FICTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1156, 27 April 1894, Page 8

FICTION.

HER FATHERS IDOL,

By MRS BASELEY (« Mignon "), (copyright.)

CHAPTER XII. Nelly had heard all. Mark's non-success with her father. His bitter denunciation against her; his message that before she could return to his respectable homo sho must be able to show a certificate ot marriage. She stood stunned. The full force of her desolation and poverty could not have fallen on her at a worse timo. Bewildered, prostrated, horrified at the treatment she had received from Mrs Hudson's hands; waiting, as she supposed, the policeman's advent; weeping, disgraced, friendless; praying wildly for Mark's return to relieve her; her prayer answered, but only to deepen her woe, she grew stunned, unconscious almost at first of any feeling. The agony of learning that her father refused to believe in her protestations and appeals; that he, despite all Mark's pleadings, declined to see and help her; that it was positively true he was wilfully withholding back all. hope of rescue, was a blow too hard almost to endure. " What will you do, Miss Henstock ?" asked Dagniar, as her patience got exhausted. Nelly raised her blue eyes so full of misery and anguish, but did not actually see either of hor companions. "I—l think I will—go to—prison ; they —they will help me there, feed, clothe me. " Prison !" exclaimed Mark, passionately, " not whilst I have a crust to share with you. You have been subjected to atrocious treatment. Mrs Hudson I will call to account, but your father's behaviour is iniquitous, unpardonable." " Dear father," moaned Nelly, '• he must have been deceived." "He wants hanging!" declared Mark, with ferocity, the remembrance of his past interview recurring to his memory and rousing his temper. "I wish I had the handling of him." " I cannot understand it, roally," observed Nelly, sadly. " His indifference to my appeals, his disregard to my sufferings are so very unlike him. You are sure, Mark, you " ' " Now you are going to doubt my sincerity," interrupted Mark, with a well- • feigned injured air. "As I told you before I left, it was to my interest as well as to yours to conciliate him." "Of course, of course," murmured poor Nelly, -distressedly. " Only it is all so incomprehensible a situation from beginning to end that it dazes me. I scarcely know what to think, what to believe. If I had gone to father as I wanted, I feel sure I could have realised the situation better. But, oh I" bursting out into a flood of tears, "I must think of the present. I —was not that a knock ? Hold me! keep me, Mark. I cannot, will not go to prison. I am afraid now that they have come." " But what are you going to do, dear, about paying your arrears?" suggested Dagmar, politically. "Mrs Hudson will insist on being paid. You are not the first person I have seen her hunt out and put in prison!" ° Oh, they are coming—coming for me. I hear the men's footsteps!" shrieked Nelly. 4 Mark, save me, save mel" He left the room, smiling to himself with satisfaction at her helplessness; her un- ■ guarded appeals to him. "If he offers to marry you," whispered Dagmar, hurriedly, " accept him. It will be noble of him if he does. You are without change of clothing, destitute, deserted. Take my advice as a woman who has seen the world, and snatch at his offer lest he repeat it not and you be thrown on the • streets."

"Marry him—thus—now," said Nelly, shrinkingly. " Marry him when he suggests it, if he should be so disinterested. What else will become of you ?° "Won'tyou help me to get a living?" sobbed Nelly, pitepusly. " Won't he " Dagmar stamped her foot. M Child, you little know what you ask. A living to be gained by a lonely, unprotected female in the pitfalls of a city such as this is what you and your sort are wholly unfitted for. Not to be named in the same day as a safe marriage with an estimable and deserving young man." " Marry him! Marry Mark," murmured Nelly, repeating the sentence over and over as if desirous to imprint it on her brain. " Marry him in this dilemma. It would behard for me to impose myself on him in such a predicament. My head is dull, numb. I can't think." Mark re-entered the room. He handed a long bill to Nelly for her inspection. She glanced at the sum total, £9 odd. " It is a great deal of money; she has overcharged fearfully." "It will have to be paid, I fear. We made no agreement with her." " And I have not a penny. I " Mark put his arm tenderly round her and drew her unresistingly to him. Had she never before cared for him, the haven and shelter of his arms must have been welcome to her then. " I won't have you cry another tear," he said, " spoiling this pretty face which must bo mine. Don't tremble so, darling. I have promised to pay Mrs Hudson; the arrest is stopped!" "Have you, Mark!" exclaimed Nelly; " how good of you." " I have done it on one condition." " What is that ?" she asked, quickly. J "That you become my wife!" . "I told you, dear Mark, that I would, some day—when father —was agreeable." "Name not that selfish man to me, Nelly, I must claim your promise at once, this evening, or part and leave you. We cannot remain together without our characters becoming further compromised. It is

" Impossible !" repeated Dagmar Votoski. nodding her head acquiescingly. Nelly looked at her lover with startled, shy eyes. -'Marry soon without troussoau, bridesmaids!" " Without money, everything ! ho burst in. impetuously. "My love, this is no timo to beat about the bush. Your extremity provides the strained situation. We aro not the creatures of choice but of circumstance. If you love me" —ho paused—"you do, Nelly?" " Yes, yes!" she answered, shyly. "Then wo must be married at onco without delay." " Oh, Mark, it is impossible ! how can

I ?" " Then I must leave you to Mrs Hudson's tender mercies. The law will have to punish you, your father brought to reason ; in the meantime you will probably dif>, you sensitive littlo soul."

