Serial Story. [PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.] HER LAST ADVENTURE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue XIII, 28 September 1901, Page 578

Serial Story. [PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.] HER LAST ADVENTURE.

By

ANNIE O. TIBBITS.

(Author of “What Came Between?” “Under Suspicion,” “Fighting a Lie,” “Beth Gwyn, “The Shadow Between,” etc., etc.)

COPYRIGHT.

CHAPTER I. FATE-DRIVEN. It was a cold night—cold and windy, with ice lying thick on the frozen roads and hanging like snow to the stiff black branches of the trees and bushes. It was not late—scarcely seven o’clock—but darkness had settled down early that night, and had brought with it an ugly wind and a sudden storm of sleet that threatened to develop into snow before morning. Rene Trennant looked round her r<’om with a shiver. Then with a quick movement she stepped to the window and flung it open to the night. Only half an hour before she had come in with her hat still on. with a blood stained glove tightly rolled in her hand, with a strange grey, frightened face that shrank from the shadows in the room, and hurrying across had drawn both blind and curtain and roused the flre to flame to drive out the hideous darkness of the night. Now. for a moment, she seemed to have forgotten her terror. She leant forward listening, her face turned breathlessly to the common that lay at a little distance and to the wo.?d that stretched along one side of it. Already the little straggling town was still. It was scarcely little more than a village, and only the inn at the top of the street seemed to show anv signs of life. Rene could hear nothing but the wind. It blustered through the trees and over the house, shaking the loose shutters and howling in the chimneys. The sound made her shiver. It brought back all the ugly feeling of horror and terror and fear that she had felt an hour ago. She drew a long breath and listened again, as’it died down, and peered forward as if she expected to see across the empty patch of common the desolate wood on the other side— as if she might see under the shadows of the bushes the thing she had seen a couple of hours ago—a face turned upwards to the grey sky with the wind moaning over it, and with the cold wet sleet beginning to moisten its white lips. She peered forward through the darkness,shivering, shrinking, and yet waiting. What she expected she could not have told. What evil the night would bring she dared not think. The wind swept on, crying to the darkening night, dying away across the wide common, and she still leant forward, forgetful of the cold, staring wildly at the drifting clouds and sullen sky. Some flakes of snow falling on her face roused her at last. She raised herself and looked round. It would be thick before morning thick and white over field and hedgerow ami the barren common.

\ moment later another paroxysm of frar seized her. and with leaden hands she dragged down window ami blind, ami turning, shut her eyes to the glove on the floor and crouched before her fire and stared with hollow haggard eyes into its bright depths. I'he flames leaped in the chimney, and the light flickered over her white lace.

It was a beautiful, strange face; beautiful because of the eyes and mouth, and strange bc<*ause of the shadows round both. There were lines.

too. that seemed to be out of place there, and a curious look in her eyes that would have startled the children she taught if they could have seen it.

They would have been still more startled, if they could have seen her thoughts—if they could have seen the things she saw—the faces that had stared up from the frozen common at the grey sky above it.

She shivered as she remembered it. and went slowly over the series of events that had brought her step by step to that room on that night with that face before her. She had been Fate-driven. She was Fate-driven still, and her next move lay already pointed out by the papers on the little table beside her. She crouched closer over the fire, watching the pictures of the last three months of her life as they seemed io rise before her out of the red flames. They were all driving her on —driving her —where? She shivered again and tightened her lips. Each one of those events had led her to this. Each one had taken her a little farther along the ugly road, until now there seemed only one way before her. She was intended to go on—she was meant to do the thing she shrank from doing, and in her heart she knew that she would do it vet.

The firelight played on her face, making it look hopeless and weary as her thoughts travelled backwards. The first event had occurred only three months ago! But it seemed more like years since she and Effie Chaloner had been brought together. She remembered it with a shudder—the lonely London street, the dreary autumn afternoon deepening into fog. and the lost and nervous girl who had come to her for help. They were the only two figures in sight. The fog was thickening over the muddy river, covering the gloomy buildings on the other side, and creeping up silently from the water into the roadway. Tn all her miserable life Rene had never felt more miserable than she had done at that moment. There was n r hope that day—nothing but deadly misery and despair, and she had stood staring into the river with dark eyes and ugly thoughts when the girl’s voice startled her.

She was only inquiring her way. but Tb-ni turned sharply with a feeling that, after all. she had not done with life vet.

