THE HOUSE OF DOOM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18642, 25 February 1924, Page 4

THE HOUSE OF DOOM.

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. Author of "Benyai the Dreamer/' ."A Shameful Inheritance." "John Butted a Daughter." "A Mad Marriage,' etc '. Copyright.) CHAPTER X—(Continued.) "You would like the animals sent awav?" Tom asked. " They are a quite needless expense, and I know the people do not liko them." • ' "I don't know," she said piteously, ana put her iand to her head as though it '•■ ached. "It wj.s his collection. He was so proud of it. Perhaps he would not like it to go?" ' . "He would not set that against your happiness. If he knew they frightened you I am suro ho would wish them to go." "If vou think so," she said, with a little sigh of uneasiness or relief, "they had better go. I know Miles would not have kept them here at the «ost of making anyone unhappy, much less me." "If you will sign a letter ordering their sale, Lady Talbot, I can put the matter in train at once." "Oh. how good you are!" she said, with sudden evident* gratitude. Her eyes • uplifted to his made him blink as though a light had flashed in his face. "How good you are I And your sister, loo ! It was her face I first came awake to out of that nightmare. Such a beautiful face! And such soft hands to move about one!" It came to him suddenly that it might he well to let her talk. It was the first time she had shown any indication of a desire that way. He was sure it would , relieve her over-burdened heart. "Conio and sit down on this fallen tree," he said, "and I will tell you how wo came to be here. You have never yet asked how it was that Oona and myself sort of took the reins of government at Oladdagh. We should have been just too pleased to have served under someone who had more right, but there was no one. It was thrust upon —not as a burden," he added, hastily. "You want to go away and leave mo now?" she said, in nn alarm that was strangely gratifying. "Of course, I cannot keep you ; f you want to go. You have been too good, staying in this sad house." They had sat down on the fallen pinetree side by side. Below them and above them spread the forest of pine, thousands of slender columns, one after another, like long cathedral aisles. Under their feet was tho deep rust-coloured carpet of the 'pine-needles. Overhead a light wind ruffled the leaves; and the warm sun streaming on the forest filled the air with the delicious scent o'f the pines. "No," he said. "We don't want to go unless you wish it. My sister and I have taken you in charge. We shall not leave you till you send us away." " You will wait a long time for that," she said, and looked down at the white sleeve of her frock, on which fell a shaft of brilliant sunshine. " I have been lonely all my life," she went on, " except for just the little lime I had him." "Tell roe about that." She began to tell him about her solitary childhood, when she slept alone in the dark; of how she had been frightened by the roaring of the beasts in the London Zoological Gardens. She had no memory of her mother. No ono had ever tried to combat these shadowy terrors, the lonely terrors of a child. None had known then", indeed, except an artist who was an acquaintance of her grand-uncle, who painted animals. He had discovered her terrors >f the beasts, and had set to work to conquer it, taking her into the Gardens and making her sil with him while he painted the lions, bidding her admire the big sleepy head with its immense strength and the smouldering yellow eyes of the jungle. She had been t almost distracted from her terrors by this artist, but he had ceased to come after a time, and, bracing himself up to'ask-her grand-uncle one day why he came' no more, she had been told that her friend was lead That had been another lonely grief for her" to bear. Listening to her story and noticing her dilated eyes Tom Webster said to himself that she ought never to come back to Claddagh. Let the place be sold. He had been hearing stories of Claddagh, terrible traditions of it;-: haunting, frijm the people, who accepted him unquestioningly as the guardian of the' young widow, i " I ought to be in mourning," she raid, as though she had discovered her white dress for the first time. " Why am I white, like a bride I should have widow's weeds, should I not ? " " You poor child ! " He spoke with sharp, sudden pity. "No ofce has been thinking of such dreary conventions for you. White is for youth.'' "There was the White Hare," she said.' " If I had not seen the White Hare it would not have happened." " Listen," he said, almost sternly. " I know about the White Hare. I know that you saw it, or thought you saw it. If there was a perfectly natural explanation • of the ; White Hare that would cease to trouble you; would it not? " " I do not want to see it again," she said "The memory of it poisons these woods for me. Was that thunder ? " There was a sound of distant thunder among the hills. " Let us go home," she said " I am afraid of thunder, too." He gave her his hand to help her from the tree-trunk. As she stood up she suddenly ' clung to him, hiding her head against his breast. " The White Hare ! " she cried. " The

White Hare! If it was for me! " He looked. Far down one of the avenues of the pines he saw a flash of white. It was gone almost before he had seen it.

