All Rights Reserved.. Dead Love Has Chains. By M, E BRADDON,

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 72, 24 March 1906, Page 11

All Rights Reserved.. Dead Love Has Chains. By M, E BRADDON,

! '(Author of "Lady Audley's Secret/ "A Lost Eden,"' etc.)

CHAPTER I. ON THE HIGH SEAS. ja_y Mary Hading was going back ;. England, after a winter in Ceylon. cje was too idle, too utterly without _b-tioi_s or views, to be free from chronic illness. She suffered from a _ie_cy to asthma, in a very mild form, always talked of by herself and ier friends as her asthma : as if it were -rare a nd peculiar malady, when there -ere dressmakers' assistants and fac__rr (jfrls in London reckoned by thouwho were afflicted in the same __nner, and who took the thing as a gutter of course, just an occasional s.ortness of breath that made hard york and lon_r hours a shade more irkyaie. In Whitechapel and Bermondhv it was everybody's asthmas, occafrequent visits to the Dispenser: in Hertford-street, Mayfair, it was Ta'dv Mary Harling's asthma -and a acme for fashionable physicians to rvnatiate upon with nnctious solicitude, 3 editating, or seeming to meditate, profoundly, before they advised the precise spot upon This globe that would ; _e best for their cherished patient in jhe coming winter. Last year it had fceen Assouan, and the year before it Bad been Cairo, and the year before tsat >?f- Moritz. and before that Meian. The last winter had been spent in C.v]on.' and Lady Mary was goinsr 'some bored to death with all that she lad seen and done, the gardens, t.m•ples. palaces, bazaars, people—most of ail. the white people she knew in England—knowing that there was more coredom waiting for hey—the impalp- __._ invisible black devil of ennui in to*vH and country, in her too spacious ioiises in Hertford-street, in her fine eld Georgian mansion in Hampshire, 03! the edge of the New Forest.

Xeedless to say that Lady Alary had one of the best i a bins, midships, on the upper deck of the. Electra. one of She finest steamers recently built by the most renowned company trafficking in passengers only between the Thames and the Hoogly. It was a cabin for ibiee, adapted for one. and in a s—ia llQ r t-abm on the same expensive deck she had her maid and her souftrc douleur, a dowerless kinswoman of six-and-tenty. whom she had taken to herself ekht years before, when the girl was young and pretty, and when her friends ..oped that in such distinguished sur-ro'andii-gs she might make a comfortoHe, or even a brilliant marriage. The poor child's chances in the matrimonial market were blighted by a terrible sorrow that came upon Lady Mary in the second year of Daisy Meredith's service. aid that put a sudden end to all forejatherings of the young and lively in Seriford-street, or at Cranford Park. As tears wore on Lady Mary had seen sore society: but she seemed to have __ an aversion to young people, and liter had any of them about her.

"I can't amuse them, and they don't Else me."' she said, when her inti___s accused her of cultivating dul-

_he let the Cranford shooting, and gave the money to Bournemouth Hospital. Her friends were all of them past forty, some grave and learned. _ome frivolous and pleasure-loving, but tone young. From young men in particular she shrank with a kind of disgust. She could better put up with girls. This was a consequence of the great grief that had come upon her -suddenly when Daisy Meredith was nineteen.

Daisy at twenty-six was resigned to a life of spinsterhood, and uot even know that she was still pretty. She "s_i sincerely attached to her friend £_d protectress, who had taken her -Tom a shabby home in an interminable road in the dismal north of London. and from her place as buffer between a father and mother, who quarrelled -Cf-Santly when they were together. and who occasionally separated, but always made tbe mistake of coming togs.her again. The life in Hertfordsreet was elysium after the life in -oiloway; and Daisy was able to be cf more use to her' mother by little gats out ot her handsome allowance than ever she had been as buffer. The sliowance was called pocket money. aid everybody knew her as a useful Basin, and not a salaried companion. Somewhere in the hull of tbe ship there was a footman, whose most arduous duties during the voyage were Smited to the careful placing of her deck chair, rugs, and sun-urn-biellas, on the poop deck.' generally as to wind and sun till corrected hme of the ship's officeVs, and in ■leteluEg and carrying books and magaan.s and work bags "at Miss Meredith's oidi—g. Like roost women of large ffi e_> and no ambitions. Lady Mary was 13 exquisite needle-woman, deeply in-

