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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pace That Kills, by Edgar Saltus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Pace That Kills
+       A Chronicle
+
+Author: Edgar Saltus
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2010 [EBook #34401]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PACE THAT KILLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE PACE THAT KILLS
+
+                               A Chronicle
+
+                             By EDGAR SALTUS
+
+
+    "_Pourquoi la mort? Dites, plutôt, pourquoi la vie?_"
+    --RADUSSON
+
+    CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO
+    BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY
+    PUBLISHERS
+    London: H. J. DRANE, Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row
+
+    Copyright, 1889,
+    BY EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+
+    TO
+    JOHN A. RUTHERFURD.
+    NEW YORK, _June 10, 1889_.
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+"I wish you a happy New Year, sir."
+
+It was the servant, green of livery, the yellow waistcoat slashed with
+black, bearing the coffee and fruit.
+
+"Put it there, please," Roland answered. And then, in recognition of the
+salutation, he added, "Thanks: the same to you."
+
+"H'm," he mused, as the man withdrew, "I ought to have tipped him, I
+suppose."
+
+He leaned from the bed, poured some milk into a cup, and for a second
+nibbled at a slice of iced orange. Through the transom came a faint odor
+of home-made bread, and with it the rustle of a gown and a girl's clear
+laugh. The room itself was small. It was furnished in a fashion which
+was unsuggestive of an hotel, and yet did not resemble that of a
+private house. The curtain had been already drawn. Beyond was a lake,
+very blue in the sunlight, bulwarked by undulant hills. Below, on the
+road, a dogcart fronted by a groom was awaiting somebody's pleasure.
+
+"It is late," he reflected, and raised a napkin to his lips. As he did
+so he noticed a package of letters which the napkin must have concealed.
+He took up the topmost and eyed it. It had been addressed to the
+Athenæum Club, Fifth Avenue; but the original direction was erased, and
+Tuxedo Park inserted in its stead. On the upper left-hand corner the
+impress of a firm of tailors shone in blue. Opposite was the engraving
+of a young woman supported by 2-1/2_d._ He put it down again and glanced
+at the others. The superscriptions were characterless enough; each bore
+a foreign stamp, and to one as practised as was he, each bore the token
+of the dun.
+
+"If they keep on bothering me like this," he muttered, "I shall
+certainly place the matter in the hands of my attorney." And thereat,
+with the air of a man who had said something insultingly original, he
+laughed aloud, swallowed some coffee, and dashed his head in the pillow.
+In and out of the corners of his mouth a smile still played; but
+presently his fancy must have veered, for the muscles of his lips
+compressed, and as he lay there, the arms clasped behind the head, the
+pink silk of his sleeves framing and tinting his face, and in the eyes
+the expression of one prepared to meet Fate and outwit it, a possible
+observer who could have chanced that way would have sat himself down to
+study and risen up perplexed.
+
+Anyone who was at Columbia ten years ago will remember Roland
+Mistrial,--Roland Mistrial 3d, if you please,--and will recall the wave
+of bewilderment which swept the campus when that young gentleman, on the
+eve of graduation, popularity on one side and honors on the other,
+suddenly, without so much as a p. p. c., left everything where it was
+and betook himself to other shores. The flight was indeed erratic, and
+numerous were the rumors which it excited; but Commencement was at hand,
+other issues were to be considered, bewilderment subsided as
+bewilderment ever does, the college dispersed, and when it assembled
+again the Mistrial mystery, though unelucidated, was practically forgot.
+
+In the neighborhood of Washington Square, however, on the northwest
+corner of Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue to be exact, there were others
+whose memories were more retentive. Among them was Roland's grandfather,
+himself a graduate, founder of the Mistrial fellowship, and judge of the
+appellate court. And there was Roland's father, a graduate too, a
+gentleman widely respected, all the more so perhaps because he had run
+for the governorship and lost it. And again there was Roland's aunt, a
+maiden lady of whom it is recorded that each day of her life she got
+down on her knees and thanked God he had made her a Mistrial. In
+addition to these, there were, scattered along the Hudson, certain
+maternal relatives--the Algaroths, the Baxters, and the Swifts; Bishop
+Algaroth in particular, who possessed such indomitable vigor that when
+at the good old age of threescore and ten he decided to depart this
+life, the impression prevailed that he had died very young for him. None
+of these people readily forgot. They were a proud family and an
+influential one--influential not merely in the social sense, but
+influential in political, legal, in church and university circles as
+well; a fact which may have had weight with the Faculty when it was
+called upon to deal with Roland Mistrial 3d. But be that as it may, the
+cause of the young man's disappearance was never officially given. Among
+the rumors which it created was one to the effect that his health was
+affected; in another his mind was implicated; and in a third it was his
+heart. Yet as not one of these rumors had enough evidential value behind
+it to concoct an anonymous letter on, they were suffered to go their way
+undetained, very much as Roland had already gone his own.
+
+That way led him straight to the Golden Gate and out of it to Japan.
+Before he reached Yeddo his grandfather left the planet and a round sum
+of money behind. Of that round sum the grandson came in for a portion.
+It was not fabulous in dimensions, but in the East money goes far. In
+this case it might have gone on indefinitely had not the beneficiary
+seen fit to abandon the languors of the Orient for the breezier
+atmosphere of the west. The Riviera has charms of its own. So, too, have
+Paris and Vienna. Roland enjoyed them to the best of his ability. He
+even found London attractive, and became acclimated in Pall Mall. In the
+latter region he learned one day that his share of the round sum had
+departed and his father as well. The conjunction of these incidents was
+of such a character that he at once took ship for New York.
+
+It was not that he was impatient to revisit the misgoverned city which
+he had deserted ten years before. He had left it willingly enough, and
+he had seldom regretted it since. The pins and needles on which he sat
+were those of another make. He was uninformed of the disposition of his
+father's property, and he felt that, were not every penny of it
+bequeathed to him, he would be in a tight box indeed.
+
+He was at that time just entering his thirtieth year--that age in which
+a man who has led a certain life begins to be particular about the
+quality of his red pepper, and anxious too that the supply of it shall
+not tarry. Though meagre of late, the supply had been sufficient. But at
+present the palate was a trifle impaired. Where a ten-pound note had
+sufficed for its excitement, a hundred now were none too strong. Roland
+Mistrial--3d no longer--wanted money, and he wanted plenty of it. He
+had exact ideas as to its usefulness, and none at all regarding its
+manufacture. He held, as many have done and will continue to do, that
+the royal road to it leads through a testament; and it was in view of
+the opening vistas which that road displayed that he set sail for New
+York.
+
+And now, six weeks later, on this fair noonday of a newer year, as he
+lay outstretched in bed, you would have likened him to one well
+qualified to keep a mother awake and bring her daughter dreams. Our
+canons of beauty may be relative, but, such as they are, his features
+accorded with them--disquietingly even; for they conveyed the irritating
+charm of things we have hoped for, striven for, failed to get, and then
+renounced with thanksgiving. They made you anxious about their
+possessor, and fearful too lest the one dearly-beloved might chance to
+see them, and so be subjugated by their spell. They were features that
+represented good stock, good breeding, good taste, good looks--every
+form of goodness, in fact, save, it may be, the proper one. But the
+possible lack of that particular characteristic was a matter over which
+hesitation well might be. We have all of us a trick of flattering
+ourselves with the fancy that, however obtuse our neighbor is, we at
+least are gifted with the insight of a detective--a faculty so rare and
+enviable that the blunders we make must be committed with a view to its
+concealment; yet, despite presumable shrewdness, now and then a face
+will appear that eludes cataloguing, and leaves the observer perplexed.
+Roland Mistrial's was one of these.
+
+And now, as the pink silk of his shirt-sleeves tinted it, the expression
+altered, and behind his contracted brows hurried processions of shifting
+scenes. There was that initial catastrophe which awaited him almost on
+the wharf--the discovery that his father had left him nothing, and that
+for no other reason in the world than because he had nothing whatever
+to leave--nothing, in fact, save the hereditary decoration of and right
+of enrolment in the Society of the Cincinnati, the which, handed down
+since Washingtonian days from one Mistrial to another, he held, as his
+forefathers had before him, in trust for the Mistrials to be.
+
+No, he could not have disposed of that, even had he so desired; but
+everything else, the house on Tenth Street,--built originally for a
+country-seat, in times when the Astor House was considered rather far
+uptown,--bonds, scrip, and stocks, disappeared as utterly as had they
+never been; for Roland's father, stricken with that form of dementia
+which, to the complete discouragement of virtue, battens on men that
+have led the chastest lives, had, at that age in which the typical rake
+is forced to haul his standard down, surrendered himself to senile
+debauchery, and in the lap of a female of uncertain attractions--of
+whose mere existence no one had been previously aware--placed
+title-deeds and certificates of stock. In a case such as this the
+appeal of the rightful heir is listened to with such patience that judge
+and jury too have been known to pass away and leave the tale unended.
+And Roland, when the earliest dismay had in a measure subsided, saw
+himself closeted with lawyers who offered modicums of hope in return for
+proportionate fees. Then came a run up the Hudson, the welcomeless
+greeting which waited him there, and the enervating imbecility of his
+great aunt, whose fingers, mummified by gout, were tenacious enough on
+the strings of her purse. That episode flitted by, leaving on memory's
+camera only the degrading tableau of coin burrowed for and unobtained.
+And through it all filtered torturesome uncertainties, the knowledge of
+his entire inability to make money, the sense of strength misspent, the
+perplexities that declined to take themselves away, forebodings of the
+morrow, nay of the day even as well, the unbanishable dread of want.
+
+But that for the moment had gone. He turned on his elbow and glanced
+over at a card-case which lay among the silver-backed brushes beyond,
+and at once the shock he had resummoned fled. Ah, yes! it had gone
+indeed, but at the moment it had been appalling enough. The morrow at
+least was secure; and as he pondered over its possibilities they faded
+before certain episodes of the previous day--that chance encounter with
+Alphabet Jones, who had insisted he should pack a valise and go down
+with Trement Yarde and himself to Tuxedo; and at once the incidents
+succeeding the arrival paraded through his thoughts. There had been the
+late dinner to begin with; then the dance; the girl to whom some one had
+presented him, and with whom he had sat it out; the escape of the year,
+the health that was drunk to the new one, and afterwards the green baize
+in the card-room; the bank which Trement Yarde had held, and finally the
+successful operation that followed, and which consisted in cutting that
+cherub's throat to the tune of three thousand dollars. It was all there
+now in the card-case; and though, as sums of money go, it was hardly
+quotable, yet in the abstract, forethought and economy aiding, it
+represented several months of horizons solid and real. The day was
+secure; as for the future, who knew what it might contain? A grave
+perhaps, and in it his aunt.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+"If I had been killed in a duel I couldn't be better." It was Jones the
+novelist describing the state of his health. "But how is my friend and
+brother in virtue?"
+
+"Utterly ramollescent," Roland answered, confidingly. "What the French
+call _gaga_."
+
+The mid-day meal was in progress, and the two men, seated opposite each
+other, were dividing a Demidorf salad. They had been schoolmates at
+Concord, and despite the fact that until the day before they had not met
+for a decennium, the happy-go-lucky intimacy of earlier days had eluded
+Time and still survived. Throughout the glass-enclosed piazza other
+people were lunching, and every now and then Jones, catching a wandering
+eye, would bend forward a little and smile. Though it was but the first
+of the year, the weather resembled that of May. One huge casement was
+wide open. There was sunlight everywhere, flowers too, and beyond you
+could see the sky, a dome of opal and sapphire blent.
+
+"Well," Jones replied, "I can't say you have altered much. But then who
+does? You remember, don't you"--and Jones ran on with some anecdote of
+earlier days.
+
+But Roland had ceased to listen. It was very pleasant here, he told
+himself. There was a freedom about it that the English country-house,
+however charming, lacked. There was no one to suggest things for you to
+do, there was no host or hostess to exact attention, and the women were
+prettier, better dressed, less conventional, and yet more assured in
+manner than any that he had encountered for years. The men, too, were a
+good lot; and given one or two more little surprises, such as he had
+found in the card-room, he felt willing to linger on indefinitely--a
+week at least, a month if the fare held out. His eyes roamed through the
+glitter of the room. Presently, at a neighboring table, he noticed the
+girl with whom he had seen the old year depart: she was nodding to him;
+and Roland, with that courtesy that betokens the foreigner a mile away,
+rose from his seat as he bowed in return.
+
+Jones, whom little escaped, glanced over his shoulder. "By the way, are
+you on this side for good?" he asked; and Roland answering with the
+vague shrug the undetermined give, he hastened to add--"or for bad?"
+
+"That depends. I ran over to settle my father's estate, but they seem to
+have settled it for me. After all, this is no place for a pauper, is
+it?"
+
+"The wolf's at the door, is he?"
+
+Roland laughed shortly. "At the door? Good Lord! I wish he were! He's in
+the room."
+
+"There, dear boy, never mind. Wait till spring comes and marry an
+heiress. There are so many hereabouts that we use them for export
+purposes. They are a glut in the market. There's a fair specimen. Ever
+meet her before?"
+
+"Meet whom?"
+
+"That girl you just bowed to. They call her father Honest Paul. Oh, if
+you ask me why, I can't tell. It's a nick-name, like another. It may be
+because he says Amen so loud in church. A number of people have made him
+trustee, but whether on that account or not they never told. However,
+he's a big man, owns a mile or two up there near the Riverside. I should
+rate him at not a penny less than ten million."
+
+"What did you say his name was?"
+
+"Dunellen--the Hon. Paul Dunellen. At one time--"
+
+Jones rambled on, and again Roland had ceased to listen. But it was not
+the present now that claimed him. At the mention of the plutocrat
+something from the past came back and called him there--a thing so
+shadowy that, when he turned to interrogate, it eluded him and
+disappeared. Then at once, without conscious effort, an episode which
+he had long since put from him arose and detained his thought. But what
+on earth, he wondered, had the name of Dunellen to do with that? And for
+the moment dumbly perplexed, yet outwardly attentive, he puzzled over
+the connection and tried to find the link; yet that too was elusive: the
+name seemed to lose its suggestiveness, and presently it sank behind the
+episode it had evoked.
+
+"Of course," Jones was saying, in reference, evidently, to what had gone
+before--"of course as millionaires go he is not first chop. Jerolomon
+could match him head or tail for all he has, and never miss it if he
+lost. Ten million, though, is a tidy sum--just enough to entertain on. A
+penny less and you are pinched. Why, you would be surprised--"
+
+"Has he any other children?"
+
+"Who? Dunellen? None that he has acknowledged."
+
+"Then his daughter will come in for it all."
+
+"That's what I said. When she does, she will probably hand it over to
+some man who wont know how to spend it. She's got a cousin--what's that
+beggar's name? However, he's a physician, makes a specialty of nervous
+diseases, I believe; good enough fellow in his way, but an everlasting
+bore--the sort of man you would avoid in a club, and trust your sister
+to. What the deuce _is_ his name?"
+
+"Well, what of him?"
+
+"Ah, yes. I fancy he wants to get married, and when he does, to
+entertain. He is very devoted."
+
+"But nowadays, barring royalty, no one ever marries a cousin."
+
+"Dear boy, you forget; it isn't every cousin that has ten million. When
+she has, the attempt is invariable." And Jones accentuated his remark
+with a nod. "Now," he continued, "what do you say to a look at the
+library? They have a superb edition of Kirschwasser in there, and a
+full set of the works of Chartreuse."
+
+The novelist had arisen; he was leaving the room, and Roland was about
+to follow him, when he noticed that Miss Dunellen was preparing to leave
+it too. Before she reached the hall he was at her side.
+
+There is this about the New York girl--her beauty is often bewildering,
+yet unless a husband catch her in the nick of time the bewilderment of
+that beauty fades. At sixteen Justine Dunellen had been enchanting, at
+twenty-three she was plain. Her face still retained its oval, but from
+it something had evaporated and gone. Her mouth, too, had altered. In
+place of the volatile brilliance of earlier years, it was drawn a
+little; it seemed resolute, and it also seemed subdued. But one feature
+had not changed: her eyes, which were of the color of snuff, enchanted
+still. They were large and clear, and when you looked in them you saw
+such possibilities of tenderness and sincerity that the escape of the
+transient was unregretted; you forgot the girl that had been, and loved
+the woman that was.
+
+And lovable she was indeed. The world is filled with charming people
+whom, parenthetically, many of us never meet; yet, however scant our
+list may be, there are moments when from Memory's gardens a vision
+issues we would fain detain. Who is there to whom that vision has not
+come? Nay, who is there that has not intercepted it, and, to the heart's
+perdition perhaps, suffered it to retreat? If there be any to whom such
+apparitions are unvouchsafed, let him evoke that woman whom he would
+like his sister to resemble and his wife to be. Then, if his intuitions
+are acute, there will appear before him one who has turned sympathy into
+a garment and taken refinement for a wreath; a woman just yet debonair,
+thoughtful of others, true to herself; a woman whose speech can weary no
+more than can a star, whose mind is clean as wholesome fruit, whose
+laugh is infrequent, and whose voice consoles; a woman who makes the
+boor chivalrous, and the chivalrous bend the knee. Such an one did
+Justine Dunellen seem. In person she was tall, slender, willowy of
+movement, with just that shrinking graciousness that the old masters
+gave to certain figures which they wished to represent as floating off
+the canvas into space.
+
+And now, as Roland joined her, she smiled and greeted him. With her was
+a lady to whom she turned:
+
+"Mrs. Metuchen, this is Mr. Mistrial."
+
+And Roland found himself bowing to a little old woman elaborately
+dressed. She was, he presently discovered, a feather-head person, who
+gave herself the airs of a _princesse en couches_. But though not the
+rose, at least she dwelt near by. Her husband was Mr. Dunellen's
+partner; and to Justine, particularly since the death of her mother, she
+had become what the Germans, who have many a neat expression, term a
+_Wahlverwandtschaft_--a relation not of blood, but of choice. She was
+feather-headed, but she was a lady; she was absurd, but she was lovable;
+and by Justine she was evidently beloved.
+
+Roland got her a seat, found a footstool for her, and pleased her very
+much by the interest which he displayed in her family tree.
+
+"I knew all your people," she announced at last. And when she did so,
+her manner was so gracious that Roland felt the hour had not been thrown
+away.
+
+During the rest of the day he managed to be frequently in her vicinity.
+The better part of the morrow he succeeded in sharing with Justine. And
+in the evening, when the latter bade him good-night, it occurred to him
+that if what Jones had said in regard to the cousin was true, then was
+the cousin losing ground.
+
+The next morning Mrs. Metuchen and her charge returned to town. Roland
+followed in a later train. As he crossed the ferry he told himself he
+had much to do; and on reaching New York he picked up his valise with
+the air of one who has no time to lose.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+In a city like New York it is not an easy task, nor is it always a
+profitable one, to besiege a young person that is fortressed in her
+father's house. And when the house has a cousin for sentinel, and that
+cousin is jealous, the difficulty is increased. But, time and tact
+aiding, what obstacle may not be removed?
+
+Roland understood all this very thoroughly, and on the day succeeding
+his return from Tuxedo he examined the directory, strolled into Wall
+Street, and there, at the shingle of Dunellen, Metuchen, & Such, sent in
+a card to the senior member of the firm.
+
+The Hon. Paul Dunellen--Honest Paul, to the world in which he moved--was
+a man who in his prime must have been of glad and gallant appearance;
+but latterly he had shrunk: his back had bent almost into a hump, he
+held his head lower than his shoulders, but with uplifted chin--a habit
+which gave him the appearance of being constantly occupied in peering at
+something which he could not quite discern, an appearance that was
+heightened by his eyes, which were restless, and by his brows, which
+were tormented and bushy. He had an ample mouth: when he spoke, the
+furrows in his cheeks moved with it. His nose was prominent; all his
+features, even to his ears, were larger than the average mould. When
+Roland was admitted to the room in which he sat, the first impression
+which he got from him was that of massiveness in decay.
+
+"Mr. Mistrial, I am glad to see you. I knew your father, and I had the
+honor of knowing your grandfather as well. Will you not take a seat?"
+The old man had half risen, and in this greeting made manifest something
+of that courtesy which we are learning to forget.
+
+"You are very kind," Roland answered. "It is because of my father that
+I venture to call. If I interrupt you, though"--and Roland, apparently
+hesitant, occupied himself in a study of his host--"if I do," he
+continued, "I beg you will allow me to come again."
+
+To this suggestion Mr. Dunellen refused to listen; but during the
+moments that followed, as Roland succinctly one after the other
+enumerated the facts in the case of his lost inheritance, the lawyer did
+listen; and he listened, moreover, with that air of concentrated
+attention which is the surest encouragement to him who has aught to say.
+And when Roland had completed the tale of his grievance, he nodded, and
+stroked his chin.
+
+"The matter is perfectly clear," he announced, "though I can't say as
+much for the law. Undue influence is evident. The trouble will be to
+invalidate a gift made during the lifetime of the donor; but--" And Mr.
+Dunellen made a gesture as who should say, It is for that that courts
+were established. "Yet, tell me, why is it that you have done nothing
+about it before?"
+
+To this Roland made no immediate reply. He lowered his eyes. "Paralysis
+is written in your face," he mused. Then aloud and rather sadly: "The
+fairest patrimony is an honored name," he said. "It is for me to guard
+my father's reputation. It is only recently, stress of circumstances
+aiding, I have thought that without publicity some compromise might
+possibly be effected." He looked up again, and as he looked he assured
+himself that the old man would not outlast the year.
+
+"Well, Mr. Mistrial, you must let me quote the speech a lord made to a
+commoner, 'You are not a noble, sir, but you are worthy of being one.'"
+And Mr. Dunellen reaching out caught Roland's hand and shook it in his
+own. "I enter thoroughly into your delicacy the more readily because I
+do not encounter it every day--no, nor every month. It does me good--on
+my word it does. Now, if a compromise can, as you suggest, be effected,
+and you care to leave the matter in my hands, I will do my best to serve
+you. It may take some little time, we must seem neither zealous nor
+impatient, and meanwhile--h'm--I understood you to say something about
+your circumstances. Now if I can be of any--"
+
+This offer Roland interrupted. "You are truly very kind, sir," he broke
+in, "and I thank you with all my heart. All the more so even because I
+must refuse. I have been badly brought up, I know; you see, I never
+expected that it would be necessary for me to earn my own living; yet if
+it is, I cannot begin too soon: but what would the end be if I began by
+borrowing money?"
+
+As Roland delivered this fine speech he was the image of Honesty arrayed
+in a Piccadilly coat. He rose from his seat. "I am detaining you, I am
+sure. Let me get the papers together and bring them to you to-morrow."
+
+"Do so, by all means," Mr. Dunellen answered, rising too. "Do so, by all
+means. But wait: to-morrow I may be absent. Could you not send them to
+my house this evening, or better still, bring them yourself? It would
+give me pleasure to have my daughter meet a man who is the moral
+portrait of his grandfather."
+
+"Your daughter!" Roland exclaimed. "It is not possible that she is the
+Miss Dunellen whom I saw the other day at Tuxedo."
+
+"With Mrs. Metuchen? Why, of course it is." And the lawyer looked as
+surprised as his client. "This is indeed a coincidence. But you will
+come, will you not?"
+
+"I shall consider it a privilege to do so," Roland, with a charming
+affectation of modesty, replied; and presently, when he found himself in
+the street again, he saw, stretching out into beckoning vistas, a
+high-road paved with promises of prompt success.
+
+And that evening, when the papers had been delivered, and Mr. Dunellen,
+leaving the guest to his daughter's care, had gone with them to his
+study, Roland could not help but feel that on that high-road his footing
+was assured; for, on entering the drawing-room, Justine had greeted him
+as one awaited and welcome, and now that her father had gone she
+motioned him to a seat at her side.
+
+"Tell me," she said, "what is it you do to people? There is Mrs.
+Metuchen, who pretends to abominate young men, and openly admires you.
+To-day you captured my father; by to-morrow you will be friends with
+Guy."
+
+"With Guy?" Mechanically Roland repeated the phrase. Then at once into
+the very core of memory entered the lancinating pang of a nerve exposed.
+During the second that followed, in that tumult of visions that visits
+him who awakes from a swoon, there came to him the effort made in Tuxedo
+to recall in what manner the name of Dunellen was familiar to his ears;
+but that instantly departed, and in its stead came a face one blur of
+tears, and behind it a stripling livid with hate. Could that be Guy? If
+it were, then indeed would the high-road narrow into an alley, with a
+dead wall at the end. Yet of the inward distress he gave no outward
+sign. About his thin lips a smile still played, and as he repeated the
+phrase he looked, as he always did, confident and self-possessed.
+
+"Yes, I am sure you will like each other," the girl answered; "all the
+more so perhaps because no two people could be less alike. Guy, you see,
+is--"
+
+But whatever description she may have intended to give remained
+unexpressed. A portière had been drawn, and some one was entering the
+room. Roland, whose back was toward the door, turned obliquely and
+looked.
+
+"Why, there he is!" he heard Justine exclaim; and in the man that stood
+there he saw the stripling he had just evoked. Into the palms of his
+hands a moisture came, yet as Justine proceeded with some form of
+introduction he rose to his feet. "So you are the cousin," he mused; and
+then, with a bow in which he put the completest indifference, he resumed
+his seat.
+
+"We were just talking of you," Justine continued. "Why didn't you come
+in last night?"
+
+"It is snowing," the cousin remarked, inconsequently, and sat himself
+down.
+
+"Dr. Thorold, you know;" and Justine, turning to Mistrial, began to
+relate one of those little anecdotes which are serviceable when
+conversation drags.
+
+As she ran on, Roland, apparently attentive, marked that one of
+Thorold's feet was moving uneasily, and divined rather than saw that the
+fingers of his hand were clinched. "He is working himself up," he
+reflected. "Well, let him; it will make it the easier for me." And as he
+told himself this he turned on Thorold a glance which he was prepared
+to instantly divert. But the physician was not looking; he sat
+bolt-upright, his eyes lowered, and about his mouth and forehead the
+creases of a scowl.
+
+Dr. Thorold was of that class of man that women always like and never
+adore. He was thoughtful of others, and considerate. Physically he was
+well-favored, and pleasant to the eye. He was sometimes dull, but rarely
+selfish; by taste and training he was a scholar--gifted at that; and yet
+through some accident of nature he lacked that one fibre which
+differentiates the hero from the herd. In the way we live to-day the
+need of heroes is so slight that the absence of that fibre is of no
+moment at all--a circumstance which may account for the fact that
+Justine admired him very much, trusted him entirely, and had she been
+his sister instead of his cousin could not have appreciated him more.
+
+And now, as Roland eyed him for one moment, through some of those
+indetectable currents that bring trivialities to the mind that is most
+deeply engrossed he noticed that though the physician was in dress the
+shoes he wore were not veneered. Then at once he entered into a perfect
+understanding of the circumstances in which he was placed. Though he
+lost the game even as the cards were being dealt, at least he would lose
+it well. "I'll teach him a lesson," he decided; and presently, as
+Justine ceased speaking, he assumed his gayest air.
+
+"Yes, yes," he exclaimed, and gave a twist to his light mustache. He had
+caught her ultimate words, and with them a cue.
+
+"Yes, I remember in Nepal--"
+
+And thereupon he carried his listener through a series of scenes and
+adventures which he made graphic by sheer dexterity in the use of words.
+His speech, colored and fluent, was of exactly that order which must be
+heard, not read. It was his intonation which gave it its charm, the
+manner in which he eluded a detail that might have wearied; the
+expression his face took on at the situations which he saw before
+describing, and which he made his auditor expect; and also the surety of
+his skill in transition--the art with which he would pass from one idea
+to another, connect them both with a gesture, and complete the subject
+with a smile. The _raconteur_ is usually a bore. When he is not, he is a
+wizard. And as Roland passed from one peak of the Himalayas to another,
+over one of the two that listened he exerted a palpable spell. At last,
+the end of his tether reached, he turned to the cousin, and, without a
+hesitation intervening, asked of him, as though the question were one of
+really personal interest, "Dr. Thorold, have you ever been in the East?"
+
+Thorold, thrown off his guard, glared for an instant, the scowl still
+manifest; then he stood up. "No, sir; I have not," he answered; and
+each of the monosyllables of his reply he seemed to propel with tongue
+and teeth. "Good-night, Justine." And with a nod that was rather small
+for two to divide, took himself from the room.
+
+He reached the portière before Justine fully grasped the discourtesy of
+his conduct. She stared after him wonderingly, her lips half parted, her
+clear eyes dilated and amazed, the color mounted to her cheeks, and she
+made as though to leave her seat.
+
+But this Roland thought it wise to prevent. "Miss Dunellen," he
+murmured, "I am afraid Dr. Thorold was bored. It is my fault. I had no
+right--"
+
+"Bored! How could he have been? I am sure I don't see--"
+
+"Yes, you do, my dear," thought Roland; "you think he was jealous, and
+you are wrong; but it is good for us that you should." And in memory of
+the little compliment her speech had unintentionally conveyed he gave
+another twist to his mustache.
+
+The outer door closed with a jar that reached him where he sat. "Thank
+God!" he muttered; and divining that if he now went away the girl would
+regret his departure, after another word or two, and despite the
+protestation of her manner, he bade her good-night.
+
+It is one of the charms of our lovely climate that the temperature can
+fall twenty degrees in as many minutes. When Roland entered the Dunellen
+house he left spring in the street; when he came out again there was
+snow. Across the way a lamp flickered, beneath it a man was standing,
+from beyond came a faint noise of passing wheels, but the chance of
+rescue by cab or hansom was too remote for anyone but a foreigner to
+entertain. Roland had omitted to provide himself with any protection
+against a storm, yet that omission affected him but little. He had too
+many things to think of to be anxious about his hat; and, his hands in
+his pocket, his head lowered, he descended the steps, prepared to let
+the snow do its worst.
+
+As he reached the pavement the man at the lamp-post crossed the street.
+
+"Mistrial," he called, for Roland was hurrying on--"Mistrial, I want a
+word with you."
+
+In a moment he was at his side, and simultaneously Roland recognized the
+cousin. He was buttoned up in a loose coat faced with fur, and over his
+head he held an umbrella. He seemed a little out of breath.
+
+"If," he began at once, "if I hear that you ever presume to so much as
+speak to Miss Dunellen again, I will break every bone in your body."
+
+The voice in which he made this threat was gruff and aggressive. As he
+delivered it, he closed his umbrella and swung it like a club.
+
+"_A nous deux, maintenant_," mused Roland.
+
+"And not only that--if you ever dare to enter that house again I will
+expose you."
+
+"Oh, will you, though?" answered Roland. The tone he assumed was
+affectedly civil. "Well now, my fat friend, let me tell you this: I
+intend to enter that house, as you call it, to-morrow at precisely five
+o'clock. Let me pick you up on the way, and we can go together."
+
+"Roland Mistrial, as sure as there is a God in heaven I will have you in
+the Tombs."
+
+"See here, put up your umbrella. You are not in a condition to expose
+yourself--let alone anyone else. You are daft, Thorold--that is what is
+the matter with you. If you persist in chattering Tombs at me in a
+snow-storm I will answer Bloomingdale to you. You frightened me once, I
+admit; but I am ten years older now, and ten years less easily scared.
+Besides, what drivel you talk! You haven't that much to go on."
+
+As Roland spoke his accent changed from affected suavity to open scorn.
+"Now stop your bluster," he continued, "and listen to me. Because you
+happen to find me in there, you think I have intentions on the
+heiress--"
+
+"It's a lie! She--"
+
+"There, don't be abusive. I know you want her for yourself, and I hope
+you get her. But please don't think that I mean to stand in your way."
+
+"I should say not."
+
+"In the first place, I went there on business."
+
+"What business, I would like to know?"
+
+"So you shall. I took some papers for Mr. Dunellen to examine--papers
+relative to my father's estate. To-morrow I return to learn his opinion.
+Next week I go abroad again. When I leave I promise you shall find your
+cousin still heart-whole and fancy-free."
+
+As Roland delivered this little stab he paused a moment to note the
+effect. But apparently it had passed unnoticed--Thorold seemingly was
+engrossed in the statements that preceded it. The scowl was still on his
+face, but it was a scowl into which perplexity had entered, and which in
+entering had modified the aggressiveness that had first been there. At
+the moment his eyes wandered, and Roland, who was watching him, felt
+that he had scored a point.
+
+"You say you are going abroad?" he said, at last.
+
+"Yes; I have to join my wife."
+
+At this announcement Thorold looked up at him and then down at the
+umbrella. Presently, with an abrupt gesture, he unfurled it and raised
+it above his head. As he did so, Roland smiled. For that night at least
+the danger had gone. Of the morrow, however, he was unassured.
+
+"Suppose we walk along," he said, encouragingly; and before Thorold knew
+it, he was sharing that umbrella with his foe. "Yes," he continued, "my
+poor father left his affairs in a muddle, but Mr. Dunellen says he
+thinks he can straighten them out. You can understand that if any
+inkling of this thing were to reach him he would return the papers at
+once. You can understand that, can't you? After all, you must know that
+I have suffered."
+
+"Suffered!" Thorold cried. "What's that to me? It made my mother
+insane."
+
+"God knows I nearly lost my reason too. I can understand how you feel
+toward me: it is only what I deserve. Yet though you cannot forget, at
+least it can do you no good to rake this matter up."
+
+"It is because of--" and for a second the cousin halted in his speech.
+
+"_Voilà!_" mused Roland. "_Je te vois venir._"
+
+"However, if you are going abroad--"
+
+"Most certainly I am. I never expect to see Miss Dunellen again."
+
+"In that case I will say nothing."
+
+They had reached Fifth Avenue, and for a moment both loitered on the
+curb. Thorold seemed to have something to add, but he must have had
+difficulty in expressing it, for he nodded as though to reiterate the
+promise.
+
+"I can rely upon you then, can I?" Roland asked.
+
+"Keep out of my way, sir, and I will try, as I have tried, to forget."
+
+A 'bus was passing, he hailed it, and disappeared.
+
+Roland watched the conveyance, and shook the snow-flakes from his coat.
+"Try, and be damned," he muttered. "I haven't done with you yet."
+
+The disdain of a revenge at hand is accounted the uniquest possible
+vengeance. And it is quite possible that had Roland's monetary affairs
+been in a better condition, on a sound and solid basis, let us say, he
+would willingly have put that paradox into action. But on leaving Tuxedo
+he happened to be extremely hungry--hungry, first and foremost, for the
+possession of that wealth which in this admirably conducted country of
+ours lifts a man above the law, and, an adroit combination of
+scoundrelism and incompetence aiding, sometimes lands him high among the
+executives of state. By political ambition, however, it is only just to
+say he was uninspired. In certain assemblies he had taken the trouble to
+assert that our government is one at which Abyssinia might sneer, but
+the rôle of reformer was not one which he had any inclination to
+attempt. Several of his progenitors figured, and prominently too, in
+abridgments of history; and, if posterity were not satisfied with that,
+he had a very clear idea as to what posterity might do. In so far as he
+was personally concerned, the prominence alluded to was a thing which he
+accepted as a matter of course: it was an integral part of himself; he
+would have missed it as he would have missed a leg or the point of his
+nose; but otherwise it left his pulse unstirred. No, his hunger was not
+for preferment or place. It was for the ten million which the Hon. Paul
+Dunellen had gathered together, and which the laws of gravitation would
+prevent him from carrying away when he died. That was the nature of
+Roland Mistrial's hunger, and as incidental thereto was the thirst to
+adjust an outstanding account.
+
+Whatever the nature of that account may have been, in a more ordinary
+case it might have become outlawed through sheer lapse of time. But
+during that lapse of time Roland had been in exile because of it; and
+though even now he might have been willing to let it drift back into the
+past where it belonged, yet when the representative of it not only
+loomed between him and the millions, but was even attempting to gather
+them in for himself, the possibility of retaliation was too complete to
+suffer disdain. The injury, it is true, was one of his own doing. But,
+curiously enough, when a man injures another the more wanton that injury
+is the less it incites to repentance. In certain dispositions it becomes
+a source of malignant hate. Deserve a man's gratitude, and he may
+forgive you; but let him do you a wrong, and you have an enemy for life.
+Such is the human heart--or such at least was Roland Mistrial's.
+
+And now, as the conveyance rumbled off into the night, he shook the
+snow-flakes from his coat.
+
+"Try, and be damned," he repeated; "I haven't done with you yet."
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+To the New Yorker March is the vilest month of all the year. In the
+South it is usually serene. Mrs. Metuchen, who gave herself the airs of
+an invalid, and who possessed the invalid's dislike of vile weather, was
+aware of this; and while the first false promises of February were being
+protested she succeeded in persuading Miss Dunellen to accompany her out
+of snow-drifts into the sun. It was Aiken that she chose as refuge; and
+when the two ladies arrived there they felt satisfied that their choice
+had been a proper one--a satisfaction which they did not share alone,
+for a few days after their arrival Roland Mistrial arrived there too.
+
+During the intervening weeks he had seemed idle; but it is the thinker's
+characteristic to appear unoccupied when he is most busily engaged, and
+Roland, outwardly inactive, had in reality made the most of his time.
+
+On the morning succeeding the encounter with Thorold something kept
+coming and whispering that he had undertaken a task which was beyond his
+strength. To many of us night is apt to be more confident than are the
+earlier hours of the day, and the courage which Roland had exhibited
+spent itself and went. It is hard to feel the flutter of a bird beneath
+one's fingers, and, just when the fingers tighten, to discover that the
+bird is no longer there. Such a thing is disappointing, and the
+peculiarity of a disappointment consists in this--the victim of it is
+apt to question the validity of his own intuitions. Thus far--up to the
+looming of Thorold--everything had been in Roland's favor. Without
+appreciable effort he had achieved the impossible. In three days he had
+run an heiress to earth, gained her father's liking, captivated her
+chaperon, and, at the moment when the air was sentient with success,
+the highway on which he strode became suddenly tortuous and obscure. Do
+what he might he could not discern so much as a sign-post; and as in
+perplexity he twirled his thumbs, little by little he understood that he
+must either turn back and hunt another quarry, or stand where he was and
+wait. Another step on that narrowing road and he might tumble into a
+gully. Did he keep his word with Thorold he felt sure that Thorold would
+keep his word with him. But did he break it, and Thorold learn he had
+done so, several consequences were certain to ensue, and among them he
+could hear from where he stood the bang with which Mr. Dunellen's door
+would close. The only plank which drifted his way threatened to break
+into bits. He needed no one to tell him that Justine was not a girl to
+receive him or anyone else in the dark; and even fortune favoring, if in
+chance meetings he were able to fan her spark of interest for him into
+flame, those chance meetings would be mentioned by her to whomsoever
+they might concern. No, that plank was rotten; and yet in considering
+it, and in considering too the possibilities to which, were it a trifle
+stronger, it might serve as bridge, he passed that morning, a number of
+subsequent mornings. A month elapsed, and still he eyed that plank.
+
+Meanwhile he had seen Miss Dunellen but once. She happened to be driving
+up the Avenue, but he had passed her unobserved. Then the weather became
+abominable, and he knew it was useless to look for her in the Park; and
+once he had visited her father's office and learned again, what he
+already knew, that in regard to the lost estate, eternity aiding,
+something might be recovered, but that the chances were vague as was it.
+And so February came and found his hunger unappeased. The alternate
+course which had suggested itself came back, and he determined to turn
+and hunt another quarry. During his sojourn abroad he had generally
+managed a team of three. There was the gerundive, as he termed the
+hindmost--the woman he was about to leave; there was another into whose
+graces he had entered; and there was a third in training for future use.
+This custom he had found most serviceable. Whatever might happen in less
+regulated establishments, his stable was full. And that custom, which
+had stood him in good stead abroad, had nothing in it to prevent
+adoption here. Indeed, he told himself it was because of his negligence
+in that particular that he found himself where he was. Instead of
+centring his attention on Miss Dunellen, it would have been far better
+to wander in and out of the glittering precincts of Fifth Avenue, and
+see what else he could find. After all, there was nothing like being
+properly provisioned. If one comestible ran short, there should be
+another to take its place. Moreover, if, as Jones had intimated, there
+were heiresses enough for export purposes, there must surely be enough
+to supply the home demand.
+
+The alternate course alluded to he had therefore determined to adopt,
+when an incident occurred which materially altered his plans. One
+particularly detestable morning he read in public print that Mrs.
+Metuchen and Miss Dunellen were numbered among the visitors to South
+Carolina, and thereupon he proceeded to pack his valise. A few days
+later he was in Aiken, and on the forenoon of the third day succeeding
+his arrival, as he strolled down the verandah of the Mountain Glen
+Hotel, he felt at peace with the world and with himself.
+
+It was a superb morning, half summer, half spring. In the distance a
+forest stretched indefinitely and lost itself in the haze of the horizon
+beyond. The sky was tenderly blue, and, beneath, a lawn green as the
+baize on a roulette-table was circled by a bright-red road. He had
+breakfasted infamously on food that might have been cooked by a butcher
+to whom breakfast is an odious thing. Yet its iniquity he accepted as a
+matter of course. He knew, as we all do, that for bad food, bad service,
+and for futility of complaint our country hotels are unrivalled, even in
+Spain. He was there not to enjoy himself, still less for the pleasures a
+blue ribbon can cause: he was there to fan into flame the interest which
+Miss Dunellen had exhibited; and as he strolled down the verandah, a
+crop under his arm, his trousers strapped, he had no intention of
+quarrelling with the fare. Quite a number of people were basking in the
+sunlight, and, as he passed, some of them turned and looked; for at
+Aiken men that have more than one lung are in demand, and, when Roland
+registered his historic name, to the unattached females a little flutter
+of anticipation came.
+
+But Roland was not in search of flirtations: he moved by one group into
+another until he reached a corner of the verandah in which Mrs.
+Metuchen and Miss Dunellen sat. Merely by the expression on the faces of
+those whom he greeted it was patent to the others that the trio were on
+familiar terms; and when presently he accompanied Miss Dunellen off the
+verandah, aided her to mount a horse that waited there, mounted another
+himself, and cantered off with the girl, the unattached females declared
+that the twain must be engaged. In that they were in error. As yet
+Roland had not said a word to the charge he might not have said to the
+matron. Both of these ladies had been surprised when he reached Aiken,
+and both had been pleased as well. In that surprise, in that pleasure,
+Roland had actively collaborated; and taking on himself to answer before
+it was framed the question which his advent naturally prompted, he
+stated that in journeying from Savannah to Asheville he had stopped over
+at Aiken as at a halfway house, and that, too, without an idea of
+encountering anyone whom he knew. Thereafter for several days he managed
+to make himself indispensable to the matron, companionable to her
+charge; but now, on this particular morning, as he rattled down the red
+road, the courage which had deserted him returned; and a few hours
+later, when before a mirror in his bedroom he stood arranging his
+cravat, he caught a reflection of Hyperion, son-in-law of Croesus.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+In a fortnight that reflection was framed with a promise. Justine had
+put her hand in his. The threads by which he succeeded in binding her to
+him are needless to describe. He understood that prime secret in the art
+of coercing affection which consists in making one's self desired. He
+was never inopportune. Moreover, he saw that Justine, accustomed to the
+devotion of other men, accepted such devotion as a matter of course; in
+consequence he took another tack, and bullied her--a treatment which was
+new to her, and, being new, attractive. He found fault with her openly,
+criticised the manner in which she sat her horse, contradicted her
+whenever the opportunity came, and jeered--civilly, it is true, but the
+jeer was there and all the sharper because it was blunted--at any
+enthusiasm she chanced to express. And then, when she expected it
+least, he would be enthusiastic himself, and enthusiastic over nothing
+at all--some mythical deed canned in history, the beauty of a child, or
+the flush of the arbutus which they gathered on their rides. To others
+whom he encountered in her presence he showed himself so
+self-abnegatory, so readily pleased, sweet-tempered, and indulgent, so
+studious even of their susceptibilities and appreciative of what they
+liked and what they did not, that in comparing his manner to her and his
+manner to them the girl grew vexed, and one evening she told him so.
+
+They happened to be sitting alone in a corner of the verandah. From
+within came the rhythm of a waltz; some dance was in progress,
+affectioned by the few; Mrs. Metuchen was discussing family trees with a
+party of Philadelphians; the air was sweet with the scent of pines and
+of jasmines; just above and beyond, a star was circumflexed by the moon.
+
+"I am sorry if I have offended," he made answer to her complaint. "Do
+you mind if I smoke?" Without waiting for her consent he drew out a
+cigarette and lighted it. "I have not intended to," he added. "To-morrow
+I will go."
+
+"But why? You like it here. You told me so to-day."
+
+With a fillip of forefinger and thumb Roland tossed the cigarette out
+into the road. "Because I admire you," he answered curtly.
+
+"I am glad of that."
+
+The reproof, if reproof there were, was not in her speech, but in her
+voice. She spoke as one does whose due is conceded only after an effort.
+And for a while both were mute.
+
+"Come, children, it is time to go to bed." Mrs. Metuchen in her
+fantastic fashion was hailing them from the door. Already the waltz had
+ceased, and as Mrs. Metuchen spoke, Justine rose from her seat.
+
+"Good-night, Don Quichotte," the old lady added; and as the girl
+approached she continued in an audible undertone, "I call him Don
+Quichotte because he looks like the Chevalier Bayard."
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Metuchen, and the pleasantest of dreams." But the
+matron, with a wave of her glove, had disappeared, and Justine returned.
+
+"At least you will not go until the afternoon?"
+
+"Since you wish it, I will not."
+
+She had stretched out her hand, but Roland, affecting not to notice it,
+raised his hat and turned away. Presently, and although, in spite of
+many a vice, he was little given to drink, he found himself at the bar
+superintending the blending of gin, of lemon-peel, and of soda; and as
+he swallowed it and put the goblet down he seemed so satisfied that the
+barkeeper, with the affectionate familiarity of his class, nodded and
+smiled.
+
+"It takes a Remsen Cooler to do the trick, don't it?" he said.
+
+And Roland, assenting remotely, left the bar and sought his room.
+
+The next morning, as through different groups he sought for matron and
+for maid, he had a crop under his arm and in his hand a paper.
+
+"I have been settling my bill," he announced.
+
+"But are you going?" exclaimed Mrs. Metuchen.
+
+"I can hardly take up a permanent residence here, can I?" he replied.
+
+"Oh, Justine," the old lady cried, and clutched the girl by the arm,
+"persuade him not to." And fixing him with her glittering eyes, she
+added, "If you go, sir, you leave an Aiken void."
+
+The jest passed him unnoticed. He felt that something had been said
+which called for applause, for Mrs. Metuchen was laughing immoderately.
+But his eyes were in Justine's as were hers in his.
+
+"You will ride, will you not? I see you have your habit on." And with
+that, Justine assenting, he led her down the steps and aided her to the
+saddle.
+
+There are numberless tentative things in life, and among them an amble
+through green, deserted lanes, where only birds and flowers are, has
+witcheries of its own. However perturbed the spirit may have been, there
+is that in the glow of the morning and the gait of a horse that can make
+it wholly serene. The traveller from Sicily will, if you let him, tell
+of hours so fair that even the bandits are coerced. Man cannot always be
+centred in self; and when to the influence of nature is added the
+companionship of one whose presence allures, the charm is complete. And
+Roland, to whom such things hitherto had been as accessories, this
+morning felt their spell. The roomy squalor of the village had been
+passed long since. They had entered a road where the trees arched and
+nearly hid the sky, but through the branches an eager sunlight found its
+way. Now and then in a clearing they would happen on some shabby, silent
+house, the garden gay with the tender pink of blossoming peach; and at
+times, from behind a log or straight from the earth, a diminutive negro
+would start like a kobold in a dream and offer, in an abashed, uncertain
+way, a bunch of white violets in exchange for coin. And once an old man,
+trudging along, saluted them with a fine parabola of hat and hand; and
+once they encountered a slatternly negress, very fat and pompous, seated
+behind a donkey she could have carried in her arms. But practically the
+road was deserted, fragrant, and still.
+
+And now, as they rode on, interchanging only haphazard remarks, Roland
+swung himself from his horse, and, plucking a spray of arbutus, handed
+it to the girl.
+
+"Take it," he said; "it is all I have."
+
+His horse had wandered on a step and was nibbing at the grass, and, as
+he stood looking up at her, for the first time it occurred to him that
+she was fair. However a girl may seem in a ball-room, if she ever looks
+well she looks best in the saddle; and Justine, in spite of his
+criticism, did not sit her horse badly. Her gray habit, the high white
+collar and open vest, brought out the snuff-color of her eyes and hair.
+Her cheeks, too, this morning must have recovered some of the flush they
+had lost, or else the sun had been using its palette, for in them was
+the hue of the flower he had gathered and held.
+
+She took it and inserted the stem in the lapel of her coat.
+
+"Are you going?" she asked.
+
+"What would you think of me if I remained?"
+
+"What would I? I would think--"
+
+As she hesitated she turned. He could see now it was not the sun alone
+that had been at work upon her face.
+
+"Let _me_ tell. You would think that a man with two arms for sole income
+has no right to linger in the neighborhood of a girl such as you. That
+is what you would think, what anyone would think; and while I care
+little enough about the existence which I lead in the minds of other
+people, yet I do care for your esteem. If I stay, I lose it. I should
+lose, too, my own; let me keep them both and go."
+
+"I do not yet see why?"
+
+"You don't!" The answer was so abrupt in tone that you would have said
+he was irritated at her remark, judging it unnecessary and ill-timed.
+"You don't!" he repeated. "Go back a bit, and perhaps you will remember
+that after I saw you at your house I did not come back again."
+
+"I do indeed remember."
+
+"The next day I saw you in the Park; I was careful not to return."
+
+"But what have I done? You said last night--"
+
+"Why do you question? You know it is because I love you."
+
+"Then you shall not go."
+
+"I must."
+
+"You shall _not_, I say."
+
+"And I shall take with me the knowledge that the one woman I have loved
+is the one woman I have been forced to leave."
+
+"Roland Mistrial, how can you bear the name you do and yet be so unjust?
+If you leave me now it is because you care more for yourself than you
+ever could for me. It is not on my account you go: it is because you
+fear the world. There were heroes once that faced it."
+
+"Yes, and there were Circes then, as now."
+
+As he made that trite reply his face relaxed, and into it came an
+expression of such abandonment that the girl could see the day was won.
+
+"Tell me--you will not go?"
+
+Roland caught her hand in his, and, drawing back the gauntlet of kid, he
+kissed her on the wrist. "I will never leave you now," he answered;
+"Only promise you will not regret."
+
+"Regret!" She smiled at the speech--or was it a smile? Her lips had
+moved, but it was as though they had done so in answer to some prompting
+of her soul. "Regret! Do you remember you asked me what I would think if
+you remained? Well, I thought, if you did, there were dreams which do
+come true."
+
+At this avowal she was so radiant yet so troubled that Roland detained
+her hand. "She really loves," he mused; "and so do I." And it may be,
+the forest aiding, that, in the answering pressure which he gave, such
+heart as he had went out and mingled with her own.
+
+"Between us now," he murmured, "it is for all of time."
+
+"Roland, how I waited for you!"
+
+Again her lips moved and she seemed to smile, but now her eyes were no
+longer in his, they were fixed on some vista visible only to herself.
+She looked rapt, but she looked startled as well. When a girl first
+stands face to face with love it allures and it frightens too.
+
+Roland dropped her hand; he caught his horse and mounted it. In a moment
+he was at her side again.
+
+"Justine!"
+
+And the girl turning to him let her fresh lips meet and rest upon his
+own. Slowly he disengaged the arm with which he had steadied himself on
+her waist.
+
+"If I lose you now--" he began.
+
+"There can be no question of losing," she interrupted. "Have we not come
+into our own?"
+
+"But others may dispute our right. There is your cousin, to whom I
+thought you were engaged; and there is your father."
+
+"Oh, as for Guy--" and she made a gesture. "Father, it is true, may
+object; but let him. I am satisfied; in the end he will be satisfied
+also. Why, only the other day I wrote him you were here."
+
+"H'm!" At the intelligence he wheeled abruptly.
+
+Already Justine had turned, and lowering her crop she gave her horse a
+little tap. The beast was willing enough; in a moment the two were on a
+run, and as Roland's horse, a broncho, by-the-way, one of those eager
+animals that decline to remain behind, rushed forward and took the lead,
+"Remember!" she cried, "you are not to leave me now."
+
+But the broncho was self-willed, and this injunction Roland found or
+pretended it difficult to obey; and together, through the green lane and
+out of it, by long, dismal fields of rice, into the roomy squalor of the
+village and on to the hotel, they flew as though some fate pursued.
+Justine never forgot that ride, nor did Roland either.
+
+At the verandah steps Mrs. Metuchen was in waiting. "I have a telegram
+from your father," she called to Justine. "He wishes you to return
+to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow?" the girl exclaimed.
+
+"Thorold has learned I am here, and has told," her lover reflected. And
+swinging from his saddle he aided the girl to alight.
+
+"To-morrow," Mrs. Metuchen with large assumption of resignation replied;
+"and we may be thankful he did not say to-day."
+
+And as Roland listened to the varying interpretations of the summons
+which, during the absence of her charge, Mrs. Metuchen's riotous
+imagination had found time to conceive, "Thorold has told," he repeated
+to himself, "but he has told too late."
+
+After a morning such as that, an afternoon on a piazza is apt to drag.
+Of this Roland was conscious. Moreover, he had become aware that his
+opportunities were now narrowly limited; and presently, as Mrs.
+Metuchen's imaginings subsided and ceased, he asked the girl whether,
+when dinner was over, she would care to take a drive.
+
+Protest who may, at heart every woman is a match-maker; and Mrs.
+Metuchen was not an exception. In addition to this, she liked
+family-trees, she was in cordial sympathy with good-breeding, and
+Roland, who possessed both, had, through attentions which women of her
+age appreciate most, succeeded in detaining her regard. In conversation,
+whenever Justine happened to be mentioned, she had a habit of extolling
+that young woman--not beyond her deserts, it is true, but with the
+attitude of one aware that the girl had done something which she ought
+to be ashamed of, yet to which no one was permitted to allude. This
+attitude was due to the fact that she suspected her, and suspected that
+everyone else suspected her, of an attachment for her cousin Guy. Now
+Guy Thorold had never appealed to Mrs. Metuchen. He was not prompt with
+a chair; when she unrolled her little spangle of resonant names he
+displayed no eagerness in face or look. Such things affect a woman. They
+ruffle her flounces and belittle her in her own esteem. As a
+consequence, she disliked Guy Thorold; from the heights of that dislike
+she was even wont to describe him as Poke--a word she could not have
+defined had she tried, but which suggested to her all the attributes of
+that which is stupid and under-bred. Roland, on the other hand, seemed
+to her the embodiment of just those things which Thorold lacked, and in
+the hope that he might cut the cousin out she extolled him to her charge
+in indirect and subtle ways. You young men who read this page mind you
+of this: if you would succeed in love or war, be considerate of women
+who are no longer young. They ask but an attention, a moment of your
+bountiful days, some little act of deference, and in exchange they sound
+your praises more deftly than ever trumpeter or beat of drums could do.
+
+But because Mrs. Metuchen had an axe of her own to grind was not to her
+mind a reason why she should countenance a disregard of the Satanic
+pomps of that which the Western press terms Etiquette. And so it
+happened that, when Roland asked Justine whether she would care to
+drive, before the girl could answer, the matron stuck her oar in:
+
+"Surely, Mr. Mistrial, you cannot think Miss Dunellen could go with you
+alone. Not that _I_ see any impropriety in her doing so, but there is
+the world."
+
+The world at that moment consisted of a handful of sturdy consumptives
+impatiently waiting the opening of the dining-room doors. And as Roland
+considered that world, he mentally explored the stable.
+
+"Of course not," he answered; "if Miss Dunellen cares to go, I will have
+a dogcart and a groom."
+
+With that sacrifice to conventionality Mrs. Metuchen was content. For
+Justine to ride unchaperoned was one thing, but driving was another
+matter. And later on, in the cool of the afternoon, as Roland bowled the
+girl over the yielding sand, straight to the sunset beyond, he began
+again on the duo which they had already rehearsed, and when Justine
+called his attention to the groom, he laughed a little, and well he
+might. "Don't mind him," he murmured; "he is deaf."
+
+In earlier conversations he had rarely spoken of himself, and, when he
+had, it had been in that remote fashion which leaves the personal
+pronoun at the door. There is nothing better qualified to weary the
+indifferent than the speech in which the I jumps out; and knowing this,
+he knew too that that very self-effacement before one whose interest is
+aroused excites that interest to still higher degrees. The _Moi seul est
+haïssable_ is an old maxim, one that we apprehend more or less to our
+cost no doubt, and after many a sin of egotism; but when it is learned
+by rote, few others serve us in better stead. In Roland's relations
+with Justine thus far it had served him well. It had filled her mind
+with questions which she did not feel she had the right to ask, and in
+so filling it had occupied her thoughts with him. It was through arts of
+this kind that Machiavelli earned his fame.
+
+But at present circumstances had changed. She had placed her hand in
+his; she had avowed her love. The I could now appear; its welcome was
+assured. And as they drove along the sand-hills she told him of herself,
+and drew out confidences in exchange. And such confidences! Had the
+groom not been deaf they might have given him food for thought. But they
+must have satisfied Justine, for when they reached the hotel again her
+eyes were so full of meaning that, had Mrs. Metuchen met her in a pantry
+instead of on the verandah, she could have seen unspectacled that the
+girl was fairly intoxicated--drunk with that headiest cup of love which
+is brewed not by the contact of two epiderms, but through communion of
+spirit and unison of heart.
+
+That evening, when supper was done, Mrs. Metuchen, to whom any breath of
+night was synonymous with miasmas and microbes, settled herself in the
+parlor, and in the company of her friends from School Lane discussed
+that inexhaustible topic--Who Was and Who Was Not.
+
+But the verandah, deserted at this hour by the consumptives, had
+attractions for Justine, for Roland as well; and presently, in a corner
+of it that leaned to the south, both were seated, and, at the moment,
+both were dumb. On the horizon, vague now and undiscerned, the
+peach-blossoms and ochres of sunset had long since disappeared; but from
+above rained down the light and messages of other worlds; the sky was
+populous with stars that seemed larger and nearer than they do in the
+north; Venus in particular shone like a neighborly sun that had strayed
+afar, and in pursuit of her was a moon, a new one, so slender and
+yellow you would have said, a feather that a breath might blow away. In
+the air were the same inviting odors, the scent of heliotrope and of
+violets, the invocations of the woodlands, the whispers of the pines.
+The musicians had been hushed, or else dismissed, for no sound came from
+them that night.
+
+Roland had not sought the feverish night to squander it in
+contemplation. His hand moved and caught Justine's. It resisted a
+little, then lay docile in his own. For she was new to love. Like every
+other girl that has passed into the twenties, she had a romance in her
+life, two perhaps, but romances immaterial as children's dreams, and
+from which she had awaked surprised, noting the rhythm yet seeking the
+reason in vain. They had passed from her as fancies do; and, just as she
+was settling down into leisurely acceptance of her cousin, Roland had
+appeared, and when she saw him a bird within her burst into song, and
+she knew that all her life she had awaited his approach. To her he was
+the fabulous prince that arouses the sleeper to the truth, to the
+meaning, of love. He had brought with him new currents, wider vistas,
+and horizons solid and real. He differed so from other men that her mind
+was pleasured with the thought he had descended from a larger sphere.
+She idealized him as girls untrained in life will do. He was the lover
+unawaited yet not wholly undivined, tender-hearted, impeccable,
+magnificent, incapable of wrong--the lover of whom she may never have
+dreamed, yet who at last had come. And into his keeping she gave her
+heart, and was glad, regretting only it was not more to give. She had no
+fears; her confidence was assured as Might, and had you or I or any
+other logician passed that way and demonstrated as clearly as _a_ = _a_
+that she was imbecile in her love, she would not have thanked either of
+us for our pains. When a woman loves--and whatever the cynic may
+affirm, civilization has made her monandrous--she differs from man in
+this: she gives either the first-fruits of her affection, or else the
+semblance of an after-growth. There are men, there are husbands and
+lovers even, who will accept that after-growth and regard it as the
+verdure of an enduring spring. But who, save a lover, is ever as stupid
+as a husband? Man, on the other hand, is constant never. Civilization
+has not improved him in the least. And when on his honor he swears he
+has never loved before, his honor goes unscathed, for he may never yet
+have loved a woman as he loves the one to whom he swears.
+
+With Justine this was the primal verdure. Had she not met Roland
+Mistrial, she might, and in all probability would, have exhibited
+constancy in affection, but love would have been uncomprehended still.
+As it was, she had come into her own; she was confident in it and
+secure; and now, though by nature she was rebellious enough, as he
+caught her hand her being went out to him, and as it went it thrilled.
+
+"I love you," he said; and his voice was so flexible that it would have
+been difficult to deny that he really did. "I will love you always, my
+whole life through."
+
+The words caressed her so well she could have pointed to the sky and
+repeated with Dona Sol:
+
+    "Regarde: plus de feux, plus de bruit. Tout se tait.
+    La lune tout à l'heure à l'horizon montait:
+    Tandis que tu parlais, sa lumière qui tremble
+    Et ta voix, toutes deux m'allaient au coeur ensemble:
+    Je me sentais joyeuse et calme, ô mon amant!
+    Et j'aurais bien voulu mourir en ce moment."
+
+But at once some premonition seemed to visit her. "Roland," she
+murmured, "what if we leave our happiness here?"
