New York Dispatch

A BROKEN BOND.

BY S. J. W.

The evening light was gray and subdued in the library of Wolstenholme. The lamps were not lighted, and the fire was only smoldering in the midst of a pile of light gray ashes, giving forth an occasional flash which could not dissipate the darkness of part of the spacious room; but the gray wintry twilight had not come to a close yet, and the two figures standing before a deep old-fashioned window could see everything around them.

Outside the snow lay thick upon the ground, and a keen northern blast went wailing and soughing between the bare poles of the larches and firs on either side of the winding carriage-drive, while the shadows from the marshlands to the east grew deeper and deeper still. It was not a pleasant prospect to look upon, and with a sigh of weariness Captain Richard Lucas turned from it to the girl at his side, taking in with a quick glance the wondrous beauty of stately head and braided hair, and the look of half-sorrowful meditation in the lustrous eyes.

As lovely as a passion-flower was the Lady Isabel Dacre, "the daughter of a hundred earls," but surely "one to be desired," with that sweet faint carmine flush in her face and the clustering hair of golden brown over her brow.

Her close-fitting but sweeping dark dress showed the symmetry of her lissom figure to perfection, and costly diamonds sparkled from the delicate old lace at throat and wrist; and yet over all lay a shadow, undefined, close-clinging.

Captain Lucas too seemed ill at ease, and, though they had been standing in the same position for many minutes, he did not care to break the silence that prevailed. There was a restlessness about his slim straight form, a nervous twitching of the white hand and gnawing of the heavy mustache which told of the conflict going on in his mind, even if the smoldering fire of his blue eyes had been no index to it.

He was hardly taller than the earl's daughter, and, if one could have seen him well in the gray light, there would have been noticed tell-tale lines and wrinkles in the handsome, haughty face, speaking plainly of passion and pleasure and pain which had surged round him with stronger currents than the generality of men are called to face.

"And I shall see you and speak to you never again, Lady Isabel?"

It was his voice that broke the stillness of the room and fell in deep sad cadence upon his companion's ear.

"See me and speak to me you most likely will, Captain Lucas, but say what you have said and be what you have been never again."

"And when I am thus cast out from hope and love, what fate do you think will be mine, Isabel?"

There was almost a wail in the sound of his imploring voice, and for a moment the hot tide would mount unbidden to Lady Isabel's lovely brow; but in an instant it was followed by a contraction of the brow and a firmer setting of the finely-chiseled lips-the Dacres were not wont to change their minds when once they spoke their will.

"You did not say such words as those, my love, in the old days when I wooed you under the chestnuts of that small Norwegian town-and it is only two years since, Isabel."

If some of his comrades could have seen Captain Lucas then, they would hardly have believed that it was he. He did not bear the reputation of a ladies' man in the officers' mess of the crack cavalry regiment to which he belonged. Captain Richard Lucas, slim, erect, handsome, with but one blemish, a long scar curving from his right ear down his cheek and across his throat, riding his gray horse Woden like a centaur, and looking at everything with a lazy, half-mocking glance from under the dark lashes of his steadfast eyes, was a man rather to be feared and courted because of the keen weapon of sarcasm he possessed than laughed at as a love-sick man. Captain Lucas "bound by the fetters of a silken tress!" Why, every officer in the regiment would have laughed the idea to scorn! He was their "Admirable Crichton," the faultless one, who had never been known to lift eyes of love to a lady in his life. In any other line they acknowledged that he did excel. There were wonderful tales told of his powers at the billiard-table, for instance, of the clear cool head and steady hand that never failed him. The youngster who joined his regiment looked upon him with awe as the man who had played for tremendous stakes with Flashaway, the professional, who had ruined scores of men at the board of green cloth, and cleaned him out of every penny he possessed. And most likely that same youngster, having lost his year's income to the irresistible Captain Lucas, would receive his money back with a kindly but emphatic word of advice to talk less and work more and eschew brandy and billiards. The scar on his cheek he had received in a fierce fray with a hill tribe in India ten years before, when he was a strippling of twenty-two. His men called him "Dick the Devil" in those days, and when he led the way set their teeth and gripped their lances tightly, for they knew that he would fight to the death, though Woden stood knee deep in blood. Out of many a hot fight he had ridden scathless with a triumphant smile on the proud face with its almost womanly beauty, and with his long sword red with blood, till he got that slash from the crooked blade of a mad Mahometan chief, who fell the moment afterward in the middle of his shout "Allah Akbah!" cut through brow and brain by Sergeant Tomkin's stalwart arm. He wore a little bronze cross on his breast on field days for that day's work, and stroked it and talked to it sometimes as if it were a friend.

