Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

13 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

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Q-0"0-0-0-0^~0-0" OOvOO^O^O^HHHHK^OO^ Q<ro-o-o-o-e-o-o-00-0-0-O-O-Gl 1 IN SPITE OF EVIDENCE $ ? LILLIAS CAMPBELL DAVIDSON X L: L BY  V ?j&kuutthhoor r of "The Missing FFi innggeerr, ? TTee mpptteed, &c. X A_ £ \_q»Q_Q-0-G""O-G-O"O"G~Q~Q~O~Q"O-Q-0-O"Q-Q"O-O~G"Q'"O"'O CHAPTER XXIV. BBCOGNITION. Ho found himseli, w iien iie came on through a dim passage, in a lighted room, 'W here gas-jets flu red and the air was thick and suiiocating. He sat down on the faded, shabby plush of a half-crown seat, and began all at once to feel himself a tool for coming. Presently Mrs. Ford stepped upon the platform, led by. her husband. Vane felt a shock of disappointment. This the clair- voyant They had been chaffing, then, when thev talked of her youth and her beauty. He would have got up and gone out of the stuffy, gas-laden atmosphere, but that his next neighbour barred the way. If he had gone, the rest of his life's story might have been different, but lie stavetf-stavcd all through Mrs. Ford's exhibition, painstaking .and creditable, not otherwise remarkable. The audence faintly applauded—they were impatient for the real attraction of tho show, the appearance of the Signorina. Vane vawned a little, looked at his watch, won- dered once more why he came. He had given up all idea of subjecting the jade to the treatment zf the lady who lay on the -couch on the platform. Then all at once there was an enthusiastic -clapping- of hands-the lady bowed, backed, went down the few steps to the green room. Vane actually stood up. He was beginning ;an apology to the fat neighbour when more emphatic applause led him to glance at the platform. He saw that the screen at the back had been moved forward, the sofa had vanished behind it. He sat down again. He would wait for just another minute. Ford came to the front, waved his han433 theatrically, then he pushed the screen back. A murmur of satisfaction went up from the hall. There on the worn tiger-skin that covered the couch lay a girl, one arm across her forehead, her eyes closed, her face peaceful. She was apparently in a clair- voyant sleep. She wore a white gown, long and simple and straight, and a pale blue rib- bon crossed her breast and fell to the hern of it. There was no ornament on her soft throat or her pretty hair. She was the type of girlish simplicity. Vane felt himself choke, the room dareecl before his dizzy eyes, his lips parted, dry and stiff. He was looking into the uncon- scious face of his lost love. It was Celia herself who lay there in his full sight, silent, motionless. Then he found that Ford was speaking in a level, monotonous undertone, and that Celia was taking no notice. Surely she -slept, and could not hear him? Then Ford -turned, went down among the audience, "begged a handkerchief from a man in the 'front row. He brought it back with him, laid it under the little hand that pressed her forehead. There was a moment' pause. Then Vane thrilled at the sound of Celia'a low voic" reamy, slow, as if it came' from .far away. She said a few sentences, told some brief, uninteresting details of the owner which covered him with blushing amazement. Vane leant forward and stared with all his concentrated sight at the still figure there on the sofa. He felt as if he could no more bear it. He half rose to his iceet, sat down again, jerking his coat from the chair-back that caught it. He took no notice of the thud on the bare floor below that attracted his neighbour's attention. Ford was prowling along the little passage 1 between the chairs asking for another per- sonal object for his Signorina to exhibit her powers over. The man beside Vane picked up something from the bare floor and held it out to Ford. "Try that, mister," he said. "I dunno -who it belongs to, but so much the better. See what the young miss will say to that there." ford, thanking him, departed back to the platform. He put the object to the firl's forehead, let her cover it with the hand that rested there. Vane could not see ¡ "what the thing was. For an instant there "was silence. People stretched forward to "Watch. Then all at once a cry rang through the room-a startling cry, sudden, anguish- I ing. The girl on the sola grew violently agitated, she began to talk wildly, rapidly. I Vane caught the words: "Murder! Murder! Oh, my God!" Ford, alarmed at an excitement in(i a fl's- tress he had never before seen in her, hur- Tiedlv stooped over and made some, quick passes. The flow of words stopped short. The girl gasped, choked, her eyes opened, she struggled to sit up. The trance was broken. Ford left her side and came quietly down from the platform, passing down the hall to where Vane sat. He had something in his hand, and he passed it to the man who was Vane's neighbour. "Here, take that back," he said. "I don't inow what it is, and you say you don't know where it came from; but it's upset inv signorina as I never saw her upset be- fore. There's something bad in it. Take it away, I can't use it with her." The man grunted roughly. 