LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3903, 20 October 1880, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THE CASE OF HUGH MAYNARD.

(From Belgravia ) (Concluded).

" Poor child ! Why did we ever meet ?" " I would rather ask, why do you part ? But that would be an impertinence. Forgive me, Maynard, if I have seemed an intruder in this irattpr. It was by mere chance I came to know anything about it. If I can help you— " " You cannot. No one can help me. But I should thank you for what you have done. You've always been very kind to ma, Shapcott, and I thank you very much. lam glad you happened to be at hand when — when she came."

Shapcott turned to leave the room ; but he remained irresolutely in the doorway. He busied himself with his pipe as though effort was required of him to keep the tobacco alight. It was an excuse to remain and interchange another word or two with his neighbour.

" Any kindness I may have shown you, Maynard, has been email enough, Heaven khowß," he said ; "if I could have done more for you, I would, be sure of that. It eeems a pity that we were strangers so long ; that we only becamo known to each other so lately. I feel it the more now that you say you are going away. You are going soon ? " " Yes ; I think it will be soon."

" Life is full of strange meetings and partings. Aa I said, I shall miss you terribly. But I am not surprised at your goii g away. I have often asked myself — not that it was any business of mme — why you ever came. And you've been looking ill for some time past, I'vo noticed."

" I have not been very well." " I don't wonder at it. Who can ba well, leading the lives wo lead here ? And then, this love affair — I may call it that ? "

" If you like — the description does well enough."

"It has worried you a good deal — I can see that. Did you speak on the subject to your doctor? "

"I did, in part."

" But he would have discovered for himself that you were troubled with no mere bodily ailment. Macbeth, you remember, asks of the physician if he could ' minister to a mind di-eaaed.' The physician replies that ' therein the patient must minister to himself.' "

"You think my raind diseased?" asked Maynard abruptly.

" According to Rosalind, ' love is merely a madnees, and deserves aa well a dark house and a whip aa madmec do."

Mavnard shuddered,

" You've caught cold, I think," said Shapcott; perhaps that's something to do with it. I'd get to bed if I were you. Good night. Perhaps sleep may prove the "sweet oblivious antidote that cleanses the bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.' " '' It was not so in Lady Macbcth'a case. Well — good night, Shapcott." " Good night, Maynard." It was in the afternoon of tho following day when Mrs Mofllt, the laundress, as she cleared away her breakfast things, informed Mr Shapcott that his neighbour, Mr Maynard, was not yet a9tir ; sho had knocked at his door more than once, she said, but had received no reply. Sho hardly liked to knock again j but he did not usually sleep so late. She had, of course, no wish to disturb him if ho did not want to get up. As she knew, gentlemen in the Inn were wont to please themselves as to going to going to bed and rising therefrom, and generally did not consider the clock or the flight of time in ordering or disordering their lives. "I'd let him sleep, if I were you, Mrs Mofllt," eaid Shapcott; "I know he had rather a bad night, for I heard him moving about his rooms long after I'd gone to bed. Sometimes I thought I heard him moaning, but I couldn't be sure. I should havo got up, though, if I had not been so uncommonly tired and sleepy myself, to ccc if: he wanted anything, or if he was ill, or if I could do anything for him. He was not very well yesterday. If I remember rightly, he's been complaining of his health some little timo past. He may have spoken to you on the subject perhaps, Mrs Mofllt."

No ; Mm Mo flit did not think he had. He was not a gentleman as said much at any time. A nice quiet gentleman, as it was a pleasure to do for ; but given to be moody and moped, Mr 3 Mofllt thought. A little " touched " eometimes, Mrs Mofllt suggested, and as she spoke she significantly tapped her forehead, upon which her spare iron-gray tresses were rather rudely banded. "Do you moan mad, Mrs Mofllt ?" asked Mr Shapcott.

