Selina's Love Story.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8231, 7 September 1906, Page 2

Selina's Love Story.

CHAPTER XVll.—Continued.

•Oh, thank you, dear,' she said, and then Bhe explained.. 'lt is so nice to be remembered.' 'But you are never forgotten, Selina dear,' said Nelia. 'I don't know,' said Selina, with a sigh; '1 think we are aJI quickly forgotten.' '1 hear you are going away tomorrow,' said Miss Foster, after they had walked on a little wey in silence. Selina nodded her head. 'Yes, we are going to London. George has taken a house for the season. Dorothy has to bo presented, you know, and it is not possible for us to stay here while the house is being practioHlly rebuilt.' They walked ou again a little way. Suddenly Selina turned to th« other woman. 'You are staying at; the Priory, are you not?' she asked. '1 hope Mrs Silahester is well?* 'Ob, quite well,' said Nelia, iu her soft way. Sbe waited for what was to come, and Selina wont on to speak about Michael. •1 met him the other day,' fcbe gaid; 'I thought he was looking so ill.' Nelin coloured faintly. Then she had been right, and the day he had sent the dogoart borne without bim must nave been the day that be and Selina had met. She hated this girl walking beside her with a hot and an impotent bate. Somehow, when they were so close together, she realised tiae force f.t the power that held Miohael so tightly bound. It was,not that Selina was so much younger that herself, nor waq it the fact that the [girl possessed greater personal attraction than herself. It was tne fascination of manner and the nharm of Sellna's nature that hold Miohael in a way that he would never be held by any other person. And yet in that same moment when sbe put this before herself so relentlessly, as it were, Nelia shaped her hopes io.io a definite purpose. 'I will be his wife,' she said to terself as she walked along in the beauty of the spring afternoon. And when he has married me I shall uake him forget—her. 1 know ihat she is stronger than lam now; 3ut I can be strong, too! 'Oh, I think Miohael is all right iow,' she answered, a little more hurriedly than she usually spoke. 'He did have a nasty fall. Uncle rom had the greatest difficulty in seeping him in bis room, but he has quite got over that now. We ire going away dii'ectly,' Nelia adJed, with her gentle smile, 'lt is so kind of Mrs Silobester find Miohael; they insist upon my going with them, and Mrs Siluhester declares,' Nelia added, with a laugb, 'that if [ had not been with her Michael mould have gone back to work far too soon.' Then Nelia apologised. 'I suppose I ought not to call him Miohael, but—it seems so natural, somehow!' 'Ob, everybody calls him Michael,' Selina answered, but she was oonacious of a sense of disappointment and regret. She would not have qualified this as jealousy, and yet it was in a sense a jealous pain as she heard Nelia speaking in a kind of possessive way abont Miohael Siloheeter. It was all part and paroel of the shanged circumstances which surroaaded her. 'Where are you going to?' she asked, abruptly, after a little pause. Nelia shrugged her shoulders. '1 don't know; but Uncle Tom insists upon Mrs Silobester having a change of air. Any plane is lovely In this lovely weather,' Nelj'a said, '1 suppose'you are going to have a eery good time in London,' she added the next moment. '¥eßl s am glad to go. A little while ago, Nelia, I thought there was no place in the world like this place, but everything changes, you know, and so 1 am glad to leave it 1' 'Do you know,' said Nelia, suddenly, after they had walked oo a little more, 'I don't think 1 shall troubled to go on to the Gate House. As my visit was intended for you and wo have mot, iu is not necessary. 'Well,' said Selina, 'to be frank with you, the whole place is in disorder. The drawing room is dismantled and everything is belog paoked up.' They shook hands and parted in the roadway, and then as Nelia was turning away, Selina called her baok. 'Look here!' she said, rather abruptly, 'I want you to give a message to Michael from me, will you?' she said. •Of course, dear,' said Nelia, forcing a smile. 'What am 1 to say?' Selina paused and her faoe coloured. 'Tell him I was sorry I was so cross the other day. Tell him that —that now that I am going away I think it was great pity that we should have quarrelled, and please tell him, Nelia, that I shall always value his friendship, no matter what happens.' Nelia gave another smile and turned away qulokly. 'I l.opo nobody will have seen cs together,' she mused, as she walked briskly t'ack to the Priory. 'I shall not speak of having seen her. I shall till Mrs Siloheeter that she was out!' When she hud gone a little further, Nelia laughed to herself. I-.- 'lf e'le wants to send a message to Michael.,' she said to herself, 'ishe must choosa somebody «lse.' 3 Selina walked back to the Gate House slowly. 'Of couise he must haie some friends,' Bhe said to herself, 'it is very mean of me to want to keep

