Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, May 1, 1897, Page 2

{FOOTSTEPS “OF FATES By LOUIS COUPERUS. ——e—eo—eoeeeeeeeeee? TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH. ORIEL LORI LILO LIES ; PART UL CHAPTER IX—(Continued.) “Tell n.e only this much,” she went She la and tried to read hi throvgh kis eyes. And’she slowly said, ng to hear her own doom in the a he should uttér: at an end? He fell on his knees before her where ropped on a.chair, rigidly up- he were frozen; he warmed ng hands in his grasp-—and he swore tha s. His oath rang true; truth was ped on his face; and she believed him, . . .. He be- sought forgiveness; told her that she must uever think of it again, that all s.” she nodded her compre- “I know, I unde-stand. Papa hension. 4 fas brought me up on rather liberal tines.” recollected that phrase; she had And they both at He ased it once before. ence remembered Moldehoi and the black ¢ Eva shuddered. “Are you cold, dearest?” But she shook her head, still with a gtrange light in her eyes. He would have clasped her in his arms, but she drew back ,and he felt himself re- puffed, almost rejected. He could not anderstand her. Why no kiss, no*gen- #rous reconciliation, if she understood so well, if she had been so liberally trained? But she was, perhaps, a lit- tle upset; he would not be too urgent. t would no doubt blow over. When he was gone, Eva, in her own toom, shivered and her teeth chattered as if she had an ague. And she begun to cry bitterly, miserably, with deep, despairing sobs, for grief that she lived that she was a rational being—a wo- ‘man—above all, that she had ever lov hat the world existed, that ev- erything was so mean, so base—a mud- heap! She loathed it all. She felt as tf she had never really understood any of the books she had read; neither the “Faery Queen” nor “Ghosts”—especial- fy “Ghosts;’ never understood any- thing she had learnt under her fath- ers “rather liberal’ training. The white-feathery down of her illusions was blown into space; a rough hand had rubbed away the bloom from her most secret and inmost soul; the sa- ered innocence of her maidenhood had been dragged in the gutter. For the first time the peace of her great but reasonable love for Frank came into violent collision with the romance of her girlish dreams, and the balance of the two feelings was destroyed—of the practical and the romantic side of her character. x. After the conversation with Eva, Bertie felt as though he were living in @ more subtle atmosphere, wandering fina labyrinthe full of mysterious ways ef craft and cunning, in which he must ‘walk very circumspectly if he did not ‘wish to lose himself. He knew very ‘well what he had been driving at; he ‘wanted to instill into Eva suspicions of ®rank’s constancy. Did she not her- gelf know her lover to be fickle, almost capricious? Had not his hints been well chosen? Had he not sown the seed of doubt? He did not know. He gaw nothing to reassure him in the regular, monotonous , routine of every- day life, in which the subtle shades of manner so often escape even the keen- est observer. Eva had, indeed, once asked him about that Something; but after that, in appearance, at least, their intercourse had been on the old footing again. He saw no difference fn Eva—none in Frank; so Eva could fave said nothing to her lover and asked him no questions, Before that afternoon Bertie had ‘known hesitancy, and felt some dis- ‘ust at his own heartlessness, some orror of his own monstrous Selfish- ness. But that talk with Eva had ‘been the first step on the downward ath, where it was now impossible to turn back. A singular lucidity of thought dawned in his brain, as ¢thovgh his brain was a crystal mirror, %n which his ideas were reflected in a vivid light. Never yet had he felt himself so keenly alert, so clearly log- feal; never had he aimed so true at an ebject in view, with the precision of a needle. The clearness of his mind was so perfect that in a naive perception of bis own baseness—a lucid moment of eelf-knowledge which once flashed on fim, to his surprise, for no‘more than @ second—he wondered that he should ot apply so much talent and ingenuity to a nobler purpose. “Why did he never become an art- 4st?” he could hear Eva asking him. But he only smiled; the practical eveariness of his life rose up before ‘him; his own indolence, his catlike love ef physical ease. No, no, he could not ‘help himself; so it must be. The first etep was taken. It was Fate! Then, that evening as they came out of the theater, that woman who be- fdonged to their past life, his own sig- a@ificant nod, and his words, “There goes Frank.” Was not all this, too, a fatality? Did not Fate strew such trivial incidents as these in the path of those who burnt incense at her @hrine and paid her due worship, to be atilized by them as benefits—infinitely @mall links, which the ymust them- selves weld into the chain? Did not fate give men the illusion of free will, and a semblance of truth to the lie which says that they by their own en- ergy can coerce the course of circum- stances? No more than a word, a nod —“There goes Frank!”