NO. 16, RUE ST. SIMON.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4259, 19 January 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

NO. 16, RUE ST. SIMON.

(By Also Homes, in the ''Pall Mall ; Magazine.”) T. It. iviii tho height of the .season at Osleml. The sun. blazed down fiercely on the white plage and still whiter hotelfronts staring out to the sea. But for the fresh breeze that found its way across tho water, existence would have become scarcely tolerable. As ot was, it became existence and nothing else. Tho sea-bathers had long_ since gone homewards, and tho bathing-machines lay in unresponsive rows along tho hcach, like a little crowd of Noah’s arks in a shop-window. Up on tho promenade, a few jaded passers-by dragged themselves back to hotel or apartments ; occasionally a brilliant costume of lace and muslin, crowned with yellow hair, flashed by. But 0 stood was gasping, and for the nonce, dull. “I never expected it to bo so hot as this,” said Mrs Jeffries, impatiently. “What did you bring mo here for, Charles ?”

She never addressed her husband as Charles except when she was annoyed with him. Some such thought as this was in is mind as ho turned lazily towards her.

“You wanted to bo brought somewhere,’’ ho .said, “and I brought you here. Short journey; charming place; good dinners; delightful bathing. What more do you want, eh?” “Why didn’t you add—-'pretty warm’?” inquired Mrs Jeffries satirically. She sat bolt upright in her little iron chair on the terrace of the Kursaal, whereas her husband lounged comfortably in his. Tho tlffcrcnco seemed to identify them at mica.

“Isn’t it too hot to bo vicious?” he inquired. Mrs Jeffries stirred uncomfortably. “Pretty women,” he went on, “are as much an adjunct to life as good horses. But they arc nut necessities.” Then ho added, with a laugh. /“Wo keep bicycles now!” Mrs Jeffries got up and shook out her parasol. “I suppose,” she remarked, “it's time for lunch.”

“I suppose it is,” declared Charles dutifully. “I. hope those rowdy Americans won’t: sit at tho table next ours again,” pursued Mis Jeffries, ns they made their way down the Kursaal steps. You didn’t like thorn, did you, Charles?”

“I didn’t mind them,” said Charles absently, and then he stopped short suddenly, and put up his hand over his eyes and stared. Mrs Jeffries followed his glance, and saw' that it rested on a slight fragile woman in black, who w-as buying roses from a flow’cr girl, and choosing them carefully, almost tenderly. She .'stood profile-way towards them, and Mrs Jeffries had time to observe, before she moved, that she had a very pretty profile. and exquisite, though exceedingly delicate colouring. “.Do you know her, Charles?” she whispered, and just then the woman turned and faced them.

Tho Jeffries had finished dining at Os-

tend. They were sitting at a little table in the verandah of the Hotel Continental, facing the sea. On the table a great mass of white and red roses perfumed the air. The electric light was shaded with red shades, and the menu-card lying in front of Isabel was pink, outlined in scarlet. It all looked very luxurious and voluptuous, even to her luxuriously-accustomed eyes, and she gave a little sign of content as she sipped her coffee. “This is very pleasant, Charlie,” she said. Outside, a purple light of shadow lay on sea and on land. The distant horizon looked like a streak of silver. Against it a fleet of fishing-boats waited for the incoming tide, while nearer all was dark and purple and mysterious. A ceaseless throng of people passed to and fro the windows of the hotpl. Welldressed, respectable burgher people, some of them; some of them shabby and poor; some merely rough loafers.- But one and all every now and then stopped to throw curious glances at. and make remarks concerning those within. Charlie Jeffries saw it, and was annoyed. Isabel Jeffries saw it, and laughed. Suddenly she leaned 1 forward and touched him on the sleeve with her fan. “Charlie, Charlie, do look!” she cried; “there is the same woman we met on the pior to-day, and who was so like some one you once knew. There she is—there! There!” In hear eagerness to point her out, slip half rose from her seat, and was astonished at the peremptory way in which her husband forced her back again, his grip closing on her wrist like iron. “Sit down,” he commanded; “it is not her at all. It is—some one—quite different!” Yet he was straining his eyes as ho apoko to distinguish the different faces in the crowd moving, past them below—faces but partially illuminated by the electric light from the dining-tables. All at once his look concentrated. Ho had found her. She was sitting a little in the background;' the. same slender woman, in black—the bunch of half-dead roses pinned to her breast. She was looking straight in his direction—indeed, straight ,at Mm. For \ a brief second their eyes met, then hors fell. Slip put up her hand hurriedly to the roses, as though someone had been seeking to rob her of them, and hastened away... Jeffries, turned hack to. his coffee. , , , , “If you have finished, let us. go,” suggested. ihis. wife. “That woman seems to haunt us., She makes ip e quite nervous.” ' They had to traverse the whole length of the verandah to reach the entrance; As-thoy passed down the narrow passage, all - eyes followed them;'the women particularly looked with envy, -at Isabel’s magnificent diamonds and gorgeous brocaded wrap. 1 “Say,” said a large florid: woman ,in blue satin, who made one of a party of ■ six near the door. "Wasn’t that Charlie Jeffries who went out just , nowP” “Of course it was,” some one replied “Not .know Charlie Jeffries? What’s come over you, Florrie ?” “Wbats come over him?” -was the quick rotort. “He looks as though he had seen a ghost. ■ What’s he done?” “Only got married,” said! a little woman in pink sitting opposite to her. “Money?” “Heaps and heaps.’’ “Aged?” “Fairly.” ■

