ABOVE ALL THINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12317, 8 July 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

ABOVE ALL THINGS.

. BY ADELAIDE STIRLING. . Author of " Dark Magdalen," " A Dead .Man's Sweetheart," "The Girl "of His Heart," i ,',:." The■: Purple Mask." Her Evil i Genius," "The Wolf's Mouth," 1 •' ■■ ' Etc., Etc. < ■ 1 ' CHAPTER XXI. " you !" Sib Ch.uit.es KiLVAitXKT got over the buck wall of the Dutch garden to stroll toward , the gate Theodora must come bj x and within twenty yards of it;stopped short, and stared at the most beautiful foot he had ever ■ ever laid eyes on. A foot that was not Theodora's. $ It, and a bit of black skirt, were all he could see of a girl who was sitting on the stone bench ; a low tree, cut in the shape of a peacock, hid all the rest of her, Yet that was assuredly not Theodora's preposterous high heel, but a low one, and ail instep — Kilvamet turned the flank of the peacock tree, and stopped again. It was not Theodora, but a girl with wonderful hair, that rose softly around her forehead like a black mist, with black lashes that lay on the rose and white of her quiet face ; lashes that did not lift at his step. , ■ "She's asleep!" he thought. " But—who is it?"- And suddenly there came a queer look over his face ; if he was oddly haggard as lie gazed, he was also grim. "Here!" he thought. -Here! So I was right. But she doesn't look it, not asleep !" He had a wild thought that it was he, and not the girl on the bench, who was dreaming. And then he deliberately shuffled his feet on the gravel. It worked a miracle. The girl opened her eyes, sat up, and looked at him with a smile like- a child's ; and at the sight of his face the child look went from hers as if it had been wiped off with a sponge. \ Every bit of colour fled from her face—it even seemed Xo go from her eyes; every bit of blood in her had gone to "her heart at the sight of him. ' ■'-•• "I am afraid I startled you," he said, quietly, and if he were a hundred times more good-looking than she remembered him, his face was thinner—and sterner! "Don't look so frightened. I came to —" "Yes, I know !" said Tony, desperately and he stared. She had put two and two together the moment she saw Idm. This was Lady Theodora's Sir Charles Kilvamet, whose visit was not to be mentioned. It was also the man she had never thought to see again, had hoped for in vain ; and had dreaded when she heard his voice in the little inn at the village.* And she had done well to dread him, apparently, for there was nothing friendly in his face, only a great surprise andwas it contempt? He knew her! And was looking at her like that. Did he mean to ruin her, have her ...turned' out? V She looked at his: hard eyes, his silent mouth, his liandfc, and something like a passion of anger came over her, as the blood came back to her face. She would he a coward no longer ;.she was tired of it. .This man might belong to Lady Theodora; she did not care. He had belonged to-her for the. one good hour,of a never forgotten 'night; She. had '. that much ' right to set herself straight with him. : She would have no man look at her with those eyes. : "You see I was surprised he said, slowly. "You know why. At first I could not believe I knew you." ■ ' Tony stood up and faced him. There was the same boyish, gallant bearing that he remembered; in her, and something else. ■" I knew you," she said, very slowly. "I did not?know your name till this afternoon." For a moment his eyes were full on hers, and the look in them was not nice ; but she never quivered.- It was now, or never this. afternoon, with other people than Lady Theodora. ; ,','/" I read yesterday," said Kilvarnet, " that you Were'■'■ dead. well, it's no matter!" He did not say he had; wired then and there to know if it were true, and felt sick at the answer. V And as he looked at her, his old black misgiving about her leaped up alive, and small wonder. : ; » "It's no business of mine," he said, suddenly J-"1 don't understand how they came to think the girl was you ; but, if you'll let me say it, I would almost think the river was—better than letting Ravenglass help you to-pretend to be dead." "Ravenglass! 'Lady Theodora's uncle It was her turn to stare. " I never saw him in my. life." ••■'>''.■,'.,'. ;." Then—" He was oddly pale and he did not finish. r ' ,'.. "I heard your voice the other day in the inn at Ravenglass,",said Tony. It was perfectly irrelevant, and she did not know why " she. said it, but it startled Kilvamet. "Why didn't you keep out of my way, then?" was on his tongue, but he looked at her, and kept it there. "We're ,at cross purposes," he said slowly. "Do you mean he has not helped you?" ; " I don't know what you mean, sir; why yon look at me as you do, v unless—" The quick thought shook' her like a leaf. Did this man, out of all the world, believe that lie in;' the newspapers? "You can't, you can't think that she cried. It was all she could do to stand in the shock of it. Perhaps he did not understand her, for he did not answer to the point. ■■■■". Then why did you leave Teresa when she was dead?" he asked 2 instead, and involuntarily. . In a second there was fire in her frozen .ayes.,;.: ...:../,,. - - ""I never left her. I don't know Hvhat you mean." ' •-:." t;''-'■■ "I mean I went to you to try and help you. I rang and rang, and no one answered. So I went away. I thought