GWYNN OF GWYNN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14250, 22 December 1909, Page 5

GWYNN OF GWYNN.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY HALLIWELL SUTCLTFFE, Author of " A Man of the Moors," " Ricroffc of " Toward the Dawn," "Shameless Wayns," "Mistress Barbara Cunliffe," etc. ICOPYRIOnT.! CHAPTER XXlV.—(Continued.) Lady Gathorne, soon after lunch this afternoon, had crossed to the vicarage on some casual errand, and had found the vicar's wife just stepping into her ponycarriage. "Say you will come with me!" pleaded the elder woman, with the faded smile that had once been arch. " I've some visits to make away up on tho moors—blankets, you know, and inquiries after their wretched babies, and that sort of thing. My husband insists. It is always so fatally easy , for a husband to insist, when he wants one to do all the unpleasant work, and can plead that he has a sermon to write." So Lady Gathorne stepped into the trap, having nothing better to do, and at once began to gossip as they drove through the vicarage gate. " You've heard, of course, of Miss Dene's absurd romance?" she asked. "Oh, yes. The men were all so concerned about her. They were sure that she was too frail to live through it. I told them sho was far too sensible to do anything else. These people are so calculating, my dear. They have the gift of making opportunities, while we—we shrink from methods of that kind." Lady Gathorne was aware that her companion was pitying her, and looked straight ahead at the leafless, sunlit hedgerows. She detested pity, detested this woman's knowledge that she was ctupidlv in love with Gwynn; yet, for all that, a hard tmile was playing about her lips; at no time did her cense of humour desert her altogether, and she saw the unconscious irony of that phrase—" We shrink from methods of that kind." Did they? she asked herself. What of hen last shameless visit to Karnshaw's farm, when she had made a desperate effort to see dear Phyllis and had found the way blocked by Saul Dene's cheery bulk?" "Saul Dene and the doctor —and, of course, Gwynn—:vll fancied it was a matter of life anil death," said the little lady viciously. "It was too droll ! Phyllis has the constitution of a horse and the look of fragile porcelain. It is such a useful combination." The vicar's wife touched her fat pony with the whip. "It is r.ot as though | your cousin were—were quite like one of us," the murmured, glancing at Lady Gathorne to see the effect of her studied sympathy. "He is ro interested in cows, and turnips, and all to do with the vokcls. It would be just like him to be taken out of his depth by that kind of farmyard adventure. He will teach her to milk tho cattle, you understand : and she'll take another chill while watching sunsets with him ; and there'll be the impossible Saul Dene, with his chuckle that ruffles the nerves of sensitive people, quite, quite ready to give them his blessing. My dear, it would fatigue me, if it were a little less serious for—for your cousin." The vicar's wife was Lady Gathorne' friend and confidante; but by nature and self-training she took a languid pleasure in hurting people's feelings. As a child, indeed, she had been noted for the quantity of pine she stuck into her favourite dolls each day. Before the drive was half over, Lady Gathorne wished herself safely out of rango of the tranquil, never-ceasing voice; and she sighed with great relief when at last they turned down the moor road that would lead them, at the end of two miles, to the village. Only when a bend of tho road showed her Phyllis standing at Three-Legged Stile did she remember how close their round of visits had brought them to Earnshaw's farm. She had not planned the meeting; but she seized her opportunity with a certain' recklessness. The vicar's wife pulled up and offered Phyllis conventional sympathy, followed by a conventionally impertinent wonder that she should prefer to stay on still at the farm when she was so far recovered ; and when she had done, Lady Gathorne nodded impatiently. " I shall walk the rest of the way homo. No, please don't wait for me. I've not seen Phyllis for so long, and there is so much we have to talk about."

