Novelist Through Deep Waters.

Waikato Times, Volume 2507, Issue XXXI, 4 August 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist Through Deep Waters.

By INA LEON CASSILIS, Author of "Ilm.-i Raphael. Actress," " Tho Young Widower," "it. Caddie's Carpet Bag," &c„ ifcc; CHAPTER XX.—(Continued). " I wilt< hear no more," she said, almost fiercely ; " nothing can recall the past; nothing can give back to all that I have lost. Henceforth I am an outcast from the world in which I was once sought, if ever loved. Let me pass. The clay is ■waking." Yet still he sought to detain her. "I have no right. I claim no right," he said almost pleadingly ; " let me only entreat you to think onco more to sutler this day to pass—" " Don Cola," said Florence de Clifford, resolutely, "1 have said that I will hear no more. GrantFaulkner is inexorable; and will Agnes consent, will yon consent to keep up the fraud which deprives Sir Herbert's kin of CliffordArdeley ? Leave me the right, the last I shall claim in this house—the right to quit it forever." J She avoided his eyes, she would not look straight in his face. He made one more endeavour, not to arrest her from her purpose, but to retain some knowledge of her. " Suffer me to ask one thing," he said, laying his hand again on hers, " You can trust my honour; that, at least, is unsullied." " I can, I do, most fully." " Let me know then where you are when you have reached your destination." Florence hesitated. "For what reason?" The unhappy woman covered her face— " Grant you a favour, Cambaceres ? It is I who should plead— you who should command; you have my promise. How can I let you know ?" Send any letter or messenger direct to my house. My servant is •faithful ; he has lived with me eight years and never failed me. Lady de Clifford, must this be?'' "It must," she said, dropping over her face the veil she had lifted wheu first they entered the room. " See it is dawn already. Go back to Agues, and leave me." " God help you," was all the painter said, and suffered her to pass out, but followed her, and when, ■with an impatient gesture, she turned round, he said simply— " I will open the door for you." Down the wide stairs the two figuxes passed along the hall, and swiftlessly and almost noiselessly the West Indian unfastened the bolts and bais of the hall door. The street without was perfectly still in the first glimmering light of the dawn. There was not a sign of life. " One moment," he said in a lowvoice, " there is a stand of night cabs in street; go to London Bridge ; a train leaves for Dover at at six o'clock. You can be in Paris before evening—you are not known there. Stay, some one passes. Once more, who can be sent for—forgive me—for Agnes' sake." • « Send for Lady Magdalen Hyde ; she will come, I know. Lisetta knows her address. Adio." " Adio." One look she gave him as she went out, a look that inspired him with hope, for it seemed as though she sought to ily from an influence to which she would not succumb. The door closed behind the fugitive form of the mistress of that splendid mansion, the bolts shot back, the chains were lifted, and with a heavy heart the painter turned back and went up slowly towards the sick room. In the gallery without he met Father Michael. "Agnes sleeps still," he said, "I

liavo just left her. Merced is in the room now ; she, seems strangely agitated —Merced, I mean." "Why, what was happened V said the Spaniard. " T cannot tell. She will tell me nothing yet; presently, she. s iys, I shall know. It may be connected with you, for when I entered the ante-room just after you had passed through, she seemed qi:ite njtiwe, and for sonic moments could not answer me coherently." " I might resemble some one she knew," said the Spaniard, " Poor thing, she has a sorrowful face." "Aye, Cola, where is Florence ?" " Hush !" The painter glanced round, and drew the priest further from the ante-room door. " Father, she is gone—fled ; two minutes ago I opened the door for her to pass out." " Fled, Cola!" "I met her in this gallery," Cambaceres went on, " I took hev into that room, yonder ; I tried to persuade her to remain. Is it a wonder that I failed 1 She told me all that story of the past ; at another time I will repeat it to you. I succeeded in gaining from her a promise that she would let me know where she is. She leaves for Paris." The priest covered his face for a moment. " God guide her in this awful darkness," he said, in a suppressed voice. "So closes this page of a sinful life—a fugitive, from her own home, an outcast whose name every idle tongue will blast with slander. Truly the tragedy of the stage is but a poor imitation." The two men were silent for a while ; then Cainbaceres roused himself and said, "As early as possible Lady Magdalen Hyde must be sent for. Florence de Clifford herself told me that she wguld come. Lisetta can go." The priest sighed heavily— " The (light cannot be long kept secret," he said, " for it will soon reach Grant-Faulkner's ears." " And for this reason it must rest between you and me this afternoon. Then we will send for Lady Magdalen." The ante-room door opened and Lisetta came out. " Signor," she said to Cambaceres, " Dr. Delwyn wishes to see you." The painter turned at once, and Father Michael whispering hastily, " I will go and lock the door of her apartments, as though she had done it herself," went along the gallery, and Oambaceres returned to the room he had quitted but an hour before.

