Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

BY MISS M E BRADDON

CHAP iEK XVI. •GRIEF FILLS THE ROOM OP OF MT ABSENT CHILD.” Sir Cyprian had told himself that, in coming to Marchbrook, nothing was further from his thoughts than the desire to see Constance Sinclair; yet, now that he was so near her, now that he was assured of her unhappiness, the yearning for one brief meeting, one look into the sweet eyes, one pressure of the gentle hand that used to lie so trustingly in his own, grew upon him hourly, until he so t that he could not leave Marchbrook without seeing her. No motive, no thought that could have shadowed the purity of Giltert Sinclair's wife, had his soul’s desire been published to. the world, blended with this yearning of Sir Cyprian’s. Deepest pity and compassion moved hiih. Such sorrow, such loneliness as Constance Sinclair’s was unutterably sacred to the man who had loved and surrendered Constance Clanyarde. Sir Cyprian lingered at Marchbrook, and spent the greater part of his days in riding or walking over familiar grounds. He was too much out of spirits to join Lord Clanyarde in the slaughter of innocent birds, and was not a little bored by that frivolous old gentleman's society in the winter evenings by the fire in the c->mfortable bachelor smoking-room, the only really snug apartment in that great bare home. Every night Sir Cyprian made * up his mind to depart next morning, yet when morning came he still lingered. One bright, bleak day, when there were flying snowstorms and intervals of sun and blue sky, Sir Cyprian —having actually packed his portmanteau and made arrangements for being driven to the station to catch an afternoon train—took a final ramble in Marchbrook park. He had not once put his foot on the soil that had been his, but he could get a peep at the old place across the railings. There was a melancholy pleasure in looking at those wintry glades, tie young firtrees, the scudding rabbits, the screaming pheasants, the withered bracken. The sun had been shining a few minutes ago. Down came the snow in a thick driving shower, almost blinding Sir Cyprian as he walked swiftly along the oak fence. Presently he* found himself at the end of the Monks' avenue, and under the classic temple which was said to be built upon the very spot where the Benedictines once had their chapel. Ten years ago that temple had been Cyprian Davenant’s summer retreat. He had made it his smoking-room and study; had read Thucydides and the Greek dramatists there in the long vacation; had read those books of modern travel which had fired his mind with a longing for the adventures, perils and triumphs of tne African explorer. Twenty years ago it had been his mother’s chosen resort. He had spent many a summer morning, many a pensive twilight there by his mother’s side, watching her sketch or hearing her play. Tne old-fashioned square piano was there still, perhaps, and the old engravings on the walls. “Poor old place,” he thought; “I wonder if any one ever goes there now, or if it is quite given up to bats and owls, and the spiriis of the dead?” Ho stopped under the stone balcony which overhung Marchbrook, on a level with the eight-foot wall. In Gilbert Sinclair’s—or his architect’s—plan ol improvements this classic sum-mer-house, a relic of a departed taste, had been forgotten. Sir Cyprian was glad, to find it unchanged, unchanged in any wise, save that it had a more forlorn and neglected air than of old. The btone-wi.rk of the balcony was green and gray with mosses and lichens. The frame-work of the window had not been painted for a quarter of a century. The ivy had wandered as it listed over brick-work and stone, darting sharp-forked tongues of green into the crevices of the decaying mortar. Sir Cypran looked up at the wellremembered window, full of thoughts of the past. “Does she ever come here, I wonder?" he said to himself; “or do they use the old place for a tool-house or an apple shea?”

Hardly, for there fell upon his ears a few bars of plaintive symphony, p ayed on a piano of ancient tone—the Eensive Broadwood dear to his childood—and then a voice, the pure and sweet contralto he knew too well, began'Lord Houghton’s pathetic ballad, “Strangers Yet.* He listens as if he lives but to hear. Oh, what pathosj what profound melancholy in that voice, pouring out its sweetness to the silent wall! Regret, remorse, sorrow, too great for common language to express, are breathed in that flood of melody. And when the song is done the singer’s hands fall on the keys in a crashing chord, and a wild crv—the sudden utterance of uncontrollable despair—gees up to heaven. / She is there-so near him—alone in •her anguish. She, the only woman he has ever truly loved, the woman for whom he would give his life as freely as he would spill a cup of water upon the ground, and with ai little thought of the sacrifice. The lower edge of the balcony is within reach of his hand. The cen-tury-old ivy would afford easy footing for a less skilled athlete. To climb the ascent is as simple as to mount the rigging of his yacht. In a minute, before he had time to think, he was in the balcony, he had opened the French window, he was standing in the room. Constance Sinclair sat by the piano, i her arms folded on the shabby old mahogany lid. her drooping head resting on her arm- 1 , her face hidden. She was too deeply lost in that agony of hopeless grief to hear the rattling of the frail casement, the fool step on the floor. “Constance!” She started up and confrohted him, pale as ashes, with a smothered scream. “My dearest, I heard your grief. I could not keep away. Only a few minutes, Constance, only a few words,