'Tain't mine. I picked it up from the floor. Per- haps it belongs to the gent here?" r *iiie would have disclaimed, but the man turned and held out the thing Ford had re- turned to him. With a shock Vane recog- nised it-it was the carved jade. It must have slipped from his pocket. He clapped his hand there. Yes, it was his jade. Celia had recognised it. What was it she had "babbled of in her frightened trance? What lad it revealed or recalled? Bewildered, stunned, dazed, lie rose from his seat to leave the place. He had seen and heard too much there. Celia was sitting erect on the couch, pass- ing her hands over her forehead. She looked .w blto and shaken. The violent agitation of the sharply broken trance was still on her. The slight movement and stir in the hail below, as Vane got up from his scat a:;d squeezed past his neighbour, made her raise her head, and her eyes fell on the retreating figure of Vane. She half started from her seat, grasping the sides of the couch with both hands. He looked across as he gained the passage. Their eyes met, met for just one second, held, parted. With a sob that -was like a cry Celia fell back on the pillows of the couch, and buried her head in them. Vane walked to the door steadily. HOT? he reached it he never could have told. It was the touch of the cool reviving air out- side that roused him to some consciousness of what he was doing and whither he was going. He was striding as hard as he could stride along the road that led away from bic- liotel. that led to the far-of fcountry. I t, seemed to him his one impulse was to put. between him and her all the distance he COB Id, to pile up barriers of space, to erect walls of absence. He walked and walked till he suddenly came to himself to find he was shivering with fatigue, and that Brigh- iton lay far behind. He got back again somehow. He made lis way towards the never-ceasing sob of the sea. It was like a woman's tortured sob- hing. Presently, as he passed down a meau street, his eye was caught by a name on its .corner. Dean Street. The street he had been directed to. He cast a glance at the thoue^s. Heavens, that was the number the .old curio man had given him. A shadow crossed the blind as he halted and looked, and it was Celia's shadow! 1 He recognised at a glance the dark sil- Jiouette on the yellow blind. She bent over a table in the window, lifted something, walked across. The shadow vanished. Celia! What did she do in the house where the jade came from that had been in her father's study the night he died, that had vanished from thence before they found his dead body? Why had the touch, the contact with the stone, even in her clairvoyant trance, sent those shudders of horror through her—torn that cry of anguish from her? Then another shadow crosses the blind. It was a man's shadow. What was there in the contour that  a sWIft, blinding memory over that flW'VJ here had he seen that nrofile before? And then he remembered—he remembered. If it was net the face he had dimly crlimnscd that night from the window of IlSrcourfs study, it -,vns so like that it might be its twin. Was lie looking at the shadow of that stealthy lurker in the garden, beside that of Celia? What did it all make plain? What did it involve in still greater obscurity? He could not have told Thought seemed blotted from hirn. All the trust, all the faith he had clung to in her, when the whole world of evidence was against her, rose up now and nickered and died, iloiv could he hold one atom of beiicf in her:J Bowed, as if he were suddenly old, cold and halting and wretched, ho got away from that street of horror and Lack to his hotel. I CHAPTER XXV. I I BY THE SEA. I Celia, when that movement in the audi- ence had arrested her attention, and turned her eyes to the spot it came from-Celia had had an overwhelming shock. All at once, from the indistinguishable sea of faces, of hats and eyes, there had sprung at her with a leap the face of the man she had loved, been on the eve of marrying, and had de- serted. For one startled, helpless moment as she looked straight into his eyes, across all those intervening heads, soul seemed to cry to soul, and answer. Then he shoved his way between the staring spectators, tramped rapidly to the door—she heard it bang after him. The room seemed empty, the lights darkened—she was alone. How she got through the rest of the billed performance she never knew. The audience were kindly and pitied her. She was so palpably upset ac unlike herself. Ford turned on Mrs. Ford again for the final acts. and let the girl creep to the green room and miserably change her white robe for her shabby outdoor garments, shivering as she moved. Mrs. Ford had to come and help her hook her blouse when the performance was over, and tie her veil on. The shock still rendered Celia incapable of ordinary thought or action. It was as if she ware stim ned. The good-natured Ford insisted on giving her his arm as far as the corner of her street, and they all went round that way, though it was what the Fords themselves would have called "a goodish step" further for them on their own homeward way. They parted from Celia telling her to go straight to bed and get a good sleep. Percy was not in. She had time to raks together the lire and put on the stew that had to be warmed up. She was thankful to busy herself, for she wanted to stave thought off till she could be alone with her- self. rtr(-.v came in presently, cross and moody. When he was like that there