A CARPET KNIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11842, 20 December 1901, Page 3

A CARPET KNIGHT.

(Concluded.)

Annice Beatoun, coming down late to breakfast, arrived in the midst of an animated conversation. "Just like Arden," Lord Worsfield was saying, "to keep it from as all, so that there might he no fussing- It's a fine, plucky thing to do, : and if I were not nearly 70 I'd' go to the war myself."

Annice wondered, but asked no questions. As she sat down her hostess addressed her. "I wonder if you knew all along, you sly little 'puss?"

Knew what, pray, Lady Worsfield?"

" That Lord Arden had volunteered for South Africa, and that he's gone out in command of a company."

"No knew nothing." The voice did not sound like her own.

"He wanted to go from the first," said a man who knew Arden better than some of the others, " and offered his services to the War Office at the beginning, but they were so cocksure then that they snubbed all suggestions that volunteers might go. Now, of course, they sing a different tune, and are glad to have the help that Arden and men like him—first-rate shots and splendid horsemen—can give." ■ Well, he's gone," mused Lady Worsfield. "Only think, the next news we may have of him will be to see his name in one of those terrible lists of killed in our morning papers! Such a bright young life—such a splendid, brave boy, in spite of his affected indifference to all the grave things of life. It was only affectation; I've always been sure of that."

Annice Beatoun had very little appetite for breakfast. If she had only been kind to him at the last!—if she had but dreamed! She had let him go off to do what all must agree was hero's work fight for England against tho,.stoutest foe she had known for 50 years. He was risking his life with no thought of self-interest or aggrandisement. No man could do more than this one she had scorned because he was a " carpet knight." The heart of Annice Beatoun was heavy with the burden of remorse and fear for one whom she did not now deny she loved, a.nd her one interest in life, morning and evening, was found in the newspapers. Annice was an orphan— heiress in a small way—who; had a convenient, aunt ,as chaperone—an aunt who adored her, and always thought that Annioe's will was her own. They left the abbey, a few days after the news that Arden had so carefully kept to himself had been revealed, and went back to their flat in Pont-street.

The girl dreaded to > see callers, for fear of the chance remarks they might make about affairs in Africa. She turned her eyes away from the placards which advertised the latest news, then looked back at them with sickening anxiety. "Alarming news from Buller," in a big headline, would send her into her room, -with the door locked, the fatal paper in her hand, •and no courage wherewith to read it. On several occasions there were paragraphs about Lord Arden, for he had been a prominent figure in his own world. He had arrived at the Cape; he had gone to the front; lie had. distinguished himself in an important skirmish, beating buck a large force of Boers.

A couple of weeks passed, and then came the news which it seemed to Annice that somehow she had always' known must cone. In a bloody fight at the Tugela River, • Lard Arden had led his men across in the face of a fire that decimated his force. But .he leader never faltered, and though his men wavered, they rallied and followed the young man who cheered them on so heroically. They stormed and took a position held by a force of Boers who had seriously hindered the British advance, and in spite of the furious fire of the Dutch guns, which were turned upon them, raking their position with tremendous shell fire, they held • the kopje till the fight was over. In the General's despatch describing the fight the plucky action of Lord Arden and his group of volunteers was specially mentioned as having an important bearing on the fortunes of the day, and Lord Arden himself was recommended for the Victoria Cross for his gallantry in going out of the entrenchment which he had captured and bringing in one of his wounded men who was lying outside. While carrying the injured man into comparative safety a shell had exploded near him, shattering his left arm, and striking him on the forehead.

Annice read the official account with a cold numbness at her heart. She bad called him a " carpet knight • It was December when he had gone, and three months later they brought him back. Annice heard how his sister-in-law, a prim, cold young woman, whom Arden had never been able to like, had gone down to Redland3 Court, his country place, to nurse him. H&i gloomy presence there would do him harm rather than good, 'the girl thought miserably, and was more than ever eaten up with regrets for the past. If she had only been his affianced wife—how different everything might have been !

At last there was no longer any danger that he would die, but—(so said Lord Worsfield, who had seen him) —there would always remain a scar on his forehead, he would never have much use of that strong left arm of his again, and it might even be that his eyesight would never be what it once had been.

