Literature.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 102, 4 May 1904, Page 4

Literature.

THE SILENT SKII'PER (Continued.)

"Jly lingers itched to throttle 'him, and I think I must have looked danpeilotus ; for ihe went on in u! different tone :

' On the other haml, supposing I was to wipe off what, you owe me, Ajuare the other people, aird destroy the cheque, so as to give you a fresh start ? '

"I l(ookert atf hflm, and Saw thatl he was quite in earnest. ' I would do, -anything on God's earth, 1 ! ' I said, elagea-Iy. "Very well,' he said, in his cursed nasal voice. 'On the day that your sister Violet marries me, I will do all that for you ; and here,' he handed me a paper, ' is a written promise to that effect.'

" I had for some time suspected that what I had regarded as his 'kindness' to me was due to his admiration for my sister ; but, nevertheless this cool proposal catue upon me like a thunderclap. I knew that she loathed and abhorred Stanton (that was the brute's name), and I equally well knew that there was another man whom she worshipped. The latter had jusL suited for India, and had never actually proposed to her because he was not then in a position to be able to marry : but I knew that they were as much pledged to each other in their own eyes as if there had been a formal engagement. "When once a man has committed a forgery he has generally forgotten about being squeamish, especially if the possibility of the punishment is still liangiaig over his la-ad. 1 had made up my mind that, cost what it might, Violet must marry Stanton. "First of all I squared her maid, and got her to promise to intercept his letters from India, and pass them on to me. After a decent interval 1 got a man to circulate a pretended account of the ' other man's marriage to a girl in India. Then I went to Violet and told her of the awful position I was in, omitting details of the forgery, but clearly giving her to understand that my reputation was hopelessly involved. Then I told her of Stanton's offer. "She answered exactly as I had foreseen ; that she was practically, though not formally engage*] ; and, that, quite apart from her loathing of the man, all idea of marrying him was out of the question. I asked her if she had received any letters from India, and she was, of course, obliged to answer 'No,' for they had all been brought to me by her infernal maid. Then I played my last card, and, with a great show of pretended sympathy, I handed her the newspaper cutting. She did not scream ; she did not faint ; but the dull, 111-awn look which came into her ashy face burnt itsell into my soul ; and it has haunted me ever since. " Good God ! I can see her now, as she stood there staring at the lying paper, and I can hear the ghastly tones of the voice in which she said, 'Nothing matters now ; I will marry anyone you like.'

"She married him, and for some time they seemed to get along well enough ; but in the course of time she began to lose her extraordinary beauty, and he lost nearly all his money in some unlucky speculations.

"Then the real brute that was in him began to show more upon the surface, and, after ill-treating her for a while, he ended by running away, leaving her with a baby boy, and no means of supporting it. "Meanwhile, having once got fairly started on the road to the devil, I soon managed to get into a fresh scrape, and found myself kicked out of the army. Since that time I have been knocking about picking up a living by various .methods, of which .perhaps, billiard'-sharping was about the least disreputable ; and I am putting a highly suitable end to my distinguished career .by dying from a bullet wound received for cheating at cards in an American gambling sal-

" Hut it co happened that, quite accidentally, tin? other day I heard that Violet had died of a broken heart, joined to the fact of her liming almost worked herself to death in her efforts to support the boy. I have also learned that the other man is still alive, and has had his whole life blasted by what ho has always believed to be her faithlessness. "When you reflect, therefore, that I have brought absolute ruin upon two people's lives,, without even in the smallest degree (benefiting myself, you will understand how it is that when I think of death it is not so much the fear of hell that cume.s before my mind, as the hope that it may at least be a different hell from the one in which I have been living during the last few years."

I related this story just as Oakes himself had told it to me ; and, il my object was to impress Condon, I had certainly succeeded. QuiU early in the story he had let hit pipe out ; but he had edged his chait away from the lamp into the shadow, so that I could not see his fact very distinctly.

When I had finished -lie got up from his chair with a sort of dazed look, and walked slowly across the room to bis writing table. lie unlocked a drawer and took from it a bundle, which he undid with trembling lingers. The packet contained a photograph and some old letters, the top one of which had apparently never been opened, as the seal was still unbroken. This he eagerly tore open and carried'it to the lamp, where he read it, and then, still in absolute silence, handed it to me. Tread the following words : "They lied to.me, and told me you were married. Write and let me know that you forgive me. God knows that I have suffered, and shall suffer !"

It was signed simply with the name "Violet," and the date was some twelve years back. I looked at it in absolute amazement for some time, and at last said helplessly, "Uhen you are—?" " I am the 'other man,' " he answered simply, and then relapsed into his former silence.

" And I am the man," I reflected, ''who prides himself on always knowing when to hold his tongue !" I read the brief note through once more.

\ou have had this all these years and never opened it?" I asked." He answered, speaking slowly, in a hard choked voice : "Till I was six-ond-twenty I never saw a woman whom it would have been possible lor me to love. Then I men Violet Kaynham (that was her real name), and I poured out the whole passionate devotion of a love which had never before been awakened. When I had to leave her to go to India it was clearly understood between tis that she was to come out to me as soon as I was in a position to offer her a home, i wrote to her as I had promised, hut i never got. any answers to my letters. Then T saw her marriage .announced in the papers. Stanton I had known and hated, and I knew that she hated him even more than I did. F cursed myself for ever having been such a fool as to believe in a girl who was capable of selling herself to a man she loathed for the sake of his money. " About a year after I received this letter, but I would not look at it because T told myself that it would weaken the lm;>gi» of Violet Kaynham as I h;i<l known her, which iviis still ever present to my mind. And so it has liven unopened all these years, and I—good Heavens ! I have prided myself upon my selfrestraint in stilling my longing to s«>e her handwriting once again, and learn what it was she had to say to iue ; while «II the linn- I was making her voke harder for her to bear !' r

I got up and quietly went out,leaving him to face' his sorrow alone. The next day he sent for ine, and when I went to him I found him quite worn out and broken down. " Skipper," he said to me, kindly, "I am very glad that I have learned the truth. J have lived all my life wrong: but I can still do something before I go, if you will help me."

I told him that, as ho knew, I was ready to do anything- that I could to help him. "Th<Jn find out whore the boy is

whom she luifs left, and sec that' lie is cared for. lie his guardian, and hold my money in trust for him. I have no relations, so that my will, in which I have left everything to him, is defrauding no one."

And so, in the .course of a few days he "went to her," us he simply expressed it ; and ,Ins death was a calm peaceful and happy one. And IV—"the Silent Skipper" whos» babbling tongue had unwittingly supplied the connecting link in this grim tragedy—though I had lost my friend, yel I have found a sou, iwho is fast winning in my heart the place that was once held by his mother in the heart of poor Condon.