Prisoners and Captives.

Evening Star, Issue 9775, 3 August 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

Prisoners and Captives.

Br Henry Seton Mkrrtmax (Author of • Young Mistlcy,' * The Phantom Future,' ' Suspense').

VOLUME II

CHAPTER X. MISS WINTER DIVERGES,

"My DearOswin,— "If you want to carry out this theatre party, come and see me about it. I shall be at home all the morning. " Yours very truly, " Acnes' Winter."

The young sailor read this letter among others at the breakfast table. His father and sister were engaged on their own affairs; Helen with her letters, the admiral among his newspapers. Oawin Grace read tho letter twice, and then with a glance to see thathe was unobserved by his sister, heslipped it into his pocket, together with the envelope that had contained it.

"Have you," said Helen, immediately afterwards, "a letter from Agnes "? " Yea," he replied, opening a second missive with airy indifference. " She wants me 10 arrange about the theatre. I shall go round and see her this morning—will you come with me ?"

The girl raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly. There had been a time when he would have schemed unscrupulously to go alone. "I am afraid," she answered, quietly, " that I cannot go out this morning. I nave so much to do in the house." " You had better come." " If you will put it off to this afternoon I should like to," she replied. " No; lam engiged this afternoon." " Where ?" inquired the admiral without raising his eyes from the newspaper. "At the docks—with Tyars." There WJ3 nothing more said, and at eleven o'clock Oiwla went out alone. The fog and gloom of late November h*d given place to a bright, dry cold, and this, without any great fall in the thermometer, now held complete sway over mud aud water. Miss Winter's elderly maid-servant evidently expected Lieutenant Grace, for she opened the door and stood back invitingly. Then when he was in the hall unbuttoning hia thick pilot coat she informed him that Miss Agnes was out, but was to return in a few moments. He was ushered up into the warm, luxurious drawing room, and after the door had been closed stood for a few moments irresolute in the middle of the deep carpet. Presently he began to wander about the room, taking things up and setting them down again. He inhaled the subtle atmosphere ot feminine home refinement and looked curiously round him. There were a hundred little personalities, little inconsidered feminine trifles that are only found where a woman is quite at home. The very arrangement of the room proved that it was a woman's room, that a womau lived her every-day life there, and set her indefinable subtle stamp upon everything. There was a silly little lace handkerchief, utterly useless and vain, lying upon a table beside a workbasket. He took it up, examined its texture critically, and then instinctively raised it to his face. He, threw it down again with a .peculiar twisted smile. " Wonder what scant it is," he muttered. "I have never come across it—anywhere .else.''

He went towards the mautel-piecc; upon •it were two portraits —old photographs, jsomewhat faded; one of Helen, the other of himself. He examined his own likeness for some moments. " Solemn little beggar,'' he said, for the photograph was of a little square-built midshipman with a long oval face. "Solemn little beggar; wonder what his end will be ': Wonder why he is on this mantelpiece?" Then he continued his mental inventory, stopping finally "on the hearthrug with his back turned towards the fire, his hands thrust into the side-pockets of his short blue serge jacket. " I think," he reflected aloud," that I was rather a fool to come here. Tyars would not like it,"

While he was still following out the train of thought suggested by this reflection the door opened and Miss Winter entered. She had evidently just come in, for she was still gloved aud furred. "Ah !" she said, gaily ; " you have come. 1 was afraid that yjur exacting commander would require your services all the morning." " My exacting commander," he answered, as he took her gloved hand in his, "his a peculiar way of doing everything himself and leaving his subordinates idle." She was standing before him slowly unbuttoning her trim little sealskin jacket, Then she drew oft'her glove 3 aud threw them down on a chair beside her jacket. There was about her movements that subtle sense of feminine luxury which is slightly bewildering to men unaccustomed to English home-life. The coLi bright air had brought aglow of color to her rounded cheeks; she might easily have been a lovely girl of twenty-one. But there was a fascination in her which was equal to that of youth, if not superior—the fascination of perfect selfpossession, of perfect savoir-faire. She teemed singularly sure of herself, quite certain as to what she was going to say or do next. She seemed to know how to make the best of life, how to laugh in the right places, and work and play ; and perhaps she knew how to love if Bhe set her mind that way. " The delicate daughter," she said, cheerily, "of the genial milkman has been suddenly taken worse. I knew that meant ( jelly, so I took it round at once with last week's 'Graphic,' and got it over. I hope I have not kept you waiting ?" " Oh, no; thanks," he replied. It almost seemed that he was not quite at ease with his old playmate—the companion of his childhood, the little sweetheart of his " Britannia" days. If this was so the change was all on his side, for she persistently treated him with that sisterly familiarity which has led so many of us into mistakes that might be ludicrous if they only did not leave such a nasty sting behind them. She approached the mirror above the mantel-piece, and, in continuance of her sisterly treatment, proceeded placidly to draw out the lone; m& from her hat, while he watched the defray of her fingers. " I have been wandering round the room," he continued, resolutely turning a*ay, " looking for old friends." " You have scarcely been in this room," she said, without looking round, " since you came back." 41 No-o-o'. I found a little thimble in the top of your work-basket. Do you remember how we used to make indigestible little loaves of bread and cook them in a thimble over the gas ?" "Yes," she laughed, "it is the same thimble. It fits me still." She held up for his edificatiou a small dimpled hand with clever capable little fingers bent coqnettishly backwards. He gave a short laugh, and took no notice of the tempting fingers. Then, having removed her hat, she knelt down in front oi the fire to warm herself. " What," she said suddenly, "about this expedition ?" He looked back at her over his shoulder, for he had gone towards the window, and there was a sudden gleam of determination in his eyes. It was her influence that had disturbed Tyars's resolution. " What expedition?" he asked, curtly, on his guard. "This theatre expedition," she replied, sweetly. " Oh, well; I supposa it will be carried through. We all want to go." if We—all?" she said, inquiringly. He came nearer to her, standing actually on the hearthrug beside her and looking down. , ™ "Helen," he explained, "and Tyars, and myself, and Ea9ton, I believe." She gave a little nod at the mention of each name, tallying them off in her mind. " And," he continued, " I suppose you are not strongly opposed to it ?" " I," she laughed lightly ; "of course I want to go. You know that I am always ready for amusement, profitless or otherwise —profitless preferred! Why do you look go grave, Oswin? Please don't —I hate solemnity. Do you kuow yea have got horribly grave lately ? It is "It is what Agnes?" He was looking down at her with his keen, close-set grey eyes, and she met his glance for a moment only.

