LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 856, 22 March 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ELLEN CAVANAGII.

A Tale of Three Stories,

[Concluded.)

I had not written to —to my brother to tell him of ths event. I preferred enjoying his surprise when I, on arriving at the Hall, should salute him with the news. I travelled quickly, and in less than a fortnight reached home. My brother, was, however, absent, and no one knew where Ave had gone. There was not even a note from him to tell me of his whereabouts. 1 have said that he was quick and impetuous, and the thought struck upon me that he had resented my uegleet, or what he might have considered such, in not writing to him. There was the fact, however, and I had to accept it. It damped my spirits not to meet him, to surprise him with the wonderful news, and, as a punishment to myself, although I was full of it, I resolved not to tell a single person |bef re my brother knew it. He should be the first, and until then the secret of my happiness should be unknown.

Let me tell you, from that day to this night, when I write my confession—from that day until you, and you alone, shall read this—no living soul but the priest and her aunt know me, George Mordan, to be a married man !

My brother I never saw again until— My brother returned to the Hall, never and one letter only came from him to me. I was engrossed, heart and soul, in the work of preparation for my bride's coming, and so the time passed, and three weeks of the month had slipped by. My wife had by that time reached Paris on her homeward journey, and in two weeks more I should meet her to take her to myself. In one week more I should start for Ireland (for travelling was not then what it is now), and I counted the hours almost before I could hold her in my arms. I have got thus far, and now the old nature, which I thought I had subdued, comes up again. I will rest a while, to nerve myself to write what yet remains. I would not have the old bad spirit of revenge return. The years that I have passed since the wound was given should at least have healed it over ; but now I find it breaks out too fresh, probed by the memories of the uni'orgotten past. The moonlight is very beautiful ; but a shadow comes aslant the heath before the house, for the moon has dipped behind the trees. 1 will walk into the gray shadow, and hido my face from the light which I, an old man, with my vengeful heart, am not lit to see. Let me pray for better feelings and forgiveness, before my life is done.

I would not for the world have told you all the rest while I walked in those shadow s. The shadows of life were heavy on me, and the bitter darkness of passion thrust aside the justice I have set myself to do. I come back now, after two hours, quieted in spirit, and, though the glorious moonlight has passed off the ground, the light within my room seems brighter, yet none too bright to look upon the picture of the past.

When I reached her home in Ireland she was not there, but a letter was t mt into my hand addressed from her to me. The sickness and the bitterness of that time, as 1 ivad it, I have just fought down and crushed, and I can now open the letter in calmness.

' How can I address you ?' she began. ' I cunnot call you husband or my dear love. I ciunot call you friend, for what I do now your worst enemy couid not hope to excel. If I call you my saviour, I must look to you for forgiveness, and that I can never hoi e for. Yet you were my saviour when i, weak in my woman's spirit, pursued by the temptation of wealth to wed an old mau, took shelter in your opened arms, and gave

' myself to you. Do not let me wound you more than I can help ; but yon know I did not love you, and only in my blind weariness of life believed my heart waa dead to such a feeling. Ifc was not, and it has come to bring repentance to me, to make me curse the day we wedded. Oh, I know I curse your life ; you are too true and honorable to have made such a vow without well knowing your own heart; but you have a man's spirit, and stand in your strength before the world. Let me tell you how it happened. When you left me—your wife in name only—to return to your home, soon, you said, to be mine, I loved you. You had been so noble, so generous, that I thought the love of which I had so often heard had come to my heart. With my aunt I journeyed from Rome, after a few days, and back as we had come; but with the succession of days my life seemed none the newer until, arrived in Paris, I met my fate. Then indeed life seemed to have another charm, and to be a different thins from what I had ever known it. Forgive me if I say that had you been with me this would not have been so, but scarcely were we wedded when I lost your society. Ido not wish to shield myself. I am criminal, I feel, as Heaven and men shall judge me ; but, by a strange circumstance thrown in his society, love seemed to come and tell me I lived in him. We travelled the same route, and one five minutes, when my aunt was not near, he told me he loved me. I was frightened and fled from him, and that same night I confessed myself to a holy father, beseeching him to give me poison that I might die. Life then was hateful to me ; I felt I loved him, and that to me you were as nothing. He only knew me by my name of Cavanagh, and his name was Mordan He was your brother, of whom 50U had so often spoken to me. Again I wished to die, and offered gold for poison f r om the monks. They sold it me, then warned me not to throw away my life. The law, they said, would hold me guiltless, and they for gold, could give me absolution As they had sold their secret poison, so would they sell their antidote of heaven—for gold. But I paid them, and jumped at the means of escape they showed me. The law was that a marriage between a Protestant and a Catholic, celebrated only in the Catholic, was not binding on the parties. It is true : and you know that the marriage in your faith was to have taken place in England. It can never be ; and the marriage between tis, which was only a ceremony, I dissolve. I marry your brother, for I love him, and my life is in his hands. The law will free you if you think lit; but lam no bigamist, for the marriage was none. When we are married, your brother then shall know my life -not before, or I might lose him. Then he may cast me off; but I will follow him to the ends of the earth aud be his slave. I love him not such love as is from heart to mouth, but from soul to soul—and him I deify. The past is dead ; and though my life, beginning from to-day, ended in a few hours, he is my all. To you I confess myself with penitence, but dare not ask absolution. • Ellen.' You know now my secret, you know the bitterness of my life; you know that I, married, am yet not married. My brother after that never returned home; knowing the secret, he blamed me for the result, and man and wife he and Ellen Cavanagh have lived. I never saw him, but I know that the money he had inherited from our father was squandered. I could not seek him, for I did not know where, aud he never came to me. i"et, after thirty years, we have met, and thu old dead past has come to life again. Michael Carter, the coiner, whom I helped to capture, against whom I appeared as a witness, whom my evidence helped to send from the world a convict, is my brother Michael Mordan! Ellen Carter is Ellen Cavanagh ! In my heart I feel that she is still my wife but cannot bear my name. What reparation I can make her must be done at once. The world does not know my story, but it may. Come down, my own dear boy (if you can forgive me and will let me look upon your face again), come down and make my will, for Ellen Cavanagh must know she is forgiven.