Untitled

Otago Witness, Issue 805, 4 May 1867, Page 2

3Jy the Author of "Bast 1/jtnne,'* ''Lord Oakbdrn'b DAwghtebb," &c

CHAPTER XXXIII, — SOWING AND BEAPING.

And Maria had no resource but to say Lydriey ; for the ' question was a ■peremptory one, and Wilfred's name she dared not mention.

Lady Adelaide lifted her eyebrows in pitying scorn, and went out. "Were Miss Lester my own daughter Jt should know h6w to treat this matter," ahe observed to the lawyer. "As it ia, I ■wash my hands of her.' If she chooses to lo3e caste as her brother has done, why she must.' How you lawyers and police people can have allowed the man to go out on bail 1 cannot understand,"

<c There were grave doubts, I hear, as to his guilt, Lady Adelaide. But in regard to this report — that he is seeking to ■win Miss Lester for his wife "

" I think the less you .allude to that in any presence, sir, the better," came the liait.gh.ty interruption. " I beg your pardon, Lady Adelaide : I was only going to say that Miss Lester auight go further and fare worse. " " She might — what ? " cried Lady Adelaide, surprised out of the question. "Go further and fare worse," was the calm rejoinder. And Lady Adelaide clasped her shawl round her with a moveluent of impatience, disdaining an answer.

" I suspect it is my brother, Lord Irkdale, who is playing me this trick : bringing me out at this unseasonable hour ! " she presently said. '' It would be just like 3iiui to be in some scrape, and unable to show himself." And this time it was the lawyer's turn not to answer.

The only person Lady Adelaide saw on entering the invalid's room at the Sailors' Hest, was William Lydney. He advanced as if to receive her : indignation flashed from her voice and eye, reproach from her lips. "Is this your doing, sir ? Have yoxt dared to call me from my home ? "

" It was I who sent for yon, Adelaide."

The voice came from behind Lydney, ;iud she started at the sound. There, liolding out his hands in greeting, stood Harry Dane, if ever she had seen him in liev life — Harry Dane, who was supposed to be lying in the vault at Danesheld. She shrieked, shivered, and might have fallen had not William Lydney hastened to support her. He then quietly retired, .;uid left them both together.

Crouching dov/n as one in mortal shame and repentance, her face buried in the 2>illow of the sofa, was tile Lady Adelaide, "when explanations had partly taken place. In the surprise of the first moment she spoke words which disclosed to Lord Dane — the real lord you know — what he liad suspected from the revelations of "Havensbird and Sophie — that she had recognised both himself and Herbert Dane that fatal night, and that the bolemn oath she took was a false one.

"My days, for years afterwards, were as one living misery," she wailed in her dispair ; " the awful terror of discovery "was ever upon me. Had I been tried for the crime of perjury, and sent the hulks I could not have suffered more than I luvre suffered ; over and over again have I lived it in my dreams."

He sat by, at a little distance listening.

" And that was not all. I have looked ■upon myself as your murderer also in a degree : for, had I told at once what T saw, you might have been rescued ; and I did not tell it in my infatuation for Herbert Dane. Ah, how the sin came liome to me ere many hours elapsed ! IBut it was too late then, and I took that oath which has been so fatal to my peace."

" A heavy secret to bear, Adelaide !" * C A secret that has made the curse of any existence," was the passionate answer. "In the day's bustle, in the midnight's dark solitude, I have had one awful scene ever before me — the struggle between yoxi and Herbert on the heights, and my false oath following on it. See you not what anight have been brought home to me, had truth come out? — complicity in the crime, lathe daily intercourse, in. the conversation with friends, these thoughts have come flashing before my mind's eyes, and I have stopped to shudder. Oh heaven ! do you mow what secret tsrror is, Harry? —

lasting, never-ceasing terror of being discovered in some 'awful 'guilt ? When I did get to sleep in the dark, it has woke me up, shrieking, as from some ghastly dream. They got to say in, the household : that I was subject to night-mare; T(£y husband -'thought '■■'it. As a' heavy load on the back weighs down the body, so has the past weighed down my spirit — and I have never dared to tell of it."

