Wilmington daily commercial., 1872-09-07
MRS. FRANK.
Concluded from Thursdays Comm ercial

and irreYOChDle, Bllu MT. JfaNeS; THE total
obliieration of your very name, of your whole
existence. When you leave this house YOU
leave behind you all you ever held-boih a
brother and a wife. If you do not consent
10 this. then neither do / consent to he yonr
shield any longer; and the aw-and Lucy
Nlnnners-may do their worst
as il SO, Aline y asked Frank, leaning
nearer to her. She was weeping bitterly, and
made no answer
"Speak, Aline," cried John Graves, grasp
ING her arm, 81 too have some right to he
consulted
81 must, sobbcd Aline. ''You yourself,
Frank, have separated us. You have put ii
out of my power to help you any more.
"And 10 love me, Aine ?" asked The mans
tender carossng voice.
And to love you, echoed John Graves,
sternly.
She clasped her hands over her eyes, the
tears forcing their way through her fingers.
II take only her word for that, said Frank.
turning with a flush and dark look TO his bro
ther, 'in this at least you have no part. Tell
me, Allne," and his voice trembled, ''haye
Won ceased to love me?"
The surgeon, who had never removed his
hand from her arm, here gripped it so hardly
that she blanchcd with pain but she looked
up into his face, not her husbands face, and
answered steadily
No. no! / can never do that, Frank! |
love you rs | have always loved you, US
always must love you. Am | not your
Wife"
'lcs, Alne, for better, for worse. So at
least you said. But VOWS don't count for
much, find, when the current sets the wrong
way.
''lf you would use the short time before
you in business, not in sickly schoOlbOy sent
mcnt, it would be more TO the purpose" said
Mr. Graves, with his assessor manner. "If
your love had been the love of a man, and
not of fool-and a vicious fool, too-you
would never have brought your wife into this
pass. fyou had not respected yourself you
might at least have cared for your name and
for hers 1t siCkens me to hear all this alb
surdity of love, wi hen you have reduced her
10 what she is-the wife of a"
"llush, hush, John!" cried Aline, placing
her hand over his mouth. "You must not
say the word the Thing is bad enough"
Always the way with women = muttered
the surgeon, coniemptuously. ''The word
worse than the thing"
Thank you, Aline, said Frank. And for
the first time their eyes met. She colOred vi
Olcntly, then grew pale and white, and turned
her eyes away as If she had done wrong; but
his fastened themselves on hers with as much
pertinacity as tenderness, following her face
as it dropped aside, as if he was cxerting
some kind of power over her.
At that moment the servant rushed into the
room.
"lf you please, Mr.. Graves, sir, she said,
hreathles'ly, ''you are sent for at once to the
rrrlOry. Mrs Barnes" she was the rectors
wlio-"is in fit and they don't think she
has a moment TO live. The rector's own
horse is here "
John Graves, never the meekest of men,
rose from his place with an imprecation.
Lost ~ he said, between his clcnched
teeth. 'But / will make one effort more
VIII be back in few moments, he said to
Ainc; ''and | shall find you here, sin, +" to
Frank, sternly enough. Tien to both, "re-
member the duty before you, and the only
terms on which my protection will be grant |
on which he went out, and the strangely |
poslioned pair sitting there, so near yet 50 |
lar of, seemed to breathe more freely when
he had left.
As the garden gate swung TO- and they |
heard the horses hoOfs laundering down the |
road, Frank rose from his scat and wentover /
to Aline. He flung himself on his knees by |
her, and laid his hand on her shoulder with |
the caressing gesture of the old fond love days |
so long ago now
''Ah! you have made me so happy in the |
midst of all my misery" he said ienderly. |
You love me still, Aline!"
"liow can help it, Frank could not if |
tred, she answered, simply.
Yet you are going to renounce me forev- |
rrI You, my wife going to separate your
srll from my very name, from all the past, /
and all the hope OF the futures"
1T is not ], dear, it is you who have made |
our lie together impossible, she cried
., Nothing is impossible to love, Aline," /
Frank answered.
'Oh, do not say that You know love /
YOU love you, she repeated, "and that am /
icrced TO leave you forever"
Know that you need not if you do not /
wish 1t, said Frank. 81 know that you are
merely obeying the cruel will of man, who,
though my brother, has been my enemy ali |
my HE; that you have let him come between
Us and that in his jealousy of me he does
not mind making lis miserable, and forcing /
yon TO commit sin.
Jealousy! y echoed Aline.
why, Aline,' demonstrated Frank, you
IanhOt pretend to be ignorant of the fact that
John is in love with yOu Get me out of the
way kill me will. .grief and despair--and
!htIe you are! To he sure you are his sister
h-aw, but the world will not know that; and
your marriage, if illegal, will not be ques-
iiohrd, And you would try to make me be-
neye you do not fOresee all this--you, clever
AMI shrewd as you are"
on are wrong, Frank indeed you are!"
SalI Aline, earnestly, "John is my brother
ana best friend, no more"
nc smiled quite pleasantly, being man of
as itlle malice as earnestness "a convent
cnt KIND of friend If the husband could be got
Iiu OF, he said, as II it in no wise concerned
himself. And Aline, in spite of herself, low
eieu her eyes, and trembled under his.
Come into the garden, then said Frank,
.aresslngly; we have swceter associations
'here than in sitting room like this. Do YOU
''hember when We used to walk IN the gar
Grn at Redhill ? Aline, can you forget those
"Ays | cannot"
Aliae shivered. Oh, that l had never
hnoWn anything but those days of love and
uusl she cried passionately.
lou have only TO will it., Alne wife |
loVc! and they will come again, never to be
interrupted" said Frank, rs he drew her hand
within his arm, and led her tenderly into the
garden; and Aline, yielding TO his fascina-
uon, as If she had been girl not wholly
wooed, went to what end sue knew would
come. She had always been in love with her
handsome, slippery, good-for-nothing hus-
band and she was woman who only felt, |
and never reasoned. Love was her sole log.
lci and what she hoped that she believed in.
Here John Graves found them, when he
came back from the rectoTy, sitting, lover-like
under the shadow of the horse chestnut in the
II nos WnN Il. Al. I