LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 819, 6 February 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

TOO LATE TO MEND. (Concluded.') * What have you been doing with yourself all this afternoon 'l' Stine remarked to me. ' Oh, I've been turning over the books in your library. They look very new, old fellow ; I suppose you are not much given that way. By the bye, though, if a lady discovers a gentleman asleep, she may, by a certain osculatory process, win a pair of gloves. Does the reverse hold good ?' ' I should think so,' replied Bob, with a smile. ' Well,' I continued, ' then I have lost a splendid chance; for when I entered the library, whom should I find reclining on the sofa, in a state of peaceful somnolency, but the beauteous Mrs Dukke.' • Ho, ho, ho !' laughed Runkin; ' was that the fat old lady that sat opposite V ' Don't you let her hear you speak like that, Runkin, old boy,' observed Bob, unless you wish to see something startling 'in the shape of spontaneous combustion; which is the mildest consequences I can conceive of an insult to Mrs Waddleton Dukkc. You don't know, perhaps, that she is the last representative of a thousand heroes.' 'A thousand fiddlesticks!' responded Runkin contemptuously, as he tilled his tenth glass of sherry. I had been keeping count out of curiosity. ' I see you have Dixon's Spiritual Wives in yonr library,' I remarked to Bob. ' Why Bob,' interrupted Runkin, with a drawl and and a mischievous look about the corners of his mouth, ' I thought it was old Josh Trale's lot you took over.' These words acted upon Stine as the lighted fuse to a train of gunpowder. Rising in a whirlwind of passion, he shouted,

' You mean lying skunk! Am Ito be tortured by such as you? Say what you please and be d dto you V I started to my feet and hesitated. What could I say to put matters right, not knowing even the cause of the rupture. i i unkin sat perfectly unruffled and serene. After draining his glass he drawled out, * I am grieved at you, really I am. C-can't you tai>o a joke V Bob sat down again, chafing yet undecided and helpless. What could a man do against such fishlike impassivity ? llunkin now turned to me; perhaps as being more appreciative. ' Ar'nt you an old friend of my old chum's?' ' Yes,' I answered. ' And he has never told about our little game at Salt Lick ?' 1 No,' I answered. I was beginning to see my way now. ' Never told yeu! Well, by all that's rum !' He should have said, 'by all that's sherry.' Bob again stood up and glared at Runkin. I could see that it required but little more and the latter would find himself in a very queer situation. Bob was calculated to leave a very palpable mark when his hand fell in anger ; a fact which perhaps penetrated Runkin's brain, despite its soaked condition, for he now turned to Bob and said, 'lt sha'n't go any further, old chum. We won't let the new missis into the secret. But Cheesy—an old friend —'tain't fair. You should have seen him sitting, as solemn as any other saint, in the bosom of his family. Let me see! Old Josh had seven, hadn't he? Yes, that was the number. Seven wives, and twenty—twenty-two —twentysix, counting the last pair of twins—twentysix olive-branches. Eight of them in arms, and eight just able to walk. Rather a responsibility for a young man.' Notwithstanding my horror at such a disclosure, stamped as true by the miserable silence with which Bob listened to it, I could scarcely help laughing. Runkin continued in great glee (the man was a thorough fiend): ' I met the whole boiling of them, with some dozen of the youngsters at New York. It was in the Nation advertising office. They had just put in an advertisement, begging Robert Stine to return to. his sorrowing family. You might have heard their screams ten miles off when they caught sight of me. They thought of course, you were just behind ; but when they found out their mistake, didn't I get a mauling ! Tho young uns almost tore the clothos off my back, and Joanna and Violet went into violent hysterics at once ; whilst Lucy—' The door flew suddenly opeu, and in the entrance stood Ida, erect and silent: her face was perfectly white even to her lips; and in her eyes glowed the rage and jealousy which it had almost killed her to restrain. She looked like an avenging angel as she stood, pale and motionless, with her gaze fixed upon her husband. In a vaice scarcely above a whisper, she said, taking off her wedding ring and throwing it beneath her feet, • Robert Stine, thus do I spurn you and the foul love you have offered me. You see me now for the last time. Ida went, and Stine—who had appeared as one stunned while she spoke—turned to me with a faint smile upon his lips, and then fell back insensible into my arms. Runkin was nowhere; but with the assistance of one of the servants, who were all standing agape, I carried Bob to his room raving with brain-fever. Day and night, for ten weeks, I was constantly at his bedside. He could not bear me away. During that time I heard such a tangled confession of wild deeds, mingled with such piteous contrition, that many a time my heart bled for him, and I could scarcely restrain the tears which rose to my eyes as T bent over his couch, and strove in vain to bring comfort to the wrung heart. On the broad brow was written, in burning characters, ' Reason is no more!' But the most heart-rending scenes were those in which recollection of his passion-ately-loved wife came back to him, when he made the room echo to the name of Ida. Pitiful beyond description were the tones in which he entreated his wife to forgive him, to leave the past untold, but to forgive. Once he cried with terrible violence, ' A lie, one lie, and I might be happy!' Then I wondered and pitied him the more, for I knew that he had suffered ere he purchased that fleeting moment of reconciliation. Oae Sunday evening, on the day before he died, I was reading softly to him one of those infinitely tender passages from Isaiah's great inspired poem, when the door was gently opened, and Ida, without saying a word or taking the slightest notice of me, stepped across to Bob's bedside. Her face was pale, but besides that there was not the slightest indication of emotion. Bending low over his scarcely conscious form, she placed her lips to his, and a tear fell from her eyes, and hung like a dewdrop in the dark hair that lay long and loose upon the pillow. Then withont hesitation she turned and left aa silently as she had entered. I think Bob must have recognised his visitant, for from that moment until his death his face wore an expression of calm and manly resignation, in the place of that haggard weariness to which I had become so familiar. With Bob's death ended my knowledge of his affairs. I had no acquaintance with his relations, and desired none. All inquiries that I made after his widow were fruitless. She disappeared entirely from society. Will it be a cause for wonder if I say that Autumn never comes round, with her wailing winds, her faded flowers, and waning lights, without bringing to my heart sad thoughts and memories ? That scornful laugh, which was so bitter to me, has died away into the region of dead sounds ; but I am still Alfred Cheesman solus, given up at last by even the most sanguine matrons as an unreclaimable bachelor. Mrs Waddleton Dukkc once called upon mo in town, to express hor contempt for Bob and hifi relatives, and her inextinguishable regret that a lineal descendant of the great Van Roost Dukke should have lived in the same house with them; but I so comported myself on the occasion that I have never again been favoured.