SARAH BEAUCLERC.

(CONTINUED FROM "THE RECEPTION OF THE DEAD.")

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE UNHOLY WISH."

I.

THE grey walls of the Château de Beaufoy basked idly in the evening sun. In the western drawing-room, M. and Madame de Castella, the old lady, and Agnes de Beaufoy were playing whist. Its large window was thrown open to the terrace, or colonnade, and there, were gathered the younger members of the party, the green-striped awning being let down between some of the outer pillars. Mary Carr and Adeline were seated, unravelling a heap of silks, which had got into a mess in the ivory workbasket; Rose Darling flitted about amongst the exotics, her long hair shining like threads of gold when, ever and anon, it came in contact with the sunlight, as she flirted-it was very like it—with Mr. St. John. But Rose began to turn cross, for he teased her. “Ah,

"Did you write to England for the song to-day?" she asked. don't answer: I see you forgot it."

"I did not write," answered Mr. St. John, "but I did not forget it. You have not tried the last I procured for you."

"I have sung it till I am tired," was Rose's contradictory reply.

"Not to me.'

"Most of the writing you are guilty of goes to one person, I expect," proceeded Rose. "No wonder you forget other matters."

"Indeed! To whom?"

"I won't betray you now," glancing at Adeline. "I will be compassionate."

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"It will be thrown

Pray don't trouble yourself about compassion for me, ma belle,” returned Mr. St. John, in his slighting manner. away."

"Compassion for you, Mr. St. John! thinking of another."

Don't flatter yourself. I was

Adeline looked up: a sharp, perplexed glance. "You are mysterious, Rose," said he, laughing. "Yes. But I could speak out if I would." "I dare you," answered Mr. St. John. "You know there is one in England, who monopolises all your letters -not to speak of your dreams."

"Speak away."

How can you

"Rose !" exclaimed Mary Carr, a dim shadow of Rose's meaning coming uneasily across her, " you are talking nonsense. speak so absurdly to Mr. St. John?" "He provoked me.

But he knows it is true. Look at his conscious

face now!" she saucily continued.

"The only lady in England honoured with my correspondence," said Mr. St. John, in a more serious tone than he had hitherto spoken, “is Mrs. St. John."

"That's nearly true," cried the provoking girl—“nearly. She is not Mrs. St. John yet, only to be."

A strange, wild pang caught Adeline de Castella's heart. Would Rose have continued, had she seen it? Did St. John suspect it? "I spoke of my mother, Rose," he said. "She is the only lady who claims, or gets, letters from me."

"Honour bright?" asked Rose.

"Honour bright," repeated Mr. St. John, "the honour of her only "Will you

son."

"Oh, faithless that you are, then!" burst forth Rose. deny that there is one in England to whom your letters are due, if not sent; one, whose shadow were you for many, 7, many months; one, beauti

ful as a painter's dream ?"

"Bah, Rose!" he said, those proud lips of his curling with a defiant smile, "you are getting into ecstasies."

"Shall I tell her name- -the name of his own true lady-love?" asked Rose, turning round, with a world of triumph on her bright, laughing brow. "Mary Carr knows it already."

"You are out of your senses!" ejaculated Miss Carr, in a fever of excitement, hoping to stop her. "Don't attempt to impose on us with your fabulous tales."

"Shall I tell it?" repeated Rose, maintaining her ground and her equanimity.

"Tell it," said Mr. St. John, carelessly. Did he think she knew so much?

"Tell it," repeated Adeline, but it was the motion of the syllables, rather than the words, that came from between her white and parted lips. "Sarah Beauclerc."

There was a surprised or startled look observable for a transient space on St. John's countenance. Adeline saw it, and from that wild, bitter moment, a pang of anguish took root within her, which was never to be erased or lessened during life.

"You are under a slight misapprehension, Rose," said Mr. St. John, with indifference.

"Am I? The world was under another, perhaps, when it asserted that the honour of Mr. St. John's hand would fall to Sarah Beauclerc." "That it certainly was-if it ever did assert it. And I might believe it possible, were the world peopled with Rose Darlings."

"Look here," exclaimed Rose, snatching St. John's pocket-handkerchief from a gilt cage, where he had thrown it to protect the beautiful bird it contained from the rays of the setting sun- “look at this, 'Frederick St. John,' worked in hair!"

