Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1895 — A JUST PUNISHMENT. [ARTICLE]

A JUST PUNISHMENT.

Two people were sitting on the veranda of an Indian bungalow; a tall man of about forty, handsome and bronzed, and a girl about fifteen years younger, fair and delicately pretty. From within came the distant sound of a piano and violin, and without, at the bottom of the compound, was the ceaseless sigh and whisper of the river. “The air feels almost like England today,” said the man, “When I shut my eyes I can fancy myself at home.” “Do you long so much for England?" said the girl, looking up with a smile. “It’s all so new to me, and so full of interest, that I don’t want to go back at all.” “Ah, Miss Graham, if you had been an exile for ten years, as I have, you’d know what the longing is.” “Ten years!” said the girl, sympathetically. “Yes, I shall want to go back long before that.” “I was only home for a month then,” went on the man, as if he found it hard to leave the subject. “Twenty years of my life I have spent in strange countries and among strange peoples, and now I’m getting old and England is calling, calling to me louder and louder as the days go by. I’ve learned what it is to be homesick, Miss Graham.” “Then why not go home?” said the girl, gently. “Surely” “Why not ?” the man laughed a little bitterly. “You see lam reaping the rewards of a misspent youth. I got into scrapes when I was at home—l wasn’t worse than other people, but I was a bit more reckless. I belong to a respectable family, you see, and it’s part of the contract that I don’t go back unless” “Unless—what?” asked the girl, softly. “Unless I marry, and take my wife back with me.” “So it’s either slavery or exile,” said the girl, laughing. '‘Don’t laugh, Miss Graham,” said the man, earnestly. “The truth is, I have never seen a woman I wished to make my wife, until” “Alison,” said a voice at the window, “will you have a scarf? There is quite a breeze, and your dress is. very thin.” The man muttered something under his breath, as the girl rose and'turned to take the scarf. She stood at the window a few minutes, and odd words and phrases of talk, punctuated with laughter, came brokenly to the man’s ears. “There goes my chance,” he said, under his breath. He got up and leaned over the railing looking out upon the river. When the girl came back to her seat he turned towards her. “Do you mind if I smoke, Miss Graham?” he said. “Oh, no, I like it,” she answered, smiling. She leaned back in her chair, gathering the scarf round her, and looked up ft him, still smiling, while he lit his cigar.

“Jessie bas been telling me a most absurd story that George bas just brought borne,” she said. “Tbe colonel's wife bas got a new nurse girl from England, and she has been causing great interest and excitement among.tbe men. To-day, two of them, each considering himself tbe favored swain, fell to quarreling about her, and, at last, there was a regular stand up fight. In tbe end, when some one in authority interfered and separated tbe bruised and gory combatants, the girl annpunped her preference for another nmn j who had been a peaceable spectator of the ! fight. George says no one was more j surprised than the man himself, and ! there were at least six other men who considered they had claims. One can’t help laughing, though it isn’t a thing to be ! amused about, really. I think they ought j to send the girl straight back to England.” “Oh, come, Miss Graham, perhaps she did not mean to do any harm.” “No,” said the girl, bitterly. “The people who flirt never mean to d<? harm, I believe, but that does not make it any less cruel.” “Would you—would you be very down on a man that flirted ?” “Oh, it’s not really worse in a man than in a woman. It’s heartless aud mean, and contemptible on either side.” “But, Miss Graham,” remonstrated the man, “it doesn’t follow always that flirting merits all the hard names you give it. Sometimes I fancy, it may be a very innocent form of amusement.” “Ah, you don’t understand, you don’t know.” said the girl, earnestly. “You are too simple and honorable yourself to guess what it may mean when it’s ‘innocent amusement’ on one side and not on the other. That game is so seldom played fairly on both sides. Perhaps I should have thought like you but for something that happened when 1 was very young. I can never forget—l can never think iightly of flirting again——” Her voice stopped with a little quick catch of the breath; tbe man looked at her with a face full of sympathy and interest. Presently she went on again: “I’ll tell you, if you like; it doesn’t matter now who knows. I had a friend—my dearest friend, though she was some years older than I. She died six years ago, and 1 was with her much of the time that she was ill. They called it all sorts of things, aud no one knew but I that she died of a broken heart. I suppose it was one of those cases of innocent amusement

“Her people used to go every summer to a little watering place, where they had a cottage and a boat One year there was a young man there, handsome, clever and attractive, and with some halo of romance and heroism about him that made him specially interesting Mabel liked him from the first, and when he began to devote himself to her, as he did almost at once, there grew up an understanding between them that, in Mabel’s eyes, was equivalent to an engagement. You see my friend was quite incapable of flirting, imd it never occurred to her that an honorably. man could mean anything but that. Of course, in her eyes, this man was the embodiment of honor, and courage, and every other virtue. “Mabel had said nothing to her people. There was no formal engagement, you know, bo ring, and Mabel was a sby

