Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3044, 14 November 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.

CHAPTEII XVl.—Continued

Paul's fate was settled. Others might glory in the fact, but she could not join in their chorus of praise; and as she was not a hypocrite', she preferred to be silent. Isobel was not only incensed at Laurie's altered mien toward herself; she was a little afraid of her, too. She was so smally made herself, so narrow, so mean, she could not cope with Laurie's broad, vigorous, honest mind. She did not hesitate to stoop to underhand tricks herself, so, of course, though it was possible Laurie might do the same; and then her hold on Paul was so feeble. She knew he despised her for her lack of modesty and truth in having publicly associated herself with him at a moment when he was powerless to take one step to avert such a misfortune to himself. It had been and was, indeed, a strange engagement. The young people were together as rarely as possible. If they were alone, Paul never spoke to Isybel, save in the most coldly courteous way, and on the most conventional subjects. It was with Lady Hungerford the bride-elect felt most at her ease; and she stayed most of the time at the big house when she did not find it necessary to be at Thrapstone Court. Isobel had a savage longing for the days when Sir Ralph would die, and she would reign at the Hall as Lady Hungerford. Then she promised herself much pleasure in (punishing Laurie, and also Paul, for their treatment of her.

She might have been better pleased if she had realised how much unhappiness she had already brought into Laurie's young life; and if she could have seen the two faces of the brother and sister, as they walked slowly along the dusty road from the station to Birchdale, on this warm day, Isobel's vain heart might have rejoiced that she possessed at least the power to work so, much trouble on these two people, in whose eyes she stood absolutely revealed in her true colours.

Isobel was, however, not even aware of her betrothed husband's return. She was up at the big house, busy writing long and elaborate orders to her dressmak&rs for the preparation of her gowns and other wedding garments; and, as a matter of fact, "isobel was more relieved than she would have known well how to express, m thinking Paul was away for a day cr two. 'lhe less, she saw of him safer she felt; it was when they were alone that the sense of fear lest some day, some hour, he must break through the hateful bonds she had put about 'him, came upon her; and then, clever actress as she was, even Isobel found it a hard task to perpetually simulate a sweet temper while, she was raging furiously within. If she could have known Paul had returned already, and if she could have known further, the mass of thought troubling his mind at this moment, Jsobel would not have been able to devote much undivided attention to the subject of her costly trousseau.

Laurie, looking very handsome in a*pink cotton gown, walked along, waiting for Paul to speak. When he did begin, he surprised her. She had imagined his thoughts to have been of something very different.

(To be continued.)

"The squire wants one of Meg's puppies, Laurie," he said. "Hs shall have it, of course," the girl said readily. "I am so glad the dear old soul Ja better. I expect Mrs Massingham has had a pretty hard time nursing him." "She has not nursed him alone," Paul said.

And Laurie looked at him sharply; there was a tone ill hia voice that told her some new pain had come into his heart, and yet Laurie did not quite understand the expression on her brother's face at this moment.

"No. I know," she said, continuing the conversation, without betraying any of her feelings "I have heard all about this most wonderful and Jovely young creature whom George Cartwright," Laurie coloured faintly, "discovered somewhere. Mrs Massingham's letters have been full of eulogy about her." "She came from the Convalescent Home at Whiterock," Paul said; and then he added hurriedly, " i"ou have seen her, Laurie?" Some feeling came upon him to hear what words his sister would say of his beautiful love—his love that might never be.

Laurie stood still in the middle of the road, and immediately all her dogs stood still, too, and lo®ked up at her.

"What!" she cried, "that lovely woman who found my locket! Why, Paul, she is heavenly! You know how I have raved about her. I thought I had never seen any one or anything so beautiful," and then Laurie laughed. "No wonder the squire has consented to get well with such a nurse!" Paul made no answer to this. It was not possible for him to speak for the moment. , Laurie's genuine admiration set his pulses throbbing again, just as they would thrill if Mary herself, in her exquisite loveliness, stood fiefore him. Laurie did not notice his silence. She chatted on lighcly about odds, and ends of things, and then she looked round suddenly, for Paul had begun to speak all at once, quickly, hastily, as though urged by ar, uncontrollable power. "Laurie," he said, "I want to ask you to do something?" "You need not ask twice, darling," the sister said gently, and fhe t,'it hi r hand on his arm as she y/ remember," Paul went on

were at Thrapstone Court, we one day discovered an old miniature hung alone in a corner of Colonel Leicester's study?" "Perfectly," Laurie said, just a little mystified; "and I remember that when I asked the colonel about it he merely said it was a picture of his sister who was dead, and turned the conversation. I asked Isobel about it afterward, and she told me." " What did she tell you?" ."

Paul inquired this eagerly. He wanted to prove the integrity of his finance at this moment; he wanted to know if the story she had given him about the cause of her uncle's perpetuai look of trouble and disappointment was one and the same with the hard, cruel things she had spoken to him 3bout Mary. He hart listened only vaguely at the time, but he had remembered all when he had sat last night with Mrs Massingham, and heard from her lips at last the! true history of Mary's miserable mistake, and the explanation of all that had once seemed to him so strange, so inexplicable. Mary had opened her heart to the friend of her dead mother's girlhood, and in this moment of weakness, of renewed mental anguish, she had cried aloud her longing for a word of forgiveness from her uncle, for the knowledge that he would be reconciled to her before it was too late, before the gates of death shut them apart forever. "We must bring this about, Paul," Mrs Massingham had said, with tears in her eyes. , "Now that she has spoken, i can see how this longing must have been eating into her very heart. She th : nk3 he will not forgive her; but how could he refuse her? Why, I feel I love her already, and she must have been very, very dear to him. Poor child, poor child, I think this is work for your love's little hands, Paul. Isobel is such a sweet little angel of mercy. She will bring the two together." "It shall be managed," Paul had made answer unsteadily, and his thoughts had gone immediately to Laurie. This was, emphatically, not work for Isobel's hands, he determined. The girl who could so coldly and cruelly dismiss one of her own kith and kin as Isobel had dismissed Mary, when she had spoken of her cousin that time at Thrapstone, was not worthy of such a task of love and. charity. "That was the portrait of Uncle Henry's sister Mary," she had said to him; "he was very fond of her, and when she died he adopted her daughter, as he adopted me; but, unfortunately, Mary, my cousin, did dreadful things. . She disgraced herself and us, and she made uncle so angry that I dare not even speak her name. I have tried sometimes to see if I cannot do something," Isobel had said, with a touch of mournful sweetness, and a little sigh, when she had recounted this to Paul; "but, you see, Uncle Hen»-y is so proud, and he was devoted to my cousin—oh! devoted. Really she did not treat him very badly.; but, poor girl, I am sure she is sorry now, and " Isobel had made an effective pause that conveyed a whole volume of meaning—"and I heard for certain, a little while ago, that she did marry the man after all; so don't you think Uncle Henry might try and forgive her, Paul?"