serted in every revival of old art in PWorial embroidery. Her latest task a panel for a screen, a landscape of Mitch formality, with a row of poplars "ffla difficult raised stitch, every tree re■pin. months of patient toil. The panel. c veiled in tissue paper, was stretchca a frame, and to establish this i-on-for Lady Mary's labour was a "°ra of time. It gave the cousin and ffiaid and footman -omething to do every morning, either on the open deck or in ¥ c ladies' drawin?- room, and to re«~bli_ a it in her ladyship's cabin after '©cheoit-

kdy llarv had acknowledged to eight *?_ forty for the last three year*, but , believed, from the evidence of his™*S> to be older. She had been seventeen manh Wid ? w " and W ' lS still handsome liS t0 Tm S no shame upon handsome jt Dr ess was a subject to which 8 gave serious thought, and she conV_V hendf She loved ■gg** colour.; in her houses, in her

ToM f ather be garish than dull." she jfipeople. 'pitei "^ eat 50nwv - the unutterable "irk Six years a '? o ' nad s P r ead so *6atsh ?f ]l ° 7er the life of the Ileart ' *a est * been fo^t '' ?< - , ■ l 0 take pleasure 7 thin?s to inferest me * -* s__JH. _ am alwa ys bored, but 1 make fight against boredom."' <fetr - a membe r of the Dante So"Cro__=fli to ° k a keen deil ?"t in their <_V -- ? 5, and rea d a little Dante every i l^v PB -_?3 r as her Bi °l e - She took of edlth t0 all the best concerts j '■• t^*_ eeaS ? 1 ' to hear all th e old fafeao 0 r^ e ail tb - e nw prodigies on I 0 f or you, i{ it sometimes » £aid ' so st be seen "W_fT Meredith di <i not eat the %oqW 3Xh ali)eit no layer had come '-'~.' " <■ • _

The double cabin that Daisy shared with Margot, the devoted Provencal maid, was near the stern. Lady Mary's neighbours on one side were a Colonel and his wife, and on the other side there was a two berth cabin occupied by a young lady from Calcutta with her maid, a young lady who was too ill or too unhappy to app?ar in public, and whom Lady Mary had not seen. She had encountered the maid several times in the corridor, a middle-aged woman, sour-visag _ and severe. "I'm afraid your young lady is very ill,*' she said to the maid one morning. "I heard her sobbing and moaning last night.'" The woman pinched her lips, and answered curtly. "Hysterical." She pushed past Lady Mary, and disappeared in the cabin. "What a brutish person to have charge of a sick girl," thought Lady Mary-, full of pity for the distressed fellow creature whose low moaning, broken now- and then by a suppressed sob. had kept her awake betwa?n two and three o'clock in the morning. They were in th.? stifling heat of the Red Sea, and every port hole -wag open, and sounds were audible from cabin to cabin.

The moaning sound was in the hot heavy air when Lady Mary fell asleep, and she heard it again when she awoke at six o'clock. After that there .vas only silence in the girl"s cabin.—and no sound of speech all the morning, though Lady Mary could hear the door opening and shutting, the maid going in and out, the clinking o£ cup and spoon when the girl was taking her breakfast. No speech.

She thought much of this lonely girl, after her encounter with the 'crossgrained atteudant. Girls are not hystrical for nothing. The moaning and sobbing in the silent night hours could only uiean mental distress. What was the sorrow that watched with her in those dreary night- hours. Was it grief at being parted from a lover: or mourning for some near and dear one lately lost; father, mother, sister, brother?" And to be solitary in her sorrow, with nQ. one near her but her hard-featured, unmannerly maid! Lady Mary's heart went out to the unknown girl in her loneliness, a heart full of pity and yearning. "I must do something," she thought. "I can't lie here, night after night, like a log. while that girl hugs her sorrow. Surely sympathy, soothing words from a motherly woman, might bring- her some little comfort."'

She had said no word about the lonely girl to Daisy, who was all kindness for her fellow-creature?, nor to her maid, Margot, whose exuberant Southern nature would have been quick to pity, eager to console, ii it were only by offering to retrim a hat, or devise something new in hair dressing. Lady Manfelt that those secrets of tbe night season, the sorrow with which proximity had made her acquainted, were not to be told to anyone. Something she felt she must do; and one sultry breathless day, when the maid had gone to her dinner, Lady Mary knocked gently at the door of the next cabin.

A fretful voice answered quickly, "'Come in." and then, as the fine, matronly figure, the handsome face and silver hair, appeared in the doorway. "I thought it was the stenvardess," continued the voice, rather more fretfully. "You've come into the wrong cabin."