CHAPTER XXI. Ey Agnes' bedside sat Merced Rodriguez, and Dr. Delwyn was seated a little further off; both looked up as the painter entered the room, and as his glance went to tho sleeper he saw that the black eyes of the West Indian woman were fixed on his face with a look of such intense searching earnestness that he could not but meet that gaze; she turned aside hastily then, muttering something to herself, and drawing her veil round her features, and as the physician instantly approached, Cambaceres gave no further heed to an emotion which probably arose from no more serious causes than a real or supposed resemblance in him to someone known in former years. " M. de Cambaceres," said Dr. Delwyn, " the fever is certainly less ; I will still speak cautiously, but I cannot help thinking that there is strong ground for hope." The few words the Spaniard said were in his own rich language, and the physician did not comprehend them, but, by the quick drawn breath and compressed lips, he saw that the painter was crushing, as much as possible, all outward sign of deep feeling, and he could sympathise as an Englishman with Spanish reserve. " Where," he said, after a pause, is Lady de Clifford? Lisetta has gone to lie down for a while, but Merced can go for her." " It were better not," replied Cambaceres, quietly, " I will let her know what you have just told me." The physician said no more; there was some mystery that he could not fathom, but Don Cola, like the priest, was impenetrable, and Dr. Delwyn (vent out to Father Michael. It was now broad clay. The painter sat down a few steps from Merced, and it soon became evident to him that he was an object of absorbing attention to the nurse. She watched him with such steadfast persistency that even when his face was bent down—as it mostly was—he was conscious that her eyes were fixed upon him, and though, when he lifted his, she averted her looks, it was a manifest effort to do so, and as soon as his eyes dropped again her gaze went back to his features; nay, more, if he moved hand or foot she noted the movement, till at length weary, even pro-occupied as he was, of so close a scrutiny, he turned to her and said in a low voice, and in Spanish— " Why do you watch me so, Merced ? What is the matter 1" The woman trembled in every limb, and looked at him with a look that startled him, for it was so piercing, so yearning, that it seemed as though her whole heart leaped up into her eyes, and tried to express all that the lips were powerless to utter. " Pardon, Senor, pardon," she said at last, " I will tell you soon

why I watched you. when the senorita is better, you will forgive me .1 know." A sudden wild thought flashed through the painter's mind—a thought that for a moment made liilll actually fear to ask the question which might confirm it; but Cola de Cambai-eivs never shrank long from any step which seemed to him right or expedient, and he put the question boldly— "Merced, is it that I remind you of anyone you know—any child, perhaps, of your own ?"' The woman shook her head. " No, no, Senor, not that. My only child died in its infancy, but— ay de mi ! I will tell you soon, indeed I cannot be mistaken." Cola looked on her in silence, strangely moved, he hardly knew why. She covered her face and was rocking to and fro after the manner of her race, but after a while she lifted her head, and said abruptly, still in a muffled voice, for neither of them for one moment forgot the sleeper. " Senor !" " What is it, Merced V " Will you do ms one favour 1 You arc a great painter, and I am but a poor quadroon woman, and a stranger to you—" The Spaniard interrupted her. "A woman you are, Merced, whatever your birth or your country. What is the favour you seek 1" " Senor you are too good. Will you place your hand in mind ?" The painter had almost smiled. " A small boon, surely," he said, as he laid his slender olive-skinned hands in hers, and her cheeks flushed and eyes sparkled as she clasped her fingers round it, and seemed as though testing by its touch the correctness of some surmise as yet hidden in her own thoughts. " Gracias, Senor," she then said, simply, as she released with evident reluctance the hand she held as long as she could. " I will not trouble you again till I tell you more." ■' Nay, Merced," said Don Cola, "gaze at me as much as you will if it delights your eyes. I shall not mind it now that I know you have some good reason." " Gracias, Senor," said the woman again, adding almost directly— " Please do not speak to me yet, Senor, or I shall lose all self-control. Your voice even goes right through me—to my very heart."

