The Breton Mills

Jopyriglited by the Author, and published by arrangement with him. CHAPTER XXL OUT, DA.MXED SPOT. Philip dipped his pen in tho inkstaad. He was sitting in his study at home, later in the afternoon than usual. Nothing unimportant could have dstalned him so long from his factory, and, bcsides, there was a look of unusual solemnity on his face. Philip Breton had just written his will. It was a very elabórate instrument, prepared from memoranda of the ablest lawyer in tho state. A moment ago he had signed it, and the names of the witnesses were not dry yet. He had been uneasy for a long time hat tho destiny of the thousand creatures who worked in his mili, and of their suceessors f orever, should hang on so feeble a thrcad as n human life, whieh might snap beforo he could give spontaneous energy to the plans that now only lived in his brain. Ho wrote in large, plain letter across the back of the paper, "The Last Will and Testament of Philip Breton." Then he rea4 the whola strument over again - the magna charta of Bretonville. How glad the village would be when his will carne to bo known - when it was found that the mili owner had not been satisfied with what he could do in his lif etime, but had placed his benevolence on a perpetual footing, had reaehed back his hand from his grave to shower blessings on the laboring poor God had committed to his charge. Some men had wives and children to work for, to defend, to hope for. If he had been happy, and blessed with love and kisses, ho might have been like the rest, never listening to the groans of bis poor under burdens too heavy for them to bear. His heart svould, perhaps, have been full of the little wants and trivial discomforts of his owu circle, bis mind busy with plans for the future of his sons, while a thousand dreary hopeless lives wore themselves out in the struggle for their scant bread, with never one pitiful thought from him. Philip Breton was relieved now that ho had made his will. He folded it earefully and put it in his inner breast pocket. Perhaps, ho thought sadly enough, if he should die this moment it would be better for Bretonville, for his will might waver while he lived. He might not be able to sustain his high tone, but once dead, nothing could be changed. The words that an idle stroke of his pen could make nuil and void when once his hand beeame rigid in death, would leap forth from the writton page into potent everlastiug life. Suddenly he remembered another occasion when, as he had sat at this very table, he had been interrupted by the servant bringing him a letter - no, itwasa note from Bertha. And he had been very happy, faneying the shadow had gone from his life. He just had opened this very table drawer wheu the niaid had tapped at the door. He had been searching for something at the time. Oh ! it was one of Bertha's pictures, and it must be here still. In a moment more be was unclasping a moroceo case, then gazing with such teñderness as one has for the dead on the delicately tinted oval of Bertha's beautiful face in porcelaiu. The great blue eyes seeiued to look surprise and re proach at him. It had been long ago, before so much as a dream of sin had tainted tlie holy innocence of her girlhood. Philip closed his lips very tightly; he longed unutterably for her lost innocence; he hungered so desperately for the maidenly purity that looked out of these startled eyes. If she had died then, ho might at least have cherished her meinory. What had he done that he should be punished so terribly ! Then the memories of the day when the picture was taken came rushiug back upon him. They two had been sitting in her garden on the affcernoon of a suinmer day. It was two, three, almost four yeurs ago, but he could see tbc blooming roses and hear the drowsy luim of. the bees as if it had been yesterday. He had been reading a love poem lo her ; that was as near as he dared come to love making; sometimos letting bis voice soften and tiemble a little over the tenderer passages. He was but a tiinid lover, and Bertha bo roynliy cold. Suddenly glancing at her, he s;iv she was overeóme with tho heat, -and bad fallen asleep leaning her shapelv head back against the rough bark of the tree. lier flngers looscly clasped in lier sloping lap suggested perfect repose; the girlish bosom rose and feil with her stlil lnvatlihig, and there was au exquisita pout on her lips, as if vaguely mutinous against the hardness of her pillow. His heart was beating violenth' as he laid aside his book and seated himself on the beuch by her Bide. But lic dai'ed not profane the vestal puritj leepashers; hedevouredher face with his eyes, bnt did not steal one kiss from the red lfps, thougb there vvas such a sweet, nrate invitation on tbem. But he put his arm about her nnd drew her toward him as gently as if she were a sleeping infant, and made her Lead resi on hisshoulder. T hen he looked down the red tinged eheeks, like the woods ín nutumn's tenderest mood, swept by her long, golden eyelashes, and tried to faney she was awake, tkov.gh her eyes ere closed, and that she was wi'Jing her hei l should rest on hib breast and her hair Hke hi.f threadsof tiristed Roman gold kiss his burning face. But slic moved in her slumbcr, and then Uer star 1: ce eyes opened and looked muto astonúilihiiut i uto his eager face. Por ono startled moment she did not move, and in sudden boldneaa from tho liberty he had already taken he poured his passionate declarations into her pare, covering her hair and her forehead and then her cool white hands with kisses. 