CHAPTER IX.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 183, 18 December 1886, Page 11

CHAPTER IX.

"LEAVE ME! I HATE YOU !" The next morning, as early as calls would be in order, Lord Kenneth Keith with eager stops went up the marble stairs of the Hotel Splendide, and Lurried to the receptionroom of auite 47- The clooc was opeaed by Kate Grey herself Kate, the very Kate who had been his fuend in need in that six weekf, the elyeium of his li f e ! Lord Keith was so delighted that he frankly held out his hand. "Why, Kate, my good girl, it seems natural to see you ; and you are still with your little mistress ?" "Oh, I could never leave Miss Violet," said Kate, who fell, by habit, into the name used for ten years, since her *' Miss Violet " waß a mere child. "That is right; there is nothing like faithfulness," said Lord Keith. "I hope your mistress ia at home ? I came to call on her." "I -will speak to her," said Kate, and Lord Keith was left alone. Hie heart was in a tumult of expectation and apprehension. When he had seen Violet at the Louvre he had wondered if she wero tho very Violet Ainslie whose image had for nearly four years been cherished in his heart. Their eyes met, It was surely she ; but, oh, more altered in manner than face ! The timid, tender, changeful Violet had grown cold, careless, had pretended to have forgotton him. Then, when ho had seen her enter the carriage, the previous day, in spite of the sumptuous dress, so different from the simple garb of his little love, be had felt that she was the same Violet still. There was something pathetic in the brown eyes, in the droop of the corners of the_ level mouth, a shrinking childish grace in tho little figure, ao ostentatiously surrounded by riches and servants. All his early tenderness rushed back upon his soul, he was resolved to see her, to challenge this long silence. Pride should not divide him from the love of hia heart, without at least one hone3t struggle. He had come, therefore, to discover why the Violet so tenderly his in the past was not hia Violet still ? When Kate went to summon her lady, Lord Keith sat down in the embrasure of a window, and recalled, as ho had done hun

