Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1893 — AT WAR WITH HERSELF. [ARTICLE]

AT WAR WITH HERSELF.

The Story of a Woman’s Atonement, by Charlotte M. Braeme. CHAPTER XIX. *1 see how it is,” said Capt. Flemyng, Ifood-temperedly, as they entered the exhibition; “the birds of the air must advertise the intelligence when you go abroad. See, there are Lord Falcon and unless I mistake, the Duke of Alton before Millais’ picture." The expression of annoyance on her beautiful face could not be mistaken. Jit made Paul Flemyng’s heart beat with happiness; it led him to the very brink of the error he committed. “You do not care to see him," he said, hurriedly. “No,” was the frank reply. “I had set my' heart on seeing the pictures (with you and Ethel.” “Then you shall do so. We will wait until they have passed. You shall not be teased, Lady Charnleigh. ” He contrived so that she was quite unseen by either of the two gentlemen. The Countess smiled her thanks. “You soldiers are all quick of resource,” she said. “I do not want to hear again how beautiful I am, or how charming—and his grace tells me nothing else.” “Do you not like flattery?” he asked. “Sometimes,” was the candid reply, “and from some people; but I am not in the hnmor for it now.” “I have often been afraid that I spoke too abruptly,” ho said. She looked at him kindly. “No words of yours could ever vex me —they are meant in kindness. Besides, you know, Ido not olass you with the world in general.” They were standing then before a picture that all the world knows and admires—the Huguenot lovers—the simple story of which is told so plainly on the canvas. Hound the arm of a Protestant lover, in the dread time of the great massacre, the Catholic girl whom he love 3 is trying to fasten a white scarf, the Catholic emblem, which would take him safely through the streets, but he refuses to purohase his safety by false appearances. They stood before it for some minutes wrapped in admiration. “How grand!” said Leonie. “After all, nothing moves one so greatly as true nobility of character, true heroism.” “Would you have sought to save your lover in such a fashion?” asked Captain Flemyng, gently. “Yes, I should have lost 6ight of the means in the end; I would have saved him at any cost.” “Except that of honor," he added. “Ah, honoris the idol you soldiers worship; I should have remembered his safety and my love first, and then honor if convenient. Do not look shocked, Captain Flemyng; there is not one woman in a thousand who would not do the same. ” “I would not,” said the clear, sweet voice of Ethel Dacre; “no matter how deeply I loved a man, I would rather — oh, far rather—see him dead at my feet than know him bankrupt in honor." Paul Flemyng looked at the pure, earnest face." “I believe you,” he said; “you are the one woman in a thousand whom Lady Charn’eigh speaks of.” Her face flushed, her heart beat faster at the words; earth held nothing for her so sweet as praise from his lips. “You are singularly alike in your ideas,” said Lady Charnleigh. “Pray tell me, Sir Bayard—supposing that you loved a woman very dearly, more dearly than life, and that you found had failed in this honor you prize so highly, what would you do then?” “Cease to love her. You may think me severe, Lady Charnleigh, but I •could no more love a person whom I knew to have committed a dishonorable action than I could ——” “Commit one yourself,” she interposed, promptly, seeing that he paused for a word. “You are right,” he said. “Honor is the breath of life; the man or woman who possesses it, possesses something half divins; without it, they are barely human. ” “What an earnest discussion," interrupted Sir Bertram Gordon, who had joined them unperceived. “Ah, Lady Charnleigh, you are looking at Millais’ picture. ” “And we have also been discussing it,” she supplemented, turning her head lest the bright flush on her face might be seen. “Sir Bertram, are you as inexorable as Captain Flemyng? Could you ever forgive a dishonorable action in the person you loved?” He was silemt for some minutes, and then the grand Saxon head was proudly raised.

