Short Story.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 701, 10 November 1909, Page 7

Short Story.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.] THE SPIRIT OF MAN. V By Ethel M. Lorie. Continued from last week. "'lt doesn't make much difference,' the gill said, passing a hand wearily through her hair, "'what you think I'm behaving like, does it? I mean it doesn't alter things." •'No-o. perhaps not," Lionel acknowledged; then he suddenly stood up and put his hands on Phil's shoulders.

"Sit down, there's a good chap," he said, and Phil took the armchan- 'opposite him. Her brother put his pipe on the mantelpiece, and in doing so noticed the time. ''lt's nearly one," he said suddenly. "Why aren't you in bed, Phil?" "I was/' she said, her eyes fixed on the carpet. "And rot vp again ?" "And yot up again." She looked very fair and young and

"irlish as she sat with the moonlight 4'alling on her dainty slippers, and on her miserable face with its pretty fluffy aureole of hair. The sisht of her maddened Lionel"'By heaven, Phil," he said hoarsely. ■'you shall not marry that —that — scoundrel, if I have to kill him with my own hands ! I have it in my mind almost to show him to you, as he is, even if it half killed you. as it would. ju'St to hear." He ground his teeth in his great anger. "You shall not marry him. Phil," he said, and started as she raised her face in the moonlight, so deathly white and resolute was it. "You forget. Lion," she said, with a gentle dignity, "that I am over age, and you know I could marry him tomorrow if I wished. All the same. ; f it's any pleasure to you« to know it, I shall not do so." "Why?" asked Lionel, with a man's clumsiness. "Did you see last night's paper?" "Lion," she pleaded, and her proud young head fell forward,•while the man cursed himself for a selfish biute. x "I suppose," Phil said, shyly lifting her eyes. "I suppose you» wouldn't have told me?" But Lionel couldn't reassure her. > "I dont know, womany," he said, frankly, "You see, we can't help being a bit selfish about you, seeing you're all we've got. We seem to be such a set of old bachelors." For a second Phil's eyes danced. "Biliie 1" she said, and laughed. "Oh, Billie's safety lies m the number of his loves," he said carelessly, "and it will only be serious when he" doesn't tell you all about them, as we know he does now. But Phil, old man," he said, and came over and safon the arm of her chair, as he wouldn't have dared do if any of the others had been in the house, tor if Phil hadn't been so "hipped" herself, "You see it is so different with you, and 5< mehow when I think that this may have been my fault I feel like a brute to talk to you as I'm doing now, but. you see your such a man in courage I forget, sometimes, that you're only a poor little white-souled girl. Ch, Phil!" he said, for she had cutched at his hand, and was kissing it hotly "Don't do that womany—really I say Phil I «an't stand it —I can't really!" and she pu-t his hand down, only to take it up again, and - twine her fingers though his. "You're the dearest old boy in the world," she said then. "Will you break all your old Anglican principles for once," she said, shyly, "and be a father confessor?" He stood up and shook his head. "An old sinner like me to listen to you, Phil," he said, unsteadily, "no!" then he concluded gently, "I'm thinking of y,ou>, dear —you'd be sorry afterwards perhaps. You're like two Phils all in one to-nitrht, old girl." But she was resolute- "I'll risk being sorry afterwards," she said "because I shall go mad if I have to bear things alone any longer," and Lionel sat down again opposite her, with one hand over his eyes. "You boys are all such bricks," Phil began gently, "that somehow you bun me more, much more, than if you> -took no interest. Poor old Frank's got quite thin lately, even Biliy seems different, and I know Cliff wants to say something, but dare not. I felt this all the time, and sometimes, I almost hated you for all being so—so —splendid and treating me like a man, but it wasn't what I wanted somehow. You know. Lion, I've never until to-night said anything about it to yof boys, for fear »f hurting you, but it's pretty hard for a girl sometimes, not to know what her mother was like." "You're just like her, Phil," he said softly. "Oh, yes, in face perhaps, but I want to know what she thought even and what she would have done if —il she'd been just like I am. You> see,' she went on, "I have to be so brave before the boys that I'm a bit of a coward* alone," and Lionel onlv sighed. "You know, Lion, I haven't been much like other girls in some things and I've never been in love before, so —well —I got pretty hard hit you see," she went ,m piuckiiy, "and I suppose I built, too oig an ideal around the real when I fell in love. The night I became engaged to Leslie he told me a lot of things that shocked me " "What? ' said Lionel, incredulously. "Yes. I know abou<t his having been in prison/' she said quietly, "but I don't believe, now. that he did what lie was punished for. IJut I didn't know," she said tremblingly., "I uidu't know that his first wife was living— ht a divorced from her, you know."

