Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1894 — AT WAR WITH HERSELF. [ARTICLE]

AT WAR WITH HERSELF.

The Stofy of a Woman’s Atonement, by Charlotte M. Braeme. CHAPTER XXXTV—Contlnned. She rose at last and bent over him. “Bertram," she said, “will you forgive me?” She never forgot the face raised to hers. - “Yes," he replied. “I will forgive you as heaven forgives those who ask for forgiveness. I will forgive the most cruel treachery ever practiced on mortal man. I will not leave you in enmity, for 1 shall never look upon your face strain, Lady Charnleigh —never again.” “You will not go away?” she pleaded, wistfully. “You will remain here, and,, in the years to come, be my friend.” “How cruel—how selfish'you beautiful women are!” he cried. “No, I shall not remain here, Lady Charnleigh: I shall go far away into the outer world, where your face will not haunt me.” She clung to him, pleading, trembling. “Do not leave me. Bertram—do not go. How shall I lite —dear heaven!— liow s hall I live without you?" “You should have thought of that before,” he replied. “Why should I remain near you? Rather let me go and forget that one so fair and false 6ver lured my heart from mo. I shall bid you farewell forever, Lady Charnleigh.” She was weeping so bitterly that in 6heer pity he unclasped the hands that held his arm so tightly, and placed her on the moss-covered lallen tree. “1 wilt say good-by forever. lot me look ones more at the eyes I thought all truth, at the lips 1 thought all sweetness, at the face I thought all beauty, at the woman whom I believed to be as noble as she is beautiful, but whom I find false. Farewell, sweet face! You will haunt me until I die. Farewell, my lost love —my fair false love! Fate well forever!” He turned away abruptly: one*.word more and the sti’ength of his manhood would have given away. Ho walked on with hurried stops, never pausing to look behind him, his face white and rigid, his lips set, all his quiet en-o and carelessness gone from him—a desperate man, whose heart was broken, and whose strength had left him—all unconscious that the woman for whom he would have given his life lay senseless among the harebells, white, cold, and motionless, as though sue were dead. There was but one. course for him, and that was to go abroad —to plunge at once into the midst of activity, confusion and excitement. His brain reeled, his head burned, his heart beat with great irregular throbs: ho dared not stop to look his sorrow in tho face, j She was fa'B3 to him—she had lured him on, yet had never intended to marry him. That one palpable fact j darkened the face of the summer heavens for him—throw a funeral pall over the fair, smiling earth —gave him a loathing for life too great for words. She, so fair, with the sunny, radiant face and light heart—she whom he had thought half goddess, Half woman, wholly charming—had proved herself as false as the lightest of her fair, false sox. Henceforth there could bo no | woman’s love for him—no smiles, no soft words, no pretty, deceitful charms. He had done with it all. A woman's love had darkened his youth and blighted his life. He would have no more of it. Steyn, angry pride kept him from giving way to despair. He was indignant, with the wounded pride of a man who has trusted in vain. His re-olve was taken even as he’ walked home from C>own Leighton. He would never seo it more, never again look in the face of its mistress, but go far away, where his sorrow and his love would be hidden from the eyes of men. He kept his resolve. When he reached Weildon, Captain Flemyng made many inquiries as to his sudden determination; hs received tho most abrupt answers. Sir Bertram would say nothing but that he had received a sudden summons to go abroad, and could not delay. At first Captain Flemyng was amazed, and then a glimmer of the truth dawned upon him. ‘‘Leonie has rejected him,” he said, “and it is for his sake—to save him pain—that she wishes our engagement to be kept a secret.” That conviction made him very kind and considerate to Sir Bertram. He assisted him in his preparations--he drove him to the station—he begged of him to write. “I cannot promise,” replied Sir Bertram. “A great sorrow has come to me, and it has unmanned me. If in after years I can live it down I will write to you. If you never hear from me again you will know that my sorrow can never die.” Long after he had gone these words haunted Paul. “It seems very strange,” he thought, “that love should cause so much misery. One fair face breaks many hearts. ” He waited long weeks and months for news of his friend, but nono came; and Captain Flemyng knew then that he had not lived his sorrow down.