The lady called Florrie helped hoi-self to a cigarette.- “Poor Charlie,” she said. •

The Jeffries went bn from dinner to the gambling-rooms. Isabel did hot care for gambling in. the least, but she believed it amused her .husband. It occurred to her, sometimes, rather bitterly. that ’ during the eight months of thefr married life, six had been spent

in this endeavour to amuse her husband ; two in arranging and settling Into their place in Shropshire, where it appeared they were never likely to stay. Money, Isabel thought, had its disadvantages. Had they,, been poor, they would have been obliged to remain in the country with a Couple of horses, and load the ordinary life of a quiet country squire and squiress. As it was, they followed in tho wake of the fashionable world with feverish intensity, although neither of them cared for it very heartily. Yet Charlie Jefferies was too indolent to propose anything else, and Isabel had too little individuality to insist on it. Her life had, hitherto been the copybook life of a great heiress. She wore good clothes, because she was lucky enough to go to a good dressmaker. She rode well, chiefly ‘because she was magnificently mounted. She road hooks because other people read them, and then talked about them. She had never been taught to think or to feel, or to sympathise. For the twentyfive years of her life previous to meeting with Charlie Jeffries she had, marked time merely by tho seasons. Now it was different. She loved her husband. She had a vague, indefinite feeling that he did not love her; that his people had forced and persuaded him iilto the match. Yet she had nothing to go upon in thinking this; it only hovered, tho idea of it, dimly as yet in the background of her mind. On the contrary, he had, up to now, been an apparently devoted husband. He had given up the army for her sake. He foresaw her last wish; he was always ready to humour her. A poor man all his life, he was yetr most wise and careful in his management of her money—for she had given him complete control over it. No, she had no cause for complaint against him; hut still the suspicion loomed ghostlike in the distance that he did not really care for her, and she wondered sometimes whether they must go on living like this for ever, bound by the closest of ties, yet with absolutely nothing in common between them. Perhaps it was her want of humour, her want of perception. Her women friends complained of her that she could' not understand an amusing story in the least. Hers was a soul struggling to reach the light and finding it not. But the great mistake was that she struggled unconsciously, and so for every step that she took in advance, her own self forced her back again. She sat now and watched her husband staking his money with glassy indifference. This indifference irritated him and bored her. He would have liked to have made an impression on her by losing a thousand pounds, but he felt sure she would not care particularly whether lie lost one thousand or ton. She was absolutely incapable of understanding the value of money. She would have liked to sit in the Kursaal sipping creme do Menthze, and discussing the other women’s dresses. Presently this mutual dissatisfaction told on them. Charlie Jeffries raked in his winnings and rose. “Let’s go home,” he said; “I am off play to-nighf. Isabel acquiesced at once. He put her oloak round her shoulders, and they strolled out into tho fresh night air. It was delicious after the heat of the day. A faint, moon struggled for supremacy, with the electric light. There was no crowd and-jostle as in the daytime; only an occasional loiterer from Kursaal or Casino passed them by. Their hotel faced the sea, directly on the pinge. Isabel suggested a detour—it was so cool out,, she said, and would he so stuffy in their rooms at the hotel. Accordingly they turned down a side street towards the town. Isabel tucked her hand within her husband’s arm, and for the time being almost felt romantic. There were possibilities in her matter-of-fact nature that .could be roused sometimes.

