A SPLENDID SILENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15566, 25 March 1914, Page 5

A SPLENDID SILENCE.

BY ALICE MAUD MEADOWS, 14"tbor of " A Million of Money," " The frokedom of Porteea," " The House at the Corner," " I Charso You Both." " One Life Between," Etc.

(COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER ll.—(Continued.) fcn» looked like a young and beautiful Biiut as she spoke ; there was no hint in her expression of her shallow soul. "If a is oniy for my sake, Fausteen," lie lK>gan. "No, no, darling; as it is only lor my sake, please do reconsider it. ou would have tin: |i\e hundred a year 1 am willing to sit tie on you nil to yourself to do just as you liked with, and lots of puns couples get, along comfortably on what 1 earn by my pen. - ' " I would not have you rob yourself lil<m that.," sho said. " No, wo must wait v.nth what, patience we can Your undo must to an old man now. Perhaps— though, of course, dearest, 1 would not bo to «\ iikcd as to wish fo; the death of anyone- still, perhaps he vill not last much longer." She looked cagei at him. He laughed quite gaily "Lord NorthWough?" he said. ''My dear, he's only .sixty seven, and as strong and hardy as a twj year-old. He is not likely, unless ariythn g unforeseen happens, to quit this nvital coil for a long wh.le to come, ;utd when he does there vul onlv be ,i few thousands for me. 1 am not his heir." "1 w.sh you were she said, softly. "The heir is your cousin Douglas, is 'it net"' " Yes " "A bachelor "At present; hut engaged to a very charming girl. 'I hey are waiting till sho is twenty-one to get married. She loses a fortune if she niwrio* before." Vid h*'W 1.-ng is it before she is t itciitv-one?" " Oh. a matter of about six months, I think : not more. Thev are to bo married on her twenty-first birthday." "And supposesuth strange things do happen—ho died before he married? You would be the heir for certain then."

" Heaven forbid that should happen," he said. "I am very fond of Douglas. He's a thoroughly good sort. But even then I should not to pure, neither is he sure, to come into the title. My uncle might vet- marry again. "At his age? - ' "Certainly. Many older men marry, Besides, he does not look his age or, I am sore, feel it. Well, Fausteen, vou won't marry me as things are, then? 1 ' She nestle*! closer to him. She laid her soft, round cheek with an adorable gesture to his. " For your sake no, my dearest, mv very, very dearest," she returned. He drew a very deep breath. "Then there is nothing else tor it," he said, slowlv. " Excepting you, Fausteen, there 1? oniv one "hinj; in the world that I have almost worshipped, the tiling that his been the £reat interest "f my life from early hood to manhood, for which I have sin rifioed many pleasures, many personal indulgences, for which for years I lived hard and slaved away often far into the nicrht- I must part now with something which 1 love dearly, treasure immensely, but if by this renunciation I gain you, Fausteen, I shall be immeasurably richer. Yt>u will laugh perhaps when I tell you what it is. You will not understand, you have no idea, probably, of a collector's love for that which he collects, his pride in it. his arrogant joy when he knows that his particular collection is better almost than any but two or three in the wide world. Fausteen, 1 must part with my stamps !" She looked what she was, absolutely nnmoved. " Your stamps?" she repeated. " Vut what would they fetch? A few hundreds perhaps. Not more, I suppose?" He laughed quietly, but triumphantly. " My dearest Fausteen, a really good collection may be worth thousands. If I sent my collection to Christie's to be put up for auction I have no doubt but that it would fetch five or six thousand pounds. If I part with it, if I settle the whole of that money on yon, will you marry me as Boon as ever we can manage it after we return from Monte Carlo?"

Far a minute her eyes flashed. Then she looked at him reproachfully. " Please, please, don't make so much of the money question," she said. "Do not speak as though you thought I was a mercenary woman. All I think of really, dear, is what is best for you. A man in your profession should not be worried about money matters, but if your stamps are really worth all that money and you can bear to part with them" He waited to hear no more crushed Tic: to him, and stopped her words with kisses.

