LEILA AND HER LOVER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15390, 27 August 1913, Page 13

LEILA AND HER LOVER.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL AKBANGEMENT.

BY MAX PEMBERTQN, Author of "The Garden of Swords," " My Sword for Lafayette," " The Iron Pirate." " The Gold Wolf," "Red Morn," "The Hundred Ds-js," •' The Lodestar," etc., etc.

SYNOPSIS. Hugh Donald, who is staying at Newcastle learning golf, becomes interested in a beautiful girl who walks about the moors with a little boy. He can learn nothing about her. and surmises that she is a widow. She gives him a lesson in golf one day, but on hi" trying to ascertain her name she becomes 'alarmed, and hurriedly haves. Hush meets the little boy (Desdy) and asks if he can come motoring with him. Tho child tells hint that the girl is not his mother, but his aunt. He calls her Lally. Lally invites him in to her house for refreshment. *~ Hu-h asks Lally to marry him, but bUs says it is impossible that sue should become his wife.

CHAPTER lll.—{Continued.) The historian may know tho secret thoughts of men ; but we may safely make tho assumption that no historian yet born could have read the secret thoughts of the Very Rev. George Hedges as he drove to Leila's cottage.

This was the more remarkable because he had a way with women least he thought that ho had, and no woman contradicted him. His " domestic." sermons had been a feature of his ministry; ho lashed the run with a whip of scorpions, but for the woman he always had a gracious smile He was a High Churchman and a little given to marioiatry, but entirely in a modern, and as some of his friends said with some want of charity, also in. a mundane sense. And hero he was upon the road to Leila's cottage, going out to judge her. What excuse could he find for such an embassy — how would he approach it? The good man's embarrassment put out his cigar, and that was a rare tragedy. He was hot- and flustered when the car stopped— in a mood, indeed _ which would' have made little even of archidiaconal functions. Leila was surprised to see him; so much goes as a matter of course. He found her writing a very long letter at,the big table in the parlour, and he noticed that she covered it up adroitly immediately he entered. Desdy was then, building a motsr-car from a box of bricks and a couple of disabled engine wheel*. Molly, the aid woman, dug vegetables in the garden. The archdeacon perceived that tea was about to be served, but his eye dwelt a little kindly upon the bottle ol whisky which had been put out for Hugh Donald earlier in the day. " Well !'* said Leila, quite amazed at the intrusion. He answered by holding out his hand, and smiling with so much benevolence that ehe must smile in spite of herself. "Yon are the archdeacon, and yon are a-wonderful judge of ' men," she said, wresting her hand from him. suddenly. "Well, -why have you come back from Kingstown?" . He drew op a chair, although, he had not been invited to do so, and mopped his face with an enormous handkerchief in i the red of old Sarum. ,

"Cargo, my dear child," he said, "so much cargo. I go -where the wind the propeller— That is in a general way. To-day there was another reason. I will tell you when you have given me a, glass of water." - "Do you really. mean a glass of water, or should it be milk? Sir Hugh takes milk." • -.* ■ ■ ■■'. . ,

