HELD APART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 24 October 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

HELD APART.

'<; BY E. NORMAN SILVER, Author of " Hate the Destroyer," " A * Daughter of Mystery," " The Golden . Dwarf," " Warder? of the Deep," Etc.

CHAPTER I. THE FACE AT THE BOOK. "BY Jove, what a lovely thing! Miss Davenal, you are a genius, Imagine your doing that "all out of your own head!" "Not quite all out of my own head, Sir Guy," was ine ailaill S response ; " I assure you it has taken up yards and yards of ribbon. I nave never tried to do such a big piece before. I was afraid at first the.de- -- sign wasn't going to be bold enough." ! The speaker stepped back to contemplate ; her unfinished taska large, oblong panel of ; dead-leaf silk, stretched upon a light frame \ of laths and covered by the wandering green j sprays and ruddy blossoms of the briar-rose, ' worked curiously in loosely-drawn ribbons of various shades and breadths. The frame, itself stood near a bobbed firegrate, in a lit- ■ tie, plainly-furnished apartment, from whose wide, recessed, small-paued window j the fading beams of a MarcTl sun fell across j an oil-clothed floor to illuminate the splendid panel which Moira Davenal was studying. She herself was a figure befitting the unpretentionsness of the place. Tall—for a fill vet. in the last of her teens—and elasti-c-ally moulded, her simple blouse and skirt , were bidden by an ample white apron with an old-fashioned "bib" and straps. Her features were fine and sti ugly marked, her expression shy yet resolute Her hair, which was of a rare and true gold, inclining towards the warm tint of the ripe orange, was gathered in almost cumbersome masses low ' at her neck. Her companion find been contemplating lier no less intently than she had been regarding the panel of ribbon-work. He was voting man, with the smooth brown skin jul proud, good-tempered profile of the wellwed Briton. His costume was the dark, smartly-cut tweed morning-dress, so dear to the heart of the country gentleman, and his riding-hoots and hunting-crop showed that he had but lately left the saddle. ' " Nonsense he declared, " the result is perfect. I shall be positively ashamed to rob you of it." Moira threaded her needle with a long strip of narrow green ribbon. "Why should you feel like that?'' she answered, " it has been done for you and you —you are paying me for it, you know. Then I have enjoyed doing it very much indeed. That is even better than being paid. Besides, I am thinking of putting up over the. door, ' Moira Davenal, Embroiderer in Ribbon to the Nobility and Gentry." You are my first great client, Sir Guy. .That might go over the door, too, ' By Appointment to Sir Guy Vaubrugh, the Close, Groudle, Cumberland.'" Guy Vaubrugh looked out of the window. Beyond its trimly-curtained panes was a, sleepy little harbour, a cobble-stoned quay, and the squat brown masts and cordage of a few coasters and fishing-luggers, shut in by a wave-worn breakwater. Over all was the grey sky, touched with the fitful sunshine of a quiet March day—a March that was apparently inclined to fulfil the proverb by going out like a lamb. At the gate of the garden which surrounded the house—half villa, half cottage—was fretting a " dappled" bay hunter, its reins looped to the latch of the "wicket. a " You are laughing at me, Miss Davenal," Moira was told ; " but there, I am quite defenceless. I only wish you would let me give you the panel for yourself and a piano to fasten it to." - ■" Moira Davenal glanced afc him quickly. "I have a piano oi my own, Sir Guy, bub I don't keep it in here. In Groudle pianos belong to the best room, and most of them have holland covers on from one year's end to another. And as for the panel, I must do myself a copy of this, if you don't—or rather, if Miss "Tarieton doesn't mind. I believe you said you wanted it for your cousin." Her companion flushed— flush almost boyish in its intensity—and played awkwardly with his whip. "Miss Davenal." he rejoined, "you are verv cruel. I suppose you mean that people are* talking about—lrene Tarlcton. and I being more to each other'one of these days than"cousins. Well, it's a confounded untruth. Irene and I are the best of friends, always have been, and I won't, say our fathers didn't lav plans over the wine and walnuts. But Irene doesn't care for me in that way ; and though she hasuVan idea, thesly little minx, I know whom she does like." Moira had begun to work on a spray of leaves in a corner of the panel and her face was hidden. "I—l beg your pardon, Sir Guy," she murmured. "I suppose it did seem as if I were hinting at what isn't my business." Guv Vanbrugh came a step or two nearer. "Irene is a brick, though," he said, "and ' no end fond of beautiful things. That was why, when I dropped in that day to see your father about the yacht, 'and noticed you busy with some of that wonderful ribbonstuff, I thought I'd got yon to do me a piano screen for her. It's her birthday soon, and I'm going to give her a little piano I've taken a fancy to, and one of those automatic affairs to play it. Extraordinary things they are, and getting to be quite the rage." He was talking nervously, and for no better reason than the sake of saying something. Suddenly he bent over her. ' "Moira," he "added, "you didn't think I was only amusing myself, did you? You .couldn't"think that badly of me," surely." The golden head bowed over the panel was raised haughtily. "Sir Guy'" began Moira Davenal, "I— Guy Vanbrugh checked her with a gesture. "Don't, dear," he said, "you're not angry, and you're not surprised. Women always guess these things, even before a man knows himself. Have I a chance to win you for my wife? I'll give you all the time you want to be sure, and, to be honest, I can't hear that I've any particular rival, though every bachelor in Groudle, by all accounts, is mad for you. Moira, have 1 the least scrap of a chance?" Moira twisted the ribbon in her fingers. "I—l don't know, Sir Guy," she faltered, " 1 never thought abour you seriously. And they would all say I married you for your money!" Guy Vanbrugh laughed, a deep, masculine laugh, with a gasp in it not unlike a sob. " Then there is a chance for me," he said, biting his lip. ''Moira, I—" He stopped abruptly. The ribbon fell from Moira's grasp and she looked up into his face. Its mask of well-bred composure had been lifted and she saw how profoundly , he was moved. Something seemed to sting her own heart, and she put out her hands in a spasm of sympathy and protest. "Please," she begged, " don't look like that. I'm not worth itno oman is." Guy Vanbrugh took her soft palm in his. ''Moira," he said, "here have I been learning to love you better than anything else in the world, and you have been telling yourself all the while that I was only amusing myself. Perhaps you were wise, "but all the same you were wrong. Listen, lam going to London for a few daysl must, on business. i called in to ask yon to explain to , your father. When I come back you shall let me know if you have missed me just a _ trifle. Don't allow your kind heart to pity me over-much. J don't want to be pitied, . Moira, I want to be--" . He started back. There was a heavy step :.. m the square hallway of the cottage, and a burly, almost gigantic figure, moving with ; «i slow, short stride, entered the room. "Good evening, Mr. Davenal," remarked kuy Vanbrugh easily, picking up the whip he had laid down, "I was just about leaves you a message. I must run up to London for a week-end. How goes on the task ' of raising the Sylph?" '.-the newcomer rubbed his deep, cleanshaven chin with a linger and thumb.

