LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1587, 21 March 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HAROLD RIVERS.

r“ All the Year Round.”]

Continued.

‘My story is a simple one,’ resumed Emilia in a low voice. ‘Aftermy husband’s death, when the necessity for earning my bread was forced upon me, one or two friends, who had hem v<ry kind to mein my trouh’e, persuadtd me to re-assame my n aiden name, on the plea that it would be very much easier for me to obtain a situation as a single woman than as a widow. I acceded to their wishes. You know the rest.’

He was still staring intently into the fire. Unknown to him, Emilia’s large melancholy eyes were watching every varying mood that flitted across his face. Suddenly he turned and caught her eyes fixed full up- n him. Something—an unspeakable tender ness, love beyond words—that he read, or fancied he read in their depths, sent in one brief moment the hot blood bounding through his veins. Starting from his chair, he c»ught Kmilia in his arms and ki sed her again and again ‘My own love !’ he whispered. ‘V ou are mine, and lam yours for evermore!’

lifted her burning face from his shoulder and disengaged herself from him gcifcly. ‘O Mr Rivers ! ’ she cried, ‘ what have I done that you should treat me thus ?’

‘ In what other way would you have me treat the woman I am going to make my wif .’

‘ I have not promised to become your wif \ ’

‘ But your eyes have promised for yon, or else I misread them strangely. Have I misread them strangely. Have I misread them, Emilia, or did they speak the truth ?’ ‘I refuse to answer you. It is time this interview were at an end. You have been here too long already.’ • I positively decline to be got rid of in any such off-hand fashion.’

‘ Listen. You must go now. But this day month, having meanwhile " carefully weighed and thought over what I have told you, you shall, if Jyou a*e still so minded, come to me again, and I will then hear wnat you have to say From now till then we will not see other again.’ She rose from her seat, as an intimation that it was time for him to go. ‘What a cruel sentence!’ he said, rising also. ‘Have you no feeling? A month 1 Surely a week is long enough to banish me from your side !’ ‘Rot one day less thin a month.’ Suddenly she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. ‘ I have loved once already, and Heaven knows, I never thought to love agmu !’ she said * When they told me that my husband was murdered, it seemed to me as if my heart was dead for ever.’

‘ Your husband murdered ?’ cried Harold, horror stricken.

‘Murdered most fouly; and his assassin walks the e*rth unpunished to this day. But leave mo now, Mr hivers. If you have any feeling for me, do not speak another word ’

Harold took her unresisting hand, pres°ed it twice to his lips, and then walked s ftly out of the room and shut the door behind him. Chapter 11. Four months after the above conversation took place, Harold Rivers and Emilia Warrener stood at the altar and were made man and wife. Emilia had strictly carried out her determination not to see Harold for a month. But at the end of four weeks he had gone to her, his love, if that were possible, burning more strongly than before, and had then and there proposed to her, and had then and there been accepted. Emilia told him frankly that her first love had been given to her dead husband, and that till he, arold Rivers, had appeared on the scene, she had not deemed it possible that she could ever rare for any one again. That she had, however, learned to love him, she confessed just as frankly ; but it was with a feeling indescribably different from that first love which had lived so brief a time and had so terrible an ending ; it was the oveof a woman who had lived and wept and suffered, not that of the gi>l just bursting into womanhood, over which linger as it were airs from t'a adise, and toe faint mysterious sweetness of an April dawn. S mh as it was however, Harold was quite content to take it. ‘ She will love me far better six months hence than she loves me now,’ he said to himself. The fire on the altar where had been nothing but a few dead ashes, was now rekindled ; it was for him to tend and cheridi it til! its flame should shine brighter and stronger than ever it had shone before.

Harold s sister-in-law yielded to the inevitable with a good grace She bad always liked Emilia, and had trrated her as few ladies do treat their governess, so that the

di tance bet-von them was far more ea i lly b iclged over now than it might other wit 8 Lave been. As soon ag H»?old was accepted the tent her children away for a whi'e, and n ado Emilia her friend and companion. Itwa certainly awkwa v d that Emilia should turn out to be a widow and to have a li'tle girl. The world wOu'd not unnaturally think that there bftd b»en deception somewhere—that some un-worthy motive had been at the bottom of the couCealimnt. Harold averred that it did not matter two bra-s farthings to him whatever the wodd might choose to think or say, and although Mrs Rivers could hot go quite so far as that, she was woman enough to take t v e difficulty boldly by the hand and face it out. ne day all three of them, Mrs Rive.rs, Emilia, and Haro’d, went to see litt’e Daisy at the farm where she was living with some of her mother's friends. She was a sweet little goldm haired pet, as fresh and innocent as a rosebud. A week ! ater Mrs Hivers fe ched her away to Chestnut Bank, and there she stayed till within ft fortnight of he- mother’s wedding. Harold often found himself thinking about Emi ia’s murdered husband, and he was possessed by a very natural curiosity to learn some at least of the details of so terrible a crime. On two occasions he ventured gently to hint at the matter when in conversation with his bethrothed The first time she turned away from him with tears in her eyes and said nothing The second time she took his hand and laid her cheek caressingly on it and said— ‘ I cannot talk to you abont it; It is too painful, too terrible. Some day perhaps in time to come I may be able to tell you everything ; bat not now—do not ask me now.” After that Harold could say nothing. The marriage took place from the house of an aunt of the bdde, a point on which i‘ tt ilia had insisted This aunt was the widow of a solicitor, and was in pretty good circumstances, and she willingly pl-ced hers If and her home at the disposal of Emilia, when she found what an excellent match her niece was about to make.

