PARTED AT THE ALTAR.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5147, 17 February 1888, Page 4

PARTED AT THE ALTAR.

[BY LAtmA JEAN MBBEY."]

CHAPTER XIX

"MY OOD ! DOKIS ' CO3IE BACK ! I SWEAE TO

YOU IT WAS A MISTAKE. ! "

The whole affair had been so sudden, the shock which had followed Doris's startling revelation so terrible, that for an instant Frederick Thornton was dazed; and in that instant, the little rigure had eluded his. grasp, and with the iieotuess of a tempesttossed swallow, flew down the path that led to the river.

" Doris! " he called out sharply. " Come hack ! What would you do : " Only a heart-broken sob floated back to him.

Tho words she had uttered came to his memory with awful horror : " Only death could break the bonds that hinds you to me, Mr Thornton. I will not come between you and Vivian. lam going to set you free." Surely poor, beautiful little Doris did not intend to court death in the dark, rapid river. The thought brought him to his senses as nothing else could have done, and with fleet footsteps he followed that flying figure, calling upon her to stop. Bat if Doris heard those passionate cries sho did not heed them. Pausing an instant on the brink of tho moonlit water, sho held up her white hands to the night-sky. "It. was all a cruel mistake," she murmured, with gasping sobs. "He did not love me. It was Vivian whom he loved. He hates me because I came between them and parted them, and I couldn't bear that. I must die and set him free. Surely, God must pardon me, knowing how bitterly hard my life is to bear—

" • Mad from life's history, Glmi io dcatli's njystorr Swift to be hmlcd, Any where—uu ywlicro out of (lie world.''

Poor Doris I Her great sorrow had driven her mad with despair. With a quivering, piteous cry that pierced Frederick Thornton's heart liko an arrow, as it floated back to him, little Doris flung herself from the rock on which she stood, down into the curling waves ; and in an instant they closed over her head. Tho next moment Frederick Thornton reached the spot. He stood there as if turned to stone, looking down into the rippling waters, sparkling under the pale light of the moon—the waters that had but a moment before closed over that beautiful, dark head and childish, despairing face.

Horror had almost robbed him of his voice, deprived him of his strength. With an awful cry ho staggered back from the brink, aud rushed towaid the house, crying loudly for help, for she had not risen again. Poor Doris, tho fair young bride- he had •wedded, aud from whom the hand of fate had parted him, almost at the very altar, in so strange a manner, lying cold in death, and for his sake. Sho had not given him time to tell her how strangely fate hud been playing at cross-purposes with them. She believed he hud wilfully, cruelly deserted her, and it whs this that had driven her to her doom. She had sought death ere the startling truth could be revealed to her. Oh, the pity, tho horror, and the cruel shame of it!

' ; Help ! help ! " he cried, hoarsely, wildly rushing up the broad, marble porch two steps at a time. To the servants, who rushed out in answer to their young master's ■wild cries, he explained in a few, gasping ■words what had happened. There woidd be no question of saving her now, they told him. They could only get drags and search for the body. This was quickly done. Steady hands bent to the oars. Rigid and still, and ghastly white, Frederick Thornton sat in the boat beside them, watching it all ; sat like a figure wrought in marble ; sat with the ghastly, white, despairing face of a man whose thoughts were torturing him to madness. Ever} r rush of the waves that beat against the boat—every stroke of the oars, as thuy struck against the water, seemed to cry out to him :

" She sought death because she could not. live without you. How the poor child loved you !" The drugs were slipped, splashed, and trailed tbrjugh the shimmering water, only to come up tangled with weeds and river drift. No set, white, childish face, framed in riusrs of wet hair, clinging to it —no slender, girlioh figure cumu up with the drags from the river's depths. An hour passed in useless search. They were obliged at length to abandon it. The bwift undercurrent must have carried her away before they had reached the spot.

And all this time the merry ball was going on. Music, laughter, and daucing made the night air echo with revelry, aud not one among them knew of the tragedy that had tukon place so near them.

Frederick Thornton could not go back to tho scene of festivity. He could noL endure it. Like one mad, he paced tho riwr brink, gazing with horror aud remorse too great for words at the fair, false, smiling, treacherous waves.

Suddenly a light, quick step came hurriedly down the path. He know before ho raised his white, haggard, pain-drawn face that it was Vivian.

" Have you learned what has happened, Vivian ?ho asked. " Poor Doris has flung herself into the river. I was powerless to save her, for she never rose again. There was not even a ripplo to mark thu spot she went down. She is drowned. Poor, pretty Doris ! She did it to set me free. Oh, the pity of it, Vivian ! the pity of it!"

