THE SIN OF JASPER STANDISH.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LII, Issue 8629, 9 July 1924, Page 7

THE SIN OF JASPER STANDISH.

By '‘RITA.'’ PART O.—CHAFTER 13.—Continued "If you care to read it." "Well, here it is. Cm-um-um — Nothing particular there. London hateful, fog and cold and snow—‘My business is finally completed. I’m heartily thankful. I’ll have to go out to India sooner than I expected, but I’ll have a time in the old country first. I trust poor Miss Callaghan is getting over the terrible shock. How is her friend Miss Ly—’ (crossed out, my dear.) ‘Miss Orcheton ? If yon see her, pray give my wannest sympathy and regards. I can understand how will suffer vvHh and for her friend. Her nature is so staunch and tender and true.’ —There, my dear ; I think that’s all.”

The firelight seemed to cast a particularly warm glow over Lyle’s delicate clear cheeks, but all she said was : "Thank you. I’m sure you’ll be very glad to have him hack.” "Tes ; hut I can’t understand about his returning to India so soon. However, I’ll learn the rights of that from his own lips. I’m very fond of the hoy you know, Lyle. I’ve never had a child of my own, and heks been as good as a son to me."

Lyle turned her attention to the little tea-table, which the parlourmaid placed next her, and busied herself over the cups and saucers. Mrs. O’Neil, however, never needed much encouragement to talk, and babbled on cheerfully without pausing for response.

“1 used to think once that Providence had treated me badly, giving me neither son nor daughter to inherit all my money. But that was before I found out that marriage means a mighty lot more than girls imagine,” Lyle looked at her. The flush had died out of her face, her lips parted as if about to speak, then suddenly closed. Mrs. O’Neil drank off her tea and put the cup back on the silver tray. “I’m glad—now,” she went on in a lower tone, “that no child ever called me mother ; and when a woman says that, Lyle, don’t you believe but that the smiles have tears at the back of them. Don’t suppose the laugh doesn’t cover a hcart-ache.”

“You weren’t—happy ?” asked the, girl, softly. '

*T married the wrong man. And it was all done in a lit of pique and mad jealousy—a bit of a quarrel, high words, no patience, no waiting, no reason. That’s the way with us when we’ro young. Before we know' anything of men we set ourselves to judge them. We are too exacting. We haven’t learnt they need excuse as much —and more too —as ourselves. I’m telling you this, my dear, because I think you are rather inclined to be high-handed in the matter of lovers. You want them to corae-np to a standard of your own. Ah ! child, believe me, they never will. If ih'V seem to, it’s only pretence, and pretence is a bad beginning, and a worse ending, for love.” “Why did you marry at all ? inquired Lyle. “Because one man failed aou it was a poor revenge to take another less capable of satisfying your heart.” “I was a hot-headed fool. Lovers I had. by the score, and sure the best march in the country was Terence A’Xe'l, the man 1 married, and the • worst was the man I loved. So our juarrel ended badly, and lie went in;o the Army and was ordered to ome awful foreign place—West Afri a 1 think it was—and from that cay to Lais I've never had word or sign from him.” “But you’ve not forgotten ?” “Ah ! my dear girl, it’s not easy to forget the man who’s made you unhappy. Every tear you shed is a tribute to his power ; every regret you breathe is the landmark in the journey that takes you further and further away from him.” Her bright eyes turned to the fire. Lyle watched her with deep interest. To have lived to forty and yet remember one’s girlhood and its vain love —how strange ! And how dull and hopeless it made life look to her young eyes, if pain and disillusion were for ever its shadow !