+
+And Roland, bending toward her, whispered sagely: "We shall know then
+where to find it."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+New York meanwhile, in its effeminateness, had forgotten the snow, and
+was listening to the sun. And the day after the return from Aiken, as
+Roland, in accordance with an agreement of which the _locus sigilli_ had
+a kiss for token, went down to knock at Mr. Dunellen's office door, the
+sky was as fair as it had been in the South. Yet to him it was
+unobtrusive. His mind was occupied with fancies that had a birth, a
+little span of life, and which in passing away were succeeded by others
+as ephemeral as themselves--thoughts about nothing at all that came and
+went unnoticed: a man he had met in Corfu, and whom a face in the street
+recalled; the glisten of silk in a window that took him back to
+Japan;--but beneath them was a purpose settled and dominant, a
+resolution to trick Fate and outwit it--one which, during the journey
+from Aiken, had so possessed him that, in attending to the wants of Mrs.
+Metuchen or in ministering to Justine, at times he had been
+quasi-somnambulistic, at others wholly vague. But now, as he gave his
+card to an office-boy, to all outward intent he was confident and at
+ease; he picked up a paper and affected to lose himself in its columns.
+Presently the boy returned, and he was ushered into the room which he
+had previously visited. On this occasion Mr. Dunellen was not seated,
+but standing, his back to the door. As Roland entered he turned, and the
+young man stepped forward, his hand outstretched.
+
+To his contentment, and a little also to his surprise, in answer to that
+outstretched hand Honest Paul extended his, and Roland had the pleasure
+of holding three apparently docile fingers in his own; but in a moment
+they withdrew themselves, and he felt called upon to speak.
+
+"Mr. Dunellen," he began, with that confident air a creditor has who
+comes to claim his due, "Mr. Dunellen, I have ventured to interrupt you
+again. And again I am a suppliant. But this time it is of your daughter,
+not of my father, that--"
+
+He hesitated, and well he might. Mr. Dunellen, who had remained
+standing, and who in so doing had prevented Roland from sitting down,
+now assumed the suspicious appearance of one who detects an unpleasant
+smell; his features contracted, and for no other reason, apparently,
+than that of intimidating the suppliant in his prayer.
+
+But Roland was not to be abashed; he recovered himself, and continued
+glibly enough: "The matter is this. I am sincerely attached to your
+daughter, and I am come to ask your consent to our marriage."
+
+"That is the purpose of your visit, is it?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"My daughter is aware of it, I suppose?"
+
+"She is."
+
+"And she consented, did she?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"H'm! My daughter has made a mistake. I told her as much last night.
+There can be no question of marriage. You will do me the favor to let
+the matter drop."
+
+"I am hot a rich man, Mr. Dunellen, but--"
+
+"So I am informed. But that has nothing to do with it. There are other
+things that I take into consideration, and in view of them I insist that
+this matter be dropped."
+
+"Mr. Dunellen, I love your daughter; I have reason to believe that she
+cares for me. We became engaged a few days ago. I came here now to ask
+your consent. If you refuse it, I have at least the right to ask what
+your objection is."
+
+"Rather unnecessary, don't you think?"
+
+"I cannot imagine, sir, what you mean." And Roland, holding himself
+unaffectedly straight, without the symptom of a pose, looked the old man
+in the eyes.
+
+That look Mr. Dunellen returned. "Take a seat," he said; and, motioning
+Roland to a chair, he sat down himself.
+
+"All this is needless," he announced; "but since you are anxious for an
+explanation, I will give it. In the first place, when you were at my
+house you remember that my nephew Dr. Thorold happened in. The other day
+I mentioned to him that you were at Aiken. He then informed me of a
+certain incident in your career, one which you have not forgotten, and
+of which I do not care to speak. I may say, however, that it utterly
+precludes the possibility of any further intercourse between my daughter
+and yourself."
+
+And the old man, still gazing at his guest, added: "This explanation
+should, it seems to me, suffice." But he made no attempt to rise, or to
+signify that the interview was at an end, and Roland, who was shrewd,
+interpreted this in his own favor. "He is not altogether positive," he
+reflected, "but he can be so to-morrow," and with a show of shame that
+did him credit he hung his head.
+
+"I had thought the incident to which you refer was forgotten," he
+murmured, penitently enough.
+
+"Forgotten? Do you suppose Thorold forgets? Do you suppose any man could
+forget a thing like that--a sister's death, a mother's insanity? No, you
+did not think it was forgotten. What you thought was this: you thought
+that my nephew would hesitate to speak; and indeed even to me for ten
+years he has kept silent. But now--there, you need not fear a criminal
+charge. It was that you feared once, I understand, and it was on that
+account you went abroad. At this date, of course, no proof is possible;
+and, even were it otherwise, a charge would not be brought. Linen of
+that kind is better washed at home."
+
+"Mr. Dunellen, if you could know! It is the regret of my life."
+
+"That I can believe; but I believe also that our natures never vary. We
+may mould and shape them to our uses, but beneath the surface they
+remain unchanged. I say this parenthetically. In regard to this incident
+there are in one particular certain excuses you might allege--youth for
+instance, inexperience, common attraction, love even. If you did, I
+could enter into them. I have been young myself, and I have no wish to
+imply that through the temptations of youth I passed unscathed. The man
+who asserts he has reminds me of the horseman who declares he has never
+been thrown. Nor because your victim happened to be my niece am I
+actuated by retrospective indignation. I am too old for that; and,
+moreover, the incident is too stale. No: my reason for forbidding my
+daughter to receive you, as I have done, is this: the man that can
+seduce a girl, and then, to conceal the effect, permit her to be
+butchered by a quack, especially when he could have protected her by
+marriage--that man, Mr. Mistrial, I tell you very plainly, is a
+scoundrel, and being a scoundrel will never be anything else." And as
+Honest Paul made this assertion he stood up and nodded affirmatively at
+his guest.
+
+"You are very hard, Mr. Dunellen."
+
+"I may be, but so is justice."
+
+"If I could tell you all. It was so sudden, so unpremeditated even, at
+the first idea of a possibility of a catastrophe I lost my head."
+
+"It was your honor you lost."
+
+"Yes, and for years I have tried to recover it."
+
+"That I am glad to learn, and I hope you have succeeded; but--"
+
+"And will you not aid me?"
+
+"In my sight you can never appear an honest man."
+
+At this reproach, Roland, who had sat like Abjection, one hand
+supporting his head, his eyes lowered and his body bent, sprang to his
+feet.
+
+"There are several forms of honesty," he exclaimed, "and frankness I
+believe is counted among them. That you evidently possess. Let me
+emulate you in it. I intend that your daughter shall be my wife. If you
+don't care to come to the wedding your presence can be dispensed with."
+And without any show of anger, but with an inclination of the head that
+was insolent in its deference, he picked up his hat and left the room.
+
+Presently he found himself in the street. "Who is ever as stupid as a
+wise man?" he queried, and laughed a little to himself--"unless"--and he
+fell to wondering whether Dunellen could have told his daughter all. On
+the corner a cab was loitering; he hailed and entered it. A little later
+he was ringing at the door of Honest Paul's abode.
+
+Yes, Miss Dunellen was at home. And as the servant drew the portière to
+the drawing-room aside, Roland was visited by that emotion the gambler
+knows who waits the turning of a card. Another second, and the
+expression of the girl's face would tell him what the future held. The
+drawing-room, however, happened to be untenanted, and as he paced its
+spacious splendors he still wondered was she or was she not informed. In
+a corner was a landscape signed Courbet--a green ravine shut down by
+bluest sky. The coloring was so true, it jarred. In another was a
+statue--a cloaked and hooded figure of Death supporting a naked girl. As
+he contemplated it, he heard the tinkle of the portière rings. It was
+she, he knew; he turned, and at once his heart gave an exultant throb;
+in her eyes was an invitation; he put his arms about her, and for a
+moment held her so.
+
+She does not know, he told himself, and to her he murmured, "I have
+come to say good-bye."
+
+"Wait, Roland." She led him to a seat. "Wait; I spoke to father last
+night; he has some objection--"
+
+"I told you I was poor--"
+
+"It is that, I suppose; he did not say--"
+
+"He will never consent, unless--"
+
+"There, Roland. I know him best." She closed her eyes, and as he gazed
+at her it seemed to him she had done so to shut some memory out. "It is
+money with him always; you do not know--" And between her parted lips
+she drew a breath he heard. "Last night he told me I must never see you
+again. Hitherto his will has ruled: it is my turn to-day."
+
+With this there came a splendor to her he had never marked before; she
+looked defiant, and resolute as well. There was strength in her face,
+and beauty too.
+
+"He is unjust," she added. "It was my duty to tell him, and there my
+duty ends. I am not a school-girl. I know my mind; better, perhaps,
+than he knows his own. I have obeyed him always. It is easy to obey, but
+now I will act for myself."
+
+"He will never give his consent," Roland repeated.
+
+"He may keep it, then."
+
+Within her something seemed to rankle; and as Roland, mindful of the
+slightest change in her expression, detected this, he wondered what it
+could portend.
+
+"Sweetheart," he ventured, "I have these two arms; they are all in all
+for you."
+
+At this Justine awoke at once. "If I did not know it--feel it; if I were
+not sure of it, do you think I would speak to you as I do? No, Roland. I
+have something of my own; when we are married, believe me, his consent
+will come at once."
+
+"It is not his consent I want--you know that; it is yours."
+
+"You have it, Roland; I gave it you among the pines."
+
+"Where is your hat, then? Let us go."
+
+He caught her to him again, then suffered her to leave the room. And as
+the portière which he had drawn that she might pass fell back into its
+former folds, for a moment he stood perplexed. Somewhere a screw was
+loose, he could have sworn. But where? Could it be that Honest Paul was
+supporting a separate establishment? or did Justine think he wished to
+mate her to some plutocrat of his choice? The first supposition was
+manifestly absurd; the second troubled him so little that he turned and
+occupied himself with the naked girl swooning in the arms of Death.
+
+"I am ready, Roland." It was Justine, bonneted and veiled, buttoning her
+glove.
+
+"I have a cab," he answered, and followed her to the door.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+When Roland and Justine re-entered the drawing-room that afternoon they
+found Mr. Dunellen there. With him was Guy Thorold.
+
+During the infant days of photography family groups were so much in
+vogue that anyone with an old album in reach can find them there in
+plenty. They are faded, no doubt; the cut of the garments is absurd;
+even the faces seem to have that antique look which is peculiar to the
+miniatures of people dead and departed: yet the impression they convey
+is admirably exalting. That gentleman in the wonderful coat must have
+been magnificent in every sphere of life: his mere pose, his attitude,
+is convincing as a memoir. And that lady in the camel's-hair shawl--how
+bewitchingly lovable she surely was! There is her daughter, who might be
+her niece, so prettily does she seem inclined to behave; and there is
+the son, a trifle effaced perhaps, yet with the makings of a man
+manifest even in that effacement. Oh, good people! let us hope you were
+really as amiable as you look: the picture is all we have of you; even
+your names are forgot; and truly it were discomforting to have the
+impression you convey disturbed in its slightest suggestion. We love you
+best as you are; we prefer you so. I, for one, will have none of that
+cynicism which hints that had a snap camera caught you unprepared the
+charm would disappear.
+
+Yet now, in the present instance, as Mr. Dunellen and his nephew stood
+facing Roland and Justine, a photographer who had happened there could
+have taken a family group which would in no manner have resembled those
+which our albums hold.
+
+"I told you last night," Mr. Dunellen was shrieking, "that I forbade you
+to see that man."
+
+And Justine, raising her veil, answered, "He was not my husband then."
+
+"Husband!" The old man stared at his daughter, his face distorted and
+livid with rage. "If you--"
+
+But whatever threat he may have intended to make, Thorold interrupted.
+
+"He is married already," he cried; "he is no more your husband than I."
+
+At this announcement Mr. Dunellen let an arm he had outstretched fall to
+his side; he turned to Thorold, and Justine looked wonderingly in
+Roland's face.
+
+"What does he mean?" she asked.
+
+Roland shrugged his shoulders, "God knows," he answered. "He must be
+screwed."
+
+"You _are_ married," Thorold called out. "You needn't attempt to deny it
+here."
+
+"I don't in the least: this lady has just done me the honor to become my
+wife."
+
+"But you have another--you told me so yourself."
+
+Roland, who had been really perplexed, could not now conceal a smile.
+He remembered that he had indeed told Thorold he was married, but he had
+done so merely as an easy way of diverting the suspicions which that
+gentleman displayed.
+
+Justine, still looking at him, caught the smile.
+
+"Why don't you speak?" she asked.
+
+"What is there to say?" he answered. "It is false as an obituary."
+
+"Then tell him so."
+
+But for that there was no time. Mr. Dunellen, trained in procedure, had
+already questioned Thorold, and found that save Mistrial's word he had
+nothing to grapple on.
+
+"Leave the house, sir," he shouted, and pointed to the door.
+
+"When he goes, father, I go too."
+
+"Then go." And raising his arms above his head as though to invoke the
+testimony of heaven, he bawled at her, "I disown you."
+
+"There's Christian forbearance," muttered Mistrial; and he might have
+asserted as much, but Justine had lowered her veil.
+
+"Come," she said.
+
+And as she and her husband passed from the room the old man roared
+impotently "I disinherit you--you are no longer my child."
+
+"Didn't you tell me he had been used to having his own way?" Roland
+asked, as he put Justine in the cab; and without waiting for an answer
+he told the driver to go to the Brunswick, and took a seat at her side.
+
+In certain crises the beauty of an old adage asserts itself even to the
+stupidest. Roland had taken the bull by the horns and got tossed for his
+pains; yet even while he was in the air he kept assuring himself that he
+would land on his feet. The next morning the memory of the old man's
+anger affected him not at all. Passion, he knew, burns itself out, and
+its threats subside into ashes. The relentless parent was a spectacle
+with which the stage had made him so familiar that he needed no
+prompter's book to tell him that when the curtain fell it would be on a
+tableau of awaited forgiveness. And even though Mr. Dunellen and the
+traditional father might differ, yet on the subject of wills and
+bequests he understood that the legislature had in its wisdom prevented
+a testator from devising more than one-half his property to the
+detriment of kith and of kin. If things came to the worst Justine would
+get five million instead of ten; and five million, though not elastic
+enough, as Jones had said, to entertain with, still represented an
+income that sufficed for the necessaries of life. On that score his mind
+was at rest. Moreover, it was manifestly impossible for Justine's father
+to live forever: there was an odor of fresh earth about him which to his
+own keen nostrils long since had betokened the grave; and if meanwhile
+he chose to keep the purse-strings drawn, Justine had enough from her
+mother's estate to last till the strings were loosed.
+
+Rents are high in New York, and to those bred in certain of its manors
+there is a choice between urban palaces and suburban flats. But Paris is
+less fastidious. In that lovely city a thousand-franc note need not be
+spent in a day; and in Italy the possibilities of the lira are great.
+
+In view of these things, Roland and his wife one week later took ship
+and sailed for France.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+To those that have suffered certain things there are forms of
+entertainment which neither amuse nor bore, but which pain. And this
+evening, as Justine sat in the stalls, the play which was being given,
+and which, as plays go, was endurable enough, caused her no pleasure, no
+weariness even, only a longing to get away and be alone. Now and then a
+shudder visited her, her hand tightened on her fan, and at times she
+would close her eyes, dull her hearing, and try to fancy that her
+girlhood was recovered, that she was free again, that she was dead, that
+her husband was--anything imaginable in fact, save the knowledge that
+she was there, side-by-side with him, and that presently they would
+return together to the hideousness of their uptown flat.
+
+She had been married now a little more than two years, and during the
+latter portion of that time life had held for her that precise dose of
+misery which is just insufficient to produce uncertainties of thought in
+a mind naturally exalted. There had indeed been moments in which the
+possibility of insanity had presented itself, and there had been moments
+also in which she would have welcomed that possibility as a grateful
+release: but those moments had passed, the possibility with them; and
+this evening as she sat in the stalls her outward appearance was much
+such as it had been two years before. But within, where her heart had
+been, was a cemetery.
+
+Among our friends and acquaintances there are always those who to our
+knowledge have tombstones of their own. But there are others that evolve
+a world--one that glows, subsides, and dies away unknown to any save
+themselves. The solitudes of space appall; the solitudes of the heart
+can be as endless as they. In those which Justine concealed, a universe
+had had its being and its subsidence; a universe with gem-like hopes for
+stars--one in which the sun had been so eager its rays had made her
+blind. There had been comets gorgeous and tangential as aspirations ever
+are; there had been the colorless ether of which dreams are made; and
+for cosmic matter there was love. But now it was all dispersed; there
+was nothing left, one altar merely--the petrefaction of a prayer erected
+long since in the depths of her distress, and which for conscience' sake
+now and then she tended still.
+
+And now, as the play at which she assisted unrolled before her unseeing
+eyes, one by one scenes from another drama rose unsummoned in its stead.
+First was the meeting with Mistrial at Tuxedo, then the episode at
+Aiken, the marriage that followed, and the banishment that ensued: a
+banishment, parenthetically, which at the time being she was powerless
+to understand. Her father's anger had indeed weighed on her; but it was
+not wholly that--she was too much in love to let it be more than a
+shadow on her delight; nor was it because of unfamiliar lands: it was
+that little by little, through incidents originally misunderstood and
+then more completely grasped, the discovery, avoided yet ever returning,
+came to her, stayed with her, and made her its own--that the man whom
+she had loved and the man whom she had married were separate and
+distinct.
+
+The psychologist of woman has yet to appear, and if he keep us waiting
+may it not be because every woman he analyzes has a sister who differs
+from her? The moment he formulates a rule it is over-weighted by
+exceptions. Woman often varies, the old song says; but not alone in her
+affections does she do so: she varies in temperament as well. And, after
+all, is it not the temperament that makes or mars a life? Justine, in
+discovering that the man she married and the man whom she loved were
+separate and distinct, instead of being disgusted with herself and with
+him, as you, madam, might have been, tried her utmost to forget the
+lover and love the husband that had come in his place. In this effort
+she had pride for an aid. The humiliation which the knowledge of
+self-deception brings is great, but when that knowledge becomes common
+property the humiliation is increased. The world--not the world that
+ought to be, but the world as it is--is more apt to smile than condole.
+There may be much joy in heaven over the sinner that repents: on earth
+the joy is at his downfall. And according to the canons we have made for
+ourselves, Justine, in listening to the dictates of her heart instead of
+to those of her father, had sinned, so grievously even that that father
+had bid her begone from his sight. She was aware of this, and in
+consequence felt it needful to hold her head the higher. And so for a
+while she made pride serve as fig-leaf to her nakedness. If abashed at
+heart, at least the world should be uninformed of that abashment.
+
+This effort on her part Mistrial hindered to the best of his ability.
+Whether or not he loved her, whether save himself he was capable of
+loving anyone, who shall say? Men too are difficult to decipher. There
+were hours when after some _écart_ he would come to her so penitent, so
+pleasant to the eye, and seemingly so afflicted at his own misconduct,
+that Justine found the strength--or the weakness, was it?--to forgive
+and to forget anew.
+
+During this period they lived not sumptuously, perhaps, but in that
+large and liberal fashion which requires a ponderable rent-roll to
+support; and at that time, however Mistrial comported himself elsewhere,
+in her presence he had the decency to seem considerate, and affectionate
+as well. But meanwhile, through constant demands, the value of the
+letter of credit into which he had converted the better part of her
+mother's estate became impaired. Retrenchment was necessary, and that is
+never a pleasant thing. The man that passes out of poverty into wealth
+finds the passage so easy, so Lethean even, that he is apt to forget
+what poverty was; but when, as sometimes happens, he is obliged to
+retrace his steps, he walks bare of foot through a path of thorns. To
+count gold, instead of strewing it, is irritating to anyone not a sage,
+and Mistrial, who was not a sage, was irritated; and having, a wife
+within beck and call he vented that irritation on her.
+
+It was at this time that Justine began to feel the full force of the
+banishment. That her husband was, and in all probability would continue
+to be, unfaithful to her, was a matter which she ended by accepting with
+a degree of good sense which is more common than is generally supposed.
+At first she had been indeed indignant, and when in that indignation her
+anger developed into a heat that was white and sentiable, Mistrial
+experienced no remorse whatever, only a desire to applaud. He liked the
+force and splendor of her arraignment; it took him out of himself; it
+made him feel that he was appreciated--feared even; that a word from
+him, and a tempest was loosened or enchained.
+
+But what is there to which we cannot accustom ourselves? Justine ended,
+not by a full understanding of the fact that man is naturally
+polygamous; but little by little, through channels undiscerned even by
+herself, the idea came to her that, if the man she loved could find
+pleasure in the society of other women, it was because she was less
+attractive than they. It was this that brought her patience, the more
+readily even in that, at her first paroxysm, Mistrial, a trifle alarmed
+lest she might leave him, had caught her in his arms, and sworn in a
+whisper breathed in her ear, that of all the world he loved her best.
+
+Madam, you who do the present writer the honor to read this page are
+convinced, he is sure, that your husband would rather his tongue cleaved
+to the roof of his mouth than break the vow which bound you to him. But
+you, madam, have married a man faithful and tried. You know very well
+with what dismay he tells you of Robinson's scandalous conduct, and you
+know also how he pities Robinson's poor little wife; yet when, in your
+sorrow at what that poor little woman has to put up with, you are
+tempted to go and condole with her, pause, madam--Mrs. Robinson may be
+equally tempted to condole with You.
+
+There are--in Brooklyn, in Boston, and in other recondite regions--a
+number of clever people who have been brought up with the idea that
+Divorce was instituted for just such a thing as this. Yet in one hundred
+cases out of a hundred-and-one a woman who appeals to the law never does
+so because her husband has broken a certain commandment. If his
+derelictions are confined to that particular offence she may bewail,
+and we all bewail with her; but if she wants the sympathy of judge, of
+jury, and of newspaper-public too, she must be prepared to allege other
+grievances. She must show that her husband is unkind, that he is
+sarcastic, that he is given to big words and short sentences; in brief,
+that he has developed traits which render life in common no longer to be
+endured.
+
+It was traits of this description that Mistrial unexpectedly developed,
+and it was during their development that the sense of banishment visited
+Justine. She was unable to make further transference of her affections;
+the lover had disappeared; the husband she had tried to love in his
+place had gone as well. For sole companion she had a man who had worn a
+mask and dropped it; where he had been considerate, he was selfish; when
+he spoke, it was to find fault; now that he could no longer throw her
+money out of the windows, he threw his amiability in its stead. By day
+he was taciturn, insultingly dumb; at night he was drunk.
+
+Mistrial had served his novitiate where the _pochard_ is rare. It is we
+that drink, and with us the English, the Slavs, and Teutons; but in the
+East and among the Latins sobriety is less a matter of habit than of
+instinct. And in lands where man prefers to keep his head clear,
+Mistrial, at that age, which is one of the most impressionable of all,
+had seen no reason to lose his own. But presently the small irritations
+of enforced economy affected his manners, and his habits as well. He
+took to absinthe in the morning, and, as he happened to be in France, he
+drank at night that brutal brandy they give you there. Not continuously,
+it is true. There were days when the man for whom Justine had forsaken
+her home returned so completely she could almost fancy he had never
+gone. Then, without a word of warning, at the very moment when Faith was
+gaining fresh foothold, the tragi-comedy would be renewed; he was off
+again, no one knew whither, returning only when the candle had been
+utterly consumed.
+
+Such things are enough to affect any woman's patience, and Justine's
+became wholly warped. It was unaccountable to her that he could treat
+her as he did. She watched the gradual transformation of the perfect
+lover into the perfect beast with a species of sorrow--a dual sorrow in
+whose component parts there was pity for herself and for him as well.
+
+The idea that he had married her uniquely because of her father's
+wealth, that he was impatient to get it, and that when he got it he
+would squander all he could on other women, occurred to her only in the
+remotest ways, and then only through some expression which, in his
+exasperation of the diminishing bank account and the unreasonable time
+which it took her father to forgive her, fell from him now and then by
+chance. For Mistrial had indeed counted on that forgiveness. He had even
+counted on receiving it by cable, of finding that it had preceded and
+awaited them before their ship reached France. And when, to use an idiom
+of that land, it made itself expected, he was confident that the longer
+it delayed the completer it would be. At the utmost he had not dreamed
+that the old man would detain it more than a few months; but when
+twenty-four went by, and not only no forgiveness was manifest, but
+through his own improvidence the funds ran low,--so low, in fact, that
+unless forgiveness were presently forthcoming they would be in straits
+indeed,--he dictated a letter, penitent and humble, one in which
+impending poverty stood out as clearly as though it had been engraved,
+and which it revolted her to send. Its inspiration, however, must have
+been patent to Mr. Dunellen, for that gentlemen's reply, expressed in
+the third person, was to the effect that if his daughter returned to him
+he would provide for her as he had always done, but in no other
+circumstances could he assist.
+
+Had Justine been anyone but herself she might have acted on the
+invitation: but the tone of it hurt her; she was annoyed at having
+permitted herself to send the letter Mistrial had dictated, and to which
+this was the reply. Her pride was up--all the more surely because she
+knew her father had been right; and there is just this about pride--as a
+matter of penitence it forces us to suffer those consequences of our own
+wrongdoing which through a simple confession it were easy to escape. To
+Justine such confession was impossible. She had left her father in the
+full certainty that he was wrong, and when she found he was not, death
+to her were preferable to any admission of the grievousness of her own
+mistake.
+
+At this juncture Mistrial's aunt assisted at the funeral of a sister
+spinster, sat in a draught, caught cold in her throat, and, the glottis
+enlarging, strangled one night in her bed. By her will the St. Nicholas
+Hospital received the bulk of her property. The rest of her estate was
+divided among relatives; to her nephew Roland Mistrial--3d no
+longer--was bequeathed the princely sum of ten thousand dollars in cash.
+At the news of this munificence Roland swore and grit his teeth. Had his
+circumstances been different it is probable that the ten thousand,
+together with some enduring insult, he would have flung after her to the
+eternal purgatory where he prayed she had gone. As it was, the modicity
+of the bequest sobered him. Through some impalpable logic he had counted
+but little on any inheritance at all; he had indeed hoped vaguely that
+she might die and leave him what she had; and it may even be that, had
+he learned that her will was in his favor, and had a suitable
+opportunity presented itself, in some perfectly decorous manner he would
+have hastened his aunt's demise. But concerning her will he had no
+information; moreover, during his visit to the States the old lady saw
+as little of him as she could help; and when she did see him, in spite
+of gout and the ailments of advancing years there was such a rigidity in
+her manner that the nephew told himself she might live long enough to
+see him hanged. As a consequence he had expected nothing. But when the
+news of her death reached him, together with the intelligence that
+instead of the competence he might possibly have had he was mentioned
+merely to the tune of ten thousand dollars,--this outrage, in
+conjunction with Dunellen's relentlessness, sobered him to that degree,
+that for a day and a night he gave himself to a debauch of thought. From
+this orgy he issued with clearer mind. It may be--though the idea
+advanced is one that can only be hazarded--it may be that had his aunt
+disposed of her estate in his favor he would there and then have washed
+his hands of the job he had undertaken, and left his wife to her own
+devices. As it was, he saw that, to keep his head above water, the only
+possible plank was one that Mr. Dunellen might send in his reach; and it
+was with the knowledge that before the present scanty windfall
+disappeared some conquest of Honest Paul's affection should be attempted
+that he determined to return to New York. Once there again, who knew
+what might happen? Surely, if the preceding year Mr. Dunellen had
+strength for violence, to the naked eye he was even then manifestly
+infirm. There was no gainsaying the matter--he at least would not live
+very long. As to the disposition of his property after death Mistrial
+was still assured. Whatever his attitude might be for the present, in
+the end he could not wholly disinherit Justine--at least one-half the
+property must come to her. On that fact Mistrial would have staked his
+life; after all, it was the one hope he had left; and an ultimate hope,
+we all know, is the thing we part with last.
+
+Thereupon he recovered himself. He became amiable and considerate--a
+change of demeanor which gave Justine a chill. She consented
+nevertheless to the return trip, and the day after arriving called at
+her father's house. When she got back to the hotel where they had put up
+Mistrial was waiting for her. In answer to his questions she told him
+that her father was willing to receive her, but her alone. "You must
+take your choice," he had said, she repeated--"You must take your
+choice."
+
+"And what is that choice?" Mistrial had asked.
+
+"I have made it," she answered, "and by it I will abide."
+
+But at this he had expostulated; and when, seeing at last what he
+meant--understanding that he would have her feign a compliance for the
+sake of coin which at her father's death she could come back and share
+with him--when, divining the infamy of his thought, she refused, he had
+struck her in the face.
+
+Because a man is not Chesterfield, it does not follow he is Sykes.
+Mistrial had never struck a woman before, and in this initial assault it
+is probable that he was actuated less by a desire to punish than by that
+force which overmasters him who has ceased to be master of himself. By
+instinct he was not a gentleman; for some time past he had not even
+taken the trouble to appear one; yet at that moment, dancing in derision
+before him, he saw the letters that form the monosyllable Cad. The sense
+of abasement he displayed was so immediate and sincere, that Justine,
+who, trembling with anger and disgust, stood staring in his face, read
+it there and understood. Instead of separating them forever, the blow
+reunited their hands. During the week that followed they were nearer to
+each other than they had been for months before. The reconciliation was
+seemingly complete. Mistrial made himself the lover again, and Justine
+permitted herself to be wooed. They left their hotel and found a
+flat--a furnished apartment in the neighborhood of Central Park; and
+there the storm departing placed a rainbow in its stead.
+
+A rainbow, however, is not a fixture, and this one went its way. While
+Justine closed her eyes Mistrial's were alert. He had no intention of
+suffering her to be disinherited, and though it was well enough to rely
+on the courts it was better still not to be forced to do so. Rather than
+run an avoidable risk he would have abandoned his wife, and forced her
+through that abandonment to return to her father's house, convinced that
+afterwards he could win her together with the estate back again to him.
+Meanwhile another interview could not in any way jeopardize the chances
+to which he clung. On the contrary, it might be highly serviceable. Mr.
+Dunellen, he had learned, was much broken; he had given up his practice,
+the the world even, everything in fact save perhaps the devil that was
+in him, and sat uncompanioned in the desolate and spacious emptiness of
+his house. It was only natural that he should wish to coerce his
+daughter into obedience; yet now that he saw she was steadfast, her
+pride unhumbled still, it was not improbable that he would yield; it was
+presumable even that he was then waiting, weak of heart, prepared at her
+next advance to welcome and forgive.
+
+Of these things Mistrial made his wife aware, and it was then that the
+rainbow departed. His arguments were as revolting as the cynicism they
+exhaled. But she made no attempt to combat them. Since she had seen her
+father she had felt a sorrow for him that Mistrial's altered demeanor
+had given her time to heed. She knew that his attitude was due to her
+defiance of his express commands, but she had no reason to suppose that
+he had any other objection to her husband than such as his poverty might
+have caused or instinctive antipathy might bring. But now, her own
+experience aiding, she knew that he had been right; and, as he seemed
+feeble and dispassionate, in answer to Mistrial's arguments she tied her
+bonnet-strings and went. It was early in the afternoon when she started,
+it was night when she returned.
+
+Mistrial had been waiting for her, and when she entered the room in
+which he sat he rose eagerly and aided her with her wrap. He was
+impatient, she could see; and she was impatient also.
+
+"Why did you not tell me of Guy's sister?" she began, at once.
+
+And as he answered nothing she continued: "Years ago I knew of what she
+died; it was only to-day I learned that it was you who murdered her."
+
+"It is a lie."
+
+"Oh, protest. I knew you would."
+
+"From whom is it you heard this thing? Not from your father, I am sure."
+As Mistrial spoke he gazed at her inquisitorially with shrewd,
+perplexing eyes.
+
+"What does it matter?" she answered. Her head was thrown back, her lips
+compressed. "What does it matter since the charge is true?"
+
+"But it is false," he cried; "it is a wanton lie. Your father never
+could have stated it."
+
+"Ah, but he did, though; and Guy was there to substantiate what he
+said."
+
+"Guy!" As he pronounced her cousin's name there came into his face an
+expression which she knew and which she had learned to dread. "Madam,
+you mean your lover, I suppose. And it is his _ipse dixit_ you accept in
+preference to mine?"
+
+"Mistrial, you know he is not my lover."
+
+"I know he was in love with you, and you with him."
+
+"So he was; so he is, I think; and it was not until this night I saw my
+own mistake."
+
+"_Voilà!_" said Roland, suddenly calmed. He paused a second, and after
+eying the polish of his finger-nails, affected to flick a speck of dust
+from his sleeve. "Your cousin is mad," he added.
+
+"He is sane as--" and Justine hesitated for a simile.
+
+"His mother, you mean. Were you never aware that insanity is hereditary?
+If his sister--presupposing that the accusation which he formulates
+against me was originally advanced by her--if his sister--whom, by the
+way, I never saw but once--if his sister accused me of complicity, then
+she suffered from the hereditary taint as well. If I was guilty of what
+your cousin charges, why was I not arrested, tried, and sentenced? But
+are you such a dolt you cannot see that Guy is mad--mad not only by
+nature, but crazed by jealousy as well. You say you know he loves you.
+You have even the candor to admit that you love him! Now ask yourself
+what would any impartial hearer deduce from statements such as yours?"
+
+"My father was an impartial hearer, and he--"
+
+"But how is it possible to be so blind? Can you not see that your cousin
+has prejudiced him against me? I said, impartial hearer. But let the
+matter drop. I tell you the charge is false; believe it or not, as you
+prefer. There is, however, just this in the matter: if the charge is
+made again, I will have your cousin under arrest. You forget that there
+is such a thing as libel still."
+
+Again he paused, and strove to collect himself; there was a design in
+the carpet which appeared to interest him very much, but presently he
+looked up again.
+
+"Now tell me," he said, "what did your father say?"
+
+"Nothing, save what he said before."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Nothing that you would care to hear." Her eyes roamed from the
+neighbourly ceiling over to him and back again. "He said," she added,
+"that if I persisted in living with you his money would go to my child,
+if I had one; if I had none, then to Guy."
+
+"Were you alone with him when he said this, or was Guy, as you call him,
+there?"
+
+"No, I was alone with him; Guy came later."
+
+"And is he aware of this provision?"
+
+For all response Justine shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Does he know it, I ask you?"
+
+"He does not," she answered. "Father told me that he never would, until
+the will was read."
+
+"H'm." And for a moment Mistrial mused. Then presently he smiled--yet
+was it a smile?--a look that an hallucinated monk in a medieval abbey
+might have seen on that imaginary demon who, flitting by him, the
+forefinger outstretched, whispered as he vanished through the wall,
+"Thou art damned, dear friend! thou art damned!" "H'm," he repeated;
+"and in view of the provisions of your father's will, will you tell me
+why is it that you are without a child?"
+
+As he spoke he had arisen, and, smiling still, though now as were he
+questioning her in regard to the state of the weather, he looked into
+her eyes. She had drawn yet further back into the chair in which she
+sat; a deadly sickness overcame her; to her head there mounted the
+nausea of each one of his many misdeeds. The memory of the blow of the
+week before, one which, despite her seeming forbearance, had not ceased
+to rankle, returned to her; and with it, one after another in swift
+succession, she rememorated the offences of the past. But soon she too
+was on her feet and fronted him. "Why is it I am without a child?" she
+repeated. Her voice was low and clear, and between each word she
+permitted a little pause to intervene. "Why is it?"
+
+The subtlety of his reproach battening on nerves already overwrought was
+exciting her as nothing had done before. "It is you," she cried, "who
+are to blame. What have you done with your youth? What have you done
+with your manhood? Look at me, Roland Mistrial! If I have borne you no
+child it is because monsters never engender." As she spoke, with one
+gesture she tore her bodice down. Her breast, palpitant with health and
+anger too, heaving at the sheer injustice of his reproach, confronted
+and confuted him. "It is there that women have their strength; tell me,
+if you can, what have you done with yours?"
+
+And thereat, with a look a princess might give to a lackey who had dared
+to question her, she turned and left him where he stood.
+
+The next day he tried to make his peace with her. In this he succeeded,
+or flattered himself he had, for subsequently she consented to accompany
+him to the play. And as she sat in the stalls it was of these things
+that she thought.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The information which Mistrial gleaned concerning the provisions of his
+father-in-law's will was bitter in his mouth. On the morrow he gave some
+time to thought--he read too a little. The taunt which Justine had flung
+at him, bit; and with the idea of dulling the hurt and of ministering
+also to his own refreshment, he consulted a book which treated of
+certain conditions of the nervous system, and a work on medical
+jurisprudence as well. But literature of that kind is notoriously
+unsatisfactory. It may suggest, yet the questions which it prompts
+remain unanswered. Roland put the volumes down: they were productions of
+genius, no doubt, but to him they were nothing more. From the pursuit of
+exact knowledge he turned and looked out into the street.
+
+The hour then was midway in one of those green afternoons which we are
+apt to fancy the adjunct of lands we never see, and as he looked he saw
+astride a bay hunter a man ambling cautiously over the stones. From the
+roofs opposite a breath of lilacs came, and a breeze that was neither
+cool nor warm loitered on its way from the river beyond. Mistrial let
+the breeze, the fragrance, the fulfilment of spring, pass unnoticed. The
+bay hunter had caught his eye: it seemed to him that an argument with an
+imperative horse was just the thing he needed most, and a little later
+he secured a cob from a stable on the street above.
+
+The cob was docile enough, affecting once only to regard a sewer-grating
+in the bridle-path as a strange, unhallowed thing which it was needful
+to avoid. But the initial shy was the last. The spur gave him such a nip
+that during the remainder of the ride, whatever distasteful object he
+may have encountered, he gave no outward evidence of abhorrence. He had
+an easy canter, a long and swinging trot; and now on one, now on the
+other, they passed through and out of the Park, and on beyond the
+brand-new edifices that line Seventh Avenue, to that scantier outlying
+district where the Harlem begins and the city ends. And here as he was
+about to turn he noticed a gig such as physicians affect. In it was a
+negro driving, and at his side sat Justine's cousin, Guy.
+
+"H'm!" mused Mistrial; "judging by the locality, his patients must be
+the last people in the city." At the moment the feebleness of the jest
+pleasured him; then simultaneously the unforgotten hatred crackled in
+his breast. At each one of the important epochs of his life that man had
+stood in his way. It was he that had forced him from college at the
+moment when honors were within his reach. It was he that had kept him
+from his father's side at the time when he might have saved his father's
+estate. It was he that had come between Dunellen and himself at the
+hour when he could have persuaded Justine's father to give him Justine's
+hand. It was he that had forced him to elope with her. It was because of
+him that he was now enjoying the small miseries of the shabby genteel.
+It was he, unless Providence now intervened, who would inherit the
+wealth he had toiled to make his own. And it was he who the day before
+had again crossed and halted in his path.
+
+These premises, however colored, were logical enough in this--the
+natural deduction sprang out and greeted the eye. And, as they flashed
+before him, Mistrial saw himself rinsing out each one in blood squeezed
+from Thorold's throat. In the fury which suddenly beset him he could
+have found the strength, the courage it may be, to have torn him from
+the gig in which he sat, to have trampled on him with horse's hoofs,
+bent over and beat him as he writhed on the ground, and exulted and
+jubilated in the doing of it. Then indeed, though he swung for it, the
+ultimate victory would be his. If he stamped Thorold out of existence,
+though his own went with it, he would not have suffered wholly in vain;
+in facing the gallows he would have the joy of knowing that even were he
+prevented from bathing in the Dunellen millions, so was Thorold too.
+
+But when he looked out from himself his enemy had disappeared. A woman
+in an open landau passed and bowed. Mechanically Mistrial raised his
+hat. To every intent and purpose he was self-possessed--occupied, if at
+all, but with those threads of fancy that float in and out the mind. As
+he raised his hat, he smiled; the woman might have thought herself the
+one it gave him the greatest pleasure to salute. Her carriage had not
+advanced the jump of a cat before he had forgotten that she lived. But
+no one can turn his brain into a stage, create for it, and feel a drama
+such as he had without some outward manifestation, be it merely a
+strangled oath. On the horse he rode his knees had tightened, he gave a
+dig with the spur, and went careering down the street. In that part of
+New York you are at liberty to cover a mile in two minutes. Roland
+covered thirty squares at breakneck speed.
+
+Presently he drew the animal in and suffered him to walk. During the run
+he had had no time to think; he had been occupied only in keeping the
+horse he rode out of the way of vehicles, and in preventing that
+possible cropper which comes when we expect it least. But as the cob
+began to walk, the present returned to him with a rush. About the
+animal's neck the fretting of the reins had produced a lather; the
+breeze had died away. Mistrial felt overheated too, and he drew out a
+handkerchief and wiped his face. Even while he drew it from his pocket
+an idea came to him, fluttered for a second as ideas will, and before he
+got the handkerchief back it had gone, leaving him just a trifled
+dazed. But in a moment he called to it, and at his bidding it returned.
+It was minute, barely fledged as yet; but as the horse jogged on, little
+by little it expanded, and to such an extent that before he reached the
+park its pinions stretched from earth to sky. Whoso is visited with
+inspirations knows with what diabolical swiftness they can enlarge and
+grow. When Mistrial put the horse back in the stable the idea which at
+first he had but dimly intercepted possessed him utterly. It succeeded
+even in detaining his step: he walked up the street instead of down; at
+a crossing he hesitated; night had come, and as he loitered there,
+suddenly the whole avenue was bright as day. The vengeance which not an
+hour before he could have wreaked on Thorold seemed now remote and
+paltry too. There need be no shedding of blood, no scandal, no newspaper
+notoriety, no police, no coroner to sit upon a corpse, no jury to bring
+a verdict in. There need be nothing of this: a revenge of that order
+was in bad taste, ill-judged as well. To make a man really suffer,
+sudden death was as a balm in comparison to some subtle torment that
+should gnaw at the springs of life, retreat a moment, and then returning
+make them ache again, and still again, forever his whole life through.
+The French woman is not so ill-advised when she pitches a cup of vitriol
+in her betrayer's face. In Spain, in Italy even, they stab; the deed is
+done; the culprit has had no chance to experience anger, pain even, or
+remorse. He is dead. The curtain falls. But a revenge that blasts and
+corrodes, one that leaves the victim living, sound in body and in limb,
+and yet consumed by an inextinguishable regret, burning with tortures
+from which he can never escape--a thing like that is the work, not of an
+apprentice, but of a master in crime. Yet when the victim receives that
+cup of vitriol, not from another's hands, but from his own; when he has
+been lured into devastating his own self;--it is no longer a question of
+either apprentice or of master: it is the artist that has been at work.
+To gain the Dunellen millions was to Mistrial a matter of paramount
+importance; but to gain them through the instrumentality of the man whom
+he hated as no one ever hates to-day, particularly when that man was the
+one to whom those millions were provisionally bequeathed, when he was
+one whom Mistrial--justly or unjustly, it matters not--fancied and
+believed was plotting for them; to gain them, not only through him, but
+through his unwitting, unintentional agency, through an act which, so
+soon as he learned its purport, all his life through he would regret and
+curse;--no, that were indeed a revenge and a reparation too. And as he
+thought of it there entered his eyes a look perplexing and
+enervating--that look which demons share with sphinxes and the damned.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+During the two years which Mistrial had passed in the society of his
+wife, opportunities of studying her there had been in plenty. He knew
+her to be docile and headstrong; weak, if at all, but with that weakness
+that comes of lassitude; violent when provoked, prone to forgive,
+sensitive, impulsive, yet obdurate; in brief, the type of woman that may
+be entreated, but never coerced. He knew her faults so well he could
+have enumerated them one after the other on his finger-tips: her
+qualities, however, had impressed him less; it may be that he had
+accepted them as a matter of course. He was aware that she was honest;
+he had noticed that she was capable of much self-sacrifice; of other
+characteristics he had given little heed. It goes without the telling,
+that in regard to what is known as jealousy he had not suffered even an
+evanescent disquietude. And that night and during the morning that
+followed, as he occupied himself in nursing the idea which had visited
+him on horseback, that particular fact occurred to him more than once.
+But one does not need to be a conspirator to understand that the
+steadiest virtue is as susceptible of vice as iron is of rust.
+
+Justine had announced that her cousin was still in love with her; she
+had announced with equal distinctness that she recognized her own
+mistake; while for himself he was convinced that she no longer cared. To
+these things he added certain deductions which his experience of men and
+women permitted him to draw; and had the result they presented been made
+to order, it could not have fitted more perfectly into the scheme which
+he had devised.
+
+It was then high noon. Through the window came the irresistible breath
+of a rose in bloom. As he left the house it surrounded him in the
+street. He smiled a greeting at it. "I have spring in my favor," he
+mused, and presently boarded a car.
+
+The principles of successful enterprise may be summarized as consisting
+of a minute regard for details, and an apparent absence of zeal.
+Mistrial's many mistakes had taught him the one and trained him in the
+other. When the car he had taken reached the Gilsey House, he alighted,
+hailed a four-wheeler, stationed it in such a manner that it commanded a
+view of the adjacent street, coached the driver in regard to a signal he
+might give, entered the cab, lit a cigarette, and prepared to wait.
+
+In that neighborhood there are four or five basement houses of the style
+that is affectioned by milliners, dentists, and physicians. One of these
+particularly claimed Mistrial's attention. He saw a woman in gray enter
+it, and almost simultaneously a woman come out; then a man leading a
+child went in; and in a little while the first woman reappeared.
+Mistrial glanced at his watch; it lacked a minute of one. "He has a
+larger practice than I thought," he reflected. The woman in gray had now
+nearly reached the cab in which he sat, and from sheer force of habit he
+was preparing to scrutinize her as she passed, when the door of the
+house reopened and Thorold appeared on the step. He looked up the
+street, then down. He had his hat on, and his every-day air. In a second
+Mistrial had drawn the curtain and was peering through the opening at
+the side. He saw Thorold leave the step and turn toward Fifth Avenue; he
+signalled to the driver, and the cab moved on.
+
+At the corner Thorold turned again, the cab at his heels, and Mistrial
+saw that the physician was moving in the direction of Madison Square. It
+occurred to him that Thorold might be going to Mr. Dunellen's, and on
+the block below, as the latter crossed the asphalt, he made sure of it.
+But opposite the Brunswick the cab stopped; Thorold was entering the
+restaurant.
+
+Cold chicken looks attractive in print. A minute or two later, as
+Mistrial examined the bill of fare, he ordered some for himself; he
+ordered also a Demidorf salad,--a compound of artichokes' hearts and
+truffles, familiarly known as Half-Mourning,--and until the waiter
+returned hid himself behind a paper. Thorold meanwhile, who was seated
+at an adjoining table, must have ordered something which required longer
+preparation, for Mistrial finished the salad before the physician was
+served. But Mistrial was in no hurry; he had a pint of claret brought
+him, and sipped it leisurely. Now and then he glanced over at Thorold,
+and twice he caught his eye. At last Thorold called for his bill.
+Mistrial paid his own, and presently followed him out into the street.
+When both reached the sidewalk, Mistrial, who was a trifle in the rear,
+touched him on the arm.
+
+"Thorold," he said; and the physician turned, but there was nothing
+engaging in his attitude: he held his head to one side, about his lips
+was a compression, a contraction in his eyes; one arm was pendent, the
+other pressed to his waistcoat, and the shoulder of that arm was
+slightly raised. He looked querulous and annoyed--a trifle startled,
+too.
+
+"Thorold," Mistrial repeated, "give me a moment, will you?"
+
+The physician raised the arm that he had pressed against his waistcoat,
+and, with four fingers straightened and the fifth askew, stroked an
+imaginary whisker.
+
+"It is about Justine," Mistrial continued. "She is out of sorts; I want
+you to see her."
+
+"Ah!" And Thorold looked down and away.
+
+"Yes, I had intended to speak to Dr. McMasters; but when by the merest
+chance I saw you in there I told myself that, whatever our differences
+might be, there was no one who would understand the case more readily
+than you."
+
+As Mistrial spoke he imitated the discretion of his enemy; he looked
+down and away. The next moment, however, both were gazing into each
+other's face.
+
+"H'm." Thorold, as he stared, seemed to muse. "I saw her the other day,"
+he said, at last; "she looked well enough then."
+
+"But can't a person look well and yet be out of sorts?"
+
+Mistrial was becoming angry, and he showed it. It was evident, however,
+that his irritation was caused less by the man to whom he spoke than by
+the physician whom he was seeking to consult. This Thorold seemed to
+grasp, for he answered perplexedly:
+
+"After what has happened I don't see very well how I can go to your
+house."
+
+"Look here, Thorold: the past is over and done with--ill done, you will
+say, and I admit it. Be that as it may, it has gone. At the same time
+there is no reason why any shadow of it should fall on Justine. She is
+really in need of some one's advice. Can you not give it to her?"
+
+"Certainly," Thorold answered, "I can do that;" and he looked very
+sturdy as he said it. "Only--"
+
+"Only what? If you can't go as a friend, at least you might go as a
+physician."
+
+Thorold's hand had slid from his cheek to his chin, and he nibbled
+reflectively at a finger-nail.
+
+"Very good," he said; "I will go to her. Is she to be at home this
+afternoon?"
+
+"The evening would be better, I think. Unless, of course--" and Mistrial
+made a gesture as though to imply that, if Thorold's evening were
+engaged, a visit in the afternoon might be attempted.
+
+But the suggestion presumably was acceptable. Thorold drew out a
+note-book, at which he glanced.
+
+"And I say," Mistrial continued, "I wish--you see, it is a delicate
+matter; Justine is very sensitive--I wish you wouldn't say you met me.
+Just act as though--"
+
+"Give yourself no uneasiness, sir." Thorold had replaced the note-book
+and looked up again in Mistrial's face. "I never mention your name." And
+thereat, with a toss of the head, he dodged an omnibus and crossed the
+street.
+
+For a moment Mistrial gazed after him, then he turned, and presently he
+was ordering a glass of brandy at the Brunswick bar.
+
+It was late that night when he reached his home. During the days that
+followed he had no fixed hours at all. Several times he entered the
+apartment with the smallest amount of noise that was possible, and
+listened at the sitting-room door. At last he must have heard something
+that pleased him, for as he sought his own room he smiled. "_Maintenant,
+mon cher, je te tiens._"
+
+The next day he surprised Justine by informing her that he intended to
+pay a visit to a relative. He was gone a week.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+That night the stars, dim and distant, were scattered like specks of
+frost on some wide, blue window-pane. At intervals a shiver of wheels
+crunching the resistant snow stirred the lethargy of the street, and at
+times a rumble accentuated by the chill of winter mounted gradually, and
+passed on in diminishing vibrations. Within, a single light, burning
+scantily, diffused through the room the drowsiness of a spell. In the
+bed was Justine, her eyes dilated, her face attenuated and pinched. One
+hand that lay on the coverlid was clinched so tightly that the nails
+must have entered the flesh. Presently she moaned, and a trim little
+woman issued from a corner with the noiseless wariness of a rat. As she
+passed before the night-light, the silhouette of a giantess, fabulously
+obese, jumped out and vanished from the wall. For a moment she
+scrutinized her charge, burrowing into her, as it were, with shrewd yet
+kindly eyes. Again a moan escaped the sufferer, the wail of one whose
+agony is lancinating--one that ascended in crescendos and terminated in
+a cry of such utter helplessness, and therewith of such insistent pain,
+that the nurse caught the hand that lay on the coverlid, and unlocking
+the fingers stroked and held it in her own. "There, dear heart--there, I
+know."
+
+Ah, yes, she knew very well. She had not passed ten years of her
+existence tending women in travail for the fun of it. And as she took
+Justine's hand and stroked it, she knew that in a little while the
+agony, acuter still, would lower her charge into that vestibule of death
+where Life appears. Whether or not Justine was to cross that silent
+threshold, whether happily she would find it barred, whether it would
+greet and keep her and hold her there, whether indeed it would let the
+child go free, an hour would tell, or two at most.
+
+But there were preparations to be made. The nurse left the bed and moved
+out into the hall. In a room near by, Mistrial, occupied with some
+advertisements in the _Post_, sat companioned by a physician who was
+reading a book which he had written himself. At the footfall of the
+nurse the latter left the room. Presently he returned. "Everything is
+going nicely," he announced, and placidly resumed his seat.
+
+It was the fourth time in two hours that he had made that same remark.
+Mistrial said nothing. He was gazing through the paper he held at the
+wall opposite, and out of it into the future beyond.
+
+Since that day, the previous spring, on which he had set out to visit a
+relative, many things had happened, yet but few that were of importance
+to him. On his return from the trip, during one fleeting second, for the
+first time since he had known Justine, it seemed to him that she avoided
+his eyes. To this, in other circumstances, he would have given no
+thought whatever; as matters were, it made him feel that his excursion
+should not be regarded as time ill-spent. Whether it had been wholly
+serviceable to his project, he could not at the time decide. He waited,
+however, very patiently, but he seldom waited within the apartment
+walls. At that period he developed a curious facility for renewing
+relations with former friends. Once he took a run to Chicago with an
+Englishman he had known in Japan; and once, with the brother of a lady
+who had married into the Baxter branch of the house of Mistrial, he went
+on a fishing trip to Canada. These people he did not bring to call on
+his wife. He seemed to act as though solitude were grateful to her. Save
+Mrs. Metuchen, Thorold at that time was her only visitor, and the visits
+of that gentleman Mistrial encouraged in every way that he could devise.
+Through meetings that, parenthetically, were more frequent on the stair
+or in the hallway than anywhere else, the two men, through sheer force
+of circumstances, dropped into an exchange of salutations--remarks about
+the weather, reciprocal inquiries on the subject of each other's health,
+which, wholly formal on Thorold's part, were from Mistrial always civil
+and aptly put. After all, was he not the host? and was it not for him to
+show particular courtesy to anyone whom his wife received?
+
+To her, meanwhile, his attitude was little short of perfection itself.
+He was considerate, foresighted, and unobtrusive--a course of conduct
+which frightened her a little. Two or three months after he had struck
+her in the face she made--_à propos_ of nothing at all--an announcement
+which brought a trace of color to her cheeks.
+
+The following afternoon he happened to be entering the house as Dr.
+Thorold was leaving it. Instead of greeting him in the nice and amiable
+fashion which he had adopted, and which Thorold had ended by accepting
+as a matter of course, he halted and looked at the physician through
+half-closed eyes. Thorold nodded, cavalierly enough it is true, and was
+about to pass on; but this Mistrial prevented. He planted himself
+squarely in his way, and stuck his hands in his pockets.
+
+"Mrs. Mistrial has no further need of you," he said. "Send your bill to
+me."
+
+He spoke from the tips of his lips, with the air and manner of one
+dismissing a lackey. At the moment nothing pertinent could have occurred
+to Thorold. He stared at Mistrial, dumbly perplexed, and plucked at his
+cuff. Mistrial nodded as who should say, "Put that in your pipe;" and
+before Thorold recovered his self-possession he had passed up the stairs
+and on and out of sight.
+
+It was then that season in which July has come and is going. The city
+was hot; torrid at noonday, sultry and enervating at night. Fifth Avenue
+and the adjacent precincts were empty. Each one of the brown-stone
+houses had a Leah-like air of desertion. The neighborhood of Madison
+and of Union Squares was peopled by men with large eyes and small feet,
+by women so deftly painted that, like Correggio, they could have
+exclaimed, "_Anch' io son pittore_." In brief, the Southern invasion had
+begun, and New York had ceased to be habitable.
+
+But Newport has charms of its own; and to that lovely city by the water
+Mistrial induced his wife; and there, until summer had departed, and
+autumn too, they rested and waited. During those months he was careful
+of her: so pleasantly so, so studious of what she did and of what she
+ate, that for the first time since the honeymoon she might have, had she
+tried, felt at ease with him again. But there were things that prevented
+this--faith destroyed and the regret of it. Oh, indeed she had regrets
+in plenty; some even for her father; and, unknown to Mistrial, once or
+twice she wrote him such letters as a daughter may write. She had never
+been in sympathy with him; as a child he had coerced her needlessly;
+when she was older he had preached; later, divining that lack of
+sympathy, he had striven through kindlier ways to counteract it. But he
+had failed; and Justine, aiding in the endeavor, had failed as well.
+When father and child do not stand hand-in-hand a fibre is wanting that
+should be there.
+
+In December Mistrial and his wife returned to town. A date was
+approaching, and there was the _layette_ to be prepared. Hour after hour
+Justine's fingers sped. The apartment became a magazine of
+swaddling-clothes. One costume in particular, a worsted sack that was
+not much larger than a coachman's glove, duplicated and repeated itself
+in varying and tender hues. Occasionally Mistrial would pick one up and
+examine it furtively. To his vagabond fancy it suggested a bag in which
+gold would be.
+
+But now the hour was reached. And as Mistrial sat staring into the
+future, the goal to which he had striven kept looming nearer and ever
+nearer yet. Only the day before he had learned that Dunellen was
+failing. And what a luxury it would be to him when the old man died and
+the will was read! Such a luxury did it appear, that unconsciously he
+manifested his contentment by that sound the glutton makes at the
+mention of delicious food.
+
+His companion--the physician--turned and nodded. "I know what you are
+thinking about," he announced; and with the rapt expression of a seer,
+half to Mistrial, half to the ceiling, "It is always the case," he
+continued; "I never knew a father yet that did not wonder what the child
+would be; and the mothers, oh! the mothers! Some of them know all about
+it beforehand: they want a girl, and a girl it will be; or they want a
+boy, and a boy they are to have. I remember one dear, good soul who was
+so positive she was to have a boy that she had all the linen marked with
+the name she had chosen for him. H'm. It turned out to be twins--both
+girls. And I remember--"
+
+But Mistrial had ceased to listen. He was off again discounting the
+inheritance in advance--discounting, too, the diabolism of his revenge.
+The latter, indeed, was unique, and withal so grateful, that now the
+consummation was at hand it fluttered his pulse like wine. He had
+ravened when first he learned the tenour of the will, and his soul had
+been bitter; but no sooner had this thing occurred to him than it
+resolved itself into a delight. To his disordered fancy its provisions
+held both vitriol and opopanax--the one for Thorold, the other for
+himself.
+
+The doctor meanwhile was running on as doctors do. "Yes," Mistrial heard
+him say, "she was most unhappy; no woman likes a rival, and when that
+rival is her own maid, matters are not improved. For my part, the moment
+I saw how delicate she was, I thought, though I didn't dare to say so, I
+thought her husband had acted with great forethought. The maid was
+strong as an ox, and in putting her in the same condition as his wife he
+had simply and solely supplied her with a wet-nurse. But then, at this
+time particularly, women are so unreasonable. Not your good lady--a
+sweeter disposition--"
+
+Whatever encomium he intended to make remained unfinished. From the room
+beyond a cry filtered; he turned hastily and disappeared. The cry
+subsided; but presently, as though in the interval the sufferer had
+found new strength or new torture, it rose more stridently than before.
+And as the rumor of it augmented and increased, a phrase of the
+physician's returned to Mistrial. "Everything is going very nicely," he
+told himself, and began to pace the floor.
+
+A fraction of an hour passed, a second, and a third. The cry now had
+changed singularly; it had lost its penetrating volume, it had sunk into
+the rasping moan of one dreaming in a fever. Suddenly that ceased, the
+silence was complete, and Mistrial, a trifle puzzled, moved out into the
+hall. There he caught again the murmur of her voice. This time she was
+talking very rapidly, in a continuous flow of words. From where he stood
+Mistrial could not hear what she was saying, and he groped on tip-toe
+down the hall. As he reached the door of the room in which she was, the
+sweet and heavy odor of chloroform came out and met him there; but still
+the flow of words continued uninterruptedly, one after the other, with
+the incoherence of a nightmare monologuing in a corpse. Then, without
+transition, in the very middle of a word, a cry of the supremest agony
+rang out, drowning another, which was but a vague complaint.
+
+"It's a boy," the nurse exclaimed.
+
+And Justine through a rift of consciousness caught and detained the
+speech. "So much the better," she moaned; "he will never give birth."
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry
+nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the
+name of the Lord."
+
+To this, Mistrial, garbed in black, responded discreetly, "Amen."
+
+He was standing opposite the bier. At his side was Justine. Before him
+Dr. Gonfallon, rector of the Church of Gethsemane,--of which the
+deceased had been warden,--was conducting the funeral rites. To the left
+was Thorold. Throughout the length and breadth of the drawing-room other
+people stood--a sprinkling of remote connections, former constituents,
+members of the bar and of the church, a few politicians; these, together
+with a handful of the helpless to whom the dead statesman had been
+trustee, counsellor too, and guide, had assembled there in honor of his
+memory. At the door, sharpening a pencil, was a representative of the
+Associated Press.
+
+For the past few days obituaries of the Hon. Paul Dunellen varied from
+six inches to a column in length. One journal alone had been
+circumspect. No mention of the deceased had appeared in its issues. But
+in politics that journal had differed with him--a fact which accounted
+sufficiently for its silence. In the others, however, through
+biographies more or less exact, fitting tributes had been paid. The
+_World_ gave his picture.