"I've found the last hole, Sir Guy," he answered, " under the port bow. The keelplates have parted and the water can pour in faster than any pumps those London men. were using could get it out. But I'll have her afloat iiow before long." "Excellent!" exclaimed Guy Yanbrugb, "I only wish I'd called you in at first, Davenai, it would have saved time and mone>." ' The diver smiled— broad, pleasant smile. He was a huge man, whose breadth of limb and chest disguised his height, and he had the placid giev eves of a child. "it's very "kind of you to say that, Sir Guy," lie responded, "and I'm glad to be of use* to you. But I wouldn't Lave gone down again, sir, for anyone, but your father's son. I've made mv little bit, and I'm getting ou. I want to spend the evening of my life in idleness, and, if 1 may own it without cowardice, in safety." He drew Moira into his arms as he passed her, and scanned her face with gentle attention. " You're working too close, lass," he said, " yon roses are taking tho roses out of your cheeks, I'm thinking." " Oh, no, dad," cried Moira eagerly. "I'm sure it isn't that. .Sir Guy told me not to tire myself over it, and I haven't, If I'd liked I could have finished it ever so long ago." She blushed furiously—without any appatcnt reason— glanced covertly at Sir Guy. He was viewing his hunter from the window. "My horse is getting impatient," he observed'. .Miss Davenal, I shall never forgive myself it' you work too hard on my account. * Good afternoon, Davenai You have my authority to put the panel in tho fire if your daughter devotes to it more than half an hour a day. I shall only bo hi town for the week-end,*so you can let me know its fate when I return." He touched Moira's fingers, their eyes met, and Moira cast:, hers down. Then he shook hands with .John Davenai, and, leaving the cottage, sprang into the saddle. Moira drew back the curtain and gazed after him as he rode away. '" That's a fine young fellow," said John Davenal, sitting down heavily by the fire, -i but I wish his yacht was safely afloat again and my last dive yonder —I'm uot so fit for it as I was." Moira turned quickly. " Are you unwell, dad?" she asked anxiously. The diver put his head into his big palms. "It's my ours, lass," he rejoined ; " first it's one and then the other. To-day it's the right side, and I'm fair moidered with the pain." " Poor dad!" exclaimed Moira tenderly, and dropping the curtain, she crossed the kitchen towards him. She paused half-way. A loud knock had sounded on the cottage-door. Without ceremony it was thrust wide, and a man's form appeared in the entrance. He was below the medium stature, yet conspicuously broadshouldered and athletic. . His hair and bristling moustache were of a fairness almost ashen, and showed oddly upon a countenaee tanned and bloated, and jowled like that of a bull-dog. A reefer suit of worn blue serge and a peaked cap of the naval type suggested the sailor, but his trousers lacked the characteristic " flare" over the boot-top. And yet there was about him an unmistakable flavour of salt water. Unsteadily vet familiarly ha thrust himself into the small apartment. Aud as he reeled inwards he sang, in a loud, husky whisper, interrupted by hiccoughs, a scrap of a chorus: Give mv love to Nancy, the girl that I adore, Tell her that she'll never sea hsr—her sailor any more. The singer stopped and stared round incpiiringlv. "I want to see Davenal," he said thickly, " John Davenal— .folia. Lives here, doesn't he? Let him know Hartigan wants a word with him—Dennis Hartigan, that was chief steward of the Athabasca. He'll remember me; good reason to. Say I want to see the girlnot Nancy, the—the other girl." The dive, rose to his feet, strode to the intruder's side, and grasped the hitter's elbow. '•Hullo, Hartigan!" he remarked loudly, " who'd have expected you to turn up in Groudle? Glad to see you, though, glad to see you! Sit