A LURKING PHANTOM: A STORY OF LOVE AND MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12399, 12 October 1903, Page 3

A LURKING PHANTOM: A STORY OF LOVE AND MYSTERY.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.]

BY JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BUETON. : : Author of "The Hispaniola Plate," "The Tear One," "A Vanished Rival," etc.

CHAPTER XVII. AN" ENVIED WOIUX. ". v Foe a time after that duplicity which she had practised not only on Sir Geoffrey, but, in a manner of speaking, on Van Vleet, too, Lady Bottrell obtained some peace from Ira Cliallis, if not from her own tortured mind.

Challis, on receipt of the £5000, which was paid to Mm by a cheque to self in the same way that the preliminary £500 had been paid, told her that; Mark Lambert was satisfied "for the present." That, indeed, ha would disturb her no more for some time to come, while he hinted, however, in the same breath that, since the money was; required for investment and to provide his client with an income for the future, it would be as well to let the whole sum of £10,000 be paid over as soon as convenient.

"However," he said, in continuation of these -remarks, "he has the first payment of £500 for present expenses. That will keep. him going very well." "And he has decided,, he has promised, that he will refrain from coming to London, from endeavouring to see me?" Lady Bottrell said. .* "He has promised. You may depend on his word. He is an altered man now; ' a straightforward man, no matter what his "earlier faults may have been. Besides, to put tilings in their most plain as well as most unpleasant light, he knows what is most to his interest. You have shown your'willingness to help him; he Understands that you will do all you can in the future; that you will let him have the second £5000. Say, therefore, that he is still a scheming, calculating man! Well! all the same, he knows which side his bread is buttered."

" I "am glad to hear it. So long as he leaves me in peace I do not care what his motive may be. As for the other £5000. he will get it in time." "Of course.. Of course. That is tinderstood. Granting he is not kept waiting too long you need fear nothing from him." "Now," he continued, "you will not see me here again, Lady Bottrell—not in this hotel, I mean. The place is expensive and — be frank am not here to represent any other client than Mark Lambert. I do not want this sitting-room, except for the purpose of receiving you in, and I do not care to go on living in an hotel." "Where are ■ you going to, then?" Lady Bottrell asked, endeavouring to assume on interest in the man's affairs which she did not feel, or certainly did not feel any further than they concerned her and the-hor-rible transactions she was forced to have with him.

"I have taken a small furnished house up the river. It is quite a modest little place at three guineas a week, between Mortlake and Richmond. But it will do for me as lam alone. And London is hot and stuffy now." "You mean to stay in England for some time then?"

" Oh, no! Perhaps only a month or two —till—till—well! till our business is finally settled. I can ~o at any time, as I only pay. by the week, in advance." "And what will be your address?" "' Laburnum Cottage, Sheen Common,' will find me in future. I suppose I had better direct any letters I may have to write to you to Madame Dupontas usual?" " Yes, that is best." And now, for a time, Lady Bottrell was at rest, at: least from Ira Chaliis and his client. At rest and ready to take part in the splendid pageant of the Coronation (in which she figured, when it eventually occurred on the King's recovery) as a peer- | ess and she then looked, as the papers said (and, when they happened to be illus- j trated, showed), superb. Her jewels,' too, j those ancient Bottrell jewels .which had i been in the family for so long, vied with ; the jewels of the most wealthy peeress in the assembly. Upon her breast and in J her hair shone those great diamonds, the , " Emir's eye," torn by a crusading Bot- i trell, it was said, from out of a shrine of | Cyprus and "Diana's tear," given to an- i other' Bottrell by Aurungzeb before his I death. She shone resplendent amidst all , those to whom she was now peer, and was j envied not only by those amongst whom i she moved," but, also, by those who read 1 of and saw depicted, her beauty and the ' signs of her wealth and position. i She was envied! This woman! This woman who, even as she sat in her robes j and jewels, thought with almost a broken | heart of the helpless, innocent girl on whom she had, all unknowingly, entailed '■ a birthright of shame; as she thought, too, I of the honest, simple, loving man whose ; life was one long pride in the possession : of that beautiful wife who was no wife of j his at all, And, also, she thought that, :, in this world, there were two men at least ; and God only knew if there were not ; more, if the secret had not been confided to J others so that it might be perpetuated— j two men, who, if once she faltered in pro- J ducing the hush money, the blood money, I which it was in their power to demand, '' might expose her to the whole world as a woman who had long lived a life of shame with a man under the pretence of being j his wife. . A woman who had brought a j child into the world branded with a mark j

which nothing could ever efface. " And lam envied she would whisper to herself. "I, the—thethe ah, God! no! Not that! Not that! Never that. I was innocent of what I did. Innocent, thinking myself free to give myself to another man. Innocent as Maud herself on the day I brought her into the. world." Still, in spite of her thoughts, of her unhappy self-communings, she was at ' rest from one trouble a time. She was spared any further demands from Challis until August had come, and she, with Lord Bottrell, was away yachting on the coasts of Scotland and Wales. Then, suddenly, another blow fell. Severine, who accompanied her mistress in the yacht, received a telegram at Oban which had followed her from two other harbours into which they had put, and on opening it she read: " Furness invested the money he received in a speculation which has failed after a month's attempt. He presses for the further sum at once. Oblige him if possible. Ho is desperate and threatening. Challis." "Oh, my God !" said Lady Bottrell, sinking into the chair in her sleeping cabin after Severine had handed her the telegram to read. " What is to be done? He is insatiable. I shall never know peace. Never!" and once more she burst into a flood of tears as she had so often done before. . ~ .'•'••

