THE GRIP OF GOLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3562, 29 June 1912, Page 5

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 IV, FREE OF THE DANGER ZONE. t ~ .. The horror, the shame, the bitterness of it! Siie had long tried to be blind, but the jealousy around her was visible now, peering at her like an animal’s eyes out of darkness. Tho servants —all save Mrs Saxon—kept at a distance and talked among themselves. Felcote was holding his breath to watch some tragedy unfold. Judith Cottrell, of all women, had dared to hint that her power here was a golden illusion to pass away with Spartan 'Coder's last breath. Tomorrow, perhaps

She quivered suddenly, snatched up a lace antimacassar glimmering in the darkness, and caught at the balcony door. She listened, as she had never listened yet. "Miss St. John! . . . Where are you? I want to speak witli yon!” His voice! Quiet, musical, hut with -almost a commanding note, it came across from the staircase. She could picture him leaning over the balustrade, one shapely hand at his chin. He always seemed to..know —to read through darkness and the dress-folds that trembled over her breast! Answer him? It might he that lie had a message from Mr. Coder’s lips—it might be that ho had suddenly seen his opportunity to play upon her woman’s hopes and fears. "Miss St. John!” it came. "Are vou there?”

"No—no!” her heart longed to send back: but her teeth were tightly set. And then .she seemed to stand upon the brink of a chasm, witli no alternative but to leap. Ho had taken a hound down the remaining stairs, and was striding across-the hall. Thrilled by impalpable fear, she crashed the glass door behind her, and was down the step fleeing across the gravel sweep, hearing nothing, seeing nothing.

It seemed only an instant before she found herself at the main gates, staring at the crowd, still waiting for the news of life or death. A brief, strange pause; they were drawing back, as she was doing. To them, at’such a moment, with her unseeing eyes and pale face, she bad tho look of a spirit. And then, before she had realised, a throat was cleared, and a voice—Anthony Lee’s rough voice—called out huskily:

"It’s all right! Clod bless you, Miss Sheba—take heart!”

She tried to answer. They would never forgot her eyes at that moment, but words would sound. The fear behind loomed above all. She was gone again—-was flying breathlessly down one of the side paths that would bring her out farther down the Felcote Road. A bramble caught in her hair and tore away a thick strand; but she scarcely felt the pain. To escape • him!—to be alone with her woman’s heart for a while.

The road was reached. She walked rapidly on, hiding her face in the wrap when anyone passed, turning aside in a lane as carriage-lights and a rich laugh “behind told her that Carlotta Barrington was driving hack into Feleoie. Felcote ? She suddenly remembered; Gilbert Lancing’s car might presently come thundering by on the return journey. Without a second thought she swerved down the loose, shingle, cart track that sloped'towards cliffs and sea. Now, at least, she felt free of the danger-zone. On either side the gorse heath, stretched away with its scent of- almonds and its clumps of gold glossom, glimmering in the half-light. Ond, only a good stone’s throw fur-

ther on, lay the edge of the great, restful, eternal sea itself. Felcote town proper was actually within two miles of the ssa, but had never seemed to grasp the fact and ns> 'possibilities. • There was no coastguard station, no roadway cut direct to the cove; and it was comparatively seldom that anyone, came this way after dark. Sheba gave that no* thought. Now she had passed breathlessly under the grotto-like arch of the Gap—a mere fissure in the high cliff - wall—and was standing on the strip ofi velvety-soft sand, drinking in the puffs of spray-scented wind that rose -as if to greet her. The wonder, the beauty, the indescribable peace of it, she had •'never realised until to-night. White almost as snow the sand looked in the sudden flood of moonlight, that threw fantastic shadows behind every rock, boulder; and far down it crawled a foam-tipped lip that marked the turn of the slack tide. Across the ebonblack water, stretching away as into eternity, lay countless paths of silver sequins, now fading, now reappearing. It was all solemn, haunting, soothing, beyond words. Surety she might forget for a moment the fateful something beating away like a muffled drum at the heart of the great silence ! i

How long she stood motionless there she would' never know. It was when she: turinal, mechanically, to go back that her ears caught that familiar sound—hateful to-night—the panting of a petrol car. She was .in the cliffgap ; she stood, still again. And now she eoukl make out the car, with its bLack-and-ainber tonneau-. Yes —yes,

1 it had paused in the roadway beyond there; some figure had leaped down and eprung through the lialo cast by the great lamp reflectors. Her eyes strained; every fibre in her body seemed to stiffen. She was trapped. She heard the light, steady crunch on the shingle path; heard the dedicate little cough. \ The man’s intuition had served 1 him'well to-night llis opportunity had come. The cig-arette-tip glowed crimson between his lips. He had found out, he I s,/ followed her. Here! It was as if she had. been suddnly shut off from her work V—the sea behind, and those towering cliffs on. either hand. For a moment she stood drawn up, tingling with resentment and scorn, her lips closed upon « word that he should never fo.'p-t in life. He dared not—lie dared not use his man’s strength. to put a woman at bay! .... and then,- on another impulse no more to be rosist-t-I than analysed, she had taken » littip run back to the stand-spit,- iliHed along by the cliff wall, and stood still in a patch of deep shadow* He had rot seen her. To baulk him —to heat him at his own loved gaol® of l.uleru! seek — to let him go a-- he had cor e—unanswered. One-two-three —and he had come striding through into the cove. He hummed a. tune as Carelessly as if he were entering.his own drawing-room. Then, the silence- Feet sunk -soundlessly into this carpet of sand, but she- knew that he had paused just within tho cliff-arMi, every nerve in Ids tall, aristocratic-; figure straining with the eagerness of the hunter nearing his prey. His prey! That would have been, the word in his own mind, but in hers there was nothing but fierce ecom. There-could be no- reason at all for that dull throbbing oi heart —so plain that it seemed almost certain he must hear it! She did not fear him in the least —no! There was a peal of wild laughter gathering in her throat that lie would never forget. But it died hack; He was barring tlie only way out. He had meant- to subdue her, if it lay in man’s power -she knew that by unerring instinct. All el so was blotted from her mind. She was a woman at hay. (To he Continued Daily.)