Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — AT WAR WITH HERSELF. [ARTICLE]

AT WAR WITH HERSELF.

The Story of a Woman's Atonement, by Charlotte M. Braeme. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Leonie, called Countess of Charnleigh, went home that Sunday morning, after her conversation with the country minister, a changed being. The sunlight lay brc ad on the hills, the birds seemed to understand that it was the one day of re it, and to sing their sweetest songs in its honor. She fait utterly reckless, utterly careless. “I will enjoy my life while I can, * she said tohe -self; “it seems that there is no heaven for me. ” “No heaven” —with the golden sunshine lying aroand her, anl the fragrance,* t.ie warmth of the summer Sabbath making earth all beautiful. She lepeatad the words to herself —“no heaven"—and they fell like a funeral knell on her heart. “No heaven” — what did it mean? Was the far-off land, the heaven of her childish dreams, to be closed forever? There was to be no such heaven for her, because she unjustly took possession of her neighbor’s inheritance —because she had been guilty of crime, cf which she would not repent. She groaned aloud as she came in sight of the pretty villa where the Duchess held high court. “Is it such a bad exchange?” she asked herself. “I have given my peace of mind, my quietness of conscience, my lightness of heart, my true, deep love, and heaven, for a title and wealth—to be called Lady Charnleigh, and to live at Crown Leighton. My life will be short and brilliant. People will talk cf me after I am dead—they will say at least that I held my own with grace and dignity. Where shall Ibe when they are talking so? Shall I be paying the price bf my sin?” Nobler thoughts struggled for supremacy, but she would not hear them. “A short life and a merry one,” she said to herself; “I will enjoy life while I can.”

People thought her changed before, but she wa3 doubly changed now; what had been brilliancy became recklessness. She was never 'for one moment without excitement of some kind or other; as for leisure, tranquility, quiet, they were pursuits she detested. "Are you ever at rest, Lady Charnleigh?” asked Captain Armitage one day. “I thought I turned every moment of my life to some pleasant profit, but you far exceed me.” “Iso,” she answered; “I like to live my life all at once, as it ware. I like to crowd as much pleasure a j possible into every moment;” and then in an undertone she added: “I am at war with myself.” She was indeed at war with her brightest, best, and noblest self. She was by nature good and true—generous even to a fault. Love of riches, ambition, and vanity had crept in, and had brought with them deadly sin. On the day she was leaving the villa the duchess said to her —“I had hoped, Lady Charnleigh, that you would have a little rest here. I am sorry to say that you look worse than you aid when you came. I do not think you have had one hour’s quiet. ” She raised her lovely face to the kindly one bent over her. “If I were to be quiet, I should soon die. Excitement is to mo more than the air I breathe or the food I eat—it keeps me alive. ” “Do you know, that is the saddest confession I ever heard from a girl’s lips? Your case should be different. Lady Charnleigh. I can understand people almost without a soul—people weighed down by remorse—leading such a life; but a girl so young as you —pardon me, my dear—ought not to require excitement to make life endurable; it ought to be pleasant enough without it.”

“But I do not find it so,” returned Leonie. “I should like to ask you one question: if you require this perpetual, never-ending whirl of gayety now, what shall you do when you are old?” “I shall never live to be old,” she answered, carelessly. “I am living all my life at once. I have no wish to be old.” And, not caring to hear any more, she went away with a smile on her face that hid surely the heaviest heart that ever beat. The Duchess looked after her. “There is something wrong about that girl,” she said. “What can it be? Is she disappointed in anything? Have her love affairs all gone wrong, I wonder? What can it be? I must find out,” This spirit of unrest had taken full possession of Lady Charnleigh. In vain the duchess tried to ta.k to her—to find two minutes for a sensible conversation—Leonie was more like a butterfly on the wing than anything else. She never seemed to be in the same mood or the same place for ten minutes at a time. She lelt the villa, and the friend who had been kind to her felt anxious about her. Once again in town, Leonie uflng herself heart and soul into the gayeties of the season; she went almost every-where-she refused no invitations; and, if by chance a day came when she was free from engagements, she filled her own house with visitors. Lady Fanehawe began to feel alarmed—she gave her young relative lectures about the folly of dissipation. Leonie laughed. How little they knew, those who preached to her, that this was the price of her sin —that to enjoy these things she had forfeited her own soul and had lost heaven! Enjoy them? Most certainly she would. Had ever woman paid a higher price for title and wealth? She had given up her lover for both-she had. periled her soul—surely she might enjoy what she had purchased'. Did she enjoy it? There were times when she asked herself that question, and an aching heart answered, “No—a thousand times No.” There were times when the wild, feverish gayety collapsed, when a terrible reaction set in, and Leonie would lie in a darkened chamber unable to bear the light of day, unable to raise her tired head from the pillow, worn out, body and mind, with tho war forever going on with herself. People wondered at the change that had come over her beauty; she was not one whit less lovely, hut a worn look had come over her radiant face, the smile that rippled over the beautiful lips was hard and cold, the thirst, the constant craving that filled her, completely altered the expression of her face. It struck Paul Flemyng suddenly one day when he was talking to her. Once upon a time she had been full of sweet fancies, of bright, tender, beautiful thoughts. She never expressed such now, but in their place came a cold, cynical sarcasm, ail unsuited to those fresh young lips. She had just given utterance to one of her bitter reflections when Captain Fleming looked up at her suddenly. “Leonie," he said, “how changed you are!” She had heard the same thing so often that it struck her she would ask in what the change consisted. “Tell me," she said, “how I am changed, Paul. Am I older-grown, or what? Every one tells me the same thing, and I want to understand it.”

