The Man Who Paid

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 1, 8 July 1905, Page 8

The Man Who Paid

By

Mrs. C. N. Williamson

Author of "The B&m Stormer*," Eztc.

CHAPTER XVI.— (Continued.) it was a terrible question to ask, and Stainfortli did not wish to answer. There was no time to be introspective now, for he was trying to make up his mind what he should do when \ era came to herself again. Should he leave the house of the dying man. beside whom he had come to watch, and send a doctor to attend the woman he had rescued from the sea? Nothing more could be done for Andrew Garth; two doctors had decided that; but if the one who lived nearest the cottage were asked to vi-it the lady from the yacht, he would come. Stainforth ould excu.-e himself from returning by alleging physical exhaustion. Then, he need not leave his own house again until it was time to go to the church, and meet his bride. He was to lake Consuelo abroad for a fortnight, within a couple of hours after their wedding. The tickets for the jour ney were already bought. Vera would recover. and would hear that she had been saved by the clergyman of the neighbouring village, but unless she knew more of his life than he credited her with knowing, the name of ( hurchill would rouse no suspicion of the truth in her mind. She would implire for the man who had rescued her; she would be told that he had just married and left the place on his wedding trip; that his place was being filled by the Rev. Charles Hutton, who would visit her gladly. Then, when she learned soon after— as she doubtless would—that the bride was Consuelo Vail, still she would scarcely guess that the bridegroom was Lord Stainforth. By and bye. she would go away, taking with her the secret of her reappearance in the world, and possibly she would never come back to trouble his life and Consudo’s again. Even if she did come, it would be too late to part him from his love, who would then be safely his wife. If he did go, and send some one to take bis place in the cottage, it might bi i that he bad changed beyond Vera’s recognition, and that his silence alone would sullice to save the situation. What should he do. then; should he go, As he be-itHed between decisions for a brief moment, the old woman's cracked voice called him suddenly and sharply from within. “Oh, sir—come quick — come quick!” Stainforth turned almost mechanically at the frightened summons, not knowing whether it had been made for Andrew Garth’s sake, or for the fainting woman's. But a glance showed him what had happened. Mrs. Brodrigg had attempted to moist- ( n Vera's lips with brandy. The tir-t few drops bad perhaps revived her: but the unsteady old hand had poured too much. and. rudely awakened from unconsciousness. Lady Wenwick was gasping for breath. Again the voice spoke in his ear. “Let her choke. Let her dies. She is a mur dores-;.” But he would not listen. Com mon humanity took him to her: he lifted her up. and, gasping still, she opened her eyes. dark and wide, looking straight into his. In h< r convulsive efforts to regain breath, she seized his arm, and grasped it desperately, though there was not yet recognition in the straining eyes. So. fate had made his decision for him: ho was not to escape as he had planned. A moment and the gasping had ceased, but the drenched body was shivering all over, as if in an ague lit. Pauling, sobbing, the woman’s brad was flung back against his shoulder as he held her. Iler great eyes streaming with tears, wild with terror, remaining fixed

