GWYNN OF GWYNN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14252, 24 December 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

GWYNN OF GWYNN.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE, Author of "A Man of the Moors." " Ricroft of Withers," " Toward the Dawn," "Shameless .Wayns," "Mistress Barbara Cunliffe," etc. [COPYRIGHT.! CHAPTER (Continued.) For the first time since Lady Gatliorne stepped from the pony-trap into the high road bordering Earnshaw's farm Phyllis laughed outright; but Saul Dene was quick to notice that there wa6 more irony than mirth in the laughter. The girl could see Aunt Selina so plainly, could realise her prim, unreasoning honor of any life other than her own. And her " gay life" —the gaiety that was compressed into an hour of mist on the top of a moor and a few weeks of convalescence following grave iii..ess? It was not the balls, the dinners, and the rest that had set the keynote of her days up here; it was the swift, open life on horseback, with Gwynn in the saddle, too, and all the world in front of them. Her face grew grave again. She reached across the table for her aunt's letter, read it through, then looked up suddenly. " I am ready to go back" —her voice faltered for a moment —" back to West Kensington." Saul was bewildered. " A jest is a jest, Phyllis, but, really—you look so serious about it—and yet you can't mean iL " • , " But I do mean it, uncle. I—l need a change, I think —" - "Oh, is that all? I'll take you just wherever you want to go. Of course, I ought to have guessed you'd need a change. What a fool the doctor was not to suggest it. Where 'shall it be, Phyllis?" With his usual impetuosity Saul Dene was already hunting for a time-table, but Phyllis checked him. You're kind—kinder than I deserve but I would rather go back to auntjust for a little while." Saul began to suspect that his niece's "relapse" was assuming very grave proportions. , " You. sec, you couldn't help finding a brighter holiday-place in Bradshaw," he urged, " because there isn't as dull a place in the whole book as'your Aunt Selina's. Be sensible, Phyllis." She would not yield her point, however, and the utmost Saul's persuasions could secure was a promise that some day she woidd return to him. He consented at last, as he would have agreed to a trip into the Ghobi Desert if Phyllis had set her heart on it. "She must be humoured," Saul muttered, grimly, when he 6tood in the hall' two days later and surveyed her pile of luggage waiting for the station-float; "but the queerest way of humouring an invalid that I've heard of is to send her to Aunt Selina. It's a Spartan cure, if ever there was one." He took her up to town himself, and spent a night at West Kensington, all with a quiet sense of heroism and rather useless self-abnegation. "You —you will not tell anyone where I amwhere I am resting?" asked Phyllis, with strange hesitancy, when her uncle said good-bye next morning. No, of course except Gwynn. Naturally he will want to know. He has a right to, ell?" She felt an overmastering impulse to confide in this big, rugged uncle of hers; but some delicacy of scruple restrained her. If G%vynn would not come forward in the open and make things clear she would make no sign. " Not even he must know," she said, with sudden decision. I'm so tired, uncle. I want to be away from everyone."

Saul Dene, during his journey north, thought of little but his niece. He had a clearer head than usually goes with a warm heart; but, do as he would, he could not fit in the pieces of this puzzle. He could have understood the tangle better if, say, Lady Gathorne had succeeded in her attempt to cross the threshold of Earnshaw's farm not long ago; but Phyllis, so far as he knew, had seen no one from the outside world.

Saul was not given to seeing the dark side of things, but he was perplexed and worried. All had arranged itself so pleasantly during these weeks at the farm. His desires had been gratified at every turn. Phyllis had, very sensibly, fallen assuredly in love with the best fellow in the county; she was to be mistress of the house which had such lasting memories for Saul Dene himself; and Saul had secured the old farmstead which he had coveted. The situation could not have been bettered had some fairy godmother come across the moor to Earnshaw's farm and waved a beneficent wand above its dark old gables. Then Phyllis had gone down the fields for a gloaming stroll, had returned with a look of chilly pride and tragedy in her face, and from that moment everything had gone wrong. " It's such a stupid tangle," muttered Saul, as the train carried him north. " Women are pleasant about a house, I own, and we can't do without them— they've a gift for tying knots in a plain bit of string.'' CHAPTER XXVII. His big house seemed lonely and useless when he sat down to a formal dinner on the evening of his return ; and he felt a distinct sense of relief, when Gwynn came in with the coffee. Two heads are better than one, as ho put it to himself, wlion a girl's whims had to be explained. Gwynn had been away for three days, on some legal business, and knew nothing of Phyllis' return to West Kensington: and Saul, realising this with an added feeling of dismay, began to wonder if Gwynn were such, a "welcome guest as he had fancied after all. " Take another cigar, boy," he said, with a touch of nervousness. " We've all tho evening before us." Gwynn had been waiting impatiently for his host to suggest that they should go upstairs. "Phyllis is not at home, then lie asked. " No." Saul Dene manipulated his cigar with execeesive care before lighting it, as if wishing to gain time. " The fact is, her health seems broken up by that unlucky illness. She could not rest here, and the whim took her to accept an invitation fromfrom relations of hers. She'll be well looked after—anS I fancy she'll be glad to come north, again, before very long. -

