HIS OWN ENEMY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1675, 6 April 1904, Page 5

HIS OWN ENEMY.

BY MARY CROSS.

Author cf “Under Sentence,” “A Woman's Victory,” “False Witness’,” “A Dark Deceiver,” etc. CHAPTER. I. “To Lord Wymaid's.” This brief order given the lady leans back, listlessly raising an elaborate sunshade to screen from merciless light a face of which the beauty is, like the season, just upon the wane. Its blonde tints are faded; the obviously artificially darkened brows, . contrasting with the pallid flaxen hair, indicate the caverns into which the large eyes have receded, and an expression of jaded desperation serves, as it were, to underline Time’s autograph, and toe supple figure droops in an attitude of dejection vhicn would be new even to those used to seeing it photographed in every variety of pose and costume, the owner being wellknown as one who casts both light and shadow on the stage. To-day, innocent country cousins, having fier pointed out to them as “Adelaide V errord. that actress, you know,” look incredulous, wonder why any man should forget honour and duty for her, pronouncing her not fair but faded; and there is certainly little visible indication of her private or professional fascination and power. The carriage leaves the- dusty-foliaged park for a sun-scorched square, and at a certain number she alights, with emotions her stage training enables her lo conceal! —her head erect, her lips in one straight pale line. The man who opens the door salutes her civilly, and with a glib readiness, • betraying previous preparation, delivers himself of a speech to the effect that his lordship is our of town, arid therefore it is impossible for anyone to see him, whereat she smiles disdainfully. “Don’t trouble yourself, Morris; he - will see me,” she says, and brushes him aside with a slight determined nod. witnouc further ceremony walking into a roorY furnished in the good o;d age or mahogany solidity, thereby disturbing a gentleman who is writing letters, and Causing him to turn round with an impatient inquiry. As gaze meets gaze he rises, losing and regaining habitual coolness in the short, space of time hi. 3 action occupies. “Adelaide, this is an unexpected pleasure,” he says, coming forward. “I suppose so, as your servant has orders not to admit me, and to tell lies about your being out of toivn.” she returns -drily. “What am I to understand by that, Wyniard?” “Merely an excess of zeal on the parr, of Morris. I leave town to-morrow, and . have much to do in the interval; but * his devotion to- my interests might, 'have excepted you. You have interrupledan epistle to your own fair self/* he adds, tearing a page or two into minute fragments with a steady hand, and no Defrayal of feeling, somewhat driven to bay as he destroys the letter which has cost him much thought, and which he has intended should prevent this interview. . “What necessity was there for writing? Was it so hard, or so impossible, or so undesirable to see me?”, she demands. ~ , , . “Something of all three perhaps. -As a matter of fact the claims upon my time are daily increasing.” “And whose claim is stronger than 321 This seems an unanswerable question; at any rate Lord Wyniard stares silently into space, she looking fixedly ait him. “It is not so long since you. could spare eveiy hour of every day to me, Wyniard.. Bowan®E change!” ;• i The silence remains a little, than he looks round with, an air of polite suggestion that time is precious. -i . “You came to tell me —-that? • “II came to ask you a question —one that must be answered,” she says, imperiously. “I hare heard something from

Eric Harden, and must know from your own lips if it is true.” “Harden would not tell you anything untrue, I devoutly hope, though it is his unpleasant self-constituted mission to tell people tilings they would rather not hear. I daresay you have noticed the peculiarity ?” “taro you engaged to be maiTiedto Miss Quenton?” she demands, point blank, her nostrils twitching, her wan cheek glowing with the intolerable agony of a suspense already overlong endured; and Wyniard straightens his writing materials, deciding that it- is useless to deny a fact winch will so soon bo pubro property, and paragraphed In society journals which already have chronicled less credit able incidents in bis career. “Yes,” lie says; suavely, lifting Ins heavy-lidded eyes, “you may congratulate me on having won the beauty and the saint of the season/’ Miss Yerrard pushes the chair on which she has been leaning aw ay with a force that sends it against the wall. '■And what is to become of me?'’ sue demands, in a tone that suggests