Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

OUR STORYETTE.

™'' '' ' »O« "" ■ ■ (Alt. Rights Rbskrvbk) AFTER LONG YEARS.

Late one night in June two gentlemen arrived at the Villa Hotel of the Baths of Lucca. They stepped from the low britzka in which they travelled, and, leaving a servant to make arrangements for their lodging, linked arms and strolled up the road to the banks of the Lima.

A lady, with a servant following her at a little distance, passed the travellers on the bridge of the Lima. She dropped her veil and went by in silence. But the Freiherr felt the arm of his friend tremble within his own.

"Do you know her, then?" asked Yon Leisten.

"By the thrill in my veins, we have met before," said Clay; "but whether this involuntary sensation was pleasurable or painful I have not yet decided. There are none I care to meet—none who can be here." He added the last words after a moment's pause, and sadly.

They walked on in silence to the base of the mountain, busy each with such coloring as the moonlight threw on their thoughts; but neither of them was happy.

Clay < was humane, and a lover of nature—a poet, that is to say—and in a world so beautiful could never be a prey to disgust; but he was satiated with the common emotions of life. His heart, for ever overflowing, had filled many a cup with love, but with strange tenacity he turned back for ever to the first.

It was two o'clock that night. The moon lay broad upon the southern balconies of the'hotel, and every casement was open to its luminous and fragrant stillness. Clay and Freiherr yon Leisten, each in his apartment, were awake, unwilling to lose the luxury of the night. And there was one other under that roof, waking, with her eyes fixed on.the moon.

As Clay leant his head on his hand, and looked outward to the sky, his heart began to be troubled. There was a point in the path of the moon's rays where his spirit turned back. There was an influence abroad in the dissolving moonlight around him which resistlessly awakened- the past—the sealed but unforgotten past. He could not single out the emotion., He knew not whether it was fear or hope^-pain or pleasure. He called, through the open window, to Yon Leisten.

The Freiherr, like himself, and lika all who have outlived the. effervescence of life, was enamoured of the night.

A moment of unfathomable moonlight was dearer to him than hours disenchanted with the sun. He too had been looking outward and upward—but with no trouble at his heart.

"The night is inconceivably sweet," he said as he entered, "and your voice called back my thought and sense from the intoxication of a revel. What would you, my friend?*'

"I am restless, Yon Leisten j There is someone near us whose glances cross mine in the moonlight and agitate and perplex me. Yet there is but one on earth deep enough in the life-blood of my being to move me thus—even: were she here! And she is not here!"

His voice trembled and softened^ and the last word was scarce audible on the closed lips, for the Freiherr had passed his bands over them while he spoke, and he had fallen into the trance of the spirit-world.

The Freiherr released the entranced spirit of his friend, and bade him follow back the rays of the moon to the source of his agitation.

A smile crept slowly over the sleeper's lips.

In an apartment flooded with the silver lustre of the night, reclined in an invalid's chair, propped with pillows, a woman of singular, though most fragile, beauty. Books and music lay strewn around, and a lamp, subdued to the tone of the moonlight by an orb' of alabaster, burnt beside her. She lay bathing her blue eyes in the round chalice of the moon. A profusion of brown ringlets fell over the white dress that enveloped her, and her oval cheek lay supported on the palm of her hand, and her bright red lips were parted. The pure yet passionate spell of that soft night possessed her.

Over her leant the disembodied spirit of him who had once loved her—praying to God that his soul might be so purified as to mingle unstartingly, unrepulsively, in hallowed harmony with hers. And presently he felt the coming of angels towards him, breathing into the deepest abysses of his existence a tearful and purifying sadness. And, with a trembling aspiration of grateful humility to his Maker, he stooped to her forehead, and with his impalpable lips impressed upon its snowy 3 tablet a kiss.

It seemed to Eve Gore a thought of the past that brought the blood suddenly to her cheek. She started from her reclining position, and, removingthe obscuring shade , from her lamp, rose and crossed her hands upon her wrists and paced thoughtfully to and fro. Her lips murmured inarticulately. But the thought, painful though it came, changed unaccountably to a melancholy sweetness, and, subduing her lamp again, sjje resumed her steadfast gaze upon the moon.

It was in the following year, and in the beginning of May. The gay world of England was concentrated in London, and at the entertainments of noble houses there were many beautiful women and many marked men. The Freiherr yon Leisten, after years of absence, had appeared again, his mysterious and undeniable superiority of mien and influence again yielded to, as before, and again bringing to his feet the homage and deference of the crowd he moved among. To his inscrutable power the game of society was easy, and he walked where he would through its barriers of form.

He stood one night looking on at a dance. A lady of a noble air was near to him, and both were watching the movements of the loveliest woman present, a creature in radiant health, apparently about twenty-three, and of matchless fascination of person and manner. Yon Leisten turned to the lady near him to inquire her name, but his attention was arrested by the resemblance between her and the object of his admiring curiosity, and he was silent. The lady had bowed before he withdrew his gaze, however. "I think we have met before," she said; but, at the next instant, a slight flush of displeasure came to her cheek, and she seemed regretting that she had spoken.

"Pardon me," said Yon Leisten, "but, if the question be not rude, do you remember where?"

She hesitated a moment

"I have recalled it since I have spoken," she continued; "but as the remembrance of the person who accompanied you always gives me pain, I would willingly have unsaid it. One evening of last year, crossing the bridge of the Lima, you were walking with Mr. Clay. Pardon me, but, though I left Lucca with my daughter on the following morning, and saw you no more, the association, or your appearance, had inspired the circumstance on my mind."

"And is that Eve Gore?." said Yon Leisten, musingly, gazing on the beautiful creature now gliding with light step to her mother's side.

But the Freiherr's heart was gone to his friend.

As the burst of the waltz broke in upon the closing of the quadrille, he offered his hand to the fair girl, and as they moved round with the entrancing music he murmured in her ear: "He who came to you in the moonlight of Italy will he with you again, if you are alone, at the rising of to-night's late moon. Believe the voice that then speaks to you!"

"Can you bring him to me?" said Eve, letting her hand remain in Yon Leisten's and bending her deep blueeyes inquiringly on his.

The Freiherr stood a moment with his eyes fixed on the ground. The color fled from his cheeks, and his brow moistened.

"I have called him!" he said; "he wilt be here!"

An hour elapsed, and Clay entered

the house. He had risen from a be4'v

of sickness, and came pale and in terror, for the spirit-summons was powers ful. But Yon Leisten welcomed him at the door with. a smile, and withdrew the mother from the room and left Ernest alone with his future bride—the first union, save in spirit, after years of separation.

(The End.)

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ROTWKG19150217.2.58

Bibliographic details

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 17 February 1915, Page 6

Word Count
1,392

OUR STORYETTE. Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 17 February 1915, Page 6

OUR STORYETTE. Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 17 February 1915, Page 6

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert