ABOVE ALL THINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12303, 22 June 1903, Page 3

ABOVE ALL THINGS.

BY ADELAIDE STIRLING. Author of " Dark Magdalen," *' A Dead Man's Sweetheart," "The Girl of His Heart," " Tke Purple Mask," "Her Evil Genius," " The Wolf's Mouth," Etc., Etc. CHAPTER VIII. A RUBY NECKLACE. Sir Chas. Kilvap.net had been to Ireland on a fool's errand, or Theodora would have said so if she had known about it, since it was for nothing in the world but to see an old woman who thought herself dying and had sent for him to help her die. She was a poor old woman, too ; the whole countryside abhorred her for her miserliness, which perhaps she could not help. Her neighbours said she could, aud turned eyes of righteous scorn on her contriving;* and scrapings, her rat's castle of a house, and the one slovenly old woman who did for her. She was Kilvarnet's great-aunt, and he ought to have known whether she or her neighbours told the truth about her means, but in plain fact he did not. He swayed each way, and finally decided that no woman with a hundred" pounds a year to call her own would live in the dirt and discomfort that reigned at Mandeville Castle. But,, pauper or miser, she was not dying, and he knew it. as soon a« he looked at her. She sat up in her bed, a skinny old woman with eves like grey ice, and surveyed him when he went to tell her that he found he must go back to London. "You want to run after some woman, she said, suspiciously. "Why can't you stay here and live decently, like-1 do? Your money'd fro live times as far." He" glanced around him and agreed with her; if he were content with broken chairs, and no tablecloths, and an eternal diet of home-cured pig. " There's no roof on my family mansion, and if I turned out my two tenants in my farms I'd have no money to go far or near," he said. "You could live here"-— she hesitated over it, and he knew it" that is," hastily, " if you paid your board!" Sir Charles laughed. " I'd have nothing to pay it with. And you know you wouldn't, let me manage the "place for you, I'd be wanting to put up fences instead—"'

"Patsy Donovan's children have nothing to do but shoo cows!" she interrupted. " Why would I waste my money on fences? Besides, 1 have none. i told you long ago I had none, and if you think you'll get a legacy by coming to a poor, dying old woman you won't." " You're not dying, my dear soul," he said, smiling. " You'll be good for another twenty years, and you know it. There was nothing the matter with you when you sent for me' hut last year's cabbage. Don't, for goodness' sake, Aunt Joan, trifle with that ill-omened vegetable again, or you will be dying!" " Stuff V said tho old ladyj angrily. " Good, wholesome cabbage never hurt anyone. If Bridget said it was decayed she lied, and that's all about it." Mrs. Mandeville was no mincer of words in conversation. "If you'll go, you'll go, ii I'm dying or not. You're a Kilvamet, and you'll die yourself, in the gutter if you don't listen to me. What's this I hear about your being in debt?" her old eves like gimlets. "It's quite true, though I don't know what it is," he said, affably. " I'm always in debt. I'm not a good housekeeper, as Bridget says you are," with a chuckle the old lady did not resent. " You don't know how I could make any money, do you? Because I'd like to marry." " Marry!" She sat up from her yellow pillow, where tho ticking showed through time-worn slits in the linen cose, and screamed at him. " Many ! What for? Have ten children and a sick . wife, and Has she money?" She interrupted herself with a sudden jerk, " Dear Charles, has she money? You'll make me a scrap of an allowance, won't you? How much has she got?" " I don't know ; I don't think she has a penny but a jointure that she'd lose," he responded cheerfully, and the night-capped figure in the bed shook a claw-like fist- at him. ■ . -

" You fool!" said Ids aunt. " A widow ! There's no good in widows. I'll never see the woman, and so I warn you. I'll have no coming around here for houseroom. You'll be glad enough of last year's cabbages when you marry your widow, but you shan't get them." She glared at him venomously. " Not one, if it's dropping to pieces!" she asseverated.

It was Sir Charles' private opinion that Theodora had never seen a cabbage, and he had certainly no desire that she should begin with his aunt's, or be introduced to that lady herself. Airs. Mandeville had no use for women, especially ladies ; even little, sweet Theodora she would probably reduce to tears and pulp at the very first greeting. But she gave him no time to protest that he desired neither her roof nor her evil-smelling vegetables.