By Efsie Adelaide Royrlands. Author of "An Inherited Feud," " Brave Barbara," t( A Splendid Heart," " Temptation of Mary Barr," "The Interloper," etc., etc.

everything to myself, especially when I have done my very beat to let Miohael realise that £ don't cave two pins about him one way or the other, but J wi-.h,' sbe said out loud the next moment, 'I do Tfisb he had chosen somebody else. I don't wnnt to be mean, but I am sure that Nelia is sly-' Yet Selina did not doubt the other woman to the extent of supposing that Miohael would never receive her message. Indeed, u'l that evening, when she was listening to Dorothy's plans and schemes tor the future, she was saying to herself, and finding a little comfort from it, that Miohael would surely write to her a few lines just to let her know that he had accepted the hand of friendship once again. ♦What I must try and do,' Selina mused, 'is to try and him bring back to his old friendship with Mr Delaval, It hurts me when I realise that he'—'he' 'was always Dolaval—'has lost such a Btaunoh admirer. If it is not his mother that tnia made this mischief, what can have changed Michael?' But it was useles for Selina to worry herself by asking these questions. Sbe had not the slightest clue to what waa working iu Michael's mind Sbe did not go to bed till late that night. Long after Lady Durnstone had gone into her room, and when Sir George was shut up in his study, reading as h<3 used to do in the old days, Selina wandered about the old huuse. Already it harl lost it old familiar look. The walls were denuded of pictures, the ourtaios were down and the carpets up. It looked cheerless and sad, and yet Selina felt that even the furniture when it wbs covered over had something of friendship for her about it. 'I shall never come baok here again,' she said, to herself, restlessly, and as Bhe mounted stairs again to her room to go to bed, but not to Bleep, she felt tier heart thrill and beat with exoitement. It was the first time tbati she had realised what huug on this love that had come to her 30 strangely. If she gave herself to Delaval and this night she felt already that she belonged to him—what would her life be? What would life before her in the future? 'How little did I think a year ago,' she sairt to herself as she lay on her pillows, 'that I should stand faoe to faoe with an absolutely unknown world. I thtak it is a very good thing that we cannot see into our future. I should never have been happy all this last year if 1 could have known or even dreamed of what has happened I Because,' she eald to herself, and her lips quivered, 'though I do lore him—and when I think of life without him everything seems blaok and my heart turns cold—still, 1 was much, much happier in the old days quarrelling with Miohael, going nut for long days with George, feeling that 1 was necessary to him, sure that there were many people who oared for mw. Now >' she bit'ber lip, 'except for Alary, I have no one but St. John Delaval. Miohael was my friend, but I have lost Mionael!'

CHAPTER XVIII. A WIFE DETERMINED TO ENJOY HERSELF. Lady Durnstone was prepared to find London delightful, and, iu truth, everything shaped rcost promisingly. If he felt a disappointment that was almost a grief at his young wife's determination to upset all the plans he had made, Sir George Durnstone kept this to himself, and, once having resolved to let Dorothy/lead the way, he did nothing by halves. Almost immediatelj after they were married, Mrs Baraldine's lawyers had put him i" acquaintance with the fact that Dorothy was rioh. A large amount of money had been settled upon her by Sir Henry Dunworthy when she was a mere child, and then this had been accumulating all these years, and, added to this, her mother, who had amassed a small fortunte at the time of her great popularity, had immediately made arrangements to pass over the whole of her money, with the exception of a modest income to her daughter. (To be Continued.)