Fiction.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1164, 22 June 1894, Page 8

Fiction.

HER FATHERS IDOL, By MRS BASELEY ("Mignon »). (copyright.) CHAPTER XXIII. Mrs Smith's alarm was most natural. Yet it was only produced by a sound between a yawn and a sigh. She was not one given, as has been already said, to be easily moved by emotion of any description, but when those sounds proceeded from a person not only believed to be already dead, but also from one who had by what seemed tho veriest chance escaped burial, then indeed was there cause for astonishment.

" Good lawk a day!" she cried. " Well, I never \"

Tho exclamation burst from her involuntarily, as had her previous display of surprise. Nelly sighed heavily several times, yawned, and finally opened her eyes. " Hush !" whispered Reg. Volmer, warningly. ' Whero —is Hugh ?" asked Nelly, faintly, after a pause, during which Mademoisolle Votoski and Mrs Smith, their solicitude as great as their astonishment, had backed out of rango of her sight. They had none of them over heard of Hugh. " Whore—is—Hugh—Bruce ?" reiterated Nelly, with a great access of strength. "Ah!" looking up into Reg. Volmer's eyes, in perplexity ; " I forgot you did not" (sigh) " know —him !" She sighed repeatedly for a few minutes. The silence remained unbroken. Nelly did not move. She seemed to be deliberating, but in great perplexity. Reg. Volmer studied her face anxiously. It was as colourless as the driven snow. Had she indeed been brought back from death, she could not well have looked more ghastly. Ho administered a teaspoonful of brandy. But let him move as he might he did it with one caroful attempt to keep from her view the hideous sight of the coffin from which she had so recently been rescued.

As if guessing his object, Dagmar Votoski drew the table with its overhanging cloth more effectually between it and Nelly. Her surprise onco evaporated, Mrs Smith none too quietly loft the room j relieved it might be at the unexpected turn events had taken, but morosely perplexed at what would have to be done with Nelly. She wasn't going to keep her, she knew. She was not quite clear whether it would not have been better if she had obeyed Mark's order with more dexterity and less qualms; Nelly at any rate would then no longer have been a bother.

" Whore—am I?" queried Nelly, feobly. "Here, in your own house," answered Reg. Volmer; " and this "—calling Dagmar Votoski to the fore—" is a friend of yours, I believe!"

Nelly appeared not to hear. Her eyes had a strange, dull, dazed expression, whilst over her face there was a troubled, perplexed look, which evidently perturbed and distressed her. «I—can't—re-member— it's all so—confused. I—l think I've been—been dead. Is Hugh—dead too ?" " Nelly dear," whispered Dagmar, bending and kissing the snowy brow; ** don't you recollect me ? I said I would come to help you and I did!" "Speak louder," urged young Volmer, authoritatively. " She seems queer in her head." Dagmar turned and faced him fiercely. " Of course she is queer in her head, and so would you be if you had been dosed with poison." "Pardon me," ho urged, "but to the best of my belief this young lady has had no poison." Dagmar gave an irritating laugh. " That is," he corrected, truthfully, " no farther than a.narcotic pure and simple may be termed a poison. Hush!" Nelly by an effort had raised herself, and was glancing round. Well for her nerves was it that the coffin was hidden from sight. *< -$ 0 — n 0 )" s he said, dreamily. " Yet I m sure it all happened." " What happened ?" asked Dagmar, with just a touch of impatience. It was only by keeping a curb on herself that she restrained her curiosity as far as she had. " I've been in an iron shroud," continued Nelly, speaking more to herself than as if with any inclination to enlighten. " It held me tight, clasped in its embrace. It was merciless—horrible. I tried to burst from it and could not. I was living and dead together! My spirit was alive, my body was dead—burdensome—of intolerable weight, and nothing seemed able to quicken it. I felt that mortals regarded mo as only fit for the grave, whilst all the time my spirit shrank—shrank from being buried. Mark came to me. Ho pinched and pulled me. I wanted to cry out, and beg him to use greater efforts, but my tongue was frozen, my speech numbed. He attempted to lift me, all in vain. Hours that seemed months, years, fled by, and I was placed in a—a coffin ! Could I not cry then ? No! horror of horrors, they were going to bury me, Mark and Mrs Smith! My anguish internally was great, yet not great enough to dispel the hideous trance into which I had fallen. Like a mighty ocean pent up in a small lake was my will in my poor puerile frame. My head must have burst had not Hugh come to me, my poor, afflicted friend Hugh. Yet not so; what could it all mean ? Hugh's face was all radiant, encouraging; ho had wings, and a harp in his hands. Ho could move easier than the mightiest, swifter than the strongest, and there was no

