Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3031, 30 October 1908, Page 2

Mary's Great Mistake.

By EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS.

Auhcr of Eolina's Love Story "An Inherited Feud," "Brave Barbara,"

"A Splendid Heart," etc., etc.

CHAPTER Vlll.—Continued. The doctor sent his keen eye across the room. "Something on his mind," he said after a moment's scrutiny of the handsome face that surmounted Paul's tall figure leaning against the wall. "Something bad, I fear," remarked Laurie, "Hopeless, I might almost say." - She told him briefly what had occured. "He has been a changed man since that night. Look at him, Dr. Cartwright; he is just like a man in a perpetual dream. He eats, walks, talks exactly as though he were a machine.; it makes me so unhappy! What shall I do?" "Wake him up at once. No one like you to do it; it is a species of : mental collapse; he must be roused." "But how?" queried Laurie; "it seems so hopeless. You see, I know nothing. After all, it is only surmise. I am really, perhaps, all out in my reckoning, but " "But I don't think you are," George Cartwright said thoughtfully; "he has had some shock, following some anxiety or other cause that has been troubling him for a iong time. Tell me again, what was in that telegram?" Laurie repeated it. Dr. Cartwright sat in his favourite attitude, his legs crossed, his hands clasped round one knee. "A woman, undoubtedly," he said, "and the news of her death has produced this result." "What do you advise? I mean, what tack shall I go on?" asked Laurie anxiously. George Cartwright frowned, and then smiled. "I should suggest—another woman." Laurie's eyes flashed. "That is'so like a man. So like your horrid, cruel, unfaithful natures. As if one woman were just as good as another!" ( "Well, I fancy they are, pretty much so," laughed George Cartwright; but his thoughts went to a certain black-robed fragile form as he laughed. "Seriously,, Miss Hungerford," he said, "I should advise you to work your very best to interest your brother in something. We have plenty of good hunting weather now. That ought to stir him up. There is no doubt he is in a bad way—menially. The very best thing for him would be for some nice girl to fall in love with him and marry him. I know you think me a brute for being so unsentimental; but, unfortunately, life and its drudgery must go on, however deep the grave be where the best and aweetest part of our heart must lie—buried though unforgotten." The doctor then passed on to the question of Lady Emily's health, and then he rose, and declared he must go. "I have to catch the midnight train to town," he said, as he shook hands with Laurie. Paul's sister looked after him as he passed out of the room. There was a touch of heightened colour on Laurie Hungerford's cheeks, and a soft look in her handsome eyes at this moment. George Cartwright would have been much astonished had anyone told him that he was responsible for * the wave of strong emotion that" came oyer this girl's stanch, loving heart'. He called himself a magician when he spoke with Mary, but his power did not carry him very far, really. It was after his departure that Laurie went across to Paul, and, after making that pretty remark about Isobel, had startled him into life, as it were, by her" vigorous demand for a few minutes' conversation. "Now, then, Laurie, fire away," he said with a faint smile, and a faint echo of his old self in his voice and manner. He threw himself into a chair opposite his sister, and regarded her critically and admiringly. She was, indeed, worthy of much admiration in her graceful black lace gown. .J'You look stunning," Paul said. But Laurie saw that there was a contraction about his lips, and an expression of pain in his eyes as he spoke. He looked so handsome, her love and pride grew deeper and more intense. "No wonder poor little Isobel has lost her heart to him," she said to herself. Isobel's secret was no secret to Laurie, and it must be confessed Paul's sister had something of sympathy tor that secret. She thought she had gauged Isobel's character absolutely, and reading it by her comprehension, she felt almost as if she would be glad to see this girl become Paul's wife. She was silent so long that Paul spoke first. He leaned forward, anc took up her fan. "Is it so hard to begin, Laurie?" he asked. "It is, rather, Paul." Paul opened and shut the far several times. "Then why begin at all?" he said, in a low voice pregnant with emotion. He paused a moment. "I think 1 know all. You want to say—you want to tell me I am a changed ; raan, that there is something the matter with me; that—that I look as if I had gone through some sort of a shock, and t«ie effects have not gone yet. Isn't that what you want to say, Laurie?' "Yes," his sister answered, tears ri's'riar suddenly in her eyes. "But .something more—l want to help you, Paul." He shook,his head. "My dear, you cur not." "May I not know your grief? 1 might then find some consolation to

offer—some " Paul put her fan back on her knee. "Can you restore life to a dead thing? Look here, Laurie, give me a little time, l—l know it seems rather cowardly; a man ought to be aMe to stand up against everything; but there are some things '-" He paused abruptly, rose, and walked to the end of the conservatory, and then came back. "Laurie!" he said very quietly, "this is my story; it is not very long, nor very uncommon. I loved a woman more than my life, almost more than my soul. I think I must have loved her from the first moment we met. She was the wile of another man in all the time I knew her. I suppose we scarcely exchanged a hundred words, she never knew what she was to me, she never knew how her sufferings, her mental and her bodily sufferings, affected my courage, and my joy of life. If I were to tell you what that woman had to bear, and how she bore it, you would shiver and grow pale. She was alone in the world. She had not a friend to call her own. save me, and she did not know of me. I longed, I hungered to do something for her; but a man's hands are tied, and her beautiful, pure soul was as dear to me as herself. All I could do I did. At the last"—he turned away, and Laurie could not see for a blurred mist before her eyes—"when her final trial came, I had hoped to have come forward, and begged her to let me help her. She was utterly destitute; her husband left her without a farthing, and she was so ill she could barely stand. Yet the proud spirit that; had sustained her so long carried her on to the end. When I reached the moment for which 1 had longed for in vain—at the very time that I had determined to bring her sorrows to my mother's hands—l lost her; she had vanished —fled away suddenly from her shame and misery into the darkness of death itself." Paul ceased for a moment; he threw himself into the chair again before he went on. "The telegram I received that night was from the detective I had employed to search for her; he announced her death. Perhaps you read that message." Laurie nodded. "The next day I saw him, and he gave me the particulars he had traced out. She had got as far as London. Then her strength, her life itself had ebbed away. She was carried to a hospital, and there she died. Now you know a little," Paul added hurriedly, "of what I have suffered, of what I still suffer, and you will forgive me, Laurie, for being " Laurie put out her hand. "Don't Paul," she said brokenly, and her lips quivered. "Oh, my poor —poor Paul! It hurts me so! And to know I can do nothing!" (To be continued.)