CHAPTER XIII.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 13927, 4 August 1905, Page 6

CHAPTER XIII.

"YOU KNOW THE PEiNALTV— INCtfK. IT IF YOU DARE !" Che day following Lady Allister's ball, Capt.. Stewart and his wife did not meet until dinner time, and then \ there were other, people present,- so she had no chance to broach the subject that was uppermost in her mind ; but in the drawing room al'terward, she contrived to draw near to him, as lie vstood a little apart. Bending over some music to select a song, she said, carelessly-: "So that was Chris Davenant who was' talking tq you last night ?" Stewart let his eyes rest with a quiet, half-contemptuous glance, on the lovely, face, and answered, briefly : "Yes." "Wiry didn't you introduce Mm to me?" continued Pauline. j "There was no necessity, just < then. Another time will do," said he, rather coldly. "You might ask ) him here to dinner," she said, taking up a song. "I don't care for the Davenants to have a footing in my house," said Stewart, quietly. "No ?" She lifted her blue eyes now, with an innocent stare. "But | the}' are in societ}'." "So are a good many people one does not wish to cultivate." Just then a gentleman came up eagerly to Pauline, , begging for a song,, and she was obliged to relinquish her warfare. Stewart turned away, compressing his teeth. The contest would have to come, and he did -not care how soon. Paiiline, he knew, had been ; inquiring all about the Davenants, was perfectly aware that Claude Verner was the woman her husband loved, and intended to make an effort at interference with his freedom of action. He could have laughed at such folly but that it was all |so heartrending. But for Claude's sake, even more than his own, he! must crush with a ruthless hand any such attempt on his wife's part. He would - see Claude as often as he chose, and he would not suffer her. to be insulted by so much as a 100k v And the contest came the next day. About, twelve o'clock! Stewart entered the drawing room to get a letter which he had left there the ' previous night. Pauline was fitting by, a small table, arranging, some flowers in a bowl ; it was a' pretty occupation, which was the reason for it, not the love of flowers. u Good-morning," Stewart saidhe had not seen her before — and was turning toward the door again when his wife's voice arrested him. "Esric !" -she said, and he paused, and came back a few steps. Something in her tone startled him, and made him draw in his breath silently. Let the struggle come and be over ; but it would be torture to him. Coarse natures have always this empire over the nobler natures, that they can inflict infinite « pain, and are prooi i against any retaliation. glanced at her husband, as he, stood near the piano, resting his hand lightly upon it ; but she could make ' nothing of his face, which generally, in repose, was stern and graA^e; all her cunning, her stratagem, and diplomacy were but sorry tactics to him — he saw through * them at once ; but she could never begin to understand him. How should she ? "I want to go to the theatre tonight," she said, ! building up a toppling rose; "I 'have* no other engagement." "•Very -well. Which theatre ? As I am going out I will get a box for you, if there is one to be had." "I don't much care. H'm the Ilaymarket will do ; I haven't seen thef new piece. You ) wilU come too ?" "I am sorry, but I have an engagement this evening." • N "Can't you put it off ?" st'id Pauline,' pouting/ ! "You hardly ever go out with. me." "I go out with i you enough to save appearances-; more thin f)»at, I imagine, we neither of us desire." "But I do desire it now,' 1 said she. "We ought ro ha seen together more often." Capt. Stewart Km!].; 1: "Don't you think it's r:ttho.r late in the day to arrive at that \iew of the case ?" he asked, cnreiess"No, I think it's time onowpn. said she, turning round. u:?d dropping her hands .n lw-- lap. "I snu pose yoii won't go with me Iris evening because you are £oing to call on those Davenauts I<g Just a flash— a danger o is fl.ish— in the man's dark eyes, l.nt .not a change of colour. He said, with a slight laugh : "I am not in the habit of accounting to you, ./.Pauline,; or to anyone, for . my comings and goings. When I tell you that I cannot accompany you this evening, there is nothing more to be said." , He moved from his position, and once more turned toward the door, as if the subject were closed, when Pauline sprang to her feet. "There is more to be said !" she exclaimed, her ' voice harsh with anger ;"a great deal more. You never told mo who that girl was you loved, but I know now— it's Claude Verner " Stewart • ttirned - back, his face white as death, went straight up

