CHAPTER XXXIII. THE MOTTO OF THE KEITHS.

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

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE MOTTO OF THE KEITHS.

Violet had gone back to her room, to try and rest her aching head, and calm her wildly beating heart, and drive away the traces of tears, so that ahe might quietly meet her friends at dinner. After a little timo given to grief and musing on the blighted love of her son and Violet, Lady Burton went to Kenneth's room. The young man was sitting by his table, his head bant on his hands. His mother started as he lifted his face, and she saw how white and haggard it was. " Mother, I was just coming to your room." " You wanted me, my dear ?" "I wished to ask you to fiuifth your visit here alone, for I must leave to-night, or tomorrow morning. Help me to away without comment." His mother looked fixedly at him. He took her hand, and drew her toward the table near which he sat. Over it was spread a white silk kerchief, It was as if one had there hidden their dead, and sat down to weep beside the lifeless clay. He drew away the handkerchief. There on the table lay a little sheaf of notes, tied with a pink ribbon, that had bound a young girl's hair, a curl of soft brown. Lady Burton would have recognised one of Violet's silken ringd anywhere. A photograph of Violet, looking almost as now, in & white dress with a full waist, and her hair over her ehouldors : a fow trinkets. Kenneth Keith laid his head on his mother's arm, and said, simply ; " Mother, I am making the grave of my only love." " You love Violet ! My son, she has been with me and told me all " " Blessings on her true heart ! You know the whole ?" " Yes ; I know that until now yon and she have been innocent sufferers — wronged, unhappy, wrouging none. But henceforth, my son, if you meet, except in the mosb casual and formal way, you wrong a sworn faith, and tempt yourselves to sin." •'lam going. I thought I could school myself —that I could help her, and yet be strong, and oh, it was so very sweet to see her, and hear her voice ' But I see I muefc go. We neither of us can endure this. Oh, ! mother, what might have been !" ''My dearest boy, to unite you and Violefc was the choice hope of my heart. I looked forward to your return, when she was woman-grown, hoping you would meet and love, and the news of her marriage was a deep grief to me." " Ob, mother, what might have been, if I had trusted you more, and told you all ; but it was a false shame that kept me silent. I thought she had jilted me." His mother silently passed her hand over his head, 41 She has told you all— how we met in Lincolnshire?" said Kenneth. "See, mother, there are the little notes she wrote me in those blessed days, tied with the ribbon that bound her lovely hair the day she found me sleeping in the wood. This silver bracelet, of India work, I took from her pretty, dimpled wrist, and this little ring she gave me when I left her ; but she would take none from me, for fear someone should find it. Poor child, neither she not I noticed that it was a fatal, changeful opal, like our fate S This photograph she gave