Gwvnn sat' looking straight before him. He felt as helpless as if in the grip of .tome wild, outrageous nightmare. Phyllis had gone without a word of good-bve to him; it was in keeping, after all, with her avoidance of him during the last few days. " There's something we don't understand in all this, sir," he said abruptly. He Checked himself, for he was thinking of Lady Gathorne, and would not acknowledge a suspicion that seemed as fantastic as the rest of this evil dream. "Oh, the doctor says it's only the illness running its course," put in Saul. " Bles6 me, the world wasn't built in an hour. • You're in too much of a hurry, you young men of to-day. Give the girl time —let her get tired of the change of air—" " Where is she?" asked Gwynn. " Well, that's another absurdity of hers. She made me promise—honest Injun, as the boys say—that I would not tell where the biid had flown.'" Saul was making praiseworthy efforts to treat the matter lightly; but a glance at the other's face did not reassure him. He could see that Gwynn's pride, his faith and loyalty, were hurt; he did not like his look of passionate rebellion, for the look reminded him of a skittish horse that is readv to shy at the first bit of paper that meets it in the roadway. " I must get the pair of them out of their muddle," he said to himself that night, after Gwynn had left. " They'll never do it for themselves; they're too young." He awoke the next morning full of dotermination. He had no inkling of the moans by which he would rescue a wellmatched pair from shipwreck, but he had a steady determination to find a way of some kind. Hie. spirits had already risen perceptibly; the difficulty reminded him of the days when he was making his big fortune, the days when over and over again he had only his luck and his cheery persistency between himself and beggary.^ I've done bigger things in my time," he said, as he finished breakfast and went out for a morning stroll— much bigger things than patching up a lovers' quarrel." Luck is like a woman, after all; she is in waiting and ready for the man who has a quick and cheerful eye for her. At the bend of the road, just as he crossed the meadow-stile and reached the high road, the vicar's wife drove bv, and cheeked 'her fat pony at sight of him. It always tickled her faded sense of humour to draw out Saul Dene, with his transparent honesty and disregard of social tricks. "You are home again?" she asked, lazily. " And your niece has recovered from her scamper on the moors? I am so p-lad. Do you know, I nearly called on you a week ago "Did you?" said Saul. "Pleased to have seen you, but I was staying at Earnshaw's farm just then, as it happened." ; " Oh. it was at the farm I nearly called. Lady Gathorne and I wore driving down quite the worst by-road in the kingdom— it must be the worst, surely—and we saw your niece leaning over the wall. She looked so picturesque —but then, when does she not look picturesque?— she seemed to .be day-dreaming, though I assure you .it. was nearly dusk and unpleasantly damp. Your niece, Mr. Dene, is a dreamer, or a gipsy, I'm afraid." Saui Dene had recovered his good spirits with surprising rapidity. He listened while the vicar's wife prattled on; he gave her to understand that this meeting with her was one of the pleasantest tilings that had happened to him for a long while ; he was 60 entertaining, in fact, and so full of ready flattery, that the faded woman in the pony-trap began to revise her judgment of him. Finally, he said good-byo to her with a flourish of the white beaver hat which was his distinctive mark, watched her out of eight, and struck up the high road without hesitation. The clue which had eluded him so long had been given him in the simplest way. He could reconstruct that meeting between Lady Gathorne and Phyllis, and had no doubt whatever that his solution of the mystery was correct.

