LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1924, 24 April 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LITTLE PEARL. ' Red wins I' It was the croupier's hoarse cry, again and again reiterated, only diversified with tint of ' Kei loaes !' which broke the stillness in the superbly-appointed room at Hornburg, -with the gaming-table In its centre, round which were gathered its eager votaries, behind whom were the scarcely less interested group of lookers-on. • Come away, my dear,' said a very lovely woman among the spectators, in a low whisper, to her husband. 'lam sorry that we came. This is no place for Pearl,' indicating with a nod of her head, as she spoke, an exquisitely beautiful girl, scarcely more than a child, of some twelve or thirteen summers, who stood beside them. ' Come, Pearl,' the father said. But the girl stood entranced, her eyes fixed upon a man's face seated at the farthest end of the table. It was a strikingly handsome face, even when wearing, as it now did, an expression of calm, born of desperation. No tinge of color was in cheek' or lips. His eyes shone with a strange and hard glitter, and were fixed upon the balls, as they swung round, as though on the color uppermost hung his hope of life or death. And so it was I He sat down possessed of a fortune; he rose a beggar! Fate had steadily pursued him with its mocking hopelessness, until he had placed his last stake, only to spe it mercilessly swept from him. He half rose from the the table. What more was to be done, save to go out come where into the still night air and send a bullet through his heart or brain 1 It was at this [moment the girl, with unshed cheek and half-parted lips, darted to his side. 'Take this.' she pleaded, 'for my sake!' 'He turned. To his excited imagination she seemed scarcely mortal, in her pure childlike loveliness. His first impulse was to return the offering —he was not yet an alms-taker; but again rang out the croupier's cry of command to place the stakes. The child stood breathless, in her eager expectancy, her eyes burning with feverish interest A sudden impulse overmastered him. Without speaking a word, he placed the gold upon the table. The next minute a small pile of gold was at his elbow. He staked it all again. Again he won. A bright spot of scarlet replaced the pallor iu his cheek, and which deepened as Dame Fortune, who so persistently had frowned upon him, now reserved for him only her smiles. Morning was breaking when he rose from the table, no longer a desperate man, but with his fortune three-fold returned to him. After his first winning, he had turned to return to the child her offering, but she had vanished. Should he ever find her; ever repay the debt ? He knew not ; but standing at last out under the clear blue sky, with a great weight lifted 'from heart and brain, Harold Clayton vowed that it should be his life-search, but that the lesson taught him should never be forgotten, and the gamingtables should know him niver more. Six years passed, and Harold Clayton was winning name and fame in his own land, in his profession as an artist. Standing one night in a crowded assembly, some one touched him lightly on the arm with her fan, and glancing round, he met the smiling face of his hostess. ' Come!' she said, ' I want to present you to my belle. If you can prevail upon her to give you a sitting, and transfer her coloring to canvas, you will render yourself immortal.'

' Is she, then, so beautiful ?' he questioned. « Judge for yourself!' she lightly rejoined, leading him to a little group doing homage to the fair girl in its centre. " Miss Ray burn—Mr Clayton,' were the formal words of the introduction, as Harold bowed in acknowledgment before the woman whom his artistic eye confessed the most beautiful that in all h'a wanderings he had ever met. Before the evening was ended he might have added the only woman he had ever loved, since sho had awakened in him an interest as new as it was strange. Through the next week her face haunted him. Then they met again, and the charm grew and deepened. He could not define it, he scarcely acknowledged it to himself; only away from Miss Bayburn he was restless and uneasy, until he again found himself within the scope of her fascinations. Yet her nature remained an enigma to him. Although so young in years, so beautiful in form and features, sha seemed cold even to haughtiness, reticent almost to scorn. It was as though fome exquisite marble statue had risen in his pathway, which might some day warm into life. She welcomed him whenever they met with a manner which, while it gave him no cause for comp'aint, yet chilled the hope springing within his breast. One day, on going to her home, the ser vant met him at the door with the announcement that Bhe was very ill. This knowledge brought other knowledge—the fact that he could r.o longer conceal from himself that he loved her, and that on hia hope of winning her hung his life's happiness. He went back to his studio wretched and despairing, and seated himse'f at his easel. He had not meaut to paint her face —hi-f brain seemed unconscious of his Angara' toil yet, when the morning broke, it wae her features smiling down upon him from the canva9, and he remembered the words hia hostess had uttered on the night he first harl met her—that thus should ha render himself immortal. He grew pale and wan in the days of anxious suspense, when those who watched over her couch knew not which would conquer, the angol of life or death. But thero came an hour, never to be forgotten, when ho was admitted into her presence. She was ve r y white, very fragile, but more beautiful than in the coloring of perfect health. A new expression, too, was in the violent eyes raised to welcome him. ' I am very glad to meet you again,' aho

