Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1898 — A WOMANS HEART [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A WOMANS HEART

CHAPTER XXVI. Lady Ewell was seated in the drawing room at Onslow Gardens that evening, with something like pleasure depicted on her pallid countenance. There had been a marked change in her appearance during the progress of the last few months, palpable even to those who had daily intercourse with her. Nothing so rapidly ages a woman and destroys her beauty os the use of anesthetics. They possess as destructive a power as stimulants, and sometimes a more fatal one. Lena was evidently attired with the greatest care. Her dress was perfect, and her golden tresses as attractive as ever. But though veloutine and other cosmetics had been liberally used on her beautifully formed features, they were powerless to hide the ravages which her unfortunate predilection had caused. Her eyes were glazed and heavy, and her eyelids puffed and swollen. The back of her hands, too, had the same appearance as though water had formed under the skin. Her complexion was very white—a dull, thick white, on ■which the rouge refused to remain, or in which it seemed to sink as soon as applied—a frequent occurrence when people are out of health. Added to this, her gait was frequently unsteady, or her sight iseemed suddenly to fail her, and she would be forced to put out her hands and grasp the first article with which they came in contact, to save her from falling. On this occasion, however, she seemed more like herself, as her eyes and ears were constantly on the alert to know what went on below, and she found it impossible to rivet her attention on the novel she held in her hand. “N "What is the matter, Lena?” inquired Lady Otto anxiously. "Do you expect anyone to-night?” “Oh, no! It is nothing—nothing,” she said, with ready deceit. “You are looking very ill, my dear. I am really distressed by your appearance. I wish you would take Dr. Marshall’s advice, and go to the ggqside for a few days,” continued her mother. “Oh! don’t worry, mamma,” was the impatient rejoinder, “and please don’t stare at me in that way. I can’t see any difference in my looks, unless it is that I am rather pale. And everyone is pale in London during the season.” Lady Otto returned to her work with a sigh, and Lena resumed her attitude of expectation. The person she expected was Captain Dorsay. After a perfect siege of invitations and reproaches the fortress had capitulated, and he had consented to visit her. He had only done so, however, for his own peace of mind. Lady Ewell’s correspondence and messengers had become a nuisance to him. He was afraid, moreover, lest her penchant should become patent to society,'and reach the ears of her husband. Friends are always so obliging in repeating exactly the piece ’of intelligence that one wishes not to be told. And until this very evening when Lena sat in the drawing room in momentary expectation of his arrival, Captain Dorsay had had his own reasons for not 'wishing to break with Sir Wilfrid Ewell. So he promised to pay her a visit. And he meant that visit to be anything but a pleasant one. He had made up his mind Jo tell Lady Ewell plainly that their intimacy must come to an end, and that he had no intention of giving up his friendship with her husband on her account, nor of hearing his own name spoken of in society in connection with hers. It would have been a very stormy and violent interview, had it taken place. But after meeting Rosie Ewell, Captain Dorsay decided not to go to Onslow Gardens. The man had some good traits in him, and one was that though he was very lax in indulging his fancies, he did not follow vice for its own sake. So he wrote to Lady Ewell instead. As he had promised to leave England for a time, her morbid passion for him would not have an opportunity of venting itself, and his absence would obviate the necessity of telling her some unpalatable truths. So that his letter contained no allusion to anything more personal than his proposed departure. But it was none the more welcome to Lena on that account. She received it by the latest post, and when her patience was nearly exhausted by waiting for him. It contained but a few words —but they seared her vanity like a red-hot iron. Not one wish expressed to hear from her! Not one hint ns to where he was going or to whom! Lena's hands dropped the sheet of note paper upon her lap as if they were powerless to hold it. “Anything the matter, my dear?” said her mother, inquisitively. ' She knew her daughter's moods by heart, and was certain that the letter was in some way connected with her unusual excitement, and that disappointment had been the result of it. “Matter!” repeated Lena, snappishly. “What should be the matter? Cannot I receive a letter without making its conjtents patent to the world?” “Certainly, my love, certainly. I thought perhaps it might be some communication from Sir Wilfrid.” “Sir Wilfrid troubles me with a great jnany communications, doesn’t he?” said JLena, with a sneer. “He would write oftener if he thought you cared to hear from him,, ipy dear. lam sure of that. I think you are treating your husband very ill, Lena, and