LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 261, 13 April 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

FULL MEASURE. By Minnie Young. Concluded. If Marion sinned she suffered. When she bade Ralph farewell, the burden of her sorrow seemed greater than she could bear. She scarcely dared to meet his eye, lest he should read in hers the secret of her love for him. But he never suspected it. He was not thinking of her ; his thoughts were with another, and his heart was too sore from his own recent wound for him even to notice Marion’s misery. She bore up wonderfully. Her self-control was marvellous. She bade Ralph good-bye with a smile on her white lips, and in a perfectly calm collected voice. But when he had gone; when she had heard the door close behind him for the last time—and who does not know what a world of bitterness those four words contain ?—when she realised that he might never, never again enter that room where she had spent so many happy hours with him,—then, at last, a low cry of anguish escaped her lips; the cup of her sorrow seemed full to overflowing. For the remainder of that evening, after her husband left her. (he was dining with a friend at his club), Marion sat on in her boudoir alone. She did not want any dinner, she told the servant; she would only have a cup of strong black coffee brought to her. She could not make up her mind to quit the spot where she had parted from Ralph. ‘ Oh, if I could only cry!’ she kept on moaning in her anguish aud unrest. But she could not. The grief that was scorching heart and brain left her eyes dry. Chapter 111. Five long years had passed away, bringing with them many changes. Marion herself was not the Marion of five years ago. There were lines now on her handsome face where dimples used to lie, lines telling of sorrow and severe mental struggle. It was astonishing how Marion Burdett had gone off' lately, her enemies, of whom she had many among her own sex, said. Men still found her as attractive as ever. Apart from her, they might admit that her beauty was on the wane, but the charm of her presence was irresistible.

Three years after Ralph’s departure, Colonel Burdett died very suddenly from an accident out hunting, and from that day hope and its twin sister fear sprung up in Marion’s heart. There was no sin in her love now, and with the possibility of its gratification the feeling redoubled in intensity. Six months after Ralph sailed for India, Hilda married Mr Gumming. It was from Marion’s pen that Ralph heard the news, and she broke it to him as only a woman like Marion could do. He was grateful to her for her tact and kind feeling, and when he answered her letter, he begged her to let him hear from her sometimes. Since then Marion and Ralph had corresponded regularly, and his letters were the joy of her life. In his last, he had informed her that he was coming back to England immediately. During the first three years after Ralph left England, Marion lived entirely in the past. Then she began to turn her thoughts to the future, to look forward to meeting him again. That she would win him she never for a moment doubted, although his letters did not contain one word of aught warmer than friendship. Yet she felt confident of success. Hilda was out of the way now; Ralph had few friends in England. To whom should he turn but to her who had loved him so long and so truly ? She had no fear of her former rival crossing her path again, for Hilda’s attractions were a thing of the past. Since her marriage she had lost all her good looks, and she was not a woman to attract when her beauty vanished. She was sillier if possible than ever, Matronhood, maternity even, had brought her no increase of wisdom, and people were less tolerant of her folly now that she was no longer pretty. Mr Gumming was terribly disappointed with his bargain. He had his wife to prove at least an ornament to his home, and to get him on in society; and she did neither the one nor the other. How often he regretted now that he had not waited another three 3 ears. If he could but have foreseen that Marion would be free then ! The more Marion saw of Hilda Gumming the less she repented of her treachery to Hilda Vaughan. What would a poor man like Ralph have done with such a wife ? Still she was always very kind to Hilda ; all the more so that she saw that John Gumming was apt to compare his wife with herself, to the disadvantage of the former. Marion was feeling restless and agitated this morning; it was the day upon which Ralph had told her in his letter that he was to embark for England. Perhaps at that very moment he was starting. Before many weeks were past she should see him again, hear his voice once more, and feel the cfasp of his dear hand. She meant to meet him again in the same room where they had parted so sorrowfully five years ago. She had had nothing changed in the boudoir since that day. Marion was a wealthy woman now, tor Colonel Burdett had left her all his fortune freely and unconditionally. * Poor dear Eustace! he was very good to me,’ she would often say with a sigh, as she looked at the portrait of that honest kindly face that always hung over the mantlepiece in her room. She had no momehts of self-repioach on his account. She believed herself to have been an exemplary wife. So she was perhaps, according to the letter of the law. Admired, courted, sought after, as she had always been, no man living had ever dared say one word to Mrs Burdett that her husband might not have heard. Marion was interrupted from her dream of Ralph’s return by a visit from Mr Gumming, wlio looked anxious and perturbed. ‘ How is Hilda ?’ she asked as she shook hands with him. ‘Haven’t you received my note, Mrs Burdett ?’ ‘No.’ ‘ Dear me! were there ever such servants as ours ? Why, I gave it to lemple more than an hour ago to bring here, Hilda was confined at nine o’clock this morning, and very bad have set in.’ ‘ I’ll come round at once,’ said Marion.

