SORELY TEMPTED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3487, 14 June 1879, Page 3

SORELY TEMPTED.

■ B 7 AKNIE CLABB. (Continued.) "But at last, upon the darkness of my lojathed, degraded life, there dawned a new arid glorious happiness that more than compensated me for all thafc had gone before. Tou guess whafc 1 mean, Helen ? I had won a lover— and such a lover 1 A man of whose slightest regard any woman might have been proud— a courteous gentleman, a brave soldier, whose calm strong face had gleamed in many a deadly breach, at tho head of many a charging column, and who had won for himself honour and distinction both in India and the Crimea. What it was that drew a man like Major Elliston to me, a half-formed girl, half his age, amyumpeMurably Mb inferior, Sf^l?J:/W^^^^i&is*a myatery I have ?neyer fathomed, \^Bflt. the fact remained ; he ;lQv>df*iiie {iatiflu-^l&stthan three months ,hsm the dato of .ontfirßt meeting I was his prpud and happy? wife. •'■ '■"■' " The.wedding over, Major Elliston, anxious to escape from'jfo^a'ther's maudlin exhortations and alcohojfo tears, induced by the many extra glaß_.es in which' he had pledged our health, took me away on a protracted Continental tour ; and to say fchat I was happy, to say thafcal loved my brave noble husband, poorly . expresses -the unutterable depth, power, and tenderness with which his greafc love and chivalrous goodness inspired me. During nexfc few months my life was ai near perfection as human life ever attainß ; and; looking baok to ifc now, ifc appears like a sweet, brief, bewildering dream — and liko a dream.it.ended. ._ were in Munich, where we had been spending three such weeks as I shall never know again, when the blow fell. We had dined alone that day, I remember, and, the cloth removed, sat talking over the dessert with that intense enjoyment in each other's society which a year's companionship hod never lessened, when fche major's old servant, who had been with him through many a year of danger and hardship in India and tke Crimea, came in with an air of perturbation to announce a strange visitor below. "It's a lady — leastways a woman, sir," he added,, with his usual military salute, ' And she ■ won't take "No" for an answer— won't go away without seeing you, sir! She does talk uncommon queer, to be Bure; but whether it is drink or the brain— in fact, eir, I thought aa perhapa you'd rather slip down and see her for yourself.'

" Evidently surprised by fche man's words, andistili more by the air of mystery and significance with which he- glanced afc me, my husband rose from Ub seat as if to leave tho room, when the door opened, and a woman, wretchedly clad and degraded in aspect, pushed paßt the man, who attempted to bar her passage, and stood defiantly before üb. "* You didn't expect the pleasure of seeing me ?' she exclaimed in a harsh grating voice. ' Never expected fche sea fco give up ita dead, eh ?■ And bo you thought you'd console yourself wifch a second venture,' she concluded with a hideous drunken leer afc me.

-. " With a feeling of unspeakable bewilderment, a horrible sense of some* dreadful calamity having befallen me, I glanced from the coarse degraded object before me to my husband, who, with a low ' Good Heavon !*' had turned white to the lips and dropped like a dead weight; into his chair. " ' Heard you was here,' she went on, evidently immensely enjoying the effect her appearance was producing, 'travelling with your wife ; so I thought I'd come and take a share in the fun. I suppose you have never told number two anything about number one ! Rather humbling to the pride of your fineflaunting madam, no doubt; but I tell you what it is,' she added, a sudden gleam of fury in her eyes 5 ' you are rich, and I am poor ; and, unless you pay me woll to keep it dark, I mean to let all the world know thafc I am your wife, and that that girl there — — ' " She never finished the sentence j for, wifch a look thafc quelled oyer hor, he sprang to his feet, and for the moment I thought he would have stricken her' dead upon tho spot. But with a low groan he stopped, glanced toward me, who, literally stunned and stupified, stood clinging to the back of a chair for Bupport, and thon camo fco my side. "'My poor darling! My poor littlo one,' he gasped ; and the noxfc moment, passive as a child undor the Bpell of his voice and his touch, I was conscious of being led into the nexfc room, where, placing me. in a chair, ho left me, and went back to that dreadful woman, whoßO voice still rang in my oars; whose words seemed burned in letters of fire on my very brain.

