Through Passion’s Cate,

Southern Cross, Volume 13, Issue 20, 12 August 1905, Page 13

Through Passion’s Cate,

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

[COPYRIGHT.]

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Chapters I and ll. — The Rev. William Carbis, vicar of Polmorran, accidentally meets Leonard Varcoe on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Leonard* Varcoe alludes to his family troubles without reserve, but there is no sympathy between the two. The Yarcoes of Caerlerrick Castle have always been an unfortunate family, and Leonard, after an abrupt leave taking, debates with himself whether to return to his ancestral home or not. His meditations are interrupted by a woman’s moan, and he finds that a beautiful young girl has fallen down the steep bankvfmd might have been cipitated into the palley below but for a projecting bush, while B,er artist’s materials have scattered themselves down in the dale. He first rescues her and then her belongings but on his return to her side he finds she has fainted with pain. Leonard aids her recovery with brandy, and then, after receiving instructions from Miss Sherwin, goes to her home for assistance. Mrs Sherwin, Mona’s step-mother, is a large, coarse woman, who evidently drinks. However, she despatches assistance to her stepdaughter, and concludes that this young man is another victim to Mona’s charms. She at once builds an air-castle which is to bring Mona into a stone castle, and to place her on a high rung of the social ladder. These views she promptly imparts to her husband, a cranky invalid, whom she entirely dominates. CHAPTER 111. The Episode op George Darrell Mrs Sherwin entered the drawingroom, grasping in her large band a lace handkerchief, which she flicked across her eyes for a moment as she swept over to the lounge upon which Mona reclined. 1 My dear Mona—l am so distressed ! How do you feel now, child ? Dear me ! You do look white ! How very unfortunate !’ A shudder passed through the girl’s frame as her stepmother stooped and kissed her effusively, while a strong aroma of brandy was wafted over the lounge and the recumbent figure thereon. ‘ I am somewhat better now, thank you,’ Mona murmured faintly, although her looks and voice belied her words. 1 When Doctor Richards comes I shall be all right again.’ ‘ I wish he would come. What can be delaying him F’ Mrs Sberwin wheeled round to the window, and gazed out to the road beyond the gate. ‘No sign of him yet ; but he cannot be long now.’ Then a sudden impulse caused her to turn to Leonard "Varcoe, who was leaning against the mantlepiece, his deep-set eyes fixed uneasily upon the reclining form on the lounge. ‘ Cheer up, Mr Varcoe, she will be quite well to-morrow. The dear girl is dreadfully nervous, and imagines things are worse than they really

BY VICTOR POWER, Author of “'The Secret of the Garden Room,” “ The Mystery of Melanie,” “A Secret Bond,” “ A Perilous Venture,” &c.

are. Why, you look as rueful as if you thought she was going to die. But I assure you she will do no such thing. Thanks to you, she has been snatched from what might otherwise have been a very dangerous predicament. lam sure she will thank you properly when she is in a condition to do so. You certainly deserve it—and much more than that !’ A vivid carmine tinge dyed Mona’s pale, shrinking face. Almost every word of this voluble outburst grated on her sensitive ear. She felt humiliated at the thought that Leonard Varcoe should behold her father’s wife in her present very evident state ; and Leonard, gazing at the girl, instantly divined her feelings, and hastened to save the position, ‘ I hear the sound of an approaching vehicle,’ he said, quickly. ‘lt may be the doctor at last. I shall run out and see if you don’t mind.’ And not waiting for Mrs Sherwin’s permission, he hastily quitted the room. * What a warm-hearted, noble fellow !’ Mrs Sherwin exclaimed thickly, turning impetuously to her stepdaughter. ‘lt is really a pleasure to meet such a man as that. You should have seen him, Mona, when he came here to announce the news of your accident. Why, the poor fellow’s voice positively broke down ! I really felt awfully for him, Mona. ‘ And Dolly Vereker told me all about him on Thursday afternoon. The Verekera and Mr Varcoe chanced to be staying in the same hotel in Paris for a few days last spring, and they took quite a fancy to him and asked him to visit them when next be happened to be in England. I daresay Mrs Vereker had a motive in issuing this invitation ; she thought, possibly, that he would be an eligible parti for Dolly, However, I think— I have a faint suspicion—that Leonard Varcoe will waste very little of his thoughts on poor Dolly Vereker, after to-day !’ And Mrs Sherwin burst into a shrill langb, and again whisked round to the window, while that crnel color deepened in Mona’s face, and she checked the indignant words that tose to her quivering lips, Mrs Sherwin’s thoughts were busy. For the past year or two she had been building on the hope of Mona’s making a wealthy marriage. The truth was that Mona’s step-mother had run heavily into debt, unknown to the long-suffering Major, and she was at her wits’ end to devise some means of freeing herself from her deepening embarrassment. Her only