upon his face. At first they were dazed, expressing only fear and bewilderment, bu. slow ly the dilated pupils contracted. There was concentration in the fixed stare, then a new amaze mem. “Am I d ad or dreaming?” she panted, her voice choked still, and indistinct. Stainforth did not answer; his eyes on hers, awaiting the moment of recognition. if it must come, he found himself without power of sp.ech. Then suddenly, “Lancelot!” she shrieked. •Hush!*' he whispered, dry-lipped. ••Don't excite yourself. You are weak, and will do yourself harm. ’ •’Lancelot! You are Lancelot,” she faltered again, but more quietly. ••Where am 1 ?” Stainforth turned to the old woman. “You can go back now to Andrew,” he shou.ed in a tone loud enough for her deaf ears to hear. “The lady is coming to herself. 1 will take care of her and can spare you. ” With a long, keen look .Mrs Brodrigg obeyed, reluctantly, and Stainforth asked himself with quick alarm what that look meant. Was it prompted by mere natural curiosity, or had she heard the stranger cry out his name—Lancelot? Vera’s eyes followed the bent old figure from the room, then turned again to Stainforth. “Let me go,” she panted; "how dare you hold me so? Don't you know that I hate you! I’ve hated you for years.” Gently Stainforth laid her down again in the invalid’s chair. “It does not matter now whether you hate me or not,” he said. "I am bound to do what 1 can tor you. You have been nearly drowned. You are very weak, and unless you wish to be seriously ill you must compose yourself. As soon as you can be left alone. I will go and fetch some dry clothing for you ” "No, you shall not go!’’she broke in. "Tell me everything. Where is Prince Retzinofl?” "I cannot tell you. for 1 have never heard his name before.’’ said Stainforth. “He is my husband,” said Vera, almost fiercely. “This was our honeymoon,” and she laughed in a kind of savage mockery, her eyes defiant. “I was with him on his yacht.” "Rest now. and I will find out all you wish to know.” Stainforth answered evasively. What was the explanation of th? mystery? She, a nun. vowed to hide herself for ever in a convent, speaking of "her husband.” Was this what the Mother Superior had meant when she answered Lord Wenwick’s inquiries by writing that “Sister Veronica” was dead? But that was long ago months ago: and this, she said, was her honeymoon. "Rest! You tell me o rest.” she cried. "How should 1 rest near you? To see you now is like a terrible dream. I thought a- first I must be dead, and in another world. 1 was afraid that I should see next -oh!” and shuddering, she broke oil with a groan, covering her eyes with her hands as if to shut out some terrible sight. "Why isn't Alexis here?” she went on. “S range, that he should leave me alone, when he knows Again her voice broke, and dashing her hands away from her eyes with a. sweeping gesture. she looked up through tears at Stainforth. “Tell me he isn't dead!” she demanded, “'fell me that he was saved.” “Four men were saved,” Stainforth answered. “They have been taken to the village.” Her eyes did not leave his face. “1 know that he was not with them,” she said. “He would have come with me; he never leaves me alone. There is

danger What men wtre . hey? Oh, don’t try to hide the worst from me. 1 have borne so much. I can bear that too.” "One of them said, in the boat, that they were all of the crew; that everyone else ’excepting the lady’—as he called you—had been washed overboard before the rescue. You were down below until the last moment.” "Then he is dead," Vera murmured, her white face like a mask, "you know "by—or, you know partly. He loved me. Everyone who has ever loved me has come under the curse. You never did really, that is why you are safe and well to-day.” "I have suffered,” said Stainforth. "enough perhaps to satisfy you.” "1 am glad. It is right that you should suffer,” she Hung at him. "Now I am alone in the world, if Alexis is gone. 1 don’t know what is to become of me. 1 am afraid—afraid of what may happen.” She paused, looking cuii ously secretive, and Stainfol th mechanically noted the changes in her face. She was thinner, older, with lines of trouble between her eyes; her hair, darkened by the sea-water, which drenched and straightened out it well-remembered waves, was strangely different, pushed back in tangled ropes, from the red gold

halo which had once crowned and gloritied Lady Wenwick’s beauty. If she had been pale as now, in old days, she had known how to bide her pallor, and turn sallowness to the texture of a lily. Shivering, cowering in her torn, soared finery on the invalid chair, she was not beautiful, though a woman with such eyes eould never be plain. ’A OU will have to protect me from harm, ’ she said at last. Her thought of herself, even at the moment when she learned the death of the man she had called her husband, chilled such sympathy as Stainforth might have felt. Again he was conscious of the sick repulsion he had experienced when she confessed herself all suddenly and unexpectedly a murderess. "1 will do the best 1 can for you. now and in future, if you will tell me what you wish done,” he answered. "But 1 am going away to-morrow.” "You shall not go, and leave me here alone and in danger,” she cried. "Though it would be like you.” "You are in no danger,” he said. "W hen I go you will be left in the charge of others, who will help you. But go I must.” "You shall not,” she repeated. "I am in danger—a danger of which I cannot speak.”

