LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1422, 5 September 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

NOTHING MORE!

{Continued.)

' I did not think you could be so illnatured !' Hot tears fell thick and fast down Blanche Falconer's cheeks.

She let them tlow more freely than many a fashionable lady in the present day w : uld be willing to do, fo:* as yet her face was innoont of blanc do perle aud Ninon's b'oom. Marion Temple stood before this fair Niobe, and watched her with eyes that bad a bewildered trouble in their brown depths.

1 Keith thinks so much of what you say —oh, you needn't blush —you both have the same old fashioned, the same absurd ideas ! I assure you, long mourning, even for one's husband, is quite gone out of fashion ; and Belle Vernon tells me there is quite a talk about the ridiculous seclusion in which Keith insists upon for a mother-in-law.' A quiver passed over Marion's lips. ' But then she was Mr Falconer's mother, and you are—his wife ?' Tha girl's hands grew cold as she spoke, thinking of what that mother was. 131 'nche gave her pretty shoulders the tiniest possible shrug, and then continued fretfully - ' What possible impropriety could there be in me and you goiag t~> Paris for a month with the Montagues ? This Mrs Mayne, who is to chaperon you to Mauritius, makes no sign. My dear girl, can't you do me a goodnatured turn, and tell my husband that you want to go ?' * Indeed, indeed I can't!' said Marion, in much distress. 'lt wouldn't be true; and besides, think how lonely it would be for Mr Falconer, left here with all the sad associations.'

* uh,' put in Mr Falconer's wifa, 'Keith can take very good card of himself; he's right enough as long as he has all those tiesome books, a:id his d g Merlin to go about the grounds at hio heels. Belle Ve-non Bays he is quite the most tiresome man she knows !' Up flew the hot color into Marion's face. ' I'm very young I know, and perhaps I ought not to say it to you ; but, dear Mrs Falconer, do you really think anyone who can speak so to you, of your husband, can be a true friend ?'

Blanche was not an;>ry—she could not sufficiently gauge the bitterness of the r'proof given her to be angry; besides, she was naturally sweet tf-mpered; so she gave a puzzled glance at the girl's earnest face, and said, with a little nod of her head—- ' It's a, pity, I think, you didn't marry ICeith yourself; you'd have vegetated through Jife together, my dear I'

Marion was dumb. Oh many a shatt at random sent I'inda mark the archer little meant!

A*; last the sihn-.ewas broken by Blanche. ' You say you are very young, my dear girl; but, after all, people are as old as they look; and '■ harley Durant thought you wore older than me !'

Tnis 'shaft' found no mark at all; for Marion was not in the least alive to the iguominy of this. mistrke on Mr Durant's part.

' That is very likely,' she said simply, ' I have had ?.o much trouble, you see.' And for a moment her sight was dimmed and blurrod with tears.

Mrs Falconer yawned, once—twice—thrice.

She knew that she had played her last card in the matter of the visit to Paris, and had faded.

' A person l ; ke ma is buried, actually buried alive in this horrid place ?' This with a plaintive sigh, and a weary glance at the propect seen from the window near which the two women were seated.

bow 'this horrid place' was Glenluna, and it was at that moment looking itsfa'rest and best, The bay lay gliuticg in the level rays of the western sun ; on either shore, sentinel-wise, stood the purple hills, with here and there the ruby gleam of the heather on their steep declivities. Above, was a dappled sky, pied blue and white Now and again came the wafting of seagull*' wings, or the swift drop of their snowy breasts as they dipped down to rest a moment on the ripiling sea. Across the harbor-mouth was a shaft of pale, bright turqu ise blue; while a marvellous sheen of gold touched the base of the hills, and catching a fishing smick as it swayed to the bri'eze, turned it to a fairy barge with a golden sail. Eauh moment the colors of this panorama deepened and grew more exquisitely bright, and Marion gazing, knew noc that for ever, and for evermore, the memory ot that picture was to linger on her lvart, g r a'en by the hand of pain. Blanche has pre ently rustled from the room, and the sound of the piano iu the distant drawingroom lets Marion know that she is solacing her dulneas with such poor means as lie within her reach.

The girl was well pleased to be left alone, for brooding over hir was that strange presentieot knowledge of coming pain which we have all experienced at one time or other ') he work fell from her hands, and she was thmldng so intently, that she started at the opening of the door. It was only a servant with a Mter, that had just arrived by the evening post By no means a remarkabl■•>■ looking document either ; yet, as Marion read it, every 'hade of color left her cheek, and a sickening pang pierced her heart