chance of rescue seemed to centre in

this one possibility : that Mona should become the wife of a rich man.

Mrs Sherwin had gauged her stepdaughter’s character well enough to be perfectly satisfied as to the fact that Mona —were she in a position to do so—would generously respond to the demands of her father’s wife.

Because of this eager desire—a desire whetted day by day by her increasing pecuinary difficulties—Mrs Sherwin bad been especially enraged at the bygone episode of George Darrell, and had bad no scruples whatsoever in playing an extremely heartless and treacherous part in her stepdaughter’s luckless love-story.

‘But it is all for the best,’ she had pacified her scruples of conscience, at the time, by thinking. ‘ln any case, she could never have married Greorge Darrell. It would have meant poverty and misfortune for her all the days of her life.’ Just now, as Mona lay back against the cushions, the girl’s thoughts had reverted to that never-to-be-forgotten episode of a year before, her meeting with George Darrell and all that it had led to.

Strolling, one September afternoon, through the woods of Leigh, Mona Sherwin had coma on the young artist busily transferring to his canvas a charming vista of the wooded valley —the silver river—and a picturesque glimpse of the Clifton Downs beyond.

Almost at the same moment two acquaintances of Mona’s had appeared on the scene, no others indeed than Dolly Vereker and her mother, who, it seemed, had met the young man in Ilfracombe some weeks before, and who now entered into a lively conversation with him.

Mona Sherwin found herself very speedily drawn into this conversation and informally introduced to George Darrell—and as she looked into the artist’s face and listened to his rich, mellow voice, a strange excitement thrilled in her veins, and she felt, that her lonely, colourless existence had suddenly altered, and that this magic hour marked the beginning of a new epoch in her life. This fateful meeting was but the first of many others. The Verekers invited the young artist to Roseville, and there he and Mona next came together, and in the course of their conversation George Darrell suggested that the girl should cultivate her evident taste for art, and went on to say that he would be very pleased indeed to give her a few preliminary lessons in painting.

From this day forward Mona lived in a blissful dream. She frequently met George Darrell, and her progress in her newly-adopted work was wonderfully rapid and promising. To the Leigh woods Mona often brought her easel and her brushes, and found Darrell waiting for her in some picturesque spot; and one day at last —just three weeks after their first meeting—George Darrell took her hands in his, and looked down into her eyes, and confessed his heart’s secret, which, he declared, he found

it impossible to conceal any longer.

He loved her—he had loved her from the afternoon of their first meeting—he had not dared to tell her so until row, although he had often been on the verge of a disclosure. And Mona’s own secret shone in her shyly uplifted eyes, as she listened to Darrell’s impassioned words ; and a moment later she found herself in his arms, and their lips bad touched. After this they met daily, and George Darrell often seemed to be on the point of entering into full particulars as to his hopes and dreams, his past life, his present position, his future prospects ; but always he checked himself at the very outset, while a shadow of pain rested ominously on his handsome care-worn face.

