THE HEART OF A GIRL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3523, 14 May 1912, Page 3

THE HEART OF A GIRL.

BY HENRY FARMER,

Author- of “The Money-Lender,” “12a, Quiltry Street,” “Bondage,” etc. . (Published by Special Arrangement.) COPYRIGHT—ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ' CHAPTER 111 (Continued.) Queenie’s suppressed scream at the sight of Michael Thorne Betrayed the janigledi, iciver wrought state of her nerves. He had' come so hard upon the telegram. It was he who had sent Beryl to her with the news reel-, ed out on the tape, and it flashed upon her that he might be the bearer of further 'bad news. . And as well as this possibility, his appearance was startingly unexpected. That ho should have sent Beryl to her was understandable ; but that he should have come in person was another matter. Since the night she put an end to his insistent, sordid love-making by telling him with direct simplicity that she mas going to marry Hilary Stanmore, she had literally not exchanged another word with him. Since hts unsuccessful proposal he had apparently discarded human emotions and become a money-making machine. He had never been to the house since, j As Mr. Price expressed it in the first hitter anguish of his paternal disappointment, Michael had dropped the family like a piece of red-hot coal. And though Mr. Price had become more optimistic again since Thorne had taken Beryl into his offices and granted him> quite a substantial loan on a business basis, it drove him to whisky when he brooded too long on the literally golden opportunity Queenie had thrown away wilfully, with her eyes open, 'knowing Michael to have made two thousand pounds out of copper and to be on the eve of making many more thousands. Mr Price used evil langauge under his breath, whenever he recalled what he overheard, the night he stood at the top of the stairs in his dressing-gown and carpet slippers. Beryl, bless her heart, might redeem the situation if she played her cards properly, hut so far —as Mr. Price had managed •to extract from her by sky’ad crossexamination—Michael Thorne treated her precisely as he treated the other gills in the office.

In fact at this moment Mr Price, whose stroll with his prodigal son Philip had terminated at the swing-door of a saloon-bar, was brooding furiously—over whisky—on the subject. As Mrs Price put it in her lachrymose way, he had had a reverse in the City. The last few days, somehow or other, his luck had been persistently out, and a cadging telephone message to the Copper King, asking to be put on to a good thing, had been met by a curt refusal, Michael Thorne adding that lie had enough to do to attend to his own business. He might never have been brought home to tea bv Beryl and introduced to tlie family as her friend. Mr. Price had done a kind of war-dance in his one office. As well as recent unlucky speculation in coppers, side-issues in the shape of unfortunate bets, champagne, cigars, quiet' little dinners to which the family was not invited, '■Were helping to diminish borrowed capital with remarkable rapidity. And Mr. Price, brooding over whisky, with a- tragic expression, was asking himself whether what had happened to Hilary Stan more might not prove a blessing in disguise. Michael had .been taken with Beryl at the start, but he had been quick to make Queenie first favorite, and she Mr. Price ground something suspiciously like an oath between his teeth and in his agitation slopped whiskyan cl-soda on his trousers. Then he pricked up his ears as two men in .the bar began to discuss the Hasted bank mystery and came to the conclusion that appearances were dead against MStamnore. It looked like a put-up job from the first, according to on© of the men. Mr. Price thereupon called for two more drinks and told his prodigal, dejected-look-ing son to be a. man and cheer up. * * * Queenie drew back a pace as Michael Thorne stepped into the gas-lit passage without invitation. Ho was much better dressed 1 than when he quitted the house four months back. He was looking several years older. Perhaps it was the stress and strain of getting the better of his fellow-gamblers in. the cop-per-market, where fortunes were made and men went smash in a day. He had lost flesh, and the protrusion of his powerful lower jaw seemed more pronounced, his eyes deeper set and tlieir expression -moi’e vague, more secretive: He loked a vulgarian still. No one could have called him good-looking, this young-old man who, a few months back w’as merely regarded as a punctual, plodding clerk. Yet pretty, nineteen-year-old Beryl Price worshipped him hopelessly—with the characteristic hopelessmess of nineteen. Dogged strength was perhaps the secret of his fascination for her.' With Queenie, on the other hand, this characteristic had inspired her with a vague fear, though hardly, personal as yet, since she had realised that her father was speculating with money - borrowed frioim

Michael Thorne —on a purely business basis. ' , ' ■

“I came round to see if I could do anything—help in any -way, Miss Price,” said 'Michael Thorne.