to -Wyman-d the advisability of getting nearer the bell. “You will remain in the profession of which you are so lustrous an ornament, I should suppose,” he returns, and she gasps like one half drowned. ■Then this is the explanation of your frequent absences, your neglect, and your indifference ? You have cast me off —do you expect me to bear that patiently “I do, as you are a reasonable and sensible woman,' and never could have seriously expected me to marry you. What had I to gain by doing so ? What indeed, when it is possible to win Miss Quenton, ‘throned on the lofty heights of purs and stainless womanhood’ ?” “Neither lofty nor pure when she has accepted you,” says Adelaide, stung by file subtle taunt. “I am not. so unreasonable as to expect you to admire her. But, you know, I had as well stay single as marry one whom Society will .not receive- Of what use, indeed, is a wife to me except as a stepping-stone to Society’s good graces? The whole thing lies in that nutshell.” “Since when have you cared for Society’s good, graces?’’ she asks, with a sneer. “Only lately, I admit; but ‘better late than neveF is ail admirable proverb. Ocme>. my dear Adelaide, vou and I will settle matters amicably. For that purpose and to that, end, in fact, I was writing to you. For the sake of old times, not because you have the smallest claim upon me, any sum you choose to name shall he placed to your credit at fcho usual banker's; and if you wish to many do so, with my blessings, which I promise shall take a substantial form,” he tells her, with careful deliberation. “All the money you possess would no! atone to me,” she says, with heat. “What in the world do you wish me to do?” he asks, irritably. .“You know there is only one thing you can do, Lord Wyniard—make me your wife.” “Why should I? If there ever was a time when such a tiling was possible, 1 assure you it lias long gone by. When I begin my new life I do not intend to take any of the companions of the old into it.” She looks silently at him—a long, steady look which yet betrays nothing of the “woman scorn’d,” although all the wraith of that condition is burning in her heart as too clear an interpretation is given of coldness, indifference, avoidance on the part of her lover —of broken engagements, ioigotten trysts, and all. Satiety is the explanation, not jealousy nor pique. She has been his slave and toy, not he hers, and the rainbow promises of wealth and rank have melted, she has been duped, like some raw girl! Suddenlv. and with wrathful haste, she drags off a multitude of glittering, rings, a bracelet like a band of fire, a bar of gold confining soft laces about a throat the muscles of which are working convulsively, throwing all these beside his letters with one fierce gesture. “These are yours,” she says; “that house and everything in it, too. You p-ave left me my profession, and it is well for me, for I can earn my bj:ead without your favour.” “This, Adelaide, is simply folly—absolute childishness,” lie says, in a tone of remonstrance. “Possibly; but I 'may succeed in making you doubt the wisdom of your course before all is ovex—l shall certainly fay.” “What will you do?” he asks, with a provoking politeness and exasperating interest. “I have not yet decided,” she replies, heir hand upon the door. She turns to f aoe him, all gleaming eyes and pale parted lips. “I bin going home now to think it out. It xnay take time to mature a plan whereby your matrimonial happiness can he secured; but if love can wait, so can vengeance. I can bide my, time for if need be?” “Mast obliging, I am sure/’ he says. But the door is sharply opened and shut and presently is heard the roll of departing wheels ; then he gives to solitude a sigh of relief,. ,ahd the tension of his facial muscles is relaxed. YAftea- all. less melodramatic than I expected,” he says. Tt is over, and well over. I hope Mr Arthur will let me off as lightly.” From the chaos of letters and notepaper he draws the photograph of >a girl