longer regret, pain, and endurance on his countenance. They were swept aside — forgotten—and on his brow was written ' Peace!' Ho must have been an augel. Ho came to comfort me, because he said, ' Courage. Nelly. Go home to your sorrowing father and friend?. See no more of your murderer—Mark Boyd' Ah !" with a shriek, "ho has killed me—l remember—l remeni—"

Her voice died away. She sank back, fainting. "Really, 'pon my word, I never saw anything like it," exclaimed Reg. Volmer, in amazement. " She must bo roused, or sho will fall into a catalepsy. She seems a victim to such an attack \"

It was some hours later in the day before he could comfortably leave. Nelly by then was nearly her own self again, and knew all that had happened. She was cognisant, too, that her strange doctor was going to her father to claim his reward for finding her.

Though averse to such an action her mind was still too week to rebel much, especially as sho comprehended that £IOO would set the young fellow free from vice and Mark's clutches.

"Tell him I will follow directly I am able." She added various messages; yet when ho was finally gone she repented greatly that she had not accompanied him. Tho moro so that Dagmar's duties compelled her to leave in the afternoon. ■ How was she to remain behind with Mrs Smith ? Mark might come. Tho very notion of incurring such danger sent her into a panic ; yet when Dagmar, at her wit's end, proffered to take her with her, Nelly found she had no more strength than a child. She was unable to walk or even stand.

"Theors a plenty o' places as she con goa," declared Mrs Smith; " and I'm not a-gooin' to be bothered agen wi' last night's wark. I wants sleep, I do. Yo'd better tek her weer thot bright spark Mr Barry con't coom —nat as he'll git in heer agen, but he moight try 'speshly if sho weer heer fur him to skeer !"

Finally Dagmar decided to remove Nelly to a quiet house, feeling assured that Dr Henstock would pay all extra charges. The cab was ready and Nelly seated in it when a man in plain clothes entered the gate. " The names of all who are leaving here," he said.

"Madame Votoski and daughter," declared Dagmar, quickly. " On your word !" Dagmar responded volubly, adding that they were not leaving Hendon that day, which seemed to prove satisfactory. " Wo have a search warrant on the place," explained the man. "There has been a great mystery already, and it will have to be cleared. Tho delay has happened through tho head detective being wired for to Scotland Yard. But there'll be no greater puzzlo than this, I'm thinking. Tho grave has been dug and is ready, but there is no victim placed there yet. So Keane is sure to be back shortly. You are certain you are in no way implicated in this ?"

" Don't I tell you tve can be found at the White Lion till to-morrow ?" said Dagmar. "Oh, I've forgotten my muff. Will you get it, please, Mr Officer ?" Though she put the question, she was too quick for him, and was back in the octagonal lodge before it had dawned on the man's dull brain that a request had been proferred. " I find after all I did not bring it," she said, returning quickly. The officer had no suspicion that she had re-entered the lodge with a word of warning to the woman Smith, to the effect to get the coffin into firewood or she might be in trouble if the men arrived and found it there.

