MY LADY OF THE RUINS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13594, 13 November 1907, Page 10

MY LADY OF THE RUINS.

! PUBLISHED Bt y 'SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.] t ',t »„*' ''•':■'.■■' '■>' ■'' ■ ""

- ■ ' BY TOM GALLON. " inthor of "Tatterley." "Dicky Montcith," " Fate's Beggrar'Maid," " Kiddy." ' A Rogue in Love." " The Charity \ ■>~.. ■> , Ghost," Etc. *■ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CHAPTER Xll.—(Continued). Giles Blackshaw and Lucy had plenty of time before them: they took the road easily to the station. It was still quite early, but their anxiety had spurred them on to catch the first train available. On the very road to the station they presently came in sight' of a motor-car labouring along towards them. They stood aside to let it pass. Two men were on,the front seat, and thev looked jaded and worn out; the driver was" literally hanging over his wheel. The men were so muffled that it was impossible to see their faces, nor did they look at the voung'man and woman, at' the side of tho road.' • Giles, glancing after the car, made a remark to his companion. " They look rather worn out ; been travelling all" night I should think," he said. "There seems to ho another man in the back of tho' car, absolutely doubled up and fast asleep." . . He could have, of course, no suspicion that that man "doubled up and fast asleep' was no other than Dawson' Varde. or the driver of the car Randal Farter. He went on his way towards London* blissfully ignorant of all that. ,'■',', ' As a matter of act, disaster had dogged tho Way lor Randal Farrer and his friend. There had been a breakdown in the early hours of the morning, which had delayed them a considerable time, and, more than that "in their anxiety to reach their destination, and in their dread of asking the way. thev had again missed their road, bo it came about that they toiled on towards Sunderbury Hall, worn out and dispirited, hours after the time upon which they had reckoned. ...... < . ■ Meanwhile, let us take a flying leap to London, "whither the footsteps of Giles and Jaicv are tending; and later in this same dav'come upon Wilfred Farrer, in the house at- Highgate, with Jane Ingles. Jane Ingles let it bo said at once, was .a woman of that curious, dull, apathetic nature not easily roused, but with a certain bulldog tenacity about her that, once, stirred, was remarkable. She had bided her time she had nursed her suspicions, and yet had been unable to discover anything. Now, all-at one*?.''she was confronted -by this boy, be-, tween' and her missing master she knew there had been no good feeling, and she was-unable to discover from mm what had become of Dawson ' Varde. ' His mere exclamation at sight of the empty room in the-' basement of the house had shown her that, in some extraordinary '■ way, Dawson Yarde had been there all the time, and that voting '.Fairer had expected to find him there. To that point she'had reached, and \ she ; meant to go further. "' *' , _> Faced bv this new enemy Wilfred Farrer procrastinated and lied—and all unsuccessfully. Finally, . .with a , promise, to - comeback, he left the house, and was followed by Jane Ingles without delay. ; ~.•.., '.The dogged; determination of, the "woman showed- her that with this boy lay the secret-out of which she meant to pluck the. heart; she would not let him out' of her fight;" She followed him through street ,street,..ft..demure, black-clad Fate that ccftild not be shaken off. She ate a meal in a cheap"restaurant in which he, . all uncon-' scious, tried to eat also; she sat on a seat in- a : public .garden, at the other end of which he sat, plucking at his lips and staring in front of him. This was her mission now; and. she would, not forsake it. .; , So far as Wilfred Farrer was concerned, it -maybe* said a* once that, suddenly left to-himself like this, all the old; horror and fear camo fully /back upon him. Life was no longer sweet to him, and yet he ; wanted to Jive; bitterly enough. he regretted running 'awav rom: SuEdeihuiy. He would go back, "ho; would strive,; in , some way, not" wholly clear to his mind yet, to be-: gin again; and he would begin -with the help of Lucy. She would care for him, as he iullv believed she had oared in the old, bright'days that seemed to have passed. ; awayVl's-he.would forget all that had hap-, j pened - since .that time. Yea, foe would,go. back to,hen, J ; v (i '-. -■(•■■ i': J. • •-; ;*-' WJhen-she;knows and- understands that I .Sa^o.Cuotohe- iift.her in. all the world she-- will • care ! for me again," he said to hihfself. '-So many things have happened; . eince fiu£ I' saw her—so many things that, seemtliko: dreams—things I would like to forget. I thought that I}; had killed a man ; always before' my eyes tlie man lay •fab ere in a corner of a room—dead—and I was afraid to look at him. But; he's gone; , the room is empty." ■}■ 'He (stared before : Mm.'witha gathering smile upon his face. "Is"it "possible tlhat that -was all a dream, tooj and- that I did not kilt hiin?" •:-,;; He fctarted/'to ".".his feet, and 1 began to * walk ; rapidly away. "She will know, ' she will understand. ' I must find her!"* ■:> J The woman in black at the further end of the seat, who had apparently been immersed in a newspaper, rose a moment la-ter. and walked after,him; nor did she lose..signt* of hfm again. It bad grown dark? by the time she reached the station in-the "wake of the boy, and darkness favoured . her purpose. She was at his elbow wlien he took his ticket for Sunderbury; for that place she took . a ticket also.,' She dogged his "footsteps when he emerged" from the, little country ' station;the ■ .was .hard behind him > when he took that- across the fields that should take him clear of the village. '

