"Deringham’s Daughter,”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 21 November 1928, Page 7

"Deringham’s Daughter,”

POPULAR LOVE STORY BY A POPULAR WRITER.

STELLA ML DURIXG. f Author of —‘‘Love’s Privilege,” “Between the Devil and the Deep Sea,” ‘‘Malicious Fortune,” ‘‘Disinherited,” etc.

CHAI’TEb XV

‘‘Elinor, you wouldn’t! 1 o.i couldn’t be so cruel!” For the girl's tir-.t impulse h I been to close the door in his face, and he saw it. But at the nassionate reproach in his voice she wavered. ‘‘Mayn’t 1 come in.”’ he asked, and at the heartbroKeii appeal in his eyes she gave way.

her to tell lum! ‘‘Do you think it is right, do you think it is kind, to run the risk of my linding out afterwards that you have suffered, perhaps, because you were too proud to tell me?” ‘‘Oh, but I never thought you would know! ’ ’ • ‘ I know now.''

‘‘Come in if you like! It doesn’t make any difference,” she said, and sat down in the hall porter’s hooded chair and gazed at him dry-eyed and forlorn. Carew closed tho door, keeping his hand behind him on the handle.

“Elinor, what does all this mean? ho asked.

Tin? girl looked away from him, and with grieved and wondering eves li« studied the now faint lines that trouble had traced about her delicate mouth. She answered him with a dull resignation that hid something like despair. ‘•I can’t tell you.” “ I. am not even to ask?” ‘I ask you not to ask.” ‘•You are in trouble, evidently, and vou take yourself away from me! > ■ i am in trouble, I don't deny if, and 1 take myself away front you, right away from you, until the trotible is over. It is the only thing I can do.” . “And I am not to know anything aboui it?” “No.” • or t 0 try to find you and help * ; > “Oh, please, no!” yirs and Miss Payne, living in strict seclusion in two shabby little rooms at King’s Thorpe! He would not think, he would know that it is only vnder the threatening shadow of the law that people change their names. .• i; i s a little hard oil me, Elinor.' “ 1 know,” she agreed and a sob ealight her by the throat and choked her.

For a moment Elinor endured it, the grieved reproach in iiis voice, the passionate, accusation of his look. Then she carried the nymph hack to her niche among the feathery fern fronds in the alcove on the stairs, and came swiftly hack and stood before him, her hands, lightly interlocked, hanging before her, her eyes, brimmed up with sweetest penitence, raised to his gloomy face?

‘‘l won't be proud, 1 won't," she said, ‘‘but, oh, it’s very difficult —”

He did not wait for the end of the sentence, he took her, pride and penitence and all, into his hungry arms. •‘Elinor, Elinor, need you make it harder for me,” he remonstrated. ‘‘Don’t you see it’s as much as T can stand —and keep sane. But 1 think I could bear everything if you would only let me help you.”

‘‘You shall.”- She drew away from his hold with decision, and looked up at him, sweetly resolved. “You shall lend me twenty .pounds. Oh, it is enough and more. You have no idea how simple life is in two rooms.” ‘ ‘ Two rooms!”

“We can live on twenty pounds, i|uite comfortably, for three months, and long before the three mouths is

“And have you no comfort for me. Mot a word of hope?” She looked-up, a sudden smile breaking like light across the trouble of her face. Impulsively she held out to him one slim pale hand. He strode across to where she sat-, and kneeling down beside her, slipped his arm about her waist and crushed that slim hand against his lips. Klinor did not say him nay. Gently, almost caressingly, she bent over him, resting her pale cheek at last upon his dark hair. “boric,” she whispered, “ (bm t mind. It will all come right in the end." How sweet it was, that whispered f ‘ Kuril',” the boyish name that, big man as he was, yet so oddly fitted him. lie had told her once that his mothei. had called him “Rorie.” She used the word so naturally that she must have had it often in her thoughts. And she told him that all would come right: in the end. Might lie, dare lie, believe

over— She checked herself. Long, longbefore the three months was over her father would’be triumphantly reinstated in the eyes of his fellowmen. and all could be laughed at and explained. But she could not explain yet. “You shall lend me twenty pounds,” she said again with finality. ‘ ‘ And when it is done .’' ’ “It won’t be done for a long time.” “But when it is!” “I'll—l’ll ask for some more.” “And how shall 1 know? Where and when can I give it you?" “I’ll write. We can meet somewhere if it is necessary. But it won’t be.”

