QUEEN OF A DAY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 145094, 20 September 1916, Page 8

QUEEN OF A DAY.

A CHARMING LOVE STORY OF DOMESTIC INTEREST.

By STELLA M. DURING. Author of "Love’s Privilege.” “The End of the Rainbow.” "Faery Gold,” "Dcringliam's Daughter,” "In Search of Herself,” "Malicious Fortune,” “Seedtime and liarvest,” Etc., Etc.

CHAPTER XVII.

"I will never do it again, never!” Brooke looked straight .".head over the wheel. He woe very pale and his eyes glittered n little. But ills confidence was not seriously shaken vet. He had always known that there might be trouble and evidently there was going to be. but she would end, as she had before, in doing as he. wished, of course.

“That’s nonsense. Elsie,” he said crisply. ‘ bce.mso you will have to ” "Have to!”

"Of course. You have promised to moot him on Thursday ami bring with you—all the confounded papers lie has bad the confounded impudence to ask for—and you have just got to do it, my child.” Elsie's rosy mouth took a different curve, one that Brooke had never scon before.

"I am—obliged to?” she said slowly-. "Because I have pretended twice, n, piny, to be .someone 1 am not. 1 am obliged to present myself at a lawyer’s office and lay claim to money that docs not belong to me?” "1 don't sec hiw you can get out of it!” a little doggedly.

‘But I should ho—a thief!”

Brooke’s arm jerked a little. Of course there v as that aspect to it.

"Not necessarily,” he returned. "You needn’t keep tho money. You can give it away in charity—if it burns your fingers. You cun chuck it in the gutter if you like.” "And suppose, after 1 have given it away in charity—or chucked it in the gutter, as you suggest, the real Kathleen comes forward and asks for it?” "She—can’t,” said Brooke very low. Elsie laid a riuick hand on his arm. "Is she— dead?” sho asked in a whisper. For a moment Brooke said nothing, but Elsie could fed, even through the thick sleeve of his motor coat, tho quivering of his arm. "Is she?” she insisted, and ho roused himself.

“What does that matter—to you?” he jisked almost roughly. "Isn’t it enough when I tell yon you arc absolutely safe?”

Elsie sat straight up and the summer evening sky of teudorost blue, lli-ckoc! with tiny clouds of rose and gold, tinned dark bolore her eyes. For suddenly the vague disappointment lying ico-eold at the bottom of her heart rose up and drowned her in its black and bitter flood His manner from the first had been slightly ajar with her expectations. His indulgence hod yelled a touch of contempt, his admiration had held a hint of coldness. He had not kissed her. idler the once when he had bent her to his will, the idea seemed never to have occurred to him. He had been attentive, even anxiously attentive, hut ■ his anxiety had been rather to satisfy Mr. Crump’s evident expectations than hers And once away from -Mr. Crump’s watchful eyes the hint of aloofness, almost of indifference about him had become more pronounced. It mis hot, he was not. what Elsie expected in a lover. For, unfortunately for Brooke, Elsie had a standard of comparison. For one swift moment Elsie saw "Mr. Dyson” in the car in Brooke’s place, and the vision was illuminating indeed. Mr. Dyson did not, liko Brooke, hardly trouble to understand what sho said to him. If a room were full of people all talking at once Mr. Dyson always heard nil that she said, and however childish, however uninteresting, however foolish i - - might be, he always understood what she meant by it. lior smile could gladden him and her displeasure, cloud all his life. Her touch could thrill him, strong man as ho was. Her nearness was ccstacy and oho knew it.

And never, never under any pressure possible, under any set of circumstances conceivable could Dyson have spoken to her as Brooke had spoken just now. He looked at her anxiously, vaguely aware of the need for cautiAu, uneasily conscious that he was not filling his role of lover quite as successfully as he had intended.

"I thought you would have—helped me,” lie said at last, and the reproach in his voice at least was genuine. _“I thought you would have done anything in tho world—for me.”

"I won’t do that,” said Elsie steadily. "Von won’t?”

“No.” But her eyes widened woefully as •she spoke and her bps quivered on the monosyllable. She was disappointing him, thwarting him. even frightening him, for there was fear in ths furtive sidelong look she caught. Why should ho bo so determined that she should do this thing, this wicked, dangerous thing? Of what was he afraid? "Tell me what Crump said to you when he took you down the garden,” ho said at last "I can’t think what has pul you off. You were- all right up to tea-time.” "Ho didn’t say much. He asked me what I had been doing, how I had been living since- -icy grandfather died, and I told him I had been earning my living ns an emhroideross in London. He asked me if I had any photograph of myself when I was young—l mean younger!—and I showed him the battered old locket I always wear. It was my mother’s, and it,has a little tinted picture of me in it, taken when I was about seven.” i

"Seven! Ho said yonr mother, Kathleen’s mother, died when you were three.” "Did ho! I—didn’t remember,” returned Elsio blankly. “Where is it now?” “He has it. He asked me to lend it to him—for a day or two.”

