Middlesbrough & Stockton Gazette and General Advertiser. — 1874-10-08 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

LITERATURE  BELGRAVIA.—Conducted by M. E. Braddon. London: Warwick House, Paternoster-row. THE thread of the narrative in " Lost for Love," which closed in last number, is again taken up by Dr 011ivant's wife and his mother wending their way homewards from Killarney. Flora's only fear on reaching London was that she would find her husband deaf to her protestations of forgiveness, and the assurance that her early love for him—though it was not of a very ardent kind—was now unchanged, and that if he would forget and forgive the past, she was prepared to atone for her doubts of his love, and her accusation for his murdering her first lover. She, hownver, found an unexpected obstacle in her way. Doctors are like other human beings, and are subject to the infirmities they cure in others. Dr 011ivant was no exception. Flora found the home she had deserted in a neglected, wasted condition. But worse than all, she found her husband lying unconscious in fever, attended by a hospital nurse who, with a professional air, took special charge of her patient, and only consented to allow Flora to remain beside her husband on condition that she promised to be very quiet and not to speak to her patient. That is how a nrirserymiiid treats a naughty child and punishes it. Flora, no doubt, looked upon herself as a very naughty child, and was willing to do any penance her husband might impose on her if she might only explain her position, assure him that he was not a murderer, and that she was to be to him all that a loving obedient wi;e ought to be. It was a sore trial—an additional pang to the many she had recently suffered—to find him to all appearance dying, and unaide to recegnise her or to speak a word of forgiveness. The chapter closes with an affecting scene when the patient had returned to a gleam of half consciGusness and seemed to recognise her:— 'My love, my love,' she sobbed, my lost love Is there no forgiveness in heaven for my sin against you?' Der voice, those keen accents of anguish, pierced the dimness of delirium. Cuthbert 011ivant opened his eyes and looked at her, this time with recognition in his gaze. Flora!' he murmured faintly. There was neither surprise nor joy in his tone. In his nt er weakness of mind and body he had passectbeyond the region of strong emotions. My love, it is I—your wife—your sorrowful repentant wife No,' he said, with ever so faint a touch of wonder; that cannot be; my wife hates me.' She remembered her words in the garden that fatal summer evening—words of unmitigated hatred and contempt; words keener than a sword thrust, and harder to forget. 'My dearest, I was unjust, cruel, ungrateful,' sobbed Flora. It has pleased God to open my eyes to my wickedness. I have something to tell you about Walter by and by; something that will set your mind at rest. 0 live, dearest; live, for my sake; and all my life to come shall be one long atonement.' He contemplated her mutely for a few moments, with a strange pathetic look, and then answered quietly: Too late, my dear. The pitcher is broken at the fountain.'  The story then reverts to old Jarred and his daughter Loo—now, Mrs Leyburn, the rising painter's wife wife—but the chief interest is centred in the 011ivant's, and the fate of the Doctor, which is now oscillating in the balance. Considerable disappointment will be found by many readers that another chapter was not devoted to Flora and her husband ; but it is the province of_the romancist to drop the curtain where and when she pleases. There is no possibility of predicting what sort of a tale " Ward and Wife" may turn out—but it certainly does not open very auspiciously. It may be all very well for Paris morality to have a nice-looking young lady living on such friendly terms with her guardian-,-a young fencing master—but it does not sound very polite to "unmistakable Britons." The more we look at it the less we like it, though there is of course time for mending it.