LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7176, 29 May 1891, Page 1

LITERATURE.

HER ONE ROMANCE. (Concluded.) In the little side office into which she had blundered a young girl sat over a typewriter. She raised her eyes for a second, - and Mdlle. Seraphine thought she had never seen a more lovely face. " Oh, what a beautiful young girl !" she whispered, as she went out. "But how sad she looks \" " Sho has reason to be, poor child !" said her pilot, sympathetically. "It is one of Imose reverses of fortune which are much too common. Her father was well-to-do ; he died penniless. The girls all had to do something." "Poor creatures!" sighed Mdlle. Seraphine, whose heart was always bleeding for someone. On the evening before the day when he was to begin hiß duties in his new position, Stephen Holme asked Mddle to take a ■walk with him. It was a soft and balmy night, a respite and breathing space, half way between the beginning and the end of the winter. They walked into the adjacent equare. It was silent and lonely. Stephen was pre-occupied, and said little for some time. Then, while they strolled slowly, and no one was in sight, he began tremulously. " Mdlle. Beraphine--" Mdlle. Seraphine looked up and then down with a. prophetic emotion which warned her that something never before heard of was going to happen. "Mdlle. Seraphine, if I get on, will you marry me ?" Well, as soon as she could speak, she nrged upon him the difference in their years, her plainness, the obvious fact that, with his way to make, he must not hamper himself with a wife. "Perhaps you think it is gratitude only," Stephen said, gravely. "It is not. You have been, and are, more to me than any one else ever was." And bo they became engaged. And Mdlle. Seraphine, who had always looked older than Bhe really was, Beemed to grow much younger as the winter sped on and the spring weather came. After Stephen Holme had been a month or two with his new employer, he had seen aohancefor making an investment which promised good results, and in his talks with Mdlle. Seraphine had lamented his poverty which prevented his taking advantage of it. Mdlle Seraphine had Baid nothing. But the next day she had gone to the savings bank and out of it drawn all her little hoard, saved np pound by pound, and laid away against sickness, againßt a rainy day, and brought it to Stephen. It represented all her worldly possessions, and Stephen who had not dreamed of its existence, refused to touoh it. But Mdlle. Seraphine had pleaded bo well, alas:! that he had finally allowed himself to be tempted. At first all had promised well. But one evening Stephen had come in looking miserably haggard and white. He said nothing until they sat in their accustomed place by their favourite rendezvous, the water's edge in tbe park, and then he broke down, and, crying like a child, told her that the money was all gone; the inve.tment had proved disastrous. Then Mdlle. Seraphine had laid her hand on his arm and, forcing him to raise his head, had shown him a face in whieh there was only pity for him and a perfectly serene smile. What did it matter f Waß it hiß fault ? Bhe asked. Were they not able to work, both of them ? Was net one there to help the other P "Seraphine"— Stephen put hio arm about the queer little figure and kissed her —"you are the best woman on earth." The summer waß now well advanced, and the days and nights succeeded each other in slow and sultry order. Well, Seraphine's pupils had flown, one and all, for ihe summer, and she had made her plans for her ten days' vacation at a farmhouse in -Kent, which constituted her one yearly diversion. Stephen would come down from Saturday nntil Monday to see her, and what more could one wiah ? If Bhe had not been so keenly alive to the Borrows of so many of her fellow-beings, whose wretohedness she saw continually round her, and thinking -of whom it seemed almost sinful to be taking ten whole days of idleness and -gladness, the world, aB Bhe rode down to the City one bright morning to give -Stephen some last direotion as to trains, or what not— for this expedition was a momentous one — would have been to Mdlle. Seraphine more beautiful than any dream. The head of the firm was away, as were many of hia subordinates, but a boy told Mdlle. Seraphine where Bhe would find -Stephen Holme. She passed into the office where she had pleaded Stephen's cause with the head of the firm that day, and finding it empty, turned towards the other partitioned inclosore where the beautiful girl Bat over the type-writer. But then she stood still. She made no sonnd. She was only thero a moment, yet it seemed like eternity. Stephen was in there, and he Btood before the beautiful girl and looked down at her, with Buch a passion of love and Borrow and renunciation in his face, while she buried hers in her hands, that a veil waa torn away before Mdlle, Seraphine, and Bhe read the secret of the last few months, of Stephen's altered looks, of his troubled eyes, of his increased , devotion — devotion whioh was only loyalty that would not permit itself to swerve, however tempted — as plainly as though it had been written in fiery characters before her. She turned and passed out again. And neither of theße two young people who loved each other had seen her, so absorbed had they been in their own dospair. The gas flared high in Mdlle. Seraphine's room that night — high and late. And when morning dawned the little room was dismantled, stripped of itß few poor little efforts at grace and prettinc.s, and the small leathern trunk was paoked. Many months ago a letter had come to Mdlle. Seraphine, from a cousin who had gone to Australia, telling her that if she chose to come she would be able to do well there. The pupils had all paid for their final quarters before leaving town, and Mdlle. Seraphine could go now. She would not leave any trace behind her. If she did Stephen would feel himself bound to her. That must not be. She ' looked at herself in the glass. What! he, ao young, so handsome, marry a faded, plain middle-aged woman such as sho was. One who looked bo wild and haggard in the gray morning light, with her reddened eyes and her hollow cheeks ! No, no ! She had -only been dreaming. It must never be. By-and-bye, Stephen, who only cared for her because he could not be ungrateful, would forget and marry the beautiful girl he loved, and he should be happy. And that is why the passengers on the ship Forest Queen, outward bound to Adelaide, wondered once or twice why the queer-looking little woman with the faded lockß of yellow hair looked so sad and wept so frequently.