RIVEN ASUNDER. OR, BERYL GRAYSON'S ORDEAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8379, 13 March 1907, Page 2

RIVEN ASUNDER. OR, BERYL GRAYSON'S ORDEAL.

A HOMANOE OF THE SAN FBASCISCO DISASTER.

CHAPTER XL—Continued. "Lonely?" he echoed "when it was my happiness to keep Vw'<;eh auu ward over such lovely cre:.wuves as you and Tor.ita?" ••"Flatterer!" munnurai bevy I. ■"But must we ,CO into tho house as v we are, dear?" she added, with, a fresh quiver of dismay. "Is there not time for me to secure something to wear that will be more in keeping with—" ' . He smothered the words with a kiss. "I feel that I cannot delay one single moment, my darling. Even as we speak, Berdyne, with ali las hateful cunning, may be in pursuit of us. The safest and surest way to defeat his base schemes is to carry out our plans at onc a . Is it not so, Tonita?" and he turned to the Mexicans. \ "You speak- truly, senor," she returned, in' her soft, rippling' voice. He assisted them to alight, and they stood for a few moments on the walk beside the car, enjoying the freshness of the morning air. "San Francisco,", said Neil, "does not often have such mornings as this —clear, bright, sunny, the bay soft and sparkling, not a trace of fog, and the air trembling with a hint of spring! It is an ome", my heart's own!" "Happy is the bride that the sun shines on," caroled Tonita, brushing her lips against Beryl's velvety cheek. "If is early for a bridal; and everything, even to our own inappropriate gowns, tinges the event with romance. It seems," she added, with a little spasm of ecstasy, "almost like an elopement!" Beryl echoed Tonita's laugh with a soulful happiness there was no mistaking; then, both girls followed Neil, who had mounted the steps to the house door. The good rector, must have been sound asleep, for it took several rings of the bell to bring him to the entrance. He came, in gown and slippers, a grave, elderly, gentlefaced man, and cried out in astonishment at sight of Neil, and the two fair ones beside him. "Why, Neil!" he exclaimed, "what brings you to my house so early?"

"An affair of some importance, reverend sir," answered Neil; "I would have you unite me to the

woman of my choice." "A marriage!" he murmured, his I wondering eyes passing from Beryl to Tonita. "Ah," he added, with a troubled look, "there is some mystery here." , ■ "Let us in, sir," said Neil, and I will explain." "Pardon me!" The rector drew back and held the door wide. Neil presented his two companions, as : soon as they were all in the hall, ' and noted with loving exultation how the good man's eyes rested with illconcealed admiration on the lovely face of Beryl. The girls kindly greeting and shown to chairs in-the parlor, while Neil, in another room, explained matters to the minister's satisfaction. ;

The minister aroused his daughter, who served as his housekeeper, and she led the girls to an apartment on ' the second floor, where a few hasty preparations were made, for the bridal. Beryl was back in the parlour some minutes before Tonita and ; Miss Bickerdyke. In spite of her plain house dress, the little bride was never more bewitchingly lovely. In her hands she carried a bouquet of La France roses. " My., pearl! ,My. heart's idol!'' cried Neil,. his deep love springing instinctively from his lips. His arms opened, and Beryl nestled closely in his strong embrace. "I can hardly realize," he went on, gazing down into her violet eyes with dreamy fondness, "that at last you are to • be mine! At last, after the weary months of separation, we are to be united,"never again to part." His love was shining in his glance, andgit ; glorified g his handsome face. A sign of rapture, a sigh that half a, sob, rose to Beryl's ripe lips. >Bowing his head, he kissed her again and again. "The past is gone, sweetheart," said Beryl; "let us live in the present and the future!" "The present is all the more bright by contrast with the past, my darl- j ing," he murmured. "*>* "When was it you^first,began to love me, dear?"„ r she asked,"\seeking to go back to those long-gone Denver days, when first they met. Those days were in the past, too, although sorrow bridged thereto the present. "The moment first rested upon your beautiful face,*dearest," he answered, "I loved you from that moment, ahd would have dared death itself for your sweet smile. I Jt 'lnto my heart a silent look Flashed from thy careless eyes, And what before was shadow took The light of summer skies. The first-born love was in that look; And Venus rose from out the deep Of those dear violet eyes!'"

