A LIFE Sentence

Southern Cross, Volume 3, Issue 2, 13 April 1895, Page 13

A LIFE Sentence

- [GOPYRiGHT.]

By ADELINE SERGEANT, Author of “ Jacobi's Wife ,” “ Under False Pretences ,” Boy s JBepentance,” DeveriVs Diamond ,” Bfc., Sfc.

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTERS I. TO lll.—Andrew Westwood, a poacher, is accused of causing the death of old Squire Vane, whom it was stated he had shot in the wood, a piece of what was said to be torn coat being clutched in the dead man’s hand. Westwood is found guilty and sentenced to death, notwithstandding that he strongly protests his innocence. At Beech field Hall, where resides General Richard Yane, the successor of the dead Squire, Hubert Lepel, a young cousin, has been summoned by Miss Leo Yane to break the news he has telegraphed to her to the General. He does so, and tells him that on the eye of the execution of Westwood he bad been reprieved. The news is too great for the General and he is seized by an apoplectic fit.

CHAPTERS IY & V. —Hubert Lepel and his sister Constance are in conversation, and it transpires that Hubert himself shot the Squire in order to save his sister from the •hame of an unworthy intrigue with the murdered man. Miss Yane, in a conversation with Hubert, speaks of his sister as an adventuress with matrimonial designs upon the General, in whose family she officiates as governess to little Enid Yane. Miss Vane is horrified at ssing Enid talking to a daughter of the accused man V r estwood, the poacher. CHAPTERS VI. & Yll.—Hubert and Miss Yane decide that the child, Andrew Westwood’s daughter, must not stay there, and after consultation with the Vicar, it is agreed to send the child to a home at Winstead, where she will be seen to. The Yicar consents to take the child into the Vicarage for the present.

CHAPTER VIIL * Cynthia Westwood —is that your name?’ said Mrs Eumbold. ‘Dear me, I always thought it was just ‘Jane,’ or ‘ Jenny’ ? Wouldn’t it be better to change it, and call her something more appropriate to her station ?’

‘ Perhaps,’ said the injudicious rector, ‘ she may not like to be called by a name that does not belong to ter.’

He was looking at Jenny —or Cynthia, as she had just informed them that she was called —a transformed and greatly altered Cynthia •under Mrs Rumlrold’s management — Cynthia with hair cut short, hands and face scrupulously clean, a neat tut ugly print frock, and coarse tolland pinafore —a perfectly subdued and uninteresting Cynthia—uninteresting save for the melancholy beauty of her great dark wistful eyes. ‘ What she likes has got nothing to do with it,’ said Mrs Rumbold, rather sharply. ‘Besides, she has another name —she told me so herself—- * Cynthia Janet’ —that’s what she was christened, she tells me. She can be called‘Jane Wood’ at Winstead.’ The rector looked up in a mild surprise. ‘ Why not ‘ Jane Westwood my dear P ‘ Westwood ’ is her name.’ ‘ She had much better not he known as Westwood’s daughter,’ said Mrs Rumbold, with decision, quite heedless of Cynthia’s presence. ‘ It ■jyxll be against her all her life. I have told Sister Louisa about her, and she asked me to let her be called ‘Wood.’ ‘Jane Wood ’ is a nice sensible name.* ‘ Well, as you please. You will not mind being called ‘ Jane,’ will you, my dear ?’ said the rector, mindful of the red flush that was creeping into the little pale cheeks. He was a kindly old gentleman, in spite of his slow, absent-minded ways ; and there was a very benevolent light in his eyes as he sat in his elbow-chair, newspaper on knee, spectacles on nose, and surveyed the child who had been brought to his study forinspection. Mrs Rumbold fairly lostherpatience at the question. ‘How can you ask her such a thing, Alfred ? As if it was her business to

mind one . iway. .or . another!. She ought to be thankful that she is so well taken care of, without troubling about her name. ‘ Jane Wooc! • is a good name indeed, much better than that silly sounding ‘ Cynthia ’ and Mrs Rumbold swept the child before her out of the room in a state of high indignation at the stupidity of all men.