" What ho eaid to her, what took place between them, I never knew ; but at last, afc what might have been tho end of fcwo minutes or ten hours for any capability I had of estimating time, he came back to me, rubbed my cold hands, and held a glass of wino to my lips. I tried to drink ifc— l tried to answer his agonised entreaty that I would speak to him j but I was utterly helpless— I was choking. I felfc numbed from head to foot; ; and my heart lay in my broasfc as cold and heavy as stone— as pulseless, seemingly, as if ifc had stopped its beatings forever. "'My poor little girl I My poor little love ! ' ho said, trying to force a fow drops of wino through my parched lips and sot teeth. Look at me — Bpeuk to mo, if ifc is only to curso mo for tho misfortune of having brought thiß trouble upon you ! ' " ' Then it is truo ? ' I managed to ask at last, drawing back from his embrace with a shudder. ' Oh, Edgar, tell ' me— for I must know- I—is1 — is that woman your wife ? ' " With a deep groan ho dropped his face into Mb hands 5 and when he lifted ifc again ifc looked aa if years of care and suffering had passed over ifc. " Heaven knows," he said, " I would rather have been shot dead this night than bave had this thing happen ! lam afraid it is truo ; but, as heaven hears me, I never meant to wrong you. In point of law I am afraid thafc accursed woman, whom I believed dead years ago, is really my wifo, though I was out a mad, infatuated boy when, under tho influence of hor vile cunning and my own insane folly, I picked her up in the questionable society of the garrison town m which my regiment was quarterod at the time, and marriqd her. Tho fatal step once taken, tho veil dropped from my eyes, and in less than a month from fche date of my marriogo I camo homo to find my wife not; only unmistakably drunk, bufc coarsely abusive. From the first. I had fclfc that she was.very.much my inferior both montally and morally j bnt as I stood listening to her insane ravings I saw in one miserable moment the extent of tho terrible mistake I had made. D*Bgußted by hor ignorance and vulgarity my idiotic infatuation died oufc on the spot. In a sudden flash of enlightenment I saw the utter shipwreck I had mado of my life, and settling a sufficient in ojmo upon her, I exchanged into a regiment under ordors for the Crimea. . At the close of the war I went back to England to find tho wrolched woman who called herself my wifo more deeply sunk in tho dopths of vice and wickedness than my wildest; I'cnrs hud Lid me to oxpacfc; and finally, weiiriocl by her importunities for money, I offered her -a lwye Euin on condition that' Bho would go out to Australia and leavo mo in pence for the rest of my days. Tempted by money, she instantly closed with tho offer; and a few weeks later

the ship in which I believed her to have sailed was lost afc sea ; and with a thrill of mingled pity, horror and relief I read her, named among tho list of drowned, fcufc tonight, from her. own lips, I have heard how from firßt to last I have been deceived. To qmefc my suspicions, she suffered me to pay her passage money ; bufc although her natne was on the passenger list, she never took passage on the ill-fated vessel. Three months later, little suspecting tho deception that had been practised _ upon me, and that my wife was still in London squandering the money she had obtained from me, I went out to India, a wiser and sadder man, where it was my fate to take part in that dark . hißtory, the Indian mutiny. Through the years that followed, a doubt of my freedom never once occurred to me, and yet, until I met you, I never saw the woman who had the power to touch my heart — hardly to excite a passing interest in my mind j and by all that we have been to each other through thiß one perfect year of my life, I implore you to acquit me of any intentional wrong towards you— l implore you to trust me still! Something muefc— something shall bo done! This accursed woman shall be bribed— Bent away—a-cv-thing_so that Bhe does not interfere with oui happiness! Good heavens," ho exclaimed pressing me almost convulsively to him, "do you think I would suffer g hundred drunken hags like that to come between me and my darling— my wife? In the name of meroy tell me that you will not let this one wretched, long-repented folly of my youth destroy our happiness ! " "'You must give me time— l must think over at alqne. Give me until fche morning, and then I will, decide,' I replied, feeling that 1 mußt have time to get used to the dreadful pense of calamity tbat was overwhelming me— that I could not trust my judgment with bis dear face bofore my eyes, his loved voice in my ears, and tearing myself from his passionate embrace, I staggered up to my room, locked the door, and threw myself face downwards upon tho bed where, through the dreadful hours that followed, I fought out the fierce battle alone.