* Your faoe is changed, to begin with. Nay, do not misunderstand me; it is as beautiful as ever, perhaps more beautiful, but now one never sees it in repose. You used to be very earnest, but more gentle, moie given to tender and graceful, womanly ways; you have grown colder, harder, more cynical." “Is that aU?” she asked. "No, not quite. You give every one the idea that some secret trouble, some hidden sorrow, is eating your life away.” x She looked at the noble, handsome man whom she had so cruelly defrauded. “Surely you do not believe in such nonsense?” she said. “What secret, what sorrow should I have? What sentimental nonsense for you to talk, Paul.” "Is it nonsense?” he asked, sadly. “There are times when I feel very unhappy about you, Leonie.” “Then you are not so sensible as I imagined you to be,” she laughed. “What a droll idea, to be unhappy over one so young and so free from care as I am! Do not waste any more sympathy on me, Paul; you wiil find ample opportunities as you pass through life for sympathizing with others far more deserving. ” "You have grown cynical and sarcastic, ”he continued; “you have lost what, after all, is the greatest charm a woman can have —trust and faith." “I believe in you,” she opposed: “surely that should content you, Paul?” “It does not,” he said, gently. “I would fain see your old. bright, sunny, trusting nature back again; you are brilliant and polished like a diamond, but you are also just as cold and hard. Do you not know, Leonie, that it is better to believe too much than not enough?” “Who says I do not believe enough?” she asked, impatiently. “What nonsense you are talking to me, Paul! What makes you say such things?" “My darling Leonie, while you were talking to Lord Falcon last evening, I analyzed what you said, and I was star tied. Do you know what cynical, worldly maxims those beautiful lips of yours put forth, what cold, heartless sentiments you uttered, what worldly ideas came in place of the bright, sweet fancies that used to distinguish you?” “I am worldly,” she confessed, with a careless smile; “you know I am worldly, Paul—you knew it when you began to like me.” “1 am loath to believe it; my idea of woman is so grand, Leonie—so pure, so unworldly. ” She turned away, saying to herself, with a bitter sigh: “I am at war with myself!”

CHAPTER XXXIX. “Possession is nine points of law,” said Leonie, with a hard, half-bitter laugh. “Possession is nothing of the kind,” contended Captain Flemyng; “at least, it should not be. Honor should stand before everything, Leonie.” In the drawing-room of Lady Charnleigh’s magnificent town mansion there was being discussed a celebrated law suit that was attracting the attention of all England. It was a bright, sunny afternoon, and Leonie, whose perfect artistic taste reigned paramount, had half drawn the rose-colored blind, so that the room was full of mellow, half-roseate, half-golden light; the fragrance of costly fiowors floated on the soft breeze that blew 7 in softly from the open windows. Several visitors were there —Captain Flemyng, Lord Seaton, Lady Westgrave, and Miss Dacre, who was still remaining with Lady Charnleigh; Lady Fanshawe was also present. Some desultory conversation had taken place, when Lord Seaton asked if they had read the day’s evidence of the Pytchley trial. “What is the trial about?” asked Leenie. “I have not read any of it.” They told her that it was the appeal of the elder brother for the recovery of title and estate from a younger one, who was in full enjoyment of them. “It is hard, I must acknowledge,” said Lord Seaton. “The elder was supposed to have died fourteen years ago, and now he returns to claim his possessions. The younger one, believing himself to be the true heir, married, and has lived as the master of the estate. He has children growing around him, and it seems to me hard that he should be suddenly deprived of all he has, and turned adrift in the world. ” “It is hard,” assented Lady Westgrave. And then Leonie put in—- “ Possession is nine points of law." “No amount of possession can give an honorable claim to that which belongs to another,” said Paul Flemyng l again contradicting Lady Charnleigh’s dictum. “I think the young brother did wrong to allow the matter to come to trial at all. He must have felt sure of the elder one’s identity.” “Still, it could not be easy to give up everything in the world,” objected Leonie.