+
+Yet now, as Dr. Gonfallon, in words well calculated to impress, dwelt on
+the virtues of him that had gone, the tributes of the newspapers seemed
+perfunctory and trite. Decorously, as was his custom, he began with a
+platitude. Death, that is terrible to the sinner, radiant to the
+Christian, imposing to all, was here, he declared, but the dusk of a
+beautiful day which in departing disclosed cohorts of the Eternal
+beckoning from their glorious realm. Yet soon he warmed to his work, and
+eulogies of the deceased fell from him in sonorous periods, round and
+empty. He spoke of the nobility of his character, the loyalty he
+displayed, not to friends alone, but to foes as well. He spoke of that
+integrity in every walk of life which had won for him the title of
+Honest Paul--a title an emperor might crave and get not. He spoke too of
+the wealth he had acquired, and drew a moral from the unostentatiousness
+of his charities, the simplicity of his ways. He dwelt at length on the
+fact that, however multiple the duties of his station had been, his duty
+to his Maker was ever first. Then, after a momentary digression, in
+which he stated how great was the loss of such as he, he alluded to the
+daughter he had left, to that daughter's husband, sorely afflicted
+himself, yet, with a manliness worthy of his historic name, comforting
+the orphan who needed all his comfort now; and immediately from these
+things he lured another moral--an appeal to fortitude and courage; and
+winding up with the customary exordium, asked of Death where was its
+sting.
+
+Where was it indeed? A day or two later Mistrial found time to think of
+that question and of other matters as well. It was then six weeks since
+the birth of the child, and Justine, fairer than ever before, was
+ministering to it in the adjacent room. Now and again he caught the
+shrill vociferation of its vague complaints. It was a feeble infant,
+lacking in vitality, distressingly hideous; but it lived, and though it
+died the next minute, its life had sufficed.
+
+Already the will had been read--a terse document, and to the point;
+precisely such an one as you would have expected a jurist to make. By it
+the testator devised his property, real and personal, of whatever
+nature, kind, and description he died seized, to his former partners in
+trust for the eldest child of his daughter Justine, to its heirs,
+executors, and assigns forever. In the event of his daughter's demise
+without issue, then over, to Guy Thorold, M.D.
+
+No, the sting concerning which Dr. Gonfallon had inquired was to
+Mistrial undiscerned. There was indeed a prick of it in the knowledge
+that if the old man had lasted much longer it might have been tough work
+to settle the bills; but that was gone now: Honest Paul paid all his
+debts, and he had not shirked at Nature's due. He was safely and
+securely dead, six feet under ground at that, and his millions were
+absolute in his grandson. Yes, absolute. At the thought of it Mistrial
+laughed. The goal to which for years he had striven was touched and
+exceeded. He had thrown the vitriol, the opopanax was his.
+
+We all of us pretend to forgive, to overlook, to condone, we pretend
+even to sympathize with, our enemy. Nay, in refraining from an act that
+could injure him who has injured us, we are quite apt to consider
+ourselves the superior of our foe, and not a little inclined to rise to
+the heights of self-laudatory quotation too. It is an antique virtue,
+that of forbearance; it is Biblical, nobly Arthurian, and chivalresque.
+But when we smile at an injury, it is for policy's sake--because we
+fear, rarely because we truly forgive, more rarely yet because of
+indifference. Our magnanimity is cowardice. It takes a brave man to
+wreak a brave revenge.
+
+Mistrial made few pretensions to the virtues which you and I possess. He
+was relentless as a Sioux, and he was treacherous as the savage is; he
+had no taste for fair and open fight. However his blood had boiled at
+the tableau of imaginary wrongs, however fitting the opportunity might
+have been on the afternoon when he met his enemy at the city's fringe,
+he had the desire but not the courage to annihilate him there. But
+later, when the possibility which he had intercepted came, he fêted, he
+coaxed it; and now that the hour of triumph had rung, his heart was
+glad. In the disordered closets of his brain he saw Thorold ravening at
+the trap into which he had fallen, and into which, in falling, he had
+lost the wherewithal to call the world his own. Ten million in exchange
+for an embrace! Verily, mused Mistrial, he will account it exceeding
+dear. And at the thought of what Thorold's frenzy must be, at the
+picture which he drew of him cursing his own imprudence and telling
+himself again and again, until the repetition turned into mania, that
+that imprudence could never be undone, he exulted and laughed aloud.
+
+Money, said Vespasian, has no odor. To our acuter nostrils it has: so
+nauseating even can it be, that we would rather be flung in the
+Potter's-field than catch the faintest whiff. But Mistrial, for all the
+sensitiveness that ancestry is supposed to bring, must have agreed with
+the Roman. To him it was the woof of every hope; whatever its
+provenance, it was an Open Sesame to the paradise of the ideal. He
+would have drawn it with his teeth from a dung-heap, only he would have
+done it at night.
+
+There are men that can steal a fortune, yet can never cheat at cards,
+and Mistrial was one of their race; he could not openly dishonor himself
+in petty ways. Many a scoundrel has a pride of his own. It is both easy
+and difficult to compare a bandit to a sneak-thief, Napoleon to
+Cartouche. Mistrial had nothing of the Napoleon about him, and he was
+lacking even in the strength which Cartouche possessed. But among carpet
+highwaymen commend me to his peer.
+
+And now, as he thought of the will, Gonfallon's query recurred to him,
+and he asked himself where was that sting? Not in the present,
+surely--for that from a bitterness had changed to a delight; and as for
+the future, each instant of it was sentient with invocations, fulfilled
+to the tips with the surprises of dream. The day he had claimed but a
+share in; the morrow was wholly his. He could have a dwelling in
+Mayfair and a marble palace on the Mediterranean Sea. For a scrap of
+paper he would never miss there was a haunt of ghosts dozing on the
+Grand Canal. In spring, when Paris is at her headiest, there, near that
+Triumphal Arch which overlooks the Elysian Fields, stood, _entre cour et
+jardin_, an hotel which he already viewed as his own. And when he
+wearied of the Old World, there was the larger and fuller life of the
+New. There was Peru, there was Mexico and Ecuador; and in those Italys
+of the Occident were girls whose lips said, Drink me; whose eyes were of
+chrysoberyl and of jade. _Ah, oui, les femmes; tant que le monde
+tournera il n'y aura que ça._ With blithe anticipation he hummed the air
+and snapped his fingers as Capoul was wont to do. At last he saw himself
+the Roland Mistrial that should have been, prodigal of gold, sultanesque
+of manner, fêted, courted, welcomed, past-master in the lore and art of
+love.
+
+There were worlds still to be conquered; and before his hair grizzled
+and the furrows came he felt conscious of the possession of a charm that
+should make those worlds his own. He had waited indeed; he had toiled
+and manoeuvred; but now the great clock we call Opportunity had
+struck. Let him but ask, and it would be given. Wishes were spaniels; he
+had but a finger to raise, and they fawned at his feet. And then, as
+those vistas of which we have all caught a glimpse rose in melting
+splendor and swooned again through sheer excesses of their own delights,
+suddenly he bethought him of the multiples of one and of two.
+
+Heretofore he had taken it for granted that if Dunellen left the estate
+to his grandchild the income accruing therefrom would, until the
+grandchild came of age, pass through his own paternal hands. And in
+taking this for granted he had recalled the fable that deals not of the
+prodigal son, but rather of the prodigal father. That income should
+spin. By a simple mathematical process than with which no one was more
+familiar, he calculated that, at five per cent, ten million would
+represent a rent-roll of five hundred thousand per annum. Of that amount
+a fraction would suffice to Justine and to her son. The rest--well, the
+rest he knew of what uses he could put it to.
+
+But now, suddenly, with that abruptness with which disaster looms, there
+came to him a doubt. He rememorated the provisions of the will, and in
+them he discerned unprompted some tenet of law or of custom which,
+during the legal infancy of the child, might inhibit the trustees from
+paying over any larger amount than was needful for its maintenance and
+support. Then at once the fabric of his dreams dissolved. The vitriol
+had corroded, but the savor of the opopanax had gone. For a little while
+he tormented his mustache and nibbled feverishly at a finger-nail. To
+see one's self the dupe of one's own devices is never a pleasant sight.
+Again he interrogated what smattering of law he possessed; but the
+closer he looked, the clearer it seemed to be that in its entirety the
+income of the estate could not pass through his hands. From five hundred
+thousand the trustees might in their judgment diminish it to some such
+pocket-money as ten; they could even reduce it to five; and, barring an
+action, he might be unable to persuade them that the sum was absurd. The
+idea, nude and revolting as Truth ever is, raised him to an unaccustomed
+height of rage; he would not be balked, he declared to himself; he would
+have that money or--
+
+Or what? The contingency which he then interviewed, one which issued
+unsummoned from some cavern in his mind, little by little assumed a
+definite shape. He needed no knowledge of the law to tell him that he
+was that brat's heir. Did it die at that very moment the estate became
+absolute in him. There would be no trustees then to dole the income out.
+The ten millions would be his own. As for the trustees, they could
+deduct their commission and retire with it to New Jersey--to hell if it
+pleased them more. But the estate would be his. That there was no
+gainsaying. Meanwhile, there was the brat. He was a feeble child; yet
+such, Mistrial understood, had Methusaleh been. He might live forever,
+or die on the morrow. And why not that night?
+
+As this query came to him, he eyed its advance. It was yet some distance
+away, but as it approached he considered it from every side. And of
+sides, parenthetically, it had many. And still it advanced: when it
+started, its movements were so slow they had been hardly perceptible;
+nevertheless it had made some progress; then surer on its feet it tried
+to run; it succeeded in the effort; at each step it grew sturdier,
+swifter in speed; and now that it reached him it was with such a rush
+that he was overpowered by its force.
+
+He rose from his seat. For a moment he hesitated. To his forehead and
+about his ears a moisture had come. He drew out a handkerchief; it was
+of silk, he noticed--one that he brought from France. Absently he drew
+it across his face; its texture had detained his thought. Then on
+tip-toe he moved out into the corridor and peered into the room at the
+end of the hall.
+
+It was dimly lighted, but soon he accustomed himself to the shadows and
+fumbled them with his eyes. On the bed Justine lay; sleep had overtaken
+her; her head was aslant on the pillow, her lips half closed; the
+fingers of one hand cushioned her neck; the other hand, outstretched,
+rested on the edge of a cradle. She had been rocking it, perhaps. From
+the floor above sank the sauntering tremolo of a flute, very sweet in
+the distance, muffled by the ceiling and wholly subdued. In the street a
+dray was passing, belated and clamorous on the cobblestones. But now, as
+Mistrial ventured in, these things must have lulled Justine into yet
+deeper sleep; her breath came and went with the semibreves a leaf uses
+when it whispers to the night; and as he moved nearer and bent over her
+the whiteness of her breast rose and fell in unison with that breath.
+Yes, surely she slept, but it was with that wary sleep that dogs and
+mothers share. A movement of that child's and she might awake, alert at
+once, her senses wholly recovered, her mind undazed.
+
+Mistrial, assured of her slumber, turned from the bed to the cradle, and
+for a minute, two perhaps, he stood, the eyebrows raised, the
+handkerchief pendent in his hand, contemplating the occupant. And it was
+this bundle of flesh and blood, this lobster-hued animal, that lacked
+the intelligence a sightless kitten has,--it was this that should debar
+him! _Allons donc!_
+
+His face had grown livid, and his hand shook just a little; not with
+fear, however, though if it were it must have been the temerity of his
+own courage that frightened him. At the handkerchief which he held he
+glanced again; one twist of it round that infant's throat, a minute in
+which to hold it taut, and it would be back in his pocket, leaving
+strangulation and death behind, yet not a mark to tell the tale. One
+minute only he needed, two at most; he bent nearer, and as he bent he
+looked over at his wife; but still she slept, her breath coming and
+going with the same regular cadence as before, the whiteness of her
+breast still heaving; then very gently, with fingers that were nervously
+assured, he ran the handkerchief under the infant's neck: but however
+deftly he had done it, the chill of the silk must have troubled the
+child; its under lip quivered, then both compressed, the flesh about the
+cheek-bones furrowed, the mouth relaxed, and from it issued the whimper
+of unconscious plaint. The call may have stirred the mother in some
+dream, for a smile hovered in her features; yet immediately her eyes
+opened, she half rose, her hand fell to her side, and, reaching out,
+she caught and held the infant to her.
+
+"My darling," she murmured; and as the child, soothed already, drowsed
+back again into slumber, she turned to where her husband stood. "What is
+it?"
+
+From above, the tremolo of the flute still descended; but the dray long
+since had passed, and the street now was quiet.
+
+"What is it?" she repeated. She seemed more surprised than pleased to
+see him there.
+
+Mistrial, balked in the attempt, had straightened himself; he looked
+annoyed and restless.
+
+"Nothing," he answered, and thrust the handkerchief back in his pocket,
+as a bandit sheathes his dirk. "Nothing. I heard that bastard bawling,
+and I came in to make him stop."
+
+"Bastard? Is it in that way you speak of your child?"
+
+As she said this she made no visible movement; yet something in her
+attitude, the manner in which she held herself, seemed to bid him hold
+his peace, and this he noticed, and in noticing resented. "There," he
+muttered; "drop the Grand Duchess, will you? The brat is Thorold's; you
+know it, and so do I."
+
+For a little space she stared as though uncertain she had heard aright,
+but the speech must have re-echoed in her ears; she had been sitting up,
+yet now as the echo reached her she drooped on the pillow and let her
+head fall back. In her arms the child still drowsed. And presently a
+tear rolled down her face, then another.
+
+"Roland Mistrial, you have broken my heart at last."
+
+That was all; the ultimate words even were scarcely audible; but the
+tears continued--the first succeeded by others, unstanched and
+undetained. Grief had claimed her as its own. She made no effort to
+rebel; she lay as though an agony had come from which no surcease can
+be. And as one tear after the other passed down and seared her face
+there was a silence so deathly, so tangible, and so convincing, that he
+needed no further sign from her to tell him that the charge was false.
+In all his intercourse with her, whatever cause of complaint there had
+been, never had he seen her weep before; and now at this unawaited
+evidence of the injustice and ignominy of his reproach he wished she
+would be defiant again, that he might argue and confute. But no word
+came from her--barely a sob; nothing, in fact, save these tears, which
+he had never seen before. And while he stood there, visited by the
+perplexity of him to whom the unawaited comes, unconsciously he went
+back to the wooing of her: he saw her clear eyes lifted in confidence to
+his own, he heard again the sweet confession of her love, he recalled
+the marks and tokens of her trust, and when for him she had left her
+father's house; he saw her ever, sweet by nature, tender-hearted,
+striving at each misdeed of his to show him that in her arms there was
+forgiveness still. And he recalled too the affronts he had put upon her,
+the baseness of his calculations, the selfishness of his life; he saw
+the misery he had inflicted, the affection he had beguiled, the hope he
+had tricked, and for climax there was this supreme reproach, of which he
+knew now no woman in all the world was less deserving than was she. And
+still the tears unstanched and undetained passed down and seared her
+cheeks; in the mortal wound he had aimed at her womanhood all else
+seemingly was forgot. She did not even move, and lay, her child tight
+clasped, the image of Maternity inhabited by Regret.
+
+And such regret! Mistrial, unprompted, could divine it all. The regret
+of love misplaced, of illusions spent, the regret of harboring a ruffian
+and thinking him a knight. Yes, he could divine it all; and then, as
+such things can be, he grieved a moment for himself.
+
+But soon the present returned. Justine still was weeping; he no longer
+saw her tears, he heard them. Surely she would forgive again. It could
+not be that everything had gone for naught. He would speak to her, plead
+if need were, and in the end she would yield. She must do that, he told
+himself, and he groped after some falsity that should palliate the
+offence. He would tell her that he had been drinking again; he would
+deny his own words, or, if necessary, he would insist she had not heard
+them aright. Indeed, there was nothing that might have weight with her
+which he was not ready and anxious to affirm. If she would but begin, if
+in some splendor of indignation such as he had beheld before she would
+rise up and upbraid him, his task would be diminished by half. Anything,
+indeed, would be better than this, and nothing could be worse; it was
+not Justine alone that the tears were carrying from him, it was the
+Dunellen millions as well. Oh, abysses of the human heart! As he
+queried with himself, at the very moment he was experiencing his first
+remorse, the old self returned, and it was less of the injury he had
+inflicted that he thought than of the counter-effect that injury might
+have on him. In the attempt to throttle the child he had been balked,
+yet of that attempt he believed Justine to be suspicionless. Other
+opportunities he would have in plenty; and even were it otherwise, the
+child was weakly, and croup might do its work. With the future for which
+he had striven, there, in the very palm of his hand, how was it possible
+that he should have made this misstep? But he could retrieve it, he told
+himself; he was a good actor, it was not too late. For a little while
+yet he could still support the mask, and, recalling the sentimental
+reveries of a moment before, the forerunner of a sneer came and loitered
+beneath the fringes of his mustache.
+
+"Justine!" He moved a step or two to where she lay. "Justine--"
+
+His voice was very low and penitent, but at the sound of it she seemed
+to shrink. "Could she _know_?" he wondered.
+
+Then immediately, through the scantness of the apartment, he heard the
+outer bell resound. Enervated as he was, the interruption affected him
+like a barb. There was some one there whom he could vent his irritation
+on. He hurried to the hall, but a servant had preceded him. The door was
+open, and on the threshold Thorold stood.
+
+Mistrial nodded--the nod of one who is about to throw his coat aside and
+roll his shirt-sleeves up. "Is it for your bill you come?" he asked.
+
+Thorold hesitated, and his face grew very black. He affected, however,
+to ignore the taunt. He turned to the servant that still was waiting
+there. "Is my cousin at home?" he asked.
+
+"She is," Mistrial announced, "but not to you."
+
+"In that case," Thorold answered, "I must speak to someone in her
+stead."
+
+Mistrial made a gesture, and the servant withdrew.
+
+"I have to inform my cousin," Thorold continued, "that Mr. Metuchen came
+to me this evening and said that when my uncle died he was in debt--"
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!"
+
+"He asked me to come and acquaint Justine with the facts. They are
+here." With this Thorold produced a roll of papers. "Be good enough to
+explain to her," he added, "that this is the inventory of the estate."
+And, extending the documents to his host, he turned and disappeared.
+
+In the cataleptic attitude of one standing to be photographed Mistrial
+listened to the retreating steps; he heard Thorold descend the stairs,
+cross the vestibule, and pass from the house. It seemed to him even that
+he caught the sound of his footfall on the pavement without. But
+presently that, too, had gone. He turned and looked down the hall.
+Justine's door was closed. Then at once, without seeking a seat, he
+fumbled through the papers that he held. The gas-jet above his head fell
+on the rigid lines. In the absence of collusion--and from whence should
+such a thing come?--in the absence of that, they were crystal in their
+clarity.
+
+There were the assets. Shares in mines that did not exist, bonds of
+railways that were bankrupt, loans on Western swamps, the house on
+Madison Avenue, mortgaged to its utmost value, property on the
+Riverside, ditto. And so on and so forth till the eye wearied and the
+heart sickened of the catalogue. Then came the debit account. Amounts
+due to this estate, to that, and to the other, a list of items extending
+down an entire page of foolscap and extending over onto the next. There
+a balance had been struck. Instead of millions Honest Paul had left
+dishonor. Swindled by the living, he had swindled the dead.
+
+"So much for trusting a man that bawls Amen in church," mused Mistrial.
+
+As yet the completeness and amplitude of the disaster had not reached
+him. While he ran the papers over he feigned to himself that it was all
+some trick of Thorold's, one that he would presently see through and
+understand; and even as he grasped the fact that it was not a trick at
+all, that it was truth duly signed and attested, even then the disaster
+seemed remote, affecting him only after the manner of that wound which,
+received in the heat of battle, is unnoticed by the victim until its
+gravity makes him reel. Then at once in the distance the future on which
+he had counted faded and grew blank. Where it had been brilliant it was
+obscure, and that obscurity, increasing, walled back the horizon and
+reached up and extended from earth to sky. The papers fell from his
+nerveless hand, fright had visited him, and he wheeled like a rat
+surprised. Surely, he reflected, if safety there were or could be, that
+safety was with Justine.
+
+In a moment he was at her door. He tried it. It was locked. He beat upon
+it and called aloud, "Justine."
+
+No answer came. He bent his head and listened. Through the woodwork he
+could hear but the faintest rustle, and he called again, "Justine."
+
+Then from within came the melody of her voice: "Who is it?"
+
+"It is I," he answered, and straightened himself. It seemed odd to him
+she did not open the door at once. "I want a word with you," he added,
+after a pause. But still the door was locked.
+
+"Justine," he called again, "do you not hear me? I want to speak to
+you."
+
+Then through the slender woodwork at his side a whisper filtered, the
+dumb voice of one whom madness may have in charge.
+
+"It is not to speak you come, it is to kill."
+
+"Justine!" he cried. All the agony of his life he distilled into her
+name, "Justine!"
+
+"You killed your child before, you shall not kill another now."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+"City Hall!"
+
+The brakemen were shouting the station through the emptiness of the
+"Elevated."
+
+In the car in which Mistrial sat a drunken sailor lolled, and a pretty
+girl of the Sixth Avenue type was eating a confection. Above her, on a
+panel opposite, the advertisement of a cough remedy shone in blue;
+beyond was a particolored notice of tennis blazers: and, between them, a
+text from Mark, in black letters, jumped out from a background of white:
+
+"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
+his own soul?"
+
+During the journey from his home Mistrial had contemplated that text.
+Not continuously, however. For a little space his eyes had grazed the
+retreating throngs over which the train was hurrying, and had rested on
+the insufferable ugliness of the Bowery. Once, too, he had found himself
+staring at the girl who sat opposite, and once he had detected within
+him some envy of the sailor sprawling at her side. But, all the while,
+that text was with him, and to the jar of the car he repeated for
+refrain a paraphrase of his own: "How shall it damage a man if he lose
+his own soul and gain the whole world?"
+
+How indeed? Surely he had tried. For three years the effort had been
+constant. It was because of it he had married, it was for this he had
+sought to throttle his child. What his failure had been, Dunellen's
+posthumous felony and Justine's ultimate reproach indistinctly yet
+clearly conveyed. No, the world was not gained; he had played his best
+and he had lost: he could never recover it now.
+
+And as the brakeman bawled in his face, the paraphrase of the text was
+with him. He rose and passed from the car. Beneath he could discern a
+grass-plot of the City Park. In spite of the night it was visibly green.
+The sky was leaden as a military uniform that has been dragged through
+the mud. From a window of the Tribune Building came a vomit of vapor.
+And above in a steeple a clock marked twelve.
+
+The stairway led him down to the street. For a moment he hesitated; the
+locality was unfamiliar. But a toll-gate attracted him; he approached
+it, paid a penny, and moved onto the bridge. There, he discovered that
+on either side of him were iron fences and iron rails; he was on the
+middle of the bridge, not at the side. A train shot by. He turned again
+and reissued from the gate.
+
+On the corner was another entrance, and through it he saw a carriage
+pass. It was that way, he knew; and he would have followed the carriage,
+but a policeman touched him on the arm.
+
+"Got a permit?"
+
+Mistrial shook his head. Why should he have a permit? And, moved
+perhaps by the mute surprise his face expressed, the policeman explained
+that the ordinary pedestrian was allowed to cross only through the
+safeguards of the middle path.
+
+"I will get a cab," he reflected, and for his convenience he discerned
+one loitering across the way. This he entered, gave an order to the
+driver, and presently, after paying another toll, rolled off the
+stonework on to wood.
+
+He craned his neck. Just beyond, a column of stone rose inordinately to
+the lowering sky; he could see the water-front of the city; opposite was
+Brooklyn, and in front the lights of Staten Island glowed distantly and
+dim. The cab was moving slowly. He took some coin from his pocket,
+placed it on the seat, opened the door, and, stepping from the moving
+vehicle, looked at the driver. The latter, however, had not noticed him
+and was continuing his way leisurely over the bridge and on and into the
+night. Mistrial let him go undetained. He had work now to do, and it
+was necessary for him to do it quickly; at any moment another carriage
+might pass or some one happen that way.
+
+Beneath, far down, a barge was moving. He could see the lights; they
+approached the bridge and vanished within it. The railing, now, he saw
+was too high to vault, and moreover there was a bar above it that might
+interfere. He tossed his hat aside and clambered on the iron rail.
+
+"You'll get six months for that," some one was crying.
+
+But to the threat Mistrial paid no heed. He had crossed the rail, his
+hands relaxed, and just as he dropped straight down to the river below,
+he could see a policeman, his club uplifted, hanging over the fence,
+promising him the pleasures of imprisonment. Such was his last glimpse
+of earth. A multitude of lights danced before his eyes; every nerve in
+his body tingled; his ears were filled with sudden sounds; he felt
+himself incased in ice; then something snapped, and all was blank.
+
+The next day a rumor of the suicide was bruited through the clubs.
+
+"What do you think of it, Jones?" Yarde asked.
+
+The novelist plucked at his beard. There were times when he himself did
+not know what he thought. In this instance, however, he had already
+learned of the disaster that had overtaken the Dunellen estate, and
+weaving two and two sagaciously together, he answered with a shrug.
+
+"What do I think of it? I think he died like a man who knew how to
+live"--an epitaph which pleased him so much that he got his card-case
+out and wrote it down.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+By the same Author.
+
+
+    A TRANSACTION IN HEARTS.
+    EDEN.
+    THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK.
+    MR. INCOUL'S MISADVENTURE.
+    A TRANSIENT GUEST.
+    THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION.
+    THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISENCHANTMENT.
+
+
+
+
+Belford, Clarke & Co's New Books
+
+
+The Truth about Tristem Varick. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     "Our admiration for the perfection of its style, the brilliancy
+     of its expressions, and the exquisite art with which the story
+     has been handled, is unbounded."--_Lippincott's Magazine._
+
+     "The plot is admirable, style exquisite; as a piece of art the
+     style demands unstinted commendation."--_St. John's (N. B.)
+     Progress._
+
+     "A very surprising but fascinating love-story."--_Amsterdam
+     Democrat._
+
+
+Eden. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     "Mr. Saltus is an artist; his brilliant epigrammatic touch is
+     as rare as it is exquisite; and to find fault with such a novel
+     as 'Eden' because it is not Bunyan's 'Pilgrim Progress,' is
+     absurd."--_Boston Traveller._
+
+     "'Eden' is the best he has ever written. It Is a capital story,
+     told in scholarly and clever English, and any one who begins to
+     read it will not want to lay it aside until the end is
+     reached."--_Baltimore American._
+
+
+A Transaction in Hearts. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     Saltus' latest novel, and in some respects his best. In the
+     character of Christopher Gonfallon the author aims a terrible
+     blow at the hypocrisy of those who, setting themselves up as
+     examples and leaders of men, fall before the temptations of the
+     beast in their own natures. The recreant minister, the evil
+     enigma, Claire, and the pure, sweet wife, make a trinity of
+     characters rarely found in modern fiction.
+
+
+The Philosophy of Disenchantment. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     A philosophical work which entitles the author to a first place
+     in the ranks of modern thinkers. Even those who disagree with
+     his conclusions cannot deny him a vigorous and pointed logic,
+     keen insight, and powerful reasoning.
+
+
+The Anatomy of Negation. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     A work of superlative excellence and worth.
+
+
+Divided Lives. By EDGAR FAWCETT.
+
+     "A spirited story; the interest is well sustained throughout,
+     and the characters are firmly and clearly drawn."--_N. Y.
+     Tribune._
+
+     "The book is written in very choice English, and the style is
+     flowing and harmonious."--_N. Y. Truth._
+
+     "A thoroughgoing society novel, whose style moves like a
+     waltz."--_Richmond States._
+
+
+Miriam Ballestier. By EDGAR FAWCETT.
+
+     "A pathetic and absorbing story of thrilling
+     interest."--_Syracuse Herald._
+
+     "The last chapter, in particular, is one of the most beautiful
+     things in American literature; the picture of Miriam going out
+     into the night on her mission of sublime self-sacrifice
+     deserves to live forever in the memory."--_Chicago Herald._
+
+
+Monte Rosa, the Epic of an Alp. By STARR HOYT NICHOLS.
+
+     "It is an account in poetic form of an Alpine mountain,
+     beginning with its birth, describing its form, appearance,
+     grandeur, its relations to man physically and metaphysically,
+     and ending with the probable ending of the mountain. It is one
+     of the most successful of recent attempts to wed science and
+     poetry."--_Albany Journal._
+
+
+Memories of the Men who Saved the Union. By DONN PIATT.
+
+     "Piatt's sketches of the great coterie of men mentioned are of
+     absorbing interest, and no one who takes up the book will lay
+     it down without obtaining new ideas of the character and
+     motives of those so high in place during the
+     rebellion"--_Quincy Whig._
+
+     "They are the interesting recollections of one who was
+     personally acquainted with the illustrious men of whom he has
+     written, and who had, as well officially as socially,
+     opportunities of studying the character of each, of which he
+     has availed himself in writing one of the ablest books we have
+     had the pleasure to welcome from America."--_Westminster
+     Review._
+
+The Lone Grave of the Shenandoah. By DONN PIATT.
+
+     "Eminently original, they are delightful to read. So
+     extraordinary a compound of poetry and practicality as our
+     author, if sought through the world, could not probably be
+     found."--_Washington Post._
+
+     "They are sketches, quaint, delicate, humorous, fanciful,
+     examples of the art of short story-writing in its
+     perfection."--_Chicago News._
+
+
+The Protective Tariff: What it Does for Us. By HERMAN LIEB.
+
+     "It is clear in style and argument, taking strong ground for
+     the immediate reduction of war taxes and the putting of the
+     nation on a peace footing as regards the necessities of life
+     for the common people."--_Michigan Courier._
+
+
+Life of Emperor William I., the Founder of the German Empire. By HERMAN
+LIEB.
+
+     "General Lieb has done historical literature a great service in
+     giving it a life of one of the greatest rulers of the
+     nineteenth century. It is printed on good paper, in clear type,
+     and profusely illustrated. An edition is also issued in the
+     German language for those who want the history of their
+     fatherland in their own tongue."--_New London Telegram._
+
+
+Henry Ward Beecher, Christian Philosopher, Pulpit Orator, Patriot, and
+Philanthropist. Illustrated with a biographical sketch by THOS. W.
+HANDFORD.
+
+     "As a pulpit orator he was during life the peer of any living,
+     and his utterances will go on converting men, and fitting them
+     for earth and heaven. As a patriot, loving his country, and
+     willing to make any sacrifice for its sustenance and
+     upbuilding, he was at all times conspicuous."--_Chicago
+     Inter-Ocean._
+
+     "It is much for a man worthy of a biography that he should fall
+     into the hands of a congenial spirit, and that the biography
+     should be a labor of love."--_Chicago Herald._
+
+
+Dinnerology. By "Pan."
+
+     Experiments in economical cooking, brightly and interestingly
+     related.
+
+
+Her Strange Fate. By CELIA LOGAN.
+
+     "'Her Strange Fate' belongs to that healthy sensational school,
+     at the head of which stand the works of Chas. Reade, wherein
+     the romantic and dramatic sides of real life are depicted.
+     There is no morbid analysis, no feverish imagination. No one
+     who begins the book will be willing to lay it down until the
+     last page is reached."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+
+A Blue-Grass Thoroughbred. By "TOM JOHNSON."
+
+
+     A richly colored picture of a comparatively unknown but
+     wonderfully interesting section of the United States, the
+     Blue-grass region of Kentucky. From end to end the book is a
+     rapidly moving panorama of brilliant pictures.
+
+
+A Slave of Circumstance. By E. DE LANCEY PIERSON.
+
+
+     "An interesting work."--_N. Y. Herald._
+
+     "A book well written; continually alluring, especially in the
+     love scenes."--_Washington National Republican._
+
+     "The very first paragraph of the book arouses the reader's
+     interest, and that interest is maintained to the end."--_Sunday
+     News._
+
+     "It is extremely interesting, vividly national, and develops an
+     unusually original idea."--_Baltimore American._
+
+
+The Shadow of the Bars. By E. DE LANCEY PIERSON.
+
+
+     "A brilliant and interesting love-story."--_Boston
+     Commonwealth._
+
+
+The Black Ball. By E. DE LANCEY PIERSON.
+
+
+     Mr. Pierson's latest and best work, alive with humor and
+     genuine pathos, at once fantastic and intensely human.
+
+
+A Dream and a Forgetting. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+     "A delightful story, told with a charming idyllic sweetness by
+     this successor of the Seer of Salem."--_Texas Siftings._
+
+     "Without much doubt the best piece of work that Mr. Hawthorne
+     has yet turned out. It is intensely interesting."--_Springfield
+     (Mass.) Union._
+
+     "If it has a fault it is that of brevity."--_Cleveland Leader._
+
+     "One of the most perfect pieces of work that Mr. Hawthorne has
+     ever done in fiction. It has the Hawthorne atmosphere, the
+     imaginative beauty, the touch of the mystic in it."--_Boston
+     Traveller._
+
+
+The Professor's Sister. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+     "There is no other American writer of the day who can present a
+     mystery and unfold it in all its details with such consummate
+     skill as Hawthorne."--_Richmond States._
+
+     "Is, without doubt, not only one of the very best that this
+     author has yet achieved, but it is not too much to say that it
+     will rank with the strongest novels that have been given to the
+     public in years."--_Nashville American._
+
+     "Human passions and actual life are well mixed into the warp
+     and woof of the plot, and some striking characters are evolved
+     in admirable narrative, and colloquial style."--_N. Y. Truth._
+
+
+Kisses of Fate. By E. HERON-ALLEN.
+
+
+     "A collection of clever tales, three in number, the merit of
+     which is not suggested in the title he has chosen to give them,
+     while in grace and finish they reflect to his credit."--_Albany
+     Union._
+
+
+Princess Daphne. By E. HERON-ALLEN.
+
+
+     "Somewhat unorthodox, but highly interesting."--_Reading
+     Union._
+
+     "Weird stories are in vogue at present, and some are good and
+     far more are the reverse. This is one of the best."--_Baltimore
+     News._
+
+     "The book is written in an attractive style, and is intensely
+     interesting."--_Albany Express._
+
+
+Among the Tramps. By "UNCLE TIM."
+
+
+     A volume of rare interest and information, from the pen of a
+     writer thoroughly conversant with that philosophy which bears
+     upon the well-being of society and every-day life.
+
+
+Confessions of a Society Man.
+
+
+     "The book is interesting throughout because of the rapid and
+     continual shifting of incidents which is its chief
+     characteristic."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._
+
+     "The love-making in it is charming. It is interesting up to the
+     very end."--_Nashville American._
+
+
+A Tramp Actor. By ELLIOT BARNES.
+
+
+     "There are good things in the book, and it is endowed with an
+     excellent moral."--_N. Y. Sun._
+
+
+Forty Tears on the Rail. By C. B. GEORGE.
+
+
+     "The book is destined to have a very extended reading, as its
+     pages are not only interesting, but instructive."--_Keokuk
+     Democrat._
+
+
+The Friend to the Widow. By MAJA SPENCER.
+
+
+     "This is a love-story pure and simple, but just one of those
+     stories that form most delightful reading, free from heroics
+     and wild sensations."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+
+Why Was It? By LEWIS BENJAMIN.
+
+
+     "The chief charm of the book lies in the simple manner of
+     telling the story, and in the fact that its basis and its
+     incidents are precisely such as may be picked up almost
+     anywhere, at any time."--_Nashville American._
+
+
+The Wrong Man. By GERTRUDE GARRISON.
+
+
+     "'The Wrong Man' is not in the least sensational--not the kind
+     of a story to set people talking about its possible
+     consequences on the minds of unseasoned readers. Nothing
+     feverish, questionable, or coarse in it. Much rare qualities
+     does it possess, which give it distinction in these days of
+     rankly flavored fiction."--_Philadelphia Herald._
+
+
+A Boston Girl. By REV. ARTHUR SWAZE.
+
+
+     "Those who read 'A Boston Girl' will like it, and those who do
+     not read it will, if they only knew it, miss spending an
+     agreeable hour or two."--_San Francisco Call._
+
+
+A Drummer's Diary. By CHARLES S. PLUMMER.
+
+What Dreams May Come. By Mrs. Gertrude Atherton.
+
+
+     "The interest of the story lies in its all-absorbing plot, its
+     strong dramatic treatment, and the bold handling of one of the
+     most difficult and least used subjects of
+     literature."--_Rochester Herald._
+
+     "There is good work and strong work in the book, and it is
+     quite enough to make one hope it is not the last the authoress
+     will write."--_N. Y. Journalist._
+
+
+Bella-Demonia. By SELINA DOLARO. Madame Dolaro's Posthumous Novel.
+
+
+     This work, founded on a drama by Madame Dolaro, shortly to be
+     produced, is an historical novel of pure incident. It is
+     composed of a series of startling dramatic situations, founded
+     on facts not hitherto published in connection with the
+     Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, of which it is an accurate history
+     of absorbing interest.
+
+
+Mes Amours: Poems. Passionate and Playful. By SELINA DOLARO.
+
+
+     "Some of them are from her own pen; she is the inspiration of
+     the others. A few of the latter are really quite clever verses,
+     but not nearly as bright as her annotation of them all."--_N.
+     Y. Graphic._
+
+     "There is many a laugh to be had from reading the book."--_Town
+     Topics._
+
+     "These verses are full of spirit and life, and the merry mood
+     sings between the lines like the contented streamlet between
+     wind-swept hillsides."--_Albany Journal._
+
+
+That Girl from Texas. By JEANETTE H. WALWORTH.
+
+
+     "Is one of the nicest girls ever introduced to readers. Well
+     told, and decidedly interesting."--_New London Telegraph._
+
+
+A Splendid Egotist. By JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH (author of "That Girl from
+Texas").
+
+
+     A brilliant society novel by this gifted author, and one of the
+     best she has written.
+
+
+History of New York. By JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH. In words of one syllable.
+Richly illustrated. Illuminated board cover.
+
+
+     "This book is well calculated to give young children just about
+     the historical knowledge in that direction which their minds
+     are prepared to absorb and retain."--_Oswego Palladium._
+
+
+His Way and Her Will. By FANNIE ATMAR MATHEWS.
+
+
+     "Is a novel of more than usual merit. Its characters are strong
+     in word and action, and although it is a love story, its
+     sentiment is manly, and not mawkish."--_N. H. News._
+
+     "The characters are drawn with a firm and free hand, and the
+     story has that symmetry of construction which shows the
+     practical workman. The literary style is finished and
+     graceful."--_Baltimore News._
+
+
+Studies in Social Life. A Review of the Principles, Practices, and
+Problems of Society. By GEORGE C. LORIMER.
+
+
+     "The subject is a living one, he has gone to the heart of it,
+     developed his thoughts in an attractive manner, pointed out
+     clearly its existing evils and their causes, and advances
+     theories of remedies which will stand practical
+     test."--_Hamilton Republican._
+
+     "It is a serious work, deserving to be widely read. It deals
+     with so many subjects that an epitome of its contents is
+     impossible here; but we would call special attention to the
+     chapter on the vices of society."--_N. Y. World._
+
+
+Eating and Living. By SIR HENRY THOMPSON.
+
+The Everyday Cook Book. By MISS M. C. NEILL. Oil-cloth cover (kitchen
+style).
+
+The Kentucky Cookery Book. By MRS. PETER A. WHITE.
+
+Political Oratory of Emery A. Storm, from Lincoln to Garfield. By ISAAC
+E. ADAMS.
+
+
+     "Not only valuable as examples of perfect argument and
+     matchless eloquence, but as a rich contribution to the
+     political history of our country."--_Burlington Post._
+
+
+The People and the Railways. By APPLETON MORGAN.
+
+
+     "It is a popular discussion of some railway problems, and it
+     takes the ground that a railway company is a useful public
+     servant, and not necessarily a crushing monopoly."--_Epoch._
+
+     "The book is carefully written, and Mr. Morgan presents his
+     side of the argument with clearness and great
+     ability."--_Chicago Herald._
+
+
+Men, Women, and Gods. By HELEN GARDENER.
+
+
+     "The writer of this volume has read the Bible with open eyes.
+     The mist of sentimentality has not clouded her vision. She has
+     had the courage to tell the result of her investigations. She
+     has been quick to discover contradictions. She appreciates the
+     humorous side of the stupidly solemn. She says what she thinks,
+     and feels what she says."--_Robt. H. Ingersoll._
+
+
+The Veteran and His Pipe. By ALBION W. TOURGEE.
+
+
+     "Judge Tourgee maintains his old familiar force and style, and
+     in 'The Veteran and His Pipe' employs himself in giving to
+     soldiers particularly (although the book will be interesting to
+     all readers) something that they will greatly enjoy."--_St.
+     Joseph_ (Mo.) _Herald._
+
+
+Divorced. By MRS. MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN.
+
+
+     "This is a masterly discussion of one of the burning questions
+     of the age, dealt with according to the logic of facts. The
+     plot is most ingenious, and the characters are sketched with a
+     powerful hand."--_Trenton Times._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pace That Kills, by Edgar Saltus
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Pace That Kills, by Edgar Saltus.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pace That Kills, by Edgar Saltus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Pace That Kills
+       A Chronicle
+
+Author: Edgar Saltus
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2010 [EBook #34401]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PACE THAT KILLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE PACE THAT KILLS</h1>
+
+<h3>A Chronicle</h3>
+
+<h2>By EDGAR SALTUS</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Pourquoi la mort? Dites, plutôt, pourquoi la vie?</i>"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Radusson</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h3>CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO<br />
+BELFORD, CLARKE &amp; COMPANY<br />
+PUBLISHERS<br />
+London: H. J. DRANE, Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row</h3>
+
+<h3>Copyright, 1889,<br />
+<span class="smcap">BY<br />
+Edgar Saltus.</span></h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>TO<br />
+JOHN A. RUTHERFURD.<br />
+<span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>June 10, 1889.</i></h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#PART_I">PART I.</a><br />
+<a href="#I">I.</a><br />
+<a href="#II">II.</a><br />
+<a href="#III">III.</a><br />
+<a href="#IV">IV.</a><br />
+<a href="#V">V.</a><br />
+<a href="#VI">VI.</a><br />
+<a href="#VII">VII.</a><br />
+<a href="#PART_II">PART II.</a><br />
+<a href="#IA">I.</a><br />
+<a href="#IIA">II.</a><br />
+<a href="#IIIA">III.</a><br />
+<a href="#IVA">IV.</a><br />
+<a href="#VA">V.</a><br />
+<a href="#VIA">VI.</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#By_the_same_Author">By the same Author.</a><br />
+<a href="#Belford_Clarke_Cos_New_Books">Belford, Clarke &amp; Co's New Books</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"I wish you a happy New Year, sir."</p>
+
+<p>It was the servant, green of livery, the yellow waistcoat slashed with
+black, bearing the coffee and fruit.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it there, please," Roland answered. And then, in recognition of the
+salutation, he added, "Thanks: the same to you."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm," he mused, as the man withdrew, "I ought to have tipped him, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned from the bed, poured some milk into a cup, and for a second
+nibbled at a slice of iced orange. Through the transom came a faint odor
+of home-made bread, and with it the rustle of a gown and a girl's clear
+laugh. The room itself was small. It was furnished in a fashion which
+was unsuggestive of an hotel, and yet did not resemble that of a
+private house. The curtain had been already drawn. Beyond was a lake,
+very blue in the sunlight, bulwarked by undulant hills. Below, on the
+road, a dogcart fronted by a groom was awaiting somebody's pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"It is late," he reflected, and raised a napkin to his lips. As he did
+so he noticed a package of letters which the napkin must have concealed.
+He took up the topmost and eyed it. It had been addressed to the
+Athenæum Club, Fifth Avenue; but the original direction was erased, and
+Tuxedo Park inserted in its stead. On the upper left-hand corner the
+impress of a firm of tailors shone in blue. Opposite was the engraving
+of a young woman supported by 2-1/2<i>d.</i> He put it down again and glanced
+at the others. The superscriptions were characterless enough; each bore
+a foreign stamp, and to one as practised as was he, each bore the token
+of the dun.</p>
+
+<p>"If they keep on bothering me like this," he muttered, "I shall
+certainly place the matter in the hands of my attorney." And thereat,
+with the air of a man who had said something insultingly original, he
+laughed aloud, swallowed some coffee, and dashed his head in the pillow.
+In and out of the corners of his mouth a smile still played; but
+presently his fancy must have veered, for the muscles of his lips
+compressed, and as he lay there, the arms clasped behind the head, the
+pink silk of his sleeves framing and tinting his face, and in the eyes
+the expression of one prepared to meet Fate and outwit it, a possible
+observer who could have chanced that way would have sat himself down to
+study and risen up perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>Anyone who was at Columbia ten years ago will remember Roland
+Mistrial,&mdash;Roland Mistrial 3d, if you please,&mdash;and will recall the wave
+of bewilderment which swept the campus when that young gentleman, on the
+eve of graduation, popularity on one side and honors on the other,
+suddenly, without so much as a p. p. c., left everything where it was
+and betook himself to other shores. The flight was indeed erratic, and
+numerous were the rumors which it excited; but Commencement was at hand,
+other issues were to be considered, bewilderment subsided as
+bewilderment ever does, the college dispersed, and when it assembled
+again the Mistrial mystery, though unelucidated, was practically forgot.</p>
+
+<p>In the neighborhood of Washington Square, however, on the northwest
+corner of Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue to be exact, there were others
+whose memories were more retentive. Among them was Roland's grandfather,
+himself a graduate, founder of the Mistrial fellowship, and judge of the
+appellate court. And there was Roland's father, a graduate too, a
+gentleman widely respected, all the more so perhaps because he had run
+for the governorship and lost it. And again there was Roland's aunt, a
+maiden lady of whom it is recorded that each day of her life she got
+down on her knees and thanked God he had made her a Mistrial. In
+addition to these, there were, scattered along the Hudson, certain
+maternal relatives&mdash;the Algaroths, the Baxters, and the Swifts; Bishop
+Algaroth in particular, who possessed such indomitable vigor that when
+at the good old age of threescore and ten he decided to depart this
+life, the impression prevailed that he had died very young for him. None
+of these people readily forgot. They were a proud family and an
+influential one&mdash;influential not merely in the social sense, but
+influential in political, legal, in church and university circles as
+well; a fact which may have had weight with the Faculty when it was
+called upon to deal with Roland Mistrial 3d. But be that as it may, the
+cause of the young man's disappearance was never officially given. Among
+the rumors which it created was one to the effect that his health was
+affected; in another his mind was implicated; and in a third it was his
+heart. Yet as not one of these rumors had enough evidential value behind
+it to concoct an anonymous letter on, they were suffered to go their way
+undetained, very much as Roland had already gone his own.</p>
+
+<p>That way led him straight to the Golden Gate and out of it to Japan.
+Before he reached Yeddo his grandfather left the planet and a round sum
+of money behind. Of that round sum the grandson came in for a portion.
+It was not fabulous in dimensions, but in the East money goes far. In
+this case it might have gone on indefinitely had not the beneficiary
+seen fit to abandon the languors of the Orient for the breezier
+atmosphere of the west. The Riviera has charms of its own. So, too, have
+Paris and Vienna. Roland enjoyed them to the best of his ability. He
+even found London attractive, and became acclimated in Pall Mall. In the
+latter region he learned one day that his share of the round sum had
+departed and his father as well. The conjunction of these incidents was
+of such a character that he at once took ship for New York.</p>
+
+<p>It was not that he was impatient to revisit the misgoverned city which
+he had deserted ten years before. He had left it willingly enough, and
+he had seldom regretted it since. The pins and needles on which he sat
+were those of another make. He was uninformed of the disposition of his
+father's property, and he felt that, were not every penny of it
+bequeathed to him, he would be in a tight box indeed.</p>
+
+<p>He was at that time just entering his thirtieth year&mdash;that age in which
+a man who has led a certain life begins to be particular about the
+quality of his red pepper, and anxious too that the supply of it shall
+not tarry. Though meagre of late, the supply had been sufficient. But at
+present the palate was a trifle impaired. Where a ten-pound note had
+sufficed for its excitement, a hundred now were none too strong. Roland
+Mistrial&mdash;3d no longer&mdash;wanted money, and he wanted plenty of it. He
+had exact ideas as to its usefulness, and none at all regarding its
+manufacture. He held, as many have done and will continue to do, that
+the royal road to it leads through a testament; and it was in view of
+the opening vistas which that road displayed that he set sail for New
+York.</p>
+
+<p>And now, six weeks later, on this fair noonday of a newer year, as he
+lay outstretched in bed, you would have likened him to one well
+qualified to keep a mother awake and bring her daughter dreams. Our
+canons of beauty may be relative, but, such as they are, his features
+accorded with them&mdash;disquietingly even; for they conveyed the irritating
+charm of things we have hoped for, striven for, failed to get, and then
+renounced with thanksgiving. They made you anxious about their
+possessor, and fearful too lest the one dearly-beloved might chance to
+see them, and so be subjugated by their spell. They were features that
+represented good stock, good breeding, good taste, good looks&mdash;every
+form of goodness, in fact, save, it may be, the proper one. But the
+possible lack of that particular characteristic was a matter over which
+hesitation well might be. We have all of us a trick of flattering
+ourselves with the fancy that, however obtuse our neighbor is, we at
+least are gifted with the insight of a detective&mdash;a faculty so rare and
+enviable that the blunders we make must be committed with a view to its
+concealment; yet, despite presumable shrewdness, now and then a face
+will appear that eludes cataloguing, and leaves the observer perplexed.
+Roland Mistrial's was one of these.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as the pink silk of his shirt-sleeves tinted it, the expression
+altered, and behind his contracted brows hurried processions of shifting
+scenes. There was that initial catastrophe which awaited him almost on
+the wharf&mdash;the discovery that his father had left him nothing, and that
+for no other reason in the world than because he had nothing whatever
+to leave&mdash;nothing, in fact, save the hereditary decoration of and right
+of enrolment in the Society of the Cincinnati, the which, handed down
+since Washingtonian days from one Mistrial to another, he held, as his
+forefathers had before him, in trust for the Mistrials to be.</p>
+
+<p>No, he could not have disposed of that, even had he so desired; but
+everything else, the house on Tenth Street,&mdash;built originally for a
+country-seat, in times when the Astor House was considered rather far
+uptown,&mdash;bonds, scrip, and stocks, disappeared as utterly as had they
+never been; for Roland's father, stricken with that form of dementia
+which, to the complete discouragement of virtue, battens on men that
+have led the chastest lives, had, at that age in which the typical rake
+is forced to haul his standard down, surrendered himself to senile
+debauchery, and in the lap of a female of uncertain attractions&mdash;of
+whose mere existence no one had been previously aware&mdash;placed
+title-deeds and certificates of stock. In a case such as this the
+appeal of the rightful heir is listened to with such patience that judge
+and jury too have been known to pass away and leave the tale unended.
+And Roland, when the earliest dismay had in a measure subsided, saw
+himself closeted with lawyers who offered modicums of hope in return for
+proportionate fees. Then came a run up the Hudson, the welcomeless
+greeting which waited him there, and the enervating imbecility of his
+great aunt, whose fingers, mummified by gout, were tenacious enough on
+the strings of her purse. That episode flitted by, leaving on memory's
+camera only the degrading tableau of coin burrowed for and unobtained.
+And through it all filtered torturesome uncertainties, the knowledge of
+his entire inability to make money, the sense of strength misspent, the
+perplexities that declined to take themselves away, forebodings of the
+morrow, nay of the day even as well, the unbanishable dread of want.</p>
+
+<p>But that for the moment had gone. He turned on his elbow and glanced
+over at a card-case which lay among the silver-backed brushes beyond,
+and at once the shock he had resummoned fled. Ah, yes! it had gone
+indeed, but at the moment it had been appalling enough. The morrow at
+least was secure; and as he pondered over its possibilities they faded
+before certain episodes of the previous day&mdash;that chance encounter with
+Alphabet Jones, who had insisted he should pack a valise and go down
+with Trement Yarde and himself to Tuxedo; and at once the incidents
+succeeding the arrival paraded through his thoughts. There had been the
+late dinner to begin with; then the dance; the girl to whom some one had
+presented him, and with whom he had sat it out; the escape of the year,
+the health that was drunk to the new one, and afterwards the green baize
+in the card-room; the bank which Trement Yarde had held, and finally the
+successful operation that followed, and which consisted in cutting that
+cherub's throat to the tune of three thousand dollars. It was all there
+now in the card-case; and though, as sums of money go, it was hardly
+quotable, yet in the abstract, forethought and economy aiding, it
+represented several months of horizons solid and real. The day was
+secure; as for the future, who knew what it might contain? A grave
+perhaps, and in it his aunt.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"If I had been killed in a duel I couldn't be better." It was Jones the
+novelist describing the state of his health. "But how is my friend and
+brother in virtue?"</p>
+
+<p>"Utterly ramollescent," Roland answered, confidingly. "What the French
+call <i>gaga</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The mid-day meal was in progress, and the two men, seated opposite each
+other, were dividing a Demidorf salad. They had been schoolmates at
+Concord, and despite the fact that until the day before they had not met
+for a decennium, the happy-go-lucky intimacy of earlier days had eluded
+Time and still survived. Throughout the glass-enclosed piazza other
+people were lunching, and every now and then Jones, catching a wandering
+eye, would bend forward a little and smile. Though it was but the first
+of the year, the weather resembled that of May. One huge casement was
+wide open. There was sunlight everywhere, flowers too, and beyond you
+could see the sky, a dome of opal and sapphire blent.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Jones replied, "I can't say you have altered much. But then who
+does? You remember, don't you"&mdash;and Jones ran on with some anecdote of
+earlier days.</p>
+
+<p>But Roland had ceased to listen. It was very pleasant here, he told
+himself. There was a freedom about it that the English country-house,
+however charming, lacked. There was no one to suggest things for you to
+do, there was no host or hostess to exact attention, and the women were
+prettier, better dressed, less conventional, and yet more assured in
+manner than any that he had encountered for years. The men, too, were a
+good lot; and given one or two more little surprises, such as he had
+found in the card-room, he felt willing to linger on indefinitely&mdash;a
+week at least, a month if the fare held out. His eyes roamed through the
+glitter of the room. Presently, at a neighboring table, he noticed the
+girl with whom he had seen the old year depart: she was nodding to him;
+and Roland, with that courtesy that betokens the foreigner a mile away,
+rose from his seat as he bowed in return.</p>
+
+<p>Jones, whom little escaped, glanced over his shoulder. "By the way, are
+you on this side for good?" he asked; and Roland answering with the
+vague shrug the undetermined give, he hastened to add&mdash;"or for bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends. I ran over to settle my father's estate, but they seem to
+have settled it for me. After all, this is no place for a pauper, is
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The wolf's at the door, is he?"</p>
+
+<p>Roland laughed shortly. "At the door? Good Lord! I wish he were! He's in
+the room."</p>
+
+<p>"There, dear boy, never mind. Wait till spring comes and marry an
+heiress. There are so many hereabouts that we use them for export
+purposes. They are a glut in the market. There's a fair specimen. Ever
+meet her before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Meet whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"That girl you just bowed to. They call her father Honest Paul. Oh, if
+you ask me why, I can't tell. It's a nick-name, like another. It may be
+because he says Amen so loud in church. A number of people have made him
+trustee, but whether on that account or not they never told. However,
+he's a big man, owns a mile or two up there near the Riverside. I should
+rate him at not a penny less than ten million."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say his name was?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dunellen&mdash;the Hon. Paul Dunellen. At one time&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jones rambled on, and again Roland had ceased to listen. But it was not
+the present now that claimed him. At the mention of the plutocrat
+something from the past came back and called him there&mdash;a thing so
+shadowy that, when he turned to interrogate, it eluded him and
+disappeared. Then at once, without conscious effort, an episode which
+he had long since put from him arose and detained his thought. But what
+on earth, he wondered, had the name of Dunellen to do with that? And for
+the moment dumbly perplexed, yet outwardly attentive, he puzzled over
+the connection and tried to find the link; yet that too was elusive: the
+name seemed to lose its suggestiveness, and presently it sank behind the
+episode it had evoked.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," Jones was saying, in reference, evidently, to what had gone
+before&mdash;"of course as millionaires go he is not first chop. Jerolomon
+could match him head or tail for all he has, and never miss it if he
+lost. Ten million, though, is a tidy sum&mdash;just enough to entertain on. A
+penny less and you are pinched. Why, you would be surprised&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Has he any other children?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who? Dunellen? None that he has acknowledged."</p>
+
+<p>"Then his daughter will come in for it all."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said. When she does, she will probably hand it over to
+some man who wont know how to spend it. She's got a cousin&mdash;what's that
+beggar's name? However, he's a physician, makes a specialty of nervous
+diseases, I believe; good enough fellow in his way, but an everlasting
+bore&mdash;the sort of man you would avoid in a club, and trust your sister
+to. What the deuce <i>is</i> his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes. I fancy he wants to get married, and when he does, to
+entertain. He is very devoted."</p>
+
+<p>"But nowadays, barring royalty, no one ever marries a cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear boy, you forget; it isn't every cousin that has ten million. When
+she has, the attempt is invariable." And Jones accentuated his remark
+with a nod. "Now," he continued, "what do you say to a look at the
+library? They have a superb edition of Kirschwasser in there, and a
+full set of the works of Chartreuse."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist had arisen; he was leaving the room, and Roland was about
+to follow him, when he noticed that Miss Dunellen was preparing to leave
+it too. Before she reached the hall he was at her side.</p>
+
+<p>There is this about the New York girl&mdash;her beauty is often bewildering,
+yet unless a husband catch her in the nick of time the bewilderment of
+that beauty fades. At sixteen Justine Dunellen had been enchanting, at
+twenty-three she was plain. Her face still retained its oval, but from
+it something had evaporated and gone. Her mouth, too, had altered. In
+place of the volatile brilliance of earlier years, it was drawn a
+little; it seemed resolute, and it also seemed subdued. But one feature
+had not changed: her eyes, which were of the color of snuff, enchanted
+still. They were large and clear, and when you looked in them you saw
+such possibilities of tenderness and sincerity that the escape of the
+transient was unregretted; you forgot the girl that had been, and loved
+the woman that was.</p>
+
+<p>And lovable she was indeed. The world is filled with charming people
+whom, parenthetically, many of us never meet; yet, however scant our
+list may be, there are moments when from Memory's gardens a vision
+issues we would fain detain. Who is there to whom that vision has not
+come? Nay, who is there that has not intercepted it, and, to the heart's
+perdition perhaps, suffered it to retreat? If there be any to whom such
+apparitions are unvouchsafed, let him evoke that woman whom he would
+like his sister to resemble and his wife to be. Then, if his intuitions
+are acute, there will appear before him one who has turned sympathy into
+a garment and taken refinement for a wreath; a woman just yet debonair,
+thoughtful of others, true to herself; a woman whose speech can weary no
+more than can a star, whose mind is clean as wholesome fruit, whose
+laugh is infrequent, and whose voice consoles; a woman who makes the
+boor chivalrous, and the chivalrous bend the knee. Such an one did
+Justine Dunellen seem. In person she was tall, slender, willowy of
+movement, with just that shrinking graciousness that the old masters
+gave to certain figures which they wished to represent as floating off
+the canvas into space.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as Roland joined her, she smiled and greeted him. With her was
+a lady to whom she turned:</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Metuchen, this is Mr. Mistrial."</p>
+
+<p>And Roland found himself bowing to a little old woman elaborately
+dressed. She was, he presently discovered, a feather-head person, who
+gave herself the airs of a <i>princesse en couches</i>. But though not the
+rose, at least she dwelt near by. Her husband was Mr. Dunellen's
+partner; and to Justine, particularly since the death of her mother, she
+had become what the Germans, who have many a neat expression, term a
+<i>Wahlverwandtschaft</i>&mdash;a relation not of blood, but of choice. She was
+feather-headed, but she was a lady; she was absurd, but she was lovable;
+and by Justine she was evidently beloved.</p>
+
+<p>Roland got her a seat, found a footstool for her, and pleased her very
+much by the interest which he displayed in her family tree.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew all your people," she announced at last. And when she did so,
+her manner was so gracious that Roland felt the hour had not been thrown
+away.</p>
+
+<p>During the rest of the day he managed to be frequently in her vicinity.
+The better part of the morrow he succeeded in sharing with Justine. And
+in the evening, when the latter bade him good-night, it occurred to him
+that if what Jones had said in regard to the cousin was true, then was
+the cousin losing ground.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Mrs. Metuchen and her charge returned to town. Roland
+followed in a later train. As he crossed the ferry he told himself he
+had much to do; and on reaching New York he picked up his valise with
+the air of one who has no time to lose.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In a city like New York it is not an easy task, nor is it always a
+profitable one, to besiege a young person that is fortressed in her
+father's house. And when the house has a cousin for sentinel, and that
+cousin is jealous, the difficulty is increased. But, time and tact
+aiding, what obstacle may not be removed?</p>
+
+<p>Roland understood all this very thoroughly, and on the day succeeding
+his return from Tuxedo he examined the directory, strolled into Wall
+Street, and there, at the shingle of Dunellen, Metuchen, &amp; Such, sent in
+a card to the senior member of the firm.</p>
+
+<p>The Hon. Paul Dunellen&mdash;Honest Paul, to the world in which he moved&mdash;was
+a man who in his prime must have been of glad and gallant appearance;
+but latterly he had shrunk: his back had bent almost into a hump, he
+held his head lower than his shoulders, but with uplifted chin&mdash;a habit
+which gave him the appearance of being constantly occupied in peering at
+something which he could not quite discern, an appearance that was
+heightened by his eyes, which were restless, and by his brows, which
+were tormented and bushy. He had an ample mouth: when he spoke, the
+furrows in his cheeks moved with it. His nose was prominent; all his
+features, even to his ears, were larger than the average mould. When
+Roland was admitted to the room in which he sat, the first impression
+which he got from him was that of massiveness in decay.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Mistrial, I am glad to see you. I knew your father, and I had the
+honor of knowing your grandfather as well. Will you not take a seat?"
