CHAPTER XX.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 415, 30 October 1889, Page 4

CHAPTER XX.

HOW THE WEDDING-DAY BEGAN. Six days later, Sir Victor Catheron and his aunt came home. These six days had passed very quietly, very pleasantly, to Edith. She was nob in the least lonely ; the same sense of relief in her lover's absence was upon her as she had felt at Torquay. It seemed to her she breathed freer when a few score miles lay between them. She had her pefc books and music, and she read and played a good deal ; she had hhre r long, solitary rambles through the leafy lanes and quiet roads, her long drives in the little pony phaeton her future husband had given her. Sometimes Lady Gwendo. line was her companion ; oftener she was quite alone. She was not at all unhappy now ; she was just drifting passively on to the end. She had chosen, and was quietly abiding by her choice ; that was all. She caught herself thinking, sometimes, that since she felt so much happier and freer in Sir Victor's brief absences, how was she going to endure all the years that must be passed at his side? No doubt she would grow used to him after a while, as we grow used and reconciled to everything earthly. One circumstance rather surprised .her : during those six days of abeence 6he had received but one note from her lover. She had counted at least upon the post fetching her one or two per day, as when at Torquay, but this time he wrote her but once. An odd, incoherent, hurried sort of note, too — very brief and unsatisfactory, if she had had much curiosity on the subject of what was going on at St. John's Wood. But she had not. Whether his father lived or died, so that he never interfered with her claim to the title of Lady Catheron in the future, Miss Darrell cared, very little. This hurried note briefly told her his father had died on the day of their arrival ; that by his own request the burial place was to be Ken sal Green, not the Catheron vaults ; that the secret of his life and death was still to be kept inviolate ; and that (in this part of the note he grew impassionedly earnest) their marriage was not to be postponed. On the third ot October, as all had been arranged, it was still to take place. No other note followed. If Miss Darrell had been in love with her future husband, this profound silence must have wounded, surprised, grieved her. But she was not in love. He must be very much occupied, she carelessly thought, since he could not find time to drop her a daily bulletin — then dismissed the matter indifferently from her mind. Late in the evening of the sixth day Sir Victor and Lady Helena returned home. Edith stood alone awaiting them, dressed in black silk, and with, soft white lace and rubyornaments, and looking very handsome. Her lover rushed in and caught her in his arm? with a sort of rapturous,breathless delight. 'My love! my life!' he cried, 'every ' hour has seemed an age since I said goodbye i J She drew herself from him. Sir Victor, in the calm courteous character of a perfectly undemonstrative suitor she tolerated. Sir Victor in the role of Romeo was excessively distasteful bo her. She drew herself out of his arms coldly and decisively. ' I am glad to see you back, Sir Victor.' But the stereotyped words of welcome fell chill on his eai\ ' You are not looking well, I am afraid you have been very much harassed since you lett.' Surely he was not looking well. In those six days he had grown more than six years older. He had lost flesh and colour ; there was an indescribable something in his face and expression she had never seen before. More had happened than the death of the father ho had never known, to alter him like this. She looked at him curiously. Would he tell her ? He did not. Not looking at hei, with his eyes fixed moodily on the wood-fire smouldering on the hearth, he repeated what his letter had already s-aid. His father had died the morning of their arrival in London ; they had buried him quietly and unobtrusively, by his own request, in Kensal Cireen Cemetery ; no one was to be told, and the weddiner was not to be postponed. AIJ this he said as a man repeats a lesson learned by rote— his eyes never once meeting hers. She stood silently by, looking at him, listening to him. Something lay behind, then, that she was not to know. 'Well, it made them quits — she didn't care for the Catheron family secrets ; if it were something unpleasant, as well not know. If Sir Victor told her, very well ; if nob, very well aho. She cared little either way. ' Miss Catheron remains at St. John's Wood, I suppose?' she inquired, indifferently, feeling in the pause that ensued she must say something. 'She remains— yes — with her two old servants for the present. I believe her ultimate intention is to go abroad.' ' She will not return to Cheshire ?' A epasm of pain crossed his face ; there was a momentary contraction of the muscles of his mouth. 