TRISTRAM OF BLENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4427, 6 August 1901, Page 2

TRISTRAM OF BLENT.

AN EPISODE IN THE STORY OF AN ANCIENT HOUSE. (By Anthony Hope.) [ALL RIGHTS STRICTLY RESERVED] (Copyright] 1901, in the U.S.A. by Anthony Hope.) CHAPTER XXVII. BEFORE TRANSLATION. Harry Tristram had come back to Blent in the mood which. belonged to the blaco as of old—the mood that claimed as his right what' had become his by love, knew no scruples if only he could gain and keep it, was' ready to nlay a bold game 'and take a great chance. Ho did not argue about what he was going to do. He did not justify it, and perhaps could not. Yet to him what he purposed was so clearly the best thing that Cecily must be forced into it. She could not bo forced by force; if he told her the truth, he would meet at the outset a resistance which he could not quell. Ho might encounter that after all, later on, in spite of a present success. That was the risk he was determined to run. At the worst there would be something gained; if s h e were and would be nothing else, she should and must at least bo mistress of Blent. His imagination had set her in that place; his pride, no less than his love, demanded it for her. He had gone away once that she might have ,it. It need be, again he would go away. That stood for decision later. Sh e walked slowly to the end of the Long Gallery, and sat down in th e great armchair; it held its old position in spite of the changes which Harry noted with quick eyes and a suppressed smile as Tie followed her and set the candle on a table near. He lit two more from it, and then turned to her. She was pale and defiant. “Well,” she said, “why are you here ?” She asked and ho gave no excus e for the untimely hour of his visit, and no explanation of it. It seemed a small, perhaps, indeed, a natural thing to both of them. “I’m here because I couldn’t keep away.” he answered gravely, standing before her. “You promised to keep away. Can’t you keep promises?” “No, not such promises as that.” ‘'And so you make my life impossible! You see this room, and you se e how I’ve changed it? I’ve been changing everything I could. Why? To forget you, to blot you out, to be rid of you. I’ve bee n bringing myself to take my place. To-night I seemed at last- to be winning my way t 0 it. Now you come. You gave me all this; why do you make it impossible to me?” A bright colour came on her cheeks now as she grew vehement in her reproaches, and her voice was intense, though low. A luxury of joy swept over him as be listened. Every taunt witnessed to his power, every reproach to her love. He played a trick indeed and a part, but ther e was no trick and no acting in so far as he was her lover. If that truth could not redeem his deception, it stifled all sense of guilt. “And you were forgetting? You were getting rid of me ?”. he asked, smiling and fixing his eyes on her. “Perhaps. And now—■ —!” She made a gesture of despair. “Tell me—why have you come?” Her ton e changed to entreaty. “I’ve come because I must be where you are, because I was mad to send you away before, mad not to come to you before, to think I could live without you, not to see that w© ■ two must be together; because you’re everything to me.” He had coine nearer to her now. and stood by her. “Ever. since I went away I have seen you in this room, in that chair. I think it was your ghost only that came to town.” He laughed a moment. “I wouldn’t have the ghost. I didn’t know why. Now I know. I wanted the you that was here£—the real you—as you had been on the night I ycrifc ajffly- So I’y e com e back to you.