+The old man had half risen, and in this greeting made manifest something
+of that courtesy which we are learning to forget.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind," Roland answered. "It is because of my father that
+I venture to call. If I interrupt you, though"&mdash;and Roland, apparently
+hesitant, occupied himself in a study of his host&mdash;"if I do," he
+continued, "I beg you will allow me to come again."</p>
+
+<p>To this suggestion Mr. Dunellen refused to listen; but during the
+moments that followed, as Roland succinctly one after the other
+enumerated the facts in the case of his lost inheritance, the lawyer did
+listen; and he listened, moreover, with that air of concentrated
+attention which is the surest encouragement to him who has aught to say.
+And when Roland had completed the tale of his grievance, he nodded, and
+stroked his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"The matter is perfectly clear," he announced, "though I can't say as
+much for the law. Undue influence is evident. The trouble will be to
+invalidate a gift made during the lifetime of the donor; but&mdash;" And Mr.
+Dunellen made a gesture as who should say, It is for that that courts
+were established. "Yet, tell me, why is it that you have done nothing
+about it before?"</p>
+
+<p>To this Roland made no immediate reply. He lowered his eyes. "Paralysis
+is written in your face," he mused. Then aloud and rather sadly: "The
+fairest patrimony is an honored name," he said. "It is for me to guard
+my father's reputation. It is only recently, stress of circumstances
+aiding, I have thought that without publicity some compromise might
+possibly be effected." He looked up again, and as he looked he assured
+himself that the old man would not outlast the year.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Mistrial, you must let me quote the speech a lord made to a
+commoner, 'You are not a noble, sir, but you are worthy of being one.'"
+And Mr. Dunellen reaching out caught Roland's hand and shook it in his
+own. "I enter thoroughly into your delicacy the more readily because I
+do not encounter it every day&mdash;no, nor every month. It does me good&mdash;on
+my word it does. Now, if a compromise can, as you suggest, be effected,
+and you care to leave the matter in my hands, I will do my best to serve
+you. It may take some little time, we must seem neither zealous nor
+impatient, and meanwhile&mdash;h'm&mdash;I understood you to say something about
+your circumstances. Now if I can be of any&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This offer Roland interrupted. "You are truly very kind, sir," he broke
+in, "and I thank you with all my heart. All the more so even because I
+must refuse. I have been badly brought up, I know; you see, I never
+expected that it would be necessary for me to earn my own living; yet if
+it is, I cannot begin too soon: but what would the end be if I began by
+borrowing money?"</p>
+
+<p>As Roland delivered this fine speech he was the image of Honesty arrayed
+in a Piccadilly coat. He rose from his seat. "I am detaining you, I am
+sure. Let me get the papers together and bring them to you to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Do so, by all means," Mr. Dunellen answered, rising too. "Do so, by all
+means. But wait: to-morrow I may be absent. Could you not send them to
+my house this evening, or better still, bring them yourself? It would
+give me pleasure to have my daughter meet a man who is the moral
+portrait of his grandfather."</p>
+
+<p>"Your daughter!" Roland exclaimed. "It is not possible that she is the
+Miss Dunellen whom I saw the other day at Tuxedo."</p>
+
+<p>"With Mrs. Metuchen? Why, of course it is." And the lawyer looked as
+surprised as his client. "This is indeed a coincidence. But you will
+come, will you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall consider it a privilege to do so," Roland, with a charming
+affectation of modesty, replied; and presently, when he found himself in
+the street again, he saw, stretching out into beckoning vistas, a
+high-road paved with promises of prompt success.</p>
+
+<p>And that evening, when the papers had been delivered, and Mr. Dunellen,
+leaving the guest to his daughter's care, had gone with them to his
+study, Roland could not help but feel that on that high-road his footing
+was assured; for, on entering the drawing-room, Justine had greeted him
+as one awaited and welcome, and now that her father had gone she
+motioned him to a seat at her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," she said, "what is it you do to people? There is Mrs.
+Metuchen, who pretends to abominate young men, and openly admires you.
+To-day you captured my father; by to-morrow you will be friends with
+Guy."</p>
+
+<p>"With Guy?" Mechanically Roland repeated the phrase. Then at once into
+the very core of memory entered the lancinating pang of a nerve exposed.
+During the second that followed, in that tumult of visions that visits
+him who awakes from a swoon, there came to him the effort made in Tuxedo
+to recall in what manner the name of Dunellen was familiar to his ears;
+but that instantly departed, and in its stead came a face one blur of
+tears, and behind it a stripling livid with hate. Could that be Guy? If
+it were, then indeed would the high-road narrow into an alley, with a
+dead wall at the end. Yet of the inward distress he gave no outward
+sign. About his thin lips a smile still played, and as he repeated the
+phrase he looked, as he always did, confident and self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am sure you will like each other," the girl answered; "all the
+more so perhaps because no two people could be less alike. Guy, you see,
+is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But whatever description she may have intended to give remained
+unexpressed. A portière had been drawn, and some one was entering the
+room. Roland, whose back was toward the door, turned obliquely and
+looked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there he is!" he heard Justine exclaim; and in the man that stood
+there he saw the stripling he had just evoked. Into the palms of his
+hands a moisture came, yet as Justine proceeded with some form of
+introduction he rose to his feet. "So you are the cousin," he mused; and
+then, with a bow in which he put the completest indifference, he resumed
+his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"We were just talking of you," Justine continued. "Why didn't you come
+in last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is snowing," the cousin remarked, inconsequently, and sat himself
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Thorold, you know;" and Justine, turning to Mistrial, began to
+relate one of those little anecdotes which are serviceable when
+conversation drags.</p>
+
+<p>As she ran on, Roland, apparently attentive, marked that one of
+Thorold's feet was moving uneasily, and divined rather than saw that the
+fingers of his hand were clinched. "He is working himself up," he
+reflected. "Well, let him; it will make it the easier for me." And as he
+told himself this he turned on Thorold a glance which he was prepared
+to instantly divert. But the physician was not looking; he sat
+bolt-upright, his eyes lowered, and about his mouth and forehead the
+creases of a scowl.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Thorold was of that class of man that women always like and never
+adore. He was thoughtful of others, and considerate. Physically he was
+well-favored, and pleasant to the eye. He was sometimes dull, but rarely
+selfish; by taste and training he was a scholar&mdash;gifted at that; and yet
+through some accident of nature he lacked that one fibre which
+differentiates the hero from the herd. In the way we live to-day the
+need of heroes is so slight that the absence of that fibre is of no
+moment at all&mdash;a circumstance which may account for the fact that
+Justine admired him very much, trusted him entirely, and had she been
+his sister instead of his cousin could not have appreciated him more.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as Roland eyed him for one moment, through some of those
+indetectable currents that bring trivialities to the mind that is most
+deeply engrossed he noticed that though the physician was in dress the
+shoes he wore were not veneered. Then at once he entered into a perfect
+understanding of the circumstances in which he was placed. Though he
+lost the game even as the cards were being dealt, at least he would lose
+it well. "I'll teach him a lesson," he decided; and presently, as
+Justine ceased speaking, he assumed his gayest air.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," he exclaimed, and gave a twist to his light mustache. He had
+caught her ultimate words, and with them a cue.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember in Nepal&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And thereupon he carried his listener through a series of scenes and
+adventures which he made graphic by sheer dexterity in the use of words.
+His speech, colored and fluent, was of exactly that order which must be
+heard, not read. It was his intonation which gave it its charm, the
+manner in which he eluded a detail that might have wearied; the
+expression his face took on at the situations which he saw before
+describing, and which he made his auditor expect; and also the surety of
+his skill in transition&mdash;the art with which he would pass from one idea
+to another, connect them both with a gesture, and complete the subject
+with a smile. The <i>raconteur</i> is usually a bore. When he is not, he is a
+wizard. And as Roland passed from one peak of the Himalayas to another,
+over one of the two that listened he exerted a palpable spell. At last,
+the end of his tether reached, he turned to the cousin, and, without a
+hesitation intervening, asked of him, as though the question were one of
+really personal interest, "Dr. Thorold, have you ever been in the East?"</p>
+
+<p>Thorold, thrown off his guard, glared for an instant, the scowl still
+manifest; then he stood up. "No, sir; I have not," he answered; and
+each of the monosyllables of his reply he seemed to propel with tongue
+and teeth. "Good-night, Justine." And with a nod that was rather small
+for two to divide, took himself from the room.</p>
+
+<p>He reached the portière before Justine fully grasped the discourtesy of
+his conduct. She stared after him wonderingly, her lips half parted, her
+clear eyes dilated and amazed, the color mounted to her cheeks, and she
+made as though to leave her seat.</p>
+
+<p>But this Roland thought it wise to prevent. "Miss Dunellen," he
+murmured, "I am afraid Dr. Thorold was bored. It is my fault. I had no
+right&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bored! How could he have been? I am sure I don't see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do, my dear," thought Roland; "you think he was jealous, and
+you are wrong; but it is good for us that you should." And in memory of
+the little compliment her speech had unintentionally conveyed he gave
+another twist to his mustache.</p>
+
+<p>The outer door closed with a jar that reached him where he sat. "Thank
+God!" he muttered; and divining that if he now went away the girl would
+regret his departure, after another word or two, and despite the
+protestation of her manner, he bade her good-night.</p>
+
+<p>It is one of the charms of our lovely climate that the temperature can
+fall twenty degrees in as many minutes. When Roland entered the Dunellen
+house he left spring in the street; when he came out again there was
+snow. Across the way a lamp flickered, beneath it a man was standing,
+from beyond came a faint noise of passing wheels, but the chance of
+rescue by cab or hansom was too remote for anyone but a foreigner to
+entertain. Roland had omitted to provide himself with any protection
+against a storm, yet that omission affected him but little. He had too
+many things to think of to be anxious about his hat; and, his hands in
+his pocket, his head lowered, he descended the steps, prepared to let
+the snow do its worst.</p>
+
+<p>As he reached the pavement the man at the lamp-post crossed the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Mistrial," he called, for Roland was hurrying on&mdash;"Mistrial, I want a
+word with you."</p>
+
+<p>In a moment he was at his side, and simultaneously Roland recognized the
+cousin. He was buttoned up in a loose coat faced with fur, and over his
+head he held an umbrella. He seemed a little out of breath.</p>
+
+<p>"If," he began at once, "if I hear that you ever presume to so much as
+speak to Miss Dunellen again, I will break every bone in your body."</p>
+
+<p>The voice in which he made this threat was gruff and aggressive. As he
+delivered it, he closed his umbrella and swung it like a club.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>A nous deux, maintenant</i>," mused Roland.</p>
+
+<p>"And not only that&mdash;if you ever dare to enter that house again I will
+expose you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, will you, though?" answered Roland. The tone he assumed was
+affectedly civil. "Well now, my fat friend, let me tell you this: I
+intend to enter that house, as you call it, to-morrow at precisely five
+o'clock. Let me pick you up on the way, and we can go together."</p>
+
+<p>"Roland Mistrial, as sure as there is a God in heaven I will have you in
+the Tombs."</p>
+
+<p>"See here, put up your umbrella. You are not in a condition to expose
+yourself&mdash;let alone anyone else. You are daft, Thorold&mdash;that is what is
+the matter with you. If you persist in chattering Tombs at me in a
+snow-storm I will answer Bloomingdale to you. You frightened me once, I
+admit; but I am ten years older now, and ten years less easily scared.
+Besides, what drivel you talk! You haven't that much to go on."</p>
+
+<p>As Roland spoke his accent changed from affected suavity to open scorn.
+"Now stop your bluster," he continued, "and listen to me. Because you
+happen to find me in there, you think I have intentions on the
+heiress&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lie! She&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There, don't be abusive. I know you want her for yourself, and I hope
+you get her. But please don't think that I mean to stand in your way."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say not."</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place, I went there on business."</p>
+
+<p>"What business, I would like to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"So you shall. I took some papers for Mr. Dunellen to examine&mdash;papers
+relative to my father's estate. To-morrow I return to learn his opinion.
+Next week I go abroad again. When I leave I promise you shall find your
+cousin still heart-whole and fancy-free."</p>
+
+<p>As Roland delivered this little stab he paused a moment to note the
+effect. But apparently it had passed unnoticed&mdash;Thorold seemingly was
+engrossed in the statements that preceded it. The scowl was still on his
+face, but it was a scowl into which perplexity had entered, and which in
+entering had modified the aggressiveness that had first been there. At
+the moment his eyes wandered, and Roland, who was watching him, felt
+that he had scored a point.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you are going abroad?" he said, at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have to join my wife."</p>
+
+<p>At this announcement Thorold looked up at him and then down at the
+umbrella. Presently, with an abrupt gesture, he unfurled it and raised
+it above his head. As he did so, Roland smiled. For that night at least
+the danger had gone. Of the morrow, however, he was unassured.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we walk along," he said, encouragingly; and before Thorold knew
+it, he was sharing that umbrella with his foe. "Yes," he continued, "my
+poor father left his affairs in a muddle, but Mr. Dunellen says he
+thinks he can straighten them out. You can understand that if any
+inkling of this thing were to reach him he would return the papers at
+once. You can understand that, can't you? After all, you must know that
+I have suffered."</p>
+
+<p>"Suffered!" Thorold cried. "What's that to me? It made my mother
+insane."</p>
+
+<p>"God knows I nearly lost my reason too. I can understand how you feel
+toward me: it is only what I deserve. Yet though you cannot forget, at
+least it can do you no good to rake this matter up."</p>
+
+<p>"It is because of&mdash;" and for a second the cousin halted in his speech.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Voilà!</i>" mused Roland. "<i>Je te vois venir.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"However, if you are going abroad&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Most certainly I am. I never expect to see Miss Dunellen again."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case I will say nothing."</p>
+
+<p>They had reached Fifth Avenue, and for a moment both loitered on the
+curb. Thorold seemed to have something to add, but he must have had
+difficulty in expressing it, for he nodded as though to reiterate the
+promise.</p>
+
+<p>"I can rely upon you then, can I?" Roland asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep out of my way, sir, and I will try, as I have tried, to forget."</p>
+
+<p>A 'bus was passing, he hailed it, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Roland watched the conveyance, and shook the snow-flakes from his coat.
+"Try, and be damned," he muttered. "I haven't done with you yet."</p>
+
+<p>The disdain of a revenge at hand is accounted the uniquest possible
+vengeance. And it is quite possible that had Roland's monetary affairs
+been in a better condition, on a sound and solid basis, let us say, he
+would willingly have put that paradox into action. But on leaving Tuxedo
+he happened to be extremely hungry&mdash;hungry, first and foremost, for the
+possession of that wealth which in this admirably conducted country of
+ours lifts a man above the law, and, an adroit combination of
+scoundrelism and incompetence aiding, sometimes lands him high among the
+executives of state. By political ambition, however, it is only just to
+say he was uninspired. In certain assemblies he had taken the trouble to
+assert that our government is one at which Abyssinia might sneer, but
+the rôle of reformer was not one which he had any inclination to
+attempt. Several of his progenitors figured, and prominently too, in
+abridgments of history; and, if posterity were not satisfied with that,
+he had a very clear idea as to what posterity might do. In so far as he
+was personally concerned, the prominence alluded to was a thing which he
+accepted as a matter of course: it was an integral part of himself; he
+would have missed it as he would have missed a leg or the point of his
+nose; but otherwise it left his pulse unstirred. No, his hunger was not
+for preferment or place. It was for the ten million which the Hon. Paul
+Dunellen had gathered together, and which the laws of gravitation would
+prevent him from carrying away when he died. That was the nature of
+Roland Mistrial's hunger, and as incidental thereto was the thirst to
+adjust an outstanding account.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the nature of that account may have been, in a more ordinary
+case it might have become outlawed through sheer lapse of time. But
+during that lapse of time Roland had been in exile because of it; and
+though even now he might have been willing to let it drift back into the
+past where it belonged, yet when the representative of it not only
+loomed between him and the millions, but was even attempting to gather
+them in for himself, the possibility of retaliation was too complete to
+suffer disdain. The injury, it is true, was one of his own doing. But,
+curiously enough, when a man injures another the more wanton that injury
+is the less it incites to repentance. In certain dispositions it becomes
+a source of malignant hate. Deserve a man's gratitude, and he may
+forgive you; but let him do you a wrong, and you have an enemy for life.
+Such is the human heart&mdash;or such at least was Roland Mistrial's.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as the conveyance rumbled off into the night, he shook the
+snow-flakes from his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Try, and be damned," he repeated; "I haven't done with you yet."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>To the New Yorker March is the vilest month of all the year. In the
+South it is usually serene. Mrs. Metuchen, who gave herself the airs of
+an invalid, and who possessed the invalid's dislike of vile weather, was
+aware of this; and while the first false promises of February were being
+protested she succeeded in persuading Miss Dunellen to accompany her out
+of snow-drifts into the sun. It was Aiken that she chose as refuge; and
+when the two ladies arrived there they felt satisfied that their choice
+had been a proper one&mdash;a satisfaction which they did not share alone,
+for a few days after their arrival Roland Mistrial arrived there too.</p>
+
+<p>During the intervening weeks he had seemed idle; but it is the thinker's
+characteristic to appear unoccupied when he is most busily engaged, and
+Roland, outwardly inactive, had in reality made the most of his time.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning succeeding the encounter with Thorold something kept
+coming and whispering that he had undertaken a task which was beyond his
+strength. To many of us night is apt to be more confident than are the
+earlier hours of the day, and the courage which Roland had exhibited
+spent itself and went. It is hard to feel the flutter of a bird beneath
+one's fingers, and, just when the fingers tighten, to discover that the
+bird is no longer there. Such a thing is disappointing, and the
+peculiarity of a disappointment consists in this&mdash;the victim of it is
+apt to question the validity of his own intuitions. Thus far&mdash;up to the
+looming of Thorold&mdash;everything had been in Roland's favor. Without
+appreciable effort he had achieved the impossible. In three days he had
+run an heiress to earth, gained her father's liking, captivated her
+chaperon, and, at the moment when the air was sentient with success,
+the highway on which he strode became suddenly tortuous and obscure. Do
+what he might he could not discern so much as a sign-post; and as in
+perplexity he twirled his thumbs, little by little he understood that he
+must either turn back and hunt another quarry, or stand where he was and
+wait. Another step on that narrowing road and he might tumble into a
+gully. Did he keep his word with Thorold he felt sure that Thorold would
+keep his word with him. But did he break it, and Thorold learn he had
+done so, several consequences were certain to ensue, and among them he
+could hear from where he stood the bang with which Mr. Dunellen's door
+would close. The only plank which drifted his way threatened to break
+into bits. He needed no one to tell him that Justine was not a girl to
+receive him or anyone else in the dark; and even fortune favoring, if in
+chance meetings he were able to fan her spark of interest for him into
+flame, those chance meetings would be mentioned by her to whomsoever
+they might concern. No, that plank was rotten; and yet in considering
+it, and in considering too the possibilities to which, were it a trifle
+stronger, it might serve as bridge, he passed that morning, a number of
+subsequent mornings. A month elapsed, and still he eyed that plank.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he had seen Miss Dunellen but once. She happened to be driving
+up the Avenue, but he had passed her unobserved. Then the weather became
+abominable, and he knew it was useless to look for her in the Park; and
+once he had visited her father's office and learned again, what he
+already knew, that in regard to the lost estate, eternity aiding,
+something might be recovered, but that the chances were vague as was it.
+And so February came and found his hunger unappeased. The alternate
+course which had suggested itself came back, and he determined to turn
+and hunt another quarry. During his sojourn abroad he had generally
+managed a team of three. There was the gerundive, as he termed the
+hindmost&mdash;the woman he was about to leave; there was another into whose
+graces he had entered; and there was a third in training for future use.
+This custom he had found most serviceable. Whatever might happen in less
+regulated establishments, his stable was full. And that custom, which
+had stood him in good stead abroad, had nothing in it to prevent
+adoption here. Indeed, he told himself it was because of his negligence
+in that particular that he found himself where he was. Instead of
+centring his attention on Miss Dunellen, it would have been far better
+to wander in and out of the glittering precincts of Fifth Avenue, and
+see what else he could find. After all, there was nothing like being
+properly provisioned. If one comestible ran short, there should be
+another to take its place. Moreover, if, as Jones had intimated, there
+were heiresses enough for export purposes, there must surely be enough
+to supply the home demand.</p>
+
+<p>The alternate course alluded to he had therefore determined to adopt,
+when an incident occurred which materially altered his plans. One
+particularly detestable morning he read in public print that Mrs.
+Metuchen and Miss Dunellen were numbered among the visitors to South
+Carolina, and thereupon he proceeded to pack his valise. A few days
+later he was in Aiken, and on the forenoon of the third day succeeding
+his arrival, as he strolled down the verandah of the Mountain Glen
+Hotel, he felt at peace with the world and with himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was a superb morning, half summer, half spring. In the distance a
+forest stretched indefinitely and lost itself in the haze of the horizon
+beyond. The sky was tenderly blue, and, beneath, a lawn green as the
+baize on a roulette-table was circled by a bright-red road. He had
+breakfasted infamously on food that might have been cooked by a butcher
+to whom breakfast is an odious thing. Yet its iniquity he accepted as a
+matter of course. He knew, as we all do, that for bad food, bad service,
+and for futility of complaint our country hotels are unrivalled, even in
+Spain. He was there not to enjoy himself, still less for the pleasures a
+blue ribbon can cause: he was there to fan into flame the interest which
+Miss Dunellen had exhibited; and as he strolled down the verandah, a
+crop under his arm, his trousers strapped, he had no intention of
+quarrelling with the fare. Quite a number of people were basking in the
+sunlight, and, as he passed, some of them turned and looked; for at
+Aiken men that have more than one lung are in demand, and, when Roland
+registered his historic name, to the unattached females a little flutter
+of anticipation came.</p>
+
+<p>But Roland was not in search of flirtations: he moved by one group into
+another until he reached a corner of the verandah in which Mrs.
+Metuchen and Miss Dunellen sat. Merely by the expression on the faces of
+those whom he greeted it was patent to the others that the trio were on
+familiar terms; and when presently he accompanied Miss Dunellen off the
+verandah, aided her to mount a horse that waited there, mounted another
+himself, and cantered off with the girl, the unattached females declared
+that the twain must be engaged. In that they were in error. As yet
+Roland had not said a word to the charge he might not have said to the
+matron. Both of these ladies had been surprised when he reached Aiken,
+and both had been pleased as well. In that surprise, in that pleasure,
+Roland had actively collaborated; and taking on himself to answer before
+it was framed the question which his advent naturally prompted, he
+stated that in journeying from Savannah to Asheville he had stopped over
+at Aiken as at a halfway house, and that, too, without an idea of
+encountering anyone whom he knew. Thereafter for several days he managed
+to make himself indispensable to the matron, companionable to her
+charge; but now, on this particular morning, as he rattled down the red
+road, the courage which had deserted him returned; and a few hours
+later, when before a mirror in his bedroom he stood arranging his
+cravat, he caught a reflection of Hyperion, son-in-law of Cr&oelig;sus.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In a fortnight that reflection was framed with a promise. Justine had
+put her hand in his. The threads by which he succeeded in binding her to
+him are needless to describe. He understood that prime secret in the art
+of coercing affection which consists in making one's self desired. He
+was never inopportune. Moreover, he saw that Justine, accustomed to the
+devotion of other men, accepted such devotion as a matter of course; in
+consequence he took another tack, and bullied her&mdash;a treatment which was
+new to her, and, being new, attractive. He found fault with her openly,
+criticised the manner in which she sat her horse, contradicted her
+whenever the opportunity came, and jeered&mdash;civilly, it is true, but the
+jeer was there and all the sharper because it was blunted&mdash;at any
+enthusiasm she chanced to express. And then, when she expected it
+least, he would be enthusiastic himself, and enthusiastic over nothing
+at all&mdash;some mythical deed canned in history, the beauty of a child, or
+the flush of the arbutus which they gathered on their rides. To others
+whom he encountered in her presence he showed himself so
+self-abnegatory, so readily pleased, sweet-tempered, and indulgent, so
+studious even of their susceptibilities and appreciative of what they
+liked and what they did not, that in comparing his manner to her and his
+manner to them the girl grew vexed, and one evening she told him so.</p>
+
+<p>They happened to be sitting alone in a corner of the verandah. From
+within came the rhythm of a waltz; some dance was in progress,
+affectioned by the few; Mrs. Metuchen was discussing family trees with a
+party of Philadelphians; the air was sweet with the scent of pines and
+of jasmines; just above and beyond, a star was circumflexed by the moon.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry if I have offended," he made answer to her complaint. "Do
+you mind if I smoke?" Without waiting for her consent he drew out a
+cigarette and lighted it. "I have not intended to," he added. "To-morrow
+I will go."</p>
+
+<p>"But why? You like it here. You told me so to-day."</p>
+
+<p>With a fillip of forefinger and thumb Roland tossed the cigarette out
+into the road. "Because I admire you," he answered curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of that."</p>
+
+<p>The reproof, if reproof there were, was not in her speech, but in her
+voice. She spoke as one does whose due is conceded only after an effort.
+And for a while both were mute.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, children, it is time to go to bed." Mrs. Metuchen in her
+fantastic fashion was hailing them from the door. Already the waltz had
+ceased, and as Mrs. Metuchen spoke, Justine rose from her seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Don Quichotte," the old lady added; and as the girl
+approached she continued in an audible undertone, "I call him Don
+Quichotte because he looks like the Chevalier Bayard."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Mrs. Metuchen, and the pleasantest of dreams." But the
+matron, with a wave of her glove, had disappeared, and Justine returned.</p>
+
+<p>"At least you will not go until the afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since you wish it, I will not."</p>
+
+<p>She had stretched out her hand, but Roland, affecting not to notice it,
+raised his hat and turned away. Presently, and although, in spite of
+many a vice, he was little given to drink, he found himself at the bar
+superintending the blending of gin, of lemon-peel, and of soda; and as
+he swallowed it and put the goblet down he seemed so satisfied that the
+barkeeper, with the affectionate familiarity of his class, nodded and
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"It takes a Remsen Cooler to do the trick, don't it?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>And Roland, assenting remotely, left the bar and sought his room.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, as through different groups he sought for matron and
+for maid, he had a crop under his arm and in his hand a paper.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been settling my bill," he announced.</p>
+
+<p>"But are you going?" exclaimed Mrs. Metuchen.</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly take up a permanent residence here, can I?" he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Justine," the old lady cried, and clutched the girl by the arm,
+"persuade him not to." And fixing him with her glittering eyes, she
+added, "If you go, sir, you leave an Aiken void."</p>
+
+<p>The jest passed him unnoticed. He felt that something had been said
+which called for applause, for Mrs. Metuchen was laughing immoderately.
+But his eyes were in Justine's as were hers in his.</p>
+
+<p>"You will ride, will you not? I see you have your habit on." And with
+that, Justine assenting, he led her down the steps and aided her to the
+saddle.</p>
+
+<p>There are numberless tentative things in life, and among them an amble
+through green, deserted lanes, where only birds and flowers are, has
+witcheries of its own. However perturbed the spirit may have been, there
+is that in the glow of the morning and the gait of a horse that can make
+it wholly serene. The traveller from Sicily will, if you let him, tell
+of hours so fair that even the bandits are coerced. Man cannot always be
+centred in self; and when to the influence of nature is added the
+companionship of one whose presence allures, the charm is complete. And
+Roland, to whom such things hitherto had been as accessories, this
+morning felt their spell. The roomy squalor of the village had been
+passed long since. They had entered a road where the trees arched and
+nearly hid the sky, but through the branches an eager sunlight found its
+way. Now and then in a clearing they would happen on some shabby, silent
+house, the garden gay with the tender pink of blossoming peach; and at
+times, from behind a log or straight from the earth, a diminutive negro
+would start like a kobold in a dream and offer, in an abashed, uncertain
+way, a bunch of white violets in exchange for coin. And once an old man,
+trudging along, saluted them with a fine parabola of hat and hand; and
+once they encountered a slatternly negress, very fat and pompous, seated
+behind a donkey she could have carried in her arms. But practically the
+road was deserted, fragrant, and still.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as they rode on, interchanging only haphazard remarks, Roland
+swung himself from his horse, and, plucking a spray of arbutus, handed
+it to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it," he said; "it is all I have."</p>
+
+<p>His horse had wandered on a step and was nibbing at the grass, and, as
+he stood looking up at her, for the first time it occurred to him that
+she was fair. However a girl may seem in a ball-room, if she ever looks
+well she looks best in the saddle; and Justine, in spite of his
+criticism, did not sit her horse badly. Her gray habit, the high white
+collar and open vest, brought out the snuff-color of her eyes and hair.
+Her cheeks, too, this morning must have recovered some of the flush they
+had lost, or else the sun had been using its palette, for in them was
+the hue of the flower he had gathered and held.</p>
+
+<p>She took it and inserted the stem in the lapel of her coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you think of me if I remained?"</p>
+
+<p>"What would I? I would think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>As she hesitated she turned. He could see now it was not the sun alone
+that had been at work upon her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Let <i>me</i> tell. You would think that a man with two arms for sole income
+has no right to linger in the neighborhood of a girl such as you. That
+is what you would think, what anyone would think; and while I care
+little enough about the existence which I lead in the minds of other
+people, yet I do care for your esteem. If I stay, I lose it. I should
+lose, too, my own; let me keep them both and go."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not yet see why?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't!" The answer was so abrupt in tone that you would have said
+he was irritated at her remark, judging it unnecessary and ill-timed.
+"You don't!" he repeated. "Go back a bit, and perhaps you will remember
+that after I saw you at your house I did not come back again."</p>
+
+<p>"I do indeed remember."</p>
+
+<p>"The next day I saw you in the Park; I was careful not to return."</p>
+
+<p>"But what have I done? You said last night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you question? You know it is because I love you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you shall not go."</p>
+
+<p>"I must."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall <i>not</i>, I say."</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall take with me the knowledge that the one woman I have loved
+is the one woman I have been forced to leave."</p>
+
+<p>"Roland Mistrial, how can you bear the name you do and yet be so unjust?
+If you leave me now it is because you care more for yourself than you
+ever could for me. It is not on my account you go: it is because you
+fear the world. There were heroes once that faced it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and there were Circes then, as now."</p>
+
+<p>As he made that trite reply his face relaxed, and into it came an
+expression of such abandonment that the girl could see the day was won.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me&mdash;you will not go?"</p>
+
+<p>Roland caught her hand in his, and, drawing back the gauntlet of kid, he
+kissed her on the wrist. "I will never leave you now," he answered;
+"Only promise you will not regret."</p>
+
+<p>"Regret!" She smiled at the speech&mdash;or was it a smile? Her lips had
+moved, but it was as though they had done so in answer to some prompting
+of her soul. "Regret! Do you remember you asked me what I would think if
+you remained? Well, I thought, if you did, there were dreams which do
+come true."</p>
+
+<p>At this avowal she was so radiant yet so troubled that Roland detained
+her hand. "She really loves," he mused; "and so do I." And it may be,
+the forest aiding, that, in the answering pressure which he gave, such
+heart as he had went out and mingled with her own.</p>
+
+<p>"Between us now," he murmured, "it is for all of time."</p>
+
+<p>"Roland, how I waited for you!"</p>
+
+<p>Again her lips moved and she seemed to smile, but now her eyes were no
+longer in his, they were fixed on some vista visible only to herself.
+She looked rapt, but she looked startled as well. When a girl first
+stands face to face with love it allures and it frightens too.</p>
+
+<p>Roland dropped her hand; he caught his horse and mounted it. In a moment
+he was at her side again.</p>
+
+<p>"Justine!"</p>
+
+<p>And the girl turning to him let her fresh lips meet and rest upon his
+own. Slowly he disengaged the arm with which he had steadied himself on
+her waist.</p>
+
+<p>"If I lose you now&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"There can be no question of losing," she interrupted. "Have we not come
+into our own?"</p>
+
+<p>"But others may dispute our right. There is your cousin, to whom I
+thought you were engaged; and there is your father."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as for Guy&mdash;" and she made a gesture. "Father, it is true, may
+object; but let him. I am satisfied; in the end he will be satisfied
+also. Why, only the other day I wrote him you were here."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" At the intelligence he wheeled abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Already Justine had turned, and lowering her crop she gave her horse a
+little tap. The beast was willing enough; in a moment the two were on a
+run, and as Roland's horse, a broncho, by-the-way, one of those eager
+animals that decline to remain behind, rushed forward and took the lead,
+"Remember!" she cried, "you are not to leave me now."</p>
+
+<p>But the broncho was self-willed, and this injunction Roland found or
+pretended it difficult to obey; and together, through the green lane and
+out of it, by long, dismal fields of rice, into the roomy squalor of the
+village and on to the hotel, they flew as though some fate pursued.
+Justine never forgot that ride, nor did Roland either.</p>
+
+<p>At the verandah steps Mrs. Metuchen was in waiting. "I have a telegram
+from your father," she called to Justine. "He wishes you to return
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow?" the girl exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Thorold has learned I am here, and has told," her lover reflected. And
+swinging from his saddle he aided the girl to alight.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," Mrs. Metuchen with large assumption of resignation replied;
+"and we may be thankful he did not say to-day."</p>
+
+<p>And as Roland listened to the varying interpretations of the summons
+which, during the absence of her charge, Mrs. Metuchen's riotous
+imagination had found time to conceive, "Thorold has told," he repeated
+to himself, "but he has told too late."</p>
+
+<p>After a morning such as that, an afternoon on a piazza is apt to drag.
+Of this Roland was conscious. Moreover, he had become aware that his
+opportunities were now narrowly limited; and presently, as Mrs.
+Metuchen's imaginings subsided and ceased, he asked the girl whether,
+when dinner was over, she would care to take a drive.</p>
+
+<p>Protest who may, at heart every woman is a match-maker; and Mrs.
+Metuchen was not an exception. In addition to this, she liked
+family-trees, she was in cordial sympathy with good-breeding, and
+Roland, who possessed both, had, through attentions which women of her
+age appreciate most, succeeded in detaining her regard. In conversation,
+whenever Justine happened to be mentioned, she had a habit of extolling
+that young woman&mdash;not beyond her deserts, it is true, but with the
+attitude of one aware that the girl had done something which she ought
+to be ashamed of, yet to which no one was permitted to allude. This
+attitude was due to the fact that she suspected her, and suspected that
+everyone else suspected her, of an attachment for her cousin Guy. Now
+Guy Thorold had never appealed to Mrs. Metuchen. He was not prompt with
+a chair; when she unrolled her little spangle of resonant names he
+displayed no eagerness in face or look. Such things affect a woman. They
+ruffle her flounces and belittle her in her own esteem. As a
+consequence, she disliked Guy Thorold; from the heights of that dislike
+she was even wont to describe him as Poke&mdash;a word she could not have
+defined had she tried, but which suggested to her all the attributes of
+that which is stupid and under-bred. Roland, on the other hand, seemed
+to her the embodiment of just those things which Thorold lacked, and in
+the hope that he might cut the cousin out she extolled him to her charge
+in indirect and subtle ways. You young men who read this page mind you
+of this: if you would succeed in love or war, be considerate of women
+who are no longer young. They ask but an attention, a moment of your
+bountiful days, some little act of deference, and in exchange they sound
+your praises more deftly than ever trumpeter or beat of drums could do.</p>
+
+<p>But because Mrs. Metuchen had an axe of her own to grind was not to her
+mind a reason why she should countenance a disregard of the Satanic
+pomps of that which the Western press terms Etiquette. And so it
+happened that, when Roland asked Justine whether she would care to
+drive, before the girl could answer, the matron stuck her oar in:</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Mr. Mistrial, you cannot think Miss Dunellen could go with you
+alone. Not that <i>I</i> see any impropriety in her doing so, but there is
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>The world at that moment consisted of a handful of sturdy consumptives
+impatiently waiting the opening of the dining-room doors. And as Roland
+considered that world, he mentally explored the stable.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," he answered; "if Miss Dunellen cares to go, I will have
+a dogcart and a groom."</p>
+
+<p>With that sacrifice to conventionality Mrs. Metuchen was content. For
+Justine to ride unchaperoned was one thing, but driving was another
+matter. And later on, in the cool of the afternoon, as Roland bowled the
+girl over the yielding sand, straight to the sunset beyond, he began
+again on the duo which they had already rehearsed, and when Justine
+called his attention to the groom, he laughed a little, and well he
+might. "Don't mind him," he murmured; "he is deaf."</p>
+
+<p>In earlier conversations he had rarely spoken of himself, and, when he
+had, it had been in that remote fashion which leaves the personal
+pronoun at the door. There is nothing better qualified to weary the
+indifferent than the speech in which the I jumps out; and knowing this,
+he knew too that that very self-effacement before one whose interest is
+aroused excites that interest to still higher degrees. The <i>Moi seul est
+haïssable</i> is an old maxim, one that we apprehend more or less to our
+cost no doubt, and after many a sin of egotism; but when it is learned
+by rote, few others serve us in better stead. In Roland's relations
+with Justine thus far it had served him well. It had filled her mind
+with questions which she did not feel she had the right to ask, and in
+so filling it had occupied her thoughts with him. It was through arts of
+this kind that Machiavelli earned his fame.</p>
+
+<p>But at present circumstances had changed. She had placed her hand in
+his; she had avowed her love. The I could now appear; its welcome was
+assured. And as they drove along the sand-hills she told him of herself,
+and drew out confidences in exchange. And such confidences! Had the
+groom not been deaf they might have given him food for thought. But they
+must have satisfied Justine, for when they reached the hotel again her
+eyes were so full of meaning that, had Mrs. Metuchen met her in a pantry
+instead of on the verandah, she could have seen unspectacled that the
+girl was fairly intoxicated&mdash;drunk with that headiest cup of love which
+is brewed not by the contact of two epiderms, but through communion of
+spirit and unison of heart.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, when supper was done, Mrs. Metuchen, to whom any breath of
+night was synonymous with miasmas and microbes, settled herself in the
+parlor, and in the company of her friends from School Lane discussed
+that inexhaustible topic&mdash;Who Was and Who Was Not.</p>
+
+<p>But the verandah, deserted at this hour by the consumptives, had
+attractions for Justine, for Roland as well; and presently, in a corner
+of it that leaned to the south, both were seated, and, at the moment,
+both were dumb. On the horizon, vague now and undiscerned, the
+peach-blossoms and ochres of sunset had long since disappeared; but from
+above rained down the light and messages of other worlds; the sky was
+populous with stars that seemed larger and nearer than they do in the
+north; Venus in particular shone like a neighborly sun that had strayed
+afar, and in pursuit of her was a moon, a new one, so slender and
+yellow you would have said, a feather that a breath might blow away. In
+the air were the same inviting odors, the scent of heliotrope and of
+violets, the invocations of the woodlands, the whispers of the pines.
+The musicians had been hushed, or else dismissed, for no sound came from
+them that night.</p>
+
+<p>Roland had not sought the feverish night to squander it in
+contemplation. His hand moved and caught Justine's. It resisted a
+little, then lay docile in his own. For she was new to love. Like every
+other girl that has passed into the twenties, she had a romance in her
+life, two perhaps, but romances immaterial as children's dreams, and
+from which she had awaked surprised, noting the rhythm yet seeking the
+reason in vain. They had passed from her as fancies do; and, just as she
+was settling down into leisurely acceptance of her cousin, Roland had
+appeared, and when she saw him a bird within her burst into song, and
+she knew that all her life she had awaited his approach. To her he was
+the fabulous prince that arouses the sleeper to the truth, to the
+meaning, of love. He had brought with him new currents, wider vistas,
+and horizons solid and real. He differed so from other men that her mind
+was pleasured with the thought he had descended from a larger sphere.
+She idealized him as girls untrained in life will do. He was the lover
+unawaited yet not wholly undivined, tender-hearted, impeccable,
+magnificent, incapable of wrong&mdash;the lover of whom she may never have
+dreamed, yet who at last had come. And into his keeping she gave her
+heart, and was glad, regretting only it was not more to give. She had no
+fears; her confidence was assured as Might, and had you or I or any
+other logician passed that way and demonstrated as clearly as <i>a</i> = <i>a</i>
+that she was imbecile in her love, she would not have thanked either of
+us for our pains. When a woman loves&mdash;and whatever the cynic may
+affirm, civilization has made her monandrous&mdash;she differs from man in
+this: she gives either the first-fruits of her affection, or else the
+semblance of an after-growth. There are men, there are husbands and
+lovers even, who will accept that after-growth and regard it as the
+verdure of an enduring spring. But who, save a lover, is ever as stupid
+as a husband? Man, on the other hand, is constant never. Civilization
+has not improved him in the least. And when on his honor he swears he
+has never loved before, his honor goes unscathed, for he may never yet
+have loved a woman as he loves the one to whom he swears.</p>
+
+<p>With Justine this was the primal verdure. Had she not met Roland
+Mistrial, she might, and in all probability would, have exhibited
+constancy in affection, but love would have been uncomprehended still.
+As it was, she had come into her own; she was confident in it and
+secure; and now, though by nature she was rebellious enough, as he
+caught her hand her being went out to him, and as it went it thrilled.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you," he said; and his voice was so flexible that it would have
+been difficult to deny that he really did. "I will love you always, my
+whole life through."</p>
+
+<p>The words caressed her so well she could have pointed to the sky and
+repeated with Dona Sol:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Regarde: plus de feux, plus de bruit. Tout se tait.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La lune tout à l'heure à l'horizon montait:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tandis que tu parlais, sa lumière qui tremble<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et ta voix, toutes deux m'allaient au c&oelig;ur ensemble:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Je me sentais joyeuse et calme, ô mon amant!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et j'aurais bien voulu mourir en ce moment."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But at once some premonition seemed to visit her. "Roland," she
+murmured, "what if we leave our happiness here?"</p>
+
+<p>And Roland, bending toward her, whispered sagely: "We shall know then
+where to find it."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>New York meanwhile, in its effeminateness, had forgotten the snow, and
+was listening to the sun. And the day after the return from Aiken, as
+Roland, in accordance with an agreement of which the <i>locus sigilli</i> had
+a kiss for token, went down to knock at Mr. Dunellen's office door, the
+sky was as fair as it had been in the South. Yet to him it was
+unobtrusive. His mind was occupied with fancies that had a birth, a
+little span of life, and which in passing away were succeeded by others
+as ephemeral as themselves&mdash;thoughts about nothing at all that came and
+went unnoticed: a man he had met in Corfu, and whom a face in the street
+recalled; the glisten of silk in a window that took him back to
+Japan;&mdash;but beneath them was a purpose settled and dominant, a
+resolution to trick Fate and outwit it&mdash;one which, during the journey
+from Aiken, had so possessed him that, in attending to the wants of Mrs.
+Metuchen or in ministering to Justine, at times he had been
+quasi-somnambulistic, at others wholly vague. But now, as he gave his
+card to an office-boy, to all outward intent he was confident and at
+ease; he picked up a paper and affected to lose himself in its columns.
+Presently the boy returned, and he was ushered into the room which he
+had previously visited. On this occasion Mr. Dunellen was not seated,
+but standing, his back to the door. As Roland entered he turned, and the
+young man stepped forward, his hand outstretched.</p>
+
+<p>To his contentment, and a little also to his surprise, in answer to that
+outstretched hand Honest Paul extended his, and Roland had the pleasure
+of holding three apparently docile fingers in his own; but in a moment
+they withdrew themselves, and he felt called upon to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dunellen," he began, with that confident air a creditor has who
+comes to claim his due, "Mr. Dunellen, I have ventured to interrupt you
+again. And again I am a suppliant. But this time it is of your daughter,
+not of my father, that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, and well he might. Mr. Dunellen, who had remained
+standing, and who in so doing had prevented Roland from sitting down,
+now assumed the suspicious appearance of one who detects an unpleasant
+smell; his features contracted, and for no other reason, apparently,
+than that of intimidating the suppliant in his prayer.</p>
+
+<p>But Roland was not to be abashed; he recovered himself, and continued
+glibly enough: "The matter is this. I am sincerely attached to your
+daughter, and I am come to ask your consent to our marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the purpose of your visit, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is."</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter is aware of it, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is."</p>
+
+<p>"And she consented, did she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm! My daughter has made a mistake. I told her as much last night.
+There can be no question of marriage. You will do me the favor to let
+the matter drop."</p>
+
+<p>"I am hot a rich man, Mr. Dunellen, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"So I am informed. But that has nothing to do with it. There are other
+things that I take into consideration, and in view of them I insist that
+this matter be dropped."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dunellen, I love your daughter; I have reason to believe that she
+cares for me. We became engaged a few days ago. I came here now to ask
+your consent. If you refuse it, I have at least the right to ask what
+your objection is."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather unnecessary, don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot imagine, sir, what you mean." And Roland, holding himself
+unaffectedly straight, without the symptom of a pose, looked the old man
+in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>That look Mr. Dunellen returned. "Take a seat," he said; and, motioning
+Roland to a chair, he sat down himself.</p>
+
+<p>"All this is needless," he announced; "but since you are anxious for an
+explanation, I will give it. In the first place, when you were at my
+house you remember that my nephew Dr. Thorold happened in. The other day
+I mentioned to him that you were at Aiken. He then informed me of a
+certain incident in your career, one which you have not forgotten, and
+of which I do not care to speak. I may say, however, that it utterly
+precludes the possibility of any further intercourse between my daughter
+and yourself."</p>
+
+<p>And the old man, still gazing at his guest, added: "This explanation
+should, it seems to me, suffice." But he made no attempt to rise, or to
+signify that the interview was at an end, and Roland, who was shrewd,
+interpreted this in his own favor. "He is not altogether positive," he
+reflected, "but he can be so to-morrow," and with a show of shame that
+did him credit he hung his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I had thought the incident to which you refer was forgotten," he
+murmured, penitently enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgotten? Do you suppose Thorold forgets? Do you suppose any man could
+forget a thing like that&mdash;a sister's death, a mother's insanity? No, you
+did not think it was forgotten. What you thought was this: you thought
+that my nephew would hesitate to speak; and indeed even to me for ten
+years he has kept silent. But now&mdash;there, you need not fear a criminal
+charge. It was that you feared once, I understand, and it was on that
+account you went abroad. At this date, of course, no proof is possible;
+and, even were it otherwise, a charge would not be brought. Linen of
+that kind is better washed at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dunellen, if you could know! It is the regret of my life."</p>
+
+<p>"That I can believe; but I believe also that our natures never vary. We
+may mould and shape them to our uses, but beneath the surface they
+remain unchanged. I say this parenthetically. In regard to this incident
+there are in one particular certain excuses you might allege&mdash;youth for
+instance, inexperience, common attraction, love even. If you did, I
+could enter into them. I have been young myself, and I have no wish to
+imply that through the temptations of youth I passed unscathed. The man
+who asserts he has reminds me of the horseman who declares he has never
+been thrown. Nor because your victim happened to be my niece am I
+actuated by retrospective indignation. I am too old for that; and,
+moreover, the incident is too stale. No: my reason for forbidding my
+daughter to receive you, as I have done, is this: the man that can
+seduce a girl, and then, to conceal the effect, permit her to be
+butchered by a quack, especially when he could have protected her by
+marriage&mdash;that man, Mr. Mistrial, I tell you very plainly, is a
+scoundrel, and being a scoundrel will never be anything else." And as
+Honest Paul made this assertion he stood up and nodded affirmatively at
+his guest.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very hard, Mr. Dunellen."</p>
+
+<p>"I may be, but so is justice."</p>
+
+<p>"If I could tell you all. It was so sudden, so unpremeditated even, at
+the first idea of a possibility of a catastrophe I lost my head."</p>
+
+<p>"It was your honor you lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and for years I have tried to recover it."</p>
+
+<p>"That I am glad to learn, and I hope you have succeeded; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And will you not aid me?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my sight you can never appear an honest man."</p>
+
+<p>At this reproach, Roland, who had sat like Abjection, one hand
+supporting his head, his eyes lowered and his body bent, sprang to his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>"There are several forms of honesty," he exclaimed, "and frankness I
+believe is counted among them. That you evidently possess. Let me
+emulate you in it. I intend that your daughter shall be my wife. If you
+don't care to come to the wedding your presence can be dispensed with."
+And without any show of anger, but with an inclination of the head that
+was insolent in its deference, he picked up his hat and left the room.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he found himself in the street. "Who is ever as stupid as a
+wise man?" he queried, and laughed a little to himself&mdash;"unless"&mdash;and he
+fell to wondering whether Dunellen could have told his daughter all. On
+the corner a cab was loitering; he hailed and entered it. A little later
+he was ringing at the door of Honest Paul's abode.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Miss Dunellen was at home. And as the servant drew the portière to
+the drawing-room aside, Roland was visited by that emotion the gambler
+knows who waits the turning of a card. Another second, and the
+expression of the girl's face would tell him what the future held. The
+drawing-room, however, happened to be untenanted, and as he paced its
+spacious splendors he still wondered was she or was she not informed. In
+a corner was a landscape signed Courbet&mdash;a green ravine shut down by
+bluest sky. The coloring was so true, it jarred. In another was a
+statue&mdash;a cloaked and hooded figure of Death supporting a naked girl. As
+he contemplated it, he heard the tinkle of the portière rings. It was
+she, he knew; he turned, and at once his heart gave an exultant throb;
+in her eyes was an invitation; he put his arms about her, and for a
+moment held her so.</p>
+
+<p>She does not know, he told himself, and to her he murmured, "I have
+come to say good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, Roland." She led him to a seat. "Wait; I spoke to father last
+night; he has some objection&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you I was poor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is that, I suppose; he did not say&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He will never consent, unless&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There, Roland. I know him best." She closed her eyes, and as he gazed
+at her it seemed to him she had done so to shut some memory out. "It is
+money with him always; you do not know&mdash;" And between her parted lips
+she drew a breath he heard. "Last night he told me I must never see you
+again. Hitherto his will has ruled: it is my turn to-day."</p>
+
+<p>With this there came a splendor to her he had never marked before; she
+looked defiant, and resolute as well. There was strength in her face,
+and beauty too.</p>
+
+<p>"He is unjust," she added. "It was my duty to tell him, and there my
+duty ends. I am not a school-girl. I know my mind; better, perhaps,
+than he knows his own. I have obeyed him always. It is easy to obey, but
+now I will act for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"He will never give his consent," Roland repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"He may keep it, then."</p>
+
+<p>Within her something seemed to rankle; and as Roland, mindful of the
+slightest change in her expression, detected this, he wondered what it
+could portend.</p>
+
+<p>"Sweetheart," he ventured, "I have these two arms; they are all in all
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>At this Justine awoke at once. "If I did not know it&mdash;feel it; if I were
+not sure of it, do you think I would speak to you as I do? No, Roland. I
+have something of my own; when we are married, believe me, his consent
+will come at once."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not his consent I want&mdash;you know that; it is yours."</p>
+
+<p>"You have it, Roland; I gave it you among the pines."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your hat, then? Let us go."</p>
+
+<p>He caught her to him again, then suffered her to leave the room. And as
+the portière which he had drawn that she might pass fell back into its
+former folds, for a moment he stood perplexed. Somewhere a screw was
+loose, he could have sworn. But where? Could it be that Honest Paul was
+supporting a separate establishment? or did Justine think he wished to
+mate her to some plutocrat of his choice? The first supposition was
+manifestly absurd; the second troubled him so little that he turned and
+occupied himself with the naked girl swooning in the arms of Death.</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready, Roland." It was Justine, bonneted and veiled, buttoning her
+glove.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a cab," he answered, and followed her to the door.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Roland and Justine re-entered the drawing-room that afternoon they
+found Mr. Dunellen there. With him was Guy Thorold.</p>
+
+<p>During the infant days of photography family groups were so much in
+vogue that anyone with an old album in reach can find them there in
+plenty. They are faded, no doubt; the cut of the garments is absurd;
+even the faces seem to have that antique look which is peculiar to the
+miniatures of people dead and departed: yet the impression they convey
+is admirably exalting. That gentleman in the wonderful coat must have
+been magnificent in every sphere of life: his mere pose, his attitude,
+is convincing as a memoir. And that lady in the camel's-hair shawl&mdash;how
+bewitchingly lovable she surely was! There is her daughter, who might be
+her niece, so prettily does she seem inclined to behave; and there is
+the son, a trifle effaced perhaps, yet with the makings of a man
+manifest even in that effacement. Oh, good people! let us hope you were
+really as amiable as you look: the picture is all we have of you; even
+your names are forgot; and truly it were discomforting to have the
+impression you convey disturbed in its slightest suggestion. We love you
+best as you are; we prefer you so. I, for one, will have none of that
+cynicism which hints that had a snap camera caught you unprepared the
+charm would disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Yet now, in the present instance, as Mr. Dunellen and his nephew stood
+facing Roland and Justine, a photographer who had happened there could
+have taken a family group which would in no manner have resembled those
+which our albums hold.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you last night," Mr. Dunellen was shrieking, "that I forbade you
+to see that man."</p>
+
+<p>And Justine, raising her veil, answered, "He was not my husband then."</p>
+
+<p>"Husband!" The old man stared at his daughter, his face distorted and
+livid with rage. "If you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But whatever threat he may have intended to make, Thorold interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"He is married already," he cried; "he is no more your husband than I."</p>
+
+<p>At this announcement Mr. Dunellen let an arm he had outstretched fall to
+his side; he turned to Thorold, and Justine looked wonderingly in
+Roland's face.</p>
+
+<p>"What does he mean?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Roland shrugged his shoulders, "God knows," he answered. "He must be
+screwed."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> married," Thorold called out. "You needn't attempt to deny it
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't in the least: this lady has just done me the honor to become my
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have another&mdash;you told me so yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Roland, who had been really perplexed, could not now conceal a smile.
+He remembered that he had indeed told Thorold he was married, but he had
+done so merely as an easy way of diverting the suspicions which that
+gentleman displayed.</p>
+
+<p>Justine, still looking at him, caught the smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you speak?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What is there to say?" he answered. "It is false as an obituary."</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell him so."</p>
+
+<p>But for that there was no time. Mr. Dunellen, trained in procedure, had
+already questioned Thorold, and found that save Mistrial's word he had
+nothing to grapple on.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave the house, sir," he shouted, and pointed to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"When he goes, father, I go too."</p>
+
+<p>"Then go." And raising his arms above his head as though to invoke the
+testimony of heaven, he bawled at her, "I disown you."</p>
+
+<p>"There's Christian forbearance," muttered Mistrial; and he might have
+asserted as much, but Justine had lowered her veil.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said.</p>
+
+<p>And as she and her husband passed from the room the old man roared
+impotently "I disinherit you&mdash;you are no longer my child."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you tell me he had been used to having his own way?" Roland
+asked, as he put Justine in the cab; and without waiting for an answer
+he told the driver to go to the Brunswick, and took a seat at her side.</p>
+
+<p>In certain crises the beauty of an old adage asserts itself even to the
+stupidest. Roland had taken the bull by the horns and got tossed for his
+pains; yet even while he was in the air he kept assuring himself that he
+would land on his feet. The next morning the memory of the old man's
+anger affected him not at all. Passion, he knew, burns itself out, and
+its threats subside into ashes. The relentless parent was a spectacle
+with which the stage had made him so familiar that he needed no
+prompter's book to tell him that when the curtain fell it would be on a
+tableau of awaited forgiveness. And even though Mr. Dunellen and the
+traditional father might differ, yet on the subject of wills and
+bequests he understood that the legislature had in its wisdom prevented
+a testator from devising more than one-half his property to the
+detriment of kith and of kin. If things came to the worst Justine would
+get five million instead of ten; and five million, though not elastic
+enough, as Jones had said, to entertain with, still represented an
+income that sufficed for the necessaries of life. On that score his mind
+was at rest. Moreover, it was manifestly impossible for Justine's father
+to live forever: there was an odor of fresh earth about him which to his
+own keen nostrils long since had betokened the grave; and if meanwhile
+he chose to keep the purse-strings drawn, Justine had enough from her
+mother's estate to last till the strings were loosed.</p>
+
+<p>Rents are high in New York, and to those bred in certain of its manors
+there is a choice between urban palaces and suburban flats. But Paris is
+less fastidious. In that lovely city a thousand-franc note need not be
+spent in a day; and in Italy the possibilities of the lira are great.</p>
+
+<p>In view of these things, Roland and his wife one week later took ship
+and sailed for France.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IA" id="IA"></a>I.</h2>
+
+
+<p>To those that have suffered certain things there are forms of
+entertainment which neither amuse nor bore, but which pain. And this
+evening, as Justine sat in the stalls, the play which was being given,
+and which, as plays go, was endurable enough, caused her no pleasure, no
+weariness even, only a longing to get away and be alone. Now and then a
+shudder visited her, her hand tightened on her fan, and at times she
+would close her eyes, dull her hearing, and try to fancy that her
+girlhood was recovered, that she was free again, that she was dead, that
+her husband was&mdash;anything imaginable in fact, save the knowledge that
+she was there, side-by-side with him, and that presently they would
+return together to the hideousness of their uptown flat.</p>
+
+<p>She had been married now a little more than two years, and during the
+latter portion of that time life had held for her that precise dose of
+misery which is just insufficient to produce uncertainties of thought in
+a mind naturally exalted. There had indeed been moments in which the
+possibility of insanity had presented itself, and there had been moments
+also in which she would have welcomed that possibility as a grateful
+release: but those moments had passed, the possibility with them; and
+this evening as she sat in the stalls her outward appearance was much
+such as it had been two years before. But within, where her heart had
+been, was a cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>Among our friends and acquaintances there are always those who to our
+knowledge have tombstones of their own. But there are others that evolve
+a world&mdash;one that glows, subsides, and dies away unknown to any save
+themselves. The solitudes of space appall; the solitudes of the heart
+can be as endless as they. In those which Justine concealed, a universe
+had had its being and its subsidence; a universe with gem-like hopes for
+stars&mdash;one in which the sun had been so eager its rays had made her
+blind. There had been comets gorgeous and tangential as aspirations ever
+are; there had been the colorless ether of which dreams are made; and
+for cosmic matter there was love. But now it was all dispersed; there
+was nothing left, one altar merely&mdash;the petrefaction of a prayer erected
+long since in the depths of her distress, and which for conscience' sake
+now and then she tended still.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as the play at which she assisted unrolled before her unseeing
+eyes, one by one scenes from another drama rose unsummoned in its stead.
+First was the meeting with Mistrial at Tuxedo, then the episode at
+Aiken, the marriage that followed, and the banishment that ensued: a
+banishment, parenthetically, which at the time being she was powerless
+to understand. Her father's anger had indeed weighed on her; but it was
+not wholly that&mdash;she was too much in love to let it be more than a
+shadow on her delight; nor was it because of unfamiliar lands: it was
+that little by little, through incidents originally misunderstood and
+then more completely grasped, the discovery, avoided yet ever returning,
+came to her, stayed with her, and made her its own&mdash;that the man whom
+she had loved and the man whom she had married were separate and
+distinct.</p>
+
+<p>The psychologist of woman has yet to appear, and if he keep us waiting
+may it not be because every woman he analyzes has a sister who differs
+from her? The moment he formulates a rule it is over-weighted by
+exceptions. Woman often varies, the old song says; but not alone in her
+affections does she do so: she varies in temperament as well. And, after
+all, is it not the temperament that makes or mars a life? Justine, in
+discovering that the man she married and the man whom she loved were
+separate and distinct, instead of being disgusted with herself and with
+him, as you, madam, might have been, tried her utmost to forget the
+lover and love the husband that had come in his place. In this effort
+she had pride for an aid. The humiliation which the knowledge of
+self-deception brings is great, but when that knowledge becomes common
+property the humiliation is increased. The world&mdash;not the world that
+ought to be, but the world as it is&mdash;is more apt to smile than condole.
+There may be much joy in heaven over the sinner that repents: on earth
+the joy is at his downfall. And according to the canons we have made for
+ourselves, Justine, in listening to the dictates of her heart instead of
+to those of her father, had sinned, so grievously even that that father
+had bid her begone from his sight. She was aware of this, and in
+consequence felt it needful to hold her head the higher. And so for a
+while she made pride serve as fig-leaf to her nakedness. If abashed at
+heart, at least the world should be uninformed of that abashment.</p>
+
+<p>This effort on her part Mistrial hindered to the best of his ability.
+Whether or not he loved her, whether save himself he was capable of
+loving anyone, who shall say? Men too are difficult to decipher. There
+were hours when after some <i>écart</i> he would come to her so penitent, so
+pleasant to the eye, and seemingly so afflicted at his own misconduct,
+that Justine found the strength&mdash;or the weakness, was it?&mdash;to forgive
+and to forget anew.</p>
+
+<p>During this period they lived not sumptuously, perhaps, but in that
+large and liberal fashion which requires a ponderable rent-roll to
+support; and at that time, however Mistrial comported himself elsewhere,
+in her presence he had the decency to seem considerate, and affectionate
+as well. But meanwhile, through constant demands, the value of the
+letter of credit into which he had converted the better part of her
+mother's estate became impaired. Retrenchment was necessary, and that is
+never a pleasant thing. The man that passes out of poverty into wealth
+finds the passage so easy, so Lethean even, that he is apt to forget
+what poverty was; but when, as sometimes happens, he is obliged to
+retrace his steps, he walks bare of foot through a path of thorns. To
+count gold, instead of strewing it, is irritating to anyone not a sage,
+and Mistrial, who was not a sage, was irritated; and having, a wife
+within beck and call he vented that irritation on her.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that Justine began to feel the full force of the
+banishment. That her husband was, and in all probability would continue
+to be, unfaithful to her, was a matter which she ended by accepting with
+a degree of good sense which is more common than is generally supposed.