The girl was sitting on. her sofaberth—wrapped in a loose white dressing gown, her hair coiled in a great careless knot on the top of her head, her bare feet in red slippers without heels. Lady Mary's keen vision realised every detail. She looked slovenly, forlorn, uneared for. out of health, but she was exquisitely beautiful. Her face shone in the cram pled cabin space like a light; her. form was no less exquisite. The muslin dressing gown hanging loosely over the lawn night gown revealed every line of the perfect figure; but, while the matron's eyes gazed at her in startled j admiration, the ginl snatched up a large ; soft shawl that had fallen on the floor, | and wrapped it hastily round her. "No, there is no mistake," Lady Mary said gently. "I am in the next cabin; : and knowing that you were quite aione I "I am not alone. I have my maid." I "Yse. but she is not a companion for j you. Very useful, no doubt, but no companion." "I don't want company.~ I prefer being alone—thank you." There was a pause before the last two words, which were not over-gracious. "My dear young lady, I have heard you sobbing in the night —1 can't help having ears, you know; and I should like so much to be of use. to you. T thought perhaps I might help you to i think of pleas-ant things; to put aside your grief, now and then; to take cour- . age. and to face life bravely. No life jis all sorrow." '"It is easy to say that. I daresay you have been lucky, and have never . known what trouble means. You look | like tlrat."' A woman of fifty, as perfectly dressed ' and coiffee as Lady Mary always was, .is apt to give that impression; and her J appearance certainly made a marked ' contrast to the girl's slovenly forloru- ( ness. | She had drawn her feet up on to the i sofa, and sat huddled in the big red j shawl, making herself as ungraceful a ' bundle as she could. But the lovely ksad and throat, the perfect shoulders,

the shining copper bronze of her hair, , the large hazel eyes, and red sorrowful j mouth, could not he hidden. Mary Harj ling looked at her with a sad. reproachI f ulneas.

j "I have knowu a great sorrow, a sor- : row that rwent very near t-o break my I heart," she said'quietly. "'"I beg your pardon," the girl said quietly, and then, looking at her visitor with great angry eyes, like a wild beast at hay, she said, "and in the days of !your great sorrow perhaps\you didn't much want to see people —especially strangers."

"That will do," said Lady Mary. "You must kindly pardon my intrusion, which I sincerely regret.

She had left the cabin, and shut the door, before the girl could zef&a "I

am an officious old fool," she told herself angrily, as she shut her own cabin door, a little more sharply than usual. Three minutes afterwards there came an impetuous knock on the panel. "Come in," said Lady Mary.

The door opened quickly, and the girl appeared, the red shawl skewered found her with a gold safety pin. and her long white dressing gown trailing on the floor. ,

( '"I am sorry I was rude," she faltered. "Yon meant to -be kind to me.''

There, was a sullen air even in her apology; but Lady Mary saw the lovely red lips quivering, the eyes strained as if to keep back tears. "Sit down," she said, kindly, and drew the girl on to her sofa, and put a down pillow behind her shoulders. "I did mean to be kind. I wanted to cheer you, if I could. It must be sad to be alone on a voyage, or with only a maid. And yours doesn't seem a pleasant person." "She's a horror! But I suppose she means well. She is extremely respectable."

She said the last words with a curious sneering emphasis that did not escape Lady Mary.

"She has a daughter who is the very pink of respectability," the girl went od, becoming suddenly voluble. "She is always talking of herself and her daughter. It is her only idea of conversation. Her daughter passed all the standards at a board school, and went into service at seventeen. She was perfection as a children's maid in a great house: and at nineteen she married the head gardener, and her mistress gave her a wedding present, and she never did anything wrong in her life, never, never, never!"

"That kind of conversation must be rather boring."

"Boring! I turn my face to the wall, and clench my hands, and wish myself dead. I always wish that; but I wish for death a little more intensely when Warham is telling mc about her daughter.*'

"My dear girl, yon must not say that. We have to make the best of our lot upon earth, come what may. You must let mc be your friend, while we are on the ship, no matter how our ways are to be parted afterwards. Have you any nice books with you? Look at my travelling library—my favourite poets—and Charles Lamb, and a Dickens and a Thackeray or two. At my age old books are old friends. Is there anything there you would like to read';"

The girl's eyes had been roving round the cabin, where there was a gracious elegance in all the trivial conveniences and adornments that gave the keynote to the occupant's life. Down cushions in embroidered muslin covers, with soft silk frills, Indian coverlet, and portiere of exquisite needlework, writing-cases, work basket, prettily bound books, everything choice and graceful and pretty, the belongings of a woman into whose life nothing sordid or ugly, cheap or pretentious, had ever entered. And Lady Mary herself in her soft silk middle-aged gown, with an old Mechlin lace fichu, fastened neatly with one large turquoise, was in perfect harmony with her surroundings. Everything bad the same air of calm superiority; and everything jarred upon the girl's over-strung nerves.