CHAPTER XXV. Phyllis and she watched the fat pony shuffle down the road. The after-glow of sunset lay in broad streaks of gold and purple across the quiet fields. There was peace absolute about the land; yet these two knew that they were giving kittle, one to the other. Lady Gathorne felt her task harder than she had pictured it. Phyllis was so quiet., so full ot cleanliness and courage, that her own purpose seemed mean ar.a despicable. " Phyllis, they would not lei 1110 see you when last I rode up to the hum," she began. " They were wrong, I think, :n more ways than one." "Perhaps —but why?" asked the other, coldly. " Because" — Gathorne plucked a bunch of catkins from the hazel bush growing over the stile, and began to pull them to pieces one by one—"because I— I want to be a true friend to you, Phyllis. You —you have come among us lately, and naturally you don't know quite how spoilt a boy my cousin is." "Indeed? He has always seemed to m© so singularly unspoilt." The girl's glance was direct and honest. "He has so little of what uncle calls ' change for a social ha'penny.' " Lady Gathorne laughed uneasily. Ah, Mr. Dene is always so droll. He rather despises us all, I fear." " I believe he despises—some of you." Phyllis was weak in body still after her illness; but she answered bravely to the challenge which had been thrown down unexpectedly into the midst of the gloaming quiet. " Not all of you—not your cousin, for instance." Nobody dospuses Ralph, of course. He has an air, .and yet he's so simple with it all—and so chivalrous. It's his chivalry, oddly enough, I want to warn you against. I'm quite sureknowing him as I dothat he blames himself for your adventure in the mist. It was so like him to insist on staying at the farm afterwards! I always tell him he ought to have lived in Don Quixote's —and he'd tell you he did not miss the hunting —rather liked missing it. in fact—and Phyllis, am I so very old, or are you so verv young, that I can read poor Gwynn of fJwvnn so much more clearly?"

Phyllis felt that this slim, golden-hair-ed woman was ploying conjuring tricks with her faith, her happiness, her old ideals. Lady Gathorne had something of the vampire's gift for sucking the goodness out of people, and she was using her talent to the utmost now. "You see, dear," she went on by-and-bye, "it is all rather humdrum to me by this time—Ralph's trick of chivalry. 'If I were less sure of him, or our engagement were not of such long standing, it would worry me to see the poor boy — so romantic, and all that." Phyllis stood upright. She would not admit how grave her hurt was. She quivered a little, like a thoroughbred of whom too much is asked; but that was all. "Is there any honour loft among— among our set?" she asked, with her straight, disconcerting glance. "Do you tell me this on your honour, Lady Gathorne?" Even now Lady Gathorne paused for a moment. She cam© of a clean stock, after all, and honour, though rather a myth in these days of rapid transit, had still a meaning. She closed that door for good and all, and laughed. " Honesty is no monopoly," she said; "it does not live only in your farmyards. Phyllis, I begin to think that you and Gwynn have beeil masquerading as Dresden shepherd and Dresden shepherdess. So charming"—she suppressed a yawn—"if only it could last. But, indeed, lam making" too much of your little adventure, am I not ? You shall be bridesmaid at my wedding, dear, and Gwynn and you and I laugh at this sentimental episode," „

"Is this true?" repeated Phyllis, in a low, clear voice. "On your honour, is it true?" Again a moment's hesitation then: "Yes, child," said the other, sharply, "of course it is true. One does not jest about a topic of that kind." Saul Dene, meanwhile, was in excellent spirits, for he had spent half an hour in Earnshaw's company while Phyllis was day-dreaming at Three-legged Stile. Saul emerged from the interview to find Gwynn pacing restlessly up and down the housefront, waiting for Phyllis's return. "I've the best news in the world for you," said (Saul, linking his arm in Gwynn's and compelling him to step backward and forward at. a cheerful trot. " You know how I've longed to buy the old house here? Once every month or so I've tempted Earnshaw to sell, but he always said that, 'lie was content-like as he was.' I cornered him just now, though—it was Phyllis, bless her, who gave me the hint—and played his wife against him. Mother Earnshaw has <1 rooted notion that her rheumatism will be cured it' they take a farm in the valley. All moonshine, of course, for it's drier and healthier up here; but that' 6 no concern of mine." Saul chuckled so pleasantly that Gwynn became infected with his gaiety and forgot a little of his impatience. "You've bought the property, then?" "Yes, I've as good as bought it—exchanged it, rather, for a farm worth twice the purchase-money. I didn't tell you in so many words, lad, that my folk lived here once, but I fancy you guessed as much. And now it's my own again, and —and I can't explain just all it means to me." There was a catch in Saul's voice. fie could scarcely believe in his good fortune, now that his longing to purchase the .farm had been gratified at last. A score of memories—childhood's memories and manhood's—returned to lihn as his glance lingered on the gables, the grey, stone porch, the mullioned windows. "Oh, it has been my Naboth's vineyard,'' said Saul, with an apologetic chuckle. " I told Phyllis that I should be addressing old Job Earnshaw as Naboth—and blessed if I didn't do it as soon as we'd clinched our bargain! ' 1 was christened Job,' said Earnshaw, drily 'naught much of a name, maybe, but belter any day than Naboth.' You should have seen his face. Gwynn. Hallo! here's Phyllis herself High time, too, for an invalid, with this mist creeping up the fields."

