The Stronger Passion

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 639, 16 April 1929, Page 5

The Stronger Passion

BY

Rowan Glen .

A uthor of ‘ The Great Anvil. The Best Gift of All." ” For Love or for Gold." <!rc . &c

CHAPTER IX.—Continued. I He said that he was thinking only of Elaine, but added, incautiously, (certain half statements which showed that he was thinking more about him self. He pointed out that while MacKae had a certain position and a certain guaranteed income, the position of Maurice Rollingward was infinitely better, and his income and prospects infinitely greater. One of these day 3 he would be Lord Clayhurst, master ot great estates and securely placed in ! the highest stratum of England's ! society. .... . It was toward the end of their talk j that Macßae. himself entirely cool, j i had the satisfaction of knowing that I the older man had lost control tent- j f porarily. . ~ . j “i wish to God." the latter said, that , things had worked out differently. I wish for instance, that someone other ! than’you had saved Elaine that day ; when she was drowning m the loch 1 wish, too. that I hadn't given you my I word of honour to keep your secret. ‘‘Mv secret?” Macßae repeated. “Yes. You know what 1 mean I About having been a convict. j Macßae was smiling, and llieie a., no suggestion of bitterness m his i on e 1 when he replied: j -Isn’t that as much your seciet < lfe mine, Sir Charles? After all, it TT 1 * | vou who sent me to prison and time j proved that you made a pretty grave , mistake in doing that. I wasn t blame. You were, you see. He had spoken with so evident an air of good humour that the other, trained in a sense, to be suspicious, j was yet untouched by suspicion. “Do you seriously think, Macßae went on. “that if Elaine knew that 1 d been a convict—even an innocent one —she’d change toward me?” -I seriously do,” said Hart. "iou think you know my girl very well, Macßae, but I don't suppose you d presume to a knowledge of her comparable with mine. My view is that if she knew you'd worn the broad arrows it would alter her outlook very greatly/’ , . , “Mav I say, then, that 1 think you le beiug rather insulting to Elaine?” MacRae returned. “But there’s no reason why she should ever know that I was in prison. To my way of thinking, it’s justifiable for a man to keep certain secrets from bis wife, it be thinks that the telling of those secrets may distress ber. 1 don t see, though, that we can do any good in talking more about the matter now. Because Elaine is considering you. she won t agree to an engagement at the moment. She was forced into telling you that she and I had come to an agreement. Let things take their course.” “You mean?” “Well, as you know, Rollingward has been here this morning. He was frank and sportsmanlike. He says that he’s still going to try to get Elaine. If he does get her. good luck to him. If I get her —then good luck to her. and me! There's only one thing I'd advise. Sir Charles.” “And that?”

