LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 770, 8 December 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOW IT HAPPENED. ( Continued.) At last, one evening late on in June, my husband induced him to come in and take tea with us. The meal would have been an uncomfortable one had not the boys been present. Our organist had always been a somewhat silent man. Few good musicians are given to much talk. The habit of uncommunicativeness in which he had now enwrapped himself had, however, I am sure, grown almost as oppressive to him as it was to others. It appeared to me that he was continually dwelling upon some melancholy topic, and considering it in all its bearings. I guessed the subject of his thoughts, and I even fancied he was wishing to consult me upon it, for I found his eyes fixed, now and again, with a mournful, questioning gaze, upon my face : but a wall of embarrassment had risen up between us since our last meeting. We were alone together in the dusky drawing-room after tea, but conversation failed us even then, and at last I asked him to play to me. He went to the piano at once, and I sat near the window and watched his hands, as ' I listened to the river of melody which began to flow through the shadowy chamber. I saw that he had still his old habit of stooping as he played, as if to listen to what the notes would say, and of then suddenly raising his head in an attentive attitude, as though he were looking out and waiting for an answer from above.

I was in a dreamy trance of enjoyment, when the music suddenly came to an abrupt stop, and the player said slowly, ‘ Your friends, the Miss Perrins, do not ever come to the choir practice now,’ ‘They do not,’ I answered. At the moment I could think of nothing else to say. * Could you tell me bow it was that I offended Miss Frances Perrin ?’ he continued, hesitatingly. I grew confused, and delayed a little before I faltered out the monosyllable, * No.’ ‘ I might have guessed not,’ he said, bitterly, and after that we sat for a while without speaking. At last I said quickly, 4 Why do you call her Miss Frances Perrin ? she is the elder of the two girls.’ An exclamation of pain boated over to me through the gloom, with a wailing sound; something as though it had been a prayer. He turned from the piano, and began speak ing eagerly, 4 I did not know,’ he said, 4 1 always believed she was the younger. Will you tell her ’ But just at this moment a servant brought in candles, and then my husband joined us. He was full of a journey which he had just learned it would be necessary for him to take on the following day. There was business to be done in Weston, which was distant about thirty miles from the railway junction, and this, as I said before, lay ten miles from us. I was shocked to see the terrible alteration that the past few months had wrought in our friend’s appearance when I observed him by the full light now in the room. He looked ill and worn, and yet there was certainly, at this moment, a hopeful, animated gleam in his face which had not been there when John brought him to me, a couple of hours before, in the other chamber. He spoke, too, in readier and more lively tones, now, than he had used all the evening, as he told us that he, also, had engaged to go next morning to Weston, on banking affairs. 4 The manager asked me to undertake some business there for him,’he said, 4 and I agreed, not caring whether 1 went or stayed, although the weather is certainly unpleasantly hot and dusty for a long and wearisome journey. As things are now, however,’ he added, speaking to me in whispered tones, 4 1 think my own affairs here want so much immediate looking after that I should much prefer remaining at home. ’

It was arranged that my husband and Louis should take a cab together to and from the junction. ‘ What a pity Fenella and her friend could not go under your escort, ’ I said, inadvertently ; but I immediately checked myself, remembering that, under existing circumstances, it was much better that the organist should not meet his old acquaintance, at any rate for the present. The Midsummer vacation was just commencing, both at the College aud school. Frances was to spend the holidays with me, aud I hoped to send her back to the Academy in better health and spirits than she now enjoyed. Fenella was to start, next evening, for the country, with a schoolfellow, at whose home she had been invited to spend a few weeks.

Mr Carter was with us very early next morning. He arrived before the cab came to the door. He was pale and heavy-eyed, but cheerful in tone and manner. ‘ You look as if you had not slept, and yet as though you rather enjoyed lying awake,’ I said laughingly to him. ‘ Perhaps you are right in both surmises,’ he answered, with a smile. ‘ You certainly are in the first. Nature is taking her revenge now, for I could fall off into a profound slumber at this moment, if I got a chance of doing so. I must keep wide \awake to-day, however. I have endless accounts to go through in Weston, and then, coming home, I shall have a large sum of money in my hands. To-morrow, as you know, is market day here, aud the manager expects to need a good deal of gold *, besides which my pocket-book is to be filled with notes on his behalf.’ He had a small valise in his hand.

