A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9149, 23 July 1908, Page 2

A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands,' Author o£ "Hugh Grotton's Secret," "A Splendid "Bravo Bark r.i," "Tho Temptation of Mary Uarr," "Alma's Lovo Story," etc.

CHAPTER XXl.—Continued

"Your wife!" he repented. He looked at Michael's down btnt head; he looked at the girl's ashen face; there was no word spoken to contradiet what he had just heard. He turned again to Cecil. "Cecil, for God's sake, tell nic this is not true!" he said hoarsely. The girl clung to his hands now, and he drew her to her feet. Her eyes were no longer tearful • they blazed with excitement. "Oh, Paul, help me! help me! ,1 do not know if this is true; I—l —have never known anything clearly. I think 1 was dreaming in those days wheH he came and seemed so true, so good, so noble. He says 1 am his wife; he says it again and again; but I do not know. I have no remembrance. There was a day that I know had something strange in it—something painful. I came to London; he willed it, and I came; but all is blurred, all is so difficult to comprehend."

She paused here for lack of breath. Her face had paled again; she halfreeled, and Paul had to support her. His own face was like a mask. He ministered to the girl as tenderly as a woman, then, as she recovered, he looked round at Michael, who was moving from the, room. "Remain, Everest," he commanded. "You must be a witness of all that passes." Then he put Cecil back in the chair, and gently he drew from her the story, as far as she could give it, of all that had happened that day of her journey to London. The story was pimple enough for him to grasp, and his heart surged with almost uncontrollable anger against the scheming coward who had worked his way so shamefully with a weak and singularly innocent girl. There was a deep pang of regret underlying the anger that he should have left Cecil unprotected all those many weeks. He felt as if he could have turned and destroyed the man who stood there in his strength, so insolently triumphant, so utterly base. Cecil's words were faltering and few, but all was told by degrees; even down to that awful moment in Helemßrownlow's sick-room, where the veil of illusion and dr-autns had been torn from her, and the truth in all its hideousness revealed. "And now 1 have but one prayer, one longing," the poor child said brokenly, when all was made clear to Paul. "I wish to live in another world, away from the memory of this man. I will die rather than see him or let him come near me. It was for this I have renounced all tho money; for this I shut myself away from you—from poor Doctor Thorold, who has always been so good. I feared—l thought—l hardly know what I thought," she finished, with a sigh, "except that by making myself very poor I might be left free from him."

Paul rose and just trouched her head-with his hand. She was to him M this moment the child he had known arid cared for so much. "That i 3 over. You have suffered terribly, but you shall puffer no more than this man's wickedness, Cecil, he said gently, and yet most sternly. "Leave the matter in my hands. Now you must rest. Will you remain here, or will you go back to Mrs Everest's care? Yes," Paul added rapidly, as thought followed thought, "yes, that will be best; your old Nini is there, and I can guess how kind and true a woman friend you have in Michael's mother." He drew the girl once more to her feet, and led her to the door. "Everest, I leave you to guard Miss JLacklyne; in your hands she will be safe. Take her home at once; she is worn out." Michael, for answer, stretched out his two hands. "Will you come?" he asked her; and his voice was tremulous with | sorrow. She did not speak, but let her small hand rest in his, and they passed elowly down the stairs together. Paul stood and watched them gu; then as he heard the door below close, he turned and faced Felix Bingham. "If I were to wring the life out of you," he said, with a contempt that was mingled with immeasurable fierceness— "I think God would forgive me; for the world would be purer and better with such animals as you out of it. As it is, I am no murderer, but I am an enemy; and you may as well know that without an instant's delay I shall put Miss Lacklyne's case in the hand" of the most eminent lawyers 1 can find. T.e matter shall be fought to the bitter end, ana what '.hat end will be, you, as a man of the world, can easily for, tell. A marriage such as this will lie at once set aside; the circumstances are none of them ordinary, the coercion too obvious; und I think when any court of law comes to invc-tigatj your actior, there will be few people v\ho, will not hesitate to brand you, as I do, with the name of a scheming coward and blackguard, *<nd to regret that such a scoundrel cannot end his days in jail.'! Felix stood .motionless through this attack, the perpetual smile on his lips. He kept his eyes fixed on Darnley's face with an expression of venomous hate in them that made the smile incongruous—almost terrible When Paul ceased speaking, he laughed. "Bluster, threaten, net as you like, i am master of the situation, and you will know it. Put all the lawyers to work, you will not undo this marriage." He sauntered bluwly to the door. "You art. 1 so clever, and so strong, and so righteous a man." he said, as he paused before passing out "that, though 1 hate you, I can find it in my

heart to pity you, too, when I pause iind remember what kind of a woman it is you have made, your wife! You do not choose your words with me, but I Jim more courteous. I leave you. therefore to lind an appropriate word yourself to characterise the conduct of a woman who turns traitress to her husband at the bidding of another man. Sot your lawyers to work quickly; they will find me prepared to meet them. Cecil is my wife, and, by God! the shall learn to know what that means!" He took up his hat and went away, leaving Paul to digest his words as he liked. He walked through the streets firmly as ever, and bowed to an occasional acquaintance he met; but he was conscious of nothing save of the crushing defeat he had sustained, and once again the mighty torrent of violent anger surged up and about his heart in a suffocating way. Felix wjas not prepared, by nature or circumstances, to face disaster. Failure in its fullest meaning had never come to him before, and he had carried his self-opinionatedness and optimism to the verge of conviction that with him there never would be failure to his plans and schemes. Failure was only for other men. The present situation, however, took from him all his arrogant selfcomfort. Look which way he might, he saw difficulty; for this matter, now that it had fallen into Paul Darnley's hands, would be used to its bitterest extent. He saw himself ruined in pocket, and left without an ally. Devoted as his old uncle had been to' him, Felix knew that Doctor Thorold was the last man in the world to view his conduct leniently; and when on the top of this there came the publicity of his ruin, he felt only too well assured he would get little help fr6m the man whom he had deceived, and who had done so much for him. It was not like Felix to let himself be depressed for long, but to-night's events were startingly new to him. He literally knew not which way to turn. To defend the marriage case ho would need money, and even if he were to win his case, his tri' umph would be empty if Cecil were proclaimed his wife and a pauper at the same time. His mood was so savage that, had the means been given to him, he would have found a joy in strangling tho life out of this girl, who from being such a weak and malleable tool had become tho moat powerful factor in his undoing. He cursed the day and hour that had brought him in" contact with Cecil Lacklyne as he walked through the crowded streets and all his bitterness, all his rage, culminated in a desire to have her in his power, so that he could make her suffer. To wring her heart and trample on her pure, proud spirit would have been some revenge for all she had brought upon him. He let himself into his dainty little house, which would in a very short tune go, with its contents, to swe|l the assets of his creditors, and his servant's greetings gave no pleasanter touch to his l thought. The man had a perturbed and curi-

ous look. "There's been a lady here inqiiirin' for you, sir, several times. She wouldn't leave no name, and she said she wouldn't stay, but that she'd come back She ain't one of your regular patients, sir. Am Ito admit her if she calls a;ain?"' Felix snarled an oath at the man. "Tell her she may come here till doomsday; she will never have what she wants. I leave it to you to get rid of her, for inside this house she shall nut come." (To be Continued).