“It could not be easy to one who is conscientious to keep anything belonging to another,” said Miss Dacre. “You are right, Ethel,” corroborated Paul Flemyng. “There are different kinds of dishonesty; sometimes it passes under grand names, but, rely upon it, the man who keeps an estate from another to whom it justly belongs is quite as much a thief as the'man who slips his hand into your pocket and steals your purse.” “A thief!” cried Lady Charnleigh, her beautiful face growing ghastly in its pallor—“a thief, Paul:” “Yes,” he replied*looking at her in astonishment; "most certainly—a thief, neither more nor less.” “It is a very ugly word,” she said, the pallor giving way tp a deep flush. “The deed is still more ugly,” he returned. “I have often wished, too; that men who fail in business dishonestly, and bring untold distress on hundreds of their fellow creatures, were also called thieves. There is nothing like plain speaking.” “Thieving is such a contemptible crime,” said Miss Dacre: “I think it is the meanest of all vices.” “It shocks people of refinement the most,” observed Paul Flemyng. “Now, Leonie, shall I look at the photograph we were speaking of?” Rut she drew back as though his words stabbed her; she shrank from him. “Nevermind about it now,” she answered; “lean show it to you at another time.” “What a variable child you are!” said Paul, with a smile and a sigh. A few minute3i since and all she cared for was that he should see the photograph and give his opinion upon it. _ Then she was laughing, eager, and animated —now she drew back, pale, grave, and evidently anxious to escape from them all. “What can have caused the change:” Paul Flemyng asked himself —he did not in any way connect the subject of their conversation with her difference of mood. Lady Westgrave suddenly bethought herself how pale and tired the young countess was looking, and rose to take her leave. j , “Of course we shall see you at Gower House this evening, Lady Charnleigh? The ball will be a brilliant one.” “Yes, I shall be there,” replied Lady Charnleigh. Lady Westgrave, who was herself one of the happiest of young wives j looked at the lovely, wearied face.

“You are not so accustomed to late hours and London life as we who have borne the heat and burden of many summers," she remarked. “Take my advice and rest before you go out again: you look very tired.’’ “I am not tired, said Leonie, her face flushed with impatience. “People seem to have but one idea about me, and that is—that I require rest.” “You give me that impression,” observed Lady Westgrave, kindly. And when she had gone Leonie turned away abruptly. “I cannot talk to you any more now, Paul. lam going out. No —pray do not follow me. Ethel will entertain you. I assure you that Ido not want a companion.” Paul, who had risen eagerly, to accompany her, drew back at her'words. Seeing a pained look on his face, she went up to him and laid her hand on his, with one of those shy, pretty, caressing movements that suited her so well.

“Lady Westgrave spoke truthfully, Paul—l am tired; and to go out among the flowers—even those in a London conservatory—does one good. If 1 have been extra disagreeable this morning, I will be all that is most amiable to-’ night.” “You are always charming,” he returned, bending down to kiss the little white hand that lay on his. “Ethel, did you hear that? Teach Captain Flemvng to tell the truth. Honestly .speaking, I know no one so tiresome as myself when lam in a bad temper.” So saying she went out through the glass doors into the conservatory, leaving Ethel to entertain Paul. Captain Flemyng sighed as the flowing folds of the white dress disappeared, and the next moment Ethel was by his side. “Do. not sigh about her—do not be anxious over her,” she said kindly. “She does not seem like herself at pressent; but it will all pass away; the novelty of this new life will disappear, and then you will see the original noble nature in all its frank sweetness again.” “Yes; she has not had time to grow accustomed to the novelty yet,” he remarked. It would have Deen easier for him to discover spots on the sun than to find fault with this girl whom he worshiped with so passionate a love; but he did wish then that she had more of Ethel’s sweet, wise ways—more constancy. Then Ethel chatted with him—that is, she won him from his graver thoughts, she talked of all that most interested him, cheering and soothing him, as a woman only can, until he felt in better spirits than he had for many days past. "You really think then, Ethel, that my beautiful Leonie is only a little bewildered by the novelty of all around her?” “It can be nothing else, ” she said. “We know all her history, and we must own that the change has been enough to bewilder her. She is at this moment the most lovely, the most envied, the most popular, and the wealthiest woman in London. Is not that enough to make any young girl capricious.-” "Yes, certainly—l had not thought of that.” “She has a noble nature, and a most generous, loyal heart, ” continued Ethel. “You will see in a short time, when she begins to understand how little there is in all that now seems to her most desirable, she will be all and even more than you wish her to be.” “You are the sweetest of comforters, Ethel,” said Captain Flemyng. “I think you have a peculiar talent for dispelling unpleasant thoughts.” He was comforted. He hardly knew himself how great was the estimation in which he held Ethel —how strong was his reliance upon her, how great his trust in her. A few words from her worked wonders in him. He left the house that afternoon happier than he had been for many days. |TO US CONTINUED. {