"Thirty-two years old," he had said to a comrade only a few days before, "healthy and strong and rich, with all the knowledge that schoolmasters and learned dons could instil into me-thirty-two years old, and this little cross of bronze is all that I can show as the result of my life's work! O tempora, O mores!"

And then the half laughing manner gave place to an ill-suppressed sigh.

Nevertheless his comrade looked at him with envious eyes. He would have given his ears almost for that little cross, with its simple words "For Valor." All that he could show for his life's work was an injured constitution and a pile of bills.

Captain Lucas's colonel was proud of his subordinate officer had set him often, in days gone by, in the post of danger and honor, and now, in the piping times of peace, did his best to procure for him his well-merited promotion; but still the kindly old man looked at his favorite sometimes with anxious eyes.

"What makes Lucas laugh so in that hard bitter way?" he would muse sometimes over the walnuts and the wine. "What made him fight in that mad way, too, not like a Christian man, when we had the trouble with the hill-men in India? And there's a recklessness in those blue eyes of his sometimes that I don't like at all. I wish the man would marry and settle down."

There was pretty much the same feeling about Lucas among all his brother-officers and friends, and he himself acknowledged in his own mind that there was something wrong in his life. Even when the mirth and gayety were at their highest, when his pulse beat fast in response to the music and the motion of some delightful dance, or when the song was loudest and the champagne ran like water, a sense of something lacking would creep into his unwilling mind. Aye, and when the Autumn sun was bright, and the Autumn winds were keen and invigorating, when the hounds made deep music in the uplands, and Woden bore him with tireless stride over the dewy fields, even then black Care sat grimly behind the horseman.

Two years before he had met Lord Dacre, Earl of Wolstenholme, and his family in Norway, whither he himself had gone for the fishing... The earl's family was one well worth knowing. Lady Dacre, for all the pride which had come down to her undiminished from a long line of noble ancestors, was a sensible and lovable woman who brought up her family in a wise, affectionate way which left nothing to be desired. Her four tall daughters were renowned for their beauty and sense far and wide, and her only son, young Talbot Dacre, a large-limbed, yellow-haired youngster at Oxford, had not done badly. The two eldest girls, Lady Mary and Lady Grace, were engaged; the third was Lady Isabel, whose sweet, grave face, with its wild-rose flush, violet eyes, and hair of sunny brown, had brought Captain Lucas to her feet almost without a struggle.

He was thirty then, Lady Isabel one-and-twenty; and, though they never entered into any binding engagement, it was understood by their respective families that the "young folk" were well content with each other, and would bring matters to a more definite condition when they pleased.

Captain Lucas never cared then what his future fate might be; he was quite content to live in the golden present and let all other thoughts go unheeded to the winds. What was all the rest of the world to him, with its cares and troubles, as he wandered toward the hills which lay around the little Norwegian village? His arm was round his love and her sweet voice was in his ear, the grass was green and soft beneath their feet, the chestnuts were bursting into fragrant bloom on every side, and the Springtide breezes were abroad.

He had not seen her for more than two years; and now, in the bitter Winter weather, when he came down to Wolstenholme for a day or two, he had reminded him of his old vows to obey her slightest wish, and called upon him to prove his truth by giving up all thoughts of wedding her, give back the few short letters he had received from her, and forgot all the fond words that she had spoken under the chestnut trees.

Two years before he would not have stood thus, awkward and angry, with two or three feet of space between him and Isabel; his arm would have been round her waist and her small sunny head upon his shoulder. But now times were changed; and he thought sadly of the shadow that would come over his life now that the greatest brightness it contained was to be taken away. It was only in Lady Isabel's presence that he felt quite at rest; it was only the thought of her matchless face with its steadfast fearlessness of expression that restrained him sometimes from drinking deeply or sinning in some grosser way.

It was the thought of this that weighed most heavily upon him just now: without this tie to hold him back, there was no knowing to what end he might come, and he turned to the girl who held his fate in her hands for one last appeal.

"You give me no reason, Isabel, for the word that sends me away a blighted, hopeless man."

"My reasons have weight enough for me, Captain Lucas, though you will pardon my not giving them. I have pondered this step for a long time now, and am sure that it is for the best. Don't trouble for me, Dick, for really I am not worth thinking about," she said, with a momentary return to the old fondness of manner. "You know we were never really engaged; and you will soon forget all about me, won't you, Dick?"

