When Love Rules The Heart.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9579, 28 August 1909, Page 2

When Love Rules The Heart.

CHAPTER XXV.—Continued

A sob prevented further words, and Armitage walked past him. There was a deep silence iti the great rooms and corridors.

He strode up the wide oak staircase, and paused at Helen's door. He turned the handle gently. The doctor anda nurse were in the room. The doctor bowed, and glanced at him keenly and curiously: then he and the nurse went silently away. The door closed behind them, and Armitage stole on tipton toward the bed, with its covering of white silk and its hangings ot priceless tapestry. A slender figure was faintly oulined there, and a sob hurst from him. "Helen, my littl° sweetheart!" He dropped down upon knees, and lelt that a soft, \yarm hand was caressing his face, his hair. "Duncan, my darling, I was sure that you would fly to me when you knew!" xhe sweet face was turned shyly toward him, • the blue eyes were misty with tears, happy tears. "They have told you that I atn dying, Duncan. Are you very sorry?" "Helen, Helen —1 cannot bear it!" He kissed the fair face passionately. "At first it was terrible - I could not realise it! I had been so well, so strong a few minutes before, and then I fell and could not rise again ! I felt no pain —i was helpless. It seomeci absurd! But Heaven knows what is best for us all, Duncan, and I can die happy with you beside me. And we- shall be united again in a brighter, better world!" She blushed and averted her face.

"i cannot bear it!" he said again. "You do not look ill, ray little sweetheart! It is ail a mistake. You must not—shall not dial" "I am in good hands, dear. My faith is in Heaven, and in you. Do you not see that I am utterly helpless? My spine is injured. It is only a question of time. Do not iook at me, Dunca", until I hav« told you what f want you to du. It seemed so easy to ask of you until you were hpre knetling beside me. Now I falter and trcmlilv, though I know that it is foolish. They wanted to take me home to die—my dear father and mother and Cecl —but I preferred to die here. This would have been my home in a little while." ' A wistful light shone in her eyes. Duncan Armitage hid his face, "Oh. my darling. I have had such beautiful dreams of our future together! We love each other as few people know how to love. The cup is snatched from our lips for a little while—only a little while." She was silent, and he waited tremblingly. Oh, traitor that he was! "I am listening, Helen. No matter what request you make, my promise is given." "I know it, my darling, and ycur words make me bolder.Her voice sank almost to a whisper. "Duncan, my heart has been yours since I was quite a child—our souls are already one. I want to be married before I die. I want to hear the chiming of my own wedding-bells. I want to hear you call me by the sweet and holy name of wife." Armitage aid not speak. He shuddered. His brow was damp. "You are not angry with me, darling? You do not think that my wish is unmaidenly? There can surely be no wrong in it! Oh, do not say that! I have been so happy in the belief that it would make you so, too!"

She was terrified for the moment. He pressed her hand, choking back a sob. He had a brief vision of Zilla. "Helen, my little sweetheart, if it will please you " he began, but she interrupted him. "Please me, dear! What a hateful word. I shall feel the most blessed of women! My life will then seem almost complete. And we shall have several happy days together—my husband and I." Her face flushed again. "Does it not seem strange? And what a pity that I cannot live for many years to brighten mv dar« ling's life! But I shall be waiting for you, dear, beyond the dark river, where there is eternal light." "We will be married at once, Helen." Armitage whispered, "if it will make jou happy; then I shall be happy indeed." ' "You will speak to papa about it, and to Lord Rainhill? I have told Cecil and Florence. Thev both ljoked so grave that I laughed. They do not know my darling as 1 do." "Yes; I ttill lose no time. I think that we can have tne ceremony reformed to-morrow, or the next day at latest." At the moment the special license he had obtained for himself and Zilla was in the breast pocket of the coat he wore. He remembred it, and his seemed to grow cold. ' "And 1 shall hear the ringing of my own wedding-bells," murmured Helen. Her hands were clasped together, her facre became enraptured. "Yes; .1 will arrange all that, dear little swetheart!"

It see<ned a gruesome thing to do. Within a week the same beils would be tolling for the dead! The rain was falling heavily now. The wind came in wild gusts, and roared in the chimney. The lightnine played upon the wall. Armitage rose to draw the curtains. "Don't leave me, Duncan!" the girl called faintly. "No, dear." He sat .by the bedside, and held one of her hands agan.' She beg~ed him to kiss her lips, and he obeyed.

* BY OWEN MASTERS. J 1 1 (, Author of "Captain Emlyn's Daughter," "The Woman (, ? Wins," "Tlie Heir of Avisford," "One linpas- 5 *} sioned Hour," Etc., Etc. 7

An ineffable joy shone in her irradiated her face.

} "I read a wonderfully beautitul j story yesterday, my darling—a true 1 story—the story if a woman's great love and constancy. I likened her great love to mine—to ours. Since he died at the age of ninety years, and for seventy years she had been waiting for an absent lover, I should have waited with unfaltering faith. This woman's lover was a sailor, and seventy years since the sweethearts parted—the man to brave the seas, the woman to wait, to hope, to love. For seventy years she had placed a light in her windows at night; but her lover never returned. Night after night that light glimmered at the casement. Day by day, week by week, month by month, that nightly duty of the setting of the light grew from a tender signaling of love to an anguish of deferred hope, to a pathetic token of prayer, to an appeal sent over the waters and up to Heaven. At first it was Hero once again, Sestos and Abydos sweetly telegraphing to each other; Leander out of sight indeed of the lamp upon the turret, but surely seeing it nightly, and nightly steering his bark toward that gleaming casement overlooking the sea. He knew the bearings without the compass, because his fond heart was the compass, and she his faithful and changeless pole-star." "What then?" asked Armitage. "He,never came," murmured Helen. "Perhaps he was faithless." "Ah, no! Would you have been faithless to our troth? Never, never! Do not spoil the beautiful picture A few days since the woman died—the beacon shines no more. The true hearts will be reunited above." Her face was wet with tears. She clung convulsively to Duncan's hand. "I shall wait for you, darling, but my watch will ne kept at one of heaven's windows."

Then her eyes brightened. and she talked almost joyously. He listened with bowed head, dazed. "You are tired, and 1 am so thoughtless! You are just home from a long journey, and are bothered by n,any worries, which you must share with me soon. Leave me now, and come again, when yuu are rested. No, darling, 1 insist! Kias me before you go." She smiled up at him almost saucily. It seemed impossible that death >was fo near. A bitter sigh passed his lips. He caressed her fondly, passionately, then turned to leave the room. Helen began to sing in a low, sweet voice a beautiful and pathetic little love-ballad. Armitage paused outside the door and listened until the song was finished. Then he stole away At the foot of the staird the butler came forward.

| TO BE CONTINUED."!