Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1884 — A ROGUE'S REWARD. [ARTICLE]

A ROGUE'S REWARD.

BY KENRIDGE.

L strange motto for a family, is it he asks, holding up the heavy ring he had drawn from his finger. iVhat is it ? Translate—you know n’t read Latin,” says my lady, lookup from the depths of those soft, cushions, against the dark velvet hich her neck and face and arms te like pure Carrara. e leans still closer and drops his e, as if the words held for him some ige forboding. le who forgets shall be in turn foren.” r es, it is a queer one,” says my , meditatively, gazing intently on landsome, youthful face beside her. eer, too, that you should read it to i ow—under such circumstances, you |v. If it were different ” she esand shrugs her shoulders and js her hand impatiently, then sighs |turns her face to the wall The ring | to the floor, and Julian Frere les her hand as it rests flatteringly i her breast! ■ly darling,” he cries, forgetful of rery words that gave rise to her bion, “only answer me as I wish—i must be answered, and we shall be f >y —oh, so happy, if you will. |y lady slowly turns her face back i, and her eyes are dark with pas- | yet with a half contempt for his manliness in their dreary depths I h he has never seen before. ho you think, Julian, that there are I Ireams from which we must awaktove scenes over which the curtain |fall surely when the little comedy [been played, and even the actors ■ selves are yawning?” i z lady smiles, and looks away, far | <ver the waters of the Mediterra- | , and the expression of coolness and I jm'pt deepens in her eyes. I t Julian only sees a beautiful | an who d y by day and week by | has lured him on to love and I hip her. | i stretches out his arms to clasp I I them, but she makes.no response J e has always done f has been no comedy on my part,” I mttered, fiercely. “You have no

(to say it has been only our 3.” h, my friend, did I say that? I meant—well, you will force me to Buch plain words. ; That motto ; ?ht to mind the peculiar circumes which surround us "both. Here te —” she suddenly stops, then goes >ly on—“here you are, I mean, ; fed to a young lady, not beautiful, « 3ay, but talented, Jxustful, and 1/ e, one who would mate you happy j far happier than I could or would. | I am terribly selfish, Julian—” 1 tughs gayly as if in denial of the I is charge she so lightly brought I st herself—“and I would not make S 1 good wife. I am too fond of pjingaway naps at dear- Mr. Blanc’s green table. I like the society of sex too well to put up long with 1 with the—oh, the fact is that a ®hd, you know, is just like your you get used to his style, and I of it, and naturally want a change. ith me exactly, dear Julian. We I enjoyed ourselves together for a V Shall we not part as friends, . ifriends, if you choose, but—but | ig more, you know?” I ,£akes her hands and kisses them I mately. I iftre for no one else and can think one else now. Heavens forgive t |it I cannot!” he murmurs. ; a moment she says nothing, but ; tn his arms, peaceful, content. ; o remorseful picture disturbs his | al feeling, shall she allow the ■ w of a woman whom she has I met to come between them then? ; 3 sure, she is married—she has ; told Julian that—but Lord is away off in Algiers, where I rar is, and perhaps is dead, or I -so, for the Africans are terrible , rs, they say. So she gives herself I his caresses, and for an hour I' instant only it seems to | < he is happy in the silence which I oothingly upon them, as the twill -steals over the quiet waves and es all the brightness without to I firs which creep, creep slowly into , aoms and leave dim forms and I jin every comer. other days had been passed | B manner, and Julian Frere had content to let them go in sweet fulness of time, of place, of eterf t>;Bself—content to sit at Isabel I'? feet > enslaved—enamored, if ! | ike, but trapped of his own free ■ I t . long the time was since he had sown home in England, he neij Hew nor cared. How long since he a face—so dear to him once— I / sd not and would not even rememI t gentle lettero came very often, K t

