Heart of Gold.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 17

Heart of Gold.

■ By C. ML MATHESON

jj Author of "NUT IN THE HUSK," etc. etc HI iiiiiiiiliiii^

CHAPTER XVI. For a moment she struggled, then lay , passive. Even her weeping ceased. She was utterly still and quiet in his hands. "Like a bird,'' came the thought of his ( mind, "lying quiet in the hands of the fowler." , The simile seemed to him so apt, and therefore so tragic, that all his feeling of pity for her broke into expression. "Doreen," he said, "you poor little girl! Sure, you're breaking your heart with all the sorrow that you have had. Doreen, I love you. If you'd let me I'd take every bit of trouble out of your life. I'd sure make it blossom." She neither moved nor answered. Useless to fight, ran her thoughts! Useless to waste all her life in memory of the man who had thrust her aside! Easier not to resist. Easier to lie still and let him do what he liked. After all he was ' the chosen friend of her patrons. But it was no use trusting anybody. The best one could do was to find the least untrustworthy, and surely he might be considered one of these. She neither gave nor withheld. She spoke no word, made no movement, no sign. Her very silence and passivity led him on. He said, yet more determinedly: "Doreen, I mean everything I have said to you. There's every kind of good thing waiting for you out there in God's own country if you'll listen to me. I guess there's not another girl like you in the whole darn world. A lovely little bit of a girl like you to stand a trial for murder to save a man!" His voice thrilled and broke. "Doreen! You're peerless! I love you. If you'll honour me and let me have you for my wife—you've got to say yes to me, Doreen. I'll makp you happy. And I'd know whatever happened in life you'd stand true. You'd never let any man down or go back on him. I bet there isn't another anywhere so straight as that. I sure love you. I'll sure be proud to take you home with me." Doreen moved ever so little. Mutely she lifted her head and touched his face with her finger-tips. A caress, a gesture of gratitude. Everything, even this tiny movement towards him, impressed this man. The light touch of her fingers thrilled him. He stooped his head to find her lips. But she eluded him. Not in a perverse spirit, not as a coquette did she prevent his kiss. Gently she kept him from hfir and he had no wish to enforce his desires. She said: "You're kind. I never thought anything like this could happen. I thought —at first—you were curious about me, like everyone else. Do you know, I've had letters from men I don't know—a lot of letters—some asking me this very thing—that I would marry the writer. But what you've sxid to me is different. I never thought anyone would be so— kind—to me again- You know what it would mean if I took you at your word and said yes? It wouldn't do you any good. It'would get you into a lot of 1 bother and trouble " "No, no. Doreen, you're English. You 1 don't know what people are like outside ' this scrap of hide-bound country. ' That's why I say come away with me to 1 the place where I came from. You'd be '■ all right over there. As my wife you'd - be a'l right always." ; "What would my lady say? And his " lordship?" ! "You are afraid they would disapprove? Well, they wouldn't. They'd be : pleased. Lady Edith especially." I Doreen shook her head, but did not I press the point. She asked: "Have you got a father or mother';" "Yes," he said. "Both. And as soon as they see you they'll be pleased, too- ' "I should be afraid." "Afraid! What of?" "Of them. They would say — they might say you were a fool to marry me. Oh, I am sure they would. As soon as they know who I am, what I've been through, they would say worse than ! that. They would be angry." ! "No, no. Don't you think it. If you , could love me, Doreen, you wouldn't I trouble about what anyone might say." "I might have to think for you." "If you loved me you would know the ' best thing you could do would be to marry me." "Do you think so? But then I don't j—l don't love you." t He did not release her. He folded her ! more closely. He said: "You don't love me now, Doreen, but 5 you will- I wouldn't have told you about 1 this yet if I could hav-j kept away from - you. If I hadn't seen you lying here, : crying, breaking your heart, maybe I would not have said so much to-day. But ' for a long time I've thought of saying it. I've thought about you ever since I 1 heard what you did. When I heard it I said, 'That sure is a fine little girl.' And then when I saw you—when I saw what I a fragile little flower of a girl you are, well, you had me going and it wasn't 1 long before I'd clean lost my heart to you." Doreen swiftly moved her head as though in discouragement. "Now, see here," he said, noting this. "You've got to give me a show. Maybe in one of those letters you've had, yau found some fellow you might like " 1 "No. No- There's no one at all." 2 "Very well. Then I've got a right to - tell you-1 love you. A right to go all ) out to make you love me. And I'm not )| going to quit. You'd better feel sure, , right from now, that I'm not going to f stop loving you or doing all *1 know to j make you love me. And that's that, I Doreen." i "I don't want to love you," she mur- - mured. "What's that? Why not?" "What is the use? It means nothing. Love means nothing. It is just a word, j You think it is everything. You think it can do everything. I used to think that. I know better now." "You wouldn't talk like that if you'd 8 never loved. Doreen, you gave your t heart to the wrong man. You were true f to him all the way. Your love was a t finer thing than his. Your love was real. You know you're wrong when you say b love means nothing. You know what 8 love can do. You've loved once and you i are going to love again, and this time f you will love me and I'll never go back r on you. You may have got downhearted, », but that won't last. All I ask you now r is that you will give me a show." i "I don't see how I can help giving you II that, can 1?" Doreen murmured. h "Don't you want to give it me ?" "Oh, why do you .ask me ? How can ejl know? How can I tell?" v i "Will you trust me ?" he persisted, i- j "Trust— Trust? What good has it »,' done me to trust anyone? If I hadn't L I trusted "

