MY LADY'S PLOT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6572, 9 December 1882, Page 3

MY LADY'S PLOT.

By the Author of "The St. Ahem Grace-Chip," "Kobbcd of a Crime," &c, &c. CHAPTER XXIX. sealing nina's fate. Doctok Allinc.imm outlined his plot in a dozen rapid words. He then proceeded to details, fiiving them with the particularity their importance demanded. Mrs. Allingham listened in a rapt attention to the cud. The r.nd reached, the two sat looking at each other in a silence far more expressive thaa words. Young Allingham broke it. "Well?" he said, his interrogative tone full of triumph. Mis. Allingham's marvellous blue eyes fairly scintillated. Bending over him she caught the delicate hand resting upon his knee between both her own. "What do I think?" she cried, breathlessly, rapidly. "I think it a plot which only the genius of my son could conceive; a plot which only the genius of my son could develop ; and a plot which the genius of my son will certainly bring to a glorious end. That is what I think. Now, when do you set Franz at work ?" " This instant!" Speaking those eager words the doctor bounded to his feet, threw back his fair head proudly and confidently, and hastened oiV to execute his declared purpose. While the master and mistress of Diavolo Gastle were thus evilly deciding Nina's future, Nina herself was, as her captor had anticipated, slowly recovering her strength in the haunted chamber. Her eyes had opened on Brigitta's face with a vague wonder, quickly succeeded by a full and vivid recollection of the horrors of her position. Giving her no time to "*peak, Brigitta proceeded to adminster the drops duly provided by Doctor Allingham. The girl's first impulse was to positively refuse to take them. On second thought, remembering the doctor's determination to save her life, she put a question to the woman. "Where did you get that?" she whispered faintly looking at the bottle.

Brigitta told her, and in a Toice so soft and deprecating that the girl was seized with a new terror. The woman had always been strictly respectful, but this gentleness (born of the doctor's timely threats) was something entirely foreign to her ordinary manner, and, therefore, cause for wild suspicions to T\iua. Brigitta, cb serving the girl's evident tear and hesitation said quietly in the same soft way : " The master told me to call him, Miss, if you refused to take the medicine." As tho doctor had foreseen in leaving that message, it had its instant effect. Nina swallowed the drops with almost eager haste, The dread of young Allingham was more terrible than the dread of the woman's treachery.

" Thu master," continued Brigitta, as she laid the spoon aside—"the master also told me to say that you must not be afraid of anything that is brought you, Miss—that you must always remember you are safe." Nina looked at her a moment without reply, aud then asked abruptly, though feebly, " Who are you ?" Taken by surprise, Brigitta hesitated, but quickly recovering herself again, answered : "I am the mistress's maid," she said, the doctor's instructions still fresh in her mind. "Then you have lived at the castle before?" "Since I was first brought here by the mistress, years ago. I have been her maid, and assistant maid, for twenty years, Miss. I took my mother's place, who died when I was fifteen."

Nina asked no more questions. The sickening assurance that she bad been foully eutrapped ueeded no further confirmation. Closing her eyes she yielded herself to Brigitta's mauipulating hands, her thoughts busy with the probable part that Doctor and Mrs. Jeffries had played iu the discovered plot. She directly dismissed them, strong in the belief that both they and her father had been the blind instruments of Lady Beauchamp's will. Her thoughts next turned to the consideration of the events of the morning. "Yes," she finally said to herself, "for the present I am safe, so far as regards my life, and, being £O, 1 will quietly submit to Doctor Allingham's treatment. The sooner I am well the sooner I shall be in a condition to devise aud make my escape !"

But even as that hope entered her mind she shuddered at the remembrance of the terrible obstacles in her path. True, however, to her determination to recover strength as speedily as possible, she committed herself to Him in whom she believed, and soon after fell quietly asleep.

Under the combined influences of Brigitta's manipulations, the doctor's drops, aud her own fatigue and loss of rest, she slept long and placidly. Three or four times during the hours in which she lay unconscious, Doctor Allingham stole softly to her bedside, and as softly felt her pulse. "She does well," he breathed, at his first visit to the patient and watchful Brigitta. "Let her sleep on till she awakens naturally. For her sleep is the best and surest iuvigorator."