So Cynthia Westwood —or Jenny Westwood as the Beechfield people called her—was transformed into Jane Wood, She did not seem to object to the change. She was in a dazed, stunned state of mind, in which she understood only half of what was said to her, and when the scenes and faces around her made a very slight impression upon her memory. One or two things stood out clearly from the rest. One was Enid Vane’s sweet childish face as she thrust her shilling with the hole in it into the little outcast’s hand.

Cynthia had carefully hidden the coin away; she was resolved never to spend it. She took it out and looked at it sometimes, feeling, though she could not have put her feeling into words, that it was an actual visible sign of someone’s kindness of heart, of someone’s love and pity for her. And the other thing was the dark melancholy face of the man who had brought, her to the Rectory and told her to be good foh her father’s sake.

She liked to think of his face best of all. It was one that she was sure she would never forget. She brooded over it with silent adoration, with a simple faith and confidence in the goodness of its owner which would have cut him to the heart if he had ever dreamed of it. He had been kind to her, that t was all she knew. She rewarded 'him by" the devotion of her whole being. It was surely a great reward for such a little act. She did not even know that it was he who was to pay for her schooling, that it was he who had rescued her from the degradation of her outcast life.

Mrs Rumbold kept her word to Hubert. She talked vaguely in Cynthia’s presence of ‘ kind friends ’ who were doing ‘ so much ’ for her ; but Cynthia associated the idea of ‘ kind friends ’ with that of Mrs Rumbold, herself, and was not grateful. The child was not old enough, and had been too much stunned by the various experiences of her little life, to be very curious. She did not know Mr Lepel by name, or why he should be at Beechfield at all. He did not often visit the Vanes, although he saw a good deal of his Aunt Leonora in London. He was quite a stranger to half of the people in the village. Also, Cynthia’s father, now in prison for the murder of Sydney Vane, had not lived long in Beechfield, and did not know the history and relationships of the squire’s family, as natives of Beechfield were supposed to do. He had been two years in the village, and rented a tumbledown ruinous cottage by the side of a marshy pond, which no one else would occupy. Here he lived a lonely life, gathering rushes from the pond and weaving baskets out of them, doing a day’s work in the fields now and then setting snares for rabbits, trapping foxes and killing game —a man suspected by the authorities, shunned by the village respectabilities, avoided by even those wilder spirits who met at the ‘ Blue Lion ’ to talk of bullocks and to drink small beer.

For he was not of a genial disposition. He was giuff and surly in speech, given neither to drink nor to conversation —just the sort of man, his neighbours said, to commit a terrible crime, to revenge himself upon a magistrate wbo had sent him to gaol for poaching and had threatened to turn him out of his wretched cottage by the pond. And his little girl too —the villagers were indignant at the waj in which Cynthia was brought up. She was seldom seen at the village school, never at church or in Mrs Rumbold’s Sunday classes. She was rough, wild, ignorant. Careful village mothers would not

let their chitdren 'plr?^ district visitors went out Of their way to avoid her—for she : had been known to fling’ stones at boys who came too near, and she laughed in the faces of people who tried to lecture her.. '

Jenny Westwood, was thus very little in the way of hearing Beechfield gossip, or she would have known all about Mr Lepel and his sister, who acted as Miss Enid’s governess, and concerning whose moonlit walks with Miss Enid’s ‘ papa ’ there had already been a good deal of conversation. She knew nothing of all this. There was a big house a mile from the village, and in this big house lived a wicked cruel man who had sent her father to prison—so much she knew. And her father was now in prison for killing that wicked man.

Why should one not kill the person who injures one P It did not seem so very terrible to Cynthia. Before her father had brought her to Beechfield, she remembered they had travelled a good deal from place to place; and while they were *on tramp, ’ as her father expressed it, she had seen much of the rougher side of life. She had seen blows given and received —fighting, violence, and bloodshed. She Had a vague idea that, if her father had killed Mr Yane, it was perhaps not the first time that he had taken the life of a fellow-man.