"Ah," said the archdeacon, "he would also take a little whisky in it, I think." Leila served him, still smiling. She seemed so well aware why he had come - there, and his embassy appeared to give ;". \ her so much amusement. When he fjad rtS taken a deep draught and half-emptied the j., capacious tumbler, she turned her "chair to ■ '■ his and looked- him /till hj ; the facer r v n : ;T "Now tell me why you came here." '.'ln. a word, to ask you to visit us ok : 'f. the yacht." -'. . * . ;- i " A half-truth. You came to tell Sir Hugh what you think of me." f; .': :•■■•; He was in no way embarrassed. ■■■ £' " I certainly did he is.very'- anxious to §r know what I think of you."' | "Well, and what are you' going to %■:/ '"say?*''.;;; .--.';„;v\v.V\--C . '■'■..-,. 1 " Ah, T rely up?-; .you for that, my dear t lady." • Don't yea thin!: it is a. very impertin- ; ent thing for you to have done?" . { "I think nothing of the kind; my gister '.. being sufficiently an invalid not to; be -' able to pay her respects in person." : . ~ "Oh, your sister would not have called | ; here; why do you say so?" f fft, t ,- He laughed kindly. "./>'' \ -'■ v•: "We stand needlessly on the offensive. I am the oldest friend of a man who ' - -.wants.to marry you. Why should he not wish us to be friends 1" Her face became a little hard. ;' "It is'nothing of the kind: he wishes . you to tell him whether I am the kind of person with whom he may amuse himself ■'•.■'•*; ys while he is at this place. Well, say that \^;;V,^l: ; am net." "An intimation entirely at variance with my own convictions. Do you think, my J dear young lady, that such a man as! ■'■• t : H- would have come upon any but a kindly errand ?" "How could you know I had been such a pc?son as would not have been at • . variance with your conviction*." j ; ' "'lmpossible—my friend Sir Hugh would , . not h?.ve spoken of you to me in that case " ■■ "Oh, then he is the judge of women, ''it appears." ,'' "The .shrewdest judge thai I have, ever - Diet. Shall I say, in a word, that my deep affection for him brings mo to your house?" _' ''You may say it, but it is quite in vain. I shall never see him again." He .raised his brows. The firmness of her tone, the resolution of her words, went ill with the look that he caught in her wonderful eye.<i. The man's instinct said ;'\ that here was one who had suffered much, and was adding bitterness to the story of the years. "We say those things sometime.*,' ' he , urg*d. looking aside that he might mi/I, '■■ . embarrass her, "we say those things an .'■ though we and not a Higher Power were ;v the master cl our destiny. Do yjn know ;':.-.'■_ why, when Sir Hugh told me ot this, «'r-y ■■*, I came to this house as an arrow to a target? I will tell you. It is because I !■;■■■•■■■■ have said of him for ten years that upon £v. the day.he saw a woman of whom he ;,V;. thought twice that woman would be his IF wife. I know the man : I have known him '•;:;_-.; from his childhood. He made his choice 'i ■-..-. when.be saw you by the sea yesterday. J The rest is but "when and how, for he will *■ surely marry you." :,',■ . Sflsnce fell on the room, and with it a ;:' - ray o' sunshine. Never in all his life had ?J. ' the iU'chdencon gore on such an errand as ,7 .this, never perhaps upon one which put i;: \- him in so odd a light. And yet he spoke ' - v thcs truth when he said that Hugh would marry this beautiful girl whom he had :• - seen for the first time but yesterday—ripen (',-'• a.2 a new Aphrodite from the sands of ■ County Down. He knew the man. and he ~ ;' had never doubted it from, the first moj; ---'.'■', ment of that dramatic confession. ';.' Leila heard this remarkable intimation ;'..•; with strange composure. No one would .." have guessed the torrent of changing thoughts which had burst upon her, the •":; \\ hope, the fear, the despair of it all. It •Waff just as though a miracle had hap--per,?<i, and that the good saint of these :, : j-.lonely mountains wrought it. She saw , - the gates of a prison opened, and one in J/ v s ; white armour to lead her out—she saw •;, ?: herself snatched up in an instant from /'' f.- px. -ertv and its burdens to the throne of ! 'an ancient house and all its privileges. ,; L How could she tell this kindly ambassador ■ ' ~ that she dare not go—was not a free ' agent, must evade the issue for the sake 'K:-:: ft the man who loved her. And yet it I had to be done. There was no alternative .*' for such a woman. .' . "There will never be a when or a how .•""'■ in my case," she said, standing by the ■ ffi Window where the sunlight could fall upon her. "I shall never marry any man: I have not the right, even if I had the (J -,- wish." 1 " "Not the right. My dear child, you Mm do- not mean that ?" , , . ~ ' ' "I mean it-revery word: I have not the llilP*"'?"' to marry any man." ! ' '■ '.: ' "

The archdeacon , looked at her with astonishment. He could make nothing of this, and was old enough to be angry' with her. . • . ■ a J

Come, we are just two friends talking together. Dp not forget also that I am a priest. You are not telling me that you &re married already." ; She laughed, mischief sparkling for an instant in her pretty eyes. ''You were looking at mv fingers," she said— he blushed to be discovered; •they speak truly. There's no man, archdeacon : there never has been." "Then I shall be impertinent enough to say that your reason is no reason at all. Will you not be frank with me? Do I not deserve it?"

