CHAPTER V.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7, 20 February 1908, Page 5

CHAPTER V.

' The most ciml scene of ail, sir, comes belore me w ( ith a fearsome vividness to-niglri, ' resumed ' Sir Richard, ' for it was exactly tius i.ight seven years a^o that it. looK place. 1 was seated mmy easy ehuir 111 the mid~t of weidth a*.d luxury with my pii-e, wiu-n a servant announced there was a woman as. ing to see me. A suudtn iuea seized me .that it must be JSlora, so 1 had her Si.own into the aoom. bhe was Mora, but oh I how sauly changed, fche wus l oorly clad, and had her child jessed warmly beneath a tluwl. iihen tnen 1 could i.ot pity her, but on the contrary, her presence only kindled anew my haired ,of Diiscote. ''You have come back to me, Mora,' 1 said witha bitter sn-er, and she murmured ia.nily, ' "ices, daddy, Mora has come Lack to .you.' I got to my feet, and in a stern voice, hurled out a long litany of imaginary crimes she and poor Diiscote h&d been guilty of, and every word went true as a dagger to her heart, for there is nothii.g, tir, wounds so deeply as unjust censure . » ' ' You took your own path in lie,' JSTcra, said -I, and you see v^here it Las Ld you, and what it has brought. Here yqu had everything the hunnafli heart could desire, but ,ybu would not listen to reason, and threw £.11 overboard for love. Love ! Pshaw ! there is no such thing. It is all a mcckery, all .a foci's dream. For a while, no" doubt, you and Driscote revelled in a sort of idiotic raradise, bit, ha ] ha ! it was not much ef .an Eden, when the serpent of stern reality made his way into it. You come to-night because, 1 suppose, your last hope has proved a fdse anchor. You ha-ve made to the wrong port, there is no shelter for you here. I have no child ; I lost her when you went from me. I own you no longer, you are nothing to me. These doors are closed against you for e\ er, bear that in mmdi, Go away, the sight cf \ou tnnoys me. Go !' ' " ' Oh, father, you cannot man this,' \ she cried.' ' You would not turn your own Nora out a night such as this !if she wanted to remain. It is snowing, daddy, end very, very cold. Jim was crying coming along, but he is sleeping now in thj warmth. I "would not have come to you, daddy, enly Lily Driscote is ill. Poor Lily suffeied, and did all she could for my sake. Now she is ill, daddy — dying. Oh, say you w.ll help us. You will do it for me, Nora, your only- child.' ' '" I have no child,' I .thundered. ' You are nothing to me. Go away.' ' '<c For heaven's sal:e, father, have pity. Help me to-night, and I will never troutle you again. We'll repay when Lily gets well aaain. Do, please, daddy, help Lily. For myself, I ask nothirg. I don't think I couldeat the bread your money would buy now. I have .not much longer to live, for my heart is broken. Have pity to-night. Remember it is Christmas Eve, the night Mary and Joseph could find no shelter in the crowded inns cf Bethlehem— the night they had to seek refuge in a stable.' ' i 1 •' And deuced Ivcky you'll be if you have even the shelter 'of a statle after a little. I have no more time _to waste,' and 'i rang the tell. ' Show .. this woman out,' II ordered. • See that she does not hang around. If she does, let Icose the dogs.' Nora could "scarcely believe she heard aright. ' 1 "Df dldy, there is some-thins; wrong with * you tonight,' she said softly. « You'll be sorry, I .know, 'tomorrow.- I am going now, and you will never see- me again. lam not angry, daddy," only very sorry. Walter told me tbefore he left that he freely - forgave your cruel wrong to your motherless 'child. You , will never