—and then, for ‘the rest, trust to the chance—Chance! hat is chance?—that the smart dam- wel of the skating rink should overlook erowd. Had the result been such as he counted on? Had he guessed the pur- se of Fate? Yes, he thought, in va—tiny, dainty Eva—lost in the some small degree; why else should Frank have craved an interview with Eva at so late an hour? And so, in that atmosphere of finely-spun cun- ning, in that labyrinth of wiles, he no longer regarded himself as base, heart- seltish. Words—mere words- It was folly to consider things too close- ly; he dismissed all scruples, and if they would sometimes force themselves on him he would argue with himself: Who could tell if it was not a good thing if Frank should not marry? He was not a mar to marry—no, really; he was changeable, car stant; he would not make a wife hap- py. i Still, Van Maeren could see at once that this was self-deception; and he would laugh to himself, shaking his head, at tinding himself so droil, so sin- gular. Life was nothing; nothing was worth troubling oneself about; but this introspection, this self-study, looking into one’s own mind, juggling with one’s own thoughts—that was really interesting, that was an amusing occu- pation, while, while lying at full length on a comfortable sofa. And yet he seldom enjoyed any re- pose of mind. His interviews with Eva were a fatiguing effurt—sometimes a long discourse, sometimes only half- utterauces—for he had constantly and precisely to weigh every word. Still, this weariness was never to be detect- ed in his air and manner, or in the phrases which fell from his lips, so ap- parently unpremeditated that they seemed alive with ratural impulse. 'They were, in fact, the cutcome of the- atrical and carefully elaborated pes- simism; they were lamentations over the ills of life, pity for Eva, wrapped in mysterious regrets; and amid all this nelancholy, accusations against West- hove—mere trifles, passing _ hints, amounting to nothing but for the tone and .accent—accusations of levity, in- constancy, capeice, fickleness. But, at the slightest outery on Eva’s part, he was ready to contradict himself, fenc- ing cleverly enough, now with himself, and nov with Eva, with all the feints of a master of the foils, just touching her lightly—a prick here and a prick there—irawing a tiny drop of blood at each hit. And to Eva it seemed that her soul, after having been dragged through the getter, was bleeding to death under these pin-pricks. It was a very sensi- ble pain when she hopelessly compared the reality with her dreams, as they grew more vague and faded away, when she argued with herself in the cold light of reason, and asked her- self: ‘Why am I so wretched? Be- cause Frank is a young man like other young men; because Bertie is a pessi- mist, and despairs of my ever being happy?” And then she would shrug her shoulders; her trouble was intangi- ble, had paled to a thin cloud and van- ished. She had always been very hap- v; Bertie’s dejection was sickly non- sense; she would be happy again. But, notwithstanding that her common- sense thus dissipated the pain, it con- stantly returned in spite of reason and argument; returned persistently, like an object tossed on a wave, which comes and goes, comes and goes. She could endure it no longer, and one day when she ventured to look honestly into her own heart, she saw that she did, indeed, doubt Frank and the truth of his statements about that woman. Longing for some certainty, she asked Berti2—his friend: “Tell me, Bertie—that Something of which you once spoke to me; that mys- tery: what is it?” “Ol. nothing, my dear girl; absolute- ly nothing.” She gazed at hin with penetrating eyes, and went on, in a strange, cold tone: ‘Well, but I kuow; I-have guessed.” Bertie was startied. What was she thinking; what had she got into her head “Yes; I have guessed it,” she repeat- ed. “Frank does not love me; he loves —he loves that woman—that creature of the Lyceum. He has always loved her.; is it so?” Bertie said nothing, but stared before Bie that was the easiest ard best re- ply. “Bertie, tell me; is it so?” ; it is rot,” he answered, dully. “What a foolish notion to have got into your head. What made you think of stch a thing?’ But there was no ring of ccnviction in his voice; he spoke me- chanieally, as though in absence of mind, as if he were thirking of some- thing else, “Does he ever see her now?’ she went on, feeling as if she were defiling herself with her own words; as if her lips were dropping slime. “Why, of course not. What are you thinking ef?” i She leaned back with a-sigh, and tears glistened in her dark eyes. He ws silent for a minute, studying her out of the corner of his eye. Then, as if to mitigate his too feeble repudiation of her suspicion, he went on, reproach- fully: “Really, Eva, you must not think such things of Frank. It is not nice; you must have some confidence in the man you are to marry.” “Then it is not the truth?” “Certainly not. He never sees her now.” ‘ “But does not he think of her still?” He gave her a log, deep, enigmatical lock. His eyes were like black velvet darkness; she could not read their meaning. “Fie!” he said reprovingly, and he shook his head. “That is u0 answer,” she said, urg- ently. And again he fixed his dark gaze upon her. “Good God- answer me!” she cried, her heart wrung to the very core. “How can you expect me to know Frank’s feelings?’ he dared to mur- mur. “I don’t know—there!” i “Then. it is so?” she moaned, clutch- ing his hands. *I don’t know,” he repeated, and, freeing herself from’ her grasp, he turned away and rose. “He loves her; he cannot live with- out her; he is that creature's slave, as you men sometimes are to such wo- “men; and though he sees her no more, out of respect for me, he thinks of her and talks of her to you—and that is why he is so silent and grave when he is here. Is ir so?” “Good Heavens- I do not know!” he groaned, with mild impatience. “How should I know?” “But why, then, does he pretend to love me? Why did he ask me to mar- ry him? Because once, for a moment, in Norway, he fancied that he could do without her? Because he meant to live live a new life, and now finds that he cannot?” She clasped her hands with a gesture of anguish. “Good God, Eva! say no more—say no more. I do not know, I tell you—I know nothing about it—nothing.” He.sank back in his chair with a sigh of exhaustion. She said no more; the tears streamed from her eyes like rain impossible to be restrained. XI. é And in her miseryshe thought she had been very clever end cunning, and that she had guessed rightly; while, in truth, as guileless as a child, she had been, as it were, hypnotized by his magnetic gaz2, and had spoken the very words he had intended she should utter, She felt nothing of this; she saw him still as her brother-friend, frag- ile, affectionate and unhappy, dreading to wound her, anxious to screen her from the truth for fear of hurting her, and yet not crafty enough to conceal It when she pressed him too closely. This was how he appeared to her. Not for an instant did she suspect that she was as a fly weapping itself closer and closer in the snider’s toils. Bertie himself, after this scene, failed to see clearly tkat he had pulled the wires; that he had been the first to taint her confidence with the poison of suspicion; that he had brought about the catastrophe as they came out of the Lyceum; that he had compelled Eva to follow the clew he had chosen to suggest. Dimness shrouded the clearness o2 his mental vision, as a breath clouds a mirror; the lucid crisis ef his faculties was past. This was all the outcome of circumstances, he thought; no human being of his own tree will could work such things out —How easily everythirg had come about, how simply, without a hitch! It was because Fate had so willed it and had favored him—he had no part in it. Nor was this selt-deception; he really thought so. In the evening after their last inter- view, Eva went, very late, to seek her father in his study, where he sat read- ing his~ books on heraldry. He sup- posed she had come to bid him good- night, as usual; but she sat down fac- ing him, very upright, and with a set face like a sleep-walker. “Father, I want to speak to you.” He looked at her in surprise. In the Olympian peace of his genealogical studies, in the calm,emotionless exist- ence of a hale old man, who finds a solace for advanciag years among his bocks, he had never discerned that a drama was going on close beside him, played by three beings whom he saw every day. Atd he was startled by kis daughter's rigid face and tone of suppressed suffecing. “Are you ill, my child?” “Oh, no, I am quite well. But I want to ask you something. I want to know if you will speak to Prank?” “To Frank?” “Yes. To Frank. The other even- ing we were coming out of the Lyce- um—” And she told him the whole story, sitting straight up in her chair, with that strange look in her face, and a husky, subdued voice; all about the yellow-haired woman and her own sus- picions and distrust. It was wrong of her to doubt Frank, but, really, she could not help it. She would fain have quoted Bertie as evidence, but Bertie had, after all, said nothing definite, so she did not see how she could bring him into court, and did not, therefore, mention his name. . Sir Archibald listened in dismay. He had never suspected what was going on in his daughter's mind; he had al- ways supppsed that everything was as clear as the sun at noon. “And—what then?” some embarrassment, “And then—I want you to speak to Frark. Ask him, point blank, whether he still loves this woman, who. has played some part in his past life; whether he cannot bear to give her up; whether that is the reason. he is always so silent and gloomy when we see him here. Get him to speak out. I would rather hear my doom than live in this dreadful suspense. And to you, per- haps, he will clear it all up, so that things may go on as they were before. Say nothing of my distrust;if it is not justified by the facts it might make him angry. It is too bad for me to sus- pect his truth, and I have tried to bring myself to a better mind; but [ cannot succeed. There is something in it, I krow not what. There is some- thing in the air about me—oh! what, I know not—which whispers to me: ‘Do not trust him, do not trust him.’ I can- not understand what it is, but I feel it in me, all about me! It is a voice in my ear; sometimes and eye which gazes at me. At night, when I can- not sleep, it looks down on me; it Speaks to me; I feel as if I were going crazy. Perhaps it is a spirit. But do you speak to him, papa. Do that much for your child. I am so very, very unhappy.” She kneit at his feet and laid her head on his knees, sobbing bitterly. He mechanically stroked her hair, but he did not in the least understand. He loved his child, but his affection was more 4 matter of tender habit than of sympathetic intelligence. He did not understand her; he ‘hought her foolish and fanciful Was it for this that he had given her a first-rate education, let her read all kinds of books, and made her know the world as it was— stern, practical and selfish, a struggle in which each one must endeavor to conquer and se:ure a place and a share of happiness, by sheer, calm de- termination! He had his own corner in it, with lis booxs and his heraldry; why did she let herself be a victim to nervous fancies? For it was all nerves —nothing but nerves! Cursed things were nerves- How like her mother she was, in spite of Ler liberal education! Dreamy, romantic, full of absurd im- aginativa He speak to Frank? Wh7 -what about—what was he to say? Tho lady at the Lyceum; this woman or that, to whom he had bowed? That he asked, in might happen to anyone. Eva was very absurd not to see that it might. And as to his talking it over with Frank—why, the youpg man would think that his future father-in-law was a perfect fool. There were thousands of such women in London. Where was the young man who had no acquaint- ance among them? And the picture of a disturbed peace, of an unpleasant discussion, which would destroy an hour or perhaps a day of his Olympian repose aud tear him from his studi rose up in his brain, a terror to simple-minded selfish aess “Come, Eva, this is sheer folly,” he good-hunoredly grumbled. “What good do you think I can do? These are rere sickly fancie: “No, no. They are not sickly fan- cies; not fancies at all. It is some- thing—something quite different. There is something in me, around me—be- yord my control.” “But, child, you are talking non- sense!” “When I try to think it out, it goes away for a little while; but then it comes back agair.” “Really, Eva, you must not talk so } foolishly. Arter all, what is this story you ye told me; what does it all mean? It comes and it goes, and it stays away, and then again it comes and goes.” She shook her head sadly, sitting on the floor at his feet in frcnt of the fire. “No, no,” she said, very positively. “You do not understand, you are a man; you do not understand all there is in a woman, We women are uuite different. But you will speak to him, will you not, and ask him all about it?” “No, Eva; that I certainly will not. Frank might very well ask me what business it was of mine. You know as well as I do that every man has, or has had, acquainttnce among women. There is notliing in that. And Frank strikes me as too honorable to have anything to do with one of them now that he is engaged to you. I know him too well to imagine that. It is really too silly of ycu—do you hear— too silly!” She began to sob passionately, and roan in an overpovpring fit of grief. She wrung her hands, rocking herself from side to side, as if suffering intol- erable torments. “Oh, papa-”’ she entreated. “Dear papa, do, do! Do this for your child's sake, your poor little Eva. Go to him, talk to him. I am so unhappy, I can- not bear it. I am so wretched! Speak to him; I cannot speak of such a mat- ter. I am only a girl, and it’s all so horrible, so sick ning. Oh, papa, papa, do speak to Frank!” She tried to lean, coaxingly, against his knees, but he stood up; her tears angered him and made him more ob- stinate. His wife had never got any- thing from him by tears; quite the re- verse. Eva was silly and childish. He could not recognize his spirited daugk- ter—always indefatigable and bright —with whom he had traveled over half the world, in this crushed creat- ure. dissolved in woe. “Stand up, Eva,’ he said, sternly. “Do not crouch on the floor. You will eud by vexing me seriously by your folly. What are you crying for? For nothing, pure, foolish imagining. I will have no more of it. You must be- have reasonably. Get up, stand up.” She dragged herself to her feet, groaning as she id so, with a white face and clenched hands. “I cannot help it,” she said. “It is my nature, I suppose. Have you no pity for your child, even