slender and graceful a girl who seems to lack only a halo about her read and some white fluttering doves to fully typify all that- is youthful and innocent, and possibly Madeline Quentons “sweet saintliness” has charmed one weary of the husks cf swine as much or more than her personal loveliness. Ills wooing nf her had begun in fear and trembling; but the mother bad been gracious, the daughter no less so, because of her simplicity and ignorance of evil; and he lias felt more than ever a desire to be done with tilings of ill. Long-slumbering ambition has stirred in his heart ; Madeline truly bears a lily in her band, and as even “gates of brass cannot withstand one touch of that magic wand,” it follows that, aided by such ia wife, long-closed portals shall open and a wasted past be redeemed. A slight piquancy is added to the other joys of the situation by the fact that he , has “cut out” his younger and only bro- ! tlier, the Honourable Arthur Scrope, j during that young gentleman’s duty- j absence on board H.M.S. “Tartar, ’ 1 -where he is yet. though shortly due at j Castle Benotar, N. 8., the family seat, | where rooms are always kept for him, by desire of the dead mother; and this is ‘ probably the only wish of hers which has J been respected by her elder son. They will soon be vacated now, Lord Wyniard thinks, with a shrug, and wonders to what sort of reckoning Arthur will call him. * ♦ * A drawing-room, heavy with the scent of costly flowers in lavish profusion everywhere, from the shaded balconies to the hearth, and in a nest of periodicals, fashionable and otherwise, are two girls, one a blonde, blue-eyed beauty, slim and shapely, the other a little, brown-eyed lady, her costume untidy or artistic, as one thinks, a large “picture hat” on a mass of curls, denoting the fact that, in one sense at least, she is not at home. Several times . she has glanced nervously, yet searchingly, at her sister —has seemed on the point'of asking some question, but meeting these blue orbs, “like the stars, so still and saintlike,” has returned to the contemplation of a portrait of the popular author of the hour, whose cold classio features lend themselves readily to the engraver’s art. “It’s a capital likeness of Eric,” she says, laying down the magazine wherein the portrait is frontispiece. “I hear that he is commissioned to write a drama. Sometimes I pause to wonder if we really are hail-fellow-well-met with so distinguished a personage, if he ever really did smuggle chocolate into the schoolroom for us, make toffy, and write your French exercises. Wiho would have predicted such a career for the boy who used to sit behind mamma’s curtains and blush when a stranger spoke to him. Aprospos, I have a bit of nows for you. We have often wondered who that rising star, ‘Violet Grant,’ might be. and t have found out. You remember the girl who used to read German with us at Stanekirk? She and the Violet Grant of these pages are one and the; same person.” \ ~ Madeline searches her memory until there dilates through it a grave, greyeyed girl in whom her father had taken a kindly, compassionate interest. “I should have thought,” She says lan- ,

guidly, “that ‘her’ natural development would have been into a dairymaid.” “But you see it ha,s been into the coming novelist of the era, according to Eric, and he is proud of her ‘debut’ having been made in the pages lie controls. We were talking about her the other day, and the spirit moved me to ask him if by any chance his pet contributor was located at Stanekirk. When ‘he murmured sweetly. Yes,’ I wrote at once to Violet, reminding her of ‘auld long syne,’ and asking her to join, us at Glasgow and accompany us to Kiltartau.” “Oli, Lil! you .are so impulsive—really that is the worst of you.” “Then I can’t be snob a bad little person after all; but what have I done this time ?” “To invite that girl! Do you remember bow she used to dress —wearing cut her grandmother’s gowns when the old lady had quite done with them? She may be more unpresentable than ever now.” “I shan’t mind that,” fays Lil, easily. “She is losing her chances in the obscurity of Stanekirk, too. I can count on Eric giving her good advice, for there is no meanness or professional jealousy ia him, if he does use the two-edged sword of sarcasm rather freely.” “I am sure he will be enraptured by the sight -of that figure, robed not by Worth or Liberty but . by Noah’s aunt. It is a pity to deprive her off her native cows and crops, I think.” v “Are you resolving to sit upon her?’! aeJks Lil. “If toe is as charming as her writings you will change your mind.” “Oh, I daresay she will be a fairly well behaved young woman,” says Madeline, sweetly. • “Hbw can you be so cruel?” cried Lil. “How can I help not having your fancies for queer people? I am sure I never cared for Violet Grant, and I have never been able to isee anything remarkable in those stories of hers,” says Madeline, glancing with disdain at the pale green covers of the magazine. “She may survive your blindness as long as her editor has sight. If lie finds the violet is bis favourite flower, won’t it be lovely romance? Two brains with but a single plot, two pens that- write aa one!” Miss Quenton is silent for a moment; she speaks almost angrily after. “How absurd you can be! I think Erie Harden