" Well ; if I'm to be cross-questioned, Mr Shapcolt," she answered rather testily, "I'll give it as my opinion — and I've been laundress in thia Inn rnuny a long day now, and should know a something of the subject— l'll give it aa my opinion as most gentlemen is more or leas mad."

Presently there appeared upon the scene one Mr Carrick, who tenanted chambers on tho floor below. Ho complained that dirty water was trickling through his ceiling from tho room above, to the injury of his furniture and papaer3 On further examination what ho had beliovcd to bo dirty water proved to bo blnod. What had happened ? Tho room was situated immediately beneath the bedroom of Hugh Maynard. Loud and repeated knockings at the door — and still no answer. It became advisablo to force an entrance. Mark Shapcott ilung himself against the door. The weak fa-tenings yielded. Bhapcott was pale and trembling from such unwonted exercise of his muscular strength, and the sight that meS his g»zo as he entered tho room fairly scared and sickened him. Hugh Maynard was lying prone upon tho fbor. lie was quite dead. It was plain indeed that he had been dead some hours. Ho had inflicted upon hin.self sover.il desperate wounds by mean* of a broken fencing foil, the point of which ho had carefully sharpened. Mark Shapcott shuddered as he muttered under the cover of hi» thick beard — " What was it I eiiid 1 1 him about a man's fencing with himself ? " The floor was littered with scraps of paper— letters torn into very small fragments. Scattered horc and there lay certain of the trinkets contained in tho packet Shapcott had delivered to him. His blood had stained and crimsoned them. Tho blood — it seemed everywhere — had soaked through the carpet, blotching the boards, and finding it way to the ceiling beneath, as Mr Carrick had complained. Thore was a sound of a footstep upon the staircase without. Dr Dunlop entered. Ono quick glance round the room, and he seemed

to have posessed himself completely of tho circumstances of the case.

" Already?" ho musod ; "I did rot think tho end was so near. It is the father's story over again. Desperate suicide, tho result of hereditary disposition. Poor lad ! Look at his maniacal determination. These marks upon tho hearthstone show how ho sharpened his broken foil into a dagger. See, his revolver was ready on tho mantelpiece, in case the dagger had failed. And he had tried to strangle himself — he had cut the cord from the window-blind. That quito confirms my thoory of suicide ; tho young hang theinselres — that is the rule. And he was still young — many who did not know his story might have judged that a long life was in store for him. Hut — it could not be. A night of agony — and then, this. There was no escape. Sooner or later, the catastrophe must have come. It has come cooner. Poor lad, I any again. But, at least, his Bufferings aro over now. And he was, aa he told me, the last of the family. It is as well, porhaps. It is quite advisable that some families should die out." So reflected Dr Dunlop upon the case of Hugh Maynard. Late at night there came a knock at Mr Sliapcott's door.

" Who is there ?"

" You remember me ?" a woman asked tremulously through her thick veil. Then she hurried on in broken tones — "I know what has happened. It breaks my heart to think of it. Take theso flowers, lay them on his breast, let them be buried with him — promise me this shall be done!" " I promise."

" God blcßß you. I loved him with my whole heart, with all my soul, with all my strength. And he loved me. But, we were parted by a cruel mischance. I underetand ouv evil fate but dimly as it. He was not to blame, however ; so much I feel I know certainly. Yet I stabbed him with my words cruelly as the knife stabbed him afterwards. I loved him all the time ! It may be that he knows that, now— that dead he can read my heart better than he read it living. You wero his friend. Did he ever speak to you of mo?"

"Thero was some one he loved; I knew so much. But your name " " No, he would not tell that, of course. But you may know it now, all the world may know it now. He loved me. lam Eose Dyson. You will not forget? Rose Dyson. And I bring you these flowers to to lay on Hugh Maynard's dead heart. I shall bring more to deck his coffin and strew upon his grave." She kissed the flowers — they were wet with her tears. She thrust them in Mark Shapcott's hands, and then, without another word, she passed down the dimly-lighted stairs into the dark night.