FOR HONOUR'S SAKE

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12906, 21 February 1906, Page 2

FOR HONOUR'S SAKE

(By Bertha M. Clay.)

CHAPTER Vll.—Continued. " Captain Stewart is in the parlour, please, ma'am," said the maid, who also fulfilled the duties of lady's maid. " Captain Stewart!" exclaimed Pauline. " What an extraordinary hour to call! Heie Grace, I can't go down to him in this thing. Get me out the pale pink, and do my hair properly. These soldiers!" she added, finishing her coffee, while the maid fetched the required robe, "begin the day at all sorts of unconscionable hours, and seem to think all the world follows suit. I call it cool," she added to herself—she, save for her annoyance, was as cool as a cucumber —" to treat me as he has done, and then come down upon me the first thing in the morning, and expect me to be at' his beck and call. Thank Heaven, lam one of those women who look well at all times. Some people are never at their best till the day is well on!" She did not hurry herself in her change of apparel. Stewart had treated her cavalierly ; now he could wait her pleasure. She knew very well his heart was throbbing with no lover's impatience, but this made her the more determined to vex him in some way. She had never forgiven him for being proof against her fascinations, and to the pangs of wounded vanity were added those of jealousy, the thought -that he had given to some other woman, perhaps unsought, the love she had striven, and striven in vain, to win.

It even flashed acrcc-s her that he might have come to try and regain his freedom, and then she positively dawdled. If he were here on any such mad errand, she would not- spare him one moment of suspense; he should have full time to fret out his impatient soul, while she admired her fair person in the glass, and smiled at the mere idea of resigning her empire. But she was ready at last, and swept downstairs with a prepared smile on her rosy lips. She must not show her hand!, but meet him with effusion, as if she were ready to forgive and condone anything for the happiness of seeing him again. Stewart turned from his restless walk up and down the room as she entered.

She was lovely enough to touch any man's senses, if not his heart; but no pulse of her promised husband quickened not the faintest glow came to his heart; only an almost sickening rush of something like actnal repulsion. She sprang to meet him with outstretched hands, and a glad cry: " Esric, dear, dear, Esric!" But he caught those hands in his rather, it would seem, to prevent her throwing herself into his arms, than from any movement or impulse of love towards her. His hands were as cold as ice; his clasp close and strong, with the strength of mental agony, not of passion; his face was white and "haggard; his very lips pale. Pauline looked at him with wide, startled eyes; a wonderful effective look of for even in the second that he caught her hands, and she saw his face, the half-formed suspicion was confirmed—that he had come to throw himself on her mercy—to ask for his freedom.

" Esric ■" she gasped, " what has happened ? Oh! you are not angry with me because I kept you waiting» Ah I no, it can't be that! Oh • what have I done that you meet me like this?"

With a feigned sob she dropped her face on his hands; but he, though moved, was scarcely moved as she desired; a wave of pity for her swept over him—of bitter self-reproach. Was he cruel to this woman, who, in the onlv way she knew, loved him? But, oh \" that" other—that other! he could not give her up. "' Pauline!" he said, after a moment, his voice hoarse and broken, " forgive me! I have not come as a lover, but as a suppliant." r *

She lifted her head, and snatching her hands from his, drew back.

"A suppliant?" she said, her eyes searchrag his face. "Esric, what do you mean?" Low the man's head was bent, the red flush rose to his brow; he sank on his knee before her. In the depth of his agony, the words were hardly breathed: " Pauline! in pity,, for your own sake, for my honour's sake, release me!" " Esric!"

Wonder and pain were in that cry; but in her heart, untouched bv his despair, jealous anger and triumph." So! she had bsen right. His own lips confessed the reason, of-Jus stay in Paris,-his neglect of ins betrothed wife. But his sensitive honour lorbacie him to break his.chains with ins own hands. He came to her as a suppium,, gave to hoi- the fiat of bondage or "For your honour's sake?" she repeated, after a mmute's pause, during which she seemed to struggle for the self-command she had never lost. "I-I don't understand, lour faith is mine. I have been true to you. I love vou "

Her voice broke. She added, almost di rectlv: .

