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Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 141, 15 June 1892, Page 7

cyjiorSTS ok Previous Instalments. Aiorris Julian, wealthy, cultured, with kindly if selfish heart, with an adoration to the fair sex, but, owing to the unhappy nlrninabicn of a youthful love-affair, with 0 deep-eeated trust in it, at thirty-five ia „ toan of the world. At the commencei went exercises of a girls'school,■from which P., niece, Clover Fielding, daughter of his cister Mary, is about to graduate, he meets I LjaLocke Maynard, Clover's bosom friend. Smitten by her fresh beauty and girlish ? ocen ce, he sets himself the task to woo Ldtf'a k°r anc* frna% makes her his wife, ! lavishing upon her a wealth of almost idolatrous love. After spending the first ' rB (jf their marriage in travelling, they return to Julianheim, a palatial homestead, Lith the intention of enjoying a happy, ./| ean eßtered, domestic life, where little jja'vnaid is born. But Satia Julian, grown fo "lovely womanhood, is not the Satia Maynard of yore. Some transformation has taken place. Some barrier is apparent to jjei- husband even in his blind worship. •ffgr father's illness, resulting in his death, • t he pretext for Mrs Julian' 3 journey to Elra Ridge, where she spends some, months in her spinster aunt Hester's company. One oveninir a sealed packet reaches Julianheiin for Morris.] CHAPTER IV. A LETTER. Jnis is the letter which Satia had written to her husband : ' MoBMS: I cannot come back to live ivith you again in. our home. It seems ilinost impossible to (hid words with which ;oexplain to you «[;;.' this must be. For oo^'tiine I have .hop i that you would see ind'understand ; but) you have not done J3O. ■ ' I know quite well that dreadful things are said and thought of women who leave their husbands and littler-babies, and that ifc will be a disgrace to yon. For I cannot pxpect bhat anyone but you will believe the true reason oS: my going.' ~ ' It ia because of something in me, Morris, something which impels me — something jwhich is stronger than myself, almost, v/hich drives mo tc break away from the bondage I am in, and beireo to live my own ife. ban you imagine what it would be to have all your own self, oven your (thoughts, controlled by ancJfclser; to feel jampered and fetteroa at every turn ; to be all smothered up in love and kindness and cisvotiori such as yours has- been fee me, until you feel that you must have a locg, deop breath of your own breathing or die ? [f you can, then you know what my life With you has been to me. ' Perhaps you do not realise how entirely I have yielded to your will, thought your thoughts, bee-i absorbed by you, even in rery little things. But if you will look back upon the years we have spent together,"! am &ure that you will see that it has been so, especially since we came to pnr home. 'I have tried to believe that thij was ■Aright; to think of it and to accept it as the fsual condition of wifehood ; to be sublissive ; to stifle my individuality ; to love iie " hand of steel beneath the velvet love." Perhaps I could have done this in ;me if my child had not been born. "Now, can no longer look into his eyes, and feel

,hab his mother is living a lie with every

heart-beat. For lam nob happy, nor consented, nor satisfied. I must be true to myself, to what-1 believe'to be righb and honest. I think I cannob love you, Morris, as I ought. For we read that with true

Wifely love cornea a sense of oneness, of (completeness which would render this feeling of mine impossible. It musb be that our .marriage wa3 a mistake. I was nob Wise or good enough for you. I ought to wish for nothing more than a love, a devotion such as you have given me. Surely,

mo woman could have more. Bub ib [burdens me. lam crushed out of myself }by bhe very weight of "your indulgence. Sometimes I have ionged for harshness, for actual want, as a relief from the cloying sweetness of a living that oppresses the real Satia, whom I have thought you do nob truly know, nor ever did.

' Can you—do you understand me yet,

Morris? Can you believe that ib is .not Basy for me to say all this to one who has inaanb to be so kind and generous a friend ? If I could bear the pain which I know this will bring to year loving heart,' I would gladly do so. Bub thab is as impossible as it is for me to return to you.