That said, he turned and looked sharply around the chamber. Brigitta, still in wholesome awe of his an»er and vengeance, looked at him with anxious eyes. Presently he glanced at her and beckoned her to the chamber. "That cursed bottle!" he hissed, fiercely. " Where is it?" Brigitta nodded hurriedly, and went to a close cabinet at some little distauce, returning with the article in her hand. " When did she take the last dose!" again hissed the doctor, his brow black as night. "This morning, before breakfast, master." Tho doctor clenched one raised hand in impotent wrath, and strode savagely to the nearest window. He drew back his arm in the act of flinging bottle and contents into the ruinous courtyard below, and then all at once checked himself. He looked at the bottle, hesitated, then raised his hand again, and finally, with a muttered ejaculation, wheeled sharply from the window and left the chamber. At the end of the long corridor he went through the same silent pantomine, with the same fruitless result. "No!" he said, slowly moving on to the stairs—"no! Better keep it! She might drive me to the deed. I love her now with all my heart, strength, and soul; but she

must not brave me too far—my beautiful peerless darling'." ' With those strangely caressing and threatening words he carried the bottle down to his study and locked it away for possible use. A few minutes later Mre. Allingham entered the chamber. She entered by the anteroom in vhich Nina's luggage had been placed, a few steps from the door. There she beckoned Brigitta to approach. As the woman reached her she caught her by the arm, at the same time gently closing the door.

" Vou have not tol.l your master," she whispered, hurriedly, anxiously, adding, in a quick, half-shrinking tone, as the maid looked at her in questioning doubt, "I mean concerning—what-she saw last night, or rather, this morning?"

Brigitta answered in the negative. "Vou must not!" pursued Mrs. Allingham, impressively. "There is not another chamber in the castle in which she will be secure—absolutely secure. Yet, should he hear of—of—the circumstances he would, in his mad passion, dare the risk and locate her elsewhere. It must not be, Brigitta ! Her safe-keeping is of incalculable importance to U3 !" " He shall not hear of it, mistress." Brigitta said that with emphatic earnestness, and then all at once changed countenance. Mrs. Allingham's quick eye caught that change on the instant. Intuitively leaping at the thought in the woman's mind, she said, kindly, " But you are afraid ?" "I am, mistress." Mrs. Allingham stood a moment in silent thought. The next, she said, thoughtfully, and with evident anxiety, "It is not probable a night-watch will be necessary ; but should it be, you mu3t leave her before—" She paused, shuddered, and leaving the sentence unfinished, continued, quickly, " Her life, Brigitta, has become of vast importance to us, and must be carefully preserved. For that reason Ido not like to risk her being seriously terrified ; and yet I see no help for it, except by running the greater risk of her escape." " Then she is not to die, mistress ?" "She is to become your master's wife, Brigitta, and that within a very short time. And dou't forget, my faithful maid, that old Sir Robert's death will be the making of your fortune as well as ours." Mrs. Allingham spoke those worde with an open exultation that amply proved how entirely she sanctioned the change of plan. Brigitta's eyes sparkled with the greed which made her the unscrupulous tool of an unscrupulous mistress; but almost instantly they clouded again. " You won't condemn me to this part of the castle after midnight, will yon, mistress ?" she anxiously inquired. "Never! Brigitta—never!" replied Mrs. Allingham. " Your master might—would, indeed, if necessary—for never having seen— seen it"—speaking with precipitate haste— "and never having been admitted to my confidence, he scouts the idea as a silly superstition of the servants. But by strictly following the instructions which I shall give you that danger will lie averted."

In a few hasty words Mrs. Allingham gave the necessary orders, after -which she sent the woman back to her post, and took her own quiet departure by the way she had come. It was late twilight when Nina awoke. At her first movement Brigitta.approached. The girl instantly declared herself able to rise. After some objections ou Brigitta's part she did so. and daintily attired in a white cashmere dressing-gown, took her seat by the low fire which the woman had already kindled for the night. Her first thought on awaking was the last thought with which she had fallen asleep—that she must, and would, exert herself to the utmost to regain her strength. With that object in view she ate a portion of the delicious supper which Doctor Allingham sent up, and an hour later permitted Brigitta to prepare her for bed. The soothing manipulations which had already afforded her strained and stiffened muscles so much, relief were again repeated, and soon after the restorative drops were administered she was once more in a sound and dreamless sleep.