Stainforth was silent; but she could eec by his face that he did not intend to Change. •’Once you said that your life belonged to me,” she exclaimed. •’That was in the past.” he replied. “You arranged your own life, how, 1 do not know ” “I will tell you,” she said. ”1 went into a convent. My own sin. and your cowardly desert ion when I needed you most, drove me there. For a while I was glad of the shelter and the jieacc. 1 was really religious. 1 prayed a great deal. 1 thought that it did me good. But 1 had not been made for the monotony .of such a life. I stood it for nearly three years. Then I could endure it no longer. If I’d stayed I should have gone luad. I told the Mother what was my state of mind, but she wouldn’t help me. She said I must confess all to the convent priest. So I did. and begged him to make it possible for me to go—l couldn't keep my vows. 1 hadn’t known what I was doing when I made them. He recommended fastings and other penances to drive away the devil of unrest that possessed me—that was all. Then— I escaped. It was easy enough for a determined woman who had to save herself from insanity. Ours wasn't an enclosed order. I pretended to repent, to be satisfied with my life as it was. and so one day. after some weeks. 1 was let out Upon an errand of charity. I never went back. I simply—disappeared.” “’They wrote to your brother-in-law that you were dead.” said Stainforth, did 1 v. “1 thought they would. They had all my money. I'd given it to the order, in the first freshness of my enthusiasm, when I took the veil. Harold is a miser, and his wife is worse than he. They would have done nothing for me. if 1 had gone to them, and they would have shrunk from me. cons dering me disgraced—an apostate. It is so easy for outsiders to judge! Nevertheless I lived. 1 went to Russia. Somebody I applied to. lent me money for the journey, and to live on for awhile. There. I sang in light opera, under a false name, and made a great success. 110 veil the change in my life—the freedom. the excitement, but 1 tired of the work n the end. and—of many things. Then I met Alexis, we were married, nnd I might have been happy, though I didn’t love him—you know. 1 have only loved once, with a love worthy of the name. But Alexis is dead. Perhaps it would have been better if 1 had died too. Who saved me?” .“I did.” Stainforth said. “You? Then you are sorry now. If you had known it was 1 —’’ "Don't finish that sentence. I am going now. to send you dry clothing, and someone to help you —” """Send.' you said this time: before you said "bring.' You don't mean to come Imck to me?” ‘"No,” answered Staiufmth. CHAPTER XVII. HIE BARRIER BROKEN. “(hive you were a coward and traitor; you make yourself a liar!’’ Lady YYenwck said. ‘‘You vowed solemnly to devote your whole life to my service, to pay me for the past.” "1 was ready to keep that vow,” Stainforth replied. “You don't know all that 1 was prepared to sacrifice to

it; but when I was told that you were dead—” ‘"What were you ready to sacrifice?” she caught him up sharply. “1 have a right to know.” “Love, and the happiness not only of myself but of another.” “You mean that you wished to marry?” “Not Consuelo Vail?” Iler voice shrieked cut the quest on. “Why do you think of her?” “Why should I not? 1 don’t know yet what this place is. but I know that it must be somewhere on the coast Rear where she used to live, perhaps lives still. We were making for Lurl £ win Cove to take shelter when the storm came up; the captain said if we could get in there, it would be a safe harbour; I thought of Consuelo then. I hated the girl from the first moment I saw her coming into my house with you; that is why 1 remembered the name of the place where she lived. When one hates, one never forgets. I thought of you. too; but 1 believed that, if you’d cared for her. and meant to marry her, my letter would have kept you from doing it. and sent you away. You see what confidence I had in your honour. I know it was she you wanted to many. Something always told me it was written that you would love that girl. You didn't go away. Yon stayed.*’ “Because T thought that you were no longer in this world, and that I was free.’’ She shook back her wet hair, and stared at him. bonding forward- her eyes glowing. “I understand everything now!” she said. “You meant to marry, her, till the moment you recognised me to-night. But now you realise that 't is impossible. You will have to give her up.” “It is too late for that.” Stainforth answered, “too late for any question to be raised as to my promise to you. You yourself married in spite of your convent vows. You could forget the past enough for that, and—” “1 needed a protectcr. It was absolutely necessary for me to marry a rich man. But my husband is dead, and I am more alone than ever.” “I have said that I would do all I can for you. now and in future. But by your own actions—your allow ng all the world to believe you dead: your marriage—you have lost the right to hold me bound in any way to you. I have paid my debt. I am free. You shall not ruin the happiness of an innocent young girl.” “An innocent young girl!” she mocked him. “I see how you cont vast us in your m'nd. You think me a wicked woman, and so perhaps 1 am: but didn't my sin come through love of you? How characteristic of a man. to build up a barrier between a woman like me. and a shallow girl like Consuelo Vail—a doll incapable of feeling real emotion, or knowing temptat’on! Lot her keep her youth and innocence. 1 do not want them. Rut sii.B shall not have you. Argue about this right or that which I may have lost, us yon will, but I have the power to part fii and Consuelo Yail, and 1 will use it to the full.” “You have no such power.” said Stainforth. “I’ll see her and tell her all the truth about the past. The ‘innocent young