and sensitive girt. She dreaded the publicity and tbe fuss of congratulations. She was not afraiu of opposition, her lover was a good enough parti, and she was glad that no one should know for a little . while. One day she awoke to the fact that she ought, perhaps, to speak. Her I lover had persuaded her to meet him by the river, after dusk, and they were to go for a row. Mabel bad rather reluctantly consented to this plan, for her people were rather straight-laced, and she did not think they would like it. In fact, after first intending to tell her mother, as a matter of course, as the day wore on she found it more and more difficult to speak of it. She worried herself quite ill, for she did not want to break her promise, and she could see no way of keeping it. As luck would have it, her people were going next door for a quiet rubber after dinner. Mabel looked so wretched that her mother suggested she should stay at home and go early to bed, and she gladly accepted the excuse. . “As soon as they were gone she put on a light wrap and hastened to the trysting place, determining as she went that she j would ask her lover to speak to her people next day. The path by the river was a private footway used by tbe residents anfi visitors by courtesy of the owner. The meeting-place was an old boat-house, about a mile and a half away. When Mabel reached it she was hot and exhausted, for she had hurried, partly because she was a little late and partly from nervousness. She heard the sound of oars out in the stream, and paused a moment lo listen, thinking it was her lover’s boat, but it was going towards the harbor, and the sound soon died away. She sat down on a log and waited. Presently footsteps coming along the path made her jump up in a fright. A terror of discovery suddenly came over her. She crept round the boat-house, gently pushed the door open, and stepped inside, so that she was quite hidden by the shatlo v. The footsteps stopped close by and Mabel was in fear that her hiding place would be discovered. Presently she heard more footsteps, and then voices; a party of three or four girls had come out for an evening walk. They did not pass the boat-house, however, and after a little while they turned and retracted their steps. Mabel waited until their voices died away in the distance, and then followed them stealthily. She was cold and dizzy, but she did not dare to hurry lest she should overtake them. She got home without having been seen by any one, and went straight to bed.

“In the morning she was very ill, low fever the doctor said, and it was some days before she was able to see any one, At last, when she was getting better, she learned the truth. Her lover had gone away—had left the country the very night that he had asked her to meet him, no one knew how or why. ‘Called away on business,’ his people gave out, and nobody else had any explanation to offer. But Mabel knew, for in the early days of her convalescence, when she was allowed to sit in an armchair on the veranda, or to huve her bath-chair pulled Up among the bracken and heather on the headland, first one and then another of her own personal girl friends came and sobbed out just such another story of heartbreak and deception. And not a word of explanation or repentance did he send to any one of them. Mabel kept her own counsel, and no one suspected that her illness was anything but physical. She never got j really well again. They took her abroad, j but she never seemed to get auy stronger, j At last she begged them to take her home : and let her die in peace, and the doctors ■ said they might as well let her have her way. So they took her back tc the little | house at Seafield”—

“Seafield!” The half-burnt cigar dropped from the man’s nervous fingers as the word broke from him involuntarily. “Yes, do you know Seafield?” asked the girl in surprise. “And your friend—was it Mabel Calmsac?” Ilis face had gone very pale under the tan. “Mabel Cahusac, yes. Oh! Captain Aldenham, did you know Mabel?” “I met her—once," Fred Aldenham spoke with a great effort. “Miss Graham, did you hear—the name—of the man?” “No,” said the girl, sadly, “Mabel would not tell me that. And I don’t even know whether his people were visitors or residents in the place. I am sorry, because I have so wished I could meet the man and see him get the punishment he deserves. But, you see, I might meet him without ever knowing.” “For which he may thank heaven,” said Aldenham fervently. “You knew Seafield and you knew Mabel!" said the girl, softly and wonderingly. “How strange it all seems ! The place has often been in my mind since I came here. The river sounds just like this, and the gardens slope down to its banks just like the compound here.” “Yes,” said Aldeuham in a low tone. “It was of Seafield I was thinking when I said the place reminded me of home. 1 like to shut my eyes, sometimes, aud forget the palms and the tree ferns, aud fancy that the wind is stirring in the oaks and beeches of the old garden.” “I don’t wonder yon long for home,” said the girl, gently. “Seafield is such a lovely spot! It must have been hard to come away.”

“Yes,” said Aldenham, rising suddenly. “When a man gets to my age things begin to alter. When I was a youngster I wanted to see life. I wanted to get as much fun out of the old show as possible, and I was glad of the chance of getting in touch with a younger, freer, more spontaneous growth of civilization. I tried everything, Miss Graham. I’ve he%led cattle on the prairie, I’ve washed for gold in an African river. And finally, fate landed me here, in the midst of an English society, more conventional, more dull, more corrupt than any I could find at home, id order that I might learn, I suppose, the value of the English life I had forfeited. I have learnt it, and I long for nothing better now than a cozy house in my native place, with a few acres to farm, and a boijt on the river. I want to know my brothers’ and sisters’ children, aud, before it’s too late, I want to see my mother.”

There was silence for a few moments; the girl was deeply moved, but she could think of nothing that was not trite and commonplace to say. The endless sweet song of the river beneath them seemed to be mocking at the human passion it had stirred. “Miss Graham,” said Aldenham, speaking with sudden resolve, “I’ve donfe many things in my life that you would not like —that I don’t like myself; but I believe no man can feel himself worthy of the woman he asks to be his wife. Perhaps—there may be some things you would put against that on the other side. I don’t wau’t to plead that; if there’s any hope for me it won’t be because I deserve it, but because ” “Oh, please don’t say anything more— I’m sq sorry, so very, very sorry.” The girl had risen and was standing before him with a face of utter bewilderment and .consternation. “Oh, Captain Aldenham, I never knew, I never guessed—oh, I hope you didn’t think ” “No, I had no right to think—anything,” said the man, gravely and sadly.

‘‘Miss Graham, if I wait—is there no hope for me?" The girl shook her head. “It would be no use,” she said. “Miss Graham—will you tell me —is there some one else?" Alison lifted her head, and steadied her voice by an effort. “Yes, Captain Aldenham;” she said, “there is—some one else.” She held out her hand to him in farewell. and he took it a moment between both his own. “Then good-by,” be said. “Good-by,” said Alison, gently: then she turned and went swiftly in through the window. Fred Aldenham stood a moment listening to the wash of the river. Then he drew a cigar from his case, and cut the end off slowly and deliberately. “Poor Mabel,” he said, as be lighted it, “after all, she has her revenge.”