Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3046, 17 November 1908, Page 2

Mary's Great Mistake.

By Ef FIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS. Avficr of Selina's Love Story "An Inherited Feud," "Brave Barbara," "A Sflendid Heart," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XVll.—Continued

r Nc, Laurie could endure this farce no longer. It was a farce to begin with, but it would end in little less than a tragedy to Paul. Day after day, had the engagement been based on conventional grounds, Laurie must have seen how great a mistake marriage would be between Paul and this giri. They were as far apart as the poles, and, being such an engagement as it wa3, the sister's heart felt that it was more than her duty to put out her hand and save her brother from the future that stretched before him.

They reached the tent, and sat down, still in silence. Isobel's face, seen in the dim light, had a cruel, hard look.

She opened the ball first. "You want to speak to me, • Laurie," sbe said. Laurie answered "yes" very hur- ' riediy. It was no very easy task she had set herself. "There is something I must say to you,. Isobel; something very, very important." Isobel sat stiffly in her chair, waiting. "Well?" she said frigidly.

Laurie, full ot her love and grief and infinite sympathy, felt at a disadvantage with this small, hard, cold creature.

"Isobel," she said suddenly, bluntly, ."I want you to release my brother from his engagement with you." Isobel made no answer at first, then'she laughed a shcrt, disagreeable laugh. "Are you here as Paul's emissary?" she asked. Laurie gave a sharp exclamation, and rose to her feet in anger. "You should know my brother too well by this time to ask me such a question," was her reply, given with great difficulty. Isobel laughed again. "Ihen Paul does not know you are here?"

"No," Laurie said. "I have como without his knowledge, absolutely." "Why?" queried Isobel coldly. "What right have you to come to me with such a request?" "Because," Laurie said, her voice trembling with the mingled tumult of her emotions, "because I love my brother, and I am very unhappy about him."

"You are not very polite, certainly," remarked Miss Marston. with a sneer; "and I hope you will nt think mi rude, Laur e, if I say I think you are behaving altogether in a most u-.usl al, and and scarcely in a lady-like way. It is not customary, I believe, for sisters to meddle with their brother's affairs; and, generally"—lsobel made a stress on the word—"most women, when they love their brothers so dearly, hesitate to do anything to dishonour those brothers by " "My brother is the soul of honour, and you should be the first to admit this," Laurie said hotly. "Whatever aspect this /matter may assume in the eyes of the world, we know, you and I, Isobel, how much right you have to hold the position you now do." "If Paul is not satisfied, he has his remedy," Isobel said, in a dogged way. "You know that Paul cannot possibly break the engagement," was Laurie's answer. "Then he should not have entered into it," Lsobel said very cooly. The game was hers, and since Laurie, chose to fight with the gloves off, she would follow suit. It was almost a relief, indeed, to drop the mask she had worn so long, and let loose some of the irritation and jealous anger that had burned in her heart. Laurie stood in front of the small figure sitting so trimly in the chair; she drew herself up to her full height, and crossed her arms on her breast. "You intend to carry this lie on then to the very end," she said, and the tone of her voice was strong with incredulity and disgust. "You are contemptible, Isobe], absolutely contemptible!" Isobel only laughed. "And you are an abominably rude woman!" she said. "I think, Doctor J Cartwright is very wise to have nothing to do with you." Laurie winced visibly, and even the twilight could not hide the hot flush that covered her cheeks from her enemy's sharp, cruel eyes. For an instant, Laurie was undecided, then .she realised the completeness of her failure. Further argument with such a nature would be to drag herself down to this other girl' 3 level. "I will say no more, Isobel," she remarked in a low voice. "Perhaps I have been very wrong to speak at all, and yet it has been my love that' has urged me to do so, and my love that must be my excuse. Paul is very dear to me, I cannot endure to see him so unutterably miserable, as, alas! I tear he must be. I have made some very big mistakes in my life, but I have made none bigger than the mistake I made when I took you to be sweet, gentle woman, with a sweet gentle heart, Had you been true to my ideal of you, things would not be as they are now. Paul would be a free man, and you wouid be a happier woman than I fear you can ever hope to be. You have chosen to refuse me this request, which, you know, in your inmost heart, I have the right to make, since my brother's life and future are wrecked by your doing." Laurie paused only a second. "We will not speak of the other phase of the question. If you can find some excuse in your own heart for conduct which twi : - ' videmned by every proud, mcdest wjman, I am glad you have

so much consolation. But if from this day forward, you find a marked change in rny manner to you, make no attempt to alter this. Paul may marry you—will, alas! marry you, for though he has never once desired or asked you to be his wife, yet your action has tied his hands and put a seal on his lips; but though you may be his wife a hundred times over, you will never be anything to his heart, never anything high or good in his life. You will remain to him as ycu will to me—a girl who has won a husband by frtud, a girl who has shown herself to be dishonest, dishonourable, despicable in the fullest meaning of the words!"

Laurie paused only a moment, then turning, went swiftly away, leaving Isobel setting mute and white-faced in her chair.

She had won, it was true; Paul was still hers, but even her thickskinned nature could not glory in such an inglorious success.

CHAPTER XVIII. PREPARATIONS FOR THE WEDDING. Laurie did not return to the big house when she ]ef t Isobe); she was in no fit condition to come in contact with her aunt's sententious and aggravating remarks; in fact, so great was the whirl and tumult in her brain and her heart, that Laurie hardly knew which path she had chosen till she found herself almost at the gates of the park, and discerned Pual's tall form swinging toward her, followed by her dogs. Much as she loved them in a general sense, Laurie had never felt more affection than at the present moment tor her faithful and devoted dumb companions. The din they made on perceiving her, their frenzied bounds in the air, one and all clamouring about her, gave her time to compose both her face and her feelings before greeting her brother. "No need to ask if that is you, Laurie," Paul said, with a half laugh. "Good heavens; what lungs these animals have!" "Aunt Arne is furious with me," Laurie answered, as she quieted the dogs one by one. "I have committed a terrible social offence by this twilight walk, all unaccompanied. I don't know exactly which commandment. I am supposed to have broken, but it is evidently one of the most important." Paul looked keeniy at his sister. It was dusk, and he could not see her face; but hn knew, without the evidence of her looks, that Laurie was nol only disturbed and annoyed, but unhappy. He said nothing for a moment, however, but as Laurie proceeded to turn in the direction of her home, he spoke very hurriedly. "I want to walk back with you, cear," he said; "but I must go up to the hall first. I have something I wish to say to Isobe]." Laurie turned, half sharply. "You " she began; and then she stopped abruptly. The sort of j sudden hope that had come at these words died down as audddenly as it came.

No, whatever the cost, whatever the pain, Paul would not swerve from the hard path of duty, and honour into which Jsobel's hands had led him, an unconscious victim, to her most insatiable vanity and unwomanly conduct. CTo be continued.)