" If you've cot to tackle a little cat, do it quickly," and never mind a scratch or two," he eaid to himself, as ho pafeed through a field-gate higher up the road. His step was crisp and buoyant as he followed the track until it led him into an ill-kept carriage-drive. He meant to thrash this matter out at once, and the sense of coming battle cheered him amazingly after the helpless inaction of the past few days. "Lady Gathorne at home?" he asked, after reaching the big-little house where the Countess of Linden kept up appearances to the best of her slender ability until such time as her daughter made a prudent match. Lady Gathorne was at home, and presently. she came to him in. the morningroom. She was a little bored this morning, and curiosity bade her find out Saul's reason for a morning call. " Will you not sit down ?" she suggested, when the first greeting was over. "Well, no," answered Saul, quietly, maintaining his position in front of the hearth and standing to his full, uncompromising height. " I've a difficult job on. hand, Lady Gathorne, and when it's finished you mightn't exactly want me to make myself at home. You remember driving close to Earnshaw's farm not long since?" Lady Gathorne knew now that the decks were cleared for action. She had long ago ceased to under-rate Saul Dene's powers, for friendship or for enmity. CHAPTER XXVIII' " I remember perfectly. I had been helping to pay parochial calls with the vicar's wife while the vicar himself stayed cosily at home and wrote a sermon." The girl spoke flippantly; but a certain hesitation in her manner, a hint of fear iu her china-blue eyes, convinced Saul that he was on the right track. " You confided a secret to Phyllis," he went on, looking at her with disconcerting steadiness, "and believed that you were pledget! to marry Gwynn." . Lady Gathorne scented trouble, and prepared to meet it gamely. " I am glad that Phyllis told you of our talk, though it was a confidential one. It will have to be known, you see, sooner or later, and" " But Phyllis did not tell me anything. She comes of a straight-riding stock on both sides. She keeps faith, and has a sense of honour." Saul had come here with a purpose, and meant to follow it through; yet for a moment he was sorry, seeing Lady Gathorne's face and realising how hard he was hitting. "Then, how— you know?" she asked, conscious that she was giving her own case away, but helpless to keep back the question. "I guessed," said Saul, grimly. " One does make good guesses when a lot of people's happiness is at stake. It's this way, you see. Gwynn came to mo not long ago, while the three of us were quartered up at Earnshaw's farm. He seemed to be quite pleasantly in love, and naturally I believed him when he said that Phyllis had promised to marry himespecially when Phyllis herself did not deny it." There was an uneasy silence between them. Saul Dene did not feel that he was playing a heroic part in this tragic comedy; he felt singularly mean, indeed, and Lady Gathorne's well-bred face, her drooping-lily slenderness, would have disarmed him at another time. He pulled himself together. This was a question of sheer business, and sentiment must not be allowed to enter into it. Instinct told him that, to the girl herself, it was an affair of business. " I thought first of going at once to Gwynn, when I learnt just how the tangle stood," he said, in his most matter-of-fact voice; "and then I thought the straighter course was to come to you. Obviously, one view of the muddle must be wrong." " And the wrong view is mine, you think?" put in Lady Gathorne, with a last show of fight. " No, I'm here to ask you which is the right view, that is all." She crossed to the window, and looked out on the sunlit winter fields. Saul Dene was showing a certain courtesy, but she saw his purpose clearly. If she followed the dangerous road which had already taken her so far, if she were to assert roundly that Gwynn was pledged to her, Saul Dene would seek confirmation. He would appeal to Gwynn, and ' there could only bo the one result. She passed a hand across her eyes. There was one shame that she had spared herself as yetshe could not bear that Gwynn should despise her. Her game was lost, moreover. Even in the midst of suffering that was real enough the cold, practical side of her odd character came

to' her aid. She would retreat in good order, at any rate. " Mr. Dene, I'm glad yon came this morning," she said, facing round. "As you know so much, it is just as well that you should know more. These matches arranged in babyhood are apt to be"— she,laughed daintily— to be just a little irksome for the infants when they grow up. You hare seen only Gwynn's side of the question. You did not guess how hard I was struggling to be true to him '

