LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 772, 11 December 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOW IT HAPPENED. ( Concluded.') A sweet-toned bell began to ring out when I had passed the grounds attached to this great building. I paused a moment to listen, and began to picture to myself the scene within the chapel, such as I imagined it to be when the strangely-dressed worshippers gathered for vespers. A lane ran at right angles with the road upon which I was. One of the grey monks suddenly turned out of this and approached me. I moved to the inner part of the path to allow him room to pass, but, to my great amazement, he paused at my side. He was a young man ; he wore a long, soft, fair beard, and had gentle, compassionate eyes. I should as soon have expected to hear words from our old church steeple, and yet this stranger was actually addressing me. lie spoke in clear and well modulated tones. ' I take a great liberty in troubling you thus,' he began. ' I believe, however, that you have a regard for that poor young man who has lost the money. My sympathies have been much awakened on his behalf. I would serve him if I could, but I know not how. Perhaps your husband could look after him. He is certainly not in a fit state to be left to himself. You may not bo aware that he spends the greater part of every night now upon the old bridge.'

With a low bow this strange new acqaain. tance of mine went his way, and from that day to this I have never seen him, to recognise him, again.

I hurried home full of renewed anxieties. I was intending to Bend John off at once in search of our unhappy friend, but when I reached the College I recollected that he was out, and would not be back until very late. He taught a class of young working men one evening in each week, and this night he was thus employed. I thought then of setting forth myself to call at the house occupied by Louis, but when I went indoors first, to inquire for Frances, I found she was worse, and had been asking for me. I could not leave her. Even had I been free the weather would now have interfered to hinder me from going out again. The sky had suddenly become overcast with clouds ; rain had already begun to fall, and the wind was rising. There was every appearance of a coming storm. 1 sat by Frances for an hour. She had been very weak and faint, but I hoped she was now sleeping. Her hand lay quietly in mine, and her eyes were closed. I was suddenly undeceived, however. She looked up and said, 'I have been thinking of Mr Carter. Do you believe that he really cares much for me ?'

* I know lie does/ I answered. And then I told her what he had asked me concerning her at our last meeting. ' Is there any news of the lost money yet?' she inquired, feebly. 'There is not,' I said, with a heavy sigh. Wc were silent for a while, and theu she asked me if I would write a note for her. ' I don't think I could manage to do it for myself, now,' she added, looking wistfully at her white, transparent hands. 'You may dictate a dozen letters to me to-morrow, if you will, I replied, with rash impulsiveness, 'but to-night you must sleep.' 'I cannot rest until this one note is written,' she said, wearily, and at last I humored her, and got writing materials together. Her short epistle ran as follows : 'Dear Mr Carter, —I am very ill, but when I get better I hope you will come and see me ; and I hope also that next year you will send me another valentine, because I did not know that the one you sent this year was intended for me. ' I am very sorry about the money you have lost. I hope it will be found; but I have five hundred pounds of my own, and I want you very much to borrow this from me, until you get back your pocket-book. It will pay half of what you owe to the bank.

' Yours sincerely, Frances Peerin.' 'Perhaps I ought to say,' "if I get better,' " my poor little patient said, slowly, when I had finished writing. My voice grew husky as 1 kissed her, and murmured, ' We will leave it as it is.' ' Then you think I may send this note 1' she whispered. 'Why not?' I replied. I felt as if Heaven were about to aid me in my purpose of administering consolation to Louis Carter, when I held this innocent and childish missive in my hand. 'This letter will please the receiver much,' I added, 'John j shall take it to him as soon as he returns j home.' | Now that Frances had her mind relieved j for the moment she closed her eyes again, j and really fell asleep this time, leaving me I free to go downstairs. j When my husband came in he only j waited to swallow a cup of tea before he set j out on his new errand. He reappeared | much sooner than I had expected. He was j drenched with rain, and much fatigued, 1 from wrestling with the storm now raging .' out of doors. His anxious face betrayed at once that he had no good news to toll. I j took two letters out of his hand with an inquiring look. ' Read,' he said, pointing to one, the envelope of which had been opened. The other cover contained, as I saw, the note I had so lately penned. I drew forth a sheet of paper, and as I did so an enclosure fell upon the ground at my feet. John picked it up, and held before me the long lost photograph, which I had so perplexed myself about. I read :

'Dear Friend,-—I am leaving this place for ever, and as it i s not likely we shall ever meet again in this world, I write to bid you and Mrs Grey farewell. The enclosed photograph is for her. I took it off her drawingroom table, some months ago, when I cherished vain hopes of being able to win the original for my wife. ' I constrain myself now to restore this treasure, as I have thought that it was perhaps this small dishonesty which has been the cause of my late affliction—which has brought upon me the imputation of the great crime, of which; all must suspect me. The less of this money has broken my heart. ' Ever yours faithfully, even to death, 'Louis Carter.' ' This was to have been brought to me tomorrow,' my husband said. 'Carter left early this evening on foot.' ' I am sure we shall never see him alive again,' I cried, tearfully. ' The loss of the money has destroyed his reason, as well as broken his heart. No man in his senses could imagine it was any Bin to have taken

this poor little likeness. And then just see how he has ended his letter.'