'You frighten me, Philip." Her quick, startled tones as she rose to her feet yet rang in his ears. She looked at him as half of a mind to run away. "I don't understand you," she said, reproachfully. The porcelain picture is just as she was ihen. ""n"hy, Bertha!" He had risen, too; but sho drew back f rom him. "I lore you. I want you f or my wife." How dbldly she had looked at his flushed, excited face. He thought it was the suprema moment in hislifejbutitseemedtobenothing to her. "Is that allí Why, Ithougityou weremad," Ah, and the same madness burned in his soul this moment. Time eould not wear it out. Shame, outi-age, desolation could not kill it. He rose to his feet and pushed the tinted porcelain away frora him. Mrs. Silas Ellingsworth was all smiles and grace as Philip entered her parlor, and she shook hands with him, lingered as cordially over the greeting as if she had quite forgotten her pretty tingers ever been on his throat. She made him take a seat and began to make conversation with him, as if shosupposed he had oalled to see her. But suddenly she affected to be struck with an idea. "Oh, I know why you are not more tive, you didn't come to seo me at all." 8he stepped to the door. "Susan, cali Miss Ellingsworth." "Miss!" Then there was no longer any room for doubt. Philip shrank at the blow she gave liim. He had thought all uncertainty was go:ie long ago, but he found that up to tbis very instant he had cherished a spark of hope that Bertha had a right to the name of the man she liad Bed wiih. And she was "Miss" stül. His hostess way saying something, bnt he did uot hear it, there was such a deathly faintuess-about lus heart. Thcn there carne a step in the hall, and his familiar thrill of tenderness at lier coming. She ltngered an instant on the threshold, an old habit of hers that gave hun time to step forward and meet her. Mrs. Ellingsworth had risen, too, and was waiting to speak. It was only tenderness in Philip Breton's eyes'as he took both Bertha's hands so gently , but she said : "Am I very inueh changed, theu?" and a pained look flitted across lier face. Philip did not SDSwer her for a moment, he was so distressed at her iiiterpretation of the love tliat made his sight misty as hegazel at her. "Well. I euppose I om in the way," remarkèd the mistress of the house, with inbred vulgarity. Kho was smiling sweetly, but women's smiles do not always signify amiability. "I suppose," she added, letting her skirts touch her two guests as she passed out, "you want to talk over old times with Miss Ellingsworth." Now eame the last terrible assuranee; Philip wineed at the heartless blow, but not so much as a flush passwl over Bertha's cold faco. She accepted the name without even a shade of silent denial on her calm features, though it was the badge of shame for her. "Oh, no," but he dared not look her in the face for fear she should see his anxious pity for her. "You have been ill, perhaps, but I always thought you the loveliest wonian in the world." She smiled as she let him lead her toa seat. "You always said that." Then she glanced sadly into the mirror. "But it is more pleasant to hear now, for I know I am not pretty any longer." Could she understand that the change that had come over her radiant beauty only changed his love to make it deeper? Could she not see the new intensity of yearning in his eyes as he raised them to her face again? He longed to draw her into his arms and kiss her tired face into eteraal smiles. His love had been refined into a new di vineness ; a love capable of all sacriflces for her; that asked no price, but would pour itself in an eternal flood against her dull indifference, if it must be ; a love more pain than joy , of unutterable yearnings for what he believed she could never have for him ; that would seem to grow on her unresponsiveness ; that welled up the mightier for her coldness, content if hereafter it might throw a little brightness on the path her snowy f eet should tread; content if she would but let him warm her cold heart with his tenderness. "Are you glad to be at home?" he asked, gently. "Do you cali this home, with my servant its mistress?" For a moment it