"MrTyaro," she answered, clasping her fingers together and bending them backwards as if to restore the circulation after ber cold walk.

" There is something," said Grace, after a littlo pause, during which Miss Winter had continued to rub a remarkably rosy littlo pair of hands together, "that jars. Tyara annoys you in some way." Miss Wiuter changed color. She looked very girlish with tho hot bhi3h fading slowly from her cheeks. She did not however make any atswer.

'"What is it?" asked Grace. "His energy ?" " No-o," slowly, with a faint suggestion of coquetry. " His gravity ?" " No." " His independence ?" " I like men to be energetic, grave, and independent. All men should be so." "Then what is it?" asked Oawin. She made no answer.

" Won't you ttl 1 me, Agnes ?" he urged ; and as he spoke he walked away from her and stood looking out of the window. They were thus at opposite sides of the room, back to back. She glanced over her shoulder, drew in a deep breath, and then spoke with au odd little smile which was almost painful. .One would almost have thought that she "was going to tell a lie "His Arctic expeditions," she said, deliberately. "If he is going to spend his life in that sort of tiling I would rather—not—cultivate —his friendship." She leant forward, warming her hands feverishly, breathing rapidly and unevenly. She felt* him approach, for his footsteps were inaudible on the thick carpet, and she only crouched a little lower. At last, after a horrid silence, he spoke, and his voice was quite different; it was deeper and singularly monotonous. " Why should you not wish to cultivate his friendship under those circumstances?" "Because," she answered, lamely, "I should hate to have a friend of mine--a real friend— ruuniug the risk of such a horrible death."

He walked away to the window again and stood there with his hands thrust into his jacket-pockets—a sturdy, square little mau—a plucky, self-contained Englishman, taking his punishment without a word. He was, as has been stated, rather ignorant in the ways of women. Most naval men are. And he fell into the trap blindly. Ho was actually foolish enough to believe that Agnes Winter loved Claud Tyars, and he was ignorant enough to believe that a woman ever tell 3 one man of her love for another. It seems almost incredible that he should do this. It is only men who make such mistakes as regards human nature. As a man of honor he had carefully schooled himself to Bhow this kdy by every action, word, and gesture that if he had at one time been moved to regard her with other than the eyes of a brother, that time was passed. This wa3 the least he could do in honor towards her, in faith towards Claud Tyars. Whether he succeeded or not could only be known to Agues Winter herself. But, to judge from the expression of his face, from the contracted pain of his eyes as he stood looking down into the quiet street, it would seem that he had not been prepared to hear from her own lips that this woman, whom he had loved all his life, loved another man. The news, coming suddenly as it did, almost threw him off his mental equilibrium. This nauseating sense of unsteadiness in a great purpose is probably not quite unknown to the majority of us. It is so easy to make up one's mind to a noble sacrifice and to give entire attention to the larger duties attending on it. Then comes some sudden unforeseen demand upon our self-suppression ; sometimes it is almost trivial, and yet it leaves us shaken and uncertaiu.

Oswin remembered the jealous pangs with which he first saw these two together. Subsequent events had disarmed his jealousy and allayed his fears. Even now he could not realise what she had told him. And yet he was mad enough to believe it. Moreover, he coutinued to believe it. It v.as only at a suosequent period that he began to doubt and to analyse, and then it was clear enough to him. It was clear that in implying she had in no way committed herself. He had understood her to confess that she was on the verge of falling in love with this nineteenth-century knight-errant, and yet she had made no such confession. It is probable that in that later season he remembered the words and not the manner of saying them. For, after all, the most important tiling is not what wc say, but how we say it. Do we not say every day the same trivial things I hat were said in Pompeii? Do we scribblers not write the same silly old story over aud over again ? Do we not smear the gilt over the same stale old gingerbread, and try to mako inexperienced young folks believe that it is solid gold, just as our predecessors endeavored to persuade us ? Suddenly Oswin Grace setmed to recall himself to the matter-'of-facl question under discussion.

"That,'' he said, "is the worst of making 'riende. One is bound to drift away from .hem. But still it is foolish to hold aloof on :hat account."

She laughed in rather a strained way. " Our maritime philosopher," she said, "will now expound a maxim. Ex-pound. Derivation—to pound out." "Shall I get the tickets?" he asked in a practical way. "Please." " Well, then, I will go oil' at once and book them."

He shook hands and left her standing in ;he middle of the room.

" Perhaps," she murmured regretfully, "it was very cruel—or it may be only my own self-conceit. At all events it was not so cruel as they are to Helen. I do not think that they will both go now." ( To be continued.)