OUR SERIAL STORY TRIPPED AT LAST.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 141, 31 May 1911, Page 9

OUR SERIAL STORY TRIPPED AT LAST.

BY

HEADON HILL.

CHAPTER 11. A FRIEND IN NEED. (Continued.) Harold Chetwynd was the son of old Doctor Cbetwyud, who practised in the Cornish fishing village where Mr Meldreth had a country house. Harold had followed his father’s profession, and was himself a surgeon oo board an ocean liner belonging to one of the great transatlantic steamship companies. During two successive summers the younger C'hetwynd had chanced to be taking his holiday at Porthruan while the Meldretlis were there, and an attacbmeint had sprung up between the young people almost at sight. They had boated and fidled and played lawntennis together, and though Royston Meldreth had felt uneasy he bad never raised any open objection, relying on hits own influence with Rose to check what at first he regarded as a flirtation before it went too far. Amply as he could provide for Jier, .he had his ambitions on her behalf, and he bad no intention that she should throw herself away on a ship's doctor without- prospects. He had been induced to let matters drift by a sincere regard for i Harold’s lather, the quaint country practitioner who had done Mrs Meklreth more good by his breezy optimism than hall a score of London specialists had cfl»vtcd with tire-guinea prescriptions, lie recognized, too. that Harold (.'hetwyml was a mini of honor, who would eoine t. him straightforwardly lor his consent and would never try to inveigle his darling into a run-away marriage. That consent he fully intended to r< fuse, but the merchant had hoped that the evil day when he n mild have to do so would be long del erred. And now he was about to be called upon for his decision on a da.t that was doubly evil: on the day nheieon be had stained his hand with blood and had taken upon linnselt the hideous burden of the seticl- ot the ' sate. As he hurried on his evening clothes ho cursed the malign late that had dealt him an extra, round while he was so unfitted to bear it. And then, suddenly, there came to him the inspiration that this need i ho no wound at all if he could biace himself to turn it into a blessing in disguise. He finished dressing, a strangely | abstracted look having now replaced I tl'o haicsM>d leu in 1 - '<>iiin m.pcc 1 >till wearing this curious expression, Ihe descended to the drawing-room, where he had to rouse himself for a J moment to -av a tea tuie w to his invalid wife, who was too ab'oibe dm hoi on u <> ! . , s to notice anything wrong with him. Mr Meldretli was sincerely fond of her, and was so accustomed to her somewhat depressing complaints that he would have been genuinely surprised if he had been told that she was a Husband and wife wore not alone together long, for Rose soon swept impulsively into the room, to be followed immediately by tne bullet, ushering in the only guest. I Harold Chetwvnd. a tall, sunbrowned, athletic young man of eight I and twenty, more likely to be taken for a guardsman than a ship’s doc- | or, came forward with an nuusu.J I diffidence to be greeted »y his host. I But this first nervous glance of mI quiry crystallized into a bcmtnn that i' was almost professional in its intentness, and when the little pait.y had adjourned to the dining-room, and Mr Meldreth’s abstiactn n swooped down upon bm> jpi.ni, liarold’s eyes searched the eider man’s face at intervals throughout tl. iiual as though studying the of some occult disease. Conversation flagged, s.n.L as it was, centring round tne Coimsh village in which they woe a l ’. m+en sted. There was an electric tension in tlie air, which only the lady of many illnesses did not seem to feel. And the illnesses served their turn that night. Airs Meldretli had a good deal to say about the latest “treatment,” and the sage oi'-l uec-toi at Porthruan approving c.i it. Much as ho dreaded the coming mt review with the merchant, it was v. itl: a sensation of relief that Harold rose to open the door when the butler v.us bidden to wheel Mrs Meldreth’s ebah into the drawing-room. As Rose passed out he put the ■ whispered question—“lsn't sour iaI ihor well?” 1 She made him a qu.zzical grim1 ace. “He s a little bit atmeimai today,” she replied. “He st untied so queer 011 the telephone that I went into the city to fetch him But he seemed all right until i.<. s- mellow guessed in the cab vhni you were going to speak to him about alter dinner. That’s what is vermm.g him. I I think.” (To be Continued.)