A HIDDEN ENEMY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11538, 24 November 1900, Page 3 (Supplement)

A HIDDEN ENEMY.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL AEBANGEMENT.]

BY ADELAIDE STIRLING, Author of " The Purple Mask." "The Girl of His Heart," " Nerine's Second Choice," "Lover or Husband?" etc., etc. , ■

CHAPTER VI. DOLLY TOUCHES A GOLDEN FTJTUBE. Dolly Arden was right. Mr. Barrow's letter meant more than it expressed. There was no shadow of doubt to cast on her claims the dead man had kept his word and left a will that made them irrefutable. Without talk of law or courts, with merely % triumphal proving of his mother's identity by the owners of the houses in which shehad lodged with her baby and maid, three-year-old Ronald entered into his inheritance, Earl of Barnysdale, without let or hindrance. And Dolly, with her old name, shook away all the haunting fears she had done her best to keep to herself. She asked for only one thing, that there should be as little publicity as possible. "Of course," she said with' a pathetic face, "I know it will have to be in the papers, but I've led a hard life. I was humiliated and—surely, Mr. Barrow, you can understand All this has been so abhorrent to me, it i as only for Ronald's sake thai I felt I had no right to_remain silent." She breathed freely as she saw how short and how matter-of-factMhe newspaper comments were. There was no nine days' wonder about it, no staring headlines. She, Dolly Arden, was triumphant, was tasting the sweet after the bitter. It had been worth it, after all. She had been a fool ever to doubt. Barnysdale had been rather poor, for a peer, but to the new Lady Barnysdale her son's revenues, or all she could touch of them, seemed inexhaustible. But- at the thought of the gloomy house in Berkeley Square, where Barnysdale died, she shivered. She could not live there— yet. Besides, for manv reasons, it would be better to get out of London. The men who had been welcome to Mrs. Arden would be doubtful acquaintances for Lady Barnysdale. No. she would go to Scotland, to Ardmore Castle. It might be dull, but it was the right thing to be dull. She would not think any more on the matter, but pack up and go- , . , . , „ i . If Lady Barnysdale was triumphant, her sister wr's busy. It was she who bought new clothes, paid bills, engaged a nurse for Ronald. And so it chanced that when Lord Stratharden (who. for excellent reasons hud made up bis mind to welcome the sister-in-law lie could not cast out) came to offer her auv information or help she needed, he did not see Magdalen Clyde. If he pictured Dolly's sister to himself, it was her double small, fair, bloodlessly pretty— not quite a lady. If he could have seen her at that moment, with her dull hair, her pale, smooth cheeks, her -dark, tat hornless eyes lovely under her black hat, perhaps nothing on earth would have made him believe she was Lady Barnysdale's sister. Dollv, walking up Fleet-street in the afternoon, would have had eyes for every man she met. Magdalen never even saw that their heads turned as she passed, till one man, coming out of a dingy doorway, nearly fell over her, and stopped dead, as she did; for neither had fvei expected to see the Dther again. Her first thought, as he took off his hat ind greeted her, was that he was both thinner and older than she had fancied him, yet infinitely—oh, infinitely, better-looking. Tanned," strong, tall, his lean face like no face she had ever seen, he stood in front of her. And as he smiled his eyes grew suddenly sweet. Under them she was for one moment speechless. What long lashes he had! She wished he would not 'throw back his head and look at her through them. "Fancy my meeting you!" was what she said; and if she was confused she did not show it. " You must let me thank you again, now. I hope you heard no more of it?' "Oh! I did," he said, and laughed, for she had to thank