Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1899 — HIDDEN TERROR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HIDDEN TERROR

By Mary A Hert

CHAPTER VI. When Mabel entered the breakfast room, where Caroline was already prepariag to pour out the coffee and her uncle was opening his letters, she felt thoroughly unstrung, and unable to regard ordinary troubles as trifles. So, when Uncle John looked up from the page he was reading, remarking, with a sneer: “Here comes my dumb niece!” Mabel, instead of taking it quietly and looking upon it as a matter of course that her uncle should attempt to annoy her, was guilty of the very unusual folly of bursting into tears. “This is something equally new and agreeable! What a charming inmate I shall have under my roof for the next month!” observed Uncle John, with a biting accent. Then, to his elder niece: ; “Caroline, may I trouble you to give me come cream, and to move a little to the left, so that you may avoid eclipsing all the sunshine?” Caroline, who was generally tranquil in any circumstances, instantly complied, doing so with a smile, and making no noise or fuss in shifting her plate, cup, knife and fork further to the left. Mabel, choking back her tears, glanced nt her sister wonderingly. How cool and calm she was! There was not a mark of trouble on her brow, no sign whatever of the burden she must have to bear in carrying in her heart the knowledge that she could not ask her father’s sanction to her engagement to that stranger. “How can she bear it?” thought Mabel, still eying her sister; and at that mo- ■ meat Caroline, chancing to look up, met the gaze so full of fear and bewilderment. * “Well, Caroline,” said her uncle, taking up one of his letters on which there was a foreign postmark, “you will be glad to hear that your father had a good journey. He has written en route for Frankfort; and he must have gotten the letter posted a little before his arrival there for it to have reached us so soon.” Caroline, all attention, was about to make a suitable rejoinder, when startled Mabel, looking with affrighted eyes at her uncle, called out: “Is that letter from—from my father? Bas he really written?” “Have I not just informed you that I have heard from him?” replied Uncle John, coldly. “And he wrote from near Frankfort?” ■cried Mabel, in amazement. “Yes; he was not far from that place,” answered Uncle John. .“May I inquire whether your evident astonishment proceeds from ignorance of the locality?”— and he paused, aw’aiting her reply, while regarding her fixedly with anything but favor.

“No, uncle!” faltered the girl, with downcast eyes. A sudden wild desire to see her father’s letter took possession of Mabel. She would ask Uncle John to let her read it, even though she might make him still more angry. With unconscious entreaty she fixed her eyes upon him, and, as he happened to look across the table at that moment, his eyes encountered her ap- | pealing gaze. “Well, Mabel,” he said, with a derisive smile, “I shall imagine that you are re- | hearsing for some tragedy if this peculiar behavior continues much longer. Does that tragic air mean that you have some- '■ thing to ask me?” R “Yes —yes, uncle,” she stammered. “I want to read —I mean, I should be very <lad if you would let me see father’s letter.” r “Is that all?” he rejoined, tossing it carelessly tow ard her. “One would have supposed that you had your life to beg, at the least.” Then with the utmost unconcern he resumed his conversation with his elder cieee, while Mabel, bewildered more by his permission to see the letter than she would have been by his refusal, eagerly read the few lines from her father, which’ ran thus: “My Dear John —I write in great haste to let you know of my safe arrival. Thus far I have had a capital journey and pleasant fellow travelers. Coming away so hurriedly as I did, I had hardly time to I thank you for taking Dick and Mab and Caroline off my hands. Don’t let them give you too much trouble. Really you were very good to be willing to take charge of them for so long. No time for more. I will write again in a few days. Hope all is well with you. Your affection- . ate brother, R. CHARLFORD.” Every word Mabel read only increased her bewilderment. She was so absorbed In her conjectures that she did not notice her sister and her uncle rise from the table, but still sat with the letter in her hand. &’■ “If you have had time to peruse those few lines, 1 will trouble you for them,” said Uncle John, in his most severe tone. Mab sprang up, startled. E “Thank you, uncle,” she said, returning ' the letter. “And, oh, do tell me, when is ■ my father coming home?” “How inexplicable you are this morning, |Cmy dear niece!” cried Uncle John. “I am £ eorry I cannot fix the date of your father’s P return, but it will be somewhere about S' this day month, as I think you know al--jg ready;” and, gathering up his letters and newspapers, he prepared to quit the break- ? fast room. One, two, three hours passed away, at I the end of which Mab heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and, running to her win- ' dow, saw her sister and uncle dismountThe gong would sound in ten minutes for luncheon, and it would almost be ac- ;> counted treason in her not to be ready. In hot haste she smoothed her thick > tresses, then ran downstairs, and in a ■quarter of an hour she was seated at : luncheon, while Uncle John talked to her r sister about the farm that they had ridden | so look at. ' “Who is that?” she cried, as a step S- founded outside on the gravel walk and a Entail figure passed the window. "It is Dick!” exclaimed Mabel, jumpKdng UP to meet him. I ask you to sit down?” observed John. “There can be no reason to ■rns aut to welcome your brother as if he jfod ju«t returned from an Arctic journey. Wis foo ridiculous! Allow me to remind . that he has merely been on a visit of Oleasl?t' party at

