A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9144, 21 July 1908, Page 2

A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

CHAPTER XXl.—Continued.

She was suddenly smitten with an a vful sense of shame, not merely in connection with the role she had been fjreed to play, but in connection with h3r old selfish and foolish life. Up to this point, her chief feelin;, when thought of Felix had come, had been sharp anger against herself and the silly infatuation with which this man had once swayed her; but now something in Cecil's pure, proud presence seemed to bring home to Dora that influence which should have belonged to her girlhood, and she was ashamed for the first time in her life—ashamed that this other woman should even guess how far her womanhood had been sunk beneath her vanity, and by what right this' man should dare to use her as his tool. Dora had never passed through su"h a mental phrase before; it was as though her soul had been stripped of a thick veil, and she saw, not merely the disagreeable consqeuences of her former mistakes, but the weighty fault of these mistakes themselves. It was Dora who broke the silence first. Lifting her face from her hands, she looked into Cecil's eye?, and spoke out the burden of her heart.

I know you must despise me " s're said hoarsely. I would have given Mialf my life not to have brought you here —like this. But —but I was—was not free!" She had pushed her veil roughly up; her eyes were tearless; she looked haggard and almost old; but she touched Cecil's heart at this moment as she never would have done in her usual suave, smart, smiling prettiness. The girl standing beside the fire answered her at once. "I believe you," she said gently; "please, don'c be distressed. It.is true I ii'ad hoped not to see this man again, but I am sure you would never have done what you have done had you been free to act according to your inclination."

Felix laughed here, apparently with all his old eass, but he was, in trutti, a good deal nonplussed by Cecil's manner. He had imagined she would have behaved very differently; that the surprise alone would have been sufficient to disarm her of her courage and that natural pride which he had seen from the first could be very powerfully roused on occasions. In so thinking, he had, of course, judged Cecil's nature by (he standard of ordinary women, and therein had been his mistake. Cecil's nature, in the first place, wa3 far removed from being an ordinary one; and, in the second place, even had it been so, Felix should have been better prepared to meet something new in che character of one who had been reared us 0»cil had been reared, surrounoed by the strong, subtle influence- of such a mind as that owned by the dead Charles Lacklyne. Moreover, that one brief moment when he had stood before her, stripped by his cowardice and brutality of every quality with which her imagination had garbed him so richlv, should have warned him that Cecil was not to be treated as he treated j most women.

He laughed as he heard her speak, but his laugh was an angry one. ".Perhaps Mr 3 Darnley, having so admirably fulfilled her task, will now leave us. I have a very natural desire to speak to my wife alone." Dora made him no answer; she looked to the girl standing so quietly, so almost unconcernedly, by the fireplace. "Do you wish me to stay?" she asked; and her voice was steady, though it was faint. Cecil's eyes met hers. "I think," she answered very clearly, "that I would like you to study yourself, Mrs Darnley. You are not very well. You would like to be alone. lam sure it would be better for you to go. 1 will only ask your permission to remain here till Mr Darnley comes home. I had not intended to annoy him with my troubles, but since I am here, I will wait and see him. He will advise me a3 to what step 3to take. He will be my friend." The last simple words hurt Dora as though she had been struck. She rose agitatedly. "Ah! yec, indeed; Paul will be your friend.- —But—but " She faltered; words would not come. Felix took up her broken speech. He was still leaning against the door, still smiling, but his eyes had neither amusement or pleasure in them. , "Mrs Darnley wishes you to understand," he said glibly, "that her husband's return is indefinite; that he is, in fact, a good many miles from here, called by a fictitious telegram to meet you at my uncle's house in Minchester. You see," Felix added, with hu disagreeable laugh, "how admirably Mrs Darr.ley carries out everything she undertakes. It was necessary for our plans that her husband should be kept away from his house till nightfall, by which time you and I will be on our homeward way; therefore, you see, my dear Cecil, it will be fruitless for you to wait for Mr Darnley's return." Cecil's pallor had increased a little; her hands moved nervously. For the first time she looked at the man before her; for tho first time she spoke to him.

"I d.i not leave this house till Paul Darnley co ms," biiu said, with something of Hercencsa in her voice. " I did not seek to come here, neither wouUt I have come had I been left a free agpr.t; but, once bavins been brought here, I claim Mrs Darnley'a protection as a woman and as the wife of my father's friend. I will not leave the house till her husband cumes."

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands, .Author of "Hu 3 'h Grotton's Secret," "A Splendid Heart," "Bravo Birfcirt," "The Temptation of Mary Barr," "Solina's Lovo Story," etc.

Dora moved round at her words and stretched out her baud, and Cecil took the hand. Traitress as Dora had boon up to almost the last, the girl could not shrink from her. Besides, she knew some terrible cruelty, some weighty power, had forced Paul's wife into such a position. The smile left Fnlix's lips as he saw the two women standing hand in hand. He was strung up to the fever-heat of passion. The events of the last few weeks had undermined his natural philosophic calm. He had not merely had to face a gigantic loss, in Cecil's renunciation of her money and position; he had hsd the biting mortification of her immeasurable contempt to sting him perpetU' ally, and with these things had been many others. He was, indeed, in as awkward a position as any man might hesitate to fill; debts and difficulties hemmed him about; his professional reputation was menaced by the scandal bis creditors' threatened to make, and his latest worry came from a source, that hitherto had made his amusement. He had played and flirted and laughed heartily enough with Kate Kearney these past few months, and while he had flirted and laughed, the woman had been in earnest. She now claimed him as her affianced husband, i

The whole idea would, under ordinary circumstances have possibly amused Felix, for such difficulties had come in his way before; but now, when he needed all hia wits clear and ke?n to plan all he intended to do—now, when his chance of getting some, at least, of the Lacklyne money in hia hands, of proclaiming himself Cecil's master, depended solely on the published fact of his marriage with the girl, Kate Kearney's threat, made passionately to him the night before, to let all the world know of his perfidy, came somewhat awkwardly. He had shown himself in his true light to the weeping, hysterical creature, and he had defied her to do her worst, but he did not feel comfortable. His position with Cecil was one that would require any amount of glossing over to make matters palatable with tne lawyers—and to propitiate these was Felix's first intention; to get them to work on his side his eager desire. How much more difficult, therefore, would matters be if the woman Kearney carried her threat into action and puohshed 10 the world the story of her so-called wrongs! To get Cecil quietly into his hands, to exert once again that influence which had been so potent with her in the beginning, was the only way, he had told himself, to start the work he had to do. Once Cecil was in the house, once she had been forced to recognise his authority as her husband his task with the lawyers would be made comparatively easy, and for this reason he had impelled Dora DaVriley to come to his aid. His original idea had been to have Dora bring the girl direct to his house; but here he had met with opposition from Dora. She refused altogether to set her foot in his house, and no amount of threat could change her in thip.

Jj£o Felix had been forced to make tud nest of the matter, for he might thr a e , but he could not act without Dora's help; and now, as he stood before his accomplice, and noted v/ith what strength she put her hand ; in Cecil's and turned to defy him, the < full measure of his irritation, the long-repressed impatience and wrath, burst from him violently. (To be Continued). i