Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-05-24
CHAPTER xxx.
pAIsY's DIARY.

IL 10 nearly month since l last opened this
book, a month which has brought me daily
nearer and nearer in union with him who is to
share all my life, and whom am to love and
obey. Yes, obey; the word suggests not the
faintest sense OF humiliation L am proud to
have master, such a master. / never had
that kind Of feeling with my poor dear Cyril
On the contrary I felt as if he had been given
to me as my slave, person to order about
For the past few days after that terrible rev.
elation about my stepfather kept my CHASTITY
secret. l could not trust even him whom had
trusted with my whole heart and my whole life
feared that il I told Gilbert my conviction Of
Ambrose Arden's guilt, If l showed him how
link by link the chain of circumstantial evil
dsnce might be put tog ether until the circle
bring about a public investigation and thus
condemn my mother to the horror Of knowing
what manner Of man she had married. But
after torturing myself for those few days of
puzzled thought and nights of feverish unrest
/ could bear my burden no longer. Gilbert
saw that there was something amiss with me,
that even his presence could not make me
happy, and he pressed and pressed me to con-
fide in him. And so told him all the dismal
story and my reasons for believing that my
fathers murder had been plotted by his
friend.
could see by his darkening countenance as
he listened that he was of my opinion, but he
answered gravely and deliberately.
Your theory is plausible. Daisy, yet there
is no incident in life which may not bear
double Interpretation. l certainly believe
Duverder to be the murderer as surely as be-
lieve him to be Claude Morel under another
name; and granting that he is the guilty man.
1t is assuredly strange thing that he should
dog your stepfather's footsteps In this quiet
place and that your lover should renounce the
happiness Of his life and go into exile. after
overhearing a conversation between his father
and that man. The links are strong links; but
the evidence is not of a kind that would be ac-
cepted in a court of law, and doubt if the law
will ever touch the man whose moral guilt
granting him guilty. is greater than the guilt
of the shedder of blood"
II don't want the law to touch him; don't
want my mother ever to know how cruelty she
has been cheated and deceived. only want
you to understand the horror of it all, and that
friendship, or the appearance Of friendship, is
OF all men upon earth the most abhorrens to
me-"
l shuddered at the word friend.
"Oh, was SO fond Of him once" said IT
used to sit upon his knee and put my arms
round his neck. called him uncle because 1
could not bear to think that he was not related
to me. 1 used to run from my father to him,
and one was almost as dear to me as the other
And now to know that he is utterly base. false
and cruel, inexorably cruel, cruel as death
ITSELF"
I'VE know nothing. Daisy" said my dearest,
In his calm, grave voice; there is nothing alb
soute or conclusive in all your evidence. The
signs OF trouble of mind which you have
noticed in your stepfather may be only the
indications of physical disease. We must wait,
and watch, if need be, and whether this dir e
suspicion of yours be brought more fully home
to us, or whether we have reason TO doubt the
grounds upon which it rests, there is at least
one point upon which we can have no hesita-
ton. The knowledge of evil must be kept from
your poor mother"
was inexpressibly comforted by his counsel
and felt that l could better endure to live in
the same house with my stepfather. On the rare
occasions when Mr.. Arden and were alone to-
gether maintained resOlute silence and on
no such occasion did he ever question me as to
my altered bearing. 1t seemed to mo that he
submitted to our enlargement as a part of his
doom and that he tacitly accepted my condem-
nation Of him. Not by one word or look did he
ever seek to evoke the old tenderness of our
relations.
And all this time there had been an air of
galety at River Lawn. and mother and Gilbert
and have been full of preparations for the
great change in all our lives. 1t will hardly be
such a change for mother and me. though as il
might have been under less blessed conditions
for l shall be her next-door neighbor and shall
be running in and out of the dear home garden
every day, and she can run into my gardens,
and the ever lovely and beloved arbor where
my sovereign lord and king first declared his
love can be common ground for both of US.
Again there has been talk of my trousseau,
and this time mother has not found me cold or
Indifferent. / have taken q keen delight in
everything, especially the house linen about
which L am as earnest as if / had spun it my
SELF like an industrious Swedish or Norwegian
maiden, and had boarded it in great oaken
presses to await my betrothaL
We are to go to the South for our honeymoon,
but not straight away to fashionable Cannes or
COsmOnOlitan a tn Gruf 20 Dor
deanx and then to Pau and Biarrtz, and after
ward to Toulouse, Carcassonne. Nismes &c.
and SO on by easy stages to Marseilles and
thence to Cannes, just to wind up with the
Prince OF Wales week and the dances at the
two clubs. ] shall be an old married woman
by that time. capable Of chaperoning my un-
married cousins il they should happen to be at
Cannes with my aunt just then. They gener-
ally go South in early spring and leave the doc
tor to make money in Harley street.
They all came down to River Lawn last week
to congratulate me upon my promotion" as
Flora called it, and they all, aunt included,
seem to think have done grand thing in get
ting myself engaged to Gilbert FIorestan.
Not because he is RICH" explained Flora
.'for measured by our modern necessities he is
little better than a pauper; but because he is
Enthusiastically county. Your relations need
never be ashamed of him."
That is a comfort said I, enraged at her
impertinence; but hope you don't suppose /
accepted GllDert IN order to crafty my rela-
tons, or come up to the requirements of Har-
ley street. did not accept him because he is
county, and should have been Just as deeply
in love with him if he had been a beggar."
"Ah, you may think SO. and most engaged
girls talk IN that style, said Fiora but have
never heard of anybody i'll society marrying a
beggar since the time of King Cophetua, and
no doubt he was sorry for it afterward."
These cousins of mine are the very essence
OF woridilness, and seldom stoop to argue
about matters of feeling with either Of them.
They have been on the point of making great
matches ever since they were presented but
the business has always stopped short of
actually; and Aunt Emily says that marriage
from lady's standpoint, will soon become i'm
possible.
1T is easy enough for an only child like
you," she said. ''Of course you are anybody's
money; but my poor girls have nothing but
their beauty and their accomplishments, and
men nowadays are utterly sordid."
This was speech which would have made
me wretched were it possible for me to doubt
my true lover; but all the discontinued mothers
In England might hint and insinuate for live
long summer day without ruffiing my great
content. My heart, so far as Gilbert is con-
cerned. is as placid as a summer lake encircled
by mountains.
(TO be cOntiaued)
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