Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

BY MISS M.E. BRADOON.

CHAPTER IL •WHEM WB -TWO PARTED ” Sir Cyprian Da venant and James Wyatt went back to town by rail, and parted company at Waterloo, the baronet going westward to his bachelor lodgings in one of the shabbier streets about Grosvenor Square, the lawyer to the big dull house on the coldest side of Russell Square, which his father had bought and furnished some fifty ' years before. Sir Cyprian had work to do after the Richmond dinner, and was occupied till long after daybreak with letterwriting and the last details of his packing. When all was done, he was still wakeful, and sat by his writing-table in the morning sunlight thinking of the past and the future with a gloomy face. Thinking of the past—of all those careless hours in which one bright girlish face had been the chief influence of his life; thinking of the future, In which he was to see that sweet face po more. He began to walk slowly up and down the room, thinking. “There would be just time for me to do it," *he said to himself, presently; “just time to run down to Davenant, and see the old place once more. It will be sold before I come back from Africa, if ever I do come back. And there would be a chance of seeing her'. I know the Clanyardes have gone back to. Kent. Yes, I will run down to Davenant for a few hours. A man must be hard indeed who does not care to give one farewell look at the house in which the brightest years of his life have been spent. And I may see her again, only to say good-by, and to see jf she is sorry for my going. What more can I say to her? What more need be said? She knows that I would lay down my life for her.” ' He went to his room and slept a kind tof fitful sleep until 8 o’clock, when he iwoke with a start, and began to dress for his journey. At nine he was driving through the streets in a hansom, and at midday he was in one of the woody lanes leading across country from the little Kentish railway station to his own ancestral domain, the place he had once been proud and fond of, but which he looked at now in bitterness of spirit and with a passionate regret. The estate had been incumbered when it fell into his hands, but he knew that, with prudence he might have (saved the greater part of it. He entered the park by a rustic gateway, beside which there was a keeper's lodge, a gate dividing the thickest part of the wood from a broad green valley, where the ferns grew deep under the spreading branches of grand old oaks, and around the smooth silver-gray trunks of mighty beeches. The Davenant timber had suffered little from the prodigal’s destroying hand. He could better endure the loss of the place than its desecration. The woman at the keeper’s lodge welcomed her master with an exclamation of surprise. I hope you have come to stay, Sir Cyprian,” she eaid, dropping' a rustic •courtesy. “No, Mrs. Mead. I have only come for a last look at the old place before I go away from England.” 1 “Going away, sir? that’s bad news.” Cvprian cut short her lamentations with a friendly nod, and was walking on, when it suddenly struck him that the woman might be useful. “Oh, by the way,” he said, “Lord Clanyarde is at Marchbrook, is he not'” “Yes, sir; the family have been there tor the last week.” “Then I’ll walk over there before I go on to the house if you’ll unlock the gate again, Mrs. Mead.” “Shall I send one of my boys to the house with a message, sir, about dinner, or anything?” “You are very good. Yes, you can send the lad to tell old Mrs. Pomfret to’ get me something to eat at 6 o’clock, if you please. I must get back to London by the 7:30 train." “Dearv me, sir, going back so soon as that?” * The gates of Marchbrook were about a mile distant fijpm the keeper’s lodge. Lord Clanyarde’s house was a dreary red brick habitation of the Georgian ‘ era, with long lines of narrow windows ,looking out upon a blank expanse of pasture land, by courtesy a park. An avenue of elms led from the lodge-gate to the southern front of the house and on the western hide there was a prim Dutch garden, divided from the park by a ha-ha. The place was in perfect order, but thei e was a cold, bare look about everything that was eminently suggestive of poverty. A woman at the lodge informed Sir Cyprian that there was no one at home. Lord Clanyarde had driven to Maidstone; Miss Clanyarde was at the village. She had gone to see the children at the National School She would be home at two to lunch, no doubt, according to her usual habit. She was very fond of the school, and sometimes spent her morning in teaching the children. “But they leave school at twelve, don’t they?” demanded Sir Cyprian. “Yes, sir; but I dare say Miss Constance has stopped to talk to Miss Evans, the schoolmistress. She is a very genteel young person, and quite a favorite with our ladies. ” Cyprian Davenant knew the little schoolhouse and the road by which Constance Clanyarde must return from her mission. Nothing coifld be more pleasant to him than the idea of meeting her in her solitary walk. He’turned away from the lodge-keeper, muttering something vague about calling later, and walked at a rapid pace to the neighboring village, which consisted of two straggling rows of oldfashioned cottages fringing the skirts of a common. Close to the old Ivycovered church,with its massive square lower and grass-grown graveyard, there was a modern Gothic building in which the village children struggled through the difficulties of an educational course, and from the open windows whereof their youthful voices rang ,)oudly out upon the summer air every morning in a choral version of the multiplication table. Miss Clanyarde was standing in the little porch talking to the schoolmistress when Sir Cyprian opened the low wooden gate. She looked tip at the Bound of his footstep with a sudden blush. “I did not know you were at Davenfnt. Sir Cyprian,” she said, with some ttle embarrassment, as they shook ands.

