An Experience. Chapter 11.

Otago Witness, Issue 941, 11 December 1869, Page 18

An Experience.

Chapter 11.

When T was < again aware of anything that could have belonged to the real world —and not to the dreadful world" of horrors,, some terrible, some grotesque, in whioh my diseased brain had, during an inexplicable period, lived such life as it had known— l waß in my own room in Strath-cairn-street. One of the first things! con T aciously noticed and thought about,' was the fact that my bed had been moved,, from the sleeping and dressing closet in which it usually stood, out into the open room. „...• i i My dreamy eyes took this fact in slowly ; after a while, my drowsy brain languidly decided that this meant I had been some time ill, and that the bed had been moved in order to give me more air. This settled, my weak mind was free to take note of, and feebly to speculate about, other facts. A woman sat at work not far from my, bedside. Which of the hospital nurses would this be, I wondered. She was working by the light of a shaded lamp. This was night, then, I supposed, or, at least, evening. Was it summer or winter? There was no fire burning in the grate, and, by the moving too and fro of a blind, I knew a window was open ; so I concluded it was summer. Night-time and summer-time. 1 had, then, settled something. ,; , •„ -, •,- Next, who was this woman ? I seemed to need to Bettle this also. I could not see her face from where I lay. I watched the swift out-flying and return of the busy hand, and wondered about her, and impatiently fretted for her to turn round towards me, that I might see her face.

But she worked on. I remember a lady once saying to me (long years after thiß time, but when she said it this scene returned upon I me), "Work, indeed! needle-work! she spoke with a bitter intonation and an infinite contempt. " Amuse myself ' with my needle! How often have I been counselled to do that ! Such a sweet, soothing, quiet, gracious employment ! So it is, for the satisfied, the happy, the occupied. Nothing can be sweeter, than to sit at one's needle through a long summer-day, and dream over one s happiness, and think out one's thoughte. , But if one be not happy, and if one's thoughts be dangerous ? Or, if one be utterly weary and onnuyee, and the mind seems empty of all thought? "To you men it is all one. To see a woman sitting at her needle makes you content. You think she is safe, out of mischief, just sufficiently amused, and so suitably occupied! Not too inuoh enffroesed to be ready to listen to and to serve your lordships ; not bo far ennuyeo aa to be disposed to makeexaoting chums upon your attention and your sympathy. "Your eyes rest on her with satisfo* tion ; she forms suoh a ©harming picture of housewifely repose and lndustry— « Ohne Hast ohne East.' You like to let your eyes rest upon her when you onoose to look up from your paper, your review, or your wine. You feel at liberty to stody her at your leisure, as you might a picture. It never oocurs to you that mocking, miserable, mad thoughts may be haunting her brain— that passwn, desperation, deepair, or that utter weariness, worse than all, may be in her soul ! , This woman, sitting by the shaded lamp in my room, worked on and on. By-and-by, some lines of the throat nnd htjat and shoulders began to be suggestive to my clow brain. They soemed to belong to some remembered person, ao Ac well as I could see, this woman wa» dressed in white ; a white, short gown, inch as the peasant women wear, open at the throat, loose it the sleeve ; P«oUbly because of the heat, ehe had taken off her outer dross. Ac I was straining to remember, a great eanae of pressure upon my brain, defending on me, and grasping