He : :d not, go to the house;' he had: a co^tSe'd f £emettbran ; ce of haying seen Lucy in 'the "ruins. ".. By a circuitous route he made"his way there, and, after pausing ! for a moment at" the* door, went quickly in and up the stairs. He Was followed by that blackishadow that had been as his shadow all day. .. - , . : Jane Ingles, at (the: sound Of a muffled screamy gathered up her black skirts and rated up tlie stairs, and came into a room where/ by the fitful light that filtered in through • the. broken roof, she seemed to see two men lying. , One was the man she had. followed all •day, 1 and he was in a dead faint; tho other-was the body of her master, Dawson Varde. '•:'';'' .'-••' ' And Mr. Randal Farrer, rested and refreshed, -was nearing London oh his motorcar ; beside him was his '-.friend Martin Gale.. And they spoke exultingly of what they had done. ".'The body, there, actually in the house of Giles Blackshaw!'.'-; said Farrer. " Well •-all's well that ends well!"

■•';*; CHAPTER XIII. • MAETIN GALE'S TKir/Ml'il.

Despite their willingness and their anxiety to iind yoling Wilfred Farm:, Giles and Lucy Were -.bound to acknowledge tliat the difficulties which beset their search seemed almost insurmountable. True, there were one"or two places in which they might look —such, for instance, as the humble lodging Giles bad taken for himself and the boy on the occasion of their escape' from the house at Highgate; more than that, it was possible that Wilfred might go to Highgate itself, and might be found somewhere in its neighbourhood; At all events, they had made up their minds that at all costs the" boy. must be found. They did not utter, fven to each other, what -was exactly in their minds, but tup fear was with them both that ho might, in. a desperate moment, undo all' they were trying to do for him. Mo'r6-;tlian.this, Giles Bkckshaw had to remember ; that' he must proceed with caution, or the very object of his voluntary exile to Sunderbury would bo defeated. • Abo all, lie dared not place himself in the power of Randal Farrer or Gale again. They still held that unfortunate letter of his, and if they felt it was going hard with Wilfred, Giles knew that , they would not fccruple ,to use it. Altogether, it was a . difficult -and delicate.;: problem , the voun" , people- had to face. _ Olio duty which Giles felt ho must per- - . "-ira—a lodging must be found for Lucv ■ povcton at once.' Ho realised that it was impossible -under any circumstances for her »o . m / wltll ' l h l ilQ, ' to Sunderburv, and bb-' Ss? 15 * feS not ,v,der London home- *« . U* iwmd, after some difficulty, a "^^^. ;

quiet, modest house, and himself paid, in spite of her protestations,, what the woman who kept the place demanded in advance. At the olid of a long day, when it was growing dark, and when their search had proved fruitless, ho left her» there, and set oft to get a room at a hotel for himself. Before leaving her ho spoke of what they had ; done during the day, and of what other days before them must hold for both. " There's only one place. to which we haven't been," 'he said, " and that is the house at Highgate. Personally, I don't think it likely that he would go there; he is too genuinely afraid of what ho knows tJ bo hidden there. More than that, if he did go, he must almost, inevitably meet Ins brother, who>e one desire seems to bo to protect him; therefore, in that sense, he would bo safe. I can do no good by going there, because I should only complicate matters'all .over again; and I don't like to think of you going back to that dreadful house alone. To-morrow, quite early, I'll go round again to those places where Wilfred is likelv to be found; then I'll come to see you, "and we'll discuss what is best to be done." " Ho may have decided, after all, to get out of the country," said Lucy. " Only, in that case," she added, inconsequent!}-, ' that would leave them free to persecute you again— charge you with the murder of that man. And then," she said quietly, " I should come forward and tell the truth. Tilings are different now." He checked her hurriedly. " —under no circumstances must you do that," he said. Whatever happens, I must at least remember that the boy was fighting for you: we must not sacrifice him. I have a feeling that within the nest , twenty-four hours this matter is going to solve itself. I couldn't tell you why such a thought occurs to me, but I feel instinctively that our troubles are going to slide away from us, Lucy, and that we are coming out of all this horrible darkness, into the light." Although neither spoke of it at the time, there was in their minds the commo'n feeling that with the lifting of the shadows 'must come something else— mutual drawing together th«t had seemed inevitable from the, first. Neither spoke .of it now, because other matters more vital pressed upon them both, and all their future was obscured. But the girl knew in her heart that night when the man had left her that he loved her— as surely, in fact, as she knew that she loved him/

