TO LOVE'S SAKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10037, 25 January 1896, Page 3 (Supplement)

TO LOVE'S SAKE.

BY DOHA KEI.MAU, Aullio. lot "Sinner, or Victim!" "In the Golden Cil>," " IF.id Sim foreseen," " I'lio .Secret of Kstcourt,"" A Tempting Offer," &c. CIfAPTER VIII. It soeraed as if the excitemenb caused by tiho death of Ben Drew, and the suicide of the unhappy. boy who had oaused that death, was never to cease, so much happened to Increase instead of to allay it.

On the day when tho gamekeeper's body was carried to the grave, it was known through Ghoynford that his daughter was lying in tho cottage in the park betwixt life and death, and that doctor Lane almost despaired of her recovery. Tho child born to her on the dawn of the day following that terrible scene in the cottage sitting-room had nob lived to any knowloge of its shame, find those around tho unhappy girl's bedside knew that it was better for both that it should be so.

The long line of mourners following her father's coffin through tho park to the church yard on the grey autumnal day, under a shower of falling leaves from the trees under which they passed, wondored among themselves if Millicent Drew would bo alive when they returned, and whispered that Doctor Lane had telegraphed for further advice, and that one of the greatest physicians of the day was coming from London to see the gamekeeper's daughter. Thoy said, too, that Mrs. Wilson had not left the cottage, although two trained nurses woro in attendance, and that the dying girl raved incessantly about her father and the man who had paid so costly a price tor the folly and weakness which hud brought about so terrible a state of things. Harold Liblo's suicide had done so much as this for him, that instead of universal condemnation, ho received much pity, and there were many who had known the young man from his boyhood who were oven inclined to oxcuso him in a great measure, and perhaps most of the women wore inclined to blamo the girl whose beauty had been a fatal dower truly both to her and to him.

Millicent had been fnr too beautiful to bo a favourite with her own sex; moreover, her mother, a beautiful low-born Spanish woman, who had died at the girl's birth, had boon moat unpopular with the simple, homoly narrow-minded villagors, and Benjamin Drew had been generally blamed for the manner in which he had brought up this beautiful only child of his. He had been quite a young man when his wife died, and he would have found it ea3y enough to replace her. Many a comely young woman had looked with kind eyes upon the sturdy young widower, and spoken words of encouragement as they thought longingly of that comfortable cottage which Sir Geoffrey Lisle (father of the present baronet), had built especially for his favourite keeper. Ben Drew was faithful to the beautiful dark-eyed woman who had certainly not made his life a bed of roses during their brief married life, and Millicent had grown up, spoiled and indulged in every whim, with no kind, good woman's influence to sway her or to teach her what was right. As she grew older and saw, as girls so aoon see, the power of the radiant dark beauty, as striking as it was rare in the country district in which her lot had been oast, she had wished to be educated in a suporior manner, and her father, to whom her wish was law, acquiesced meekly. Benjamin Drew was a well-to-do man, receiving »,;ood wages, and having saved largely during his little girl's childhood, and the girl was sent to school in the nearest large town, where she received the usual superficial education of middle-class girlhood, and whore her pride was very considerably nettled by the inconcealed contempt of the lawyers' and surgeons' daughters, her fellow pupils, who soon discovered 'Millicent Draw's lowly origin, and vented thoir jealousy' of her wonderful beauty in snubs and contemptuous allusions to the gamekeeper's cottage as spiteful as girls' sharp tongues could make them. When Millicent returned home at seventeen she was liandaoiaei; than ever, and she

had profit by |ier educational advantages to acquire many little refinements of manner which hud impressed her father greatly. She had loarned, too, how tp dress her glorious hair bo as to set off her beauty to the greatest advantage, and how to attired her graceful person in well-fitting gowns, and, a less desirablo accomplishment, how to look down upon and snub girl? in her own position of life who had not had the doubtful advantages whiqh she had enjoyed. Naturally, she was by no means popular. Mothers disliked her because she cast their fresh-coloured, comely daughters into tho shade, and because the visitors at the Abbey admired her so openly, and artists entreated a sitting; and the daughters hated her because, unconsciously perhaps, she won their lovers from their allegiance, and mado them faithless and inconstant.

