Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

BY MISS M E BRADDON

-CHAPTER XXlll—Continued ■ James Wyatt paced hi* roam in the darkening- shadows, deep in thought. He had sent a poisoned bat h to the heart of the man he hated, and be was glad. There was not a petty slight of days gone by, not a small insolence, for wtych he had not paid himself ■handsomely by to night’s work; but it was not to avenge the millionaire’s petty slights and small insolences, not to uplift the wounded crest of his own self-esteem, viper-like, that ho had -stung his enemy. His hatred of Gilbert Sinclair had a deeper root than wounded pride. Disappointed love was its source. But for Gilbat t Sinclair he might have been loved by the one woman whose regard he valued. Clara Walsingbam’s constancy to her old lover was the oifer.se that made Gilbert loathsome to his quondam Iriend, •and it was to gratify his own jealousy that he had aroused the demon of jealousy in his rival's breast. “He shall know the flavor of the anguish he has caused me,” thought Wyatt, “if his coarse soul can suffer as I have suffered for a woman s sake. Whether his wife is guilty or innocant, matters nothing to me. The pain will be his. If he were man enough to blow his brains out, now, there might be a chance for me with Clara. So long as he lives she will cling to the hope of winning him back. Where is she hiding, I wonder, and what is her ■scheme of life, while I am wearing my life out for her sake'?" Mr. Wyatt had not seen Mrs. Waleingham since that interview in which she had refused to keep faith with him, flinging hir promise to the winds. He had gone to Half-Mom street on the following Saturday evening, determined to make peace with her at •any sacrifice of his own dignity, with the slavish pertinacity of a man who loves- He had driven up to the door, expecting to see the lighted windows shining out on the wintry street, to hear Herr Klavierschlager pounding the Erard, and the hum and twitter of many he went up the narrow 'flower-scented staircase; bat to his surprise the windows were all dark, and a sleepy little maid-servant came to the doer with a sputtering tallow candle, and informed him that Mrs. Walsingham had gone abroad, the maid-tervant knew not whither. “Was there no direction left for forwarding letters'?” asked Mr. Wyatt. “No, sir, not as I knows or. The ■hagent, p’r’aps, wot has the lettin' of the ’ous might know.” Mr. Wyatt went to the solicitor, who politely refused to give his client's ail'd! ess. “Perhaps she ha? gone into a convent,” thought James Wyatt, at his wits end, and this disappointment ■added not a little to the bitterness of his feelings toward that profitable •client of his, Gilbert Sinclair.

Staples, the butler, came in with the lamps, shut the solid oak shutters, ■cleared the tables, and brought his master a cup of coffee, all in an orderly and respectable manner that was -well worth his sixty pounds a year. Mr. Wyatt was a man who would not diave kept a bad servant a week, and never parted with a good one. The postman's knock sounded on the ponderous door while Mr. Wyatt was dipping his coffee, and Staples came in with several letters on a silver waiter. James Wyatt spread them out before him thoughtfully, as if they were card; and he were calculating their •value. Handsome, creamy envelopes, thick and aristocratic, with armorial - bearings on the seals; others b.ue and business-like, and unpretendingly inexpressive. One narrow little envelope. thin, green, and shiny—this was the first he opened. The letter it contained was written in a small, scratching hand, unmistakably foreign, litt e curly tails to all the •d’s, a general scraiginess in the y's, a paucity of capitals. “Why do you not let me see you, cr write to me? Is it not that it is cruel, after so much of promises? You leave •me to languish, without hope. Dream you that I shall content to be a servant lor always, after what you have promised? But do not believe it. I have -too much spirit. It must that 1 talk t j you of all that at leisure, the eyes in ■eyes, that I may see you if you are true, if you have goid intentions to my regard. Write me, and very quickly, my friend, it must that I have of your •news. Always your MELANIE.” “This comes of an innocent flirtation— pour passer le temps—in a stupid ■country-house,” said Mr. Vyatt, -crumpling the letter savagely. “This girl will worry my life out. I was a fool to amuse my self with such a dangerous litt e viper. And if I were to oe frank with her, and tell her to go -about .her business, she might make matters unpleasant for me. The law i •comes down rather heavily on anything in the shape of conspiracy, and •that little affair at Schoenesthal'might be made to assume that complexion., And the law never comes down to heavily as when it gets its hoof on a man who has plenty to lose. Your British jury, too, has no liking for a man who turns his superfluous capital ■to good account by lending jt to fools. No, I must keep that Schoenesthal business out of the law court; at any •cost. Melanie must be pensioned, and sent back to her native valley, or her native slum—for I should think such an artful young person must have been born in some festering city alley rather than among vineyards or orchards.” • i Mr. Wyatt went to his writing-table, -and answered Mlle. Duport s letter without delay—briefly and cautiously. CHAPTER XXIV. GILBERT ASKS A QUESTION: If Lord Clanyarde had been within' easy reach, Gilbert Sinclair would have gone straightway to upbraid him with his treachery in bringing Sir ■Cyprian to Davenant disguised and in « false name: but Lord C.anyarde, finding himself at £0 years of age entirely unfettered by domest c incumbrances, was indulging his natural

