HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3187, 12 May 1909, Page 2

HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

CHAPTER Vll.—Continued. "Then why are you murmuring at and threatening Mr Haydon?" "I haven't done either. If he and me has run up against one another, 'tain't by no fault of mine. But I won't have my mouth shut with two half-crowns-—no, nor with fifty of them. And you may tell him, that when I see fit to speak I'll say my say. So let M:ster Laurence, or whatever he calls himself, look out, for he'll not hush me." She spoke so loud that people began to gaze at her curiously. "Do not imagine that I am triyng to buy your silence," Wilfred hastened to reply; "but at the same time rememeoer that it would be a very cruel and unwomanly act to publ'sh anything my friend may have said or done years ago, solely to revenge yourself for a chance offence." "It's the first time I've been told to my face that I am cruel and unwomanly !" was the angry retort. "I have paid my way always and kept myself to myself, and never done no hurt to man nor beast —can Mister Laurence say the same? Talk to him if you want to preach to anybody, and ask him what he calls himself fur deseiting his poor wife; and what would have become of her little one if it had'nt been for Betty Wakel)'? Who have been a mother to it but me?" "Hiawife! Laurence Haydon's wife!" echoed Wilfred in his astonishment . "Aye, and as good as she was pretty. I mind the day he brought her to my cottage as well as if it were yesterday; just a smiling, simple bit of a young thing she were, blushing and hanging her head, and yet as proud when" he told me she was Mrs Laurence; aye, and laughing outright when ever I forgot my manners and called her missie!" "He would not, he could not have left her had she been his wedded wife!" exclaimed Wilfred, bewildered with doubts he would fain have dispelled. "if he dares to say she wasn't his wife, tell him that I can show her marriage-lines. He took her to church as sure and certain as my husband, that's lain these twenty years and more in Perthcurno graveyard, tcok me; and he went away and left the poor creature because he had tired of her. She hearci'him say as much to a fine gentleman friend of his that came to him under the cliffs one morning." "Then you lived at ——" "Aye, did I, an' no harm if I did, for I paid my way and kept a good name." "And you are living there now?" "What If I be, and what if I beant?" demandefl Betty, regarding her querist distrustfully. "I ask because I intend to make inquiries concerning you, You talk boastfully of having always borne a good name, but your conduct this day seems to contradict what you say." The veins swelled in temples, and her rough, herd, hands gripped and tugged at her plaid shawl.

"Take care, mister parson," she gasped in her ire, "I won't have my character picked to pieces this way." "Any yet you have not hesitated to bring 'the most shameful charges against a gentleman whose only fault is that he has been so unlucky as to affront you. Don't you thirk you deserve to be punished for such wickedness?'' "If ye come to. that, I must have my deserts as well as the rest," observed Betty quaintly, "but there won't be much on my conscience about Mr Laurence; I always did mistrust him, Ke was too shifty and too selfish to be good for much; as for she," and a sob rose in the woan's throat, "bless her, she was as true as gold!" "Mrs Wakely, I don't know what to make of you!" cried Wilfred, so frankly, that she smiled grimly. "Lord love ye, sir, you can't make nothing of me but a silly sort of an old body as lets other folks bide, so be they lets her bide, too." "You said a few minutes ago," said Mr Stuart, not without embarrassment, "you said that you had played the part of mother to a little child whom one of the parents had -—forsaken. Can this be true?" "Ask him," she answered. '"Tis his business, mister parson, not yours; but don't let him fool the pretty creature that's gone away with her arm linked in his, a-looking up in his handsome face just as Mrs Laurence used to do!"

Mr Stuart winced, and involuntarily turned his eyes in the direction taken by Am bra and her companions* They had disappeared and he was eager to follow their and watch over' them. He had lost all reliance in Laurence Haydon's integrity, and the warning just uttered affected him powerfully. A more worldly man might have said Ambra Neville was nothing to him, and that his interference in her behalf be an insult to one he called his? frjend; but Wil- ] fred remembered only that shs was an innocent, unsuspecting <firl, and tint it was the duty of every man of honour to protect and cherish that innocence. Laurence Haydon must and should prove that the accusations laid against him were false before he led his father the altar. |

BY HENRIETTA B. RUTHVES". Author of "His Second Love," " Corydon's Infatuation," " Daring Doia," " An Unlucky Legacy," Etc., Etc.

f When, with a start, Wilfred remembered the woman, she had walked away. With some difficulty he succeeded in discovering and overtaking her. "Hark ye, Mrs Wakely," he exclaimed, "what you have said in my hearing is so monstrous that I do not feel justified in losing sight of you. Mr Haydon must know how horribiy you are defaming him. It would be wrong to keep him in ignorance." "Well?" queried Betty calmly. "What do ye want of me? To say it isn't true? Why, then, I sha'n't do it to'please ye, tor it is true, and he knows it. Let him deny it if he can." "Where is the girl you call his wife?" asked Wilfred excitedly. "Ask him for her. She went away from my nousfc in the dead of the night to drown herself. Has she never haunted his dream 3 since?" "And the child?" "Ye'll never hear a word from me about that!" she answered, with sudden fierceness. "Do you think I cradled the babe in these arms of mine—worked for it day in and day out, and rocked it all through the weary night when 'twas ailing—to give it up to its fine, false father whenever he'd a mind to claim it?" "Heaven forbid that I should bring any sorrow upon you!" cried Mr Stuart, touched by her agitation. "But the matter cannot rest here— I must see you again. Give me your address, and I promise that I will not confide it to anyone with out your permission." Betty hesitated, and had to be urged for some time ere, in a half whisper, she avowed that she was living at St. Mary's Cottages, Hornchurch, Essex. Having seen the gentleman carefully note this down in bis pocket-book, she curtsied and hurried away, nor did he feel justified in making any further attempt to detain her.

After some search he found Am • bra and Mis 3 Braysbv seated in a little rustic arbour, patiently waiting for Lady Marcia, who had dragged Laurence away to help her to discover the whereabouts of an alabaster vase eulogized by her iady* ship as the most beautiful thing of the kind she had ever beheld. It was not till she 1 a.i tired herself with, wandering about the palace, ar.d taxed the courtesy of her escort to its furthest limit, that the began exclaiming at her own stupidity for having forgotten that the said vase was not exhibited here, bah at South Kensington. Wilfred Stuart knew that he was a poor substitute for his more vivacious friend. He had double th« amount of learning ar.d an immeasurable larger, nobler, heart, but he was not qiuck at small talk, and, troubled and even alarmed by Betty Wakeiy's nvclations, he showed to less advantage than usual. !~TO BE CONTiyiTED.I