CHAPTER XXXIII.—REVOLT.

Waikato Times, Volume V, Issue 274, 12 February 1874, Page 2

CHAPTER XXXIII.— REVOLT.

[Mfc St QcSßTtx's rooms were on the opposite aidt of th* vestibule. Miriam knocked at the door of th» dressing room, which \*u opened bj her husband's valet, who}ooked> considerably astonuhed at beholding her. Mr St QuentiQ^ ! m & mperb dres«ng-gown, was sitting bj the fire reading, and the wax-lights tiione on a toilet apparatus to the frill as luxurious at Minam'f. Mr St Quentin looked up froa* hit book, ai much surprised as the man, to whom Miriam*, said : ' You may go. I wish to speak to Mr St Qucritin. 1 The Talet obeyrd Miriam wilked up to the fireplwe, laid her arm upon the mantlepiece, and, looking down at her husband with a frown on her face said, ' You employed Bianca to steal a letter from me, several months ago. I did not find it out until to-night. Where la that letter ?' Mr St Quentin shut his book and flung it on the floor. ' What do you mean ?' he began. Miriam's ringers tapped the volvet-rowred 4ab, as she said, ' You bad better giro toe back that tetter, and explain ye ur conduot. You don't iike scandals, yOa kn6w, and you pi izp the good opinion of the world. So do I, in a measure, but not beyond measure ; not enough, for instance, to bein luced to- lire in this houno an hour bejond Ut-worcon , unless you give me back that letter.' • Are you* mad ? — are you mad ?' 'Not in the Jrast; but I think you must have been when you rentured on treating- me after such a- fashion. Conosy Mr St Q lentin " — her lingers bipped the velvet slab anrw — ' g\rt x me ths letter that Biauca stole from toe by your orlers.' ,f, f )£> St Qucutia look»<) *•*? <$& %r.& '~f&Sr*Xtg,\j Uthep 1 answered her, glanoing ooliquel/ at her htndeotne figure and scornful pale lace. ' You decmred me ; you lied to me about that, as you hare deceived me End lied to me a hundred tunes before It was my right to find out ygur disgraceful deceit by every means m my power.' ' Even by bribing an ignorant servant to act as your ipy. I urn edified by your radrahtv.but I am not goirig to discos* it Nor am I about to eudearour to disabuse year mind of the monstrous delusion under which you labour. It ia not worti) my while. I merely require the restoration of ray brother's letter.' ' Your brother's letter ! yon impudent lying jade ! How dare you venture to try such a barefaotd imposture upon a»>> ! I know enough about your brother's letter — when, your lorer wrote to you Under the conTement oorer of jour brother's wifo'i masquerade in my house! How dare you tell me this he now !' He was almost inarticulate with rage. Miriam had started 1 , as if he had struck her, at his worda of abuse — the first h» bed ever used to her— but she let him go on. ' Your brother's letter ! You must hare forgotten it, op you would not renture on so clumsy a cheat as this. Bat you hate gone too far, madam, much too far. The r6lt of the complaisant husband does not suit me anj longer, as jou will find. I will yet discoter who the man is for wboru you hare deceired me from the first, and defeat all your calculations.' Miriam looked at him with quite unaffected wonder. Her anger had almost passed away in amazement and contempt. So had her rague fear of him. This was beyond bearing, and she did not mean to bear it. ' I have not deceired you,' she said calmly. ' You haro deceived yourself. You are the victim of senseless jealousy ai.d contemptible suspicion. There it not, there nersr was, any man in the case. I confess I hare sometimes amused myself by making you think there was, and thus befooling you and your spy. lam sorry for it ; I did it quite unco mo ious of the depth and seriousness of the canker in your unhappy mind. You hare no right to irault m», though I did marry you without lore for you. It was % fair bargain. I did not deceire you then, I hare not deceived you since. Your mad and foolish jealousy first dis* pUjed itself about my brother. It was proved to you, beyond even your powt»r to dsaute, that the confidence and the correspondence you then resented were about, and with him only. That might hare satisfied you, I think, and - cured you of your folly Dj you think, because lam your wfe, and ought never to huve become so, I have no selfrespect on the aubjeot ? Da joa think I bare no comoicnca to bear, and to obej ?' • I think you are a liar/ h* answered her brutally. ' I tbmk >ouare lying u\>w, as you ned taen, y u aud your confederate. I bare the worst opinion of you, a* I hare of your brother, and I would not behere either of you on your oeth. You think you-mn deceive me now, but you are mists ken. You think I hare no means of connoting you. But T have a specimen of your brother's handwriting in my possession, and if the shameful contents of the letter which you cl urn, and which you shall not hare, w.»re not sufficient to convict you of so gross and impudent a fable, the writing would do so. It is not your brother's.' ' I know that. Give me back the letter.' She had removed her arm from the mantelpiece, and was 1 st inding before him, her bauds by her side, twisted in the folds of her gown, as though she were trying to keep down a gust of passionate anger. ' I will not.' He rose, pushed back his chair, and confi.n.te'l ber. A homd sight, with his gray hair, atd angerfl ished old face. ' Is this a final reply, Mr St Quentin ?* 'It is. I will never gire yon that letter.' ' Then I will never give you an explanation of it. Think w bat you will about it, indict as mucn torture upon yourself by means of it as the ingenuity of jealousy and suspicion cm suggei-t. I hope theso resouices may prove fertile. > ver, from this hour until that of your death, or min#, v. ill I tell you the truth, or any part of it concerning that lotter ; and I will never pardon your conduct to me to-night. You hare spoken words t,o me, which I Inow you have often v whed to speas, but you did not dare. You hare overcome that scruple, and so much the worse for yoa.' Sho turned ber back upon him, as he remembered sh« bad done on ithe occasion of their first quarrel, when sbe bad torn up the letter, and flung it out of the rt indow, and bad Ler band on the lock of the door before he said : ' Stay ; what do you mean ?' ' You shall know to-morrow.' Bhe found Mr St Quentin's ralet in the ante-room, and sent him to hit mattoi, then want to her own room, whw Bianca sat yawning and sulky. Miriam garo the woman one look, which had * surprising effect. She started, and »*ked her mistress, timidly, what had happened. 1 Nothing that you ro«U know,' was the answer. • I hare j found you out to be * thwf ; I hare always known you to \o a spy. You — yon will leave my bouso to-morrow, and T\v rouin this moment.' 6 he neiu the door open with one hmul. mid j^uiuU-i to it utl' the oilier. Cowed bj tie disoain'.ul anger m her eym, Bianc* left the room without a word Miriam looked the door, and sitting down at her toilet* table, began to take the pins out of her hair