is rather more ambitious, not to say fastidious. ‘You’ will be cruel to the girl if you instil ideas of that kind into her mind.” “Well. I’ll leave Eric himself to do it,” laughs Lil; and Madeline turns a little abruptly to a bower of hothouse flowers beside her. The Quentons have become well-known figures in Society since the death cf the head of the family, Whose tastes were of an almost primitive simplicity and whose desires lay ‘far from the madding crowd’ in country quiet and ease, who deste-sted town, clubs, and most modem things, and whose highest ambition for his daughters was that they should grow up simple-minded, innocent girls, be mated to good-living, home-keeping lairds, and know .nothing of Vanity Fair. Mrs Quenton who had married for gold’s sake only,; to be bitterly disappointed in her ante-nuptial dreams of lavish expenditure;; social delights, had resigned herself, to the . duller fate with a kind of dead calm, biding'her time until her daughters should fee. of

the coming-out age and the iron hand should make itself felt; and in the meantime she lived through monotonous years, "broken only by the advent of shooting seasons and visitors more congenial than the lairds’ or ministers’ wives and daughters in and about .Stanekirk. In those days Castle Benotar had been closed, otherwise she would have found kindred spirits among its owners. Mr Quenton died quite suddenly, and her long patience was thus brought to an unexpected end. She assumed befitting crape and solemnity, and courted seclusion until the conventional period of mourning had expired. That over, too, she sold the quiet dwelling and homely lands where her years of wifehood had been passed, coming up to TboiuSsn and buying a house in Mayfair, to take her rightful place as a leader of Society, and rejoicing in the fulfilment of the proverbial truth that “all tilings come to those who wait.” 'Governess and masters were engaged for the girls, and Mrs Quenton gave them a good deal of her time for a fashionable mother, and saw that they acquired all graceful accomplishments. Sometimes would join their walks, and bring surreptitiously into the schoolroom such forbidden fruits as bonbons and light literature, a dark, shy young fellow, descended from -a poor and proud irjld' Highland family. Cast upon, his own /©sources in cruel London, over-sensi-tive to the slights which are povertry’s portion, and over-ready to detect them, he, Erie Harden, had been recommended to Mrs Quento'n’s favour by a friend whom she wished to oblige, and she had really pitied his orphanhood and loneliness, and opened her doors to him without reserve, anticipating from this intercom'. s§o danger to the future dominated bg which she foresaw for hor daughters, finding poor dear Eric, indeed, rather dull and stupid, and not likeily to attract a girl’s fancy. Good old Time goes on his path, and brings the girls’ school-days tic an end. Miss Quenton is presented at the first drawing-room of an unusally brilliant season, and soon after she has made her courtesy to her sovereign is married to Sir John Lorimer, Bart., of Kiltartan, and Mrs Quenton rejoices that “dear Lil,” who promised to be somewhat unmanageable, and inclined to _ associate witL inferior people, is so satisfactorily settled. Madeline’s “dehut” does not bring her the popularity so speedily won by her sister. She is by some pronounced cold and insipid, by others artificial and sly, though none can deny her beauty and the eminent sanctity of her words and ways. She contrasts strongly with warm and impulsive Lil, not one of whose words is weighed, who is a friend to the friendless and needy, whose sympathy and encouragement are ever ready to extend themselves to all, from lover forlorn to genuis out in the cold. Her house is a rendezvous for authors and artists, musicians and. vocalists, war correspondents &nd critics, actors amateur and otherwise. She never forgets a friend, and jibe never remembers an enemy. Among the meet frequent of her callers is a young man with a handsome, sunburnt face, square temples, dark hair, and darker eyes, that seem ever full of happy laughter, somehow suggesting the sea on. a stunny day, whom all know as the Hon. Arthur Scrope, Siir John’s other self, godfather to his three-year-old son and heir, and brother to the most notorious peer who. never enters the Upper House. There are few who do not like Arthur Scrope. Men and wcSnen equally are captivated by the sweetness of his disposition, the straightforward simplicity of Ms character, and credit him with that rarest of masculine graces —fidelity. • Society has just begun to remark that it is usually, he who