Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3021, 19 October 1908, Page 2

Mary's Great Mistake.

By EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS. Author of Selina's Love Story "An Inherited Feud," " Brave Barbara," **A Splendid Heart," etc., etc.

[ CHAPTER IV.—Continued. Isobel Marston saw that frown, and inwardly resented it. She was used to unqualified admiration. Most men were only too ready to sun themselves in her smiles—at least at the beginning, later on, perhaps, they were not so eager; for somehow Isobel had not the knack of keeping her admirers. After acquaintance discounted, as it were, the value of the first impression she had made. It was because she was so pre* eminently selfish. Clever as she was, and she was undeniably clever, the selfishness always rose to the top. She betrayed it in some little thing, a word or some trivial action, and then it only needed a small amount of attention to gage the girl's nature to its most shallow depth. All this, of course, did not happen at first, and Paul could not resist a feeling of liking tor the slight creature who walked beside him, seemingly rather shy, and answering his remarks in a pretty, nervous sort of manner. His liking increased when he discoverd that Miss Marston was fond of horses, rode daily, and delighted in following the hounds. "We must have a day together next week," he said when this confession had been made. , Isobel thanked him with evident pleasure, while to herself shs registered a vow that they should be together not one day, but many days, if her usual luck did not desert her.

"I think I am going to enjoy my visit here very much," she said in the ingenuous manner she had cultivated to such perfection. "I shall have to write and tell Uncla Henry he must not expect to see me lor a Jong time." "I think 1 had the pleasure of meeting your uncle Col. Leicester, once; it was a long time ago. No doubt he has forgotten me, but he used to come and stay here with the rector who took my father's place, for the purpose of going out with the Birchdale hounds, I imagine.". "Oh, yes. Uncle Henry knows your home quite well, Mr Hungerford," Isobel answered to this. "He was so pleased to meet Sir Rupert in town last December, and renew their old acquaintance." "I should like to meet Col. Leicester again," Paul said. "I remember I admired him so much when I used to see him. To my boyish eyes he was quite a hero."

"You will come and see us at Thrapstone, I hope," Isobel said with a shy grace that was very pretty. "I will promise to try and make you very comfortable." . "I shall be delighted," Paul replied courteously, but with no warmth in voice or manner.

Isobel Marston bit her lip a little. This first experience of Paul was not altogether a satisfactory one. Her sharp eyes had seen immediately that the man was preoccupied, troubled, and that it was by an effort he put aside his thoughts to talk to her. She brought out all her delicate little coquetry; but beyond the fact that he had looked at her and must have noted her undoubted prettiness, Isobel did not feel she had progressed very far. This truth was unpleasant to her. She had laid herself out to catch this young man's fancy. At the first she had not imagined it would be a difficult task. Her vanity was | abnormal but her vanity had sus- ! tain&o 1 a 3hock. Beyond a vague decision that it would be on the whole | a very pleasant thing to become a woman of title and take a more defined place in the social world than she now possessed, Isobel had rot let the matter of Lady Hungerford's matrimonial manoeuvres rest/ very deeply in her mind. Up to now she had been pretty well content with her lot; she had a unique position for a girl of her years. Mistress of a beautiful old country house like Thrapstone Court, queen over the servants, and tenantry, ruling her uncle, in* some degree; having as much finery and mild enjoyment as she desired, she had often'tbld herself the question of her marriage was one that need not obtrude itself for some time to come. She was only twenty-one, and she never lacked suitors. It their suit came to nothing that was more her own fault than theirs. If she had been keen to marry, Isobel would have played her cards very differently, in two or three cases; but, as a matter of fact, not until the cold, raw day under the leafless trees in Hungerford Park had she evinced anything more than a passing interest in her matrimonial future. "I shall marry some day, of course," she had said to herself every now and then; "but I am not in a hurry." As she v-alked beside Paul Hungerford's tall figure and cJanced at his handsome, shadowed face, a distinct change came in her thoughts on this subject. His apathy and indifference to her roused her to anger, and tome other feeling as well. She was attracted by Paul's appea-ance; he was indeed a wprthy scion of an old and honourable !i race. Her heart thrilled a little as she pictured herself wife to this man. The thought of a future with him rose clearly and definitely before her now, presenting a vision of social triumph and success such as she had never dreamed of before. It was the man himself, too, who appealed to her most strongly; his very indifference was his strongest attraction. Paul would have been amazed could he have dived into the mind of this little person beside him, and realised how big a part of her thoughts and sudden schemes and hopes he formed. He did not give her very much attention ; she Van pretty and young, but she did r.ot interest him; while her prettines« v. „3 blotted out by the

memory of that pale, beautiful face, those big, pathetic brown eyes, that proud, silent eloquence of suffering, of misery, of despair he knew so well. "Waiters promised to write today; pray Heaven he will send me some news. Oh! only to know she lives, and is safe from hunger or harm. This uncertainty is torture; very soon I shall have to turn detective myself, and never rest till 1 have found some trace of her, living or dead!" This was the burning passion of his thought as he walked beside losbel and heard her voice as in a dream, meandering through the most conventional of conventional sentences. He had spent an awful time since that morning when he had stood on the door-step of Mary Ballaston's humble lodgings and learned she had gone —disappeared into the wide ocean of the world, leaving no trace behind her. He questioned every official at the railway station to find some clue to her whereabouts, in vain. Not one of the men could help him. They ransacked their memories, but could conjure up no image, no such form as he described to them. She could not, therefore have gone by train unless, as he feared, she had passed unnoticed among the other passengers. He stayed a day and night in the town, but could find nothing, not even the faintest trace to help him in his search.

He severed his connection with the company abruptly; it jwas more than hs could bear, the thought of sitting night after night through the ordinary bad performance, playing his part while his brain was on fire and hisheart racked with suspense, fear and anguish. He could only conjecture what had happened. The letter the landlady had spoken of was no doubt from Ballaston. The news he had hoped to speak as gently and delicately as mortal lips could frame • them had been delivered probably without the faintest touch of refinement to soften the humiliation and the blow. He had reason to know Ballaston in his worst fits of drunkenness. He had overheard him speaking to his wife at such times in a way that had made Paul's hands clench themselves unconsciously lest he should break through the constraint he put on himself, and range himself on her side as the champion of insulted womanhood and of , her tortured pride in particular. He could, therefore, guess pretty closely that Ballaston would not have stopped to consider her feelings or choose his words when he announced to her his most brutal decision, and let her see she was absolutely deserted. It was her pride that would suffer most. Her heart could have no chord of' feeling left now for the man whom it was her fate to call husband, but her pride lived all the keener for the dulness of her other feelings. Broken, ill, weak, it had yet had the power to give her courage and strength to rush out of sight of all who could know her shame and her desolation. How often he regretted he had not asked to see her that Sunday night. Then he would have been in time. He could have offered his friendship, and even if that had been able to watch and wait till the moment came when she would - perhaps let him help her. The possibilities that came at this thought were as so much torture to him. He stifled them as soon as he could. I (To be continued.) i