DEFIANT DIANA

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8480, 15 July 1913, Page 2

DEFIANT DIANA

By E. EVERETT-GREEN, Author of "A Queen of Hearts," "The Lady of the Bungalow." "The Marriage of Marcia," "Married in Haste," etc.. etc.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

(Copyright.)

CHAPTER XIH.—LILIAN’S STORY. Di and Lilian were together in the room of the latter. The girl’s face was flushed and excited. The memory of her experiences at the quarries was very vivid, and touched with a number of poignant emotions. She. the “Quarry Queen” who had volunteered to safeguard him and, if necessary, champion him in the eyes of her subjects, had practically stood aside while ho dominated them with eye and voice, and spoke out perfectly fearlessly of his rights, his powers, and his intentions.

To bo euro sho had “covered his retreat,” as sho phrased it to herself. When ho had said his say, descended from his rostrum and marched up the rough path, sho flattered herself that she had prevented any rush for him from being made. She had declined to accompany ham hack. She had ridden down amongst the men, and had held them by her fascinations and blandishments till Durham had got safe away. She had told the men that she had 'come not as his friend, but because «he wished everyone to have fair play, and she knew “her boys” felt the same. Sho did not like anonymous threats, and cowardly shots fired in the dusk to intimidate and injure. She did not ask who had ■ done these things; but she did not like her quarrymen mixed up in actions that were cowardly and senseless. Oh, yes, she was on their side. Sho would champion their cause. Sho would do all she could to see their rights maintained and their privileges uninfringed. They might trust her f*jr that, whatever they might see or hear. As she told these things to Lilian her eyes kindled and her cheek flushed. Her plan seemed to be taking shape even as she spoke, and her last words came with a rush. “Lilian, I believe I could make him fall in love with me if I tried. Then I could turn him round my little fingers, and fling him away like an old glove when I had done with him.” “Do you think so, Di? I don’t know. Richard Durham will prove fen edged tool to, have dealing with. Be careful.” Di moved a little nearer, ar-d spoke la a low voice. . .... [" “Lilian, did you know that Ailsie Devenish has come back?” Lilian started, and her eyes dilated. “Ailsie Devenish. 1 -t'by, she msi'ried in Paris, and I lost sight of her when—-that thing—happened. What do you mean?” . “She is back now; with Gipsy.' one burst out when I passed with Mr Durham, and flung out her arm and called [him murderer I” . ~, “Ah I” Lilian turned deathly pale, and fell back in her seat. . “And old Gipsy turned round and bundled her indoors. And before I left I went and asked her when Ailsie had, come back. She did not want to talk about- it. I think the girl is half crazy, and she is afraid of haying her taken away. Lilian, I rather think it was she who fired at Mr Durham. But we shall never know really, I exP6 <‘Ailsie Devenish: the girl I took with me for my maid. She married a man in Paris —Pierre Laroche. He was a handsome scamp, and gambler, who used to oome sometimes. And Ailsie was very beautiful. I always feared he meant to use her as a decoy. But they were' married. I saw to that. I saw her a few times afterwards: she declared she was happy. And is she back now? Whu of her husband?” “Gipsy said she had come back a widow. Her brain seems turned. Lilian, what did sho mean ? She pointed straight at Mr Durham, and she called him murderer I” Lilian pressed her hand to hef» brows.

“She, too, she too 1 Oh. that makes assurance doubly sure I” “Assurance of what?” The great melancholy eyes, so full ,of tragic fire, looked straight at Di. and Lilian’s voice took a lower note. “I did hot mean to tell you all, Di, when I warned you to have nothing to do with Richard Durham. There was one thing which I kept back. I did not tell you that he was the man who killed ray husband.” “Liliad 1” Di uttered that one word, amd a tenrfe silence followed, which she broke at length by a whispered question.