" He's got a big bandage across his face now," said Lord Worsfield to Annice Beatoun, when he met her avid her chaperone near the Achilles, in the Park, one April day. "Poor fellow, I tell you my heart ached for him. I said to him that lie ought to have a jolly little wife to nurse him, and help cheer him up, but he shook his head. Though he tried to laugh . and crack some jokes in his old way, as he insisted he should never be able to marry now—Fate had settled all that for him—l could see he was pretty well cut up. Not that he regrets what he's donenot a bit of it. He said he would do it all over again, and only wished he'd had a# longer chance at things before this happened. Still you know—he's young—two or three years short of 30 yet—and it is rather hard lines. Such a rattling good shot, and football man, and cricketer he was, too— never saw an amateur that was better behind the bat than he. And that's all over for him now."

Annice cast down her long lashes, to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes, for she had cheated herself out of the right to cry for him. l It was on a Sunday, in that witching hour between church and luncheon, when it is everybody's duty to be on parade in the park. And the tulips were glowing in the grass like fairy lamps, and the sky was a moving mass of blue and white. All the Annice's world and Lord _ Arden's world—was here, laughing, gossiping, forgetful • for tho moment that there was any suffering on earth, since tlifey were happy, well dressed, and in the best of health. But to Annice the mockery of it all cried aloud in a voice above the merry human chatter. She hardly knew whether she answered intelligibly or no;: when people came and spoke to her, for her words were spoken mechanically. She was making up her mind. " Dear," she said that night to the everaccommodating aunt, "I want you to do.a great favour for me to-morrow. I want you to take me down into the. country, to—to make ai call. " Shall wo go far?" cheerfully inquired the chape rone. , "As far as Redlands Court. Oh—please don't look at me like that; and, if you love mo, don't ask questions, dear. I know everything you would say—and what others would say if they heard. . Still—if you won't take me, I'll— go' alone." So it was settled. Onae, Annice and her aunt- had beet) members of a large house party at Redlands Court, with the objectionable sister-in-law as a figure-head hostess. . The girl's face was one not easily forgotten; and the servants remembered her.

" Tell him it is a lady who has—come a long way to see him. No. name, please," Annice said to the footman. Her heart : was V beating very ! fast as she entered the darkened room, and she could have cried out with an exceeding bitter cry when -she saw the arm' helplessly pinned across the breast in a —the bandage that hid the once merry dark eyes. But she uttered no sound. Outside the library where ho» sat (always his favourite room) the goodnatured ehaperone waited in an apartment adjoining, and glanced over the novel she had thoughtfully brought with her. " Won't you tell me who you are?" Arden inquired, after a moment of silence. " Who has come a 'long way' to see me?" • " One who begs your forgiveness for many things," said Aiuiico gently. •• "AnniceMiss Beatoun —you!", "Yes, I couldn't' stay away. Perhaps, after all the unjust things I said to you that last day, you won't want to see me—you don't feel as you used to feci. And if that is so, I shall know that I ought not to have come."

"If there was one thing; on earth which I most wished for, and believed was farthest out of roach, it is this that has come to pass— your presence here." ' She had kept her self-control while she was not sure 'of him. But his voice said even more than his words, and at the pathos and longing ,in it she broke down. Arden had never heard her cry before. At the sound, he rose,, and tried to grope his way toward her, but she camo to him,' and her tears. fell warm upon his out-stretched hand. - - " You might have sent for me, if you really wanted me!" she exclaimed, unreasonably. " It was hard to conic, without."

• ;;" But I had no right.'- I would have had none in any case, but . less than ever now, to whine • for your . pity ; for a... poor maimed wretch such as I. You had contempt enough for me before." • ' « 1 ' \ " ■ "Oh, how little men know!" she sobbed. "You might have thought it was contempt. Perhaps even, Itried to make myself think it was. But it wasn't—it was love, in spite of - myself, ,in spite of all the ; wicked things I said. And now—now it is adoration." _ i «,Is it true?" he . stammered, i You mean it? 'Yet, .even if you do, I ought not to let you say being what I am." "What are. you,' is 'a hero," finished Annice, incoherently, 1 ungrammatically. "What you will be, is—is—my husband, if you still care enough for me to want me. If you don't, I shall deserve my own misery" (with another rush of tears)—"l think it will kill me." ' ' '" '

"You would actually marry me, Annice — me, a poor, shattered, useless fellow—to be half-blind maybe— a 'carpet.knight' always now, as you once said I was." _ " Don't remind me of that," she implored. "I love you." ' And what he answered ishardly necessary to write down.