ALL OR NOTHING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 581, 2 July 1913, Page 6

ALL OR NOTHING.

(Copyright.)

— 4 — A THRILLING ROMANCE, * ♦ - . By the Author of "A Bitter > "Stella, "Tie Unknown Bridegroom,*- &c, PART 12. " "Will he receive any letter from me ? Has he any .explanation to give me ? Shall I write to him ?" "Decidedly no. I have undertaken to see that Lord Noel is not put a'jout by any appeal—any useless reproaches." '"You forbid a wife's appeal to her. husband ? Be it so. In the presence of God, I ask once more—is this true ?" With her white stricken face raised to his, she waited his reply. It was some moments before he could uttet the words : "In the presence of God, I declare it to be perfectly true," he replied. She stood for a few minutes with her hands clashed, as though she were praying. Then she walks** «4pwly up to him. There was no passion, no anger in her face—nothing but the dark shadow of despair. "Hearsme !" she said. "Go tell Clive Noel you have done his bidSing—you have broken my heart. Tell him from this moment I reQounce ail claim to his name —all claim to his remembrance. Tell him to have no fear ; he will never hear, of me or see me again." She paused, looking with a far-off, dreamy glance into the bland, crafty face. "Did he mention my little 'child 7" she asked. "Did he mention Gertrude ?" "He did not," replied the lawyer. "As a matter of course, the law .vould give the child to your care." "Tell him, then," she said, " that oiother and child are dead to him !rom this hour—ana u.-ve him this." She drew from her f.nger the plain ;old wedding-ring, and held it out to liim. The birds sang on, the sun shone more brightly still—the morning's sruel work was done—a human heart was broken ! Geoffrey Manly took Lhe little rinj ; lie had no sentiment in his whole composition ; romance and poetry were things unknown to iiim ; yet as he touched the ring something like a tear dimmed his syes. He took the cheque. "This is for a thousand pounds," lis said. "Now let us /arrange your terms. Lord Olive said distinctly yon were to state them yourself." .She shrank back from him. "Nay," she said, "my love had no price. I want no money ; do not mention money to me again." She took the thin slip of paper he had given her and tore it in two. "Tell Lord Noel," she said, "that little Gertie and I shall not want his money. I will pay off the servants and leave the house to-day." "Nay, madam, there is no need for such haste. Lord Noel did not tnc,an it." "You have done your work," she laidi proudly. "Return to your employer ; tell him you have done it well. Spare me any further humiliation by relieving me of your presence." He was only too thankful. No man jver felt more like a lashed hound than Geoffrey Manly that minute. CHAPTER XIX. Lady Noel spoke no word as the fawyer gathered up the papers. She saw him wrap up very carefully the little wedding-ring and the torn cheque. Then he turned to her. "'I am very Borr-j r , madam," he said, "that my errand has been such an unpleasant one." She did not even hear what was his commonplace regret in the presence of such mighty woe as hers. ■ "Have you any mote to say to—to—Lord Noel," he asked—" anF arrangement ?" '"Nothing more," she interrupted, "not one word." He felt exceedingly grieved for her. Such unutterable woe looked out of her dark eyes ! That one hour had changed her more than twenty years would have done. The bloom and the brightness had left her never to return. He presumed to hold out his hand to her, saying : v "Good-bye, madam. I regret that our interview has been such a painful one." She looked at the hand he held out to her. "Good-bye," sh* «?enlied. "I would willingly touch the hand of I an honest man., The paid agent of a dishonourable action has no claim to such a title." And the last time Geoffrey Manly saw her she was standing against cne of the long windows that looked out on the sunlit terrace, her face hidden in her hands. -How, difl she bear the blow? How does a man spend the first hour after his condemnation 'to death ?. He must be too bewildered to realise his fate. So it was with her. The same sun was shining, the same fldwers blppmingi the same birds singing only &nl hour, since, and she was. in 'the midst; of all this loveWhat had happened that over earth and heaven, so dark a pall had fallen? The most bitter houi of all is that in which a worshipped idol falls from its shrine and is broken into a thousand pieces. Death holds no such sorrow as this. She had loved him with devotion passing the love of woman ; she had made his life her life ; for him she had abandoned the art in which sh< gloried, the profession in which sh« had* made such brilliant triumphs : she had willingly consented to give up the whole world for his sake. Oh, bitter hoar in which si loving, sensi-