Presently, neither. of them being in the least accustomed to midnight rambles, they lost their way, and plunged down a narrow street, which Charlie declared must bring them to their hotel. It was very narrow,, exceedingly badly lighted by an. occasional kerosene lamp, and very roughly paved. They had to pick their way along so cautiously that neither of them noticed the approach of a couple of women from the other end of the'street, until they were almost within each other’s arms; then, as the Jeffries stepped aside, they both gave an exclamation. It was the woman in black who Fad just passed them, this time accompanied by a servant in a cotton dress, with a shawl thrown over her head. -

She did not notice them, or at least did not identify them. She was looking straight in front' of her, with that tearless look of intense suffering which only real tragedy can give. A few paces up the street, , opposite an oillamp, they paused, and the servant hastened to unlock a door. Then, the woman turning towards. them, Isabel could see in Ihe dim light'how beautiful she was. Another instant- and she had vanished, and the door was locked and closed behind her. “ Charlie Jeffries shook himself free from bis 'wife’s arm, and stared blankly at the .spot where she bad disappeared. Then he ran his eye along the numbers over the different'doorways. “It must be sixteen,” he muttered to himself. Isabel scarcely heeded "him. The- woman got strangely on her nerves. “Let us get out of this horrible little street, Charlie,” she said, and they hurried on, 1 : • '

■ At the corner heir husband stopped to light a'cigarette, and Isabel never noticed that as he struck the match' ho held it up high with a view to ascertaining the name of. the. street. It was painted just above .thoir'heads. in .very much worn - letters:, ; ~ . ■ .“Rue St. Simon.”- ‘ . ;

' 'ty r .! r ' ; The Hotel- Continental 'at' Ostend Owns,;- a' < tiny -square ; : courtyard, -which with its palms and stone piDars and fountain plashing in the cbntre, forms a delightful repose from' the glare of the sea and sands outside. , Here - , at 9 punctually every morning, Lady- Stacy drank her ooffee, and ate her roll and: butter. Lady Stacy disliked;' her meals in privacy. In fact;’she disliked everything private! “If I were' to mew myself up, my dear, until 11 and 12 in the day, how should I ever know what my friends were doing P” she was .wont to say. It was 'this morbid curiosity bn the subject of other people’s affairs that was Lady Stacy’s chief characteristic. In appeanujee she was slight, and wore her auburn' hair very much dragged off her forehead. She had a very long nose and thin lips, and-'Targe, rather pale eyes. ’ Men likecT hbr, because she amused them; •’ women liked her, because they .dared' not! do otherwise. Drinking her coffee thus at 9 o’clock, two ■ or three- mornings.. after Isabel’s nocturnal, rambles with her husband. Lady Stacy . was. concerned to notice Charlie Jeffries wiilk- swiftly out of the verandah leading from, his room; and go straight to ’ the hotel: entrance, too much preoccupied ' apparently to give her ladyship his Usual pleasant greeting. Lady Stacy shook her head. ■■“St&dy,’’ «ghe -called! 'out to -h’er :hus-

hand, who was feeding gold fish in tho pond with breadcnanibs—“Stacy, come here at once.”

Stacy, having long since learned that obedience was the best policy, came and leaned on the back of a chair inquiringly. “Stacy,” said Lady Stacy, soaking her roll in coffee very deliberate!}', “did you happen to notice that young man goin’ out just now?”

“Of course I did. Jeffries, wasn’t it? Seemed in a hurry,” remarked Lord Stacy. “That is the third morning,” said Lady Stacy solemnly, “that that young man has gone out in a hurry. He has not returned in a hurry. -Mark my words, there is mischief brewing.” “Nonsense, my dear.” “It is hot nonsense. Stacy. There is mischief brewing. When a young man marries a woman solely for her money you may he sure that mischief will brew.”