Dagmar Votoski was a strange mixture of malice and kindly precaution. Her sole motive in helping Nelly was to have a whipcord of resentment against Mark. She was resolved to do everything in her power to solve Olga's mystery, and to further that end she had got Nelly, and Nelly's treatment, to keep as a sword over his head. Yet her past was such that she had no intention of harming him in any degree beyond what Olga's interests called for. Since discovering his criminal designs on Nelly's life it had dawned upon Dagmar that Mark might have killed Olga. That fear once turned into a certainty, and Mark's life would not be worth a farthing. None would be so relentless as she. Till that, however, was proved —and she had reason to believe Olga, from Jacobi's statement, still lived—she would not suffer him to be incriminated on any point where sho could spare him. Hence her return to Mrs Smith to get rid of one very damaging proof against him. Also to Reg. Volmer, whoso questions had been numerous, sho had but given very scant information. One great object in life above and beyond the necessity for gaining daily bread permeated Dagmar's whole being—the tracing Olga's footsteps since the day they had parted some 14 months previously. Mark and Jacobi were the two means she would have to use, but such were their characters that now they had found out her intentions they would frustrate her at every point. She would have to force their hands. Money might be sufficient motive power with starving Jacobi if—and that was very doubtful—she could find him. Mark's information it would be utterly impossible to buy, hence her desire to have Nelly as a strong leveller against him. Her recent discovery as to his foul plot to effectually rid the earth of his last victim gave her a very strong trump card. Sho never for one moment credited his assertion that he believed Olga dead. Though in fact he did so to his hurt. It will be seen that Dagmar had a very keen reason for wishing to keep Nelly under her wing for the present. To that might be attributed her silence and lack of opposition to Reg. Volmer getting the large reward for Nelly's recovery—one to which she had equal if not larger claim than himself. She had not applied for it earlier, being in collusion with Mark, Her oppo-

sition to him removed all barrier to preferring her claim. She waived it, however, because she desired to keep Nelly.

Imagine, therefore, her chagrin when, on returning to the White Lion a day later to remove Nelly to new lodgings which she had purposely got for her, she found Nelly's mind resolutely set on one object—the going back to her father. She coaxed, entreated, threatened, all in vain. Nelly was firm. See her father—explain all—get his forgiveness, if possible, she would. Poor girl! So repentent was she, so humiliated by the treachery she had been the victim, of, that she scarcely dared to glance atf such a hope as full restoration. Very probably she might return ; but go without delay she would. They were in the midst of an argument, Dagmar voluble, excited; Nelly quiet but firm when a gentleman was announced. " Mr Langley Bruce."

Nelly's first impulse was to fly to him in delight. Her second to draw back abashed. Who was sho to dare to claim friendship with any now ? His gladness was unmistakable. " I am not too late, then," he exclaimed, as he approached her eagerly. " Ah, what a relief it is to find you in life !" " But how —have you—traced me ?" asked Nelly, affecting not to see his hand. " Did Dr Revelstoke ?"

It was Langley's turn to look amazed. " I came to Hendon owing to a letter of Mark Boyd's," he said, hurriedly. "He wrote and said he had found you in a hospital dying. That you were buried at , but why enter into all this now ? Suffice it that it was a forgery, and that I have found you alive." "The villain!" cried Dagmar. "Mark Boyd, sir, I mean—but for mo you would indeed have been too late. He would have buried her alive!"

Then followed tho whole explanation. Langley was loud in his declamations against Mark, but his anxiety was for Nelly. She had remained calm and quiet throughout Dagmar's excited recital, yet to one who understood her as Langley did there was agitation. "Now that I have discovered you, Nelly," he said, gently, "you will give mo the pleasure of restoring you to your father." She shook her head sadly.

" Langley, when I last saw you I was a pure, innocent girl," sho said, bursting into tears: " now we meet on a different footing. I have sinned; I must go alone to my father. I believed I was a wife; but —but I was not one ; he " " That depends," burst in Dagmar; "you may still bo Mark Boyd's lawful wife ! That is why I wish you to stay. If my Olga is dead, has been dead all along, then indeed my poor Nelly you are tied to your would-be murderer for life!" "Heaven grant you to be free," said Langley. "We will indeed help you, Madame, to recover your sister —did you not say your sister ?—and then Nelly, my much-wronged love, if you will come te> my heart I will try and atone to you for all you have suffered." He held out his arms. Nelly drew back. " I think wo ought not tu delay a minute," he said, " first on account of your father, whom I left very ill, and next because if you don't get away from here shortly—the whole place is in such an uproar at what has been discovered at your late home you will bo mobbed as a heroine. Hark! They are coming now. can you be ready in half-an-hour ?" " Yes, yes !" cried Nelly, distractedly; " but my father, is he very ill ?" " Very; but your return may prove the best medicine. Hark ! thero is the crowd. 1 will go out and appease them." " Do!" said Nelly energetically, her mind set on evading him. "You go to your new lodgings at Wellington," she said hurriedly to Dagmar, " and I will write to you there. Get my box from the lodge, and see —hero is one pound which I will borrow from Mr Bruee's purse!" "I will go, Nelly," answered Dagmar, irresolutely, "but this is against all my plots. So if you don't return in six or seven days I shall come down to Slackaby after you." She hurried off—passing through tho same inquisitive crowd which clamoured for Nelly, whom they asserted had indeed been buried alive.