me with theJigMening grasp of a oold and heavy Kand, Stopped. rae. I should have «swp6tied r aitQ|Bleepj DUt,"just,,iheM]>the woiman/la;c^dpw.ii jher^w^rk^^looked. at a watch banging near .her,, rose, and, came •tbw^dme-bk ;«'•'-- \™ri ' -rmmedktel|;;r'elbß'ea^ ? my< eye's; but voluntarily! **■*.*« / ; •> » ,*; '. * •;•' y ' She came ; close,- bent over me, .as if listenin^f or my, breach.,;,, I, f eltherjreath : iwasj' opflßcious ,cy t eix} of the. •warmth and fragrance of Jier Vitality, .',she 0 stooped ov,er me.. (■, Jfresently shei laid her /hand upon my clammy (! forehead. ,,' "r,,,'," r ,, ,', Instinct, reyealed,to,me^who. she was: without opening my,eyes ,l\saip her. A cold sweat of horror broke but jover me ;, such life as waß left me,,, seemed; oozing .away through, my. pores.,; > I ,was ready, to sink into a swoon of death-like, depth. U > But Iheardithesej words ( :, .. s .•;,■ i, " That he may nbt<lie,. great God, that hemay;nojj die !'',< And they, arrested me on the brink of., that horrible 'sinking away, to hold, me on the brink instead of letting me fall through./ , , '„, tt Somehow, , those words,, though they saved mo for, that moment, did not remove my sense , of horror, and fear,; any: more than,., is the" rvictina who . knows himself singled out for death by. slow , torture, comforted and reassured by the means taken to bring him back from his first swoon, to consciousness of his next, agony. Was it, that physical weakness and nearness to death, gave me clearer vision than that with which ,1 ,saw later, .when my senses, had gathered power ? „ ,' It was /ear. I now experienced — there is no denying.it — a most horrible fear. A shrinking, of the spirit and of the fleßh. Why was I given over to her ? "Was this another world, in which she had power given her to torment me? Was this my hell 1 I, weak as a child, was alone with her. That awful woman with the terrible eyes, and the arms uplifted to curse me ! The woman of my, dread and dreadful dreams and fever-fancies. Fere, I believe, the icy waters of that horrible cold swoon closed over my consciousness,

But by-and-by (and whether after moments, hours, or even days, I had no means of knowing), when I felt the gentleness of the hand that was bußy about me — wiping tha clammy moisture from niy forehead, bathing it with ether, holding to my nostrils a strong reviving essence, wetting my stiff lips with brandy ; when I felt a soft strong arm under my neck, slightly raising my head to lean it on the yielding breast — when 1 felt the soothing comfort of the warmth, the softness, the fragrance of vitality, after the wormy chill of the grave, whose taste and smell seemed to linger in my mouth and nostrils — then it seemed not hell but heaven to which I was delivered. Presently she gave me to drink some restorative medicine which wag measured out ready for me. I swallowed it. She wiped my lips. I closed my eyes. Silence was, as yet, unbroken between us. That medicine was strong Btuff : a few moments if ter I had taken it, "life, and conscious delight in the sense of life, went tingling through me. Almost afraid to Bpeak, and yet too full of wonder to remain Bilent, after I had for some moments listened to the steady, somewhat heavy, pulsations of the heart bo near which I leanod, I asked : " Hate 1 been long ill ?"

" A month." She had paused before she spoke, and her breast had heaved high—was it, I have wondered since, in proud disgust to bear my hated head upon it? She did not look at me as she spoke, I knew, for 2 didn't feel her breath. " What sort of illness ] n " Congestion of the brain." " Is the danger past V "If you can be kept from dying of weakness." " And how comes it that you nurse me?" "I hare given myaelf up to be a nurse." „ „ "And have you nursed me all thw month ?» " No, not the first week : not till after my child wu buried.' 1 The tone of that last answer made me shudder. It was so unnatural, in its perfect freedom from all emotion. "1 shall tiro you/ I said ; "lay me down. 1 ' Fear was regaining its empire over me. She did as I asked her, and, after sho had arranged my pillows and the bedolothes neatly, moved to her work-table. The delicious sense of warm life was fast dying away out of me. " Are you Mrs. Rosscar V I asked, presently, raining myself on ono elbow, for an instant, to look at her, " I am your nurse," she answered mo, without looking up from her work. I made another effort to try and get thing* explained and disentangled ; hut they were too much for me. Before I tiad framed another question I wm overwhelmed by sleep. That was my leoond "luald Interval."