down and make yourself comfortable; I'll be with you in a moment." He pushed the maritime-looking figure towards the fireplace and forced it into his own chair. Seeming merely to pilot its unsteady steps, he was, in reality, controlling it as if it had been a puppet. " Moira," he added, "go aud get me a drop of almond oil from the chemist's, there's a good lass. Tell him it's for my ears, and ask aim to put a suspicion of laudanum in it." The other caught at his coat sleave. "Look here,'' he said, "you let me doctor you, John. On, l may be a bit muzzy, but I'm not drunk, and if you've got the earache I can cure you in a twinkling. I've a famous preprescription— the word! Don't you worry about laudanum, let her bring me a, spoonful ■ of chloro— chlorodyne. No, dash it, that's not the stuff, it's chlorof —chloroform. Fetch me a thimbleful of that, and I'll have you better in a jiffy!" .Moira hesitated. The diver motioned to her. " Humour him, Moira," he said, in a rapid aside, " bring both." His visitor plucked h?m by the sleeve again. . "So that's Moira!" he exclaimed; "come out of the daylight, John, and let me have a squint at her." With a muttered anathema the diver yielded, and the bloated visage of Mr. Dennis Hartigan was; thrust towards Moira Davenal's fair, disdainful face. "Humph!" he growled at length; "1 never was fond of .your blooming blondes. Be off, my girl, ami bring me what I've told you, or I'll send you back for it." Moira shrugged her shoulders, took up a woollen tam-o'-shanter from a corner table, put it on, ran a pin through it, and went out. Left alone with his visitor the diver clapped his hand on the nape of the other's neck. It bent as a reed bends to the wind. "Now," he said, " what do you want? Not the —not Moira'?" Dennis Hartigan looked wise. " And if I do?" he demanded, evasively. The diver set his jaw, and his pleasant countenance grew fierce and bull-like. " You sha'n't have her!" was his passionate response. " Neither of you have sought her for more: years than there are fingers on my hands. She's my child by nurture and, affection, she loves me as if I were her father thinks I am her father." 'It's a clever child," commented the steward with a grin, " that knows its own lather." John Davenai brushed his coarse black hair off his forehead. "Let us get to the point, he pursued. " Moira won't be a.way long. I'm going to make you an offer, Dennis Hartigan, and it is this. While vou keep from Moira the fact that I am not her father, while you allow her to remain here peaceably with me, I will pay you fifty popnds a year. I'm not over rich—though I have lasted better at my profession than most—but I can manage that much. Let her go on calling me father; she is nothing to you, and she is everything to me." Dennis Hartigan chuckled. "Fifty pounds a year," he said, "well, if it's worth it to you it's worth it to me. Give me a tenner on account and I'm mum." John Davenal sprang to a neighbouring shelf, took down a brass-bound travelling desk, and unlocked it hastily. Big man as he was he was trembling with a feverish excitement. The steward sat back in the wooden armchair, crossed his legs, and began to sing his drunken chorus— Give my love to Nancy, the girl that I adore, tell her that she'll never see her sailor any more. Say 1 He halted abruptly, and with such a curious gurgle in his voice that John Davenal looked round from the gold pieces he himself had begun to count; The steward was staring at the further door of the kitchen. It had opened stealthily, and in the aperture between the door and jamb was a woman's face, pale, and with the limpid, expressionless eyes of the blind. Her features were set in a gaze of profound attention ; it seemed as if her very soul were listening. CHAPTER 11. IllE EA.HS OF TIIK BLIND. As though paralysed by a kind ow fright the steward sat, his gaze fixed upon the face in tho doorway. It was that of a