+At first she had been indeed indignant, and when in that indignation her
+anger developed into a heat that was white and sentiable, Mistrial
+experienced no remorse whatever, only a desire to applaud. He liked the
+force and splendor of her arraignment; it took him out of himself; it
+made him feel that he was appreciated&mdash;feared even; that a word from
+him, and a tempest was loosened or enchained.</p>
+
+<p>But what is there to which we cannot accustom ourselves? Justine ended,
+not by a full understanding of the fact that man is naturally
+polygamous; but little by little, through channels undiscerned even by
+herself, the idea came to her that, if the man she loved could find
+pleasure in the society of other women, it was because she was less
+attractive than they. It was this that brought her patience, the more
+readily even in that, at her first paroxysm, Mistrial, a trifle alarmed
+lest she might leave him, had caught her in his arms, and sworn in a
+whisper breathed in her ear, that of all the world he loved her best.</p>
+
+<p>Madam, you who do the present writer the honor to read this page are
+convinced, he is sure, that your husband would rather his tongue cleaved
+to the roof of his mouth than break the vow which bound you to him. But
+you, madam, have married a man faithful and tried. You know very well
+with what dismay he tells you of Robinson's scandalous conduct, and you
+know also how he pities Robinson's poor little wife; yet when, in your
+sorrow at what that poor little woman has to put up with, you are
+tempted to go and condole with her, pause, madam&mdash;Mrs. Robinson may be
+equally tempted to condole with You.</p>
+
+<p>There are&mdash;in Brooklyn, in Boston, and in other recondite regions&mdash;a
+number of clever people who have been brought up with the idea that
+Divorce was instituted for just such a thing as this. Yet in one hundred
+cases out of a hundred-and-one a woman who appeals to the law never does
+so because her husband has broken a certain commandment. If his
+derelictions are confined to that particular offence she may bewail,
+and we all bewail with her; but if she wants the sympathy of judge, of
+jury, and of newspaper-public too, she must be prepared to allege other
+grievances. She must show that her husband is unkind, that he is
+sarcastic, that he is given to big words and short sentences; in brief,
+that he has developed traits which render life in common no longer to be
+endured.</p>
+
+<p>It was traits of this description that Mistrial unexpectedly developed,
+and it was during their development that the sense of banishment visited
+Justine. She was unable to make further transference of her affections;
+the lover had disappeared; the husband she had tried to love in his
+place had gone as well. For sole companion she had a man who had worn a
+mask and dropped it; where he had been considerate, he was selfish; when
+he spoke, it was to find fault; now that he could no longer throw her
+money out of the windows, he threw his amiability in its stead. By day
+he was taciturn, insultingly dumb; at night he was drunk.</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial had served his novitiate where the <i>pochard</i> is rare. It is we
+that drink, and with us the English, the Slavs, and Teutons; but in the
+East and among the Latins sobriety is less a matter of habit than of
+instinct. And in lands where man prefers to keep his head clear,
+Mistrial, at that age, which is one of the most impressionable of all,
+had seen no reason to lose his own. But presently the small irritations
+of enforced economy affected his manners, and his habits as well. He
+took to absinthe in the morning, and, as he happened to be in France, he
+drank at night that brutal brandy they give you there. Not continuously,
+it is true. There were days when the man for whom Justine had forsaken
+her home returned so completely she could almost fancy he had never
+gone. Then, without a word of warning, at the very moment when Faith was
+gaining fresh foothold, the tragi-comedy would be renewed; he was off
+again, no one knew whither, returning only when the candle had been
+utterly consumed.</p>
+
+<p>Such things are enough to affect any woman's patience, and Justine's
+became wholly warped. It was unaccountable to her that he could treat
+her as he did. She watched the gradual transformation of the perfect
+lover into the perfect beast with a species of sorrow&mdash;a dual sorrow in
+whose component parts there was pity for herself and for him as well.</p>
+
+<p>The idea that he had married her uniquely because of her father's
+wealth, that he was impatient to get it, and that when he got it he
+would squander all he could on other women, occurred to her only in the
+remotest ways, and then only through some expression which, in his
+exasperation of the diminishing bank account and the unreasonable time
+which it took her father to forgive her, fell from him now and then by
+chance. For Mistrial had indeed counted on that forgiveness. He had even
+counted on receiving it by cable, of finding that it had preceded and
+awaited them before their ship reached France. And when, to use an idiom
+of that land, it made itself expected, he was confident that the longer
+it delayed the completer it would be. At the utmost he had not dreamed
+that the old man would detain it more than a few months; but when
+twenty-four went by, and not only no forgiveness was manifest, but
+through his own improvidence the funds ran low,&mdash;so low, in fact, that
+unless forgiveness were presently forthcoming they would be in straits
+indeed,&mdash;he dictated a letter, penitent and humble, one in which
+impending poverty stood out as clearly as though it had been engraved,
+and which it revolted her to send. Its inspiration, however, must have
+been patent to Mr. Dunellen, for that gentlemen's reply, expressed in
+the third person, was to the effect that if his daughter returned to him
+he would provide for her as he had always done, but in no other
+circumstances could he assist.</p>
+
+<p>Had Justine been anyone but herself she might have acted on the
+invitation: but the tone of it hurt her; she was annoyed at having
+permitted herself to send the letter Mistrial had dictated, and to which
+this was the reply. Her pride was up&mdash;all the more surely because she
+knew her father had been right; and there is just this about pride&mdash;as a
+matter of penitence it forces us to suffer those consequences of our own
+wrongdoing which through a simple confession it were easy to escape. To
+Justine such confession was impossible. She had left her father in the
+full certainty that he was wrong, and when she found he was not, death
+to her were preferable to any admission of the grievousness of her own
+mistake.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Mistrial's aunt assisted at the funeral of a sister
+spinster, sat in a draught, caught cold in her throat, and, the glottis
+enlarging, strangled one night in her bed. By her will the St. Nicholas
+Hospital received the bulk of her property. The rest of her estate was
+divided among relatives; to her nephew Roland Mistrial&mdash;3d no
+longer&mdash;was bequeathed the princely sum of ten thousand dollars in cash.
+At the news of this munificence Roland swore and grit his teeth. Had his
+circumstances been different it is probable that the ten thousand,
+together with some enduring insult, he would have flung after her to the
+eternal purgatory where he prayed she had gone. As it was, the modicity
+of the bequest sobered him. Through some impalpable logic he had counted
+but little on any inheritance at all; he had indeed hoped vaguely that
+she might die and leave him what she had; and it may even be that, had
+he learned that her will was in his favor, and had a suitable
+opportunity presented itself, in some perfectly decorous manner he would
+have hastened his aunt's demise. But concerning her will he had no
+information; moreover, during his visit to the States the old lady saw
+as little of him as she could help; and when she did see him, in spite
+of gout and the ailments of advancing years there was such a rigidity in
+her manner that the nephew told himself she might live long enough to
+see him hanged. As a consequence he had expected nothing. But when the
+news of her death reached him, together with the intelligence that
+instead of the competence he might possibly have had he was mentioned
+merely to the tune of ten thousand dollars,&mdash;this outrage, in
+conjunction with Dunellen's relentlessness, sobered him to that degree,
+that for a day and a night he gave himself to a debauch of thought. From
+this orgy he issued with clearer mind. It may be&mdash;though the idea
+advanced is one that can only be hazarded&mdash;it may be that had his aunt
+disposed of her estate in his favor he would there and then have washed
+his hands of the job he had undertaken, and left his wife to her own
+devices. As it was, he saw that, to keep his head above water, the only
+possible plank was one that Mr. Dunellen might send in his reach; and it
+was with the knowledge that before the present scanty windfall
+disappeared some conquest of Honest Paul's affection should be attempted
+that he determined to return to New York. Once there again, who knew
+what might happen? Surely, if the preceding year Mr. Dunellen had
+strength for violence, to the naked eye he was even then manifestly
+infirm. There was no gainsaying the matter&mdash;he at least would not live
+very long. As to the disposition of his property after death Mistrial
+was still assured. Whatever his attitude might be for the present, in
+the end he could not wholly disinherit Justine&mdash;at least one-half the
+property must come to her. On that fact Mistrial would have staked his
+life; after all, it was the one hope he had left; and an ultimate hope,
+we all know, is the thing we part with last.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he recovered himself. He became amiable and considerate&mdash;a
+change of demeanor which gave Justine a chill. She consented
+nevertheless to the return trip, and the day after arriving called at
+her father's house. When she got back to the hotel where they had put up
+Mistrial was waiting for her. In answer to his questions she told him
+that her father was willing to receive her, but her alone. "You must
+take your choice," he had said, she repeated&mdash;"You must take your
+choice."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that choice?" Mistrial had asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I have made it," she answered, "and by it I will abide."</p>
+
+<p>But at this he had expostulated; and when, seeing at last what he
+meant&mdash;understanding that he would have her feign a compliance for the
+sake of coin which at her father's death she could come back and share
+with him&mdash;when, divining the infamy of his thought, she refused, he had
+struck her in the face.</p>
+
+<p>Because a man is not Chesterfield, it does not follow he is Sykes.
+Mistrial had never struck a woman before, and in this initial assault it
+is probable that he was actuated less by a desire to punish than by that
+force which overmasters him who has ceased to be master of himself. By
+instinct he was not a gentleman; for some time past he had not even
+taken the trouble to appear one; yet at that moment, dancing in derision
+before him, he saw the letters that form the monosyllable Cad. The sense
+of abasement he displayed was so immediate and sincere, that Justine,
+who, trembling with anger and disgust, stood staring in his face, read
+it there and understood. Instead of separating them forever, the blow
+reunited their hands. During the week that followed they were nearer to
+each other than they had been for months before. The reconciliation was
+seemingly complete. Mistrial made himself the lover again, and Justine
+permitted herself to be wooed. They left their hotel and found a
+flat&mdash;a furnished apartment in the neighborhood of Central Park; and
+there the storm departing placed a rainbow in its stead.</p>
+
+<p>A rainbow, however, is not a fixture, and this one went its way. While
+Justine closed her eyes Mistrial's were alert. He had no intention of
+suffering her to be disinherited, and though it was well enough to rely
+on the courts it was better still not to be forced to do so. Rather than
+run an avoidable risk he would have abandoned his wife, and forced her
+through that abandonment to return to her father's house, convinced that
+afterwards he could win her together with the estate back again to him.
+Meanwhile another interview could not in any way jeopardize the chances
+to which he clung. On the contrary, it might be highly serviceable. Mr.
+Dunellen, he had learned, was much broken; he had given up his practice,
+the the world even, everything in fact save perhaps the devil that was
+in him, and sat uncompanioned in the desolate and spacious emptiness of
+his house. It was only natural that he should wish to coerce his
+daughter into obedience; yet now that he saw she was steadfast, her
+pride unhumbled still, it was not improbable that he would yield; it was
+presumable even that he was then waiting, weak of heart, prepared at her
+next advance to welcome and forgive.</p>
+
+<p>Of these things Mistrial made his wife aware, and it was then that the
+rainbow departed. His arguments were as revolting as the cynicism they
+exhaled. But she made no attempt to combat them. Since she had seen her
+father she had felt a sorrow for him that Mistrial's altered demeanor
+had given her time to heed. She knew that his attitude was due to her
+defiance of his express commands, but she had no reason to suppose that
+he had any other objection to her husband than such as his poverty might
+have caused or instinctive antipathy might bring. But now, her own
+experience aiding, she knew that he had been right; and, as he seemed
+feeble and dispassionate, in answer to Mistrial's arguments she tied her
+bonnet-strings and went. It was early in the afternoon when she started,
+it was night when she returned.</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial had been waiting for her, and when she entered the room in
+which he sat he rose eagerly and aided her with her wrap. He was
+impatient, she could see; and she was impatient also.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not tell me of Guy's sister?" she began, at once.</p>
+
+<p>And as he answered nothing she continued: "Years ago I knew of what she
+died; it was only to-day I learned that it was you who murdered her."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a lie."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, protest. I knew you would."</p>
+
+<p>"From whom is it you heard this thing? Not from your father, I am sure."
+As Mistrial spoke he gazed at her inquisitorially with shrewd,
+perplexing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What does it matter?" she answered. Her head was thrown back, her lips
+compressed. "What does it matter since the charge is true?"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is false," he cried; "it is a wanton lie. Your father never
+could have stated it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but he did, though; and Guy was there to substantiate what he
+said."</p>
+
+<p>"Guy!" As he pronounced her cousin's name there came into his face an
+expression which she knew and which she had learned to dread. "Madam,
+you mean your lover, I suppose. And it is his <i>ipse dixit</i> you accept in
+preference to mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mistrial, you know he is not my lover."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he was in love with you, and you with him."</p>
+
+<p>"So he was; so he is, I think; and it was not until this night I saw my
+own mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Voilà!</i>" said Roland, suddenly calmed. He paused a second, and after
+eying the polish of his finger-nails, affected to flick a speck of dust
+from his sleeve. "Your cousin is mad," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"He is sane as&mdash;" and Justine hesitated for a simile.</p>
+
+<p>"His mother, you mean. Were you never aware that insanity is hereditary?
+If his sister&mdash;presupposing that the accusation which he formulates
+against me was originally advanced by her&mdash;if his sister&mdash;whom, by the
+way, I never saw but once&mdash;if his sister accused me of complicity, then
+she suffered from the hereditary taint as well. If I was guilty of what
+your cousin charges, why was I not arrested, tried, and sentenced? But
+are you such a dolt you cannot see that Guy is mad&mdash;mad not only by
+nature, but crazed by jealousy as well. You say you know he loves you.
+You have even the candor to admit that you love him! Now ask yourself
+what would any impartial hearer deduce from statements such as yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father was an impartial hearer, and he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But how is it possible to be so blind? Can you not see that your cousin
+has prejudiced him against me? I said, impartial hearer. But let the
+matter drop. I tell you the charge is false; believe it or not, as you
+prefer. There is, however, just this in the matter: if the charge is
+made again, I will have your cousin under arrest. You forget that there
+is such a thing as libel still."</p>
+
+<p>Again he paused, and strove to collect himself; there was a design in
+the carpet which appeared to interest him very much, but presently he
+looked up again.</p>
+
+<p>"Now tell me," he said, "what did your father say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, save what he said before."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing that you would care to hear." Her eyes roamed from the
+neighbourly ceiling over to him and back again. "He said," she added,
+"that if I persisted in living with you his money would go to my child,
+if I had one; if I had none, then to Guy."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you alone with him when he said this, or was Guy, as you call him,
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was alone with him; Guy came later."</p>
+
+<p>"And is he aware of this provision?"</p>
+
+<p>For all response Justine shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Does he know it, I ask you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He does not," she answered. "Father told me that he never would, until
+the will was read."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm." And for a moment Mistrial mused. Then presently he smiled&mdash;yet
+was it a smile?&mdash;a look that an hallucinated monk in a medieval abbey
+might have seen on that imaginary demon who, flitting by him, the
+forefinger outstretched, whispered as he vanished through the wall,
+"Thou art damned, dear friend! thou art damned!" "H'm," he repeated;
+"and in view of the provisions of your father's will, will you tell me
+why is it that you are without a child?"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he had arisen, and, smiling still, though now as were he
+questioning her in regard to the state of the weather, he looked into
+her eyes. She had drawn yet further back into the chair in which she
+sat; a deadly sickness overcame her; to her head there mounted the
+nausea of each one of his many misdeeds. The memory of the blow of the
+week before, one which, despite her seeming forbearance, had not ceased
+to rankle, returned to her; and with it, one after another in swift
+succession, she rememorated the offences of the past. But soon she too
+was on her feet and fronted him. "Why is it I am without a child?" she
+repeated. Her voice was low and clear, and between each word she
+permitted a little pause to intervene. "Why is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The subtlety of his reproach battening on nerves already overwrought was
+exciting her as nothing had done before. "It is you," she cried, "who
+are to blame. What have you done with your youth? What have you done
+with your manhood? Look at me, Roland Mistrial! If I have borne you no
+child it is because monsters never engender." As she spoke, with one
+gesture she tore her bodice down. Her breast, palpitant with health and
+anger too, heaving at the sheer injustice of his reproach, confronted
+and confuted him. "It is there that women have their strength; tell me,
+if you can, what have you done with yours?"</p>
+
+<p>And thereat, with a look a princess might give to a lackey who had dared
+to question her, she turned and left him where he stood.</p>
+
+<p>The next day he tried to make his peace with her. In this he succeeded,
+or flattered himself he had, for subsequently she consented to accompany
+him to the play. And as she sat in the stalls it was of these things
+that she thought.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IIA" id="IIA"></a>II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The information which Mistrial gleaned concerning the provisions of his
+father-in-law's will was bitter in his mouth. On the morrow he gave some
+time to thought&mdash;he read too a little. The taunt which Justine had flung
+at him, bit; and with the idea of dulling the hurt and of ministering
+also to his own refreshment, he consulted a book which treated of
+certain conditions of the nervous system, and a work on medical
+jurisprudence as well. But literature of that kind is notoriously
+unsatisfactory. It may suggest, yet the questions which it prompts
+remain unanswered. Roland put the volumes down: they were productions of
+genius, no doubt, but to him they were nothing more. From the pursuit of
+exact knowledge he turned and looked out into the street.</p>
+
+<p>The hour then was midway in one of those green afternoons which we are
+apt to fancy the adjunct of lands we never see, and as he looked he saw
+astride a bay hunter a man ambling cautiously over the stones. From the
+roofs opposite a breath of lilacs came, and a breeze that was neither
+cool nor warm loitered on its way from the river beyond. Mistrial let
+the breeze, the fragrance, the fulfilment of spring, pass unnoticed. The
+bay hunter had caught his eye: it seemed to him that an argument with an
+imperative horse was just the thing he needed most, and a little later
+he secured a cob from a stable on the street above.</p>
+
+<p>The cob was docile enough, affecting once only to regard a sewer-grating
+in the bridle-path as a strange, unhallowed thing which it was needful
+to avoid. But the initial shy was the last. The spur gave him such a nip
+that during the remainder of the ride, whatever distasteful object he
+may have encountered, he gave no outward evidence of abhorrence. He had
+an easy canter, a long and swinging trot; and now on one, now on the
+other, they passed through and out of the Park, and on beyond the
+brand-new edifices that line Seventh Avenue, to that scantier outlying
+district where the Harlem begins and the city ends. And here as he was
+about to turn he noticed a gig such as physicians affect. In it was a
+negro driving, and at his side sat Justine's cousin, Guy.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" mused Mistrial; "judging by the locality, his patients must be
+the last people in the city." At the moment the feebleness of the jest
+pleasured him; then simultaneously the unforgotten hatred crackled in
+his breast. At each one of the important epochs of his life that man had
+stood in his way. It was he that had forced him from college at the
+moment when honors were within his reach. It was he that had kept him
+from his father's side at the time when he might have saved his father's
+estate. It was he that had come between Dunellen and himself at the
+hour when he could have persuaded Justine's father to give him Justine's
+hand. It was he that had forced him to elope with her. It was because of
+him that he was now enjoying the small miseries of the shabby genteel.
+It was he, unless Providence now intervened, who would inherit the
+wealth he had toiled to make his own. And it was he who the day before
+had again crossed and halted in his path.</p>
+
+<p>These premises, however colored, were logical enough in this&mdash;the
+natural deduction sprang out and greeted the eye. And, as they flashed
+before him, Mistrial saw himself rinsing out each one in blood squeezed
+from Thorold's throat. In the fury which suddenly beset him he could
+have found the strength, the courage it may be, to have torn him from
+the gig in which he sat, to have trampled on him with horse's hoofs,
+bent over and beat him as he writhed on the ground, and exulted and
+jubilated in the doing of it. Then indeed, though he swung for it, the
+ultimate victory would be his. If he stamped Thorold out of existence,
+though his own went with it, he would not have suffered wholly in vain;
+in facing the gallows he would have the joy of knowing that even were he
+prevented from bathing in the Dunellen millions, so was Thorold too.</p>
+
+<p>But when he looked out from himself his enemy had disappeared. A woman
+in an open landau passed and bowed. Mechanically Mistrial raised his
+hat. To every intent and purpose he was self-possessed&mdash;occupied, if at
+all, but with those threads of fancy that float in and out the mind. As
+he raised his hat, he smiled; the woman might have thought herself the
+one it gave him the greatest pleasure to salute. Her carriage had not
+advanced the jump of a cat before he had forgotten that she lived. But
+no one can turn his brain into a stage, create for it, and feel a drama
+such as he had without some outward manifestation, be it merely a
+strangled oath. On the horse he rode his knees had tightened, he gave a
+dig with the spur, and went careering down the street. In that part of
+New York you are at liberty to cover a mile in two minutes. Roland
+covered thirty squares at breakneck speed.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he drew the animal in and suffered him to walk. During the run
+he had had no time to think; he had been occupied only in keeping the
+horse he rode out of the way of vehicles, and in preventing that
+possible cropper which comes when we expect it least. But as the cob
+began to walk, the present returned to him with a rush. About the
+animal's neck the fretting of the reins had produced a lather; the
+breeze had died away. Mistrial felt overheated too, and he drew out a
+handkerchief and wiped his face. Even while he drew it from his pocket
+an idea came to him, fluttered for a second as ideas will, and before he
+got the handkerchief back it had gone, leaving him just a trifled
+dazed. But in a moment he called to it, and at his bidding it returned.
+It was minute, barely fledged as yet; but as the horse jogged on, little
+by little it expanded, and to such an extent that before he reached the
+park its pinions stretched from earth to sky. Whoso is visited with
+inspirations knows with what diabolical swiftness they can enlarge and
+grow. When Mistrial put the horse back in the stable the idea which at
+first he had but dimly intercepted possessed him utterly. It succeeded
+even in detaining his step: he walked up the street instead of down; at
+a crossing he hesitated; night had come, and as he loitered there,
+suddenly the whole avenue was bright as day. The vengeance which not an
+hour before he could have wreaked on Thorold seemed now remote and
+paltry too. There need be no shedding of blood, no scandal, no newspaper
+notoriety, no police, no coroner to sit upon a corpse, no jury to bring
+a verdict in. There need be nothing of this: a revenge of that order
+was in bad taste, ill-judged as well. To make a man really suffer,
+sudden death was as a balm in comparison to some subtle torment that
+should gnaw at the springs of life, retreat a moment, and then returning
+make them ache again, and still again, forever his whole life through.
+The French woman is not so ill-advised when she pitches a cup of vitriol
+in her betrayer's face. In Spain, in Italy even, they stab; the deed is
+done; the culprit has had no chance to experience anger, pain even, or
+remorse. He is dead. The curtain falls. But a revenge that blasts and
+corrodes, one that leaves the victim living, sound in body and in limb,
+and yet consumed by an inextinguishable regret, burning with tortures
+from which he can never escape&mdash;a thing like that is the work, not of an
+apprentice, but of a master in crime. Yet when the victim receives that
+cup of vitriol, not from another's hands, but from his own; when he has
+been lured into devastating his own self;&mdash;it is no longer a question of
+either apprentice or of master: it is the artist that has been at work.
+To gain the Dunellen millions was to Mistrial a matter of paramount
+importance; but to gain them through the instrumentality of the man whom
+he hated as no one ever hates to-day, particularly when that man was the
+one to whom those millions were provisionally bequeathed, when he was
+one whom Mistrial&mdash;justly or unjustly, it matters not&mdash;fancied and
+believed was plotting for them; to gain them, not only through him, but
+through his unwitting, unintentional agency, through an act which, so
+soon as he learned its purport, all his life through he would regret and
+curse;&mdash;no, that were indeed a revenge and a reparation too. And as he
+thought of it there entered his eyes a look perplexing and
+enervating&mdash;that look which demons share with sphinxes and the damned.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IIIA" id="IIIA"></a>III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>During the two years which Mistrial had passed in the society of his
+wife, opportunities of studying her there had been in plenty. He knew
+her to be docile and headstrong; weak, if at all, but with that weakness
+that comes of lassitude; violent when provoked, prone to forgive,
+sensitive, impulsive, yet obdurate; in brief, the type of woman that may
+be entreated, but never coerced. He knew her faults so well he could
+have enumerated them one after the other on his finger-tips: her
+qualities, however, had impressed him less; it may be that he had
+accepted them as a matter of course. He was aware that she was honest;
+he had noticed that she was capable of much self-sacrifice; of other
+characteristics he had given little heed. It goes without the telling,
+that in regard to what is known as jealousy he had not suffered even an
+evanescent disquietude. And that night and during the morning that
+followed, as he occupied himself in nursing the idea which had visited
+him on horseback, that particular fact occurred to him more than once.
+But one does not need to be a conspirator to understand that the
+steadiest virtue is as susceptible of vice as iron is of rust.</p>
+
+<p>Justine had announced that her cousin was still in love with her; she
+had announced with equal distinctness that she recognized her own
+mistake; while for himself he was convinced that she no longer cared. To
+these things he added certain deductions which his experience of men and
+women permitted him to draw; and had the result they presented been made
+to order, it could not have fitted more perfectly into the scheme which
+he had devised.</p>
+
+<p>It was then high noon. Through the window came the irresistible breath
+of a rose in bloom. As he left the house it surrounded him in the
+street. He smiled a greeting at it. "I have spring in my favor," he
+mused, and presently boarded a car.</p>
+
+<p>The principles of successful enterprise may be summarized as consisting
+of a minute regard for details, and an apparent absence of zeal.
+Mistrial's many mistakes had taught him the one and trained him in the
+other. When the car he had taken reached the Gilsey House, he alighted,
+hailed a four-wheeler, stationed it in such a manner that it commanded a
+view of the adjacent street, coached the driver in regard to a signal he
+might give, entered the cab, lit a cigarette, and prepared to wait.</p>
+
+<p>In that neighborhood there are four or five basement houses of the style
+that is affectioned by milliners, dentists, and physicians. One of these
+particularly claimed Mistrial's attention. He saw a woman in gray enter
+it, and almost simultaneously a woman come out; then a man leading a
+child went in; and in a little while the first woman reappeared.
+Mistrial glanced at his watch; it lacked a minute of one. "He has a
+larger practice than I thought," he reflected. The woman in gray had now
+nearly reached the cab in which he sat, and from sheer force of habit he
+was preparing to scrutinize her as she passed, when the door of the
+house reopened and Thorold appeared on the step. He looked up the
+street, then down. He had his hat on, and his every-day air. In a second
+Mistrial had drawn the curtain and was peering through the opening at
+the side. He saw Thorold leave the step and turn toward Fifth Avenue; he
+signalled to the driver, and the cab moved on.</p>
+
+<p>At the corner Thorold turned again, the cab at his heels, and Mistrial
+saw that the physician was moving in the direction of Madison Square. It
+occurred to him that Thorold might be going to Mr. Dunellen's, and on
+the block below, as the latter crossed the asphalt, he made sure of it.
+But opposite the Brunswick the cab stopped; Thorold was entering the
+restaurant.</p>
+
+<p>Cold chicken looks attractive in print. A minute or two later, as
+Mistrial examined the bill of fare, he ordered some for himself; he
+ordered also a Demidorf salad,&mdash;a compound of artichokes' hearts and
+truffles, familiarly known as Half-Mourning,&mdash;and until the waiter
+returned hid himself behind a paper. Thorold meanwhile, who was seated
+at an adjoining table, must have ordered something which required longer
+preparation, for Mistrial finished the salad before the physician was
+served. But Mistrial was in no hurry; he had a pint of claret brought
+him, and sipped it leisurely. Now and then he glanced over at Thorold,
+and twice he caught his eye. At last Thorold called for his bill.
+Mistrial paid his own, and presently followed him out into the street.
+When both reached the sidewalk, Mistrial, who was a trifle in the rear,
+touched him on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Thorold," he said; and the physician turned, but there was nothing
+engaging in his attitude: he held his head to one side, about his lips
+was a compression, a contraction in his eyes; one arm was pendent, the
+other pressed to his waistcoat, and the shoulder of that arm was
+slightly raised. He looked querulous and annoyed&mdash;a trifle startled,
+too.</p>
+
+<p>"Thorold," Mistrial repeated, "give me a moment, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>The physician raised the arm that he had pressed against his waistcoat,
+and, with four fingers straightened and the fifth askew, stroked an
+imaginary whisker.</p>
+
+<p>"It is about Justine," Mistrial continued. "She is out of sorts; I want
+you to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" And Thorold looked down and away.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I had intended to speak to Dr. McMasters; but when by the merest
+chance I saw you in there I told myself that, whatever our differences
+might be, there was no one who would understand the case more readily
+than you."</p>
+
+<p>As Mistrial spoke he imitated the discretion of his enemy; he looked
+down and away. The next moment, however, both were gazing into each
+other's face.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm." Thorold, as he stared, seemed to muse. "I saw her the other day,"
+he said, at last; "she looked well enough then."</p>
+
+<p>"But can't a person look well and yet be out of sorts?"</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial was becoming angry, and he showed it. It was evident, however,
+that his irritation was caused less by the man to whom he spoke than by
+the physician whom he was seeking to consult. This Thorold seemed to
+grasp, for he answered perplexedly:</p>
+
+<p>"After what has happened I don't see very well how I can go to your
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Thorold: the past is over and done with&mdash;ill done, you will
+say, and I admit it. Be that as it may, it has gone. At the same time
+there is no reason why any shadow of it should fall on Justine. She is
+really in need of some one's advice. Can you not give it to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," Thorold answered, "I can do that;" and he looked very
+sturdy as he said it. "Only&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Only what? If you can't go as a friend, at least you might go as a
+physician."</p>
+
+<p>Thorold's hand had slid from his cheek to his chin, and he nibbled
+reflectively at a finger-nail.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," he said; "I will go to her. Is she to be at home this
+afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"The evening would be better, I think. Unless, of course&mdash;" and Mistrial
+made a gesture as though to imply that, if Thorold's evening were
+engaged, a visit in the afternoon might be attempted.</p>
+
+<p>But the suggestion presumably was acceptable. Thorold drew out a
+note-book, at which he glanced.</p>
+
+<p>"And I say," Mistrial continued, "I wish&mdash;you see, it is a delicate
+matter; Justine is very sensitive&mdash;I wish you wouldn't say you met me.
+Just act as though&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Give yourself no uneasiness, sir." Thorold had replaced the note-book
+and looked up again in Mistrial's face. "I never mention your name." And
+thereat, with a toss of the head, he dodged an omnibus and crossed the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Mistrial gazed after him, then he turned, and presently he
+was ordering a glass of brandy at the Brunswick bar.</p>
+
+<p>It was late that night when he reached his home. During the days that
+followed he had no fixed hours at all. Several times he entered the
+apartment with the smallest amount of noise that was possible, and
+listened at the sitting-room door. At last he must have heard something
+that pleased him, for as he sought his own room he smiled. "<i>Maintenant,
+mon cher, je te tiens.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The next day he surprised Justine by informing her that he intended to
+pay a visit to a relative. He was gone a week.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IVA" id="IVA"></a>IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>That night the stars, dim and distant, were scattered like specks of
+frost on some wide, blue window-pane. At intervals a shiver of wheels
+crunching the resistant snow stirred the lethargy of the street, and at
+times a rumble accentuated by the chill of winter mounted gradually, and
+passed on in diminishing vibrations. Within, a single light, burning
+scantily, diffused through the room the drowsiness of a spell. In the
+bed was Justine, her eyes dilated, her face attenuated and pinched. One
+hand that lay on the coverlid was clinched so tightly that the nails
+must have entered the flesh. Presently she moaned, and a trim little
+woman issued from a corner with the noiseless wariness of a rat. As she
+passed before the night-light, the silhouette of a giantess, fabulously
+obese, jumped out and vanished from the wall. For a moment she
+scrutinized her charge, burrowing into her, as it were, with shrewd yet
+kindly eyes. Again a moan escaped the sufferer, the wail of one whose
+agony is lancinating&mdash;one that ascended in crescendos and terminated in
+a cry of such utter helplessness, and therewith of such insistent pain,
+that the nurse caught the hand that lay on the coverlid, and unlocking
+the fingers stroked and held it in her own. "There, dear heart&mdash;there, I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Ah, yes, she knew very well. She had not passed ten years of her
+existence tending women in travail for the fun of it. And as she took
+Justine's hand and stroked it, she knew that in a little while the
+agony, acuter still, would lower her charge into that vestibule of death
+where Life appears. Whether or not Justine was to cross that silent
+threshold, whether happily she would find it barred, whether it would
+greet and keep her and hold her there, whether indeed it would let the
+child go free, an hour would tell, or two at most.</p>
+
+<p>But there were preparations to be made. The nurse left the bed and moved
+out into the hall. In a room near by, Mistrial, occupied with some
+advertisements in the <i>Post</i>, sat companioned by a physician who was
+reading a book which he had written himself. At the footfall of the
+nurse the latter left the room. Presently he returned. "Everything is
+going nicely," he announced, and placidly resumed his seat.</p>
+
+<p>It was the fourth time in two hours that he had made that same remark.
+Mistrial said nothing. He was gazing through the paper he held at the
+wall opposite, and out of it into the future beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Since that day, the previous spring, on which he had set out to visit a
+relative, many things had happened, yet but few that were of importance
+to him. On his return from the trip, during one fleeting second, for the
+first time since he had known Justine, it seemed to him that she avoided
+his eyes. To this, in other circumstances, he would have given no
+thought whatever; as matters were, it made him feel that his excursion
+should not be regarded as time ill-spent. Whether it had been wholly
+serviceable to his project, he could not at the time decide. He waited,
+however, very patiently, but he seldom waited within the apartment
+walls. At that period he developed a curious facility for renewing
+relations with former friends. Once he took a run to Chicago with an
+Englishman he had known in Japan; and once, with the brother of a lady
+who had married into the Baxter branch of the house of Mistrial, he went
+on a fishing trip to Canada. These people he did not bring to call on
+his wife. He seemed to act as though solitude were grateful to her. Save
+Mrs. Metuchen, Thorold at that time was her only visitor, and the visits
+of that gentleman Mistrial encouraged in every way that he could devise.
+Through meetings that, parenthetically, were more frequent on the stair
+or in the hallway than anywhere else, the two men, through sheer force
+of circumstances, dropped into an exchange of salutations&mdash;remarks about
+the weather, reciprocal inquiries on the subject of each other's health,
+which, wholly formal on Thorold's part, were from Mistrial always civil
+and aptly put. After all, was he not the host? and was it not for him to
+show particular courtesy to anyone whom his wife received?</p>
+
+<p>To her, meanwhile, his attitude was little short of perfection itself.
+He was considerate, foresighted, and unobtrusive&mdash;a course of conduct
+which frightened her a little. Two or three months after he had struck
+her in the face she made&mdash;<i>à propos</i> of nothing at all&mdash;an announcement
+which brought a trace of color to her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>The following afternoon he happened to be entering the house as Dr.
+Thorold was leaving it. Instead of greeting him in the nice and amiable
+fashion which he had adopted, and which Thorold had ended by accepting
+as a matter of course, he halted and looked at the physician through
+half-closed eyes. Thorold nodded, cavalierly enough it is true, and was
+about to pass on; but this Mistrial prevented. He planted himself
+squarely in his way, and stuck his hands in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Mistrial has no further need of you," he said. "Send your bill to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke from the tips of his lips, with the air and manner of one
+dismissing a lackey. At the moment nothing pertinent could have occurred
+to Thorold. He stared at Mistrial, dumbly perplexed, and plucked at his
+cuff. Mistrial nodded as who should say, "Put that in your pipe;" and
+before Thorold recovered his self-possession he had passed up the stairs
+and on and out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that season in which July has come and is going. The city
+was hot; torrid at noonday, sultry and enervating at night. Fifth Avenue
+and the adjacent precincts were empty. Each one of the brown-stone
+houses had a Leah-like air of desertion. The neighborhood of Madison
+and of Union Squares was peopled by men with large eyes and small feet,
+by women so deftly painted that, like Correggio, they could have
+exclaimed, "<i>Anch' io son pittore</i>." In brief, the Southern invasion had
+begun, and New York had ceased to be habitable.</p>
+
+<p>But Newport has charms of its own; and to that lovely city by the water
+Mistrial induced his wife; and there, until summer had departed, and
+autumn too, they rested and waited. During those months he was careful
+of her: so pleasantly so, so studious of what she did and of what she
+ate, that for the first time since the honeymoon she might have, had she
+tried, felt at ease with him again. But there were things that prevented
+this&mdash;faith destroyed and the regret of it. Oh, indeed she had regrets
+in plenty; some even for her father; and, unknown to Mistrial, once or
+twice she wrote him such letters as a daughter may write. She had never
+been in sympathy with him; as a child he had coerced her needlessly;
+when she was older he had preached; later, divining that lack of
+sympathy, he had striven through kindlier ways to counteract it. But he
+had failed; and Justine, aiding in the endeavor, had failed as well.
+When father and child do not stand hand-in-hand a fibre is wanting that
+should be there.</p>
+
+<p>In December Mistrial and his wife returned to town. A date was
+approaching, and there was the <i>layette</i> to be prepared. Hour after hour
+Justine's fingers sped. The apartment became a magazine of
+swaddling-clothes. One costume in particular, a worsted sack that was
+not much larger than a coachman's glove, duplicated and repeated itself
+in varying and tender hues. Occasionally Mistrial would pick one up and
+examine it furtively. To his vagabond fancy it suggested a bag in which
+gold would be.</p>
+
+<p>But now the hour was reached. And as Mistrial sat staring into the
+future, the goal to which he had striven kept looming nearer and ever
+nearer yet. Only the day before he had learned that Dunellen was
+failing. And what a luxury it would be to him when the old man died and
+the will was read! Such a luxury did it appear, that unconsciously he
+manifested his contentment by that sound the glutton makes at the
+mention of delicious food.</p>
+
+<p>His companion&mdash;the physician&mdash;turned and nodded. "I know what you are
+thinking about," he announced; and with the rapt expression of a seer,
+half to Mistrial, half to the ceiling, "It is always the case," he
+continued; "I never knew a father yet that did not wonder what the child
+would be; and the mothers, oh! the mothers! Some of them know all about
+it beforehand: they want a girl, and a girl it will be; or they want a
+boy, and a boy they are to have. I remember one dear, good soul who was
+so positive she was to have a boy that she had all the linen marked with
+the name she had chosen for him. H'm. It turned out to be twins&mdash;both
+girls. And I remember&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Mistrial had ceased to listen. He was off again discounting the
+inheritance in advance&mdash;discounting, too, the diabolism of his revenge.
+The latter, indeed, was unique, and withal so grateful, that now the
+consummation was at hand it fluttered his pulse like wine. He had
+ravened when first he learned the tenour of the will, and his soul had
+been bitter; but no sooner had this thing occurred to him than it
+resolved itself into a delight. To his disordered fancy its provisions
+held both vitriol and opopanax&mdash;the one for Thorold, the other for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor meanwhile was running on as doctors do. "Yes," Mistrial heard
+him say, "she was most unhappy; no woman likes a rival, and when that
+rival is her own maid, matters are not improved. For my part, the moment
+I saw how delicate she was, I thought, though I didn't dare to say so, I
+thought her husband had acted with great forethought. The maid was
+strong as an ox, and in putting her in the same condition as his wife he
+had simply and solely supplied her with a wet-nurse. But then, at this
+time particularly, women are so unreasonable. Not your good lady&mdash;a
+sweeter disposition&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Whatever encomium he intended to make remained unfinished. From the room
+beyond a cry filtered; he turned hastily and disappeared. The cry
+subsided; but presently, as though in the interval the sufferer had
+found new strength or new torture, it rose more stridently than before.
+And as the rumor of it augmented and increased, a phrase of the
+physician's returned to Mistrial. "Everything is going very nicely," he
+told himself, and began to pace the floor.</p>
+
+<p>A fraction of an hour passed, a second, and a third. The cry now had
+changed singularly; it had lost its penetrating volume, it had sunk into
+the rasping moan of one dreaming in a fever. Suddenly that ceased, the
+silence was complete, and Mistrial, a trifle puzzled, moved out into the
+hall. There he caught again the murmur of her voice. This time she was
+talking very rapidly, in a continuous flow of words. From where he stood
+Mistrial could not hear what she was saying, and he groped on tip-toe
+down the hall. As he reached the door of the room in which she was, the
+sweet and heavy odor of chloroform came out and met him there; but still
+the flow of words continued uninterruptedly, one after the other, with
+the incoherence of a nightmare monologuing in a corpse. Then, without
+transition, in the very middle of a word, a cry of the supremest agony
+rang out, drowning another, which was but a vague complaint.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a boy," the nurse exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>And Justine through a rift of consciousness caught and detained the
+speech. "So much the better," she moaned; "he will never give birth."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VA" id="VA"></a>V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry
+nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the
+name of the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>To this, Mistrial, garbed in black, responded discreetly, "Amen."</p>
+
+<p>He was standing opposite the bier. At his side was Justine. Before him
+Dr. Gonfallon, rector of the Church of Gethsemane,&mdash;of which the
+deceased had been warden,&mdash;was conducting the funeral rites. To the left
+was Thorold. Throughout the length and breadth of the drawing-room other
+people stood&mdash;a sprinkling of remote connections, former constituents,
+members of the bar and of the church, a few politicians; these, together
+with a handful of the helpless to whom the dead statesman had been
+trustee, counsellor too, and guide, had assembled there in honor of his
+memory. At the door, sharpening a pencil, was a representative of the
+Associated Press.</p>
+
+<p>For the past few days obituaries of the Hon. Paul Dunellen varied from
+six inches to a column in length. One journal alone had been
+circumspect. No mention of the deceased had appeared in its issues. But
+in politics that journal had differed with him&mdash;a fact which accounted
+sufficiently for its silence. In the others, however, through
+biographies more or less exact, fitting tributes had been paid. The
+<i>World</i> gave his picture.</p>
+
+<p>Yet now, as Dr. Gonfallon, in words well calculated to impress, dwelt on
+the virtues of him that had gone, the tributes of the newspapers seemed
+perfunctory and trite. Decorously, as was his custom, he began with a
+platitude. Death, that is terrible to the sinner, radiant to the
+Christian, imposing to all, was here, he declared, but the dusk of a
+beautiful day which in departing disclosed cohorts of the Eternal
+beckoning from their glorious realm. Yet soon he warmed to his work, and
+eulogies of the deceased fell from him in sonorous periods, round and
+empty. He spoke of the nobility of his character, the loyalty he
+displayed, not to friends alone, but to foes as well. He spoke of that
+integrity in every walk of life which had won for him the title of
+Honest Paul&mdash;a title an emperor might crave and get not. He spoke too of
+the wealth he had acquired, and drew a moral from the unostentatiousness
+of his charities, the simplicity of his ways. He dwelt at length on the
+fact that, however multiple the duties of his station had been, his duty
+to his Maker was ever first. Then, after a momentary digression, in
+which he stated how great was the loss of such as he, he alluded to the
+daughter he had left, to that daughter's husband, sorely afflicted
+himself, yet, with a manliness worthy of his historic name, comforting
+the orphan who needed all his comfort now; and immediately from these
+things he lured another moral&mdash;an appeal to fortitude and courage; and
+winding up with the customary exordium, asked of Death where was its
+sting.</p>
+
+<p>Where was it indeed? A day or two later Mistrial found time to think of
+that question and of other matters as well. It was then six weeks since
+the birth of the child, and Justine, fairer than ever before, was
+ministering to it in the adjacent room. Now and again he caught the
+shrill vociferation of its vague complaints. It was a feeble infant,
+lacking in vitality, distressingly hideous; but it lived, and though it
+died the next minute, its life had sufficed.</p>
+
+<p>Already the will had been read&mdash;a terse document, and to the point;
+precisely such an one as you would have expected a jurist to make. By it
+the testator devised his property, real and personal, of whatever
+nature, kind, and description he died seized, to his former partners in
+trust for the eldest child of his daughter Justine, to its heirs,
+executors, and assigns forever. In the event of his daughter's demise
+without issue, then over, to Guy Thorold, M.D.</p>
+
+<p>No, the sting concerning which Dr. Gonfallon had inquired was to
+Mistrial undiscerned. There was indeed a prick of it in the knowledge
+that if the old man had lasted much longer it might have been tough work
+to settle the bills; but that was gone now: Honest Paul paid all his
+debts, and he had not shirked at Nature's due. He was safely and
+securely dead, six feet under ground at that, and his millions were
+absolute in his grandson. Yes, absolute. At the thought of it Mistrial
+laughed. The goal to which for years he had striven was touched and
+exceeded. He had thrown the vitriol, the opopanax was his.</p>
+
+<p>We all of us pretend to forgive, to overlook, to condone, we pretend
+even to sympathize with, our enemy. Nay, in refraining from an act that
+could injure him who has injured us, we are quite apt to consider
+ourselves the superior of our foe, and not a little inclined to rise to
+the heights of self-laudatory quotation too. It is an antique virtue,
+that of forbearance; it is Biblical, nobly Arthurian, and chivalresque.
+But when we smile at an injury, it is for policy's sake&mdash;because we
+fear, rarely because we truly forgive, more rarely yet because of
+indifference. Our magnanimity is cowardice. It takes a brave man to
+wreak a brave revenge.</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial made few pretensions to the virtues which you and I possess. He
+was relentless as a Sioux, and he was treacherous as the savage is; he
+had no taste for fair and open fight. However his blood had boiled at
+the tableau of imaginary wrongs, however fitting the opportunity might
+have been on the afternoon when he met his enemy at the city's fringe,
+he had the desire but not the courage to annihilate him there. But
+later, when the possibility which he had intercepted came, he fêted, he
+coaxed it; and now that the hour of triumph had rung, his heart was
+glad. In the disordered closets of his brain he saw Thorold ravening at
+the trap into which he had fallen, and into which, in falling, he had
+lost the wherewithal to call the world his own. Ten million in exchange
+for an embrace! Verily, mused Mistrial, he will account it exceeding
+dear. And at the thought of what Thorold's frenzy must be, at the
+picture which he drew of him cursing his own imprudence and telling
+himself again and again, until the repetition turned into mania, that
+that imprudence could never be undone, he exulted and laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Money, said Vespasian, has no odor. To our acuter nostrils it has: so
+nauseating even can it be, that we would rather be flung in the
+Potter's-field than catch the faintest whiff. But Mistrial, for all the
+sensitiveness that ancestry is supposed to bring, must have agreed with
+the Roman. To him it was the woof of every hope; whatever its
+provenance, it was an Open Sesame to the paradise of the ideal. He
+would have drawn it with his teeth from a dung-heap, only he would have
+done it at night.</p>
+
+<p>There are men that can steal a fortune, yet can never cheat at cards,
+and Mistrial was one of their race; he could not openly dishonor himself
+in petty ways. Many a scoundrel has a pride of his own. It is both easy
+and difficult to compare a bandit to a sneak-thief, Napoleon to
+Cartouche. Mistrial had nothing of the Napoleon about him, and he was
+lacking even in the strength which Cartouche possessed. But among carpet
+highwaymen commend me to his peer.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as he thought of the will, Gonfallon's query recurred to him,
+and he asked himself where was that sting? Not in the present,
+surely&mdash;for that from a bitterness had changed to a delight; and as for
+the future, each instant of it was sentient with invocations, fulfilled
+to the tips with the surprises of dream. The day he had claimed but a
+share in; the morrow was wholly his. He could have a dwelling in
+Mayfair and a marble palace on the Mediterranean Sea. For a scrap of
+paper he would never miss there was a haunt of ghosts dozing on the
+Grand Canal. In spring, when Paris is at her headiest, there, near that
+Triumphal Arch which overlooks the Elysian Fields, stood, <i>entre cour et
+jardin</i>, an hotel which he already viewed as his own. And when he
+wearied of the Old World, there was the larger and fuller life of the
+New. There was Peru, there was Mexico and Ecuador; and in those Italys
+of the Occident were girls whose lips said, Drink me; whose eyes were of
+chrysoberyl and of jade. <i>Ah, oui, les femmes; tant que le monde
+tournera il n'y aura que ça.</i> With blithe anticipation he hummed the air
+and snapped his fingers as Capoul was wont to do. At last he saw himself
+the Roland Mistrial that should have been, prodigal of gold, sultanesque
+of manner, fêted, courted, welcomed, past-master in the lore and art of
+love.</p>
+
+<p>There were worlds still to be conquered; and before his hair grizzled
+and the furrows came he felt conscious of the possession of a charm that
+should make those worlds his own. He had waited indeed; he had toiled
+and man&oelig;uvred; but now the great clock we call Opportunity had
+struck. Let him but ask, and it would be given. Wishes were spaniels; he
+had but a finger to raise, and they fawned at his feet. And then, as
+those vistas of which we have all caught a glimpse rose in melting
+splendor and swooned again through sheer excesses of their own delights,
+suddenly he bethought him of the multiples of one and of two.</p>
+
+<p>Heretofore he had taken it for granted that if Dunellen left the estate
+to his grandchild the income accruing therefrom would, until the
+grandchild came of age, pass through his own paternal hands. And in
+taking this for granted he had recalled the fable that deals not of the
+prodigal son, but rather of the prodigal father. That income should
+spin. By a simple mathematical process than with which no one was more
+familiar, he calculated that, at five per cent, ten million would
+represent a rent-roll of five hundred thousand per annum. Of that amount
+a fraction would suffice to Justine and to her son. The rest&mdash;well, the
+rest he knew of what uses he could put it to.</p>
+
+<p>But now, suddenly, with that abruptness with which disaster looms, there
+came to him a doubt. He rememorated the provisions of the will, and in
+them he discerned unprompted some tenet of law or of custom which,
+during the legal infancy of the child, might inhibit the trustees from
+paying over any larger amount than was needful for its maintenance and
+support. Then at once the fabric of his dreams dissolved. The vitriol
+had corroded, but the savor of the opopanax had gone. For a little while
+he tormented his mustache and nibbled feverishly at a finger-nail. To
+see one's self the dupe of one's own devices is never a pleasant sight.
+Again he interrogated what smattering of law he possessed; but the
+closer he looked, the clearer it seemed to be that in its entirety the
+income of the estate could not pass through his hands. From five hundred
+thousand the trustees might in their judgment diminish it to some such
+pocket-money as ten; they could even reduce it to five; and, barring an
+action, he might be unable to persuade them that the sum was absurd. The
+idea, nude and revolting as Truth ever is, raised him to an unaccustomed
+height of rage; he would not be balked, he declared to himself; he would
+have that money or&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Or what? The contingency which he then interviewed, one which issued
+unsummoned from some cavern in his mind, little by little assumed a
+definite shape. He needed no knowledge of the law to tell him that he
+was that brat's heir. Did it die at that very moment the estate became
+absolute in him. There would be no trustees then to dole the income out.
+The ten millions would be his own. As for the trustees, they could
+deduct their commission and retire with it to New Jersey&mdash;to hell if it
+pleased them more. But the estate would be his. That there was no
+gainsaying. Meanwhile, there was the brat. He was a feeble child; yet
+such, Mistrial understood, had Methusaleh been. He might live forever,
+or die on the morrow. And why not that night?</p>
+
+<p>As this query came to him, he eyed its advance. It was yet some distance
+away, but as it approached he considered it from every side. And of
+sides, parenthetically, it had many. And still it advanced: when it
+started, its movements were so slow they had been hardly perceptible;
+nevertheless it had made some progress; then surer on its feet it tried
+to run; it succeeded in the effort; at each step it grew sturdier,
+swifter in speed; and now that it reached him it was with such a rush
+that he was overpowered by its force.</p>
+
+<p>He rose from his seat. For a moment he hesitated. To his forehead and
+about his ears a moisture had come. He drew out a handkerchief; it was
+of silk, he noticed&mdash;one that he brought from France. Absently he drew
+it across his face; its texture had detained his thought. Then on
+tip-toe he moved out into the corridor and peered into the room at the
+end of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>It was dimly lighted, but soon he accustomed himself to the shadows and
+fumbled them with his eyes. On the bed Justine lay; sleep had overtaken
+her; her head was aslant on the pillow, her lips half closed; the
+fingers of one hand cushioned her neck; the other hand, outstretched,
+rested on the edge of a cradle. She had been rocking it, perhaps. From
+the floor above sank the sauntering tremolo of a flute, very sweet in
+the distance, muffled by the ceiling and wholly subdued. In the street a
+dray was passing, belated and clamorous on the cobblestones. But now, as
+Mistrial ventured in, these things must have lulled Justine into yet
+deeper sleep; her breath came and went with the semibreves a leaf uses
+when it whispers to the night; and as he moved nearer and bent over her
+the whiteness of her breast rose and fell in unison with that breath.
+Yes, surely she slept, but it was with that wary sleep that dogs and
+mothers share. A movement of that child's and she might awake, alert at
+once, her senses wholly recovered, her mind undazed.</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial, assured of her slumber, turned from the bed to the cradle, and
+for a minute, two perhaps, he stood, the eyebrows raised, the
+handkerchief pendent in his hand, contemplating the occupant. And it was
+this bundle of flesh and blood, this lobster-hued animal, that lacked
+the intelligence a sightless kitten has,&mdash;it was this that should debar
+him! <i>Allons donc!</i></p>
+
+<p>His face had grown livid, and his hand shook just a little; not with
+fear, however, though if it were it must have been the temerity of his
+own courage that frightened him. At the handkerchief which he held he
+glanced again; one twist of it round that infant's throat, a minute in
+which to hold it taut, and it would be back in his pocket, leaving
+strangulation and death behind, yet not a mark to tell the tale. One
+minute only he needed, two at most; he bent nearer, and as he bent he
+looked over at his wife; but still she slept, her breath coming and
+going with the same regular cadence as before, the whiteness of her
+breast still heaving; then very gently, with fingers that were nervously
+assured, he ran the handkerchief under the infant's neck: but however
+deftly he had done it, the chill of the silk must have troubled the
+child; its under lip quivered, then both compressed, the flesh about the
+cheek-bones furrowed, the mouth relaxed, and from it issued the whimper
+of unconscious plaint. The call may have stirred the mother in some
+dream, for a smile hovered in her features; yet immediately her eyes
+opened, she half rose, her hand fell to her side, and, reaching out,
+she caught and held the infant to her.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling," she murmured; and as the child, soothed already, drowsed
+back again into slumber, she turned to where her husband stood. "What is
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>From above, the tremolo of the flute still descended; but the dray long
+since had passed, and the street now was quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she repeated. She seemed more surprised than pleased to
+see him there.</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial, balked in the attempt, had straightened himself; he looked
+annoyed and restless.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," he answered, and thrust the handkerchief back in his pocket,
+as a bandit sheathes his dirk. "Nothing. I heard that bastard bawling,
+and I came in to make him stop."</p>
+
+<p>"Bastard? Is it in that way you speak of your child?"</p>
+
+<p>As she said this she made no visible movement; yet something in her
+attitude, the manner in which she held herself, seemed to bid him hold
+his peace, and this he noticed, and in noticing resented. "There," he
+muttered; "drop the Grand Duchess, will you? The brat is Thorold's; you
+know it, and so do I."</p>
+
+<p>For a little space she stared as though uncertain she had heard aright,
+but the speech must have re-echoed in her ears; she had been sitting up,
+yet now as the echo reached her she drooped on the pillow and let her
+head fall back. In her arms the child still drowsed. And presently a
+tear rolled down her face, then another.</p>
+
+<p>"Roland Mistrial, you have broken my heart at last."</p>
+
+<p>That was all; the ultimate words even were scarcely audible; but the
+tears continued&mdash;the first succeeded by others, unstanched and
+undetained. Grief had claimed her as its own. She made no effort to
+rebel; she lay as though an agony had come from which no surcease can
+be. And as one tear after the other passed down and seared her face
+there was a silence so deathly, so tangible, and so convincing, that he
+needed no further sign from her to tell him that the charge was false.
+In all his intercourse with her, whatever cause of complaint there had
+been, never had he seen her weep before; and now at this unawaited
+evidence of the injustice and ignominy of his reproach he wished she
+would be defiant again, that he might argue and confute. But no word
+came from her&mdash;barely a sob; nothing, in fact, save these tears, which
+he had never seen before. And while he stood there, visited by the
+perplexity of him to whom the unawaited comes, unconsciously he went
+back to the wooing of her: he saw her clear eyes lifted in confidence to
+his own, he heard again the sweet confession of her love, he recalled
+the marks and tokens of her trust, and when for him she had left her
+father's house; he saw her ever, sweet by nature, tender-hearted,
+striving at each misdeed of his to show him that in her arms there was
+forgiveness still. And he recalled too the affronts he had put upon her,
+the baseness of his calculations, the selfishness of his life; he saw
+the misery he had inflicted, the affection he had beguiled, the hope he
+had tricked, and for climax there was this supreme reproach, of which he
+knew now no woman in all the world was less deserving than was she. And
+still the tears unstanched and undetained passed down and seared her
+cheeks; in the mortal wound he had aimed at her womanhood all else
+seemingly was forgot. She did not even move, and lay, her child tight
+clasped, the image of Maternity inhabited by Regret.</p>
+
+<p>And such regret! Mistrial, unprompted, could divine it all. The regret
+of love misplaced, of illusions spent, the regret of harboring a ruffian
+and thinking him a knight. Yes, he could divine it all; and then, as
+such things can be, he grieved a moment for himself.</p>
+
+<p>But soon the present returned. Justine still was weeping; he no longer
+saw her tears, he heard them. Surely she would forgive again. It could
+not be that everything had gone for naught. He would speak to her, plead
+if need were, and in the end she would yield. She must do that, he told
+himself, and he groped after some falsity that should palliate the
+offence. He would tell her that he had been drinking again; he would
+deny his own words, or, if necessary, he would insist she had not heard
+them aright. Indeed, there was nothing that might have weight with her
+which he was not ready and anxious to affirm. If she would but begin, if
+in some splendor of indignation such as he had beheld before she would
+rise up and upbraid him, his task would be diminished by half. Anything,
+indeed, would be better than this, and nothing could be worse; it was
+not Justine alone that the tears were carrying from him, it was the
+Dunellen millions as well. Oh, abysses of the human heart! As he
+queried with himself, at the very moment he was experiencing his first
+remorse, the old self returned, and it was less of the injury he had
+inflicted that he thought than of the counter-effect that injury might
+have on him. In the attempt to throttle the child he had been balked,
+yet of that attempt he believed Justine to be suspicionless. Other
+opportunities he would have in plenty; and even were it otherwise, the
+child was weakly, and croup might do its work. With the future for which
+he had striven, there, in the very palm of his hand, how was it possible
+that he should have made this misstep? But he could retrieve it, he told
+himself; he was a good actor, it was not too late. For a little while
+yet he could still support the mask, and, recalling the sentimental
+reveries of a moment before, the forerunner of a sneer came and loitered
+beneath the fringes of his mustache.</p>
+
+<p>"Justine!" He moved a step or two to where she lay. "Justine&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice was very low and penitent, but at the sound of it she seemed
+to shrink. "Could she <i>know</i>?" he wondered.</p>
+
+<p>Then immediately, through the scantness of the apartment, he heard the
+outer bell resound. Enervated as he was, the interruption affected him
+like a barb. There was some one there whom he could vent his irritation
+on. He hurried to the hall, but a servant had preceded him. The door was
+open, and on the threshold Thorold stood.</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial nodded&mdash;the nod of one who is about to throw his coat aside and
+roll his shirt-sleeves up. "Is it for your bill you come?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Thorold hesitated, and his face grew very black. He affected, however,
+to ignore the taunt. He turned to the servant that still was waiting
+there. "Is my cousin at home?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"She is," Mistrial announced, "but not to you."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," Thorold answered, "I must speak to someone in her
+stead."</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial made a gesture, and the servant withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to inform my cousin," Thorold continued, "that Mr. Metuchen came
+to me this evening and said that when my uncle died he was in debt&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff and nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"He asked me to come and acquaint Justine with the facts. They are
+here." With this Thorold produced a roll of papers. "Be good enough to
+explain to her," he added, "that this is the inventory of the estate."
+And, extending the documents to his host, he turned and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>In the cataleptic attitude of one standing to be photographed Mistrial
+listened to the retreating steps; he heard Thorold descend the stairs,
+cross the vestibule, and pass from the house. It seemed to him even that
+he caught the sound of his footfall on the pavement without. But
+presently that, too, had gone. He turned and looked down the hall.
