Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

CHAPTER XVll—Continued. As they approached Marchbrook Mr. Wyatt began to talk about the Benedictines and their vanished monastery. He had found out all about it in the county history —its founder, the extent of its lands, the character of its architecture. “That avenue must be 600 years old,” he said, as he came in sight of the tall elms. “By Jove! that's queer,” cried Sir Thomas, pulling out his race glass. “A fellow jumped out of that balcony, like Romeo in the play. “Except that Romeo never scaled the balcony,” said Mr Wyatt. “That summer-house belongs to Davenant, doesn’t it, Gilbert? Our friend’s m.do of exit suggests a flirtation between one of your guests and somebody at Marchbrook. ” “There’s nobody at Marchbrook but old C'lanyarde and Sir Cyprian Davenant," said Sir Thomas, “and I'll lay any odds you like it wasn’t Lord Clanyarde jumped off that balcony.” Gilbert took the glass from his friend’s hand without a word. The man who had iumped off the balcony was still in sight, walking at a leisurely pace across the wide alley of turf between the two rows of trees. The glass brought him near enough for recognition, and Mr. Sinclair had no doubt as to his identity. “If you lay onto those leaders like that, you’ll have this blessed machine in the ditch,” cried Sir Thomas Houndslow. “ What is the matter with you? The horses are stepping like clock-work. ” “Juno was breaking into a canter, ” said Gilbert, coloring. “Steady, old lady; steady, steady.’ “She's steady enough,” said Sir Thomas; “I think it s you that are wild. Memorandum, don’t drink kirschen wasser after champagne when you’re going to drive a team of young horse s. ” Mr. Sinclair took the curve by the park gates in excellent style, despite this insinuation, and pulled up before the ofd Gothic porch with workmanlike preei-ion. “There’s a pretty bit of feather-edg-ing,” said g.r Thomas, approvingly. Gilbert did not wait to see his friencs alight, but flung the reins to one of the grooms and walked off without a word lo any one. He was at the summer-house ten minutes afterward, flushed and breathless, having mn all the way. A flight of stone steps, moss-grown and broken, led up to the door of the temple. Gilbert Sinclair tried the door and found it locked. “Is there any one in there?" he asked, shaking the crazy old door savagely. “Who is that?” inquired Constance. “Your husband.” He heard her light footsteps coming toward the door. She opened it, and faced him on the threshold, with neither surprise nor fear in her calm, questioning face. “Is there anything the matter, Gilbert? Am I wanted?" “There is not much the matter, and I don t know that you are wanted in m/ house,” answered her husband, savagely. “It seems to me that your vocation is elsewhere.” His flushed face, the angry light in his red-brown eyes, to d her that there was meaning in his reply, incomprehensible a i it seemed. “I don’t understand you, Gilbert. What has happened to make you angr.v?"

“Not much, perhaps. It’s bad form to make a fus ) about it. But lam vulgar en ugh to think that when my wife plays Juliet to somebody else’s Romeo, it is time she should call herself by some other name than mine, which she disgraces. I tdmire the innocence of that astonished look. Unfortunately that piece of finished acting is thrown away upon me. I saw your lover leave you. ” “Mr. Sinclair!” with a look of unspeakable indignation. “Yes your gentle Romeo forgot that this summer-house is seen from the high-road. I saw him, I tell you, Roman —I saw him leap down from'the balcony—identified him with my fieldglass—not that I had any doubt who your visitor was. ” “I am sorry that you should he so angry at my seeing an old friend for a few minutes. Gilbert, and that you should make so very innocent an aci an excuse for insulting me. ” “An old friend—a friend whom you meet cladestinely—in an out-of-the-way corner of the park—with locked doers.” “I have spent all my mornings here of late. I look my door in order to be undisturbed, so that anybody happening t > come this way may believe the summer-house empty. “Anyone except Sir Cyprian Davenant. He would know better. ” “Sir Cyprian's presence here to-day was the merest accident. He heard .me singing, and dim ted up to the balcony to say a few kind words about my bereavement, which he knows to be the one absorbing thought of my mind just now. No friend, no brother, could nave come with kinder or purer meaning. He gave me good advice; be warned me that the;e whs selfishness and lolly in giving way to sorrow. Not one word was spoken which you might not have freely heard, Gilbert, which you would not h*ve approved. ” “Could any woman in your position say less? You all sing the same song. Once having ml le up your mind to betray your husband, the rest is a matter of detail, and there is a miserable tameness in the details. Do ycu think anything you can say—oaths, tear — will ever convince me that you did not come hore on purpose to meet that man, or that he came here to you a sermon upon your duty “Gilbert, as I stand here before God, who seewand hears me, T have told you the truth. We have made a sad mistake in marrying: there are few things in which we sympathize: eyen our great eorrow has rot brought hs nearer together but if you will only, be patient, if you will be kind'and tpue to •M, I will still try aven more eai neatly