At six o’clock that evening the newly made husband aud wife stood by the window of their sitting-room in an h tel at Hover, gazing oat at the cloudy sky and the stormy tea ‘lt will be rough crossing to-morriw,’ said Harold; * unless the wind should go down during the night. It will not matter for myself; I like a wild sea. but I am afraid that you will hardly appreciate its beauty ’ ‘ I hat has to be proved,’ said Emilia with a smile. ‘ I have a great fancy that I shall enjoy being out in what the sailors call “a capful of wind.’’ ’

* And 1 have a great fancy that you will do nothing of the kind.’ He had an arm round her waist, and as he spoke he stooped *nd kissed the cheek that he might kiss without reproof. Emilia put forth her hand to draw the curtains farther back. As she did so, the bracelet she wore on her wrist became unclasped and fell to the ground. Harold stooped to pick it up. As his fingers touched it, he saw that the lid of a locket which formed part ot the bracelet had burst open through the fall. In this locket was the portrait of a man at which Harold’s eyes involuntarily glanced as he picked it up. It was a peculiar face that was there pictured —handsome and yet sinister; a face such as few people who had ever known the original would be likely to forget. As that face met the gaze of H a r Id Rivers, his own face paled to a deathlike whiteness, while a sudden horror leapt to his eyes and stared wildly out at the picture he was holding in his trembling hand. * Whose likeness, is this ?’ he said in a low hoarse voice. And why are y u wearing it, Emilia?’ ‘lt is the likeness of my husband, who was murdered Have I not a right to wear it ?’ she answered in solemn tones, that sounded in his ears like a voice of Doom. ‘ O heaven! can this indeed be so ?’ cried Harold with a groan of bitter anguish as he dropped the bracelet on to the table Emilia gazed at him for a moment or two in silence. Then with a face as white as his own, she came a step or two nearer to him. ‘ Hid you know George Warrener?’ she asked. ‘lf you did, you can toll me’ he paused, He was staring at her as a man m'ght stare at some terrible nightmare. Then all in a moment she knew the truth. A low cry broke from her lips. She flung up her hands aud shrank back as though some one had suddenly struck her. Then she said— ‘ I know now why you asked that question, Harold Rivers. You —you are the murderer of George Warrener, and I—merciful powers that it should be so—l am your most unhappy wife !’ ‘Murderer! Ao, no, Emilia; you must not say that!’ and he stretched both hands towards her.

‘Assassin ! stand back,’ she cried sternly. ‘ Come not near me. The guilt of innocent blood is on your head.’ ‘ This is madness, Emilia, I am no assassin. Listen to me. You cannot know, all, or’ ‘ will not listen to you. IHo know all. Come no nearer, or I will ring the bell and denounce you to the world as the guilty wretch you really are.’ She looked taller than she had ever looked before There was a majesty of woe about her which, even at that bitier moment, Harold could not help noticing. All the softness had vanished from her face. Lines of sternness, of cruelty almost, unsuspected bef >re, now showed themselves in bold and startling relief. It was no longer Aphrodite, ro-y with love and that stood t-efore him, but a stern priestess of the Fates, to whom pity and ruth were unknown.

Harold with ore hand pressed to his heart, as if he could thereby still its wild beating, paused for a moment or two. Little filmy nr>tes were floating before his eyes. The window and the fireplace seemed strangely out of their proper positions. ‘ You must listen to me, ifmil a,’he said at last. ‘I have a right to demand that. You are my wife, and ’

* Did you or did you not kill George Warren r V No judge sitting in solemn state could have aiked the question more coldly and sternly.

‘ I did kill the man whose portrait you wear in that bracelet, but ’ ‘ That is enough. Your own words confirm you.’

‘ They do not condemn me as a murderer, Emila ’ Again he held out his hands in mute appeal. * Keep away. Come no nearer, I am no longer ymr wife.’ As she spoke, she pulled savagely at her wedding ring and flung it at his feet. ‘ The husband of my only love cries for vengeance from his untimely grave His b'ood is on your hands. I can see it now,’ He tried to speak, but no sound came from hia iips. He made one step forward and seemed to be stepping into space, and then he remembered nothing more. For the first time in his life, Harold Rivers had fainted.

(To he continued.)