THE FRENCH MASTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12070, 13 September 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE FRENCH MASTER.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL .ARRANGEMENT.]

BY ALFRED WILSON BARRETT.

CHAPTER X. ii A DELEINE'S LETTER.

'"You will be surprised to receive this— surprised to hear irom me, and at. such length—but I must write: I cannot help myself, And yet, were I not certain—were I not about to make it certainthat we should never meet again, I would die before my pen should touch the paper. "Then, if wo are never to Meet, why should I write ; why should I care what your opinion of me may be? How can 1 even hope to make you think better of me by telling you my miserable story'' Ah! lam a. woman. . . ! " You startled me on the beach yesterday. I never guessed—l never suspected! 1 should never have let you speak, but you look me by surprise. Then, before you should go far enough to repent, before you should say wlrai you would perhaps have cut jour tongue out sooner than spoken (when you come to look back), I stopped you. I would have told you my story. The love of an honest man (for what would you have said?) is not for me. '• I was interrupted. You remember by whom. "'My miserable story'V" That is what I write?" Yes, and of late such a, miserable life—such a wretched, miserable life! The most terrible scene in that life was recalled to me by that incident yesterdayto me and to you too. 1 saw it in your eyes. "I never remembered to have seen you before. When I first met you here in Viareggio your face was as strange to me as mine was to you. You remembered me yesterday it came to you, as it did to me, from heaven ! That scenethat man holding you and trying to force you away— did it recall to you and me? 1 will tell you.

"It is a foggy night in a London street. A carriage is standing in the roadway. Inside it lies a lovely girl, stabbed by a cruel knife. Her sweet face is pale as death, and the blood stains her dress and the brougham seats. Another girl, holding in her lianas a lamp, tries with trembling fingers and heart that throbs sickeningly to staunch the wound. The dying girl'.-! open, but there is hate instead of love'in their wild gaze. Cruel, cruel words burst from her lips. You heard those words—for you were looking on. weren't you'.' —those words which broke a heart. . . . Then a man conies swiftly lound from the horde's head: he seizes you and pushes you aside; he springs to the box and flogs the horse. . . . Do you remember anything more? I do not— thank God, Ido not! Ir was weeks before T heard anything, saw anything, felt anything, but those cruel, those bitter "words! They followed me everywhere; they rang in my ears: they flamed before my eves; they stabbed into my heart, as I." .' . . X! Oh. Hod. no! never me . . . as that knife stabbed into her heart. " Forgive me. I hardly know what 1 am wilting. I will try from this to tell you clearly, briefly, however difficult it may be. what some impulse, which perhaps you will never understand, Las made me wish that you should know. "My name is not Leicester —what it is mat ■ tors little. My father was an Englishman, of a well-known family, lie had in Ids youth married a Frenchwoman; ami for years he lived abroad. I and my sister — his only children—weie born in Brittany. My sister was a year younger than myself. My mother died when I was three years old : and her death broke my lather's heart. I fancy it even affected his mind. At all events from that time be became strange. different, almost impossible. From being one of the kindest, most loving of parents, lie grew hard, cold, and heartless. He withdrew from all society bur that in which it was impossible that lie could meet any of his equals or former acquaintances.

