THE GIRL WITH THE BLUE EYES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8527, 17 September 1913, Page 2

THE GIRL WITH THE BLUE EYES

’CBLISHED EV SPECIAL ArP.ANGEITENT.]

BY LADY TROUiaiDGE. nthor of ‘‘The Cheat," "The Soul ut Honour," "The Millionaire," "I’aul s Stepmother,** "The Woman Thou 1 invest,” etc., etc. (Copyright.) CHAPTER XXI. Clioviot was standing in the library as she hurried in. His coat was splashed with mud, and his arm was in a sling. So much she had time to notice before she reached his side, and Itaen faintness overtook her, and she hardly knew anything more. It had been coming on during her long and exhausting interview with Kitty, and ■at the sight of his white face and the blood on his forehead, it seemed to overcome her, much as she longed to iba of use and not to fail lamentably before his eyes. “You —you are hurt,” she managed To say, as she caught ait his uninjured 'arm. And then in a moment the roiling mists of blackness hid him from her sight, and ehe passed into a kindly land of shadows. But the merciful oolivion did not last long, and when aha opened Vier eyes again ho w;as Kneeling by her side as she lay upon tie ground looking at her with a white bice of terror. He gave a forced smile » ho met her glance. “Kitty I Kitty! Do not look like ithat 1 Is it possible that they have [ • ghtened you so, my poor little one? It was nothing much. The fool of a chauffeur ran into the ditch, and we bore all pitched out. I sprained my wrist and hurt my head a little, and poor little Evie got a bad shaking. But there is nothing to make a silly girl faint and frighten me into fits. By Jove, I had rather have three spills than see you tumble on the ground as if I had shot you through the heart.”

, As he was speaking ho was bending over her with the deepest concern, and in hip face there was a tenderness he took no trouble to disguise. Much, .ashamed of herself, Vyvian struggled to her feet with the help of his hand. “I am quite all right,” she repeated over and over again, but her limb® trembled under her to ouch an extent that he put his arm round her and drew her to him. Once there in the shelter of his arm, he did not seem inclined to let her go. “Did you care so much?” he murmured. A sob answered him, and she hid h-r face against his coat, lost to every isensation but the ecstacy of being in his arms, soothed by the tenderness of hi-s voice, and surrounded the at D-osphero of affection she had so longed for. “Don’t cry, darling,” he whispered. “Somehow, Kitty, X cannot be sorry that you have shown mo just a litth b : t of your heart. For it is true, is l‘rt --ot, that, those tears are for me?” ' They fell in abundance as-ho spoke, and losing his head a little, Cheviot kissed them,, away. . | “Dearest, dearest child,” he said '“don’t turn you head away. Lot it" look just for a moment into thosi sweet blue eves I love so much.” “Oh, don’t sly that,” she sobbed “You can’t mean it, you don’t!” But he noticed with love’s quick -perception that she did not shrink away from him, neither did the clasp of lier' hands loosen. “I mean it,” he said, “you little witch. You know as well as possible that X mean every word of it, and thousands of other words that I have never said to you, and that perhaps I never shall. I love you, my Kitty 1 X have loved you from the first moment I took your hand in the Desmonds’ fiat. I- love your few faults and your many many virtues. I love even your fills, but you must never tell me any more. There must he nothing but truth between us henceforth and for ever!” Mbw was her chance. HeW to his heart, blessed by his love, enveloped by his tenderness, now was the divine Heaven-sent moment lior penitent confession. Her good -angel whispered it to her, and her (conscience re-echoed the mandate; and •in face of these monitors she nerveil herself to begin. “Lord Cheviot, you must not, must loot say these things to mo until I tell I you something—something I hardly [know how to say!” He caught the imploring look of her eyes, and bending down ho kissed her on the thick waves of hair above her brow. Then he released her. “Y'ou are right, Kitty,” ho said gravely. “We have both been a little carried away by the moment and by your divine tenderness and pity for my hurt, but this is neither the time nor the place for me to make love to you. It would ho wrong and cowardly of mo to do'it, unworthy of the trust your father had for me. You need not remind me, my darling, for I know it. If ever you and I are to talk like this again it must only be when you have had the time and opportunity to see other riien and to know your own heart. Tell mo nothing now, love, for it would only wound mo by making mo feel that I had forgotten that I am first and before all things your guardian!”

She was not old enough or wise enough to guess at the conflict in the man’s heart. He, too, was listening to an inward monitor, that pointed out tho right path, and unlike Vyvian he cl <1 not turn a deaf ear. The words died away on her lips. She was -dominated and awed in,some way by tho nobility she dmly discerned. She was puzzled too, and she became like a child before h m. Cheviot led her to the door. “I shall send for the housekeeper,” he said. “ She will look after me oH right.' You go upstairs and shut your pretty eyes and don’t dream of anyone.” At the door he hesitated, for the white, stricken look in her face seemed in some way to reproach him. She seemed mutely demanding some assurance, that he could not and would not give her. Yet in face of that wordless appeal he bent over her again ami laid his hand on her head. “ You see, my little Kitty,” he said, “ my duty is very clear before me, and I had forgotten it for a moment. You must, whatever happens, have tho free power of choice, and therefore you must see the world and tho many people in it who will be ready to admire and to worship. And if among them you find someone to whom you can give your heart, I want you to feel that you can come to me and tell