Lord Bilstone's,” said Uncle John, coldly, fixing his eye on his nephew, “and I also hope that you took the trouble to make yourself agreeable to your host and his guests?” “I tried to do so, uncle,” returned Dick, good-humoredly. “You cannot imagine what a queer old body I had to take down to dinner; but I chatted to her about everything I could think of—l did indeed, uncle.” “And pray who was the queer old body?” asked Uncle John, manifestly displeased. “A portly dowager, uncle —the Honorable Mrs. Hatchly. She is as silly an old woman as I ever met; but yet I tried to do my duty and make myself agreeable.” “Your opinions are modest, both of yourself and of the lady,” remarked his uncle, freezingly. “Mrs. Hatchly is a most estimable woman, of a very good family. Well, and who else among Lord Bilstone’s guests had the misfortune to be silly?” “1 liked one man there very much,” said Dick, coloring and trying to say something pleasant of somebody. “I think you know him, uncle. A man about seven or eight and twenty, handsome, and with the air of a prince—Lord Wynmore. Everybody seemed to think a good deal of him.” “Everybody does think a good deal of him,” replied Uncle John, with emphasis; “and with reason, too, for he is not only of a distinguished and ancient family, but he is very nice himself. He has youth, wealth, aood looks and most attractive manners, added to which, he has traveled all over Europe' and America. She will be a fortunate girl who becomes Lady Wynmore, and so all the girls’ mothers appear to think. Lord Wynmore is persecuted with attentions, and is now afraid to do more than speak to any young lady. And so you, too, honored him with your liking, my dear nephew? Really, your discernment does you credit.” The sound of a horse’s hoofs and of a ring at the front entrance interrupted. “Who is it at this-hour?” said Mr. John Charlford, impatiently. “Lord Wynmore,” announced a man servant, opening tip? door of the dining room and ushering in a tall and extremely handsome young man, with so distinguished an air that few could have passed him by unnoticed. Immediately the face of the master of the house underwent a sudden transformation; smiles wreathed his lips as he rose and went forward to greet his visitor. Then, as Lord Wynmore looked at the ladies of the party as if asking for an introduction, Mr. Charlford added: “Let me present my niece Caroline and my nephew Dick, who was just telling me when you rode up that he met you last night at Bilstone Court.” Lord Wynmore bowed to the young lady and shook hands with Dick, and then seated himself in a chair by Mabel. The feelings of the girl were indescribable. To be so near her hero and not to speak to him —not to be thought of sufficient account to be introduced! But all the time she was thinking, “Why does he come here to-day ? Is It because of our meeting last night? Has he come to find out what became of me?” And, as her thoughts took this turn, Lord Wynmore said to her uncle: “May I ask to be presented to this young lady also? Is she not one of your nieces? We may shake hands, I think, over our introduction," said his lordship, with a smile. “You have not yet been launched into the whirl of society in town, Miss Mabel?” “Oh, no; as uncle says, I am still in the school room!” she answered, sweetly. By and by, when he addressed her again, she found courage to smile, and when he asked her if she had ever seen the Haunted Glen, a place full of weird beauty, and she replied in the negative, he promised to show it to her, and to tell her the legend connected with it, if she would come over to the Manor with her brother or her uncle. Mr. John Charlford was astounded. Lord Wynmore to take the trouble to talk to Mab—to wish her to go over to the Manor —to invent an excuse for her going! Was there some charm about the girl thus to bewitch the fastidious man of rank at their first interview?

CHAPTER VII. It was a long time since Mab had passed such a pleasant hour'in her uncle’s house as that which succeeded Lord Wynmore’s sudden appearance at luncheon, for his presence seemed to be the signal for harmony to take the place of discord. Uncle John was unusually amiable, and, when they rose from the table, he proposed that they should all repair to the lawn and eat their strawberries in the shade; and—wonder of wonders!—he added, turning graciously to Mab: “Oh, you must come, too, my dear Mabel; I can’t let you go off alone to the school room. You will find it much pleasanter with us under the cedar tree!” What could it mean? To think of Uncle John’s uttering so kind a sentence to her! She could not understand it; but, oh, how delightful it was to her not to be banished immediately from Lord Wynmore’s society I After a little while Uncle John proposed that they should stroll into the shrubbery, where the green boughs made a cool archway, and where rustic seats were placed here and there. And it was on the way thither that Lord Wynmore managed to say to Mabel in a low tone: “I trust all went well after I left you?” “Yes —yes,” she said; “but I have not yet been able to tell Dick.” It was but a few words they had exchanged thus hurriedly, while Dick was walking on a few paces in front in order to open a gate, and Uncle John was imparting to Caroline that tea should be brought to them out-of-doors; but, few as the words were, they seemed to confirm their friendliness —a friendliness how romantic, and which as yet even Dick did not dream of. Presently Dick managed to whisper: “Is it all right about the flies?” Mab nodded, and her brother understood that It was certainly “all right,” and that his uncle would never be enlightened concerning the box which he had hidden under the dock leaves. “I thought we were going to have a change in the wgntber last night,” remark-

