A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9137, 13 July 1908, Page 2

A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

CHAPTER XVII. —Continued,

And there was in the brutal strength of this thought almost more satisfaction to the man than in the other.

To condense into a few words —as DoctorThorold had done in his letter to Paul Darnley— the events that occurred at the White Abbey in the days following Felix's last visit is an easy matter, and yet it seemed to Cecil as if she lived through a whole world of suffering in that brief space of time.

She satjholding the hand of the dying woman between her two cold ones during of all the hours that had sped till the end came.

There had been a spell of consciousness, and Cecil had learned briefly all she desiredto know. She had refused to let the poor creature talk much, but a spirit of unrest, of illimitable regret and self-reproach lial fallen on the woman she tended; she would speak She remembered only that she had worked harm to one who from the beginning, had been an angel to her. She wept tears of bitterest sorrow as she clung to Cecil and implored the girl to make no move to change her fortune. "I shall not rest in my grave it 1 know you are alone in this bl?ak, miserable world —alone, without the money you have had about you al your life. I came to harm you Cecil; I came to wcrk a vengeance on your innocent head ; but you have changed my heart, and where I hated I love'; I love you as though indeed you were that child of my own who lies sleeping far out in the rough earth of the West. I set myself a cruel task--and, see, it has brought me to my end—l hoped to have blighted your life. The introduction of a mother such as you imagined me to be, with such a past! Ah, I had lain awake for years picturing the blow be to the man who thougjft me dead—the man who robbsd rne of my youth, my heart; the man who had given to you, the child of that hated woman, all that should have been my child's, and my oyvn! Can you conceive the weight of such a burning revenge, Cecil? It ate , into my very bones —it rushed away my life, and now —now —when T lie at *.he gate of death —I repent it all —I repent it all!" Bathing the wasted brow with ( cologne, and breathing out love and " helpful words, Gecil tried to the pitiful story. "Tell me no more—tell me nothing," she pleaded; "be content; I love you. I weep with you for all your suffering. I will never leave you, \ dear friend —dear mother."

Her goodntsa was repaid by a look : of radiant happiness; but the old hurt j came back again at once, and the j feeble voice would begin its whisper-, ing prayer that Cecil's would not act on what she knew, but would leave the truth hidden as it had been hidden all these years. Cecil gave no promise; her heart was too lull of seething horror, and anguished remembrance to speak the | words Helen Brownlow desired. Moreover, she had coma to a determination. Not for a day, an hour longer than was possible, would she remain in her present position. A thousand reasons raged in her girlish heart to urge this abdication; but first, above them all, was the knowledge of Felix's miserable nature — the belief that her poverty was her only armour of defence against him. As the day had worn away, Helen Erownlow's weakness had lapsed again into unconsciousnass, and the night was spent by Cecil in watchful anxiety. The little doctor summoned from Minchester could offer no assistance; neither could Sebastian Thorold, when he had dragged him • self up to the While Abbey the next day. had crept after the un consciousness, and Cecil felt truly, as she stood and gazed on the placid, worn face of the dead woman, that ■she had lost a love in this poolwrecked creature's he-art vvhich was Ihe most beautiful thing her life had t mched as yet. In a sense Cecil was dimly grateful fo t le illness that disaDled Sebastian Thorold; it saved her so much. She j gave him briefly the outlines of her i case as it stood, but she saw that he' was suffering too much it realisu all clearly, and she had helped him down to the carriage and had sent him home with a pang of farewell regret in her heart as she did so. She loved him, and would have been glad of his friendship now; but the memory of Felix and of what he was to this old man, stood between Doctor Thorold'a friendship and herself now and forever. Those few after, clays that Cecil spent in her old home passed as a strange dream to the girl. She had to face expostulations from the lawyers; she had t> sit and watch, until it passed slowly out of sight, the simple funeral procession that bore j Helen Lucklyne—to give her her rightful name--to a noting-place beside the man who had wronged her sode?pl.v; the hail to dive into the annali of ill; deal past tlvit her late companion had 1-jft behind her, and to hand ovjrt) the lawyers every scrap of puper beai':n;',' in t.ic le.tst upon th? matter. Documents were further/in.ng instantly. The possessions brought by the dead woman to the White Abbey had been few; they comprised a few clothes, some money in bank-notes, and a quantity of papers. These, on being sorted out, proved to be her own written st;itc,nent ol* ail that had happened, giving daiss of fact:?, together with the certificate of her ma riitte, yearn before, in Western Australia, 'with Chailes Lacklyne, arid another rough certificate telling of th'2 lieath of a thilrl. Amid these documents wtre bundles of old newspapers, which Cecil conjectured at a glance would contain the account of

By Effle Adelaide Rowlands, Author of "Hugh Gretton's Secret," "A Splendid Heart," -'Brave Barbara," "The Temptation ot Mary Bavr," "Selina's Love Story," etc.

the murder and the subsqeuent trial and conviction of the innocent woman whom fate and her husband's wickednes-s had thrown into a position of the greatest suspicion. The story of that past was pitifully said to Cecil, but she knew that thfl truth lay in these old papers; and now that she was convinced she held her present place through fraud, she made all haste to be free from it. Even if her fear of Felix had not urged her on, she would have acted just the same. As day succeeded day, her trembling dread of his appearance lessened a little, and she allowed herself to feel sure that he knew her determination was taken, and that hs would leave her alone. She never dreamed, in her ignorance, that Felix was having her every movement watched, and, that even her very thoughts were almost clear to him. She was very strong and brave with the lawyers, but she was proof to all their wisdom, and firm in her command that the present holder of the Jjtitle and Sir Charles Lacklyne's nearest of kin should be at once informed of her renunciation of the property and wealth bequeathed to her. To the argument that though she could part with the entailed property, yet that Sir Charles' private fortune should belong to her, since he had the right to will it t.) whom he liked, she merely had the reply that she wouldtouch none of it —not even a penny Her repugnance to the matter was attributed by the lawyers, and rightly, in a sense, to a woman's sentiment —to an overstrained sentiment of returning justice for the crime of terribe injustice that had been done in the past; but they were only partially right "When Sir Edward Lacklyne and the rest of the family know of this, they will, of course, insist on her changing her mind/' Mr Bulstrode, the senior lawyer, said to Mr Duffield, the junior. But Cecil was fast thrilling to be away from the very sound .of the Lacklyne name. Her one ally, her one help, was poor old Mini, who, bewildered by all that had passed of late, never forgot her three best treasures —her prayers, her darling child, and her well-beloved sunny Italy. Money to Nini had never had any meaning, save to be needed to carry her back to Italy; to Italy with her own dear one, if such a di'eam could have been realised; but to Italy, even without the dear one, when thn sands of her life were beginning to run low, and the end was near. So now, when Cecil bad set before her as gently as clearly as she could the great change that had come into her life the old woman's heart leaped within her wildly. "We will go to Italy," she said, in her native tongue, a language which Cecil spoke as fluently as she. "We ■ will go to my own dear country—at last, at last! We shall see the glorious sun; we shall have sunshine and friends ps. Ah, it will be life for thee and me, my heart!" And Cecil seized on the suggestion. They would go to Italy. Nini had still a scattering of friends and family left, and Cecil had no hesitation in taking up her life amid these humble folk, for a time at least. Her plans and thoughts for her future were necessarily vague. She would to be guided wholly by circumstances, and she had no desire save, indeed, the yearning hope that she might never look on Felix Bing ■ ham a^ain. (To be Continued).