CHAPTER VI. "YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME."

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 182, 11 December 1886, Page 6

CHAPTER VI. " YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME."

••That would make me miserable. > May I aek, Lady Leigh, what causes these singular requests ?" '•Do you,not know? Consider yourself, and your feelings to me, and to others, and know my reasons." "If anyone has been talking,l to you, tell me the slanders that have changed your feelings toward me, and I will disprove them, Violet. But meanwhile ceaae thid insane conduct, that will make us the theme of gossip throughout England. Do not allow yourself to feel this aversion to me, from any cause. I assure you, you shall have no reason to find fault with my conduct to you." Violet stood, her hands clasped, her graceful form bent slightly forward, her lips parted, woe, reproach, apprehension, entreaty in her lovely brown eyes. Lord Leigh was not a bad-hearted man. His face, alwaye clouded with a half-eulleri look, changed to interest and kindness. His manner, always courteous, grew really gentle and tender. He took her hand. " Come, Lady Leigh—come, Violet. It is now too late for either of us to change our fate. lam content with mine. You will think better of yours. Come, •hild. I hear them announcing our carriage. We must go." A moment for final adieus ; and then a dash across the city in a close coach, and then as in a mad, bad dream Violut was shut up -with her husband in a reserved carriage and whirling along the railway to Dover. i

Sir Tom Churchill, "the best man," had lingered to have as long as possible the light of Grace Fanshaw's bright eyes. "Tell me truly," said Grace to him, " will Lord Leigh make Violet happy ? He was your guardian for a few months—is he a good man ?" "He is not a bad man," said Sir Tom, uneasily ; " but, of course, Mr Ainslie has looked after all that." " I fancy," said Grace, " that Mr Ainslie would not look very closely into the ways of a man of so high a title. Is he good-tem-pered ? He has what the Scotch call a dour way. Is ho generous! Has he bad habits?" " Come," said Tom, •' we nrust not speak evil of our neighbours. Leigh is lather selfißh,. and he plunges a little—that's the worst I know of him." "Plunges? That means bets, races, gambles some?" Churchill nodded. " Why did you not tell Violet, or Mr Ainslie ? I consider it very wicked of you to keep quiet," cried Grace. "Why, I could not do anything; only consider, what could I do ?" " I would have saved Violet at any cost," said Grace, angrily.

" But she is not lost nor injured. They will get on as well as most couples," said Sir Tom. Certainly wedded life was not opening for this couple as for others. Loid Leigh, having paid every possible attention to hia bride, and finding all unnoticed, withdrew into his own corner of the railway coach and opened a book. His courtship and marriage had proceeded with a fortunate smoothness far beyond bis hopes. The guardians of the great heiress had been most reasonable and most liberal in the arrangements concerning her fortune, and he had turned from the altar of St. Goorge's drawing great breaths of relief as a man finally in easy circumstances and freed of burdens intolerable. But what was this hostility, this mystery that assailed the first hours of his new life? He looked narrowly at Violet, who pretended to sleep. But she did not sleep. Her weary brain relieved one fatal hour of her wedding day. JNext to the charming boudoir where Mrs Ainslie had taken Violet to wait for her bridegroom, was a room with a balcony curtained with honeysuckle and passionflowers closely interwoven. This room had been made over for the day to the gentlemen of the guests, and some of them had taken possession of the balcony. Seated there in a closely woven bower of green and blossom, they could not see at all \ that a window was open just beside the balcony. But so there was, and in that window stood the waiting brido. The only excuse for the careless talk of the men in the balcony was that they were very young, and as thoughtless as they were innocent of evil intention. Just as Lady Leigh placed herself at the window to wait her bridegroom, these words fell on her ear : •' So rank, beauty, and money have run their race, and money hag won the cup." In her happiness it never occurred to Violet that the words referred to her. She atood unprepared for what was to come. Captain Gore had spoken. Sir Hugh Hunter took up the theme : ' " First there waa Lady Clare Montressor ; then the vicar's beautiful daughter, Miss Ambrose; and then— the Ainslie millions." "Why, man, you don't mean our bride is not most lovely ?" "Certainly she is lovely — extremely lovely, charming, sweet ; but Miss Ambrose is one of those beings beyond all praise. The most heavenly creature eye ever rested on. To see her once is to have her face photographed on your heart for ever " 11 Pooh, Hunter ! you are romantic." "So, .so, perhaps. But I tell you it is impossible that a man who has loved Miss Ambrose can love another." " No doubt Leigh did not love her then." "Not ? You may believe ha did." "Then, why, in the name of sense, did he give her up ? Did she jilt him ?" " No ; she loved him." " Zounds ! ia the man so fickle ?" said a third.

