Chapter XXVI.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4904, 20 March 1894, Page 1

Chapter XXVI.

The long n'ght was over; and the sun yraa high. It seemed aa if they were sailing over a summer sea* and through the scuttle port she saw a little town, nestling under pine-clad hills. She woke from brief and troubled slumbers to see. this Btrange and lovely shore, and at first she fancied they must fiave sailed back to Cornwall, and that this was some unknown bay upon that rockbound coaßt j but the sapphire sea and the summer-like sunshine suggested a fairer clime than ragged Britain. While she was looking out at the crescent shaped bay, and the long line of white villas, the anchor was being lowered. She sea wsb almost as smooth as a lake, and those tranquil waters had the colour and the sheen of Bapphire and emerald. She thought of the jasper sea— the sea of the Apocalypse, the tideless sea beside that land of the New Jerusalem, where there are' no more tears, where there can be no more Bin, aoity of ransomed souls, redeemed from all earth's iniquity. A boat was being lowered. She heard the Scroop of the rope against the hall ; Bbc beard fotsteps on the aocomodation ladder, and then the dip of oars, and presently the boat passed between her and the sunlit waters, and she saw Loßtwithiel sitting in the stern with the rudder lines in his band, while two sailors were bending to fthelr oars, with wind-blown hair and cheery smiling faces, broad and red in the gay morning sunshine. He was gone, and she breathed more freely. There was a sense of momentary release in his absence; and for the first time she round the cabin, where beautiful and luxurious things lay, thrown here > and there in huddled masses of brilliant colour. A Japanese screen, a masterpiece of gold and rainbow embroidery on a sea-green ground, flung against the panelling at one end— chairs, vases, wiekerwood tables overturned— Persian curtains wrenched from their fastenings and hanging awry — satin pillows that had drifted into a heap in one corner—signs of havoc everywhere. She stood in the midst of all this ruin, and looked at her own reflection in a long Venetian glass fastened to the panelling, Almost the only object that had held its place through the storm. Her own reflection. Was that really herself, that ghastly image which the glass gave back to her ? The reflection of ft woman with livid cheeks and blanched lips, with swollen eyelids and dark rings of purple round the haggard eyes and hair tough and tangled as Medusa's locks, and bare shoulders from which the stained flatin bodice had slipped away. Her wedding gown. Could that defiled garment— the long folds of the once shining satin draggled and befouled with the tar of the ropesheavyand dripping with Bea-water— could these tawdry rags be the wedding gown she had put on in her prond md happy innocence in the old, bedroom at Dinan, with mother, and servants, and a Useful friend or two helping and hindering ? . ■ - - Oh, if they could see her now, those old friends of her unclouded childhood, the mother and father who had loved and trusted her, who had never hinted at evil in her hearing, had never thought that sin could come near her. And she had fallen like the lowest of womankind. She had forfeited her place among the virtuous and happy for ever. She, Martin Disney's wife ! That good man, that brave soldier who had fought for queen and country— it was his wife who stood there in her shame, haggard and dishevelled,. She flung her arms above her head, and wrung her hands in a paroxysm of despair. Then, with a little cry, she plucked at the loose wild tresßea as it she would have torn them from her head; and then she threw Tieraelf upon the cabin floor in her agony, and grovelled there, a creature to whom ' death would have been a merciful release. "If I could die, if I could but die, and no one know," she moaned. She lifted herself up again upon her knees, and with one hand upon the floor looked round the walls of the cabin — looked among all that glittering array of yataghans and barbaric shields, damascened steel and jewelled hilts, for some practicable instrument with which she might take her hated life. And then came the thought of what mast follow death, not for her in the dim incomprehensible eternity, but for those who loved her on earth, for those who wonld have to be told how she had been found, in her draggled wedding gown, stabbed by her own hand, on board Lord Lostwithiel's yacht. What a story of shame and crime for