PRIMROSE DELORAINE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10307, 7 August 1911, Page 2

PRIMROSE DELORAINE

OUR SERIAL.

THE MISER'S DAUCHTER.

By MAISIE PENDENNIS. Author of "Sir Reginald's WHm," "The Forgotten Heir," "RivaJ Beauti»»,' 'etc.

CHAPTER XXl.—Continued

Together they two had wandered j through the stately, spacious rooms, Primrose holding her breath in a sort of awe. It was the first time that she had been all over the castle, and the splendour and beauty of it all sank deep into her sensitive soul. The wonderful old drawing room, with its quaint Sheraton furniture of fabulous value, its treasures of delicate, priceles china, that would have sent an art collector raving mad with envy, its lovely colouring, its rich velvet pile carpets, into which her littlo feet sank without a sound. The world-famed palm house, where the waving palms that stood more than thirty feet high, surrounded by a tangie of "smaller tropical shrubs and plants, and tho wealth of gorgeous tinted blossoms, and the great white Datura lillies that weighted the air with their strange, intoxicating perfume, made her think of an enchanted Eastern garden. The grand old hall, with its ancient blackened-.-armour-.that the dead and gono Eversdenes had worn 1 through the Crusades,. its oak-panelled walls and stained glass windows, its sombre hanging tapestries, and trophies of war and tho ohase; its splendid skins strewing tho splendid oak floor, skins j of the animals—leoparps, 'lions, bears, | panthers, tigers, and others —that the ; present Lord Eversdene had shot in the course of his ramblings away from civilisation. Its vast fire£place, where great ferocious-looking... bronze lions stood on guard at each end. Then there were the servants, faithful retainers of the great Eversdene family, most of whom had grown gray in their service—the stately, butler, imposing housekeeper, and a host of others. , Then last of all after the bewildering number of other rooms, libraries morning and dining rooms, tea and music rooms, boudoirs, billiard-rooms, and all the rest, there came the worldrenowned picture galleries, lined and crammed with a priceless collection of paintings. All tho dead and gone Eversdenes "wero to be found there among the other works of art, portrayed by Lely, Kneller, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Leighton, and many more —a handsome race, one and all, but none of them ko handj some as tho present earl. There was a portrait of him too, i painted by Sargent a few years ago, standing by the side of a gray v.are, —the mare who had afterwards gone out to Australia with him, and Income Captain Jack's favourite mount —with one strong baud lying caressingly on her neok, his dark head thrown a little back, the dare-devil beauty of his strong, brown face thrown into bold relief by a sombre background. Primrose had lingered long before the picture, dwelling on it with soft, dreaming eyes, her heart thrilling with strange,' pasionate emotion. She was thinking of it still as she stood in the garden that was like an oldworld dream, and her pulses quivered and throbbed as she'glanced up at the living'reality by her side. The wild-pink colour deepened tt> hot crimI son in her cheeks, arid Lord Eversdene I looked down at herswiftly. j "Dreaming, sweet?" he asked lazily. "Tell me your dreams, my Primrose." "I was just thinking how very happy I am," she said, very softly and. tenderly, beneath her breath. "I think I never knew before half how sweet life could be. Sometimes I wonder what I have done to deserve such happiness, such, glorious, golden happiness. I think I must be living in fairyland, and' oh! my dear one, will the fairyland last? It will never fade away, will it? Tellme it never will, Jack." She let the yellow daffodils that she. held fall from her loose clasp, and drift like a mist of sunshine down the whiteness of her gown; and stretched out her hands to him, with a little, half-glad, half-frightened laugh. And Lord Eversdene crushed them in his own, those soft, sweet hands. Then he gathered the slender fignra. into 'jihe passion of his arms. v ."Never'this side eternity,".,ho murmured, with reckless tenderness, and laid: his/fape down caressingly on her my my dear,' 1 t roamed all over the world before I found you; and now you are mine. All mine, and our fairyland will be bur own forever. . "Are you happy?" he asked. "My darling, is it true ? True that my love has power to make life golden for my little girl. Tell me that again, heart's love. The gods have been good to us, .haven't they, to give us such a paradise of love, and soon we will live in the paradise always. Just we two, with the dream of our love between us. His eyes were all ablaze as he tilted her head back against his shoulder, and kissed her warm, white throat and then her 1 soft lips, gently and tenderly, yet with a mad, hot, caressing passion that sent a swift fire through all her veins. "We.are happy now,' he added} in a passion-laden underbreath; "but there is v a seventh heaven of happiness, little love. A;happiness that ' will only come, to usHvhen you are all my own—my'wife.!'' His strong arms tightened , their close, tender pressure, and Primrose turned her faoe against his shoulder, trembling and quivering from head to foot. His words had stirred all the pure passion of her soul, making of life a lovely Eden, full of a rose-fair dream from which there would be no

