A LIFE'S SACRIFICE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 41, 9 February 1894, Page 21

A LIFE'S SACRIFICE.

(Prom the Month.) (Concluded.) Yes, Kazimir understood only too well 1 He had not lived to nearly thirty years and exchanged the swori and spurs for the cassock and biretta without having had many battles to fight betwee n duty and inclination, but he had never fought so bard a one as this. He saw both aides of the question very clearly. Dea h, or what was almost worse, the mines, on the one hand, and lasting separation from the sitter he loved, or if he could make up his mind to let one lie be told and to be false, just for once, to himself and his high calling, he realised how easily things might, even now, be put comparatively right again. He might, in time, return to the old happy life io the little cottage, and Yera might be spared much anguish and — after all Ivan was dead and had died repentant and absolved I Yera'a eyes were shining on him through the gloom. Their gaze was almost mesmeric in its intensity. Eazimir felt as if some unholy influence was working in him against his will. He tried to rise from his cbair, but his sister was by his Bide now and had twined her arms about him. " It shall be as Captain Yenski says," she whispered, and it seemed to the young priest as if tome fiend was speaking, not Vern, bis saintly sister, whose holy life was a model for all the maidens of Kelto to copy ; but all goodness and sweetness seemed to have died out of her now. She was transformed. Even Peter Yeneki saw the change and shuddered. " You must obey us, Kazimir," Bhe went on. " You came too late. Ivan was dead when you got there. You gave him no sacra, ments, I will swear to that and so will Peter Venski, my future busband I " For one instant Yenski hesitated. He was a soldier and a man of honour; A lie was no light matter to such as hp, and to swear to one. But Yera was a lovely woman and she was the only woman be had ever cared for. At length the desire of years seemed to be within his grasp. She had called him her " future husband." For her sake he fell. 11 Yes," he answered, " I swear you came too late. Take courage Eazimir." And courage indeed came to Kazimir. He pushed his sister from him with a cry of exceeding bitterness as he heard the Governor's words, and rose to his feet. " Yon, too, Venski," he said, and his voice was full of indignation. " False sister, and false friend 1 Have I been such a craven cur, and such a worthless priest, all these years, that you dare to propose this to me? And that Yera, my other self, should have deemed me capable uf such baseness. For shame I " But his strong word", and, indeed, he hardly knew what he was saying, fell unheeded on Yera's ear. When Kazimir rose, she staggered backwarks, and as her lover caught her in his arms, for the first time in all her twenty-eight years of healthy, happy womanhood, Vera Libinski fainted. For days after this she lay in her little home, tossing wearily in the delirium of fever, and only oonseiouß of her trouble in her lucid intervals. Poor Wanda Beaks, who felt that in some vague way she was to blame for the desolation that had overwhelmed the Libinskis nursed her day and night with more than a mother's devotion ; but Vera turned from her noaningly. All her cry was for 41 Eazimir, only Kazimir." And Kazimir, alas, ha 1 left her side foiever. Justice and retribution did not tarry long in Poland fifty years ago, Crimes were swiftly punched, and the crime the young priest had committed was a grave one in the eyes of the Russian law. In vain did Captain Yenski move heaven and earth on his friend's behalf, and bring all his influence to bear in high places. Kazimir was a Polish Catholic, and a well-born Catholic also. In spite of money and friends and interest, everything went against him. By special favour indeed, and in answer to the frantic appeals that the Governor of Kelto prison made to the Czar, the death sentence wa» remitted, but that which was meted out to him instead was almost worse. He was condemned to forty years exile in the Siberian mines — he is a young man, not yet thirty ! When this was broken to Vera she was convalescent. Peter Venski told her, and broke both her heart and his own in the telling. "I did my beßt for him, Vera," he said. "It was a bitter blow to me." And Yeneki spoke the truth, for he knew without more words passing between them, that the dream of bis life waa over, and that he would never now oall Vera " wife." She smiled at him gently ; snch a smile t All her holiness and sweetness bad come back to her and with it all her life and radiance seemed to have departed. She never cried or moaned once, after she beard what her brother's fate was to be. All she said was, " I must see him once more, as he leaves Kelto." And Veneki promised she should, although he trembled as he gave the promise. But on the morning when the batch of convicts, among whom Kazimir was to travel, was to set out, Vera was as composed as ever. She came

