LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2040, 7 September 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A JUNE LOYE STORY. [From “London Society.”] Concluded.) It wao indeed. The earth lay sleeping under the light of the fall Jane moon; the fields and garden and flowers were veiled by a transparent shimmer of dew. Gerald Olthorp’a feet turned involuntarily away from the gravel to the soft grass as he lit his cigar. He was strolling across the lawn, when from under the shade of the tulip tree these advanced to meet him a slight form, which had been crouched on the seat under the tree.

‘ Nina, child, what on earth are you doing out here? You will catch your death of cold.’ He would have passed his arm round her ; but as he saw her face pale in the moonlight, he refrained. She looked the ghost of the dainty vision she had been that afternoon. Her dress was crushed, its yellow roses faded, her hair rough and disordered round the wan face, with its large miserable eyes. A terrible two hours had been Nina's since she had learnt of Sidney’s danger—a two hours of keen reproach, misery, well-nigh despair. If she had acted differently when Sidney had told her of his love, she might have been blamed by the world, have been called ‘flirt’ and ’jilt,’ nay, might have acted dishonorably; but she would have been Sidney Ansdell’s promised wife, would have had the right to go to him, the right to be glad if he lived, to mourn if he died. As it was, she had no right; he was nothing to [her, leas than nothing ; she was engaged to another man. That at least should not continue; she would not remain false in her soul both to Sidney and Mr Calthop, knowing as she did the mere memory of the former would be more to her than Gerald could ever be. The shock and grief had made her bold to do the right. Sidney Ansdell might be dead even now; if he lived he might never again offer her the love she had refused; but whether he loved her or not, she would be free to think of him and to love him without sin.

So she stood and faced Mr Calthorp in the moonlight, white and ashamed and sorry for him, but brave to do the right. ‘ Gerald.’ ‘ What is it, dear ?’ It was very difficult to speak, more difficult than she had thought it would be. ‘ I want to tell yon something,’ she said at last. ‘We can’t be engaged. I have found out —’

* What do you mean ?’ Mr Calthorp asked almost fiercely. ‘Are yon playing with me ?’ * No. O, Gerald,’ she said wildly, 1 don t ba angry with me I I have treated yon very badly; but I can’t love you, I can’t.’ ‘ When did you find this out V asked Mr. Calthorp coldly. ‘I thought,’ she was choking with strangled sobs, —‘I thought I cared for you ; then when I found I did not, I resolved you should never know it. I thought I should learn to —to love you, but now I know —, ‘ I don’t understand it, Nina. What have I done ? I will not be made a fool of, even by you.' ‘ O, forgive me, she said humbly. ‘ Bat I cannot, I cannot; it would be wrong both to you and myself. 1 She looked so fair, standing in the moonlight, her face upraised to his, every delicate line and curve o£ her slender figure, that her dress showed, soft yet clear in the tender radiance. Mr Calthop was seized by a sharp regret; he would not lose her for a fancy born of a girl’s tired brain. * You are|exclted,’ he said— * overwrought. This has been such a long trying day. Do not talk more to-night, dear. I cannot give you up so easily ; to-morrow yon may see things differently.’ * No, no ! ’ she cried passionately, * I cannot sleep until I am free ; I cannot feel the

chain tightening. Yon have been very good, too good, to me ; bat I cannot bear it, because—because—l care for another man.’

She had done ; her pale face was crimson with shame, and yet her heart was proud. She could prey now for Sydney’s life, and she had felt she could not before.

Mr Oalthorp was a gentleman ; he understood then that his case was hopeless, and he said no more. Cicely had judged rightly in thinking he was not a man to ba satisfied, with a divided allegiance.

‘That is enough,’ he said painfully at last, and he held out his hand to Nina. She took it humbly, and he felt a great tear fall on it j then they went back in silence to the hcnse. Chapter VI. • Where are you going, Nina ? ’ ‘ To the seat at the end of the island, mamma. I have such a headache, I don't think I could stand the Walknren Ritfe. Tom will keep you company.’ ‘ Don’t stay away too long. You really are net very sociable as a companion, Nina,* said Mrs Carlyle. ’ It was August, and Nina was staying with her mother and schoolboy brother at Krenznach. Two months had passed since Miss Carlyle bad told Mr Calthorp she could never ba his wife, and the time ha 1 gone by very heavily with the poor girl. Her mother was vexed at tho untoward end of Nina’s engagement, and, though not nnkind, showed but little sympathy with her daughter, or desire to understand her feslings.

Nina was not looking well; her face was thinner, her langh less bright, than they nsed. to be, and there were dark circles all ronnd her eyes. The secret pain she had home of late had not been small; for some time Sidney Ansdell’s recovery had been considered doubtful, and poor Nina in -London, craving for news of him, had had to rest content with such scraps of information as she could gather for Cicely’s letters. These were small; for not even to her slater had Nina told of the morning under the ash-tree, or of the love that had been born too late in her own heart. She felt as thongh it would have been sacrilege to dt» so.