“Elaine and I have arranged to go motoring together this afternoon. No doubt you could stop that if you ! wished. My advice is that you don’t j try to stop her meeting me. If you do |—well, you must know more about | women than l do, but I’d take a guess j that you'd be hurrying her marriage ! with me along instead of preventing it.” “I’ll remember that,” Sir Charles remarked. “I stick to my opinion that I’m in your debt. Macßae, but I’ll be as frank as you’ve been and say that I’ll go on working for Rollingward as against you. And I usually get my way.” “I don’t.” said Macßae, “but I’m i making a start.” j Macßae had hired a car from the ! Royal Stag Elotel in Dochrine, and ! when he and the radiant Elaine were ; 1 being motored through the village ! they saw Maurice Rollingward and Lil- • ian Manton with golf bags slung over ; their shoulders, walking together toward the near-by course. Elaine touched her companion’s arm. “Look;” she said, “they’re chatting away as though they hadn’t a care in 1 the world. Let’s hope they haven’t, i Blair —and that they’ve forgo ten us.” I “Let’s hope so,” he agreed, “but I let’s be prepared to bear that they haven’t. . . . How can you think that they have, dear? I’ve told you almost everything that Rollingward said this morning when he came to the island. , No! He’s going to fight for you, and he’s got your father fighting for him. And now ” He paused and, love in her eyes, she glanced at him. “And now?” she prompted. “What were you going to say, you serious person?” “I was going to say,” he answered, “that for the rest of to-day we must put all seriousness aside. We’re going lo enjoy ourselves. We’ll motor right round Loch Gorm and we’ll dine in Inverglant and then, in what’s called the cool of the evening, we’ll slip back to Dochrine and I’ll land you at The Lodge before your father can say that you’ve been out too late.” “Sounds like a maid-servant,” Elaine commented and laughed at him. Though Macßae had promised that all serious things should be forgotten during that outing, he yet found it difficult to respond with any degree of j naturalness to the frankly sentimental talk of the girl beside him, or to speak I enthusiastically regarding the future that would be theirs when they had been made man and wife. But Elaine, accustomed to his gravity of mood and recurrent silences, was undisturbed. She told herself that she loved him; told herself that he loved her. Thus everything was well, and fathers and wouid-be lovers scarcely counted in her delicate scheme of things. A small incident which happened as They were driving into Inverglant set Macßae wondering anew, and listen-1 ing anew to that faint voice which of j late had warned him that the path he was treading might prove to be beset ! with obstacles. A half-drunken carter pulled his horse across the narrow street and 1 ihe car. skilfully handled though it • was. caught the cart’s rear wheel, i There was a moment of alarm and

confusion and instinctively Macßae | put an arm about Elaine and a baud j over her face. i He wondered why he had done that. He would have been more sensible, so he assured himself, had he allowed her to run the risk of being hurt, or disfigured. Driven on again by a softly-swear-ing chauffeur, Elaine clung to him and said: “That might have been a had accident, Blair. I hate to think how father would have felt it I’d been hurt. You won’t tell him about this, will you?” “No,” he promised. “You’d rather I didn’t?” “Yes?” She went on: “Don’t let’s have any secrets between us—ever. 1 haven’t any at all to tell you about myself, or I would. And you haven’t any to tell me about you? I’ll always be honest as the day with you. Blair. You’ll be like that with me, won’t you? You’ll never keep anything back?” “No,” he said. “Rather not.” They garaged the car at the King’s Arms in Inverglant and Macßae ordered a dinner which Elaine, tutored by her father to be cautious, in such matters, dubbed wickedly extravagant. But as she looked across at the man whom she hoped to marry, and touched his wine-glass with hers, all care went from her. “Blair,” she said, “X wonder if it ( would be what’s called unmaidenly of 1 me, if T said now that when I’d known you for only a day or two, I knew, too, that life would be a very silly sort of thing if you weren’t alive.” Again Macßae heard that faint voice cautioning what he would have called, cynically, his better self. Hearing it. he hesitated, before answering. What seemed to him as a very curious hope, came then. He hoped that the girl opposite to him, however she might sutler through the longed-for suffering of her father, might never learn that he, Macßae, had spent a term of years in prison. That knowledge might come to her some day, hut if it did come, it would do so against his will. Dessert had been served and the bottle of wine, which Macßae had chosen, was almost empty, when it occurred to him to urge an early announcement of an engagement between them and, following on that, an early marriage. Whether or not that marriage would take place, he had not yet decided. What he had decided was that, through Elaine, her father should be hurt in so vigorous a manner that the hurt would last throughout his life. Mr. Justice Hart had ruined and scarified the life of Blair Macßae. Blair Macßae would ruin and scarify the life of Mr. Justice Hart. “Elaine,” Macßae said, “don’t you think, that, after all, we should make public this love ot ours? Your father and Rollingward know how things are, and I don’t think we’ll gain anything with waiting. Much better to slam our cards down on the table and say: ‘Vou can shove all your objections aside. We’re going to get married. Be a good sportsman and recognise the fact, and wish us well.’ ” And Elaine, leaning toward him, and affected by the delicious bite of the wine, which at first she had re* fused, answered: “Blair, dear, I think we’ll announce our engagement when we get home tonight. After all, why not? There’s, an old saying about being able to read a person like a book. I know J can read you like that. There’s nothing hidden from me about you?” “Nothing,” he lied, and once more that faint voice tilted at him. “I’ll tell you why father wanted me