" Your honour is pledged to me'" Uiptam Stewart lose to hi s feet. "I am in your hands," he said* still not looking a t her, his hand closed with a convulsive grip over the over the back of a chair near him. ■« Claim, if you will a promise that was given without love, which fnlffl-T 8 I am ready to fulfil it. Heaven help me! that I must come to you with such a plea on my lips • :; ei y^ ed love, and-D'ow I-have none-to

".Stay!;' Pauline .interrupted. She-had dropped -into a chair,:..covering her face bu:t raaaed'-ber head now: WW t£t whue your faith was pledged to me, while clns u % 1' dl the world ™> cerns u* two, knew of our engagement you led another woman " = CUJeI «> „,"?\" *f S -" d ' sternl - y ' stun S to the quick by the nna te coai-seness she unwit tngly betrayed; nature will peep ou™w ana men from under its trapping " Xo thej woman I l ov * knows nothing. I. did not seek her; I met her bv chance. I gave her,my heart in that first hpur; I did you no wilful wrong. Pauline''" he moved a step nearer to her: she had hidden her face again to hide the evil light in her eyes, "if it were possible for me to tear this love out of my heart, possible that I could eve* be to you lover ass well as : husband;' us both-' thfti

unutterable pain; but I dare not face the future! Your name shall not suffer—on me rest all the shame; your hand, not mine that severed us ; niv sin that broke the tie!"

" No, no!" she cried, springing to her feet. " Would I take shelter under the fiction of your unworthiuess? The burden must- fall on me. and I cannot bear it! Ah! the world is so much, so much to a woman. Yet that is the last part'.'' She bowed her head. * I love you!" she faltered. " You ask mo to be a saint, and I am only a woman. My love is no'sudden passion, such as yours; vou can in time forget, but I »

| " Forget!" cried Stewart with, a passion that startled, almost frightened her. " I tell you my love is a passion such as your shallow nature cannot know, cannot even comprehend. But I will plead no more. I have my answer, and I will keep my word to you. Take a husband who has never loved you, and never can love you, but will strive to be at least loyal -to you; who brings what you value more than worship—wealth and station. Nay," as, with a quick sob, she sank at his feet, stretching her hands toward him in mute protest and appeal. He looked down on her with a strange pity for her lost womanhood, softening the sternness of his face, yet, through the pity, a measureless contempt. "Nay, love that can accept unwilling bondage is none. I cannot take you to my heart; to you it is cold and dead. Let there be uo misunderstanding between us. You shall have what you value far above worship—my name, my wealth; in your heart- you ask for nothing more. I was a blind fool ever to believe that you loved me!" Pauline rose to her feet as he turned to the door. Ah! how she longed to hurl back, mockingly, those words in his teeth, to tell him triumphantly, the naked truth; but she dared not; she was cunning and wary; she knew that he was in a dangerous mood to be trifled with; even now he only partially comprehended her real nature; and it might be perilous to tear off every rag of seeming from- the lay figure, and show him all the rank ngliness of its construction; the assumption of being wounded and outraged must inevitably be some sort of appeal tt> a man in whom chivalry was eo strong an element, even though he did not half believe in the assumption. So Pauline, pressing her hands over her bosom, said, with a dignity that her loveliness made almost- pathetic :" " Spare me, at least, unjust reproaches." "If they prove to be unjust," Stewartsaid—he spoke quite calmly now, only the ashen paleness of his features, the smothered fire in his dark eyes v gave any indication of the anguish he endured—" I will retract them. Good-mornbbg." He bowed his head and went out. He had humbled his pride—humiliated his very soul—for this! To be held in a hideous bondage; to place in the hands of a woman, soulless and ruthless, a weapon with which she could wound him. as only such a woman can wound a man whose nature is too fine and sensitive to turn the point of the knife ;to know that for him, henceforth, there was but one hope—tbe hope for the death that should end it all!

CHAPTER .VIII.—A MISMATED COUPLE.

