THE LOOMS OF DESTINY.

Lake County Press, Issue 1067, 4 June 1903, Page 2

THE LOOMS OF DESTINY.

COPYRIGHT.

iiV o MONK FOSTER. CM VRR XXXII. GEOFF KEY i.LAN DFOUI) CLIMBS DOWN. The Blaudfords, father and son, were again dining, and at a time slightly ciirlit r than was customary with them. The evening repast was just finished; the table had been cleared of the remnants of the meal; Geoftroy and David were smoking a postprandial cigar, and the Master of Park hurst was sampling, and evidently enjoying, a glass of his excellent wine. It was a little after seven o’clock, and, as ii was April now. it was not yet dark ouljide, although the blinds were drawn and the gas was lighted. Each of the family was in a genial mood, and although conversation was of a fragmentary order, the thoughts of eaeli being centred on personal matters, the faces of all were genial. Suddenly the head of the house addressed his younger son pleasantly. “ Well, David, ray lad, is there to be any music Ibis evening ? lam growing quite fond of that old fiddle of yours.and shouldn't mind hearing it again. “ I intend to bore somebody else witli it before the night is out, father,” David replied. ‘'l’m due at Mr. Beaumont’s in an hour, and that’s why I asked for dinner to be put on a bit earlier than usual. “ ,)ust so! Just so! Well, finish your cigar, and avc can chat a little. And you, GeoQrey; are you going out this evening ?” “ Not before nine, sir,” was the elder son s answer. “ i have to meet his worship at the club then, over some municipal matters, and may not get back before eleven or twelve.” “ Well, well: work and enjoy yourselves while the day is with you, for the night eometh when no man shall work and enjoy himself.” That curious biblical paraphrase called forth no comment, although it may have excited some wonder on the part of the sons: and then Geoffrey went on to speak of the business witli the cottonbrokers which had called him away to Liverpool the other day, Mr. Blandford, senior, listening and making some suitable response. Shortly afterwards David withdrew, the elder man helped himself anew to the port, GeoQrey mixed for himself a glass of whisky and soda, and then, as they settled afresh in their chairs, John Blandford stared quietly at his sqn, remarking presently, in his level tones, “ You remember that conversation we had after dinner one evening a little while ago ?” “ Of course, father.” “ You were somewhat astonished then. Well. I can hardly blame you for tiiat. But I hope, my dear Geoffrey. you have carefully considered since all I said then.” “ I have. I must honestly admit—but tell me first, father, if your purpose is still the same.” “ It is—nor will it ever change!” was the inflexible response. “ Then let me say this, please, in extenuation of my own unpardonale rudeness on that occasion, 1 was astonished literally durnfoundered at first, to tliink that you could really mean to do that thing. To voluntarily renounce twothirds of your fortune in order to expiate some sin, crime, call it what you choose, winch the world had either forgotten or never heard of, seemed folly oi mad mss then.” “ But what are your thoughts now?” “ Well, now I see that this thing may be your duty,” was the slowly uttered, and quite deliberate reply. “ I don’t pretend to like the idea at all, but I can sec now that it is really your aflair and not mine.” “ That is so. Mine was the mistake, mine was the gain; mine has been the sutlering, and mine must be the expiation!” “ That is what I have thought, father. And if this thing weighs upon your conscience, threatens your peace, darkens your outlook in the future, you must think of yourself alone, At all costs you are bound to make your peace with God and man!” Geoffrey spoke in a vein of tragic earneste Iness. and for a moment his parent stared at him in glad and amazed silence. Then he sprang roliisfeet, wilh dimmed eyes and faltering tongue, holding out his hand. Thank God you have come to look noon it in that light, Geoffrey,” he said, huskily. “ You speak like my own son now. Give me your hand. My only regret now is that in making this great reparation I have to seem to rob you and your brother.” “ Your fortune is your own to do with as you will,” was the son’s answer. They gripped hands warmly, then fell apart and drank. When they were composed again GeoQrey tossed away (he fag-end of his weed, lit another, and resumed his seat, while the other remarked in bis musing way, 11 No thought of David troubled me. GeoQrey; it was all my thought of you.” “ Why me instead of my brother ?” was the almost defiant challenge. "Am 1 less fitted to do battle with the world than David is " Net that ! Not that ! He is so plodding and unambitious; would be scarcely troubled if I told him to-morrow that i could leave him nothing save his post and share in the mills. But you are so diQerent, GeoQrey. What becomes of your high and worthy ambitions when I carry out my plan ?’’ •‘Other and higher ambitions must take their place,” was the younger man’s dogged answer. "As you have carved out a fortune atid place for yourself, so must we by dint of bard work with our own heads and hands.” “ And so you shall, GeoQrey. When this thing is settled, as it may be soon, [ will take you and David into partnership with me. Then it will go hard with u- if we cannot cleat Jive hundred a year each ' " Your offer is more than enough, father. Heaven knows that although 1 hated Ihe thought of this thing at first Jam muii than satisfied now. That is mv honest, win d. ■ !■•, r w > ■;»t will become of your dreams r t hat great marriage and tinHouse of Commons f Vour -

