FINGERS OF FATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20508, 8 March 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

FINGERS OF FATE.

A STORY OF LOVE, MYSTERY, INTRIGUE AND ADVENTURE.

BY L. G. MGBERLEY.

(COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER XXl.—(Continued.) When 1 read the short note 1 realised that she was right. How could they have ignored this note? It was useless, now the staole door, was open and the steed gone, to suggest that it might have been w j se to telephone to mo before Anne left the house with a stranger. In the face of the note that bore my signature, why should anyone have thought of telephoning to me? /fhe note was brief enough, but I could have sworn positively that the writing a'nd signature were my own. " Anne, Dearest, —Please come home nqickly with Nurse Bertha. I am Bending her fi>r you. I have been taken ill Buddenly.—Your, Diana (Dear)." <•' Feeling quite stupefied, I stared and. stared at the half-sheet of paper, with what set <4ut to be my writing upon jt; and Mis. Dawson roused me from my stupefaction. "I v am so dreadfully sorry," she said; «• J w ish 1 ; could pile the blame on my own shoulders." "But you can't," I answered quickly; «< jt, i s not in the least your fault. Nobody is to blame. I could not possibly swear that this is not my handwriting, although 1 know isn't. How the person who wrote it managed to forge my writing sb wonjierfully I capnot begin to imagine; but it is useless to waste time in vain speculations. All I have to do is to find Anne, and I must get in touch as sopn as possible with Scotland Yard." Sometimes since 1 have wondered how 1 managed to live through the days that came after; days so full of suspense and Jiopo deferred, and gnawing anxiety. Mrs. Bernley's letter, with its news of that later will which gave Anne's mother the money upon Anne's death filled me ■with tho gravest misgivings, much worse than misgivings, with a sick dread; and though I myself that even Mrs. Crosfield, unscrupulous as she had proved -herself to be, would not do bodily harm to her own child, I remembered, with an inward shudder,_ tho expression I had caught in her eyes when we sat opposite to one another" in the restauraut car—tho expression of a bird of prey. On one pomt I made up my mind quite definitely and decidedly. When—or if—we found Anne again, I would move heaven and earth to persuade her, or the trustees,' or whoever ought to deal with the matter, to give up her fortune once for all to Mrs. Crosfield, and save the child from every future danger. " If the woman wants the money let her have it," I said passionately one day to Mr. Dymond; "no amount of money can be worth all this terrible wear and tear and danger if if is Anne's life against the money, then let the money go." He hedgetl, and jibbed, and backed, as is the way of his kind, and pointed out ■ legal and other difficulties that were likely to block our .way; but .although I said very little to him, having long since learnt the futility of arguing with an -obstinate man, -I remained of "my own opinion" still," and -determined -to carry - it to fulfilment in the long run! ■ The flat in which Anne and I had spent such happy weeks had become nothing better than a howling wilderness now that she was' gone; life resolved itself for me into a daily round of anxiouswaiting for'/ mews which .nevercame... Nor were there a,ny tidings of Anne's father, for he, too, seemed to have vanished into those wild hif.terlands which ho loved, and my desolation was complete. •' What 'I say is. Miss Anne's father <Edn ; t ought to have gone and left you and her," Mi-s. Dane said firmly; "it Was putting too much on you, madam." "'I don't think he could bear to stay tamely here