The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-07-16 00:00:00

from- Ah, when he is by I want to staid up Air
poor Frank and do my duty by him whatever comes
of it. Is it my duty? Shall I ruin his future if I tell
him I cannot be his wife? Is his happiness bound up
in me? I think not?

If I were not bound, Madge. If my future were
riot planned out for me—but it can't be, dear. We
must be true to ourselves and our duty.'
It was Frank's voice, speaking sadly and gravely, in
a tone Helen had never heard from him before, and he
was speaking to Madge Churchill. She heldher breath to
listen, but she heard no more, and she peeped out to
see if they were in sight. She knew that Norah and
Mrs. Churchill were out, and that Madge had been left
at home alone. She had not heard Frank come in, nor
had she been summoned as usual to meet him. The
words she had heard gave her a strange pang, though
they gave her the opportunity she was almost wishing
for a moment before.
She aim Frank and Madge—saw her betrothed
husband take the girl's hands and look into her pretty
face with a yearning fondness that had never been
her portion; and she marked with a curious heart-
ache the long hand-clasp with which they parted.
Madge went into the house and was seen no more,
and Helen made her way downstairs and joined Frank
in the garden, where he was moodily tearing a late
rose to pieces to and looking moody and abstracted.
'ls that you, Fairy he asked. I thought you were
out.'

No, Frank, dear, I am at home.'
What's the matter? You look uncommonly
grave.'
Do I? I have been thinking, Frank.'
'What about?'

Ourselves, Frank, andl have made up my mind to
speak at last. See here, Frank, if I beat about the
bush I shan't say it at all. Don't you think that you
and I should be very much happier if we were only
to be brother and sister instead of what has been
arranged for us by other people? I think you would,
Frank. I can see it in your face—and----'
'And you would, too, I suppose,' the young man
said, staring at her in dismay and astonishment.
'What has come to you, Helen? Have I done any-
thing to offend you—or has any other fellow—'
'Stop, Frank, there is nothing of that sort. To
break off the relations between us will leave me the
loneliest girl in the three kingdoms; but—'

But you don't love me, Fairy, and so you want to
say good-bye and have done with it. Is that it?'
Not all, Frank. I know your secret, dear. I have
been sitting at my window for the last half-hour, and
I heard what you said to Madge. I was not listening
—I had no idea you were in the house. We had better
"shake hands and part," as Hamlet says. We shall
like each other all the better afterwards.'
But what will Mr. Jarvis and the rest of them say,'
Frank asked, with such a comical look of perplexity
that Elelet, 1 c,c,rhed, in spite of her sadness—and she
was sad at parting with Frank after all. You see
they have settled it all their own way, and they will
be dreadfully put cut?
It is our affair, not theirs,' the girl :said, quietly.
'They will be better pleased to think we are happy
than to know we have taken each other" for better or
worse," knowing that we should not accord after we
were married.'

'I can't do it. I can't,' Frank said, the tears stand-
ing in his honest eyes and his impulsive heart ready
to pour out protestations that he would repent of
afterwards very likely. It seems so mean, so un-
manly to go back from one's word like that.
Nonsense, Frank. We have to decide our own
future. If you love Madge—and I think you do,
dear--' _ _ _ _ _

Don't talk of it,' Frank said, passionately. lam
a mad fool. I don't know how it came about; but I
wish I was dead with all my heart. I have made her
miserable and taught you to despise me, and all for
nothing.'
I dare say you don't know how it came about,'
Helen said, laying her hand on his shoulder—for he
had thrown himself on one of the garden seats and
hidden his face in his hands. • The love was not of
your creating, dear. Look at me, brother, and promise
that I shall be your sister and hers.'
Frank looked up, and she put both her hands in his
and looked in his face.

Kiss me,' she said, ' and we wiil be free from this
hour, you and I—dear friends always—brother and
sister, Frank, but nothing more.'
He gathered her to his heart with more of real love
than he had ever felt for her before, and kissed her
affectionately.
'We will talk more of it to-morrow, Fairy, dear,' he
said. God bless you, my dear sister.'
'He had accepted her decision, then, and it was all
over, and she burst into agitated tear& as he pressed
her hand.
Don't say anything about it at present," she said.
Let us get away first.'
'Just what I was going to say,' he returned. There
is no need to set all the tongues in Hillford wagging.'
And so the bond between them was at an end, and
with a lingering clasp of the hand they parted—free
for all time from the bond made fax them by their
parents.

CHAPTER XL
MADGE. •
'Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river fleet.
Womanhood and childhood meet.'--LorroFELLow.

