CHAPTER XLIII.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2075, 24 October 1885, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XLIII.

A TIUINO I'OHITION. '•Mia9 Dkuwent," said Lady Waldrove, "I have been Hearching every who c for ' Dawley's rooms.' You know tho book— crimson and gold ; you muat have seen it ?" " Yes, I have seen it," replied Ailio ; "it is ou tho library table." "Will you find it for mo ' Mr. Dawley ia ooming to dine with us. to morrow, and .is he dont me a copy of- his poems, I must know ("oniPtln'Df! ftbout them before he comes. It wuuld bo quite an well if you oopied nut ft few linc^ l>eiv and thcro, that I could uio as ql^q 1^ tation^ — it would look attentivo, and I onu i easily bring them in. Go now, will you." And Ailio hastened to obey the countess; she went to the library, and tho first thing that she saw was Lady Ethel, seated in one of the hrge leathern arm-chairs, whioh had been placed near the open window, and by her side Hat Lord Carndale. Ailio had opened tho door and entered the room before they saw 01 heard her; then

Lady Ethel looked up with a careless smile, wondering why Lord Carsdah should start as though suddenly detected in something wrong. r " Good-morning, Miss Darwent," ahe said, indifferently, then forgot her. Lord Carsdale bowed. He looked half in wondemt this fair, graoeful woman with the tragically beautiful face and sad, sweet eyes ; this was his wife — she at present bore hia name. She was Lidy Carsdale. Ho half rose from his seat, but the expression of wonder in Lady Ethel's face restrained him; he sat down again while the brilliant beauty continued the conversation. Alice looked on the table ; there wa3 no sign of the book; she went to the book-cases, but Dawley'a poems seemed to havo disappeared. Then Lady Ethel addressed her : "Have you lost a book, Miss Derwent >" phe inquired. Then Ailie told her what she was looking for— and why. Lord Garsdale laughed. "That is so like my mother," he said. " The only thing to be feared is that she will make the said quotations in the wrong place." J Then .Lady Ethel remembered having seen the book on a certain shelf, and there Ailie found it. She held it for a few moments in her hand deliberating. 11 1 hope," thought Lady Ethel. " that she is not going to make her extracts bere." She wag enjoying her conversation with Lord Carsdale and did not wish to bo interrupted ; while Alioe was deadly sick and faint with the bitterest pain of jealously that could burn or stab a human heart. She could not bear to see her husband's handsome head bending over the golden hair of Lady Ethel. He was hers, her husband— not Lady Ethel's ; it was hard and oruel. She could not, she would not bear it. Her faoe flushed hotly, and her lips quivered. She felt that she must cry out to him — that she must say : " Turn those beautiful eyes of yours from him ; he is not yours. Do not look at him or smile at him. Cease to try to win him — he is mine, not yours ; he can never be yours, for he has married me." The impulse was so strong that she bit her lips until the pain beoame insupportable. She saw on the face of her rival, Lady Ethel, that which she had never seen before. She knew that she ought to go, that it was an intrusion on her part to remain in the room, but she oould not tear herself away. The blood was boiling in her veins, her heart was beating fast. How could she bear it? She longed for one word from his lips, as thirsty flowers long for dew ; she longed for a word, a look, a caress ; bat she might as well have longed for the moon. While the eyes with which he looked on Lady Ethel were bright and tender, she oould not tear herself away. She sat down- at the table and opened the book ; the drew pen, and ink, and paper toward her, but how was she to make the quotations ? The letters swam before her eyes, there was a great mist before the page ; she oould only say over and over again to herself that he was her husband, and she oould not, she would not bear that he should talk in that fashion to another woman. The tender heart was torn into a thousand doubts and fears. She heard Lady Ethel say, " Yon are variable as an April morning, Lord Oarsdale. Half an hour ago you were all that was bright and pleasant ; now you are distraoted. You are speaking to me with your thoughts somewhere else." Ailie beard it, and quite involuntarily she looked at her husband, and their eyes met. He said to himielf it was intolerable, a system of espionage, and he would not submit. How could he indure the wistful, earnest gftze of those sad, sweet eyes ? " I am doing her no harm," he thought ; " why need she look like an embodied rcproaoh at me?" No ; it was not to be endured— men never endure a thing that can be oared. He knew the remedy in this case — it was his own absence from the room. Yet, although he was annoyed with her for being there, he wanted her to know that she was mistaken, that he was not talking nonsense to Lady Ethel, that they were not even flirting, as her grave look seemed to imply. Yet why need he study her ? She had no right to watch him and look reproaohfully at him. " Are you going ? " asked Lady Ethel ; " then our pleasant hour is ended." She saw his glance rest lightly Qn the bowed head ol bis young wife. She misunderstood at onoe, and believed that he did not oare to remain talking to her because Ailie was present. " Are you really going, Lord Carsdale? " she repeated ; "we have not finished our argument." There was something of impatience in the tone a* be replied : " I have promised to look at some horses this morning ; my mother is making me a present of one. I must say au revoir, Lady Ethel." He bowed as he passed Ailie, and quitted the room. The young wife breathed more freely as he went away ; true, she missed the light of his preaenoe, but she was saved the pain of seeing him talk to another. A cloud oame over the beautiful faoe of Lady Ethel ; it was simply intolerable, she thought, in her angry jealousy, that Ailie should have the power of entering the library when she liked, and of driving Lord Carsdale away. Evidently he had quitted the room beoause he did not care to speak much before his mother's companion. Still ehe was too sweet-tem-pered and too amiable to say much. She crossed the room, and looked at the book — at the blank paper. " You do not seem to have made much progress with your work," she said, quietly. "Do you find a difficulty in ohoosing the quotations ? " " Yen," replied Ailie ; I think I will take the book to my own room, and doit there." The thought that crossed Lady Ethel's mind was — why had she not done that an hour before? Then her tete-a-tete with Lord Carsdale need not have been interrupted. In Ailie's gentle heart there was just the least possible sensation of pleasure, that for onoe she had, in a mute kind of way, asserted her rights. She wrote out her quotations, made a general review of the book, quiokly found all that would be needful, then went to the countess with it. Lady Gertrude was .in the room talking to her mother, and Ailie waited until their interview was ended. " You have done what I wished, I see, Miss Derwent," said the oountess. " Now I must impress upon you not to let me forget the quotations. Begin this — ' Let my fair life,' first. I rather like that, and it will please the poet." 0 Then the ring of horse'a hoofs was heard in the oourt-yardbelow,and the oountess went to the window. A sudden, hot impulse of jealous anger prompted Ailie to follow her, and her ladyship did not resent what at another time she would have resented as a liberty. Ailie's instinot had not misled her — there was Lady Ethel, looking more beautiful than ever in her riding-habit of dark blue cloth, and Lord Oarsdale, with her, was looking to Bee if everything was safe and ready for her to mount. Then Ailie watohed her husband as he helped Lady Ethel to mount. What wan that shining in his handsome face,in his dark eyes ? What was it that refleoted in Lady Ethel's faoe made her look so unutterably happy ? "I call that a touching picture," said the oountess, languidly. " They make a very handsome pair— do they not, Miss Derwent ?" Her very lipa grew whit~ m she tried to

