Lady Marjorie's Love

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 21 April 1913, Page 2

Lady Marjorie's Love

(OUR StfcAL

By Car! Swerdna Author of "To tie Uttermost Fitting," "A Mere Ceremony," "A Fight for Honour," Etc. ■*■

CHAPTKIt XXVl',— Conl-inuofl. Tlio countess, with her sweetest smile ;r:d her slatelie.-c bow, approach; ,i i.:e dowager, still at lier ta!ile, still rd'sorbed in her letter, and still scaling ami millt-i i rii\;r. over it. The vigilant ok! woman must have suffered a lapse of memory, for onct — must have forgotten all about the little figure half hidden by the windaw curtain for she rose without further protest and withdrew with her daughter-in-law—a little, bent, witchlike figure with her high heels and her tall stick in the shadow of that buxom and magnificent presence. Not until the closing of the. library door was audible did Barrington approach the window. Marjorie's eyes were big and wide with apprehension, her hands shook :\» .she clasped them in her lap, her face was as white as a lily. '"Oh," she said, with a breathless frightened gasp, ".! thought they would never go!" "They are Loth gone." It wag the slightest little gesture in the world she ■ made —seaicely more than a movement with her eye,- —but he understood it and sat down on the cushioned ledge. "Don't be distress. Ed," he s aid kindly. "Your own eyes and oars have told you tint there -is nothing whatever to fear. No one has the lea-;t suspicion. Von must forget all about \i as fast as you can." "Yon know?" The whisper was so faint as to ho almost inaudible. "I?" Her eyes were down and she difl not see his .-anile. . "(Hi., 1 matter lass than anybody! 1 a in glad you came down this morning—it was the .best thing you could do 1 . Did you manage to sleep at all: j I'm afraid. not —you look quite exhausted still." "No, ,1 tried, but J could not. I I was so afraid of this morning!" She shivered. "Poor dhild ! There* was no need, fortunately. You mu-t try to sleep by and by. You know there is nothing to fear now." "Yes, I will," she faltered, glancing at him and glancing away. "I—l have not thanked you, Mr Harrington." She put out a little doubtful, appealing hand. She remembered that he had kissed it last night. He did not kiss it npw, but his fingers closed over it warm and fast. "To know that you are not angry is thanks enough," he said gently. "Angry? Oh. how can I be that? What should I have done if you had not been there?" 'All the bewilderment, misery, fright and humiliation of yesterday seemed to sweep over her again a&Jjhe said the words, overwhelming ! w!v She would-have clasped her hands over her face and broken into passionate sobbing but for the firm hold which he still kept upon the one .she had given him. He took the best 'way cf helping her to control her-eif when he glanced in the direction of r«he library door. "Hush, bosh!" he said, ;ir once soothingly and warninglv. "Don't forget that they amy come our. find they must ".m, se« yon cry. Thaiwill never do—it, will undo :.•>'< that we tried to do last night-. You are not fit to talk about it now. and, since it is over, why need you talk about it? Let us change the subject, shall we? Or, perhaps, von are too tired to <stay here;—yo-u have not .slept, and must, b*b worn out." "No, no!" She resolutely bit her j lips, suppressed the oncoming .sobs, j and composed h.M-clf. "j—[ w/tnt ! to say something else." She tried j to .look at him and failed. "'Yon re- j member that last night, 1 rvaid—that | if I explained.—you would understand j better? I mean—why I wont to Lon. j don." "! remember.*' He -still held her hand. He had taken it a« cold as ice; it wa.s fluttering and glowing now. She pulled it away and clapped both together in her lap. She spoke almost in a whi-s----her, her head bunging down over them. "1 want to explain how* it was. I should, never 'have run away to London, to my cousin, but for something you don't know. 1 should never even have thought of it—of nouns?. T shouVl not—,but for one thing: I hare.—.l mean—T had been engaged to him for a long time." "1 knew thai." said Harrington quietly. "Yon did?" Struck with amazement, -she looked up at him wideeyed. "You did:- Oh, then how-—" She- stopped dead ; she v,;v, scarlet to her hair. .Had she completed the sentence it would have been: "Then how dared you propose to me?" Sitebit her tongue in her eagerness to keep the words back. Only yesterday she had; said to him, "How dare. you?" and the issue of the question, could, not be called triumphant. For him, it is only doing justice to his penetration to say that he understood w'hat she would have said fully as well as she- herself did. Hut In did it with admirable readiness and tact. CHAPTER XXVI r. Gerard Barrington looked steadily at. Lady Marjorie, and did uot speak before the silence had been Jong enough to become awkward. "You naturally wonder how I knew of vour engagement to vour cousin. Mr' Bligh," he said at last. "Allow me to explain. Mrs Tring is very fond of you, and Mrs Tring is also fond of talking.' She told me. that you wevp, engaged to Mr Bligh very shortly after T first came here." "Oh, Tring told you?" She said it lamely, and found that she could «iy nothing else. She fell to pulling

