Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

BY MISS M E BRADDON

CHAPTER XXlX—Continued. Lord Clanyarde and his daughter left at the end of the week. There were fever cases talked of already, and all the American tourists had fled. Lord Clanyarde felt he was not getting away an hour too soon. They dawdled about among Swiss mountains, living a life of rustic simplicity that was wondrously beneficial to Constance, but somewhat painful to Lord Clanyarde. At the beginning of July they had established themselves at a little lonely village in the shadow of white, solemn mountains, and here Constance felt as if she had passed beyond the region of actual life into a state of repose, a kind of painless purgatory. She had done with the world and worldly interests and affections. Even the little stranger’s heart must ;have been weaned from her by this time.

Lord Clanyarde saw the gradual decay of his daughter’s strength, and trembled for the issue. She had grown dearer to him in this time of close compansonship than she had ever been since the far-off days when she was little Connie, the youngest and loveliest 0£ his daughters. He told hitself that unless something occurred to rouse her from this dull apathy, this placid calm, which looked like the forerunner of death's irozen stillness, there was every reason for fear and but; little ground for hope. Lord Cianyarde prayed more earnestly than he had ever done before in his self-indulgent life, and it seemed to him that Providence heard his cry for help. One morning there came a letter from Rome which startled father and daughter alike. It was from Mrs. Walsingham, written in a tremulous hand, and addressed to Lord Clanyarde. “They tell me I am dying, and the near approach of death has melted the ice about my heart. I have been a very wicked woman, and now conscience urges me to make you what poor reparation I can for the most cruel and treach'erous revenge—not upon the man who wronged me, but upon the innocent girl for whose sake I was deserted. “I nave deeply injured your daughter, Lord Clanyarde, and 1 meant to carry the secret of that wrong to the grave—to leave her desolate and childless to the end. But the long lonely night-, the pain and weariness of decay, the dieary exclusion from the dreary outer world—these have done their work. Conscience, which had been deadened by anger and revenge, slowly awakened, and there came a longing for atonement. I can never undo what I have done. I can never give your daughter back the years that nave been darkened by sorrow—her wasted tears, her vain regrets. But I may do something. Let her come to me—let her stand beside my deathbed, and 1 will whisper the story of my crime into her ear. I will not write it. She must come quickly if she wishes to hear what I have to tell, for death stares me in the face, and this letter may be long reaching you. Every day drifts mJ further down the dark river. How swifty it rushes sometimes in the dreary night-watches! I can fancy I hear the ripple of the tlie and the hollow moan of the great ocean that lies before me —the unknown sea of death and eternity.” Here came a broken sentence, which Lord Clanyarde could not decipher, and it seemed to him that the writer s mind hadwandeted toward the close of the letter. There was no signature, but he knew the handwriting, and Mrs. Walsingham’s address was engraved at the top. The letter had been more than a week on the road, and was readdressed from the hotel where Lord Clanyarde and his daughter had stayed at the beginning o! their tour. “It’s a curious business, ” said Lord Clanyarde, doubtfully, after he had given Constance the letter. “I believe her mind is affected, poor soul; and I really don't think you ought to go. Who can tell what she may do in her ravings, and not a vestige of truth in it, perhaps.” He thought Mrs. Walsingham’s death-bed confession might concern her relations with Gilbert Sinclair, and that it would be better for Constance to hear nothing the unhappy lady could tell. “This letter bears the stamp of truth,” sa d Constance, firmly. “I shall g , papa. Pray get a carriage and let us start as quickly as possible. ” “But, my love, consider the unhealthiness of Rome at this time of year. We might as well go and live in a fever hospital. The Pontine Marshes, you know, steaming with malaria. We soould be digging our own graves.” "You need not go there unless you like, pa;a, but I shall not lose an hour. She has something to confess—some wrong done me something about Christabel, perhaps,” cried Constance. He saw that the only wise course was to yield to . his daughter’s wishes, and lost no time in making arrangements for the journey back to Rome. They entered Rome in the summer sunset, the city looking beautiful as a dream. The atmosphere was cool and balmy, but Lord Clanyarde looked with a shudder at the silvery mists floating over the walleys. and fancied he saw the malaria fiend grinning at him behind that diaphanous veil. Constance thought of nothing but the purpose for which she had come. “Tell the man to drive straight to Mrs. Walsingham's, paca,” she said, eagerly. He gave the directions to the driver, and the man pulled up his tired horses before one of the stately palaces of the past An Italian man servant admitted them to the anteroom lavishly decorated with picturesand bric-a-abrac —a room in which J ord Clanyarde had eaten Neapolitan ices or sipped coffee on those Saturday evenings which Mrs. Walsingham had made so agreeable to him. He had never seen the room empty before to-night, and it had a singularly desolate Took to his fancy in the flicker'ng light of a pair of wax candles that had burned down

