LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 132, 2 November 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE PITY OK IT. (From Temple Bar.) ( Continued .) ‘ I have come here to tell you 1 love you, Millicent Delorme—-love you witli all my heart, and to ask you if you will marry me?’ To the full as cool as I, she looked me in the eyes and said, ‘ No ’ —a round, clear, decided‘No,’ in her calm high-bred voice. My nerves experienced ever so slight a shock. ‘ Pray, pray be candid with me,’ I said, ‘ and tell me why you say me nay?’ ‘ Mr Brooke, you have been very good to me: you ai - e good to me always, and you deserve candour, and shall have it at all costs. I say ‘ No ’ to you because T have no love to give you; and again ‘No,’ because you, a gentleman with all the proud instincts of; class strong in you, would not ask to wed me if you knew ray antecedents.’ Here a burning blush flamed on her check. She paused, and I took up the talc; ‘ As to love, I fancy I have enough for both. I do not ask you to love me—l only ask you to let me love you. And, for the mysterious antecedents as reasons, they are nowhere. ’ She slightly shivered. ‘ Mr Brook, must I again repeat, 1 shall not, may not, marry you nor any man? Think you I have lived all these years, those weary years, and have not known love? Yes, the intense, unreasoning, impassioned love that flames in the heart but once and burns it away, I think. And is there not always a horrid possibility of shipwreck and great loss in such wild love?’ As she thus spoke, in a low tone, her lips quivered and her eyes quailed at the cruelty of her self-scourging. We both rose to say the farewell word. She looked more than ever superb—the flush of excitement on her cheek the glorious outlines of her form showed to perfection by the well-fitting bodice. Her loveliness intoxicated me. I could not, would not, relinquish this peerless woman without one other desperate effort. ‘ Millicent! ’ I cried, all my heart in my voice, ‘ what care 1 for the past ? Yon are my first, last, only love ! Give yourself to me and make me happy, for you alone can. ’ ‘No! a thousand times,’she said, ‘and I am kinder to you than you know.’ Then she left the room, and I showed myself out with my broken heart. I have always derived a certain amount of consolation from the optimism that teaches ‘ ‘ whatever is, is best. ’ -It calms a man for reviewing the position. But on this occasion I was too utterly beaten to philosophise as usual. Miss Delorme’s reasons for refusing me were doubtless good ones, but I smarted under my defeat and loss. To bo sure, for aught I knew, the man she loved so fondly might still be a sojourner on the earth, and might one fine day turn up at Brookcotes (as one reads of in novels), ami demand to see my wife, supposing Millicent were she! Yet not even this horrible contingency reconciled me to my fate. Heigh-ho! I had had enough of love and love-making to last a lifetime. In two days I closed my negotiations with De Vere for the purchase of his steam yacht, organised a hunting party, and dropped down the river outward-bound for Africa. Landing at Algiers, almost the first man I met was Algy Seyton. It was a good ten years since we had met; then he was the spoilt darling of London seasons, and the handsomest man in the Guards. Now his fine stalwart form was bent, emaciate 1, and consumption’s red danger-flag hung out on either cheek. ‘ By Jove, Hal, you look as scared as though you had seen a ghost!’ And so I had —the ghost of Algy Seyton. ‘ Sorry to see you looking so seedy, old fellow, Hope you’ll soon be all right again!’ I said, cheerily. ‘ Never, Brook! and you know it,’ then in the old reckless way I knew of old. ‘ You see I’ve been an outrage on the respectability of my people all my days, and now I have finally made up my mind to relieve them of a nuisance. It’s the pace that kills, Hal, and mine lias been tremendous.’ Poor Seyton! It had come to this, then—the handsome petted guardsman dying, alone and uncared-for, on the shores of Africa. Telle est la vie! The morning after our rencontre, 1 announced my intention of remaining behind. ‘ You ffellows must go up-country without me; Algy’s evidently not long for this world, and it’s a shame for us all to leave him.’ And they all went off into the interior, leaving me at Algiers. One morning, as I bent over Seyton to arrange his pillow, I noticed the locket he wore had flown open, and a rare face of girlish beauty smiled out at me. ‘ Millicent Delorme !’ I exclaimed impul sively. ‘ What do you know of Millicent Delorme ?’ said Seyton, fixing his dark eyes keenly on mine. ‘ Rot much,’ said I (I flatter myself, unconcernedly) ; ‘ it was my sad duty to escort her to her aunt, Lady Brabazon’s, just after she had heard of her brother’s death.’ ‘ So George Delorme is dead! My poor Milly, fate has been cruel to thee!’ Now 1 have the clue, thought I, and shall unravel the mystery of the antecedents by-and-by. ‘ Tell me, Brooke, does she look like this now ?’ lightly touching the photo. ‘ Yes, very like ; a little older, but not less beautiful.* ‘ She’s not married ?’ ‘No.’ A half-smile shimmered on his wan face. ‘I need not have asked that; men are incredulous about the constancy of women nowadays and no wonder ; but there are a few women still left (and she is of them), who, loving once and for ever, arc too noble and too good to sell themselves for gold or position.’ ‘ I suppose you have heard the historiette in which Millicent Delorme and Algernon Seyton were chief actors ?’ I shook my head. < Re •>'—why the town rang with it eight years agone.’ ‘ I was serving in India then,’ I said, ‘ and by the time I returned I fancy the story, wherever it was, had blown over. ’ ‘ Let’s have it now,’ I said, lightly ; but I prepared to listen as a man might to his death-knell : ‘Well, to commence, my governor paid off my debts twice. I knew for certain he would see me at the deuce before he cleared me a third time, and I was again hopelessly involved. And yet I—unlucky younger son, and worse than penniless guardsman—presumed to fall in love with the reigning

beauty of the season, Miss Delorme. And, more than all strange, she gave me love for love. I never asked myself how it was all to end. The present suffices. Let us not ding the cold shadow of an unkindly future over our delicious hour of sunshine. lam like a woman in that. ‘ One evening, going up the steps of General Delorme’s house in Eaton Square—a bouquet of rare dowers in my hand for Millicent—l came face to face with the General. ‘Ah, Captain Seyton, how do?’ without offering his hand. ‘ This bouquet is intended for Miss Delorme, I presume ?’ ‘ It is,’ I said, haughtily. ‘ Then, sir, let me tell you it shall not reach its destination. The intimacy that has too long subsisted between you and Miss Delorme must come to an end at once, and for ever. ’ ‘ All right, I said, coolly ; ‘ I hate a scene, more especially on door-steps.’ And pitching the offending bouquet down an area, I turned on my heel and walked off to my club. ‘ After this contretemps, when we met in society, Milly and I, by preconcerted arrangement, shunned one another so religiously that an outsider might well think a deadly feud raged between us. And I can tell you it was deuced hard lines to see her scattering smiles right and left, and not one to fall to my share. But we must be content to bide our time. At last, one fine day at the fag-end of the season, old Delorme was called out of town for a day or two on urgent business. ‘ I watched jhim safely off by a morning train, and gaily hied me to Eaton Square. By wonderful good-luck the hall-door stood stood open and unguarded by John Thomas. Lightly I ran up the steps and upstairs to my dear girl’s boudoir. And as I claspsed her in my arms the ecstacy of the moment almost atoned for the enforced coldness of the previous weeks. But tender reminiscences must be unutterably tedious to a hard-hearted buffer like Harry Brooke, who laughs at love, so I spare you. Well, with my usual fatal disregard of consequences, I proposed that we should take advantage of the exquisite weather —drive quietly down to Richmond and go on the river. We should be safer there, I represented, than in a house full of prating servants. The General was safe out of town. Above all, I dwelt on the anguish which had been my portion for the last desolate weeks, and pleaded hard for indemnity. ‘ After some demur she yielded. Of course we took every precaution, and secure of observation, as we fondly believed, we got down to Richmond. What need to recall those long-dead hours, when we two who loved, together and alone floated on and on, taking no note of time ? ‘ Our happiness was too deep to brim over in words. Only the slow throb of the rowlocks broke the impassioned silence as the boat carried us down and down the stream. Twilight darkened into night, still I insanely delayed our return. And when at length we pulled into an out-of-the-way halting-place, it was quite dark and very late. To return by boat, all these miles, in the chill dark night, was simply impossible. And in this distant village, if there had been a carriage to hire (which there was not), we could not in any case get back to town before early morning. As the thought flashed through my brain that I had horribly compromised the woman I loved so dearly, I bitterly cursed my imprudence. However, I laid the flattering unction to my soul, that as General Delorme was safe out of town, Millicent should easily regain her home unquestioned, and no one ever a bit the wiser. We were in the best parlor of the village inn ! the landlady herself had simperingly broeght us in some tea. ‘ Confound ’the woman !’ I thought ; she) evidently takes us for a young couple commencing the honeymoon.’ ‘ln our awkward dilemma Milly had turned a shade pale or so, but she raised her great lovelit eyes, full of trust, as ever, to mine. And as she sat there, in all her ripe young beauty, the spell of her loveliness worked in my veins. Innocent Milly ! little did she know the precipice on which she stood, but I knew. ‘ Harry, don’t think me a coxcomb; but she did love me so utterly, so blindly, I knew, if I were scoundrel enough, I could lead her captive at my will. ‘ I tell you, Brooke, as man to man, the temptation that assailed me was maddening. Why should not we, 1 and the woman I loved, and who loved me, turn our backs on the cold world, bid defiance to its laws, and at an altar of our own rearing, vow from this hour to love and cleave to one another all our life long ? To be continued.