BOHEMIAN DAYS

*Three American Tales*

BYGEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND_"GATH"_

 "And David arose and fled to Gath. And he changed his behavior. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented gathered themselves unto him. And the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a full year and four months. "

H. CAMPBELL & CO. , Publishers, NO. 21 PARK ROW, NEW YORK

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, By GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

THE BURR PRINTING HOUSEAND STEAM TYPE-SETTING OFFICE, Cor. Frankfort and Jacob Sts. , NEW YORK. 

TO TEN FRIENDS AT DINNER, GILSEY HOUSE, NEW YORK, APRIL 21, 1879;

WHO MADE THIS PUBLICATION

_A PROMISE AND AN OBLIGATION_. 

PREFACE. 

So far from the first tale in this book being of political motive, itwas written among the subjects of it, and read to several of them in1864. Perhaps the only _souvenir_ of refugee and "skedaddler" lifeabroad during the war ever published, its preservation may one day beuseful in the socialistic archives of the South, to whose posterityslavery will seem almost a mythical thing. With as little bias in thesecond tale, I have etched the young Northern truant abroad during thesecession. The closing tale, more recently written, in the midst ofconstant toil and travel, is an attempt to recall an old suburb, nownearly erased and illegible by the extension of a great city, and may beconsidered a home American picture about contemporary with the Europeantales. 

CONTENTS. 

SHORT NOVELS. 

THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS 13

MARRIED ABROAD 99

THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON 155

CHORDS. 

BOHEMIA 9

LITTLE GRISETTE 93

THE PIGEON GIRL 149

THE DEAD BOHEMIAN 279

BOHEMIA. 

 The farther I do grow from _La Bohème_, The more I do regret that foolish shame Which made me hold it something to conceal, And so I did myself expatriate; For in my pulses and my feet I feel That wayward realm was still my own estate; Wise wagged our tongues when the dear nights grew late, And quainter, clearer, rose our quick conceits, And pure and mutual were our social sweets. Oh! ever thus convivial round the gate Of Letters have the masters and the young Loitered away their enterprises great, Since Spenser revelled in the halls of state, And at his tavern rarest Jonson sung. 

THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 

 * * * * *

I. 

THE EXILES. 

In the latter part of October, 1863, seven very anxious and dilapidatedpersonages were assembled under the roof of an old, eight-storiedtenement, near the church of St. Sulpice, in the city of Paris. 

The seven under consideration had reached the catastrophe of theirdecline--and rise. They had met in solemn deliberation to passresolutions to that effect, and take the only congenial means forreplenishment and reform. This means lay in miniature before a cagedwindow, revealed by a superfluity of light--a roulette-table, whereonthe ball was spinning industriously from the practised fingers of Mr. Auburn Risque, of Mississippi. 

Mr. Auburn Risque had a spotted eye and a bluishly cold face; hisfingers were the only movable part of him, for he performed respirationand articulation with the same organ--his nose; and the sole wordsvouchsafed by this at present were:"Black--black--black--white--black--white--white--black"--etc. 

The five surrounding parties were carefully noting upon fragments ofpaper the results of the experiment, and likewise Master Lees, thelessee of the chamber--a pale, emaciated youth, sitting up in bed, andciphering tremulously, with bony fingers; even he, upon whom disease hadmade auguries of death, looked forward to gold, as the remedy whichscience had not brought, for a wasted youth of dissipation andincontinence. 

They were all representatives of the recently instituted Confederacy. Most of them had dwelt in Paris anterior to the war, and, habituated toits luxuries, scarcely recognized themselves, now that they were forlornand needy. Note Mr. Pisgah, for example--a Georgian, tall, shapely andhandsome, with the gray hairs of his thirtieth year shading his workingtemples; he had been the most envied man in Paris; no woman could resistthe magnetism of his eye; he was almost a match for the great Berger atbilliards; he rode like a centaur on the Boulevards, and counterfeitedApollo at the opera and the masque. His credit was good for fiftythousand francs any day in the year. He had travelled in far andcontiguous regions, conducted intrigues at Athens and Damascus, andsmoked his pipe upon the Nile and among the ruins of Sebastopol. Withoutprinciple, he was yet amiable, and with his dashing style and address, one forgot his worthlessness. 

How keenly he is reminded of it now! He cannot work, he has no craft norprofession; he knew enough to pass for an educated gentleman; not enoughto earn a franc a day. He is the _protégé_ at present of hiswasherwoman, and can say, with some governments, that his debts areimpartially distributed. He has only two fears--those of starvation inFrance, and a soldier's death in America. 

The prospect of a debtor's prison at Clichy has long since ceased to bea terror. There, he would be secure of sustenance and shelter, and ofthese, at liberty, he is doubtful every day. 

Still, with his threadbare coat, he haunts the Casino and the Valentinoof evenings; for some mistresses of a former day send him billets. 

He lies in bed till long after noon, that he may not have pangs ofhunger; and has yet credit for a dinner at an obscure _cremery_. Whenthis last confidence shall have been forfeited, what must result toPisgah?

He is striving to anticipate the answer with this experiment atroulette; for he has a "system" whereby it is possible to break anygambling bank--Spa, Baden, Wisbaden or Homburg. The others have systemsalso, from Auburn Risque to Simp, the only son of the richest widow inLouisiana, who disbursed of old in Paris ten thousand dollars annually. 

His house at Passy was a palace in miniature, and his favorite a tragedyqueen. She played at the Folies Dramatiques, and drove three horses ofafternoons upon the Champs Elysées. She had other engagements, ofcourse, when Mr. Lincoln's "paper blockade" stopped Master Simp'sremittances, and he passed her yesterday upon the Rue Rivoli, with theRussian ambassador's footman at her back, but she only touched him withher silks. 

Simp studied a profession, and was a volunteer counsel in the memorablecase of Jeems Pinckney against Jeems Rutledge. His speech, on thatoccasion, occupied in delivery just three minutes, and set thecourt-room in a roar. He paid the village editor ten dollars to composeit, and the same sum to publish it. 

"If you could learn it for me, " said Simp, anxiously, "I would give youtwenty dollars. "

This, his first and last public appearance, was conditional to thereceipt from his mother, of six thousand acres of land and eightynegroes. It might have been a close calculation for a mathematician toknow how many black sweat-drops, how many strokes of the rawhide, wentinto the celebrated dinner at the Maison Dorée, wherein Master Simp andonly his lady had thirty-four courses, and eleven qualities of wine, anda bill of eight hundred francs. 

In that prosperous era, his inalienable comrade had been Mr. Andy Plade, who now stood beside him, intensely absorbed. 

Of late Mr. Plade's affection had been transferred to Hugenot, the onlypossessor of an entire franc in the chamber. Hugenot was a short-setindividual, in pumps and an eye-glass, who had been but a few days inthe city. He was decidedly a man of sentiment. He called the Confederacy"ow-ah cause, " and claimed to have signed the call for the firstsecession meeting in the South. 

He asserted frankly that he was of French extraction, but only hintedthat he was of noble blood. He had been a hatter, but carefully ignoredthe fact; and, having run the blockade with profitable cargoes fourteentimes, had settled down to be a respectable trader between Havre andNassau. Mr. Plade shared much of the sentiment and some of the money ofthis illustrious personage. 

There were rumors abroad that Plade himself had great, but embarrassed, fortunes. 

He was one of the hundred thousand chevaliers who hail the advent of waras something which will hide their nothingness. 

"I knew it, " said Auburn Risque, at length, pinching the ball betweenhis hard palms as if it were the creature of his will. "My system isgood; yours do not validate themselves. You are novices at gambling; Iam an old blackleg. " It was as he had said; the method of betting whichhe proposed had seemed to be successful. He staked upon colors; neverupon numbers; and alternated from white to black after a fixed, undeviating routine. 

Less by experiment than by faith, the others gave up their own theoriesto adopt his own. They resolved to collect every available sou, and, confiding it to the keeping of Mr. Risque, send him to Germany, that hemight beggar the bankers, and so restore the Southern Colony to itswonted prosperity. 

Hugenot delivered a short address, wishing "the cause" good luck, butdeclining to subscribe anything. He did not doubt the safety of "thesystem" of course, but had an hereditary antipathy to gaming. Theprecepts of all his ancestry were against it. 

Poor Lees followed in a broken way, indicating sundry books, a guitar, two pairs of old boots, and a canary bird, as the relics of his fortune. These, Andy Plade, who possessed nothing, but thought he might borrow atrifle, volunteered to dispose of, and Freckle, a Missourian, who wastolerated in the colony only because he could be plucked, assertedenthusiastically, and amid great sensation, that he yet had threehundred francs at the banker's, his entire capital, all of which hemeant to devote to the most reliable project in the world. 

At this episode, Pisgah, whose misfortunes had quite shattered hisnerves, proposed to drink at Freckle's expense to the success of thesystem, and Hugenot was prevailed upon to advance twenty-one sous, whileSimp took the order to the adjacent _marchand du vin_. 

When they had all filled, Hugenot, looking upon himself in the light ofa benefactor, considered it necessary to do something. 

"Boys, " he said, wiping his eves with the lining of a kid glove, "willyou esteem it unnatural, that a Suth Kurlinian, who sat--at an earlyage, it is true--at the feet of the great Kulhoon, should lift up hisvoice and weep in this day of ou-ah calamity?"

(Sensation, aggrieved by the sobs of Freckle, who, unused to spirits andgreatly affected--chokes. )

"When I cast my eye about this lofty chambah" (here Lees, who hasn'tbeen out of it for a year, hides himself beneath the bed-clothes); "whenI see these noble spih-its dwelling obscu' and penniless; when Iremembah that two short years ago, they waih of independentfohtunes--one with his sugah, anotha with his cotton, a third with histobacco, in short, all the blessings of heaven bestowed upon a freepeople--niggars, plantations, pleasures!--I can but lay my pooah handupon the manes of my ancestry, and ask in the name of ou-ah cause, isthere justice above or retribution upon the earth!"

A profound silence ensued, broken only by Mr. Plade, who called Hugenota man of sentiment, and slapped his back; while Freckle fell uponPisgah's bosom, and wished that his stomach was as full as his heart. 

Mr. Simp, who had been endeavoring to recollect some passages of hisaddress, in the case of the Jeemses, for that address had an universalapplication, and might mean as much now as on the original occasion, brought down one of those decayed boots which the _marchand des habits_had thrice refused to buy, and said, stoutly:

"'By Gad! think of it, hyuh am I, a beggah, by Gad, without shoes to myfeet, suh! The wuth of one nigga would keep me now for a yeah. At home, by Gad, I could afford to spend the wuth of a staving field hand everytwenty-fouah houahs. I'll sweah!" cried Simp in conclusion, "I call thishard. "

"I suppose the Yankees have confiscated my stocks in the Havresteamers, " muttered Andy Plade. "I consider they have done me out oftwenty thousand dollars. "

"Brotha writes to me, last lettah, " continued Freckle, who hadrecovered, "every tree cut off the plantation--every nigga run off, downto old Sim, a hundred years old--every panel of fence toted away--nobacon in smoke-house--not an old rip in stable--no corn, coon, possum, rabbit, fox, dog or hog within ten miles of the place--house stands in amire--mire stands in desert--Yankee general going to conscrip brotha. Isave myself, sp'ose, for stahvation. "

"Wait till you come down to my condition, " faltered the proprietor, making emphasis with his meagre finger--"I have been my own enemy; theYankees will but finish what is almost consummated now. I tell you, boys, I expect to die in this room; I shall never quit this bed. I amoffensive, wasted, withered, and would look gladly upon Père laChaise, [A] if with my bodily maladies my mind was not also diseased. Ihave no fortitude; I am afraid of death!"

[Footnote A: The great Cemetery of Paris. ]

The room seemed to grow suddenly cold, and the faces of all the inmatesbecame pale; they looked more squalid than ever--the threadbarecurtains, the rheumatic chairs, the soiled floor, sashes and wallpaper. 

Mr. Hugenot fumbled his shirt-bosom nervously, and his diamond pin, glaring like a lamp upon the worn garbs and faces of his compatriots, showed them still wanner and meaner by contrast. 

"Put the blues under your feet!" cried Auburn Risque, in his hard, practical way; "my system will resurrect the dead. You shall haveclothes upon your backs, shoes upon your feet, specie in your pockets, blood in your veins. Let us sell, borrow and pawn; we can raise athousand francs together. I will return in a fortnight with fiftythousand!"

II. 

RAISING THE WIND. 

The million five hundred thousand folks in Paris, who went about theirpleasures that October night, knew little of the sorrows of the SouthernColony. 

Pisgah dropped in at the Chateau des Fleurs to beg a paltry loan fromsome ancient favorite. The time had been, when, after a nightly debauch, he had placed two hundred francs in her morning's coffee-cup. It wasmournful now to mark his premature gray hairs, as, resting his soiled, faded coat-sleeve upon her _manteau de velour_, he saw the scorn of hispoverty in the bright eyes which had smiled upon him, and made hisrequest so humbly and so feverishly. 

"Give me back, Feefine, " he faltered, "only that fifty francs I oncetied in a gold band about your spaniel's neck. I am poor, my dear--thatwill not move you, I know, but I am going to Germany to play at thebanks; if I win, I swear to pay you back ten francs for one!"

There was never a _lorette_ who did not love to gamble. She stopped apassing gentleman and borrowed the money; the other saw it transferredto Pisgah, with an expression of contempt, and, turning to a friend, called him aloud a withering name. 

Poor Pisgah! he would have drawn his bowie-knife once, and defied eventhe emperor to stand between the man and himself after such anappellation. He would have esteemed it a favor now to be what he wasnamed, and only lifted his creased beaver gratefully, and hobblednervously away, and stopping near by at a café drank a great glass ofabsinthe, with almost a prayerful heart. 

At Mr. Simp's hotel in the Rue Monsieur Le Prince much business wastransacted after dark. Monsieurs Freckle and Plade were engaged insmuggling away certain relics of furniture and wearing apparel. 

Mr. Simp already owed his landlord fifteen months' rent, for which theonly security was his diminishing effects. 

If the mole-eyed concierge should suspect foul play with these, Simpwould be turned out of doors immediately and the property confiscated. 

Singly and in packages the collateral made its exit. A half-dozen regalchemises made to order at fifty francs apiece; a musical clock picked upat Genoa for twelve louis; a patent boot-jack and an ebony billiard cue;a Paduan violin; two statuettes of more fidelity than modesty, to besold pound for pound at the current value of bronze; diverspipes--articles of which Mr. Simp had earned the title of connoisseur, by investing several hundred dollars annually--a gutta-perchaself-adjusting dog-muzzle, the dog attached to which had been seized byH. M. Napoleon III. In lieu of taxes, etc. , etc. 

Everything passed out successfully except one pair of pantaloons whichprotruded from Freckle's vest, and that unfortunate person at once fellunder suspicion of theft. All went in the manner stated to Mr. Lees'chamber, he being the only colonist who did not hazard the loss of hisroom, chiefly because nobody else would rent it, and in part because hislandlady, having swindled him for six or eight years, had compunctionsas to ejecting him. 

Thence in the morning, true to his aristocratic instincts, Mr. Simpdeparted in a _voiture_ for the central bureau of the Mont de Piete, [B]in the Rue Blanc Manteau. His face had become familiar there of late. Hecarried his articles up from the curb, while the _cocher_ grinned andwinked behind, and taking his turn in the throng of widows, orphans, ouvriers, and profligates and unfortunates of all loose conditions, Simpwas a subject of much unenviable remark. He came away with quite anarmful of large yellow certificates, and the articles were registered toMonsieur Simp, a French subject; for with such passports went all hiscompatriots. 

[Footnote B: The government pawnbroking shop. ]

Andy Plade spent twenty-four hours, meanwhile, at the Grand Hotel, enacting the time-honored part of all things to all men. 

He differed from the other colonists, in that they were weak--he wasbad. He spoke several languages intelligibly, and knew much of manythings--art, finances, geography--just those matters on which newlyarrived Americans desire information. His address was even fascinating. One suspected him to be a leech, but pardoned the motive for the manner. He called himself a broken man. The war had blighted his fair fortunes. For a time he had held on hopefully, but now meant to breast the currentno longer. His time was at the service of anybody. Would monsieur liketo see the city? He knew its every cleft and den. So he had lived inParis five years--in the same manner, elsewhere, all his life. 

A few men heard his story and helped him--one Northern man had given himemployment; his gratitude was defalcation. 

To day he has sounded Hugenot; but that man of sentiment alluded to thebusiness habits of his ancestry, and intimated that he did not lend. 

"Ou-ah cause, Andy, " he says, with a flourish, "is now negotiating aloan. When ou-ah beloved country is reduced to such straits, that shemust borow from strangers, I cannot think of relieving privateindigence. "

Later in the day, however, Mr. Plade made the acquaintance of aningenuous youth from Pennsylvania, and obtaining a hundred francs, forone day only, sent it straightway to Mr. Auburn Risque. 

A second meeting was held at Lees' the third day noon, when theoriginator of the "system" sat icily grim behind a table whereon elevenhundred francs reposed; and the whole colony, crowding breathlesslyaround, was amazed to note how little the space taken up by so great asum. 

They opened a crevice that Lees might be gladdened with the sight of thegold; for to-day that invalid was unusually dispirited, and could notquit his bed. 

"We are down very low, old Simp, " said Pisgah, smilingly, "when eitherthe possession or the loss of that amount can be an event in our lives. "

"You will laugh that it was so, a week hence, " answered AuburnRisque--"when you lunch at Peters' while awaiting my third check for athousand dollars apiece. "

"I don't believe in the system, " growled Lees, opening a cold draft fromhis melancholy eyes: "I don't feel that I shall ever spend a sou of thewinnings. No more will any of you. There will be no winnings to spend. Auburn Risque will lose. He always does. "

"If you were standing by at the play I should, " cried Risque, while thepock-marks in his face were like the thawings of ice. "You would croaklike an old raven, and I should forget my reckoning. "

"Come now, Lees, " cried all the others; "you must not see bad omen forthe Colony;" and they said, in undertone, that Lees had come to be quitea bore. 

They were all doubtful, nevertheless. Their crisis could not beexaggerated. Their interest was almost devout. Three thousand miles fromrelief; two seas between, one of water and one of fire; at home, conscription, captivity, death: the calamity of Southerners abroad wouldmerit all sympathy, if it had not been induced by waste, and unredeemedby either fortitude or regret. 

The unhappy Freckle, whose luckless admiration of the rest had been hisruin, felt that a sonorous prayer, such as his old father used to makein the Methodist meeting-house, would be a good thing wherewith tofreight Auburn Risque for his voyage. When men stake everything on achance, it is natural to look up to somebody who governs chances; butAndy Plade, in his loud, bad way, proposed a huge toast, which they tookwith a cheer, and quite confused Hugenot, who had a sentiment _apropos_. 

Then they escorted Auburn Risque to the Chemin de fer du Nord, [C] andpacked him away in a third-class carriage, wringing his hand as if hewere their only hope and friend in the world. 

[Footnote C: Northern Railway Station. ]

III. 

DEATH IN EXPATRIATION. 

It was a weary day for the Southern Colony. They strolled about town--tothe Masque, the Jardin des Plantes, the Champ des Mars, the Marché auxChevaux, and finally to Freckle's place, and essayed a lugubrious hourat whist. 

"It is poor fun, Pisgah, " said Mr. Simp, at last, "if we remember thatafternoon at poker when you won eight thousand francs and I lost sixthousand. "

The conversation forever returned to Spa and Baden-Baden, and manywagers were made upon the amount of money which Risque would gain--firstday--second day--first week, and so forth. 

At last they resolved to send to Lees' chamber for the roulette-board, and pass the evening in experiment. They drew Jacks for the party whoshould fetch it, and Freckle, always unfortunate, was pronounced theman. He went cheerfully, thinking it quite an honor to serve the Colonyin any capacity--for Freckle, representing a disaffected State, hadfallen under suspicion of lukewarm loyalty, and was most anxious toclear up any such imputation. 

His head was full of odd remembrances as he crossed the Place St. Sulpice: his plain old father at the old border home, close andhard-handed, who went afield with his own negroes, and made his sonstake the plough-handles, and marched them all before him every Sunday tothe plank church, and led the singing himself with an ancienttuning-fork, and took up the collection in a black velvet bag fastenedto a pole. 

He had foreseen the war, and sent his son abroad to avoid it. He hadgiven Freckle sufficient money to travel for five years, and told him inthe same sentence to guard his farthings and say his prayers. Frecklecould see the old man now, with a tear poised on his tangled eyelashes, asking a farewell benediction from the front portico, upon himselfdeparting, while every woolly-head was uncovered, and the wholeassembled "property" had groaned "Amen" together. 

That was patriarchal life; what was this? Freckle thought this muchfiner and higher. He had not asked himself if it was better. He wasrather ashamed of his father now, and anxious to be a dashing gentleman, like Plade or Pisgah. 

Why did he play whist so badly? How chanced it that, having dwelteighteen months in Paris, he could speak no French? His only _grisette_had both robbed him and been false to him. He knew that the Colonytolerated him, merely. Was he indeed verdant, as they had said--obtuse, stupid, lacking wit?

After all, he repeated to himself, what had the Colony done for him? Hehad not now twenty francs to his name, and was a thousand francs indebt; he had essayed to study medicine, but balked at the first lesson. Yet, though these suggestions, rather than convictions, occurred to him, they stirred no latent ambition. If he had ever known one highresolution, the Southern Colony had pulled it up, and sown the placewith salt. 

So he reached Master Lees' tenement; it was a long ascent, and towardthe last stages perilous; the stairs had a fashion of curving roundunexpectedly and bending against jambs and blank walls. He was quite outof breath when he staggered against Lees' door and burst it open. 

The light fell almost glaringly upon the bare, contracted chamber; forthis was next to the sky and close up to the clouds, and the windowlooked toward the west, where the sun, sinking majestically, wasthrowing its brightest smiles upon Paris, as it bade adieu. 

And there, upon his tossed, neglected bed, in the full blaze of thesunset, his sharp, sallow jaws dropped upon his neck, his cheekscolorless and concave, his great eyes open wide and his hair unsmoothed, Master Lees lay dead, with the roulette table upon his breast!

 * * * * *

When Freckle had raised himself from the platform at the base of thefirst flight of stairs, down which he had fallen in his fright, hehastened to his own chamber and gave the Colony notice of the depletionof its number. 

A deep gloom, as may be surmised, fell upon all. Lees had been no greatfavorite of late, and it had been the trite remark for a year that hewas looking like death; but at this juncture the tidings came ominouslyenough. One member, at least, of the Southern Colony would never sharethe winnings of Auburn Risque, and now that they referred to hisforebodings of the morning, it was recalled that with his own demise, hehad prophesied the failure of "the system. "

His end seemed to each young exile a personal admonition; they had knownhim strong and spirited, and with them he had grown poor and unhappy. Poverty is a warning that talks like the wind, and we do not heed it;but death raps at our door with bony knuckles, so that we grow pale andthink. 

They shuddered, though they were hardened young men, so unfeeling, evenafter this reprimand, that they would have left the corpse of theircompanion to go unhonored to its grave; separately they wished to doso--in community they were ashamed; and Pisgah had half a hope thatsomebody would demur when he said, awkwardly:

"The Colony must attend the funeral, I suppose. God knows which of uswill take the next turn. "

Freckle cried out, however, that he should go, if he were to be buriedalive in the same tomb, and on this occasion only he appeared in thelight of an influential spirit. 

IV. 

THE DESPERATE CHANCE. 

During all this time Mr. Auburn Risque, packed away in the omnibustrain, with a cheap cigar between his lips, and a face like arefrigerator, was scudding over the rolling provinces of France, thinking as little of the sunshine, and the harvesters of flax, and theturning leaves of the woods, and the chateaux overawing the thatchedlittle villages, as if the train were his mail-coach, and France wereArkansas, and he were lashing the rump of the "off" horse, as he haddone for the better part of his life. 

Risque's uncle had been a great Mississippi jobber; he took U. S. Postalcontracts for all the unknown world; route of the first class, sixhorses and daily; route of the second class, semi-weekly and fourhorses; third class, two horses and weekly; fourth class, one horse, onesaddle, and one small boy. 

The young Auburn had been born in the stable, and had taken at once tothe road. His uncle found it convenient to put him to work. He can neverbe faithfully said to have learned to _walk_; and recalls, as the firstincident of his life, a man who carried a baby and two bowie knives, teaching him to play old sledge on the cushions of a Washita stage. 

Thenceforward he was a man of one idea. He held it to be one of thedecrees, that he was to grow rich by gaming. As he went, by day ornight, in rain or fog or burning sun, by the margins of turgidsouth-western rivers, where his "leaders" shied at the alligators asleepin the stage-road; through dreary pine woods, where the owls hooted atsilence; over red, reedy, slimy causeways; in cane-breaks and bayous;past villages where civilization looked westward with a dirk between itsteeth, and cracked its horsewhip; past rich plantations where thenegroes sang afield, and the planter in the house-porch took off his hatto bow--here, there, always, everywhere, with his cold, hard, pock-marked face, thin lips and spotted eye, Auburn Risque sat broodingbehind the reins, computing, calculating, overreaching, waiting for hisdestiny to wrestle with Chance and bind it down while its pockets werepicked. 

His whole life might have been called a game of cards. He carried adeck forever next his heart. Sometimes he gambled with othervehicles--stocks, shares, currency--but the cards were still hismainstay, and he was well acquainted with every known or obsolete game. There was no trick, nor fraud, nor waggery which he had not at hisfingers-ends. 

It was his favorite theory that there was method in what seemed chance;principles underlying luck; measures for infinity; clues to allcombinations. 

Given one pack of cards, one man to shuffle, one to cut, one to deal, and fair play, and it was yet possible to know just how many times in agiven number of games each card would fall to each man. 

Given a roulette circle of one hundred numbered spaces and a blindfoldedman to spin the ball; it could be counted just how many times in onethousand said ball would come to rest upon any one number. 

No searcher for perpetual motion, no blind believer in alchemy, clung tohis one idea closer than Auburn Risque. He had shut all themes, affections, interests, from his mind. He neither loved nor hated anyliving being. He was penurious in his expenditures--never in his wagers. He would stake upon anything in nature--a trot, an election, a battle, amurder. 

"Will you play picquet for one sou the game, one hundred and fiftypoints?" says a soldier near by. 

He accepts at once; the afternoon passes to night, and the lamps in theroof are lighted. The cards flicker upon the seat; the boors gatherround to watch; they pass the French frontier, and see from theirwindows the forges of Belgium, throwing fire upon the river Meuse. Still, hour after hour, though their eyes are weary, and all the folksare gone or sleeping, the cards fall, fall, fall, till there comes a jarand a stop, and the guard cries, "Cologne!"

"You have won, " says the soldier, laying down his money. "Good-night. "

The Rhine is a fine stream, though our German friends will buildmock-castles upon it, and insist that it is the only real river in theworld. 

Auburn Risque pays no more regard to it than though he were treading thecedars and sands of New Jersey or North Carolina. He speaks with aFranco-Russian, who has lost in play ten thousand francs a month forthree successive years, and while they discuss chances, expedients andexperiences, the Siebern-gebierge drifts by, they pass St. Goar andBingen, and the wonderful Rhine has been only a time, nothing of ascene, as they stop abreast Biberich, and, rowed ashore in a flagboat, make at once for the railway. 

At noon, on the third day, Mr. Risque having engaged a frugal bed at alittle distance from Wisbaden, enters the grand saloon of the Kursaal, and turning to the right, sees before him a perspective, to which notall the marvels of art or nature afford comparison: a snug little room, with a table of green baize in the centre of the floor, and about thetable sundry folks of various ages and degrees, before each a heap ofglittering coins, and in the midst of all a something which movesforever, with a hurtle and a hum--the roulette. 

Mark them! the weak, the profligate, the daring. There is old age, watching the play, with its voice like a baby's cry; and the paperwhereon it keeps tremulous tally swimming upon eyes of perpetualtwilight. 

The boy ventures his first gold piece with the resolve that, win orlose, he will stake no more. He wins, and lies. At his side standsbeautiful Sin, forgetting its guilt and coquetry for its avarice. Thepale defaulter from over the sea hazards like one whose treasure is aburden upon his neck, and the _roué_--blank, emotionless, remorseless--doubling at every loss, walks penniless away to dinner witha better appetite than he who saves a nation or dies for a truth. 

The daintily dressed _coupeurs_ are in their chairs, eyeless, butomniscient; the ball goes heedlessly, slaying or anointing where itstays, and the gold as it is raked up clinks and glistens, as if itstruck men's hearts and found them as hard and sounding. 

Mr. Risque advanced to the end of the table, and stood motionless alittle while, drinking it all into his passionless eyes, which, likesponges, absorbed whatever they saw, but nothing revealed. At last hisright hand dropped softly to his vest pocket, as though it had someinterest in deceiving his left hand. 

Apparently unconscious of the act, the right hand next slid over thetable edge, and silently deposited a five-franc piece upon the blackcompartment. 

"Whiz-z-z-z" started the ball from the fingers of the coupeurs--"click"dropped the ball into a black department of the board; "clink! tingle!"cried the money, changing hands; but not a word said Auburn Risque, standing like a stalagmite with his eyes upon ten francs. 

"Whiz-z-z!"--"click!" "click!" "tingle!"

Did he see the fifteen francs at all, half trance-like, halfcorpse-like, as he stood, waiting for the third revolution, and waitingagain, and again, and again?

His five francs have grown to be a hundred; his cold hand fallsfreezingly upon them; five francs replace the hundred he tookaway--"Whizz!" goes the ball; "click!" stops the ball; the coupeurseizes Mr. Risque's five francs, and Mr. Risque walks away like asomnambulist. 

V. 

BURIED IN THE COMMON DITCH. 

It would have been a strange scene for an American public, the streetcorridor of the lofty house near the church of Saint Sulpice, on thefuneral afternoon. 

The coffin lay upon a draped table, and festoons of crape threw phantomshadows upon the soiled velvet covering. Each passing pedestrian andcabman took off his hat a moment. The Southern Colony were in thelandlady's bureau enjoying a lunch and liquor, and precisely at threeo'clock they came down stairs, not more dilapidated than usual, while atthe same moment the municipal hearse drove up, attended by one _cocher_and two _croquemorts_. [D]

[Footnote D: Literally, "parasites of death. "]

The hearse was a cheap charity affair, furnished by the _Maire_ of the_arrondissement_, though it was sprucely painted and decked with funeralcloth. The driver wore a huge black chapeau, a white cotton cravat, andthigh-boots, which, standing up stiffly as he sat, seemed to engulf himto the ears. 

When the _croquemorts_, in a business way, lifted the velvet from thecoffin, it was seen to be constructed of strips of deal merely, unpainted, and not thicker than a Malaga raisin box. 

There was some fear that it would fall apart of its own fragility, butthe chief _croquemort_ explained politely that such accidents neverhappened. 

"We have entombed four of them to-day, " he said; "see how nicely weshall lift the fifth one. "

There was, indeed, a certain sleight whereby he slung it across hisshoulder, but no reason in the world for tossing it upon the hearse witha slam. They covered its nakedness with velvet, and the _cocher_, havingtaken a cigar from his pocket, and looking much as if he would like tosmoke, put it back again sadly, cracked his whip, and the cortege wenton. The _croquemorts_ kept a little way ahead, sauntering upon thesidewalk, and their cloaks and oil-cloth hats protected them from adrizzling rain, which now came down, to the grief of the mourners, walking in the middle of the street behind the body. They were seven innumber, Messrs. Plade, Pisgah and Simp, going together, and apparently atrifle the worse for the lunch; Freckle followed singly, having beentold to keep at a distance to render the display more imposing; thelandlady and her niece went arm in arm after, and behind them trode alittle old hunchback gentleman, neatly clothed, and bearing in his handa black, wooden cross, considerably higher than himself, on which waspainted, in white letters, this inscription:

 CHRISTOPHER LEES, CAROLINA DU NORD, ÉTATS CONFÉDÉRE AMERIQUE. AGE VINGT-QUATRE. 

A wreath of yellow immortelles, tied to the crosspiece, was interwovenwith these spangled letters:

 "R-E-G-R-E-T-S;"

and the solemn air of the old man seemed to evidence that they were notmeaningless. 

The hunchback was Lees' principal creditor. He kept a small restaurant, where the deceased had been supplied for two years, and his books showedindebtedness of twenty-eight hundred francs, not a sou of which heshould ever receive. He could ill afford to lose the money, and hadknown, indeed, that he should never be paid, a year previous to thedemise. But the friendlessness of the stranger had touched his heart. Twice every day he sent up a basket of food, which was always returnedempty, and every Sunday climbed the long stairway with a bottle of thebest wine--but never once said, "Pay my bill. "

Here he was at the last chapter of exile, still bearing his creditor'scross. 

"Give the young man's friends a lunch, " he had said to the landlady: "Iwill make it right;"--and in the cortege he was probably the only honestmourner. 

Not we, who know Frenchmen by caricature merely, as volatile, fickle, deceitful, full of artifice, should sit in judgment upon them. He hasthe least heart of all who thinks that there is not some hearteverywhere! The charity which tarrieth long and suffereth much wrong, has been that of the Parisians of the Latin Quarter, during the Americanwar. 

Along all the route the folks lifted their hats as the hearse passed by, and so, through slush and mist and rain, the little company keptstraight toward the barriers, and turned at last into the great gate ofthe cemetery of Mt. Parnasse. 

They do not deck the cities of the dead abroad as our great sepulchresare adorned. 

Père la Chaise is famed rather for its inmates than its tombs, and MontParnasse and Monte Martre, the remaining places of interment, are evenforbidding to the mind and the eye. 

A gate-keeper, in semi-military dress, sounded a loud bell as the hearserolled over the curb, and when they had taken an aisle to the left, withmaple trees on either side, and vistas of mean-looking vaults, acorpulent priest, wearing a cape and a white apron, and attended by acivil assistant of most villainous physiognomy, met the cortege andescorted it to its destination. 

This was the _fosse commune_--in plain English, the _common trench_--anopen lot adjacent to the cemetery, appropriated to bodies interred atpublic expense, and presenting to the eye a spectacle which, consideredeither with regard to its quaintness or its dreariness, stood alone andunrivalled. 

Nearest the street the ground had long been occupied, trench parallelwith trench, filled to the surface level, sodded green, and each gravemarked by a wooden cross. There was a double layer of bodies beneath, lying side by side; no margin could of course be given at the surface;the thickly planted crosses, therefore, looked, at a little distance, like a great waste of heath or bramble, broken now and then by a dwarfcedar, and hung to the full with flowers and tokens. The width of thetrenches was that of the added height of two full-grown men, and thelength a half mile perhaps; a narrow passage-way separated them, sothat, however undistinguishable they appeared, each grave could beindentified and visited. 

Close observation might have found much to cheer this waste of flesh, this economy of space; but to this little approaching company the scenewas of a kind to make death more terrible by association. 

A rough wall enclosed the flat expanse of charnel, over which thescattered houses of the barriers looked widowed through their mournfulwindows; and now and then a crippled crone, or a bereaved old pauper, hobbled to the roadway and shook her white hairs to the rain. 

It seemed a long way over the boggy soil to the newly opened trench, where the hearse stopped with its wheels half-sunken, and the chief_croquemort_, without any ado, threw the coffin over his shoulder andwalked to the place of sepulture. Five _fossoyeurs_, at the remote endof the trench, were digging and covering, as if their number rather thantheir work needed increase, and a soldier in blue overcoat, whose handswere full of papers, came up at a commercial pace, and cried:

"_Corps trente-deux!_"

Which corresponded to the figures on the box, and to the number ofinterments for the day. 

The delvers made no pause while the priest read the service, and theclods fell faster than the rain. The box was nicely mortised againstanother previously deposited, and as there remained an intersticebetween it and that at its feet, an infant's coffin made the spacecomplete. 

The Latin service was of all recitations the most slovenly andcontemptuous; the priest might have been either smiling or sleeping; forhis very red face appeared to have nothing in common with his scarcelymoving lips; and the assistant looked straight at the trench, halfcovetously, half vindictively, as if he meant to turn the body out ofthe box directly, and run away with the grave-clothes. It took but twominutes to run through the text; the holy water was dashed from thehyssop; and the priest, with a small shovel, threw a quantity of clodsafter it. "_Requiescat in pace!_" he cried, like one just awakened, andnow for the first time the grave-diggers ceased; they wanted thecustomary fee, _pour boire_. 

The exiles never felt so destitute before; not a sou could be found inthe Colony. But the little hunchback stepped up with the cross, and gaveit to the chief _fossoyeur_, dropping a franc into his hand; each of thewomen added some sous, and the younger one quietly tied a small roundtoken of brass to the wood, which she kissed thrice; it bore thesewords:

"_A mon ami. _"

"A little more than kin and less than kind!" whispered Andy Plade, whoknew what such souvenirs meant, in Paris. 

The Colony went away disconsolate; but the little hunchback stopped onthe margin, and looked once more into the pit where the box was fastdisappearing. 

"Pardon our debts, _bon Dieu!_" he said, "as we pardon our debtors. "

Shall we who have followed this funeral be kind to the stranger that iswithin our gates? The quiet old gentleman standing so gravely over the_fosse commune_ might have attracted more regard from the angels thanthat Iron Duke who once looked down upon the sarcophagus of his enemy inthe Hotel des Invalides. 

And so Lees was at rest--the master's only son, the heir to lands andhouses, and servants, and hopes. He had escaped the bullet, but alsothat honor which a soldier's death conferred--and thus, abroad andneglected, had existed awhile upon the charity of strangers, to expireof his own wickedness, and accept, as a boon, this place among the bonesof the wretched. 

How beat the hearts which wait for the strife to be done and for him toreturn! The field-hands sleep more honored in their separate moundsbeneath the pine trees. The landlady's daughter may come sometimes tofasten a flower upon his cross; but, like that cross, her sorrow willdecay, and Master Lees will mingle with common dust, passing out of thememory of Europe--ay! even of the Southern Colony. 

How bowed and wounded they threaded the way homeward, those young men, whom the world, in its bated breath, had called rich and fortunate! Nowthat they thought it over, how absurd had been this gambling venture!They should lose every sou. They had, for a blind chance, exhausted thepatience of their creditors, and made away with their lastcollateral--their last crust, and bed, and drink. 

"I wish, " said Simp, bitterly, "that I had been born one of my mother'sniggers. Bigad! a cabin, a wood fire, corn meal and a pound of pork perdiem, would keep me like a duke next winter. "

Here they stopped at Simp's hotel, and, as he was afraid to enter alone, the loss of his baggage being detected, the Colony consented to ascendto his chamber. 

"Monsieur Simp, " said the fierce concierge, "here is a letter, the lastwhich I shall ever receive for you! You will please pay my billto-night, or I shall go to the office of the _prud'homme_; you are ofthe _canaille_, sir! Where are your effects?"

"Whoop!" yelled Mr. Simp, in the landlady's face. "Yah-ah-ah! hooraah-ah! three cheers! we have news of our venture! This is a telegram!"

 "WISBADEN, Oct. 30. 

 "The system wins! To-day and yesterday I took seven thousand one hundred francs. I have selected the 4th of November to break the bank. 

 "AUBURN RISQUE. "

VI. 

THE OLD REVELRY REVIVED. 

The Colony would have shouted over Master Lees' coffin at the receipt ofsuch intelligence. They gave a genuine American cheer, nine timesrepeated, with the celebrated "tiger" of the Texan Rangers, as it hadbeen reported to them. Mr. Simp read the dispatch to the concierge, whobrightened up, begged his pardon, and hoped that he would forget wordssaid in anger. 

"Madam, " said Mr. Simp, with some dignity, "I have suffered andforgotten much in this establishment; we have an aphorism, relative tothe last feather, in the English tongue. But lend me one hundred francstill my instalment arrives from Germany, and I will forgive even thepresent insult. "

"Boys!" cried Andy Plade, "let us have a supper! We--that is, you--cantake the telegram to our several creditors, and raise enough upon it topass a regal night at the _Trois Frères_. "

This proposition was received with great favor; the concierge gave Simpa hundred francs; he ordered cigars and a gallon of punch, and theyrepaired to his room to arrange the details of the celebration. 

