Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1895 — A COLDEN DREAM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A COLDEN DREAM

CHAPTER II. —(Continued). “Present!” shouted Saintone, as his ♦yes glared triumphantly on his victim. Again there was a peculiar rattling noise made by the pieces, heard above the roar of the flames. Then — “Fire!” A dozen flashes darted from as many muskets; there was a deafening roar; the smoke hung heavy for a few moments, and then as Nousie strained forward it was to see the cloud rise borne by the current of air setting toward the burning cottage right over the heads of the firing party, and she uttered a low cry ns with starting eyes she saw her husband writhing on the ground among the flowers by the fence. “Mine now,” said a voice at her side; and she shrank a little, but gazed still at the spot where Dulau lay. Then with a piteous sigh, she said softly: “May I go to him with our child?" Saintone did not hear or did not heed her, for he had stepped forward at once towards where Dulau still writhed. In the terrible moment when a couple of bullets had struck him, he had made one great superhuman muscular effort, and burst the bonds which held his arms, and now his crisped fingers were tearing terribly at the grass and flowers around. “Out of his misery,” said Saintone briefly to a sergeant of his force, and the man —a huge mulatto—stepped forward with his loaded piece, presented the barrel at Dulau’s head, and was about to fire, when the barrel was seized. What followed seemed instantaneous. Taken by surprise, the piece was snatched from the man’s hand, and in the full blaze of the fire all saw Dulay upon his knees, supporting himself with one hand, as with the other he swung round the musket, held it pistol-wise, and there was a sharp, ringing report, followed by an awful yell of despair, as the roof of the cottage fell in. Then in the wild rush of flames, Saintone was seen staggering forward with his hands clasped to his forehead, as he bent himself back, head toward heels almost in a bow, fell with a crash, quivered for a moment, and then his muscles.slowly relaxed. It was amid a silence—the silence of sudden surprise, awe and death. CHAPTER 111. “Oh, murder! What a horrible daub!” said Paul Lowther, drawing back from his easel. “I’m afraid I shall never make a Titian.” He laid down palette and mahl stick, took up and filled a pipe, lit it, and began smoking as he walked up and down beneath the skylight of his little studio in the Rue de la Cite, Paris. He had been hard at work upon an antique head, one of his studies in the pursuit of art, dividing his time pretty equally between Charlotte street, Fitzroy square, and the studios of Paris. “It’s a curious thing,” he said, stopping and forming a cloud of smoke in front of his picture, a cloud which seemed very appropriate to the head he had been painting. “Yes,” he said again, “it’s curious. That isn’t bad —for me, but it isn’t a bit like the goddess in the Louvre. It’s Aube again, that it is, and do what I will they’ll come like her. Hah!! he cried, as he took up the canvas and gazed at it lovingly, “I feel fool enough to kiss you—almost, not quite—for I do know that the paint would come off wet.” He set back the canvas, smoked hard, and took down a photograph from a shelf near the stove —the likeness of a very beautiful girl with large dreamy dark eyes and heavy folds of hair. “Yes,” he said, “coarse and clumsy, but wonderfully like you, darling. Your lips will not come off wet. Only wish they would,” he added, and he kissed the photograph, and then hurriedly replaced it, and caught up his palette and brushes, for there was a step on the stairs, evidently upon the flight below. “What a fool a fellow in love does make of himself!” He began to whistle softly, and continued painting the background upon which he had been engaged as the steps drew nearer; then came a heavy thump on the door which was thrust open sharply, and a rather plain-looking young fellow of four or five and twenty, as carelessly dressed as the young artist at the easel, entered noisily and stopped short. “Hallo, Antonius!” he cried merrily. “What, my industrious one, painting and glazing away?” Paul Lowther turned his handsome, earnest face to the newcomer with a pleasant smile so lighting up his countenance that there was some cause for his friend’s appellation. “Morning, Bart,” he said; “been at the school?” “Don’t ask questions. If I tell you yes, you’ll want to know whether I’ve been dissecting, or seeing an operation; and then you’ll begin to sniff and curl up that handsome upper lip, and look disgusted and uncomfortable. Ignorance is bliss, my noble friend. Smoking again, eh?” he continued, as he threw down his hat and stick to take a short black pipe out of his pocket. “Are you aware that smoking is the ruin of young men? That it is deadly poison, and—where’s your ’bacon?” “Jar—shelf,” said Paul, painting away deliberately. “Humph! Hope it's better -than the last,” continued the newcomer, filling up and lighting his pipe—“ Not quite so bad. Now, then, let’s have a look at the work. L’ouvrage, as we say in Par-ree.” Paul Lowther drew back, and his friend took his place, smoking hard the while, as he stood with'his legs wide apart, and his hands deep down in his pockets. “Bravo, old chap! I shall make something of you yet. Exactly like her.” “Like? Like whom?” said Paul, coloring slightly. “Bah! what’s the good of playing ignorance. Wonderfully like the photograph, old chap. I say—l know it’s pretty cool to ask it, but between friends —I don’t want much, but you might knock me off a sketch of your sister.” “Nonsense, man,” said Paul, hastily. “That’s net a portrait; it’s the head of the Cyprian Venus in the Louvre.” “Oh, is it?” said the other dryly. “Beg pardon; my mistake,” and as he spoke he gave his friend a queer look. “Any news from the convent?” “Yes,” said Paul, sitting down and placing his hands behind his head. “Lucie sent ipe a letter last night. Quite well and happy.” “And Miss Dulau?” “Yes, quite well, too,” said Paul, dreamily. “I say, Bart, old man, seriously, you and I ought to be happy fellows.”

