a I E) R.ARY OF THE UN IVLR5ITY Of ILLINOIS 823 P?72 V.I POMEGEANATE SEED. BY THE AUTHOR OF « THE TWO MISS FLEMINGS," " E ARE PALE MARGARET," "FLOWER 0' THE BROOM," ETC. " A fail- and mystic tree Rose like a heart in shape, and 'mid its leaves One golden mystic fruit with a fair seed Set in it." Epic of Hades. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1886. {All rights reserved.) PKINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AKD SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AKD CHARING CROSS. v,1 .-^ ^ Oq J/) DEMETER «2 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/pomegranateseed01auth POMEGRANATE SEED. CHAPTEE I. " 'Twas beautiful, Yet but a dream, and so adieu to it ! " The scen(3 was in Paris, tlic room one of those that are neither large nor small, high nor low, light nor dark — a room of nega- tions, the sort of room common to second- rate apartments, and these were eminently second-rate. They were in an inferior street, in an nnfashionable quarter ; but, in spite of their common-placeness and the heedless disorder that Vv'as at first siglit their most salient feature, a disorder that bordered on squalor in its determined unneatness, there were not wantincr suo-o-es- VOL. I. B -^7 ■A POMEGRANATE SEED. tioiis of refinement, even of elegance, crop- ping lip defiantly, unexpectedly, here and there. Two people stood in the middle of the room, looking at one another with faces filled ^Yith complex, conflicting emotions. lie, a man of medium height, muscular, and well-made, with close-cut hair of a rich dark red, a warm comjplexion, feature>s rather coarsely moulded, and grey eyes set too far jjack in the head, and too near together to give a wholly pleasing expres- sion to the countenance they adorn. They are impenetrable eyes, cool and steady ; yet, in spite of their steadiness, they do not always produce a favourable impression, and it is not until he speaks that his fellow-men are moved to repose confidence in Michael Barrington. Then they are mostly taken by storm, for his voice is round and mellow, and his speech per- suasive, while his manner and address are frank to excess. So much for him. She claims attention next. POMEGRANATE SEED. 3 Tall, finely formed, with tlie elastic and supple grace of a figure that owes every- thing to nature and race, nothing to the corset, she appears even taller than she is. Her features are clearly cut, her colouring singularly pure. Only her lips are red, and contrast sharply with the smooth ivory of her skin. Her hair and eyes are dark ; her face in its entirety intelligent, spirited, with a latent energy of passion under its present forced calm. There is nothing violent about her, though she is just now strongly moved. She is haughtily composed, rather. She has been speaking in a level, low-pitched, dis- tinct voice, and, having made an end of speaking, her eyes regard him unflinchingly. He moves uneasily under their scrutiny ; he has even winced a little at tha con- cluding words that have fiillen distinctly, uncompromisingly, from her lips upon the waiting air. "Therefore, I will from henceforth l)e your wife only in name. Traitor! Is- cariot ! " 4 POMEGEANATE SEED. Tlie epithets fall heavily, incisively, with a terrible unrelenting emphasis uj)on the quiet of the room. He takes a step towards her. "Do you mean this, Helen ? Why not denounce me at once, and give me up to my fate '? " For the life of him he cannot altogether repress a sneer. " Because I loved you once ; I trusted you ; I believed in you ; I gave you all I had, including myself." Her glance wandered from liim to a cradle in the corner of the room. " It is because I remember all this," she went on intensely — " because I think of the child, that I do not denounce you. Also, I am a Staroski, and I cannot betray even the traitor; I do but withdraw from the contamination of his touch ; I do but sever myself from his infamy." A look of relief steals across his f^ice. The tension of the last few minutes is relaxed. " Ma heltCj'' he says coolly, " withdraw POMEGRANATE SEED. 5 altogetlier if you like. It is unnecessary to respect tlie shadow of a shadow. You ouo'ht to know that our union is bindino- on neither of us. It was a mere comedy got up to spare your susceptibilities." Her eyes burn like two stars filled with dark fire. She trembles passionately, and her red lips grow pale. " You betrayed me too, then ? Good God, that I should have been so blind ! Why could not I have felt the falseness of your nature — I who, at least, am true ? " She shudders. ''It is horrible. Chained for life to a " He puts up his hand with' a quiet move- ment that arrests the impassioned flow of her utterance. '' Not at all. I have just shown you that you are bound by no irrevo- cable ties to me ; let us, however, avoid calling one another names. Walls have ears." She checks herself, and remains for a moment looking thoughtfully, frowningiy, on the ground. She tries to regain her lost 6 POMEGEANATE SEED. composure, to rearrange licr ideas. She is a beautiful ^Yoman, and there yet remain some remnants of softness to her beauty. His feelino-s under o^o a chano-e. An instant before he had been stung to the point of wishing to be rid of her. He recedes from this position. It will not be convenient, for various reasons, that they should part com- pany entirely. Besides, how handsome she is, in spite of her temper and high-flown tragedy airs ! '' You are too hasty, Helen," he remarks, in a moderate tone. "You jump to con- clusions too rapidly. It was you, if you remember, who pronounced in favour of our being married by a religious ceremony in the Madeleine. Why, I cannot take upon myself to divine, since you were always too enlightened a woman to j)in your faith on the priests. Am I to blame because the religious ceremony in Paris is irregular and invalid, unless supplemented by the civil contracts ? I am content with thino-s a& they are, for my part. It is only that I POMEGRANATE SEED. '7 point out to yoii, if you find existence shared witli