CHAPTER LXVI.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 241, 11 February 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHAPTER LXVI.

" OLD COALS SOON KINDLE." Uneasy now becomes, perforce, The inevitable intercourse, So fatal heretofore ; Eacli in the other can descry The love constrained, the altered eye ; They know tr* 1 ; each to each cun seem No longer as of yore ; And yet, while thus estranged, I deem, One loves the other more ; Hers ia, perhaps, the bitterest heart ; His the more forced and painful part. Southey. We left Dr. Goodwin and Mise Fitzgeral^ seated together on the deck of the Europa in the Cove of Cork, where the steamer lay at anchor waiting for the Irish mail, with the last letters and passengers from London ; the same mail that poor Gertrude had missed by just five minutes. | It was now late in the afternoon, and 1 they had had luncheon, and returned to ! the deck to gaze upon the same beautiful scene by sunset which they had first beheld by sunrise. Gerald, who had gone on shore in the morning, had not yet come back. The Irish mail arrived ab six o'clock. With this mail, and with the last passengers, Gerald returned to the ship. He did not approach Geraldine, but went directly down to his state-room. Half an hour afterwards the ship sailed. Dr. Goodwin and Miss Fitzgerald remained seated on the deck, conversing in a low tone, and gazing on the beautiful shores of the "Green Islo" in tho goldon glory of the setting sun, and the silver radiance of the rising moon ; for these two luminaries were on tne verge of the horizon at the same moment; but the sun was setting behind the western hills of Ireland, and the moon was rising from the waters of the Channel in the east. The two friends sat there until the last light of tho sun had faded out of the west, and the rays of the moon were streaming down upon the sea. Then Gerald Fitzgerald joined them, and stood leaning over the bulwarks, looking far out to sea. Dr. Goodwin, on seeing his fellowpassenger approach, arose, and said : " Now that the colonel has made his appearance to look after you, I will retire, my dear. lam rather susceptible of taking cold, and the night air on the sea at this season is rather keen." " Oh, pray take care of yourself, Dr. Goodwin. I had no idea that you felt the chill, or I would not have permitted you to stay here so long," said Geraldine, quickly, and she thought that no experienced chaperon or manoeuvring mamma could have acted with more tact and discretion than this same venerable old Doctor of Divinity. But the truth h that Dr Goodwin was afraid of the night air, and he had no other reason for leaving the deck. He bowed, and withdrew. "Gerald, here is a *eat. Do sib down," said Geraldine, us soon as the old man was out of Bight. Colonel Fitzgerald turned, bowed, and took the place she indicated. " Gerald, what are you thinking about ?'" sho inquired, with solicitude. " I bey your pardon ?" said Colone Fitzgorald, interrogatively, as if ho had not heard her. "You nro always dreaming, Gerald. What are you dreaming of V she earnestly inquired. "Geraldine, there is always a scene before my mind's eye that I cannot banish if I would. No, nor, however painful and even agonizing it may be to me, that I would banish ill could. It is the scene of my wifo's death beneath the waves of that red sea lighted up by the flames of the burning ship,' he sadly and sternly replied. " Gerald, this is morbid. Think how many men— fifty men, at the lowest computation — have lost wives or children, or sisters or mothers by that woeful disaster. Suppose all of them should brood over taeir trouble as you do over yours ?" "Geraldine, fifty men — no, nor five men — never left their wives or mothers or children to perish as I left mine-/' he answered, in bitter sorrow. " Oh, Gerald ! Gerald ! Gerald ! my betrothed no longer, but my dearest friend and cousin still ; you wrong yourself, you do, indeed. You wiong yourself most cruelly. You did not leave her to perish. She was killed by an accident before my very eyes. I saw her killed before I called out to you for help. It is an awful, horrible thing to toll you, and it-was a more horrible thing to see, but I saw the back of her head crushed like an eggshell by a blow from that plank you struck out of my hand. I saw that she was dead before I called for assistance. • And I had a right to your assistance, Gerald, for you had inadvertently stricken my only support from under me, and I was drowning by your act." "If I could only believe that, Geraldine, ifc might mitigate my remorse, though it could not soothe my sorrow," he answered. "Do you then -presume to doubt; my word ?" "Most certainly, I do not^dqubb youi" veracity ; but I may doubt the evidence of your senses as I should doubt that of my own,'' answered Colonel -Fitzgerald. ■ ' ",,You are morbid, . Gerald. Oh, that I could bring you to a healthier frame of mind!"- ' ' * / ".Geraldine,' do nofc trouble yourself with nje. ,1 am not worth your care," he art' swered nq.ood.Uy. "Gorald, I know, of course, that all is over between us, that we never ban be

