A HEARTS TRIUMPH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9154, 30 July 1908, Page 2

A HEARTS TRIUMPH.

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands,

CHAPTER XXlV.—Continued

Once Dora would have felt it an affront to herself to sue for pardon, but the Dora of old was changed. She had grown into a new woman; her husband's goodness to her, his delicate forbearance and generosity, helped to make the lesson taught so sharply that day a lasting one, and she clung tj Paul's luve now with a faith that was boundless. Having passed through a terrible danger and realising to the full what a poor thing she had made of her life hitherto, Dora felt only' secure when her husband was near. She was not capable of such love as he gave her, for even in her changed nature she was selfish, but she was marvellously influenced by that same beautiful love that Paul gave her, and following even feebly in his footsteps, she was a better woman than she had ever supposed she could be. "You will urge Cecil to make her home with the Lacklynes, Paul?" Dora asked, as they chatted on. "I cannot do otherwise," he answered; "yet I am sure it will cost that good woman some deep pain to part with the girl." "But you told me, did you not, dear, that Mrs Everest and her daughters are going to live with poor old Doctor Thorold''" "Yes. They will migrate to Minchester as soon as Cecil is well enough to leave them." Paul spoke thoughtfully, as though other mattara were pressing on his mind, as they were. "I must write to Everest tonight." he said, after a pause. "You write very often to Mr Everest," Dora said, with a faint smile. "But lam not jealous," she added softly. "I like him, and if he is so great a friend of yours, Paul, he must be a good man." Paul stooped and kissed her tender]y- . I "I must leave you for a little, while, dear wife. I have work to do that mu3t be done, but I will come back early, and then we must talk over this journey to the South, j I want you to be strong again, Dura; : strong and full of life as you were so | short a time a jo." I "Don't wane me to be as I was, j Paul," Dora said brokenly. Then, as he kissed her again, l , she whispered: "I am happy now, for you love me, t with all my faults. If you will only , love me always, Paul, I shall be con- ! tent, if even I should never be strong again!" I , Contrary in a slight degree to what most of them had imagined, Cecil accepted the arrangements made for her without a demur. "My independence cost me too dearly," she said, witt unconscious bitterness, to Faul, when he spoke of her choosing her own life if she preferred to do so. j Her only demand was that Nini might go wilh her; and when the moment came to say farewell to the , mother who had literally nursed her j back from the grave itself, Cecil's j manner was so calm, so free from j emotion, any ordinary person would have called her callous. Not so, Paul, j He read through that quiet, dignified . bearing, jind he knew that it was | with something like anguish that Cecil parted from that little home which had sheltered her so tenderly. It was many weeks before he heard from her. She wrote a letter full, of poetry and pathos. Life for her J was now opening out new pages of i healing beauty. "I thought the world beautiful when I lived away from it; 1 never knew how beautiful it could ba till now," she said. Sir Edward Lacklyne's Irish home was situated in one of the wildest but most picturesque pti'ts of "distressful country," and from bo h Sir Edward and his wife Paul heard most cheering news of the girl. , i "We have grown to love her as though she were our own child," Lady Lacklyne wrote once. "What a sweet, pure nature, and yet what a fine intellect and what cultivation! She puts my girls to shame by her knowledge. That strange man must surely have redeemed some of his sins by his care of this innocent creature. She is well, but there seems a veil of sadness perpetually about her. I need t hardly say we do not speak of the White Abbey and all its sorrowful associations, yet it seems to me that the child will never be truly happy. As the summer advances we shall come to England, and then I hope you will say that Cecil is looking well and strong again." When Paul received this letter he pondered over it a long time, and finally he put it into another letter and sent it to Belgium. "Why don't you go to Ireland?" hi wrote. "Must I speak out more plainly? Well, then, 1 will tell you i'rankiyUhat I believe you, and you alone, are the only bei"? who can lift this veil of sadnegs from our dear Cecil's heart and life." ****** It was a warm, stunr;, thoroughly lrifh spring day when iVi.ciitiel ivver«j?t foun'l himself driving througo the ruin-d; enchcd tr3C3 of Sir Edvvaid L'.icklyne's estate H? had a strained look in hia handsome, honest eye?, and his heart beat nervously. He had travelled without rast after reading than letter, and, now that he was near h?r again, his courage failed him. What should he say to hsv? How dai'2 ha venture to suppos* that she ha i a seL'.inil thought to bestow upon him? Was there not a very _ world between them—a world built oi i'ichc:', of her'wonderful superiority te'every other created woman? How did he know whether Paul was not ' utterly wrong? Would it not be wis-i" to turn round even now and g( back? —hack to hia work and his Jv)pls:33 bnging--back— —

Author of "Hugh Gretton's Secret," "A Splendid Heart,'' "'Brave Barbara," _"The Temptation of Mary Bnrr," ''Selin-i's Love Story," etc.

His queries cams to a sudden end. Away from him, walking through the rain in her old easy grace, with her brown head uncovered and her hair blowing in the wind, was she whom he loved —she whom he sought. To the car and pay the driver, and to stride through the rough grass after that slim, lovely figure was the won: of a few moments; and if ever there had been an answer needed to set all doubt at rest once and forever, that answer was given him when Cecil, turning, saw him and gave him her heart and suul itself in the greeting of her eyes. After all, they said so little. They stood in silence, clasping hands for the space of many seconds. Then she spoke: •"Oh! I am glad to see you—gladglad! I wondered if I should ever see'you again. 1 feared you would never, never come —that you would never again be my friend. If you could know how I have suffered when I thought this! I—l sank so low in your eyes, Michael " He hushed her softly. "I have worshipped you since the first moment I saw you in the past, but you are now as you were then — a queen. I have no right to come to you, Cecil. lam a poor—a working man. You—ycu could have all the world before you. There is no triumph you could not have " She looked at him out of her lovely eyes, that were full of tears. "If you will hold me in your heart, Michael," she said, "that is all the triumph I shall ever hope to have !" THE END.