HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3188, 13 May 1909, Page 2

HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

£ CHAPTER Vll.—Continued. Still, he manfully did his best to amuse the ladie3 left in his charge, but be was not surprised to see Ambra turn away from him R3 Laurence came back to her side, listening with blushing gratification to his softly breathed assurance that he had found the term of his absence very long and irkosme. To Wilfred Stuart those hours spent at the Crystal Palace were some of the dreariest he had ever known, and he sighed with a sense of impending sorrow when he heard Am bra, as they drove home, declare to Laurence that it had been a delightful clay—one to be marked in her calendar with a white stone. How could she know or how suspect that from these happy moments she could date the sharpest trial of her hitherto untroubled girlhoud?

CHAPTER VJII. TO RID HIMSELF OF A DREADED ENCUMBRANCE. The hard-working clergyman was sitting at his frugal lunch on the moriow when Laurence Haydon gashed into the room, apparently in the best of spirits. Both men coloured high and looked embarrassed, but it was the quilty one who was the first to speak. "I am the bearer of a dozen messages—which shall I deliver first? My father's, Lady Marcia's or Miss Braysby's. My lady considers herself ill-used because you slipped away last evening, instead of dining with her and Miss B ■ Oh, what a busy bee she is, and what a hidden sting she carries!—thinks you most unkind for not accepting her to devote herself to your parish." "She profEered too much; she has a duty to Miss Neville. Let her watch over her," said Wilfred, with a gravity that was almost severe. Laurence flicked at a fly with his riding-whip and laughed. "Poor, blighted Lollie would never forgive you if she could hear you talking as ir the were Ambra's middle-aged duenna! By the way, that good little child ha 3 a fancy for testifying her gratitude for her safe arrival in England, by a gift to the poor of London, and appoints you her almoner; you'll not refuse the office?" "Do you wish me to accept it?" asked Wilfred. "Is it at your suggestion the proposal is made? because 1 am not in the habit of receiving bribes." It was the sharpest thing|£he had ever said to his friend, who bit his lip, but talked on as lightly as before. "My dear fellow. I shall be delighed if you will oblige the dear little girl, and so will my father, ifou know that he already looks upon her as his own daughter." "Yes. I am aware that General Haydon hopes to see her your wife."

The tone was so dubious that | Laurence darte*d a sharp glance at tne speaker, but went on talking as airily as before. "My eood old dad! I think he'll regain his health. But not in London. Lady Marcia—artful that she is! —had an object in pressing her hospitality on him." "No, not the one you suspect," he added laughingly; "although I don't think she'„i say nay if I came a-wooing to her! She wants to let her house furnished, and thinks it would suit us admirably. By George! it would suit her very well if she inveigled my father into giving her the rent she demands! Oh, thesfc widows —these widows!" "And the general has agreed?" "Certainly not; neither shall he, if I can prevent it. lam urging him to take a place on the outskirts; there is one to let at Sheen that i would be just the thing, and, as I proposed it on the grounds that it would be healthier for Ambra, I fancy he will consent." "And this," said Laurence, after a slight pause, "this brings me to the gist of my errand. He wants you to drive with him, in the course of the afternoon, to look at the villa. You and Lady Marcia." "Of what use should I be?" "Of the greatest, to me; for then I could escape to the park with Ambra. She and her chaperon—of course, we could not go without Lollie —are dying to peep at Rotten Row, and I have promised to contrive it for them." "I shall be happy to oblige General Haydon," said Wilfred, after examining his list of engagements, and satisfying himself that he could do so without neglecting any of his sick or poor people. "Thanks; then I shall tell him to expect you at three—till when, fare ye well. But stay, I had something else to say to you, Stuart. What was il? Oh, about that woman at Sydenham. Was she troublesome?" "Do you wish me to repeat all she told me?" Laurence Haydon bit his lip and strode to the window, saying, with affected carelessness: "Not if it will take you long, for my mare is fidgety, and the boy who begged for the job is scarcely strong enough to hold her. I suppose she abused me consumedly?" "She spoke to me of —your wife. Great heavens! Laurence, can it be possible that you were a married

07 HENRIETTA B. RUTH VEX. Author of "His Socond Love," " Cory don's Infatuation/' " Daring Doia," " An Unlucky Legacy," Etc, Etc.

man when I sought you out by the sea?" "1 am not sure but that the marriage could have been set aside," was the embarrassed reply. "I was barely of age when it was solemnized, and not married in my own name," "I beg your pardon. If all I hear is correct, you were known to your unfortunate wife as Edgar Laurence; and, through you concealed your surname from her, it would not invalidate so sacred a ceremony." "Don't speak," cried Laurence angrily, "as if you exulted in my perplexity, and were ungenerously eager to bring my blunder home to me!" "A blunder, you call it? I should regard it is a crime!" "Sir! you are impertinent! How dare you " But, instead of finishing his angry speech, Laurence Haydon broke of to come and lay his shaking hand on the shoulder of his friend. "Don't quarrel with me, Wilfred. Don't make the worst of my misdoings, or fancy I have not suffered for them. I would give my right arm to be able to recall the past; but, as I cannot do that, why blame me fcr trying to forget it?" "1 neither blame nor judge you; but " "But you, with your cold nature and firm will, are incapable of entering into my feelings! You don't see that I have been a most unlucky fellow! I have always meant to do right! I wish I had made a clean breast of it to you that time you found me in Deavonshire!"

"I wish you had. I would at least have advised you to have no secrets from your father." Laurence groaned "Poor dad! he has always been so ambitious for me—always so desirous for me to marry well. No, Stuart, not even with you to back me, could I have had the courage to go to him and tell him I had made the maddest of all matches." "Why do you say that!" queried Mr Stuart "Mrs Wakely speaks of your unfortunate wife as one of the sweetest and best of women." Again Laurence groaned, and shaded hia face with his hand. "Yes, yes—poor little Daisy! She was the dearest, simplest darling; but—but I was out of my senses when I married her; and to revetl what I had done seemed impossible just then. I did not intend to desert her; I merely decided that it would be more prudent to wait for some favourable opportunity of revealing our union, and before that came, she died. Poor little Daisy, it was a sad fate for one so young; and yet it. was best for her and best for me." "And the child?" said Wilfred disgusted at the selfishness of the speaker. [to be continued.!