Mrs Rumbold certainly showed much kindness and charity in taking this forlorn little girl into her spotless well-regulated household, even for a week until matters were settled with the authorities of the workhouse which she had quitted and the orphanage to which she was going. The Rectory servants were indignant at having the society of ‘ a muredrer’s child ’ forced upon them. If she had stayed much longer they would have given notice in a body. But fortunately Mrs Rumbold was able to arrange matters with the Winstead Sisters very speedily, and the day following the funeral of Mrs Sydney Yane —laid to rest beside her husband only three months after his untimely death —saw Cynthia’s little box packed, and herself arrayed in neat but unbecoming garments, conveyed by Mrs Rumbold to the charitable precincts of St. Elizabeth’s Orphanage at Winstead, where she was introduced to the black-robed, white-capped sisters and a crowd of blue-cloaked children like herself, as Jane Wood, orphan, from the village of Beechfield in Hants.

However, Mrs Rumbold told the whole of Cynthia’s story to the sister in charge of the orphanage, a sweetfaced, motherly woman who looked as if children were dear to her. The one reservation made by the rector’s wife referred to the person or persons who w r ere to pay the child’s expenses. Their names, she said were never to be mentioned. The good sister smiled and thought to herself that the very reservation told its own story. Of course it was the Vanes who were thns providing for Cynthia Westwood’s continued absence from the village. It was natural, perhaps. She noticed that the child showed no sign of sorrow at parting from Mrs Rumbold. She looked white, tired almost stupefied. Sister Louisa took hold of the little hands and found them cold and trembling. When the rector’s wife was gone, the good woman —‘ the mother of the children,’ as she was sometimes called —drew the little girl to her and kissed her tenderly. It needed very little real affection to call forth a response in Cynthia’s yearning heart. She burst into tears and buried her face in the mother’s ample bosom, won from that moment to all the claims of love and duty and a religion of which she as yet had scarcely heard the name.

As time went on Mrs Rumbold received letters from Sister Louisa relative to Jane Wood’s progress. Jane Wood was, on the whole, a very satisfactory pupil. She was a girl of strong will and strong passions, often in disgrace, and yet a universal favourite. She possessed more than ordinary

op to the girls of her own age who had at first been | far in advance of her in class; then she surpassed them and began to attract attention ; and at the end of two yeara Mrs Rumbold received a letter which perplexed her so sorely that she sent it at once to Mr Hubert Lepel, who was still living a bachelor life in London.

The letter from Sister Louisa was to the effect that Jane Wood, the girl from Beechwood, had developed a great talent for music, and seemed very superior to the station of domestic service for which she had been designed. The Sister received twenty or thirty boarders daughters of gentlemen for the most part, for whom ordinary terms were paid —-ia addition to the orphans ; these girls of a superior class were educated by the Sisters, and often remained at St. Elizabeth’s, until they were eighteen or nineteen. If the amount paid for Jane Wood could be increased to forty pounds a year, the Sisters proposed to educate her as a governess ; with her talent for music and other accomplishments, they were sure that the girl would turn out a credit to her kind patrons and patronesses, as well as to St. Elizabeth’s.

Mr Lepel sent back an answer by return of post. Jane Wood —he knew her by no other Christian name — was to have every advantage the good sisters could give her. If she had talents, they were to be cultivated. When she was old enough to be placed out in the world to earn her own living, his allowance would of course cease : till then, and while she wanted help, her friends would provide for her.

‘ So Westwood’s child is to be made a lady of !’ said Mrs Rumbold, laying down the letter with a sense of virtuous indignation. “ Well, I hope that Mr Lepel won’t repent it. I wonder what Miss Vane thinks of it ?’

But Miss Vane has never even heard the name of Jane Wood. Hubert Lepel was gradually achieving literary success. But tbe road to success is often stony and beset with thorns and briars. His name was becoming known as that of a writer of popular fiction ; he had a play in hand of which people prognosticated great things. For all these reasons he was much too busy to give anv special attention to the affairs of the child at St. Elizabeth’s School.

