"I can't understand that."
"Perhaps not, but there are worse things than sleeping hard and cold.There are people who suffer more through their minds than their bodies.I am not going back among my former acquaintances till I can go as agentleman."
The old man looked at him approvingly a moment, and then said sententiously:
"Well, you may be a bad cuss, but you ain't a mean one."
Haldane laughed outright. "Mr. Growther," said he, "you do me honor. I foresee you will trust me with your wood-pile to-night."
"No I won't nuther. You might not take my wood, but you would take cold, and then I'd have to nuss you and pay doctor's bills, and bother with you a week or more. I might even have your funeral on my hands. You needn't think you're goin' to get me into all this trouble, fur I'm one that hates trouble, unless it's fur myself; and, if I do say it, it's askin' a little too much of me, almost a stranger, to 'tend to your funeral. I don't like funerals—never did—and I won't have nothin' to do with yours. There's a room right upstairs here, over the kitchen, where you can sleep without wakin' up the hull neighborhood a coughin' before mornin'. Now don't say nothin' more about it. I'm thinkin' of myself plaguy sight more'n I am of you. If I could let you go to the dogs without worryin' about it, I'd do it quick enough; but I've got a miserable, sneakin' old conscience that won't stand right up and make me do right, like a man; but when I want to do some thin' mean it begins a gnawin' and a gnawin' at me till I have to do what I oughter for the sate of a little peace and comfort. A-a-h!"
"Your uncomfortable conscience seems bent on making me very comfortable; and yet I pledge you my word that I will stay only on one condition, and that is, that you let me get supper and breakfast for you, and also read the paper aloud this evening. I can see that you are tired and lame from your walk. Will you agree?"
"Can't very well help myself. These easterly storms allers brings the rheumatiz into my legs. About all they are good fur now is to have the rheumatiz in 'em. So set plates for two, and fire ahead."
Haldane entered into his tasks with almost boyish zest. "I've camped out in the woods, and am considerable of a cook," said he. "You shall have some toast browned to a turn, to soak in your tea, and then you shall have some more with hot cream poured over it. I'll shave the smoked beef so thin that you can see to read through it."
"Umph! I can't see after dark any more than an old hen."
"How did you expect to read the paper then?" asked Haldane, without pausing in his labors.
"I only read the headin's. I might as well make up the rest as the editors, fur then I can make it up to suit me. It's all made up half the time, you know."
"Well, you shall hear the editors' yarns to-night then, by way of variety."
The old man watched the eager young fellow as he bustled from the cupboard to the table, and from the store-closet to the fireplace, with a kindly twinkle in his small eyes, from which the deep wrinkles ran in all directions and in strange complexity. There could scarcely be a greater contrast than that between the headstrong and stalwart youth and the withered and eccentric hermit; but it would seem that mutual kindness is a common ground on which all the world can meet and add somewhat to each other's welfare.
The sound hard wood which Haldane had just sawn into billets blazed cheerily on the hearth, filling the quaint old kitchen with weird and flickering lights and shades. Mr. Growther was projected against the opposite wall in the aspect of a benevolent giant, and perhaps the large, kindly, but unsubstantial shadow was a truer type of the man than the shrivelled anatomy with which the town was familiar. The conservative dog, no longer disquieted by doubts and fears, sat up and blinked approvingly at the preparation for supper. The politic cat, now satisfied that any attentions to the stranger would not compromise her, and might lead to another delicate morsel, fawned against his legs, and purred as affectionately as if she had known him all her life and would not scratch him instantly if he did anything displeasing to her.
Take it altogether, it was a domestic scene which would have done Mrs. Arnot's heart good to have witnessed; but poor Mrs. Haldane would have sighed over it as so utterly unconventional as to be another proof of her son's unnatural tastes. In her estimation he should spend social evenings only in aristocratic parlors; and she mourned over the fact that from henceforth he was excluded from these privileged places of his birthright, with a grief only less poignant than her sorrow over what seemed to her a cognate truth, that his course and character also excluded him from heaven.
