For Honor's Sake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8106, 29 March 1906, Page 2

For Honor's Sake.

By Bertha M. Clay. Author of " Wife in Name, Only," " Wedded and Parted," "Dora Thome," "A Queen Antony Women," " A True Maydalene," etc., etc.,

CHAPTER LVJL—Continued.

'"I don't beileve itl" she said, at last ,in a strained, choked voice. "1 don't believe it!" "Go and see him yourself, Pauline," said Stewart, gently. She shuddered violently, and put, up her hands to her head. "Is he dead?" she whispered. "He died early tlrs morning." **l can't look at death. I have never seen it!" she said, and slowly rising, steadied herself by the arm of the obair. "Do you mean," she added after a minute's pause, "that I am not your wife?" Very low. was the answer given. Agaiu his heart was straightened for her. "You are not my wife, Pauline!" Then it seemed suddenly to burst upon her— not the ,'shame, the dishonour, but the loss of wealth, position, credit in the eyes of the world. She sprang forward, her hands clutched his arm convulsively. "Yoo are going to repudiate me?" she almost shrieked. "He i= dead! You can marry me now! You can make me really your wife! Esric! Esric!" Though be made no effort to i'reo himself, his fnce was set like flint: not hard or cruel, but stern and resolute. "You cannot do me this wrong—l did not know— I was innocent. Think of the shame! Esric, you are bound to make me your wife?" "Loose your Hasp, Pauline. With gentle force' he released himself, and she staggered back and dropped into the chair, sobbiug hysterically. "You are weeping even now forth© shame tbßt should be your oniy thoughtU What claim have you on me that 1, being f.eed from you, should dc?liberately re forge the fetters? You feigned the love foi that honour's sake, <von ■from me a mad promise, repented of as soon as made; and when I came to you, and told yon I could not bring you faith in heart aa in act, you held me to my promise—not because you loved me, but because you loved what I could give you. What have you done since to redeem that initial wrong, boldly confessed when 1 made you, as 1 believed, my wife. You have made my bondage so hideous to me, my life also hateful, that I sought for death. You have taunted me with the love that baa been my only salvation; you ■strove to rob ire even of that by a base, unwomanly intrigue in which the honour of the woman 1 love was to be saorifioed to a jealousy which had not even one gentle word or look, one ionder aotion, the memory of which should move me to give you the right you claim." He moved a step nearer to her. She had stooped weeping, and sat staring at " him_ blankly, with clinched hands and heaving bosom. "Yon have sowed all bitterness," he said, "and you reap, as is just, the punishment you deserve. I am free, and the law shall set its seal on my freedom. Till that time, remain here, if you choose." , "I shall remain here!" Pauline oried, suddenly and fiercely, as ehe started up. "And I shall fight the case. You talk of plots and oonapiraoies—was ever baser conspiracy than this? You prate of. honour. What will the world say of your' honour in refusing to do me the only justice you oould offer. You threatened to make me bite the dust, and you have taken care to carry out your threat. L had nothing to do with the abduotion of Claude Verner —if abduotion it was! You accuse me witbout a

CHAPTER LVII.

ahadow of proof. You want to be free, to marry Claude Verner; so you and your friends have concooted a scheme to hurl me down, and put her in my place; but if you succeed you won't whitewash her. The world will take my part, and denounce you as dishonoured. As for- her—" / "As for her!" said Stewart, in a voice that stayed the torrent of her fury, which, up to now, he had endured with a kind of contemptuous patieuce—"as to her you have said too much already. 'Not ope word more, or this very hour you leave this house. You -can do what you please, legally, to maintain your position; but I will not suffer in my house, in my v presence, any insult to Claude Verner.?' "If 1 am not your wife." she said, with a savage sneer, though she shrank away, "I am free." "If you are not my w'fe," said Stewart, "you are in this house on sufferance." ££££

She looked at hi<n like a cowed animal, but did not utter a word. She was frightened, not ooly fori the immediate present, but forj.the future. She was destroying her chances uf a provision; she might be driven back to that old hand-o-mouth adventuress existence, with vastly diminish her chances, her equivocal position, o* gaining a rich husband. "You drove me to it I" she muttered, sinking down again and hiding her race. Stewart turned to the door. "I shall not see you again," he said, "if I can avoid it. Goodbye." And he went out. The interview had tried him far more than it had tried Pauline, although his was the gain, hers the irreparable loss; but then "loss" to her meant things so poor and mean! Even her jealousy of Claude Verner did not blind her to the keen knowledge of all that was stripped from her. She, who had ruled as a queen in society, to be cast out—a wife who was no wife: reduced to a mere pittance in comparison with the wealth she had commanded; and Claude reigning where • she had reigned, wearing the jewels in which she had dazzled men, and even women. "Oh, cuisecT spite!" the wretched .woman, pitiable for the, very poverty of her suffering, sobbed and wet)t. and filially Went off into hysterics; and kept half a dozen servants in attendance upon her all uighfc, to say nothing of the dootor,

who, sooth to aay, took matters very coolly; he knew Pauline too well, to be alarmed by her hysterics. But it was some oonsolation to her to make a t'usa; and. in her worst "tantrums," she never said a word more than she meant to say and raved about her wrongs and her husband's cruelty, in a manner which would have made some of her youthful admirers long to challenge Captain Stewart; hut the servants exchanged glances, and the doctor said in his heart "I wouldn't change \ laces with Captain Stewart for three times his wealth." The next day Pauline posed as an interesting invalid, and sout for her lawyer.

THE TRIAL FOR ABDUCTION

"It is said, on good authority that a very remarkable cause celebre will shortly coin * before the courts, in which a «»p)l-known officer, closely coiicarned in another pending case, will appear as plaintiff in a suit for nullity of marriage; the plea being that hia wife's husband, though since dead, was alive at the time of her second marriage." This was the paragraph which appeared iu a morning paper two or three days later, and produced a vast sensation iu the clubs and society generally: for those who did not know Captain S'.ewart could be at no loss to discover in him the officer alluded to. (To be Continued).