CHAPTER XXXVI.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 189, 29 January 1887, Page 6

CHAPTER XXXVI.

" P.r.^IDE THE BL^GK POOL." Thk estates of Leigh wore princely ; they embraced half a county, near the Towers, ; together -with properties acquired in other localities by purchase or marriage. Scenery, ' woodland, and village, bright and dark, could be found in the domains at the Towors. Thore was ono spot that was generally eschewed, it was so dark, so desolate, so weird, so uncanny, that it would eeera only fit for the haunt of a morbid and unsettled mind. It was the Black Pool. The Black Pool lay in a deep dark fir wood. The pool itself was almost circular, and ita inky waters were eaid to be bottomless, aank plants leaned into it from the slimy margin, no water fowl loved it, the banka were in some places high and crumbling. Beside it, stood a singular little building of two storiee, each of one room, with a balcony jutting over the water. This building, known as " The Earl's Folly," was

gloomy and damp aa its surroundings ; ancient arms and a few"antlerp, with black oak tables and chairs, and some fur rugs, were all the furnishing. It was said to have been built by a long-dead earl, who had become moody and nearly mad from some secret sorrow, and died there by his own hand. Country folk said the place was haunted by bis weary spirit. However it was, the legend was seldom mentioned at Leigh, and Eari Maurice was relegated to forgetfulness, and his haunt to desertion. Sometimes for a decade no one entered " The Folly," and it was now falling into decay, Such a gloomy, ill-omened place suited the wretched frame of Norman Leigh's spirit. He loved where it was sin to love, and where his love was rejected with lofty indignation ; but the very rejection stimulated his passion. He refused the society and kindness of a wife who, however disappointed and regretful, would have made him good and happy, and would herself, with duty well fulfilled, have grown calm and partly content. But now, Lord Norman— aa Edna had fled, and he did not know where to pursue her— withdrew himself from his gueats, and for hours shut himself up in gloomy, bitter musing in the upper room of " The Earl's Folly." He did not mention where he went ; no One knew whether he were busy in his library, or riding over his estate, or calling on neighbouring friends. While riding parties and picnics, croquet, lawn tennis, archery, and charades, occupied the party at the Towera, Norman was off by himeelf, with perhaps a French novel ot the strongest variety, a bottle of brandy, a bundle of cigars, and a book on such games as delighted the excitable spirit that had been born in him, a terrible inheritance from hia mother. Only old Adam knew where he went, and that by ceaseless watching, and for hours the old man, reckleps of rheumatism, hid waiting among the firs, lest his unhappy master should come to some harm. " Why don't you stay with us, Norman ?" said Violet, putting her hand through his arm, as they left the breakfast room. " Leave all this tedious business to your steward. You look poorly. Stay with us ; we are arranging a little masquerade ; we | want your help." " Why should I stay?" said Norman, crossly, shaking off her hand. " Amuse your own guests. You would not invite a lady whom I wished " "I said afterward, to have her," interposed Violet. 44 Yes, when it was too late, and then I invited Keith," he added, looking about for a cause of war, " and you have driven him off by your incivilities, I suppose. When a man is not considered in hia own home, he had better keep out of the vsay." "Don't, Norman, please don't talk so," entreated Violet. " I want to consider you and please you ; do help me, tell me just what you would like. I want to be a good wife." "I'd like best to be let alone," said Norman, brutally. He went off to hia retreat and left Violet to prepare the masquerade with a heavy heart. But Violet had loving and merry friends about her. Anna was gone, but Flora Ainslie was a lively, laughter-pro-voking witch, less on her good behaviour than young ladies who have been regularly introduced, and often the little countess forgot all her troubles, and was very guy with her friends. Robert Browning, drawing a word-pic-ture ot a face, bestows on it a smile, but not "a laugh, for that spoils all." But Violet's laugh did not spoil all ; it was un constrained as a child's, sweet as the ripple of summer brooks, her lovely facB dimpled, her eyes lit infco sunniest gleams : her laugh was the sweetest