A Wonderful Woman.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 482, 21 June 1890, Page 3

A Wonderful Woman.

B* MAY AGNES FLEMING, Author of "Gpy Earlescourt’B Wife,” “A Terrible Secret,” “ Lost for a Woman,” “A Mad Marriage,” etc. CHAPTER XXVI, HUNTED DOWN. It was very early on the morning of the ensuing day—so early that the rosy spears ot sunrise were but just glancing through the tall firs and waving brake around Bracken Hollow—when a loud, authoritative knock aroused the inmates of the lonely old house from their slumbers. In five minutes, old Hannah was up and dressed, and in the room of her young mistress.

Katherine (let us call her by the old name) had sprung from her bed also as that authoritative knock resounded through the house.

‘ lb must be Henry Otis— it can be no one else at this hour. Go, open the door, Hannah, and let them in, whoever they may be.'

* But, my dear-; ’ ‘ There is nothing to fear, whether it be friend or foe. If they do not come to me I shall go to them. The power is mine now, and the victory. Before the sun sets, Harriet Harman’s confession shall be in the hands of my Lord of Ruysland. They shall learn, one and all, who the despised governess whom they have turned from their doors is to their cost.’ ‘ And then ?’ old Hannah asked.

‘Ah! And then —“ Sufficent unto the day,” etc. Go open the door, Hannah—there is the knock again ; and on my word, whoever the gentleman is, he knocks commandingly.’ Hannah went. She flung open the door and stood confronted by a tall man, with a dark, handsome, stern-looking face, and an unmistakably military air. ‘I wish to see Miss Herncastle,’ this gentleman began, with porfect abruptness ; ‘ I know that she is here.’

‘Who are you, sir?’ old Hannah demanded, with equal sternness : ‘ and by what right do you come at such a time of morning as this, routing decent folks out of their beds ?’

‘My name is O’Donnell. I am Miss Herncastle’s friend, and I have come to do her a service while there is yet time. Before two hours it may be too late. Give her this, I entreat you, and tell her I must see her.’

*He says it as though he were a king,’ thought old Hannah. ‘He looks grand enough and noble enough for any king. O’Donnell? Why, he’s the Irish officer who found her out —that she’s most afraid of.’

She stood irresolute, holding: the card he had given her, and looking angrily and doubtfully from him to it. ‘I don’t know what you want here—what you mean by coming here. You’re no friend of Miss Herncastle’s—l knew that. You’re the man that followed her —that has been her enemy and pursuer from the first. How dare you call yourself her friend ?’

‘I tell you,’ O’Donnell exclaimed impatiently, ‘I am her friend ; I want to serve her if she will let me. She has rendered herself amenable to the law ; she is an object of suspicion ; the officers are on her track. If you are her friend, you will give her that card at once.’ * Yes, Hannah, give it to me. I’m not afraid of Captain O’Donnell. Let me see what he has to sav.’

It was Katherine herself—in slippers and dressing-gown—her brown hair undone, rippling in the old girlish way over her shoulders. In that white with the hair unbound and its natural colour, she looked, with the rose-flush of the August sunrise upon her, younger, fairer, fresher than he had ever seen her before. She took no notice of him. She received the card from Hannah gravely—and gravely examined it. Beneath his name in pencil was written :

* I know thab you are here. I come as your friend. If you have any regard for yourself you will see me at once.’ She looked up and held out her hand to him with a smile—a smile that had something of the old brightness, the old saucy defiance of Katherine Dangerfield. ‘Good-morning, Captain O’Donnell. My friends are so few and far between at present, thab it would be a thousand pities to refuse an audience to one of them. But you my friend ! Isn’t that rather a new role for the gallant Captain of Chasseurs?’ She led the way into the bare-looking apartment, where lasc night Harriet Harman had made her confession, and pointed to a chair. There was a grace, a triumph about her he had never seen before—the whole expression of her face was changed. Where was the sad, sombre face of Miss Herncastle now ? A sorb of proud triumph lib all the face before him.

