Chapter XIII.

Otago Witness, Issue 2209, 2 July 1896, Page 42

Chapter XIII.

My Preserver. "^Good gracious I What has happened? It she dead ? " " No, no ; I hope not. Bub she fell into the lake, and we had some difficulty in getting her out." "Into the lake! Whatever brought her khereon such a day as this?" asked Lady Btanmore shrewdly. " Well, the ioe is thin and all covered with pnow, but it .won't bear, and either Bhe did not Bee it or wanted to try. Anyway she went on and fell in, with the result that you Bee." " Ob, well, it's a mercy that you were there. Now go and change your things and have a glass of grog hot while wo carry her to her room and see .what we can do. for her.' I expect-that she will coon come to.". ' With all her. faults, Lady Sfcanmore was a capable woman and not unkindly, though, she* was hard as the nether .mitfstone/and.had no mercy- for any, kind ;,of weakness, mental or. bodily. , - -■"•■ •-.'' »'• • ■>; •- .-' -• : While she had .been talking, she. had also been bustling about throwing two or three thick plaidß round her neice'B inanimate and dripping figure, and directing- the man^who Btill bore her to carry her to her room, Where the great fire so providentially piledlip was burning half-way up the chimney. Here she and the maids undressed Belie, Bhafed. and rubbed her stony limbs, and gradually- restored ' life and , warmth to them. ■ - . Belle had not swallowed much water, for the had not fought for her life. As Stanmore had surmised and the dcotor corrobo : rated, the sudden shook had brought on temporary paralysis, and she had sank without effort. " Under such circumstances it is a wonder that she roee at all," said the medical man, waA Jack remembered that she never had risen in the way that drowning people are said to do, but had appeared rather to Boat below tbe water. It was not therefore the drowning . that Belle bad to contend with so much as the shock to her. system, and when she returned to life she did not return to consciousness. She was in a high fever and often delirious, and. on the first day when the doctor came to vieit her mother be found another patient Who-, gave him no little anxiety. She was seriously ill for weeks, but in the find her strong constitution triumphed. „. But before that happened Lady Stanmore cad an anxious time. In the girl's delirium «he talked, strangely of Gilbert— of her love for him, his apparent desertion, and then With a curious intuition .of the truth she Would implore her aunt, to spare them both. " I know you have destroyed my lettors," the oried again and again. " pb, dear aunt, he kind. Give them back to me. I love him so, I can never be happy without him, Dh, you won't ? Then I shall die." Then she fancied she was running through the storm trad on to the ioe. "Do not follow me, Stanmore ; I will not lee you.; 1 will not- hear you; I will not . . answer ; I'll never oome baok— not to you ; I hate yon ; I hate all men, but Gilbert, and he is false— so aunt says ; but she lies ; he is hue* true, true, and so will I be true I " So she raved on-rsometime? desponding, sometimes hopeful, sometimes believing her lover false, and anon asserting his truth and ■ the falsehood of her aunt. And again' flying jthrough the storm, through the falling snow, towards the lake, with the fixed purpose of Delf-deitruction. Suoh ravings were dangerous, as Lady Btanmore knew, and with characteristic shrewdness she constituted herself cbief iaurse, ohoosing for her subordinate one of the under housemaids who was well known as a particularly silent, stolid, and unobservant girl. Many persons in the household wondered ! at this choice, and Susan, the faithful maid of Mrs Wayland and' ber daughter," protested ; but Lady Stanmore explained in her sweetest manner that it was as muoh as Su6an could do to wait on the elder lady, and that as soon bb Belle was better she should be placed in feole charge. " I am sure that the anxiety just at present would be too muoh for you, Susan, and Mary is a good, steady girl, and nothing puts her out. She 1b strong, too, and manages Belle very nicely; but when the invalid is , better we will hand her over to jon,"