"Adele and I grew up almost unnoticed, quite tmcared for. by him. Ido not mean that he treated us badly, or that we wanted anything due to our position. We had nurses of irreproachable character : our servants were carefully chosen: and. as we grew older, a governess was found IV us— but that was all. We had no parent's love. no friends, no society, no one. to speak to I but our inferiors, and even those, either by | intention or accident, were people who must inevitably have been unattractive or unsympathetic to children. " Under the circumstances it is not sur- ] prising that we became devoted to one ) another, worshipping each oilier, living with hardly a thought outside each other's happiness. 1 was older than Adele —older even than the year that was between us, for mv nature was unlike her's—and perhaps "l spoiled her. How could I help doing so? She was the loveliest child I have ever seen : she became the most beautiful girl. .She was very slender, fragile almost, with' fair Lair and dark eyes. . . . bur. you have seen her! ah. you have seen her! "So we lived in this way lor eighteen years. Eighteen years! I am only" nineteen—can you believe it? In spile of our love foi one another Me were not happy. We lived in one of the gayest Continental towns, and we Mere constantly travelling from our home to other cities—always those in which youth, gaiety, and brightness might be met most frequently : yet we knew none, we were allowed to make no acquaintances. Our father's commands on this point were strict: and we did not disobey them. What were his reasons? I cannot tell. Tinresultendless misery, I know. "One day my father told us curtly that he wished us to "study Russian; he "intended to winter in Petersburg ; and he wished us to be able to give the servants orders, find our way about, and so on. He had found a master to teach us. it, appeared; and we were to commence studying the language at once. "The master came the next day. We had always had governesses till then; and we were naturally excited about this event, which was to us of great importance. I remember Adele saying that she was sure our master would be hideous, eld, and wear spectacles. He came. You have seen him. He was Monsieur Riga. " You can imagine the effect such a, man as he created in the minds of two girls brought up as we Lad been. 'Remember, we had never in our lives spoken to a young man of anything like our position—never to a man at all, save our father and his banker, and a lawyer or two at different places where we stayed— over middle age and uninteresting. Tin's man was handsome beyond words ; he Mas a Gentleman (of good* family, my father condescended to tell us) and his manners Mere as good as those of foreigners of the better class can be. "Poor little Adele —poor little darling! How can I write what followed our meeting with that man! ".She loved him, and I, I thought Urn the best of men. I saw what was going on ; I knew she loved him, for she told me so one day ; yet I did not stop it— did nothing. " Monsieur Riga went to our father. .He had courage. I must say that for him. He was repulsed with contempt. Adele was ordered to keep to the house, and Riga was dismissed. Adele was nearly heart-broken, and she flung herself on my love. How could I resist her? Indeed, at that time it seemed to me, heaven help me! why should Ido so? Our father had never tried to gain our love, or even our respect. The lite he led. openly, forbade that we should look up to him. This man seemed to us all that was good and noblehis only fault that he was poor. Even if I had any last lingering scruples Adele's tears and misery vanquished them. Wo waited our opportunity, and Riga making all necessary preparations we fled to England, where; as soon as it was possible, he and Adele were married. "We were never pursued. My father was away at Monaco when we left. We. had been living at Nice, and he often left us for a day or so. It seems he was a noted gambler (before my mother's death he had been one of the quietest of men). Lately, evidently, he had been losing large sums, and had determined to risk a last attempt at the Monte Carlo tables. He lost, and going into the gardens one night he shot himself. Through his lawyer afterwards we received the sum of two thousand pounds, which, it appeared, he had always put aside for us iu case of such an ending to his life—an eliding he had evidently anticipated. Apart from the curt communication of his death, and the receipt of this money, we heard nothing more. He left no word of love or parting for us. "At the time of Adele's marriage we, of course, knew nothing of this money, and Riga believed that we were heiresses. He had faith —as we ourselves hadin our father's relenting when he should hear of Adele's marriage ; and he was kinduess itself. Indeed, even when he knew the truth, when he Mas aware that the two thousand pounds, sent us from abroad, was all we had he did not once show the dismay he must have felt. "In truth, I believe the man to have been such an utter adventurer, so careless and so reckless, that even that small stun appeared to him a godsend, and the future, when it should be spent, a matter for no immediate consideration. Besides this, he must have loved Adele—he could not help but love her, his sweet wife, in the first days of their wedded life. A harder, crueller, more treacherous nature even than his must have been touched by her beauty add her loving ways. . . , Ah, Adele, my darling, I can write no more of you at that time; let me pass over a lew months in silence. "That brief time was happy. Whatever happened after, those days v.ere bright. We entered heart and soul. Adele and I, into the pleasures of the great capital. Riga was devoted, admiring, affectionate : and he accompanied us everywhere. He explained our lavish expenditure (he would not hear, nor would Adele, of my leaving themand where too could I go?) by referring constantly to a large fortune which he anticipated inheriting shortly ; and we went to all those places where pleasure was to be sought, " Riga had many acquaintances, foreigners chiefly, to whom he introduced us, and who made themselves amiable, to us ; he took a handsome house in a good neighbourhood ; Adele had a little carriage of her owa, servants in abundance, and her every wish gratified. We were too young, too" utterly innocent of the world and society, to notice many things which would have made wiser heads doubt; and we were happy. " Then came the end to the brief dream at last. That coward—that traitor —began to change towards Adele; be began to weary of her. "I saw it before she did—before even that terrible new suspicion came; and 1 tried to keep her from seeing it..