CHAPTER XI. Lettice had been very ill in the night. Dr.' Walsh, summoned hastily, had heard from Tom Webster the story of the White Hare. His dark, humorous face, with the deep-set eyes, suddenly flashed on Tom Webster. ' * '• I'll tell you what, my fine fellow," he said, "if we could knock that White Hare on the —mind, I'm not saying I don't believe in it meself it would give her a chance. She thinks its appearance means another death, her child's if not her own. We can't blame her, poor thing! We'll have to get that idea oft of her head before she goes on this sea voyage." "I perfectly agree, but how?" Dr. Walsh turned a roguish eye on the young man's face, and winked prodigiously. "We'll have to run the White Hare to earth, me boy, lay him by the heels, and show him to that poor thing for what he is— a harmless little bit of a pup. I'll look out for it on me rounds. I'll be up Clashnore th's evening, seeing the widow Devenish. I'd as soon be walkin' up the . side of a house as up Clashnore, but the little car does it lovely! There's upwards of fifty cabins in Clashnore, though you'd never suspect it; and there isn't a cabin that hasn't a dog or two. If I was to find a white pup straying in the woods I might bring him to her. D'ye see now?" " He'd have to be a very frightened thing if he was to run like the White Hare," said Tom Webster. " I couldn't be sure I s';w it." "I'd shut jt up by itself for a day or two. Being used to the life of the cabin, it would be as frightened as you like. It would be hard on the little beast, but we can't help it. Maybe she'll give it a good home, seeing it's only a dog." " Let me see," he added. " It was the pine-wood she saw the White Hare ih originally, and the pine-wood she saw it in yesterday, or thought she did. I'll pick him up in the pine-wood. When do you sail V " In about ten days' time, I hope. Lady Talbot has consented to the animals being sold." " Ah, I'm glad of that," the doctor said, heartily. " Many's the time they got on a sick woman's nerves, or a sick child's. They're beautiful beasts, but a great expense to be feeding. I never could see myself why Sir Miles kept them." Tom Webster went out to the front of the house with the doctor, and stood talking, his hand on the door of the little runabout car. •* "You know the mystery of this house, doctor?" he said. " Isn't it known all over tho West ? The story is that it was always told to that bar as. soon as ha came of ago, thai.

it went from father to eon, or uncle to nephew, as the case might bo, and that it made a sad man of the boy that heard, never more to be a boy. The people are saying the Doom killed Sir Miles. There've been a pood many deaths in the family in Jueer circumstances. As a medical man, don't believe the, story. The Thing couldn't go on living for If there ever was such, it must be dead ages ago. I never knew Sir Miles well enough to ask him about it myself. The family were always touchy over it." There';; something," Tom Webster said, quietly, and proceeded to tell the story of his exploration oT the Locked Wing. . "I shall not take my sister again," he said; "and when I pay my next visit to the Locked Wing I shall take a revolver."

" I'm game," said the doctor, ** if you can get no one else. I'd be ashamed, to look Alias Webster in the face if I were to let you go alone. We might take a couple of hefty fellows with us. There's a big fellow in charge of the monkeys above there in the park. He'd be useful in a tight corner." " I think we must keep it to ourselves." " Ah, I see. We might let in Jim de Lacy. They are old friends of the Talbots. Jim is a good sport, though he's literary." Tom Webster looked down, evidently thinking. "We'd better get Lafdy Talbot out of it first," he said. "We want a clear field. My sister might take her on the first stage of tho journey. There's a little cottage in tho Isle of Wight, belonging to some friends of Oona's. They've offered it to us this summer. Tho ladies might wait for me there." " Excellent, my dear chap." Dr. Walsh wrung Tom Webster's hand hard. " The sooner she's out of it the better. She's coming to herself finely, God bless her." He began to wind up the car. While he did it he looked sideways at Tom Webster.

" Miles Talbot was a beautiful man of his age," he said, " and he had grand manners. He was as polite to Judy Kelly in the poor-house as he was to Lady Ashgrove. Aye, bedad! he had the good manners of the heart, and no other manners are worth a thraneen. But sure, he might have been this child's father. If he died a natural death now X might have been saying that perhaps it was as well. When a man of Miles Talbot's ago takes itaye, and for the first time—he takes it hard."

