LOVE & JEALOUSY.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 46, 18 April 1901, Page 3

LOVE & JEALOUSY.

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i ' IN FOUR PAETS. PART IV. Seth Blount does not go anywhere for ' his holidays; he stays at the Vicarage of St. Dunstable. He has no home ; and the existence of the lonely tutor, it , would Beem, has not been remembered this midsummer by any one of those few people in the world who call themselves his friendß. So ho has no choice—since Doctor Oarlyon makes no objection—but to remain at the roomy old VicarageIf Rosalind herself regards him as a bore, und resents his presence in her father's house at this holiday-time of the year, she stands too much in fear of the usher now to show that resentment openly. She had so fervently hoped that he would go away with the boys! Seth Blount has however left Rosalind in peaoe, and that is something to be thankful for. He has not molested her or threatened her in any way since the night of the breaking-up party; and lately Rosalind has ventured to believe that his heart must be softening towards her, and that his vindictiveness must be dying out, and that, on account of the love he has borne or perhaps may still bear, he will forgive her her heartlessness after all. For he never addresses her, never looks at her —uuless it"bei at me»l timea, when he cannot very well avoid doing so ; she might be an article of furniture for all the notice he takes of her. Yes, he is trying to»forget her, she tells herBelf hopefully; and, when he has forgotten her, he will forgive her. And so, sinoe Blount no more talks mysteriously of ' biding his time ' and of ' revenge,' the girl's old light-hearted-ness, her old madcap moods, insensibly return ; and the haunting sense of a nameless dread gradually forsaken her as the long summer dayß go by. She is constantly with Norman, boating, walking, driving, being caressed and made much of by the man who thinks her the Bweetest and loveliest woman on earth.</ Miss Melissa's snarlings fall on unheeding ears. The girl's life is all sunshine in this first bright flush of love's young dream. Sometimes they come acrosß the solitary usher, book in hand, and hat pulled over his brows, down amongst the rocks, far out on the sands, or lying quite still, face downward, on the breezy sunburnt cliffs. Sometimes, meeting them on their rambles, he lifts his hat, oftener he does not; but he never speaks. He is brooding on, planning his revenge. ' What a morose unsociable fellow he is!' says Norman, with a Bhrug. ' Is he. always like that ?' 'Nearly always,' answers Rosalind. 'He is very strange.' Late in August peremptory business calls Norman to Plymouth, and he goes away from St. Dunstable. He will be absent three days. Rosalind, not unnaturally, is very loath to let him go, it being the first time he has left St. Dunstable since she became his promised wife. However, there is no help for it, and'Norman sets out. She feels unutterably lonely when he is gone; and the old cold sense of indefinable fear steals subtly back to her heart. She is nervous when she hears the usher's footstep. She starts like a guilty creature when he enters the room. An evil shadow seems to haunt her whithersoever she goes. It is horrible, this shadowy dread, so Vague, so intangible, and yet so real to Rosalind. On the second day she looks quite * wan, and Miss Melissa says brusquely—- * This warm weather does not agree with you, Rosalind. You want medicine. I shall make you some senna-tea.' But Rosalind protests, and goes out for long walks on the cliffs to battle ( against her depression. The time is lived through somehow, and the evening of the third day arrives. As early as he can on this evening Norman Lingard has promised to return. j Rosalind, almost herself again, is wandering along the cliffs, thinking that ' she may perhaps meet her absent lover ion his way down to seek her at the

I Vicarage. It is near seven o'clock in the evening. How she has . missed him ! How empty and dreary her life has seemed without him I How intensely thankful she feels now that Norman is coming back lo her at last ! ' Only three days,' she muses, ' and the time has seemed like three years !' The clouds are low tonight and the sunset is murky. The tide is high, there is no wind, and the jagged rocks at the cliffs' base are nearly hidden from sight. A dipping sea gull in the distance shows white on the leaden waste of waters. Suddenly, about twenty yards ahead of the girl, an uncouth looking figure starts up from the sunburnt turf and continues its course along the cliff's broken edge, without once turning its head in the direction of Rosalind. Recognising Seth Blount, her cheeka blanches. Her first impulse is to retrace her steps and. thus avoid all chance of a meeting with this strange solitary man whom she now so thoroughly fears. Yep, she will go quietly back—she fancies ho has not caught sight of her white gown even—she will leave him to himself by the lonely leaden sea. Shuddering, she turns her white face to St. Dunstable. The next moment an appalling cry ringß out on the hushed evening air. Rosalind's heart almost ceases to beat; she gazes round with frightened eyes, breathless, with parted lips. The uncouth figure of the usher, which only a minute before showed itself bo distinctly against a background of low grey sky, is gone—has disappeared. ' Help I help !' cries the voice of Seth Blount. For the space of ten seconds. the Doctor's daughter hesitates. She stands as if. turned to stone, her energies paralysed, there face to face with the greatest temptation she has ever known. She knows that the life of a pitiless enemy—the only enemyshe has in the world—is in deadliest peril—that his death is certain if she refuses her aid. What more simple than to press her hands upon her ears to deaden the sound of his cries, and thus to rush home to her father's house as fast as her flying feet can bekr her hither ? Who would ever know? The body would be disdiscovered In timo; death would be ascribed to accident. The usher once removed from her path, Norman Lingard would never suspect her of the faithlessness and intrigue of the coquette. It is a most terrible temptation to Rosalind. 'Help—help!' ' Heaven forgive me!' she Bays then, hesitating no longer, with a passionate gesture of remorse for her own inhumanity and wickedness; and forthwith she flies to the spot whence the cries appear to come. liis long lean lianas, sne sees at ono», clutch the weedy tufted soil from whioh his feet have slipped ; his knees cling frantically to the cliff's steep side. The loosened stones rattle noisily down and scare the screeohing sea-birds from the yawning abyss beneath him. It is an awful situation; Rosalind is at her wits' end. ' Oh, pray be patient, pray be careful,' she says, speaking as calmly aa she oan, 'and I will do my best—l will indeed, Mr. Blount 1' A bright thought has dashed through her eager brain and lends her strength and nerve to act with presence of mind. If she could succeed in saving this man's life, she argues, surely then he will be ready to cry 'quits.' Out of sheer gratitude for the service rendered him, he will be willing to bury the past and its vexation, and henceforward all will be well. 'Make haste,' he says faintly— * my hold is giving way !' Happily the place where he has fallen over is on slightly rising ground; so that Rosalind, by flinging herself down at full length upon the grass, is partly enabled, whilst extending her hand to Blount, to hold herself back from a like terrific peril. In an instant Seth Blount has grasped Rosalind's small wrist with both his long hot bony hands. With a sudden jerk he flings out his lower limbs, and the slender arm of the girl is well-nigh I torn from the socket. ' Great Heaven, what are you doing T she cries feverishly. ' Try to lift yourself gradually, or wo shall both be over together 1' His swarthy features light up with the wildest triumph as he drags her white face more closely to his own. She feels His breath upon her forehead ; the red glare of his burning eyes meets the speeohlesa horror of her own. Too late she perceives now that she is the victim of a subtle ruse—that treachery, and not accident, has placed her in this dreadful strait. He laughs the fiendish laugh of a maniac, and she feels that her doom is sealed. 'Do you mean to kill me?' she says, her voice, scarcely audible above the hushed moaning of the tide. 'ldol' he answers. 'I have waited and watched for my opportunity—waited and watched and plotted, and this is ray revenge 1 We will die together, Rosalind, aB I once was fool enough to believe that we should live together! Your lover Avill return to St. Dunstable to-night, and will find you, his promised bride—where V The usher laughs again ; and Rosalind Bhrieks wildly for aid. . 'You may scream your lungs out, Rosalind, my deceitful lover,' he says brutally; ' but thert is not a soul to hear you. Trust me, my opportunity was a golden one, or 1 should never have ventured to test it. Ah, truly revenge