He agreed to Sister Louisa’s proposition, and sent money for the girl’s education —that was all he could dp. And so another year went by, and then another, and he heard nothing more about Jane Wood. But at the close of a London season, when town was emptying fast and the air was becoming exhausted, and everybody who had a chance of going into the country was sighing to be off, it occurred to Hubert Lepel to wonder how the child that he had befriended was progressing. It took little time for him to make up his mind that he would go down to Winstead and see the school, which was quite a show-place and had been a great deal talked about. A card and a line from a clerical friend would introduce him, and his literary work gave him an excuse for wishing to inspect the institution. It would be supposed that he meant to write an article upon it. He did not intend to say why he had come. The building occupied by the Sisters of St. Elizabeth was certainly beautiful and picturesque. Hubert remembered with a half-smile the enthusiastic praise that Mrs Rumbold had bestowed upon it. The chapel, an excellent little gem of Gothic architecture, stood in the centre, flanked by two long grey wings appropriated to the schoolgirls and their teachers, the Orphanage and the sisterhood.

St. Elizabeth’s was becoming quite a noted school for girls, especially among persons of high Anglican proclivities ; and in surveying the lovely buildings, the exquisitely kept grounds the smooth lawn and shrubberies which met his eye, Hubert could not but acknowledge that the outer appearance of the place was all that could be desired.

The school-buildings were swathed in purple clematis and roses; there was a pleasant hum of voices, even of laughter, from some of the deep mullioned windows; and he saw a host of children sporting on the lawn in a distance. The scene was bright, peaceful, and joyous. Hubert Lepel felt a momentary thrill of relief, he had done well for Westwood’s child —he need not reproach himself on that score.

A portress with a rosy smiling face admitted him into a visitors’ room, a small but cosy place with vases of flowers on the table, sacred pictures and black-and-white crucifix on the yellow-washed walls. Here a Sister clad in conventual garb came to inquire his 'business, the stillness of the house ; the unfamiliar aspect of the woman s dresses, reminded Hubert of some French and Flemish convents which he had visited abroad. He was charmed at the likeness. It was something, he said to himself, to find such serenity, such sweet placidity of life, possible in the very midst of nineteenth century England, with all her turmoil and bustle and distraction. He did not discuss with himself the question as to whether the life led by the inmates of these retreats was wholesome or agreeable; it was simply on the aesthetic side that its aspect pleased him. He could fancy himself for a moment in the depths of a foreign land or far back in remote mediaeval times.

Could he see the buildings, the church, the orphanage ? Oh, certainly! Sister Agnes, who had come to him, would be pleased to show him everything. She was very pleasant in manner, and he had no difficulty in obtaining from her any amount of information about the institution. It seemed that he had by chance come on a festival day,and every one was making holiday. The children were out in the field or the garden ; he could see their schoolrooms, dormitories and refectory.

They were all rather bare, exquisitely clean and airy, full of the most recent improvements as regarded educational appliances. ‘ This is the orphanage building,’ Sister Agnes explained. ‘We do not generally show the class-rooms be-, longing to the other school; but, as all the ladies are out, you may see them if you like.’ So Hubert peeped into the room occupied by the girl boarders, who were on a very different footing from the orphans, and whose surroundings, though simple, were elegant in their simplicity. The furniture was of good artestic design, the windows were emblazoned in jewel-like colours, the proportions of the rooms were stately as those of an Oxford college hall. Hubert smilled a little at the picture cf Westwood’s ragged daughter amidst all this magnificence. Last of all he was shown the chapel, the most beautiful building of the place, and on this day in particular largely decorated with the choicest flowers.

As they were coming out a bell began to ring, and presently they met a procession of school-girls, all dressed alike in white frocks and broad hats, on their way to some afternoon service of prayer and praise. Hubert scanned their faces heedfully as they passed by, but he could not find one amongst them that reminded him of the thin little countenance, the gipsy eyes, of the convict Westwood’s child.