' So, it hat come to this'— thus ran her thoughts— 1 that I must give it al! u>i l'n«Ti» «• p 08 v liich even I, who have not loarr d u> ilnnU 1 -• ioont if , but more, cannot oonsent to p^y fo>- twi t 1 nhall r turn to the Firs; Walter nnd Fluicnr. .»iil tuctivo mt % idly, I know, and they will ntver ir,.o»(> >c. After wi n< .. bis said ♦•> night, the tight . t tbu- ■ at ful old n in will t)O for t vtmdetenbable to ti»-. I wi'd not en<.iu. »t ( v II he js t-. give. I have unl*-t I rrali d .UFloie", '« i ihi lvinj. , trii, eveq-the. when *ln b<n.i tl is, \»i v i we I n.i\ doi . wll. What wat it he chII- <1 me. <h » atoor %.üb!h % .ub!h '1 geru;, m, whoio mtnsT to hi» witu nooperfeti in sruety— "an npudent lyingi?fW," was it not ? I don't t hmk my father ever called 4ft that, or thought it of me, in lii> worst temper. Mr St Qu*fltin shall not taj those wordi to me twice, nor any word! like them, ever a^ain. It ib hard to have to own myself beaten , but there are harder things than that, and Icm but cltoobe t)jc lesst hard. I will write to Walter to morion, and tell him to come and take me away, and 1 know he will do il. Jfor^ t! u that I Im.iw h«- will never reproach me with the unlucky ending ot my great •peculation. 1 What were the word* of the letter Mr Daly wrote for him ? I hope they were sufficiently ambiguous to confirm Mr St Quentin in bis belief in their origin, if he has set to work to read them, i* order to nourish his wrath, the moment I left him. There was a grateful reference to my fidelity to the promise I hud given him, during tbe time which had teemed to unendurably long ; an assurance of the unchanging love which be cherished for me ; & reference to the time when neither of ut had any consolation but the othc ; and then he raid, that though all the circumstances were so entirely changed, he and I should always be the same, and that I should be rewarded for my truth to him. Yes, I think that wad all ; and there was no signature, and the letter begun with, "My own dear Miriam." No doubt, it hat made him exceedingly uncomfortable ; and if this occurrence did not make me quite certain that the old man's ruling pnstion it hopeless of cure, and must continue tolt^et my life in a way winch would be quite intolerable, for escape from the insult and the living he of it — I should be a fool to throw up my can.? at- this stjigeof the game. But I know myself, and I can't stand any more.' Miriam slept soundly, notwithstanding her discomfiture, and awoke at the usual hour next morning, witu her mind on altered. Miriam dressed herself without asiistauce, and then ran;; for Bianca, who came to her pale and silent. She paid the woman her wagps, added a gift for travelling expenses, if the chose to return to her country, and dismissed her. The thing wa« done in five minutes, and Bianca never ventured a remonstrance, or named Mr St Quentin. In a few »ntnut«» after Bianca had left h«r, the valet cam* to tell her that Mr St Quentin bad been very ill all night, and was then m the ugonies of a severe fit of gout. At that moment a doctor was with him. The attack proved to be a serious one, and Miriam's project was indefinitely postponed.