see Walter or me again.' Before I was aware .of her act she seized one of my bands and kissed it. 4 " Good-tye, father, 1 ora will never trouble you any more. God will be my only Father now, and He wnl not turn jne from. His home. My child will be safe in His care. 1 And she went out into the cold and dri\iug snow, alone, alone. ', Ihe rest of that cruel story sir, you have told to me. When Nora staggered away, heart-broken, from my door, God 'guided her to this good woman, Sal Donovan, and she died a happier dea.fo than would have be.n mine, had the Angel come to order me to appear and render a true .and just account of all I had done on earths btfore the Omnipotent Judge. 'I am a changed man now, sir'; and a few words will suffice to explain „how it was the Evil Spirit, ,with the seven others more wicked than himself, came to be expelled from the comfortable retreat that for long years they had within my breast. One day, just " over a month ago, when searching for some papers, I chanced to open an old escritoire, and found in it, carefully stowed away, all .Nora's childish playthings. I am certain they were placed there by Dj.iscote in days when 'he loved her in silence, and as from afar, never dreaming, perhaps, that cine day a longing akin to his own would 1 urge her heart impetuously towards him as its one sure haven of peace and unison. The sight of these simple treasures stirred me as nothing else had ever done. I looked upon them until a thick mist rose before my eyes. Iben I went .to Nora's room 1 , wlUch had been locked up since she went from me. In one corner there was a little altar, with a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, and traces yet remained of the last flowers Nora had placed upon it. The eyes of that, statue, sir, seemed loo' ing into my very soul. "Nora used to came here to pray, r.nd bring me an offering of the choicest flowers," they appeared to say. " Where is she now?" Ah S where, indeed ? I fell on my *nees, sir, before that - little altar, and wept bitter tears of remorse and penitence. Why is it so ordained that regret always comes too late ? Ob, the bitterness of the words : Too late ! too late ! They seem like, the echo of a death-wail of a soul in "the throes of despairing anguish. It is not the good that we do in, the Valley of the Shadows, but the remembrance of the things we should or might have don°, that rises, ghost-like, to haunt us when the shadows are falling on the e\e after which no earthly morrow will ever dawn. When the last few sands are running out" in the glass cf life, and we stand on the bor-der-line between time and eternity, the last lingering . longing look we tale adown the beaten pathway our weary feet have trodden, and which will know us rievermcre, reveals not the little we have achieved, but 'the much we have left undone. ' On my knees at the little altar I prayed .for pardon, and promised to seek out Nora and her child, and make all the reparation 'l could for the bitter past. For the past menth I have been vainly searching for them throughout the city. Now, on this night, ■ the night seven years ago when I turned Nora from my doors, I have found her child, only to kill him, as I killed his poor .mother. It is very hard, sir, and makes my punishment complete. But welcome to me now is the Dhine will of God. As I told you, sir, 'I am acjaaged m?n, and with God's help, "in ,the little 'time that remains to me, I will do my best to make some atonement for the past,' " As he "finished speaMng, the- cloc 1 s in the city towers chimed the hour ,of midnight, and the Christmas bells rang out, their sclvery voices announcing, yet again to. the Christian world the joyous tidings, the" message of 'peace and goodwill, first chanted by angelic voices to the lonely shepherds on the silent snow-clad hills of Bethlehem. We were hushed into a deep and wondrous silence, which was broken .-in "upon by Jim moving uneasily and niui muring for the first time. I bent my ear quickly to catch his words. "Is them, the chimes a-ringin.' ?" he asked. ; , 'Yes, Jim,' I whispered. 'Do you know me?' He did not heed my words. ' I'm late, and Sal'll be a-wonderin' what's a-keep-in me.^ I'll go first, for Sal fcold me.* I knew what Jim was thinking, of then. 1 Sal'll be a-wiaitin',' he murmured again. * I'll a-run- fort V He tried to 'move his hands towards his forehead, but failed. Then he clasped his little hands on his breast, and a. look of perfect peace and happiness set, tied on his face. In that moment the joy of the Guarr aian Sbirit, who stood silently and unseen of, us by the bedside must have been supreme. The look on Jim's v face grew, more and yet more beautiful^ as if some ray of Heaven's light streamed !ull upon him;

' Sal'll" be a-wonderin' '.what's .a-l:ieepin' me, ' he murmured once a/gain. '1 11 a- hurry an 1 say 'em. 1 His lips mo\ ed lor a minute or two, but no word's came forth. He opened his eyes very wearily and looked at me, then slowly closod them again. There was a lons-drawn sigh, and with it his soul sped to the radiant hosts in Heaven. Sal Dortovan's Jim was dead May I never see again on human face the look tlurt stamped the features of Sir Richard Arundale when he lealised that Jim was no more. To my dying hour, Sal Donovan's cry, when she entered the ward, will ring in my ears. And my housekeeper — to /use her own words—' nearly cried 'out her eyes.' Jim sleeps in the grave with "his mother. I made one request, which was readily granted, 'and on the marble column that marks their grave .the words of mine are inscribed — ' Poor little outcast : Poor little Jim ! ' _^__^_^^___ ' Irisn Weekly.'