FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE

Lake County Press, Issue 2790, 19 June 1919, Page 7

FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE

BY FRANCES BROWN.

IDelia stretched herself, .yawned a little, and glancing towards the clock drew up a footstool and seated herself at her husband's feet. She had good news for him and she. was wondering how to break it. Leaning one white arm negligently on the arm of his chair, she gazed musingly into the fire. "It's nice to be home again, Paul," she said, as a preliminary, "but all the same I enjoyed it immensely to-night. Your cousin Harry makes such a good host; he acts on one like a tonic. Don't vou think so?" Paul nodded. "I'm glad you like him," he returned, slowly, then feeling for her hand pressed it with sudden passion. "Do you know, my darling;, that I've been thinking

He caught himself up abraptlv and Delia sent him an anxious glance. "Thinking what, dear?" she asked, gently. He hesitated, but only for a moment before blurting out what was in his mind. "I've been thinking," he said —and emotion, pent up and repressed, made his voice sound unnaturally hard—"that if you'd not met me you would now have been Mrs. Harry Colquhoun?" Delia started and flushed, but made no reply For the time being all thoughts of what she herself had to tell him vanished. "I'm right, am I not, Delia?"

This time it was the woman who hesitated. Should she tell him the trutlv or not? For she knew that if Paul had not come into her life five years ago she would undoubtedlv have said "Yes" to Harry Colquhoun. As it was, hadn't she thanked God many times for having sent her true mate? Hadn't it roved to her that her friendship for Harry w#s, after all, only the result o fa strong liking and respect, not to be compared with the love she had for her husband whose affliction made him but dearer to her?

Still—she would tell him the truth ; she had never lied to him yet "Well—yes," she said, with a little apologetic laugh. "Perhaps you are right, Paul. So you'll be able to imagine"—comiettishly—"what you might have missed !" She kissed his hand lightly and laid it against her cheek but he shiv-' ered under her touch and again she' gave him an anxious glance. His' face was perfectly impassive. The j ■-■iglitless eyes, as vividly blue as, •-•ver, were< gazing straight ahead,! hut a scar extending from brow to' chin showed wickedly red against the slight colour that tanned his cheeks. "What is it Paul?" she whispered. "Surelv" —with sudden suspicion—"surelv vou don't think 1 regret?" ! For answer the hand that had | closed so passionately over hers slid up her arm and rested there. How thin it was! An donee it had been |so softly rounded, so A sob rose i in the man's throat. It had wrought Delia to this pars—he who had loaded her with' a burden of •n —and it might have been— I what was that he had overheard ; Carson saying that very night in I Harry Colquhoun's library? jj Ah, yes!—"tied to a helpless log! f And how different everything might • have, been! . If she'd only ' had the sense to marry Harry Colf|uhounl . . . mistress of a splendid old house . . not a care in the world. I 'nconscioiisly ho began mutter'A the words under his breath, and with a startled gesture Delia withdrew her arm and rose to her feet- ; "What is it, Paul?" she said again, and this time there was a sharp edge of tear in tier voice. "You're not thinking—surely you can't he thinking—that I—that I rare for Harry?"

I In putting tlu.' question a wave of crimson swept her from cheek to brow. In some intangible way it shamed her to ask it. She was so entirely his, more than she had ever been, since God had sent him back to her broken and maimed. Paul rose unsteadily to his feet. "No, dearest." he said, slowly. "I nover thought that; but —I'm glad, ever so glad that you like him. lie's ;) good ehap and he'd be kind to anv woman he married wouldn't he ' Delia looked faint.lv puzzled. Certainly Paul was not himself to-night Was it. perhaps that Harry was going to he married at last, and was Paul contrasting the lot in life of the future Mrs. Colnuhoun with het own? But surely Harry would have told her had He thought of mar--iage! | She was about to question her 1 •isband when he turned abruptly and said that he was dead tired—lie really must go to bed—would she excuse him if lie went now? Whilst she stood gazing at him in amazement .he turned back with equal abruptness, folded her in a close embrace, and rained kisses fiercely wild and passionate on her mouth. her cheeks, her throat"l love you!" be cried. "Ah, God ! how I love you !" But his lips were as cold as ice on hers and a thrill of fear ran through Delia's veins. He bad never kissed her so before—not even when be went away with bis regiment to the Front. . . . After he had left her to go upstairs, she stood looking at the :-d door with eyes that were blinded with tears. 11. An hour later, to her surprise, -be found him standing in the mid!M of, his dressing-room in the full glare of the electric light. Something in his attitude as he stood with his back towards her made her move forward swiftly and touch bis

