Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1899 — Worth the Winning. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Worth the Winning.

By The Duchess.

CHAPTER XII. Qriselda, darting homeward through the twilighted garden, after another stolen meeting with Tom Peyton on the garden wall, stops as she reaches the summer house, a favorite resort of Vera’s, notwithstanding the father unpleasant associations connected with it, and pokes in her head to find Vera there. “I’ve come back,” she cries, breathlessly, sinking into a seat and looking at Vera with despair in her eyes. “I have done as you desired me, I have said goodo.v to him forever!” “What did he say? Was he very much upset?” with burning interest. “He said he’d manage to see me in some way or other,” says Griselda, with a heavy sigh. “Oh, well—come now, that’s not so bad,” says Vera, cheerfully, forgetful of prudence at sight of her sister’s grief. “He seems from all I have heard from you a —a sort of a person who would be difficult to baffle. I think I should put faith in that declaration of his if I were yon.” “Oh, he said more than that,” cries Griselda. “Why, it appears that Tom— Mr. Peyton—knows Seaton quite well, and likes him, too. Mr. Peyton says that he, Seaton, is engaged to be married to a Miss Butler, a friend of Lady Riverdale’s.” For a moment there is a dead silence, during which the pretty crimson on Vera’s cheek dies out, leaving her singularly pale. No doubt the surprise is great.

“Is that true?’’ she says. “I should not be surprised, though I confess I am; it is only what I might have expected from my first judgment of him. And one should not condemn him, either; it is not his fault that he calls Uncle Gregory father.” A footstep upon the gravel outside makes them both turn their heads. “What is H, Grunch?” Vera calmly asks as the housekeeper appears on the threshold. “The master wishes to see you. Miss Dysart, in the library.” There is an expression of malignant amusement in the woman’s eyes as she says this. Vera had gone into the library with a , .pale face, but it was with one paler still she came out of it half an hour later, white as death, and with a strained look of passion on every feature not to be subdued. She might perhaps have given way to the blessed relief of tears if she had had time to escape Griselda; but as she finds herself looking at Seaton Dysart, who has at this moment entered the inner hall leading to the room she has just left, all her being seems to stiffen into a cold horror of contempt. She stops short and fixes her heavy eyes on his. “So you betrayed me!” she says, in a low tone that vibrates with scorn. “Betrayed you?” echoes he, starting. There is that in her face not to be mistaken, and a presentiment of coming evil sends a hot flush to his brow. “You are a bad actor,” says she, with a palesmile; “you change color, at a crisis; you have still a last grain of honesty left in yon. You should see to that; kill it quickly, it spoils your otherwise perfect role.” “You are pleased to be enigmatical,” says he, with a frown. “I am, however, at a loss to know what you mean.” “Oh, are you ashamed to keep it up —the deception?” cries she with a sudden outbreak of wrath. "Oh, how could you do it?” “Great heaven! how can I convince you that I have done nothing?” exclaims he, growing pale as herself. “There was no one else awake, there was no one to see me,” says she, trying to stifle her agitation. “What, then, must I think but that you were the one to tell your father of that unlucky night when I was locked out in the garden?” “He has heard that?” Seaton, as if thunderstruck, looks blankly at her. “Why do you compel me to tell you what you already know?” says she, with a little irrepressible stamp of her foot. “If you will listen to what is already no news to you, learn that your father sent for me just now—a long time ago, hours ago, I think.” putting her hand to her head in a little, confused, miserable way. “and accused me of having spent the whole night alone with you, purposely, in the garden.” “And you think that I ’’ - “I don’t think,” with a condemnatory glance. “As I told you before, I know. Your father has insolently accused me of an impossible thing; but even if I had stayed in the garden with you that night, of my own free will, I cannot see where would lie the disgrace he connects with it.” “You are right, no one could see disgrace where you were,” says Seaton, calmly. “My father is an old man, he*-” “Is old enough to know how to insult a woman,” coldly, “when,” with a terrible glance at him, “shown the way. Oh,” laying her hand upon her breast in a paroxysm of grief, “it was abominable of you, and you said—twice you said it,” coming closer to him, and lifting accusing eyes to his, “ ‘Trust me,’ I remember it as though you uttered it but now, and I believed you. ‘Trust me,’ you said.” “I should «ay it again,” says Dysart, “a hundred times again. Gome,” he says, and leads her back again to the library she has just quitted. Gregory Dysart still sits in bis usual chair, his arms on the elbows of it, his face is set, as though death had laid its seal on it, save for the marvelously, horribly youthful eyes, so full of fire and life. “You will be so good as to explain to Vera at once,” begins Seaton, in a dangerous tone, “how it was you learned of her being in the garden the other night.” “What night? She may have been out every night, fog aught I know; she tells me she is fond of moonlight,” replies the old man, impassively, i “Yon understand perfectly the night of

