CHAPTER XV. "THERE ARE SOME WOMEN SO LOVELY THEY CAN NEVER BE FORGOTTEN!"

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 184, 25 December 1886, Page 6

CHAPTER XV. "THERE ARE SOME WOMEN SO LOVELY THEY CAN NEVER BE FORGOTTEN!"

C/Ytf NEVES BE FORGOTTEN !" After the eecond waltz with Lord Keith, the ball room seemed too closo and dazzling for Violet. She longed for quiet-some silent place to still the confusion of her heart and brain. Captain Goro and Sir Hugh Hunter, who had been at her wedding, were in Paris for a few days, and she had promised a dance to Captain Gore. She excused herself on the score of fatigue, and when the floor was once more a kaleidoscopic vision of beautiful figures floating about on strong arms, or braids shimmering under the brilliant lights, Violet left her aunt's side, and passing out on a balcony, waß wiled into the inclosed garden, where particoloured lampa made a new bizarre day among, the flower-set paths. She moved along to a fountain, and Bat down by the brim, and above her a great magnolia spread its dark shining leaves and nectarladen flowers. On her lap lay Keith's bouquet. She had heard Leigh pressing on

Keith a Bhare in some of their plans for tho next week or two, and she had seen Kenneth divided between desire and fear to accept. In her waltz with him she had realised that it would be hard to see Keith frequently and remain on those serene heights of Platonic friendship where her grandmother had tranquilly walked with Count Solis. A step on the gravel suggested to her that he whom she had loved and lost, and found but to lose more unutterably, was near. She remembered his step through all those parted years. She looked up. " 1 saw you come out alone. Are you ill or tired, Violet ?" In her brief married life Leigh had never spoken to her with tones of such absorbing tenderness. Keith did not know the infinite love that wag in his voice. "No; but I grow tired ot tumult. I think lam made for more quiet things. I believe I am more like Wordsworth's Lucy than anyone else— a simple little person, happiest when out of sight. You remember — She grew beaide the untrodden ways, Along the banks of Dove, A maid whom there were none to praiee, And very few to love. That is like me. You sent me this bouquet, did you not ? I was glad to get it. 1 feared you might be angry." '•Angry? I could never be angry with you, Violet." •' I think you have great cause. When a i woman spoils a man's life, then he has great cause for anger. But you said you would be friends with me, after all." " Yes ; and lam heart and soul. To begin, I fear you will take cold out in the air, with your neck uncovered. You look so frail to me. Allow me." And he took a large white silk kerchief from his pocket, laid it gently about her shoulders. Violet looked up at him with her innocent eyes. "I like to be taken care of," she said, simply ; and Keith felt such a thrill of rebellion against the fate that had forbade his constant care of her that ho drew back a step in self defiance. " Thip is a brilliant scene, this ball, and I hope you are enjoying it," he said; "and if you like quiet pleasures and rural scenes, as I know you do, no doubt you will like it much afc Leigh Towers. I nnderstani it is one of the finest, most romantic estates in England." Violet remembered how Leigh Towers was poisoned for her by the shadows of Miss Ambrose and Helen Hope. " I do not expect to be happy," she said, quietly. " Lord Keith, how did you come to send me all white flowers ? They match my dress exactly. I love white flowers." She was trying thus poorly to get into safe conversation. " Perhaps I consider that you are a bride, and then I remember, how, long ago, in Lincolnshire, you liked the white flowers, the white violets, the saxifrag9, the white foxglove ; and then, too, these white flowers reminded me of that sweet, noble saying of yours, the other day, that though you could not be happy, you could and ehould find your satisfaction always in being good ; and I hoped the perfume of these flowers would say to you, that goodness is sure to grow into happiness " Violet raised the flowers to her face. " It is a doubly lovely bouquet," she said, " w ith all those Bweet meanings in it. I wish Its would last for ever ; but it will die. But your words shall never die. Now I know you are my friend." 