LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 448, 20 November 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

GERTRUDE ERLE. (Concluded.) 'My own?' ' It seems to me as if a blessing rested on our marriage. Papa said he would die easy if you and I cared for one another.' Her listener's face lit up with a pleased smile. • I should like to have seen him before the last. Was he was much changed ?' The tears rushed to her eyes, but he kissed them away. ' I have a picture of him; I will show you.' And she rose and fetched the little Japanese cabinet, and tried to unlock it; but the lock was obdurate, and she gave up her efforts at length. ' Take it, Ralph, and these keys. All my secrets belong to you now,' she said with a beaming smile. A little later she walked into the library. Ralph's face was buried on his folded arms, and he did not look up as she entered. Thinking he was asleep, she bent over him and lightly pressed her lips to his hair. He lifted up a countenance towards her that shocked her by its exceeding pallor, and the wof ul expression it wore. The cabinet stood on the table before him, and its innumerable small drawers and letters and papers were scattered carelessly about as if he had pushed them violently aside. ' Ralph, what ails you ?' she asked tenderly, and glancing at the confusion, she added playfully : ' I could almost believe that some terrible secret must have met your eyes ? 'lt is a terrible secret to me, Gertrude. Something that will part us two for ever.' She sank down in a heap by his side, her face as pale and as wobegone as his. ' 0 Ralph, surely nothing can part us now ?' It seemed to her that if she lost this man, to whom her real love was given with all the might and strength of her nature, that she could not bear to live. ' Ralph, my Ralph, speak to me !' ' Could nothing part us now, Gertrude ? Suppose you were once more the heiress of broad acres, the possessor of thousands, would you still care to marry me—poor, obscure as I am ?' he questioned eagerly. Her face brightened up beneath his words, 'acres and thousands.' What were

they in comparisen to his great honest heart —to the love that would bless her life hourly and daily, for ever and ever ? ' Ralph, if I have you I want nothing else.' ' Is that really true, Gertrude ?' ' As God is my judge !' He said not a word, but his face was enough ; and Gertrude knew what was in his heart. ' What was the date of the will that made Claud Wilton heir to the Erie property ?' he asked in a few minutes. •January 12th, 1843,' she replied at once. The date was engraved on her mind ; for her gaze had mechanically gone over it again and again while Olaud held it in his hand. Ralph took up a document and examined it. 'And this is dated March sth, 1844. " I revoke my former will, and give and bequeath all my money and lands to my nephew, John Erie; and at his decease to the heirs of his body," &c. So, Gertrude, you will be rich once more,' he said, with an unmistakable regret in his voice. ' Rich in my husband !' Gertrude whispered ; and putting aside reserve, she crept into his arms ; those arms closed round her, and Ralph's face, bright and happy once more, looked into her own. 'I am sorry for this,' she exclaimed. Her hands were firmly clasped in Ralph's, and money and lands seemed to her very secondary objects in existence. 1 Sorry for Claud ?' with a tinge of reproach in the tone. ' No, not for Claud, but for Alice.' 'Alice! Why, what concern has she in the matter ?' ' Ralph, you have been engrossed in me so long, that you have been blind to everything else, I believe,' she laughed ; but he stopped the laugh in the way that sent the red blood to her cheeks. ' Alice and Claud have been pledged to one another for more than two years.' ' But Claud was engaged to you six months ago.' ' That fact counted for nothing to him.' 'Tl;« scound.el!' ' Don't say that, Ralph ! I forgave him, for if he had been what my foolish fancy painted him, I should never have been here;' and she laid her head down on his shoulder lovingly. ' I am afraid Claud will never marry her now ; he might have done so, if he had remained wealthy ; and poor little Alice will break her heart for him.' 'As she is doing now at his silence and negligence ! This accounts for her ill looks,' Ralph said anxiously, as he remembered how fragile Alice had [grown, and the delicacy of her face. It was true what he surmised. Claud's inhuman silence and neglect had broken her heart, and Alice was dying with forced smiles on her lips. Claud had bid her keep their secret from her brother, and she had obeyed him, but at the cost of her life. It was a bitter day for Claud when he was told that the wealth he revelled and gloried in was not his after all; but it was not so bitter as that on which he bent over Alice to take a last farewell. The two were alone; the sick girl had willed it so. ' Do not speak harshly to him, Ralph, for my sake, and let me see him alone ;' and Ralph, with tears that he could not keep back, had promised to mind her words. Claud knelt by the bed, clasping two white wasted hands closely in his, and Alice did not say much; but her blue eyes rested tenderly, yearningly on his face. 'You will not quite forget me, Claud? You Avill think sometimes of the dear old lane and the seat under the larch-boughs, and of the quiet grave where I shall lie with my heart cold to you—cold for the first time, Claud !' she murmured in low fluttering accents ; but to Claud each word was a blow. ' Your hand has touched this so often, don't let it be hidden quite away from you; keep a little piece in memory of the old time,' she whispered, holding out a tress of fair hair towards him. He could not speak, but he seized the lock eagerly—it looked like burnished gold in his grasp —and he rained down hot kisses upon it. ' You forgot to be Lord of Burleigh after all, Claud !' she said with a faint smile. ' Then her countenance all over Pale again as death did grow, But he clasped her like a lover, And he cheered her soul with love ; So she strove against her weakness.' ' Alice, I would have come, I never forgot you. I never loved any one but you in my life,' he cried passionately. She believed him. And the knowledge that his heart had been true, though his lips had been false, was dear solace to her now. ' Claud, how happy we were once!' she murmured, closing her eyes ; and a beatific look crossed her wan face as memory brought back the past—the old country lane, the drooping larches, the rustic seat ; but the look soon passed, and her cheek grew white and forgot to blush rosy red, as it was wont to do when Claud's kisses fell upon it. Mortals' kisses had lost their power on the soul that was striving to soar heavenward, where there is no marriage or giving in marriage. A few days later, Alice slept under the sod, and all that remained of her on earth was the golden curl that lay on . Claud Wilson's breast. |