NOVEL

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 391, 5 November 1903, Page 2

NOVEL

CHAPTER XlX.—(Continued.)" The above episode over, Hopecastle went to breakfast ard astounded his family by the tverydayneEs of his demeanour. 'How sensibly ho takes it!' thought his sister, unspeakably relieved * Blood is everything!' was Lady Hopecastle's complacent reflection. 'He could.never really have cared for her,' thought the ex Home Secretary, and felt vagnely disappointed. At the conclusion of that meal Hopecastle quietly exploded his bomb. He was going to hw wife. Dumbfoundexment preceded remonstrances, indignant and - feminine, his brother-in-ltw alone was silent But approval or disapproval af- ■•'' feetcd Hopecastle no more than beating rain a rech Ho wondered vaguely at his own indifference; family jars had always been his abhorrence. Bat the agony of struggle in the night had left him cold; he was a man of one ilea, of a single aim. 'At least think;, before you dishonour your name!' cried his sister. ' I should do that if I did not go,' he ■aid * •If that woman returns,' said Lady Hopecastle, in a dreadful tc ice, ' I leave this house for'ever.* ' Since that is your feeling, mother, perhaps—l am afraid this house is bo place for you.! Hiß mother turned a deathly yellow, and her face worked. 'You hear himP She threw out her hands towards her daughter. 'My son tarts me out of his heme.' In a mement Mrs. Stuart Mirkham was on hex knees before her mother. 'Mother, come to us, our house is yours. Arthur is mad; he will bitterly repent; leave him to go his way.' *I am not mad.' said Hopecastle,' but I see now, I have been blind.' He got op and went out, wondering whether he had been a brute.

. Certainly he had never spoken so to his mother before. The strange thing of it was to did not feel to care. His one thought was his wife; all beside was indifferent.

CHAPTER XX. Mine host of the Hotel zur Traubs ia Langweiiburg seat up to No. 37 to know whether tho English lady just arrived would dine at the table d'hote. The waiter reported that 'Mrs. Smeet' wished to remain in her apartment, and wculd only have cc2-e asd an egg. Mine host made a Blight gestsre cf impatience; eccentricities in mealing had not his approval. •Up3tairß in No. 37 ' Mrs. Smith,' havirg taken her ceffee, went to the window and eat looking down into the huge stonepaved desert cf a square they call tie Ludwig's Platz, ia the centre ot which, on a colossal column, the statue of a former grand duke, now lost to view in the night iky, keapa ward and watch over 'his thankful people' who (betoken the inccription on the column's fcaie) reared it to kij memory. A Bteady rain was falliag; the street lamps burned with a sullen yellowness which did net msan light, and the yellowness repeated itself ia every depression in the stone paving of the Equare which would accommodate a puddle. Closed fiacres passing and re-passing made a nerve-shattering clatter, and such few pedestrians as were abroad had, c mcealed under their umbrellas, for all the world the appearance of animated mushrooms. Some half-dczea lighted shops mafe oases ia the deseit of square, bright spots in the dreary solidity cf hotels and official buildings which mainly compose it Yet, taken as a whol9, the outlook was cilculated to d?sh the sprite even of an optimist; and lha young English woman, ' Mrs. Smith' (who, by the way, neither was Mrs. Smith nor looked the part) shivered, as she looked down from her second-floor window. She had left her home only the diy before, yet now England was far-off—-inaccessible; and she had been alone for years instead of days. 'Oh, that journey! How many times between London and Lingweilburg wcu'.d she not have turned back, but for the crushing consideration that Bbe had burned her boats. Oa the crossing frcm Qusenboro' to Flushing there was a ground swell, and Hebe had aeffered—oh! but far more from the attentions of feliow-paseer gei s, Hers was not a beauty Jc-nding itself to eflacement; from the captain to passengers the men paid her what horasgeilay open to them, following her about with folding-chairs and ruge, and lurching up the companion steps with balf-spilltd cups of tea. At another time these asEiduititE would hare pleased her; Lut now With tbe weight of her secret upon her, the one tfeirg desirable was to escape Sotioe, The ladies on bond had accepted Hebe with something of reserve, perhaps c nceiviag her monopoly of availble male gallantry leas involuntary than blamable. One lady, with a young daughter aehoolbcund to Germany, had at first shewn a disposition to take Hebe under her diapering wing; bat Heba, ia panic not u&tingad with lebeliion against the on-

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

LADY HOPECASTLE,

BY £• Reid-Math eson. COPYBIQHT

sought solicitude changed into aloofness and a suspicion wb>ch neither Hebe's goddees-liko beauty, the men's unanimity of demeanour nor glimpses caught of magnificent rings on the girl's fingers, tended to allay. But disapproval may 6Vf n stimulate cariosity; and the matron, taking farewell of Hebe ■with a pseudo- eraciousnesa which WBB handmaid to inquisihv.nsss, added: «And I have never asked you your nama.'

'Mrs. Smith.' The reply came with the insolence of alarmed resentment, and the lady, taken aback, could only repeat 'Mrs.?—* ' Smith.'