| Last time he stood in the passage | he had pawed her hand between his i own, and called her “Queonie,’’ told j her of the money he had made And | the money ho was going to make, told I her that nothing could stop him. Now it was "Miss Price,” and his manner almost impersonal. It was Michael Thorne, the Copper King, who had spoken; who realised that the sister of one of his many shorthand typists, was in trouble, and had condescended to pause in the making of money to look round and see if he conld help in any way- " Tile news came 1 -up on the tape; though I’d better send your sister to you. I was very sorry, very sorry indeed. Your people were very good to me when I was fighting my way. If I can do anything, say so!” It was only a matter of months since he came to tea as Beryl’s friend ; hut lie seined older by years; stronger and more self-possessed. He had made a place for himself on top in the money-making world, and this had strengthened his self-confidence. Queenie, looking at him, felt this. She had heard from Beryl how much he had changed. There was nothing about his actual manner to suggest that he had come there to gloat revengefully over her in her misery. Yet to her overwrought frame of mind, when everything was prone to- assume exaggerated proportions, there was something oppressive and ominous in. his unexpected appearance hard upon disaster.

"It is kind of you,” she answered, still gripping the telegram, "'but there is nothing you could do!”

He had given her no cause to resent bis visit, yet she was conscious of a sense of resentment. Her sensitive pride was very near the surface of her . nature and easily affected. Her father —for all his airy bravado about a loan on a- business basis —had borrowed money from him, and Beryl was in debt, to him for an improved position and a better salary. She was compelled to look at him again. Was there some ulterior motive concealed behind that heavy brow and unreadable expression? His sluggish, deep-set eyes met hers steadily. Her hands were trembling. It was her eyes, not his, that shifted. She looked down at the telegram in her hand, and the words stared up at her. "I am the victim of a conspiracy, hut I hope to clear myself!”

If only Hilary had written "but I shall clear myself!”

The words unsteadied her badly. Her suffering found expression in a dilation of tlie eyes and a sudden twitching of and fierce biting at her lips. "I don’t know how Stanmore stands,” said Thorne, never taking his eyes from her face. "If it’s a question of money for his defence, I’m ready to put it, up- He will want the best defence obtainable.” A sardonic smile played for a moment across the heavy features. "The question of -guilt or innocence often depends on being unable or able to pay big lawyers’ fees. It’s often the cleverest lawyer, not the just cause, that wins the day. At least, that’s my idea.” The twitch of Queenie’s proud, sensitive mouth was more pronounced.

“But I hope to clear myself/’ The words were beginning to eat into her heart like acid.

Perhaps a skilful counsel would just make the difference, and Hilary had been buying furniture and getting the home together—as he put it in his last letter to her. “In fact,” went on Thorne slowly, “that’s what brought me. I haven’t seen much of Stanmore since I went ahead; but I liked him —what I knew of him.”

There was a touch of ill-mannered patronage in his words now that made Queenie wince. “More than that” —he looked past her to the stairs and paused, but there was no sound or sign of interruption —“I’d stretch a oig point for you—though you wouldn't have n.c. I’m not quite so selfisli as some people make me out!” He was more like Michael Thorne the clerk now. A dark flush had crept over his rather clammy-look-ing features. Color 1 had come, also, to Queenie’s white face. If she coum have only believed in his sincerity, she would have counted his conduct truly fine and disinterested. It was wrong of her, most unjust of her possibly, but she could not escape'from a haunting instinct that behind tins was some ulterior motive, that he had never forgiven her for having refused him that night, “It’s very kind of you, very!” She stammered a little. She hardly knew what to say. It occurred to her that sh© was not in a position to accept his offer had she wished to do so. In fact, such an offer ought not to be made to her, but to Hilary, and she knew that Hilary would be one of tlic last men to accept a favor of this kind from a man whom he had always frankly disliked, and had not liked any better when she told him how Michael Thorne had proposed to her, flinging his money in,her face, though even then it had not entered his mind to be'jealous of him.

And then Queenie, whose brain was working very swiftly, wondered restlessly if this were an effort to put her’ under an obligation to him, or to display himself in a favorable light to her. “Money goes a long way, you know!” he said slowly. This made her angry suddenly. He

was becoming more and more like the objectionable Michael Thorn© who proposed to her, and in the same breath told her how much money he had made and was going to make. , (To be Continued.)