playtag your cards very badly. He is very fond of you, and he gave you every possible liberty at Lambscote, and every possible indulgence.” “If you can’t find anything, newer to say than that, mamma, you’d better say nothing at all.” “But I wish to know for certain what you intend to do, Lena, for this state of things cannot go on forever.” “What can you have to complain of, mamma? Sir Wilfrid pays you very handsomely and regularly. I will say that for him.” “He is more generous than I wish him to be,” replied Lady Otto. “It is not money I am thinking of, but your reputation.. You have now been with me for eight months, and people are beginning to talk. They do not believe any longer in your stories about your health. They say that if you are ill, the proper place is by the side of your husband. And I intend—by the duke's advice —to write and tell Sir Wilfrid my whole mind on the subject to-morrow.” Lena rose haughtily from her seat, and said, apparently with the utmost indifference: “Very well, mamma, do just as you please. It’s all the same to me.” And she passed upstairs to her own room. CHAPTER XXVII. Three hours later Lena and her maid were speeding down to Dover. The infatuated woman had decided that she must apeak to Captain Dorsay before he left .England, and no consideration es shame

or propriety deterred her. She instinctively felt that he would put up at the best hotel in the town. Jack Dorsay never catered so well for anythiug as his own comfort and convenience, so, on arrival, she ordered her cabman to drive to the second best, where she ordered a meal, for the sake of appearances, for her servant and herself. When it was over she put on a thick veil and went out for a walk. She ordered the maid to await her return in the hotel. She had no intention of being either watched or followed. When Lena was clear of the premises she walked rapidly in the direction of the principal hotel, a*nd asked if Captain Dorsay was staying there. Captain Dorsay, who had only arrived a few minutes before, and was in the smoking room enjoying a cigar, was astonished to hear that a lady wished to speak to him. “A lady! Impossible! What's her name?” “She didn’t give any name, sir. I've shown her into a private room.” Jaek Dorsay’s first idea—a very wild one—was that Rosie’s gratitude to him had developed itself in following him to Dover. He threw down his cigar and went quiclWy to the room indicated by the ■waiter. What was his disgust at recognizing in his mysterious vistor the woman he thought he had so successfully eluded. “You here, Lady Ewell!” he exclaimed, with most uncomplimentary emphasis. “What on earth has brought you down to Dover?” “You have, Jack,” she answered, “you only. Oh! what made you write that cruel note? It has nearly driven me out of my senses.” “I think it must have driven you quite out of them, if it induced you to follow me here! Good heavens! Do you know the risk you are running? Suppose your mother or your husband got wind of such an escapade, you would ruin yourself for nothing. In heaven’s name, Lena, let me entreat you to go back at once to town.” “And you would drive me forth again without a single word of kindness! You would leave England without even bidding me farewell! Oh, you are cruelly, cruelly changed!” “I am changed, and you know it, and ought to rejoice at the improvement. You have reproached me bitterly for not keeping up my former intimacy with you. What! have you so little sense of honor as to wish me to make love to the wife while I take the hand of her husband!” Lena laughed harshly. “Honor! honor! For heaven’s sake, Jack, call things by their right names. Say you don’t love me any longer, that you are sick of me, or you have found some woman who pleases you better, but don’t try to defend your own fickleness on the charge of honor.” “Perhaps you are right,” said Dorsay quietly. “Perhaps between people like you and me the simple truth is the best. Well, then, Lena—ungallant as it may seem to say so 2 -! am tired of you. Tired of your scheming, your duplicity, your heartlessness. And, whatever you may do or sny, we two shall never again be to one another what we have been.” “I will not go home!” she exclaimed passionately. “I will go with you—only with you! What do I care for my family or society? Let them take care of themselves. Is my whole Jife to be wrecked and made rhiserable for the sake of a few long faces? I shall go with you.” “Then if yon are deaf to any claims of morality or affection, Lena, I tell you plainly that you shall not go -with me.” “Take me abroad with you; make me your wife when the storm has blown over, and I will place every penny I possess unconditionally in your hands. To a man of your proclivities I could give no greater proof of my attachment!” “Make you my wife! Never! Not if I were free ten times over. But I am not free! Mary Dorsay still lives, and will live long after I have sunk into an unhallowed grave.” Lady Ewell trembled with agitation. “Your wife still lives? Lady Beauchamp assured me she was dead.” “A mere report. She is madder than ever, and stronger than ever. The two always go together. But were she dead in truth, Lena, it would make no difference to you.”