She thought a moment, her lips compressed, her hands clenched. Then she said—

_ "I will tell you one thing; the secret is not mine. It is another's. If my own father were alive and came to me 1 would not tell him. How can I tell you, then?" It was his turn to hesitate now. He had dealt with many an intimate confidence during his strenuous years of work in a busy- parish ; but th ; s was something not within his experience. "It concerns the child," he said suggestively. " I shall ask you nothing more except, this: is it an honourable secret? May I tell my friend Sir Hugh that it is not a secret of which you are ashamed?" " You may tell him what you please. I can give you no help. I shall never see him again, and he will never see me. What, then, is it to either of us?"

He would not accept this point of view. My dear lady," he said, "it shall bo my business to make.it the concern of both, and that is as much as to say that you will find a friend in me. If I* could hope that we might be fellow conspirators;" and he dwelt upon the word as •though to suggest something to her. In this he failed, for she answered him almost brusquely. " If we could conspire for the safety of my boy I would listen to you, but" we cannot," she said, "it is impossible. Why, then, should we waste words about something which can never happen? Go back to your friend and tell him that I am grateful to him. Say the things which a woman should say and persuade him to leave this place. That is the greatest service you can do me, archdeacon. "

Ho shook his head—his misgivings were becoming grave. "An ex parte statement. Hugh Donald will have chauged very much, my dear child, if ho accepts a word of it. I cannot promise to be your ambassador for any story of that sort. What I am going to tell him it what you have told me— that your reasons are well enough, but that you cannot divulge them. At the same time, I do not think he will leave Newcastle; he is not the kind of man to do so."

"Oh, she cried, as though her patience were exhausted, "it is nothing to me whichever way it is."

CHAPTER IV.

It was almost dinner time when the archdeacon returned to the yacht, and he had but the briefest ward with Hugh. "A verv difficult case," he said evasively. "J am quite at a loss, my dear fellow." His further promise to discuss the whole thing franlily at- a later hour of the night sent the young baronet to his cabin with the vague hope of a man who relies rather upon a friend than upon himself. He did not tell the worthy ecclesiastic just how intolerable the hours of waiting had been or how difficult he had found the commonest conventions.

They talked of many things at dinner- - Jack Bowles of Freddy Bywater's straight, and narrow ways and the half-crowns they were costing him; Mat Michel of politicians and the new taxes he was _ not, called upon to pay; the archdeacon chiefly .the products of the Moselle Valley. The chef on board the Christabel had been with Kruger, and knew the needs of man as the hours indicated them- The Very Rev. George would often , declare that ■- this worthy fellow had saved his life-—a valuable testimonial from one who weighed T7st.

When dinner was done the philosopher suggested that thuy were wasting time and made an early move to the smokingroom on the aft deck. Her* a bridge table was prepared, and the four sat down to it as a matter of course.

