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into numbness; for months I had scarcely re- It was still early in the afternoon when I mountturned to it in my own mind, or if it had, flitted ed, but the fresh sea-breeze, which we always had past; I turned from it so easily that I thought at this elevation, tempered the fierce heat, and the phantom laid. Now as I rose and put down a huge tamarind-tree began to throw grateful the volume I had held so idly, I said to myself, shadows across the court-yard. I was not alto"Why should my home be silent any longer? gether weary of my flowers, and they had reWhy should not this gallery echo to baby feet paid my care. The snowy cups of the portand boyish laughter? For I loved children so. landia, and the starry blossoms of the scarlet No woman with a mother's heart ever yearned cordia brightened the carriage-road; thickets more tenderly over the dimpled little forms, the of white and rose-colored oleanders were burstarch, winning innocence of childhood. What a ing into full bloom, and the pillars of the galdifferent place Mount Victory would be with a lery were hidden with trailing sprays of frawoman's delicate skill to arrange, with the in- grant jasmine. On either side of the gatenumerable little trifles that seem necessary to her way a stately young palm, with its sculptured life! I left the long gallery with its screening trunk, bore up an emerald coronal of leaves, and a jalousies and went into the saloon. It echoed fantastic, uncouth cactus crept snake-like around as I trod. The heavy furniture had occupied the heavy masonry. I rode forth under the just those places from the moment of my first shadows of the tent-like tamarind, the towering possession. The baize-covered table in the cen- cotton-tree, the mango with its burnished green tre of the room, strewn and piled with foreign leaves and grape-like clusters of early fruit; prints, the glasses and decanters upon the side- the blossoms of the lime and the acacia scented board, with cigars lying about, tokens of a visit the air, the sunlight gleamed upon the emerald from a neighboring manager, these were the fields of corn that clothed the hill-side, contrastonly signs of occupancy. Four stately chambers ing with the keen, clear furrows which the paopened into this main saloon, as is the manner tient oxen turned for the coming crop. I looked of building with us, two upon each side. I back upon the house-its low yellow walls and pushed ajar the door of one opposite to my green jalousies, the square tray-like roof, the own. Just as I had seen it a year before, the pillars that upheld the galleries, the shrubbery last time I had entertained a guest. The tall clustering around it; at the picturesque buildcarved bedstead, draped with dingy mosquito ings of "the works," the tall towers of the windnetting, the yellow linen, the dusty chairs and mill with its slow sailing arms, the red tiled tables, all bespoke the lack of woman's care. roof of the many-windowed boiling-house, the In my own room matters were worse still. One arches underneath which the waste was stored, wondered at the ingenuity which discovered a the village of stone cabins clustering around these desired article of clothing amidst the confusion central objects, relieved by thickets of oranges and disorder of the apartment, though the bed and broad-leaved bananas-how lovely the picand its appurtenances were white and clean. ture was-above, below, around me: yet I was Already it was inclosed for the night, and I so weary of it. Weary of the long stately stumbled over the great bathing-tub placed be- avenues of palms that lined the roads, every side it for my morning ablutions. I turned back where intersecting the island like boundary lines to the dining-saloon, still thinking what changes upon a map; weary of the eternal glory of the a woman might effect in what had once been a blue heavens and the pale green sea toward bright and cheerful West Indian mansion. The which I rode; weary of myself most of all, I dining-hall was suggestive of any thing but the came slowly under the shadow of the hills-a wealth and luxury and hospitality for which winding, narrow path that descended to the seaMount Victory had been famed in my uncle's shore. A deep ravine opened on my right, dark day. Heavy urns and salvers still decorated the with foliage; up above me the rugged hill-side side tables, tall silver candlesticks supported the gave no foothold to man nor beast; in the soliwax-lights that showed me nightly the loneliness tude I heard only the melancholy coo of the of my home, but they were tarnished and dis- mountain dove, with its one long, grieving, plaintcolored. So were the frames of the oval mir- ive call. It stirred the ancient pain which I rors, and the pictures on the wall, and the cor- had thought stifled forever; it returned with a nices of the square roof above me. gnawing dullness, and with it came such vivid I rang the bell, also of silver, belonging to memories that I was looking for the time upon the famous Chalnor dinner service that I had an English home and harvest field. I saw the fallen heir to with the estate. My man-servant, rose-wreathed cottage just as I had turned away Prince, did not hear, or did not choose to hear, from it-the figures upon the closely-shaven lawn the summons. A tall, straight negro woman-my friend lifting the least of all the housecame, with a face as dark and as void of interest or expression as the mahogany panels of the door she held while receiving' my orders.

