CHAPTER XX.—(CONTINUED)

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2057, 12 September 1885, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XX.— (CONTINUED )

Tho next moment she had taken her little white hand from hia arm, and had entered the house, leaving him alone. " I am always offending her," he thought " Now what have I done?" He could not understand it, because he always remembered what his mother had Kaid — that her beauty waa not for him ; and of nil things, the last that he imagined was that this prond patrician was in love with him. He followed her into the ball-room; he saw her resplendent in her loveliness, her graceful figure draped in white silk and costly lace, diamonds gleaming in her dark hair and on her white breast ; he watched the play of Unso lovely features, tho light in her dark pyes, and he went mad with love and regret. Then he spoke ti her, and she affected not to hear or understand him ; she declined to dance with him. Then she dropped a beautiful ipray of stephonatis, and he picked it up ; he took it to her. " This has fallen from your bouquet, Lady Ethel," he said aloud ; then, losing all his eelf-oontrol, as her beautiful eyes were raised with their soft reproach to his, he addsd : " If you are not kinder to mo, and if you refuse to speak to me, I will shoot myself." Then in ono moment he knew that he [had done wroDg. 11 Forgive mo, Lady Ethel ; when I look at you I lose my reason— l go mad." " He does love me," she thought, with some self-approach. [ need not have been so unkind to him ; he loves me, and is afraid to say BO." When the young people were tired of dancing, Lvly Waldron proposed music. Miss Lyndale, a brunette of great pretensions, sang; Lady Leicester played a march of her own composition; then the countess requested Lady Ethel to sing. She had a marvelous voice, beautiful as herself — soft, low, dreamy, rich, and full of sweotest music. ■' I do not know that I can think of any song which pleases me just at this moment," she replied. •' Sing my favorite," cried Miss Ljndale. '• Faint heart ne'er won fair lady." Lady Ethel'i face flushed with delight— it was the very thing. She sat down to the piano and sang with greater spirit and energy than she had ever •ung before. She saw Lord Carsdale come up to the piano, and, though she never looked once in hia direction, she felt that his eyes lingered on her faoe. She maliciously added a few words to her song. The Earl of Waldroye came up her. "Lady Ethel, what is your song about., lell me?" Knowing still that those eyes were fixed on her, yet never even glancing in his direction, she replied : " I will tell yon the story, Lord Waldrove ; it is very instructive : A poor knight— rich, you understand, in everything but money — falls in love with a beautiful heiress; of course he does not tell his love, though she gives him every opportunity ; she shows him plainly enough that the loves him, but he cannot see it. She stoops from her high estate to woo him, but he thinks the whole world lies between them, and never dreams that the sweet lady lovea him." "Well," said the earl, "I am greatly interested, Lady Ethel. How does it go on ?" She looked up at him with a laughing face. " I cannot tell you the end of it," she replied. »To tell the truth, Lord Waldrove, I have not decided how it shall end. The song ii my own." "The long is very beautiful— it must end beautifully," said the earl. " I will think about it. Perhaps the Faint Heart will ride away without daring to raise his eyes to the star of his love ; then she must die broken-hearted, and he will be killed in the wars." " No," said the earl ; let us have a happier ending than that. Let the fair Lady go to him and tell him frankly that his wooing will not be in vain, then finish with the chime of marriage bells." 11 But that would not be proper, Lord Waldrove," she replied, laughingly. "None of the matrons in Mayfair would allow their daughters to sing such a song ; besides which, I am not quite sure he deserves it. If he was to blind and devoid of intelligence as not to find out that the lady loved him, he did not deserve her." " Well, you are the beat judge," said the earl, rising. I must leave it to you. For my own part, I like happy endings to all love affairs." The next moment, pale as death, with a ■trange quiver on his lips and a strange trembling in his strong frame, Lord Carsdale stood before her. When she saw him her eyes dropped; not once did she raise them to his; she toyed with the jewelled handle of her fan. " Lady Ethel," he said, in a low voice, "tell me, what does that song mean ? " "I cannot undertake to explain my songs to every one," she replied, demurely. "Of course to Lord Waldrove ono refuses nothing." "Tell me," he repeated, vehemently," what does it mean 7 " She rose from her seat and made him a most bewitching courtesy. 11 You will have plenty of time to think it over on the Hock of Gibraltar," she said, with a low laugh. " Lady Ethel, do not be oruel, do not be bard. You know—" Then he stopped abruptly. In honor, what could he say? Nothing of love, that was certain. " I know what?" she asked. " Make haste, Lord Caridale — mamma is waiting for me ; •he has been looking at me ever so long with a look that means it is time for me to be gone. Make haite— what do I know ? " " I forget. I know nothing myself, except £bftt I beliiYt I am going mad."

" Ye?," said Lady Ethol ; you are quite right— l really believe that you are." " Tell me what that song means," .he repeated. She raised her brilliant faoe to hia, bright to tho very last, and she would not let him see her pain. " If you want to know, you will have to follow me to Paris— l have no time to tell you here. Good-night and good-by, Lord Carsdale." " Good night and good-by, Lady Ethel," he repeated, mechanically. She waa gone before he could say another word, leaving him^with something that was not a prayer on hia lip 3. "Faint heart 1" he repeated to himself. " Does she think lam faint of heart ? I wish she knew one-tenth of my strength." And bo the night on which the stars had shone ao brightly set in darkness for him.