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The Heels -.0of Chance.

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The Heels 0 of Chance. By Mrs. C. E. WEIGALL. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] (CONCLUDED FROM YESTERDAY.) When Clive Harley faced Joyce Vereker in the centre of the morning-room at Rhondda-, h3 drew his breath sharply with a sense of wonder, for she was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. In her white muslin gown, her fair beauty made her took like a tal1 Madonna lily, with her graceful head and its crown of golden hair poised on the slender column of her neck. Her grey eyes under their fringe of black lashes looked out at him with a trusting appeal in their depths that made him realise how young she was; he calculated, indeed, that she could not be more than twenty at the most, and he wondered how aiit: came to be entrusted with such a load of responsibility at her age. I must tell you, first of all." he said, gently, with the light of her grey eyes upon him, "less you should think me an impostor— that my name ii Dr. Clive Harley. and that your telegram was brought to me in Lgis- >treet, where I am trying to get a practice o get her I am of quite reputable birth, for oiy father was a doctor on the Indian Medical Staff, though I am not sure if he is dEAad or alive, since I have not heard of him for ten years! My mother, who is dead, was the daughter of the late Sir Antony Hardacre, and-" But," cried Miss Vereker, sharply, "the Dr. Harley my father wanted to see waa your cather—for Mrs. Harley was hia first cousin, md they were in India together!" "This is an extraordinary coincidence!" said Clive, absolutely bewildered. "I had no dea, even that my father was alive! For .<owe reason he severed all connection with one at the cost of a thousand pounds when I left school." Joyce Vereker was looking at him with wide eyes of amazement, and when he ended she put out her little hand with a pratty gesture of confidence. "I must bid you welcome. Cousin Cli-ve!" she said, gently. "It is a great relief to me to have a relation in the house just now. My father has been out of his mind for man; years, but once Dr. Clive Harley came to see him, as they had been old friends in India. and he begged me whenever my father came to himsell again, tf to himself again, to telegraph for him immediately; and my father regained his senses this morning, and has something that he wishes to tell your father at once." "There will be no harm in my hearing -what he wished to say. you think?" said Clive, with his eyes on the lovely changing face. "I ask you to come with me now to him," returned Joyce, "for the doctor who saw him to-day told me that he hajj not very long to Live." She turned away to hide the teaa-s that refused to stay, and Clive followed her to the bedroom where lay the emaciated figure of her father. He made a gesture of impatience at the sight of Harley s astonished face. It took some time to explain to Jasper Vereker who Clive Harley was, but after this was done he said: "I suppose he never told you the gwrz, eh, Clive? Well. that would be just like his generous, kind-hearted self since he might have thought you would blame me for the folly of losing my memory—but I will tell you the history briefly, for I am too weak to talk much. "Twenty years ago, when your father and I were in India, together, he was lucky enough to cure of a wasting disease the only son of the Rajah of Ruttipore, who rewarded him with a great diamond, that had been takn from one of the temple shrines during the Mutiny. Your father, being on the point of retiring from the Army. and possessed of an excellent opportunity, commuted his pen- sion. and invested the money in some won- derful jewels, that would be worth a large sum in England. « "As I was returning three months before he could leave India, he entrusted the stones to my care, and, needless to say, I was fol- lowed by a couple of natives, who were deter- mined that the '[.tight of Rnttipore' should not be permanently lost to India. With the help of the capfain of the ship, I evaded their attentions, and on landing fancied I had given them the slip; but they were too clever for me, and before I was in the train at Dover I felt stu-e they were after me. So I thought it safer to hide the stones instead of bringing: them to the Castle, and I placed them, as I remember now, in the ice-house down by the lake, where they are deposited under the third stone, on the right-hand side of the door. And it was well that I did so, for that night Vereker broke off suddenly, and Clive recog- nised the failing power of the wanaering eyes and lips. "Don't tell me any more," he said. gently. "I can imagine what happened—the Indian entered your room and tried to rob yoa of the diamonds!" Jasper Vereker nodded. "When he failed to discover them," he said, with