Seedtime and Harvest

Otago Witness, Issue 3105, 17 September 1913, Page 70

Seedtime and Harvest

THE NOVJSEIST.

[PonLisuKD bv Special Arrangement.)

By STELLA M. DURING, Author of “Love’s Privilege,” “In Search of Herself,” “Between the Devil and the Deep Sea,” “Malicious Fortune,” “DeringhanTs Daughter,” etc., etc.

[Copyright.]

CHAPTER I. ITTY - , one moment!” Kitty turned a petulant 1 “Oh, Kitty! Won’t you ii give me one moment?” The pleasant, boyish voice ' held a note of sharp appeal, and at sound of it Kitty’s heart melted suddenly within her. But she still kept her back to the owner of that pleading voice, her pretty, trim back that told nothing. Brian studied the adorable line of her falling shoulders, the adorable round of her ribbon-swathed waist. Perhaps he knew, even though her back told him nothing, that the eves so intently studying a tiny frayed place on one of the strings of her racket had softened, that the lines of her little red mouth 'were not quite so mutinous. Certainly something emboldened him to lay a light hand that trembled a little on her shoulder.

“Kitty, you promised,” he. reminded her with a touch of reproach. “You said we should have a little talk together some time to-day.”

Kitty turned so that the delicious damask pf her cheek, showed over her shoulder. Then she turned a little more and glanced at him from under curling lashes of brown. “What is the use?*’ she asked, and the words came on a half sigh. “You will only tell me the same thing all over again, and I shall only give you the same answer —all over again. Oh, Brian, don’t say any more. It is so hopeless ! Come and play tennis and let ns forget it all ! It’s no use going over and over again—over things we can’t alter. It only makes us both unhappy ” “But, Kitty,” Brian put his other hand on her other shoulder and turned her resolutely to face him. “You don’t understand. I have something to tell you ” He broke off. He had not intended to bribe Kitty to come and talk to him: he had meant her to come of her own free will. Because she loved him, not because he had news for her, wonderful news that caught his breath and checked Ids heart beats every time he thought of it. He had not meant to mention it so soon. He had meant to hear Kittv say once again that she loved him, had longed that she should nut her arms about his neck as she had done in the starry dark of yesterday, and kiss him of her own free* will once again, before she heard what he had to tell. But things happen in the starry datk that seem impossible in

the bright sunlight next afternoon. And Kitty was a- young person of many moods and fancies, twenty girls rolled into one, as her father often told her. Slowly the fact was dawning on Brian's intelligence too. The Kitty of last night, gentle, clinging, with shy sweet eyes and warm lips, his for the asking, had been a revelation of beautiful and undreamt-of possibilities. But the Kitty of this afternoon was as coy and wild as ever. It was difficult to believe that he had kissed her more than once in the starry dark of yesternight. She released herself from his hold, blushing brightly. Perhaps she found it difficult to believe, too. “Something to tell me!” she echoed with interest.

Brian’s face fell. That was exactly what he had not intended.

“Kitty, you promised,” he reminded her again. -- ' “Oh, come in here!” she said petulantly, and caught his sleeve and pulled him into the drawing room, through one of its open windows.

It was very quiet and sunny, but rather cool. The long lace curtains waved in the breeze coming down, something chilly, from the A fire burnt in the bright steel grate and looked comfortable there, August though it was. Everyone, as far as Kitty knew, was in the g"rd ,> n either playing tennis or watching the others. Lady Gertrude was an easy-going hostess. Her guests did as they liked ori Sundays, even in Scotland. But the tennis lawn was not so very far away from the house, and Kitty and Brian were safer from observation inside the room than out. She looked up at Brian, a full, wide, questioning look. Then she took his hand and gave it a little shake.

“You hadn’t anything to tel! me,” she said. “It was just an excuse.” Brian smiled. What he had to toil would not spoil by keeping. Emboldened by something in Kitty’s eyes, he slipped a light arm about her waist. “Do you love me, Kitty?” he asked in a whisper. Let him hear it once again, just once again, before he told his wonderful tale.

Kitty twisted herself a little in his hold but she did not shake it off.