young woman, but its look of tremulous simplicity was unmistakably girlish. Pals as it was at the moment it had a fragile, appealing prcttiness, increased by the loose brown hair that waved natural!) over the low, white forehead. . The slowly-opening door revealed a slight form, diminutive even for the- weaker sex. '"•,'.', ' Dennis Hartigan roused himself, and with ! an expletive and a burst of laughter smote a : clenched fist upon the table by him. • "Well, I'm—blessed be cried; its Kit. and! took her for a blooming ghost. I • didn't remember, at the minute, that she I was living with you. Come in, Kit, and I speak to your long-lost brother. When I i saw yon test you were in curls and pinai fores," now I suppose you are ' Miss Kate i Hartigan.' Not so much of the 'Kit, eh'.' ! His" voice had grown suddenly firm and ! strong, though it'was still harsh and un- ! pleasant. The shock of his drunken misapprehension had completely sobered him. I John Davenal shut his desk and went to- [ wards the door. As he passed the steward i he dropped into the latter's palm a rouleau of sovereigns, and laid his own finger on his lip. The blind girl was still lingering at the threshold of the apartment. The diver went and drew her in. Beside his gigantic bulk she seemed more frail and diminutive than ever. . "It's all right, Kit," he said kindly, "your brother Dennis is home again. You had almost forgotten that you had a brother, I'll be bound." Kate Hartigan entered, it seemed, reluctantly. "There's someone else, isn't there?"'she murmured, "someone I beard that night on the breakwater all those years acosomeone who was singing." Dennis Hartigan was thrusting the gold into his pocket. He arrested the motion abruptly, and shot a startled glance at the speaker. " Dennis was humming a bit of a tune," responded John Davenal, puzzled ; " but no one is here excepting we three." Kate Hartigan's face changed, and she sprang, with the singular -confidence of the blind, to the side of the sailor. "Dennis!" she cried. "And is it really you ! Oh, my brother, mv dear, dear brother!" Sho threw her arms round the steward, and hung upon him, sobbing. John Davenal blew his nose violently. Dennis Hartigan coughed. "Thai's all right, Kit," he said awkwardly. " l—l thought you'd be glad to see me." "Glad!" exclaimed the blind girl, brokenly. •' Oh, Dennis, why couldn't you have come before mother died? She wanted you so badly, as badly as I have wanted you since." The other frowned irritably. "A man's got his living to make, my girl," he answered, " and in my trade you must take a job where you can'find it. I've known men to be ten years working their way home from boat to' boat. But wasn't I going to do something for your earache, John?" be broke off, evasively. The door from the garden swung inward as he uttered the question, and Moira appeared. Dennis Hartigan surveyed her with a. new and critical interest; the passing of his temporary inebriation had left him a different man. Smart and well set-up though he was, it was not probable that he was under forty. His eyes were hard, bullying, and cruel, his sunburned visage coarse and vaguely evil. "Got that stuff, my lass?" he queried curtly, for Moira had "not condescended to favour him with a single glance. "No," she said taking off her coquettish headgear, " the man wouldn't sell it to me. I'm not twenty-one, and it's a poison." Dennis Hartigan swore under his breath. "Easy seen I'm not in London," he commented, " but I'll go myself and gat some— hanged if I won't, and tell him what I think of him." The diver would have protested, but bis volunteer physician was determined. " Kit can put her bat on," he said, with the air of on© who utters an afterthought, " and take me to the shop. She used to know her way about this hole as a baby, so I suppose she does still. Til have to be off soon, anyhow, and I expect she won't mind a stroll with her long-lost relation." The blind girl darted out of the room, and came back with a hat. Her face was glowing with pleasure and interest. John Davenal looked from her flushed, innocent countenance to the repellant one of her brother, and sighed as be threw the housedoor wide for them. Denuis Hartigan took bis sister's arm, and they walked off together. Led unfalteringly" by his sightless companion, the steward picked his way across the irregular cobblestones of the quay that skirted the harbour. His sister trod them with an elastic step ; she was used to the clumsy species of paving. The sun was sinking in the fastclouding west, a cold wind blew against them, lights began to twinkle along the shores of the bayi and in the windows of the little town. "How strange," said the blind girl, "to be walking here with you, the last person in the world that really" belongs to me! Mr. Devenal has been, oh, so good and Moira is like my own flesh and blood. But I've always wanted my brother back, Dennis. I am. very glad you have come home." Kate Hartigan's cheeks were flushed, and her sensitive mouth trembled. But the heavy features of her lounging escort bad set' in a fierce scowl, and his brows were contracted and drawn down over the root of his thick nose. "You didn't seem that pleased at first," he growled, "what did you mean by 'All those years ago,' and ' That night on the breakwater?" His sister winced at bis tone. " There, I've vexed you," she said ; "don't be angry with me, Denis; it was only your voice, in that scrap of a song you were singing. I have never really heard your voice before, to remember—l was a tiny thing when you went away—but when 1 heard it just now both it and the song were quite familiar." She guided him round the corner into a more central street and went along it. "Years and years ago," she continued, "I could only have been about eight at the time, I was on the old breakwater one night. I liked to go all ulone and sit down, far ou the landing-steps and listen to the tide flowing, and dream about where it came from, and what it had been doing during the day. And often, I stopped out quite latel think I used to forget all about time in my dreams." " Yes, yes !" interrupted her brother, impatiently; "but you said something about one night." Kate Hartigan assented. "One night," she pursued, " I was sitting there, under the bluff that overhangs the landing-steps, when I heard a voice—a man's voice, singing quite low, in a sort of whisper, and lie was singing just what you were when I opened the kitchen door. I have always remembered the words— " Give my love to Nancy, the girl that I adore. Tell her that she'll never see her sailor any more." "And the rest was about the Union Jack and fighting with a black. Then he said, to someone who was with him, I suppose, 'This is far out enough; in with it.' ■ And then there was a kind of grinding of feet on the stones above, and a splash just, in front of me." The steward had clenched his fists, and his yellow teeth showed viciously under his moustache. "A rum thing, I daresay," he answered sulkily, " bub the song was quite popular once, and any amount of people must know it. I always sing it vhen I get a trifle muzzy. Odd, perhaps, but I do." " Muzzy?" repeated his sister, bewildered ; "what is that?" " Drunk," explained her brother harshly, "not that I was exactly drunk just now. But I had a drop and felt like tuning up. At least, 1 did till 1 saw your white face in the "doorway. It was so like a ghost's it fairly sobered me." The blind girl sighed. " I'm sorry I startled you," she replied, gently, "but I wish you hadn't been what you call muzzy, Dennis dear. It may have been that which made your voice sound so like the man's on the breakwater, a* if he had been 'muzzy' too. Yours sounds quite different now." Dennis Hartigan's jaw set and his bands clenched again involuntarily. "Maybe," he <aid drily; "aren't we ever coming to the chemist's?" "It's at the next corner," answered'bis sister, and the steward quickened his pace. Another moment and they had entered a small shop, whose illuminated green and crimson window-flasks showed its tenant's profession. Dennis Hartigan strolled up to the counter, and a little, bald-headed, snowybearded man confronted him