in England," I said ; "he was so accustomed to travelling and being in such different sorts of countries." I resented any criticism of Philip Crosfield, and yet far down in my heart I could not help echoing Mrs. Dane's sen- . timents. I could not help feeling that perhaps it was not quite fair, of Philip to have left so hea?y a burden on my shoulders. ; "Well, that's as may be, madam," Was Mrs. Dane's -reply- to - my words; " but when all's said and done Mr. Crosfield is the little dear's father, and he might have known them as wanted to get her would make another try for her, which try they have." Again my heart echoed her sentiments, though my voice apologised for Philip. But when she had left the room; when .1 was alone, standing by tho window, looking out over the wide view, to the gold of the sunset sky, a blinding flash of realisation came to me: Philip Crosfield had not gone, away merely to please himself, just to satisfy his own love of travel and adventure! I was wrong in supposing anything of the sort! He had gone away because the knowledge had come to him thafc-heiand-L—that he and I^ I saw it all in that blinding flash of illumination I saw Philip's heart, and I saw my own! . He had learnt to love ffie; and he knew that, for his own peace of mind and mine, he must go right away and leave me. And I ? I knew now what I had never realised before! I knew that I loved Philip; that Anne's father was all the world to me; that although his wife stood between us, and must always stand between us ;/ he and I belonged to one another for time.and lor eternity! I knew pow, beyond all possibility of "doubt, why he had gone away into the hinterland of Africa; why he' had gone away leaving me alone with Anne; and in spite of all, my anxiety, and all my loneliness and all the desolation, my heart sang a tiny song of gladness which would cot be stilled. CHAPTER XXII. / fobxd! In telling the stroy of Anne's first disappearance and our --finding of her, my mind was so full of the 'joy of getting her back again that I entirely forgot to mention what'happened at Breze aftcj- we left; what was the outcome of a raid made by the police upon that house among the hills. The outcome was to all intents and puiposes nil! When,.after some difficulty, the police authorities managed to effect an entrance into the house, they found only 'one very deaf and half-blind rnan, who could or would say no more than that he had been left in charge of the place; that he did not know whero <he owner was or when he was likely to return. In fact, everybody belonging to the establishment had decamped and vanished. The house was said to belong to a certain Monsieur Mironne, living in 'is! and lie, when questioned, could only reply that his white house at Breze had been let to a Monsieur Nadrin, who gave unimpeachable references, and more over paid his rent in advance. And there, perforce, the whole matter had to rest, because nothing further could bo His covered! Anne's warders, whoever they Were, had probably contrived to slip over .the mounl/uns- into Italy and disappear. Meanwhile', the days following her Second disappearance dragged heavily by; and even constant visits from Becky, who came to town as often as she could to cheer me, could not really take away the forebodings which filled my soul. The little song of gladness which had bubbled up u.ithiiy .lie when I realised what -fhilip s feplings were toward me, was never quite silenced; but thero was so terribly, -much to quench the joy! The impassable barrier between him and me; his long silence; and the gnawing suspense about Anne—all tended to still that fi'ad little song; and yet, despite everything. it did .give _me a strange sense of Comfort. I could" not explain, even to