" If you're relying on me to help you and your widow,'' she snapped, " you've making a fool of yourself. Oh, I know Father Rat'ferty says I'm a rich woman, with my money here and my money there, but it's a lie. If you bring your gay smiles here in the hopes of money, you're deceived. I know tho house is a fine one, and not too badly set up in furniture''—with a sharp eye travelling from his face to the brokenlegged table and the rickety wardrobe that helped the bed to fill the draught-trap of a room" but there's no money behind it. So now you know. I'll have no widows here, Charles Kilvamet, whether I'm alive or dead. And, what's more, 1 won't have you here either, eating my good bacon and sitting in my chairs. 'A widow,' says lie, " a.nd no money." God send you better sense than to tie yourself to her'! I'll be bound she's a fine, flighty madam, looking out for her second. I tell you, if you marry her you may give up me," smartly. "I'll have no more to do with you. Oh, I see you laughing, but I'm the only influential relation you have!" as calmly as if she did not know that there was not a soul for twenty miles around who did not laugh at her for her squalid poverty or revile her for her stinginess. "How do you mean to live you and your widow?" she demanded. .."What's going to pay the parson and the rent?"

Sir Charles did not look at her. He was a little pale, and twice he put his in his pocket and took it out again, empty. She was right; he had not the money to marry Theodora, nor the right to ask her to renounce a decent income for the barren honour of becoming Lady Theodora Kiivarnet —unless, perhaps, he had not been without an idea that Mrs. Mandeville might not be as poor as she looked and would help him to Theodora, for his face had an odd look a,s he took his hand out of his pocket for the third time, and, as if he had made up his mind to something, laid a little parcel down on the iron tray that held his aunt's breakfast.

" I thought that might pay the parson!" lie said, and his manner was not like him, for he did not look at her.

She tore the package open, stared at it, then at him. For a moment her eyes glittered, . then her withered old lips curled with bitter contempt. "So you've come to this!" she said. "And for a widow! I'm an old woman, Charles, and I've been a bad one, but I never was a criminal fool."

"Is it woith anything'/" he said, and he was not looking at her yet. She picked up the thing and threw it at him. . "Go and find out!" she said; "I've seen it before. Oh, you didn't know it, I daresay, but 1 haveon a woman's throat! And, mind you this, it's ill-gotten and you'll get no good by such dealings." He did not answer, only picked up the open parcel where it lay on the floor. There was something very tender in his face as he looked at the miserable huddled old woman in the bed. Other people might laugh at her, and she might call herself a bad old woman, but she was dear to the man who looked, down at her. And he winced at her hard voice.

"It's stolen, and you know it." she said. " But if you don't care I can't make you." He moved restlessly. " Why do you say this is stolen—any more than anything else you've known me sell?" It was a queer question, but the answer came pat. "You know as well as I do.

'The two pairs of eyes met, the ice-grey of the frowsy old woman and the baaei,

suddenly weary for all their clearness, of the man—and it was he who turned away. "I," he said, "was a fool to tell you, Aunt Joan! I forgot." "But I haven't forgotten," she spoke grimly. "What you call foolish scruples I call—something else! And I call you—a thief!" A queer look came on his handsome face —half hardness, half impatience. "I cant help it," was all he said. : "I must live. I can't carry on without this." "You are your father's son," commented the old woman, bitterly. "But the earth's in the mouth of the woman who owned the thing, and she can't cry shame on you —or so you think. Take them and sell them; they're worth thousands. And when you've sold them and married your widow you'll know what you've done. You'll have no luck." She sat up and pointed at him, and, somehow-, she was riot grotesque in her rumpled shawl and broken bed, but terrible, as she said that worst thing an Irishwoman can say, " You'll have no luck, you nor yours. ' Keep the thing; hide it away. I'm full of fear of it, fear for you." "Aunt Joan," he said, gently, " you know I must have money." "I know more than I want to of you,' she cried, shortly. Sir Charles turned and looked out the window, as if her hard speech hurt him. For a moment he did not speak. " It's your ruin you're trying to compass," she said heavily. "Listen to me now—

" What's the good?" he interrupted. "Don't say it, that's simpler." He stared unseeingly at the hopeless fields outside, and then turned abruptly.

"If you feel like this I'll promise you something, though I don't admit, mind you, one word you've said. I won't sell this," and he pushed the untidy little packet into his pocket, " without telling you." "Nor show it?" feverishly.

"Nor show it. certainly." His good smile back on his handsome mouth—the smile that might have comforted a younger woman than she washe laid his clean, brown hand on her grimy one. " There, is that better? You never cared what I sold before when I was hard tip; why do you mind this? Really?" with half-laugh-ing emphasis, as if her ostensible reason had been a foolish whim.

" I've a feeling," grimly, " just a- feeling, that it's bad to rob the dead. Go away to London, diaries—back to your widow. But," her old eyes softened, were imploring, " keep this to yourself, and your own counsel about it. Keep it for a month three months.' You'll not die without your widow, and you might diefor that she touched his pocket as he bent over her. "Lie down, my dear old lady," he said, smoothing her pillow as if he had not heard her, but there was relief in her face as she saw his eyes, "and take care of yourself till I come again. Let me know if you want me, and you needn't be dying, you know, to bring me. Good-bye; I must go," and even her sharp old mind did not guess he had never said why.

(To be continued daily.)