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(ALL RIGHTS IlESEBYE-D.) THE TRUE STORY Of By J. A. FRAZER, CHAPTER IX.—DRIFTING APART. When. I come to record the events of the succeeding weeks my courage fails me, and I fear to become to my reader what, a certain well-meaning acquaintance is to me—a bore. Lest I should be so, I will not dwell uoon or seek to analyse the joy and fear through which I passed during the journey to Yald-es- .pina.. Ö oJ' Not that any incident failed to leave an impression of its own on my mind, but Because worClS-such words as are at my •t»rnmand—would give a poor idea, of the pain and bitterness that mingled with my joy at the safety of my love, when the rapture of pelllg again in her presence crumbled like Dead Sea fruit to dust and ashes. Therefore, I wiii sav nothing of our going from Avila to Medina by the midnight train; -9 of. my grief and terror all through the slow .hours of the winter dawn, as we journeyed alone towards the Portuguese frontier, when my darling fell into a state of coma, and I feared her spirit would flutter forth to meet the sunrise, yet, even in my knowledge that every Spanish train carries a medicine chest tor emergencies, dared not summon assis- tance or of how, when she rallied a little, though unconscious still, I clasped her to my heart, and sat gazing into the I frozen beauty of her face while the broad, glittering duero with its fringe of poplars, and sun-browned Jiamlets and woods and vineyards shimmered by, wishing, sin'a life without love was worthless, and love itself a mirage, the train could have borne us on to the world's end, to the brink of eternity. Therefore, also, I will not relate hoiy, when Zamora was reached, and the day grew duller and more cold, and my darling was safe resting at the Forda. d3 Guzman, I, afraid to wire notice of our coming to Manuel, strolled down to the old stone bridge, and from one of its sixteen arches watched the flakes of the drifting storm whiten the mills and islands in the river and the towers and cupolas there reflected, and, wandering on to where the water foams over the ruins of a bridge still older, as powerless to remove the obstacle in its way as my love to conquer fate, found my way back by the cathedral and the ruins of the house of the Cid, along the alameda. by the palace of Dona Urraca to the inn. Nor will I stav to describe the, discomforts I tilie I oi the coach journey on the following day, though the hours we drove along the Vigo road—at first cantering briskly past leafless vineyard and lifeless village, ,yher. church and hermitage rose from the silent fields against the slate-blue clouds, the jingling of bells find clat-terinsr of hoofs on the iron road making rhythmetical music in the frosty sir, but afterwards struggling mile by mile in the, teeth of a blinding snowstorm at a pace that neither the driver's whip nor the zagal's stones and curses could accelerate—seemed to me a lifetime. I was too full of regrets and forebodings to need the complaints of others, the gloom of the lowering sky and niurred landscape, or the keenness of the wind that froze our breath into icicles, and drove the snowflakes through the crevices of the rat- tling windows in eddies at our feet-too full of misery to do anything but gaze upon my darling's white, pain-drawn face, wondering when the end would come, and praying it might be soon. And, in the recollection of what took place during the latter part of that journey, all the rest is forgotten. With infinite trouble and no little delay, I had exchanged the diligence of Pionegro for an ancient chariot with armorial bearings flavoured with State tobacco and the essence "r the stables. Evening was drawing on, and the roads were deep in parts with drifted $now, but the driver knew every inch of the ■Way, and promised to take us to the monas- tery in two or three hours. My love sat opposite me, where she had taken her seat on entering the vehicle at my command, silent and motionless. How long was it since I had met her at Bordeaux how many hours, cruel hours of torture, that we had been face to face, and she had not betrayed by word or sign the slightest con- sciousness of my presence? How long had she been a beautiful human automaton; had her physical and intellectual faculties been deranged, her reason. "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh" ? I scarce could reckon, but I knew that soon my stewardship would be at an end, that soon I should have to say farewell and disappear from her life for ever. We are alone. The soldier on furlough, the Driest with ciearette-stained lingers, the apologetically inquisitive countrywomen and their husbands, our fellow-passengers from Zamora, were gone. Here, at least, I could say farewell. I took her unresisting hands within my own. The taper fingers, thinly covered by gloves now soiled with travel, were cold as ice. How long was it since I was privileged to kiss them and call then! mine? Not long, perhaps, as we measure days, but in separation an eternity. I drew her veil aside and covered her face with kisses. It was cowardly, no doubt, to take by stealth what I knew I