" Did Herbert bind you" to secresy ? "

"Never. He does not know to this hour that I recognised either him or you. ,He mjfthave suspected it 1 ."- 1 cannot tell. I'liave^Aeld scarcely any communication with him since."' - --'Altogether, then, my supposed death did not bring you happiness, Adelaide ? "

Did she not know it — better than he — putting up her hand, as if to bar the remembrance ? It is past Harry — it is past." ' ' Yes, it is past, " he assented, ' ' and may , bear to be spoken of, now that romance has yielded to the realities of life. lam older than my years, slowly dying of acomplaint that is incurable ; you are a married woman and the mother of many children. "

She lifted her head. "Who says you are dying I "

"I , say so : the medical men say so : ■my wearing frame says so. Nothing is more deceitful than my apparent strength : it is deceitful as you were, Adelaide." She made a deprecating motion with her hands : n othing more. " Why did you deceive me 1 " resumed Lord Dane. "Every thought of your life, as I learnt too late, was full of deceit towards me. £fc came of your absorbing love for Herbert. Yoxi refused, after all to marry him ; and I don't wonder looking on him as a murderer. Did your love for him cease with that night ? "

" Can love cease as rapidly as it comes on 1 " she asked in a retorting tone. I aiu not-sure that it had quite left me when he came back from his ten years' absence. If I have been fabe in other tilings I was at least true in that : I could not help it."

"Yet, in the midst of this love, you married George Lester ! "

" What else was left to me 1 It seemed a more tolerable fate than to be banished to Scotland. He has been an indulgent husband. "

"Very much so, T hear," i*etumed Lord Dane. "More indulgent than he has been to poor Katherine Bordillion's children. "

The severe honorable Dane face was bent upon her, and her own flushed with a burning flush. If the treatment she had pxu'sued towards those children never came home to her before, it came now in all its sin and shame.

" Won't you tell me how you escaped ?" she asked striving to drown the subject.

"And how I discovered the treachery that led to the catostrophe,' he answered, evidently not feeling inclined wholly to spare her. " Can you cast your recollection back to the time • "

"As if they have not been cast back always ! — for these ten years. "

"I heard that you — Adelaide Errol, whom I so loved — were deceiving me : that, while you only professed to care for me, your real love was given to Herbert Dane. I heard that you were in the habit of running out to him on the heights at night. I disbelieved the story, and resented it on my informant. But as I was going through the chapel ruins with Colonel Moncton, I found a bow of pink ribbon, studded in the centre with pearls. I recognised it for the one you had worn j the previous day at dinner, and knew you : must have been out with Herbert Dane in the evening. All in a moment, my eyes were opened, and I determined to watch. Do you remember my coming in unexpectedly to dinner, when my father thought I was dining on board the Pearl 'I — do you remember my silence ? I had been brooding over my wrongs all the afternoon, and was in no mood even for Moncton's society. Dinner over, I quitted the castle to go on board the yacht, and say farewell ; but I first crossed to the heights, and there I was followed by a man with a tray of small wares on his back. He took it down and importuned me to buy. I refused harshly enough, I dare say, for I was in no mood for suavity, and the fellow grew loud and insulting. I told him if he did not be off I -would call forth the servants from my father's Castle to convey him and his pack to the lock-up : he hurried away, and I went on to the ruins and stepped inside. I was looking

out for proofs of the tale I had been told, waiting for you and for Herbert Dane."

Lord Dane paused and regarded her ; but there came a faint moan from her hidden lips by way of an answer.

" But to go of in that way ! " she murmured reproachfully, thinking of the life's pain that might have been spared her.

" That night was the turning-point in my life as well as yours,'' was lord Dane's significant answer. It opened my eyes to the fact that she for whom alone I cared on earth was but playing a game with me — that while her shafts of ridicule, of dislike, were thrown to me, she kept her heart's love for Herbert Dane. He boasted of this in the scuffle. To become an alien seemed the most sensible thing I could do : perhaps I was romantic enough to enjoy the momently pang my supposed death might inflict on the Lady Adelaide : and for myself, England had suddenly become hateful to me."

