Bonnie Barbara.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 15, Issue 33, 26 April 1904, Page 7

Bonnie Barbara.

(AH Mights Reserved.)

PAIIT IQj A FASCINATING LOVE STORY.

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands, Author of “ Priceless Violet,” ” A Child of Charity,” “A King and a Coward,” &c.

— 4 — CHAPTER XX Continued. “ I am a man like yourself,” wu Ridley’s answer, and Dick shuddered involuntarily. 'T don’t look like it, do I ? ” went on the other ; “in fact I don’t look like a man at all. Yet I started as fair as you have done, and I take an interest in yau young ’un,” Ridley said abruptly. “ Though you may not think it I am a friend of your friend in there. Oh, he does not invite me to dinner yet _ho sees me when I call.” “Von know Villiers ? ” asked Dick, incredulously. “Yes,” said Ridley, “I know the great Lionel Villiers, and so will you know him before you have done with him. I wonder if you have ever chanced to glance up and down this street when you have come and gone with him in his smart cab ? If so you must have seen me. This is one of my haunts, and I can tell you I have been very sorry for you.” “ Sorry for mo ? ” said Dick with pride rising at these words. “ Yes, sorry,” said the other, laconically, “for I knew that our dear friend must have been playing some game. Y'ou see I have been through the fire myself. Time was when I kept my cab, and had my smart rooms and filing my money about with the best of them. Oh I don’t look like it. do I ? But it’s truth now that I never know where I shall sleep, or if I shall got a mouthful of food.” The words, the tone of voice, the attitude touched Dick. He was still young enough to be impressionable. “ I say, I’m awfully sorry,” he said ; and he put his hand into his pocket. As he did so his own trouble came hack to him and he rein inhered that even the silver that milled there, little enough as it was \ms all that he possessed. Nevertheless he held out some to the man but Ridley drew back. “ I don’t want to take anything from you,” he said. “ I can see by the change in your face that you have fallen on dry ground ; but I should like to talk to you all the same. Look here, it’s not an overwarm night, but I’m used to going about without an overcoat, and you cun risk it for once. Let us sit down somewhere. We are not far from the park. Walk on and I will follow you. I shall do you no good if I am seen with you.” Dick hesitated a moment, and then touched by curiosity and glad'to escape for even an hour from the clamouring misery of his heart, he did as he was bid. He walked towards the park and every now and then he glanced bebehind him and he saw that slouching figure coming after him. There was something pathetic about this outcast that forced home lhat : night a lesson to Dick Bunting such as perhaps might never have come to him otherwise. He had to walk some distance before ho could find a seat unoccupied, and in a very little time Ridley dropped into the other corner. “ They know me well here,” he said. “ I generally have a spar with one or another of the ‘ bobbies ’ but they won’t say anything to you. You’ve got a decent coat on. Now toll me all about yourseH. Oh, you need not hesitate. I know enough for I have made it my business to find out all about you.” “ Why ? ” asked Dick with a touch of anger in his voice. “ Pure fancy,” said the other, j " Not altogether fancy, either,” he added. “ I have wanted to get even ; with our dear friend, and somehow I thought I could do that through you. Now what little game has he been playing with you ; or, suppose ■ 1 put it another way—how much has | he lent you ? ” j Dick started. j He was still so young in worldly j knowledge that this question seemed | extraordinary. j “ How do you know that ho lent | me any money at nil ? ” he asked at ; which Ridley laughed'a dry laugh. ‘ “ My dear boy,’’ he said “ that’s the way it’s always done. But what is puzzling me is why -Villiers should want to lend you money ? Has he anything to gain by it ? There must be some reason that is not clear to mo yet.” i Hero he stopped and dropped into a fit of coughing—a hollow, terrible sound that made Dick shiver. “ You ought not to sit out here,” the boy said, hurriedly ; “ it’s very damp, look at the mist rising ! ” “1 love the mist,” said the other when he could find his voice again. “ It seems to moke all things equal, even to change me. Now, if you saw me coming through that groat cloud you would not realizo that I wag so horrible, would you ? ” “I don’t think you are horrible,” said Dick Bunting, and he spoke now with truth! “ I think you are very strange—the strangest man I have ever met—but I am sorry for you.” “ Stick at that, young ’un,” said Ridley without bitterness. “ You know the ugliest things on this earth arc supposed to have their uses. Now I’m ugly enough but I