Neither Doctor nor Mrs. Allingham had intruded upon her, contenting themselves with messages sent through the servants, and delivered by Brigitta ; but just on the stroke of midnight the doctor made a final visit to the chamber preparatory to retiring. He signalled Brigitta into the corridor, but on learning that Nina slept, again noiselessly approached the bedside. He left the room glowing with satisfaction, naA undisturbed by a single anxiety. That Brigitta would spend the night in the anteroom, which, by his order, had been properly fitted up during the afternoon, he never doubted. But swift upon his departure Brigitta took hers. "No one has ever seen him so early," she thought, as, with trembling haste, she locked, and double locked Nina within the haunted chamher. "How do I know that he don't, like his kind, walk at twelve? At any rate he may, and I'll be on the safe side !" He did ! She had barely made good her flight when the tapestry hangings stirred gently, and then, at the very spot where the ghastly apparition had appeared the night before, it appeared again !

CHAPTER XXX. THE GHOST'S DEED. Not a. sound broke the stillness of the great chamber but the £entl:< crackle of the fire, and the weird murmur of the summer wind among the mountain firs. Nina slept peacefully on. Every sense locked in the dreamless slumber which had sealed her eyelids, she lay unconscious of the dread presence halt hidden among the hangings.

Directly the hangings floated noiselessly apart. Directly, like a thing of air in its swift, silent movements, the pretence swept to the bed, and bent its ghastly brow above the unconscious sleeper. The fire faintly illumined the chamber, and, by its light, the exquisite outline and heavenly calm of the girl's face were clearly visiHe. For several moments the ghastly being kept its position, its cold eyes staring steadily down upon the beautiful features. Then it suddenly drew back. Then, all at once, the heavy curtains, looped loosely to the quaint, carved posts, swung softly about the bed, and the unearthly visitant descended from the estrade to the floor below.

There it lingered for some minutes, finally approaching the door ef the anteroom. The double locks yielded as if by magic. The door fell open. The creature vanished. An hour passed, and it reappeared ; a moment after vanishing again, and for the last time, among the tapestry hangings.

Just as the grey dawn was brightening to the first faint tinge of red, Brigitta noiselessly turned the key in the well-oiled corridor lock and let himself into the chamber. She entered with a fearless composure in marked contrast to her recent terrified flight. But she had scarcely crossed the threshold when she paused in a momentary surprise. Her quick eye had been caught by the sweep , " iig bed-curtains. Almost the last thine; she had done at Nina's request was to loop back those very curtains. Hie looked an instant, and then, shutting the door, said indifferently to herself, "I warned her against the draught, and I s'pose she ielt it in the night and dropped them." With those words she started to approach the bed to see whether Nina were yet awake. But for the second time she was brought to a pause. At a little distance from the door her foot struck the upturned side of one of the priceless rugs. Half startled, she stooped to turn it down. But instead of doing so, she hastily rose and ran to the nearest window. As her fingers touched the rug they had encountered a little pool of some thiekish liquid. She held her hand close to the window and looked at it. She recoiled as if she had been shot. Her lingers were red with blood ! White as a sheet she staggered forward a step, and then sank helplessly into a chair.

There was a new and awful meaning in the stillness and curtaining folds of the great antique bed ! Sitting thrrn in the gtey dawn, she glared at. i , . uienpiMt.- of word, deed, or intelligent thought. But gradually her faculties began to assert themselves, aud, at last, she got unsteadily upon her feet. With eyes carefully averted from the rug, and steps painfully slow and weak, she crossed the chamber, mounted the estrade, and crept close to the bed. But once beside it her courage failed, and she stood glaring at the curtains incapable of another movement.

After a little she shook herself free of the paralyzing horror, and, making a desperate effort, clutched the drapery with both hands. It fell apart. As it did so her fingers loosed their grasp, and, with along, shivering breath, she sank to the floor. The sight that met her eyes was the sight of Nina, pale, beautiful, and etill, lying back among her pillows. Her eyes were closed and her hands peacefully crossed; but the I sleep that held her was the sleep of life and not of death. Brigitta saw that at a glance,

and, under the revulsion of feeling, her last, atom of strength gave way. She cowered on the floor at the bedside for a few minutes, and then her naturally active mind began to assert itself in various queries which she found it impossible to answer. As her strengbh returned those queries became more persistent. Under the spur she at last rose, and shrinkingly approached the rug. The advancing dawn had flooded the chamber with a faint pink glow, and by its light she saw what had been too dark for her to see before—six worda written in blood abore the ugly pool in which she had dabbled he fingers. The words were these : "Beware! Harm her not: Diavolo's Ghost!" The woman's eyes, as she caught sight of th se terrible words, seemed as if they would start from her head. All her superstitious terrors rose in her anew.