• • Must be fickle. He was quite enamored ot Lady Clare once." " Attentive, not enamored. Lady Clare is rather cold style, you know." "So is Leigh. Haa he been enthusiastic to-day, or the last month V u But that is just what 1 tell you ; MissAmbrose a image is in the background " */r" TT A at visu is ali nonsens e- If he wanted' Misa Ambrose, and she loved him, it would i have been a match. What vicar's daughter - is going to refuse a lord of Leigh !" "I explained at first; beauty cannot hold its own with such a stunning lot of money. Two million pounds !" "I admit it is a heavy sum, but Leigh did not need it. He of all men need not marry for money. He is rich." "Yes," said Captain Gore's voice, "but; he ia deucedly hard up just now. I happento know that he has a short loan of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds out, falling due immediately." There was a general exclamation. Then L°. ok m ng VS 0 fc^ room ' Ca P fc ain Gore saw bir lorn Churchill enter, and called him. " Churchill, isn't it true that our handsome bridegroom has been rather crowded' for cash of late V "What do I know about it?" said Churchill, angrily. "How can you, Gore be talking about the man's private affairs ' with dozens of people within "hearing ?"j soul, I didn't think of "that," said Captain Gore, good-naturedly. " However, only our own little clique is here I see the stories are so, Churchill— you don'fc deny he is hard up." "" JFaw, you mean," interrupted the third speaker ; "now he is easy enough— two millions of pounds is a nice pot of reserve i cash, by Jove ! I wish I'd fallen into it. A rush of lively young men discussing Derby Day" interrupted this conversation. Meanwhile, open to every terrible word the sweet young bride had stood by that' , tiower-curtamed window ; she stood powerless to move or to cry out, as one in a catalepsy-rigid, frozen. Her hands and teet had become ice, a strange pressure was upon her heart ; wheels of fire whirled in her brain ; all her senses were gone but that one sense of hearing. Life seemed to. remain in her, only to pour upon her brain, through her ears, those hideous, shameful, agonising, crushing truths. He who had eaid he loved her preferred others to her, and had sought her only for her fortune. He who had seemed above reproach and suspicion was the embodiment of all that she most dreaded He to whom she had fled for refuge, from fortunehunting was the veriest fortune-hunter ofthem all. She .had given her innocent heart, her quivering, sensitive soul, irrevocably to one who had mavried her that he might pay an enormous bill. It was then, when the chorus of cries about the Derby Day relaxed the tension of her spirit, that Violet fell senseless to the floor. She heard those miserable truthsthen she knew nothing until sight and knowledge returned, and bending nearest her, a look of ownership in his eyes, was the man that had so cruelly deceived her. She ralaced her hand against his breast to drive him from her, but oh ! how little way couJd she drive him, when that fateful golden shackle bound them together. This scene, these thoughts, were still wretchedly repeating themselves when the train arrived at Derby, where, as they were too late for the beat, Lord Leigh had tele graphed for apartments, and found himself m possession of a magnificent suite of rooms, that had been used more than once by royalty. The splendour of the apartments, the richness of the dress in which Kate had arrayed her, the choice supper set before her, could not distract the excited mind of Violet. Whenshe was left alone in the drawingroom with Lord Leigh she could not remain seated. In the9G hours of thought her anger had been rising. She moved tmeaaily up and down the room, and then stood by the hearth, her elbow resting on the lowjade mantel and her head bent on her pink palm, as she looked at the dancing fire. " Lady Leigh,'' said the bridegroom, suddenly, having grazed for some minutes at the lovely 3ad face, " will you kindly tell me how you became so wise today as to change all your feelinga toward me ?'" Violet fixed her eyes on him and said^ slowly : "I heard that you married me for my money ; I heard that you married me because you were deeply in debt; I heard that you were what I heartily detest, a fortune hunter ; I heard that you really loved— as much as you can love— another* but forsook her for my millions."

"And, Lady Leigh, on your marriage day, you have allowed a scandal monger "to pom- these stories of your husband into your ears? You have lofty notions of a wife's dutios." " Those things were said by your own friends, in a balcony next where I waited for you, and I could not help hearing them, as lam not deaf. Are they so ?" By an immense effort Vrolet had forced herself to enough calmness for this explanation, for this heavy charge. Now she had reached high excitement, her cheeks flamed, her eyes glowed. But a look of relief came into Lord Leigh's face. He said : 11 Even if this were true, and it is not, I cannot see any great wrong to you in it, or anything that hinders me from being a good husband, and you a good and contented , wife." "It ia a great and horrible wrong to marry a woman without loving her, ' sobbed Violet. " I am not romantic, but I do love you, if you permit me to, and do not repulse me as you have to-day. Suppose that your fortune was a factor in my consideration, and that, since I am thirty years old, I have admired other women ? That does not injure .you. No doubt you have fancied others, and had other considerations ie marriage than cape nal love for me.

Violet flung hereelf on a aofa, and burst into an agony of weeping. '* Violet," inquired Lord Leigh, earnestly, " Did you see anyone ; did anyone tell you anything else ?" •' What co terrible was left to be told me?" cried Violet. (To be Continued)