girl.' shall sec her kero as he really is.” “She knows already. Don't think I told her. She was in the octagon room the night of the ball, and hoard all that you and I -aid to each other there.” “She b-ard me tel! you that—that I “Everything. Now perhaps you can understand -ometliing—a very little—of the heart of the girl you call a doll. A child scarcely sixteen, she knew and kept your -I’c-ret tor nearlx fixe years. It xxas only when, in a moment of self forgetfulness. 1 told her I loved her, then spoke of an obstacle xvhich mibt keep u> apart, that she spoke.’’ “Blaming me, exonerating you, of cours?. She'-* a xxoman! No doll. I’ll grant, but xvor<e than 1 thought, if she could calmly marry you. knoxx ing everything. But since six* knows, there are other ways for me to stop your marriage. I'll go to In r: she shall see that I’m alive. I'll forbid l. r to marry xou. li that's not enough, if she's still brazen, i'll go to the church when the day comes and forbid the banns. You've no proof-— there can be no proof noxx against me. I'm safe from any accusation you could make. But I'll stop the xvedding if you force me to that, and cry aloud that you killed my husband because you httped to marry me when !»• was dead. You shall be branded as a murderer. Do you dream she xvould be your wife then, or that her father would give her to you. if >hc w« i re still willing! No! Don't think I'll have mercy. You w< rc as guiltx as I wa<. 1 said then, and I say now. you shall not escape from the consequences of your sin. and leave n:,* to sutler alone. 1 won't have you forgetting mo. and living- happily with Consuelo Yail.” “For Heaven's sake be more quiet,” said Stainforth. as -he shrieked iter rage at him. “Th.to is a dying man in the next room.” ‘ What do I care?’’ she cried. “The only thing I care for. is that you shall know what you have to expect if you break your oath to me.” ‘"Be still.” Stainforth said sternly. “You need say no more. If I had any illusions ‘, ft about your character. Lady Wenwick. I have none now. I quite understand what I have to expect from you. A.< you arc utterly unscrupulous, I see that it is well within your power to break the 1 part of a girl who not only has never injured you. but has shielded you for years by a noble >ilcucc. You may be satisfied, for you have made me s.?e also that you have left me only one way of prot cting lur: by giving her up.” “You must prove to me that you really to give her up. before 1 will believe you now.” ’"lf you need proof w 1. n my word is giv(ii. only time can prove. As you have your wish, perhaps xou will now allow me to go. and send you the dry clothing which it is ncec-saiy for you to have at once/' “As if you eared for my health!” “It is my du;y to -i e that you do not risk it.’’ “Say that you will bring back the things yourself, or 1 will folloxv “Yery well, since you wish it. 1 will bring them back myn If.” As he spoke. Mrs. Br<Mlrigg came to the door. Sir. 1 think there’s a change in Andrew.” she said. Without another word or look for Lad\-

Wenxxick, he xvent into the next nQoni. The atiadows upon the old man's face xverv greyer, it seemed, virile th* expression was less strained; but there wa> no light of consciousness in the half shut eyes. “Tib? end is not far off. I think.” said .Stainforth. ”1 must go uoxv for a fexx minutes, but 1 will come Kick—in half an hour at most. Then—l will xvatch xxitli him again.” “You are looking very ill, sir.” protedcd the old xxoman. xxho loved n » one in the xvorld, but had a kinder f<< ling f<»r Stainforth than for most others. “Your clothing is soaked, and you’re xxhitc as a ghost. You'll catch your death of chill if you don't go home, anti have them make you something strong and hot. You can do Anarexv no good. Why should you come hen? again tonight?” “1 must borrow and bring back some things to the lady, xxho is at least as cold and drenched as I am. and much less able to run risks,” Siainforth icpiied. “Couldn’t yon send, sir?’’ “I’ve promis.d to come myself. I’m not cold, I assuii? you. There’s n<» danger that 1 shall sutler in health.” Mrs. Brodrigg’s opinion was that, like most men. lie was as obstinate as he was mistaken. She knew that he had lately been ill. and so ghastly pale did b.. look, that she was sure he xvould have a relapse. “He has the face of one xxho has l>ornc all lie can bear, and lias cony to the end,” she said to herself, as be xvent out. When bo had been gone from the boiis.? for three or four minutes, -Jip peeped into the adjoining room, and -aw the “lady from the wreck” (as she named the stranger) huddled in a limp heap on the invalid chair, her face hidden on her bare arms. She looked cold and miserable enough, and Mrs. Brodrigg thought of an old knitted shawl lying folded on the foot of Andrew's IkmL “I. might give her that to put over her shoulders, ’’ she said to herself, “till Mr.

