HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3190, 15 May 1909, Page 2

HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

CHAPTER IX.—Continued. "And you went, too? Dear me! how very odd! kind I mean. I wonder whether I can find her for you. Shall I try? .. You know my sad story, and that I have nothing to do but ignore my own griefs in helping others to bear theirs. Do let me help you, Mr Haydon." | But Laurence was talking eagerjly to Ambra, and would not hear her; and Wilfred, who dreaded her questions, took care to keep close to the general's chair for the rest of the evening. Laurence had contrived to tell the truth without betraying too much. Though dreading nothing so much as being compelled to acknowledge a hitherto unknown daughter, he could not but agree with his friend that it would be better to know precisely how he was situated. Left to himself, he would have avoided Betty Wakely; or if she grew importuate he would have bought her off, and trusted to luck for the rest. It was the way he had always acted, and why should it fail him now? Even supposing Ambra did discover by and by that he a foolish marriage in his youth, she m u§t forgive him—and assist in concealing the fact from his father. But he was ashamed to propose this to Wilfred Stuart; he knew that it would be useless, so with a heavy heart and a determination to make the best terms he could with Betty Wakely, he accompanied him to Hornchurcli. But when their researches in that pleasant little town ended in nothing, he was both vexed and disappointed. While Betty Wakely avoided him he knew not what form her vengeance might be taking. •■- "The hag has deliberately cheated you, Stuart. What can be her motive tor it? Is she holding aloft till she can ascertain in which way to do me the most serious injury?" "Donf talk as if she were a fiend, instead of a rough, blunt, but I have no doubt warm-hearted, woman!" "Oh, of com S3 you think it's your vocation, as a clergyman, to make the best of everyone!" was the pettish reply. "You forget, what I have at stake. What peace of mind can I enjoy while I know that at any moment this dreadful woman may turn up, and force her way into the presence of my father and Ambra Neville? She jnust be found, but how?" Wilfred Stuart did not hazard any suggestions; the whole affair was distasteful to him, and he could gladly have been released from any share in it I

He would only say that Betty Wakely's conduct inclined him to think that his first supposition had been correct, and that her love for her nursling made her conceal her real, address, lest the young girl should be taken away from her. But Laurence po h-poohed this, insisting that, if Daisy's child were still living, the woman who had reared her would eagerly demand repayment. "We shall have to hark back, I suppose," he said dicontentedly "Go down to her old home in Devonshire, and learn there whither she has betaken herself. It must be done cautiously—very cautiously; it will not do to let her suspect that I am arfaid of her." This speech drew upon him a warm retort: ''You make me feel ashamed of you! Do justice to your offspring, requite the woman who has protected and cherished her, and then whom will you have to fear?" Laurence muttered something between his teeth, and the friends returned to town without exchanging many words. Each was dissatisfied with the other. Wilfred Stuart cafed at the selfishness that ignored every consideration but his own riafety, and Laurence was exasperated at being plagued with aJvice he had not manliness enough to follow. He wanted Ambra for his wife. She was wealthy, beautiful, and highly connected. What could be more provoking than these phantoms from the past rising to cloud his fair prospects? But it was bad policy to quarrel with his old friend, so he cleared his brow. "I suppose l shalJ have to do as you say —ascertain precisely how I am situated, and then tell my father all;" which, by the wav, he had not the least intention of doing. "Of course, the first step will be to find Mrs Wakely. Will you go to her old home for me, Stuart, and try what you can glean there?"^ "You forget my duties," was the grave reply. "I am not the wealthy rector—only a rector's curate, and I cannot leave town whenever I please." Laurence Haydon gawed his moustache in vexation. To go to Brook was to revisit the grave of Daisy and arouse his own self-up-braidings for his fickleness. Nothing could be more unpalatable, yet how avoid it? "I suppose that 'if you will not go," he said peevishly, "I must; but not yet. I could not possibly leave my father so soon. When he has settled down I'll—yes, I'll run down to the coast;. Till then you'll be as secret as the grave?" The stopping of the train prevened a reply, especially as Laurence was

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

now impatient to hurry back to Lady Marcia's, dragging, as we have before said, his reluctant friend with him. No one saw him that evening would have believed that he thrilled with dread every time the door opened; or that while he leaned over the I chair of Ambra, evoking her smiles and blushes by his loverlike whispers, his heart was heavy with the memories of one as fair, as innnbcent, and as credulous. But he had consummate tact. .He not only wooed Ambra, but he listened to Lady Marcia, whenever she addressed him, with a flattering appearance of interest, as well as slyly teasing Miss Braysby, and was at hand in a moment if the general wanted his chair moved or the , position of his pillows altered. "I am a happy old fellow, Mr Stuart," said the gratified father. ''ln spite of my age and infirmites. I would not change places with the commander-in-chief. My son has relinquished his wandering life to make home homelke for me, and when he has given me the right to call Ambra my daughter, what more shall I have to wish for?" "Your friend Stuart is an excellent tnan ; no doubt," the general confided to his son that night; "but he is strangely cold sometimes. When I told him how I was looking 'forward to your marriage, he sighed, and looked as depressed as if I had said something unreasonable, but perhaps he considers it his duty to remind us of the uncertainty of all this here below." Wilfred Stuart's grave looks were forgotten on the morrow in the moie pleasant excitement of discussing the respective merits of certain houses in the vicinity of London, which were recommended by the agents as suitable residences for a gentleman. When Lady Marcia found that the general, or his son for him, politely declined to relieve her of hers, she concealed her disappointment and entered into the discussion. Doubtless some one else would rent her elegantly fir lished mansion, and if th« IJayrfons settled in some pretty suburb, she could plant herself upon them —at all events until she saw what hopes there were of winning a second husband Laurence made this house-hunting a pretex lor some delighful rides and drives with Ambra, whose tastes he was always careful to consult, much to the. delight of his father. The result was the securing of a very pretty through old fashioned house at Brompton—one of the very few now standing in its own grounds. ["TO BE CONTINcTED.I