"The Courage of Love,”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 29 December 1931, Page 7

"The Courage of Love,”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

CHAPTER V. —Continued, With a little cry Diana, moved forward, and falling- on her knees beside her aunt, she said nothing, but only buried her face in her aunt’s lap, and it seemed to her that Mrs Thorp’s hands rested gently, almost tenderly on her bowed head. So they sat for a short spell, and then the older woman spoke.

‘' Now, my dear, I have had a very disturbing- and upsetting- afternoon, and I feel the need of being quite alone, and having some rest. Go to your room. You van tell me to-morrow what is contained in. this letter from your father, but I am afraid you will be forced to realise, by dear Diana, that we can do nothing but fall in with the wishes contained in 4!> at letter, and which presumably are the same as those delivered to mo this day iby a man called Cyril Townley, who it appears has lived intimately in your father’s life for many years, and has known everything about my brother and his doings. ’ ’ Diana got up, the tears were running down her cheeks, and she was just turning away when she turned back and she stooped over Agatha Thorp and kissed her aunt on the forehead. “You have been always good to me,’’ she said, “and I shall never forget that.’’ And then slowly, almost feebly, she went out of the room. CHAPTER YI.

The car did not come to the Thatch House the next morning. His Thorp gave Diana her orders. “You must catch the bus as it passes through the village. Then you must go to the County Hotel, and you had better send up your name. I am not coming with you, my dear. You are not afraid to go by yourself 1” Diana caught her breath. “Ho—” she said, “but—but it all seems so strange.”

Mrs Thorp looked at the girl. “Well,” she answered, “unless I am absolutely obliged to do so, I don’t want to meet this man again, but I am sending in to Mr Crossman to tell him that he must come to see me this afternoon. After all,” she added, ‘ the Grossmans were lawy’ers for your father in the old days, and they know everything about him, in fact I am surprised he did not write to them. I wish now I had gone to their otfice yesterday before I came back, but I was too broken up, so shattered, I did not know where I was or what I was doing. ’ ’

Diana was touched by their words, and by the look on her aunt’s face.

“You must rest now, Aunt Agatha. This strange business has upset you, ” the girl said gently. Mrs Thorp gave a deep sigh. “James hurt me many times in the old days, but never so deeply as now.” She closed her eyes, and then she sat forward. “Now, Diana, you must bo . Girin, and above all you must refuse to be separated from me without being given full time to think everything over very carefully. Prom what I learned yesterday, I understand your father has left a considerable amount of money, which passes to you. I am not thinking of the money,” Yirs Thorp said proudly, “ but I am thinking about my dignity and youirs. Uu- j til Mr Grossman has fully investigated ! all this man Townley has told me, and all that is written in this letter which you have read to me from your father, I do not think we must allow ourselves to be dictated to. You will be firm, won’t you, Diana?”

“Yes, Aunt Agatha,” the girl an swered, “you can rely on me.”

Sho was pale, and her eyes were tear-stained, and as she was going she turned back, and bending over Mrs Ihoi-p she kissed her; at the same time she put tlie letter from her father in her aunt’s hand,,

“You must keep that, dear,” she said.

Susan, having been very late the night before, was fortunately still in her room, but as she was starting out to walk to the village to get the omnibus, Diana called to her boy cousin. Bill was going on a fishiijg excursion, and he hurried down from his room, half dressed, to speak to Diana at the back of the house. “I have to get to Middleston, Bill,” the girl explained. “It is on some very important business which your mother has asked me to undertake. Look, Bill dear, you will see Mr Waverlev, won’t you, some time? Well please give him a message from me Will you tell him that I have had to go to Middleston, but that Aunt Agatha will be here all this afternoon ” “Righto, Di,” the boy answered cheerily. “J. must go by the old Abbey as you know, and I’ll just drop in and give your message. I say I do like him! He’s a jolly sort of'chap. That’s the sort of job I’d like to take on when I’m a bit older, and Mr Waverley has been advising me to go in for architecture and that kind of work. Jolly good hint! I think I’ll talk to the mater about it! Well now you had better hurry, my dear, if you are going- to catch the bus.”