me all about it just as if this conversation of ours had never been. And if he’s a good fellow, Kitty, and you care about him, I will give you to him without one jealous thought. You are free—absolutely free—free in all ways. Do you understand?” “Oh, don’t!” “ I must, if I don’t want to despise myself utterly. I must see that you have your chance like other girls.” Something in his voice pierced her to her very heart. • “ And if I won’t take it,” she said, goaded by his absolute control both over himself and her, “what then?” “ We will wait till that time comes.” She stumbled forward, blinded with tears, but ho caught her back to him for one instant. “ Don’t tempt me, little girl,” he said. “ You don’t know what you are saying. You have not in your wildest dreams yet fathomed how cruel such words can be.” “ You are treating mo like a child,” she said, “ and I am a woman.” He bent over her hand and kissed it. “ Then to the woman I love I say this—if in the years to come she should need my heart it will be here at her feet.” Vyvian looked down confusedly. In truth she hardly knew whether she was standing on this solid earth or floating in air, for her spirit seemed to have escaped from her body in the heady intoxication of hia words—wordi that could have only one moaning, and that a presage of tho most perfect and absolute bliss ever granted to mortal woman upon this earth. Ho loved her! In spite of his scruples, in spite of the evident restraint he put upon himself, after the words he had spoken there could be no doubt of it, and she realised as,she had never done before that not only had she played this noble lover of hers a trick unexampled in baseness, she had played one no less dreadful upon herself. Dimly she began to understand what the love of a man for a. woman may be at its best and highest—how it may revolutionise her world and his, until everything sordid, everything common, fades away utterly, leaving them like two freed spirits. Such a beautiful state of mind could never be for her now, yet for a moment she . played with the thought that he was hers and she his, cheating herself with tho idea that her heart was as open to him as his to her. So in a sense it was, for as far as her love went there was neither cheat nor mystery in the matter. To-morrow all would be darkness and dread as it had been yesterday. Now, however, was her hour! , She put her hand up timidly till it rested on his shou!der t and for once she ventured to look deeply into his eyes while her own brimmed over. “Mow you have said that, I can speak,” she said. “1 must speak—l will. There is something in my heart that is crying out to bo said. Let mo say it, Cecil; let me say it.” He looked at her long and steadily-. Then he answer®! her, for how could he put a curb on those sweet lips trembling with excess of feeling. “Speak, love,” ho said; “but, remember, I hold you to nothing. Your words- shall die in the air as though they had not been said." • Then, Cecil, X want you to remember that, come what may, 1 do love vou now. I don’t want to see the world or anyone in it. I don’t want to hear any voice but yours as long as 1 live. Why should I? They could tell mo nothing that I should care to hear'. Why should I wait for years to tell you' „his when a. thousand years could nbf make .me more sure. 1 have never met anyone like you; I never could again. “Child, child, you do not understand, the world is full of men!" “Not my world. It is here.” It may be thought that Vyvian was playing a deep game, seeking to take advantage of tiro groat lovo which sho had roused so as to bo able to defy both fate and her enemies; for certainly she was seeking to extract, some sort of pledge, some sort of assurance that he looked upon her in that hour as his chosen one. She was, however, playing no game. She. had no illusions, tho nature of Cheviot forbade them. She undo’stood perfectly that when he knew what she was, ho might possibly hate her as much as he had loved; but she was indeed trying to lay up for herself a glorious memory to be cherished in the blackness of the days to come. “I love you,” she repeated, and then she broke into passionate weepin.g. Cheviot took her to his heart .with a smothered exclamation. How could ho steel himself against this innocent abandonment of a feeling at once ardent and pure. He could not. He held her to his heart, straining heither© with a desperate hunger of affection. ■ : “Is it so, indeed, my Kitty,” he said, “should I ho doing you a greater wrong by renouncing you than by keeping you?” ’ “Yes, yes,” ( she said. “Are you sure, quite sure of your own heart?” “As sure as I am that I am alive.’ “Then Kitty, we will ratify the bond, and God is my witness that you shall be to me now and for ever most dear and sacred.” Then seeing that her agitation was overcoming her, he turned his attention to soothing her as gently as a mother comforts her child; speaking wonderful words of a future lifo to be spent together, and finally, and hero ho startled her indeed, drawing the signet ring from his little finger and placing it on the third finger of her left hand, where it hung loosely, turning this way and that on tho slender hand. “It won’t stay on,” she said, looking at it sadly. “Mover mind,” said Cheviot, “I will got a turquoise as blue as your eyes to guard it more safely to-morrow. And now good-night, my Kitty, my little wife that is to be.” She passed upstairs with his token on her hand, and with his-words flying about her brain like white angels of peace and comfort. She was drugged, soothed to mental insensibility by the first deep draught from Love’s Philtre. And tho man also forgot all else in tho recollection of her childish contession and shy caresses. She was so lovely and so true. Ho laughed to think that in his wildest moments ho had ever doubted her simplicity. (To bo continued.)