The outward and visible result of Hebe's monysyllabic finality was the rout of her interrogator j but the incident gave the girl trembling knees and the shock of realising the necessity for an alias. There had followed the weary train journey to Eangweilenburg, with again the same tale of obvious admiration, more obvious even, because un-English. More than onecisjar was thrown away that My, to qualify its owner for the Nicht Baucher coupe in which the pretty Englanderin travelled.

The immediate claims and alarms of journey took from Hebe all power of coherent thought; her brain buzz 2d with vain apprehensions, which Bhe neither could nor dared analyse, but which affected her, as a whole, with an aching misery. Even now that she had nothing elße to do Bhe could not think, travelweary and faint as she was; there was a torturing numbness in her brain, and the rattle of vehicles over the stone-paved square racked her over-strung nerves. She turned away at last from watching the driving rain and the moving umbrellas and the yellow blurs of street lamps, and rose shiveriag. The room was nearly dark; the unfamiliar furniture loomed indistinct and eerie. A sense of utter desolation overwhelmed her; under an irresietible desire to epeak to someone, to meet a friendly human eje, she ran to the bell-rope and pulled it. A chambermaid answered the summons promptly; a bonny, large-framed woman, re Bpectful of manner, even official.

• What might tae gnadige Fran please to require ?' ■ Btay with me; I cannot be alone'

That was the cry which struggled for utteraace, but Hebe's lips would only ask for candles, rhey were quickly brought. 'And what time would the gnadige Fran please to be called P' 'Oh, eight o'clock.' What c;uld it matter ?

Then Hebe was left alone again—a solitary human atom in a ttraage land. She could ait up no longer; it was fatigue that ailed her and made her shiver so; besides night was always melancholy, and she wai so little U3ed to be alone. Tomorrow things would seem different; tomorrow—

The strange thing was that the idea of wrong-doing had not come to her. Passion had sustained her in the first hours, and her excited and unbalanced mind had seen in this flight a pilgrimage—a belated atonement. Her master who loved her was dying; brought to his grave by his hopeless attachment. Could she but soften by her presence the pangs of his last hours!

The very fact of the sacrifice begot in her a tendarness for its objeet, protective, maternal almost; a thing absolutely distinct from woman's Jove for man. The world might be against her in the step she had taken, what matter—so his last hoars were peace ?

Aad afterwards ? She had not givea it a thought. Hebe undressed and crept into bed How her head ached! Tho rattle outside went merrily on; she wondered did people ever get u-ed to the noise.

How cold her feet were ! She moved tnem up and down in. the bed, sat up and rubbed them brisklj with her palms. Oae never could get to sleep with cold feet. Sho gava up rubbing, and lay down with a sigh that wss near a scb Oh, this dreadfol loneliness! She understood how m°n went mad ia prison and on desert islands. If only she could get to sleep and forget everything! Why did Bhe begin thinking about her husband P They seemed to have been parted years. Did he mind much, or was he angiy about the scandal? She thought he must mind a little; he never could prtteHd wbat he did not feel, and he had always been good to her, until—well, and pertaps there was something to be said on his side, too. It seemed strange to be in an hotel without him; he alwaya said sh6 wis such a baby, and wanted taking care of. She used to pretend to be indignant; but really she liked it, it was nice to be treated as something precious and tender. How stupid to think aboat all this now ! It made her feel the mere lonely. A lump was in her throat which could not be swallowed down. Night was a horrible time when one was alone and could not sleep.

But presently there was her husband bending down, to eee whether sle were asleep or only pretending. Then it was a dream, ail that again, and she was at Bongbtoa still! She put out her arms,

bat inet'fci of clasping a warm muscular neck, her fingers met in empty air. Panic-stricken, Hebe started up, her heart-throbs balf-suffocating her. Where was she P What was that dreadful noise ? What was that tall white thing P Where ' did the light come fromP Louder grew the clatter; unbearable—then stopped. Ah! now she remembered A carriage had pulled up at the hotel; the light came from the gas-lamps at the hotel entrance. The great white thing was the bedroom store. All that was real: the only droam-part had been her husband'e face. Now she was wide-awake, and the trying to go to sleep must begin all over again. And just as Bhe bad succeeded, or it seemed so, in bußtled the buxom Kammermadchen with a bath, and great galvanised iron jags of hot and cold water, and a cheery German greeting. The weather was going to be 'prai htvoll.' Was gnadige- Frau, perhaps, going to stay in Lingweilsnburg a little and see the sights ? It was Messe ( Fair-da j) today ; many ladies and gentlemen amused themselves in gciog. It was not just merely the common people—the gnadige Fran most ja net miss eating seme Wsffal-Kaclien at the fair; everyone ate Waffel-Kuchen. Heba oalyanßwered that her plans were not yet made. 7 She breakfasted in her room, and about eleven o'clock cams downstairs with her bat on and closely veiled. Mine Host of the Tranbe, lolling on a stuffed maroon settle, beguiling a leisure interval with his tootb-pick, rose and did homage to the Bchone Englanderin as she passed out. The day had dawned fresh and mild after the night's rain, spring and hope were in the air; the Grand Dake Ludwig locked down upon h;s thankful people out of a blue sky traversed by shifting, snowy clouds. Pedestrians went buoyantly, and shoemakers' apprentices, with pairs of long boots slung round their necks, whistled as they went, oat of sheer 'joie de vivre,' forgetting that to have their ears pulled was the only certainty in life. The clank of passing swordj and clink of spurs had a festiva ring, and!even the noice of wheels over the stones seemed a thought less nerve-shattering on this bright April morning. Hebe turned out of the Ludwig's Platz into the broad upward-sloping Wilhel-minen-strasse. At the top of it, facing her, was the Roman Catholic Church; the great gold cross upon its cupola aflame ia the morning sun. How familiar all wss ! Nothing seemed changed. Small wonder in a short nina months!

