HELEN OF THE MOOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14933, 5 March 1912, Page 4

HELEN OF THE MOOR.

. PUBLISHED B? SPSOAIi-ABBAHQEJIBKT. •

BY ALICE AND - CLAUDE ASKEW, Authors of " Thi» Paignton Honour." " Tho fihulamite," '.'Love, tho.»Jester, ; Etc., Etc.

|| . ~ COPYRIGHT. , i.. ... ' CHAPTER -XIII. "No doubt it's a most interesting story, this that we've just been listening to," exclaimed Philip, " but really, Harry, I'm quit« sure that I shouldn't sleep a wink upon that bed." Ho spoke with &omo tsperity, then ha strode over to the window and gave a vicious kick at the blind which lay there, rolled into quaint semblance of human form. That blind had been worrying him ever-since ho entered tlio room. v , Having given vent to his feelings by the kick, he stooped and picked up tho object that had offended him. It was just a blind of coarse greem damask—nothing more. He struck a match and lit a cigarette, standing there, gazing out into the night, smoking sulkily. "To me,*' si-id Harry, "the whole thing is so intensely interesting. It's really quito an age sine© I have met with anything in xjjo way of adventure. I seem to liavo been stagnating for tho last yearly two. London, wit ail its round, of gaieties, society, and all the rest, of it —you know, Phil, that I really dont caro lor those things. liver since 1 was a little lad I wanted to bo up and doing something." Ho stretched himself lazily, but with evident appreciation of the discomforts of the position. "That's why, although there wasn't the smallest need for it, I went out to nearly all the lighting that's been on since 1 was old enough to hold a gun of my own. It's just in •my nature. The fact of falling ill kept me at home, and then, tie you know — he laughed merrily, he had a laugh that was quite fascinating and infections"l liaa another falll fell in love. That, of course, is sill very well, but it has not *killed the spirit of adventure in me. Since we have been here upon Dartmoor it has seemed quite like old times, and I am really feeling particularly happy. So don ha an old grumbler, Philip, but ( just let me enjov myself in my own way." •' But'it's so beastly uncomfortable," was ail Philip could eay in answer. He would not own in so many words that, there was any other consideration beyond that of his personal comfort which made him verso to spending the night in the same room with the Bed of Procrustes. "Well, I'm never so comfortable as when everything is extremely uncomfortable," returned Harry gaily, "and the ninny part of it is that I can sleep like a top. You've no idea of the conditions under which I have slept sometimes. Why, in South Africa and in Korea there, you won't want t.o be listening to any of ;y. mv yarns to-night. But, seriously, Phil, bo a good fellow and make the best - of ■i . things for an hour or so. To morrow we shall have all the comforts we want at Wendlesham, and when wo are once there I'll promise to be quite good and orthodox. I've made you that promise once before, haven't I? " It'll bo dawn in an hour ; V " or two, and if you will take my advice you will spend those hours in the way ; i originally suggestedbefore the lire in the parlour. • Lord .Flaynour s ' chair looked comfortable enough, and if you find it cold'* broke off and pointed to' a lightcoloured coat which was hanging over the back of a chair" why, there's your own ' coat,; Phil; you didn't leave it upstairs X. after all. If you put that on you'll be ■war. l enough in all conscience." ." "I don't mean to,leave you, Harry," returned Philip stolidly. "While I'm with you here I. know you're safe enough, and ; 'you can lie in this infernal bed if you like without coming to any hurt. I don't suppose even a ghost can. do you much f ' : . - harm under these conditions. But yen are _ ' " incorrigible, and if it wasn't you I think " I should lose my temper." The affection of his tone gave the lie to his words. Philip would liavo suffered any incon:venience, put himself to any discomfort, to oblige his brother-in-law-to-be. Grumble ho might, but he was bound to yield in ' . . the end. ** 1 suppose you are the sort of man that adventures happen to," he muttered. ■ "It's a kind of disease. JSothiiig of tha rout has ever happened to me in my life, • () * but no sooner do you and I set out <n an excursion together than adventurer :ome - quickly enough to take one's breath away. : Perhaps even I may get to appreciate them in time." ; He turned .from' the window, his good temper restored, and stepped towards the bed. " Anyway," he remarked, " whatever else you may do, I'm not going to let you sleep with those beastly curtains ' . drawn closely around you. They may help to givo you queer impressions, to colour ' ; , your dreams, as friend Raynour puts'it; .Y , but I'm not going to run the risk of hav■t' ing you stilled for want of fresh air. You may sleep on the bed, and I'll settle'my- < j ' . : self as best I can on the couch." All right, Harry nodded,' " even I • draw the line at curtains. If I'd thought 'vi:'v;-T of it we'd have polled them back before." ' As he spoke' he was stooping down unlacing his heavy boots. Suddenly he started and loked up. " Hallo, what- waa , ! that?" he asked. Philip- Lad heard the sound too, and blanched a little. "I— don't know," he muttered. "It sounded very much like what I heard when we were in the room —only without the thud. It—it ' sounded like a sigh." Harry was sitting upright in his chair. ; ' " That's what I thought, too," he saijJ, , . "like someone sighing in his sleep." He sat silent a moment, listening intently. There was no repetition of the sound. "But what idiots we are!" he exclaimed. "We haven't a notion what rooms there ■i are to either aid*> of us, and I haven't • the smallest doubt that these walls are . thin. We've heard someone sighing in another room—that's all there is about it."

