Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, May 15, 1897, Page 6

PS ST | AL eA, ss PART IIL CHAPTER XVII—(Continued.) “My dear fellow, I have run com- pletely dry. I have only just enough left to pay our passage to Buenos Ayres. How much do you want?” “A hundred pounds.” “A hundred pounds! I assure you L do not kuew where to lay my hand on the money. Do you want it now, on the spot? Can you not put it off? Or ean you not do with a bill?” f I must have money down, hard , wait a bit. Perhaps I can find a way... 2° I will manage it somehow. I will see about it to- morrow.” “To-morrow morning?” “Are you in such a deuce of a hurry? Well, all right; I will find it somehow. But now go to bed, for I am sleepy; we made a night of it. Lo-morrow 1 am sure I can help you. And, at any tate, I will not leave you in a fix; that ‘ou may rely on. But you are a trou- lesome boy. Do you hear? Only the other day you had thirty pounds, and then, again, thirty more!” For a minute Van Maeren stood rig- fd, a dark mass against the dim gleam of the nightlight. Then he went up to the bed, and, falling o nhis knees, laid bis head on the coyerlet°and fairly sobbed. “y erazy * earth ails yo No, he was not crazy, but only grieved to take advantage of, Frank’s good nature, especially if his friend are you ill? ked Westhove. Are you gone “What on were himself in difficulties. They were such shameful debts—he would rather not tell him what for. Debts outstanding for a time when for.a few days he had disappeared. I'rank knew, didn’t he? ‘Old sins to. pay for, eh? Well, be- have better for the future. We. will eet it all right to-morrow. Make no I am dead sleepy; we all s we could carry. Come, more noise. had as much 4 get up, I say. Van Maeren rose, and, taking West- hove’s hand, tried to thank him. “There, that will do—go to bed, I a) And he went. In his own room he resently, through the wall, heard frank snoring. He remained sitting on the edge of the bed. Once more his fingers gripped his throat—tighter— But it hurt him—made his che. at God!” he thought. “Is it pos- gible that I should be the thing | am?” PART IV. 1 A life of wandering for two years’ and more, of voyages from America to Australia, from Australia back to Eu- rope; painfully restless, finding no new aims in life, no new reason for their own existence, no new thing in the countries they traversed or in the va- rious atmospheres they breathed. A life at first without a struggle for ex- istence, dragged out by each under the weight of his own woe; with many re- grets but no anxiety as to the material burden of existence. But presently there was the growing dread of that 1 burden, the unpleasant con- sciousness that there was no. more money coming out from home, month after month; disagreeable. transac- tions with bankers at distant places, constant letter-writing. to and fro; in short, the almost total evaporation of a fortune of which too much had long since been dissipated in golden yapor. Then they saw the necessity of looking about them for means of subsistence, and they had taken work in factories, assurance offices, brokers’ warehouses and what not, simply to keep their above water in this life which ound so aimless and wretched. had known hours of bitter an- Cottage. Still, they had ig for White-Rose Cottage Gradually elding to indiffer- ence and sullen patience, their fear for the future and struggles to 1 were the outeome of.a natural, inherit- ed instinct, rather than of impulse and personal de felt no long And even inethis gloomy indifference Van Maeren had one comforting re- flection, one delicate pleasure, ite and peculiar, as a solace to hi: contempt—the consolation of knowing that now that Westhoye had known some buffeting of Fortune, now that he had to work for his bread, he had never felt impelled to leave his friend to his fate or desert him as soon as the game was up. The impulse to. abandon Frank had never risen in his soul, and be was glad of it; glad that when it oc- curred to him 2 wards as a pos dDility, it was merely as ‘a notion with which he had no concern, and which ‘was no part of himself.’ No; he had stuck by Frank; ly, perhaps, as a result of his cat-like nature and be- cause he clung to kis place at Frank’s side; but not for that alone. There was something ideal in it, some little sentiment. He liked the notion of re- maining faithful to a» man who had ot a cent left in the world. They had worked together, shared the toil and the pay. with brotherly equality. we Jong years. And now they were back in Europe; avoidi1g England and returning to their native land—Am- eterdam and the Hague. A strange longing had grown up in both of them see once more the places they had uitted so long before, bored by their familiarity, to see the wider world; to though there they hoped to find a cure, @ miraculous balm, to console them for. existence. They had scraped together ome little savings, and might take a ‘ew months of summer holiday by briftily spending their handful of cash, they had taken lodgings in a little ~Ila at Scheveningen—a ‘house to. eee? By LOUIS COUPERUS. aes TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH. .dred in peace and contentment. Still, the’ left of the Orange Hotel, looking out over the sea; and the sea had be- come a changeable background for their lazy summer fancies, for they did not care to wander away amid the bustle of the Kurhaus and the sands. Frank would sit for hours on the bal- con; n a2 cane chair, his legs on the railing, the blue smoke of his cigar curling up in front of his nose; and then he felt soothed, free from al acute pain, resigned to his own use- lessn\ though with a memory now and again of the past, and of a sorrow that was no longer too keen. And then, stiff with sitting still, he would play a game of quoits of hockey, or fence a little with Bertie, whom he had taught to use the foils. He looked full of health, was stouter than of yore, with a fine, high color under his clear, tanned skin, a mild gravity in his bright gray eyes, and sometimes a rather bitter curl under his sheeny yel- low moustache. But Bertie suffered more; and as he looked out over the semicircle of ocean and saw the waters break with their endless rollers of blue and green and violet and pearly iridescence—he fan- cied that his Fate was coming up over the sea. It was coming closer—irre- sistibly closer. And he watched its ap- proach; he felt it so intensely that sometimes his whole being seemed to be on the alert while he sat motionless in his cane chair, with his eyes fixed on the barren waste of waters. IL \ Thus it happened that, sitting here one day, he saw on the shore below, | between th etufts of yellow broom, growing on the sandhills, two figures coming toward him ,a man and a wo- man, like finely-drawn silhouettes in j Indian ink against the silver sea. A pang suddenly shot through his frame, from his heart to his throat—to his | temples. But the salt reek came up to | him and roused his senses with a freshness that mounted to his brain, so that, in spite of the shock, it remained quite clear, as if filled with a rarer at- mosphere. He saw everything dis- tinctly, down to the subtlest detail of hue and line; the silver-gray curve ov the silver-gray curve of the horizon, like an enormous, glittering, liquid‘eye, | with mother-of-pearl tints, broken by the tumbling crests of the waves, and hardly darker than the spread of sky strewn with a variously gray fleece of rent and reveled clouds; to the right, one stucco facade of the Kurhaus, looking with stupid dignity at. the sea out of its staring window-eyes; further away, by the water’s edge, the fishing- boats, like large walnut shells, with filmy veils of black netting hanging from the masts, each boat with its lit- tle flag playfully waving and curling in the breeze; and on the terrace and the strand, amid a confused crowd of yellow-painted chairs, a throng of sum- mer visitors, like a great stain of pale water-color, in gray but delicate tints. He could see quite clearly—here a rent in the red sail of a boat, there a ribbon fluttering from a_ basket-chair ,and again a sea-gull on the shore swooping | to snatch something out of the surf. He noted all these little details, mi- nute and motley trifles, bright specks in the expanse of sky and ocean, and very visible in the subdued light of a sunless day. And these two silhou- | ettes—a man and a woman—grew larg: er, came nearer along the sands until | they were just opposite him. | He knew them at once by their gen- eral appearance—the man by a. pecu- liar gesture of raising his hat and wip- ing his forehead; the lady, by the way | she carried her parasol, the stick rest- ing on her shoulder while she held the point of one of the ribs. And, recog- nizing them, he had a singular, light- headed sensation, as though he would presently be floating dizzily out of his chair and swept away over the sea. He fell back, feeling strangely weary, and dazzling sparks danced before his fixed gaze like glittering notes of an interrogation. What was to be done? Could he devise some ingenious excuse and try to tempt Frank to leave the | place, to fly? Oh! how, small the world | Was it for this that they had | randered over the gloge, never know- | ing any rest—to meet, at their very | first halting place, the two beings he most dreaded? Was this accident. or dejection he felt that he was afraid of nothing; that he was pro- foundly indifferent, full