was Bertha, as she used to be, her anger curling her red Ups and flashing new fire into her tired eyes. "Does she insult you?" "It is insult enough that she is my fathcr's wife. She can not go beyond that." "Shall you stay here alwayf asked Philip stupidly enough. "I suppose so; where else is there;" A wild impulse touched him ; he lovocl her and she needed love, had he not waited long enough ? But a sudden f ear carne into his mind and chilled his hope like a frozen fountain. She might have a ehild - how strange he had never thought of it before. Ah, it would be a strong love which could endure that, a baby to hang on her bosom and take her kisses, a baby with Curran's face. No, he couid never bear that, anything better than that. Her sin he could forgive. Though it must linger forever in his memory, he would bury it beneath more blessed experiences. His love should hallow her, he would kiss away Curran's caresses from her lips. But if there were a child Philip started violently and looked at the door; he fantied he heard a sound like the pattcring of infant feet. In a moment Bertha would catch to her arms her child and Curran's, and half smother it with a mother'a kisses. "Isn't that a child's voice?" he cried, rising to his feet and his eyes rested on her in a new pitiful reproach. He thought she started straugely, as if a mother's instincts stirred in her bosom. "Oh, no; it is only Jane - I mean Mrs. Ellingsworth. What an innocent little laugh she ban." A child, with sweet winning ways, is a strange thing to líate, a lovely littlo rosebud to blossom no one knows how i'aultlessly by and by. But Philip thought he would hato hor child - Bertha's child, perhaps with his darling's star like eyes; ah, was it not Curran's, too, the symbol of her shame? Aa he walked home in the twilight ho saw in each toddling baby in the doorways and Windows, an image of his own materialized íear and horror. Philip looked back froin the liill on which stood his home to the village his father had built up. Those massive milis with their thousands of loonis were his; those long rows of white houses, each one of which held a family rich in possibilities of virtue and hope, they all were his, and the new element of brightness and thrif , that had made the whole village a nursery of comfort and liappincss was his work. Behind him was the great stone mansión with its arOhed gothic windows green with clustering woodbine, it was his too. How powerlees he thought all that wealth and material power can do to solve one of the terrible problems a heart makes for itself. Moodily he walked to his stablos, in a kind of vague longing for companionship, and threw open the doors. Four horses stood in their stalls within, noble looking creatures all of them. Thoy turned their statcly heads toward the sound of their master's feet; they returned his lovo with love. One of them whinnied welcome and laid back hia ears as his master came into the stall beside him. "Poor fellow, good boy;" Philip patted his white neck affectionately. "You would do what you could for me, wouldn't you, Joe? I know you would, old fellow." He laid his cheek agaüist the animal's velvet noso. "But you couldn't go fast enough to get me out oí this trouble, uot if you died to do it. CHAPTER XXII. NO BARRIER. Sensitiveness ia a very unfortunate quality in liLe since no objec is molded in aecordance with the strict rules oí art, since there is no character but has a repulsivo spot in it, no history but with its dark page. The happy mar. is neíther too enthusiastic over the virtues of liis acquaintance, which may be accidental or merely a pretty optical delusion, or too stern and unrelenting toward sins, which he faucies might have been virtues under different conditions. But Philip Breton had fallen out with Ufe. The great world seemed to jr him as it rollnd. Eaeh hour had revealed unguessed roeans of sufiériíg, and even the beams of genial sunlight bad daggers for him. Yet it is hard for a man to understand that his fate may be pure, unalloyed pain. He is ever smiling through his tears and trying to awako from his despair, as if it were but a dream of disordered fancy. So as the next morning came, and Philip Breton threw open his door to go out into the sweet scentod September air, he feit happier than for many weeks ; the peace that came over him seemed to leave no place for cruel distrust and unrelenting pride. He even reproached himself for his ungenerousness of yesterday. The world of nature left no unsightly wounds and breaks in its whole dominion. Gaping graves are soon covered with green grass and wild flowers; Ufe SDrings quickly out of death, and apparent ruin is soon forgotten in renewed magnificence. Why should he, then, let two lives be wrecked for one wrong act in the past - f ore ver past? He swung down his walk in a new buoyancy. He believed he had