FICTION.

New Zealand Mail, 30 December 1892, Page 8

FICTION.

[NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.]

TWICE LOST.

A TALE OF LOVE AND FORTUNE BY RICHARD DOYVLING, Author of • A Hidden Flame,' ' Fatal Bonds,' 'Tempest Driven,' «A Bafil.ng Quest,' &o.

[copyright ] CHAPTER XIII.—' For Ever,' She Repeated, and Kissed His Lips. North Furham, where John Crane lived, is but sparsely covered with houses compared with the opposite bank of the river. There, except at odd points, London begins to straggle into the open country, to become undisguised Essex. The country inland is infinitely uninteresting and dreary. It consists of series of levels, flats, and marshes, little or nothing above high water mark. Here stretchjlines of docks, but the river is no longer margined with wharfs and quays, and the shores of the Thames have a lonely, purposeless forgotten air, save when the tide brings ships up out of the deep and barges from the Med way, or when it sweeps them downward from"under the sullen bank of blue smoke where pro* digious London lies in the West. With the exception of the North Furham Docks and the roads leading to them, Water-lane, the approach to the Great Furham S.team Ferry, is ';he only street or road which sustains an air of active traffic and pushing life.

The proximity of Water-lane to the great docks, and the fact that it forms the highway to the Southern side of the river, had decided John Crane on making it the scene of his business experiment. Houses here were very cheap, and at the back of the one he took at little more than the rent of a workman's cottage, stood his workshop. His scheme did not require an imposing front in an expensive thoroughfare. He wanted space and cheapness, not show. ' I am rather a manufacturer and wholesale repairer than a retailer of ready made goods,' he had said to himself when entering the little house in Water-lane and putting up his sign, a sextant rampant on a sundial. In the evening of the day, John Crane spoke about Edith to her mother, and told the old woman the news of his uncle's death. He had more matter for thought and reflection than in all his previous years. Within the past couple of days his life had been thrown into the scales, and there was yet no telling how it would weigh out; he had received this disturbing news from America, and he had resolved to ask Edith Orr if she would be his wife.

He did not know up to this moment anything more about affairs in America than that Arthur Stebbing, his uncle, was dead, and vhat in Vera Pax he was supposed to be his uncle's heir. He had gathered from his uncle's letters to him that the property would bo considerable. He had no reason in the world to think that Edith Orr leant more in favour towards him than towards any man who went by her door. He had simply determined to mai'ry her, not out of a desire to secure her beauty so much as that he might pass

his life in paying homage to the exquisite spirit of womanhood enshrined in her exquisite form. ' I am a fire-worshipper,' he had thought. ' I worship God's divine fire in Ediih Orr.'

From the time he began to grow used, in distant observation, to the ways of Edith Orr, and conversant with her mind, he had conceived a feeling of worship for her. His worship rose not for her body, whose beauty was extraordinary. He had a feeling of shyness of this physical loveliness. When he thought of her face and figure, her hair, her mien, they became intoxicatingly dear to the exclusion of feelings he valued most and cherished best.

He had said to himself, as he looked into the regions of the setting sun from the deck of the Furham steam ferry, 'The beautiful spirit of this girl is the heart of me. I would give all the world that she might know she is my heart; for if she could know she i 3 my heart as I know it, the knowledge would make her life full and gatisfied, as sunset is full and satisfied with light.' Crane was not technically speaking a poet. He had never in all his life even dreamed of writing verses. He esteemed himself a highly practical young man. But although no technical poet, there were in him thoughts above the grossnesses of earth. He was a poet now and then, as most men are, and as all men, who are not brutes in the guise of men, must be when they love, if their love is true love, such as comes to all men once in life. This news from Vera Pax had reached him as a surprise. His uncle, Arthur Stebbing, was known to him only by name and through the cold inlermediacy of correspondence. John Crane had no memory of family legends or stories of his uncle. Indeed, until a few years ago he did not know whether his uncle were dead or alive. Now word came that the old man had died, leaving John Crane heir to all he died worth,

