LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 361, 9 August 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THE ATHELSTONS OF MORTE d' ATHELSTON. (From the Dublin University Magazine.) ( Continued.) Sybil Charnleigh had returned to her north country home, and dressmakers and sempstresses were busyhurryfng on the trousseau that would be wanting so shortly now. Sybil Charnleigh had gone, and with her had departed th e inward unacknowledged, but bitter, feelingrof jealousy which had troubled the Lady Rowena. Captain Athelston was all her own now. There were no more strollings through green lanes, or meeting expeditions where the fashionable young lady of the world had to cross stiles and push through brambles on guard of her property, or see it subject to the fatal risk of tete-a-tete with her hated enemy. He was all her own now; and the broad lands of her ancestors were all her own, or would be so soon, and so the lady was content. I On this soft and balmy afternoon, the Lady Rowena had strolled out with her cousin. The girl seemed to be developing altogether a new phase of character now, and she was everything that was gentle and yielding to her future lord, the depths of whose conscience had been slightly stirred, and he was making up for past delinquencies by an extra amount of devotion, and all was going * merry as a marriage bell,' or [at least had been up to this fatal day. The two cousins stood upon a projecting butt of the old Castle that almost overhung the sea. There was no parapet round it; and the sullen roar of the waves sounded terribly enough, as they were plainly heard some hundred feet below. But Lady Rowena had stroug nerves for so delicate a looking creature, and she openly despised the feminine weakness that shrunk from giddy heights, or turned faint on perpendicular precipices. I said they had been happy up to this ; but a cloud just now was darkening the girl's fair brow, and a faint shadow of the trouble she had thought vanished, for ever, was stealing over her again, as Captain Athelston continued, after a slight pause,— "Well, I don't know, Rowena ; of course, you understand your own reasons best, but I own they are a mystery to me. I thought Sybil everything that would have been a fleasant and lovable companion for you; and certainly think that, as the daughter of your father's only sister, for the sake of appearances, she should at all events be asked, to your wedding." Asked to her wedding! this girl, this Sybil Charnleigh, whom she hated with a deadly hatred; the one dark cloud that had dimmed the bright horizon of her life, the vague, intangible something that had come between her and the man that she loved. She almost mechanically repeated the words, then with a scornful curl of her soft baby lips,— "Perhaps you think I should ask her to be my bridesmaid ?" " Indeed, I do, Roweua; I often wondered why you did not." "You wondered, did you?" cried the girl, fiercely. " Then shall I tell you why ? Because I would spare you the agony of such an ordeal, save you from yourself, from your own wretched delusion for this girl, unless, indeed, I was prepared to act quite disinterestedly in the matter, and see the lands of my ancestors pass to the daughter of the only Athelston who ever disgraced herself by a mesalliance. Then, indeed, I might substitute her as the bride, while I might be allowed the honour of being her bridesmaid. Perhaps this would suit you better, would it ?" " Nonsense ! Rowena, you are talking folly now." " Am I ?" she said, her livid lips trembling with passion, for her sharp eyes had detected the faint flush that for one moment flitted over her cousin's brow, and the slight twitching of the mouth, under the long reddish moustachios—"am I? Yes, it is folly, I suppose, to think that there is any truth or honesty in man, or that false, craven hearted as they are, that they know what real love means. As for her, scheming, artful wretch, she shall never put her foot inside the doors of Morte d'Athelston. Of course, you can meet her at other places if you wish, I cannot prevent that." " Rowena, you have no right to speak as you are doing. If you do not care about insulting me, at least have some respect for yourself. You will only render your own life miserable, as well as mine, if you allow yourself to be the victim of such groundless jealousy." " Groundless ! Will you swear that it is groundless? Swear by all you hold sacred, that if you were free to-morrow to choose between us two girls, that you would be true to me. Ah! you dare not tell me the lie." She hissed, her fair young face distorted by the convulsions of passion, as she advanced towards him, till her hot breath seemed to sear his cheek. The young man recoiled in horror. "Rowena, you are mad." She looked at him for one moment, her eyes gleaming and flashing, like some cruel animal's in the dark. " Mad !" she echoed. "Yes, I am mad," and the white hands looking soft, fair, feeble as ever, were raised with the strength of a fiend; and for one moment the strong man, in the full vigour and prime of his life, hovered over the abyss, then fell with a sudden plash into the yawning gulf below. Lady Rowena closed her eyes, and stood like one transfixed ; for a moment she hardly realized what she had done, but very soon she recovered herself. She looked out anxiously far away over the cliffs, but she could see no one who could have witnessed the deed that had been done. Then hurriedly gathering up the pencils and sketch-book, that he had so gaily carried there for her scarcely one short hour before, but without once looking at the dread spot where he had fallen, she sped rapidly down the broken, dangerous stops, that few girls would have dared to climb even with assistance, and walked quickly homewards. As she drew near the Castle, she drew down her thick veil over her, and stepped more leisurely till she reached her own room; then the necessity for restraint being, at least for a time, over, the tension of her nerves gave way, and, with a wild and bitter cry, she flung herself into an armchair, and almost screamed aloud in her agony. But the deed was done now, a deed irrevocable, and this fragile girl was not one to waste precious moments in futile regrets; nor, indeed, would she have recalled the past, even if she could. She felt no remorse now ; but she knew she had a part to play, a difficult and dangerous part, and one that would have appalled a feebler heart than Jjere, But she was one whose strength