And with this promise the faithful Maid was forced to be content. Lord Stanmore was delighted with his sister-in-law's devotion to her niece. II It is very, very good of you, -Lucy," he said, " I shall never forget it." She pressed his hand sympathetically. " It is for your sake, Jack, as well as hers. I am greatly attaohed to. both of you, as you .know, and I hope one day to see you happily married." „ \ . " May you be a true prophet 1 " he answered. And he registered a vow that' if Balle should ever be his he would never forget the servioes that her aunt had rendered them. Alas I he did not know the nature of the service which he had rendered, or bis vow would probably have taken another form. Mrs Wayland alone understood the nature of her sister's tactics, and she wisely held her tongue. Gradually the fever subsided, and after a few weeks Belle was pronounced convalesoent. Well in body, but oh I bow changed in mind 1 , . \ Hour after hour she lay in bed with her face turned to the wall, unwilling to sp*eak or move, and specially unwilling to take either food or medicine. "She must be roused," said the, doctor, "or she will slip through our fingers after all." Then Lady Stanmore began to talk, to urge, to insist, and finally to threaten. ■ "You are an ungrateful girl," she said, " to refuse to do what you can to make yourself well. Look how we all wait on you .hand and foot, I am sure I' have never done so muoh for anyone in my life." ' "Why do you? Why don't you let me alone? I want to die." " Then its very wicked and ungrateful of you, I must say. ' There's your poor mother with the pain in her leg and foot bo bad that she can't walk, just fretting herself to death because she can't get to you, and you quite >able to go to her if you would only take nourishing food and get np your strength a bit." " I don't want to be strong : I want to die." ' . " Well, you woß't die. People don't die jast because they wish it, as you will soon .find out. No, you have got to live ; and it just comes to this : Will you live as a happy, succp usful, admired woman, or as a miserable, lacadaisical, penniless fright 1 " The movement of Belle's shoulders was eloquent. " Yes," continued her aunt, who saw that she had now struck the right key, "if you don't take oare you will get up from this bed a fright, and neither Stanmore nor anyone else will. care to look at. you." " I don't care," said Belle, but her tone was less assured,' and when her aunt quitted the room next time she asked Mary to lift her in bed and give -her the looking-glass. - S % he looked at it long and earnestly, -then :dropped'it suddenly, while- tears 'slowly Vose to her e^es. '/ ; .. z >. "It is- true; I am a perfect fright," she: said. <. ; -*-' :;£';- . Lady Stanmore pressed-ber advantage, r ■<• " Everj^day she brought; "messages from Jack: kind inquiries and suggestions, pre-. sents of rare fruit and flowers, and other dainties. ' Belle could not fail to be touched by this devotion. " He is very kind," she said. "He is more than kind. Jack has the best heart in the world, and he saved your life." "That Was one of. his mistakes." . >, "He does not think so; bat perhaps he would change his mind if he knew what I know." " What do you know 1 " " That you tried to commit suicide." Lady Stanmore -spoke in a solemn and judicial tone, and the girl trembled before her. " I— l was tired of life," she faltered. " That is no excuse^ Do yon know, Belle Wayland, that you have committed a crime —a crime punishable by law, a crime only second to murder. That yon did not lay that awfal sin on your soul you have to thank Jaok, and Jack only." Belle began to' sob. - " Oh, aunt, I did not mean it. I did not understand. I was mad." " Indeed you were, unhappy girl." Suddenly Belle looked up with great, .shining, terror-struck eyes. " Does anyone else know this 1 " " No. It was for that, to save your good name, that I watched by yon night and day and wore myself out with attendance on an ungrateful girl who will not now do any- . thing that I ask her." , -<• Belle took no notloe of the personal appeal. ) "Are you sure that no one else knows ?" " Qaite sure ; but if you do not do your best to get well now, I shall think it my duty to tell the doctor and perhaps a justice of the peaoe." Belle thought a moment. 11 1 don't believe they could do anything to me," she said; "but I hate to be talked about, so if you will keep my seoret and never tell it to anyone I will do my best to get well and— and pleaie you in other ways." ■ "I promise," said Lady Stanmore with effusion. That evening Belle was conveyed to her mother's room, and Mrs Wayland — previously instructed— talked much of debts, duns, and difficulties,' and the impossibility of living on a small income. " When poverty comes in at the door love flies out or the window," she said, " and I have seen it a hundred times ; but I hope I shall never Bee it in your case, my dear." " There is no fear of that, mamma. I don't suppose I shall ever marry."' "Then that will be still worse. I have only my small jointure, as yon know, and when I die you will have nothingnothing 1 " " I suppose I can work for my living, like other girls." " Oan you ? What can you do ? Have you a single art or accomplishment by which you oould earn food or clothes 1 " And Belle had to confess reluctantly that the had not. "I am like the man in the Gospel— 'l cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed." "Who talks of begging ?" said Lucy entering at that moment and overhearing the last words.