" Alas! I soon found bow impossible * task 1 had set myself. She knew it soon enough. Yet Riga was clever. Before m«» lie wan always as he had been to her at first, even when she knew he loved her no longer, and when lie must have felt I had learned the truth from her. Ah, what cowards men are sometimes!

" Adele began to grow pale and unhappy ; . and. worse than all, she began to draw away from me. who would have given my life for her happiness. I could not, understand this estrangement at first; J put it down to her desiie to shield her husband in my" opinion—to her uuhappiness to ill-health - to any cause but the right one. Then a* last I understood, and the knowledge stunned me. shocked me beyond words. . . "1 can scarcely write it, even now. A causeless—heaven help !—abaseles.s, utterly baseless, horrible doubt had arisen in her poor mind— doubt of me. I have often wondered if in reality—my father's life being such a strange one— insanity might not have been present in our family, and Auele have inherited some cations twist of mind, some lurking remnant of that terrible disease. Otherwise. haw. explain the cruel days which followed that happy first time: how explain her subsequent behaviour'.' " I cannot write all this fully, Mr. Elisor—yet. how shall J make you* understand what I would tell you? It is all too horrible! Adele became jealous of memc, her sister. "I have no doubt, locking back, that. Riga encouraged her in this when lie noticed it for purposes of his own. At all events from that time he openly neglected her, and began to pay attentions to me— attentions which I misunderstood at first; which I refused to allow myself to believe in: which 1 repulsed at last with all the* contempt of winch 1 was capable. " lint I must, shorten this part of my unhappy story. " When it became impossible for me tot misunderstand Monsieur Riga any longer, I made my preparations for leaving Adele! J should have done so at once, but I was weak; and I yielded to the entreaties of Adele Hot. to desert her. She would bo alone, she told me, among strangers, with a husband whose affections she felt she had lost, though she loved him passionate.lv still—she could nor- beat it, she would die! I yielded. Would that I had died before 1 was so weak! Vet, I dreaded, indeed, to leave, her, poor little bird! — alone in Mich a. cage: and, torn in so many different ways, what was I to do? "For a time things went on more happily, or at least, more peacefully. Adele? seemed to have forgotten her * unhappy] jealousy; and her husband appeared tut have conquered his growing coldness towards her. He and 1 never met aloneand we hardly ever spoke to one another. One day—l shall never forget that day—Adele and hei husband had had a wild, foolish quarrel. 1 know not) what hail caused it—though I suspected the, old madness. They had become reconciled, how-*' ever, and he had suggested out' going tulj the theatre in. .!ie> evening, if, suggestion which Adele received with delight, for w* had been living very quietly of late. " That, evening passed pleasantly enough until the time came for us to return home. When we left the theatre we found that the .streets were shrouded in tim densest, fog. _ There was some difficulty in finding carnages and cabs; and a "great many; people decided to walk homo rather thaii risk the dangers of a drive. As it happened, however, we ourselves chanced to discover our carriage almost at, once—it. was driven by the coachman, a compatriot of Riga, a man entirely devoted to him and, Adele not being very strong, w« decided that we would drivo home rather than risk a long walk for her in the cold night air. "We went some distance in safety and comfort. Then, when we had left the. busiest part of the city and approached the northern district where we lived, ourcoachman lost his road. For a, time tho man attempted to retrace his mate, or to" discover some familiar landmark; but we were apparently in c deserted neighbourhood, and he at, last desisted from further fruitless attempts. He pulled up the horse and, descending from the box, he asked permission of his master to knock at some uoor near by and to attempt to discover what street we had found our way to. Riga gave his consent, begged us not to he frightened, and descended from the carriage to attend to the hors/a. The coachman was some time absent; and alter a little while "Monsieur Riga, came' round to the windy*' to speak to us. He chose my side. I Jet down the glass of the window, and as he approached he seized my hand and attempted to kiss me. . . ~ I cannot tell to this day whether in th» darkness he had thought "it was Adele. I : tore my hand away and lie gave a short* laugh. While that" laugh still rang in my ears I beard a strange wild cry behind me* and turning round I noticed that Adele ha& sprung to her feet. Her eyes were wild and staring, and her beautiful curved lips) were parted, showing her little white teeth?.' which ground together. (To be continued daily.)