For Honor's Sake.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7939, 12 January 1906, Page 2

For Honor's Sake.

CHAPTER V.—Continued. Certainly ho would have had far better chances of hapriness with Maida We9tmore than with Paulino Arnold, for Maida wag a true-hearted little woman who made many friends and few enemies. She was a great chatterbox, and knew most people worth knowing, and everything that went on; but she was never malevO' lent, and, though high spirited, and sometimes thoughtless, no one had ever dared to say a word against the spotless integrity of her life. She seemed in no great hurry to replace Major West more, whom she had married a mere girl, and was now a seven years' widow; though as she was very attractive, and had an ample competence .she was extremely "eligible." Perhaps the report was true which said that the major had been neither too constant nor too kind as a husband; but never from Maida's loyal lipa came a complaint. The little woman, who seemed so frivolous and pleasure - loving, suffered in brave silence, and when her busoaud was killed in India, if she felt it a release she did not say eo; yet she made no extravagant show of a grief that had no real existence; and when the regulation period of abstention from society was over she returned to the world and found it, on the whole, a very pleasant place. Her pretty aesthetic drawing room in Lexhatn Gardens was a favourite resort, and tea was graced by only a single guest. Lady Meldune, who was 50, laughed at her young friend's last words. Maida, fair, brown-eyed, oetite, with a soft poach bloom on her cheek, did not look her thirtythree years. "What a rash speech, Maida!" said Lady Meldune. "Why, you | said just cow that you had only twice met Captain Stewart." "Quite enough," returned the other, composedly, "in his case, I assure you 1 shouldn't bo afraid of the future. But he hasn't asked me, and here 1 am, dying with curiosity about Pauline Arnold, and inclining to the opinion that he isn't very much in love with her—in deed, that he isn't in love with her at all. Why don't you call upon ber? Then you could introduce me." "I don't feel much drawn to her," j said Lady Melune. "I harldy know why. It Stewart were in town 1 suppose I should but as ho is abroad, and she is living very quietly, there is no present obligation." " They say the marriage is to be a quietfone," remarked Maida; "but no time is fixed. Well, 1 hope it I will turn out better than it promises. By the way, somebody, said young Trafford was in town. It was he who accidentally shot Captain Stewaart. He saw Mrs Arnold. I'll send for him and find out his impressions of her," It was a pity that Mrs Westmore was not able, like a Theosophist "adept," to "project-her astral form," into the parlour of a house not half a mile from her own, wherein sat lovely Pauline Arnold, in a tea gown, the precise green of which had cost her a morning's •work to select, but with a very ugly look on her face, for she was alone, and she was vexed and angry. One might divine that the letters scattered over the table by her side had something to do with this anger, for most of them were yet unopened, and their recipient had evidently searched for one which was not there. "Nearly a week!" she muttered, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor, "and not a line! It is a shameful neglect. Is be trying to goad me into throwing him over? He won't succeed in that. His last letter might have been written to a mere friend, beginning 'Dear Pauline,' and signed 'Stewart,' the contents cold and foimal. I'll warrant he does not always write so to women! He might assume something of the lover if he has the love's ardour. But he is chained'hand and foot, and I mean to keep him eo. All the world knows of our engagement. He couldn't for his very name's sake desert me now! What is the attraction in Paris, I wonder? He doesn't even say it is [business; be won't condescend to any explanation," She got up and began walking about the room. s "M.v last letter required an answer," she said, biting her lips. "I implored him to come over. I told him people would begin to talk; that I could not endure hig absence. And he does not send one line in reply! It iß* not for the sake o( some gay dancer he treats me like' this. There's some one ho loves!! Well, he'll have to give her up, for 1 sha!s not give him up!" CHAPTER VL j A HASTY DEPARTURE. It was this letter of Pauline's, couched in terms of even more tender affection than any which bad preceded it, that Esric Stewart had burned unread; and then he flung himself into a chair, with the passionate resolve almost formed to snap this claim that bound him and be free. Pauline would not suffer; she loved him in her fashion, but she was shallow, and no wound in ber nature could be deep. He would take all the onus of the deed; let her se«m to bave cast him off because he was a profligate—anything, so long as he was free. Let the world, his brethren in the army, think, say,, what they would, he could live it down; and if not, why better "the rough world's oon-! tumely" with Claude Vomer than all its smiles and Claude lost to him—Paulino Arnold in her place. So he thought and felt to-night, if the wild tumult of passion within him could be called thought. But when physical and mental exhaustion brought some degree of oalm,