We’re ourselves here, Cecily. We Tristrams are ourselves at Blent.” She had listened silently, her eyes on his. She seemed bewildered by the sudden rush of his passion and the enraptured eagerness of his words that made her own vehemence sound to her poor and thin. Pride had its share in her protest, love was the sole spring of his intensity. Yet she was puzzled by ■ho victorious light in his eyes. What he said, what he came to do, was such a surrender as she had never hoped from him; and he was triumphant in surrendering. The thought flashed through her mind, troubling her and for the time hindering her .joy in his confession. She did not trust him yet. “I’ve had an offer made to me,” he resumed, regaining his composure. _“A sort of political post. If I accept it I shall have to leave England for a considerable time, almost immediately. That brought the thing to a point.” Again he laughed. “It’s important to you, too; because if they say no to me to-night, you’ll be rid of me for over so long. Your life won’t bo made impossible. I shouldn’t come to Blent again.” “A post that would take you away?” she murmured. “Yes. You’d be left here in peace. I’ve not come to blackmail you into loving me, Cecily. Yes, you shall be loft in peace to move the furniture about.” Glancing towards the table, he saw Mr Gainsborough’s birthday gift. He took it up, looked at it for a moment, and then replaced it. His manner was involuntarily expressive. Even if she brought that sort of thing to Blent——! He turned back at the sound of a little laugh from Cecil}', and found her eyes sparkling. “Father’s birthday present, Harry,” said she. Delighted with her mirth, he came to her, holding out his hands. She shook her head and leant hack, looking at him. “Sit as my mother did. You know. Yes, like that!” ho cried. She had obeyed him with a smile. Not to be denied now, he seized the hand that lay in her lap. “A birthday! Yes, of course, you’re twenty-one! Really mistress of it all now! And you don’t know what to do with it, except to spoil the arrangement of th e furniture ?” She laughed low and luxuriously. “What am I to do with it?” she asked. “Well, won’t you give it all to me?” As he spok 0 he laughed and kissed luer hand. “I’ve come to ask you for it. Here I am. I’ve come fortune-hunting to-night.” “It’s all min o now, you say? Harry, take it without me.” “If I did I’d' burn it to the ground that it mightn't: remind me of you.” “Yes, yes! That’s what I’ve wanted to do!” she exclaimed, drawing her hand out of his and raising her arms a moment in the air. Addie Tristram’s pose was gone, but Harry did not miss it now. “Take it without you, indeed! It’s all for you and because of you.” “Really, really?” She grew grave. “Harry, dear, for pity’s sake tell me if you love me!” “Haven’t I told you?” he cried gaily. “Where are the poets? Oh, for some good quotations! I’m infernally unpoetical, I know. Is this it—that you’re always before my eyes, always in my head, that you’re terribly in the way, that when I’ve got anything -worth thinking I think it to you', anything worth doing I do it for you, anything good to say I say it to you ? Is this it, that I curse myself and curse you? Is this it, that I know myself only as your lover, and that if I’m nob that then I seem nothing at all. I’ve never been in love before, but all that sounds rather like it.”

“And you’ll take Blent from me?” ' “Yes, as the climax of all. I’ll take Blent from you.” To her it seemed the climax, the thing she found hardest to believe, the best evidence for the truth of those extravagant words which sounded so sweet in her eats. Harry saw this, but he held on his way. Nay, now he himself forgot his trick, and could still have gone on had there been none, had he in truth been accepting Blent from her hands. Even at the price of pride he would have had her now. She rose suddenly, and began to walk to and fro across the end of the room, while he stood by the table watching her.

“Well, isn’t it time you said something to me ?” he suggested with a smile. “Give mo time, Harry, give me time. Th e world’s all changed to-night. You—yes, you oame suddenly out of the darkness of the night”—she waved her hand towards the window—“and changed the world for me. How am I to believe it? And if I can believe it, what can I say? Let me alone for a minute, Harry, dear.” He was well content to wait and watch. All time seemed before them, and how better could he fill it? He seemed himself to suffer in this hour a joyful trans. formation; t 0 know better why men lived and loved to live, to reach out to the full strength and the full function of his being. The world changed for him as he changed it for her. Twice and thrice she had paced- the gallery before she, came and stood opposite to him. She put her hands up to her throat, saying: “I’m stifled —stifled with happiness, Harry.” For answer ho sprang forward and caught her in his arms. In the movement he brushed roughly against the table; there was a little crash, and poor Mr Gainsborough’s birthday gift lay smashed on the floor. For the second time their love bore hard on Mr Gainsborough’s crockery. Startled they turned to look, and then they both broke into merry laughter. The trumpery thing had seemed a sign to them, and now the sign was broken. Their first kiss was mirthful over its destruction. With a sigh of joy she disengaged herself from him. “That’s settled, then,” said Harry. He paused a moment. ‘You had Janie and Bob Broadley here to-night. I saw them as I lay hidden by the road. Does that kind of engagement attract you, Cecily?” “Ours won’t b e like that,” she said, laughing triumphantly. “Don’t let us have one at all,” he suggested, coming near to her again. “Let’s have no engagement. Just a wedding.” “What?” she cried. “It must be a beastly time,” he went on, "and all the talk there’s been about us will make it more beastly still. Fancy Miss S. and "all th e rest of them! And do you particularly want to wait? What I want, is to ]jg R°t f l°rl down, bera.. with you!”

