Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

BY MISS M E BRADDON

CHAPTER XlX—Continued. Unfashionable as was the season, Mrs. Walsingham was still in town. She had no rustic retreat of her own, and she was not in that charmed circle, patrician or millionaire, which rejoices in country houses. Furthermore, she abhorred the beauties of Nature, and regarded winter residence in the country as an exile bleaker than Ovid’s banishment to oh ill and savage Tomis. If she had been rich enough to have indulged her caprioes, sue would have gene ally begun the year in Faria, but she had an income which just enabled her to live Elegantly without any indulgence of caprices. This winter,! too, she had peculiar reasons for staying in town, over and above all other motives. She stayed in the snug little house in Half-Moon street, therefore, and was “at home” on Saturday evenings just as if the season had been at its flood. The society with which she filled her miniature drawing-room was literary, musical, artistic, dramatic—just the most delightful society imaginable, with the faintest soupcon of Bohemianism. She had chosen Saturday evening because journalists who were free on ro other night could drop in, and Mrs. Walsingham adored journalists. On this particular Saturday, three days after the scene in the summerhouse, James Wyatt had made his appearance in the Haif-Moon street draw-liu-room just when most people were going away. He contrived to outstay them all, though Mrs. Walsingham s manner was not so cordial as to invite him to linger. She yawned audibly behind the edge of her larie black fan when Mr. Wyatt took up his stand in of the chimney-piece with the air of a man who is going to be a fixture for the next hour. “Have you heard the news?” ho asked, after a brief silence. “From Davenant? Yes, I am kept pretty well au courant. ’’ “A sharp little thing, that Duport.” “Very." Silence again, during which Mrs. Walsingham surveys her violet velvet gown and admires the Venice point uounce which relieves its somber hue •Clara,” said James Wyatt, with a suddenness that startled the lady into looking up at him, “I think I have performed my part of the bargain. When are you going to perform yours?” “I don't quite under.tand you.” “Oh, yes, you do. Mrs . Walsingham. There are some things that will hardly bear to be discussed, even between conspirators. lam not going to enter into details. When 1 found you in this room three years ago on Gilbert Sinclair’s wedding-day, you had but one thought, one desire —your whole being was athirst for revenge. You are revenged, and I have b jen the chief instrument in the realization of your wish. A wicked wish on your part; doubly wicked on mine, with less passion and weaker hatred, to be your aider and abettor. Soit. lam content to bear the burden of my guilt, but not to be cheated of my reward. What I have done I have done for your Sake —to win your love. ” “To buy me,” she said, “as slaves are bought, with a price. Thats what you mean. You don t suppose I shall love you for working Gilbert Sinclair s ruin?”

“You wanted to see him ruined.” “Yes, when I was mad with rage and grief Did you think you were talking to a sane woman that evening after , Gilbert’s marriage? You were talking to a woman whose brain had been on lire with despair and jealcu-y through the long hours of that agonizing day. What should I loug for but revenge then?” “Well, you have had your heart's desire, and it seems to me that your conduct since that day has been pretty consistent with the sentiments you gave expression to then. Do you mean to tell me that you are going to throw mo over now—that you are going to repudiate the promise you made me—a promise on wnich I have counted with unflinching faith in your honor?” “In my honor!” cried Mrs. Walsingham, with a bitter sneer, all the more bitter because it was pointed against herself. “In the honor of a woman who could act as I have acted!" “I forgive anything to passion: but to betray me would be deliberate cruelty.” “Would it?” she added, smiling at him. “I think it would b 3 more cruel to keep my word, and make your life miserable.” “You shall make me as miserable as you please, if you will only have me,” urged Wyatt. “Come, Clara, I have been your slave for the last three years. I have sacrificed interests which most men hold sacred to serve or to please yo i. It would he unparalleled baseness to break your promise.” “My promise was wruDg from me in a moment of blind passion, ” cried Mrs. Walsingham. “If the Prince of Darkness had asked me to seal a covenent with him that day, I should have consented as freely as I consented to your bargain.” “The comparison is flattering to me,” replied Mr. Wyatt, looking at her darkly from under beat brows. There is a stage at which outraged love turns to keenest ha'.e, and James Wyatt's feelings are fast approaching that stage. “In one word, do you mean to keep fai,th with me? Yes, or no?” “No,” answered Mrs. Walsingham, with a steady look that meant defiance. “No, and ag o'", no. Tell the world what you have d me, and how I have cheated you. Publish your wrongs if ycu dare. I have never loved but one man in my life, anl his lame is Gilbert Sinclair. And now go d-night, Mr. Wyatt, or, rather, gcod-morning, for it is Sunday, and I don t want to be late for church.” Chapter xx. DR. HOULENDORr The new year began with the ringing of parish bells, some genuine joviality in cottages and servants’ halls, and various conventional rejoicings in polite society,, but silence and solitude still reigned at Davenant. The chief rooms—saloon and dining-room, library and music-room—were abandoned alto-