Lionel didn't know, but he said ' nothing. One thing more*or less, he raiculated savagely, made little difference. '•And when you found oik?" he asked. •'I wrote to him,' : she said, candidly. 'And '" "And In.- has never answered the ;*•»•-• \<>u know, Lion, : * she said, earnestly 'i knew, somehow, long ago, t". ai I was in love with an ideal. and thai .uy feeiing for Leslie was not what I knew I should feel if I do ever reai'y love; but it's a strange impression of protection that's taken possession of me.* r "Phi: V Lionel said, shocked. She smied. "You don't understand, I iiard.y thought you wou'ld. Things are upside down, and i i K el a protection for him, though, of course. 141 never be called u;:on to exercise "l. 1 do not mean prelection of me,

of course, —you boys will always look after me. One gets queer impressions sometimes, though, and this seems to stick in my head." The garden gate slammed, then the front door, and the other three brothers came into the room. They did not notice Phil.

"I say, Lion, are you< there?" asked Frank in agitated tones, and Phil siipped out quietly. "Yes," Frayne answered, "What's the matter —anything happened ?" He turned on the light and beheld three white faces. ''Good heavens! What's gone wrong?" he asked quickly. Cliff spoke this time. "Coming home from the Gaston's," he said, "we were followed by a boy, and just down the road he gave Frank a note to be given to Phil at once." "To Phil —from whom?" Lionel demanded holding out his hand, unconsciously, for the letter. "Why, it's Leslie Staine's handwriting! Where did the boy get it?" •'Don't know. What are you going to do? You can't give it to Phil?" "Of course, I shall give it to Phil," Lionel said, "its her's, and she's no baby that we should keep back her letters. Go and call her, Biliie," her said, fi she was here a few minutes ago. so she won't be asleep," and Biilie went.

No one spoke in the smoking-room, and as Phil entered Lionel noticed that she was fully dressed, though her hair was still in a plait. He handed her the note.

"It's for you," he said shortly, and was again surprised that she did not attempt to take it to her room. Frank walked over and closed the window to hide his anxiety, but Lionel watched his sister's face closely. She read the note and handed it to him with a strange smile. "I'll do up my hair, and be ready in five minutes," she said. "Will you come with me, Lion?" He nodded, and she left the room. The note was short, and he read—"l am on my last legs, Phil, and have been given two hours to live. You' know what my ideas of religion are worth. Will you be my last communion? —Leslie" Then a scrawled line at the bottom gave the 'address, a boat-house by the river. "What does it all mean?" Frank asked, but the brother and sister had gene, and his query was left unanswered.

In the meantime Lionel and Phi! walked quickly towards their destination, and, with all his knowledge of the girl Lionel marvelled at her composure.

"This will be pretty hard on you, old girl, bu't I wouldn't keep you awav after what you told me," he said. "I wouldn't leave you, you know." She turned a bright face to him in the moonlight. "You dear old boy," she said, and held out her hand as a man might have done. "I'.know you won't, but it's not going to be as hard for me as you- think. It is best that he should die, and I've neve* been afraid of death, you know. It is a grand sort of thing to me, as it was to the •man in 'Prospice,' and I have felt for a long time that evervthing would end up nobly. Death's a leveUer for all things, don't you think ? 'And, living, he could never have atoned." "But how has he died?" Lionel asked curiously. "There was insanity in his family," Phil said, quickly. "I think you'll find he has tried to kill himself." She was right, as they found when they entered the dimly-lit boatshed. A police officer and a doctor were the only other occupants beside the man who lay on the floor on an improvised couch.

Phil spoke to her brother calmly. "I suppose can't leave us" alone?" she said. /

He shook his head uncertainly. "I'll get them away, though," he promised, and after a moment's consultation the two men and Lionel "walked to the door and looked down the beautiful moonlit-river in silence. Phil knelt down on the floor, and put a hand on the dying man's head. "How did it happen ?" she asked in a wonderfully mellow voice, as> a mother might ask a sick child. "One of my old fits," the man answered, his hungry eyes devouring the sympathy on her face, "the first r knew was that I was lying on the bank, pulled out of the water by a police officer. Oh, Phil, you blessed woman, I knew you'd come, and yet I've been in an agony in case you'd be too late. Did you see the paper yesterday ?" She nodded.

Well, if Id lived, I'd have gone to pnson for my wife's sin—you know that.' 5 he asked, eagerly. "I know," she said, simply. "You understood?" he asked. "I understood," she said again. "And now I want you to promise me something," he said, but she stopped him.

i( I know," she said, very quietly, Yov want me never to say that I knew. I never shall, as long as I live, on my honour," and then, before she had realised what had happened, she was alone.

For a minute she stood there, and then, very quietly, but with brimming eyes, she went to the door. "Shall we go now, Lion ?" she said gently, putting her hand through his arm, and the two left. The brothers, Frank, Cliff, and tfillie, were stili in the smoking room as they returned, and Phil walked straight in.

She smiled gratefully at Lionel as he poured out a glass of wine and held it out to her, but she put it down on the table among the disorderly papers and pipes, without touching it. 1 know you : li think I'm a strange mixture, boys," she said, and smiled at them all, "but this has been just the greatest night in all my life, and Id like you all to know that it's you boys that made it so. You turned me into half a boy. you know, and so— Im glad that Leslie Staines is no monger ahve. I built a beautiful ideal around him, and—it was never realised until I saw him die." Her voice was trembling now. and she drank the wine. "But you've all been bricks—and she smiled again, "and I'm glad to be a brick with you," and she left the room. (The End.)