picturesque reporters to embellish, and for scandallovers to gloat over ! No ! She dared not kill herself here. She must collect her senses, escape from her seducer, and hide the story of her dishonour. She took off her gown, and rolled train and bodice into a bundle as small as Bhe could make them. Then she looked about the cabin for some object with which to weight her bundle. Yes, that would do. A little bras 3 dog that was used to steady the open door. That was heavy enough, derhaps. She put it into the middle of her bundle, tied a ribbon tightly round the whole, and then Bhe opened the scuttle port and dropped her wedding garment into the sea. The keen winter wind, the wind from pine-clad hills and distant snow mountains, blew in upon her bare neck and chilled her to the bone ; but it helped to cool the fever of her mind, and Bhe eat down and leant her head upon her clasped hands, and tried to think what she must do to escape from the toils in which guilty love had caught her. She must escape from the yacht. She must go back to England— somehow. She thought that if she -were to appeal to Lostwithiel's honour some spark of better feeling would prevail over the madnesß which had destroyed her, and he would let her go; he would take her back to England, and facilitate her secret return to th 9 home Bhe had dishonoured. But could she trust herself to make that appeal? Conld she stand fast against hia E leading, if he implored her to Btay with im, to live the life that he had planned for her, the life that he had painted so eloquently, the dreamy, beautiful life in ' earth's moat poetic places, the life of love in idleness? Coald she resist him if he should plead— it m'ght be with tears — he, whom she adored, her destroyer and her divinity. No, she must leave the yacht before he came back to it. But how ? There were only men on board. There -was no woman to whose compassion Bhe could appeal, no woman to lend her clothes to cover her. She saw herself once again in the Venetian glass, in her long trained petticoat of muslin and lace, so daintly fresh when Bhe dresßed for the ball — muilin and lace soddened by the sea, torn to Bhreds where her feet had caught in the delicate flounces as she stumbled down the companion during last night's storm. A fiti ing costume in which to travel from Arcachon to London,verily ! She opened a door leading to an inner cibin, which contained bed and bath, and all toilet appliances. Hanging against the wall there were three dressing-gowns, the lightest and least masculine of the ■three being a iobe of Indian camel's hair,

MSSBSBSHSKBBDHMBSBBHHHHBBHKBBBfIBHHHBiBBBBHi embroidered withj&ull, brown Bilk — a neutral tinted shapeless garment with loose sleeves and a girdle. Here, within looked- cfpors, she made her hurried toilet, with -much cold water. She brushed her long, ragged hair with one of the humblest of the brashes. She would not take so much as a few drops from the great crystal' bottle of eau-de-Cologne which was held in a silver frame suspended from the ceiling. Nothing of hia would she touch, nothing belonging to the man who wanted to pour hia fortune into her lap, to make his life her life, his estate her estate, his name her name, could she but survive the ordeal of the divorce court, and free herself from old ties. She rolled her hair in a large coil at the back of her head. She put on the camel's hair dressing-gown, and tied the girdle round her long, slim waist, and having done ihiß she looked altogether a different creature from that viaion of haggard shame which she had seen just now with loathing. She.hai a curious puritan air in her sad coloured raiment and braded hair. Scarcely had she finished when she beard the dtp of oars, and, looking out in an agony of horror at the apprehension of Lostwithiel's return, she saw a boat laden with two big milliner's baskets, and with a woman sitting in the stern. The men who were rowing this boat were not of the crew of the Vendetta. She had not long to wonder. She unlocked her door, and went into the adjoining cabin, while the boat came alongside, and woman and baskets were hauled upon the deck. Three minutes afterwards the cabin boy knocked at her door, and told her that there was a person from Arcachon to see her, a dressmaker with things that had been ordered for her. . : She unlocked the door, for the first time since she locked it last night, and found herself face to face with a smiling young person, whose black eyes and olive complexion were warm with the glow of the