"Mrs Lorrimer's Folly."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 5 June 1913, Page 2

"Mrs Lorrimer's Folly."

(OuR SifciAl

By Charlotte M. Staaiey. Author of "Edna's Vow," "His 0 ountry Cousin," "How an Oath Was Kept," "A Wo man Wronged."

CHAPTER XXH.-rOontinued. Bertha felt and showed some e*nban" Israeli-. "It isn't that," she said. "I don't care for Lady Holme's title. Indeed, if sho had never borne it, but was plain Mrs" —she made a sudden pa/uae —"plain Mrs Anything, I should like her all the better. But she seems to have won your heart," she added, with a pang <xf jealousy. "How long have you been with her this evening?" Will's merry laoigh rang out .again, and he came and put his fond arms round Bertha.

"Manmie's jealous," said he amusedly. "But, mammie, dear, don't waste a thought on. Lady Holme. John Brown i s the rival you've got to look after, for, while I didn't talk' longer than ten minutes to her, I've been with him ever since sundown." As he said these words merrily enough, the' memory- of John JJrown'p story sobered his boyish gaiety, axi'd something of the sympathetic pain which he had felt while listening to it weighed upon his heart. He drew up a chair, and sat down by Bertha's sitle. They were alone, for Dick Saville had gone to Boston upon, .some 'business, and' would nojfc' .return for .another" hour, . ' ..So , with "unusual gravity, began his tale. "Mother, John. Brown told a long story to-night—the saddest that I ever heard —and he asked me to repeat it all to you, and ask your serious advice updn. it." And then he began to repeat it to her, with a degree of accuracy and sympathetic feeling that showed how deeply it had impressed himself, the story of the shipwrecked sailor so long given up for lost. And Bertha listened with a shocked, incredulous face which, pale in the beginning of the narrative, gradually whitened to the I very hue of death as she heard and J understood the end of it. "For me to decide —for me to decide!" she muttered, in her first bewilderment., "Alas I what choice have I ? Does not every law of God j and nature deniand that the father j shall have his own again ?" - *| And then a great wave of pity and : loving compassion swept over her for j Fred—poor Fred! go unfortunate, so ! unhappy, and suffering silently so long! "I could, giye him up' to liim almost !without a murmur," she thought looking at her idolised "boy" with, a gaze whose wild distress alarmed him vaguely. "I might even, when cony inced it was my duty,, have told the truth to her. Bilt with both claiming him, how shall I decide? And either way, I must lose him. Oh," God help us'all!"

And to Will's great distress, she burst into a flood of passionate team.

They relieved and calmed her. She had been, overwrought that day, first by,her talk with Will, next by her interview with Lady Holme, and now by this most s'trange intelligence. She understood it thoroughly; she never doubted thai; iJohn Brown was Fred himself, and tie ;shock was almost overwhelming; but after she had tyept a little while, shp.recovered, her self-possession and smiled at WUl's alarob ' "The story touched nie so," she told him, "and I have been nervous all day. You know how I 'love you, my darling; how God sent you to comfort me when He took my first baby away, and I think my heart would break if ever your affections were weaned away from me. Lady Holme i 8 influential and rich. and she has taken a liking to you. Naturally enough," she added, with a pang of conscience, "I say) nothing against it. God forbid I should stand between you two. But don't let her, or any one, wean your love fropi.me, my darling!" , How tenderly" he soothed and re- , assured her!

"Ag if anybody could estrange me from yofl, my mother !" lie cried, little thinking how that name of "mother" wounded her, for. she began .to realise that Lillian had not forgotten or forsaken her child, and in acknowledging that, she acknowledged also the real mother's claim and right to him. ' "Whatever other loves or ties my future life may know, you will always be .my own dear mammie," Will said lovingly, and she kissed him and allowed herself to be comforted. "I'll see Mr Brown very soon and talk with him about his friend's sad story," she said, as Will bade Aer good-night. "Very soon, dear.r Her resolution was takenr—to 'go to him the first-thing in and with this plirpose she had obtained from Will the address. When Dick Saville came home, and she told him all tliat had happened during hLs absence, he encouraged her in this:

"No time should be lost," he said warmly. "I'd go to him myself lxnight, only I think you had best be the first to welcome him. And welcome he shall be —poor, long-lost Fred! As for weaning the boy's love away—why, you silly woman! do you think the ties of a lifelong love are so easily broken ? Our Will is made of better stuff than that; if he wais not, his affection wouldn't be much worth the holding.''

And- this sensible view of the matter consoled her wonderfully. Her good husband comforted and encouraged her, too, in the more difficult question of Lillian's part in the situation.

'lf she believed him dead, as we all did, she is free from blame," he decided; "And if, as she told yon to-day, she married this *nan to obtain means to search for her x-hild, she i s much to be pitied. But let the outcome be what it may, the responsibility is not with us, Bertha. f)o you get up in the morning early and

( away to Fred, and let him, and him alone, decide it!" They were all early risers at Saville's Hotel, but on the next morning Bertha outstripped the others. She was away, hurrying half a mile along the beach, in the direction of Ned Jones, the fisherman's cottage, . before Will had raised his head from hi« pillow. I He soon came downstairs, however, and quickly missed her. "Where's mother " he demanded of Dick. "Are we going to have breakfast without her?" ■ Dick Saville looked'earnestly at him for a moment, then vacted upon a j sudden resolution. ' "She has gone to see the man you call John Brown," he said quietly; then, answering the, boy's look of ; surprise: "We have reason to think that that is not his name, Will; that it wag his own story ho told you last nicht. In short, we feel soire that he .will prove to be the cousin we.baYe,so long mourned as dead—Fred—Fred Lorrimer." At that name the boy sprang up with a cry. Lady Holme's strange question flashed on his memory — "Child, is your name Fred Lorrimer?" A light seemed breaking in ujxph him. He gazed at Dick Saville in bewilderment. ; . • , "But-the shipwrecked sailor had a wife and child," he faltered, "while this cousin—" 1 "Had a wife and child," said Dick gently—"an infant son whom, when he started on that fatal voyage, he loft in mv care." "And who died?" Will gasped incoherently; His eyes were fixed on Dick's; he was deadly pale. "Oh, father, say he died!" •"■"Who lived." said Dick gently but firmly—!-"lived to take the place of our little dead son and be a comfort t-o my wife and me. Why, Will!" as the boy, with a B trange ciy of emotion, threw himself into his arms. "Keep up; don't give way so! You have got two fathers, instead of only one, if all proves as we hope. You don't lose me. Oh, no! a life's love is not so easily , untied—and no son was ever dearer!" Then, when the boy was calmer, he told him of his father's sufferings, and, the first shock of the intelligence being past, nature pleaded for the real parent with the child. Very soon Will was quite reconciled to what he had heard, and looked forward..delightedly •to finding a father in the person of hi s beloved Mr Brown. ?Tt> be Contiaaed.)