Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1899 — Worth the Winning. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Worth the Winning.

By The Duchess.

CHAPTER X. Long since the moon has mounted the heavens; now it is at its full. A myriad •tars keep company with it, the hush of sleeping nature pays homage to it. SolManly, slowly, from the old belfry tower the twelve strokes of midnight have rounded on the air. Vera, rising cautiously from beside Griselda, who is, as usual, sleeping the sleep •f the just, slips gently on to the bare white across which the moonbeams are traveling delicately. Sleep has deserted her. Weary at last *f her efforts to lose herself and her hateful thoughts in unconsciousness, she determines to rise and try what study may do for her. She steps lightly across the room, opens the door and speeds with all haste over the corridor, gaunt and ghostly in the dim light, down the grand old staircase, and enters a room on the left •f the library, where one day she made the discovery that comfort was to be found. Striking a match, she lights a lamp upon a side table and proceeds to examine the book shelves. Taking down one that she thinks will please her, Vera kneels upon one of the deep window •eats, looks outward, trying to pierce the •oft and scented gloom. The opening of the door rouses her. It is quite an hour later—nn hour forgotten By her ns she read. With a sudden start •he looks up, turning her face over her •boulder to the door, to see who can be Coming in at this unholy hour. Her heart grows cold within her as she sees —Benton Dysart! In silence they stare at each other. Vera, indeed, so great is her astonishaaeat. forgets to rise, but sits there curled up among her furs, with a little frozen Baek of fear and detestation on her perfect face. “I have disturbed you,” says Seaton st last, breaking the spell, and speaking th a distinctly unnatural tone. “I did hope I should have found privacy somewhere, at some hoar,” says •he, coldly. “I came for a book," says ho, contritekr. “Now that 1 am here, will you perA.aait me to say a terf words in my own defense?” “Oh, defense!” says she, with undisguised scorn. “Certainly. I would prove to you how •atirely you have wronged me," says he, Irmly “I acknowledge that once my father expressed a wish that I should marry you,” coloring darkly, “always provided you were willing to accept me; and I”—slowly—“acceded to that wish.” “Hut why, why?” demands she, flashing round at him. “I do not wonder at your question. It seems impossible there should be a reason,” replies he, coldly; “for ever since the first hour we met you have treated me with uniform unfriendliness, I had almost said discourtesy.” “There is a reason, nevertheless,” says •he, hotly. She has come a step or two •earer to him, and her large, lustrous •yes, uplifted, seem to look defiance into bis. “Your reason I can fathom —but your father’s —that, I confess, puzzles me. Why should he, whose god is money, •hoose the penniless daughter of the brother he defrauded to be ” “Defrauded?" interrupts Seaton, with a frown. “Coll it what you will,” with an expressive gesture of her hand—"undertake bis defense, too; but the fact remains that the iniquitous deed that gave to your father what should have been ours was undoubtedly drawn up by my uncle. I have beard all about it a hundred times. Your father hardly denied it to mine when last writing to him. His taking as home to live with him was, I suppose, n sort of reparation. To marry me to you, and thus give me back the property he stole—is that a reparation, too?” She is as pale as death, and the hands tij.it cliug to the back of the chair near her are trembling. But her lips are firm ■nd her eyes flashing. It occurs to Seaton, gazing at her in breathless silence, that if she could have exterminated him then and there by a look she would have 4oßC.it.