wa3 no pleasing him, and the least said the better one escaped from his lashing tongue. She gave him his supper, eating nothing her- self. Food would have choked her. Percy never noticed suell details as whether she went hungry or finished the dishes. He ate heavily himself to-night. Then, when she had cleared away the plates and cups, and washed them, her duties were at an end, and she could creep off to her bedroom and, .shut her door. She took off her frock and let her hair down, moving with benumbed mo've. ments and dazed eyes. Then she suddenly fell upon her knees at the side of the bed. She dropped her head upon her arms, as if sh e had no power any longer to hold it up. Her eyes were dry. She could not weep. She only lay there, her hands twisted in the grey-white coverlet, her face sunk among the blankets, her whole figure prone and stricken, as if someone had foiled her with a crushing blow. Oh, her love! Her lost love! Oh, tht bitter anguish of to-night's recognition—oh, the wound torn freshly apart again, when one fondly dreamed it had begun to heal! Oh, the face of the man who was to have been her husband, and whom she loved still with all the strength of her being! What had his eyes said to her? Ah, what disillusion, horror, disgust there must have shown from them, could she have had a minute longer to read what they called aloud! He who was proud and honourable —what must his repulsion have been when he 4.1 w her there, degraded to be the vulvar entertainer of a sordid crowd? She hid her face deeper in the blankets as the thought stabbed her. Life could hold no moment more hideous, more horrible, if she lived to be a thousand. She could not sleep all night. She lay and stared at the dark ceiling. Had she known that across the town Vane was staring in like case, in his hotel room, it would not have cased her heart. There was nothing in earth or in heaven, it seemed to her, that could bring comfort, alter the facts that were so fixpd and ugl. The past was wiped away as with a sponge from her. and. there was- no future that was not dark. She woke with a headache. She had fallen into a fitful, uneasy slumber with the creep- ing dawn. When sh e heard the sounds of stirring in the kitchen below, through the thin floor, she started, and began to rouse herself. The landlady got their meagre breakfast for them. When the meal was over, and Percy had shaved and read the morning halfpenny paper, and made himself ready to go out, there was an interval of f(rce. She felt sick and giddy, somehow. She thought she would go out into the fresh air for a little and see if it would not take the headache away, so she put on hat and jacket and took her way through the long stretch of miserable, unattractive streets to the calling &ea. She walked along the front as far as she could go. and then descended to the sands, and wandered there. By and by she sat down, and the salt breeze seemed to refresh her. When she felt the wind too chilly she got up and slowly crept on again. Vane had taken his morning meal in silence and gloom. When he had finished he went out into the open. It seemed to him he wanted space to breathe, somehow. He had to make up his mind what to do. lie would leave Brighton that day, that was the one thing certain. He went along the sea front too, letting his steps take their own direction it was all one to him where thev carried him. He passed beyond the troops of walkers and motorists, and kept on till the people grew fewer. At last he was alone. All at once he saw a woman by the edge of the water, walking wearily, standing at inter- vals and looking across the water. It was the desolation of her appearance that first drew his attention to her. She seemed the embodiment of desolation and solitude and drooping misery. Then, with a shock that stirred his pulses, he recognised her. It was Celia once more. The shabby black serge coat and skirt, the hat that was as poor as a charwoman might have worn, they all disguised her. Yet even the walk. from which all the old spring had gone, the droop of the little head once so proudly carried, the dragging steps that had once been so alert and rapid, could not hide her from the heart of the man who once loved her—who now saw her with some- thing like horror. He stopped short where he walked^ He dropped his stick, stooped and picWl it up again. In that brief second the figure on the sands had paused. He saw her hand slip to the pocket of her jacket. She brought out a small white handkerchief stealthily, as one who hides a crime, and he saw her raise it to her face. Her book was towards the shore. In the solitude she thought was hers she had dared to let the hot tears come. Vane had been on the point of turning and hurrying from the place. But this most unexpected sight suddenly caught at his heart and arrested his flight. She was miserable, then; she .Vas forlorn and un- happy in this abomi nable life she had chosen. She was friendless, perhaps, and forsaken. His whole soul sprang to fire within him. Before lie stopped to think, to realise what he meant to do, he had hurried to the first opening in the railings that led down to the sands below. He forgot the dreadful scene of last night, forgot every- thing in that rush of indignant <:> sympathy and compassion, but that Celia, his -little Celia, stood down