Freckle gave great offence by wishing that "Poor Lees" were alive toenjoy himself; and Simp said, "Bigad, sir! Freckle, living, is more of abore than Lees, dead. "

They resolved to attend supper in their dilapidated clothes, so thatwhat they had been might be pleasantly rebuked by what they were. "Andbut for this feature, " said Andy Plade, "it would have been well toinvite Ambassador Slidell. " But Pisgah and Simp, who had applied toSlidell several times by letter for temporary loans, were averse, justnow, to the presence of one who had forgotten "the first requisite of aSouthern Gentleman--generosity. "

So it was settled that only the Colony and Hugenot were to come, eachman to bring one lady. Simp, Pisgah, and Freckle thought Hugenot avillain. He had not even attended the obsequies of the lamented Lees. But Andy Plade forcibly urged that Hugenot was a good speaker, and wouldbe needed for a sentiment. 

In the evening a lunch was served by Mr. Simp, of which some youngladies of the Paris _demi-monde_ partook; the "Bonnie Blue Flag" wassung with great spirit, and Freckle became so intoxicated at two in themorning that one of the young ladies was prevailed upon to see him tohis hotel. 

There was great joy in the Latin Quarter when it was known that theSouthern Colony had won at Wisbaden, and meant to pay its debts. Thetailors, shoemakers, tobacconists, publicans, grocers and hosiers met insquads upon corners to talk it over; all the gentlemen obtained loans, and, as evidence of how liberal they meant to be, commenced by givingaway whatever old effects they had. 

A _cabinet_ or small saloon of the most expensive restaurant in Pariswas pleasantly adorned for the first reunion of the Confederate exiles. 

The ancient seven-starred flag, entwined with the new battle-flag, hungin festoons at the head of the room, and directly beneath was theportrait of President Davis. A crayon drawing of the C. S. N. V. Florida, from the portfolio of the amateur Mr. Simp, was arched by twocrossed cutlasses, hired for the occasion; and upon an enormous icedcake, in the centre of the table, stood a barefooted soldier, with hisback against a pine tree, defying both a Yankee and a negro. 

At eleven o'clock P. M. The scrupulously dressed attendants heard a buzzand a hurried tramp upon the stairs. They repaired at once to theirrespective places, and after a pause the Southern Colony and convoy madetheir appearance upon the threshold. With the exception of Pisgah andHugenot, all were clothed in the relics of their poverty, but theirhairs were curled, and they wore some recovered articles of jewelry. They had thus the guise of a colony of barbers coming up from the golddiggings, full of nuggets and old clothes. 

By previous arrangement, the chair was taken by Andy Plade, supported bytwo young ladies, and, after saying a welcome to the guests in elegantFrench, he made a significant gesture to the chief waiter. The mostluscious Ostend oysters were at once introduced; they lifted them withbright silver _fourchettes_ from plates of Sevres porcelain, and eachguest touched his lips afterward with a glass of refined _vermeuth_. Three descriptions of soup came successively, an amber _Julien_, inwhich the microscope would have been baffled to detect one vegetablefibre, yet it bore all the flavors of the garden; a tureen of _potage àla Bisque_, in which the rarest and tiniest shell-fish had dissolvedthemselves; and at the last a _tortue_, small in quantity, but sodelicious that murmurs of "_encore_" were made. 

Morsels of _viande_, so alternated that the appetite was prolonged--eachdish seeming a better variation of the preceding--were helped towarddigestion by the finest vintages of Burgundy; and the luscious _patés defoie gras_--for which the plumpest geese in Bretagne had been invalidsall their days, and, if gossip be true, submitted in the end to a slowroasting alive--introduced the fish, which, by the then reformedParisian mode, must appear after, not before, the _entrée_. 

A _sole au vin blanc_ gave way to a regal _mackerel au saucechampignon_, and after this dish came confections and fruits _adlibitum_, ending with the removal of the cloth, the introduction ofcigars, and a _marquise_ or punch of pure champagne. 

It was a pleasant evening within and without; the windows were raised, and they could see the people in the gardens strolling beneath the limetrees; the starlight falling on the plashing fountain and the gray, motionless statues; the pearly light of the lines of lamps, shining downthe long arcades; the glitter of jewelry and precious merchandise in themarvellous _boutiques_; the groups which sat around the café beneathwith _sorbets_ and _glacés_, and sparkling wines; the old women inNormandie caps and green aprons, who flitted here and there to take thehire of chairs, and break the hum of couples, talking profane and sacredlove; around and above all, the Cardinal's grand palace lifting itsmultitudinous pilasters, and seeming to prop up the sky. 

It was Mr. Simp and his lady who saw these more particularly, as theyhad withdrawn from the table, to exchange a memory and a sentiment, andHugenot had joined them with his most recent mistress; for the latterwas particularly unfortunate in love, being cozened out of much money, and yet libelled for his closeness. 

All the rest sat at the table, talking over the splendor of the supper, and proposing to hold a second one at the famous Philippe's, in the RueMontorgueil. But Mr. Freckle, being again emboldened by wine, andaffronted at the subordinate position assigned him, repeatedly criedthat, for his part, he preferred the "old Latin Quarter, " and challengedthe chairman to produce a finer repast than Magny's in the RueCounterscarp. 

Pisgah, newly clothed _cap-à-pie_, was drinking absinthe, and with hisabsent eyes, worn face and changing hairs, looked like the spectre ofhis former self. Now and then he raised his head to give unconsciousassent to something, but immediately relapsed to the worship of hisnepenthe; and, as the long potations sent strong fumes to his temples, he chuckled audibly, and gathered his jaws to his eyes in a vacant grin. The gross, coarse woman at his side, from whom the other females shrankwith frequent demonstrations of contempt, was Pisgah's _blanchisseuse_. 

He was in her debt, and paid her with compliments; she is old anduninviting, and he owes her eight hundred francs. Hers are the newgarments which he wears to-night. Few knew how many weary hours shelabored for them in the floating houses upon the Seine. But she is inlove with Pisgah, and is quite oblivious of the general regard; for, strange to such grand occasions, she has both eaten and imbibedenormously, and it may be even doubted at present whether she seesanything at all. 

She strokes his cloth coat with her red, swollen hands, and proposes nowand then that he shall visit the wardrobe to look after his new hat; butPisgah only passes his arm about her, and drains his absinthe, andsometimes, as if to reassure the company, shouts wildly at the wrongplaces: "'At's so, boys!" "Hoorah for you!" "Ay! capital, gen'l'men, capital!" And his partner, conscious that something has happened, laughsto her waist, and leans forward, quite overcome, as if she beheldsomething mirthful over her washboard. 

The place was now quite dreamy with tobacco-smoke; Freckle was riotouslysick at the window, and Andy Plade, who had been borrowing small sumsfrom everybody who would lend, struck the table with a corkscrew, andcalled for order. 

"Drire rup!" cried Mr. Freckle, looking very attentively, but seeingnothing. 

"I have the honor to state, gentlemen of the Colony, that we have withus to-night an eloquent representative of our country--one whosebusiness energy and enterprise have been useful both to his own fortunesand to the South--one who is a friend of yours, and more than a dearfriend to me. We came from the same old Palmetto State, the first andthe last ditch of our revolution. I give you a toast, gentlemen, towhich Mr. Hugenot will respond:

"'The Mother Country and the Colony--good luck to both!'"

"Hoorah for you!" cried Pisgah, looking the wrong way. 

The glasses rattled an instant, amid iterations of "Hear! hear!" and Mr. Hugenot, rising, as it appeared from a bandbox, carefully surveyedhimself in a mirror opposite, and touched his nose with a small nosegay. 

"I feel, my friends, rather as your host than your guest to-night--"

("It isn't yesternight"--from Freckle--"it's to-morroer night. ")

"For I, gentlemen, stand upon my hereditary, if not my native heath; andyou are, at most, Frenchmen by adoption. That ancestry whose deeds willlive when the present poor representative of its name is departed drewfrom this martial land its blood and genius. "

(Loud cries of "Gammon" from Freckle, and disapprobation from Simp. )

"From the past to the present, my friends, is a short transition. Ifound you in Paris a month ago, poor and dejected. You are hereto-night, with that luxury which was your heritage. And how has it beenrestored?"

("'At's so!" earnestly, from Pisgah. )

"By hard, grovelling work? Never! No contact with vulgar clay has soiledthese aristocratic hands. The cavalier cannot be a mudsill! You are notlike the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin. Youhave not toiled, gentlemen, but you have spun!"

(Great awakening, doubt, and bewilderment. )

"You have spun the roulette ball, and you have won!"

(Ferocious and unparalleled cheering. )

"And it has occurred to me, my friends, that ou-ah cause, in the presenttremendous struggle, has been well symbolized by these, its foreignrepresentatives. Calamity came upon the South, as upon you. It hadindebtedness, as you have had. Shall I say that you, like the South, repudiated? No! that is a slander of our adversaries. But the parallelholds good in that we found ourselves abandoned by the world. Nationsabroad gave us no sympathy; our neighbors at home laughed at ouraffliction. They would wrest from us that bulwark of our liberties, theAfrican. "

"Capital, gentlemen, capital!" from Pisgah. 

"They demanded that we should toil for ourselves. Did we do so? Never!We appealed to the chances, as you have done; we would fight the Yankee, but we would not work. You would fight the bank, but you would notslave; and as you have won at Wisbaden, so have we, in a thousandglorious contests. Fill, then, gentlemen, to the toast which yourchairman has announced:

"'The Mother Country and the Colony--good luck to both!'"

The applause which ensued was of such a nature that the proprietorsbelow endeavored to hasten the conclusion of the dinner by sending upthe bill. Pisgah and the _blanchisseuse_ were embracing in a spiritedway, and Simp was holding back Freckle, who--persuaded that Hugenot'sremarks were in some way derogatory to himself--wished to toss down hisgauntlet. 

"The next toast, gentlemen of the Colony, " said Andy Plade, "is to bedispatched immediately by the waiter, whom you see upon my right hand, to the office of the telegraph; thence to Mr. Risque at Wisbaden:

"'The Southern exiles; doubtless the most immethodical men alive; butthe results prove they have the best system: no _Risque_, no winnings. '

"You will see, gentlemen, " continued Mr. Plade, when the enthusiasm hadsubsided, "that I place the toast in this envelope. It will go in twominutes to Mr. Auburn Risque!"

The waiter started for the door; it was dashed open in his face, andsplattered, dirty, and travel-worn, Auburn Risque himself stood like anapparition on the threshold. 

"Perdition!" thundered Plade, staggered and pale-faced; "you were not tobreak the bank till to-morrow. "

The Colony, sober or inebriate, clustered about the door, and held toeach other that they might hear the explanation aright. 

Auburn Risque straightened himself and glared upon all the besiegers, till his pock-marked face grew white as leprosy, and every spot in hissecretive eye faded out in the glitter of his defiance. 

"To-morrow?" he said, in a voice hard, passionless, inflectionless; "howcould one break the bank to-morrow, when all his money was goneyesterday?"

"Gone!" repeated the Colony, in a breath rather than a voice, andreeling as if a galvanic current had passed through the circle--"Gone!"

"Every sou, " said Risque, sinking into a chair. "The bank gave me onehundred francs to return to Paris; I risked twenty-five of it, hopefulof better luck, and lost again. Then I had not enough money to get home, and for forty kilometres of the way I have driven a _charette_. See!" hecried, throwing open his coat; "I sold my vest at Compiègne last night, for a morsel of supper. "

"But you had won seven thousand one hundred francs!"

"I won more--more than eighteen thousand francs; but, enlarging mystakes with my capital, one hour brought me down to a sou. "

"The 'system' was a swindle, " hissed Mr. Simp, looking up through redeyes which throbbed like pulses. "What right had you to plunder us uponyour speculation?"

"The 'system' could not fail, " answered the gamester, at bay; "it musthave been my manner of play. I think that, upon one run of luck, I gaveup my method. "

"We do not know, " cried Simp, tossing his hands wildly; "we may notaccuse, we may not be enraged--we are nothing now but profligateswithout means, and beggars without hope!"

They sobbed together, bitterly and brokenly, till Freckle, not entirelysober, shouted, "Good God, is it that gammon-head, Hugenot, who hasruined us? Fetch him out from his ancestry; let me see him, I say! Whereis the man who took my three hundred francs!"

"I wish, " said Simp, in a suicidal way, "that I were lying by Lees inthe _fosse commune_. But I will not slave; the world owes every man aliving!"

"Ay!" echoed the rest, as desperately, but less resolutely. 

"This noise, " said one of the waiters politely, "cannot be continued. Itis at any rate time for the _salon_ to be closed. We will thank you topay your bill, and settle your quarrels in the garden. "

"Here is the account, " interpolated Andy Plade, "dinner for thirteenpersons, nineteen hundred and fifty francs. 

"Manes of my ancestry!" shrieked Hugenot, overturning the_blanchisseuse_ in his way, and rushing from the house. 

"We have not the money!" cried the whole Colony in chorus; and, as if byconcert, the company in mass, male and female, cleared the threshold anddisappeared, headed by Andy Plade, who kept all the subscriptions in hispockets, and terminated by Freckle, who was caught at the base of thestairs and held for security. 

VII. 

THE COLONY DISBANDED. 

The Colony, as a body, will appear no more in this transcript. Thegreatness of their misfortune kept them asunder. They closed theirchamber-doors, and waited in hunger and sorrow for the moment when thesky should be their shelter and beggary their craft. 

It was in this hour of ruin that the genius of Mr. Auburn Risque wasmanifest. The horse is always sure of a proprietor, and with horses Mr. Risque was more at home than with men. 

"Man is ungrateful, " soliloquized Risque, keeping along the RueMouffetard in the Chiffoniers' Quarter; "a horse is invariably faithful, unless he happens to be a mule. Confound men! the only excellence theyhave is not a virtue--they can play cards!"

Here he turned to the left, followed some narrow thoroughfares, andstopped at the great horse market, a scene familiarized to Americans, inits general features, by Rosa Bonheur's "La Foire du Chevaux. "

Double rows of stalls enclosed a trotting course, roughly paved, andthere was an artificial hill on one side, where draught-horses weretested. The animals were gayly caparisoned, whisks of straw affixed tothe tails indicating those for sale; their manes and forelocks wereplaited, ribbons streamed over their frontlets, they were muzzled andwore wooden bits. 

We have no kindred exhibition in the States, so picturesque and soanimated. Boors in blouses were galloping the great-hoofed beasts downthe course by fours and sixes; the ribbons and manes fluttered; thewhips cracked, and the owners hallooed in _patois_. 

Four fifths of French horses are gray; here, there was scarcely oneexception; and the rule extended to the asses which moved amid hundredsof braying mulets, while at the farther end of the ground the teams wereparked, and, near by, seller and buyer, book in hand, were chafferingand smoking in shrewd good-humor. 

One man was collecting animals for a celebrated stage-route, and thegamester saw that he was a novice. 

"Do you choose that for a good horse?" spoke up Risque, in his practicalway, when the man had set aside a fine, sinewy draught stallion. 

"I do!" said the man, shortly. 

"Then you have no eye. He has a bad strain. I can lift all his feet butthis one. See! he kicks if I touch it. Walk him now, and you will remarkthat it tells on his pace. "

The man was convinced and pleased. "You are a judge, " he said, glancingdown Risque's dilapidated dress; "I will make it worth something to youto remain here during the day and assist me. "

The imperturbable gamester became a feature of the sale. He was thebest rider on the ground. He put his hard, freckled hand into the jawsof stallions, and cowed the wickedest mule with his spotted eye. He knewprices as well as values, and had, withal, a dashing way of bargaining, which baffled the traders and amused his patron. 

"You have saved me much money and many mistakes, " said the latter, atnightfall. "Who are you?"

"I am the man, " answered Risque, straightforwardly, "to work on yourstage-line, and I am dead broke. "

The man invited Risque to dinner; they rode together on the ChampsElysées; and next morning at daylight the gamester left Paris without athought or a farewell for the Colony. 

It was in the Grand Hotel that Messrs. Hugenot and Plade met by chancethe evening succeeding the dinner. 

"I shall leave Paris, Andy, " said Hugenot, regarding his pumps throughhis eye-glass. "My ancestry would blush in their coffins if they knewou-ah cause to be represented by such individuals as those of lastevening. "

"Let us go together, " replied Plade, in his plausible way; "you cannotspeak a word of any continental language. Take me along as courier andcompanion; pay my travelling expenses, and I will pay my own board. "

"Can I trust you, Suth Kurlinian?" said Hugenot, irresolutely; "you hadno money yesterday. "

"But I have a plan of raising a thousand francs to-day. What say you?"

"My family have been wont to see the evidence prior to committingthemselves. First show me the specie. "

"_Voila!_" cried Plade, counting out forty louis; "the day afterto-morrow I guarantee to own eighteen hundred francs. "

It did not occur to Mr. Hugenot to inquire how his friend came topossess so much money; for Hugenot was not a clever man, and somewhat indread of Andy Plade, who, as his school-mate, had thrashed himrepeatedly, and even now that one had grown rich and the other was avagabond, the latter's strong will and keen, bad intelligence made himthe master man. 

Hugenot's good fortune was accidental; his cargoes had passed theblockade and given handsome returns; but he shared none of the dangers, and the traffic required no particular skill. Hugenot was, briefly, afavorite of circumstances. The war-wind, which had toppled down many along, thoughtful head, carried this inflated person to greatness. 

They are well contrasted, now that they speak. The merchant, elaboratelydressed, varnished pumps upon his effeminate feet, every hair taught itscurve and direction, the lunette perched upon no nose to speak of, andthe wavering, vacillating eye, which has no higher regard than his ownminiature figure. Above rises the vagabond, straight, athletic andcourageous, though a knave. 

He is so much of a man physically and intellectually, that we do not seehis faded coat-collar, frayed cuffs, worn buttons, and untidy boots. Heis so little of a man morally, that, to any observer who looks twice, the plausibility of the face will fail to deceive. The eye is deep anddirect, but the high, jutting forehead above is like a table of stone, bearing the ten broken commandments. He keeps the lips ajar in a smile, or shut in a resolve, to hide their sensuality, and the fine black beardconceals the massive contour of jaws which are cruel as hunger. 

It was strange that Plade, with his clear conception, should do lessthan despise his acquaintance. On the contrary, he was partial toHugenot's society. The world asked, wonderingly, what capacities had thelatter? Was he not obtuse, sounding, shallow? Mr. Plade alone, of allthe Americans in Paris, asserted from the first that Hugenot wasfar-sighted, close, capable. Indeed, he was so earnest in thisenunciation that few thought him disinterested. 

 * * * * *

It was Master Simp who heard a bold step on the stairs that night, and aresolute knock upon his own door. 

"Arrest for debt!" cried Mr. Simp, falling tearfully upon his bed; "Ihave expected the summons all day. "

"The next man may come upon that errand, " answered the ringing voice ofAndy Plade. "Freckle sleeps in Clichy to-night; Risque cannot be found;the rest are as badly off; I have news for you. "

"I am the man to be mocked, " pleaded Simp; "but you must laugh at yourown joke; I am too wretched to help you. "

"The Yankees have opened the Mississippi River; Louisiana is subjugated, and communication re-established with your neighborhood; you can gohome. "

"What fraction of the way will this carry me?" said the other, holdingup a five-franc piece. "My home is farther than the stars from me. "

"It is a little sum, " urged Mr. Plade; "one hundred dollars should paythe whole passage. "

Mr. Simp, in response, mimicked a man shovelling gold pieces, but wastoo weak to prolong the pleasantry, and sat down on his empty trunk andwept, as Plade thought, like a calf. 

"Your case seems indeed hopeless, " said the elder. "Suppose I shouldborrow five hundred dollars on your credit, would you give me twohundred for my trouble?"

Mr. Simp said, bitterly, that he would give four hundred and ninety-fivedollars for five; but Plade pressed for a direct answer to his originalproffer, and Simp cried "Yes, " with an oath. 

"Then listen to me! there is no reason to doubt that your neighbors havemade full crops for two years--cotton, sugar, tobacco. All this remainsat home unsold and unshipped--yours with the rest. Take the oath ofallegiance to the Yankee Government before its _chargé des affaires_ inParis. That will save your crops from confiscation, and be your passportto return. Then write to your former banker here, promising to consignyour cotton to him, if he will advance five hundred dollars to take youto Louisiana. He knows you received of old ten thousand dollars perannum. He will risk so small a sum for a thing so plausible andprofitable. "

"I don't know what you have been saying, " muttered Simp. "I cannotcomprehend a scheme so intricate; you bewilder me! What is aconsignment? How am I, bigad! to make that clear in a letter? Perhaps myspeech in the case of Rutledge _vs. _ Pinckney might come in well at thisjuncture. "

"Write!" cried Plade, contemptuously; "write at my dictation. "

That night the letter was mailed; Mr. Simp was summoned to his banker'sthe following noon, and at dusk he met Andy Plade in the Place Vendôme, and paid over a thousand francs with a sigh. 

On the third night succeeding, Messrs. Plade and Hugenot were smokingtheir cigars at Nice, and Mr. Simp, without the least idea of what hemeant to do, was drinking cocktails on the Atlantic Ocean. 

 * * * * *

"Francine, " said Pisgah, with a woful glance at the dregs of absinthe inthe tumbler, "give me a half franc, my dear; I am poorly to-day. "

"Monsieur Pisgah, " answered Madame Francine, "give me nine hundred andsixty-five francs, seventy-five centimes--that is your bill with me--andI am poorly also. "

"My love, " said Pisgah, rubbing his grizzled beard against the madame'sfat cheek, "you are not hard-hearted. You will pity the poor old exile. I love you very much, Francine. "

"Stand off!" cried the madame; "_vous m'embate!_ You say you love me;then marry me!"

"Nonsense, my angel!"

"I say marry me!" repeated the madame, stamping her foot. "You are richin America. You have slaves and land and houses and fine relatives. Youwill get all these when the war closes; but if you die of starvation inParis, they amount to nothing. Marry me! I will keep you alive here; youwill give me half of your possessions there! I shall be a grand lady, ride in my carriage, and have a nasty black woman to wash my fineclothes. "

"That is impossible, Francine, " answered Pisgah, not so utterly degradedbut he felt the stigma of such a proposition from his_blanchisseuse_--and as he leaned his faded hairs upon his unnerved andquivering hands, the old pride fluttered in his heart a moment andpainted rage upon his neck and temples. 

"You are insulted, my lord count!" cried Madame Francine; "an alliancewith a poor washerwoman would shame your great kin. Pay me my money, youbeggar! or I shall put the fine gentleman in prison for debt. "

"That would be a kindness to me, madame, " said Pisgah, very humbly andpiteously. 

"You are right, " she made answer, with a mocking laugh; "I will not saveyour life: you shall starve, sir! you shall starve!"

In truth, this consummation seemed very close, for as Pisgah entered hiscreamery soon afterward, the proprietor met him at the threshold. 

"Monsieur Pisgah, " he said, "you can have nothing to eat here, until youpay a part of your bill with me; I am a poor man, sir, and havechildren. "

Pisgah kept up the street with heavy forebodings, and turned into theplace of a clothes-merchant, to whom his face had long been familiar. When he emerged, his handsome habits, the gift of Madame Francine, hungin the clothes-dealer's window, and Mr. Pisgah, wearing a common blouse, a cap, and coarse hide shoes, repaired to the nearest wine-shop, anddrank a dead man's portion of absinthe at the zinc counter. Then hereturned to his own hotel, but as he reached to the rack for his key, the landlady laid her hand upon it and shook her head. 

"You are properly dressed, Monsieur Pisgah, " she said; "those who haveno money should work; you cannot sleep in twenty-six to night, sir; Ihave shut up the chamber, and seized the little rubbish which you left. "

Pisgah was homeless--a vagabond, an outcast. He walked unsteadily alongthe street in the pleasant evening, and the film of tears that shut theworld from his eyes was peopled with far-off and familiar scenes. 

He saw his father's wide acres, with the sunset gilding the fleeces ofhis sheep and crowning with fire the stacks of grain and the vanes uponhis granges. Then the twilight fell, and the slaves went homewardsinging, while the logs on the brass andirons lit up the windows of themansion, and every negro cabin was luminous, so that in the night thehomestead looked like a village. Then the moon rose above the woods, making the lawn frosty, and shining upon the long porch, where hismother came out to welcome him, attended by the two house-dogs, whichbarked so loudly in their glee that all the hen-coops were alarmed, andthe peacocks in the trees held their tails to the stars and trilled. 

"Come in, my son, " said the mother, looking proudly upon the tall, straight shape and glossy locks; "the supper is smoking upon the table;here is your familiar julep, without which you have no appetite; theMaryland biscuit are unusually good this evening, and there is theyellow pone in the corner, with Sukey, your old nurse, behind it. Do youlike much cream in your coffee, as you used to? Bless me! the partridgeis plump as a duck; but here is your napkin, embroidered with your name;let us ask a blessing before we eat!"

While all this is going on, the cat, which has been purring by the fire, takes a wicked notion to frighten the canary bird, but the high oldclock in the corner, imported from England before the celebratedRevolutionary war, impresses the cat as a very formidable object withits stately stride-stride-stride--so that the cat regarding it a moment, forgets the canary bird, and mews for a small portion of cream in asaucer. 

"Halloo! halloo!" says the parrot, awakened by a leap of the fire; for, the back-log has broken in half, and Pisgah sees, by the increasedlight, the very hair-powder gleam on the portrait of General Washington. But now the cloth is removed, and the old-fashioned table folds up itsleaves; they sip some remarkable sherry, which grandfather regards witha wheezy sort of laugh, and after they have played one game of draughts, Mr. Pisgah looks at his gold chronometer, and asks if he has still thegreat room above the porch and plenty of bedclothes. 

This is what Mr. Pisgah sees upon the film of his tears--wealth, happiness, manliness! When he dashes the tears themselves to thepavement with an oath, what rises upon his eye and his heart?Paris--grand, luxurious, pitiless, and he, at twilight, flung upon theworld, with neither kindred nor country--a thing unwilling to live, unfit to die!

He strolled along the quay to the Morgue; the beautiful water of St. Michel fell sibilantly cold from the fountain, and Apollyon above, atthe feet of the avenging angel, seemed a sermon and an allegory of hisown prostration. How all the folks upon the bridge were stony faced! Ithad never before occurred to him that men were cold-blooded creatures. He wondered if the Seine, dashing against the quays and piers beneath, were not their proper element? Ay! for here were three drowned people onthe icy slabs of the Morgue, with half a hundred gazing wistfully atthem, and their fixed eyes glaring fishily at the skylight, as if itwere the surface of the river and they were at rest below. 

So seemed all the landscape as he kept down the quay--the lines of highhouses were ridges only in the sea, and Notre Dame, lifting its towersand sculptured façade before, was merely a high-decked ship, withsailors crowding astern. The holy apostles above the portal were morelike human men than ever, with their silicious eyes and pulselessbosoms; while the hideous gargoyles at the base of each crochetedpinnacle, seemed swimming in the dusky evening. 

It may have been that this aqueous phenomenon was natural to one"half-seas over;" but not till he stood on the place of the Hôtel de laVille, did Pisgah have any consciousness whatever that he walked uponthe solid world. 

At this moment he was reminded, also, that he held a letter in his hand, his landlady's gift at parting; it was dated, "Clichy dungeon, " andsigned by Mr. Freckle. 

 "Dear Pisgah, " read the text, "I am here at claim of restaurateur; shall die to-morrow at or before twelve o'clock, if Andy Plade don't fork over my subscription of two hundred francs. Andy Plade damned knave--no mistake! No living soul been to see me, except letter from Hon. Mr. Slidell. He has got sixteen thousand dollars in specie for Simp. Where's Simp, dogorn him! Hon. S. Sent to Simp's house; understood he'd sailed for America. Requested Hon. S. To give me small part of money as Simp's next friend. Hon. S. Declined. Population of prison very great. Damned scrub stock! Don't object to imprisonment as much as the fleas. Fleas bent on aiding my escape. If they crawl with me to-morrow night as far again as last night I'll be clear--no mistake! Live on soup, chiefly. Abhor soup. Had forty francs here first day, but debtor with one boot and spectacles won it at _picquet_. Restaurateur says bound to keep me here a thousand years if I don't sock--shall die--no mistake! Come see me, _toute suite_. Fetch pocket-comb, soap, and English Bible. 

 "Yours, in deep waters, FRECKLE. "

"The whole world is in deep waters, " said Pisgah, dismally. "So much thebetter for them; here goes for something stronger!"

He repaired to the nearest drinking-saloon, and demanded a glass brimfulof absinthe, at which all the garçons and patrons held up their handswhile he drank it to the dregs. 

"Sacristie!" cried a man with mouth wide open, "that gentleman can drinkclear laudanum. "

"I wish, " thought Pisgah, with a pale face, "that it had been laudanum;I should have been dead by this time and all over. Why don't I get the_delirium tremens_? I should like to be crazy. Oh, ho, ho, ho!" hecontinued, laughing wildly, "to be in a hospital--nurses, soft bed, goodfood, pity--oh, ho! that would be a fate fit for an emperor. "

Here his eye caught something across the way which riveted it, and hetook half a step forward, exultingly. A great _caserne_, or barrack, adjoined the Hôtel de Ville, and twice every day, after breakfast anddinner, the soldiers within distributed the surplus of their rations tomendicants without. The latter were already assembling--laborers inneat, common clothing, with idlers and profligates not more forbidding, while a soldier on guard directed them where to rest and in what orderor number to enter the building. Pisgah halted a moment with his heartin his throat. But he was very hungry, and his silver was half gonealready; if he purchased a dinner, he might not be left with sufficientto obtain a bed for the night. 

"Great God!" he said aloud, lifting his clenched hands and swollen eyesto the stars, "am I, then, among the very dogs, that I should beg thecrumbs of a common soldier?"

He took his place in the line, and when at length his turn wasannounced, followed the rabble shamefacedly. The _chasseurs_ in themess-room were making merry after dinner with pipes and cards, and oneof these, giving Pisgah a piece of bread and a tin basin of strongsoup, slapped him smartly upon the shoulder, and cried:

"My fine fellow! you have the stuff in you for a soldier. "

"I am just getting a soldier's stuff into me, " responded Pisgah, antithetically. 

"Why do you go abroad, hungry, ill-dressed, and houseless, when you canwear the livery of France?"

Pisgah thought the soldier a very presuming person. 

"I am a foreigner, " he said, "a--a--a French Canadian (we speak_patois_ there). My troubles are temporary merely. A day or two may makeme rich. "

"Yet for that day or two, " continued the _chasseur_, "you will have thehumiliation of begging your bread. What signifies seven years ofhonorable service to three days of mendicancy and distress? We are wellcared for by the nation; we are respected over the world. It is a meanthing to be a soldier in other lands; here we are the gentlemen ofFrance. "

Pisgah had never looked upon it in that light, and said so. 

"Your poverty may have unmanned you, " repeated the other; "to recoveryour own esteem do a manly act! We have all feared death as citizens;but take cold steel in your hand, and you can look into your gravewithout a qualm. I say to you, " spoke the _chasseur_, clearly andeloquently, "be one of us. Decide now, before a doubt mars your betterresolve! You are a young man, though the soulless career of a citizenhas anticipated the whitening of your hairs. Plant your foot; throw backyour shoulders; say 'yes!'"

"I do!" cried Pisgah, with something of the other's enthusiasm; "I wasborn a gentleman, I will die a gentleman, or a soldier. "

They put Mr. Pisgah among the conscripts recently levied, and he wentabout town with a fictitious number in his hat, joining in theirbacchanal choruses. The next day he appeared in white duck jacket andpantaloons, looking like an overgrown baker's boy, with a chapeau like aflat, burnt loaf. He was then put through the manual, which seemed toindicate all possible motions save that of liquoring up, and when he wasso fatigued that he had not the energy even to fall down, he was claspedin the arms of Madame Francine, who had traced him to the barracks, butwas too late to avert his destiny. 

"Oh! _mon amant!_" she cried, falling upon his neck. "Why did you go anddo it? You knew that I did not mean to see you starve. "

"You have consigned me to a soldier's grave, woman!" answered Pisgah, inthe deepest tragedy tone. 

"Do not say so, my _bonbon_!" pleaded the good lady, covering him withkisses. "I would have worn my hands to the bone to save you from thisdreadful life. Suppose you should be sent to Algiers or Mexico, or someother heathen country, and die there. "

It was Pisgah's turn to be touched. 

"My blood is upon your head, Francine! Have you any money?"

"Yes, yes! a gentleman, a _noir_, a _naigre_, for whom I have washed, paid me fifty francs this evening. It is all here; take it, my love!"

"I do not know, creature! that your conduct permits me to do so, " saidPisgah, drawing back. 

"You will drive me mad if you refuse, " shrieked the blanchisseuse. "Oh!oh! how wicked and wretched am I!"

"Enough, madame! step over the way for my habitual glass of absinthe. Beparticular about the change. We military men must be careful of ourincomes. Stay! you may embrace me if you like. "

The poor woman came every day to the barracks, bringing some trifle offood or clothing. She washed his regimentals, burnished his buckles andboots, paid his losses at cards, and bought him books and tobacco. Shecould never persuade herself that Pisgah was not her victim, and hefound it useful to humor the notion. 

Down in the swift Seine, at her booth in the great lavatory, where theice rushed by and the rain beat in, she thought of Pisgah as she toiled;and though her back ached and her hands were flayed, she never wonderedif her lot were not the most pitiable, and his in part deserved. 

How often should we hard, selfish men, thank God for the weaknesses ofwomen!

VIII. 

THE MURDER ON THE ALPS. 

And so, with Mr. Pisgah on the road to glory, Mr. Simp on the smoothsea, Mr. Freckle in the debtor's jail, Mr. Risque behind hisfour-in-hand, and Mr. Lees in the charity grave, let us sit with the tworemaining colonists in the cabriolet at Bellinzona; for it is the monthof April, and they are to cross the great St. Gothard _en route_ forParis. Here is the scene: a gloomy stone building for the diligencecompany; two great yellow diligences, empty and unharnessed in the areabefore; one other diligence, packed full, with the horses' heads turnednorthward, and the blue-nosed Swiss clerk calling out the names ofpassengers; a half-dozen cabriolets looking at each other irresolutelyand facing all possible ways; two score of unwashed loungers, in redneck-kerchiefs and velvet jackets, smoking rank, rakish, black cigars;several streets of equal crookedness and filthiness abutting against agrimy church, whence beggars, old women, and priests emerge continually;and far above all, as if suspended in the air, a grim, battlementedcastle, a defence, as it seems, against the snowy mountains which marchupon Bellinzona from every side to crush its orchards and vineyards anddrown it in the marshes of Lago Maggiore. 

"_Diligenza compito!_" cries the clerk, moving toward the waitingcabriolet--"Signore Hugenoto. "

"Here!" replies a small, consequential-looking person, reconnoitring theinterior of the vehicle. 

"Le Signore Plaèdo!"

"Ci, " responds a dark, erect gentleman, striding forward and saying, inclear Italian, "Are there no other passengers?"

"None, " answered the clerk; "you will have a good time together; pleaseremember the guard!"

The guard, however, was in advance, a tall person, wrapped to the eyesin fur, wearing a silver bugle in front of his cap, and covered withbuff breeches. 

He flourished his whip like a fencing-master, moved in a cloud ofcigar-smoke, and, as he placed his bare hand upon the manes of hishorses, they reined back, as if it burned or frosted them. 

"My ancestry, " says the small gentleman, "encourage no imposition. Shallwe give the fellow a franc?"

The other had already given double the sum, and it was odd, now that onelooked at him, how pale and hard had grown his features. 

"God bless me, Andy!" cries the little person, stopping short; "you havenot had your breakfast to-day; apply my smelling-bottle to your nose;you are sick, man!"

"Thank you, " says the other, "I prefer brandy; I am only glad that weare quite alone. "

The paleness faded out of his cheeks as he drank deeply of the spirits, but the jaws were set hard, and the eyes looked stony and pitiless. Theman was ailing beyond all doubt. 

The whip cracked in front; the great diligence started with a groan anda crackling of joints; the little postilion set the cabriolet going witha chirp and a whistle; the priests and idlers looked up excitedly; thewomen rushed to the windows to flutter their handkerchiefs, and all thebeggars gave sturdy chase, dropping benedictions and damnations as theywent. 

The small person placed his boots upon the empty cushion before andregarded them with some benevolence; then he touched his mustache with acomb, which he took from the head of his cane. 

"It is surprising, Andy, " he said, "how the growth of one's feet bearsno proportion to that of his head. Observe those pedals. One of myancestors must have found a wife in China. They have gained no increaseafter all these pilgrimages--and I flatter myself that they are in somesort graceful--ay? Now remark my head. What does Hamlet, or somebody, say about the front of Jove? This trip to Italy has actually enlargedthe diameter of my head thirteen barleycorns! Thirteen, by measurement!"

The tall gentleman said not a word, but compressed his tall shouldersinto the corner of the coach, and muffled his face with his coat-collarand breathed like one sleeping uneasily. 

"It has been a cheap trip!" exclaimed the diminutive person, changingthe theme; "you have been an invaluable courier, Andy. The most ardentpatriot cannot call us extravagant. "

"How much money have you left?" echoed the other in a suppressed tone. "Count it. I will then tell you to a sou what will carry us to Paris. "

The little person drew a wallet from his side-pocket and enumeratedcarefully certain circular notes. "Eleven times twenty is two hundredand twenty; twenty-five times two hundred and twenty, five thousand fivehundred, plus nine gold louis--total, five thousand seven hundred andtwenty-five francs. "

One eye only of the large gentleman was visible through the folds of hiscollar. It rested like a charmed thing upon the roll of gold and paper. It was only an eye, but it seemed to be a whole face, an entire man. Itwas full of thoughts, of hopes, of acts! Had the little person markedit, thus sinister, and glittering and intense, he would have shrunk asfrom a burning-glass. 

He folded up the wallet, however, and slipped it into his inside-pocket, while the other pushed forward his hat, so that it concealed even theeye, and sat rigid and still in his corner. 

"You have not named the fare to Paris. "

The tall man only breathed short and hard. 

"Don't you recollect?"

"No!"

"I have a 'Galignani' here; perhaps it is advertised. But hallo, Andy!"

The exclamation was loud and abrupt, but the silent person did not move. 

"_The Confederate Privateer Planter will sail from Dieppe onTuesday_--(that is, to-morrow evening)--_she will cruise in the IndianOcean, if report be true. _"

The tall man started suddenly and uncovered his face with a quickgesture. It was flushed and earnest now, and he clutched the journalalmost nervously, though his voice was yet calm and suppressed. 

"To-morrow night, did you say? A cruise on the broad sea--glory withoutperil, gold without work; I would to God that I were on the Planter'sdeck, Hugenot!"

"Why not do something for ou-ah cause, Andy?"

"I am to return to Paris for what? To be dunned by creditors, to bemarked for a parasite at the hotels, to be despised by men whom I serve, and pitied by men whom I hate. This pirate career suits me. What issociety to me, whom it has ostracised? I was a gentleman once--quick atbooks, pleasing in company, shrewd in business. They say that I havepower still, but lack integrity. Be it so! Better a freebooter at seathan upon the land. I have half made up my mind to evil. Hugenot, listento me! I believe that were I to do one bad, dark deed, it would restoreme courage, resolution, energy. "

The little gentleman examined the other with some alarm; but just nowthe teams commenced the ascent of a steep hill, and as he beheld theguard a little way in advance, he forgot the other's earnestness, andraised his lunette. 

"Andy, " he said, "by my great ancestry! I have seen that man before. Look! the height, the style, the carriage, are familiar. Who is he?"

His co-voyageur was without curiosity; the former pallidness andsilentness resumed their dominion over him, and the lesser gentlemansettled moodily back to his newspaper. 

No word was interchanged for several hours. They passed through shaggyglens, under toppled towers and battlements, by squalid villages, andwithin the sound of dashing streams. If they descended ever, it was togain breath for a longer ascent; for now the mountain snows were abovethem on either side, and the Alps rose sublimely impassable in front. The hawks careened beneath them; the chamois above dared not look downfor dizziness, and Hugenot said, at Ariola, that they were taking lunchin a balloon. The manner of Mr. Plade now altered marvellously. It mighthave been his breakfast that gave him spirit and speech; he sang amerry, bad song, which the rocks echoed back, and all the goitred womenat the roadside stopped with their pack burdens to listen. He told athousand anecdotes. He knew all the story of the pass; how the Swiss, filing through it, had scattered the Milanese; how Suwarrow and Massenahad made its sterility fertile with blood. 