Of his personal history—hia family story —Mona, knew absolutely nothing. All she did know, or indeed cared to know just thee, was that she loved him with the first and only love of her life. Then at last this happy dream was rudely awukened. One afternoon, just as Mona was preparing for ber customary walk to the Leigh woods, her step-mofher entered the room, followed almost immediately by the Major

Mona ever afterwards shrank from recalling the scene that followed :to her it was a terribly painful one, and was, in truth, the death-knell of all her happiness. Her meetings with George Darrell were to come to an end at once ; indeed, there was to be no further acquaintance between them of any kind. Such was the fiat, and Mona was compelled to write to her lover and explain, aa best she could, what bad occurred. On the following day Darrell left Clifton ; but not before be and Mona —despite every difficulty—had succeeded in obtaining a brief farewell interview together. Once again, and for the last time, passionate vows of love and unalterable constancy were exchanged between them, and with a mutual decision to arrange a meeting soon again, they parted. But a fortnight later a brief note from George Darrell reached Mona—just a few hurried lines, to the effect that he could not in honour hold her to any vows and promises she had made him —that it was wiser and better to forget their ‘ ill-fated and hopeless attachment,’ and to abandon the thought of a subsequent meeting.

The girl was stunned when she r'ead this letter; but, little by little, she forced herself to accept the inevitable ; and in a few miserable, heart-broken words she replied to Darrell’s note, and brought the luckless matter to an end.

It was on that same day that she had pencilled Mrs Browning’s lines on the back of Darrell’s portrait ; and, in truth, Mona Sherwin felt thenceforward that she hud, in a sense, ‘ died ’ now that 4 the dream was past ’ —died, so far as taking any further interest in her wretched life was concerned.

But an additional and still more

cruel shock was before her. One day, some months later, Mrs Sherwin returned from a week’s visit to London, and announced to Mona that she had met on the previous afternoon in Regent street —George Darrell and his recently - wedded bride ! ‘ He tried to avoid me, but I was determined to confront him,’ Mrs Sherwin said, ‘ And then, in rather a shame-faced way, be introduced his wife to me —he has been married only a week or two. The woman must be forty, if she is an hour, and is not even passable to look at. But when I had left them Darrell ran after me, and in a hurried, apologetic way (though why he thought it necessary to adopt this tone with me is not quite clear) gave me to understand that he was forced, through pecuniary difficulties, to marry her—that she was a rich American widow, and that he had met her exactly a week after his departure from Clifton.’ This was the crowning blow : and Mona Sherwin felt humiliated to the very dust. George Darrell’s last letter then—the letter which she had believed to be the outcome of his keen and unselfish sense of horn ur —had, after all, been inspired by sordid, mercenary motives ! But could she believe it ! It seemed incredible to her. And yet why should her step-mother voluntarily subject her to the gratuitous and unnecessary cruelty of such a statement —if, indeed, it were not tco bitterly true P For months after this discovery Mona stole about the place like a ghost of her former self; then, by degrees, she seemed to force herself to resume an interest in her painting. Perhaps it was that, in her heart of hearts, she could not bring herself to accept fully her step-mother’s story —could not bring herself to uproot the old love : for ‘ old ’ it now seemed to her —and, perhaps, the sole consolation left to ter was the pursuit of the art which he had first taught her, and which still —even still—seemed to link her with the happy hours that were gone. But Mona’s home-life, from this lime forward, became lees than ever endurable to her, and she longed passionately for some means of escape from a loathed bondage. And now—although as yet such a thought had never occurred to her—the means of escape were within her reach at last. CHAPTER IY. A Crisis —Leonard Yarcoe Speaks. Dr. Richards’ report as to Mona Sherwin’s injury was of a reassuring nature. The girl had sustained only a severe bruise and a slight sprain, nothing worse. And when Leonard Yarcoe called at The Bungalow next day to inquire for her, Mis Sherwin informed him that her step-diiugbter was very much better and would be able to appear at dinner that night. ‘ And j have just dropped a line to the Yerekers asking them to dine