She sat for some. time after he had gone, looking into the fire, and brooding.' Images seemed to come aud go in the flames; her young life seemed to be hedged about by strange events. After, a time, as she sat there, even the figure of her lover faded, and she seemed to see instead that other figuretho hunted, desperate boy who had loved her, and who had not hesitated to. strike a blow in her defence. Remembering that she did not even know where he was this night, she began gently enough, in her own mind, to blame herself for not having thought about him more deeply, : From...that, ; as it seemed, the: natural sequence was for her to desire to do something. She had sat still, inactive and careless almost, while ho might be hunted for his very life. At the thought of that she sprang up, almost as though his voice had called to her. She determined that she would make one more effort, before she slept, to find him. She left the house, and hailed a cab, and gave the address at Highgate.. For a moment, as she got into the cab, her heart failed her at the thought of what she was about to do. She dreaded to go back to that place, dreaded to face again the men she had left, and, worst of all, that winch she knew was hidden in the place. .For, of course, she was quite unaware that Banda] Farrer and his friend were gone; she knew nothing of what they had taken with them.

She stopped the cab some hundred yards from the house, , and walked up the hill towards it. The night was fine, 'with a curious stillness in the air: a few stars were peeping out, but there was no moon. Hesitating at the top of the hill, she saw that the place was quite dark; not a light shone anywhere; it seemed to be deserted. Tho fear which assailed her at that moment almost drove her back upon the road she had traversed; it seemed impossible that Wilfred Fairer could.he there. ' „But the 'nest moment she argued within herself that in the ■ event-of his coming his' brother would do all in his power to hide him, f.nd certainly would show ho.light. Her tour age returned to her; .she went towards the house, and stood under the portico of the gate. .• « .>-..:. .■:'»-■:••. Someone else was watching that house, and at the moment when ljucy Dovetou stood hesitating before it, that someone else stood back in the shadow of a doorwar a few yards distant and watched her. "He knew the figure, and his heart leaped when lie saw her there. The watcher was Martin Gale.

He had left Randal Fairer, after their return to London on the motor-car that evening, and had wandered restlessly, dissatisfied with the situation, and with the course events were taking. Once clear of that house at Highgate, he had known that no possible suspicion, under the worst circumstances, could attach to himself; he had been a chance visitor to the house, and had merely remained after the tnagedy in friendliness, as it>appeared, to Randal Farrer. As a matter-of-fact, he had had another object in remaining, and that object had been Lucy Doveton.

In the stress of the time, with the dead man to be disposed of, and some way to be discovered by which they might escape, with the. boy, the consequences of the hitter's rash act, Lucy had, in a. sense, stood aside. -But this dogged man had kept her always in mind, and felt that now, with the matter ended so far as he was concerned, his . chance had come. He knew that the girl had no other home, and that, now that'.her guardian was dead, she was entirely friendless; for, of course, he knew nothing of a certain man called Giles Blackshaw. Therefore, that was the first reason that had brought him back, aimlessly enough, to this house at Highgate.

The second reason was a -more general' one. He was a cautious man, despite his savage temper, and he knew that in that precarious business of getting Dawson Varde out of the way, a woman had been left in the house, to whom the mere nameof Dawson Varde spelt everything. Jane Ingles might have yet to be reckoned with,' if she chose to raise an outcry, and to demand publicly some explanation of the disappearance of her master. Fear for his own personal safety, no less than curiosity to know what the woman would do, had brought him back to Highgate, almost asstrongly as his desire to see Lucy. And here, in the strangest fashion, was the wanderer come back. Here she stood at the very door, evidently hesitating whether to go in or not. Martin Gale, with ■his superior knowledge of the march of events, wondered what she expected to.find in the house. She could not know that the ; body was gone; it was" barely possible even that she could know that i Randal Farrer and Martin Gale were no longer in the house. Meanwhile, Gale felt that his hands would be strengthened, in any difficult questioning by the old woman, if this girl were in the house-at the same time. The girl had rung the' bell. From where he stood Gale could hear the faint tinkle of it in the echoing house. He wondered, in a dull sort of way, how long it would be before Jane Ingles answered the summons and; opened the door. He wondered, too, whether; he ..should find courage enough to walk .in with the girl, in a natural way, without exciting suspicion. Even while ho thought that, Lucy pulled the bell again, and then stood, with her ear close against tho door, apparently listening. That she had some fear in regard to entering the house was evident she walked away a few paces, and seemed hesitating what to do, and finally did a curious thing, a She came back, and took a key from a little bag suspended on her wrist, and unlocked the door. Even then she seemed afraid, when the door was open, to enter the place. The watching man saw her press open the door with her hand, at the full stretch of her arm, and stand there, looking into the cavernous darkness within, and apparently listening.: He stole nearer, and as she stepped with cautious feet over the threshold and so into the house, he glided in after her, and suddenly slammed the- door. ' (To be continued next Saturday.)

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