A GOLDEN CURL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1289, 12 November 1896, Page 41

A GOLDEN CURL.

[By J. Evison.]

' Have we, then, no hope, no other resource, Enoch V

' What money have you, Ida V She opened her purse, a pretty toy, once stretched by plethora of contents ; now, woefully attenuated. She emptied it upon the table. One piece of gold, a very few silver coins, a curl of golden hair—nothing more. The golden curl she took up reverently, and, unconsciously, twined in and out her slim, white fingers. ' Dear wife,' he said. * what you have there represents our all. Every trinket is sold. What is left of our poor belongings would scarce suffice to pay for —for burying us. With my wounded arm I can do no manual labour, even if I could get it to do. I have walked the streets for weeks, trying to procure clerical work of some sort—in vain.'

'And your poems, Enoch ; will no one publish them here V ' Not a soul. I cannot blame them. There is little or no market for such ware in Sydney.' ' You have heard nothing about the bo;>k you wrote and sent to the English publishers ?'

' No ; the publishers have had it now more than a year and have not even acknowledged its receipt.' 'lt does, indeed, seem hopeless,' she said quietly and resignedly, as if she had not even dared expect better tidings. 'You will not be angry, dear,' she continued, ' but when you have gone out every day looking for work I have gone too. I have answered nearly every kind of advertisement, from governess to general servant. Some of the people I saw were not very kind.' The last sentence she spoke uncomplainingly, to herself rather than to him. The man's pale, thin face flushed. That she should have been exposed to contumely I It was the last drop in the cup of bitterness, cf which he had of late so deeply drunk.

Silence befell. The chill evening air sobbed without and stole into the room through the open window of the lonely little cottage by the darkening sea—a tendril of honeysuckle tapped mournfully upon the pane. ' I could never think so before, but now I think we should be glad that Elaine was taken first,' he said at length. The woman looked at the golden curl which lay within her palm, then folded her hands, with her dead child's hair therein, before her tired-looking eyes. She did not weep. Presently, without changing her attitude, she asked —

' What, then, do you wish that we should do?'

She knew, by some subtle instinct, what the answer would be—yet, woman like, she asked. He trembled, though his eyes were ablaze with light. ' Ida, dear Ida, I can fight no longer. _ Life has beaten me. Let us die—let us die together !' The cold of death touched her. She shivered. Then rose, clung to him and kissed him. ' Oh, Enoch, I am not brave enough. It is wrong. We should be punished in the life to come !' ' There is no life to come.' * What ?' she cried, and drew from him a little space. 'No life to come ? We have never spoken of such things, even when Elaine left us. Do you believe, then, that when we die there is an end to everything V 'Not an end to everything; an end to the individual and his individuality only. Nothing is lost in Nature —forms change, that is all. The old oak dies, but are there not always acorns in the forest springing into young trees ? The individual is lost, the type remains. The parents die and Nature resolves them into their constituent elements j the children live. But, as for us, our Elaine is gone and wants us no more. Let us go, too, and —forget.' 4 Enoch, Enoch, do you not wish to see Elaine again ?' ' Sweetheart, it is not a matter of wishing. Nature's great mill grinds on ever, caring nothing what we wish.' 'Then we die and end, as dogs die and end?' ' Are the mass of human beings in advance of dogs, dear Ida ? The dog is loving, intelligent, self-sacrificing, faithful unto death.' She answered nothing, but wearily caressed the gulden curl. 'To die like a dog!' he murmured, a little bitterly. Then, opening his desk, took out a bundle of old letters, selected one, black edged, the ink faded, the paper somewhat yellow, and read it aloud—

'"I have some sad news for you. Florence never recovered your departure. She could seldom be persuade I to take food, and spent long hours wandering between your old home and ours. She cried a great deal. If, worn out, she fell asleep, she would soon awaken, go to the door, look out, aud sob bitterly. If she met any sho had once seen with you shefollowed them, as if hoping they might takes her to you, and the pathe.ic, yearning, yet hopeless expression of her beautiful eyes was, indeed, tragical. She found an old drivingglove of yours. She never relinquished it, fondling it even in her sleep. One night she walked slowly round the room, looking at each of us Yery fixedly. Next morning, on the Bpot on which she had last seen you stand* we found her —dead —her head pillowed on your glove." ' As the man read, the delicate face of the woman faintly flushed. ' Was Florence a woman—a girl, Enoch V

' Sweetheart, I never loved woman or girl, but you and Elaine. She was a spaniel—faithful unto death.'

' Women are like spaniels,' she said, simply, without conscious satire.