He could not resist the temptation to put a question. ‘ Have you not here,’ he said, a girl called Jane Wood ?’ Sister Agnes gazed at him in astonishment and the tears suddenly rushed into her eyes. ‘ Do you know anything of Jane Wood ?’ she cried, excitedly. ‘ Oh, you ask for her at a very critical time! She has been with us for years, and we loved her as our own child ; but she ran away from us two days ago, and we have not seen her since !’ CHAPTER IX. * What do yon mean ? ’ said

Hubert, starting in his turn. ‘ The girl gone ?’ ■ ‘ Let me fetch Sister Louisa or the Reverend Mother to you,’ she cried. ‘ They know all about it—as far as anybody can know anything. You — you —are one of her friends, perhaps ? Oh, the dear child ! —and we loved her so dearly !’ Hubert was looking pale and stern. He had stopped short on the gravelled pathway half way between the chapel and the entrance to the school. The beauty, the interest of the place was lost upon him at once. He cared only to hear what had become of the child whom he had fondly imagined himself to be benefiting. If she had been unhappy, if she had run away into the wide world on account of ill-treatment by her teachers and fellow-pupils was he not to blame P He ought to have come to the place before and made enquiries, not left her fate to the light words of Mrs Rumbold or some unknown Sister Louisa. He had made himself responsible for her education ; was he not in some sort responsible for her happiness as well ? These questionings made his face look very dark and grave as he stood once more in the visitors’ room, awaiting the arrival of the lady whom Sister Agnes had called Sister Louisa, and whose letters to Mrs Rumbold he remembered that he had read.

He felt himself prejudiced against her before she arrived; but when he saw her he was compelled to own that she had a very attractive countenance. The face itself, framed in its setting of black and white, was long and pale, but beautiful by reason of its sweetness of expression ; the grey eyes were full of tenderness, yet full of grief. There were marks of tears upon her face—the only one that the visitor had seen that was at all dolorous; and yet, noting her serene brow and gentle lips, Hubert, man of the world as he was, and more ready to cavil and despise than to admire, said to himself that, if any woman could make a young girl love her, surely this woman would not fail.

‘ You wish,’ she said, ‘to ask some questions about our pupil, Jane Wood?’

‘ I do, indeed. I am very much surprised to hear that she has left you.’ ‘ May I ask whether you have any authority from our friend Mrs Rumbold to inquire ?’ ‘ Mrs Rumbold takes her authority from me,’ said Hubert, quietly. Then as the Sister looked at him with a little uncertainty in her mild, grey eyes, he felt in his pocket and drew out a pocket-book. ‘ 1 think I have a letter here from Mrs Rumbold which will establish my claim to make inquiries. It is a mere chance that I have not destroyed it; but it is here, and will serve as my credentials perhaps.’ Sister Louisa took the letter from his hand and looked at it. It was the one which Mrs Rumbold had written to Mr Lepel when she had heard of Jane Wood’s talent for music and other accomplishments from ‘ the mother of the children’ herself.

The good Sistex smiled sadly as she gave it back. ‘ I see now who you are, Mr Lepel. You are really this poor child’s great friend and helper.’ ‘ I am acting for my family, of course,’ said Hubert, a little stiffly. ‘ The girl has naturally no right to expect anything from us; but we were sorry for her desolate position.’ ‘ Yes, poor child —she has a hard lot to bear!’

If Hubert was struck by this asseveration, he did not show it. ‘ I always heard that she was very happy here,’ he said. ‘ And so she was —or so she seemed to be,’ said Sister Louisa, with energy. ‘She was a great favourite, always at the top of the classes, always full of life and spirit, always bright and engaging. Poor Janie ! To think that she should have left us in this way !’ • Why did she leave you and how P’ ‘ Mr Lepel,’ said the Sister, ‘ if I tell you that our Janie had a fault, you won’t think hardly of her or of

us ? A girl of fifteen is not often perfect, and we are sometimes obliged to reprove, or even punish, those under our charge ; and yet I assure you there was not a peison in the house, woman or child, who did not love poor Janie.’ ‘ I am to understand, then, that she was under punishment ?’ Sister Louisa shook her head slightly and sighed. She felt that it was difficult to make this yoang man understand that girls under fifteen were sometimes exceedingly trying to their elders and superiors; hut she would do her best. ‘ Janie was very affectionate,’ she said, ‘ but passionate in temper and obstinate when thwarted. She had a curious amount of pride—much more than one usually finds in so young a girl or one of her extraction. Her high spirits too were a snare to her. She was reproved three days ago for laughing aloud in chapel; and,, as she showed an unsubmissive spirit, she was sent into a room alone in order to meditate. Into this room one of our lay Sisters went by accident, not knowing that Jane Wood was there for seclusion, and began to talk to her. This young woman, Martha by name, came from the neighbourhood of Beechfield, and happened to mention Mrs Rumbold.’