, f KneV-'soWtß^^lbtwl^^asiaaLt dis%mished^vp^^ Fearnwell was often ,injtie/;rboin I, was, conscibuj(Vt"h'at;l .. ha<T a Second, f ttu*se :£?; A knew' wh^Bhe^was^ one loathe, hospitalnurses, V> good, honest, ,'hearty, > creature,' but hoarse and rough— a woittarinev;er entrusted" with , the care of delicate cases ; but shejseemedtoact here as servant to Mrs. Rjssqar,-; I knew, allt.these things, but they, seemed to, concern c , some .other person. When I tried ,to recognise myself in things, to take hold of t anything with distinct self-consciousness,, then camb those ft orrible sweats and swoons, and overwhelmed me. , ; It was a strange wild, phase of semiexisfcence,' instructive to a man of my profession to pass through. „■.',' For Home time after I had got on a good way towards recovery^ .1 , talked and thought of myself as "that sick man :'? seemed to , watch what was, done to "me, as if it „were being done to, some . other person.^, ' , * -,'.'"■ . ,<>.', When this phase cleared "off,, the sense of relief was not unmixed :,for!I had so laboriously to take myself , to myself again —to learn "that l 'that sick man's history ■was mine, that his memories were mine, his remorses, mine, that I often groaned at the labour of it. "You would never have struggled through, but for the skill and the devotion of your nurse," l?r. Fearnweil said to me " So he thinks I have struggled through now," I J remarked to Mrs. Kossear when he was .gone. , "I must call you something different from 'nurse.'" I went on. "It is impossible that you and that good rough creature should share one title between you." . „ , , , "I should share no title with any good creature." , " You know it was not that I meant." " I know it was not that you meant." " What may I call you 1" " You may call me, if you choose, by my own name, Huldah." " Huldah ! " 1 repeated. " I wish you had a softer name. It is difficult to say Huldah softly, and " . " I havo known it aaid softly," she answered. "1 have never, since I was a child, been called by that name, except by one person. You may call me by it." Saying, this, she let her eyes, which I had hardly ever, till then, for one moment, been able to meet, rest on mine with a heavy fulness of expression that sent a languid subtle fire through my veins —that, aldo, made me again afraid: after meeting it, I watched, covertly, for itsreourrence. Mine was a long-protracted uncertain convalescence. I did not set my will towards growing well. I yielded myself up rather to the luxury of my position, yielded myself up, body and soul, as it were. I was under a spell of fascination not devoid of fear. The shock that felled me had come upon me when my whole health of mind and body was at a low ebb. In looking back, I recognise this, though I had not at the time been conscious of it. I had never, since I was a boy, given myself a holiday ; never given one hour s indulgence to any passion tut ,that of ambition, till I knew Mrs. Rosscar. At the time of my meeting her, I had just come to the dregs of my powers, but was not yet conscious ojE the bitterness of those dregs. - , Now, it seemed as if my whole nature — mo.ral, intellectual, physical— voluntarily succumbed. I lay, as I have said, under a spell, and luxuriated in my own powerlesaness. Asyetit was not the bitter but the sweet dregs of the.oup that were passing over my lips. . The weather was hot ; boxes of mignonette, some heliotropes, and leraon-Boented verbenas, were in my balcony. She watered them of an evening, and let the windows be open and the scent of them float in to me as I lay and watchod her at her work. , While this dolWous languid luxury of convalescence lasted, and did not pall upon mo, why should I wish' to get well i While she was thero to feed me, I would not raise a hand to feed myself. The truth was, that ray nurso, tny perfect nurse, of whom Dr. Faarnwell now and again spoke with an ethusiasm and elFusion that would fire my -weak brain with sudden jealousy ; my aura©, who would, in untiring watchfulness and selfforgetting devo.tion to her task, have been a perfeot nurse, for any man who had been indifferent to her, %i whom oho had been indifferent^ was now a pernicious nurse to me. I loved her yt\th a desperate sort of paision : a, love far more, of tho eonses than the heart. ' She was. neither an innocent not an ignorant woman. Bho knew exaotly what • to do and what to leave undone. She gave me no chance of growing indifferent through familiarity, if, indeed, with mob. beauty at hors. that could hire been possible. As I grew betUr, though always pn duty near me, ih* wm 1m» and

of tener. jWhjsn Elpnfleift,j^noße ? cold/hali-{ first seasott'of iion^diouiiifeßs/ by her'close, 'pjMee;' tHere^am^tb^^^all/npt Mrsv Roflßcar^but the other, nurse'; w.itb" her coarse good-tempered faoe, and her form, 'lor VhioH-^reducing, / as" it SLid f1 the sublime, , to t ltK i e| ridiculous, atid the lovely to iti c loathsome, 1 in'its caricaturing exaggeration of all feminine cliarms — I turned in disgust. , „ Every day Mrs. Rosscfcr seemed to me more beautiful. Every day"! seemed to feel her beauty more bewilderingly and overpbweringly. Not so much the beauty of her face'; it was strand how 'unfamiliar that remained to me, and how 1 seldom I had a full look into it ; whenever it was possible, it was averted from me; her eyes shunned mine, and she kept the room so dim'i that I had, little chance of studying her expression. If I notioed this,,' l accounted to myself for it by supposing her to be growing conscious of the barbing fever of my passion. Not so .much, did the beauty of her face, I say, bind me prisoner. It was the beauty of her presence that so' grew- upon me : of her whole physical self, as it were. Of her mind and heart llcnew nothing. With the music of her movement," the gracious delicacy and harmony of all she did, I was more and more captivated. ' The accidents of the Bick room, the perfect postures into which her limbs would fall when she slept the sleep of exhaustion, on the couch at the far end of .my chamber, made me more and more conscious of the wonderful and rare perfection of pro'portiidn of he* physical beauty. And yet it was something beyond this that enchained me.