Churchill conics hack with the things lie’s gone off tu borrow. But no; why should I'! S||f» eyed mew hen she first Voke up, as if 1 was the dirt under her feet. There’s no gratitude in that sort. V\ hy should I put myself out to do anything for her?” With a twist of her withered shoulders, the old woman turned and went back to Andrew’s bedside. He was breuthing less stertorously now. As she stood vatching. his eyelids flickered faintly, and his lingers Buttered on the blight coloured patchwork quilt. She had been right; a change was coining. He <night not to be left alone for a moment, and Mrs. Brodrigg put all thought of the Strange guest out of her head. There was a slight restlessness now’, such as she had noticed sometimes—this woman of many grim experiences—before a death. The breaths came fitfully. then stopped altogether; Andrew’ was dead. By this time half an hour, perhaps, had passed since the vicar's departure, mid she had heard no sound from the “lady of the wreck.*’ But then, sounds must have been loud to have reached her deaf ears from such a distance. Suddenly, however, just as she had decorously closed the half-shut eyes of the dead, she was startled by a loud exclamation from the other room. Whether it expressed anger, astonishment, or horror, she was not sure; but she limped hurriedly Io the door, her heart beating quickly, for the hour of death was not the time to hear such a cry calmly. Stainforth had come back. He was standing by the chair whe.ee the woman still lay huddled in a limp heap, exactly as she had lain when Mrs. Brodrigg had glanced in at her before. Apparently she had not moved since, but then she had been pitiful, now she was terrible; for a knife had been plunged up to the fiilt in her back, and the handle stood up in the midst of a jagged crimson I at ch. With a shriek, mrs. Brodrigg staggered back against the door post. There she had been, in the next room, moving quietly back and forth, hearing nothing, suspecting nothing wrong, ami- this woman had been murdered. How was it possible? How had it happened? Above all. who had done it? Quick as light she remembered how the vicar had sent her from the room when he wished to talk to the stranger, how the woman’s voice had risen angrily, until even she had heard it. and wondered whether the ‘‘lady of the wreck” and Mr. Churchill had ever known each other before. Again and again she had heard those angry tones: there had certainly been a quarrel or, at least, an argument. That seemed to show that they could not have been strangers, for Miss Vail had said that Mr. Churchill had saved the lady’s life, and so there ought to have been only thanks, not reproaches, unless there had been a grievance before. But then, even if there had been a quarrel, Mr. Churchill was a good man, and no murderer. Surely he could not have struck that awful blow between the woman's shoulders, which must have cleft her heart? Still, if not he. how could it have been anyone else? There was no one else. No one had entered the house in his absence. She must have known, deaf as she was, if anyone had come in. Men sometimes committed a murder in a moment of passion, even good men or men whom everyone had believed to be good. As for the kiiite. H had been Andrew’s: she knew it by the handle. Every fisherman round about had one like it. and though Andrew had not been a. fisherman for years, his knife had lain on the mantel ip the order room, there. Ihe cry she had heard Stainforth utter might have been given at the moment when he dealt the blow 7 : and yet- — he must have conic in stealthily: the deed must have been planned while he was away, if it was he who had done it. That was deliberation, not passion. It was incredible that it should be he—and yet—and yet All thsse thoughts had through the old woman’s head, swiftly feS a star falls through the sky. Suspicious. believing, disbelieving, all at one ■nd the same time, she stared at the vicar and at the motionless body on the chair. Only a few seconds had passed linee she had come to the door, drawn by that strange sound, but it seemed to her that already the jagged patch of Crimson round the knife had spread, and was spreading. “Oh. sir—oh." sir! What a dreadful felling: and Andrew just dead in the next Tonin!” she stammered.