armWith a violent start he swung round and simultaneously a small object slipped from his right hand to the polished floor. Then came the crash of broken glass, a sickening odour that rose from the shattered fragments—a broken cry from the lips of the white-faced woman who gazed at her husband with wide, horror-stricken eyes. jj What had Paul been in the act I >f doing? From what had she saved! I'ini when she had stolen so stealth-1 ily into the room, believing him to! be fast asleep ? . . . jj A tremor ran through her; shaking from head to foot she led him to a couch and made him sit beside her. She was clinging to his hand convulsively, and presently, as a terrible suspicion grew and formed in her mind, shuddering sobs welled j in her bosom. But beyond a faint twitching of the muscles of his face, the man who a moment ago had been contemplating eternity, sat as though carved in stone; to all outward appearance he might have been deaf as well as blind to bis wife's distress. Yet with every sob that rose from; Delia's overcharged heart he was himself weeping tears of bloodAnd through it all one. thought hammered insistently on bis brain. He had tried to free her and he had failed then followed another thought—perhaps when she recovered from the shock, she would think of him as a coward ! Yet Paul Manton knew that the last hour had required more courage to face than all the horrors he had witnessed on the bloodstained fields of France. He had not wanted to die—the contemplation of it- had been torture—heartwrung torture. He had only sought the one possible outlet for Delia's sake—his beautiful Delia who had been denying herself for months without his knowledge. She would have felt it deeply, of course, at first; but afterwards, under Time's healing touch, she would have been happy once again. I All of this and much more he • tried to explain to her when, weary ! and spent with her anguished weep nig, she leant against his shoulder with closed eyes and listened to his broken confession. "And now," lie concluded, "I can bei nothing but a coward in your eyes for the rest of my life." She drew his head down' to hers and kissed first, his eyes and then ' ! '<-. disfiguring scar that lined his face.

t "Never a coward!" she cried. Oh! never that. Paul!—but you were wrong—your mind was distorted, otherwise you would never have tried to destroy God's best gift to "inn. Your life belongs to Him—it is His to take away, not yours•"id if it had been His will to take' yon from me when you werefighting I would have tried to bear it—l would have prayed to Him for courage, hut"— and again a tremor ran through her slight frame—"if von had died by your own hand, Paul, whatever your reason, I don't think I could ever have praved vou would have taken my heart With you into the -, ;flV( . —[ should liave been dead to all feeling hut the anguish of having lost vou in such a way—the pain of knowing what you had done for my sake—" She paused to fiehl with' her emotion, and then: ""Dear heart." she whispered, "did you think that 7 could regard my marriage, vows so lightly as to welcome release just

■cause you are scarred and maiued? Did you think that my love •id lessened because I've had to

■ ake a man's place for a time an I :iii a living—did yon think m .love; was such a poor weak bhing o J that?" f The man hent swiftly and too i her hands in a close, firm grip. "N • —a thousand times no!" ho criec |"] believe all you say, Delia. Yo have been slendid all through—mi \ —tied to a helpless log for perhap I another fifty years—think of it Carson was right, it—it's a trap "dy. And then —your jewels— I'irird him saying that you'd sol them for my sake —you can't den; it—and you've even" —his voic 'a-oke you've even denied your self the bare necessities of life fo my sake—Carson said so—and it' not worth it for—l'm nothing bu an encumbrance, and —oh, God how shall I bear it?" Delia's face whitened under tin passionate outburst. "Listen," she said. "Listen t< me, dear heart, and never dare t< speak so of yourself again. The cordi thai bound me to you at the altai five years ago were never so stronf as now: the vows I made nevei seemed so full of meaning—so tenderly reverent and beautiful. Dc you remember, Paul? —For better, for worsei . . . for richer, foi poorer ■ . . in sickness and in health. . . Listen, Paul! I have had you during the good times; dc •. ,i think I would ever shrink from sharing with you the troublous ones? You kept me in comfort — luxury erven, for four vears —do you t'nink I'm: such a poor creature that a little poverty will frighten me? . . . Ah, Paul! What can I say to intake you believe that in your weakness you are infinitely l.earer and more precious to me?" She rose to her feet and stood before him in all her loveliness. And ho was dumb —he had no words with which to answer her, but a thrill —hali pain, half joy, sent the blood coursing rapidly through his veins. He loved her so! It was good to be alive, yet A shadow crossed his face, and Delia, with love-sharpened eyes, was quick to see and interpret it. It decided her to break her good news now.

"Do you remember Dr- Nesbitt, who examined your eves six months igo, Paul?" she asked. He started, and the shadow on

his face grew. "The chap who was so convinced of the hopelessness of my case? 01 course" —bitter] v—"l remember him. Why?" "You mustn't hope too much," ?he replied, caution'' 1 "but hje— Dr. Nesbitt —has—has altered his opinion." Paul ottered a sham ejaculation ~nd raised eyes vividly blue to his rife's face. A stranger, seeing him

t the moment, would never have oticed his affliction. ''Altered his opinion?" he echoed, lowly. "But whv? —he was so .•ertain —he —do you mean that I —■ that he " He broke off stammeringly and began to tremble. The possibility of what Delia meant to convey was beginning to dawn on him.

"You mean," he said, hoarsely, after a moment's breathless silence -"that I may recover my sight?" "Yes"—a sob of ecstasy rose in her throat—"yes, Paul—there is a chance —in fact more than a chance. Ha had an identical case last week- He didn't want to operate, but the patient insisted, so he risked it and —and it was successful. "

It was Harry Colquhoun who arranged it all with Delia and insisted on paying the surgeon's fees. Hitherto, during her time of patient struggle, she had refused all his generous offers of help, but this one she gladly accepted.

And, to-day, those who meet Paul Manton and his beautiful wife declare that the clever young engineer is almost as fascinating as ever, and, but for an honorable scar that :-.figures one side of his face, almost as good-lookin": whilst, as for Delia.—well!—she i- if possible, more lovely. At any rate, (.'arson thinks so; but he can never understand why she invariably freezes on his approach and wraps herself in a mantle of reserve. There was a time when she greeted him with a gay friendliness that he had found most charming. But now ] he would shrug his shoulI dels and wonder, with an ironical ' twist of his thin-lipped mouth, if ever man was born that understood ! ,•! woman !