BY MISS M E BRADDON

I . ' than I have d'dn# vet to make you a gojd wife, to Wake your home life 1 happy.” She came M,*}xim with a sad sweet smile, and laid nor hand gently on his shoulder, looking up at him with earnest eyes, full of truth and purity, could he but have understood their meaning. Alas! to his dogged, brutal nature , purity like this was incomprehensible. 1 Facts were against' his wife, and he had no belief in her to sustain him j against the facts. The lion of fable might recognize Una's purity and lie down at her feet, but Gilbert Sinclair was a good deal more like the lion of reality, a by no means magnanimous : beast, who waits till he can pounce ; up in his enemy alone in a solitary ! corner, and has a prudent dread of; numbers. As the little hand alighted tremulously on his breast, Gilbert Sinclair raised his clenched list. “Let me alone,” he cried. “You’ve made your choice." And then came a word which had never before been spoken in Constance ; Sinclair's hearing, but which some instinct of her woman’s heart told her meant deepest infamy. She recoiled from him with a little cry. and then fell like a log at his feet. I Lest that brutal word should too i weakly express an outraged husband’s wrath, Mr. Sinclair had emphasized it j with a blow. That muscular fist of his, j trained in many an encounter with professors of the noble art of self-defense, had been driven straight at his wife's ! forehead, and nothing but the man's j blind fury prevented the blow being mortal. In intention, at least, he had been for the moment a murderer. His i breath came thick and fast as he stood over that lifeless form. “Have I killed her?” he asked himself. “She deserves no better fate. But I had rather kill him. ’’

CHARTER XVIII. CYPRIAN'S VISITOR. Sir Cyprian Davenant left Marchbrook an hour after his interview with Constance Sinclair. He sent his man home with the portmanteaus and guncases, and went straight to his eiub, where he dined. It was between eight and nine when he walked to his chambers through the snowy streets. The walk through the rough weather suited his present temper. He could have walked many a mile across Yorkshire moor that night in the endeavor to walk down the anxious thoughts that crowded upon his mind. His interview with Constance—like all such meetings betw> en those whom Fate has irrevocably parted—had deepened the gloom of his soul, and added to the bitterness of his regrets. It had brought the past near to him. and made the inevitable harder to bear than it had seemed yesterday. He had seen all the < Id loveliness in the innocent face, changed though it was. He had heard all the old music in the unforgotten voice. To what end? That brief greeting across the iron grate of Destiny s prison-house only made it more agonizing to think of the long futuie in which these two, who had so met and touched hands across the gulf, must live their separated lives in silent patience. The snow lay thick in the quiet turning out of t^e ( ,Strand. There was a hansom standing at the corner by Sir Cyprian’s chambers, the horse hanging his head witlpa dejected air under his whiten d rug, the man stamping up and down the pavement, and flapping his arms across his chest. The cab must have been waiting some time, Sir Cyprian thought idly. His chambers were on the first floor, large and lofty rooms facing the river. Since his inheritance of Colonel Gryffin’s fortune he had indulged himself with that one luxury dear to men who love books, a well-arranged library. This bachelor pied-u-teri e suited him better than lodgings in a more fashionable quarter. It was central, and out of the way of his fashionable acquaintances—an ineligible feature which was to his mind an attraction.

Sir Cyprian admitted himself with his lat h-key, and went up the dimly lighted staircase. He ofened the outer door of his library, within which massive oak barrier there hung a heavy crimson cloth curtain, shutting out noise and drafight. This curtain had been dragged aside, and left hanging in a heap at one end of the rod, in a very different style from the usual neat arrangement of folds left by the mid-dle-aged valet. The room was almost in darkness, for the fire had burned low upon the hearth. There was just light enough to show Sir Cyprian a figure sitting by the fire in a brooding attitude, alone, and in the dark. “Who’s that?” asked Sir Cyprian. The man started up, a big" man, tall and broad-shouldered, whom for the first moment Sir Cyprian took for a stranger. “I should have thought you would have known Constance Sinclair's husband anywhere," said the intrude-. “You and I have reason toiemember each other.” “I beg your pardon, Mr. Sine air,” Cyprian answered, quietly, without noticing the sneer; “but as I do not possess the gift of seeing in the dark, you can hardly wonder at my being slow to recognize you.” He was not going to invite a quarrel with this man—nay, he would rather avoid one at the loss of some personal dignity, for Constance’s sake. He went up to the hearth where Gilbert had resumed his seat, and put his hand on the bell.

“Don’t ring for lights,” said Sinclair, j “What I have to sav can be said in the , dark.” “Perhaps. But I prefer to see a man’s face when I am talking to him. ! May I ask to what I am indebted for j this unexpected p easure? I thought you were at Davenant?” “I left by the train after that in j which you traveled. ” The man came in with a lighted j lamp, which he placed on the table in j front of the fire—a large carved oak I table, loaded with classic vblumes and j ponderous lexicons; for a wealthy stu-1 dent is rarely oontent with a single lexicographer's definition. | Having set down the lamp, the valet replenished the exhausted fire with that deliterate care so peculiar to a servant who is slightly curious about his master's, gue-t, and finally retired, with soft footfall, shutting the door after him very slowly, as if he ex- ' pected to gather something at the last moment, from the visitor’s impatience i to break covert.* In this case, however, the valet retired without hearing a word. Gilbert Sinclair, sat staring at the lire, and i seemed in no hurry to slate his business. He could not fly at his enemy's i throat like a.ligA*, and that was about the only thing to which his spirit moved him at this moment. Looking at his visitor by the soft, cleafr light of, the lamp, Sh*s>j>rian was not reassured by his countenance. Gilbert Sinclair's "'■"'i' Wtfr.

face was of a livid hue. save on each high cheek-bone, where a patch of du-ky red made the pervadi«g pallor mere obvious His thick red-brown hair was rough and disordered, hU large red-brown eyes, prominently placed in their orbit.-*, were b ight and gla.-sy, and the sensual under lip worked convulsively, as in some inward ar> gument of a stormy kind. ITO BE CONTINUED. - ,