' He must have left a few thousands, at all events, and hundreds would be of the greatest service to me,' thought the young man. ' If I had five hundred now in hand I might manufacture some special article in a small way to begin with, and creep on by degrees. In any case, with the help of two hundred and fifty I could make the future sure, and I can count on two-fifty at the very least from Vera Pax. There is no risk in calculating on the two-fifty I want, though it might be risky to reckon on ten times as much, and ten times two-fifty would, I dare say, be a moderate estimate of what is coming to me. With two-fifty I'd start that improvement of mine in the binocular microscope, and out of that alone. I ought to earn enough to live on. So I see no reason why I should not speak about Edith at once, and make sure, before anyone else comes along to confuse matters with an offer of marriage. Some one else marry Edith 1 Nonsense ! No one else could marry her, for she is my heart, and I will marry her as certainly as I live.' He was confident of reaching the goal before moving an inch towards it. He did not experience any new doubts or misgivings when he Baw that handsome stranger, Fancourt, who had taken Mrs Orr's rooms. The idea of a rival never once crossed his mind. It had been in his thoughts that he might wait till too late. Long before this, it had occurred to him that if he hung back an unreasonable time someone else might speak of marriage to Edith, and there might be a bad blunder;

that she, not knowing she was his heart, might enter into some preposteroua engagement with some other man. Now that he had resolved to speak to her at once, there could be no fear of being second in the race. He was confident, without a trace of conceit. It would have amused him beyond measure if anyone had said his theory of love or his hope of winning Edith Orr was the result of conceit. He would have answered—

' Conceited ! Why, either you don't know the meaning of the word, or you do not know how I feel. I'm not thinking of myself at all. lam thinking of her,—or more exactly, I am thinking of her who is herself and all of me as well.'

Novel and interesting as the new position of John Crane's affairs was, he did not allow it to occupy him to the exclusion of business. When he was absent from Water-lane on his rounds in North Furham, or across the river in Muscovy Place, his foreman, Ben Sherwin, took charge of the depot, ai Ben was pleased to call the shop. With Ben Sherwin, Crane had a few things to arrange on his return that day. Then Sherwin retired into the workshop at the back of the house, and Crane sat down at his bench to occupy himself with the intricacies of a musical box whose English airs, Ben Sherwin said, had not been improved by the winds of the tropics. In Crane's occupation designing took thought; but once the designing was done and the tools set going a great deal of work was purely mechanical. At a glance the young watchmaker saw what was amiss with the musical box, had resolved how the repair should be effected, and from that out his mind was free to engage itself on other matters.

Naturally it went back to Muscovy Plaoe, and while he brushed and sawed and drilled and filed he came to the conclusion that it would be a very dangerous thing for these two women to take into their house a lodger who had not tendered the most excellent references. As he brushed and filed and drilled and polished it became perfectly clear to him that a lodger of any kind was undesirable in a watchmaker's where there was no man, and that Muscovy Place could not safely house a lodger who was not well-known to Mrs Orr, or to some one on whom Mrs Orr could place implicit reliance, and who would guarantee the complete respectability of the guest. When he came to this conclusion he threw down his tools, took up a pen and wrote to Mrs Orr without more ado, and sent his letter acroHß the river by hand for the sake of expedition. As soon as the letter was despatched he returned to his work at the bench with a feeling of having put something right. He was just sitting down to his tea in the little parlour behind the shop, when a letter that had come by a carter crossing the ferry was put into his hand.

' Oh,' he thought, ' an answer from Mrs Orr. I do hope the reference* were unexceptionable.' He had no acquaintance with the handwriting of mother or daughter, He tore the envelope open, glanced at the writing, and fixed his eyes on the signature ' It's from Edith,' hs thought, gravely. ' I wonder why she writes. I hope her mother is not ill.' Not for an instant did it strike him the letter could have anything to do with what he had been saying to Mrs Orr. He did not think the message had any reference to the acceptance or refusal of his offer. He had no vanity whatever. He did not fancy that all the world was thinking of his affairs. ' Something about this lodger, Fancourt,' he thought. ' I wonder why Mrs Orr herself did not write. But women of that age are often lazy with the pen.' 'Dear Mr Crane—My mother is much obliged to you for your letter, and regrets to say that she had no reference at all from Mr Fancourt. She is quite of your mind, and would like very much to see you this evening if you can manage to come over to Muscovy Place. Yours sincerely,— Edith Orr.' This letter was the flattest commonplace ; that is the perfection of what it should be. Crane put it back again into its envelope and thrust it into his pocket with as much composure a« though it were a trade circular. It was a most efficient business communication from one who had a mind of great clearness and force. He did not think of kissing it. He had hardly yet thought of kissing the writer. The notion of kissing the writer had, in 4