"My dear," he said, deeply moved, 'that man you fell foul of is only one nan. The world's full of men. Some ire sound." "I'm not doubting you," she ventured. "And you are not thinking much of ne, either," he replied. She showed her dietres*: "But I do," she said. "I do think a lot of you. I think you're kind and I believe you mean well by me. But | don't you see that nothing can come of it ? Don't you know that if anyone even •taw you and me together—if anyone saw us now—they'd thing wrong of me again ?" She jumped up in a panic. "I must go," she cried. "Don't come with me. If you're kind you will " She hurried away from him, frigh twined by her own words. If anyone should have seen or heard! She felt hunted, ambushed, by invisible enemies. She would never be free from her reputation, would never live down her story. So good eould come into her life again. Crying, even ae she walked, she hurried on her errand. Malcolm Adeane, influenced by her appeal not to follow her, let her hasten away alone. His feelings for Doreen had been deepened by this interview. To woo this child would not be easy, but the very difficulty of his task served only to urge him on. He was, as lie expressed it, dead set on Doreen. Although he would certainly respect her feelings he did not intend to be denied. He wanted his romance. He wanted Doreen. Once she was his wife and they had settled down together on the other side of the world she would soon forget to be sad, and she would not lack friends. Setting aside his professed love for her, he considered the appeal she would make to hie parents. They were indulgent to their only son; they hoped, he knew, for an appropriate marriageWhat had Doreen to placate them? She had beauty and youth and charm; she was sound; she had a pretty voice, dainty manners; she was good style. She had been brought up in close association with the aristocracy; all the best in her had been brought out by contact with them. She was true and good; she had a heart of gold; she was brave and honest. She had everything that would please his parents except equal birth. He who had been bora and "raised" in a democratic country was less hidebound about birth and rank and tradition than they were, but he could fully recognise the claims these attributes had on them. He fully realised that his "people" would deprecate Doreen's story. She would be more an adventuress than a heroine in their eyes. . But what marriage could he make that would entirely satisfy them? Cogitating deeply, he presently told himself: "They'll pass Doreen." Another thought occurred to him. "It's going to be harder to get her lo say yes to me than it will be to get mother and dad to say ■ yes to her." He pondered this. Then he concluded: "But I've got to make her say yes, anyway, and, after all, if mother and dad refuse it won't stop my plans." Doreen was stirred by Malcolm Adeane's proposal. She had had, as she had said, a number of letters from men (and women, too) since the trial. More than one enterprising journal had asked her to write the story of her life for their pages. She could not express her life on paper with pen and ink. She could not put into words her poignant thoughts. To the many letters she had received she sent no answer. She had no reply to make to the proposals, the advice and the tirades of the men and women she did not know. But this man who had shown her that he pitied and loved her was different. He was the friend of her good friends. Their roof sheltered both her and him their bounty sufficed for both. She had come into actual contact with this man. and, despite her experience and her remarks, she had not truly lost all trust in all men. Then, again, when he pictured to her a home in a far country, when he said that away from England, she knew he was right. Despite all the marvels of science that linked continents, the world was wide. There were still safe plaees for those who desired safety, for those who would have no more of adventure. Doreen was inclined towards Malcolm Adeane, and yet, in her heart, still enthroned, she carried Jim, her lover, the dream, not the reality, who had thrust her out of his path in the street. She mourned him as though he were dead, she longed for him, every hour. Could she, even in return for ail he had to offer, consent to go with Malcolm Adeane as his wife?