and I will leave you. Oh, my love, how changed, how changed!” A flood of crimson rushed into the pale face, and as quickly faded. Then she gave him her hand, with an innocent frankness that went to his heart, so like the Con tanoe of old—the pure and perfect type of girlhood that knows not sin. “I'do not mind your hearing me in my sorrow," she said, sadly. “I come here because I feel myself away from all the world. At the house servants come to my room with messages, and worry me. Would I like this? Will I do the other? What carriage will I drive in? At what time? A nundred questions that are so tiresome when one is tired of life. Here I can lock my door, and feel as much alone as in a desert” “But, dear Mrs. Sinc’air, it is not good for you to abandtn yourself to such grief.” “How can I help it? ‘Grief fills the room up of my absent child,’ ” with a sad smile. “You heard of my loss, did you not? The darling who made life so bright for me—snatohed away in a moment —not an hour's warning. I woke that morning a proud and happy mother, and at night No, no one can imagine such a grief as that.” “I have heard the sad story. But be sure Heaven will send comfort —new hopes ” “Don’t talk to me like that. Oh, if you knew how i have had Heaven and the Bible thrown at my head—by people who talk by rote! I can read my Bible. I read of David and his great despair; how he turned his fao i to the wall, how he wept again for Absalom; and of the Shunamite woman who said: ‘it is well,’ but David had many children, and the Shunamite’s child was given back to her. Gtd will not give my darling back to me. ” “He will—in heaven.” “But my heart is breaking for want of her here. She will b 3 an angel before the throne of God—not my Christabel. I want my darling as she was on earth, with her soft, clinging arms —not always good—naughty sometimes—but always dearer than my life." What could Sir Cyprian sav to comfort this bereaved heart? He could only sit down quietly by Constance Sinclair’s side, and win her to talk of her sorrow, far more freely and confidingly than she had talked to her father; and this he felt was something gained. There was comfort in this free speech—comfort in pouring her sorrow into tho ear of a friend who could verily sympathize. “Dear Mrs. Sinclair,” said Sir Cyprian, gravely, when he had allowed her to tell the btory of her bereavement, “as a very old friend—one who has your welfare deep at heart—l must entreat you to struggle against this absorbing grief. I Tiavo seen your old friend Doctor Webb, and he assures me that unless you make an effort to overcome this meiancholy, your mind as well as your body will suffer. Yes, Constance, reason itself may give way under the burden you impose upon it. Perhaps no one else would have the courage to speak to you so plainly, but I venture to speak as a brother might to a fondly loved sister. This may be our last meeting, for I shall go back to Africa as sooa as I can get my party together again. You will try, dear friend, will jou not, for my sake, for the sake of your husband ” “My husband!” she exclaimed, with a shudder. “He has billiards, and guns, and racehorses, and friends without number. What can it matter to h m toat I grieve for my child? Somebody had need be sorry. He does not care. “

