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New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue III, 21 July 1894, Page 61

* You are late, dear,’ was all she said, but he did not answer. A blush, which perhaps arose from a stricken conscience, covered her face. Then there was a long silence. Never was a dinner so painfully prolonged, never was torture so acute.

When the ceremony was over his wife introduced her husband to her friend. Perfectly accustomed as they were to the ceremonial of gentlemen, their tongues now refused to express the commonplace courtesies which so often cover a conflict of passions. D’Lambert held out his fingers and then withdrew them convulsively. His foe only looked at the white, trembling hand, and a ghastly smile expressed his desperate pleasure at his rival's discomfiture. • Ethel, you—you never—did not even tell—never told me that Desmond was your lover—l mean before we were married,’ he said, in an ejaculatory manner, when they reached their own apartments. His wife laughed a light laugh, in which there was no merriment. ‘ You see, dear, we did not know each other long enough before we were married to allow me to give you a complete history of all my suitors and would-be suitors.’

There was a strange fire in his eyes as he looked at her. *I am serious, terribly serious, Ethel; leave your jesting a moment.’

She felt that she had overstepped the mark. She knew there was something in her past to conceal, but her bantering had played her false this time. There was a long silence. She took her seat close to the window and her eyes wandered down to the lake. The evening shadows were creeping over the scene and made the background of hills all the more sombre. Presently she smiled and bowed to someone below. Her husband had kept his eyes firmly fixed upon her, and when he observed this recognition he suddenly stepped to the window and saw, standing within the glare of the light from the billiard room, his hated foe. * Did you ever love M. Desmond ?’ he asked sternly. •I? What! I? Of course not,’ she replied, with the same cheerless laugh. ‘I did not know you were jealous, my lord and master.’ There was emphasis in the denial, but it did not satisfy the jealous husband. He looked at her—and, oh, by the inexplicable faculty which comes to be part of a man’s soul, he never loved her so much as he did then.

• Did you ever love him, I—l mean before we were married ’’

‘ Really, what strange questions. I—l cannot say—that is, I cannot analyze my thoughts sufficiently to give a precise answer.’

The words struck him with fearful force. The silence was broken by the trivial remark : * What a charming scene this is, Philip, even though the darkness is gathering over it. See ! there is a boat carrying a light on its bow making for the head of the lake.’

But he did not care just then either for the charming scene or for the delayed mariners who were carrying a light on their bows. Greater things were concerning him. ‘ Where did you meet him ?’ he asked with an uncompromising attitude. • Frequently in Paris.’ * Oh, what a hell it is !’ be groaned. ‘ Piease do not ask me any more questions,’ she replied, petulantly. ‘ They make me feel quite uneasy.’ In a few solemn words he recounted the incident which had just taken place upon the hill. She listened in silence, then quietly said, ‘ He must be mad,’ and there literally quivered on his lips the hot retort, ‘ Ay, mad for love of you.’ His great eyes, full of anxious yearning, fell upon the lovely face of the woman whom he had married while literally struggling with a paroxysm of passion which he had never been able to analyze. They parted in auger. It was their first quarrel. It was unique in one respect—it was their last; they never met again. That night Philip D’Lambert pondered in meditative silence over a challenge which he had received from his foe. The details of the proposed encounter were penned with deliberate, almost diabolical clearness. Hour after hour he sat in bis dressing room alone, arranging his affairs and making everything ready for the encounter, which might be his last exploit upon the stage of this world. Long before anyone was astir in the hotel he left his room noiselessly. The grey dawn was creeping over the shadowed hills and peeping shyly through the windows. A large overcoat covered the dress in which he had dined on the previous evening. He had been too busy to change, too absorbed in grim memories to think of sleep. Grasping a long poniard and keeping it concealed beneath his coat, he passed down the long corridor. Suddenly he heard a sound of shuttling footsteps from bedroom No. 36, and he was startled by the recollection that No. 36 was occupied by M. Desmond ; still more startled when he thought that in another hour or two a dead bodv would be lying either in No. 36 or 39. It was but a trifling difference, It required a philosophic mind to grasp it at such a time. But it was a difference that would have an immense influence upon many lives for all time. His head was bent and his hands convulsed as he toiled up the steep mountain side of the hill. According to agreement no seconds were to be allowed to be present ; none were to witness the combat except the Great Judge who alone was capable of measuring and balancing the passions which had overthrown them As he toiled up the steep mountain side the thought of bis month’s hot wooing, with all his blind refusal to look at facts and probabilities as they existed. He bad been led captive at the will of a pretty pair of eyes. That was all—at least that was all it seemed to him now. The peaceful dream of a month or two ago still lingered in his vision. He thought also of the rude awakening, and of the still more rude corroboration which bad been provided by the denials of bis wife. With these thoughts uppermost, destroying the feeble flickerings of his reason, which ever and anon tried to convince him of the criminal foolishness of hazarding his life upon the poniard of a jealous madman, he arrived at the scene of the encounter of yesterday, and the still more serious encounter of to-day. It was the apex of the hill. It was rough and uneven, and the snow which had been crusted by the slight frost of the early morning made it a dangerous foothold. It was not more than a yard in width, and-oh, horrible !—on each side yawned a gaping chasm of terrible depth. The face of rocks shot down in an almost perpendicular line. It was part of the diabolical plan that a slight slip of the foot, a slight recoil from the thrust of the poniard, a trilling skin cut, would prove as dangerous

as though the cold steel pierced the heart of one of the combatants.

