CHAPTER XLV.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 196, 26 March 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XLV.

INCONTESTABLE EVIDENCE. **U<jt Miss Dunbar had no means ; it had taken her little all to pay her expenses to America, consequently she could not return to Scotland with her friends if she had so desired. She did not care to do so, how«v«r, although she felt very lonely to be left behind in a strange country. ** Yet she liked the American people. She had found a situation as governess in a family where she was kindly treated, and where ehe remained for two years. At the end of that time they also went abroad for a season of travel, and she came to Boston upon the recommendations of her former patrons, to occupy a similar position In a wealthy family in that city. "This was the account she gave of herself to nay mother at the time of wlaich I have spoken, and she became deeply Interested in the young girl, and upon our arrival accompanied her to her destination and introduced her to her employers, who happened to be acquaintances of Qure, t: Bufc 1 had lost tny heart entirely to the beautiful girl. I felt, from the hour of our" meeting, that she, and no other, would satisfy the cravings of my heart, and she appeared, though in a timid way, to respond to my sentiments. " I visited her in her new home. I Arranged to meet her upon every possible occasion, and it was not long before I declared my affection, and found that it was reciprocated. "Some little time before this I had decided to leave college and not complete my course I was ambitious to make money, and I secured an engagement with a large shipping house in the city, determined to devote my energies to amassing a fortune. Thia bitterly displeased my father, who wae a stern, proud man, and thought more of learning and a position in literary circles than of anything else in the world, while, being wealthy himael f , he thought it beneath any of his children to engage in trade for the pake of eimply making money. 11 Wbeu, a little later, I informed him of my engagement to the pretty stranger whom my mother and I bad met on board the boat from Ne«v York to Boston, he was enraged be>ond measure. "flesaid he thought it was disgraceful er.ough for a son of his to want to grow up au ignoramus, without lotting himself down still lower by marrying a Scotch emigrunt, of whom nobody knew anything. He positively forbade my entertaining any such thought, and commanded me to break my engagement at once or leave my home for ever. " But I inherited something of his high ppirit and indomitable will and I had no notion of obeying, him I loved my beauti ful betrothed with all my heart ; she was ac lovely in mind as in person, and cis well fitted to occupy a high position in social life aa my own mother, of whom we were all exceediogly proud. But it wai i» vain that I pleaded this, while even my mother tried to exort her influence i j my favour ; my father would not li3ten to one word of it. Then I became angry and disrespectful, and finally left the houee in a ruge. '•'Not a word of tbie», however, did 1 bioak to my promised wife at that time ; b '.here came a time at length when I wa- obliged to tell her- ' Mj> umployorß told tne one day that t'los" v. iahed to send somo one to the far Eu<?t upon an importaut commission, and inaoie vie a handsome offer if I would con* 85ni to undertake it. The inducement was strocg, while I thought I saw a prospect of di,inj? something upon my own account also, and I accepted their proposition at once, "Thea I went to Annie and told her wha-t I had done. I urged her to marry me immediately, so that I could leave her with the feeling 'hat I had the right to care for her and eho need not toil for her living ; j then, when the right opportunity phould offer, I could e»end for her to come to me, and there would bo nothing to hinder her from joint? bo ; besides, it galled me to go away and leave her filling the position of a to others. 14 Then eho aeked me about my own family —none of them had called upon her or recognised her in any way, and she could not fail no feel it - and she wanted to know tow they would be pleased with our marriage would they receive her cordially a a a daughter and sister 1 " I was, of course, obliged to answer no ;' that my father would not be pleased <pith anything that 1 might do, for I bad offended him deeply by leaving college before my course was completed ; and even more, by engaging in a business of which he disapproved, and I had no reason to hope that ho would regard with favour any one whom I might wish to marry. "At first she demurred— she could not connect; herself with any family who would j regard her with disfavour ; but I argued so fondly and earnestly that ghe at last consented, and we were married in a very quiet way one spring morning, and went *,trai|>hfc to the pretty rooms which I had j er gaged for her, with board, while I should ba away. *V We had six weeks to spend together before I should have to sail, and I can say they were the happiest of my life," Mr Forest said, brokenly, as he camo to this portion of his story. "My beautiful wife grew more charming with every day, and as the time of my departure drew near I bitterly deplored the etern fate that would not permit me to take her with me. "Oar parting was the severest trial of my life, and could I have looked forward to the future, I could not have submitted to it at all. I shall never forget the look that wa* on her lovely, tear-stained face, as it lay for the last time upon my breast and I held her in that final embrace. *• * I foel almost as if I were losing you for ever, "she said in a trembling tone ; * but — oh, Albert, whatever happens you will always remember how well I loved you. If I cannot come to you before your three years are cut, I shall welcome you back as a fond and faithful wife ; if I die—' " * Hush, my darling !' I cried, with a sudden sinking at my heart. • You must not talk like this—you will unnerve me.' "'I hope God will spare us to each other,' ehe said eoftly. 'But you will sever forget how well I loved you ?" "'I will never forget,' 1 answered, and almost feeling as if I nevar should ace her again. " I cannot linger over that painful scene," Mr Forest said, tremukmefy, "I sailed that day, and I never heard one word from