11 Oh, how it grieves me," eaid Kenneth, "to hear those sad tone 3 in that voice, which used to ring aa clear and glad as any flute. Violet, you must be happy, for my cake will you not be happy ?" " I think I can only promise to endure bravely," aaid Violet after a little meditation. •• To you, to most people, Lord Keith, it may seem a very simple tbing, this trouble of mine. To be married, and not love or be loved, that is an old and common story. Many think married love is all a romance ; Lord Leigh does. But you know I have never had a real home, nor the association of those really belonging to me. My nature needs aomeone to cling to, I want to be taken care of, to be loved, and petted, and encouraged, by someone who loves me for myself alone— not for anything have : someone who would love me just aa well if I were a poor girl — a Lord Ronald such as loved Lady Clare, you know." "Yes? But I have forgotten Lord Konald, I fear," said Keith, feeliug that he was on dangerous ground. "Forgotten Tennyson's ballad of Lady Clare ? She was thought a great lady and heiress, and the day before she was to marry Lord Ronald she found she had been changed at nurse, and was not a great person at all ; and she put on 'a russet gown,' and went and told Lord Konald, and then : ' Ho laughed a laugh of merry scorn ; He mined and kieaed her who-e atio stood : If you ure not the heiress born, And I," said he, ' the next in blood— ' If you are not the heiress born j And i,' tanlhe, * the lawful hair, vve two will wert to-morrow morn And you tehall still bo Lady Clare.' Now you see, she could not doubt that she was really lovea. But few people are like that. My cousin, Clare Montressor, thinks the Lady Clare was simply idiotic to tell the truth ; and I know it Lord Leigh had been in Lord Ronald's place, he would have blamed Clare, and ended all," Despite his sorrows and disturbance, Lord Keith had to smile at Violet's simplicity. She was exactly such as she had been tour years before. " I ana sure Leigh would have done better than that," he said. " Lord Keith —Kenneth — you are a man, and you can tell me truly. If a man pretends to love a woman, and merely trifles with her feelings, and goes off and leaves her, is he always — is he not a cruel, bad man ?" Keith had heard various stories of Leigh, and he felt something of what was in her mind. He roplied bravely ; *' "Not always. You do not know the world nor women, Violet. There are women who pursue men aud seek to naarry them, and failing, make a loud outcry about deceit and wounded affections. Men are not always th 4 ones to blame. Some women claim attention, some misconstrue the commonest attentions. Ana then, if theso follies have been in a man's life, he settles down and abandons them when be is married." " Unless ho has loved one he cannot for- , get," said Violet. " I suppose [there are eomo women so lovely they can never be forgotten." i This was too much for the resolution of Kenneth Keith. His heart-woe burst forth in an uncontrollable cry : i " Like, you, Violet !— little Violet, like you ! Cau I ever forget you V * Violet, realizing what she had done in opening, in her unguarded confidence, such a flood-gate of passion, her heard breaking for Keith's passion, sprang up, and laying her hand on his folded arms, sobbed out : " No, no ! don't say it ! don't feel it ! I am not worthy of it. Forget me, Kenneth —it is all I aflk ; lob me suffer alone 1" Was that a tear, a man's hot bitter tear, that fell on her bare white arm ? Kenneth turned his back, and stood silent, struggling with himself. Violet, like a culprit waiting sentence, stood beside the ountain. Keith turned,

" I do not wißh to forget you ; I do nofc wish you to suffer ; and I am sure I shall learn to look afc life a8 I ought. You can help me best, "Violet, by accepting your lot with content ; by resolving to be happy ; by seeing all the good that is in your husband, and learning to love him." "He does not want my love," moaned Violet ; "I must learn to do without love. I have believed that love was the BweetBafc, holiest thing j that it was woman's life, her ■ strength and stay ; and I must do without it all. And I will !— I, too, can be strong. Leave me. Good-bye, Kenneth. We will never talk of this again." Keith felt that he must go. He left her alone. What would Lord Keith have thought if he had seen Violet then, and learned the, depths of tenderness and sorrow \ Knowledge of her capacity for loving might hare roused him to love, and changed all their lives. But he had said his wife wao romantic, and poetic, and these were surface feelings, while her true nature was paßsionless as lilies are. Ignorant of the real depths of her heart;,, he went blindly on, and day by day he and!/ Violet drifted on a darkening fate. Oh, what might have been saved them if Jbfr had only known her better !