The Indiana State sentinel., 1889-01-16

Whatever Sno llked unmOleSted, consul
tuted a fate which to Hilda Sunbury, as
TO the world, appeared one which IL was
hypercriticism and ingratitude indeed not
10 be content. Well regulated minds, like
Lady Sunbury's, cannot conceive why any
woman requires more than the tranquil
monotony of blameess life, large houses
to rule over, and purse always filled.
To these excellent minds the senses are
sins, the passions are fOllIes, and the
beSoin d 'aimer is wholly unmentlonabie.
such gross things are believed in and al
luded to by poets, they know; but they
think poets mad, and at all events poets
are no rule for women who respect them
selves.
This opinion, either insinuated or more
fully expressed, was the burden OF all
Lady Sunbury's conversation during her
stay at Ladysrood, at all such times "a her
daughter was not IN her presence. She
believed, and many virtuous women be-
lieve with her, that virtue is like a nail;
only hammer at it often enough and long
enough and you must end in driving 1t
into any substance whatever.
She knew the world too well not to
know all the temptations and dangers
which must surround in it such woman
as Gladys when left alone In the midst OF
its risks and its seductions; and on these
she dwelt, and on the duties of all women
TO resist them them she was so persistent
lv eloquent that she raised in the breast
of her hearer passionate longing to fling
duty to the winds, and drove her
more nearly from patience and self-con-
troll than any injury could have done;
made her long as she had never longed
for that vengeance OF which she had begun
of late to dream. While every fiber of
I. 4. - Of
ner existence seemed throbbing with
pain, she had to endure as best she could
the platitudes and stiff sonorous phrases
with which her guest proclaimed the all
suffieing beauties OF virtue and self
esteem.
'If she would but leave me alone!" she
thought; but this is just what women of
Lady Sunburys type never do.
The days and weeks passed and she
heard nothing directly from Guilderoy,
although he wrote TO his steward. His
sister came and went, but she left Lady
Constance there always, and the discOn-
tent OF the girl, impatient of her exile
from the cay gatherings OF the autumn
parties at Ellington, mingled with her pre-
mature worldliness and undisguised sell
fshness, were almost as trying to Gladys
in one way as the companionship of the
mother in another.
The routine of the tedious days became
almost uncomfortable to her; the monoton-
Gus repetition of commonplace observa-
tions seemed to her like that torture in
which a drop of water was let fall on a
prisoners head every second, until he
went mad or died OF it.
Lady Sunbury was of too keen an OBJ
servation not to be we'll aware of the tor
ment her presence was, but in the cause
of duty she never wavered, and she con-
sidered it her duty not to leave so young a
woman as her brothers wife alone; and
she sacrificed herself or her daughter to
that conviction with that resolution
which made her so trying and so un-
sympathetic to those whom she bene-
fted.
At such times as Gladys could get away
from her, she passed her hours at Christs-
lea, or shut up in the library writing,
and then destroying, hundreds of letters
to her husband.
Perhaps if all of them could have been
sent to him. and he bad had the patience
to read them, he would have reached
more comprehension of her character
than he had ever attained. All her aching,
wounded rebellious heart was uttered in
them; knowingno other conhdant possible
she made aconfessor OF the reams of paper
which she spoiled. But she sent nothing
of what she wrote. When read over to
herself they all seemed too tender or too
violent, to assert too vehemently or to en-
treat too piteously.
She had great pride in her, and she
could not bring herself to send to him
anything which looked like an appeal of
the affections. He did not care whether
she loved him or not. Why should she
tell him that she did?
At times she remembered that ne had
reproached her with never seeking TO win
his affections. Was it true that shyness
in the first months of her life with him,
and pride and jealousy afterward, had
frozen in her warmth which might have
won his confidence? She remembered
that her father even had charged her with
seeming cold.
She was very young still, and she was
utterly solitary, and she passed many
hours in misery recalling every incident
OF the past four years, and torturlng her
self with those vain and cruel wishes
which cry out to the past TO come back,
that we may undo, and unsay, all that has
been done and been said in it.
At last she wrote one which satisfied
her in so far as it seemed to her to express
her sense of indignity and wrong without
descending to appeal.
1t was worded thus:
after what passed between us on the
last day that you were here, it is impossi-
BILE ior me to believe, or for you to pre-
tend, that | am in any kind of way neces-
sary to, or desired in, your life. You
have told me, in the most undisguised
terms, that you regret that l ever had any
ASSOCIATE with your lite whatever. You
/ cannot regret it more than ! do. As |
ventured to remind you once before, the
act was yours, not mine. The only way
in which the mistake OF it can be in any
way rectifed, is for me to leave you. The
| little fortune which was left to my father
on the day of death is mine, and
is more than enough for all my
wants. / only await your permission,
| which 1 cannot believe will be refused, to
| leave Ladysrood, and seek some solitude
where, under my maiden name, may
endravor to forget that | ever had the
misfortune TO become your wife,"
She read this again and again, scanning
| it carefully and critically, to make sure that
/ it contained no word which could flatter
him, or imply in her any iuirmity of pur-
pose, or yearning of affection. Her future
was wholly obscure to her; she did not
dare TO drag consideration of il into the
clear light of reason and actualty. All
she felt was violent longing to cease TO