Hugenot's admiration amounted to envy. He had never known his associateso brilliant, so pleasing; the exaltation was too great, indeed, toarise from any ordinary cause; but Hugenot was not shrewd enough toinquire into the affair. He wearied at length of the talk and of thescene, and when at last they reached the region of perpetual ice, heclosed the cabriolet windows, and watched the filtering flakes, andheard the snow crush under the wheels, and dropped into a deep sleepwhich the other seemed to share. 

The clouds around them made the mountains dusky, and the interior of thecarriage was quite gloomy. At length the large gentleman turned hishead, so that his ear could catch every breath, and he regarded the dimoutlines of the lesser with motionless interest. Then he took a strawfrom the litter at his feet, and, bending forward, touched his comrade'sthroat. The other snored measuredly for a while, but the titillationstartled him at length, and he beat the air in his slumber. When theirritation ceased he breathed tranquilly again, and then the first-namedplaced his hand softly into the sleeper's pocket. He drew forth thewallet with steady fingers, and as coolly emptied it of its contents. These he concealed in the leg of his boot, but replaced the book wherehe had found it. For a little space he remained at rest, leaning againstthe back of the carriage, with his head bent upon his breast and hishands clenched like one at bay and in doubt. 

The slow advance of the teams and the frequent changes ofdirection--sometimes so abrupt as almost to reverse thecabriolet--advised him that they were climbing the mountain by zigzagsor terraces. He knew that they were in the _Val Tremola_, or TremblingWay, and he shook his comrade almost fiercely, as if relieved by someidea which the place suggested. 

"Hugenot, " he said, "rouse up! The grandeur of the Alps is round aboutus; you must not miss this scene. Come with me! Quit the vehicle! I knowthe place, and will exhibit it. "

The other, accustomed to obey, leaped to the ground immediately, andfollowed through the snow, ankle deep, till they passed the diligence, which kept in advance. The guard could not be seen--he might haveresorted to the interior; and the two pedestrians at once left theroadway, climbing its elbows by a path more or less distinctly marked, so that after a half hour they were perhaps a mile ahead. The agility ofMr. Plade during this episode was the marvel of his companion. He scaledthe rocks like a goatherd, and his foot-tracks in the snow were long, like the route of a giant. The ice could not betray the sureness of hisstride; the rare, thin atmosphere was no match for his broad, deepchest. He shouted as he went, and tossed great boulders down themountain, and urged on his flagging comrade by cheer and taunt andinvective. No madman set loose from captivity could be guilty of soextravagant, exaggerated elation. 

At last they stood upon a little bridge spanning a chasm like a cobweb. A low parapet divided it from the awful gulf. On the other side themountain lifted its jagged face, clammy with icicles, and far over alltowered the sterile peaks, above the reach of clouds or lightnings, forever in the sunshine--forever desolate. 

"Stand fast!" said the leader, suddenly cold and calm. "Uncover, thatthe snow-flakes may give us the baptism of nature! There is no human Godat this vast height; they worship _Him_ in the flat world below. Give meyour hand and look down! You are not dizzy? One should be free from thebaseness of fear, standing here upon St. Gothard. "

"If I had no qualm before, " said Hugenot, "your words would make meshudder. "

"You have heard of the 'valley of the shadow'? Was your ideal like this?I told you in Florence of the great poet Dante. You have here at aglance more beauty and dread conjoined than even his mad fancy couldconjure up. That is the Tessino, braining itself in cataracts. Yonder, where the clouds make a golden lake, laving forests of firs, lies Italyas the Goths first beheld it, with their spears quivering. See how theeagles beat the mist beneath!--that was a symbol that the Romanstandards should be rent. "

The other, half in charm, half in awe, listened like one spell-bound, with his fingers tingling and his eyeballs throbbing. 

"This silence, " said the elder, "is more freezing to me than thebitterness of the cold. The very snow-flakes are dumb; nothing makesdiscord but the avalanche; it is always twilight; men lie down in thesnows to die, but they are numb and cannot cry. "

"Be still, " replied the other, "your talk is strangely out of place. Ifeel as if my ancestors in their shrouds were beside me. "

"You are not wrong, " cried the greater, raising his voice till it becameshrill and terrible; "your last moments are passing; that yawning ravineis your grave. I told you an hour ago how one bad, dark deed wouldredeem me. It is done! I have robbed you, and your death is essential tomy safety. "

Hugenot sank upon the snow of the parapet, speechless and almostlifeless. He clasped his hands, but could not raise his head; the wholescene faded from his eye. If he had been weak before, he was impotentnow. 

The strong man held him aloft by the shoulders with an iron grasp, andhis cold eye gave evidence to the horrible validity of his words. 

"I do not lie or play, Hugenot, " he said, in the same clear voice; "Ihave premeditated this deed for many weeks. You are doomed! Only amiracle can help you. The dangers of the pass will be my exculpation; itwill be surmised that you fell into the ravine. There will be no marksof violence upon you but those of the sharp stones. We have been closecomrades. Only Omniscience can have seen premeditation. I have broughtyou into this wilderness to slay you!"

The victim had recovered sufficiently to catch a part of thisconfession. His lips framed only one reply--the dying man's last straw:

"After death!" he said; "have you thought of that?"

"Ay, " answered the other, "long and thoroughly. Phantoms, remorses andhells--they have all had their argument. I take the chances. "

It was only a moment's struggle that ensued. The wretch clung to theparapet, and called on God and mercy. He was lifted on high in thestrong arms, and whirled across the barrier. The other looked grimly atthe falling burden. He wondered if a dog or a goat would have been solong falling. The distance was profound indeed; but to the murderer'ssanguine thought the body hung suspended in the air. It would not sink. The clouds seemed to bear it up for testimony; the cold cliffs heldaloft their heads for justice; the snow-flakes fell like the ballots ofjurymen, voting for revenge--all nature seemed roused to animation bythis one act. An icicle dropped with a keen ring like a knife, and thestream below pealed a shrill alarum. 

He had done the bad, dark deed. Was he more resolute or courageous nowthat he had taken blood upon his hands and shadow upon his soul?

The body disappeared at length, carried downward by the torrent; but awild bird darted after it, as if to reveal the secret of itsconcealment, and then a noise like a human footfall crackled in thesnow. 

"I like a man who takes the chances, " said a cold, hard voice; "butChance, Andy Plade, decides against you to-day. "

IX. 

THE ONE GOOD DEED OF A PRIVATEERSMAN. 

The murderer turned from his reverie with hands extended and trembling;the snow was not more bleached than his bloodless face, and his feetgrew slippery and infirm. An alcove, which he had not marked, was hewnin the brow of the precipice. It had been intended to shelter pilgrimsfrom the wind and the snow; and there, wrapped in his buff garments, whose hue, assimilating to that of the rock, absorbed him fromdetection, stood a witness to the deed--the guard to the diligence--noneother than Auburn Risque. 

For an instant only the accused shrank back. Then his body grew shortand compact; he was gathering himself up for a life-struggle. 

"Hold off!" said Risque, in his old, hard, measured way; "we guards goarmed; if you move, I shall scatter your brains in the snow; if I missyou, a note of this whistle will summon my postilions. "

The cold face was never more emotionless; he held a revolver in hishand, and kept the other in his blank, spotted eye, as if locating thevital parts with the end to bring him down at a shot. 

"You do not play well, " said Risque at length, when the other, ghastlywhite, sat speechless upon the parapet; "if you were the student ofchance, that I have been, you would know that at murder the odds arealways against you!"

"You will not betray me?" pleaded Plade; "so inveterate a gamester canhave no conventional ideas of life or crime. I am ready to pay for yourdiscretion with half my winnings. "

"I am a gambler, " said Risque, curtly; "not an assassin! I always givemy opponents fair show. But I will not touch blood-money. "

"What fair show do you give me?"

"Two hours' start. I am responsible for my passengers. Go on, unharmed, if you will. But at Hospice I shall proclaim you. Every moment that youfalter spins the rope for your gallows!"

Plade did not dally, but took to flight at once. He climbed by theangles of the terraces, and saw the diligence far below tugging up thecircuitous road. He ran at full speed; no human being was abroadbesides, but yet there were other footfalls in the snow, other sounds, as of a man breathing hard and pursued upon the lonely mountain. Thefugitive turned--once, twice, thrice; he laughed aloud, and shook hisclenched hand at the sky. Still the flat, dead tramp followed closebehind, and the pace seemed not unfamiliar. It could not be--his bloodceased to circulate, and stood freezing at the thought--was it themarch, the tread of Hugenot?

He dropped a loud curse, like a howl, and kept upon his way. Thefootfalls were as swift; he saw their impressions at his heels--printsof a small, lithe, human foot, made by no living man. He shut his eyesand his ears, but the consciousness remained, the inexplicablephenomenon of some invisible but familiar thing which would not leavehim; which made its register as it passed; which no speed couldoutstrip, no argument exorcise. 

Was it a sick fancy, a probed heart, or did the phantom of the dead manindeed give chase?

Ah! there is but one class of folks whose faith in spirits nothing canshake--the guilty, the bloody-handed. 

He came to a perturbed rest at the huge, half-hospitable Hospice, to theenthusiasm of the postilions. 

"Will the gentleman have a saddle-horse?"

"A chariot?"

"A cabriolet?"

"Ten francs to Andermatt!"

"Thirty francs to Fluelen!"

"One hundred francs, " cried Plade, "for the fleetest pony to Andermatt. Ten francs to the postilion who can saddle him in two minutes. My motheris dying in Lyons. "

He climbed one of the dark flights of stairs, and an old, uncleanly monkgave him a glass of Kerschwasser. He descended to the stables, andcursed the Swiss lackeys into speed. He gave such liberal largess thatthere was an involuntary cheer, and as he galloped away the greatdiligence appeared in sight to rouse his haste to frenzy. 

The telegraph kept above him--a single line; he knew the tardiness offoot when pursued by the lightning. In one place, the conductor, wrenched from the insulators, dropped almost to the ground. There was astrap upon his saddle; he reined his nag to the side of the road, and, making a knot about the wire, dashed off at a bound; the iron snappedbehind; his triumphant laugh pealed yet on the twilight, when the criesof his pursuers rang over the fields of snow. They were aroused; he wasfleetly mounted, but they came behind in sledges. 

The night closed over the road as he caught the wizard bells. Themoonlight turned the peaks to fire. The dark firs shook down theirburdens of snow. There were cries of wild beasts from the ravines below. The post-houses were red with firelight. The steed floundered throughthe snow-drifts driven by blow and halloo. It was a fearful ride uponthe high Alps; the sublimity of nature bowed down to the mystery ofcrime!

Bright noon, on the third day succeeding, saw the fugitive emerge fromthe railway station at Dieppe. He had escaped the Swiss frontier withhis life, but had failed to make sure that escape by reaching the harborat the appointed time. Broken in spirit, grown old already, he falteredtoward the town, and, stopping on the fosse-bridge, looked sorrowfullyacross the shipping in the dock. Something caught his regard amid thecloud of tri-color; he looked again, shading his eye with a tremulouspalm. There could not be a doubt--it was the Confederate standard--theStars and Bars. 

The Planter had been delayed; she waited with steam up and an expectantcrew; her slender masts leaned against the sky; her anchor was lifted; aknot of idlers watched her from the quay. 

In a moment Mr. Plade was on board. He asked for the commander, and ashort, gristly, sunburnt personage being indicated, he introducedhimself with that plausible speech which had wooed so many to theirfall. 

"I am a Charlestonian, " said Plade; "a Yankee insulted me at the GrandHotel; we met in the Bois de Boulogne, and I ran him through the body. His friends in Paris conspire against my life. I ask to save it now, only to die on your deck, that it may be worth something to my country. "

They went below, and the privateer put the applicant through a rigidexamination. 

"This vessel must get to sea to night, " he said. "I will not hazardtrouble with the French authorities by keeping you here. Spend theafternoon ashore; we sail at eleven o'clock precisely; if at that timeyou come aboard, I will take you. "

Plade protested his gratitude, but the skipper motioned him to peace. 

"You seem to be a gentleman, " he added; "if I find you so, you shall bemy purser. But, hark!" he looked keenly at the other, and laid his handupon his throat--"I am under the espionage of the Yankee ambassador. There are spies who seek to join my crew for treasonable ends; if I findyou one of these, you shall hang to my yard-arm!"

The felon walked into the dim old city, and seated himself in awine-shop. Some market folks were chanting in _patois_, and theirlight-heartedness enraged him. He turned up a crooked street, andstopped before an ancient church, grotesque with broken buttresses, pinnacles, and gargoyles. The portal was wide open, and, as he entered, some scores of school-children burst suddenly into song. It seemed tohim an accusation, shouted by a choir of angels. 

At the end of the city, facing the sea, rose a massive castle. He scaledits stairs, and passed through the courtyard, and, crossing the farthermoat, stood upon a grassy hill--once an outwork--whence the blue channelwas visible half way to England. 

A knot of soldiers came out to regard him, and his fears magnified theircuriosity; he ran down the parapet, to their surprise, and re-enteredthe town by a roundabout way. "I will take a chamber, " he said, "andshun observation. "

An old woman, in a starched cap, who talked incessantly, showed him anumber of rooms in a great stone building. He chose a garret among thechimney-stacks, and lit a fire, and ordered a newspaper and a bottle ofbrandy. He sat down to read in loneliness. As he surmised, the murderwas printed among the "_Faits Divers_;" it gave his name and the storyof the tragedy. His chair rattled upon the tiles as he read, and thetongs, wherewith he touched the fire, clattered in his nervous fingers. 

The place was not more composed than himself; the flame was the noisiestin the world; it crackled and crashed and made horrible shadows on thewalls. There were rats under the floor whose gnawings were like humanspeech, and the old house appeared to settle now and then with a groanas if unwilling to shelter guilt. As he looked down upon the clusteringroofs of the town they seemed wonderfully like a crowd of people gazingup at his retreat. All the dormer-windows were so many pitiless eyes, and the chimney-pots were guns and cannon to batter down his eyrie. 

When night fell upon the city and sea, his fancies were not lessalarming. He could not rid himself of the idea that the dead man was athis side. In vain he called upon his victim to appear, and laughed tillthe windows shook. It was there, _there_, always THERE! He did not seeit--but it was _there_! He felt its breath, its eye, its influence. Itleaned across his shoulder; it gossiped with the shadows; it laid itshand heavily upon his pocket where lay the unholy gold. Some prints ofsaints and the Virgin upon the wall troubled him; their faces followedhim wherever he turned; he tore them down at length, and tossed them inthe fire, but they blazed with so great flame that he cried out forfear. 

The town-bells struck the hours; how far apart were the strokes! Theytolled rather than pealed, as if for an execution, and the lamps of somepassing carriages made a journey as of torches upon the ceiling. 

After nine o'clock there was a heavy tread upon the stairs. It kept himcompany, and he was glad of its coming; but it drew so close, at length, that he stood upright, with the cold sweat upon his forehead. 

The steps halted at his threshold; the door swung open; a corporal and asoldier stood without, and the former saluted formally:

"Monsieur the stranger, will remain in his chamber under guard. I grieveto say that he is an object of grave suspicion. _Au revoir!_"

The corporal retired without waiting for a reply; the soldier entered, and, leaning his musket against the wall, drew a chair before the doorand sat down. The firelight fell upon his face after a moment, andrevealed to Mr. Plade his old associate, Pisgah!

The former uttered a cry of hope and surprise; the soldier waved himback with a menace. 

"I know you, " he said; "but I am here upon duty; besides, I have nofriendship with a murderer. "

"We are both victims of a mistake! This accusation is not true. Will youtake my hand?"

"I am forbidden to speak upon guard, " answered Pisgah, sullenly. "Resumeyour chair. "

"At least join me in a glass. "

"There is blood in it, " said Pisgah. 

"I swear to you, no! Let me ring for your old beverage, absinthe. "

The soldier halted, irresolutely; the liquor came before he couldrefuse. When once his lips touched the vessel, Mr. Plade knew that therewas still a chance for life. 

In an hour Mr. Pisgah was impotent from intoxication; his musket wasflung down the stairway, the door was bolted upon him, and the prisonerwas gone. 

He gained the Planter's deck as the screw made its first revolution;they turned the channel-piles with a good-by gun; the motley crewcheered heartily as they cleared the mole. 

The pirate was at sea on her mission of plunder--the murderer was free!

The engines stopped abreast the city; the steamer lay almost motionless, for there were lights upon the beach; a shrill "Ahoy!" broke over theintervening waters, and the dip of oars indicated some pursuit. Thecrew, half drunken, rallied to the edge of the vessel; knives glitteredamid the confusion of oaths and the click of pistols, while Mr. Pladehastened to the skipper's side, and urged him for pity and mercy tohasten seaward. 

The other motioned him back, coldly, and the boatswain piped all handsupon deck. Lafitte nor Kidd never looked down such desperate faces asthis gristly privateer, when his buccaneers were around him. 

"Seamen, " he spoke aloud, "you are afloat! Gold and glory await you; youshall glut yourselves by the ruin of your enemy, and count your plunderby the light of his burning merchantmen. "

The knives flickered in the torchlight, and a cheer, like the howl ofthe damned, went up. 

"On the brink of such fortune, you find yourselves imperilled; treasonis with you; this pursuit, which we attend, is a part of its programme!There is, within the sound of my voice, a spy!--a Yankee!"

The weapons rang again; the desperadoes pressed forward, demanding withshrieks and imprecations that the man should be named. 

"He is here, " answered the captain, turning full upon the astonishedfugitive. "He came to me with a story of distress. I pitied him, andgave him shelter; but I telegraphed to Paris to test his veracity, and Ifind that he lied. No man has been slain in a duel as he states. Ibelieve him to be a Federal emissary, and he is in our power. "

A dozen rough hands struck Plade to the deck; he staggered up, withblood upon his face, and called Heaven to witness that he was notraitor. 

"Did you speak the truth to me to-day?" cried the accuser. 

"I did not; had I done so, you would have refused me relief. "

"What are you then? Speak!"

The murderer cowered, with a face so blanched that the blood ceased toflow at its gashes. 

"I cannot, I dare not tell!" he muttered. 

The skipper made a sign to an attendant. A rope from the yard-arm wasflung about the felon's neck, and made fast in a twinkling. He struggleddesperately, but the fierce buccaneers held him down; his clothing wasrent, and his hairs dishevelled; he made three frantic struggles forspeech; but the loud cheers mocked his words as they brandished theircutlasses in his eyes. 

Then began that strange lifetime of reminiscence; that trooping of sinsand cruelties, in sure, unbroken continuity, through the reeling brain;that moment of years; that great day of judgment, in a thought; thatlast winkful of light, which flashes back upon time, and makes itsfrailties luminous. And, higher than all offences, rose that of the fairyoung wife deserted abroad, left to the alternatives of shame orstarvation. Her wail came even now, from the bed of the crowdedhospital, to follow him into the world of shadows. 

"Monsieur the Commander, " hailed the spokesman in the launch, "thegovernment of his Imperial Majesty does not wish to interpose anyobstacle to the departure of the Confederate cruiser. It is known, however, that a person guilty of an atrocious crime is concealed onboard. In this paper, Monsieur the Capitaine will find all thespecifications. The name of the person, Plade. The crime of the person, murder, with premeditation. The giving up of said person is essential tothe departure of the cruiser from his Imperial Majesty's waters. "

There was blank silence on the deck of the privateer; the torches in thelaunch threw a glare upon the water and sky. They lit up somethingstruggling between both at the tip of the rocking yard-arm. It was theeffigy of a man, bound and suspended, around which swept timidly thebats and gulls, and the sea wind beat it with a shrill, jubilant cry. 

"I have done justice unconsciously, " said the privateer; "may it beremembered for me when I shall do injustice consciously!"

X. 

THE SURVIVING COLONISTS. 

The catastrophe of the Colony and the episode having been attained, wehave only to leave Mr. Pisgah in Algiers, whither court-martialconsigned him, with the penalty of hard labor, and Mr. Risque on thestage route he was so eminently fitted to adorn. The unhappy Frecklecontinued in the prison of Clichy, and, having nothing else to do, commenced the novel process of thinking. The prison stood high up onClichy Hill, walled and barred and guarded, like other jails, but withinit a fair margin of liberty was allowed the bankrupts, just sufficientto make their fate terrible by temptation. Some good soul had endowed itwith a library; newspapers came every day; a café was attached to it, where spirituous liquors were prohibited, to the wrath of the drythroats and raging thirsts of the captives; there was a garden behindit, and a billiard saloon, but these luxuries were not gratuitous; poorFreckle could not even pay his one sou per diem to cook his rations, sothat the Prisoners' Relief Association had to make him a present of it. He spent his time between his bare, cheerless bedroom and the publichall. There were many Americans in the place; but none of them werefriendly with him when he was found to have no cash. Yet he heard themspeak together of their countrymen who had lain in the same jail yearsbefore. Yonder was the room of Horace Greeley, incarcerated for a debtwhich was not his own; here the blood-stains of the Pennsylvania youthwho looked out of the window, heedless of warning, and was shot dead bythe guard; there the ancient chair, in which Hallidore, the Creole, satso often, possessor of a million francs, but too obstinate to pay histailor's bill and go free. While Freckle thought of these, it wassuggested to him that he was a very wicked man. The tuitions of hispatriarchal father came to mind; he was seen on his knees, to theinfinite amusement of the other debtors, who were, however, quite toopolite to laugh in his face, and he no longer staked his ration of wineat cards, whereby he had commonly lost it, but held long conversationswith an ardent old priest who visited the jail. The priest gave Freckle_breviaries_ and catechisms, and told him that there was no peace ofmind outside of the apostolic fold. 

So Freckle diligently embraced the ancient Romish faith, renounced thetenets of his plain old sire as false and heretical, and earnestlyprepared himself to enter the priesthood. 

In this frame of mind he was found by Mr. Simp, who had unexpectedlyreturned to Paris, and, finding himself again prosperous, came torelease Freckle from the toils of Clichy. 

The latter waved him away. "I wish to know none of you, " he said. "Ishall serve out this term, and never again speak to an American abroad. "

He was firm, and achieved his purpose. Enthusiasm often answers forbrains, and Freckle's religious zeal made him a changed man. He entereda Jesuits' school after his discharge, and in another fashion became asstern, severe, and self-denying as had been his father. He sometimes sawhis old comrade, Simp, driving down the Champs Elysées as Freckle camefrom church in Paris, but the gallant did not recognize the young priestin his dark gown and hose, and wide-rimmed hat. 

They followed their several directions, and in the end, with thelessening fortunes of the Confederacy, grew more moody, and yet moreruined by the consciousness that after once suffering the agony ofexpatriation, they had not improved the added chance to make ofthemselves men, not Colonists. 

It is not the pleasantest phase of our human nature to depict, but sincewe have essayed it, let it close with its own surrounding shadow. 

If we have given no light touch of womanhood to relieve its sombrecareer, we have failed to be artistic in order to be true. 

But that which made the Colonists weak has passed away. There are nolonger slaves at home--may there be no exiles abroad!

 LITTLE GRISETTE. 

 Little Grisette, you haunt me yet; My passion for you was long ago, Before my head was heavy with snow, Or mine eye had lost its lustre of jet. In the dim old Quartier Latin we met; We made our vows one night in June, And all our life was honeymoon; We did not ask if it were sin, We did not go to kirk to know, We only loved and let the world Hum on its pelfish way below; Marked from our castle in the air, How pigmy its triumphal cars: Eight stories from the entry stair, But near the stars!

 Little Grisette, rich or in debt, We were too fond to chide or sigh-- Never so poor that I could not buy A sweet, sweet kiss from my little Grisette. If I could nothing gain or get, By hook, or crook, or song, or story, Along the starving road to glory, I marvelled how your nimble thimble, As to a tune, danced fast and fleeting, And stopped my pen to catch the music, But only heard my heart a-beating; The quaint old roofs and gables airy Flung down the light for you to wear it, And made my love a queen in faery, To haunt my garret. 

 Little Grisette, the meals you set Were sweeter to me than banquet feast; Your face was a blessing fit for a priest, At your smile the candle went out in a pet; The wonderful chops I shall never forget! If the wine was a trifle too sharp or rank, We kissed each time before we drank. The old gilt clock, aye wrong, was swinging The waxen floor your feet reflected; And dear Béranger's _chansons_ singing, You tricked at _picquet_ till detected. You fill my pipe;--is it your eyes Whereat I light your cigarette? On all but me the darkness lies And my Grisette!

 Little Grisette, the soft sunset Lingered a long while, that we might stay To mark the Seine from the breezy quay Around the bridges foam and fret; How came it that your eyes were wet When I ambitiously would be A man renowned across the sea? I told you I should come again-- It was but half way round the globe-- To bring you diamonds for your faith, And for your gray a silken robe: You were more wise than lovers are; I meant, sweetheart, to tell you true, I said a tearful "_Au revoir_;" You said, "_Adieu!_"

 Little Grisette, we both regret, For I am wedded more than wived; Those careless days in thought revived But teach me I cannot forget. Perhaps old age must pay the debt Young sin contracted long ago-- I only know, I only know, That phantoms haunt me everywhere By busy day, in peopled gloam-- They rise between me and my prayer, They mar the holiness of home! My wife is proud, my boy is cold, I dare not speak of what I fret: 'Tis my fond youth with thee I fold, Little Grisette!

MARRIED ABROAD. 

AN AMERICAN ROMANCE OF THE QUARTIER LATIN. 

PART I. 

TEMPTATION. 

To say that Ralph Flare was "lonesome" would convey a feeble idea of hiscondition. Four months in England had gone by wearily enough; but inthis great city of Paris, where he might as well have had no tongue atall, for the uses he could put it to, he pined and chafed--and finallyswore. 

An oath, if not relief in itself, conduces to that effect, and ithappened in this case that a stranger heard it. 

"You are English, " said the stranger, turning shortly upon Ralph Flare. 

"I am not, " replied that youth, "I am an American. "

"Then we are countrymen, " cried the other. "Have you dwelt long in theHôtel du Hibou?"

Ralph Flare stated that he hadn't and that he had, and that he was boredand sick of it, and had resolved to go back to the Republic, and flingaway his life in its armies. 

"Pooh! pooh!" shouted the other, "I see your trouble--you have noacquaintances. It is six o'clock; come with me to dinner, and you shallknow half of Paris, men and women. "

They filed down the tortuous Rue Jacob, now thrice gloomy by the closingshadows of evening, and turning into the Rue de Seine, stopped beforethe doorway of a little painted _boutique_, whereon was written"_Cremery du Quartier Latin_. "

A tall, sallow, bright-eyed Frenchman was seated at a fragment ofcounter within the smallest apartment in the world, and addressing thisman as "Père George" the stranger passed through a second sash doorwayand introduced Ralph Flare to the most miscellaneous and democraticassemblage that he had ever beheld in his life. 

Two long yellow tables reached lengthwise down a long, narrow _salon_, the floor whereof was made of tiles, and the light whereof fizzed andflamed from two unruly burners. A door at the farther end opened upon acook-room, and the cook, a scorched and meagre woman, was standing nowin the firelight, talking in a high key, as only a Frenchwoman can talk. 

Then there was Madame George, fat and handsome, and gossipy likewise, with a baby, a boy, and a daughter; and the patrons of the place, twentyor more in number, were eating and laughing and all speaking at the sametime, so that Ralph Flare was at first stunned and afterward astonished. 

His new acquaintance, Terrapin, went gravely around the table, shakinghands with every guest, and Ralph was wedged into the remotest corner, with Terrapin upon his right, and upon his left a creature so naïve andpetite that he thought her a girl at first, but immediately correctedhimself and called her a child. 

Terrapin addressed her as Suzette, and stated that his friend Ralph wasa stranger and quite solitary; whereat Suzette turned upon him a pair ofsoft, twinkling eyes, and laughed very much as a peach might do, if itwere possible for a peach to laugh. He could only say a horrible _bonjour_, and make the superfluous intimation that he could not speakFrench; and when Madame George gave him his choice of a dozenunpronounceable dishes, he looked so utterly blank and baffled thatSuzette took the liberty of ordering dinner for him. 

"You won't get the run of the language, Flare, " said Terrapin, carelessly, "until you find a wife. A woman is the best dictionary. "

"You mean, I suppose, " said Flare, "a wife for a time. "

Little Suzette was looking oddly at him as he faced her, and when Ralphblushed she turned quietly to her _potage_ and gave him a chance toremark her. 

She had dark, smooth hair, closing over a full, pale forehead, and hershapely head was balanced upon a fair, round neck. There was analertness in her erect ear, and open nostril, and pointed brows whichindicated keen perception and comprehension; yet even more than thisgeneric quickness, without which she could not have been French, thegentleness of Suzette was manifest. 

Ralph thought to himself that she must be good. It was the face of asweet sister or a bright daughter, or one of those school-children withwhom he had played long ago. And withal she was very neat. If anycommandment was issued especially to the French, it enjoined tidiness;but this child was so quietly attired that her cleanliness seemed amatter of nature, not of command. Her cheap coral ear-drops and the thinband of gold upon her white finger could not have been so fitting hadthey been of diamonds; and her tresses, inclosed in a fillet of beads, were tied in a breadth of blue ribbon which made a cunning lover's-knotabove. A plain collar and wristbands, a bright cotton dress and darkapron, and a delicate slipper below--these were the components of apicture which Ralph thought the loveliest and pleasantest and best thathe had ever known. 

In his own sober city of the Middle States he would have been ashamed toconnect with these innocent features a doubt, a light thought, a desire. Yet here in France, where climate, or custom, or man had changed therelations though not the nature of woman, he did but as the world, inblending with Suzette's tranquil face a series of ideas which he darednot associate with what he had called pure, beautiful, or happy. 

Now and then they spoke together, unintelligibly of course, but verymerrily, and Ralph's appetite was that of the great carnivora; potage, beef, mutton, pullet, vanished like waifs, and then came the salad, which he could not make, so that Suzette helped him again with hersprightly white fingers, contriving so marvellous a dish that Ralphthought her a little magician, and wanted to eat salad till daybreak. 

"Now for the cards!" cried Terrapin, when they had finished the _café_and the _eau-de-vie_; and as the parties ranged themselves about thegreater table, Terrapin, who knew everybody, gave their names andavocations. 

"That is Boetia, a journalist on the _Siècle_; you will observe that hesmokes his cigars quite down to the stump. The little man beside him, with a blouse, is Haynau, fellow of the College of BeauxArts--dead-broke, as usual; and his friend, the sallow chap, is Moise, whose father died last week, leaving him ten thousand francs. Moise, youwill see, has a wife, Feefine, though I suspect him of bigamy; and thetall girl, with hair like midnight and a hard voice, is at presentunmarried. Those four fellows and their dames are students of medicine. They have one hundred francs a month apiece, and keep house upon it. "

"And Suzette, " said Ralph Flare, impatiently. 

"Oh, she is a _couturière_, a dressmaker, but just now a clerk at aglover's. She has dwelt sagely, generally speaking. She breakfasts uponfive sous; a roll, café, and a bunch of grapes--her dinner costs eightycentimes, and she makes a franc and a half a day, leaving enough to payher room-rent. "

"It is a little sum--seven dollars and a half a month--how is the girlto dress?"

Terrapin shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. 

They played "ramps, " an uproarious game; and Suzette was impetuous andnoisy as the rest, with brightened cheeks and eyes and a clear, silveryvoice. The stake was a bottle of Bordeaux. Few women play cardshonestly, and Suzette was the first to go out; but seeing that Ralphfloundered and lost continually, she gave him her attention, lookingover his hand, and talking for him, and counting with so dexterousdeceit that he escaped also, while Terrapin paid for the wine. 

It was not the most reputable amusement in the world; but the hours werewinged, and midnight came untimely. Suzette tied on a saucy brown flatstreaming with ribbons, and bade them good-night, ending with Ralph, inwhose palm her little fingers lay pulsing an instant, bringing the bloodto his hand. 

How mean the _cremery_ and its patrons seemed now that she was gone! Thegreat clamp at the portal of his hotel sounded very ghostly as heknocked; the concierge was a hideous old man in gown and nightcap. 

"_Toujours seul, monsieur_, " he said, with an ugly grin. 

"What does that mean, Terrapin?" said Ralph. 

"He says that you always come home alone. "

"How else should I come?" said Ralph, dubiously. 

"How, indeed?" answered Terrapin. 

It was without doubt a dim old pile--the Hôtel du Hibou. What murderers, and thieves, and Jacobins might not have ascended the tiles of the grandstairway? There was a cumbrous mantel in his chamber, funereal withgriffins, and there were portraits with horribly profound eyes. The sofaand the chairs were huge; the deep window-hangings were talking togetherin a rustling, mocking way; while the bed in its black recess seemed sovery long and broad and high for one person, that Ralph sat down at thestone table, too lonely or too haunted to sleep. 

Would not even this old grave be made merry with sunlight, if littleSuzette were here?

He opened the book of familiar French phrases, and began to copy some ofthem. He worked feverishly, determinedly, for quite a time. Then he readthe list he had made, half aloud. It was this:

"Good-morning, my pretty one!"

"Will you walk with me?"

"May I have your company to dinner?"

"What is your name?"

"I dare say you laugh at my pronunciation. "

"I am lonely in Paris. "

"Are you?"

"You ought to see my chambers. "

"Let me buy you a bracelet!"

"I love you!"

Ralph's voice stopped suddenly. There were deep echoes in the greatroom, which made him thrill and shudder. How still and terrible were thesilence and loneliness!

A pang, half of guilt, half of fear, went keenly to his heart. It seemedto him that his mother was standing by his shoulder, pointing with herthin, tremulous fingers to the writing beneath him, and saying:

"My boy, what does this mean?"

He held it in the candle-flame, and thought he felt better when it wasburned; but he could not burn all those thoughts of which the paper wasonly a copy. 

PART II. 

POSSESSION. 

If the _cremery_ had seemed lonely by gaslight, what must Ralph Flarehave said of it next morning, as he sat in his old place and watched the_ouvriers_ at breakfast? They came in, one by one, with their baton ofbrown bread, and called for two sous' worth of coffee and milk. The menwore blouses of blue and white, and jested after the Gallic code withthe sewing-girls. This bread and coffee, and a pear which they shouldeat at noon, would give them strength to labor till nightfall broughtits frugal repast. Yet they were happy as crickets, and a great dealmore noisy. 

Here is little Suzette, smiling and skipping, and driving her glancesstraight into Ralph Flare's heart. 

"Good-day, sir, " she cries, and takes a chair close by him, after themanner of a sparrow alighting. She smooths back her pure wristbands, disclosing the grace of the arm, and as she laughs in Ralph's face heknows what she is saying to herself; it is more doubtful that he lovesher than that she knows it. 

"_Peut-être, monsieur, vous-avez besoin des gants?_"

She gave him the card of her _boutique_, and laughed like a sunbeamplaying on a rivulet, and went out singing like the witch that she was. 

"I don't want gloves, " said Ralph Flare; "I won't go to her shop. "

But he asked Père George the direction, notwithstanding; and though hisconscience seemed to be blocking up the way--a tangible, visible, provoking conscience--he put his feet upon it and shut his lips, andfound the place. 

Ralph Flare has often remarked since--for he is quite an artistnow--that of all scenes in art or nature that _boutique_ was to him therarest. He has tried to put it into color--the miniature counter, theshow-case, the background of boxes, each with a button lookingmischievously at him, or a glove shaking its forefinger, or a shapelypair of hose making him blush, and the daintiest child in the world, flushing and flirting and gossiping before him; but the sketch recallsmatters which he would forget, his hands lose command, something makeshis eye very dim, and he lays aside his implements, and takes a longwalk, and wears a sober face all that day. 

We may all follow up the sequence of a young man's thoughts in doing astrange wrong for the first time. If Ralph's passions of themselvescould not mislead him, there were not lacking arguments and advisers toteach him that this was no offence, or that the usage warranted the sin. He became acquainted, through Terrapin, with dozens of his countrymen;the youngest and the oldest and the most estimable had their openattachments. So far as he could remark, the married and the unmarriedtradesmen's wives in Paris were nearly equal in consideration. How couldhe become perfect in the language without some such incentive andassociate?

His income was not considerable, but they told him that to double hisexpenses was certain economy. He was very lonely, and he loved company. His age was that at which the affections and the instincts alike impelthe man to know more of woman--the processes of her mind, hercapacities, her emotions, the idiosyncrasies which divided her from hisown sex. 

Hitherto he had been chaste, though once when he had confessed it toTerrapin, that incredulous person said something about the marines, andrepeated it as a good joke; he felt, indeed, that he was not entirelymanly. He had half a doubt that he was worthy to walk with men, else whyhad not his desires, like theirs, been stronger than his virtue; and hadnot the very feebleness of desire proved also a feebleness of power?But, more than all, he had a weakness for Suzette. 

There was old Terrapin, with bonnets and dresses in his wardrobe, and asewing-basket on his mantel, and with his own huge boots outside thedoor a pair of tapering gaiters, and in his easy-chair a little being tosing and chatter and mix his punch and make his cigarettes. Ah! how muchmore entrancing would be Ralph's chamber with Suzette to garnish it! Hewould make a thousand studies of her face; she should be his model, hisprofessor, his divinity! What was gross in her he would refine; whatdark he would make known. They would walk together by the river side, into the parks, into the open country. He would know no regrets for thefriends across the sea. Europe would become beautiful to him, and hisart would find inspiration from so much loveliness. No indissoluble tiewould bind them, to make kindness a duty and love necessity. No socialtyranny should prescribe where he should visit, and where she shouldnot. The hues of the picture deepened and brightened as he imagined it. He was resolved to do this thing, though a phantom should come to hisbedside every night, and every shadow be his accusation. 

He committed to memory some phrases of French; Terrapin was hisinterpreter, and they went together--those three and a sober_cocher_--to the Bois de Boulogne. Terrapin stated to Suzette in ashockingly informal way that Ralph loved her and would give her abeautiful chamber and relieve her from the drudgery of the glove-shop. 

They were passing down the broad, gravelled drive, with the foliageabove them edged with moonlight, the mock cataract singing musicallybelow, and the _cocher_, half asleep, nodding and slashing his horses. And while Terrapin turned his head and made himself invisible incigar-smoke, Ralph folded Suzette to his breast, and kissed her once sodemonstratively that the _cocher_ awoke with a spring and nearly felloff the box, but was quite too much of a _cocher_ to turn andinvestigate the matter. 

That was the ceremony, and that night the nuptials. Few young couplesmake a better commencement. She gave him a list of her debts, and hepaid them. They removed from Ralph's dim quarters to a cheap andcheerful chamber upon the new Boulevard. It was on the fifth floor; theroom was just adapted for so little a couple. Superficially observed, the furniture resolved itself into an enormous clock and a monstrouslyfine mirror; but after a while you might remark four small chairs and agreat one, a bureau and a wardrobe, a sofa and a canopied bed; and justwithout the two gorgeously curtained windows lay a cunning balcony, where they could sit of evenings, with the old ruin of the Hôtel Clunybeneath them, the towers of Notre Dame in the middle ground, and at thehorizon the beautifully wooded hill of Père la Chaise. 

Suzette had tristful eyes when they rested upon this cemetery. Her babylay there, without a stone--not without a flower. 

"_Pauvre petite Jules!_" she used to say, nestling close to Ralph, andfor a little while they would not speak nor move, but the smoke of hiscigar made a charmed circle around them, and the stars came out above, and the panorama of the great Boulevard moved on at their feet. 

Their first difficulties were financial, of course. Suzette would haveliked a silken robe, a new bonnet, a paletot, gloves and concomitantsunlimited. She delighted to walk upon the Boulevard, the Rue Rivoli, andinto the Palais Royal, looking into the shop-windows and selecting whatshe would buy when Ralph's remittances came. Her hospitality when hisfriends visited him did less honor to her purse than to her heart. Shecertainly made excellent punches; Terrapin thought her cigarettesunrivalled; she was fond of cutting a fruit-pie, and was quite a_connoisseur_ with wines. Ralph did not wonder at her tidiness when thelaundry bills were presented, but doubted that the _coiffeur_ beautifiedher hair; and one day, when a cool gentleman in civil uniform knocked atthe door, and insisted upon the immediate payment of a bill for fiftyfrancs, he lost his temper and said bad words. What could be done?Suzette was sobbing; Ralph detested "scenes;" he threatened to leavethe hotel and Paris, and frightened her very much--and paid the money. 

"You said, Suzette, that you had rendered a full account of all yourindebtedness. You told me a lie!"