At the end of July Mrs Carlyle had, according to her usual custom, departed for Germany with Nina and Tom, aged fifteen, aRugby boy, who hated ‘ foreign parts,’ and made his sister’s life a burden to her by teasing her and stigmatising their German trip as * beastly rot, leaving England for a place where there isn’t a thing for a fellow to do.’

Since Hina had left London she had heard nothing of Sidney; bat this was not of so much importance, as she had heard beforehand that be was now considered convalescent. She wondered whether—She longed to be back with Cicely at Farley, and then was angry with herself for harboring such & wish.

She did not think Sidney would every come back to her; ahe did not deserve he ehonld, she thought to herself this evening, as, leaving her mother and Tom seated under the verandah of the Kurhaus, with coffee before them, and listening to the band, she turned away down a narrow path of the gardens, just as the band commenced the “ Walkuren Hitt ” with that long hiss from the strings.

She wandered along nnder the gloom of the acacias, till she reached the end of the long walk which leads to the Elizabeth well. This part of the gardens was quite deserted now in the August twilight; every one was listening to the band, or strolling np and down under the wide colonnade, where the lamps were already lit. Nina ascended the atone steps at the aide of the well, and. found herself in her favorite haunt, the end of the ‘bath island,’ which is paved and railed and turned into a quaint little pier, high above the river, and overshadowed behind by the interlaced acacia-boughs. Hera Hina seated herself, glad of the solitude and the silence, only broken by the ceaseless, ever-varying, yet never-changing murmur of the river, which flowed below, glassing and shivering as the breeze swept over it, and darkening into gray shadows in. the evening dimness. Beyond and around and above rose the hills in their strength, and in the dark-bine sky one faint star cast a long trembling ripple of light through the depths of the shadowy river. It was all so great and calm and eternal—the strong hills, the wide sky, the river flowing ceaselessly ; a strange contrast, Hina felt, to the gardens, where the cool green shade was desecrated by gaslight; and a band, the delicacy of its tone greatly destroyed by constant playing the open air, waa swinging forth, by this time, some noisy polka. Hina felt refreshed; and yet as though Nature’s great quiet rebuked her for being what she was, a weak, frivolous, unstable, passion-tossed girl. If she could only be calmer, less swayed, by impulse, more self-reliant and self-con-tained ! She tried to take to herself the lesson of Matthew Arnold’s lines :

"Wouldat thou be as these are, lire as they.”

Ah, but she could not; even now all her happiness or unhappiness was in the power of another person, one who was far from her, who by this time might have forgotten all about her. There was a sound behind her—some one coming up the pier - a light springing step, certainly not belonging to any Teuton who was ever born She turned round, half expecting to see her graceless brother, and beheld—Sidney Anadell. ‘ You ! ’ ‘ You ! ’

He had taken both her hands, and was looking at her with that strange force in his gaze which had once made her shrink ; but now her eyes met the passionate look folly and simply. ‘ How did you come here ?’ she said, as naturally as she could, with her heart beating at twice its usual rate. * I only arrived to-day,’ he answered ‘ I slept the night at Bingen ; I meant to look you up to-morrow ; 1 then he seemed to remember that be still held her hands in his own, and released them slowly. They stood by the railing of the pier, looking away at the hills, not at each other now.

‘ What a pretty place it is ! ’ said Sidney, with much originality. ‘Yes,’ answered Nina. ‘How did you. leave them at Farley ? ’ ‘ O, pretty well.’ ‘ Did they know you were coming here V

‘ Yes.’ A few more questions and answers of equal interest and Import, then Nina said gaily, ‘ But what in faith make you in Kreuznach?’ And then could have bitten out her tongue for having asked the question. ‘I do not know if I were wise to come,’ he answered gravely. Thera was no rejoinder. He went on—‘Nina, I came because you were here. You reproached me once for telling you what yon must have known without words. I am half afraid to speak again, and yet I must. I have been hoping and fearing and dreading ever since I heard—longing to put my fate to the touch, all this time. Nina, now you are free, may I tell you I love you ? Will you send me away or —V Ho leant a little forwad to see her face In the growing dusk; there was no anger in her eyes, only a lovely shame, a most sweet humility. She bent towards him, somewhat as a flower bends in the breeze, and in & moment he held her in his arms.

For a little time they were both in a trance, as they stood together in the summer twilight, hushed by the calm of coming night ; watching the darkness deepen on the hills, and the moon rise like a fire, growing chaster and fairer as she mounted farther above the earth. «Sidney,’ said Nina at length, ‘ you wanted to quota some poetry to me once, and I would not listen. I think I should like to hear it now.’ Her hand rested in her lover’s as he repeated : F ‘ My bride. My wife, my life, 0, we will walk this world, Yoked in all exercise of noble end ; And so through those dark gates across the wild That no man knows. Indeed I love thee r come, Yield thyself up ; my hopes and thine are one : Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself j Lay thy swe-et hands in mine, and trust to mo.’ She turned to him, the sweetness of & woman’s life-love in her eyes. ‘ I do,’ she said, la a low voice. 1 O my dear, thank God that you love me—that L am so happy ! ’