dreds of times, in hundreds of places, the imago of his girl-love. Once more he saw her, with her innocent smile, light step, eager eyes, coming through the shadowy woods to meet him, while Kate, with work or book, came behind, apparently oblivious of the fact that her little lady expected to greet, a friend. How the small, soft hand had fluttered in his, like a bird caught in a not, how the shy blushes had come and gone on the dimpled cheek, how honest in their tenderness had been the wide brown eyes. A soft stir of drapery woke him from his dream. It was a portiore falling into place, and against the deep maroon velvet stood Violet — Violet, no dream, but flesh and blood, Violet so like the love of the past. Kate, who delighted in dressing her mistress, as a child delights in dressing a beloved doll, had that morning exerted all her art. She had selected for Violet a dress of delicate rose tinted muslin, which restored the bloom paled by two wakeful nights, and made her most captivating. She had thrown a white lace scarf around her pretty shoulders and tied the ends in Spencer-wise behind the round, graceful waist, set a blush rose in the brown waves of silken hair, cased the little feet in pink kid slippers with buckles of brilliants, and one roße-clad Hebe, this enchanting creature with downcast eyes, shy, trembling lips, and swiftly heaving bosom, was the picture that Lord Keith encountered as he turned from the window. > All the love of those vanished years rolled bacic on his heart and flashed into hiß eyes as he saw her. He could not, he would not, be robbed of her. She was no longer a child, wax in the hands of relatives and guardians, but woman grown, and by her woman's heart should be guided. What answer would that heart make to him — her lover ? He sprang toward her ; such a ceremonious greeting as he had contemplated since their cold meeting in the Louvre was forgotten. He held out both his arms that would bo gladly infold her, and cried : "Oh, Violet. Oh, my little darling, do I see you at last ?" But, with a low cry, Violet evaded him. There was a great arm-chair near her, and instinctively she placed herself behind it, as a sheltering barrier. She turned on him eyes of intense reproach, and aaid, in a voice of agony : " How dare you ? how dare you?" " I dare, because I love," said Kenneth Keith, boldly, coming as near her as he could, and so standing with the great chair between them, on the plush-cuehioned back of which Violet folded her arms for support, as she trembled so as she could scarcely stand " You love," she eaid, with anger and scorn. " This ie a strange time to tell me you love — afcer all these years " "They are years, indeed, and long years," said Keith, in a broken voice ; " but in them all I have loved you still. Love for another has never entered my soul. What has changed you ? Was it true, then, that your love for me passed as a cloud in a summer sky? Was it true that you were too young for permanent love, and forgot it in a day ?" " You ask me such questions ?" said Violet, panting. " Yoti, who went away and forgot me ? You, who promised to write to me, ' and never wrote one word, while I waited and believed in you until I learned too late that my grandmother's warnings were true, and all men are deceivers? Yho thought I was a litfcle lonely orphan, to be flirted with for a vacation time, and then forgotten ?" "Ne^er, never !" cried Keith. "I loved you with all my soul— l do still. And I knew you loved me, and your eyes, although you are angry now, show that you have net forgotten, and you love me yet." "Mo, no; Ido not. It is false — I will not." " But you must. Love will not be denied in your heart. Love is imperial, and lam true. What do you mean by saying I never wrote you ? I wrote you again and •gain— daily." " No, you did not. Kate went to the address wo had arranged, and there was never one letter there. You aaid you loved me, and you did not. That is my fate, always to be made a toy, and deceived by pretences of love, Leave me — I hate you." " Hate me ? and for what, Violet ?" " For deceiving me. You deceived me by your false name. Did you not call yourself Kenneth Howard, and you were Kenneth Keith ? Did you not deceive me by saying you loved me, when you did not, and by promising to write and always bo true, when you did not, and now, by eaying you wrote, when you never wrote at all ? You have no right to sneak to me in this >vay. It is wicked." " It is not wicked to tell the truth, said Keith, stoutly. "My name is Kenneth Howard, Lord Keith. Until I was of age all my col'ege friends called me Howard oftener than Keith. It was the name 1 preferrod. 1 did love you— l do love you. And I did write. I wrote again and again. Then I had a letter from your grandmother forbidding me to write any more. She said it was all childish folly, already forgotten by you ; that you declined any further acquaintance." " I did not." returned Violet, vehemently. " 1 never spoke to my grandmother of you, nor she of you to me. I never said that." "It is clear then to me," said Keith, "that your grandmother had found our ouv acquaintance, and seized oar letters. She did not wish you to have a lover, perhaps. j ' She wished me never to marry, so that my hateful money could go back to the Ainslie family !" aaid Violet, with a passionate burst of tears. " Oh, cruel woman !" 'It was cruel ; she nas given us almost four aad yoars. But they are gone. I find you again. Oh, Violet, now you know that I have been true— that I loved you then, and now will you not cast out your suspicions and take back that bitter word hate, and love me as once you did ?" " Stop ! stop ! How dare you say such words to me ? O, Kenneth, have you only insult for me ? How can you come to me to talk of love, now it is too late, now I am married." " Married, Violet ! my Violet !" cried Keith, wildly. " Yes ! Yes !" sobbed Violet. " Married. Did you not know ?" ".Heaven help me, I did not know ! I have had no English news. lam just from the East. Married ! Oh, Violet," say it is not so ! Do not doom me to despair." " I have beon married over two weeks," moaned Violet. " And to whom ?" gasped Keith. " To Lord Norman Leigh," Kenneth Keith gave a deep groan. Then he flamed into fury. He exclaimed passion^ ately : 41 Then you were the false one ; you were the one who forgot, you betrayed the love you promised me. Ob, fickle, false, and shallow heart ! Why have I ventured all my love on you? And you love another !" "I do not love him, I can never love him," cried Violet, " but I can and must be true to him and myaelf. Go, Kennethgo away and forget me, that is all I ask of you — go," and with a white, quivering face, Violet turned, darted under the portiere, and left Lord Kenneth Keith alone in his misery.