“What? Come, I like that.” “What do you mean ?” “Oh, I don’t get on. lad. Here I work as hard as a man can, but I get no further. Sometimes I feel as if I ought to have stuck to the English school instead of frittering my time away in the French.” “And when you are in London you think just the same!” said Paul, smiling slightly. “There. I will not be a humbug, old fellow. Yes, I do. But I’m uneasy. It’s all very well what you say about your sister liking me. but it’s because she has led that shut-up life all those years. She has seen me. and I am almost the only fellow she has seen. As soon as she leaves the convent, and you take her over to London, and she sees no end of goodlooking fellows, it will be all over with poor me.” “Don’t be a fool, Bart. You’re the bestlooking fellow I know—inside. I can see it clairvoyantly. Lucie isn’t such a little idiot as to take to a fellow because he is handsome as a barber’s dummy.” “But then you are,” said Bart, dryly; “and the sweetest and the most charming girl I ever saw in an augenblick has taken a fancy to you.” “I can’t help my looks, Bart,” said Paul quietly. “And I’m like you, old man; I feel my doubts about the time when she leaves the convent.” He sat looking dreamily at his canvas, and the two young men smoked on in silence. “Oh, no, old chap,” said Bart, at last, and he leaned forward and laid his hand affectionately on the artist’s knee, “she is not the girl to do that. I say, how long has she been there?” “Fifteen years.” “Father dead; mother in Hayti.” Paul nodded. “Wealthy woman, isn’t she?” “I don’t know, I suppose so.” There was another pause. “Seems rum, doesn’t it, Paul, old chap, that she has never been over to see the child. Of course, it’s not like your sister’s case.” “I haven’t thought as you do,” said Paul, “but we cannot judge a woman in her position. It seems that it was the father’s wish that his child should be educated in his native place, and from what Lucie tells me the mother has made a great sacrifice in parting from her child." “But does the mother—Madame Dulau —mean to come here and settle?” “I don’t knsw.” “She won’t want to—hang it, old man, don’t start like that.” “Don’t, Bart,” cried his friend excitedly. “That’s always hanging over me like a cloud. Oh, no. Hayti is quite a savage kind of place, all revolution and horror. The father was killed in one of the risings. No woman who loves her child to the extent of parting from her for her good would fetch her over there. Oh, no; of course she will come and settle here. Retire, I suppose. She has plantations, or something, from which she draws her revenues. But there; I know nothing at all but some scraps of information Lucie has written to me from time to time.” Another quiet interval of smoking, and then Bartholomew’ Durham spoke. “I suppose I’m no judge,” he said quietly. “I seem to have thought of nothing else but bones and muscles and nerves, and the other ins and outs of my trade, but somehow I don’t like convents.” “Don’t be prejudiced, old fellow,” said Paul. “Where could au orphan girl like my sister have been happier or brought up in a sweeter, purer seclusion? There was question of religion in the matter, and if ever woman deserves her name of Mother Superior, Sister Elise is that woman.” “Yes, I suppose so,” said the young doctor. “Never seems to have tried to persuade them to quit the world, eh?” “Oh, never. Luce would have told me directly. No, old fellow, the tw’o girls love her and the Sisters dearly, and if ever any man felt grateful I do to the old lady." “Nice old body,” said Bart. “The time I saw her, I thought it was a shame.” “A shame! What?” “That such a nice woman should have shut herself up as she did years ago, and robbed the world of a good wife and mother. 