"That settles it, then," he said. "As Boon as we return from Monte Carlo my collection goes to Christie's. I should not bo at all surprised, darling"—laughing excitedly—" if they rive me as much as ten thousand pounds to settle on you, and how proud I shall be to do it, sweet !'* She put her soft little hands into his. f And the money will to entirely mine?" she asked, laughingly. "If you want any of it you'll have to ask me to rive it you as a great, great favour. By-the-bye, Wilfred, you nave never shown me this wonderful collection of stamps. Where do you keep them? At the bank?" "No—here in a leather case," he answered. "In a way, I suppose, I ought to keep them in a safe deposit or at a bank, but what pleasure would they be to me then? Why, any night I am alone and not in the mood for writing, 1 get the books out and simply gloat over them, much as a surgeon might ovor his bones, and so on ; at Inast, I don't mean his someone else's, of course. If Igo away I send them to the bank. In the | ordinary way, had I known I teas taking "this journey, I should have done so; but they will be absolutely safe here." ''They are insured, I suppose?" "To a certain extent, yes; tut not up do their valnb. No insurance office will take the risk of the full value, as I keep them by me. They are insured for a thousand pounds." " For the future, until their sale, you »r"*t take more care of ray property," she said. " Ah!" as strange, uncanny sounds, something resembling a locomotive engine shutting off steam, were audible, " 1 thinK 1 hear Mrs. Hepplethwa.ite returning." Mrs. Hopplethwaite, the landlady, came slowly, laboriously, for she suffered from bronchitis; but she reached her goal at last.

"Here I am!" she said, plumping down ir.'o a chair and pluming n bottle on one Vnae and a packet of sandwiches on the et'"»r. " I should .beer; here before, oniy Lazarus detained me. Lazarus, my fluir young lady, is my husband." " I hope he ip a good husband." Fausl+eu 6iud. " Ho has rather an unusual Tifin«i> foi a—" 'Christian?" Mrs. Heppiethwaito interrupted. ''Well. us a matter of fact, miss, it is not his name. I call him Lazarus became he rimo fourth—a little joke of mino! As 1 was saying," she continued, '' Lazarus detained mo to tell mo Eileen A]a.Dna.h— cat. miss—was caterwauling in the garden, and Mr. Brown's dog Snooker was howling in the nejit street; hut neither of them could bo persuaded to como home. And Lazarus sovn some* thing's in the wind. Personally, Mr. Wilfred, if I had seen your mice sitting in a row on the korb-.it.nnes and squealing 'op of their voices, I should not have been in Ihc least surprised ; as your friend Mr. Staples said to me, something is going to happenfire and water, murine/, or sudden death!" J* austeen turned quite pale. II ii'h ! Mrs. Heppiethwaito," Wilfred said. almost angrily. " You are frightening Miss O'Neil. Now, if you please, you must take a glass of wino and then—" Wilfred had poured out her wine, and the good lady tossed it down her throat as though that part of her anatomy was a water-chute. Then she turned towards the door. "Oh, bv-thp-bve," Wilfred said, "I Khali be away from my chambers for a day or two. I shall lock up as usual. I ,v.-ill wire you when I am returning." '"Very good, sir," she said. " GoodSight, sir, and good-night, miss." She went from the room, and shut the door. Then she paused. " Going' a.wav?" she said to herself. " It's sudden. Klera was no talk of going away until

that minx cams. There is more in this than meets the eye. It's cither a honeymoon or an elopement; probably the latter, lowover, its none of my business, only 1 hope it doeg not mean troubc for Mr. ♦ avener \ But the m ' and tll ° cat; nd tno dog have not deserted the house this night without a reason, that's a moral." And with a deep sigh and a not altogether unpleasant feeling that her head dad an inclination to.lift itself from her shoulders and float, away through space, 1 lrs. Hepplethwaito made her way very i fully back to the basemen;. When sio reached the kitchen she unearthed, a it wore, a small bottle from under a cloth which lay at the bottom of the basket in which she had fetched the port '•vine and sandwiches, took out the cork And moved slowly towards the dresser for a glass. As she reached the table once more a succession of howls from the back of the house startled her. She lurched against the table, overturning the bottle, and the red wine which it contained spread itself over the white table-cloth. Mrs- Hepplethwaite stared at it for a moment, then, with a smothered civ, she dropped into a chair. " Blood i l ' she said , under her breath. "It looks like blood. What was it I said, ' Fire and water, murder, or sudden death?' Heaven preserve us! The warning's not come for nothing!" And, shivering from top to toe as though an ague had possession of her, Mrs. Hepplethwaite threw her apron over her nead and wept with terrified apprehension.