But this time the terror rushed her into precipitate action. Vt'hh white lips and shaking hands she rolled the rug in a heap, caught it from the floor, and the next instant flung it with the force of a giantess through the open window, and over the beetling crags below.

" Ghost's blood I The master's writing !"" she panted, hoarsely, as the wind caught and whirled it out of sight. " A curse like that can't be kept in the castle !"

The words had scarcely left her stiff, dry lips when she recollected the ensanguined stains upon her fingers. With a shuddering horror she unlocked the door of the anteroom and rushed in. But there she was met by the same terrible warning, in the same bloody characters. Clear and bold as in the great letters traced upon the rag, she saw it standi ag out upon the white slips that covered the pillows. Half maddened by her superstitions terrors, she caught them from the bed, and flung them franctically after the rug. That done she turned from the" window, and glaring about the room, as if addressing some unknown being, cried hoarsely, "Rest! Rest! As the Lord hears me, I'll never harm a hair of her head. Then rest, master J Rest!" She stood a moment in speechless agitation, and then cleansed her hands with shrinking haste, and went back to Nina's chamber. She had just started the fire to a cheering glow when Nina awoke. She called the woman. " So you did drop the curtains, Brigitta?" she said. " It was best, Miss," answered the woman, evasively, determined to keep silence upon the mysterious occurrences of the night. The next moment she asked, quietly, as with shrinking hands she looped back the curtains, "But you slept well with them dowr>, Miss ?"

" Very well. I never woke all night long. And I dreamed that an angel was—" She broke off there, sat up in bed, and suddenly seized the woman's cold hands in both of hers. "Oh, Brigitta," she cried, tremulously, "be the protecting angel of which I dreamed ! You are a woman, and still young. Save me ! Flee with me ! I have it in my power to pay you —" Brigitta suddenly cut her short. ,: Miss," she said, pointing to one of the open, windows, " you see those towering heights? You might as well, Juiss, expect to move one of those peaks with your little finger as to expect to coax or bribe Brigitta Weiss to play false to her mistress. "No, Miss, it can't be done. And more than that, there ain't a human being about this castle would listen to you ! Not one ! Not one ! We're wicked, but we're true." Nina dropped the woman's hands in the very stillness of despair. It was like trying to melt a stone to compassion. But perhaps Brigitta felt a ray of pity. As the girl sank back against her pillows she said more gently, " But I won't harm a hair of your head, Miss !—none of us would. And if we should the master would tear us limb from limb ! The master loves—" " Silence 1" interposed Nina, haughtily, sitting up again with the proud blood dyeing her face from neck to brow, "Never again dare to open your lips upon that subject to I me !"

Brigitta meekly apologised, and in obedience to the imperious gesture with which Nina waved her from the bed, returned to her suspended duties. "Well! well!" she said to herself, "I take it the master '11 have a touph wooing of it! But as he don't mean to harm her I'll not fret the mistress with a word of last night. Costly rugs are plenty at Diavolo Castle, and, with another spread here, she need be none the wiser."

Nina arose greatly refreshed, and quite able to descend to breakfast, but in accordance with a determination to hold herself entirely aloof from the Allinghams, she announced her purpose of taking her meals in her chamber.

Doctor and Mrs. Allingham received the announcement through Brigitta with great satisfaction. They failed, however, in none of their courtesies due an honoured guest, though carefully abstaining from intruding themselves upon her privacy. More than once Nina heard the doctor's voice in low consultation with Brigitta in the corridor, but beyond that he did not presume. All his inquiries and directions were made through the woman. The former Nina answered as briefly as possible, the latter she observed with the closest care. To regain her strength was now the main object of her existence. Actuated partially by that object, and partially by the desire to see whether the courtyard below her windows could in any way be made serviceable as a means of escape, she expressed a wish to visit the ruins. The expression of the wish was a necessity, every passing moment proving the strictness of the watch and ward under which she was kept. Brigitta respectfully acquiesced, and, soon after the early dinner had been served, the two descended to the courtyard. [To be continued.]