THE GRIP OF GOLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3612, 27 August 1912, Page 3

THE GRIP OF GOLD.

By ROBERT HALIFAX.

(Author of “The Drums of Fat©,” “The feouse. of Horror,” “A Woman in Their Web,” “Law Society,” etc., etc.) (Copyright—All Rights Reserved.) CHAPTER LIV. A TERRIBLE SILENCE.

‘Murder!”

Quietly spoken, the most awful of all known words died away and seemed to come back to the room in an echo, to remain there. Manisty. hau strained both hands to his ears, as ir to shut it out. His staring eyes looked past her at the door—the look of a man who thought there must surely come a drumming at the panels-. Time upon time that something rattled in his throat — almost like the sound of pebbles shaken in a box. Minutes had passed before he could believe 'that the silence held—that he could speak. •

“Who? What —what do you mean by that?” lie asked her thickly. “Let it pass, if you intend to take that attitude.” Sister Judith’s immovable face,, the lips still set in that tigerish curve, . watched him with steady contempt- “I have only to go from here, and speak out, to prove to you what I mean. I need only restore this name-card of yours to the gentleman who shall be nameless, and by to-morrow an -end would come to the mystery that is eating to-night into a woman’s heart. " You follow me?—you 'know the woman I mean? Her name was entrusted to you in connection with a will, if you remember. Sheba ! And do. you-—canyon —guess the one reason why I have not spoken out?” ‘ ‘No-no ! Goon!’’ the man moaned. in Ids torture. “I could have saved that woman all this terror and sufferin ' and T would not. Because I have conic to hate her. Because she has looked at- me in a way that a woman like myself never forgets nor forgives. Because, by speaking out, - I should have put into her hands that vast fortune —the fortune which you came all the way to Felcote to steal!”

“•Sheba!'' Sheba!” lie muttered, crouching away from the recollection. “The girl who —the girl he expected me to ” It would not take shape in words.

And Judith Cottrell smiled. SucTi a smile! At least; if she had lost- for ever the soft grace and sweetness of true womanhood she had won a newer in its place. The power to subdue, and to speak in low tones that cut. into him like a lash. “Exactly! You fully admit that yon were m Felcote that night! Now wo can come to plain words. Vos, Miss Sheba St. John—the girl who welcomed you on the staircase—the precious ward, or protege, of Spartan Coder!”

She leaned forward again, her gloted hands resting on the table edgeThere was no fear now hut that he would listen to the end.

“You aro taking; it for granted, perhaps, that I am as black ns ynarsolf, or I could not speak in this way. But you aro mistaken. I shall never ask for yoisr private history, nor attempt to givo you mine; I shall tell you -just enough for my purpose. Liston carefully! • “Till I entered that house at Feleotc- I mas merely a hitter, silent woman, quite prepared to bear for life a chain and halter that only the scorned mo-man knows. But, once there, I sprang hack to life, in ,a. sense. I found out! Tins very woman, this Sheba St. John, was the cause of my broken life. T coulo never learn to forgive her. and 1 learned to hate her, and schemed to baulk her—a. girl upon whom Fate Fas smiling; at every turn, while it persistently mocked me. And now- — now it has come to this! I would jeopardise the remainder of my life to make her feel one lithe of what I have suffered. Because, like her, I happened to have a heart!" She paused—undesignedly this time. Her throat was working; ia tremor seemed to run through her. Then her figure had. stiffened coldly again ; she went on. ‘'Never mind! The inner story of it all will never he-tbld now; and you would not grasp subtleties. _Yon ! i:e a mere thifig of hone and muscle; you would go to crime for crime’s own sake, while I might shudder at the necessity that drove me- Simply this! ,

“kpartan L-oder, ns he let me know in his mutterings—and as ho told you plainly that night—left all l his wealth to that man, the real Wilfred Spun-, on one condition. Melodramatic, 1 grant, but written there in black and wiiito, that the law might or might not think fit to set aside. He must marry precious Sheba, to protect her from a, hard world ! Yes, a hard world!—lie 'knew something of it! “In a novel, of course, it would inevitably turn out that the old man had over-reached himself in one vital point—the nephew would he alreadytied to a wife. Here, as it happened, there is no obstacle' whatever in-the wav. All dove-tailed so beautifully that one might almost credit Spartan Loder with second sight! We are handling facts, however. His will 'States it, in clearest terms: this will, for which they have been limiting night and day. Before ever I. heard of a man named Manisty,'! had a plan of my own that promised some sort of

! revenge. . But you came upon the .•scene. The devil sent you. You played straight into my hands, and j gave mo a far hotter one!” “What was it?” he bad to whisper. She seemed to he waiting for it; or else her mind had swung back to the moment when that plan wrote itself upon the wall in letters of flame, j “What was it? Can you ask? Ho shall never wed in this life. He shall never oven know of the stipulation in the will. The money shall not pass into her possession through him. The mystery of it all shall remain with her night and day for life. And that will he the fullest revenge I could ask!” “You mean—?” That first shaft of fear, that had left his nerves raw upon the surface, was dying out of him. He was fascinated by tlio tentative something in her manner. If nothing ■else, it had told him that there was more to come—some compromise by which he could save and enrich liirnself. “I mean this!” She sank her measured scornful voice. “You heard what I said? I have the title deeds of the silver mine, and the will —here. It cost me days of watching and scheming to got them, hut all that is paid for now. lam looking only to the future. The man whom I relied upon to help mo lias failed .me. He is a dastardly coward, and lias fled from the scene in very dread of the woman whose heart ho himself turned to a thing of stone. Let him go—out of my life ! And so, I have been forced to come to you. I know, alono in this world, that you shortened Mr Lode-r’s life hv minutes at least. Silence! If only by'a bare minute, you shortened that man’s term on earth; and the Law has one name for that. No, stand back! —I am past all fear of such a as you!” ‘‘You lie! You lie!” lie gasped, the damp thick upon his face. “It would have happened in any case. He was dying, as I -stood there!” “I know it. Bnt your whole tear was that he might live just long enough to tell his real nephew what lie had told you, and so wreck in a moment the scheme you had built up so elaborately. You had crossed the seas you had given months of thought to that final effort to recover the deeds. Yonr face alone at this moment would condemn you unheard. Deny that you laid a. hand over his line. Denv that!”

(To lio continued daily.)