| to marry Maurice.” Elaine went mi. B : He knows that Lord Clayhurst can Jfl | help him to be something tremeni dously big: perhaps even to shove him jg !on to the Woolsack in time. He —" §8 | She paused there, because the head j| waiter had come in answer to an upraised linger of Macßae's. “I'm sorry you’ve been kept wait- A ing, sir,” the man said, “but your Xgj waiter —he’s taken queer as they sav. O I’ve sent him off to bed. If you gi\o A me your order, I’ll send someone else A ! along.” A j The waiter who served their coffee A i and liqueurs was a small stoutish man, « I half-bald, and with very large and very A ; bright brown eyes. He stared at Mac- B j Rae and Macßae stared at him. Those eyes and the eyes of Macßa. - * D j met and said. “I know you.” £ It was while sipping at his coffee A that Macßae recollected where he had 8 seen those protuberant brown eyes A before. A They had stared at him often when A he had worked with a pick in the A prison quarry! B His nerves thrilling, Macßae saw A the waiter, whom he had once known A as William Noakes, come toward him. 8 “Excuse me, sir,” his ex-fellow con- m vict said smugly, “but might I speak J to you alone for one moment?” With a murmured apology to Elaine, A Macßae rose. 8 CHAPTER X.—THE TRUTH COMES § OUT. Immediately outside the dining- g room a nervously mannered Noakes B was waiting for him. A Noakes was regretting as he had A regretted many times in his life, that J impulsiveness which had been too 8 strong for the voice of reason. A It would, as he recognised now, A have been much better to have dis- ■ covered where the one-time prisoner ■ lived and what his circumstances j| were. On the latter point, however, A he did not feel uneasy. In his view B anyone who wore good clothes, and jQ who dined expensively, and who rode A in a motor-car, was worth the pluck- ■ ing, if plucking w’as possible. There was, however, neither bold- m ness nor a too great knowingness in j his attitude when he addressed Mac- A Rae. He was, on the contrary, the B competent and respectful waiter, , though, to be sure, one saying unusual things. , “I’m sorry now, sir,” he started, ' “that I come to you when 1 did. I should have waited till you were go- I ing to the car. Better still, I should have come to your house. I’m not | sure where it is exactly, but I had a word with your chauffeur and he j told me that you were a Dr. MacRae and that you lived not very far ( from Inverglant.” He paused, and Macßae. anger hot in him, said: ' “Why all the rigmarole? Get on with it, man! Say what you want I to say. Why did you ask me to come out here? What was it you wanted i to tell me?” Something in his tone riled the , little Cockney; impelled him toward insolence. / ! “It was just that you were so very \ ; | like someone that I used to know ! that I thought you might, perhaps, ■ |be willing to help me,” he went on. A j “I remember you quite well, sir. Don’t A | you remember me?” Macßae nodded. A “I do,” he said. “Go on!” “Thank you, sir. I was No. 10$ at A Dartmoor and you were No. 109. We A had many a word together, you and A me, and you used to say that, once A your term was over, you’d make A things lively for a man you hated. 8 You never told me who the man was, ■ but ” Macßae stopped him there. “Now what the devil do you want?” B he asked. “I can’t stand listening to B this stuff all night: Tf it’ll make B things simpler for you. let me tell B you what T thought you’d have known 8 already—that I left Dartmoor before B ray sentence was served, because — B listen carefully, Noakes —I'd been Eg proved to be innocent. What’s this fl help you’re talking about?” (To be Continued.)