Stainforth louk< d up, and appeared to be awaiv? of her presence in the doorway for the first time, though he must have heard her scream, she thought, “What do you know of this?” he asked, hoarsely. The question seemed to Mrs. Brodrigg a suspicious one. It was as if he wished to find out how much he had to fear from her; whether she had heard anything, above all, seen anything. Her faith in the vicar, such as it had been, shrivelled in the dry husk of her old heart. Now, she believed him the murderer; but she did him justice to suppose that he must have had provocation of some kind, and she did not want him to suffer at the hands of others whom she respected less than she still respected him. Despite the horror which urged the physical part of her to Hee from such a sight, she took a step or two into the room, lowering her voice as sh* spoke. “I know only too much, sir, for your good,” she whispered, “and yet 1 wish you well. 1 know that no one came into the house since you went out. You had better go from here as quick as you can —from the place, I mean. 1 can keep the secret for awhile. Let people come and find out for themselves, when you are far away. It needn’t be my business to give an alarm.” “(heat Heavens, woman, do you think 1 killed her?” cried Stainforth. “Why, sir, what else can I think, when you are the only one who has been here, and when even my deaf old cars couldn't help hearing that, before you went out, you were having a quarrel?’’ Stainforth stared at her, with eyes burned in a face carved of stone. “So, this is what comes next.’’ he said, slowly, in a tone so low that Mrs. Brodrigg could not catch the words, though she saw his lips move. Then he spoke more loudly. “I did not do this thing, and I shall not run away, though all the world believe as you do. The murderer can't be far off. and he must Ip found, for the sake of others as well as for mine. Go you. and give the alarm. I will stay here, by this murdered woman, till you come back with the police. Now. do vou still believe 1 killed her?”

It was after one o'clock when Consuelo went to bed, and though she was very tired, she was too much excited to fall quickly asleep. It was a happy excitement, because after a great danger, the man she loved more than all the world had been given back to her. and to-mor-row was to be the beginning of their new life together—always together. The tragedy of the yacht with as many lives lost as had been saved, had cast its gloom upon her sympathetic nature, and she was desperately sorry for the poor lonely woman who was, she supposed, terribly disfigured. Still, if ever a girl has the right to dwell upon her own personal concerns, her own intimate joys, it is upon her wedding eve; and though the light of to-morrow's sun must be darkened for some others, Consuelo could not help being happy. To-morrow Lance was going to take her abroad. She had never been out of England, and the thought of seeing other countries w ritli him was like finding the key to fairyland. So, it was long before she slept, ami when at last she fell down the steeps of slumber into dreamland she lay without moving until the maid came to Wake her, at the early hour which sl.»? had appointed. It was not yet seven o’clock, and usually she did not rise until an hour later; but this was her wedding morning. When her bath had been made ready. and the woman was gone, she ran to the window to look out. hoping for sunshine after, the storm. But the sky was strange and ominous. Consuelo had nev.-r >een anything exactly like it before. A great canopy of black cloud hung over sea and land, darkening the day. while here and there a streak of sunrise colour still remained. red-as a smear of blood. Onlv tar away on the horizon was then* anv break in the cloud, and there pulsed a line of primrose light. "The end of the storm,” she said io herself: but'in her heart she longed for blue sky and brilliant sunshine 7m her marriage morning. The u editing was to be at 12. and there were many things to do first: for <••’<> thing, her packing to finish; This would not he a long affair, for they were, to.lie away only a fortnight on account of the vicar's work, and Consuelo's reluctance to leave her father long alone; but it would be her first leave-taking, since her memorable visit to the Wenwicks, five years ago; therefore it was