As Phyllis came nearer to them both ! men were conscious of a change in her. She was never one to carry a drooping air; and now she was, if anything, a little straighter, a little more self-reliant, than usual. The change was in her face, which seemed chilled and nipped as if an east wind had touched it. She stayed to chat awhile, but her eyes avoided Gwynn's. She poured out, tea for them, after they had gor.e indoors, and looked tired and ill. It was only later in the day, when she found Saul Dene alone in the warm, relit kitchen, that she came and sat at his knee, and gave him a littlea very little—of her confident e. Uncle, I want to—to go home again to-morrow," she said. Now, Phyllis, what a time to choose ! Just when I've got old Job Earnshaw to part with the farm at- last. It's mine again, and I feel as if I never want to leave it. What's amiss, child? You've been happy here?" ' "\es. But you have humoured me long enough. You are missing all your huntingand—" "Nonsense, child ! Have you no better reason?" "Say it is a whim, uncleonly—only— take me home." There was childish pathos in her appeal ; and Saul told himself that it was natural for an invalid to be under the influence of fancies of this kind. Why, yes," lie answered, cheerily, "if you're hungry for the big house and the big folk again." Then he sighed. "My dress-coat will fit tighter than ever, Phyllis, after this spell of freedom," he finished.

CHAPTER XXVI. Phyllis had been home for a week now, and Saul Dene watched her with growing anxiety. She declined all invitations from her neighbours, on the plea that she was not yet strong enough to take up the old routine. She avoided the least chance of meeting Gwynn unless her uncle was present, and even then her manner towards him was chilly and abrupt. "Look here, sir, what have I done or left undone?" asked Gwynn one day, when Phyllis had left them after one of these uncomfortable meetings. I've tried fifty tunes to get some explanation. Phyllis seems—seems to have forgotten all that happened after the hunt that day." "What have you done?" Saul had growled. Nothing that I know of. The girl was more ill than we guessed. That confounded pneumonia has left her with a nice little legacy, it seems. There, lad! Have a little patience. You can't expect all to be smooth goinga hard rider ought to know as much." Yet Saul's uneasiness was as deep as Gwynn's, and he rode down at hast to see his friend, the doctor. " Humour her," the doctor had advised. "Of course, it was touch-and-go up yonder at Earnshaw's Farm. I wondered there was no relapse afterwards. It's taken this form, you see, and hoodwinked us into thinking she was sound again. Don't worry. I'll look in this afternoon, and see what I can do; but you take my word for —it's humouring she wants until she finds her feet again. Saul repeated this sage advice to Gwynn, and the two of them straightway began,, with the clumsiest diplomacy, to treat her as if she were a child of ten. Phyllis, on her side, did not understand that any explanation was needed; she was surprised that Gwynn would not accept the situation with a better grace; it would have been manlier of him, so far as anything could be straight and manly in this tangled wooing, if he had persuaded Lady Gathorne to make their engagement public at once, if he had met Saul Dene and herself on a now footing, and had lived down by degrees those mad weeks at tho farm.

Phyllis saw it all with pitiless clearness —or fancied that she saw it clearly. They had been swept out of their depth, Gwynn and she. The mist and the moorland freedom had shut off the past; she could almost forgive him his lapse from honour, remembering the swift, impetuous glamour of that hour high up on the moortop. Her pride was hurt; but she was too dazed and weary to feel keen resentment. That would come later, and meanwhile she asked only to be left alone with her misery. While they were playing at cross-pur-poses in this fashion, Saul Dene found a letter on his breakfast-plate one morning —a letter addressed in a crabbed, formal handwriting that was familiar and unwelcome. He read it through, then looked across at Phyllis. "Here's your Aunt Selina writing from Kensington," he said drily. " Let me give you the heads of her sermon, Phyllis. Her letters are always sermons. Humph —humph! She wonders if you are entirely snared by the pleasures of a worldly life. She remembers her promise that her house should be open to you if you wish to return at the end of the six months —humph ! we can skip the rest of that —yes, here we are. She has still a lingering hope that, although your letters are few and far between, you are finding grace to eschew the perils of a gay life." Saul Dene tapped the letter with a plump forefinger, and chuckled. All the languish humour of the man showed plainly in his face. I've cleared the fence," he went on, " though Selina's sentences are a bit tough to negotiate. Humph—humph ! Tn short, she wants vou to return to the sheenfold of West Kensington before it is too late. Your old uncle is a bad lot, it seems—we're all bad lots—you're expected to return like a prodigal. Phyllis, and wear some sort of dingy veil for ever afterwards." (To be continued next Saturday.) When you are troubled with boils and pimples tako a course of Chamberlain's Tablets;, they purify and enrich the blood.