Taken Unawares

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 896, 23 December 1916, Page 3

Taken Unawares

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CHAPTER XXlV.—(Continued.) Humphrey made some reply, some stupid conversational remark about being sorry. Sorry! Terry rose. '' Have your game,'' she said abruptly. "I never knew such a boring pair. How you can sit for hours on end dodging round an old bit of wood, I don't know. Your last game lasted over two hours —nearly till midnight, but go on." "Mimmie plays very well," Humphrey said. "So I should think," replied Terry, but the light words were hard to speak. "I'll see the start, and then I'll go —go and get something to do." She broke off. Humphrey got the table and the board, and for a moment Terry stood leaning by the mantelpiece watching them set out the figures. Almost, motionless she stood until the two rows of solid men, black and white, faced each other across the empty space of black and white squares.

'' You begin,'' said Humphrey, and from before the king went out the little

pawn. Terry lingered. Humphrey's head was bent over the board. All that mented him during the day and the night was shut out for a while. The game gave him respite, rest, and as Terry watched him his face changed, the weary look went out of it, it grew interested and calm.

Presently they both became absorbed, and Terry, moving softly across the room did not rouse them. Neither stirred. Humphrey did not even look up. Some intricate move demanded all his attention. His hand hovered over a piece.

Terry turned the handle of the door, and stauding so, looked back—looked back for the last time —across the room she had so gaily changed and furnished —across her array of chairs and tables and ornaments, and looked at the two sitting with bent heads absorbed in their game. She was going! And how easy it was to go! How easy it was to deceive and lie! Only a light word or two, laughter that was bitterer than tears, and neither of them suspected the depths of utter despair in which she had lived through that evening. If either of them had suspected, how feverishly anxious, how absurdly eager they would have been to keep her now! The thought made her smile. The smile twisted the corners of her lips upwards. If either of them had looked they would onlj- have seen the old laughing, mocking, elfish Terry outlined against the white door —pale it is true, and weary looking, but only the old mocking, irrepressible Terry after all.

And she stood heart and mind and soul of her at the lowest ebb it is given any human being to endure. Yet Humphrey did not even turn his head!

"Good-bye!" she whispered. She had brought him only dishonour and disgrace and shame. She had plunged him into a morass of deceit and

By ANNIE O. TIBBITS

" The Threads of Destiny," " Life's Revenge," etc

lies, had brought upon his head ill odour and bad repute. It was time she went —before she committed any worse evil.

And he would think her guilty—all his life he would think her guilty and she was not I No—no, not guilty—not guilty of anything except what she had told him.

The temptation rose sharply within her to postpone her going until she had made one more effort to rouse him to a belief in her. But a moment's reflection showed her that it was impossible. To-morrow the detectives and police, and perhaps (she thought childishly), a prison van would destroy everything once and for ever, and give a final fillip to his hatred of her.

No! She must go! But oh! if he had only believed her innocent of the one thing, how easy, comparatively, would have been the goii.g.

And he would never believe it. The pain of the thought tore her heart in pieces. She looked back at him with hungry, hungry eyes. At that moment life would have been the veriest trifle she could give in exchange for a kiss from him. But she would go to her death in cold and darkness and heart hunger. Involuntarily her arm stretched out towards him. But he did not see. He only moved another piece across the board, and looked up at Mimmie with a little laugh. "Good-bye," Terry whispered; and was gone. CHAPTER XXV. The click of the door as it fell to roused Humphrey from his deep absorption in the game. He looked up like one expectant, watching. But Mimmie 's next move distracted him. When he had repliod to it the game was ended. He raised his head, looked round the room, and then at his watch. '' We shall have time for another, if you like," he said; "but it is close on 10, and I'll see my letters first if you don't mind." Mimmie was quite willing, and Humphrey went out of the room. The postman had not yet arrived. He usually came just before Mrs Steer started to lock up, and she had not even shot the lock of the scullery door yet. But as Humphrey crossed the hall she came into view. "The mistress has gone to bed, sir," she announced. '' I was to tell you so.'' "Oh?" said Humphrey. "She said he was tired, sir, and she did look it, too. And she's asked not to be disturbed till 10 to-morrow." "Very well," said Humphrey, turning. So! Terry wanted him to be out of the house aud out of her sight as he had been this morning before she reached the breakfast-room! She did not even want to see him before he left for his chambers. He sighed sharply. "Very well," he said. Mrs Steer lingered. There was a queer expression upon her face. Her heart was divided between love of Humphrey and dislike of Terry who had

neglected him so, and brought back the old look of pain and weariness to his face. It was deeper and darker even than it had been 10 years ago. She roused and went forward just as he crossed the threshold of his room.

