CHAPTER XXIII.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 13, 20 July 1883, Page 5

CHAPTER XXIII.

" What do you mean 7 " he faltered out, haidly able to get his lips to give -utterance to the words. "He is dead. Killed last night in the trenches." «' Oh, merciful God ! " said Maurice, as he staggered back and supported himself against the table. " Are you sure ? Who told you ? " " That's the message that came for you not a minnit ago, when 1 woke you." Maurice quickly hurried to the trenches. On his way he met " the bearers bearing the dead body of his young friend. A rifle bullet from a Russian sharpshooter had passed .through his brain, killimg him instantly. It was awful news for the Lady Alice. She was suddenly struck down with brain fever, in which she lay senseless and uaconsciou3 for several weeks, long after the young officer's body had been consigned to its lonely grave on the bleak Crimean hillside. She was kindly tended by Grace, and nursed with Bisterly attention and devotion. When she recovered, she made up her mind to return home with Grace and the Colonel's lady, who was now a mourning widow. Maurice applied for leave to accompany them, and under the circumstances readily received it. It was a sad journey this wending back over three thousand miles of sea to the shores of England, leaving the dead body of him lately so full of life and strength to sleep on the dreary Crimean hillside. Alice was long before the strength came back into her frame or the colour into her cheeks. They were passing from Crete to Malta on their homeward journey when, one evening, she sat on the deck to catch the refreshing breeze of the blue Mediterranean, Grace, fatigued with tending, had lain down to rest. The passengers on board were few, for it was outwards and not homewards the stream of travellers turned ; and, save the throb, throb of the vessels engines, and the swish, swish of the prow as it clove its way through the yielding waters, there was silence around. The blue sky of the Mediterranean -was above them ; to their right lay the region famous in song and story as the land of heroes ; the blue mountain that Petrarch sung and Dante loved could almost bo seen in the clouds of golden blue that fringed the horizon ; and that wondrous land whose loves and passion form still the most thrilling portion of human history, lay to the left. But Alice, looking out on the distant vessels that passed and repassed in a dreamy unconscious way thought but little of these things. The historic sea and tbe memorable places around her had nought of interest for her. The white foam left in the track of the advancing ship and extending far behind seemed to point back to that lone grave on tbe cheerless hillside where her brother slept — if sleep were possible even to the dead in the fury and uproar of the bombard* ment. How awfully sudden seemed the change from life to death 1 How hard to think that the buoyant spirits, the beaming eye, the merry laugh, the gay and active form, should all lie quenched and still, dark and silent, in the uncoffined grave on Cathcart's Hillnever more to be heard or seen in this -world, until the sun pales in the sky and the great trumpet wakens the sleeping dead to life. Alice's tears flowed freely as her mind revolved these thoughts and recurred to the home in Devonshire where his step should never more be heard. A burst of tears — deep and unavailing — had passed over her, relieving her breast of some of its load of affliction, when she heard a step beside bet. She looked up. It was Maurice O'Donnell. " I hope I am not intruding on your distress, dear Lady Alice," " Not at all. I was thinking of poor Prank," said Alice, with a faint attempt to smile. " I fear you fret too much dear Lady Alice. You are not strong enough to bear up against this passionate sorrow." " Nor would I wish it otherwise. It would seem a cruel desertion of him to be strong." '• Dear Lady Alice, a soldier's death is not to be lamented. And Frank died face to face with the foe, as a brave soldier should." " I know, I know," she said, crying more bitterly still. " But all ihese considerations will not give him back to my side ; will cot /psipply his vacant place ; will not take away the present sorrow of death." " These brooding thoughts will only still further imperil your strength," said Maurice cheerily. '' Come, Lady Alice ; sorrow, whilst it may injure the living, will not restore tbe dead. It is worse than useless. Give me your arm, and we shall walk around the deck." She gave him her arm, and they walked around the deck. Maurice was anxiou-s to remove from her mind these sorrowing thoughts, and wished that they were once more on land, where, amid the bustle and stir of life, other feelings might fill her mind. On the solitary deck of the vessel, speeding along in the gathering dusk to its unseen goal, the gloomy thoughts seemed in harmony. " Lady Alice," said Maurice, as they stood and leant over the bulwarks glancing at the golden suu where he dipped into the sea ahead of them, with the solemn glory of a god sinking amid a halo oi purple clouds beneath the horizon, " isn't that very beautiful ? " " It is," said she, lifting her eyes to the magnificent view before them, " very beautiful." " I think I have seen something as beautiful as tbat elsewhere ' said Maurice, pensively. " I think not ; that is something very magnificent."

