CHAPTER XXX.—(Continued.)

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 29, 13 November 1885, Page 5

CHAPTER XXX.— (Continued.)

Kathebine turned away a little towards the embrasure of the window, and her head dropped on her hands.

" I have done wrong," she said, " and I cannot say anymore. A woman must not betray herself. I did not mean to speak ; only when one baa a passionate interest at heart, prudence sometimes gets swept away upon the wave of too much feeling." It came slowly into Paul's mind that her meaning was to drive May out of bis heart, and thrust herself therein. He burned with surprise and ehame, that a woman, and such a woman, should love him unsought. He pitied her, was grateful to her, admired and despised her, all in one moment. Then indignation took possession of him as he thought of May ; and a superstitious dread ofjKatherine mingled itself with his anger. The spirit of maddening despondency which pursued him whispered to Mm now that this woman was a part of his evil destiny, that she would separate him from May, and thus help his ruin. When Katherine looked up to see the , effect of her words, she saw a face, not full of tenderness, but of hatred and anger. Her blue eyes met his, and opened themselves scared. The sun shone more brightly through the little square of window, and made Katherine more beautiful every moment, intensifying its lustre in her frightened eyes, and sheddiug a more golden bloom on her cheek, which had turned pale with real woe. For the second time in his life Paul found himself struggling with the frantic desire to harm a fellow-creature, and on the very same spot -whence he had fled from the temptation so many months ago ; but the fear in the woman's eye touched all that was manly in his nature, and this pasßion left him suddenly, and he was shocked at himself.

"It is getting late," he said. That bright gleam comes just before sunset. You must allow me to see you home at once." Katherine bent ber head with an expression of meek obedience, which was not all assumed. This wild Paul had got a power over her which no one ever before possessed— a power wielded unconsciously, and which she had never yet ful!y recognized until now. They went silently together downward through the mazes of the old mansion, he going first, opening doors and turning to assist her over broken places in the stfiircase : she following silently ani humbly m her pallid beauty, as if terrified and stricken at what had befallen her. She was stunned, having suddenly come face to fare with her own defeat. She had thought to be mistress, and found thit she was slave. A pain new to her, so sound in body, so unfeeling in spirit, had cloven her heart at sight of hatred. She was confounded with a new and strange knowledge of herself ; so that her agony was genuine, even if rage made a part of it. Every time Paul turned to her, of necessity he pitied her : and his heart reproached him a little more and a little more. By the time they had got into the open air his vaicehad got gentle when he addressed her. By and by she pleaded to be allowed to cling to his arm, for the fear that she had of these unnatural woods ; and this being conceded, the two passed on their way, and were lost in the thickness of the trees.