of an intolera- ble weariness of self-torture. Hewas | too tired to feel alarm. It must come. There was no escape. It was Fatality. It was rest to sit there ,motionless, in- ert, willess, with the wide, silver-gray waters before him waiting for what might happen. To struggle no more for his own ends, to fear no more, but to wait patiently and forever. It must come, like the tide from the ocean; it must cover him,as the surf covers the sands—and then go down again, and, perhaps, dag him with it, drowned and dead. A wave of that flood would wash over him and stop his breath— and more waves would follow—end- lessly. A senseless tide—a fruitless eternity. “I wish I did not feel it so acutely.” he painfully thought. “It is too silly to feel it so. Perhaps nothing will come of it, and I shall live-to be a hun- this is unendurable, that is a fact; they are there! They are here- But—if It | were really coming I should not feel it. Nothing happens but the unexpected. It is mere nervous weakness, over-ten- sion. Nothing can really matter to.me; nothing matters. The air is lovely and pleasantly soft; there floats a ‘cloud. And I will just sit still, withuot fear, qunte at my ease. There they are again—the seamews fly low—I wil wait, wait. . . Those boys are play- ing in that boat; what folly! They will have.it over!” oh = gee eee Ne | He looked with involuntary {ntérest at their antics, and then again at the gentleman and lady. They were now full in sight, just below him; and they went past, knowing nothing, without a gesture, like two puppets. “Ah! but I know,” thought | he. “They are here, and It has come in their train, perhaps. But It may go away with them, too, and be no more than a threat. So I shall wait; I do not care. If it must come it must-” They had gone out of sight. The boys and their boat were gone, too. The shore in front of them was lonely a long stretch of desert. Suddenly he was seized with violent shivering—an ague. He stood up, his face quite color- less, his knees quaking. ‘Terror had suddenly been too much for him, and large beads of sweat bedewed his fore- head. “God above!” thought he, “life is ter- rible. I have made it terrible. I am afraid. What.can I do? Run away? No, no; I must wait. Can any harm come to me? No, none! None, none. . . There they were, both of them, she and her father. I am really afraid. Oh! if it must’ come, Great God only let it come quickly!” Then he fancied his eyes had de- ceived him; that it had not been these two. Impossible! And yet he knew that they were there. Terror throbbed in his breast with vehement heart- beating, and he now only marveled that he could have looked at the boat with the boys at all, while Sir Archi- bald and Eva were walking down on the shore: Would it not be upset? That was what he had been thinking of the boat. ii. A whole fortnight of broiling summer days slipped by; and he waited, al- Ways too weary to make the smallest effort to induce Frank to quit the place. It might, perhaps, have cost him no more than a single word. But he never spoke the word—waiting, and gradually falling under a spell of wait- ing, as though he were looking for the mysterious outcome of an interesting denoument. Had they already met anywhere? . And if they should, would anything come of it? One thing inevitably follows another through the nothing can be done to check their course. Westhove was in the habit of remain- ing a good deal in-doors, leading a qui- et life between his gloomy thoughts and his favorite gymnastics, not troub- ling himself about the summer crowd outside on the terrace and the shore. Thus the fortnight passed without his becoming aware of the vicinity of the woman whom Van Maeren dreaded. Not a suspicion of premonition thrilled through Frank’s mild melancholy; he had gone on breathing the fresh sea air without perceiving any fragrance -ih the atmosphere that could suggest her presence. He did not discern the prints of her little shoes on the level strand below the villa, nor the titt of her parasol passing under his eyes, as he sat calmly smoking with his feet on the railings. And they must often have gazed at the self-same packet steaming into the narrow harbor, like a colored silhouette cut out of a print, with its little sails and flag of smoke; but their eyes were unconscious how nearly they must be crossing each oth- v, out there over the sea. After these two scorching weeks there came a dull, gray, sunless day, with heavy rain stored in the drivi black clouds, like swollen watersin! Frank had gone for a walk on the shore, by the edge of the wailing, fret- ting sea; the basket-chairs had been carried higher up, and were closely packed and almost unoccupied. There was scarcely anyone out. A