For Honour's Sake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7949, 26 January 1906, Page 2

For Honour's Sake.

By Bertha US. Clay. Author of " Wife in Name Only," i( Wedded and Parted," "Dora Thame," "A Queen Among Women," " A True Magdalene," etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XlV.—Continued. "Oh no," said Claude involuntarily; and his heart leaped within him, a swift colour crossed his cheek. "Don't you know there are peoplo you feel at home with at once, just as you may know other people for years, and never feel at home with them." Stewart nearly lost his £e!f-com-mand then, though perhaps the gill's very frankness helped him. But for a moment he could not, dared not, speak; even when be did his voice was a little husky. Would it seem to her that he was more deeply moved than the occasion appeared to warrant? "It makes me very haDpy," he said, "that you feel so for me." Then with an effort, speaking in a lighter lone, and smiling: "Well, we ought to be good friends; we have so many things—temperament, tastes and opinions, in common, and the common heritage of Celtic blood." Yet his conscience smote him to apeak of friendship between himself and Claude. Did not he himself exemplify his own words, that it i 9 difficult for a beautiful woman to have friends? Claude, vaguely stirred by the soldier's first words, and the tone and manner in which they were said, yet read in them now only tho unutterable pathos of his desolated life; that in nature ever sensitive, ever craving for its supreme net-d of love, should be A quickly and profoundly touched by any evidence of sympathy, overt or instinctive was so obvious a truth as to veil that which lay beyond it; and so Claude was not etarled, but, ah! how her young heart.ached for him I "Wo shall bo good friends, I know," she said; and her lips trembled a little. He smiled, too; but did not meet her eyes. His, he knew in that moment, would be too. eloquent. He was losing grip of himself; he must break up this paradise, for his own sake and for hers. "Will you," be said, "fulfill your deferred promise?—musio is among the chief of our mutual tastes, isn't it?" Claude rose, and he led her to the piano; but while she sang, and he listened, his thoughts went back to that night in Paris, and what thoy bad said to each other about the forecast of suffering that a voice or a face may bold. Was he, by the grim irony of fate, to turn the theory she had ventured into fact? Was he to make her suffer the pain that her voice prophesied in its peculiar pathos? He quailed before the future he had] madly courted, And madly courted still. How, in her very presence, could he have .strength for even the wish to renounce it? But to-night had proved to him, if he needed proof, how frail, after all, is the hold that will has over passion. How nearly, more than once, he had failed. What faith could he have in himself when opportunity came to tempt him? A look, a touch, a word, or intonation might, in one instant, sweep away will, honour, self-com-mand, and leave him at the mercy •of the forces he had tiied to master. And Claude's voice was thrill ing him through and through, making his very heaven torture, his torturo ecstasy. Too late to draw back now; too late, if he would, and he would not! Had he not meant, when he came to-night, to see Claude often? Temptation, peril! what then? He could not wrong her, his love must be always worship; and he stifled the inner voice that told it was a wrong to her to win a love he could never crown with his came.

CHAPTER XV. DANGEROUS GROUND. "So!" said Basil Tollomache to himself. "Claude Verner refuses to sing for me, but does it at once when that' handaome fellow, Captain Stewart, asks her. And they seem to be getting on wonderfully well together! Wonder what my lady at home would think of it? He oan't marry you, my dear, that's one good thing; and, snub me or not, you'll have to marry me." "Hello, Tollemaohe!" said Davenant's hearty voice. "Dreaming or sulking? Ob, Isee! yon aon't like to see Captain Stewart flirting with Claude. Bah! you know what soldiers are, and no harm to your aause, since he's married. Come and have some coffee and biscuits." "Might be harm to my cause for all. he's married," muttered Tollemaohe, turning to follow ,his boat. "Captain Stewart is much too goodlooking and attracitive all round to be left an open field with a beautiful girl." In which reflection Mr Basil Tollemache waauot very far wrong. His love for Claude was sincere enough of its kind, but its kind could scarcely be dignified by the name of love; he waß fascinated by her beauty, charm, that to a finer nature was even more potent, was not without its influence on even the coarser fibre of Basil's. But of all that raises love above mere passion be was inoapafele; once married, he would have, ore long proved himself like the squire in "Locksley Hall," his wife would.become to him, ' "Something better than bis dog, a litt'.e dearer than his horse." Even now that he waj Claude's almost avowed suitor he was no stranger to vioious pleasures; women were little more, in his eyesj than playtbiugs; the woman be desired to make his wife, only a plaything prized, for tbe time, above the others— 'rabve because it was the thing sought, than for any intrinsic merit be perceived" j,h it; once nos- '.' sessed he would tiro of it, as a child -tires of the toy which looked so alluring in the shop window, but Ueoiimo prosaic and uuiutereating

whou transplanted to the nursery. Between such a man as this, and such a woman as Claude Ve-ner, what could there be—on her sidebut deadly antagonism? She hated and scorned tho man; she resented his ideas of women—not of course, that he expressed thom in her hearing, but a man caunofc conceal his character from a keen-witted woman ; she knew that he was viuious; she considered .him stupid, exaggerating his mental and educational feelings. Even the things he dirt know thoroughly were not likely to impress Claude profoundly. "He knows a lot about horses, and cattle and farming, and all such things," she said to Stewart this very evening, later on, "and never reads a book, or opens a magazine, and he couldn't quote a line of Shakespeare, or tell whether Beethoven were living or dead!" Poor Tollemanhe! To the diningroom, where tea, coffee and other refreshments were set out, Claude presently came, with Sir James Peltham, who was desperately smitten with her, but was not in favour with Davenant, being very much poorer than Tollemaobe; besides, Tollemaohe was a "duffer" at cards, and lost hia money royally, while Sir James, played very little. Captain Stewart, too, came in with pretty Mrs Ohalloner, who flirted her best with the handsome officer; and Stewart, though most attentive to his companion, somehow oontrived to see all Claude was doing. He was not near enough to hear what' was said; it was quite clear to him that Sir James was entirely devoted; but Claude, did she care? It is so difficult, almost impossible, for the keenest mental sight of man to divine what a woman feels, when she has a. mind to conceal her feelings, Claude was no ingenue; her manner to Sir James might mean that she liked him. and no more ; or she might be hiding deeper feeling. (To be Continued).