It happened to be the handkerchief they had picked up that first morning in the painting-room. Rose talked on, in the recklessness of her spirits, and Adeline sat, drinking in her words.

"She did this for him: look how elaborately it is worked, even to the finishings of the crest. It is her hair, Sarah Beauclerc's.

Now this was a random assertion. Rose did not know, or care, whether she was right or not. In her present humour, had it taken her in the head, she would have stood to it that St. John was in love with the moon. But he did not deny it. It is probable she had stumbled upon a bit of fact. And on she rattled, in her wild gaiety:

"This is his favourite handkerchief: I have noticed that. All his

others are marked with ink. I dare say she gave the handkerchief, as well as marked it. Let it alone, Mr. St. John: I shall show it round, if A rather significant present from so lovely a girl! But it's known she was folle after him. He reciprocated the compliment then : I don't know how it may be now," she added, with a world of meaning in her tone. And, with a saucy glance at Mr. St. John, she sang out, in her clear, rich voice, to a tune of her own,

"It is well to be off with the old love,

Before you are on with the new."

Adeline rose, and passed quietly into the drawing-room. But did St. John read the effect Rose Darling's assertions had wrought upon her? No; how should he? for her bearing was calm. Yet he knew, had he thought to apply it, that the still exterior covers the deepest suffering. "Rose," he said, quoting a French proverb or axiom, vous aimez bien à rire, mais rien n'est beau que le vrai.”

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"Ah," she answered, with another, "ce n'est pas être bien aise que de rire." Perhaps the deepest truth she had uttered that evening.

With outward calmness there, but oh! the whirlwind of despairing agony which shook Adeline's frame as she sank down by the bedside in her own chamber! That in one short minute, desolation so complete should have swept over her heart, and she be able to endure it and live! To have given up her life's being to one; to have bowed before him in a love, little short of idolatry; to have forgotten early ties and kindred in the spell of this strong devotion-and now to be told there was another to claim his vows, another to whom they had first been offered!

The dream in which she had been living for months was over-or, at least, it had been robbed of its golden colouring. The serpent DOUBT had found his entrance into her heart: the fiend JEALOUSY had taken possession of it, never to be wholly eradicated.

Frederick St. John was certainly one of earth's favoured children, with his great beauty, his powerful intellect, his refined and well-stored mind. The world itself might almost worship him as she did, and without a blush. He had made her life the elysium that poets tell of, and now she found that he loved, or had loved, another. Like an avalanche falling down the Alps and crushing the hapless traveller, so had these tidings fallen upon her heart, and shattered it.

Adeline de Castella smoothed her brow and returned down stairs, She had taken no account of the time, but, by the advanced twilight, it would seem she had been away an hour, and Rose inquired whether she had been buried.

Following Adeline on to the colonnade, where the whole party were now seated, came the old Spanish servant, Silva, bearing a letter for Mr. St. John. The ominous words, "très pressée," written on it, had caused Madame Baret to despatch it with haste to the château.

"Does any one wait?" inquired Mr. St. John.

"Señor, si."

"It is well," he said, and retreated inside the room.

"You have received bad news!" exclaimed Madame de Castella, when

he reappeared.

"I have," he said, with controlled emotion. "I must depart instantly for England."

It was well the shades of evening were gathering, or they would inevitably have seen the pallor which overspread Adeline's face. "My mother" he began.

"Is dead? Oh, pray don't tell us so!" interrupted poor old Madame de Beaufoy.

"Not dead,” said Mr. St. John. "At least, she was not when this letter was written. But she has met with a fearful accident, and the physicians fear concussion of the brain."

"An accident! Of what nature?" they exclaimed, breathless with attention.

"The horses of her carriage took fright in the park, and ran away. And my mother, in her alarm, opened the door and jumped out."

"Oh, that is terrible!" uttered M. de Castella-"worse than foolish. And yet, none of us know but we might so act in a moment of fright. Remember the Duke of Orleans!"

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"Very hazardous for all," murmured the old lady; "but next to destruction for the aged, Mr. St. John, like your mother and myself.' "My mother is not old," said Mr. St. John; "not yet fifty." "Whatever are you talking of?" cried Rose to Mr. St. John. "Your brother must be fifty."