Her eyes sparkled as she listened; she was in the mood, she was or the stuff, for any adventure. . “I should like to run off with you now,” said he. “I don’t want to leave von at all, you see.” . ‘ ‘'Run off now?” She tra-ve a joyfu littl e laugh. “That’s just what I should like.” , . “Then we’ll dq it.” he declared. 1 Well, to-morrow morning, anyhow. “Do you mean it?” she asked. “Do you say no to 'it.” She drew herself up with pride. 1 say no to nothing that you ask of me. Their hands met again as she declared her love and trust. “You’ve really come to me?” he hoard her murmur. “Back to Blent and back to me ?” “Yes,” lie answered, smiling. She had brought into his mind again the truth she did not know. He had no time to think of it, for she offered him her lips again. The moment when he might have told her thus went by. It was but an impulse; for he still loved what he was doing, and took delight in the risks of it. And he could not bear so to impair her joy. Soon she must know, but she could not yet be robbed of her joy that it was she who could bring him back to Blent. For him in his knowledge, for her in her ignorance, there was an added richness of pleasure that ho would not throw away, even although now ho believed that were the truth known she would come to him still. Must not that he, since now he, even he would come to her, though the truth had been otherwise. “There’s a train from Fillingford at eight in the morning. I’m going back there to-night. I’ve got a fly waiting by the pool—if the man hasn’t gone to sleep and the hors P run away. Will you meet me there? Weil go up to town and he married as soon as we can—the day after to morrow, I suppose.” “And then ?” “Oh, thou just come back here. We can p.o nowhere but hero, Cecily.” “Just come back and- ?” “And let them find it out,'and talk, and talk, and talk!” he laughed. “It; would be delightful!” she cried. “Nobody to know till it’s done.” “Yes, yes; I like it like that. Not father even, though?” “You’ll be gone before he’s Leave a lino for him.” “But I—l can’t go alone with you.” “Why not?” asked Harry, seeming a trifle vexed. “I’ll tell you!” she cried. “Let’s take Mina with us. Harry.” He la'ughcd. The Imp was the one person whoso presence he was ready to endure. Indeed, there would perhaps be a. piquancy in that. “All right. An elopement made re* spectable by Mina!” He had a touch of scorn even for mitigated respectability. -i “Shall w e call her and tell her now ?” “Well, are you tired of this interview ?” ‘T don’t know whether I want it to go on, or whether I must go and tell somebody about it.” “I shouldn’t hesitate,” smiled Harry. “You? No. But I—Oh, Harry, dear, I want to whisper my triumph.” “But we must be calm and businesslike about it now.” “Yes!” She entered eagerly int o the fun. “That’ll puzzle Mina even more.” “We’re not doinsr anything unusual,” he insisted, with affected gravity. “No—not for onr family, at least.” “It’s just th e obvious thing to do.” “Oh!' tit’s just the delicious thing, too!” She almost danced in gaiety. “Let me call Mina. Do!” “Not for a moment, as you love mo! Give me a moment morel”, “Oh, Harry, there’ll be no end to that!” “I don’t know why there should be.” “We should miss the train at Fillingford.” “Ah, if it means that!” “Or I shall come sleepy and ugly to it; and you’d leave mo on the platform and go away!” “Shout for Mina—now—without another word!” “Oh, just one more,” she pleaded, laughing. . “I can’t promise to he moderate?’ “Come. We’ll go and find her. Give me your hand.” She canght his hand in hers, and snatched the candle from the table. She held it high above her head, looking round the room and back to his eyes again. “My home now, because my love is here,’* she said. “Mine and yours, and yours and mine—and both the same thing, Harry, now.” He listened, smiling. Yes, it would be the same thing now. There they Stood together for a moment, and together they sighed as they turned away. To them the room was sacred now, as it had always been beautiful; in it their love seemed to li e enshrined. They went downstairs together full of merriment, the surface expression of their joy. “Look grave,” he whispered, setting his face jn a comical exaggeration of seriousness. Cecily tried to obey and tumbled into a gurgle of delight. “I will directly,” she gasped, as they cam p to the hall. Mason stood there waiting.