‘ How good you are !’ he murmured. She hurried up-stairs to put on her things, only too thankful for some employment to distract her thoughts, for she was feeling nervous and unstrung to-day. ‘ Won’t you have the brougham sent for, ma’am?’ asked Chalmers, the Maid, as she handed Marion her bonnet. ‘ltis a nasty raw day, and you don’t look well, ma am.

‘ I have only got one of my nervous headaches, Chalmers ; the air will do me good.’ They found poor silly little Hilda sinking fast, but she refused to credit her danger. ‘Promise me one thing, Marion,’ she kept on saying in a piteous voice, ‘ that if I should be worse and become unconscious, you »vill not let John call my child “ Maria” after his mother, will you? it is such a common plebeian name. I wish her to be called Corisande, like the Duchess of ’s little girl. ’ Marion promised, and Hilda seemed pacified. With life fast ebbing away, all the poor foolish little woman’s thoughts still ran upon duchcssess and fine names. Marion stayed with her until four o’clock in the afternoon, and then took her departure, promising to come round again in the evening. Upon her return home, she told the servant not to admit anyone ; she was tired and upset after her trying interview with poor Hilda. She lay down on the sofa in her boudoir and tried to dose ; but she was too restless and overexcited to sleep, so she took up the Times, hoping to read herself into a calmer frame of mind.

Suddenly a low cry, as of a wounded animal, burst from her lips : ‘ Gone from me ! gone for ever ! omy God, how can I bear it!’

‘On the Oth ultimo, at Calcutta, after a few hours’ illness, Ralph Ferrars, Esquire, aged 32. ’ These were the words that had pierced her to the heart. ‘ Let me go to him ! let me go to him ! I cannot live alone. omy God, take me too !’ was the burden of her cry. Did she remember now that in that very room, just five years ago, she had told Hilda Vaughan that no one ever died of a love sorrow, and that life was made up of getting over things ? No; she remembered naught now save that the light of her life was fled. Since, the man she loved was taken from her, she only prayed God to take her too. When Andrews came to announce dinner, she told him that she did not want any —that she was going round to Mrs Cumming’s immediately. Had she any orders for the brougham, he asked.

‘No,’ she replied; ‘she was going to walk. ’

The man was far too well trained to look the astonishment he felt; but was his mistress mad, he wondered, to walk out on such an evening. A cold wind was blowing from the north-east, and it was snowing heavily. But Marion heeded neither wind nor weather. She felt as if some demon of unrest possessed her, and she could never be quiet again. As she walked out into the keen wintry air, the storm without seemed to calm the storm within. The Cummings’ butler looked very grave, Marion thought, as he opened the door to her. * How is Mrs Gumming ?’ she asked eagerly, ‘ I was just coming round to 3 r ou, ma’am,’ the man said, ‘in a low hushed voice, ‘to tell you that Mrs Gumming died an hour ago. ’ Marion stared at him wildly for a moment; then she gave a piercing shriek. ‘ She has gone to him, and I am left I’ she moaned out, as she sank on the stone floor senseless. Before midnight she was in a raging fever. •A* * W » From that bed of illness a different woman arose—a woman in whom the flesh was subdued to the spirit, and a strong will tempered by a sense of duty. As Marion grew better in health the poignancy of her remorse abated, but the determination to atone, as far as lay in her power, for her past errors strengthened. She never told the tale of her treachery to Hilda to any living being (she had not the mania for confession that possesses some of her sex); but she only lives to make amends for it. Hilda has been dead more than two years now, and Mr Gumming has constantly implored Marion to fill her vacant place, and be a mother to his three motherless little ones. But to this Marion will never consent. However, she often promises Mr Gumming that, if anything should happen to him, she will take care of his children, and be a mother to them in ail but the name. But she will never marry again, Her heart lies buried in Ralph Ferrars’ grave; she has none to bestow upon any earthly love. The world of course accounts for her resolution in various ways. Some people say that she has outstayed her marke - *, and can no longer look forward to such a marriage as she expected to maket; whilst others declare that she was far from beingthe exemplary wife to Colonel Burdett that she was supposed to be, and that she has turned devote from remorse. ‘lt is the old story,’ they say—‘from sinner to saint.’ Marion cares very little what they saja She has found peace at last where peace alone is to be found : in the quiet faithful discharge of daily duty. She has never got over Ralph Ferrars’ death —in one sense of the word she never will ; but she allows no morbid sentimental regrets to interfere with what she has to do. If she has her dark hours of lowness and sorrow (and what human being who has lived and loved and suffer* d has not ?), they remain between her and her God. ‘ The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy.’ She does not rush into pleasure to drown remorseful memories, but she chases away those phantoms of a dead past that will sometimes rise unbidden before her by work—by ‘ Earnest toil and strong endeavour Of a spirit, which within Wrestles with familiar evil And besetting sin.’