dim way, come into his mind, but not •a a matter of great desirableness or importance. When he thought of Edith much, he thought rather of all her life than of her kisses. Kisses seemed an interruption to the homage he paid her in his heart. He took off his hat and set off to Muscovy Place. Darkness had fallen and the gas was alight when he pushed open the glass door of the widow's •hop. 4 Oh, Mr Crane,' said Mrs Orr, * I am ■o glad to see you. It is good of you to come. We are in the greatest difficulty about this new lodger. My daughter wrote to you and she will explain every thing to you. I would not like any of the neighbours to hear of the matter, and it will not be pleasant to be interrupted. The gas is lighted in the parlour. If you go in there, Edie can tell you all about it.' Mrs Orr's notion was that two birds might be killed with one stone. If Crane thought well of it he could speak to Edie now.

The daughter looked at her mother in perplexity. She did not know anything of the talk about herself which had passed botween Crane and her mother. However, she saw no objection to the suggested retirement into the parlour. Of late, most of the little affairs of the business and house had been delegated to her by Mrs Orr. * Very well,' she said, with a smile, ' Come in, Mr Crane.'

When they were in the parlour, a small square, sparely-furnished room, lit by a single, gas-jet in a white globe, the girl motioned Crane to one of the four rigid, uncomfortable, mahogany hairseated chairs, and took another herself. Around her seemed to shine a light, a warmth of radiance peculiar to herself. She appeared not to take light of the place, but to shed a rich and delicate glow around her.

Crane stood beside her a moment, touched her hair softly with his hand, and saying ' God bless you !' sat down on the chair she had pointed out for him.

She looked at him gravely and saw there was no levity in his eyes, but tears instead. Up to the moment her mother had suggested that they should go into this room she had been full of concern about the lodger, to the exclusion of all other matters. Her mother's suggestion that they should come in here had stopped the current of her mind towards Fancourt, but had set no other stream moving. John Crane's action and words stirred her soul in a way never before experienced. In his voice there waß a tone of pity; in his eyes a look of infinite sorrow; in the light touch of his fingers on her hair a strange, mysterious assertion of right and authority. All that had ever been in her mind up to that moment seemed to leave her suddenly and for ever.

• What is it V she said. ' I—l do not understand.'

4 Nor I,' he said sadly; * I do not understand either. But I know lam safe with you.' 4 Safe with me about what?' she asked, knitting her brows in labouring perplexity. 4 Safe with you against misunder standing.' 4 Oh, yes. I could not misunderstand you. I might not be able to understand yon ; but I do not think I could misunderstand you to your disadvantage.' She did not know to what this talk had reference, but she had a sense it reached to something solemn and profound.

4 Your looks and your words tell me lam right in all I thought of you. Would you take my word for a matter of great weight and importance ?' 4 1 should take your word, Mr Crane, for anything you told me.' She was trembling now and hardly able to control her speech, but her eyes rested steadily and confidently upon him. • What I have to tell you has such a vital meaning that I hardly dare to speak.' He, too, was trembling now. * Do you think I may speak ?'

She bowed her head in assent. 4 1 think, Miss Orr, that in time you might come to love me.' She dropped her eyes and whispered in a broken voice, * I—l have not thought of it.' 4 1 know you have not. Since first I saw you, Miss Orr, I thought of this. I asked myself if I believed you could come to love me, and I have arrived at the conclusion that you could. I know you could, or I should not have spoken now; it would seem presumptuous of me to say to you that I love you. But I should die without saying it if I did fjot think you could love me. You are

my heart; I have no heart but you. Will you come to me V 4 1 feel so dull just now,' she said, her eyes on the ground, * I cannot think; I can hardly speak.' 4 Do not distress yourself. Do not try to tell me yet. Another time will do.'

4 1 wish to say,' she said, raising her eyes to his, ' that you have spoken to ;ne as a man should speak to me.' * You see you are my heart, and 1 know you well,' said he. 4 And to speak to me as you have spoken is a great deal to me.' 'You are my heart, so I must know you.' 4 You have paid me no compliment, and that is the highest compliment of all.'