“You. degrade yourself nud me when you talk like that,” says Seaton, who is •ow as pale as she is. “For heaven’s Mike, try to remember how abominably you misrepresent the whole thing. If my father had a freak of this kind in his bead—* desire to see you married to his •nly soi»—surely there was no discourtesy to you contained in such a desire. It was rather—you must see that—a well-meant arrangement on his part. It was more,” boldly. “He lores me; in wishing to see you my wife he paid you the highest •otnpiiment he could. I defy you to regard it in any other light.” “You plead his cause well—it is your •wu,” says she, tapping the back of the ♦hair with taper, angry fingers. “Why take the trouble? Do you think you can bring me to view the case in a lenient ■ght? Am I likely to forget that you—you aided and abetted your father in trytug to force me into this detested marriage*’ “Pray put that marriage out of your lead,” says he, slowly. “You have taken M too seriously. I assure you I would not marry you now if you were as willing as you are unwilling, I can hardly put it stronger.” “When my grandfather left this property to your father,” <he says, slowly, “he left It purposely unentailed. Your fattier, then, were you to cross his wishes, could leave you, as I have been left, penniless. To avoid that, you would fall in with any of his views. You would •ven so far sacrifice yourself as to —maray mef’ Oh, the contempt in her tone! There is a long pause. Then Seaton, striding forward, seizes her by bsth arms and turns her more directly to the light. The grasp of his hands is as a vise, and —afterward—lt seemed to her that be had, involuntarily, as It were, shaken her slightly. “How dare you?” he says, in a low.

concentrated tone. She can see that his face Is very white, and that it is with difficulty he restrains himself; she is conscious, too, perhaps, of feeling a little frightened. Then he puts her quickly from him and turns away. “Pshaw, you are not worth it!” he says, his manner full of the most intense self-contempt. CHAPTER XI. A gleam of moonlight coming through the open window puts the lamp to shame, and compels Vera’s attention. How sweet, how heavenly fair the garden seems, wrapped in those pale, cold beams! She can see it from where she sits on the deep, cushioned seat of the old-fashioned window, and a longing to rise and go into it, to feel the tender night-wind beating on her b«rning forehead, takes possession of her. Catching up a light shawl to cover the evening gown she wears, she steals, carefully as might a guilty soul, by Griselda’s bed, along the dusky corridor, down the staircase, and past the servants’ quarters, where a light under Mrs. Grunch’s door warns her that that remorseless foe has as yet refused to surrender herself to slumber.

A small door leading into the garden is close to this, and moving swiftly up the narrow stone passage that brings her to it she opens the door, and so closing it after her that she can regain the house at any moment, she turns to find herself alone in the exquisite perfumed silence of the nighty How long she thus gives herself up to the sweet new enjoyment of life she hardly knows until she hears the ancient belfry clock telling the midnight hour. It startles her. Has she Indeed been here so long? What if Griselda should wake and be alarmed for her? She moves quickly in the direction of the house, and at last, regaining the inner garden, begins to think her pleasant sojourn at an end. She has neared the shrubberies and involuntarily turns her glance their way as they lie upon her left; involuntarily, too, she seeks to pierce the darkness that envelops them, when she stops, and presses her hand convulsively to her breast. Who is. it—what is it, moving there, in the mysterious gloom? "Don’t be frightened. It is I, Seaton,” says a most unwelcome voice. “Ah!" she says. She is angry beyond doubt, and still further angered by the knowledge that there is more of relief than coldness in the simple exclamation. "I bad no idea you were here at all,” she says, faintly, after a pause that has grown sufficiently long to be awkward. “I am afraid 1 have startled you. If I had known I should not, of course, have come here.” "You make it very hard for me,” she says, with a touch of passionate impatience. “That is unjust," says he, roused in turn. “To make your life easier is my heart's desire.” “Are you succeeding, do you think? Does it,” with gathering scorn, “make my part smoother, when you compel me to see that you stay away, or only come here at hours inconvenient to you, because—because of me?” She turns aside sharply, and walks a step or two away from him. Somehow at this instant, the growing chill of the early night seems to strike more sharply on her senses, and a shiver not to be suppressed stirs her whole frame. “You are cold,” he exclaims, coming up to her with a hasty stride. “What madness it is, your being out at this hour! Come, come back to the house.” She agrees silently to this proposition, and follows him across the grass to the small oaken door that had given her egress—only to find it barred against her! Seaton, having tried it, glances at her in mute dismay. “Crunch must have fastened it, on her way to bed. The bolt is drawn," says he, slowly. “Do you mean that I can't get in?” asks she, as if unable to credit so terrible an announcement. “Oh, I dare say it can’t be so bad as that," hastily. “Only,” hesitating, as if hardly knowing how to explain, “the front door is of course locked and chained, and the servants, with the exception of Grunch, all asleep at the top of the house; a late arrangement of my father’s, as the original servants’ quarters lie below. I am afraid, therefore, that if we knocked forever, it would have* no effect. However, I can try to do something, but in the meantime you must not stay out here in the cold.” “You may feel it cold. I don’t,” returns she .perversely. “Not so long as the moonlight lasts, shall 1 find it lonely either. I,” raising her unfriendly, beautiful eyes to his—"l assure you I shall be quite happy out here, even though I stay till the day dawns and tjie doors are open again.” “ ‘Happy!' ” As he repeats her word he looks at her with a keen scrutiny. “A word out of place, surely; given the best conditions, I hardly dare to believe you' could ever be ‘happy’ at Greycourt.” “Happy or unhappy,” says she, with quick resentment, her mind being distressed by thia awkward fear of having to pass the night from under any roof, “surely it can be nothing to you! Why affect an interest in one who ia as hateful to you as I am?” A little fire has fallen into her tone, and there is ill-sup-pressed contempt in the eyes she lifts to his. Perhaps he is driven by It into an anger that leads to his betrayal. “Hateful to me! Do you think you are that, Vera?” says he, in a low tone, but one full of fierce and sudden passion—passion long suppressed. “Do you honestly believe that?” His manner Is al- 1 most violent, and as he speaks he catches both her hands in his, and crushes them vehemently against his breast “I would to heaven,” he says, miserably, “that that wera aoP’

