LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1039, 24 October 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ONE WOMAN’S TREACHERY,

“ Argossy. ”

(Continued'.} But all this put a great barrier between her and Mr Hastings—at least, between their meetings. He thought it was Dora’s fault, and a slight coolness had arisen in consequence. He felt inclined to be jealous of M r Charles Calloway, whose cause of banishment had leached him, though not through Dora; and she had always been somewhat jealous of the great heiress, Miss Lawrence, with whom Mr Hastings was so frequently seen. Still, she did trust him; she believed he loved her the best, and that when he -was rich enough to marryjhe would make her his wife, as he one day told her he would. She, in her unpretentious ideas, thought he was quite rich enough now for anything; he had a large salary ; but she and Mr Hastings had been brought up with quite opposite notions on that point. * When the sun-sets be at the stile at the cross road,’ he had whispered in her ear. Evening came : and just as the sun was sinking below the western hills, Dora Stevens crossed Mrs Calloway’s garden to the copse beyond. For the trysting-place was but just behind Mrs Calloway’s boundary hedge. It was the first time Dora had deliberately met him, there or elsewhere; but a few evenings before, upon returning from a walk with Miss Calloway, they had accidentally encountered him at that spot, and stayed to talk. But Dora felt rather sorry now for the tacit assent she had given to his request; she gave it on the impulse of the moment; and she meant to tell him this evening that she could not meet him again, unless openly. It was not right to do so; neither would Mrs Calloway allow it. Nevertheless, despite of conscience, her heart was foolishly light as she sped along through the rustling leaves. She sang lightly some pretty silly nonsense about the lasses oh, which one Robert Burns wrote many years ago ; wrote perchance in days when he too sat by the stile with his Highland Mary, and watched the birds hopping in the stubble, or the poppies nodding in the corn. Dora, as she drew near the trysting place, saw a shadow as of some one waiting near the stile, half hidden by the tangled branches of the copse, thick yet with leaves above and below. No need to guess who it was, thought Dora, as she pulled her pretty hat lower on her face, and pushed back her prettier hair. How good of him to come so early and wait for her. Suddenly a voice spoke ; not the voice that Dora had expected to hear. ‘ Dean, is it you ? Have you come back ?’ The voice was that of Miss Lawrence. It was Bella Lawrence who confronted Dora’s pale, surprised face with a face quite as surprised and a great deal whiter —for it was a hazardous game she was playing—and with a perfectly studied confusion in her manner. ‘ Oh, I- I beg your pardon : I thought it was some one else,’ spoke Miss Lawrence, ‘ some one who was to meet me here.’ Dora paused. Hot tears of disappointment, w r hich she could not suppress, flooded her eyes and dropped on her white cheeks. ‘You here, Miss Lawrence?’ she said, wdth struggling breath, ‘ I don’t understand. Did you speak of—of Mr Hastings?’ for a terrible fear had rushed into her mind : that it was Bella with w’hom he had sought to make the appointment, not herself. ‘You must not betray me,’ whispered Bella, with the sweetest air of timidity imaginable. ‘ You know my father is so proud, and Dean is only his clerk—but he loves me so—and we have so few opportunities to meet. You must not blame me, Miss Stevens, or think harshly of me for coming here at times to meet him. We shall not always have to be secret; when lam of age my late mother’s money will be all my own, and then we can claim each other. He told me this morning he might bs unable to keep his appointment, for he was going off on some business journey; but I—l hoped against hope, and came. And when I heard your footstep, I thought they were his. Ah, me !’ Bella clasped her soft hands together in deprecation and bent her head on them as she spoke ; and Dorothy Stevens listened with wide, wild eyes, while word following after word of that cruel lie fell on her quivering heart and smote her with a deathly cdd pain, whose sting would cling to her. And the words were fitly chosen. The girl’s allusion to her money cut keenly and closely ; Dora bit her lips to keep from crying out then. She w r as only a poor governess ; her only dowry her tender heart and sweet wild rose face, and her great absorbing love for the man who was false to her. Without one word she rose and turned to go, but Bella caught her by the arm and held her, ‘ Wait, please: how strange you a r e! Why do you look so wildly at me? You won’t betray us; promise me that you will not betray us.’ Dora drew proudly back. * I never betray. You have ray word. 1 never broke it yec? I—l am sorry 1 came.’ ‘ Why did you come? This is so unfrequented a pathway.’ A cry, in spite of herself, broke from the poor girl’s lips. There are moments in life when anguish is stronger than we are, when reticence is overborne in its whirling torrent. ‘ Oh, Heaven, help me to bear this pain l’ she sobbed ; and down she fell in a heap on the grass, and bowed her fair golden head, and rocked herself back and forth, with wild hysterical sobs, in spite of those cruel, unrelenting eyes above her. ‘What do you mean by this emotion?’ asked Bella, sternly. * What is the matter? Is it possible—but no, it cannot be. Yt the has more than once hinted of a something that might come between him and me some irksome, half-forgotten, passing amusement that clung to him like an incubus, though he was doing his best to shake it off. Is it you ? Can it bo you, you ridiculous girl ?’ Dma rose up, her face white as death, and lifted a warning hand. ‘Stop, Miss Lawrence. I will not hear another word. Ido not stand between you and your false lover ; yes, he is false, in spite of what he says to you, false and cowardly. need not fear me. I will never come between him and you. Y 7 ou need not fear him. 1 have no money to keep him, and he is free from all he has said to me. I will never speak to him again; never. You can tell him so from me. Never (To he continued.}