me intolerable, you cannot be compelled to continue it. In the eye of the State, you are a single woman." Her eyes flash up at him, as she moves them from the gaudy patch of faded carpet they have been studying. '' You tell me that,'' she says, with bitter- ness, "in the face of my child's cradle? I am your wife, wretch ! by all laws, human and divine, and you know that it is so." "Divine! ah, yes, doubtless ; but not so by French law, as I should find to my cost, should you decide to abandon me. You are free to go, Helen, I repeat it, if such is your wish." "It is not. The eno;aQ;ement I entered into I at least believed a binding one, and for the sake of the child I choose still to consider it so — to a certain extent," she added bitterly. " And shall it also bind me ? I suppose you would expect that it should. But vvdiy, if I may ask ? You intend to sever 8 POMEGRANATE SEED. yourself from me, to divide your interests from mine, to perform none of the duties of a wife towards me. What if I determine, on my side, to be free, to deliver myself from this mockery of marriage, and find some other woman, beautiful and loving as you were once, who will be to me all that you have been — and more ? " " You could not, you will not, you shall not ! " she cries, in a voice that sounds a little suffocated. ''Why?" he asks, with bitterness, ''' What is there to prevent me ? " " The child," she says earnestly, searching his face with her great dark burning eyes to see if there be any grace, any softening of its cynical composure, before she pushes things further. " What is the child to me ? What will she ever be to me ? " he answers harshly. " You will teach her to despise her father, as you have taught yourself. I will not put up with the usage you design for me. I choose to emancipate myself." POMEGRANATE SEED. 9 He has no intention of carrying out this threat. Cool and crafty, he plays upon her impetuous disposition, designedly. He can- not, he does not intend to afford the luxury of dispensing with the income of Countess Helen Staroska. She makes a steps forward. '' No, no, no ! " she says urgently ; '' you will not deprive the child of her name. You could not inflict so great an injury on one so helpless, so innocent." *'Why not?" he asks again, gloomily. " See here, Helen, you have been prompt to judge me hardly and deal rigorously with me. You accuse me of treason to the cause. Because a combination has miscarried, and some of us have met the fate we all profess to be willing to face, you assume that I betrayed it." Her face grows pale with the pallor of death, almost. She trembles excessively. Dark lightnings flash from her eyes. At this moment they are terrible. " And have you not ? " she cries, with 10 rOMEGEANATE SEED. passion. " Would tliat I could hide from myself, as from others, the base thing you are ! Do you think it has cost me nothing to put you out of my heart ? " — clasping her long, white strenuous hands, with a pathetic gesture upon her bosom. "Is it so easy for me to forget the days that have been, wherein you were to me beautiful and noblo when in my trouble you comforted me, when you mourned with me in my sorrow, when we loved one another, and swore to labour together for the cause ? Ah ! those days, those days when my heart was young and I had faith in you as in myself I Where are they ? Gone ! gone for ever, killed by your hand." She pants a little as she ceases. The despair of her voice, her words, her gestures, natural and dramatic — as strong emotion unconsciously is — the anguish, the sincere agony of her disenchantment, shake her profoundly. " I will not leave you to starve," she resumes, with a fine irony of which she i^ POMEGRANATE SEED. 11 not quite aware herself. *' Tlie small pit- tance I have shall still be shared with you." She makes no pretence to softening, but, aloof as she stands, her bitter charity pro- duces some kind of effect on him. Perhaps he is riot, after all, impervious to remorse. " Helen," he says slowly, " it is not too late. Let us even now go through the civil contract of marriage. I owe you this re- paration. If you are unjust, you yet know how to be generous." >She waves him from her. " Xo," she answers coldly, '"' I will give you no more rights over me. It is no longer a question of marriage, formal or informal, l^etween us. I will continue to share my income with you, because I cannot forget altogether what has gone before, or that my child is yours as well as mine. I will live under the same roof with you for Dcsiree's sake, but I will live apart from you. Our marriage was irregular, you say. Good ; it will enable me to live my life free and -separate from you henceforward.' 12 POMEGRANATE SEED. Hor resolution galls liim. A wave of imgovernable passion sweeps over him. He, too, is for once sliaken to the depths. *^Are not you afraid of driving me too far ? " he mutters through his clenched teeth. " Do not you fear but I be tempted to kill you where you stand, with your damnable beauty, your insufferable airs ? Men have done as much on less provoca- tion." She faces his white, bitter- smiling face steadily. ''Xo," she replies solemnly, "I do not fear. You will not harm me, because you dare not. If Helen Staroska dies foully, there are yet too many of her father's friends who will want to know the reason why ? Besides " She stops short, and regards him with a strange sort of pity, a commiseration so im- personal as to have some almost divine attribute about it. It maddens him. " Besides what ?" he says, advancing, his gleaming shallow eyes menacing her. " In case of harm befalling me, my poor rOMEGRAXATE SEED. 13 Michael, there is a packet securely lodged — you know luith loJiom — to be opened then, and in that case only." Then follows a long silence. He foils Imck conquered. ''You have won," he says presently ; " you have been too clever for me, Helen. Yfell, do not set the child iigainst me, that is all I ask." This touches her. The passionate mater- nity in her surges up, crying out piteously. *'Let