WHEN WOMAN LOVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18890, 12 December 1924, Page 7

WHEN WOMAN LOVES.

BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE.

(Copyright.)

CHAPTER XXXlX,—(Continued.)

"My dear," Nelly sadly smiled, "how very well you know the tricks of our trade!"

"Oh!" in a strangled voice, Jill Cried, "you—you inhuman creature! —you monstrous woman!"

"Yes, Mrs. Rex? Is that ah you wished to say to me!" "I love him so!" the girl sobbed. "He's all my life. Oh, forgive me if I've said anything—l hardly know what I'm saying: I'm beside myself, half-frantic If you only knew " "Suppose I do." Jill choked on a sob, blankly stared, with handkerchief stilling her lips. "Have you any reason to bebut I must tell you," Nelly cried. "I, like you, Mrs. Rex, once had a. husband—and lost him to a heartless woman."

"You! Then surely you can feel for me—you can't be so cruel " The look that covered her was so shadowy with doubt, to Jill it must have seemed at once unintelligible and minatory. She cowered under it, and from the implication of Nelly's reply as well, which was unmistakably less addressed to her hearer's understanding than categorical questioning of her own heart. "Can't I? I wonder!"

"Mrs. Paramor, you have suffered yourself. Be charitable now to a suffering woman. I throw myself on your mercy!" "Oh, no!"— Nelly shrank back, one hand described a sic;n of dread—"not that!"

"You've got everything—beauty and wit, a successful career, your independence, and all the men you meet going mad about you. I—l have nothing!— only my love for Perley: that's life and death to me. Take that away, and there'll be nothing left of me —only a broken woman. You see!" she cried, "I am quite frank with you—yes, quite frank: I'm laying my heart bare to you. Oh, I implore you—give Perley back to me!"

Again Nelly's countenance appealed to that remote bourne from which, presumably, the high ironic gods were looking down. Lips that barely move recited: "Into my hands, 0 Lord!" "What?" the other stammered, in uncomprehending fright—"what are you saying?" . . "Mrs. Rex!" Nelly held the girl's eyes with a regard darkly compassionated "The words you've just spoken, the things you've just said —is it possible that they rang no echo in your memory ?" Jill started back, stared in quickening terror. "What—what's that you say?" "Wait!" As if momentarily distracted by one of those common details of daily life that persistently enforce their claims upon the attention even in life's most tragic phases, Nelly turned aside to the fireplace, cast into the cold black cavern behind its ornamental screen of brass the cigarette that had since her first puff, been fuming to ash between her fingers, and rested elbows upon the mantelshelf for a time, face buried in her hands. The brocade shawl slipped down from her shoulders, exposing an ancient, wilted evening gown. She swung back to Jill without warning, a woman careworn and shabby. "When I threw myself upon your mercy, Mrs. Rex —that night at Tanglewood, two years and more ago " "Mrs. Wayne!" That cry was almost a scream. Cringing, the girl clapped a hand over her lips, but the words, re?eated, forced even that barrier. "Mrs. Payne!'' "When I bared by breaking heart to you," Nelly went on, "when I begged you to be merciful and give mo back my Pen: what did you say? Do you remember V Her only answer -was a wail of anguish quavering through fingers that vainly sought to still it. "I remember, if you don't. You told me you couldn't listen to my prayers, because to do so would be contrary to all your philosophy of life. . You said—these were the very words you said. to me—-' a woman who can't hold her husband doesn't deserve to have him.' "

Nelly paused, . waited, heard only frightened and heart-broken sobs. ''Do you still think that?" "Ah! how can you ask? I was so young then, so hard—l didn't -know, I wouldn't understand. But please!"— Jill ound a little self-control—" I have my inswer now, now I understand, now I

will go. " No—wait! I listened to you then, listen to me now in your turn. You haven't heard me out yet —my answer is not the answer you gave mo. I wish,". Nelly protested, pitiful, "I almost wish I could reply to you to-day as you replied to me that night—almost, I think it would be kinder. But—l can't; no more than you could then can I today be false to the philosophy which life has taught me. So I must tell you— I who have had to learn the truth in a hard school—that you were wrong. The bitter truth is, not that a woman who can't hold her husband doesn't deserve to have him, but that a husband who has to be held isn't worth any woman's having." Averting her gaze as if to spare tho girl more humiliation, " Come!" she gently said, and led tho way to the far end of the room. " I give back to you. freely, that which I never of my own will took. Please tell Perley I shall not see him again. I am leaving for California tomorrow, it isn't certain when I shall return."

