LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1424, 7 September 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

NOTHING MORE!

( Concluded.)

She said this, looking up into his face with her lovely haggard eyes, and oh, the pitifulness of the story that they told him ! It is given to none of us to bo! always on guard, always wise, and this was the hour of Keith Falconer’s weakness.

He crushed her hands in his ; he looked with despairing eyes into her paling face. * Child,’ he said hoarsely, ‘ you will not forget me, will you ? You know how it is with me; you know how it is ; and that parting with you is like tearing the heart out from my breast. Oh, my darling, let me think that you will remember me sometimes ! Pray for me too, Marion. Pray God for me that I fail not ’

He had drawn her to his breast, and held her fast and close with arms that trembled as they clasped her; her grave, sad, tender eyes looked into hi?, her lips were white, but she spake with steadfast calmness — * I shall never forget you—never. I want to be a help <o you, not a hindrance; I am glad you will find help in knowing that I am thinking of you—for indeed I will! And I will pray each night and morning, through all the years to come, that God may help 3«gAfor I know, oh Keith—l know how LiaHpt is. ’ ■ Hard ! ’ he muttered, setting his teeth.

‘ If you only knew! ’ It was the one solo mitrmur that ever passed the man’s lips in all the years of a wearisome bondage. ‘ I think I do know,’ said the girl softly. There was silence after this, and then Keith Falconer bent his head until his lips lay close upon her mouth. A moment more, and she stood blind and dazed with grief—alone. Chapter IV. Ten years have passed away since Marion Temple and Keith Falconer parted. We left Marion a girl, full of a girl’s impulsive sensitiveness, we find her a woman, calmed and disciplined by the experience of life. A fair woman too ; fairer in her ripened years than in her youth. Time’s hand has deepead the steadfast ejes, and given a

greater sweetness to the smile —the smile that is rarer than of yore. Her form has gained in fulness, without losing its supple grace, and her quiet voice tells of a peace won by self-conquest. Yet with all these love-winning attributes Marion in all these long years has had no lover. Among men she has had many friends; there have been those who have loved her as a man loves the woman whose uplifting friendship holds him back from all evil; but something that no man has ever tried to sot aside has hedged her round, so that none have borne to her that dearest, closest love, that would fain claim all a woman has to give. No word from Keith Falconer has reached her throughout the ten years that have gone by since he and she parted —save once, when, after reaching Mauritius, Marion wrote to toll him of h'-r safety, and to her short, almost formal letter, came a few lines of kind wishes for her happiness in her new home. Nothing more! Nothing more—through the quiet nights in that lovely land, when the “hush of the starshine” seemed to cradle regretful memories - nothing more during that awful time, when a dank mist lay low over the caue-tractq, and girdled the great rocky hills —when a terrible pestilence devastated the ’sle of France, and the sea sobbing against the coral reefs seemed to sing a ceaseless dirge for the many dead; through joy and sorrow, weal and woe, no word or sign from Keith Falconer reached the woman he hud loved so passionately, yet so hopelessly. For he would uot hold her to him by one single link of his own forging ; she was young and untried by the world, life was all before her, she would perchance forget, and form new ties ; he tried to : think, he hoped that this might be so ; perhaps there were times and seasons when he really did hops it.

And she ?

Well, she I just took up her life as it was, and lived it up to its higho ; t capability. Had the been one to yield herself a prey to weak repinirig thoughts, I had never written her story. She accepted Keith’s silence, knowing through that quick instinctive sympathy with him which no separating seas, no new, strange surroundings, could destroy, how wisely it was meant. Kor had she been unhappy in the passing of the y r cara. It is only the selfUh and feeble ones who i erase to sea any brightness in. earth’s gar-

dca because the fairest flower it held for them is out of their reach, *lt might have been’ docs very well lor a day-dream; ‘it is’ is a bettor thought to spur us on to ‘ act

in the living present.’ Marion had learnt to love (ho land of her adoption, it ways, and its people. Close companionship had drawn Aunt Milly and herself daily nearer to each other; a pleasant, refined, and cultured coterie had gathered about them ; indeed, there were few houses so popular in the island, gy Mavina'.te, Aunt Mlily’s domain. ft nestles a nong luxuriant how, and the pillars of its wide verandahs are wreathed and entwined with beauteous climbing plan's. The garden runs down hill to the sea, and a quarter of a

