CHAPTER XXXVII.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 97, 11 April 1885, Page 4

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A SUNSHINY HOME. •• The little pitted speck in Barnered^niiU^"So glad to see you down, Vella— delighted, I'm sure ! Excuse me, my dear, but 1 have dropped into Jerry's way of speaking of you » v , I "Take care, papa! You'll make bad worse !" little Miss Starr interposed, laughins. "'My dear,' indeed! If you're not! more cautious Vella will box your ears. "No! Now you wouldn't, my— Miss *"No, I wouldn't!" declared Vella, positively. "I should deserve to -to be exiled, with a pretty, childish earnestnoss, " were I so ungrateful." . •• Are you not exiled now ? put in L>r. Laurent, quietly. " Oh." with a rush of pink colour to the snowdrop cheeks, « I meant from this-my dear second home." " Bravo 1" exclaimed old Geiald Starr. «• You do like us a little, don't you, Vel— MissVernell?" " Indeed Ido ! but not a little- a great deal !" she declared, earnestly. And she meant it. How devotedly and unreservedly good to her they had been, every soul of them, down to wee Dick, she alone knew. As thoy had taken her into their home that awful September night for charity s sake, they took her into their hearts later for their own. , , This was the first day she had left her room, the little nest all azure and snowmess, and come downstairs. Three days ago they had urged her to make the attempt. Stuart would carry her, they had said And Stuart himself had pleaded to be allowed to do so with eyes which spoke eloquently. , , , . , , But no ! she had smiled and shaken her head. She would not so far trouble Dr Laurent. She would wait till she grew a little stronger. But far more emphatically than had her gentle words did her heart negative the proposal. Feel other arms than Marcs aroiind her ? Be to a stranger a debtor for such aid? No, no ! But to-day when the doctor and Mr Stan had gone out, she had crept down with Geraldine's help ; and the latter had pushed the parlour lounpe up to the hearth, heaped it with soft cushions, and made her Lie down. , , , How pleasant it was there, to be surehow cheery, and home-like and restful ! The lonff low-ceiled, old-fashioned room, with S3 cream and crimson carpet, its open cotCqge #ano, its short-legged and clawfootetl red damask furniture, its thick curtatate 0* the same hue, its big book laden eta^ere, fts high mantel of stained oak, abo"e which Mr Starr's smooth-shaven, snowy-headed face beamed affectionately, and below which in the bras3-bared grate a fire burned like a big bed of rubieshow unpretentious and comfortable it all was ! „ .. They must be very happy here, vella decided, looking around with eyes a great deal too large for the small white face. The rooms, the furnishing thereof, the very atmosphere of the house, how different it all was from the huge, splendid, chilly mansion ahe had called home. As her gaze returned from its slow inspection it met that of Geraldine Starr, who sat opposite, leaning her head against the back of her own particular chair, regarding her gravely. Both smiled. "A penny for your thoughts?" queried Geraldine. ••I was just thinking how different evo-y-thing looked here from— home," honestly. 11 How ? Do you like our house ?" " Dearly. It is so sunshiny, and cheerful, and cozy." II It ought to be the former," laughing " Stuart won't let us close a blind or draw down a shade. He is an extremist on the subject. As to its being cheerful and cozy, that is the least it ought to be, as we cannot make it elegant. You know we are not at all rich -not even what is called • well off.' " 11 1 would never have suspected it," Vella declared with warmth. " I don't see how your rooms could be prettier or more artistic if you were worth millions." And she spoke precisely as she thought, admiring the while the simplicity with which the girl had adverted to their straitened circumstances. They had asked her very little about her former residence or her future purpose?, They were not inquisitive concerning her relatives— indeed, they were not personal at all. The very fact that she was their guest, dependent on their care and courtesy, made them sensitively silent. And she was not communicative. She could tell them scarcely anything without putting Voyle or herself, or both, in a false light. She could not tell them of that dreadful marriage without mentioning the circumstance of Voyle's being arrested at the time. Of course, he was innocent. She knew that. But conviction is not proof. Again, the very fact of the marriage might shock them. They could not be expected to comprehend how imperative h«r brother's release from the indignity of imprisonment seemed to her young, impulsive, passionate heart, and yet how inexpressibly repulsive the bondage of which that free dom was made the price. No, sho could not tell them much, these dear, kind, new friends of hers. Some day, perhaps, but not now. " Where there is secrecy there is guilt," declares an adage, which should be labelled •' Dangerous !" There is no more flagrant guilt without secrecy than there is oppressive secrecy without guiit. And all, from Gerald Starr down, read correctly the pweet, true face, and trusted her accordingly. If she chose to be re served, that was her affair. Her home was in Chicago. She had been en toute to visit an old school-friend residing in Philadelphia. That was all she told them. But Aunt Dorothy ! From the moment when she had stumbled back to consciousness—back from the border-land of death through the mazes of delirium— after Marc, her thoughts had been of her. She would be anxious to hear from her. She must write to her. And yet if it— the letter— Bhould fall into her uncle's hands, it would betray her whereabouts. And he would come for her and take her back — not through love of her, but because, next to the power of money, he worshipped public opinion, and possessed a most inordinate dread of scandals. It was her knowledge of his sentiments on this point which had coloured so strangely at the time the fact of his having had Voyle arrested, even were he guilty. Only his terror of Glaflin's excosure, and the conviction that through the fad alone, striking through him, could Velia be induced to surrender, had impelled him to such, an extreme step.