" Not another word, father, of all that high-falutin' balderdash, 1 pray you ! 1 care no longer to make that great marriage I spoke of so foolishly, and the House of Commons can wait." " You have changed much." " ' As the times change men change loo,' so somebody says. And I, too,have reason to regret something. I see now that great marriages are not necessarily the happiest ones, father." " You have seen someone then who is neither rich nor gnat whom you like ?" " I will tell you the Geoßrey cried with that winning air of honest frankness he knew so well how to assume. " Perhaps it would have been better had I spoken out long ago, but it is not too late now." " It is never too late to do the right thing, lad," his father cried didactically. " That is true, and you shall hear it now. !. was half afraid that you might opoose, or at least laugh at, my sentimental folly; periiaps my own high notions stood in the way as well. Well, a year or two since I met a very poor aud very handsome girl. She was lowly enough,yet well-enough spoken, and certainly refined above her class, in a word I loved her, I taught her to love me, and then in the eud 1 was afraid of marrying beneath me, and so I allowed her to drilt away. 1 have been sorry since, aud sometimes dream of finding her again, and marrying her in spite of the world." " Y'cu were wrong, Geoffrey, to let her go. Love is the best and holiest thing that ever comes to a man in this world, and all else is poor besides it. But I should neither have scoffed at nor opposed your wishes, lad. You must find that p >or girl, if you lovo her still, and many her." " Some day I may, now that I know you will have nothing to say against the match. I believe she is somewhere in the tSouth of England with friends, and when the summer arrives I may take a holiday, to seek iier and redeem that old broken promise of mine." "Do—and my best wishes go with you. And now about that partnership I suggested. Shall I speak toTiavid at once about it and see what he thinks ?" " Have you told him of this great purpose of yours respecting tha past V" Geoffrey asked. " In part only. Briefly, he knows what I intend to do, and why. but little else. He was agreeable—but you know how easy-going he is—and he will doubtless agree to all we may advise." " Then take your own course, father," was the son's genial reply. " You are giving us all that you can give, and what more can we desire 'i And, now, 1 must be off to join his Kindly tell the servants, if you please, that they need not wait up for me. Good night, lather, in case I don't chance to see you again." "Good night, Geoffrey." CHAPTER XXXIH. ANOTHER MUSICAL PARTY. It was the same evening a little earlier, and again The Hawthorns, the comfortable villa of the Beaumonts up bpiudleford-laue, was thronged and pleasantly busy with a gathering of those musical guests the genial superintendent of St. David's Sunday Schools so much affected and delighted in. David Blandford aud his friend, Miss Doris Lonsdale, has just arrived on the scene, and quite a group of the ladies and gentlemen had gathered around the new arrivals.wishing them good evening, aud congratulating the mill girl on her return to robust health. The lass carried ahout her still only the faintest tract's of her recent indisposition and those were just sufficiently apparent and of such a character as to lend an additional element of interest and attraetheness to her personality. Always grave and quietly unobtrusive, Doris, unknown to herself, was graver now and even more retiring in her manner. It was as if the lass had received some great blow or rebuff, and had not yet recovered from that mentally shiinking nose which the assault on her finely strung feelings had occasioned. She was, in moments of repose,slightly paler than usual; seemed just a shade thinner also; her great eyes had in their lucent depths an introspective hue which almost looked like suppressed pain or apprehension; and the soft texture of her creamy complexion had become a trifle more transparent still, reminding the observer of some piece of rare China when held up against a soft light. That evening's doings were replicas of previous ones, only that the guests worn more numerous, the genial flow of good feeling ran higher, there was more fun, less formality—as if the last night of the season was to be made the most of. and every drop of pleasure squeezed out of the passing hour. David played and Doris sang in their seasons. But on this occasion Miss Lonsdale thiilled her friends and admirers with a new delight. Hitherto, her songs had been of the light, sentimental, drawing room order, wherein were set forth the sweetness and truth and ineffable elory of " twin halves of a perfect soul made fast " ; while now she sang of love's more tragic aspects, of its pathos and pain and infinite regret. Her last song was Burns's ballad, " The Banks o' Doon," and she rendered it beautifully—sang it as only a strongnatured, deep-hearted woman can when the iron of a passionate and ill-starred love has entered into her pun; soul only to sadden and sear it. As the last lines — " Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree; And my false lover stole my rope, But ah! he left the thorn wi' me," trembled in sweet waves on the warm air, David Blandford regarded the singer with a new light of divination in his soft eyes. What he had but suspected befoi e was confirmed then. How else was he to understand the rise of this new force within her ? How otherwise explain that magnetic intonation and thrill whit hj spoke of the woman who had experienced, realised, lived, every phase of passion that had fluttered m ineffable poignancy from her silvery tongue '? Ever considerate of others' feelings, even to a fault almost, David grew more tendeily ciicumspect still when occasion demanded speech from him to Doris. He understood now, and was inexpressibly sorry for her—yet infinitely glad for himself. For love's sake she had suffered, and was sighing yet, as he had done and was doing. Even in a companionship of pain it was sweet, alluring and in a measure, satisfyine, to have her company. That common bond might draw them nearer to each other. Having tholed her woe she could not be other than compassionate to his own, and out of that kinship of pity and pain what a higher, tenderer, and nobler community of feeling might flow. He chewed the cud of his imaginings in sweet unrest till the night si cut itsell and the party ended. Then, as before, the bulk of the musical revellers went townwards. Again David and Doris were in company and in the rear, A last won I from Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont had detained the mill girl, and for her company David was fain to wait. For awhile he spoke of all things save the one thing simmering m the inmost recesses of his mind, lie scarce knew how to approach that subject without alarming or annoying her; nor was he wishful to betray that ever present desire that eternally growing ambition of I] is own. • Do you know, Miss Lonsdale," he at last began, somewhat timorously. " that you sunt; to-night as I have never heard you sini! before ':" •• S.i one "i Iw.i of my friend- were kind enough to suggest," she answered