"Dinner at eight instead of six, Tarquina, and my horse." I had decided to vary the dullness of my home by the dullness of the town lying at the foot of the sloping hills which isolated my estate.

hold high in air to wave me a farewell with his dimpled hand-my pet and plaything, Lelia, clinging to her mother's dress, and half hiding her blue eyes and flaxen curls, as she watched me shyly. The mother, the life of that lovely home, too girlish for a wife, more like a child herself than a matron. I saw her long friendly look follow the departing guest, heard her earn

est "God bless you!" as she wrung my hand. | knew how grudgingly one leaves the presence Yet with all their love for me, and all I professed for them, that was the end. Where are they now, and what do they think of me?

I could not help it; I am no dissembler. When I returned first, and found Adriance Telfair just married; when, with all a young man's ardor, I came longing for the old undivided sympathy of my life-long friend, and found him still trueoh yes! that was always his nature-but absorbed in another love, another companionship, I met her with a cold aversion sprung from jealousy. I had not many loves: a lonely boyhood and a proud nature had kept me from much social intercourse. When I first left England for a venture in America I wrote long, long letters to Adriance, as a lover might have written, and meeting him was the brightest anticipation of my return. How could I help feeling a bitter disappointment? Not that he was in the least altered toward me. It was his bridal month, yet he left his young wife to come and meet me; but it was to carry me to her as fast as steam could bear us, to talk of her incessantly: her beauty, her graces, her virtues, her self-renunciation in marrying him, a comparatively poor man in commercial life, when she had far more brilliant opportunities.

that is dearest to them in life, how long and weary the hours of absence are. After a little she saw how cold and distant my manner ever was; and whether she talked of it I do not know, but Adriance, least suspicious of men, spoke of it to me.

"Frankly, Chalnor, you do not like my wife. I don't understand it, for of course I think her the most lovable being on earth; but you will feel differently one of these days, when you know her better."

How differently God only, who had seen the struggle, knows; for I came to love her. Love the wife of another man, and that man my friend! I, who had made honor my religion; but it failed me.

It was thus: I came back to England again, four years afterward, suddenly recalled by the death of my Uncle Chalnor, who had left me coheir with my sister, and I reached Chalnor Hall to find my sister gone, myself the last of our line. I had never known my sister very well. She was much older than myself, and I had always been kept at school until sent out to seek my fortune; but it was a shock to find myself so suddenly cut off from all human ties. My great uncle had been kind to me in his way; my sister, too, after her formal fashion, and I lost all exultation in my inheritance when I walked through the vacant rooms, and felt my perfect isolation from all human affection. Feeling thus

I thought any one might well have been proud to be his choice. The least selfish of men, the most pure-minded and honorable soul, so I said to myself, that had ever worn mortal mould, and my late experience in the world had not changed my natural gravity and reserve sinking into my opinion one whit. I looked up into his face to see if this self-depreciation was honest. The cold cynicism that is beginning to eat into my life had already taken root. I met his clear, earnest eyes watching mine for sympathy, and prepared myself to meet a haughty, scornful beauty, who had made him feel her great condescension in accepting him.

But I found nothing of the kind. A frank, sweet face, frank as his own, smiling with welcome; a friendly clasp of the white soft hand; a manner half candid, half shy, as she recalled her position, the wife of Adriance meeting his chief friend.

"I am so glad you have come home just now, Mr. Chalnor-we are, I mean-Adriance has told me so much about you; and the instant he saw your name among the arrivals he flew off to meet you. If it was any one else I should be jealous, but I know you are like his own broth

er."
What more could I have asked? The cheer-
ful liberality of her spirit should have shamed
my jealous nature, yet it did not. She was very
generous, too, in our intercourse, leaving him to
sit with me, as our old habit had been, till long
after midnight; never complaining or resentful,
no matter how long our rides separated him from
her." He will not have you long," she said,
playfully, "and I am his for the rest of his life."
Yet I did not appreciate it at the time. I felt
indignant that she should seem to dole out to
me what was mine by a prior claim. I little

gloom-Adriance came, the bearer of a kindlyworded note of invitation from his wife to visit them. I did not care to go, but he urged it upon me; and somehow, as I read the note again, its friendliness rebuked me, for I certainly had not deserved any thing at her hands.

She, Bertha, was standing on the veranda as we arrived, full of gladness at her husband's return, yet repressing it for my sake, leaving him aside for the instant and coming up to me first, with the hearty grasp so noticeable from that soft, delicate hand, and a greeting such as in all my life I had never received from a woman before; for my sad, heavy expression seemed to give her pain, and she took both my hands in her own and held them a moment, saying, "I was afraid you would not come, and I am so glad."