‘ Ah, I see ! Hubert exclaimed involuntarily. ‘ Janie questioned her about the place —questioned her particularly, I believe, about a gentleman that she remembered. I think, Mr Lepel, that she must have been thinking of yourself, according to the description that Martha tells us she gave of him ; but Martha could not tell her your name, which it seems the child did not know. It was natural perhaps that Martha should pass on to the subject of the tragedy at Beechfield — the murder of Mr Sydney Yane and the fate of he murderer.’

Sister Louisa paused for a moment —it seemed to her that the young man’s dark handsome face had turned exceedingly pale. He was leaning against the wall, close to the window; he moved aside a little, as if he did not wish her to see his face, and begged her to proceed with her story. She went on :

‘ Martha’s tale at this point becomes confused; either she is not sure of what she said or is reluctant to repeat it. Some slur, some imputation was no doubt thrown upon the name of Janie’s father; and I believe that she thought that Matha knew the story and was insulting her. At any rate, the whole establishment was roused by the sound of screams proceeding from the room. We rushed thither and found Matha crouching in a corner, shrieking hysterically, and declaring that Miss Wood was going to murder her ; while Janie poor Janie ’ ‘ I can imagine it,’ said Hubert, in alow tone ; while Sister Louisa paused for breath and perhaps to recover the calmness that she had lost.

* Our poor Janie,’ proceeded the kind-hearted woman, ‘ was like one who had gone mad. She was white as death, her eyes were flaming, her hands clenched , but all sh# seemed able to say were the words, £ My father was innocent innocent innocent!’ I should think that she repeated the words a hundred times. Greatly to our sorrow, Mr Lepel, the whole story then came out. We could not silence either Martha or poor Janie—who, I really think, did not know what she was saying. In spite of our efforts to keep the matter quiet in a very short time the whole house Sisters, boarders, servants all knew Jane Wood’s sad story.’ She noted the rigid lines about Mr Lepel’s mouth as he stepped forward from the window and spoke in a low stern tone, ‘ Was that impossible to prevent P It seems incredible to me. I hope’ —almost savagely— ‘ that you have punished for her extraordinary folly the woman who did the mischief ?’

‘ She has been sent away,’ said Sister Louisa, sadly ; but her punishment has not mended matters, Mr Lepel. The excitment in the school was immense unprecedented. We

felt that it would be incumbent upon', us to send Janie away for a time—until the story was to some extent forgotten.’ And you told her so ? Women have hearts of stone !’ cried Huberts He forgot that his conduct had not hitherto proved that his own was very soft.

* I hope that we were not unkind to her, said Sister Louisa, with gentle dignity. ‘lt was to be for a time only. We wanted her to go down to Leicestershire with two of our sisters for a few weeks j we thought it advisable that she should have a change. The Reverend Mother herself mentioned the plan to her. I noticed that she changed colour very much when it was proposed. She made one of her sharpspeeches quite in her old way.’ I see—l am not good enough to as sociate with the other girls,’ she said. We told her that it- was no such thing —that we loved her as much as ever —that it was only for her own good that she was to leave St. Elizabeth’s for a time; but I am afraid that it was all of no avail. She listened to what we said with a face of stone. And in the morning—• in the morning, Mr Lepel, we found that she was gone.’