+Justine's door was closed. Then at once, without seeking a seat, he
+fumbled through the papers that he held. The gas-jet above his head fell
+on the rigid lines. In the absence of collusion&mdash;and from whence should
+such a thing come?&mdash;in the absence of that, they were crystal in their
+clarity.</p>
+
+<p>There were the assets. Shares in mines that did not exist, bonds of
+railways that were bankrupt, loans on Western swamps, the house on
+Madison Avenue, mortgaged to its utmost value, property on the
+Riverside, ditto. And so on and so forth till the eye wearied and the
+heart sickened of the catalogue. Then came the debit account. Amounts
+due to this estate, to that, and to the other, a list of items extending
+down an entire page of foolscap and extending over onto the next. There
+a balance had been struck. Instead of millions Honest Paul had left
+dishonor. Swindled by the living, he had swindled the dead.</p>
+
+<p>"So much for trusting a man that bawls Amen in church," mused Mistrial.</p>
+
+<p>As yet the completeness and amplitude of the disaster had not reached
+him. While he ran the papers over he feigned to himself that it was all
+some trick of Thorold's, one that he would presently see through and
+understand; and even as he grasped the fact that it was not a trick at
+all, that it was truth duly signed and attested, even then the disaster
+seemed remote, affecting him only after the manner of that wound which,
+received in the heat of battle, is unnoticed by the victim until its
+gravity makes him reel. Then at once in the distance the future on which
+he had counted faded and grew blank. Where it had been brilliant it was
+obscure, and that obscurity, increasing, walled back the horizon and
+reached up and extended from earth to sky. The papers fell from his
+nerveless hand, fright had visited him, and he wheeled like a rat
+surprised. Surely, he reflected, if safety there were or could be, that
+safety was with Justine.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment he was at her door. He tried it. It was locked. He beat upon
+it and called aloud, "Justine."</p>
+
+<p>No answer came. He bent his head and listened. Through the woodwork he
+could hear but the faintest rustle, and he called again, "Justine."</p>
+
+<p>Then from within came the melody of her voice: "Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I," he answered, and straightened himself. It seemed odd to him
+she did not open the door at once. "I want a word with you," he added,
+after a pause. But still the door was locked.</p>
+
+<p>"Justine," he called again, "do you not hear me? I want to speak to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Then through the slender woodwork at his side a whisper filtered, the
+dumb voice of one whom madness may have in charge.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not to speak you come, it is to kill."</p>
+
+<p>"Justine!" he cried. All the agony of his life he distilled into her
+name, "Justine!"</p>
+
+<p>"You killed your child before, you shall not kill another now."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIA" id="VIA"></a>VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"City Hall!"</p>
+
+<p>The brakemen were shouting the station through the emptiness of the
+"Elevated."</p>
+
+<p>In the car in which Mistrial sat a drunken sailor lolled, and a pretty
+girl of the Sixth Avenue type was eating a confection. Above her, on a
+panel opposite, the advertisement of a cough remedy shone in blue;
+beyond was a particolored notice of tennis blazers: and, between them, a
+text from Mark, in black letters, jumped out from a background of white:</p>
+
+<p>"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
+his own soul?"</p>
+
+<p>During the journey from his home Mistrial had contemplated that text.
+Not continuously, however. For a little space his eyes had grazed the
+retreating throngs over which the train was hurrying, and had rested on
+the insufferable ugliness of the Bowery. Once, too, he had found himself
+staring at the girl who sat opposite, and once he had detected within
+him some envy of the sailor sprawling at her side. But, all the while,
+that text was with him, and to the jar of the car he repeated for
+refrain a paraphrase of his own: "How shall it damage a man if he lose
+his own soul and gain the whole world?"</p>
+
+<p>How indeed? Surely he had tried. For three years the effort had been
+constant. It was because of it he had married, it was for this he had
+sought to throttle his child. What his failure had been, Dunellen's
+posthumous felony and Justine's ultimate reproach indistinctly yet
+clearly conveyed. No, the world was not gained; he had played his best
+and he had lost: he could never recover it now.</p>
+
+<p>And as the brakeman bawled in his face, the paraphrase of the text was
+with him. He rose and passed from the car. Beneath he could discern a
+grass-plot of the City Park. In spite of the night it was visibly green.
+The sky was leaden as a military uniform that has been dragged through
+the mud. From a window of the Tribune Building came a vomit of vapor.
+And above in a steeple a clock marked twelve.</p>
+
+<p>The stairway led him down to the street. For a moment he hesitated; the
+locality was unfamiliar. But a toll-gate attracted him; he approached
+it, paid a penny, and moved onto the bridge. There, he discovered that
+on either side of him were iron fences and iron rails; he was on the
+middle of the bridge, not at the side. A train shot by. He turned again
+and reissued from the gate.</p>
+
+<p>On the corner was another entrance, and through it he saw a carriage
+pass. It was that way, he knew; and he would have followed the carriage,
+but a policeman touched him on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Got a permit?"</p>
+
+<p>Mistrial shook his head. Why should he have a permit? And, moved
+perhaps by the mute surprise his face expressed, the policeman explained
+that the ordinary pedestrian was allowed to cross only through the
+safeguards of the middle path.</p>
+
+<p>"I will get a cab," he reflected, and for his convenience he discerned
+one loitering across the way. This he entered, gave an order to the
+driver, and presently, after paying another toll, rolled off the
+stonework on to wood.</p>
+
+<p>He craned his neck. Just beyond, a column of stone rose inordinately to
+the lowering sky; he could see the water-front of the city; opposite was
+Brooklyn, and in front the lights of Staten Island glowed distantly and
+dim. The cab was moving slowly. He took some coin from his pocket,
+placed it on the seat, opened the door, and, stepping from the moving
+vehicle, looked at the driver. The latter, however, had not noticed him
+and was continuing his way leisurely over the bridge and on and into the
+night. Mistrial let him go undetained. He had work now to do, and it
+was necessary for him to do it quickly; at any moment another carriage
+might pass or some one happen that way.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath, far down, a barge was moving. He could see the lights; they
+approached the bridge and vanished within it. The railing, now, he saw
+was too high to vault, and moreover there was a bar above it that might
+interfere. He tossed his hat aside and clambered on the iron rail.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get six months for that," some one was crying.</p>
+
+<p>But to the threat Mistrial paid no heed. He had crossed the rail, his
+hands relaxed, and just as he dropped straight down to the river below,
+he could see a policeman, his club uplifted, hanging over the fence,
+promising him the pleasures of imprisonment. Such was his last glimpse
+of earth. A multitude of lights danced before his eyes; every nerve in
+his body tingled; his ears were filled with sudden sounds; he felt
+himself incased in ice; then something snapped, and all was blank.</p>
+
+<p>The next day a rumor of the suicide was bruited through the clubs.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it, Jones?" Yarde asked.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist plucked at his beard. There were times when he himself did
+not know what he thought. In this instance, however, he had already
+learned of the disaster that had overtaken the Dunellen estate, and
+weaving two and two sagaciously together, he answered with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"What do I think of it? I think he died like a man who knew how to
+live"&mdash;an epitaph which pleased him so much that he got his card-case
+out and wrote it down.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="By_the_same_Author" id="By_the_same_Author"></a>By the same Author.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">A Transaction in Hearts.</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Eden.</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The Truth about Tristrem Varick.</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Mr. Incoul's Misadventure.</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">A Transient Guest.</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The Anatomy of Negation.</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The Philosophy of Disenchantment.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Belford_Clarke_Cos_New_Books" id="Belford_Clarke_Cos_New_Books"></a>Belford, Clarke &amp; Co's New Books</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Truth about Tristem Varick. By <span class="smcap">Edgar Saltus</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Our admiration for the perfection of its style, the brilliancy
+of its expressions, and the exquisite art with which the story
+has been handled, is unbounded."&mdash;<i>Lippincott's Magazine.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The plot is admirable, style exquisite; as a piece of art the
+style demands unstinted commendation."&mdash;<i>St. John's (N. B.)
+Progress.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A very surprising but fascinating love-story."&mdash;<i>Amsterdam
+Democrat.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Eden. By <span class="smcap">Edgar Saltus</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Mr. Saltus is an artist; his brilliant epigrammatic touch is
+as rare as it is exquisite; and to find fault with such a novel
+as 'Eden' because it is not Bunyan's 'Pilgrim Progress,' is
+absurd."&mdash;<i>Boston Traveller.</i></p>
+
+<p>"'Eden' is the best he has ever written. It Is a capital story,
+told in scholarly and clever English, and any one who begins to
+read it will not want to lay it aside until the end is
+reached."&mdash;<i>Baltimore American.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A Transaction in Hearts. By <span class="smcap">Edgar Saltus</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Saltus' latest novel, and in some respects his best. In the
+character of Christopher Gonfallon the author aims a terrible
+blow at the hypocrisy of those who, setting themselves up as
+examples and leaders of men, fall before the temptations of the
+beast in their own natures. The recreant minister, the evil
+enigma, Claire, and the pure, sweet wife, make a trinity of
+characters rarely found in modern fiction.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Philosophy of Disenchantment. By <span class="smcap">Edgar Saltus</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A philosophical work which entitles the author to a first place
+in the ranks of modern thinkers. Even those who disagree with
+his conclusions cannot deny him a vigorous and pointed logic,
+keen insight, and powerful reasoning.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Anatomy of Negation. By <span class="smcap">Edgar Saltus</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A work of superlative excellence and worth.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Divided Lives. By <span class="smcap">Edgar Fawcett</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A spirited story; the interest is well sustained throughout,
+and the characters are firmly and clearly drawn."&mdash;<i>N. Y.
+Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The book is written in very choice English, and the style is
+flowing and harmonious."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Truth.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A thoroughgoing society novel, whose style moves like a
+waltz."&mdash;<i>Richmond States.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Miriam Ballestier. By <span class="smcap">Edgar Fawcett</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A pathetic and absorbing story of thrilling
+interest."&mdash;<i>Syracuse Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The last chapter, in particular, is one of the most beautiful
+things in American literature; the picture of Miriam going out
+into the night on her mission of sublime self-sacrifice
+deserves to live forever in the memory."&mdash;<i>Chicago Herald.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Monte Rosa, the Epic of an Alp. By <span class="smcap">Starr Hoyt Nichols</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It is an account in poetic form of an Alpine mountain,
+beginning with its birth, describing its form, appearance,
+grandeur, its relations to man physically and metaphysically,
+and ending with the probable ending of the mountain. It is one
+of the most successful of recent attempts to wed science and
+poetry."&mdash;<i>Albany Journal.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Memories of the Men who Saved the Union. By <span class="smcap">Donn Piatt</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Piatt's sketches of the great coterie of men mentioned are of
+absorbing interest, and no one who takes up the book will lay
+it down without obtaining new ideas of the character and
+motives of those so high in place during the
+rebellion"&mdash;<i>Quincy Whig.</i></p>
+
+<p>"They are the interesting recollections of one who was
+personally acquainted with the illustrious men of whom he has
+written, and who had, as well officially as socially,
+opportunities of studying the character of each, of which he
+has availed himself in writing one of the ablest books we have
+had the pleasure to welcome from America."&mdash;<i>Westminster
+Review.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Lone Grave of the Shenandoah. By <span class="smcap">Donn Piatt</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Eminently original, they are delightful to read. So
+extraordinary a compound of poetry and practicality as our
+author, if sought through the world, could not probably be
+found."&mdash;<i>Washington Post.</i></p>
+
+<p>"They are sketches, quaint, delicate, humorous, fanciful,
+examples of the art of short story-writing in its
+perfection."&mdash;<i>Chicago News.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Protective Tariff: What it Does for Us. By <span class="smcap">Herman Lieb</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It is clear in style and argument, taking strong ground for
+the immediate reduction of war taxes and the putting of the
+nation on a peace footing as regards the necessities of life
+for the common people."&mdash;<i>Michigan Courier.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Life of Emperor William I., the Founder of the German Empire. By <span class="smcap">Herman
+Lieb</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"General Lieb has done historical literature a great service in
+giving it a life of one of the greatest rulers of the
+nineteenth century. It is printed on good paper, in clear type,
+and profusely illustrated. An edition is also issued in the
+German language for those who want the history of their
+fatherland in their own tongue."&mdash;<i>New London Telegram.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Henry Ward Beecher, Christian Philosopher, Pulpit Orator, Patriot, and
+Philanthropist. Illustrated with a biographical sketch by <span class="smcap">Thos. W.
+Handford</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"As a pulpit orator he was during life the peer of any living,
+and his utterances will go on converting men, and fitting them
+for earth and heaven. As a patriot, loving his country, and
+willing to make any sacrifice for its sustenance and
+upbuilding, he was at all times conspicuous."&mdash;<i>Chicago
+Inter-Ocean.</i></p>
+
+<p>"It is much for a man worthy of a biography that he should fall
+into the hands of a congenial spirit, and that the biography
+should be a labor of love."&mdash;<i>Chicago Herald.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dinnerology. By "Pan."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Experiments in economical cooking, brightly and interestingly
+related.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Her Strange Fate. By <span class="smcap">Celia Logan</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'Her Strange Fate' belongs to that healthy sensational school,
+at the head of which stand the works of Chas. Reade, wherein
+the romantic and dramatic sides of real life are depicted.
+There is no morbid analysis, no feverish imagination. No one
+who begins the book will be willing to lay it down until the
+last page is reached."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A Blue-Grass Thoroughbred. By "<span class="smcap">Tom Johnson</span>."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A richly colored picture of a comparatively unknown but
+wonderfully interesting section of the United States, the
+Blue-grass region of Kentucky. From end to end the book is a
+rapidly moving panorama of brilliant pictures.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A Slave of Circumstance. By <span class="smcap">E. De Lancey Pierson</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"An interesting work."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A book well written; continually alluring, especially in the
+love scenes."&mdash;<i>Washington National Republican.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The very first paragraph of the book arouses the reader's
+interest, and that interest is maintained to the end."&mdash;<i>Sunday
+News.</i></p>
+
+<p>"It is extremely interesting, vividly national, and develops an
+unusually original idea."&mdash;<i>Baltimore American.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Shadow of the Bars. By <span class="smcap">E. De Lancey Pierson</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A brilliant and interesting love-story."&mdash;<i>Boston
+Commonwealth.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Black Ball. By <span class="smcap">E. De Lancey Pierson</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Mr. Pierson's latest and best work, alive with humor and
+genuine pathos, at once fantastic and intensely human.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A Dream and a Forgetting. By <span class="smcap">Julian Hawthorne</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A delightful story, told with a charming idyllic sweetness by
+this successor of the Seer of Salem."&mdash;<i>Texas Siftings.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Without much doubt the best piece of work that Mr. Hawthorne
+has yet turned out. It is intensely interesting."&mdash;<i>Springfield
+(Mass.) Union.</i></p>
+
+<p>"If it has a fault it is that of brevity."&mdash;<i>Cleveland Leader.</i></p>
+
+<p>"One of the most perfect pieces of work that Mr. Hawthorne has
+ever done in fiction. It has the Hawthorne atmosphere, the
+imaginative beauty, the touch of the mystic in it."&mdash;<i>Boston
+Traveller.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Professor's Sister. By <span class="smcap">Julian Hawthorne</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"There is no other American writer of the day who can present a
+mystery and unfold it in all its details with such consummate
+skill as Hawthorne."&mdash;<i>Richmond States.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Is, without doubt, not only one of the very best that this
+author has yet achieved, but it is not too much to say that it
+will rank with the strongest novels that have been given to the
+public in years."&mdash;<i>Nashville American.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Human passions and actual life are well mixed into the warp
+and woof of the plot, and some striking characters are evolved
+in admirable narrative, and colloquial style."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Truth.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Kisses of Fate. By <span class="smcap">E. Heron-Allen</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A collection of clever tales, three in number, the merit of
+which is not suggested in the title he has chosen to give them,
+while in grace and finish they reflect to his credit."&mdash;<i>Albany
+Union.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Princess Daphne. By <span class="smcap">E. Heron-Allen</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Somewhat unorthodox, but highly interesting."&mdash;<i>Reading
+Union.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Weird stories are in vogue at present, and some are good and
+far more are the reverse. This is one of the best."&mdash;<i>Baltimore
+News.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The book is written in an attractive style, and is intensely
+interesting."&mdash;<i>Albany Express.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Among the Tramps. By "<span class="smcap">Uncle Tim</span>."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A volume of rare interest and information, from the pen of a
+writer thoroughly conversant with that philosophy which bears
+upon the well-being of society and every-day life.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Confessions of a Society Man.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The book is interesting throughout because of the rapid and
+continual shifting of incidents which is its chief
+characteristic."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Bulletin.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The love-making in it is charming. It is interesting up to the
+very end."&mdash;<i>Nashville American.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A Tramp Actor. By <span class="smcap">Elliot Barnes</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"There are good things in the book, and it is endowed with an
+excellent moral."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Sun.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Forty Tears on the Rail. By <span class="smcap">C. B. George</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The book is destined to have a very extended reading, as its
+pages are not only interesting, but instructive."&mdash;<i>Keokuk
+Democrat.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Friend to the Widow. By <span class="smcap">Maja Spencer</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"This is a love-story pure and simple, but just one of those
+stories that form most delightful reading, free from heroics
+and wild sensations."&mdash;<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Why Was It? By <span class="smcap">Lewis Benjamin</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The chief charm of the book lies in the simple manner of
+telling the story, and in the fact that its basis and its
+incidents are precisely such as may be picked up almost
+anywhere, at any time."&mdash;<i>Nashville American.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Wrong Man. By <span class="smcap">Gertrude Garrison</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'The Wrong Man' is not in the least sensational&mdash;not the kind
+of a story to set people talking about its possible
+consequences on the minds of unseasoned readers. Nothing
+feverish, questionable, or coarse in it. Much rare qualities
+does it possess, which give it distinction in these days of
+rankly flavored fiction."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Herald.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A Boston Girl. By <span class="smcap">Rev. Arthur Swaze</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Those who read 'A Boston Girl' will like it, and those who do
+not read it will, if they only knew it, miss spending an
+agreeable hour or two."&mdash;<i>San Francisco Call.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A Drummer's Diary. By <span class="smcap">Charles S. Plummer</span>.</p>
+
+<p>What Dreams May Come. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Gertrude Atherton</span>.</p>
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+<blockquote><p>"The interest of the story lies in its all-absorbing plot, its
+strong dramatic treatment, and the bold handling of one of the
+most difficult and least used subjects of
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+<p>"There is good work and strong work in the book, and it is
+quite enough to make one hope it is not the last the authoress
+will write."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Journalist.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Bella-Demonia. By <span class="smcap">Selina Dolaro</span>. Madame Dolaro's Posthumous Novel.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>This work, founded on a drama by Madame Dolaro, shortly to be
+produced, is an historical novel of pure incident. It is
+composed of a series of startling dramatic situations, founded
+on facts not hitherto published in connection with the
+Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, of which it is an accurate history
+of absorbing interest.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mes Amours: Poems. Passionate and Playful. By <span class="smcap">Selina Dolaro</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Some of them are from her own pen; she is the inspiration of
+the others. A few of the latter are really quite clever verses,
+but not nearly as bright as her annotation of them all."&mdash;<i>N.
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+
+<p>"There is many a laugh to be had from reading the book."&mdash;<i>Town
+Topics.</i></p>
+
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+sings between the lines like the contented streamlet between
+wind-swept hillsides."&mdash;<i>Albany Journal.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That Girl from Texas. By <span class="smcap">Jeanette H. Walworth</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Is one of the nicest girls ever introduced to readers. Well
+told, and decidedly interesting."&mdash;<i>New London Telegraph.</i></p></blockquote>
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+<p>A Splendid Egotist. By <span class="smcap">Jeannette H. Walworth</span> (author of "That Girl from
+Texas").</p>
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+<blockquote><p>A brilliant society novel by this gifted author, and one of the
+best she has written.</p></blockquote>
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+<p>History of New York. By <span class="smcap">Jeannette H. Walworth</span>. In words of one syllable.
+Richly illustrated. Illuminated board cover.</p>
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+<blockquote><p>"This book is well calculated to give young children just about
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+<p>His Way and Her Will. By <span class="smcap">Fannie Atmar Mathews</span>.</p>
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+<blockquote><p>"Is a novel of more than usual merit. Its characters are strong
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+<p>"The characters are drawn with a firm and free hand, and the
+story has that symmetry of construction which shows the
+practical workman. The literary style is finished and
+graceful."&mdash;<i>Baltimore News.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Studies in Social Life. A Review of the Principles, Practices, and
+Problems of Society. By <span class="smcap">George C. Lorimer</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The subject is a living one, he has gone to the heart of it,
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+with so many subjects that an epitome of its contents is
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+<p>Eating and Living. By <span class="smcap">Sir Henry Thompson</span>.</p>
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+<p>The Everyday Cook Book. By <span class="smcap">Miss M. C. Neill</span>. Oil-cloth cover (kitchen
+style).</p>
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+<p>The Kentucky Cookery Book. By <span class="smcap">Mrs. Peter A. White</span>.</p>
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+<p>Political Oratory of Emery A. Storm, from Lincoln to Garfield. By <span class="smcap">Isaac
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+<blockquote><p>"Not only valuable as examples of perfect argument and
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+<blockquote><p>"The writer of this volume has read the Bible with open eyes.
+The mist of sentimentality has not clouded her vision. She has
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+<p>The Veteran and His Pipe. By <span class="smcap">Albion W. Tourgee</span>.</p>
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+<blockquote><p>"Judge Tourgee maintains his old familiar force and style, and
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pace That Kills, by Edgar Saltus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Pace That Kills
+       A Chronicle
+
+Author: Edgar Saltus
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2010 [EBook #34401]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PACE THAT KILLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE PACE THAT KILLS
+
+                               A Chronicle
+
+                             By EDGAR SALTUS
+
+
+    "_Pourquoi la mort? Dites, plutot, pourquoi la vie?_"
+    --RADUSSON
+
+    CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO
+    BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY
+    PUBLISHERS
+    London: H. J. DRANE, Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row
+
+    Copyright, 1889,
+    BY EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+
+    TO
+    JOHN A. RUTHERFURD.
+    NEW YORK, _June 10, 1889_.
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+"I wish you a happy New Year, sir."
+
+It was the servant, green of livery, the yellow waistcoat slashed with
+black, bearing the coffee and fruit.
+
+"Put it there, please," Roland answered. And then, in recognition of the
+salutation, he added, "Thanks: the same to you."
+
+"H'm," he mused, as the man withdrew, "I ought to have tipped him, I
+suppose."
+
+He leaned from the bed, poured some milk into a cup, and for a second
+nibbled at a slice of iced orange. Through the transom came a faint odor
+of home-made bread, and with it the rustle of a gown and a girl's clear
+laugh. The room itself was small. It was furnished in a fashion which
+was unsuggestive of an hotel, and yet did not resemble that of a
+private house. The curtain had been already drawn. Beyond was a lake,
+very blue in the sunlight, bulwarked by undulant hills. Below, on the
+road, a dogcart fronted by a groom was awaiting somebody's pleasure.
+
+"It is late," he reflected, and raised a napkin to his lips. As he did
+so he noticed a package of letters which the napkin must have concealed.
+He took up the topmost and eyed it. It had been addressed to the
+Athenaeum Club, Fifth Avenue; but the original direction was erased, and
+Tuxedo Park inserted in its stead. On the upper left-hand corner the
+impress of a firm of tailors shone in blue. Opposite was the engraving
+of a young woman supported by 2-1/2_d._ He put it down again and glanced
+at the others. The superscriptions were characterless enough; each bore
+a foreign stamp, and to one as practised as was he, each bore the token
+of the dun.
+
+"If they keep on bothering me like this," he muttered, "I shall
+certainly place the matter in the hands of my attorney." And thereat,
+with the air of a man who had said something insultingly original, he
+laughed aloud, swallowed some coffee, and dashed his head in the pillow.
+In and out of the corners of his mouth a smile still played; but
+presently his fancy must have veered, for the muscles of his lips
+compressed, and as he lay there, the arms clasped behind the head, the
+pink silk of his sleeves framing and tinting his face, and in the eyes
+the expression of one prepared to meet Fate and outwit it, a possible
+observer who could have chanced that way would have sat himself down to
+study and risen up perplexed.
+
+Anyone who was at Columbia ten years ago will remember Roland
+Mistrial,--Roland Mistrial 3d, if you please,--and will recall the wave
+of bewilderment which swept the campus when that young gentleman, on the
+eve of graduation, popularity on one side and honors on the other,
+suddenly, without so much as a p. p. c., left everything where it was
+and betook himself to other shores. The flight was indeed erratic, and
+numerous were the rumors which it excited; but Commencement was at hand,
+other issues were to be considered, bewilderment subsided as
+bewilderment ever does, the college dispersed, and when it assembled
+again the Mistrial mystery, though unelucidated, was practically forgot.
+
+In the neighborhood of Washington Square, however, on the northwest
+corner of Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue to be exact, there were others
+whose memories were more retentive. Among them was Roland's grandfather,
+himself a graduate, founder of the Mistrial fellowship, and judge of the
+appellate court. And there was Roland's father, a graduate too, a
+gentleman widely respected, all the more so perhaps because he had run
+for the governorship and lost it. And again there was Roland's aunt, a
+maiden lady of whom it is recorded that each day of her life she got
+down on her knees and thanked God he had made her a Mistrial. In
+addition to these, there were, scattered along the Hudson, certain
+maternal relatives--the Algaroths, the Baxters, and the Swifts; Bishop
+Algaroth in particular, who possessed such indomitable vigor that when
+at the good old age of threescore and ten he decided to depart this
+life, the impression prevailed that he had died very young for him. None
+of these people readily forgot. They were a proud family and an
+influential one--influential not merely in the social sense, but
+influential in political, legal, in church and university circles as
+well; a fact which may have had weight with the Faculty when it was
+called upon to deal with Roland Mistrial 3d. But be that as it may, the
+cause of the young man's disappearance was never officially given. Among
+the rumors which it created was one to the effect that his health was
+affected; in another his mind was implicated; and in a third it was his
+heart. Yet as not one of these rumors had enough evidential value behind
+it to concoct an anonymous letter on, they were suffered to go their way
+undetained, very much as Roland had already gone his own.
+
+That way led him straight to the Golden Gate and out of it to Japan.
+Before he reached Yeddo his grandfather left the planet and a round sum
+of money behind. Of that round sum the grandson came in for a portion.
+It was not fabulous in dimensions, but in the East money goes far. In
+this case it might have gone on indefinitely had not the beneficiary
+seen fit to abandon the languors of the Orient for the breezier
+atmosphere of the west. The Riviera has charms of its own. So, too, have
+Paris and Vienna. Roland enjoyed them to the best of his ability. He
+even found London attractive, and became acclimated in Pall Mall. In the
+latter region he learned one day that his share of the round sum had
+departed and his father as well. The conjunction of these incidents was
+of such a character that he at once took ship for New York.
+
+It was not that he was impatient to revisit the misgoverned city which
+he had deserted ten years before. He had left it willingly enough, and
+he had seldom regretted it since. The pins and needles on which he sat
+were those of another make. He was uninformed of the disposition of his
+father's property, and he felt that, were not every penny of it
+bequeathed to him, he would be in a tight box indeed.
+
+He was at that time just entering his thirtieth year--that age in which
+a man who has led a certain life begins to be particular about the
+quality of his red pepper, and anxious too that the supply of it shall
+not tarry. Though meagre of late, the supply had been sufficient. But at
+present the palate was a trifle impaired. Where a ten-pound note had
+sufficed for its excitement, a hundred now were none too strong. Roland
+Mistrial--3d no longer--wanted money, and he wanted plenty of it. He
+had exact ideas as to its usefulness, and none at all regarding its
+manufacture. He held, as many have done and will continue to do, that
+the royal road to it leads through a testament; and it was in view of
+the opening vistas which that road displayed that he set sail for New
+York.
+
+And now, six weeks later, on this fair noonday of a newer year, as he
+lay outstretched in bed, you would have likened him to one well
+qualified to keep a mother awake and bring her daughter dreams. Our
+canons of beauty may be relative, but, such as they are, his features
+accorded with them--disquietingly even; for they conveyed the irritating
+charm of things we have hoped for, striven for, failed to get, and then
+renounced with thanksgiving. They made you anxious about their
+possessor, and fearful too lest the one dearly-beloved might chance to
+see them, and so be subjugated by their spell. They were features that
+represented good stock, good breeding, good taste, good looks--every
+form of goodness, in fact, save, it may be, the proper one. But the
+possible lack of that particular characteristic was a matter over which
+hesitation well might be. We have all of us a trick of flattering
+ourselves with the fancy that, however obtuse our neighbor is, we at
+least are gifted with the insight of a detective--a faculty so rare and
+enviable that the blunders we make must be committed with a view to its
+concealment; yet, despite presumable shrewdness, now and then a face
+will appear that eludes cataloguing, and leaves the observer perplexed.
+Roland Mistrial's was one of these.
+
+And now, as the pink silk of his shirt-sleeves tinted it, the expression
+altered, and behind his contracted brows hurried processions of shifting
+scenes. There was that initial catastrophe which awaited him almost on
+the wharf--the discovery that his father had left him nothing, and that
+for no other reason in the world than because he had nothing whatever
+to leave--nothing, in fact, save the hereditary decoration of and right
+of enrolment in the Society of the Cincinnati, the which, handed down
+since Washingtonian days from one Mistrial to another, he held, as his
+forefathers had before him, in trust for the Mistrials to be.
+
+No, he could not have disposed of that, even had he so desired; but
+everything else, the house on Tenth Street,--built originally for a
+country-seat, in times when the Astor House was considered rather far
+uptown,--bonds, scrip, and stocks, disappeared as utterly as had they
+never been; for Roland's father, stricken with that form of dementia
+which, to the complete discouragement of virtue, battens on men that
+have led the chastest lives, had, at that age in which the typical rake
+is forced to haul his standard down, surrendered himself to senile
+debauchery, and in the lap of a female of uncertain attractions--of
+whose mere existence no one had been previously aware--placed
+title-deeds and certificates of stock. In a case such as this the
+appeal of the rightful heir is listened to with such patience that judge
+and jury too have been known to pass away and leave the tale unended.
+And Roland, when the earliest dismay had in a measure subsided, saw
+himself closeted with lawyers who offered modicums of hope in return for
+proportionate fees. Then came a run up the Hudson, the welcomeless
+greeting which waited him there, and the enervating imbecility of his
+great aunt, whose fingers, mummified by gout, were tenacious enough on
+the strings of her purse. That episode flitted by, leaving on memory's
+camera only the degrading tableau of coin burrowed for and unobtained.
+And through it all filtered torturesome uncertainties, the knowledge of
+his entire inability to make money, the sense of strength misspent, the
+perplexities that declined to take themselves away, forebodings of the
+morrow, nay of the day even as well, the unbanishable dread of want.
+
+But that for the moment had gone. He turned on his elbow and glanced
+over at a card-case which lay among the silver-backed brushes beyond,
+and at once the shock he had resummoned fled. Ah, yes! it had gone
+indeed, but at the moment it had been appalling enough. The morrow at
+least was secure; and as he pondered over its possibilities they faded
+before certain episodes of the previous day--that chance encounter with
+Alphabet Jones, who had insisted he should pack a valise and go down
+with Trement Yarde and himself to Tuxedo; and at once the incidents
+succeeding the arrival paraded through his thoughts. There had been the
+late dinner to begin with; then the dance; the girl to whom some one had
+presented him, and with whom he had sat it out; the escape of the year,
+the health that was drunk to the new one, and afterwards the green baize
+in the card-room; the bank which Trement Yarde had held, and finally the
+successful operation that followed, and which consisted in cutting that
+cherub's throat to the tune of three thousand dollars. It was all there
+now in the card-case; and though, as sums of money go, it was hardly
+quotable, yet in the abstract, forethought and economy aiding, it
+represented several months of horizons solid and real. The day was
+secure; as for the future, who knew what it might contain? A grave
+perhaps, and in it his aunt.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+"If I had been killed in a duel I couldn't be better." It was Jones the
+novelist describing the state of his health. "But how is my friend and
+brother in virtue?"
+
+"Utterly ramollescent," Roland answered, confidingly. "What the French
+call _gaga_."
+
+The mid-day meal was in progress, and the two men, seated opposite each
+other, were dividing a Demidorf salad. They had been schoolmates at
+Concord, and despite the fact that until the day before they had not met
+for a decennium, the happy-go-lucky intimacy of earlier days had eluded
+Time and still survived. Throughout the glass-enclosed piazza other
+people were lunching, and every now and then Jones, catching a wandering
+eye, would bend forward a little and smile. Though it was but the first
+of the year, the weather resembled that of May. One huge casement was
+wide open. There was sunlight everywhere, flowers too, and beyond you
+could see the sky, a dome of opal and sapphire blent.
+
+"Well," Jones replied, "I can't say you have altered much. But then who
+does? You remember, don't you"--and Jones ran on with some anecdote of
+earlier days.
+
+But Roland had ceased to listen. It was very pleasant here, he told
+himself. There was a freedom about it that the English country-house,
+however charming, lacked. There was no one to suggest things for you to
+do, there was no host or hostess to exact attention, and the women were
+prettier, better dressed, less conventional, and yet more assured in
+manner than any that he had encountered for years. The men, too, were a
+good lot; and given one or two more little surprises, such as he had
+found in the card-room, he felt willing to linger on indefinitely--a
+week at least, a month if the fare held out. His eyes roamed through the
+glitter of the room. Presently, at a neighboring table, he noticed the
+girl with whom he had seen the old year depart: she was nodding to him;
+and Roland, with that courtesy that betokens the foreigner a mile away,
+rose from his seat as he bowed in return.
+
+Jones, whom little escaped, glanced over his shoulder. "By the way, are
+you on this side for good?" he asked; and Roland answering with the
+vague shrug the undetermined give, he hastened to add--"or for bad?"
+
+"That depends. I ran over to settle my father's estate, but they seem to
+have settled it for me. After all, this is no place for a pauper, is
+it?"
+
+"The wolf's at the door, is he?"
+
+Roland laughed shortly. "At the door? Good Lord! I wish he were! He's in
+the room."
+
+"There, dear boy, never mind. Wait till spring comes and marry an
+heiress. There are so many hereabouts that we use them for export
+purposes. They are a glut in the market. There's a fair specimen. Ever
+meet her before?"
+
+"Meet whom?"
+
+"That girl you just bowed to. They call her father Honest Paul. Oh, if
+you ask me why, I can't tell. It's a nick-name, like another. It may be
+because he says Amen so loud in church. A number of people have made him
+trustee, but whether on that account or not they never told. However,
+he's a big man, owns a mile or two up there near the Riverside. I should
+rate him at not a penny less than ten million."
+
+"What did you say his name was?"
+
+"Dunellen--the Hon. Paul Dunellen. At one time--"
+
+Jones rambled on, and again Roland had ceased to listen. But it was not
+the present now that claimed him. At the mention of the plutocrat
+something from the past came back and called him there--a thing so
+shadowy that, when he turned to interrogate, it eluded him and
+disappeared. Then at once, without conscious effort, an episode which
+he had long since put from him arose and detained his thought. But what
+on earth, he wondered, had the name of Dunellen to do with that? And for
+the moment dumbly perplexed, yet outwardly attentive, he puzzled over
+the connection and tried to find the link; yet that too was elusive: the
+name seemed to lose its suggestiveness, and presently it sank behind the
+episode it had evoked.
+
+"Of course," Jones was saying, in reference, evidently, to what had gone
+before--"of course as millionaires go he is not first chop. Jerolomon
+could match him head or tail for all he has, and never miss it if he
+lost. Ten million, though, is a tidy sum--just enough to entertain on. A
+penny less and you are pinched. Why, you would be surprised--"
+
+"Has he any other children?"
+
+"Who? Dunellen? None that he has acknowledged."
+
+"Then his daughter will come in for it all."
+
+"That's what I said. When she does, she will probably hand it over to
+some man who wont know how to spend it. She's got a cousin--what's that
+beggar's name? However, he's a physician, makes a specialty of nervous
+diseases, I believe; good enough fellow in his way, but an everlasting
+bore--the sort of man you would avoid in a club, and trust your sister
+to. What the deuce _is_ his name?"
+
+"Well, what of him?"
+
+"Ah, yes. I fancy he wants to get married, and when he does, to
+entertain. He is very devoted."
+
+"But nowadays, barring royalty, no one ever marries a cousin."
+
+"Dear boy, you forget; it isn't every cousin that has ten million. When
+she has, the attempt is invariable." And Jones accentuated his remark
+with a nod. "Now," he continued, "what do you say to a look at the
+library? They have a superb edition of Kirschwasser in there, and a
+full set of the works of Chartreuse."
+
+The novelist had arisen; he was leaving the room, and Roland was about
+to follow him, when he noticed that Miss Dunellen was preparing to leave
+it too. Before she reached the hall he was at her side.
+
+There is this about the New York girl--her beauty is often bewildering,
+yet unless a husband catch her in the nick of time the bewilderment of
+that beauty fades. At sixteen Justine Dunellen had been enchanting, at
+twenty-three she was plain. Her face still retained its oval, but from
+it something had evaporated and gone. Her mouth, too, had altered. In
+place of the volatile brilliance of earlier years, it was drawn a
+little; it seemed resolute, and it also seemed subdued. But one feature
+had not changed: her eyes, which were of the color of snuff, enchanted
+still. They were large and clear, and when you looked in them you saw
+such possibilities of tenderness and sincerity that the escape of the
+transient was unregretted; you forgot the girl that had been, and loved
+the woman that was.
+
+And lovable she was indeed. The world is filled with charming people
+whom, parenthetically, many of us never meet; yet, however scant our
+list may be, there are moments when from Memory's gardens a vision
+issues we would fain detain. Who is there to whom that vision has not
+come? Nay, who is there that has not intercepted it, and, to the heart's
+perdition perhaps, suffered it to retreat? If there be any to whom such
+apparitions are unvouchsafed, let him evoke that woman whom he would
+like his sister to resemble and his wife to be. Then, if his intuitions
+are acute, there will appear before him one who has turned sympathy into
+a garment and taken refinement for a wreath; a woman just yet debonair,
+thoughtful of others, true to herself; a woman whose speech can weary no
+more than can a star, whose mind is clean as wholesome fruit, whose
+laugh is infrequent, and whose voice consoles; a woman who makes the
+boor chivalrous, and the chivalrous bend the knee. Such an one did
+Justine Dunellen seem. In person she was tall, slender, willowy of
+movement, with just that shrinking graciousness that the old masters
+gave to certain figures which they wished to represent as floating off
+the canvas into space.
+
+And now, as Roland joined her, she smiled and greeted him. With her was
+a lady to whom she turned:
+
+"Mrs. Metuchen, this is Mr. Mistrial."
+
+And Roland found himself bowing to a little old woman elaborately
+dressed. She was, he presently discovered, a feather-head person, who
+gave herself the airs of a _princesse en couches_. But though not the
+rose, at least she dwelt near by. Her husband was Mr. Dunellen's
+partner; and to Justine, particularly since the death of her mother, she
+had become what the Germans, who have many a neat expression, term a
+_Wahlverwandtschaft_--a relation not of blood, but of choice. She was
+feather-headed, but she was a lady; she was absurd, but she was lovable;
+and by Justine she was evidently beloved.
+
+Roland got her a seat, found a footstool for her, and pleased her very
+much by the interest which he displayed in her family tree.
+
+"I knew all your people," she announced at last. And when she did so,
+her manner was so gracious that Roland felt the hour had not been thrown
+away.
+
+During the rest of the day he managed to be frequently in her vicinity.
+The better part of the morrow he succeeded in sharing with Justine. And
+in the evening, when the latter bade him good-night, it occurred to him
+that if what Jones had said in regard to the cousin was true, then was
+the cousin losing ground.
+
+The next morning Mrs. Metuchen and her charge returned to town. Roland
+followed in a later train. As he crossed the ferry he told himself he
+had much to do; and on reaching New York he picked up his valise with
+the air of one who has no time to lose.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+In a city like New York it is not an easy task, nor is it always a
+profitable one, to besiege a young person that is fortressed in her
+father's house. And when the house has a cousin for sentinel, and that
+cousin is jealous, the difficulty is increased. But, time and tact
+aiding, what obstacle may not be removed?
+
+Roland understood all this very thoroughly, and on the day succeeding
+his return from Tuxedo he examined the directory, strolled into Wall
+Street, and there, at the shingle of Dunellen, Metuchen, & Such, sent in
+a card to the senior member of the firm.
+
+The Hon. Paul Dunellen--Honest Paul, to the world in which he moved--was
+a man who in his prime must have been of glad and gallant appearance;
+but latterly he had shrunk: his back had bent almost into a hump, he
+held his head lower than his shoulders, but with uplifted chin--a habit
+which gave him the appearance of being constantly occupied in peering at
+something which he could not quite discern, an appearance that was
+heightened by his eyes, which were restless, and by his brows, which
+were tormented and bushy. He had an ample mouth: when he spoke, the
+furrows in his cheeks moved with it. His nose was prominent; all his
+features, even to his ears, were larger than the average mould. When
+Roland was admitted to the room in which he sat, the first impression
+which he got from him was that of massiveness in decay.
+
+"Mr. Mistrial, I am glad to see you. I knew your father, and I had the
+honor of knowing your grandfather as well. Will you not take a seat?"
+The old man had half risen, and in this greeting made manifest something
+of that courtesy which we are learning to forget.
+
+"You are very kind," Roland answered. "It is because of my father that
+I venture to call. If I interrupt you, though"--and Roland, apparently
+hesitant, occupied himself in a study of his host--"if I do," he
+continued, "I beg you will allow me to come again."
+
+To this suggestion Mr. Dunellen refused to listen; but during the
+moments that followed, as Roland succinctly one after the other
+enumerated the facts in the case of his lost inheritance, the lawyer did
+listen; and he listened, moreover, with that air of concentrated
+attention which is the surest encouragement to him who has aught to say.
+And when Roland had completed the tale of his grievance, he nodded, and
+stroked his chin.
+
+"The matter is perfectly clear," he announced, "though I can't say as
+much for the law. Undue influence is evident. The trouble will be to
+invalidate a gift made during the lifetime of the donor; but--" And Mr.
+Dunellen made a gesture as who should say, It is for that that courts
+were established. "Yet, tell me, why is it that you have done nothing
+about it before?"
+
+To this Roland made no immediate reply. He lowered his eyes. "Paralysis
+is written in your face," he mused. Then aloud and rather sadly: "The
+fairest patrimony is an honored name," he said. "It is for me to guard
+my father's reputation. It is only recently, stress of circumstances
+aiding, I have thought that without publicity some compromise might
+possibly be effected." He looked up again, and as he looked he assured
+himself that the old man would not outlast the year.
+
+"Well, Mr. Mistrial, you must let me quote the speech a lord made to a
+commoner, 'You are not a noble, sir, but you are worthy of being one.'"
+And Mr. Dunellen reaching out caught Roland's hand and shook it in his
+own. "I enter thoroughly into your delicacy the more readily because I
+do not encounter it every day--no, nor every month. It does me good--on
+my word it does. Now, if a compromise can, as you suggest, be effected,
+and you care to leave the matter in my hands, I will do my best to serve
+you. It may take some little time, we must seem neither zealous nor
+impatient, and meanwhile--h'm--I understood you to say something about
+your circumstances. Now if I can be of any--"
+
+This offer Roland interrupted. "You are truly very kind, sir," he broke
+in, "and I thank you with all my heart. All the more so even because I
+must refuse. I have been badly brought up, I know; you see, I never
+expected that it would be necessary for me to earn my own living; yet if
+it is, I cannot begin too soon: but what would the end be if I began by
+borrowing money?"
+
+As Roland delivered this fine speech he was the image of Honesty arrayed
+in a Piccadilly coat. He rose from his seat. "I am detaining you, I am
+sure. Let me get the papers together and bring them to you to-morrow."
+
+"Do so, by all means," Mr. Dunellen answered, rising too. "Do so, by all
+means. But wait: to-morrow I may be absent. Could you not send them to
+my house this evening, or better still, bring them yourself? It would
+give me pleasure to have my daughter meet a man who is the moral
+portrait of his grandfather."
+
+"Your daughter!" Roland exclaimed. "It is not possible that she is the
+Miss Dunellen whom I saw the other day at Tuxedo."
+
+"With Mrs. Metuchen? Why, of course it is." And the lawyer looked as
+surprised as his client. "This is indeed a coincidence. But you will
+come, will you not?"
+
+"I shall consider it a privilege to do so," Roland, with a charming
+affectation of modesty, replied; and presently, when he found himself in
+the street again, he saw, stretching out into beckoning vistas, a
+high-road paved with promises of prompt success.
+
+And that evening, when the papers had been delivered, and Mr. Dunellen,
+leaving the guest to his daughter's care, had gone with them to his
+study, Roland could not help but feel that on that high-road his footing
+was assured; for, on entering the drawing-room, Justine had greeted him
+as one awaited and welcome, and now that her father had gone she
+motioned him to a seat at her side.
+
+"Tell me," she said, "what is it you do to people? There is Mrs.
+Metuchen, who pretends to abominate young men, and openly admires you.
+To-day you captured my father; by to-morrow you will be friends with
+Guy."
+
+"With Guy?" Mechanically Roland repeated the phrase. Then at once into
+the very core of memory entered the lancinating pang of a nerve exposed.
+During the second that followed, in that tumult of visions that visits
+him who awakes from a swoon, there came to him the effort made in Tuxedo
+to recall in what manner the name of Dunellen was familiar to his ears;
+but that instantly departed, and in its stead came a face one blur of
+tears, and behind it a stripling livid with hate. Could that be Guy? If
+it were, then indeed would the high-road narrow into an alley, with a
+dead wall at the end. Yet of the inward distress he gave no outward
+sign. About his thin lips a smile still played, and as he repeated the
+phrase he looked, as he always did, confident and self-possessed.
+
+"Yes, I am sure you will like each other," the girl answered; "all the
+more so perhaps because no two people could be less alike. Guy, you see,
+is--"
+
+But whatever description she may have intended to give remained
+unexpressed. A portiere had been drawn, and some one was entering the
+room. Roland, whose back was toward the door, turned obliquely and
+looked.
+
+"Why, there he is!" he heard Justine exclaim; and in the man that stood
+there he saw the stripling he had just evoked. Into the palms of his
+hands a moisture came, yet as Justine proceeded with some form of
+introduction he rose to his feet. "So you are the cousin," he mused; and
+then, with a bow in which he put the completest indifference, he resumed
+his seat.
+
+"We were just talking of you," Justine continued. "Why didn't you come
+in last night?"
+
+"It is snowing," the cousin remarked, inconsequently, and sat himself
+down.
+
+"Dr. Thorold, you know;" and Justine, turning to Mistrial, began to
+relate one of those little anecdotes which are serviceable when
+conversation drags.
+
+As she ran on, Roland, apparently attentive, marked that one of
+Thorold's feet was moving uneasily, and divined rather than saw that the
+fingers of his hand were clinched. "He is working himself up," he
+reflected. "Well, let him; it will make it the easier for me." And as he
+told himself this he turned on Thorold a glance which he was prepared
+to instantly divert. But the physician was not looking; he sat
+bolt-upright, his eyes lowered, and about his mouth and forehead the
+creases of a scowl.
+
+Dr. Thorold was of that class of man that women always like and never
+adore. He was thoughtful of others, and considerate. Physically he was
+well-favored, and pleasant to the eye. He was sometimes dull, but rarely
+selfish; by taste and training he was a scholar--gifted at that; and yet
+through some accident of nature he lacked that one fibre which
+differentiates the hero from the herd. In the way we live to-day the
+need of heroes is so slight that the absence of that fibre is of no
+moment at all--a circumstance which may account for the fact that
+Justine admired him very much, trusted him entirely, and had she been
+his sister instead of his cousin could not have appreciated him more.
+
+And now, as Roland eyed him for one moment, through some of those
+indetectable currents that bring trivialities to the mind that is most
+deeply engrossed he noticed that though the physician was in dress the
+shoes he wore were not veneered. Then at once he entered into a perfect
+understanding of the circumstances in which he was placed. Though he
+lost the game even as the cards were being dealt, at least he would lose
+it well. "I'll teach him a lesson," he decided; and presently, as
+Justine ceased speaking, he assumed his gayest air.
+
+"Yes, yes," he exclaimed, and gave a twist to his light mustache. He had
+caught her ultimate words, and with them a cue.
+
+"Yes, I remember in Nepal--"
+
+And thereupon he carried his listener through a series of scenes and
+adventures which he made graphic by sheer dexterity in the use of words.
+His speech, colored and fluent, was of exactly that order which must be
+heard, not read. It was his intonation which gave it its charm, the
+manner in which he eluded a detail that might have wearied; the
+expression his face took on at the situations which he saw before
+describing, and which he made his auditor expect; and also the surety of
+his skill in transition--the art with which he would pass from one idea
+to another, connect them both with a gesture, and complete the subject
+with a smile. The _raconteur_ is usually a bore. When he is not, he is a
+wizard. And as Roland passed from one peak of the Himalayas to another,
+over one of the two that listened he exerted a palpable spell. At last,
+the end of his tether reached, he turned to the cousin, and, without a
+hesitation intervening, asked of him, as though the question were one of
+really personal interest, "Dr. Thorold, have you ever been in the East?"
+
+Thorold, thrown off his guard, glared for an instant, the scowl still
+manifest; then he stood up. "No, sir; I have not," he answered; and
+each of the monosyllables of his reply he seemed to propel with tongue
+and teeth. "Good-night, Justine." And with a nod that was rather small
+for two to divide, took himself from the room.
+
+He reached the portiere before Justine fully grasped the discourtesy of
+his conduct. She stared after him wonderingly, her lips half parted, her
+clear eyes dilated and amazed, the color mounted to her cheeks, and she
+made as though to leave her seat.
+
+But this Roland thought it wise to prevent. "Miss Dunellen," he
+murmured, "I am afraid Dr. Thorold was bored. It is my fault. I had no
+right--"
+
+"Bored! How could he have been? I am sure I don't see--"
+
+"Yes, you do, my dear," thought Roland; "you think he was jealous, and
+you are wrong; but it is good for us that you should." And in memory of
+the little compliment her speech had unintentionally conveyed he gave
+another twist to his mustache.
+
+The outer door closed with a jar that reached him where he sat. "Thank
+God!" he muttered; and divining that if he now went away the girl would
+regret his departure, after another word or two, and despite the
+protestation of her manner, he bade her good-night.
+
+It is one of the charms of our lovely climate that the temperature can
+fall twenty degrees in as many minutes. When Roland entered the Dunellen
+house he left spring in the street; when he came out again there was
+snow. Across the way a lamp flickered, beneath it a man was standing,
+from beyond came a faint noise of passing wheels, but the chance of
+rescue by cab or hansom was too remote for anyone but a foreigner to
+entertain. Roland had omitted to provide himself with any protection
+against a storm, yet that omission affected him but little. He had too
+many things to think of to be anxious about his hat; and, his hands in
+his pocket, his head lowered, he descended the steps, prepared to let
+the snow do its worst.
+
+As he reached the pavement the man at the lamp-post crossed the street.
+
+"Mistrial," he called, for Roland was hurrying on--"Mistrial, I want a
+word with you."
+
+In a moment he was at his side, and simultaneously Roland recognized the
+cousin. He was buttoned up in a loose coat faced with fur, and over his
+head he held an umbrella. He seemed a little out of breath.
+
+"If," he began at once, "if I hear that you ever presume to so much as
+speak to Miss Dunellen again, I will break every bone in your body."
+
+The voice in which he made this threat was gruff and aggressive. As he
+delivered it, he closed his umbrella and swung it like a club.
+
+"_A nous deux, maintenant_," mused Roland.
+
+"And not only that--if you ever dare to enter that house again I will
+expose you."
+
+"Oh, will you, though?" answered Roland. The tone he assumed was
+affectedly civil. "Well now, my fat friend, let me tell you this: I
+intend to enter that house, as you call it, to-morrow at precisely five
+o'clock. Let me pick you up on the way, and we can go together."
+
+"Roland Mistrial, as sure as there is a God in heaven I will have you in
+the Tombs."
+
+"See here, put up your umbrella. You are not in a condition to expose
+yourself--let alone anyone else. You are daft, Thorold--that is what is
+the matter with you. If you persist in chattering Tombs at me in a
+snow-storm I will answer Bloomingdale to you. You frightened me once, I
+admit; but I am ten years older now, and ten years less easily scared.
+Besides, what drivel you talk! You haven't that much to go on."
+
+As Roland spoke his accent changed from affected suavity to open scorn.
+"Now stop your bluster," he continued, "and listen to me. Because you
+happen to find me in there, you think I have intentions on the
+heiress--"
+
+"It's a lie! She--"
+
+"There, don't be abusive. I know you want her for yourself, and I hope
+you get her. But please don't think that I mean to stand in your way."
+
+"I should say not."
+
+"In the first place, I went there on business."
+
+"What business, I would like to know?"
+
+"So you shall. I took some papers for Mr. Dunellen to examine--papers
+relative to my father's estate. To-morrow I return to learn his opinion.
+Next week I go abroad again. When I leave I promise you shall find your
+cousin still heart-whole and fancy-free."
+
+As Roland delivered this little stab he paused a moment to note the
+effect. But apparently it had passed unnoticed--Thorold seemingly was
+engrossed in the statements that preceded it. The scowl was still on his
+face, but it was a scowl into which perplexity had entered, and which in
+entering had modified the aggressiveness that had first been there. At
+the moment his eyes wandered, and Roland, who was watching him, felt
+that he had scored a point.
+
+"You say you are going abroad?" he said, at last.
+
+"Yes; I have to join my wife."
+
+At this announcement Thorold looked up at him and then down at the
+umbrella. Presently, with an abrupt gesture, he unfurled it and raised
+it above his head. As he did so, Roland smiled. For that night at least
+the danger had gone. Of the morrow, however, he was unassured.
+
+"Suppose we walk along," he said, encouragingly; and before Thorold knew
+it, he was sharing that umbrella with his foe. "Yes," he continued, "my
+poor father left his affairs in a muddle, but Mr. Dunellen says he
+thinks he can straighten them out. You can understand that if any
+inkling of this thing were to reach him he would return the papers at
+once. You can understand that, can't you? After all, you must know that
+I have suffered."
+
+"Suffered!" Thorold cried. "What's that to me? It made my mother
+insane."
+
+"God knows I nearly lost my reason too. I can understand how you feel
+toward me: it is only what I deserve. Yet though you cannot forget, at
+least it can do you no good to rake this matter up."
+
+"It is because of--" and for a second the cousin halted in his speech.
+
+"_Voila!_" mused Roland. "_Je te vois venir._"
+
+"However, if you are going abroad--"
+
+"Most certainly I am. I never expect to see Miss Dunellen again."
+
+"In that case I will say nothing."
+
+They had reached Fifth Avenue, and for a moment both loitered on the
+curb. Thorold seemed to have something to add, but he must have had
+difficulty in expressing it, for he nodded as though to reiterate the
+promise.
+
+"I can rely upon you then, can I?" Roland asked.
+
+"Keep out of my way, sir, and I will try, as I have tried, to forget."
+
+A 'bus was passing, he hailed it, and disappeared.
+
+Roland watched the conveyance, and shook the snow-flakes from his coat.
+"Try, and be damned," he muttered. "I haven't done with you yet."
+
+The disdain of a revenge at hand is accounted the uniquest possible
+vengeance. And it is quite possible that had Roland's monetary affairs
+been in a better condition, on a sound and solid basis, let us say, he
+would willingly have put that paradox into action. But on leaving Tuxedo
+he happened to be extremely hungry--hungry, first and foremost, for the
+possession of that wealth which in this admirably conducted country of
+ours lifts a man above the law, and, an adroit combination of
+scoundrelism and incompetence aiding, sometimes lands him high among the
+executives of state. By political ambition, however, it is only just to
+say he was uninspired. In certain assemblies he had taken the trouble to
+assert that our government is one at which Abyssinia might sneer, but
+the role of reformer was not one which he had any inclination to
+attempt. Several of his progenitors figured, and prominently too, in
+abridgments of history; and, if posterity were not satisfied with that,
+he had a very clear idea as to what posterity might do. In so far as he
+was personally concerned, the prominence alluded to was a thing which he
+accepted as a matter of course: it was an integral part of himself; he
+would have missed it as he would have missed a leg or the point of his
+nose; but otherwise it left his pulse unstirred. No, his hunger was not
+for preferment or place. It was for the ten million which the Hon. Paul
+Dunellen had gathered together, and which the laws of gravitation would
+prevent him from carrying away when he died. That was the nature of
+Roland Mistrial's hunger, and as incidental thereto was the thirst to
+adjust an outstanding account.
+
+Whatever the nature of that account may have been, in a more ordinary
+case it might have become outlawed through sheer lapse of time. But
+during that lapse of time Roland had been in exile because of it; and
+though even now he might have been willing to let it drift back into the
+past where it belonged, yet when the representative of it not only
+loomed between him and the millions, but was even attempting to gather
+them in for himself, the possibility of retaliation was too complete to
+suffer disdain. The injury, it is true, was one of his own doing. But,
+curiously enough, when a man injures another the more wanton that injury
+is the less it incites to repentance. In certain dispositions it becomes
+a source of malignant hate. Deserve a man's gratitude, and he may
+forgive you; but let him do you a wrong, and you have an enemy for life.
+Such is the human heart--or such at least was Roland Mistrial's.
+
+And now, as the conveyance rumbled off into the night, he shook the
+snow-flakes from his coat.
+
+"Try, and be damned," he repeated; "I haven't done with you yet."
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+To the New Yorker March is the vilest month of all the year. In the
+South it is usually serene. Mrs. Metuchen, who gave herself the airs of
+an invalid, and who possessed the invalid's dislike of vile weather, was
+aware of this; and while the first false promises of February were being
+protested she succeeded in persuading Miss Dunellen to accompany her out
+of snow-drifts into the sun. It was Aiken that she chose as refuge; and
+when the two ladies arrived there they felt satisfied that their choice
+had been a proper one--a satisfaction which they did not share alone,
+for a few days after their arrival Roland Mistrial arrived there too.
+
+During the intervening weeks he had seemed idle; but it is the thinker's
+characteristic to appear unoccupied when he is most busily engaged, and
+Roland, outwardly inactive, had in reality made the most of his time.
+
+On the morning succeeding the encounter with Thorold something kept
+coming and whispering that he had undertaken a task which was beyond his
+strength. To many of us night is apt to be more confident than are the
+earlier hours of the day, and the courage which Roland had exhibited
+spent itself and went. It is hard to feel the flutter of a bird beneath
+one's fingers, and, just when the fingers tighten, to discover that the
+bird is no longer there. Such a thing is disappointing, and the
+peculiarity of a disappointment consists in this--the victim of it is
+apt to question the validity of his own intuitions. Thus far--up to the
+looming of Thorold--everything had been in Roland's favor. Without
+appreciable effort he had achieved the impossible. In three days he had
+run an heiress to earth, gained her father's liking, captivated her
+chaperon, and, at the moment when the air was sentient with success,
+the highway on which he strode became suddenly tortuous and obscure. Do
+what he might he could not discern so much as a sign-post; and as in
+perplexity he twirled his thumbs, little by little he understood that he
+must either turn back and hunt another quarry, or stand where he was and
+wait. Another step on that narrowing road and he might tumble into a
+gully. Did he keep his word with Thorold he felt sure that Thorold would
+keep his word with him. But did he break it, and Thorold learn he had
+done so, several consequences were certain to ensue, and among them he
+could hear from where he stood the bang with which Mr. Dunellen's door
+would close. The only plank which drifted his way threatened to break
+into bits. He needed no one to tell him that Justine was not a girl to
+receive him or anyone else in the dark; and even fortune favoring, if in
+chance meetings he were able to fan her spark of interest for him into
+flame, those chance meetings would be mentioned by her to whomsoever
+they might concern. No, that plank was rotten; and yet in considering
+it, and in considering too the possibilities to which, were it a trifle
+stronger, it might serve as bridge, he passed that morning, a number of
+subsequent mornings. A month elapsed, and still he eyed that plank.
+
+Meanwhile he had seen Miss Dunellen but once. She happened to be driving
+up the Avenue, but he had passed her unobserved. Then the weather became
+abominable, and he knew it was useless to look for her in the Park; and
+once he had visited her father's office and learned again, what he
+already knew, that in regard to the lost estate, eternity aiding,
+something might be recovered, but that the chances were vague as was it.
+And so February came and found his hunger unappeased. The alternate
+course which had suggested itself came back, and he determined to turn
+and hunt another quarry. During his sojourn abroad he had generally
+managed a team of three. There was the gerundive, as he termed the
+hindmost--the woman he was about to leave; there was another into whose
+graces he had entered; and there was a third in training for future use.
+This custom he had found most serviceable. Whatever might happen in less
+regulated establishments, his stable was full. And that custom, which
+had stood him in good stead abroad, had nothing in it to prevent
+adoption here. Indeed, he told himself it was because of his negligence
+in that particular that he found himself where he was. Instead of
+centring his attention on Miss Dunellen, it would have been far better
+to wander in and out of the glittering precincts of Fifth Avenue, and
+see what else he could find. After all, there was nothing like being
+properly provisioned. If one comestible ran short, there should be
+another to take its place. Moreover, if, as Jones had intimated, there
+were heiresses enough for export purposes, there must surely be enough
+to supply the home demand.
+
+The alternate course alluded to he had therefore determined to adopt,
+when an incident occurred which materially altered his plans. One
+particularly detestable morning he read in public print that Mrs.
+Metuchen and Miss Dunellen were numbered among the visitors to South
+Carolina, and thereupon he proceeded to pack his valise. A few days
+later he was in Aiken, and on the forenoon of the third day succeeding
+his arrival, as he strolled down the verandah of the Mountain Glen
+Hotel, he felt at peace with the world and with himself.