Has the body a soul apart from the soul's soul ? Is there a soul of physical beauty ? But what I mean, escapes me as I struggle to express it. In my strange passion for her, there was always something of fear. Sometimes, in the night, I would lie awake, leaning on my elbow, and watch her sleep, and follow the rising and the falling of the now childless breast. At those times I always thought about the child, and wondered how she thought and how she suffered, and I wondered with a great awe. Was her heart dead? About all her soft gentleness there was no touch of tenderness. Did she nurse me mechanically,, not caring whether it was I or another 1 Then recurred to me the first words 1 had heard her speak when I revived to consciousness : " That he may not die, great God, that he may not die !" Remembering these first words of hers, I could hardly think her tendance mechanical or indifferent. Was she grateful to me, knowing I would have saved and healed her ohild ? Then returned to me the scene by the small bed— the awful eyes, the uplifted arms. Often, at this point of my thinking, I would cry aloud to find myself bathed in that terrible oold sweat, and my cry would wake her, and her approach would then fill me with dread.

For a long time, things went on without chance. I got neither worse nor better. Dr. Fearnwell grew impatient. " Your heart continues, strangely weak and irritable," be said one day ; saying it, he looked — Ljflj|Lfere it was a pure SfCoident — fronVrne to Mrs. Bosscar, and back to me. The sudden rush of heat to my face, then, possibly, suggested something to him ; for he , considered me gravely, and Mn, Rosscar judicially. I wished, how I wished, that, for the time of the good doctor's eyes being on her, she could have looked ugly ! "We must try change," h© said. "It will not do to go on like this : wo must try change. You are a man with work to do in the world ; you must bo braced up to do it. The air of tho town, nnd especially of your room, is enorvfeting in this warm weathor."

" I am far too weak to go out," I said. *• It wooM kill me to raovo."

Ho \>Md no attention to that ; he was roilec'.iog. "To-morrow," ho wont on, "I will call for you, in tho afternoon ; you can quite well bear a short journey in my carriage. I will take yon to a farm-house in the country, pretty high up among the hills. There, you will soon got strong and well. You will be yourself again before the cold weather comos."

" X shall die of weariness," T answered, peevishly. " Nothing of the kind ; you will grow calm and strong." '.' I oan't possibly do without a great deal of norting yet." " The good woman of tho farm is a kind motharly creature : she will do all that it necessary— «ho and one of her cows, from whioh you must take plenty of new milk." At tnat moment I hated Dr. Fearnwell. I do not know what answer I might not have made him, hut Mm. Bowoar spoke, and ay Attention wm immwUaWly arrested,

«^^^jA^ve^^Mgi^^you^>proposea-^tnis-,'ohangeT'Drv Fearnwell." she said. '*Z( e lt' %M%sismfl&x&txitip t 5 am J Mnable" U^emaitfherfeloiijger; I itiftftluA iiews from w 'my',own liei«h.bourh6o J d that' calls nie < sou^h;.^ JJ i ]Srttise' Wilfeins is hardly com-'* patent to, undertake the sole charge of 'my, 'pfctient a m present^ stage of convalescence; but the fanner's wife arid the cow", between them"— she smiled, one of heir very rare and very brief smilea— " will get mo over my difficulty." i *\ We are to lose you ? You are enable to remain here longer ?" Dr. Fearnwell said, i He paid me ai long visit that day, but very; little of his attention was given to me;, he seemed +o be studying Mrs. Rosscar with roused interest. "