‘ Gone ! Without the knowledge of any of you P’ ‘ Entirely. She must have stolen out in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep. It is a wonder that no one heard her; but she is very light-footed and very nimble.. She must have climbed the garden, fence. She had left a folded piece of paper on her bed—it was a note for me.’ ‘ May I see it ?’ asked Hubert,, eagerly. Sister Louisa drew it from amongthe folds of her long black robes. He turned away from her while he read the blurred hastily-written lines in which Janie said good-bye to thewoman whom she had loved. He did not want Sister Louisa to see his face. He was more touched by her story than he liked to show. 4 Dearest Mother Lousia,’ Janiehad written in her unformed girlish hand, — 4 Don’t be more angry and grieved than you can help ! If they had all been like you, I would have stayed. But everyone will despise me now. I shall go to some place where nobody knows me, and earn my own living. Please forgive me. Ido love you and St. Elizabeth’s very much but I must go away —I must! I can’t bear to stay now that everybody knows all about me. I shall change my name, so you need not look forme.’ The letter was simply signed 4 Janie ’ nothing more. Hubert handed it back to its owner with a grave word of thanks. 4 How is it,’ he said, 4 that I did. not hear of her leaving you before I came to Winstead ? Mrs Bumbold issupposed to give me information of importance respecting the girl. I have not had a word from her.’

‘ Nor have we, although we wroteand telegraphed at once. lam afraid that she is away from home. We did not know your address, or that you-, were interested in her.’

‘Of course not. I kept that matter to myself,’ said Hubert, gloomily. ‘ It seems that it was' foolish of me to do so. May I ask what steps you have taken, to discover the poor child ?’

The Sisters, he found, had not been remiss in their endeavours. They had placed themselves in communication with a London detective ; they had consulted the local police; they had made inquiries at rail way-stations-and roadside inns. But as yet they had heard nothing of the fugitive. The girl was strong and active, a. good walker and runner ; it seemed, pretty evident that that she had not gone by trains or by ordinary roads. She must have plunged into the fieldsand taken a cross-country route insome direction. Probably she had gone to London ; and in London shewas tolerably safe from pursuit. ‘ Had she money ?’ Hubert asked o£‘ Sister Louisa.

‘ Not a penny.’ * She will be driven back to you by hunger.’ ‘I am afraid not. She was too proud to return to us of her own free will.’ ‘ Is she good looking ? ’ * ;No, I think not,’ said the Sister, a little doubtfully. ‘ She was tall for her age, thin and unformed ; she had .a brown skin and hair cut short like : a boy’s. Her eyes were beautiful — large and dark; but she was too pale vand awkward-looking to be pretty. When she had a colour —oh, then it *was a different matter ?’

Hubert took away with him the full descriptionof Jane Wood’s clothes rand probable appearance, and bn reaching London went straight to the office of a private detective. To this man he told as much of Jane s story as was necessary, and declared him--self ready to spend any reasonable amount of money so long as there was a possibility of finding the lost girl. The dectective wae not very hopeful of success; the runaway had hrd two days’ start —enough for a complete change of identity. Probably she had put on boy’s clothes rand was lurking about the streets of London.

‘ But she had no money,’ Hubert urged. ‘She’ll get some somehow,’ the detective answered quietly. Por days and weeks Hubert lived rln a fever of suspense. He had set his heart on finding the girl and sending her back to St. Elizabeth’s —or elsewhere. Some kind of home must be secured for her. For the sake of his ’•own peace of mind, he must know that she was safe. He could not forgive Mrs Rumbold for having been absent in Switzerland when Sister Louisa wrote to her of Jane Wood’s flight, and thus being unable to inform him of it immediately. He had an unreasonable conviction that, if he had known at once of Jane’s disappearance, be -would have succeeded in tracking her. But for this opinion he really had no ground at all.

So days and weeks and months went on, and brought with them the • conviction that the girl was lost for ever. Nothing was heard of her either at Winstead or Beechfield, and Hubert Lepel was obliged at last to acknowledge that all his efforts had been in vain. The girl refused to be benefited any longer; the wild blood in her veins asserted itself; she was -probably leading the outcast life from which he thought that he had rescued her ; she had gone down the tide of poverty and vice and crime which floods the London streets.

He shuddered sometimes -when he thought of it. He haunted the doors of theatres, the courts and alleys of East London, looking sombrely for a face which he would not have known if he had seen it. He fancied that Andrew Westwood’s daughter would bear her history in her eyes —the great dark eyes that he remembered as her sole beauty when she was a child. It was a mad fancy, born of his desire to atone for a wrong that he had done to an innocent man. The wrong «eemed greater than ever when it darkened the life of a weak young ■ girl and tortured the heart of the innocent man’s own child. (To be continued.)