He accepted the chair only to lean across its wooden back and look at her. She stood where the golden sunshine fell fullest upon her—her tall form looking taller and more classic than ever in her trailing white robe, a crimson cord for her girdle. The brown hair was swept off forehead and temples, showing the scar on the left plainly, and adding to the nobility of her face. The black bad been washed from the eyebrows —altogether she was changed almost out of knowledge. There was a smile on her lips, a light in her eyes, a glow on her cheeks that transfigured her. The hour of her victory had come ; she stood before him

1 A (laughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.’ Yes, fair in this moment, if never fair before.

‘Will Captain O’Donnell—my friend—who has hunted me down from first to last —speak ? What is it that has taken you out of your bed at this uncivilised hour, and brought you to Bracken Hollow, and me ?’ The ringing tone of her voice, the meaning sparkle of eye and smile, confounded him.

*lt is so easy to be mistaken,’ she went on, still smiling. ‘ I confess among the few, the very few I count as my friends, your name is the last I should ever dream of adding to the list. But then stronglymarked characters have strongly original ways of proving their likes and dislikes. Hunting me down may be your way of proving your friendship. What is it Captain O’Donnell has come here at six in the morning to say ?’

*To say you are in danger—to say your game is up, to say all is known—that the police are oa your track, that this very day—or to-morrow at furthest, they will be here. To warn you for the last time.’ ‘For the last time —to warn me of what ?’ •To fly—l repeat, all is known— all. ‘What does all comprise? May I ask you to explain ?’

* lb means that a detective has been on your track from the hour you quitted Scarswood, that by day and night you have been watched, that you are known as the Gaston

Dantree who. by fair means or foul, has won an enormous sum from Sir Peter Dangerfield at cards—that the real Gaston Dantree is shut up here at Bracken Hollow—an idiot, and has been for years. Ah, you feel that. I repeat—all is known—all.’ The smile faded from her lips, the old hard expression looked at him out of her grey eyes. ‘ A detective on my track. I did not ! dream of that indeed. And to whom am I indebted for that delicate attention ? To my friend, Captain O’Donnell, of course.’ ‘ No, Miss" Herncastle, not in this instance. To the Right Honorable the Earl of Ruysland.’ A shadow came over her face, a grey, sombre shadow. She sat down suddenly with an altered expression. ‘The Earl of Ruysland,’ she repeated. ‘ What had I done to him ? Ah, I understand—the law calls upon every honest man to hunt down a rogue. And tiie Earl of Ruysland has set a detective on mv track. * Is this all his noble lordship has discovered, or is there something else?’ ‘ This is all he has absolutely discovered, but there is something else. He strongly suspects the death and burial of Katherine Dangerfield to be bogus, and Miss Herncastle and Katherine Dangerfield to be one and the same.’ ‘ Was it acting on this suspicion that you went up to London and nearly frightenod poor Mrs Otis to death ?’ ‘I was acting on no suspicion—l rarely act on that. I was acting on certainty. I knew the grave in Castieford churchyard bo be a fraud—the tombstone lying oven more than tombstones usually lie. I knew that grave held an empty coffin.’ ‘ May 1 ask how ?’ ‘ln the simplest manner possible. I employed a resurrectionist, and I opened the grave. We raised the coffin, opened that, and found, as I told you—nothing.’ ‘ You did this ?’ ‘ I did this.’ She sat and looked at him—wonder, not unmixed with a species of amusement and admiration, in her face. ‘And yet you call yourself my friend. Captain O’Donnell; vou’re an extraordinary man.’ ‘ No ; I don’t see it,’ he answered, coolly. »It wasn’t anything very extraordinary. From the hour I discovered your identity with tho New York actress my suspicions were aroused. You had never given up the stage and buried yourself alive at Scarswood ih the capacity of governess without some powerful latent motive. The motive I confess I felt curious to discover. Then you made love to Sir Arthur Tregenna—-I beg your pardon —permitted him to fall in love with you.' Katherine smiled once more. ‘As Sir Arthur had long before been signed, sealed, and delivered over to Lady Cecil Clive, and he seemed powerless to help himself, 1 felt called upon to help him. He is my friend, you know, so also is his affianced wife. Then you played ghost—oh yes you did, Lord Ruysland saw you—and frightened Sir Peter to the verge of insanity. Altogether you were too dangerous a sort of person to be allowed to go on without a short pull-up from some one. Destiny, I suppose, set me on your track I didn’t care about hunting you down, as you call it, and I gave you fair warning. You scorned all I could sav ; so, as a last resource, I went to London to induce Mr Otis to cast his influence into the scale. You have proved more desperate and more dangerous than I supposed. Sir Peter is as nearly mad as it is possible to be, out of a straightjacket, over his losses. For the last time I come to warn you -you are accused of cheating at cards, of placing a pistol at Sir Peter’s head, and threatening his life-’ Again his listener smiled as she recalled Sir Peter’s ghastly face of fright. ‘lt is an actionable matter to carry deadly weapons, and threaten the lives of her Majesty’s liege subjects. Then you have worn male attire —you have secreted a dangerous lunatic, to the terror of the neighbourhood ; in short, thclist of your evil deeds is appalling. The police of Castieford, armed with a search-warrant, will be here to-day or tomorrow at the furthest to search the premises—you will be arrested, imprisoned, and tried. Miss Herncastle, Miss Dangerfield, —I beg of you avoid this. Fly while there is yet time, and save yourself.’ She looked at him searchingly earnestly. ‘ Captain O’Donnell, I wonder why—l cannot understand why you should take the trouble to come here and say this. You dislike me with a cordiality there is no mistaking—you have shown me very little quarter hitherto ; what object have you in all this? Why should you endeavour to save a woman you hold in aversion and contempt ? a woman in short whom you hate ?’ ‘Whom I hate!’ he repeated quietly. ‘ Since when have I told you I hated you ? I do not hate you—very far from it; and if I held you in aversion and contempt ! I certainly should not take the trouble of coming here to warn you. I have heard Katherine Dangerfiold’s story—a strange, sad story ; and I believe her, even in this hour, to be more sinnedagainst than sinning. She has made one great mistake—she has taken retribution in her own weak hand—she has forgotten who has said “ Vengeance is mine : I will repay !” I believe a great and generous nature has been warped. Commonplace women would have sunk under the blow ; being a woman of genius she has risen and battled desperately with fate. And when a woman does that she fails; she must stoop to cunning, to plotting, to guilt. Katherine Dangerfield, I pity you —from my soul I do ; and with my whole heart I stand before you your friend. It is not too late yet; pause, whilo there is yet time, on the road you are breading, and go back.’

There was no mistaking his earnestness, the generous glow of his face, the friendly warmth of his tone. She had turned away from him and was looking out at the golden moi’ning sky. * Go back !’ she repeated bitterly. ‘ Is there ever any going back in this world ? Six years ago I might have listened ; to day it is too late.’ ‘ It is never too late while life remains. It is only the turning point in your destiny. As yet you have been guilty only of jokes—nob of crimes. Katherine ’ —her face flushed all over as ho pronounced the name. She turned to him a sudden, surprised, grateful glance. ‘ Katherine,’ he held out his hand, * for what I have said and done in the past) forgive me. Let me be your friend, your brother, from this hour. I pity you, I admire you. You have been wonderfully brave and clever. Lay down your arms—give up the fight. Which of us can battle against Fate ? Give me your hand—give me your promise. I cannot, I will not leave you until you do.’ She covered her face with her hands, her breast heaving, the colour burning in her face, moved to the very depths of her soul, with a passion of which he did not dream. ‘ I am taking Rose to France,’ he continued, coming nearer, his voice wonderfully gentle. ‘ Come with us—-you will be safe there. Yoh have been sadly wronged, I know ; but life deals hardly with us all. You know my sister’s story—you know how her youth has been wrecked by the same hand that biighted yours. Let that be a bond of sympathy between you. Come with us to France; the friend to whom Rose goes will also shelter you. She means to work for her living, teaching in a < French school ; drudgery, perhaps, but she insists upon it,