She plucked a bud from the roses, and fastened it to his lapel. "Miss Bickerdyke gave me these," .she said, nestling her blushing face in the blossoms. "She wore them at the opera last night when she heard Caruso and Fremstad in 'Carmen. ' She would have loaned me a gown for the occasion," Beryl said, with a sweet smile, "but I told her that I preferred to go to. you as I am." "My precious one!" he murmured, "silks and satins, veils and orange-blossoms, are nothing to the hearts that love." At that moment Tonita and Miss Bickerdyke entered the room, and presently, in full robes, came the rector. "If you are ready, my children,'' aaid he gently.

By Julia Edwards, akthor of "The Little UiJmr," "Hadia, the liwclnul," "Prettiest of All" "Stella SteiUita," "Laura Jlnn/iou,'' etc.

Then they stood before him, with tho other two on either side. The mm, whining through a near-by window, tangled its beams in Beryl's hair, kissing it into gold. In deep, solemn tones, the minister pronounced the beautiful service, and, at the fitting moment, Neil placed a magnificent gem on Beryl's finger. It was not the wedding-ring he had intended to use, but another, which he had purchased for Beryl and intended to give her later. The haste of the preceding hours, however, had left him no alternative. The last words were hardly said, and Neil had barely released his joyful bride from his arms, when an emphatic summons fell on the hail door. "Who can thaVbe?" murmured the minister. , A suspicion rushed through Neil's brain, a suspicion that was reflected in Beryl's startled face; and turned it nale. "Courage, darling," Neil said reassuringly; "we have no one to fear now." "It is Senor Berdyne!" came breathlessly from Tonita, who had stolen a glance from the* window. Neil straightened his supple, manly form. "The door is locked against that scheming scoundrel!" exclaimed he, starting across the room. "Yet," he went on, with a flash of anger, "I will speak to him; I will tell him how vain are his despicable plots, and that now Beryl and I are man and wife!" "Neil!" called Beryl, stretching out her hands appealingly, as though she would restrain him and keep him from threatening danger,, "my love, my husband!" "Hush,, dearest!" he answered. "I must have a word with that man." But the word was never spoken. Ere Neil could gain the hall, in a flash, and by a process swift as thought, came chaos! Those in the little parlour had but time to exchange one ■ agonized bewildered look. That moment of rigid suspense ended, a thunderous roar sounded in their ears; there was a sickening swirl of motion, the floor heaved under their feet, the walls swayed, the ceiling appeared to crack apart. Furniture crashed, books were thrown from their shelves, a piano in one corner glided halfacross the rbom and back again, sounding a jumble of shrill, discordant notes.

Then came a wild, brain-racking crash. A great gap appeared above as the bricks of a chimney tore their way through roof and ceiling into the very room where the bridal-party stood. A despairing cry was wrenched from Neil's lips; and he reeled and fell prostrate. A scream burst from Beryl. She would have hurled herself upon her .husband's form had not the door been broken open, and Berdyne, leaping in, caught her up in his strong arms. Despite the roaring and grinding of the earthquake, the thunder of falling chimneys and walls, the screams of women and children, Berdyne's evil spirit was in nowise dismayed. "I have her now!" he gloated, his husky voice rising high over the tumult. "Stop me who can, or dares!" Another moment and he had passed from the room like an evil spectre, bearing the hapless Beryl with him.

CHAPTERfXII. v WEDDED AND PARTED. I may not weep—l cannot sigh. ".'"' A weight is pressing on my breast'; A breath breathes on me witheringly, My tears are dry,, my sighs suppressed. The dark soul of Nicholas Berdyne rose superior to that awful situation. Although walls crumbled about him, towers tottered and fell, and the very pavement tilted and heaved beneath his feet, his exultation left no room for fear. •as he descended the steps to the minister's home the cries of women came from near and far. A whitishyellow dust hung over the street like a fog, and through it he caught glimpses of disheveled forms fleeing for life from the racked buildings. At first, scream after scream had come from the. lips of poor, hapless Beryl. Tortured on account of her husband, whom she had seen stricken down before her very eyes, dazed by the fury of the visitation of nature's forces, and distraught by the coming of Berdyne, she had swooned ere her bearer had passed the entrance and begun descending the steps. ' <■ (To be Continued).