my wife. I have never seen her from that day to thie, nor had any tidings of her beyond six months after my departure" " 1 haa deposited in one of the banks for her use a sum of money, which I thought would be sufficient for all hor needs until I could reach my destination and torn myself about a little. I had not very much ahead, having only been only a little more than a year in business ; but I knew my income would be ample for our support. Ido not know where the difficulty lay, but I gent hor money regularly every three months, but it could never hive reached her, as I learned afterwards of her poveity and dcs titution. " My anxiety was intense when month after month went- by and received no letters from her, but I kept hoping that every mail - which in those days was not as frequent as now — would bring me some tidings of my dear one. "My business prospered both for my employers and for myself, and when my three years expired I returned with all possible speed to seek my wife, but with a sense of foreboding and misery at my heart that was but a tithe of what was to follow. •'Arriving in Boston, I went directly to the place where I had left her. She was not there. The family who had formerly resided there, and with whom she had boarded, had also moved away, and no one could tell whither they had gone. " I sought the city through and through. In anguish and wretcheduess I traversed street after street, inquiring in every place where I thought I should be likely to obtain tidings of her ; but not one word could I learn regarding her. " My father died during my absence, cutting me off with a* single dollar. My mother had become a helpless paralytic, my brothers and sister? were scattered, and with my other deep trouble, I felt like an alien and a stranger in my own country. " I spent six long, weary months, looking for my wife. I advertised in all the papers, but to no purpose; I never obtained the slightest clue to her fate, and I then returned to ray foreign business believing that my Annie was dead. 41 Ten years later I returned again. Then I met, by accident, the woman with whom I had left my wife. She told me that she had remained with her for six or eight months after my departure, and had been ill moat of that time. Then her means gave outshe had received nothing from me, and with doctor's bills, medicines, and other bills, she had used up all that I deposited for her. She then began to take in work to do, and tried to support herself, but could not earn enough to do that, as she was living, and she accordingly moved into an humbler locality. Her former landlady went there to see her occasionally, for she felt deep sympathy for and interest in b.9r, particularly, as she told me, on account of her delicate condition — eince she expected soon to become a mother. " But every time she saw her she seemed to have grown sadder and thinner, and soon after, being ebliged to move from the city, she lost track of her altogether. This intelligence revive i my hopes somewhat", and I devoted some time to further inquiries ; but it availed nothing, and I again returned to my foreign home a sad and heart broken man, believing that my wife and child — if indeed one had ever been born to me —were both dead. I devoted myself to business, and I prospered ; money seemed to flow in upon me almo=t spontaneously, and I was rapidly amassing the fortune that I bad craved as a young man. But I cared little for it— my life was ruinsd, for I had no ono with whom to share my prosperity - no one to love or to care for me. " Still there was no peace for me except in hard and absorbing work, and so I kept on and on. •' Wearied at last with the monotony of my existence, I resolved to travel. I settled my affairs in the East -having no desire to return there— and then began my wanderings. I have been almost everywhore in Europe, and have spent a good deal of time in France. I had come to Paris for the second time only a few weeks previous to my acquaintance with you. You all know how I encountered my nephew, " He waa my favourite sister's son, and I felt well pleased to meet him. I waa pre possessed with him at first, al f hough I could not approve of the useless kind of life that he was leading ; for a young man of twentyfive should have his mind settled upon his future career. However, I thought he might not be wholly to blame regarding that, and I resolved to study him thoroughly, and, if he proved worthy, eventually malco him my heir. " When I met you,'' Mr Forest continued turning proudly to Louis, "there was something about you that attrac ed me strangely. I ceuld not feel exactly what. Your eyee, particularly, haunted me, then your name was painfully familiar, although I thought that perhaps it was merely a coincidence. But the day that we all went to Verpailles I received a shock from which I did not recover, and aroused a wild hope in me that you might be the child of my lost wife and my son." "You all romember that picture and Louis's singular resemblance to it. Well, that painting was almost the exact counterpart of the woman I had loved and lost, Then when we read the account of Louise de Brienze— how ehe eecaped to Scotland during the reign of terror, and there married a man by the name of Dunbar— it struck me that she might have been an ancestor of Annie, who was of Scotch descent, and whose father had been a man of literary tastes and great learning, like the husband of M'lle de Brienze. I resolved at once to sift the matter to the bottom. " After learning all that I could regarding Louis in America, I wont to Scotland, where I have been searching and studying the genealogy of the Dunbar family for several weeks. j "I have proved that my suspicions were correct, and that my Annie waß the granddaughter of M'lle Louise de Brienze, whose wonderful beauty descended to her— my wife. " As you know, M'lle Brienze fled to Scotland, where she married Wallace Dunbar, the great grandson of the poet, William Dunbar. They had several children, but none lived beyond the age of five years, excepting a eon, born in 1809, whom they named Louis. He grew to manhood and was finely educated; his family, coming impoverished, they retired to a small estate in the south of Scotland, where the young man married a young Scotch lady in 1833 " They had one child only, Annie Louise —my Annie— who was born in 1830. Her mother died when she was but two years of age. Her father lived until she was sixteen, but though they were always in reduced circumstances, he bestowed great care upon her education, and she was possessed of a rarely cultivated mind. "All this I have learned since leaving Paris, and you can imagine that I have been a very busy individual. I was almost sure that Loui3 was my son before I left, but I would not say so until I had proved it beyond a doubt. " The ring he wears ie, I am positive, the one that I placed upon his mother's hand the day I married her. The book he describes lam confident I gave her. Mary Jones says she had a beautiful pearl ring, which she'was obliged to dispose of in order to de-

fray the expenses attendant] upon her death. I had given her an expensive pearl for an engagement ring ; and finally, Louie bears the very name we had planned to give our h'rst eon, should we have one." ( To be Continued, )