if you do not understand her? O, go and speak to him—only a few words, I implore you —I beseech you.” “No, no-” he cried, stamping his foot, his face quite red, as from a con- gestion of rage at this useless, unde- fined vexation, and his daughter's folly and weeping and _ entreaties, waich his obstinacy urged him, on no «ccount. to indulge. She, however, rose, Icoking taller in her despair; her eyes had a strange lcok as they gazed into her father’s, “Then you will not speak to Frank? You will not do that much for me?” ‘No. It’s all nonsense, I tell you. Worry me about it no more.” “Very well. Then I must do it,” she said, gravely, as if pronouncing some irrevocable decision. And, very slow- ly, without looking reund, without bid- | ding him good-night, she left the room. ; It was as though Sir Archibald was a | total stranger, as though there were no bond of tenderness between her and her father—nothing but the hostility of two antagonistis natures. No; under their superficial affeciion they had no feeling in common; they had never really known, never tried to under- stand each other; she had no sympa- thy with his old age; he had none with her youth. They were miles as- under; a desert, 1 pathless waste, lay between them. They dwelt apart as completely as though they were locked up in two shrines, where each wor- shiped a different God. “He is my father,” thought she, as she went along the passage. “I am his child.” She could not understand it. It was | a mystery of Nature that scarcely | seemed possible. He—her father, she : —his child; and yet he could not feel | her anguish—could not see that it was | anguish—called it folly and fancy. | And a vehement longing for her moth- | er rose up in her heart. She would ! haye understood! i “Mamma, Mamma!” she sobbed out. “Oh, Mamma, come back. Tell me j what I can do, Come as a ghost; I will rot be afraid of you. I am so for- lorn, so miserable—so miserable! Come and haunt me; come, only come!” In her room, in the darkness, she watched for the ghost. But it came not. The night hung unbroken, like a black curtain, behind which there was nothing but emptiness. When Frank came to call next morn- ing he at once saw in her face that she was grently agitate. peta no is the matter, dearest?” he ed. At first she felt weak. There was something so terrible—and then, again, so shocking—but she commanded her- self; she drew herself up in her pretty self-will, which gave firmness to the childlike enthusiasm ard womanly eoyness of her nature, like a sterner background against which so much that was soft and tender stood out. And, feeling above all that she stood alone, abandoned by her father, she was determined to be firm. “Frank, I have no alternative,” she began, with the energy of despair. “I must talk matters over with you. Even before you answer me, I am al- his mest convinced that I am wrong, and think myself odious; but still I must speak, for I am too unhappy under this—all this. To keep it all to myself in silence is more than,I can bear; I can endure it no longer, Frank. IL asked papa to speak to you, but he will pot. Perhaps he is right; still, it is not ere of him, for now I must do it my- self.” Even in the exeited state of mind she was in she loat’ed the cruel necessity; but she controlled herself and went on: “That woman—Frank, Frank- woman—I can think of nothing “But, dear Eva “Oh, let nie speak—I must speak; I see that creature always at my elbow; I smell her perfume; I hear her voice. I cannot get it out of my ear: shuddered violently, and the thing came over her again, again pos- sessed her; the ghostly hypnotism of that eye, that whisper, that strange, magnetic power which her father could not understand. The words she spoke seemed prompted, inspired by that voic her expression and attitude obeyed the coercion of that gaze. In her inmost soul she felt those eyes as biack as night. 3 “Oh, Frank!” she cried, and the tears came from nervous excitement, and the fear lest she should not have courage 10 obey these promptings. “I must, must ask you. Why, when you come to see me, are you alwa so grave and silent, as though you were not happy in my society; why.do you evade all direct replies; why do you ys tell me there nothing the matter? That woman—it is because of her, because you still love her—bet- ter, perhaps, than you love me! Be- cause you cannot forget ber, because she still is a part of your life, a large part—perhaps the largest? Oh, it is such torture, such misery—ever-pres- ent misery. And I am not meanly jealous; I never have been. I quite un- derstand your feeling about her—the first-con.er—though it is dreadful. But you, yourself are too silent, too sad; and when I think it over I doubt, in spite of myself—Irank, in spite of my- self, I swear to you, But the suspi- cion forces itself upon me and over- whelms me- Great God! why must it be? But, Frank, tell me I am a sim- pleton to think so, and that she is noth- ing to you any longer—nothing at all. You never see her, do