Mary's Great Mistake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3057, 30 November 1908, Page 2

Mary's Great Mistake.

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

Mary had one moment of delirious joy; of delight beyond compare. Then the thought of Isobel rose menacingly before her, . and her joy died out. She suffered a reaction of self reproach, of remorse. She called herself cruel, base, miserable, to have let such thoughts come into her mind: to have given way to such selfishness when there, close to her, separated from her only by a fewyards, was another whose heart must be bleeding with [despair, and fair.t with hopeless pain. How could she have been so cruel, so selfishly forgetful? Mary's whole being yearned at this mora=nt to comfort her cousin. "She loves him," she said to herself, and thers came a sense of infinite sympathy and understanding, for did not she, too, love? The knowledge gave her extraordinaiy strength. "With all that has gone, all she has done, Isobel loves him," she said; "she must be more miserable than we can any of us know. Oh! if I might comfort her; if I could say something to her; if she would only believe in me, and try to think well of me. Oh, lam sorry for her. lam sory, sorry! Poor Isobel; and she has never had suffering before. It is new to her, while to me " She smiled a faint smile, and then walked to and fro a little while uncertainly. If she had only felt sure Isobel would not have misunderstood her, Mary would have gone to her cousin's room, and entreated her to listen to her; but, alas! though her heart longed to give comfort, to whisper sympathy and hope, she knew only too well her errand would he a useless one; she would probably make * matters worse ir.stead of To a nature like Mary's, good deeds and good thoughts never come by halves. However, she was generous almost to a fault. She translated j the word "sacrifice" in its full and j most complete sense. She was sublime in her self-forgetfulr.ess. So now, in tha v.ry first dawn of her love, in the first roseate glow of possible happiness in the absolute knowledge and understanding of this \ almost divine joy, she put it all on one side to think of an enemy in distress, and to ponder how she could test minister to that enemy, and bring balm and healingto the hot, angry heart. If there is anything I can do that will mend this—if there is any hope of a reconciliation." This was the gift of her thoughts, but in her complete self-abnegation, Mary was blind to two things; first, that-Isabel's whole bearing had never once had upon it the stamp of a real, true unselfish love for the man she was to marry; secondly, thfct in setting herself this unsolicited task of trying to amend an unhappy rupture, though she was actuated by the sweetest, the highest, and purest motives a woman could possibly experience, she would, nevertheless, be doing that which was calculated to give absolute destruction and anoihilationof mind, soul, and body to the one creature whom, she held dear above all others on earth. In thinking of Isobel, and giving her her deep, unrestrained pity, Mary, for the moment, forgot Paul and his feelings on this matter; but this wrong, if wrong it could be called, most assuredly must have been pardoned to one who was proving herself a true, good woman in every deed,a being as infinitely superior to her sex in an ordinary sense as isobel this day had shown herself so absolutely inferior. CHAPTER XXV. AN ARTFUL YOUNG MAIDEN. Colonel Leicester had one very brief interview with Isobel before starting for Liverpool with Mary and Cartwright,, who, by the way, had sacrificed a number of important engagements to accompany his friends, and start them on the pathway of their search. It was not a very agreeable interview but, of the two who suffered the mere, that person was undoubtedly the colonel. To his surprise, Isobel coolly settled all matters by announcing her immediate departure for her aunt's house. "I can no longer regard Thrapstone as my home," she said bitterly, and her uncle, though deeply incensed and chagrined by all she had done, could not but feel the stab she intended he should. His face flushed, and he felt a pang of reproach seize him. Undoubtedly he had never loved Isobel as hs had loved Mary, and, since his darling had been restored to him, it came upon him swiftly that maybe he had neglected this the girl. Isobel looked very white after her night of angry agony. She had alwa}sa delicate air and her quiet renunciation of her place in her old home touched her uncle with pity. "I will go to Aunt Margaret. She will take me in," she said coldly. "I shall not stay very long with her, for I have decided to work f.ir my living in future. There must be something I can do to earn money, and I have been a dependent long enough." Of course Colonel Leicester would not hear of this. "You are my niece, Isobel, and your future is my care; both Mary and .yourself are as my own children. There must be no talk of earning yaur living—now or at any time." Isobel's heart gave a leap; this was the most important point of all, at for the moment. She hfd toid herself if she worked cleverly that she would not leave Thr.-T ; -tone aUogelherunsuccessfuliy.

ihe was perfectly 'determined and sincere in her resolution to go to her aunt's house; but she meant to get something- very tangible and considerable out of her uncle before she went, and then, once away, she would be her own mistress, and could frame her life as she liked the chief element of her ambition being, at this moment, a hard, bitter, undeniable desire to make those suffer whom she now openly and defiantly called her enemies. On Mary, however, her greatest hate was lavished, and whatever failure and disappointment might await her in the matter of Laurie, Paul, and Doctor Cartwright—whom it may be very well understood Isobel" did not love—with Mary, and Mary's ultimate unhappiness through Vr by her active work, there should be no such failure, no such disappointment. Colonel Leicester, despite his feelings of pain and his vague reproaches, could not but be relieved at Tsobel's decision to go away from Thrapstone, at all events for a time. "But, remember, this is your home, Isobel," he said to her gently, forbearing all harsh words as they parted, and giving her instead a cheque for an amount that made Isobel's eyes glisten when she was alone, for her uncle had told her in giving it she was to regard it as her half-year's allowance, and an income of one thousand per annum was not contemptible even in her avaricious sight. (To be continued).