A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9154, 29 July 1908, Page 2

A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands, i Author of "Hugli Grettou's Secret," "A Splendid Heart," -'Bimvo Bnrba r i," "Tie Tempiation of Mary Barr," 'TVina's Love Story," etc.

CHAPTER XXIV.-Continued

It was of course, no ordinary phase of woman's feelings that fell now upon Cecil. She had not closed hu eyes all the long night that had passed since she had driven back with Michael from Paul Darnley's house. Not a word had been spoken between them. Michael little imagined how his silence struck at Cecil's overcharged heart. She had sat trembling in the cab, and when finally she was alon9 in the little bedroom that had been such a haven of rest to her, she covered her face wiith her hands to shut out the vision of the many pictures of Michael that hung on the walls and weemed to her to speak with even greater eloquence than his silence had done the depth of the man's repugnance for all that had pasaed in that pretty little drawingroom of Paul's pretty little house. She had been left utterly to herself. Michael had prevented his mother dutirbing the girl, and here, again, Cecil had misunderstood his thought. Never in the whole of her strange young life had she suffered such a feeling as beset her this night; never before had she known the meaning of fright, the dread of solitude; and she had sat alone through the long night hours. Cecil's proud young heart had sunk to a depth of despair it had never touched before. She wa3 afraid of what she had done; afraid of what lay before her; afraid of life altogether, and mingling in and about this wa3 that hurting sense of fear of meetting Michael's eyes, and reading her condemnation there. Many, many hours passed after Mrs Everest had carried that last grim news to her before Cecil could wake herself from the lethargy of humiliated pain and misery that had fallen upon her. She was worn out with sleeplessness and the incessant struggle in her brain, and when, toward midnight Cornelia Everest stole softly up to the room, carrying some dainty in her hand with which to tempt the girl to eat, she found Cecil leaning, half in a swoon, against the open window, trying by contact with the fresh night air to sweep away some of her hideous difficulties and to bring courage back to her poor, tired, achin'g and overtried heart.

To the consultation arranged in Mr Bulstrode'a office, called together for the purpose of sketching out some line,of future action for Cecil Lacklyne, Paul Darnloy was, of course, summoned. "You have been such a good friend to my kinswoman, Mr Darnley," Sir Edward Lacklyne had written to Paul, "that I shall esteem it a favour if you will meet my wife and myself, and discuss the matter of arranging Miss Lacklyne's future. Her illness precludes her from offering any suggestion herself as to what that future should be, but we feei, my wife and I, that you will be the best person to move in the matter." Paul Darnley replied to this letter instantly, and he was the first to reach Mr Bulstrorle's office. "Sir Edward will propose, I fancy," the lawyer said to him, "that Miss Lacklyne 'Should go and stay sorre months with Lady Lacklyne and himself in Ireland, and this I should consider a most fortunate arrangement —thejaest arrangement possible under dll circumstances. May I beg you to use all your influence with Miss Cecil, when you see her, to make her view the matter in the same light?" "Emphatically, yes," Paul answered warmly. "I hope to be allowed to see the girl to-morrow or next day. Mr Everest wrote me this morning that Cecil is almost conyal • e scent." . "Thanks to her splendid constitution, she pulled through an unusually sharp attack of cerebral fever. This Mrs Everest has been very good to the girl," Said Mr Bulstrode. Paul assented. "She is worthy to be Minhael Everest's mother, and that is the highest praise I can give her," he said. "You think so much of that young man?" said Mr Bulstrode, a trifle surprised at the warmth in the other's voice. JPaul nodded He had grown much older looking of late, and his face had a shadow on it that lifted faintly, however, as his wife's name was mentioned. "I hope Mrs Darnley is better?" Mr Bulstrode asked; and Paul ans vered almost eagerly: "Oh, yes, thank you, much better. lam going to try to snatch a fortnight and carry her off south, if I can. The change will recuperate her completely, I think." , And then Sir Edward and Lady Lacklyne were announced, and Paul set aside his own feelings and thoughts, to go into the case or Cecil's future. It was settled that he and Sir Edward should constitute themselves guardians of the girl's money, which, comprising as it did all the invested money and personal property of the late Charles Lacklyne, reached a substantial amount, and that Cecil should for a time at least be urged to go anil stay, wiui these kind connections in Ireland. "I have tola my wife notningcf tin poor girl's marriage witn thac scoundrel Bingham," Sir Edward said, aside, t.) Paul, as they finally separate;!. "She need never ki;ow, and in the future, if Cecil should marry, as 1 "hops she may most buppilv, we shall take upon ourselves to explain the full circum stances of her first most curious marriage to her future husband. I hope we shall be able in time.'' Sir Edward added, "to wipe away from her young memory the shadow of this miserable affair. I hope, too, Mr DarnLy. that your wife and yourself will give us the pleasure oi a lfngthy visit in Ireland at an

early date." Paul shook hands with Cecil's kinsman—as he would call himself — and responded to such kindliness with his usual charm. He walked homeward after that interview and his first task was to steal softly into Dora's boudoir. Mrs Darnley was lying on a couch. Though the illness that had fallen on Dora after that most memorable night had never reached the violence with which poor Cecil hid been prostrated, she had suffered terribly, and the shock to her nervous system —on hearing of Felix's Bingham's death—had been one that the doctor told Paul would not pass away lightly. It was a grief to the man to pee Dora fade into an invalid in those dark days, and yet with her weakness something had come into her face that had been utterly lacking in her former brilliant health and prettiness. He sat beside har now, caressing her thin hand as he told her all that had occurred, and Dora listened eagerly. "I may see Cecil before she goes, Paul?" she asked wistfully, halfnervously, when she had heard all the news. , a Paul bent and kissed her. "Surely, my darling," he answered ; and he hsld her hand a little more closely, for he knew what was in her ,troubled heart. Never by word of his had Dora been reminded of tha wrong she had done, or of aught connected with that dreadful day; but she had no need cf his words to bring remembrance perpetually before her, and in her chastened nature she dwelt perhaps more closely on the treacherous part she had played toward Cecil than on any other point of that past time. She had not been dangerously ill, and Dora herself had not been fit to leave her house; and now she turned to the thought of meeting Cecil again, and of asking forgiveness. (To be Continued).