us keep the child innocent of all this miserable knowledge. Let her preserve untroubled the purity of her childhood. For the love of God, let her not suffer as I, her mother, have suffered ;- and never by word or sign will I come between you and her." This is foolishness to him. He cannot attain to the heights whereon she stands, holding out yearning hands to fate with that poignant pain and prayer in her vibrating voice ; but it is not even in him to hear her unmoved. " What a woman you are, Helen ! what 14 POMEGRANATE SEED. n mad woman ! Do you consider what you do when you divorce yourself from me in this way ? Do not blame me if fresh trouble comes of it. As for the child, I agree with you, ignorance is best for her. I accept your terms — I must since I have no choice ; but, remember, nature is strong. Sooner or later she revenges herself on those who ignore her." He turns to go. ^' Stay," she whispers, with bitter urgency. '' Let us drink the cup to the dregs. There is one thing more I would say." She leans over towards him. " I have saved you this time, Michael,'^ she breathes, with a rapid glance round her; ''and at what a price!" she shudders. " I shall not be able to save you again ; no one can do that twice. For your own sake, remend^er this and be careful" POMEGRANATE SEED. 15 CHAPTEE II. *' Are tliere not thousands in the workl Who love their fellows even to the death. Who feel the giant's agony of the world, And more, like slaves to poor humanity Labour for mortal good?" From lier earliest cliildhood, Helen Staroska had lived in an atmosphere (Df political intrigues. Beautiful, of cjuick intelligence, ardent, romantic, with the passionate melan- choly of the Polish temperament dormant in her, she had grown up rapidly, a burning flame of sympathy with the oppressed nationalities consuming her. As her father's health and eye sight failed, she had gradually penetrated nearer and nearer to the central ideas of those vast and terrible associations that have their IG POMEGRANATE SEED. agents and tlieir ramifications all over Europe, and in tlie first flusli of early womanhood tliere passed between her slim fingers the threads of conspiracies that aspired to deal with the fate of nations. Naturally of a soft and attractive exterior, in a happier state of existence she might have lived but for the afi'ections and family life, and her warm heart and ardent imagi- nation have thus found scope sufficient. What had a young and beautiful woman to do with seditious associations and deadly combinations, having for their end the upheaval of society ? In her enthusiastic humanitarianism her judgment was per- verted, and in view of the great ultimatum of the relief, the happiness of the masses, now toiling in hopeless, cruel misery, ground beneath the heel of the moneyed and aristo- cratic classes, all measures seemed justifi- able. That the innocent must in many cases sufi*er, before this grand regeneration of the world could take place, was incon- testable. She conceded it with pity. But POMEGRANATE SEED. 17 had not it always been expedient, nay, even needful, that the few should suffer for the many, since eighteen hundred years before, when One had gone out to suffer for the people I Even if the foundations of the Christian faith were a myth, then was it a noble and heart-stirring one, worthy of being believed. The cause of humanity was a sublime cause, for which to endure mart5rrdom, if need be. To those who would deliver the poor from him that is too strong for him, and he that crieth from him that oppresseth, there must be no counting of the cost. Helen Staroska, in her impassioned cry for justice for the miserable, was without pity for despotisms, whether those of indi- viduals or of arbitrarily representative assemblies. She had been nurtured in a dream of Utopian perfection, and her heart went out passionately to the beautiful abstract ideal of *' freedom crowned upon the heights." She longed for the millennium, the social and political millennium, that is so real a thing to those whose VOL. I. c 18 POMEGRANATE SEED. " Hearts are sad in them Seeing the ineffable miseries of life And that mysterious anger of the gods," that from time immemorial has vexed the generous soul and driven it to spend itself in more or less vain fighting against the terrible mystery of pain; that endless enigma of suffering and evil against which doctrinaires build up fruitless ramparts, and the pitying workers for the dumb, down- trodden multitudes wear out heart and brain and body willingly in the heroic hope of at last overthrowing it ; whilst amongst them glide the agitators, reaping where they have not sowed, impelled by no noble zeal for their race — a time-serving, despicable, crawling crew, who thrive on the woes they denounce, and find the means of living in a state of things they affect to wish swept away. If she occasionally experienced a reaction from this high-strung tension of her nerves, if now and then her heart, yet womanly, bled for those who suffered unjustly, perhaps POMEGRANATE SEED. 19 by the inexorable decrees of the interna- tional societies, — she thought of her father, old, exiled, impoverished, prematurely en- feebled by care and privation ; of the men of her family who had suffered and perished under the bitter Komanoff rule ; of that other Helen Staroska, her grandmother, nobly born, delicately bred, high-spirited, and beautiful as herself, who had been infamously flogged under the Czar Nicholas, and had died on the road to Siberia, that via dolorosa to so many of her countrymen and women ; and these thoughts braced her heart again to firmness, and set her quivering with passionate pity and anger too deep for words. Before she was sixteen, the young girl had consecrated herself to the cause of the oppressed. Absorbed in the burnino- thoughts that filled her soul, she had grown up detached from the common interests of youth. Love and marriage were but vague ideas to the severe purity of her ardent and enthusiastic spirit. Personal happiness ! 