HIS FATHER'S SON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13875, 8 October 1908, Page 3

HIS FATHER'S SON.

, BY TOM GALLON, " AJJthor of " Tatterley." " Dicky Monteith." "Kiddy," "A Rogue in Love," "Fate's | Beggar Maid," " The Charity i, Ghost," etc.

: WBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.' •

'j CHAPTER Vl.—(Continued.)

" I'll thinking about Bella," Rufus retorted, • with, a grim laugh. "I'm thinking about a . ' word I've got to say to her; I'm thinking

aboit that- white young throat of hers that I can get my hands round when the proper tinio'comos. Do you know where she is?" "I've a shrewd suspicion," replied tho woman. i "With him, I suppose?" Ho looked quickly- .it. her, and she nodded. "She - thinks sho' play the game out with -he ■ richer man; she thinks she'll give mo the ' go-by! Well, we'll see about that. I've not 'done yet.. Now I know tho truth I'm going back to Baxendale Hall." "You've pluck enough, at any rate," retorted the woman. "After this I don't mind what you do. I let you loose upon them to do what you like. But let the girl alone; we'll have no violence, mind." "Leave that to me," ho retorted. "If I can't get what, I want, in any other fashion I'll do murder. Oh, you needn't look at me like that," he went on with a laugh; "that's been in your thoughts all the time. You're not the one to sit down under wrongs ; you're not the one to have nursed for twenty-five years this wrong done to you, and then to wish mo to go into the ' business with hands kid-gloved. I'll show vou some fun in the next day or two. I'll set the country ringing, mark my words if I don't. hero's Voles and the other man?" "They'll bo here presently, although vou've frightened the life almost out of Amos Voles," replied Johanna Cridge, with i ; a laugh. " What do you want with them?" "I shall want my friends with me when I return to Baxendale Hall," replied Rufus. " We'll go down together. They've tricked i me: they shall pay for that, I promise you." . "I see that I can leave you to do the thing," said the woman, looking at him ] steadily. ' " But let's have no violence, j . You'll "do no good that way." j "You can leave it to me," ho retorted, j "I'm going back at once; send Voles and j the other after me. I'll be on the lookout down there for them, and you shall' j have word of what is happening at once. But it's Bella first; it's my beautiful Bella-! ■V" that's to be dealt with!" 1 ' He kissed the woman with rough tenderness, and then walked quickly out of the room anil out of the house. There was a - glow upon her face as she watched him from the window striding away, for she knew at last that that which she had trained in the man was alive. She knew thatehe could trust him in any coming fight' with John Baxendale. . That long journey back to Deepington did not improve the temper of the man. Fortunately for himself he had mouey in his, pockets, and he indulged his appetite ' freely on the way down, so that when he 6louched out of the little station into the cool country evening he was & tiling to , shudder at, a thing of vile passions— man J who would stop at nothing to gratify any- " desire for vengeance he might have And I foremost in his thoughts was the girl Bella!j —that girl he had held in hiis arms so.; ?K ' often, the while be.whispered to her pro-:: Imises that should make her as wax in his. 'hands. But now he knew, or thought he ! knew, that she had betrayed him; that • on account of her he stood to-night outcast. >gain under the stars, with his work to be. •'done afresh. • . •j He had no definite idea in his mind as ■ /; to where he should find her; ho had only ; ;;r i, dim idea that she might be somewhere in "the neighbourhood of the great house —per- ■ . haps even in the itself. His duty; •eras to wait, and watch, and to be ready. ; ■ He lay hidden in the grounds of the housein a-remote part of them— a long time, and from thence he saw a pano-' rama, as it were, of what was happening in? . the house and about it. In the distance he. (aw the old man. Felix Goode, pacing , up. and down on the terrace smoking, with a] hand through the arm of John Baxendale —, » picture of peace and security that scarce-; ly appealed to Rufus Cridge just then, Even while he watched the two men came it- down from the terrace, and strolled across 'j-. 1 the grounds towards the spot- where Rut '.is ■ Cridge lay hidden, still chatting, and, as it teemed, with the old man laying down the law. They were making their way towards the house of Miss Dorcas Stubbs, and al- • though the watching man could not know what was said, as a matter of fact, Felix . J " Soode was impressing upon John Baxendale ■V' the necessity for caution in regard to his conduct. " ' "Remember, my dear boy," he said, ' • "that this young and delicate girl Evelyn has met, under the strangest circumstances, i' 'this man Rufus Cridge, and has very natur/illy believed that that man was yourself. From what I have already heard from her j aunt, the man appears to have disgusted her, raised up in her pure young mind some protest at-, the insolence of his conduct. That is to say, my —the old man laid his hand on the arm of the younger one-—" the insolence of your conduct. : That is an impression you must remove; ' it is something you must live down. This ! man is done with, j If we hear anything ■ > more of him it will only be when he sue-; ' to us for some allowance, and then we can make our own terms with him. At all svents, your duty now lies with Evelyn. ; You must calm her mind, and let her un- • derstand as beet you may that it was some trouble that changed you, and made you behave as I believe this fellow did behave." "I'll do my best. But the thought that ( bis hands havo touched her, and that his ; eyes have looked at her. seems to drive 'ma mad," said John Baxendale. "And I don't believe that we've done with Rufus Cridge vet. There is a fear that oppresses ' , me that wo may see him again, and that he j"" ,'? a . v bring ruin and disaster upon us." :" • • They went on their way. and Rufus 'Cridge, lurking in the shadows of the trees and bushes, followed. So he came at last to the house to which thev were going, taw the two men enter, and chafed bitterly at the thought of what he had lost, and what this man had regained. For 1 it is not " too much to say that, in his own more brutal fashion, the creature groped blindly • for aomething better and greater and finer than any Bella Ogden; which is to say, ■ that in his fashion he loved this girl, - Evelyn Kaylor, whom ho had held in his arms for one brief moment. Now, hunted . and homeless, and reckless, the girl proved a strong factor in that diain that was to draw him again into their lives. He j thought more of her, perhaps, at that time than of the position that had been his for j a brief few hours. " I'm as good a man as he is—nay, I'm ' better," he muttered, hoarsely, crouching ."•-there in the darkness, and watching the lighted windows. " Born of the same' mother, bearing the same name, so like him that they can scarcely tell us apart, why, in the name of common sense, should • m, have all the luck of it, and I none? - Why must coarse women fall to mv share Mid the dainty ones to his? I've not done yet: I*ll win my game yet • His. thoughts went again to the woman "fho had betrayed him, that woman who had let loose upon the world a man Rufus bridge had caofcurcd, and held, in a sense, ransom. His fingers itched to get at uor throat, to hold her brutally at his mercy, while she whined, and pleaded, and strove to explain. More than all else, the 'woman stood between him and this daintier he had held in his arms. She was J. mena.ee to him, not onlv by reason of the *Wt that by this time she must know the secret concerning himself and John Baxen"3l®, but by reason of the fact that she Would cling to him while ever there was any ho that he would set her right in the ®I«s of • the world, e-;en of that poor world ™ which she belonged. ~ With all these thoughts twisting about in • ■ "V! tortured brain—now urging him, ae it seemed, upon this cour&4, and now suggest.'another—the . maij; lurked in the shadows. arid watched the house into which ' 1 ."- brother had gone. j Mr. Felix Goode, with a nice sense of whit was due to him, j had devoted himself to Dorcas Stubbs, paving John Baxendale \ free to talk to - So that it presently happened , ■: , that Biisendalo and the Igirl stepped out " V '° f " garden of the cottage, know-,. ' '' i