j informally with us to-night, Mr Yarcoe, and requesting them to bring you also. So I hope you will come ?’ ‘ Oh, certainly, if they will permit me,’ he answered, smiling, ‘lam in their hands, you see, just at present. ‘ And it will not be their fault, Mr Yarcoe, if you succeed in slipping out of their hands ever again,’ Mrs Sherwin returned with her shrill laugh. ‘Mrs Yereker is born matchmaker, you know, and Dolly, poor girl Well, she is getting on, you see !’ And Mrs Sherwin nodded significantly and shrugged her ample shoulders, ‘ I am really pleased to hear that Mias Sherwin is so much better,’ Leonard Yarcoe hastened to say, not choosing to notice the drift of Mrs Sherwin’s words. Fes ; thanks to you, Mr Yarcoe ! Indeed, we all feel indebted to you, and my husband is so anxious to make your acquaintance to-night. He was quite unfit to s< e you yesterday. He is deeply attached to Mona, and has been a good deal troubled about her during the past year.’ ‘ I am sorry for that,’ Yarcoe murmured. He knew very well what was coming, and for the life of him he could not withstand the temptation to encourage Mrs Sherwin to proceed. ‘ I am very sorry for that—very !’ ‘lt was a very absurd affair—mere’y the usual silly infatuation of a very young and very romantic girl. It was all owing to a chance meeting, Mr Yarcoe. Mona, one day, just about a year ago, happened to be introduced by the Yerekers to a certain George Darrell —an artist —who was at the time painting some of the picturesque scenes in the neighbourhood ; and the silly girl fancied she was in love with him for a few weeks. ‘ But, of course, her father and I stamped it out the moment we became aware of what was .really going on, and Mr Darrell took to his heels and straightway met a rich American widow whom he married a few months later. Poor Mona. I really pitied her at the time, but the little experience has done her good, I think, and her character is more formed, and she has got more sensible and steady since then,’ But bed she really loved George Darrell, Mrs Sherwin ?’ ‘ Surely your knowledge of the world, Mr Yarcoe, ought to render such questions, seriously asked, quite superfluous. Are not girls of that age and that type always contracting these passing maladies P They seem incidental and necessary to such girls—just as whooping cough and measles are to children "Well, Mona has had her whooping cough and has got over it, I am thankful to say.’ ‘ I am not sure of that. I suspect that she still has a hankering after this George Darrell. Hia portrait is preserved in her portfolio, at all events- I happened to see it yesterday when I was replacing the scattered contents of the book.’

‘ Well, the man is married, anyway,’ Mrs Sherwin said, laughing. So that disposes of him, I should

think ! And if I were yon, Mr Yarcoe,’ she continued, obeying one of her characteristic impulses to hit the nail on the bead, ‘ I should nob worry over the matter one way or other. Let bygones be byones, and go in and win the girl for yourself!

Leonard Yarcoe started and coloured ; then in an embarassed way, he began to stroke his heavy, dark moustache.

‘Have I frightened you, Mr Yarcoe. Tour continental experiences have not inured you, possibly, to such plain speaking.’ ‘ Well—no. And yet I am not sorry that you have spoken so very much to the point. The truth is, Mrs Sherwin, I have fallen in love' with your step-daughter. There.

‘ My dear fellow, I saw that yesterday for myself.’ ‘And I have decided to see the matter out, without delay,’ Leonard Yarcoe said, with a quiver in his grave voice.

‘ Well, l am sare I wish you every success, Mr Yarcoe. And you will be successful—you must and shall be, if it comes to that! I shall talk the matter over with the major—and I know well he will be just as pleased as 1 am when he hears the news.’

Mrs Sherwin hastened in triumph to her husband, the moment Leonard Yarcoe had left the Bungalow ; and before she quitted the smoke-room she had fully impressed upon the major the advisableness—the necessity indeed—of arranging this matter with all reasonable dispatch. ‘ Delays are dangerous, Fred,’ Mrs Sherwin said. ‘ And it is not every day that a penniless girl knocks against such a piece of good fortune as this.’

‘No doubt you are right, Bella,’ the major meekly responded; he had never dared to cross the will of his formidable better-half since a certain stormy scene they had had while still enjoying their honeymoon in Paris.

On that memorable occasion the second Mrs Sherwin, having exhausted her verbal armoury, had had recourse to muscular methods of argument, and had actually brought her clenched fists to bear upon the major’s views—as well as upon bis alarmed person. When Leonard Yarcoe entered the drawing-room at the Bungalow that night be saw at once that matters were, so far, entirely successful. Mrs Sherwin greeted him with a radiant smile, and led him forward to the arm chair wherein reclined the flurried Major. The two men shook hands, with some murmured platitudes ; and almost at the same instant Mona entered the room.