the house was empty." " _' ' "So it .was, except for me." She put her hand to the instant lump in her throat. " The servants went, I hadn't anybody* but . —but Teresa ! v The cry in the word startled him.' "I was alone in the house with Teresa: for three days; no living creature but me. You might have rung till doomsday," she turned on him fierce with pain, and the knowledge of that, incomprehensible something in his manner. "Do you think I would have left her for any ringing—till 1 had to? She had no one but me ; she never had. If I could have died, too, -when she did, I would have thanked God for it ; she was every bit of • the world to me. You said,! don't know why, that I'd be better lying dead ; at Marlow than standing here, and think I'd be there if it weren't for one . thing— some day I may find out who came in from the street and killed my Tere- ' sa. I'd die gladly to-morrow,' if I could find [ that out to-day." What have I got in. this world to make me want to stay in it but that?" She had not looked up at him, she did not ; see how his face was changing till he looked i years older, and kinder. She was thinking E that if he did not believe in her,, she could . not bear it. "It was kind of you to come, that day," ; she said, suddenly. "I had never imagined , you would." • " "Why not?" , If he stuck a little on it, I she did not notice, nor that his face was deadly pale under his tan. i "Why should you?" recklessly. "You J were kind once ; more than kind. But that • was no reason you should go on. I know I what you're thinking." ■ : " Don't," said Kilvamet, sharply ; " don't, please!" Perhaps the words hurt him, for a selfish reason, and perhaps for an unselfish one, but they hurt. " Tell me how you're here." The sternness was gone from his " voice. " How they came to think that girl » was—you!" 1 "Because," indifferently, "they thought ; I killed Teresa. As you think. They said ' I did that, and ran away— I stole the 1 real rubies. So I did run away," her voice broke at it, "but it was because I didn't , know. i If I'd known I would have faced it. • But, as it was, I couldn't go back. I wait--5 ed. They might have known I didn't do it." 5 There must have been good blood in her ■ somewhere, for she was not crying. " There I may be things I don't know about that night, but there must he someone some- ; where, who knows it was not 1 killed my > Teresa." There was no doubt about Sir Charles > Kilvamet's paleness now ; he was as patchily white as a, sunburned man can be.

"Ot course, there's some—some brute who's holding his tongue!" he as if it were a hard thing to get out, and a stupid one. , . ".They need never speak now. whoever , it is," she answered, dully . " Teresa's dead, and I'm dead. And even if I knew who it was 1 don't know what I'd do. I've been too near"— clasped her hands around her throat,, and lie never, noticed the beautiful pose of her—"too near.. to hanging to send anyone else to it! It would do no good to Teresa. I couldn't sleep in my bed if I thought anyone waa feeling as 'I've felt since I knew they— they thought of me!" Kilvarnet began to speak, and made a queer sound in his throat. Then his. voice steadied. . " Tell me all you know, and all you did, ■ lie said. " How' did you get here? I know" —he stuck an instant—" I know .you never, touched the rubies, or Teresa! But tell me,as if vou thought I didn't." Standing in the very garden where Theo- ■ dora had kissed him that morning, he had forgotten all about her. There was nothing in. his head but the thought that this girl might be in awful peril, any day; and that , he, Charles Kilvarnet, who had borne a decent name so farynvould have to help her, and that he had wronged her past apology."Sit down," he said, suddenly, "and go on!'' As she obeyed him he stood before her, with his cap iii his hand. It was a queer way of compromising with his own conscience. . "There's not much," she answered. Yet, as soon as she began, she knew it was a comfort to open her lips to any humans being. The story she told him was bald enough ; perhaps the significance of what she said did nob enter her head; she had not looked for kindness, and she had not found it. But" when she came to the tossing up of her last coin, he bit his lip. . His last coin meant going on credit, till he had .more. ; Hers had meant —he would not think of it! There was only one thing she forgot when she came to the registry office and Theodora —the little boy who had run away from, her when she- gave him sixpence. It was a. ( trivial thing, and slipped her mind. If ever a man felt an unutterable brute, it was Kit- . varuet as she faltered a little over buying those tickets for Marlow; over Lady Theodora reading aloud that paper in the train. He never said one word, he hardly looked at her, but he felt her eyes on his face all the way through her story. "So you see," she ended. "I did change my name and run away, but I didn't know, I was doing it. I was waiting here, for the police to come every hour of every day,, when I read last night that I was dead ; that Dare and Mr. Leith had both identified me.I burned the papers. I was afraid to tak* ... them home to Lady Theodora. : When heard your voice in the inn 2 I was afraid* too. You had seen me strike a man in the street. - I thought perhaps you would—" ' "Don't, please," he muttered again. Then 1 ; ho looked at her. " You did not know ib was