“I cannot imagine myself loving any person capable of such a thing," he said. “Love has instincts that never err. ” “But if you are deceived —if you believed the lady everything good and noble, and you found that she had been guilty of one false action—could you forgive it?” “I cannot say. I should take the circumstances or the temptation into consideration.” Suddenly his eyes fell upon a beautiful picture near them. “Look, Lady Charnleigh," he said; "there is the answer to your question. That is how I should forgive. ” They followed the direction of his hand. The picture was exquisite beyond words. It represented “The Pardon of Queen Guinevere.” In the background rose the gray walls of the convent, ivy clinging round the stone crosses, passion flowers and roses climbing to the low-arched windows. King Arthur stood before the gate, tall and stately, with a look of pity, half-divine, on his kingly face. She, the beautiful, beloved, guilty wife, lay at his feet, her white hands clasping them; her lovely face was lowered to them, and her golden hair fell like a veil over the imperial figure so lowly bent. “To see thee lying there. Thy golden head—my pride In happier summers— At my feet," murmured Ethel Dacre. “How could she —oh, how could she betray him?” “That is how I should forgive, Lady Charnleigh.” The gravity of his words and the beauty of the picture had startled the young countess. Her face was pale; j she tried to speak gayly as she had before. “After you had forgiven, would you hide away as the king did 9” He looked at her before he replied. “Take a lily-leaf in your hand, Lady Charnleigh, and stain it. Can paint cover the mark or restore its beauty? 1 Brush the bloom from the downy peach; can anything give it back"? Crush the perfume from the scattered leaves of a rose, can anything make the flower whole and complete?” “No,” she replied. *So faith, once destroyed, can never be made whole. So love, once rudely awakened, can never sleep again. So trust, once betrayed, can never be wholly restored.” “I think," she said, impetuonly, “I would rather have Captain Flemyng's refusal to pardon than your forgiveness, Sir Bertram.”

“Why," he asked, simply. "He would make mo proud and angry. You would make me so angry, if I had done anything wrong, that I should break my heart over it. ” In after years,' those words returned to her, and she knew they had been truthfully spoken. Sir Bertram was the first to recover himself. “Our discussion has made us all very serious. Lady Charnleigh, you carry sunshine with you wherever you go—why this eclipse?” “You have frightened me,” she reElied, in a low voice. And, looking at er, Sir Bertram saw the beautiful eyes dim with tears. For once in his life he was nearly giving way to a mad impulse. He wished to take her in his arms and kiss the tears away. His great heart yearned over her. He loved her so dearly and so well that the very force of his own love frightened him. “I am sorry,” he said. “I have an earnest way of both speaking and thinking." “Earnestness is the very salt of life,” put in Captain Flemyng; and Ethel’s sweet eyes looked her approval of the words.

Later on in the evening of the same day, when Lady Charleigh’s noble drawing-room was half filled with guests, these four found themselves together again. “Lady Fanshawe says we have had enough of London for this season,” the brilliant young mistress was saying; “she wishes to return to Crown Leighton.” “London will lose its brightest star,” said Captain Flemyng. She always smiled at his compliments, but they never brought a burning flush to her face as one word from Sir Bertram did. “The ‘star,’ as you to call me, Captain Flemyng, has made up her mind what to do, if possible. She will take her world to Crown Leighton, and shine on it there. Ethel,” she continued, earnestly, “you must accompany me to Crown Leighton. I refuse to be parted from you. The General has his hands full of business; he does not want you. I do. Come and stay with me for three months. Help me to persuade her, Captain Flemyng.” “She needs no persuasion,” he returned. “She is willing. “You will be at Weiluon,” continued Lady Charnleigh—“only a few miles away. You will come over very often. I want to have charades, private theatricals, and everything that is gay, bright, and pleasant.” “You make- me very happy, Lady Charnleigh,” said the young soldier. “What have I done,” said Sir Bertram, “that I should be banished from paradise ?” “I do not. know that you are banished?" replied Lady Charnleigh, with a charming smile.

“You have not honored me with an invitation, Lady Charnleigh; you do not know how eagerly I shall respond.” “I will give you one to Weildon,”said Captain. Flemyng. “We shall have some capital shooting there in September. I am leaving London next week —come with me.” Lady Charnleigh heard the words with a beating heart. “Verily,” she said to herself, “my jest is a true one I am taking my world with me.” CHAPTER XX. It was late one June evening when the young Countess, with her brilliant train, again took possession of Crown Leighton. It was the first time for many years that Crown Leighton had been filled with guests. All the state rooms were thrown open; the magnificent apartments, so long closed, were once more filled with bright faces and cheerful voices; once more the grand old mansion re-echoed with the voice of mirth and song. The guest rooms, those beautiful apartments set aside for the accommodation of visitors, were filled; it was something like olden times to see gentlemen lounging about the terraces, ladies flitting through the superb apartments and lingering in the vast conservatories, and servants hurrying to and fro in all the activity and bustle of a large household. “Thank heaven,” said the housekeeper, piously, “that I have lived to Eee this day. My young lady will not complain of quiet again. ” Lady Charnleigh had not forgotten Crown Leighton during her triumphant season in London; she had sent down marvels in the way of furniture and works of art. “After all,” she had said to Lady Fanshawe, “I am one of many in London; at Crown Leighton lam queen.” She might be pardoned if, finding herself uncontrolled mistress of all this splendor,.she was somewhat led astray by vanity and love of power. She was so young, and it was all so novel to her; she had but to express half a wish, and people hastened to gratify it. Wherever she went, servants and dependents bowed low to her; she heard no voice save that of praise and homage. Mr. Clements declared that had she been born to a throne she could not have