She looked very pale, bub even more lovely, Leonard Yarcoa thought, than on the previous day. Her darkgrey eyes, with their dark brows and lashes, her small, straight nose, her pathetic, coral mouth, with its full, flexible lips, her beautiful oval face, framed in its dark-brown, wavy hair, all formed such a picture as captiva-

ted the mao’s senses beyond further possibility of escape. Daring that night he devoted himself assiduously to Mona Sherwin ; greatly to the chagrin of Mrs Yereker and Dolly, whose blank countenances intensely amused the elated Mrs Sherwin. And on the following day Leonard Yarcoa again presented himself at The Bungalow, and yet again on the morning after. By this time Yarcoe’s as yet unspoken intentions were quite plain even to Mona herself j and an agitating conflict was going on within her heart.

She bated her life at Tlie Bungalow 5 and tlie prospect of her dreary future there appalled her. Her memories of her past dream of happiness were too deeply coloured with the hues of disillusion and bitterness to afford her any sustained satisfaction. Whenever she dwelt upon that bygone episode, the cruel doubts she could not but entertain as to George Daarrell—even though she may not altogether have accepted her step-mother’s story as a true one—filled her with pain, humiliation, and sometimes proud resentment.

Then, on the other hand, her intense gratitude towards Leonard Varcoe for his great kindness to her since their first strange meeting, and for his evident intention to propose a step to her which would mean an effectual deliverance from the life she loathed, formed a very important factor in Mona Sher win’s mental struggle.

And day by cay, just at this critical time, Mona found herdife at The Bungalow harder and harder to bear. Carried away by her sense of elation at the near approach of the event she had so long wished for—Mona’s marriage to a rich man, and her own release from the intolerable strain of secret debt —Mrs Sherwin abandoned herself more and more freely, recklessly, shamelessly, to her besetting vice.

Her usual state now every da and all through the day, horrified hor stepdaughter and reduced the unfortunate major to nervous prostration at last.

One afternoon, about the middle of September, a crisis came. Mrs Sherwio bad coarsely and directly given. Mona to understand that when Leonard Yarcoe made his matrimonial offer, the girl was at once to accept it ; and Mona, disgusted and indignant at the tone and words employed by her stepmother, impetuously declared that she had not the slightest intention of falling in with any such, design.

Then came a most distressing scene.

Mrs Sherwin—infuriated at this-, open rebellion—rushed, or rather staggered, across the room and struck the girl with brutal violence; with such force, indeed, that Mona, whov was standing by the drawing-room window at the moment, reeled back and fell, her head striking against the window-frame in her fall, wilk. the result that her cheek sustained an ugly cut from which the bloodflowed freely.

Ib was at this moment that the drawing-room d >or was opened, and Leon ird Varcoe startled by the crash —hurriedly entered the room For an initant be paused, as if thunderstruck. Mona still lay where she had fallen. The infuriated woman, with •blazing eyes and cheeks, her hand •still uplifted mechanically, haifstoopad over the prostrate girl. ‘Shame, shame, Mrs Sherwin !’ Leonard Varcoe cried, as he rushed forward, after that momentary, shocked pause. ‘ This is diabolical of you ! How con'd you treat her so ? Sub ib shall never again occur — never !’ He fell on his knees, and lifted the .girl in his arms. ‘Mona, darling,’ he murmured passionately, the words breaking from his lips unrestrainably, ‘ you must give me the right to protect you from this moment forward. You must come away with me, as my wife, Mona, from this dreadful house !’ CHAPTER Y. In the Dead of Hight. Before Leonard Varcoe left the Bungalow that afternoon Mona Sherwiu had yielded to all his entreaties —had even consented to a speedy marriage; but not before she had touched on the details (already known to him) of her meeting with George Darrell and of the attachment that had arisen therefiom. The girl’s voice faltered, and a painful blush dyed her cheeks, as she entered upon this distressing story ; •and Leonard Varcoe, obeying an impulse of chivalrous unselfishness, placed one of his hands across her quivering lips. ‘Enough, Mona, darling! Mrs Sherwin has already told me of that occurrence. Let the matter rest between us henceforward,’ ‘But —but ’ She hesitated; then, as the hot colour ebbed from her cheeks, she broke forth impetuously : ‘ I cannot bring myself to believe all that my step-mother says about George Darrell. I cannot believe that he really acted as she declares. There must be something beneath the entire matter, of which I know nothing—some extenuating circumstance, which if explainel ’ ‘ Mona, I beg of you to say no more about this !’ Leonard cut in, a dark flush rising to his face. ‘ I know very well, of course, and I duly appreciate your motives in touching on the matter at all to me. Your sense of honour shrinks from the thought of practising any deception towards me —you wish me to know exaclly that, although you will consent to be my wife, you cannot promise me, as yet at least, an undivided affection. In spite of everything, you still cling on to the old dream !’ There was a tone of bitterness in his low voice, and his dark eyes blazed with a wrathful fire.