"You despise me, then?” “I do despise you—heartily! Listen, to me. There was a time when you saw that my whole soul was becoming absorbed—wrongly, I confess, but still absorbed —in the fresh, simple affection of an innocent, pure-minded child. Had you come to me then, as a friend, and warned me, privately, against the ruin that I might bring upon myself and her, I should have been stayed in my downward path, and I should have honored you for your interference. But you chose another method —one from which every honorable minded woman would have shrunk. In order to wound her feelings and gratify your revenge, you disgraced me in her eyes, and you trampled on yourself. You opened her mind to evil of which it had never dreamed and drove her—in horror —from the protection of her brother’s home. Lena, I have never forgiven you that sin—and I never will.” “I did it from love of you,” she faltered. ♦ “You did it from love of revenge. You thought to bind me more closely to yourself, and you lost me altogether. And your Nemesis has come upon you. I am leaving England to-day, solely at the request of Rosie Ewell.” “It is all over, then,” she said, in a voice choked with emotion, as she turned to the door. “Good-by, Jack, forever.” He let her go without further remonstrance, and went back to the smoking room, only thankful that the interview was over. A few hours later, he was safely landed on the other side of the Channel. The same evening brought telegrams to Lady Otto St. Blase and Sir Wilfrid Ewell summoning them at once to Dover. But the utmost speed they could command only brought them to the bedside of a corpse. And whether Lady Ewell had taken an overdose of chloral by accident or design remained a mystery that day and ever afterward. CHAPTER XXVIII. It was more than twelve months since the events related in the last chapter had occurred. The body of the beautiful Lady Ewell was lying at rest in the vault of her forefathers. Lady Otto St. Blase had taken up a permanent abode in Paris, and Captain Dorsay had never been heard of since the day of Lena’s death. June was onee more shedding its wealth of scent and sound and color over the land, and Lambscote had attained its highest stage of beauty. The trees in the park were rich with verdure; the bees were humming through the limes and

chestnuts on the !awn, and the beds of flowers shone like living gems. Amidst it all sat Rosie EweH, a broad-brimmed hat upon her head, her work in her hand, and a look of complete contentment on her face. She had now been a year at Lambscote with her brother. She had brought him down there after the terrible illness that followed the shock of his wife’s sudden death—a ghost of his former self—and had nursed him back to health and strength again. And now there seemed but little more needed to make her happy. She reveled in the sunshine and flowers. She adored the old hall and its park-like acres. And she thought—as she had always done—that Sir Wilfrid was the best and dearest and most lovable brother in the world. Sir Wilfrid came across the lawn to meet her. He was looking remarkably well and happy. The color had returned to his face, the light to his eye. He was but six-and-twenty, but he might have been eighteen. Rosie could not help commenting on hia appearance. “My dear Wilfrid, how bonny you look! Who would imagine you were the same miserable specter I traveled down to Lambscote with this time last year? One could almost count your bones then, and now you are positively growing fat.” A shade of pain passed over the baronet's brow. “Don’t allude to it, Rosie. I suffered more then than you can imagine—more than I had thought was possible.” “I think the fever helped rather than hindered you,” she said cheerfully. “When you took that terrible chill getting out of your bed to go down to Dover, I thought, myself, it was all over with you, and I was in despair. But I believe you are really stronger and healthier, Wilfrid, now than you were before. How thankful we should be!” “It is all due to your careful nursing, then, my dear little sister, and now comes your reward. Can’t you guess from my face that 1 nave some good news for you this morning?” “I thought you seemed unusually merry." “I feel so. I have just been going through the books with my bailiff, and I am once more free. The retrenchments of the last twelve months, in which you have so generously assisted me, have covered the deficiency caused by my gambling losses. Ah, Rosie, I shall never touch a card again!” “I am so glad to hear you say so, Wilfrid.” “And dear old Lambscote shall be itself again,” continued Wilfrid joyously, “and hold up its head in the county as it ought to do.” “Ah! something else is needed to make old Lambscote quite itself again,” said Rosie, oracularly. “Indeed! And what is that?” “A mistress! You must marry again, Wilfrid. You know’, it is a positive necessity.” “I suppose I must—some day,” he answered carelessly. But the observation seemed to have stirred up a thought in his breast W’hich would not be put aside again. He fidgeted about the lawn fcr some minutes, talking irrelevantly of his mother, and the chestnut filly, and the good times that were coming for Lambscote. And then, all at once, as though he could keep the secret no longer, he threw himself down upon the grass by his sister’s side. “About the marriage business, Rosie,” he said nervously, as he drew closer and put his head in her lap; “I should like to say a few’ words to you.” “All right, dear,” she answered, with a kiss, and a caressing hand laid on his dark locks. “I want to tell you a story—will you listen to me?” “You know I will.” “It concerns an episode in my early life —a very dark episode, Rosie; and, except that during this past year you have been so much my friend and counselor, one that I should be ashamed to relate to you. You have always thought better of me than I deserved. You have believed me to be an honorable, generous man, incapable of a mean or unworthy action. You have judged me by your own standard. You will see now, when you have heard my story, that I am no better than a criminal.”

