MARCIA DRAYTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12211, 5 March 1903, Page 3

MARCIA DRAYTON.

BY CSAELES GAEVICB, Author of . " Kyra's; Fate," " Maida," "The Shadow of Her Life," ' Better Than Life. " Love, the Tyrant," etc. . CHAPTER XXXVl.—(Continued.) I Mabcia went up to her room and stood at the window, looking towards the Abbey. Poor woman! Yes, whatever the sin or fault may have been which had driven her husband "from her it was impossible to withhold pity from her now ! * . - The blithe sound of the bells penetrated the sick-room at the Abbey and Linda heard them and opened her eyes. Ellen and the j nurse bent over her anxiously with mute inI quiry in their eyes. ■ ' " what—are the bells ringing for she asked. Ellen smiled nroudly. " Because of the baby, my lady," she said, in a whisper. " ' Linda frowned. Tell them—ask them to stop,, please,' she said. - ; " They disturb you, my lady?" murmured Ellen, and she went out on tiptoe to send a message to the ringers. The bells stopped suddenly and the silence of the sick-room seemed accentuated. Linda lay quite still, her hazel eyes, shadowed by dark hollows, gazing straight before . her with a strange misery and unrest in them. The nurse and Ellen exchanged glances, and presently Ellen lifted the tiny mite from the blankets that swathed it and laid it in its mother's arms. The wistful _ eyes turned to it for a moment, then, with a heavy sigh, she said "Take it away, please." Again the -nurse and Ellen exchanged glances, this time of dismay. ' .;" " Everybody's so glad, my lady," whispered Ellen. • "Why?" asked the white lips. "Why. my lady?" echoed Ellen, aghast. "Why, because it's come, and because it's a boy!" she said, as if the reply were scarcely necessary. "It's the future master, my lady, the earl that is to be." The weary eyes closed and the lips tightened.

"Ah, yes, I forgot," she said. A silence reigned in the dimly-lit room for some time, then Linda, Countess of Arrondale, opened her eyes again. "The papersthe announcement?" she said, in a toneless voice.

Ellen understood and nodded cheerfully. " Yes, my lady. Mr. Smith telegraphed to Mr. Godwin, the lawyer, and, of course, he'll see to it. It's such glorious news." Linda signed to them to hold the baby up to her that she might see it, and when they did so, she looked at it long and fixedly, but with none of the divine light in her eyes which generally shines in the mother's when they rest upon the newly-born child. _ "Will—will it live?" she asked in a faint, emotionless voice.

Ellen and the. nurse tried to look shocked. " Oh, my lady, what a question! Of course it will! It's not so—so big and fine as some babies, but it's none the worse for that, is it, nurse?" The nurse echoed the assertion with elaborate emphasis. "And it's the image —of his lordship, my lady," said Ellen. ■ ■• ■ A spasm passed over the white face, and with a deep sigh Linda turned her face to the pillow and closed her eyes. There was great excitement" in the village and on the estate. Smith held almost open house on the day of the birth, and, though the bells were stopped, rejoicings were on hand all round the place. But the fact that Lord Arrondale was absent was not forgotten. " "And no father to welcome it!" expressed the general sentiment.' " You'll see his lordship'll come home fast enough now !" was the opinion uttered by one and all. Cards and inquiries were showered on the proud and jubilant Smith, whose spirits rose as he shared the general opinion that Lord Arrondale would soon be back. Whatever had happened to separate the earl and countess, his lordship would corns back on the wings of the wind now that a son and heir was born to him.

"You'd better go up and inquire, Marcia," said Mr. Drayton. "Take two of my cards; though, upon my word, it's a kind of reflection on that idiotic Arrondale! Why on earth doesn't he come back and put an end to this scardal?"

"I have been," siid Marcia, quietly. She called every day and heard the' latest bulletin from Smith, and every day her heart softened towards the sick woman and grew more pitiful. "Her ladyship's about the same, miss," he said. "And the baby, he's going on all right. I believe. I'll tell her ladyship you've, called. She's very weak, miss/and we try to cheer her by telling her of the kind messages everybody sends." One day when she waited in the hall— recalling, as she looked, round, the days when she and Harry had bent over the plans of the new cottages stretched out on the big oak table Ellen came down to her. • "My lady would like to see vou, miss," she said.