“I told you,” she whispered, “and where is the use of telling you again? However much we love one another we can t he engaged. Father would laugh at the very idea. Fancy yourself, fancy yourself going to him and telling him ” “What?” said Brian, smiling. “You know what! You know that when your Oxford debts are paid you won’t have a hundred pounds in the world; you told me so 'only yesterdav. You haven’t any money—nor at present anv means of money., course. Lady Gertrude will get you sorhethinc to do some day—but when ? Meanwhile ” “MeanwhiL T’>' l . living me- her charity,” finished Brian gravely. “Yes. I know." People say the bread of charity is bitter, but I have never found it so; my dear lady is too kind.” “You haven’t eaten it vet. lon have been living on the money your father and mother left you.”

“I doubt it. When I inquire into the source of the funds that have clothed and educated me and paid my college expenses Lady Gertrude is surprisingly reticent. If I press matters at all she is almost cross.’ “Cross? Never!” “She is! Kitty, I don’t believe there are any funds. I believe she has done everything for mo ever since I was three.” “But why should she? You are no relative.”

“She loved my father. She told me

“Oh,” said Kitty softly, and nestled a little closer into the light circle of Brian’s arm and twisted a loose button on his coat with quick, rose-tipped fingers. It seemed a long while since the days when Lady Gertrude had loved the young soldier who had died in India nineteen years ago, the very year Kittv was born. And she must have loved him well, to love his son. the son of another woman, for his sake. The idea was thought-provok-ing. It was also new. And it clashed with other ideas that Kitty up to this moment had held. “I thought it was Mr Gane that Lady Gertrude was engaged to when she was voting. ” “She may have been engaged to him, but it was my father she loved. ‘The only man I ever cared two straws for, Brian,’ she told ms sti herself. I wouldn't have repeated it to anyone in the world except, you. but I felt as if I must tell you, it makes things so much more understandable, doesn’t it?” A slight sound broke the stillness. Some one moved at the .other end of the room. A slender, well-groomed man, a i_ r ood manv years older than Brian, was lying full length on one of the sofas drawn up before the bright little fire. It was ho who had moved, very slightly, under the impulse of an extreme surprise. But neither Brian nor Kitty heard him. They were absorbed in one another. “And I wanted you to know just what a pauper I have Iveen up to now, Kittv. so that there would he nothing to find out afterwards.” Kittv moved impatiently, almost petulantly in the circle of his arm. Afterwards ! There would be no afterwards It was a painful word —pauper. But it fitted Brian exactly, as her father would not fail to see. And Kitty herself had not a penny in the world. “Brian,” she whispered, “we have got to forget, both of ns. Wo can’t be engaged for years and years. “Forget!” echoed Brian tragically. “You might! I couldn’t! And you can’t go on living at home as things are now. Kittv, von know vou can’t.” “No,” sighed Kittv. “I can’t. Things are too miserable. Dear old dad ! How did he come to marry that awful woman! He can’t help seeing what I feel about it; I never could hide anything! And he' just looks pathetic and savs he thought. Etta and Ella would be such nice companions for me. Companions! I never wanted any companion but dad. And now he’s alwavs with that horrid wife of his, Etta and Ella are alxsprbcd in one another,

and I’m out in the cold altogether. At least I was till ”

“Till July,” finished Brian softly, and stooped and kissed her. “It’s just as I say, Kitty, things can’t go on as they are. We must do something.” “I must,” said Kitty with decision “Ton!” What will you do?”

“Marry Cousin Claude, I suppose.” The man upon the sofa not many yards away started slightly. The colour crept hotly up behind his ears, and showed among the roots of his fine, fair hair. For he was “Cousin Claude”—and hidden behind the sofa as he was he could not see the roguish twinkle in Kitty’s brown eyes as she offered that solution of her difficulties. Brian answered nothing. So entirely satisfactory was the fun in Kitty’s face that he did not even trouble to dissent from her proposition. He only kissed her again. “Kitty, I’ve something to tell vou,” he said.

“You fold me that before. But it doesn't seem to be much,” objected Kitty. “Is it anything important?” “Important! .It is so important, so surprising, so altogether inexplicable that really I don’t know how to tell it at all.” The face of the man on the sofa changed a little. The gravity in Brian Kae’s voice suggested a confidence intended for Kitty's ears alone, a confidence to which he had no right to listen. By every canon of decent behaviour he was bound to make his presence known before Brian went further, or be stamped for ever bounder and cad. But he did not move, he had lain there already too long. “You saw me go out with Mr Gane this morning. You heard him ask me at breakfast, didn't you?” “Yes.” “Were you surprised at all?” “Yes, a little. You have known him only a week. ”

“Then you will be a good deal more surprised at what he wanted to .say to me. Do vou know his history?”

