THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3092, 14 January 1909, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPTER XVll.—Continue]. ( A passionate eagerness came into j Frank's face. j "He's dead, Edith; he must be," j he insisted. "Won't you marry mo • now? I swear to you that you shall j never regret it. I'll be your ; Edith, as much as man can bt." i "I believe you would, Lord Disbro. j Once I might have been your wife. I It is too late now. I have wrecked i my own life; I can never marry you. j Tam sorry that you have not for- i gotten me before this." "I never shall forget you. Edith, Frank said earnestly. "You think so now." "I never shall. How have you . •wrecked your life Edith? Let me j save the fragments. You don't know how precious 1 should consider thera." "I know you area great deal too good for so faulty a creature as I am. I wish you could realise it as I do." I ." You'are not faulty," Frank said passionately. "Yon area mystery, you are morbid, you make yourseli unhappy withuut reason. I believe, at the 'bottom, you are one of the j most genuinely good creatures God ever made." "That shows how little you know me. I wish you could see me as I am." "I wish I could, too, if you would marry me any quicker afterward," Frank said audaciously. He saw only the pale, proud face, sweet as love in all its pride and sadness. Edith shook her head. "I marry no one so long as my dead husband's murderer remains unknown. Your cousin Rose advised you well, Lord Disbro." "Rose? She is deceitful, treacherous, ungrateful. She who owes you so much, vet hates you so! Do you think I would listen to her for a moment?" , ,

"She has cause to hate me. But for me she would have had all her J grandfather's money. It was selfish i in me to keep any of it. But I told you I was faulty. 1 never pretended to perfection." "Like Hose, for instance," Frank said bitterly. "Rose is better than I am in all essential things." said Edith coldly. "1 don't blame her for anything. S? e is quite right to stay here ai d watcn for her grandfather's assassin, if she thinks that is her duty, and she does. She is sacrificing her youth and her chance to marry well, all for the sake of bringing to thp gallows the shedder of her grandfather's blood. I wish 1 could be as happy in doing my duty as she is in hers." "Edi r h, are you talking sarcastically? I believe you are." "No." "Ypu mean what you say?" "1 don't like Rose; J hate her worse tha!> she does me! But 1 mean what I say; I admire her conscientiousness and her faithfulness to what she believes is her duty." "She doesn't believe it. She wants the rest of the money," Frank said irritably. "Once for all, Edith, why won't you marry me?" "There are many reasons. One is that you nave had horrible thoughts of me. You would again." "I did not, really. I never should again. T . am very sure," he Laid eagerly.

"I never blamed you. Appearances were against me, and are yet." Edith's perfect lips quivered in spite of her. "Noi with me. Won't you marry me, .Edith? Don't yen love me?" She became whiter than before. But she shook her head quite calmly. "No," she ?aid, looking at him steadily with her large eyes. An expression of deep pain crossed Frank's handsome face. "Then gocd-by," he said, "and good-by forever. I sha'n't trouble you any more after this. I was a fool to co!i.c this time. But 1 thought such love as mir.e could not always fail of reward." Edith set her white lips hard to keep them from trembling, but she did not speak. "Rose will net like my taking Arundel away," he went on bitterly; "but he only came to . oblige me by'keeping Rose out of the way while I talked to you." He did not look at her now. He was going away without offering her his hand. "Frank!" she cried suddenly and sharply. "I wish it could have been different." "No, you don't wish it," he answered', vviili angry coldness. "If you did, you'd make it so. You deliberately blast my life and your own, too, for a whim—for I believe it is a whim, and 1 believe you love me. Still you say you wish it could be different. I don't believe you. If you wished it different, you'd make it so. Good-by, Mrs Tyrrell!"

CHAPTER XVIII. A REMARKABLE RESURREC- " Frank walked angrilj away fo Ins rcom and ordered his servant to pack up Then he went to the drawingroom, where young Baron Arundel viva having a mild flirtation with Eo'-c Altman, and sihuddering inward ly at her ugliness ail the time. A look of positive relief crossed young- Arundel's weak.-, handsome fare 'at the prospect of going av/nv. M i£S Altman was a great rVi' too much for him. As icr Kofc, she fairly turned whiie with rage. "I thought you came for the whole hcliday week?" she said, biting her lips till they bled, to keep from cry'"'"lnan hour, did you say?" Young Arundel sprang ulertly. "Then I must ece atout my packing. I nr-! Diabro turned to Ro?e. J-Jie was his coupin. lut he had never

By HELEN COR WIN PIERCE, Ai.fror oi "At H.i Own Gaiie," "Carrie Emerson Wilde," "Sadly M itched," "The Cheated JJritlo," Etc.

liked her. He almost hated her now, as being in a great measure the causa of his own bitter disappointment. Had not siu? f and she alone, kept up this ridiculous about his uncle'.- murderer? As if Edith could have known anything about it! "You may thank yourself for our going, Rose, if you care about, our rtaying, which you don't, 1 presume.''' H-j knew better. "Arundel onlv came to keep me company, and I oiily came to once more ask the woman you have .slandered so horribly to' b3 my wife. It's the fourth time I've asked mr that question. But she won't have me. You'd have had a chance to try life at a gayer place than Blackmere if she had consented, Ro',-e. You're a fool to hate as you do a woman who never irjured you, and in whose pure and no'h'e presence you, with your envious heart, your slandering tongue, are not fit to be named!" Lord Disbro spoke harshly. He was feeling too bitterly to choose hi 3 werdo, , and Rose had said such horrible | things to him of the woman he worshipped so desperately and—uselessly. Miss Altaian smiled, however. She v,as glad Edith had refused him—glad while she wondered—both because it would have been like eating ashes to her to see Edith Lady Disbro, and because she liked to see her cousin suffer, as she saw he did by his white, drawn face, his miserable eyes. "She has injured me. But I sha'n t waste my breath telling you how, when you know as well as 1 do." she said. "She did well to refuse to marry you. She dare,, not do that —I would nut permit it." Miss Alttnan threw up her head and looked at him defiantly and malI I "You!"

Frank looked at her curiously. "How in the world could you prevent it? Unless " He paused, and his face darkened with dcubt, and dread. Could Ro?e, after all, know anything about his uncle's tragic death, more than she had told? , Anything connecting Edith with it j for instance? | Miss Altman laughed aloud. _ _, " lou wouldn't want to marry her if you knew her as well as I do, anamark my words—you'll rue the day, if ever "you do marry her! Yr.u are bewitched bv her beauty—just that; in your heart you don't believe in her much more than I do!" Rose laughed again in her loud, mocking "'ay. "Where are you going from here?" she abruptly asiced. ■ "I amgoing to Lord Venable's, in Dorsetshire," Frank answered shortly. "Good-by." He shook hands coldly and left her. Edith and Rose *at together in the breakfast-parlour a week later. They had finished the meal, and were waiting for the letter-bag to be brought, in. It cam* presently. There were letters for both. Edith glanced at hers indifferently, far more interested in one which Rose had, on which her quick eye had detected the Dorsetshire postmark. Suddenly a scream burst from Rose's lips. She sprang up, wringing her hands ar.d shrieking. ■"There!" she cried, flinging the letter at Edith. "You've killed him ! I hope you feel better now." (To be continued).