CHAPTER 111. Neither Fausteen nor Wilfred spoke until the sound of Mrs. Hepplethwaite's heavy, slow footsteps had died away. Then Fausteen, broke the silence. 1 hat woman stopped to listen," she said, with a shade of indignation in her tone. "Of couree," he returned, "that description of women always does listen." It must be horrid to live in chambers," she said, leaning back comfortably upon his broad shoulder and looking up at him from under her long dark lashes.

"It is," he answered, smiling happily; "that's why I am so anxious to get out of them, my sweet, to become the tenant of a desirable detached residence and the husband of the sweetest, most adorable, and beautiful girl-woman in the world." "Will it hurt you to part iwth your stamps? " she asked. Ho gave her an affectionate bug, almost bear-like in its intensity. " Since thiir loss will give you to me, not at all " he answered. '' For any other purpoiie, darling, it would be a wrench; but nothing in the world would be too dear to. me to sacrifice, for you." "I do love to hear you talk like that," she said; "and I know it's not a bit exaggerated. I am quite sure you mean every word you say. By-the-bye, Wilfred " —her thoughts suddenly travelling in another direction—" what did that curious old woman mean by your mice— someone's cat and someone's dog?" "Oh, only some nonsense," he returned. " There used to be mice in that cupboard of mine. They used rather to annoy me, of course; but, though I set traps, I never caught any. But to-night they seem all to have gone. I have not heard a squeak of them. And the curious thing is that Mrs. Hepp's cat has gone out, and won't come in; also the dog belonging to the fellow who has the rooms beneath these. It is rather nonsense."

"Ah, but is it nonsense?" she said. "Has not something unlucky happened? Have I not come here to upset you and take you out of the country?" After that tljey talked what most folk would call nonsense until once more someone knocked at the door. Wilfred called "Come in!" and a small boy entered. He coloured furiously wnen he saw Fausteen, and stammered "slightly when he spoke. "If you please. Mr. Davener," he said, "my friend Bobby Stuart is here. May he see your new stamp? He is a collector, too." " You mean my very, very old stamp," Wilfred returned, smiling, "the latest addition to my collection, and almost the most valuable. And I picked it up for a ten-pound note, Fausteen, among a lot of others, which were worth next door to nothing. No, I am afraid that I cannot show it to your friend to-night, as, you see, I have company, and I am off to France to-night." "I suppose,' the boy said, with a certain amount of hesitation, "you would not feel inclined to trust me with the book ? I would take the very greatest care of it until you come back. I don't want to disappoint Bobby, and he also is going away to-night." " You must ask this lady," Wilfred said. "I have made her a \present of my collection to-night." The toy's face lengthened still more. "You cannot have it," Fausteen said quite sharply. "Do you know what that book is worth? Thousands of pounds." The boy turned quite pale. " You are never going to sell it?" he said. Fausteen nodded. " And you have a black Mauritius and a blue Hawaii! Oh, it's shameful!"

"Good-night," Wilfred said, somewhat severely. » The boy felt himself dismissed, and shot the door 'softly, then, like his mother (he was a pledge of love from Mrs. Hepplethwaite's first), he stood thoughtfully on the landing and spoke half-aloud. " Going to sell it!" he said. " What a shame! And I would give anything, do anything, so that Bobby should see it, and he is going to France to-night. Now, I wonder—" He thought he heard a movement in the sitting-room he had just left,, and, without finishing his thoughts, went as noiaelessly as possible* down the stairs. Half an hour later Wilfred and Fausteen left the house. Eileen Allannah was still caterwauling in the garden and Snooker was howling in the next street.

CHAPTER IV.