Tom Webster did not ask what it was Sir Miles had taken for the first time — and taken hard. He stood looking after the doctor's little car till it passed out of sight. Then, as he was about to re-enter tho house, his eye fell on two imploring dogs, sitting bolt upright on the gravel sweep, watching him. Shawn and Rory had had it inculcated upon them from extreme youth that they were*- not to go walking alone in a country where game abounded. Their one delight of hunting was forbidden them. They had fretted a good deal for their master, and they J wore now a haggard and uncared-for look, I although Oona was very good about taking them for walks. He had a sudden pity for the dogs. " Come along," he said. " Who's for a walk? Just wait till I fetch my stick from the hall, and we'll be off." The dogs waited with agonised expectancy till he came out, carrying the stout blackthorn, which had been a recent acquisition, in his hand. Then they uttered a series of sharp, joyous barks, and rushed away headlong before him. "We should have taken Lulu," he said to himself. "That dog feels too much. She's got house-nerves. She's frightened, if you like." , Unconsciously ho took the way he and Lettice Talbot had taken the previous day. Ho was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not notice for some time that he had lost the dogs. He was letting his fancy wander where he had vowed it should not; remembering the tilings the doctor had said. Miles Talbot had been old enough to be Let/cc's; father, and she was young enough to put away tho horror and grief that had befallen her. The strange way in which she had been given to his guardianship —did it not mean something? He had a simple and reverent belief in the Fatherly care that shapes our ends, if we but accept its will for us. Suddenly he heard the sharp yelping of the dogs. The rascals they wero hunting, and tho quarry had gone to ground.

Shouting and whistling to the does, ho sprinted off down the paths througrT Hie pine-wood at a pace which spoke well for his physical fitness. The yelping continued; the dogs were at some considerable distance. He 'had ffme to think that it was lucky for them that the mountain was not strictly preserved "before he noticed that the yelping had changed to something dolorous. The dogs were uneasy and unhappy; this was not the Joy of hunting. They firf begun to bay something in the Irish terrier's uncanny fashion. At last he came in sight of them. Rory, who had a singing voice, was keening., now and again pausing to tear up the ground with his feet. Shawn, planted firmly, was barking hoarsely, as though he were in some extremity of need. They rushed to meet Tom Webster in a sudden joyous hope as soon as they became aware of his presence. Shawn seized him gently by the coat, as though ho would lead him, while Rory ran on before and ran back again to ask if be was coming. Tom's first thought was that they had put up a rabbit which had escaped them. It was certainly a raobTl hole over which they now stood, wagging their tails and looking at him with a frantic desire to tell him something, 'an appeal for his help. Tho dogs were quite still now, watching him. In the silence he heard a small, a faint, a fairy barking.

"Hello!"' he said, "there's a dog tTown there !" Their eyes asked him if they had not told him bo.

They stood aside and watched* with quiet excitement while he went on all fours and called to the dog to come out, but there was no response, though the barking still continued, very faint and far away in the bowels of the eaiTS, as it seemed to him. Perhaps he can't get out, poor little beggar!'' he thought to himself. "He'll have to be dug out." Andy Rooney's farm was not very far away. He ran up the hill as fast as he could for the rising ground and the treeroots that sprawled in the path. He was in desperate haste lest the little beast should wander further into the rabbit hole beyond reach of their help. He could not bear to think of such a fate for a dog. Oddly enough, he had not remembered the White Hare. Andy Rooney was at . home, and he possessed a spade. He had just been digging out the first of the new potatoes. He volunteered to help. Down came Andy Rooney and the seven children and the brace of mongrel dogs. While they were digging Judy arrived, and looked on with mournful interest at the proceedings. Tom, catching a glimpse of the little head and delicate -profile, had a twinge of conscience. He had not taken any steps to see that Judy Rooney's boy in "New York had been helped towards the farm on which she could join fiim." He and Oona had been forgetting. Tomorrow he would see the girl, hear her story, and do what could be done. He had no doubt of his ability to help. "Bedad, I doubt he'll ever.come out alive,'' said Andy Rooney, standing upright to wipe his heated brow. "That hole'll wind in undher the three an' among thim roots, an' he'll never find his way out." The Rooney little girls desisted from their prayers to raise a howl of grief, "Whisht, will ye?" said their father, "Ye'd thing it was a Christian. Thim's too tinder-hearted," he remarked to Tom Webster. "They take after Herself. I was always a hard little nut of a fellow. The boys tako after me." . "Go gently!" said Tom Webster, laying a restraining hand on the spade. Tho earth crumbled suddenly. There in the passage '.he last blow of the spade had laid bare a miserable little white object, a mere skeleton of a puppy —the White Hare. There had been no need for lies, Tom Webster said to himself with relief, although, if necessary, he would have iied — Lettice, (la be. continued daily.)