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Dreadful Temptation

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<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> After leaving Xenie on the seashore, Howard Templeton walked away hurriedly to the little fishing village, a mile distant, and gave the alarm of Lora's disappearance. By a promise of large rewards, he speedily induced a party of men to set out in separate directions to scour the adjacent country for the wanderer. But scarcely had they set out on their mission when someone brought to Howard the news of the corpse that old ocean had cast upon the sands. Dreading, yet fully expecting to behold the dead body of Lora Carroll, Howard Templeton turned back and accompanied the man to the scene. They found a group of excited men and women gathered, on the shore, drawn thither by that nameless fascination which the dreadful and mysterious always possesses for every class of minds whether high or low. Conspicuous in the group was Ninon, the pretty young maid-servant, and, as Howard came upon the scene, she was volubly explaining to the bystanders that the shawl which was tightly pinned about the shoulders of the dead woman belonged to the missing girl for whom the men had gone out to search. Was she quite sure of it, they asked her. Yes, she was quite sure. She had seen it night after night lying across the bed in the young lady's sleeping-apartment. When she was ill and restless, as often happened, she would put it around her shoulders and walk up and down the room for hours, weeping and wringing her hands like one in sore distress. "Yes," Ninon said, she could swear to the shawl. She would take it home with her and show it to her mistress, and they would see that she was right. No one interfered to prevent her. With an irrepressible shudder at touching the dead, the girl drew out the pins and took the wet shawl. Then, as she started on her homeward way, Howard Templeton, who had stood still like one in a dream of horror, started forward and told her that he himself would send a vehicle for the ladies, that they might come if they wished to identify the body. [Pg 57] For himself, he had no idea whether or not that the poor, bruised and battered corpse could be Lora Carroll. He could see nothing that reminded him of her except the beautiful, black hair lying about her head in heavy, clinging masses, sodden with water and tangled with seaweed. He longed, yet dreaded, for Mrs. Carroll and her daughter to arrive and confirm or dissipate his fears and end the dreadful suspense. And yet, with the rumble of the departing wheels of the conveyance he had sent for them, a sudden cowardice stole over the young man's heart. He could not bear the thought of the anguish of which he might soon be the witness. Obeying a sudden, inexplicable impulse, he turned from the little company of watchers by the dead and walked off from them, taking the course along the shore that led away from the little village. Oftentimes those simple little impulses that seem to us mere accidental happenings, would appear in reality to be the actual fulfillment of some divine design. Howard little dreamed, as he turned away with a kind of sick horror, that was no shame to his manhood, from the sight of so much misery, that "a spirit in his feet" was guiding him straight to the living Lora, even while his heart foreboded that it was she who lay cold and lifeless on the ocean shore. Yet so it was. True it is, as the great bard expresses it, that "there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will." Howard hurried along aimlessly, his thoughts so busy on one painful theme that he took no note of where he was going, or how fast he went. He was a rapid walker usually, and when he at length brought himself to a sudden abrupt stop he realized with a start that he had come several miles at least. The rain had ceased, the sun had come out in all its majestic glory, and beneath its fervid kisses the mist that hid the ocean was melting into thin air. It bade fair to be a beautiful day, after all. The pearly rain-drops sparkled like diamonds on the leaves and flowers, the sky was blue and beautiful, with here and there a little white cloud sailing softly past. The day had began like many a life, in clouds and tears, but it promised to close in as fair and sweet a serenity as many an early-shadowed life has done. Howard involuntarily thought of the poet's beautiful lines: [Pg 58] <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Be still, sad heart, and cease repining, Behind the clouds is the sun still shining! Days of sunshine are given to all, Though into each life some rain must fall." </div> </div> He paused and looked around him. He found that he had come into the outskirts of another rude, little fishing village. A little ahead of him he could see the fishers bustling about on the shore. "I have come four