frivolity among more agreeable pe iple than his serious and business-like fel-low-countrymen. Lord Cianyarde was eating ices and playing dominos under the colonnades of \ enice,with thoughts of mov ng t> Tyrolean m untains when the weather grew 'too warm in the fair sea-girt city. So Gilbert, not being able to get at Lord Glanyarde, nursed his wrath to keep it warm, and went straight home to Davenant Park, where Constance was leading her calm and happy life, seeing hardly anything of what the •world calls “.ot iety,” but surrounded by the people she had known since her childhood —the geed old lector, who had christened her the de oted lit.le doctor, who had \vatched h?r so i atiently when her dull eves had hardly recognized hi? familiar face; the s.hool-misire s, the old pupils, the gray old gardeners, and sunburned game-keepers; the gaffer? and go d.es who had been old when she was a baby, and seemed hardlv any olcer for the twenty years that had parsed ever their heads since then. Cneeks a little more shriveled, perhaps, brows more deeply wrinkled, shoulders a trifle more bent, but exactly the : ame appreciaticn of tea and tonacco, half crowns and new neckerchiefs, the Psalms and the rector's termon-. Never had spring seemed to her so beautiful as it seemed this year, when she led her little girl through the woods and showed her the newly awakened flowers, and told her the names ofjthe birds that poured out such gushing songs of gladness in the warm bright upon. The child's lips began to shapo isolated words—mam. mam, and birdie, sowers for flowers-divine language to the mother s ear. Never was a child happier cr more fondly loved, Martha Briggs, nothing doubting, hugged this little waif to her honest heart; and even Melanie, who had a curious inward revuls on from the child, had to pretend a most enthusiastic devotion and deepest gratitude to Providence foe the little one s restoration. Once, inspired by some familiar spirit of evil, she could not resist dropping a little poison into her mistress’ cup of joy. “Do you feel quite sure there has been no mistake, ma’am ” she asked. “I sometimes fancy our darling could I net have been saved. I saw her carried away by the current, carried past me like a straw, and it has neVer been quite expla ned how she was rescued.” Constance looked at her with eyeson fire with indignation. “Am I sure that this is my child?” she cried, clasping the baby t> her breast. “Am I sure of my own name, of my life? If all the re?t of li e were a dream or a shad jw, I should know that Christabel was real and true. Who can deceive a mother.-” “You were so ill when the little girl was brought home, ” suggested Melanie, with an air of conscientious doubt.

“Not too ill to remember my Christabel. We knew each other, did we not, darling? Our lips clung together as if we had never neen parted. Not know my own child, indeed! Never dare to make such a suggestion again, Melanie.” After this Mlle. Duportwas discreetly silent on the subject of this present Christabsl’s identity with the Christabel of the past; but the time was to come when Constance Sinclair’s faith was to receive a ruder shock. Gilbert went home that evening after the Two Thousand savage, with h.s mind full of scorpions. Goblin's success was nothing to him. He hardly remembered that one of his horse? had won a i ace for the first time since he had kept horses. He had counted on James Wyatt’s fidelity just as he had counted on his horse or dog - a creature bought with his money, fed and housed by him. Wyatt had profited b/ him: Wyatt was b ;und to stand by him; and as to those various sl'ght? which he had put upon his confidential adviser at divers times, almost unconsciously, it had never occurred to him that there could be any galling wound left by such small stings, the venom whereof was to react upon him-.elf. If he had heaped favors upon the man, if he had been the most unselfish and devoted of fr.ends, he could not have felt James Wyatt’s treachery more keenly. He was angry with himself for having been so ea~y a dupe, for having given any man power to get the better of him. “The whole thing is a planned revenge,” he thought. “Wyatt knew how it would ga'l me to see Sir Cyprian back at Davenant.” And Wyatt had flung a fire-brand into that revelation about the pretended German dcct:r. Could it be, Gilbert asked himself, or was it a malicious invention of Wyatt’s? Would Lord Cianyarde have lent himself to such a deception? Even Lord Cianyarde might have been hoodwinked by his daughter s Ever.

“I won t accuse her, not yet a while,” he said to himself. “It will be batter to keep quiet and watch. I have been too olten away. I nave given her too much license. That innocent face of hers would deceive Satan himself. And I have allowed myself to think that there was no guile in her; that, although she has never loved me, she has never wronged me. Hard to find, after all, that I have judge 1 her too leniently." It was after midnight when Mr. Sinclair arrived at Davenant. and he had to ring up one of the servants to let him in, his return being altogether unlooked for. He did not see Constance until the next day. and by this time had regained the mastery of himself. The position of affai.s between husband and wife since Mrs. Sinclair’s recovery had been a kind of armvd neutrality. Gilbert had never alluded to that awful day on which he had raised hi; hand against his wife, nor had Constance. Doubtful whether she remembered that unhappy occurrence, and deeply ashamed of the brutality into which passion had betrayed him, Mr. Sinclair wisely kept his own counsel. To apologize might be to make a revelation. His remorse showed itself by increased civility to his wife, and a new deference to her feelings, for which she wa; duly grateful. Gentle, submissive always, she gave her husband no cause of offense, save that one rankling sore .which hal begun to gall him directly the triumphant sense of possession had lo t its power to satisfy —the consciousness that he had never won her heart. The smoldering fire needed but a spark of jealousy to raisea fatal flame.