It was my utter loneliness that made the words thrill me. That any one should be glad for my presence, that any one really sympathized in my sorrow. I knew Adriance did, but, gentle and affectionate as he was, he could not enter into it as a woman's heart instinctively had done.

Then, too, she was so very lovely. I knew of their two children-Bernard, the baby, was my namesake—and I expected to see their mother grown older and coarser, or pale and dispirited at least, as is so often the case with those who enter upon maternal life in our depressing climate. But it was not so with Bertha; maternity had but added beauty to what was already loveliness. Her delicate complex

ion was a shade more transparent, but the rose | unconsciously betraying how patiently and nobly was as bright as ever on her cheek. The flow- she had sustained her husband in their struging clusters of curls were put back, but the fair gling days of misfortune; Adriance delighted hair rippled with that golden, wavy light which with our mutual recognition of each other's exis far more beautiful; her clear blue eyes were cellences, and declaring that nothing was wantmore earnest, but also more loving; and the ing to make up his perfect happiness. bright playfulness of the bride had changed to the quiet, watchful, thoughtful ministrations of the wife.

Whatever the change may have been, it was gain rather than loss; and it drew me to watch her all that day, and to wonder at my old blindness and insensibility. They were not wealthy, but her taste had made luxuries from necessities, and their house was the perfection of a home. Very different from the cold charities of Chalnor Hall in its best days; very different from the empty, dreary habitation I had just left behind.

For I recalled all this as I rode along that wild gorge, with now and then a glimpse of the calm blue sea. And something more. How, when she came to bid me good-night that first memorable evening, she said, as I held out my hand at parting, "We are so glad to have you with us in our own home; we have thought of you, and felt for you so much!" and the wild impulse that made me carry her hand to my lips, that tempted me to kiss the tender, loving eyes that were raised so earnestly to my face.

She must have seen my manner, so strange, so different from any thing she had known of me before; but she said nothing, only released her hand quietly, and went away to her children. I heard her soothing a little fretful sleeper in the next room. Mad thoughts came into my heart; what if I had been in the place of my friend? what if that were my wife, and those my children? All the natural longings of a man's heart seemed to blaze out at once.

It

That was the beginning of the struggle. was a strange commingling of feeling. I did not love Adriance the less; I had not one treacherous or traitorous thought toward him; I clung to him the more, from a dread lest I should wrong him. And those darling children; strange to say, I loved them the more that he was their father, than that his eyes looked into mine from Lelia's face, as the little creature wound her soft arms around my neck, and nestled her sunny head in my bosom. So weeks went on before I saw on what a precipice I stood; that I loved Bertha with a wild, passionate, craving love.

Give me this credit, that though my very position blinded my eyes for a time to my own misfortune for was it not a misfortune thus to nurse a passion that could have only bitterness for its end?-as soon as I recognized the treachery of my own heart I left them.

I did not deceive myself further by dreams of self-conquest. I knew that utter absence and silence were all that would avail, for that light footstep, those ever-smiling eyes, that cheerful, tender tone, had become, like light and air, needful to my life. A bitter guiltiness came over me in her presence, at the loving confidence of her husband, at the touch of the innocent hands of her children.

I told them suddenly that I must return to South America, that my affairs needed my attention; but in my own mind I determined to give up my country for their sake, and came to live upon my West Indian estates, buried from the world, to stifle all longings for affection and all remembrance of them.

I could not do this utterly. The pain, I thought, was gone; but I suffered myself sometimes to dwell upon their happiness, to picture the growth of their children, the ripening beauty of their mother, the unshadowed strength and tenderness of their affection for each other; and the nearest emotion to happiness that I ever knew was the remembrance that I had left that Eden as I found it—that they were happy, whatever was my lot. I did not shun society, but it was distasteful to me: one must have more love of approbation, more desire to please than belongs to my nature, to enjoy its gatherings. Sometimes, when watching the dark beauty of a creole maiden, with her raven hair and dusky, luminous eyes, I have tried to cheat myself into the belief that I could love, at least enough to make another happy; but those soft, blue English eyes came between, and I have turned away unsatisfied, disenchanted.

