LOVE’S BOND MAID

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 15 September 1926, Page 8

LOVE’S BOND MAID

BY 3™”"™ May Wynne. Author of “For Faith and Navarre,” “Mistress Cynthia,” “The Spendthrift Duke,” etc., etc.

CHAPTER XIV

“I have heard from your uncle.' ’ Muriel started violently. >She had not in the least expected such a commencement of .the conversation, and vague fears .melted before eager antorcst. "From my uncle? —from Uncle .Roger?” Her thoughts had flown instinctively to Rachel, knowing what joy lay for her friend in those few words. "Yes,” John Herries said slowly,.as though he were busy weighing every word. “From, your Uncle Roger!” "And where is he? And is he well? And what is ho doing? What does he say? Oh, please tell me.” “I wish I had the letter here, but it is at the hotel. Still, if you can spare the itime, I think I'can tell you all he said pretty accurately. ’ ’ < ‘ Yes, yes, of course, I will spare the time. Poor, poor Uncle Roger.” “I think he has needed your pity, for I should say he has had a pretty rough time.”

“But where has he been?” “ Where he still is—in America.” “Yes?”

Her tone was expectant. “As you may imagine, he has been frightfully cut up over that business. Poor old chap, it was pretty nearly the end of him, I should gather. In fact he says in liis letter that, had it not been for you, he should have put a pistol to his head when he found 'be had ruined you.” “Poor Uncle Roger.” “Some nieces would have employed another adjective, I fear; but still I agree with you, we can’t help what’s born in us—that’s my doctrine, Miss Muriel, and old Roger was born a gambler. He couldn’t help himself, though I told him over and over again that he’d burn his fingers.” Muriel said nothing. She was trying not to remember just then that this man had been her uncle’s, evil genius, and that she had always looked upon him as the sole cause of his downfall. Could she have been'mistaken?

“I don't suppose you believe me,” Herries continued, in his most plausible tones. “But it's true as I sit- here. He didn't see the ’harm in gambling in stocks and shares, though he’d sworn I don’t know -what vows that he’d never repeat the sins of his youth and back a horse or play cards. Well, a man’s a man, and, as we say in Scotland, has to dree his own weird. Roger’s weird wasn’t a very happy one,; in fact, he staked on all .the losers absolutely heedless of my advice, and the end was—ruin.” . •

Muriel npddc. She had not waited in the past to- listen to explanations which might exonerate John Herries from blame, but she did not like to show her impatience, half convinced as she was becoming that she had wronged this man in thought. “Well, as Roger says in his letter, he nearly did the usual thing and blow his brains out; but. he didn’t—merely because, the gambler wasn’t dead in him. He remembered, so lie writes, that in the days of liis pilgrimages, he once nearly ‘struck oil,’ or rather gold, up in Ithc Butte country in California. There - was some legend from an old gold-digger about a mine which would beat creation in its wealth if it could only be properly located. The clue had not been followed up. or something had gone wrong, arid Roger instead of searching for El dorado came home. After the smash-up, however, it seems that the tale of the gold mine came back to his mind and proved a pleasanter speculation than a pistol shot, and off he went hot-haste in his usual Ar'mitage fashion, thinking ho was going to find Tom Tiddler’s ground waiting for him to go and pick up his fortune on it. He'had a rough time. Gold prospecting isn’t just a bed- of roses whatever the storybooks tell you about it, and neither do golden nuggets drop into your hands ait the right minute, as fiction-would have you believe. Roger has had a stiff six months of it, but he doesri’t mind that—now —” “You don’t mean that he has found it?”

Muriel's eyes were shining w'ith excitement.

What would not this news mean to Rachel as well as to herself. The old life would conic hack again, and make it easy to forget thfcse six months between. 'So she told herself, yet knew the self-deception was a flimsy one, since those six months were unforgetable. Still, she looked eagerly into John Herries’ face, and repeated her question breathlessly. He smiled, and she did not notice how his hands were clenched in a strong grip one over the other. "Yes, he has found the mine." "And he will come home, rich, and he will buy back Barlowe Court, and be able to mar—." She checked herself, though her eyes still shone.

• John Herries looked at her very straightly—very strangely she thodght —and her eyes dropped before 'his, which unwittingly told her something she had no wish to know.