So, iust as soon as she was able to sit up and strong enough to hold a pencil, she wrote to Aunt Dolly, telling her briefly the reason of her detention at this place, touching lightly on her illness, dwelling gratefully on the goodness of the Starrs. This she enclosed with a note to an old protege of her aunt's-a reduced gentlewoman whom the former had known m her better days. Would she give the note enclosed to Miss Vernell? Please to deliver it herself. And If she would not mention either communication to anyone, she would very much oblige hers very truly, Vella Vernell. And this letter, addressed to Mrs Mayne's cottage on Polk-street, Dr. Laurent had posted. , „, Oh, she wanted to get strong— she did so want to get strong soon, just to find out where Marc was, to send him a line, or to meet him and say, •' My own, dear, foolish boy, what a great big shaking you deserve for doubting me!" To think that all this time he was imagining her Claflin s wife ! The thought was agonising. But surely he and Voylo had since met, and the latter had explained all. But where was Voyle ? How hai that most mad marriage ended ? When would she see Marc and Voyle and Aunt Dolly again? When? It was no wonder she was still weak and nervous, in such an ncessant fret and fever were heart and brain. „ „. . , , , " Hark 1" said Geraldine, lifting her head, " Here they are !" Vella listened. •» I don't hear them. \ es, I do, though. Isn 1 * thai; the doctor's voice?" And'irito Goraldine'e quiet face came the glow which always suffused it at his step 6r name. He came in laughing, with Diok perched on hia shoulder. He started At sight of the figure on tho lounge by the hearth. , . , ' "Down with permission! Who helped you ? What a rebel of a patient !" " "An impatient patient," Gerald btarr had exclaimed, jovially. And then he had welcomed her in the words with which the chapter opens. Dr. Laurent drew a chair up to the head of tho lounge and sat clown. He was lookinc singularly well. His eyos were more ilert than usual. His lips, too, had lost their meditative droop. The wind had b'own a fresh colour into his sallow cheeks. He began to toll Vella of a humorous incident which happened in the neighbourhood. He talked well, almost brilliantly, and she listened with amused interest. But it looked almost like rudeness to Geraldine and her father, his apparent total obliviun of their presence. Once Vella, glancing up, caught UeralJine'a eyes fixed on her with an odd expression new to them, half-dread, half pain. Meeting tho look, tho lattei turned with I a certain nervousness to Dick, standing like a very smill but very sturdy sentinel at the foot of the sofa. "Come tome, Dick!" she urged. "Come and see Jerry !" But that ungallant young gentleman, without so much as turning his curly head, shook it very vigorously. "No. l'ae doin' to 'tay with Vella. "Mi*s Vella! you scamp, you!" corrected his father, turning his laughing face on him. . j "I won't!" declared Dick, with an iini compromising aturdiness. " Vella, tan't I say Vella?" , „ , Who could have resisted the bttlo rosy mouth's appeal ? Certainly not Vella Verne 11. ... „ " Of courje you may, my darling ! " Kou; papa !" shouted triumphant Dick " I'll dive you a tiss, Vella." 1 And as he rushed like a tiny cyclone to fulfil his amorous threat, Geraldine slipped unnoticed from the room.