A Forest Mystery

Observer, 21 December 1893, Page 14

A Forest Mystery

/J^Y' DREARY wind sighed its melancholy dirge /f\ through trees shimmering of verdure and #|| \ summer-time, which seemed oddly fitted to ' voice its mournful cadences. The trees rustled their secret to a flowering creeper that straggled inelegantly over the verandah railing, and the creeper, unwilling to bear so sad a burden, shook it, in one great scarlet blossom, through the open window where a young man sat, his face hidden in his hands. The flower fluttered amongst some papers until the man looked up, when it fell heavily to the table, for there was a misery in his face equalling the sighing of the wind. "With an exclamation of mingled pain and passion, he lifted the blossom and flung it from him. Its blood-red beauty served to deepen the current of anguish bleeding his soul. Then, of a sudden, he raised it, like a wounded thing, from the floor, and placed it with some companions in water, for there was this about Dennis Harcourt that he would not willingly injure any helpless living thing. The letter lying open on the table he read again, and as he did so, the sensitive lines about his clear-cut cleanshaven mouth grew hard as the wood whereon his hand lay clenched. Kitty had never loved him, then. She had let him breathe out his devotion, his joy of her, his ambition to win name and fame and fortune for her sake, and had responded with %vords of love and trust and pretty encouragement, until it seemed to him that heaven and earth were not big enough to hold their two hearts, and now " I find I was mistaken, Denny dear. I never really loved you. We might marry and discover our unsuitability r for each other when it was too late, and what a terrible thing that would be. I feel sure I am following the wisest course for us both in asking you to release me." Mistaken ! Of course, she was mistaken, to amuse herself with him, who had only his love, a small income, and the ordinary prospects which youth and hope and energy afford, to offer her, while a man who was old and musty and commonplace, but had a big bank account, sought her hand. It would indeed, as she said, be a terrible thing to find, when the gold was out of reach, that their love for one another did not make up for the fine house and clothes and social position which money could buy her. But, to be sure, Kitty had never loved lima. That was the hard truth which he must learn to realise. There was a time when he would not — could not — believe it ; when his hot blood had sworn vengeance on the man who ca3t doubt upon Kitty's faith. Then came her letter, and the presents he had given her lay on the table. Insignificant gifts enough, yet nevertheless fraught with a world of meaning, for him, which now he would rather have died than .own. It was like Kitty to choose this delicate, thoughtful way of reminding him. of their insignificance; it was also like Kitty to call him .by the old pet name when inflicting the greatest injury within her power. These, and manyoth^er hard things, said to himself this new-made cynic of twenty-four, sitting there in the fitful afternoon sunshine, with the curls that Kitty used to call love's golden dream all tossed and rumpled into a ferocious tangle above his weary, listless eyes. Yet all iiis contempt for her and all his assumptions of stoicism could not quell the undercurrent of pain in his heart — for the secret of the pain was that he loved her.

TVbittes for the Christmas Number of the Observer.

By Grace Whitelaw.

where is the use in a continual toil and struggle to keep in the running, when the race is disappointment and vexation, and the goal emptiness — or worse? where is the use in anything but to eat and sleep and drink, and to-morrow, die ? The morbid reflection soothed him. He called his landlady, settled his account, gave notice of leave the next morning, and went to bed, to4alk andjvander with Kitty through the blissful abodes of dreamland.

I A poorly-clad, happy-looking couple strolled past the fence, and their words came to him plainly in the | .stillness of the evening. " Ain't we just goin' to 'aye a .'appy Christmas to-morrow, Bill ?" said the girl lovingly,; and he knew. that she was clinging to her sweetheart's arm, and looking up in his face. " You bet, honey, an' the sweetest thing about it to me 'ull be yer own 'appy face, darlin'." The listener's curly head went suddenly down on his ixms, and for the space of a minute his pride, his strong roung manhood, his stoicism gave way before an rrepressible, overwhelming sense of grief. It was last Christmas Eve that Kitty had plighted her troth to him. BCe read again the love-light in her eyes as she listened io the old, old story, and whispered the words that made lim wonder what the miUenium could be like. Twelve nonths, and the light of his life had gone out with

Kitty's love, and he was alone in the darkness. He rose and watched the evening gloom steal .over the city ; he saw lights twinkle in every direction ; he heard the rattle of cars, the whistle of trains, the shouts of 'bus-drivers who ply a busy trade, in Auckland as elsewhere, on Christmas Eve, and a sickening of the eager, hurrying multitude and its ways filled his soul. "Why should I strive?" he asked himself bitterly. " "Where is the use in trying to make one's life a success ?