4So long as my father lived I could not go, for it would have killed him to know that I sva3 unhappy. But now lam going faraway, across tiie waters. Aunb Hester Will go wibh me, and, in some quiet spot, With only nature about us, perhaps I can find the freedom to live my own life, which I so eagerly desire, and can make my own way out of bhe confusion and distress which overwhelm me now.

'Try to forget me. Morris. I am all Wrong, and never deserved your love. Pub tee out Of your life. Bub be kind to our

boy. Mako him as true and good a man as you are. Do not tell him of the mother who could leave him and go to the othor side of the world.

'I am very grateful to you, Morris, for all that you have done, and it is mucb, to teake my life outwardly happy. It is not your fault that you could not make ib truly Bo within. S-Atia. 5

The paper slipped from his nerveless fingers. Ha sab stunned, stupefied by the thunderboldb which had fallen from a' clear Bky, shivering his happiness to atoms. His heiirb quivered with pain. In anguish of spirit- he groaned aloud. The simple, pathetic words burned themselves upon his brain in letters of fire. H w true they wore. Over and over again bhey rang in his ears, torturing him beyond endurance. 'The hand of steel beneath the velvet glove.' What could betber describe the imperious, even though kindlj", will which bad transformed tho impulsive, glaclhatured, capricious girl into the quiet, outwardly yielding wife, of whom he was so truly and fondly proud ? He understood nosy her restlessness, her timid appeal to his generosity, her strange beauty thab night by Maynard's cot. Then 6ha was herself, strong in tho dignity of her own royal womanhood, nob a creature of his fashioning. Scene afber scene from memory's page Bashed across his mental vision. Far back, from remoter years, other pictures came, Upon them all, in characters of living flame, was branded the one word— 'self.' -.

It was net a pleasant retrospect, nor was no long able to contemplate tho real nature frith which, for the first timo in his life, he Stood face to face. Conscious thought was swallowed up in the agony of knowing thab be had lost 'her. He feit nothing but a friof, a helplessness a crushing sense of bereavement and sutforc.'?g. The hours passed unheeded. Ab last he was aroused by a knock ab the door, Looking around, half bewildered, he saw the red dawn faintly breaking. JJe felb chilled and desolate,

He answered the Bummons, Keteie, the faithful Scotchwoman, who had been tlie nurse of his own childhood, and who bad cared for little Maynard with scarcely less affection, stood before him, with his son in her arms, Her eyes were red with weeping.

Silently Morris drew her within. She placed the sleeping boy on the sofa ; the;, pame to the man, who had thrown himself

down in fresh despair ab the mute confirmatiori"' of "the sorrow he had wildly hoped might prove to be a dream. As though he were a chiid again, she drew his head bo her kind and loving breast, smoothing the hair from his burning brow, fondling him and crooning softly. *' - ' Mr puir laddie !' she murmured, lapsing into the broad speech of her youth. ' The heart o' your old Kelsie grieves sair for ye thia day. "Tie a sad mornin' for ye, me own dear bairn. But the Lord above He lo'es ye, Master Morris. He'll gi'e ye strength and help.'

Morris clasped his hands closely about hers. He felb like a child in very truth, who should cling to a sure refuge in time of trouble. For a long time they sat withoutspeaking/ The misery which oppressed him was eased by the sympathy of this \ mother*heart.

At last he rose and went to Maynard. He took him gently in his arms. The boy awoke and looked up into his father's face with his mobher'a eofb dark eyes. Tears rolled down bhe fabher's cheeks. Great sobs shook bim from head to foob. He came back to Kelsie. ' Where is she V he asked hoarsely. The woman's steady eye searched the haggard face before her. How much of the knowledge which had come to her during the pa3t few weeks should she share with the ' bairn' whose weaknesses and whose strength had been to her as an open book all his life long ? She hesitated a moment. * We came to New York together, yesterday, Master Morris. The steamer sailed last night. May the quid God be near to ye baifch, dear laddie. For the bonnie lassie has as&ir heart as weel as yoursel'.' Morris grow ashy pale. ' Take him away,' he said. . ( To le Continued. )