which I speak,” says Seaton, his face now livid. “Who?” he repeats, in a low but terrible voice. “Grunch,” replies Mr. Dysart, shortly,' something in his son’s face warned him not to go further. “You'hear?” says Seaton, turning to Vera. “It was Grunch who betrayed you. You are satisfied now?” “On that point, yes. I suppose I should offer you an apology,” says she, icily. “But,” with a swift glance at his father, “how can I be satisfied when ” Her voice breaks. “Sir,” cries St'uton, addressing father with sudden passion, “why did you speak to her of this? Why have you deliberately insulted your brother’s child?” “There was no insult. I may have told her that if she chooses to do such things as society disapproves of, she must only submit to the consequences and consider herself ostracised.” “ ‘Compromised,’ you said.” “Well, it is as good a word; you are welcome to it.” “Pshaw!” says Seaton, with a quick motion of the hand, as if flinging the idea far from him, “let us have no more of such petty scandal. You forget,” sternly, “that when you seek to compromise Vera, you condemn me, your son.” Dysart shrugged his shoulders. "The man is never in fault; so your world rules,” says he. lightly. “You persist, then, in your insult,” says Seaton, going a step nearer to him, the veins swelling in his forehead. “You still say that she ” “I say that, and more,” replied the old man, undaunted, a very demon of obstinacy having now taken possession of his breast. “I feel even bold enough to suggest to her the advisability of an immediate marriage with you, as a means of crushing in the bud the scandal that is sure to arise out of her imprudence.” “Go, Vera; leave the room,” says Seaton, with great emotion. "Why should she go? It seems to me you give her bad advice,” says Mr. Dysart, looking from one to the other with a satirically friendly glance. “Let her rather stay and discuss with us your marriage with her.” If he had been so foolishly blind as to hope by this bold move to force Vera into an engagement, his expectations are now on the instant destroyed by his son. “Understand me, once for all, that I shall not marry Vera,” says he, white with anger, and some strong feeling that he is almost powerless to suppress. “Were she to come to me this moment and lay her hand in mine, and say she was willing so far to sacrifice herself, I should refuse to listen to her.”

Vera, for the first time since her entrance, lifts her head to look at him. Was he thinking of Miss Butler? Was he true at last to her? A little bitter smile curls her lip. w “I thank you,” she says, with a slight inclination of her head toward her cousin, and with a swift step leaves the room. 4 • CHAPTER XIII. Four long days have crept languidly into the past, four of the dullest days Griselda Dysart has ever yet endured, as she is compelled to acknowledge even to herself. Slowly, with aimless steps, she rises and flings aside the moldy volume she had found in one of the rooms below, and which she has been making a fruitless effort to read, and looks out upon the sunless pleasure-ground beneath her window. She becomes suddenly aware of an unfamiliar figure that, kneeling on the grass before one of the beds, seems to be weeding away for its dear life. It is certainly the new gardener. Poor creature, whoever he is, what could have induced him to come here? Uncle Gregory had evidently found no difficulty in replacing his former employe. Had he secured this new gardener on the old poor terms? Unhappy creature! poverty indeed must have been his guest before he and his clothes came to such a sorry pass! At this moment the “unhappy creature” lifts his head, turns it deliberately toward her, and—she finds herself face to face with Tom Peyton! ' A little sharp cry breaks from her; she stifles it, but turns very pale. “You! you!” she says. “Don’t look like that!” he says, in a low tone, but sharply. “Would you betray me? Remember, it was my only chance of getting near you. Don’t faint, I mean, or do anything like that.” “Oh, how could you do such a thing?” says she, in a trembling voice. “And—and how strange you look, and what dreadful clothes you have on!” “Well, I gave a good deal for them,” says he, casting an eloquent glance at his trousers; “more—four times more—than I ever yet gave for a suit. I’m sorry you don’t approve of them; but for myself, 1 think them becoming, and positively glory in them; I would rather have them than any clothes I’ve ever yet had, and I think them right down cheap. It’s rather a sell if you don’t think they suit my style of beauty.” He is disgracefully unalive to the horror of his position. He is even elated by it, and is plainly on the point of bubbling over with laughter. Given an opportunity indeed, and it is certain he will give mirth away; Griselda, however, declines to 'help him to this opportunity. “It’s horrid of you—l don’t know how you enn laugh,” says she, beginning to’ cry. “I can’t bear to see you dressed like that, just like a common man.” “Well—l think you’re a little unkind,” says he, regarding her reproachfully. “I did think you would be glad to see me. I thought, I fancied —I suppose I was wrong—that when we parted on that last day you were sorry—that you would like to see me agaip.” ' “Well, that was all true,” says Griselda, sobbingly. “Then what are you crying about?” “I am unhappy that because of me you must be made so uncomfortable.” “If that’s all,” says he, beaming afresh,