| *' She is tod beautiful and too young for the vocation she, has chosen," he said, hy-tind-by, when she had for, a few moments, left the room. " Besides that, she is a woman with a preoccupied mind,, with, a memory: or a purpose." His last words made me shudder, but I returned him some sulky dissenting an s wer. That this woman was the mother of the poor little child on whom' we had operated, he did not know, or suspect. c< My poor fellow, I see you're in a Vtevil of a temper. But I don't care ; what I'm doing is for your good — if only I have done it soon enough. M ' " Oh ! People are so very brave, always, in their operations for other people's good," I, re .narked, still as feulky as a bear, and yet troubled by the sound of niy own words. I was mad enough to" believe that Dr. Fearnwell was himself in love with my nurse, and jealous of me ! "You'll five to thank me for what I'm doing, or to reproach me for not having d >na it sooner, he said, and then took leave of me. Mrs. Rdsscar returned to the room, finding me, of course, in the deepest dejection and sullenness. She looked at me, as she entered, with some curiosity or interest. It was very rarely that she spoke, except in reply,; very rarely that she approached me, except when some service made it needful she should do so. To-day, she spoke first, coming to my side, within reach of my hand, but averting her face from me. She took up her work, and then Bald : "So it is settled? You go into the country to-morrow ?•'* j "I don't know that it is at all settled. ' I am not au idiot, or a baby, that I should do exactly what I'm told. I' am well enough now, to have a will of my own. Probably, when he calls for me, I shall say, ' I will not go !' " "Do not say that, she returned earnestly. " Go, I advise you. It is true that I cannot stay here longer."

"It is true that here, or there, or anywhere, I cannot live without you," I said, in a passionate outburst. "I own that you are not yet well enough to go without your accustomed nurse." she answered, " and your nurse does not like to have an incomplete case taken out of her hands, But, after the way in which Dr. Fearnwell spoke t<>dav, after the insinuations contained in his look to-day, I could no longer nurse you here, where lam always liable to be seen by him." "Do you mean " I began, wih a great throbbing joy. " I mean that if you go with the doctor to-morrow, you may find that your nurse will soon ioin you, if——.*' "I will promise anything," I cried, graapine her hand. " If you will be controlled and prudent, and will not again expose me to the doctor's remarks." j U E will do, or not do, anything you tell me to do, or not to do'" " Have you a sister )" j " No." "Does Dr. Fearnwell know you have no sister i" " Ho knows nothing of me, except as a studonfc." " Tell him to-morrow, then, and tell the portple Ht the farm, that yo'.tr sister is com* ing to join you. Dr. Fearnwell won't com© out otton : when ho does, it will be easy to ilovixe Bomo roaaon for his not seeing 'your sister." She stopped the outburst of my gratitude by rising to leave tho room. Not only by f his, hut by tho look she gave me —a dark, iiwcrn table, terrible 100k — pondering over which I grew cold. Next day, she askod Dr. Fearnwell, when ho came to fotch me, how to address to me at the farm, giving no reason for her quoiition, whioh, indeed, reouired none. It was natural that she should wish to write to the patient to whom she had for two months dovotod henetf unwoaryingly. In late August and early September, the Haunted Holly Farm, under the edge of the Grey Moor, was a dolioious plnoo. Dr. Fearnwell, who had, no doubt, ohosen , ib for its austere severity of situation, and tho abaonee of all softness and laxurianoo in its surroundings, had no knowledge of tho old walled south-sloping garden, lying t>t feme diitewe .from tt» How, whew,

«bms (ppstpomng^hemßelyro^( ppstpomng^hemßelyro^ often -till Augctirt;;^ .and^ where, beoause of the'goqd 1 '"• apiland the pure, air,, they bloßsomed^pro- ' ftisely. '_ Nor "did, he' take "note of the one great meadow, no f w grey, for the Boythe, into which tHe.flagged path, rose-bordered, of .this, garden opened through a grand old gate, with carved "pillars "and 1 ocu'ptured . urns, and, on each side, so. ancient limetree, ,the solo remnants of, a glorious old avenue. The farni had been one of the dependencies of a great mansion. ' On the second afternoon after I had come to the farm — for more than f our-and-twenty hours she had let me know whatit was to be without her — MrS. Kosscar, 'my sister/ sat with me in the old garden, a profuse wilderness of roses and of honeysuckles ; and in the meadow before us the hay was down, anclthe air full of its fragrance. She let me hold out her hand in mine,' she let me press close to her with a passionate desire to satisfy the hunger for ' her presence, created by her absence. / \ " God bless Dr. Fearnwell 1" 1 ' cried. "To be ill in that dingy room, in Strath-cairn-street was exquisite beyond anything £ have known, while you, nursed me ; but to grow well . in this enchanting' place, where the air feels like the elixir of life, •with, y6u always beside me~— !" She smilled, a smile of which I saw the beginning only ; for she turned her head aside. Then she sighed, and said, softly il " And when you are well 7 When you have ho longer any excuse for claiming 'nurse' or 'sister'ff There was in her voice, as she said this, for the first time, a slight tremulousness. "Then,," I cried, passionately ; the air, the beauty of the place, her beauty, completely intoxicating me; "I shall claim & wife. I can never again do without you; You must marry me !" Her hand moved in mine, but not with any effort to withdraw itself. She turned her face still further aside, but through the muslin that covered her bosom — she had in these days discarded her close black dresses, though wearing always mourning — saw that the warm blood rushed across, her snowy nock and throat. By that emboldened, I pressed her' for an answer, for a promise of her love. She turned on me.

