THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 106, 12 August 1910, Page 6

THE STORYTELLER.

HER RIVAL "I wish that I had been a different sort of fellow for your sake as well as my own," said the young man gloomily, digging little holes in the path with his stick, and keeping his eyes studiously averted from the one face that in it's wistful pleading had reproached him often, but had been powerless to arrest him in his reckless folly. The girl beside him was pretty and graceful, with masses of yellow hair and soft grey eyes, but at that moment intense emotion and the effort to restrain it had rendered her almost plain. Her fingers were tightly clenched in her muff, ' and she was making a brave fight for composure, for, in spite of the damp ' greyness of the November afternoon, pedestrians were now and again passing the couple standing on the path. I "It is not too late," she ventured falteringly. I "It is Wo late, last cropper, and there is no getting up j again." I As he said, he had collie to the end of his tether, and, considering the pace he had ibeen going, it was a matter for wonder that the inevitable had not happened sooner, for not even a colossal fortune could have withstood the reckless demands that he had made upon it; and since he had come of age four years ago, Neil Annesley had seemed possessed with the desire to get rid of the handsome fortune that had been his. And now he stood moodily knocking at stones on the path—.bankrupt in pocket, bankrupt in friends, and no prospect before him but the colonies and work —work of any kind that would present itself. "I'm not worth fretting about, Ena," he said jerkily. "I've been a regular rotter, and the biggest sin on my conscience is that I ever let you care for me. I've behaved like a brute, dear, and you'll be glad some day that I've gone out of your life."

"Never, Neil, never. You were led astray, and you were in a cad set. If 1 had been different —or older," she looked at him wistfully, nineteen seemed so young and helpless, and yet the last few weeks she had grown so old, "I might have had some influence with you, but there was only my—love." "You've been a patient little angel (i dear, and there's not a soul in the world' could have made .me see my besotted! folly. If I had the .time over again 1 would be a very different fellow, but the chance, is gone. Ena, for Gods sake, don't cry! When I'm out of the way you'll marry some decent chap, who will make you a better husband than a good-for-nothing fellow like myself." She looked across the park with eyes that «aw nothing of the dreary scene before her. He did not love her as she loved him—had he not proved this in a thousand ways? And sui-ely no man '•who loved could ever consider the thought of the woman he cared for linking herseif with another 1 But she was wrong, for at that moment he loved her better than he had ever done in his gay and thoughtless life before. She was the only one friend left to him in this dark hour—he knew that she had braved parental wrath amd the opinions of her circles in coming to meet him. He knew that she still love-d him and clung to him, and in that last moment he valued her affection as he had never valued it before.

He was sorely cempted to take her in his arms and kiss away the disfiguring tears that the useless little scraps of lace were vainly trying to dry, but a sense of honor held him back. He had forfeited all claim upon herj by his &im conduct he had raised a barrier between them, and the only reparation that he could make her was to fade from her horizon, and leave the way open to someone worthier than himself.

"I must not stay any longer, 'Neil," she said hurriedly. "They will miss me, and we have some people coming to dinner, and we are due at the Kedmayne's dance afterwards."

'T mustn't keep you, then, Ena. You were a sweet little friend to come and see the last of such an' unlucky devil. A fellow like myself," he said, with a bitter laugh, "has no business to invoke the Almighty's blessing on anyone, but I can't help saying God bless you, dear little iEna!"

She let him take her cold, small hands in his and raise them to his lips one ; after the other. Then she walked away down the path, battling with her emo- ; tion as she went; and Annesley moved i off in the opposite direction, and never , once looked back. His face was pale, his : eyes downcast, for the "years that the '; locusts hath eaten" can never be rei stored.