1 mile off are the reefs, above which the waves curl and beat like living things. Every one in the island says that this year, of which I am now writing, has been the richest and the ripest known for many a long day. It is as though Nature would fain try to heal the wounds made by the pestilence a year ago ; fain give all the comfort she can to bereaved hearts and teardimmed eyes, by her beauty. And for Marion every flower has a fairer tint, a sweeter perfume than in all the years of her life that is past. , . , Eor is not Keith Falconer free—free to seek her - free to claim her as his own ? It is six months ago now since the knowledge of this possible joy disturbed the even tenor of her days ; but, when first she read the record of his wife’s death—read that ‘ Blanche, wife of Keith Falconer, M.P.,’had only lived to bo thirty-four years, Marion hardly gave a thought to herself. Like most of us when we hear that some shallow, frivolous creature has passed away to the land of reality, she gave a quick shudder, and could not for a moment grasp the idea of immorality for such a petty trifler. But as the weeks passed on, a new and beautful life seemed to awaken and stir in her heart, and she realised the intensity of passionate gladness enfolded in the thought of seeing Keith once again. No longer young i changed it might be in many out ward things, but the same, the very same to her, as when together they watched the sunlight die away from the hills about Glenluna Bay, and knew that the light of their own lives was fading too 1 She loved to wander alone along the rocky shore, where here and there streamlets from the hills came tumbling and trilling down to the sea ; the wave sobbing above the coral reefs that had ooce seemed to chant a requiem, now seemed attuned to the dear reL ain

‘He will cornc—he will come to me soon !’ The fireflies glittering in the woods at night seemed of a new and brighter beauty, and the ‘hush of the star shine’ that had seemed once to cradle regret, now throbbed with the silence of passion too deep for words. She never doubted that the woman he had loved and parted from ten years ago was dear to him now as then. That he would come to her when time was ripe she never doubted either.

There is ‘love, and love,’ you see; and the highest, truest love depends but little on mere external things, it needs not words and looks, and sweet assurances to keep it alive!

Well, in the midst of .all the tropical loveliness that adorned the island that was Marion’s home, a sudden gloom descended upon the face of nature, like a dark veil over the face of a beautiful woman. Clouds gathered in gray masses where sea and sky met. A sinister moaning came from tbe reefs, birds Hew low, and fluttered hero and there in fear, obedient to a subtle instinct of coming danger. And what was the strange spirit of restlessness that possessed the soul of the woman whose story 1 am telling ? Why did she wander, restless as the birds, from room to room, from garden to verandah, gazing seaward with a look as.of a troubled expectancy ? ‘ What ails you, dearest one ?’ said Aunt Milly, prisoning the restless hands. ' ‘ldo not know,’ answered Marion. ‘I cannot tell; the sea out there seems to have something to say to me, something that I must listen to,’

Oh, what a weary troubled look was in the depths of the brown eyes that Keith Falconer had loved so well as she spoke! Much as she loved her niece, Aunt Milly was always just a little afraid of her; and so now she forbore to question any more, only wondering at the strange light; in the eyes that were usually so sad and sweet, and at the quiver of suppressed passion round her mouth. The day was dying, the night was coining on.

Marion waited until Aunt Milly had left the room, then she wrapped a crimson shawl about her head, and stole away down the long garden to the shore. A longing that she could not resist drew her to the sea—

the sea that was moaning out some message meant for her cars alone. I’ierrot Le Brun, an old servant of tho household, met her on the way k It was strange, lie thought, that she should be out alone, with the murky darkness falling, and a storm coining on ; but then, what would you? ‘ M’zelle,’ was like no one else in all the island. In the eyes of its humbler inhabitants, she could do no wrong ; had she not nursed the sick and tended the dying in the days of that awful pestilence, and seemed to bear a charmed life ?