“Lilian, are you sure?” “I am almost sure. The night he was killed ho went away with Richard Durham. He had done the same thing before, and came home from some awful gambling place beggared of every franc, of his jewellery, deeply pledged beside. The man Laroche was one f of his boon companions; but Durham was his evil genius. And it was Durham who brought him back to mo with a fractured skull. It was called an accident. But all Paris knew that there had been a terrible fracas in some gambling den that night. As another man was badly injured, attention was diverted from my husband; and my father was summoned, and everything hushed up. But I know ho thought it had been murder, though he did not tell me so.” “But why should Mr Durham have done it? Lilian, I don’t see. what reason you have for connecting him with that deed. Would the murderer have brought home his victim’s body?” “A man like Durham might.” Lilian passed her hand wearily across her brow. "I hate thinking of that time. It is all more or less like a nightmare dream to me. Durham was one of those who dragged Sydney away from mo into' all that mire of Paris. And I had some letters about it —awful letters; I burnt them, but I could not help reading them, ana they burnt themselves into my brain. They told me that he wanted my husband out of the way—that he might—how shall I put it?—try to supplant him in my love! How do I know whether it was true or not? Mon are so evil, so vile! And when ha brought Sydney back —dead—then all these words seemed to spring into life in my brain. I drove him from me; it was awful for him to he there. It seemed to make true the things which —somebody—had written.” “Who wrote those letters, Lilian?” asked Di, looking very pale and rathei stern.

“T do not know. I shall never know. Oh. of course, anonymous letters are vile: everyone knows that. But I was very young, very unhappy, very lonely. I was in a strange country, and

my husband left me alone to indulge in pleasures I hated and feared. 1 was a prey to every kind of terror and suspicion. And why should anyone trouble to tell me lies?”

“And did you know Mr Durham in those days?”

"He used to come sometimes to our apartments. And often he took Sydney with him. Sometimes he brought him back—more or less intoxicated —excited —what you like to call it—with absinthe. or whatever it was. Oh, he was one of them! And looking back I wonder whether it was true that—that ”

She stopped short, and Di sat twisting her lingers together, her eyes taking a strange gleam, her mouth hardening.

“Yes, Lilian, I wonder, too. I begin to understand you better now. But I rather wish you had been more explicit with me at the first when you spoke against Durham.” “ I have no proof. It is difficult to speak about some things. But I went to him, Di, and 1 warned him to let you alone.” Her eyes seemed now to catch an answering glow from those ot the girl, and Di swooped round upon her almost fiercely. “You spoke to him—of—of —me!” “ I did. I warned him to let you alone, to have nothing to do with my friend. He has not obeyed me, and i have spoken. And now Ailsie has said the same thing 1 Oh, there must be something in it; there mustl” Di sat very still, her face taking on an expression which was new. Her mind was in a strange tumult, and sho could not classify her feelings. She knqw that a fierce revolt raged within her—she knew not exactly how or why. Was it possible that Durham was this vile creature? that he had stooped to coward crime to clear an obstacle from his path? Was he not the kind of man who would stick at nothing? And yet, if ho had been the perpetrator of that foul deed, why had he not sought But the idea was too horrible. To kill a man, and try to win his wife. No, the thought was impossible 1 And yet he was here five years later, in the place where Lilian lived. Did this supply a motive for his purchase of Idylhurst Hall? Di felt as though the earth reeled beneath her as she put these questions. That night she could not sleep on her bed. She turned and tossed, and saw strange visions between sleeping and waking. Always it seemed to her that Durham was in some sort of deadly peril, and that to her it belonged to save him; that hers was in some sort the fault which brought him into danger. She was up and abroad with the dawn, and her feet carried her, she scarcely knew why or how, out upon the fell, where the morning air blew fresh and keen and sweet. Below her lay Idylhurst Hall, her beloved home; away and beyond, the sea glimmered and sparkled; all around lay great boulders and sparse quartz-strewn grass, and yonder one of the cup-like indentations where once the shafts had been leading to the lower levels of the quarry.

Suddenly from one of these hollows a wild figure sprang up, as though at sound of Di’s footfalls. The girl uttered a sharp, eager exclamation. ‘ ‘Ailsie 1 Ailsie 1 Ailsie! ’ ’ The figure paused, a wild startled face was turned. “Miss Di, is that you?” "Yes, Ailsie; you’re not going to be frightened of me. I never heard you had got back till the other day. Don’t run away. I, want to talk to you.” “Nay, nay, Miss Di. You was with him—with Mr Durham—that bad man the men will kill—as a murderer ought to bo killed I” “Ailsie, why do you call him that? 1 don’t believe it can bo true. He’s not that sortl” An extraordinary expression of fear crossed the girl’s face. She uttered a wild, screaming kind of laugh, inexpressibly eerie, so that Di shivered at hearing it. “ If not him, then who did it?” she cried, flinging her arms wildly, and making off like an arrow from a bow was lost to sight m a few moments. “What does she mean? What does she mean?” spoke Di. “Oh, the girl must be madl” (To bo continued.)