quietly. '* Ah for myself, I paw no difference-save in the nature of the songs themselves.'' " That might mean much to a careful observer," he hinted. " But little; it was merely a matter of mood," she said. " And moods have their origins, too. But I thought you better, ttronger, truer than before," he added, warmly. " It was, so it seemed to me, as if you had found yourself. You had realised yourself as a woman—had touched a depth, risen to a height of emotion unknown before. But perhaps you do not quite follow me." " I think I do." she said, gravely. " Well, we are good friends now," he said, his tones tentatively solicitous. " The best of friends, as we may ever be!" was her earnest cry. " I have so few real friends that I must clasp mine to me with hooks of steel when I find them." " If I might speak. Miss Lonsdale, there is something I should like to say. It has nothing to do with—with that! once spoke of, but concerns yourself alone, l'trhaps I alone of all who heard you sing know why that pathetically tragic note formed the undercurrent of each song—ay, of almost every line in them." " You knew, Mr. Blandford ? ' She had turned her gaze shandy upon him as he spoke, and when she thrust that question at him her voice quivered a little, despite all her efforts to keep it hard and steady. " Yes, I knew—or thought I did!" he rejoined, tenderly grave. " And yet I know so little, although it seemed so much at the moment 1 realised the knowledge. You remember what you told me that other evening r 1 Well, it was by the light of that which you told me then, that I was able to read you this evening. I knew that you loved someone, and I know now that your love has been less happy than I could have wished. You are not annoyed because I have dared to tell you tim ?" "No! no! Why should I be?" she said bravelv, her voice fiimer now, but vibrant still with an undertone of pained passion. "It is true, and to you I. will not deny it. I did love another man, and that love has been an unhappy one. Did love, did I say ?" she went on quickly, " no. I love him still; yet hate him too, beyond ail words." " I am sorry I spoke." he said, contritely, " and 1 will say no more -save this: May you and your lover, whoever he may be, speedily become friends again." " God forbid it!" she exclaimed, passionately. "You do not understand or you would not wish that. I love him—cannot help loving him—and yet I bitterly regret that I evei met him, and pray sometimes that 1 may never either see or speak to him again!" " Time may goon heal the breach/' he murmured soothingly, his even tones carrying a mournful cadence. " Those who love strongly forget soon, and in a week or two, a month, you wjll forget all this." " Never!" she said, calmly, her voice hard and bitter now. "It is not a breach, it is a chasm, wide as the sea; ' and if it were bridged I should only raaku myself more miserable in the end!" Her hardness amazed him. Who was this man that had so outraged all the girl's finer feelings that the prospect of a reconciliation with him but served to frighten her so ? Bewildered, ho knew not what to do, being conscious only that his talk had caused her pain. " Shall wejoin theothers ?" he asked. " I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart, that I ventured like a fool, where an angel would have feared to tread!" " No; f am better here with you. You are a man, andean understand me, when t say that I love and yet hate him at the same time. And do not think you have offended me, for you ha\e not. I wanted someone to spe'lk to, and there was no one but you who knew that I eared for anyone on earth." She drew down her veil then, and he said nothing. But he drew her arm closer within his own, protectingly, and they relet red to the matter no mere as they paced homewards.