After a long pause she asked—- ' Then what comes after death, Enoch V 'What know I? I believe and hope sleep eternal —dreamless sleep.'

' And no meeting hereafter V ' Surely 'twere better so. If there be personal continuance after death, we must either remember what happened here or forget. If we remember, the beyond is but a continuance of the hope deferred, the regrets, the despair of to-day. If continuity be not severed, how can we dare expect to retain the pleasures and reject the pains of to-day, of many prior weary days? And, if we forget, there is no lor.ger any Ida, Elaine or Enoch. What us 3 would continuance with othar personality be to us three, who love one another more than we would love Heaven without each ether ?' ' Heaven wou d be no Heaven to me without you and Elaine,' she answered. After a little, she said, * I will go and lie down now—ar.d and—thii k. But, dear Enoch, it shall be as you wish.'

He held her to him and kissed her long and passionately. ' To-morrow night, my Ida ?' ' To-morrow ; yes.' She passed, to think oa Death. Though, i{

he spoke truly—and she held him inspired post and prophet—there was nothing much left to think about. Death ! No Elaine, no Enoch —only dreamless sleep. Eternal —everlasting extinction. The golden curl had fluttered from her feeble fingers. She left it where it la}'. # =* k * They had talked far into the night. The fireat silver moon sailed up the summer sky. The stars, palinj, trembled in the cerulean dome, the faint soft wind sighed. The man turned out the garish lamp and opened wide the window to the beauty of the night. Great branches of roses, low-laden with perfumed blossoms, dallied with the gentle breeze, and smbtle fragrant odours, distilling to the dew, were waited from the garden beyond. He, too, was thinking. Perhaps, wearied by sorrow and passion riven, he slept. A shadow fell betwixt him and the moon n sheen as of radiant raiment, and 10, before him stood his wife, holding by the hand the child Elaine —his wife, once more a girl as he had known her in the happy long ago; his wife, but infinitely morn beautiful, more gracious than he had ever conceived her. The child, how spiritual ! And ho knew that he had grown old, very old, and cold and withered. But he stretched out his arms to them. Mother and child steadfastly regarded him with large, wondering, but unresponsive eyes. And, when he would have advanced to clasp them, they waved him back, while a clear, cold voice, sounding as if from the sea, cried, ' Nay, fool ; you said there \va3 no life to come !' A cloud went o'er the moon, there was a sound as of tolling bolls. The man started up. He was alone ! # * # w In the morning he went down to the city. To his wife he said, ' This is our last parling, Id;-. !' She held him and gazed at him long and very wistfully. ' No hope for now or—after, dear Enoch ?' Fate gives fools the opportunities they will not u<e. Enoch shook his head. ' Yes, onr last parting ! Good-bye, Enoch !' He hurried away. His stakes in the game of life had grown ridiculously petty ; they could be swiftly settled. There were none to v, horn lie need say farewell—the comings and goings of the p.ior and broken are of small account. On his way home, purely from force of habit, he colled for letters at the General jPo-h Office. He expected none. Who would write to such as he 'i These things being so, of course a letter waited him. It was from the London publishers. Through the fault of an employee r. previous ietter, cohering a remittance, had never been posted. They accepted the hock and tfttms; the former was? in the press. Tiu-y vould be g!-<l to for another work. A t'.r, fi fii." ■;• hand-*' <• •'■ amount wan et clo-:-m1 lrhi tinned sick and faint as he reel tho j«ii. 4 .>r, -ud tail hlkuibl a pillar. A poncv-;. -.,<! touched him. 'Anything ths ;t.-.- daz-.l md —'i-• .1 Lhroi.u.'h i ii . Valley oi the Shadow Oi JDcaih Co —to iife V Ht beckoned a cb, drove to the bank and canned the draft. Then he held up a sovereign to the driver—'lf you gallop all the way,' he said. £: # -ifc He let himself in with his key. He whistled, sang, and shouted, like a released schoolboy. '.lda! Ida ! great news. All's well.' •Ah ! fhe is upstairs, lying down, poor thug V As he passed the sitting-room he noted, with a strange tremor, lyiog on the table, the golden curl which his wife had left there the night before. • Ida ! my darling !' He burst into ihe bedroom. there, iying on the couch, clothed in white. There was a hoavy scent in the room, as of almonds. On the floor, where it had fluttered from her dead hand, a note — • I could not have borne to see you die, dear, rvcr could you to have heen me suiter. Goodbve —tor ever !' # * # * But the man still lives.— -Sydney Mail.