Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1896 — A LOYAL LOVE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A LOYAL LOVE

BY J. BERWICK HARWOOD.

CHAPTER XVll.—(Continued.) But it became necessary soon to think ®f sublunary matters. Miss Mowbray, happily, was unhurt; but by this time, no doubt, the ttdings of her accident, or at any rate of her runaway steed and his fair rider having been lost to sight in the dense mist, must have reached Thorsdale. and given groiwd for no unreasonable alarms. They sun forth, therefore. Don insisting that Miss Mowbray—his Violet, as he was never weary of calling her — should lean on his arm as she walked beside him. Presently Thorsdale was approached. The court yard of the mansion was reached. that lighted yard where horses were being saddled and carriages got ready by the glare of lanterns, and where already a number of outdoor servants and hang-ers-on had assembled, and were waiting for orders. Violet's arrival under Don's charge occasioned a gieat relief to many minds, and put an end to the wild conjectures which were eu.rent as to her fate. A strange sight it was as the crowd, the lights, and the clamor all converged toward where the young girl stood, pale and lovely, with disheveled hair, leaning on the arm of the young man. handsome and graceful enough to have been a prince of romance. A fair young couple they looked as for a moment they stood there 6ide by side. Sir Richard Mortmain’s brow darkened as he saw by whom it was that Violet was escorted. He stepped forward, but before he had time to speak, the joyful news had spread from lip to lip, and kindly, rubicund Lord David Todhunter came hurrying up, with almost the air of a guardian. “My dear young lady, welcome back!" he exclaimed. “Bless my soull what a marvelous escape! and what a fright you have given nsl So this gentleman found you? I am su*e we are much obliged to him. And you are not hurt? That's ijice. Please to take my arm and come this way, for the countess is Very anxious and distressed, and no wonder." So Violet was hurriea into the house, with short space for leave-taking; and Don. having given as brief an account as he could of the circumstances of his meeting with Miss Mowbra.., withdrew himself as early as possib.e from the noise and comments of the crowd.

CHAPTER XVIII. “Sir Richard's room to be fitted up,” said the chief housemaid. The room which waa assigned at Thorsdale Park to Sir Richard Mortmain was just then vacant. The Countess of Thorsdale was too great a lady to occupy herself personally with such matters as the inspection of an expected visitor’s room, but then she put great faith in the taste of her clever foreign maid, Mademoiselle Glitka. She was herself worthy of notice, this Mademoiselle Glitka. Young she was—though probably she looked three or four years older than an English girl of her age would have done. Handsome she was, though of a swarthy pallor of complexion, and with a thin face and well-cut, mobile features. She had raven-haired black hair, very thick and long, and wound tightly round heT small, well-pois-ed head. Her figure was slight and active. But her eyes were her great attrac-tion-eyes that spoke, eyes that flashed, dark, expressive and at times terrible. Just then Mademoiselle Glitka was in Sir Richard Mortmain’s room—not the worst by any means of the many bedrooms at Thorsdale Park—and was alone. Having satisfied herself that she was not the subject of scrutiny, she made haste to institute a special search everywhere. Mademoiselle’s pliant fingers explored every pocket as deftly as those of a member of the Paris detective police could possibly have done. But she found nothing, only a photograph of Mrs. Scoresby—a pink scented, three-cornered note from Lady Paget, asking “Dear Sir Richard” whether Tomahawk was really sure to win the St. before she put her money on at the long odds. Then, at last., in a drawer she found a letter of another sort. Here it is:

“Dear Sir R. Mortmain, Baronet: I am getting so sick of this worn-out old country that unless you soon force on the trump card I have put into your hand I shall have to play mine, and blow the whole concern sky-high. Mind there’s no mistake about wnat I have to sell. The seventy thousand pounds go as surely to Miss V , and, if she marries without settlements, to her husband, as her name is Violet Mowbray. You, Sir R., are not the man I take you for if you cannot get a ‘Yes’ out of a country-bred young thing like that I need hardly say, don’t spoil your own game and mine by hinting to our innocent what a fortune goes with her at the altar. You are quite fit to hold your tongue when there’s money to be lost by speaking. But remember that I am weary of waiting, and shall have, if you shilly-shally, to clap the other screw on; and remember, too, that there must be a fair share of the swag, as we say in Australia—where I wish I was again—for your old pal, RUFUS CROUCH.” Olitka’s eyes glowed, darkened, glittered, as she perused this epistle. She spoke English, perhaps, better than she read it, but she had good brains and a vivid imagination, and could fill up the gaps with some approximation to the truth. First, she folded the letter and thrust it into her pocket. Then, resisting the momentary impulse, she snatched it out again, and taking up the writing materials that lay on a side table near, she made a rapid but accurate copy of the contents of the epistle. “I have him now!” she hissed out between her shut teeth; “1 have him, hard and fast! He is in Glitka’s hands now!” And to judge by the tightening of her lithe, dark fingers, it might have been dangerous to be delivered over to the handling of tiger-footed, bright-eyed Glitka. “He is expected at once,” she said, presently, and slipped away. About noon Sir Richard Mortmain drove up to Thorsdale Park, and went at once to his room. Scarcely had he reached it before there came a light tap at the door, and Mademoiselle Glitka gliding in, and shutting the door, stood before him. “I have to speak to you, Milord Sir Richard,” said the girl, looking Sir Richard Mortmain very steadily in the face. “Indeed, have you? From my sister, perhaps’/” asked the baronet, irresolutely, but with some annoyance. “No, but from myself,” answered GHtka, opening her eyes as a sbe-panther might have opened hers ere she showed her white fangs and sprung on her prey. "You are a lord, it seems. I am Miladi's

