Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1895 — A GOLDEN DREAM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A GOLDEN DREAM

CHAPTER V.—(Continued.) “Well, Deff, what do you think of it? I knew it was only a question of how much.” “You’ll never be mad enough to go?” “I shall, and you will, too. Bah, man, are you going to be frightened about a little negro jugglery! They are childish, and their acts the same.” “But you heard what she said. Those who fight against the serpent die.” “If they let him sting, of course. But we shall not do that. Deffrard, I have won. The day is not far-off when I shall be at the head of affairs, and you shall be my most trusted chief. Yes, we will take our revolvers to-night and we will go.” They walked back in silence, while, without heeding the laughter and chatter which sprung up as soon as the two young men were out of sight, Mahme sat for a time motionless and rapt in thought, her hand that stretched out upon the bar clutching the coin. A louder burst of laughter than usual brought her back to herself, and she slowly drew in her arm, opened her hand, gazed at the coins for a few moments with her face wrinkled up into a look of disgust, and then deliberately spat upon them. “A curse upon his money!” she said, hoarsely; “but I was obliged—l was obliged.” She turned the coins over in her hand, and her face softened into a pleasant smile as she seemed to gloat over the money just before taking out a bag, and dropped the pieces in one by one, the chink they gave making her eyes brighten with satisfaction. “More, and more, and more,” she said aloud as she replaced the bag, and then, resting her head upon her hand, she sat there thinking, while the laughter outside became more boisterous and loud. But the mirth of the black, people who spent so much of their lives basking in the sunshine outside her veranda did not interrupt her train of' thought, which was with Etienne Saintone and the risks he would be bound to run that night at the feast.

CHAPTER VI. “Hallo! old fellow,” cried Bart Durham, “going out? Phew!” he whistled, “What a dandy!” “Don’t fool, Bart,” cried Paul, excitedly. “Thank heaven, you’ve come.” “My dear boy, what is it? Something wrong ?” “Wrong!” cried Paul. “Read that.” “From your sister,” cried Bart, taking the letter handed to him and running through it quickly. “Left the convent. Staying with a Madame Saintone, at the Hotel Devine—going back to the West Indies at once. My dear old fellow!” Bart Durham caught his friend’s hands in his. “Paul, old chap,” he sad, “is it so serious as this?” “Serious? Man, I love her, and she is going to be dragged away from me perhaps for us never to meet again. I’ve often laughed with you at these sentimental French fellows, who shut themselves up with a pot of charcoal, but I can feel for them now.” “No, you can’t,” said Bart, savagely; “and don’t talk like a fool. You’re an Englishman. But, I say, this is very sudden. What are you going to do?” “Go to the hotel at once and see her. Come with me.” “I —really, old fellow, I don’t think: ” “Lucie is there with her.” “Oh,” said Bart, quickly, “I’ll come. Do I look very shabby?” “I must talk to her and persuade her not to go,” said Paul, excitedly. “She must not, she shall not go.” “Gently, old fellow, gently. Your sister says that the mother has sent for her, and you know it was expected.” “Yes, I know it was expected, but don’t stand there talking, man. Come On.” Half an hour later the two' young men stepped out of a fiacre in the Rue Royale, and after sending up their cards they were ushered up into a handsome room, where a tall Creole lady, whose perfectly white hair shaded a thin angular yellowface, rose to meet them with their cards in her hand, while a pale, fragile-looking girl of about twenty also rose, and looked sharply from one to the other, and, evidently satisfied with the young artist’s appearance, let her eyes dwell longest upon him. y . ’ - • “Madame Saintone,” said Paul, quickly, and then hesitating slightly, “my sister is staying..with you. May I see her?” “Oh, certainly,” said the lady, speaking in French, with a very peculiar accent. “Antoinette, my love, will you ask Mademoiselle Lowther to come?” The girl gave her head a slight toss, then darted a keen look at Paul, and moved toward a door at the farther end of the room. Bart hurrying to open it for her, and receiving a very contemptuous bow for his pains. “Your sister is with us for a day or two to try and keep her friend in good spirits. Paah! child. Mademoiselle Dulau—you—er—know?” “Yes—yes—well,” said Paul, hastily. “That is, I have seen her once or twice, when visiting my sister at the convent.” “Indeed!” said the lady, with her eyes contracting, and her tw-o lips seeming to grow thinner as a thought flashed through her brain. But at that moment the door was reopened, and Luce entered with her arm round Aube, pale, excited, and trembling. Luce fled to her brother’s arms, and as she kissed him she whispered: “Oh, Paul, darling; I made her come with me.” “Miss Dulau—Aube,” said Paul, as he took both the hands which were resigned to him, cold and trembling, while Aube’s dark eyes looked full in his, with a sad, desponding expression that thrilled him to the core. Paul did not loosen his hold of those hands, but led their ow-ner to a settee, while following his example, Bart took Luce’s, making her turn scarlet, as she faltered half hysterically: “Yoii have come with my brother, Mr. Durham ?” “I am afraid I shall be de trop,” said Madame Saintone, shrugging her shoulders, and looking meaninly at the young couples, her eyes resting longest on Paul with a slight frown; but no one spoke. “As chaperone to Mademoiselle Dulau, I hardly, perhaps- ” “Oh!” cried Luce, quickly, “we are all such very old friends, madame. You need not mind at all.” “Indeed!” said the lady, with a forced laugh. “Ah, well; I will leave you then