But, though Fate seemed to him a particularly malignant dame as he sailed from England and the scenes of his .short, spendthrift years, she had really taken him under her wing. She trounced him soundly, she made Mm (bite the very diust. She made him realise his own uselessness as a worthless being that nobody wanted 1 ; to possess expensive, taste- and have none of them gratified; to feel what it was to be on tha verge of starvation, and to range himself with the lowest of Creation in the fight for existence. She taught him all the lessons of manhood and suf- ; fering. And then her severity relaxed:. S-ne> ! broke into sunny smiles and sent him a | fortune, through the death of a distant kinsman, twice as large as the one that he had dissipated. His first thoughts were England and— Ena. 4 His exile hail lasted ten years, and through all those years the memory cf the grey-eyed girl who had loved him lhad remained as vivid as the day he had last seen her. It was of Ena he thought as he turned! himself homewards. In his exile he had loved 'her and prized her as he had never dome when she was Ms affianced wife, Hue memory of her pure eyes had kept Mn "straight." He had recalled: her face as ihe had sat smoking at many a lonely camp fire. He pictured her as a radiatiffc wife—a mother, perhaps, of beautiful cfiMren, an infant nestling to the curve of her the dull gnawing of tmutterable regret became

often an acute pain. It was Ena he longed to see. He would be the witness of her 'happiness—see her face—hear her roice again.

And his first thought was of Ena when he arrived in London and presented himself at the offices of the solicitors who had informed him of his changed fortunes.

"The Elliots, Mr. Annesley—the Bart-1 ley Eiliou?" The senior partner adjusted his spectacles and looked reflective. "Why, of course—of eourse! I believe Mrs. Elliot and her daughter are living on the Continent; they went abroad after Mr. Elliott's lamentable failure and death."

"Failure? Dead? Old Elliot dead?" '*He died six years ago—quite six years ago. Some African speculations—lost every penny, his wife's fortune, too, i believe, and involved a good many in his ruin. He had the reputation of being sound as a bell, ibut it appears we—er—well, we were mistaken."

"And you have no idea what part of the Continent Mrs. 'Elliot and her daughter living in?" 'I have not, Mr. Annesley; they appear to have vanished utterly . I have heard nothing about them for years; but I will get lily agent to make enquiries if you wish fe know'i"

"That's just what I do want," said the mar from Australia promptly. "But your Irian must foe sharp over the busiflessWl want to Know as soon as possible. I'll be over there nryself da soon as we've got through my affairs. 'Una—Miss Elliot, has not married, then?"

"She had not at the time of her father's death, Mr. Annesle;". She is a brave girl as well as a beautiful one, and she faced a terrible time with rare courage and fortitude. I should be glad to hear that her worth had found appreciation,"

He took a stealthy and rather humorous glance at his client's eager .face. He remembered now that there had been a rumor of an engagement between them. Could anything be ; more felicitous than their toming together again after ten years' severance? He rubbed his hands softly ,It was a romance—a perfect romance—and romances hovered about the precincts of a lawyer's office more often than the outside world imagined. "We will lose no time in prosecuting our enquiries, you may ibe sure, Mr. Annesley."

While Annesley waited with an impatience that rendered him unfit to take an interest in anything, he dropped into a West End theatre one night during the run of a musical comedy that had caught the .public fancy, more from a desire to kill time that hung heavily on his hands than from any particular wish to see it. It was a melange of the lightest and frothiest description, with hardly a thread) of a connecting story to bind it together. On the stage a bal masque was in progress, and mostly figures, follies and clowns, dancing girls and queens, jesters and fairies, threaded their way in and oat, and formed a scene at once gorgeous and ibizzare. The woman who had laughed—a Folly in flaming red—was reclining in a) seat at the right side of the stage, now gaily inviting, now coyly repelling, the advances of a grey-robed Friar who was bending over her and evidently trying to> induce her to remove her mask.

Her insouciant manner, her red,, smiling mouth, her merry gestures were all at variance with that strange, low lanigh with its intercurrent of misery. The laugh of a woman with d-.&pair digging its talons into her heart and yet forced to dress her pain with all the shallow smiles and trickery of stageland. Annesley kept his eyes fixed on her until the graceful, scarlet figure had risen and vanished' in the wake of the others. Then lie wended his way out with the feeling that he had surprised a peep of tragedy lurking beneath the robe of com : .

"Good Heavens! What misery was in: that poor soul's laugh. A sick child at home, or a faithless lover—which? By Jove! it's spoiled the whole thing for mey. '• I can't get the sound of it out of my [ ears. Id give something to know what I it means."