Constance expressed herself much pleased at Goblin's success, when Gilbert announced the fact, with very little elation, on the day after the race. They were dining together te o-a-tete in the s; acious paneled room, which seemed so much too big :or them. These ceremonious late dinners were Ci ns lance s aversion. In her hu -band s ab ence she dined early with Christabel, and spent thp Img afternoon; walking or driving, and came tv me at 1 wiHght to a s cial tea-party with Martha Briggs and the babv.

“I didn't think yon cured ab;ut raceI horses," said Gilbert, as if doubting I the sincerity of his wife’s congratulations. “Not in the abstract; they are such I far-off creatures. One neve.- gets on ■ intimate terms with them. ' They arelike the strange animals which the i Emperor Commodus brought to Rome ‘ —articles of luxury. But J am very i glad your herse h.s won, Gilbert, on ‘ your account. ” I “Yes, it’s a great triumph for me. If I I can win the Derby I shall be satis-, fled. Racing is confoundedly expen- : sive, and I’ve had quite enough of it. | I think I shall sell Goblin* and the • wh le stud after Epsom, and the new 1 stables into the bargain, and then I • shall improve that great barrack of a , place in the North and settle down. ; I'm sick of this part of the i too d d civilized," added Mr. Sin- . clair, forcibly. “Do you paean that you would leave Davenant?" asked Constance, with astonishment. “Yes. 1 ought to have told you, by the way—Davenant ceases to be mine “after mid-summer-day. I've sold it.” I “Sold Davenant!”

“ Yes. 1 have neter really cared for the place, and 1 had a good offer for it while you were ill. Things were not looking very well in the North just then, and I was in want of money. I dare say you 11 be pleased when you hear wno is the purchaser,” said Gilbert, with an uncomfortab e smile. Constance teemed hardly to hear the latter part of his speech. “To think that you should have sold Davenant —the dear old place!” “I thought you did not care for it.” “Not just at first, perhaps. It seemed too b g for me. 1 liked shabby old Marchbrook better. Gut I have been so happy here lately, and it is so nice to live among people one has known all one’s life.” “Yes, old associations are sweetest,” sneered Gilbert, the demon jealousy getting the upper hand. “But, aft r all, the place itself matters very little,” said Constance, anxious to avoid anything'that might seem like upbraiding—no wife so conscientious in the discharge of her duty as a good woman who doe? not love her husband. “I should be just as happy in any cottage in the neighborhood.” “Especially if you had old an friend settled here, "said Gilbert. “You haven’t asked me the name of my successor; but perhaps you knew." “How should 1 know?” “You might have means of obtaining information. ” “Who is the person, Gilbert?” “Sir Cyprian Davenant.” He waiched her closely. Wai the announcement a surprise, cr did she know all about it, and wa? that look of grave astonishment a touch of social comedy? She looked at him earne?tly for a minute, and gre.v somewhat paler, he thought, a? if the very sound of his rivals name were a shock to her. “Indeed! he has bought the old place again;” she said, quiit y. “Thatseems on y right. But I thought he had gone back to Africa.” “Did you really?” with a somewhat ironical elevation of his evebrows. “Well, I thought so, to. But’it seem? he is still in England. Oh, by the bv, do you remember that German doctor, who came to see you when you were ill-” There was a purpose in the abruptness of this question. Ho wanted to take her off h-r guard; if possible startle her into betraying herself. If there were any truth in Wyatt’s assertions, this question must be a startling one.

Her calm look told him nothing. She wa? either innocent of all guile or the m st consummate hypocrite. “Yes, I can faintly remember. .J can just recall that night like a dream. Papa and you coming into my room, and a curious-looking old man with a kind voice—a voice that went to my heart, somehow.” Gilbert started and frowned. “Yes, I remember It seems like a picture as I look back; your anxious looks. <he fire-light shining on your faces. He asked me to sing, did he not? Yes, and the song made me cry. Oh, such blessed tears—they took a load iff my ifcitd. It was like the loosening of a band of iron round my head. And he spoke to me about Christabel, and told me to hope. Dear old man, I have reason to remember him.”

• Ha? he never been here since?” “Never. How should he come, unless you or papa brought h m.-” “No, to be sure. And you have no curiosity about him-no desire to see him again?” "Why should I be curious or anxious? He did not deceive me with lalse hope. My darling wa? retored by him.” “And you thank h m for that.-” “I thank God for having saved my child. I thanx that good old Doctor for being the first to tell me to hope.” This mueh and no more could Gilbart’s closest questioning extort from his wife. What was he to think—that Wyatt was f :oling him, or that Constance was past mistress in dissimulation? He did not kniw what to think, and was miserable accordingly. [to be continued. |