“I have not been at Davenant, Miss Clanyarde. I only left town this morning. I have come down here to say good-by to Davenant and all old friends." The blush faded and left the lovely face very pale. “Is it true that vou are going to Africa, Sir Cyprian? I heard from some friends in town that you were going to join Captain Harcourt’s expedition." “It is quite true. I promised Harcourt some years ago that if he ever went again I would go with him.” “And you are pleased to go, I suppose?” “No, Miss Clanyarde, not pleased to go. But I think that sort of thing is about the best employment for the energies of a waif and stray, such as I am. I have lived my life, you see, and have not a single card left to play in the game of civilized existence. There is some hope of adventure out yonder. Are you going home?" “Yes, I was just saying good-by to Miss Evans as you came in.” “Then I’ll walk back to Marchbrook with you, if you’ll allow me. I told the lodgekeeper I would return by-and-by In the hope of finding Lord Clanyarde.” “You have been to Marchbrook already, then?” “Yes; and they told me at the lodge that I should find you here." ■ After this there came rather an awkward silence. They walked away from the schoolhouse side by side, Sir Cyprian furtively watchful of his companion's face, in which there were signs of a sorrow that seemed something deeper than the conventional regret which a fashionable beauty might express for the departure of a favorite waltzer. The silence was not broken until they had arrived at a point where two roads met, the turnpike road to Marchbrook and a shady lane—a cross-coun-try road, above wnich the overarching branches of the elms made a roof of foliage at this bright midsummer season. There was a way of reaching Marchbrook by this lane—a tempting walk corny a ed to the high-road. “Let us go back by the lane," said Cyprian. “It is a little longer, but I am sure you are not in a hurry. You would have dawdled away half the morning talking to that young woman at the school, if I hadn’t come to fetch you; and it will be our last walk together, Constance. I may call you Constance, may I not, as I used when you were in the nursery? I am entitled to a few dismal privileges, like a dying man, you know. Oh, Constance, what happy hours we have spent together in these Kentish lanes! I shall see them in my dreams out yonder, and your face will shine down upon me from a background of green leaves and blue sky; and then I shall awake to find myself camping out upon some stretch of barren sand, with jackals howling in the distance." “What a dreadful picture!” said Constance, with a faint forced laugh. “But if you are so reluctant to leave England, why db you persist in this African expedition?" “It is a point of honor with me to keep my promise; and it is better for me to be away from England.” “You are the best judge of that question. ” Sir Cyprian was slow to reply to this remark. He had come down to Kent upon a sudden impulse, determined in no manner to betray his own folly, and bent only upon snatching the vain delight of a farewell interview with the girl he loved. But to be with her and not to tell her the truth was more difficult than he had imagined. He could see that she was sorry for his departure. He believed that she loved him, but he knew enough of Viscount Clanyarde’s principles and his daughter’s education to know there would be something worse than cruelty in asking this girl to share his broken fortunes.

“Yes, Constance," he went on, “it is better for me to be away. So long as I am here it is the old story of the insect and the flame. I cannot keep out of temptation. I cannot keep myself from haunting the places where I am likely to meet the girl I love, fondly, foolishly, hopelessly. Don't look at me with those astonished eyes, my darling; you have known my secret ever so long. I meant to keep 'silent till the very end; but, you tee the words are spoken in spite of me. My love, I dare not ask you to be my wife. I dare only tell you that no other woman will fill that place. You are not angry with me, Constance, for having spoxen?” “Angry with you—” she began, and then broke down utterly and burst into tears. He drew his arm round her with a tender, protecting gesture, and soothed her gently, as if she had been a child. “My darling, I am not w r orth your tears. If I had been a better man, I might have redeemed Davenantby this time, and might have hoped to make you my wife. There would have been some hope for me, would there not, dear, if I could have offered vou a home that your father could approve?” “I am not so mercenary as you think me,” answered Constance, drying her tears, and disengaging herself from Sir Cyprian's encircling arm. “I am not afraid of poverty. But I know that my father would never forgive " “And I know it too, my dearest girl, and you shall not be asked to break with your father for such a man as I. I never meant to speak of this, dear, but perhaps it is bettor that I should have spoken. You will soon forget me, Constance, and I shall hear of you making some brilliant marriage before I have been away very long. <Gdd grant the man may be worthy of Wu! God grant you may marry a good man!” “I am not very likely to marry,” replied Miss Clanyarde. “My dearest, it is not possible you can escape; and heaven forbid that my memory should come between you and a happy future. It is enough for one of us to carry the burden of a life-long regret” There was more talk between them before they arrived at a little gate opening into the Marchbrook kitchengarden—fond, regretful talk of the days that were gone, in which they had been so much together down in Kent, with all the freedom permitted between friends and neighbors of long standing, the days before Constance had made her debut in the great world. Sir Cyprian did not persevere in his talked-of visit to Lord Clanyarde. He had, in truth, very little desire to see that gentleman, who was one of the most pompous and self-opinioned of noblemen. At the little garden gate he grasped Miss Clanyarde's two hands in his own with one fond, fervent grasp. “You know the old story,” he said: ‘lt must be fcr years, and it may be forever.’. It is an eternal parting for me, darling, for I can never hope to call you by that sweet name again. You have been very good to me in letting rpe speak so freely to-day and it is a kind of consolation to have tbld you my sorrow. God bless you, and good-by;” I This was their parting. Sir Cyprian

went back to Davenant, and spent a dreary hour in walking up and down the corridor and looking into the empty rooms. He remembered them tenanted with the loved and lost. How dreary they were now in their blank and unoccupied state, and how little likelihood there was that he should ever see them again! His dinner was served to him in a pretty break-fast room, with a bay-window overlooking a garden that had been his mother's delight, and where the roses she had loved still blossomed in all their glory. The memory of the dead was with him as he ate his solitary meal, and he was glad when it was time for him to leave the great desolate house, in which every door closed with a dismal reverberation, as if it had been shutting upon a vault. He left Davenant immediately after dinner, and walked back to the little station, thinking mournfully enough of his day’s work and of the life that lay before him. Before noon next day he and his companions were on the first stage of their journey, speeding towards Marseilles. ' ITO Bl COMTUrCBDU