For ten minutes D'Lambert sat and waited for his foe. Those were not pleasant minutes. It was almost fortunate that he bad little time to think of them afresh. Both these men were Parisian by birth and education, but this was not to be a typical Parisian duel. They were to fight until one fell. There was a fearful ordeal before both of them. Philip D’Lambert spent the minutes in taking a farewell ot the fair scene which lay at his feet. As he looked into the valley he heard the gentle tolling of the bell calling the white and silent nuns to their early devotion, and the sound created a train of thoughts which was disturbed by the arrival of his adversary from the other side of the hill. There was a sardonic smile upon the face of Desmond—a smile which told his conviction that he would receive a desperate remedy in any case. If be killed his rival be would hold the field alone ; if he were killed there would be an end to the heartache which threatened to be his companion to the end of his days. Neither spoke, but they took their places on opposite sides of the hill point, watches in hand. Just at that moment there was a slight rumble of thunder from the foot of the valley. Then, without a word, they faced each other and measured their distance. Then the terrible conflict began. Pass ! Repass 1! ! Another ! I I Another ! ! I The poniards clashed and reclashed with extraordinary speed. Then a fork of lightning descended between them and danced upon the flashing steel. Instinctively they recoiled and an awed look appeared upon their faces. Life’s greatest tragedies are the quickest. So it was with these passionate hot-headed men, who had resolved to fight to the death because they both loved the same woman. Another of the many idiosyncrasies of love. Less than a moment elapsed. Then pass ! Repasss !I ! Another I! ! Another !11 A groan, a slight chest wound, and Philip D’Lambert was hurled over the cliff to a horrible death. There was no sense of poetic j ustice in the conflict. The villian triumphed. A grim smile was still upon his face as he stepped to the side of the cliff and listened to the dull thud, thud, thud which marked the descent of the victim. Then he was startled by the agonized cry, ‘ Where is my husband ?’ The old ghastliness reappeared upon his face as he turned and beheld the woman for whose sake he had done the deed. ‘You have no husband now,’ he replied, and his head hung down as though he were ashamed of the deed. ‘ Now there is no barrier to your marrying me, as you once promised, Ethel.’ She cast upon him a look of hatred and loathing. A mad passion to throw herself over the clff after her husband seized her, but he held her in his strong grasp, satisfied that at last he had won her. Then she tried to hurl him over the cliff, but womanlike, she fell into a swoon, resting in the arms of the man who, by the thrust of a poniard, had killed the one honest passion of her fickle heart. That night M. Desmond paced the long corridor of the hotel nervously. At last, after weary perambulation, he heard a stifled sob proceeding from bedroom No. 39. Quietly he knocked at the door. ‘ Ethel, I must see you a moment.’ • Go away,’ was the quiet answer from within, and the door remained locked. Other arguments and other entreaties failed. ‘ Ethel, I am going away for ever-going into the horrible darkness. Forgive me ere I go.’ No woman’s heart could resist such a plea, and the door was silently opened. When M. Desmond entered the room he saw the woman he adored kneeling at the foot of the bed, upon which lay the young form which, only a few hours ago, had been instinct with so much life, so many high hopes, so many bright promises. She continued her sorrowful vigils as though she were alone with her sorrow, which was doing something to redeem her life from utter heartlessness. ‘ Let me look at your face again, Ethel. Let me see the sunlight again. It was tor the love of you that I did it,’ he pleaded. The sardonic smile had vanished, and his heart was finding utterance at last. ‘ Forgive me, Ethel, ere I go.’ • Go! I forgive,’ she replied softly, and the tears streamed down her face. ‘Go. Never let our paths cross again, and let my devotion to his memory prove to you the hideous error you have made.’ Then with the stricken majesty which dignified her devastated love, she rose and raised the veil which covered the dead face. ‘ There I Look upon your work. Call it the work of love, or call it the work of hate. Let its memory be with you wherever you go ; let it remind you that forbidden love carries with it its own awful curse.’ He cast a brief glance at the face of death and fled shrieking from the room. Mme. D’Lambert had played with honest hearts as gleefully as little boys play with footballs. She had kindled passions which had devoured their victims, and, at last, they bad recoiled from their gaunt work and had destroyed the life’s happiness of their original creator. She had destroyed two lives. But the wickedness came home to roost, and, by setting one against the other, she had killed the man who had inspired within her the true passion of her life Thus, through the long years of her shadowed widowhood, she paid the grim penalty.