For ten years every thought of his had! been true to one girl—the girl who had' loved him in spite of his conduct, and clung to him as long as she could, and now she had receded to a secondary place in his thoughts. He despised himself for his weakness, but so it was. The chorusgirl with the beautiful sad mouth, and a mask veiling the eyes that he longed to see, had become foremost in his thoughts.

He sent her flowers that were the envy of. everyone in the theatre, but he sent them anonymously. He never joined the crowds of young men who nightly besieged, the sitage door to carry off the objects of their. adoration to one or other of the fashionable restaurants—a lingering fidelity to the woman for whom I toe was searching held him back. If Ena were free he was bound to her by all the ties of honor. 1 not—he set his teeth hard. Had it come to this that | Be could find it in his heart to wish that (Ena were not free?

Much is tihe power of a wealthy man. m heard that Mary Wynne's mother waa an invalid—pnwably. this had to db with her sorrowr-and he sought out tihe doctor who was attending her ana* discovered his surmises were correct. , Mrs. Wynnes' illness was of a nature ; that necessitated a different way of liv!ing and different surroundings, and the| ■■ poor chorus gdrl was powerless to do | J more than she was doing. But the doc- \ tor, a, pompous little man with a hard mouth and suspicious eyes, refused to be the almoner of Annesley's offered lib""You take me for a scoundrel?" said the man from .Aiustralia with his honest eyes flaming. "Very well. f I'll see Miss Wynne myself.'' And without more ado he went off to the mean little house beside the mews< and sent in his oard, and wonld; Miss Mary Wynne spare him lv& minutes conversation! . He marched into the tiny srtting-xoom to wait, but once inside the.' apartment where the .Scarlet Folly madfe her home, all his vaunted courage ebbed from him. On the table beside him was her work basket, and lying on the top? little worn; glove with the needle aM sticking In it,\ lad beside it a thimble that might have fitted the finger of Tetania.

(He lifted the glove and looked at it—! a little shabby glove that still seemed to bear the shape of the slender hand that had 1 worn it. He put it down hastily; it had been half way to his lips when he rememibered. What right had he to kiss Mary Wynne's glove? He glanced round him hurriedly. He had been a mad fool to come here. He must slip out before anyone came. He would write —he

A light foot sounded in the hall. The door opened, and a woman entered.

It was—-Ena. I He knew her at once. Not the Ena of the tear-drenched cheeks who had bidden him good-bye ten years ago, but an older, sadder Ena, whose eyes, with their dark shadows, spoke of sleepless nights and anxious days —a woman fairer —immeasurably sweeter than in those days, when her girlish freshness had constituted her greatest charm.

"Ena!" iShe held out her hands to him—smiles and tears were on her face. "Neil! ©ear Neil!" "Ena! How did you come here?" "I live here." "You know the Wynnes?" "I am Mary Wynne." "You? My God, and 1 never knew

Then she felt his arms around her—felt them tighten like bands of steel. His brown face had paled. He had come here with hi 9 thoughts full of Mary Wynne, and Mary Wynne and Ena were one and the same woman, and he held them both in his arms.

"Ena—my own little, brave girl!" He lifted her face that he might look into her wet and ,happy eyes. No need to asfc her if she, still loved him, for those tender, womanly eyes spoke of a faith and affection that had never failed.

"How did you find me out, Neil? You have heard "

"Your dark days are over, dear Ena. I thought you were abroad, and the solictors are searching for you—and you are here! I can hardly realise it! I went into a theatre one night, and saw a Scarlet Folly with the; sweetest, saddest laugh that I had ever heard. It fairly haunted me. I went again and again. Ena, all the ten years of -my absence I have been true to you in every thought, but the last fortnight you have had a rival, and her name is—Mary Wynne. I came here to see her."

"You did not recognise me? Oh, Neil, it was you who must have sent me those flowers? I'm not jealous of her, Neil. They both " "Well?" he asked masterfully.

"They both—love you dearly." "And now," he said boyishly, "do you' know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get a special license, and make you my wife right off. There is not a bit of use demurring, dear. The public have seen the last of 'my' Mary Wynne."