is sweet! If the life is not dashed from our bodies when we reach the rocks below us, I will clasp you in my arms and upon my heart, dear love, and we will sink together so. What will your fine lover say, Rosalind, if he finds our dead bodies thus ?' Faint with agony as she is, this terrible viaion called up by the usher's words fills her with an intense desire for life at any cost. She resists with all the might of her failing strength the fate Seth Blount has prepared for her. She wili fight for her life till the very last, she resolves, rather than die in the arms of this man. 4 Why struggle, Rosalind, my love?' he gasps. ' You must give in at last. It is only a question of—of moments.' For answer, her shrill and piteous voice rings wildly out again over earth and sea. Is there none to save her? she cries in her great despair. Nearer and nearer he drags her towards him, until his swart face iB within an inch of her own. His horrible long lean hands are slowly creeping upward to her shoulder. A few seconds more, and with desperate clutch they will have closed under her arms ; and then —and then There iB no hope I Had her adversary been a bigger and stronger man, the struggle must have ended long ago. She hears the lapping of the deep languid water as it heaves round the sullen rocka. She knows full well the giddy depth from the cliffs' edge to the cliffs" base. She tries to pray, but words will not come; her lips are parched ; there is a sound as of rushing water in her ears, and the sea and sky seem melting into one and turning to blood-red mist. Thoughts of Norman and her father, of her friends and of her pleasant home, come dimly to her now. Death is upon hor, eternity close at hand. How all of them will sorrow for her tragic end, she thinks —and Norman most of all! Can it be that she really deserves so hard a fate—to die bo young and so beloved ? Surely this terrible punishment is out of all proportion to the offence 1 Horror! Her murderer's dark face is pressed to her own death-pale one ; his frenzied laugh of triumph is close to her ear. Then nearer, and still nearer, to her doom—down—down Merciful Heaven ! As in a dream, she hears Norman's voice calling her by name —'Rosalind, Rosalind!' As in a dream, she feels his dear arms wound strongly around her, forcibly dragging her back from the very jaws of death. She hears an awful imprecation, a dull terrific thud ; and then sight and sound are over for Rosalind, and she knows no more. * # * * * Even years afterwards, when all has been long since explained, long confessed, and long since forgotten, Rosalind cannot recall without a shiver of horror the memory of that terrible August night. In the delirium which followed on her rescue the sad confession of her girlish folly was moaned out over and over again. But Norman, because of his great love for her, having loved her and none oilier all his life, took her to his heart and forgave her everything. * I would have saved the villain if he would have let me,' he said to Rosalind, when she was well enough to listen to the story of her deliverance; ' but he would not. He flung out his arms, cursing me for foiling him,, fell backwards, and was dashed to pieces on the rocks beneath. Thank a merciful Providence, my beloved one, that I heard you and reached you in time 1 Never in your prayers, Rosalind, forget it,' said Norman very gravely. 'Never, never!' murmured contrite Rosalind through the tears that were blinding her eyeß. The shattered body of Seth Blount was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Dunstable; and good old Doctor Carlyon marked the spot with a plain white atone, and on which was inscribed the three words-—" I have suffered.'' And now the worthy Doctor and Miss Melissa themselves lie low in that quiet resting-ground within sound of the sea, and the roomy old Vioarage and its manifold duties have passed into other hands. Doctor Oarlyon however lived to see his daughter a good, a happy, and a supremely contented woman, and to caress his noisy grandchildren in tiro nurseries at Oliff House.

Thk End