takes Mias Quenton into dinner, usually his figure ibeside her at opera of play, or in shady corners of ballrooms, and has whispered that this match is the desire of Lady Lorimer’s heart, when Mr Scrope is called away by duty, and goes, no engagement being announced, contrary to prophecy and expectation. Soon alter the whispering begins again., with a difference, and accomplished with much uplifting of eyebrows and slight expressive smiles. It is a fact that Lord Wyniard is allowed to call on Mrs Quenton and her daughter smiles as ■artlessly and sweetly into his pallid, dissipated face as she has done into the blue eyes of Arthur Scrope. Kind matrons, with marriageable Sons and daughters of their own, breathe a disinterested warning to Mrs Quenton, who is quite surprised. Dear Madeline is yet a child, and surely Lord Wyniard may admire her, as his brother and “everyone else does, without any cause for gossip. He really cannot be as jblack as he is painted, and as for that dreadfid actress, Mrs Quenton would prefer not to hear anything about her, end is only” sorry that poor Lord Wyniard should he in her toils. Time has brought some changes to Erie Harden. He is no longer poor and obscure and unsought. His. fame is tire natural outcome of his patient pursuit and untiring endeavour; his writings have caught the popular fancy at last, and he has been borne to heights of independence andglory. He is much sought after, hut he is a man of few friends. His former shyness"has become reserve, but his reputation for coldness and aloofness is as 'potent as his fame, and attracts as much as the distinction and individuality oi lace and figure, about which is nothing

of the common-place and ordinary. Mrs Quent on at times asserts that he is ungrateful, and forgetful of her kindness; hut she makes such assertions only in ker dark hours, when she wants something or somebody to grumble at. It is perhaps natural that he should be .mere at Lady Lorimer’s house than at Mrs Quenton’s, though neither can complain of the frequency of his visits. Lil gives an anxious glance at her sister's face, then at her wrist, where a tiny watch reminds her of the flight of time, finaflly at the flowers, the trail of the serpent over them all. It is not so long since the donor of them laid similar tribute at a meretritious shrine, at which thought she takes courage to speak. ' “What news from Arfhur Scrope ?” she asks, with would-be carelessness. “Tho very question I was about to ask you, dear,” says Madeline, sweetly, at which reply Lil looks somewhat blank. “But you hear from him still," Madeline, don’t you ?” she questions, colouring. “W;hy don’t you ask exactly what you want to know, Lilian? Your strategies are so transparent.” “The direct question verged upon an insult, to my mind. It’s like sacrilege to think there could be a grain of truth in the story connecting you with that detestable Lord Wyniard. Jack heard it at the club, and he declared that his Ibaiir rose at the mere mention, of your name in the came breath. Perhaps it springs from his being permitted to visit here, to follow you in the Row, to send you books and flowers; so you know how to kill the story.” Madeline lays her yellow head back against the cushion of her chair 1 , looking up at her sister, who has risen, with dreamy eyes. “Then you don’t think my acceptance of Lord Wyniard’s attentions a sufficient reply to the question you are too delicate to ask?” “You accepted Arthur Serope’s attentions,” says Lil, bluntly ; and for a moment Madeline’s lips press hard against each other; when they part, her words slip between with their wonted leisurely sweetness. “Arthur Scrope never asked me to marry him: Lord Wyniard did, and I have premised to be his wife.” Lil stares for a moment, then, dropping on her knees, flings) her s rms abouit the statuesque young figure. “Oh, darling, don’t; for God’s sake, don’t!” she cries. “You do not know what marriage means—how completely it places one at the mercy and m the power of a man. My own happiness—the very goodness of my husband. —-teach mo how fearful life must be with a, man debased and selfish, guided only by his own passions, believing in nothing that is sacred and dear to you and me ! For us even to hear of what this man has done 1 ” . • “I never listen to detraction, Lilian; you need not decry Wyniard to me.” “Oh, what can mamma think of this?” cries Lil, and Miss Quenton looks shocked. “You do not for a moment suppose that I act without her approval? She has given her sanction to my engagement as readily as she gave it to youis. I see no reason why I should not be happy as Lady Wyniard.” “Do you see