“But how do you know that he only married her for her money? You can’t look into his conscience like you would into a watch—” Lady Stacy interrupted him with a wave of her hand. “What else should he have married her for?” she inquired. “For her mind? She hasn’t got one. For her looks?—nil. She lias a neatlytrimmed figure, but—” “Looks, I’ll grant you, are not Mrs Jeffries’ great point,” exclaimed Lord Stacy, “hut she has always seemed a thoroughly intelligent woman to mo. You must allow me to disagree with you about her mind, my dear.” “Certainly, Stacy, if it gives you any pleasure. But you judge at random, I judge by facts. Now', the other day I told her a delicious story—a perfectly delicious story”—Lady Stacy purred softly to herself over the recollection of it —“No, Stacy, I am not going to tell it to you, dear, it’s too good. Go to the Casino, and pick up one for yourself. Well, I toldi her this exquisite story and she didn’t’ laugh. She never even smiled. She just sat and stared: at me, and said, ‘Well, what happened then?’ Imagine it, my dear! No, no, she is an impossible woman.” “Possible or impossible, she is rather nice, and I hope, I do hope, you will leave her to her own devices in this matter.” "Lord Stacy turned as if to go.

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” declared Lady Stacy firmly. “Those two young people want guiding. I consider it my dirty to guide them. They are so constituted, that if they get into a muddle it will bo a desperate muddle. Allow me to know "best, in this case at any rate.” Lord Stacy took a step or two across the courtyard. Then he came back to his wife’s side.

“At least don’t interfere until you are certain,” he pleaded. “Jeffries has looked worried lately, I admit. But it may be all - sorts of things; betting, bills, or—or —perhaps his .mother’s ill.” Lord Stacy was not quick at ideas. “At any rate, leave them alone until you are more sure of your facts.” But the only satisfaction lie could obtain from his wife was a dubious “H’m.”

Isabel was unhappy. For the first time in her life she knew what it was to cry her. heart out. So much in earnest was she in her grief that she never noticeij whether her eyes were red or her nose swollen. Charlie was neglecting her; there could no longer be . any doubt of, that. Formerly he had waited until she-was ready to come and watch him' before he went for his sea-dip. Now ho rushed off at some unearthly hour, when -she was only half-way through her toilet, and as often as not he did not reappear until lunch-time. His excuses, too, were of the vaguest. He had not slept well, and wanted fresh air quickly; he had met another chap, and they had gone off to play billiards. In short, it appeared to Isabel that her husband was more than neglecting her; she felt sure he was in love with some other woman. Jealousy, ever ready to quicken the wits to their uttermost, made a. new woman of her. She became as sharp as a needle; the cleverest lawyer in England could not have deduced! facts from circumstances more brilliantly and more wholly hypothetically than , did she. And) at length she did more than argue to herself and question her. husband; she acted on her-instincts,. On the 'fifth morning since her suspicions had been aroused she dressed quickly. When he wont out, she slipped out too. She saw his coattails disappearing down a side street; and _ cautiously, for jealousy made her coutfous, she ran in that direction. Ho turned ta the left down yet another street, narrower than the first. It was the . Rue St. Simon; Isabel noticed that almost, mechanically. Then, as she gained on 'him and feared that he might look round, .she hid in an open doorway on the opposite side of a street. He had slackened; his pace. Arrived in front of a rather smaller house than the rest, ho looked up and down the streets as though half afraid; then turned the handle of the clumsy, weather-beaten door and wont in. ...

He was quite at home, there, then. He had not ' even knocked or rung the bell.' With quickening breath Isabel walked to the door and read the number. As she retraced her steps she noticed that the street seemed familiar to her. The rough cobblestones; the lamps; the sharp turn at the end.' She Stood still ‘ suddenly. . That was the house wherethe woman in black lived.; No. 16, Rue St. .Simon. i “Lady. Stacy decided to. call on Isabel that' morning; Powder never deceived 'her ; she always knew when a woman Bad been'crying. “Isabel Jeffries is trying to make the best Of it,” she said to her husband, ‘ ‘“but, " mark my words, there’s Some'awful scandal going' bn.” “ “Pooh! jp’opli!”, said Lord Stacy, “hysteria?my“"clear—hysteria.” It was a 'comfortable conviction of his that half blip misery in .the world was brought bn ' by bystefid.' Lady Stacy thought otherwise.

