DORINCOURT'S TEMPTATION

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13895, 22 October 1918, Page 3

DORINCOURT'S TEMPTATION

(All Rights Reserved.J

By ARCHIBALD THANE.

- OR, - HONOUR AGAINST INTEREST. o

PART 2. His admittance into the inner uince of the Dorincourt Agency would have been very doubtful had he not been fairly well known there. Bome little matters of business had been attended to for him before through Dorincourt's kindness, for somehow—without knowing why—he had taken a sort of fancy for the old man. On that day he had carried under his arm a small package secured in a coarse brown linen cover, which.while he spoke, he moved nervously from one hand to the other.

"It's not very valuable, Mr. Dorincourt, judged by your standard, I suppose,'" he had said ; "but it's got a few old keepsakes in it that I value for the association, and a bit of whati I've been able to save, and I should like it to be kept safely. It's asking a favour, I know, to get you to lay it by among some of your own papers, but I don't mind asking a favoui of you, especially as I don't ask any receipt for it, or legally hold you responsible. In case of anything happening to me, I want you to open it. You'll find instructions inside and enough to pay you for your trouble. I suppose that's enough said between us, isn't it ?" and he gave Dorincourt a shrewd glance of his keen grey, eyes. Dorincourt had always rather wondered at his own interest in old Greer —an interest which was extremely foreign to his nature ; but it was one of thoee impulses which we give way to without understanding, and he gave way to it then very easily. "I don't mind keeping it at all," he said. "I shall simply give you a receipt for a package 'contents unknown ,' and put it away to mould with some of my own keepsakes. I say mould, for I trust it will be a good many years yet before your demise brings it to the light of day. Nov,- let's nee ; I don't suppose you have a seal of your own. Well—well, this is my own private one, which guarantees its safety from all other hands but my own. That will do, I suppose ?"

Quite, Mr. Dorincourt—quite," assented the old man, as he watched

with interest the burning wax fail upon the cover of his package. "I don't believe you'll regret your kindness, though it doesn't seem likely I should ever be called upon to do anything for you. However, it's a Blran,~e world, and has its ups and downs, as I have cause to kno-v. Thank you, Mr. Dorincourt, kindly. Good day, sir—good day." Then he had gone, and from that day. five years ago, to thi3 he had only seen him twice. Once he had passed him in the street, when he had only nodded kindly to the old man, and once Greer had been in the office, but even then he had departed without one word of reference to the package in Dorincourt'o keeping. These thoughts sped through the mind of the manager as he sat there in his office chair, staring down at Watcnuann'B letter where it lay upon the floor. Why was it that thi3 voice had come, as from the grave, to hold him back from hi 3 purpose to-night ?

To hold him back ! How could it hold him back ? How could the fate of s'jch a man as Creor be linked with his?

He smiled to himself as the thought came to him, Was he already catching at straws, with a blind, brutish love of life ? Life ! What could it mean for him? Nothing but a renewal of a struggle in which he—he, the luckiest man in the great city—was already beaten. But this thing has a fascination for him none the less. He had half the r.i?ht before him yet—what harm could it do to break the seals ? After all, he felt rather closer tc Greor now than he had ever done. The old man's name was already wiped out of the world's books; when his was likewise, what did it matter where they had stood towards each other ?

The impulse was too strong to b« resisted, and he rose quickly and, thru3tinr, YVatcnnnnn's letter into it* former resting place, crossed 11. < room to where the door of bis private safe stood open. CHAPTER 111. IN TRUST FOR HER.

He had no trouble in rinding it. He fould have laid his hand upon it had the room been shrouded in pLchy darkness, as it lay there at the bottom of a pile of yellow parchments. fiz he rone from his stooping posture he glanced behind him to see if the inner oilicc were securely fastened, though be had made sure of that he'orc when he hfd last entered; then holding the package in his hand, he slowly walked back to his chair beforo hie desk. Befor.' sitting down, however, he re--••iovo'1 bh: vest and placed it in anther r.Y'ir r.t a distance from him, a '••'i;:c drill passing through him as : i"?lt t.';fl weight of the substance cur-.-' 1 i.-.t'.i'r, its inner folds.