‘ I only hope, for his own sake, Mona, that George Darrell shall not cross my path in the future!’ The words burst from his lips with a sudden access of jealous fury. Mona started, and glanced appealingly into his face.

‘ Oh, hush, hush ! Do not talk like that, Leonard. Do not look like that. You terrify me,’ A shiver of apprehension passed through her, and a strange presage of evil vague, undefinable, yet startling—chilled her, like a touch of ice.

‘ Forgive me, darling—l am sorry for speaking so,’ Leonard Yarcoe murmured, as he drew her into his arms, and kissed her unresponsive lips. ‘Mona, I must conquer my jealous madness. I must endeavour to win all your love —to draw you away in spite of yourself, from that unfortunate infatuation. One or two questions now before we drop the subject of Oeorge Darrell for ever more. Who was the fellow? Where did he come from ? Had he —had he any brothers—or sisters, do you know P’

His mind had reverted to the portrait of the artist, which he had seen, and to the extraordinary resemblance

it, had borne to another face. Bat Mona was unable to give him any information whatever on the point. George Darrell had told her nothing as to bis own personal history. He always seemed indeed to shrink from the subject as though the thought of it caused him embarrassment and pain.

‘Well, let us drop the subject also, Mona,’ Leonard Varcoe said. ‘lt has passed away—we must try to forget it. Bat I shall not know an hour’s peace or happiness, Mona, until you are really mine. I must endeavour to persuade you to marry me almost at once ; and I shall run down to Oaerlerrick, to arrange for your homecoming, some day before the end of this week.’

Leonard Varcoe gained his point : Mona consented to become his wife during the first week of October. Owing to General Varcoe’s recent death, the marriage was to be a perfectly private one. Leonard and the major talked over business affairs, settlements, and so forth, and Varcoe’s lawyers were hurriedly advised to make all the requisite arrangements, Matters have come to this point, Leonard Varcoe started at last for the old home in. Cornwall, which for the previous twelve long years he bad never seen ; and on the last night of September—a stormy night, with a pallid moon fleeing between ragged, driving clouds —he arrived, on a hired fly from the distant station, at the ivy-covered grand old pile of Oaerlerrick castle.

As he drove along the winding avenue, between the magnificent oaks, beeches, cedars and Spanish chestnuts, hia dark face looked pale and apprehensive, and a strange, thrilling excitement tugged at hia heartstrings and caused his firm lips to quiver, despite of his every effort to be calm.

And when he stood once again in the vast, pannelled hall of Caerlerrick, while Adam and Sarah Hichens —the ancient housekeeper and housekeeper—welcomed him, with tears in their Celtic eyes, his voice faltered, and he could only wring their gnarled hands in silence, and gaze with a shrinking glance which vaguely chilled and repelled them —into their faces.