more than friends and cousins ; but stilly WO are too near kin, too dear friends, to> make ifc possible for me to look upon your suffering and not suffer with you— to feel so helpless to help you and not — " Here poor, proud Geraldine broke down* and burst into tears; nay, more, she dropped her head upon his shoulder and wept bitter]y. -, '"Let nic lead you to your stateroom,. Geraldine, you would be better there,"' said Colonel Fitzgerald, rising, and thue dopriving her of support on his shoulder. " Thanks, no, sir, I do not need assistance. I need self -recollection more, for 1 have forgotten myself, I think," sheanswered, haughtily, as she arose and. walked off. Colonel Fitzgerald followed her to the head of the coirpanion-ladder, and saw her down into the ladies' cabin in safety, and theii he returned to his seat, with distraction added to his sorrows. " Poor girl ! I shall be glad, for her sake, when -this voyage is over," for it seemed to him then that the death of Gertrude had' extinguished the la*t lingering spark of affection that he had left in his heart for Geraldine, and that he loved Jertrude in. her ocean grave more than he had ever loved Geraldine in all Ihe pride of her life and beauty. Wa& he mistaken in himself? Time will show. As he sat there ruminating, a strange 1 drowsiness stole over him. He resisted tho sensation and roused himself several times, but always 1 elapsed into slumber,, until, in a very short time, he fell fast) asleep. Then a strange thing happened to> him. He had a dream. He thought that he was still sitting on the after deck of the Europa, gazing moodily out upon the moonlit sea, when softly glided to his side the form ot' Gertrude, his drowned wife. "Gerald," she murmured, "I have been* standing by your side so long, trying to speak to you, Gerald ; neither life nor death can separate those who truly love each other. I have come to you in this way, Gerald, as I can only come to you now, to pray you to &aye yourself and me ! — to lek no false pity, nor policy, nor any other motive, tempt you to raise an impassable barrier between us. lam praying you to wait for me, Gerald ! Wait for me ! I am hastening to you in the — " The vision vanished, and the voice sank into silence before the sentence was com- ! pleted, and Gerald Fitzgerald woke up to lind that he had been dreaming. Yet the dream impressed him as deeply, and remained w ith him as long, as if it had been a reality. The sweet, pathetic face had seemed co natural, the gentle, tender voice so i familiar. *' Oh, my dove-eyed darling ! Oh, my lost angel ! Shall I never fee your meek browfn eyes again ? — never hear your dulceb tones ? No, no, no ! I never, never shall, neither in this world nor in the world to come? for a gulf as wide as separated Dives from Lazarus must divide me from your pure and loving spirit," ho groaned within himself, as he left nis seat, and paced the deck in restlessness of soul, i He saw no more of Geraldine until he meti her at the tea-table, attended by Dr. Goodwin. She seemed then to have recovered her equanimity. Their voyage across the Atlantic passed without any event, except the snow-storm that overtook them just as they were entering New York harbour. This was the same snow-storm hi which theunfortunate captain of the Zanzibar, then on the Grand Bank of New foundland, lost his reckoning, and ran. upon the island of ice. But the Europa being three days ahead of the Zanzibar, was safe in the harbour of New York when the full force of the storm broke. The ship reached her pier about nine o'clock that night. Colonel Fitzgerald, leaving Dr. Goodwin to look after Geraldine, and to get their baggage through thecustom-house r hastened - to the railway-station of tho New York and Washington lines, to ascertain when the first train would leave for the South. He was told that the last train for thafe night had just started, and there would nob be another until six o'clock the next morning. He went back to the steamer with this news, and then took his party to the old Astor House, as the most convenient for their purposes. "Now, of course, I shall have to hasten down to Virginia with all possible expedition. I must leave by the first morning train for Washington, which starts at six o.clock," said Colonel Fitzgerald, as he seated himself at