She rose as she spoke, and went to the other side ef the room, seating herself where a large cabinet almost hid her from the painter's sight ; lie could see, however, by the fall of her raiment, that she was bending her face down on her knees; but her wish must be respected, and he silently took his place close to the bedside, and left the quadroon woman to herself. The sun mounted higher and higher, and still Agnes slept. Father Michael left the house, called by the duties which he had to perform at the church, and Dr Delwyn, after giving his patient a last look at nine o'clock left her to Merced's experienced hands, promising to return at ten o'clock. " She may sleep," he said, " till noon, and I hope she will." On the doorstep the physician met Albrecht von Elsinger, and, in answer to the German's eager enquiry, said, almost cheerily— " She is asleep now, she has slept since half-past two this morning. There is hope, there is indeedgreat hope." "Thank Clod !" said the German, fervently, and quickly entered the house, for he did not care to let the physician see the tears in his eyes and the quivering of his lips. A change seemed to have passed over the household, for the footman who came forward actually forgot his punctilious respect, and said directly—• " The doctor says there is hope, sir ; he thinks Miss Agnes will get well." "I met him on the doorstep," said Elsinger, " and he gave me the good news. I need not apologise to lady de Clifford for so early a call. Take up my card, please—that will be sufficient," The servant bowed, and his enquiring look made Elsinger pause. " I beg your pardon, sir," said the man respectfully, " I thought perhaps you did not kaow ; you are M. de Cambaceres friend, I think, sir." " Yes ; what then ?" " Would you like to see him, sir ?" "See him'?" said the German, starting, i( is he here ?" " Since ten o'clock last night, sir; he was sent for—"

" Thank God !" exclaimed Elsinger again, in German, adding quickly in English—• "Then if he can, I am sure he will see mo ; I will not detain him two minutes." " This way, sir, please," said the footman, and he ushered the German into the drawing-room. In live minutes Cambaceres came in. "Ah! Alberto, mio cor !" Nor mere llower of language, for the close silent embrace far more than confirmed the truth it expressed " I have much to say to you, Albrecht, and it seems long since I saw you, though it but yesterday 'morning. You did not know I was here when you called 1" " No, Cola ; the servant told me. Can you spare me, then, a few minutes f "Till I am sent for," said the painter, " and lest that be soon, for

Agnes may wake at any moment, I will not wait for your questions." The German listened with silent n terest while Cambaceres told him the history of that night, and keeping back the truth of Agnes's birth and parentage. " Strange, strange indeed !" was the Germrm's final comment. "Cola, I can hardly believe that I am not in a dieim. I could hardly belitva this marvellous tale, were it not that Agnes herself proclaims its truth. Ah ! nothing can now stand between you and that child, for Lady do Clifford has no right of control over her." " Lady de Clifford, Albrocht, has fled before the fear of the world which must soon know the fraud that passed off Agnesdi Stradella as Agnes de Clifford. She left the house this morning. This will not go beyond you." •' Left it, Cola! do I understand you f The painter explained more fully, adding— " There are other reasons—which I cannot repeat, but which I do not myself think need have forced her into so rash and desperate an act; but this fraud would be enough to make her place in society a blank. I endeavoured, but in vain, to make her abandom her intention, remembering, if there were no other reason, how the world would regard so abrupt a flight from her own house. But she would hear nothing." " Have you sent for anyone" said Elsingcr, " to fill her place 1" " Not yet; Lady de Clifford gave me the name of a relative of her own who will came. She will send in the course of the day, doubtless, to inquire after Agnes, and I will then see her; but I fear a woman's tongue, and Florence de Clifford must have time to make pursuit at least difficult. You. know I allude to Grant-Faulkner." " I do. I remember your expressing the certainty of your conviction that he had some power over Lady de Clifford ; it was not—" " No, no," said the painter quickly, " far otherwise. I know the truth of that now. Perhaps it may be but too well known before many months have passed. Hush ! who comes !" A tap at the door, followed, as Cambaceres rose to his feet, by the entrance of Ursula Larubourne. " Sir," said she, "do you know anything of Lady de Clifford 1 The doors of her rooms are locked, and I cannot make her hear, and neither Lisotta nor Merced can tell me anything of her." " Is she wanted," said the painter. "Yes sir. Sir Selwyn GrantFaulkner is downstairs and wishes to see her," "He cannot see her," said the painter, decidedly. "She can see no one. I will go to Sir Selwyn— where is lie f "In the morning-room, sir ; but M. de Cambaceres," said Ursula, "is my lady in her rooms ? she may be ill—" It is enough for you," said the painter, sternly, " that I am acting with the knowledge and in the interest of Lady de Clifford, and you will do well, Ursula Lambourne, to leave this house before you are dismissed from it. Elsinger excuse inc."