breathing love and truthfulness, but never a word of reproach at the cold answers which his unwillling fingers penned. He had once imagined that he loved this English girl, with her tender manners and soft-brown, trustful eyes. But, oh, Dio mio, he had not then seen tender eyes flash with a passion whose fierceness enhances their brilliance, nor lips more than half willing for frequent meetings with his own. The gentle English girl should have his name—it was promised, and he was in honor bound to that. But this dark, tawny woman of the South, with her Italian arts of love and Parisian graces, which charmed and lulled his senses into dreamland—never could he wring his heart from her keeping, and what will be will be. He went out from his room that evening, and left the ring with the strange motto engraved on it lying on the floor. The next day he called at the Villa Carlio, but my lady was out. The day after, at his accustomed hour, he went again. My lady was still out, the footman said. “But had she left no word—no message?" asked Julian. “Oh, surely. If the signor came there was a little note.” Julian’s hand trembled as he received a small, crumpled note, which the footman carelessly drew from his pocket. Beneath the huge porch of the Parthenon, where the moonlight streams down in a broad flood and merges step by step into the farther shadows, Julian read the letter: “Caro mio,” it began—ah, the soft Italian phrase, which seemed doubly sweet and tender from her lips or pen —“I have been thinking deeply these last two days, and have come to a sensible resolution. If my Lady Eva could have shown half the sense of which 1 shall presently make an exhibition much trouble might have been averted. “Dear Julian, you will stamp and curse and swear when I tell you. Well, so be it. I shall not be there to hear, but what I say is this—that we must part. “For your little English girl will begin to be impatient at your absence, and I—well, I must tell you my husband is coming home from the war in Algiers, for I am married. Why not tell you before? It matters nothing now. If you will be angry, console yourself with one thought—that I love you for yourself, and so send you from me.

“If I loved you for myself, I would not be such a model of domestic virtue as you will now picture me, but would keep you near me whether Milord Carlio comes or not, or would fly with you to the earth’s end before my arms should ever loose their hold upon your neck. “But I have a memory of a young heart broken for sake of him who went away and never saw again the olives and the vine-leaves which grew in the valley of my country home. She is waiting for you, Julian, in her own land, and I—well, I am waiting for Milor d Carlio, as a good wife should.” The letter closed abruptly. Julian leaned up against one of the marble pillars, and pondered deeply every word. “Loved him .for himself, and so sent him from her ” his egotism would not allow him to believe in her unselfishness. “Tired of me, more likely,” he muttered angrily,“and so, womanlike, shifts the blame from her own shoulders when weary of old game, and longing for new.” He linged for three weeks in Rome, in the hope of some chance meeting with her, but the meeting never occurred. Then he sailed for home, with a manliness of which my lady scarcely deemed him capable; he resolved to take the advice she had given in the letter, and go back to England— to his betrothed. It was not until he was well on his way that he began to think of the terrible length of his sojourn in Rome—some seven months—he was reluctant to acknowledge it, yet he had scattered bon-bons with my lady in the gay carnival season, and it was past October now.

On the pier at Dover his eldest brother met him. “Why! where are you bound for?” asked Julian, in surpise. An expression of sorrow came over the other’s features. “I was going in search of you,” .he said hurredly, “for I—l don’t think the home coming will be pleasant for you now. ” “Why not?” said Julian, a vague feeling of relief creeping unconsciously upon him. “Well, you see—over two months ago it happened—John Moorly, you remember him—he and Marian—oh, I can’t tell it—the girl was such a traitor, but she’s gone with him, left home, broke faith with you, everything, to marry a sub in a marching regiment.” Such a wave of happiness swept over Julian’s face. “George, dear fellow!” he cried, seizing his brother's hand eagerly, “I —I don’t Care —my heart’s not broken. She neveryeally liked me. lam glad she’ll be happy in her own way at last. But I can’t stay here to see it—it would drive me wild,” he added with untruthfulness. So George turned toward London, while Julian took the next steamer for Calais. How the journey passed, the days—the hours, he knew not. He could only think of their reunion in that lovely Italian land. Would she be glad to see him, and would he be as happy as he imagined he would be to sit at her feet apd dream of castles that would never be peopled, but with fancies and of hopes which could never be realized owing to the unfortunate existence of Milord Carlio.