Brooko said nothing, and for the next few minutes the steering of the car was a little erratic. Mr. Crump had tho locket containing Elsie's photograph taken when she was seven! But perhaps, perhaps the discrepancy might escape him. He had seemed so charmed with the Kathleen presented to him. He had seemed to accept so unhesitatingly all that Brooke could have wished. And there could net bo a very marked difference between the face of a child of three and the face of a child of seven. If only, if only Elsio oould bo induced to go on with it. But if sho drew back now——! "Elsie, you’ve got to carry this through,” lie said gravely. “You must see for yourself you have. You can’t go as far as this—and then back out. It means ruin—for both of us.”

It was the old argument that has sounded knoll-like so often in the cars of a woman. Having taken the first stop the second must follow it. “I mean it,” ho insisted. "And after ail why shouldn’t you! Hero is tlris money belonging to nobody. Who will get it if you don’t? The Crown! Why m Heaven's name shouldn’t you have it? Think what it would mean. You would bo a wealthy woman. All tho world would lie before you. You need never work any more, all you would bo asked to do' by anyone is to enjoy yourself. What can it possibly matter to the old chap who has died over in Australia which girl enjoys his money, now that Kathleen Glenoonner can’t. He would rather you had it than that it should go to tho Crown, I’m jolly woll certain of that. Think what you could do with it, Elsie!” Anil" Elsie’s eyes dazzled a little as ho talked, of life and friends, of houses and lands, of jewels and motors, of tho good she might do and the suffering she might solace, of her translation, lifted by tho Icvor of wealth, into a world where all to her seemed beauty, where economy and sordid cares and tue dread shadow of an uncertain future can never come, whore he would bo always beside her!

"And all, positively all you have to do is lo too ibis old chap oiue again,” finished Brooke tragically. "You will, Elsie, won’t you? You can’t draw back, now.” But Elsie said nothing. Brooke tried a new tack. “Have you realised,” ho said hoarsely, "what, it may mean lor me—if you won’t?” "What?” ankctl Elsio in a whisper. “Prosecution" tho word camo smothered and low-. "But—what, for?” “Does that mutter? 1 tell you I can bo prosecuted. Don't protend you care!” with bittcnie.'.s, "when you won’t oven do the Jittlo thing I ask to save me.” Elsie sat very still. It was hardly a little thing. "But—you have done nothing.” "Yes, I have. I have fraudulently presented one person for another. It’s ciioti-gu, 1 can assure you, to place mo pretty awkwardly. U it gets lo my lather’s ears !” His breath caught sharply. Ho stopped the car in 1 1 to shadow of tho hedge and put both his arms round the slender little figure sitting tense and still at his side. "Elsie, vou can’t, you won’t go back on mo now. Vou lovo me. And because you lovo mo you will help me. Of course you will I"

His hold tightened. Once again, his warm lips sought hers. But there was no yielding this time. Elsie held him away with ail her girlish strength. There, was more than decision in her manner, there was revolt. "Don’t,” she said in a passionate whisper. ‘filon’t!” "But why not? 1 kissed yon before!” Yes. when be had wanted her to do something of which she was doubtful for him. Am! now because be wanted her to do something more than doubtful something oven dangerous—for him —he kissed her again. The truth, the blasting truth, was clear to her. "Take mo home,” she said almost peremptorily, "as quickly as you can. ’ He obeyed her, raging at himself. It be had played his part bettor, if ho tiad been fixes idiotically sure of her. It he hail troubled to coin an airy compliment or two, to find‘time for a. few more kisses. An insane temptation be-'Ot him sharply every now and tli«n to turn the car, to rush oil with her, whore, ho neither know nor oared, to keep her in hold and ward till Thursday, to compel her to keep tho appointment which in effect sho herself had ntado with Mr. Crump to meet him in Bedford Street, and sign liofore a solicitor tho papers that would enable him to hand over his trust. It was all so simple, so cany. Crump had accepted her not only readily and without question hut with delight. It was not as though there were any danger of his asking for further identification. Tho girl, backed up by the documentary evidence Brooke could eo very easily produce, was .sufficient for him in herself. To write, just onoe, a name that did not belong to her, that belonged now to nobody, and step instantly into that new and lovely world that only money can create. It scorned so simple a'thing to have results so momentous. For they would be momentous. Mr. Crump would return to Western Australia, his quest successful, his task finished. Elsio would enjoy all her life the fortune that after all was ns_imich hers as anybody’s since that chill abstraction, the Crown, need hardly bo considered. And hoi He would be delivered from the evor-preeont dread that made of his days a horror, the dread that some hint of the happenings of the last few weeks might reach lu.v father’s oars ;- that there might ha inquiries, investigations, suspicions, revelations! He checked his own thoughts with a gasp. Elsie must help him.

"Elsio,” he implored, “think again. You will, you must help me! You would never back out a-nd leave mo to face things alone—like that.” El sio only trembled. "Take mo homo,” sho said. (To be continued.)