"The nows is too good to be true," she murmured. "I. can’t thank you enough, Mr Herries, for telling me. I

(To be continued.)'

wonder Uncle . Roger did not write to me, but I expect he did and that the letter is following me about.’ ’ “X think not,” replied Homes; “I think not, Miss Muriel, for though he lias found the mine, he has not-got the gold.” •She echoed the last words in surprise, the oddness of his manner startling her from her new day-dream. “You would not understand,” he said with a smooth smile. “But such a mine as your uncle has found could not possibly be worked without great expense, very great expense.” “Then how?”.

“Ah, that is just the point in question, the reason, in fact, for Roger writing to me. The mine, with all its riches, is absolutely useless to him, unless he can be financed in running it.” “Could he not sell his claim?”

“My dear Miss Muriel! You would not ask such a question if you know the seamy side of life as represented in the goldfields. He might get a hundred or so if he met with someone sufficiently honest, bult more likely lie would get something for his information which would settle all ‘claims’ forever.” “Poor Uncle Roger! Then it won’t help, after all, to make him rich—this finding of the mine?’-’ “Unless he could borrow the money; but that again is his difficulty. He has no security, nothing but his bare word that the mine exists, and I fear his word would, not igo far with the ordinary money-lender. ’ ’ She was waiting to hear more, flushed to expectancy by his meaning tone. “To cut matters short,” continued Herries, “he has written to ask if, for old friendship’s sake, I would advance the necessary sum for sinking a shaft and working expenses.” “And—”'

“And I shall reply,” he said very coolly, “that though I could not possibly run such a speculation for the oldest of friendships, I should bo willing to do it for the sake of a new relationship—and for that alone.” There was -a long pause, a pause filled' -with the droning of bees amongst the heath near them, and the quick rustling of lizards in the long grass by the roadside.

Then, “I don’t quite understand,” whispered Muriel, but her face nevertheless had grown very white. John Herries smiled, that slow, fat smile of his which always repulsed her more than any other man’s frown would have done.

“Plainly then,” he replied sweetly, “I shall be charmed -to lend the money to my uncle-in-law, even with no other security than my wife’s beaux yeux.”

She looked at him in horror. His wife! His wife! the very thought was an insult and a terror, yet not so much so as it might have been yesterday, when slie would have flung the bare suggestion from lier with scorn. . JBut; to-day the world Jiacl .cltairged. artterly and irrevocably,.. 4 .jßhc had read an announcement in tile newspaper and had felt that it did not so very much matter now what lay before her in the mists of the future, seeing that all beauty and gladness in life had fled with betrayed Jove. And then had : come the episode of the tramps and her rescue by the man she had loathed. Her gratitude had already half-persuaded her to see him in a now light even before he told her liis strange news, and the thought of Rachel’s happiness, after many months of that dreary loneliness which she had begun to realise only within the last hour, had filled her with delight.

And now—now she had heard the price of that happiness and she shrank back aghast though with vague hesitation.

Herries Was loaning forward watching her closely. His face was very pale, and his lips twitched slightly; but his eyes .seemed to burn her with their intense gaze.

Involuntarily she shuddered, as she so often shuddered at this man, for it seemed to her that she had coihe to realise why he "nau always made her afraid, it was the knowledge of her fate. "Please, please," she faltered. "Is there no other way—none?" "I am afraid not," he said evenly; "but you need not look so anxious, Miss Muriel. I shall make the kindest of husbands, as you will find. I have money, plenty of money, which I suppose is generally considered the main attribute to be desired, and I am sufficiently easy-going to please any woman, added to which I happen ,to be in love with you." There was a mocking tone in his voice, though his eyes still burned. Muriel knotted her hands together in anguish, her pretty face white with trouble.

"I cannot say—to-day," she whispered. "I cannot possibly say. I-I must- think it over, Mr Herries, and give you your answer later." "There is no hurry," he replied smoothly, ‘ ‘ the day after to-morrow will do. To-morrow lam going to run over to Monte Carlo to see about some luggage I left there. Perhaps you will be able to give me any answer then, and I will cable to your uncle." \ She nodded, not trusting (herself to speak, and rose from her seat.