LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1376, 13 July 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

PAUL CJTiNTRBY'S DAUGHTER

(Continued.) ' Where have you been Margaret ?' he asked : and his voice was steely and incsive, like the axe of an executi >ner.

' Hou't ask me to-night,' she pleaded in pitiful bewilderment, shrinking at every nerve.

' I did not expect you to answer. Unfor tunately I know—or fear I know. Chauci to >k me to the old theatre to-uight ; and I thought I saw you amidst the daucers I could scarcely be mistaken in th*t fac Q , in that shining hair. Were you there, or not?'

He hoped she would give him an indignant denial. He would believe her against the evidence of his own senses. But Margaret Chantrey would have cut off her right hand sooner than utter an untruth. ' I waa there.'

A sharp pang, as of a knife's point, pierced Riohard Ashburton's heart. Worse than all, he thought she stood there before him bold and defiant. Ah I how our best friends misjudge us because a tesr sometimes comes too late. It seemed to Margaret that she should fall on the iioor at hi 3 very feet; the room swam round ti her tired and excited brain Bitter angor was aroused within him, bitter scorn lay in his tone.

' So,' he »aid, ' the old life that we had striven to lead you to forget has a stronger hold upon you than gratitued. It is as my mother predicted.' Iho 'e are moments in the lives of snme women when a sudden revelation lifts them np to a heaven of perfect love and trust. It plunged Margaret into a gulf of black despair. Child as they had always considered her, she knew now that she loved Richard Ashburton with a woman's enduring f assion. But his tone, his stern face, misled her. What was she to him ? Nothing Just the contemptible little waif they had saved, and nothing higher or better. Yes ! she might (as she believed) as well lay her soul bare to the crowd, before whom she had danced tonight, as to this man. He and his mot her had deemed her a toy, pretty enough to be played with ; but far beneath them in all the finest relations of life. And she loved him! Sue knew it now - she loved him ; and he despised her as a thing of scorn. Poor Margaret Chantrey's heart seemed braaking then.

4 You know you were to give up all old associates, to blot out that past life and forget it,' he resumed in his coldest tone—for indeed this escapade was trying him sore'y. 'Margaret, it pains me to say it, but there has been a course of duplicity persevered in that °ne would hardly credit in a mere child. For this pan must have been in your mind for months and you must have been waiting for an opportunity to put it into execution. It is not possible that you should dance as you danced to night without long and constant practice. What can you say to mv mother? Is this a fitting reward for hor kindness ?'

He had already judged and condemned her; aud, false though his assumptions were, Bhe could not defend herself, she elapsed her small white hands together and thee was a curious flickering of the lines about the mouth. One wild impulse crossed her soul; to fling herself at his feet and plead for a little tenderness. Could she dare to do it ?

Hesitating, she raised her eyes. How coll aod pitiless he looked ; how sternly condemning. No, though phe fell On her knees, a penitent, and told the truth, he would not believe her; she could see that. 4nd then rushed over herpelf a most condemning, exaggerated view of the step she had taken ; she saw how false it had been, how impossible that it uould ever be recalled. All the intoxication, the triumph, the glamour, and the glitter looked mest unreal to her now. • Let me go 1' she exclaimed, with a cry of anguish. ' You are cruel!' • C'ruol! What have I done ? Have we not both tried to lead you to fo get the poverty, and toil, and evil of the past? Have we not cared for you tenderly, surrounding you with luxury ? -yet the old life is stronger than it all. But you will have to choose between us; to renounce one or the other.'