"She was not even poisoned!" Langley was saying: " though her husband, I fully believe, thought she had been. However, she is very tired and exhausted now, but quite out of danger. Come again to-night and give her threo cheers." Langley found Nelly seated on his return.

" I have a favour to ask," she said. " I want you to let me go to father alone. It will be best so. But I am penniless. I borrowed one pound from your purse for Dagmar, but I could not encroach farther on your generosity without asking." " Take every penny!" ho exclaimed, eagerly. " I beg you to do so. And if I may not travel in the same carriage with you, you cannot forbid my occupying the same train. Which will you take from London, the 3.15 or 5.42 ?" She selected the earlier.

"Then you must indeed hurry," he said. " I have to see a man at the lodge, but will order your cab downstairs. We shall meet at the station."

But they did not, Langley supposed Nelly had availed herself of an earlier one, and went on, all eagerness to overtake her. She was just as eager to avoid him. Her overstrained sensitiveness made her commit a foolish error.

Had she travelled with Langley, her troubles would shortly have ended. But a stmnge experience was again to be hers. With veil tightly drawn, she wa3 pacing the platform at Paddington. To King's Cross she dared not go. She fancied that was the terminus Langley would take. She saw a train come in, but was not interested. All she cared for was to get off. Suddenly a voice exclaimed—

" Well, I never. Miss Henstock, can it possibly be you ?" CHAPTER XXIV. Nelly's start of unmitigated amazement can bo better imagined than described. Sho turned—a world of terror in her wideopen, pretty blue eyes, and met Leah Dawson. Gaily, aye gaudily dressed, but looking very handsome. If Nelly's horror—of she scarcely know what—was lessened, her displeasure was considerably augmented; to be addressed in such tones of familiarity by the daughter of the schoolmaster. Caste seemed swept away. Differences of position hitherto upheld had apparently melted. But Nelly acknowledged to herself that if her past was already known, Leah might consider that sho as a virtuous girl had every right to speak superciliously, if at all. " Well, I never! Who would have ever thought of meeting you here." Nelly might have responded by asking tho very same question. Her surprise at the rencontre was equally great, but she said hurredly—"How is my father. I heard he was ill?" Not knowing aught of Leah Dawson's escapade she waited with intense eagerness for tho reply. "And whero's Mr Langley Bruce?" proceeded Leah, with a sneer. "Has ho left you ?" "No; I have left him," answered Nelly, " but, oh, please tell mo if you have heard how my dear father is ?" "Oh, Dr Henstock!" exclaimed Leah, heartlessly; " ho's dead and buried. He '* A shriek of mingled woe and pain escaped Nelly in her anguish. "Not buried!" she cried. " Oh, no—no, that's not true !" " Well, ho's dead, at any rate," declared Leah, really believing sho spoke truly. " Ah, your conduct has killed him. So you own to having been off with Langley Bruce ? Won't you just get it hot when you reach Slackaby. If I were you I'd go anywhere in tho »vhole world boforo you or that Bruce ventured thero again \" Leah had her own private and very solid reason for desiring to keep Nelly away from their mutual neighbourhood. Of course Nelly lacked that clue. But she resented Leah's remarks. Turning indignantly, she exclaimed—"Do you suppose if my poor father is dead that horses could drag mo back into a place that is now hateful to me, and M " Dr Henstock is dead, suro enough!" "And if you and others like you in Slackaby," continued Nelly, " have attributed my absence to Langley Bruee's rascality, you have maligned him greatly. Ho is an honourable man, and deserves to be spoken of honourably." Her indignation gave way to grief as she spoke. Sho moved off, supposing tho interview ended.

" Oh, my!" exclaimed Leah Dawson, following her up—and the station by then had pretty well cleared. "So wo resent our names being tacked together. I but took you on your words. Did you not tell me a minute ago that you had left Langley Bruce ?"