" That / should love you, !" she said. « Is it credible V

She rose and left me. I sat where she had left me, pondering what might be the meaning of those words, and the voice in which they were spoken, of the look that accompanied them. The voice had none of the music of her voice ; the look wa» incomprehensible ; I could read in it, it Beemed to me, anything rather than love. And yet I confidently, audaciously, believed that she loved me, but that she struggled againat het love. What motive could she have, but love, for devoting herself to me thus? Why risk good name and fame, which to so proud a woman as I thought her, could hardly be indifferent. What could I conclude but that she loved me ! And yet with what a strange fashion of love — so cold* so passive, bo irresponsive! With so slight a difference, if with any difference^ one might so easily express disgust. I muat have sat a long time where she had left me ; for when a hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice said,, near my ear : "My patient, you must come in, the dew begins to fall," looking up, I found that the sunset was burning in the wes^ and that the stars were beginning to ■how.

Somehow, the way that hand touched my shoulder, and the slight accentuation: on that word v my," made me shudder. She was like Fate claiming a victim. It was only the chill of the evening that sent ■uoh a thought through me. Indoors, by-and-by, when the curtains were drawn and the logs blazed on the open hearth, and she ■ made my tea and brought it to me, and tended me with all watohful observance, I entered again into my fool's paradise. And so, again, next day, as, through the hot drowsy afternoon hours, she sat, and, I lay beside her, on the warm hay, under the shadow of the still fragrant boughs of one of those late-blossoming limes. My head was in her lap, and my cheek was pressed against the oluo- veined inner side, of that warm white arm.

Beyond this meadow, stretched wave> af tor wave of yellow corn, all in a shimmer and glimmer of heat, running down tho hill, overflowing the pUin, •eeminf y from -where we were, to wish up to the very feot of the castle-dominated romantio old city* Witn eyes growing more dreamy and raoro drowsy every moment, I watched the glisten and sheen till I fell asleep. I fanoy I slept some time. I awoke sttddonly and with a sense of alarm* I had had a strange and dreadful droatn ; words iof deadly hate had been hiisod into my itar by a serpent, and its cold ooil had bton> wound round my throat. Vfy hand went quickly to my throat when I twokt, and there Uy acroas it-r