1 very humble servant, to obey her bell. It study her caprice. And you are a seigneur. Yet, traitor, craven, dissembler, is not this ring”—and she showed him on her finger a golden hoop set with small blue atones—"the betrothal ring you pat on my finger at Arad? and are you not my promised husband, if there be faith in old customs or the troth-plight of mar.?” “Upon my word, Glitka," answered the baronet in deprecatory tones, “I hope! you had forgotten or learned to take a more reasonable view of anything that was said in far-off Hungary between yon and me. How could I be expected ta us- ! derstand your ancient customs, and to lv bound by what seems binding to you? We 1 liked each other, I dare say, but I was ■ a mere traveler, a mere bird of passag “Yet, I am as noble as yourself T' fierce:ly retorted Glitka. "We are all noble — except a few Slavs, like the glaaier sod j the smith —cn our village; first as free Magyars, then as being ennobled by the empress hundreds of years ago. And l can remember seeing my grandsire show you, the English stranger, with honest pride, the grand parchment with the gold and color, and the great seal, of the paper from Imperial Vienna that made his grandsire a baron. My father, too, had the rank of baron. I. too, am Baroness Glitka, servant as I atn, and Mademoiselle as they call me." "Glitka.” answered the baronet, in sheer despair, “yon, wirh yocr impassioned nature aDd your reliance on old usages, .scarcely can do justice to a used-up. out-a:-elbows gentleman like myself. I am in debt, poor and worried. There are times when to put a pistol to my head to blow my brains out appears the only natural result of my position. I only wish you would keep quiet, and leave me to battle with my creditors as best I may." "Hear you. Sir Richard,” said her ladyship’s confidential maid, with bitter emphasis: “A woman who has loved seldom hurts the man who has left her, unless he makes the pain more than she can bear. So shall it be now. I came over to England, and became a servant, more that I might meet you than for any other cause. The old home is broken up. My uncle's farm —it was his when the grandfather died—has passed into the hands of j the Hebrew money lender, who had lent the money on mortgage, and Glitka and her brothers earn their bread as they may. But little as you deem my words to be true, I have a hold on you, proud Sir Richard, that you can no more shake off than a strayed lamb can get free from the wolf of the woods or the snake of the fens. Marry Miss Violet Mowbray, even for her thousands, and see what comes of it!” She conrteaied, and left him.

CHAPTER XIX. The picnic, on a grand scale —for things were liberally done at Thorsdale-—duly took place, and it was fuvored by the weather. A picnic given by I,ord Tborsdale, and planned by his wife, was sure to be on a large and lavish scale. “Spend and spare not!” constituted the pith of the countess’ directions to Mr. Sharpe, the secretary, aud of what she said to her brother Sir Richard. Everything that was scarce and dear and dainty, edible and potable, was conjured down from the metropolitan market, and fresh assistant cooks and confectioners were sent for, just as were the Oovent Garden fruit and salads and the ice. There would be good music as well as good viands, since a fine band under the guidance of a renowned bandmaster had been engaged, and would be stationed in ambush, as it were, in an impromptu orchestra at the corner of a leafy grove. In long array carriages swept down the winding road, and the guests gathered in force, vThile the attentive servants, and those auxiliaries engaged for the nonce, who could scarcely be called servants, but rather experts in their different Hues, made haste with their preparations. Of course, among the thickets gypsy fires were lighted. They added to the picturesqueness of the scene, and ware supposed to be necessary for the cooking of the fish, and the boiling of the vegetables, and the making of the tea aud coffee. The open air feast took place, the popping of the corks, the clatter of knives and forks, and the clink of glasses blending not unpleasantly with the melodious strains from the band. Louder and louder swelled the music, nnd in the intervals between the tunes the laughter and noise of conversation was in itself enough to prove the thing a success. Presently the dinner over, and the wearied musicians having hushed their instruments, for the sake of rest and refreshment, there was a general move, at least among the junior guests. Light-col-ored dressed fluttered gayly, like so many tropical butterflies, among the willow trees that bordered the banks of the sluggish stream, and the pleasant sound of girlish laughter and of young voices floated on the breeze.

