LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4858, 25 January 1894, Page 1

LITERATURE.

ALL ALONG_THE RIVER. [by miss m. c. braddon.] Author of "Lady Audley's Secret," "Aurora FJoyd," "The Cloven Foot." " Dead Men's Shoes," &c, &c. (Oopyriahted.) Chapter Xlll.— (Continued.) It was after luncheon before Martin Disney wenb back to the Angler's Nest. He had been for a long walk by the river, trying to walk down some devil that raged within him, before he could trust himself to go home. Hia wife was alone in the drawingroom, sitting by the fire with her baby in her lap ; but this time he did not pause on the threshold to contemplate that domestic picture. There was no tenderness in the eyes which looked at his wiie— only a Btern determination. Every feature in the familiar face looked strained and rigid, aa - ia the face of an accuser and judge. "Send the child away, Isola. I want some serious talk with you." She stretched out a faltering hand to ' the^sll, looking at him, pale and scared, bnt Baying no word. She gave the baby to his nurse presently in the same pallid dumbness, never taking her eyes from her husband's face. " Martin," she gasped at last, frozen by his anery gaze, "ia there anything wrongP" " Yes, there is something utterly wrong —something that means destruction. What were yon doing in London, the winter before last, while I was away ? What waa the motive .of your secret departure— yjonr stealthy return? What were you doing on the last day of the year? Where had you been! With whom?" She looked at him breathless with horror; -whether at the accusation implied in hia words, or at his withering manner, it would have been difficult fof the lookeron to deoide. His .manner was terrible enough to have scared any woman, as he ' stood before her, waiting for her answer. " Where had you been— with whom ?" he repeated, while her lips moved dumbly, quivering as in abject fear. "Great God, why can't you answer ? Why do you look such a miserable, degraded creature—selfconvicted—not able to Eay a word in your • defence P" "On the last day of the year?" -she faltered, with those tremulous lips. "On the last day 0! the year before last — the winter I spent in Burmah. What were you doing— where were yon— where had you been ? Is it so difficult to remember ?" "No, no; of course not," she cried, with a half-hyeterical laugh. "You frighten me ont of my_ senses, Mai tin. I don't know what yon are aiming at. I was coming home from London on that day— of course— the Slst of Jan— no, December. Coming home from Hans Place, where I had been . spending a few days with Gwendoline." " Yon never told me of that visit) to Gwendoline." "Oh, yeej I'm sure I told you all about it in one of my letters. Perhaps yon did not get that letter — I remember you never noticed it in yours. Martin, for God's sake, Martin, don't look at me like that I" "I am looking at yon to see if you are the woman I have loved and believed ia, or if you are as false as hell," he said, with hia strong hand grasping her shoulder, her face turned to his, so that tho3d frightened ->syea of hers conld not escape hia scrutiny. | "Who" has put this nonsense in your head?" "Your neighbour— your good Mra Crowther's husband — told me that his 'lawyer travelled with you from Paddington —on Dec. 31— the year before last. He got into conversation with you— you remember, perhaps ?" "No," she cried, with a sudden piteous change in her face, "I oan't remember." "Bnt you came from London on that day. Yon remember that. i " Yes, yes. I came from Gwendoline's j house on that day. I told you so in my -letter." "That le'.ter which I never received — tellinsr me of that visit to which yon made no allusion in any of your later letters. It waa about that time, I think, that you fell off as a correspondent— left 08 telling me all the little details of your life— which in your earlier letters seemed to shorten the distance between us." She was silent, listening to his reproaches with a sullen dumbness, as it seemed to "'him, while he stood there in his agony of • doubt— in his despairing love. He turned from her with a heait-broken sigh, and . alowly left the room, going away he scarce knew whither, only to put himself beyond the possibility of saying hard things to : her, of letting cruel, branding words escape out of the devouring fire in his heart. She stood for a few moments after he had gone, hesitating, breathless and frightened, like a hunted animal at bay — then ran to the door, opeae'd it softly and liatened. She could hear him pacing the room above. Again Bhe stood still and hesitated, her lips tightly Bet, her hands clenched, her brow bent in painful thought. Then she snatched hat and jacket from a corner of the hall where such things were kept, and put them on hurriedly, with trembling hands, as if her fate depended upoa the speed with which . she got herself ready to go out, looking up at the great, dim, brazen face of theeight•day clock all the while. And then she let herself out at a half glass door into the .garden, and walked quickly to a aide gate that opened into the lane— the gate at which the baker and the butcher stopped to gO3flip with the maids on fine mornings. There was a cold bracing wind, and the Bun waa declining in a sky barred with denee black clouds, touched here and there with gleams of golden light— an^ ominous sky, prophetic of storm or rain.. Isola walked up the hill io wards Tywardreath as if Bhe were going on an errand of deadliest moment, Bkirted and passed the village, with no Blackening of her pace, and so by hill and valley to Par, a long and weary walk under ordinary circumstances for a delicata young woman, although accustomed to long country walks. But Isola went upon her lonely iouraey with a feverish determination Which seemed to make her unconscious of distance. Her steps never faltered upon the hard, dusty road. The autumn wind that swept the dead leaves round her feet seemed to carry her along upon its course. Past copse and meadow, common land and stubble, she walked steadily onward, looking neither to right nor left of her path, only straight forward to the gleaming lights thut showed fiery red in the grey dnsk at Par junction. She watched the lights growing larger and more distinct aa she neared the end of her journey. She saw the fainter lights ot the village acattered thinly beyond the station lamps, low down towards the Bandy shore. She heard the distant rush of a train, and the dull sob of the sea creeping up along the level shore, between the great cliffs that screened the bay. A clock struck six aa she waited at the level crossing, in an agony of impatience, while truck after truck of china clay crept slowly by, in a procession which seemed endless; and then for the first time sbe felt that tb€ wind wbb cold, and that her thin littlf jacket did not protect her from that biting Wait. Finally the line waa clear, ami ahe waa able to cross and make her way t( the village post office. Her business at the post office ocoupiec About a quarter of an hour, and when eh<