“I know he has just come into a big fortune. Half a million, isn’t it?’’

“Yes, five hundred thousand pounds!” with a gap between each word. “And already his money troubles him. He could not rest, he told me, until he had settled what should become of it when he died. Kitty, who do you think will get it when Mr Gane dies?” _ . “I don’t know,” with entire indifference. Then, struck by something in Brian’s face, “Who will, Brian?” “I shall,” said Brian quietly. For a moment Kitty was absolutely still. So was the man on the sofa not many yards away. But only Kitty spoke.

“You !” she said on a note of amaze ment. “You! But why?”

Stupefaction silenced her. Brian shrugged his shoulders and laughed a little.

“He is eccentric, queer, touched,” tapping his forehead significantly. “He must be. It is the only possible solution. He has always intended to do something like this with" it, he tells me.' Lift some worthy fellow out of a struggling manhood into a comfortable middle age as this money has lifted him. And judging by what he has heard of me, from Lady Gertrude, I suppose, he thinks lie can’t do better than lift me. At first I protested. I told him I had no sort of a claim upon him, and he had better leave it all to the h capita Is. But lie told me it was no use my objecting, because the thing was done. His will was signed and sent off yesterday—when he had known me only six days. Of course, later, if I choose to give the money away I can. But at present I can t alter anything. At first I didn’t like it, I did not like it at all. It seemed so queer, so unnatural. But afterwards I saw—oh, Kittv!”

But the blazing rapture in Brian's eyes was by no means reflected in Kitty’s. She looked up at him, her face shadowed and grave. “It's very nice.” she said soberly, “and I’m very glad for you, Brian dear,” and very sweetly and very gently she kissed him. “Of course, it’s Lady Gertrude again. You owe her this ” “As I owe her everything,” finished Brian softly. “Mr Gane has been guided by her, of course. You see, she knows you and he doesn’t, so he must have been. And it’s lovely to think that one day you will be a rich man. But, but it doesn't make much difference to things as they are now, does it?”

Brian chilled, for it didn’t, though overwhelmed by this unexpected turn of Fortune’s wheel, he had only iust realised it “You sec,” Kitty went on, “even if you went to father and said one day you would he rich he would only answer, ‘Very well. When you are I shall be very pleased for you to marry my daughter!’ But I—l would like to marry you now, Brian.” The words were shyly whispered, but they reached the ears' of the man lying on the sofa. For a moment his heart beat hard, so hard he wondered that the two in the window did not hear it. Ihe next he had silenced even his heart-beats to catch Kitty’s words.

“You see,” Kitty’s voice trembled a little as once again she turned the loose button on Brian’s coat round and round with restless fingers, “it isn’t as if Mr On no were an old man. He isn’t. He’s finite voting. He can’t be more than fortyfive at the very outside. He may live twenty, thirty, forty years! And I can’t stand' things' at home, I know I can’t; it’s too dreadful. I shall have to marry Cousin Claude If I can’t marry von, in sheer desperation; I know I shall. Oh, I wanted something that would make a difference now ! Can’t you think of something to do now, Brian?” Brian shivered a little. _ All his glow of five minutes ago had died away under Kittv’s douche of common sense, and the wind coming down from the hills was cold. And ho couldn’t think of anything to do now, not anything at all. The onlv thing there was to do was to wait until chance, hick, and Lady Oertrde procured for him the appointment that would assure him at least independence. And no

appointment that either chance, luck, or La-dy Gertrude could procure for him was in the least likely to give him the rignt to go to Colonel Calvert and say, “Please give me Kitty !” The two stood a moment with their arms about one another and their cheeks laid softly together in mute sorrow and mute sympathy. Then Kitty put her hands on Brian’s shoulders and gave him a little shake.

“We’ve got to go back,” she said. Turning the corner near the shrubbery a spare httle woman, middle-aged and neatly dressed in black, nearly ran into them. She looked what she was, a trusted and capable maid. At the contretemps Kitty’s ready laugh rippled over. “H’lo, Elspeth,” she said. Kitty’s manners, as her stepmother often complained, were far more those of a boy than a girl. ‘Where are you going to in such a fearful hurry ?”

Elspeth surtsyed slightly, but with deep respect (it would have bean a caviller indeed who had found fault with her manners), and said nothing. Brian said nothing either. No accident, however droll, could have moved him to laughter just then, and in Elspeth and her errand lie was, so far as he knew, profoundly uninterested. He went back to a game that had lost its savour, and Elspeth, with # little private key she carried, let herself out at the shrubbery gate.