"' 'ck, wh'ch rick."] on, it seeived to ■ ■■', y- I i :-. horrible rapidity, though >o was provoked at riis own nervousnofifr. What, flii! ho care for the of time ? Ho still had half the night before him. Quito time enough for this and much other work. Turning up the light above the desk he sank into tha chair, placing the package before hira. v;ith the three large ssal3 turned upwards. It \va3

for a moment only that be paused, r.h<*n with rnrid fingers he broke them or.e after the other in quick succession. To judge by the appearance of the soiled linen cover, the package might have lain untouched fur years before it had come into Dcrincourt's possesEicn. Even the few threads of coarse sewing which held it together under the seals were rotten, and gave way easily under his touch. Inside the package divided itself into two, each done up in separate folds of heavy paper ; but as he drew them out there fell from between them a half-dozen sheets of folded foolscap, secured by a seal, as an old-fashioned letter might have been, and directed on the outside to himself.

He paused a moment, uncertain which to open first, weighing each of the larger packages in his hands meditatively, though his eyes were upon the letter.

The latter proved its stronger hold upon him, staring there at him with the letters of his name, as if it demanded his attention first and foremost.

He almost felt the dead man's hand upon him as he broke the seal and began to read the closely-written lines. It was dated a day or two before the package had first come into Dorincourt's hands, and ran as follows -- "Dear Mr. Dorincourt.—lf you accept the trust which I hope shortly to place in your hands, it will be quite in ignorance of its magnitude or the great part it may some day play in your own life. "I have made up my mind that if you do not accept it thus without question I shall simply seek other means for its safety ; but if through your friendship for an otherwise friendless old man you can do this act of kindness, you will have your reward on opening this, which you will do when you receive news of my death.

"But your obligations to me will not Btop*there, for even this <*ift to you must be made upon conditionsconditions which have shaped all the latter course of my own life, and may in the same way, perhaps, shape yours.

"If you at first shrink from them, remember I am leaving you a fortune a fortune which for the last twenty years, since I ceased to be Howard Ormsby, no human being has ever dreamed of my possessing. "You will wonder why a man of wealth and position such as mine should suddenly disappear from such a world as I did twenty years ago and take up such a life as mine has been since, but if you will look up the record of the name you will not. have have far to go to find the cause. When you have found it, and realise that it is only on the condition that you make my life's object yours that you can in honour hold this gift, it is for you to decide whether you will take it or hand it over to those nearest of blood to me. "Listen, then to this my charge to you. » "As I have for the last twenty years, so must you for the next carry on the unremitting search for what was stolen from me twenty years ago, "You have only to look up the record of the famous Ormsby scandal to know what my loss was "Priceless to me beyond all gold (and I have hoarded that carefully enough, God knows!) was my only daughter, whom I have sought, and sought in vain, all these years. "Her mother had died two years before she left me. She was all I had, and yet I believed she loved me; and had I been less hard towards her in that great passion of her life, all the misery of these year 3 might have been saved us both.

"It came about in this way. She was young—very young, not over sixteen—with only the care a man of middle-age could give her--a man of idle wealth. We spent our time in one watering place or another, half the time in Europe, half the time at home.

"As I look back upon it now, I dc not wonder at her loving the man she did, but at the time it seemed to me perfectly monstrous, perfectly urma* tural.

"He was young, handsome, with a certain charm of manner—an artist, who went under the name of Daubiei —Philip Daublet. He was moving in very good society at the time, but 1 believe all the same that was not his real name. When I first met him ] liked him, and naturally enough, wishing to help on struggling art, gave him a commission to paint my daughter's portrait. "Being a man of the world, you know how that thing goes on. It ended in the usual way. They fell madly in love with each other, which ] learned when it was too late.

"You know mc well enough, perhaps, to know that I listened to neither. I fon%ide him the house, and took her away with me on our cease less round of travel. I was fool enough to think it was all over then, as if even my will could stand between Buch a mad folly of their youth. "He must have followed us, though I, locked in my own fancied security, never suspected it. "How well I remember the night Bhe left me ! I can feel now the touch of her soft arms about my neck when she came into my reading room to bid me good night. I saw she had been crying, but asked no quaotions. I knew the cause only too well, r.nd thought that by passing it over in silence it would heal the sooner. Even when she drew irom the bosom of her dress the half of an old gold locket which had been her mother's, andl asked me if she might keep it, I still suspected nothing. "It seems a trivial circumstance in the face of the great tragedy of my life which it foreshadowed, but its bearing is too important for me to pass over here. It wa3 of plain gold, in the shape of a heart, and contained the miniatures of her mother and