came out into the village street the sky had darkened, and there were heavy Kvn drops falling ; but she hurried back by the way she had come, recrossed the Hue, and set out on the long journey home. The' shower did not laet long, but it was not the only one she encountered on her way back, and the jpoot little jacket was wet through when she re - entered by the servant's gate, and the half-glass door, creeping stealthily into her own house and running upstairs to her own room to get rid of her wet garments before anyone j could surprise her with questions and sympathy. It was past eight o'clock, though she had walked so fast all the way \ as to feel neither cold nor damp. She | took off her wet clothes and dressed herself for dinner in fear and trembling, imagin- [ ing that her absence would have been L wondered at, and her errand would be , questioned. It was. an infinite relief when | she went down to the drawing-room to find only Allegra sitting at her easel, working at a sepia sketch by lamplight. , "Martin ia very late>" she said, looking up as Isoia entered, and he is generally a . model of punctuality. I hope there is ' nothing wrong. Where' have you been hiding yourself since lunch, IsaP Have you been lying down P " " Yes, part of tbe- time," hesitatingly. "Ia it very late?" "Twenty minutes to nine. Dale has been in twice in the laßt quarter of an hour to say that the dinner is being Bpoilt. Hark ! There's the door, and Martin's step. Thank God, it's all right! " cried Allegra, getting up and going out to meet her brother. Colonel Disney's countenance as ha stood in tbe lamplight was not so reassuring as the substantial fact of hia return. It waa something to know that he was not; dead, ' or hurt in any desperate way— victim of any oil those various- accidents which the morbid mind of woman can imagine if husband or kinsman be unwontedly late for dinner; bat that things were all right with him was open to question. He was ghastly pale, and had a troubled, halfdistracted expression which scared Allegra almoat as much bb his prolonged absence had done. "I am sure there is something wrong," she said, when dinner was over, and the servants had left the room. "Oh, no, there is nothing particularly amiss. I have been worried a little, that's all. lam very aorry to be so nnconßoionably late for dinner, and to sit down in this unkempt condition. But I loitered at the club looking at the London papers. I shall have to go to London to-morrow, laola— on business—and I want yon to go with me. Have you any objection P" She started at the word London, and looked at him curiously— surprised, yet resolute— aa if she were not altogether unprepared for soaie startling proposition on his part. "Of course not. I would rather go with you, if you really have occasion to go." "I really have: it is very important. You won't mind our deserting yon for three or four daya, will you, Allegra?" asked Disney, turning to his Bister. " Mrs Baynham will be at your service as chaperon if you want to go out anywhere while we are away. It is an office in which ahe delights." " I won't trouble her. I shall stay at home and paint all the time. I have a lot of work to do to my pictures before they will be ready for the winter exhibition, and the time for sending in is drawing dreadfully near. You heed have no anxiety as to my gadding about, Martin. You will find me shut up in my painting-room, come home when you will." Later, when she and her brother were alone in the drawing-room the -went up to him Boftly and pnt her arms round his neok. "Martin, dearest, I know you have some great trouble. Why don't you tell me ? Is it anything very bad ? Does it mean loss of fortune ; poverty to be faced ; this pretly home to be given up, perhaps ?" "No, no, no, my dear. The home is safe enough; the house will stand firm as long as you and I live. lam not a shilling poorer than I was yesterday. There is nothing the matter — nothing worth speaking about; blue devils, vapours if you like. That's all." " You are ill, Martin. You have found out some secret illness — heart, lungs, something—and you are going to J.«~^— +« consult a physician. Ob- _.., u^ar, deal brother," she cried, w»' '. <t, look or agony, hor arms still clp „-d f.oout bis neck, "Don't keep me jhe dark; let me know the worst." " There ia p , *orst, Ai*egra ; don't I tell you there i? iotihiog. lam out of eort3, that's all. iam going to town to see my lawyer, an- if you like I'll see my father's old doctoi "tbe oracle we all believed in — a whits-haired oraole now venerable as the oaka of Dodona." . (To be continued.)