Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1896 — WORTH WINNING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WORTH WINNING

CHAPTER XlX.—(Continued.) That meeting set Horace thinking. Ever since he had watched Acton's eyes ■when they rested upon Camilla’s, and been jealous of him at the Hasham ball, he never till now dreamt of her having betrayed him for any one else. But if Acton was really not engaged to anybody, what could it all mean ? Was there all this time a third lover in the case, of whom he had hitherto heard nothing—only seen for that brief moment in his false one’s arms? “Except at the ball,” Horace told himself, “I have somehow never detested this young Acton as a rival; on the contrary, I have so far rather liked him, and albeit, he has not a good countenance, I am' fond of men who have like him a head upon their shoulders. “He was there though that night. The chestnut hack is always proof of his presence. . Still he may have been only helping a friend, but who in the wide world, could that friend be, whom Acton, loving her himself, as I am almost sure he did, would yet throw, so to speak, into her very arms, while he stood calmly by, or at all events kept watch in the neighborhood? “It is all very strange—mysterious to a degree. “After all, what matters it to me? There was some one in her arms, and that is enough. Am I not engaged to another?” And here he pitched down a pen he had been abruptly biting, thrust his hands into his pockets and strode excitedly about the room. Finding himself at the window he saw that the great physician’s brougham and pair had drawn up to the door, and soon after Sir Ewing Crofton entered the room. “I am glad I was sent for,” he said, "a change of treatment was required.” “Jack is worse, then?” “N—no, but there are complications; as I have told you, the case is serious not desperate. I have only time now to say that if Mr. Forbes has any relations they ought to be sent for.” “His parents have long been dead, and strange to say the only relative I know of has just left this room—Cyril Acton, Lord Hammersley’s son.” “Ha! he would be a cousin. Yes. The Hammersleys were formerly friends and patients of mine.” “So he was saying.” “Yes, yes, sad history! of course you know. Ay. ay, Cyril, so it was.” “All before my time, Sir Ewing, I know nothing.” “Ah, indeed, oh, most painful. However, we’ll talk of that when I have more leisure. Just tell me, is he quite an object?” “An object?” “Well, a cripple is always more or —* * “A cripple ” “Do you mean to tell me that this young man is not a ” “My dear Sir Ewing, there is some mistake; Cyril Acton is remarkably handsome, taller than either of us, and as straight as a die!” “But I tell you Cyril was born a helpless cripple, and must ever have remained so. I feared also that he would turn out an idiot. “Well, my friend Acton is not that at any rate!” And Horace could not restrain a laugh at the incongruity of the idea. CHAPTER XX. Jack Forbes’ illness turned out to be a bad case of rheumatic fever, attributable to the length of time he had been in that lake on the day of the accident, and to the neglect of proper remedial measures afterward. A somewhat uncommon feature of the malady was often present, from the very first night, in Forbes’ case, and this was prolonged and violent fits of delirium. Fortunately, there never was any one ' more utterly without secrets than our friend Jack, but of this Sir Ewing could know nothing, and he was bound—since he had it in his power—to place by his bedside a thoroughly confidential person. Fortune, while hitting her hardest blows, yet constantly and proverbially selects just such a moment for flinging to us some compensating favor; and now when she had prostrated this good youth upon a bed of racking pain what does she do but send him as nurse under the visible providence of Sir Ewing, the very woman who had tended and weaned him as an infant. “And so you have got back an old favorite of years ago, eh, Mrs. Barrow?” said Sir Ewing Crofton, one day, as the patient lay drowsily resting after a delirious night. “Lor’ bless ’im!” piously ejaculated the nurse; “and of all I ever tended, the only one I' ever loved; and to get him back in such a state,” she added, bending over the invalid as if he were her own offspring, and smoothing his hair and pillow. “But you will save him, sir, won’t you ?” “If your patient pulls through I feel sure you will have a grateful nature to deal with. I suppose he has not yet recognized you.” “Oh, bless you, Doctor, no, sir, and I thought him too ill to put questions to.” It was during his convalescence that Brudenell rode up to speak to Cyril Acton, who was leaning over the rails in Rotten Row. “Ah, Acton,” said the former, bending from his saddle to shake hands, “how are you ?” “All right, thanks. How is Jack?” “Well, he doesn’t get on as we could wish.” “By-the-bye, talking of him reminds me. A very old friend of your family is most anxious to meet you.” “Well, who is he that craves the honor of seeing me?” “Sir Ewing Crofton.” Acton grew livid, to the great surprise of Horace, who was looking straight at him, and who vainly asked himself what it meant. “He seems—Sir Ewing—to mix you up somehow or other with your brother who died a few years back.” Acton had resumed his hat and with it his habitual cool aspect and manner. “Ah! I dare say. Oh, I have often heard my people talk of him. Tell the old gentleman I shall be very glad, charmed to meet him, I am sure.” No sooner had he ridden off than Acton, quitting the crowded walk, struck across the Park to its solitude. “Sir Ewing!” was his first ejaculation. “Confound his long memory! Of course he has always been my rock ahead, my most dreaded source of danger. I had hoped that after so many, many years—yei, it is nearly a quarter of a century—that he would have forgotten.