She found Isabel, as she had expected to do, sitting in a dark room, clutching eau-de-cologne. “My dear, I fear you’ve got a headache,’” she oaid, “and that I am disturbing you.” “Oh, no, not at all, not in the very least,” declared Isabel; but there were tears in her voice.

Lady Stacy was delighted. She sat down and -patted her hand, and spoke very kindly to her. “If there is anything to tell, tell me,” she said ; “remember I have daughters of my. own.”. She did not add that those daughters never lived with her if they could‘possibly make other arrangements. But. Isabel forgot all this at the moment.',' She was face to face with a first real trouble, and she needed a woman and a woman’s sympathy very ■ badly. So shO poured out a fairly incoherent tale, : which! was sufficiently rambling to be not* wholly condemnatory of her husband, and then turned her face to the sofa-cushions' and sobbed.

“Of course,” said Lady Stacy, “there is only . one - way out of it. You can’t speak .to Charlie about it.” ■■ i “Oh, no, no, no,” she-.sobbed. “Then.yon must go- to the woman and

say you will expose her to her husband if she doesn’t give him up this instant.” “But I don’t know her,” gasped Isabel between the sobs.

“Not know her!” cried Lady Stacy, sitting holt upright; “do you moan co tell me she’s a Past?”

“I don’t know anything about her past,” said Isabel, and she sat upright too. “She’s just a woman shabbily dressed in black that we met in the street one day. I can’t tell you more about her than that.”

Lady Stacy’s eyes gleamed. “Do you know where she lives ?” she asked.

Isabel acknowledged she did. “Then you must go to her and buy her,” declared Lady Stacy emphatically. “Buy her?” Isabel’s eyes opened co their widest.

“Yes. my dear—money. Ask her what she will take. Otherwise, mark my words. . .” Lady Stacy proceeded to diagnose the case in her most precise fashion. ■ She left an hour later, having opened Isabel’s eyes, not only to her husband’s particular iniquity, but to the iniquities of the world in general. It _ was a poor place, this world—a poor, wicked fraudulent place. Lady Stacy scemfed at the moment to Isabel’s prejudiced mind almost the only sincere and honest person in it; and as such she felt bound to follow her advice—which was, to act as quietly as possible, to meet her husband in her best frock and with her host smile, and to pay him tit-for-tat, and deceive him utterly.

The sun boat down very fiercely on No. 16 Ruo St. Simon that afternoon. It oast fierce shadows on tho opposite side of the road—black shadows that startled Isabel with their distinctness as she hastened along. She had preferred to walk, in spite of her best clothes and the heat. Clothes had always been Isabel’s great stand-by. She had counted on her wedding-dress as being the only one likely to get her safely through the wedding ceremony; and. now she depended on a gauzy ai'rangenient of pink chiffon and lace to give her superiority in her rival’s eyes. Sho had left her husband playing ecartc with Lord Stacy. It was. a good opporunity, therefore, to do what had to bo done quickly and effectively. A shy, frightened little maidservant showed her into the sitting-room. It wa-s a very tiny room, and the outside blinds being drawn to keep out tho sunshine, it appeared very dark to Isabel’s dazzled eyes. At first she thought she was alone in it, bub almost immediately a. tall slight form in black rose from tho red velvet sofa in the middle of the room and advanced to meet her.

“Pardon,’’ said a clear, low voice, which had in it almost a ring of Charlie’s, or so it appeared to Isabel—“ Pardon : I did not catch the name. Perhaps uxadame has conic about the singing lessons ?”

“Certainly not,” . said Isabel. She had grown more accustomed to the light now, or rather to the want of light, and she could see that the woman in'black before her looked very pale and worn, and that she was not so beautiful without the accompaniment of hat and veil. Still, she was exquisitely attractive, and a pang shot through Isabel’s heart. Could the pink gauze and the lace make up for that clear skin, those liquid eyes (so strangely, by the way, like her own husband’s), those pencilled brows, and even white teeth? Alas! alas!—had her rival been ugly shomight have forgiven her; but there was -no‘.denying that she had once been a very lovely woman, and Isabel hated her accordingly. “I have come to get him back again,” she said abruptly. ; A flush rose all'over the woman’s face. “Him? Whom?” she asked.