" Dearest, dearest, do not weep so," her faithful companion said. " Remember, . yon have not. asked Van Vleet yet. And— there are other ways besides. You kifbw my savingsthey are not very much— about a thousand pounds; but still something. They came from you, .through you. Take them back." .'''■■■'.'

Never," Lady Boltrell whispered through her tears, as she let her head drop on Severine'c breast and lie upon it while she sobbed. "Never. Not that, I could not."

" You could not take the money that has come from you. Oh, Rhoda!" "I an - vilt enough, degraded enough, already. I could not sink to that. Never. To rob you!" Then, suddenly, she sat upright in the cabin chair, and seemed to brace herself to what she had to do.

"You are right, Severine," she' said. " You am right. There is Van Vleet. Andafterwardsanother resource. Yes, still another. On» of which I have never thought before." Though, as she spoke, she said inwardly, "Never thought of before! Heaven help me, I have thought of it a thousand times. And, when the moment of exposure comes;' as come it must, I will avail myself of it." "What resource, Rhoda"'" Severine asked, looking at her mistress. "What? You have mentioned no other to me."

" No, but I have one. .Oh! Severine," she exclaimed, seeing a strange look on her companion'? face and recognising that, from her above all, every suspicion must be kept, " I think I have, found a way of escaping out of the clutches of these men, a way out of all my difficulties."

"Thank God," Severine said, never diviniHg what way it was that Lady Bottrell alluded to. . But first—first, there was the last re- : source to he tried, afd then, if it;did not. fail, an attempt- to be made afterwards tto pay back the money that would be ©wing to 'Van Vleet. She would: have time, however, Lady Bottrel^ told herself, for that; what was all' important was that : Mark Puraessi-and Challis should be quieted for ever. -For ever, if they could be quieted at all!

But the attempt did not. fail. . A week after she had heard from Challis she had received from Van Vlecfc a cheque for £3750 (the 25 per cent, was not forgotten by the money-lending "lawyer") in exchange for her note of hand for £5000, and this she forwarded to the former, stating that the further thousand pounds! odd' would ha obtained when she arrived ;in town.

Then once more she was at peace—for, a time. . ,

For a time, that is to say, which covered the remainder of the yacht's cruise, but a peace which was to be experienced by her for no longer a period. For, on their return to London, or rather the return of Lady Bottrell and Severine by train while the yacht containing Lord Bottrell and Maud made its way past the Welsh and South of England coasts to Southampton, the former learnt that Mark Furness was as insatiable «is ever.

"He is terribly determined to have what he considers his rights," Challis said to Lady Bottrell when they met, "and that to the uttermost farthing. He even talks still of coming to England to obtain that remaining thousand pounds odd, if it is not forthcoming at once." "My God!" the unhappy woman wailed, "shall I ever be free of him? Ever? -Will '• he ever show mercy?" and, as she .spoke, she glanced at Challis. ' .> i But what she saw on his face was sufficient to tell her that, in his opinion/there, was very little likelihood of there ever being such freedom for, her. She saw a look in the man's eyes which, she construed to be a look of utter disbelief on his part that Mark Fumess would at any time cease from blackmailing /her, or that he would ever, so long as he or the woman who was his lawful wife lived, cease from terrorising over her. That look on Challis' face told everything, or seemed to tell her so. lb seemed to tell her that she could never escape. Then—then, she lost heart. Or, rather, she took heart.

She knew that the die was cast, and in the casting of it she was. the loser; that the stake ihe had lost was her life in this world, her soul in the next. "I must go out'of existence," she said to herself, as she went back to the home which now in a few days, a few hours, would never be her home again, "a ruined, disgraced woman. I must leave behind me a heritage of shame for my unhappy Husband and child to inherit. I must go into eternity, to be judged and punished for my selfslaughter. And all because,-as a simple, trusting girl. I loved a man who as a scoundrel! Heaven pity and forgive, me!" Yet, as she decided to destroy herself, as she recognised that, henceforth, life, was no longer endurable, she decided on one other thing. She determined she would so quit tins world that no one should ever know what had become of her; that, at least, no trace should be left behind of who and what she was. . ' ;■ ;' ' , ■,-.

"Thus," she mused, "though I. shall be missing no one will ever know ..what I have done. ■ None will ever know that I took my own life because I could not bear the shame I have brought, upon myself. That I could not bear to witness the shame and disgrace I have brought on the only two' creatures I had to love in all the world."' ' • (To be continued daily.) .