CHAPTER XV.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 19, 5 September 1890, Page 23

CHAPTER XV.

Carrie Mordaunt sat in her parlour where we have Been her on the first night of our acquaintance with her. There is now neither night or storm around — the sun shines softly and sweetly on the flowers in the garden outside, and on the waters of the fountain, turning its falling spray into a series of miniature rainbows, and making its daucing bubbles sparkle with ever-changing golden light. But in her face there is a paler hue than before, and her eyes evince an anxiety which supplants the look of resigned sorrow which shaded them when she first lifted them to take quiet note of the young cavalier who had sought shelter from the storm. There was no lessening of her beauty — an the contrary, the additional paleness seemed to have lent a sweetness to her that was angelic. Her face, in its rounded delicacy, her lips in their curving Hoes, and her eyei with the shadow of anxiety causing the long lashes to droop in silken veil over them, might have been one of thoie that enthusiastic hands in the days when the skill of the artist, added to by the devotion of the religieuse, had placed on canvas in Italian studies, therefrom and thereafter to represent all that was pure and beautiful of womanhood on earth. From time to time she lifted htr eyes absently from her work, and eat absorbed in thought. Finally, she walked across the room and looked out at tbe window, whither she stood when fiist the lightning revealed the figure sheltering from the storm under the porch. She stood there absorbed in deep thought, apparently of a pre-occupied and painful character. At last she touched a silver bell. Presently there opened a door, and a youth entered . It would seem as if he were as a youth the very counterpart of hersslf as a girl— for he was strikingly fair and almost girlishly handsome. " Ernest — I want you to come with me." " Yes, my lady— where ? " asked the page, and his voice came as softly and as musically nearly as her own. "You know where Lord Enniskillen lives — or did live 1 " " I do, my lady," said the page brightly. •' Erueßt," Baid she, pausing, •' for one who has been but a short time iD Dublin, you seem to know it well." " I have been at Lnrd Bnniskillen's already on my lady's message," said tbe boy, looking up with winning frankness. "So you have, I remember now. Ob, Ernest 1 " she cried with a shudder, " are not these frightful limeß? " " They are, my lady — much worse than we have had in England." " Lady Strafford would not have sent you hither if she had known what manner of land she was sendiog you to." " Possibly not, my lady,"' said the boy with some confusion— a confusion which Carry Raymond waß much too pre-occupied to notice. '• Ernest, bring me my bonnet aad mantle. lam going to Boscommon House. You shall come with me." " With the greatest delight, my lady," said the page. Carry Mordaunt looped up tbe train of her dress, drew on, with the help of her page, her mantle and turned the silken hood of it over her head to conceal her face, as was the manner with ladies of that time. " I shall not be observed now, shall I, Erneßt ? " asked the young girl, as she glanced at her figure in toe glass. " Can my face be seen ? " She turned around to him as she spoke, her face was greatly hidden, but it looked perhaps from its concealment and obscurity more beautiful than ever. " No, my lady," he said in reply ; " it cannot be seen— much." There was accompanying hia answer, and as he glanced at the winsome face, something so very much approaching a genuine sigh, that Carrie, relaxing trooi her cares, broke into a merry m usical laugh. " I hope you are tot falling in love with me, Ernest'" she said. " There are few worthy totall in love with you, my lady. Your face is very sweet and fair indeed." There was something in the boy's tone which seemed like sorrow, or regret, or envy — ihat Carrie Mordaunt looked for a moment puzzled ; then, howevtr, laughed brightly again, gave him a slight box on the ear, and bade him attend her. Passing swiftly through the streets, which were crowded, for it was markei-dny, and with detachments of soldiers with loaded firearms held in readiness in tbeir bunds, standing at all the street corners, the young lady and her page soon gained the place of their destination.

A ring at the do )r gave her entrance, and they both ascended to th^drawing-room. her wish to see Lady Ellen Maguire, Carry Mordaunt was^^troduceU into an inner room leading therefrom.

There, seated in sorrow and distress, and pale as one who had recovered from a Beiious illness, was the sister of the imprisoned lord.