and I think myself labour is an antidote to heart-break. Come, Katherine —you have fought long and well, and nothing has come of it. Give it up and come with Rose.’

Her hands dropped from her face; something in the last words seemed to rouso her. She looked at him steadily. ‘And nothing has come of it?’ she repeated. ‘ That is your mistake, Captain O’Donnell. Something has come of it. I wonder what you would say if I told you—what ?’ ‘ Tell me and see.’

‘I confess,’ she went on, ‘to all the crimes laid to my charge. lam Katherine Dangerfield ; I have been buried and risen from tho dead, and with that resurrection my nature seemed to change. 1 have brooded on one subject—my wrongs—until I believe my brain has turned. I fled from tho house of my true and loyal friend, Henry Otis, and went to America. I became the New York actress you so cleverly recognisod. From New York I wrote to Mr Otis. I told him if Gaston Dantree died, to bury him decently—if he lived, to furnish him with money to quit England ; if he lived, and reason did not return, as he feared, bo send him to Bracken Hollow —not to an asylum. I wanted him cared for ; Iliad heard horrible stories of insane asylums. I knew Hannah would be good to him for my sake. When all hope was at an end, Mr Obis obeyed, and for nearly five years poor Gaston Dantree has been the ghost of Bracken Hollow. As a rule he is quiet and harmless, but there are times when his cries are terrible, when he tries to eseapo from his room. He has to be watched unceasingly. All these years I remained in the Nevv World I worked hard in mv profession and rose. I made money and I hoarded it like a miser. Day and night, stronger and stronger with each year grew the determination to return, to keep my vow. I tell you I believe there were times when I was insane on this subject. Death alone could have held me back. I waited patiently while burning with impatience ; I worked; I hoarded, and at last my day came. I returned to England ; I made my way into the family of Sir Peter Dangerfield ; my revenge had begun. ‘That, as you know, is not many weeks ago. It was a losing game from the first—l \vas playing to lose. I knew my secret could nob remain undiscovered, but I dared all. Fate had taken my part in one way. I had a double motive in returning—one, my vengeanceon him; the other, to discover my parentage. I had a elue ; and, strange to say, in working out one I was working out the other. You know what followed—l played ghost—Lord Ruysland was right—and terrified the master of Scarswood as I think he was never terrified before. I paid midnight visits to Bracken Hollow; I dared not go in the daytime. You remember all about that, no doubt. There was an unused entrance by which I came in and out. Lady Dangerfield tyrannised over and insulted me from the first: I have rewarded her, I think. And I have personated Gaston Dantree, and won Sir Peter’s idolised gold. Why I personated Dantree I hardly know. Sir Peter was boo blind to recognise me, and the whim seized me. How long I might have gone on, how it would have ended but for recognition of me—your suspicion and discoveries, I don’t know. I owe you no grudge ; you were doing your duty, and I honour you for it. For Sir Arthur, you need not have been so much afraid ; it was a triumph to take him from Lady Cecil—to anger Lady Dangerfield ; but bad as I am, I don’t think I ever was base enough to marry him, even if he had asked me. He had never wronged me, and I only waged war with those who did.’

