UNKNOWN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8024, 10 January 1906, Page 4

UNKNOWN

i The mnsici&n manipulated shovel and poker with bis long, sensitive fingers, and coaxed the waning fire into fresh vigour ftgain. Yet the last stroke of eleven had died away, and he looked worn and heavy. He thought of his wife, as he sank book to his chair and stretched out his feet to the blaze—thought with calm complacency how exactly she suited him. She was out this evening—shining somewhere in their brilliant oircle with some of the reflected radiance of his fame, and a good deal of her own peculiar light. She had been a wealthy widow when he I married her, and a famous beauty into the bargain, and that of itself is a sufficiently alluring candle for the average society moth. As for love, well, there had never been any pretence of that between them; they had both been a little too old when they met for anything so—so hysterical. He was quite aware that she'd simply chosen him because a celebrity is a good investment when pride is the capital; but, after all, this only made the bargain more equal. Her beauty pleased his esthetic taste; her Booial triumphs were fuel to the fire of his ambition; her discretion was beyond challenge ; and what more did he want ? "What more?" he repeated the words •loud, and then rose abruptly, and, walking Mioss to his escritoire, he unlocked a drawer and took something from its place and re* seated himself, holding it in his hand. It waß just a small, thin piece of polished wood. To the uninitiated it might have looked prosaio enough; but it had a voice of its own for the musician V ears, and on this of All nights he intended to allow it to speak. -

" Yon weren't always famous, you know," it seemed to say. "Do YOU remember when you lived aHhe top of lour flights o! ricketty stairs, and were often obliged to stay in if the weather was cold, because monsieur at the Mont de Piete over the way could so seldom spare your garments? ... 1 was your one valuable possession then—when X was complete—a legacy left to you, the quiet, dreamy boy, by an eccentric uncle, because be believed you would know how to value me—and you did. How you hugged me on the evening of mj arrival 1 '"Oh, Hearene! a Stradivarius!' you cried, duping yonr bands. 'This shall make me famous. 1 will climb to the summit now

—I will, I will!' . . . How you practiced, too 1 The lodgers on the third floor didn't call you ' the god of the golden bow' in those dayß 1 They swore sometimes, and ■aid you kept the children awake; but you only smiled and went on. Then there was Marie—dear, pretty little Marie, the'blanchissense, who lived with her feeble old mother in the attic facing yours, and worked her fingers to the bone to keep them both respectable. "Ton were a little worried about Marie a,t first. She seemed to change to you in manner from the moment of my advent. She ■aid I had bewitched you—that after I came you never cared to sit with them in the long evenings or to invent amusements for the half blind old woman.

"And, worst of all, you dropped the delightful Saturday afternoon rambles, to which Marie herself looked forward all the week.

" But Marie grew to hate me more and more—to hate me with all the strength of her passionate, untrained soul. " She believed that I had come "oetween you and weaned away your Ice. You grew cool and preoccupied and never talked of anything but your ambition and the great name that awaited you when once you could make a start. ... At last the chance came. Do you recall that afternoon, twenty years ago td-day, when you bounded upstairs four at a time and burst into Marie's room ? " ' Marie, my dream's realized!' you shouted, throwing your cap to the ceiling. 'This morning M. Duperier was in the theatre—at the rehearsal; he heard me play my solo in the orchestra, and he told the manager he had discovered a genius. lam to make my debut this very night—at one of his concerts. A performer has fallen ill and tam to take his place. If lam well received 'my name is made.' "You kissed Marie carelessly and tore away to caress me afresh and to draw from me the ecstatic strains of pure delight. " And then, late in the afternoon, you laid me gently in my case and hurried out to purchase a ready - made suit of evening clothes for the concert.

" Tog hadn't been absent three quarters ot an honr when the door was pushed gently back (yoa had forgotten to lock it this time in your excitement) and Marie tiptoed softly In.

" She seized me by my neck, dragged me from my case, and snatching a knife from the table she cut my strings with one or two furious strokes, and then raising me above her head she brought me down time after time with a sickening crash on the sharp corfter of the iron gate. "In two minutes I was a hideous, splintered wreck—Almost past recognition—and Marie stood over me, panting still, but beginning to slowly realize what she had done. " And yon -chose that moment of all momenta to retnrn!

