The Splendid Sacrifice

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 236, 24 December 1927, Page 19

The Splendid Sacrifice

Author of: '* The Hatf-Closed Door. 0 " The Black Moon,” '• The Felgate *Taint ' ” The Poiion League.” Ac., Ac

J.B.Harris-Burland.

(Concluded). Mary smiled. There was something calm and saintly about her face in these days. It seemed to her that she* had been a mother for years—and Joan had been her child. “We may have to leave Mirchesterr.” sho said, after a pause. “Arthur sspoke of life in the colonies —so much work to be done there, Hick, you knc*w; and Arthur will be happy wherever there is work. Of course, we should not go until some little time after, my child is born. And, after all, Hftck, it isn’t as if pepole could blame Arthur for having married a thief. He didn’t know, did he?” A dull crimson flush spread over Sir Richard’s face. "Yolur home?’’ he said. “The garden you. love so well? The people in Mirchestjer—people who have known you sirace you were a child? You are going to be driven out from all this?”

“No, Dick. W'e are not being driven out. We are going of our own free will. We shall be -quite happy. I wish I could think that you and Joan could find the sajne happiness.” “I shall tell the truth. 1 shall make Joan tell the truth.” “No, Hick —be a sensible fellow. You know the truth cannot be told, because it was not as if Joan had stolen the jewel herself. That —that man stole it. and serLt it to her, and she was tempted to keep it. All that would have to be told, if Joan really spoke the truth. Besides, who would believe Joan? She could't prove a word she said. Everyone would think that her mind was still unbalanced. That’s the practical side of the matter, Hick: It wouldn’t make any difference to Arthur if Joan made a public confession in the cathedral. I ghould tell everyone that she was macl. Don’t you understand, Dick, that when one lias set out upon a certain path, one must not leave it until one comes to the end. I shall explain everything to Joan —I shall tell her the truth — that if she makes this confession, she will see the last of me, for I will never write to her or see her again. Hick, lam going to leave here to-morrow. I want my child to be’born at River Cottage—j—i am very fond of my old home.” For more than a minute there was silence, and then Sir Richard said: “I think, Mary—l understand—just a little about the saints and martyrs. I never really believed in them until

Never, so said the oldest inhabitant of Mirchester, writing to the local paper, had there been so wonderful,

so* sunny, so perfect an October in part of England. Folk called it Indian summer, and some of them even predicted the end of the world, pointing out that the magnificent sunsets were due to dust from a stupendous volcanic eruption op some unknown island in the Pacific—a disturbance that would spread to Europe. But, whatever the cause of the sunsets, Arthur Britton and his wife revelled in the sunshine, and even the baby, Arthur Richard Britton, barely three months old, seemed to appreciate the splendid compliment to his fir t appearance in a strange world. Mary sat by the river on one of the glorious evenings of those glorious days. The child was asleep, and its face was shaded from the wonderful glow in thp West—the orange and crimson, and the pale green and the gold of the sky. Against all this glory, the great square tower of the cathedral showed j black and tremendous. Mary looked at it and sighed. In two months' time they were to leave Mirchester. The house would be sold. The garden that she loved would be tended by other hands, altered to suit other tastes, neglected, perhaps, by those who did not care for flowers.

Yet there had been news from Carne Court to make her happy, and the letter that had brought it to her, was still in her hand. She read it through again.

“My dearest Mary,” Joan had written, “I am going to have a baby, and I love the father of my child. I have tried and tried to love Dick all these months—have tried to forget everything, but it was not until to-day that love came to me. He has been so kind, so patient, so gentle -with me. All his old hardness has gone—ever since the day he was taking me up to London. He forgave me everything, but I could never forgive him until to-day. And now all seems to have changed. There seemed so little to live for—and now there is everything to live for. I know now that I do love him —and it is a different sort of love. It is almost as though I had become like you, Mary dear. I don’t think of myself any longer—only of Dick and the child. Perhaps I have been mad, and now I have come to my senses. I don’t understand. I do#t know how it has happened. But it is all so different. Mary, darling, pray for me—pray for your loving little Jackie, who owes you all that she has in the world.” There were tears in Mary’s eyes as

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she held the open letter in her hand, and gazed at the golden islands in the sky. The cathedral bell began to ring for Evensong.

When Mary returned from the service she found her husband in the study. She could hardly see his face in the twilight. “I am not going to leave here,” he said. “I talked it over with the Bishop this morning. He wants us both to stay, fight down the scandal, show the people of Michester that we are not cowards. He has been thinking over this for a long time, and has come to this conclusion. He does not believe in your guilt, and when he had said that, I told him everything. He will not, of course, breathe a word to anyone else. Mary, dear, do you think you can go through this ordeal —bear insults and neglect for a time —show the people that we are not cowards—build up a new life, just as if you were really a guilty woman? Mary, it would be a fine thing for any woman to do —finer than the instinct which first prompted you to make the sacrifice. I leave the decision in your hands. I told the Bishop that it was you who would have to bear the brunt of the battle.” For nearly a minute there was silence, and, to Mary, the room seemed suddenly to have grown very dark. Then her husband took her in her arms, and she closed her eyes, and saw, as in a vision, a cross of splendid light. “I will stay. Arthur, dear,” she answered gently. “I must have been mad ever to have thought of running away—like a frightened child.” ''The End.)