believe I can be of some use to you, if only ” and here something like anguish broke into his voice—“ if only I stand as a scarecrow and warn you away from the path I have trodden for so many years. How much do you owe Lionel Villiers ? ” The question was put almost with authority, and Dick found himself stammering out the truth unconsciously. " So much ? ” said Ridley to himself. “ What did he say to you tonight ? ” Dick told him. It did him good even to unburden his heart to this man who was a stranger. “ Of course you know he was only cramming you,” Ridley observed. ” He has not parted with those papers you signed. He has only pretended that some other person will take proceedings.” But why should he do this ? ” asked Dick. The other paused. “ He wants to get a tighter grip on you. But why ? That’s what I want to know ? ” Then Ridley turned. “ Have you anything in your possession that he desires ? ” A hot sensation rushed through Dick’s heart. All at once he seemed to understand, and he went back swiftly in this moment to the old contempt and hatred of Lionel that had filled his boyish heart years ago He faltered out the truth. ‘‘ He wants to marry my sister.” Ridley sat silent a long time then got up. ” Good-night,” he said, abruptly. ” It’s time you went to roost. But one word of advice : Don’t go near Lionel Villiers again, and don't worry. He couid make it very unpleasant for you, but he won’t. Just now you offered me some money and I refused ; but I have changed my mind. Give me a shilling, I must get something to stop this confounded cough.” You think I am a sort of mysterious spirit I suppose,” as Dick sat on, silent, though he handed the shilling as desired. “Well who knows ?—I may be a good influence to you. At any rate I thank you for having listened to me, and if there is any power left to me to help you you shall have that help.” He disappeared as he spoke and the mist wrapped him about and hid the unlovcliness of his garments as he had said, and Dick sat gazing after him with a heart that thrilled. He took himself to task sharply a few minutes later. What had he done ? Told his private troubles to a creature whom he had never seen before in his life and who by his own telling was homeless friendless and a wandering nobody. It was natural that Dick should j be angry with himself ; -ami yet as he walked homewards at last to the college, he could not forgot the encouragement this strange creature had given Him, and instead of lying awake and counting the hours he dropped asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow ; aod in his sleep ho dreamed that he was in a mist and that a friend’s hand was stretched out to lead him to a place of safety. CHAPTER XXI Kenneth had only been a 1 few days i at Castle Chase and there was such a marked improvement in his condition that the doctor (poor Oscar Bunting’s successor) delighted Charles Grantley by saying that he thought it would be possible after all to move the lad south for the winter. Instantly Sir Charles began to make plans for the journey. ! He went to London and discussed jail the possible means of conveying the invalid with care and comfort. ! He would be glad to go—glad for ! a thousands reasons, and chiefly because he had not realized what it would cost him to be so near to Barbara, and yet remain apart. She had written him one little friendly letter since his return. “ I am troubled about Dick,” she wrote. ” He never comes to see me. and I dare not go to the hospital 1 because that makes him angry. It seems to me that I have lost my brother.” Grantley’s first task when he reached his rooms was to sit down and ■ answer this letter. I Ho wanted her to know the good news about Kenneth, and he vain ted, ! above all, to comfort her about her brother. But before he could do this he went through a pile of letters . which his valet brought him. Al- | ready his name was known for lavj ish generosity to charities, and he j was inundated with begging letters. Contrary to custom, Charles Grantley did not toss them aside. He went through each one, and, as far as lay in his power, he tried to investigate the cases that came to his notice. He had not gone half way through the present budget when ha came upon a dirty-looking letter without a stamp and having a splotch of seal-ing-wax on the back. The writing, however, though curious, was legible and educated ; and it was evident that the hand that had traced it had been none too steady. Grantley opened it as he had opened the rest, expecting the usual story ; instead of this there was no address and no formal beginning. The paper seemed to have been I torn from a child’s copy-book and i was not over clean. i It contained only a few lines. | ” The writer may be wrong but he fancies it may interest you to know j that a certain young medical student i by name Richard Bunting, is in great | monetary trouble. The boy has been I the tool of a clever man, and though | he is weak and needs punishment he also needs help. This is sent without Bunting's knowledge. It comes from your friend, ‘‘The Man in the Street.” Grantley read this through again