‘ Aw, Maa ter Leonard, io’s proud and rejoiced I be to see ’ee at home again in the old spot!’ Sarah Hiohens said, in trembling tones. But why didn’t ’ee drop a line, Maaster Leonard to say ’ea was a-coming ?’ ‘ Well, the fact of it is, Sarah, I had not decided on coming so soon — and (hen certain circumstances caused me to stait to-day quite unexpectedly,’ Leonard said, lying easily and naturally. ‘ Sarah, I am extremely tired after my journey, and that seven miles’ bumping and rocking in that dreadful vehicle : so I shall ask you to hold over all questions until to-morrow—and, in the meantime, you might get me some-thing—anything-—to eat.’ He was passing along the hall, on his way to the foot of the great stair, when old Adam hastily followed, and placed a detaining hand on his master’s arm.

‘ Stay, stay, Master Leonard —for one rainnifc. I want to ax ’ee a question, Tell me, Master Leonard, where is poor dear Maaster John P Be he alive or dead ?’ Leonard Yarcoe recoiled a little at these words, and his eyes dropped to the floor.

‘ I—l fear he is dead, Adam. I’ve lost sight of him for a long time. Indeed, I know nothing whatever about him, I’m sorry to say.' He passed on rapidly to the front of the stair, while Adam and Sarah stood gazing after him : then, when his tall, slim figure had disappeared, Sarah Hichens turned to her husband and shook her grey head to and fro. ‘ Lor-a-mussey, Adam, man, doan’t the world change folk rarely ! Blest ef a didn’t feel half afeard to speak a word to him at all !’

‘ Iss —ias, S irah,’ the old man assented. ‘ Thim furrin parts baint good for folks, seems to me. Batter for un to ha’ sted at home. Iss, fye.

Bat then th’ oald general was too hard on his sons : they hid to go—they couldn't stand him.’ Leonard Varcoe had, meanwhile, almost mechanically found bis way to the room he had occupied before his departure from Caerierrick—a room which old Sirah had always kept, neat and trim, always in readiness for the possible return, at any moment, of the young ‘ Maaeter.’

‘ Thank Heaven, the first ordeal is over!’ Leonard Varese muttered, as he opened the small Gladstone he had carried up from the hall, an 1 began to make a hurried toilet.

The autumnal night-wind moaned and shuddered at the windows, and now and then, during pauses in this dismal sound, there came to Leonard’s ears a subdued, sullen roar, deepening at times to a measured crash : the sound of the Atlantic breakers on the beach below the wooded park of Caerierrick.

‘ This place would drive me into a mad-mad house before six months, were it not for Mona,’ Leonard said to himself. ‘lt was lucky for me that she crossed my path just at the critical moment.’

‘ When he descended to the diningroom— panelled, like the kali, sustaining on its time - blackened walls the portraits of miny a dead-and-gone Varcoe of Caerlerrick and Grulvalloo —Leonard found a glorious wood-fire roaring and crackling in the wide, tall grate, and illuminating the vast dinner-table, on which the cut glass and silver appointments flashed in the mingled light of this genial fire and of shaded lamps.

Dinner was served about La T f an hour later, with many apologies from old Adam as to the hurriedly-prepared repast : but Leonard Varcoe’s appetite seemed to have failed him. He barely tasted the dishes set before him, greatly to Adam’s disappointment.

‘ I feel tired, Adam, and I’ve a beastly headache. I may take a stroll about the park before I go to bed, in order to get a whiff of the sea air. You need not wait up for me. I will take a latch-key. I shall require nothing more to-night.’

When the dinner-table had been cleared and Adam Hichens had finally withdrawn, Leonard Varcoe wheeled an arm chair to the hearth, and cast himsalf into it with a sigh of relief. ‘So far, so well. What time is it, I wonder?’ He consulted his watch. ‘ Only ten o’clock. I shall wait until the household is quiet before I start for Gulvalloe. One cannot be too careful.’

It wanted five minutes to midnight when at last Varcoe rose from the armchair, walked swiftly and lightly to the hall and threw on an overeoat hanging there. Then he took his bat and cane from the rack, and let himself out into the night, closing the door as noiselessly as possible behind him.

He plunged into the wild, wooded park, fitfully and dimly illuminated just now with the wan light of the moon, across which a black cloudrack was fleeing. The night wind moaned dismally in the spreading branches of the trees, the fading foliage of which shivered and rustled with a sound like a ghostly whisper.