conducted herself with greater grace and majesty. Mr. Dunscombe said that, with all her beauty, grace and accomplishments, she had a wonderfully clear head for business, she understood everything most readily. “She has what is a rare quality among beautiful women—she has common sense, ” he observed once in speaking of her; “and that goes further than any amount of genius.” So Leonie, Lady Charnleigh, lived in an atmosphere of praise. She soon made herself not only popular but be loved in the neighborhood. She gave parties that every one enjoyed; she threw open her mansion for the entertainment of half the county; she spared neither money, nor labor, nor trouble to make every one around her happy. “Youareaperfecthostess,” said Lady Fanshawe to her, one evening after a dancing party; “I cannot tell where you have learned the art of entertaining people, you who in the past days saw so little of society.” “Politeness and what you call the gift of making people happy come naturally from a light and happy heart. How can I, who never sigh, fail to long to see other faces bright? I, who have no care, no trouble, cannot help wishing every one else to be glad and joyous.” She spoke with a smile so beautiful, with her face so radiant that Lady Fanshawe was somewhat struck with fear. “Will she always be so happy,” she thought, “in this world where pain outweighs pleasure? Can it possibly last?” CHAPTER XXI. Lady Charnleigh was not twenty; she was as beautiful as a vision and mistress of a large fortune and magnificent estate. She had nothing to do but frame a wish, and it was gratified. When she rose in the morning she would say to herself that she would enjoy a certain pleasure before night, and it was hers to enjoy. She imagined a hundred wants for the sake of gratifying them. Yet her pleasure in her wealth was not wholly selfish. She gloried in relieving distress; to see a pale face brighten and dim eyes shine with happiness was to her a keen source of pleasure. Before Lady Charnleigh had been many days at

Crown Leighton her name was known wherever want or sorrow reigned. A hundred blessings were poured upon her, a hundred grateful hearts beat more auickly at the mention of her name—no light praise for a young girl who had the world at her feet. Ethel Dacre was with her; and a note from Weildon told her that Paul Flemyng and Sir Bertram were there. Sir Bertram, then, was only seven miles from her! The grand old trees in her wcods reached to the town where he was staying, the same sun shone fcr him, the same flowers bloomed, he was near her, and the world grew dazzlingly bright as she read the words. She rose one morning, and said to herself that she would ask the two friends to dinner, and she laughed aloud —a sweet, rippling laugh— to think that she had only to wish and to be gratified. “if Paul were one whit less noble than he is, coming to Crown Leighton would be a trial to him, ” she said to Miss Dacre as the two stood on the sunlit western terrace. “I believe, in all honesty, were any question of ownership to arise, that lie would far rather this noble estate became yours than his,” observed Ethel, looking at the beautiful face. And Lady Charnleigh laughed again. It was very sweet and pleasant to hear how much she was loved, and among all her conquests she rated this cne of le beau sabreur most highly. “I could not be so disinterested, ” she rejoined, looking around. “I could not give up this lovely heme of mine to any one or for any one.” Then she stopped abruptly. Yes, there was one for whom she could give it up. she thought—one whom she could follow into that cold world of poverty and privation from which she had been so glad to escape. “You say you have sent an invitation to Sir Bertram Gordon as well as Captain Flemyng,” remarked Ethel. “Has the baronet been here before? Does he know Crown Leighton at all?” “No; it is his first visit, ” and Lady Charnleigh, bent low over some Banksia roses lest Ethel should wonder at the burning blush on her face. Sir Bertram was coming that day, and Lady Charnleigh looked round her in proud, happy enjoyment of her mag-nificence-proud that this was all hers —proud to remember the magnificent dowry she would bring him when he asked her for the gift he valued most —her heart. She wandered, restlessly happy, on that bright summer day, through the sumptuous rooms, changing flowers on tho stands, rearranging vases apd statuettes, all to please his eyes. It was to her as though a king were coming—he was her king. The restless, bright day seemed as though it would never pass—she wandered, with sweet snatches of song upon her lips, from the house to the gardens and back again, |TO BE CONTINUED.!