LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6829, 17 April 1890, Page 1

LITERATURE.

JOANNA'S BRACELET.

(Concluded.)

Ernest Wibberley tried to frame the •words, "And now?"— tried to force a smile. But he could not. The perspiration sprang out in •great beads on his face. He shook all over. He felt himself — and this time it was no faney — growing livid.

"To the best of my belief," added the civilian quietly, "the bracelet is on your left arm now."|

Wibberley tried to master, bat could sot, the impulse — thei traitor impulse — which urged him to glance down at his wrißt. The idea that the bracelet might bo visible — that the damning evidence might be plain to every eye — overcame him. He looked down. Of course there was nothing to be seen ; he might have it, for he felt the hot clasp of the Jhorrtble thing burniDg his arm inches. higher. But when he looked up again — fleeting as had been his glance — he found that something dreadful had happened to him. He faltered, and the chair dropped ■from his hands. He had never met looks like these before. He read in every face «aye one suspicion or condemnation. Thief and liar! He read the words in their eyes — the eyes of his quondam friends! Yet he would, he must, brazen it out ; and though he could not utter a word he looked from them to — Joanna. The girl's face was pale and scared. But her eyes — they answered his right eagerly — were ablaze with indignation. They held doubt, no suspicion. The moment his look fell on her, she spoke. "Show (hem your arm!" she cried impulsively. "Show them you have not got it, Ernest \" with such scorn, such generous passion in her voice, that it did not need the tell-tale name which fell too glibly from her lips to betray her secret — at least to every woman in the room. "Show them your arm!" Ah, but tb at -was just what he could not do ! And as he comprehended this he gnashed his teeth. He saw himself netted and entrapped, and his rage and misery were so written in his face that the best and most merciful of those about him turned from him in shame and pity. Even the girl who loved him shrank back, clutching the mantelpiece in the first spasm of doubt, and fear, and anguish. Her words, her suggestion, had taken from him hia last chance. He saw it was so. He felt the Nemesis the more bitterly on that account; and with a wild gesture, and some wilder word, he turned abruptly and hurried from the room, blindly seized his hat, and went down to the street. His feelings when he found himself outfide were such as it is impossible to •describe in smooth, p&ssionless sentences. He had wrecked his honour and happiness in an hour. He had lost his place among men through a chance word. We talk and read of a thunderbolt from the Hue ; bat still the thing is to us unnatural. Some law-abiding citizen whom a moment's passion has made a murderer, some strong man whom a stunning blow has left crushed and writhing on the ground, a twiated • cripple — only these could fitly describe his misery and despair as he traversed the streets. It was misery he had brought on himself; and yet how far the punishment exceeded the offence ! How immensely the shameandexposureoxceeded the guilt! He had lied, and the lie had made him a thief ! He went up to his rooms like one in a dream, and scarcely knowing what he did, tore the bauble from his arm and flung it on the mantelshelf. By his last act of bringing it away he had made his position a hundred times more serious, but he did not at once remember this. After he had sat a while, however, with his head between his hands, wondering if this really were limself — if this really had happened to himself, this dreadful thing ! — he began to see things more clearly. Still, he could not at once make up his mind what to do. Beyond some hazy idea of returning the bracelet by the first post, and going on the <Jonfcinent — of course, he must resign his employment — he had settled nothing, when a step outside made him start to his feet. Someone knocked at the door of his chambers. He stood pallid and listening, struck by a sudden fear. " The police I" he said to himself. But a moment's thought satisfied him that it was improbable, if not impossible, that this summons should be theirs ; and he went to the door listlessly and threw it open. On the mat stood Burton Smith, in a aoft slouched hat, his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat. Wibberley just glanced at him, and saw that he was alone ; and then, leaving him to shut the door, returned to his chair, and sat down in hia old attitude, with his head between his hands. He looked alreadya broken man. Burton Smith followed him in, and stood a moment looking down at him uncomfortably enough. It is bad to have had Buch «, scene as has been described at your house, but it is worse, if a man be a man, to face & fellow-creature in his time of shame. At any rate, Burton Smith felt it so. " Look here, Wibberley," he said atlength, as much embarrassed as if he had been the thief. " Look here, it will be better to hush this up. Give me this confounded bracelet to hand back to Lady Linacre, and the thing shall go no farther." His tone was curiously suggestive both of * old friendship and present contempt and pity. But when he had to repeat his question, when Wibberley gave him no answer, his voice grew harsher. Even then the man with the hidden face did not speak, but pointed with an impatient gesture to the mantelshelf. Burton Smith stepped briskly to the place indicated, and looked. He was anxious to spare the culprit as far a3 -possible. Yes, there wa^ the bracelet. He seized it, anxious, if the truth be known, to escape from the place with all speed. But he laid it down the next instant as quickly as he had taken it up, and his' brows came together as he turned sternly upon his companion. "This is not the bracelet," he said. There was no smack of old affection in bis tone now; it was wholly hostile. His patience was exhausted. • " Lady Linacre's was a diamond bracelet of great value, as you -know. This is a plain geld thing -worth two or three pounds. For heaven's cake, man!" he added with sudden 'vehemence, " for your own sake, do not play the fool now ! Where is the bracelet ?" No doubt despair had partially benumbed Wibberley's mind, for still he did not speak, and Burton Smith had to put hia question more than once before he got an answer. When Wibberley did at last lookup it was with a dazed face. " What is it? "he muttered, avoiding the other's eyes. " This is not Lady Linacre's bracelet." "Is-it not?" <c Ko; certainly not." Still confused, still avoiding the other's grave look, Wibberley rose and took the "bracelet in his hand, and glancod askance at it. And then Burton Smith saw him -start violently. "It is of the same shape," repeated the banister., ice in his voice— he thought the exchange a foolish, transparent artifice. " Bat Lady Linacre's has a large brilliant where that has a plain boss. That is not lady Linacre's bracelet." Wibberley turned away, the circlet in his hand, and went to the window, where 'he stood for quite a moment looking out' into the darkness. The curtains were not drawn. As he stood there, otherwise motionless, his shoulders trembled so violently that^i certain dreadful suspicion j

