LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 739, 1 November 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

BY THE SAD SEA WAVES. ( Continued.) But no; just aa though my words were wind, they regard them not. Opening the gate, they stroll off together across the sands. I take my tea alone, with a sinking heart. How intensely foolish Ottalie is 1 The wildest imagination could not, I fear, picture Deborah Peyreas a ‘prayingwoman.’ Of course Igo to church; Igo this evening. I have called myself a miserable sinner scores of times, now I feel I am one, or that she is, or jhe is ; or that we are all sinners together. I get into a back pew, and I believe I pray. I try to pray ; more earnestly perhaps than I had ever tried in my life. And after the service is over I go home and wait. I see two dusky figures pacing the sands together just beyond the gate, and I fold my hands tightly and wait. The gate clicks at last. Ottalie comes in, and stands blinking in the doorway, half dazzled by the light. * Will you condescend to tell me how you intend to wind up the highly creditable farce you are playing ? ’ I cry, in helpless rage. * Wind—it—up,’ she repeats, the brightness fading all at once out of her face. Then with a sudden dash of recklessness: ‘ I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a bad plan, Deb. I let myself drift—drift—drift. It is so much easier! ’ And she laughs a strained little laugh that cannot take the shadow out of her eyes. lam silent. She clasps my arm to hasten my reply, ‘ Have I had so happy a life, Deborah?’ Heaven knows that she has not—of late years. But how shall I answer her ? What am Itodo 1 In one sense of the word lam at rest: she has too much rectitude, too much pride, to give cause for real fear, but—there are complications. ‘ Deborah, dear Deborah, won’t you promise me ?’ and her voice breaks, and the firm white arm creaps up round my neck, as her eyes peer into mine. ‘ You will not—tell ?’ How shall I answer her ? ‘ Deborah, dear Deborah,’ she cries again, putting her lips close to my cheek. How still the room is as her voice falls. How quiet it is outside—how quiet. * No,’ I say, shortly, ‘ I will not tell. Unless I am forced to it, Ottalie ; understand that.’ After a little, she gets up and goes towards the door. I follow her. ‘Ottalie,’ I begin. She stops and looks over her shoulder, half-angriiy, half-entreat-ingly. ‘ Hush,’she says. ‘I am forgetting it—that. You said I might be happy—just a little while.’ ‘Then,’ I say, bewildered out of my equanimity, ‘you will be the first person who was ever made happy by acting a lie,’ Ottalie turns a scared face upon me, moans, and escapes from the room. What a culpable woman I am 1 Bribed with a kiss to promise I But—poor Ottalie 1 And what a reckless, miserable mood she is in ! I hear her voice ringing out overhead ; ‘Et Vivresse , Vivresse , I'ivresse et Vamour.' Not an exalted sentiment, is it, reader ? and for Sunday night! Well, she learnt it in a hard school, this poor Ottalie of mine, I toss and turn my night away. Ottalie, I fancy, does the same. When she sits down to breakfast her face is pale, her eyes are encircled by purple rings. We scarcely speak to one another. Later, I come into the room with my things on, look at her, and wait, I I am not going out,’ she says ;so I leave her sitting at the window. If she is happy, she is a better actress than I thought—she hides it so well. For three hours I poke jelly-fish with the end of my sunshade. But the jelly-fish are phlegmatic, and the sun is hot. In the course of time it becomes monotonous, and I rise and go homeward. As 1 close our gate I hear Jasper Daine’s voice. Sometimes it has struck me as being musical, but now it fairly sets my teeth on edge. What does it all mean? Has she told him herself ? Well, it may be better, I think, as I walk in. Ottalie is bolt upright near the piano ; and Mr Daine is tramping up and down the room. Ho comes to a sudden pause before me, ‘What is the matter?’ I ask, notin the least because I require information. I think he guesses this, for he eyes me in an extremely unpleasant way. ‘ The matter 1 It is this,’ he says in his harsh voice : ‘ last night I was led to believe your sister would be my affianced wife ; nay, that she was. To-day, when I ask about our wedding-day, she tells me she is already —married. This is all that is the matter, Miss Peyre.’ I untie my hat-strings and sit down; I have not the least idea what else to do. ‘ Forgive me,’ she says, or rather moans, coming a few steps nearer him, with a sacred, pitiful face. ‘ For drawing me on I For making a fool of me. For allowing me to love you as I have never loved mortal yet. And when I know not whether to believe this strange assertion, and ask what your name is—and why, if you are married, you have let me call you Miss Peyre, Miss Ottalie—you refuse to speak 1 Madam, I appeal to you,’ he adds, turning fiercely to me, ‘is this the way to treat a gentleman 7 Have I, or have I not, a right to ask an explanation? ’ ‘ Tell him, Deborah ; tell him all,’ she says, trembling. But I hold my peace stubbornly. I feel angry with everything and everybody. Her own folly led her into this, let her get out of it aa she can. He stands, waiting for me to speak, Ottalie gives a great sob, which disarms me. In spite of myself I begin, and give him the outlines of the tale. Our father was Major Peyre, of the Regiment. He was not a good man ;to say the least of it, not a judicious one. He drank and he gambled. After our mother’s death Ottalie and I were quite in his power. One of his gambling friends, to whom he became largely indebted, cast his covetous eyes on Ottalie, who was but a young girl, shy and inexperienced. My father gave her to him in marriage. Before two _ months were over, my father died, Mr Daine, who possibly knows Major Peyre by reputation, may remember what his death was. Before the year was out, that man—Ottalie’s hus-band-fell into trouble and crime. He was tried for it—tried, Mr Daine, and reader—and he is now working out his sentence in prison. Can anyone wonder that we seek to hide our heads ? Mr Daine, standing with folded arms and shortened breath, inquires what the man’s name was. {To continued.)