OUR STORYETTE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 445, 28 January 1919, Page 4

OUR STORYETTE.

THE YOKE OF WROWHMMW.

(AM. BIGHTS Rt3**TTJ>.)

Alone in a hut on the veld with a Hying man. ~_. n _. Was he dying? ' '' ' lan Desmond bent over .his friend '\nA listened for the Seating of his heart.

He would have shrank from murder; from staining Us hands with blood. But how easy to leave Sydney here to die, as he surely would do, uncared for. IH-l»ck had dogged Desmond's footsteps continually since he came out to South Africa to find the fortune which would enable him to marry Marjory Fellows. He was a desperate mart when he fell in with Sydney Montravers at Johannesburg. They agreed to "pal," but all the luck was Sydney's. His pile of gold-dust grew steadily; everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. The older man, worn and wearied by disappointment, envied him with a bitterness of which happy, simphvhearted Sydney was unconscious.

Then one day Mon£ravexs sickened of a fever, and, miles away from any other human being, Desmond nursed him and did his best for Mm.

But suddenly a terriUe temptation came to Desmond. »

Between him and a feitme te golddust was only a sick man. Money meant home} and happiness, and Marjory.

Besmond pulled the sack of golddust from the hiding-place where Sydney had concealed it. There was no witness of his crime, only the man tossing restlessly on the hard ground. Yet once he stopped, rambling, fancying that he was being watched. But, when he turned sharply, he saw* there was no recognition in Momtravers's glassy eyes. The solitude and the thought of his sin filled him with sudden fear. He slung the sack access his horse, and, mounting, galloped hard across the veld. • «*«•» lan Desmond returned to England a rich man. It is strange how money makes pec*ole appreciate us. Those who in the old days of Bis poverty passed him by contemptuously were the most eager to claim his acquaintance. Of course, worldly-wise Papa and Mamma Fellows now saw no obstacle to lan's marriage with their daughter. Indeed, they suddenly discovered that they had always liked him, and prophesied he would make his way in the world.

As for Marjory, she was unchanged by the five ytfars of weary waiting ; unbss, perhaps., she had grown prettier.

It was one lovely day in June when lan and Marjory were married. They spent their honejrmoon at a sleepy little village in the South of France.

"Let us get right away from everybody," lan had said. "I want tc be alone, Marjory, with .Vou and the sea and the sky." Ah, happy weeks wh<en lan almost forgot the hut on the vttld and a sick man.

The sunshine of smile shut out the haunting scerae. But not for long. "Lan," said M'urjory, one evening, ns they wandered hand in hand over the rocks when the: tide was lut, "tell me about your life out in South Africa. I should love to "hear, and you so seldom speak abtfMit it." •Was it fancy that the hand which clnsped hers trembled? "It would make a long story, little on\ and perhaps not a very bright one. The history of rough goldseekers is not meant for ears like vours." »

"But I know you have nothing to be ashamed of," said Marjory, pffoudly, her beautiful eyes raised with sweet confidence to his face. "Why, do - you think I would have married you if I had not known you to be. j-ood. *and brave and honourable?" "Marjory," said lan, presently, ".I am going to tell you a story. It was told to me by a poor devil of a fellow I met in the Transvaal." They sat down on some rocks, and Mariory rested her head on his shoulder. Slowly, monotonously, he told her the story of his sin, feeling all the while as though he were really speaking of somebody else.

"Lan," she cried passionately, when he paused, I wonder God lets such vile creatures soil His earth 1 Oh, I hope you never touched that man's hand To think that anyone could do so rowardly a deed I"

"Yet he sinned for love of a girl —a girl as pure and good, perhaps, as you. Marjory." ,

"Should love make deals of men?" she asked, with flashinjßyes.

The yoke of lan's wrong-doing pressed heavily upon him. But his punishment was not yet.

The Desmonds had been married just two years. They had one baby girl named Marjory, after her mother.

Surely lan's cup of happiness was full. One lovely afternoon in early September, lan sat writing business letters in his library, the French windows, opening on to the lawn, thruwn back.

Somebody tapped gently at the

door. "Come in." "A gentleman to see yon, sir," annotmred the servant. The next instant—ah, Heavenst was he dreaming?— Sydney Ifoat ravers stood in the room! Sydney put his !iand on the door, dosing it gently behind the footman. Lan staggered. to his feet. "Vou?" he gasped. "Your 1 " "Yes, 1. whom you left to die, lan !)(smond' Robbed, deserted by the fiiend upon whose honour I would have staked my soul! A day— two days after you left me. I know not how time went I was found by some pro pectors. T lay ill for many weeks bul to them I owe my life. Then I discovered the dust I had slaved for gone gone with you. I swore to have my revenge even though I waited Ipng years. I had to begin all over again; it was slow work. Rut, at last, .here I am. The dead roine to life. How did I track you liei<\o Vh, ;i man with such an enviabk . putation, whose good deeds are (oinmcntcd upon by the papers, cannot remain in hiding. Inn Des-

mond, traitor, coward! What have yon to say for yourself? The miserable man bowed !>'- Kead. "Have mercy, Montravers! I Marjory—if my wife learns all Ah Heavens. No punishment you couh meet out to me would equal thai ' Don't you think I have suffered foi my sin? My life has been a very hell! Always your face haunted me. Thank God I—yes, I say it, though I know your life must mean worse than death to me —tbank God vou still live!" 0 lan's face looked white and old like a man who had lived years of agony.

"Montravers, I will do anything- - anything that you demand of me. The money—interest and quadruple interest—shall, be yours. Only spare] me this—do not let Marjory know my guilty secret." ,n £o\i deserve no mercy at myj hands," said Montravers, looking: down with scorn upon the cowering rretch. "But, yes, for your wife's sake, this matter shall be settled between us. Here, Desmond, is a paper upon which I have written a statement of your crime. Sign your name to it. On the day when I receive my money back in full I will burn it, and with it all evidence oi your crime." Desmond signed the paper. "I cannot thank you," he said brokenly; "but I begin to believe ini the mercy of God."

Montravers let himself out of thr 1 house. Lan remained sitting in the library with his head bowed on the 1 table.

Presently, bearing a slight rustling sound, he looked up. Marjory entered by the French; window, her little child clinging toner gown and cooing in baby fash J ion to the doll she embraced. Lan half-rose to meet them, then something in his wife's face held him back—a look full of misery and repulsion. "Don't come near me I" she said.; almost in a whisper. "I was sitting! on a garden seat outside the win-l dow, playing with baby and—l—heard—all!''

"Marjory! 0 Marjory I Is there then no forgiveness for me? Are you harder than God?" "I loved you once," she went on. in the same low, toneless voice.l "How much I cannot bear to think.; I trusted, I honoured you. Now—now I despite myself for having evei loved you, whom I hate! Nothing--nothing in my eyes can blot out the awfulncss ot your sin!"

She turned, and catching the child in her arms, left him alone.

Lan watched her go, but did not attempt to follow. ; lie knew that Marjory had passed for ever out of his life. j

• Nothing mattered now that he had lost her. Surely the yoke of his' wrong-doing pressed heavily upon lan Desmond.

His punishment had come. (The End.)