“My husband,” said Isabel, and went a step nearer to her. The woman retreated to the sofa, and clutched it. wildly. She -had grown achy white now. “Your —your husband!” she gasped. “Yes, my husband,” repeated Isabel sternly. , Guilt, she, felt sure, was written all over that shrinking form. “He has been to seo you. He comes here frequently. I won’t have it! Do you hear? I won’t hayo it!” She spoke menacingly. “But I assure you I never meant him to,” cried her shrinking victim, and she put out both hands imploringly—“l never meant to. He came of his own accord. I begged him not. What was the use, I said, of bringing up the whole old story again? I could never belong to him—to any one—like that again. I begged him to go away but he would come —he would see me, and bear all about everything—about the child—the boy. , . .1 assure you I did my best to prevent- it—any very, very best—l. . . .” She stopped short, with a frightened ory. Isabel was standing over her like a young tigress. v“Whait child?” she hissed, looking right clown into the other’s face. The woman seemed to sink array into nothing before her gaze. “My—my child,” she .uttered faintly. There was 'a thick silence for a few moments that might have been cub with a knife. Then Isabel released her hold of the woman, and sho sank on to a corner of the sofa, a huddled-up heap of black clothes and shining brown hair. very slowly, Isabel took off her glove. There was no precise object in doing it, but it relieved the nervous tension of her feelings. it was off, and she could flick it to and fro to aid her speech, she spoke, coldly, precisely, her back turned to the prostrate woman whilst she herself faced life window. '

“I will provide for you and the chlid,” she: said—and tlio voice sounded unlike Isabel’s voice' at' all, it was so deliberately hard and cutting; “I will arrange it through my lawyer. But you will have to live where I wish you to live, and to swear never to see him again. As for the child”—lsabel's voice broke, but it was in rage, not in pity—“as for the child, as soon as he is old enough, I will have hini sent put to some colony. He shall be well started in the world. I can do no more for you. And you will bo pleased to remember that, so far as my husband and myself are concerned, you do not exist.” She paused and turned round to sec the effect of her words. Neither of them had heard the door open meanwhile. and when Isabel turned it, was to face her husband on the threshold. He had heard her last words —his face showed that. DeHborately he went to the sofa and sat down on it, and took the cowed, weeping woman into his aims. “Have you said enough?” he asked, looking, up coldly at his wife. “Have you heaped sufficient insults on .my sister?”

Isabel-never quite knew how she got back to the hotel that afternoon. Her maid was very sympathetic, and brought her sal-volatile, and one of her prettiest dressing gowns, and brushed her hair for her. “That always soothes a headache,” she "«aid. It was thus that her husband found her an hour later. The maid retired ■ discreetly, as he ‘ entered,

but he had not even noticed her presence. He drew up a large armchair facing his wife’s sofa, and eat down in it. To her last day it seemed to Isabel she would never forget that room, nor the blue brocaded and gilt chairs, and the wall paper with lovers’ knots running all across it, and tho tali gilt mirrors. •‘Well?” interrogated her husband at length. “I spied on you,” said Isabel bravely. She had nerved herself to say it, and now' it was said she felt as though an iron bar had fallen across her heart.

“I am aware of that,” said, Charlie T want to know why.”

“That,” announced his wife, “I must decline to tell you.” Charlie Jeffries waved his hand, as one to whom the matter was of total indifference.

“Having satisfied yourself of a certain amount,” he declared, “I have no doubt you would like to kuow r all. You shall know' all. The—the—unhappy woman you were kind enough to visit this afternoon is iny sister. She has had a very tragic history. She left her homo three years ago with a man who was already married.- She only found it out after her—their child was born. Then she left him, and maintained herself and the child tho best way she could. She was too proud to apply to any of us for help. Indeed, sho cut herself off from all her relations completely and absolutely. When I saw her in the. street the other day I was dumbfoundcred. Sho would not recognise me, but slipped away in the crowd before I had altogether realised that it was she. Eventually I got her address, and went to seo her. Poor girl! Her—her child was dead, and she -was alone, living on tho miserable pittance sho earns through teaching music. Then It was that 1 conceived the hope”—ho got up and moved restlessly up and down the room —“that we—you and I—might have helped to bring her back again to her old life.”