XXXV. Life came back with a shock to the young girl who lay so hoj eloss and despairing among the wild flowers; her lips parted with a deep-drawn sign, her eyes opened to the light, and tnen they closed in weariness o l spirit too great for words. He was gone—he had bidden her farewell forever; nothing could pain her after that, nothing could please her. She rose and looked round her; the harebells where she had fallen were crushed and broken. She raised one or two of them in her hands, and looked wistfully at the broken stems. “I need not have crushed you,” she said, ‘‘even if I was crushed myself. How much I must have suffered to fall senseless there. How dearly I must love Crown Leighton and all belonging to it, when I am willing to sin so deeply and suffer so terribly in order to keep it!” Tnen she walked slowly home. It was all over; she had taken the irrevocable step; nothing could bring Bertram back to her again. Even should some sudden impulse of contrition seize her and urge her to confess it would not bring him back; ho had lost her. She had nothing to live for now save pleasure, brilliant gayety., the queenship of fashion. She had willfully given up all the higher and nobler duties of life; they wore as nothing to her in comparison with her love of luxury and magnificence. “I must not complain,” said the girl, to herself; and yet though she loved her surroundings so dearly, they were as nothing in comparison with what she had 10-t. She had that which her soul loved best, but at present it brought her nothing save what was wearisome. She fancied that in a few days she would be happier—when sho had forgotten the recent terrible shock. The finding of the will, the losing of Sir Bertram— these two things had come so quickly one after the dther that she had had no time to strengthen herself. She planne4 to jM*r-elf, as she went home, how she would 'give another fete, more brilliant, more magnificent, than the last; sho tried to ongage her

, whole fancy In' thinking what she should do to give the entertainment greater eclat: and yet beneath all the J bright fancies rose' the dark remembrance that he would not be there. What would a fete be worth that he i did not share? Of what interest would j a'l the display of her magnificence be i if he were not by to see? She wondered at the change that seemed to have fallen over everything; there.seemed to be no more light in the sunshine—no more beauty in the flowers. She had loved the lilies and roses so well that she had seldom 1 passed them without a caressing touch; she passed them now with averted face —they only reminded her of that which now she must forever forget. “Do let us find something amusing,” she said, when, a few hours later, she and her two friends were alone in the j drawing-room. “I am getting tired of this quiet existence, auntie; we mud [ goto Paris, or Italy, or some other place where a little of what is called ’life’ can be seen.” “What fever of unrest is upon you, Lady Charnleigh?” asked Miss Dacre. 1 “It is not many hours since you were 1 queen of the most brilliant scene I ever witnessed, and now you complain of wanting something to amuse you.” “I like continual excitement, Ethel; I should like every moment of my day ! so fully oocupied as not to leave one ! , second for quiet or leisure. There is | nothing so tiresome as feeling time ! hang heavy on one's hands. ” “’lhat is not a very healthy frame of j mind, Leonie,” said Lady Fanshawe. | “Continued excitement is like fever.” “It would suit me,” sho returned. What could rest and leisure bring her? Nothing but time for reflection; and that she did not want. So a few days passed. She had to listen to all the often-expressed wonder ! of her companions as to why Sir Bertram never came. Sho had to sit, with | a smile on her face, at Lady Thornbury's dinner party, while Major j Shelton told how their visitor, Sir j ; Bertram, had left them suddenly, and j had gone, it is believed, to Egypt. It! t seemed to her that the wondering comments would never end. She was obliged to listen and to join in them with a pain at her heart so sharp, so keen, that it was with difficulty sho could refrain from crying aloud in her anguish. “You did not toll mo that Sir Bertram was going,” said Miss Darce to Leonie on the first occasion that she found herself alone with her. “You might ; have tru-ted me sp far. I can imagine | why he has gone. Oh, Lecnie, I j thought you loved him!” “Did you?” sho returned carelessly. { “lam not a fit being for loving, Ethel. My heart is cold and hard a , u nether-mill-stone. Sir Bertram is gone—he will never come back—l do not wish to hear his name mentioned any more, i Will you bear that in mind? The greatest kindness you can show me is never to mention his name in my presence. ’’ “I will remember,” said Miss Dacre. Her fair face grew very pale. She understood. Lady Cliarnieigh had refused Sir Bertram, and did not care to be reminded of tho pain it had cost her. “I was so sure that she loved him,” thought Ethel. “I cannot be mistaken. She has shown her preference for him in a hundred different ways. Can it be possible that she likes Paul Flemyng better?” She was soon to know the truth. They had agreed to keep the engagement a profound secret, but Paul betrayed it at every moment; it was not told in words but in actions—there was an air of proprietorship about him when ho spoke to Leonie, or of her, that betrayed the truth. The day came when Ethel Dacre was certain of it. She entered the library suddenly one morning and saw Paul Flemyng kissing Leonie’s hand. For one-half moment she stood paralyzed the certainty of her forebodings rushed upon her—she knew Lady Charnleigh so well. With all her gayqty and her graceful, laughing manner, there was about her a dignified re-iorve that wits never broken through, Sho would net have allowed Paul Flemyng to kiss her hand unless ■he had a right to do so. Then, with a desperate effort she recovered herself and moved forward. Paul advanced to meet her. He was always pleased to see her; his kindlyliking tor her had increased, not diminished; and from the sunshine of his great happiness it was.pnly natural that some light should fall upon her. * * * “'■* *

