The Ironmaster's Daughter.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8312, 15 December 1906, Page 2

The Ironmaster's Daughter.

Bv OWEM MASTERS. A vthir of " Clyda's Love Dream," "Nina's Kepentance," "Her Soldier Lover, > ''lite Mystery of Woodcroft," " For Love of Marjorie," etc.

(■"The Ironmasters Datciitek" was commenced on October 17th.]

CHAPTER XXXllL—Continued. "Hush my darling daughter. The time has come when things must he set right—when things must he made clear." He wont to Frank's room and knocked on the door. He was in one of his determined moods, when no man might gainsay his just ■words and actions. "You will accompany me to the library Frank," he said. "I don't know just what is wrong between you and Pauline, but 1 suspect why she has come home, and the tangle is going to bo made straight now. Y'ou have said or done something to nd her loyal soul, but she won't :-iiv what. Come." Frank hesitated; he was sulkily bathing his temples. "If you are a man, come." "I feel more like a darned cur," Frank said, "I hope she won't forgive me. I am pretty mean as it is " "There's hope for you," interrupted his father. "The"man is peeping put when you talk like that. Pauline won't betray you ; her soul is too noble for that." Frank followed his Father downsUii'S, and walked up to Pauline. •vma liar!" he said. ''l wish somebody would horsewhip me, Pauline, But it's all jealousyjealousy of Dick Tressidy. He seems to have como between me and a fortune. That's my excuse, and a pretty lame one at that. Forgive me, sister." Pauline wondered. Sister! Never before had he made use of that word to her. "Forgive you? Of course, I do, Frank/ We were both equally to blame. I'm sorry I threw that pistol, though it wasn't really loaded." "I wish that it had been, and—and " Chester Stark smiled. "Sit down, both of you, and listen. This makes my story easy to tell, Pauline. It is no news to Frank but it won't hurt him to hear it again. In my desk ovsr there I have all the necessary proofs, and I am going to England before the marriage, to put them.into Tressidy's hands." He walked over to the desk and took therefrom a packet bound with coloured sapo. "Pauline, you are my own dearly loved daughter," Chester Stark resumed. The girl gave a little gasp, and sprang to his side. He placed one arm around her. "My father! Keally— really?" "Really, my child. Now let me tell you why I have kept the truth hidden away for so long. Frank's mother died soon after his birth, and four years later I married again —your mother. Here is the certificate of our marriage—the certificate of your birth, and other things." He untied the tape, and placed the papers, one at a time, in Pauline's eager hands. "Now I will tell you the story that has embittered my life, and you must think as well of me as you can, Paulino, "Twenty-six,years ago business matters took me South. I happened upon a little country town, through getting into the wrong train, and couldn't move until the next morning. It is marvellous how one's life hinges upon the most 'trivial accident!:'. And yet there are those who maintain that there is no such thing as chance. "I put up at a small road-house, and hearing that there was a circus in the neighbourhood, I jumped at the chance of killing a few hours of the long wintery evening. "I went to the circus, and I saw your mother in the ring, in spangles, and the rest of it. She was young twenty, or thereabouts —and as beautiful as an artist's dream. At least I thought so, and I was no raw youth; I was a man well over thirty. "As the circus was staying for a week, I decided to remain, too, and soon discovered that your mother was the only child of the circus proprietor. "She was his principal attraction, too. She was a clever rider, and otherwise experienced in the circus line; and had entire charge of several cages of Avild beasts. 1 saw her exhibitions with mixed feelings at first, then I became terrified. "You know that I am a determined sort of fellow, and within three months your mother was my wife, and I paid her father a thousand dollars to consent to an immediate marriage. J knew that she was half the show. "Wo were very happy for a time, and might have been to this very day had I been honest with her. Pauline, I led a double life. I never told jour mother of my first marriage—l never told her that I had a boy in my beautiful New York home. I pretended to be a drummer —or a commercial traveller as they term it—and while I was in New York, looking after my factories, your mother fondly dreaming that I was hustling for a living on the road. "Why did I practise this deception? 1 don't know, unless it was because I didn't want my swell friends to know that I had married a j circus girl. The first lie wants]

nailing down the instant it's littered, or there'll soon be a mountain of them. So it was in my case. I kept telling myself that there was plenty of time! I had made a nice little home for my wife, and I supplied her with far more money than she knew how to spend. Some day she should know that I was Chester Stark, the New York millionaire. [to be continued.]