" Lady Ellen, I have come lo see you,"' she said, as she advanced over, took the ycang lady's hand ana kissed her. '• lam sorry for your trouble ; sorry for all our troubles." " Oh, Carrie ; and so much of it my doing— so much of it my doing."

" Your doing, dear ! No ; why should you say that 1 " "'Because I have thwarted where I could have helped ; because 1 have interfered where I should have not. I thought to do good, and evil has come of it. How is cousin Hugh? Poor fellow. God strengthen him/ « They himself and Lord Ennipkillen— are being sent to London, to the Tower."

" To the Tower," cried Ellen. " Yes, dear ; and it is best for them. People are so excited in Ireland now that no one can be a moment Bafe. Therefore, they are better away. Bat I have other news for you. Colonel Hugh Byrne and Maurice O'Connor have escaped." " Escaped 1 Oh, thank Heaven 1 When ? How did it happen ?" •'No one knows, dear Lady Helen. Their cells were found empty this morning, and there was no trace of them. I thought you should like to know. Some pleasant thought is needed after your awful fright and illness." " Oh, Carrie, I shall never be the better of that — the hear* Beem« somehow to have changed its position in my breast. I shall never be the same again." " Raymond called to see you yesternight — he is in great distress about you, Lady Ellen," said Carrie, with gentle delicacy, approaching a delicate subject. "To see me I Oh, Carrie, I could see no one that had anything to do with that — that torture. All is— all must be — over between ns. I cannot see him — speak to him — again? " " But he had nothing to do with it, dear Lady Ellen— don't ba under that impression. He was only fulfilling his duty as secretary of the council. He had no more to do with it than the light that came in through the chamber windows. And you know how he lovefl you." "Oh, Carrie !" cried the afflicted girl, bursting into a flood of tears which seemed to give relief to her parched eyes and white face, "is this a time to speak of love ? With my brother, the head of our house, a prisoner, and my cousin racked with torture, with every relative in the land in prison, or in rebellion, who can thiok of anything but sorrow and trouble ? " " Sorrow and trouble come in one shape or another to everyone," said Carrie, gently, " and they must bear them as stoutly as they can. God sends them, 1 suppose, when we don't bring them on ourselves. See what trouble came on Raymond and myself — through no fault of ours." " There is where I am to blame," cried Helen, in a fresh burst of passionate tears. "It was through my fault that they are in gaol — and confiscation and death before them. I should have left it to men to deal with the world's business." " I don't quite understand, my dear Lady Ellen," said Carrie Raymond, somewhat mystified. " You don't know — you can't know," broke in the other, in a passionate burst of regret and sorrow. "If your friends wera about casting their all on the hazard of a die, against their sovereign " A slight scream from the young Puritan's roßy lips interrupted the statement. Helen looked at her only to find that the pallor of some seconds before had given way to a crimson tint, much as if the hues of the sunset had been suddenly flung in blushing glory over the white clouds of the summer sky. " A sight twiteh — a momentary pain," explained the young girl quickly, as she saw that Helen's words had no meaning, and were but a chance shot, " And if they had let you into tbeir secretß, and you had not betrayed them, but thwarted them " " That is what I should not do," said Miss Mordaunt, with quiet decision. " 1 should let the gentlemen settle these matters, and 1 should abide by what they had resolved on." " That is not what I did. Woe is me I There was an old woman — my fostermother— who had the gift of seeing into the future. She had, indeed, Carrie, though you may not think it. She could see into the future as others see into the past, and tell yon of things to happen —of events— without reference to their causes. And she prophesied this rebellion to me and the destruction of those involved in it — even that of my brother. When I learned their secrets lately, and of tha league of the Irish chiefs, I recalled her words and recalled her prophecies. I remembered what she had said of the destruction of those involved in it, and I tried to keep my friends out of it. I used every means for the purpose. 1 could not tell them why, for they should only laugh at me. Tha reason would have been too absurd for a moment's belief, but I believed it myself implicitly. The steps I took to counteract her prophecies only caused their fulfilment. Woe is me 1 Woe is me 1 "

Bhe was in great distress, in most poignant and bitter sorrow. So Carrie, compassionating her, undertook to offer relief in her simplicity, from her own views of matters.