How hateful the past deceit was feeling to her now, she alone knew — hateful in its shame. "

" But now : I never supposed but that the fact of the yacht's picking me up would have been seen, and of course known," resumed Lord Dane. " Thus I was at ease in regard to the suspense of my father and mother : and they could wait for letters from me. By this time we reached the end of the voyage, I was in a low fever — a long nervous fever — prostrating both my mind and my body. I'll write to them when I ge well, I said to Moncton ; and I forbade him to write. It incapacitated me for months, and was the result, I take it, of the blow to my head, combined with the sickness and disappointment of my mind. J put off writing from time to time as one sick will put off ; they were not writing to me, and I did not write to them. It was very wrong of me, and I got punished severely. One night, when weeks, if not months had gone on, I was dreaming very much of my father and mother. In the morning it struck me, I had been on ! the wrong tack — that my silence was nothing but iinjustfiable ingratitude. ' I'll write to-day," I said. And I did write. That is, I had my parer and ink before me, and was in the middle of the first page when a friend came in with a London ■weekly newspaper. 'I'm afraid there's something here that concerns you, Dane,' he said, and I took the paper in my hand. Those curious coincidences have been known before, Adelaide — horae news fol-

lowing upon a home* dream. - The paragraph told me of the .death of my father and mother."' ■ • , "Of, both? They did not die at &»<• same time. " "Of,b,otl£ The real news,, intended Jby. the paragraph, was. the- deat\ of Lord Dane, .my father ; but 'it commented on thg&£^rt_ time .which had^ elapsed sine* liPli^?§!£? t^* ki' s " c - "A concluding™ but, a word or two — m'entionetrotale succession of ' Geoffry, now* Baron Dipe ; '"and'lyof-coiTrsertook it • to be my brother. I wrote ai once, and I never had an. answer. " .She looked -wjxjuickly. • ~ .. . "No ;. ;T'got no answer. ■ It vexed me ; I supposed Geoffry was nourishing our old brotherly resentment, and I, so to say, hi him nourish it, and washed my hands of him. Altogether, I did not much care whether I ever heard from England <ig : iin, or whether 1 did not. I remained away, holding no communication with it, passing the years in visiting the remote regions of 'the New World, travelling everywhere, and never dreaming it ' was Mr Herbert who reigned, the family's • head. The remembrance of me cannot have been pleasant to him," concluded' I Lord Dane after a pause of thought." j' Lady Adelaide shook her head, "Others "vondered why he went abroad on coming into possession, and remained away for years. J could Have told them. — that the sight of the old spot ' was unbearable to him.*' ' ' " Yes," resppnded Lord Dane. "And' he may have .felt, himself safer when beydnd the pale of British law. The fearof detection, of the discovery, that he was the actor in the night scene, Harry Dane' 3 assailant, must have caused .him many a night-sweat : the coroner's verdict was 'Wilful murder.'" There ensued a pause. It seemed that she could never look up from her agony again. " Did Herbert receive that letter— the one I wrote to GeofFry ? •It was addressed to The Lord Dane." I know nothing about it. . I have held scarcely any communication with him since that night : literally since that night. I should say he did not receive it. "

" Why should you say it \ " " Because — to judge of his feelings by my own — the finding that you were alive must have been the greatest relief that earth or Heaven could give him, and he would have hastened to make reparation for the past. At least, it seems so to me. When did you arrive at ' Danesheld 1 " she continued. "To-day?" "Last September, when the turbulent sea cast me ashore on my own coast. A curious thing that, was it not I But for your stepson's exertions with the lifeboat, I had never again seen Danesheld. " " Last September ! " she repented, full of astonishment. " Was it you who were saved 1 Is it youwhh have beenlyinghere since, as the old passenger named Home ?" "Even so."

" But why have you done so ? " •

" I have had my .reasons for it. Possibly (one of them), from the delicacy of not wishing to deprive my Lord Dane too abruptly of his title and rent-rolL "

There was a grim smile of mockery on his face as he spolce. Lady Adelaide Lester started as the full import of the words struck her. She had not thought of it previously.

" Why, yes ; as you are here, Herbert cannot be the rightful possessor," she slowly said. "You — must — be — Lord Dane ! "

"I am Lord Dane. Herbert is not, and never has been."

" Then w;/m/ have yeu not returned to assume your title ? "

" I knew not that I had a title to assume. Did you not understand what I said — that I thought Lord Dane was my my brother Geoflry 1 " " I see, T see ; my mind is all confusion. What a blow in that respect it will be for him ! "

" Not the least doubt of that. I hear of a rumour abroad that he is seeking a wife in Maria, Lester. .Pretty child .' I can only think of her as she was in the old days."

" How can you have heard that 1 " exclaimed Lady Adelaide.