there on the edge of the water, and that she was in sore trouble. The soft sand made his approach noise- less, She had no warning of it till he was close beside her. She had stood staring across the sea. She stood with her hands clasped tight across each other now hang- ing before her with the handkerchief rolled J between them into a wet little ball. Her eyes were red and dim with tears. She had battled down the unusual emotion, she who was ordinarily so self-controlled. But her chest still shook with a muffled sob or two, as the hasty tread on the sand behind her made her wheel round startled, and she came face to face with her old lover, and looked into the eyes of Vane. CHAPTER XXVI. FRIENDSHIP. She recoiled, gave a startled cry. Vane raised his hat. He did not offer his hand— he dared not touch her. She misunderstood his action. Of course he did not think her worthy to approach. Why had he come there at all to torture her? Wouldn't it have been better, far better, to keep out of her sight? For a second he, too, was speech- less. He had meant to say so much, and as their eyes met he forgot what brought him down there to speak to her. Then he caught himself up sharply, drew himself together, and steadied his voice to speak. "I—I saw you down here. I—I wanted I to ask—you are not the worse for last night? I am afraid you had an upset in your per- formance, and I was the cause." "The cause!" She stiffened rigidly. Her eyes took on a swift reserve. Could he have come to remind her of what had been between them, to assume that the sight of him had made her ill, because she still cared for him? It was incredible. He did not in the least understand his blunder. "Yes. It was something that belonged to me that made you feel so unwell, I am afraid, in your sub-conscious state. I wanted to tell you I am sorry. I did not send it up. It dropped out of my pocket, and the man besido me found it on the floor and gave it to the man who had the show. It was a stupid bit of meddling on' his part." "Something you owned that they brought me and made me feel like that?" The colour slowly crept to her cheek. She turned her head as if she would have hidden it from him. as she felt it burning. "Yes; I wanted to say I am sorry it should have happened." Surely it couldn't have made me feel like that—any ordinary thing that belonged to you." She was interested, and for an instant she forgot. "When I wake out of a trance I can never remember anything that has happened in it. But last night I came to myself feeling horrible. Something so ghastly seemed to have been with me- something so indescribably dreadful that I couldn't shake off the impression. Surely nothing that belonged to you could have done that. It was evil—tragic." He listened silently. The very tone of her voice speaking to him enchained his ear, as it used to do. She seemed to expect an answer. When none came she made a little impatient movement. "Won't you tell me what it was?" she asked. "I think I might know." "It was a jade. I picked it up in a shop here," he forced himself to say. In spite of himself he kept his steady watch on her. It seemed to him he had suddenly become a dual personality. One half of him sympa- thised with her, sheltered her, fought for her. The other brought her to the bar of judgment. "A jade!" She started "Not one of those carved jades my father used to have?" His gaze was on her. He could not make himself withdraw it. though he suffered for her. But in her clear look there was no shadow of fear or distress. "Yes; one of those very jades, I should fancy. It looked to me so like one he had showed me that I bought it on purpose." "But how could it come here in a shop? We sent them all to a museum; you know he left it so in his will. Surely the museum people wouldn't sell any of them?" "I should suppose it most unlikely; so unlikely that I dismissed the idea at once myself. I had fancied for the minute when I came across it that that was the way it found its place in the shop. But you know" -he 11esitatcd, faltered. It was only her calm gaze on him that made him go cn-" "you rem-em ber that we could never be sure that all the jades were there, when they had to be packed up. They had been scattered all about the study that night when your father was showing them to me. This might never have been, packed and sent with the others. It might have been abstracted." "But I saw to that myself," she cried out sharply. "I saw that thti caskets were locked and sealed and all the stones were put back. It couldn't have been taken then. The servants were honest; there was no one eise there, and how could that account for the horror I felt when I held that thing in my trance last night?" Vane's glance left hers now. It sought the sand at. her feet. "There is just another possibility," he said, low and indistinctly. "If—as there was some idea in the minds of some peolile- if your father were shot down that night by some one who came into the study for theft, it is possible the jade might have been carried off then by the thief." "But that is an impossibility! It didn't happen! My father committed suicide! He died by his own hand Vane held his peace. What could he say? How was to keep, on with the argument- with that horrible doubt fresh in his heart? She waited for some answer. None came. Then she cried