you? Tell me, tell me?” The anguish of her soul as she spoke was eloquent in her face, though dis- figured with grief, and pale with the dead whiteness of a faded azalea blos- som; a convulsive pang pinched the corners of her mouth and her quiver- ing eyelids; she was, indeed, a martyr to her own too vivid fancy. But he, at that moment, was incapa- ble of seeing her as a martyr. Her words nezd roused in him a surge of fury such as he could rem- uber hay- ing felt occasionally as a child, lashed up, as it were, by the blast of a hurri- cane, drowniug every other feeling, sweeping away every other thought, like dast before the storm. It came blustering up at the notion of his hon- being questioned, his perfect can- honesty and truth—like a whirl- wind of righteous indignatiom at such injustice; for, in his own mind, he could not conceive of such a doubt, knowing himself to be honest, honor- able and true. His dark-gray eyes flashed beneath his deeply-knit brows; his words came viciously from between his set teeth, which shone, large and white under his moustache like pol- ished ivory. “It is inconceivable! Geod God, this is monstrous! I have answered you once for all; I have told you in plain words: ‘No—no—no!’ And you ask me again and again. Do you think I amaliar? Why? Have you ever seen anything in me to make you think I can lie? Isay no, and I mean no! And still you have doubts; still you think ord worry over it like an old woman. Why do you not take things as they are? You-know the facts. Why do you not believe me? I am not sad; I am not gloomy; Iam quite happy with you; I love you; LI do not doubt you. But you—you-—Believe me, if you go en in th's way you will make yourself miserable; and me, too; me, too!” She looked at him steadfastly, and her pride rose up to meet his wrath, for his words offended her. “You need not speak to me in that tone,” she answered, haughtily. “When I tell you that it is against my will—you hear—in spite of myself, that I have doubts, and this makes me mis- erable, you need not take that tone. Have some pity on me, and do not speak like that.” “But, Eva, when I assure you,” he began, again, trembling with rage, which he tried to control, forcing him- self to speak gently; “when I assure you.” “You have done 60 already.” “And you doubt my word?” “Only so far as ae “You disbelieve me?” he roared, quite beside himself. “Only in so far as I think you are keeping something back.” she cried. “Something back! What, in Heay- en’s naine?” His friend's name was on_ her tongue; but as soon as she thought of Bentie, hesitancy and indecision took possession of her; for she knew not That else!” | what exactly Bertie had, in fact, told her. It was always as though Van Maeren had inclosed her in a magic circle, a spell of silence, which made it impossible for her to mention him; and even at this juncture he was an intangible presence, his name an un- utterable word, his hints a mere inar- ticulate jangle. “What—what?” she gasped, in be- wilderment. “Oh, I do not know. If enly I knew! But you are concealing something from me—and perhaps it is something about her, that woman!” “But when I tell you that:she——” “No, no,” she insisted, contirming in her imaginings by her offended pride. “I know—I know. Men count such mat- ters as nothing. A thing of the past; it is so all the world over, you say; and what I call something, you call noth- ing. And so I say there is something— that you are hiding, Frank.” “Eva, I swear—” ee “Do not swear to it, for it would be a sin!” she shrieked out, wrought up, in spite of herself, to a paroxysm of in- sane belief in a thing of which she knew nothing certain. “For I feel it. I feel it here, in me, about me, every- where!” He seized her by the wrists, carried away by his rage at her rejecting his asseverations, wounded in his proud cosciousness of honor and truthfulness, and amazed at the depth of her infatu- ated distrust. = - “Then you do not believe me, he said, with an oath. “You do pot be lieve me?’ And for. the second time his tone offended and enraged her. ; . exposure of their two ee | tures, with all their passions and tirmities, brought them into collision. : “No; since you will have it—No!” she cried, and she wrenched herself free from his vice-like grasp with such vio- lence that her slender wrists crackled. Now you know it; I do not believe you. You are hiding something from me,and it has something to do with that wo man. I feel it; and what I feel is, to me, undeniable. That creature, whe dared to speak to you, has taken root in my imagination; I fel her close te me; smell her scent,.and am so intense- ly conscious that there is something be- tween you and her that I am bold ta say to you: ‘You lie; you lie for her sake, and are cheating me! With a sort of low bellow, which burst from him involuntarily, he rushed at her, clenching his fists, and she me- chanically shrank from him. But he seized her hands again, inclosing them in his great, strong fingers, so that she felt his power through her tiesh, in her very b es. and it was like- muttered thun- der; “you have no heart—none that you can say such things to me! You re base, mean, even to think them: You feel, and you feel! Yes. It is your own petty narrowness that you feel. You have nothing in you but base and contemptible incredulit, whole nature is mea 5 at an end between us; I have nothing more to do with yo@ I was mistakez in you.” He flung her off, on a sofa. There she remained, staring up at the ceiling with wide-open eyes. At the moment, she was startled, rather than angry. and did not fully understand the state of things. Her over-wrought brain was bewildered; she knew not what had happened. 