{'at a, ribbon on her gown. "That is what- 1 meant yesterday when. T said that 1 understood," Harrington went on. a s composedly as (ner. "Yr>u were engaged to Mr Bligh ; you were worried and beset here; you did not know what to do; vou -may i say you lost your head a littler' And so you ran away to him to help you out of your bother. Isn't that it? You see, Ido understand completely." "Yes. yes," she cried eagerly, "of crursc that is the reason! What ether could T have? I should never have- done such a foolish, crazy thing, I should never have thought of it. unless —T mean if I had not—" SJie stopped; she wa,- in a hopeless nnidclie. She could uot tell him that there had been quite another reason for her running away. And she had nearly said: "T should never have (hv.ic> it if T had not seen you kiss .Norah!" in the pause that followed she felt that she must he blushing, and -she broke the .silence in -.sheer desperation. 'c "Mr Harrington!" "Yes." "I—T want to tell you"—she made a </re'it effort and looked at him—"T mean I want you quite to understand how 1 fee! about your —about my cousin's wife. She said last- night—T scarcely heard her then, but I remember now—that T had a great deal to forgive her. I don't think T have anything to forgive her at all —at any rate, I don't feel 1 have. -I think she- is very beautiful, very; T am sure •die is geocT; T am quite pure, although be. has behaved so badly to her. that Loftus loves her dearly. Ido liuoe , with all my heart- that he may be worthy of her —I do, indeed ! And — and that's all!" If she had spoken out in the boldest and plainest of words she could not have made him understand more clearly than .she had contrived to d" that .she did not care for Loftus Bligh. But he had found it out long ago-. His question to himself had been: "Did she know it. too?" Jn spite of himself his face clouded sternly as he answered her. Last night's revelation notwithstanding, his feeling toward Xorah's husband rem aired an intensely bitter one."' He could not make his reply other than hard and brief, and doubtful! even though it was spoken to her. Marjorie leaned forward, an anxious pucker in her forehead as die looked up at him. "J see you are angry," she. <,aid simply, "and, of course, I don't wonder , it is natural that you should be, for Xorah's sake. I must call her that, because she is my cousin, too, isn't she? Loftu s has treated her very badly, I know, but I am . sure he is ashamed of himself, as he should Tie, and so—and feo —" She found no satisfactory way out of the sent?nee, and so broke it of abruptly. "Oh, I do hope vou will be friends . with him by and by!" she said. "Do you? Then T hope I shall!" He woke out of his moodiness, or rather threw it resolutely off, and j clasped the deprecating little fingers with, which she had touched his sleeve. But this time Marjoriewould »i't let him keep her hand. She pulled it away and leaned back in her corner against the old curtain. When she spoke it was a resolute effort at ease and brightness. "Mr Harrington. I want to ask you, because I'm .so. dreadfully puzzled—oh. awfully!—who i-s Norah?" I "'Who is Norah?" he echoed. "Yes. You called her your sister hist nighi-. but i know that she can't be. really, because —that is, J mean (bat if she was you-—" Once more t.o,h sentence had. no satisfaet-iry outlet, and -he broke ol'f.blnshiug, guiltily recalling the words that she l" I '' heard, outside the window cf the oak parlour. "T mean, you,told me once that vou had no sister," she criu(lulled' (To be Continued.)