him for more than she knew—all his worldly wealth but one penny. " I went back and was thanked by the proprietor. You see," softly, "it saved him a row." "The proprietor," Magdalen started. "Oih!" she said. "My—our dinner. I never paid him !" "You forget," with calm mendacity. " You or vour sister left the money on the table. I hope she's all right—quite forgotten vour friend?" " Did he tell you so? Krug, I mean?" for it was not like Dolly to leave money anywhere. Her nameless acquaintance nodded, and with some haste changed the subject. "Do you often honour Fleet-street?" he said. He had a way of drawling that, was not like the speech "of Dollv's friends, any more than his look of perfect cleanliness resembled their rather tumbled fashion. No! I came on an errand —my sister.'' She dared not say, Dolly. "Do you?'' For the first time he saw her smile, and Magdalen Clyde's smile was a thing to live to see. The 'unworn youth of it, the lovely lips and teeth, the'sudden light in her deep eyes, took away the man's breath. "I live here, work, and have my being!" he returned, as if there were humour in it, "I work at a photographer's upstairs," with a backward Ming of his; head. If he had said he broke stones it could not have amazed her any more. " You don't look as though you worked!" she said with involuntary truth. " I assure you I earn my own bread—and consider myself lucky." He had quietly fallen into her step and was walking beside her toward Charing Cross. For the life of him he could not help wondering who she was and where she lived. But she had evidently no idea of enlightening him, for at the end of the Strand she stopped. "I'm late," she said, and her face changed. " I must take a cab. But first, will you tell me something? Why did you do that the other night? We were nothing to you." Something in her straight, direct lorn; made him tell the plain truth. " Because I never saw any woman like you," he said, as if he were remarking on the weather, " and it annoyed me to see you put in such a position." She put her hand to her hair sullenly. " There isn't another like me," she retorted, as if he had hurt her. "Luckily for them! Do you suppose I like being black and white and red, like a poster? I'm tired of being stared at, tired of—but it doesn't matter!" brusquely. "I'm leaving London for good to-morrow. And I'm glad." "Why?" He left her looks alone, with late wisdom. " I hate it. I'm afraid of it. I haven't a friend." "Oh, yes!" stopping him coolly, "I know plenty of men, but I hate men. I don't think I like anyone in the world but my sister; and I know I don't trust anyone." " You're trusting me," said the man quietly. "Now let me tell you something. It wasn't because I thought" you handsome that I turned out those lights, but because there was such a curious, lonely look about you, and though you mayn't think it, I'm lonely, too. I did what I could for someone who was like me, without a soul on earth to turn to. And if ever I can do anything for you again I will. My name," with a little halt, for he was not used to it yet, is Lovell— Lovell. Now I shall call a hansom for you." The girl stood on the curbstone and looked at him. This was not the manner of the men Doily knew. He meant what he was saying. Though his face was hard, almost indifferent, she had an odd feeling that for the first time in her life she had made a friend. " You've done enough for me," she said slowly. "If I ever see you again it will be my turn. Good-bye." But as she got into her hansom a stranra feeling came over her, as if in this utter stranger she were leaving behind someone known before, dear to her; someone, too, who would get nothing but ill for helping her. She held out her hand with a smile, though there were quick tears in her eyes. " Good-bye, and good luck to you*!" she cried, senselessly enough, and as she drove off remembered he knew no more of her name than Magdalen.