"I want some chloroform," he said, ««A as you don't seem inclined to trust a women with it I've come myself." , The chemist smiled and rubbed his * th . ered palms together "Ah," he observed, " so you are the gentleman whose messenger, Mk?Davenal was. Yon see the young lag; is not of legal age to sign the po woa-Mg*. ter, and chloroform is, as you will too*,-* poison of a peculiarly dangerous sort. 1 His customer sneered. 'I >Wffi it on the nod in more countries than om, ho said; "however, where is this DM y register? Sixpenny worth of the stun Will do me— if you like." , He took up the offered volume and tne pen and scrawled his signature in the prescribed space. The chemist served him with the drug ; he ordered, as a supplementary item, a small quantity of cotton-wool, paid for his purchases, pocketed them, and stepped out of the shop with a gruff ' boon evening.'" . This time it was his sister who took his arm. "You're not vexed with me really*, Dennis, are you?" she said. Dennis H&rtigan gnawed his moustache. "Why should I be?" he queried. "When you were a lass of eight I was alternately roasting and freezing on a.Chinese cargoboat. What has your man with a voice like mine to do with me? After all, I'll bet hewas only drowning a sick dog or a batch of kittens."

"I know," said the blind girl humbly, "but you can't believe, Dennis, what a strange impression it left on my childish mind. For years after that I used to dream that I heard the voice singing over and over again:

" Tell her that she'll never sea her sailor any more."

with a sort of stop before ' sailor,' just as you sang it to-night. And my dream always turned to you, because you were a sailor, or practically a sailor, and I was afraid I might never see you again. Then, in my dream, 1 would hear someone say, ' Over with it!' and a splash would come, and I would wake up shuddering. But I never mentioned it to anyone, for fear they would laugh at me."

Her brother's grim countenance grew less perturbed. "That's a good, sensible sister," lie said ; "you take my advice and forget all about it." And now let's hurry back, or Davenal will fancy we've lost the road between us." |

His guide quickened her pace, and they regained the house near the quay without either making further reference to the subject which had so singularly occupied their attention. On the way, Dennis Hartigan had paused to add a third item to his list of purchases—a common white clay tobaccopipe. As they entered, the steward saw that Moira had lighted the lamp, and that John Davenal was seated by the fire in his wooden armchair. Moira, leaning over the back, was placing a little chintz-covered cushion behind the diver's head. His large, soft, somewhat pained grey eyes were raised to contemplate her, and one" of his huge brown palms caressed a little hand that had rested for a moment on his shoulder.

live watcher grinned. "1 believe the old fool worships the ground she walks on," he muttered. "Might bo his own flesh and blood—thinks she is, mora or less. If— he onlv knewl"

i He stepped into the kitchen, with a sudden assumption of cheerfulness. ." Here we are," ho said; "now we sha'n't be long. It's as easy as lying, when you've once been shown."

He laid down upon the table the bottle of chloroform, the cotton-wool, and the to-bacco-pipe. Moira and the diver watched interestedly; the blind girl, who had gone through to take oil' her hat, returned to listen.