might. not, later on, dare to ask or hope for; but I had loved and suffered, and I told myself each time it should be the last. What would it matter, since she was unconscious and would never know? But the touch of her sweet, cold lips wok-e all the love I had striven those weary hours to kill. How could I give my darling up? I drew her closer to me and chafed the tiny hand I held. Under the soft kid I could feel the pearl cluster of the ring I had given her years ago. Then my heart stood still, for on another finger was something it had been my hope to place there As quickly as I could, without hurting the delicate flesh, I tore her glove from her white hand. There was the plain, gold circlet, accursed symbol, unalterable as death, that told me I was too late. Wretched that I was Had I murdered her husband as well as her lover? No wonder she wa.s bereft of her senses I gazed at her pure face, so impressionless and wan, and prayed to die. Then a thought, surely sent from Heaven, flashed through my brain, and let up my despair. I remembered the scene at the hotel, the words I overheard The vessel sailed from London. There would not have been time for any ceremony, even in town, and the certificate was for All Saints', Brighton! To have reached the'Gironde when they did they must have driven from Oxford-street to the Docks, and sailed at once. And in an instant my heart told me the rest'—that the ring had" been placed on her finger to deceive my darling when she should awake! I did a" thing- for which, perhaps, I may be blamed. She shall never see it there! I took her lily hand again, and carefully drew the hated ring away. I had it «»»'' within my fingers—the next moment it was crushed under my heel, and, letting down the window, I threw it out into the snow, I knew nor cared not where. Then, love conquering indignation at the vile cheat thev would have nut upon her, I folded my darling in my arms. The chariot rumbled on. Past village, stream, and monte by the roadside.; along lanes, where the wheels sank deep and the hoofs fell noise-less in the sand and snow; through the aromatic solitude of the pines that seemed to wail and writhe with the agony of a tortured soul. Face to face, tieart to heart, we waited for the Darting. But first a strange thing came to pass. I noted with something of hope and fear that my love became restless under my embrace, and strove in a feeble, way to put me from her. I strained her more mildly to rne, and pressed my hand upon her brow, as I had seen Lafuente do at the„hotel, as I myself had done at La Cieoada when she first was deaf to entreaty and command. I knew, at the time, nothing of the wonder of animal magnetism, or the polarization of the human body; what I did was prompted by instinct, by love, and despair. Nor do I rightly know to this dav whether what followed was the natural disappearance of the effect after the removal of the cause, or whether the magnetism of my touch restored the wasted vitality to her system, though 1 mav incline to the latter opinion. But I mw—Heaven, I thanked the,p- for the nser- v—unconsciousness, indifference, the sudden light of anger and aversion melt into an expression of fear and wonder and love. With a little glad, frightened cry my darling came to herself, and knew me at last. Oh, of joys, unutterable bliss What were the agony and fears of the past com- pared with it? Nothing! Welcome.storm and tempest! Welcome shame and death I had lived to see my love restored; I cared for nothing else For her the revul- sion was too great: almost as soon as she recognised me she fainted away, and lay like death upon my breast. More alarmed, almost, by 'her weakness than I had been of her previous insensibility, I moistened her lips with brandy and covered her with caresses. It was not a dream After a while the old, known look of tender- ness dawned again in her eyes; her arms stole of their own sweet accord round my neck. I wept for joy. Shame, self-sacri- fice, the determination to tear myself away, guilt, dishonour—all were forgotten in the 1 11 delight of holding herin my arms, assuring her a hundred and thousand times of her safety and my eternal love, drinking in the ineffable eloquence of her beautiful eyes, the intoxication of her warm responsive clasp. But soon, all too soon, the sweet, wild ecstasy passed. Darkness came down upon us in the valley and among the southern spurs of the Pena Negra, Sierra, blotting out the scenic beauties I had longed to show my love. The storm increased; the wind roaring among the nines was like the swell of angry sea, deepened with low mutterings as of thunder, and ill" heart sank within me as I realised, looking down at the sweet, pale face lifted tearfully to mine, that end- less night was soon to come upon my soul, that fate had brought us together only to part for ever. We drove up to the monas- tery during those la,st, sad moments I had prepared my darling for her introduction tr. friends, and was thankful that; rest and safety were so near at hand, for, as she rewarded me—reward beyond all price—with the kiss I mentally resolved must be our last, her strength seemed failing, and