thing in all the world. Having rejected hia wife's advances, Leigh shut himself up in his retreat, sitting in the upper room of "The Folly," and moodily gazing at a spider weaving webs in a corner. Adam had not followed him that day ; long tarrying near the pool haci so crippled the old servant that he could not leave his rooms that morning. One minute Leigh planned a search for Edna ; then he lost himself in what might have been ; then he considered whether he should go to the Continent, to a long round of those disastrous, deadly green tables. He would have gone at once, only there he was sure to discover nothiug of Edna. Then he pondered whether he should take opiated and steep himself in wild unrealities. In this dangerous loneliness and treacherous selSftempting he had remained over an hour, wnen he heard the lowei door, which he had never found it needful to lock, turn heavily on its hinges, and after a little pauae a step, the trailing of a gown, a woman's foot upon the stair His first thought was that his wife had followed him to press her companionship upon him, and he sprang from the iounging attitude to close the door, which stood ajar, when it swung widely open, and on the threshold stood the fine, stately figure of Helen Hope, and her daik, handsome, fatal face turned to his own, With a muttered curse, he sank back into his place and stubbornly fixed hia gaze on the floor. For three or four minutes the two remained in this position, Leio;a not giving way so much as to move an eyelid. Then Helen crosed the room with a swift step, knelt before him, laid her anna across his kneea, and bending her face to reach the glance of hia eyes, said : " Look at me, Norman ! Speak to me ' Smile at me ! Touch your lipe to mine ! For the sake of mercy, love me, for I am the one woman in all the world who loves you !" " Leave me, girl!" said Leigh, angrily. " With men the question is not so much whether they are loved as whether they love Do you fancy that I love you ?" " You said you did once," wailed Helen. " I think not ; you took too much for granted, your a-nbitioa misleading you. Why do you follow me ?" •'Because I love you ; because you are lonely, and. no one else loves you, and out of sheer loneliness and gratitude you will turn to me. Your wife does not love you ; and Edna, that moonlight cold, white creature, never did. Some small girlish fancy was once fed by your looks and words, but it died ; she cared nothing 1 for you. She has gone merely to get rid ot you. Oh, turn to me !" " I would rather pursue Edna Ambrose, flying and scorning me, than take the sweoteßt words of any other woman in the world," said Leigh madly. " It will be in vain ; all iv vain," moaned Helen. " She will never marry you." " Marry 1 Heavens ! Do you forget I am bound hand and foot ?" " But there may be au end, even to marriage," said Helen, frantically, " Your wife might die, or Bhe— you— you might be divorced. Then you could marry one whose whole hope and thought would be to please you," Leigh started as if he had been stung. Then he said, in a frenzy : M Death 1 Divorce ! Marriage ! Fool, do you not see that these words only suggest to me the path open to Edna ? She ia to me as dew after burning noon, as the soft breeze after the breathless Sahara, as fair flowers after snow, as spring after winter, as peace after despair, as heaven after hell. But you, Helen, you are too much like my own goaded, mad desperate self."j ..^.^^

11 If you were free— free, would you not marry me ?" "No, no— by Heaven, no !" "What would you do?" cried Helen, seizing; both hia wriata. " 1 would die at the feet of Edna Am brose, unless Bhe told me I might live for her." " Why scorn me bo ? Am not I handsome, , accomplished, devoted -all that—" " That befits a Lord of Leigh, ancestry and all T sneered Leigh. " Villain ! lam your equal, I am good enough for you. I am as good as your mother. Am I more adventuress than she ? I know the blood out of which you sprang." " Good or bad, low or high, it is all one, as far as you are concerned. Your very pursuit sickens me. The more I see you the more I loathe you " Helen sprang to her feet with a cry like a scream of some wounded wild creature. « I will have my revenge," she said, " I will marry you, or die with you ! I will bring you to my level somehow, Lord of Leigh, so that all the world shall know. Beware of a woman's vengeance ! It shall fall on you like lightning, From to-day I dedicate myself to such a pursuit that it shall end at your side —at the altar or the grave !"