"You dashed np the stairs again and ran eagerly in. Your face was glowing with happiness, and under your arm you carried a bulging parcel. ' " Why, Marie, dear!' you began. And then you saw my mangled remains and in a flash |you seemed to understand. Vour face turned livid—you struggled for breath. " Marie's own passion died down completely as she watched yen, and she was now only terrified and pleading. " 1 Henri!' she sobbed, clutching at your aim. ' Oh, Henri, forgive me! It was my iove for you. Think of the fever through which I nursed you—think ' " But you were mad and blind with rage. Ton turned upon her like an angry tiger and called her' murderess' again and again, and then you lifted your arm and struck her twice with your clenched fist across the brow. A thin stream of blood spurted out, and she tell back. You thought at first you had killed her, apd you were savagely glad, and, without rooking in her direction again, you rushed blindly down the stairs and out of the house. For two days and two nights you wandered about, fighting with many sensations, and then your mood softened—an agony of penitence came upon you. With only one idea in your head—to ask Marie's pardon—you hastened back to your old room ... I was lying just as you had left me, bfk Marie and her mother had gone, no one in the house knew whither. On th« window sill you found a note from Duperier. He had come in Bearch of you when you failed to keep your engagement—had seen my remains and guessed pretty much what had occurred, and, being as kind as he was great, he had offered to lend you his own Stradivarins if you would consent to play for him the following week." The fire was gradually dropping into grey ashes again when Madame came back, bringing with her a rush of cold air. "What's that?" she asked suddenly, painting to the little bit of wood which still lay on the table beside him. He picked it up again and fingered in ten-

derly. ' "It's a piece of a violin—one of the first violins I ever had," he said. "IV«—it'i

been talking to me, Hortense—remindinj me of all kinds of things. I—l should like, H you'd let me, to tell you what it said." Without waiting for her answer he began. He talked quickly—half fearful lest eho Bhould interrupt him with some chilling piece of sarcasm or some politely incredulous inquiry. r

He spoke of the attic—of the Saturday afternoons with little Marie~of his uncle's legacy and the denouement—he did not even Bpare himself when he came to the cruel blow that had separated him and Marie forever, and when he had done he sat wailing patiently for her verdict. But she did not epeak. "I've tired you, Hortense?" he asked quickly; " these things sound foolish to you." She waited ah instant before answering, loosening the cloak from her shoulders as if its weight had suddenly become too much for her. "No," she said; "you've surprised me, that's all. Tell me, Henri, if you had found her—this child, this Marie—would you have forgiven her—really forgiven ? " The musician pressed his hands together —his thin cheeks flushed. "God knows I would I" he said; "it is her forgiveness I want. That blow has haunted me like somt deadly nightmare for twenty years." "And you cared for her all the time? " "I love her still, Hortense," he said; 11 forgive me, I love her still." Then a very amaßing thing happened. His wife stepped suddenly forward, and in spite of her rich satin and dejicate lace she knelt with bowed head at the'musician'e feet, and, taking both his hands in hers, she covered them with kisses. "Then forgive her, Henri," she whis pered. "She needs your forgiveness badly, for she, too, has been a coward—too great a coward to tell you the truth when you asked her to become your w'fe, and she saw you no longer recognised the child in the woman —such a coward that she gave you only hei second name, and not here first —such a coward that she has never shown you this." She lifted a corner of the heavy fringe she wore, and disclosed a small red scar, showing up sharply against the white of her skin.

For some minutes the clock ticked like an impatient pulse beating into the heavy silence, and then a cold cinder fell into the fender with a sharp metallic click.

The sound seemed to rouse the musician into life. As one who awakes from some overpowering trance he staggered to his feet-

Then he stooped down and gently raised his wife, and, folding his arms round her, he held her tight against his heart as if he never meant to release her.

Again and again he kissed the disfiguring scar, as if he would have kissed it back into comeliness once more. " Couldn't you have trusted me, little one ? " he asked at last. " What made you so afraid ? " And the woman whom society called "The Iceberg" whispered the little word "Love."