CHAPTER XVII. ON THE BRIDGE AT MIDNIGHT.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 184, 25 December 1886, Page 7

CHAPTER XVII. ON THE BRIDGE AT MIDNIGHT.

The splendid mansion of the Duchess ot Pontalba, next to the British Embassy, T*aB a blazg of light and magnificence. Carriage after carriage rolled up, and left at the stately portal fair and richly dressed "women, and men titled, renowned, decorated ■with the orders of many kingdoms. Among the throng which passed over the strip of velvet carpet, under the damask canopy, and so up the marble steps, guarded by tall urns, filled with gorgeous tropic plants, was Lord Leigh, with Violet, his wife. Lord Leigh, possessor of an old name, a vast estate, and the hand of the richest he'rees in England, was the centre ■of alll eyes, and the envy of most hearts, as be led his bride to salute the Duchess of Pontalba The stately French duchess could not understand why a sudden mist came over her eyes as she looked at the little peeress. But the childish head of Violet, with its brown, silken ringa of hair eeemed all unequal to her coronet of gems, and the slender figure in the cream-coloured brocade, cut square in the neck, and with the long, sweeping train, looked more childish than ever, while the flashing diamonds, burning in fiery points on neck, arms, and bosom, mocked the wondering, pathetic brown eyes. The Duchess* o t Pontalba held with a lingering clasp the head of the Countesa of Leigh, and said with a sinking heart : !* " Some heavy fate pursues this winsome tsreature " But when the gorgeous assembly rooms were filled, and in the emiling, talking, dancing throng one could not be misfeed, Norman Leigh wrapped a cloak about him, and passing from the glittering scene, wont with rapid step through the Rue Royal and the Plac9 de la Concorde out upon the Pont de la Concorde to the meeting to which he had been summoned. The gaslights flamed on either side of the Seine, and the shadow of tho huge atone bridge lay dark upon the water, Leigh seated himself on the heavy pampet, and looked moodily at the river running blackly under the fin© frowning arches. Part of these huge granite blocks had been in the hopeleps, fateful walls of the Bastille ; but never had beaten near them a heart harder than that of Norman Leigh, nor stormier than that of the woman who had summoned him to this tryst. Sitting there in his cloak, his arms folded on his bosom, his eyeß on the dark river, with its ripples lit with reflected fire, "Leigh caught the observant glance of a passing memper of the Paris detective force. The man, wiee in the study of men, gave him a scrutinizing look, and summed him up in a few worcle. " Quiet now, but ripe for mischief. " He did not know that his subject was an English peer, and well esteemed ; he read him without the aid of accidents of birth and position, and as he went on, photographed him on his memory. " Eyes keen, but furtive, and much too near together ; chin weak, mouth -if that handsome mustache were otf— cruel ; colour *ne, figure good; teeth too white and pointed ; hard, cruel man, has one idol and •ne object— himself. It ha 3 been my experience that intensely selfish men are of all aaen moat dangerous." Thus communing with himself the detective passed off the bridge into the Place •de la Concorde, and as he did so met a

