"The Secret of Selender Castle,"

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13856, 12 June 1919, Page 7

"The Secret of Selender Castle,"

PUBLISHED BT SPSGIAXi JUUtAHQZMnrT.

SENSATIONAL STORY OP LOVE AND MYSTBEY.

By A. RENDEL POPE.

demption," "Jothro Stool," etc. (COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER ll.—Continued. Lord Lysmore turned suddenly on his heel. "You Lad bettor take your views where they are likeJy to be accepted, ,, he cried passionately. "For my own part I find them and you insufferable." Tie walked quickly away in the opposite direction, i>arnley making no effort to follow him. In a few minutes ho reached his chambers at the Albany, in a state of mind verging on tho blackest and bitterest despair. A coward! That was what London—or the section of London that mattered —would bo calling him; and he could well imagine ■with what enormous gusto the sordid story would be related, and how men would laugh, women would snoer, as they pictured him, branded with wine, issuing a serio-comic challenge -which he had not the slightest intention of following iip.

But had he genuinely meant to meet this man Kayo on the sands of Calais? At that moment he found it difficult to say. He know nothing of duelling, outside the theory he had always professed to entertain that it was the only method of settling a dispute that a man of honour could conceivably choose. He had been notorious in the past for the eccentricity of his ideas. It was by no means inconceivable that he would in the future be notorious for something infinitely worse.

He threw off his overcoat wearily, scanning his own feaurea in the antique mirror over the fireplace. As ho did so the purple stain on his collar and shirt —a stain unpleasantly suggestive— mocked his anguish in the rellection. Truly, an ugly record of an ugly night!

The countenance he saw before him was of .stern and studious east. The forehead wan high and somewhat narrow, the eyes deep-set, the mouth and chin of determined contour. It was scarrely, one would think, the face of :i. man so craven-hearted as to suffer a vilo insult tamely. And yet, as he gazed, Lord Lysmore knew that he had tonight unwittingly revealed the weakness of his character. At a moment of crisis he had found himself physically afraid. The means he had adopted were in truth those of sheer cowardice.

Ho grew cold with anguish at the thought. The hope aped suddenly through his mind that he might in some way or another keep the whole affray a secret, binding hi.s fellow-participators to inviolable secrecy. But the ignominy of imposing any such condition, even if it were possible, banished the hope as speedily as it arose. He- had already quarrelled with Darnlcy; there was not the slightest reason why Kaye should not brag about the affair to his intimates. And Peile, his cousin—could it be true, as Darnley had warned him, that he, his rival in love, was his bitterest enemy of all?

His glance fell on a photograph of a girl, which stood, silver-framed, on the mantelpiece before him.

She was a girl of a singularly pure type of beauty, perfect of feature, deliciouslv feminine, crowned with an aureole of sun-lit hair. Pride lay on her lips—the pride of race, the superb consciousness of impeccable breed. The atmosphere of it .seemed almost to envelop her.

What, he wondered, would be her construction when the story came t-o her ears:! Already t*he had lifted her eyebrows in half-humorous disdain at the narration of some of the reckless episodes with which his name had been associated. For the name he bore, and notably the name to which he would succeed, was a lofty one, which it were almost desecration to besmirch. Hie father, the Earl of Selender, had, before a sensational withdrawal into privacy, devoted his life to public service and the exercise of gifts of an uncommon order. And Ruby Castlereagh was a woman to whom the oft-bandied phrase, "noblesse oblige," was of the nature of a religion.

With a shrug of his shoulders Lord Lysmore sat in the chair by the dying iiro to reconsider the whole situation. His brain was awhirl, his nerves tingling. It seemed to him that he had at last met the great crisis of his life.

(Sudden!y, to his astonishment, there came a km>'k at the outer door. His man had gone to bed, and, wondering who on earth could be .seeking him at such an hour, he answered the summons himself. To his relief he discovered that the. visitor was none other than his cousin, Captain Reginald Peile. It had just been in his mind that, Darnley's ■warning notwithstanding, this was the man of all others whom he would most like to consult.

"I thought I should lind you up, 7, .Peile cried heartily, flapping him on the shoulder. "Au das I guessed you would ho ii bit worried I thought I would, havo n word with you before 1 turned in myself. Can I come in?" « ""Do," Lysmore answered, his tones expressing the relief he fe.lt. And as Ms cousin followed him into the study he. turned to him exclaiming: "By bad, Hex, this is an awful business, you know! What malignant fate possessed rae to make such a fool of myself I honestly don't know." * "I stored behind to warn Kayo that tho matter .must not go any £u^*?; 5, .Peile oxplatSic-dj "but I am sorry to say that he positively declined to listen to any sort of reason. He seems to have -a deep-seated grudge agaiuet ypuj for some reason or other. He swears there will either be a duel or he -frill let the whole affair loose all over London. What do you propose to do about it, Bonald?" "Fight him, of course," Lysmorc responded. Peile *tiodded his head, staring at his cousin with what seemed to be compassion in hie eyee. "Suppose there is a fatal termination," he suggceted. '' That,'' said Lysmore, '' is a risk I am prepared to run."

(To be Continued.)

For a moment Poilo made no response. Then ho asked, slowly and tentatively: "Has it occurred to you that there might still be a way out?"

In spite of himself, Lysmore's heart leapt within him. It was juat his one chance —that there might still be a way out.

"What do you mean? ,, he enquired, trying in vain to hide the exultation in his voice.

"You were telling u.s to-night of a rather singular episode that occurred in the Colonnade," Peilo proceeded. "I didn't tell you at the moment, but as it happens I have met this chap, Cyril Brackcnbury. I really came to make his acquaintance through his astonishing likeness to you. In point of fact, I mistook him for you, and spoke- to him. lie is a very decent felow, but there is something palpably wrong about him. He is desperato, and at his wits' ends for money. I know where to got hold of him, and know, too,, that ho would do

Author of "A Woman's Hate," "The Wages of Sin,' , "Bedcairn's Re-

anything in the world ii' hv. were well paid. IJocs any .sort oi" idea strike you;''' ''What on earth do you suggest?" Lysmore almost shouted, gripping" Peile by both his arms. "What do I suggest?" Peile repeatvd coolly. ''Why, siruply this —that you pay Cyril Brackenbury to ta-ke your place on the sands of Calais!" CHAPTER 111. LOBD LVSAIOKE'S DOUBLE. Despite the fact that his night's rest had been confined to a< very few hours, Captain Peilo rose early the following morning, prepared to develop to its furthermost length the. plot his active brain had conceived at the moment when his cousin had embroiled himself in a quarrel with Sir Marmaduke Kayo. Contrary io Darnley's be Lief, he had been innocent of pre-arranging the quarrel, which had simply been the outcome of an excited and intemperate night. Hut when Kaye bad Hung his wine in Lord Lysmore's face, and the latter, ratlu-r than subject him to an immediate thrashing, had challenged him to light a duel, Peile had instantly se-en a way—dramatic, certainly, and, on. the face of it, unlikely of fulfilment—in which the affray might be employed to his own advantage.

Captain I Vile was a man who had come very near indeed to most of the enviable things of life.

.From his earliest years he had, been taught to regard himself as the heir to the Selender peerage, for his uncle, the Earl of Selender, then approaching middle life, was a bachelor, devoted to public affairs, who was regarded as totally unlikely to turn towards matrimony.

But the unexpected happened, as it usually does. The eaxl, suddenly and impetuously, fell in love with the youngest daughter of an obscure country parson, marrying her almost before his aggrieved relatives had time to remind him of the self-abnegation they had come to look upon as their right. A son was eventually bprn, heir to the title and the vast estates, and Reggie Peile, a schoolboy at l>ton, fell from the eminence of the next of succession to the comparatively low estate of a minor cadel of thi , house Jo which he belonged.

He had never forgotten his father's rage and his mother's grief—emotions lie was better able to understand when he came to an age fo appreciate the worth of the heritage he had lost.