Literature.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 156, 6 July 1904, Page 4

Literature.

" (Continued. His voice sunk, as ho poke, into a husky, sepulchral whisp r. He went into* the drawing-room, 1 following him. Hi; would have g mo towards her— l believe lie loved I ,-r oin that. hour, he would minor have met his death at her hand, than live In have this awful chasm—this unl-.iidged guli of matiin-ss—4(etv\ven his heart and hers. She looked at him now with that curious gav.e of cunning and deliunco which overdone has seen who knows much of the insane. •■•Keep away," she cried wanvingly, flashing the dagger in-fore hor—"you had tetter. 1 sha'n't kill you, for you don't foar that.-, but if you come one step nearer, I will Let llris pretty, shining toy lap the blood out of thy heart." There was a terrible earnestness in bar eyes 'and we both stood still before her.

At this moment her father appeared on the scene. He eomprc'tenuVi all in an instant. His face turned white to his lips with an awful pa.lor. The 1 cold sweat-drops of a deathly agony stood upon his forehead.

"Oh, Heaven !" he cried, "has it :Oome so soon? 1 saw her mother "look like that. Dudley, 1 warned you. You rushed upon your fate !" "I believe 1 should have married her had 1 known this, wen. At least She is my wife. I know that she has loved me !" With that white pallor on his face, that look of anguish in his eyes, Hichard Chaiupttey turned towards his child.

"Give me that dagger, Edith," he Said in a tone of stern command. walking up. to her- suddenly. With a Chikl-Like m&tinct of obedience she put it into litis hand. Then, as if repenting what she had done, s!usprang wildly forward to seize ii again.

'" H© threw it quickly behind him,and Caught her iirmly in his arms as sh.v Gcune an. I took up tlie weapon and broke it, and threw the piepes out oi the window. Still holding her, hc-r father contrived to extract a key from 'his pocket, and threw it towards me.

"In my room—one over this—you will film, in the third drawer, a strait waistcoat. It was the one her mother wore* Bring it." In Ave minutes more, with my jhplp,' ho had put it on her, and it wae out of her power to do any more urisshief to herself or others. Then I sent a servant for the family physician, and wont myself for a surgeon. While the physician was alone with Hichard Cfaampney and his hapless child, the surgeon dressed the bridegroom's wound. It was a flesh-wound and not dangerous. But what a wedding-day ! What a consummation to the blissful dreams of 80 many hopeful weeks !

Soon the doctor came out. Dudley looked at him iu mute, helpless anguish, his lips refusing to frame the question he longed to ask. I asked ft for him.

'■'po you think there is any hope?" ■ "1 do not like to pronounce so Boon," he answered, with a kind rei luctance to speak, the bitter truth. ■'■'lt would be better," I said earnestly, "to tell him the very worst now, than to torture him with suspense, if there is no hope of her recovery."

He considered for a moment before he spoke again. "I believe you are right, and I will tell you exactly What I think. Where insanity comes on, as hers has, without any illness, or any apparent cause, so suddenly and so violently, especially where there was a suspicion that it might J* hereditary, I have never known it to be cured." » • • »

I will net dwell on the next scenes of this terrible tragedy. Doth Edith's .:; tether and her husband longed, if they could, to keep her at home, >»• Where they could care for and watch \ ■ over her. For a while they thought •■■ -this would be possible. After the i doctor's visit .her strait jacket was removed. She seemed calmer, and made no more attempts to injure anyone. They thought her madness was going to take a harmless turn—gentle and pitiful as poor Ophelia's. She did not Mcogniise either her huabiand or her father ; but she seemed to like them both, and "called it .4^ffl. b J' a dozen fantastic titles. "It went on thus for a time, until .the furious;, malignant stage of her. malady tame on again. She wouW fly at whoever was in charge ,of her, and try. to tear them with teeth and nails. She would beat her own) beautiful head against the walls oi her rooms, or gmash her teeth against her lips till the blood burst from them. At length it was determined to take her to an asylum. 'Bhe could be restrained there, they thought, by those who understood Such cases, more gently, more mercifully.

It was a summer's afternoon when they drove out with her in a closed carriage. It was in one of her infervajg of comparative mildness, an«i the thought that she was going to see a friend who was in need of her made her content to drive readily enough. In the superintending physician she seemed to think she had found the one for whom she sought; and! she parted with her father and husband without regret.

'•'lf life did. not stretch out before me," Dndley Holland cried wretchedly, .•'so bitterly long—if only I could drai But to live on, for God knows how many weary years—and to .think of her suffering there, her heli)faaa soul 'treating its struggling wings against the bars, crying out, in vain anguish, for a deliverance that never come*—to know that she is my own wife who loves me ; and yet I can never hear her say so, or kiss her lips, or hold her close to the heart that worships her. Oh, Heaven, perhaps it would be a mercy if I could go mad too !" What a fate it was to overtake a man lust on the threshold of life, only twenty-five—a man with so many goodly-gifts, wealth, talent, manly form, and handsome face. * » * #

Ten years passed in utter hopelessness. Richard Champney had grown weary of his life's sadibuuden, and laid it down. The heart so long and Boi-ely tried had throbbed with the last pang of mortal anguish, and with the dead smile frozen upon his mouth, and a look of peace upon his fade, they buried him by his dead wife's side.

But no such merciful release had come to the beautiful creature who was wearing away her life anions the motley crowd of raving, jeering

maniacs; or to the hustand who waited without the bars in lonely, pining sorrow. On the tenth anniversary of that ill-omened wedding-duy he came and intreated me to drive with him to Sagham. I put aside all other affairs for the time and went with him. "How is she to-day?" he askod the superintendent anxiously. "You will see her in her room. She is as mad as ever, 'bnt»q meter. She is not so strong, I think'. The warm weather, which has come so suddenly, overcomes her. She is always (gentlest when she does not feel very well." "Do you think she can possibly eves get well ?" It was 1 who asked this question, i Dudley had asked it too nmnv times and received the same sad, hopeless "No !," It came again now. (To be continued.)