A SHORT STORY.

Waipa Post, Volume VII, Issue 323, 16 June 1914, Page 6

A SHORT STORY.

By. L. G. MOBERLY.

(All Rights Reserved.)

In Three Parts

THE ONLY WAY.

Author of "Hope, My Wife," "Diana," "Dan and Another," "A Tangled Web," "Angela's Marriage," "In the Balance," &c« , PART I. "Even now it seems impossible to believe—that I am free to —be happy." The speaker's voice hesitated and broke over the last words, and as she lifted her . eyes to the man who stood close beside her he saw that they were dim with tears.

"But >*ou can't deny that it would be —happiness if—you could believe in your freedom?" Maurice Stansfiold spoke eagerly, impetuously. He took the girl's two hands into his and tried to draw her nearer; but she held her self away from him, and answered in a curiously-breathless fashion:

"It would be heaven! Ah! Maurice, you know it would be heaven —aiid —I have known what it is to live in—the other place." she added, vehemently. "But—sometimes I am —afraid —to lake the happiness you want to give me." - "Afraid! Why afraid?"-

"I —think I have got so used to tear," she answered, pathetically, "it has been such a long, long time of living in dread—that I— can't understand the possibility of anything else." And again she lifted her eyes to his, the eyes that seemed to him the sweetest eyes, in the world, and the saddest.

"Don't talk like that!" he exclaimed, his fingers tightening their clasp on her small hands. "I want to rniake you forget all the past—all that has hurt you. You shall never be afraid again, my dear, if you will trust yourself to me.- Marjory, couldn't I make you happv?"

The sudden wistfulness in his voice, the appeal in his eyes, moved the girl more than the most masterful declaration could have done. For the first time she allowed him to draw her into his arms, and she laid her face against his breast with a little sigh of relief.

"Couldn't you make me happy?" she- repeated his words, an uncertain laugh breaking from her lips. "Why —it is because you are opening the door of heaven for me that I am afraid. I have' had such a lot of trouble—l. can't believe that heaven is real!"

He did not answer in speech; the very pathos of what she said made him dumb. But he drew her closely, and yet more closely, into his embrace, and, bending his head, kissed her gently on the lips. Over her white face there shot a flame of colour; a great happiness seemed all at once to' eclipse the sadness in ,her eyes. She clung to him with a curiously childlike gesture, laughing again that tremulous little laugh.

"Some day—l believe —I shall know my heaven is a real one," she whispered. "But, oh! Maurice, when you have lived in—hell —it is so hard to remember there is a heaven at all!"

"My poor little girl—my. poor little girl!" It was all he could say for the moment, while his hand softly touched her hair with a touch that in itself was a caress "Some day I will make you forget all that is past, sweetheart. It will be just an ugly dream—nothing more—a nightmare that is done with fori ever."

She looked up into his face with a smile, and then silence fell between them, a silence during -which they looked at the autumn world spread out before the window of Marjory's little cottage. Beyond the tiny strip of garden, where some belated dahlias still lifted their heads to the sunlight, a field slipped away to the woodlands, where the beeches flamed orange and golden, the oaks shone like burnished copper, and the dull yellow of the larches made a vivid contrast to the dark pines on the hillside. ' In the hedgerow bordering the field the elms stood golden and stately against a background of pale-blue sky; and a'bove the woodlands the moor stretched a carpet of soft, dim colouring towards the far hills on the horizon. '■

To Maurice Stansfield, the overworked Londoner., whose surgery in one of the slummiest of Bermondscy slums kept him busy morning, noon, and often night, the sight of the great landscape was singularly restful and invigorating. And this Sunday was going to be the red-letter day of all his life—the day on which Marjory; Fleming was promising to be his wife. With her slight young form pressed against him, her bright hair resting against his shoulder,, her small hands clasped in his, it seemed to Maurice as if the long years of waiting had rolled themselves away into something infinitesimally short; and yet how long, how wearisomely, unutterably long those years had bee,n in the living. Why, it was ten yep.ts ago—ten intolerable years—since 'he had sat in the back seat of Dimpsfield Church to see Marjory's 'wedding It had been torture to !watcrr the ceremony; but he had known it would be even worse torture to keep away. And so he had stolen into the dark corner to hear Marjory vow to love, honour, and obey the Handsome, charming artist whose summer so-

