When a Woman Dreams

Sun (Christchurch), Volume 1, Issue 235, 7 November 1914, Page 4

When a Woman Dreams

A 3tEW KOVEL BY MME. ALBANESI Author of " Enoiou* Slixa." " The of an Innocent," &c., &e. ' [COPYRIGHT.]

, CHAPTER XXl.—(Continued.) They were silent a little while, and therf Lady Newtrie spoke. >7 'A®d you promise me you will not leave me, again for a more than a few ( Lours f" Sir Francis pressed his lips to her , brow. -- ■ ... "I promise you dear one.'' • Standing. there,, his wife's slender '•'.ifprim in his arms, in her eyes the look - <jf love sueli as he had never.hoped to read there again, the world became suddenly a very fair and happy place for Francis Newtrie. His wealth, his honours, his power were as nothing. Two things meant a thousand times more: to Mm in that hour than anything else the world could offer. His son's life, Lis* wife's love —and both so nearly lost had-been given back to him. "Tell me, dearest, how it is that I find you so different, so like my little . wife of the old days?*' he asked at last. They had sat together for a long while talking chiefly of Roger, and of the days of anxiety through which he had lived. "Who has been filling your head with these new ideas? Who has been instilling into'you the desire to call yourself hard names, and making you think yourself selfish and self-ab-sorbed? Tell me," he teased gently, what fairy's wand lias been at work, making our lives so beautiful again, and ' driving away all the shadows that were gathering so surely .and so fast-about • / «9t" , ' . srene smiled her old smile. It did her husband's heart good to see it flash out. , -. . "A fairy!" she" cried, gaily. "Why, dearest,; I believe you are right. Yes, it has been a fairy, and such a blessed fairy, too^—one -who has cheered and strengthened, and, oh! believe me, Francis, a fairy that will always be ' such a good friend to both of us.''. *'Now who,can that be?" Sir Francis questioned, but a little inscrutable smile lit his eyes. Perhaps , a dim foreshadowing v of what he was to be told had come to him. " Tell me," lie asked again, "keeping his thought to himself. Irene crossed the room. She rang the bell, and. then stood nodding mysteriously to her husband as they waited. A second or two ■ later Gowan came into the room in answer to her summoiis. "Gowan, will you please tell Miss. Trentham that Sir Francis has arrived, and ask her to come here. You w»' find her in my boudoir." "Yes, my lady," the man answered, promptly, hurrying, at once to carry out lier orders. "And so the fairy is Mary Trentham?" Sir Francis said, softly, and he smiled. "Fes, just 1 Mary, and no one else,' ' replied Irene. "She is staying here ■with'me just now. Oh, Francis, she is such a dear, I don't know what I would have done all alone without her. She has been so good to me." "I hope, my dear, that she is going to be very good to someonvelse I know of ©ne of these days." Irene looked at her husband in a i slightly puzzled way. ' "Someone else —you know?" She paused. "I mean, I think I told you, didn't I, in one of my letters that, Mary had broken off her engagement with ; Nigel Rivers?" ,'fYes, and I was very, very glad to ' have this news. I never approved of ; the engagement, and should have taken steps to prevent it, only I knew that, given time, Mary would realise the mistake she was making." Lady Newtrie looked at her husband in growing alarm. How much did he Iknow? How was it possible that he had known Mary meant to break off her engagement? "How did you know?" she asked. "And who is the someone else?" "Why, my dear, will you be very surprised?" Sir Francis paused. "Roger, I mean," he said then. "Roger! " Irene Newtrie exclaimed, and suddenly there came an explanation to her of Mary's white and altered face, her anxious eyes. All the days this other girl had been so good to her, caring for her, cheering her, helping her, her thoughts had been far away by Roger's bedside, sharing in spirit in the brave fight, yet she had said nothing, she had given no sign. "Yes, I mean Roger." Sir Francis smiled at the wonder on his wife's face. *' Long ago I saw that Roger cared for Mary, cared and suffered, for she would have nothing to do with him. It was only the day that the news came of his accident that I had a glimpse of her