"Poor boy, " she replied, "this debt was so old that I never expected tohear of it. "

"Have you any more--old or otherwise?"

Suzette said demurely that she did not owe a sou in the world, but wasable to recall thirty francs in the course of the afternoon, and assuredhim, truly, that this was the last. 

Still, she lacked economy. They went to the same _cremery_, but hermeals cost one half more than his. She never objected to a ride in a_voiture_; she liked to go to the balls, but walked very soberly uponhis arm, recognizing nobody, and exacting the same behavior from Ralph. Let him look at an unusually pretty girl, through a shop-window, uponhis peril! If a letter came for him signed Lizzie, or Annie, or Mary, she took the dictionary and tried to interpret it, and in the end calledhim a _vilain_ and wept. 

Toward the letters signed "Lizzie" she conceived a deep antipathy. Witha woman's instinct she discerned that "Lizzie" was more to Ralph thanany other correspondent. A single letter satisfied her of this; and whenhe was reading it, for the second time, she snatched it from his handand flung it fiercely upon the floor. Ralph's eyes blazed menace and herown cowered. 

"Take up that letter, Suzette!"

"I won't!"

"Take it up, I say! I command! instantly!" He had risen to his feet, and was the master now. She stooped, with pale jealousy lying whitely inher temples, and gave it to him meekly, and sat down very stricken anddesolate. There was one whom he loved better than her--she felt itbitterly--a love more respectful, more profound--a woman, perhaps, whomhe meant to make his wife some day, when SHE should be only a shamefulmemory!

It may have been the reproach of this infidelity, or the thought of hishome, or the infatuation of his present guileful attachment, which keptRalph Flare from labor. 

There was the great Louvre, filled with the riches of the old masters, and the galleries of the Luxembourg with the gems of the French school, so marvellous in color and so superb in composition, and the mightymuseum of Versailles, with its miles of battle pictures--yet the thirdmonth of his tenure in Paris was hastening by, and he had not made onecopy. 

Suzette was a bad model. She _posed_ twice, but changed her position, and yawned, and said it was ridiculous. He had never made more than acrayon portrait of her. He found, too, that five hundred francs a monthbarely sufficed to keep them, and once, in the interval of a remittance, they were in danger of hunger. Yet Suzette plied her needle bravely, andwas never so proud as when she had spread the dinner she had earned. Inacknowledgment of this fidelity Ralph took her to a grand _magasin_, where they examined the goods gravely, as married folks do, consultingeach other, and trying to seem very sage and anxious. 

There probably was never such a bonnet as Suzette's in the world. It wasblack, and full of white roses, and floating a defiant ostrich-plume, and tied with broad red ribbons, whereby she could be recognized fromone end of the Luxembourg gardens to the other. 

The paletot was clever in like manner; she made the dress herself, andits fit was perfection, showing her plump little figure all the plumper, while its black color set off the whiteness of her simple collar, andwith those magic gaiters, Ralph's gift also, he used to sit in the bigchair, peering at her, and in a quandary as to whether he had ever beenso happy before, or ever so disquieted. 

"Now, my little woman, " said Ralph, "I have redeemed my promises; youhave a chamber, and garments, and subsistence--more than any of yourfriends--and I am with you always; few wives live so pleasantly; butthere is one thing which you must do. "

Suzette, sitting upon his knee, protested that he could not command anyimpossible thing which she would not undertake. 

"You must work a little; we are both idle, and if we continue so, mayhave _ennui_ and may quarrel. After three days I will not pay for yourbreakfasts, and every day in which you do not breakfast with me, payingfor yourself, I will give you no dinner. Remember it, Suzette, for I amin earnest. "

Her color fell a little at this, for she had no love for the needle. Itwas merrier in the _boutique_ to chat with customers, yet she startedfairly, and for a week earned a franc a day. The eighth day came; shehad no money. Ralph put on his hat and went down the _Rue L'École deMédecin_ without her; but his breakfast was unpalatable, indigestible. Five o'clock came round; she was sitting at the window, perturbedlywaiting to see how he would act. 

It wrung his heart to think that she was hungry, but he tried to be veryfirm. 

"I am going to dinner, Suzette! I keep my word, you see. "

"It is well, Ralph. "

That night they said little to each other. The dovecote was quite cold, for the autumn days were running out, and they lighted a hearth fire. Suzette made pretence of reading. She had an impenitent look; for sheconceived that she had been cruelly treated, and would not be soothednor kissed. Ralph smoked, and said over some old rhymes, and, finallyrising, put on his cloak. 

"I am going out, Suzette; you don't make my room cheerful. "

"_Bien!_"

He walked very slowly and heavily down the stairs, to convince her thathe was really going or hoping to be recalled, but she did not speak. Hesaw the light burning from his windows as he looked up from below. Hewas regretful and angry. At Terrapin's room he drank much raw brandy andsang a song. He even called the astute Terrapin a humbug, and towardmidnight grew quarrelsome. They escorted him to his hotel door; thelight was still burning in his room. He was sober and repentant when hehad ascended the long stairs, though he counterfeited profounddrunkenness when he stood before her. 

She had been weeping, and in her white night-habit, with her dark hairfalling loosely upon her shoulders, she was very lovely. The clockstruck one as they looked at each other. She fell upon his neck andremoved his garments, and wrapped him away between the coverlets; and hewatched her for a long time in the flickering light till a deep sleepfell upon him, so that he could not feel how closely he was clasped inher arms. 

PART III. 

CONSCIENCE. 

Lest it has not been made clear in these paragraphs whether Suzette wasa good or a wicked being, we may give the matured and recent judgment ofRalph Flare himself. Put to the test of religion, or even ofrespectability, this intimacy was baneful. A wild young man had brokenhis honor for the companionship of a poor, errant girl. She was poor, but she hated to work; she had no regard for his money; she did notshare his ambition. Making against her a case thus clear and certain, Ralph Flare entered for Suzette the plea of _not_ wicked, and this washis defence!

_She was educated in France. _ Particular sins lose their shame in somecountries. Woman in France had not the high mission and respect whichshe fulfilled in his own land. Suzette was one of many children. Herfather was the cultivator of a few acres in Normandy. Her mother died asthe infant was ushered into the world. To her father and brothers shewas of an unprofitable sex, and her sisters disliked her because shewas handsomer than they. Her childhood was cheerless enough, for she hadquick instincts, and her education availed only to teach her how grandwas the world, and how confined her life. She left her home by stealth, in the night, and alone. In the city of Cherbourg she found occupation. She dwelt with strangers; she was lonely; her poverty and her beautywere her sorrows. She was a girl only till her fifteenth year. 

The young mother has but one city of refuge--Paris. Without friends shepassed the bitterness of reminiscence. Through the poverty of skill orsustenance she lost her boy, and the great city lay all before her whereto choose. Luckily, in France every avenue to struggle was not closed toher sisterhood; with us such gather only the wages of sin. It was notthere an irreparable disgrace to have fallen. For a full year she livedpurely, industriously, lonely; what adventures ensued Ralph knewimperfectly. She met, he believed that she loved him. It was notprobable, of course, that she came out of the wrestle unscathed. Shedeceived in little things, but he knew when to trust her. She wasquick-tempered and impatient of control, but he understood her, andtheir quarrels were harbingers of their most happy seasons. She wasgenerous, affectionate, artless. He did not know among the similarattachments of his friends any creature so pliable, so true, sobeautiful. 

It was upon her acquaintances that Ralph placed the blame when sheerred. Fanchette was one of these--the dame of a student from Bretagne, a worldly, plotting, masculine woman--the only one whom he permitted tovisit her. It was Fanchette who loaned her money when she was indolent, and who prompted her to ask favors beyond his means. 

Toward the end of every month Ralph's money ran out, and then he waspetulant and often upbraided her. Those were the only times when heessayed to study, and he would not walk with her of evenings, sodestitute. Then Fanchette amused her: "Sew in my room, " she would say;"Ralph will come for you at eight o'clock. " But Ralph never went, andFanchette poisoned his little girl's mind. 

"When will you leave Paris, baby?" said Suzette one evening, as shereturned from her friend's and found him sitting moodily by the fire. 

"Very soon, " he replied crisply; "that is, if ever I have money orresolution enough to start. "

"Won't you take me with you, little one?"

"No!"

"You don't love me any more!"

"Pish!"

"Kiss me, my boy!"

"Oh, go away, you bother me--you always bother me when my money is low. Haven't I told you about it before?"

But the next morning as Suzette made her toilet, older and moresilently, he felt repentant, and called her to him, and they talked along while of nothingnesses. He had a cruel way of playing with herfeelings. 

"Suzette, " he would say, "would you like me to take you to my countryand live with you forever?"

"Very much, my child!"

"My father has a beautiful farm, which he means to give to me. There isa grand old house upon it, and from the high porch you can see the bluebay speckled with sails. The orchards are filled with apples and pears. You must walk an hour to get around the corn-fields, and there is apicnic ground in the beech-woods, where we might entertain our friends. I have many friends. How jolly you would look in my big rocking-chair, before the fireplace blazing with logs, and with your lap full ofchestnuts, telling me of Paris life!"

She was drinking it all in, and the blood was ripe in her cheeks. 

"Think, little one, " he said, "of passing our days there, you and I! Ihave made you my wife, for example; I paint great pictures; you areproud of me; everybody respects you; you have your saddle-horse and yourtea-parties; you learn to be ashamed of what you were; you are anxiousto be better--not in people's eyes only, but in mine, in your own. To dogood deeds; to sit in the church hearing good counsel; to be patted uponthe forehead by my father--his daughter!--and to call my brother yourbrother also. Thus honored, contented, good, your hairs turn gray withmine. We walk along hand in hand so evenly that we do not perceive howold we are growing. We may forget everything but our love; that remainswhen we are gone--a part of our children's inheritance. "

He spoke excellent French now; to her it was eloquence. Her arms werearound his neck. He could feel her heart, beating. He had expressed whatshe scarcely dared to conceive--all her holiest, profoundest hopes, herlonging for what she had never been, for what she believed she would tryto be worthy of. 

"Oh, my baby, " she cried, half in tears, "you make me think! I havenever thought much or often; I wish I was a scholar, as you are, to tellyou how, since we have dwelt together, something like that has come tome in a dream. Perhaps it is because you talk to me so that I love youso greatly. Nobody ever spoke to me so before. That is why I am angrywhen your proud friend Lizzie writes to you. All that good fortune isfor her; you are to quit Paris and me. My name will be unworthy to bementioned to her. How shall I be in this bad city, growing old; yet Iwould try so earnestly to improve and be grateful!"

"Would you, truly, sweetheart?"

She only sobbed and waited; he coughed in a dry way and unclasped herhands. 

"I pity you, poor Suzette, " he said, "but it is quite impossible for usto be more to each other. My people would never speak to me if I behavedso absurdly. Go to bed now, and stop crying; good-night. "

She staggered up, so crushed and bowed and haggard that his consciencesmote him. He could not have done a greater cruelty to one likeher--teaching her to hope, then to despair. The next day, and the next, she worked at Fanchette's. His remittance did not come; he was out oftemper, and said in jest that he would set out for Italy within a week. There was a pale decision in her countenance the fourth morning. She puton her gray robe and a little cap which she had made. He did not offerto kiss her, and she did not beseech it. He saw her no more until nineo'clock, when she came in with Fanchette, and her cheeks were flushedas with wine. This made him more angry. He said nothing to either ofthem and went to sleep silently. 

The fifth day she returned as before. He was sitting up by thefireplace; his rent was due; he was quite cast down, and said:

"Dear, when my purse was full you never went away two whole days, leaving me alone. "

"You are to leave me, Ralph, forever!" But she was touched, and in themorning said that she would come back at midday. Still no remittance. Hefelt like a bear. Twelve o'clock came--Suzette did not appear. Itdrifted on to one; he listened vainly for her feet upon the stairs. Attwo he sat at the window watching; she entered at three, half mild, halftimorous, and gave him a paper of sugar plums. 

"Where did those come from?" he asked, with a scowl. 

"Fanchette gave them to me. "

"I don't believe it; there is _kirsch wasser_ on your lips; you havebeen drinking. "

She drew her handkerchief from her pocket; a little box, gilt-edged, came out with it, and rolled into the middle of the floor. Suzetteleaped for it with a quick pallor; he wrenched it from her hands after afierce struggle, and delving into the soft cotton with which it waspacked, brought out sleeve-buttons of gold and a pearl breastpin. Theywere new and glittering, and they flashed a burning suspicion into hisheart. He forced her unresisting into a chair, and flung them far out ofthe window, over the house-roofs. Then he sat down a moment to gainbreath, and marked her with eyes in which she saw that she was alreadytried and sentenced. 

"Who gave you those things, Suzette?" he asked in a forced, strangemonotone. 

"My ancient _patronne_. "

"What's her name?"

"I don't know. "

"Where does she live?"

"I shan't tell you. "

He held her wrist tightly and pressed her back till her eyes werecompelled to mark his white, pinched lips and altogether bloodlesstemples. His hand tightened upon her; his full, boyish figurestraightened and heightened beyond nature; his regard was terrible. Aterrible fear and silence fell around about them. 

"These are the gifts of a man, " he whispered; "you do not know it betterthan I. I shall walk out for one hour; at the end of that time theremust not be even a ribbon of yours in this chamber. "

PART IV. 

REMORSE. 

He gave the same order to the proprietor as he passed down-stairs, andhurried at a crazy pace across the Pont des Arts to the rooms ofTerrapin. That philosopher was playing whist with his friends, and gaveas his opinion that Ralph was "spooney. "

Ralph drank much, talked much, chafed more. Somebody advised him totravel, but he felt that Europe had nothing to show him like that whichhe had lost. He told Madame George the story at the _cremery_. 

"Ah, monsieur, " she said, "that is the way with all love in Paris. "

He played "ramps" with the French, but the game impressed him as stupid, and he tried to quarrel with Boetia, who was too polite to be vexed. Hedrank pure cognac, to the astonishment of the Gauls, but it had novisible effect upon him, and Père George held up his hands as he wentaway, saying: "Behold these Americans! they do everything with a fever;brandy affects them no more than water. "

The room in the fifth story was very cold now. He tried to read in bed, but the novel had no meaning in it. He walked up and down the balcony inthe November night, where he had often explained the motions of thestars to her. They seemed to miss her now, and peeped inquisitively. Helooked into the bureau and wardrobe, half ashamed of the hope that shehad left some _souvenir_. There was not even a letter. She had torn aleaf, on which she had written her name, out of his diary. The sketcheshe had made of her were gone; if she had only taken her remembrance outof his heart, it would have been well. Then he reasoned, with himself, sensibly and consistently. It was a bad passion at first. How would ithave shamed his father and mother had they heard of it! Its continuancewas even more pernicious, making him profligate and idle; introducinghim to light pleasures and companies; enfeebling him, morally andphysically; diverting him from the beautiful arts; weakening hisparental love; divorcing him from grand themes and thoughts. He couldnever marry this woman. Their heart-strings must have been wrung by somefinal parting; and now that she had been proved untrue, was it not mostunmanly that he should permit her to stand even in the threshold of hismind? It was a good riddance, he said, pacing the floor in thefirelight; but just then he glanced into the great mirror, and stoodfixed to mark the pallor of his face. Say what he might, laugh as hedid, with a hollow sound, that absent girl had stirred the veryfountains of his feelings. Not learned, not beautiful, not anything toanybody but him--there was yet the difference between her love and herdeceit, which made him content or wretched. 

He felt this so keenly that he lifted his voice and cursed--himself, her, society, mankind. Then he cried like a child, and called himself acalf, and laughed bitterly, and cried again. 

There was no sleep for him that night. He drank brandy again in themorning, and walked to the banker's. His remittance awaited him, and hecame out of the Rue de la Paix with thirty gold napoleons in his pocket. 

He met all the Americans at breakfast at Trappe's in the Palais Royal, and strolling to the morgue with a part of them, kept on to Vincennes, and spent a wretched day in the forest. At the Place de la Bastille, returning, he got into a cabriolet alone and searched ineffectuallyalong the Rue Rivoli for a companion who would ride with him. "Gothrough the Rue de Beaux Arts!" he said, as they crossed Pont Neuf. Thisis a quiet street in the Latin Quarter filled with cheap _pensions_, inone of which dwelt Fanchette. His heart was wedged in his throat as hesaw at the window little Suzette sewing. She wore one of the dresses hehad given her. Her face was old and piteous; she was red-eyed and workedwearily, looking into the street like one on a rainy day. 

When she saw him, he thought, by her start and flush, that she was goingto fall from the chair; but then she looked with a dim, absent mannerinto his face, like one who essays to remember something that was verydear but is now quite strange. He was pleased to think that she wasmiserable, and would have given much to have found her begging bread, asshe did that night of him. 

He had ridden by on purpose to show that he had money, and she sent himby Terrapin's word a petition for a few francs to buy her a chamber. Fanchette's friend had come home from the country, and it would not dofor her to occupy their single bedroom; but Ralph made reply by deputy, to the effect that the donor of the jewelry would, he supposed, give hera room. It was a weary week ensuing; he drank spirits all the time, andmade love to an English governess in the Tuileries garden, and whenSunday came, with a rainy, windy, dismal evening, he went with Terrapinand Co. To the Closerie des Lilas. 

This is the great ball of the Latin Quarter. It stands near the barriersupon the Boulevard, and is haunted with students and grisettes. Commonlyit was thronged with waltzers, and the scene on gala nights, when allthe lamps were aflame, and the music drowned out by the thunder of thedance, was a compromise between Paradise and Pandemonium. To-night therewas a beggarly array of folk; the multitude of _garçons_ contemplatedeach other's white aprons, and old Bullier, the proprietor, staggeringunder his huge hat, exhibited a desire to be taken out and interred. Thewild-eyed young man with flying, carroty locks, who stood in the setdirectly under the orchestra, at that part of the floor called "thekitchen, " was flinging up his legs without any perceptible enjoyment, and the policemen in helmets, and cuirassiers, who had hard work to keeporder in general, looked like lay figures now, and strolled off into theembowered and sloppy gardens. There were not two hundred folk under theroofs. Ralph had come here with the unacknowledged thought of meetingSuzette, and he walked around with his cigar, leaning upon Terrapin'sarm and making himself disagreeable. 

Suddenly he came before her. She seemed to have arisen from the earth. She looked so weak and haggard that he was impelled to speak to her; buthe was obdurate and hard-hearted. He could have filled her cup ofbitterness and watched her drink it to the dregs, and would have beenrelentless if she was kneeling at his feet. 

"Flare, what makes you tremble so?" said Terrapin; "are you cold?Confound it, man, you are sick! Sit here in the draft and take somecognac. "

"No, " answered Ralph, "I am all right again. You see my girl there?(Don't look at her!) You know some of these girls, old fellow? I mean totreat two of them to a bottle of champagne. She will see it. I mean forher to do so. Who are these passing? Come with me. "

He walked by Suzette and her friend as if they had been invisible, andaddressed those whom he pursued with such energy that they shrank back. He made one of them take his arm, and hurried here and there, sayinghoneyed words all the time, by which she was affrighted; but everysmile, false as it was, fell into Suzette's heart. 

Weary, wan, wretched, she kept them ever in view, crossing his path nowand then, in the vain thought that she might have one word from him, though it were a curse. He took his new friends into an alcove. She sawthe wine burst from the bottle, and heard the clink of the glasses asthey drank good health. She did not know that all his laughter wasfeigned, that his happiness was delirium, that his vows were lies. Shedid not believe Ralph Flare so base as to put his foot upon her, whom hehad already stricken down. 

And he--he was all self, all stone!--he laid no offence at his own door. He did not ask if her infidelity was real or if it had no warrant in hisown slight and goading. The poor, pale face went after himreproachfully. Every painful footfall that she made was the patter of ablood-drop. Such unnatural excitement must have some termination. Hequarrelled with a waiter. Old Bullier ordered a cuirassier to take himto the door; he would have resisted, but Terrapin whispered: "Don't befoolish, Flare; if you are put out it will be a triumph for the girl;"and only this conviction kept him calm. The cyprians whom he wooedfollowed him out; he turned upon them bitterly when he had crossed thethreshold, and leaping into a carriage was driven to his hotel, wherehe slept unquietly till daybreak. 

See him, at dawn, in deep slumber! his face is sallow, his lips are dry, his chest heaves nervously as he breathes hard. It is a bad sleep; it isthe sleep of bad children, to whom the fiend comes, knowing that theolder they grow the more surely are they his own. 

This is not, surely, the bashful young man who started at the phantom ofhis mother, and sinned reluctantly. Aye! but those who do wrong aftermuch admonishment are wickeder than those who obey the first badimpulse. He is ten times more cast away who thinks and sins than he whoonly sins and does not think. 

Ralph Flare was one of your reasoning villains. His conscience was not abetter nature rising up in the man, and saying "this is wrong. " It wasnot conscience at all; it was only a fear. Far down as Suzette might be, she never could have been unfeeling, unmerciful as he. It is a badcharacter to set in black and white, yet you might ask old Terrapin orany shrewd observer what manner of man was Ralph, and they would say, "So-so-ish, a little sentimental, spooney likewise; but a good fellow, agood fellow!" And more curious than all, Suzette said so too. 

He rose at daylight, and dressed and looked at himself in the glass. Hefelt that this would not do. His revenge had turned upon himself. He hadhalf a mind to send for Suzette, and forgive her, and plead with her tocome back again. The door opened: she of whom he thought stood beforehim, more marked and meagre than he; and the old tyranny mounted to hiseyes as he looked upon her. He knew that she had come to be pardoned, toexplain, and he determined that she should suffer to the quick. 

PART V. 

TYRANNY. 

If this history of Ralph Flare that we are writing was not a fiction, wemight make Suzette give way at once under the burden of her grief, andrest upon a chair, and weep. On the contrary, she did just the opposite. She laughed. 

Human nature is consistent only in its inconsistencies. She meant tobreak down in the end, but wished to intimidate him by a show ofcarelessness, so she first said quietly: "Monsieur Ralph, I have come tosee to my washing; it went out with yours; will you tell the proprietorto send it to me?"

"Yes, madame. "

"May I sit down, sir? It is a good way up-stairs, and I want to breathea minute. "

"As you like, madame. "

He was resting on the sofa; she took a chair just opposite. There was atable between them, and for a little while she looked with a ghastlyplayfulness into his eyes, he regarding her coldly and darkly; and then, she laughed. It was a terrible laugh to come from a child's lips. It wasa woman's pride, drowning at the bottom of her heart, and in its laststruggle for preservation sending up these bubbles of sound. 

We talk of tragic scenes in common life; this was one of them. Thelittle room with its waxed, inlaid floor, the light falling bloodily inat the crimson curtains and throwing unreal shadows upon the spent fire, the disordered furniture, the unmade bed; and there were the two actors, suffering in their little sphere what only _seems_ more suffering inprisons and upon scaffolds, and playing with each other's agonies as notmore refined cruelty plays with racks and tortures. 

"You are pleased, madame, " said Ralph. 

"No, I am wondering what has changed you. There are black circles aroundyour eyes; you have not shaved; the bones of your cheeks are sharp likeyour chin, and you are yellow and bent like a dry leaf. "

"I have had an excess of money lately. Being free to do as I like, Ihave done so. "

She looked furtively around the room. "Somebody has gone away from herethis morning--is it true?"

He laughed suggestively. 

"I saw you with two girls last night; the company did you honor; it wasone of them, perhaps. "

"You guess shrewdly, " he replied. 

"This is her room now; it may be she will object to see me here. "

"You are right, " said Ralph Flare, with mock courtesy, rising up. "Whenyou lived with me I permitted no one to visit me in your absence. Mylate friends will be vexed. You have finished the business which broughtyou here, and I must go to breakfast now. "

Ralph was a good actor. Had he thought Suzette really meant to go, hewould have fallen on his knees. 

"Stop, Ralph, my boy, " she cried. "I know that you do not love me; Ican't see why I ever believed that you did. But let me sit with you alittle while. You drove me from you once. I know that you have foundone to fill my place; but, _enfant_, I love you. I want to take yourhead in my arms as I have done a hundred times, and hear you say onekind word before we part forever. "

"There was a time, " he said slowly, "when you did not need my embraces. I was eager to give them. I did not give you kindness only; I gave younourishment, shelter, clothing, money. You were unworthy and ungrateful. You are nothing to me now. Do not think to wheedle me back to be yourfool again. "

"Oh! for charity, my child, not for love--I am too wretched to hopethat--for pity, let me sit by your side five minutes. I cannot put itinto words why I beg it, but it is a little thing to grant. If onestarved you, or had stolen from you, and asked it so earnestly, youwould consent. I only want you to think less bitterly of me. You mustneeds have some hard thoughts. I have done wrong, my boy, but you do notknow all the cause, and as what I mean to say cannot make place in yourbreast for me now, you will know that it is true, because it has nodesign. Oh! _Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_ It is so hard to have but one deeplove, and yet find that love the greatest sorrow of one's life. It is sohard to have loved my boy so well, and to know that to the end of hisdays he hated me. "

She said this with all the impetuosity of her race; with utterabandonment of plan or effort, yet with a wild power of love and gesturewhich we know only upon the stage, but which in France is life, feeling, reality. 

She sat down and sobbed, raising her voice till it rolled with a shrillmusic which made him quiver, through the parted curtain and into theturbulent street. There were troops passing beneath the balcony, and theclangor of drums and bugles climbed between the stone walls, as if topour all its mockery into the little room. 

Ralph Flare hated to see a woman cry; it pained him more than her; so helifted her in his arms and carried her to the sofa and placed her headupon his breast. For a long while she sat in that strange luxury ofgrief, and she was fearful that he would send her away before heragitation could pass, and she might speak. His face wore an increduloussneer as she spoke, though he knew it was absolute truth. She told himhow wretched she had been, so wretched that even temptation respectedher; how she had never known the intensity of her passion for him tillthey were asunder; how all previous attachments were as ice to firecompared to this; and how the consciousness of its termination shouldmake her desolate forever. 

"I looked upon you, " she said, "as one whom I had trained up. Since Ihave lost my little Jules I have needed something to care for. I taughtyou to speak my language as if you were a baby. You learned the coinageof the land, and how to walk through the city, and all customs andplaces, precisely as a child learns them from his mother. Alas! you werewiser than I, and it made me sad to feel it. It was like the mother'sregret that her boy is getting above her, in mind, in stature, so thathe shall be able to do without her. Yet with that fear there is a pridelike mine, when I felt that you were clever. Ah! Ralph, you loved tomake me feel how weak and mean I was. You played with my poor heart, sick enough before, and little by little I felt your love gliding awayfrom me, till at last you told me that it was gone. You said you shouldleave France, never to return--God forgive you if it was not true!--andwhen you treated me worst, I was tempted to hear kind words fromanother. Fanchette's friend has a rich cousin who admires me. He is tolive in Paris many years. I never loved him, but I am poor, and manywomen marry only for a home. He offered that and more to me. I would nothear it. Oh! if you had only said one tender word to me in those days oftemptation. I begged you for it. When I was humblest at your feet youput your heel upon me most. 

"One night when I had the greatest trouble of all he sat beside me andplied his suit, and was pleasanter, my boy, than you have ever been; andthen, rising, he placed that box of jewelry in my lap and ran away. Ileft it upon Fanchette's mantel that night. She filled my head withfalse thoughts next day. I never meant while you were in Paris to do youany wrong; but I put those jewels in my pocket, meaning to give them upagain; you found them, and I was made wretched. "

Ralph made that dry, biting cough which he used to express unbelief. Sheonly bent her head and wept silently. 

"When all was gone, poor me! I have found much sorrow in my little life, but we are light-hearted in France, and we live and laugh again. Perhapsyou have made me more like one of your countrywomen. I do notknow--only that I can never be happy any more. 

"Since we have dwelt apart my tempter has been to see me every day. Hehas grand chambers which he will give me, and rich wardrobes, and awatch, and a voiture. It is a dazzling picture for one who toils, goingall her days on foot, and lovely only to be deceived. But I hate thatman now, because he has come between you and me, and I have slept uponmy tears alone. "

She melted again into a long, loud wail, and he proposed nervously thatthey should walk into the gardens near by. He said little, and thatcontemptuously, tossing his cane at the birds, much interested in astatue, delighted with the visitors beneath the maroon trees; and shefollowed him here and there, very weak, for she had eaten no breakfast, and not so deceived but she knew that he labored to wound her. He askedher into a café, cavalierly, and was very careful to make display of hisnapoleons as he paid. He did not invite her, but she followed him to hishotel again, and here, as if with terrible _ennui_, he threw himselfupon his bed and feigned to sleep, while she crouched at his table andwrote him a contrite letter. It was sweetly and simply worded, and askedthat he should let her return to him for his few remaining days inParis. If he could not grant so much, might she speak to him in thestreet; come to see him sometimes, if only to be reviled; love him, though she could not hope to be loved? She gave him this note with herface turned away, and faltered the request that he would think ere hereplied, and hurried to the balcony without, that she might not troublehim with the presence of her sorrow. 

How the street beneath her, into which she looked, had changed since thenights when they talked together upon this balcony! There was brightsunshine, but it fell leeringly, not laughingly, upon the columns of theOdean Theatre, upon the crowds on the Boulevard, upon the decrepit bathsof Julian, upon the far heights of Belleville, upon her more cheerlesslythan upon all. 

She listened timorously for his word of recall. She wondered if he werenot writing a reply. Yes, that was his manner; he was cold and sharp ofspeech, but he was an artist with his pen. She thought that her longpatience had moved him. Perhaps she should be all forgiven. Aye! theyshould dwell together a few days longer. It was a dismal thought that itmust be for a few days, yet that would be some respite, and then theycould part friends; though her heart so clung to his that a partingshould rend it from her, she wanted to live over their brief happinessagain. 

"Oh!" said Suzette, in the end, laying her cheek upon the cold iron ofthe balcony, "I wish I had died at my father's home of pining forsomething to love rather than to have loved thus truly, and have itaccounted my shame. If I were married to this man I could not be hisfonder wife; but because I am not he despises me. All day I have crawledin the dust; I have made myself cheap in his eyes. If I were prouder hemight not love me more, but his respect would be something. "

She rallied and took heart. Pride is the immortal part of woman. With abrighter eye she entered the room. Her letter, blotted with tears, laycrumpled and torn upon the floor at his bedside, and he, with his faceto the wall, was snoring sonorously. 

"Ralph Flare, " cried Suzette, "arise! that letter is the last olivebranch you shall ever see in my hand; _adieu_!"

He opened his eyes yawningly. Suzette, with trembling lips and nostrils, clasped the door-knob. It shut behind her with a shock. Her feet werequick upon the stairs; he pursued her like one suddenly gone mad, andcalled her back with something between a moan and a howl. 

"Do not go away, Suzette, " he cried; "I only jested. I meant thismorning to search you out and beg you to come back. I would not lose youfor France--for the world. Be not rash or retaliatory! become not thecompanion of this Frenchman who has divided us. We will commence again. I have tested your fidelity. You shall have all the liberty that youneed, everything that I have; say to me, sweetheart, that you willstay!"

For a moment her bright eyes were scintillant with wrath andindignation. He who had racked her all day for his pleasure was boundand prostrate now. Should she not do as much for her revenge?

"I have no other friend now, " he pleaded; "my nights have beensleepless, solitary. In the days I have drunk deeply, squandered mymoney, tried all dissipations, and proved them disappointments. If youleave me I swear that I will plague myself and you. "

"Oh! Ralph, " said Suzette, "I do not wonder at the artfulness of womenafter this day's lesson. Something impels me to return your cruelty; itis a bad impulse, and I shall disobey it. I thank God, my baby, that Icannot do as you have done to me. "

She wept again for the last time, but he kissed her tears away, andwondered where the great shame lay, upon that child or upon him?

PART VI. 

DESERTION. 

When the last fresh passion was over, Suzette, whose face had grownpurer and sadder, roused Ralph Flare to his more legitimate ambition. "My child, " she said, "if you will work in the gallery every day I willsew in one of the great _magasans_. "

To see that he commenced fairly, she went with him into the Louvre, andhe selected a fine Rembrandt--an old man, bearded and scarred, massivelycharacterized, and clothed in magic light and shadow. 

As Ralph stood at his easel, meditating the master, Suzette nowfluttered around him, now ran off to the far end of the long hall, wherehe could see her in miniature, the sweetest portrait in France. At lasthe was really absorbed, and she went into the city to fulfil herpromise. She was nimble of finger, and though the work distressed her atfirst, she thought of his applause, and persevered. 

Their method was the marvel of the unimaginative Terrapin, who made somephilosophic comments upon the "spooney" socially considered, and cuttheir acquaintance. 

They breakfasted at the _cremery_ at seven o'clock with the _ouvriers_, and dined at one of Duvall's bouillon establishments. Suzette found thework easier as she progressed. She was finally promoted to the place of_coupeur_, or cutter, and had the superintendence of a work-room, whereshe made four francs a day, and so paid all her expenses. At the end ofthe second month he took the money which he otherwise would haverequired for board, and bought her a watch and chain at the _PalaisRoyale_. At the same time he put the finishing touch to his picture, andwhen hung upon his wall, between their photographs, Suzette dancedbefore it, and took half the credit upon herself. 

Foolish Suzette! she did not know how that old man was her mostdangerous rival. He had done what no beautiful woman in France coulddo--weakened her grasp upon Ralph Flare's heart. For now Ralph's oldenthusiasm for his profession reasserted itself. It was his first anddeepest love after all. 

"My baby, " he said one night, "there was a great artist namedRaphael--and he had a little mistress, whom I don't think a whitprettier than mine. She was called the _Fornarina_, just as you may becalled the _Coutouriere_, and he painted her portrait in the charactersof saints and of the Virgin. She will be remembered a thousand years, because Raphael so loved and painted her. But he was not a great artistonly because he loved the _Fornarina_. He had something that he lovedbetter, and so have I. "

"One more beloved than Suzette?" she cried. 

"Yes! it is art. I loved you more than my art before; but I am goingback to my first love. "

Suzette tossed her head and said that she could never be jealous of apicture, and went her way with a simple faith and toiled; and as shetoiled the more, so grew her love the purer and her content the moreequal. She was not the aerial thing she had been. Retaining herelasticity of spirit, she was less volatile, more silent, more careful, more anxious. 

It is wiser, not happier, to reach that estate called thought; for nowshe asked herself very often how long this chapter of her life wouldlast. Must the time come when he must leave her forever? She thought itthe bitterest of all to part as they had done before, with anger; butany parting must be agony where she had loved so well. As he laysleeping, he never knew what tears of midnight were plashing upon hisface. He could not see how her little heart was bleeding as it throbbed. Yet she went right on, though sometimes the tears blinded her, till shecould not see her needle; but the consciousness that this love and laborhad made her life more sanctified was, in some sort, compensation. 

One Sunday she rose before Ralph, and thinking that she was unobserved, stole out of the hotel and up the Boulevard. He followed her, suspiciously. She crossed the Place de la Sorbonne, turned the transeptof the Pantheon, and entered the old church of St. Etienne du Mont. 

It was early mass. The tapers which have been burning five hundred yearsglistened upon the tomb of the holy St. Genevieve. Here and there oldwomen and girls were kneeling in the chapels, whispering their sins intothe ears of invisible priests. And beneath the delicate tracery ofscreen and staircase, and the gloriously-painted windows, and the imageof Jesus crucified looking down upon all, some groups of poor peoplewere murmuring their prayers and making the sign of the cross. 

Ralph entered by a door in the choir. He saw Suzette stand pallidlybeside the holy water, and when she had touched it with the tips of herfingers, and made the usual rites, she staggered, as if in shame, to aremote chair, and kneeling down covered her face with her missal. Nowand then the organ boomed out. The censers were swung aloft, dispensingtheir perfumes, and all the people made obeisance. Ralph did not knowwhat it all meant. He only saw his little girl penitent and in prayer, and he knew that she was carrying her sin and his to the feet of theEternal Mercy. 

He feigned sleep in the same way each Sunday succeeding, and shedisappeared as before. After a while she spoke of her family, andwondered if her father would forgive her. She would not have forgivenhim three months ago, but was quite humble now. 

She sent her photograph to the old man, and a letter came back, thefirst she had received for two years. 

She felt unwilling, also, to receive further gifts or support fromRalph. If I were his wife, she said, it might be well, but since it isnot so, I must not be dependent. 

Foolish Suzette again! She did not know that men love best where theymost protect. The wife who comes with a dower may climb as high as herhusband's pocket, but seldom lies snugly at his heart. Her changedconduct did not draw him closer to her. He felt uneasy and unworthy. Hemissed the artfulness which had been so winning. He had jealousies nolonger to keep his passion quick, for he could not doubt her devotion. There was nothing to lack in Suzette, and that was a fault. She hadbecome modest, docile, truthful, grave. A noble man might haveappreciated her the better. Ralph Flare was a representative man, and hedid not. 

His friends in America thought his copy from Rembrandt wonderful. Theirflattery made his ambition glow and flame. His mother, whose woman'sinstinct divined the cause of his delay in Paris, sent him a pleadingletter to go southward; and thus reprimanded, praised, rewarded, whatwas he to do?

He resolved to leave France--and without Suzette!

He had not courage to tell her that the separation was final. He spokeof an excursion merely, and took but a handful of baggage. She haddoubts that were like deaths to her; but she believed him, and after afeverish night went with him in the morning to the train. He was towrite every day. 

Would she take money?

"No. "

But she might have unexpected wants--sickness, accident, charity?

"If so, " she said trustfully, "would not her boy come back?"

He had just time to buy his ticket and gain the platform. He folded herin his arms, and exchanged one long, sobbing kiss. It seemed to RalphFlare that the sound of that kiss was like a spell--the breaking of thepleasantest link in his life--the passing from sinfulness to a baserselfishness--the stamp and seal upon his bargain with ambition, wherebyfor the long future he was sold to the sorrow of avarice and thedeceitfulness of fame. 

There was a sharp whistle from the locomotive--who invented that whistleto pierce so many bosoms at parting?--the cars moved one by one till thelast, in which he was seated, sprang forward with a jerk; and though shewas quite blind, he saw her handkerchief waving till all had vanished, and he would have given the world to have shed one tear. 

He has gone on into the free country, and to-night he will sleep underthe shadow of the mountains. 

She has turned back into the dark city, and she will not sleep at all inher far-up chamber. 

It is only one heart crushed, and thousands that deserve more sympathybeat out every day. We only notice this one because it shall liebleeding, and get no sympathy at all. 

PART VII. 

DISSOLVING VIEW. 

That he might not meet with his own countrymen, Ralph halted at Milan, and in the great deserted gallery of the Brera went steadily to work. If, as it often happened, Suzette's pale face got between him and thecanvas, he mentioned his own name and said "renown, " and took a turn inthe remote corridor where young Raphael's _Sposializo_ hung oppositethat marvel of Guercino's--poor Hagar and her boy Ishmael drivenabroad. These adjuncts and the fiercer passion of self had their effect. 

He never wrote to Suzette, but sent secretly for his baggage, and waswell pleased with the consciousness that he could forget her. Afterthree months he set out for Florence and studied the masterpieces ofAndrea del Sarto, and tried his hand at the _Flora_ of Titian. 

He went into society somewhat, and was very much afraid his unworthyconduct in Paris might be bruited abroad. Indeed, he could hardlyforgive himself the fondness he had known, and came to regard Suzette asa tolerably bad person, who had bewitched him. He burned all herletters, and a little lock of hair he had clipped while she was asleeponce, and blotted the whole experience out of his diary. The next Sundayhe went to hear the Rev. Mr. Hall preach, and felt quite consoled. 

The summer fell upon Val d'Arno like the upsetting of a Tuscan_Scaldino_, and Ralph Flare regretfully took his departure northward. All the world was going to Paris--why not he? Was he afraid? Certainlynot; it had been a great victory over temptation to stay away so long. He would carry out the triumph by braving a return. 

In accordance with his principles of economy, he took a third-classticket at Basle. He could so make better studies of passengers; for, somehow, your first-class people have not character faces. The onlycharacter you get out of them is the character of wine they consume. 

He left the Alps behind him, and rolled all day through the prosaicplains of France; startling the pale little towns, down whose treelessstreets the sun shone, oh! so drearily, and taking up boors andmarket-folks at every monastic station. There was a pretty young girlsitting beside Ralph in the afternoon, but he refused to talk to her, for he was schooling himself, and preferred to scan the features of anodd old couple who got in at Troyes. 