She flew past him like a wild, hunted thing, up the broad stairs to her own room, and locked the door. He doubted her. He believed she could be base, and vile, and full of black deceit! He might forgive, but he could never, never love her What mad folly in her to think that could ever have been I Mrs Ashburton wanted him to marry his cousin that rich girl who was there so constantly She had fancied that he did not care for that girl; but she must have been mistaken. And to stay here, to see another worshipped with all the trust and confidence of his soul—to stay and be nothing to him; worse thin nothing ; no, she could not bear that. Better that she should £0 back to the old life. So reasoned this inexperienced but impassioned girl. And in ber foolishness, her desolation, she took a fatal step. Eichard Ashburton sat a long while over his late break'astthef llowing morning, and yet Margaret came not. Mrs Ashburton. who had come home very late indeed, and felt weary, had not yet risen. He paced the library in tumult and impatience, waiting for Margaret | she, he supposed, was weary too; and he wantsd her to come, that he might tell her how harsh he had been the past night At mid-day Wilson entered her room. No Margaret was there. On the table lay a brief n t'e, addressed to him. ' I have gone back to the old life.' « I always felt a little afraid,' confessed Mrs Ashburton in hor smooth and titately ston. • There was a taint of it iti her blood, an alien, gipsy element. Poor Paul! What a pity he should have wricked himself by marrying that Italian singer V

Three years had and gone since Margaret Chantrey left her home of luxury and beauty. They had not found her. Left it for what? Richard Ashburton often asked himself the question. He had been cold and stem to her that night; pitiless, indeed, for his disappointment in her had proved so deep and bitter. But he knew now that the light in her face, which he had termed hardness and duplicity, must have sprang from truth and honor. P-oliah, daring, and Quixotic as th« ste!>she had taken that night, in dancing, had been he wished with his whole repentant heart that he had mt)t it differently. He had bceu very grave before, bat now a shadow seemed to hmg abnit him. His mother, with a woman's intuition. gue?sed that Margaret had been more to him than a bright, winsome child, 'Yet it is best they should be separa'ed,' she told hc-eelf j but told it with a sigh, for there was some pity in her nature a-» well as pride, Kiohard could not be made to understand the wrong it would be to his chi dren to give them such a mother. In this, the third year, Kichard Ashburton went on the Continent, and made there a 'oug sojourn ; now ha'ting in this place, now in that. In the last place he stopped at, a little obscure Italian town, fever had broken out, and he took it. '.I he inhabitants had, so many as could, run away in fright, leaving neith r women or nurses for the sick. Mr Ashburton had it bidly. For a week or two he was quite out of his senses, But his strong cocstitution had finally conquered the disease, and the balmy April sunshine was doing the rest. ' I owe my life to you, "Dr Riagai,' he said thankfully one morning. 'My mother will know how to thank you.' The little, swarthy Italian doctor rubbed his hands together. ' It waH a bar -1 fight, signor. but the credit is not all mine. Yet, the signora bade me never mention it.

' Tho sig ora I' exclaimed Richard, with a puzzled expression, ' i he women all run away, you know, and we could get no nurses. It might have badly with you hut tha* a beautiful English lady heard of your case aid came to nurse you herself. She never left you until the danger was past, and you

were recovering consciousness, You owe your life to her more than to me.' ' Who was this English lady ?' ' I forget her name just now. Those English names are puzzling to us Italians. She speaks our language, as a native, though, and ahe in so beautiful: an angel's face with bright; golden hair.' A i-tran.e idea brought a thrill to Richard Ashburton's weakened frame. Speaking Italian as a native— irith beautiful golden hair!

' Was she young, doctor ?' ' Qu te young.' 'So you think the name was Chantrey ?' ' Shan-tree ? But yes. it is like that. I did not want her to stay here : she had not the health for it: but she quietly told me she must and should.' ' What is the matter with her?' asked Kichard quickly. 'That malady that "some of you English, have,' answered the doctor, tapping his chest. ' And now she has taken the fever through nursing you. But sLe has it slightly.' ' Taken the fever from me! Good heavens !' added Richard, falling back on the sofa cushions.

• She saved your life,' said the little doctor, in his straightforward "aimer. 1 And though the fever has not been severe, she has little strenght. If you would like to send a message ' Ashburton feared he knew what that meant.

'Yes,'he answered, with a strange hush in his tone, ' I would like to send a message. When are you going ? Is it far ?' ' Half a league, perhaps. I shall go out again at four.'

' Call as you pass,' was the brief response. Dr Biagi waa not wrong when he fancied that Mr Ashburton intended to go himself. He made no objection after examining his pulse. A little vine-embowered cottage with a sturdy peasant woman for mistress. Within, the slender form of a watcher, who came forward with an anxious face. It was Lina du Puy. The explanation of the past may be given in a few brief words.

( To he continued.)