ed Mr. Charlford, “but the sunshine has come back to us to-day. I was hoping to get an hour’s fishing.” “Let him fish now!” thought Dick, his mind at ease since Mab had restored the box of flies. “Uncle,” he said aloud, “would you like to go on the water? It would be cool there, and the boat is ready.” “The very thing! What do you say?” said Uncle John, appealing to his visitor. “Indeed it would be very pleasant,” replied his lordship. And so the whole party walked down to the pool—to the very spot where Mab had trembled so on the previous night, and where she trembled anew at the recollection now, even in the sunshine, surrounded by friends. Could it have been that her father had here crept away out of sight like a thief? “Oh, what for—what for?” cried Mab’s heart. < “Are there many fish in your piece of water, Mr. Charlford?” asked Lord Wynmore, as they waited for Dick’s signal to embark. “Yes, a good many; and fishing is a sport of which I am very fond,” replied Uncle John. Dick would have winced at the mention of fishing had he been uncertain as to the whereabouts of the box containing the flies, but now he smiled, and sent a grateful glance toward Mab. “Now, then, Uncle, all is ready,” he said cheerily, when he espied his knife, which he had thrown upon the grass after cutting a string which he could not disentangle. Darting to the spot to pick it up, lest he should forget it and leave it there, his foot came in contact with something hard —something under the clump of dock leaves where he had concealed the flies on the previous day. Heavens! Had Mab left them there after all. Dick thrust his hands hastily among the leaves and drew out a small box —the identical one which Mab, by a nod, had intimated to him that she had taken back to the house. Poor Dick was momentarily overwhelmed. Mab had ever been true as steel; and had she failed him now? But there was no time to ask the question—his uncle was impatient to enter the boat—and Dick, secreting the box in one of his pockets, while darting a reproachful look at his sister, was soon rowing them out to a shady part of the pool, where he rested on his sculls. 1 Lord Wynmore talked a good deal to Mabel on the water —told her of the foreign lakes he had seen, and of how much at home the Norwegian women are on their fiords; and Mab, interested and beguiled, did not at first notice Dick’s troubled brow; but she soon perceived that something had disturbed him. It was not till they were returning to the house —their uncle walking with Lord Wynmore and Caroline —that the brother and sister could exchange a word in private.

“What did you mean, Mab,” said Dick, “by motioning to me that you had done ceived me before! How can I trust you what I asked you to do. You never deagain?” “I did do what you told me, Dick,” said Mab, with warmth. “I went to the pool and found the box, and took it back with me—at what a cost you little know!” “Took it ba<*k with you?” cried Dick. “Why, here it is—look!” and he drew the box from-his pocket. “Oh, you frighten me!” exclaimed Mab, with wildly staring eyes. “I did find the box under the leaves, and I took it back.” “Nonsense! Don’t you see it in my hand? If you took any box, it was not this one, and this is the one I hid under the leaves. What have you been at, Mab?” “I don’t know. I took back the one I found. Oh, Dick, who could have put it there?” “I don’t care who did; but I care to get this in its place before he discovers the loss,” said Dick, indicating Uncle John with a nod. “And I thought I had got so safely out of that pickle! Oh, Mab, how could you make such a mistake?” “Did I make a mistake, Dick?” said Mab, with a bewildered air. “If so, it was no wonder, for, oh, so many strange things have happened! When can I tell you about them? To-night—it must be to-night!” “Come out into the corridor after you are sent up to bed, Mab, and we can have a nice talk in the gallery. That’ll do, won’t it?” “Beautifully, dear Dick,” said Mabel, looking so moved that the young fellow wondered what had occurred. But he only said, in a low tone: “You say you found a box under the leaves and took it into Uncle John’s room, Mab? Then that must be taken away at once.” “Yes, for I certainly put one there. But” —lingering behind so that her uncle should not hear her next words—“but guess where I was all last night, Dick?” “Last night? Why, here, I should think! Where else could you be?” “I was here, but not in the house,” she answered, looking up at him. “The door was fastened when I got back from the" pool, and I dared not ring, so I made up my mind to sit in the summer house.” “Oh, Mab,” interrupted Dick, quite startled, “how dreadful! You don’t mean to say you stayed out all night?” “Yes," she said, nodding, “and I should have been terribly frightened and perhaps hurt by a rough sort of man who had turned into the grounds to sleep, but that, in running away from him out of the tittle green gate, I fortunately did so just as Lord Wynmore was passing along the road. It seems he was walking back from Lord Bilstone’s. I called out, ‘Save me, save me!’ And he was so kind, when he understood why I was not able to get in, and that I meant to sit in the arbor till daylight, that he actually walked about all those hours to protect me from danger. Oh, Dick, he is such a thorough gentleman!” “Hush —they are stopping! Uncle John is looking round at us,” said Dick. “Yes. We can say nothing more till tonight,” she added hurriedly. A quarter of an hour later Lord Wynmore, after a cordial leave-taking of Mr. John Charlford and his nieces and nephew and a renewed invitation to them to come over to the Manor, was riding along on his homeward way, and Mabel’s heart was pulsating quickly with a pew feeling of happiness as she remembered Lord Wynmore’s look and pleasant smile at her as he said good-by. “He is like a friend,” thought the young girl, flushing with pleasure; “and perhaps he will be Dick’s friend, too.” “Suppose we walk,, as far as the top of Crayley Hill?” said'Uncle John, turning to his nieces. “And where is Dick?” he asked, looking about. “Shall I go and tell him we are going to Crayley Hill, uncle?” asked MabeL She was sure enough of what her brother was about. He had no doubt slipped

