THE INTERIOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16327, 6 September 1916, Page 10

THE INTERIOR.

BY LINDSAY RUSSELL, Author of "Smouldering-Fires," "Straws on the Wind," " The Years of Forgetting." "Souls in Pawn." "Kathleen Movourneon.'' " Sands o' th« Dcsertj" "The Eternal * Triangle," etc.. etc.

(COPYRIGHT.) CHAPTER XVH—(Continued.) There were few letters. Most of them had not.expected, any. Most received nowspapers from the South. They lingered to talk to Jane, Jane who had grown so white and thin this last year. "D'ye hear about'the pearl, Jane?'' "Yes, boys." Jane bravely brought a semblance of her old friendly smile. Her mouth seemed always stiff and set lately as if smiles grew less and less easy. "I suppose you re all thinking of giving up the farming and going in for pearling.' "Eh, but you don't get a haul like that always, Jane. A real nest of pearls, by jove, and no mistake. Worde mightn t have such luck all the rest of his life. "Perhaps not," agreed Jane. She becan stacking the letters that had not been called for into their separate compartments. "Well, it beats the last Broome find, doesn't it." "That'll mean a,crowd of new pearlers, I suppose," said a newchura. " Not this season." corrected Jane. "It is too near the ending. In a week _or two the boats will be laid up until next season." In the corner the seldom-used branch telephone shrilled suddenly and insistently three times, a call from the nearest head office. ' ■ "Ting-a-lingl Ting-a-lmg! Ting-a-ling!" ,? You'd better wait, boys," said Jane over her shoulder. "It may be a message for one of you, or some of your neighbours. It .will save me going out if you take it." Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling I_ Ting— "Nyasha,'' said Jane crisply into the receiver. "Coast ferry," shrilled a voice faintly. " Can you hear me, Nyasha?" "Not very distinctly." "Hullo!"' "All right, Coastferry." "Transmission of cable from Perth. Are you ready?" "Ready." Jane drew the pad and pencil towards her, tapping absently with her foot on the floor.

"Warde-Earl Mountshields. Got that, Nyasha?" "Repeat," said Jane. She answered in a puzzled voice and stared down at the pad. The pencil had made no mark as yet on the smooth surface. N"Warde, Earl Monntshields, Nyasha," shrilled tho voice, and then confidentially : " Sounds queer, doesn't it: Didn't know you had any live lords in stock up thero. What's it like?" Jane found herself murmuring something unintelligible. ."Anything for us, Jane?" said a voice in tho background; " or anything we can take?" ■ She shook her head mutely. They filed out. Jane never even heard them go. Far away, at the primitive Coast-ferry mainland post office, the thin voice wont on, word by word, until the whole message was given. In a strange, unsteady straggling hand unlike her usual cali graphy, Jane wrote it down. Tho thin voice began to read it over to ensure: "Warde, Earl of Mountshields.—The presence of your lordship is urgently required in connection with settling up of inheritance, also re large legacy bequeathed solely to you by Anne, Countess of Deerwood.— and Wevman, Solicitors." "Got that?" inquired the voice a< the other end of the wire. " I wonder if he'll remember us when he gots the dough? When he says good-bye, Nyasha, hand him my card, will you?" The buzzing sound of a laugh, and then, " Leap year, too, Nyasha, I'd be there on the spot, only someone seems to have got there first with the goods. Arc you ready for the sweet thing's message?" "Ready," said Jane. She felt that under her feet the floor was beginning to slide away from her. She clung desperately for a moment to tho edge of the heavy table. " Same address, then; 'only Lionel in front of the Warde. Got that, Nyasha?" Then: "Shall I come out to you? Misunderstandings over. Love.—Muriel." On a fresh cable form Jane wrote tho message, pinned the two together, looked up tho post ollice laws on the subject of cables from over the sea, although she knew them off by heart. She went to tho letter-shelves, and from tho fourth pigeon-hole from the end took out several letters and from the cupboard below gathered several papers. They might as well, argued Jane, all go together. * ' She was suddenly calm, but very cold When slip found herself shivering sho said that autumn had swung swiftly and earlier in than usual. She thrust all thoughts out of her mind escnnt those connected with her work. Indeed, they needed no superhuman effort. Tho exodus of thought suddenly took placo without any volition on her part, aud left her mind strangely empty. Prom the recesses of a dim and musty cupboard Jane look out a leathern satchel, little used as long as she could remember. It.had held once or twice ureent messages for the ono doctor at Nyasha, the call of some isolated soul in need. Once or twico only. . It strapped across Jane's shoulder to tho opposite hip, where it rested, while I