They were two old people of the country, and they sat together in thedescending shadows of the day, quite like in garb and feature, theirchins a little peakish, and the hairs of both turning gray. The man wascommonplace, as he leaned upon a staff, and between their feet werepaniers of purchases they had been making, which the woman regardedindifferently, as if her heart reached farther than her eyes, and metsome soft departed scene which she would have none other see. 

"She has a good face, " said Flare. "I wish she would keep there a momentmore. By George, she looks like somebody I have known. "

The old man nodded on his staff. The rumble of the carriages subdued toa lull all lesser talk or murmurs, and the sky afar off brought intosharp relief the two Gallic profiles, close together, as if they wereused to reposing so; yet in the language of their deepening lines laythe stories of lives very, very wide apart. 

"The old girl's face is soft, " said Ralph Flare. "She has brightenedmany a bit of Belgian pike road, and the brown turban on her head is inclever contrast to the silver shimmer of her hairs. How anomalous arelife and art! How unconscious is this old lady of the narrow escape sheis making from perpetuation! Doubtless she works afield beside that oldJacques Bonhomme, and drinks sour wine or Normandy cider on Sundays. That may be the best fate of Suzette, but it must be an amply dryreformation for any little grisette to contemplate. For such prodigalsgoing home there is no fatted calf slain. No fathers see them afar offand run to place the ring upon their fingers. They renounce precariousgayety for persistent slavery. The keen wit of the student is exchangedfor the pipe and mug and dull oath of the boor. I wish every such girlback again to so sallow a fate, and pity her when she gets there. "

And so, with much unconscious sentimentality, and the two old marketpeople silent before him, Ralph Flare's eyes half closed also, and thelull of the wheels, the long lake streaks of the sedative skies, thecoming of great shadows like compulsions to slumber, made his foreheadfall and the world go up and down and darken. 

It was the old woman who shook him from that repose; she only touchedhim, but her touch was like a lost sense restored. He thrilled and satstock still, with her withered blue hand on his arm, and heard thepinched lips say, unclosing with a sort of quiver:

"Baby!"

He looked again, and seemed to himself to grow quite old as he looked, and he said, "_Enfant perdu!_"

The turban kept its place, the peaked chin kept as peaked; there seemedeven more silver in the smooth hair, and the old serge gown drooped asbrownly; but the sweet old face grew soft as a widow's looking at theonly portrait she guards, and a tear, like a drop of water exhumed, ranto the tip of her nostril. 

"Suzette!" he said, "my early sin; do you come back as well with theturning of my hairs? Has the first passion a shadow long as forever? Whyhave we met?"

"Not of my seeking was this meeting, Ralph. Speak softly, for my husbandsleeps, and he is old like thee and me. If my face is an accusation, letmy lips be forgiveness. The love of you made my life dutiful; the lossof you saddened my days, but it was the sadness of religion! I sinned nomore, and sought my father's fields, and delayed, with my hand purifiedby his blessing, the residue of his sands of life. I made my years goodto my neighbors, the sick, the bereaved. I met the temptations of theyoung with a truer story than pleasure tells, and when I married it waswith the prelude of my lost years related and forgiven. With children'sfaces the earnestness and beauty of life returned; for this, for more, for all, may your reward be bountiful!"

There is no curse like the dream of old age. Ralph Flare felt, with thesudden whitening of each separate hair, the sudden remembrance of eachseparate folly; and the moments of grief he had wrung from the littlegirl of the Quartier Latin revived like one's mean acts seen throughothers' eyes. 

"Pardon you, child, Suzette?" he said; "to me you were more than Ihoped, more than I wished. I asked your face only, and you gave me yourheart. For the unfaithfulness, for the wrath, for the unmanliness, forthe tyranny with which I treated you, my soul upbraids me. "

"How thankful am I, " she answered; "the terror to me was that you hadlearned in the Quartier lessons to make your after-life monotonous. I amhappy. "

Their hands met; to his gray beard fell the smile upon her mouth; theyforget the Quartier Latin; they felt no love but forgiveness, which isthe tenderest of emotions. The whistle blew shrilly; the train stopped;Ralph Flare awoke from sleep; but the old couple were gone. 

He went to Paris, and, contrary to his purpose, inquired for her. Shehad been seen by none since his departure. He wrote to the Maire of hercommune, and this was the reply:

 "_Ralph, Merci! Pardonne!_

 "SUZETTE. "

He felt no loss. He felt softened toward her only; and he turned hisback on the Quartier Latin with a man's easy satisfaction that he couldforget. 

 THE PIGEON GIRL. 

 On the sloping market-place, In the village of Compeigne, Every Saturday her face, Like a Sunday, comes again; Daylight finds her in her seat, With her panier at her feet, Where her pigeons lie in pairs; Like their plumage gray her gown, To her sabots drooping down; And a kerchief, brightly brown, Binds her smooth, dark hairs. 

 All the buyers knew her well, And, perforce, her face must see, As a holy Raphael Lures us in a gallery; Round about the rustics gape, Drinking in her comely shape, And the housewives gently speak, When into her eyes they look, As within some holy book, And the gables, high and crook, Fling their sunshine on her cheek. 

 In her hands two milk-white doves, Happy in her lap to lie, Softly murmur of their loves, Envied by the passers-by; One by one their flight they take, Bought and cherished for her sake, Leaving so reluctantly; Till the shadows close approach, Fades the pageant, foot and coach, And the giants in the cloche Ring the noon for Picardie. 

 Round the village see her glide, With a slender sunbeam's pace! Mirrored in the Oise's tide, The gold-fish float upon her face; All the soldiers touch their caps; In the cafés quit their naps Garçon, guest, to wish her back; And the fat old beadles smile As she kneels along the aisle, Like Pucelle in other while, In the dim church of Saint Jacques. 

 Now she mounts her dappled ass-- He well-pleased such friend to know-- And right merrily they pass The armorial château; Down the long, straight paths they tread Till the forest, overhead, Whispers low its leafy love; In the archways' green caress Rides the wondrous dryadess-- Thrills the grass beneath her press, And the blue-eyed sky above. 

 I have met her, o'er and o'er, As I strolled alone apart, By a lonely carrefour In the forest's tangled heart, Safe as any stag that bore Imprint of the Emperor; In the copse that round her grew Tiptoe the straight saplings stood, Peeped the wild boar's satyr brood, Like an arrow clove the wood The glad note of the cuckoo. 

 How I wished myself her friend! (So she wished that I were more) Jogging toward her journey's end At Saint Jean au Bois before, Where her father's acres fall Just without the abbey wall; By the cool well loiteringly The shaggy Norman horses stray, In the thatch the pigeons play, And the forest round alway Folds the hamlet, like a sea. 

 Far forgotten all the feud In my New World's childhood haunts, If my childhood she renewed In this pleasant nook of France; Might she make the blouse I wear, Welcome then her homely fare And her sensuous religion! To the market we should ride, In the Mass kneel side by side, Might I warm, each eventide, In my nest, my pretty pigeon. 

THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 

A TALE OF AN OLD SUBURB. 

 * * * * *

CHAPTER I. 

THE MURDER. 

Between the Delaware River and Girard Avenue, which is the market streetof the future, and east of Frankfort Road, lies Kensington, arespectable old district of the Quaker City, and occupying the samerelation to it that Kensington in England does to London. Beyond bothKensingtons is a Richmond, but the English Richmond is a beauteous hill, with poetical recollections of Pope and Thomson, while our Richmond isthe coal district of Philadelphia, flat to the foot and dingy to theeye. 

Kensington, however, was once no faint miniature of the staid Britishsuburb. The river bending to the eastward there conducts certain of thestreets crookedly away from the rectangular Quaker demon who is everseeking to square them. Along the water side, or near it, passes a sortof Quay Street, between ship-yards and fish-houses on the one side, andshops or small tenements on the other, and this street scarcelydiscloses the small monument on the site of the Treaty Tree, whereWilliam Penn in person satisfied the momentary expectations of hisIndian subjects. 

Nearly parallel to the water side street is another, wider and morearistocratic, and lined with many handsome dwellings of brick, or evenbrown-stone, where the successful shipbuilders, fishtakers, coal men, and professional classes have established themselves or their posterity. This street was once called Queen, afterward Richmond Street, and it iscrossed by others, as Hanover, Marlborough, and Shackamaxon, whichattest in their names the duration of royal and Indian traditionshereabout. Pleasant maple, sometimes sycamore and willow trees shadethese old streets, and they are kept as clean as any in this ever-moppedand rinsed metropolis, while the society, though disengaged from thegreat city, had its better and worser class, and was fastidious aboutmorals and behavior, and not disinclined to express its opinion. 

One winter day in a certain year Kensington had a real sensation. TheDelaware was frozen from shore to shore, and one could walk on the icefrom Smith's to Treaty Island, and from Cooper's Point to the mouth ofthe Cohocksink. On the second afternoon of the great freeze fires werebuilt on the river, and crowds assembled at certain smooth places to seegreat skaters like Colonel Page cut flourishes and show sly gallantry tothe buxom housewives and grass widows of Kensington and the Jerseys. Afew horses were driven on the ice, and hundreds of boys ran merrily withreal sleighs crowded down with their friends. A fight or two wasimprovised, and unlicensed vendors set forth the bottle that inebriates. In the midst of the afternoon gayety a small boy, kneeling down tobuckle up to a farther hole the straps on his guttered skates, saw justat his toe something like human hair. The small boy rose to his feet andstamped with all his might around that object, not in any apprehensionbut because small boys like to know; and when the ice had been wellbroken, kneeling down and pulling it out in pieces with his mitten, thesmall boy felt something cold and smooth, and then he poked his fingerinto a human eye. It was a dead man. No sooner had the urchin found thisout than he bellowed out at the top of his voice, running and falling ashe yelled: "Murder! Murder! Murder!"

From all parts of the ice, like flies chasing over a silver salvertoward some sweet point of corruption, the hundreds and thousandsswarmed at the news that a dead body had been found. When they arrivedon the spot, spades, picks, and ice-hooks had been procured by thosenearest shore, and the whole mystery brought from the depths of theriver to the surface. 

There lay together on the ice two men, apparently several days in thewater, and with the usual look of drowned people of goodcondition--glassy and of fixed expression, as if in the moment of deatha consenting grimness had stolen into their countenances, neithercomposed nor terrified. 

The bodies had been already recognized when the main part of the crowdarrived. Kensington people, generally, knew them both. 

"It's William Zane and his business partner, Sayler Rainey! They own oneof the marine railways at Kensington. Come to think of it, I haven'tseen them around for nearly a week, neighbor!" exclaimed an old man. 

"It's a case of drowning, no doubt, " spoke up a little fellow who did ariver business in old chains and junk. "You see they had anothership-mending place on the island opposite Kinsington, and rowin'theirselves over was upset and never missed!"

"Quare enough too!" added a third party, "for yisterday I had a talkwith young Andrew Zane, this one's son (touching the body with hisfoot), and Andrew said--a little pale I thought he was--says he, 'Pop's_about_. '"

Here a little buzz of mystery--so grateful to crowds which have come farover slippery surface and expect much--undulated to the outwardboundaries. As the people moved the ice cracked like a cannon shot, andthey dispersed like blackbirds, to rally soon again. 

"Here's a doctor! Now we'll know about it! _He's_ here!" was exclaimedby several, as an important little man was pushed along, and thethickest crowd gave him passage. The little man borrowed a boy's cap tokneel on, adjusted a sort of microscopic glass to his nose, as if plaineyes had no adequate use to this scientific necessity, and he called uptwo volunteers to turn the corpses over, keep back the throng, give himlight, and add imposition to apprehension. Finally he stopped at a placein the garments of the principal of the twain. "Here is a hole, " heexclaimed, "with burned woollen fibre about it, as if a pistol had beenfired at close quarters. Draw back this woollen under-jacket! There--asI expected, gentlemen, is a pistol shot in the breast! What is the nameof the person? Ah! thank you! Well, William Zane, gentlemen, was shotbefore he was drowned?"

The great crowd swayed and rushed forward again, and again the icecracked like artillery. Before the multitude could swarm to the honey ofa crime a second time, the news was dispersed that both of the drownedmen had bullet wounds in their bodies, and both had been undoubtedlymurdered. Some supposed it was the work of river pirates; others aprivate revenge, perpetrated by some following boat's party in thedarkness of night. But more than one person piped shrilly ere the peoplewearily scattered in the dusk for their homes on the two shores of theriver: "How did it happen that young Zane, the old un's son, saidyisterday that his daddy was about, when he's been frozen in at leastthree days?"

CHAPTER II. 

THE FLIGHT. 

A handsome residence on the south side of Queen Street had been the homeof the prosperous ship-carpenter, William Zane. His name was on the dooron a silver plate. As the evening deepened and the news spread, the bellwas pulled so often that it aided the universal alarm following a crime, and a crowd of people, reinforced by others as fast as it thinned out, kept up the watch on ever-recurring friends, coroner's officers andnewspaper reporters, as they ascended the steps, looked grave, madeinquiries, and returned to dispense their information. 

But there was very little indignation, for Zane had been an insanelypassionate man, rather hard and exacting, and had he been found deadalone anywhere it would probably have been said at once that he broughtit on himself. His partner, Rainey, however, had conducted himself sonegatively and mildly, and was of such general estimation, that themurder of the senior member of the film took on some unusual publicsympathy from the reflected sorrow for his fellow-victim. The latter hadbeen one of Zane's apprentices, raised to a place in the establishmentby his usefulness and sincere love of his patron. Just, forbearing, soft-spoken, and not avaricious, Sayler Rainey deserved no injury fromany living being. He was unmarried, and, having met with adisappointment in love, had avowed his intention never to marry, but tobequeath all the property he should acquire to his partner's only son, Andrew Zane. 

What, then, was the motive of this double murder? The publiccomprehension found but one theory, and that was freely advanced by therash and imputative in the community of Kensington: The murderer was hewho had the only known temptation and object in such a crime. Who couldgain anything by it but Andrew Zane, the impulsive, the mischief-makingand oft-restrained son of his stern sire, who, by a double crime, wouldinherit that undivided property, free from the control of both parentand guardian?

"It is parricide! that's what it is!" exclaimed a fat woman fromFishtown. "At the bottom of the river dead men tell no tales. Therebellious young sarpint of a son, who allus pulled a lusty oar, haschased them two older ones into the deep water of the channel, where apistol shot can't be heard ashore, and he expected the property to behis'n. But there are gallowses yet, thank the Lord!"

"Mrs. Whann, don't say that, " spoke up a deferential voice from the faceof a rather sallow-skinned young man, with long, ringleted, yellow hair. "Don't create a prejudice, I beg of you. Andrew Zane was my classmate. He gave his excellent father some trouble, but it shouldn't beremembered against him now. Suppose, my friends, that you let me ringthe bell and inquire?"

"Who's that?" asked the crowd. "He's a fine, mature-looking, charitableyoung man, anyway. "

"Its the old Minister Van de Lear's son, Calvin. He's going to succeedhis venerable and pious poppy in Kensington pulpit. They'll let him in. "

The door closed when Calvin Van de Lear entered the residence of thelate William Zane. When it reopened he was seen with a handkerchief inhis hand and his hat pulled down over his eyes, as if he had beenweeping. 

"Stop! stop! don't be going off that way!" interposed the fat fishwife. "You said you would tell us the news. "

"My friends, " replied Calvin Van de Lear, with a look of the greatestpain, "Andrew Zane has not been heard from. I fear your suspicions aretoo true!"

He crossed the street and disappeared into the low and elderly residenceof his parents. 

"Alas! alas!" exclaimed a grave and gentle old man. "That Andrew Zaneshould not be here to meet a charge like this! But I'll not believe ittill I have prayed with my God. "

Within the Zane residence all was as in other houses on funeral eves. Inthe front parlor, ready for an inquest or an undertaker, lay the latemaster of the place, laid out, and all the visitors departed except hishousekeeper, Agnes, and her friend, "Podge" Byerly. The latter was asunny-haired and nimble little lady, under twenty years of age, whotaught in one of the public schools and boarded with her formerschool-mate, Agnes Wilt. Agnes was an orphan of unknown parentage, bymany supposed to have been a niece or relative of Mr. Zane's deceasedwife, whose place she took at the head of the table, and had grown to beone of the principal social authorities in Kensington. In Reverend Mr. Van de Lear's church she was both teacher and singer. The young men ofKensington were all in love with her, but it was generally understoodthat she had accepted Andrew Zane, and was engaged to him. 

Andrew was not dissipated, but was fond of pranks, and so restive underhis father's positive hand that he twice ran away to distant seaports, and thus incurred a remarkable amount of intuitive gossip, such asbelongs to all old settled suburban societies. This occasional firmnessof character in the midst of a generally light and flexible life, nowtold against him in the public mind. "He has nerve enough to do anythingdesperate in a pinch, " exclaimed the very wisest. "Didn't William Zanefind him out once in the island of Barbadoes grubbing sugar-cane with ahoe, and the thermometer at 120 in the shade? And didn't he swear he'dstay there and die unless concessions were made to him, and certainthings never brought up again? Didn't even his iron-shod father have togive way before he would come home? Ah! Andrew is light-hearted, but heis an Indian in self-will!"

To-night Agnes was in the deepest grief. Upon her, and only her, fellthe whole burden of this double crime and mystery, ten times moreterrible that her lover was compromised and had disappeared. 

"Go to bed, Podge!" said Agnes, as the clock in the engine-house struckmidnight. "Oblige me, my dear! I cannot sleep, and shall wait and watch. Perhaps Andrew will be here. "

"I can't leave you up, Aggy, and with that thing so near. " She lockedtoward the front parlor, where, behind the folding-doors, lay the dead. 

"I have no fear of _that_. He was always kind to me. My fears are all inthis world. O _darling_!"

She burst into sobs. Her friend kissed her again and again, and knewthat feelings between love and crime extorted that last word. 

"Aggy, " spoke the light-hearted girl, "I know that you cannot helploving him, and as long as he is loved by you I sha'n't believe himguilty. Must I really leave you here?"

Her weeping friend turned up her face to give the mandatory kiss, andPodge was gone. 

Agnes sat in solitude, with her hands folded and her heart filled withunutterable tender woe, that so much causeless cloud had settled uponthe home of her refuge. She could not experience that relief many of usfeel in deep adversity, that it is all illusion, and will in a momentfloat away like other dreams. Brought to this house an orphan, and twicedeprived of a mother's love, she had only entered woman's estate whenanother class of cares beset her. Her beauty and sweetness ofdisposition had brought her more lovers than could make her happy. Therewas but one on whom she could confer her heart, and this natural choicehad drawn around her the perils which now overwhelmed them all. Accepting the son, she incurred the father's resentment upon both; forhe, the dead man yonder, had also been her lover. 

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed the anguished woman, kneeling by her chair andlaying her cheek upon it, while only such tears as we shed in suprememoments saturated her handkerchief, "what have I done to make suchmisery to others? How sinful I must be to set son and father againsteach other! Yet, Heavenly Father, I can but love!"

There was a cracking of something, as if the dead man in the great, black parlor had carried his jealousy beyond his doom and was breakingfrom his coffin to upbraid her. A door burst open in the dining-room, which was behind her, and then the dining-room door also unclosed, andwas followed by a cold, graveyard draft. A moment of superstitionpossessed Agnes. "Guard me, Saviour, " she murmured. 

At the dining-room threshold, advancing a little over the sill, as if torush upon her, was the figure of a man, dressed, head to foot, insailor's garments--heavy woollens, comforter, tarpaulin overalls, andknit cap. He looked at her an instant, standing there, shivering, andthen he retired a pace or two and closed the door to the cellar, bywhich he had entered the house. Even this little movement in theintruder had something familiar about it. He advanced again, directlyand rapidly, toward her, but she did not scream. He threw both armsaround her, and she did not cry. Something had entered with that boldfigure which extinguished all crime and superstition in the monarchy ofits presence--Love. 

A kiss, as fervent and long as only the reunited ever give with purity, drew the soul of the suspected murderer and his sweetheart into onetemple. 

"Agnes, " he whispered hoarsely, when it was given, "they have followedme hard to-night. Every place I might have resorted to is watched. AllKensington--my oldest friends--believe me guilty! I cannot face it. Withthis kiss I must go. "

"Oh, Andrew, do not! Here is the place to make your peace; here takeyour stand and await the worst. "

"Agnes, " he repeated, "I have no defence. Nothing but silence woulddefend me now, and that would hang me to the gallows. I come to put mylife and soul into your hands. Can you pray for me, bad as I am?"

"Dear Andrew, " answered Agnes, weeping fast, "I have no power to stopyou, and I cannot give you up. Yes, I will pray for you now, before youstart on your journey. Go open those folding-doors and we will pray inthe other room. "

"What is there?"

"Your father. "

He stopped a long while, and his cheek was blanched. 

"Go first, " he whispered finally. "I am not afraid. "

She led the way to the bier, where the body, with the frost hardly yetthawed from it, lay under the dim light of the chandelier. Turning upthe burners it was revealed in its relentless, though not unhappy, expression--a large and powerful man, bearded and with tassels of grayin his hair. 

The young man in his coarse sailor's garb, muffled up for concealmentand disguise, placed his arm around Agnes, and his knees were unsteadyas he gazed down on the remains and began to sob. 

"Dear, " she murmured, also weeping, "I know you loved him!"

The young man's sobs became so loud that Agnes drew him to a chair, andas she sat upon it he laid his head in her lap and continued there toexpress a deep inward agony. 

"I loved him always, " he articulated at last, "so help me God, I did!And a _parricide_! Can you survive it?"

"Andrew, " she replied, "I have taken it all to heaven and laid the sinthere. Forever, my darling, intercession continues for all our offencesonly there. It must be our recourse in this separation every day when werise and lie down. Though blood-stained, he can wash as white as snow. "

"I will try, I will try!" he sobbed; "but your goodness is my reliance, dearest. I have always been disobedient to my father, but never thoughtit would come to this. "

"Nor I, Andrew. Poor, rash uncle!"

"Agnes, " whispered Andrew Zane, rising with a sudden fear, "I hearpeople about the house--on the pavement, on the doorsteps. Perhaps theyare suspecting me. I must fly. Oh! shall we ever meet again under abrighter sky? Will you cling to me? I am going out, abandoned by all theworld. Nothing is left me but your fidelity. Will it last? You know youare beautiful!"

"Oh, sad words to say!" sighed Agnes. "Let none but you ever say them tome again. Beautiful, and to the end of such misery as this! My onlylove, I will never forsake you!"

"Then I can try the world again, winter as it is. Once more, oh, God!let me ask forgiveness from these frozen lips. My father! pursue me not, though deep is my offence! Farewell, farewell forever!"

He disappeared down the cellar as he had come, and Agnes heard at theouter window the sound of his escaping. When all was silent she fell tothe floor, and lay there helplessly weeping. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE DEAF MAN. 

The inquest was held, and the jury pronounced the double crime murder bypersons unknown, but with strong suspicion resting on Andrew Zane and anunknown laborer, who had left Pettit's or Treaty Island, at night, in anopen boat with William Zane and Sayler Rainey. A reward was offered forAndrew Zane and the laborer. 

The will of the deceased persons made Andrew Zane full legatee of bothestates, and left a life interest in the Queen Street house, and $2000 ayear to "Agnes Wilt, my ward and housekeeper. " The executors of the Zaneestate were named as Agnes Wilt, Rev. Silas Van de Lear, and DuffSalter. The two dead men were interred together in the old Presbyterianburial-ground, and after a month or two of diminishing excitement, Kensington settled down to the idea that there was a great mysterysomewhere; that Andrew Zane was probably guilty; but that the principalevidence against him was his own flight. 

As to Agnes, there was only one respectable opinion--that she was asuperb work of nature and triumph of womanhood, notwithstanding romanticand possibly awkward circumstances of origin and relation. All men, ofwhatever time of life and for whatsoever reason, admired her--the meanand earthy if only for her mould, the morally discerning for herbeautiful quality that pitied, caressed, encouraged, or elevated all whocame within her sphere. 

"Preachers of the Gospel ought to have such wives, " said the Rev. SilasVan de Lear, looking at his son Calvin, "as Agnes Wilt. She is the mosthandy churchwoman in all my ministration in Kensington, which is nowforty years. Besides being pious, and virtuous, and humble before God, she is very comely to the eye, and possesses a house and an independentincome. A wife like that would naturally help a young minister to get ahigher call. "

Young Calvin, who was expected to succeed his father in the venerablechurch close by, and was studying divinity, said with much coolmaturity:

"Pa, I've taken it all in. She's the only single girl in Kensingtonworth proposing to. It's true that we don't know just who she is, butit's not that I'm so much afraid of as her, her--in short, her piety. "

"Piety does not stand in the way of marriage, " answered the old man, whowas both bold and prudent, wise and sincere. "In the covenant of Godnothing is denied to his saints in righteousness. The sense of weddedpleasure, the beauty that delights the eye, love, appetite, children, and financial independence--all are ours, no less as of the Elect thanas worldly creatures. The love of God in the heart warms men and womentoward each other. "

"Oh, as to that!" exclaimed Calvin, "I've been warmed toward Miss Agnessince I was a boy. I think she is superb. But she is a little too goodfor me. She looks at me whenever I talk to her, whereas the proper wayof humility would be to look down. She has been in love with AndrewZane, you know!"

"That, " said the preacher, "is probably off; though I never discoveredin Andrew more evil than a light heart and occasional rebellion. If sheloves him still, do not be in haste to jar her sensibility. It isthoughtfulness which engenders love. "

The young women of Kensington were divided about Agnes Wilt. The poorergirls thought her perfect. But some marriageable and some married women, moving in her own sphere of society, criticised her popularity, and saidshe must be artful to control so many men. There are no depths to whichjealousy cannot go in a small suburban society. Agnes, as an orphan, hadfelt it since childhood, but nothing had ever happened until now toconcentrate slander as well as sympathy upon her. It was told abroadthat she had been the mistress of her deceased benefactor, who hadfallen by the hands of his infuriated son. Even the police authoritiesgave some slight consideration to this view. Old people remarked: "Ifshe has been deceiving people, she will not stop now. She will haveother secret lovers. "

Inquiries had been made for some time as to who the unknown executor, Duff Salter, might be, when one day Rev. Mr. Van de Lear walked over tothe Zane house with a broad-shouldered, grave, silent-eyed man, who worea very long white beard reaching to his middle. As he was also tall andbut little bent, he had that mysterious union of strength and age whichwas perfected by his expression of long and absolute silence. 

"Agnes, " said Mr. Van de Lear, "this is an old Scotch-Irish friend andclassmate of the late Mr. Zane, Duff Salter of Arkansas. He cannot hearwhat I have said, for he is almost stone deaf. However, go through themotions of shaking hands. I am told he has heard very little of anythingfor the past ten years. An explosion in a quicksilver mine broke hisear-drums. "

Agnes, dressed in deep black, shook hands with the grave strangerdutifully, and said:

"I am sure you are welcome, sir. "

Mr. Salter looked at her closely and gently, and seemed to be pleasedwith the inspection, for he took a small gold box from his pocket, unlocked it and sniffed a pinch of snuff, and then gave a sneeze, whichhe articulated, plain as speech, into the words: "Jericho! Jericho!"Then placing the box in the pocket of his long coat, he remarked:

"Miss Agnes, as one of the executors is a lady, and another is ourvenerable friend here, who has no inclination to attend to thesettlement of Mr. Zane's estate, it will devolve upon me to examine thewhole subject. I am a stranger in the East. As Mr. Van de Lear may havetold you, I don't hear anything. Will I be welcome as a boarder underyour roof as long as I am looking into my old friend's books andpapers?"

"Not only welcome, but a protection to us, sir, " answered Agnes. 

He took a set of ivory tablets from his pocket, with a pencil, andhanding it to her politely, said:

"Please write your answer. "

She wrote "Yes. "

The deaf lodger gave as little trouble as could have been expected. Hehad a bedroom, and moved a large secretary desk into it, and sat thereall day looking at figures. If he ever wanted to make an inquiry, hewrote it on the tablets, and in the evening had it read and answered. Agnes was a good deal of the time preoccupied, and Podge Byerly, whowrote as neatly as copper-plate, answered these inquiries, and conducteda little conversation of her own. Podge was a slender blonde, with fineblue eyes and a mischievous, sylph-like way of coming and going. Herfreedom of motion and address seemed to concern the stranger. One dayshe wrote, after putting down the answer to a business inquiry:

"Are you married?"

He hesitated some time and wrote back, "I hope not. "

She retorted, "Could one forget if one was married?"

He replied on the same tablet: "Not when he tried. "

Podge rubbed it all off, and thought a minute, and then concluded thatevening's correspondence:

"You are an old tease!"

The next morning, as usual, she wrapped herself up warmly and took theomnibus for her school, and saw him watching her out of the upperwindow. That night, instead of any inquiries, he stalked down in hisworked slippers--the dead man's--and long dressing gown, and, aftersmiling at all, took Podge Byerly's hand and looked at it. This time hespoke in a sweet, modulated voice, "Very pretty!"

She was about to reply, when he gave her the ivory tablet, and put hisfinger on his lip. 

She wrote, "Did you ever fight a duel?"

He shook his head "No. "

She wrote again, "What else do they do in Arkansas?"

He replied, "They love. "

Then Mr. Duff Salter sneezed very loudly, "Jericho! Jericho! Jericho!"Podge ran off at such a serious turn of responses, but was too much of awoman not to be lured back of her own will. He wrote later in theevening this touching query:

"How do the birds sing now? Are they all dumb?"

She answered, "Many can hear who never heard them. "

He wrote again, "Are you suspicious?"

She replied, "_Very_. Are you?"

He shook his head "No. "

"I believe he _is_, " said Podge, turning to Agnes, who had entered. "Helooks as if he had asked that question of himself. "

Duff Salter seized his handkerchief and sneezed into it, "Jericho-o!Jericho-wo!"

Podge was sure he was suspicious the next night when she read on histablets the rather imputative remark, "Is there anything demoralizing in teaching public schools?"

She replied tartly, "Yes, stupid old visitors and parents!"

"Excuse me!" he wrote; "I meant politicians. "

She replied in the same spirit as before, "I think politicians aredivine!"

Duff Salter looked a little wondering out of those calm gray eyes andhis strong, yet benevolent Scotch-Irish countenance. Podge, who nowtalked freely with Agnes in his presence, said confidently:

"I believe I can tantalize this good old granny by giving him doubtsabout me! I am real bad, Aggy; you know that! It is no story to tellit!"

"Oh! we are both bad enough to try to improve, " exclaimed Agnesabsently. 

"Jericho! Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter. 

He came down every evening, and began respectfully to bow to Agnes andto smile on Podge, and then stretched his feet out to the ottoman, drewhis tablets up to the small table and proceeded to write. They hallooedinto his ear once or twice, but he said he was deaf as a mill-stone, andmight be cursed to his face and wouldn't understand it. They had formeda pleasing opinion of him, not unmixed with curiosity, when one night hewrote on the back of a piece of paper:

"Have you any idea who wrote this anonymous note to me?"

Podge Byerly took the note and found in a woman's handwriting thesewords:

 "Mr. Duff Salter, I suppose you know where you are. Your hostesses are very insinuating and artful--and what else, _you can find out_! One man has been murdered in that family; another has disappeared. They say in Kensington the house of Zane is haunted. 

 "A WARNER. "

Podge read the note, and her tears dropped upon it. He moved forward asif to speak to her, but correcting himself hastily, he wrote upon thetablets:

"Not even a suspicious person is affected the least by an anonymousletter. I only keep it that possibly I may detect the sender!"

CHAPTER IV. 

A SUITOR. 

Duff Salter and the ladies were sitting in the back parlor one eveningfollowing the events just related, when the door-bell rang, and PodgeByerly went to see who was there. She soon returned and closed the doorof the front parlor, leaving a little crack, by accident, and lightedthe gas there. 

"Aggy, " whispered Podge, coming in, "there's Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, ourfuture minister. He's elegantly dressed, and has a nosegay in his hand. "

"Can't you entertain him, dear?"

"I would be glad enough, but he asked in a very decided way for you. "

"For me?"

Agnes looked distressed. 

"Yes; he said very distinctly, 'I called to pay my respects particularlyto Miss Agnes to-night. '"

Agnes left the room, and Duff Salter and Podge were again together. Podge could hear plainly what was said in the front parlor, and partlysee, by the brighter light there, the motions of the visitor and herfriend. She wrote on Duff Salter's tablet, "A deaf man is a greatconvenience!"

"Why?" wrote the large, grave man. 

"Because he can't hear what girls say to their beaux. "

"Is that a beau calling on our beautiful friend?"

"I'm afraid so!"

"How do you feel when a beau comes?"

"We feel important. "

"You don't feel grateful, then; only complimented. "

"No; we feel that on one of two occasions we have the advantage over aman. We can play him like a big fish on a little angle. "

"When is the other occasion?"

"Some women, " wrote Podge, "play just the same with the man theymarry!"

Duff Salter looked up surprised. 

"Isn't that wrong?" he wrote. 

She answered mischievously, "A kind of!"

The large, bearded man looked so exceedingly grave that Podge burst outlaughing. 

"Don't you know, " she wrote, "that the propensity to plague a mandependent on you is inherent in every healthy woman?"

He wrote, "I do know it, and it's a crime!"

Podge thought to herself "This old man is dreadfully serious andsuspicious sometimes. "

As Duff Salter relapsed into silence, gazing on the fire, the voice ofCalvin Van de Lear was heard by Podge, pitched in a low and confidentkey, from the parlor side:

"I called, Agnes, when I thought sufficient time had elapsed since thetroubles here, to express my deep interest in you, and to find you, Ihoped, with a disposition to turn to the sunny side of life's affairs. "

"I am not ready to take more than a necessary part in anything outsideof this house, " replied Agnes. "My mind is altogether preoccupied. Ithank you for your good wishes, Mr. Van de Lear. "

"Now do be less formal, " said the young man persuasively. "I have alwaysbeen Cal. Before--short and easy, Cal. Van de Lear. _You_ might call mealmost anything, Aggy. "

"I have changed, sir. Our afflictions have taught me that I am no longera girl. "

"You won't call me Cal. , then?"

"No, Mr. Van de Lear. "

"I see how it is, " exclaimed the visitor. "You think because I amstudying for orders I must be looked up to. Aggy, that's got nothing todo with social things. When I take the governor's place in our pulpit Ishall make my sermons for this generation altogether crack, sentimentalsermons, and drive away dull care. That's my understanding of the goodshepherd. "

"Mr. Van de Lear, there are some cares so natural that they are almostconsolation. Under the pressure of them we draw nearer to happiness. What merry words should be said to those who were bred under this roofin such misfortunes as I have now--as the absent have?"

Podge saw Agnes put her handkerchief to her face, and her neck shake aminute convulsively. Duff Salter here sneezed loudly: "Jericho!Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, andPodge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the tears came to hereyes and her hair was shaken down. She wrote on the tablets, "Men could eat dirt and enjoy it. "

He replied, "At last dirt eats all the men. "

"It's to get rid of them!" wrote Podge. "My boys at school are dirty byinclination. They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoeto slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquorice willdemoralize a whole class. They pass it around. "

Duff Salter replied, "The boys must have something in their mouths; thegirls in their heads!"

"But not liquorice root, " added Podge. 

"No; they put the boys in their heads!"

"Pshaw!" wrote Podge, "girls don't like boys. They like nice old men whowill pet them. "

Here Podge ran out of the room and the conversation in the front parlorwas renewed. The voice of Calvin Van de Lear said:

"Agnes, looking at your affairs in the light of religious duty, as youseem to prefer, I must tell you that your actions have not always beenperfect. "

Nothing was said in reply to this. 

"I am to be your pastor at some not distant day, " spoke the same voice, "and may take some of that privilege now. As a daughter of the churchyou should give the encouragement of your beauty and favor only toserious, and approved, and moral young men. Not such scapegraces asAndrew Zane!"

"Sir!" exclaimed Agnes, rising. "How dare you speak of the poor absentone?"

"Sit down, " exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, not a bit discomposed. "I havesome disciplinary power now, and shall have more. A lady in fullcommunion with our church--a single woman without a livingguardian--requires to hear the truth, even from an erring brother. Youhave no right to go outside the range at least of respectable men, toplace your affections and bestow your beauty and religion on aparticularly bad man--a criminal indeed--one already fled from thiscommunity, and under circumstances of the greatest suspicion. I meanAndrew Zane!"

"Hush!" exclaimed Agnes; "perhaps he is dead. "

A short and awkward quiet succeeded, broken by young Van de Lear'sinterruption at last:

"Aggy, I don't know but it is the best thing. Is it so?"

"For shame, sir!"

"He wouldn't have come to any good. I know him well. We went to schooltogether here in Kensington. Under a light and agreeable exterior heconcealed an obstinacy almost devilish. All the tricks and daredevilfeats we heard of, he was at the head of them. After he grew up his eyesfell on you. For a time he was soberer. Then, perceiving that you werealso his father's choice, he conspired against his father, repeatedlyabsconded, and gave that father great trouble to find and return him tohis home, and still stepped between Mr. Zane and his wishes. Was thatthe part of a grateful and obedient son?"

Not a word was returned by Agnes Wilt. 

"How ill-advised, " continued Calvin Van de Lear, "was your weaknessduring that behavior! Do you know what the tattle of all Kensington is?That you favored both the father and the son! That you declined the sononly because his father might disinherit him, and put off the fatherbecause the son would have the longer enjoyment of his property! I havedefended you everywhere on these charges. They say even more, _Miss_Agnes--if you prefer it--that the murder of the father was not committedby Andrew Zane without an instigator, perhaps an accessory. "

The voice of Agnes was heard in hasty and anxious imploration:

"For pity's sake, say no more. Be silent. Am I not bowed and wretchedenough?"

She came hastily to the fissure of the door and looked in, because DuffSalter just then sneezed tremendously:

"Jericho-o-o-o! Jer-ry-cho-o-o!"

Podge Byerly reappeared with a pack of cards and shuffled them beforeDuff Salter's face. 

They sat down and played a game of euchre for a cent a point, thetablets at hand between them to write whatever was mindful. Duff Salterwas the best player. 

"I believe, " wrote Podge, "that all Western men are gamblers. Are you?"

He wrote, to her astonishment, "I was. "

"Wasn't it a sin?"

"Not there. "

"I thought gambling was a sin everywhere?"

"It is everywhere done, " wrote Duff Salter. "You are a gambler. "

"That's a fib. "

"You risk your heart, capturing another's. "

"My heart is gone, " added Podge, blushing. 

"What's his name?" wrote Duff Salter. 

"That's telling. "

Again the voices of the two people in the front parlor broke on Podge'sear:

"You must leave me, Mr. Van de Lear. You do not know the pain and wrongyou are doing me. "

"Agnes, I came to say I loved you. Your beauty has almost maddened mefor years. Your resistance would give me anger if I had not hope left. Iknow you loved me once. "

"Sir, it is impossible; it is cruel. "

"Cruel to love you?" repeated the divinity student. "Come now, that'sabsurd! No woman is annoyed by an offer. I swear I love you reverently. I can put you at the head of this society--the wife of a clergyman. Busytongues shall be stilled at your coming and going, and the shadow ofthis late tragedy will no more plague your reputation, protected in thebosom of the church and nestled in mine. "

Sounds of a slight struggle were heard, as if the amorous young priestwere trying to embrace Agnes. 

Podge arose, listening. 

The face of Duff Salter was stolid, and unconscious of anything but thegame of cards. 

"I tell you, sir!" exclaimed Agnes, "that your attentions are offensive. Will you force me to insult you?"

"Oh! that's all put on, my subtle beauty. You are not alarmed by thesedelicate endearments. Give me a kiss!"

"Calvin Van de Lear, you are a hypocrite. The gentleman you haveslandered to win my favor is as dear to me as you are repulsive. Nay, sir, I'll teach you good behavior!"

She threw open the folding-doors just as Duff Salter had come to aterrific sneeze. 

"Jericho! Jericho! Jer-rick-co-o-o-oh!"

Looking in with bold suavity, Calvin Van de Lear made a bow and took uphis hat. 

"Good-night, " he said, "most reputable ladies, two of a kind!"

"I think, " wrote Duff Salter frigidly, as the young man slammed the doorbehind him, "that we'll make a pitcher of port sangaree and have alittle glass before we go to bed. We will all three take a hand atcards. What shall we play?"

"Euchre--cut-throat!" exclaimed Podge Byerly, rather explosively. 