‘ You waged war with Lady Cecil Clive, in taking her lover from her, and she certainly never wronged you. She was your friend through all.’ The hard look came over her face once more, a hard light in her large eyes. 1 Was she ? In your oyes, of course, Lady Cecil can do no evil. But what if I told you she had done me the deepest, the deadliest wrong of all ?’ He looked at her in surprise. ‘ I don’t understand,’ he said coldly. ‘ I believe Lady Cecil to be incapable of wilfully wronging anyone. And she always spoke gently of you.’ She leaned her forehead on her hands, and pushed back her hair with a long, tired sigh. ‘ What a mockery, what a satire it all is —thc'worid and the people in it ! We are all sinners, but I wonder what I have done, that my life should be so accursed ! Redmond O’Donnell, this morning I felt almost happy—a fierce, triumphal sorb of happiness—l had fought a long, bitter battle, but the victory was with me at last. Now, if I could lie down here and die, I should ask no greater boon. My life has been from first to last adreary, miserable failure. Oh, God 1 I want to do right. My life has been bibber, bitter, bitter, and I feel as though I were steeped in crime to the lips. If I could only die and end it all ! But death passes the guilty and miserable by, and takes the happy and the good.’ Her folded arms were lying on the table, her head fell forward on them as though she never cared to lift it again. From first to laßt she had been a creature of impulse, swayed by a passionate, undisciplined heart—a ship adrift on a dark sea, without rudder or compass.

‘There have been days in my life—in the years that are gone—ay in the weeks that I have spent yonder at Scarsvvood—when I have held the laudanum in my hand, to my lips, that would have ended it all. But I did not dare die—such wretches as I don’t. It was not death I feared —hut ichat comes after. Captain O’Donnell,’ she lifted her haggard eyes and looked at him, and to the Tast day of hi 3 life the hopeless despair of that face—the hopeless patho3 of that voice hunted him, ‘ what must you think of me ? What a lost, degraded creature I must be in your sight.’ He took both her hands in his, a compassion such as he had never felt for any. human being before stirring his heart. ‘What am I that I should judge? And if I thought so, would I ask you to be the companion, the sister of my sister ? there is nothing but pity for you in my heart—nothing Give up this dark and dangerous life,and be true to yourself—to the noble nature Heaven has given you, once more.’ She rose up—her hand still in his, a sort of inspiration shining in her face. ' * I will !’ she answered. ‘ You—whom I thought my enemy, shall save me. I renounce it—the plotting —the evil—the revenge. And for your sake—for the love you bear her, I will spare her.’ He looked at her in mute inquiry. She smiled, drew away her hands, and resumed her seat.

* You do not understand. See here, Captain O’Donnell, I told you, did I not, my second object in returning to England waa to discover my parentage ? Well, I have discovered it.’

‘You have!’ h 8 cried, breathlessly. * I have discovered it. My father lives, and the daughter of ray nurse occupies my place in bis heart, the name I should bear. It is a very old story—changed at nurse and that nurse has confessed all.’ ‘ You have done this ! Then I congratulate you indeed! You will go to your father at once, of course ! No one, believe me, can rejoice at this more sincerely than I.’

‘You mistake. 1 I will never go. This morning I had intended—bub that is all past now. If I renounce my revenge and wrong doing in one way, I renounce it iu all. I never understood half measures.’

‘ But there is wrong-doing here—it is right, it is your duty to go.’ ‘ Captain O’Donnell, don’t you see another is in my place ? My going would bring shame, and disgrace, and misery upon her. My father is a very proud man—would it add to his pride or happiness to acknowledge such a daughter as I ?’ ‘ All that has nothing to do with it,’ the chasseur answered with his etubborn sense of right and wrong. ‘Your duty is to go to your father, and tell him the truth at any cost to his pride or yours.’ She smiled.