All this time I had been winding slowly to the shore, losing the coo of the dove in the dash of the surf on the low coral reefs that surrounded the island. I had left the stately growth of the mammee and the mahogany, and came suddenly It was partly the way of our life-I was ac- upon the harbor, bright with the burning glory cepted and trusted with all the freedom of a of a tropical sunset. The few ships rode quietbrother in the household. I was constantly ly at anchor on a sea of violet and gold: they called upon by Adriance for little services that were so few at this season of the year that I threw me into direct contact with her. In his knew them all by name, and spurred my horse busy mornings at the counting-house I was left into a brisker gait as I recognized a stranger to read to her, to ride with her, even to share among them, a large brigantine, with all sail her little household cares; I saw her as I should still set, as though she had just dropped anchor never have been able to study a woman's na- in the bay. One must have an isolated island ture under other circumstances. She so frank, life to understand how my pulse quickened at so cordial, so confiding, so happy that she had the sight; news from the outer world, possibly been able to overcome my first dislike; telling news from my own land! and I dashed along me all their past straits and perplexities, and the smooth beach road, over the little bridge,

past the dull walls of the fort with its silent sentinel, and came out upon the square just as a boat made off from the side of the vessel for the land.

The counting-houses fronting the wharves were closed, but there were by-standers attracted as I had been.

"It is an English brig," one of them said; "the health officer has just boarded her. The captain has papers up to the 10th, and will bring them ashore himself; there he comes now."

"Any passengers ?" the next natural question; for a stranger to entertain was an excitement to our monotonous lives.

"Two-an invalid and his wife-come for the climate. The gentleman is very ill, I believe.' I took the glass from the speaker's hand. "They are coming ashore now," I reported. I saw a lady sitting in the stern of the little boat, and a gentleman carefully wrapped in a shawl, mild as the evening was. The group on the wharf were all in light linen clothes; the negroes lounging in the neighboring galleries, or hanging over the lighters drawn up upon the beach, wore as few garments as decency would allow.

"Very sick gempelem, massa; don't know who gwine take um in," said an old gray-headed boatman, who had seen many such a landing in his day, followed by a sadder departure.

It was no time for explanations, or for consideration, my friend; and the old, ardent love of boyhood came back as I felt the sentence of death was written against him. My friend must have shelter and care. His home had been mine, and mine was his.

The full-orbed tropic moon flooded the road with molten silver as I repassed that lonely gorge. Adriance was lying upon my shoulder; his wife sat before us, holding his hand in hers. Again I heard the melancholy coo of the mountain pigeon, the low wash of the breakers upon the reef below, for we said but little. I could not explain. "Think of me as you like," I said, "I can not explain my silence. You know my old moodiness; but you are all you ever were to me, Adriance-far more than you ever were.' For, meeting him thus, and reading the death sentence not less in his haggard face and wasted frame than in her absorbed, wistful, ever-watching eyes, I would have given my life for his gladly.

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All this had come upon me so suddenly that I could not define my own emotions toward Bertha. I met her when benumbed by the first shock. I thought then only of the great grief before her, the suspense she was enduring, the responsibility that pressed so heavily upon her, and that this at least I could take. In the holiness of my grief and hers I did not dream that the war with self must ever be waged again, and for a time only my better nature stirred. I made her mistress of my house and all it contained; I refitted the dreary guest-chamber; I sought far and near for delicacies to tempt a failing ap

quench the feverish thirst, and took my watch with hers through the first few anxious nights. I did not stop to think.

Where indeed could they be made comfortable, unless they had friends on the island? My interest in them was already aroused, and when they reached the landing where I stood, and the evident weakness of the gentleman made assist-petite; brought cool, strange foreign fruits to ance necessary, I sprang forward to offer my aid. "Thank you," the lady said, as she stood up to reach me some packages that encumbered her, the captain supporting her husband. I did not look toward her, my interest being all centred in the poor invalid, whose muffled face and drooping air betokened that one more of many hundreds had come to meet death in the deceitful tropic calm.

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After a time his fitful disease changed. fever left him; his eyes became clear and soft; his strength returned; and he was able to walk slowly up and down the gallery, drinking in the delicious sea-breeze and the beauty of the fair landscape, which was a weariness to me. And Bertha became so hopeful. She was sure that the climate would restore him, he had longed for it so under the gray English skies; her step grew lighter, the old playfulness came back; she went singing through the dreary old rooms snatches of songs that had such dear yet miserable recollections for me; she gathered flowers, and wreathed the fruit in its own leaves for our simple desserts; she reorganized the household rule so gently and quietly that the idle Prince and deliberate Tarquina, with their sable band of adherents, almost came up to their daily duties. And as Adriance still improved, and could get beyond the house in his walks or rides, she entered heartily into the picturesque interests of the estate; frolicked with the odd, shining little negroes, who watched her with their cunning black eyes; spoke kindly to the throng who hurried up and down the slope of the mill tower, bearing their juicy burdens; watched the slow-boiling caldrons of the rich sirup, and the granulating mass in the coolers with all the zest and heartiness of a child.