Once outside the grounds Elspeth hurried more than ever. Down the straggling sireet of Airlie village, across the lynn at the bottom of the dip, up the long slope where cultivated fields caught the southern sun, out upon a rutty cart-track that led over a heather-flushed moor, swiftly her firm, well-shod feet carried her. Behind the heaving shoulder of the mpor, softly nestled in a fold of the hills, lay a farmhouse built of grey stone. It had an air of rude comfort and solid prosperity as it basked in the Sabbath sunshine. Great wains laden with barley stood idle in the stackyard. They would be unloaded and duly stacked on the morrow; no one dare have touched them to-day under the stern eye of the master—no, not though the wildest of August storms had worked its worst, upon the golden grain. A bob-tailed sheepdog chained near the gate got up and dropped its ears and wagged its stomp at sight of Elspeth ; but to-day Elspeth did not see. A man, grey-haired and worn of face, but sturdy and strong, who was sitting alone in the great house-place, a man whose likeness' to Elspeth proclaimed his elese kin, laid his glasses down upon his open Bible and looked up as she came in. “Ye’re early,” was the only greeting, hut it did not lack welcome.

Elspeth took off her neat bonnet and cloak and hung them up behind the door. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve hurried,” and her quickened breathing and heightened colour proved her words. “Sit ye doon, lass,” said her brother, but Elspeth shook her head. “Nay, A lister, not till I’ve told you—what i ha’e to tell. He’s come again !” Alister rose, laid his hand on the hiirh mantelshelf, and looked down into the eyes, so like his own, looking up. “Ye’re sure?” he said.

“Sure!” Elspeth's voice rang with quiet scorn. “Would I he niista’en, do you think, about that? I knew him again the moment I set eyes on him, twenty-three years ago though it is since I set eyes on him last! Sure!”

“Wl\en ?” asked the man curtlv. “A week ago come io-mori'ow.” M'Alister drew himself up to his full height. His eves darkened, his mouth twitched, his whole figure seemed to dilate and broaden in the surge and glow of his righteous wrath. “A week to-morrow. Six days agoand you tell me now !’’ he shouted. “I’ve told you the soonest I could." Elspeth’s breath came quicker, but her eyes met those of her brother stcadiK. “It wasn’t a thing to put in writing, and ye know it. I’ve told you the quickest I could." ...... The gate clicked. A girl, more stylishly dressed than is usual in a Scottish farmhouse, was coming in. “Hush,” • said M’Alister sharply. “Here’s Jess.” CHAPTER 11. Tea was over. It had been served in the drawing room, for, though the hardy youngsters cared little for the wind, their elders found it cold. The room was silent, though two still sat by the fire, on one side a plump and pleasant-looking woman in her early forties, on the other a lonjr. thin man with an aristocratic face and a bald head, some five years older. , lle bv one the young people drifted back to their game. Lady Gertrude watched them rro satisfaction in her bright brown eyes. When the last of them had run down the mossy steps she leant forward a little eagerly. ... “Well?” she said in crisp interrogation. Her companion took his hands frorn behind his head, straightened his long back, and looked keenly about the room. “Where’s Drummond?” he asked. “Henry!” The faint cloud that any mention of her husband always brought settled down over Lady Gertrude s face. “He has gone back to his beloved cases. A man cutting turf upon the moor the other day came upon a copper pot full of mouldy old coins. Pictish, Henry sacs they arc; they will keep him happy for weeks. It’s all right, Wilfrid. Even Claude Whitmore has taken his sprained ankle upstairs.’’ G<ane’s fine lips curled a little. “What a fuss the fellow makes, he said. “Oh.” Lady Gertrude laughed, the laugh of easy tolerance, “it’s Kitty’s sympathv he wants to touch.” “Well, if I know anything of Mistress Kitty he won’t do it that way.” returned Gane, with decision. “Yes. Gertrude, as his hostess with an impatient hand dismissed Whitmore and all his works. “I’ll tell you all you want to know. I spoke to him this morning as I said I would,” “Did you tell him—everything?” Gane shook his head. “I wasn’t ready,” he said with a toiic>

of deprecation. “I didn’t know how he would take it. I must know him a little better before I tell him everything. But it won’t be long before I can. He’s a nice lad, Gertrude.” Lady Gertrude flushed. Brian Rae was her own creation as far as a woman, by, training and influence and the careful moulding of circumstances, may be said to create a young man, and the knowledge that the Honourable Wilfrid Gane, her cousin, found him a nice lad was peculiarly welcome.

