THE STUDENT'S SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8461, 11 June 1907, Page 2

THE STUDENT'S SECRET.

GHAUTEK XVI.- -Continued. ' , The accomplishments she had cultivated mot with ready patronage when she applied tlu:m to a profitable purpose. Bhe painted on (.ilea, on sashes, or on .•hells. She wrought dainty designs on satin. They found a ready s:de, and she had nil .she could no. '''ho broad of independence was s.veet. The tint of health was coming back to her proud, white face; the strength and courage of youth to her bruised heart. Was she hippy? Alas! alas! Iler experience hail been too. bitter for that. The sense of load, the horror of suspicion; the restless shame of having loved unsought—-all these things forbade the thought of happiness. But she was calm. It was high noon; the tide was turning ; the light wind foil. Sybil lay motionless in her hammock. A shadow fell across the porch, but she did not see it. Max Charteris slipped from within the house, where he had arrived a few minutes previous. Hi 3 coining was unexpected and unannounced. He stood looking at the beautiful girl in her attitude of unconscious abandon. His dark, handsome face Was worn and bitter. "This is what I have lost, by my folly!" he thought. Since the day when Rosalie's appearance in the library door had interrupted their interview, Sybil and Max had seldom met, and then with constraint. Sybil no longer doubted that the young man returned, as she had once imagined, her love. She attributed his reticence to her misfortunes. She j did not blame him. How could it be j otherwise? As for Max, he was miserable. After fierce struggles with himself, he had brought his mind to an interview with Rosalie, in which he confessed his indifference and besought her to permit their marriage to be annulled. ; Rosalie simply laughed at him with scorn. She neither wanted to claim him nor to release him. It seemed as if she , want?d simply to torment him. Then, at last, Max decided to tell { Sybil Grey the truth—the humiliating truth. He had come to her this day, with this determination. He stood unseen, gazing upon her. He was familiar with her beauty, veiled and dimmed by sorrow, but now the faint glow in her cheeks, the added roundness of her limbs, distracted him with a fresh infatuation. He approached, unheard. He forgot all but the prayer of his heart. He stood above her. "My darling! my darling!" he cried with suppressed passion. Sybil believed herself in a drea m In some other sphere her lover was revealing his love. In some other sphere—where she might return it! Heedless, unaware of her self-be-trayal sho raised her starry brown eyes to his face; her warm lips part- - ed with a faint, tender smile, a flood of rosy colour rushed over bosom, cheeks and throat. , She held up her hands to draw him toward her. Charteris seized her uplifted hands. His eyes were fixed on hers. He bent slowly, prolonging his rapture. In a moment their lips would have met. But in that moment Sybil Grey regained her senses. She drew away her hands, and motioned him back with a command ing gesture. A look of chilling hauteur replaced the unsconacioua' confession of her face. "Mr Charteris," she said, reproachfully. "Forgive me. It is the last time —the last time, Sybil Grey." "The last time," she echoed, her cheeks growing pale. "Yes. I have delayed this meeting too long. Now I have come to tell you all, and to leave you forever." "Forever!" she repeated, raising herself slowly. "Yes; lam a man at last, and I will act the part of one. What have you thought of me all these months? What have you inferred from my conduct? Haven't you seen my love—my adoration? What reason have you assigned for my silence? Tell me, Sybil, on your honour, what you have supposed has kept me silent, when you must have known how madly, how deeply, I love you? Tell me." "Max," she said humbly, her head drooping, "there are reasons enough why no honest man should ever declare his love to me. Ido not forget that lam the child of shame —that I have been tried as a criminal!" "Oh, my darling—my injured, innocent darling," was the wild response, "have you judged me so cruelly as to think that such considerations would deter me from proclaiming my love? No, a thousand times, no! Bad as the truth is, your supposition is even worse. , "Alas, Sybil, if your misfortunes \ were all that kept us apart, we should not be parted long." With sudden fright, she looked into his agitated face. "I have come to tell you," he said, "why I cannot ask for your l ove —why I must go away from you forever. It is because I am already

married!" "Married!" repeated Sybil, as if the word had been a blow. "Married!" "Ask me to whom, and you will complete my mortification and my misery. No; you need not ask; I will tell you. I have been married for six months, to—Luke Jastrum's daughter." Sybil did not stir. "Speak to me," cried Charteris, after n distressing silence. "Do not sic there like a alone! Speak to me! Scorn me—abuse me, send me out of your sight forever—but speak, Sybil, in God's name!"

By MRS W. H. PALMER.

"There is no need of words," was her frozen answer. Max Charteris, hardly conscious of what he was doing, began his story. In rapid, unsparing words he told the whole of it. Even describing how, since her inheritance, he had besought Rosalie to annul a bond which was but an irksome form. "She sought to marry me purely from ambition—she. admits it,"he said. "After finding herself an heiress, sho confesses that she wished she was free. She had partly determined to propose to me to have the ceremony which united us set aside by a divorce. But " "What changed her mind?" inquired Sybil. "She changed it on seeing us together in the library, the day that we discovered Pierre." "Max," said Sybil calmly, "you should have told me this before." "Heaven knows I would have told you, but we had made a compact. Neither was to reveal the marriage without the consent of the other." "Has she at last consented to have you disclose it to me?" "No; she has not. She wished to keep me forever in the state of torture I have endured for the past six months. But I defied her finally. I told her I should publicly announce the marriage, and that she might do her worst." "Where is she?" "She is in Saratoga, squandering her money, flirting, dressing like this." Charteris pulled from his pocket an envelope containing several photographs. They represented Rosalie in the most extravagant toilets as a stage beauty. "She had the effrontery," he said, with bitterness, "to send me these." Sybil looked at the pictures in silence. Charteris cursed them. "And so I h'jve come to say 'Goodbye.' lam going off—to fling my life away—to drown my misery—to die j soon, I hope. Perhaps when I am j dead, Sybil, vou will not despise me." "I shall despise you forever, if you do as you say," was her calm rejoinder. "What would you have me do?" he asked, gloomily. "Do! 1 would have you act. Expiate your folly; redeem yourself; right the wrongs; atone the faults. And—Max," she paused and confronted him with brave eyes and a steady voice, "you must be free! She is not fit " "Free! Oh, Sybil, you tell me so! Free! I shail do as you say, Sybil. My conscience is in your keeping. Free! And then " A burning blush swept over her face as she saw how he interpreted her words. "No, Max—not that. Never!" "You give me courage—life," he went on, not heeding her interruption. "You say I must be free." "Yes, Max, I say it. But, all the same, remember that we are forever parted; that we " An approaching step interrupted Sybil's words. It was a servant, with a telegram, which he handed to Mr Charteris. Max opened the envelope in some surprise. It read: " You are wanted at once.—EARNEST SUTRA." CHAPTER XVII. THE STUDENT'S CONFESSION. After months of suffering and disability, Ernest Sutra's condition had assumed a new phase. Max Charteris had not neglected the young man during this period. At regular intervals he visited the hospital, where he was told by the physicians that Sutra's paralysis had been caused by an overworked nervous system, with insufficient food and mental worry. Sutra always evinced satisfaction at seeing Charteris. Though unable to articulate, his mournful eyes rested upon his face with indescribable anxiety. Charteris usually carried some little gift to the hospital—a pair of slippers, a basket of fruit, a bunch of flowers, or some pleasing trifle. And when he was leaving he always said: "Should you want me at any time, Sutra, or should you need any service that I can do you let me know." (To be continued.)