20 POMEGRANATE SEED. Who could have the heart to seek it when the great army of the sufFering masses groan and struggle and writhe in ignorant, semi-articulate wretchedness — hopeless, god- less, dangerous, only kept from surging upwards and dashing themselves in resistless might against the thrones by their want of cohesion, of combined organization ? From sixteen to twenty she existed in an intense and passionate dream, driven by its unrest, striving, labouring, yearning to bring nearer the day of deliverance to the people yet sitting in darkness. For one of her youth and sex she was trusted to an extraordinary extent. The wrongs her family had sustained, the humiliations and sufferings of her father, Count Stanislaus Staroski, vouched for her; and the old count, in his undying hatred of Kussia and the tyrannies, his fervent zeal for the oppressed of all nationalities, took a pride in kindling the high spirit of his only child, and stringing her passionate sensibilities to the highest pitch. POMEGRANATE SEED. 21 She worked hard, this slender, white young girl, and her lustrous dark eyes glowed with the genius of self-devotion. Her high-souled enthusiasm awoke a corresponding thrill in some of the world- worn and wearied hearts of those who frequented her father's house. They wor- shipped her as devotees their saint. They were many of them elderly men, fatigued spiritually with ever climbing up the climbing wave, their freshness had been worn away long since with the ceaseless eflbrt of their lives ; but there were some amongst them still young, and all, whether old or young, were consumed' by the same passion for setting wrong right ; some visionary enthusiasts, others practical ex- perimentalists — all ready, if need be, to die for the cause. Into this band of brothers, this company of potential mart3rrs, entered IMichael Bar- rington, more by accident than design. Accredited to Count Stanislaus Staroski by an Irish affiliation of the society of which 22 POMEGRANATE SEED. the old Pole was one of the higher function- aries, he saw the young Helen, was dazzled by her beauty, and set himself to win her aflfections. Sensitive, grave, self-contained in matters personal to herself, Helen Staroska was strongly attracted by the young Irishman's gay, good looks, his seeming light-hearted- ness, his determined devotion to herself, and apparently to the cause for which she lived. Circumstances favoured him. The extraordinary rigours of one of the hardest of modern winters exhausted the feeble frame of Count Stanislaus. The indomitable spirit sustained for a time the frail body. Then the end came suddenly, and on one bitterer day than usual, the soul of Stanis- laus Staroski winged its way towards the great undiscovered country on the pinions of the black north-easter, that went howling and shrieking like ten thousand devils through the deserted streets, and the shock, the surprise to his daughter, was well-nigh overwhelming. She had not been able to realize how low the lamp had sunk. POMEGRANATE SEED. 23 Broken down by the first loneliness of her sorrow, she seemed to turn naturally and instinctively to the young Irishman, whose musical voice and handsome face had charmed away her heart, and the mute appeal of her eyes betrayed her dependence on his sympathy. The friends especially trusted by her father chanced to be absent from Paris at the time of his death, and there was no one to watch over her but two old retainers of the Staroski family — Anna Petrovna, her maid, who had formerly been her nurse ; and Paul Ziski, the old count's foster-brother, a genius absorbed in his fiddle and his dog-like attaqhment to his master, regarding the young countess with a wistful, faithful devotion infinitely touch- ing, but for any real ability to counsel her or protect her against the perils of a warm heart and rash imagination absolutely useless. It was Barrington who arranged every- thing as to the interment of the late count. He ascertained that a modest competence 24 POMEGRANATE SEED. had been secured from the wreck of the family fortunes for Countess Helen, and he hailed the discovery as heaven-sent. At this time he loved the beautiful, sorrowful young creature, out of whose sad eyes looked those fervent yearnings for a golden future for the human race. He loved her, and for a while he too felt heroically disposed. He too seemed to catch glimpses of a higher life — a' life of the soul wherein his comfortable, careless epicureanism failed for the moment to satisfy him. Could they have remained always thus, he adoring, she adored, his moral nature might have benefited immeasurably. They were happy, for they were young, ardent, left to themselves ; and one, at least, was absolutely innocent. Helen, in the glow and abandon of a first passion, flung herself away with reckless generosity and the bhnd confidence of a noble heart loving for the first time. Incapable of suspecting one who had given proof of real devotion to her, and knowing nothing of the marriage law of the POMEGRANATE SEED. 25 country that sheltered her, she accompanied Barrington to the Madeleine, and there, hear- ing their union blessed by the priest, no doubt of the irrevocableness and validity of the contract by which she had thus sur- rendered herself to her lover visited her. To Barrington, who belonged to that more advanced school of social thinkers, to whom marriage is a mere superstition, unworthy the consideration of an enlightened citizen, the rite possessed no importance, no sanctity. He had submitted to it out of regard to Countess Helen's feminine prejudices with easy good nature. To do him justice, it had not needed any binding bond-s to hold him to her. He, almost to his own surprise, loved the young Polish girl sincerely. No other woman had ever had the same charm for him, or perhaps ever would. Besides all this, her modest fortune stood between him and the disagreeable uncertainties of life. The influence of her personality, of her name, the prestige of her family, furthered his political