A funny little misunderstanding, which elicited An expression ot extreme ion onnmis on the part of his Excellency the Governor, occurred, rays the Daily Timts, on board the steamer Golden Ag« on iS»turd»y. The steamer bad been engaged toeonver the Governor and those who were with him, including tb« Honthe Premier*hdMrsVogel,and his Honor the Superintendent, on board the Mikado, and the Customhouse boat was ordered to attend tbeiteamer to take the party from the one vessel to the other. Nbwtlie"name*of one of the crew of the Golden Agr happened/to beJamssFerguiion.and, when ths Custogabous* opat ranged alongside, the coxswain •ung out» "HiAJinJmy 'Per^usson, datcb. hold of this painltr." Much: to tlie confusion of the ooxitrain the response to his ojll came from an unoxpooted quarter ; the Governor heard the crj, coupled with bis own familiar cognomen, and casting ceremony to the winds rushsd to the aide of the steamer and seized the proffered rope, and tben recorering himself without an effort, he quietly handed it to bis abashed name-sake who was standing at his elbow. That his Excellsnoy can help himself ss well as help others at a pinch, was demonstrated in the afternoon, when his yaoht Blanche roturned from her day's cruise. The *md being light she made but slow progress up the harbor, and would certainly :have been too late to catch the six o'clock tram To meet the difficulty, her boat was lowered and pulled in hct habte for the pier, and it was observed from the shore that Sir James could handle an oar at well aa either of the orew. He pull'd " like a Briton," as an onlooker remarked, and readied the pier only just in time to save the train — for tl.e aoprotoh of the boat wai not observed until it was clote to the »tfp->, and time bemg up and something over, the train had jua! commenced to move. It was, uowever, immediate]/ itopped, and one compartment of n. xeuond-cluss carnage being inctnt, the Governor and his Aide took possession of it, and were soon on their way to town. A very strangn diseov. ry, interesting to peologMs, is reporced by the Otagt Mistion (Kansas) Journal. A human skull was recently found near that place imbedded in a solid rock which was broken open by Watting. Dr Weirley, of O»age Million, compared it with a modern skull which he had in his office, and found that, though it rosembled the latter in the genera) shape, it was an inch and a quarter larger in greatest diameter, and much better developed m some other particular* He mm of the relic :— " It is that of the oranium of the bum.in upeciee, of large sue, imbedded in conglomerate rock of the tertiary class, and found several feet beneath the surface. Pirts of the frontal, pai-ienral, and occipitel bones were carried avrav by explosion. The piece of rock holding the remains weighs some forty or fifty pounds, with many impression* of marine shells, and through it runs a vein of quartz, or within the cranium crystallised organic matter, and by the aid of a microscope presents a beautifnl appearance.' Neither Lyell nor Hugh Miller, it is stated, nor any of the rest of tho subtenanean explorers, reports anything so remarkable as this disoovery at Osage Mission. Tiie Neander man comes the nearest to it, but the Neanderthal bones were found in a loam only two or thrte feet below the surface, whereas this Kansas ikull was discovered in solid rook. An Irish labourer, who was in the employment of an English gentleman residing m Ireland, waa on one occasion about going to a fair, held annually »t a neighbouring village, when his master endeavoured to dissuade him from his design. ' You al.iraya,' said he, ' come baok with a broken head ; now stay at hotue to-day, Pholim, and I'll give you five shillings.' ' I'm forever and all obliged to yer honor,' I replitd Phelim, 'but does it stnnd to rnson,' added he, flourishing his shillelagh over his head—' does it stand to rason that I'd take five shillings for tht grate bstin' I'm to get to-day ?'