Miliicent herself was half happy, half misorablo in her triumphs and in hor home. She was quite unfitted for the homely life which was her proper sphere. She craved for luxury and position. She looked scornfully at her rustic swains and longingly at Lady Lisle's costly attire, while Valerie Glyn, the young lady from tho Abbey, her ladyship's beautiful petted niece, the heiress and beauty about whom society papers had raved, was the object of her most intouse admiration. Sunday after Sunday she had sat in her pew at church, regardless of the sacred service and absorbed in an exhaustive study of Valerie Glyn's beauty, and dress, and manner, until she could have disdained her own loveliness because it was not fair, and golden-haired, and blue-eyed, and languid. She had sense enough to see that Valerie's haughty languor would liavo been as out of place upon the gamekeeper's daughter as Miss Glyn's rich silks and satins and laces would havo been out of place in the gamekeeper's cottage. Bub this very consciousness angered her against the beautiful heiress, who seemed to go through life so smoothly and softly, surrounded by all that could make it desirablo.

Once or twice she had seen Valerie at the tenants' balls, and had mot the haughty careless glance of the young lady's blue eyos turned upon her for a moment, and had hatod her because the heiress was surrounded by a courtof highborn, faultlessly drossed admirers, who had no eyes tor any beauty but hers, although they were willing enough to flirt with the beautiful brunette, when Valerie, after an hour's radiant shining, vanished from tho ballroom with her lustrous "sheen of satin" and "glimmer of pearls." Miliicent Drow had gone home after such entertainments as these, angry, dissatisfied with her mother's Southern blood hot in her veins, and the longing for luxury and position greater than ever. Poor, unhappy girl! Was it any wondor that when temptation camo in her way she fell?

Harold Lislo, fresh from college, impressionable, careless, thoughtless, and selfish, betrothod to his cousin though he was, had seen and admired Drew's beautiful daughter and the flirtation, begun in idle dalliance on his side, and in real passionate love on hers, had ended in a tragedy which had made tho whole country ring. It is indeed fortunate for our weak and faulty humanity that folly and weakness are not always so severely atoned for as Millicent Drew atoned for hers.

She hud sinned and fallen as many womon sin and fall, but her punishment was harder to beat' than oven tho heavy penalty which most suffering women pay for their sin. She rose from her sick-bed—from which her doctors and nurses had thought she never would rise—with the bitter, haunting consciousness that her folly and vanity— had been much of both in the beginning of her intimacy with Harold Lisle—had cost hor father his life, had brought her lover to a self-inflicted death, had cast shame and disgrace 011 a noblo family and upon an honourable name.

It was no wonder that she left that bed of suffering a sadder and wiser woman, full of contrition and penitence. For, as long as Millicant Drew lay between life and death at the cottage, and Lady Lisle continued in a scarcely less precarious state at tho Abbey, the interest and excitement in the village continued unabated, and its inhabitants had plenty to talk about. But when all danger was over, and the shadow of tho wings of the Angel of Death was lifted from the stately mansion as well as from tho cottage, and Lady Lislo's pale, changed face, still beautiful, but so sad, had appeared once or twice in the old square pew of the parish church, the interest and excitement began to flag. They received a momentary impetus and flared up a little afresh when it became known that Lady Lisle had taken Millicent Drew to the Abbey, which was to be her home for the future, and there was no little surprise, and perhaps a little jealousy, at the thought of her good fortune. "Just as it she were Mr. Harold's lawful widow," the village gossips said among themselves. "But her ladyship and Sir Geoffrey always had queer notions." And they wondered how Miss Glyn would like the arrangement when she returned from foreign parts. But Millicent Drew had been an inmate of the Abbey, fulfilling such light duties of personal attendance on Lady Lisle as her impaired health allowed, for many mouths when Miss Glyn returned to the Abbey, and as she, Millicent, continued to be a member of Sir Geoffrey's household after her return, it was concluded that she made no objection to the arrangement, and the most eager of the village chatterboxes atlastfound nothing more to say on tho subject, and by the time that the second anniversary of the death of Benjamin Drew came round, the event was almost completely forgotton. Even at the Abbey it had apparently sunk into oblivion. Miss Glyn had long ago put off her mourning, and Lady Lislo had laid aside her black gowns for shades of Quakerish grey, which suited her delicate faded loveliness bettor than the sombre black. Her health, still extremely delicate, was quite sufficient excuse for her abstention from going into socioty, but Sir Geoffrey had resumed his usual occupations, and filled tho duties of his position as M.F.U.—which he had delegated to a friend during the season following his brother's death—in his former able and courteous manner, while he frejj quontly was MissGlyn's escort to the dinnerparties and balls given at the great houses of the district, and although tho Abbey hospitality was on a less regal scale than it had been previously, there were some quiet, stately dinner-parties, and occasionally a few old and intimato friends staying in tho house.

