WILL HE WIN HER ?

Manawatu Times, Volume IV, Issue 75, 29 September 1880, Page 3

WILL HE WIN HER ?

»V JAMES GRANT, Cjufeeb LVJ. Th©«.ceii» ar^nd me one *of ■plendonr m the grass, bf glory m the floweij, though the season was' autumn and_ though the dead lay thick below that velvet turf, which tie hand of af&?&s instances, studded with.flowermg shnibs *nd. little trees, and though crosses, urns, obelisks, and iwrcopha^i, huiyr yritt wreath* q£ i^ WX££***^ ■food tfcicky there. ym& ittatsl tetet % %tr^ng f

! teresfc for me now, and I can remember how my eye* wandered over the inscriptions of this " Field of God," though most of them contained little more than th* names of the deceaaed, with the simple words fod (born) and dod (died) with a text or so from Scripture ; but «ver and anon the horrid jarring of the two shovels among the soil and stones recall *d me keenly to the dreadful work m hand. I had once been present at an exhumation of a similar kind, but m which I had, fortunately, noJinte:e't- It was when quartered m an English country town, and I remembered all the details of that affair; the sickening horror when the coffin was brought slowly to the surface and led upon an adjacent tombstone, and the thing, the outline of a wasted form, m all its ghastly angularity, that was lifted forth m the glorious sunshine, enveloped m a white •he*t that for sanatory reasons had been drenched m some disinfecting fluid and chloride of lime. Then followed the rapid work of the doctors, the sharp knives that flashed m the light, arid the shrieks of the women who witj borne away fainti ig. While such tl oughts and memor-e---were thronging through my mind, the reader may imagine the emotion with which I heard a new horror suggested as the cause of death hy one Hamburg doctor to the other and the Byndic. "When I was at Cagliari, m Sardinia, last year," said ho, " I was professionally, though then an tourist, concerned m a very shocking event, A man named Mathias, a wealthy Swiss, who lodged with me m the house of Michael Durandi opposite the viceregal palace, was found dead m his apartment, without anything having occurred to account for the catastrophe. A surgeon, a native of Pisa, was sent for. and after a brief examination he declared that M. Mathias had died iv the night of cerebral congestion, and the authorities ordered Purandi at once to inter the body. As the persons appointed for the purpose were removing the coffin from tho hotel, some drops of blood were seen to trickle from it. 1 was the first to perceive the*e, and urged Durandi to have it opened. "He consented with reluctance, and those who were present insisted that I as a medical man, should make an examination on the body of Mathias, I did go, and found a weund m the body, made, apparently, with a very fine stiletto. It was six inches m depth, and quite penetrated the heart, and the small orifice had been tightly stopped up with lint, wax, and camphor. From this and tome other features m the case, I declared it to be my opinion that Mathias had been assassinated m his sleep. Many persons were arrested but the real murderer was never discovered though a stiletto exactly such as f suspected to have been used was found m a dark corridor m the hotel next day. Now, if a naicotic was given m the present instance, as the quack, Adderfang, asserts, a si miliar crime may have been committed here." " We shall see," replied the syndic. At last a hollow sound came from the grave beneath the iron spades, and I seemed to feel it m my soul. I had no portrait or miniature of her. I had only the faded neck ribbon, exchanged at the old ruined tower on Cheviot side for the gold necklet, which the Caffres or the Cape Rifle deserters had stolen from her. I' had also the letter which she had . written m pencil from General Somerset's camp, and these were the only relics 1 possessed of Clarice Haywood. I had not even a simple carte de visite, though to possess such I would have given my right hand; but now I dared not trust myself to look, lest I might see that which would blast and blight th* remainder of my life — a sight 9uch as the eyes of affection should never and could never gaze upon. I shrank back and turned away, though f ( the horror ofthe spectacle might, prrhaps, have superseded the memory of despair." "Graves, old fellow, or you, herr major, tell me what they find. Gretchen Hosing may yet recognize She was brown-haired, with minute features, and — and — and ' ' Tears choked my utterance. " The hair will be here, no doubt, mein herr," said one of the Hamburg doctors— he of the Cagliari reminiscence ; " but by this time — nearly four months," he added, with professional coolness, while glancing at the date on the tombstone, " I greatly fear that the features of the corpae will scarcely be " " Hush, herr doctor," said Major Gordon. "Come a little this way aside, Captain Haddon. Ido feel for you — on my soul I do !" " Herr major, I thank you, and pray excuse my emotion." No excuse is necessary. You have ; your own secret of the heart, and on i these I hare no wiiih to intrude. I had such thoughts once myself ; but they are past now — gone WYe the flowers of summer, but not like then to bloom again. Alas, for the pare human heart when its blossome di* 1" <' We were betrothed, this dead lady andi — betrothed for -But the lime matters nothing now." " No : little indeed, save a memory to tnanur* and to dream over." The coffin was now brought to the surface. I gave it one steady, piercing glance — its cloth w?.s mouldy and damp, its grim ornaments were already rus — and then I turned away. v There is a jtraßge, hard look abor. . you, Dick Haddon," said Graves, kindly taking my hands m his. He had never ventured to call me Dick before; but he was considerably moved himself now, and his face was white as a sheet. He had undoubtedly admired Clarice, aud the memory of a pleasant pa it was coming back vividly now. "A hard look, say you. Perhaps to," taid J -. " f,or now lam a. man with a settled purpose — a stern end m view — for there is on my brow and mmy heart a shadow that will never pass away." She imagined her*,elfto be dreaming;, her head swam, her senses reeled. She closed her. aching eyes. There was a burning iA her throat, with an intense thirst, which she had no means of alleviating, a palpitation about her heart, a. numbness, m her linfe. , and she hoped, thflt she ww at( t now expecting to #•• - 4\**>{ «fe% had not any. desire to I%*

Van INiukerque— who had led th Countess of Xlampenborg, to believ, him a man of rank— had actually con ceived, but shrunk from the peril of poisoning Clarice to remove her from his path and his other matrimonial prospects. To the countess, who knew that Clarice was m bad health, ho had announced her deatV, aud inserted it ai. o >g the obituaries m ilie Hamburg papers ; and to carry out yec more completely the game m view, had the further but necessary mockery of a funeral, and a tomb erected inscribe with the n^vv dame which he had adopted. But, by a previous arrangement with tl c wily Adderfang, m the same boat which brought the coffin up the Alster to Ependorf he had her conveyed away. She was lifted m her unnatural sleep from the bed, taken through the back window of Itosin^'s cottage, aud conveyed across the river to where Adderfang, with a drof-chki, awaited her on the opposite side of th* Alster and he drove off with her to Eolandbnrg while Van Nieukerque acted the despairing widower before the simpleheart miller and his wife aud frequently m the ardour of his grief "embraced the box of stones aud rubbish, which he apostrophized as the coilin of his lost Clarice. The latter was to be treated to all intents and purposes |as a madwoman, and to Holaudsberg so long as his Excellency the Baron Elanburg paid for her maintenance, or till they were otherwise disposed of ; but the worth j son of Israel, on whose tender mercies she was cast, resolved to treat her better that his other patients, for now that he had secured the possession of her he mean to make the fact of her existence a kind of patent screw wherewith to extract unlimited gold from the " baron " if he became the husband of the countess, property, fortunately for the schemes of Adderfang, lay m the immediate vicinty ol Hamburg.