A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE.

Bush Advocate, Volume VII, Issue 650, 16 July 1892, Page 5

A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE.

L I think I must havo been dieamin;; {ho last few houi'3— it is all so strange. I wonder if it is always so tciiiule to go what; is right! 1 dcm't believe faho ever suiured befoie in her life. Tho look that camo from thoso (iailc eyes of hers when I pushed liar away and began to sjiealc -will haunt ma to my dyi.'i;^ day. SliG almost fainted. Well, it is all over, anil there ii left for „me nothing but tho remembrance of her love aud Iho one thing that I bliall ever have to my credit in t!m boots o£ heaven. Waiier, soiao brandy. Was that brandy thut I had juot swallowed V It wns'r How long havo I been at tins table '-. "What? Twentyfour hours ': Ah ! I remember now that you are not Iho first waiter who brought me brandy, nor yet tho Bccond, niid I think you tried to yet me (o £0 homo and get fiome sleep. I can never tlo an j thing more in this world but reisembur — remember. By Heaven, it was haid to do ! But sho will see Eomo day that I v.'U3 right, aud perhaps years from jjovt, "srheii s.ie 13 a wo-iian — a mother, perhaps, wit'i a red-cheeked boy in her arms repeating his innocent prayers — she may think of me and forgive mo. Aud I may be dead then. And if lam not dead, I'll— l'll j bo a broken, haggard old man with a chain on my leg und a brand on my shoulder just as I have ouo now on niy soul. How the cried 1 I felt like a brute. Ah, I know that feeling well, but it is strange that I should have despised myself so for tho first decent thing I havo doiio sinco I was a laughing boy ! how I love her— l who have laughed so at love ! Thirty -eight years of cynical disbelief against ono year of absoluto love. Thirty-eight years 1 1 months aud 30 daya of disreputable life against ono day of Belfsacrifice. That is my record. And what a sacrifice it was ! To givo up the woman ono loves aud make her despise you that sho may not suffer. How happy we could have been, t>ut for— it vraa happiness to me j ÜBt to Bit besido her and watch ncr at some little womanly act ; to sco her smile, to know that her soul was as white as tho feather of a swan, and to cay to myself, " This woman actually loves me — me, a" — pshaw, I don't liku to say (he word even to myself. Ifow sweet cho was. She used to put her iittlo hand on my head and stroke my hair, and ask rue what it was that worried mo co much (for with her woman's intuition nhe soon learned that there was something that troubled mo), and I would laugh and tell her that it was ihe fear that somo day she might cesso to lovo me. Then she would kits \ :4no aud toll mo that I need never fear such a ' thills as th»t. Then the would cnll ma fooli&h, indlaugl. anl kiss ma again. I can feel bei faint breath cv my brow now. I am sure I could have made liar happy, even though I am what I am. If I could have marnfd her, I would have guarded her »s carefully as Ihe Creator guaids the augels. Sho would never fcavo learned oven tho alphabet of the black sido of luiman life. Wo would have been rich ar.d respected and happy — oh, co happy ! But that man— that man with the g»ld- rimmed spectacles whom I see everywhere— fii«hteiis me. I can foel the atmosphere of Scotland Yard about him, although he looks almost benign. If I could ever catch htm looking at me I should be satisfiidthat ho is not what I fear. But although ha seems to bo every whera I go he apparently pays no atlont'on to mo, and therefore I know that ho has ken looking "I me, and has turned away as Buddonly as I havo turned to look at him, It was tho only thiu£ I had to wara rue. It may bo, after all, that he has no interest in tho capture of an escaped — butlcould not run the risk, for her sake. After all I am well disguised. I have chauged a good deal in a year. It is nearly a month since I first noticed him, and he has evidently been unable to make up his miudyet. I suppose, too, that it is a little hard for him to believe that I could ever, after leaving England, have been introduced, as I have been, into the society of the most respectabls people in all New York, and be engaged to the daughter of a millionaire. Ha ! ha ! These English detectives are alow : but, confound it ! they — aro — most — disagreeably — sure. Well, I don't care about it now. It is almost over. It has been a strange story. To come here a hunted criminal — a convicted one, too — with my ill-gotten money in my pocket and my iJcutity a secret — to havo been introduced to good society through a chance acquaintance —to have been introduced by that same acquaintance to a woman I could actually love. What is more wonderful still, to win that woman's lovo— to bo on the po'nt of marrying her and then to fear arrest — to fear far more than that — to foar breaking her "heart! It has Loan a strange story, all of it. I did something, though, that very few man could havo done— vary few, indoed, of those'who hivn nover known temptation and never done a v>roug, I gave her up that Bhe might not be unhappy — that filio might not be disgraced, as sho' would have boon sdiuo day ; for, after all, I a.n certain that my time has almost come. I can wear tho hideous clotho3 of a convict ; I can hear disgrace, for lam used to it ; I can stand the harJ, unceasing, degrading labour and the disgusting food-; but I cannot disgrace her — I cannot. And I did it all yesterday. I "vent to her. She greeted me with a Uviug smile, the memory of which will sclaco me ia the long years of suffering. She was entertaining, with tha aid of her sister, sonio intimato friends. They were all delighted to sco mo. Ah, how happy people must bo who aro respectablo '. Sho came to rue with outstretched arms as I entered the room, and I pushed her roughly away. Oh, it was agonising ! Sho burst into laars and threw herself into tho arms of her Bister. I could not tell her that I was a forger, a professional criminal, but I told her that I was an adventurer — that I did not lave her, and that I had intended to marry her merely for her money, I told lior, too, that I had learned that 'j-.tr father w»3 on, the point of bankruptcy fit was a lis, „of course, all. of it), aud that I wished to be released from my entragement. I said 'it before them (111. I acted Bplendidty. It broke her heart, it diflgusted the rest, and it almost lc-lleil me ; but, thauk Heaven, it saved her future* Then I mockingly took my leave. -■ • And since then I have not slept, nor eaten, nor felt the effect of the btandy I have poured down my throat; and, what is more, I have tint .cared whether that man with the goldrimmed spectacles was watching me or not. I havo done what was tight— l havo actually •done what was right once in my lifo, thank Heaven ! • Ah — there — is — that : — 'man — again ! And ha is comiuf; towards me. There aro other men with him. He is looking at mo now — deliberately. He knows "inc. It is all up. Come on avenger, come on ! , I welcome you With both my outstretched hands. Where aro the irons? — Cassell's (xtltmluy Journal,