ttve woman finds she has given ?hei whole heart, and given it in vain—that she has mistaken tinsel lor gold —that of a vain, mercenary, inconstant man she has ; made an idol', a great herb ! Woe to the woman who finds the ideal she worshipped common clay." : ■ He had told her a lie~-a wilful lie-r that was her first conscious thought. Shei, living apart from the world, wrapped up in her art; she, all soul, all geiiius, in her entire ignorance of. life's realities, had believed all ■h« told her. He—a gentleman by birth, with some of the |>est blood in England in his veins—had wilfully lied to her. She coald have pardoned him any crime sooner than that. Then the whole force of the blow swept over her with lava tide. Not anly had he lied to her, deceived, but he hod tired of her, and they were parted now as though the grave aivided them. She looked at the hand where for five years the golden wedding-ring had shone ; it was there no longer. She was thrust from her husband's heart, from his love, from his home ; he was tired of her. Perhaps life holds no duller, deeper tragedy than is comprised in those lew words, heard so often. ''He is tii\d of her." The remembrance of them bowed La - * Noel's head in deepest humilia' What, after all, hid her genius and her beauty, her love and devotion, been worth when {.hoy could not keep the love they had won ? i~o for two long hours she stood, trying to realise what had happened —trying to understand that her i.v.s".aud was tired of, her, and that tlscy haxl parted for ever. She realised it at last, and the pain was bitter as though some one had plunged a sword in her heart. She should never see him again. Suns would rise and set, flowers bloom and (lie, years roll on, yet never more would her husband's voice wh.'uper loving words to her—never rr.oi'e would the handsome face look :cnderiy in her own—never* more ElLf.'.cn pity her, would a ray of li^lit cr sunshine come to her ! She -called her full desolation then. ,Uvc:i if he repented—even should he Lrnvci by-night da J by day to seek iicr, to as'c her forgiveness/ to take her home and show her to the whole world g3 his wife-*-even should he do all this, he could never again be what hs had been to her. He would never le a hero, or a great man, or a gjod man. At the least she would have but a half-pitying, half:onipn.ssionate love for him. The love that had made the sunshine of her existence was gone. Nothing cquld replace it ; nothing could restore it. Henceforth through life she was alone. She v. as a glorious artiste —a wonderful genitls. Yet she was "only , a woman;" for as the certainty of her icoin came home to her, her courage failed. "Hhe must weep or 3he must die." She could stand there, proud and tearless, no longer. She must go out under broad canopy of the blue heavens, where the sounds of the wind down the mountain passes would drown her wild cries. She could not keep that pent-up sorrow in her heart any longer. She passed along the sunlit terraces, through the pleasant garden, up the valley, to the foot of the grand old hills. She was there alone with nature,'and with God

CHAPTER XX. No one can tell the story of the two hours that followed. She never told it herself. She sobbed out her wild passion of grief. She exhausted her sorrow. When she rose from the ground where she had lain, and returned to the house, she was weak as one who has fasted many days. At the end of the rose garden, where she had spent so many hours with Clive, was little Gertie. "Mamma," ~ri;d the child, in her pretty, lisping tones, "where have you been ?" She caught the child in her arms with a passionate cry. "Gertie, Gertie, darling, come to me ; put your arms round my neck ; lay your little face on mine. Oh, Gertie, papa is dead ; we shall never sec him again. Oh, my, darling; comfort me !" And the little arms clung round her ; the sweet baby lip 3 murmured pretty, caressing words. Ah, thank God, there was some comfort left ; she was not quite desolate, not ciuite alone. Then before her strength failed her Lady Noel resolved to look her life in the face. She was not one of the women who, under the burden of a heavy sorrow, lie down to die. She had too much vitality. Her life had to be lived ; hereafter chc would think how. Her f> r st care must be to get far away from Carbace. She went into the house, where the servants looked with ' won.'.crUi- eyes at her altered face. In few words she told them she waS leaving the chateau that day, and should require their services no longer. She gave no explanation, and they did not venture to ask any questions. With Lord Noel's money she discharged every debt owing ; not one shilling did she take-i for her own use. She left behind every article of dress, every jewel, every ornament, that had been purchased for her since her marriage. She had of her Own some valuable jewels, and the sale of them would, she believed, yield her a very fair sum. Among them was a small oval-shaped locket, one she had bought long ago, and in which she had kept a portrait of her husband—a peculiar locket, which Lord Noel often admired. It had a qu&i-t setting of pearls, and her monogram, "E. R.," curiously entwined in a true-lover's knot. "I should know that locket among a thousand," he had said to her one day, and she was to remember his words. She left Carbace that evening, taking little Gertrude with herleaving no clue to, her whereabouts-r not waiting to say adisu to any of

