HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3200, 28 May 1909, Page 2

HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

CHAPTER XV. ''YOU BID ME TAME A TIGRESS!" It had been one of General Haydon's bad days. In his weakened state of health such perturbation of mind as he had just undergone always affected him to a serious if not dangerous degree; but it was only nurse May that knew that he had spent a sleepless night, or guessed that, when he was not brooding sorrowfully over the reticence his son had practised toward him, he was meditating as to the best way of convincing both Laurence and Ambra that their marriage was impossible, at all events as long as he was the young lady's guardian. "I could not look forward to meeting my dear old friend in heaven," he would tell himself querulously, "if I had given the child entrusted to my care to a man whom, though he be my own dearly loved son, I can never rely upon again!" In this mood the general had secluded himself in his own apartments so sore at heart, and suffering at all points, that Lady Marcia and Miss Braysby were reiused admission when they would have paid him visits of condolence, and even Ambra was dismissed with an as&urance that he was only fit to be by himself. "So go a away, my dear, and drive or walk with your friends—nurse May will take care of me. She never fails me, however much I, tax her patience." ' "Do I, general?" he was asked, in tones of soft reproach. "Indeed, I try to please you." "My child," and the old man's voice was broken with emotion, "you are the best and dearest of girls! To be able to call you my daughter in very truth was a hope it has cost me many pangs to relinquish. I though I was securing your happiness as well as mine, when in reality I was in danger of wrecking it!" "Papa, you are unjust to Laurence —believe me you are!" Ambra responded, her agitation as great as his own. "How can you speak so bitterly of a fault-a mistake committed in his early youth and long since repented'' 'But she pleaded in vain. The general kissed her flushed cheek, and pushed her gently away, saying: "Go, my dear, go! I love you for your readihess to take so kind a view of what Laurence his done; but I cannot argue such a subject with you, nor to be talked out of my own convictions " He could not tell her that which shocked him far more than the concealment of his son's marriage wa3 the heartless indifference to the fate of his child which he had evinced; and Ambra went away cherishing as much resentment at his harshness as her gentle nature was capable of feeling. The general had gone to bed exhausted with pain and sorrow Inng before the stopping of a cab at the door announced the' arrival of Laurence and his daughter, with whom Mr Stuart had parted at the Waterloo station. It had been a long and difficult journey. When Lois sti&rted up, annnouncing her intention of returning to Mrs Wakely, she would have leaped from the vehicle, reckless of danger, if she had not been seized and firmly held. "What nonsence 1 is this.?" her newly constituted guardian demanded in angry tones. "Sit still, and let me hear no more of it." "I have changed my mind," she repeated. "Granny wants me more than you do. I was a brute to think of leaving her; and you may keep your fine things! l ean and I will do without them!" it is your duty, my dear girl, to go'with your father " Wilfred Stuart was gently beginning when his friend broke in with an angry: "Pshaw! what is the use of talking of duty to a young savage who does not know the meaning of the word! She shall obey me or I will know the reason why." "I know I shall have to sit still," panted the struggling Lois, long as you grasp me go tight that I fan hardly get my .breath; but just loose nA arid I'll jump out, and hid# in the forest where, with 3)1 £o\ir ; cleverness, you'H not find mel" "Do it, then!" cried Laurence, suddenly releasing—eo suddenly' that she would have been jerked out of the vehicle but for Mr Stuart's prompt interposition. "Go your ways," he added, lighting a cigarette, and folding his arm on his chest with provoking. coolness. "I shall not trouble I myself to follow. The pollice can do that; and they shall have rr.y leave to imprison you as a vagrant, no matter where nor when they catch you." Lois had been imbued from childhood with a wholesome fear of the guardians of the peace, and could'not hear the words police and imprisonment used in connection with herself without qualing. But still she kept her stormy looks fixed on the speaker, whom she regarded as a well-dressed incarnation of all that was disagreeable. "I doirt believe you're kin to me, after all. Fathers don't put their daughters in gaol." "You can believe what you like!" he retorted; "but yuu will soon see that I am in earnest." ] "About imprisoning me? You

I - I jj BY HENRIETTA B. KUTHVEN. jj L Author of "His Second Love," " Corydon's Infatuation," C» 5 5 2" Daring Doia," "An Unlucky Legacy," a Etc., Etc. / t> „

' couldn't be so cruel as that! You daren't! Granny would —there. I dunno what granny wouldn't do to you. I say you daren't!" "Try me!" and his scornful laugh did not tend to reassure her. "Behave yourself." he added, "and you have nothing to fear; but attempt any vagaries, and by Heaven, I'll make you remember it!" Luis clenched her hands, but was not ready with a reply; and with the most galling contempt, he went on: "So this is the careful training Mrs Wakely boasts, and for which she expects to be handsomely remunerated ! She has reared you in such ignorance that you are incapable of appreciating the benefits I offer. Return to her, then, if you perfer to spend your life in pulling turnips and raking up seaweed; but make her understand that if she 'lets you set foot in her hovel again, without my express permission, not a penny of the hundred a year I promised her will she ever touch!" "It isn't her fault that I'm not willing to have you make me a lady," Lois insisted, with a troubled air. "But it is her fault that you are what you ai;e!" Laurence Haydon responded; &nd, obtuse though he called her, the withering tone and look accompanying his words must have struck home, for she shrank as far from him as she possibly could, and turned her face away, that he might not see how her lip quivered. "1 wouldn't have cared so much," she observed presently, "if I had bid Hal goodbye." "And pray who and what is Hal?" queried Laurence, frowning at her, and gloomily asking himself if it were possible that this- tomboy' had still further disgraced her lineage by listening to the coarse addresses of a forest clodhopper! "You needn't speak of him as if he were dirt!" cried Lois, in whose mind veneration for her father was not yet developed. "He's as good and civil a boy as ever lived. Everybody knows that." "Oh, he is only a boy! So much the better," Mr Haydon broke in. "Please to forget him as well as all other acquaintances Mrs Wakely allowed you to make. And when we reach my father's house, remember that you are neither to volunteer statements regarding ycu former life nor answer questions. If inquisitive people harass you with any, refer them to me." ' "I have done nothing I'm ashamed of," the girl muttered doggedly; "and everybody knows granny' 3 as honest as the day." "Call her Mrs Wakely, or nurse, if you speak of her at all; and understand, once for all, that you are tc obey all my directions implicitly. Do you know what implicitly I means?" "No, and 1 don't want to," was the sullen reply. |"TO BE CONTINI/KD.I