In ten minutes Leonard Yarcoe’s path led him through a belt of wood, from which he emerged at last upon a heathy upland overlooking a narrow, rugged glen, a winding path leading down to it amid the ferns, rocks, gorse, and heather. The shadows of night shrouded this narrow glen, the ragged crags, the clinging bushes, tall bracken, and matted heath; but about a quarter of a mile away there was an opening between the high, rocky sides of the gorge, and in this opening Leonard now faintly descried in the moonlight the flash of white-crested billow's which were rolling sonorously inshore.

Hastily descending the winding path, Leonard Yarcoe soon found himself in the glen, and as he pressed rapidly onward he beheld within a hundred yards of him the steep roof, ivied chimneys and gables of a dark,

Wfiird-lookiaar building, projecting above a dense thicket of scrub oak and hazel. He q-iickened his steps until he reached the thicket, through, which a narrow path branched off from the ylen path trwards the desolate-looking house. The cl >nd-rack obscured the moon as Leonard entered hurriedly upon this path, and with swift, almost noiseless footsteps draw nearer and nearer to the ivied building.

But suddenly he paused—-startled, scarce trusting the evidence of his ears. A strange, muffled cry soundei from tte solitary house —a cry of d stress, of pain, of horror ; and as Leonard Yarcoe listened, appalled, that cry rang out more and more shrilly, and was followed by a crash, as of a door closed with terrific force.

CHAPTER YI, The Locked Room

A brief silence followed this mysterious crash, broken only by the shudder of the wind in the trees and the measured beat o£ the surge on the shingle below the glen ; but a moment or two later the cry again sounded, and Leonard Yarcoe, shaking off his first startled terror, dashed onward towards the house. After many twistings, the path led him to a high, ivy-grown wall, with a narrow wicket set in it; but this door was locked, and Leonard rapped loudly for admittance. Presently he heard the sound of an opening door, the shuffle of an approaching footstep within, and a quavering woman’s voice demanded nervously : ‘ Anyone there P Anyone knocking at the door ?’

‘ Yes, yes, Rath. I am here — Leonard Yarcoe. Open the door at once.’

‘ Lor-a-raity ! Maaster Leonard !’ cried the quavering voice ; and the footsteps hastened to the wicket, and a key was thrust into the lock. Just as the door was pulled open, with a discordant shriek of its rusty hinges, that shrill cry again issued from the old house ; and as Leonard Yarcoe s'epped beyond the open door he turned quickly to the pallid, trembling crone who had unlocked it for him.

‘ What is the matter, Ruth ? What is the meaning of this ?’

Ruth Trewhella hesitated. In the wan moonlight her withered face wore a witch-like scowl of terror.

‘ I looked the door—l was in danger o’ my life, Maaster Leonard,’ she gasped at lest. ‘ Ste, here’s the key. I nigk fainted on the stairs, as I came down this minnit.’

Leonard Yarcoe took mechanically the key which she extended towards him. He found himself in a small, grass-grown courtyard, with a gloomy copper-beech standing in the centre, and an ivied wall beyond. A tall, ivy-shrouded gable, with a narrow window at, the side, arrested bis gaze at once; for a dim light shone from this solitary window, and across the drawn blind a grotesque shadow seemed to sway to and fro. As he stared at the window the agonised cry rang forth once more, and, pausing no longer, Leonard dashed across the yard and entered the old house by an arched, stone doorway, at each side of which the ivy fell in a dense, matted pall. A flickering oil-lamp was placed on a coarse, deal table, just within the door ; and with hasty strides Leonard crossed the flagged hall to the creaking stair beyond, followed by Ruth Trewhella; but as he advanced, the shrill sounds became more and more violent, and as he rushed up the crazy stair cry after cry issued from the locked room above.

He reached the landing in ten seconds, and darted down the passage to the room in the gable. With trembling fingers he thrust the key into the lock, and dashed open the door.

Then he recoiled, with a cry of horror, and turned fiercely on Ruth Trewhella.

‘My Gpd! Why did you conceal the truth ?’ he gasped, with ashen lips. ‘ Why did you not send me word of —this !’

(To be Continued.)