Duff Salter seemed to have heard this, for, with his grave eyes bent onAgnes, he echoed, dubiously:

"Cut-throat!"

With an impatient motion Podge Byerly snatched at the cards, and theyfell to the floor. 

Agnes burst into tears and left the room. 

"Upon my word, " thought Podge Byerly, "I believe this old gray rat is adetective officer!"

There was a shadow over the best residence on Queen Street. 

Anonymous letters continued to come in almost by every mail, makingcharges and imputations upon Agnes, and frequently connecting PodgeByerly with her. 

Terrible epithets--such as "Murderess!" "A second Mrs. Chapman!""Jezebel, " etc. --were employed in these letters. 

Many of them were written by female hands or in very delicate malechirography, as if men who wrote like women had their natures. 

There was one woman's handwriting the girls learned to identify, and shewrote more often than any--more beautifully in the writing, moreshameless in the meaning, as if, with the nethermost experience insensuality, she was prepared to subtleize it and be the universalaccuser of her sex. 

"What fiends must surround us!" exclaimed Agnes. "There must be apunishment deeper than any for the writers of anonymous letters. Amurderer strikes the vital spot but once. Here every commandment isbroken in the cowardly secret letter. False witness, the stab, illicitjoy, covetousness, dishonor of father and mother, and defamation ofGod's image in the heart, are all committed in these loathsome letters. "

"Yes, " added Podge Byerly, "the woman who writes anonymous letters, Ithink, will have a cancer, or wart on her eye, or marry a bow-leggedman. The resurrectionists will get her body, and the primary class inthe other world will play whip-top with the rest of her. "

Agnes and Podge went to church prayer-meeting the night following CalvinVan de Lear's repulse at their dwelling, and Mr. Duff Salter gave eachof them an arm. 

Old Mr. Van de Lear led the exercises, and, after several persons hadpublicly prayed by the direction of the venerable pastor, Calvin Van deLear, of his own motion and as a matter of course, took the floor andlaunched into a florid supplication almost too elegant to be extempore. 

As he continued, Podge Byerly, looking through her fingers, saw ahandsome, high-colored woman at Calvin's side, stealing glances at AgnesWilt. 

It was the wife of Calvin Van de Lear's brother, Knox--a blonde oflarge, innocent eyes, who usually came with Calvin to the church. 

While Podge noticed this inquisitive or stray glance, she becameconscious that something in the prayer was directing the attention ofthe whole meeting to their pew. 

People turned about, and, with startled or bold looks, observed AgnesWilt, whose head was bowed and her veil down. 

The voice of Calvin Van de Lear sounded high and meaningful as Podgecaught these sentences:

"Lord, smite the wicked and unjust as thou smotest Sapphira by the sideof Ananias. We find her now in the mask of beauty, again of humility, even, O Lord, of religion, leading the souls of men down to death andhell. Thou knowest who stand before Thee to do lip service. All heartsare open to Thee. If there be any here who have deceived Thine elect bycovetousness, or adultery, or _murder_, Lord, make bare Thine arm!"

The rest of the sentence was lost in the terrific series of sneezes fromDuff Salter, who had taken too big a pinch of snuff and forgot himself, so as to nearly lift the roof off the little old brick church with hisdeeply accentuated, "Jer-i-cho-whoe!"

Even old Silas Van de Lear looked over the top of the pulpit and smiled, but, luckily, Duff Salter could hardly hear his own sneezes. 

As they left the church Agnes put down her veil, and trembled under thestare of a hundred investigating critics. 

When they were in the street, Podge Byerly remarked:

"Oh! that we had a man to resent such meanness as that. I think thatthose who address God with slant arrows to wound others, as is oftendone at prayer-meeting, will stand in perdition beside the writers ofanonymous letters. "

"They are driving me to the last point, " said Agnes. "I can go to churchno more. When will they get between me and heaven? Yet the Lord's willbe done. "

CHAPTER V. 

THE GHOST. 

Spring broke on the snug little suburb, and buds and birds fulfilledtheir appointments on the boughs of willows, ailanthuses, lindens, andmaples. Some peach-trees in the back yard of the Zane House hastened toput on their pink scarves and bonnets, and the boys said that an oldsucker of Penn's Treaty Elm down in a ship-yard was fresh and blithsomeas a second wife. In the hearts and views of living people, too, springbrought a budding of youthfulness and a gush of sap. Duff Salteracknowledged it as he looked in Podge Byerly's blue eyes and felt herhands as they wrapped his scarf around him, or buttoned his gloves. Whispering, and without the tablets this time, he articulated:

"Happy for you, Mischief, that I am not young as these trees!"

"We'll have you set out!" screamed Podge, "like a piece of hale oldwillow, and you'll grow again!"

Duff Salter frequently walked almost to her school with Podge Byerly, which was far down in the old city. They seldom took the general cutthrough Maiden and Laurel Streets to Second, but kept down the riverbank by Beach Street, to see the ship-yards and hear the pounding ofrivets and the merry adzes ringing, and see youngsters and old womengathering chips, while the sails on the broad river came up on wind andtide as if to shatter the pier-heads ere they bounded off. 

In the afternoons Duff Salter sometimes called on Rev. Silas Van deLear, who had great expectations that Duff would build them amuch-required new church, with the highest spire in Kensington. 

"Here, Brother Salter, is an historic spot, " wrote the good old man. "Ishouldn't object to a spire on my church, with the figure of WilliamPenn on the summit. Friend William and his sons always did well by oursect. "

"Is it an established fact that he treated with the Indians inKensington?" asked Duff Salter, on his ivory tablets. 

"Indisputable! Friend Penn took Thomas Fairman's house atShackamaxon--otherwise Eel-Hole--and in this pleasant springtime, April4, 1683, he met King Tammany under the forest elm, with the savagepeople in half-moon circles, looking at the healthy-fed andbusiness-like Quaker. There Tammany and his Indian allies surrenderedall the land between the Pennypack and Neshaminy. "

"A Tammany haul!" interrupted young Calvin Van de Lear, ratheridiotically. "What did the shrewd William give?"

"Guns, scissors, knives, tongs, hoes, and Indian money, andgew-gaws--not much. Philadelphia had no foundation then, and Shackamaxonwas an established place. We are the Knickerbockers here inKensington. "

"An honest Quaker would not build a spire, " wrote Duff Salter, with agrim smile. 

Duff Salter was well known to the gossips of Kensington as a fabulouslyrich man, who had spent his youth partly in this district, and was ofKensington parentage, but had roved away to Mexico as a sailor boy, orclerk, or passenger, and refusing to return, had become a mule-driver inthe mines of cinnabar, and there had remained for years in nearlyheathen solitude, until once he arrived overland in Arkansas with atrain from Chihuahua, the whole of it, as was said, laden with silvertreasure, and his own property. He had been disappointed in love, andhad no one to leave his riches to. This was the story told by ReverendSilas Van de Lear. 

The people of Kensington were less concerned with the truth of this talethan with the future intentions of the visitor. 

"How long he tarries in Zane's homestead!" said the people that spring. "Hasn't he settled that estate yet?"

"It never will be settled if he can help it, " said public Echo, "as longas there are two fine young women there, and one of them so fascinatingover men!"

Indeed, Duff Salter received letters, anonymous, of course--theanonymous letter was then the suburban press--admonishing him to bewareof his siren hostess. 

"_She has ruined two men_, " said the elegant female handwriting beforeobserved. "_You must want to be the subject of a coroner's inquest. Thathouse is bloody and haunted, rich Mr. Duff Salter! Beware of LadyAgnes, the murderess! Beware, too, of her accomplice, the insinuatinglittle Byerly!_"

Duff Salter walked out one day to make the tour of Kensington. He passedout the agreeable old Frankford road, with its wayside taverns, and haycarts, and passing omnibuses, and occasional old farm-like houses, interspersed with newer residences of a city character, and he strolledfar up Cohocksink Creek till it meandered through billowy fields ofgreen, and skirted the edges of woods, and all the way was followed by apath made by truant boys. Sitting down by a spring that gushed up at thefoot of a great sycamore tree, the grandly bearded traveller, allflushed with the roses of exercise, made no unpleasing picture of a Panwaiting for Echo by appointment, or holding talk with the grazing goatsof the poor on the open fields around him. 

"How changed!" spoke the traveller aloud. "I have caught fishes allalong this brook, and waded up its bed in summer to cool my feet. Thegirl was beside me whose slender feet in innocent exposure were placedby mine to shame their coarser mould. We thought we were in love, or asnear it as are the outskirts to some throbbing town partly instinctivewith a coming civic destiny. Alas! the little brook that once ranunvexed to the river, freshening green marshes at its outlet, has becomea sewer, discolored with dyes of factories, and closed around bytenements and hovels till its purer life is over. My playmate, too, flowed on to womanhood, till the denser social conditions shut her in;she mingled the pure current of her life with another more turgid, anddull-eyed children, like houses of the suburbs, are builded on herbosom. I am alone, like this old tree, beside the spring where once Iwas a sapling, and still, like its waters, youth wells and wells, andkeeps us yet both green in root. Come back, O Love! and freshen me, and, like a rill, flow down my closing years!"

Duff Salter's shoulder was touched as he ceased to speak, and he foundyoung Calvin Van de Lear behind him. 

"I have followed you out to the country, " said the young man, howling inthe elder's ear, "because I wanted to talk to you aloud, as I couldn'tdo in Kensington. "

Duff Salter drew his storied ivory tablets on the divinity student, andsaid, crisply, "Write!"

"No, old man, that's not my style. It's too slow. Besides, it admits ofnothing impressive being said, and I want to convince you. "

"Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter. "Young man, if you stun my earthat way a third time I'll knock you down. I'm deaf, it's true, but I'mnot a hallooing scale to try your lungs on. If you won't write, we can'ttalk. "

With impatience, yet smiling, Calvin Van de Lear wrote on the tablets, "Have you seen the ghost?"

"Ghost?"

"Yes, the ghosts of the murdered men!"

"I never saw a ghost of anything in my life. What men?"

"William Zane and Sayler Rainey. "

"Who has seen them?"

"Several people. Some say it's but one that has been seen. Zane's ghostwalks, anyway, in Kensington. "

"What for?"

"The fishwomen and other superstitious people say, because theirmurderers have not been punished. "

"And the murderers are--"

"Those who survived and profited by the murder, of course?"

"Jer-ri-choo-woo!" exploded Duff Salter. "Young man, " he wrotedeliberately, "you have an idle tongue. "

"Friend Salter, you are blind as well as deaf. Do you know Miss PodgeByerly?"

"No. Do you?"

"She's common! Agnes Wilt uses her as a stool-pigeon. She fetches, andcarries, and flies by night. One of the school directors shoved her onthe public schools for intimate considerations. Perhaps you'll see himabout the house if you look sharp and late some night. "

"Jer-rich-co! Jericho!"

Duff Salter was decidedly red in the face, and his grave gray eyeslooked both fierce and convicted. He _had_ seen a school directorvisiting the house, but thought it natural enough that he should take akind interest in one of the youthful and pretty teachers. The deaf manreturned to his pencil and tablets. 

"Do you know, Mr. Van de Lear, that what you are saying is indictablelanguage? It would have exposed you to death where I have lived. "

The young man tossed his head recklessly. Duff Salter now saw that hisusually sallow face was flushed up to the roots of his long dry hair andalmost colorless whiskers, as if he had been drinking liquors. Forgetting to use the tablets, Calvin spoke aloud, but not in as high akey as formerly:

"Mr. Salter, Agnes Wilt has no heart. She was a step-niece of the lateMrs. Zane--her brother's daughter. The girl's father was a poorprofessional man, and died soon after his child was born, followed at nogreat distance to the grave by his widow. While a child, Agnes was coldand subtle. She professed to love me--that was the understanding in ourchildhood. She has forgotten me as she has forgotten many other men. Butshe is beautiful, and I want to marry her. You can help me. "

"What do you want with a cold and calculating woman?" wrote Duff Salterstiffly. "What do you want particularly with such a dangerous woman--ademon, as you indicate?"

"I want to save her soul, and retrieve her from wickedness. Upon myword, old man, that's my only game. You see, to effect that object wouldset me up at once with the church people. I'm told that a littleobjection to my prospects in the governor's church begins to break out. If I can marry Agnes Wilt, she will recover her position in Kensington, and make me more welcome in families. I don't mind telling you that Ihave been a little gay. "

"That's nothing, " wrote Duff Salter smilingly. "So were the sons ofEli. "

"Correct!" retorted Calvin. "I need a taming down, and only matrimonycan do it. Now, with your aid I can manage it. Miss Wilt does not fancyme. She can be made to do so, however, by two causes. "

"And they are--"

"Her fears and her avarice. I propose to bring this murder close home toher. If not a principal in it, she is an undoubted accessory after thefact. Andrew Zane paid her a visit the night the dead bodies werediscovered in the river. "

"You are sure of this?"

"Perfectly. I have had a detective on his track; too late to arrest therascal, but the identity of a sailor man who penetrated into the houseby the coal-hole is established by the discovery of the clothing heexchanged for that disguise--it was Andrew Zane. Concealment of thatfact from the law will make her an accessory. "

"Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter, but with a pale face, and said:

"That fact established would be serious; but it would be a gratuitousand vile act for you, who profess to love her. "

"It is love that prompts me--love and pain! A divine anger, I may callit. I propose to make myself her rescuer afterward, and establish myselfin her gratitude and confidence. You are to help me do this by watchingthe house from the inside. "

"Dishonorable!"

"You were the friend of William Zane, the murdered man. Every obligationof friendship impels you to discover his murderer. You are rich; lend memoney to continue my investigations. I know this is a cool proposition;but it is better than spending it on churches. "

"Very well, " wrote Duff Salter, "as the late Mr. Zane's executor, I willspend any proper sum of money to inflict retribution upon his injurers. I will watch the house. "

They went home through Palmer Street, on which stood the little brickchurch--the street said to be occasionally haunted by Governor AnthonyPalmer's phantom coach and four, which was pursued by his twenty-onechildren in plush breeches and Panama hats, crying, "Water lots! waterfronts! To let! to lease!"

As Duff Salter entered the house he saw the school director indicated byCalvin Van de Lear sitting in the parlor with Podge Byerly. For thefirst time Duff Salter noticed that they looked both intimate andconfused. He tried to reason himself out of this suspicion. "Pshaw, " hesaid; "it was my uncharitable imagination. I'll go back, as if to getsomething, and look more carefully. "

As the deaf man reopened the parlor-door he saw the school directormaking a motion as if to embrace Podge, who was full of blushes andappearing to shrink away. 

"There's no imagination about that, " thought Duff Salter. "If I couldonly hear well enough my ears might counsel me. "

He felt dejected, and his suspicions colored everything--a mostdeplorable state of mind for a gentleman. Agnes, too, looked guilty, ashe thought, and hardly addressed a smile to him as he passed up to hisroom. 

Duff Salter put on his slippers, lighted his gas, drew the curtains downand set the door ajar, for in the increasing warmth of spring his gratefire was almost an infliction. 

"I have not been wise nor just, " he said to himself. "My pleasingreception in this house, and feminine arts, have altogether obliteratedmy great duty, which was to avenge my friend. Yes, suspicion was myduty. I should have been suspicious from the first. Even this viciousyoung Van de Lear, shallow as he is, becomes my unconscious accuser. Hesays, with truth, that every obligation of friendship impels me todiscover the murderers of William Zane. "

Duff Salter arose, in the warmth of his feelings, and paced up and downthe floor. 

"Ah, William Zane, " he said, "how does thy image come back to me! I wasthe only friend he would permit. In pride of will and solitary purposehe was the greatest of all. Rough, unpolished, a poor scholar, but fullof energy, he desired nothing but he believed it his. He desired me tobe his friend, and I could not have resisted if I would. He made me gowith him even on his truant expeditions, and carry his game bag alongthe banks of the Tacony, or up the marshes of Rancocus. Yet it was ahappy servitude; for beneath his impetuous mastery was a soul ofdevotion. He loved like Jove, and permitted no interposition in hisflame; his dogmatism and force were barbarous, but he gave like a childand fought like a lion. I saw him last as he was about to enter onbusiness, in the twenty-first year of his age, an anxious young man withblack hair in natural ringlets, a pale brow, gray eyes wide apart, anda narrow but wilful chin. He was ever on pivot, ready to spring. Andmurdered!"

Duff Salter looked at the door standing ajar, attracted there by somemovement, or light, or shadow, and the very image he was describing methis gaze. There were the black ringlets, the pale forehead, the anxiousyet wilful expression, and the years of youthful manhood. It was nothingin this world if not William Zane!

Duff Salter felt paralyzed for a minute, as the blood flowed back to hisheart, and a sense of fright overcame him. Then he moved forward ontip-toe, as if the image might dissolve. It did dissolve as he advanced;with a tripping motion it receded and left a naked space. In thedarkness of the stairway it absorbed itself, and the deaf man graspedthe balustrade where it had stood, and by his trembling shook the railsviolently. He then staggered back to his mantel, first bolting the door, as if instinctively, and swallowed a draught of brandy from a medicinalbottle there. 

"There is a ghost abroad!" exclaimed Duff Salter with a shudder. "I haveseen it. "

He turned the gas on very brightly, so as to soothe his fears withcompanionable light. Then, while the perspiration stood upon hisforehead, Duff Salter sat down to think. 

"Why does it haunt me?" he said. "Yet whom but me should it haunt?--theexecutor of my friend, intrusted with his dying wishes, bound to him byancient ties, and recreant to the high duty of punishing his murderers?The ghost of William Zane admonishes me that there can be no repose formy spirit until I take in hand the work of vengeance. Yes, if womenhave been accessory to that murder, they shall not be spared. Miss Agnesis under surveillance; let her be blameless, or beware!"

CHAPTER VI. 

ENCOMPASSED. 

"He looks scared out of last year's growth, " remarked Podge Byerly whenDuff Salter came down-stairs next day. 

"Happy for him, dear, he is not able to hear what is around him in thisplace!" exclaimed Agnes aloud. 

They always talked freely before their guest, and he could scarcely bealarmed even by an explosion. 

Duff wrote on his tablets during breakfast:

"I must employ a smart man to do errands for me, and rid me of some ofthe burdens of this deafness. Do you know of any one?"

"A mere laborer?" inquired Agnes. 

"Well, an old-fashioned, still-mouthed fellow like myself--one who canunderstand my dumb motions. "

Agnes shook her head. 

Said Duff Salter to himself:

"She don't want me to find such an one, I guess. " Then, with the tabletsagain, he added, "It's necessary for me to hunt a man at once, and keephim here on the premises, close by me. I have almost finished up thiswork of auditing and clearing the estate. I intend now to pay someattention to the tragedy, accident, or whatever it was, that led to Mr. Zane's cutting off. You will second me warmly in this, I am sure. "

Agnes turned pale, and felt the executor's eyes upon her. 

Podge Byerly was pale too. 

Duff Salter did not give them any opportunity to recover composure. 

"To leave the settlement of this estate with such a cloud upon it wouldbe false to my trust, to my great friend's memory, and, I may add, toall here. There is a mystery somewhere which has not been pierced. It isvery probably a domestic entanglement. I shall expect you (to Agnes), and you, too, " turning to Podge, "to be absolutely frank with me. MissAgnes, have you seen Andrew Zane since his father's body was broughtinto this house!"

Agnes looked around helplessly and uncertain. She took the tablets towrite a reply. Something seemed to arise in her mind to prevent theintention. She burst into tears and left the table. 

"Ha!" thought Duff Salter grimly, "there will be no confession there. Then, little Miss Byerly, I will try to throw off its guard thy saucyperversity; for surely these two women understand each other. "

After breakfast he followed Podge Byerly down Queen Street and throughBeach, and came up with her as she went out of Kensington to theDelaware water-front about the old Northern Liberties district. 

Duff bowed with a little of diffidence amid all his gravity, and sneezedas if to hide it:

"Jericho!--Miss Podge, see the time--eight o'clock, and an hour beforeschool. Let us go look at the river. "

They walked out on the wharf, and were wholly concealed from shore bypiles of cord-wood and staves. 

"I like to get off here, away from listeners, where I need not bebellowed at and tire out well-meaning lungs. Now--Jericho! Jericho!" hesneezed, without any sort of meaning. "Miss Podge, " said Duff Salter, "if you look directly into my eyes and articulate distinctly, I can hearall you say without raising your voice higher than usual. How much moneydo you get for school teaching?"

"Five hundred dollars. "

"Is that all? What do you do with it?"

"Support my mother and brother. "

"And yourself also?"

"Oh! yes. "

"She can't do it!" exclaimed Duff Salter inwardly; "that director comesin the case. Miss Podge, how old is your brother?"

"Twenty-four. He's my junior, " she said archly. "I'm old. "

"Why do you support a man twenty-four years old? Did he meet with anaccident?"

"He was taken sick, and will never be well, " answered Podge warily. 

"Excuse me!" exclaimed Duff Salter, "was it constitutional disease? Youknow I am interested. "

"No, sir. He was misled. A woman, much older than himself, infatuatedhim while a boy, and he married her, and she broke his health and ruinedhim. "

Podge's eyes fell for the first time. 

Duff Salter grasped her hand. 

"And you tell me!" he exclaimed, "that you keep three grown people onfive hundred dollars a year? Don't you get help from any other quarter?"

"Agnes has given me board for a hundred dollars a year, " said Podge, "but times have changed with her now, and money is scarce. She wouldtake other boarders, but public opinion is against her on all sides. It's against me too. But for love we would have separated long ago. "

Podge's tears came. 

"What right had you, " exclaimed Duff Salter, rather angrily, "tomaintain a whole family on the servitude of your young body, wearing itsroundness down to bone, exciting your nervous system, and invitingpremature age upon a nature created for a longer girlhood, and for thesolace of love?"

She did not feel the anger in his tones; it seemed like protection, forwhich she had hungered. 

"Why, sir, all women must support their poor kin. "

"Men don't do it!" exclaimed Duff Salter, pushing aside his gray apronof beard to see her more distinctly. "Did that brother who rushed invicious precocity to maintain another and a wicked woman ever think ofrelieving you from hard labor?"

"He never could be anything less to me than brother!" exclaimed Podge;"but, Mr. Salter, if that was only all I had to trouble me! Oh, sir, work is occupation, but work harassed with care for others becomesunreal. I cannot sleep, thinking for Agnes. I cannot teach, my headthrobs so. That river, so cold and impure, going along by the wharves, seems to suck and plash all day in my ears, as we see and hear it now. At my desk I seem to see those low shores and woods and marshes, on theother side, and the chatter of children, going all day, laps and eddiesup like dirty waves between me and that indistinct boundary. I amfloating on the river current, drowning as I feel, reaching out fornothing, for nothing is there. All day long it is so. I was the bestteacher in my rank, with certainty of promotion. I feel that I am losingconfidence. It is the river, the river, and has been so since it gave upthose dead bodies to bring us only ghosts and desolation. "

"It was a faithful witness, " spoke Duff Salter, still harsh, as if underan inner influence. "Yes, a boy--a little boy such as you teach atschool--had the strength to break the solid shield of ice under whichthe river held up the dead and bring the murder out. Do you ever thinkof that as you hear a spectral river surge and buoy upward, whose wavesare made by children's murmurs--innocent children haunting the guilty?"

"Do you mean me, Mr. Salter? Nothing haunts me but care. "

"I have been haunted by a ghost, " continued Duff Salter. "Yes, the ghostof my playmate has come to my threshold and peeped on me sitting thereinattentive to his right to vengeance. We shall all be haunted till wegive our evidence for the dead. No rest will come till that is done. "

"I must go, " cried Podge Byerly. "You terrify me. "

"Tell me, " asked Duff Salter in a low tone, "has Andrew Zane been seenby Agnes Wilt since he escaped?"

"Don't ask me. "

"Tell me, and I will give you a sum of money which shall get you restfor years. Open your mind to me, and I will send you to Europe. Yourbrother shall be my brother; your invalid mother will receive abundantcare. I will even ask you to love me!"

An instant's blushes overspread Podge's worn, pale face, and anexpression of restful joy. Then recurring indignation made her paleagain to the very roots of her golden hair. 

"Betray my friend!" she exclaimed. "Never, till she will give me leave. "

"I have lost my confidence in you both, " said Duff Salter coldly, releasing Podge's arm. "You have been so indifferent in the face of thiscrime and public opinion as to receive your lovers in the very parlorwhere my dead friend lay. Agnes has admitted it by silence. I have seenyour lover releasing you from his arms. Miss Byerly, I thought youartless, even in your arts, and only the dupe, perhaps, of a strongerwoman. I hoped that you were pure. You have made me a man of suspicionand indifference again. " His face grew graver, yet unbelieving and hard. 

Podge fled from his side with alarm; he saw her handkerchief staunchingher tears, and people watching her as she nearly ran along the sidewalk. 

"Jericho! Jerichoo! Jer--"

Duff Salter did not finish the sneeze, but with a long face called for aboat and rower to take him across to Treaty Island. 

Podge arrived at school just as the bell was ringing, and, still innervousness and tears, took her place in her division while the Biblewas read. She saw the principal's eye upon her as she took off herbonnet and moistened her face, and the boys looked up a minute or twoinquiringly, but soon relapsed to their individual selfishness. When theglass sashes dividing the rooms were closed and the recitations began, the lapping sound of the river started anew. A film grew on her eyes, and in it appeared the distant Jersey and island shore, with theuncertain boundary of point, cove, and marsh, like a misty cold line, cheerless and void of life or color, as it was every day, yet standingthere as if it merely came of right and was the river's true border, andwas not to be hated as such. Podge strained to look through theillusion, and walked down the aisle once, where it seemed to be, andtouched the plaster of the wall. She had hardly receded when itreappeared, and all between it and her mind was merely empty river, wallowing and lapping and sucking and subsiding, as if around submergedpiers, or wave was relieving wave from the weight of floating thingslike rafts, or logs, or buoys, or bodies. Into this wide waste of muddyripples every sound in the school-room swam, and also sights and colors, till between her eye-lash and that filmy distant margin nothing existedbut a freshet, alive yet with nothing, eddying around with purposelesspower, and still moving onward with an under force. The open book in herhand appeared like a great white wharf, or pier, covered with lime andcoal in spots and places, and pushed forward into this hissing, rippling, exclaiming deluge, which washed its base and spread beyond. Podge could barely read a question in the book, and the sound of hervoice was like gravel or sand pushed off the wharf into the river andswallowed there. She thought she heard an answer in a muddy tone andgave the question out again, and there seemed to be laughter, as if thewaters, or what was drowned in them, chuckled and purled, going along. She raised her eyes above the laughers, and there the boundary line ofJersey stood defined, and all in front of it was the drifting Delaware. It seemed to her that boys were darting to and fro and swapping seats, and one boy had thrown a handful of beans. She walked down the aisle asif into water, wading through pools and waves of boys, who plashed andgurgled around her. She walked back again, and a surf of boys was thrownat her feet. The waters rose and licked and spilled and flowed onwardagain. Podge felt a sense of strangling, as if going down, in a hollowgulf of resounding wave, and shouted:

"Help! Save me! Save me!"

She heard a voice like the principal teacher's, say in a lapping, wateryway, "Miss Byerly, what is the meaning of this? Your division is indisorder. Nobody has recited. Unless you are ill I must suspend you andcall another teacher here. "

"Help! I'm floating off upon the river. Save me! I drown! I drown!"

The scholars were all up and excited. The principal motioned anotherlady teacher to come, and laid Podge's head in the other's lap. 

"Is it brain fever?" he asked. 

"She has been under great excitement, " Podge heard the other lady say. "The Zane murder occurred in her family. Last night, I have been told, Miss Byerly refused Mr. Bunn, our principal school director, and a manof large means, who had long been in love with her. "

"Where is he?" said the principal. 

"I heard it from his sister, " said the other lady. "Mortified at herrefusal, because confident that she would accept him, he sailed this dayfor Europe. "

These were the last words Podge Byerly heard. Then it seemed that thewaters closed over her head. 

 * * * * *

Agnes, left alone in the homestead, had a few days of perfect relief, except from anonymous letters and newspaper clippings delivered by mail. That refined handwriting which had steadily poured out the venom of someconcealed hostility survived all other correspondence--delicate as thegraceful circles of the tiniest fish-hooks whose points and barbs enterdeepest in the flesh. 

"Whom can this creature be?" asked Agnes, bringing up her strong mindfrom its trouble. "I can have made no such bitter enemy by any act ofmine. A man would hardly pursue so light a purpose with such stability. There is more than jealousy in it; it is sincere hate, drawn, I shouldthink, from a deep social or mental resentment, and enraged because I donot sink under my troubles. Yes, this must be a woman who believes meinnocent but wishes my ruin. Some one, perhaps, who is sinningunsuspected, and, in her envy of another and purer one, gloats in thescandal which does not justly stain me. The anonymous letter, " thoughtAgnes, "is a malignant form of conscience, after all!"

But life, as it was growing to be in the Zane house, was hardly worthliving. Podge Byerly was broken down and dangerously ill at her mother'slittle house. All of Agnes's callers had dropped off, and she felt thatshe could no longer worship, except as a show, at Van de Lear's church;but this deprivation only deepened Agnes's natural devotion. Duff Saltersaw her once, and oftener heard her praying, as the strong wail of itascending through the house pierced even his ears. 

"That woman, " said Duff, "is wonderfully armed; with beauty, courage, mystery, witchery, she might almost deceive a God. "

The theory that the house was haunted confirmed the other theory that acrime rested upon its inmates. 

"Why should there be a ghost unless there had been a murder?" asked theaverage gossip and Fishtowner, to whom the marvellous was certain andthe real to be inferred from it. Duff Salter believed in the ghost, asAgnes was satisfied; he had become unsocial and suspicious in look, andafter two or three days of absence from the house, succeeding Podge'sdisappearance, entered it with his new servant. 

Agnes did not see the servant at all for some days, though knowing thathe had come. The cook said he was an accommodating man, ready to helpher at anything, and of no "airs. " He entered and went, the cook said, by the back gate, always wiped his feet at the door, and appeared like aperson of not much "bringing up. " One day Agnes had to descend to thekitchen, and there she saw a strange man eating with the cook; a roughperson with a head of dark red hair and grayish red beard all round hismouth and under his chin. She observed that he was one-legged, and useda common wooden crutch on the side of the wooden leg. Two long scarscovered his face, and one shaggy eyebrow was higher than the other. 

"I axes your pardon, " said the man; "me and cook takes our snack when wecan, mum. "

A day or two after Agnes passed the same man again at the landing on thestairway. He bowed, and said in his Scotch or Irish dialect, "God bless ye, mum!"

Agnes thought to herself that she had not given the man credit for acertain rough grace which she now perceived, and as she turned back tolook at him he was looking at her with a fixed, incomprehensibleexpression. 

"Am I being watched?" thought Agnes. 

One day, in early June, as Agnes entered the parlor, she found ReverendSilas Van de Lear there. At the sight of this good old man, thepatriarch of Kensington, by whom she had been baptized and received intothe communion, Agnes Wilt felt strongly moved, the more that in his eyeswas a regard of sympathy just a little touched with doubt. 

"My daughter!" exclaimed the old man, in his clear, practisedarticulation, "you are daily in my prayers!"

The tears came to Agnes, and as she attempted to wipe them away the goodold gentleman drew her head to his shoulder. 

"I cannot let myself think any evil of you, dear sister, in God'schastising providence, " said the clergyman. "Among the angels, in theland that is awaiting me, I had expected to see the beautiful facewhich has so often encouraged my preaching, and looked up at me fromSabbath-school and church. You do not come to our meetings any more. Mydear, let us pray together in your affliction. "

The old man knelt in the parlor and raised his voice in prayer--a clear, considerate, judicial, sincere prayer, such as age and long authoritygave him the right to address to heaven. He was not unacquainted withsorrow himself; his children had given him much concern, and evenanguish, and in Calvin was his last hope. A thread of wicked commonplaceran through them all; his sterling nature in their composition was lostlike a grain of gold in a mass of alloy. They had nothing ideal, noreverence, no sense of delicacy. Taking to his arms a face and form thatpleased him, the minister had not ingrafted upon it one babe of anydivinity; that coarser matrix received the sacred flame as mere mudextinguishes the lightning. He fell into this reminiscence of personaldisappointment unwittingly, as in the process of his prayer he strove tocomfort Agnes. The moment he did so the cold magistracy of the prayerceased, and his voice began to tremble, and there ran between theecclesiastic and his parishioner the electric spark of mutual grief andunderstanding. 

The old man hesitated, and became choked with emotion. 

As he stopped, and the pause was prolonged, Agnes herself, by a powerfulinner impulsion, took up the prayer aloud, and carried it along likeinspiration. She was not of the strong-minded type of women, rather ofthe wholly loving; but the deep afflictions of the past few months, working down into the crevices and cells of her nature, had struck theimpervious bed of piety, and so deluged it with sorrow and the lonelysense of helplessness that now a cry like an appeal to judgment brokefrom her, not despair nor accusation, but an appeal to the very equityof God. 

It arose so frankly and in such majesty, finding its own aptest words byits unconscious instinct, that the aged minister was presently aware ofa preternatural power at his side. Was this woman a witch, genius, demon, or the very priestess of God, he asked. 

The solemn prayer ranged into his own experience by that touch of naturewhich unlocks the secret spring of all, being true unto its own deepneeds. The minister was swept along in the resistless current of theprayer, and listened as if he were the penitent and she the priest. Asthe petition died away in Agnes's physical exhaustion, the venerable manthought to himself:

"When Jacob wrestled all night at Peniel, his angel must have been awoman like this; for she has power with God and with men!"

CHAPTER VII. 

FOCUS. 

Calvin Van de Lear had been up-stairs with Duff Salter, and on his wayout had heard the voice of Agnes Wilt praying. He slipped into the backparlor and listened at the crevice of the folding-door until his fatherhad given the pastoral benediction and departed. Then with cooleffrontery Calvin walked into the front parlor, where Agnes was sittingby the slats of the nearly darkened window. 

"Pardon me, Agnes, " he said. "I was calling on the deaf old gentlemanup-stairs, and perceiving that devotions were being conducted here, stopped that I might not interrupt them. "

Calvin's commonplace nature had hardly been dazed by Agnes's prayer. Hewas only confirmed in the idea that she was a woman of genius, and wouldtake half the work of a pastor off his hands. In the light of bothdesire and convenience she had, therefore, appreciated in his eyes. Tomarry her, become the proprietor of her snug home and ravishing person, and send her off to pray with the sick and sup with the older women ofthe flock, seemed to him such a comfortable consummation as to haveHeaven's especial approval. Thus do we deceive ourselves when the spiritof God has departed from us, even in youth, and construe our dreams ofselfishness to be glimmerings of a purer life. 

Calvin was precocious in assurance, because, in addition to beingunprincipled, he was in a manner ordained by election and birthright torule over Kensington. His father had been one of those strong-willed, clear-visioned, intelligent young Eastern divinity students who broughtto a place of more voluptuous and easy burgher society the secular vigorof New England pastors. Being always superior and always sincere, hisrule had been ungrumblingly accepted. Another generation, at middle age, found him over them as he had been over their parents--a righteous, intrepid Protestant priest, good at denunciation, counsel, humor, orsympathy. The elders and deacons never thought of objecting to anythingafter he had insisted upon it, and in this spirit the whole church hadheard submissively that Calvin Van de Lear was to be their next pastor. This, of course, was conditional upon his behavior, and all knew thathis father would be the last man to impose an injurious person on thechurch; they had little idea that "Cal. " Van de Lear was devout, buttook the old man's word that grace grew more and more in the sons of theElect, and the young man had already professed "conviction, " andvoluntarily been received into the church. There he assumed, like anheir-apparent, the vicarship of the congregation, and it ratherdelighted his father that his son so promptly and complacently tookdirection of things, made his quasi pastoral rounds, ledprayer-meetings, and exhorted Sunday-schools and missions. A priestknows the heart of his son no more than a king, and is less suspiciousof him. The king's son may rebel from deferred expectation; the priest'sson can hardly conspire against his father's pulpit. In the minister'sfamily the line between the world and the faith is a wavering one;religion becomes a matter of course, and yet is without the mystery ofreligion as elsewhere, so that wife and sons regard ecclesiasticalambition as meritorious, whether the heart be in it piously orprofanely. Calvin Van de Lear was in the church fold of his own accord, and his father could no more read that son's heart than any othermember's. Indeed, the good old man was especially obtuse in the son'scase, from his partiality, and thus grew up together on the same rootthe flower of piety and hypocrisy, the tree and the sucker. 

"Calvin, " replied Agnes, "I do not object to your necessary visits here. Your father is very dear to me. "

"But can't I return to the subject we last talked of?" asked the youngman, shrewdly. 

"No. That is positively forbidden. "

"Agnes, " continued Calvin, "you must know I love you!"

Agnes sank to her seat again with a look of resignation. 

"Calvin, " she said, "this is not the time. I am not the person for suchremarks. I have just risen from my knees; my eyes are not in thisworld. "

"You will be turning nun if this continues. "

"I am in God's hands, " said Agnes. "Yet the hour is dark with me. "

"Agnes, let me lift some of your burden upon myself. You don't hate me?"

"No. I wish you every happiness, Calvin. "

"Is there nothing you long for--nothing earthly and within the compassof possibility?"

"Yes, yes!" Agnes arose and walked across the floor almostunconsciously, with the palms of her hands held high together above herhead. As she walked to and fro the theological student perceived achange so extraordinary in her appearance since his last visit that hemeasured her in his cool, worldly gaze as a butcher would compute theweight of a cow on chance reckoning. 

"What is it, dear Agnes?"

He spoke with a softness of tone little in keeping with his unfeeling, vigilant face. 

"Oh, give me love! Now, if ever, it is love! Love only, that can lift meup and cleanse my soul!"

"Love lies everywhere around you, " said the young man. "You trample itunder your feet. My heart--many hearts--have felt the cruel treatment. Agnes, _you_ must love also. "

"I try to do so, " she exclaimed, "but it is not the perfect love thatcasteth out fear! God knows I wish it was. "

Her eyes glanced down, and a blush, sudden and deep, spread over herfeatures. The young man lost nothing of all this, but with alertanalysis took every expression and action in. 

"May I become your friend if greater need arises, Agnes? Do not repulseme. At the worst--I swear it!--I will be your instrument, your subject. "

Agnes sat in the renewed pallor of profound fear. God, on whom she hadbut a moment before called, seemed to have withdrawn His face. Her blackringlets, smoothed upon her noble brow in wavy lines, gave her somethingof a Roman matron's look; her eyebrows, dark as the eyes beneath thatnow shrank back yet shone the larger, might have befitted an Easternqueen. Lips of unconscious invitation, and features produced in theirwholeness which bore out a character too perfect not to have livedsometime in the realms of the great tragedies of life, made Agnes in hersorrow peerless yet. 

"Go, Calvin!" she said, with an effort, her eyes still upon the floor;"if you would ever do me any aid, go now!"

As he passed into the passageway Calvin Van de Lear ran against a manwith a crutch and a wooden leg, who looked at him from under a head ofdark-red hair, and in a low voice cursed his awkwardness. The man bentto pick up his crutch, and Calvin observed that he was badly scarred andhad one eyebrow higher than the other. 

"Who are you, fellow?" asked Calvin, surprised. 

"I'm Dogcatcher!" said the man. "When ye see me coming, take the otherside of the street. "

Calvin felt cowed, not so much at these mysterious words as at a hard, lowering look in the man's face, like especial dislike. 

Agnes Wilt, still sitting in the parlor, saw the lame servant pass herdoor, going out, and he looked in and touched his hat, and paused aminute. Something graceful and wistful together seemed to be in hisbearing and countenance. 

"Anything for me?" asked Agnes. 

"Nothing at all, mum! When there's nobody by to do a job, call on Mike. "

He still seemed to tarry, and in Agnes's nervous condition a mysteriousawe came over her; the man's gaze had a dread fascination that would notlet her drop her eyes. As he passed out of sight and shut the streetdoor behind him Agnes felt a fainting feeling, as if an apparition hadlooked in upon her and vanished--the apparition, if of anything, of himwho had lain dead in that very parlor--the stern, enamored master of thehouse whose fatherhood in a fateful moment had turned to marital desire, and crushed the luck of all the race of Zanes. 