her eyes shone with unnatural light. Don Manuel accorded us the heartiest of welcomes, thanking me in cordial terms for taking pity on their solitude, and when, with a heavy heart, I gave my darling to Dona Elvira, I felt it was to a sister who would cherish her with an af action purer and nobler than mine. Remembering only what crime I stood chars-ed before the world, it was not without reluctance that I entered the house of an honest man, taking his hand and breaking bread at his table as his friend, but what else could I do ? Whom else could I trust ? For Gertrude's sake, I had to add the crime of hypocrisy to that of murder. Yet, God knows, I tried to steal myself to duty. There was to be no shirking, no lingering in a fool's paradise. I had sinned, and must pay the penalty In her presence, now, I could not stay-- my wild impossible dreams of making my love a fugitive with me on the face of the earth had vanished like a bubble that bursts as it meets the sunshine. She was safe and with friends. There I must leave her nil she was restored to her home Fiir I knew she was innocent and pure as when under the shelte^ of her father's roof. Had it not been so, 1 should have rejoiced to make her mine that, she might never have known her sharae. "You indeed astonish me," Don Manuel said when my darling had gone to her room, and I sat in my old easy chair before the fire. "Not your honeymoon! Is it, then, to a desire to see the papers you declined to take with you that I am indebted to the pleasure of knowing Miss Atterclirle so soon?" "She undertook the journey entirely against her own will and without her know- ledge," I answered, and narrated the events that had taken place since I had seen im last, with the exception of the murder in my room. That I suppressed, though I trem- bled to think how soon he would know of it too. Don Manuel listened) aghast, and when I described my darling's being in the power of the ruffians, and her suffering at their hands, his indignation and rage knew no bounds. Pacing up and down the room, and inter- rupting me with exclamations and questions, he swore under his breath several gentle- manly Castilian oaths. "This is the man," he said, "I have invited under my roof, and suffered to pay his actresses to my daughter. Good God Not another word, sir, or I shall choke To think I should have introduced him to you Tf harm had come to that dear girl, 1 ."horfhare killed myself." "But the recovary of her reason—it is marvellous It is a case in a thousand I could show you instances in—but I have not the books at hand—case &ftei case where the subjects of hypnotic experiment have died or gone raving mad. It is a miracle, a merciful interposition of Providence "He will follow you, no doubt about that. Don Manuel resumed with a vehemence I should not have believed possible in so quiet a man. "Now, mark me. Don Juan! Not even to" you do I yield the precedence of meeting him." "It is too late to talk of meetings, my dear sir," I replied. "Moreno, or Lafuente, as he was called, is dead." Don Manuel stopped abruptly in front of me, and laid a hand on each sli oulder. fou killed him," he said, looking me straight in the eves. "Whether I killed him .outright or not is of little consequence. It was through me he met his death." "I am sorry," he said. simply, "but I cannot blame you. Tell me how it happened." I did so. "And the carriage?" he asked. "The mules took flight and bolted. The carriage overturned at the edge of the pre- cipice, and .all went to the bottom." 'After a few moments' silence Don Manuel said, "I think it will be ascribed to an.acci- det-it. Pnd that you are safe. Anyhow, I will take what steps I can to ensure your not being airrestedi. Then he adidled., "The object of that devil incarnate was to get possession of the documents we found here— he must have had the copies, after all—and the abduction of Dona, Gertrudis was a master stroke towards securing the property. Do you know how much the estate is wurth?" "About fhre fhousand.a year, I have heard." "Quia -!nd he would have sold his soul for a tenth of the sum. You mentioned, I think, that he went under several aliases, did you. not?" "He was introduced at Athelstan House as the Marquis de Cinquermihs." "There is no adult of that name in Spain. The late marquess died about eighteen months ago. I knew him personally, .and was at his funeral. The title is borne by his son, a boy eight years of age." "I was told at the hotel in Bordeaux, where he stayed, that he was the nephew of the marquess. I don't know whether it was true or not, and that his real name was Julian Lafuente y Vaquero, though he sometimes went by the name of Don Fer- nando Pena y Lafuente." My host went white as death as I spoke, and, covering his face with his hands, fell back in his chair moaning. "It. is nothing—nothing," he groaned, checking me as I was about to ring for assis- tance leave me for the present. I will explain afterwards." Fearing he was in a fit, and seeing that my presence distressed him, I did as he requested. Dona Elvira heard me in the hall, and came down to thank me for the friend I had brought her. and to