and again. Another man inignt perhaps have doubted its genuineness ; not so he. Even if Baba had not spoken with’anxiety about her brother and so in a sense prepared his mind for this information, he would have felt that this note came from an inspired source. His feelings were strangely mixed. Though it gave him a sense of joy to feci that he could do what to him seemed a small service for the woman he loved, his heart had a pang as he realized what Dick’s folly might signify to her. And then there was another feeling. At first he hesitated and wondered from whence this letter came ; but all at once there rose before his eyes the memory of that man who had begged from him in the street a short time ago. He had never been able to dismiss this man from his thoughts ; but -though he had nevergone in or out of his rooms without looking to find him, Grantley had never seen him since that night. As we know he had been touched not only by the pathos of this degraded and starving being but had been startled by the significance of the few words exchanged between them. One brief glance had been enough to telf Charles Grantley that this outcast of the streets was not the vile being he looked. The way in which the epistle was written, the strange signature all marked it as the work of this man and as he sat looking down upon the tossed and tumbled paper Charles Grantley’s first desire was to find the writer to do something for him even before he approached the difficult task of lifting the burden that lay on Dick Bunting’s shoulders. For indeed it was no easy matter to pay what Dick owed. He and Dick were strangers and though the boy might be in the deepest distress, if he had an ounce of Bab’s blood in him he would naturally resent the intrusion of a stranger in his affairs. Sir Charles put aside his other letters and postponed writing to Babs. He pondered quietly for a time and then a sudden idea came. ‘‘Lorrimer can help me in this,” he said to himself ; ‘‘he was a friend of Dr. Bunting's. I shall toll him the truth, 1 but I shall also insist upon secrecy. This money must be paid to Dick ; but it must not come from me. It will be a new departure for dear old Lorrimer to have to call upon his imagination, but I hope he will not fail me in this.” He folded up that strange letter and slipped it into an inner pocket. ‘.T must find him,” he mused to himself. ‘‘There is something about this man that touches me in a way I cannot describe. Lon g' before he spoke to me I used to wonder about him. I cannot help thinking that he had some purpose in haunting my door, and yet he’ never begged till that one night ; and even then I don’t believe he spoke to me for ' money. At all events I am sure | that he wrote this ; letter ; and if so, j that gives him another claim upon j me. Perhaps he will come here tonight. I will watch. I hope at least,” Charles Grarvtley said to himself, as he drove along to Mr. Larrimer’s chambers, ‘‘that I shall be, in time to stop this trouble from reaching her ears.” And at that very moment Babs was thinking of him, thinking with a yearning that was hardly to be described. Barbara had been working like a slave. They had left the lodginys and were installed in that tiny house which Bessie was pleased to approve of in a way, and Babs had tried to forgot the natural cravings of her love in sheer hard work, but she sorrowed over her brother too much to earn ' forgetfulness, even for an hour. She did not wish to lift the veil that divided them from happiness. She only longed to be able to take his trouble from him, and she had not needed his words to know that it was no ordinary trouble. Dick’s silence and absence, too, were very hard for her to bear. But she had determined not to approach him again till all was settled. His refusal to receive her at the hospital prevented her, from going there. She could only hope that this cloud would pass away, and that she could still do the loving work her father had left her. She kept all this to herself, however, 1 and she tried to be as bright os possible ; if she did not succeed in throwing dust in Bessie’s eyes, she certainly* won her maid’s deeper love and admiration. At this time, when Sir Charles was driving to see Mr. Lorrimer, Babs was undergoing the 1 ordiel of a visit from Lady Susan. It was a most inopportune visit. Had Lady Susan come later, when everything was in order, things might have not seemed so'.terrible to her ; but as it was she sat in the tiny room—called by courtesy a drawing-room— and she lamented openly and' tearfully. And, of course she req/uired a great deal of waiting upon. Bessie had to unpack the best teathings and make her ladyship buttered toast, and poor, Babs was at her wit’s end to find patience to bear with her godmother’s reproaches. ‘‘Dear Lady Susan, you don’t understand,” she said for about the sixth or seventh time when Lionel’s mother had reiterated that she ought to be at the Manse. ‘T have to take care of Basil and to make a home for Dick.” ‘‘But it is not the proper thing j Baba,” Lady Susan said, quez-ulous-! ly. ‘Tt is not at all what you ought to be doing. I am sure if I your mother’s family could know in what a place you are now they , would be horrified.” 1 A hard look came into Babs’s face, j and she answered this speech coldly, i 'To be Continued.) 1366.