"I see you have "Jane Eyre,' " she said, after a pause. "I should like to read that again."

Lady Mary took the volume out of the row of books in the shelf over her berth. It was bound in dark green morocco, with a good deal of gold work, and inlaid with scarlet calf.

"I made her as fine as I could, because I am so fond of her," she said, as she put the book in the girl's hand.

The girl turned the leave?. looking at the pages dreamily, and gave a long heart-broken sigh.

"How happy 1 was when I read this book," she said presently." and yet 1 thought I was miserable- It was at school, and novels were contraband. That made us fonder of them. One of the housemaids used to get them for us— from the grocer, bright red cloth books, printed on cheap paper. 'Jane Eyre' was the gem."

r \\"as it a happy school ."

"Oh, pretty well, as schools go, I believe. It was an expensive school. There were only twenty girls, and we had a fine garden — tennis court — croquet ground—and we dined kite, and had to wear low frocks for dinner. There was a great deal of fuss ; but I think most of the girls liked it. I didn't." Lady Mary was on the point of asking the whereabout? of the school, but checked herself. ' She wanted to obtain this girl's confidence because it seemed to her that the girl had sore need of a

friend: and the best .way to win her from sullen reserve was to refrain from asking a single question. "I'll take care of your lovely book," the girl said, rising to go, and then, as she neared the door. ""Perhaps you don't know even my "name." she said-. "It ia Brown —Jane Brown."

Lady Mary did not try to detain her. She wanted the girl to get accustomed to the idra of a friendly neighbour.

"'Pray come in and see mc sometimes when you are bored," she said. "I generally stay in my cabin between lunch and tea. Or would you not like to come on deck with _ue some fine morning? I'm sure the air would be good for you"

"Thanks no, I hate the deck. And I feel too ill to dress properly. But if I may come in hem. once in a way. when

I want to hear a human voice that is not Warham's —"

"Pray come, I shall be very glad to see you. I am generally- alone at this time. Mv young cousin enjoy 3 herself so much all the morning that she wants a long siesta."

"I hear her laughing," said Miss Brown. "She must be a very cheerful

person.' "She has a very happy disposition."

Miss Brown knocked at the cabin door at the same hour next day. She was dressed quite neatly in a. blue muslin morning gown, and ber hair was tidier, those masses of copper-brown hair, which Lady Mary admired. She brought back •Jane Eyre,' wrapped in tissue paper. "You must read very quickly," said Lady Mary. "But perhaps you have only skimmed the book at a second reading."

"Xo, I read even" word. It took mc ovit of myself. I was Jane Eyre—and not Jane Brown —her troubles were my troubles. I don't think she had so bad a time after all."

"What, not when she ran away from the man who worshipped her—not when she was starving on the moor?"

"She mußt have been proud of herself all the time, because she was worshipped by that stern strong man, and because she had fought the battle and won, and had never lost her self-inspect. 1 don't think starving oa the moor mattered. She knew he loved her. She knew she had dons a great thing in leaving him. I believe she was always happy—always —after she knew that Bochester loved her."

She dashed some tears from her eyes with an angry movement of her hand, a lovely hand, perfectly moulded, only a shade too white for the beauty of youth, and health.

