FOR HONOUR'S SAKE

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12906, 19 February 1906, Page 2

FOR HONOUR'S SAKE

(By Bertha M. Clay.)

CHAPTER IV.—Continued.

"You will sing?" Stewart said, presently. " Don't think ine 100 encroaching!" "No," said Claude, simply, "if I can please you, I shall be very happy." _ She let him choose the song—one of Schubert's—and 'she sang it deliciously. Her voice, a full contralto, had an extraordinary capacity for expressing pathos; it made the man's heart, throb with a vague, passionate pain, and for a moment or two after she had ceased he could not speak. Then he said, very low: " How shall I thank 1 you ? I could listen to you forever; but your voice is heartbreaking J" The girl looked at him, half startled. A grieved look came into her eyes. "Do you mean— " she began, and. faltered. "I am so sorry-:—" "Sorry? For what? Ali, no! There is no reminder of a voice I have known— I never heard a voice like yours. How is it? Surely—forgive me—you are too young to have suffered much; tut your voice has the pathos of intense suffering." " Has it ?" There wa's a wisful wonder in her violet eyes. "Yes, I have had trouble, but no very great trouble; but, of course, I shall have."

"God forbid!" he interrupted,,'impulsively. His earnestness touched her deeply; her lip quivered. " But I cannot hope to escape," she said, gently. "And do you think," a dreamy look came over her face, " that suffering may be, as itt were, cast backward on one's inner life, so that it is expressed in our eyes or our voice—just as they say those who die a violent death sometimes have the look in their eyes?"

How could she know that she was stabbing him—even by the very intuition of sympathy that- made her talk like this to him? And then the instant thought of how this suffering of which 6he spoke might come to her "through him! He could hardly master himself to answer her with any calmness; even as it was, his voice trembled, his lips became white with the effort of self-command.

"You know," he said, "my Celtic blood makes me believe in many such things as you speak of; but I can't bear to think of them as applying to you. I think, rather, it may be the type of character which is yours—having a great capacity for suffering—that gives the tone to your voice I noticed so much."

Claude coloured, and turned- aside a little, shrinking from the personal application.

" Oh," she said, quickly, " I was theorising from myself, not to myself—generalising. as it were."

" I know—you must- forgive' me ; don't think I misunderstood you; you are the last person to be egotistical—but I naturally looked at it from the more personal point of view."

" the girl said, slowly; she was thinking of what-' he had said—that she had a " great capacity for suffering" belonging to her "type of character"—and she did not- quite grasp his meaning. Was it that she went half-way to meet trouble, as the saying is; or that her passions, being strong, and all the traits of her character on strong lines, she must- needs feel, and therefore, to some extent, suffer deeply? But she did not like to ask for fuller -explanation; she shrank, in> any case, from being the subject of conversation. Her woman'-s instinct shrank still more from posing as an interesting metaphysical study to a man; so she roused herself and added, quickly, in a lighter tone: " I suppose we mustn't get intGpsychology, must- we?" " It- is as you please," he answered, smiling, talcing the cue, and feeling, perhaps, in a sense relieved ; for his conscience warned him that he was on dangerous ground. " Then, will you sing for me once more."

Claude went back to the piano, and, while she sang, Davenant turned to his guests and wife and suggested a game of whist.

They were all capital and enthusiasts, and readily assented, withdrawing into the next room for the game; so it came to pass that, glancing round presently, Stewart saw that he and Claude Verner were alone.

Was he not tempted enough without this? Was not the blood already fire in his veins, and every nerve vibrating to that pathetic voice—the girl's very presence a spell on his spirits? -So easy to woo her now with soft, caressing words, stealing her heart from hint unawares. She was so fearless with him; she never dreamed that he was, in truth, her lover. She let him see. as a child might have done, that the subtle affinity of sympathy made harmony between them; she did not treat him as a stranger; she did not feel that he was one. And now she was alone with him, and the demon Opportunity was by his side to tempt him into words that should stir his heart with vague emotions, fill her with a tremulous bewilderment—looks that should have made her own droop, she knew not why, and the softcolour flicker over her cheek. Then yet softer in its music the voice . that wooed, the silence that said more than words, the hand laid lightly on hers, as though involuntarily, the tightening clasp as her hand quivered under and she half shrank from, half yielded -to him. Ah, was he mad? Was his honour so poor a thing the moment it- was confronted by passion t-liat he could, even for a few ■moments, suffer that feverish vision of happiness to all but subjugate his will? He caught his breath in the agony of the sharp revulsion, and set his teetli like a vise, resolutely crushing down the wild impulses that warred so fiercely with honour—and this time, at least, the nobler part of him was victor; but so near had been defeat as surely to warn him that he must tamper no more with temptation. The song was finished, and Stewart could thank the singer; only one. word, certainly, but no more was needed. There are so many ways of saving "Thank you." Itmay mean nothing, or a volume.

Claude rose from the piano. " What are they doing in the other room ?" she said ; " playing whist ?"

,i " Yes.; are just a complete

party I am afraid we could not join them if we would."

" Oh, I don't play cards," she said, seating herself on a sofa. He took the vacant seat beside her. «.

"I am glad of that." He hud himself in hand now; though all liis pulses were throbbing he could guard eye and voice. A little more of Paradise—a" little more before he closed the gates upon himself, if, indeed, he must close them.

ing.

"You might want me to play ecarte, for example, and I would rather talk with you." " Oh! is that it ? Are you staying in Paris ?"

" Not for long; at least, I think not. And you?" Claude shrugged her shoulders. "I cannot tell. Mr Davenant is erratic; we may travel, or go to London, or remain here."