Boutb, golden in the eyes, carnation on the plump, oval cheeks. This young person had the honour to bring the trousseau which Monsieur had sent for Madame's inspection. Monsieur had told her how eaily inconvenienced Madame had been by the accident by which all her luggage had been left upon the quay at the moment of sailing. In truth it must have been distressing for Madame, as it had evidently been distressing for Monsieur in his profound sympathy with Madame, his wife. In the meantime she, the young person, had complied with Monsieur's orders, and had brought all that there was of the best and most' Parisian for Madame'a gracious inspection. The cabin boy brought in the two baskets, which the milliner opened with an air, taking out the delicate lingerie, the soft silk and softer cashmere— peignoirs, frilled petticoats, a fluff and flutter of creamy lace and pa!e satin ribbons, transforming simplest garments into things of beauty. She spread out her wares, chattering all the while, and then looked at Madame for approval. • Isola scarcely glanced at all the finery. She pointed to the only plain walking gown among all the delicate prettinesses, the eilk and cashmere and lace— a gray tweed tailor gown, with no adornment excapt a little narrow black braid. "I will keep that," she said, " and one set of under-linen, the plainest. Ton can take all the the rest of the things back to your shop. Please help me to drees as quickly as you can— l want to go on shore in the boat that carries you back." " Bat* Madame, Monsieur insisted that I should bring a complete trousseau. He wished Madame to supply herself with all things needful for a long cruise in the south." "He was mistaken. My luggage is safe enough. I shall have it again in a few daya. I only want clothes to wear for a day or two. Kindly do what I ask." Her tone was so authoritative that bhe milliner complied, reluctantly, and murmuring persuasive little speeches while she assisted Madama to dress. -All that she had brought were of the most new— expressly arrived from Paris, from one of the moat distinguished establishments in the Eve de la Paix. Fashions change so quickly— and the present fashion was so enchanting, bo original. She must be pardoned if she suggested that nothing in Madame's wardrodo could be so new or so elegant as these last triumphs of an artistic f aiseur. Madame took no heed of her eloquence, but hurried through the simple toilet, insisted upon all the finery being replaced in the two baskets, and then went upon deck with the milliner. " I am going on shore to his lordship," Bhe said, with quiet authority, to the captain. It waa a deliberate lie— the first Bhe had told, bat not the last she would have to tell. She landed on the beaoh at Arcachon— penniless, but with a diamond ring on her wedding finger— her engagement ring— which Bhe knew, by a careless admission of Martin Disney's, to have ccmt fifty pounds. She left the milliner, and went into the little town, dreidmg to meet Lostwithiel at every step. She found a complacent jeweller who was willing to advance twenty. five Napoleons upon the ring, and who promised to retura it to her on the receipt of that sum, with a bagatelle of twenty francs for interest, since Madame would redeem it almost immediately. Furnished with, this money she drove straight to the station, and waited there in the moat obscure corner she could find till the first train left for Bordeaux. At Bordeaux she had a long time to wait, still in hiding, before the express left for Paris — and then came the long, lonely journey —from Bordeaux to Paris— from Paris to London— from London to T'elasco — it seemed an endless pilgrims ge, a m>h ma;e dream of dark night and wintry day, made hideous by the eaaceleaa throb of the engine, the perpetual odonr of sulphur and smoke. She reached Tr-lusco some how, and sank exhausted in Tabith&'s arms. "Wiiat day is it?" she a=ked faintly, looking round the familiar room as if she had sever seen it before. "Thursday, ma'am. You b«ve been away over a week," the old servant answered co'.dly. It was only the nest day tbab Tabitba told her mistress she must leave her. " There is no need to talk about what has happened," Bhe said. "I hive fcfpt your secret. I have let no one know that you were away, I packed Susan off for a holiday the morning after the ball. I don't believe anyone knows anything about you — unless you were seen ycsteidiy on your way home." Then came stern words of renunciation, a good woman's protest against Bin. (To be continued.)