journ in the village had culminated in this wedding. Perhaps it was not surprising that Jack Fleming should have won the girl's heart. He was so debonair, so fascinating, so good to look at; and his art had a charm of its own, almost as great as hi.* personal charm. Maurice had been fain to own this, even on that wed-ding-day when his heart had ached with so unbearable an ache, when Marjory, in her snowy garments, her face alight with happiness, had passed out of his reach, as he thought, for ever. Never, surely, had bride looked sweeter, more radiant, more wholly s -- desirable than Marjory had looked J when she and Jack Fleming passed ;.T down the church to the triumphant strains of the "Wedding March," when, with a face like sunshine, she stepped out into-thc sunshine of the June day to tread a pathway, of roses strewn at her feet.

"Roses, roses all the way." Hei wedding-day had seemed a forecast of just such a rose-strewn life; but the forecast had not only been unfulfilled,' the * roses had turned to dust and ashes—Marjory's pathway of life had been paved, not with joy, but with suffering. Maurice's arm tightened round her as the thought of all she had endured flashed back to his mind; he stooped and kissed her face again with a kiss whose passionate, voicelesstenderness held a. world of promise. "If I could only make up to you for it all," he whispered, brokenly.- 1 "If I could teach you to forget. If Ii could blot out all the past for you, my sweet. If only I could." "I think you will," she answered,.' nestling nearer to him. "Oh! Maurice,: is it wicked to be glad—glad that Jack is—dead? I can't be sorry; but is it wicked to feel glad, Perhaps I' didn't—help him—enough." ■ Her sweet voice faltered and failed,and Maurice gently lifted her face and. looked deep into her eyes. "You did everything for him that? any human being could do," he said, gravely. "You helped him as only a' woman can help such a man. You forgave him—until seventy times; seven. You have nothing to reproach yourself with—nothing, nothing. It would be mockery to pretend sorrow for his death. It is morbid to dwell on the past. Let the dead past bury, its dead."

"How strong you are," she whis-> pered; "how strong and helpful.; Maurice, I don't know why, in the old days, I was so blind. I don't deserve to have your love now, when I passed it over before for something that was' not really love at all."

"We are going to forget all that has gone before," was the quiet re-< sponse, and once more Maurice's lips; touched hers. "From to-day we begin a new life, you and I, sweetheart—a? new life from to-day.'*

The red lamp above . tne surgery, door burnt dully. Since early morning the fog had thickened, and now at six o'clock in the evening, a heavy; pall lay over the great city—a choking, l all-enveloping pall, that made Danbyi street look like the blackest of tun-: nels in which the street lamps gleamed like distant stars—and the light over; Dr. Stansfield's door showed only as a dully gleaming red eye. The tor sat in Ins small room waiting for the influx of patients that was wont to appear at this particular time of day. The room in itself was a prosaic enough place. A plain writing-table, a revolving chair, two cane chairs, and a leather couch, this constituted its furniture. Built into the wall were two cupboards, and on the lime-; washed walls hung one or two anti-: quated engravings. the occupant <of the room was blissfully unconscious; of his prosaic surroundings. The occa* sional hoarse shrieks and cries from the street, the shriek of the whistles and detonations of fog-signals from the railway embankment outside his wimdow, all these failed to disturb his. inward serenity. Just now he was. impervious to outward influences; neither fog, nor squalor, nor the din of the miserable slum had power to' touch' him, because of the joy that yesterday had brought into his. life,: For two years now he had been Mar* jory Fleming's friend, her loyal friend,, trying to lessen some of the burden of her life, stemming the torrent of his own great love for her because her drunken, reprobate husband was still in the land of the living. But now Jack Fleming had gone out of his. wife's life for ever. The man who; had drunk' away her money, growo tired of her young loveliness, illtreated her and broken her heart, had 1 gone to his last account, and she had learnt to love the faithful friend who' had always been also her faithful lover. Small wonder that the little dreary waiting-room should seem to be bathed in rose-colour to-day, t/hcn yestenday—only yesterday Marjory, had shown him that all her heart wasi his; when the golden glory of the. aututmn trees seemed to be the re? fle.ctf:d glory of his own happiness- ( j . (To be Continued.)