the small supper-table with his party in their private parlour in the hotel. "But I need not hurry or inconvenience you or Miss Fitzgerald. If you or if Geraldiue should prefer to stop in New York for a few days -" "I thank you, Gerald," interrupted his cousin. "I prefer to go directly home." "And so do I, Fitzgerald," added thagood doctor. "Tho very same interest) that takop you in such a hurry to Virginia takes me also. I am as anxious to hear the communication of the dying woman Magdala, or— what is her barbarous namet — Clea Phara, as you can be." " Yes, but the woman declares that shewill not divulge the secret to anyone fcufo me," objected Colonel Fitzgerald. "And very properly, since she also declares that this secret affects the honou of the FiUgeralds. But for all that, if if> should seriously relate to the rights of property, or the identity of the heiress in that cause which you and I have had so much at heart, I think, Gerald, that the secret must be made public. " Of course, of course, Dr. Goodwin. The ends of justice must be served at any cost of feeling. Yet remember that I have neither knowledge nor suspicion of what) this woman's secret relates to. I often think it is nothing more than the hallucination of a diseased mind ; or, rather, I often should think so if I did not remember how the hearing of it hastened my father's death. 1 knownot what it 3an be. I confess to some considerable curiosity and impatience to moot this woman face to face, and hear what she has got to tell me." " If the question is a fair one, may I ask what you aro both talking about ?" inquired. Miss Fitzgerald, who had been a silent auditor of the conversation. " Yes, Goraldine. We are talking ot that communication which the wandering maniac, whom we knew as Magdala, made 1 to my father on his death-bed—" " And which was said to have accelerated' his death ?" "Yes. The woman Magdala, or rather the gypsy Clca Phara, is now on her death,,' bed, and wishes to make a clean breast of it to mo." ' "The secret which she has boasted, \ if > oiven to tho public, would pull 40w,n. ( the , 'unsoilcd plume 1 of Fitzgerald' to' the. dust ?" inquired Geraldine, with" a sorrowful smile. - ' .'. i !< " Yes ; 1 suppose so. You know that there is one scaled page in our family his; tory. I refer to Arthur Lloyd Fitzgerald,, my .cousin." ' . • ' "That romantic, quixotic boy ought to« have been well flogged for his mad caper, i instead of being so solemnly and 1 terribly punished as he was. Bufcwhat has his' fate* - to do with the case under discussion ?"

•"It may have nothing to do with it; 3b may have everything. Remember that •nothing has ever been heard of the lad since his reckless escape from the »loop-of-war Samaria, by jumping overboard at midnight." " But ho was supposed to have been drowned, then and there." " Yes, supposed, but nob ascertained to have been drowned. I confess that it seems to me that trouble can only come to the family through some circumstance connected with him." " Did you ever know him, Gerald / •• No ; he was full fifteen years my senior. He was sent to sea at the age of fourteen, and at the age of seventeen -entered into the mad conspiracy that ended in his ruin. It was a romantic boy's freaknothing more: but it ruined him and brought his parents to the grave, l es, my father inherited the Summit Manor through the domestic tragedy in his elder brothers family And if the secieb that the gypsy woman told .Maurice Fitzgerald on his -death-bed had anything to do with the fate •of Arthur Lloyd, it is no wonder that in his . weak state it hurried him into his gra\e, ' for he never could bear the least allusion to that misguided and unhappy youth." "No, I know that my undo could not endvuetohear his name mentioned. His name 'Was banished from each toncuo ami car, Like words o£ wantonness and fear. But come ! If we are to take the six o'clock ■.morning train we must be up at half-past four. It will take us an hour and a half to take breakfast, gee ready, and reach the train. So I will bid you good-night, ' said •Goraldine, rising and leaving the room. As soon as she had locked herself in, all the cool composure of her manner vanished. She threw herself on the bed and burst into a torrent of tears, exclaiming passion*\tclv * " How hard he is to me ! how hard ! how hard ! how hard to me whom he used to love so madly ! But he loves the memory that girl in the bottom of the sea more than he ever loved me ! Well, *he »\ in the bottom of the sea at least, and can never come back to trouble me again. And as for my Gerald, my betrothed whom she took from me, I will win him yet ! I will bring him to my foot ! I may take time, 4but I will triumph 1" (To be Contiawd. )