gether by the gloomy master of the house. They might as well have put on their Holland pinafores and shut their shutters, as in the absence of the family, for nobody used them. Gilbert Sinclair lived in his snuggery at the end of the long gallery, ate and drank there, read his newspapers and wrote his letters, sm: ked and dozed in the dull winter evenings. He rode a good deal in all kinds of weather, going far afie'd, no one knew where, and coming home at dusk, splashed to the neck, and with his horse in a condition peculiarly aggravating to grooms and stable-b ys. “Them there 'esses will 'ave mud fever before long,” said the hirelings, dejectedly. “There’s that blessed chestnut he set such store by a month ago with ’ardly a leg to stand on for windgalls, and the roan filly's over at knees a’ready. ” “He * meant Mr. Sinclair, who was riding his finest horses with a prodigal recklessness. Constance Sinclair lived to see the new year, though she did not know why the church bells rang out on the quiet midnight. She started up from her pillow with a frightened look when she heard that joy peal, crying that those were her wedding Dells; and that she must get ready for chiircb. “To please you, papa, ” she said. “For your sake, papa. Pity my broken heart ” There had been days and nights -at the end of the old year, when Dr. Webb had trembled for the sweet young life which he had watched almost from its beginning. A grett physician had come down from London every day, and had gone away with a fee proportionate to his reputation, after diagnosing the disease in a most wonderful manner: but it was the little country apothecary who saved Constance Sinclairs life. His watchfulness, his devotion, had kept the common enemy at bay. The life-current, which had ebbed very lew, flowed gradually back, and after lying for ten days in an utterly prostrate and apathetic atate. the patient was now strong enough to rise and be dressed, and lie on the sofa in her pretty morn-ing-room. whilo Meianie, or "honest Martha Briggs, who had come back to nurse her old mistress, i ead to her, to divert her mind, the doctor said; but, alas! as y.et the mind seemed incapable of being awakened to interest in' the things of this mortal life. When Constance spoke it was of the past—of her childhood or girlnood, of people and scene i familiar to her in that happy time. Of her husband she never spoke, and his rar j visits to her room had a disturbing influence. So much so that Dr. Webb suggested that for tbe present Mr. Sinclair should refrain from seeing his wife. “I can feel for you, my dear sir, ” he said, sympathetically. “I quite understand your anxiety, but you may trust me and the nurses. You will have all intelligence of progress. The mind at present is somewhat astray.” “Do you think it will always be so?” asked Sinclair. “Will she never recover her senses?”

“My dear 6ir, there is everything to hope. She is so young, and the disease is altogether so mysterious, whether the effect of the blow—that unlucky fall —or whether simply a development of the brooding melancholy which we had to fight against before the accident, it is impossible to say. We are quite in the dark. Perfect secludon and tranquillity may do much.” Lord Clanyarde came to see his daughter nearly every day. He had come back to Marchbrook from far more agreeable scene * on purpose to be near her. But his presence seemed to give Constance no pleasure. There were days on which she looked at him with a wandering gaze that went to his heart, or a blank and stony look that appalled him by its awful likeness to death. There were other days when she knew him. On these days her talk was all of the past, and it was clear that memory had taken the place of intelligence. Lord Clanyarde felt all the pangs of remorse as he contemplated this spectacle of a broken heart, a mind wrecked by sorrow. “Yet I can hardly blame myself for her sad fate, poor child, ” he argued. “She was nappy enough, bright enough, before she lost her baby.” The new year was a week old, and since the first rally there had been no change for the better in Constance Sinclair's condition; and now there came a decided change for the worse. Strength dwindled, a dull apathy took possession of the patient, and even memory seemed a blank. Dr. Webb was in despair, and fairly owned his helple.-sness. The London physician came and went, and took his iee, and went on diagnosing with profoundest science, and tried the last resources of the pharmacopoeia, with an evident conviction that he could minister to a mind, diseased; but nothing came of his science, save that the patient grew daily weaker, as if fate and physic were too much for one feeble sufferer to cope withal. Gilbert Sinclair was told that unless a change came very speedily his wife must die. “If we could rouse her from this apathetic state, ” said the physician; “any shock—any surprise—especially of a pleasurable kind-that would 'act on the torpid brain might do wonders even yet: but all our attempts to interest her have so far been useless.” Lord. Clanyarde was present when this opinion was pronounced. He went home full of thought, more deeply concerned for his daughter than he had ever been yet for any mortal except himself. “Poor little Connie!” he thought, remembering her in her white frock and blue sash; “she waj always my favorite —the prettiest, the gentlest, the most high-bred of all my girls, but I didn't know she had such a hold upon my heart.” At Marchbrook Lord Clanyarde found an unexpected visitor waiting for him—a visitor whom he received with a very cordial greeting. Soon after dusk cn the following evening Lord Clanyarde returned to Davenant, but not alone. He took with him an elderly gentleman, with white hair, worn rather long, and a white board—a person of almost patriarchal appearance, but somewhat disfigured Dy a pair of smoke-colored spectacles of the kind that are vulgarly known as “gig-lamps.” Tho.stranger s clothes were of the shabbiest, yet even in their decay looked the garments of a gentleman. He wore ancient shepherd’s plaid trousers, and a bottle-green overcoat of exploded cut. Gilbert Sinclair was in the hall when Lord Clanyarde and his companion arrived. Mr. Wyatt had just come down from London, and the two men were smoking their cigars by the great hall fire., the noble old, cavernous hearth which had succeed the more mediaeval fashion of a fire in the center of the hall. “My dear Sinclair,” began Lord Clanyarde, with a somewhat hurried ana

