LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2242, 9 June 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

AN ENTR’ACTE. ( Concluded.') I It wouldn’t be etiquette, and I have no cards with me j still—’ ‘ Would you Ilka the row ?’ he asked. ‘lf so, let’s go now. I can got a boat in a minute,’ _ * You really don’t mind 7 If it wouldn t bore and tire you too much.’ * And if you can dispense with cushions, shawls, &c. Well, then, it is settled. Have you sufficient confidence in my rowing powers to trust to them, or would you rather wo took a boatman ?’ She made a pretty gesture of dissent, ‘Please not,’ she said; ‘they are so worrying and wearisome. But won’t it be too much for you ? I wish I knew how to row, and could help you.’ Major Norman did not join in Nora’s wish. When they were in the boat, and she was leaning back in the stern, with her own peculiar grace of attitude, a bright of enjoyment on her face, and her eyes meeting his, ha realised how much ha preferred seeing her thus, to watching her struggling with an oar, and growing heated by the work and the snn. They soon reached the little island. Vincent made the boat secure, and then helped his companion oat of it across the slippery seaweed-covered rocks, to a smooth little stretch of turf, which was the highest point of the small cluster of rooks. They explored everything there was to explore with a minuteness worthy of the Swiss Family Robinson ; but as one rook pool is very like another rook pool, and one small patch of turf resembles another small patch, their journey of discovery did not take them long, and they returned to the stretch of turf they had first come upon, with no greater result than the moulted feather of a gull, which Nora had found on a rock and fastened in her hat. * There is not much to see here,’ Vincent said, as they sat down under the shade of a sloping rook. * No : but I have enjoyed the row ; I wish it were not the last. ’ She had meant to be on her guard, bat, alone here with him and the sky and sea, she could not help being softer, gentler, and leas cautious than she had Intended * “ Who knows but the world may end tonight ?” * ‘ I hope not. What is that from, though ? I know It ’ ‘The Last Ride Together.’ For a moment she made no reply; she plucked the pale blossom of a sea-pink, and held it up against the deep blue of the sky, seemingly engrossed by looking at it, as she said at last, ‘ la his wish had been fulfilled, they would both have grown very tired of that eternal ride.’ She spoke quietly, trying to cheat herself into thinking she was doing beat for him as for herself. * Do you mean that ?’ he said. Her eyes dropped before his steady gaze, and her voice faltered as aha stammered, * I don’t know.’ She saw from his face that the moment she had steeled herself against had come, and she nerved herself to meet it, as his voice asked, ‘Are you afraid to make the trial? could you trust me enough to let our lives meet ?’ Ho leant forward, waiting her answer, all the might of a man’s love in his earnest face, his expectant eyes. Nora Dnnoombo felt as though her brain were burning, her senses and will failing her in her longing to yield, to turn and give herself up to him, and so take the happiness she yearned for and yet feared. She clenched her hands tensely in this brief fierce etrugglo against her tenderer self, and forced herself to reply, ‘ I could not. ’ Ha ooald not guess all that was passing within her mind ; ho only heard the short cold answer, that sounded as there were no hope that appeal or prayer would soften her. A low but very better sigh escaped him. I I have been a fool,’ he said after a pause. She felt a foolish sick pain in her heart at his sigh, and all the anguish It told; she could not bear bla words, and It was more to comfort herself than him she said hurriedly, ‘‘No, not that. Have I hurt you ? You do not know how I hate to givo you pain, how I hate myself for—o, why did you care for mo ?’

‘Why?’ . , _ The question was sad, rathe« scornful. He did not echo her word as a reproach, but it fell as such on her ear. She knew too well how she had caused him to yield to his love for her, how she had drawn him on, but why ? Not even to herself could Nora answer the question. She had called him cynical, but she knew all along that he was not ; that ho was simple, true, brave, holding faith in any man or woman unless he or she gave him proof of being unworthy belief. A thousand times simpler, truer, sweeter in his nature than she who had rebuked him for bitterness, who had charmed him with her pretty enthusiasms, bar seeming faith that the whole world and those who dwelt on it were very good. For or.e moment she saw this clearly as rn a lightning flash ; It was not a pleasant selfleroalhig. < j should never suit you,’ she said to him; and her voice was pleading, her eyes were imploring, in spite of herself, ‘We should not be happy.” • Say you would not,’ he answered, * and that is enough. To me the mere winning you would overbalance all the worth of life,’

‘ Yon say so now, bat in two year’s time— ’

• You hardly know me; I am not very changeable.’ * And then yon want me to give up my art.’