the few acquaintances sne had'madt in the quiet little town. She woulc not pause at the gates of the cha teau to look back upon what hac been to her an earthly p~aradis« and a tomb. Then she went out into the wide world, in the long aftei years she was to meet so strange t fate. Mr. Manly was ax his office again doing his best to forget the journes to Carbace. The dark, beautiful faci of the woman so cruelly treatec haunted him ; the dark eyes so ful of unutterable woe, the graceful queenly presence, should he ever for g,et them ! He was not a sensitive man, but his face tinged witl shams as he recalled her words, "th« paid agent of a dishonourable deed.'She had not said them bitterly noi proudly, but sadly. Lawyer as ht was—mercenary, and full of greed cunning, and craft—even he thought to himself that had such a womai been his wife he would not havi parted from her for all the worlc could give liim. To him came Lord Noel, nil im patience. "What news?" he asked. "Whei did you return ?" "I reached London last night,' was the reply, "and I have the besf of news for you. You wtyl never b« troubled with the lady again ; yoi will not be annoyed with little appeals of reproaches. I made a proviso against all that. You are free as far as she can free you." "How did you manage, Manly?" asked Lord Noel, juft a little disappointed. ; He had expected to hear something very different from this. "Women are so easily managed," said the lawyer, with a quiet smile, "when one has the advantage ol experience." "And what—what money will be wanted ?" asked Lord Noel, ashamed of the question as he asked it. "That is the best part of the business," said Mr. Manly, triumphantly. "You will not be one shilling the poorer, my lord." But Lord Noei-s face grew dark with anger. "What do you mean, sir ?" he zried. "You do not suppose that I 3hall allow the woman who has been —who is my lawful wife—to go out into the world penniless !" "It is no longer at your option, my lord," said the lawyer, with an ill-concealed sneer. '"Lady Noel told 1 me to say to you. that her love had no price ; it was neither to be bought nor sold. She bade me to tell you [ that you should never hear of her or see her again ; that she should I be dead to you." "'Poor Evelyn !" sighed Lord Noel, weak in wickedness as in everything ;lse. "As an earnest of her intentions never to trouble you for money," 3aid Mr. Manly, "here is the cheque jrou sent. She tore it in two, as though it had been an old envelope. There was no bribing her." '"And the child," he asked—* what of her ?" "She becomes Lady Noel's property wholly and entirely from now," he replied. I thought that would be the best agreement to make." "So it is all settled, and I am free," said Lord Noel. "Yes, it is all at aa end. You i need not have no more fear," said Mr. Manly. ! "'Did she send me any message?" isked Lord Noel, curiously. "Yes," was the quiet reply. "What was it ? Speak quickly ; I io not like to be kept waiting." / "She bade me tell you, my lord, that her heart was broken—nothing slse !"

CHAPTER XXI. All went well with Lord Noel. His mind was freed from the great weight of fear that had been upon it. He was free, though he could not contract a fresh marriage ; yet the old one ceased to bind him. Though he had deserted the woman he once took such pains tp win, yet his confidence in her was so great that he knew, sooner than betray his secret, she would suffer death. He comforted Himself by thinking that perhaps in the years to come he might set all right again—might even obtain Evelyn's /pardon and take her home to Gothwic. That is, if he felt inclined to do so. He was sure of her forgiveness any time he liked to seek It. "She had always been so fond of him," he said to himself, with a smile. It was pleasant to feel that at any time, should he wish to do so, he could renew the broken bonds, but it was pleasanter still to have his mind free, to be able to enjoy, his new life without the haunting fear of discovery and rain hanging over him. One thing puuled Lord Noel. Now was> it that Evelyn, so proud, so intolerant of anything like dishonourhow was it she had given up all claim to him so \ easily T Had she chosen to assert her rights, she was Lady Noel, wife of the heir of the earldom of Gothwic ; nothing could deprive her of the title; nothing could displace her. Why had she 'so quietly submitted to what he freely owned was a hard fate? Why had she gone away, leaving no sign? She had not written to him ; she had made no appeal to him either for herself or little Gertie. Bhe must be altogether unlike other women to have done as she did. He was as utterly incapable of understanding her now as he had been years ago, when she prayed him tc tell her triithfully if marriage with her would harm Mm. Her noble, self-sacrificing disposition was a sealed book to the man who had lived only for self. If his thoughts could have been read plainly, they were something like this: that although he was glad to get away from al) trouble—although he was thankful she had taken the matter so quietly —yet he thought her a great simpleton to have given up her magnificent position so readily. (To be Continued.)