Isabel sat up suddenly—and stretched out her hand to interrupt him; but something froze within her, and the words remained unuttered on her tongue. “I had hopes—never mind of what I had hopes”—he paused and passed his hand once or twice across his forehead—“they were foolish ones,' hut they are past and over. I suppose ■women can never he kind to each ether. Of course I .shall respect your scrunles.” Again Isabel made a mute unseen gesture; and again he went on, but in a duller, deader voice, as though he had hoped for something which he had not got. “I shall respect your scruples. I told Iter about you, of course, but she refused to see you or allow' you to know' her. She is very proud. Poor girl! But, naturally, she has brought it all on horscll' — I can’t expect you to pity her. She ran away from 1 her •homo" deliberately with a man of whom she knew absolutely nothing, against her, people’s wishes, and she has mot with her reward. The world judges her accordingly. Of course you will judge, her too; but, now I have met her—now I have seen her again—I should at any rate not like tq lose sight of her! I should like to write to her occasionally, and all that—l promise you not to bring . you into contact with her in any way. TV ill that meet with your whiles, Isabel?”

lie turned to his wife nt length. The perspiration was. .standing'on his /forehead as of one who has made a great effort at calmness. There was entreaty in his look, in his voice. ' Isabel sat like a marble- sta'.us, with .lief hair, her one great beauty, rippling all round her. She merely nodded her head. “Yos,” she said.

J- viii. In the late dusk of that evening, when rue gay world of Ostend was dining and flirting, and drinking champagne, the woman in black sat at 'her piano,, playing fiercely, violently. Up and down the notes her fingers ran, as though she were foxxing back thought and memory. ’ She had lived in a fooTs paradise the last few days;had dreamed —God; what had she not dreamed—of this new sister-in-law, who was so kindhearted and unconventional, her broth or had assured her; who would take her to her heart and make life new for her again! Dream'S—all dreams. She played on madly.. But at last her strength gave out, her fingers failed her. In the dim light the notes became a confused mass, a blur of black and white, and with a heart-broken cry of unutterable misery, sbe dropped lier head down upon the keys and wept. Audi just then the door was opened very genriy, and , some one stole in—some one in white, with her hair twisted into a, hurried knot, and with all the marks of fashion and riches obliterated from her dress—and somehow, before either of them, knew how it happened, they were in each ether’s arms, and, womanlike, sobbing together.

“Sister!” said Isabel, caressing the bright brown- hair—“sister—my sister!” And Lady Stacy speaks more contcmptously of Isabel than ever. “Imagine talcin’ up- with her husband again after his shockin’ goings-on at Oatcnd!” she cried to her husband some months after. “Why, I met them in Bond street to-day mooning about every hit as though they had married for love! It’s perfectly scandalous, after all the advice I gave that woman too! But there, Charlie Jeffries knows which side his bread, is buttered, I can see!’’ And apparently Charlie. Jeffries docs.

There is 3 curious and little known superstition associated with the Oberammergau Passion Play, which comes to an end this week. The natives believe that no one amongst themselves who witnesses one performance can bo present at a second without taking part in it; while to strangers the play is as fatal as Mr Rider Haggard’s “She” when unveiled.—they cannot look upon it and live to see it again. Hence, according to this belief, all the-natives who witnessed this year’s production will take a part in the performance of 1910, while the strangers who were present will ten years. Pence be as dead as Scrooge’s partner. It shows a cheerful disregard of business considerations on the part of the natives to encourage the latter idea. Visitors, however; accept it with a healthy scepticism, and there are many facts to. disprove it. Mr Stead, for instance, was. present at the performance of 1890,* and wrote an impassioned book about it. By all the rules of superstition, he ought, to be dead now-. But he is very much alive, as his opponents know. The last found; buoy thrown out from the Andreo' balloon was - opened at Stockholm bn' October 2 at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences. The buoy had stood the.shocks of sea and ice perfectly, being admirably constructed. After opening the cover a short manuscript was found in Andreo’s handwriting, with some words in a P.S.; probably in the writing of his companion, Strindberg. The documents had a sentimental, but no scientific importance. tral News.” -'