Fear of her father's anger kept her dumb.

" Oh, I don't know," she said. Perhaps it was the exciting idea of our Italian tour. At any rate, I couldn't, and I thought if you were up I should like to have a talk. But you are too tired, and you ought to go to bed. You are as white as a ghost." " Yes, lam very tired. Good night, dear child."

"Good night, mother," and with an affectionate kiss they parted.

Lady Darnel did not go back to her room immediately. She wanted time—first to be sure that Grace did not follow her; secondly, to recover her coolness of brain, to consider quietly and calmly, if possible, what was to be done with this foolish son of hers. i±e would have gone when she went back to her room, perhaps ; or if he had not gone she would be better able to reason with him after a few minutes' quiet. She walked up and down the corridor two or three times, thinking deeply, trying to hit upon some line of conduct which might save Grace and reclaim the prodigal. Grace must on no account know that her lover was in the neighborhood. Girls are so foolish. His wretched condition would appeal to her pity. There is no knowing into what foolishness she might bo entrapped. The stable clock and the church clock struck twelve—the last with silvery solemn tone heard from afar across the elms and oaks, the dells and slopes where the cattle were lying at rest. Lady Darnel took one turn more. '«Hark! What can that be ?" No doubt as to what it was. Tho report of a pistol. What it meant was another thing. For a moment or so Clare Darnel stood motionless with terror. Then there came the thud of a heavy fall. "It is in my room," cried Clare, beside herself with apprehension, remembering the revolvers in their case on the table, the open case with dark red velvet lining glowing in the lamp-light. She bad looked at it absently while Valentine was talking to her —looked at it with mind so abstracted as never to consider how fatal a thing a revolver may be.

"He has killed himself !" she cried distractedly. She rushed to her room, tearing at the door with convulsive hands which made the mere turning of the handle seem a work of time and difficulty. She expected to see her reprobate son stretched upon the floor and weltering in his blood. She knew not that a worse evil had befallen her.

She went into the room. The casement was wide open, aud the night wind was blowing in, scattering the papers on her writing table. The doorway leading into tho bedroom was open, the velvet portiere pulled aside, and Allan Darnel was lying across the threshold, bleeding, dead, as his wife thought in the supreme agony of that moment.

While she stood looking at him, with clasped hands, his daughter rushed into the room, and saw what had happened.

CHAPTER V."as from a dream of murder."

Grace's shrieks rang through the,silent house. The wife flung herself on the ground by her husband's side, voicele.B in a dumb agony, clinging to the prostrate form, kissing the pallid face, imploring for a word, a look.

He was loosely dressed in trousers and velvet dressing-gown, dressed like a man who had risen hastily at a strange sound, prepared to face a. midnight intruder. His •wife opened his dressing-gown and laid her car against his breast. Yes, the heart was beating still, feebly as it seemed to her; a beat which might dwindle into silence at any moment, a thread of life that might snap while she listened. Servants came, sleepy, confused, all talking at once. Then, "Dora Daniel, veiy .delicate and dainty in a flowing white garment with pile pink ribbons; then the Colonel, iv an old red velvet dressinggown, which made him look like a wizard. " For God's sake let somebody go for the doctor," said Clare, without lifting her head, then, as Stukeley knelt on the other side of his friend's prostrate form, " Oh, Colonel, you can help us. You will ..now. Is it a dangerous wound ? Docs it mean j death ?"

"Not death, no, no. God forbid," said the Colonel. "It is a nasty wound; terrible loss of blood, The bullet has hit rather low, ju.t below the ribs. What was he doing with that accursed revolver?" " I don't know. They were on the ta'ole. He was looking at them an hour ago l je f or e he went to bed." "You don't know 'r" said tha Colonel wonderingly. " Weren't you \_i tho room ■when it happened_" " No. I was iv the coi.iidor. I had been in Grace's room." "He was alono then ?" " I—l suppose so." "Oh, my poor, poor brother," ejaculated Dora. _ "To think that he should have lifted his hand to take away his own life. He, so good a Christian, he, who used to be so happy." , _ " How dare you say that ho tried to take Bis own life," said Clara, oot loudly, but •with intense indignation. ,( You kiw.w.l

that he is happy. That hehas never known a caro since he has been my husband, except his too thoughtful care for me. Oh, m} - darling, what evil things will not be said of me while your voico is silent to defend," sho added, apostropising her unconscious husband with passionate love.

'' There will always be a voice to defend you—were defence needed—while Allan's friend is at your side," said the Colonel quietlj. Purdew, the old butler, was in the room, kneeling by his master. He too had seen gunshot wounds, and he knew that this was a desperate one. With his help Colonel Stukeley could Lave enrried his old friend into the next room and laid him on his bed, but after a murmured consultation they agreed that it was wise not to lift him until tho surgeon came. The loss of blood might be intensified by any alteration of position. Lady Darnel brought a pillow for her husband's head. A servant brought somo brandy, and the Colonel wetted Sir Allan's lips with a little, while Lady Darnel damped his forehead with eau-de-cologne. But there was no signs of returning consciousness. ' A groom had ridden off for the doctor. They heard the clatter of hoofs just now galloping along the avenue; but let him gallop as he might, it must be more than half-an-hour before the doctor could arrive. The Colonel and Purdew did all that could be done to staunch the blood which oozed slowly from Sir Allan's side. It was a terrible half-hour, a half-hour of agony, in which every moment might bring the fatal end of their fainting hopes, Clare Darnel crouched upon tho ground beside her husband, hanging over him with white lips and despairing eyes, watching his ghastly face with a counteuance that was almost as death-like.

"He will die," she kept saying to herself, "he will die by the hand of my son. Oh, God ! why did I ever link my accursed life with his ?"

Her mind went back to that other night of murder, the report of the gun ringing sharp in the silence of night, startling hor from the heavy slumber of sheer exhaustion —the moment of bewilderment and doubt, then the rush to the window to sec what had happened. The picture of that vanished scene flashed back upon her as sho hung over hor husband. The moonlit barrack yard—doors opening, lights appearing, dark figures crossing the quadrangle, and then a figure carried across tho yard by four men. Her first thought had been that it was her husband's figure she thus carried—that he had escaped from his room and killed himself. She was to know soon that the calamity was even worse than this. And now came a second tragedy, a dire and horrible deed which was perhaps to desolate her life for ever. At last there camo the sound of horses' hoofs again, galloping up the avenue—two horses this time, and sounding in the night silence like six—then the opening of doors below, and then footsteps in the corridor, and the doctor was amidst them, a stout, elderly man, commonplace, but clever, a man to be relied on in calamit}'.

He put them all aside and knelt down on one knee to examine his patient; and then, without expressing any opinion, he ordered every one out of the room except the Colonel and Purdew.

" Grace, take care of Lady Darnel," said the Colonel, and Grace put her arm round her stepmother and tried to lead her away. Tho woman's eyes wero dry and burning. She had not yet shed a tear.

"No, Grace," she said, " I will not go away. If I must not stay in this room I will wait in the corridor. I will not go far from Allau."

At the mention of her husband's name she burst into a flood of tears, the first relief that had come to her since that first shock of her reprobate son's entrance.

It was in vain that Grace pleaded, in vain that Dora lectured. Clare Darnel would not move beyond the outside of the morn-ing-room door. She knelt with her ear against the keyhole, knelt there, listening, and praying dumbly now and then, till the doctor came out, after a delay of an hour or or more. "Will he die?" sho asked, seizing the doctor's arm.

(To be continued.)