Hebe was taunted by a dread of meeting anyone from Pensions Mitzanius, most of all Lucy. Yet had not this very step of Hebe's been hinted at by Lucy as the one and l»Bt possible reparation ? ' There is only one thing you could do for him now, asd that you will not do. Perhaps it is not to be expected.' Thus the grey letter of tiiree days ago; Luey would therefore more than justify her. Still Hebe felt she could not meet her. The contingency was improbable enough; it waß not an hour when Pension Mifzenius was likely to b9 in the town.

Every Etep stirred in Hebe's school memories. Here was Hartman's music warehouse, in whose windows were displayed photos of musicians both worldknown and local. Yes, there was" his; the same photo she had at home-at Boughton. Sie passed quickly, feeling as though everyone would know what Bhe looked at.

Again, there was Eichbergs; with its bewildering choice of patisserie and seductive Torten—despair of pssdng schools. A litdle further up, the great hideous military barracks; at whose entrance now, as always, squat coarse-featured soldiers lounged groupwise, well to the fore with low jests, personalities or amorous impertinences, as occasion might seem to warrant. Hebe crossed over to avoid tbe barracks; in her unstrung state of nerves the most casual notice, a passing glance even was painful.

The Wilhelminen Strasse merges at its upper end iato an open spaco, or informal square, from which by-roads sprout. Os the right the Grand-duke's residence, the 'aeues Sohloss,' sentry-guarded, extends its many-windowed facade behind a colossal iron palisading and lofty gates surmounted by monogram and crown. The sentries ware being relieved a3 Hebe approached; there wes the familiar tramp, tramp, and tfce short sharp cries of command.

-To the right, short of the Palace, a semi-suburban grand-ducal gardens, corresponding to the Sand-3traese on ths far side* Turning this corner, Hebe stopped short,-gasping; her powere ebbed like running water; the houses on her right and the grand-ducal tree-tops swayed and wavered before' her eyes. Up the street, chattering as they went, came a score or more of school girla ia rank and file; and the troittoir rang under their iron-shod heels. .It was this terrible apparition before which Hebe turned and flad with blanched face and shaking limbs. Could she have been seen P She fiew for sanctuary ia at the first open door; it was a sausage shop, behind whose counter the proprietor stood obsequiously alert fcr custom. Hebe pointed haphazard. 'Eia Pfund!' she gasped. The lady seemed in a hurry, too. Heigh! Presto! The sausages were weighed, wrapped up and piuaped upoa the counter. But when the lady tendered an English sovereign, the sausage vendor feit aggrieved; how could he do himself credit for speed ? SJuiaking into the sheltering twilight cf the sausage shop, Hebe watched the school filo past, the rear brought up by all the resident governesses, FA. Mitzsnius heisslf, Lucy, Mademoiselle, Frl. Khnk. Something unusual was afcot. Ab, of course, it was Frl. Mitzeniuo kirthday; when there was always holiday and soma little outing. The danger pi3t, Hebe, her knees trembling still, turned to go. 'You are forgetting your change!' cried the sausage man. Hebe slipped it into her pocket mechanically, and went out. In a trice came the shopman's voice at her tlbow. 'Aber Fianleen, what are you tli iking of?' Ho pushed the sausages into the imprssive hand, and waddled back, grumbling, to his shop. 'Madl quite mad!' was bis verdict. (To be continued)

A steam-launch belonging to a battleship sprang a l3&k while crossing Portsmouth and rapidly sank. Near by an old salt was leisurely rowing a boat, but he made no attempt to go to the rescue. The launch's crew managed to swim to the boat, and as they scrambled on board one of them said to the boatman, ' Why on earth didn't you give us a hand ? Didn't you see we were sinking ?' •Lor bless me,' c-ioi the boatman stolidly, ' I thought yer craft was one of these Eew eubmarine torpedo boats.'

' I Bfcould like to.mset ygur friend yondar whcm you have introduced to many people this evening.' ' Sa! Ton don't know what you ask. I have made him acquainted «i;ha lot of fellows whom I don't like, in order that he may have someone to borrow mosey of besides nijEolf.'