Well, it was no matter her strange beauty hardened, darkened; the) less he knew the less. he would be likely to hear of Starr-Dalton and the others; of her reputation, that must be written down with Dolly's. Dolly, who was Countess of Barnysdale and had given up cake&yand ale ! " You're a fool," she said to herself. " The man's nothing to you," and knew she would have sold her soul for him. She, Magdalen Clyde, who had always boasted to herself that she was like a man who could not get drunk could not care.

With Dick Lovell's —and even the set of his collar—before her eyes she came into Lady Barnysdale's flat. And there, smug, thick-lipped, too polite by far, sat StarrDalton, with a gardenia in his coat. Magdalen could not be even civil, and Dolly was nervously, profusely so. When Starr-Dal-ton. said good-bye she turned on Magdalen viciously. " Why did you look at him like that?" "Do you mean you haven't paid him?" " Oh, I paid him," slowly. " Magda, you're right. He isn't kind. I wish we'd never seen him."

Mr. Starr-Dalton would not have echoed the wish. Divided between fury and amusement, be was fingering the notes in his pocket. "So," he thought, I've been useful, useful ! And now I'm to discreetly vanish. It's not good enough, Dolly," and he turned toward Krug's restaurant that he had never mentioned to her. It was raging passion, half love, half hatred, that made his thick smile evil as he strolled. For in his way he loved her, and what Mr. Starr-Dalton wanted he usually got, cleanly or otherwise. But Dolly was singing, as she thought she would never see him again. * CHAPTER VII. ACROSS CLYDE WATER. " Ardmore Castle!" said the stationmaster, in broad Scotch, "ye'll be going there? Well, they've no sent for ye. Ye can get a fly to the ferry." And he turned away. '.Tin-' Dolly was going to say Lady Barnysdale, but Magdalen caught her arm. " It's none of his business who you are," she said, angrily. "What does he mean about the ferry?" " Ardmore's across the Firth of Clyde. There's no station; it's an island. How dare the servants behave like this? I telegraphed." " Perhaps they didn't get it," indifferently. For it was cold, nearly dark, and she "was tired of Dolly's new grandeur, full of a senseless, terrified depression that grew on her with each mile from London. Ii she could have done it decently she would have turned on the dirty little station and taken the first train back. But there was no leaving Dolly in a strange place to fight her own battles. " Though there can't be any to fight," the girl thought, scornfully, as she collected the luggage and pushed Dolly into the mouldy fly. It seemed a week before they stopped at the long pier, and even in the dusk could see the dark, swirling river between them and the opposite hills. " And that's what I'm named after!" exclaimed Dolly. Magdalen turned from the roaring tide that held death in it to the black hills, the flying clouds. " I always knew I should hate it. I always knew it was just like this." The ferry was only a rowboat. It seemed there was no regular ferry to Ardmore. And to the girl's foreboding spirit every wave and eddy of Clyde seemed to snatch at them threateningly, every whine of the wind from the hills to mock them. " The tide runs strong the night," said one of the two boys who rowed. " They say Clyde has its nights, and this'll be one of them." "What do you mean?" said Magdalen, fiercely. " Nights that it drowns," carelessly. " Ye're here. This is Ardmore." The girl looked at the towering shore. It would be pitch dark among those rocks and bushes. " Show us the way," she said. " I'll pay you." And so it was that Lady Barnysdale came for the first time to her husband's house—by a back way, in the dark, and with no more state than one sulky boy could lend her. "They'll no be expecting you," said the boy, insolently, as they rounded a turn and saw the castle black "against the sky, not a light in all the height of it. Lady Barnysdale knocked and rang furiously at her own door, without noticing him. To her surprise, it opened almost instantaneously, and an old man peered out. "What's wanting?" he said, standing with bleared eyes and a hanging, repulsive lip. " Open" the door!" cried Dolly, furiously. " Did you not get my telegram that I'm left to come here like this? I'm Lady Barnysdale. " Mrs. Keith's away," the old man returned, dully. " There was a telegram. I didna' open it. I ask your ladyship's pardon." He took the bag she gave him, but he bestowed neither glance nor word on the new earl, who, being three years old, was placidly asleep in his nurse's arms. Magdalen saw the servant was very old and half-palsied, and a queer shudder came over her. What a homecoming! A doddering old man, who had not a word of welcome, a great stone hall, cold as a vault, with no fire in its wide hearth, one candle to light its lurking shadows. It was all she could do to lift her foot and cross the threshold. She would as soon have entered a den of thieves as this house. Something tangible seemed to warn her out of the chilly, echoing place to go back; something evil seemed lying in wait for her, just as every wave of the river had seemed to snatch at her. Was she getting nerves, like Dolly's? With a queer effort the girl stepped forward. " Is there no one here but you?" she asked, kindly. "There's Grizel and Sophy," doubtfully. " Mrs. Keith's away," he repeated, as if that explained everything. "Mrs. Keith's the housekeeper," interrupted Dolly. " Please fetch one of the other servants and bring the telegram. Hurry!" furiously, conscious of the wondering gaze of Ronald's grand new nurse, she stamped her foot at the old man. It was a long while before a footstep came from the door by which he had vanished. And then it was only an obsequious country , girl, with Lady Barnysdale's unopened telegram in her hand. " I suppose there are beds in the house," Dolly cried, opening her own telegram and showing it to the girl. " Here is a letter from Lord Stratharden to Mrs. Keith. As she's away, perhaps you had better open it." "I wouldn't dare,"my lady!" the girl faltered. " I'll give it to David. He's Mrs. Keith's husband; but you'll have seen he's doddering. Grizel is lighting the fires in the guest rooms, if you'll please to come with me."