me in those days, and this brown curl from her dear little head. I shall burn the iettera, the ribbon, and this crumpled glove. You will give her baok the bracelet and the ring. But the pioture and the curl I can neither find it in my heart to return, de- ; Btroy, nor keep. You must take them, ' mother, until the day when this grief dies j out of my heart, if it ever does." 11 Some day— some day," said his mother, softly, praying in her heart that the lllet&rred love might fade, and a happier affection talre its place, so that the noble house of Keith might not end in lonely gloom. •*I think, mother, if we had not met •again, since those eaily years," said Keith, **ehe might have remained my sweetest memory, and Bhe might never have learned how much ehe cared for me, how great was her capacity for loving. But when I saw her in Paris—alone, lonely, and so sweet, trusting, lovintr, child-like— my love awoke to a ten fold passion. I have lived an agony of adoration for her, and indignation at him who is so unworthy the care of such a treasure." , , _ , " Unworthy, I fear," sighed Lady Barton. *• Mother, he will simply break her heart. fie is acute to conceal his sins, but he is now where sin has so much the mastery that it is rampant, and will break forth pub licly. He is intensely selfißh ; anything that he might call love, would only be an immense egotism. He is most mercenary ;he married Violet for her fortune, and now that he has it he cares nothing for her. In him is neither pity, sympathy, nor protection. He ia a gambler, a man with whom play is a master-passion, who must live on excitement. If you could have seen him as I found bim at Homburg ! Haggard, redeyed, dishevelled, trembling, half mad, hie 'whole soul on that green table. If I had told him this ancestral home and its treasures had perished in name, that his name was dishonoured, his fortune ruined, his wife a corpse, I doubt if he would have given it a thought while he watched that *?heel I And that was the man, his boul on fire, his breath hot with brandy, that I must drag to his hotel, eober with soda •water and' baths, tone up with tonics, pay his dishonourable debts, feed him with|-eda-tives, and so bring him back as sole friend, protector, guardian, the husband of my sweet innocent, child like Violet !" "My son," said Lady Burton, at last, " the motto of the Keiths is Veritas Vincit — Truth Conquers. This includes all honour. A noble fidelity to virtue shall i&ice the sting from this moat unhappy love, and bring you, in some way which now I cannot see, to assured peace. To-morrow ■you and I leave here togother. I cannot abandon you in your sorrow ; and to Violet I should ody be a reminder of lost love. I will take these treasures that you commit to me, and lay them away as sacred tnemorlalß Of one dead. And you are rigbe to burn these other mementoes." Keith gathered up the letters, ribbon, and glove, and a faded" wild rose or two, and laying them on his hearth, lit them, kneeling, grimly watching until they were consumed, as one would kneel by an altar of sacrifice. *• Kenneth," said the mother, ** Violet, in addition to othet grief, has the belief that her husband loves another. That very Miss Ambrose Haviland we met in the wood." "Such a divine creature could not have loved Leigh." •* Only when very young, and misconceiving his character. He is good-looking and plausible. But it seems to me that in that girl will somehow be help and comfort lor Violet. I feel inclined to go and call on her, ob some excuse, and see where our way will lead." "You cannot, Bhe haß gone. I met old Adam today, going to some poor family, -whom he told me Miss or Haviland, had put in his care. He sa^d she had left here for ever." ** Gone ! Then you may be sure its from Leigh's importunities." "No doubt. Curse— " *• Son !" hia mother laid her hand on his mouth. " Whatever you suffer, keep yourself free from evil." Great was the sorrow expressed at the To^ere, when Lady Burton announced, that evening, that she and Lord Keith must leave the next morning. Lady Burton was loved by all ; Leigh had found Keith most convenient as an escort to his wife ; Mrs Ainslie beheld the ruin of her dream of engaging Anna to a peer even before the dear girl had come out. She poured forth her chagrin to Violet : " Why can'fi you make him stay, for Anna's cake? Think how I laboured to secure a good match, like Leigh, for you, my love. If Keith goes, Anna will be left entirely to the escort of Captain Gore, and they are too much together now ; he has no title, and scarcely nine hundred a year. I see Anna begins to like his society. If there is more of it, I shall take her home." "My dear aunt, I beg you, never curse your daughters with a loveless marriagebetter bury them. Let them marry for !ove, or stay single," said Violet. Shortly after breakfast, next day, the party at the Towers gathered on the terrace to '* spted the parting gueßts," Keith and mother. Lord Leigh had said good-by at the breakfast table, pleading » passing engagement. Violet bore up bravely to kies her friend Lady Burton, and give her little quivering hand to Keith. Both were deadly pale. They felt that they parted finally. *• Violet," said Kenneth, in a whisper, 44 1 ask only one thing : If you are in any trouble, cooiO to me as to a brother. Do you promise?" "1 shall come," said Violefc, lifting her *weet eyea. They were gone. Around Violet Leigh the summer day grew dark, To hide from «very eye she fled into the park, to a little hidden covert that she loved. She lay there, her face buried in the green moss. Some one, hurrying madly along, almost trod on her prostrate form, yet did not see her. It was Lord Leigh, blind with wrath and passion, coming from Rose Lodge, where he, had been infuriated to find Edna £ono, leaving no address. Ten minutes later, a step that had no sound came over the mosses, and a hand touched the shoulder of the prostrate Violet. It was Helen Hope. (.To be Continued,)

Small bey (at polo grounds) : "Please take me in, mister." Mister: "What's the matter with looking through a knot hole ?" Boy : " The knot holeß are all occupied by policemen.