faid, gently. 'I hear you have been cnxious about me. You were very kind.' Then the words he had n>t meant to speak burst from his lips. * Anxious ?' he said. ' Can a man, Miss Rayburn, perishing of hunger hear of the famine without a shudder ? lam presumptuous, you will say. It is true. What is my life, with its many-sealed pages in which your eye could never look, that I should daro offer it to yon? And yet, pnrifisd by your love, I would try to make it more worthy. Tell me—answer me ! If I serve as Jacob served for Kaehael, is there hope that I may win you ? My darling Imy darling ! 1 love you ! I cannot live my life without you ! Will you cot share ?' Lower and lower drooped the lids, until the long, dark lashes swept the marble cheek, while the sweet mouth trembled; but the momentary weakness passed as she spoke : ' Forget all that you have said, Mr Clayton. It can never be.'

"You do not love me V ho questioned, sadly. Again that swift expression of fain flitted across the lovely face. *I shall never marry,' she answered; ' bnt,' and in her voice crept an r.lmost pleading t.me, ' I need my iriend very much, Mr Clayton. Do not desert mo !' 'I cannot," ho replied. 'To desert yoa would be to desert the hope of one day foroing you to unsay your cruel words—the hope which will go with me to my grave.' What was the bai rier between them ? This was the question ever ringing in Harold Clayton's ear. .As she hai looked when Bhe pronounced his doom, so he had fancied she might have looked when she statue warmed into life. Since then, she had been colder, more distant, than before; but he had caught the momentary expression, and transferred it to the picture on which his every leisure moment was scent. He was thus engrossed one morning, ever striving to add new beauty to his almost perfect work, when a low knock at his door aroused him. ' Corno in! ' he cal'ed, then bent anew to his task, without so much as raising his head, until a low, laughing voice sounded close beside him. • We were caught in the shower, Mr Clayton, and I persuaded Margaret to seek shelter with me here. I did not dream she would find herself forestalled.' It was Mrs Samers who spoke—the lady who had first presented him to Miss Kayburn—whose instructions he had, unknown to her, carrif d out.

' Margaret,' she added, turning to her friend, ' you have been sitting for your portrait and did not let me know. Why have you kept it such a seoret ? ' He had now sprung to his feet in time to see the rosy tide spring into Margaret Kayburn's face, •It was a liberty I took without Miss Ray burn's knowledge, Mrs Somers,' he explained. ' I assure you I have never been so fortunate as to secure a sitting.' ' Wei!, you shall have one now, and you must thanfc me for it,' she rejoined, while Margaret turned away to examine the sketches and studies lying about in profuse confusion. ' Here are some sketches taken while I was studying abroad, Miss Bayburn,' said Harold. ' Will you amuse yourself by looking at them V ' I will return in a few moments,' interrupted Mrs Somers. ' Wait for me, my dear.' A word of expostulation rose tr> Margaret's lip's, but too late, the door had closed behind the speaker. Silence fell between the two thus left behind, when a low cry arrested Harold's attention. He sprang to Miss Rayburn's side.

Her eyes were fixed upon a little sketch she held in her hand. It represented a gaming-table, at one end of which sat a man, haggard, desperate, despairing, and by him a child, holding out to bim a gold piece, with a smile in her eyes, and seemingly a prayer on her lips. 'You would know the history of that picture,' he said. ' Let me tell you. Years ago I was in Homburg. The gaming-tables attracted mo, and every night ;found me beside tham, losing or winning, according to the fortunes of the hour. One evening the demon ill-luck pursued me. I lost and lost, until I found my all was slipping from me. la the vain hope of retrieving it I went on, until I knew that I was beggared. Maddened, desperate, I determined to pntan end to my miserable life, when some ono touched my shoulder ; a little child-angel stood before me, and slipped into my hand a piece of gold. ' For my sake I' she whispered. The croupier's hoarse call warned me no time was to be lost. I staked the gold and won; but turning to give her back her own she had fled. When I ro=e from the table I had recovered all and more, but I vowed a vow to my unknown deliverer that I would never again hazard a dollar of the fortune I considered hers. I have never found her, Margaret. The child will ne'er know her work, but I am not afraid to meet her, for I have kept my pledge.' • Harold!' —it was almost a whisper, but something in the tone made his heart give a wild, joyous leap—'have I known you all this time, and have you just found me out ? I dared not give my life to a man whom I had first known as a gambler. I supposed you still played, »nd I thought that to see again the expression on your face I had seen that night would kill mo. Tell me, is it true? Have you never touched a card since ?' 'Never !' he answered solemnly. ' And to you I owe it—it and life. Pearl—little Pearl, can you not trust the man who has been so long faithful to the child to be still faithful to the woman? My own, you will not doom the life that you have saved ?' But at this juncture, Mrs Somers, opening the door, beats a precipitate retreat. Harold's statue has warmed into life, and. pressing the lovely lips to his, he thanks <3od that it is his breath which has awakened it.