CHAPTER XL—THE GIRL HE LOVED

Otago Witness, Issue 2499, 5 February 1902, Page 60

CHAPTER XL— THE GIRL HE LOVED

Hilda sat over th^ fire in her bedroom till late that night. She was wondering how she . should tell her father that her engagement was broken off. She was wondering, too, with an aching heart, how sbe could have been co mad and ?o wicked as to steal the ruby. She had been anxious about her trousseau. Her father had had extra expenses tliis year, and had only bsen abl-e to promise her a couple of hundred pounds, and she had wanted so much to look her best on the honeymoon, and have the prettiest things that money could buy. Still, she could not understand now how she had yielded to the temptation. Many times in her life she had expressed such* a decided opinion about young men who ran into debt through extravagance, and she had always been so proud of her brother because, though but a lad in an expensive regiment, he had never exceeded his allowance, and, at the cost of some selfdenial and restraint, had given his father no trouble. It had remained for her, the daughter of the family, to disgrace herself more terribly than she would have believed possible — to fill her soul for ever with a secret shame, which would eat like a canker into her youth, and destroy for ever her better self.

The girl leaned her chin upon her hand, and gazed into the growing embers, which cast a pink light on her face. How was it that she had come to fall sr. low? Would she ever understand it? How little do any of us know ourselves! Until the thing had happened she had been a good girl — well-bred, daintily brought up, imbued with the inherited instincts and cultivated ideas of her class. Such an ugliness as theft had been as far from her mind as vice of any other kind. And she Dad become a thief !

It was enough to make her afraid of herself. The appalling and hitherto unsuspected lightness of her own character might lead her further still. If, when only 21 years old, surrounded by every comfort, and engaged to be married to the map she loved, she could commit such an act, what might sh* not do at a time of stronger temptation? She knew what was wicked and what was right, but her unblunted sense of morality seemed poweiless to contiol her evil impulse!-. It was as though two individuals hved iv one body, and that <>nc was beyond bei soul's contiol. "A female Jekyll and Hyde is a terrible thing," she mused, "and what else am I? 1 am sure th.it if I had t*ie opportunity to ritle the biggest jeweller's in London at tliih mom nt. I should not want to do so ; pud yet I couldn't /esist taking Mrs Wilder'? luhy when I \vns left alone with it! Oh, wLat possessed me! what possessed me! Am I, then, Fomt sort of monster, irresponsible fur my actions? Perhaps I-^ath mad without knowing it I" She did not cry ; there was a numbness in her brain, a hand of ice upon her breast which froze the well of tears. She only rocked herself $o and fro in auguish^ ■witk

hollow eyes fixed upon the fire, and her face colourless and drawn.

" No, that's nonsense," she said. "I am only trying to find excuses for myself, as everybody does, I suppose. I am a thief. I wanted the thing, and I took it just for the sake of vanity — to buy myself beautiful clothes ! And I have lost Saville. He will never speak to me again. I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage." A dry, hollow sob heaved her breast. Her remorse and grief were so intense that even the man whose life she had ruined might have pitied her ; even Mrs Wilder, smarting under the ignominy of public defeat, might have pitied her. If ever frailty and folly had cost a woman dear, this one seemed likely to pay her debt to the uttermosf farthing. And stall she did not cry. Until long past midnight she remained in her chair, torturing herself with vain remorse, going over all the miserable depression and alternate moods of reckless, hardened defiance which h-ad moved her during the weeks before the trial. If she could have kept the temper which had inspired her when she made her father take her to the music hall, she would have married Saville ; she had intended to do so then. But she had not been strong enough to ke&p her own counsel. The devil in her was but a " feeble devil, it seemed, which betrayed itself and made bad worse by useless confession. To steal the ruby was but the work of a moment ; to deceive Saville would have been the task of a lifetime, and she had been too cowardly to face it. Some day, she would have broken down and told him all ; perhaps one night in her sleep the secret would have been divulged ; for the wrong she had done him would never have been out of her mind. And he had behaved so splendidly. She was not good enough for him. Even if she had been able to trust herself, she would not have saddled him with such a wife.

When she undressed miserably, at last, and went to bed, it was only to lie awake for hours, tossing with heart-broken moaning from side to side. She felt that she would never be happy again. How she would be able to support existence at all without Saville she did not know. Nothing would ever comfort her ; no admiration or love from other men. She would never be able to forget. All her life would be one unavailing regret for the unspeakable wickedness of the past. This was not the first night of the kind she had endured, though there was no longer physical fear of the consequences of her misdeed to torment her. She had vacillated, too, about Saville. Now she could not change her mind and crown her wrong-doing, by marrying a man who thought her- goodThe awakening in the morning was almost as terrible -as -the night had been. It is human nature to care less by daylight than rwhen darkness-leaves us alone with our thoughts ; but the suddett return to consciousness and (memory was painful enough to draw a sob of from the. wretched girL If only she could die in her sleep — painlessly, without knowing beforehand that the end was near! Only she \iasas afraid to die as to live. She had been so wicked.

At breakfast time the colonel tortured her by chuckling over his newspaper. " Wilder won't like the papers this morning," he said. " You are evidently the heroine of the day, my dear. If we had asked for damages, you would have got them, undoubtedly. But I am glad we didn't. We don't want money for that sort of thing." "No-o,"' said Hilda, faintly. "I suppose the bill of costs will be very heavy with all those counsel and lawyers. Mr Wilder will have to pay mine, won't he? " " He will," said Coloney Oheverley, with relish. " There is nothing as close to Winder's heart as his pocket. I don't envy his wife when the bills come in. That woman has had a lesson she won't forget in a hurry, I reckon."

Hilda sat, erect and pale, eating toast which might have been straw in her mouth. They had to pay money on her account, these people who were telling the truth. She had- been such a clever liar that iher lies had been believed, while the other woman's truth had gained her credit for malicious invention and exaggeration. Was there any creature in London as vile as herself? Poor Saville, what must he be feeling Jike at this moment! It WQuld have been bad enough, if she had otilj flung her own happiness away ; but she had mined his as well, and, unknown to them — yes, thank God, unknown to them!— made her father and brother the father and brother of a thief ! m Colonel Cheverley put down The Times. '• Give me another cup of coffee, my dear. What are you going to do to-day? I suppose Saviile will be round? " Her heart gave a sickening bound, and then seemed to stand still. How was she to answer? Soon, very soon, her father and everyone would have to know that there was to be no wedding. Should she tell him now?

(To be continued.)

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