nervous air, which might be forgiven in a man whose favorite daughter languished between life and death, “I have ventured to bring an old friend of mine. Doctor Holiendorf, a gentleman who has a great practice in Berlin, and who has had vast experience in the treatment of mental disorders. Dootor Holiendorf, Mr. Sinclair. I bog your pardon, Wyatt, how do you do?” interjected Lord Clanyarde, offering the solicitor a coup e of finders, “how, Gilbert, I should much like Doctor Holiendorf to see my poor Constance. It mav do no good, but it can do no harm; and if you have no objection, with Dr. Webb's concurrence, of course, I should like—” “Webb is in the house,” answered Gilbert “You can ask him for yourself. I have no objection.” This was said with a weary Air, as if the speaker had < eased to take any interest in life. Gilbert hardly looked at tbe German, or Anglo-German, dootor; but James Wyatt, who was of a more observant turn, scrutinized him attentively. “Here is Webb,” said Gilbert, as the little Doctor camo tripping down the great staircase, with the lightsome activity of his profession, rubbing his hands as he came. Lord Clanyarde presented Dr. Holiendorf to the rural practitioner, and stated his wish. Dr. Webb had no objection to offer. Any wish of a father’s must be sacred. “You will come up and see her at once?” he said, interrogatively. “At once, ' answered the stranger, with a slightly guttural accent. The three men went up the staircase, Gilbert remaining behind. “Aren t you going?” asked Wyatt. “No: my presence generally disturbs her. Why should I go? I’m not wanted.” “1 should go if I were you. How dc you know what this man is? An impudent quack, in ali probability. You ought to be present. ” “Do you think so?" “Decidedly.” “Then I’ll go.” 1 “Watch your wife when that man is talking to her. ” said Wyatt in a lower tone, as Gilbert moved away. “What do you meaiff” asked the other, turning sharply around. “V\ hat I say. Watch your wife!” Mrs. Sinclair’s moruing-room was a spacious, old-fashioned apartment, with three long windows, one opening into a wide balcony, from which an iron stair led down to a garden, small and secluded, laid out in the Dutch style—a garden which had been always sacred to the mistre s of Davenant. There were heavy oak shutters, and a complicated arrangement of halts and bars to the three windows, but as these shutters were ra ely clo ed, the stair and the balcony might be considered as a convenience specially provided for the benefit of burglars. No burglars had. however, yet been heard of at Davenant. Toe e was a piano in the room. There were well-filled book-cases, pictures, cjuaint old china—all things that make life pleas nt to the mind that is at ease, and which may be supposed to offer some con-olation to the care-bur-dened spirit. The fire blazed merrily, and on a sofa in front of it Constance reclined, dressed in a loose white cashmere gown, hardly whiter than the wasted oval face, from which the darkbrown hair was drawn back by a band of blue ribbon, just as it had been ten years ago, when Constance was ' little Connie,” flitting about the lawn at Marchbrook like a white and blue butterfly. iTO BE CONTINUED. |