JUST there was pretty Madge Churchill when the
revelation like a lightning flash, came upon her that
she loved Frank Hatherleigh beyond all earthly things.
She was very young— only a girl in years—but she
had a woman's heart, and she fought against the
knowledge till the unequal strife was too much for
her, and she drooped languishing and beaten down,
under the burden of the 'pleasure that's all butt pain.'
She thought herself a monster of iniquity, poor
child! and fancied that all the little world of Hillford
must perforce know what was passing in her flutter-
ing little heart. It was such an awful thing to love
another girl's affianced husband, and to feel that the
world was all hollow and dark, when he was not
present ; and it frightened her more than ever when
she came to know, as every woman must learn when
love creeps in, that Frank on his part heli nothing in
all the wide earth so dear as her sweet face and gentle
voice.

It was a terrible knowledge, but it was delightful
above all things, and seemed to open a heaven to her
that she had never even dreamed of. He did not tell
her, but she knew. He did not ask her to help him
to be false to Helen, but his eyes spoke, and the touch
of his hand proclaimed as though it had been shouted
like a trumpet-call that he loved her.
No wonder her face grew pale and her lovely voice
serious, and that her merry laugh died into quietness,
and her nerves quivered and thrilled at every sound;
no wonder that she passed her days in alternate self-
upbrai( logs and breathless happiness, and her nights
in tears and sleepless despair. It was her elder sister
who first called their mother's attention to the state of
Madge's health, and declared her conviction that she
would die if something were not done.
My d ar child, do you know what you are talking
abcut ?' Mrs. Churchill said, in amazement and alarm.
She had thought Madge a little pale of late, but she
had no idea of anything serious; girls of Madge's age
w( re apt to grow pale sometimes.
'Yes, I know quite well, mamma,' Norah said,
quie•ly. 'I wouldn't speak till I was quite sure. She
doesn't eat anything, and
I hare remarked that, too; but Madge seldom has
any appetite in summer. She was was ;ike it lag
summer before we went to the seaside.'

'Not quite, mamma. She doesn't sleep now, and
wh n she does, she talks and mumbles so that it is
tie pesa.ble to rest anywhere near her. I can hear her
quite Vainly when the door is open.'
Tue sisters occupied two rooms commun'cating
with one another, and furnished, something like the
on they had given Helen Ramsay, as part sitting-
rooms. The great bay window of the one in which
Norah slept was the favourite working place of the girls,
and was like a dainty little boudoir shut off from the
rest of the room by a screen. Roses and jasmine
climbed round it in summer, and flung their fragrance
in through the open casement, till the room was a
veritable bi:wer, as pretty a nest as ever singing-bird
occupied.
And so it came about that the doctor was called to
pretty Madge, who had never been prettier than ie,w
that she was losing some of the sparkling brilliumie
that was her wonderful charm. The serious expression
ttat had taken the place of her ever-beaming Emile
gave her face a new attraction; but it was one th et
to ly,r mother was fraught with such a dread that
made 1 er heart ache, it seemed to her that it was tho
bhadovr of the next world on her darling's features.
Helen Ramsay heard the front door shut after Frank
with a curious sense of loneliness and bewilderment
after her explanation with him, and she went to her
own room and thought long and earnestly of what
she had done. She felt disobedient, and as if she
were wronging her dead parents in thus setting at
naught, as it were, the authority they had left in the
hands of the kind old lawyer. It is not without many
tears that she communEd with herself, and went Over
all she had said to Frank, and thought of what she had
acoidentally beard.
Here was the secret of poor Madge's depr ssion
and fading. She and Frank loved each other, and
do.; ed n, t to speak lest they should seem dishonour-
able and double-dealing.
' Poor ohild 1' Helen said to herself, and, indeed,
Madge, though scarce r confiding
seemed a'most like a child to her in he
year younger than herself,
simplicity. It shall be all over now, and she rni!y,
be her °cc n bright self agai hant.rnolorsiFioruanldkhlaSvhee
will
suit him a great deal better
I was to ‘' tall" for him, somehow, as Ethel Ne wco
we
says. II cigho ! I wish telling Mr. Jarvis was over;
he will be so disappointed, and Mrs. Jarvis will never
forgive mo, though I think I can survive that trial,'
ana Helen brushed away her tears and laughed softly
as she thought of the possible holding forth on the
subject there would be at Campsie House.
She caught sight of her face in the glass, and made
a gritua, eat her tear-stained eyelids. 'I am like a
chilci that cries for the moon,' she said to- herself,
aegr ly. ' lam neither satisfied with Frank or with-
out bile. I wished for my freedom as wildly as ever
caged bird did, and now I have obtained it I seem to
mss the rattle of the chains. Thank Heaven it has
come about without any thought of him. I wonder
if he will ever know—ever think what a demented
idiot I was. I hope not. I would rather live alone all
my days, if they reached a hundred, than he should
know bow—bah! what nonsense. He is gone, and I
shall never see him again, never—never. I have looked
upon his face for the last tire, and my longed-for
freedom hat; col:pqtoQ Iste;