myself, how the knowledge of Philip's love had come to me; needless to say, I mentioned it to nobody else. Some inflexibns in his voice; .a sudden gleam in his eyes; intuitions too subtlo to be called by any other name— : nll these made up the sum of what had all at once flashed upon me as a certainty; and I felt a wonderful pride in the thought that ho had found me worthy of his love, after loving so gracious a personality as Miss Merivale. I did not auow myselt to dwell upon these thoughts. Philip was the husband of another woman; and even though that woman was such a one as she had proved herself to be, she set up an impassablo barrier between him and me. Ho and I could never be more than friends; but —his friendship meant moro to me than anything else in the world, I realised that now, and the remembrance of him brought with it a sense of strength and comfort. No news of him reached us. The longedfor cable never came. He had effectually hiddeff himself somewhere in that dark continent which can hide so much J It was on a morning of early May when a hawthorn in the garden opposite my flat was snowy with bloom that my telephono bell clanged sharply. Ever since that day three weeks before when Mrs. Dawson had rung mo up the sound of the telephone bell had made my heart contract; and I always took off the receiver with a little feeling of dread. The voice that answered me now, a woman's voice, ringing and authoritative, was unknown to me. i "Can I speak to Miss Bertram?" it asked. " Miss Bertram speaking," I answered. " I am the sister of Mary Ward, St. Helen's Hospital. A patient here is asking urgently for you. She is very ill. Can you come and see her ? " " A patient in St. Helen's Hospital." I suppose my voice"" sounded bewildered, for- the other voice replied: " Yes. She says you will not know her name, but she is terribly atixious to see you. There is no hope of her recovery. Could you come soon 1 She is in bed 20." " Why, of course I will come," I said. "I will come at once, though'l think there must bo some mistake." ■ " Please come quickly," was all the answer I received, and the woman at the other end rang olf. Mystified, yet more than half convinced that she had mistaken me for someone else, I made my way as fast aS possible to the big hospital among the slums, and was directed by a massive-looking porter to Mary Ward. This proved to be the women's accident ward, and as I opened, the door I was conscious of rows of redquilted beds, big windows, a tessellated floor, and a healthy smell of carbolic. The sister came forward to meet me, a brisk woman with a clever face and rather hard eyes. " You telephoned " I began, and she cut me short at once. " Yes, you have come to see No. 20. The house surgeon has just been up. He thinks she is going fast." As she spoke the sister moved down the ward, and I' followed ia her wake, wondering uneasily who was awaiting me in bed 20, and what I was about to see. "She was run over—internal injuries," the sister said tersely; " there is nothing unpleasant," she added. - A heavy greei screen had been drawn round, a bed, together we passed round the screen, and I found myself beside a bed on-the far side.of which stood a nurse looking down at the patient; and, as I felt sure she would be, this patient was a tota' stranger. Her face was white and lined with suffering. There were dark shadows under her.eyes; and a curious pinched look about her nose and lips; but even so, one could see that she must have been Very pretty. Her soft, fair hair was like a halo on the pillow, and, when she opened her eyes', I saw that they were verv blue. They fixed themselves straight upoi. me, and her brows drew together in a frown. " Who—" she whispered, and the sister bent over her,' speaking with a gentleness which I should not have associated with her hard eyes. " This is Miss Bertram. You asked me to send for Miss Bertram," she said. For an instant . the whiteness of the woman's face was tinged with colour, and the look in her eyes was a curious mingling of shame and relief. " You came," she whispered. " Thank God you came. I could not have died easily unless I told you." She spoke with obvious difficulty; her breath came in painful gasps, and the nurse beside her more than once wiped sweat fiom her forehead and face. " What is it you want to tell me?" I asked, kneeling down beside the bed *so »s to be nearer to her. " I don't think I have ever seen you before." *' No, you have never seen mo," she made a little fluttering motion of her hands, and the shame deepened in her eyes,—" but I—stole her—they sent nie—"-..Her words all. at once became incoherent ; she rambled off into a sentence impossible tcs" disentangle, • but that first phrase staggered me: "I stole—her—" Before ! could ask a question, the dying woman had »alli.ed her forces; her fluttering hands came toward me. ' Such temptation," she gasped; " they gave me.so much money and I was poor. I fetched her away—" " Aro you speaking of Anne ?" I asked, "of Stephanie Anne?" " I me* her mother," the faint voice went cn: " she—gave money—it was all so easy—and I did- not know then that—" " That what," 1 put in anxiously, when she paused. "That they meant the girl harm," sh6 answered, her voice growing suddenly stronger. " I—thought—I was sure —a mother ought to have her own daughter. I did not know —what sort of mother—" A long shudder ran through her, her eyes closed again, and she grew so ashen that I thought the end had come. . The nurse held a glass to her lips, a faint colour came back to them, and she looked up at me once more. "So unscrupulous," she panted; "she will not mind what she does to get her way-—wicked —atrocious—'' • '• Tell me quickly whero is Anne?" I said, mastering my own excitement with difficulty. "Do you know where she is ? Is she safe ? They have not hurt her ?" " Not—yet. I think they were afraid to—to —" Again the sentence trailed into silence, ana my heart beat in sickening thumps as I realised that if she did not say any more than this she would have spokon in vain. But again with a supreme effort she fought the weakness that was mastering her, and spoke, but so very faintly that, I had to stoop close to her to hear her whispered words. " In—Stepney—105, Wallington Street; they took—" The faint whisper stopped suddenly, a shiver shook her, there was one more gasping breath, and then I realised that sister s hand was on my shoulder. "Come' with me," she said kindly; " she has gone: it is all over." I followed the tall woman in blue uniform into her sitting room, which adjoined the ward, and she pushed mo gently into an arm-chair, and mado ine drink some sal volatile. " Can you tell *me that poor creature s name ?" I asked presently, when I felt less sTiaken. " She was a stranger to me, hut she has told me something very important." . _ " He- name is entered as Clara Jameson. She came in dressed in nurse's uniform, but she told me she was not really a nurse. She had put on the uniform for fiin she said." , , , "It was rather grim fun, I retorted; and then and there I briefly told the sister the story of Anne. She ] is jened with a sympathy which again belied the hardness of her eyes. (To be continued on Saturday next.)