'‘l’ve put the sandwiches here, and the old brown, my lord.” Harry alone noticed the slip in his address—and Harry took no notice of it.

“I shall be glad to meet the old brown again,” he said, smiling. Mason gave the pair a benevolent glance and withdrew to his quarters. • Mina strolled out of the library with an accidental air. Harry had sat down t 0 his sandwiches and old brown. Cecily ran across to Mina and kissed her. “We’re going to be married!” she whispered. She had told it all in a'sentence ; yet she added: “Oh, I’ve such a heap of things to tell you, Mina!” Was not all that scene in the Long Gallery to be reproduced—doubtless only in a faint adumbration of its real glory, yet with a sense of recovering it and living it again ? “Nol” cried Mina. “Oh, how splendid! Soon?” Harry threw a quick glance at Cecily. She responded by assuming a demure calmness of demeanour. “Not as soon as we could wish,” said Harry, munching and sipping. “In fact, not before the day after to-morrow, I’m afraid, Madame Zabriska.” “The day after——?” “What 1 have always hated is Government interference. Why can’t Ibe married when I like? Why haye I to get a licence and all that nonsense? Why must I wait till the day after to-mor-row?” He grew indignant. “It’s past twelve jjpsrj it.is to-mor-rojy,” said Cecily.,

“Quite go. As you suggest, Cecily, we ooul a married to-day but for these ahsr restrictions, There’s a train at eigln. from Fillingford ” “You’r P going—both of yon—by that?” Mina cried. “I hope it suits you, because we want you to come with ns, if you’ll be so kind,” said Harry. “You see, it would look just a little unusual if we went alone,” added Cec« ily. “And it’s not going to look unusual anyhow? Are you mad? Or—or do you mean it?” “Don’t you think both may he true?” asked Harry. Cecily’s gravity broke down. She'kissed Mina again, laughing in an abandonment of exultation. “Oh, you’re both mad.” “Not at all. You’re judging us by the standard of your other engaged couple to-night.” “Did Mr Nccld know anything about your coming?” Mina demanded, with a stidden recollection. “Nothing at all. Did ho say anything to you?” For a moment the glass of old brown halted on its way to his lips, and he glanced at Mina sharply. “No. But when I asked him if he had seen you ho looked—well, just rather funny.” The old brown resumed its progress. Harry was content. “There's no better meal than fresh sandwiches and old brown,” he observed, “You’ll come with ms, won’t you, and keep Cecily company atthe little house till w 0 fix it up.” Mina looked from one to the other in new amazement, with all her old excited pleasure in the Tristram ways. They did a thing—and they did not spoil it by explanations.” “And Mr Gainsborough?” she asked. “We’re going to leave a note for father,” smiled Cecily. “You’re always doing that,” objected Mina. “It seems rather an early train for Mr Gainsborough,” Harry suggested, laying down his napkin. (To be continued on Thursday.)