'She will not return to Cheshire. All her life she will lie under the ban of murder.' ' And she is innocent V He looked up at her — a stringe, hunted, tortured bort of look. 'She is innocent.' As he made the answer he turned abruptly away. Edith asked no more questions. The secret of his mother's murder was a secret she was not to bear. Lady Helena did not make her appearance ab all in the lower* rooms, that night. Next day at luncheon she came down, and Edith was honestly, shocked at the change in her. From a hale, handsome, Stately, upright, elderly lady, she had become a feeble old woman in the past week, tier step had grown uncertain : her hands trembled ; deep lines of trouble were scored on her pale face ; her eyes rarely wandered long from her nephew's face. Her voice took a softer, tenderer tone when she addressed him— she had always loved him dearly, but never so dearly, ifc would seem, as now. The change in Sir Victor was more in manner than in look. A feverish impatience and restlessness seemed to have taken possession of him ; ' he wandered about the house and in and out like some restless ghost. From Powyss Place to 'Catheron Royals, from Catheron Royals' to Powyss Place, he vibrated like a human pendulum. It set Edith's nerves on edgp only to watch him. At other periods a moody gloom would fall upon him, and then for hours he safe brooding, brooding, , with knitted brows and downcast eyes lost 'in his own dark', secret thoughts. Anon hi 3 spirits woufd rise" to fever height, and ifoe would Ilaugh and talk in $ wild, excited

way that fixed Edith's dark, wondering eyes solemnly, on his Hushed face. With it all, in whatever mood, he could nob bear nor out of his sight. He haunted her like her shadow, until it grew almost intolerable. He sab for hours, while she worked, or played, or read, not speaking, not stirring — his eyes fixed upon her, and she, who had never been nervous, grew horribly nervous under this ordeal. Waa Sir Victor losing his wits? Now that his insane father was dead and buried, did he feel it incumbent upon him to keep up the family reputation and follow in that father's footsteps ''. And the days wore on, and the first of October came. The change in the young baronet grow more marked with each day. Ho lost the power to eat or sleep ; far into the night he walked his room, as though some horrible Nemesis were pursuing him. He failed to the very shadow of himself, yet whsn Lady Helena, in fear and trembling, laid her hand upon his arm, and falteringly bogged him to &cc a physician, he shook her off with an angry irritability quite foreign to his usual gentle torn per, and bade her, imperiously, to leave him alone. The second of October came ; to-morrow would be the wedding day. The old feeling of vagueness aud unreality had come back to Edith. Something would happen — that was the burden ot her thoughts. To morrow was the weddingday, but the wedding would never take place. She walked through the glowing, beautiful rooms of Catheron Royals, thi'ough the grounds and gardens, bright with gay autumnal llowers — a home luxurious enough for a younj; duchess — and btill that feeling of unieality was there. A grand place, a noble home, but she would never reign its mistress. The cottage at Carnarvon had been weeks ago engaged, Sir Victor's confidential servant already established there, awaiting the coming of the bridal pair ; but she felt she would never see ib. Upstairs, in all their snowy, shining splendour, the bridal robe and veil lay ; when to-morrow came would she ever put them on ? she vaguely wondered. And still bhe was nob unhappy. A soib of apathy had taken possession of her ; she diiited on calmly to the end. What was written, was written; what would be, would be. Time enough to wake from her dream when the time of waking came. The hour fixed for the ceremony waa eleven o'clock ; the place, Chesholm Church. The bridesmaidswould arriveatten — the Earl of VVroatmore, the father of the Ladies Gwendoline and Laura Drexel, was to give the bride away. They would'return to Powyss Place and eat the sumptuous breakfast— then oft and away to the pretty town in North Wales. That was the programme. ' When to-morrow comes,' Edith thinks, as she wanders about the house! ' will it be carried out 'C It chanced that on the bridal eve Miss Darrell was attacked with headache and sore throat. She had lingered heedlessly out in the rain the day before (one of her old bad habits to escape from Sir Victor it the truth must be told) and paid the natural penalty next day. It would never do to be hoarse as a raven on one's wedding-day, so Lady Helena insisted on a wet napkin round the throat, a warm bath, gruel, and early bed. Willingly the girl obeyed — too glad to have this last evening alone. Immediately after dinner she bade her adieux to her bridegroom-elect, and went away to her own rooms. The short October day had long ago darkened down, the curtains were drawn, a lire burned, the candles were lit. She took the bath, the gruel, the web napkin, and let herself be tucked up in bed. 1 Romantic,' she though b, with a laugh to herself, ' for a bride,' Lady Helena — wa3 it a presentiment oi what was so near ?