miles, at least," he said to himself. "What a great, hulking, cowardly fellow I am to run that far from a woman's tears. Far better have stayed and tried to dry them. Um! She wouldn't have let me," he added, with a rueful second thought. Then, after a moment's idle gazing out at sea, aimlessly noting the flash of a sea-gull's wing as it wheeled in the blue air above him, he said, resolutely: "I'll go back, anyhow. Perhaps I can do something to help them. They are but women—my countrywomen, too, and I'll not desert them in their trouble, even though she does hate me." He turned around suddenly to return, and the fate that was watching him to prevent such a thing, placed a simple stone in the way. He stepped upon it heedlessly, his ankle turned, and, with a sharp cry of pain, Howard fell to the ground. He made an effort to rise, but the acute pains that suddenly darted through his ankle caused him to fall back upon the wet sand in a hurry. "Umph! my ankle is evidently master of the situation," he thought, with an expression of comical distress. Raising himself on his elbow, he shouted aloud to the men in the distance, and presently two of them came running to his assistance. "I have sprained my ankle," he explained to them in their native tongue. "Please assist me to rise, and I will try to walk." But when they took him by the arms and raised him up, they found that it was impossible for him to walk. "This is a deuced bore at the present time, certainly," complained the sufferer. "Can you get me any kind of a trap to drive me back to the village yonder?" The peasants looked at him stupidly, and informed him carelessly that there was nothing of the kind available. Only one man in the vicinity owned a horse, and it had sickened and died a week before. Howard felt a great and exceeding temptation to swear a very small oath at this crisis, but being too much of a[Pg 59] gentleman to yield to this wicked whisper of the evil one, groaned very loudly instead. "Then what the deuce am I to do?" he inquired, as much of himself as of the two fishermen. "How am I to get away from this spot of wet sand? Where am I to go?" The peasants scrutinized him as stupidly as before, and to all of these questions answered flatly that they did not know, indeed. Howard thought within himself that the proverbial politeness of the French was greatly tempered by stupidity in this case. "Well, then," he inquired next, "is there any kind of a hotel around here?" "Yes, there was such a place," they informed him, readily; and Howard at once begged them to summon aid and construct a litter for him, promising to reward them liberally if they would carry him to the hotel. Gold—that magic "open sesame" to every heart—procured him ready and willing attention. It was but a short while before he found himself in tolerably comfortable quarters at the rude hotel of the fishing village, and obsequiously waited upon by the single Esculapius the place afforded. Howard's sprain was pronounced very severe indeed. It was so painful that he could not walk upon it at all, and was ordered to strict confinement to his couch for three days. "A fine prospect, by Jove!" Howard commented, discontentedly. "What am I to do shut up here three days in solitary confinement? and what will those poor women do over yonder with not a single masculine soul to turn to in their helplessness? Not that they wish my help, of course, but I had meant to offer it to them all the same if there was anything I could have done," he added, grimly, to his own self. The three days dragged away very drearily. On the fourth day Howard availed himself of the aid of a crutch and got into the little public room of the hotel. Among the few idlers that were gathered about in little friendly groups, he saw a rather intelligent-looking fisherman going from one to another with a small slip of paper in his hand. As they read it some shook their heads, and some dived into their pockets and brought forth a few pence, which they dropped into the fisherman's extended palm. Howard was quite curious by the time his turn came. He took the paper in his hand and found it to be an humble petition for charity, which duly set forth: "Whereas, an unknown woman lies ill of a fever at a[Pg 60] house of one Fanchette Videlet, a poor widow, almost without the necessaries of life, it is here begged by the said widow that all Christian souls will contribute a mite to the end of securing medical attendance and comforts for the poor unknown wayfarer." This petition, which was written in excellent French, and duly signed Fanchette Videlet, had a strange effect upon Howard Templeton. His face grew pale as death; his eyes stared at the poor fisherman in perplexed thought, while he absently plunged his hand into his pocket and drew it out full of gold pieces. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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