heart. I have been fighting for her as well as for myself, Irene, up in Roger's sick-room." "Did she tell you?" Irene's voice was a little curious. • * "No, my dear, but she comforted me. I knew by that." Irene's eyes were very tender. "Poor Mary! what a terrible time it has been for her, and how wonderful you are Francis. You know everything." Her face grew grave. She drew a little nearer and caught his hands again in her own. If ever a day should come that she would have sufficient courage to tell her husband the whole story of her grief and troubles, would he tell her then that he had known it all the time? She put .the -thought from, her.'; That day surely lay far ahead. For the present she was only conscious of a sudden new joy of still being alive, still able to take her part in a world that could be so happy, and of having the husband she loved once more beside her, the old estrangement gone. A moment later Mary herself came into the room. She walked towards Sir Francis with outstretched hands. ~ "I am so glad to see you," she said. "I know that your being here is the best hews we Could possibly have of Roger." She spoke his name frankly, but the colour swept into her face as she did so. ■ "Yes, the news is good, as good as it could possibly be. There is no danger now, but recovery will, I fear, be very slow. And he will never be quite as he was before." £ir Francis paused, and then he said, '' The injury to the leg must be permanent; he will be a cripple." Mary paled now, and tears started to her eyes. "Does .he know this?" she asked, in a whisper. ; The father nodded his head. "And—and will lie suffer because of this?" Mary's voice trembled a little. "No, he will not suffer. Roger can be brave in many ways." "Brave!" exclaimed Irene. "Why, he is a hero! Poor Roger!" " Yes," Sir - Francis repeated, '' my son is very brave. . He is prepared to face whatever lies in the future, but hppily 1 believe that in a little while Roger will find that, even though lie may be' a cripple, life promises far more for him than he had ever dared to hope before this accident came.'' Mary Trentham said nothing in words, but that hot colour once again flooded her face. 1 ' Will it be possible to bring him to London soon?" asked Lady Newtrie, a little while later. "It would be nice to have him here to nurse and watch over, wouldn't it, Mary?" "If he goes on as he is doing, I am going back for him in a* couple of weeks. Then I shall arrange to bring hint back by easy stages. I shall not be quite happy about him until I have him here under my own eye," Sir Francis said. "Why, of course; this is the best place in the world for him." As she spoke, Lady Newtrie slipped an arm through Mary's. "Poor Roger, what, care we will take of him, won't we, Marv? We will spoil him and fuss over him," she smiled. "Do you think lie will object?" Sir Francis laughed. His heart thrilled when he heard his wife speak 'in this way of Roger. It had always been a source of secret grief to him that his son and Irene were not better friends. Now that, too, seemed to be changing, just to make the gift of happiness bestowed on him absolute. "He won't object if the right people do the fussing and spoiling," he answered, with a smile in his kind, grave eyes. As he spoke Sir Francis glanced at Mary, but she was looking out of the window. Her thoughts were very busy. The early spring sunshine was finding its way into the room through the delicate lace curtains. On a table near to where she stood there was a big bowl of snowdrops, slowly unfolding their pure, delicate petals. "Fair maids of February." A very fitting name, she thought. February was, indeed, almost with them; before another month was gone Roger would be installed in his father's house. When he was well enough she would

go to him and tell him all that was in her heart, on her knees, as she had promised herself. She would let neither pride nor conventionality stay her, but humbly, like a penitent, implore him for that love she had once rejected so cruelly! CHAPTER XXII. , The time slipped past, and Mary remained with the Newtries. How different was her outlook on [life! How altered lier opinions! How ! much, how very much, had happened !since that time last year! Sometimes she could not believe that she was actually the same girl whom Sir Francis had brought to his house. Then she had been all alone, ill, broken-hearted,- at. war with the world antl those who would willingly befriend her. Now the future was filled with the promise of a hope so precious, so beautiful, that at times it seemed to Mary as if there could never be a fulfilment to match sxicli a hope. Lady Newtrie was her own lovely self once again. Her miserable affairs had been 'all successfully settled before Sir Francis returned from the north. Her jewellery was once more safely in her own possession. Mary and she had opened the box together, and Irene had cried a little over the gems as she had taken them out of their cases and looked at them. "I little knew how deeply I was to suffer because of these things I packed them up and gAve them to Nigel that dreadful day! Oh, Mary, I was desperate! Nothing seemed to matter except the urgent need of raising money as soon as possible to hand on to that man Dalston. Nigel told me that Dalston certainly threatened to go to Francis if I failed to pay up." Mary interrupted sharply, as she set back in its case once more a beautiful pendant of diamonds and turquoises: "Was it from this Dalston that Nigel picked up his gift of threatening, I wonder? Poor Irene! I can't bear to think of what your life was all through those many months with the fear .of exposure hanging over your head like a sword." Then she changed her voice, saying: "And yet, you know, I can't help thinking that, if you had only plucked up your courage and gone to Sir Francis at the very beginning, telling him the whole "thing, the result would not have been so terrible, after all! Loving you as he did, your husband would have protected you in every way." • ."I know that. Oh, I know it! But, Mary, I wanted to spare him. I knew how a thing like this would have worried him. And then I was so afraid he might have lost all faith in me, and that I felt I couldn't bear! Oh, there are times, Mary, when I can't believe everything is ended and all my awful worry over. Tell me,'' Lady Newtrie queried an instant later, "do you think it is hateful and deceitful of me not to go to Sir- Francis and tell him everything now? Sometimes I feel I ought to do this, and then I always stop, for we are so happy now, so contented."

