LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1395, 5 August 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MRS FITZGF'RiLD,

By Frank Barrett,

(Continvrd.) Chapter 111.

' 14, Rupert street, lambeth

'My Dear Wife, I have returned to England, jjjand here I am. Let me know where I can find you, as I want the banknotes I left in your care. If you would prefer not seeing me, send them here in a registered letter, and I won't trouble you any more, • Your affectionate husband, 'Reginald Fttzgirald.'

This was the letter Mary read in bewildered astonishment. Sho was ashamed of the feeling which asserted itself predominant in her bosom, and wondered how she. who had so long hoped for his letter, should receive it with regret. For cne moment —only a moment—she thought of sending the notes by letter, and then loathed herself for harboring an intention so base even for an instant. i 'I am a worthless creature,' she said, rising to her feet and stamping, as though the tempting Satan was under her foot. She read the letter again. There was not a word of feeling for her in it, and he who had written it was all his enemies had said of him. From the loveless letter her eyes turned to the flowers which George TVlontcy had given her that morning—for he continued the custom c -mmenced thirteen years before —and now she felt the loss she must sustain. And he, poor George ! how would he bear this final disappointment? She wept upon her pillow, not for herself, but for him. She wrote to him and to her husband, and posted the letters that niglit. She wont to

bed, but not to sleep. In the morning she told her landlady whom to expect, and then waited, striving to compose herself, that she might meet her husband without betraying the repugnance her uresent conception of his character occasioned.

' TT:! is my husband, and I ought to love him,'she thought. She had taken him for better of worse, and, however contradictory it appeared to her, who, was bound by the teres of that covenant to honor him.

There came footsteps upon the stair, am 1 , the excited landlady, opening the door Bharply, whispered with bated breath, 'He's here, 'm, and fell back.

Reginald Fitzgerald was so altered that Mary hesitated ti address him His f ice was fat and adorned with a ragged beard. Dissipation had puffed his bloodshot eyes, and a white scar ran from his right brow acr ss his nose and down his left cheek. His hair was unkempt, his skin tanned and freckled. Ho took a dirty hand from his pocket, and removed his fur cap, which, with a pea-jacket and boots, such as navigators assume, were the distinguishing articles of his dress. His height, the color of his eyes, and bis teeth, were all that recalled to Mary the gay Rcgintfd Fitzgerald of the past. ' You don't remember me, Mary,' said he seeing her hesitattion. 'Well I'm not surprised. I left j'ou a swell, and come back a rough. I've had a rough time of it, too. Been in the galleys seven years for a job in France. Didn't get off there as I did here ; but I bolted before my time was up. Served before the mast and took to buffalo-catching in South / merica. Thirteen years of that life takes the d (beg your pardon), take?. the nonsense out of a man. Don't shake han's with me. Sit down. I'll do the samo. I'm a better man now -convict, thief, and a bad lot altogether as I am—than when I tricked you into marrying mo. IV not forgotten that. I have some respect for woman now, and that's more than I had then. Women are the only creatures that have been good to me. They're the same all the world over. Ses this scar—got that from a ranchoro for trying to do mischief to a woman ; and, bury me, if the only one who would sew up my wound was'nt the very woman I'd tried to injure. They're the same all round. Are you married ?' ' Only to you, Reginald.' ' There's another proof of woman's goodness ! I've married two women since I married you, and left 'em—so muoh the better for them. Well, I'm not going to lame you again. I have no claim on you, and s'-a'n't pretend to one. You're legally free. I believe, after seven years' separation, "hat don't matter; I'm dead, as good as, when I leave this room. If you have a sweetheart knocking around, marry him—you'll be a fool if you don't: I won't trouble you, s'elp my —. Yes, I'm thundering hard up, or I wouldn't be here now ; but I thought if y u hadn'c blued the flimsies —' 'Eh?'

' Changed the notes.' 'They are all here,' said Mary, giving him the packet she had prepared for his coming.

