“THE WAY OUT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 497, 29 October 1928, Page 5

“THE WAY OUT”

Or “HEMING’S PROBLEM.”

By

H. Maxwell.

CHAPTER Vl. (Continued) “You know,” said Heming to Roger, speaking very slowly and under great stress of emotion, “there are times when Heaven appears to bo too kind to one, when one feels frightened at" the profusion of benefits it showers down. I’m feeling like that at the present moment. Two days ago I was relieved of an incubus which had been crushing me for years. To-day you’ve told me something which will make my wife glad and happy, and reunite us afresh. Cicely’s happiness is secured by her forthcoming marriage to you. And here in my hand is an offer which marks the achievement of my highest ambition. The Premier wires offering me the Solicitor-Generalship. And that,” he said choking, “that means everything.” Roger jumped up and grasped his friend’s hand. “A thousand congratulations, Conway,” he said, “a thousand,” for he too was intensely moved. Sorrow compels and exacts sympathy, but it is a moot question whether a sudden and unexpected joy does not stand in greater need of it. Roger was intensely sympathetic because no one could appreciate as well as he the emotional workings of his friend's mind at this wonderful turning point in his career. To have been about to take one's life, to have been on the very verge and brink of the precipice of social and moral ruin, and then, in a moment as j it were, to find oneself on the topmost rung of the ladder that leads to 1 the richest fulfilment of all one’s hopes ! this can be an experience falling to the lot of few men. Well might Heming feel frightened at the culmination of benefits showered upon him! It was an occasion when a man

requires all the sympathy a staunch and understanding friend can give him, and Roger gave it in no stinting measure and of exactly the right quality; and yet if the' truth were known it is probable at that moment Roger stood more in dire need of help and sympathy than Edward Conway Heming.

He looked haggard and weary as he said with verve and sparkle the things that were exactly the right things, for it is only the curmudgeon and killjoy who damps the ardent happiness of another by the untimely intrusion of his own private griefs and worries. Heming utterly forgot his transient annoyance at Roger’s opposition to sending the suggested telegram. An ex-private-secretary to a First Sea Lord is a very small personage in comparison with a de facto SolicitorGeneral.

He had another telegram to send to his wife now. He had to write a long and careful letter of grateful acceptance to the Prime Minister. He had to reflect upon the stepping-stones which would carry him upward and onward. A Solicitor-General becomes an Attorney-General, and an AttorneyGeneral becomes Lord Chief Justice, Lord Chancellor —anything. Then there were important things to be done promptly. He would have to resign his seat in the House of Commons, and submit himself for re-election to his constituents. He represented Wilchester, a safe enough seat, and probably there would be no contest, but it would not be wise to count on that, and it with with his Parliamentary secretary, was necessary to communicate forthhis election agent, and the Party authorities in London. In fact, he was caught up immediately in a very whirl and turmoil of business, and Roger’s little affairs were swept clean out of his mind. “Well, I’d better get on to it,” he said, “you don’t mind my leaving you to your own resources. You’ll be able to nurse that tiresome ankle.” The irony of this remark was perhaps unconscious, but the voice was distinctly bored. “I shall be all right,” said Roger, “don’t worry about me.” “It’ll mean filling the house with visitors. I shall ask Elizabeth to return to-morrow without fail.” Heming’s thoughts were a thousand leagues from Roger. “Won’t that be rather hurrying her?”

Heming’s face became a study of perplexity. “Eh?” he said. “Oh. you’re thinking of your business? No, that won’t matter; she’s only gone, as we know,

on a wild-goose chase. I depend upon her enormously for the social side of my electioneering, and she does it amazingly well; so does Cicely for the matter of that. We shall be hard put to it to find accommodation for everybody.” “Does that mean you’ll want my room?” “My dear fellow, no,” said Heming cordially. “However full the house is, we shall always find a corner in it for you.” But as a matter of fact that is precisely what he had meant. Roger would be distinctly in the way at the present juncture. A ticket-of-leave man! If the truth leaked out, it would make an awkward complication at election time. Then he gave Roger a constrained smile and went briskly off to the library. And Roger went out and strolled about the grounds. It was a gloomy October afternoon,