ambitions, and he hoped would 26 POMEGKANATE SEED. admit him into the inner recesses of those vast networks of socialist intrigue that are spread over Europe. In this he was some- what mistaken. The heads of the inter- national societies were wise. Before they trusted a man, they sifted, they examined, they weighed him carefully, and hitherto some doubt had withheld them from confid- ing in Michael Barrington beyond a certain point, or absolving Countess Helen Staroska from her oaths of secrecy respecting the keys to certain ciphers she possessed with regard to him. In spite of this, life had run on well oiled wheels to the beautiful young Pole and her Irish husband. They loved one another, they had at all events osten- sibly the immense interests of humanity in common ; and if the flame of patriotism, the love of freedom and justice, burned purest in the heart of the woman, she had not yet realized it. As year followed year, one personal sorrow pressed upon her only, namely, her childless- ness. When in the street she looked on the POMEGKANATE SEED. 27 cliilclren at play, or saw a mother holding her infant to her breast, the passionate maternity in her made its voice heard. Her heart yearned towards children with the terrible mother-hunger of women to whom children are denied. She prayed with passion for offspring, and in the sixth year of her married life a girl- child was born to her, and a hush as of some mysterious exquisite content descended on her soul too soon to be violently disturbed. A frustrated attempt at insurrection in Warsaw, the miscarriage of an apparently well-arranged plot, a dark suspicion of treachery, and the death and banishment of some of their best and strongest, threw the secret societies into great agitation. Countess Helen Staroska made the fatal discovery of Barrington's untrustworthiness at this juncture, and the knowledge killed her youth. It was through him that the disaster had occurred ; and, alas I she had but too good reason for thinking it deliberate treachery on his part rather than accident, 28 POMEGKANATE SEED. and, bitterest thought of all, he must have played the spy upon herself, jealous of her greater information, and by means of the very trust reposed in her by the heads of the movement accomplished its frustration. In the awful moment when she realized this, she perceived also with inexorable clearness of vision upon how poor a thing she had lavished her all, and the joy of existence died for her as the full weight of her cruel destiny fell upon her mind, clear in the midst of its agony. She took her resolu- tion slowly, painfully, but unhesitatingly. Traitor to her, to his conscience, if indeed he had one, to the cause to which he stood pledged, and the still higher, more sacred cause of human morality, he must yet be shielded from swift and absolute destruc- tion this time. As yet, suspicion had not fallen upon him. He was not suspected because he had not been trusted. Facile, supple, easy-tempered and light, the men who pulled the wires of conspiracy regarded him with contemptuous tolerance. POMEGRANATE SEED. 29 and used him only in minor and less dangerous aifairs. They were far from having fathomed the scheming brain be- hind that handsome smiling mask. They credited him with both more and less than he possessed, and while they might have accused Helen of indiscretion, had they thought it needful, they thought themselves too well aware of the extent of Barrington's ignorance and general frivolity to seriously connect him with the fiasco. All this was known to her, and she determined to shield him from the implacable vengeance of the Circles, from which, should they once know the traitor as he was, nothing could save him. He had been her lover, her husband, the father of her child, the little angel who alone stood now between her and despair, and he was sacred to her so far ; but their union was at an end. She loathed and recoiled from the traitor, and her recoil was the stronger because veiled from the world out- side and only known to him and her. Only their two solves must know the insurmount- 30 POMEGRANATE SEED. able barrier from henceforward reared be- twixt them. For ever, in this world and the next, she cried to her shuddering soul, they must go sundered, apart, the true separated from the false by the inalienable laws of their being. And he half-sullenly acquiesced finally in her decision. He who had infamously betrayed his fellows, shrank uneasily from the living scorn in the great dark eyes of the woman whom he had equally betrayed, shrank from the profound contempt in that burning glance, but, with his habitual easy - going philosophy, he accommodated himself to the turn events had taken, and continued to live under the same roof with Countess Helen Staroska, and permitted her the honour of largely contributing to his support. Suspicion fell in other quarters, but nothing was ever dis- covered to incriminate any special person, and after the affair had sank into quiet again, Helen took the step she had determined upon. With proud humility she sought the chiefs of the movement, and gave up all she still POMEGKANATE SEED. 31 had of her father's papers and cyphers into their hands. She was not fit to hold them, she said steadily ; she was only a woman, and weak. She feared lest it might have been some indiscretion, " not wilful," she cried with sudden fire, that had led to the late terrible failure, and the thought op- pressed her. She was not equal to things so stern and serious. Let her descend from her honoured place in their confidence and sink to the rank-and-file of membership. She was no longer Helen Staroska as of old, she said humbly and bitterly. She had sacrificed her individuality. Domestic cares distracted her mind ; her child claimed her. Maternity had destroyed her usefulness to the cause. She dared no longer trust her- self. She feared to retain anything that could lead to the compromising of others. Her strange humility, her agitation, the passion of her renunciation, persuaded her interlocutors, of the reality of her zeal still, but naturally gave them reason to distrust her too great impulsiveness and excitability. 