“I’ve done my best for him,” she said softly. “I’ve cared for him in every way. I’ve loved the boy as though he were my own, as”—with a sudden flash in her bright eyes—“he ought to have been. Of course, I have not been hampered in any way. There have always been ample funds.” Gane nodded. Through all the years he had spent grilling on the plains of Lower India, the years that had sent him home at forty-five, with a parchment face and a dried-up liver, he had taken care of that. But, though he had provided the funds, it was Lady Gertrude who had administered them. He leant forward, his keen, rather cold face warming. “I’ve a good deal to thank you for, Gertie,” he said. “You’ve nothing to thank me for,” she returned almost sharply, “nothing at all. The gratitude, if. there is any, is all on my’ side. Mine has been rather a lonely life, Wilfrid. God gave me„no babies of my own. You don’t know what that boy has been to me.” Then, with a sudden wrenching of the conversation back into earlier channels —“ What did you tell him this morning?” “ I told him what I wished with regard to my money after my death.” _ _ . “ And what reason did you give him ? ’ “ None whatever. None, that is, beyond my desire to be sure that what I possess will pass into hands that will use it worthily. The boy took it very well. He showed no elation—in fact he didn't half like it, and he told me so. It was only when I explained that I hadn’t a soul in the world belonging to me, and that it would really be a satisfaction to me to have settled upon my heir, that his opposition gave way. But later I believe he began to realise that it might favourably affect his chances as far as a certain young ladv is concerned, for I wanted to pledge him to absolute secrecy. I didn’t want to start the inevitable gossip and he promised with one exception, which, of course, was Mistrers Kitty. Naturally it will affect his chances.”

“Not yet, Wilfrid; you will live years and years yet. Of course, as far as the boy's position is concerned, something must be done for him. I couldn't bear to see the happiness of those two sacrificed to their poverty, as ours was:” Gane nodded, and felt rather a brute as he did so, for it was more Lady Gertrude’s happiness than his own that had been sacrificed to bis poverty 23 years ago, and he knew it. “It ought not to be difficult to find something for him,” her ladyship went on with a touch of insistence. “ After all, the child’s father is only a colonel. If Brian had decent prospects he wouldn’t be too particular. I don’t want her to marry Whitmore.”

“Bv George, no.” “And she will if she can't have Brian. Placed as she is the poor girl must marry somebody ! So you’ll set things in motion, Wilfrid. * You will get him something soon, won’t you.” But Gane looked unexpectedly dubious. “I don’t know that I will—l don’t know that I want to,’’ he said slowly. “ There are other ways of providing for him besides pitch-forking him into something that will eat up the best years of his life, as my commissionership ate up mine.”

“ Not ways that he would accept, unless. of course, you told him everything.” “ I’m going to tell him everything.” “Everything! About his mother?” Gane studied his questioner a moment, and his eyes were wide and wistful. “Will it be a shock to him. do you think?” “No,’’ said Lady Gertrude sturdily, “not a bit of it. The boy’s as sound and as sweet as a nut. He hasn't a grain of snobbery in his whole composition. Besides, dear me. if H's blood, pride of race, that sort of thing, there's enough on vour side to legitimatize any marriage you choose to make! Oh. you needn’t be afraid of telling him. When will you?”

“To-morrow?’ On nek voice was a little doubtful. Lady Gertrude considered a moment.

“ You may have a good chance —and you mayn’t,” she said. “There will he seven of you—you, Brian, Claude Whitmore, Mr* Sloa.ne, Henry, and the two Strothers.” “Henry! Is he going?”

“ Yes,” with a sigh, “he couldn’t hit a havstack, lot alone a hare; it’s mixed shooting, you know; but he's going. Do make him walk in front if you can, Wilfrid ; there'll be an accident one of these day’s I’m certain. Donald M'Alister is in "charge of the party —Elspeth’s nephew, you know. You can go and see M'Alister, the brother, now, can’t you? How surprised he will be. Will he recognise you, do you think?” “It isn’t very likely. Twenty-three years, Gertie. ’ “You haven’t altered much. I should have recognised you anywhere, if it had been twice twenty-three years.” “ You know me well. He only saw me once. All the same. I'm not sorry it’s the boy that is coming out with us. Is ho capable?”