" I hear most things," was the careless answer. ' ' Do you' favor his hopes 1 " " I neither favor nor discourage them. I would not interfere in any project of marriage for Herbert Dane. Maria does not care for him : she is degenerate as her brother, and has got into an acquaintance with that Lydney, who must have been your fellow-passenger from America. But you must be cautious, Harry : I saw him in your room when I came in. He has turned out to be a sad character ; an adventurer, a poacher, a midnight robber ; and he is after Maria for the sake of her money. He broke into our house last night." " Indeed," was the composed rejoinder. "Grave accusations to bring against a Dane." "Against a Dane! Of course they

•would be; but I am not speaking of a Dane."

"lam." William Lydney is a Dane, and was born one."

Lady Adelaide sat -with her mcmth open, half stupified. ' Lord Dane bent forward arid touched her arm.

"You may remember that I informed you of my early marriage. I did not tell you tha.t I had a son bern of it, but I intended t* acquaint you, Adelaide before I made you my 'wife. It is he whom you Danesheld people have been mistaking for an adventurer, and all the rest of it. He is my own son— Gebffry William Lydney Dane." • " Why, then he— -he— will be— surely— Lord Dane ! " uttered she, when she had gathered her recollection. " The very moment this fleeting breath shall go out of my body he is Danesheld's lord."

"My goodness!" gasped Lady Adelaide. " And 1 have called him — I don't know what I've not called him. Everything but a gentleman. We are all doing it."

" Just so. He can afford to laugh at the slander. You need not ask now why the police have set your husband's warrant at nought, and released him."

" And he is really your son ! But when you entrusted me with the secret of your marriage, why did you not tell me of him?"

" I suppose I thotight it better to disclose the facts by degrees. As a matter of course — I may say of necessity — I should have told you before our marriage. In a pecuniary sense, he could have made no difference. The boy had his own large fortune, and required no more from me. I never expected then to succeed to the title, and did not give that possibility a thought. My brother, poor fellow, was as healthy a man as I was, and intended to marry some time." "Your son is rich, then ? "

"Very : apart from the Dane revenues. He would be a better match than the cousin Herbert for Maria Lester."

<c Shall you proceed against him ? " she asked in a low tone.

"What for? Poaching? or housebreaking 1"

Oh Harry, don't joke ! it seems to mock my misery. I meant — but never mind, never mind * She had been thinking of Herbert.

" Take it for all in all then, Adelaide, life has not been to you all flowers and jtunshine."

Flowers and sunshine ! Take it for all in all — as Lord Dane put it — it had been a wretched life. The world had spoken of the gay Lady Adelaide : it had more cause to tell of the miserable one. An awful fear of detection had been ever upon her, as it had been on Herbert Lord Dane. Down fell her face on the cushion again, and she burst into tears, for the first time during the interview.

"As we sow, so must we reap," said Xiord Dane. "Deceit, sooner or later, brings its own punishment."

Suddenly she rose, and flung herself on her knees before him. She looked up, her eyes streaming.

" Harry, you'll keep my wretched secret ! You'll- not betray me ! I ask it by the love you once bore me."

"The secret?" he rejoined, scarcely understanding. v That I recognised you and Herbert that night. Oh, I heard some of the words' you said, and knew the quarrel was about me ! Heaven is merciful ; don't you be less so ; I would rather die here, as I am, as have the shame and reproach of that' oath brought home to me." " Not until he gave her the promise — which hejdid readily — would she get up, or let him 'get her up. "From henceforth it should be buried in silence," he answered, "as must other matters connected with the past."

She wound her shawl round her and put her bonnet on to go forth. Lord Dane wondered where his son was, that he might see her home ; but she shook lier head and put up her hands to waive the suggestion off: she- would go forth alone.

"Will you oblige me in one thing,

Adelaide? — For tlie next few hours keep these matters -wholly to yourself. I prefer to make myself known in my own way : until then, I am Mr Home." " She nodded her head, and went down the stairs with her veil drawn tight before her disturbed face, haggard then. Mrs Rayensbird met her at the foot of the ■tairs

"Oh my lady ! I would have ■warned you had I dared," she whispered. I hops it did not overwhelm you ! " Have y oil known it all along, Sophie ?" " Since the second night he was here, my lady. He pulled off the shade, which was nothing but a disguise, and discovered himself to Havensbird. ■ Of course, it could not be kept from me, as I should have known him for myself. And to think I was ransacking my memory for tome face ha France that young Mr Dane's iraa like, when I might have fotmd it nearer home" in my late lady's !"

Lady Adelaide turned 'from the gossip, and went forth alone — alone with her humiliation, heir pain, and her care."

(To be co'idhwed.)