4 For a moment he stood looking at her. His lips wore a sneer of contempt, and his eyes, half-closed in scorn glanced over her prostrate form. He saw how pretty she was; her graceful figure, stretched on the Turkish pil- lows, revealed the soft lines of its sup- ple, girlish mold, through the clin folds of a thin, pale-green material; hair, which had come loose, hung to the floor, like the red-gold fleece of some rare wild creature; her bosom heaved with spasmodic rapidity. She lay there like a ravished maid, flung aside in a fit of passion. He saw all the charms that he had forfeited; deep wrath sprang up in him; a wild longing for the happiness he had lost; but his injured honor ousted regrets and long- ing. He turned away and left her there. She remained on the same spot, it the same attitude. She was full of ob scure wonderment ;darkness had fallen on her soul ,as though, after being en- trapped by falsehood, blinded by doubt. she had been led into a labyrinth and then suddenly released—her eyes un bound—in a dark chamber. Her soul, indeed, seemed to have bled to death: she coul not yet know how deeply it was wounded, and in spite of her intol- erable grief she still thought only of the darkness about her. “How strange,” she whispered. But why? In Heaven's name, why?” XIII. a month ot ad fallen on After this there was peace. A sudden calm them both, full, for both alike, of st lent, bitter grief. And, with it all, the or ordinary life, and the recurring, mo notonous tasks of every day. Even Bertie found himself breathing this strange, stagnant air. He won- dered greatly what could have occur: red. How simply, how easily, things have worked themselyes out! No, he had done nothing; he could have done nothing. Events had merely followed each other. What had come about was the inevitable. And the possibility ot a life free from care again lay before him; an eternity of comfort and wealth with Westhove, for whom he felt his old affection revive with the glow, al- most, of a pa n, now that Frank, severed from Eva, though blaming him- self, indeed, needed consolation and sympathy. And Bertie’s low, unctious tones were full of sympathy. Oh, the dark melancholy of the first few days the terrible grief of wondering, when, now, his indignation cold, Frank asked himself, as Eva had asked himself, Why? Why had this happened? What had brought it about? Wat had he done? And he could not see; could not understand; it was like a book out of which leaves had been torn so as ta spoil the sense. He could comprehend neither himself and his fury, nor Eva and her doubts. All life seemed te him a riddle. For hours together he would sit gazing out of the window, staring at the opaque dullness of the London fog, his eye fixed on that rid- dle. He scarcely went out. He sat dreaming in White-Rose cottage, whieb was lonely and quiet enough in its re mote suburb. An enervating indiffer- ence possessed his stalwart frame; for the first.time inhis life he saw himself in a true light, and detected the vacilla- tion and weakness deep down in his being, like a lymphatic stream travers ing his sanguine physical vigor. He saw himself, as a mere child in resist ance to the storm of rage, the blast of fury which had swept away his happi- ness. And his suffering was so terrible that he could not entirely comprehend it; it seemed too all-embracing for the human mind. To Be Continued. A Disappearing nd. More great falls of cliff in poor little Heligoland! It cannot be very many years, geologically speaking, before the tiny island must finally disappear un- der the invading waves. It is now less than a mile and a half long and 700 yards in width, this being all that re- mains of wha¥ in the eleventh century, was a fertile island, “rich in corals, animals and birds, and nearly 800 square miles in extent.” Now a few rows of potatoes and scanty pastures are all that remain. Various plans haye been brought forward for pre- serving the island, Boribarding the cliffs, so as to form a breakwater, was actually tried, but the strata of mottled stone contain no pebbles which would make a beach. All the debris is soon dissolved and carried away by the waves, and no doubt some great storm within the next century or 60 will leave only a bare, crumbling, uninhabitable sand- | bank. mop ec eather ne ena levee v a NL ]