passed through the cloud and come out into the clear light of reason. But at his gate a carriage rolled slowly by him. It contained a bridal couple, and he stopped to smile at them. The girl's face had no culture in it, but was sweet, and had the innocence of childhood. That ungainly fellow, who now wore his first broadcloth suit, at whom she looked so fondly, was the only lover she had over known. She had no secrets from him, no past his jealous eyes might not scan without a pang. Her soul was open to him. No whisper to her shame could ever reach his insulted ears. Her life was commonplace, but no blot was on it, no guilty thought had ever left its trail across her heart. The rough lad, who was bold enough to put his arm about her waist in broad daylight could pour his foolish love making into her eager ears without stint. There was no theme he must avoid with her, no page in her life he must not cut. He loved the soiled lily, loved it more than all the f resh roses. All other women might as well never have been born for him; this voman he would have died for. Could he not protect her from e vil tongues? If she were trampled, could he not lift her into his bosomi If she were insulted, could he not put his man's heart and strength between her and shame? He would hurry to his darling, throw himself at her feet, her past should be buried, her life should begin with his happiness to-night "You want to marry Bertha? I supposed y ou were acquainted with her past." It was in Mr. Ellingsworth's room, where he sat in dressing gown and slippers, well back in his easy chair. He was looking at Philip Breton very curiously. He had really faneied he understood human nature before. "I suppose I am," answered Philip simply. "Well, Iknow more of it than I wish Idid. She ran away with a beggar, and she has come back. I dislike unpleasaut memories, so I avoid unpleasant Information. You know her - her - her relations with Curran? Yes, well," and the gentleman shrugged his slight shoulders, "no doubt you know what you are doing, vou run your own risks." "Risksr "Understand me, I asked but two questions - have you left Curran forever? do you want to come home? I had heard she had never been married. Jane has heard it. I feared it. Do you wonder I did not ask, not caring for a disagreeable certainty. Well, do your own questiomng. I suppose the fact of her keeping her maiden name shows something." What if he should find she was indeed married after all, when he had at last decided he could not live without her ; when he had at last made up his mind that he must have her if he took a burden of life long shame into his soul with her? That would be a wretched freak for fortune to play with him; but how foolish he was, did not her name prove that she was unmarried? "But I hate so to harrow up her memories," said Philip, in an unsteady voice; "to make her confess her shame before me. I should think that would be a father's duty." "Can it be, my dear Philip," romarked Mr. Ellingsworth, with his owu brilhant smile, "that you know meso little as to expect me to perform an unpleasant duty? There are people that love them - that never seem so much in their element as when engaged in gome act of self sacrifice. You must really excuse me." When Philip went down into the parlor Bertha was sitting there alone, and his fate seemed thrust upon him. Before he had time to dread breaking the subject to her he stood at the back of her chair, looking down on her thin, white fingere moving over her embroidery work. He laid his hand very gently on her shoulder. Ah, it was less round than it used to be. She was good enough to keep her eyes fixed on her work. There was no shade of heightened color on her cheeks, nor did she quicken her breathing. "Beitha," he began, in a low, sweet voice, "I am going to ask you something." Still she did not look up. "If, at some time before you died, a man whom you liked came and asked you to marry him," he spoke very slowly, "is there any reason why you must say no?'' Ñot one flush or nerrous tremor. She threaded her needie again with the red worsted. "What do you mean by reason?" "I m&an," he said, in forced ctJm, "is there any barrier which the laws mako to prevent you from marrying him?" Since he had begun to dream of marriage, he had thought only of the barrier of her shame ; he had not thought that there might be a barrier more impregnable. But it came over him all the more terribly now. That would explain her lack of shame, her unbroken pride, that would be mors consistent with his lifelong idea of her, if she had preserved her honor, and, alas, was already married and cut forever away from hira. That would save her purity which he had thought sullied. No fingers of seorn could ever be pointed at her. No; butshewiuld be lost to him forever. God forgive liim, then. if ho would rather have her dishonored, insulted, degraded, than lose her. Would she never answer? She laid down her needie and turned 'ier face up toward him. He trembled li!