She peered through the fog at the girl’s bright face, and after she had directed her stood watching as she started across the road. The next instant she darted forward. A heavy waggon had plunged suddenly through the fog and borne down upon the girl, and an instant later she would have been under the wheels if Rene had not caught her. As it was. the shaft had struck her. and hurled her to the muddy road. Rene bent and raised her. For a moment she thought she was seriously hurt, hut an instant later she raised her head and opened her eyes with a start.

"Oh.” she cried with a gasp for breath as she looked up into Rene’s face, “you have saved my life! Tf it hadn't been for you I might have " She shuddered. “Let us get into n call,'' she added nervously. “Oh. it frightens me. this London.”

She looked round half helplessly

and clung to Rene’s arm with chattering teeth. "Mother forbade me to come out alone.” she added, “but she is partly an invalid, and she was not very well, and I wanted to go so much. Oh, it served me right.”

She scrambled to her feet and looked again into Rene’s face. “You must come with me,” she added. “You must come and see mother and tell her. Oh, please do come.”

It would have been easy to refuse, yet Rene did not. There was something in the girl’s face that reminded her of something she had lost, and she yielded. There were more reasons than one why she shrank from accompanying her, but there came to her then, as there comes to most people sometimes in their lives, a feeling that something outside herself was leading her on—driving her to an end she could not see.

She yielded almost helplessly. She was so tired of struggling. She was so tired of life that she scarcely seemed to care what happened now, and as they drove to the hotel she scarcely heard the girl chattering beside her.

She was roused by a hand on her arm.

“Now you must tell me your name,” she was saying. “Mine is Etfie Chaloner and my brother is Sir Christopher Chaloner, and I’m going to take you straight to my mother, who, of course, is Lady Chaloner. Chris has some business to attend to and we came with him for a week, and that is why we are here. Now your name?” Rene hesitated, but even as she did so her lips had spoken it. “Oh, what a pretty name.” cried Eflie. “and just like you. Rene! It means queen, doesn’t it? Oh, you are like a queen.” She was recovering quickly from the effect of her shaking, and she leant forward in the cab to look at her. Rene shivered and turned away a little.

“1 would rather not come, if you don't mind.” she faltered, “I—l would rather—go away ” Effie elung to her arm. “No. I’m not going to let you go,” she cried. “You don’t understand how much you’ve done to-night, and you must come and be introduced to my mother. I’m not going to let you refuse—oh, you can’t refuse.” She turned an eager, girlish face, and Rene yielded helplessly. A few minutes later she found herself confronting two other faces that were destined to alter her whole life. The one was an old lady with white hair and faded blue eyes, and the other was a man. Rene’s first impression was that he was very tall and stern. When she looked again there

was something in his eyes that sent an odd thrill to her heart. She caught her breath. It was years since a man looked at her like that—years since a man had looked at her so gently as that!

Effie ran forward. “Oh, mother, oh, Chris,” she cried I’ve been nearly killed.” They looked up startled. “Killed?”

"Oh. mother, it was all my fault for going out myself when you forbade me. I’m awfully sorry, I’m really awfully sorry.”

Chris rose to his feet and Effie dragged Rene forward.

“This is the girl who has saved my life.” she cried. “Miss Trennant. I got knocked down by a waggon, and she dragged me out from under the horses’ very feet. If she hadn’t been there I might have been hopelessly hurt, and even then if she hadn’t been quick—oh, mother, it frightened me to death. I made her come to you, and here she is, and I’m not hurt a bit—thanks to her.”

Lady Chaloner rose to her feet and held out her hand quickly. She was a proud and rather cold woman, but the sudden rush of gratitude made her forget her usual dignity. Whatever Rene was at that moment she did not care. For an instant she forgot herself. Rene felt the blood rush to her face and then die out again. For a moment she hesitated. How could she give her hands to a woman like that—she, with so much that was ugly in her life? “How can I thank you? My dear girl, you have earned my everlasting gratitude,” cried Lady Chaloner.

