The Mystery of No. 13.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 291, 7 December 1900, Page 6

The Mystery of No. 13.

By HELEN B, MATHERS.

CHAPTER Yin.

■"What sudden change is this?" quoth he, "That I to love must subject be, ■Which never therero would agree, But still did it defy?"

Jack had given up his tense attitude of listening for those light steps that never came, which indeed he had forbidden to come, but that he had expected all. the same, with a longing that turned to aching as the days went b\%

He had sent Elizabeth a message ill at he would not see her at any time, that the prison officials would not admit her. no matter how loudly and long she beat for admission, and she had not beat so much as once and softly—and the terrible silence filled his ears, and heart, and soul, as he sat .there day after day and week after week, alone. But Elizabeth was very proud, and cmce he had shut the door against her, no prayer for the reversal of his sentence would ever cross her lips. The Woman who clamours in vain, inflicts on herself a double pang1, for the loss of self-respect is even more bitter than the refusal of what she demands.

And Jack could not call her back. In. these long days of loneliness he was living over ngain the time when he and his little Elizabeth had dwelled together in a world out of which every one else was shut, save Daffy; when he was as sure of her love and faithfulness as his own; when his knowledge of her goodness (for who could live with and doubt her?) made him think tenderly of all women for her sake, and in the best sense of the word she had made .his house a home, and shrined him deep in the purest heart he had ever known.

"Whatsoever thing is defaced and ibroken was it not clean and whole once? There must be a beginning to all moral defilement; but looking back, Jack could find no lightest sign to mark the decadence of all things lively, and of good repute, in Elizabeth. '

He thought, of her always now as one thinks of somebody dead, for the new woman who had risen in her stead Avas not Elizabeth, and he.knew her not.

He wondered if her mother's love had gone by the board with the rest —yet In the same breath hoped thai: Daffy was taking g-ood care of her, Daffy, whose firm conviction it was that she needed a gTeat deal of taking care of, and whom he consequently led over 'crossings, to his own imminent danger, and hers, very often. He was also most particular to explain everything said by the shopman who served her,' and his high, clear little voice often brought some amusement, and a good deal of gentle commiseration down on the head of Elizabeth, whose chief misery in her misfortune was the constant reminder of it she got whenever she moved abroad or saw new faces. Daffy did not know this, but-he secretly felt himself a much older and more experienced person than his mother, and never failed, on going out, to tell the servants "to take care of mother," as if she would be in serious jeopardy until he came home again. But strange and true as it was-, that [the moment those little feet came into the house, however far away, Elizabeth always felt and knew they were there, and she could always hear his voice a long way off, though a wall seemed built round her to ordinary sounds. Night and day Jack thought of {these two —his only two in the world —and sometimes he wondered if they prayed for him now, .... they did, they must, just as- his own lips framed the same prayer each-night that they bad done in the days of his happiness.

One prayer he had added, that on fthe day of the trial he should not look rup to behold her face. The sight would unman him, and he required all his strength; still, if he had been able to endure what he had done, his hack would grow to the burden of the rest. If, indeed, she were thprp, h" twotidered which face she woucl wear? ,the one that he had known and worshipped, or the other, all disfigured and branded, as it had been that awful morning-, with the terrible stamp of— ,but his thoughts seldom got further.

Often, too, he thought of Barry, the fast friend of over twenty years, ;who had remained his friend long after both had outstripped the ephemeral friendships that had strewn their paths, and whom he had taken into his house as carelessly and securely as if he were his other self.

True they had met but seldom. Barry dined each night at his club, and their morning hours of going out ■were not the same.. It had, moreover, been an understood thing that there ■was.to be no running in and out of each other's rooms, and a message was always to be sent to know if one could receive the other. This rule had always been adhered .to, and Jack could scarcely have told how it was that such meetings had become rarer and more rare—only one day, when Elizabeth was sitting working apart, too far off to hear their voices, shut in "within those walls of deafness in which she sometimes sadly dwelt, and in whose coldness she must have perished, but for the love that surrounded her, Jack caught a look on Barry's face, quite unconscious, but betraying such a hunger of love and devotion as flashed up*on him an altogether disagreeable and unexpected revelation. The look was gone in a moment: the next, Barry presented the spectacle of

an ordinary young man intently watching a young- woman in the act of threading' her needle, threading it too, as if she loved it, as Elizabeth assuredly did.

Jack had pondered long- over the circumstance, loth to put into words What he had seen, and supposing Elizabeth to be perfectly unconscious, he felt it impossible to speak to her on the subject. And Barry? He thought he had not known his friend's heart .all those years for nothing. Then a few weeks had gone by, and suddenly, without the warning of a moment', had come the catastrophe.

■He saw before him now that friend's face, vivid in death, and in his ears a desolate voice rang out, "His sun went down while it was yet day."

Ay! but it had not gone down,' it had been quenched all too soon, as it rode in mid-heaven, and the pity of it would overcome Jack at moments, as with all the streng-th of his soul he would wish his friend back, and that one lightning- moment of crime undone.

In fancy Barry once more walked beside him, as in those constant days of companionship when they and the world were young, and their hearts were fresh as their hopes -were high; when they mapped out their lives in glorious fashion, and vowed to make themselves known by all manner of brilliant deeds and great thoughts, and now —Barry had died before ever attaining to fame, and ■Tack's only grand achievement (as he thought it) was when he. persuaded deaf little Elizabeth to be his wife.

Would he have loved her so much if Nature had extended her cruel stepmother's touch on the girl's ears to the lines of her face and figure? I trow not. Men will do a great deal for what pleases them, but nothing at all for what pleases them not. And deafness is an unbeautiful thing and needs much love and patience in. those who have to bear with it.

Boor Elizabeth used to say that deaf people were sent Into the world to practice patience themselves, and discipline others to patience also; but Jack would not have changed her for the most perfect person, mentally and physically, in the world;. But that was then, and this was now. And on the morrow his cell would be empty and lie standing in the dock. (To be continued.)