sadden energy, "he struck me on the head. and must have stupefied me with some Indian drug, for [ can remember nothing more till to-day!" He lay back utterly exhausted on the pil- tows. and Clive Harley touched the electric bell at the side of the bed. and did not leave the room until both nurse and doctor were established in charge, when he went back to Joyce Vereker, for he was trembling very much, and he felt that he must satisfy him- self of the truth of that extraordinary story he had just heard before the night was much older. Joyce put on her hat and cloak and led the way into the dark, for they thought it better not to trust anyone else with that strange story. and when they unlocked the door of the ice-house, and let themselves in with pick-axe and lantern, it seemed to Clive at least as though he was assisting in a mid- night burglary. The weird pat-ches of shadow upon the dark, lichen-grown tloor-the drop of the water from the roof made the girl shiver, as Clive lifted his pick. "Suppose—it should not be there!" she breathed; but the third blow of the iron lifted the stone, and there lay the box of 3a.rved sandal-wood wrapped in a handker- chief undisturbed, as it had lain there for the last twenty years. By the light of the flickering lantern they looked at it together as it lay open in Clive's hands-with the mar- vellous diamonds winking at him from the jewellers' cotton. "This morning, said Clive Harley, breath- ing quickly: "I was too poor to buy bread to eat—and to-night I stand here beir to at least £ 60,000—and not only heir to that, but hair to every-,hiiig-love-a career-and hap- piness His voice was like a cry of triumph, and Joyce, looking at him with a tremulous ,mile. felt her eyes sink under the look in his, that was the germ of some warmer feeling that time might ripen to maturity Ll congenial soil. The sun hardly penetrated further than .he entry into Gaunt-street, that is one of .he worst of the remaining London slums, uid when young Clive Harley climbed up lie dirty stairs of the rookery that was his other's address, and found himself at the tocr of an attic under the tiles, his heart tank within him. The street, with the slat- ternly women at their doors, the filthy refuse in the gutter, made hit* heart sink, or what madness could have induced his ather to spend the declining days of his life n such a spot was difficult for him to magine. When he opened the door, the Jean bareness of the whitewashed attic truck him with a sense of chill. There was to furniture in it, save a. bed, a rug, and a Jiair, but from the wall the picture of his lead mother smiled down at him with her jweet eye-. On his knees, by the embers of a small charcoal fire, knelt a, thin elderly man who was cooking something in a small pan, and he lifted his head up as the door opened: "Ccme ill!" he said, "Whoever you are—and hut the door behind you, for I ftm-" But when he saw Clive, the irrita- tion of his voice broke in a cry: "Clive!" he (sa.'d, 'Clive! Dim memories D? hi" father's face surged back on the young man frvm the far a.way past, and ha stared at the gaunt, wasted features now tracing tho faint blurred like- uess to what be could remember. "Fa.ther!" he said, "What are you doing here IU this wretched place? then. as the sordid poverty of his sur- roundings brought the truth to him with a flash, his whole heart cried out: Oh, father —you have been starving yourself for me— eo that I should never know it!" Clive Harley the elder stood like a. con- victed criminal before his son. "Don't blame me, Clive," he said. hoarselv. "I invested nearly all my savings an diamonds in India- and they were lost. Then I sent all the remnant of my fortune to you, for I knew that there was not enough for both of us. and yours was the young life with the future before it-and I should only have been a drag upon you-I kept back what I calculated would allow me ten shillings a-week, till I died-but one cannot guard against illness, and my money slipped away too quickly; but I could not leave London, lad, for sometimes— I could see your face without your knowledge. But it will have to be the workhouse now, for there is not another shot left in the locker." He ended with an attempt at a laugh that turned to a sob. and Clive caught his chill hand and gripped it. "Father!" he cried, "Look up. father-all your wretched days are over—for the Rajah's diamonds are found, and I have brought them to jou, so that you are a rich man now!" And he laid the sandal-wood box in his father's arms. Past, present, and future met in the little house in Egris-streat that night, whither Clive had brought his father. And so out of the iarknees of despair there dawned a glorious norning, made brighter by the light that iIone from the unselfishness of a father's Vovotion. XHEENtt

A TOWN WITH A HUMP —————

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