dismal, sighing wind swept the waters; it was an autumn day, full of the desolation of departed summer joys. And as he walked on, his ears filled with the moaning breeze, he saw her coming toward him with waving skirts and fluttering ribbons, and—Great Heaven! it was she! It was as though a mass of rock had been suddenly cast at his breast with a giant’s throw, and he lay crushed and breathless beneath. A surge of mingled joy and anguish struggled through his pulses, thrilled his nerves mounted to his brain. He involuntari- ly stood still, and, almost unconscious- ly, exclaimed, in a tone inaudible, in- deed, at any distance, and drowned in the wind: “Eva- My God! Eva!” But the distance was lessening; she ‘was now Close to him, and apparently, quite calm; because she had already seen him that very morning, though he had not seen her; because she had gene through the first emotion; because she had walked that way, in the wind, close by the villa into which she had seen him vanish, in the hope of meeting him again. The question flashed through his mind whether he should greet her with a bow, as a stranger—doing it with affected indifference, as though unmoved by this accidental meeting | and forgetful of the past. And, in spite of his tremulous excitement, he could still be amazed at seeing her come straight toward him, without any hesitation, as if to her goal. In an in- stant she stood before him, with her pale, earnest face, and dark eyes beaming with vitality; he saw her whole form and figure, absorbed them into himself, as though his soul would devour the vision. “Frank,” she said, softly. He made no reply, shivering with emotion, and scarcely able to see through the mist of tears that dimmed his eyes. She smiled sadly. “Will you not hear me?” she said, in her low, silvery voice. He bowed, awkwardly, muttering something, awkwardly putting out his hand. She gently grasped it, and went on, still in that subdued tone, like an echo: “Do not be vexed with me for ad- dressing you. There is something I should like to say to you. I am glad to have met you here in Scheveningen by mere chance—or, perhaps, not by mere chance. ‘There was some misun- derstanding, Frank, between you and me, and unpleasant words were spoken on both sides. We parted, and yet, 1 should like to ask your forgiveness for what I then said.” ¢ Tears choked her; she could scarcely control herself; but she concealed her emotion and stood calmly before him; brave as woman can be brave, ard with that sad smile full of hopeless submission, without affectation, candid and simple. “Do not take it amis; only let me | ask you whether you can forgive m2 for having once offended you. and will henceforth thiitk of me more tenderly.” “Eva, Eva-’ he stammered. “You ask me to forgive? It was I—it was I who—” “Nay,” she gently interrupted; “you have forgotten. It was I—do you for- give me?’ And she held out her hand. Frank wrung it with a sob that choked in his throat. “Thank you. I am glad,” she went on. “I was in the wrong; why should I not confess it? I own it frankly. Will you not come and see papa? We are living in a hotel garni. Have you anything to do? If not, come now with me. Papa will be very pleased to see you.” “Certainly, of course,” he muttered, walking on by her side. “But I am not taking you from any- one else? Perhaps someone is waiting for you. Perhaps now—by this time— you are married?” She forced herself to look at him with her faint smile—a languid, pale courtesy which parted her lips but sad- ly; and her voice was mildly blank, devoid ofany special interest. He started at her words; they conveyed a suggestion which had never occurred to him; a strange idea transferred from her to him; but it took no root, and perished instantly. “Married! Oh, Eva—no, never!” he exclaimed. “Well, such a thing been,” she said, coolly. They were silent for a while; but in a few moments Eva, teuched by the tone in his last words, could no longer contain herself, and began to cry gent- ly, like a frightened child, sobbing spasmodically as they walked on, the tears soaking her white gauze veil. In front of their hotel she stopped, and, controlling herself for a moment, said: “Frank, be honest with me: do you not think it odious for me to have spoken to you? I could not make up my mind what I ought to do; but I so much wanted to confess myself wrong, and ask you to forgive me. Vo you de- spise me for doing such a thing which, perhaps, some other girl would not have done?” Fy ‘ “Despise you! I despise you?’ he cried, with a gulp. But he could say no more, for some visitors were com- ing toward them—though but few were out in this windy and threatening day. They went a little further, hanging their heads like criminals under the eyes of the strangers. Then they turned into the hotel. might have Iv. Sir Archibald received Frank rather coolly, though civilly. Then he left them together, and Eva at once began: “Sit down, Frank. I have something to tell you.” He obeyed, in some surprise; her tone was business-like, her emotion Was suppressed, and she seemed to be prepared to make some clean and log- ical statement. “Prank,” she said, “you wrote a let- ter to papa, did you not?” “Yes,” he nodded, sadly. ‘You did?” she exclaimed, eagerly. “Yes,” he repeated. ‘“TI'wo to you and one to Sir Archibald.’ ’ “What! two to me?” she cried, in dismay. “Yes,” he nodded, once more. “And you had no answers, she went on, more calmly. “Did you ever won- der why?” “Why?” he echoed, in surprise. “Be- cause you were offended—because I had been so rough——” “No,” she said, .very positively. “Simply and solely because we never received the letters.” “What?” cried Westhove. vant, William, seems to have had some interest in keeping them back.” “Some interest?’ repeated Frank, dully, bewildered. “Why?” “That I do not know,” replied Eva. “All I know is this: Our maid, Kate— you remember her—came crying one day to tell me that she could not stay any longer, for she was afraid of Will- iam, who had declared that he would murder her. I inquired what had hap- pened, and then she told me that she had once been just about to bring a let- ter to papa—in your handwriting. She knew your writing. William had come behind her when she was close to the door, and had snatched it from ler, saying that he would carry it in; but, instead of doing so, he had put the let- ter into his his pocket. She had asked him what he meant by it; then they had a violent quarrel, and ever since she had been afraid of the man. She had wanted to tell me a long time ago, but dared not, for fear of William. We questioned William ,who rough and sulky, and considered hiwself of- fended by our doubts of his tonesty. Papa had his room searchad to sce if he had stolen any more letters or cther things. Nothing, however, vould be found; neither stolen articles ror let- ters. Not even the letter to papa, which seems to have been the last of the three you wrote me.” ‘It was,” said Frank. “Of course, papa dismissed the man. And—oh, what was it I wanted to tell you?-I cannot remember.—So you wrote actually three times?” “Indeed, I did; three times.” “And what did you say?’ she asked, with a sob in her throat. “T asked you to forgive me. ond whether—whether all could rot be the same again. I confessed that 1 had been wrong—” “But you were not.” “Perhaps not. I cannot tell now. 1 felt it so then. I waited and waited fez a word from your father. And none came.” - “No, none,” she sighed. “What could I have don “Why did you not come yourself? Oh, why did you never come near us?” she wailed, reproachfully. He was silent for a minute, collectiag “And then?” [ue thoughts; he could not remember all, “Tell me, Frank,” she said, softly, “Why did you not come yourself?” “I cannot remember exactly,” he said, dully. “Then you did not think of it?” “Yes, certainly,” said he. “Then, how was it you never came’ Frank suddenly broke down; he gulped down his tears with difficulty,-a gulp of anguish. ‘Because I was heart-broken; because I was so wretched, so. unspeakably wretched. I had always taken rather cynical views of women, aud love, and so forth; and then, when I met you, it was all so new, so fresh to me, I felt myself a boy again; I was in love with you, not only for your beauty, but for everything you said and” did. Good God- I adored you, Fya. Then there was that change; that doubt, that dreadful time. I cannot remember it all now; and I felt so forlorn aud broken-hearted. I could have died then, Eva, Evya-” “You were so miserable? And you did not come to me?” “No,” és “But, good heaveas, why not?” “T wanted to zo to you.” “And. why did you not do it. the! Again he sat lost ‘nu thought;-his br seemed clouded. ‘Ah, yes! I think I remember i about it now,” he said, slow wanted to go--and then Bertie said—” “What did Bertie say?” “That he thought me a fol for my paips; a coward, and a car, wl a “But why?” “Because you disbelieved my word.” “And then?” “I thought perhaps he wa: did not go.” She flung herself 02 a sofa in utter Woe, weepirg pa Ly. right, and “Then it was wha srtie said?” she cri reproachfulls “Yes; nothing els he said, -urn- They were both silent. ‘hen I was white and bloodless, her eyes fixed with a dull, vacant glare, like weathered glass. “Oh, -Frank!” she cried—* am so frightened: It is coming’ “What, what?’ he asked, in a! “T feel it coming on me! moaned, panting. “It is like the sound of distant thund droning in my ears and in my bra Great