As If stupefied by surpriiw, Vera stands motionless, her hands lying passively ia his. She is aware that he la'looking at her, with a new, wild, strange expression in his eyes, but a horrible sense of being powerless to resist him numbs all her being. And suddenly, as she struggles with herself, he bends over her, and without warning lifts her hands and presses warm, fervent kisses on the small, cold hands. Then she is aroused Indeed from her odd lethargy, and by a sharp movement wrenches herself free. “Don’t,” she cries, faintly: “it is insufferable! I cannot bear it! Have you no sense of honor left?” Her tone calms him, but something within him revolts against the idea of apology. He loves her— let her know it. He will not go back from that, though her scorn slay him. “There is nothing dishonorable,” he says, steadily. “I love you; I am glad you know it. Despise me If yon can, reject me as I know you will, I am still the better for the thought that I have laid bare to you all my heart. And now—you cannot stay here,” he goes on quickly, as though fearing to wait for her next words; “the night is cold and damp. There is the summer house over there,” pointing in its direction; “go and rest there, till I call you.” Vera hastens to the shelter suggested, and sinking down upon the one seat it contains, a round rustic chair in the last stage of decay, gives way to the overpowering fatigue that for the last hour has been oppressing her. Reluctantly she does this, and quite unconsciously. Obstinately determined to fight sleep to the last, she presently succumbs to that kindly tyrant, and falls into one of the most delicious slumbers she has ever yet enjoyed. How long it lasts she never knows, but when next she opens her eyes with a nervous start, the first flush of rosy dawn is flooding hill and valley and sea. Something lying at her feet disturbs all her preconceived fancies. It must have slipped from her when she rose. Regarding it more earnestly, she acknowledges unwillingly that it is Seaton’s coat, a light gray one. When she was asleep, lost to all knowledge of friend or foe, then he had come and placed that coat across her shoulders. Her eyes are large and languid with sleep broken and unsatisfied, her soft hair lies ruffled on her low, broad brow. She looks timidly, nervously, around her as one expecting anything but good; her whole air is shrinking, and her whole self altogether lovely. To the young man standing in his shirtsleeves, half hidden among the laurels and looking at her, with admiration generously mixed with melancholy in his glance, she seems the very incarnation of all things desirable. He presses her hand and hurries her over the short, dewy grass into the shrubberies that form an effectual screen from all observation of those in the garden beyond, and so on until they come to the small oaken doorway through which she had passed last night, and which has proved more foe than friend. Once'inside the longed-for portal, her first impulse is a natural one; it is to run as fast as her feet can carry her to her own room. (To be continued.)