Dinner was over at Northborough Park —Lord NorthborOcgh'a beautiful country seat in the Midlands- The servants had been dismissed, and the baronet and his generally-accepted heir, Douglas. Davener, sat over their wine and smoked their first after-dinner cigar. Contrary to custom, they were not without feminine company. Vera Meriwither, to whom Douglas was engaged to be married, was sitting and chatting with them. It would have been dull for her all alone in the drawing-room, her chaperon being laid up with a cold, and if their company was good enough for her and hers for them during dinner, it was good enough after. She had five brothers, and had been used to the company of boys and men all her life. There was, as Lord Northborough had remarked, no need for her to run away directly ho and Douglas lighted a cigar and poured themselves out a glass of port. " It's charming to have you with us, Vera, in this home-like way," he said. " I wish vou were with us always. 1 wish no tiresome old godmother had left you fifty thousand pounds with such ridiculous conditions attached to it. Why on earth should you wait until you are twenty-one before you are married?" " Simply because I should lose a fortune if I did not. My godmother did not think a girl knew her own mind before she was twenty-one." " Your godmother thought a good deal of nonsense," Loi;d Northborough answered. "If a girl does not know her own mind before she is twenty-one she never knows it at —probably has none to know. Why, bless me, if some of the happy wives and mothers of to-day I had waited as long as thai, they might have died before they married. No, no" —laughing— I don't mean that— might never have married at all." "Oh, don't say that," Vera said. " That would have meant they would have died so very young. Anyway, Douglas and I have less than six months to wait now; nothing very much can surely happon between this and than." "Anyway," Lord Northborough said, " I am longing for the day to come when I shall see you and Douglas safely married. I love you both as dearly as though you were my own children, and before I travel to that bourne from which no jourtieyer can return, I want to hear children's voices about the old place— a sound which I never have heard."

ft was ten long years sincn Lord Northborough had lost an absolutely adored •wife Their married life had been one of almost perfect happiness, and every hope and wish and desire °t their married life they had shared in common. There had been but one shadow, one grief, in the golden .years of their wedlock—their (marriage had been childless-

Vera looked across at her lover, and smiled in the most innocent way in the world. " I hopo ope of these days you will hear our children's happy voices Douglas's and —and our children's puttering feet about the dear old place," I she said. "1 often think of them. But, dear Lord Northborough, you may perhaps have a yet greater happiness. You may hear your own children's voices. You are quite young—sixty is quite young in these days—and you may marry N again." He shook his head. "It in most unlikely," he answered. "I loved my dear wife too fondly." Douglas looked at his uncle's keen, handsome Taf-e, at his thick, iron-grey hair, which grew more strongly than that of many a young mail ; at his tall, splendid, upright fig ire end he thought that Any woman almost might love him, and surely he had Jill the capacity for love. " Isn't it stated that it is the unlikely which most often happens he said. " You treat me, and evoryone else tre.its me, as your heir, and take it for granted that I shall succeed you, but I never build on that belief. If love should come to you again, dear uncle, I should wish that it might bring you all possible happiness; and even lore cannot give you that- unless its expression is made full and complete by marriage." " With that I quite agree. Lord Northborojgh returned, "and if I should ever love again I should certainly wish to marry. But such happiness as I have experienced in the past it is impassible I could ever enjoy again. Had you, Douglas, arid you, Vera, not been to me like dear children, I might perhaps have married someone near my own age for companionship. By-the-bye," hf added, "have you lv-ard anything of Wilfred lately? It is strange he never comes here." " Oh! ho likes London too well," Douglas answered, carelessly ; " or, at all events, cities and places where humanity assembles in great numbers. Curiously enough, I did hear of him to-d.iv in a letter from a friend. He met Wilfred at Hoiborn \ iaduct Station, starting, so my friend says, for Monte Carlo " Lord Northborough looked at Douglas j rather sharply. "Alone?" lie asked. ! Not a muscle of Douglas's face moved, though his correspondent had told him VV ilfred was not unaccompanied, and nac given him a very vivid description of his travelling companion, wHich lie had at once recognised. He knew Faosteen, though only slightly, and did not particularly care for her. J