" And if you did thwart it, dear Lady Ellen— if by any means of which 1 know nothing you did prevent the rebellion from being effective — from being more effective that it is — think what good you have done. Think bow many innocent lives you have saved from murder and slaughter. You know, my dear, that if the plot had not been so suddenly and strangely discovered, we, those not Irish born, would h<»ve been eiain — massacred — before they had even time to utter a prayer." " Slain — massacred !" iterated Lady Ellen, in sudden indignation. " What should make you use those words, Miss Mordaunt ? " " Because they are true, my lady," said the other, with as much severity as could possibly find room in her handsome and gentle countenance. " I did not know until now that you knew anything of this dreadful plot. But you must, dear Lady Ellen, have been only on the outskirts of it. You must have been on the frings of it only, or you would have told us of it."

" Told of it I Oh, Carrie, I did evil things enough without telling of it."

" But, my lady, you could not have known that they intended to murder us all. In the dark nignt when no aid could save us— and

our cries alone conld go up to tbe startled heavens, Surely you conld not bave known that ? " "Who put these foolish notions into your head, Oarrie— you, usually so sensible? " asked Lady Ellen, in tones in which annoyance and surprise had no small share. " Because, as I said before, they are trne," said Miss Mordaunt firmly. "Wa know it— everyone knows it ? " " Tiue 1 Do you think my brother, Lord Enniskillen, Colonel Hugh McMahon, Sir Phelim O'Neal, Lord Mnskerry, or the other peotlemen would suffer anything like that to be proposed — much less parried out ? " cried Lady Ellen indignantly. "The proofs are there, Lady Ellen. lam sure that Lord Enniskillen or no one connected with him meant these things, but they were to have been done. By the King's request, too." •' What ! The King's I Really, Miss Mordaunt 1 " Lady Ellen broke in in surprise. " Yes. The King allowed his best friend to be driven to the beadsman's hands. Lord Strafford was a gallant and a noble man, 1 ' said Carrie, burstiog into tears also. "And a true friend to the King, and he died by the axe, and — and — my mother died in consequence I Why should he not allow or encourage this, too, if it served his purpose 1 " She smoothed down the folds of her mourning dress as she spoke, and glanced at the mourning ring on her finger, which it was the habit for ladies then to wear, and as she did so Helen Maguire glanced at her sweet face, so pale and thoughtful, and at once the slight degree of irritation she felt vanished. A rush of sympathy passed into her hetrt ; there was too much soft womanly nature in her under tbe circumstances to permit even the faintest shadow of anger to nestle there. With impulsive regret for any hot vtord she might bave said, she hastily rose and, bending over the beautiful form sitting at her side, kissed her in sorrowing sympathy. " You bave suffered too, Carrie. I had well-nigh forgotten that in my own troubles. Let us still be friends, however politics may separate and make enemies of others. Former friends will now be in opposing rankß ; but you and I will keep our old friendship. But, oh, my brother, Carrie, my brother I and — Hugh McMahon I " There was something so touching and so soft and appealing in her words, her manner, and her broken voice, that it evoked an equal strain of sympathy in the breast of her companion who, standing up, clasped her armß around her neck and shed tears on her shoulder. "We shall always be friends, dear Lady Maguire," said the weeping girl. " However these troubled times may make old friends foes, you and I have nothing to do with them. If we cannot help them, we can soften them a little— perhaps. And it was for that I came over — to ask you to come and visit vs — to stay with us. You are so lonely here." " I— l could not go there? said Helen Maguire. "I could not enter the walls that saw such tortures and sufferings inflicted on my friends." " Raymond would be so glad to see you. He is in great trouble over your sorrows, and would be glad to assist you. He is greatly distressed over tbe late occurrences." " I shall be glad to see Raymond when these times are over, but for the present he is, he mast be, on tbe side of my brother's enemies, and it looks like an act of callousness or treachery to go there. No, no — I cannot." " Oh, Helen ! I thought we had promised to not let these things come between us. Should they now come between you and Raymond ? I thought you loved oue another too well for that 1 Is true love so eabily broken? " " I had made arrangements to go to the country when Maurice O'Connor " " Wnh Maurice O'Connor 1 " Baid Carrie Mordaunt. interrupting in a voice which expressed some emotion more than mere surprise. " With Maurice O'Connor 1 " cried a voice at the window — but looking they saw it was but the page, who had come unannounced into the room. " Yes ; who was fitter to accompany me home to Roscommon than " " You surely would not travel with him after your engagement to Raymond 1 Helen— Helen : la this the outcome of our talk, of past times, after all? " cried Carrie in unusual excitement. " He travelled with me to town, and " " Oh, Lady Maguire 1 Oh, Lady Helen I " interrupted her visitor, in a passion of tears. " Why, what is amiss ? Have you ?— 1 was going to ask, have you lost your senses 7 " said L»dy Maguire, as, drawing a little apart, she glanced at the lately pale face now suffused with biushes. " But it gives way to another question : Have you fallen in love with him?" But Canie Mordaunt hid her face oa her shoulder and trembled through her sobs. " 1 see, I Bee, child,'" eaid Helen. •' I see it all. But you need not fear ; I shall not take him from you— even if I could. Tell me, Carrie — but I see it all now — unhappy girl I you love him, but — does he love you ? " 11 1 — I think he do^s. I don't know." said the still sobbing girl, without uncoveiing her face. "It is difficult to ihiuk that " She paused, her broken wurds failing her. " I know all now, Carrie. You need not tell me further. I see how he escaped now — and why. More strange complications ! Oh, my 1 What a time it is, and what a land it ia 1 " A sigh from the page seemed to echo the statement strongly, After Eome further conversation of a confidential and endearing nature they paited — Carrie to feel that a barrier at present, partly •^ntangible, had grown up between her brother and his old love. T^ady Helen Maguire bad long been the objact of interest to the young secretary cf the council, for she bad from her high Bocial position and attractive presence mixed muob in higher Dublin society where, as a matter of course, the nephew of Lord Stafford, late Lord Lieutenant, was also a welcome guest. Popular ''rumour had assigned " them for. one another, and there were few who would not