"I hope," Stewart said, "that wherever you go I may have the happiness of meeting you again." " I hope so," said the girl, simply ; " and very likely we shall meet. The world is very small, isn't it?" " For knocking up against people you don't care about, yes; but. if you lose sight of a friend it is years, perhaps, before you come across him or her again—that is, if you leave things to chance." " But, then, with friends you don't; with new acquaintances you generally do." said Claude, and it did not strike her until the words had passed her lips that they almost sounded like a rebuff. She coloured, and turned aside. How she had hurt her own sensitive spirit, in, perhaps, hurting his! " Generally," said, Esric Stewart, a little dryly. " Not always." " No, I know," returned Claude, rather confusedly. "Captain Stewart-, I didn't mean "

" What you might- seem to mean," said he, smiling, and speaking half lightly, half gravely. "Of course you didn't. There is no danger of my misjudging you, though we are ' new acquaintances.'"

" How kind of you to take it- so," said Claude, with that- bewitching trustful look of hers, which, while it made the blood leap in his veins, was an irresistible appeal. " Kind of me ?" he said, softly. "Is that it? No, only just; and we must not remain 'new acquaintances,' or it will not be my fault if we do." " So, then, I have made my peace," said Claude, with an air of arch seriousness. She was scarcely more than a child in many things, after all. "If it needed making," answered Stewart, and then he began to talk of something else\ Hp knew he was in shoal water; he knew his danger, and he dared not. for an instant relax his grip of the helm. He was like s.ome reckless navigator who loves to sport with peril and make it his servant, knowing that- the deviation of a hair's breadth in his course, the smallest oversight, a momentary relaxation of tense vigilance, will make that peril his master.

No casual observer would have thought he was in any greater danger than most men would be in the society of a- beautiful and fascinating girl. If his vc-ice was soft and almost caressing, what then? How could it be otherwise, considering his temperament, when he talked to such as this?

What he said might have been said in the hearing of a dozen other people ; yetall the time his heart was crying out-:* " I cannot give her up ! I cannot!"' His will was hardening into the stern resolve to woo and win her, come what' might. His honour did fierce battle with heart and will, repeating ever: "Your word is given beyond recall; your faith is pledged and bound. You "dare not, for love's sake, trample your honour underfoot."

But the strife could not end hers irnight. When, at the close of the evening. Esric Stewart rose to go he only felt that he could not'make this adieu Claude final: yet he had not distinctly decided that he would see her again. When the little hand lay in his, and the exquisite face was under his gaze, how could he, being not angel, but a man. and a man of deep ;uid fiery passions, say heroically : " I will be true to a woman I all bus hate, and forswear from this moment the woman I love with all mv strength !" , What he did was to kiss the hand he held—devoutly, not passionately. He was able to master the impulse whicli might have startled her, and to say verv softly and to mean the words, "Good-bve. but not adieu •"

And Claude went to her room, feeling er y. "very happy, and, to some extent, owning jt. Esric Stewart seemed vto embody her idea of a hero; but there was an element in her happiness that was wholly inarticulate, of which she was perfectly unconscious.

Captain Stewart went back to his hotel going through the streets like a blind man, who knows the way by instinct, not by sight. On the table in his room lav a letter from Pauline. Another letter within a few days. He tore it into fragments, and threw it, unread, into the lire.

CHAPTER V.--PUZZLEP. " I can't make it out," said Maida West niore; " there's a screw loose somewhere i u ve - Jpet Captain Stewart .twice, but I should say he was just the sort of man to be a very ardent lover—the lover you read about, and rarely see—and here .'is his intended bride in. London, and he •in Paris ! is he doing there? And ;she, presumably, singing the iong of tlie f Forgotten.'" And Major Westmore's pretty little "widow looked across the gypsy tea table at her visitor, as if Lady Meldune could explain the mystery. Ladv Meldune shook her head, and answered : "I know as much about it as you do. Maida. I haven't even seen Mrs Arnold ; but I hear she is very lovely, and all right as regards birth, and* the rest." "That might be taken as read,"' observed Maida. " Captain Stewart is as proud as —a Stewart; and that is saying as much as need be said. He wouldn't, marry a woman of vulgar origin and shady antecedents. Besides. I know who Mrs Arnold if?, fast enough—Pauline Lovell; very good "Worcestershire family. She married" Dick Arnold, the Act of Spades, they used to call^him,.,because he was. about as black ■las they make them."

" What a nickname! I never knew him."' said Lady Meldune. " I Jive so much in the country." " Oh, I have met bim> lots of times," returned Mrs West-more; "rather a goodlooking fellow, only '.hat hk nose was out of drawing, somehow, and his eyes close set—it gave him such an odd look! But he was aa awful scamp' 1 don't believehe had a pound, yet he lived as if be had thousands, and got trusted right and left. They said Miss Lovcll fancied he was well off, and that's why she married him. If she did, she was nicely sold, for he was sold out within a month of their marriage; they had to go abroad. Afterwards he deserted her, and died in America; and I heard no more of her till she turned up as Captain Stewart's good angel, nursing him while he was wounded, and next—natural corollary—as his promised wife." (To be continual.) " I hope it- is love," said Lady Meldure, anxiously, "and cot the mere enthusiasm of gratitude. Captain Stewart is a splendid fellow. It would be a real giief to me, and to a great- many other people, if he flung himself away on a woman who couldn't make him happy."' "It looks more like the last though, doesn't it?"' said Maida; "or Mrs Arnold might -have practically trapped him into an engagement. She is poor—he, very rich, and a somebody to boot! She might have fallen in love with him, easy enough—such an attractive man!—and worked on his sense of obligation, his honour, and all the rest of it; you know those Highlanders have a quite fantastic sense of honour," concluded Mrs Westmore. "My dear Maida! How vou do go on?" "