awakening. His wife! How the words thrilled Primrose. His wife! His own! To bo bound by tho sweetest, most sacred tie in all tho world. The very thought thrilled her with all the maVvel-pasdon of the ages, and made her lose herself in a maze of throbbing joy. And to the man, too, there had come 0 great, mighty peace, for he know ho had steered the bark of his life—his wild, reckless life —into the safe harbour of a.woman's tender arms. He had put the past behind him forever, ho told himself; put the old life behind him forever. He woul dnever know it again. The old, wild love of roving, tho old dare-devil longing for a new sensation, *were dead, stilled by the magic charm of love. The past would never trouble him any more. With his own hand he had locked the door and flung away the key. So ho mused, but the Fates, reading 'his unspoken thoughts, laughed. They knew that no man can put the past behind him at will; knew that the past never dies, 'and that, for every key there is a duplicate. \ "Only a month now," Captain Jack whispered. "Only four short weeks, and then you. will he my own, sweetheart, and life will give me all it has of good to give." Ho stopped, and stroke dher sunny hair with strong, tender fingers. "Oh, my lady," he went on, half whimsically, half passionately, "I wonder if you will ever know all you have made of life for me. Man's heart is a queer rubbish heap of emotions at best, not worthy of a woman's accepting. And yet, ah, heart's love, you have won all the best of me, all the good that is in me. I love you utterly, 4 little girl; love you beyond all measure, all reason. Since I first saw you it seems to me as though the world had stopped for me, and there has been nothing but thi sone thought of you. My very soul is yours now and forever, my life,-my heart." "As mine is yours," Primrose answered back, with sweet, girlish sur--1 render, her arms clinging soft and warm about his neck, her soft lips I pressed to his. "Oh, my dear one, my | beloved. Life can never bo long enough l for me to tell you of all the love that I have for you." Her purple eyes flashed into his, sweet with the mystery of love and womanhood, tender with a tenderness that set his soul on fiie, as he held i her close to his heart. What did anyI thing matter, he asked himself, while (her arms clasped his, her lips touched i his? Let the world go. Life was heaven. Life was a dream.

And while, down at beautiful Eversdene Court, those two who loved were dreaming their dreams, undisturbed by fears or forebodings, away in busy, bustling, crowded London a man stood with an open letter- in his hand, a smile on his lips, a light of triumph in his keen eyes. The Fates had played into has hand at last. The game was. his.

CHAPTER XXI.

HER ANSWER

Lord Eversdene's fastest and favourite motor car was panting and throbbing at the door of his house in Park Lane, and Lord Eversdene himself was in the hall giving a few final directions to the butler as he drew on liis motor gloves. He had just been driving with Primrose and Mrs Vivian in the park, and they had dropped him at his own house and driven on to Pont Street; and he was now going to motor down to Ever sdene Castle, in answer to a business letter from his estate agent. Through the open door he could see Hyde Park, a vista of beauty, with all the fresh, tender'foliage untouched by the dust that would darken it later on; the great flower beds ablaze with spring flowers —daffodils, hyacinths, narcissus, and a lot of others delicately in the soft spring breeze, flaunting gaily in the spring sunshine. It was very beautiful, 'he thought; but all the world seemed beaiitifal to him then. "It's a funny old worul," he said to himself, thinking aloud, after the habit of . Jack. ''b/ut it is a world worth living in." He smiled as he went down the broad steps, followed by a footman in the green-and-gold Eversdene livery, carrying a Gladstone bag and some rugs, then paused as a taxicab suddenly dashed up. '. The driver flung open the door, and a lady got out and came quickly towards him, and he realised, in surprise, that it was Mrs Vivian. "Why, Mrs Vivian," he said, as he went to meet her, "has anything happened. If you had been a moment later you wouldn't have caught me. I was just starting for Eversdene." Mrs Vivain laughed rather breathlessly. "I want to talk to you," she said, "let me come in for a minute." She went into 'the'ikrase by his side, trailing her dainty mauve, draperies up the white steps, peeping. at him from beneaih.the shade of her ( ed, pac r wreathed hat, as he led, her across the rtistically appointed hall and into one of the great rooms leading off it. She looked very charming, he could not help thinking to himself. It was really a pity she should ever forget herself as she sometimes did. (To be Continued).