THE UNDIVIDED THREAD.
"NO, father, I will never marry him."
"Your reason?"
"I hate him."
"I refuse to accept that as adequate."
"Father," Stellata cried despairingly, flinging herself on her
knees before her archiepiscopal parent. "Do not, do not
compel me to marry base, disreputable Cholmondeley Mountebank;
I hate him. Pity me. If my mother were alive."
"Thank heaven she isn't!" the Archbishop of the Strand
thought.
"You will help me, father?"
She threw her arms around him, and kissed his solid face,
weeping bitterly.
"He will make you a better husband than Vere de Vere
Robinson," he answered, putting her away from him. "There
he is."
"Who?"
"Mountebank."
"I will not see him."
"You shall."
He seized her wrists, and, with a hard, steely look in his
deep-set grey eyes, commanded silence.
A knock was heard at the door, and the footman announced:
"Mr. Cholmondeley Mountebank."
He entered. He was handsome, and "faultlessly dressed,"
but a saturnine look in his coal-black eyes dimmed the lustre of
his appearance. He was rich, but he was wicked; had lived
hard, and run through three fortunes and two wives; age,
forty-two; height, five feet six inches.
"A man to love, but not to respect," women said, whereas
men voted him a trump.
"Miss Fantasy," he said, bowing low, his voice unmistakeably
indicating his surprise at seeing her sitting on the sofa.
She bowed also, and the Archbishop, advancing, shook
hands with him, and invited him to stay to luncheon.
He accepted the cordial invitation, and a convenient gong
sounding the hour of eating, escorted his inamorata through the
long low hall to the dining-room.
The Archbishop said grace, and the meal was proceeded
with.
The fare was frugal, and consisted of —
Potage Julienne,
Sole au vin blanc,
Cailles farciées,
Chateaubriand aux truffes,
Asperge en branche,
Pommes de terre au naturel,
Pommery '74,
Fine Champagne '67.
Stellata ate nothing, but she drank a glass of water.
CHAPTER II.
TEN
years had passed, and misery reigned supreme at
Mountebank Towers.
Stellata — for her brutal father had compelled her to throw
over Robinson and marry Cholmondeley Mountebank — was
miserable, and wept the dear, dead days gone beyond recall.
Robinson — where was he? He had faded into the nothingness
of a pleasant intoxicating dream!
"You are going to the Darrell's dance to-night, of course?"
Mrs. Lightenary said, breaking in upon her one December
morning.
"Que dites vous?"
"The Darrell's dance."
"Je ne comprends pas."
"Ecoutez," she whispered.
"Staying in the village. Mon Dieu!"
She uttered a low cry.
"When did he arrive?"
"La nuit dernière."
"C'est impossible!"
"He will be at the ball!"
"Rely upon me."
"Fly with him; he loves you still."
"But I have no money!"
"Voulez-vous accepter mon chéque?"
"Volontiers, ma bienfaitrice."
CHAPTER III.
A BLAZE
of light, a dream of fair women, a scented atmosphere,
a Blue Hungarian Band, a brilliancy of voluptuousness —
a broken heart.
Stellata stood in the ball room, gazing at a man whom she
had not seen for ten years.
He advanced, and said, coldly:
"Mrs. Mountebank, we have not met for some time."
Her heart throbbed wildly; it was his dear voice that she
heard, his violet eyes that she looked into, his perfect form that
towered above her, his tawny hair that shiningly crowned his
patrician head.
"I cannot bear it," she cried. "Take me away."
"I love you."
"Cela va sans dire," Mrs. Lightenary, who had overheard
the remark, observed.
"Your husband; where is he?" he asked, fiercely.
"You will not —–"
"Hurt him? Oh, no, no, no!"
"I love you."
"You ·will fly with me!"
"Darling!"
"You are my own!"
"Vere de Vere, c'est toi que j'aime."
CHAPTER IV.
"AT
last I have discovered your hiding-place," Mountebank
sneered when, five years afterwards, he met Robinson in
Paris.
"You are married to a divorcée, my cast-off wife."
Robinson drew out the necessary revolver, and shot the
traducer dead ere he had time to finish the sentence.
He was tried, and found not guilty with extenuating circumstances.
Monsieur le President having sententiously said, "Amour
fait rage, mais argent fait mariage," handed him a bouquet, and,
stating that he left the Court without a stain on his character,
suggested that M. Le Redacteur de "Le Petit Journal pour rire"
should interview him as a celebrity. He went home, and found
that his wife had flown.
"She never really loved me," he said, as he lit a cigarette.
"'In her first passion, woman loves her lover. In all the others,
all she loves is Love.'"
CHAPTER V.
STELLATA
had taken poison, and died on Mountebank's
grave.
Truly the ways of women are inscrutable!
CHAPTER VI.
TWO
years from that date, Letitia Lightenary having gone
through the ceremony of marriage, gave her hand and heart to
Cholmondeley Mountebank. They were married at St. Peter's
Eaton-square.
F. C. WILDE-PHILIPS JONES.
N.B. — We have remonstrated with the author about the length
of the above story, and also have drawn his attention to the
largeness of the French element, and he excuses himself on
the ground that he really cannot help it; he has to make
money, and such literary skeletons as he has contributed to
our magazine are the wares that pay the best.
EDITOR.
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(THE END)
