LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 529, 28 February 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOW HE WAS CURED.

( Continued.)

One afternoon, on returning from a melancholy and suicidal stroll around his grounds, and entering the drawing room, M r Brooks found his wife seated in company with a tall gentlemanly looking person, whom he no sooner looked at than he uttered a cry and stood stock still. His emotion will at once be made intelligible when it is said that the tall gentlemanly-looking individual was no less a person than Sir Arthur Nugent. ‘ This is a friend of mine, my dear,’ said Mrs Carlotta Brooks, exhibiting all her teeth. ‘We met live years ago at Kingston, didn’t we sir ?’

‘I had that honour,’replied. Sir Arthur, with a low bow.

* Give me back my Nelly !’ he muttered, feebly extending his hands towards the baronet. But the only answer he received was a cold and sardonic smile. This contemptuous silence infuriated him.

‘Leave my house!’ he shrieked. ’How dare you enter it ? Go whilst you are able to call your life your own.’ ‘ I am not afraid,’ answered the baronet. ‘You see, my friend, you are a coward.

Now, who’s afraid of a coward ?’ And changing his manner, he exclaimed, sternly : ‘ Did you not vow before God to love and cherish your Nelly? What man but a coward would have wrung tears out of her meek eyes, chilled her endearments, charged her with thoughts of which she was as innocent as the angels in heaven V spurned her when she would have repaid your jealous fury with kisses ?’ Mr Brooks waited to hear m more. Clapping his hands over his ears, he uttered a loud cry, and tied from the room. He entered the grounds, and Hinging himself upon the grass, asked what he should do. Should he drown himself? or was shooting a more comfortable death? He would do neither. He wasn’t going to take his life. He wouldn’t mind taking the baronet’s or Oarlotta’s, but not his own, Life was sweet. His death could do no good. It would gratify his friends, that was all. Nobody would be sorry. Besides, if he killed himself, Carlotta would come into all his pro perty ; and he would live if only to prevent that.

So passed the afternoon until the sun went dowm ; and then, chilled and' stiff in every limb, Mr Brooks rose to his feet and staggered towards the house. In the parlour the servants were laying the cloth for dinner. The savour of the cooking in the kitchen brought his heart into bis throat ; and passing through the hall, he shut himself up in the study. Here he sat with his forehead resting upon his hand, motionless as any image of stone, until a servant knocked on the door to announce dinner. He entered the dining room and stood at the window, staring, with eyes that beheld nothing, upon the darkening grounds, waiting for his wife to join him. ‘Please, sir,’ said a servant, ‘have you seen missis anywheres about ? I can’t find her nowheres. ’

‘ Can’t find her !’ exclaimed Mr Brooks, fixing his bloodshot eyes upon the girl. ‘ Nowheres,’ answered the servant.

‘Mr Brooks left the parlour and went upstairs. He glared into the drawing room—it was empty. He mounted the next flight of stairs and glared into his wife’s bedroom. That too was empty. So was his dressing room, but upon his box of razors lay a cocked-hat note, placed again on his box of razors. He could scarcely believe his eyes. Another cocked-hat note, placed again on his box of razors ! He took it up with a shaking hand and read the following lines written in pencil: ‘ Flesh and blood never yet -jwas made as was capable of abearing you. Sir Arthur Nugent is my protector, and with him I have flown. Farewell, for ever. Carlotta.’

The first emotion that possessed him on collecting his senses, was one of exquisite joy to think that he was rid of his wife for ever; but his delight was speedily transformed into ungovernable fury on reflecting that this was the second time his home had been ravaged, his honour stained, his sensibility mocked, his dignity spat upon by the hulking baronet. Hastening downstairs, he called to the servants and asked them at what hour the baronet and Mrs Brooks quitted the house. Nobody knew ; nobody had seen them go. * Are you all bribed to decieve me ?’ he gasped, staring wildly about him and clenching his fists. The servants read murder in his eye, and fled precipitately in all directions. They exhibited much judgment in dispersing. Mr Brooks was certainly mad. He ran about the room in pursuit of some human object on which to wreak his fury; but meeting with nothing alive save his own reflection in the lookingglass, he attacked that with extraordinary passion, breaking the ornaments upon the mantlepiece with every plunge he made at the mirror, and awakening suffocating screams, with every crash, from a cupboard in the hall in which the butler, a stout, pale man, had locked himself up with a view to saving his life. Exhausted at last, he flung himself upon a chair and burst into tears. The natural drops calmed and humanised him, and he began to reflect upon his situation. Two wives had left him, one after the other, each decoyed away by the same villain. What manner of man was he who could not get his own wife to live with him ? He had made his connubial experiments on two women of totally opposite characters. The first had been an angel, all sweetness, purity, and devotion. He couldn’t keep ber from leaving him. The second had been a Hecate, gross in soul, fearful in manners, hideous in aspect. And he couldn’t keep her from leaving him. Other men managed to live with their wives and be loved by them. He must be unlike all other men. He must be a wretch—in a feminine sense—of the very worst kind. How did it illustrate Nelly’s unwearying sweetness that she should have lived with him and preserved her love for him in spite of his jealousy, until his own cruelty wilfully sundered the last thread of gold that bound her heart to his ; when the ugly West Indian, of whom he had never been jealous, and who had been the provoker of all the quarrels that took place between them, had found him unbearable and quite unfit to live with ? He opened the locket which he wore on his watch chain, and gazed on the portrait it contained. Dark as the room was, there was yet light enough in the sky to reveal the tender, thoughtful eyes of his lost Nelly, looking at him now with sad reproach in them, ‘ I was true to you,’ they seemed to say. * 1 loved you, I would have clung to you until death parted us But you suffered your jealousy to grow and darken my life until all light went out of it. And now we are sundered as eternally as if the grave stood between us, and I am only less miserable than you.’ He let fall the locket with a groan, and buried his face in his hands. Just then a knock fell on the door. He raised his head and listened. Another knock. 4 Come in, ’ he croaked.

The door was opened, and a tall figure entered. It approached the miserable man close and disclosed the features of Sir Arthur Nugent. Mr Brooks started to his feet. In another moment his hand would have been upon the baronet’s throat: but the uplifted arm was caught and arrested. ‘ Come, come, save your strength—you want it,’ exclaimed the baronet in a sneering voice. ‘Sit down. I. have come to talk with 3 ou. 1

‘I won’t sit down! Leave this house!’ cried Mr Brooks struggling to disengage his arm, and greatly shocked and terrified by the enormous strength of his deadly enemy. ‘Stand if you like,’ said the baronet, releasing him, and coolly seating himself. ‘ What I have called to ascertain is—do you mean to piarry again, ?’ (Zb l/o continued.)