down the little garden to meet Captain Veneki, and if her face was colourless, it was almost motionless. Her dreßß waa black, and swept in heavy folds behind her. They took their way silently along the Kelto road, and she talked quite steadily, yet when a cloud of distant dust announced the approach of the prisoners, Venski woald have Riven much could he have spared her that last ordeal. But there was no faltering in Vera'a look or gait. Bhe drew aside under the hedgerow, and stood there like some fair, tall saint, and, indeed, so still stood she, that she might almost have been taken for some lovely statue. When Kazimir came near, and by some marvellous chance he happened to be walking on the side of the road where she was waiting, she sprang forward and caught his fettered hands ere his gnaids could prevent her, " Good bye, my brother 1" she cried, and her voice had a fearless ring in it that stirred a thrill of life and hope within the heart of many a poor wretch who heard it that day. " Good-bye I When yon come back I shall be here to welcome you. Remember that dariDg all the years of your exile. When you feel lonely, say to yourself, ' I am one day nearer reunion with Vera. In the cottage near Eelto, Yera is waiting for me. No matter when I come back, she will be there.' " In deference, perhaps, to Captain Venski'a presence, she bad been allowed to speak co far without interruption, but now the soldiers cloßed around Kazimir and drove him forward. For one instant the eyes of the twins met in a glance of passionate love and farewell, and soul spoke mutely to soul. Then Yera fell back passively to her old place under the budding hedgerow, and her brother passed out of her sight and life. Forty years later, in the depth of winter, a man was making his way as fast as the deep snow and the bad state of the roads would allow h<m, towards the garrison town of Kelto. He was an old mam wrapped in furs and sheepskins, and an unkept grey beard fell nearly to his waist. His age could not have been far short of seventy, but he was tall and handsome still, although few would have recognised in him the good looking young soldier- priest, Kazimir Libioski, who had been banished to Siberia forty years ago. He bad lived throngh his life of exile, doing mnch when he could for both the souls and bodies of his fellow convicts, and now and again Yera's letter* had come to cheer him. She had always written brightly and hopefully, and he had always thought of her as he had seen her on the daj of his departure. The memory of her had never altered or grown less. He was longing now to reach their dear old home and walk gently in upon her. He had been nearly two years on his journey, and for nearly three no word from her had reached him, yet Kazimir never doubted that he should find her awaiting him. Her last words had been, " I shall be there when you return." He could set her slim, straight figure, and glowing eyes and golden hair. " How lovely she was, his sister Yera, Kazimir thought proudly as he trudged bravely onwards through the half frozen snow. " How lovely and how lovable." Truly it would be heaven upon earth to be with her again , And the mystic bond, that is supposed to knit the souls of twins in more than common union, would only be strengthened by the years they had spent apart. Bo thinking, he came at last in Bight of their cottagp, and when he reached the garden gate he saw that no change was apparent Just so had he seen it on many a winter's evening, when he hap returned from visiting his scattered flock, The snow lay thickly on the tiny path, and the trees and shrubs bent mournfully under their icy shroud, but a light shone through the windows of the front room and showed that the cottage was inhabited. Kazimir knocked gently, but no one answered, and, although he was fearful of alarming his sister by confronting her too suddenly, yet his suspense was too great for delay. The door was unlatched, he opened it noiselessly and passed through the little kitchen into the living-room beyond, But it was a living-room no longer I Bather was it a mortuary chapel : a chamber of the dead. All the ordinary furniture had been displaced. The walls were draped in black, and a coffin stood facing Kazimir, with a crucifix hanging at its head, and a tall yellow taper casting a lurid, flickering light around it. At the foot of the coffin, wrapped in a military cloak, an old manknelt. He raised his head as the priest approached, but neither recognised the other. " What do you want ?" he questioned gruffly, as he rose stiffly to his feet. " Cannot I spend even these last few hours with her undisturbed ?" And as he spoke his voice recalled him to Kazimir Libinski, and " Venski," he cried, "It is I— Kazimir. Tell me what does this mean ? Where ib Yera, my sißter. She promised to wait for me ; she promised to be here to welcome me on my return." Peter Venßki for he it was, and his years numbered nearly eighty now, pointed to the coffin by which they stood. He did not seem surprised at Kazimir's sudden advent, Old age takes most things calmly. " She has kept her word," he whispered gently, " though her welcome is a silent one. Look, Kozimir." And Kazimir looked.

Be saw, not the face of the girl he had parted from, with her golden treaties and rosy lips, but the face of an agad woman wreathed in bands of snowy hair, and Bleeping calmly her last long sleep, iet even as he looked, years seemed to roll away, and something of Vera'a old bright amile appeared to be lingering about those pallid features. 0 "Yes, ehe waited for yon," Venski repeated. "Hera was a faithful heart, She had no thought of any one but you in all those weary, lonely years she spent here. She would never marry, she would never leave this cottage. •He must find me when he comes, 1 was what she always eaid. O Kizimir, though my life has beca a rich and honoured one, yet many a time have I felt that I could have cheerfully changed places with you, toiling in the far-off Siberian mines, if only some of the endless love she lavished daily on your memory could bare beea bestowed on me. But God's ways are not our ways. It was not to be." As ho stood gazing on his sister's lifeless body a great remorse shook the soul of Kazimir Libinski. " O God," he critd, " forgive roe I False sister and false friend, I called these two in my hot headed youth, and this is their falseness. Deathless love, deathless remembrance 1" Deep sobs shook his bowed frame. Steps and voices sounded in th« kitchen. The watchers, som3 nuns from a neighbouring convent, ware coming to watch till daylight by Vera's corpse and pray for her pure soul. Kazimir bent lower yet and pressed his lips to hers. Venski did the same, and then, moved by some common impulse the two old men linked their arms together and passed out into the wintry night.