‘ I should want you to do nothing except year own will. Yon cannot think I should wish to tie yonr freedom.’ ‘ Bat yon would like me to leave the stage,’ she said with a perverse pleasure In trying to discover his nature. ‘What does It matter,’ he asked, ‘since yon have refused me ? But you would have been free. I might have been glad if this had not been your life; bat 1 cannot say even that, for I love yon as yon are, complete. I would never have cramped yon, as it would cramp you to sever yen from your art.' ‘ But how about your profession ? It is as much to you as my work is to me. I could not have borne to think I had spoilt your life. Oan you not see It wonld never do, even if—’ ‘ That “if ” would have smoothed all ; if you had loved me, the crooked would have been made straight and the rough places plain ; as it la—O my dearest, I could have loved yon so well!’ Bis words shook her resolve, but still she did not surrender. She knew there was a traitor, or one whom she deemed such, within her gates Love who whispered to her that this man against whom she held her heart’s citadel was her rightful king, at whose approach the gates should have been thrown open wide, not barred as against a foe ; that, if she denied him entrance, she did so at her own peril, the peril of his scorn and of a desolate life.

Something of this may have shown itself in her face, for he bent forward and spoke eagerly : ‘ Nora, do yon love me 7 Is it anything else that separates ns 1 Tell me plainly once if yon can care for me or not; do not say yas If you cannot from your heart, bat remember, a lie either way will be a sin against your own soul. Do you love mol’.

Her a warn; she felt as though all the world, tho bright sky, the flashing green and purple sea word a dream, as If nothing were real bat Vincent’s voice; bat she gathered up her whole strength, and looked at him nnflinohingly as she said, ‘ No.’ . . ' And all the vfdrile hia words rang In her ears, as though /they were a judgment : * A soul;' she knew It only one accord, they rose and tho boat; silently Vincent BBB|Pla and took his own place ; but lIIHB9H* ■ looked at her as she sat with j r.n.l heavy eyelids, as though to meet his gaze. HHBnHPnch land at last, and walked along tlll'they came to a road which led Honao ; then, as by a common j&sy turned to say good-bye. A WPa

strange, stricken look was on hi* face ; Fat there was a wilder sadness in Nora’s eyes as, holding out her hand, she whispered rather than said, * Forgive me.’ Vincent felt a quick pity, ho knew not why, in the midst of his own pain, for this woman through whom ho suffered. Did a suspicion of the truth cross his mind ? If so, he made no attempt to alter her mind ; he knew it would be of no avail. • Have I anything to forgive ? ’ he as.id gravely and gently. ‘lf I have, Ncra, forgive yourself; I only love you, dear.’ It was a quiet spot, and there was no one near; she raised his hand to her lips, and kissed it twice; then turned swiftly away from him down the road that led to the house. Miss Dunoombe was sitting writing that evening in her own sitting-room at Hqrneck House, She had delighted her maid by telling her that they should return to town on the morrow instead of waiting till Tuesday, and ordering her to set about packing up forthwith. Then she wrote to the landlady at her London lodgings to tell her to get things ready, and to her dressmaker about a costume for a new part. She finished her letters and gave them to her maid to post. The girl went out in the glimmering twilight, and Mias Duncombe leant back in her chair, wondering what Vincent Norman was doing in the room above. ; Was he sitting there, lonely and sad, thinking of her 1 A dim idea came to her of stealing up to his room bending over him as he sat there in the dusk, and saying, ‘ It was only a madness, darling; I love you, and love is bast cf all.: How would ho receive her if she did ? She could fancy the gladness dawning on his face, the feeling of his arms round her, an utter rest and happiness suck as she had never known. She shook herself free at last from the dream, with an impatient anger at her own folly. She rose and looked about for the matches with which to light the caudles, and so shut out the sad twilight of this long bitter day. In her search she came across something which struck her eye—her notebook. bhe took it up listlessly, and opened it without any reason that she knew of. In It, between a letter from the dilettante baronet mentioned some way back, and a calculatjon of what her receipts would be from a foreign engagement, there lay the wood-sorrel blossoms Vincent had given her, faded and crushed to death between compliments and money calculations —poor little flowers that had been as the first tender breath of love’s summer, the summer whose beauty Nora would never know. _ With a quiver as of pain and a sharp sob, ghe shut the little book again, and turned to light the candles. The entr’acte was over.