But there was a look upon Captain Lucas's face which she had never seen there before. He was standing erect, taking no heed of his surroundings, gazing out as if to pierce the fast-gathering darkness. The blue eyes that had given back her smiles so brightly in that by-gone spring were as black as night now, his dark straight brows were knit, and his face was deathly pale, except where the tulwar wound showed red from ear to throat; his hands were clenched till the nails pierced the flesh, and to all that she said he answered not a word.

"I have one thing to ask you, Dick, before we part," she said, laying her hand once more upon his arm. "It is a whim of mine that I should like to have in writing an agreement between us two to forget all that has passed between us and move apart like strangers who have never met. I know that some people will say the fault is yours, some that it is mine-perhaps that is the reason I should like the paper near me, though I hardly know myself; but, at any rate, you will not mind signing it, will you? No one will ever see it but ourselves. See-I have drawn it up already, and it wants only your signature."

She took a little perfumed sheet of note paper from the table as she spoke and held it before him. He took it and read it through without a word-there was not much to read.

"We, Captain Richard Lucas, -th Lancers, and Lady Isabel Dacre, of Wolstenholme, hereby pledge ourselves to ignore and forget all that took place between us at Nardenfjord in the Spring of 18-, not if we can help it, to cross each other's path, not to mention each other's name."

Lady Isabel's signature was there already running in bold careless characters across the coroneted paper. Captain Lucas, stooping, added his, and without a word turned to the window again.

Isabel, taking the paper in her hand, paused to look at him for a moment where he stood with bowed head now, gazing out into the dark. ness, as if undecided whether to turn back and speak to him or no: then, with head erect and musing face, grasping the little paper in her hand, she passed quietly from the room, and so faded away poor Captain Richard Lucas's dreams of happiness.

He did not appear at dinner that evening, and it was not till some hours afterward, when the moon had risen and the darkness of the library was changed to the silvery glamor the "White Lady" brings, that young Lord Talbot found him there, still standing with bowed head and death-pale face before the window.

He was not well, he said: his old wound troubled him sometimes in cold weather; and the next day he rejoined his regiment, though a week of his furlough was still unexpired.

"Who's that, Tom-the man who looks like a soldier there, on the gray horse?"

"That? Why, that is Captain Lucas Sir Richard, as he is now, since the old man died He left the army a month ago, and looks as if idleness would kill him, if it were not for the evil spirit in him that keeps him alive."

"That Lucas! Why, I saw him at Fairlegh's last Summer, looking as healthy and strong as need be, and now I would not give two months purchase for his life! He's as thin as a lath and as white as chalk, and, if ever a fierce black fiend looked out of a man's eyes, he is the man. What's wrong with him?"

"How should I know, boy? In debt, or in love, or something; you'll know a deal more about such things when you come out into the world."

"Don't be so cocky, Tom; you're only twenty yourself, and can't make enough money to keep a fellow in cigars! Come off your stilts and tell me what's the matter with Lucas."

It was a warm bright day in the height of the London season; well-dressed and well-mounted men and women, and carriages speaking silently of wealth and position, thronged the Row.

"Tom" was a Government clerk with extravagant habits and a small income, but great expectations. He was leaning now in all the glory of perfectly-fitting gloves and faultless hat over the iron rail, watching the passers-by and endeavoring to satisfy, in his own condescending way, the curiosity of his younger brother, an overgrown Eton boy, who, by some peculiar tactics which he employed with great success, always managed to be at home for the best part of the season.

As they spoke, Captain Richard Lucas was riding by, holding Woden in with a steady hand, though the splendid animal's strong gray limbs quivered with excitement, and he was evidently longing to break away from the noise and hurrying life on every side of him.

There was, indeed, a great change in the captain since he put his name to Lady Isabel's bond in the library of Wolstenholme. His face was white and thin-not with the thinness which would come from the hard fighting and scanty food of a campaign, but with a wan, drawn look, seamed with deep lines, as if the fiery soul within were trying to burst the bonds which held it down to earth.

Captain Lucas knew both the lads leaning over the rail; but he did not speak to either of them, though he had turned Woden in their direction for that express purpose. Just as he was about to rein up, the Ladies Dacre, of Wolstenholme, rode by, attended by their brother and quite a bevy of male friends. He caught just a glimpse of Lady Isabel's hand, some chestnut, of the braided hair and the sweet, proud face, flushed and animated now, for Major Fitch, of the Royal Irish, was telling her one of his astounding anecdotes of personal adventure.