+
+It was a superb morning, half summer, half spring. In the distance a
+forest stretched indefinitely and lost itself in the haze of the horizon
+beyond. The sky was tenderly blue, and, beneath, a lawn green as the
+baize on a roulette-table was circled by a bright-red road. He had
+breakfasted infamously on food that might have been cooked by a butcher
+to whom breakfast is an odious thing. Yet its iniquity he accepted as a
+matter of course. He knew, as we all do, that for bad food, bad service,
+and for futility of complaint our country hotels are unrivalled, even in
+Spain. He was there not to enjoy himself, still less for the pleasures a
+blue ribbon can cause: he was there to fan into flame the interest which
+Miss Dunellen had exhibited; and as he strolled down the verandah, a
+crop under his arm, his trousers strapped, he had no intention of
+quarrelling with the fare. Quite a number of people were basking in the
+sunlight, and, as he passed, some of them turned and looked; for at
+Aiken men that have more than one lung are in demand, and, when Roland
+registered his historic name, to the unattached females a little flutter
+of anticipation came.
+
+But Roland was not in search of flirtations: he moved by one group into
+another until he reached a corner of the verandah in which Mrs.
+Metuchen and Miss Dunellen sat. Merely by the expression on the faces of
+those whom he greeted it was patent to the others that the trio were on
+familiar terms; and when presently he accompanied Miss Dunellen off the
+verandah, aided her to mount a horse that waited there, mounted another
+himself, and cantered off with the girl, the unattached females declared
+that the twain must be engaged. In that they were in error. As yet
+Roland had not said a word to the charge he might not have said to the
+matron. Both of these ladies had been surprised when he reached Aiken,
+and both had been pleased as well. In that surprise, in that pleasure,
+Roland had actively collaborated; and taking on himself to answer before
+it was framed the question which his advent naturally prompted, he
+stated that in journeying from Savannah to Asheville he had stopped over
+at Aiken as at a halfway house, and that, too, without an idea of
+encountering anyone whom he knew. Thereafter for several days he managed
+to make himself indispensable to the matron, companionable to her
+charge; but now, on this particular morning, as he rattled down the red
+road, the courage which had deserted him returned; and a few hours
+later, when before a mirror in his bedroom he stood arranging his
+cravat, he caught a reflection of Hyperion, son-in-law of Croesus.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+In a fortnight that reflection was framed with a promise. Justine had
+put her hand in his. The threads by which he succeeded in binding her to
+him are needless to describe. He understood that prime secret in the art
+of coercing affection which consists in making one's self desired. He
+was never inopportune. Moreover, he saw that Justine, accustomed to the
+devotion of other men, accepted such devotion as a matter of course; in
+consequence he took another tack, and bullied her--a treatment which was
+new to her, and, being new, attractive. He found fault with her openly,
+criticised the manner in which she sat her horse, contradicted her
+whenever the opportunity came, and jeered--civilly, it is true, but the
+jeer was there and all the sharper because it was blunted--at any
+enthusiasm she chanced to express. And then, when she expected it
+least, he would be enthusiastic himself, and enthusiastic over nothing
+at all--some mythical deed canned in history, the beauty of a child, or
+the flush of the arbutus which they gathered on their rides. To others
+whom he encountered in her presence he showed himself so
+self-abnegatory, so readily pleased, sweet-tempered, and indulgent, so
+studious even of their susceptibilities and appreciative of what they
+liked and what they did not, that in comparing his manner to her and his
+manner to them the girl grew vexed, and one evening she told him so.
+
+They happened to be sitting alone in a corner of the verandah. From
+within came the rhythm of a waltz; some dance was in progress,
+affectioned by the few; Mrs. Metuchen was discussing family trees with a
+party of Philadelphians; the air was sweet with the scent of pines and
+of jasmines; just above and beyond, a star was circumflexed by the moon.
+
+"I am sorry if I have offended," he made answer to her complaint. "Do
+you mind if I smoke?" Without waiting for her consent he drew out a
+cigarette and lighted it. "I have not intended to," he added. "To-morrow
+I will go."
+
+"But why? You like it here. You told me so to-day."
+
+With a fillip of forefinger and thumb Roland tossed the cigarette out
+into the road. "Because I admire you," he answered curtly.
+
+"I am glad of that."
+
+The reproof, if reproof there were, was not in her speech, but in her
+voice. She spoke as one does whose due is conceded only after an effort.
+And for a while both were mute.
+
+"Come, children, it is time to go to bed." Mrs. Metuchen in her
+fantastic fashion was hailing them from the door. Already the waltz had
+ceased, and as Mrs. Metuchen spoke, Justine rose from her seat.
+
+"Good-night, Don Quichotte," the old lady added; and as the girl
+approached she continued in an audible undertone, "I call him Don
+Quichotte because he looks like the Chevalier Bayard."
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Metuchen, and the pleasantest of dreams." But the
+matron, with a wave of her glove, had disappeared, and Justine returned.
+
+"At least you will not go until the afternoon?"
+
+"Since you wish it, I will not."
+
+She had stretched out her hand, but Roland, affecting not to notice it,
+raised his hat and turned away. Presently, and although, in spite of
+many a vice, he was little given to drink, he found himself at the bar
+superintending the blending of gin, of lemon-peel, and of soda; and as
+he swallowed it and put the goblet down he seemed so satisfied that the
+barkeeper, with the affectionate familiarity of his class, nodded and
+smiled.
+
+"It takes a Remsen Cooler to do the trick, don't it?" he said.
+
+And Roland, assenting remotely, left the bar and sought his room.
+
+The next morning, as through different groups he sought for matron and
+for maid, he had a crop under his arm and in his hand a paper.
+
+"I have been settling my bill," he announced.
+
+"But are you going?" exclaimed Mrs. Metuchen.
+
+"I can hardly take up a permanent residence here, can I?" he replied.
+
+"Oh, Justine," the old lady cried, and clutched the girl by the arm,
+"persuade him not to." And fixing him with her glittering eyes, she
+added, "If you go, sir, you leave an Aiken void."
+
+The jest passed him unnoticed. He felt that something had been said
+which called for applause, for Mrs. Metuchen was laughing immoderately.
+But his eyes were in Justine's as were hers in his.
+
+"You will ride, will you not? I see you have your habit on." And with
+that, Justine assenting, he led her down the steps and aided her to the
+saddle.
+
+There are numberless tentative things in life, and among them an amble
+through green, deserted lanes, where only birds and flowers are, has
+witcheries of its own. However perturbed the spirit may have been, there
+is that in the glow of the morning and the gait of a horse that can make
+it wholly serene. The traveller from Sicily will, if you let him, tell
+of hours so fair that even the bandits are coerced. Man cannot always be
+centred in self; and when to the influence of nature is added the
+companionship of one whose presence allures, the charm is complete. And
+Roland, to whom such things hitherto had been as accessories, this
+morning felt their spell. The roomy squalor of the village had been
+passed long since. They had entered a road where the trees arched and
+nearly hid the sky, but through the branches an eager sunlight found its
+way. Now and then in a clearing they would happen on some shabby, silent
+house, the garden gay with the tender pink of blossoming peach; and at
+times, from behind a log or straight from the earth, a diminutive negro
+would start like a kobold in a dream and offer, in an abashed, uncertain
+way, a bunch of white violets in exchange for coin. And once an old man,
+trudging along, saluted them with a fine parabola of hat and hand; and
+once they encountered a slatternly negress, very fat and pompous, seated
+behind a donkey she could have carried in her arms. But practically the
+road was deserted, fragrant, and still.
+
+And now, as they rode on, interchanging only haphazard remarks, Roland
+swung himself from his horse, and, plucking a spray of arbutus, handed
+it to the girl.
+
+"Take it," he said; "it is all I have."
+
+His horse had wandered on a step and was nibbing at the grass, and, as
+he stood looking up at her, for the first time it occurred to him that
+she was fair. However a girl may seem in a ball-room, if she ever looks
+well she looks best in the saddle; and Justine, in spite of his
+criticism, did not sit her horse badly. Her gray habit, the high white
+collar and open vest, brought out the snuff-color of her eyes and hair.
+Her cheeks, too, this morning must have recovered some of the flush they
+had lost, or else the sun had been using its palette, for in them was
+the hue of the flower he had gathered and held.
+
+She took it and inserted the stem in the lapel of her coat.
+
+"Are you going?" she asked.
+
+"What would you think of me if I remained?"
+
+"What would I? I would think--"
+
+As she hesitated she turned. He could see now it was not the sun alone
+that had been at work upon her face.
+
+"Let _me_ tell. You would think that a man with two arms for sole income
+has no right to linger in the neighborhood of a girl such as you. That
+is what you would think, what anyone would think; and while I care
+little enough about the existence which I lead in the minds of other
+people, yet I do care for your esteem. If I stay, I lose it. I should
+lose, too, my own; let me keep them both and go."
+
+"I do not yet see why?"
+
+"You don't!" The answer was so abrupt in tone that you would have said
+he was irritated at her remark, judging it unnecessary and ill-timed.
+"You don't!" he repeated. "Go back a bit, and perhaps you will remember
+that after I saw you at your house I did not come back again."
+
+"I do indeed remember."
+
+"The next day I saw you in the Park; I was careful not to return."
+
+"But what have I done? You said last night--"
+
+"Why do you question? You know it is because I love you."
+
+"Then you shall not go."
+
+"I must."
+
+"You shall _not_, I say."
+
+"And I shall take with me the knowledge that the one woman I have loved
+is the one woman I have been forced to leave."
+
+"Roland Mistrial, how can you bear the name you do and yet be so unjust?
+If you leave me now it is because you care more for yourself than you
+ever could for me. It is not on my account you go: it is because you
+fear the world. There were heroes once that faced it."
+
+"Yes, and there were Circes then, as now."
+
+As he made that trite reply his face relaxed, and into it came an
+expression of such abandonment that the girl could see the day was won.
+
+"Tell me--you will not go?"
+
+Roland caught her hand in his, and, drawing back the gauntlet of kid, he
+kissed her on the wrist. "I will never leave you now," he answered;
+"Only promise you will not regret."
+
+"Regret!" She smiled at the speech--or was it a smile? Her lips had
+moved, but it was as though they had done so in answer to some prompting
+of her soul. "Regret! Do you remember you asked me what I would think if
+you remained? Well, I thought, if you did, there were dreams which do
+come true."
+
+At this avowal she was so radiant yet so troubled that Roland detained
+her hand. "She really loves," he mused; "and so do I." And it may be,
+the forest aiding, that, in the answering pressure which he gave, such
+heart as he had went out and mingled with her own.
+
+"Between us now," he murmured, "it is for all of time."
+
+"Roland, how I waited for you!"
+
+Again her lips moved and she seemed to smile, but now her eyes were no
+longer in his, they were fixed on some vista visible only to herself.
+She looked rapt, but she looked startled as well. When a girl first
+stands face to face with love it allures and it frightens too.
+
+Roland dropped her hand; he caught his horse and mounted it. In a moment
+he was at her side again.
+
+"Justine!"
+
+And the girl turning to him let her fresh lips meet and rest upon his
+own. Slowly he disengaged the arm with which he had steadied himself on
+her waist.
+
+"If I lose you now--" he began.
+
+"There can be no question of losing," she interrupted. "Have we not come
+into our own?"
+
+"But others may dispute our right. There is your cousin, to whom I
+thought you were engaged; and there is your father."
+
+"Oh, as for Guy--" and she made a gesture. "Father, it is true, may
+object; but let him. I am satisfied; in the end he will be satisfied
+also. Why, only the other day I wrote him you were here."
+
+"H'm!" At the intelligence he wheeled abruptly.
+
+Already Justine had turned, and lowering her crop she gave her horse a
+little tap. The beast was willing enough; in a moment the two were on a
+run, and as Roland's horse, a broncho, by-the-way, one of those eager
+animals that decline to remain behind, rushed forward and took the lead,
+"Remember!" she cried, "you are not to leave me now."
+
+But the broncho was self-willed, and this injunction Roland found or
+pretended it difficult to obey; and together, through the green lane and
+out of it, by long, dismal fields of rice, into the roomy squalor of the
+village and on to the hotel, they flew as though some fate pursued.
+Justine never forgot that ride, nor did Roland either.
+
+At the verandah steps Mrs. Metuchen was in waiting. "I have a telegram
+from your father," she called to Justine. "He wishes you to return
+to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow?" the girl exclaimed.
+
+"Thorold has learned I am here, and has told," her lover reflected. And
+swinging from his saddle he aided the girl to alight.
+
+"To-morrow," Mrs. Metuchen with large assumption of resignation replied;
+"and we may be thankful he did not say to-day."
+
+And as Roland listened to the varying interpretations of the summons
+which, during the absence of her charge, Mrs. Metuchen's riotous
+imagination had found time to conceive, "Thorold has told," he repeated
+to himself, "but he has told too late."
+
+After a morning such as that, an afternoon on a piazza is apt to drag.
+Of this Roland was conscious. Moreover, he had become aware that his
+opportunities were now narrowly limited; and presently, as Mrs.
+Metuchen's imaginings subsided and ceased, he asked the girl whether,
+when dinner was over, she would care to take a drive.
+
+Protest who may, at heart every woman is a match-maker; and Mrs.
+Metuchen was not an exception. In addition to this, she liked
+family-trees, she was in cordial sympathy with good-breeding, and
+Roland, who possessed both, had, through attentions which women of her
+age appreciate most, succeeded in detaining her regard. In conversation,
+whenever Justine happened to be mentioned, she had a habit of extolling
+that young woman--not beyond her deserts, it is true, but with the
+attitude of one aware that the girl had done something which she ought
+to be ashamed of, yet to which no one was permitted to allude. This
+attitude was due to the fact that she suspected her, and suspected that
+everyone else suspected her, of an attachment for her cousin Guy. Now
+Guy Thorold had never appealed to Mrs. Metuchen. He was not prompt with
+a chair; when she unrolled her little spangle of resonant names he
+displayed no eagerness in face or look. Such things affect a woman. They
+ruffle her flounces and belittle her in her own esteem. As a
+consequence, she disliked Guy Thorold; from the heights of that dislike
+she was even wont to describe him as Poke--a word she could not have
+defined had she tried, but which suggested to her all the attributes of
+that which is stupid and under-bred. Roland, on the other hand, seemed
+to her the embodiment of just those things which Thorold lacked, and in
+the hope that he might cut the cousin out she extolled him to her charge
+in indirect and subtle ways. You young men who read this page mind you
+of this: if you would succeed in love or war, be considerate of women
+who are no longer young. They ask but an attention, a moment of your
+bountiful days, some little act of deference, and in exchange they sound
+your praises more deftly than ever trumpeter or beat of drums could do.
+
+But because Mrs. Metuchen had an axe of her own to grind was not to her
+mind a reason why she should countenance a disregard of the Satanic
+pomps of that which the Western press terms Etiquette. And so it
+happened that, when Roland asked Justine whether she would care to
+drive, before the girl could answer, the matron stuck her oar in:
+
+"Surely, Mr. Mistrial, you cannot think Miss Dunellen could go with you
+alone. Not that _I_ see any impropriety in her doing so, but there is
+the world."
+
+The world at that moment consisted of a handful of sturdy consumptives
+impatiently waiting the opening of the dining-room doors. And as Roland
+considered that world, he mentally explored the stable.
+
+"Of course not," he answered; "if Miss Dunellen cares to go, I will have
+a dogcart and a groom."
+
+With that sacrifice to conventionality Mrs. Metuchen was content. For
+Justine to ride unchaperoned was one thing, but driving was another
+matter. And later on, in the cool of the afternoon, as Roland bowled the
+girl over the yielding sand, straight to the sunset beyond, he began
+again on the duo which they had already rehearsed, and when Justine
+called his attention to the groom, he laughed a little, and well he
+might. "Don't mind him," he murmured; "he is deaf."
+
+In earlier conversations he had rarely spoken of himself, and, when he
+had, it had been in that remote fashion which leaves the personal
+pronoun at the door. There is nothing better qualified to weary the
+indifferent than the speech in which the I jumps out; and knowing this,
+he knew too that that very self-effacement before one whose interest is
+aroused excites that interest to still higher degrees. The _Moi seul est
+haissable_ is an old maxim, one that we apprehend more or less to our
+cost no doubt, and after many a sin of egotism; but when it is learned
+by rote, few others serve us in better stead. In Roland's relations
+with Justine thus far it had served him well. It had filled her mind
+with questions which she did not feel she had the right to ask, and in
+so filling it had occupied her thoughts with him. It was through arts of
+this kind that Machiavelli earned his fame.
+
+But at present circumstances had changed. She had placed her hand in
+his; she had avowed her love. The I could now appear; its welcome was
+assured. And as they drove along the sand-hills she told him of herself,
+and drew out confidences in exchange. And such confidences! Had the
+groom not been deaf they might have given him food for thought. But they
+must have satisfied Justine, for when they reached the hotel again her
+eyes were so full of meaning that, had Mrs. Metuchen met her in a pantry
+instead of on the verandah, she could have seen unspectacled that the
+girl was fairly intoxicated--drunk with that headiest cup of love which
+is brewed not by the contact of two epiderms, but through communion of
+spirit and unison of heart.
+
+That evening, when supper was done, Mrs. Metuchen, to whom any breath of
+night was synonymous with miasmas and microbes, settled herself in the
+parlor, and in the company of her friends from School Lane discussed
+that inexhaustible topic--Who Was and Who Was Not.
+
+But the verandah, deserted at this hour by the consumptives, had
+attractions for Justine, for Roland as well; and presently, in a corner
+of it that leaned to the south, both were seated, and, at the moment,
+both were dumb. On the horizon, vague now and undiscerned, the
+peach-blossoms and ochres of sunset had long since disappeared; but from
+above rained down the light and messages of other worlds; the sky was
+populous with stars that seemed larger and nearer than they do in the
+north; Venus in particular shone like a neighborly sun that had strayed
+afar, and in pursuit of her was a moon, a new one, so slender and
+yellow you would have said, a feather that a breath might blow away. In
+the air were the same inviting odors, the scent of heliotrope and of
+violets, the invocations of the woodlands, the whispers of the pines.
+The musicians had been hushed, or else dismissed, for no sound came from
+them that night.
+
+Roland had not sought the feverish night to squander it in
+contemplation. His hand moved and caught Justine's. It resisted a
+little, then lay docile in his own. For she was new to love. Like every
+other girl that has passed into the twenties, she had a romance in her
+life, two perhaps, but romances immaterial as children's dreams, and
+from which she had awaked surprised, noting the rhythm yet seeking the
+reason in vain. They had passed from her as fancies do; and, just as she
+was settling down into leisurely acceptance of her cousin, Roland had
+appeared, and when she saw him a bird within her burst into song, and
+she knew that all her life she had awaited his approach. To her he was
+the fabulous prince that arouses the sleeper to the truth, to the
+meaning, of love. He had brought with him new currents, wider vistas,
+and horizons solid and real. He differed so from other men that her mind
+was pleasured with the thought he had descended from a larger sphere.
+She idealized him as girls untrained in life will do. He was the lover
+unawaited yet not wholly undivined, tender-hearted, impeccable,
+magnificent, incapable of wrong--the lover of whom she may never have
+dreamed, yet who at last had come. And into his keeping she gave her
+heart, and was glad, regretting only it was not more to give. She had no
+fears; her confidence was assured as Might, and had you or I or any
+other logician passed that way and demonstrated as clearly as _a_ = _a_
+that she was imbecile in her love, she would not have thanked either of
+us for our pains. When a woman loves--and whatever the cynic may
+affirm, civilization has made her monandrous--she differs from man in
+this: she gives either the first-fruits of her affection, or else the
+semblance of an after-growth. There are men, there are husbands and
+lovers even, who will accept that after-growth and regard it as the
+verdure of an enduring spring. But who, save a lover, is ever as stupid
+as a husband? Man, on the other hand, is constant never. Civilization
+has not improved him in the least. And when on his honor he swears he
+has never loved before, his honor goes unscathed, for he may never yet
+have loved a woman as he loves the one to whom he swears.
+
+With Justine this was the primal verdure. Had she not met Roland
+Mistrial, she might, and in all probability would, have exhibited
+constancy in affection, but love would have been uncomprehended still.
+As it was, she had come into her own; she was confident in it and
+secure; and now, though by nature she was rebellious enough, as he
+caught her hand her being went out to him, and as it went it thrilled.
+
+"I love you," he said; and his voice was so flexible that it would have
+been difficult to deny that he really did. "I will love you always, my
+whole life through."
+
+The words caressed her so well she could have pointed to the sky and
+repeated with Dona Sol:
+
+    "Regarde: plus de feux, plus de bruit. Tout se tait.
+    La lune tout a l'heure a l'horizon montait:
+    Tandis que tu parlais, sa lumiere qui tremble
+    Et ta voix, toutes deux m'allaient au coeur ensemble:
+    Je me sentais joyeuse et calme, o mon amant!
+    Et j'aurais bien voulu mourir en ce moment."
+
+But at once some premonition seemed to visit her. "Roland," she
+murmured, "what if we leave our happiness here?"
+
+And Roland, bending toward her, whispered sagely: "We shall know then
+where to find it."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+New York meanwhile, in its effeminateness, had forgotten the snow, and
+was listening to the sun. And the day after the return from Aiken, as
+Roland, in accordance with an agreement of which the _locus sigilli_ had
+a kiss for token, went down to knock at Mr. Dunellen's office door, the
+sky was as fair as it had been in the South. Yet to him it was
+unobtrusive. His mind was occupied with fancies that had a birth, a
+little span of life, and which in passing away were succeeded by others
+as ephemeral as themselves--thoughts about nothing at all that came and
+went unnoticed: a man he had met in Corfu, and whom a face in the street
+recalled; the glisten of silk in a window that took him back to
+Japan;--but beneath them was a purpose settled and dominant, a
+resolution to trick Fate and outwit it--one which, during the journey
+from Aiken, had so possessed him that, in attending to the wants of Mrs.
+Metuchen or in ministering to Justine, at times he had been
+quasi-somnambulistic, at others wholly vague. But now, as he gave his
+card to an office-boy, to all outward intent he was confident and at
+ease; he picked up a paper and affected to lose himself in its columns.
+Presently the boy returned, and he was ushered into the room which he
+had previously visited. On this occasion Mr. Dunellen was not seated,
+but standing, his back to the door. As Roland entered he turned, and the
+young man stepped forward, his hand outstretched.
+
+To his contentment, and a little also to his surprise, in answer to that
+outstretched hand Honest Paul extended his, and Roland had the pleasure
+of holding three apparently docile fingers in his own; but in a moment
+they withdrew themselves, and he felt called upon to speak.
+
+"Mr. Dunellen," he began, with that confident air a creditor has who
+comes to claim his due, "Mr. Dunellen, I have ventured to interrupt you
+again. And again I am a suppliant. But this time it is of your daughter,
+not of my father, that--"
+
+He hesitated, and well he might. Mr. Dunellen, who had remained
+standing, and who in so doing had prevented Roland from sitting down,
+now assumed the suspicious appearance of one who detects an unpleasant
+smell; his features contracted, and for no other reason, apparently,
+than that of intimidating the suppliant in his prayer.
+
+But Roland was not to be abashed; he recovered himself, and continued
+glibly enough: "The matter is this. I am sincerely attached to your
+daughter, and I am come to ask your consent to our marriage."
+
+"That is the purpose of your visit, is it?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"My daughter is aware of it, I suppose?"
+
+"She is."
+
+"And she consented, did she?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"H'm! My daughter has made a mistake. I told her as much last night.
+There can be no question of marriage. You will do me the favor to let
+the matter drop."
+
+"I am hot a rich man, Mr. Dunellen, but--"
+
+"So I am informed. But that has nothing to do with it. There are other
+things that I take into consideration, and in view of them I insist that
+this matter be dropped."
+
+"Mr. Dunellen, I love your daughter; I have reason to believe that she
+cares for me. We became engaged a few days ago. I came here now to ask
+your consent. If you refuse it, I have at least the right to ask what
+your objection is."
+
+"Rather unnecessary, don't you think?"
+
+"I cannot imagine, sir, what you mean." And Roland, holding himself
+unaffectedly straight, without the symptom of a pose, looked the old man
+in the eyes.
+
+That look Mr. Dunellen returned. "Take a seat," he said; and, motioning
+Roland to a chair, he sat down himself.
+
+"All this is needless," he announced; "but since you are anxious for an
+explanation, I will give it. In the first place, when you were at my
+house you remember that my nephew Dr. Thorold happened in. The other day
+I mentioned to him that you were at Aiken. He then informed me of a
+certain incident in your career, one which you have not forgotten, and
+of which I do not care to speak. I may say, however, that it utterly
+precludes the possibility of any further intercourse between my daughter
+and yourself."
+
+And the old man, still gazing at his guest, added: "This explanation
+should, it seems to me, suffice." But he made no attempt to rise, or to
+signify that the interview was at an end, and Roland, who was shrewd,
+interpreted this in his own favor. "He is not altogether positive," he
+reflected, "but he can be so to-morrow," and with a show of shame that
+did him credit he hung his head.
+
+"I had thought the incident to which you refer was forgotten," he
+murmured, penitently enough.
+
+"Forgotten? Do you suppose Thorold forgets? Do you suppose any man could
+forget a thing like that--a sister's death, a mother's insanity? No, you
+did not think it was forgotten. What you thought was this: you thought
+that my nephew would hesitate to speak; and indeed even to me for ten
+years he has kept silent. But now--there, you need not fear a criminal
+charge. It was that you feared once, I understand, and it was on that
+account you went abroad. At this date, of course, no proof is possible;
+and, even were it otherwise, a charge would not be brought. Linen of
+that kind is better washed at home."
+
+"Mr. Dunellen, if you could know! It is the regret of my life."
+
+"That I can believe; but I believe also that our natures never vary. We
+may mould and shape them to our uses, but beneath the surface they
+remain unchanged. I say this parenthetically. In regard to this incident
+there are in one particular certain excuses you might allege--youth for
+instance, inexperience, common attraction, love even. If you did, I
+could enter into them. I have been young myself, and I have no wish to
+imply that through the temptations of youth I passed unscathed. The man
+who asserts he has reminds me of the horseman who declares he has never
+been thrown. Nor because your victim happened to be my niece am I
+actuated by retrospective indignation. I am too old for that; and,
+moreover, the incident is too stale. No: my reason for forbidding my
+daughter to receive you, as I have done, is this: the man that can
+seduce a girl, and then, to conceal the effect, permit her to be
+butchered by a quack, especially when he could have protected her by
+marriage--that man, Mr. Mistrial, I tell you very plainly, is a
+scoundrel, and being a scoundrel will never be anything else." And as
+Honest Paul made this assertion he stood up and nodded affirmatively at
+his guest.
+
+"You are very hard, Mr. Dunellen."
+
+"I may be, but so is justice."
+
+"If I could tell you all. It was so sudden, so unpremeditated even, at
+the first idea of a possibility of a catastrophe I lost my head."
+
+"It was your honor you lost."
+
+"Yes, and for years I have tried to recover it."
+
+"That I am glad to learn, and I hope you have succeeded; but--"
+
+"And will you not aid me?"
+
+"In my sight you can never appear an honest man."
+
+At this reproach, Roland, who had sat like Abjection, one hand
+supporting his head, his eyes lowered and his body bent, sprang to his
+feet.
+
+"There are several forms of honesty," he exclaimed, "and frankness I
+believe is counted among them. That you evidently possess. Let me
+emulate you in it. I intend that your daughter shall be my wife. If you
+don't care to come to the wedding your presence can be dispensed with."
+And without any show of anger, but with an inclination of the head that
+was insolent in its deference, he picked up his hat and left the room.
+
+Presently he found himself in the street. "Who is ever as stupid as a
+wise man?" he queried, and laughed a little to himself--"unless"--and he
+fell to wondering whether Dunellen could have told his daughter all. On
+the corner a cab was loitering; he hailed and entered it. A little later
+he was ringing at the door of Honest Paul's abode.
+
+Yes, Miss Dunellen was at home. And as the servant drew the portiere to
+the drawing-room aside, Roland was visited by that emotion the gambler
+knows who waits the turning of a card. Another second, and the
+expression of the girl's face would tell him what the future held. The
+drawing-room, however, happened to be untenanted, and as he paced its
+spacious splendors he still wondered was she or was she not informed. In
+a corner was a landscape signed Courbet--a green ravine shut down by
+bluest sky. The coloring was so true, it jarred. In another was a
+statue--a cloaked and hooded figure of Death supporting a naked girl. As
+he contemplated it, he heard the tinkle of the portiere rings. It was
+she, he knew; he turned, and at once his heart gave an exultant throb;
+in her eyes was an invitation; he put his arms about her, and for a
+moment held her so.
+
+She does not know, he told himself, and to her he murmured, "I have
+come to say good-bye."
+
+"Wait, Roland." She led him to a seat. "Wait; I spoke to father last
+night; he has some objection--"
+
+"I told you I was poor--"
+
+"It is that, I suppose; he did not say--"
+
+"He will never consent, unless--"
+
+"There, Roland. I know him best." She closed her eyes, and as he gazed
+at her it seemed to him she had done so to shut some memory out. "It is
+money with him always; you do not know--" And between her parted lips
+she drew a breath he heard. "Last night he told me I must never see you
+again. Hitherto his will has ruled: it is my turn to-day."
+
+With this there came a splendor to her he had never marked before; she
+looked defiant, and resolute as well. There was strength in her face,
+and beauty too.
+
+"He is unjust," she added. "It was my duty to tell him, and there my
+duty ends. I am not a school-girl. I know my mind; better, perhaps,
+than he knows his own. I have obeyed him always. It is easy to obey, but
+now I will act for myself."
+
+"He will never give his consent," Roland repeated.
+
+"He may keep it, then."
+
+Within her something seemed to rankle; and as Roland, mindful of the
+slightest change in her expression, detected this, he wondered what it
+could portend.
+
+"Sweetheart," he ventured, "I have these two arms; they are all in all
+for you."
+
+At this Justine awoke at once. "If I did not know it--feel it; if I were
+not sure of it, do you think I would speak to you as I do? No, Roland. I
+have something of my own; when we are married, believe me, his consent
+will come at once."
+
+"It is not his consent I want--you know that; it is yours."
+
+"You have it, Roland; I gave it you among the pines."
+
+"Where is your hat, then? Let us go."
+
+He caught her to him again, then suffered her to leave the room. And as
+the portiere which he had drawn that she might pass fell back into its
+former folds, for a moment he stood perplexed. Somewhere a screw was
+loose, he could have sworn. But where? Could it be that Honest Paul was
+supporting a separate establishment? or did Justine think he wished to
+mate her to some plutocrat of his choice? The first supposition was
+manifestly absurd; the second troubled him so little that he turned and
+occupied himself with the naked girl swooning in the arms of Death.
+
+"I am ready, Roland." It was Justine, bonneted and veiled, buttoning her
+glove.
+
+"I have a cab," he answered, and followed her to the door.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+When Roland and Justine re-entered the drawing-room that afternoon they
+found Mr. Dunellen there. With him was Guy Thorold.
+
+During the infant days of photography family groups were so much in
+vogue that anyone with an old album in reach can find them there in
+plenty. They are faded, no doubt; the cut of the garments is absurd;
+even the faces seem to have that antique look which is peculiar to the
+miniatures of people dead and departed: yet the impression they convey
+is admirably exalting. That gentleman in the wonderful coat must have
+been magnificent in every sphere of life: his mere pose, his attitude,
+is convincing as a memoir. And that lady in the camel's-hair shawl--how
+bewitchingly lovable she surely was! There is her daughter, who might be
+her niece, so prettily does she seem inclined to behave; and there is
+the son, a trifle effaced perhaps, yet with the makings of a man
+manifest even in that effacement. Oh, good people! let us hope you were
+really as amiable as you look: the picture is all we have of you; even
+your names are forgot; and truly it were discomforting to have the
+impression you convey disturbed in its slightest suggestion. We love you
+best as you are; we prefer you so. I, for one, will have none of that
+cynicism which hints that had a snap camera caught you unprepared the
+charm would disappear.
+
+Yet now, in the present instance, as Mr. Dunellen and his nephew stood
+facing Roland and Justine, a photographer who had happened there could
+have taken a family group which would in no manner have resembled those
+which our albums hold.
+
+"I told you last night," Mr. Dunellen was shrieking, "that I forbade you
+to see that man."
+
+And Justine, raising her veil, answered, "He was not my husband then."
+
+"Husband!" The old man stared at his daughter, his face distorted and
+livid with rage. "If you--"
+
+But whatever threat he may have intended to make, Thorold interrupted.
+
+"He is married already," he cried; "he is no more your husband than I."
+
+At this announcement Mr. Dunellen let an arm he had outstretched fall to
+his side; he turned to Thorold, and Justine looked wonderingly in
+Roland's face.
+
+"What does he mean?" she asked.
+
+Roland shrugged his shoulders, "God knows," he answered. "He must be
+screwed."
+
+"You _are_ married," Thorold called out. "You needn't attempt to deny it
+here."
+
+"I don't in the least: this lady has just done me the honor to become my
+wife."
+
+"But you have another--you told me so yourself."
+
+Roland, who had been really perplexed, could not now conceal a smile.
+He remembered that he had indeed told Thorold he was married, but he had
+done so merely as an easy way of diverting the suspicions which that
+gentleman displayed.
+
+Justine, still looking at him, caught the smile.
+
+"Why don't you speak?" she asked.
+
+"What is there to say?" he answered. "It is false as an obituary."
+
+"Then tell him so."
+
+But for that there was no time. Mr. Dunellen, trained in procedure, had
+already questioned Thorold, and found that save Mistrial's word he had
+nothing to grapple on.
+
+"Leave the house, sir," he shouted, and pointed to the door.
+
+"When he goes, father, I go too."
+
+"Then go." And raising his arms above his head as though to invoke the
+testimony of heaven, he bawled at her, "I disown you."
+
+"There's Christian forbearance," muttered Mistrial; and he might have
+asserted as much, but Justine had lowered her veil.
+
+"Come," she said.
+
+And as she and her husband passed from the room the old man roared
+impotently "I disinherit you--you are no longer my child."
+
+"Didn't you tell me he had been used to having his own way?" Roland
+asked, as he put Justine in the cab; and without waiting for an answer
+he told the driver to go to the Brunswick, and took a seat at her side.
+
+In certain crises the beauty of an old adage asserts itself even to the
+stupidest. Roland had taken the bull by the horns and got tossed for his
+pains; yet even while he was in the air he kept assuring himself that he
+would land on his feet. The next morning the memory of the old man's
+anger affected him not at all. Passion, he knew, burns itself out, and
+its threats subside into ashes. The relentless parent was a spectacle
+with which the stage had made him so familiar that he needed no
+prompter's book to tell him that when the curtain fell it would be on a
+tableau of awaited forgiveness. And even though Mr. Dunellen and the
+traditional father might differ, yet on the subject of wills and
+bequests he understood that the legislature had in its wisdom prevented
+a testator from devising more than one-half his property to the
+detriment of kith and of kin. If things came to the worst Justine would
+get five million instead of ten; and five million, though not elastic
+enough, as Jones had said, to entertain with, still represented an
+income that sufficed for the necessaries of life. On that score his mind
+was at rest. Moreover, it was manifestly impossible for Justine's father
+to live forever: there was an odor of fresh earth about him which to his
+own keen nostrils long since had betokened the grave; and if meanwhile
+he chose to keep the purse-strings drawn, Justine had enough from her
+mother's estate to last till the strings were loosed.
+
+Rents are high in New York, and to those bred in certain of its manors
+there is a choice between urban palaces and suburban flats. But Paris is
+less fastidious. In that lovely city a thousand-franc note need not be
+spent in a day; and in Italy the possibilities of the lira are great.
+
+In view of these things, Roland and his wife one week later took ship
+and sailed for France.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+To those that have suffered certain things there are forms of
+entertainment which neither amuse nor bore, but which pain. And this
+evening, as Justine sat in the stalls, the play which was being given,
+and which, as plays go, was endurable enough, caused her no pleasure, no
+weariness even, only a longing to get away and be alone. Now and then a
+shudder visited her, her hand tightened on her fan, and at times she
+would close her eyes, dull her hearing, and try to fancy that her
+girlhood was recovered, that she was free again, that she was dead, that
+her husband was--anything imaginable in fact, save the knowledge that
+she was there, side-by-side with him, and that presently they would
+return together to the hideousness of their uptown flat.
+
+She had been married now a little more than two years, and during the
+latter portion of that time life had held for her that precise dose of
+misery which is just insufficient to produce uncertainties of thought in
+a mind naturally exalted. There had indeed been moments in which the
+possibility of insanity had presented itself, and there had been moments
+also in which she would have welcomed that possibility as a grateful
+release: but those moments had passed, the possibility with them; and
+this evening as she sat in the stalls her outward appearance was much
+such as it had been two years before. But within, where her heart had
+been, was a cemetery.
+
+Among our friends and acquaintances there are always those who to our
+knowledge have tombstones of their own. But there are others that evolve
+a world--one that glows, subsides, and dies away unknown to any save
+themselves. The solitudes of space appall; the solitudes of the heart
+can be as endless as they. In those which Justine concealed, a universe
+had had its being and its subsidence; a universe with gem-like hopes for
+stars--one in which the sun had been so eager its rays had made her
+blind. There had been comets gorgeous and tangential as aspirations ever
+are; there had been the colorless ether of which dreams are made; and
+for cosmic matter there was love. But now it was all dispersed; there
+was nothing left, one altar merely--the petrefaction of a prayer erected
+long since in the depths of her distress, and which for conscience' sake
+now and then she tended still.
+
+And now, as the play at which she assisted unrolled before her unseeing
+eyes, one by one scenes from another drama rose unsummoned in its stead.
+First was the meeting with Mistrial at Tuxedo, then the episode at
+Aiken, the marriage that followed, and the banishment that ensued: a
+banishment, parenthetically, which at the time being she was powerless
+to understand. Her father's anger had indeed weighed on her; but it was
+not wholly that--she was too much in love to let it be more than a
+shadow on her delight; nor was it because of unfamiliar lands: it was
+that little by little, through incidents originally misunderstood and
+then more completely grasped, the discovery, avoided yet ever returning,
+came to her, stayed with her, and made her its own--that the man whom
+she had loved and the man whom she had married were separate and
+distinct.
+
+The psychologist of woman has yet to appear, and if he keep us waiting
+may it not be because every woman he analyzes has a sister who differs
+from her? The moment he formulates a rule it is over-weighted by
+exceptions. Woman often varies, the old song says; but not alone in her
+affections does she do so: she varies in temperament as well. And, after
+all, is it not the temperament that makes or mars a life? Justine, in
+discovering that the man she married and the man whom she loved were
+separate and distinct, instead of being disgusted with herself and with
+him, as you, madam, might have been, tried her utmost to forget the
+lover and love the husband that had come in his place. In this effort
+she had pride for an aid. The humiliation which the knowledge of
+self-deception brings is great, but when that knowledge becomes common
+property the humiliation is increased. The world--not the world that
+ought to be, but the world as it is--is more apt to smile than condole.
+There may be much joy in heaven over the sinner that repents: on earth
+the joy is at his downfall. And according to the canons we have made for
+ourselves, Justine, in listening to the dictates of her heart instead of
+to those of her father, had sinned, so grievously even that that father
+had bid her begone from his sight. She was aware of this, and in
+consequence felt it needful to hold her head the higher. And so for a
+while she made pride serve as fig-leaf to her nakedness. If abashed at
+heart, at least the world should be uninformed of that abashment.
+
+This effort on her part Mistrial hindered to the best of his ability.
+Whether or not he loved her, whether save himself he was capable of
+loving anyone, who shall say? Men too are difficult to decipher. There
+were hours when after some _ecart_ he would come to her so penitent, so
+pleasant to the eye, and seemingly so afflicted at his own misconduct,
+that Justine found the strength--or the weakness, was it?--to forgive
+and to forget anew.
+
+During this period they lived not sumptuously, perhaps, but in that
+large and liberal fashion which requires a ponderable rent-roll to
+support; and at that time, however Mistrial comported himself elsewhere,
+in her presence he had the decency to seem considerate, and affectionate
+as well. But meanwhile, through constant demands, the value of the
+letter of credit into which he had converted the better part of her
+mother's estate became impaired. Retrenchment was necessary, and that is
+never a pleasant thing. The man that passes out of poverty into wealth
+finds the passage so easy, so Lethean even, that he is apt to forget
+what poverty was; but when, as sometimes happens, he is obliged to
+retrace his steps, he walks bare of foot through a path of thorns. To
+count gold, instead of strewing it, is irritating to anyone not a sage,
+and Mistrial, who was not a sage, was irritated; and having, a wife
+within beck and call he vented that irritation on her.
+
+It was at this time that Justine began to feel the full force of the
+banishment. That her husband was, and in all probability would continue
+to be, unfaithful to her, was a matter which she ended by accepting with
+a degree of good sense which is more common than is generally supposed.
+At first she had been indeed indignant, and when in that indignation her
+anger developed into a heat that was white and sentiable, Mistrial
+experienced no remorse whatever, only a desire to applaud. He liked the
+force and splendor of her arraignment; it took him out of himself; it
+made him feel that he was appreciated--feared even; that a word from
+him, and a tempest was loosened or enchained.
+
+But what is there to which we cannot accustom ourselves? Justine ended,
+not by a full understanding of the fact that man is naturally
+polygamous; but little by little, through channels undiscerned even by
+herself, the idea came to her that, if the man she loved could find
+pleasure in the society of other women, it was because she was less
+attractive than they. It was this that brought her patience, the more
+readily even in that, at her first paroxysm, Mistrial, a trifle alarmed
+lest she might leave him, had caught her in his arms, and sworn in a
+whisper breathed in her ear, that of all the world he loved her best.
+
+Madam, you who do the present writer the honor to read this page are
+convinced, he is sure, that your husband would rather his tongue cleaved
+to the roof of his mouth than break the vow which bound you to him. But
+you, madam, have married a man faithful and tried. You know very well
+with what dismay he tells you of Robinson's scandalous conduct, and you
+know also how he pities Robinson's poor little wife; yet when, in your
+sorrow at what that poor little woman has to put up with, you are
+tempted to go and condole with her, pause, madam--Mrs. Robinson may be
+equally tempted to condole with You.
+
+There are--in Brooklyn, in Boston, and in other recondite regions--a
+number of clever people who have been brought up with the idea that
+Divorce was instituted for just such a thing as this. Yet in one hundred
+cases out of a hundred-and-one a woman who appeals to the law never does
+so because her husband has broken a certain commandment. If his
+derelictions are confined to that particular offence she may bewail,
+and we all bewail with her; but if she wants the sympathy of judge, of
+jury, and of newspaper-public too, she must be prepared to allege other
+grievances. She must show that her husband is unkind, that he is
+sarcastic, that he is given to big words and short sentences; in brief,
+that he has developed traits which render life in common no longer to be
+endured.
+
+It was traits of this description that Mistrial unexpectedly developed,
+and it was during their development that the sense of banishment visited
+Justine. She was unable to make further transference of her affections;
+the lover had disappeared; the husband she had tried to love in his
+place had gone as well. For sole companion she had a man who had worn a
+mask and dropped it; where he had been considerate, he was selfish; when
+he spoke, it was to find fault; now that he could no longer throw her
+money out of the windows, he threw his amiability in its stead. By day
+he was taciturn, insultingly dumb; at night he was drunk.
+
+Mistrial had served his novitiate where the _pochard_ is rare. It is we
+that drink, and with us the English, the Slavs, and Teutons; but in the
+East and among the Latins sobriety is less a matter of habit than of
+instinct. And in lands where man prefers to keep his head clear,
+Mistrial, at that age, which is one of the most impressionable of all,
+had seen no reason to lose his own. But presently the small irritations
+of enforced economy affected his manners, and his habits as well. He
+took to absinthe in the morning, and, as he happened to be in France, he
+drank at night that brutal brandy they give you there. Not continuously,
+it is true. There were days when the man for whom Justine had forsaken
+her home returned so completely she could almost fancy he had never
+gone. Then, without a word of warning, at the very moment when Faith was
+gaining fresh foothold, the tragi-comedy would be renewed; he was off
+again, no one knew whither, returning only when the candle had been
+utterly consumed.
+
+Such things are enough to affect any woman's patience, and Justine's
+became wholly warped. It was unaccountable to her that he could treat
+her as he did. She watched the gradual transformation of the perfect
+lover into the perfect beast with a species of sorrow--a dual sorrow in
+whose component parts there was pity for herself and for him as well.
+
+The idea that he had married her uniquely because of her father's
+wealth, that he was impatient to get it, and that when he got it he
+would squander all he could on other women, occurred to her only in the
+remotest ways, and then only through some expression which, in his
+exasperation of the diminishing bank account and the unreasonable time
+which it took her father to forgive her, fell from him now and then by
+chance. For Mistrial had indeed counted on that forgiveness. He had even
+counted on receiving it by cable, of finding that it had preceded and
+awaited them before their ship reached France. And when, to use an idiom
+of that land, it made itself expected, he was confident that the longer
+it delayed the completer it would be. At the utmost he had not dreamed
+that the old man would detain it more than a few months; but when
+twenty-four went by, and not only no forgiveness was manifest, but
+through his own improvidence the funds ran low,--so low, in fact, that
+unless forgiveness were presently forthcoming they would be in straits
+indeed,--he dictated a letter, penitent and humble, one in which
+impending poverty stood out as clearly as though it had been engraved,
+and which it revolted her to send. Its inspiration, however, must have
+been patent to Mr. Dunellen, for that gentlemen's reply, expressed in
+the third person, was to the effect that if his daughter returned to him
+he would provide for her as he had always done, but in no other
+circumstances could he assist.
+
+Had Justine been anyone but herself she might have acted on the
+invitation: but the tone of it hurt her; she was annoyed at having
+permitted herself to send the letter Mistrial had dictated, and to which
+this was the reply. Her pride was up--all the more surely because she
+knew her father had been right; and there is just this about pride--as a
+matter of penitence it forces us to suffer those consequences of our own
+wrongdoing which through a simple confession it were easy to escape. To
+Justine such confession was impossible. She had left her father in the
+full certainty that he was wrong, and when she found he was not, death
+to her were preferable to any admission of the grievousness of her own
+mistake.
+
+At this juncture Mistrial's aunt assisted at the funeral of a sister
+spinster, sat in a draught, caught cold in her throat, and, the glottis
+enlarging, strangled one night in her bed. By her will the St. Nicholas
+Hospital received the bulk of her property. The rest of her estate was
+divided among relatives; to her nephew Roland Mistrial--3d no
+longer--was bequeathed the princely sum of ten thousand dollars in cash.
+At the news of this munificence Roland swore and grit his teeth. Had his
+circumstances been different it is probable that the ten thousand,
+together with some enduring insult, he would have flung after her to the
+eternal purgatory where he prayed she had gone. As it was, the modicity
+of the bequest sobered him. Through some impalpable logic he had counted
+but little on any inheritance at all; he had indeed hoped vaguely that
+she might die and leave him what she had; and it may even be that, had
+he learned that her will was in his favor, and had a suitable
+opportunity presented itself, in some perfectly decorous manner he would
+have hastened his aunt's demise. But concerning her will he had no
+information; moreover, during his visit to the States the old lady saw
+as little of him as she could help; and when she did see him, in spite
+of gout and the ailments of advancing years there was such a rigidity in
+her manner that the nephew told himself she might live long enough to
+see him hanged. As a consequence he had expected nothing. But when the
+news of her death reached him, together with the intelligence that
+instead of the competence he might possibly have had he was mentioned
+merely to the tune of ten thousand dollars,--this outrage, in
+conjunction with Dunellen's relentlessness, sobered him to that degree,
+that for a day and a night he gave himself to a debauch of thought. From
+this orgy he issued with clearer mind. It may be--though the idea
+advanced is one that can only be hazarded--it may be that had his aunt
+disposed of her estate in his favor he would there and then have washed
+his hands of the job he had undertaken, and left his wife to her own
+devices. As it was, he saw that, to keep his head above water, the only
+possible plank was one that Mr. Dunellen might send in his reach; and it
+was with the knowledge that before the present scanty windfall
+disappeared some conquest of Honest Paul's affection should be attempted
+that he determined to return to New York. Once there again, who knew
+what might happen? Surely, if the preceding year Mr. Dunellen had
+strength for violence, to the naked eye he was even then manifestly
+infirm. There was no gainsaying the matter--he at least would not live
+very long. As to the disposition of his property after death Mistrial
+was still assured. Whatever his attitude might be for the present, in
+the end he could not wholly disinherit Justine--at least one-half the
+property must come to her. On that fact Mistrial would have staked his
+life; after all, it was the one hope he had left; and an ultimate hope,
+we all know, is the thing we part with last.
+
+Thereupon he recovered himself. He became amiable and considerate--a
+change of demeanor which gave Justine a chill. She consented
+nevertheless to the return trip, and the day after arriving called at
+her father's house. When she got back to the hotel where they had put up
+Mistrial was waiting for her. In answer to his questions she told him
+that her father was willing to receive her, but her alone. "You must
+take your choice," he had said, she repeated--"You must take your
+choice."
+
+"And what is that choice?" Mistrial had asked.
+
+"I have made it," she answered, "and by it I will abide."
+
+But at this he had expostulated; and when, seeing at last what he
+meant--understanding that he would have her feign a compliance for the
+sake of coin which at her father's death she could come back and share
+with him--when, divining the infamy of his thought, she refused, he had
+struck her in the face.
+
+Because a man is not Chesterfield, it does not follow he is Sykes.
+Mistrial had never struck a woman before, and in this initial assault it
+is probable that he was actuated less by a desire to punish than by that
+force which overmasters him who has ceased to be master of himself. By
+instinct he was not a gentleman; for some time past he had not even
+taken the trouble to appear one; yet at that moment, dancing in derision
+before him, he saw the letters that form the monosyllable Cad. The sense
+of abasement he displayed was so immediate and sincere, that Justine,
+who, trembling with anger and disgust, stood staring in his face, read
+it there and understood. Instead of separating them forever, the blow
+reunited their hands. During the week that followed they were nearer to
+each other than they had been for months before. The reconciliation was
+seemingly complete. Mistrial made himself the lover again, and Justine
+permitted herself to be wooed. They left their hotel and found a
+flat--a furnished apartment in the neighborhood of Central Park; and
+there the storm departing placed a rainbow in its stead.
+
+A rainbow, however, is not a fixture, and this one went its way. While
+Justine closed her eyes Mistrial's were alert. He had no intention of
+suffering her to be disinherited, and though it was well enough to rely
+on the courts it was better still not to be forced to do so. Rather than
+run an avoidable risk he would have abandoned his wife, and forced her
+through that abandonment to return to her father's house, convinced that
+afterwards he could win her together with the estate back again to him.
+Meanwhile another interview could not in any way jeopardize the chances
+to which he clung. On the contrary, it might be highly serviceable. Mr.
+Dunellen, he had learned, was much broken; he had given up his practice,
+the the world even, everything in fact save perhaps the devil that was
+in him, and sat uncompanioned in the desolate and spacious emptiness of
+his house. It was only natural that he should wish to coerce his
+daughter into obedience; yet now that he saw she was steadfast, her
+pride unhumbled still, it was not improbable that he would yield; it was
+presumable even that he was then waiting, weak of heart, prepared at her
+next advance to welcome and forgive.
+
+Of these things Mistrial made his wife aware, and it was then that the
+rainbow departed. His arguments were as revolting as the cynicism they
+exhaled. But she made no attempt to combat them. Since she had seen her
+father she had felt a sorrow for him that Mistrial's altered demeanor
+had given her time to heed. She knew that his attitude was due to her
+defiance of his express commands, but she had no reason to suppose that
+he had any other objection to her husband than such as his poverty might
+have caused or instinctive antipathy might bring. But now, her own
+experience aiding, she knew that he had been right; and, as he seemed
+feeble and dispassionate, in answer to Mistrial's arguments she tied her
+bonnet-strings and went. It was early in the afternoon when she started,
+it was night when she returned.
+
+Mistrial had been waiting for her, and when she entered the room in
+which he sat he rose eagerly and aided her with her wrap. He was
+impatient, she could see; and she was impatient also.
+
+"Why did you not tell me of Guy's sister?" she began, at once.
+
+And as he answered nothing she continued: "Years ago I knew of what she
+died; it was only to-day I learned that it was you who murdered her."
+
+"It is a lie."
+
+"Oh, protest. I knew you would."
+
+"From whom is it you heard this thing? Not from your father, I am sure."
+As Mistrial spoke he gazed at her inquisitorially with shrewd,
+perplexing eyes.
+
+"What does it matter?" she answered. Her head was thrown back, her lips
+compressed. "What does it matter since the charge is true?"
+
+"But it is false," he cried; "it is a wanton lie. Your father never
+could have stated it."
+
+"Ah, but he did, though; and Guy was there to substantiate what he
+said."
+
+"Guy!" As he pronounced her cousin's name there came into his face an
+expression which she knew and which she had learned to dread. "Madam,
+you mean your lover, I suppose. And it is his _ipse dixit_ you accept in
+preference to mine?"
+
+"Mistrial, you know he is not my lover."
+
+"I know he was in love with you, and you with him."
+
+"So he was; so he is, I think; and it was not until this night I saw my
+own mistake."
+
+"_Voila!_" said Roland, suddenly calmed. He paused a second, and after
+eying the polish of his finger-nails, affected to flick a speck of dust
+from his sleeve. "Your cousin is mad," he added.
+
+"He is sane as--" and Justine hesitated for a simile.
+
+"His mother, you mean. Were you never aware that insanity is hereditary?
+If his sister--presupposing that the accusation which he formulates
+against me was originally advanced by her--if his sister--whom, by the
+way, I never saw but once--if his sister accused me of complicity, then
+she suffered from the hereditary taint as well. If I was guilty of what
+your cousin charges, why was I not arrested, tried, and sentenced? But
+are you such a dolt you cannot see that Guy is mad--mad not only by
+nature, but crazed by jealousy as well. You say you know he loves you.
+You have even the candor to admit that you love him! Now ask yourself
+what would any impartial hearer deduce from statements such as yours?"
+
+"My father was an impartial hearer, and he--"
+
+"But how is it possible to be so blind? Can you not see that your cousin
+has prejudiced him against me? I said, impartial hearer. But let the
+matter drop. I tell you the charge is false; believe it or not, as you
+prefer. There is, however, just this in the matter: if the charge is
+made again, I will have your cousin under arrest. You forget that there
+is such a thing as libel still."
+
+Again he paused, and strove to collect himself; there was a design in
+the carpet which appeared to interest him very much, but presently he
+looked up again.
+
+"Now tell me," he said, "what did your father say?"
+
+"Nothing, save what he said before."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Nothing that you would care to hear." Her eyes roamed from the
+neighbourly ceiling over to him and back again. "He said," she added,
+"that if I persisted in living with you his money would go to my child,
+if I had one; if I had none, then to Guy."
+
+"Were you alone with him when he said this, or was Guy, as you call him,
+there?"
+
+"No, I was alone with him; Guy came later."
+
+"And is he aware of this provision?"
+
+For all response Justine shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Does he know it, I ask you?"
+
+"He does not," she answered. "Father told me that he never would, until
+the will was read."
+
+"H'm." And for a moment Mistrial mused. Then presently he smiled--yet
+was it a smile?--a look that an hallucinated monk in a medieval abbey
+might have seen on that imaginary demon who, flitting by him, the
+forefinger outstretched, whispered as he vanished through the wall,
+"Thou art damned, dear friend! thou art damned!" "H'm," he repeated;
+"and in view of the provisions of your father's will, will you tell me
+why is it that you are without a child?"
+
+As he spoke he had arisen, and, smiling still, though now as were he
+questioning her in regard to the state of the weather, he looked into
+her eyes. She had drawn yet further back into the chair in which she
+sat; a deadly sickness overcame her; to her head there mounted the
+nausea of each one of his many misdeeds. The memory of the blow of the
+week before, one which, despite her seeming forbearance, had not ceased
+to rankle, returned to her; and with it, one after another in swift
+succession, she rememorated the offences of the past. But soon she too
+was on her feet and fronted him. "Why is it I am without a child?" she
+repeated. Her voice was low and clear, and between each word she
+permitted a little pause to intervene. "Why is it?"
+
+The subtlety of his reproach battening on nerves already overwrought was
+exciting her as nothing had done before. "It is you," she cried, "who
+are to blame. What have you done with your youth? What have you done
+with your manhood? Look at me, Roland Mistrial! If I have borne you no
+child it is because monsters never engender." As she spoke, with one
+gesture she tore her bodice down. Her breast, palpitant with health and
+anger too, heaving at the sheer injustice of his reproach, confronted
+and confuted him. "It is there that women have their strength; tell me,
+if you can, what have you done with yours?"
+
+And thereat, with a look a princess might give to a lackey who had dared
+to question her, she turned and left him where he stood.
+
+The next day he tried to make his peace with her. In this he succeeded,
+or flattered himself he had, for subsequently she consented to accompany
+him to the play. And as she sat in the stalls it was of these things
+that she thought.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The information which Mistrial gleaned concerning the provisions of his
+father-in-law's will was bitter in his mouth. On the morrow he gave some
+time to thought--he read too a little. The taunt which Justine had flung
+at him, bit; and with the idea of dulling the hurt and of ministering
+also to his own refreshment, he consulted a book which treated of
+certain conditions of the nervous system, and a work on medical
+jurisprudence as well. But literature of that kind is notoriously
+unsatisfactory. It may suggest, yet the questions which it prompts
+remain unanswered. Roland put the volumes down: they were productions of
+genius, no doubt, but to him they were nothing more. From the pursuit of
+exact knowledge he turned and looked out into the street.
+
+The hour then was midway in one of those green afternoons which we are
+apt to fancy the adjunct of lands we never see, and as he looked he saw
+astride a bay hunter a man ambling cautiously over the stones. From the
+roofs opposite a breath of lilacs came, and a breeze that was neither
+cool nor warm loitered on its way from the river beyond. Mistrial let
+the breeze, the fragrance, the fulfilment of spring, pass unnoticed. The
+bay hunter had caught his eye: it seemed to him that an argument with an
+imperative horse was just the thing he needed most, and a little later
+he secured a cob from a stable on the street above.
+
+The cob was docile enough, affecting once only to regard a sewer-grating
+in the bridle-path as a strange, unhallowed thing which it was needful
+to avoid. But the initial shy was the last. The spur gave him such a nip
+that during the remainder of the ride, whatever distasteful object he
+may have encountered, he gave no outward evidence of abhorrence. He had
+an easy canter, a long and swinging trot; and now on one, now on the
+other, they passed through and out of the Park, and on beyond the
+brand-new edifices that line Seventh Avenue, to that scantier outlying
+district where the Harlem begins and the city ends. And here as he was
+about to turn he noticed a gig such as physicians affect. In it was a
+negro driving, and at his side sat Justine's cousin, Guy.
+
+"H'm!" mused Mistrial; "judging by the locality, his patients must be
+the last people in the city." At the moment the feebleness of the jest
+pleasured him; then simultaneously the unforgotten hatred crackled in
+his breast. At each one of the important epochs of his life that man had
+stood in his way. It was he that had forced him from college at the
+moment when honors were within his reach. It was he that had kept him
+from his father's side at the time when he might have saved his father's
+estate. It was he that had come between Dunellen and himself at the
+hour when he could have persuaded Justine's father to give him Justine's
+hand. It was he that had forced him to elope with her. It was because of
+him that he was now enjoying the small miseries of the shabby genteel.
+It was he, unless Providence now intervened, who would inherit the
+wealth he had toiled to make his own. And it was he who the day before
+had again crossed and halted in his path.
+
+These premises, however colored, were logical enough in this--the
+natural deduction sprang out and greeted the eye. And, as they flashed
+before him, Mistrial saw himself rinsing out each one in blood squeezed
+from Thorold's throat. In the fury which suddenly beset him he could
+have found the strength, the courage it may be, to have torn him from
+the gig in which he sat, to have trampled on him with horse's hoofs,
+bent over and beat him as he writhed on the ground, and exulted and
+jubilated in the doing of it. Then indeed, though he swung for it, the
+ultimate victory would be his. If he stamped Thorold out of existence,
+though his own went with it, he would not have suffered wholly in vain;
+in facing the gallows he would have the joy of knowing that even were he
+prevented from bathing in the Dunellen millions, so was Thorold too.
+
+But when he looked out from himself his enemy had disappeared. A woman
+in an open landau passed and bowed. Mechanically Mistrial raised his
+hat. To every intent and purpose he was self-possessed--occupied, if at
+all, but with those threads of fancy that float in and out the mind. As
+he raised his hat, he smiled; the woman might have thought herself the
+one it gave him the greatest pleasure to salute. Her carriage had not
+advanced the jump of a cat before he had forgotten that she lived. But
+no one can turn his brain into a stage, create for it, and feel a drama
+such as he had without some outward manifestation, be it merely a
+strangled oath. On the horse he rode his knees had tightened, he gave a
+dig with the spur, and went careering down the street. In that part of
+New York you are at liberty to cover a mile in two minutes. Roland
+covered thirty squares at breakneck speed.
+
+Presently he drew the animal in and suffered him to walk. During the run
+he had had no time to think; he had been occupied only in keeping the
+horse he rode out of the way of vehicles, and in preventing that
+possible cropper which comes when we expect it least. But as the cob
+began to walk, the present returned to him with a rush. About the
+animal's neck the fretting of the reins had produced a lather; the
+breeze had died away. Mistrial felt overheated too, and he drew out a
+handkerchief and wiped his face. Even while he drew it from his pocket
+an idea came to him, fluttered for a second as ideas will, and before he
+got the handkerchief back it had gone, leaving him just a trifled
+dazed. But in a moment he called to it, and at his bidding it returned.