any reason why you should not teach your children to honour their father and follow his example?” demanded Lil, and Madeline draws up her slender throat. . “That style of language is positively offensive, Lilian. I cannot permit it. “Oh, well, what will Arthur Scrope say to it?” sighs Lil, brushing aside tears, seldom seen in one whose life is like a white sail on a sunny river; and Madeline raises eyes like “sweet forget-me-nots that bloom for happy lovers, filled with amaze and wonder. . “What has Arthur Scrope to do with it. dear?” she asks, her tones sweet and low again. “Nothing, I hope ; hut it isn’t so long since you intended he should have much to do with you.” “Oh, Lil, how you do exaggerate! I suppose Mr Scrope admired me, and I know that I allowed him to write to me; but really, I did not understand his feelings until’his later letters enlightened me. Of course, when I had accepted Wyniard it would have been wrong to continue the correspondence. I have told Wyniard all about it, and he fully approves of my action. I have returned Mr Scrope’s letters, and have told him why, assuring him that he may rely upon my friendship being unaltered. He will bo at Castle Benotar about the time Wyniard is there, and I am sure everything will be satisfactory, and that he and!: shall he good friends.” “I .don’t think he will claim the privilege; you have treated him too badly, encouraging him, corresponding with him, until, sure of his brother —” “Really,’ Lilian,” says Madeline, with a shade of irritation, “we 'had better ■agree not to mention Arthur Scrope at ail.” “Yes in the air Lord Wyniard breathes. Our home is yours, remember, whatsoever happens; but its doors can never be open to Mm. I could not be so false_ to womanhood as to associate willingly with a man who openly boasts' .of the wrong and ruin he has brought into the lives of our humbler sisters. God forbid I should ever sink to that level; Goa grant that you may rise above it, even at the eleventh hour!'*

“Well, I suppose all this will save mistakes in the future,” says Madeline, with an air of gentle resignation. And, as she speaks, her mother enters —a tall, massive matron, with a handsome, worldly face, from whose entended hand and offered kiss Lil Lorimer draws back, colouring high. “No, don’t, mother,” she says, “until you have told me that this infamous marriage shalll not have your consent. ’ Mrs Quenton looks from one girl to the other, then stares at the timepiece through her pince-nez reflectively. “You are not forgetting your husband’s love of punctuality, are you, dear?” she asks. Lil flushes more deeply, then, like a young whirlwind, leaves the house, by which there passes, in time to hand her into her carriage, a good-looking young man, cool and trim even an this burning i day. _ j “We may offer our congratulations to; Miss Quenton, it seems,” he says in a rather agreeable drawl, looking at her with half-shut eyes, a slight sarcastic smile curving one corner cf his mouth. “I predict that Lady Wyniard will be. one of Society’s leaders —the world will be at her feet.” ) “'Perhaps just such predictions as that have driven her into the engagement, Eric,” says Lil; hut the author merely uplifts his fine black brows, whereby he politely expresses dissent; and she adds, with even less than her usual prudence, ; “I’d much rather it bad been you ! v “Thank you,” says Eric, amused; “hut; at times I fancy myself the wrong man anywhere, and I certainly was not born j to that glory.” j She is driven away, and lie, too, goes on through the indescribable roar and rush of the great city, for which he has love a,s the conqueror may feel for the scone of a victorious battle.. Here he j has fought and won, yet to-day Lady j Lorimer’s words, have roused within him j an aching sense of failure and defeat, i The tide of memory casts at. his feet j wreokago of the past—a myriad of twi- j light scenes, echoing melodies, ghostly i fragrances, that have glorified the; spring-time of his life. One picture is very clear to his; mental 1 vision—a flower sweet room, wherein he: stands; and a young beauty in the radi-! ancc of her first season gliding in to. ask ! Ms approval of her ball dress. ! “Because, if you don’t like it, Eric, | she says, “I shall not care a bit about it, j Tell me really and truly, how I look?” I And, aware of what his answer will be, t she extends her hand to him, bids him I button her glove, and murmurs a wish! that he was going too. What a differ-j ence it would make! Suddenly he drops; her hand, and, quite pale, looks at her i fair, uplirted face. { “Do you mean it, Madeline—do you really miss me?” | “What a question—you