"We cut out," said the philosopher, taking ap a pack ane: flinging it dexterously across the table. Hugh answered that he would not play, and so again they remembered the adventure. When he had left them, and they could hear him pacing the bridge-deck with the steady step of. an officer of the watch, Mat: ventured an observation to the arch deacon. '"A bad case," he said; "we shall have to try hot blankets." The priest held up his hand at this and cried, "Hush! he may hear you." He really seemed quite alarmed at the possibility, and directly it was his turn to be dummy he left the" cabin and sought out Hugh. It was a fine night, with a cool breeze Mowing from the north-east and a great vista of undimmed stars. The lamps of Newcastle shone with wonderful distinctness, and the great Slieve Donard Hotel seemed now a blaze of light above the wilderness of links. Seaward, there were ships going down to Dublin, and beyond them a wide moonless sea which suggested infinite solitude. Hugh, saw nothing of this, for his eyes were ever .towards the mountains where the cottage lay. What- had she said to the archdeacon? Why was he so mysterious? It was a relief, indeed, when his old friend suddenly appeared and laid a gentle hand upon his arm. "Not brooding, my dear boy, surely?" "Oh, come," said Hugh, a little savagely, "what else is there to do? Surely it is not necessary to gamble- in order to prove one's sanity?" They went on a few steps before the other made any reply. His next observation went to the point with a directness foreign to the sacerdotal mind. " A woman of remarkable character," he said, "but entirely perplexing. Can. didly, I make very little of her—but it is impossible not 1 to admire." "I agree with that, of course." The words were almost scornful. " Is that all you have to tell me, George? If so, the "journey was hardly worth while— was it?" "1 have a good deal to tell you, my dear Hugh; but this is hardly the opportunity. You have already guessed that the difficulty concerns the child. There is the mystery, the whole mystery." _ " You don't suggest that it is her child ?" " God forbid ! I do not believe anything of the kind-—she is the guardian of it. Perhaps it is dependent upon her. I have been thinking very earnestly about it sinco I came back, and that is the only conclusion to which I can come. The child is the obstacle; remove it, and she will marry you." Hugh shivered a little at these words; he was still looking over towards her home, and his thoughts were with her in the cottage. _, "Why should she not marry me? If it is merely a question of- the child—but that is ridiculous, I am rich enough to keep a hundred children. Do you think I would not back her up if that is the story ? It cannot be, George; it is .-something far worse." . . " An unwarranted supposition, my dear fellow. If your imagination can put the pieces together, you are cleverer than I. She >'s living in a mean cottage, and is evidently passionately fond of the boy. You 'offer to give her a splendid home, and she declares she will never see you again To me it says as plainly as it can be said that her dutv is to the lad and not to herself Granted that it is all ridiculously inconsequent—but then, she is merely a woman whose name we do not event know." , _. . '■ You asked it, surely, George— got ie " Nothing of the kind. They call her Miss Leila. The name of the old woman is Mollie Macrae; no one can tell me anythin"- more". Be sure I asked—want of curiosity is not one of the things we lean; in a big parish." ■ "Of course it isn't. lou are as bad as any old woman I have ever known. I suppose she meant it when she said that she would never see me again? Were they her own words ? Did she put it in( that way?" " She put it emphatically, I do assure you.' It remains but to discuss the value

of a woman's emphasis. Generally I think it is rather refreshing—in this case I have my doubts." He laughed lightly as if they were not serious doubts, and would have gone on to a full exposition of a subject, treated at length in many of his sermons, had not a raucous voice called him from the saloon.

Alone for the second time, Hugh fell to asking himself what curious irony of fate had inflicted such an hour of humiliation upon him. For humiliation it certainly was. Had anyone told him a week ago that, her© upon this lonely shore, ho would discover a woman who could make such an instantaneous appeal to him that he would desire her before any other in the world, he would liavo listened with contempt. The truth amazed him, and could not be' reconciled with any act or intention of his uneventful life. Women had interested him but little heretofore. There had been a few who amused him, many who schemed for him, some who tired him. He had seen them in many cities ; had known the glamour of the East and the hysterical intensity of the West, but ho had ever emerged from the doubtful waters to find himself sane and refreshed. Now in > a twinkling his whole soul was obsessed with this one idea; one name was on his lips; but one scheme of life seemed possible. He desired Leila ardently with the desire of a man awakened, taught instantly the story which is eternal. There was another mood, and it also was new to him. For the first time for many years he suffered a sense of solitude. The boon companions seemed far removed from the world of his thoughts. He found them suddenly unsympathetic, men of mean interests and incapable of the subtler emotions. The owner of the yacht, where so many good hours had been lived, bei came impatient of its limitations, so that the lonely shore invited him and the light® of the town beckoned him. All the hands were turned in by this time save the solitary watch by the forecastle. But for the chatter from tho saloon this had been a derelict ship motionless upon a still sea from which men had fled. Hugh resented the silence of it, and found it to be but a prison to-night. When a sound of oars fell suddenly upon his ears ho, started up as a dreamer from his sleep. Who came at such an hour? Going to the aft ladder he looked over, and saw a fisherboat below. It seemed to him the most natural thing in all the world that tho boat should have brought Leila to the yacht, and that Desdy should be with (To be continued daily.)