32 POMEGRANATE SEED. They recognized the truth of the proposition made with evident and real distress, that Helen Staroska the maiden, pure, high- souled, self-devoted, differed physically and psychologically from the woman linked to a lower, shallower, altogether inferior nature, the mother of a possible Helen, or, alas ! of an equally possible Barrington. They accepted her surrender of the Staroski papers gently, and with considerate respect for her feelings; but they accepted them, and by doing so practically acknow- ledged the justice of her self- accusations. A knife seemed to pierce her heart as she gave them up, and she turned deadly pale. She shivered and drew down her veil. The chapter of her youth was closed by this act ; she had cut herself asunder from the old beautiful enthusiastic faith in her life for ever, so it seemed to her, and the wrench was severe. From the man who had dragged her down to this valley of terrible humiliation she moved coldly apart, though they were POMEGKANATE SEED. 33 ostensibly still one. From the moment of the crucial tests of her interviews with Barrington and the heads of the political movement with which she was identified, she changed surely and with rapidly pro- gressive steps. The ardent, high-couraged, enthusiastic girl became the self-controlled, intense, quiescent woman, whose powers, self-concentrated, seemed to deepen rather than widen, and whose burning sense of wrong sent her with wrung heart and passionately clenched, helpless hands to the cradle wherein the little flower-faced child lay open-eyed and gravely sweet in the dawn of its life. "My pigeon, my little saint, heart's dearest," she cried breathlessly, crushing the small tender body to her bosom with vehemence, " comfort thy poor mother. Thou art all that she has left to live for. Desiree, never forget that thou art a Sta- roski ; and keep thy heart and thy lips clean and true, lest thy mother curse the day she bore thee." VOL. I. D 34 POMEGRANATE SEED. CHAPTER III. " Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? " ' Do I improve, Ziski ? " It is a small plaintive voice that speaks with childish earnestness. A little figure stands poised on two small arched, high- instepped feet ; a little face, delicate, spiritual, pathetic, with large dark, heavily lashed eyes, looks wistfully at the old man. " Yes, yes, little princess ; thou hast a patience — a perseverance truly marvellous for thy age. Listen. Ziski tells thee that thou hast genius. Work away, little pigeon, and be happy in thy art." '' Ziski," the child asks dreamily, " what is being happy ? " The great eyes that take up so large a portion of her small face are fixed gravely on him. The little fiddle, POMEGRANATE SEED. 35 without which Desiree is seldom seen, re- poses on her childish shoulder, just under her delicate infantine chin ; the tiny fingers of her left hand stretch themselves upwards conscientiously upon the strings ; in her right hand she holds the bow daintily suspended. " What is being happy '? " she repeats gently. Ziski crosses himself devoutly. He is a good Greek Catholic. "It is being good," he says with conviction. "It is being innocent and holy, like the Blessed Lady and the saints. Thou art good, little cab- bage. The good God make thee happy. Let us repeat the last movement again." Desirde, Countess Helen Staroska's little daughter, at seven years of age, diflfered widely in her gentle unchild-like gravity from the ideal of frolicsome gaiety con- ventionally associated with childhood. A shadow seemed to have fallen on her in her cradle, and set her apart. She was the object of her mother's passionate devotion. All the vehement, introspective, emotional 36 POMEGRANATE SEED. heart of that Polish mother was set upon the child. She cherished her with a jealous passion of maternal love, that dreaded and disliked the intrusion of other affections into the little one's life ; but if she were jealous of Barrington's fondness for the child, Helen was too just, too mindful of her plighted word to him to interfere between the two, preferring to endure mute agonies rather than challenge his privilege to love his own flesh and blood, and assert his ris^hts over Desirde's childish heart. Barrington had accepted the conditions of life offered him by the woman whose pride and love he had alike outraged half with a vague feelino^ of relief. The con- tempt of a being who had once unreservedly adored him was bitter to him at first ; but in time the bitterness wore itself out, and ceased to vex him. He never had been and never could be her equal, morally or intel- lectually, and there was not wanting a certain sense of relaxation in being summarily absolved from the gme of attempting to POMEGRANATE SEED. 37 appear so. He was fond of the little Desiree, being of an affectionate rather than a passionate temperament, and he perceived, with something between wonder and satis- faction as time went on, that Countess Helen Staroska proposed to keep her word to him, and to abstain from biassing this young mind against him. And in effect Desiree lavished a charming childish wealth of affection on her father, who was uniformly kind and gay towards her. If in her troubles she turned instinctively to the grave-eyed, tender- voiced mother, the intense restrained passion of whose love ached in her sad heart, and found expression in soft vehement caresses, and the fond foolish talk of her romantic imaginative Polish tongue, in joy Desiree ran happily enough to the smooth- mannered, smiling, handsome man, who was always gentle, always affectionately interested in her baby wants and aspirations. Once and once only, when the child was still little more than an infant, had Helen interfered between father and daughter. 