woman coming upon the bridge. The hour being late, the passengers there were few. Norman Leigh heard the steps and the trailing of the woman's gown, but he never moved or spoke. She went by him anl returned, but etill his eyea were on the Seine Then she stopped and held out her hands with a cry as if wrenched from her by some mighty throe of agony. " Norman, speak to me !" He lurned his face slowly to her. " What is the meaning of all this non801186—this meeting ?" "It means that I must and will see you." " This all might as well be ended first aa last. I had supposed that my marrying would finish your folly," *' When one cannot live for love one lives for vengeance." "That sounds tragic, but it does not suit the nineteenth century ; it belongs to the middle ages and the theatre I meet you to-night simply to niake you hear sense You have been received to marry me. You fancied that you could be Countess of Leigh. You see that is for ever ended." "If I had only known eooner. If I had not been held fast in my bed by fever, you should not have married." " I do not think you could have provented it. But that is all done. If it is money you demand, Helen, I am willing to be liberal, on condition that you keep entirely away from me nnd my wife." " I will not have a penny of your money till I have all you have," cried Ellen Hope, furiously. " That is arrant folly," said Lord Leigh, calmly. " You may be free again," panted phe ; " men get free by divorce or by death, lou only married for money." "That may be. How much I needed may be known when it outweighed the rank and blood of Clare Montros3or and the beauty of Edna Ambrose." " And for me —did you never think of me ?" she wailed. He looked in silence at the rivor. "Tell me if you were free, would you marry me ?" "No, I would not." "Mark my word?," she said with concentrated fury. " You shall marry me or die ' You shall bo mine, in life or in death I will sit by your side as Countess of Leigh, or we two will go down to death together, and if I cannot have love, I will have vengeance." He shuddered at her tone ; it had a weight as of prophecy in it. She towered in her fury as a sibyl. " Helen Hopo, what have I done, more than other men, that I should be pursued in this fashion ?" 11 Hear my wrongs," she said, in her lew, distinct tones. "My inheritance has been rage, passion, selfishness, envy, fury, revenge—all the passions called evil, with pride, genius, ambition —a capacity for loving. I have no name, and no kindred. I look cold, haughty, hard, I have always been repressed and neglected No father praised me, no mother cradled me. From some good blood I know I sprang; my instincts, my features, my form, my hand and foot, do not come of beggar blood Aa a child, nameless, and set aside for scorn, I was reared by an unloving nurse, and then sent to a school where I was despised by the tenohero and pupils- tradesmen's ghlc, ttlio knew their parentage. No pains were spent on me, but I instinctively acquired all the ac complishments that the others in the school co hardly gained — languages, mueic, dancing, drawing, I excelled in —and by these I secured the place of governesa to Edna Ambrose. Who ever was more ambitious than I ? Who craved love more? '•You thought you exercised your patrician right when you trifled with me, a poor, lonely girl. I had no one to revenge me. Praises, gifts, flatteries, had never before fallen to my share. I believed all that you said ; I fancied it a new tale of King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid ; I grew to adore you because I thought you stooped from high estate to lift me to your own rank. And what were you doing all the time ? Merely courting me, that through me you might gain access to my pupil ; merely making me a mean^ of reaching Edna. When my whole soul was at your feet; when I loved the sound of your voice, envied the air that blew about you, the very servants who waited on you —when you were my one thought in life, I found you at her feet protesting your passion for her, and when she told you she supposed you cared for me, you laughed the idea to scorn, and said you never had had such a thought— that she was mistaken —that you had merely been a little kind to a forlorn soul. lam a forlorn soul; you have made me doubly so. Norman Leigh, I stand between love and hate. I swear to you you shall once more be free to choose a wife, and you shall choose me, or die !" 11 You are mad," said Leigh, with a thrill of fear. Her mood changed. She came closer, and laid her hand on his arm. "Tell me you do love me—that you are not all false—you could not have lied so infinitely. Consider, all the love that others spend on kindred and friends I garnered up in my heart and gave it all to you. You have now the fortune you needed. I can wait. That wife of yours is a little frail creature. She may die, or something may happen —swear, that if ever you are free you will marry me —l will wait." •• Wretch ! Should I tempt you to murder? ISo \" " Hear me," she said. "I am resolved to be Countess of Leigh. You shall be free, and you shall be glad to marry me. The fortune you needed to restore your estate is yours. I will be no wife to be ashamed of; I know how to hold my own ; thore ia good blood in my veins. I will nob bo hindered of the one hope of my life. Mark my words —you shall marry me or die with me 1" A curious wish that he might fling her into the river rose in Leigh's heart, She seemed resolute to haunt avJ. ruin him ; between the passion of love and of revenge she was mad, and ready for any evil deed, and his future looked blnck in hor shadow. •'I thought once," ehe said, "that if I could part you and Edna Ambrose I should die content; I thought if I saw her grieve over your desertion I should know what it was to be glad. You left her ; she grieved but lam net content. You left her because she lacked fortune. You were hasty : she is rich now : only a month ago she inherited a fortune from her uncle and took the name of Haviland." "That is nothing to me," said Leigh. ''This talk is all idle. Go your way, and I will go mine. Anything in reason to eatisfy you I will do, but I will not come to hear threats and protestations." He returned hastily to the splendours of the ball-room, a,nd left Helen Hope gazing into the black of the