“Constance, it would matter very much to your father, to all who have ever loved you, to yourself most of all, if you should end your liie in a lunatic asylum.” This startled her, and she looked up at him earnestly. "Unreasonable grief sometimes leads to madness. Despair is rebellion against Cod. If the Shunamite in that dark day could say ‘lt shall be well,’ shall a Christian have less patience—a Cnristian who has been taught that those who mourn are blessed, and shall be comforted. Have faith in that divine promise, and all will be well.” “I will try, ” she answered gently. “It is very good of you to reason with me. No one else has spoken so frankly. They have only talked platitudes, and begged me to divert my mind. As if acted charades, or billiards, or bezique, could fill up the gap in my life. Are you really going to Africa very soon?” “Early in the new year, perhaps; but I shall not go till I have heard from some reliable source that you are happy.” “You must not wait for that. I shall never know happiness again in this world. At most I can but try to bear my lot patiently and put on cheerful looks. I shall try to do that, believe me. Your lessons shall not be wasted. And now, I suppose, we must say goodby,” looking at her watch; “it is time for me to go back to the house. ” “I will not detain you; but before I go I must apologize lor my burglarious entrance by that window. I hope I did not frighten your" “I was only startled. It seemed almost a natural thing to see you here. I remember how fond you wore of this summer-house when I was a child. I have so often seen ycu sitting in that window smoking and reading.” “Yes, I have spent many an hour here, puzzling over the choruses in ‘.Prometheus,’ and I have looked up from my book to see you scamper by on your pony.” “Pepper, the gray one,” cried Constance, absolutely smiling; “such a dear pony! We used to feed him with bread and apples every morning. Ah, what hapey days those were!” It touched him to the core of his heart to see the old girlish look come back in all its brightness. But it was only a transient gleam of the old light which left a deeper sadness when it faded. “Good-by, Constance,” he said, taking both her hands. “I may call you that lor the last time." “Yes, and when you are in Africa—in another world, far from all the false pretenses and _ sham pleasures that make up life in this—think of me as Constance, the Constance you knew in the days that are gone—not as Gilbert Sinclair’s wife.” He bent his head over the unresisting hands and kissed them. “God bless you and comfort yon, my Constance, and give you as muoh happiness as I lost when I made up my mind to live without you!” He opened the window, and swung himself lightly down fronf the balcony to the turf below. I CHAPTER XVII. A BALCONV RCENR Gilbert Sinclair and his chosen set — the half-dozen turfy gentlemen with whom he was united by the closest bond of sympathy—had spent this December morning agreeably enough at a rustic steeple-chase nine miles from

Davenant. The race wae*.ae event of the most insignificant order—unohronicled in Ruff—but there was pleasure in the drive to and fro on Mr. Sinclair's drag through the keen froaty air, with an occasional diversion in the shape of a flying snow storm, which whitened the men's rough overcoats and hung on their beards and whiskers. Just at the hour in which Sir Cyprian and Constance were bidding eaoh other along good-by, Mr. Sinclair was driving his sorrel team back to Davenant at a slashing pace. He and his fr.ends had enjoyed themselves very thoroughly at the homely farmers’ meeting. The sharp north wind had given a keen edge to somewhatedl jaded appetites, and game pie, anchovy sandwiches, cold grouse, and boar’s head had been duly appreciated, with an ad libitum accompaniment of dry champaigne, bitter beer, and Copenhagen kirschen wasser. The gentlemen's spirits had been improved by the morning's sport, and the homeward drive was hilarious. It was now between three and four o’clock. There would ba time for a quiet smoke, or a game at pyramids, and a fresh toilet before afternoon tea, opined such of the gentlemen as still held by that almost exploded superstition, a taste for ladies’ society. The more masculine spirits preferred to smoke their Trajxicas or Infantas by the har-ness-room fire, with the chance of get- ; ting the “straight tip" out of somebody else’s groom. James Wyatt was the only member of the party whose spirits were not somewhat unduly elated, but then Mr. Wyatt was an outsider, only admitted on sufferance into that chosen band, as a fellow who might be useful on an emergency, and whom it was well to “square” by an occasional burst of civility. He was one of those dangerous men who are always sober, and find out everybody else's weak points without ever revealing his own. He was Sinclair’s ame damnee, however, and one must put up with him. Gilbert was driving, with Sir Thomas Houndslow, a gentleman of turf celebrity, and late captain of a cavalry regiment, next hi.u, smoking furiously, while Mr. Wyatt sat behind the two, and joined freely in their conversation, which inclined to the boisterous. How calm that smqoth, level voice of his sounded after the strident tones of his oomyanions, thickened ever so slightly, by onampagne and kirschen wasser! The chief talk was of horses—the sorrels Gilbert was now driving—the horses they had seen that morning—with an inexhaustible series of aneodotes about horses that had been bought and sold, and bred, and exchanged, including the story of a rheumatic horse, which was a splendid goer in his intervals of good "health, and was periodically sold by his owner, and taken back again at half price when the fit came on. James Wyatt admired the landscape, an enthusiasm which his companions looked down upon contemptuously from the serene height of stolid indifference. “There's a glade,” cried the solicitor, pointing to an opening in the undulating woodland, whore the snowwreathed trees were like a picture of fairy-larid. “Pretty tidy timber,” assented Sir Thomas Houndslow; “but for my part, 1 could never see anything in ti ees to go into raptures about, except when you’ve sold ’em to a timber merchant. Shouldn’t like to see cremation come into fashion, by the by. It would spoil the coffin trade and depreciate the value of my elms and ( aks. ITO BB CONTINUED. |