Resting a hand upon tho knob of the study door, she made an end: " One word more, Mrs. Rex. I am sorry, I would have spared your this had I been permitted to have my way. I advanced the date of my departure for California three weeks iu the hope that all this might be avoided. And so I feel I've earned the right to beg you, for your sako, and for your child's, to bo gentlo with Pcrlcy and patient. Tho hurt to his vanity is going to make him unhappy for days, perhaps for weeks. But that will pass; and if meanwhile you have been kind and patient " She opened the door. " Good-bye." Jill passed through. Tho door closed.

CHAPTER XXXV. Tho clock in the entrance hall was on the stroke of one when Andrews ushered Pen Wayne into Nelly's presence. The drawing room windows were very bright with sunlight, so bright that her figure, posed against one of them, was visible from the point at which Wayne paused only in tho semblance of a silhouette, slender and still. He waited. In a voice that told nothing of her temper, she said quietly: "Thank you, Pen, for coming." " I didn't get your note till half an hour ago, Nelly," ho replied. " Afraid. I'm a bit late."

" N(5," she said, "not late." " You said," ho vestured, " you wanted to consult me about something you considered vitally important." " Yes, Pen: vitally." "Well!" in a key of cheeriness constrained—" here I am, Nell, at your service—for whatever I may be worth." He must have been aware that the eyes he couldn't see were closely conning his face, reading the secrets it was set to hide from all eyes but those that looked back to his, out of his shaving-mirror, every morning, for his lips grew a little tighter, while she kept him waiting still another minute, his eyelids drooped, slow crimson mounted in his lean firm cheeks. "Pen!" she cried, in a voice of blended hope and fear—" do you remember me?"

li Remember you!" M "Look at me, Pen! look at me. A frown of confusion deeply cleft his forehead. " Why V what have you done to yourself, Nell?" ,„ ~, "Don't you remember me, Pen .' bhe invited his narrower scrutiny with a smile tremulous and dim. "I'm just as I was, that night I ran away. «< So you are." Visibly his mystification took on an added density. % The same way you used to do your hair.

I " You remember that, Pen * Even thai | i you truly remember?" "I'll never," he vowed—" so ; long as ! I live, I'll never iorget." " And my dress, Pen: don't, yon know | : . it ? The same little old. faded frock !" "Even," he all but whispered—"even, W, Nell, the old look in your eyes." |, "It means, Pen "—she wonderfully 1 blushed and shone—" it means, if you still i want me " | " Want you," his cry of thirst unslaked cut in. "Oh! with all my soul Nell." % . * | '• If you mean it, Pen, if you still want j me as I used to be, as you used to want me; I haven't changed a. bit, S heart has never changed. So, if you tova me, as the other night you said you loved me" —a richer colour dyed her cheeks, her eyes were lambent —"take mo, Pen, take me!" The arms of Wayne lifted to enfold her j faltered, fell, the hope she had kindled !/| flickered, failed. " How can I, Nell?" ho cried. " What, you said to me that night holds <?pod. Until I can earn my own forgivenesss——"J He hung his head and muttered: " that means never!" "V^..-"'" " No—l tell you no!" She went to him, | and closed her hands upon his arm. " Forget all that, Pen. I was wrong. What | I told you then was not my mind but just false' pride and vanity speaking through me, I had begun to forget you, Pen, I'm j afraid—l was so proud and vain and wise in my own conceit, I thought so well of myself because I'd been fortunate with my novel and had managed, bravely, 1 j thought, to put my memories behind me, had schooled myself to believe it, was worth while to live only for myself. I was blind and wrong. Happiness can only come by conferring happiness in this life, Pern | And I wasn't doing that, I was being ungenerous and cruel and vengeful. I knoW i better now—l've learned another lesson." " Since that last talk we had, Pen, you i haven't been out of my thoughts in any waking hour. I think I've come to-under-stand that the fault that wrecked our married life wasn't yours only. If you had become a little weary, bored and restless, the blame for that lay at my door more than at yours." f. Her eyes had grown very soft with tears unshed. " One needs to bring to married life, Pen, more than love alone. But ona gso. seldom finds that out till it's too lite. That is why I failed you, and had to pay the penalty—had to give you up and go s . away from you, whom I so dearly loved, and live in loneliness and 6uffer till i found out what it was that I had lacked, and you required, to make you happy with me. " So, if you'll have me back, to be \ your wife again, just as I am, *jjust as ,; you see me, just as I was when I went away—but only with more understanding —to begin all over again, just where we left off " . , . • . 'J^j**^, The magic cadences of that voice sub- ;J sided. She crept into his arms. "I need you, Pen—much.as you need me, I need you more. Take me and car* for mo again. Help me, as I shall try td help yon, to forget." THE END. . I ;