4 You are my heart, how could I go wrong, Edith.

4 You knew me when I did not know myself..' 4 You are my heart, and I know you, Edith.'

4 Then take my heart, if you will V She rose and held out both hands to him.

He rose and took her hands, and stooped to kiss them. She drew her hands away. 'Not that,' she said, * not that, I am yours.' He clasped her in his arms, and kissed her forehead. ' For ever.'

' For ever,' she repeated, and kissed his lips.

CHAPTER XlV.—The Deserted Hotel.

In that vast hall Frank Jeaters stood appalled. He had shown Pollie this fatal trap, and he had left that trap open. He knew the terror she had of water, of the Thames in particular, and he had concocted that shocking story of finding the young woman's body in the river, of dragging the body of the dead woman up the shoot, and laying it down on the pavement of this hall within a few feet of the door behind which his wife slept. His mind was in possession of all these facts, but they were not present to his imagination. Ho did not see any of the scenes, and he did not hear any of the words or voices of those, transactions ; still they were all present vaguely in his memory, with the awful vagueness of threatening figures beheld in a half-light; menacing voices of onslaught caught through the confusion of a tumult. There could be no doubt Pollie was gone. The echoes of the empty palace had given back that news to his straining ears. Gone, and gone by that awful way in the tesselated floor! Gone, and gone by the river, of which she stood in such cruel dread 1 Poor Pollie ! What should he do ? Sound an alarm and wake the neighbourhood ? That would not do any good or—much harm. Could it do any harm ? Could it do any harm to him ? Could anything do harm now ? That was the question of great gravity, of vital importance. He must think. He must think the whole matter out.

He entered the little sitting-room, struck a light, and lit the lamp. With apprehension which he sought to smother, he glanced hastily around. Here was no indication that matters had gone wrong. Everything was just as he had left it, or as he might expect to find it—everything except one thing —except her presence ! But did he expect to find her presence here? He shuddered.

Already the place was assuming a haunted air. He, Frank Jeaters, trembling at the mere thought of a ghost! He, who had always laughed at the supernatural as an old woman's tale! He, Frank Jeaters, a believer in phantoms from the grave ! Yes, but till now there could have been no ghost at which he might not laugh. If he saw a ghost now, of what would it be the ghost? If he saw anything now could he laugh at it ? If he saw anything now ! What rubbish ! When be looked around he saw everything fchere was to be seen, everything which could be in this room. What an idiot to allow his nerves to give way ! They would not give way now only for that accursed narcotic last night. Why had he been such a fool as to swallow it ? Well, of course, he had taken it so that he might sleep. Sleep ! So that he might sleep last night. If he could not sleep last night without a draught, how was he to sleep this night ? Last night he was afraid his scheme might suc-ceed—to-night he knew it had succeeded,

Oh, thinking—any kind of thinking —would not do at all. There stood in the way horrible material difficulties and dangers of which he had not thought before. They did not know at the office that he was married. He had told Pol told her that he had mentioned her to Hilliern, that he had spoken, to Hilliers about his wife. That statement was an invention. He had never disclosed his marriage to the secretary of the St. Vincent Company. When a man was once settled in a career it might be advantageous that people knew he was married ; but when a man was seeking employment, trying to find an outlet for his energies and abilities, a bachelor had the better chance.

But pooh ! pooh! what was the meaning of his wasting time in thus laying down generalities about life when his own safety called for the exercise of every faculty he possessed. Let him try to think, and let him try to keep his mind centred on a matter of paramount importance—his own position in this distracting situation.

He had not told Hilliers' he was married, and he had enjoined it on Pollie that she told no one in Hoxton, where they were going to live; and Pollie had, as far as he knew, no relatives in England, no relative at all but an old uncle in some savage out-of-the-way part of America. Therefore, no inquiries were likely to follow the disappearance of his wife. If the river gave up its dead there would be no means of identification, and the dead of the river would never be laid at his door. He should instantly resign his care of this place, leave Verdon—go to that other place, to Furham, where he had secured a shelter.

For a while ha paused in his thoughts. Then, as if struck by an arrow, sprang to hia feet with a cry.