Mary Harling was glad ttTTiear her talk- There had been no sobs or moaning heard in the night, and no doubt the girl had read all night, or had read herself to sleep. Anything was better than "inces- ' sant brooding on her own sorrows —what» ( ever those might be. | She sat on the cabin sofa nearly an hour watching Lady Mary at work upon ; one of her poplaTS, the tape r fingers drawing the silken thread in and out, the hand now above, now below the j frame. It seemed a work of ages. "Tour trees don't grow as-fast as the poplars out of doors," the girl said. "No, it is slow work. Penelop.? might i have tired out her suitors without the j nightly task of unpicking.*' : There were lapses of silence, with only I the faint rustle of Lady Mary's silken ' sleeve as her hand moved to and fro. j Presently after a little speech about in- I different tjiings, Lady Mary ventured a j question. | "I hope you are going home to relations you love?" j "I am going to a woman I never saw, though she is my father's sister." | "And you are going to live with her till your people como home?" "Yes, I suppose so. I have only my ! father, and he will not leave India for the next three years." j "I hope your Aunt is a nice kind person, and that her surroundings will be all that you like." "I don't care much for surroundings. She must live in a house with walls and a roof, and there will be air to breathe and food to eat, and a bed to lie upon."' "I am sorry to hear you talk in that despondent strain," Lady Mary said,) v ery gently. "'You are so young, -and forgive mc for saying, so lovely, that it is cruel to think you can be without I hope." "It is .true Gill the same —I have) nothing to hope for," and then, after a pause—"and everything to dread." , She clasped her hands before her face, .-struggling with hen sob?, then rose quickly, and went to the door. I "I am g«ing back to m\- cabin," she said. "It always hurts mc to talk of myself." Lady Mary put her arms around her, and kissed her reluctant cheek. "Then I will never speak of your own affairs again," ?he said. "You shall' have all my sympathy, without a single question. Forgive mc if 1 stirred the waters of Marah." "They need no stirring. They drown j my heart day and night." "Come io mc again to-morrow; and we will talk of only pleasant things. And you must choose another book hefore you go."

"'Thank you. The girl surveyed the shelf slowly, then put up her hand and drew out a slim volume half bound in gilded vellum. "The Scarlet Letter," exclaimed Lady Mary. "Oh, that is such a painful story!" "Please let mc read it. My father took it away from mc ft year ago, when I was not half through it. for fear I should learn things a girl ought not to know. Is that your idea of girls? That they ought to know nothing of the sorrow and shame that =tome women have to suffer. Some who are no older than themselves?"

"It is a difficult problem. T have no daughter, so I have not had to answer the question. Take Hawthorn's book, if you like. It is exquisitely written; but I'm afraid it wdl make you sad." Lady Mary woke in the dead of the night, at the sound of stifled sobs in the next cabin. The "Scarlet Letter"' was not an effectual anodyne. CHAPTER H. THE SCARLET LETTER. The Electra was nearlng Brindisi, and a great many passengers were prepared to leave her; cabin trunks, handbags, books, umbrella cases, and frivolities of all kinds were packed and ready for unshipping, maids and valets were busy, and on the alert for the work of land-

Lady Mary was going home in a leisurely way, meaning to break the journey and loiter at any place she cared for, at Venice, at Verona, on the Italian Lakes, with perhaps a week in Paris, to order gowns and hats, and look about her in a general way. She had friends among the haute noblesse, in solemn houses, in grey dull streets in the old St. Oermain faubourg, set back from the traffic of the stony street, be.vond the echoes of stony courtyards, made more melancholy by funereal evergreens in great green tubs, houses with double flights of marble stairs, and a glass canopy over the door. Lady Mary was a welcome visitor in many such houses, and had the history of their owners engraved upon her capacious brain, with all the relationships, to the furthest cousin, set down as in a. funeral letter. She had known the Orleans Princes and their belongings, at Twickenham, and Ham. und Bushey Park, and St owe; and she loved to talk of them. A week in Paris was a treat that she always gave hei.elf after a winter in distant places. Jane Brown was to stay with, the ship to the bitter end.

"I wish you were coming with my cousm and mc," said Lady Mary, who had grown fond of the girl, or as fond as Jane Brown would allow her to be.

Jane had come to her cabin every afternoon, staying a shorter or longer time as the spirit moved her. Conversation often flagged, for the girl's reticence made it difficult, and Jane would sit in silence with a joyless face, watching Lady Mary's needle, almost as if it were a penitential task so to watch, a kind of intellectual crank, exercising her mind upon useless labour.

Hie was always the same, and in those many days of friendly intercourse Mary Harling felt that she had got no nearer to the suffering soul behind that melancholy outward form. She knew ' that the soid was steeped in sadness; but she knew nothing of the cause. Her guesses were painful; for such persistent gloom, in so young a creature must needs have a bitter root.

The girl obstinately refused to be introduced to Daisy Meredith.

"She is a good deal older than you, but she would be more in sympathy with you than I can be," Lady Mary urged. "_he is still a girl, very young for her age, and so bright and cheerful. She would do you good."

"Please don't ask mc. I like to sit here with you for a little while every day. Your kindness has let a ray of light into my life. You—you are such a lady; you are so strong. But I could not talk to a girl. My life will never be like a girl's life again. We should not have a thought in common."'

Mary Harling brooded over that strange sentence. "My life will never be like a girl's life again."

