THE GRIP OF GOLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3577, 17 July 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,” ect., etc.} (Copyright—All Lights 'Reserved.) CHAPTER XIX. DON’T SAY IT.

It was close upon 11 o’clock, and the. house had grown quiet again, when Mrs Saxon, listening in the hall for the tenth time, heard the drawingroom windows click together. She drew a sharp breath of vague relief—nerved herself for the ordeal. He had come back, as quietly as lie had gone! Now she could hear him pacing the carpet witli long, slow strides, like a man buried in tremendous thought. The door was ajar; craning forward, she. could see him, his arms tightly folded, as he turned at the far end It seemed to her that within the hour ho had grown strangely haggard. She felt humanly bound to watch him, and yet she felt quiver after quiver of warm sympathy for the man and his situation. Why—oh, why, had not Mr Crewe, the London solicitor, seen fit to accompany him here in person as a guarantee? Why had Mr Spartan Lcder kept even his lawyei at such a freezing distance? She coughed suddenly. He had been going to touch the bell. And instantly be sprang forward. “You, Mrs Saxon? Just the person I wanted. Yes, come in!” He closed the door and dragged forward a chair. “But I insist! I want no ceremony—l want nothing to eat; I was waiting to see, someone. There! You won’t mind, but I was anxious about your young lady. Is she—” “She is sleeping quite calmly just now, Mir Spurt*; and that is all I can honestly say at present.”

“Is that so?” He locked past her, clearly troubled. He had, in a quiet way that made her tremble foolishly, pushed back the pile of keys that site had placed upon the table near him. “1 was afraid, from her look, that the double shock ”

“But you could not be held to account for that, Mr Spun*,” she struck in, warmly. “Don’t hint at that, please. Cod knows best what is to happen for good or evil, as we take it : and if, as Dr Lancing says, no one is to see Miss Sheba for a week at least —well, we must obey him.”

He hardly seemed to realise*. He moved to and fro, his fingers clasping and unclasping behind him. She divined at once that this was an unconscious habit of bis as be shaped seine question that might not prove agreeable. And presently it came. He threw down something taken from bis waistcoat pocket. “Have you ever noticed a chain to which that fragment might belong, Mrs Saxon ?” “Chain?” She stared at the twoinch length'cf frail gold filaments. "I won’t be sure. I. half fancy—no, I can’t say I have.” “Thank you.” He repoeketed it. “You may do. I—l picked it up near the house. Never mind that now. No one to see her for a week!” He whispered the words as to himself—twice. “This Dr Lancing—l suppose he has always been called in cases of illness?”

“For some years now—yes. He is considered t-o be far and away the most clever medical man within five miles. And he is certainly the most refined and agreeable,” something made her add. “The successful man! Yes, I saw that at a glance.” For a moment Jro watched the creeper-tendrils gently swaying against a background of moonlit lawn. Question and answers as yet seemed to be churned to a head by sheer necessity. He turned abruptly. “I’ll tell you frankly, why I asked, Mrs Saxon. It will sound strange, considering I know nothing at all of what has gone before; but what should make him think—or fear —that I was waiting to intrude myself upon Miss St. John?” She could only gasp. It did not reach her comprehension. He went on, firmly, quietly. “One thing stands out clear to me at this moment. Doctor Lancing has resented my appearance on the scene. Otherwise he would hardly have taken upon himself to give me that supercilious warning—almost a challenge—within an hour of my reaching the house. I was not to .dream of seeing her without his permission. I don’t think I answered him, and yet—” “You mistook his manner, sir, I assure you! That couldn’t be. Ho know how sensitive and anxious, sho is—bo seemed to fear that she might make too much of an effort and risk a real collapse on your account. Between ourselves now, sir,” Mrs Saxon whispered, “I believe lie meant to keep her quiet up there until—until t]ie •funeral should be' behind us. And, if so, I know that he could have done nothing more really kind for her, .... Pardon me, you are not at all well yourself, Mr Spun'. You must give some thought to yourself. The supper is all laid, if you would only No; he had not heard the last words. Ho was wiping his forehead mechanically. / “So bejt. Of course, I was hoping and expecting to see her as soon as possible; but we’ll let him know best; we’ll say it' was an unwar-

ranted suspicion... of mine. I -can speak with you, at any rate. We are quite, alone, I mean?” Mrs Saxon rose, threw open' the door, and closed it again. “We have never allowed prying oi gossip here, Mr Spun*; and I trust we never shall. Yes, we must speak of it! It happened just so that neither the doctor, the servants, nor anyone outside, had an idea of anything being wrong. Beyond our three selves, only Miss Cottrell could have realised at all—and I think I can answer for her discretion, considering that she seldom opens, her lips to anyone in the place, inside or out. And, of course, within a day or two we shall have seen the last of her here. But that—that fact cannot make it any the less terrible! If lam not afraid, if lam quite calm, it is only because I went down on my knees and asked Almighty Cod to reach out a hand to us tonight. For we can never feel the same again until we know!” And Wilfred Spun* took the hand from his eyes. Under the tan of his skin there was a suggestion of grey, but nothing of weariness or helpless fear in his movements. He sat down facing her. Every word was the word of a strong, determined man momentarily overwhelmed and baffled. “We shall know! I have reason to think that you believed in me almost at sight, and, after what had happened, J. can never forget that. Ae one moment to-night 1 was on the point’of turning my back upon it all, and taking my passage back to the West. Yes, a coward’s impulse, as it must have left you all in a mist of terror and uncertainty; I saw that

at once. 1 face the fact now that there lias been a master-stroke of diabolical criminality—that I cannot see clearly one hour ahead of me. For the moment, you must believe in me!

But yourself in my place; a feverish rush all the way from Toronto, knowing nothing of what was at this end of it; a few minutes’ hurried talk with the lawyer in London ; and then the train journey down to Barrowdene, to find my exact ‘double’ just leaving as 1 entered—to face this unspeakable position. I saw the look in Miss St. John’s eyes—l could never forget it!”

Sitting very still, Mrs Saxon gazed out through the balcony windows as if half expecting to see that other tanned face framed in the moonlight out there. That other man—that man without a name—-had a definite fiesh-and-blood personality. He seemed to have lived for that one hour and then to have slipped back into some deathlike obscurity which might never yield him up. “Don’t say it!” she said, in a hushed voice. “She is not here, to answer you ; it would break her heart if she knew you felt that. I have hardly dared to give it all another thought. Now you put it in such calm words, I feel that we ought to have sent to the police in that very first moment. And yet—how could I we? I know Miss Sheba saw the same picture that flashed over me. Those men tramping up and down the stairs, in and out the rooms—with him lying hardly cold there; the lanterns shining everywhere in the grounds, the crowd coming farther and farther up the drive, the hue-and-cry ” She checked the sobs that had been forming and melting like hailstones in her throat. “Oh, I -thanked you, in tv heart for waiting. You’ll never know what L felt, sir, when you came back in that room of his alone!”

“I did!” he answered, gently. “I read it, again, in Sheba’s eyes. To have called in detectives, and set up a world-wide sensation in the very hour of my uncle’s death—no, somehow I could not do it. What woxdd be the first inevitable impression? That I had come seven thousand miles for bis money, and his money alone. And, as I stand now I have no just right to conclude that money was at the heart of it at all. Who knows?” She was silent for a moment. She could see the delicacy of the man’s mind, and she could grasp tire delicacy of her own position. '(To he continued daily.)