‘ Is that meant for all the sovereigns ?’ 1 asked, pointing to it, and wondering at the unusual communicativeness of my friend.

He nodded, ‘You must take care of it then,’ I said, sagaciously. I stood on the doorstep to see the travellers drive off, and repeated my warning as they both wav- d me a final farewell. The weather was very sultry, and they had a tiresome day. When they met in the evening, at the Weston Station, John was distressed to find that his companion was completely worn out by the bodily aud mental fatigues ho had gone through. The train was so crowded that it was impossible for the two to travel together. My husband was provoked at this, as he was anxious to relieve his friend of all care and anxiety concerning his heavily laden valise. Under existing circumstances he was only able to see that Louis was comfortably ensconce'! in the corner seat of a first-class carriage. Having provided him with a newspaper, he was obliged to hurry off and secure a place for himself.

The train stopped for ten minutes about midday between Weston and the junction, and John got out here to look after his fellow traveller, Louis was then suffering from a racking headache. He was leaning forward, supporting his forehead upon his hands, and groaning with agony. The sudden stoppage of the train seemed to increase his sufferings, although a moment before, he had attributed his torments to the rapid movement. He had thrust the precious valise beneath his feet, and another passenger had appropriated his copy of the Times.

* I feel as if I could give all I have about me for one drop of cold water,’ he said, looking up at John with a ghastly attempt at a smile. My husband brought him a glassful, and then proceeded to lay a wet handkerchief upon his aching brows. When this was accomplished, John was obliged to return to his seat. His patient was much better at the time the junction was reached. The two met Fenella and her friend here, and waited to see them off. The girls continued their journey by the train that the other travellers had just left. Chapter IY. In the meantime, Frances and I had been spending the day together very quietly. When I had her all to myself in the silent house—for all our boarders had departed—l told her what had occurred the previous evening, but I had hardly got through my short tale when I began to regret that I had mentioned the organist’s name at all. My poor friend was not strong enough to bear any excitement, and she sobbed and cried until she made herself ill.

‘ Never talk to me about him again,’ she said at last, imploringly. * There are some things that never can come right in this world, when once they have gone wrong, and this is one of them.’

She shivered and trembled all through this hot day as though she had an ague fit. We had taken tea, and my husband was rejoicing in being home again, when we were all startled by a loud and hurried knocking at the hall door. He was called away, and Frances and I waited anxiously, longing to know what was the matter. We both felt that foreboding of evil which so often fills the mind on the occasion of an unexpected summons coming at some unusual hour.

It seemed as though we were a long time kept in suspense; but at last John reappeared, in the act of drawing on his overcoat. His face was iroubled and perplexed, and he looked uneasily at Frances. ‘ Carter has lost his pocket book,’ he said. ‘ There was a thousand pounds in it, in Bank of England notes. He has been with the police, and has telegraphed hither and thither, and now he wants me to drive back with him to the junction. So you must not expect me home to-night until you see me, Mary. ’ * And it is the bank money ! ’ I exclaimed, breathlessly. ‘ But then, of course, they have the numbers of the notes down, wherever he got them. ’ ‘That is just what they have not,’ John answered, impatiently. ‘No one wrote them down, through some inexplicable carelessness. Come out and get this poor fellow some tea, or something of the sort, Mary. He is in my study.’ He closed the door between us and our young visitor when I had followed him from the dining-room. ‘ I did not like to tell you before Frances,’ he said, ‘ but I never, in all my life, saw a fellow in such a terrible state as Carter is in now. He came to me at first like a lunatic, and now he is behaving more as if he were a woman than a reasonable man. I have had him in floods of tears, like any girl. He thinks, and so do I, that after I got him the glass of water to-day, at the station, he must have either slept or fainted when the train again went on, and ' that his pocket-book then either dropped out of his pocket or was stolen from it. He reproaches himself bitterly for what he calls his carelessness ; although the truth is that the poor fellow was more dead than alive just then, and was quite incapable of paying attention to anything. ’ ‘Ho is overwrought,’ I said. ‘He told me that he did not sleep at all last night.’ I made some fresh strong tea, and administered it to my patient in silence before he left. As I could give him no comfort 1 thought it better to say nolhing. (To he continued.;