to the sockets of the Pompeian bronze candlesticks on the velvet draped mantelpiece. “Bow is your mistress?” Lord Clanyarde asked, eagerly. The Italian shrugged his shoulders. "Alas, excellency, it goes always the same. She still exists, that is all.” “Tell, her Mrs. Sinclair has come from Switzerland in the hope of seeing her. ” The Italian s mmoned Mr. Walsingham s maid, who requested Constance to come at once to the sick-room. She was expected. Bit she must prepare herself to be shocked by Mrs. Walsingham’s appearance. Her end seemed near. “You had better go to your hotel, papa,” said Constance. “I may have to stay here a long time. You can come back for me by and by.” Cn reflection Lord Clanyarde considered this the best arrangement. He really wanted his dinner. Indeed, he had never yet found any crisis in life so solemn as to obliterate that want. The servant led the way through a suite of reception-rooms to a tall door at the end of a spacious' saloon. This opened into Mrs. M alsingham's bedroom, which was the last room on this side of the house: a noble chamber, with windows looking two ways —one toward the hills, the other over the stately roofs and temples of the city. Both windows were wide open, and there was no light in the room save the rosy glow of sunset. The bed was in an alcove, voluminously draped with amber damask and Roman lace. Mrs. Walsingham was in a sitt.ng position, propped up with pillows, racing the sun-glow beyond the purp.e hills. There was a second door opening onto the staircase, and as Constance entered, some one—a man —lett the room by this door. She supposed that this person mu-t be one of Mrs. Walsingham’s medical attendants. Tne doctors were hovering about her no doubt, in these last hours. “You'have come,” gasped the dying woman, “thank God! You can go, Morris,” to the maid; “I will ring if I want you. Come here, Mrs. Sinclair. Sit down by my side. Tnere is no time to lose. My breath fails me very often. You must excuse —be patient.” “Pray do not distress yourself, ” said Constance, seating herself in the chair beside the bed; “1 can stay as long as you like’." “How gently you speak to me! but you don’t know. You will look at me ditterently presently—not wit i those compassionate eyes. I am an awlul scectacle. am I not?—living death. Would you believe that I was once a beauty? Sant painted my portrait when we were both at our best—” with a bitter little laugh. “I have not lost an hour in coming to you. If you have done me a wrong that you can by any means atone for, pray do not lose time.” “Death is waiting at my door. Yes, I must be quick. Hut it is so horrible to talk of it, such mean, low treachery. Not a great revenge, a pitiful, paltry act of spitefulness. Oh, if you knew how I loved Gilbert Sinclair, how firmly I believed in his love—yes, and he was fond of me, until the luckless day you crossed his path and stole his heart from me.” “I never knew,” faltered Constance. “No: you wronged me ignorantly, but that did not make my loss lighter to bear. I hated you for it. Yes. I measured my hatred for you by my love for him. Life was intjierab eto me without him, and one day I vowed that I would make your lite intolerable to you. I was to d that you weie making an idol of your child, that your happiness was bound up in that baby s existence, and I resolved that the child should be taken from you " “Wretch:” cried Constance, starting up in sudden horror. “You were there —at Schcenesthal; you pushed her down the steps. It was not an accident ”