Duff Salter was sitting at his writing table, with an open snuff-boxbefore him, and, as Calvin Van de Lear entered his room, Duff took alarge pinch of snuff and shoved the tablets forward. Calvin wrote onthem a short sentence. As Duff Salter read it he started to his feet andsneezed with tremendous energy:

"Jeri-cho! Jericho! Jerry-cho-o-o!"

He read the sentence again, and whispered very low:

"Can't you be mistaken?"

"As sure as you sit there!" wrote Calvin Van de Lear. 

"What is your inference?" wrote Duff Salter. 

"Seduction!"

The two men looked at each other silently a few minutes, Duff Salter inprofound astonishment, Calvin Van de Lear with an impudent smile. 

"And so religious!" wrote Duff Salter. 

"That is always incidental to the condition, " answered Calvin. 

"It must be a great blow to your affection?"

"Not at all, " scrawled the minister's son. "It gives me a sure thing. "

"Explain that!"

"I will throw the marriage mantle over her. She will need me now!"

"But you would not take a wife out of such a situation?"

"Oh! yes. She will be as handsome as ever, and only half as proud. "

Duff Salter walked up and down the floor and stroked his long beard, andhis usually benevolent expression was now dark and ominous, as if withgloom and anger. He spoke in a low tone as if not aware that he washeard, and his voice sounded as if he also did not hear it, and couldnot, therefore, give it pitch or intonation:

"Is this the best of old Kensington? This is the East! Where I dreamedthat life was pure as the water from the dear old pump that quenched mythirst in boyhood--not bitter as the alkali of the streams of theplains, nor turbid like the rills of the Arkansas. I pined to leave thatlife of renegades, half-breeds, squaws, and nomads to bathe my soul inthe clear fountains of civilization, --to live where marriage was holyand piety sincere. I find, instead, mystery, blood, dishonor, hypocrisy, and shame. Let me go back! The rough frontier suits me best. If I canhear so much wickedness, deaf as I am, let me rather be an unsocialhermit in the woods, hearing nothing lower than thunder!"

As Duff Salter went to his dinner that day he looked at Agnes sitting inher place, so ill at ease, and said to himself, "It is true. "

 * * * * *

Another matter of concern was on Mr. Duff Salter's mind--hisserving-man. Such an unequal servant he had never seen--at times full ofintelligence and snap, again as dumb as the bog-trotters of Ireland. 

"What was the matter with you yesterday?" asked the deaf man of Mike oneday. 

"Me head, yer honor!"

"What ails your head?"

"Vare-tigo!"

"How came that?"

"Falling out of a ship!"

"What did you strike but water?"

"Wood; it nearly was the death of me. For weeks I was wid a cracked headand a cracked leg, yer honor!"

Still there was something evasive about the man, and he had as manymoods and lights as a sea Proteus, ugly and common, like that batrachianorder, but often enkindled and exceedingly satisfactory as a servant. Heoften forgot the place where he left off a certain day's work, and ithad to be recalled to him. He was irregular, too, in going and coming, and was quite as likely to come when not wanted as not to be on the spotwhen due and expected. Duff Salter made up his mind that all the Easternpeople must have bumped their heads and became subject to vertigo. 

One day Duff Salter received this note:

 "MR. DEAF DUFF: Excuse the familiarity, but the coincidence amuses me. I want you to make me a visit this evening after dark at my quarters in my brother, Knox Van de Lear's house, on Queen Street nearly opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the orbit of Venus to-night, as I expect--there being signs of it in the milky way, --you will assist me in an observation that will stagger you on account of its results. Do not come out until dark, and ask at my brother's den for CAL. "

"I will not be in to-night, Mike, " exclaimed Duff Salter a little whileafterward. "You can have all the evening to yourself. Where do you spendyour spare time?"

"On Traity Island, " replied Mike with a grin. "I doesn't like Kinsingtonafther dark. They say it has ghosts, sur. "

"But only the ghosts of they killed as they crossed from Treaty Island. "

"Sure enough! But I've lost belafe in ghosts since they have become socommon. Everybody belaves in thim in Kinsington, and I prefer to beexclusive and sciptical, yer honor. "

"Didn't you tell me yesterday that you believed in spirits going andcoming and hoping and waiting, and it gave you great comfort?"

"Did I, sur? I forgit it inthirely. It must have been a bad day for myvartigo. "

Duff Salter looked at his man long and earnestly, and from head to foot, and the inspection appeared to please him. 

"Mike, " he said, in his loud, deafish voice, "I am going to cure you ofyour vertigo. "

"Whin, dear Mister Salter. "

"Perhaps to-morrow, " remarked Duff Salter significantly. "I shall have aman here who will either confer it on you permanently or cure youinstantly. "

Duff Salter put on his hat, took his stick, and drew the curtains down. 

Mike was sitting at the writing table arranging some models of vesselsand steam tugs as his employer turned at the doorway and looked back, and, with a countenance more waggish than exasperated, Duff Salter shookhis cane at the unobservant Irishman, and sagely gestured with his head. 

Agnes was about to take the head of the tea-table as he came down thestairs. 

"No, " motioned Duff Salter, and pointed out of doors. 

He gave a slight examination to Agnes, so delicate as to be almostunnoticed, though she perceived it. 

Duff sat at the tea side and wrote on his tablets:

"How is little Podge coming on?"

"Growing better, " replied Agnes, "but she will be unfit to teach herschool for months. Kind friends have sent her many things. "

Duff Salter waited a little while, and wrote:

"I wish I could leave everybody happy behind me when I go away. "

"Are you going soon?"

"I am going at once, " wrote Duff Salter with a sudden decision. "I amnot trusted by anybody here, and my work is over. "

Agnes sat a little while in pain and wistfulness. Finally she wrote:

"There is but one thing which prevents our perfect trust in you; it isyour distrust of us. "

"I _am_ distrustful--too much so, " answered, in writing, the deaf man. "A little suspicion soon overspreads the whole nature, and yet, I think, one can be generous even with suspicion. Among the disciples were atraitor, a liar, a coward, and a doubter; but none upbraid the last, poor Thomas, and he is sainted in our faith. Do you know that suspicionmade me deaf? Yes; if we mock Nature with distrust, she stops our ears. Do you not remember what happened to Zacharias, the priest? He would notbelieve the angel who announced that his wife would soon become amother, and for his unbelief was stricken dumb!"

The deaf guest had either stumbled into this illustration, or written itwith full design. He looked at Agnes, and the pale and purple colorscame and went upon her face as she bent her body forward over the table. Duff Salter arose and spoke with that lost voice, like one in a vacuum, while he folded his tablet. 

"Agnes, " he said, "it has been cruel to a man of such a sceptical soulas mine to educate him back from the faith he had acquired to theunfaith he had tried to put behind him. Why did you do it? Thesuppression of the truth is never excusable. The secret you might havescattered with a word, when suspicion started against you, is nowdiffused through every family and rendezvous in Kensington. "

She looked miserable enough, and still received the stab of her guest'smagisterial tongue like an affliction from heaven. 

"I had also become infected with this imputation, " continued DuffSalter. "All things around you looked sinister for a season. A kindProvidence has dispelled these black shadows, and I see you now thevictim of an immeasurable mistake. Your weakness and another's obstinacyhave almost ruined you. I shall save you with a cruel hand; let theremorse be his who hoped to outlive society and its natural suspicionsby a mere absence. "

"I will not let you upbraid him, " spoke Agnes Wilt. "My weakness was thewhole mistake. "

"Agnes, " said the grave, bearded man, "you must walk through Kensingtonto-morrow with me in the sight of the whole world. "

She looked up and around a moment, and staggered toward a sofa, butwould have fallen had not Duff Salter caught her in his arms and placedher there with tender strength. He whispered in her ear:

"Courage, little _mother_!"

CHAPTER VIII. 

A REAL ROOF-TREE. 

Ringing the bell at the low front step of a two-story brick dwelling, Duff Salter was admitted by Mr. Knox Van de Lear, the proprietor, atall, plain, commonplace man, who scarcely bore one feature of hisvenerable father. "Come in, Mr. Salter, " bellowed Knox, "tea's justa-waitin' for you. Pap's here. You know Cal, certain! This is my goodlady, Mrs. Van de Lear. Lottie, put on the oysters and waffles! Don'tforgit the catfish. There's nothing like catfish out of the Delaware, Mr. Salter. "

"Particularly if they have a corpse or two to flavor them, " said CalvinVan de Lear in a low tone. 

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear, a fine, large, blonde lady, took the head of thetable. She had a sweet, timid voice, quite out of quantity with her boneand flesh, and her eyelashes seemed to be weak, for they closed togetheroften and in almost regular time, and the delicate lids were quite asnoticeable as her bashful blue eyes. 

"Lottie, " said Rev. Silas Van de Lear, "I came in to-night with a littlechill upon me. At my age chills are the tremors from other wingshovering near. Please let me have the first cup of coffee hot. "

"Certainly, papa, " said the hostess, making haste to fill his cup. "Youdon't at all feel apprehensive, do you?"

"No, " said the old man, with his teeth chattering. "I haven't hadapprehensions for long back. Nothing but confidence. "

"Oh, pap!" put in Knox Van de Lear, "you'll be a preachin' when I'm agranddaddy. You never mean to die. Eat a waffle!"

"My children, " said the old man, "death is over-due with me. It gives meno more concern than the last hour shall give all of us. I had hoped tolive for three things: to see my new church raised; to see my son Calvinready to take my place; to see my neighbor, Miss Wilt, whom I have seengrow up under my eye from childhood, and fair as a lily, brush the dewof scandal from her skirts and resume her place in our church, thehandmaid of God again. "

"Amen, old man!" spoke Calvin irreverently, holding up his plate foroysters. 

"Why, Cal, " exclaimed the hostess, closing her delicately-tinted eyelidstill the long lashes rested on the cheek, "why don't you call papa moresoftly?"

"My son, " spoke the little old gentleman between his chatterings, "inthe priestly office you must avoid abruptness. Be direct at allimportant times, but neither familiar nor abrupt. I cannot name for youa model of address like Agnes Wilt. "

"Isn't she beautiful!" said Mrs. Knox. "Do you think she can bedeceitful, papa?"

"I have no means to pierce the souls of people, Lottie, more thanothers. I don't believe she is wicked, but I draw that from my reasonand human faith. That woman was a pillar of strength in mySabbath-school. May the Lord bring her forth from the furnace refined byfire, and punish them who may have persecuted her!"

"Cal is going into a decline on her account, " said Knox. "I know it byseeing him eat waffles. She refused Cal one day, and he came home andeat all the cold meat in the house. "

"Mr. Salter, " the hostess said, raising her voice, "you have a beautifulwoman for a landlady. Is she well?"

"Very melancholy, " said Duff Salter. "Why don't you visit her?"

"Really, " said the hostess, "there is so much feeling against Agnesthat, considering Papa Van de Lear's position in Kensington, I have beenafraid. Agnes is quite too clever for me!"

"I hope she will be, " said Duff Salter, relapsing to his coffee. 

"He didn't hear what you said, Lot, " exclaimed Calvin. "The old man hasto guess at what we halloo at him. "

"Have you appraised the estate of the late William Zane?" asked theminister, with his bold pulpit voice, which Salter could hear easily. 

"Yes, " replied the deaf guest. "It comes out strong. It is worth, clearof everything and not including doubtful credits, one hundred and eightythousand dollars. "

"That is the largest estate in Kensington, " exclaimed the clergyman. 

"I shall release it all within one week to Miss Agnes, " said DuffSalter. "You are too old, Mr. Van de Lear, to manage it. I have finishedmy work as co-executor with you. The third executor is Miss Wilt. Withthe estate in her hands she will change the tone of public opinion inKensington, perhaps, and the fugitive heir must return or receive nomoney from the woman he has injured!"

"I am entirely of your opinion, " said Reverend Mr. Van de Lear. "Agneswas independent before; this will make her powerful, and she needs allthe power she can get to meet this insensate suburban opinion. When Iwas a young man, commencing to minister here, I had rivals enough, anddeeply sympathize with those who must defend themselves against theembattled gossip of a suburban society. "

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear opened and closed her eyes with a saintly sort ofresignation. 

"I am glad for Agnes, " she said. "But I fear the courts will not allowher, suspected as she is, to have the custody of so much wealth that hasdescended to her through the misfortunes of others, if not by crimes. "

"You are right, Lot, " said Calvin. "Her little game may be to get ahusband as soon as she can, who will resist a trustee's appointment bythe courts. "

"Can _she_ get a husband, Cal?"

"Oh, yes! She's lightning! There's old Salter, rich as a Jew. She'ssmart enough to capture him and add all he has to all that was coming toAndrew Zane. "

Mr. Salter drew up his napkin and sneezed into it a soft articulation of"Jericho! Jericho!"

"Cal, don't you think you have some chance there yet?" asked Knox Vande Lear. "I hoped you would have won Aggy long ago. It's a better showthan I ever had. You see I have to be at work at six o'clock, winter andsummer, and stay at the bookbindery all day long, and so it goes theyear round. "

"Indeed, it is so!" exclaimed the hostess, slowly shutting down hersilken lids of pink. "My poor husband goes away from me while I stillsleep in the dark of dawn; he only returns at supper. "

"Well, haven't you got brother Cal?" asked the bookbinder. "He's bettercompany than I am, Lottie. "

"But Calvin is in love with Miss Wilt, " said the lady, softly unclosingher eves. 

"No, " coolly remarked Calvin, "I am not in love with her. You know that, Lottie. "

"Well, Calvin, dear, you would be if you thought she was pure and clearof crime. "

"Don't ask me foolish questions!" said Calvin. 

The lady at the head of the table wore a pretty smile which she shutaway under her eyelids again and again, and looked gently at Calvin. 

"Dear Agnes!" ejaculated Mrs. Knox, "I never blamed her so much as thatbold little creature, Podge Byerly! No one could make any impressionupon Agnes's confidence until that bright little thing went to boardwith her. It is so demoralizing to take these working-girls, shop-girlsand school-teachers, in where religious influences had prevailed! Theybecame inseparable; Agnes had to entertain such company as Miss Byerlybrought there, and it produced a lowering of tone. She looked around hersuddenly when these crimes were found out, and all her old maturefriends were gone. It is so sad to lose all the wholesome influenceswhich protect one!"

Duff Salter had been eating his chicken and catfish very gravely, and ashe stopped to sneeze and apologize he noticed that Calvin Van de Lear'sface was insolent in its look toward his brother's wife. 

"Wholesome influence, " said Calvin, "will return at the news of hermoney, quick enough!"

"Poor dear Cal!" exclaimed the lady; "he is still madly in love!"

"My friends, " spoke up Duff Salter, "your father is a very sick man. Letus take him to a chamber and send for his doctor. "

Mr. Van de Lear had been neglected in this conversation; it was now seenthat he was in collapse and deathly pale. He leaned forward, however, from strong habit, to close the meal with a blessing, and his head fellforward upon the table. Duff Salter had him in his arms in a moment, andbore him into the little parlor and placed him on a sofa. 

"Give me some music, children, " he murmured. "Oh, my brother Salter! Iwould that you could hear with me the rustling sounds I hear in musicnow! There are voices in it keeping heavenly time, saying, 'Well done!well done!' My strong, kind brother, let me lean upon your breast. Hadwe met in younger days I feel that we would have been very friendly witheach other. "

Duff Salter already had the meagre little man upon his breast, and hislong, hale beard descended upon the pale and aged face. 

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear seated herself at the piano and began a hymn, andCalvin Van de Lear accompanied her, singing bass. The old man closed hiseyes on Duff Salter's breast, and Mr. Knox Van de Lear went out softlyto send for a physician. Duff Salter, looking up at a catch in thesinging, saw that Calvin Van de Lear was leaning familiarly on thelady's shoulder while he turned the leaves of the book of sacred music. 

"I am very sick, " said the old clergyman, still shaken by the chills. "Perhaps we shall meet together no more. My fellow-executor, do my partin this world! In all my life of serving the church and its DivineMaster, I have first looked out for the young people. They are mosthelpless, most valuable. See that Sister Agnes is mercifully cared for!If young Andrew Zane returns, deal gently with him too. Let us be kindto the dear boys, though they go astray. The dear, dear boys!"

Duff Salter received the brave little man's head again upon his breast, and said to himself:

"May God speedily take him away in mercy!"

The doctor, returning with Knox Van de Lear, commanded the minister tobe instantly removed to a chamber, and Duff Salter, unassisted, walkedup-stairs with him like a father carrying his infant to bed. As theyplaced the wasted figure away beneath the coverlets, he put his armaround Duff Salter's neck. 

"Brother, " he said hoarsely, the chill having him in its grasp, "God hasblessed you. Can you help my new church?"

"I promise you, " said Duff Salter, "that after your people have donetheir best I will give the remainder. It shall be built!"

"Now, God be praised!" whispered the dying pastor. "And let Thy servantdepart in peace. "

"Amen!" from somewhere, trembled through the chamber as Duff Salter, hisfeet muffled like his voice, in the habit of mute people who walk asthey hear, passed down the stairway. 

Duff Salter took his seat in the dining-room, which was an extension ofKnox Van de Lear's plain parlor, and buried his face in his palms. Yearsago, when a boy, he had attended preaching in Silas Van de Lear's littlechapel, and it touched him deeply that the nestor of the suburb wasabout to die; the last of the staunch old pastors of the kirk who hadnever been silent when liberty was in peril. The times were not thesame, and the old man was too brave and simple for the latter half ofhis century. As Duff Salter thought of many memories associated with theRev. Silas Van de Lear's residence in Kensington, he heard his own namementioned. It was a lady's voice; nothing but acute sensibility couldhave made it so plain to a deaf man:

"Husband, " said the lady with the slumberous eyelids, "go out with thepitcher and get us half a gallon of ale. Cal and Mr. Salter and myselfare thirsty. "

"I have been for the doctor, Lottie; let Cal go. "

"Cal?" exclaimed the lady, very quietly raising her lashes. "It wouldnot do for him to go for _ale_! He is to be the junior pastor, my dear, as soon as papa is buried, over the Van de Lear church. "

"All right, " said the tired husband, "I'll go. We must all back up Cal. "

As soon as the door closed upon Mr. Knox Van de Lear, a kiss resoundedthrough the little house, and a woman's voice followed it, saying:

"Imprudent!"

"Oh, bah!" spoke Calvin Van de Lear. "Salter is deaf as a post. Lottie, Agnes Wilt has been ruined!"

In the long pause following this remark the deaf man peeped through hisfingers and saw the lady of the house kiss her husband's brother againand again. 

"I am so glad, " she whispered. "Can it be true?"

"It's plain as a barn door. She'll be a mother before shad have run out, or cherries come in. "

"The proud creature! And now, Cal dear, you see nothing exceptionallysaint-like there?"

"I see shame, friendlessness, wealth, and welcome, " spoke the young man. "It's just my luck!"

"But the deaf man? Will he not take her part?"

"No. I shall show him to-night what will cure his partiality. Lottie, you must let me marry her. "

The large, blonde lady threw back her head until the strong, animalthroat and chin stood sharply defined, and white and scarlet in color asthe lobster's meat. 

"Scoundrel!" she hissed, clenching Calvin's wrist with an almostmaniacal fury. 

At this moment a bell began to toll on the neighboring fire company'shouse, and Knox Van de Lear entered with the pitcher of ale. 

"They're tolling the fire bell at the news of father's dying, " saidKnox. 

Calvin filled a glass of ale, and exclaimed:

"Here's to the next pastor of Kensington!" as he laughingly drained itoff. 

"Oh, brother Cal!" remarked the hostess as she softly dropped hereyelids and smiled reprovingly; "this irreverence comes of visiting MissAgnes Wilt too often. I must take you in charge. "

Duff Salter gave a furious sneeze:

"Jericho! Oh! oh! Jericho!"

Calvin Van de Lear closed the door between the dining-room and theparlor, and drew Duff Salter's tablets from his pocket and wrote:

"I want you to go up on the house roof with me. "

Duff looked at him in surprise, and wrote in reply:

"Do you mean to throw me off?"

Calvin's sallow complexion reddened a very little as he laughedflippantly, and stroked his dry side-whiskers and took the tabletsagain:

"I want you to see the ghost's walk, " he wrote. "Come along!"

 * * * * *

Passing the sick father's door, Calvin led Duff Salter up to the garretfloor, where a room with rag carpet, dumb-bells, boxing-gloves, theological books, and some pictures far from modest, disclosed thevaried tastes of an entailed pulpit's expectant. Calvin drew down thecurtain of the one window and lighted a lamp. There was a table in themiddle of the floor, and there the two men conducted a silentconversation on the ivory tablets. 

"This is my room, " wrote Calvin. "I stay here all day when I study orenjoy myself. The governor doesn't come in here to give me any adviceor nose around. "

"Is Mrs. Knox Van de Lear serious as to religious matters?"

"Very, " wrote Calvin, sententiously, and looked at Duff Salter with themost open countenance he had ever been seen to show. Duff merely askedanother question:

"Has she a good handwriting? I want to have a small document very neatlywritten. "

Calvin went over to a trunk, unlocked it, and took out a bundle of whatappeared to be lady's letters, and selecting one, folded the addressback and showed the chirography. 

"Jericho! Jerry-cho! cho! O cho!" sneezed Duff Salter. "The mostadmirable writing I have ever seen. "

Calvin took the tablets. 

"I have been in receipt of some sundry sums of money from you, Salter, to follow up this Zane mystery. I hope to be able to show you to-nightthat it has not been misinvested. "

"You have had two hundred dollars, " wrote Duff Salter. "What are yourconclusions?"

"Andrew Zane is in Kensington. "

"Where?"

"In the block opposite are several houses belonging to the Zane estate. One of them stood empty until within a month, when a tenant unknown tothe neighborhood, with small furniture and effects--evidently a mereservant--moved in. My brother's wife has taken a deep interest in theZane murder, and being at home all day, her resort is this room, whereshe can see, unobserved, the whole _menage_ and movement in the blockopposite. "

"Why did she feel so much interested?"

"Honor bright!" Calvin wrote. "Well, Mrs. Knox was a great admirer ofthe late William Zane. They were very intimate--some thought underengagement to marry. Suddenly she accepted my brother, and old Zaneturned out to be infatuated with his ward. We may call it rivalry andreminiscence. "

"Jer-i-choo-wo!"

Duff Salter, now full of smiles, proffered a pinch of snuff to his host, who declined it, but set out a bottle of brandy in reciprocalfriendship. 

"Go on, " indicated Salter to the tablets. 

"One morning, just before daybreak, my brother's wife, glancing out ofthis window--"

"In this room, you say, before daybreak?"

Calvin looked viciously at Duff Salter, who merely smiled. 

"She saw, " said Calvin Van de Lear, "an object come out of the trap-dooron Zane's old residence and move under shelter of the ridge of the roofto the newly-tenanted dwelling in the same block, and there disappeardown the similar trap. "

"Jericho! Jericho!--Proceed. "

"It was our inference that probably Andrew Zane was making stealthyvisits to Agnes, and we applied a test to her. To our astonishment wefound she had only seen him once since the murder, and that was thenight the bodies were discovered. "

"How could you extract that from a self-contained woman like AgnesWilt?" asked Duff Salter, deeply interested. 

"We got it from Podge Byerly. "

"Jerusalem!" exclaimed Duff Salter aloud, knocking over the snuff-boxand forgetting to sneeze. "Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, it is a damned lie. "

Calvin locked up with some surprise but more conceit. 

"I'm a first-class eavesdropper, " he wrote, and held it up on the tabletto Duff's eyes. "We got the fact from Podge's bed-ridden brother, ascamp who destroyed his health by excesses and came back on Podge forsupport. Knowing how corruptible he was, I got access to him and paidhim out of your funds to wheedle out of Podge all that Lady Agnes toldher. She had no idea that her brother communicated with any person, ashe was unable to walk, and she told him for his amusement secrets shenever dreamed could go out of the house. We corresponded with him bymail. "

"Calvin, " wrote Duff Salter, "you never thought of these thingsyourself. "

"To give the devil his credit, my brother's wife suggested that device. "

"Jericho-o-o-oh!"

Duff Salter was himself again. 

"Well, Salter, " continued the heir-apparent of Kensington, "we laid ourheads together, and the mystery continued to deepen why Andrew Zaneinfested the residence of his murdered father if he never revealedhimself to the woman he had loved. Not until the discovery that AgnesWilt had been ruined could we make that out. "

They were both looking at each other intently as Duff Salter read thelast sentence. 

"It then became plain to us, " continued Calvin, "that Andrew Zane wantedto abandon the woman he had seduced, as was perfectly natural. Hehaunted and alarmed the house and kept informed on all its happenings, but cut poor Agnes dead. "

"The infamous scoundrel!" exclaimed Duff Salter, looking very dark andserious. 

"Now, Salter, " continued Calvin, "we had a watch set on that ridge ofroofs every night, and another one at the old Zane house, front andrear, and the apparition on the roof was so irregular that we could notunderstand what occasions it took to come out until we observed thatwhenever your servant was out of the neighborhood a whole night, theroof-walker was sure to descend into Zane's trap. "

"Jer-i-cho-ho-ho!"

"To-night, as we have made ourselves aware, your servant is not inKensington. We saw him off to Treaty Island. I am watching at thiswindow for the man on the roof. The moment he leaves the trap-door of thetenant's house, it will be entered by officers at the waving of thislamp at my window. One officer will proceed along the roof and stationhimself on the Zane trap, closing that outlet. At the same time the Zanehouse will be entered front and rear and searched. The time is due. Itis midnight. Come!"

Calvin pointed to a ladder that led from the corner of his study to theroof, and Duff Salter nodded his head acquiescently. 

They went up the ladder and thrust their heads into the soft night ofearly summer. 

There was starlight, but no moon. 

The engine bell just ceased to toll as they looked forth on thescattered suburb, and at points beheld the Delaware flowing darkly, indicated by occasional lights of vessels reflected upward, and by thevery distant lamps on the Camden shore. 

Most of the houses within the range of vision were small, patched, andirregular, except where the black walls of the even blocks on someprincipal streets strode through. 

Scarcely a sound, except the tree frogs droning, disturbed the air, andKensington basked in the midnight like some sleeping village of theplains, stretching out to the fields of cattle and the savory truckfarms. 

Duff Salter mentally exclaimed:

"Here, like two angels of good or evil, we spy upon the dull old hamlet, where nothing greater has happened than to-night since the Indiansbartered their lands away for things of immediate enjoyment. Are notmost of these people Indians still, ready to trade away substantiallands of antique title for the playthings of a few brief hours? Yes, heaven itself was signed away by man and woman for the juices of oneforbidden fruit. Here, where the good old pastor, like another WilliamPenn, is running his stakes beyond the stars and peopling with angelshis possessions there, the savage children are occupied with the triflesof lust, covetousness, and deceit. They are no worse than the sons ofPenn, who became apostates to his charity and religion before the breathhad left his body. So goes the human race, whether around the Tree ofKnowledge or Kensington's Treaty Tree. "

Duff Salter felt his arm pulled violently, and heard his companionwhisper, "There! Do you see it?"

Across the street, only a few hundred feet distant, an object emergedfrom the black mass of the buildings and moved rapidly along theopposite ridge of houses against the sky, drawing nearer the twowatchers as it advanced, and passing right opposite. 

Duff Salter made it out to be a woman or a figure in a gown. 

It looked neither to the right nor left, and did not stoop nor cower, but strode boldly as if with right to the large residence of the Zanes, where in a minute it faded away. 

Duff Salter felt a little superstitious, but Calvin Van de Lear shotpast him down the ladder. 

Duff heard the curtain at the window thrown up as the divinity studentflashed his lamp and saw the door of the house whence the apparition hadcome, forced by the police. 

As he descended the ladder Calvin Van de Lear extended Duff's hat tohim, and pointed across the way. 

They were not very prompt reaching the door of the Zane residence, butwere still there in time to employ Duff Salter's key, instead ofviolence, to make the entry. 

"Gentlemen, " said the deaf man, with authority, "there is no occasion ofany of you pressing in here to alarm a lady. Mr. Van de Lear and myselfwill make the search of the house which you have already guarded, front, back, and above, and rendered it impossible for the object ofyour warrant to escape. "

The dignity and commanding stature of Duff Salter had their effect. 

Calvin Van de Lear and Duff Salter entered the silent house, lighted thegas, and walked from room to room, finally entering the apartment ofDuff Salter himself. 

There sat Mike, the serving-man, in his red hair, uneven eyebrows, crutch, and wooden leg, as quietly arranging the models of vessels andsteamers as if he had not anticipated a midnight call nor ceased hislabor since Duff Salter had gone out. 

"Damnation!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, pale with exertion and rage, "are you here? I thought you were at Treaty Island. "

"Misther Salter, " said the Irishman, "I returned, do you see, because Iforgot something and wanthed a drop of your brandy, sur. "

Duff Salter walked up to the speaker and seized him by the lapels of hiscoat, and placing the other hand upon his head, tore off the entirered-haired scalp which covered him. 

"Andrew Zane, " said Duff Salter in a low voice, "your disguise isdetected. Yield yourself like a man to your father's executor. You aremy prisoner!"

CHAPTER IX. 

IN COURT. 

Agnes Wilt awoke and said her prayers, unconscious of any event of thenight. At the breakfast-table she met Duff Salter, who took both herhands in his. 

"Agnes, " said Duff Salter--"let me call you so hereafter--did you hearthe bell toll last night?"

"No, " she replied with agitation. "For what, Mr. Salter?"

"The good priest of Kensington is dying. "

"Beloved friend!" she said, as the tears came to her eyes. "And must hedie uncertain of my blame or innocence? Yet he will learn it in thatwiser world!"

"Agnes, I require perfect submission from you for this day. Will yougive it in all things?"

She looked at him a moment in earnest reflection, and said finally:

"Yes, unless my conscience says 'no. '"

"Nothing will be asked of you that you cannot rightfully do. Decision iswhat is needed now, and I will bring you through triumphantly if youwill obey me. "

"I will. "

"At eleven o'clock we must go to the magistrate's office. I will walkthere with you. "

"Am I to be arrested?" she asked, hesitating. 

"If you go with me it will not be an arrest. "

"Mr. Salter, " she cried, in a burst of anguish, "I am not fit to be seenupon the streets of Kensington. "

He took her in his arms like a daughter. 

"Yes, yes, poor girl! The mother of God braved no less. You can bear it. But all this morning I must be closely engaged. An important eventhappened last night. At eleven, positively, be ready to go out with me. "

Agnes was ready, and stepped forth into the daylight on the mainthoroughfare of Queen Street. Almost every window was filled withgazers; the sidewalks were lined with strollers, loiterers, and peoplewaiting. She might have fainted if Duff Salter's arm had not been thereto sustain her. 

A large fishwife, with a basket on her head, was standing beside hercomely grown daughter, who had put her large basket down, and bothdevoured Agnes with their eyes. 

"Staying in the house, Beck, " exclaimed the mother of the girl, "hasbeen healthy for some people. "

"Yes, mammy, " answered the girl; "it's safer standing in market withcatfish. He! he! he!"

A shipbuilder's daughter was on the front steps, a slender girl of dark, smooth skin and features, talking to a grown boy. The girl bowed: "Howdo you do, Miss Agnes?" The grown boy giggled inanely. 

Two old women, near neighbors of Agnes, had their spectacles wiped andrun out to a proper focus, and the older of the two had a double pairupon her most insidious and suspicious nose. As Agnes passed, this oldlady gave such a start that she dropped the spectacles off her nose, andejaculated through the open window, "Lord alive!"

At Knox Van de Lear's house the fine-bodied, feline lady withnictitating eyes, drew aside the curtain, even while the dying man abovewas in frigid waters, that she might slowly raise and drop her ambrosiallids, and express a refined but not less marked surprise. Agnes, by anexcitement of the nerves of apprehension, saw everything while shetrembled. She could read the dates of all the houses on the paintedcornices of the water-spouts, and saw the cabalistic devices of oldinsurance companies on the property they covered. Pigeons flying aboutthe low roofs clucked and chuckled as if their milky purity had beenincensed, and little dogs seemed to draw near and trot after, toofamiliarly, as if they scented sin. 

There were two working-men from Zane & Rainey's ship-yard who had knownkindness to their wives from Agnes when those wives were in confinement. Both took off their hats respectfully, but with astonishmentoverwhelming their pity. 

Half the fire company had congregated at one corner of the street--lean, runners of men in red shirts, and with boots outside their trousers. They did not say a word, but gazed as at a riddle going by. Yet at oneplace a Sabbath scholar of Agnes came out before her, and, making acourtesy, said:

"Teacher, take my orange blossom!"

The flower was nearly white, and very fragrant. Duff Salter reached outand put it in his button-hole. 

So excited were the sensibilities of Agnes that it seemed to her the olddoor-knockers squinted; the idle writing of boys on dead walls read witha hidden meaning; the shade-trees lazily shaking in summer seemed towhisper; if she looked down, there now and then appeared, moulded in thebricks of the pavement, a worn letter, or a passing goose foot, theaccident of the brickyard, but now become personal and intentional. Thelittle babies, sporting in their carriages before some houses, leanedforward and looked as wise and awful as doctors in some occultdiagnosis. Cartwheels, as they struck hard, articulated, "What, out!Boo! boohoo!" Sunshine all slanted her way. Hucksters' cries soundedlike constables' proclamation: "Oyez! oyez!"

With the perceptions, the reflections of Agnes were also startlinglyalert. She seemed two or three unfortunate people at once. Now it wasLady Jane Grey going to the tower. Now it was Beatrice Cenci going totorture. Now it was Mary Magdalene going to the cross. At almost everyhouse she felt a kindness speak for her, except mankind; a recollectionof nursing, comforting, praying with some one, but all forgotten now. "_Via Crucia, Via Crucia_, " her thorn-torn feet seemed to patter in theechoes of her ears and mind, and there arose upon her spirit thesternest curse of women, direful with God's own rage, "I will greatlymultiply thy sorrow and thy conception. "

Thus she reached the magistrate's little office, around the door ofwhich was a little crowd of people, and Duff Salter led her in theprivate door to the residence itself. A cup of tea and a decanter ofwine were on the table. The magistrate's wife knew her, and kissed her. Then Agnes broke down and wept like a little child. 

The magistrate was a lame man, and a deacon in Van de Lear's church, quite gray, and both prudent and austere, and making use of but fewwords, so that there was no way of determining his feelings on the case. He took his place behind a plain table and opened court by saying, "Who appears? Now!"

Duff Salter rose, the largest man in the court-room. His long beardcovered his whole breast-bone; his fine intelligent features, clear, sober eyes, and hale, house-bleached skin, bore out the authorityconceded to him in Kensington as a rich gentleman of the world. 

"Mr. Magistrate, " said Duff Salter, "this examination concerns thepublic and the ends of justice only as bears upon the death of the latecitizens of Kensington, William Zane and Saylor Rainey. It is apreliminary examination only, and the person suspected by public gossiphas not retained counsel. With your permission, as the executor ofWilliam Zane, I will conduct such part of the inquiry here as my dutytoward the deceased, and my knowledge of the evidence, notwithstandingmy frontier notions of law, suggest to me. "

"You prosecute?" asked the magistrate, and added, "Yes, yes! I will!"

Calvin Van de Lear got up and bowed to the magistrate. 

"Your Honor, my deep interest in Miss Agnes Wilt has driven me to leavethe bedside of a dying parent to see that her interests are properlyattended to in this case. Whenever she is concerned I am for thedefence. "

"Yes!" exclaimed the magistrate. "Salter, have you a witness?"

"Mike Donovan!" called Duff Salter. 

A red-haired Irishman, with one eyebrow higher than the other, and scarson his face, walked into the alderman's court from the private room, andwas sworn. 

"Donovan, " spoke Duff Salter, standing up, "relate the occurrences of acertain night when you rowed the prisoner, Andrew Zane, and certainother persons, from Treaty Island to an uncertain point in the RiverDelaware. "

"Stop! stop!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, rising. "It seems to me Ihave seen that fellow's face before. Donovan, hadn't you a wooden legwhen last I saw you?"

"No doubt of it, " answered the Irishman. 

"Why haven't you got it on now?" cried Calvin, scowling. 

"Because, yer riverence, me own legs was plenty good enough on thisoccasion. "

"Now, now, I won't!" ordered the sententious little magistrate. 

"Proceed with the narrative, " cried Duff Salter, "and repeat no part ofthe conversation in that boat. "

"It was a dark and lowering night, " said the waterman, "as we swungloose from Traity Isle. I sat a little forward of the cintre, managingthe oars. Mr. Andrew Zane was in the bow, on the watch for difficulties. In the stern sat the boss, Mr. William Zane. Between him and me--God'srest to him!--sat the murdered gintleman, well-beloved Saylor Rainey!The tide was running six miles an hour. We steered by the lights ofKinsington. "

"Then you are confident, " said Duff Salter, "that the whole length ofthe skiff separated William Zane from his son?"

"As confident, yer honor, as that the batteau had two inds. They niverwere nearer, the one to the tother, than that, for the whole of theixpidition. And scarcely one word did Mr. Andrew utter on the whole ovthat bloody passage. "

"Say nothing, for the present, about any conversations, " commanded DuffSalter, "but go on with the occurrences briefly. "

"I had been a very little while, ye must understand me, gintlemen, inthe imploy of thim two partners. After they entered the boat they spokenothing at all, at all, for siveral minutes. It was all I could do widthe strong tide to keep the boat pinted for Kinsington, and I onlynoticed that Mr. Rainey comminced the conversation in a low tone ofvoice. Just at that time, or soon afterward, your Honor, a large vesselstood across our bow, going down stream in the night, and I put on allmy strength, at Mr. William Zane's order, to cross in front of her, anddid so. I was so afraid the ship would take us under that I put my wholeattintion to my task, not daring to disobey so positive a boss as Mr. Zane, though it was agin my judgment, indade. "

All in the court and outside the door and windows were giving strictattention. Even Andrew Zane, whose face had been rather sullen, listenedwith a pale spot on his cheeks. 

"Go on, " said Duff Salter gently. "You relate it very well. "

"As we had cleared the ship, gintlemen, I paused an instant to wipe thesweat from my brows, though it was a cold night, for I was quite spint. I then perceived that Mr. Rainey and the master were disputing andraising their voices higher and higher, and what surprised me most ofall, your Honor, was the unusual firmness of Mr. Rainey, who wasginerally very obedient to the boss. He faced the boss, and would nottake his orders, and I heard him once exclaim: 'Shame on you, sir; he isyour son!'"

"Stop! stop!" cried Duff Salter. "You were not to repeat conversations. What next?"

"In the twinklin' of an eye, " resumed the witness, "the masther hadsazed his partner by the throat and called him a villain. They bothstood up in the boat, the masther's hand still in Mr. Rainey's collar, and for an instant Mr. Rainey shook himself loose and cried--"

"Not a word!" exclaimed Duff Salter. "What was _done_?"

"Mr. Rainey cried out something, all at once. The masther fetched aterrible oath and fell back upon his seat. 'You assisted in thisvillainy!' he shouted. They clinched, and I saw something shine dimly inMr. William Zane's hand. The report told me what it was. I lifted oneoar in a feeling of horror, and the boat swung round abruptly on theblade of the other, and Mr. Rainey, released from the masther's grip, fell overboard in the dark night. "

Nothing was said by any person in the court except a suppressed "Bah!"from Calvin Van de Lear. 

"Silence! Order! I won't!" exclaimed the lame magistrate, rising fromhis seat. "Now! Go on!"

"I dropped both oars in me terror, and one of them floated away in thedark. We all stood up in the boat. 'My God!' exclaimed the masther, 'what have I done?' As quick as the beating of my heart he placed thepistol at his own head. I saw the flash and heard the report. Mr. William Zane fell overboard. "

There was a shudder of horror for a moment, and then a voice outside thewindow, hoarse and cheery, shouted to the outer crowd, "Andrew isinnocent! Three cheers for Andrew Zane!"

The people in and out of the warm and densely-pressed officesimultaneously gave cheers, calling others to the scene, and the oldmagistrate, lame as he was, arose and looked happy. 

"No arrests!" he cried. "Right enough! Good! Now, attention!"

But Andrew Zane kept his seat with an expression of obstinacy, andglared at Calvin Van de Lear, who was trembling with rage. 

"Well got up, on my word!" exclaimed Calvin. "Who is this fellow?"

"Go on and finish your story!" commanded Duff Salter. 