"Guest rooms!" cried Dolly. "Didn't Mrs. Keith get my letter, either. Why are mv rooms not ready?" ""I couldn't say, my lady. I'll do my best," nervously; "but you'll understand we'd heard nothing but that his lordship was dead, and—"

"Oh, never mind!" sharply. "Take me to a fire, my rood girl, and get us something ■ <■•<" She would not have her antecedents aired before Ronald's nurse. But when she saw the bare, half-warmed rooms got ready for her she looked at Ronald with terror. The child might get his death here!

About one room only was there any semblance of comfort. It was small, with chintzhung walls, less barn-like and draughty than the others. With her own hands Dolly— whom Magdalen had never known to do anything—aired sheets, piled wood on the fire, saw Ronald bathed and fed before she went down -to her own dinner, and even then gave sharp instructions to his nurse not to leave him. As she opened the nursery door on the cold stone passage, old David stood there. " Dinner is served, your ladyship," he said, dully, as if he were repeating a lesson. Dolly, with a queer impulse, drew the old man into the warm room behind her. " Won't you welcome Lord Barnysdale home?" she said, almost piteously, pointing to the pretty child in his cot. The nurse was for the moment in the next room, and could not hear the tremor in her voice. The old man glanced at the boy with a momentary flash in his old eyes." ; " That's no him !" he said, contemptuously. DoUy turned on him savagely, her grand manner all forgotten. Not Barnysdale' son! This child at whom she looked with terror sometimes, lest she should see his father's likeness in him; her trust for whom she had faced the whole world. " How dare you say he's not Barynsdale's son?" she cried>» Tl C£.ia.ufflcd xciaa. taiay-^-

But the old man never even looked at her. "Barnysdale's son," he mumbled, toothlessly. " Oh. ay! Ye're dinner is served." Magdalen looked from Dolly to him as he shuffled out. " Never mind him," she said, contemptuously. "Can't you see he's childish?" "He can go and be childish somewhere else, then!" Dolly's fury was more like that of a lady's maid than a countess. "Every servant in this house shall go packing, except that Sophy girl. She did her best." She swept out into the bare stone passage, where a hanging lamp shone pale, and every footstep rang. Downstairs a fire had been lit on the wide hearth in the hall, but the crackling logs gave only light as they roared up the chimney. Old David shambled forward and pointed to the dining-room door. As Magdalen followed Dolly in, the quaintness of the room pleased her, for there was no stone here, only high oak waintcotting that shone with age and blackness. With shaded lights, new, brisk servants, a cook — she laughed as she saw the new countess' homecoming dinner was cold mutton— room at least would lose the eerie look of the rest of the house. She looked behind her and was rot so sure. A long, low window in the wall opened into the great hall itself. Through it weird shadows from the spluttering fire seemed to nod at her. It looked a place for spying, for eavesdropping. "Is there a curtain outside?" Involuntarily she had turned to David. " Then draw it please." But it was Sophy, who was quicker witted, that obeyed her. The old man only gave her a cunning glance as he lifted a decanter with a shaking hand. CHAPTER VIII. MAGDALEN DREAMS. In the cold dawn Magdalen Clyde got out of the hideous four-poster where she had tossed all night, and with shaking hands rekindled! the dead fire. When a blaze was roaring up the chimney she bathed and dressed, as if cold water and clean linen could drive away the senseless terrors of the night. I'll never sleep in this room again," she thought, crossly. "No wonder I had bad dreams in a bed walled in with purple rep!" She shuddered, as if the bare memory of her dream sickened her. " I was tired ; I'd nightmare. What should I ever have to do with a Chinaman?" She scoffed at herself, and for distraction went to the window, where a cold rain beat upon the glass. Outside lay a sodden, windswept garden, behind it black-clefted, threatening hills. In her ears, as she leaned out, regardless of the wet, the muffled sound of the Clyde water that she hated), beyond reach, except that it seemed live a living gaoler to keep her in this cheerless place. She drew back shivering, and shut out the sound of the river with the raw, cold morning as someone knocked at her door. It was Ronald's nurse, with a cup of tea in her hand, and the neat woman stood staring at Miss Clyde. '" Good morning., miss," she said. " I heard you stirring and as I'd made my tea, I brought you some. Oh, you do look ill this morning! Is anything the matter?" For in the dull grey light the girl's eyes were inky in her dead white face, uncanny .under her queer, dull red hair. " The matter? No! : ' And then she laughed. What was she making a mystery about?" " I had a bad dream, Pearce; but don't tell your mistress. Thank you for the tea; it was very thoughtful of you." "My lady's not awake, miss. She was very tired. His lordship seems well. But if I might advise you I should go back to bed." This was vague, if well meaning, advice.

