LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1237, 21 February 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MY Hf'HOINB.

A rgosy.

{Continued. )

‘ I have watched you—watched you night and day; I have seen it all—the pretty scenes d'amove on the road over the cliffs.’ Be was sober and in earnest.

‘Well, what of that ? You have played the spy. You know that she will be my wife ; that is enough. !'■ o more of her from you to me.’

‘ Bah ! your love-making—what do I care about it ? it isn’t that, man. I was to marry Annette,’he went on doggedly; the pere Le Houx is a son aise. I should have had his schooner, built in ’6B, La Marianne; I should have gone to Hi Hand to Sweden been quit of this cursed herring and mackerel Corjjs de Dien ! and you have stolen it all.’

* Annette’s well rid of you, if that is all you regret.’ ‘ Listen. We are making for Newhaven ; you will land there. Below you will take pen and ink and write to her, saying that you can’t marry her ; and you’ll swear by your Virgin, if you have got one, never to return to Dieppe. Do you hear ?’

‘ I hear. Vou are mad I shill land at Newhaven, if you like, but to take the steamer to Dieppe.’ ‘ You will never land anywhere.’

And his band svas at my throat, bending me backwards over the bulwark, pressing me into the jaws of death. 1 could not cry out; I was half strangled ; the salt spray blinded me. I struck out desperately at hazard, and then there was deeper night than before—the maddening gurgl-; of water in my ears, the sharp sale taste in my month and nostrels. I came panting to the surface, and the keen wintry wind secured to freeze my hair into an icy cap as my head rose above the surface, I heard Herve’s cry—- ‘ JJAnglais overboard !’

The lugger was making good speed, aud I was a bad swimmer in the fairest of weather. I tried to lloat; the waves choked me at every moment. I heard voices ou board the Virgie, angry voices it seemed to me.

‘lt is madness. You can’t live a moment in such a sea ’

‘l’ll try, tout de me me —such good Bergumly he gave us.’ 1 Dcpeche-toi, Claude. I’ll rig up a rope for you.’ The voices rose ; a brief violent discussion was going ou. The first speakers were Claude aud Barnabe, I imagined. Then I heard faint sounds of a snuggle; then som- thing plunged into the sea, aud I remember nothing more.

Chapter 111.

My first recollection is of my own quiet

ittle room in the Bollet,

.Somebody in soft

doth hrndeqvius moved across it now ard then I felt faint of hearc and mind, powerless to realise what had happened to me for many, many years. ‘ Some one there ?’ I said at last in English. ‘ Emily !’

It was the tirst woman’s name 1 could remember. lam not romantic even ou a sick-

bed. I said Emily because, being for the non-'e a schoolboy with a bad attack of measles, it seemed natural that the companion of my sick chamber should bear that name. Emily Vallance! She had undergone an extraordinary change, though. She had developed into a small shapely young woman, with short skirts, and worsted stockings, and cott >n fichus. She came to my bedside and said softly, ‘ Doucement, doucement; you are getting well.’

Of course I was, and getting lazy too ; for it seemed delightful to be lying there at full length, warm, and thinking of nothing. My head was cooler, my brain clearer, when I next woke. Emily was Annette unmistakably !

‘ I ha e been ill a long while/ I said, with that supreme iudifiVren<'e to time and seas n and locality which is oneof the chief deligh’s of sickness—a delight I evould almost catch the typhus to experience. Sir studied me critically for a moment. Her face was pale and tired and melancholy. I stretched out my hand to her, and she cam# and whispered) satisfied that I was sane and really getting well, * A lo >g while pauvre enfant, and so ill /

I had had a attack of rheumatic fevei; that lasted three weeks, during which I ha,d been delirious. But, once the fever

spent, my recovery was rapid. I was young, of vigorous constitution, active habits, and I rebounded from a three weeks’ sick bed with all the elasti -ity such advantages give one. And yet it was pleasant there, in the curtained room, my d- sk and papers in sight, and in ray mind ail the vague dreams, the shapeless p> eras; the s cletonsof books they evoked. Annette oo'dd nut be with me so often after the first days of convalescence. Lcs Convenances were studied slightly, even in the Pollet. Madame le Houx allowed her to come np once or twice a day, to warm my tisane-tissue of auimau'e, of poppie - ', of gentian, it was their panacea—to bring my letters, dust the room, &c. !She opened the letters, and answered them for me when my correspondent could be safely addressed in French. I found, noor child, that she had been studying English, and really with marvellous results rhe could understand the general import of the most barbarous business missive in which * Yours to hand’ and

’Acct. currt ’ were not too. frequent And she had accomplished this all alone, with the sole intuition of love.

‘ I c ni l not bear to hear you speak and not understand,’ she said in the broken hesitating English which L correct. ‘And nobody has given yon lessons ?’ ‘Nobody. \5 ho could, here, to a simple fisherman’s daughte-? I have lesson hooks. The cure lent me some, and an English lodger wo once had left a few volumes . ’

I had no*' spoken of the night passed on board the Y'igie, and Herve’s name had not been mentioned. I had risen, and was sitting in ray dressing gown b. fore the flaming logs, when I first spoke of him. ‘And Herve— is he well?’

I had no wish to denounce the lad, and spoke in an indifferent tone. Hut she stopped short. She was arranging my pipe's, and looked at me fixedly with a fleeting colour in her cheeks. ‘ Herve ! He is well, I think. And that reminds me M. Je Docteur wants to speak to you to-day.’ This was the visit I dreaded. We were in the fourth week of January ; a month’s prescriptions and visits and medicines ! What would be left of my slender stock when everything was paid! Should Ibe obliged to return to London, with my novel unfinished, two months before the appointed time? Here was the weariness of the world seizing me again when I had just missed the gates of death. The doctor was blithe and familiar, something between the fisherman’s doctor and the medical confidant of Parisian gommeuees en vUlegiature. But his round rosy face darkened, grew wonderfully serious, when Annette had left us together. He began with an important air—

‘You don’t intend to stay here long, M. Yallance ?’

I was slightly indignant. W*s the man anxious about his bill?

‘ Yes, I do —two or three months.’ * Don’t, mem cher monsieur, don’t. 1 Why, I ca’»e here to work j my work is not completed, and ’ He bent forward, more important than ever.

‘ When you were brought here by the sailor Claude, and I was sent for, 1 found recent bruises about your neck—the marks of a man’s (ing rs You raved a little, and what I heard helped me to the conclusion that yon had better not stay here. You are really not safe here.’ It was not his bill, it was his patient’s life, the little doctor was anxious about, 1 You know, then ?’ * I know that young Le Houx hears the reputation of a gaillard, who knows how to keep his own, and I believe he regarded Mdile. Annette as his.’

* Her money, you mean,’ I said indignantly. 'Maybe. But eril things are said in the town about what goes on he e, I may tell you in confidence that the eommissaire intends to inquire into the matter Claude and Barrabe have let out some damaging facts about that night when —well, when you fell overboard. Herve wd surely be arrested if you remain here. You gone, all will blow over ; and if you stay il recommencera,’ with au expressive gesture.

K 7h he continued .)