Tier words seemed far away to Rene, and the old grey face that was looking at her so kindly seemed like a face out of a dream. “There is no need to thank me,” she cried. “I—l did what I could. I—I—” She turned away a little and in so doing met Sir Christopher’s grey eyes fixed on her. He, too, held out his hands. “Indeed it is not worth it,” she cried, hoarsely. “It was —only a chance. I —anyone else might have done it.” “But anyone else didn't,” said Sir Christopher. “It was you who did it. You saved my sister perhaps from serious hurt, and we shall never know how to be grateful enough.” He looked into her eyes again and something in them sent over him a sudden shadow—a shadow of something that was to come perhaps. He turned away half uneasily and then looked back at her again, as if she attracted him in spite of himself. Her face was the face of a girl with a woman’s sorrow in it. Its beauty was almost irresistible, in spite of her shabby clothes and hat, and almost unconsciously he found himself watching her as she talked to Lady Chaloner. He watched her with an odd feeling at heart as the minutes sped on. Effie would not let her go. With her usual impulse she had taken a fancy to the woman who had saved her. and for a while Rene let herself drift. There was no harm in it, she thought, and it was so comfortable, so warm, so like what she had known once, a long time ago, and so unlike the comfortless garret she called home. Her heart fell at the thought of the word home. “I hope your people will not be anxious. about you,” Lady Chaloner was saying. Her voice had grown stiff again. “Perhaps they do not mind— I mean they may not be waiting for you or wondering what has become of you.” “Rene’s lips set a little.” “I have no one to trouble about me ” she said, bitterly. “I am all alone in the world.”

“All alone?” Lady Chaloner frown «d a little.

“Yes, I have no one in London,” Rene repeated. “I am alone.” Lady Chaloner looked at her for a moment in silence. The girl’s face puzzled her. The sorrow and weariness upon it touched her and she hesitated before she questioned her. She was just about to ask her how it was that she was so placed when Rene rose with a shiver. Something had made her —some feeling that she might be questioned, perhaps. She must get back into the cold streets. She must go. And the helpless feeling of misery swept back upon her. It was useless, she told herself. She must never dare to have friends or home again. Lady Chaloner saw the sudden tears in her eyes, and with unusual impulse put her hand on her shoulder.

“I hope you will let us see you again” she said. “If you could spare time to call, or to come with us to a picture gallery, perhaps—” “Oh. yes, do,” cried Effie, quickly. "Do. please. Miss Trennant, say you will. We shall only be here for a week or so, and I should like it so much.” Rene hesitated.

“I —I don't know,” she faltered. 1— I’m afraid —”

“Oh. you must,” cried Effie, em phaticaliy. “Chris, do make her say she will.”

Chris laughed a little. “I’ll make an effort to persuade her,” he said. Effie linked her arm in his.

“Oh, she won’t be able to resist you if only you try properly,” she cried. “Well* if Miss Trennant will allow me to drive her home I’ll do my best.” Rene started a little.

“Drive me home?” she repeated. “Oh, no, no—indeed I could not—I—1 —could not give you so much trouble ”

“It is anything but a trouble,” said Chris quickly. Somehow he wanted to be alone with her. Somehow he wanted to have a chance of looking closely into her eyes, and he meant at any cost to take her home that night.

He did not know the risk he ran. He did not know the danger of associating with her. but he would have scarcely eared just then. Lady Chaloner stepped forward again. “Oh, yes. indeed, he must see you home.” she said, stiffly. “It will be safer for you. I should not like you to go alone —at this time of night.”

Rene smiled bitterly. It seemed years since anyone had been anxious to see her home in that way; and Lady Chaloner little thought howmuch she knew of the London streets.

Rene turned half uneasily to Chris and lifted her eyes to his. If onlysome man like that had come to her years ago! If only someone like Chris had saved her from the past. It was too late now. she thought, and she passed under the curtain he held up for her with wild and bitter regret at her heart.

Lady Chaloner stood in the middle of the room for a moment after they had disappeared. Her old white face looked puzzled, and doubtful, and anxious.

“What a strange girl. Effie,” she cried as the door fell to. “There is something terrible in her face. I wonder what ? I did not like to question her. I wonder who she is and how it is. . . But I think she is

all right. At any rate we will trust so, for there is something in her face that makes me terribly sorry somehow-. Poor girl! And yet I wonder if I did right in asking her here again? It seems a strange chance that sent her across our path to-night!” She did not know—it was the first move of Fate! CHAPTER 11. THE SECOND STEP. Sir Christopher insisted on accompanying her the whole way home, anil Rene could not prevent him. Perhaps she scarcely tried. Why, after all, should she hesitate? Her life was honest now —clear, save for the one haunting shadow upon it—and though she was nearly starving, starvation was no crime, and what was the life she led to him? She would never see him again after to-night. Their litres

had touched for an hour, that was all; and now. darkness for her, sunshine for him, and when he wished her good night he should look into her eyes for the last time. So she told herself as she lay baek against the cushions of the carriage and stared out at the dark street.

