CHAPTER V.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1818, 1 March 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER Y.

THL MAR I.XGLISHWOMVN. It ib the hot mid-day in the ancient city of .Binges, and the sheets are nearly empty. The -Mlence i" only broken at intervals as a weary clor, r comes panting along with lolling tongue, drawing a heavy cait that rumbles o/ei the gioaL sfoncs, while the wooden shoes of Lie, mit-tiess clatter behind him on the burning Hags. The shops are empty ; there is no one buying and no one selling; the doors are set wide open that the air may enter, but it enters clone. The white shutters of the private houses are firmly closed, and the estamineL give no sign of life. E\en a solitary peasant-girl who hits at an open door has fallen asleep over her bobbins, and the FJander3 lace she makes from morn to night is the lesting-place of a diowsy blue-bottle. It is like a city of the dead. It is Bruges in summer at mid-day. Signs of its vanished greatness linger* still but they aie few and far between, and as the English tiaveller roams along the deserted sheets he thinks of the fabled city which fell undei the wi/.aid's spell and went to sleep for ages, and he finds it diflicult to believe that this quaint and silent town was once a great commeicial capital. Such a tiaveller is now wending his way through the de3erted thoroughfares in search of the cathedral, and is wondering whether the ugly brick building in front of him can possibly be dignified by such a title. He would ask if he could see any signs of a human being, but there are none. Just as he is searching in despair the delusive " Guide to the Antiquities of Bruges," which he has purchased in Oafcend fora couple of francs, he hears a light footfall behind him, and turning sees a lady coming towards him. He raises his hat, and points to the building — "Paulon, madame; la cathedrale'" His accent i 3 unmistakable, and the lady replies in English — "Yes, this 13 the cathedral," and then, suddenly, she exclaims — "Mr. Maisden!" Pilchard Marsden looks at the lady earnestly, and then if, is his turn to be astonished. " Why, good giacious me, Mrs. Leslie, what arc you doing here? Do you live here? " Yes; I live here." "And Mr. Leslie, how is he? Why, I lH^en'l been you since you married, ten years ago." " Hush 1 " — 3he puts her hand on his arm. " Can I confide in you ? " " Yes, certainly." " I have no friends here. lam alone in the world When I tell the people about here what I tell you they turn away and pity me, and say I am mad." llichard Marsden began to feel uncomfortable. " They say I am mad, but you won't say so. You knew mo years ago, didn't you ; when I -was pietty, and jnen ran after me; when I mairied Kalph Leslie?" " Yes." " Mr. Marsden, the man I married was a villain ; he married me because he hated me ; he mariied me to make my life a hell, and he succeeded." "Dear me, Mrs. Leslie," gasped Richard Marsden, getting more and more uncomfortable, " how very dreadful 1 " "He brought me abroad, away from every soul I knew, the better to carry out his fiendish plan. He beat me, starved me, Richard Marsden, and when his fiendish malice had exhausted all it 3 plans, he stole my little children from me." " Stole your children 1" " Yes ! Heaven, after the lapse of years, cursed our union with two hapless babes, twins, a boy and a girl, A year ago he took them from me with a fearful oath that if I sought him or them, that moment he would kill them." "My dear lady," said Marsden, with a shudder, " you are a prey to some dreadful decision. No man would do such a barbarous thiS< „ 11 He 3/4 lfc- " But hay made no" effort to discover where heis;&£ ere tne children are? The law would certaifi 1 ? assist y ou «" 11 The law ! " y^ laughed a bitter, grating laugh. "Do you kru?£ what the law would do for me if I went to itS[" "Assist you, certainly. "Assist me? No. They wo>9iJLP ufc me "1 a lunatic asylum. Then my IasNBSP 8 of finding my children would be gone. 11 "But, mv dear madam, if you are sane how*] can they put you in an asylum ? " < 1 > "He threatened it once, when we first came