Yes, he would be happy—supremely so—only to sit in the same sunshine that cast its brilliant beams on her, only to wait like her pet dog, Barco, on every caprice of a whimsical mistress. Hour by hour he left the cities and villages of France behind him, and came at last to the Eternal City. He had not the courage to go at once to the Villa Carlio and proclaim his freedom —a vague idea that she would laugh as well as welcome held him back. Yet she knew of his arrival. Some

lines in the Italian journals spoke oi that. One day while he was coming out o’" Spithover’s, where he had been to gei some of Anderson’s photographs, th* well own brougham of Lady Carlio, with its liveries of crimson and silver, drew up. Its handsome mistress alighted. She started with evident surprise as her eye fell on Julian. Then she came nearer and gave him her hand. For a moment neither spoke. “I—l had your letter, and obeyed,” said Julian softly. “Then why—why are you back again ?” asked my lady, with a little quiver in her voice. He looked meaningly around him. “Such a crowd—so many here,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, I understand. There is some explanation. Come to me at 5 o’clock.” She bowed and passed on, leaving Julian standing irresolute on the pavement. It was 2 o’clock then. Up and down the Piazza di Spagna he paced, unmindful of the sun which, notwithstanding the freshness of a Roman winter, beat down in a fierce, blinding glare of light. He so longed to go, and now that he was bidden, he scarcely dared to obey her command or his own ardent inclinations. But toward the hour appointed he turned out into the Via Babuino, the street leading directly to my lady’s villa. She was alone in the very room in which their last interview had been held. She came forward to receive him with a slight timidity and diffidence which well became her, rare though these moods were. She only said: “I am terribly glad to see you, Julian, things are so dull.” But her eyes gave forth a welcome which he had not dreamed she would offer. “What is the matter—why are you here so soon?” she questioned, and breathlessly and somewhat hesitatingly he answered her. When he had finished, she glanced up with a look of almost eager longing into his face.

“Julian,” she said, in a low tone, “we have met with misfortune. I, too, have lost. Poor Carlio never came back from the war in Algiers." “Yes, we are unfortunate,” he answered, with some embarrassment. “The old motto is on. my ring—you spoke of it that day, you recollect. Well, the cursed saying proved true in my case. I was base enough to forget, and so lam forgotten. Are you glad or sorry ?” He did not look at her for her answer. He only leaned his head against the low marble mantel, and his thoughts seemed to wander far away. Gently she clasped her hands around his arm. “Dear Julian,” she said, faintly, “you are not forgotten. Will you not believe that one will always remember?” His head was turned away, but he pressed her hands tightly with both his own. “Caro—caro, must I beg of you? Why will you not forgive me for sending you away?” Still he was silent. “There is nothing now to reproach me. There will be nothing to reproach you, Julian—caro mio. Why are you cold to me now ?” He had gone there half resolved to pay her in part for the anguish she had made him sutler when she wrote those cruel lines which banished him, but he could not withstand her pleading tones. He caught her light form in his arms, and almost crushed her in his strong embrace. “Oh, my darling, I shall never be cast off now. Of what matter if all the world forgets, so that you alone will remember!” He kissed her passionately and pressed her closer to his breast. My lady looked up with an arch smile into his earnest eyes. “Julian, caro, I am thinking, we were once so wrong in loving, and now we are so happy. Why is it that the wicked ones have paradise and the good ones are often beggars at the gate ? If you had been too true to the English girl to have looked at me or ever kissed me, and I too good a wife to take such kisses, why, she might have stayed to make your life unhappy, and Milord Carlio weuld have come home from Algiers as sure as daylight. But you were different, you see, and other things were different also.” So it shall always be. There are other men like Julian, and there is a Lady Carlio for every one.