• I wonder if this would be your advice if if. for example only—my father were the Earl of Ruysland. (I name him, you understand, as the first I think of.) Suppose I went to him and said, “ My lord, I, Katherine Dangerfield—Helen Herncastle— Gaston Dantree —any alias you please—am your daughter ; she whom you call Lady Cecil Clive is but the daughter of your former servant, my nurse. She hated your dead wife, my mother, and when you came to claim your child she gave you hers.” Suppose I said this—suppose I could prove it—what then ? Would the earl clasp me to his bosom in a 'gush of parental love? Would Lady Cecil get down from her pedestal of birth and rank and let one mount? Think of the earl’s shame and pain —her suffering—Sir Arthur Tregenna’s humiliation ; think how much happiness I, the usurper, enjoy. Bring the case home and tell me still, if you. can—to go.j ‘ I bell you still to go. Right is right. Though the Earl of Ruysland were your father, though Lady Cecil has usurped your place, I should still say, gc—bell the truth, be the cost what it may.’ ‘ You, who love Lady Cecil, give me this advice ? Captain O’Donnell, you don’t love her.'

* I love her so well that I leave her; 1 love her so well that if the thing you speak of were possible 1 would be the first to go and tell her. Once again—in the face of all that may follow—l repeat, go ! Tell the truth, take the place and name thab are yours, and let me help you if 1 can.’ Bub still she sab keeping that strange, wistful, searching gaze on his face. ‘ You love her so well thab you leave her,’ she repeated dreamily; * you leave her because she is an earl’s daughter and you think above you. If you knew her to be poor—poor and low born— ’ ‘ I would still leave her. It would make no difference. Poor or rich, gentle or simple, who am I thab I should marry a wife? My soldier’s life in camp and desert does well enough for me. How would I do, think yon, for one brought up as Lady Cecil Clive has been ? I can rough it well enough—the life suits me ; bub I shall never care to see my wife rough it also. Let us pass all that—l don’t care to talk of myself. Lady Cecil Clive is not for me—any more than one of Her Majesty’s daughters. Let us speak only of you.’ She rose up with a strange, unfathomable smile, crossed the room without a word, lib a candle and placed it on the table before him. He watched her in silent surprise. She drew from her pocket a folded paper, and handed it to him.

‘ You have done greater service than you dream of in coming here,’ she said. ‘Do one last favour. I want this paper destroyed. I have a whimsical fancy to see you do it. Hold it to the candle and let it burn.’

He took it doubtfully. He read the superscription— • Confession of liar rial Harman and hesitated. ‘ I don’t know—why should I ? What is this ?’ ‘Nothing thab concerns anyone on earth but myself. You will be doing a good deed, I believe, in destroying it. Let me see you burn it. I can do it, of course ; bub as I said, I have a fancy thab yours should be the hand to destroy it. Burn it, Captain O’Donnell.’

Still wondering still doubting he obeyed. Held the paper in the flame of the candle until it dropped in a charred cloud on the table. Then she held out her hand to him with a brave bright smile. ‘ Once more I thank you. You have done me a great service. You have saved me from myself. When do you and your sister leave?’

‘ To-day; bub if I can aid you in any way —if I can bake you to vour father— ’ ‘ You are ready to do it I know ; bub I have nob quite made up my mind about that yet. It is not a thing to be done in a hurry. Give me a few hours. Come back if you will before you depart, and if you have any influence with the Earl of Ruysland, don’t let him send that searchwarrant to-day. Let us say good-bye, and part for the present.’ He stood and looked at her doubtfully. He felt- vaguely that never had he been farther from understanding her than at this moment.

‘ I will come,’ he said, ‘ and I hope—l trust by that time you will have made np your mind to return to your father, and—if Rose wishes it—may I bring her to see him ?'

‘ Certainly—he will nob know her—poor fellow. He knows nobody. Farewell, Redmond O’Donnell —my friend.’ There was a lingering tenderness in her voice, in her eyes, thab might have told him her secret. But men are totally blind sometimes. He saw nothing. He grasped her hand. ‘Nob farewell,’ he said, ‘au revoir.’

She went with him to the door. She watched him with wistful eyes out of sight. ‘ Farewell,’ she said, softly ; * farewell for ever. If Henry Otis had been to me what you are, six years age I had been saved.’ f To. be continued. )