CHAPTER LXXXVII.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 204, 21 May 1887, Page 6 (Supplement)

CHAPTER LXXXVII.

'•BEHOLD A PEN INENT HEUE, I'OK rABDON." All during breakfast Lord Alwold seemed lost in meditation. After breakfast he and Violet went to the library to look over papers. The library was a great room, well lighted, into which the November sunshine was pouring a pale light, while fires glowed in two opposite fire-places. The table, with japanned boxes of papers, stood in the centre of the floor. In a distant bow window Anna sat knitting, as she slowly swayed back and forth in a low rocker, her rosy cheeks and blue gown forming a brilliant contrast to Violet, pale and slender in her black bombazine. When the papers had been examined Lord Alwold spoke abruptly : " You say you mistook Ed—, Miss Haviiand, and disliked her : would you mind telling me about it ?" " There is no reason why 1 should not tell you. I heard that she had been engaged to Lord Leigh, and I believed he continued to care for her, and I was angry and jealous." . " Well, was she not engaged to him .' "No." "Can you not tell me about it, Lady Leigh? I, too, have heard of this, and perhaps not a true account." '•But, if you were interested, why did you not ask Edna V "I did." "What did you ask her? If there had been an engagement ?" "Why, I asked if he had been her lover." " You see, there is a vast difference, said Violet, quietly. " Did you ask her to explain ?" "No. I was jealous and hasty, and I asked for a ' yes or no,'' and when it was ' yes,' I went into a rage.'' ! " Then yon were very foolish," said Violet, calmly. Lord Alwold leaned his head on his hand, and sighed deeply. Violet remembered liow Key own. life had been bligliied by rnisunclerstandings, and she pitied him. He was, in spite of his admitted hastiness, a good and noble man, and he had had his lesson. She bent forward. "Lord Alwold, let me tell you that story. Edna's aunt lives by our park gates, and Lord Leigh saw Edna there, when she was scarcely sixteen, and fell in love with her." Then she told how he had followed her into Cornwall, and succeeded in meeting her, and had seemed much in love, had really been enamoured, and how Edna had at once told all to her father ; and the wise old man, feeling sure that his child's fleeting fancy, and not her heart, was enlisted, had insisted on a year of probation and parting. She told the little story simply, earnestly, frankly, with delicate tact, which tried to hide the truth— that Lord Leigh had not loved herself, had pursued Edna, and Edna had us>ed all her power to try and comfort and help her, and make peace between her and Leigh : she also told how Edna had comforted and encouraged her. Thus Violet told her friend's story. "You think, then, t>he did not love this first lover ?" " I know she did not. Hers was a girl s heart, faintly stirred by first words of love, which did not waken any real or strong emotion. And then the acquaintance was of the slightest— a few meetings, with the governess or her father for a third. " " I never loved but one," said Lord Alwold, "and that one— Edna. I have always said I could marry only a woman who loved me, first, last, only. I could have the ghost of no dead loves rising in my married life. A coquette is a being whom I abhor. I believe marriage should be made on the simple basis of honest love. I felt sure that Lord Leigh could not have been truly congenial to Edna, and if there had been a two years' engagement, it was on the ground of social advantage. I admit I was rash, hasty, jealous, unjust. She ought to hate me, and, no doubt, she does." Violet was silent. She took up a paper covered with calculations of certain interest, and knit her pretty brows, as she studied it with zeal. " Do you think I might havo anothor chance?' he asked. " I think you owe her ample and sincere apology," said Violet, with admirable frankness. "She shall have it. Where shall I find her?" Violet still continued to study figures. Finally she lifted her sweet face. " Lord Alwold, I have such a plan!" " Of a school-house ?" asked the marquis, gloomily. " No. Hark a minute. This is my plan. She bent forward, and talked earnest y. As she spoke Lord Alwold's face brightened like the morning. " You are my oest friend," he said. "I owe you everything, all my devotion, how shall I ever repay you ?" „ TT . , L " Pay tho debt to my boy," said Violet, quietly. " And il shall really be this way ?" "Yes, I think it will work in a charm," said Violet. His Jordship looked another man from that minute. He wore a most radiant face, when he drove off to the station. t "How handsome he is!" cried Anna. " Wonder he is not married !" "He .will be, I hope, to my own dear Edna. But, Anna, be sure you do not mention it."

"Not to a living soul," said Anna, ardently, and in an hour had' told Gore,' but in the strictest confidence. Now ab'6ut the middle of December, Violet wrote to Lady Burton, begging that she and Edna would come to the Towers, to pass tho holidays there quietly. "Anna and Gore would like to go to Uncle Ainslie's for a .week," she wrote, " but they do not wish to leave me alone. You two do not care for gayety ; you will not mind my dull house. Come and see how my boy thrives at the mature age of thirteen months. A pretty pair of guardians he has — one in Egypt, and one in France ! but as yet he needs no one but his mamma." In answer to this earnest entreaty, Lady Burton and Edna arrived on the twentieth, and fell raadily into their places in Violet's quiet household life. On the evening of tho twenty-fourth, Violet, in a furred cloak and hood, was, just before twilight, pacing the terrace, looking down the avenue, at if watching for some one. She did not seem at all surprised whon Lord Alwold rode up, followed by a groom on horseback. The groom led off the horses, and Alwold, with his cloak over his arm, went up the broad steps by Lady Leigh's side. "I peeped into the library just now, through the shutters," said Violet, "and Edna is sitting there alone by the fire. You shall go in at once, if you like." She knocked at the library, then pushed open the door. Lord Alwold entered, and tho door swung shut softly. The library was in a ruddy twilight of the hearth-fires and the dying clay. Edna was leaning back in a low bamboo chair, her lovely head against the tufted blue satin cushion, her white dress falling in a soft cloud about her, the leaping flame touching robe and hair with points of gleaming gold. Lord Alwold moved softly forward. " Miss Haviland ! Edna !" he said, in a low tone. She made no answer. He drew nearer ; he could see her face now. Her hands lay loosely in her lap ; the long, dark lashes swept her delicate cheeks. Edna was asleep, and her dimples went and came, and her lips curved, as in a happy dream. i Alwold knelt beside her chair, and said gently: " Edna, Edna, wake !" She opened her eyes ; ho seemed to so mingle with her dream that she did not wonder at seeing him there. The soft light of her beautiful smile shone into his heart. " Edna," he said, " behold a penitent here for pardon. 1 make a full confession. I was hasty, hard, unkind j I deserve only your indignation. But I love you with all my heart. I lay my life at your feet. Only your love can make me happy. Edua, will you forgivo me ? Will you be my wife ?" A rosy flush dawned over her fair face and neck. "Alwold! Are you renlly here ? Is it not a dream ?" " Make it the most blessed reality that ever was, by saying that you love me." " I'm afraid you will think better of it," said Edna, with a most enchanting smile. " So I shall, every day I live !" cried Alwold, folding her in his arms. (To be continued.)