CHAPTER XXXI. "WHY DID YOU NOT LET ME DIE?"

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 188, 22 January 1887, Page 6

CHAPTER XXXI. "WHY DID YOU NOT LET ME DIE?"

Thus, like Iphigenia, with a " bright death glittering at her throat," Violet saw no more. She was dimly conscious of a rush and crash in the bushes, that she was seized by the shoulder and flung back, and that befcre and above her, between her and death stood the form of Kenneth Keith. In an instant, not being given to swooning, Violet collected hersett to 89e the unarmed but well-knit figure of Lord Keith planted in the narrow space between herself and the maniac. Keith's arms were crossed, his head thrown back; his eyes, steadfast and commanding, held the reluctant gaze of the man who through rummadness had become a beast, How long he could so have dominated him cannot be told. Three men came dashing down the road, tbe first on horseback, who, suddenly flinging a broad leather band over the insane creature's shoulders, jerked it back with a buckle, and had him firmly pinioned, the hatchet dropping at his feet. "It's Saunders, the smith, my tord," 1 cried one of the men. " He's clean and for ever out of his head along of drink. He got away from us while we was watching for this keeper to come carry he to 'eylura. He might have been the death of you and Lady Leigh." Lord Keith said not a word ; the peril to Violet had been so awful and imminent that ho needed time to collect himself. Violet, still lying almost breathless on the turf, and unable to believe in her sudden danger and escape, saw the three men carry off the shouting and rebelling Saunders, his burly strength, nurtured in the smithy, and now intensified fay madness, threatening to overcome his captors. When he was finally taken round a turn in the road, Violet lifted herself up and shook the dust from her dress. She did not see that Keith was pale and trembling bo as he could not even assist her j she only felfc that she owed him her life, and she remembered that he had looked dangerously magnificent, standing before her and daring death for her sweet sake. Instead of gratitude, the wayward child was filled with

rebellion, and her first articulate cry was : " Why did you not let me die ? I should by this time be done with it." This base thankleesness stung Kenneth Keith to a pale fury, He simply stood and looked at her. Violet rushed on, in her excitement : "lam not happy ; I would rather be dead !" But this hard injustice was foreign to her really sweet nature, and with the words on her lips, she took shame to herself for them. Dead ? All her warm young life was brutally put out in its dawn,| And he— he might now be lying a bleeding corpse, smitten to death in her defence. She reponted. " Oh, Lord Keith ! what am I saying ! You risked your life for me 1 You might have been killed in my place !" 11 1 did my duty," said Keith, in freezing toneß. To be only on the placid ground of friendship, the calm ground of propriety with Keith, was Violet's deep desire, and yet so loving was she, and so craving love, and so shut out from love, that when the one man in all the world who was really dear to her said of saving her life, coldly, sharply, " I did my duty," Violet burst forth angrily : " It is a pity you did." " Why are you averse to living ?" cried Keith, in a fury. "Becaueo I am so unhappy," said Violet, bitterly. "If you conoider yourself unhappy pray what am I?" said Keith, forgetting himself in foolish anger at Violet's contradictory conduct. "1 don't know what I think," said Violet, bursting into a flood of tears ; " only we can neither of us live for ever ; you and I will both be dead some day, and that is all we have to look for." The wide, earnest gaze that Violet had for a moment fixed on Kenneth was drowned in tears. Incapable of saying a word more, or of leaving the spot, she turned her head away, dropped on the moaey bank and hid her faco in her hands. Her experiences of life, though very bitter, had been very brief ; her childhood had fled, but the dignity, calmness, and strength of tne woman had not yet come to her. But only a noble, self restrained, and trustworthy spirit looked at her out of Kenneth Keith's deep blue eyes. He stood in silence, waiting for her to grow calm ; feeling angry with himself, thaf he had for a moment lost control of himself, and been vexed at what was merely one phase of her sorrow. He thought of the lines he had read much of late, though he was of loftier, lesa selfish genius than their hero : "Oh, my Amy, tender hearted, Oh, my Amy, mine no more !" He bone near Violet. " Dear child, I hope the life that has been aiived thie hour will yet be filled with goodness and happiness. Let us go home." He took the little hand, raised her to her feet, and drawing the trembling arm through his, turned their back toward the Towers. But somehow it seemed that every attempt made by Keith to adjust their trouble only increased it, and unless some good angel intervened these young people were liable to make a terrible tangle of their history before they finished it. As they loitered along, because Violet was too shaken by fright to hasten, the warm summer breezes fanned them, the air blowing over the Towers gardens was tull of intoxicating perfume, birds sang in the woods, oh, happy, happy birds that mated by choice and mado no mistakes ; coveted nothing, needed nothing but what God gave day by day. Kennoth fell to thinking how blissfully happy he would be if they were walking this way in Keith woodlands, and Vioiet were his, and all their days might drift by in love's glad ministry, and he could fill the craving of tins lonely heart, and she could crown his life with joy. Violet, glancing with shy eyes at the kingly figure, and contcious of the might of hie late protection, was not thinking of anything but him, how blue were his eyes, what gold waa in the rings of his hair, what square shoulders and ample brow, what proud, well-curved mouth and chin, what a strong step, timed to her light paces ! How had she given him up, and, alas ! for ever and tor over ! Surely in that hour some guardian angel — perhaps the long-dead mother — intervened for the heart-impoverished child The sound of voices echoed through the woodlands, and Grace, Anna, Churchill, and Captain Gore appeared. As they were heard, Keith removed Violet's hand from his arm, and gathering a flower from the path, began to study its structure as he went on. "Oh, are you here? Where have you been ?" said Anna. "Having an adventure," said Kenneth, coolly. "Lady Leigh w<iB run at by a crazy man, who threatened to kill her, as she walked alone. I heard the noiee of his threats and. rushed up, but three keepers were after him, and so all easily ended." "He would smoly have murdered mo if Lord Keith had not come up," said Violet, pale at the recollection. "He need not make so light of it : he was very brave." " Ifor mercy's sake, don't tell manitna," said Anna ; "we shall none of us have any peace, ever after." " Tom. since all is over safely, I wish you j and I had had the adventure," said Grace, " so that it might have ended as adventures should, by conferring on the knight-errant the hand of the distressed damsel." "If ib is necessary to your happiness, perhaps I can order up a crazy man. Keith, where is he ? JDo you think be would be let loose by his keepers for a consideration ?" "If you bad seen how horrible it was," j said Violet, " you could notj jest over the affair. Just the thought of it makes me sick. Captain Gore, will you give me your arm to the house. Anna, I will leave you to entertain the knight-errant." " That is a good name for Keith," said Captain Gore. "He is one of the manlie3t of men." The clock over the distant dairy Btruck. " Why, it is past lunch-time !" cried Violet. " Did you not know it ? We had come from lunch. If you and Leigh had been off together vre could say, * the presence of the beloved had made the time short.' " Violet flushed. Should the time ever come when evil tongues should make such flings about her and Keith ? No, no ; forbid it Heaven ! She was yet where she was safe, and she would assure her safety. '•Thank you for bringing me to the house," she said to Captain Gore. " I shall po to my room until dinner "

She looked 40 wan and weary whan she reached her room that Kake brought her a cup of tea, and then brushed out her eilken rings of dark hair, and tied them back with a ribbon, and put on her white pique dressing robe. "Now leave me until time to dress for dinner," Violet said to Kate. "Doup my cream-coloured silk with rose ribbons. I shall wear it to-night. And get me pink geraniums from the conservatory to wear with it." When Kate was shut up with her Bewing, Violet stole softly from her room to the apartment of Lady Burton.