He turned his wan face to get a last glimpse of the dark riding-habit soon lost among the proud riders of the Row, and Tom noticed with surprise that, though his brow was dark, his mouth twitched, and he shifted uneasily in his saddle, as with sudden pain.

After this there were strange tales told about Captain Richard Lucas. In the Brownlow steeple-chase he had ridden in a mad, reckless way which brought back to the minds of his men the bad fighting days in India. He had lamed Woden and killed another horse by his fool hardy riding; with a broken billiard cue he had thrashed Flashaway within an inch of his life, and he drank deeply at club and hotel every night now.

In fact, poor Captain Richard was going steadily downward." Although he could not justify his conduct to himself, yet some power of evil stronger than he seemed to have got him in its deadly grip; the old bright laugh never rang out now, the fierce wild eyes sank beneath his old colonel's sorrowful gaze, and Lady Isabel Dacre, who was now singing her old-world songs and tending the roses in the sunny gardens of Wolstenholme, never dreamed of the wretched passion-worn man who would gladly have died for a smile or a word from her, or a passing touch of her raiment.

Lady Isabel had never awakened thoroughly yet from the rose-tinted dreams that school-girls dream; her brain teemed with poet's idle fancies of blameless knights and kings in shining armor who knew no guile; and, while she mused over "The Princess" in her odorous rose-gardens, she never guessed how Captain Richard Lucas was pacing his little barrack sitting-room with damp white brow and wild scared eyes, clasping and unclasping a pistol in his nerveless hand, seeking to take his own life, but always held back by something within him which raised a warning voice and called him "Suicide."

A shot in the dark, the shouts of angry men out in the thick wood just a little way from the great doors, and then the alarm-bell of Wolstenholme rang out upon the night-air, seeming to cast the tidings from its clanging iron throat of fire and maddened rage and sudden death.

Old Thomson, the porter, awoke in the hall terrified and confused, and stood in senile impotence, shaking his hands and crying, "Alack, alack!" —while the white-haired Earl came out with hasty strides from the library, asking in stern tones what the midnight uproar might mean.

Lady Dacre, with her three daughters and a score of guests, came out pale and frightened from a drawing-room near at hand, all asking at once of master, servants, and one another why the bell rang out so loudly.

No one seemed able to give an explanation, though. All that Thomson could say was that he was dozing in his snug old-fashioned porter's chair before the fire, when he heard shots fired in rapid succession outside, followed by the shouts of men, as if in mortal strife, and at the same moment the alarm-bell rang out loud enough to wake the dead.

"Where is Lord Talbot?" said the old earl stamping with impatient anger, and looking in vain upon the women crowding round for protection. "Where is Lord Talbot? Where are all the gentlemen who came to-day? Go-bring some of the men-servants, boy!" he said to Henry, the page, who was endeavoring to escape observation by keeping behind some of the guests. "Am I the only man in the house when men are most needed?"

He motioned the lad away with an impatient wave of the hand; but, pale and scared, Henry stood before him.

"If you please, my lord," he said. "I know what it is. Oakes, the keeper, told Lord Talbot this morning that he expected trouble to-night with Seth Henderson and his poachers. Keeper had heard say as how the poachers were coming in strong force to-night, and Lord Talbot and Captain Lucas and some more of the gentlemen said as how they'd see the fun and help to take the men prisoners. I'm afeard, my lord, to tell you. Half an hour ago they went out with guns and sticks-Oakes came for them and there'll be harm done, there will, for Seth Henderson wouldn't stick at murder, and they'd say that Captain Lucas is like a very demon when he fights

That is enough, boy. Tell the men to come with lanterns, and we will go and see what it means.'

The old earl's face, though stern and proud was very white. He loved his only son with no common love, and in the long moments that passed before the men came, he suffered agonies picturing to himself his yellow-haired lad, the pride of his life, the heir of Wolstenholme, lying out on the snowy grass, dead, with the moonlight falling upon his bonny face.

In reality but very few moments had passed between the first clang of the bell and the time when the four men passed down the broad stone steps on to the lawn, the ladies following them at a little distance, to see if anything strange presented itself.

"I never knew Captain Lucas was here; did you, Isabel?" said Lady Grace to her sister, who, in a thin shawl of white lace gathered over her head, was stepping quickly after her father.

"No," answered Isabel, with a slight shudder; Lady Grace wondered at the whiteness of her beautiful face and the terror which shone out from her soft violet eyes.