Marcia drew back timidly. V "To see me?" she faltered. " Yes, miss, if you please. Her ladyship has always been told (when you've called, and this morning she said, 'Ask Miss Drayton if she will come up and see me.' " • Marcia hesitated for a moment, then she sa Jd'i "Yes, I will cone up, of course."' Jillen led her up to the room. Linda was sitting up in bad. She looked verv ill and weak, and the hazel eyes seemed to shine like jewels from the white face, She regarded Marcia in silence for a moment, as if she were trying to penetrate to the girl's heart, then she said: " It's very good of you to come. You have, called every day, so they tell me." Marcia, as she stood beside the bed, was torn by conflicting,emotions. There was the love' for Harry, which, try y>s Jihe would, she could not root out, battling with her pity for this woman whose white loveliness only accentuated her forlorn condition. >-. ~,,''':

"I hope you are better, Lady Arrondale!" she said.

"Ah, yes, I am better! I get stronger every day," said Linda', listlessly, as if the question and the reply were mere formula). "I wanted to see you. Do you know where my husband is?" . ' Marcia went white.

"I, Lady Arrondale! No!" she said. Linda looked at her for a moment in silence.

"I believe you," she said. "Miss Drayton, I am not in the condition for subterfuge or evasion. lam fighting for my life and for my child's life., You know why my husband—left me?"

"No. no ; indeed I do not!" said Marcia, earnestly. , , . Linda drew a long breath;;'"' "" "I— deceived him," she said. ."He was one of those men who cannot stand deceit. Youyou knew him before I did. You know him better, perhaps, than I do. Can —can you help me to recover him?" i Mama's brain whirled. •

"If I could!" she murmured ; and.at that moment she felt that she would give all the world 1 to'restore this weak, white-faced woman to her husband. I She turned to the cot, smothered. in costly lace, ir which the future Lord Arrondale, : lay. • "Give him to me," said Linda. .'-■■. Mareia took the small atom of humanity in her arms and laid it on Linda's breast. ' '"It is his child,"?-said Linda, her eyes fixed on Marcia. - " His child. And he does not know is not here '* "1'

Her voice died away, and Mareia bent over the. mother and child with a woman's tender pity. ;l J > '■>",'■ ~r ■'.' •

. ." Come and see me again.* Come:when you like," said Linda./ faintly, as Mareia made to go; >'■ "No! ■ -'Don't:kiss me!" she cried, as 'Marcia bent ■ over her. "I could not bear that!" and Marcia went out of the" room with every nerve of her body vibrating under.. the stress of conflicting emotions. ' ' . ... Mr. ; Godwin did his duty, and all the London ; papers contained the: announcement of the birth of the son and heir to Arrondale. - - , ■:'■ Osborne Devere' was prepared by the public announcement, and received his due meed of sympathy from : his friends and acquaintances. • "Can't congratulate you,j. I'm . afraid, old boy!" said■ one and the* othei. "~ " Puts your nose out of joint, doesn't it? A son, too! Some hope for you if it had been a daughter! Deuced annoying!" But Osbornei-Deverel received the -sympathy of his friends with V; bland serenity; and, as he dealt the cards at- the Olympus, he smiled with chastened humility. :-. v:, l 1" ..,.

Very awkward for me, yes," he said, in' his soft, suave Voice. ".'■" Cuts me out, rather, doesn't it? But I knew that when my cousin Arfbhdale married. Your deal, major. After all;; one feels a kind of satisfaction that' the good old place goes in the direct line. A fine child, I believe. Arrondale still away? Yes; looking after his estate in California— What a hand to deal a man! I can't make anything of it!" The week*, passed, and Linda, Countess of Arrondale, slipped graduallv from out that valley which is called the Valley . of the Shadow of Death, and the child, the future son and heir, was still alive, though weak and feeble. Osborne Deverel read the bulletins issued by the Morning Post with attentive assiduity, and received his friends' sympathy and commiseration with suitable acknowledgments. ': r . ■:•..; ..;' •'■ ..:■■■:■ ''.v.. :, j •

He had written a charming letter of congratulation to the countess— had not replied to it—and he waited, as he said, until she should be strong enough to receive the like congratulations in person. But he did not confine his reading to the Morning Post, but studied the American papers also; JpJid one morning the devoted Jefson was startled by an exclamation which escaped his master's lips as he scanned the roughly-printed pages of a Californian paper. ' The exclamation was so loud and deep, so unlike the suave utterance of Mr. Osborne Deverel, that Jefson paused as he set down the entree dish and gazed inquiringly at his master.

Osborne Deverel looked up, his dark eyes flashing, his white teeth gleaming from between his lips, his perfectly manicured hands clutching the paper. Then, as if he had suddenly become conscious that his sardonic laugh and exultant smile were scarcely suitable, he said: " Get me the ' Bradshaw,' Jefson, will you?. I—l have just read bad —very bad news!" . s ' • . (To be continued daily.) ...