heavens! It is close to me! Frank, oh, Frank! It is above me, over me. The thunder is over my head!” She shrieked and fought the air with her arm s if to beat something off, and her slender frame was convulsed as if from a se- ries of ‘mysterious electric shock: Her breath came rattling in her throat. Then she tottered, and he thought she would have fallen. He clasped her in his arms. “Eva, Eva!” he cried. She allowed him to drag her to the sofa without mak any resistance, happy in his embrace in spite of her hallucination; and there e remained, sitting by him, with his arm around her, cowering against his br “Eva! come, Eva, what is it that ails you?” “It has passed over,” she murmured, almost inaudibly. “Yes, it is gone now —it is gone. It has come over me so t comes.roaring on, slow- ly and stealthily, and then it breaks over my head, shaking me to the core; and then it goes away, dies away. away. . . I am in such terror of it; it is like a monster which comes bel- lowing at me, and it frightens me so! What can it be?” “I cannot tell; overwrought nerves, perhaps,” he said, consolingly. “Oh! hold me close,” she said, car- essingly; “hold me tightly to you. When I am alone, after it has passed When I am alone, after it is past, L am left in such deadly fear; but now— now I have you—you once more. You will not cast me from you again; you will protect me, your poor little Eva, will you not? Ah! yes, I have you back now. I knew, I felt, I should have you back some day; and I have made papa come to Scheveningen ev- ery summer. I had an idea that you must be somewhere in Holland—at the Hague or Scheveningen; and that if We were ever to meet again it would be here. And now it has happened, and I have you once more. Hold me tightly now—in both arms—both arms. ‘Then I shall not be frightened.” She clung more slosely to his breast, her head on his shoulder; and then, in a voice like a child's: “Look,” she said, holding out her wrist. - “What?” asked he. “That little scar.’ You did that.” “I did?” “Yes; you clutched me by the wrists.” He felt utterly miserable, in spite of having found her again, and he cov- ered the line of the scar with kisses. She laughed quietly. “It is a bracelet,” she said, lightly. rank, I v. Presently, however, he started up. “Eva,” he began, suddenly recollect- ing himself, “how—why— “What is it? she said, laughing, but a little exhausted after her strange fear of the fancied thunder. “Those letters. Why did Willi what could they matter to William Not mere curiosity to see what wa: them?” “He would not have snatched that last one so roughly from Kate. if that had been all. No, no—” “Then you think he had some inter- in I do.” “But what? Why should he care whether I wrote to you or not?” “Perhaps he was acting for— “NVelL?"” “For someone else.” “But for whom? 2 could) my letters. be of What advantage could it be to anyone to hinder you getting them?” She sat up and looked at him for some time without speaking, dreading the question she mus “Can you really think of no one she said. “No.” “Did no one know that, you had writ- Only Bertie,” said she, with emphasis. “But Bertie—no! Surely?” he asked her, indignant at so preposterous a sus- picion. “Perhaps,” she whispered, almost in- audibly. “Perhaps Bertie.” “Eva! Impossible! Why? How?’ She sank back into her former atti- tude, her head on his breast, trem- bling still from the impression of the thunder she had@heard. And she went on: : : “I know nothing. I only think. I have thought it over, day after day for two years; and I have begun to find a great deal that seems mysterious in whot had never before been puzzling, but, indeed, sympathetic to me—in Bertie. You know we often used to talk together, and sometimes alone. You were a little jealous sometimes; put you had not the smallest reason for it; for there never was anything to make you s0; we were like a brother “That he did not speak of you as @ i true friend should. I am not sure. of saying things. that he neaate well by both of us es that he was afraid of something ne pening—some evil, some Leiner? ce if we were married. He seeme\ think that we ought not to mass When, afterwards, I thought over en he had said, that was always en pression. He really seemed tot be that we—that we ought never to married.” She closed her eyes. worn out by this effort to solve the enigmas of the We and she took his hand and stroke as she held it in her own. He, oe tried to look into that labyrinthe fee past; but he could discern nothing. cr memory carried him back to their bes days in London; and he did recal something; he recollected Van Mae- ren’s stern tone when he. Yesthove, said he would call at the Rhodes ; he remembered Bertie’s urgent haste to get out of