. ."There isn't another room upon this J-.oor on this side o! the house," said Philip laconically. "I noticed that particularly. We occupy the one side, and Raynour's loom and the parlour are on the other. Harry, I don't like it." "Perhaps it was Raynour himself. r Sound carries strangely at night." Harry stepped to the door and threw it open. He stood.there listening for a few moments ; the silence of the house was unbroken. "Well?" Philip's face appeared white in the flickering light of the candle as he . put the question Harry shook his head. "I hear nothing outside," he returned. '' But it might be anywhere, upstairs perhaps ; one can never tell." Of a sudden Philip gripped his friend by the arm. "Philip, there is someone in this room," he muttered huskily. "I heard the sound again as you were standing by the door. And there, there, listen

They stood close together, their senses keenly alert, every nerve upon the stretch. "It is as if someone were breathing,'' whispered Harry-—'- heavy breathing. Can you locate the sound, Phil?" Phillip dropped his grip upon Harry's arm and sprang suddenly towards the bed. He seized the tapestry curtain with his large fingers, and v/ith a sharp, quick movement threw, it back in the direction of the head. Then, despite himself, he ~ gave utterance to a cry, a cry that was one of amazement rather than one of fear Harry, standing by his side, followed the direction of hu eyes, looked and saw • Tha Bed of Procrustes was occupied. The faded coverlet, which they had noticed ' upon their first visit, -was thrown back to the foot; beneath it there appeared to > , have been a couple of dingy blankets, and .upon these, fully dressed, though her at- , tire even at first sight seemed strange and > unconventional, lay a girl, her lips parted . r s and breathing heavily, as though in pain ' Her head rested upon one of the pillows , ' ' or, rather, it was so low as scarcely to be upon the pillow at all, which, however ~., ( was. covered by a rich mass of fair hair' The face was of a dead white, eave for a bright spot ; of. eolour on each cheek. The m were, closed, and the girl's hands, thin and white, were clutched together over iher breatt. . Her dress,, which waa ox" to-be something in the '■'•'■"-lite;' '' ,; -

nature of a cloak it was tied at her waist and reached to her feet, which were bare. She lay in a strained position, half on her j side, and her legs, as the outline of them I could bo discerned under the cloak, seemed bent at an awkward angle. It was not all at once that Philip and Hairy, realised these points. Their Burprise and wonder were too great to allow them to appreciate detail. The girl, whoever she might be, had been lying there all the time that they had been in the room, and they very naturally had hod no knowledge of her presence. They stood by the side of the bed, for a few moments almost incapable of words, gazing at the strange intruder, whoso eyes remained closed as though she were either asleep or in a dead faint, "The devil So Philip had exclaimed when ho first realised the presence upon the bed. And the first thing that restored him to his senses was the appreciation of the absurdity of the cry. For hero was no ghost, no demon, but a living, breathing girl, young and of peculiar beauty. But where had she sprung from, how came sho upon the bed of Procrustes. It was an utter reversal of everything that he had been led to expect. Death, so he had been told, was the part of those who slept upon that bedbut this was not —this was life. " What does it mean, Harry?" he gasped, as soon as ho had mastered his breath. " Who can she be, and how has sho como here?"

Heaven alone knows," was the whispered reply; then, Harry, bending over tho bed, rested his hand upon the girl's forehead. She la;/ there impassive, and as if unconscious of his touch.

"Anyway, she's no khost, but living flesh and blood," he went on. •'How she came here, though, is more than I can explain. Perhaps she a servant in the inn. But whatever she may be, I'm afraid wo must arouse Mr. Marden, for unless I'm mistaken sho is ill, or in somo sort of a trance. Action first—thought after," ho went on. moving away from tho bed. I'm going to find my way up to Marden's room."