One morning Lconie, having a small drawing to finish, had her table placed in the deep bay-window of the library, i Sho drew the rich hangings so as to shut out th 3 room ffom her sight, lest it should distract hen she opened the long window, so perfumed air might enter, then soared herself at the little table and soon became engrossed in her worl>. ( Qefpro long Ethel Deere entered, and went up to one of the book-shelves—sho was looking apparently for some book that she was doubtful whore to find; before Leonie had time to speak Paul Flemyng entered. "Is Lady Charnleigh here?” he asked, and Ethel, never thinking of the baywindow, answered, “No.” Leonie laughed to herself: it was purely from a spirit of girlish mischief that she did not speak. “If Paul wants me,” sho said to herself, “let him search a little longer.” “I Cannot find her,” he observed disconsolately, and Miss Daere laughed a little constrained laugh at his piteous face. “I think,” she said, gently, “that you havo found hor in the true sense of the word.” Paul s face flushed. “You were always iike a sister to me, Ethel —the dearest and kindest of sisters; I can tell you only this—that I am without exception the happiest man in the world.” “Although you have lost Crown Leighton? sho interrupted. ||“l had forgott3n that there was ever any chance of my having it, ” he said. “It is in better hands, Ethel. I never even think of it now. ” While ho was Breaking he had taken from a vase that stood on a little stand near him a beautiful spray of jasmine; he looked at it, and then in the earnestness of his words began to puli the leaves one from the other; finally he dropped it, and it lay unnoticed on the floor. “Where do you think I shall find Lady Charnleigh.” he asked. “In the grounds, most probably,” replied Ethel: “she has a personal acquaintance with every flower that grows. ” He went laughing out of the room. “Let him look for me,” said Leonie tq' herself; “nothing does a man so much good as waiting for anything he wants. ” She was just going to tell Ethel that she had overheard the few words spoken, when the sound of passionate weeping fell upon her ears. Looking out, she saw Ethel Dac; o kneeling on the ground where Paul had -stood, her face buried in her hands: convulsive sobs shook her whole frame—she had taken the flower he had dropped as though it had been some cherished relic. “He loves her,” she sobbeT—"he loves her, and he will never care tor

me! I would give my life for him, but I he will never care for me." When Letifiie heard these words she .laiddown her i-eaeiis, and stole quietly | out through the open window. Not for the world would she have listened to words never intended for mortal ears—. i she would not have intruded on sorrow | that was sacred, and grief that in itself was holy. She went out where the ;un shone brightly on the flowers, feeling more unhappy than she had been yet. This, then, was the secret of Ethel’s life—this was why she looked %a 1 and wistful—why the expression of her beautiful spirituelle face recalled that of Elaine in the picture. She loved Paul Flemyng with all the strength of her heart, and he knew nothing of it. “Sin spreads like a ripple on a clear pool,” she said to herself; “where will the consequences of mine end? I marred the life of the only man I can ever love; and now I stand between this girl and her happiness. Ah, me! I pay a bitter price for being cailed Lady Charnle : gh. ”

CHAPTER XXXW. Three months passed, and the engagement between the heiress of Crown Leighton and Captain Paul Flemyng was made known. People had but one opinion. As far as Lady Charnleigh herself was concerned, it was, of course, a very poor match, for she might have mated with the highest and wealthiest in the land; but, looking at it from a fair point of view, it was exactly right. It must have been a keen disappointment to Captain Flemyng—so nearly heir, and yet not heir after all; now Crown Leighton would be his by marriage, that was next best to inheriting it. Many people said, too, that he would be sure to have the title as well —letters-patont would be taken out, and he -would be Lord Charnleigh after all. Public opinion said it wa< a very proper ending to what had been a most romantic case. Captain Flemyng was the only one who could hardly believe his happiness to be real—it seemed to him so great it could scarcely be true. It was not for her wealth that he loved Lady Charnleigh. If she had been penniless he would have married her, and worked for her as man never worked before; he would have been better pleased if she had been poor, that he might have shown tho strength and purity of his lovo. The only drawback to liim was that wealth must come to him from the hands of his wife. He would fain have had it otheiwise. Ho had pleaded with her for an early marriage, but she had looked up at him with wearied eyes, and prayed«him to let that question re t —not to mention marriage vet: sho was happy and did not want to change her life so quickly. His handsome lace clouded ever so slightly; he seized her hand and held it tightly. “Leonie,” he cried, “do you know there are times when I almost doubt whether you love me? I look forward to my marriage with you as the crowning happiness of my life—you think of it merely as an uncomfortable change; that does not look like love, Leonie. ” Any reproach from Paul touched her keenly. Had she not already done him harm enough? Had she not wronged him more deeply than woman over wronged man before? Sho was not given to caressing, but, when sho saw that wounded look on his face, she bent her head and kissed his hand. ITO BE CONTINUED. |