“it's nothing. I’m not a scrap uncomfortable. It strikes me as being a sort of a lark—h’m —a joke, I mean. I feel as jolly as a sand-boy, and,” with a tender, earnest glance, “far jollier, because I can now see you.” “But how long is it to last?” says she, nervously. “It can’t go on like this for ever, and Seaton comes down here sometimes, and he knows you.” “I dare sqy I shall manage to avoid him. Though I have often thought lately that it would be a good thing to take him into our confidence.” “Oh, no, no, no indeed,” cries she; “he might tell his father, and then all. would be up with us.” “Well, there’s my sister, Gracie —she’s a very good-natured woman, and clever, too. If I were to tell her all, she would tell Seaton, and between them they might manage something. There’s a step! Go away, and try to see me to-morrow if you can.” They have barely time to separate before the gaunt figure of Grunch is seen approaching through the laurels. CHAPTER XIV. . To-day is wet; a soaking, steady downpour that commenced at early dawn is still rendering miserable the shrubbery and gardens. Vera, depressed by the melancholy of the day, has cast her book aside, and, with a certainty of meeting nobody in the empty rooms and corridors, wanders aimlessly throughout their dreary length and breadth. These rooms are well known to her, and presently wearying of them she turns aside and rather timidly pushes open a huge, faded, baize-covered door that leads she scarcely knows whither. She pushes it back and looks eagerly inward. It is not an apartment, after all. A long, low-, vaulted passage reveals itself, only dimly lighted by a painted window at the lower end. It appears to be a completely bare passage, leading nowhere; but presently,’ as she runs her eyes along the eastern wall, a door meets them, an old oaken door, iron-clasped and literally hung with cobwebs. Curiosity grows strong within her. Catching the ancient handle of this door, a mere brass ring sunk in the woodwork, she pushes against it with all her might. In vain. But not deterred, she pushes again and again; and at the last trial of her strength a sharp sound—a ring of something brazen falling on a stone floor —crashes with a quick, altogether astounding noise upon the tomblike silence that fills the mysterious passage. At the same moment the door gives way, and she, unexpectedly yielding with it, steps hurriedly forward into a dark and grewsome hole. The poverty of the light has perhaps dimmed her sight, because after a little while a shadow on the opposite wall, that resolves itself into an opening, becomes known to her. It is not a door, rather a heavy hempen curtain, and now, resolutely determined to go through with her adventure, she advances toward it, pulls it aside, and fiuds herself face to face with Gregory Dysart! He is on his knees, next that peculiar cabinet described in an earlier chapter, and as he lifts his head upon her entrance, ‘ a murderous glare, as of one hunted, desperate, comes into his curious eyes. The side of the cabinet is lying wide open, and, as he involuntarily moves, the chink of golden coins falling one upon another alone breaks the loud silence that oppresses the atmosphere. In his hand he is holding an old and yellow parchment. “I —I am sorry,” murmurs Vera, terrified-; “I did not know; I ” “What brought you here, girl—here where I believed myself safe? Go, go—there is nothing—nothing, I tell you—they lied to you if they told you anything—go, 1 say!” He has entirely lost his self-possession, and is still kneeling on the floor, now hugging, now trying to hide beneath him the paper he holds with his sinewy, nervous fingers. “Go, go, go!” he shrieks, beside himself. He is in a perfect frenzy; all dignity is gone; to the girl standing trembling there it is a loathsome sight to see this old man on the brink of the grave thus crouching, abased, dishonored. “I am going,” she says, faintly. She is ghastly pale; the sight of him in his horrible fright, cringing thus upon the ground, has so unnerved her that she actually grasps at the curtain for support. (To be continued.)