Diana did hurry, and then she had to wait in the village street, for the bus was a little late . But all the way jogging through the dusty country side tlie girl’s heart was a seething mass of anxiety and trouble. Also, although she had assured her aunt she was not afraid, she was very nervous; she c-ould scarcely explain why. If only she could have seen Hugh before leaving for Midleston! If only she could have talked this matter over with him! She knew.by now he wa,s) very sound and sensible, and practical; although she huew now so well that he could be so sweet, and tender, and full of rom-

BY MADAME ALBANESI. (Author of “Love’s Harvest,” “The Road to Love,” “The Way to Win,” etc).

the County Hotel.” Townley answered this with a laugh and in a breezy kind of way he said: “Well, I did not tell your aunt everything, my dear. She is very difficult to deal with, as you know well.” As Diana, with a frown, still stood looking at him, he went on: “I hope you are not going to suppose I should ask you to do anything to which either you or Mrs Thorp can object. The fact is I don’t particularly want to discuss very important business in a place like this where your aunt is so well known, and there are always rather curious people hanging about here. Come, you must look upon me not only as a friend, but as a great friend of your father. We were devoted to one another,” ho talked on swiftly. “I don’t know that there was anyone for whom I had so much respect, and admiration, and affection, as I had for James Ladbroke. And just because he has spoken so much about you, and has told me how dear and precious you were to him—well, I feel that you must let me serve you, and do everything I can for you, just as your father wished me to do.” There was something persuasive about him and so, still dazed, and not at all easy in her mind, Diana let herself be led out of the hotel and put into a very large motor that was waiting. They were silent as they drove through the village streets, but when they came out into the high road Townley turned to the girl. “I suppose your aunt lias told you a great deal, and you must have read your father’s letter?” “Aunt Agatha only told me just

exactly what passed between you yesterday, and I have read my father’s letter. But”—then Diana smiled at the man beside her—“you must not really be hurt, Mr Townley, if I deal very frankly with you, your coming is so unexpected. The whole matter is so strange, you know, you cannot expect us to fall into line all at once. It is a great upheaval, and I just feel as if 1 were passing into another world! It is so difficult to realise,” Diana said in a low voice, “that my father has been alive all these years. It —it was not very kind of him to keep me in ignorance of this, was it'?” ‘ ‘ You do not know what your father Avas passing through—you do not know of his difficulties, his immense trou-

bles and anxieties, or you would not judge him harshly.” “I judge no one harshly,” said Diana in a quiet voice. “I am not a very clever person, I am not a very old person, I only have my own sense of what is honourable, and right, and loyal. I loved my father and I still love him, but I do not consider that I should be taken away from Aunt Agatha so abruptly.” The man beside her was looking at her and frowning a little.

(To be Continued).

I 1 ance. She found what comfort she could in ; thinking about him as she was being driven nearer to Middleston, and she wondered vaguely what he would have to say to all the news she had to give him. She was so bewildered, so uprooted as it were by the events of the last forty-eight hours, that she scarcely felt equal to thinking out a path for herself in a clear and coherent fashion. As a matter of fact she was now eager to put all the burdens that came in her way on to the broad shoulders of the man she loved. The suggestion that she would be rich, that there would be a great deal of money, did not even touch her, it had no significance at all.

She left the omnibus before it reached the Market Square, and stealing for a moment into the calm, exquisite stillness of the cathedral, she knelt down and said a little prayer; and then made her way towards the main street and the County Hotel. She was in good time, but she felt rather sick with the nervousness which her as she passed through the entrance of the hotel and went to the inquiry office. When she asked for Mr Townley she was told that he was expecting- her, and that he had left instructions that she was to be so kind as to wait for him downstairs. It was the first time Diana had been inside the County Hotel, and if her heart had not been so weighted with apprehension, and a sense of trouble,

she would have found some amusement watching the peojde, chiefly of the tourist type, come and go, while she had to sit and wait for Mr Townley. After a little while some luggage was brought into the hall, and just be-

hind it jyas the figure of a man. Though she did not know him, Diana felt that this bulky, rather pompous individual was the man she had come to meet. When lie approached her, taking off his soft hat, and greeting her with great deference, she got up from the couch on which she had been sitting. '“Oh, we are not going upstairs, my

dear. As a matter of fact I am driving you just a little way out of the town. There is a great deal that we have to discuss, and I shall have to pick up a number of very important papers which you will have to see. The car is waiting.” He took her by the arm. But Diana stood rather firmly. “My aunt did not tell me that you were going to drive me away from Middleston. I understood that I was to have an interview with you here at