From a girl who did not look 19 such a speech argued utter ruin. Never again. It argued the irrevocable, the mischajice that had changed t__ie cup. of girlhood from sweet to bitter. A broken vow, a trust betrayed, a young life spoilt. It swas between, ten and eleven o'clock on the _ig_ifc .before .tier came to. Bran.

disl. Lady Mary had dismissed cousin and maid, and was sitting in her dressing gown, reading one of those devotional books with which, or with a chapter or two of Holy Writ, she was wont to soothe her spirits before she tried-to sleep. To-night she had chosen a sermon of Frederick Robert-son's, whose discourse never nvearied her, though she knew them almost as well ■as the Psalms. He was her preacher of preachers, the wisest, the most delicate in apprehension, the most generous in love and pity for his brother man.

There .earue a light knocking at the cabin door. She. knew the hand, for it always seemed as if she could hear it flutter as it knocked, shrinkingly, timidly.

■She went quickly to open the door. "Come in. come in, my dear girl. I had bolted myself in for the night; but I am very glad to see you. Our last night together! Sit down «nd let us have our last talk. The captain says >we can land - directly after breakfast. I shall be at Danieli's to-morrow night. I wish you were corning with us."

"How happy you look," said tbe girl, contemplating her with a kind of fearful wonder. "How serene, and how strong! I mean haw strong in courage and resolution."

"And yet I have had to bear sorrow that might break any woman's heart. I used to think my heart waa broken."

"Was it something very dreadful? The death of someone you loved?"

"No thank God, it was not death. But was only less dreadful than death. But I don't want to talk of that. You have never told mc your trouble, and I won't tell you mine. Only I want you to know that though I seem a frivolous over-prosperous woman I have gone through the vailley of the shadow, and the shadow has been round and about mc for six yeur3 of my life." "Ah, but you can hope. You may come back into the sunshine some day." After this there was a silence. The girl sat huddled in a corner of the sofa, her clasped hands resting on her knees. Lady Mary noted the straining of the small hands, the thin pale fingers interwoven. "You can keep yourself alive with hope,"' she said, 'after a long pause; and then she burst into tears, suddenly, her forehead bowed upon the clenched hands, her form shaken by convulsive sobbing. There came a sharp knock at the cabin door, and the maid's harsh voice. "You had better come to bed, Miss. It is past eleven; and you oughtn't to be out of your own cabin." Lady Mary opened the door and faced the intruder. "Your young lady is going to stay with mc a little longer. I will see that she goes back to her cabin in good time."

The tone, of authority subdued the sour-faced person. "It is very late for Miss Brown to be out of her cabin/ she said sullenly, and sulenly withdrew. Mary Harding seated herself by the sobbing girl, and tried to raise her drooping head. "Let mc comfort you, if I can," she suid. "Won't you tell mc your trouble? I might advise: I might help you even. I could at least do more than that disagreeable, maid of yours. Don't ibe afraid to confide in me —even if it is something very sad—something that makes you ashamed." The last few words were whispered, as Lady Mary drew the girl's head on to her bosom, and gently smoothed the disordered hair with a motherly hand, the hand that had caressed her boy's bandsome head when he came to her flushed with a day's sport. on the cricket ground, or in the hunting field; a hand that had not forgotten the maternal touch.

"I want to tell you! I must tell you; now that you are leaving the. ship, now that we shall never meet again. Will you promise never to repeat what I tell you—never to speak of mc fo any living creature?" " "Yes, I promise. Nothing you tell mc to-Dight shall ever be repeated by mc, without your distinct permission." "Then I will trust you. I came hers because I felt that I must tell 'you. My heart was bursting. But you will despise me—you will loathe mc, when you know." She touched the loose folds of her muslin gown where they crossed upon her breast. "The Scarlet Letter," she whispered, "the Scarlet Letter ought to be there."' The story was told in that speech. "My poor unhappy girl!" Lady Mary took her in her motherly anus and wept over her. with more, emotion than she had felt for anyone., not of her own kin. She had suspected some evil thing from the beginning, for the girl's trouble expressed itself in a way that could mean no common trouble. The solitary voyage, the stern-faced attendant, every detail, hinted at a ruined life. a. young life destroyed in its bloom, a bud blighted and cankered before it could become a rose. And the desolate creature was so lovely, gifted with beauty that in happy surroundings, in the sunlight of good luck, might have made her one of society's queens. Whatever her fault had been, however deep her fall, Mary Harling's heart bled for her, as she felt the young bosom heaving with convulsive sobs, and the strained grip of the slender hands that clung to her arm. "We shall never meet again!" the girl said, "and I want you to know what an unhappy wretch I am.'" She went on breathlessly, in short sentences, punctuated by sobs. "I only- loft school in England a year and a-half ago. I w-cnt to my father and mother in India. I had not seen my father since I was a child. I hardly remembered him, except that he didn't care much for mc, and that he was often angry about trifles. But my mother and I had been parted only two years, and I worshipped her. I was her only child. There had been another, a son, but he died before he was a year old. We adored each other. There never was such a mother. I flew into her arras when she came to meet mc, and I saw death in her face. That was my first sorrow. She only lived four months after I landed, lived and suffered. When she died I was alone in the world, for I knew my father did not care for mc. Ho had ajiother person to think about; someone he had no right to care for. Before the hot weather began he sent mc to Cashmere, with one of his nieces, a Colonel's wife, who -was gay and bright and kind and easy going, .as everybody was in Cashmere. My father went with his friends to Simla." There was. a pause, the girl struggled with her sobs, and Lady Mary waited patiently. "If you promise never, never, never to repeat what I tell you, I can trust you, can't I." "I have never broken a promise." "After my mother died I used to He awake half the night longing for her, and thinking that there was no one in tie world who loved mc, And for *h» r«rt