n exciting task for her. She had dressed. and was just about Io pay her good morning visit to her father, when to her surprise “Mr. Churchill'’ was announced. Consuelo had not expected to meet him again until he should join her in church, at the altar; but she ran eagerly down to see him in her own little sittingroom, where she usually received him. At sight of his face she remembered, with a cold shock of fear, how he had looked on that other morning when he had come, almost as early as this, to tell her of the finding of Lady Wen wick's letter. “Lance! What is it?” she asked, kv“Darling. I thought 1 had paid all,” he said. “But J hadn't. There was more —there is more —there is more.” “At least, it can’t come between us now. thank Heaven,’’ she said. “Whatever it is, we'll have each other—well bear it together.’’ “Ah, that's the worst of all—that you * must suffer," he exclaimed. “If only it were for me alone ” “Tel! me; don’t keep me in suspense. Don’t try to break it gently,” she implored. “That woman—saved from the wreck of the yacht last night,” he said hoarsely. “It wAft she. She wasn't dead, after all. She'd left her convent, broken her vow. married ” “Then she can’t call upon you to keep yours!” broke in Cgmsuelo. “She would have tried to force me to keep it if she had lived, but —she is dead.” “Wlrat—she was injured in the wreck? she died in the night, while I slept. And you ’’ “Worse. She was murdered. And —- how shall I tell you the rest? Consuel >, there's no wedding for us to-day. You can’t marry a suspected murderer.” “Oh! You? it's not possible.” “It is true.’’ “But it's a madness. Do you think that shall stop our marriage? If there are any people in the world insane enough to accuse you of—of—oh, I can’t even say such a word with your name—they may come to our wedding, for they can't forbid the banns.” “C hild, you don't know what you say. You don’t understand yet. You must let me tell you—you must let me explain. The evidence against me. when they come to find out everything —as they will—is absolutely overwhelming. Unless the real murderer is discovered, only a miracle can save me from conviction. Wait —don't speak yet. We had a violent scene, she and I. after I—sent you away in such haste last night, having seen her face. Even Mrs. Brodrigg. deaf as she is. heard something, after her curiosity had been aroused by my telling her to stop with Andrew in the next room. She—Lady Wenwick — guessed that I loved you. and I admitted, that it was true; you see, she knew that you lived near: she’d never forgotten. It was her husband's yacht which was wrecked, and he was lost with it. hut when she heard of his death, it left her almost calm. It was only when h. r fury was roused by hearing of my happiness that she showed great emotion. She threatened to stop our marriage at any cost, and—she would have done it had she lived. She could have forced me to go away, because of my love for you. After the talk we had. 1 left the cottage, only to return in half an hour or less, with dry clothing. When I came back it was to findjier murdered.” ••How?'’ “Stabbed.” “Surely there must b? a clue. jThe weapon, whatever it was." “An old knife of poor Andrew's. He. too. had died while I w.is gone. Those

two souls may have met in their flight. But for the knife—l’d often seen it, lying on the mantel. There's no clue there, nor is there any other, that doesn’t point to me.” “Yon haven’t been arrested.” “No. But there's no doubt that I shall be. It's only a question of a day, or two. The police here won't like the duty, but it will be a duty. It was I who gave the alarm. They are trying to find out what they can, and spare me if possible, but 1 am watched. I wouldn't be allowed to go away, even if I were not wanted as one of the principal witnesses. Already they know that the dead woman was Lady Wenwick. I told, for it would have gone harder with me in the end, when it was discovered that I had known all along who she was, and kept her identity a secret. Presently they will get out of old Mrs Brodrigg everything that happened at the cottage and the impression of the happenings. Lord Wenwick will arrive, and he will tell that Stainforth and Churchill are one and the same man. Then they will arrest me.” "But why—why?” "Because, if I must say it to you. my dearest, there was a certain amount of gossip concerning my admiration for Lady Wenwiek, who was a famous beauty, and could not turn without being talked about. Even after she’d disappeared. and people learned that she'd become a nun. in France, they still gossiped — perhaps the more because of that. Now, don't you see? She was supposed to be dead. She comes back to life on the eve of my marriage with another woman, in a place where I've lived for months under a name which, though my own. has served as a kind of cloak. She and 1 are heard to quarrel, in a lonely cottage where I myself ehose to place her—a cottage with only a dying man in it, and a deaf old woman nursing him. 1 sent my fiancee away. I bid the deaf old woman keep to the next room. I then go out myself. but return shortly after, nobody being seen entering the house during my absence. The moment after I come in it is discovered that the woman has been murdered, so lately that her heart has scarcely ceased to heat. 1 had a motive for getting riel of her. and so far as is known, no one else had.” "Nobody who knew yon could believe for an instant that you would commit a murder, no matter how strong the motive,” Consuelo protested. “Could they not? Child, I thought I knew myself, but when I went out from Andrew Garth’s cottage last night I found that I never had. I was capable of murder. My hands ached for that womans throat. There was a crimson veil before my eyes. I wanted to kill her, because I knew that, while she lived, she would stand between you and me. There—l had to confess that. Now you know the worst of me. You know me as, at last, I know myself.” "And I love you a thousandfold more than before you told me,’’ Consuelo cried. (To be Continued.)