By Bertha M. CI ay. Author of " JVife in Kama Qui] i( 1 Vedded and. Varied," "Dora Thome," "A Oueeu A mony Women," " A True Magdalene," etc., etc,,

' came honour and stood beside l.im. He, Esric Stewart, uf the spotless escutcheon, soldier ot stainless : fame, to piny a unman false—a warn an who iisheltered and succoured him, whose heart he lud, though all unwittingly, won, to whom his faith <tas pledged! Could he do this wrong? Shame her before the woild —• shame hia own honour? Yet faithless in hnart he must be; ho did not love —had never loved—the woman ho had promised to make his wife; and Claude Verner ho did love. Ho liad not eren sought her. The passion that possessed hi;i whole being came to him unawares; in the first hour of a chance meetina that was done which neither time nor absence could uudo. Does a mua sin whoso heart, being hitherto untouched, surrenders itself to the spell of n nature akiu to its own? For hero was no question of the attraction which firther knowledge of its object may strengthen. It was the instant and complete surrender; it was the swift leap of the soul to clasp kindred soul. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Could Esrio Stewait change hia nature, impassioned, romantic, sympathetic? Could he make the wild mountain blood flow more sluggishly?—the vivid, impulsive temperament become suddenly equable and unimpressionable? A man may war against his passions if they are sinful, but he wars in vain against his nature; on his or her head be the wrong who forces mau or woman into a strife so hope less. With haggard eyes Esrio Stewart stared before him into space. Must he give name and honour to one, while his heart was on fire for another? Although he had calmly said au revoir to the only woman who bad touched his heart, ho longed for ber presence. He kuew that if he saw ber again it must be to throw himself at her feet and claim her against the whole world—faith, honour, all else, save love, tnat men hold dearest. If he would keep his word to Pauline, then he must leave Paris to-day. He dare uot even incur the possibility of meeting Claude by chance. But was there no middle course? Only on one side this terrible passion of loveon the other cold, inexorable honour? He sprang to his feet. There was one hope, one chance, slender though it might be, of freedom—one chance to escape the torture, the hideous temptation, that the future held for him. To go to Pauline, tell her the truth, ask her to release him from his promise! It was a cruel alternative, cruel to her, even more cruel to aim, a bitter humiliation, a stepping down, as it were, from his very manhood. But, even so. better thau the anguish, the strife—even, it might be, the deadly sin—that must follow on the fulfilment of bis word. If Pauline refused to release him —and it was significant of his nature that ho should contemplate this possibility—then, the mau said, desperately, be must keep his promise, and there were always disturbances in India, where a fellow who bad flung away all of his life that was worth living could manage to find hie death—ingloriously. perhaps, but the end of heart break! But to see Claude once more! No, no; that must not be! He dared not trust himself and his self-be-trayal might awaken a fire in h3r heart. Shame on him for even the scarcely acknowledged bope that the very thought roused within him! Had he not strength to pray that she might never know what be suffered for her sake, might never think of him as other than a friend, unless—unless he could be free to woo her as a lover? Ho would not dally now with temptation; be would not look backward or onward. A word to lau, a brief note to Davenant, saying that he was obliged to leave Paris in a great hurry, and so was unable to call to make bis adieu, and Stewart was on hie way to England, like a man who, condemned to . the scaffold, makes one last despairing appeal for the mercy he scarcely hopes to gain. Davenant said "H'm!" when he read the note, and stroked hia chin pensively, then handed the opistle to his wife. She read it, and their eyes met. "What underlies that hasty summons, I wonder?" said Davenant. "There's more than meets the eye; generally as in such cases. 1 cer-' tainly had the impression last night that he meant to call again, and 1 am pretty sure he was charmed with Claude." (To be Continued).