seized his late hoat ; and the latter desisted from watching him and looked about, but in vain, for a phial or glass. At the end of the minute Wibberley turned. For the first time he confronted his visitor. His eyes were strangely bright, his face very pale 3 but his mouth was set strong and firm. "I never Baid it was !" he answered grimly. " Was what ?" " I never said it was Lady Linacre's. It was you who said that," he continued, his head high, a singular change evident in his demeanour, and incisivenesa almost 1 harsh in his tone. "It was you— you who snapected me ! I could not show you my arm because I had that bracelet on it." " And whose bracelet is it ?" Burton Smith murmured doubtfully, Bhaken as much by the sudden change in the man's demeanour as by his denial. "It is your cousin's — Miss Burton's. We are engaged," replied Wibberly sternly —so entirely had the two changed places. 'She intended to tell you to-morrow. I saw it on the table, and secreted it when I thought no one was looking. It was a foolish thing to do." " And it waa Joanna's bracelet that Vereker May saw you take ? "

" Precisely." Burton Smith said a word about the civilian which we need not repeat. Then he added, " But why on earth, old fellow, did you not explain ? "

"Firstly," Wibberley replied with force, " because I Bhould have had to proclaim my engagement to all those fools ; and I had not Joanna's permission to do that. And secondly— well I did not wish to confess to being such an idiot as I was."

" TTmph ! " said Burton Smith, slowly, an odd light in his eyes. "I think you were a fool, but — I suppose you will shake hands ? "

"Certainly, old man." And they did so, warmly. "Now, then," continued the barrister, his face becoming serious again, "the question is, where is Lady Linacre's bracelet?"

"Thatishardly my business," Wibberley answered. "I am sure you will excuse me saying so. I have had trouble enough with it — I know that — and, if you do not mind, I am off to bed."

But though his friend left him on the instant, Wibberley did sot go to bed at once. Burton Smith hurrying homeward — to find when he reached Onslow Mansions that Lady Linacre's bracelet had been discovered in a flounce of her dress — would have been surprised, very much surprised indeed, could he have looked into the chamber a minute later — a minute after his own departure. He would have seen his friend cast down on his knees before a great chair, his face hidden, his form shaken by wild hysterical sobbing. For Wibberley was moved for once to the inmost depths of his nature. It is not given to all men to awake and find their doom a dream. Only in dreams, indeed, does the cripple get hia strength again, and the murderer bis old place among his fellow-men. Wibberley was fortunate.

And the lesson ? Did he take it to heart P Well, lessons and morals are out of fashion. Or stay — ask Joanna. She should know.