BERTHE'S WEDDING-DAY.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 12, 13 June 1874, Page 4

BERTHE'S WEDDING-DAY.

By the Author off « Patty.' [From' Temple Bar.'] CHAPTER I. 1 Good-night, my well-beloved—in a week's my wife 1' Francois Garaye is so much taller than his betrothed that he has to bend down to kiss pretty Berthe's plump rosy cheeks. She puts one arm around bis neck to hold him fast while she fixes a sprig of myrtle in front of his gendarme cap. • Wear it till our wedding day,' she whispers ; and this time Francois kisses the lips which have come so near his own. Good-night ma clicr'ie? He waves bis cap and turns away. Berthe Duval stands at the cottage door, and looks after her lover. The whitewashed green-shuttered cottage is in the midst of a hilly wooded park. Matthieu Duval is concierge to the Chatelain of Villequier, and this cottage is his home, though he spends most of his time up at the Chateau, while ftie Villequier family stay so long away in Italy. Berthe would like to walk a little way with Francois, but he will not let her come even so far as the park gates with him ; the rain is falling heavily, and the path is already half under water; for though the park of Villequier is lovely and romantic, full of upland glades sequestered by hfty forest trees, the central part where the cottages are built forms a basin at the foot of circling hills, and the brilliantly green grass around is rarely parched, even in fierce summer heat. Matthieu Duval is crippled with rheumatism, and so is Tonine, his old pinched wife, and Tonine's eyes are dim ; but Berthe is plump and rosy, and her blue eyes are clear and bright ' as they they follow her lover through the park. Clear and bright; but there is a tender timid Badness in them now which fits in

with the scene around her, with the falling rain, the pendent, heavily soaked leafage on the tall trees. Still Francois Garaye's last words, and the bright honest look that went with them, ought not to have brought so heavy a shadow across the face of his betrothed.

Berthe is conscious of this. She strains her eyes against the gathering darkness, so that she may follow Francois' rapid firm steps through the trees. He has reached the bank of the little river which runs through the park, and as he follows its winding she loses sight of him. No, there he is again ! He must have come back—he is nearer to her than he was when she lost sight of him ; he stands a moment or two waving his gendarme cap, and then vanishes. Berthe shudders from head to foot, "How white his face was I' she says.

She goes into the cottage, trembling strangely ; her hands are so cold that she crouches over the hearth and warms them. ' Berthe,' a fretful voice sounds out of the dark fireside, ' what ails thee ? Thou art as white as the wall is. Francois is a fool to keep thee out in rain like this ; he will spoil his uniform, and thou wilt have an ague. Our river is harmful in the rainy season, and thou knowest it well.'

Berthe keeps such unusual silenro flint her mother's head sinks yet more on one shoulder and her little watery grey eyes open as wide as possible. Berthe cannot laugh or even speak; her heart is each moment growing heavier. Why did she obey Francois ? Why did she not go with him as far as possible? Where does this horrible cold terror spring from that grasps at her heart like a hand of ice ? Is something evil happening to Francois ? She raises herself and looks round. She even goes once more to the door and looks out.- ' It is a foolish fancy,' she says ; but she wakens suddenly from her troubled sleep and cries out in a wild frightened voice—'Francois I oh, my Francois, shall I never see thee again V That night the rain never ceases ; it keeps falling with a stealthy smr-.il, but still that sound is audible, filling the night with unrest, and making it impossible for one wakened from sleep to slumber again. Berthe lies with widely opened eyes, now shivering as the remembrance of her last night's terror comes back, now in pitying thought of homeless wanderers shrinking beneath the soaking rain, and always through every thought she sees her Francois, and the pale face her last look had shown her between the trees. To he 'continued.