for a little while. I shall be in the next room if you want me. No, no; do not disarrange yourselves;” and she swept out of the room, her magnificent silk rustling as if the leaves on the carpet were real, and dead. “Thank heaven!” said Paul to himself. Then, leaving Aube for the moment, “Bart, old fellow,” he whispered, “keep Luce with you. I must win my darling now, or I shall go mad.” “Trust me,” said the young doctor, hoarsely; and then to himself: “And if I don’t make much of my chance I’m an ass. I only wish though that she was ill.” Paul was back on the settee, and Lucie not unwillingly allowed Bart to take her hand, as if he were about to feel her pulse, and lead her to a chair in a window recess, where they were out of sight of the others. “Aube, dearest,” said Paul, excitedly, as he took one of the cold hands, and gazed into the wistful eyes again, “tell me, is this all true?” “Yes,” she said, almost in a whisper; “and it seems to me a dream.” “A dream!” he said passionately. “No, it is a terribly reality. Aube, I must speak out now. For years—since the first time I saw you with my sister yonder, I loved you.” “Oh, hush!” she whispered, faintly. “No, I must speak—as a man should when his happiness is at stake. Ever since then my life has gone on happily, for though I have hardly seen you, I have felt that Luce was w’**-. you, my sister, and she has grown to like you.” “Yes—yes,” said Aube, faintly. “She has written to mb constantly. It was she who sent me your photograph, which has always been near me, so that I could see you and think about you and dare to hope that some day the love which has gone on growing would be returned. Ns>, no, let your hand stay here. Don’t tell me it was presumption. For the past year I have felt that I must tell you of my love, but something seemed to say, wait, the time will come. For how could I dare to suggest such thoughts to you in your calm, peaceful retreat. And I have waited, and should have waited longer, but for this dreadful blow. Aube, dearest, give me some hope. Let me feel that some day you will be mine.” She shook her head sadly. “What?” “How can I promise you that?” she said in a broken voice. “I have always thought of you as Luce’s brother and what is dear to her has become dear to me.” “Ah!” he cried, and he would have pressed her to his hehrt, but she shrank from him. “No,” she said, half reproachfully. “But, Aube, dearest, you must not—you shall not go.” “What!” cried the girl, with more animation, and her eyes dilating. “You must not leave us—Luce, who has treated you as a sister—dearent, you must not leave me. Aube, you are no longer a girl; be my dearest honored wife. I am not rich, but ” “And my mother—her prayer to me to join her again,” said Aube, reproachfully. “She has not though- of the danger—of the cruelty of dragging you away from those who love you. When she knows she will withdraw this terrible command. Aube, dearest, you will stay?” She looked at him again with her lar’ge eyes full of the reproach she felt as she slowly shook her head. “It is impossible,” she said. “I must go.” “Then you never loved me!” he cried, passionately., “Loved you?” she said, dreamily. “I do not know. You have always been Luce’s brother to me, and I would have suffered sooner than have given you pain.”