" Bed !" Miss Clyde glanced at the purple catafalque. Oh. I couldn't! But you're right. I don't feel well. Do you believe in dreams, Pearce?" " No, miss." she cheerfully replied. " Well, neither do I! But this was so vivid that I've felt weak ever since," she laughed at the fancy that came over her that if she told the thing she would forget it, and yet it drove her on, restlessly. "It was absurd. I thought I was sitting in a small room off a large one it had two doors, one leading into a passage, the other into the big room, exactly opposite a long glass. It was that queer light you see in' dreams, and I noticed everything that was reflected in the glass; just a bare, empty room, and then—l heard something. Someone moving with very quiet feet outside in the passage, and I heard the creaking of the door that led from it into the large room. I couldn't movein my dream ; I sat and stared at the door in front of me, and I can't tell you the awful terror that was on me. Just the terror of death, and nothing else.

" I couldn't see anything, only hear that noise like someone moving, crawling. And then I knew that if I sat there one second longer it would have me—l'd be killed! I got up and went out into the passage, and I meant to run out of the house, but I felt there was someone between me and the entrance, and I couldn't.

" I looked from the passage into the big room, and over by the fireplace I saw a woman standing with her back to me. I didn't know her. But between her and me, going to her step by step, was a Chinaman. He was directly in the light that seemed to} come from a street lamp outside, and I could see his side face. He looked like a devil stooping, yellow devil, with a hideous white scar on his neck. I don't know how I saw it, but I did.

" He had long, long nails, and he held his hands out crooked and wicked. I knew he was going to pounce on the woman by the fireplace and strangle her with those long, wicked fingers. I ran, and tried to catch him, but I was too late.

"He had jumped it the woman. And as she turned —and if you can understand me, the silence of it all was the dreadful part, for she never screamedl saw her face, and it was me. Me! And then I wasn't watching any longer, for it was I, not she, who was struggling with him ; I felt his claws of hands on my throat as we rolled over and over on the floor. I could see his face, all yellow and distorted, but his eyes were the worst. They looked like dead eyes, fixed! and glassy. " I think I must have fainted then ; I was cold and wet when I woke up. It was only half-past twelve; I couldn't have- been in that bed," with a detesting glance, "more, than an hour, and I've never slept since. Ugh! I can feel those nails on my throat yet." "It was horrid, miss," said Pearce, "but it Avas only nightmare. " You know, miss, vou couldn't have seen yourself." "But I did," she firmly persisted. "I saw mv own self looking at me to save her. Yet at first I was sure it was a stranger, for the figure was more like Lady Barnysdale's than mine. I think if I were to see the mildest-looking Chinaman I should run miles!" Pearce smiled respectfully. "You're not likely to, missnot here! But I shouldn't tell her ladyship ; she seemed nervous enough in this strange house last night. I hope it will be more comfortable soon. The maids tell me the housekeeper returns to-day." " I sha'n't mention it, but it did me good to tell you," smiling at the woman as if she liked her. " You have plenty of sense, Pearce." " You need it, Miss Clyde, when you earn your living," returned the nurse, soberly. When she was gone a queer thought overtook Lady Barnysdale's stepsister. In spite of the absurdity of that dream, she would not stay, or let Dolly stay, another night in this house, if it held rooms like those in her dream — opening into each other, with right-angled outside doors forming the corner of a .corridor. She ran down the stone stairs and went methodically from room to room of the large rambling place. Some doors were open and some locked, but in no passage upstairs or down were there two close together in the way her dream made vivid. With a laugh at her own folly Magdalen ran down again to breakfast. (To bo continued.)