"God forgive Mike Donovan, your Honor!" continued the witness. "I'mafraid if Mr. William Zane had been the only man overboard I wouldn'thave risked me life. He was a hard, overbearin' masther. But I thoughtof his poor son, standin' paralyzed-like, and the kind Mr. Raineydrownin' in the wintry water, and I jumped down in the dark flood torescue one or both. From that day to this, the two partners I never saw. It was months before I saw America at all, or the survivin' okkepant ofthe boat. "

"You may explain how that came to be, " intimated Duff Salter, grimlysuperintending the court. 

"Well, sir! As I dived from the skiff my head encountered a solidsomething which made me see a thousand flashes av lightning in onesecond. I was so stunned that I had only instinct--I belave ye call itthat--to throw my ar-rum around the murthering object and hold likedeath. Ye know, judge, how drownin' men will hold to straws. That straw, yer Honor, was the spar of a vessel movin' through the water. It was, Ifound out afterward, one of the pieces which had wedged the ship on theMarine Railway, where she had been gettin' repaired, and she comin' offhurriedly about dusk, had not been loosened from her. I raised my voiceby a despairin' effort, and screamed 'Help! help!' When I came to I wason an Austrian merchant ship, bound to Wilmington, North Carolina, fornaval stores, and then to Trieste. The blow of the spar had given me aslight crack av the skull. "

"That crack is wide open yet, " said Calvin Van de Lear. 

"Begorra, " returned the Irishman, facing placidly around until he foundthe owner of the voice, "Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, it would take many sucha blow, sur, to fracture your heart!"

"Go on now, Donovan, and finish your tale. You were carried off toTrieste?" spoke Duff Salter. 

"I was, sir. At Wilmington no news had been recaved of any tragedy inPhiladelphia, and when I told my story there to a gentleman he concludedI was ravin' and a seein' delusions. The Austrian was short av a crew, and the docthor said if they could get away to sea he could make meeffective very soon. I was too helpless to go on deck or makeresistance. Says I, 'It's the will av God. '"

A round of applause greeted this story as it was ended, and cheerfulhands were extended to the witness and the prisoner. Calvin Van de Lear, however, exclaimed:

"Alderman, what has all this to do with the prisoner's ignominiousflight for months from his home and from persons he abandoned tosuspicion and shame? This man is an impostor. "

"Will you take the stand, Mr. Andrew Zane?" asked Duff Salter. 

"No, " replied the late fugitive. "I have been hunted and slandered likea wolf. I will give no evidence in Kensington, where I have been soshamefully treated. Let me be sent to a higher court, and there I willspeak. "

"Alas!" Duff Salter said, with grave emphasis, "it is you father's oldand obstinate spirit which is speaking. You are the ghost I thought washis at the door of my chamber. Mr. Magistrate, swear me!"

Duff Salter gravely kissed the Testament and stood ready to depose, whenCalvin Van de Lear again interrupted. 

"Are you not deaf?" asked the divinity student. "Where are your tabletsthat you carry every day? You seem to hear too well, I consider. "

"You are right, " cried Duff Salter, turning on his interrogator like alion. "I am wholly cured of deafness, and my memory is as acute as myhearing. "

Calvin Van de Lear turned pale to the roots of his dry, yellow whiskers. 

"Devil!" he muttered. 

"My testimony covers only a single point, " resumed the strong, direct, and imposing witness. "I saw the face of this prisoner for the firsttime since his babyhood in his father's house not many weeks ago. Itresembled his father's youthful countenance, as I knew it, so greatlythat I really believed his parent haunted the streets of Kensington, according to the rumor. The supposed apparition drove me to investigatethe mysterious death of William Zane. I believed that Agnes knew thestory, but was under this prisoner's command of secrecy. Seeking anassistant, the witness, Donovan, forced himself upon me. In a short timeI was confounded by the contradictions of his behavior. Looking deeperinto it, I suspected that in his suit of clothing resided at differenttimes two men: the one an agent, the other a principal; the one areality, the other a disguise. I armed myself and had the duller andless observant of these doubles row me out upon the Delaware on such anight as marked the tragedy he witnessed. When we reached the middle ofthe river I forced the story of the coincidence from him by reasoningand threats. "

"Ha! ha!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear. "Is this an Arkansas snakestory?"

"The young Zane had gratified a wilful passion to penetrate theresidence of his father, and look at its inmates and the situation fromsafe harborage there. He found that Donovan in his roving sailor's lifehad played the crippled sea beggar in the streets of British cities, tying up his natural leg and fitting a wooden leg to the knee--a trickwell known to British ballad singers. That leg was in Donovan'ssea-chest, as it had been left in this city, and also the crutchnecessary to walk with it. Mr. Zane and Donovan had exchanged the legand crutch, and the former matched his fellow with a wig and patches. Thus convertible, they had for a little while deceived everybody, butfor further convenience Mr. Zane ensconced himself as a tenant in aneighboring house, and when the apparatus was in request by Donovan, hecrossed on the roofs between the trap-doors, and still was master of hisresidence. "

"What does all this disclose but the intrigue of despairing guilt?"exclaimed young Van de Lear. "He had destroyed the purity of a lady andabandoned her, and was afraid to show his real face in Kensington. "

"We will see as to that, " replied Duff Salter. "I had hoped to respectthe lady's privacy, but Mr. Zane has refused to testify. Call AgnesWilt. "

All in the magistrate's office rose at the mention of this name, onlyAndrew Zane keeping his seat amid the crowd. Calvin Van de Learofficiously sought to assist the witness in, but Duff Salter pressed himback and gave the sad and beautiful woman his arm. She was sworn, andstood there blushing and pale by turns. 

"What is your name?" asked Duff Salter gently. "Speak very plain, sothat all these good friends of yours may make no mistake. "

"My name, " replied the lady, "is Agnes Zane. I am the wife of Mr. AndrewZane. "

"Very good, " said Duff Salter soothingly. "You are the wife of AndrewZane; wedded how long ago, madam?"

"Eight months. "

"Do you see any person in this court-room, Mrs. Zane, that you wish toidentify? Let all be seated. "

Poor Agnes looked timidly around the place, and saw a person, at whomall were gazing, rise and reach his arms toward her. 

"Gracious God!" she whispered, "is it he?"

"It is, dear wife, " cried Andrew Zane. "Come to my heart. "

CHAPTER X. 

THE SECRET MARRIAGE. 

Reverend Silas Van de Lear was drawing his latest breaths in the houseof one of his elder sons, and only his lips were seen to move in silentprayer, when a younger fellow-clergyman entering, to a cluster of hiscloth attending there, said audibly:

"This is a strange _denouement_ to the great Kensington scandal, whichhas happened this afternoon. "

The large, voluptuous lady with the slowly declining eyelids raised themquietly as in languid surprise. 

"You mean the Zane murder? What is it?" asked a minister, while othersgathered around, showing the ministry to have human curiosity even inthe hour and article of death. 

"Miss Agnes Wilt, the especial favorite of our dying patriarch here, wasmarried to young Andrew Zane some time before his father died. There wasno murder in the case. Zane the elder, in one of his frequent fits ofwild and arrogant rage, which were little less than insanity, killed hispartner, Rainey, and in as sudden remorse took his own life. "

"What was the occasion of Zane's rage?"

"That is not quite clear, but the local population here is in a violentreaction against the accusers of young Zane and his wife. The churchrecovers a valuable woman in Agnes Zane. "

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear had a vial of smelling salts in her hand, and thisvial dropping suddenly on the floor called attention to the fact thatthe lady had a little swooning turn. She was herself again in a minute, and her eyes slowly unclosed and lifted their tender curtains prettily. 

"I am so glad for dear Agnes, " she said with a natural loudness in thathushed room. "It even made me forget papa to find Agnes innocent. "

The dying minister seemed to catch the words. A ministerial colleaguebent down to hear his low articulation:

"Agnes innocent!" said Silas Van de Lear, and strove to clasp his hands. "The praying of the righteous availeth much!"

The physician said the good man's pulse ceased to beat at that minute, and they raised around his scarcely cold remains a hymn to heaven. 

Mean time, at the alderman's court, a surprising scene was witnessed. For a few minutes everybody was in a frenzy of delight, and Duff Salterwas the hero of the hour. The alderman made no effort to discipline anyperson; people hugged and laughed, and entreated to shake hands withAndrew Zane, and in the pleasing confusion Calvin Van de Lear slunk out, white as one condemned to be whipped. 

"Now! now! We will! Yes!" said the sententious old alderman. "Come toorder. Andrew Zane must be sworn!"

At this moment the Kensington volunteer fire apparatus stopped oppositethe alderman's office and began to peal its bells merrily. The younghusband's obstinacy slowly giving way, seemed to be gone entirely when, searching the room with his eye, he detected the flight of Calvin Van deLear. He kissed the little book as if it were a box of divine balm, andraised his voice, looking still tenderly at Agnes, and addressing DuffSalter:

"Will you examine me, my father's friend?"

"Yes, now! You will!" exploded the alderman. 

"No, take your own method, thou alternate of the late Mike Donovan, "exclaimed Duff Salter with a smile. 

"I never thought there could be an excuse for my behavior, " said AndrewZane, "until this unexpected kind treatment had encouraged me. Indeed, my friends, I am in every alternative unfortunate. To defend myself Imust reflect upon the dead. I will not make a defence, but tell my storyplainly. 

"My father was a man of deeds--a kind, rude business man. He loved meand I worshipped him, though our apposite tempers frequently brought usin conflict. Neither of us knew how to curb the other or be curbed inturn. Above all things I learned to fear my father's will; it wasinvincible. 

"My wife and I grew up in my widower father's family, and fell in love, and had an understanding that at a proper season we would marry. Thatseason could not be long postponed when Agnes's increasing beauty and myardor kept pace together. I sought an occasion to break the secret to myfather, and his reception of it filled me with terror. 'Marry Agnes!'he replied. 'You have no right to her. Your mother left her to me. Imay marry her myself. '

"If he had never formed this design before it was now pursued with hiswell-known tireless energy. The suggestion needed no other encouragementthan her beauty, ever present to inflame us both. Her household habitsand society were to his liking; he offered me everything but that whichembraced all to me. 'Go to Europe!' he said. 'Take a wife where youwill; but Agnes you shall not have. I will give you money, pleasure, andindependence, but I love where you have looked. Agnes will be yourmother, not your wife!'

"Alas! gentlemen, this purpose of my father was not mere tyranny; heloved her, indeed, and that was the insurmountable fact. My betrothedhad too much reason to know it. We mingled our tears together andacknowledged our dependence and duty, but we loved with that youthfulfulness which cannot be mistaken nor dissuaded. In our distress we wentto that kind partner whom my father had raised from an apprentice to behis equal, and asked him what to do. He told us to marry while we could. Agnes preferred an open marriage as least in consequences, and involvingevery trouble in the brave outset. I hoped to wean my father from hiswilfulness, and yet protect my affection by a secret marriage, to whichwith difficulty I prevailed on my betrothed to consent. After ourmarriage I found my husband's domain no less invaded by my father'ssuit, until life became intolerable and it was necessary to speak. Poor, brave Rainey, feeling keenly for us, fixed the time and place. He hadseldom crossed my father, and I trembled for his safety, but nevercould have anticipated what came to pass. 

"Mr. Rainey said to us, 'I will tell your father, while we are crossingthe river some evening in a batteau, that you and Agnes are married, andhis suit is fruitless. He will be unable to do worse than sit still andbear it in the small limits of the boat, and before we touch the othershore will get philosophy from time and consideration. '

"That plan was carried out. Shall I recount the dreadful circumstancesagain? Spare me, I entreat you!"

"No, I won't! The whole truth!" exclaimed the stern magistrate. "Tellit!"

"You are making no mistake, my young friend, " said Duff Salter. "It willall be told very soon. "

"As we started from Treaty Island, on that dark winter night, " continuedAndrew Zane, growing pale while he spoke, "Mr. Rainey said to me, 'Go inthe bow. You are not to speak one word. I will face your father astern. 'The oarsman, Donovan, had a hard pull. The first word I heard my fathersay was, 'That is none of your affair. ' 'It is everybody's affair, 'answered Mr. Rainey, 'because you make it so. Behave like a gentlemanand a parent. The young people love each other. ' 'I have the younglady's affections, ' said my father. 'You are making her miserable, ' saidMr. Rainey, 'and are deceiving yourself. She begins to hate you. ' 'Youare an insolent liar!' exclaimed my father. 'If you mix in this businessI will throw you out of the firm. ' 'That is no intimidation to me, 'answered his partner. 'Prosperity can never attend the business of acruel and unjust man. I shall be a brother to Andrew and a father toAgnes, since you would defraud them so. William Zane, I will see themmarried and supported!' With that my father threw himself in merephysical rage upon Mr. Rainey. They both arose, and Mr. Rainey shookhimself loose and cried, 'You are outwitted, partner. I saw themmarried! They are man and wife!'

"With this my father's rage had no expression short of recklessness. Healways carried arms, and was unconquerable. His ready hand had soughthis weapon, I think, hardly consciously. His dismay and indignation foran instant destroyed his reason at Mr. Rainey's sudden statement offact. 

"My God! can I further particularize on such a scene? In a moment oftime I saw before my eyes a homicide of insanity, a suicide of remorse;and to end all, the sailor in the boat, as if set crazy by theseoccurrences, leaped overboard also. "

This narrative, given with rising energy of feeling by Andrew Zane, washeard with breathless attention. Andrew paused and glanced at his wife, whose face was bathed with the inner light of perfect relief. Thegreater babe of secrecy had ceased to travail with her. 

"Mr. Magistrate, " said the young husband, "as I am under my oath, I canonly relate the acts which followed from the inference of my feelings. My first sense was that of astonishment too intense not to appear unrealand even amusing. It seemed to me that if I would laugh out loud allwould come back, as delusions yield to scepticism and mockery. But itwas too cold not to be real, the scene and persons were too familiar tobe erroneous. I had to realize that I was in one of the great andterrible occasional convulsions of human nature. Do you know how it nextaffected me? With an instant's sense of sublimity! I said to myself, 'How dared I marry so much beauty and womanly majesty? Doing so, I havetempted the old gods and their fates and furies. This is poeticalpunishment for my temerity. ' Still all the while I was laboring at theone scull left in the boat while my brain was fuming so, and listeningfor sounds on the water. I heard the sailor cry twice, and then hisvoice fainted away. I began to weep at the oar while I strained upon it, and called 'Help!' and implored God's intervention. At last I sat downin the boat, worn out and in despair, and let it drift down all thecity's front, past lights and glooms and floating ice, and wished that Iwere dead. My father's kindness and all our disagreements rose to mind, and it seemed God's punishment that I had married where his intentionswere. Yet to know the truth of this, I said a prayer upon my knees inthe wet boat while my teeth chattered, and before the end of my prayerhad come I was thinking of my wife's pure name, and how this would spother as with stains of blood unless I could explain it. 

"When I reached this stage of my exalted sensibilities I was nearlycrazed. There had been no witness of our marriage except the minister, and he was already dead. We had been married at the country parsonage ofan old retired minister beyond Oxford church, on the road from Frankfordtown, as we drove out one afternoon, and I prevailed with myconscientious wife to yield her scruples to our heart's necessity. 'Great God!' I thought aloud--for none could hear me there--'howdreadfully that secret marriage will compromise my wife! Who willbelieve us without a witness of what I must assert--a story soimprobable that I would not believe it myself? I must say that I marriedmy wife secretly from my father's house, confessing deceit for both ofus, and with Agnes's religious professions, a sin in the church'sestimation. If there could be an excuse for me, the strict people ofKensington will accord none to her. They will charge on her maturer mindthe whole responsibility, paint her in the colors of ingratitude, andfind in her greatest poverty the principal motive. Yes, they may bewicked enough to say she compassed the death of my father by my hands, to get his property. '

"I had proceeded thus far when the terror of our position becameluminous like the coming fire on a prairie, which shows everything but away of escape. 'Where is your father?' they would ask of me inKensington. 'He is drowned. ' 'How drowned?' 'He shot himself. ' 'Why didhe shoot himself?' 'Because I had married his ward. ' 'But his partner isgone too. ' 'He is murdered. ' 'Why murdered?' 'Because he interceded forme. ' 'Where is your witness?' 'He has disappeared. ' I saw the wildimprobability of this tale, and thought of past notorious quarrels withmy father ended by my voluntary absence. There were but two points thatseemed to stick in my nervous mind: 'It never would do to tell ourmarriage at that moment, and I must find that sailor, who might still beliving. '"

"He found me, sure enough, begorra!" exclaimed Mike Donovan, giving therelief of laughter to that intense narrative. 

"Cowardly as you may call my resolution, gentlemen, it was all theresolution I had left. To partake of the inheritance left me by bothpartners in our house I feared to do. 'Let us do the penance ofsuspicious separation, ' I said to Agnes; 'as your husband I command youto let me go!' She yielded like a wife, and stood my hostage inKensington for all those melancholy months. I had just learned the placefor which the bark which passed us on that eventful night had cleared, when the two bullet-pierced bodies were discovered in the ice. Thatnight I sailed for Wilmington, North Carolina. When I arrived there thebark was gone for the Mediterranean, but I heard of my sailor, wounded, in her hospital. I sailed from Charleston for Cuba, and from Cuba toCadiz, and thence I embarked for Trieste. At Trieste I found the ship, but Donovan had sailed for Liverpool. From Liverpool I tracked him tothe River Plate, and thence to Panama. You will ask how I lived allthose months? Ask him. "

He turned to Duff Salter. 

"Mr. Magistrate, " spoke Duff Salter, a little confused. "I sent himdrafts at his request. He knew me to be the resident executor, and wroteto me. I did it because of the pity I had for Agnes, and my faith in herassurance that he was innocent. "

"Good! Yes!" exclaimed the magistrate. "I would have done the samemyself. "

"I returned with my man, " concluded Andrew Zane. "I was now so confidentthat I did not fear; but a hard obstinacy, coming on me at times, Iknow not how, impelled me to postpone my vindication and make a test ofeverybody. I was full of suspicion and bitterness--the reaction from somuch undeserved anxiety. I was the ghost of Kensington, and the spy uponmy guardian, but the unknown sentry upon my wife's honor all the while. 

"Magistrate!"--the young man turned to the alderman, and his faceflushed--"is there no punishment at law for men, and women too, who havecruelly persecuted my wife with anonymous letters, intended to wound herbrave spirit to the quick?"

"Plenty of it, " said the magistrate. "Yes, I will. I will warrant themall. "

"I will not forget it, " said Andrew Zane darkly. 

"My husband, forget everything!" exclaimed Agnes. "Except that we arehappy. God has forgiven us our only deceit, which has been thetemptation of many in dear old Kensington. "

The old magistrate arose. "Case dismissed, " he said: "Dinner is ready inthe next room for Mr. And Mrs. Zane, and Judge Salter. I fine you all adinner. Yes, yes! I will!"

CHAPTER XI. 

TREATY ELM. 

Andrew Zane was leaning on his elbow, in bed, listening to the tollingbell for the old pastor of Kensington. He had not attended the funeral, fearing to trust his eyes and heart near Calvin Van de Lear, for theunruly element in his blood was not wholly stilled. Good and evil, gratitude and recollection, contended within him, and Agnes just escapedfrom the long shadow of his father's rage--had forebodings of someviolence when the two young men should meet in the little thoroughfareof Kensington--the one with the accumulated indignities he had sufferedliable to be aroused by the other's shallow superciliousness. Agnes hadbut one friend to carry her fears to--Him "who never forsaketh. " She hadnot persisted that her husband should attend the old pastor's funeral, whither Duff Salter escorted her, and going there, relieved from allimputation, her evidently wedded state was seen with general respect. People spoke to her as of old, congratulated her even at the grave, andsought to repair their own misapprehensions, suspicions, and severities, which Agnes accepted without duplicity. 

Andrew Zane was leaning up in bed hearing the tolling bell when Agnesreappeared. 

"Husband, " she said, "only Knox Van de Lear was at the grave, of thepastor's sons. "

"Ha!" exclaimed Andrew. 

"He looked worse than grief could make him. A terrible tale is afloat inKensington. "

Husband and wife looked at each other a moment in silence. 

"They say, " continued Agnes, "that Calvin Van de Lear has fled with hisbrother's wife. That is the talk of the town. Professing to desire someclothing for the funeral, they took a carriage together, and were drivento Tacony yesterday, where the afternoon train, meeting the steamboatfrom Philadelphia, took them on board for New York. "

Andrew fell back on his pillow. 

"God has hedged me all around, " he answered. "While Calvin Van de Learlived in Kensington I was in revengeful temptation all the time. He hasescaped, and my soul is oppressed no more. Do you know, Agnes, that theguilty accomplice of Calvin, his brother's wife, wrote all the worstletters which anonymously came through the post?"

Agnes replied:

"I never suspected it. My heart was too full of you. But Mr. Salter toldme to-day that he unravelled it some time ago. Calvin Van de Lear showedhim, in a moment of egotism, the conquest he had made over an unknownlady's affections, and passages of the correspondence. The keen old manimmediately identified in the handwriting the person who addressed him aletter against us soon after his arrival in the East. But he did nottell me until to-day. How did you know she was the person?"

Andrew Zane blushed a little, and confessed:

"Agnes, she used to write to me. Seeing the anonymous letters youreceived, I knew the culprit instantly. It was that which precipitatedthe flight. She feared that her anonymous letters would result in herarrest and public trial for slander, as they would have done. Themagistrate promised me that he would issue his warrant for every personwho had employed the public mails to harass my wife, and when youentered this room my darker passions were again working to punish thatwoman and her paramour. "

"Dearest, let them be forgotten. Yes, forgiven too. But poor Mr. KnoxVan de Lear! They have stolen his savings and mortgaged his householdfurniture, which he was confiding enough to have put in his wife's name. That is also a part of the story related around the good pastor'sgrave. "

"Calvin has not escaped, " exclaimed Andrew Zane. "As long as thattigress accompanies him he has expiation to make. Voluptuous, jealous, restless, and, like a snake in the tightness of her folds and hernoiseless approach, she will smother him with kisses and sell him to hisenemies. "

"Do you know her so well?" asked Agnes placidly. 

"Very well. She was corrupt from childhood, but only a few of us knewit. She grew to be beautiful, and had the quickened intelligence which, for a while, accompanies ruined women: the unnatural sharpening of theduplicity, the firmer grasp on man as the animal, the study of theproprieties of life, and apparent impatience with all misbehavior. Hertimid voice assisted her cunning as if with a natural gentleness, andinvited onward the man who expected in her ample charms a bolder spirit. She betook herself to the church for penance, perhaps, but remainedthere for a character. My wife, if I have suffered, it was, perhaps, inpart because for every sin is some punishment; that woman was _my_temptress also!"

His face was pale as he spoke these words, but he did not drop his eyes. The wife looked at him with a face also paled and startled. 

"Remember, " said Andrew Zane, "that I was a man. "

She walked to him in a moment and kissed his forehead. 

"I will have no more deceit, " said Andrew. "That is why I give you thispain. It was long, my darling, before we loved. "

"That was the source, perhaps, of Lottie's anger with me, " spoke Agnes. 

"I think not. There was not a sentiment between us. It is the way, occasionally, that a very bad woman is made, by marriage or wealth, respectable, and she declares war on her own past and its imitators. Youwere pursued because you had exchanged deserts with her. You were pureand abused; she was approved but tainted. Not your misfortunes but yourgoodness rebuked her, and she lashed you behind her _alias_, as everydemon would riot in lashing the angels. "

"My husband, " exclaimed Agnes, "where did you draw such secrets fromwoman's nature? God has blessed you with wisdom. I felt, myself, by someintuition of our sex, that it was sin, not virtue, that took such painsto upbraid me. "

"I drew them from the old, old plant, " answered Andrew Zane; "the Treeof Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yonder, where I skimmed the surface of abad woman; here, where I am forgiven. "

"If you felt remorse, " said Agnes, "you were not given up. "

"After _we_ were engaged that woman cast her eyes on my widowed fatherand notified me that I must not stand in her way. 'If you embarrass meby one word, ' she said to me in her pretty, timid way, but with the lookof a lion out of her florid fringes, 'I will shatter your futurehearthstone. You are not fit to marry a Christian woman like Agnes Wilt. I am good enough for your father--yes, ' she finished, with terribleirony, 'and to be your mother!' Those words went with me around theworld. Agnes, was I not punished?"

"To think that the son of so good a man should be bound to such atyrant. "

"Yes, she will make him steal for her, or worse. He will end by beingher most degraded creature, leading and misleading to her. Theirs is anunreturning path. God keep us all faithful!"

Duff Salter became again mysterious. He sent for his trunks, and gavehis address as the "Treaty House, " on Beach Street, nearly opposite themonument, only a square back from the Zane house. 

"Andrew, " said Salter, when the young husband sought him there, "Iconcluded to move because there will be a nurse in that house beforemidsummer. If I was deaf as I once was, it would make no difference. Buta very slight cry would certainly pierce my restored sensibilities now. "

The Treaty House was a fine, old-fashioned brick, with a long saloon ordouble parlor containing many curiosities, such as pieces of old shipsof war, weapons used in Polynesia and brought home by old sea captains, the jaws of whales and narwhals, figure-heads from perished vessels, harpoons, and points of various naval actions. In those days, beforemanufactures had extended up all the water streets, and when domesticwar had not been known for a whole generation, the little low marblemonument on the site of William Penn's treaty with the Indians attractedhundreds of strangers, who moistened their throats and cooled theirforeheads in the great bar parlor of the Treaty House. It was still asecluded spot, shady and dewy with venerable trees, and the moisturethey gave the old brown and black bricks in the contiguous houses, someof them still stylish, and all their windows topped with marble orsandstone, gray with the superincumbent weight of time or neglect. Largerear additions and sunless sideyards carried out the idea of a formergentry. Some buttonwood trees, now thinning out with annual age, conveyed by their speckled trunks the notion of a changing socialstandard, white and brown, native and foreign, while the lines of maplesstood on blackened boles like old retired seamen, bronzed in manyvoyages and planted home forever. But despite the narrow, neglected, shady street, the slope of Shackamaxon went gently shelving to the edgesof long sunny wharves, nearly as in the day when Penn selected thisgreensward to meet his Indian friends, and barter tools and promises forforest levels and long rich valleys, now open to the sky and murmurouswith wheat and green potato vines. 

Sitting before the inn door, on drowsy June afternoons, Duff Salterheard the adzes ring and hammers smite the thousand bolt-heads on loftyvessels, raised on mast-like scaffolds as if they meant to be launchedinto the air and go cleared for yonder faintly tinted spectral moon, which lingered so long by day, like the symbol of the Indian race, departed but lambent in thoughtful memories. Duff had grownsuperstitious; he came out of the inn door sidewise, that he mightalways see that moon over his right shoulder for good luck. 

One morning Andrew Zane appeared at the Treaty House before Duff Salterhad taken his julep, after the fashion of malarious Arkansas. 

"Mr. Salter, it is all over. There is a baby at our house. "

"Girl?"

"Just that!"

"I thought so, " exclaimed Duff Salter. "It was truly mother's labor, andought to have been like Agnes. We will give her a toast. "

"In nothing but water, " spoke Andrew soberly. "I hope I have sown mywild oats. "

"I will imitate you, " heartily responded Duff Salter; "for it occurredto me in Arkansas that people shot and butchered each other so oftenbecause they threw into empty stomachs a long tumbler of liquor andleaves. You are well started, Andrew. Your father's and his partner'sestate will give you an income of $10, 000. What will you do?"

"I have no idea whatever. My mind is not ready for business. My seriousexperience has been followed by a sort of stupor--an inquiry, a detachedrelation to everything. "

"Let it be so awhile, " answered the strong, gray-eyed man. "Such restsare often medicine, as sleep is. The mind will find its true channelsome day. "

"Can I be of service to you, Mr. Salter? Money would be a small returnof our obligations to you. "

"No, I am independent. Too independent! I wish I had a wife. "

"Ah! Agnes told me that besides seeing the baby when you came to thehouse, little Mary Byerly would be there. She is well enough to be out, and has lost her invalid brother. "

"If you see me blush, Andrew, " said Duff Salter, "you needn't tell ofit. I am in love with little Podge, but it's all over. With nounderstanding of woman's sensibilities, I shook that fragile child in myrude grasp, and frightened her forever. What will you call your baby?"

"Agnes says it shall be _Euphemia_, meaning 'of good report. ' You knowit came near being a young lady of bad report. "

"As for me, Andrew, I shall make the contract for the steeple andcompletion of the new church, and then take a foreign journey. Since Istopped sneezing I have no way to disguise my sensibilities, and am morean object of suspicion than ever. "

Duff Salter peeped at the beautiful mother and hung a chain of goldaround the baby's neck, and was about slipping out when Podge Byerlyappeared. She made a low bow and shrank away. 

"Follow her, " whispered Andrew Zane. "If she is cool now she will becold hereafter, unless you nurse her confidence. "

With a sense of great youthfulness and demerit, Duff Salter entered theparlors and found Podge sitting in the shadows of that thrice notableroom where death and grief had been so often carried and laid down. Thelittle teacher was pale and thin, and her eyes wore a saddened light. 

"I am very glad to see you again, " said Duff Salter. "I wanted yourforgiveness. "

Striking the centre of sympathy by these few words, the late deaf mansaw Podge's throat agitated. 

"If you knew, " he continued, "how often I accused myself since yourillness, you would try to excuse me. "

After a little silence Podge said, "I don't remember just what happened, Mr. Salter. Was it you who sent memany beautiful and dainty things while I was sick? I thought it mightbe. "

"You guessed me, then? At least I was not forgotten. "

"I never forgot you, sir; but ever since my illness you seem to havebeen a part of the dread river and its dead. I have often tried torestore you as I once thought of you, but other things rise up and Icannot see you. My head was gone, I suppose. "

"Alas, no! I drove away your heart. If that would come back, thewandering head would follow, little friend. Are you afraid of me?"

"Sometimes. One thing, I think, is your deafness. While you were deafyou seemed so natural that we talked freely before you, prattling outour fancies undisguised. We wouldn't have done it if we knew that youheard as well as we. That makes me afraid too. Oh! why did you deceiveus so?"

"I only deceived myself. A foolish habit, formed in pique, of affectingnot to hear, adhered to me long before we were acquainted. If you willlet me drive you out into the country to-morrow I will tell you thewhole of my silly story. The country roads are what you need, and I needyour consideration as much. "

The next day a buggy stopped at the door, and Podge, sitting at thewindow with her bonnet on, saw Duff Salter, hale and strong, holding thereins. She was helped into the buggy by Andrew Zane, and in a fewminutes the two were in the open country pointing toward old Frankford. They rode up the long stony street of that old village, whose stone orrough-cast houses suggested the Swiss city of Basle whence the earlysettlers of Frankford came. Then turning through the factory dale calledLittle Britain, they sped out the lane, taking the general direction ofTacony Creek, and followed that creek up through different littlevillages and mill-seats until they came to nearly the highest mill-pond, in the stony region about the Old York road. A house of gray and reddishstones, in irregular forms, mortised in white plaster, sat broadside tothe lawn before it, which was covered with venerable trees, and borderedat the roadside by a stone rampart, so that it looked like a hanginglawn. A gate at the lawn-side gave admission to a lane, behind which wasthe ancient mill-pond suspended in a dewy landscape, with a path in thegrass leading up the mill-race, and on the pond a little scow floated inpond-lilies. All around were chestnut trees, their burrs full of fruit. Across the lane, only a few feet from the house, the ancient mill gaveforth a snoring and drumming together as if the spirit of solitude washaving a dance all to itself and only breathing hard. Then the crystalwater, shooting the old black mill-wheel, fell off it like the beardfrom Duff Salter's face, and went away in pools and flakes across ameadow, under spontaneous willow trees which liked to stand in moistureand cover with their roots the harmless water-snakes. A few cottagespeeped over the adjacent ridges upon the hidden dale. 

"What a restful place!" exclaimed Podge Byerly. "I almost wish I mightbe spirit of a mill, or better still, that old boat yonder basking inthe pond-lilies and holding up its shadow!"

"I am glad you like it, " said Duff Salter. "Let us go in and see if thehouse is hospitable. "

As Podge Byerly walked up the worn stone walk of the lawn she saw afamiliar image at the door--her mother. 

"You here, mother?" said Podge. "What is the meaning of it?"

"This is my house, my darling. There is our friend who gave it to us. You will need to teach no more. The mill and a little farm surroundingus will make us independent. "

Podge turned to Duff Salter. 

"How kind of you!" she said. "Yet it frightens me the more. Thesesurprises, tender as they are, excite me. Everything about you ismysterious. You are not even deaf as you were. What silly things you mayhave heard us say. "

"Dear girl, " exclaimed Duff Salter, "nothing which I heard from yourlips ever affected me except to love you. You cured me of years ofsuspicion, and I consented to hear again. The world grew candid to me;its sounds were melodious, its silence was sincere. It is you who aredeaf. You cannot hear my heart. "

"I hear no other's, at least, " said Podge. "Tell me the story of yourstrange deceit. "

They drew chairs upon the lawn. Podge took off her bonnet and lookedvery delicate as her color rose and faded alternately in the emotions ofone wooed in earnest and uncertain of her fate. 

"I have not come by money without hard labor, " said the hale andhandsome man. "This gray beard is not the creation of many years. It isthe fruit of anxiety, toil, and danger. My years are not double yours. "

"You have recovered at least one of your faculties since I knew you, "said Podge slyly. 

"You mean hearing. The sense of feeling too, perhaps--which you havelost. But this is my tale: After I went to Mexico, and became thesuperintendent of a mine, I found my nature growing hard and my mannerimperious, not unlike those of my dead friend, William Zane. The hotclimate of Mexico and confinement in the mines, hundreds of feet belowthe surface and in the salivating fumes of the cinnabar retorts, assisted to make me impetuous. I fought more than one duel, and, likeall men who do desperate things, grew more desperate by experienceuntil, upon one occasion, I was made deaf by an explosion in the bowelsof the ground. For one year I could hear but little. In that year I wascomparatively humble, and one day I heard a workman say, 'If the bossgets his hearing back there will be no peace about the mine. ' This setme to thinking. 'How much of my suspicion and anger, ' I said, 'is theresult of my own speaking. I provoked the distemper of which I amafflicted. I start the inquiries which make me distrustful. I hear theecho of my own idle words, and impeach my fellow-man upon it. Until Ifind a strong reason for speech, I will remain deaf as I have been. 'That strong reason never arrived, my little girl, until all reasonceased to be and love supplanted it. "

"There is no reason, then, in your present passion, " said Podge dryly. 

"No. I am so absolutely in love that there is no resisting it. It isboyishness wholly. "

"I think I should be afraid of a man, " said Podge, "who could have somuch will as to hold his tongue for seven years. Suppose you had asecond attack, it might never come to an end. What were you thinkingabout all that time?"

"I thought how deaf, blind, and dumb was any one without love. I foundthe world far better than it had seemed when I was one of itschatterers. By my voluntary silence I had banished the disturbingelement in Nature; for our enemy is always within us, not without. Inthat seven years, for most of which I heard everything and answerednone, except by my pencil, I was prosperous, observant, sober, andconsiderate. The deceit of affecting not to hear has brought itspenalty, however. You are afraid of me. "

"Were you ever in love before?"

"I fear I will surprise you again by my answer, " said Duff Salter. "Ionce proposed marriage to a young girl on this very lawn. It was in thespringtime of my life. We met at a picnic in a grove not far distant. She was a coquette, and forgot me. "

Podge said she must have time to know her heart. Every day they made anew excursion, now into the country of the Neshaminy, and beyond it tothe vales of the Tohicken and Perkiomen. They descended the lanes alongthe Pennypack and Poqessing, and followed the Wissahickon to itssources. Podge rapidly grew in form and spirits, and Agnes and AndrewZane came out to spend a Saturday with them. 

Mean time Andrew Zane was in a mystic condition--uncertain of purpose, serious, and studious, and he called one night at the Treaty tavern tosee Duff Salter. Duff had gone, however, up the Tacony, and in alistless way Andrew sauntered over to the little monument erected on thealleged site of the Indian treaty. He read the inscription aloud:

"Treaty Ground of William Penn and the Indian Nations, 1682. UnbrokenFaith! Pennsylvania, founded by deeds of Peace!"

As Andrew ceased he looked up and beheld a man of rather portly figure, with the plain clothes of a Quaker, a broad-brimmed hat, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes. Something in his countenance was familiar. Andrewlooked again, and wondered where he had seen that face. It then occurredto him that it was the exact likeness of William Penn. The man locked atAndrew and said, "Thee is called to preach!"

"Sir?" exclaimed Andrew. 

In the same tone of voice the man exclaimed, "Thee is called to preach!"

Andrew looked with some slight superstition at the peculiar man, withsuch a tone of authority, and said again, but respectfully:

"Do I understand you as speaking to me, sir?"

"Thee is called to preach!" said the object, in precisely the same toneof voice, and vanished. 

Andrew Zane walked across to the hotel and saw Duff Salter, freshlyarrived, looking at him intently. 

"Did you see a person in Quaker dress standing by the monument aninstant past?"

"I saw nobody but yourself, " said Duff heartily. "I have been looking atyou some moments. "

"As truly as I live, a man in Quaker dress spoke to me at the monument'sside. "

"What did he say?"

"He said three times, deliberately, 'Thee is called to preach!'"

"That's queer, " said Duff, looking curiously at Andrew. "My friend, thatman spoke from within you. Do you know that it is the earnest desire ofyour wife, and a subject of her prayers, that you may become aminister?"

"I didn't know it, " said Andrew. "But there is something startling inthis apparition. I shall never be able to forget it. "

To the joy of Agnes, now a happy wife and mother, her husband wentseriously into the church, and the moment his intention was announced ofentering the ministry, there arose a spontaneous and united wish that hewould take the pulpit in his native suburb. 

"Agnes, " said the young man, "the dangers I have passed, the tragedy ofmy family, your piety and my feelings, all concur in this step. I feel anew life within me, now that I have settled upon this design. "

"I would rather see you a good minister than President, " exclaimedAgnes. "The desires of my heart are fully answered now. When you saw theimage standing by the Treaty tree at that instant I was upon my kneesasking God to turn your heart toward the ministry. "

"Here in Kensington, " spoke Andrew, "we will live down all imputationand renew our family name. Here, where we made our one mistake, we willlabor for others who err and suffer. Such an escape as ours can becelebrated by nothing less than religion. "

Duff Salter went to Tacony for the last time on the Sunday Andrew Zaneentered the church. He did not speak a word, but at the appearance ofPodge Byerly drew out the ancient ivory tablets and wrote:

"I'll never speak again until you accept or refuse me. "

She answered, "What are you going to do if I say _no_?"

"I have bought two tickets for Europe, " wrote Duff Salter. "One is foryou, if you will accept it. If not I shall go alone and be deaf for theremainder of my days. "

Podge answered by reaching out her lips and kissing Duff Salter plumply. 

"There, " she said, "I've done it!"

Duff Salter threw the tablets away, and standing up in a glow ofexcitement, gave with great unction his last articulate sneeze:

"Jericho! Jericho!"

 THE DEAD BOHEMIAN. 

 * * * * *

 My hope to take his hand, His world my promised land, I thought no face so beautiful and high. When he had called me "Friend, " I reached ambition's end, And Art's protection in his kindly eye. 

 My dream was quickly run-- I knew Endymion; His wing was fancy and his soarings play; No great thirsts in him pent, His hates were indolent, His graces calm and eloquent alway. 

 Not love's converse now seems So tender to my dreams As he, discursive at our mutual desk, Most fervid and most ripe, When dreaming at his pipe, He made the opiate nights grow Arabesque. 

 His crayon never sharp, No discord in his harp, He made such sweetness I was discontent; He knew not the desire To rise from warmth to fire, And with his magic rend the firmament. 

 Perhaps some want of faith, Perhaps some past heart-scath, Took from his life the zest of reaching far-- And so grew my regret, To see my pride forget That many watched him like a risen star. 

 Some moralist in man-- Even Bohemian-- Feathers the pen and nerves the archer too. Not dear decoying art, But the crushed, loving heart, Makes the young life to its resolves untrue. 

 Therefore his haunts were sad; Therefore his rhymes were glad; Therefore he laughed at my reproach and goad-- With listless dreams and vague, Passed not the walls of Prague, To hew some fresh and individual road. 

 Still like an epic round, With beautifulness crowned, I read his memory, tenderer every year, Complete with graciousness, Gifted and purposeless, But to my heart as some grand Master dear. 

THE END

[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistencies of spelling, punctuation and accentsin the original have been retained in this etext. ]