l"ib T qte t d'up;in I to>K^yXMh4lielio^ ror of my dreamMiUbnme,'' PJft.?. 6 ??* o*'0 *' to find love shed down ori me lr,om them] They held mini* a moment ; 'they wetfe f ull. of darkness, but, as I looked up something softened the 'darkness: She smiled} in heirsmile there was'jaome pity. , " I was half dfraid to let you sleep, she said, " but ' on such an afternoon, I thought there could be no; danger.;' ' , v Danger ! What danger ?" , "Of your taking cold. What othdr danger could there bet, You look as, if you had been dreaming painfully, my poor %he had never so addressed me before. "I have been dreaming hombly," I said. ' ' Lying on your lap, on'such a day, in such a place; how Cfkfld that be possible!" , '". , ', • " She would not meet my eyes. " I am not at all sure I have not taken cold," I said, with a shudder, half real and half assumed. ,„''," „. " You must come in at once, and take some Hoi drink. Come." , ...... , We both rose and walked to the house. I 'leaned oh her 'arm : not that I how neededat* support, 1 but I liked to feel the soft, warm A arm under my 'hand,, and 1 liked to remind her of my, dependence "Soften wondered, and. with uneasy wonder, that she never spoke of her chud : never, so far as knew,, wept for it. But she was a strangely silent woman. As I hive said, she- very rarely spoke first, or, as it were, voluntarily '; andVhen she re«jponded t t:> what -was said to her, it was always as.briefly. briefly as possible. It seemed as if she understood how expressive was ©very movement of her gracious form ; how needless for her, compared with other beings, was speech even of the eyes, far more of the lips. Anything approaching to liveliness of movement, or of voice, would have befttt out of harmony with her being. She was more fit to be set on a costly pedestal and gazed at, than to move in the common ways of this common world, I thought Andeach uncpnciouspose of hers was so completely beautiful that I always thought until I noted the next— "that is jhow I would have you eland, that I might gaze on you for ever!" Though I believed ehe loved me, I was not satisfied. I remembered her as she htvd been upon the river that day, and I felt that she was changed. I remembered the smiles she had ahed upon her child. II only she would smile so, once, at me— but she never did. Once, I had implored her for a full eye to eye look, and for a smile. Then «he had turned her face to mine ; h*d fixed her eyes on mine ; but the dark quiet eyes were Inscrutable. Suddenly, just as I believed I was going to read them, she covered them with her hands, and turned her head away. One evening, as we sat together in the warm twilight by the hearth, 1 tried to break down the Bilence between us about the child. . . . „ " Huldah !" I «aid, " you have not told m - where your pretty child is lying. Let us co together to the grave. Let me weep there with you-let " I stopped suddenly, with a cold damp on my brow, as I remembered the awful eyes, the arms Sised, and the Jips moving to curse me, ofSverywomaubywhomlsat Iffllt a skht convulsion of the frame round which I had drawn my arm j but when she spoke it was in the quietest vowe : " We will go there together j but not yet" J "When?" . _ *t When you are stronger ; when lam " And you will let that be soon X 1 " Yes, it must be soon." It seemed to me her heart was beating heavily. I told her so. "It v full," she said, drawing ft doop breath. "It is over-full." "Of what T* „„,., .. " Cannot you guess V* She loaned her Em 6 close down to mine, too close for me to be able to read it. "It is strange if you cannot guess," she added. "If only 1 dared to read it by my own/ S "*Dare to read it by your own," ike answered. , „ ... "My heart is heavy and over-full with I<n r?4nJ°muit not mine be heavy and full with love of you? Of you so generous that you art willing to «u*eoF an £»; known woman your wife : to mve her your name, not asking her right to the Same aha bean, or to any *•»*" - Bhe spoke more qufokly than 1 had ever heard & speak : still with her face so Soseto mine that I could not road it. "Generous? 1 8«^»^» bwM ISSSS I to«ta> for that without whioh everything, st?£w>rthle«, all that is only any worth U J" aha nald, with somethtoff MMoaohing to eagerness (so answer!** I: $Su^ati«rwarda,.aomoW^ «♦ Xtli to yourself you aw ready *> »aorl-

