LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1281, 27 April 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

SUNSHINE AND SHADE. By F. Garrett. [Tinsley. ] ( Continued.) ‘ I will come/ she said; and they went out among the flower beds. ‘ What is it you have to say to me ?’ she asked defiantly, standing straight before him in the gravel path. The tone of the question was not encou raging, and Mr Dodson felt rather at a disadvantage ; but he was an obstinate man when once his mind was made up, so he answered, calmly enough to all appearance, ‘ I want to ask you to be my wife. I beleive you will be 1 ‘ Never/ she answered passionately. *My love is buried under the sea, they say, but no man living shall fill his place. I suppose papa and mamma have encouraged you to say this to me, but let me tell you, once for all, it is no use. I hate home/ she added passionately. 1 1 would leave it to-morrow gladly if I could, but not with yon—not with you. There, why do you wait ? you have ray answer. ’ * Mary, reflect npon all I offer you—my position, my home ’ But she responded never a word; only turned, and walked back to the house. Yet this iron willed man by no means despaired of future success. The thin edge of the wedge - had been inserted, and he could afford to wait. And what woman in proof against a strong man’s determination ? It is easy to swear everlasting fidelity to a memory, and to keep the vow if circumstances are favourable thereto; but far oftener a continual dropping wears away the stone, and frail woman bends beneath the inexorable will of a master spirit.

Mary was no exception to the rule. ‘ I do not love you ; I don't believe I ever shall love you/ she said at last, without changing for an instant the cold unimpassioned manner which was becoming habitual to her ; ‘ but if that satisfies you it shall be as you wish.’ And it did satisfy Mr Dodson. What he chiefly wanted was a wife who would be a dignified mistress of his stately home, a worthy adjunct to his worthy self. What cared he for love or passion or tenderness ? They were mere unmeaning words to him, and a woman who should bestow or crave them would have been to him simply a wearisome encumbrance.

So it came to pass that one fine June morning, more than two years after Tom Hunton’s disappearance, Mary went to pay a farewell visit to her old nurse

‘ J etty, I have come to say good-bye to you, lam going to be married to. morrow/ sho said, as she entered the cottage. * So the folks telled me, and an evil day it was for me when I heard it. Child, you don’t love this man ?’ asked the wrinkled old woman.

1 No, I don’t love him, nurse ;’the frank, matter-of-course way in which the words were spoken made them doubly touching. * Then forgive me, Miss Mary, but you should not do it. You will live to repent the day.’ ‘ I daresay. But I’m so tired I feel as if I cared for nothing. There are so many months and years of life to spend yet. It matters very little where they pass, 1 hate home, and this seems the only way of getting out of it. Mamma and papa have worried me to death lately. I could have borne it better if they had let me alone ’ ‘ Hush, Miss Mary, hush, 1 said the old woman, who had watched over her childhood, and been the recipient of her earliest confidences. * I can’t bear to hear children speak ill of their parents Ye’ve been sorely tried, my poor lamb, and from my heart 1 pity ye. But ye’ll forgive me saying yo should have had patience and have waited on. Maybe Mr Huntou will come home yet.’ * He’s dead, nurse, he’s dead,’ she waded, dropping her face into hex hands ; ‘ I shall never see him again.’ ‘ I don’t know ; somehow I can’t rid myself of the notion that he’ll be back, and then it will be too late for both of ye.’ ‘ He never will, nurse ; besides, I’ve given my word, and I won’t go back. 'Wnat does it matter ? I don’t care ;’ and she got up we oily from her seat and went away, with a drooping head and languid step, more utterly hopeless than many words. The next day there was a long wedding procession to Standrop church, and a pale bride arrayed in satin and lace knelt before the altar, and promised to ‘love, honor, and obey’ the manat her side. And John Brindley podgoft took Cautuare Con bjs 1 wedded

wife until death do us part but she shuddered as she beard the s lemn words, and the tears fell fast under her plentifully be sprigged veil. The bystanders of course attributed them to the natural timidity of a young girl leaving home to enter on a new and untried life, and little dreamed they were shed for a dead man lying deep down under the distant sea, whose requiem the winds and the waves had long ago chanted. Part IY. Mr and Mrs Dodson went on tire usual wedding tour, and then settled quietly down iu their own house —ohe, spiritless and impassive as ever, doing her duty, otherwise her husband’s will, as a mere automaton might; ho, well satisfied to have found a wife so amenable to his lightest wish. But when the corn was carried, and the harvest thanksgiving was over, the long lost sailor came home to claim his bride, and found her Mr Dodson’s wife. ' I must see her, I must see herthat was the one idea which made the first night of that sad home-coming a prolonged agony. He had been in perils by land and water; he had been wounded in fight, fallen overboard, and rescued by a savage tribe from a watery grave, only to be kept in a captivity one shade less hopeless than death. Yet none of these things moved him as a woman’s weakuer-s did now; for through all his trials the hope of her constancy had sustained him, and her voice had kept constantly repeating in his ear, ‘ You will never forget me ’ And yet after those weary years of waiting ho had returned home to find she had forgotten him, and forgotten him without remedy. But he must see her at any rate. He could not nerve himself to face the cruel world again without one glimpse of the woman who ho had fondly hoped would have made it a paradise for him S a with many misgivings he found his way to her house, and waited in a strange state of excitement until she came to him. A quarter cf an hour went slowly by ; then a geatlo step s unded along the passage, a slight noise at the door-handle, and Mrs Dcdaon glided quietly iu. Apparently she had been nerving herself for the meeting iu the short interval since she received his card ; for she walked directly up to her visitor, outwardly far the less agitated of the two, and gave him her hand as she said,