It is a fairly long drive from Charing Cross to Hampstead, but it was terribly short to Rene, and her heart sank heavily as they drew up before a row of dismal houses. Sir Christopher helped her from the carriage, and for a moment looked at her white face under the lamplight. Perhaps at that moment he saw sorr-“thing in it that he had not se«n before. Perhaps it seemed strange to him that a woman so beautiful should be living by herself, in such a street, for he looked at the sordid houses in front of them, and then back at her.

“You won’t think it rude, will you?” he asked, “but won’t you tell me something about yourself—how it is you are here alone—what you are doing?” She flushed and paled again. “I—l have not been here long,” she said, “and I am trying to teach. It is all I can do. I—l don’t know yet how I shall get on.” He looked at her again curiously. Once more something odd in her face startled him, and then suddenly- it gave way to something else. He held out his hand.

"Thank you again.” he said, “for what you have done to-night. Words are cold, but we shall never forget. You must remember that we shall never cease to be grateful to you.” He turned and stepped back into the carriage, and Rene disappeared as it rolled away. She wrent up to her room with a beating heart, determined that she would see none of them again. It would be best for all. she Told her self. She must not see them again.

But she had not reckoned with Effie Chaloner, or on her own weakness. It was so easy to drift into a week’s pleasure when she had almost forgotten what it was like, and Effie was gay and rash and impetuous. and happened just then to know no one of Rene’s age in London. Besides which. Sir Christopher was busy with business matters. Lady- Chaloner was partly an invalid, was unwell and unable to go out, and Fate seemed to have arranged no one to take her place.

The consequence was that l.t.dy Chaloner was glad even to have Rene. Nevertheless she had some doubt. Her faded blue eyes grew grave and suspicious at times as she locked at the girl’s delicate, beautiful face, and more than once almost sharp questions trembled on her lips. “You say you have not been in England long?” she asked. “Did yon live abroad?”

“Yes,” she said, almost under her breath. “In —in many places. I think I have been in almost every country in Europe. We were never still, and after mother ”

She broke off abruptly, and an odd shudder passed over her. “Oh. forgive, me Lady Chalcner,” she cried, “I —T can’t <peak about that.”

Lady Chaloner looked half involuntarily at her shabby black dress, and at the young white face above it. Her mother was dead, no doubt- — perhaps only lately dead. she thought, and a sudden rush of pitymade her forget her suspicions for p moment. “Poor child,” she murmured.

Rene looked up sharply, and made a movement as if she would have spoken. Perhaps if she had it would have altered the lives of all four. But she caught her breath again with a little shiver and drew back. After all, what were they to her? Only acquaintances of a week, people who would misunderstand her perhaps—strangers in a big city who would leave her presently to Irift back into the old. dark, ugly life. Whv should she torture herself?

She made up her mind suddenly that she would tell them nothing—nothing, that is. more than she could help, but Lady’ Chaloner was bound to know something about her. nnd in answer to her questions Rene told her that she was trying to get tcach-

ing to do, that she had a little—a very little, which might increase, and that her name was on the books of an agency. How she had come to be thrown into such a position Lady Chaloner could not tell. All the explanation Rene gave was that after her mother died she became very poor, and was obliged to work for her living.' That was all. That was all the information she could get. and sometimes she felt uneasy. But sometimes. too. in looking at Rene’s white face. Lady Chaloner felt ashamed of the suspicions that rose in her mind. She tried to crush them. Rene t ever forced herself on them in any way. It was Effie who ran after her. Fffie who dragged her out. Effie wht insisted that she was good and kind and trustworthy. “Why. mother, dear, she’s all right,” she said in answer to the doubts Lady Chaloner raised. “Oh. I’m certain she’s all right. Sne would not have jumped under the waggon for me if she hadn’t been: and. besides, why should she tell us anything about herself? Perhaps she’s had a lot of trouble —oh, sometimes I’m certain she has. and perhaps something happened that she feels too much to speak about. She’s a lady, mother—you must see that.” Lady Chaloner nodded her head. “Yes. yes. she is ladylike.” she said slowly: “and. after all. it will only be a few days. We shall be going

