HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9223, 22 June 1909, Page 2

HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

BY HENRIETTA B. SUTHVEM, Author of "His Second Love," " Cory don's Infatuation," " Darin?; Dora/' " An Unlucky Legacy," Etc., Etc.

CHATTER XXVIII.-

- Continued

"I cannot answer that; but do not cash my hope;;. 1 shall go into the array;the corps. Genera! Hay don approves of it, and only bids mo wait till a military friend of his comes to Engalnd, who will take ma into his own company." "But you will be a common soldier Hal laughed and iiung back his head. "On the contrary, I ma an to be an uncommon one!" "But you will go abroad?" she objected. . .. "And you will devote yourself to your grandfather." She shook her head. "Mo; f will go back to the forest. I shall seem nearer to you here, no matter where you may be. There I may. talk of you to the folks that knuff you. In London I daren't breathe your name lest what Nurse May prophesies should come to pass, and I shall have the misery of knowing I've spoiled your prospects/' Hal meditated awhile, and there was a pained look in his eyes when he raised them to Lois, who was anxiously watchiiihg him. "If Nurse May is right, and I believe she is, it is I who ought to ba careful, not you. While I am only the general's hired servant, I wrong his trust in me whenever I forget that you are r.o longer my old playfellow, but a young lady and his granddaughter. These are the last words you aud I must speak together till 1 can go boldly and say to him, 'I have loved Loi3 ever since we were children. Will you give her to me a3 my wife?' "

"But if that time should never come?" she murmured, almost afraid to believe that such happiness could ever be hers. "It must—it shall, unless your faith is weaker than mine, and you give yourself to another." "I will never do that—never!" and she held out both her hands with a want of caution that would have unseated her but tor Hal's promptitude. This was neither the place or the moment for loverlike carresse?. One long, steadfast look into eacli other's eyes, and Lois submitted to have the head of her mare turned round. She had become strangely docil?; her old comrade's will was her law, and she rode back toward London side by side with Hal, fluttering wilh joy as she- recalled all he had siid to her, though wondering, too, in new-Lorn humility, how he could love one so stupid ar.d ignorant as herself.

£ He, on the other hand was proud of his conquest. With truer discernment than Laurence Haydon possessed. he saw into what a noble woman the untutored Lois would yet develop, and he was not afraid to trust his happiness in her keeping. That evening, at the feet of the genera], Lois sobbed out a confession of which only he and Nurse May were auditors. She had been questioned, and lectured, and threatened by L«»rence, who had heard of her escqpade from Miss Braysby, and had been dumb to all his sarcasms; but now she spoke freely. "I was going to leave you, grandfather. The temptation cams over me, and I could not resict it. I intended to have gone back to the forest and hidden where you'd never find me, and been once more coarse, brutalised, and a savage, as my father calls me."

"My child, have I been unkind to you that you meditated this?" she was asked.

"No, no; I love you dearly—dearly'—and I will not attempt it again. Hal Dartford brought me back, and, though it is quite decided that he and I must not even speak to each other for years to come, I have promised to be advised by him in everything. You shall not have to complain of me any longer; I will curb my temper; I will learn all you bid me; I will try to be sweet and gentle like Ambra, thoueh it does seem impossible that I can ever be like her! But you'll try to make me different from what I am now, won't you?"

The general looked perplexed, for she talked so rapidly and oddly that Jie could not always comprehend her meaning. But there were tears tolling cbwn her cheeks as she looked up at him and pleaded for the help she needed. The soul of the woman within her had awakened, and she not only regretted her deficiencies, but was eager to risa to better things. He kissed and consoled her, and cheered her with a promise that he would do whatever she wished; and, though somewhat startled when he learned that the height of her aspirations was to become as clever as Hal Dartford, he had been so astonished and pleased with his new attendant that he could not find it in his heart to a word to his disparagement. It was Nurse May who brooded long into the night over Lois' admissions. "1 knew she loved him," thus ran her meditations, "and I saw that, although the childish fancy might bring her nothng but suffering, i,t would do her no harm; but he loves her, too, and wiile I doubt whether any man has constancy enough to be true in the face of such opposition as he would haveSto encounter —I would

CHAPTER XXIX,

GOVERNESS AND PUPIL.

spare him the trial if I could. What shall I do —part them? Even to such frank, unspotted natures as theirs love is but another name for sorrow, and were best avoided. Or shall I let things take their course? The world will soon harden them, and teach them by the lips of Laurence Haydon to be as heartless and selfish as he i 3' Or what if I were to deliver them over to his tender mercies?" A word would do it, '"she told herself. A hint that Mis 3 Haydon was encoui'aigng the addresses of one of her grandfather's servants would make him furious, arid he would find ways and means of separating them forever. "Shall Ido this, or let him 'find his;puiiishment It was an enigmatcal query, and, though Nurse May slept on it, her haggard looks in the morning showed that she had not yet arrived at a satisfactory anwser.

Not a little to Miss Braysby's surprise, and perhaps vexation, the pupil who had hither to scouted her feeble efforst to impart a few accomplishments suddenly veered round and became eager mfor information. Neither would she be put off with lessons to be learned by rote. She insisted upon knowing the why? and wherefore of every, subject placed before her. She rose at an early hour to prepare sums and themes, bringing them to Miss Braysby—who francied herself delicate, and breakfasted in bed—long before that lady cared to be disturbed. Or Lois, perplexed with some difficult exercise would burst in upon her while those mysteries of her toilet were being celebrated at which r.o one was allowed to be present. What could be more aggravating to a mature maiden than to be interrupted when laying a delicate bloom on her fair cheek, and for no more important reason than to inquire the meaning of a long word, or to be told on what map to look for a certain range of mountains? Or, worse still, why should she begin at the beginning, like a child at school, and puzzle with her questions the instructress who could not persuade her to believe that the kind of education she required would proceed more rapidly at a theatre or a concert room? They were continually at variance respecting Lois' new-horn desire to improve herself, and but too frequently the girl would turn in despair to Nurse May who was never too busy to explain what she wanted to understand, or unkind enough to sneer at her for the ignorance she now felt keenly enough. | TO BE CONTINUED.!