It was hard and dreary work to parry the gentle inquiries made by Frances concerning the iate of her nose. I am sure that she guessed that some new misfortune had occurred of which she was not to be made aware. Before morning a new and more violent and dangerous access of fercr came on than any from which she had yet suffered. Fenella arrived early next day. I took her into my room, before allowing her to see Frances, in order to warn her against making mention of Louis Carter in the sick chamber.

I was pleased to see the younger stfrl back again, and she was most caressing and affectionate, and much subdued by her grief and anxiety about her sister. We sat close together, hand in hand, upon a low couch, while I related the history of all that had happened since she left. I concluded that she had not heard of the lost money, as for many reasons, both Frances and I had studiously avoided mentioning the organist to Fenella in our letters. I therefore began at the beginning of the story, but as I proceeded I saw, by the expression of her face, that 1 was telling her no news. There was a gleam of angry enjoyment in her eyes, I fancied, as I dwelt upon the distress and suffering caused by the disappearance of the pocket book. At last I was shocked to see a smile of malicious pleasure hovering about her lips.

I dropped her hand suddenly. * Fenella,' I cried, with bitter reproach in my voice,' ' will you never allow me to forgive you for all the trouble you have caused, for all the mischief you have done ? Do you know that I believe the loss of this money has resulted in the death of Louis Carter, as good and honorable and kind a man as ever lived ; and that it is most probable Frances will also die when she discovers how matters are now ?'

While I was speaking the bright glow of health faded quickly out of Fenella's face. Her features assumed an expression of horror and alarm, such as I had never seen displayed] in any countenance before. She shrank away from me, uttering a moan of terrible distress. I knelt down beside her, and spoke more gently, being now full of self-reproach for my harshness. As soon as she could recover herself sufficiently, however, she rose up, and pushed me away from her. She then covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears.

' Do not touch me,' she cried passionately, shuddering as she spoke. ' I can never be happy in all my life again, for I am a murderer. I had his money safe all this time. I only kept it to revenge myself upon him.' It was as she said. When she got into the railway carriage at the junction, the evening she left Redchester, she almost immediately found a pocket-book at her feet. She opened it, and saw that it contained a good deal of money ; but she also perceived, at once, who the owner was; and, on the spot, she resolved to keep her discovery private for a time, so as to punish the organist for what she called his barbarous ill-treatment of her, by letting him think that his property was irretrievably lost. She had, of course, no idea that the notes really belonged to the Redchester bank, nor did she at all suspect their value, for she never gave more than a cursory glance at the contents of her prize. ' I thought it would be dishonourable to pry into his secrets,' she Sobbed forth. ' I think your conscience must have also warned you that it was neither honourable nor Christian like to delay, even for one unnecessary hour, restoring the pocket-book to its owner,' I said sadly. 'lt did, it did,' she cried, in an agony of remorse. * But I persuaded myself that it was all fair to punish him. I tried to think I was doing everything that was necessary when I brought the thing back, untouched, to you, to return to him.'

It would be quite impossible for me to give any just idea of how terribly distressing I found that day. Frances lay at death's door, and Fenella sat beside jher, hour after hour, looking indiscribably miserable; while I wandered about from room to [room, unable to rest anywhere. The weather was oppressively hot, and the scorching beams of tbe July sun were blazing in all directions. Towards evening, however, a light breeze sprang up, and came, wafting refreshment to us, from the west. I went out on the steps to enjoy it, when tbe twilight shadows were gathering over the half-deserted town.

I was leaning against the door post, with my eyes closed, when I felt a hand upon my arm, although I had heard no approaching footstep. I looked up, and saw at my side, what I took, at first, to be the wraith, or ghost, of my poor friend, Louis Carter. But it was he, himself. He wore no hat, and looked as though he had been fiercely buffeted by the storm of the previous night: his clothes were laden with dust. He stood before me, stooping under the weight of unutterable weariness and depression. ' You see, I could not rest, after all, until I had bidden you farewell in person,' he said. ' I could not lie down in peace, also, without knowing for certain that Frances had gone before me. Some one had said she was dying, just before I went away from this. Was it true ?'

'She is not dead,'l said. 'She is asleep, and will recover. Come and see her.' I held his arm with both my hands, and drew him within the doorway, up the stairs, and into my little friend's room. She was not sleeping, as I had fancied. She saw and recognised her lover at once, seeming in no way disconcerted or surprised at his strange and wild appearance. 'You have come at last, then,' she said, softly. 'lam so glad, and lam sure, now, that the money must soon be found.; 'lt has been found already,' I cried, joyfully. ***** And thus everything came right iu the end, after all; more right, at least, than could have been expected; for though Frances recovered, and married the man she loved, the Louis Carter who returned to us that evening was never again quite what he had once been. There are afflictions sent to some of us which leave a sting for ever, as regards this life. His trial had been of this description. In this world it is hard to straighten that which has once been made crooked; and Fenella, with all her sincere and bitter repentance, could not restore physical strength and energy to the man she had injured. She has been much sobered and improved by all that has happened, and she has lately married my brother. Thus neither of the girls became a governess.