" Langley Bruce discovered me at Hendon and wanted to take mo home," exclaimod Nelly. " But good morning, Miss Dawson. I—l am in great trouble!" Leah Dawson, however, had learnt too much or too little. By nature she was curiosity itself. Had she not been she might be pardoned for her persistency in the present case. Certain information was a matter of life and death to her.

Nelly dragged her steps slowly from the station. Nearly broken-hearted was she. Trouble upon trouble had nearly unhinged her mind, and to learn that she was too late for even her father's forgiveness was anguish indeed. Strange, perhaps, that she should so readily have believed Leah's report, but when the mind has grown depressed by repeated woes it readily believes the worst. Moreover, Leah Dawson's verdict confirmed Langley Brace's words. That he had not revealed the worst state of affairs Nelly laid down to his goodness of heart. Or it might be that her father's death had occurred since Langley's departure. Her foot was on the cab-step when Leah stopped her. " You say that Langley Bruce has been wrongly accused!" she said; and if Nelly had looked she would have seen how sharp and anxious the other's features had grown; " don't you deem it only fair to his character that when I return to Slackaby I should have your authority for clearing him by disclosing the name of your betrayer ?" There was something offensive to Nolly in Leah's persistency. Still, she recognised the justice of clearing Langle/s character. She had no interest either in shielding Mark. He deserved the brunt of every man's scorn.

" You can tell your friends and mine/' cried Nelly, ferociously; " that Mark Boyd lias been the cause of mf absence. Ho married mo "

" Hark Boyd!" screamed Leah; "yonlie. He "

Nelly looked into Leah's face with infinite scorn.

" You forget yourself, Miss Dawson/' she observed, with quiet sarcasm. "I spoke the truth. Believe me or not as you choose. What matter is it to you, may I ask, whether I have been away with Mark Boyd or Langley Bruce ?" "He married you ! Mark Boyd married you!" said Leah, shrilly. "Ha, ha! that will do!"

" He took me to church, and I am his wife in the sight of heaven. There! you can tell tliat to the Slackaby people!" "Well, I ought to be gladl" retorted Leah, beginning to recover a composure which she had wholly lost. " Mark Boyd was never anything to me. Langley Brace is—my—husband!" She darted off and inked m the crowd.

Not for ono moment did Nolly believe her tale. Of course Langley Bruco might be as vile as Mark, but it was difficult to believe it. Yet, not then did the true explanation of Leah's agitation dawn on Nelly. It was to dawn later when her mind had partly recovered from its keen anguish. " Daoroar Votoski!" she cried, falling in a heap beside the Russian; "I havo returned to your shelter like a worthless coin. I have no home, no hope save in you Trouble clings to mo like a wet garment. My beloved father, to whom I was all the world, has died, believing me badbad—ungrateful—vile. Oh, that I should have lived to see this day !" "Ach!" cried Dagraar, throwing down the kipper which she had been toasting before the fire, on to the rug; " but I am glad to welcome you back. We will work together to find my Olga, and thenthen " Nelly had fallen in a swoon at her teet. She had to stop her chatter and attempt to restore her. " She must not die now, till my work is done—and then. Ach, then I should say death would be best for her. She's nothing to live for. But let me find Mark and Jacobi!" . Mark and Jacobi, it would seem, declined to be found. The former had reasons for hiding. The nowspapers were very full of a " Mysterious Tragedy "at Hendon. Unconscious that Nelly had been revived he deemed it safest to lie perdu for a while till the storm had passed. Not, but for that unnecessary letter of his, ho would have felt pretty safe. Jacobi, as it happened, was in funds. When such was the case he drank and drank till his money was gone. On this occasion he was in luck, for no sooner had he recovered the effects of his carouse than he came into a second fortune through the superior intelligence of one of his boon friends. On the share-alike system Jacobi was made acquainted with the reward offered to anyone who could explain the mystery of that open grave in Mr Quinton's grounds at Hendon. He went and told all, how that it was for a horse that Mr Barry wanted burying, and returned with his two pounds. Even fortunes go by comparison, and that money when halved seemed a stupendous sum to Jacobi. Unfortunately he had only ono way of spending it, by " drowning care," as ho described it, which, interpreted into plain English, meant drowning himself and letting caro jump on him. As soon as his means were ended Jacobi would bo on the loose again, ready to pick up a few coppers by odd jobbing. (To be continued.)