“No, no. I was not quite so bai as that; not capab e of taki. g that sweet young life. To take her from you, that was enough. To make your days miserable, to make you drink the cup of tears, as I had done, because ot you: that was my end and aim. 1 found a willing tool in your French nurse-maid —a skillful c adjutor in James Wya t Everything was well planned. The girl had learned to swim, the year before, at Ostend, and was not afraid to plunge into the river when she saw Some one coming. This gave a look df- xfcality to the business. I met Melanie Dupo’rt at the ruins that September morning, and took your baby from her. I carried her away in my own arms to the place where a carriage was waiting for me, and drove straight to Baden, and from Baden traveled as fast as I could to Brussels, keeping the baby in my own charge all the while.” “She was not drowned, then. Thank God! thank God.” cried Constance, sinking on her knees beside the bed, and lifting up her heart in p-’aise and thanksgiving. Of Mrs. Walsinghan’s guilt—of the vain sorrow she had endured—she hardly thought in this moment of delight. “Where i she, my darling, my angel? What have you done with her? Where have you hidden her all this time? A wan smile crept over the ashen face of the dying sinner. “We are ■ trange creatures, we women—mysteries even to ourselves,” she said. “I took your child from you, ar.d hearing you were dying, broken-heart-ed, gave her back to you. Your old lover pleaded strongly. I gave her into Sir Cyprian Daver.ant’s keeping. I know no more." “Then I was not deceived. My Christabel—it was mv Christabel thev brought back to me. The instinct of my mother’s heart was not a delusion. ’ “Can you pity—pardon?” faltered Mrs. Walsingham. “Yes. I forgive you for all—for months of blank, hopele is grief—all—because of what you have told me tonight. If you had taken this secret to the grave—if I had never known—l should gave gone on steeling my heart against my darling; 1 should have thrust her from me, left her motherless to this cruel world, anl thought that I was doing my duty. Yes, I forgive. You have wronged me cruelly; and it was heartless, treacherous, abominable, what you did at Schcenesthal; but I forgive you all for the sake of this blessed moment. May God pardon you, as I do. ” “You are an angel,” sighed Mrs. Walsingham, stretching out a feeble hand, which Constance presed tenderly in both her, own. Death is a great heale.- cf b /-gone wrongs. “And will you forgive the friend who brought you your own child, believing that he was bringing upon you a stranger, ard who experimentalized with your maternal love in ihe hope of winning you from the grave?” “You mean S r Cyprian Davenant?” said C< ns lance. “Yes.” “I felf angry with him when my father told me what he had done; but I am sure all he did was done out of

affection for an old frlenl I have nothing to fcrg,ve.” “I am glad to hear yen say that. Sir Cyprian has re urned from Africa after a successful expedition. He is in Rome.”

Constance’s pale cheek grew a shade paler. “He is in Rome, and has paid me many vis.ts in the sick-room. He has talked t > me of ycur ge .tlene s—ycur divine compass! n. But for ihat I do no; think that I should ever have had the cou age to send for yc u ” “I tzank him with all'my heart,” exclaimed Constance. “Let your lips thank him, too,” said Mrs. Walsingham, touching the spring bell on the little tab e b. her tide. She struck the bell three times, and at the third chime t :e door opened and Cyprian Lavenant came in. It was he who had withdrawn quietly at Mrs. Sine air s entrance, and whom she bad mistaken for the doctor. • “She has forgiven all,” said Mrs. Walsingham. “You we: e right when you called her an ungeL And now let me do one good thing on my deathbed. Let me be sure that the lest of her life will be bright and that there will be a strong arm and a true heart between her and sorrow. It will help to lift the burden from my conscience if I can be sure of that. ” Constance spoke not a word. She stood before her first lover blushing like a school girl. She dared not lilt her eyes to his face. Happily there was little need of words. Cyprian put his arm round the slender figure, in its dismal black dress, and drew the love of ye.irs to his breast. “God has been very good to us, my darling," he said. “May He never part us any more! I think He meant us tn live and die together.” Constance did not question this assertion. Her heart mutely echoed her lover s words. In the early spring of the following year Davenant awoke Eke the palace of the Siteping Beauty, and the comfortable old sen ants, who had grown fat and sleek during their period of comparative idleness, rejoice 1 and made merry at the coming home of their master. They had known him from his boyhood, and to them this raising up of the old family to more than its former prosperity was like a personal elevation. Even ihe neighboring villages had their share n the gladness, and there were more bonnres and triumphal arches between the railway station and the park gates on the evening of Sir Cyprian’s return with his beautiful wife than had ever been seen before by the olce>t inhabitant. Eaby Christabel was waiting to receive them on the threshold of the old oak-paneled hall; and Martha Briggs, resplendent in a new siik gown, declared that this was tne happiest day of her life —an assertion which James Gibson, the gamekeeper, resented as a personal affront. “Bar or e. Fatty,” he remonstrated. “1 should think your own wedding-day ought to be still happier.” “No. it won't.” cried Martha, decidedly; “and 1 think you ought to know, Jim, that I would never have given my consent to get married if my mistress hadn’t —— ” “Set you the example," cried James, with a guffaw. “And a very good example it is, too. Sir Cyprian has nro nised me the new lodge at the south gate—five rooms and a scullery. That’s the missus’doing, I’ll be bound.” HUE END. |