the Newtrie's house', was more than he eared to stand to. So he departed almost immediately for Africa, where many of the people who had never been wholly deceived by his pleasant, ingenuous manners trusted he would remain! No one was more heartily glad at his departure from England and from all association with Mary than his old cousin, Mrs Seymour., Just at first she had prepared herself to be given some explanation from the girl, but Mary kept her own counsel, and only she herself, Lady. Newtrie, and her man of business ever knew the story of that twenty thousand pounds and what it : bought for her as well as her freedom. In spite of her resolution to return to the flat when Sir Francis came back from the north, Mary stayed on with the Newtries. As a matter of fact, Irene would not hear of her going. Moreover, as news came that Roger did not improve as quickly as his father had hoped, Sir Francis had made journeys | to his son, finding each time that there i was no question of bringing him to London. Under these circumstances SixFrancis begged Mary to remain with his wife, as, though he was never ab"sent for more than a day , or a night, he nevertheless hated the thought of leaving Irene alone.. Naturally Mary fell in with Sir Francis's wishes, always assuring herself that she would go before Roger was brought to the house. She was beginning to feel uncertain of the future, uncertain how Roger might meet her.

'' And for that reason, my dear, leave well alone," answered Mary firmly. ■ ' Sir Francis has had enough to bear lately. By and by you can tell him everything. I don't believe it will surprise him so much, Irene. He knew only, too well that clouds were there, without knowing whence they came. No need to tell him now and disturb the new peace. Put it behind you and forget it for the present, anyway. Some day, in years to come, it will be different, and you may find it very simple to lay tile whole story before him." Lady Newtrie wisely followed Mary's advice. Life was very- beautiful for her just now. A new and tender understanding had sprung up between her husband and herself, and if at moments, when she realised the joy of her freedom from such a terrible burden, she hated to feel that all unknown to him she had gone through so much, almost passing, indeed, into the valley of death itself, she put the thought from her. His hapi>iness was, after all, the only thing that mattered. And now that Rivers was not there to revive unpleasant memories, it was almost easy to drift away from all thought of the past. Nigel Rivers had carried out all the conditions Mary had attached to the large sum she had arranged to hand over to liim. Her lawyer never knew the real story, but concluded that the girl, feeling that she was treating the young man badly in throwing him over, had persuaded him to accept this gift as a sop to his injured feelings. It Avas a big price to pay, but her freedom from such a man was worth it, so thought the old lawyer. He had gauged Rivers's character from the first, and disliked him cordially. Nigel had gone abroad almost at once. It was the best thing he could have done. To face a broken engagement and all the gossip that was bound to arise in its train when it became known, and also the fact that he no longer went to

Perhaps that which he had wanted once had passed from his heartj perhaps it would be his turn to scorn and mock! Yet Mary, recalling his face, his earnest words, could not let herself believe this. But a new shyness had fallen upon her at the thought of meeting Roger,, and so it was she resolved to return ,to herflat When he came. Once again Sit Francis went north, and this time better news came. It. was nearly the end of' March, weeks after the time he had first hoped to bring Roger back with him., But at last it was possible to move the invalid, and Sir Francis wrote and told his wife that she might look for them in about two .days' time. With his letjter irk her hand, she ran quickly to Mary's room. "Good news this time!" she cried, brightly. "The best, indeed. Francis says he finds Roger so much better that they are coming here at once. Aren't you gladt" ' A wave of colour swept , across Mary's face, but she spoke steadily, in her usual voice:— "Indeed, I am glad, Irene. That is splendid news." _ She listened to all that Lady Newtrie had to say, but she was planning with herself that now the arrival of Sir Francis aiid his son was certain she would slip away from the house and return to the flat.

Lady Newtrie watched her curiously; she could not quite understand Mary. Did she really care for Roger? She was so calm, almost so indifferent.

Surely, if she loved him so much, she must-show at least a little ejeitenxent! Wisely, however, with the tact that was a natural gift with her, she said very little more about the matter to the girl. . That day Mary slipped away for one of her old tramps through countless squares, along many streets, and her courage seemed to ooze away from her into the pavements below her feet as she went. The future, that future which might ypt be hers, as she had pictured it, with Roger Newtrie, seemed less sure now. It was fading away! She grew afraid. She hurried on, hardly knowing where she went, and found herself in the park. She looked about her with unseeing eyes. The spring flowers were in their full glory; but that day the tender young things had no message for her. As a rule, Mary liked the spring flowers. •In the old days they had seemed to bring her courage and speak of hope. Now, not even the spring coilJd strengthen her heart. Of course Roger had long ago forgotten her! He was the sort of man, she assured herself* who would shut her memory out of his heart and, thoughts at once —had possibly done that the very hour that he had left her .flat that evening when she had tre,ated. him so cruelly. (To be continued.) A minute to make; a treat when made —Camp Coffee.