The letter was a summons to start almost immediately upon her journey to Mauritius ; a summons to leavo Glealuua, aud— Keith Falconer. "What was this anguish of desolation that overwhelmed her at the thought ? Why had Bhe to stifle a cry that strove to come from her lips as the bitter truth was laid bare before her - the bitter, cruo l truth, that her path and his can no more lie side by side? What has sha boon doing in all tho happy weeks that axo past and can never, neuor come again 1 She has watched a man's struggles, and pitied, a mau's misery, until sho had learnt to love him, and—as sooa as possible, now at once —she must, go t She realised more than this as ah© crouched d >wn upon the wide low wind'-w----seat, and hid her eyes with hsr hands. She realised that never more in all the years to c mie shall she, aieot another man like Keith Faboi'ST 3 never another who shall understand her to the finest fibre of her nature,, as hi does. And as she thought thja, a sud len sense of how his life too will seem empty for the loss of her, a sndden revelation of the truth that his heart has has grown to hers, as hers to his, set her heart throbbing madly. It almost seems to stand still tho igh at the Bound of a footstep in the coyrodor; and by the time Keith Falconer opeas tho door tho sweet sad face is white from brow to chim

'Oh, you are hero,' he said contentedly. 1 1 have been looking for you ; you were right about ' But bene he caught sight of her face. * Marion —coild —what is it?'

She rosa from her place in the window, and put Mrs Mayne's letter into his hand. 'ltis a letter from Mrs Mayno; she sails from Southampton 3u Thursday. She is sorry to give mo suoh short notice ; her own plans have boea rather hurried, you see.' SUenoa!

Neither Keith nor his companion spoke. He held Mrs Mayne'a letter ia his hand, and looked at it with all his might; yet he could not decipher cue single wed if his life had depended on it. But M*rion was no weak, hysteria-ridden woman, to fail without an ©libit for victory ia the day of trial; so she fought for courage, and attained it.

' Of couise I must go with M's Mayne. I shall write at once, s-o as to cat h the night [just; it will be best for me to meet her at , outhamptou ou the Wednesday night.' Keith dared not look at her; it seemed to him :vs if never—never since ilia day when she came across his path, like a star shining out on a dark nigh*, bad he so realised what would be the desolation of his life without hor.

Another thoug it too, one whose btterness is well-nigh unbearable, comes across him : this girl, so young, so innocent, yei> sa

passionately loving, is in some sort a sacred trust from the mother whom he loved, and whom he now mourns; and he, Keith Falconer, without thonght or intent of wrong, has cruelly blighted her young life. Full well he knows, that even as he loves, so is he loved ; and he recognises the truth, evou as the girl herself has done, that nothing so complete as the sympathy and the companionship that he has given her shall ever come into her lifd again. While Marion spake of her plans, Keith listened to the sound of her voice as we listen to words spoken in a dream. ' Yes,' he said, 'you are quite right; you had better write at once.' Then he left hrr,

And as she looked out on the landscape that had been so fair in the glory of the sinking sun, lo ! the soft turquoise blue, and the golden sheen, and the red and purple reflections in the mirror of the bay, were all gone, and a dead, cold, grey ehadow was creeping over the world. 'Fancy!'said Mrs Falconer to her guest next morcing, ' Keith was up and off before any of us were awake! He has gone to town on pressing business; he only settled to go last night, and I was to tell you he will be at Southampton to see you off on Thursday.' Blanche was radiant; her husband's society was at all times irksome to her, and his rare absences were quite holidays in her estimation.

And Marion, seeing this, suffered for him so intensely, that for the time being her own sorrow was forgotten 'Could nothing make things different? Why cannot she love him? Why is she blind to the noble nature of the man whoso name she bears ?

Thus the girl pondered through the hours of that weary day. She would have cut off her little white hand, and gone maimed for the rest of her life gladly, if by so doing she could have drawn these two—husband and wife—close to one another. That is not love which is full of self-pleasing, which strives to drag down, not to upraise; f >r the core of a love that is pure aud true is the longing to help, not hinder. When Marion met Mrs Mayne, Bhe felt at once that fate had been kind in giving her such a companion. She cheered the girl by bright and sparkling descriptions of life in the Isle of France; descriptions not one whit too highly coloured (as Marion found in the days that were yet to come) ; she told her of her Aunt Millicent's perfections, and pictured pleasantly the quiet happiness that might be found in her companionship. And the girl listened, takiDg comfort; yet with one thought ever present to her heart—Keith would come; he would come and say good-bye I When he did come, Marion chanced to be al me, and as he clasped her cold and trembling hands in his, the man at first culd find no words to say. The pain of the parting that was so near stripped off disguise from either; and each, looking at the other, knew that " the bitterness of death" had come.

'I have very little time to stay,' Keith said at last. ' I cannot go on board with you; I must go up to town again by the next train.

And Marion knew that he would fain shorten the pain of this interview for her sake. 'I shall do very well,' she said, smiling bravely, ' Mrs Mayne is so kind ; and she has told mo delightful things of Aunt Milly. She was kind in another thing, too; she said I was going to say good-bye to an old friend, and that she was a new one, and so she went off to see after our cabins, and left me here to see you alone.'

(To hi> continued )