'» 1 e 3 7 ' Jane, on the back of one of Dudley's fleet horses, galloped across the countryside. With that cold calm still .ipon her, 5 Jane too sent a message to the stores, ana ' on to the stables, for the white mare to , be saddled. Six miles by the sea-road 1 from Nyasha was the abode of Lionel Warde and his dusky young bride. He ' had bought an almost-deserted farm, half » houso, half hut, within sight and sound ' of the sea. If one took the incurving and ' oftcner-used road that followed tho sweep of the bay it was six miles to that farm, home. But across the desert one wheeled } shlirply to the left after passing the isolated clump of pines; one who Knew tho '■ ways of tho desert could by a short cut ; make it three miles only. Jane took the desert road, tho sun level ' with her eyes. The white mare cantered ! out along the road that Jane and Lionel Warde had walked on a rainy day long , ago. . Jane Dunkley had struck out and , thrust many thoughts from her heart, but I there were some that clamoured still at. the closed door, beating for admittance. She closed her eyes now as the white mare ' leaped forward and the white road raced 1 beneath them. * It is impossible, however, to forget some things, when one takes an old road again that it crowded with old dreams. The ' barnacles of memory cling to every inch ' of the path. Tho black pines boro her back to that wet day that seemed far away; ' they whispered of everything that was said and unsaid. f Tho pines swung back, dipped into tho background, and gradually grew smaller with distance. They went more slowly now across the sandy ground, the white mare picking her way through the thick--1 growing tussocks. Although the other , way by the sea was a longer one. it was the shorter as regards time, but Jane felt 1 she could not bear the curious gaze of the townspeople, their frank queries as she passed by. "Anything wrong, Jane?" She would have had to answer: " Oh, only two cables from England for Mr. Warde. Rules of the Post Office that they must ho sent." Thero wore three reasons why Jano had elected to go. She could not bear that they might question her, that she might be called upon to utter his name. Only that she , had heard one of the men say that Sandy McDou»all was again in Nyasha, unload- ' ing some goods at his first place of call, she would have sent someone else out on this errand. „ _Jano had come at last to the limits of T durance of many things. She had come ( ' »to the cliff-edge of health. She peered ' \ j/n into tho darkness of the grim abyss \ V*. nervous breakdown, and had drawn ■\ m. shuddering. To-raorrow, when the I'm sped southward, she left with it. Jtiyi dvsfec bad said she must lavo six

months' absolute holiday at the least. She had compromised with three. The winter and the storm of it breaking over Nyasha would find Jane gone. It was the time when sho could best be spared. The third reason, then, for Jane, on the white horse, making her way over the desert, was one which she never voiced even to her hoart. It was a yearning thought that lay close to her heart- In ii was .the curiosity only deep curiosity Jane had, by the way—the desire born of the maternal love that is in every woman for the man she loves, a desire to know how lie fared, how ho looked.

For since the days of his marriage Jane Dunkley had not met Lionel Wardo face to face. Sometimes at a distance sho had seen him, passing swiftly along, the street. Once, on the opposito sido of the road where the eucalyptus branches hung low over the path, he had gone by the stores. Ho always sent a native for his letters. Sometimes the letters and papers stayed there for weeks. Jane wondered if" he over read them when he received them.

Through the window Jane had watched him go, through the alternate sun and leaf-patterned shadows. He never looked across the street as ho passed, so, maybe, he did not see the white-clad figure of Jane step suddenly inside the shop as he came in sight. Tho sight of his stooping shoulders, his head bent in the path, stayed with Jane Dunkley as long as she lived, brought her always that quivering stab of pain. He had been so wont to walk with shoulders back, and head high, his eyes to the eyes of other men. It stabbed Jane now. A lump rose to her throat, a dimness to the grey eyes that for many a day had been dry and tearless. Jane had felt that she coiild never, never cry again, whatever happened. With that aching in her throat she rode on. To the left, as she mounted a low rise, came the swaying shimmer of the Indian Ocean, all blue and sunlit, flecked here and thero with foam, up-curling and sparkling as if the gem-studded combs of a million mermaids ran through the rippling tresses of blue-green water. And against the sea rose tall, slim spruces and young eucalyptus, tho shining of the sun on an iron roof, then the whitewashed walls of the sea-farm gleaming through shrubbery which autumn had robbed of all greenness. - Jane slackened rein. The mare, picking her way across the last tussocked strip, went moro slowly until she camo to the road that wound in from the sea, and passed the house. • " Slowly," said Jano to the white marc, and ".More slowly," as thev drew near to a gate hanging on its hinges. Oil the white beach, nncanvasEed, a pearl lugger stood high and dry, tilted on one side. So Lionel Wards was at home, then, or in the township. I (To U continued en Siiajdjiy ueiU i