with the sky darkening toward evening, and a chill mist rising. The trim lawns were dank and sodden, the neatly gravelled paths strewn with fluttering leaves; the trees, with their ragged boughs oscillating to the impetus of a fitful breeze, loomed through the heavy atmosphere like ghostly apparitions waving their arms as a warning to him to return to the house. The air was laden with mournful, depressing sounds. But he went on. Movement was better than sitting still. Movement offered him at least the chance of escaping from his own thoughts. Beyond the grounds was the park, divided from it by a sunk fence. He opened a gate, descended some steps, and struck into the first path he came to. The grass was long, and very wet. He was soon wet through; his thin boots made a soggy, squelching noise as he walked. The path took him to a wood. He hardly noticed his direction—indeed, until he was well inside the wood he was entirely unconscious of his immediate surroundings, and was only made aware of them by an obstacle encumbering the path. This obstacle effectually roused him from his fit of abstraction, for f t was the dead body of a man, whose skull had been beaten in by a stone. Overcoming his first natural sensation of horror, he peered at the face, and recognised the dead man as his assailant on the moor. He stood staring thus for a long time. Then he stared about him, looking here, there, and everywhere, eagerly and anxiously, but with a strange look of relief and hope. And it was quite dark when he got back to the house. , CHAPTER VII. —AT RBDDEKTON HALL. Lady Elizabeth and Cicely received a warm welcome from the old Earl. Not that the Earl was old as age counts nowadays, for his age was only iO, but his existence was so retired and his health so broken that his friends and neighbours had got into the way of speaking of him as the “Old Earl.” He was also the last Earl of Redderton, the last surviving male of his line, the title becoming extinct at his death; his only son, Lady Elizabeth’s brother, a naval officer of great promise, had lost his life some eight years before in the gallant rescue of a marine who had been washed overboard in a rough sea; the marine was saved, while the officer died of injuries received in effecting the rescue.

This was the great grief of the Earl’s life; he had immediately resigned bis Admiralty appointment and withdrawn to Redderton Hall, living there in the strictest retirement. Agricultural depression had hit him hard, so hard that his means

were very straitened; he virtually subsisted on his pension, and without it would have been unable to maintain the upkeep of his ancestral home. Still he lived in some style, his pride demanding a certain ceremony of service, and although he never entertained or accepted hospitality from his friends and equals he subscribed liberally to county charities, was a good and generous landlord, and was extremely kind to all in humble circumstances who could make out any sort of a claim on his time or purse. His poverty chiefly hurt him because it impaired his influence; his ideal in life was that of the old-time benevolent Grand Seigneur, and he could approach its attainment by living as he lived, his drastic, personal economies enabling him to dispense a wide and comparatively freehanded largesse.

His health was not as broken as was commonly reported; he affected ill-health because it afforded an ade-

quate excuse for his secluded existence without his having to confess lack of means as the actual cause of it.

In spite of his ascetic life he preserved an outward demeanour of great cheerfulness and contentment; but this was also a pose; in the privacy of his own apartments he was subject to prolonged periods of painful brooding; at heart he was a saddened old man, grieving over the death of his son, grieving over the extinction of his line, grieving over his own broken career and over narrowing influence. Yet he had this much consolation: he had escaped the compassionate pity of his equals, he had kept the flag of the family flying, the Redderton crest was still borne proudly on high. And to keep that flag flying, to keep the Redderton crest high, were the sole objects for which he now lived.

“My dear, must you go away so soon?” he said to Lady Elizabeth after dinner on the evening of their arrival. “It’s a long way to have come for so short a visit, Although one understands, of course, how badly Edward must want you. This is fine news of his. I always knew he’d get on. I suppose I mustn’t press you to stay.” The telegram announcing the offer of the Solicitor-Generalship had been duly received. “I shan’t go to-morrow 1 , father, but I’m afraid I must go the next day.” She would require a day for her Dartmoor investigation. She had not told the Earl the purposes of their journey to Devonshire.

“1 wonder how we can amuse you to-morrow,” he said to Cicely. “Mother and I are interested in a

convict named Carstairs, and we want to drive over to the prison and see him,” she answered. Cicely was not disposed to make a secert of the reason of their visit. “I dare say that can be managed,” he said. “And who is Carstairs?” Lady Elizabeth told him that Carstairs was a man who possessed information of great importance to a friend of theirs, and they wished to ask him certain questions. Her answer was deliberately vague. “Ah,” he said, “is that so? Then I advise you to telephone to the Governor at once and try to arrange a definite time for the interview tomorrow. If you say who you are, he’ll meet your wishes, if he possibly can, as he is under certain obligations to me.” There was a trace of naive aplomb and self-complacency in the way he gave this off, quite harmless and inoffensive. “I will telephone myself; he'll attend to me. To get an interview with a prisoner is not quite the easy matter you seem to suppose, my dear. Now give me the facts and the name again.” (To be Continued)