A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9125, 26 June 1908, Page 2

A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

CHAPTER IX.—Continued. Paul's absence from the White Abbey was no voluntary matter; ho merely obeyed a command. To his infinite regret, and, in a sense, to his amazement, he had no sooner joined his fiancee after the death and funeral of Sir Charles Lacklyne, than he found all his dreams and hopes for a future friendship between Dora and Cecil dashed to the ground. Miss Sedworth spoke very plainly. "It must be either Miss Lacklyne or me. You can make your choice, Paul; but please understand I am not the sort of woman who will share even your sympathies with another. I object to an intimacy with this girl. From all I have heard, she. must be horribly fast, going about drassed like a man, and never had any education or anything! It would be quite impossible for me to know any one of this kind, no matter how rich she might be; and, since we are to live together, I prefer that you should have nothing to do with her, either. Of course, Paul, dear," Miss Sedworth had added, with her sweetest smile, "you are freeto do as you like, only you know the consequences." Paul had not attempted to argue with her. He had, however, tried to set her mind on a different tact con-1 earning poor Cecil, "1 shall do nothing that displeases you, Dora, my darling, and I shall therefore abstain from going to the White Abbey, since you wish this. At the same time, clearest, you must disabuse your mind of the curious and wholly wrong view you have taken of Cecil Lacklyne. When you see her, and I hope you may, some day, you will be the first to be charmed with her. She is one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met, despite the strangeness of her childhood; and, as for education—well, I fancy few girls would care to compete with her. Tne world has always busied itself about Lacklyn?," Pa.'il had added gently; "but I had no idea that it had begun to spin its lies about Lacklyne's daughter, also."

Dora Sedworth had listened to this calmly enough, but she was more j fian ever determined that Paul should have no further intndship with the girl mistress of thn Whit" Abbey. That remark about one if 1 the "sweetest little ladies I have ever met" rankled in Dora's mind. She was very far from being foolishly in Joye with Paul, but aho had a Convenient store of jttttoufiy. She had no desire, however, to lose this man, now that he had reached a satisfactory financial position, and she safely construed Cecil Lacklyne to be dangerous, with her youth, her money, and her isolatsd position. Dora had her own way of smoothing dowp any disagreeable effect her plain words might have produced on her lover. No man is ever annoyed by a pretty suggestion of jealousy. Indeed, as the jealousy hitherto had always been on Paul's side, it worked agreeably with him. Neverthelesr, it cost him a great deal to sever his intimacy with Cecil. He had the same feeling for her as he had, for his youngest sister, who lived with their mother in tHe heart of Lancashire, and he would have gladly given to Cecil the same brotherly :are that he had given to his little sister. Dora Sedworth's faintest wish, however, was his law, and as this wish stood at least for a time so definitely between himself and his friendship for Cecil, Paul had to bow his head to the fate of the moment, little imagining how much his obedience signified to Cedl Lacklyne's life, present and future.

CHAPTER X

"WELL, MY: FUTURE IS SAFE

AT LAST!"

Felix fulfilled his promise to his uncle, and ran down for a day to Minchester. Doctor Thorold thought him looking harassed and not so well as usual.

(To be continued)

"My boy," he exclaimed, with deep concern, "you look worn out. I feared you had been working too hard lately." Felix laughingly disclaimed this

thought in a way that led his uncle to feel only too well assured his remark to bo rightly founded. As a

matter of fact, Felix's life at this time was one of great anxiety. His iinancial troubles were as heavy as ever, but he had managed to stave off any big crisis by talcmg certain of his most pressing creditors into his confidence and informing them of his speedily approaching marriage with the sole daughter and heiress of the late Sir Charles Lacklyn •. He bound each one to silence, fcincc it was too early, he suid, for the matter to be made public, but he GU'-cteded in obtaining ji short respite. The futurj husband of Cecil Laeklyne could o itain civdit that would be absolutely impossible to the young physician, whose extravagance;; and dissipations werj well known to that circle of people whosj business it; is rto know all there is to know of their clients. On more than one occasion Felix had had recourse to moneylenders, or, on the strength of what was to tome from Sebastian 'ihorokj, he had In en able to raise some substantial loans at equally substantial interest, ilu would not have hesi-tat'.-d to use the influence of Cecil's name in like manner had he been only s'.ie of the immediate future; but, though he had progressed marvellously well, ha had the most difficult" part of the work to manipulate, viz., the putting before Cecil the necessity of a marriage at an early date. He knew perfectly well that,

By Effle Adelaide Rowlands, Author of "Hugh Grottoa's Secret," "A Splendid Heart," -'Bravo Barbara," "The Temptation of Mnry Burr," "Selin.a's Love Story," etc.

up to the present, the girl had yielded so easily to his influence merely because circumstances acting on her acutely sensitive temperament had wrapped her about in a species of dream; but he knew equally well that it would be possible for her to emerge from this dream at any instant. It was his desire to have made her his wife and so have secured his position ■ before this awakening came; and the necessity for acting quickly, coupled _ with perplexity to know how to act in the most judicious way, so troubled him, in connection with his other worries, that Felix had to confess himself really unwell for the first time in his life. He laughed at his uncle's concern, but he was tired and dispirited, and he went to the White Abbey in almost an irritated condition of mind. Why on earth must he always be forced to plot and scheme just to get together a handful of money 7 Why could not fate have poured it into Cecil Lacklyne's? Why must he be annoyed with plans to win this girl, who would be an everlasting drag upon him, when his future could be made so easy by possessing only half of what she possessed? Life was certainly a deuced tangle, and he was by no means sure if there was anything to be gained by going through with it.

These and similar morose thoughts and questionings beset Felix's mind as he strode up the long avenue to the White Abbey; but it was not his nature to be depressed very long, and this walk through the beautiful autumnal air acted on his tired and troubled spirits as a tonic. He felt his brain clear and his thoughts flit into a more hopeful groove as ho walked along. There was no rain on this afternoon ; instead, the nun was shining—a warm, mellow sun that brought out the full ruddy glory of the Virginia creeper that garmented one side of the quaint old house. In the grounds, although many of the trees had shed their leaves, there was an abundance of evergreens and firs, which kept the thickness of the wooded enclosure almost intact. Felix had a sense of propietorship upon him as he advanced nearer to Cecil's home, and as he caught sight of the girl herself coming to greet him, the last of his annoyance and I depression slipped from him. 1 He realized for the first tiirre how really beautiful Cecil was, and «s her eyes sank beneath his, his old natural feeling of self-content, his oIJ sen««3 of mastery, took possession ', filial? I To Cecil he was far handsomer, ' far more fascinating in this new guise, with a touch of pallor hi his face and an air of weariness about him. All the tenderness of which her heart was capable was stirred by the knowledge that he was tired and ill. She had a desire to minister to him just in the way she had been allowed o.) rare occasions to minister to her father when, by some extra stress of j exertion, he had succumbed to a sudden fit of exhaustion.

Adept as he was in the art of reading feminine human nature, Felix was quick to see the value of utilising this fatigue of his to good effect. He changed hia tactics altogether this day. He indulged in no more mysterious speaking, but adopted instead a quiet, restrained manner, which gave him a touch of dignity. Cecil did not go up with him when he went to see the invalid. She sat by the cozy fire and busied herself in preparing tea. All these small feminities came natural to her, though, as we know, tea, or any other conventional comforts, had never been part of her life. She thought of Felix with a sort of restless questioning breaking her vague, dreamlike condition. Without understanding the full purport of what this could mean, she felt he was changed, and she had a little chilled sensation of fear lest she should have lost already the friend who in bo short a time had grown so dear to her as never to be absent from h er thoughts.