of the night I used to dream that she was still alive, and we were happy. When I woke from that dream—it was almost the same every night—l used to wish that I was dead. But afterwards in Cashmere I knew that there was another kind of love, a love that dazzled mc, a love that wrapped mc round like fire. I was happy, happy, happier than words can tell."

She clung to Lady Mary, she buried ber face upon the matron's ample shoulder, and for the first time that good Christian felt a touch of repulsion.

"I don't know why I loved him; but his influence changed my life, almost from the day we first met. He was handsome, fearless of man or beast, strongwilled, impetuous. He gave mc no peace till he made mc love him. He took possession of my soul, and made himself my master, and it seemed sweet to obey him, to know that he was always thinking about mc, and watching, and following mc. We were always together. My cousin encouraged him. People said he was rich. He was a great match, she told mc, and I was a very luck girl to have caught him- Vulgar, wasn't it?"

"Hideously vulgar," said Lady Mary. "Well, we were often together, and alone. My cousin had her own pleasures, and was always busy, so she let mc do what I liked. We went for long forest rides. We climbed lonely hills. One evening at sunset, when we had lo3t our way he repeated some verses of Byron's —a scene on a Greek Island—Haidee and Juan, and after that he used to call mc Haidee, whenever we were alone. Then one day my cousin made a fuss, and told him people were beginning to say ill-natured things about us. And he must eit":_ir declare himself, or must go away and never see mc again. He said he must go, if she thought fife, for he was not free to marry. He had thought of mc only as a romantic child, and had never imagined that any scandal could come of his liking for mc. A year agoi when !.e was in America he had engaged himself to a Boston girl, an heiross. H«*r money was of no consequence to him, f.or he was an only son, and would be welloff by and by; but he was bound to the young lady at Boston. My cousin told mc this, and I listened to her without a word; and she never knew that I was a lost creature, scorched, scared, consumed by the fire of that dreadful love. Think what it was. to have loved as Haidee loved, never to have doubted that I was to be his wife, that I was to belong to him for ever, and then to hear that we must part." "He was an insufferable villain," said Lady Mary, with clenched teeth. "Oh, I suppose other men are as cruel, when girls are fools. Oh, the agony of it, the agony," with a sudden tush of* scalding tears, "'the agony of knowing that I was an outcast for the rest of my life." "Did you never see him again?" "Once. He made his way to mc at night. He cried over mc. He threw himself upon the ground, and cursed himself, and beat his head upon the floor. He told mc that he would have made any sacrifice to have mc for his wife, if he had not been bound in honour to another girl, a girl who would die if he jilted her. I think he was sorry—but he said I was so young, and I would forget him, and make _ good match, and perhaps be a great lady." "He did not know " . "\\ That you know." whispered the girl, with her face hidden. "No, he never knew that. . He left Cashmere after that night."' "And you have never written' to him?" "Never." - - "But others had to know." "Warham told my father. He nev_spoke like a father to mc after that. He arranged for mc to go to his sister in Ireland. I am- to stay with her till he -comes to fetch mc. It may be two years, three years, five, six, seven years."

"Poor child, poor child."