know very well I i do !” ; At which ho forgets that he is a struggling journalist and she a beauty and a co-heiress, and, seizing her in his arms, pours forth the living love and passion of his heart. She yields to his embrace, she listens to the incoherent, foolish speech, then all at once draws out of his olasp. “Eric, you forget yourself,” she says, j her face averted. “Oh, I never thought! you would betray mamma’s trust and; cause me so much pain!” i It takes him some little time to under- 1 stand he has been led into this verbal declaration of a love hitherto expressed in tones and looks and unrepulsed caressea, that Miss Quenton may bring matters to a crisis and an end, and be perfectly free to attend to the Hon Arthur Scrope’s wooing. It is a bitter experience for one who has tried hand in his pride to j conquer and then to conceal his love; | but Eric swallows his tonic without .a' grimace, and accepts the altered state of affairs without protest. Not even I Lil Larmier knows what lias happened, or guesses why he separatee himself more and more from her relatives. He shrinks into himself, devoting his hours to hard work and study, and by slow degrees compensation comes. Now he stands on fortune’s crowning slope, Ms talent no longer cramped by poverty, his intellect no longer by compulsion frittered away on pot-boilers. His only living relative, a sour old bachelor, writes him from the German spa where he drags out life to the effect

that he is pleased with Eric, and will make him his heir, for which prospective benefit he claims the right to dictate to tho young man. and to criticise his actions. Eric has no objections to inheriting a fortune, and he tries not to offend his relative. He has lived to see Arthur Scrope cast aside like himself, each having served as a stepping-stone to something higher, as Wyniard might had a duke appeared. “I must take an old friend’s privilege and wish Miss Quenton all the hu.ppin.~ss she expects and deserves,” he tells himself, turning his back on tho past remembrance. “Well with Arthur Scrope on one hand and Adelia.de Yerrard on the other, the position it not without its dangers, and the humble looker-on may find the progress of events exciting.” CHAPTER 11. I .am afraid that if there ls one person in the world whom grandmother really dislikes more than another that one is myself, Violet Grant; granmother is such a good woman that it must be my own fault. As she disapproves equally of fiction and “fringes,” my literary labours, which I so dearly love, and my hair, which will curl in spite of cropping and cold water, try her sorely in different ways. She often tells me how wicked I am, hew angry God is with me, and how surely judgment will overtake one so given up to vain conceits. My parents fell under her displeasure h.v marrying against her wish, and they were punished for it. Father’s hones have long been whitening under Arcie snows; he and the little expedition lie commanded perished one and all, and mother was left an her widowhood penniless, with me. a tiny child then, to provide for. She worked for herself and for me, appealing to none for aid,.until she knew that we were to he parted, and that for herself life’s bitter battle was over. Then, and only then, she wrote to her mother, asking her to he kind to the helpless child who had done no wrong, and on whom she surely would not visit the past offences. Mother had told me a little of Granmother Greig, 1 remember. and of her only brother, who had died some years before, leaving a son who would one day ho master of the old {lionise and farm, but I can only very faintly recall those early days—the pale, sweet patience of my mother, the dull Glasgow lodgings, the love and tenderness that guarded me, until there came the mystery and the anguish of death, and one gentle face that had passed away for ever to be replaced by another so gaunt and stern, with lips that rebuked my childish grief, with hand that pointed, upward, not .as to the home of everlasting peace., hut as to the judgmentseat wlienee all terrors flow. I remember being taken from Glasgow, after the funeral, to Stanekirk, the village where grandmother lived, and how I had thought the grim, grey house, solitary amid yellow-washed sheds and highchouldered haystacks, resembled her in some indescribable way; how 1 was afraid of my cousin Stephen, _ a strong, thick-set lad. even then inclined to the assertion of his rights as master, domineering ever grandmother, though that she seemed to like, and having the reputation of a bully among his schoolmates. Grandmother considered it folly to spend money on education, so Stephen’s