THE GRIP OF GOLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3561, 28 June 1912, Page 3

THE GRIP OF GOLD.

By ROBERT HALIFAX. (Author of “The Drums of Fate," “The House of Horror,” “A Woman in Their Web,” "Law Society,” etc., etc.)

(Copyright—All Rights' Reserved.^

CHAPTER 111. “OH, I HATE YOU!”' It vibrated along the corridor, and left a strange hush- Roth women seemed to he suspending their breath. Then, foi- once; the ghost of a laugh left Sister Judith’s cold Jips. “If you realy mean that,” .she said, “it might seem worth while endeavoring to win back his heart without delay Or. perhaps, you would like mo to appeal to liis maids fooling on your behalf?” Drawn up, motionless, Sheba answered with a look—the look that perhaps only a woman could interpret, and that made even Sister Judith flinch. But the triumph, if a triumph had- been sought,' was hers. She drew calmly back, to close the- door and so end’ i:. No! It had all but clicked, when there came from the far corner a sound —a dull, thrilling moan, twice-

repeated—that- might have been “Sheba! Sheba!” And Sheba heard. The voice for which she had listened

in agony for days ; tlie voice that had persistently called to her -in her dreams ! The joy, the nameless fear, the vague awe of it, swept her from head to foot—gave her thei rush of courage foi r which she had longed. She turned, with ia choking-like cry. “Mr. Loder ! I know all— —I am herd! He wants me—his own voice calls me !” There could he nothing so definite as a struggle on that threshold. Sister Judith’s arm had shot out like a bar, hut it was swept hack; Sheba brushed by her with a daring resoluteritvs and strength that awed herself afterwards. Straight across to the curtained space in the shadowy corner she panted, her muffled sobs dying to a reverent whisper as she bent at last —at last!—over the grim, granitelike face, and stared clone into its iilmed, strange eyes.

“Mr Loder! You know me—Sheba? Only speak—only tell me there is one last thing 1| can do to pay for the life I owe you !’•'

“It's Sheba!” Deeper yet sank the thrilled voice. "I am here beside you; I am touching your poor hand; I want to know! What is it tnHither say lies upon your mind? Only try and tell .me, if you feel that another day might dawn too late. Speak ! —for the world’s tongues to be silenced. Oh, Mr. Loder” Her trembling hand wavered up to iio upon his forehead. “It’s just a word, just vour own voice, that I’ve prayed to hear!”

And no word came. Only the vague, recurring rattle in his throat, like the distant- drain of water down on pebbly beach. He was there—yet far away. That glaze over his staling eyes hung like an impenetrable veil between her and his unknown thoughts. And so he might pass away —the man who had more than once called her the oasis in his barren career.

Dumb, chilled as though a cold hand had gripped her heart, Sheba slowly drew back. Her wide eyes looked blankly out through the -window, across t-o where the lights cf Folcote twinkled through the warm dusk. What—what was happening all this silence? The curtains dropped back; she did not even resist, as she felt herself being drawn away.

“There! Now can Miss St. John believe ?” Sister Judith asked, ever so softly. “That is the beginning nand end of your mystery. Ho wants no one in life except his nephew; he is dead to all else. Re merciful —let him sleep” “Sleep?” Sheba whispered, as through a rising mist. “I don’t understand. He struggled to speak. It is more like a trance. What medicine have they given him ? Why was it safe to leave him, if only for minutes? Why drugs, if ho suffers no acute pain, and struggles only to keep a clear mind ? G-cd knows —God knows if you have a motive for sealing his lips!”