say it was a suitable match— the best blood of the Irish race in ita handsomest form and possessor of estates uniting with one of the highest and cleverest of the foreign rulers of the land. It was one of the things that had often happenei in Ireland before, and in which those sent to rule had welded into native families and had become more Irish than the Irish themselves. Stringent laws had beea passed against these unions in days gone by ; but love laughs at locksmiths and, similarly, at national hatreds. What happened before bo often, might fairly be expected to occur again in this instance. It would ba but be the joining of a frank, chivalrous and beautiful girl with o.ie of the zaalous, dark, intenselybigotted, but still manful and clever young Englishmen. Indeed it was pretty often assumed by those who thought they read her character better than she knew it herself, thai it was her well-known liking for Raymond Mordaunt that made her so strong an enemy to the plot of which she had cognisance and made her take such earnest objection to it— little forseeing that such objections and obstructions would lead to such deplorable results. But the listener at tbe window had a keener interest in the conversation than they wotted of. And as they proceeded homeward — Oarrie Mordaunt and her attendant page— the latter in the pauses of the conversation thought : " And so it was you, my sweet lady, that set him free 7 And you that are in love with him. But it shall not be 1 No, by the Heaven above, it shall not I He must go back. Ireland is full of dangers for him. He has no bus'ness among their quarrels. Oh I Maurice — Maurice I "

The name burst unguardedly from the page's lipß, and fell on Oarrie Mordaunt'a ears, waking her from deep thought. " What did you say ? Whom did you call? " she asked sharply , turniDg aronnd. "I, my lady," answered with confusion the blushing youth. "No one. I was only reading the names on the sign boards." Tbe young laiy glanced with some little suspicion at him, but was fain to accept the explanation. » I must be more careful," thought the page. " And so your friends are about casting their all on the hazard of a die against their sovereign. Oh, Oarrie Mordaunt, that shot told. Helen Maguire did not see, but I did. Thiß must not be either. No. This must not be." {To be continued.)