'' Mr Humphrey, sir, I ought to say. There's something mighty queer about her to-night," she said with an effort, for the temptation to say nothing of the grave fears she felt about Terry was strong upon her. '' She's a queer one, she is; but to-night, sir, she's beyond herself.'' Humphrey turned coldly, and a faint exultation ran through Mrs Steer at the hard look he gave her. So—he would not listen to her about Terry, and afterwards he would not be able to say she had not warned him—afterwards —if anything happened he would blame himself, not her! "You forget yourself, Hannah," he said harshly, and closed the door of his room.

"No; I don't forget, Mr Humphrey," she replied to the l)are wood, "and never shall. But you're mistaken tonight, and that I'm sure. But after all, she's well out of his way —well out of his way."

She turned stumbling along the hall muttering to herself, rubbing her bony hands together. "Well out of his way," she repeated again. "Poor Humphrey!"

Inside his room he looked round. There were no letters as yet, and everything lay in order —not a thing disturbed, not a paper out of place. He sat down in front of his desk, and some instanct prompted him to pull open one of the drawers and take from it Sir Anthonv Tredwick's letters.

Almost absently he spread them out before him on his desk. Almost casually he turned over the pages and read. And as he read a vision of Terry rose up before him—Terry, as he loved her, Terry, little elf, little witch, little tantalising, bewildering, fascinating girl as he had first known her.

The stiffly written words that grow passionate and broken as they went on seemed to conjure her up, and again he saw her, not only Terry fresh and fair and sweet as she had first appeared to him, but also again Sir Anthony Tredwic.k's dying look, the appeal in the sunken eyes, the warning that he had scarcely understood then, but which was now clear enough as he skipped through the dead man's letters. Ah! Whatever Terry hail done, wild, and mad, and bad though she had been, had he, Humphrey, really done his duty towards her? Had he guarded her, watched her, eared for her as he should —as her father had warned him* The thought wrung his heart, and was as sharply quenched by the thought that Terry had done worse—a thousand times worse than her mother had done; that whatever she had inherited was intensified a thousandfold. Terry surety deserved no pity. He went back over her attitude, recalled her lies, her subterfuges, remembered the months that had elapsed since she had been his wife; and though he refused his conscience, his conscience accused him.

He had indulged and spoiled her. With another girl it might have answered well enough, but with Terry, and with the warning old Sir Anthony had stammered on his death-bed, it had been anything but well. Humphrey bowed his, head upon his desk.

Ah, Terry! Terry! He roused at the sound of the postman's knock. A few letters of no importance were brought in to him, and then he heard the familiar sounds of locking up. Mrs Steer was going her rounds —trying windows and turning keys, smelling imaginary gas. He rose, looking round suddenly, pain-

fully awake to the possibility of his owu failure. Terry had brought him shame and disgrace. But was it altogether her own faiilt?

With the dead man's letter before his eyes, with the dead man's voice in his ears, he went back to the drawingroom, to another game of chess with Mimmie. Perhaps, after all, it was getting late. He did not feel now that he could be interested in another game to-night; the very thought of it became suddenly distasteful. He would go to the drawing-room for a while and then come back.

He left on the lights, he left his desk open, the papers lying about, and Sir Anthony's letter spread out, lying side by side with the evening's post. He crossed back to the drawing-room, and there the open door, the pink light brought back with a rush the thought of Terry as she had been months ago when she had set about with eager, seltish delight to turn it inside out, and fill it with bits of delicate furniture that were so different to anything he had had there before.

Poor little Terry! Mimmie was standing by the mantelpiece, and she turned at his entrance, looking somehow out of keeping with the room. Her pale, placid face, her plain features, with her hair parted in the middle and drawn in soft, straight lines below her ears, contrasted strongly enough with Terry's sinning head and brilliant dimpling pink and white face.

She wore a plain white dress, simply cut and country-made, that gave her an (To bo continued.)