BY JEAN MIDDLEMIS.

“Well, seventeen years pass by, and then Cyril—Lucius, as the world believes —dies. Accordingly, Sir Ewing expects to find in me a lad of twenty-two, bearing unmistakable signs of having come into existence as a rickety, imperfect being, for the case was pronounced from the first a hopeless one. “If I meet him as proposed, I am ruined. for he would say: ‘How is this? No cripple infant, like the one I knew, could ever develop into what you are. You, therefore, are Lucius, and my patient here, Mr. John Forbes, is heir presumptive to Lord Hammersley and not you, as the “Peerage” ignorantly states.’ What is to be done? It is of little use to be clever as Lucifer when no good move exists! lam clever, thank my stars, and I know it. No time is to be lost.” CHAPTER XXI. It is June at Silvermead. At lovely, stately Silvermead, where that leafy month is wont to be so proud of itself. But this year sorrow well nigh unbearable forbids Camilla Harding to revel in—almost to see its gladsome pageantry, or even to taste its perfumed breath. She had not bowed to her doom without making a desperate effort to right her destinies, but when the news of her recreant lover’s engagement arrived, she gave up all hope and happiness. Lady Prendergast, who was, as has been seen, completely in the dark, even more so than Camilla, as to the real facts of the case, very naturally concluded that if Horace Brudenell’s marriage was proclaimed in the papers, no practica) result could reward her interference. One morning a servant entered with a letter for her ladyship. It bore no stamp, and the man said an answer was waited for. Camilla had already recognized the hand, and with considerable surprise. When her relative had carefully perused the letter in silence, she said: “Camilla, this is from an old friend of yours—Mr. Acton.” “And what does he say?” “Read, dear, for yourself.” Camilla, of course, obeyed. The contents Were as follows: “My Dear Lady Prendergast—You will no doubt be surprised to find that I am back again so soon in your vicinity. Somehow or other, I found myself getting quite out of health and spirits in hot, crowded London, and our friend Mr. De Basle has persuaded me to come down and catch some of his famous trout. ‘ Now, I know that when I was last here appearances were against me; and you deemed it necessary, in pursuance of certain views to which I need not further allude to ask me to discontinue my visits, and to insist upon my holding no intercourse with Miss Harding. x write this letter to ask you to remove these restrictions on condition of my taking a solemn engagement which, when you urged it upon me before, I did not feel justified in entering into. My friendship for others did not then allow it. I am now ready to give my word of honor to be no one s ambassador, 6r intermediary, in any sense whatever for her father. “Believe me, sincerely yours, “CYRIL ACTON.” “Well, gran’ma,” said the girl,” you believe him, of course.” “I hardly know what to say.” And she reflected: “Girls are unaccountable things. Her old friend and playmate may amuse, or at least distract her. She may even in time grow to—who knows?” “Well, gran’ma?” asked Camilla. “Just write him, dear—- “ Dear Mr. Acton—Can you not dine with us to-day at half-past seven? Do if you can. At any rate I shall be very happy to see you on the understanding you propose, a remain, truly yours, “ELIZABETH PRENDERGAST.” And so tife letter was sent to Acton, who awaited it with an anxiety he had tried hard to conceal in the sought-for careless woruing of his note. CHAPTER XXII. It may be supposed that Acton was not likely to miss the opportunity so frankly extended to him. He firmly believed that time and tact were alone needed to en» able him to eradicate whatever girlish feelings about Brudenell might still linger in Camilla’s b.