— lingered by her side long that evening, and, at parting, for the lhsb time tool her in her arms and kissed her. 'Good -night, my child,' the tender, tremulous tones said. 'I pray you may make him happy— l pray that he may make you.' She lingered yet a little longer — her heart seemed full, her eyes were fehininy through tears. Words seeemed trembling on her lips— words she had nob courage te say. For Edith, surprised and moved, she put her aims round the kind old neck, and laid her face for a moment on the genial old bosom. 'I will try,' she whispered, 'dear, kind Lady Helena — indeed I will try to be a good and faithful wife.' One last kiss, then they parted ; the dooi closed behind her, and Edith was alone. She lay as usual, high up among the billowy pillows, her hand& clasped above hei head, her dark, di earning eyes nxed on the fire. She looked a^> though she were thinkins, bub she was not. Her mind was simply a b.lank. She was vaguely and idly watching the Uickering shadows cast by the tirelight on the wall, the gleam ol yellow moonlight shimmering thiough the curtain? ; listening to the f.tint sighing of the night wind, the ticking of the little fanciful clock, to the pretty plaintive tunes it played before ib struck the houic. Nine, ten, cleven — she heard them all, as she lay there broad awake, neither thinking nor stirring. Her maid came in for her la.sb ordeis; ehe bade the gill good-night, and told her to go to bed — she wanted nothing more. Then again she was alone. Bub now a restlessness, as little to be understood as her former listless apathy, took hold of her. She could not lie there and sleep ; she could nob lie there a»vake. As the clock chimed twelve, she started up in bed in a sudden panic. Twelve ! A new day — her weddingday ! Impossible to lie there quiet any longer. She sprang up, locked her door, and began, in her long, white night-robe, pacing up and down. So another hour passed. One ! One from the little Swi&s muaicalclock ; one solemn and sombre, from the big clock up in the town. Then she stopped — stopped in thought; then she walked to one of her boxes, and took out a writing-case, alwaj's kept locked. With a key attacked to her neck she opened it, seated herself befoie a table, and diew forth a package of letters find a picture. The picture wasthehandsomephobographed face of Charley Sbuarb, the letters he had written her to Sandy Point. She began with the first, and read it slowly through — bhen bhe next, anil so on to the end. There were over a dozen in all, and tolerably lengthy. As she finished and folded up the last, she took up the picture and gazed at ib long and earnestly, with a strangely dark, intent look. How handsome he was J how -well he photographed ! that^was her thought. She had seen him so often, with jusfc this expression, looking at her. His pleasant, lazy, half-sarpastic voice was in her ear, saying something coolly impertinent— his grey, half-smiling, half-cynical eyes were looking life-like up at her. What was he doing now? Sleeping calmly, no doubt — she forgotten as she deserved to be. When to-morrow came, would he by any chance remember ib was her wedding-day,, and jypuld the remembrance cost him a pane? She Jaughed at herself for the sentimental qu ( estjloo — Charley feel a pang for her, or any other £a?thly woman? No, he was immersed in business^ no doubb, head and <eaV«, soul aud body 5 absorbed in dollars sujd cents, and retrieyinsr in s,pme way his fallen fe»:bu»ejs~.ftdiUj x) ftl . fe jj djsj»issp4

contemptuously, as' a cold- blooded jjilt, from his memory. Veil, so sho lind j willed it— fjlio "had no right to complain. With a steady hand she tied up the letters nnd replaced them in the desk. The picture followed. 'Oood-bye, Charley,' she suid, with a «ort of smile. She could no more have destroyed those souvenirs of tho past than &ho could have cub off her right hand. Wrong, you say, and .shake your head. Wrong, of course ; but vvhnn ha* Edith Darrell done right — when have I pictured her to you in any very favourable light? As long as she lived, and wa? Sir Victor's wife, she would never look at thorn again, but destroy them — no, sho could not do that. Six ! As sho closed and locked the writing-case the hour struck ; a broad, bright sunburst flashed in and filled the room with yellow glory. The sun had risen cloudless and brilliant at last on hei wedding-day.