Then the entertained them with stories, comic and otherwise, but the gist of eaoh one was this: —

That it is a good thing to be rioh ; that money is the key to every kind of social success ; that without auoh success happiness is impossible ; that happiness is the thing that all people desire, and therefore that money and happiness are synonymous. Balle was not strong enough in health or acute enough in mind to deteot the fallaoy in her aunt's argument. It all sounded very well an she put it, and the girl was to a oertain extent convinced. Poverty on its bare side is always ugly and repellant. It iB only when some beautiful thing, like love or truth, underlies it that it is seen to be what it is— a condition over which the noble soul rises triumphant. But the poverty they spoke of was of quite another kind -the poverty of living beyond your means ; a constant straggle to keep up appearances ; to appear richer, gceater, more prosperous than you are; the ceaseless struggle to reaoh some standard — not of perfection, but of appearanoe, A life of shamhollow from top to bottom, and resting on nothing. The life of genteel poverty— of all lfves the hardest, the most hopeless, and the most debasing, not because it is poor, but because it is false. - >. This was the life with which they threatened her, these women who knew. She listened, and her own nature, her love of ease and pleasure, of all things pretty and pleasant, seconded theirwords. The man she loved waß lost to her. Nothing remained but to bury him in his grave and f 6rgeti. ' Of whatuae to wear the willow for one who had forsaken her, to doom herself to poverty and spinsterhood for his sake. If he had been true, if he had really died, it would have been different. ■ But *o bo pointed at as a forlorn girl, whose lover had jilted her and who could not get another ! It would be better to die ; better still v to marry a rioh and prosperous main, and know herself the envy of every woman and the admiration of every man, Having got her into this- state it was not long before Belle, with all the accessories of the invalid— dainty white robe, laces, ribbonß, and fleecy wraps — was induced to give an audience to her preserver. Never had she looked so lovely, the darkfringed eyes, the fleeting colour coming and going, the soft tendrils of wandering hair, tbe thin hand, the whole mute appeal for help and support, conveyed by the touching abandon of her attitude, want straight to Jack's susceptible heart. He took her hand and held it olosely in his own.' "How thankful I am to ccc you again. Are you better ? " " Not only batter— well. , Thanks to you." " Ob, I did nothing. Anyone else would have done the same. 1 happened to be there —that is all.! 1 "-How did you happen to be there ? -And why "did you : "not warn mfil I thought -the ,ice "was firm."', . , , .iLßus we hatiLhad no profce? frost ; it rained '.the day .before. ■ But I suppose jgirls do not understand these things. Since you are all right now,' we. need not think any more of them." " No, I want to forget them ; they are like a nightmare. But tell me one thing. How did you happen to be there 1 " " I followed you. I saw you pass 'the window, and thought you were going for a walk, and I followed, wishing to accompany you. ' But 'you'" walked bo quickly that I could not overtake 'you, and when I called the wind carried ~my voice so that you oould not hear." " Yes, and then 1 " ■ " Then you got to the edge of the lake, and I called out loudly that the ice would not bear, but you did not hear; you ran straight on, and when you were a little way from the bank the ioe cracked, and— you know; the rest." . "You sprang in to my rescue— my preserver." " Not exactly. If I had we should both have been infallibly drowned. No, I got two men, and between us we managed it." " But you went into the water, I know, for aunt told me how, wet you were and what a bitter day it was. I wonder you did not catch your death from cold ; and all for me." " Oh, lam very tough ; nothing hurts me." But her praises were sweet, and sweet the thought that he had been at hand to rescue this exquisite little bit of human ohina from the hideous disfigurement of a watery death.-. '' Belle saw that; as ** r as ne wdß concerned he/aunt had kept her word. '"1 wieh I knew how to thank you," she said. 11 1 beg you won't think of it. I want no thanks. To see yon once more in this room is sufficient." "Then I suppose mamma and I may, go away to-morrow? Indeed we have trespassed on your hospitality far too long." " You can't go to-morrow, and so far as I am concerned I hope you will riever go." " Never is a long day." "Not more than I mean. 1 wish you would take this house and all that I have, and be mine— my wife." Belle looked oujlously at him. He had x nofc told her that he loved her— he did not deem it necessary ; nor had he asked her the same momentous question. v " Belle 1 You do not say 'No.' Does silence give consent ? " " I— l suppose so. If you wish it." He bent over her in a kijad of rapture. "Do you love me 1 " he whispered. She started and drew her hands away. "I don't love you or anybody. I am a strange girl. I have no heart." " You^re a lovely girl, and tho dearest girl in the world to me. And as for your heart, it is only sleeping. If will wake some day. I will wake it to life with my kisses." . But she did not toll him it was already dead. (To be continued.)