“And yet—now you know all.” “Paul, brother, you are cruel to me; you will break my heart,” she said, faintly, as the tears began to fall silently. “Then you do love me, Aube?” Her lips were silent, but her eyes, as they rested on his, said yes; and again he would have elapsed her in his arms but she shrank away. “No,” she whispered. “I must go—she has waited all these years—my mother. I must go.” “Aube!” he cried, wildly. “I shall never forget the happy days I have passed here —never forget you—but have pity on me. These partings—l am so weak, and ill, Luce, Luce—sister—help me —what shall I do?” At the first cry Luce darted to her side, and Aube threw herself in her arms, weeping silently, as she laid her head upon his shoulder. “Tell me,” she whispered, faintly. “What shall I say to him, Aube? All that you have said to me —that you will never forget us, and that some day we may meet again—that you think you love him, dear?” “Hush, hlish!” whispered Aube. “But I must speak,” whispered Luce, in a broken voice, “that you will never think of anyone but him, and that some day—- “ May we come in now?” said a sharp, thin voice; and without waiting for consent Madame Saintone entered with her daughter, who fixed her eyes in a halfmocking, contemptuous way on Paul, evidently meaning the look to be provocation, but it failed of effect. “We are quite ashamed to have driven you from your room, madame,” said Luce, hurriedly, as Aube hastily dried her eyes. “Oh, it is nothing, my dear. I am glad to help you all to say good-by, but our charming Aube will soon forget all this. There is all the excitement of the visit and welcome. All so new to one fresh from the seclusion of the convent. I wish you were going, too, my dear. We should be so happy. I could show you our lovely seas and skies, so blue as you cannot think, and our charming land, where our dear Aube’s sweet mamma is waiting to take her darling to hen heart. You will say (jood-by now, for we have to go to our dinner.” . Aube looked wildly at Paul as Madame Saintone passed her arm about her waist, sending a chill through her as if she were the evil angel whose mission it was to part her from him she felt that she must love. “Adieu, Monsieur Paul Lowther. I will take great care of your dear sister till she goes back to the pension—the day after to-morrow, when we set off for Havre to sail. So delightful to see you all like brothers and sisters together. Adieu, adieu."

"To be bowed out like that,” cried Paul, as soon as they were in the street. “Oh, I feel as if I could kill that woman. Has she some designs of her own?” “Stuff, man. stuff! What designs could she have.? Come, cheer up, old fellow. Some day perhaps Madame Dulau may come back to Paris and bring her daughter here. She is young, and there is plenty of time.” “Confound you! Drop that wretched stereotyped phrase about patience and waiting. Bart, she loves me. It is breaking her heart to leave me, and as for me I ” “Look here. Paul, old man. If you talk any stupid stuff about suicide I’ll kick yon—no. I’ll poison you myself, and bring you back again.” “Who talks of suicide?” said Paul, with his face glowing, “when life is opening to him—a very paradise which an angel will share.” “What?” cried Bart. “I say, old fellow, do come down off those verbal stilts.” “She loves me, Bart, and this business has made me certain of the truth.” “I wish you would speak plain English," muttered Bart. “And there will be no parting, old fellow; no more sorrow.” “My dear boy, what do you mean? The poor girl must go.” “Yes, old fellow, and I go, too. In the same boat.” “Hatter’s nothing to it,” cried Bart. “You’re mad as a March hare.” (To be continued.)