+It was minute, barely fledged as yet; but as the horse jogged on, little
+by little it expanded, and to such an extent that before he reached the
+park its pinions stretched from earth to sky. Whoso is visited with
+inspirations knows with what diabolical swiftness they can enlarge and
+grow. When Mistrial put the horse back in the stable the idea which at
+first he had but dimly intercepted possessed him utterly. It succeeded
+even in detaining his step: he walked up the street instead of down; at
+a crossing he hesitated; night had come, and as he loitered there,
+suddenly the whole avenue was bright as day. The vengeance which not an
+hour before he could have wreaked on Thorold seemed now remote and
+paltry too. There need be no shedding of blood, no scandal, no newspaper
+notoriety, no police, no coroner to sit upon a corpse, no jury to bring
+a verdict in. There need be nothing of this: a revenge of that order
+was in bad taste, ill-judged as well. To make a man really suffer,
+sudden death was as a balm in comparison to some subtle torment that
+should gnaw at the springs of life, retreat a moment, and then returning
+make them ache again, and still again, forever his whole life through.
+The French woman is not so ill-advised when she pitches a cup of vitriol
+in her betrayer's face. In Spain, in Italy even, they stab; the deed is
+done; the culprit has had no chance to experience anger, pain even, or
+remorse. He is dead. The curtain falls. But a revenge that blasts and
+corrodes, one that leaves the victim living, sound in body and in limb,
+and yet consumed by an inextinguishable regret, burning with tortures
+from which he can never escape--a thing like that is the work, not of an
+apprentice, but of a master in crime. Yet when the victim receives that
+cup of vitriol, not from another's hands, but from his own; when he has
+been lured into devastating his own self;--it is no longer a question of
+either apprentice or of master: it is the artist that has been at work.
+To gain the Dunellen millions was to Mistrial a matter of paramount
+importance; but to gain them through the instrumentality of the man whom
+he hated as no one ever hates to-day, particularly when that man was the
+one to whom those millions were provisionally bequeathed, when he was
+one whom Mistrial--justly or unjustly, it matters not--fancied and
+believed was plotting for them; to gain them, not only through him, but
+through his unwitting, unintentional agency, through an act which, so
+soon as he learned its purport, all his life through he would regret and
+curse;--no, that were indeed a revenge and a reparation too. And as he
+thought of it there entered his eyes a look perplexing and
+enervating--that look which demons share with sphinxes and the damned.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+During the two years which Mistrial had passed in the society of his
+wife, opportunities of studying her there had been in plenty. He knew
+her to be docile and headstrong; weak, if at all, but with that weakness
+that comes of lassitude; violent when provoked, prone to forgive,
+sensitive, impulsive, yet obdurate; in brief, the type of woman that may
+be entreated, but never coerced. He knew her faults so well he could
+have enumerated them one after the other on his finger-tips: her
+qualities, however, had impressed him less; it may be that he had
+accepted them as a matter of course. He was aware that she was honest;
+he had noticed that she was capable of much self-sacrifice; of other
+characteristics he had given little heed. It goes without the telling,
+that in regard to what is known as jealousy he had not suffered even an
+evanescent disquietude. And that night and during the morning that
+followed, as he occupied himself in nursing the idea which had visited
+him on horseback, that particular fact occurred to him more than once.
+But one does not need to be a conspirator to understand that the
+steadiest virtue is as susceptible of vice as iron is of rust.
+
+Justine had announced that her cousin was still in love with her; she
+had announced with equal distinctness that she recognized her own
+mistake; while for himself he was convinced that she no longer cared. To
+these things he added certain deductions which his experience of men and
+women permitted him to draw; and had the result they presented been made
+to order, it could not have fitted more perfectly into the scheme which
+he had devised.
+
+It was then high noon. Through the window came the irresistible breath
+of a rose in bloom. As he left the house it surrounded him in the
+street. He smiled a greeting at it. "I have spring in my favor," he
+mused, and presently boarded a car.
+
+The principles of successful enterprise may be summarized as consisting
+of a minute regard for details, and an apparent absence of zeal.
+Mistrial's many mistakes had taught him the one and trained him in the
+other. When the car he had taken reached the Gilsey House, he alighted,
+hailed a four-wheeler, stationed it in such a manner that it commanded a
+view of the adjacent street, coached the driver in regard to a signal he
+might give, entered the cab, lit a cigarette, and prepared to wait.
+
+In that neighborhood there are four or five basement houses of the style
+that is affectioned by milliners, dentists, and physicians. One of these
+particularly claimed Mistrial's attention. He saw a woman in gray enter
+it, and almost simultaneously a woman come out; then a man leading a
+child went in; and in a little while the first woman reappeared.
+Mistrial glanced at his watch; it lacked a minute of one. "He has a
+larger practice than I thought," he reflected. The woman in gray had now
+nearly reached the cab in which he sat, and from sheer force of habit he
+was preparing to scrutinize her as she passed, when the door of the
+house reopened and Thorold appeared on the step. He looked up the
+street, then down. He had his hat on, and his every-day air. In a second
+Mistrial had drawn the curtain and was peering through the opening at
+the side. He saw Thorold leave the step and turn toward Fifth Avenue; he
+signalled to the driver, and the cab moved on.
+
+At the corner Thorold turned again, the cab at his heels, and Mistrial
+saw that the physician was moving in the direction of Madison Square. It
+occurred to him that Thorold might be going to Mr. Dunellen's, and on
+the block below, as the latter crossed the asphalt, he made sure of it.
+But opposite the Brunswick the cab stopped; Thorold was entering the
+restaurant.
+
+Cold chicken looks attractive in print. A minute or two later, as
+Mistrial examined the bill of fare, he ordered some for himself; he
+ordered also a Demidorf salad,--a compound of artichokes' hearts and
+truffles, familiarly known as Half-Mourning,--and until the waiter
+returned hid himself behind a paper. Thorold meanwhile, who was seated
+at an adjoining table, must have ordered something which required longer
+preparation, for Mistrial finished the salad before the physician was
+served. But Mistrial was in no hurry; he had a pint of claret brought
+him, and sipped it leisurely. Now and then he glanced over at Thorold,
+and twice he caught his eye. At last Thorold called for his bill.
+Mistrial paid his own, and presently followed him out into the street.
+When both reached the sidewalk, Mistrial, who was a trifle in the rear,
+touched him on the arm.
+
+"Thorold," he said; and the physician turned, but there was nothing
+engaging in his attitude: he held his head to one side, about his lips
+was a compression, a contraction in his eyes; one arm was pendent, the
+other pressed to his waistcoat, and the shoulder of that arm was
+slightly raised. He looked querulous and annoyed--a trifle startled,
+too.
+
+"Thorold," Mistrial repeated, "give me a moment, will you?"
+
+The physician raised the arm that he had pressed against his waistcoat,
+and, with four fingers straightened and the fifth askew, stroked an
+imaginary whisker.
+
+"It is about Justine," Mistrial continued. "She is out of sorts; I want
+you to see her."
+
+"Ah!" And Thorold looked down and away.
+
+"Yes, I had intended to speak to Dr. McMasters; but when by the merest
+chance I saw you in there I told myself that, whatever our differences
+might be, there was no one who would understand the case more readily
+than you."
+
+As Mistrial spoke he imitated the discretion of his enemy; he looked
+down and away. The next moment, however, both were gazing into each
+other's face.
+
+"H'm." Thorold, as he stared, seemed to muse. "I saw her the other day,"
+he said, at last; "she looked well enough then."
+
+"But can't a person look well and yet be out of sorts?"
+
+Mistrial was becoming angry, and he showed it. It was evident, however,
+that his irritation was caused less by the man to whom he spoke than by
+the physician whom he was seeking to consult. This Thorold seemed to
+grasp, for he answered perplexedly:
+
+"After what has happened I don't see very well how I can go to your
+house."
+
+"Look here, Thorold: the past is over and done with--ill done, you will
+say, and I admit it. Be that as it may, it has gone. At the same time
+there is no reason why any shadow of it should fall on Justine. She is
+really in need of some one's advice. Can you not give it to her?"
+
+"Certainly," Thorold answered, "I can do that;" and he looked very
+sturdy as he said it. "Only--"
+
+"Only what? If you can't go as a friend, at least you might go as a
+physician."
+
+Thorold's hand had slid from his cheek to his chin, and he nibbled
+reflectively at a finger-nail.
+
+"Very good," he said; "I will go to her. Is she to be at home this
+afternoon?"
+
+"The evening would be better, I think. Unless, of course--" and Mistrial
+made a gesture as though to imply that, if Thorold's evening were
+engaged, a visit in the afternoon might be attempted.
+
+But the suggestion presumably was acceptable. Thorold drew out a
+note-book, at which he glanced.
+
+"And I say," Mistrial continued, "I wish--you see, it is a delicate
+matter; Justine is very sensitive--I wish you wouldn't say you met me.
+Just act as though--"
+
+"Give yourself no uneasiness, sir." Thorold had replaced the note-book
+and looked up again in Mistrial's face. "I never mention your name." And
+thereat, with a toss of the head, he dodged an omnibus and crossed the
+street.
+
+For a moment Mistrial gazed after him, then he turned, and presently he
+was ordering a glass of brandy at the Brunswick bar.
+
+It was late that night when he reached his home. During the days that
+followed he had no fixed hours at all. Several times he entered the
+apartment with the smallest amount of noise that was possible, and
+listened at the sitting-room door. At last he must have heard something
+that pleased him, for as he sought his own room he smiled. "_Maintenant,
+mon cher, je te tiens._"
+
+The next day he surprised Justine by informing her that he intended to
+pay a visit to a relative. He was gone a week.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+That night the stars, dim and distant, were scattered like specks of
+frost on some wide, blue window-pane. At intervals a shiver of wheels
+crunching the resistant snow stirred the lethargy of the street, and at
+times a rumble accentuated by the chill of winter mounted gradually, and
+passed on in diminishing vibrations. Within, a single light, burning
+scantily, diffused through the room the drowsiness of a spell. In the
+bed was Justine, her eyes dilated, her face attenuated and pinched. One
+hand that lay on the coverlid was clinched so tightly that the nails
+must have entered the flesh. Presently she moaned, and a trim little
+woman issued from a corner with the noiseless wariness of a rat. As she
+passed before the night-light, the silhouette of a giantess, fabulously
+obese, jumped out and vanished from the wall. For a moment she
+scrutinized her charge, burrowing into her, as it were, with shrewd yet
+kindly eyes. Again a moan escaped the sufferer, the wail of one whose
+agony is lancinating--one that ascended in crescendos and terminated in
+a cry of such utter helplessness, and therewith of such insistent pain,
+that the nurse caught the hand that lay on the coverlid, and unlocking
+the fingers stroked and held it in her own. "There, dear heart--there, I
+know."
+
+Ah, yes, she knew very well. She had not passed ten years of her
+existence tending women in travail for the fun of it. And as she took
+Justine's hand and stroked it, she knew that in a little while the
+agony, acuter still, would lower her charge into that vestibule of death
+where Life appears. Whether or not Justine was to cross that silent
+threshold, whether happily she would find it barred, whether it would
+greet and keep her and hold her there, whether indeed it would let the
+child go free, an hour would tell, or two at most.
+
+But there were preparations to be made. The nurse left the bed and moved
+out into the hall. In a room near by, Mistrial, occupied with some
+advertisements in the _Post_, sat companioned by a physician who was
+reading a book which he had written himself. At the footfall of the
+nurse the latter left the room. Presently he returned. "Everything is
+going nicely," he announced, and placidly resumed his seat.
+
+It was the fourth time in two hours that he had made that same remark.
+Mistrial said nothing. He was gazing through the paper he held at the
+wall opposite, and out of it into the future beyond.
+
+Since that day, the previous spring, on which he had set out to visit a
+relative, many things had happened, yet but few that were of importance
+to him. On his return from the trip, during one fleeting second, for the
+first time since he had known Justine, it seemed to him that she avoided
+his eyes. To this, in other circumstances, he would have given no
+thought whatever; as matters were, it made him feel that his excursion
+should not be regarded as time ill-spent. Whether it had been wholly
+serviceable to his project, he could not at the time decide. He waited,
+however, very patiently, but he seldom waited within the apartment
+walls. At that period he developed a curious facility for renewing
+relations with former friends. Once he took a run to Chicago with an
+Englishman he had known in Japan; and once, with the brother of a lady
+who had married into the Baxter branch of the house of Mistrial, he went
+on a fishing trip to Canada. These people he did not bring to call on
+his wife. He seemed to act as though solitude were grateful to her. Save
+Mrs. Metuchen, Thorold at that time was her only visitor, and the visits
+of that gentleman Mistrial encouraged in every way that he could devise.
+Through meetings that, parenthetically, were more frequent on the stair
+or in the hallway than anywhere else, the two men, through sheer force
+of circumstances, dropped into an exchange of salutations--remarks about
+the weather, reciprocal inquiries on the subject of each other's health,
+which, wholly formal on Thorold's part, were from Mistrial always civil
+and aptly put. After all, was he not the host? and was it not for him to
+show particular courtesy to anyone whom his wife received?
+
+To her, meanwhile, his attitude was little short of perfection itself.
+He was considerate, foresighted, and unobtrusive--a course of conduct
+which frightened her a little. Two or three months after he had struck
+her in the face she made--_a propos_ of nothing at all--an announcement
+which brought a trace of color to her cheeks.
+
+The following afternoon he happened to be entering the house as Dr.
+Thorold was leaving it. Instead of greeting him in the nice and amiable
+fashion which he had adopted, and which Thorold had ended by accepting
+as a matter of course, he halted and looked at the physician through
+half-closed eyes. Thorold nodded, cavalierly enough it is true, and was
+about to pass on; but this Mistrial prevented. He planted himself
+squarely in his way, and stuck his hands in his pockets.
+
+"Mrs. Mistrial has no further need of you," he said. "Send your bill to
+me."
+
+He spoke from the tips of his lips, with the air and manner of one
+dismissing a lackey. At the moment nothing pertinent could have occurred
+to Thorold. He stared at Mistrial, dumbly perplexed, and plucked at his
+cuff. Mistrial nodded as who should say, "Put that in your pipe;" and
+before Thorold recovered his self-possession he had passed up the stairs
+and on and out of sight.
+
+It was then that season in which July has come and is going. The city
+was hot; torrid at noonday, sultry and enervating at night. Fifth Avenue
+and the adjacent precincts were empty. Each one of the brown-stone
+houses had a Leah-like air of desertion. The neighborhood of Madison
+and of Union Squares was peopled by men with large eyes and small feet,
+by women so deftly painted that, like Correggio, they could have
+exclaimed, "_Anch' io son pittore_." In brief, the Southern invasion had
+begun, and New York had ceased to be habitable.
+
+But Newport has charms of its own; and to that lovely city by the water
+Mistrial induced his wife; and there, until summer had departed, and
+autumn too, they rested and waited. During those months he was careful
+of her: so pleasantly so, so studious of what she did and of what she
+ate, that for the first time since the honeymoon she might have, had she
+tried, felt at ease with him again. But there were things that prevented
+this--faith destroyed and the regret of it. Oh, indeed she had regrets
+in plenty; some even for her father; and, unknown to Mistrial, once or
+twice she wrote him such letters as a daughter may write. She had never
+been in sympathy with him; as a child he had coerced her needlessly;
+when she was older he had preached; later, divining that lack of
+sympathy, he had striven through kindlier ways to counteract it. But he
+had failed; and Justine, aiding in the endeavor, had failed as well.
+When father and child do not stand hand-in-hand a fibre is wanting that
+should be there.
+
+In December Mistrial and his wife returned to town. A date was
+approaching, and there was the _layette_ to be prepared. Hour after hour
+Justine's fingers sped. The apartment became a magazine of
+swaddling-clothes. One costume in particular, a worsted sack that was
+not much larger than a coachman's glove, duplicated and repeated itself
+in varying and tender hues. Occasionally Mistrial would pick one up and
+examine it furtively. To his vagabond fancy it suggested a bag in which
+gold would be.
+
+But now the hour was reached. And as Mistrial sat staring into the
+future, the goal to which he had striven kept looming nearer and ever
+nearer yet. Only the day before he had learned that Dunellen was
+failing. And what a luxury it would be to him when the old man died and
+the will was read! Such a luxury did it appear, that unconsciously he
+manifested his contentment by that sound the glutton makes at the
+mention of delicious food.
+
+His companion--the physician--turned and nodded. "I know what you are
+thinking about," he announced; and with the rapt expression of a seer,
+half to Mistrial, half to the ceiling, "It is always the case," he
+continued; "I never knew a father yet that did not wonder what the child
+would be; and the mothers, oh! the mothers! Some of them know all about
+it beforehand: they want a girl, and a girl it will be; or they want a
+boy, and a boy they are to have. I remember one dear, good soul who was
+so positive she was to have a boy that she had all the linen marked with
+the name she had chosen for him. H'm. It turned out to be twins--both
+girls. And I remember--"
+
+But Mistrial had ceased to listen. He was off again discounting the
+inheritance in advance--discounting, too, the diabolism of his revenge.
+The latter, indeed, was unique, and withal so grateful, that now the
+consummation was at hand it fluttered his pulse like wine. He had
+ravened when first he learned the tenour of the will, and his soul had
+been bitter; but no sooner had this thing occurred to him than it
+resolved itself into a delight. To his disordered fancy its provisions
+held both vitriol and opopanax--the one for Thorold, the other for
+himself.
+
+The doctor meanwhile was running on as doctors do. "Yes," Mistrial heard
+him say, "she was most unhappy; no woman likes a rival, and when that
+rival is her own maid, matters are not improved. For my part, the moment
+I saw how delicate she was, I thought, though I didn't dare to say so, I
+thought her husband had acted with great forethought. The maid was
+strong as an ox, and in putting her in the same condition as his wife he
+had simply and solely supplied her with a wet-nurse. But then, at this
+time particularly, women are so unreasonable. Not your good lady--a
+sweeter disposition--"
+
+Whatever encomium he intended to make remained unfinished. From the room
+beyond a cry filtered; he turned hastily and disappeared. The cry
+subsided; but presently, as though in the interval the sufferer had
+found new strength or new torture, it rose more stridently than before.
+And as the rumor of it augmented and increased, a phrase of the
+physician's returned to Mistrial. "Everything is going very nicely," he
+told himself, and began to pace the floor.
+
+A fraction of an hour passed, a second, and a third. The cry now had
+changed singularly; it had lost its penetrating volume, it had sunk into
+the rasping moan of one dreaming in a fever. Suddenly that ceased, the
+silence was complete, and Mistrial, a trifle puzzled, moved out into the
+hall. There he caught again the murmur of her voice. This time she was
+talking very rapidly, in a continuous flow of words. From where he stood
+Mistrial could not hear what she was saying, and he groped on tip-toe
+down the hall. As he reached the door of the room in which she was, the
+sweet and heavy odor of chloroform came out and met him there; but still
+the flow of words continued uninterruptedly, one after the other, with
+the incoherence of a nightmare monologuing in a corpse. Then, without
+transition, in the very middle of a word, a cry of the supremest agony
+rang out, drowning another, which was but a vague complaint.
+
+"It's a boy," the nurse exclaimed.
+
+And Justine through a rift of consciousness caught and detained the
+speech. "So much the better," she moaned; "he will never give birth."
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry
+nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the
+name of the Lord."
+
+To this, Mistrial, garbed in black, responded discreetly, "Amen."
+
+He was standing opposite the bier. At his side was Justine. Before him
+Dr. Gonfallon, rector of the Church of Gethsemane,--of which the
+deceased had been warden,--was conducting the funeral rites. To the left
+was Thorold. Throughout the length and breadth of the drawing-room other
+people stood--a sprinkling of remote connections, former constituents,
+members of the bar and of the church, a few politicians; these, together
+with a handful of the helpless to whom the dead statesman had been
+trustee, counsellor too, and guide, had assembled there in honor of his
+memory. At the door, sharpening a pencil, was a representative of the
+Associated Press.
+
+For the past few days obituaries of the Hon. Paul Dunellen varied from
+six inches to a column in length. One journal alone had been
+circumspect. No mention of the deceased had appeared in its issues. But
+in politics that journal had differed with him--a fact which accounted
+sufficiently for its silence. In the others, however, through
+biographies more or less exact, fitting tributes had been paid. The
+_World_ gave his picture.
+
+Yet now, as Dr. Gonfallon, in words well calculated to impress, dwelt on
+the virtues of him that had gone, the tributes of the newspapers seemed
+perfunctory and trite. Decorously, as was his custom, he began with a
+platitude. Death, that is terrible to the sinner, radiant to the
+Christian, imposing to all, was here, he declared, but the dusk of a
+beautiful day which in departing disclosed cohorts of the Eternal
+beckoning from their glorious realm. Yet soon he warmed to his work, and
+eulogies of the deceased fell from him in sonorous periods, round and
+empty. He spoke of the nobility of his character, the loyalty he
+displayed, not to friends alone, but to foes as well. He spoke of that
+integrity in every walk of life which had won for him the title of
+Honest Paul--a title an emperor might crave and get not. He spoke too of
+the wealth he had acquired, and drew a moral from the unostentatiousness
+of his charities, the simplicity of his ways. He dwelt at length on the
+fact that, however multiple the duties of his station had been, his duty
+to his Maker was ever first. Then, after a momentary digression, in
+which he stated how great was the loss of such as he, he alluded to the
+daughter he had left, to that daughter's husband, sorely afflicted
+himself, yet, with a manliness worthy of his historic name, comforting
+the orphan who needed all his comfort now; and immediately from these
+things he lured another moral--an appeal to fortitude and courage; and
+winding up with the customary exordium, asked of Death where was its
+sting.
+
+Where was it indeed? A day or two later Mistrial found time to think of
+that question and of other matters as well. It was then six weeks since
+the birth of the child, and Justine, fairer than ever before, was
+ministering to it in the adjacent room. Now and again he caught the
+shrill vociferation of its vague complaints. It was a feeble infant,
+lacking in vitality, distressingly hideous; but it lived, and though it
+died the next minute, its life had sufficed.
+
+Already the will had been read--a terse document, and to the point;
+precisely such an one as you would have expected a jurist to make. By it
+the testator devised his property, real and personal, of whatever
+nature, kind, and description he died seized, to his former partners in
+trust for the eldest child of his daughter Justine, to its heirs,
+executors, and assigns forever. In the event of his daughter's demise
+without issue, then over, to Guy Thorold, M.D.
+
+No, the sting concerning which Dr. Gonfallon had inquired was to
+Mistrial undiscerned. There was indeed a prick of it in the knowledge
+that if the old man had lasted much longer it might have been tough work
+to settle the bills; but that was gone now: Honest Paul paid all his
+debts, and he had not shirked at Nature's due. He was safely and
+securely dead, six feet under ground at that, and his millions were
+absolute in his grandson. Yes, absolute. At the thought of it Mistrial
+laughed. The goal to which for years he had striven was touched and
+exceeded. He had thrown the vitriol, the opopanax was his.
+
+We all of us pretend to forgive, to overlook, to condone, we pretend
+even to sympathize with, our enemy. Nay, in refraining from an act that
+could injure him who has injured us, we are quite apt to consider
+ourselves the superior of our foe, and not a little inclined to rise to
+the heights of self-laudatory quotation too. It is an antique virtue,
+that of forbearance; it is Biblical, nobly Arthurian, and chivalresque.
+But when we smile at an injury, it is for policy's sake--because we
+fear, rarely because we truly forgive, more rarely yet because of
+indifference. Our magnanimity is cowardice. It takes a brave man to
+wreak a brave revenge.
+
+Mistrial made few pretensions to the virtues which you and I possess. He
+was relentless as a Sioux, and he was treacherous as the savage is; he
+had no taste for fair and open fight. However his blood had boiled at
+the tableau of imaginary wrongs, however fitting the opportunity might
+have been on the afternoon when he met his enemy at the city's fringe,
+he had the desire but not the courage to annihilate him there. But
+later, when the possibility which he had intercepted came, he feted, he
+coaxed it; and now that the hour of triumph had rung, his heart was
+glad. In the disordered closets of his brain he saw Thorold ravening at
+the trap into which he had fallen, and into which, in falling, he had
+lost the wherewithal to call the world his own. Ten million in exchange
+for an embrace! Verily, mused Mistrial, he will account it exceeding
+dear. And at the thought of what Thorold's frenzy must be, at the
+picture which he drew of him cursing his own imprudence and telling
+himself again and again, until the repetition turned into mania, that
+that imprudence could never be undone, he exulted and laughed aloud.
+
+Money, said Vespasian, has no odor. To our acuter nostrils it has: so
+nauseating even can it be, that we would rather be flung in the
+Potter's-field than catch the faintest whiff. But Mistrial, for all the
+sensitiveness that ancestry is supposed to bring, must have agreed with
+the Roman. To him it was the woof of every hope; whatever its
+provenance, it was an Open Sesame to the paradise of the ideal. He
+would have drawn it with his teeth from a dung-heap, only he would have
+done it at night.
+
+There are men that can steal a fortune, yet can never cheat at cards,
+and Mistrial was one of their race; he could not openly dishonor himself
+in petty ways. Many a scoundrel has a pride of his own. It is both easy
+and difficult to compare a bandit to a sneak-thief, Napoleon to
+Cartouche. Mistrial had nothing of the Napoleon about him, and he was
+lacking even in the strength which Cartouche possessed. But among carpet
+highwaymen commend me to his peer.
+
+And now, as he thought of the will, Gonfallon's query recurred to him,
+and he asked himself where was that sting? Not in the present,
+surely--for that from a bitterness had changed to a delight; and as for
+the future, each instant of it was sentient with invocations, fulfilled
+to the tips with the surprises of dream. The day he had claimed but a
+share in; the morrow was wholly his. He could have a dwelling in
+Mayfair and a marble palace on the Mediterranean Sea. For a scrap of
+paper he would never miss there was a haunt of ghosts dozing on the
+Grand Canal. In spring, when Paris is at her headiest, there, near that
+Triumphal Arch which overlooks the Elysian Fields, stood, _entre cour et
+jardin_, an hotel which he already viewed as his own. And when he
+wearied of the Old World, there was the larger and fuller life of the
+New. There was Peru, there was Mexico and Ecuador; and in those Italys
+of the Occident were girls whose lips said, Drink me; whose eyes were of
+chrysoberyl and of jade. _Ah, oui, les femmes; tant que le monde
+tournera il n'y aura que ca._ With blithe anticipation he hummed the air
+and snapped his fingers as Capoul was wont to do. At last he saw himself
+the Roland Mistrial that should have been, prodigal of gold, sultanesque
+of manner, feted, courted, welcomed, past-master in the lore and art of
+love.
+
+There were worlds still to be conquered; and before his hair grizzled
+and the furrows came he felt conscious of the possession of a charm that
+should make those worlds his own. He had waited indeed; he had toiled
+and manoeuvred; but now the great clock we call Opportunity had
+struck. Let him but ask, and it would be given. Wishes were spaniels; he
+had but a finger to raise, and they fawned at his feet. And then, as
+those vistas of which we have all caught a glimpse rose in melting
+splendor and swooned again through sheer excesses of their own delights,
+suddenly he bethought him of the multiples of one and of two.
+
+Heretofore he had taken it for granted that if Dunellen left the estate
+to his grandchild the income accruing therefrom would, until the
+grandchild came of age, pass through his own paternal hands. And in
+taking this for granted he had recalled the fable that deals not of the
+prodigal son, but rather of the prodigal father. That income should
+spin. By a simple mathematical process than with which no one was more
+familiar, he calculated that, at five per cent, ten million would
+represent a rent-roll of five hundred thousand per annum. Of that amount
+a fraction would suffice to Justine and to her son. The rest--well, the
+rest he knew of what uses he could put it to.
+
+But now, suddenly, with that abruptness with which disaster looms, there
+came to him a doubt. He rememorated the provisions of the will, and in
+them he discerned unprompted some tenet of law or of custom which,
+during the legal infancy of the child, might inhibit the trustees from
+paying over any larger amount than was needful for its maintenance and
+support. Then at once the fabric of his dreams dissolved. The vitriol
+had corroded, but the savor of the opopanax had gone. For a little while
+he tormented his mustache and nibbled feverishly at a finger-nail. To
+see one's self the dupe of one's own devices is never a pleasant sight.
+Again he interrogated what smattering of law he possessed; but the
+closer he looked, the clearer it seemed to be that in its entirety the
+income of the estate could not pass through his hands. From five hundred
+thousand the trustees might in their judgment diminish it to some such
+pocket-money as ten; they could even reduce it to five; and, barring an
+action, he might be unable to persuade them that the sum was absurd. The
+idea, nude and revolting as Truth ever is, raised him to an unaccustomed
+height of rage; he would not be balked, he declared to himself; he would
+have that money or--
+
+Or what? The contingency which he then interviewed, one which issued
+unsummoned from some cavern in his mind, little by little assumed a
+definite shape. He needed no knowledge of the law to tell him that he
+was that brat's heir. Did it die at that very moment the estate became
+absolute in him. There would be no trustees then to dole the income out.
+The ten millions would be his own. As for the trustees, they could
+deduct their commission and retire with it to New Jersey--to hell if it
+pleased them more. But the estate would be his. That there was no
+gainsaying. Meanwhile, there was the brat. He was a feeble child; yet
+such, Mistrial understood, had Methusaleh been. He might live forever,
+or die on the morrow. And why not that night?
+
+As this query came to him, he eyed its advance. It was yet some distance
+away, but as it approached he considered it from every side. And of
+sides, parenthetically, it had many. And still it advanced: when it
+started, its movements were so slow they had been hardly perceptible;
+nevertheless it had made some progress; then surer on its feet it tried
+to run; it succeeded in the effort; at each step it grew sturdier,
+swifter in speed; and now that it reached him it was with such a rush
+that he was overpowered by its force.
+
+He rose from his seat. For a moment he hesitated. To his forehead and
+about his ears a moisture had come. He drew out a handkerchief; it was
+of silk, he noticed--one that he brought from France. Absently he drew
+it across his face; its texture had detained his thought. Then on
+tip-toe he moved out into the corridor and peered into the room at the
+end of the hall.
+
+It was dimly lighted, but soon he accustomed himself to the shadows and
+fumbled them with his eyes. On the bed Justine lay; sleep had overtaken
+her; her head was aslant on the pillow, her lips half closed; the
+fingers of one hand cushioned her neck; the other hand, outstretched,
+rested on the edge of a cradle. She had been rocking it, perhaps. From
+the floor above sank the sauntering tremolo of a flute, very sweet in
+the distance, muffled by the ceiling and wholly subdued. In the street a
+dray was passing, belated and clamorous on the cobblestones. But now, as
+Mistrial ventured in, these things must have lulled Justine into yet
+deeper sleep; her breath came and went with the semibreves a leaf uses
+when it whispers to the night; and as he moved nearer and bent over her
+the whiteness of her breast rose and fell in unison with that breath.
+Yes, surely she slept, but it was with that wary sleep that dogs and
+mothers share. A movement of that child's and she might awake, alert at
+once, her senses wholly recovered, her mind undazed.
+
+Mistrial, assured of her slumber, turned from the bed to the cradle, and
+for a minute, two perhaps, he stood, the eyebrows raised, the
+handkerchief pendent in his hand, contemplating the occupant. And it was
+this bundle of flesh and blood, this lobster-hued animal, that lacked
+the intelligence a sightless kitten has,--it was this that should debar
+him! _Allons donc!_
+
+His face had grown livid, and his hand shook just a little; not with
+fear, however, though if it were it must have been the temerity of his
+own courage that frightened him. At the handkerchief which he held he
+glanced again; one twist of it round that infant's throat, a minute in
+which to hold it taut, and it would be back in his pocket, leaving
+strangulation and death behind, yet not a mark to tell the tale. One
+minute only he needed, two at most; he bent nearer, and as he bent he
+looked over at his wife; but still she slept, her breath coming and
+going with the same regular cadence as before, the whiteness of her
+breast still heaving; then very gently, with fingers that were nervously
+assured, he ran the handkerchief under the infant's neck: but however
+deftly he had done it, the chill of the silk must have troubled the
+child; its under lip quivered, then both compressed, the flesh about the
+cheek-bones furrowed, the mouth relaxed, and from it issued the whimper
+of unconscious plaint. The call may have stirred the mother in some
+dream, for a smile hovered in her features; yet immediately her eyes
+opened, she half rose, her hand fell to her side, and, reaching out,
+she caught and held the infant to her.
+
+"My darling," she murmured; and as the child, soothed already, drowsed
+back again into slumber, she turned to where her husband stood. "What is
+it?"
+
+From above, the tremolo of the flute still descended; but the dray long
+since had passed, and the street now was quiet.
+
+"What is it?" she repeated. She seemed more surprised than pleased to
+see him there.
+
+Mistrial, balked in the attempt, had straightened himself; he looked
+annoyed and restless.
+
+"Nothing," he answered, and thrust the handkerchief back in his pocket,
+as a bandit sheathes his dirk. "Nothing. I heard that bastard bawling,
+and I came in to make him stop."
+
+"Bastard? Is it in that way you speak of your child?"
+
+As she said this she made no visible movement; yet something in her
+attitude, the manner in which she held herself, seemed to bid him hold
+his peace, and this he noticed, and in noticing resented. "There," he
+muttered; "drop the Grand Duchess, will you? The brat is Thorold's; you
+know it, and so do I."
+
+For a little space she stared as though uncertain she had heard aright,
+but the speech must have re-echoed in her ears; she had been sitting up,
+yet now as the echo reached her she drooped on the pillow and let her
+head fall back. In her arms the child still drowsed. And presently a
+tear rolled down her face, then another.
+
+"Roland Mistrial, you have broken my heart at last."
+
+That was all; the ultimate words even were scarcely audible; but the
+tears continued--the first succeeded by others, unstanched and
+undetained. Grief had claimed her as its own. She made no effort to
+rebel; she lay as though an agony had come from which no surcease can
+be. And as one tear after the other passed down and seared her face
+there was a silence so deathly, so tangible, and so convincing, that he
+needed no further sign from her to tell him that the charge was false.
+In all his intercourse with her, whatever cause of complaint there had
+been, never had he seen her weep before; and now at this unawaited
+evidence of the injustice and ignominy of his reproach he wished she
+would be defiant again, that he might argue and confute. But no word
+came from her--barely a sob; nothing, in fact, save these tears, which
+he had never seen before. And while he stood there, visited by the
+perplexity of him to whom the unawaited comes, unconsciously he went
+back to the wooing of her: he saw her clear eyes lifted in confidence to
+his own, he heard again the sweet confession of her love, he recalled
+the marks and tokens of her trust, and when for him she had left her
+father's house; he saw her ever, sweet by nature, tender-hearted,
+striving at each misdeed of his to show him that in her arms there was
+forgiveness still. And he recalled too the affronts he had put upon her,
+the baseness of his calculations, the selfishness of his life; he saw
+the misery he had inflicted, the affection he had beguiled, the hope he
+had tricked, and for climax there was this supreme reproach, of which he
+knew now no woman in all the world was less deserving than was she. And
+still the tears unstanched and undetained passed down and seared her
+cheeks; in the mortal wound he had aimed at her womanhood all else
+seemingly was forgot. She did not even move, and lay, her child tight
+clasped, the image of Maternity inhabited by Regret.
+
+And such regret! Mistrial, unprompted, could divine it all. The regret
+of love misplaced, of illusions spent, the regret of harboring a ruffian
+and thinking him a knight. Yes, he could divine it all; and then, as
+such things can be, he grieved a moment for himself.
+
+But soon the present returned. Justine still was weeping; he no longer
+saw her tears, he heard them. Surely she would forgive again. It could
+not be that everything had gone for naught. He would speak to her, plead
+if need were, and in the end she would yield. She must do that, he told
+himself, and he groped after some falsity that should palliate the
+offence. He would tell her that he had been drinking again; he would
+deny his own words, or, if necessary, he would insist she had not heard
+them aright. Indeed, there was nothing that might have weight with her
+which he was not ready and anxious to affirm. If she would but begin, if
+in some splendor of indignation such as he had beheld before she would
+rise up and upbraid him, his task would be diminished by half. Anything,
+indeed, would be better than this, and nothing could be worse; it was
+not Justine alone that the tears were carrying from him, it was the
+Dunellen millions as well. Oh, abysses of the human heart! As he
+queried with himself, at the very moment he was experiencing his first
+remorse, the old self returned, and it was less of the injury he had
+inflicted that he thought than of the counter-effect that injury might
+have on him. In the attempt to throttle the child he had been balked,
+yet of that attempt he believed Justine to be suspicionless. Other
+opportunities he would have in plenty; and even were it otherwise, the
+child was weakly, and croup might do its work. With the future for which
+he had striven, there, in the very palm of his hand, how was it possible
+that he should have made this misstep? But he could retrieve it, he told
+himself; he was a good actor, it was not too late. For a little while
+yet he could still support the mask, and, recalling the sentimental
+reveries of a moment before, the forerunner of a sneer came and loitered
+beneath the fringes of his mustache.
+
+"Justine!" He moved a step or two to where she lay. "Justine--"
+
+His voice was very low and penitent, but at the sound of it she seemed
+to shrink. "Could she _know_?" he wondered.
+
+Then immediately, through the scantness of the apartment, he heard the
+outer bell resound. Enervated as he was, the interruption affected him
+like a barb. There was some one there whom he could vent his irritation
+on. He hurried to the hall, but a servant had preceded him. The door was
+open, and on the threshold Thorold stood.
+
+Mistrial nodded--the nod of one who is about to throw his coat aside and
+roll his shirt-sleeves up. "Is it for your bill you come?" he asked.
+
+Thorold hesitated, and his face grew very black. He affected, however,
+to ignore the taunt. He turned to the servant that still was waiting
+there. "Is my cousin at home?" he asked.
+
+"She is," Mistrial announced, "but not to you."
+
+"In that case," Thorold answered, "I must speak to someone in her
+stead."
+
+Mistrial made a gesture, and the servant withdrew.
+
+"I have to inform my cousin," Thorold continued, "that Mr. Metuchen came
+to me this evening and said that when my uncle died he was in debt--"
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!"
+
+"He asked me to come and acquaint Justine with the facts. They are
+here." With this Thorold produced a roll of papers. "Be good enough to
+explain to her," he added, "that this is the inventory of the estate."
+And, extending the documents to his host, he turned and disappeared.
+
+In the cataleptic attitude of one standing to be photographed Mistrial
+listened to the retreating steps; he heard Thorold descend the stairs,
+cross the vestibule, and pass from the house. It seemed to him even that
+he caught the sound of his footfall on the pavement without. But
+presently that, too, had gone. He turned and looked down the hall.
+Justine's door was closed. Then at once, without seeking a seat, he
+fumbled through the papers that he held. The gas-jet above his head fell
+on the rigid lines. In the absence of collusion--and from whence should
+such a thing come?--in the absence of that, they were crystal in their
+clarity.
+
+There were the assets. Shares in mines that did not exist, bonds of
+railways that were bankrupt, loans on Western swamps, the house on
+Madison Avenue, mortgaged to its utmost value, property on the
+Riverside, ditto. And so on and so forth till the eye wearied and the
+heart sickened of the catalogue. Then came the debit account. Amounts
+due to this estate, to that, and to the other, a list of items extending
+down an entire page of foolscap and extending over onto the next. There
+a balance had been struck. Instead of millions Honest Paul had left
+dishonor. Swindled by the living, he had swindled the dead.
+
+"So much for trusting a man that bawls Amen in church," mused Mistrial.
+
+As yet the completeness and amplitude of the disaster had not reached
+him. While he ran the papers over he feigned to himself that it was all
+some trick of Thorold's, one that he would presently see through and
+understand; and even as he grasped the fact that it was not a trick at
+all, that it was truth duly signed and attested, even then the disaster
+seemed remote, affecting him only after the manner of that wound which,
+received in the heat of battle, is unnoticed by the victim until its
+gravity makes him reel. Then at once in the distance the future on which
+he had counted faded and grew blank. Where it had been brilliant it was
+obscure, and that obscurity, increasing, walled back the horizon and
+reached up and extended from earth to sky. The papers fell from his
+nerveless hand, fright had visited him, and he wheeled like a rat
+surprised. Surely, he reflected, if safety there were or could be, that
+safety was with Justine.
+
+In a moment he was at her door. He tried it. It was locked. He beat upon
+it and called aloud, "Justine."
+
+No answer came. He bent his head and listened. Through the woodwork he
+could hear but the faintest rustle, and he called again, "Justine."
+
+Then from within came the melody of her voice: "Who is it?"
+
+"It is I," he answered, and straightened himself. It seemed odd to him
+she did not open the door at once. "I want a word with you," he added,
+after a pause. But still the door was locked.
+
+"Justine," he called again, "do you not hear me? I want to speak to
+you."
+
+Then through the slender woodwork at his side a whisper filtered, the
+dumb voice of one whom madness may have in charge.
+
+"It is not to speak you come, it is to kill."
+
+"Justine!" he cried. All the agony of his life he distilled into her
+name, "Justine!"
+
+"You killed your child before, you shall not kill another now."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+"City Hall!"
+
+The brakemen were shouting the station through the emptiness of the
+"Elevated."
+
+In the car in which Mistrial sat a drunken sailor lolled, and a pretty
+girl of the Sixth Avenue type was eating a confection. Above her, on a
+panel opposite, the advertisement of a cough remedy shone in blue;
+beyond was a particolored notice of tennis blazers: and, between them, a
+text from Mark, in black letters, jumped out from a background of white:
+
+"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
+his own soul?"
+
+During the journey from his home Mistrial had contemplated that text.
+Not continuously, however. For a little space his eyes had grazed the
+retreating throngs over which the train was hurrying, and had rested on
+the insufferable ugliness of the Bowery. Once, too, he had found himself
+staring at the girl who sat opposite, and once he had detected within
+him some envy of the sailor sprawling at her side. But, all the while,
+that text was with him, and to the jar of the car he repeated for
+refrain a paraphrase of his own: "How shall it damage a man if he lose
+his own soul and gain the whole world?"
+
+How indeed? Surely he had tried. For three years the effort had been
+constant. It was because of it he had married, it was for this he had
+sought to throttle his child. What his failure had been, Dunellen's
+posthumous felony and Justine's ultimate reproach indistinctly yet
+clearly conveyed. No, the world was not gained; he had played his best
+and he had lost: he could never recover it now.
+
+And as the brakeman bawled in his face, the paraphrase of the text was
+with him. He rose and passed from the car. Beneath he could discern a
+grass-plot of the City Park. In spite of the night it was visibly green.
+The sky was leaden as a military uniform that has been dragged through
+the mud. From a window of the Tribune Building came a vomit of vapor.
+And above in a steeple a clock marked twelve.
+
+The stairway led him down to the street. For a moment he hesitated; the
+locality was unfamiliar. But a toll-gate attracted him; he approached
+it, paid a penny, and moved onto the bridge. There, he discovered that
+on either side of him were iron fences and iron rails; he was on the
+middle of the bridge, not at the side. A train shot by. He turned again
+and reissued from the gate.
+
+On the corner was another entrance, and through it he saw a carriage
+pass. It was that way, he knew; and he would have followed the carriage,
+but a policeman touched him on the arm.
+
+"Got a permit?"
+
+Mistrial shook his head. Why should he have a permit? And, moved
+perhaps by the mute surprise his face expressed, the policeman explained
+that the ordinary pedestrian was allowed to cross only through the
+safeguards of the middle path.
+
+"I will get a cab," he reflected, and for his convenience he discerned
+one loitering across the way. This he entered, gave an order to the
+driver, and presently, after paying another toll, rolled off the
+stonework on to wood.
+
+He craned his neck. Just beyond, a column of stone rose inordinately to
+the lowering sky; he could see the water-front of the city; opposite was
+Brooklyn, and in front the lights of Staten Island glowed distantly and
+dim. The cab was moving slowly. He took some coin from his pocket,
+placed it on the seat, opened the door, and, stepping from the moving
+vehicle, looked at the driver. The latter, however, had not noticed him
+and was continuing his way leisurely over the bridge and on and into the
+night. Mistrial let him go undetained. He had work now to do, and it
+was necessary for him to do it quickly; at any moment another carriage
+might pass or some one happen that way.
+
+Beneath, far down, a barge was moving. He could see the lights; they
+approached the bridge and vanished within it. The railing, now, he saw
+was too high to vault, and moreover there was a bar above it that might
+interfere. He tossed his hat aside and clambered on the iron rail.
+
+"You'll get six months for that," some one was crying.
+
+But to the threat Mistrial paid no heed. He had crossed the rail, his
+hands relaxed, and just as he dropped straight down to the river below,
+he could see a policeman, his club uplifted, hanging over the fence,
+promising him the pleasures of imprisonment. Such was his last glimpse
+of earth. A multitude of lights danced before his eyes; every nerve in
+his body tingled; his ears were filled with sudden sounds; he felt
+himself incased in ice; then something snapped, and all was blank.
+
+The next day a rumor of the suicide was bruited through the clubs.
+
+"What do you think of it, Jones?" Yarde asked.
+
+The novelist plucked at his beard. There were times when he himself did
+not know what he thought. In this instance, however, he had already
+learned of the disaster that had overtaken the Dunellen estate, and
+weaving two and two sagaciously together, he answered with a shrug.
+
+"What do I think of it? I think he died like a man who knew how to
+live"--an epitaph which pleased him so much that he got his card-case
+out and wrote it down.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+By the same Author.
+
+
+    A TRANSACTION IN HEARTS.
+    EDEN.
+    THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK.
+    MR. INCOUL'S MISADVENTURE.
+    A TRANSIENT GUEST.
+    THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION.
+    THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISENCHANTMENT.
+
+
+
+
+Belford, Clarke & Co's New Books
+
+
+The Truth about Tristem Varick. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     "Our admiration for the perfection of its style, the brilliancy
+     of its expressions, and the exquisite art with which the story
+     has been handled, is unbounded."--_Lippincott's Magazine._
+
+     "The plot is admirable, style exquisite; as a piece of art the
+     style demands unstinted commendation."--_St. John's (N. B.)
+     Progress._
+
+     "A very surprising but fascinating love-story."--_Amsterdam
+     Democrat._
+
+
+Eden. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     "Mr. Saltus is an artist; his brilliant epigrammatic touch is
+     as rare as it is exquisite; and to find fault with such a novel
+     as 'Eden' because it is not Bunyan's 'Pilgrim Progress,' is
+     absurd."--_Boston Traveller._
+
+     "'Eden' is the best he has ever written. It Is a capital story,
+     told in scholarly and clever English, and any one who begins to
+     read it will not want to lay it aside until the end is
+     reached."--_Baltimore American._
+
+
+A Transaction in Hearts. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     Saltus' latest novel, and in some respects his best. In the
+     character of Christopher Gonfallon the author aims a terrible
+     blow at the hypocrisy of those who, setting themselves up as
+     examples and leaders of men, fall before the temptations of the
+     beast in their own natures. The recreant minister, the evil
+     enigma, Claire, and the pure, sweet wife, make a trinity of
+     characters rarely found in modern fiction.
+
+
+The Philosophy of Disenchantment. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     A philosophical work which entitles the author to a first place
+     in the ranks of modern thinkers. Even those who disagree with
+     his conclusions cannot deny him a vigorous and pointed logic,
+     keen insight, and powerful reasoning.
+
+
+The Anatomy of Negation. By EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+     A work of superlative excellence and worth.
+
+
+Divided Lives. By EDGAR FAWCETT.
+
+     "A spirited story; the interest is well sustained throughout,
+     and the characters are firmly and clearly drawn."--_N. Y.
+     Tribune._
+
+     "The book is written in very choice English, and the style is
+     flowing and harmonious."--_N. Y. Truth._
+
+     "A thoroughgoing society novel, whose style moves like a
+     waltz."--_Richmond States._
+
+
+Miriam Ballestier. By EDGAR FAWCETT.
+
+     "A pathetic and absorbing story of thrilling
+     interest."--_Syracuse Herald._
+
+     "The last chapter, in particular, is one of the most beautiful
+     things in American literature; the picture of Miriam going out
+     into the night on her mission of sublime self-sacrifice
+     deserves to live forever in the memory."--_Chicago Herald._
+
+
+Monte Rosa, the Epic of an Alp. By STARR HOYT NICHOLS.
+
+     "It is an account in poetic form of an Alpine mountain,
+     beginning with its birth, describing its form, appearance,
+     grandeur, its relations to man physically and metaphysically,
+     and ending with the probable ending of the mountain. It is one
+     of the most successful of recent attempts to wed science and
+     poetry."--_Albany Journal._
+
+
+Memories of the Men who Saved the Union. By DONN PIATT.
+
+     "Piatt's sketches of the great coterie of men mentioned are of
+     absorbing interest, and no one who takes up the book will lay
+     it down without obtaining new ideas of the character and
+     motives of those so high in place during the
+     rebellion"--_Quincy Whig._
+
+     "They are the interesting recollections of one who was
+     personally acquainted with the illustrious men of whom he has
+     written, and who had, as well officially as socially,
+     opportunities of studying the character of each, of which he
+     has availed himself in writing one of the ablest books we have
+     had the pleasure to welcome from America."--_Westminster
+     Review._
+
+The Lone Grave of the Shenandoah. By DONN PIATT.
+
+     "Eminently original, they are delightful to read. So
+     extraordinary a compound of poetry and practicality as our
+     author, if sought through the world, could not probably be
+     found."--_Washington Post._
+
+     "They are sketches, quaint, delicate, humorous, fanciful,
+     examples of the art of short story-writing in its
+     perfection."--_Chicago News._
+
+
+The Protective Tariff: What it Does for Us. By HERMAN LIEB.
+
+     "It is clear in style and argument, taking strong ground for
+     the immediate reduction of war taxes and the putting of the
+     nation on a peace footing as regards the necessities of life
+     for the common people."--_Michigan Courier._
+
+
+Life of Emperor William I., the Founder of the German Empire. By HERMAN
+LIEB.
+
+     "General Lieb has done historical literature a great service in
+     giving it a life of one of the greatest rulers of the
+     nineteenth century. It is printed on good paper, in clear type,
+     and profusely illustrated. An edition is also issued in the
+     German language for those who want the history of their
+     fatherland in their own tongue."--_New London Telegram._
+
+
+Henry Ward Beecher, Christian Philosopher, Pulpit Orator, Patriot, and
+Philanthropist. Illustrated with a biographical sketch by THOS. W.
+HANDFORD.
+
+     "As a pulpit orator he was during life the peer of any living,
+     and his utterances will go on converting men, and fitting them
+     for earth and heaven. As a patriot, loving his country, and
+     willing to make any sacrifice for its sustenance and
+     upbuilding, he was at all times conspicuous."--_Chicago
+     Inter-Ocean._
+
+     "It is much for a man worthy of a biography that he should fall
+     into the hands of a congenial spirit, and that the biography
+     should be a labor of love."--_Chicago Herald._
+
+
+Dinnerology. By "Pan."
+
+     Experiments in economical cooking, brightly and interestingly
+     related.
+
+
+Her Strange Fate. By CELIA LOGAN.
+
+     "'Her Strange Fate' belongs to that healthy sensational school,
+     at the head of which stand the works of Chas. Reade, wherein
+     the romantic and dramatic sides of real life are depicted.
+     There is no morbid analysis, no feverish imagination. No one
+     who begins the book will be willing to lay it down until the
+     last page is reached."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+
+A Blue-Grass Thoroughbred. By "TOM JOHNSON."
+
+
+     A richly colored picture of a comparatively unknown but
+     wonderfully interesting section of the United States, the
+     Blue-grass region of Kentucky. From end to end the book is a
+     rapidly moving panorama of brilliant pictures.
+
+
+A Slave of Circumstance. By E. DE LANCEY PIERSON.
+
+
+     "An interesting work."--_N. Y. Herald._
+
+     "A book well written; continually alluring, especially in the
+     love scenes."--_Washington National Republican._
+
+     "The very first paragraph of the book arouses the reader's
+     interest, and that interest is maintained to the end."--_Sunday
+     News._
+
+     "It is extremely interesting, vividly national, and develops an
+     unusually original idea."--_Baltimore American._
+
+
+The Shadow of the Bars. By E. DE LANCEY PIERSON.
+
+
+     "A brilliant and interesting love-story."--_Boston
+     Commonwealth._
+
+
+The Black Ball. By E. DE LANCEY PIERSON.
+
+
+     Mr. Pierson's latest and best work, alive with humor and
+     genuine pathos, at once fantastic and intensely human.
+
+
+A Dream and a Forgetting. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+     "A delightful story, told with a charming idyllic sweetness by
+     this successor of the Seer of Salem."--_Texas Siftings._
+
+     "Without much doubt the best piece of work that Mr. Hawthorne
+     has yet turned out. It is intensely interesting."--_Springfield
+     (Mass.) Union._
+
+     "If it has a fault it is that of brevity."--_Cleveland Leader._
+
+     "One of the most perfect pieces of work that Mr. Hawthorne has
+     ever done in fiction. It has the Hawthorne atmosphere, the
+     imaginative beauty, the touch of the mystic in it."--_Boston
+     Traveller._
+
+
+The Professor's Sister. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+     "There is no other American writer of the day who can present a
+     mystery and unfold it in all its details with such consummate
+     skill as Hawthorne."--_Richmond States._
+
+     "Is, without doubt, not only one of the very best that this
+     author has yet achieved, but it is not too much to say that it
+     will rank with the strongest novels that have been given to the
+     public in years."--_Nashville American._
+
+     "Human passions and actual life are well mixed into the warp
+     and woof of the plot, and some striking characters are evolved
+     in admirable narrative, and colloquial style."--_N. Y. Truth._
+
+
+Kisses of Fate. By E. HERON-ALLEN.
+
+
+     "A collection of clever tales, three in number, the merit of
+     which is not suggested in the title he has chosen to give them,
+     while in grace and finish they reflect to his credit."--_Albany
+     Union._
+
+
+Princess Daphne. By E. HERON-ALLEN.
+
+
+     "Somewhat unorthodox, but highly interesting."--_Reading
+     Union._
+
+     "Weird stories are in vogue at present, and some are good and
+     far more are the reverse. This is one of the best."--_Baltimore
+     News._
+
+     "The book is written in an attractive style, and is intensely
+     interesting."--_Albany Express._
+
+
+Among the Tramps. By "UNCLE TIM."
+
+
+     A volume of rare interest and information, from the pen of a
+     writer thoroughly conversant with that philosophy which bears
+     upon the well-being of society and every-day life.
+
+
+Confessions of a Society Man.
+
+
+     "The book is interesting throughout because of the rapid and
+     continual shifting of incidents which is its chief
+     characteristic."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._
+
+     "The love-making in it is charming. It is interesting up to the
+     very end."--_Nashville American._
+
+
+A Tramp Actor. By ELLIOT BARNES.
+
+
+     "There are good things in the book, and it is endowed with an
+     excellent moral."--_N. Y. Sun._
+
+
+Forty Tears on the Rail. By C. B. GEORGE.
+
+
+     "The book is destined to have a very extended reading, as its
+     pages are not only interesting, but instructive."--_Keokuk
+     Democrat._
+
+
+The Friend to the Widow. By MAJA SPENCER.
+
+
+     "This is a love-story pure and simple, but just one of those
+     stories that form most delightful reading, free from heroics
+     and wild sensations."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+
+Why Was It? By LEWIS BENJAMIN.
+
+
+     "The chief charm of the book lies in the simple manner of
+     telling the story, and in the fact that its basis and its
+     incidents are precisely such as may be picked up almost
+     anywhere, at any time."--_Nashville American._
+
+
+The Wrong Man. By GERTRUDE GARRISON.
+
+
+     "'The Wrong Man' is not in the least sensational--not the kind
+     of a story to set people talking about its possible
+     consequences on the minds of unseasoned readers. Nothing
+     feverish, questionable, or coarse in it. Much rare qualities
+     does it possess, which give it distinction in these days of
+     rankly flavored fiction."--_Philadelphia Herald._
+
+
+A Boston Girl. By REV. ARTHUR SWAZE.
+
+
+     "Those who read 'A Boston Girl' will like it, and those who do
+     not read it will, if they only knew it, miss spending an
+     agreeable hour or two."--_San Francisco Call._
+
+
+A Drummer's Diary. By CHARLES S. PLUMMER.
+
+What Dreams May Come. By Mrs. Gertrude Atherton.
+
+
+     "The interest of the story lies in its all-absorbing plot, its
+     strong dramatic treatment, and the bold handling of one of the
+     most difficult and least used subjects of
+     literature."--_Rochester Herald._
+
+     "There is good work and strong work in the book, and it is
+     quite enough to make one hope it is not the last the authoress
+     will write."--_N. Y. Journalist._
+
+
+Bella-Demonia. By SELINA DOLARO. Madame Dolaro's Posthumous Novel.
+
+
+     This work, founded on a drama by Madame Dolaro, shortly to be
+     produced, is an historical novel of pure incident. It is
+     composed of a series of startling dramatic situations, founded
+     on facts not hitherto published in connection with the
+     Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, of which it is an accurate history
+     of absorbing interest.
+
+
+Mes Amours: Poems. Passionate and Playful. By SELINA DOLARO.
+
+
+     "Some of them are from her own pen; she is the inspiration of
+     the others. A few of the latter are really quite clever verses,
+     but not nearly as bright as her annotation of them all."--_N.
+     Y. Graphic._
+
+     "There is many a laugh to be had from reading the book."--_Town
+     Topics._
+
+     "These verses are full of spirit and life, and the merry mood
+     sings between the lines like the contented streamlet between
+     wind-swept hillsides."--_Albany Journal._
+
+
+That Girl from Texas. By JEANETTE H. WALWORTH.
+
+
+     "Is one of the nicest girls ever introduced to readers. Well
+     told, and decidedly interesting."--_New London Telegraph._
+
+
+A Splendid Egotist. By JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH (author of "That Girl from
+Texas").
+
+
+     A brilliant society novel by this gifted author, and one of the
+     best she has written.
+
+
+History of New York. By JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH. In words of one syllable.
+Richly illustrated. Illuminated board cover.
+
+
+     "This book is well calculated to give young children just about
+     the historical knowledge in that direction which their minds
+     are prepared to absorb and retain."--_Oswego Palladium._
+
+
+His Way and Her Will. By FANNIE ATMAR MATHEWS.
+
+
+     "Is a novel of more than usual merit. Its characters are strong
+     in word and action, and although it is a love story, its
+     sentiment is manly, and not mawkish."--_N. H. News._
+
+     "The characters are drawn with a firm and free hand, and the
+     story has that symmetry of construction which shows the
+     practical workman. The literary style is finished and
+     graceful."--_Baltimore News._
+
+
+Studies in Social Life. A Review of the Principles, Practices, and
+Problems of Society. By GEORGE C. LORIMER.
+
+
+     "The subject is a living one, he has gone to the heart of it,
+     developed his thoughts in an attractive manner, pointed out
+     clearly its existing evils and their causes, and advances
+     theories of remedies which will stand practical
+     test."--_Hamilton Republican._
+
+     "It is a serious work, deserving to be widely read. It deals
+     with so many subjects that an epitome of its contents is
+     impossible here; but we would call special attention to the
+     chapter on the vices of society."--_N. Y. World._
+
+
+Eating and Living. By SIR HENRY THOMPSON.
+
+The Everyday Cook Book. By MISS M. C. NEILL. Oil-cloth cover (kitchen
+style).
+
+The Kentucky Cookery Book. By MRS. PETER A. WHITE.
+
+Political Oratory of Emery A. Storm, from Lincoln to Garfield. By ISAAC
+E. ADAMS.
+
+
+     "Not only valuable as examples of perfect argument and
+     matchless eloquence, but as a rich contribution to the
+     political history of our country."--_Burlington Post._
+
+
+The People and the Railways. By APPLETON MORGAN.
+
+
+     "It is a popular discussion of some railway problems, and it
+     takes the ground that a railway company is a useful public
+     servant, and not necessarily a crushing monopoly."--_Epoch._
+
+     "The book is carefully written, and Mr. Morgan presents his
+     side of the argument with clearness and great
+     ability."--_Chicago Herald._
+
+
+Men, Women, and Gods. By HELEN GARDENER.
+
+
+     "The writer of this volume has read the Bible with open eyes.
+     The mist of sentimentality has not clouded her vision. She has
+     had the courage to tell the result of her investigations. She
+     has been quick to discover contradictions. She appreciates the
+     humorous side of the stupidly solemn. She says what she thinks,
+     and feels what she says."--_Robt. H. Ingersoll._
+
+
+The Veteran and His Pipe. By ALBION W. TOURGEE.
+
+
+     "Judge Tourgee maintains his old familiar force and style, and
+     in 'The Veteran and His Pipe' employs himself in giving to
+     soldiers particularly (although the book will be interesting to
+     all readers) something that they will greatly enjoy."--_St.
+     Joseph_ (Mo.) _Herald._
+
+
+Divorced. By MRS. MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN.
+
+
+     "This is a masterly discussion of one of the burning questions
+     of the age, dealt with according to the logic of facts. The
+     plot is most ingenious, and the characters are sketched with a
+     powerful hand."--_Trenton Times._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pace That Kills, by Edgar Saltus
+
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