ing nothing of that forlorn-looking wretch who waited in the shadows and watched them. So, like one shut out from his paradise, Rufus Cridge saw thia brother of his pacing up and down, in the moonlight with the girl, hoard the sound of her low aughter floating to him, as from a great distance to which .he could never reach. And til© soul of the man was bitter and vengeful within him,He went away at last, to meditate upon what iii© should do, and so came into the woods that lay below the high road leading to Doopmgton. Tho night was fine, and lor a lone time ho lay there, not impressed •, an beauty that was about him, but rather contrasting the peace of it all with what raged within himself. -And in that ■wav it may be said that there was a very madness in him when, presently, he heard the light rustling ,of leaves, and knew that there wis someone coming towards him through the wood. He crouched there, Knowing as by an instinct that this must bo someone with whom ho had intimately to deal, knowing that it could bo no stranger 111 those woods at that hour. There camo out into the lis? i hb of the moon under the trees tho girl, Bolla Ogden. She had no eyes for anyone lurking in the shadows; she had come there with a denmto purpose in her mind. She wanted to see the man who had so suddenly been lifted into _ fortune—Rufus Cridge. For, M course, it must be remembered that she knew nothing ox that extraordinary change that had taken place in the two men again, ohe remembered only tliat John Baxendale, m the shabby, ragged clothes of Rufus c 'SO' had spoken to her in that very wood, and, with another man, had warned her to keep away and to leave the business to • others. Rufus Cridge, the man she loved, had been too many for them. She believed that lie was still in possession of Hall ace * 10 iac * usurped in Baxendale

, Kufus _ Cridge could afford to wait. Ho lay there in tho shadows, watching the girl, ■tie knew that she must com© back there at a later hour, when, in the silence of tho woods, ho would bo waiting for .her. Ho let her go on past him. He could almost Have touched her dress as she fluttered along through the shadows, and climbed to the road and crossed it, and disappeared into the grounds of Baxendale Hall. He did not clearly know where she was going; we only knew that she must come back that wav, and that he could wait. It -o a of course, to be explained that poor Bella had waited in the hope to cAtch a glimpse of this greatlv transformed lover of hers. She believed that Rufus Cridge, under that new disguise, had carried all before him at Baxendale Hall. As she had, ma sense, helped to brine that about, she told herself that the man would be glad to turn to her now that she had followed him so faithful!v. This talk of another woman was ridiculous. Bella could 'hold her own, by the memory, at least, of old davs of struggle and privation. . (To be continued daily.)