LITERATURE

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1516, 26 December 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE

ROSE OHEjuRIL : AN EXILE'S LOVE STORY. (Continued.) ' Y"c. c 3, from you, dearest,' he answered ; and profiting by the emotion which had seized the girl, ho possessed hinnielf of oue of )icr hands, which hho unconsciously yielded. ' Before I knew you 1 was—but no matter what I was. Now that I have been acquainted with you a year, and felt my admiration for you ripen into love, I worship your virtues also, and would that I could imitate them. Tell me, Hose, is it true that ycu care enough tor mo;» be my teaoher ':' ' You told Miss Smalway that you would be sorry if I cared for you,' slm replied, and a srnilo flickered over her lips as her ga/.e met his for an instant. 'I did say that,' ejaculated the Fron<hman, drawing her hand ao close to his heart that she could feel its palpitation. ' I said it because it seemed a cruelty to disturb your peace when I was not free.' ' If you are not free, why do aak me ?' she exclaimed sorrowfully, and diew her hand from him, whilst the glance sought the ground' ' perhaps J, may become free —some* day, if you have the courage te, truat iaa and to wait.' ' Are you married, then?* ' a; i swear to you that I am not.' 1 What can it bo, then, that hinders your liberty ? Oh, .Monsieur Brun, if it ia only because you are an exilo ' She saw that she was making advances to him and stopped. He might think her forward. But'she loved him so deeply, she so thoroughly realised at that moment that there could be no joy in her life away from him, that it was hard to be debarred, by etiquette from sayirg aH that "was on'her

lips. She longed to cling to his arm and cry, ' Tell me all your trouble, _ Paul. Our happiness is at stake. Confide in me, as 1 will in you, and let us meet your difficulties together.' She did not say this, and the Frenchman judged from her attitude that he bad offended her. 'I am sorry,' he muttered with a contrite gentleness that brought the tears to her eyes. ' I ki<ow that my reticence must seem strange, but I am bound by engagements which I took when I was a youDger man, and. I am not even free to hint how it comes to be that I am my own master. I have tried sinoe I knew you to bro&k the fetters which gall my very soul, but all in vain. I will make another attempt before this week is ended; but if I fail I am afraid I must rest under any suspicion which it may please you to form. No woman can be expected to give me the blindfold trust I require. lam well aware of that ' 'Oh, Paul, I will trust you,' she interrupted, crying, for she could not bear the infinite wretchedness of his tone. ' Will you trust me ?' he exclaimed, with an eager fire leaping into hia eyes. ' Can you give me a trust which shall count months—perhaps years —as nothing,and wait in the hope that time will release me, as it must some day ?' 'I will wait as long as yon please,' she faltered, abandoning herself to his embrace. 'I will do anything that will give you courage and hope.' ' Then the confidence shall not be all on your side,' exclaimed Paul, excitedly. ' Listen, my darling ; I will tell you everything. What are compacts to me as weighed against your tears ? You have a right to know all, since you are all to me.' ' No, tell me nothing,' said Rose, putting up a hand to stop him, for he had encircled her with his arm. 'Keep your faith and rely on God to help you.' ' Oh, what an angel you are!' cried the Frenchman, with a passionate look of adoration on the sweet face lifted towards his. ' Think how I will struggle to win you, my darling! In this land of my banishment you can give me a new country, a home, and your beloved self to cherish the rest of my days. You are not afraid of the rebel, then, whom others scorn ? You feel that I should become good under your mild influence ? You invoke God : He may hear us for your sake, for I have begun to believe in Him, and to pray to Him, since I feared He might part me from you. Give me that Rose at your girdle, darling; it Bhall be my talisman. Soon—very soon, perhaps—l will return to ask you for the dear hand that holds it. If not—but no; I will speak only of hope to-night ' Paul Brun did not finish his sentence, but under cover of the dusk—propitious to lovers—he drew Rose to him, and kissed her on the lips. ' Good night, darling. Pray for me,' he whispered tenderly. 'Good night, Paul. God bless you,' Rose answered. The brave girl had given her heart to the exile, and was not ashamed of his kiss.

