The Wagner post. (Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D.) 1912-current, 1912-05-03
CHAPTER III-(Continued.)

81 know it, dear; 1 was only think
Ing"
Thinking WHAT"
THAT it all tallies so very exactly
and that this-this Philip de Mount
ford seems in any case to know a great
deal about your uncle Arthur, and his
movements in the past"
There's no doubt of that; and
Luke paused a moment and a curious
blush spread over his face. The Eng
lishman's inborn dislike to talk of GER
tain subjects to his women folk had
got hold of him. and he did not know
how to proceed.
AS usual in such cases, the
unmoved and businesslike-put an end
to his access of shyness.
The matter is or may be-too SER
ious, dear, for you to keep any of our
thoughts back from me at this juno
ture."
What 1 meant was" he said alb
ruptly, that this Philip might quite
well be Uncle Arthur's son, you know;
but it doesn't. follow that he has any
right to call himself Philip de Mount
ford. or to think that he is Uncle RAIDS
presumptive heir"
That will. of course, depend on his
proofs-his PAPER and so on" she as
scented: calmly. Has anyone seen
IA SiC llllC-lI was SOIIle title last
November-that HI first wrote to Uncle
Rad, he had all his papers by him. He
wrote from st. Vincent; hav l told
you that :"
NO"
We'll, it was from st. Vincent that
he wrote. He had left Martinique, 1
understand. in 1902, when st. Pierre, il
you remember, was totally destroyed
by volcanic eruption. 1t seems that
when Uncle Arthur left the French col
ony for good, he lodged quite a COM
Portable sum in the local bank at st.
Pierre in the name of Mrs. de Mount
ford. or course he had no intention of
ever going back there, and anyhow he
never did, for he died about three years
later. The lady went on living her own
life quite happily. Apparently she did
not banker much after her faithless
husband. l suppose that she never i'm
eg1ned for a m that he meant to
stick to her and she certainly never
bothered her head as to what his con-
nections or friends oyer in England
might be. Amongst her own kith and
kin. the half caste population of a
French settlement. she was considered
very well off, almost rich. After a very
Few years of grass widowhood. she mar
ried again, without much scruple or
conjunction, which proves that she
never thought that her English husband
would come back to her. And then
came the catastrophe"
What catastrophe"
THE destruction of St. Pierre. You
remember the awful account of it. The
whole town was destroyed. Every
building in the place-the local bank.
the church, the p~resbytery, the postof-
fce-was burned to the ground; every
thing was devastated for miles around.
And thousands persisted, of course"
Il remember"
Mrs. de Mountford and her son
Philip were amongst the very few who
escaped. Their cottage was burned to
the ground, but she. with all a French
women's sense of respect for papers and
marks OF identification, fought her way
back into the house, even when it was
tottering above her head, in order to
rescue those things which she valued
more than her life, the proofs that she
was a respectable married woman and
that Philip was her lawfully begotten
son. Her second husbandI him
from reading between the lines that he
was a native or at best a half caste
was one of the many who persisted. But
Mrs. de Mountford and Philip image
to reach the coast unhurt and to put
out to Sc, in an open boat. They were
picked up by a fishing smack from Ma
RE Galante and landed there. 1t is a
small island-French settlement. of
course-off Gu~adeloupe. They had lit
tie or no money. and how they lived
l don't know. blu they stayed in Marie
Galante for some time. Then the
mother died. and Philip made his way
somehow or other to Roseau in Domin-
lea and thence to st. Vincent"
when was that?"
Last year, I suppose"
And" she said, meditating on all
that she a heard, lit was in st. Vim
cent that he first realized who he was
or might be?"
QUAIL IN a prj<,eA aor1rr -.
bound to happen. Whether somebody
put him up to it out there, or whether
he merely sucked the information in
from nowhere in particular, I can't say;
certain it is that he did soon discover
tha the name he bore was one of the
best known in England. and that his
father must, as a matter of fact, have
been own brother to the earl Of Rad
clyffe. So he wrote to Uncle Rad
Louisa was silent. She was absorbed
In thought and for the moment Luke
had come to the end of what he had
to say-or, rather. of What he meant
to say just now. That there was more
to come. Louisa well knew. Common
place women have a a of in%tuitively
getting at the bottom OF the thoughts
of people for whom they care. Louisa
guessed beneath Luke's levity and his
school boyish ~slang-which grew more
apparent as the man drew to the end
III liz dIIdlANC-thdI DCAICdtli IlS JUL
ward fippancy there lay a deep sub
stratum of puzzlement n anxiety.
The story a. told by Luke sounded
crude enough. almost m~elodramatic,
right out of the commonplace range of
Louisa's usual everyday life. Whilst
she sat listening to the exotic tale
of secret and homogeneous marriage
and Of those earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions which had seemed so re-
mote when h had read about them
nine years ago in the newspapers. she
almost thought that h must be
dreaming; that h would wake up
presently in her bed at the Langham
hotel where she was staying with aunt.
and that she would then dress and
have her breakfast and go out to meet
Luke and tell him all about the idiotic
dream she had had about an unknown
heir to the earldom of Radclyffa. who
was a negro-or almost so-and vas
born in a country where there Were
volcanoes and earthquakes.
How far removed from her at this
moment did aunt seem. and fathes,
and the twins, Surely they could not