" Did you never ac« our Donegal sunsets 1 Did Grace never - bring you to see the sun descending into the broad ocean ? " "No, I think not," said Alice. " I wonder at that," said Maurice, with a laugh so pleasant that it seemed to chase away her tears. "■ Grace is an enthusiast about our northern sunsets. Hundreds of times, -when she was a little one, she used to stand on the Donegal hills, to watch them ; or, looking over the Antrim Cliffs wonder what a splendid sight it must have been when in forgotten ages these iron-bound rocks lifted their blazing heights upon the startled waters as they' burst forth burning from the deep ! You must come with us, dear Lady Alice, to see the beauties of these northern coasts." " I shall be very glad," said Lady Alice quietly. v " And lam very glad to hear yon say so. It is only society, will remove these gnawing regrets and cares from yon." " I shall be delighted with Grace's company " said Alice, warmly ; " she has been very kind and very loving and gentle to me in my sorrow. I should die of loneliness in England." " And is there no other then, Lady Alice/ said Maurice softly looking into her eyes, wherein the glories of the southern snnset seemed to him reflected a million times brighter. "Is there no one else but Grace whose presence would by pleasing to you ? " Alice looked down on the waters that rushed past the sides of the speeding vessel, but spoke not. She withdrew not her hand, however. " Do you remember the evening of the ball, Alice 1 " -< " Yes," said she so softly that none but his own quick ear could ' catch it. " Do you remember what we then said ! " " Yes." "Of the promise we made ? " ' .' "Yes." n ' "Do you adhere to these still, dear Alice ? I do, not know, how your heart may feel to them, hut 1 know they have grown stronger anfl stronger in my heart until they have twined themselves around, it with a strength stronger than ties of adamant." He paused. There was no reply ; the hiss of the rnshing foam was alone in his ears ; that and the ceaseles beat of the throbbing engines were the only sounds audible. " I don't know, he said, glancing at the slight graceful figure beside him, with the face bent over the whitening surf, " whether girls take these promises as part of the ordinary incidents of conversation. I have often heard they do. Bat I know that for my. part your face since that night has been seldom absent from my , thoughts, nor your bright eyes from my dreams. Your presence has been around me in the trenches and converted the frowning fortress before me into a palace of light whereof you were the guardian genius and you the fairy princess. Whatever there was beautiful or promising in the world, in the future, seemed linked with you — you only." He paused as if expecting a reply, but Alice gave none. Giving an interpretation of his own to her silence, he contiuued — " If, however, anything has occurred since to alter your mind, I freely relieve yon of your engagement. It is not now, in the sadness of your heart and the loneliness of your situation. I should ask you to remember a promise which, perhaps, was made in an hour of unthinking carelessness." " If he spoke of unthinking carelessness, there was unthinking bitter* in his words. Her silence — her continued silence — disappointed and smote him to the heart. j " Alice," said he alarmed at the impetuosity of his words, " do you hear me?" A sudden movement on her part, a resting of her head against his shoulder, was her only answer. And in a moment after his arms were around her to keep her from falling, for she had fainted. " Maurice, Maurice," said Grace, coming up at the instant, " how unfeeling of you to keep the poor girl out in this air so long. See how chill the breeze is, coming across the sea." Maurice was too much astonished and alarmed to make reply, but, bearing the swooning girl to a seat, left her in charge ofhis sister. For a week or more Alice was threatened with a repetition of the fever, but by Grace's ministering and watchful attention the danger was removed, and before the vessel had passed from the Mediterranean. Alice was able to come on deck again. To Maurice it was a time of self-worry and disappointment. He could not conceive what change had come over Alice in the short interval, for he construed her demeanour on that evening into refusal. Still he felt that it was unjust to himself and to her to mention the matter again or further distress her. Indeed it was unnecessary for him to make any resolution on the subject for Grace was so constantly beside her that opportunity for a tete-A-tete, even if he wished it, was not afforded him. They had passed up the Straits of Gibraltar, had cleared the dangerous passage of the Bay of Biscay, and one morning when the freshness of the growing day was around them, caught sight of the shores of England. Maurice had been informed by the captain that they were approaching them, and he was leaning over the bulwarks, with his ©yet fixed on the horizon. He was fast in a reverie over the incidents that had happened since his leaving England, short as it was, and his thoughts went back to his two friends, Frank and Nolan, that were sleeping their long sleep in Crimean soil. A rustle behind him attracted his attention. He took it to be Grace, but, looking around, he saw it was Alice. " Yonder is England, Lady Alice," said Maurice, thinking T she had come like himself to get a view of it. "Is is not pleasant to see home again ? " - " It is not of that I was thinking," said ah« softly. "No 1 " said be with some surprise, as something strange in her manner struck him. " What, then T " , " Do you remember the question you, asked me," said she laying her hand on his arm and looking with her bine eyes straight into hie face, " the evening we last stood on the deck alone, together ? "m" m

" Dear Alice, why do yon ask me f Will I ever forget it ? " " Because, Maurice," Baid she, I now say-—" Yes." A few words more close onr story. The journey home did not lessen. the ties that had previously bound Maurice and Lady Alice together, and when the war ceased and the fortress had fallen, Lady Alice became the wife of Colonel Maurice O'Donnell. To inherit the estates which fell to her by the death of her brother, it was necessary that he should change his name ; and Colonel Maurice O'Donnell, the last of his line, became Colonel Maurice Buchanan. It was to this act of treachery or traitorism, as Manus O'Donnell would have called it, that the harper probably referred in those mysterious prophecies that so afflicted Grace's heart. For as indeed, he had prophesied, a strange name ruled in the house once the home of the O'Donnells of Craighome. For in days afterwards the handsome girl whom he had seen first bearing tbe silver lamp into the drawing-room, throwing its light like an aureole around her loveliness, became the wife of Harold Mordaunt ; and the desolate white |house among the Donegal hills echoed to the voices of young lips and the tread of young feet that bore somewhat of their mother's loveliness. Briney lives still in Craighome ; and his young kinsmen under his tuition, can sail a boat over the highest waves of the Atlantic or break a soaring eagle's wing on the wild Donegal hills with the skill of an African huntsman.