London and wander about the world. Could Bertie—?, Had Ber- tie any interest? But he could not dis- cern it, in the simplicity of his unprac- tical heedless friendship, which had never taken any account of expenses, always sharing what he had with bet companion, because he had plenty am the other had nothing: he could not seo it, since he had never thought ot such a possibility in his strange indifference to everything that approached money- matters—an indifference so complete as to constitute a mental deficiency, 2% another man is indifferent to all that concerns politics, or art, or what not— matters which he held so cheap and understood so little, and could only shake his head over, as over an Abra- bra. He looked, but saw not. You see, I fancied afterwards that Bertie had been opposed to our marry- ing.” Eva repeated, dreamily; and then. bewildered by the mystery which ife had woven about her, she went om: ell me, Frank, what was there tm him? What was he, who was het Why would you never tell me anything about him? For I discovered that, too, later, during those two years whem I thought out so ma - He looked at her in dismay. Bitter self-reproach came upon him for never having told her that Bertie wi _poor, and dependent on his friend's y. Why was it he had never told Was it out of a sense of shame reless, So foolish- her? at being himself so 3 ly weak about a concern in which oth- eso cautious and prudent? So nly weak—careless to imbecility. till he looked at her in dismay. ‘Then a suspicion of the truth flashed across his mind like the zigzag glim- mer of distant lightning, and he shrank from its lurid gleam. “Eva,” he said, “I will go to Ber- tie—” “To Bertie!” here?” “Yes.” “He! here! Oh, I had never thought of that. I fancied he was away, far away—dead, perhaps. I did not care what had become of him. Great Godt Frank, I implore you, Frank, leave him; do not go near him!’ “But, Eva, I must ask him.” “No, Frank—oh, Frank, for God's sake, do not go. I am afraid—atraid. Do not go!” He soothed her gently with a soft, sad smile which just lifted his yellow moustache; with grave fondness in his honest eyes; he soothed and petted her very gently, to reassure her. “Do not be afraid, my darling. I will be quite calm. But still, I must ask, don’t you see? Wait for me here. I will return in the evening.” “Can you really be calm? Oh, you had better not go——” “I promise you I will be quite calm, quite cool.” And he embraced her fondly, closely, with passionate fervor. “Then you are mine once more?” he asked. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his lips, his eves, his face. “Yes,” she said, “I am yours. Do what you will with me.” “Till we meet again,” then said he; and he quitted the house. Eva, left alone, looked about her with a shudder, as if seeking the evil she dreaded. She was afraid—atfraid for herself and fer Frank, but chiefly for Frank. In an instant her fears had risen to intolerable horror. She heard her father’s step in the passage; she recognized his shuffling tread. It was impossible for her to meet him just then; she snatched up a cloak and wrapped it about her; pulling the hood over her head, she rushed out of doors. It was raining heavily. she shrieked. “Is he VIL Frank found Van Maeren at homa And Bertie saw at once that It had come. He read it. in Frank's drawn face, heard it in the thick utterance of his voice. And at the same time he felt that the lax springs of his deter- mination. were trying to. brace them- selves in despair, in self-defense and —that they failed. “Bertie,” said Westhove, “I want to speak to you, to ask you something.” Bertie made no reply. His legs He was sitting in a large cane chair, and he did not move, “T have just met Eva,” Prank went on, “2nd T went with her to see her father, Sir Archibald tells me that they have been here some weeks——* Still Bertie spoke not: he gazed upat Frank with his deep, black eyes, and their brilliancy was overcast with dis- tress and fear. Frank stood in front of him, and he now passed his hand over his brow in some confusion. He had at first purposed to tell his story, and then, quite calmly, to ask a ques- tion; but something, he knew not what, in Bertie’s cat-like indolence, rou i his anger, made him furious with ¥ for the first time in all the years ie had known him. He was angry that Bertie could stay there, half. down languidly at ease, his gta hand hanging over the arm of the lounge; and he did not detect that his _ attitude at this moment was assumed merely to conceal an all-too overwhelm- ing agitation. And Vrank’s intention a of telling a logical tale and plain question suddenly collay rage, giving way to a mad te know at once—at once— E ¥ To Be Continued ‘ ss “ » “~N