Philip laid a detaining hand upon the speakers shoulder. "Wait a minute," ho muttered hoarselv, " there's something beyond my comprehension in all this. Have you thought, Harry, do you remember, there was no one upon tho bed when we came here before. 1 pulled back the curtains and we examined it together. We went out, and, Harry, you locked the door and have had the key in your pocket ever since. What does it all mean?" , Harry shook his head and disengaged himself from his friend's hand. " I don't know;" he muttered. "No doubt everything will be cleared up later on. In the meanwhile I must go for Mr. Marden." CHAPTER XIV. There was certainly to be no sleep for either Philip or Harry that night. Silas Marden, aroused from a heavy slumber by Harry's loud knocking at his door, soon emerged from his room, as later did Lord Raynour, disturbed, as he explained, by the mind of voices and of footsteps upon the stairs. He had dressed himself quickly, and appeared calm and imperturbable as usual. The innkeeper, on the other hand, was excited and inclined to be quarrelsome Naturally it was Marden who was the first to put in an appearance. " I told you, young gents, how it would be if you insisted upon sleeping here," he exclaimed, with a total lack of reason, as he flounced into the room. " I knew I should be disturbed in the night with something being wrong, and far© enough I haven t been in bed an hour before you come and knock me up. It's not worth my while, I tell you, and I'm sorry I let you have a room at all."

"Allow me to point out to you, Mr. Marden," insinuated Harry gently, *' that circumstances on this occasion are very different to those which arose in connection with yonr brother. You expected that harm might befall either myself or my friend. But. as you see, we are both safe and sound. What has happened appears to be quite independent of our presence in the room. It would no doubt have happened whether we were there or no. It's not such a terrible thing after all, and perhaps you can explain who the young woman ma;,* be who has so unceremoniously ; taken possession of our apartment. Grumbling an inaudible reply, Silas Marden strode to the bed, and gazed down at the recumbent figure. No doubt he had more than half expected to find one of his own women-kind, as Harry had sug-' gested, some servant at the inn. Harry watched his face as he stood there, and strange as were the circumstances, could rot refrain from an amused smile at the charge in the man's demeanour. He had intended to bluster and scold, but now something approaching tear shone out of his dark eyes. "I'm blest if I know," he muttered. " She don't belong here at all. I haven't ever seen her before." He could say no more, but stood there, shifting his position from one foot to the other, gazing stupidly, mumbling in his beard. It was then that Lord Raynour arrived upon the scene. "So you two young gentlemen have found something to disturb you after all?" he remarked calmly. "Will you tell roe what has happened?"" In a few worths Philip explained. "A strange young woman in the bed of Procrustes,' Raynoar said musingly. "A ( young woman in a faint or come sort of trance? Audi she was of course lying there all the 'time that we were discussing the history of the bed. And Mr. Marden knows nothing about her, you say ? Well, perhaps I may be more fortunate. I don't think, indeed, that there is a single native*of this part of the Moor whom I don't know by sight." He strode to the bed as he spoke, and in his turn scrutinised the unconscious girl. Harry watched him, just as he Had watched Silas Marden. Lord Raynour's face remained _perfectly serene, but there was not a single point, either in the appearance of the girl or in her position which he did not seem to take in with his keen, grey eyes. "It is a strange thing," he said, at last, "really quite remarkable. But this girl is as much a stranger to me as she is to Mr. Marden. Otherwise I might have thought that there wan a simple solution to the whole question. The house was no doubt empty when we were out upon the Moor -everyone was naturally keen on seeing what happened to the convict—and some tramp or stranger might easily have got in. I was imagining a poor, tired wanderer who went from room to room, half out of her senses, perhaps, looking for someone, and at last laid down upon the bed and slept from sheer exhaustion. Of course, something of the sort may still be the explanation." | "I flunk not," Harry interrupted, for while wo were on the Moor the key of this room was in my pocket and the door was safely locked." Lord Raynour raised his eyebrows. He glanced at the mystified landlord. "Was there no other key, Mr. Marden?" he inquired. Silas Marden shr.ok his head. "No," he responded shortly, "there wasn't any other key." He scratched his ear reflectively. '' I always keep the door of this room locked," he muttered, "but it was ajar this evening about nine o'clock, when I took these two gentlemen up for a change of clothing. I don't know how it came to be ajar, but 1 supposed that one of the srirls must have gone in for something. That's how it came about that these gentlemen found out about the room," he added with rather fierce intonation, "and I wish to heaven they hadn't," "Well," pronounced Lord I>aynour, " that is a matter for subsequent investigation. No doubt the girl herself will clear everything up when she recovers. And in the meanwhile the first thing to be done is to send into Lydford for a doctor. I have no medical knowledge myself, and I presume that neither of you two young gentlemen have any?" He hardly waited for the expected negative reply, but continued calmly to give his instructions. It appeared natural to him to place himself in command. (To be continued daily)