‘* M'mi are sure?" “I am quite- sure.'’ “And when shall we meet again? Don’t, don't deny yourself to me altogether, Elinor.”

‘•You arc 1 sure of that?” “I am quite —quite sure. If 1 was not clo you think—'’ She broke off, a little smile, faintly wondering, lighting up almost the old spark of fun in her eyes. If she were not sure, quite sure, could she have sat as she sat at this moment, with her hand laid lightly but lovingly about his neck and his arms around her. Jf her father were really the criminal some vindictive and implacable enemy was bent on making him appear, could she his daughter, ever met < brew's honest eyes again! Almost wonderingly she realised what he was bewilining to mean to her. How unquestioningly she looked up at him, how entirely she trusted him. If her father wore * condemned, ever so unjustly, could she, Elinor, take her place at Carew's side, cover him with her shame, shadow liis uprightness with her dishonour. No, only on her father s triumphant acquittal, that acquittal in which her faith grew day by day more assured, could she find the, courage to lot him know that the prison taint, had over hung about her, that she was familiar, dreadfully familiar, with procedure and precautions, with suspicions and scrutinies, which must always leave a festering spot in her memory. It might be possible, perhaps, to te him how her father had suffered when his sufferings were proved beyond doubt to be the result, of a hideous miscarriage of justice. Whilst there was the faintest fear that Carcw might suspect them even partly deserved he should never know anything amu Whether the minutes m the silent shrouded hall were long or short Carevv never knew, so full were they of sweetness and solace. Elinor roused nm, putting her two hands on his shou.ders, and giving him a little shake. “(lot up,” she said, her voice quiverin'-’ deliciously between laughter am tears, “I must do what 1 came to do.” , ~, A What did you come to do f. He was answered even whilst she hesitated, silent and proud, unnecessarily ashamed. A tiny statuette of l ar-i-in marble had been lifted from its niche among feathery fernfronds in an. alcove on the staircase, a costly and dilicate trillo, the work of a well known hand. An open box filled with cottonwool lav on the- hall table ready tor its reception, the cab still waited at the door. On row glanced from the dainty nymph to Minor’s down cast face. ~ “You are going to sell that. “Yes.” “You have sold—other things? “Yes.” “You are without money. “Yes.” “And you never told me. Elinor’s eyes swept upwards, dark and appealing. How could he expect

‘ ‘ I must! ’ ’ “ Kill il when .’' ’ “ Until the sixteenth of October.” “The sixteenth of October! 'I oil can give me a definite date.”' “Oh, yes.” ‘ ‘ But —that 's odd. “Oh,” said Elinor with a little shudder, and her look, uncertain and troubled, went past him into the shadows, “don’t let us talk about it. That .is what ■! am afraid of, why I will not set 1 you. I shall say something. You will guess.” Carew said nothing. His fingers closed almost painfully on the hand he held and his face went a. little grey. For he guessed already. That unexplained voyage to Madeira, this sudden and complete stoppage of supplies. Y\ hat could it mean but disaster, financial disaster. And some lawsuit to which Elinor evidently trusted to set things right, came on, it was clear, early in October. His own case against Payne, oddly enough, was down for hearing on the fifteenth. And Elinor was proud. Not until the family fortunes were repaired would she link them to his. Could he wonder! And so that she did not ('litrely cut herself off from him could he even reproach! “Then we will—leave it so,” he said. “ I am to rest in your assurance that things are bearable, and that as soon as fresh didimities arise l shall be told of them and allowed to help. That you will part with no more of your property so long as I have a halfpenny 1 can ask you to share, and that on the sixteenth of October you will explain everything.” “Ye-es. I think I can promise all that.” “There is to be no thinking. It is to be a definite promise. Yours for mine. ’ ’ “ Why, what have you promised?” “Xot- to seek you —in -any way. To respect your wish for absolute separation, for the time being. And only Ooil knows how hard my promise will be to keep, Elinor.” “T —agree,” with a trace of hurry, “it is yours for mine. You will keep it, won’t you.” “Kiss me —-once, and then T will.” “I don't make- bargains.” “It isn't a bargain. I shall keep it anyhow, you know I will. But kill me once, Elinor, only once. Because because you love me. ”

(To be Continued).