' Well, you are a brick ; but no better than your sex. God bless me. if we wer* all woman there would be nothing wotse than folly in the world. And you haven't blued one ?' ' Not one.' ' WeU, I.never ! Then I'm a made man. Very likely I'll drink myself off with these, and for your sake I'll get my pals to let you know when that happens. Asa matter of curiosity I should like to know if you believed all I told you about those notes ?' 'Of course I did.'

' And you never suspected that I stole 'era and gave 'em to you that the beaks shouldn't get at 'em?' * O Reginald !' ' Well, I don't know to draw the line—fools and good women are so wonderfully close together. There, now I've got what I came to England for ; and I tell you your fidelity is just what I expected, though it does knock me over with surprise. I spent my last dollars in a passage home on the strength of my faith in you ; as I was saying, now I've got all I wanted I'll just take myself off. I won't ask you to shake my hand—it's not clean. 'Tisn't only dirt that fouls it. I should be afraid the lightening or something wonld strike me dead if I took all the advantage I might of your goodness. I'm not so bad as all that. A sort of reverence for women is the only spark of decency that has come to me in exchange for all the inherited virtues I have discarded.'

Mary could uot speak. The blow was heavier than she could bear. She eat to save herself from falling. Her pallor so scared bcr husband that he, fearing a scene, rose with the notes in his hand and slouched towards the door.

' Don't take on, Mary,' said he, gently opening the door for a retreat. 'As 1 said, I owe you too much to ask for more, and i'Jl just take myself away and trouble you no more. You needn't fear that I shall worry you. I'll just send the old lady of the house up to you. It's all right, Mary, I swear. You won't see me again. Make yourself quite easy ; all right, all right.' He had gradually worked himself out on to tho landing, and now softly closed the door.

He was gone. Mary started from her seat to follow, and then sauk back again. What could she say to this man ? Could she make use to this villian of the tender words she had prepared for the return of her heart's ideal ? Sfer soul revolted against contact with the wretoh, whose brutality was unredeemed by a vestage of love for her. He thought less of her years of sorrow than of her honesty in keeping his stolen property for him. All that was repulsive in his voice and manner and appearance she would have overlooked had ho shown the slightest possession of affection for her. She would have given her life willingly to reviving love in her husband's heart; but love have never lived there, and her warmth could not be imparted to the cold inanimate clod, though she caressed it until her bosom froze. Her pride wrs broken. She could no longer defend him whom so long she had worshipped as a god, who now showed himself a devil. She did not hesitate to take counsel of her friend: she had come to believe George Montey wiser in all things than herself. Whatever were his pe r sonal feelings in the matter, he saw distinctly that for Mary to marry a second time whilst her first husband lived was impossible, however justifiable the act might be by law or reason. And he at once said, taking her hand in his,

• We have lived singly so long, Mary, that to continue that mode of life will seem less unnatural to us than if we changed our relation.'

Mary saw that hers was not the only wasted life, and she said, l lt is unnatural that you, so affectionate and constant, should have no worshipping woman by your side to gladden your hours of <'asa with smiles, and bring you children to hug your neck with loving arms. There are many, many good girls who would ba more to you than I ever should have been, George,—girls who have not been silly, women who have not grown wise with weeping. I wish you would take one of these to your heart.' But though she said this in all sincerity, ami believed she meant it in letter and spirit, she thought, as she lay in the dark night, with mournful regret of losing him again; and her heart throbbed with quickening pulsations as she pictured him the victim of a mincing widow, or falling a victim to the designing daughter of a parish parson, who would be on'y too glad to marry that credulous, affectionate, dear, dear old George, thought of the long dreary evenings and lonely days to come —more wretched than any she had suffered, beOU3B unmitigated by hope or belief in the goodness of the man whom only oho might love. Mamed woman as she was, she squeezed his hind, and would have kissed him had she dared, when he told her he should not return to Shoreham. (To Vc contiuued.)