1 suppose she never saw Mr. Right. I say, though, do you think your sister cares for me?” “I wish I was as sure that some one else would be as true to me.” “What?” cried Bart, joyously, as he ran his hands through his rough hair. “Then it’s all right, old fellow, for I’d swear you are safe. I say, though, I shall be glad when they leave the convent.” “I,shall not,” said Paul sadly. “Why?” “Because, man, I am afraid—l am afraid.” “Nonsense. I say, I’ve had a fresh letter from the agents this morning. That business is settled. I’m to have the practice in six months. The old man says he shall keep on for that time and gradually bid good-by to his patients. Then he hands over his lancet, and bottles of salts and senna to yours truly. It’s a capital old practice, Paul. Deposit paid, and I step into the house, take the furniture and everything, a full-blown doctor.” “And you will go on With your studies in the hospitals here till then?” “I go on practicing here or wherever a certain young lady may be, as I have done before, old fellow. I can’t begin practicing as a settled down medical man without a wife.” “I think you are secure,” said Paul laughing and holding out his hand. “We have been inseparable for 'twelve years now, and I know your heart; so does Lut?e. Bart, old chap, I would not wish her a happier fate.” The doctor’s lip quivered a little, and he had held his friend's hand for some moments before he said, rather huskily; “Thank you, old fellow.” They neither of them seemed to wish to talk then for a time, but sat smoking till all at once Bart exclaimed: “I don’t know, though.” “Don’t know what|?” said Paul, smiling. “But what all this has been for the best.” “I don’t understand you.” “Yes, you do,” said Bart testily. “I mean about those two being at school all these years in the convent. It brought you oyer here constantly to be near your sister, and that brought you face to face with an angel. Then you have had the run of the Paris studios, and got into a brighter, lighter style than if you had been always working in the-fog in Newman or Charlotte street.”

“By the same rule through coming over to see me then it has induced you to stay and study, too.” “Exactly. Wonderful how well things work for the best,” said Bart, merrily. “I say, when are you going to see your sister again.” “Don’t know. When Idol am not going to take you. so rest assured of that.” “And I thought we were brothers,” said the young man with a grimace. “You’ll see plenty of Lucie by-and-by.” “Never, sir! never; not half enough. But I say. when will she leave the convent and come aud settle down to keep house for you?” “Not till her friend leaves, and may that be long first,” said Paul thoughtfully. Then turning merrily from his friend. “Why, you miserable, shallow, old impostor.” he cried, “to ask me such a question—When is she coming to keep house for me? How long—now answer nie honestly—if you can! —bow long if you have your own way will you let her keep house for me?” “Eh?” said Bart, ruffling up his hair again, and with a mirthful look in his eyes—“honestly—how long?” “Yes. How long?” “Not an hour more than I can help, old fellow—there.” “Well,” said Bart, looking at his watch, “I must be off. I’ve got engagements with two broken legs and a fractured skull.” "Good heavens!” “But I say, that’s capital about the practice, isn’t it?” “I congratulate you, Bart.” “Yes, I knew you’d be pleased. Stiff price. Keep me rather tight for a bit, but it isn’t often a man can drop in for so genuine au affair. And so much in my way, too.” “How do you mean?” “So near the branch line of the Nibley and Greaterham Railway. They always have a bad accident once a month.” “Then I shall not come to visit you by rail. See you at the club to-night?” “Yes, of course, ta ta. Bart Durham went noisily out of the studio and cluttered down the stairs, while Paul Lowther drew his easel into a better light. “Poor old Bart,” he said, smiling; “yes, he and Luce will be as happy as the day is long.” He stopped, gazing dreamily at the head he had been painting. “Yes,” he said, softly, “it is like her. She fills my very being, and I involuntarily produce her features when I paint. Go —leave Paris?” he said, excitedly. “No, impossible. They could not take her to that wretched island. I wonder what Madame Dulau is, and when she will come.” He paused to think. “Yes; she must be rich,” he said, softly; “and lam comparatively poor. Wha: will she say to me when I tell her all? I suppose she is a Frenchwoman, too. Went with her husband when he emigrated to Hayti. What a change from gay Paris! Well, some men have those tastes. But what will she say to me when she comes? What is she like! Some hard, stern Frenchwoman, I suppose, accustomed to her plantation and her slaves. lamin no hurry to meet her. Better go on in this dreamy life for—yes, my darling, I love you with all my heart.” » So mused and dreamed on Paul Lowther in his studio, and there was very little more painting done that day. (To he continued.)