"Talbot must have asked him at the last minute without telling us," the elder sister went on musingly, gathering at the same time the train of her satin robe from contact with the wet bushes they passed, but Isabel never heard her.

The little group only a few paces in front had turned a corner now, and were hurrying down a narrow path overshadowed by tall Scotch firs, a ragged undergrowth of brambles stretching out long arms to catch their feet.

As Isabel turned the corner and laid a light hand upon her father's shoulder, two more shots were heard, following each other with hardly a second between, a wild oath or two in the rough voices of the poachers, and then a ringing cheer, in which she could easily distinguish young Talbot's powerful voice.

The men broke into a run then, even the old Earl forgetting his dignity for a moment; and in a small circular opening where a moss-grown sun-dial stood, and round which great firs towered majestically, showing black in the moonlight, they found the explanation of the disturbance.

One man came through the misty light to meet them-Oakes, the head-keeper, binding his left hand in a big red handkerchief, and removing his cap when he found there were ladies present.

"It's all over, my lord," he said, cap in hand, and speaking in a half-deprecating manner, noticing the angry light in his master's eyes: "we've beat them hollow. Jakes and Tom, two under-keepers, have got Seth Henderson safe, and are taking him to lock him up in the tool-house. There's been a many shots fired, but, as far as I can see—there hasn't been much time to notice though-I am the only man hurt. Lord Talbot is safe and sound; he went with the other gentlemen to try to catch the rest of the poachers. There-I hear his voice now; they are coming back."

It was as he said. They heard the footsteps of the victorious party returning toward the little glade, and young Talbot's voice in jovial triumph congratulating his companions on the fun they had had.

The whole party from the house went down the narrow path to meet them—all but Lady Isabel. She was standing erect in an attitude of keen attention in the midst of the trampled snow, listening-for surely she heard some sound other than the wail of the cold wind moving the bare pine-branches! Hark! There it was again!

"Isabel!"-a groan as of a dying man, and then the sweet name came again-"Isabel!"

Ah, Lady Isabel did not think to meet him thus her first love, whom she had sent away for an idle whim one year before!

Lying upon the withered bracken and the blood-stained snow, his sad face gray with the ashen hue of coming death and the hot blood welling from his side, was Captain Richard Lucas; and, with one great tearless sob, the earl's daughter crouched in the snow and took his head upon her knee.

Poor Dick was dying hard to all appearance, drawing his breath in great gasps, and trying to stanch the horrid flow with both hands, gazing up into her face with sad adoring eyes, and trying with his poor dumb lips to frame her name.

Poor Dick! The darkness fell from Isabel's eyes at last. What were all her impossible dreams to her if Dick should die? And at the thought she called him by his name in soothing tones, chafed his numbed hands in hers, and rained down passionate kisses upon his ice-cold brow. She never heard her father and all his party return, she never heard them debating as to what shot it was that laid Lucas low-only the earl's whispered words struck a sort of dumb terror through her:

"Lay him on the shutter; then cover him with your coats, lads, and carry him in. His mother will never greet Captain Richard Lucas any more."

So, sadly and silently they bore him through the beautiful grounds of Wolstenholme, and laid him in the library where he had stood and talked with Isabel a year before.

It was never known who rang the alarm-bell on that Winter night. Some frightened servant, who perhaps had heard a previous shot, was supposed to have done it, but no one confessed, and over the whole house brooded unbroken quiet-for Captain Lucas lay between life and death, and, when delirium came on him for a while, he terrified every one with his shouts and cries.

It was not till the hedges were turning green and the lilacs blooming purple all over the land that the doctors gave their opinion that he would recover. He lay upon a couch in the library one balmy evening in the latter end of May, propped up with pillows and covered with warm rugs; the tall French windows were open, and through them came the sunshine and the warm breath of Spring playing about his thin pale face.

The very ghost of his former self he seemed; but yet a smile played about his mouth, for Lady Isabel bent over him or moved noiselessly about the room, talking to him and getting him whatever he might need -not the Lady Isabel who had cast him off because he did not come up to her impossible ideal, but a gentler, sweeter girl, whose voice was like low music, and the touch of whose hand had a lingering fondness of its own.

He was following her about now with wistful eyes wherever she went; and presently he asked the question-she was bending over him almost before he had said the first word.

"What has become of the bond, Isabel-the bond that I have dreamed about so often lately?"

"I tore the horrid thing up long ago!" answered Isabel, putting her arms round his neck and smiling through her tears. "I will never trouble you like that again, Dick, and we will live for one another now; won't we, dear?"