(il a child os he watched her lips part ; in a moment his fate would be decided. It wa.- terrible that his happiness could come only through her shame, and her houor meant a life of despair and loneliness for him, but so it seemed to him now. "There is no barrier," she replied. "Thank God,:' he whispered. The strain was removed. She had established her own disgrace with her own lips, without a drooping of her eyes, without a quiver of her lips. Ah, but he sutlVreU i:i his very hope. It wounded him that he must rejoiee in her shame, it was almost as ií he had caused it. He bent low over her shoulder, in another moment he would havo told her of the unchanging passion - of his love. All the bounds of his nature were broken down now. His whole soul seemed dissolving in ineffablo tenderness for this cold woman, into whose calin, beautiful eyes he looked so hungrily. "Like embroidery, don't you, Mr. Breton?" Mrs. EUingsworth flashed her small black eyes in delight. Philip started back in ill concealed dismay, but Bertha's face changed not one shade of expression as she rose magnificently to her feet and swept from the room. The lady of the house looked unpleasantly after her. "Isn't it funny, she don't seem to like me! Do you suppose it is that Curran scrape that has put her so much above me?" Philip glanced savagely at her; he could almost have struck her, without thinking of her womanhood, there was such a snake like look in the glistening black eyes. One might as well reproach a wild creature of the forest for f ollowing out its instincts ; but after a moment he said: "Mrs. EUingsworth forgets she is a lady?" But she was beautiful, if not a lady, her hot blöod lighting up her round olive cheeks as if it were liquid fire and her curled lips glowing like a perfect rose just bursting into bloom. No man could look at her now and not f eel a mad soulless fascination for her, a fascination the greater because mixed with revulsión. She was a perfect type of the womanhood that can madden a man with passion, without tenderness, that can wreek his Ufe, banish every noble hope or ideal from his soul and feed him nothing but dead sea fruit. "It's strange what makes a lady," she answered him in growing excitement. "Your Bertha is one no matter what vileness she sinks to, but I can't whisper one rude word." She come close to him and put her burning flngers on hi hand. "Your horse loves you better than that woman. She will torture you to death, let her alone." Theu she sprang away from him, and walked backward and forward clasping and unclasping her clinging flngers in her old habit. "Oh, I hate her, I hateher;but what good is it! I would dash myself to pieces to break her, but I could not. She steals my lover and then leave him. She comes back disgraced in the eyes of her owa father; but she does not f eel it. And now comes her lover with his riches, and offers everything to her. She deserves nothing, but gets everything." She would have raved on, but Philip Breton walked slowly out of the room. Nothing eould ever move him now; he preferred the woman she maligned to all the other hopes or possessions in the world. CHAPTER XXIIL NO APPREOIA.TION Ot EMBHOIDERY. It was the next afternoon, as Philip Breton was unhitching Joe from the post, that he had occasion to doft his hat to Mrs. Ellingsworth, driving by with her husband. They made a very pretty picture of marital bliss ; perhaps they were all the happier because neither of them had souls. Philip had been intending to go to his factory, there was some business he ought to attend to, but the sudden assurance that Bertha was alone made his heart give a great bound. What better time than now to teil her of his unaltered love, to win her promise to let him make hor happy? So his business was postponed, and he rang tho beü at Mr. Ellingsworth's instead. "Not in?" he repeated after tho servant in dismay. "Would his luck never change? Had she been frightened at his manner the nigbt before, and gone away to avoid his unpleasant suii " "But she ian't far away," and the girl smüed at the disappointment that had come over his face. "I guess, now, you will flnd her in tho garden; or Iwill cali her if you say." 