rai Jrmnr pome answer; IA the counting <r. ( l u )'rpd none ; whofver hnd b?en her Cuvi P a nion, she would have eaid the earay th«n '. ''The dearest wish of my heart wou ] d be gratified," she said, gently, " it I could f-cn my daar son married. I believe that I ahoul-i grow younger then, instead of older, as the time passed on. I wish hs wouid marry." What mad longing, what irresistible impulse urged her to say : " He is married, and I am his wife." The sound that came from her lips was po strange that Lady Waldrove looked round involuntarily. "I thought you Broke," sho said, seeing her companion's face white and still. " I was just saying what I would give if I could see my dear son married ; and Lady Ethel is the only woman in England I should oaro to see him marry." The unhappy young wife said something to the effect that he miiHt marry whom ho loved. The counter answered, musingly, that she believed he did love Lady Ethel. "Indepd," she continued, "I never oould imagine why he did not marry her before he went abroad. lam quite sure t>iat he liked her, and, unless I was very much mistaken, she lined him. It oeema so Btrange," she continued, plaintively; "Lady Ethel is by far the most beautiful woman I have ever seen ; she is a great heiress, too, and belongs to one of the noblest families in England. I oannot imagine why my son docs not fall in love with her." Lady Waldrove never knew what it was that made her look up so suddenly at the young face ; she saw something there that made the light wordf die from her lips. "What a strange face you have, MiaaDerwent 1" she said, quickly ; you frighten me at times with that q-iee^, ii\ed way of looking. What ia it you Bee I what are you thinking of ?" It was well that Lady Waldrove did not know the terrible passion of grief, the rage of jealous despair in that youn<? heart ; it was well that she could not read the pass 1011 01 that thrilled every nerve ; but Arne reco'er.'d herself. The worda of the \ow they had ruiae were always before her ; she would rather die than betray, the secret of her -marriage. So she looked into the face of her husband 1*)1 *) mother while she answered, slowly : " There is always a fate in thebe things. Lord Carsdale will find his at the ri^ht time." Then, as soon as she possibly could, the quitted the room, and the countess forgot all about the conversation.