One may be sure that Miss Smalway waa on the tenter-hooks of expectation to hear what had befallen of the junior governess's evening walk. Rose returned to Acacia House just as it was growing dark, and the pupils were already in their schoolrooms preparing their next day's lessons. After removing her hat and gloves she would have gone to preside over her own class, as usual, but the schoolmistress waylaid her in a passage and led her off to the library. Cariosity s emed to be bursting out of the pores of Miss Smalway'a skin, and made it glisten. ' Well, my dear,' she began, scarcely taking time to sit down, ' have you seen that madcap V ' I met Monsieur Brun,' replied Rose, wincing at this word. 'Ah. I felt bound he would be skulking about somewhere. And what did he say for himself ?' ' He asked me to engage myself to him, and I did so,' replied Rose with modest dignity. ' Good. And what about his famous secret ?' ' I did not ask him to disclose it.' 1 You did not ask ? Then perhaps there was no secret ? It was all a hoax ?' ' I regret to say that the secret to which you allude exists ; but it is enough for me—and I think it should be for others—that Monsieur Brim desires to keep it.' Miss Smalway sat aghast. It was as though, in the place of au expected dainty, a snowball had been thrust into her mouth. She shivered with indignation and began cracking her finger joints—an ominous symptom with her, as most of the inmates of Acacia House well knew.

' Hoighty-toity, Miss Cherril,' she cried. 'So you think yourself privileged, while living under my moral charge, to go and hold clandestine meetings of an evening with a Frenchman whose life is involved in improper mysteries ?' ' There was nothing clandestine in our interview,' said Rose with a slight (lush. • I have made no secret of it nor of itß purport ' 1 A pretty purport, forsooth ! What will your father, sisters, brothers, and aunts say when they hear of > our wanting to marry a most suspicious refugee ?' ' When they learn that I met him in your household they will feel assured that his character must be above suspicion,' was Hope's tranquil rejoinder, ' I may have made a mistake in my estimate of the Mosier, Miss Cherril. I do not profess to be infallible.' ' I think you are making mistakes now in your manner of talking about him, Miss Ir'malway —especially to me.' Rose retired to her room, leaving her employer in a state comparable to nothing but a violent attack of "needles and pins" all ovor the body. It did not suit Miss Smalway to dismiss Hose Cherril, who was the most efficient of the three governesses and the most popular with the pupils; but neither could she keep about her. a person who coolly braved her inquisitions. In the agony of her irritation she oalled into counsel the two other governesses, Miss Bickel and Miss BouncJy, who, much interested in what they regarded as a scandal, recommended patience, alleging that secrets always leak out at last. But as the good-natured Miss Boundy was a damsel who, for her own part, could no more hold a secret than she could gresp a hot poker, she soon confided the "scandal" to the elder pupils. So in twenty-four hours it was known to all the young ladies in Acacia House, to the servants, and to the outsiders who courted these latter, that the Mosier was in love with the junior governess, bat that there was a present bar to their marriage—the said bar being doubtless, aa all unanimously opined, a lawful wife, whom tho Mosier was hiding away somewhere, according to the artful practice of foreigners. Chapter IV. Paul Brun, on arriving at his lodgings, which were close to the British Museum, found Cramoiseau'a envelope with the piece of knotted string inside. He was used to receiving such missives, which were always delivered by hand, and with directions in imitation of printing, so a t it was impossible to identify the sender. Conspirators have a horror ppst marks and plain calligraphy, which are apt to furnish damping opulences in law courts. A piece of white stria? unknotted was ft simple Bummons to attend a mooting of tho lodge on t t h,Q morrow; but tho knot signified that urgent business was to be discussed, and iIW; the recipient must, attend at his peril, laying asido all other atfairs for the purpose. It was very rare to issue such imperative mandates, for the brethrcu were quick to obey : the knot implied fia 1 the brother who received it was suspected of remissness by his lodge, and Paul Brun understood this* In pursunnce of a rule, to which h-) was bound by oath, he hurned tho envelope and string at his cwdle; sad then, ho tried to to dismiss po'itu&l concerns altogether from his mind for that evening. Not that he was •unaware of the danger in which he stood, but he was in that mood when a man cHn : think only of one thing. H« was full of his love for Rose. The flower she had glren