I really could not «av," he returned, which was verbally true— loyalty to v\ ilfred he could not. Though Lord had never seen Fausteen 0 Neil, her ;:ame was like a red rag to a bull to him. She had been the friend and companion of Lady Golister —that was quite enough. Ah! well, it's no business of mine," Lord North borough continued, "only in many ways Wilfred does not please me. tor one thing, he never pays me the compliment of a visit; for another, when I hear his name coupled with, a woman's it 18 ,, w?-' that of Miss Fv.steen O'Neil " Which proves his constancy," Vera said, smilingly. " But who is Miss Fausteen O'Neil? whence comes she, and who are her people. She earns a salary, and I have no doubt a handsome one. from Lady Uolister. Such women are generally what t\o «V ene ET their subordinates. 1 Hey find probably"-Lord Northborough was speaking cynically-" that it pays; but even that generous salary would not run into much above a couple of hundred ! I supple; yet again and again, when reading the so-called Fashionable Intelli- | gtnee—ah. - my dear Vera. lam not above taking art interest in that—l always find ever assembly at' which the lady m Question is present, her dress is always more beautiful and bewildering --a borrowed word that, 'bewildering' so far as lam concerned—than that of any other woman; her hats are generally a dream, and her jewels wonderful. "she backs horses, does what I believe is called a flutter on the Stock Exchange, plays budge with the , pick of the gamblers "in society, and plunge at Monte Carlo. f?' 1 ?* 1 Sa -' how dees she do it?" She must have private means, of course. Perhaps she is the daughter of a millionaire soap boiler, pork butcher, or oil king, ihe daughters of such men always have si My." " than they can spend senonf I! 16 daughters of such men do not go out as paid companions." era looked very wise "I think areallr family 1 ' tfith much money and little family, m.ght, she answered. "Lady Golister moves in a very smart set; she could take this Miss O'Neil almost everywhere—introduce her to almost everyone ri/ 6 4^- von€ - } can quite imagine a S /Snc™- ' ' J-**« laughed LOrd Northbor ° u g h and Douglas « A NOt uf'" L . ord Northbol laughed. A wea'thy American would pay some highly-placed and impecunious dowager to chaperon her, present her, and so on ; and f do not think this Miss Fausteen O'Neil 13 ~a i ' American. Perhaps you know ' I do not think she is." Douglas' answered k™ ,r fact, I thinkl might almost say, lam . sure—she is not; but. though met her, I know very little about

A footman entered as Douglas spoke, and laid tome evening papers on the table. r> Just ,™ n your eye over one of them, Douglas, Lord Northborough said, "and tell us if there is any particular news." Douglas, took up a local evening paper unfolded it. and almost immediately uttered a stifled exclamation. The" first words that met hie eye* were these: Strange death at Monte Carlo. Ladv Golister found dead in her room. Poison suspected. Lady companion missing •asked " it? " Northborough Douglas put the -paper down for a moment. "We have been talking to-night a good deal," he returned, "of Lady Golister. She has died suddenly anil strangely at Monte Carlo, and Miss Fausteen 0 Neil—no, I ought not to say that it may not mean her. What the paper says is that the lady companion is missing." Vera turned quite pale. "Dead l Oh' poor lady," she said. " And we have been talking rather unkindly about her." " Read it," Lord Northborough said. Douglas read out the short account nf Lady Gollster's sudden death, which was confined to a few lines. She had been found seated beside .1 small table in her salon, an almost empty coffce cup beside her _ She was leaning back among the cushions, as though she had died in her sleep. The contents of the empty coffee cup bad a strange aroma, and had been riven to the doctor for analysis. The [ doctor was very reticent so far as to the cause of death. The lady was supposed to have made two new wills during the night; anyway, four of the hotel servants had been called during the night to witness tome document. Lady Golister had seemed in her usual health the first time, but on the second occasion rather sleepy, which was natural, as the hour was after midnight. On the second occasion the waiter who had come with the night porter had noticed that the coffee cup was more than half-empty, and the contents were quite cold. He had attempted to remove it, but Lady Golister had stopped him with the remark that che might as well finish it, and that what was worth doing was worth doing well. He had thought it rather range, as she was, as a rule, rather a wasteful lady. He had concluded that j there was some of the finest cognac, which she always kept in the room, in the coffee.

She had not complained of feeling ill; had said good-night in her usual kind, cheerful manner, apologised for giving trouble, and given them each a five-franc piece. The lady's-maid Knew nothing of the happenings of the night after she left her mistress about ten o'clock until she found her dead in the morning. The lady companion-friend was missing. She had left th© hotel an hour after the discovery Of the tragedy. It was known she and Lady Gohster had had a violent quarrel over night. The lady companion had booked for London at Messrs. Cook's office, and had left for London by the Rapide, her destination got being known.

Lord Northborough looked very grave. "When did this happen'"' he said. Douglas looked again at the paper. "Why, it seems it happened on Monday," ho answered— a good two days ago. It's been a long time getting into the papers, or we have missed it." " t And Wilfred was off to Monte Carlo?" " Yes," Douglas said, reluctantly. "Then," Lord Northborough continued, " the young lady, so far as Wilfred knows, has not come to London, but, like any knight errant, he has probably gone to her succour. It may sound ungallant to say so, but the more fool he!" And, though Douglas said nothing, he quite agreed with his uncle ; and, as Vera also remained silent, the opinion was probably general in that small assembly of three. - J 'Jo bfc continued on Saturday next*