Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3035, 4 November 1908, Page 2

Mary's Great Mistake.

CHAPTER IX.— Continued,

"Mother will be corning over soon," Laurie said, as she found she had to go; "and I shall come with her, if I may be allowed to have another cup of tea in this cozy little room of yours, Mrs Barnes. I may V Thank you so much; then we will say au revoir, and not goodbye ! I shall always have a tender regard for you, for you gave me back my beloved locket, and I prize that more than any other thing I possess." Laurie clasped Mary's slender hand warmly, and then she disappeared, and Mary wa3 atone with the host of confusing, conflicting, sad, yet pleasant thoughts, that the memory of Paul Dering had suddenly conjured into being. She knew now that the young man whose distin guished bearing had roused so much gossip and speculation in the minds of the company, was one and the same with the brother of this handsome, charming girl, whom fate had brought so strangely \nto her path; but it was not on that phase of his character and life that Mary, dwelt; it was on the other, the one which she saw now for the first time in its true light and value. The one she had experienced in those old, dark days, and which she had treated so coldly and so ungratefully. The picture of that Saturday night at Rivington rose before her all at once. She seemed to see the man standing in the doorway as he had stood | then, the cold moonlight showing i up his handsome face and troubled eyes. She could almost hear him spenk, «nd then Mary started to her feet, and a hot flush of blood rushed to her pale cheeks, crimsoning even the white throat and brows. As though the words had been put before her in letters of fire, she understood to the full all Paul Dering had done that night He had come with no message from her husband; he had brought no remembrance from the drunken brute who had, indeed, absolutely forgotten her. He had come himself to help her. He had ranged himself beside her, ready to be. her friend in the darkest hour of her already dark life. And she had turned her back on this man. She had gone away without a word. She had accepted his aid, ans refused him even the grace of feeling that his delicate thought had not been overlooked. She remembered, now that he was to have come to her on that Monday morning. Again, she understood all most clearly. She seemed to be in touch with all that had filled his heart, and to know how eager he had been to shield her from the contact with the outer world.

Now that she was away from all that had constituted her lite then, Mary was not what she had been. Her illness, her gratitude to George Cartwright, the ennobling, softening influ:nce that had coine to her from contact with the suffering children in this place had worked a change in her. What,she would have resented then most bitterly, she accepted now, seeing the gleams of golden good in the dull dead more of circumstances, recognising the sweet even in the bitter. She did not quite understand her feelings at this moment, nor did she seek to. She was only conscious of a distinct pleasure in the thought that some day, perhaps soon, she wouid be able to see this man again, and to speak to him the words of gratitude which came so truly from her heart for all his goodness to her in the miserable, bitter past; a goodness which seemed to her now in the light of a treasure she had trodden roughly under foot in the mistaken blindness of her pain and despair, a treasure of sympathy, of delicate, refined friendship, which, had she but seen it, might have done much to help her along her hard path, and .bear her heavy burden.

CHAPTER X. ISOBEL'S ANNOUNCEMENT. Laurie hoped to reach her destination in good time to dress for dinner- Mrs Massingham had persuaded most of her guests to remain another day with her, and Laurie had agreed, urged to do so on Isobel's account, as there was a suggestion of a second and an impromptu dance. Her mother, she knew, would be delighted, and Paul had acquiesced in the arrangements in a hurried sort of way, which had given Laurie some food for thought. Paul's manner was changed on the morning following the ball; he seemed nervous, and yet pre-occupied. Thoughtful, yet no longer apathetic, but speakmg and moving with a suggestion of excitement in every word and movement. Laurie's love v/as infinitely touched. It was evident that her brother had talcen all she had said to him greatly to heart, and was endeavouring to remember his duty to his mother, and al?o to h'imse'i'.; she felt something like a tear come into her eye as she looked at hi 3 face, on which the story of his trouble was ho legibly written. "Yet I said rightly," Laurie said to herself; "he must rouse himself, mv poor Paul. I do not want hia words to tell me what he is suffering, but it is no use. There is no hope; even were she still alive,, poor creature,'there would still be no hope. Oh! Paul, m.v I'-rling, why should this cruel thing have come to you? You are so good, so true, so dear, you have done nothing to deserve such 33: i ''

.She was very gentle to her brother, fcut she said nothing to him beyond a few ordinary words, and 3he made no effort to bring :ry suggestion of Isobel Marston hit i -.he conversation. Somehow this it gave her a jar to connect lao&el'a pretty, in-

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

gtnuous personality with Paul's tragic heart story. There was no affinity between Miss Marston's dolllike detnureness, and a great and overwhelming passion, such as Laurie knew now hiid lived in her brother's heart and thoughts this many a day past. She would urge him no further for the moment. She would make no further demands on him; she would leave him to fight out his misery alone; it was kinder, even though it counded cruel; and she felt it would be impossible for him to find any real consolation, at least just yet, in Isobe! Marston, or any other woman's society. That must be a' question for future development. Indeed, for the first time there came into Laruie's mind a great doubt about there being any happiness whatsoever for Paul in a life linked with Isobel. She knew that happiness in its most divinely human j sense would never be his at all again, for the love that had burned so fiercely in his heart would be buried m that other woman's grave forever; but there was still some happiness left —the happiness of peace of rest, of sympathy always before him, if the right person could be found to bring these in to his married life. Was Isobel Marston the right person?—that was the question that forced itself upon Laurie's mind in the long hours during which she had lam awake thinking of Paul, and all he had told her. „ She rose and went downstairs to breakfast, fully convinced Isobel was not the woman to give these quiet joys to her beloved brother, and the conviction deepened as the day wore away. Not that her liking for Isobel was one whit lessened. She was not so easily changed, and, indeed, there had been nothing to change her in this; only Paul's broken-hearted words, his anguish, his passion of suffering, had set things before her in a new light, and had stretched a chasm, between such a living misery and Isabel's calm, smiling, unemotional individuality. "No, it would never do—never," Laurie said to herself, and she felt eager to try and begin to work a tiny wedge between this girl and her brother.

She was truly sorry that Isobel should have become already so fond of Paul. It was useless to shut her eyes to that, for Isobel had betrayed herself in a dozen ways; but Laurie, somehow, felt that Isobel's liking was not love, that if circumstancs happened to divide her from Paul, her heart would not break; and, if even she had imagined there would be deep pain, Laurie would not have hesitated to work, as she now told herself she must work, if she would prevent a wreck to two lives—two futures. The misery that she saw so plainly now would follow on this marriage would be as great for Isobel as for Paul. The tactics must, therefore, he changed, and, instead of throwing these two together, it would be her task to separate them, and at once, before the mischief had been worked too deeply on Isobel's side. For Paul there was no danger, on that score, but she was not easy about him; she had.roused him, she had awakened him from his grave of love, and she must be prepared now for aught that might happen. (To be continued.)