Everyone said that, though a very quiet wedding.' aj prettier had never been seen. The bride was so lovely, and the bridegroom so handsome, and bore himself proudly and gallantly, as a Stewart of Lochmohr would. But Maida Westmore, who was in the church, did not one whit alter her opinion that tlnre was a " screw loose samewhere."

" I dare say they'll get on as other married people do," "said less shrewd Lady Meldune; but Maida shook her head.

" Capt. Stewart isn't like 'other people.'" she said. "Therein lies the mischief. He can't merely 'get'on,* He wants so much, and he won't get it from Pauline Arnold. We shall see. I won't bet, because I am so certain."

But Captain Stewart .had done all that the canons of society demanded; given presents, introduced his bride to his" kin and his friends, etc., never lacked conrtesy or needful attention; but never did his lips touch here, or his arms infold her; his clasp of her hand was cold and passionless ; he was her promised husband, her loveV, not once: he gave her all to which his word had pledged him; he could give no more, and would not make to Pauline an outward pretence of feelings which he had told her plainly did not and never could exist.

But Pauline was happy, save for that rankling jealousy of her husband—for the coldest natures, the lenst loving can be eiuelly jealous—that ever smarting wound to her vanity in his indifference to her. She had all that, as he had bitterly told her. she, in her heart, asked for—wealth, position, empire, an endless round of gaiety, incense eternally burning before her. All men, save her husband, adored her; to hold her fan or her bouquet was an honour; wherever she went she was admired: her gowns, of which the name was legion, copied; her autograph begged for; her lightest remarks—and she never made very clever ones—repeated as witty and sparkling; in short, she was a social queen—and that was all she cared for; she was essentially a " child of the world "; in the world she lived and moved, and had her being; she had not one noble aspiration, one thought above the level of the inirror that reflected her lovely image, or the salon where she was worshiped and envied—and the envy< of the women was almost more .delightful to her than the homage of the men; she was ignorant of everything save the gossip: and scandal of the* hour, and the frothy nothings that go to make up whal is euphemistically termed in society, "conversation"; but she had the aptitude of picking up what other people said, and repeating it, with variations, so that unthinking people did not detect how essentially shallow and superficial she was; she never read anything but the novels of the day—unless they happened to be really worth anything—and then they "bored" her. She sang popular ballads in a voice bright and clear, and well cultivated, as amateur culture goes, but without a particle of feeling; and Stewart, with whom music was a passion, and who musician's critical taste, could hardly endure to hear her sing. She knew nothing of art, and caved nothins. She liked the theatre, because she could, see. and. be seen : but the play, had ;litrh£»'interest for her, and if she expressed

an opinion abont. it. it was somebody chse'a adroitly "adapted"; she bad nenc'of her own.

Of course, she made no end of conquests; soulless, wdl-nig".i brainless beauties always do; but in lur tlirting the:e was no danger to herself. The man did n«it breathe Jor whom she would suffer scandal Jo tarnish the brilliancy of her position; not purity, bus prudence, and the absence of an em'otional nature, kept her always safe within bounds. A saint was not safer from anv peril of "kickirg over the trace* r ' than Pauline. Yet beneath that compilation of i p»Kk and white tints, blue eyes, rwy lips, [yellow hair, and gowns* that were "poems.*' lurked the nature of a tigress: the rosebud lips that bad no wi*e and witty speeches, could utter words thai cut like a razor; the blue eyes to which amorous youths wrote execrable sonnets, had looks for Ksric Stewart that would have startled the boyish adorers. She was aimed with all" the weapons that only such women can wield, and which no man can meet in like kind and repel. Of course, from their very wedding day these two lived their separate lives. Captain Stewart was as little in his wife's society as he could manage to be, and as she never appeared until past eleven, and sometimes even later, and was always either receiving or going out. or interviewing milliners, it was not difficult to avoid private conversation. If they chanced to be alone together, they rarely epoke. He took care not to neglect her before the world, that was a3l: and no ir.:ri was needed. Outwardly. :.c seemed she same as usual to those who knew him: be was far too proud,a man to wear his heart on his sleeve, but faithful lan Mac-lan knew that his chieiV life was s daily, hour'v tonnre. jTo be continued.}