whisper that my darling slept. After supper Don Manuel, asking me if I was too tire^ to listen to an old chapter of his history, took me into his study. "You have noticed, perhaps," he began, "names painted over the doors of the rooms at the end of the principal corridor." I sa,id I had not, never having been so far down. ihere are three—Paz, Carmen, and Elvira—the names of my daughters, who occupied them. I chose that angle of the house, as being the pleasantest and most secure. Paz is dead—she died about five years ago, and lies with her mother in the cemetery by the chapel ruins yonder. You see ?' he said, drawing aside the blind, and pointing out the white marble of their graves among the wooden crosses and the cypresses. "The authorities objected. They said it was desecration to put them there. But I had my way, and the daughters of Eve sleep by the side of the good fathers. I have not heard," he added, with a touch of bitterness, "that they disturb their rest. It is about Carmen, my second daughter, that I am going to speak—a pretty girl, fair, like her sisters, full of life and spirits as a, young fawn. It is a fad story, Don Juan, and I little thought I should have told it to mortal man. But what you have said to-niglit has gladdened me more' than anything else could, for I know my child was more blame- less than I thought her. I shall re-write her 'chapt*- in my work on the 'Crimes and Follies of Mankind,' and put it down to the villain's consummate wickedness what, I attributed to human frailty." The story, which I shall make no apology for introducing, is substantially as follows I transcribed it, abridged in some few details from memory two years ago, and give it to the world with my old friend s sallctiop. "For several years after our marriage we lived in quiet happiness near the ilefciro. Among the guests who frequented our house was Don Fernando Pena y Lafuente, then merely a stripling, but an adept, I found, in all the vices of a man of the world. One day I saw tit to forbid him the house. Years passed. The regiment of which he was ensign was ordered to Cuba, and I forgot the inci- dent. My daughters grew up to woman- hood, beautiful and accomplished, but my wife, alas lelt me. I retired from public life, and spent a great part of every year at this monastery, which my father purchased from the Government of Isabella, and had had restored as a. country house. It was here that the contemplation of Nature offered a solace in my bereavement, and led me to the study of philosophy. My principal neigh- bour during the season was the late Count de Berro-s, who, with "his daughter, Dona Pilar, and a party of friends, frequently came to Quitapesares for the shooting. One of their entertainments was the ruin of Carmen. She met there—they told me- a gentleman of eloquent appearance, fas- cinating manners, and ample fortune. She listened—poor, artless child !—to the voice of the charmer, and one golden morning m September they told me my bird had flown. Nothing could express my distress and grief. I sought her in every country of Europe. At last, after months of search, I receiyed this letter, the only news I have ever had of my poor child. You shall read it for yourself." "'Fehl'uaII'Y 28, 1878. 'Ever Dearest Father,—How shall I come in sorrow and disgrace to ask for forgive- ness! When I left you and my dear sisters and happy home it was, I believed, to come back shortly, not dishonoured, to ask for it. Don Fernando tolld me he had asked in vain for your consent', that he was obliged at present, for family reasons, to keep his mar- riage a secret, that you would not hold out against our united entreaties. What excuse have I for my folly ? Only one, if it does not aggravate it—I believed and loved him My only reason for telling you of my shame is the wish that you ma<y not think me more guilty than I a.m. We were married, so I believed, in a little village: in the Asturias, but now that his passion has cooled, and contempt and aversion, have taken, its place, this morning, with blows and curses, he has told me the truth. L' 'His cruelty has broken my heart, and I leave him to go where I can hide myself from him and you.. Dearest father, farewell. Do not curse me; you would not if you knew what, tears of blood I shed for you. If Heaven will accept the atonement of a life-long sorrow, perhaps I may be allowed to catch one more glimpse of your face, nor read, in. it reproach, where there is peace, and love does not mean shame. Don Manuel sat with averted, face, the tears rolling d'own his cheeks. Perhaps my own troubles had taught me to feel for those of others; I folded the letter with dimmed eyes, and was not ashamed to mingle my tears with his. It was,, the old story of man's' perfidy and woman's wro-iig-a, lesson, dating from the 'beginning of the world and never to be learned till it ends. Don Manuel took another letter from his dlesk and placed iff before me. "I 'searched in every church and village in the Asturias, but discovered nothing. This letter I got the day after I received Carmen's. You See from whose cratches you saved Miss Attercliffe and the last of my daughters 'Hell Avenue. 