“ Quite. The best gliillie for fifteen miles round. M'Alister has trained him— I needn’t say more than that. We’re coming out with luncheon, you know. We meet by Cairn Dhu. I wonder if by then ”

“ I mayn't have a chance,” returned Gane, answering his cousin’s look and not her words. “ Besides,” with a hint of withdrawal, “ I don't know that I am ready—yet.”

“ Oh, yes, you are, Wilfrid. The boy

is twenty-two. Is it fair to keep him in the dark any longer.” ‘‘Perhaps not. Well, to-morrow, then, if I have a chance.” ‘‘A chance. You must make one,” returned her ladyship crisply.

She stood, a comfortable queen with a bevy of maidens round her, and watched the men start for the moors after breakfast next morning. Seven guns, not counting Donald M'Alister, who, swelling with shy importance, met his party by the great gates. They straggled a little as they went up the road, Mr Drummond and the two Strothers in front with Donald (Lady Gertrude breathed a prayer that they might keep there as she saw it), Claude Whitmore and Mr Sloane, Brian, and—the man who had shown such an inexplicable determination to benefit him. Had Wilfrid Gane arranged it so'/ Did he intend to make the opportunity she had insisted upon so early? Or would he let his sensitive shyness paralyse his tongue once again? As Lady Gertrude asked herself the Question something in the younger man’s face forced itself upon her attention. She turned to Kitty, standin.(r unusually quiet and subdued by her side.

“What’s the matter with Brian?” she asked.

Kitty flushed and said nothing. Her hostess looked at her sharply. Kitty had been crying. She slipped a comfortable arm about the girl’s slim waist, and drew her close to her motherly side. “Don’t worry, dearie,” she whispered. “Things have such a wonderful knack of coming right sometimes.” Kitty turned and hid a quivering face on Lady Gertrude’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you knew,” she whispered.

“Toil dear little ostrich !” returned her ladyship, and kissed her. It was a lovely morning, sunny and still. The waggonette that was to carry the luncheon baskets, two men-servants, and the ladies to Cairn Dhu was ordered for twelve o’clock, for the drive round by the road would take quite an hour. One o’clock found them at the trysting-place—-a tiny tarn, a gloomy pile of dark stone, mute memorial to some forgotten chieftain, a few feathery birches on a grassy slope. The two servants busied themselves with preparations for luncheon, champagne bottles were laid in the tarn —never was better- cooler, —a luncheon basket, apparently inexhaustible, was rapidly unpacked. “Very nice, Charles,” said Lady Gertrude, her eye taking in details of dainty napery and plentiful sij\‘er; she neverstinted praise. “Come along, girls, we’ll go and meet the men.” But so far there was no sign of them. Before long her ladyship, who was both tired and hungry, sat down with decision on a little heather-covered knoll, and declined to proceed any further. Still none of the men appeared. Kitty and another girl, irked by inaction, climbed a hillock and reconnoitred from the top. Suddenly Kitty flung up her hand. “I see them,” she called, “over yonder.” Her ladyship looked at the hillock and sighed. “I'm not coming up there,” she announced with decision. “Alice, dear, take these,” handing her field-glasses to another of the girls, “and tell me what they are doing.” Alice looked, it seemed to Lady Gertrude, an astonishingly loner time. Then she handed the glasses to Kitty, and ran down the hillock’s steep side. “They are standing still, all in a bunch,” she said, “I don’t know why.”

“Standing still! What in the world are they doing? Why in the Avorld don’t they come to their luncheon?”

The inquiry, sharp with puzzled irritation, floated up to Kitty. She turned. “They are coming now, two of them,” she announced.

“Two of them!” echoed her ladyship, more puzzled than ever. They came direct, striding sturdily over the heather, and the women went to meet them in a group. Soon Kitty recognised them, Brian and the elder Strother. Whence came the fear, the positive knowledge that they brought bad tidings, no one could have told, but a subtle something in the very walk of the coming two marked them messengers of evil long before their faces could he seen. They were close up before either of them spoke, and by that time to speak was almost unneccessarv.

“There has been an accident.” It was Willie Strother who found wt>rds; Brian said nothing. “Who?” asked Lady Gertrude in breathless inquiry. “Mr Gane.”

“Mr Garre! Wilfrid! Is lie much hurt?'’ “He’s—he’s dead,’’ said Strother, with the bluntness of ungovernable horror. (To be continued.)