“I don't believe it,” said Rosie, stoutly. “Years ago, my dear, when I was quite a lad—between nineteen and twenty—l was thrown in contact with a young girl, pure and innocent as yourself, but beneath me in birth and position. I fell in love with her, notwithstanding, and after a while I married her.” “What!” exclaimed Rosie, in her surprise. “You were married, Wilfrid —married before you met Lena?” “Just so. But hear me to the end. The marriage was a secret one. I knew how angry my father would be if he heard of it, and I was afraid of his displeasure. So I manned her under an assumed name, when we were both under age, and I had to take a false oath in order to do it.” “A false oath!—oh, that was terrible. But, Wilfrid, what was her name?” “Never mind her name. We lived together as man and wife for two years, and. then I came into the title and estate. Talking the matter of my marriage over with my solicitor, Mr. Parfitt, I discovered that I had never been married at all.” “How could that be, Wilfrid?” “There were legal informalities in the ceremony, Rosie—too intricate to explain to you now—which rendered it null and void. To all intents and purposes, therefore, I found I was free.” “But you were not really free,” interposed Rosie quickly. “Surely she was your wife, Wilfrid?” “Ah, Rosie! that is the sad part of it. Did I not tell you that I am a criminal? Can you believe that your brother was so weak and so wicked as to rupture such a sacred tie? Yet I did do so.” “Oh! the poor girl! What did she say?” “Don’t ask me what she said. She opposed it with all the force of her strong love for me, but I refused to listen—and I deserted her! That is the secret of my life.” “Poor, dear boy!” said Rosie compassionately, stroking his head. “How you must have suffered!” “Yes, I have suffered, but less than I deserved. You know the rest. I met Lena and married her, and my marriage proved most unfortunate. Now it is all over, nnd I am free again. What shall I do? Give me your advice, dear little sister, and I will be guided by it.” “Have you met —that poor girl—your first wife —again, Wilfrid?” asked Rosie softly. “Yes. I have met her again with a child of mine in her arms —bearing her lot patiently, nobly, uncomplainingly; as a good friend, a good daughter, a devoted mother and a faithful wife! That is how I have met her again, Rosie.” "I have guessed it. I understand everything now. I know whom you mean,” cried his sister suddenly; “it is my darling Jane! There is no woman but her in the world so noble and grand as you have described this woman to be. Oh, my dear sister!—my dearest friend! Is it possible that you have borne all this suffering and wrong for our sakes?” “Don’t cry. Rosie—your tears sear my heart like red-hot iron! She doesn’t cry over it, God bless her! She has learned to take me at my full vdlue, and to know how small a loss she has sustained.” “Wilfrid, does she love you still?” “I do wot know. I have not dared to

uk. Give «ne your counsel in the matter.” “Yon ask for my advice, Wilfrid. Hers it is: Go to her at once. Don’t waste a day—an hour—* minute! Go to Jane and ask her, on your knees, to take you back to the shelter of her love again; and bring I her here, as quickly as yon can, to be my sister once more, and the blessing of your own life. Oh, Wilfrid! if you don’t do this, and without delay, I will never call you by the name of brother more!” He left her on the morrow, and-it waa not many weeks before he brought hia second wife home to Lambscote, and installed her as the mistress of the Hall. They live there still —as united and happy a family as is to be found on the broad, fair acres of England. There never was a more dignified nor gracious Lady Ewell than Jane Warner makes, and the county families have taken her on her own merits and forgotten to make any impertinent inquiries about her antecedents. Mrs. Ewell even has been heard to »ay that her dear son Sir W’ilfrid could not possibly have formed a better choice, although the first revelations made to her concerning her new daughter-in-law threw her into violent hysterics. Mrs. Warner lives at Lambscote with her daughter, and to Jane’s delight and the general satisfaction, Sir Wilfrid engaged Miss Prosser, at a liberal salary, to accompany her old friend to her new house in the capacity of companion. So that the poor old mother is perfectly happy, roaming with Miss Prosser over the gardens and estate all day, and is as little troublesome to the household as a weak-witted person can be. The cottage at Chelsea is pulled down, and a terrace of Elizabethan houses is being erected on its site. Jane felt a pang when she first heard the news, but now she is glad of it. She suffered too ’much under that roof to care to revisit it. She would rather know that it exists no more. (The end.)