to his wife, and grasping hem wrists with a grip ol iron,) forced her back into the chair from which she had risen. "Go on," he said, jn a strange suppressed way ; "let , there be a beginning and an end of this at once." The force of his passion crushed her like a physical force ; though he put out but a minimum of actual strength. She cowered, - and trembled', and looked up at him, panting, and ' half imploring, half defiant, like a baffled animal that would, if it dared, attack its conqueror. , ' r . "Iyet me go!" she muttered; "you frighten me." ""You are not frightened ; onlycowed and angry. I, am in no f mood for trifling,. Pauline ; and you shall not' move from here until this I matter has been settled between ! us, once and for all." He released her hands, and dre^v >back>;' C( Now;" he said, "what have you to say to me?" ' ■ ; ' Pauline looked down at! her, wrists, which bore but lightly the inpress of his" hands ; then up into her ; husband's stern,, /handsome face, and all the malice, of her nature glittered in heir blue eyes. "I have to say this,!' she said, emphatically, "that whatever faults I may have, I have always been true "to you ; and I won't tolerate any rival, tI am not concerned with her name ; she can look after that, I suppose, if you can't ; but I am concerned witH'my own name. lam your wile'; nothing can undo that." She paused. "Go on," Stewart said, with a quietness that a far more stupid woman than Pauline would never have mistaken for calmness. She glanced at him fleetingly ; but, after all, he would never treat her roughly ; let her, goad him to the uttermost, he was a gentleman to the core, • and could not. forget her womanhood. She said, with the kind of boldness, that belongs to a measure of fear : , "Of course, I can't interfere with your movements, but you. cannot prevent' me from— usingr— other means in mv own self-defence." "No? Now Pauline, , hear me," said her husband,, in, that same suppressed tone and manner, which only shows the mastery, not the absence, of the , pssions that, let loose, consume or destroy. "You de well to say that- yosi cannot interfere with me ; you can scarcely be mad enough „to ./imagine that, considering' our , relations -to each other', "and" the' very' cdnditiohs df our marriage, I 'should, for an instant; hold myself responsible to you for any action of mine. You yourself^ — my wife, in name, but in nothing else — have not by one act, word, or even look, helped to keep me from utter moral ruin ; I owe it to the love of which you dare to be jealous — not to you, that I am not what you would have Jnade me. But you, forsooth ! will tolerate no rival !— you "will cross my will, not by -woman's weapon ,:, of slander, innuendo, anonymous letters, maybe ; or even personal appeal to "'Miss Verner, of whom I warn you to speak, in my hearing, With respect. You think that in such warfare. as this lam powerless : and so I am, if you are will; ing to accept the penalty of striking at me through Claude Verner." '. He came close, up to her now, and put his two hands on her shoulders'— she had risen to her feet while he spoke. "I/et her • game," he said, ."be shamefully linked with mine ; let any insult, direct or ■ indirect, be leveled against her : let .a slight be put upon her by, you, in look, word or deed ; let her" receive one stab, however secretly q^iven, because of me, and I shall know at whose door lay the wrong. I shall ask no questions of -vott, to be answered with lies, . bu,t I wiU' hurl you down from the high place you hold, and leave you the ' dubious, place of a woman who is neither, wife nor widow — a woman separated ,i from her husband. : Nw," dropping his hands from her shoulders, as with a smothered cry she sank into the chair again, "you know I:he penalty —incur it if you dare !" "You cannot !" Pauline gasped^ "It would injure your own honor!" "Cannot !" Stewart said hoarsely ;: he was shaken to the soul. "Do you know me still so little ? You have roused in me a demon that will not spare your very womanhood if you « brave- "me ! Watch. yourself that you keep your i own counsel, or, by Heaven,\ you' shall bite the dust !"

Once more he turned to the door, and this time 'Pauline did not attempt to stop him. Like most shallow people, she was quite unable to gauge the depth and force of passions with which she had no affinity, and she had, in, her folly, kcted like a man who should, alone and unaided, fling, himself onto a battalion of armed men. She was swept down, and left crushed, tPtrified, bewildered, with, through all, a maddening sense of her own Fatuous blindness in failing to comntehend the : strength ' of her foe. She had attacked him openly, and enabled him at once to grapple with and disarm! her. She oughl to have waited and watched, and used, as opportunity presented itself, those • "woman's weapons" which she had threatened 1 to emnlov. . Had she been wiser, her husband! could have had no just and innuendo ; now she/ might be ground for accusing her of slander

made to suffer for sins noL her own. He would ask no questions, but condemn her unheard ! I,ong after her husband had left her, Pauline writhed in the mental torture ol a .mean, jealous spirit, that feels baffled, and feels the added sting- of knowing itself undone by its own folly, impotent wrath of malice, and the jealousy, not of love, but vanity. But,- she asked herself, when" she had grown a "ittle calmer, though she still quailed before the memory of her husband's parting words, and the look and tone tKat accompanied them, was she indeed impotent ? Was there no way by which she could make Claude Verner feel the knife, in spite of her lover's threats ?

(To be continued).