myself, which, in a dream of romantic folly years before, I had divided '. by the snapping of the slight hinge at ! the back, that we might each wear half. There had been a verse from , Byron engraved on either side, kail of I which remained upon the piece I ai- , ways wore about my neck, the rest ! upon the piece I gave the girl that I night. "Was it prophetic, that it should be the last favour she was ever to ask iofme ? How little did I guess so : then—how clearly I see it now ! i "That you may know how nearly : this token concerns you now, I will ! say that by this deed of gif* I no^ pass it on to you from my -leal hand, ' with all the obligations it can lm- | pose to find her. Do not smile and ! think it but an old man's fancy. 7o i me it has always seemed to echo the j strange, wild longing of my own heart to reconstruct its torn, dismembered self, and to promise that who holds it will, in Heaven's own time, be given the power to accomplish the tnsk at which I have failed.

"I need not tell you how wildly I sought her, with what result my after life has already told you. The completeness of their disappearance at least told this—that it was from no low sordidness ot motive that he had married her.

"The next few years of Howard Ormsby's life are too well known to need my telling. You l know, or can easily learn, how money was poured out like water in the vain search for all he cared for. And then I took a sudden resolution. 'They have disappeared,' I said to myself, 'into the great world of the unknown and namo less.'

"My one chance, my one hope, of ever finding them was to enter that world myself. "I, too, would be poor and unkno-vr no longer the marked man they could avoid. I would lead as nearly as I could the life they must lead, and sooner or later I should come across their path. "You will appreciate easily enough that the task before me was no easy one, for I was determined to carry with me the immense power of my wealth, that I might use it to the furtherance of what was now my life's object. "I spent months in the work that I might excite no suspicion. Day by day, week by week, I transformed my wealth into portable shape, and when at last the supreme moment came, Howard Ormsby disappeared as completely as if he had entered his grave. "The mystery of Howard Ormsby is far too well known to the world that there is any need of my repeating it here. You know the hue and cry, ycu know the search far and wide for years, and you know how successful i* has been.

"Cut my success then, all my labour, all my self-denial, have been so far a failure. I say so far, because in pitting this trust in your hands I feci I am renewing its life for another t'.vcnty years. "Listen, then, to the terms of my bargain : This money is all yours in trust for her. Give up your life to tlio work—and you must find her——and when once found, tell her first that I died forgiving her. and thin bestow upon her this great proof of it.

"You may have wondered before now why I have selected jou—a man

;:Imost a stranger to me—for such a task. The answer Is only too easy. I must have oought a man whose wealtt and position put him beyond the temptation of deceit —a man known far and wide as an upright, honourable gentleman, whom even a dead man might trust.

"Could I have found such a one among my early acquaintances without running greater risks than I do with you ?

"No, I am not afraid but that when you have found her you will forfeit your trust. That does not haunt me, but the dread that you will not find her in t^me. "And what then ?

"Though she can hardly yet have reached middle age, her death is, of course, possible. If, then, she has left children whom I have never seen, this money must be theirs, but still strictly in trust with you till they come of age, and failing them, it is all yours for over. "Of your reward from her or them I have no fear, and make no mention of it now. The offering any sum of gold to Cyril Dorincourt , seems trifling. The world knows what you are.

"And now lam almost done. You will find the locket enclosed by itself in the first packet. The second contains all my wealth—over half a million—a large sum to thus bequeath by this illegal will and testament, but I feel it safer in your hands than with the guarantee of a dozen court 3 of law "And now farewell. May God deal with you as ycu deal with her and hers. "DAVID GREER "Once Howard*Osmaby)." t'To l)e Continued.)

TVhcn an American missionary introduce i the phonograph to a remote tribe of Indians they were at f.rat too frightened to go very near while it was talking anil sin ;ing, but when the record was finis'-ied they crowded up to make.a closer inspec'..:on. Finally an old chief, go- ting down on h'p i'eneep, and peering into the trumpet whence the mysterious iO : t !vul come, muttered : "l<Vr, '--r away," wes the reply ; •'from a place culled C.'hi-irro." " ■'' !" grunted the chbL. "Tinned -'vtjman !"

a r/ne nf two hundred fiftyChht le.<-gO pear's former!" :;■ m liy i.m r.e.ld at Vhrir, 4 c's for /:.\V> J.