-east, and to implant an admiration and appreciation of himself in their stead, which should finally ripen into a new love. ■ And now, now, what was his next move to be? First of all he would court and propose to her. If, contrary to all probability, she rejected his suit, well then he had yet a strong card to play to turn the losing game in his favor, or rather he reckoned upon having it in his cruel hand by the needed moment. For the girl herself, the young man’s company was at the best a distraction, but it pleased Lady Prendergast, and so she gave him as much of her society as he desired; moreover, she never forgot her debt of gratitude. It never for an instant dawned upon her, as the weeks passed by, that her old friend, her almost playmate of former years, had any designs upon her whatever; and yet that very day he had spoken to Lady Prendergast concerning her, intended that very evening to ask her to become his wife. Lady Prendergast was naturally anxious to learn the result of the proposal which Acton had, she thought so honorably, submitted to her approval, and during the first hours of the following morning, she waited patiently in the hope that Camilla might speak about it of her own accord. But the girl made no allusion to it whatever; so that as the two sat at luncheon after the servants had left the room, the old lady said: “Come, Camilla, I was in hopes you would have had something to tell me today.” “Yes, gran’ma, I know what you mean about last night—Cyril Acton. I am so sorry—l mean for him.” “It is no, then?” Camilla gave a little astonished laugh as she lifted her eyes for the first time from the deerhound to the speaker. “Now, gran’ma, am I a likely person to love twice?" “Oh, as you will, darling. lam sure I would not take the responsibility of urging any girl—much less my own little pet, to a marriage distasteful to her. I am sorny it is as you say; a little for his sake, poor boy, but much, much more for yours. I am, I own, disappointed, but what of that? Life is one long disappointment —mine has been so at least!” and she sighed, audibly. While the above conversation was being held Cyril Acton was actually doing what he had ostensibly come into these

parts expressly to do. He was catching trout. He rightly judged that it could serve no wise end to present himself today at Silvermead; he was not in the mood to sit idly still and brood, and so, for once, he betook him, with some little gusto, to the sport he loved not. He had spent a restless night, and the exertion of whipping the waters for many hours would, he calculated—he was always calculating something—tire him nicely for the following night. He felt somewhat humiliated, of course, but had no touch of despair. Why, indeed, should he, with such a fine game as still was his? Only it is so much pleasanter to succeed by fair means than by foul. Up in London things were, apparently, going quite to his bent; at any rate as far as his dear friend Cave Harding was concerned, and he had written him a long letter that morning. The following day he presented himself at Silvermead with the accustomed offering of trout and nothing unaccustomed whatever in his air or demeanor. Camilla could not but feel puzsled on finding the man who had so passionately set forth his ardent love, wild hopes, the agony of not winning her, and had frankly refused, upon her almost solemn adjuration, to renounce his suit, now suddenly relapse into the serene friend of her childhood; and, albeit her experience was not large, an intuitive penetration made her ask herself whether Cyril had not been more probably acting during his love scene rather than now. The girl was conscious, she could hardly tell why, that Cyril Acton had, by his proposal, and even more by the manner of it, lost ground in her feelings and good opinion which he would never pecover. And so the first few days went by. Needless to say that a certain letter ordered from poor Cave Harding, and copied verbatim, arrived with touching punctuality. To be sure, it contained nothing which his own inclination might not have prompted; but had it been far otherwise, I am afraid to see what sentences, even about his Camilla, the poor gamester might not have been goaded into inditing, in fear lest he might not be sent the three hundred pounds which Acton so artfully let him divine were probably dependent on his compliance. (To be continued.)