No answer was vouchsafed. She liad spoken it half to herself, and Judith Cottrell had bent between tbe curtains to pass the long white hand soothingly across her patient’s face. While Sheba stood rooted, the dreamlike .unreality growing with each second, there came up a. panting, hiccoughing sound from the drive below, followed by voices in the hall. It brought Sheba hack to the living present with a sharp breath-catch. She fell out towards the door; then, on some unexplained instinct, she had to ]uni so and look back at S ister Judith . Judith’s face had whitened; her nostrils dilated; but her self-possession remained. Calmly, swiftly, she set the bottles in array, and removed a linen apron she was wearing, “Yes, here he is,” she said, “Eight o’clock, to the minute. I forgot!” bne swung round, with the deadly smile. ‘•Shall I speak? Have you been longing all tin’s time to see Doctor Lancing alone, and force him to speak out what he knows ? Being a man, ho could not refuse.” She knew! For one whirling mo ment Sheba, faced her, half-determin-ed to take her at her word—to comfort Doctor Gilbert Lancing simply in his capacity as a medical man who

had charge of Spartan Loders’ case. She had taken a step—only to waver with a- sons© of sick helplessness. That smile of Judith’s, like winter moonlight over marble, seemed to- imply that ho was to hear first the words

that Sheba, had spoken that mgut—words that, coming from the wonusu he had wanted, would- deepen liis enmity. No; she would not com© face to face with him again—she had scorned him in the hearing of another woman.

There was no time to obey anything but her first woman’s warning instinct. She had swayed round amtreached! the corridor, as if to escape something hateful, almost before she knew it- And simultaneously, in a, glow of candle-light, Doctor Gilbert Lancing’s glossy silk bat rose above the head of the staircase. Mrs Saxon, carrying the candles, was just behind him, outdistanced by liis leaping steps.

No time tq turn back. He had seen her, she knew, as she swerved aside into that next doorway on the right— Judith Cottrell’s own -private room. For Sheba to take fugitive advantage of a door ajar was an unusually weak impulse, and intuitively ho seemed to fathom its meaning. Waving the housekeeper to go on, he leaned back his tall, exquisitely groomed figure to stare into the obscurity. She stood quite still, here heart booming thickly -defiantly. He could see nothing, but she could feel the flames of color run up from her throat as he watched, hr- keen face-r-the face, clear-cut and delicate as a woman’s, with its fair, sv-etpiug moustache, and the pale 1 hie eyes that always seemed to put a question no true woman cared to meet It was the expression which redeemed his face, a, if cl redeemed it only too distinctly, from a suggestion of weak ec-eminaev. Behind the soft si Tidied langour of the man lay a brain cvei silently at work. “I hate you! Oh, I hate you!” she was whispering unconsciously, her fingers clenched. “Appeal to you as a man—no! A woman’s tears your

triumph. What made'her say it? She might cm or know. Fate had lent. Gilbert Lancing the something called magnetic personality—subtle fascination that cost him nothing, Carlotta Barjivigton had named it. People forgot that it was barely five years since he hid bought the dwindling practice. .Barely forty, he had frozen out two local rivals, made liis mark, and was apparently treading a primrose path. Felcote—the feminine element, at any rate—was at his feet. All the deeper the secret irony of the fact that tfie one woman in Felcote whom lie had set himself to win stood to-night behind an impassable barrier of scorn and silence.

Ho moved on; the door of Mr. Lodger’s room closed- Sheba held her breath until Mrs Saxon had rustled by again, and then, swift as a hunted tiling, .sped down the rear staircase and gained the dark drawing-room unnoticed. She could realise now that, her head was burning, while harms and feet were numbed as with cold. That great sob in her throat would not break; her brpatlr came in strange irregular gasps that no one would understand. She wanted to cry out, and could not. In that last hour the strain of the whole situation had become like a wire tightened to snapping point. It mlist- break—something was to happen ; she was sure of it as she might never be of anything else in life. Were iiiey all attributing her sleepless anxiety to the haunting thought of the money andi the afterwards? Impossible ! And yet, of a sudden tire great house seemed to contract ana grow suffocatingly small; the heat of the summer evening was unbearable; that soft breeze fanning up from seaward had surely died quite away. To escape from the four walls, and stand all alone for an hour! —to decide what her first step must be if the end came soon!

(To be Continued Daily.)