Merciful heavenß ! what an idiot he was to fancy the dead beyond recognition ! Why, the nightgown was marked with her name ! Marked 'M. Jeaters !' The unfortunate woman had been so proud to marry him that she had got all her clothes marked with the surname in full, and here was he taking for granted the impossibility of identifyingwhat theriver should restore. What was to be done in the face of this appalling recollection ? He could not tell. He did not know. When he had a day or two ago thought of such an occurrence as the empty rooms indicated, he provided in his mind for a nightgown without any mark. Now this, extreme occurrence had taken place, and the nightgown was marked •M. Jeaters.' What an unfortunate man he was ! Could any man be more desperately unfortunate than he?

But stay, he had not examined the sleeping room closely. He had, in fact, no more than looked in and ascertained that no one, was there He must at once see how matters stood there.

He rose, and taking the lamp left the parlour. It was pitch dark in the great hall of the building. Holding the light above his head he glanced at the opposite side. The trap of the shoot stood up out of the floor like something risen from the earth—risen from the grave in witness against him.

He entered the sleeping-room. Once more holding the lamp above his head he looked round.

With a start he approached the bed and stood staring at it out of fixed distended eyes. If the body of his murdered wife lay there he could not exhibit more signs of horror. He lowered his raised hand. It shook so violently he had to steady it with the other. To the ordinary eye nothing could be more commonplace or reassuring than the appearance of the bed. It was made in the usual way ; the clothes were turned back, and on the turned down strip of the sheet lay folded a couple of nightgowns—his own and hers !

What could this mean ? With a feeble idiotic stare he looked round once more. This time his eye caught a sheet of paper fixed inside the frame of the mirror on the dressingtable.

There was writing on that paper. He could see so much. With a groan he sunk sitting on the bed. What could the smooth bed mean? The lonely woman had not dared to lie down. And yet she was not here ! Whither had she gone ? Where was she now ?

What could the writing on that paper mean ? She could not bear the house longer, and she had left it. Left, how ? Left }t, for where ?

He could answer either of these questions by walking to the table and reading that paper. But he must wait awhile. Partly owing to surprise and partly owing to this new fear he could hardly walk, and could not at the moment face, another shock. That infernal drug had destroyed his nerves. He could not hold the lamp steadily even with both hands. The chimney rattled horribly against the globe. All the room seemed trembling with terror. He put the lamp down on the counterpane beside him, and rested his elbow on the foot-rail, and his head on his hand.

Pollie had not walked into the open shoot while in a somnambulistic trance. And there were but two ways of exit : either by the side into-St Vincent Place, or bv the front into —the river.

He had told her she was not to show herself at the back or side, and he could count on her obedience; unless she had made up her mind to leave him for ever; a thing not to be thought of. There was therefore no explanation of it, but that she, driven crazy by his absence and her horror of the place, had flung herself into the river from the balcony of the little quay below, or down the luggage-slide.

If the second solution turned out true (and there seemed no possibility of the other being right), and if the paper on the looking-glass was such as he could produce, all would be well, or at least safe. He might receive a reprimand for leaving an invalid wife so much to herself; but that would be all, and no one at Furham would be able to identify Edward Fancourt, the bachelor lodger of Muscovy Place, with Frank Jeaters, married clerk-in-charge of St Vincent Hotel, St Vincent Place, Verdon.

Jeaters rose from the bed, and with hands which had regained steadiness from these reflections took the lamp and approached the table. Here, beyond all doubt, lay in this brief communication, deliverance complete and final. If it said : 4 The loneliness of the place overcame me, and I rushed to my greatest terror, the Thames.'

It would be terrible, but he would be free without much Warae, and with no risk.

He reached the dressing-table and put dov/n the lamp. He paused a moment to prolong the anticipation of deliverance now at hand. The light did not fall on the paper so that he could read it as he stood.

In fingers still unsteady he took the paper from the glass and turned it so that the light fell upon it. Without a word, without a sign, it dropped from his hand and fluttered to the ground. Under his dark skin his face grew palid. He put his hand on the table to keep himself from falling. He stood motionless, mute, breathless, like one struck with sudden death. He thought he had prepared himself for all things which could happen, but he had not prepared himself for this.