I you would see, when you came here:"' She "shook her head. * - " Would you have come if you had?" It , was an involuntary, question. : "Ohj yes!", dully. : "Anything Lady, Theodora" told me I would do. It is she . who has saved me.. She was kind." Sir Charles was convinced that Theodora ; bad a heart of gold, because there were a hundred things to tell him so, including her devotion to her paralysed uncle. Therefore it was exceedingly odd that there rushed ove* him a feeling of blank : despair. This girl was trusting ■■" to Theodora's C kindness, to Leith's lasting ignorance of her whereabouts. And any day Theodora might take her back to London, send'; her on errands where she might meet someone who knew. her, perhaps Leith himself. And suppose Theodora, ( were told, would she—could any woman—* 'go on " being kind" to a girl who had been; accused of murder? ); Go on having her about her day in and:day, out? Common sense,; and a. sudden inward knowledge of , that he had not known he possessed, 1 answer*, ed him. . ■ . -, ■ , t ; ~...-. - Tony looked at the stern lines of his facei " I know I ought not to be here she cried; "I know isn't' fair. i: : But—where can 1 ; go?" * ' ' ' ,; > Sir Charles did not answer to the point. • " I wish to God I'd been at that inquest!'" he said. " Why didn't you tell about me?. ! What made you hold your tongue?" "I couldn't , tell; : :I; don't know."- For the first time she stammered. " You had nothing to do .with it." '" "* " Good God !'.' He stepped back a pace or two, and Theodora had never seen him look as he ; looked now. " I ought to have, if I had not! I knew, about those rubies; I had a: sort of feeling that there might be trouble about them, because I'd noticed a street boy; come on the hansom with us, the same one I'd seen following you from the theatre with that man. I stayed and watched your house for a while; I think I was waiting to see a policeman, and \ * ■■'--:•' "Well?" He had stopped short. "Oh,. I went away—too soon!" he ended-, with a queer look at her. " Ibut I ought to have told all that a"t the inquest! Only. I was in Ireland., I didn't know till it was over. I . couldn't tell—then!" There was nothing in what lie had said to make her heart lighten a little, but lighten a little £"> did. At least he had thought of her; he could not be all : Theodora's, for he had cared.: She turned to him feverishly. "That boy? And that man? Do yoil think" ■''■ •"■"'- ' :• , "I think they'd nothing to do with it-," harshly. "I—£ can't tell : yon who had... Anvone!" lamelv. "Those'rubies—" .; "But if the boy followed me? t: Oh. I why, > didn't you tell me he followed me?" "I was afraid of frightening you. I curse myself: for it now. But I don't think it had anything to do with the. boy in the end. I might have saved-you, though, if I'd put you on your guard." v, ' "You*did!" She did not know, how she

flashed up. " And! laughed at; you. Don't you remember? You warned me, and you said you yourself were:' rather a blackguard.'"., She smiled faintly. : ■■'■■" That's true enough," grimly. " Hush," she whispered ; "hush ! I feel as if you were trying to make me think it— was you ! But you can't." :-. Had- not Teresa said i "If you love a good man, have faith in him, trust him even against your eyes." She would have faith till the end of the world in Charles Kilvarnet, even though he had had none in her. His voice cut in on her thoughts oddly. "Why not?" . ; "Because 1 know it wasn't. And because I saw another man close to the house after you'd gone. Oh, yes ; I knew yovwere,there!" quietly. : And yet you never told!" .-.■".' " Men "like" you aren't murderers." She shrugged her shoulder,'? contemptuously.- : ; ."What sort of man did you see?" Th« question was almost indifferent. " I don't know," she owned, helplessly.; "I tried to tell it at the inquest; but they laughed at me." * Sir Charles Kilvamet fished in his pocket' for his cigarette case, and turned away as he held a match to his cigarette. ' " I want to think." He had had an instant before lie faced her again. "I can't think unless I smoke. You don't mind? 1* want to find something for you to do." " You mean," she flushed scarlet, " I can't! stav here?" "'Look here !" said Charles ; he threw down! the just lit cigarette that was to help him think. "Do you think you could trust me? Because I'm afraid you must either do that,, or—" "-. " Or tell Lady Theodora," she interrupted,; composedly. ' ! «■•,, "You can't tell her he shoutedj almost; roughly, yet he was not thinking, altogether,. of Theodora. In one sense, this girl had no right to be here; in another, if Theodora knew everything, and loved him, she ought to go down on her knees in thankfulness to the fate that had brought her this maid s instead of any other. And still, as he said,. it was impossible t to tell Theodora; the thing would half kill her. If ever a man! was in a coil of his own making, it was Kilvamet in that sunny garden. " No z you can't tell her he repeated. " But neither can you go on being her maid ; " it's not right— either of you ! And it isn't—" ha stopped " safe" on his tongue. Honourable," said Tony 2 in a whisper,; " Oh, 1 know that ! But—" He cut her short sharply. "I wasn't" thinking of honour. I was thinking—" It was queer that a sharp corner of the 1 packet of rabies he wore under his shirt touched him uncomfortably as he paused,, (To toe continued daily.)