38 POMEGRANATE SEED. One sultry August day, she had gone with Desiree into the long, cool galleries of the Louvre. They were empty, save for a few artists copying the great masterpieces more or less languidly. The burden of life pressed heavily just then on the lonely woman, deeply imbued as she was with the proud and melancholy sadness of her nation. She was yet young, and the romantic possi- bilities of life were already over for her. She had lived through and over her brief personal idyll of love, and from the great epic of humanity she had withdrawn her- self. She missed the stir and excitement of the political side of things ; she longed for the old interests, the old divine enthu- siasm for the cause of freedom. She felt she was looked coldly or pityingly on by the heroes of her girlhood, and the coldness or the pity were alike full of bitterness to her. She had shielded Barrington, and at what a cost to herself ! He kept all he had ever had of the modified confidence of the Circles. He was still allowed to be useful POMEGRANATE SEED. 39 to the extent of beinor trusted with insio-nifi- O o cant details ; but she, the daughter of the Staroski, the beautiful enthusiast, the im- petuous worker, the ardent disciple, who, helping her blind and aged father, had acquired so deep and vital a knowledge of the working of those inner circles that were the heart and core of the great seething discontent of the nations, had fallen under a cloud. She was regarded as a woman too liable to the infirmities and disabilities of her sex ; not, indeed, wilfully disloyal, but too impulsive to be wholly trusted any more, subject to gusts of passion, waves of indis- cretion, followed by a useless remorse and regret. It was but natural that a woman's nerves and will should not be strono^ enouofh to bear the weight of her cognizance of those deep and deadly combinations in which the lives and fortunes of men are put in constant jeopardy. Her father's daughter could not be a traitor, but it was clear that she was a woman of a fibre not firm enough o to endure the perpetual strain of the terrible 40 POMEGRANATE SEED. work of the brotherhoods. She was too weak, too much subject to hysterical pas- sion, too easily moved through her affections to be a safe conspirator. That which she already knew was safe with her probably, but the burden of no further knowledge should be laid upon her. The love of her child was all that she had to fill her heart, and this passion, tender, absorbing, devout, threatened to become a veritable idolatry. Clothed in the eternal black of her country-women, she had half absently seated herself before a holy family of one of the elder masters. The benig- nant divine maternity of the Virgin Mother appealed strongly to her own motherhood ; the gentle, angelic smile of the little St. John, and the touching mysterious fore- knowledge of sorrow and suffering in the grave-eyed innocence of the child Christ, soothed the everlasting fret and trouble of her heart. She gazed at the picture till presently a portion of its calm entered into her soul. The tension of her features re- POMEGRANATE SEED. 41 laxed, her burning eyes softened. For one brief moment she seemed almost to recover her lost youth. '' After all," she murmured, a lovely smile parting the lips that were all too sad for her age and their own perfection, "I too have my consolation. Like the mother of Christ, I have a little angel of my own. Desiree, my soul, my dear one, I live for thee." Then all at once, visited by the remem- brance of all that had been of bitterest pain before that Virgin Mother, when in the time to come the passion of Christ should cause the iron to enter into her patient soul, fear fell upon her, she trembled. What if the same swords were destined to pierce her own heart ? If she, too, were doomed to be tortured through her mother- hood, the deepest passion, the strongest instinct of her nature ? She recoiled in ahirm before the unwelcome thought. "Not through the child. Mother of Christ, intercede for me. Let her, at least, 42 POMEGRANATE SEED. be happy. Let her never know the wounds from which we others bleed. Pity me, and let her be spared," her heart cried to the apotheosis of all maternity, and she wrung had hands unconsciously with poignant pain, her face almost convulsed with the passion of her fear. She rose abruptly to her feet, and looked round for the little creature, who a moment before had been at her side. The child had wandered off. Far down the gallery she was making her way in a pur- poseful manner towards the figures of a man and woman, standing before one of the battle-pieces of Vernet. Her hands were stretched out before her ; she was making a little joyful murmur as she went, charmed to catch sight of her father unexpectedly, for the man was Barrington. His com- panion, a handsome blonde, first perceived the advancing child. " See, my friend, the little one is seeking us." She made a step forward, and reached out her hands with smiling welcome. Appa- ->' POMEGRANATE SEED. 43 rently, like the generality of French women, she was fond of children. "To me, little cabbage ; come, then, to me. See, I have this hreloque for thee." She dangled a little fish from her watch- chain. Its scales glittered seductively. The woman's smile was sweet, her eyes looked kind. Desiree approached nearer, and accepted the charm in a reverential rapture of gratitude. The brilliant face of the young woman took a tinge of wist- ful sadness, of regret, of longing, all in one. " Kiss me for it, then," she said coax- ingly, stooping down. Barrington started, and made a step forward irresolutely. His interference, if indeed he had intended to interfere, came too late. The child, with innocent frankness, had already lifted up her fresh lips to the face bent down to her, whose artificial beauty ill supported the juxta- position. In another instant their lips would have touched one another. 