To the last day of his life Frederick Thornton never forgot the shock it gave him to hear the triumphant cry that broke from Vivian's red lips :

"Dead, is .she, Frederick? Was there ever such a fortunate stroke of fate for you and me ? 1 thought I should go mad when I listened to her story and lieard it confirmed by your lips. Aud now she is out of our path forever !"

Frederick Thornton recoiled from Vivian in horror too great for words. Could it be that he had heard aright 'i Great Heaven ! had this girl, whom ho had idolised as little less than an angel, a heart of marble, and a breast kc dead to human pity that she could speak of poor, little Doris's untimely death like this i

"Vivian;" he cried, sternly, "do you realize that you are speaking- of that poor child's death as though you were glad ?" "And so I am, , ' assented Vivian Courtney. " Are not you, Frederick r"

" Heaven forbid !"' he groaned, shudderiugly. "If I could put life into that still heart again and brightness into those dim eyes, I would suffer a lifetime of pain to do it."

Vivian came a step nearer to him and laid her little white hand—on which his engagement ring htill sparkled—on his arm. Only a few short hours before that touch would havo thrilled him to the heart's core. Now ho shook it oil" with a shudder.

" You have forgotten that, if she hud lived, she would have come between you and mo—and happiness," she murmured.

And tho voice that had always sounded like the sweetest miuio to Frederick Thornton's oars now seemed strangely discordant to him, and the vague thought drifted across his mind, was it possible ho had ever loved this girl Heretofore ho had seen only the sweet side of Vivian's nature. Now she stood revealed to him in quite a different light—a vindictive woman ; one capable of the most desperate, relentless hate; one who could glory in an innocent rival's death—the loss of a human life—if it removed an obstacle from her path. He was amazed—cruelly disappointed in Vivian Courtney. The chances are, if Vivian had not given utterance to her real sentiments, the whole course of liT after life would havo been different. A slight incident, a word, a look, have often been known to turn the mightiest love into abhorrence. Lovo comes to the heart swiftly, and it may take wing just as swiftly, and is often but a fickle, transient jjuest. But, feeling so sure of Frederick Thornton's love, Vivian went on, huiricdly : "Yes, I a:u glad Doris has made away •with herself. How we would have hated her if the had lived to spoil our lives. She •was always a designing, artful minx when she was at school. Of course, she purposely remained until past the hour for the gates to bo locked, to entrap you into marrying her—the crafty—"

"Vivian ! —Miss Courtney !—remember you arc speaking of the dead' ■ " exclaimed Frederick Thornton, stonily. "Do net speak another disparaging word of tlntpoor child, if you would have mv retain tlie respect in which I have always held you. Eetoember —sho was—my —wife."

Vivian took a step backward, and looked at Ids pale, angry face. " One would almost imagine that you ■were as much in love with the pretty little as she was with you," sho cried ; "and that you had just discovered that smouldering lovo existed in your heart when her unexpected takiug oif awakened it into life."

She had put the idea into his head, and ie caught at the thought with strange eagerness. Was the great pain at his heart :.ho quivering, mighty throb of love?_ He ■overed his face with his hands, with a leep groan. The consciousness of the truth came home o Frederick Thornton too late. He loved ■ ittle Doris, the pretty, trembling young •ride whom he had wedded, and from .vlmm f<itf had parted him so strangely. The mighty thrill that had stirred his nulses as he saw her kneeling. •■ with her golden head bowed on the cold, hard stones .uisiue vi the closed gates, crying out she would rather die than face the pitiless world—the mighty thrill that had stirred his pulses, and bade him care for her—instead of pity, as she thought it then, was lore. Love, too, that had prompted him to follow her to-night down to the river, to give his life, if need be, to save. Lovo that bemoaned her loss, aud cried out to him that his life was ruined and blasted, now that Doris was no more : aud the bitterest drop in his cup of woe was the knowledge that Doris loved him so well, and that she had died because she could not live without him. and had died, too, believing he had wilfully deserted her. Ah ! if sho had but known just how that terrible affair came about.

Again Vivian broke in upon his perturbed thoughts. "You do not speak! You do not attempt to deny it !" she cried, shrilly. " I believe you did love the girl, or you would never, never havo asked her to marry yon that night of the ball; and if that be true, I glory in the fact you are parted from her —that she is dead '."

Great Heaven! how the cruel words smote him ! and in that moment he loathed Vivian more intensely than he had ever loved her.

"As tho case now stands, Vivian," he said, coldly, " I release you from your engagement, realising under what circumstances it was made."

" But supposing I do not wish to be released." she said, slowly. "We can never bo anything to each other in the future," he answered, firmly. " All is over between us, Vivian ; we must part forever.'' [to be continued."]