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Nearly so," he answered.

"He is only my half-brother, Rose." "I am truly sorry to hear these tidings," said Madame de Castella, "though we have not the honour of knowing your mother. I sincerely hope we may yet have that pleasure."

"I hope I trust-I pray you may!" uttered St. John, fervently, as he held out his hand to M. de Castella.

"Are you going?"

"Yes. I feel every moment wasted that does not speed me on my journey."

And in another instant he was gone. to Adeline than he gave to the others. for it.

Without a word more of adieu
There was no opportunity

An hour passed. Lights were in the room, and all, save Adeline, were gathered in it. Signor de Castella was playing chess with Mary Carr, Madame de Beaufoy écarté with her younger daughter, Agnes de Beaufoy talked with Father Marc, who had dropped in, and Rose was at the instrument singing pleasingly, in a subdued voice. Adeline remained on the terrace, leaning on its balustrades, looking out into the night.

O beware, my lord, of jealousy!

It is a green-eyed monster, which doth make
The food it feeds on.

That powerful reader of the human heart never put forth a greater truth, a more needed warning. Yet, how vainly! We can smile and wonder, now, at the "trifles" which once mocked ourselves, but who smiles at the time? It has been asserted that there is no true love without jealousy, and who shall venture to dispute it? Love is most exacting. Its object must not listen to a tender word, or bestow a look of admiration on another. It is probable that, in the want of any other suspicion, Adeline de Castella would have become jealous of Rose Darling. But Rose was not needed. Sarah Beauclerc had been put forth with sufficient detail to arouse the most refined torments of the distress

ing passion, and let none doubt that they were playing their part well upon her heart. And so she stood on; bitterly giving way to this strange anguish which had fallen on her, wondering how long it would be before he returned from England, and how many times, during his stay there, he would see Sarah Beauclerc.

But what is that movement which her eye has caught at a distance? Who or what is it, advancing, with a hasty step, from the dark trees? Ah! the wild rising of her pulse has told her, before the outlines of his form become distinct, as he emerges into that plot of pale light! It was St. John-St. John whom she thought to have looked upon at present for the last time, and the ecstatic feeling which rushed over her spirit was such, as almost momentarily to obliterate the cruel doubts that oppressed her. He had changed his dress, and was habited in costume suitable for travelling. His tread over the lawn was noiseless, and little less so as he ran up the steps to the colonnade.

"How fortunate that you are here, Adeline!" he whispered. "I could not go without endeavouring to obtain a word with you, though I doubted being able to accomplish it."

Adeline, painfully agitated, and trembling to excess, both in her heart and frame, murmured some confused words about the time he was losing. "No," interrupted Mr. St. John, "I should deem myself guilty of the deepest filial ingratitude, and which no after repentance could efface or atone for, if I lost one precious moment. I may arrive barely to receive He broke off

my mother's dying blessing; I may arrive to findabruptly, and resumed, after a pause:

"My own preparations were soon made: not so those necessary to convey me to Odesque. As it always happens in these emergencies, the spring-cart-and there's nothing else to take me-had been lent out to Farmer Pichon. Baret is gone for it, and will come on with it here, which is all in the way: so, you see, not one minute is being wasted. Why do you tremble so, my love?" he added, as the fit of ague, which seemed to possess her, shook even his arm. "Are you cold ?"

Cold! But most men would have had but the same idea. "Now, Adeline, for one moment's grave consultation. Shall I write, and lay my proposals before M. de Castella, or shall they wait till I return ?"

"Oh, wait to do so!" she implored, "in mercy, wait!"

"I would prefer it myself," said Mr. St. John, "for I feel I ought to be present to support you through all that may then occur. But, Adeline, should I be detained long, there will be no alternative: the preparations for your wedding will soon be actively begun, and render my speaking an act of imperative necessity."

She laid her head upon his arm, moaning.

"Cheer up, my darling; I am only putting the worst view of the case. I trust that a few days may bring me back to you. Write to me daily, Adeline everything that occurs: I shall then be able to judge how long I may be absent with safety. I was thinking, Adeline, as I came along, that it might be better if my letters to you are sent under cover to Rose or Mary. You are aware that I do not mention this for myself—I should be proud to address you without disguise-but for your own peace. Were I to write openly, it might force explanations on you before my return."