She spoke impatiently, a little tinge ot bitterness in her voice. “Why do we —love ? Why must we?” Belle O'Neil’s suspiciously bright eyes were still fixed on the fire. “It is unreasonable,” she said softly. “I suppose we can’t help it. I’ve often asked myself what do we love men for, and upon my soul, child, I think it must be because a man is the one creature who makes us suffer most and cares least for the suffering. Well, there’s excuse in that, for he can't understand it. With all a man’s vanity (and he has a fair share of it) I really don’t believe he thinks he hurts us hall as much as we feel hurt. W 7 e’re foolish creatures— upon my word I must say it. But also, Lyle. I don’t think a man is worth half the tears and heart-aches he costs. I won my philosophy over my first wrinkle. My huphpud —well, he s gone now—used to torture me for the sheer pleasure of It. His itms the nature of a Grand Inquisitor. He’d hare been a godsend to the Spanish

inquisition. Hut when I saw that wrinkle I said to myself, Tf it’s a question of giving way to yonr feelings just ask yourself will, it do one atom of good ? You know it won’t. But will it try your nerves, spoil your eyes (mine were accounted my strong point once, Lyle), wear and tear your heart to fiddle strings ? You know- it will. Then—why do it ?’ Lyle smiled faintly. "That’s all very true, but to arrive at that stage of philosophy requires some experience—and some suffering." "True, my dear, it does ; and you may never have to go through it. But it’s few escape. Yes, child, I’ll have some more tea. Tea and talk, faith, they help a woman to bear a lot of trouble, though it’s rather bathos to say it.’

CHAPTER XIY. A strange restlessness possessed Lyle on that Christmas Eve. Nora was not to come till the evening, when Dr. Dan would drive her over and stay to dinner. After luncheon she made up her mind to have a walk through the grounds. It was a mild sunny afternoon, such as often visits midwinter in Ireland, a pleasant interlude between the rain and snow which have preceded, and may succeed it. Lyle felt the influence of the sunshine in a corresponding brightness of spirits. The gloom of these last miserable weeks was temporarily banished. Her head no longer drooped, her step had its old alertness. She walked swiftly over the trim w'alks, and past the beds so lately a wilderness of vegetation. She caught a breath of hidden violets from grassy nooks, a glint of scarlet or russet life that had defied storm and clung firmly to bough or stem, or undergrowth. The warm air was like a dream of spring, the raose green as emerald.

As she penetrated deeper into the •wood it seemed to her full of surprises. Gleams of sky and river, peeps of swelling hills, dark firs, "tos.sy laurels, the stripped bare boughs df towering elms, the silvery bark of stately beech, beyond all a of rosy gloom. l ylc stood still and gazed up that natural WBS j? e Brst she had been there. It seemed to lead indefinitely a.. eyon boundaries of the park. The paur» neath was mossy and weed-grown—a track between thick undergrowth that in summer was luxurious with honeysuckle and profligate beauty of wild flowers, ivy, and hedge briar. She resolved to follow the path and trace it to its furthest boundary. The rough Irish terrier that her father had given her rushed on ahead with frantic glee, scenting rabbits in the brushwood, or giving vent to ecstasies of fury at a squirrel in safe shelter of arching boughs. She had walked for nearly an hour before she came to some broken wire fencing, behind which rose a hedge of ill-kept luxuriant shrubs. As yet there had not been time to do anything to the remoter portion of the grounds. ‘Ferns and hedgerows were just as they had been in years of neglect, when no one had lived in the house or cared for the place.

The girl looked about her and then strolled slowly on. Suddenly she came to a break in the neglected hedge, where hanging on broken hinges was an osl gate. It opened on a patch of waste ground, and beyond that lay a little wooded copse. As she leant her arms on the rails, and surveyed the somewhat dreary spot, she saw a figure come out of the wood. Her heart gave a quick-throb. She felt the blood fly to her cheek and then ebb back with a suddenness that made her faint. Then there came a quick step ; the gate was opened; the sound of a voice remembered only too faithfully was in her ears. “Miss Lyle ! I am glad to see you ! What kind fate sent you to this lonely place ?” He had used her Christian name instead of her surname, but her heart gave the slip no rehake. He was holding her hand in, both his own, as if to emphasise that gladness which had thrilled his greeting. She was looking back to the eyes that she had told herself would never look into hers again with that untranslatable expression to which she had dared give no name. Yet the expression was there still, intensified by something deeper, more compelling something that set her heart beating anew, and made the colour rise afresh.

She could think of nothing to say. The sunlight wavered over the woods, the terrier barked interrogation, the coo of a wood pigeon fell on the silence, and yet—she could only stand there trembling like a leaf, with her hand closed in that warm clasp, her soul drinking in a rapturous draught of gladness from that deep gaze that hdd her like a spell. (To be Continued.)