Only too plainly I saw my duty! I could nofc shut my eyes to ifc, though I tried. I must not stay there. I was no wife, and if I yielded to the temptation, I felfc that the day would come when even he would despise me. The world's scorn I could have defied— for that I cared nothing ; but if his love waß lost to me, there was nothing I would nofc have borne to have kept his respect. "The woman who hesitates is lost," says the proverb, and in my case I knew ifc, was only too true. My love rendered me weak : but I would not hesitate. I felt my one course waß to go afc once— that I dared not Bee him again. I knew fchafc he would never consent to give me up, and flight was my only hope. Rising up from the bed, I bathed my aching temples, put on a dark dress and veil, and taking what little money I possessed, I opened fche door and stood for a moment hßtemng cautiously. In the houße all wa B still as the gravo, and noiseless as a shadow, I crept down tho staircase and into the hall. The way was clear before me. But heaven help me if, in my heart of hearts, I almost hoped something would happen to render 'my hard duty impossible. * , ''But nothing did happen, and a few minutes later I was out in the silent Btreets of Munich, wandering, as if in a dream, along the quiot stately Konigin-Strasße, where the white moonlight lay liko a flood of silver on the silent houses and upon the dark trees in the Enghscher-Garten opposite ; and, before I was thoroughly conscious of what had hap pened to me, I was on my way to London. " Thafc waa over a year ago 5 and of the life I haye led sinco ifc is only necessary to cay that ifc has been one of ceaseless toil, of utter misery. I ImTOl mTO learned to endure j bufc resignation iB as far from me to-day as in tho first hour of my sorrow." •** t # *

There has been a collision afc sea ; and bofch London and New York newspapers are full of ifc. Ifc is ono of those terrible disasters, thoso almost national calamities at which the public heart stands still with pity and horror.

The mail-steamer Odessa, carrying mails and passengers, and bound from Liverpool fco New York has been run into and sunk, during a terrible nighfc of storm and fog, by.anolher steamer from Now York to Bremen, and of hor threo hundred and fifty passengers scarcely twenty have been savod, and thoso only through the exertions of the captain of tho second vessel, who, putting' back as Bpeedily as hia own damages and stress of weather would pormit, Bucceeded in picking up a fow who bad been left by the sinking vessel clinging or lashed to spars and ofcher floating debris, and by him brought Bafelyinto New York.

Of tho largo number of ladies and children on board the ill-fated steamor, bufc five women and one child have been saved ; and one of these, the niece of the woll-known New Yorker, Mr James Irving, as the newspapers announco, reached New York ih bo exhausted and unconscious a condition as to excite great fears of hor recovery. But it is nearly two weeks now since tho wreck of the Odessa, and in a richly- furnished apartment, half library, half parlor, on the ground-floor of ono of the besfc liouse's on Madison Avenue, New York, sits a plain un-pretentiouß-looking old gentleman, whose usually unmoved business-like face wears an expression of deep suspense and anxiety. It is Mr James Irving, a gentleman whoso greafc wealth and vigorous business capabilities havo long since rendered him a man of mark in the busy city of his adoption. But for that letter from the Rovorend Mr Monfceith, the chances aro that Mr Irving would never have thought of inviting his niece to America ; but, the suggestion onco offered, ifc had suddenly occurred fco him that the one tiling his home needed was the presence of a young and gen tlo woman— that, in spite of his great wealth and honour, he was a very lonely man ; and long boforo the expected steamer was duo he had worked himself into -quite a little fever of impatienca and expectation on tho subject of his unknown niece, in the midst of which, and on the very day on which tho Odessa was expected, thero had come tho terrible tidings of tho wreck, followod by the anxious days and nightß during which fcho frail young lifo that had been so miraculously saved seemed literally to haDg in the balance. But the doctor's carriage is at the door ; and the physician, for whoßO report tho gentleman is waiting bo impatiently this afternoon, came down stairs and enters tho room.

" A greafc improvement in our patient today, Mr Irving," he announces, drawing on his gloves in his busy, bustling way—" a decided improvement! If all goes well we shall pull her through even yet. I feund our young lady perfectly conscious and very wide awake, and naturally a littlo anxious as to whero she is and whafchappenod to her — points on which I judged ifc besfc to satisfy her curiosity ; bufc a great deal depends just now on her boing kept perfectly quiet and tranquil. For tho rest, the nurpe has hor instructions ; and to-morrow, if matters progress satisfactorily, you will be ablo to bco her," ho adds in roply to tho questioning look in tho eyes of his listener. "By the way, my dear sir," ho supplements, ns if in obedience fco Bomo sudden impulse of recollection, " are you altogether certain thafc this young lady is really— in short, tho person you take her to bo ?"

(To bo continued.)