Lady Mary found herself wanting in words of consolation. To a woman of mature years, with whom chastity was a habit'of the mind.' such a fall as this, the fall of a well-born, well-bred girl, was inconceivable. She could better understand the outcast of the streets, the village beauty, betrayed and abandoned, flung into a gulf as black as hell. She was not without pity-; but she was without understanding. She wanted to speak words of healing and comfort, hut the words would not "come. She could only think of the disgracefulness, the shamefulness of the story-. A girl, educated at a respectable English school, a girl whose heart was still bleeding from the loss of a good mother, a girl in the freshness of youth, to whom the faintest touch of impurity should be horrible, for such an one to fling herself into the arms of her first love, consumed by the lire of lawless love! It was unthinkable.

"How old are you." she asked, almost sternly.

"I shall be eighteen in April." "Your cousin was as wicked as your seducer: to take no more care of a girl of seventeen.

The girl started to her feet, releasing herself from Lady Mary's surrounding arms.

"You are disgusted with mc." she said, shortly. "I was a fool to tell you. And some day, if chance should bring us together again, you will point mc out to your friends as a disreputable creature, unfit to mix with decent people."

"I have given you my promise."

Lady Mary was of that modern Anglican Church which loves the things that belong to the old Faith. An ivory crucifix hung over her berth. The girl had often looked at it, with dreary eyes, finding no comfort in the thought of a Redeemer. She looked at it now with a sudden purpose, snatched it from the hook where it hung, and put it into Lady Mary's hands.

"Swear," she said, upon this cross, that you will never give mc away."

The slang phrase was repellent at such a moment, and Lady Mary answered stifliv.

"I have promised," she said, "that is enough."

".so, no, no, it is not enough. I hate myself for having babbled to you. 1 shouldn't have done it if -I were not distracted. I must have your oath. I know you are a religious woman, and if you swear upon that crucifix, you will not break your oath."

Mary Harling lifted the sacred symbol to her lips.

"I swear never to repeat what you have told mc," she said, in a low grave voice, and then putting her arms round the girl, and making her sit down beside her, she said gently.

"You have been very hardly used— but you have, I fear, yourself to blame in spme part for the trouble that has come upon your young life—-but your Saviour will accept your atonement of shame and sorrow. 'He has pajdoned you, as He nameless woman who had sinned, and saved her from, tbe Pharisee's fierce law. You are -very young—and after some quiet years in Ireland, years in. which you must cultivate your mind, and try to do. all the good that jou go witty; ca_R

Ito the people about you—the poor peo. pie and children that -you may find i there, and whom you can help abad teach —after those .years, which you can "make j years of atonement, you may- begin a ' new life, you may feel yourself a new woman, cleansed and purified by sorrow ! and _good works." And then Lady Mary repeated a senitence in the sermon she had been reading when Jane Brown came to her door, i which had come back "to her miiid' -while she sat dumb and unsympathetic. "Forget mistakes; organise victory ; out of mistakes! That is what the nicest preacher I know of told sinners. -But in that' happier time which you must ' hope for, if a wood man should give you Ibis love, and ask you to be his wife, ! don't cheat him. Tell lim all your past sorrow. Don't shirk the shame of it. llf he really loves you he will forgive take you to his heart. Don't palter with the truth. Bear your burden; and he sure that truth is best." "I shall never marry; I would rather go down to my grave alone than bear the shame of such a confession. I" have told you. I could not tell a, man: least of all a man I loved. I shall never marry —unless " "Unless " "Unless 1 were to meet him—free to make mc his wife." She was weeping quietly, subdued.

sfcnd perhaps a shade'more hopeful: Pre* sently' she flung her arms round Mary, Barling's neck.

"Wall you let mc kiss you?"' she pleaded. "Now that you know wha_ I am."

Lady Mary kissed her warmly. "Good-bye, my dear. Some day, perhaps, when your life is happier, you will write and tell mc. I shall be very glad to know that all is well with you."

"No, no, don't waste a thought upon the wretched girl whose crying broke your night's rest. You have been very kind to mc, and I am not ungrateful. Or, sometimes, perhaps, when you open Hawthorne's story, think of mc for a moment."

"I shall often think of you: and I want to hear from you, years hence, when you have lived down your sorrow. But. oh, my poor girl," Lady Mary wefit' on in a lower voice, "if a living child is born to you, don't withhold your love; don't try to put the innocent crea iture from you as a- hateful burden. Try, as much as your surroundings will suffer you, to be a good mother."' ! The girl answered only with a handclasp. "Good-bye," she sobbed, and in tbe next instant the cabin door was closed, and she had vanished out of Mary Harling's life: or so Mary Harling thought.

(To be Continued Next Saturday.)