I to live here. He gave it out that I was mad — harmless, but mad on certain points. The \ people believed him. He kept me locked up for weeks sometimes, and beat me till I shrieked. Wliou I cried out, the people said, ' Listen ro the mad Englishwoman ; she is bad to-night.' I found out his scheme and I was quiet. I let him abuse me and said nothing. If he hurt me I bit my lip and would not ciy. I went almost mad at last." " But thexc is a law in this land as well as in your own foirill-Ueatsd wives. Surely you could have claimed piotection." " I dare not. He Jnieio homcthuig." Suddenly an idea seemed to sliike Richard Marsden. " Mrs. Leslie," he said, " you loved this man when you married him?" "No, I never loved him. He Knew somelliinq." "What did he know?" "Something so dreadful that I dare not whisper it— something that had he spoken it aloud would have bi ought and ruin on those near and dear to me." Richard Marsden pressed her no further, lie quite saw how affairs stood. The poor creature was not mad perhaps, but she was evidently not right in her head. He felt anxious to finish the conversation and get away. " How do you live ? — if it is not a rude question," he asked. I don't live. I keop body and soul together. I teach Encli-h to a few people here, and I go to some ef the schools. lam not too mad for that." Richard Maviden pitied the woman. There was a look in her faco that told how sorrow had eaten into her heart. lie remembpred hor a bright and happy gnl, and he had been one of the invited guests when Leslie led her to the altar. It had been veiy sadden, he remembered. Everybody fancied she was going to mairy someone else ; in fact, rumour whispered she had been engaged to him. Pier father was a struggling artist, a Bohemian of the old school, who kept open house, and whose pretty daughter tempted many a brother of the palette to his meiry supper parties. Leslie was an artist too, but a saturnine, ill-conditioned fellow, and just the last man one would have thought the gay-hearted girl would many. " Well, Mrs. Leslie," said Marsden after a pause, " is there anything I can do for you — any message to old friends in England ? " " When do you go to England ? " she asked eageily. " O, in about a month." She clutched his aim and frightened him by her vehemence. " Richard Marsden," she said, " give me your pocket-book." He gave it to her, and she scribbled her address in it. " Theie's my address. If ever you come across my husband or hear of him, find out where my children are and let me know at once. I will go to the world's end to see them again." Her voice quivered, and she broke down, moamng out, " Oh, my children ; my poor lost darlings 1 " " There, there," said Richard, swallowing the big lump in his throat ; " you'll hear of them soon, depend upon it. He's travelling about. When he's settled down he'll let you knew." " Nevei' 1 " she wailed. "He will let me die and never clasp them moie. He hates me." "Well, look here. Directly I get to England I'll try and iind him out if he's there, and if I hear anything I'll let you know. By-the-by, what are the children's names? " He asked more as an assumption of interest in the case than as a matter of curiosity. "Urbain and Isette," s>he answered. " Quaint names. I sha'n't forget them. Good day." He shook hands and hurried into the cathedral, and Mi 5. Leslie went on her way I to the shop of the rich pastrycook, whose daughter was learning English that she might speak it behind the counter to the English travellers, who were so fond of cream cakes and ate so many ices. ***** The summer went by, and the autumn came. The days grew short and the leaves fell from the trees, and then came the first cold days of winter. In the winter Madame Leslie fell ill, and could not give her lessons. But one morning the postman brought a letter for her, and she rose from her sick bed and dressed herself and cried, and counted up her little hoard of money and said she was going on a long journey; and she was so weak and ill that Marie, the servant where she lodged, went with her to the station and took her a ticket, third class, to Antwerp. All this Marie told the other servants next day in the vegetable market, when she was buying the carrots and the turnips for the mid-day meal. It was quite true, all that she 3aid, though often Marie had been known to exaggerate. But what Marie did not know was that the letter was from Richard Marsden, who wrote from Italy: — "Dear Mrs. Leslie, — I came across the enclosed advertisement in an English newspaper the other day. A book that I bought at the English library in Rome was sent home wrapped in it. The date is torn off, but you will see that the address given is in London, and that the names mentioned are Uibain and Isette." And the careless fellow had never enclosed the cutting, and had never put an address at the head of his letter. The poor mother knew only that her lost children were in London, perhaps ill, and at the mercy of strangers. Their father had deserted them. She rose from her sick-bed, counted up her little store of gold, saved by denying herself the bare necessaries of life, and in the stormy winter weather she set out on her search, with nothing to guide her but the vague letter of Richard Marsden. " God will guide a mother's heart aright," she thought, and so took comfort and went on her pilgrimage.