was begun and completed m his native place, and comprised little beyond the three R’s. My mother had wanted more, it seems, and grandmother was fond of pointing to her melancholy story as a proof that learning is a dangerous thing. Stanekirk is quiet and peaceful, a hamlet of one street dominated by a gaunt ohurdh heading a mouldering army of tombstones ; pasturage, moor and farm the estate of Benotar, lie between it and Moniifields, the nearest town, an ancient burgh lying on the shores of a locii whose waters widen into _a sea that rolls untrammelled to the Irish coast. Heae my days pass, and I fill in grandmother s household the place of the harmless, necessary oat, inasmuch as all losses and breakages are laid to my charge. I have no companions and my one relaxation is reading. One >of the few wealthy gentlemen who choose to reside in th?S neighbourhood develops interest in me. He has known my father, “Gallant Grant,” forgotten

by a country which pensions lesser men for more questionable services, and he takes compassion on ihy loneliness, invites me to his house, ; -Quenton Lodge, that I might- to some extent share hisdaughter’s studies, thus planting one verdant, Fragrant, oasis in the long desert of my existence, and I 'add to my mental picture gallery merry Lilian, "with wild voice pealing up to the sky" ; Madeline, a remote Star, cold and high ; Mrs Quenton, surveying me through her binocular, and audibly remarking that she never saw such a little guy in her life; Mr Quenton himself, benign and loving encouraging my facility in composition, directing my reading, unlocking for me the golden gates of literature ; his simple creed the Golden Buie and wheresoever he goes are "gentle laces found soft speech, and willing service.’' Grandmother does hot approve of this intimacy. She applies many Scriptural phrases to Mrs Quenton, who in her eyes resembles certain Old Testament queans, and for my com oirt she predicts that it is all to-o sweet to last, as indeed it is. Mr Quenton. dies, and after hie family leave Sbanekirk. only Lil bidding mo good-bye, stealing, 1 think, the opportunity; and again lam cast back upon myseff. I pass to maidenhood through another Sahara,, fulfilling distasteful and uninteresting duties as best I can, until slowly I realise that I am possessed of the creative faculty, that- I have the power of surrounding myself with happy faces, bright lives no sorrow darkens, flowers that know no winter, suns that need not set. .Kind fairy Imagination waves her golden wand and an all-compensating joy is mine. I write and rewrite c-n all sorts of frag--ments, on the very margin of newspapers; burning the scraps lest grandmother 1 should see them, until ray dream-children inspire me with a love that- forbids my hastening them out- of the existence into which I have called them, and I hide them among my few treasures. On one of my brithdays Stephen, in unusual generctiity. brings homo for my special benefit- a magizine from Mo-in-fields, and thougn grandmother scolds about it, assuring me that such reading leads to perdition, she does not deprive me of it, las Stephen cannot, in her eyes, be altogether wrong. When next I see the-magazine it lias reached me through the post with my own first story in it, in the strange, unfamiliar garb of print. I have leisure to cry and leisure to laugh, to invoke benedictions on the editor, almost- to write him with gratitude and thanksgiving. Oli, the bewildering gladness of that hour, who can explain it ? -Who can understand save those in whose memory such a time is still clear through all later triumph and vaster success? The unprecedented event or a letter for me cannot, of course, pass without question, and grandmother demands an explanation, with the air of having dip coveired a hidden crime. Perhaps so, indeed, in -her eyes it is, for if to read fiction ho wrong, what must it be to write it? Perforce I confess, like one pleading guilty to pocket-picking, and she reminds some invisible audience of her predictions regarding me long ago. She tells me I had best begin play-acting next, and assures me almost with tears that God is angry with mo, and will pun-

ish me. Yet, after all, is not my gift from Him? May not He be loving as . well as just, and have granted me this faculty in compensation far much I have ilast? I sometimes think there must be two Gads,; the one my grandmother fears, the one my mother loved and Gilbert Quenton preached and served. However, I make no defence. I hear silently even her threat of burning every pen in the house, and her mandate that I am never to open another beok except the Bible.

(To be Continued.)