seemed only to increase with the magnitude of the danger before her. She rose calmly, and .looked at herself in the large mirror that stood on her richly decorated toilettable. She might well shudder at the image she saw reflected there. The blanched and bloodless lips, the livid brow, and eyes bright with the light of hell, all trace of her former infantine beauty vanished, fled; her very features marred and distorted with the black stain of her guilt. But she never quailed ; she knew that it was merely the overwrought state of her own nerves, so she bit the blood back into her lips, and rubbed her cheeks with a coarse towel; then throwing open the window, she took off her hat, aud leant out, letting the cool breeze fan gently her fevered brow. The shadows of the coming night were falling on the land ; she could hear waves plashing on the distant shore, and the deer browsing in the home park close by. There was the old ruined Castle looking so familiar in the twilight, and the little path where he was wont to stroll, mayhap waiting for her, but where she would see him again ! never again ! She pressed her hands over her eyes, as if to shot out the terrible truth. 'Ah ! Modred, Modred,' she murmured, 'I would have died for you, but would you have cared ? No!' she cried, fiercely clenching her small hands, passionately. ' She would have taken my place, been mistress of my lands, in my home. No, it is far better, far better as it is.'

The opal and diamond ring, his betrothal gift to her, sparkled and glittered on her finger in the cold white rays of the rising moon, still the Lady Rowena stood and gazed out on the scene before her ; the park, with its undulating lands, bounded by a belt of wood that thickened into a forest as it spread inland, the goodly acres that had been her forefathers from generation to generation. ' All mine ! all mine now !' she cried, as with a smile of triumph she closed the window, and shivering slightly from the chill night air, rang the bell for the attendance of her maid.

He ! Modred Athelston, lying dead, murdered in the mouth of the cave, was the last of all the Athelstons, the entail died with him ;of course it was her father's now, and so surely hers for ever. When Mademoiselle Auralie came to dress her mistress for dinner, she perceived nothing unusual about that young lady, she was just as particular as ever as in the arrangement of her hair, and as exact in suiting harmoniously the vivid colours of her rich dress; and then, with the stately grace ordinary to her, she swept down the great staircase into the drawing-room, and met her father with a pleasant smile, answering the few questions he asked her of where she had been, and what she had been doing all day, sweetly and lovingly as she always spoke to him; and, when dinner was announced, and the old lord asked, ' Where is Captain Athelston ?' she looked up quite naturally to hear the servant's reply, 'He has not come in yet, my lord.' " Not come in ! Kowena, do you hear that, dear ? Where do you think he can be?" "Very likely fallen asleep in the old Castle, where I left him," answered the girl, carelessly; "he will wake up to find that he has lost his dinner. Let us hope that he won't get an attack of rheumatism to add to his misfortunes." Lord Athelston laughed heartily as he gave his daughter his arm. "It was so like Modred, the lazy dog; but we must not punish him too severely, if he is not in soon we must send and waken him. "Oh ! he will be sure to be in soon now, papa," responded Lady Rowena, who was apparently quite easy in her mind about her betrothed. Nevertheless, the dinner passed rather drearily; the earl was fidgety, and kept muttering, " Never knew Modred late before in my life, with all his laziness he was a most punctual fellow ; indeed, prided himself upon being so: it is strange, most unaccountable. "

At length, when dinner was over, and the servant who had been despatched to the ruins, returned to say that there was no Captain there, Lord Athelston became seriously alarmed. He questioned his daughter, he questioned the servants, sending them in different directions to search for the missing man; but one by one they returned from their unsuccessful expeditions, and the night wore wearily on, and the Lady Ilowena, waiting, watching for the dead form that might be borne in at any moment, played her part well. Striving to cheer the old man, her father, saying she knew he would be found in some unexpected place; she, nevertheless, allowed herself to show a sufficient amount of uneasiness and anxiety, and, as the night advanced, yielded, with much apparent reluctance, to her father's earnest solicitations that she should go to her bed, ' She could do no good, only knock herself up,' he said, 'and in the morning, if Modred had not returned, which, however, please God he would, he would have the police out and the country searched far and near.'

The morning came, but no Modred, and at Lady Rowena's suggestion, his own servant was sent to his lodgings in London; she felt if that man were gone, the search was more likely to die out, and she might escape the dread ordeal of gazing on the dead face of the man she had slain.

' Send Broughton to London, dear papa,' she had said. ' There is no accounting for Modred's queer freaks, and he might be there quite comfortably all the time, while we are worrying ourselves and making such a fuss about him.'

'I hope, my love, that there was no quarrel between you V asked Lord Athelston anxiously. ' Quarrel, dearest papa, no, certainly not; but then, you know, Modred is so eccentric.' ' He would hardly do such a thing as that, dear, hardly.' Nevertheless the servant went, and the searchers continued their fruitless search, not, however, to remain long allotted so, for, late in the evening; a man brought in a glove, which he had found lying high and dry on the sand a little way inside the entrance of the great cave. It was Captain Athclston's glove, no doubt of that. It was at onco recognised by the Earl and by many of the servants, and by the Lady Rowena herself; pale and agitated now, creating quite a sympathy amongst the rough, strong men, well accustomed to scenes of sorrow, despair, and death, as she told faintly, but quite distinctly, how they two had parted at the little white gate, she sitting 6 own beside it to sketch the ruin, while he had sauntered on, saying that she was to draw him standing on the very top; how she had looked, but had not seen him there ; and, as it was getting very cold, and she was tired waiting for him, she had returned home alone. {To oe continued,,)