‘ Good morning, Mr Hunton,’ That was all--as though they had parted yesterday, 1 and would meet again on tho morrow. But amidst the common-places of the words the cold, hard, passionless tone fell mournfully on the young man’s ear. How she was altered too from the Mary he had left but a few months before ! He gazed at her long and earnestly ; but his quivering lips could frame no reply to her ordinary salutation.

‘Sit down, won’t you?’ she said, as she pointed to a chair. He obeyed her; and then again, for several minutes, there was silence between them.

‘They told mo you were dead,’ she said at last, quietly as before, but he felt the strong restraint she 'was putting upon herself

* Yes ; I was taken prisoner and detained in a captivity worr-e than death. I cannot bear to think of it. But I came home as soon as I could,’

‘ They told me you were dead/ she repeated again, unheeding his words, and speaking more, as it were, to satisfy her own heart than for his benefit. * They told me you were dead ; and I was so unhappy and so miserable at home, and no news came frem you, and then at last they persuaded me. And now you are back, and I can be nothing to you.' He guessed from the forlorn words how it had all come about. She had, then, never forgotten him. ‘ Mary, Mary, don’t speak like that!’ he exclaimed passionately. ‘ Let me think you cared a little for him. Don’t make my trouble greater than I can bear.’ * My own love/ she answered, forgetting everything in the face of this appeal, ‘ would to God 1 could have borne it all!

‘ You casnot, you cannot/ be said, * All that weary time in captivity I dreamt of you at night, and longed for you by day. _ I lived only on the hope of meeting you again; and now—’

And the strong man buried his face iu his hands, and wept. ‘ Tom I* She called him for the first time by his Christian name, and there was something in her voice which caused him to look up at her. ‘ Tom, you must not upbraid me; I cannot bear it.’

‘ You love me, then--you love] me yet 1’ he cried.

‘ God forgive me!’ she moaned. And then all her hardly maintained composure gave way, and she wept such passionate tears as had never eased her aching heart since the eve of her weddingday. ‘Tell me, Mary," just this once/ he pleaded, his self control rapidly forsaking him, ‘ that you have not forgotten the promise you gave me long ago.’ He rose from his chair, and, walking across the room to where she sat, laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘We are one in heart yet/ he continued, utterly regardless where his words were leading him, ‘ and nothing on earth shall come between us.’ But even as he spoke the sun broke through the veil of clouds that had obscured it all the morning, and streamed fall into the room ; and one stray ray fell straight upon the lady’s hand, and lit up with a dazzling glow the tiny gold circlet on her linger. Tom’s eyes involuntarily followed the sunbeam, and rested there too. And the clouds gathered again, and the radiance died away, as ho looked, for the sun had done its work that morning, and saved two souls. In an instant Tom’s strength came to him again. Be took the hand which bore the ring in his, and gazed at it long and earnestly. ‘Mary/ he said at last, and his lips were white and quivering as he spoke, ‘ I must go now.’ ‘So soon, so soon !’ she murmured. ‘ I cannot bear—’ ‘ This ring stands between us, I see now/ he interrupted her hastily; ‘we cannot be friends merely, and more we must not be. I shall never see you again, my one love; but God bless you, and keep you, and make you happy all the days of your life. I shall never forget you. You are more to me than all the world; but because of the very love I hear you I must leave you for ever. Good, bye, darling!’ She knew it was better so, and yet there arose a wild longing to keep him near her — a straining a struggling after the love she had cherished so long. It was the hour of a woman’s weakness, and he, whenever for an instant had faltered in his allegiance to her, upheld her now. ‘ My love/ he whispered, as he placed his hand for an instant on her shoulder—and the firm touch thrilled through her full of strengthening comfort —‘ it is because I love you so much I would spare you future sorrow. You will say good-bye to me ?’ ‘Good-bye/ she murmured through her sobs, while he took her hand, and held it with a long loving pressure, which told more than many words; and, almost before she realised they were really parting, he was gone. Then she knew she should see him no more ; and she buried her face in her hands, and wept over the living far more bitter tears than those with which she had bewailed the dead. (To he continued.)