" But, Mark, you must not abandon mo —now !"

" Either that or marry you at once. Ido not care to sacrifice my reputation any more than you do, Nelly ; and to stay on the terms we are on subjects us to obloquy, disgrace. Your father, mine, at the best of times, were dead against our union. They now utterly discard us. It would be easier for me to relinquish you than you—who have no idea of my position—may imagine. Not from affection's standpoint, we won't enter into that, but from a worldly view. But I love you, and would save you, Nelly. I offer to marry you and give you a homo till such timo—if evor—that tho patornals forgive. You must be sharp and decide." "When—when should " " When should we be married ? —to-night —at onco."

" Oh, no, I could not." "Then, I must leave you, darling. I would have shielded you and boon good." " Mark, I have no clothes!" * " Don't I know it! Those can easily be purchased. Dagmar will help you. Only give me a husband's right to protect you, and all your troubles will be ended." " How could we be married so hurriedly?" " Leave that to me." " It would not be quite legal at so late an hour."

Mark laughed reassuringly. " Should I be doing my utmost to persuade you if it were not ? Nelly, if I were a bad man, unworthy of being trusted, need I spend my time arguing ?" Her sense told her that he might have behaved far less handsomely had ho been so minded.

"He has been married before, trust him wholly," whispered Dagmar. Her communication proved a very bombshell to her hearer.

" Married before ! Mark, have you ?" exclaimed Nelly. " No, no, this cannot be true!" If a sudden flash from Mark'o eye 3 could have slain Dagmar Votoski for hor unwelcome disclosure, she had never breathed again. "It is true, Nelly; a secret of my past; she died and left me. It is her place I desire to fill."

Nelly placed her hand on his arm diffidently. " I will be yours. Arrange things as you will."

Mark took her in his arms and kissed her warmly. Nelly thought her sorrows were past. "You will always be good to me, Mark ?" " Ever, my own dearest Nelly." " Had I not better take Miss Henstock baok to my room ?" said Dagmar, officiously. " I have a bonnet and shawl that would better become a bride's attire than her hat and jacket." " No, no!" exclaimed Nelly, shrinkingly. "I will not venture near Mrs Hudson again!" "Bring them here, good Mademoiselle Votoski, always the friend of the oppressed. Call a cab, too, whilst you are out.* I will thank the lady of the house for the use of the room, and we will all go together and get tea somewhere. After that our nuptials, and we will be free from Mrs Hudson and her rudeness."

"Where shall we go?" inquired Nelly. " I shall have to plan all that out. This calamity—Mrs Hudson's behaviour and your father's cruelty—have come on me unprepared." " It is just as if I were thrown at you, Mark."

He smiled strangely, an odd unfathomable smile.

" But you won't think it, will you ?" she asked. " And then, dear, when I can go to my father with our marriage certificate, he will forgive, and your poor Nelly will be happy again." Mark scowled. His expression was forbidding. "It strikes me, Nelly, that we may reconcile ourselves to remaining unforgiven," ho observed, coldly. "Wo aro both very black sheep down at Slackaby, I can assure you." " But you will give me money, and let me go to father ?" sho urged. " I'm sure he could not hold out long against ray entreaties. He never has done yet. He has always been so gentle and good." " Suppose we discuss something else." Nelly was distressed, but obeyed. She intended, however, to get her way before many weeks were over. Oh, tho happy future that was to be theirs, all together, Dr Henstock included. The marriage did not come off that evening, some trivial matter prevented it. Nelly was induced, under shelter of Mark's protection, to re-enter Mrs Hudson's and spend ono more night there, sharing Dagmar's bed.

The next morning they drove with drawn blinds to a clmreh that was near, and there they two—Mark and Nelly—plighted their troth either to other.

Nelly's face was very sober and subdued. She felt frightened at tho extreme secrecy that Mark assured her had to be observed. She wanted her father's reassuring smile. Mark fidgeted mi was ,rery restless

during tho ceremony, scarcely brighter than Nolly. He looked around frequently, as if dreading interruption, at which Dagmar Votoski, tho solo witness to tho ceremony, wondered. She, contrary to all expectation, had a short fit of weeping. " I always think marriages aro such mournful affairs," sho said to Nolly. "Is that the reason you could never induce any ono to have you ?" asked Mark, abruptly. She gave him a queer stare, but mado no reply. " Woro you expocting 01 ga to come and comfort you that you kept jerking your head round ?" she asked.

" Not exactly," he replied, with a shudder, " I don't look out for the dead to come and grace a marriage festivity." An angry reply was on tho tip of Dagmar's hasty tongue. Sho contrived to smother it back, as she kissed Nelly. "Wo belong to each other for life now," Nelly remarked to Mark as thoy left the church. " For life," ho answered. To himself he added, " Not if I know it, by Jove. Ah, Miss Nelly, ah, Mademoiselle Votoski, you are both imposed upon. I have committed big-a-my. It's an ugly word. But Olga, my first wife, lives, though neither of you know it. I can throw my present littlo darling off, just when I choose. Ha, ha!" Unconscious of those fiendish exultations, Nolly entered on her now life in love and hope. Hor whole desire was concentrated in gaining her father's forgiveness. Littlo thought she that she had but just consummated an act tliat effectually cut her off from the very object her heart was centred upon. (To be continued.)