His look as he passed the wait-ing-woman said more even than his words, and shrinking before him, like the guilty thing she was, Ursula turned away and retreated hastily. Elsinger followed the Spaniard, and shaking hands with him in the hall, said briefly, " I will call again later, Cola and passed straight out, while Cambaceres turned aside and entered the niorn-ing-room. Sir Selwyn Grant-Faulkner and tho "West Indian artist stood face to face —a strange contrast, those two men, of whom the one had sought but could not win, and the other not seeking yet had won ; was it strange that the young heart had shrunk from the one and. turned to the other? He seemed the very embodiment of ideal nobility, with his rare beauty of outward form blending so harmoniously with that beauty of mind and soul that belied even the taint of ignoble birth ; and GrantFaulkner, sullen, fierce, the soul of a baffled gladiator under the outward seeming of a man of fashion. This side of the picture, at least, the artist eye grasped at once " So," said Grant-Faulkner, speaking almost directly, " you are here, Cola de Cambaceres, you, who despite your fame, would not risk the scorn of Agnes de Clifford, you have found means, it seems, to make her forget your lineage and hers." Cambaceres did not seem at all moved by the taunt. " I did not come here to listen to heroics, Sir Selwyn," he said, coldly, speaking in French, though GrantFaulkner had addressed him in English. " Pardon me for employing a language with which I am familiar; if you called to enquire after Agnes di Stradella—Ah !" he said, pausing and smiling, as he saw GrantFaulkner's violent start and abrupt and marked change of countenance, " you are astonished, Monsieur, eh, Men, I need only say that I am making no random statement." " I know it, and well for you that you can prove Agnes to be an Italian," said Sir Selwyn with a bitter laugh. " What is that to me? it was not my fraud; and Agnes —" " Agnes can be nothing to you now, Monsieur," interrupted the West Indian, " now that she is no

longer the heiress of CliflordArdeley." Sir Selwyn flushed scarlet; he could not hurl back the sneer, but ho could stab with a double-edged dagger. " I presume," he said, "that Agnes herself is aware of the truth, or she would hardly have stooped to be the wife of the man who has uo name but the name the artist world has given him. Now, the portionless child of an Italian noble, she cannot well despise even coloured blood, if it is linked to wealth." Again, as with Agnes, the very brutality of the taunt turned its edge and gave the answer to the scornful 'dps. " Monsieur s'cmmse," said the West Indian, with an intensity of contempt which was in every line of his face, every tone of his voice, " and his pleasures are characteristic ; he follows so closely in the footsteps of his knightly ancestors, that he chooses as the object of his sarcasm a young and pure-hearted woman who lies in danger of her life, and who, that nothing may be wanted to fill up the picture, was once claimed as a bride. Basta ! " he added, as Grant-Faulkner writhed like a snake under the irony he could not answer, "you have played your part, Monsieur, and you have broken down. I have neither time nor inclination to bandy words with suchas you. You asked, I was told, to see Lady de Clifford. It is impossible. I have no more to say, except to ask you to quit this house." Ho turned, as he spoke, to leave the room, but the tierce outburst to which Grant-Faulkner, losing all control, gave full rein, arrested his steps. "By the heavens above 1" said the baronet, hardly able to articulate, "are you master here ? not yet, not yet; and you never shall be ! Let me pass sirrah, sirrah ! I will see Florence de Clifford." " Heroics again," said Don Cola, totally unmoved, " I stand between you and the door, Sir Selwyn, and I am a stronger man than you are, I shall not bar your progress that way," pointing towards the hall door, " but I cannot permit you to go further into the house." Grant-Faulkner passed irresolute. There was that in the brilliant resolute eye of the speaker that he did not care to face. "Do you threaten brute force?" he said after a moment's silence. "De grace, Monsieur," returned the Spaniard, courteously, " your actions, though not your words, were a threat. I am simply on the defensive." " You are mad, Cola-Maria !" said Grant-Faulkner ; " you have told me one tale of the past, but there is one that you cannot tell me, one that you would give up even Agnes Stradella to hear—one that has lived with me and shall die with me." Cambaceres was silent. Sir Selwyn's last words shot like a ray of dazzling light upon all that he had heard lately, and for a moment the West Indian literally held his breath. Grant-Faulkner watching him, smiled, and his cold light eyes gleamed, but his triumph was short lived.

" Believe if you will," said the painter, quietly, "that-my fate is in your hands, and that belief I will not try to shake. Live on as you have lived till now, in a fool's paradise. If you could tell nie," he said, fixing his eyes steadily on the baronet's face, " that Herbert de Clifford's child, given into yourhands, is living still, that he is standing before you, speaking to you now—ha ! GrantFaulkner, you have not learned yet the actor's art of controlling all play of feature, you ace but a poor player, as I have already said ; this is your secret then ? Perhaps it is not entirely in your own keeping. This is the secret, which told to all the world was to make Florence de Clifford a felon, unless that child, whose wealth was all that you sought to prop up your ruined fortunes, would sacrifice life and the law of God to you; did you remember, in the passion of revenge, what your own fate would be ; I trow not. But if you are willing to fulfil a coward's threat—go now, and proclaim to the world the noble part you have played in this drama. Who will hinder you ? or if you will, destroy every proof you hold. I know the truth now, and by all the saints in heaven I will not rest day or night till I have proved that truth. Look me full in the face, Grant-Faulkner if you can, if your dare, and tell me that I am nameless." A now life seemed to have thrilled through, him, a now power seemed to have been breathed into him. Grant-Faulkner actually cowered bofore the stern majesty of that man's mien and manner ; even the rage that filled him could not give to his guilty conscience so much as the bravado of innocence. ."Is the' power in your right hand or in mine ? " said the painter. " If the world never knew me save as Cola-Maria, what then ? It is a name which no woman can curse, which no slander can touch. Shall I describe Sir Selwyn Grant-Faulk-ner ? A liar and a felon before God, whose name may yet be a bye-word as he would have made Florence de Clifford's, a man who for base revenge lent himself to the same sin in another, and sapped all happiness from the life that fear, or a more refined vengoance, and not mercy, or compunction, kept him from destroying; a man who kept for six and twenty years the knowledge which might one day serve his own ends, and used it true

always to his nature against that object which of all creatures endowed with life appeals most strongly to the protection of man, and for that reason appealed in vain to Selwyn Grout-Faulkner—a young and tender woman. Have I not said enough ? can you deny one word that I have uttered. Don}' if you can; if not, show, if you do not feel shame, and leave the house whore your presence lias brought sorrow and sin." He opened the door ns he 6poke. If a single look could liavo stretched him lifeless on the ground, the look Grant-Fuulkuor gave him would havo anticipated the steel that the quivering hand yearned to grasp ; the soul, the intent of the assassin sprang forth from those light cruel eyes ; but they sank once moro as the baser animals crouch at a blow before the steadfast brilliant gaze they met, and without a word Grant-Faulkner passed out —strode to the door, theu turned, and his face was perfectly livid as he said through his set teeth— "It will be avenged yet, not on Florence de Clifford, but on you. If one word would crush out your aecursed lifo, I would utter that word." "It was in your eyes just now. Monsieur," said the Spaniard coolly, " merci bien." The door closed on the baronet, and Cola de Cambaceres was alono. Then his whole face, his whole mien changed once more ; he turned back dizzily to the room he had quitted and sank down, covering his face, trembling with a passion that but for a paramount thought of Agnes must have carried all before it. " Mother! oh, God! my mother," was the cry that rose in his heart, for he spoke no word. " She is spotless; I knew it, my very soul rebelled against the lie they told me. Slave born! it could not be ! With God's help I will win back all these years of suffering, and claim my father's noble name." A light touch on his shoulder, and he sprang to his feet. Merced stood before him ; the woman was trembling and her face was deeply agitated; as their eyes met she suddenly clasped her hands over her breast and said in a low stifled voice, as if the words were forced from her— "Cola, my own foster son! I knew you, I knew you, the moment I saw you." "Foster son, Mercod, after so many years," said the Spaniard, grasping her hand in his own. " I carried you in my arms, you were the light of my eyes, the joy of my soul," said the woman passionately. "Mistaken ! no, no, impossible ! Hush! I should not have spoken yet, but I lost my self-con-trol, for my heart leaped outto you, my foster son. The senorita asks for you, I came for you." As to the soldier the voice of the commander is above all ties of kith and kin, so to Cola de Cambaceres that summons was absolute; even delay was almost a sacrilege. He did not speak any more then, but be pressed his lips to the hand he held ; and the woman's black eyes lighted up with wild joy. She understood him; he believed her, and murmuring patiently, "Soon, soon, you shall have justice, my foster son," she drew her veil round her face and followed the painter up the stairs, halting in the anteroom through which the Spaniard, whose swift step had long distanced hers, had passed the moment before. (To be contained).