LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3551, 28 August 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

FORGIVEN. BY IT. B. C. : The dusk of a December day was doscending like an opal curtain. In the west there jet remained rare, beautiful tints that the i Bunßetting had left— delicate lemon, tender purple-gray, and one palo azilrine band against a rose-pink halo that blushed softly on the horizon. Sylvia stood alone in the drawing-room, looking across the square into Oxford street — such a fair, womanly woman, with her lithe, Blender figure, her graceful carriage, her grave, sweet face, whose red lips so seldom parted in a smile, whose velvety dark eyes wore always a patient piteousness. She had endured such trouble— such awful trouble— that comes, providentially, to but few women to Buffer ; and to-night, the last of the dying year, when other women wore eagerly gay, and anticipative of the festivities of the morrow, Sylvia Hope was suffering anew and afresh the pain that would never leave her— that never had left her since the New Year's Eve five years ago, when She shivered as she thought of that night, and then, with a little gasp of agony, as the memory surges rolled whelmingly over her, she turned away from the window, and the sky that was rapidly, paling into soft gray tones, and the streets whose indistinctness of dusk was being relieved by twinkling lights. A servant came quietly in taper ia hand, to light the gas. Mra Hope looked up. " Novor mind yet, John. . I will ring when I need lights." Then, up and down, up and down, through the half gloom, the fragrant warmth, of the magnificent room, Sylvia walked, her silken train rustling softly on the velvet carpet, her fair, white hands clasped tightly behind her, her head drooped on her breast, thinking of her husband. Just five years ago that day there had been a terrible scene between them— a finale tha had been gradually growing from the day Marcia Stanhope had crossed their path. Sho was enchantingly beautiful, more beautiful than any woman Sylvia had crer seen, and all London raved about her and her ravissante ways, and Guy Hope had shared in her eager admiration ; and Marcia Stanhope had smiled upon him, and the two had been great friends, until— one awful, awful day it had come homo to Guy Hope's wife, with the keen force of pain, and jealousy, and rage, that her husband cared more for Marcia Stanhope than for her. At first, she had tried to conquer the feeling. Then, when her woman's heart was all afiro with hot fury and wild jealousy, she taxed her husband with the accusation, as any woman would have done. And he ? He did what any man would have done, whether guilty or innocent — he flatly denied the charge. Then, when sho hotly, indignantly reproached him, he resented it angrily, then coolly laughed, and later, grew as furious as herßelf. And then, in the very midst of Sylvia's wildest, maddest accusation, he turned to her with a sternness that held her whila sho heard the one sentence he uttered. " Another word, and so help me heaven, I'll never look upon your face Bgain ! " The threat maddened her beyond all power to control her words. "Yes, you would like to desert me— for her! Go ! I hope I may never see your fulae face again ! " And without a second's delay ho walked into the hall, donned overcoat, hat, and gloves, and .It was ' five years ago, and she has never seen or heard of him since. There had been such time for repentance, BO much time to suffer— in those terrible after days, when people looked wonderingly, sometimes suspiciously at her; whon she knew the strangeness of her affairs was being canvassed, and she was pitied, or censured, or ridiculed, as the case might be. But her withdrawal from society, her womanly modesty of demeanour, hor undoubted distress, commanded respect and spmpathy Besides, she was rich, and that covered a multitude of sins. And so she had lived her lonely life, with a heart that knew no surcease of sorrow— that only knew added regret as the days woro on into years, and sho knew, for a positive certainty, that it had been a terriblo mistake on her part— that Marcia Stanhope had not been in love with her husband, nor he with her. Only there was no undoing that mietaio — only thero was nothing left but to bear and suffer, aB best she might, until release should come. And so this New Year's Eve had come again, when the bells Bhould ring in tho new year, whose burden for Sylvia would be just what the old had heaped on her shoulders — woe, woe, unutterable woe, almost unendurable. After that, days went on and on, and tho January days freighted with snow and ice, and bitter with terrible cold, or days genial and salubrious ' with southern breezes and cloudless skies, wero as nothing to Sylvia, because of her husband, and her own fault. While he, wrath long ago subdued, but pride yet too warm to go to his home, wandering all over the fair face of the world, restless, miserable, unhappy, yet, strange' paradox as it may seem, ever yearning for the woman who was, his wife, his darling — the -woman who had been so cruel, so cruel!., . „,..... But somehow his restless roaming had brought him. home again, and tho last of the bright winter days found him in his hotel, not a mile , from the mansion where he knew Sylvia was— Sylvia, who hated him,; who had said she. hoped never to see his face again. And I am sure he had utterly forgotten he had sworn never to look upon her face again. ; They were so near 1 , arid yefc so far— bo hopelessly Bovored, yet so fatefully united. Then, one day it came to her so unexpectedly, so suddenly, that it shocked her into white, trembling fear— the casual reporb that Mr Hope was in the city, at tho Northumbria, and not looking well— in fact, very shockingly broken in health and appearance. Then her heart almost broke with loving sympathy and pity. " I will go to him | I will go and kneel at

his dear feet for forgiveness ! Oh, heaven, go ! before ine,'and prepare him to take me back to his love again!" ; ,":' So, before she tasted another meal, Sylvia went and dressed in her quietest dark dress, and in ah unostentatious hired cab was driven to the ladies' entrance and asked to be shown to Mr Guy Hope's room. And then, with pulsing lioart and eager, step, she followed the corridor to No. 23, where she hesitated a second before sho rapped, her face fairly ahfcuishful in its' intense anxiety, her breath, almost stopping,! for fear lest she might be repulsed. : • > She had dismissed the man who escorted; her ; then, gathering all her courage,' knocked on the door, bo fearful, so hopefulknocked, to hear no an»we!rlng" summons to' enter. - ■, And then she rapped again, louder, while a sudden deathly pain seized her at a thought! I ; that came to her. What if he be lying dead' within? • ■ . . ..;,-. : A little exclamation of unendurable agony came from her, and in a desperation of "fear she turned the door-knob and found the door unlocked, but the room empty of the dear presence to whom she had comd to go down' on her knees before. ; For ten, fifteen minutes she waited, and 1 then went back to the manager, simply saying she would wait no longer for her husband, and because he knew her so well .he was not at all surprised when she begged him not to mention to Mr Hope that she had been there. Then heart-sick, disappointed, despairing, she had herself returned to her magnificent, desolate home— magnificent and desolate as she had left, but desolate never again, for, standing in the reception-room, eager, expectant, her husband was waiting for her, to catch her in his outstretched arms. " Sylvia, my wife ! I have coma to be forgiven ! " And a light shiniDg suddenly on her fair face that might have been reflected from an angel's, she dung, agitated, to him. " Oh, Guy ! heaven is so good to us, after all ! Can you ever forgive me, and love me ngain?" And the latter life began, more blessed and beautiful than the former, for never again was it marred by distrust, or jealousy, or temper.