out again "It is not possible—there is some horrible mistake! What I saw last night—I can't remember—oh, I can't remember; but it was more horrible than anything on earth! Where did the man you bought this jade from get it? He would know who had it! It must be like one that you saw at our house. It can't possibly be the same one." "He told me where it came from. He does know." Vane's voice was shaken and reluctant. "I had rather not tell you any more about it. Let us leave it so." "But I don't want it left at that! I want to hear! Why should you keep it from me? 1 have a right to know. If you do not tell me I shall find the shop and ask the man, so where is the difference? Tell me, please. I have a right to know." And at the urgency in her voice he spoke —spoke with his eyes still turned from her. "It was sold to him by a man who gave his address as No. 7, Dean Street, in this town." A gasp. Had she gasped, or was it only that, her breath caught in a last lingering scb ? A second of utter, complete silence, then she cried out resentfully: "No—no? It isn't possible! I won't believe it! He told you a lie—he gave a wrong address. How could it be-how could it?" Then, as she broke off short, and choked, he flashed a swift look at her. She had that look of honor in her eyes he had seen twice before and wondered at. The sight left him sick, somehow, and he dropped his own eTes. "It isn't true—it isn't!" Then she gasped again, broke off, caught her breath, and her voice changed suddenly. "Of course, it might have been somebody who lived there before we came! That's tho inly solution of it!" she cried, and there was a ring of relief in her tone. "That's it, of course. How stupid of me not to have thought of that! If you give me the man's name, I'll go and see him. But you're wrong! It couldn't be my father's jade. It couldn't have anything to do with him!" Vane muttered something inaudible. His own thoughts were in a whirl. Face to face with Celia, the old charm, the old fascina- tion, fell once more upon him. He. could have believed her almost an angel, and as they stood there, with the flat sea behind them and the grey sky overhead, a sudden yearning came over him, a sudden pas- sionate desire to help her, save her from herself. Yon-you arc happy in the wor k you have taken up?" he asked it gently. There was something in his compassionate tone that broke down her composure as nothing else could have done. You are content with your new life?" She lifted her head, tried to meet his eyes. She had intended to answer him with calmness, to say what she had chosen she had chosen, to wear her miserable mask to the very last. But as their eyes met, and she saw the kindness in his own, the pity, the sorrow, it tore away the last fragment of her self-control. She opened her lips to speak, found no words, shook her head, turned away desjjeratelv. In a flood the tears came again, her shoulders -shook with tearing sobs. That opened the floodgates for Vane. He caught at her arm and held it, turning her face to him. it, "Celia, 11 Celia; don't cry! don't, I can't bear it! You are not happy, you aren't, and I have to stand by and see it, and be dumb! Celia, for God's sake, let me help you. For the sake of the past, whatever barrier you've put up between us. Forget all that, don't let it hinder. Let me at least be vour friend. Let me help you as a friend would. I don't ask anything but that. Surely, I've a claim to it, I've a right to ask it. Let me do something to make things better for you, I can't see vou go on like this! That broke her down utterly. She covered her face with her little hands in their worn, shabby gloves, and sobbed and sobbed. But through her sobs she kept on repeating "No, no! I can't let you have anything to do with me! I can't take your friendship. I can't let vou! It's no use making it so hArd k for me. I can't. I can't! Vain, standing beside her, his hand shaken from her arm, his heart on fire with the tumult of emotion, felt frantic. Listen to me, Celia! I have a right to ask it of you. I'm not going to upbraid you with what happened. That's past and gone. If you couldn't marry me when it came to the point, no matter. I've lived that down. I only ask you: now for what you might grant to the beggar at the street corner, to the woman at the market stall. I claim to help you in your need and unhap- piness. Won't you let me be your friend? V?h', should you deny me that, when once I asked for more, and you gave it? There are a hundred ways, if you must work for your living, in which could do it, other than the one you' ch the one you've chO«>n. Let me help you to get other work, to find a place more worthy of you. Let me hear some of your troubles, and see if I can help you through them. Celia, don't say no! Task- you for the sake of the old days, now that they are dead and buried." Still her averted face was hidden, still her heaving shoulders shook. He felt desperate. He gave a mirthless, jarring laugh. Why, what on earth do you refuse me for? Your husband can't object to such a friendship! He's, a fool if he does!" Then she dropped her hands at last and faced him in a startled bewilderment. My husband! What do you mean! she asked, meeting his look steadily. "I am not married! (To be Continued.)

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