Saul Dene showed signs of confusion. The little lady, with her suggestion of pathos, was a convincing figure. He began to wonder if he had misjudged her. "Yon see," she went on, seeing her advantage, " I did not know that his liking for Phyllis was more than J*, passing fancy. Even —against my inclinations—l meant to keep faith with my cousin, and it seemed only, fair 'to warn Phyllis that—oh, I need not explain." " I never thought of that view of it," said Saul. "If I owe you any sort of apology, Lady Gathorne, you may take it as offered." " There's no need for apology. Shall we say that I ewe you a debt, Mr. Dene ? Now that I know poor Ralph is really sure of his heart at —and his happiness will be quite, quite safe with Phyllisl can enjoy my own freedom. Selfsacrifice is praiseworthy" the delicate laugh that seemed to brush the realities of life aside—"but one grows tired, oh, so tired of it." It was neatly executed, this difficult retreat with decorum, if not with honour; and Saul, when he said good-bye and went striding down the drive , at a steady lour miles an hour, was still perplexed. By habit he distrusted Lady Gathorne; but it was hard to resist that half-mocking, half-plaintive air of martyrdom which was so in keeping with her beauty. ... .. ••

He dismissed the little lady with a shrug of his wide shoulders on reaching the village. The post office, which was also the grocery and hardware shop, fronted him as he turned the corner; he stepped inside with an air of great briskness and decision, and sent a telegram to Phyllis, telling her. to pack her boxes and be ready to return with him the next day. Then he went home to lunch, caught the four o'clock train at the little single-line station, and congratulated himself on being once more a man of business. . Lady Gathorne, meanwhile, after seeing Saul swing down the drive, had turned with a laugh that was not pleasant to hear. " He is astonishingly clever, this Saul Dene," she murmured. "I begin to admire him. And yet—he half believes in the motive I suggested. I made him believe in me. It is droll." Perhaps the best of this woman, with the face of a lily and the calculating mind, was her good-humoured acceptance of herself , without concealment and without self-excuse. .She, must hide the truth from the world, but she was frankly honest with , herself. There was no one to see her now, and she yielded to a sudden, overmastering impulse. She leant her head on the mantel, and sobbed, and sobbed. It was the last protest of her heart against the callous days that were to come. She went out by-and-bye into the sunlit garden, where the snowdrops ' were making a brave springtime of their own in this pale month of February. She heard the click of the gate below, and was not surprised to see Sir Peter come slowly up the path. This man, with the tired step and the grey, indifferent face, seemed like some modern figure of destiny— that was tired of its own destiny that quizzed men and women, and the sunlit heaven, through a rakish eyeglass. "I have come to talk of pictures," he said. _ 1 Lady Gathorne heard a feeble cry—the cry of her stifled womanhood —but would not heed it. " You may talk," she! answered, with her gayest smile. "I shall~not bore you, I hope? Indeed, I treat my pictures well. Shall I go in—" ' -"' * " . "Yes," said the little lady, with a world-worn ease that was equal' to his —"yes, find mother and tell her— our happinessis that the phrase, Sir Peter?' He bowed gravely. "It serves as well as another," he said, turning to go indoors. i . Lady Gathorne was left alone in the illtended garden. This was her wooing— that time a glamour and romance which, if the poets and works of fiction were to be believed, was the _ crowning period of a woman's life, a period to which she looked back afterwards with pleasant longing and regret. Again she laughed harshly. She would have an assured position among her neighbours; she would never again know the degrading shifts and stratagems of genteel poverty; she would, have a little court of young men about her constantly—young men whose sole profession in life was to dance attendance on pretty matrons; she would be discreet, elusive, careful of Sir Peter's name, because recklessness of any; kind was apt to have tiresome results; she would have gowns and motors, and all other playthings that she * needed. She had secured sill this merely by assenting to Sir Peter's wish to add her to his picture gallery; and her business instinct compelled her to acknowledge that the bargain was a good one. ' She shivered, for all that, as if . the prospect chilled her, She knew that she despised herself, and' instinctively she looked back along the years, saw the easeloving, helpless mother who had taught her, one crecd only— be of the world, worldly. A' sudden, bitter cry escaped her. ■ " "If I had had a mother! If only I had had a mother!" she said. She was startled by her " own vehemence she was bewildered by the backward glimpse of a happiness she had struggled to secure at any cost, a happiness on which the gates were closed. Even Saul Dene would have pitied her had- he known what anguish she was passing through." v" ■ >- Saul himself, late that evening, stepped out of the train at St. Pancras, drove to- his favourite hotel, and supped tranquilly before going up to bed. At noon of tho next day but one he was seated in the north-bound train, with Phyllis opposite him. (To be concluded on Wednesday next.)