off the moment Lord Wynmore had sata good-by, and bad by this time exchanged the wrong box for the right one. But what did the other contain; and who could hav» put it under the leaves? With an uneasy feeling that it might belong to her father or to Caroline’s secret lover, Mab, stifling her impatience to ascertain, set out for Crayley Hill with her uncle and Caroline. The evening wore away slowly. Dick was silent and thoughtful—“very unlike his usual self,” thought Mdb; and she wondered anew what he had discovered in the box which she had found by mistake. Was that to be a fresh source of trouble? Why did Dick look so grave, and what could he have been doing before dinner? Imniediately the meal was ended she made an effort to escape into the garden; but that was not to be. Her uncle asked her to play chess with him, and she could only manage to get through the game passably. Dick had disappeared, and only came in late. He had been out to give the dogs a run, he said. At length, after all her weary hours of waiting, she found herself once more in her own roomier door ajar, listening for Dick’s footsteps in the corridor. And in about a quarter of an hour he came. Quickly and silently Mab glided out, awaiting him near the large window, where they could both sit in the old-fash-ioned window seat and talk unobserved. How eagerly she greeted him. She trembled with agitation at the bare idea of what Dick would say and feel. But her brother’s manner was very disappointing. “Be as quick as you can, there's a dear girl,” he said, “for I have something to do to-night.” “Whatever it is, you must hear what I have to tell, Dick, or I think I shall lose my senses!” she cried. “Oh, if you could guess what I have had to suffer since fast night! But, before I say a word to you, tell me what you found in that box I took in by mistake.” “Papers,” he returned, laconically. “Papers?” interrogated Mab. “Have you looked at any of them? What are they about?” “Well, I can hardly tell you that offhand, Mab. I have not read them all; they seem to be letters to a man named Filton, whoever he may be.” “Filton!” she gasped out. “Filtonl” “Yes, that is the name. You don’t know anything of him, surely, Mab? He appears to be an unscrupulous sort of man.” “Not know him!” she echoed, in pathetic tones. “Oh, Dick, Dick, I fear we all know him! lam afraid he is our father!” And Mab, quite overwhelmed with the vague terrors of the day before, clasped her brother’s arm convulsively and burst into tears. « The young fellow, who began to need comfort himself, tried by fond Words to calm her grief, beseeching her “to tell him all.” Some minutes, however, elapsed before she had sufficiently recovered to do so. When at last she was able to speak calmly she imparted her secret briefly. Dick —confused, alarmed, full of trouble as he was —did his best to comfort her. At length, however, when they had talked on till they dared stay no longer, for Uncle John’s footsteps sounded in the hall below, they settled that Mab should tell Caroline that she had been in the boathouse when Caroline met her lover, and beseech her to have nothing more to do with him, since from what Mab had overheard he was deceiving her with a show of affection. Both Mab and Dick were unanimous in deciding that it was best not to tell Caroline anything of the mystery concerning their father; but whether they should broach the subject to Uncle John, who was probably in the secret, Dick could not determine so readily. Unhappy brother and sister! For the first time in their lives they longed for their father’s home coming. (To be continued.)