'Merry Senor Mio,—-You may rein ember I once honoured you by intimating my inten- tion of taking my revenge for certain in- jurious epithets you applied to me. Every diog has its day; this is mine. I would, however, beg you not to distress yourself. Dona. Carmen is only what many others have been. Our tempers being, I regret to say, incompatible, I shall at an early date take the pleasure of ascertaining which of your other daughters would be more likely to suit.—Yours, who kiss your hands, 'FERNANDO PENA. Y LAFUENTE.' "A thundlerbolt falling at my feet," re- sumed Don Manuel, as I placed the letter down, "would not have astounded me more. I cursed him-God forgive me !—Mving and diead. I sought him a's I had sought my daughter the world over. At one, time he was sarjd to be travelling in Russia, at another in Mexico I sought him in holh hemispheres—north a,nd south. He evaded all my effortsa,t pursuit, and stole ngniri into my home, when I believed him dead. All I regret is that he died at another's bands even, Don Juan, at yours." "Did you see anything of him on your return, the day I went to Rioseco?" "No," Don, Manuel returned, "more's the pity. You roused my suspicions, and I should have shot him at sight if I had found out who he was. Elivia told me every- thing, and was very grateful to know that you were so close at hand. It was. Lucvla her maid, by the way, who told him: of the discovery and your affairs. A promise of sonne love philtre humbug won her over, but I think it will be a lesson. Carman's room," he pursued, speaking rather to him- self than to me, "is just as she left it. The housekeeper, her foster-mother, alone enters it. Some times, when I am, tired and down- cast, I fancy she i's dead, but I know it is not so, and that she will come back some day, and I would not have her know by one token that she had been forgotten — clothes, books, music, everything she will find just ais she left it on the morning of ¡ her flight." When I left him, that night, bent v,rer his studies and with his shadow thrown by the lamp liight, over the iron chest whose accursled secrets had wrecked my life, it was with a deepened sense of the mysteries hidden in every human breast and the ties of associa- tion and sympathy, stronger than those of blood, that bind men together, and long after I had retired I heard him walking in his study and murmuring, "Carmen, CarmeiJ mio, why do-st thou not return?" My darling had been taken some food and wine, and) was sleeping soundly, Dona .Livora had told me. She and the Senor Frauela would stiay up with her by turns, in case she required anything; I might rest assured she would want .for nothing. No doubt; but, with all a lover's un- reason, I was dissatisfied. At Zamora, I had kissed her good night at parting. Why could I not do so here ? Her room was at right angles with mine, at the further end of the corridor past the prospectiveless oil paintings, and the statue of Minerva with the silver lamp, and the rose window through which I had seen the 1Junlight stream over blue-tiled dado end tesselated floor. Confound the conventional propriety that forbade me even the threshold. Yet it was better so. I had no. right there. She was no longer mine. I must remember the compact I had made with my better self. I could not sleep, brain-weary and travel- worn as I was. What time was It? Long after midnight by the clock in the corral. It was no use blaming Captain Bufford's papers for everything—wherever, however Burton and I had met, the esuit would have been the same. What other secrets might not these thick wall's contain—secrets not only of the dead, but relating to, and containing the destinies of the living and those to come ? I sank into a chaos of incoherent thought. Now it was the ball at Lady Beetroot's- the meeting on the cliffs, the history of Dona Carmen; now the corpse of Captain Burton forcing me to write out the con- fession of my crime. I started up in affright. The wind was high as on that fatal night—sweeping in violent, gusts across the vega from the hills, wailing in shrill harmonics through the poplars by the river, and the cypresses round the cross-marked graves, moaning round the house and through the ancieL, cloisters dis- mally, fiercely. It sounded like an army of spirit fiends exulting at my ruin. Per- haps the dead were murmuring at the pro- fanation of my presence in their consecrated home. I knew 1 was a moral coward. I knew I had no right to be in tha, house— less right to accept my host's confidence. But louder and angrier than the knowledge —than my blunted sense of shame, than the pangs of remorse, or the fear of a felon's. death—was the voice which told me that, in her recovery of consciousness and reason, my love to me was lost. Lost! Death might have left her still mine; life had removed her from me as far as sin is from the throne of grace. No star seen by weary miner toiling in the bowels of the earth was so immeasurably distant. And all the bitter night, the burden of the wailing of the storm, like the cry of a soul in despair, was the knell—lost! lost! lost! (To be continued. Commenced June 2, 1894.)