A Hero of the Pen

by E. Werner

But he missed his aim. Jane certainly blushed when Fernow was mentioned, but she remained calm and did not open her lips. It required more than the mere mention of a name to rob her of her self-possession. Atkins saw that no subterfuge would avail him; he must advance openly to his goal.

"Our travelling arrangements will perhaps require some change!" he began again in his sharp, searching tone. "Henry's sudden departure has disarranged all our plans; I have not been told,--I certainly have not been informed," he added with an irritation that showed his sensitiveness on this point, "why he last evening stormed so violently into my lodgings, demanded his travelling effects, and immediately drove to the station--and in such a humor too that I thought it best to keep as far away from him as possible; but, for my own interests I would now like to ask you, Jane, what you think of all this."

Jane's glance fell. "You are the first to inform me of Henry's departure," she said. "Did he leave no line for me?"

"No! not even a good-by; he declared that he should return to America on the first steamship that sailed from Hamburg."

Jane made no answer, but a deep sigh escaped her breast which had in it more of sorrow than relief.

"What had you done to Henry, Jane?" asked Atkins in a low voice, as he bent down to her. "He looked terribly when he came from you."

She glanced timidly up, but her voice was subdued and unsteady. "You always declared that he cherished a passion for me," she said. "I had never believed it. I thought the dollar the only divinity to which he knelt."

"It will perhaps be so in the future!" replied Atkins dryly. "Such weakness overpowers a man like Henry but once. He should have held to his American traditions; then the heir and future chief of the house of Alison & Co. would have received no refusal. It is not well, this mixture with German blood; you yourself very well see that now, Miss Jane, and Henry evidently has had enough of your German romances to last a lifetime. But his is not a nature to burden itself with an unhappy, love for any long time, and I do not doubt that within a year's time we shall hear of his marriage with one of our home heiresses."

"Would to God it might be so!" sighed Jane from the deepest depths of her heart, as she rose and stayed her arm against the wall.

For some moments, Atkins stood near her in silence. "Shall we continue our walk?" he asked at length. "This old castle is doubtless very interesting, but there is a draught about the romantic, mediæval haunt. I think we had best return to the sheltered valley."