44 POMEGRANATE SEED. Countess Helen all at once came silently down upon the group, and gathered her little daughter suddenly into her arms, without a word. Her tired magnificent eyes encountered those of the others with a terrible scorn, a withering contempt in their dark depths. She disdained to speak. Clasping the child with stringent tenderness to her bosom, she retired as swdftly, as silently as she had advanced. In the dis- tance they could hear her lavishing passion- ate caressing consolation on the little startled creature clinging to her neck. The blonde young woman had grown pale ; she was looking at Barrington with scared eyes. " But who, then, was it ? " she murmured afFrightedly. He w^as gazing after their retreating figures with a strange mixture of feeliDgs in his face. At the sound of her voice he seemed to recover himself. " Countess Helen Staroska," he said, with a little impatient shrug, ''mafemme" POMEGRANATE SEED. 45 " And the child was hers — thine ? Quel mcdheur ! " " Bah ! don't let us think of it. Come out into the sunshine, Francine. We were fools ever to enter this place at all ! It is a tomb, a sepulchre." She glanced furtively at his frowning, disturbed brow. " She influences him, then, still. Is it love or hatred he feels for her ? " she reflected doubtfully. They passed out together into the vivid sunlight outside, and in a few moments had shaken off" the chilling effect of Countess Helen Staroska's swift passionate withdrawal of her child from the contamination of the threatened caress. The following morning Barrington came into the room where the mother and child were together. He moved about uneasily, taking up a few scattered ornaments aim- lessly, only to put them down again. " Helen," -he said at last, " I wish to express to you my regret that you should have been annoyed yesterday by au unfor- tunate rencontre." 46 POMEGRANATE SEED. The dark lightning from her eyes flashed on him. She locked her long, slender fingers hard together. " Go down to Ziski, Desiree. He will play to thee, my love," she said tenderly. She waited till the door closed behind the obedient little figure before she spoke again. " I do not expect miracles, impossibilities, or even improbabilities," she said coldly ; " I do not claim the right to complain of any lack of respect towards myself, but I expect and exact that you respect the child's innocence, nay, more, that you pro- tect it. With regard to yourself and your conduct, except as it afi'ects her I do not inquire. I have given up the right to do so, but I demand that my daughter's purity and tender age be held sacred." There was a moment's pause. " I have said my say," repeated Barring ton, half sullenly. " I have apologized for what took place yesterday ; but, after all, is not it your own fault that I am driven to such ignoble distraction ? " POMEGRANATE SEED. 47 " It is possible/' she acquiesced, with un- promising coldness, "but unavoidable." " Need it be so ? " he urged suddenly, and earnestly as it seemed. " Helen, Helen ! why go on like this ? Why not legalize our union even now, and begin over again ? " She shrank away from him with an in- describable shuddering recoil. " For us there can be no beginning afresh," she murmured. " Too many ghosts of mur- dered men stand betv/een us." He glanced at her face and turned pale, but he persisted a little longer. " Yet you loved me once, Helen ? " he said positively. *' My love died long ago," she answered, with a fresh shudder. " Could it survive that day, think you, when P and J and S , and, oh ! how many more suffered, because — how shall I speak it ? — the man I thought my husband, Desirde's father, betrayed them as Judas did his Master for a sum of money ? " The concentrated scorn of her passionate words and gesture lashed him like a whip. 48 POMEGRANATE SEED. He grew livid, and his hand touched a small dao^o^er hidden in his bosom. C>c> " Are you mad ? " he hissed in a low voice, vibrating between rage and fear, " or tired of your life that you use such language, to me ?" " I am not mad," she said, with the terrible look of despair of her soul's weari- ness. " Tired of life I am, Heaven knows. But for the child I would welcome your knife in my heart ; but I do not fear you, Michael. You will never dare to strike. You cannot risk it." She took up her embroidery again, ceasing to regard him. He had no longer any part in her life, except as Desiree was affected by him. Half ashamed of the momentary transport that had hurried him into an impotent threat, Barrington removed his hand from his dagger's hilt, and went out with studied carelessness. His attempt at a reconcilia- tion had not prospered. POMEGRANATE SEEO. 49 CHAPTER IV. " Such mocks of dreams do turn to deadly pain." The music in the chiki showed itself early. Before she could speak she would sit motionless, her grave baby eyes fixed on Ziski, whilst he discoursed to her endless tliemes upon his fiddle. She was evi- dently, young as slie was, thrilled b}' the piercing sweetness of the notes that issued from the brown violin. She listened in them intently, rapt in a vague exquisite- delight. She was always good with Ziski — technically good, that is. She was never fretful nor restless, for she was hapjDy, divinely happy, absorbed in the rapture of harmonious sound. Helen, with her air of half-bitter, wholly VOL. I. F. 50 POMEGRANATE SEED. tender inelancholj, watched the simple- minded old musician and tlie tiny music- struck child with interested eyes. She saw the ecstacy of the little pale, softly moulded face, the brightness of Desiree's luminous eyes. She remarked how the frail small body trembled sensitively to the violins piteous passion, instinct and articulate as it was with the trouble of human life, and ii. revelation seemed vouchsafed to her. She turned to the faithful old follower of the fallen fortunes of the Staroski with favour. " Teach the child thy art, Ziski," she said iippealingly. " See I she has already the desire to learn. Steep her soul in thy music. Transport her into thy charmed world of lovely dreams, where she will live like thee for ever young in heart, in the repose of that happy art-world beyond the toilsome weariness of this struggle for life, for leave to live and breathe the clean air,