It wanted a day or two of the third Christmas after the tragedy by the river-side, but there was little in the outward appearance of things to denote that the festive season was at hand. The weather was decidedly open, and if the hunting men were triumphant, skaters and sleighers were in despair. It certainly did not promise to be an oldfasliionod snow-white Christinas which looks so delightful on Christmas cards, for as Sir Geoffrey Lisle rode homeward in the quiet hour "'twixt the gloaming and the mirk" after a good day's run, there was nob the slightest tinge of frost in the air, and there seemed no prospect of any change in the weather. Sir Geoffrey was riding slowly, his bridle loose, his head bent slightly, his face thoughtful and grave, but not sad. He was not alone; tho young man riding by his side had also been hunting, as his splashed, mudstained tops and coat testified ; but ho, too, seemed in rather a thoughtful humour. Once or twice he glanced at his companion, but although he could nob seo the expression of Sir Geoffrey's face, the one or two attempts at conversation he had made had nob been vory favourably received, so he contentod himself with silence, broken only by an occasional soft whistle, which, strangely enough, was the refrain of a song which was familiar to Sir Geoffrey also, although it was not by any means a fashion, able or commonplace ditty. Neither was Dick Holroyd a musical porson, although he whistled the pretty quainb air truly and woll; ho had been often heard to declare that there was far more music in the baying of tho hounds than in anything Boethoven or Mozart had composed. And if the air he was whistling now was not one of Beethoven's or Mozart's, neither was ib a catching drawing-room or music-hall tune; it was tho refrain of a charming little French romance which he had heard for the first time a few nights ago. The soft littlja whistle chimed in pleasantly with Sir Geoffrey's thoughts; unknown to either man, it conjured tip the same vision in the eyes of both—the picture of a pretty little octagon room panelled in cedar wood, and furnished after the style of a by-gone day ; a room bung with silken brocade of a faint faded Indian blue, with a quaint old spinet in the recess on one side of the fire,. and curious old china cups and saucers upon

the tall wooden mantelshelf; and there was a girl in a white gown sitting beforo tho spinot, drawing out soft sweot Bounds from' tho long-silent keys, and singing that pretty quaint French romance in u. sweet rich contralto which filled the room with

Wlifjic, That was tho picturo that roso before tho eyes of both young men a.=) they rodo slowly through' the village in tho dusk of the winter's day, and it was Dick Holroyd's soft whistle which had had the magical powor of bringing it before their eyes. They had had a capital day, and thoit horses were tired and glad to bo left to the pace they chose. Tho village street was quiet enough, lights gleamed in tho cottage windows, and from the open door of the Lisle Arras a flood of ruddy light streamed hospitably out upon the pavement. The few and small shops which the village boasted' Bcomed to bo doing » tolerably brisk trado, and tho churoh on tho hill was fully lighted up, showing tho beauty of its stained windows to perfection. As it came in sight, Dick Holroyd stopped whistling; a sudden thought had struck him. "By Jove 1" ho said, eagerly, " they are decorating tho church ! Shall wo go in, proffer our assistance, and beg for a cup of tea? It will soon be leatimo, and Mrs. Wilson always entertains the decorators at tho rectory." " We're not very presentable," said Sir Geoffrey, with a sudden quick heart throb which ho did not try to account for. "Oh, we can go to tho Lislo Arms, leave the horses there, and get a rub down," said Holroyd, eagerly. "It is quite early, Lisle, and they are badly in want of helpers. I am rather good at nailing up garlands and that sort of thing." " I am not," said Sir Geoffrey, with ft plight laugh. However, if you like," bo added, with a shrug of his shoulders, and they turned their horses' heads in the direction of the inn. [Tola continued. ]