of palms and turned to the north, where the deadly manchineel skirted the road, bearing a fair but blistering fruit. I seemed to have been living beneath its baleful shadow. The roar and dash of the breakers grew louder, the solitude more complete. I threw myself from the saddle on a barren bluff overlooking the sea. The hollows in the coral reefs below were filled by the retreating waves, and glared up on me from the bleaching mass, like eyes from a church

The inhabitants of the cabins adored her, and followed her with their national flatteries and compliments whenever she appeared. And I what could I do?-having her there, in my own home, in the familiar intercourse of our daily life, I yielded to the old fascination little by little, conscious now, and battling every step. The barrier of a mutual grief was removed. She was there where I had dreamed of her so often; she sat at the head of my table; she walked with me in those scented delicious moon-yard skull; the hungry breakers rushed in upon lights upon the long gallery; she wove my flowers in her hair. And so the old maddening feeling came back that I could not live without her. When my hand met hers for a good-night salutation, when I saw her sitting at some little task undertaken for my comfort, when I remembered the aching stillness there would be when she had gone-I knew it was sin, and I tried to crush it; but "my soul was among lions," the strugglings of an unpurified, passionate, earthly love!

She may have prayed for me: Sometimes I thought she did, sweet saint, little knowing the demon that tempted me through her innocent eyes. Or it may have been my friend, who had come so near the pearly gates that his petitions passed through as a breath of incense. Some good angel came to my wild outcry. Some unknown strength was given me to burst the bonds of that

torment.

For at that time it never left me. It rose up and lay down with me again. I began to shun Adriance, to flush and tremble at his loving confidence, to listen with a strange silence to his hopes of a recovery.

"I should have given you Bernard if I had gone-" he said, coming up to me one evening as I stood ready to mount and ride I knew not where, so that I escaped his upbraiding presence-"when he could have left his mother. I can provide for him so scantily now; but you would have done every thing, I know. Dear boy, dear children. Bertha is drooping for them, I can see, now that she has less anxiety for me." And he leaned against the stone pillar, looking seaward, with longing in his clear, melancholy eyes. How well he looked! The sunburned flush gave him an air of perfect health; his form had straightened with returning strength; the haggard lines were fast vanishing from his face.

"I shall soon be able to ride with you; I am half tempted to try it to-night.'

But I did not urge him, as he seemed to expect. I struck my heel against my horse and dashed along the road.

"She might have been mine, too, but for this rally!"

And the hot blood mounted to my brain. But an icy shiver followed it.

"Merciful God, had I fallen thus!-consenting unto his death!' the murderer of my brother! my more than brother, my trusting, loving friend, who would give his innocent child to my keeping!" I dashed down the steep pathway trying to forget myself; I left the avenue

the cliffs with a sullen, thunderous roar, or clamorous like the outcries of my soul.

"Consenting unto his death!" I felt the damp dews rise to my forehead with the thought, and myself so powerless. My first prayer to Heaven went up amidst that din of warring elements; the first real agonizing cry of a soul that sees its own loss and helplessness. Affection, trust, honor-all these barriers had been swept away—what stood between me and perdition? What but God's own mercy!

"If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee."

This was all the message that was borne in upon my mind. Utter renunciation; not as before, fleeing from the temptation, but deliberately casting it out; when there was more room for self-deception, when the future beckoned me on with a possible possession. I said to myself, "I have forfeited this. I will renounce her when she shall be free, as now. I will never seek her even if he is gone."

I no

I knew then why I had so rapidly lost selfrestraint. I had been building upon the time when she should be free, without acknowledging it to myself. But now I made a vow never to seek her, but to become a brother in deed as I was in name; to watch over, protect, make her my first care in life, but never to seek a return. A calmness that surprised me followed. longer wished to shun them; I felt eager to atone, by incessant devotion, the great wrong I had been guilty of. I would willingly have acknowledged it, but for giving him pain; and “I humbly made my confession to Almighty God," praying for the pardon I dared not ask of him I had injured.

Oh with what thankfulness I looked back upon that hour, when I returned to find the bright hopes which had cheered those loving hearts already destroyed; Adriance prostrated by hemorrhage upon the bed from which he never rose again, and Bertha hanging over him, with a face blanched by this sudden, fatal issue.

They talked no more of the future-little of themselves-but ever of that heavenly home which is the object of our life-long journey. And of their children-how they yearned for them then; how often those powerless arms were raised as if to clasp his darlings to his heart; how often I saw his lips moving in prayer to the God of the fatherless! His sweet affection for me; his loving thanks; his glances bright with the gratitude which he felt for the most trifling ministrations! I could bear it now-coveted it,

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