'No, don't cali her," and Philip hurried out to the garden. What more fitting place for what he had to say if he could find his voice for the great lump in his throat. He must be very eloquent to persuade her, to answer all hor objections, to assure hor that it was not pity that moved him, for she would resent that, but love - a love that craved her above all the world. She looked up from her embroidery at the sound of his footsteps and smiled. Her beauty might all go, as its flrst bloom and freshness had gone, and her cheeks fade like the autumn leaves whose glowing tints they had once worn ; her golden hair might whiten with age, he knew it would make no difference in his love. She wore the same dress she had worn in that other garden scène. She had grown thin and gone back to the dresses of her girlhood. It was a light blue silk, open low in the neck, filled in with nestling folds of lace. The sunbeams made their way through the low hanging trees, and with them camo the breath of the roses, and the humming of the bees, just as on that other day. Philip seated himself on the bench besido her, and tried to make his voice calm as he said: "Do you remember vvUon you last wore thif dress?" Would she be f rightened at the intensity of gentleness in his voice? But aho smiled as frankly at him as if he were her brother. "Oh, yes." He put his hand on her arm, cool as if love and passion were forever outside her experience. "Bertha, I love you more now than then. I will not frighten you with my vehemence; I have learnod to conquer myself. I will cherish you as a child, but, oh, Bertha, I want to be near you. " The woman did not draw away from him. She was looking with a changed expression at his eager face - the face of the lover whom no coldness could chili; who returned again after her desertion of hin. ; whom no shame could alter. He had stirred something like admiration in her at last. A tingo of delicate color rose from her neck among the folds of lace, and mounted to the roots of her golden hair. It was the first time he had ever moved her. "And you love me as much now as that day I feil asleep on your shoulder - ages ago, it must have been?" Then her great blue eyes drooped under the intensity of love that looked from his face - a love beyond her power to understand. He gathered her hands in his. "As much and more - a deeper, purer, gentier love that will protect you against its own very vehemence - that would rather make sacrifices for you than joys for itself." "Take me, then," and she Iet him draw her head on his breast, where she feit the throbbing growing mightier and mightier, though he only pressed his lips upon her cool forehead. Then she drew back. She did not look in his face, whieh had a great light in it, perhaps she was ashamea that she had nothing to give him, ashamed that her heart was so cold under the rapture that looked out of his oyes. "But Philip, you must ot hurrymetoo much. I am siow, and this is so sudden, 1 would as soon have thought of an earthquake.'" Then she glanced wonderingly at him as if to make sure. "Ah, Philip, you deserve a better love than mine." But he caught her hand to his lips, and held it there while he ver i it with kisses, "I would rather the flower yon wear in your bosom than ny woman in the world resides you. I learned to lovewith you, Bertha." But she took her hand away uneasily. 'But you won't hurry me, will you, Philipf1 How could she ask him to wait much longer? "For if you do" "Oh, no- I will give you a whole week." He laughed, and then grew suddenly very sober. "Haven't I given you long enough?" "I must tako a little journey first," and her eyes appeared to avoid his. A sudden tide of jealousy swept over him. Had sh deserved his trust?" "I will go with you. It shaU bo our weading journey." She flushed nervously- "Oh, no, not yet." Where could she be going? To one last interview with Curran, perhaps, and he felt that he could not bear one thought of him should ever cross her soul again. Ho'w short a time it took to spoil his happiness. The had left his heart, the light had gone out of his eye, all in a moment. Is misery then the only thing that can last? "Only this once," she said. "You shall go with me always then." His mood melted and in a moment he was kneeling bef ore her. "Oh, Bertha, be fair with me- for you hold me in the hollow of your tand. Do not fail me now when you have seemed so near me." She put her band on his bowed head, perhaps some sweet word trembled on her lips. He hungered for it, and when she did not speak, he looked up into the face of his bride. She had seemed so f ar f rom him, a world could not have parted them more, but hu was at her f eet, and she had promised to be his wife. "My dear Philip, excuso me, but you are crushing my embroidery." So he was. He was kneeling on it in his fond idolatry, as if a piece of worsted work was of no account. He found his feot and cast a pathetic glance at the square of canvas before he stooped to piek it up. It was strange, indeed, that he should have been so carried away in his passionate ardor as not to notice what he was kneeling on. "I hope I have not ruined your work," ho said, simply. No, he had only rumpled it a, little, and he would have been willing topurchase all the canvas and worsted in two cit.ies, rather than have missed the tender word he thought was on her lips. 'O BE CONTINTTED.l IT ENDED IN A DRAW.