him, the kiss he had given her, inflamed his senses and kindled the moßt wondrous visions in his brain. Being a bit of a poet—as what lover is not ? —he sat down to write ecstatic verses to his beloved, by doing which ho made the time pass and gradually soothed his mind till the fever of his passion gave place to a hopeful serenity. Then he wont to bed to dream again visions not more romantic than tho3e which he saw waking. Certainly nature had not intended this young Frenchman to be a brooding conspirator. Quick-witted, warm-blooded, an enthusiast in the cause of freedom, he had thrown lumpclf into the revolutionary movement in Prance partly through the patriotic exasperation caused by the defeats which his country had suffered in the war through Napoleonic misrule, and partly because he had been carried away by the sophistries o' some of the Communist leaders who were his friends. By-and-by, when an exile in London, he had joined the "Marianne," because indignation had burned within him at the fearfully harsh treatment some of his fellow-rebels had endured, and again because he saw Monarchists plotting in France to overthrow the Republic. He thought that the intrigues in high places, which lead to bloody coups d'etat, may be met by conspiracies in low ones, which prepare revolutions —forgetting that one crime does not excuse another, and that a great cause iB best served by honest means. It took him years of life amidst sober English influences to see this, but his conversion was not complete till he had met and begun to love Rose Cherril. Then he asked himself whether there could be two measures of right and wrong, and whether things which would seem to Rose heinous and loathsome offences could by any possibility be good, Should murder, duplicity, sedition, be less revoltmg to the conscience of an upright man because perpetrated on behalf of principles about which one-thousandth part of mankind are agreed ? Paul Brun confessed not, and once doubt had entered into his mind he began to feel ashamed of the oaths he had taken and to wish himself rid of them. He was not less Liberal and Republican than before, but he aspired to serve his cause by open methods, not by underground burrowings and attempts to blow up the foundations of society. Nevertheless it was no child's play on which he had got engaged, and when he rose in the morning in a calm frame of mind he faced his predicament without any illusions. He could not tender his resignation as a member of the "Marianne" and back out of the lodge as if it were a club. He had been initiated into the mysteries of the association; he knew enough to send most of its members to the hulks, and the fate to which he exposed himsolf by deserting them was death. He thought of the gloomy Hardreich, of the fanatical Pole Raczhi, of Cramoiseau, and the others, who all counted a traitor's life as less than a dog's; and he called to mind sinister stories of false brethren who had been found floating dead in the rivers or hanging in their lodgings, and upon whom juries, for want of evidence, had returnei verdicts of accidental death. It may be asked why, if Paul Brun felt his life in danger, he did not take the simple step of asking for the protection of the police; Jbut it did not so much as occur to him to commit this treachery. Nor did he arm himself when he set out for Chelsea, though he had a revolver and a long clasp knife in one of his drawers. He wished to appeal to the reason of his co-members, not to defy them. If his arguments failed to convince them that they had no right to make him act against his conscience it would be useless to contend physically against numbers. After breakfasting off a cup of coffee which his landlady brought him, Paul Brun dressed himself in dark clothes, as became the solemnity of the ordeal he was going to face, and he put in his pocket a list (in cypher) of the towns in Europe in which there were lodges of the " Marianne," along with the names and addresses of the princi pal agents. This list filled several closoly lithographed pages, and it was a most important document, for it served a? a letter of recommendation betweeu members of different lodges when they were travelling. Paul Brun intended to deliver it up to the head-centre Cramoiseau. He put in the same pocket Rose's flower, which was still fresh and full of perfume ; the talisman was wrapped in the copy of verses which ho had written in Ross's honour over-night. (To be Continued.)