The steward plucked away a scrap of the cotton-wool, poured a few drops of the chloroform upon it, thrust it into the bowl of the pipe, and clapped his hand over the latter.

"Looks like magic, doesn't it?" he observed ; "a Yankee sailor showed me the dodge. He picked it up from an old soldier who had been, a hospital orderly in his time, and who cured him as I am going to euro you. Lend us the loan of your ears, John, or whichever one it is that is giving you beans."

The diver inclined his head to bring the aperture of his right ear into the light of the lamp. Dennis Hartigan bent down, inserted the stem of the pipe, put his mouth to the opening of the bowl, and breathed steadily, driving the chloroform vapour into the recesses of the ear. From time to time he watched his patient's face.

The liues of the pain began to die* out of John Davohol's features, and the involuntary smile that betokens relief from long-continued suffering, stole over them. He sighed gustily. "That's better already," he exclaimed; " much better I Dennis, you're a famous doctor."

Dennis Hartigan withdrew his impromptu instrument and put it down. " Not a bad notion, is it?" he said; " sort of sends the ear to sleep and gives it a chance to get sjood-tempered again." He stood up and resettled his collar and tie. They had. been disarranged by his (stooping. As he did so his glance fell upon the dial of the clock on the mantel. The hands were close upon the hour of ftve.

"By Jingo!" ho ejaculated, "is that the time? And I've got to get back to Glasgow for the balance of "my pay. I'll have to take myself off. Never mind". I'll be back again in a day or two. A look round among old parts and old pals won't do me any harm, and I'm not sure what I'm going to turn to next."

The blind girl stole to him and put her hands on his arm. "You'll stay a while when you come back, Dennis," she asked; "won't —for my sake? Nobody else has as much right to'you as I have, nobody could have—unless it was a wife or a sweetheart."

There was a ring of curiosity in her pleading tone, and again the keen "listening" look came into her face.

Her brother shot a quick glance at her. The glance passed towards the diver. John Davenal met it gravely, and without any audible observation. The steward's pause had been almost imperceptible. " Well, luckily for'both of us, Kit," he said, "I've got neither to think about at present, so perhaps I'll put in a few days at Groudle, but just now it must be 'quick march.' So long, Davenal; by-bye, Kit." The blind girl clasped his hands and offered her cheek for a kiss. The steward hesitated and something like a blush tinged his sunburned, bloated visage. But he laughed awkwardly, brushing his sister's faco with his moustache. Moira shrank behind the diver, as if fearful lest the same salute night be her fate. But Dennis Hartigan contented himself with a brusque nod and a touch of her unwilling fingers, and, with a renewed " Solong" to John Davenal, departed in the windy dusk. His sister followed him to the gate and stood listening to his retreating footsteps. Her face was aglow with a new-sprung happiness and affection. In the cottage John Davenal was putting on his slippers. "Yon. stuffs done me a power of good, Moira," he said. "1 believe I could do with some tea. While you ai-3 making it I'll go and havo a wash." Passing through into the rear of the small house he lit a candle and set a tap running over a stone sink. As he took off his coat something bulky in one of the deep pockets struck against his knee. "Dear me!" ho exclaimed; "to think of my forgetting that." He thrust a finger and thumb into the pocket and drew out an irregular piece of damp and rotten wood. To it was attached the torn and jagged fragment of a thin metal-plate engraved. Some words were still decipeharble upon it. The piece had evidently been a square and the fragment was a rough diagonal half. John Davenal shook his head over it. "That's a queer, uncanny kind of thing," he muttered aloud, " for me to find in ten fathoms of salt water. I suppose it's part of the coffin of some poor soul who was buried at sea. The ship must have had a handy man aboard to engrave that." He contemplated it doubtfully. "An odd coincidence," he said. " I'll not let her see it—it might make her nervous. Some folks would consider it a bad omen. But, all the same, I'll keep it—yes, I'll keep it." (To ho continued.)

[Another instalment of this very Interesting story will be given in these columns on Monday next, and continued daily until its completion.]