‘ It is rough to-night, M’zeUe,’ said the old man, standing cap in hand beside her; ‘ there was a ship trying to make for the Fanfaron awhile ago, but I think none could pass the reefs now'; the good God help all poor souls out at sea to-night! ’ ‘ Then he passed on, and Marion went her way.

Her head w* bowed low upon her breast, and like the diapason of some pleading litany, old Pierrot’s words seemed to ring in her ears, ‘ The good God help all poor souls out at sea to-night! ’ Once on the shore, she saw with awestruck eyes, that all along the western horizon lay low a line of lurid light, a red, angry light, tho like of which her eyes had never seen before Above, and all around, the heavens w T ere black, and seemed to sway downwards towards the earth, as though from the weight of their own density. She stretched out her arms towards that lowly iug bar of light, against which the tossing waves made a line of foam. Had tho k sullen roar of the sea, in trqth, some message to her from the heart that was one with hers?

‘What is it? My love! my love! where are you?’ she moaned, with passionate, tearless sobs. ‘Wherever you are, you are wanting me—-and oh, I cannot come !’

A great yearning ached at her heart: a terrible longing, that was the answer to a spirit-cry from afar, consumed her soul. She c'asped her hands as one who prays, and once again that litany of pleading came from her white lips. ‘The —good— God ■ help—all—poor—souls— out -at sea —to-night i’

Suddenly the blackness overhead was cleft by a dazzling shaft of light, and the very ground beneath her feet seemed to vibrate with the awful crash of the thunder. Y et she felt no fear. Pierrot had ventured before this to turn back and make his way to the place where she stood : but he had only stood sentinel near her ;he had not spoken. Now a young sapling at some distance from where he stood was suddenly seized as it were by some invisible hand, and wrenched, and twisted, and bowed almost to the earth

‘ M’zelle ! m’zelle !’ ho shouted, springing clown the shore to Marion’s side. ‘lt is the hurricane come haste—do not stay !’

As she turned towards him the crimson shawl was torn from, her head, and whirled aloft out 04 sight, and in another moment che and : Pierrot were fighting with the tempest, he dragging her along by the hand, until they gained the shelter of Marinette.

A spell of lovely tropical weather, caiman d bright, followed the storm of that fearful night; the sky was blue as the inner petals of a violet, the. sea lapped softly on the shore, the gay-pluraaged birds preened themselves m the orange and mango trees. Yet Aunt Mffly saw with wonder that a strspgo watchful eagerness, was still shining in her darling’s eyes. At any foothill, Marion's color came and went ; at night she laid her down, and lay sleepless and expectant till the morning. So, at last, what her spirit watched for came.

It was Aunt Milly who put into her hand the paper that contained it —the paper that toid how the good ship Ariadne had gone down off the Cape ; and gave among the list of the io.it, the name of Keith Falcon ey.

c He was coming to me—there is his name that has been graven on my heart all these weary years. I shall never see him any more—but, oh my darling, I shall always know that you were—corning—-to —mo I ’ She fell upon her kuoas at Aunt Milly’s feet, looking up into her face with eyes full

of a dumb anguish; then she slid to the door, and lay there white and still. J * * * *

It is a marvel what hearts can bear, and yet not cease to beat. tji Marion Temple did not die, she lived ; nay more, she did Iter life’s work well and bravely-lived, as he who had so loved her would have had her live—for the good of those around her. ‘lt is only waiting a little longer/ she once said to Aunt Milly, and though auntie’s old eyes were blinded with tears as she listened, Marion’s were dry.

She knew that her love was ‘ coming to her/ she knew that he had loved her the same through all the long years of silence and separation ; she knew that, if Heaven had willed it so, her happy head would yet have rested on his breast, But it was not to be ! Keith’s only message to her was his name in the list of those who perished in the illfated Ariadne, the ship that went down upon that stormy night, when Marion, standing on the lonely shore, watched and waited for she knew not what. That message was enough ; she could work and wait until the hand of death should lead her to that land where ‘ there shall be no more sea’—the brightest jewel of her life, a memory, nothing more!