' "You; "can shanW iiotmngV-,,yi}u'anc( shan{e':, a re^t' 'jPMts^\s\&ti?, I want' to 'know nothing of yoiir^past. What' vou'areT "is* enough fcr me, and what you will hep—my, wife If /'" " , t! ; , ! " , She answered' me ,'neyer a' word.. She suffered my caresses asshe'supferedmy'other f forms of speech..' Kp,t one sl'igat^st handpr&ssuife'; even of a finger. ' ' ' ' " \" ' , ' My wooing of her, was .like the wooing 1 bfW statue, "if only a statue could have I been exquisitely warm v a'utl soft and, by cbntact, could have thrilled one with ihtensest life. ' •„ A, day was, fixed for our marriage. The time went 6n.', I cannot ', say that 'it lin-' 1 geredj.'or.that it' 'flew 1 '; it was, to me,, a time, of intoxication—not , quite untroubled by Occasional 1 pangs, and patises "'of 'sobriety, for sometimes in tliose deep. dark eyfls of hers I surprised expressions that troubled, me— sometimes ' iookri ,of pity— sometimes' darker looks' than I could, understand. , ' „,:'> ' At last there came an evening when, as we partecUor the'night, I said : " After this night, only one night more, and then a day after which nothing bui^ Death shall part us I" ;• ' , An hour afterwards, not being able to sleep, I came back into the Bitting-room for a book. She was sitting before the embers, which threw, a lurid light upon her .face,,' and upon her, hands clasped round her knee's. ' , , , ' 1 She ' was .so far, absorbed that she did not hear .'the of my' slippered feet across the floor. , l I spoke to her, throwing myself at her feet. I poured out, a passion of foolish f eloquence. To niy wonder, to my 'horror, to my fear, to my delight, Bhe burst into a terrible storm of weeping. I tried to soothe her as a lover might ; but she rose, withdrew herself , and leaned i against the oaken chinaney«piece until the storm subsided. , I pressed to know the cause of this, ; grasping her hands to detain her. "I find I am not a fiend, not an aveng- ! ing spirit, only a woman—a weak, miserable, wretched woman." She would tell me no more ; she rid herself of my grasp, as if my hands had h&d no more strength in them than an infant's. " To-morrow," Bhe said, ." by my child's grave, I will tell you more." So, she left me; to be all that night sleepiest, and haunted by her perploxmg words. Soon after breakfast we set out, through the soft grey autumn morning, for the child's grave. I had not known, tintil nowy^where the little creature was huried. ' It was not a short walk ; cnieflv across the moors till the close of it, when < we dropped down suddenly into a little jewel of a green . dell, where was the smallest of churches, overshadowed by the biggest of yew-trees. Through all the walk she had hardly spoken. The few times I spoke to her, she did not seam to hear tne. Perhaps she had never, since the loss of her child, looked so softly beautiful. I had never felt myself held further aloof from her, had never been more afraid of her. I followed her through the churchyard gate to the little grave. " She lies here." The turf on ihat small grave had not yet drunk deep enough or the autumn rains, to look fresh and green. > "It has had no tears shed on it It is dry and scorched, like my heart, like my heartj" She stood motionless and speechless for a time that seemed to me immense ; her drooped eyes seemed to bo looking into the earth. Presently she »ank upon her knees, then dropped upon the grave, presiing her breast against it, and laying on it, first one cheek and then the other. By-and-by, sho rose again to her knees. When she spoko it was brokenly, pite°U"i'cannotdoit, I cannot do it! The mother in me will not let me. My chUd will not let mo. You wore once kind to her. You made her happy for one bright bleasod day. Betram, poor boy ! 1 had thought to do it, when I wm your wife. But hero, on my child's grove, I rooal the curse I invoked upon you by her doathbed. lam only a weak mi»erable woman, t not even able to hate or to cuwe I Everything, evon revenge, ii lost to me with what lies horef .. Bhe threw herself down again upon the grave in .utter abandonment of grief ; and I, leaning againftfc the yow-tree, wfttohed her, weeping thow. I have not much oontoiouf neu of what traniaotod melt in my brain, meanwhile. I think I realUed nothing dearly. I fancy Ih^ * ™ n 8 of saying to royieM, " I told you to"— at if something I had been exporting long, had happened at Lut A toft driuUnj rain that blotted out tho distance, and blurred the landicept, bewui to fall Of this «h*. lying always with h«r fao« preuftd Sown upon the turf, wti not aware, though I mw btr tfMtwl grow loddoa

•by their f imbecility $ ' * „ . .. Ji"lt is rainin&f I said. " I'am cold and' wet., It 'drips' .through, this shelter. I'shalU? ill'again.;;' Lfet us go home;" ' ■< 111 1 was .tired; benumbed, mind and body. IJ stumbled arid' walked; .Vagtiely. t< / She made^me lean' 1 dii" her' aifiri; and led me home. Even mow, silently|than.we,Ka'd come, we went. , , > . , - '„.,. I was trying to believe all the Way, that t believed that" to-morrow everything would be as ,ii was to hav.e been, in sprite of tins episode, and , in spite of toy setis'e of my" litter powerl'essnes's under my bondage to her. f When \ve reached the hp]iiße she was tenderly careful of me. ; ' That evening she told me her history, and'whaVhad been, her proposed rev&nge. She had' designed' to make me'love her madly. That she/bad, done., She had dft-; signed tolet riie niarrjf her,, who had been a mother and not a' She had designed, as, the wife 'of, my infatuated Jove and unspeakable passion, to have cursed me as her child's butcher, at herichild's grave. , She had designed— or 1 was 1 the nameless dread and horror of my illness taking, this terrific form' in its flight?— when she had thus slowly ground down my heart to its last grain of misery and grief, to murder me in bed. „ , " I could have married, you for hate," Bhe said ; but for such love.a s has arisen in my soul for you— if indeed it is love, or anything but compassion and kindness 'to^ wards the poor wretch, I have helped back to life— never I" „ She left the farm that night. I never saw her again.