The Pontypridd District Herald and Rhondda Valley, Llantrisant, Caerphilly, and Mountain Ash News. — 1893-01-14 (Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

RRENT OPINION.  PONTYPRIDD DISTRICT HERALD, Saturday, January 14, 1893.  grieving over her untimely fate. Now, because Heaven has sent a balm to my sorely wounded heart, do not seek to hurl it back into bitter despair again. It is our duty to forget a dark, sorrowful past, snd try to live in the brightness of —a future. I shall always love and reverence the memory of Uldene ; but, because of that, do not, I implore you, withhold your love from me, Verlie ; it would be unjust." "Am I mad, or do I dream ? " sobbed the wretched girl who watched these two, who were so utterly oblivious of her presence. What Verlie's answer was she never Unew. She saw Rutledge clasp the little white hands he held fondly—bend his handsome head over them, and raise them to his lips tenderly. "Remember, Verlie," Rutledge went on, pitilessly, "I have told you the exact truth as to how I happened to wed Uldene—not but what I loved her well after she became my bride,—but you, Verne, were my first as well as my last love ; but for that strange death-bed prayer, it is you whom I should have asked to become my bride." The words fell like drops of molten lead upon the breaking heart so near them. The swaying figure bad sunk down among the sharp thorns and , brambles, but she did not even feel the pain of them. The earth and sky seemed to meet above her; the leaves of the trees seemed to moan in the night-wind ; the moon hid her sorrowful face in the white clouds. If the hand of God had stricken beautiful, hapless Uldene dead, the white face, upturned to the night skies, could not have been whiter.  She had expected she would have to persuade Uldene to accompany her from this allurmg ipot ; but to her surprise the young girl consented readily enough. "You are very kind," said Uldene, gratefully. "I will go with you gladly. I was wondering a few moments before where I should find a lodging' place, my—my means are so limited," she added, flushing painfully. "Then come with me," said! Emily, drawing the little white hand within her own. She was surprised to see how delicate and dainty it was— like those of fortune's favorites, who "neither toil nor spin." "I have a great horror of seeing a young girl stand where you did, with such look on her face," continued Emily, "for not very long ago I stood in the self-same place, eagerly watching my opportunity to plunge beneath those waves, and leave the world whicli had narrowed down to a grave for me." For a brief moment Uldene forgot her own intense sorrow in listening to her companion. "Would you like to hear what tempted me to such rash folly ?" asked Emily, seeing she had attracted her companion's attention. "I can tell you as we walk home." "1 should like to hear, if the memory of it is not too painful," assented Uldene, readily. "Love drove me to it," replied Emily, calmly— "love, that brings with it either a blessing or a curse to the hearts of women who indulge in its golden dreams. But to the story: There was one whom I loved better than life itself, a fair-haired, handsome lover, who had placed the betrothal ring on my finger, and named the day I should be his bride. "One day a girl friend came to pay me a visit. She was as gay and handsome as I was quiet and plain. I was not inclined to be jealous by nature, but when I introduced my lover to my lovely friend a pang like the bitterness of death smote through my heart as I saw with keen eyes the gaze of rapt admiration he bent on her. I saw all that happened after as in a glass, darkly. You can guess the mina. My friend won my lover from me, and on the eve they were wedded I crept out hene to die, and end my woe. I flung myself into the water with a bitter cry. Oh; I loved him better than life ! I was saved, and I knew then my time had not yet come. God intended me to live and endure. I was needed in this world. Slowly the thought came to me what Heaven had assigned to me. I afterwards realized it was to save young girls from the fate that had so nearly been mine. I pass this way from my work at night, and many a young girl I rescue from a suicide's fate." "Oh howl pity you!" sobbed Uldene. "There is no pain in this world so great as the pain the heart endures when one finds the one whom we love has given his heart to another. Oh, poor girl ! I can understand what you have suffered hut too well. Death would have been welcome rather than face life after that with such a sword rankling in the heart." As Emily listened she realised that the beautiful girl before her had a tragic love-story, as pitiful, perhaps, as her own which she had related ; and Emily determined to bring this young girl and her lover together again, if it lay within human power, little dreaming fate itself had set its seal of defiance against this. (To be continued.)