home again presently, and may never see her again.” Only a few days! At the end of those few days Lady Chaloner liked the girl she had distrusted, and tried to forget there was such a strange background of silence to her life. Was it strange after all that she should hesitate to open her heart to strangers, as they were? She never tried to find out anything about them—she never asked a single question, and suspicion seemed unjust. Lady Chaloner tried to crush her feeling of uneasiness, and did her best to befriend the girl -who had so strangely crossed their path. Nevertheless, on the last day something happened which seemed to bring back the uncomfortable feeling that something more would come of it. Effie insisted on having Rene to dinner on that last night in town, and for once Rene had come in with a shining face. “I’ve had a stroke of luck,” she said. “I’ve got a berth—a temporary one—but still it is a beginning, and perhaps it will lead to something good.” Chris came forward as she spoke to shake hands, and he looked into her eyes. “I hope it will,” he said quietly. Lady Chaloner looked up. “Indeed, we all hope it will,” she said. “I’m very glad. Where is it. what sort of teaching?”

Rene frit happier at that moment than she hail done for years. Her fare looked soft and radiant, 1 hris thought he had never seen a more beautiful face, and he watched the I lack lashes fall on her eheek with

n strange feeling. Ever since the hist night he had driven her home she had had a curious interest for him. lint never like to-night. She looked up smiling, with light in her eyes and hope in her face. Perhaps after all she might crawl back into a little sunshine. Perhaps after all she was not so utterly outcast as she had thought, and she sighed—a little happy sigh. "It's in a school.” she said. “One of the teachers is ill—ordered away for a month, and I am to take her place. It is rather a big school, 1 think—at Walden.” At Walden?” Effie sat up with a sudden pink tinging her cheek. "Oh. mother, how funny. Walden! Of all places! Why. a friend of ours lives there. Miss Trennant —a —an old friend—a Mr Fytton. He's away just now. and won't be back for a few weeks, but when he does ’ The pink grew pinker in her cheek. Sir Christopher pinched her ■Perhaps Effie may live there herself some day.” he said—" When she's old enough." Effie's blush became furious. "Well. I —l don't care.” she stammered. "If you weren't such a wretch you'd let Halmer marry me at once. Oh. Miss Trennant. bless vour stars that you never had a brutal brother. He says I'm too young to be married. I'm nearly eighteen, ami heaps of girls are married at eighteen: but just because he's such a wretch poor Halmer has got to wait another year." "Poor Halmer. indeed!" said Sir Christopher. "Poor mother and poor me. I think. What are we to do when that brute carries you off?” Effie tried to frown. "Mother, tell Chris to behave,” she cried. But Lady Chaloner was almost serious. She was thinking how strange it was that Rene was to be thrown across their paths again. She had been congratulating herself that after to-morrow they would never see her any more. But Walden was a straight drive of three miles from her own home, and three miles in these days of bicycles is nothing. She remembered how often Halmer himself cycled over to them after dinner, and an odd feeling of oppression stole over her. She looked up. At that moment Rene’s charming face was almost triumphant. She was looking up at Sir Christopher, and he was smiling back at her. Lady Chaloner rose abruptly. What would come of it'? She had been weak and stupid to let things go so far:—mad to let a moment's gratitude shut her eyes to what might be danger. After to-night a stop must lie put to it. Who could tell what it was that lay so mysteriously behind Rene's life? Who could tell what was to come of this chanee acquaintance? She looked keenly into the girl's face. What a lieautiful face it was! But what lay in the shadows upon it—good or evil, honesty or sin?

Lady Chaloner could not tell. Inn as her son gaxe her his arm to go in to dinner she saw that his eyes were on the slight, shabby, graceful figure of the girl in front cf them, aml a sudden harshness came hi to her face. She set her lips and involuntarily tightened her hold on his ami. This woman was coming between them. With a woman’s sure, unreasoning instinct, she knew it. ami the know* l» dge seemed to make her helpless. Rene noticed her sudden coldness. She noticed, too. that when she left them she wished her good-bye. and not good-night, and she realised that La,<ly Chaloner never meant to See her again if she could help it. It wax this that seemed to force her on. It was this that, when the time came, helped her to do the ugly dee<( which brought them all together again. (To Im* continued.)