Violet Mowbray never knew afterward how it came about that she found herself alone, as it were, with Sir Richard Mortmain in the garden of the inn. She had been standing in front of a bed of the sweet, queer old roses, not very far from a hedge of clipped holly. There was no one to be seen except Sir Richard himself. “I have been watching for this opportunity, Miss Mowbray,” he said, gravely. "I have something to say to you that must be said.” “Something to say to me. Sir Richard?” Violet Mowbray falteringly replied; of course she knew of what he meant to speak. “Yes, I must speak,” resumed Sir Richard. “You must have seen, you cannot have failed to observe, how very dear you have become to me; how, as if drawn by a power which I cannot but obey, I instinctively seek your company; how attentive I am to the lightest word that falls from those fair lips; how eager to anticipate your wishes, how anxious to conciliate your good opinion. Have 1 been quite unsuccessful in doing this? I hope not—fervently I hope not. Do you not like me a little bit, as a friend?” he added, trying to take her hand. But Violet withdrew her hand, she trembled, but her voice was steady as she replied, “As a friend, Sir Richard, you have, I am sure, always been regarded by every one at VVoodburn ever since we first saw you.” ‘'You dear little hypocrite!” he exclaimed, energetically, “do you think I mix you up in my thoughts with excellent Mr. Langton and his charming household? If I have been a frequent visitor at Woodburn, have you not guessed what was the magnet that drew' me there? How I love you, Violet darling, words are too weak to tell; but perhaps a life’s devotion would be the best proof of my sincerity. Be my wife, dear. Mak_- me happy; and let me welcome in the old halls of Mortmain the

tetvtwt, asW«l young bride that ever a husband yet brought to reign there!" It «* all mere acting. Even the trembling of the man's voter was a clover atnge trick. The baronet talked of welcoming his youthful bride to the grand old halls of Mortmain, he well knew in hit inznoat •onl that the nae be designed to make of \ ioJet's seventy thousand pounds was not to set up expensive housekeeping in the mansion of his ancestors. »toiet. with new-found courage, drew her hand hack from his grasp. "It cannot be as you wish. Sir Richard," she said, very gently, but very firmly. The man of the world bit his lip. “You mean. Ml Mowbray, that you cannot do me so high an honor as to consent to be my wife?" demanded the baronet. with a sort of haughty surprise. "1 cannot agree to be your wife. Sir Richard: but 1 had no wish to give you pain or to annoy yon by the manner of my refusal." returned Violet, gently, and looking aside.

“And 1 say," passionately retorted the master of Mortmain, “that I will not. sa the saying is, take ‘Xo’ for an answer; that 1 will not desist from my suit until you accept me." "You must spare me this," answered Violet, “since, believe me. Sir Richard, my reply will never be different from that which I have made to you to-day." “Is it possible," asked the baronet, in a changed voice, that quivered with anger, "that I am forestalled?” She flushed indignant crimson, and turned away, but she did not tell him that he had no right to ask any such question. "And who may the fortunate swain be, I wonder?" he broke out, furiously. "Some beggarly curate, I suppose: or perhaps a dapper clerk In the Daneborough Bank. If so, let him look to it. I am one ol those whom it is safer to have for a friend than for an enemy!" He absolutely hissed out the last words, with an emphasis that was really terrible. "Leave me, pray leave me!" exclaimed the girl, in real distress, when at that moment she caught sight of a group ol Lady Thorsdale’s guests, just then entering the shady gardens of tne inn. Without saying a word more Violet hurried off to meet her friends, under whose protection she felt that she was safe from further persecution, while Sir Richard, turning sharply on hie heel, strode off in an opposite direction. “We have been looking for you everywhere. Violet, dear," said motherly Mrs. Langton. Violet hardly knew what she answered, so glad was she to be rid for the time being of the importunity of her baleful admirer. Neither of the actors in this little scene had beheld a pair of dark, glittering eyes that had watched them from a convenient nook in the tall holly-hedge, and which, when both were gone, gave to view for a moment the keen Hungarian face of Mademoiselle Glitka. “Good!” said the foreign maid, in a low, menacing whisper—“ Good! He shall reckon to me for that!" And she stretched forth her hand as if its pliant brown fingers had an unseen dagger in their nervous grasp. (To 1>» ooutinued.)