"I don't s'pose there's any use of two such reprobates as us thinkin' about sayin' grace," said Mr. Growther, taking his place at the head of the table; "and yet, as I said, I allers have a sneakin' wish jest to go through the form; so we'll all begin in the same way—cat and dog and God's rational critters. Howsomever, they don't know no better, and so their consciences is clear. I'll own up this toast is good, if I am eatin' it like a heathen. If you can't find anything else to do, you can take to cookin' for a livin'."
"No one in town, save yourself, would trust me in their kitchen."
"Well, it does seem as if a man had better lose everything rather than his character," said Mr. Growther thoughtfully.
"Then it seems a pity a man can lose it so cursed easily," added Haldane bitterly, "for, having lost it, all the respectable and well-to-do would rather one should go to the devil a thousand times than give him a chance to win it back again."
"You put it rather strong—rather strong," said the old man, shaking his head; "for some reason or other I am not as mad at myself and everything and everybody to-night as usual, and I can see things clearer. Be honest now. A month ago you belonged to the rich, high-flyin' class. How much then would you have had to do with a young fellow of whom you knew only four things—that he gambled, got drunk, 'bezzled a thousand dollars, and had been in jail? That's all most people in town know about you."
Haldane laid down his knife and fork and fairly groaned.
"I know the plain truth is tough to hear and think about, and I'm an old brute to spile your supper by bringing it up. I hope you won't think I'm trying to save some victuals by doin' it. And yet it's the truth, and you've got to face it. But face it to-morrow—face it to-morrow; have a comfortable time to-night."
"Your statement of the case is perfectly bald," said Haldane, with a troubled brow; "there are explanatory and excusing circumstances."
"Yes, no doubt; but the world don't take much account of them. When one gits into a scrape, about the only question asked is, What did hedo?And they all jump to the conclusion that if he did it once he'll do it agin. Lookin' into the circumstances takes time and trouble, and it isn't human nature to bother much about other people."
"What chance is there, then, for such as I am?"
The old man hitched uneasily on his chair, but at last, with his characteristic bluntness said, "Hanged if I know! They say that them that gits down doesn't very often git up again. Yet I know they do sometimes."
"What would you do if you were me?"
"Hanged if I know that either! Sit down and cuss myself to all eternity, like enough. I feel like doin' it sometimes as it is. A-a-h!"
"I think I know a way out of the slough," said Haldane more composedly—his thoughts recurring to his literary hopes—"and if I do, you will not be sorry."
"Of course I won't be sorry. A man allers hates one who holds a mortgage against him which is sure to be foreclosed. That's the way the devil's got me, and I hate him about as bad as I do myself, and spite him every chance I git. Of course, I'll be glad to see you git out of his clutches; but he's got his claws in you deep, and he holds on to a feller as if he'd pull him in two before he'll let go."
"Mr. Growther, I don't want to get into a quarrel with you, for I have found that you are very touchy on a certain point; but I cannot help hinting that you are destined to meet a great disappointment when through with your earthly worry. I wish my chances were as good as yours."
"Now you are beginnin' to talk foolishly. I shall never be rid of myself, and so will never be rid of my worry."
"Well, well, we won't discuss the question; it's too deep for us both; but in my judgment it will be a great piece of injustice if you ever find a warmer place than your own hearthstone."
"That's mighty hot, sometimes, boy; and, besides, your judgment hasn't led you very straight so far," said the old man testily. "But don't talk of such things. I don't want to come to 'em till I have to."
"Suppose I should become rich and famous, Mr. Growther," said Haldane, changing the subject; "would you let me take a meal with you then?"
"That depends. If you put on any airs I wouldn't."
"Good for you!"
"Oh, I'd want to make much of you, and tell how I helped you when you was down, and so git all the reflected glory I could out of you. I've learned how my sneakin' old speret pints every time; but I'll head it off, and drive it back as I would a fox into its hole."
In spite of some rather harrowing and gloomy thoughts on the part of two of them, the four inmates of the cottage made a very comfortable supper; for Mr. Growther always insisted that since his cat and dog could "stand him," they should fare as well as he did.
Having cleared the table, Haldane lighted a candle—kerosene lamps were an abomination that Mr. Growther Would not abide—and began reading aloud the "Evening Spy." The old gentleman half listened and half dozed, pricking up his ears at some tale of trouble or crime, and almost snoring through politics and finance. At last he was half startled out of his chair by a loud, wrathful oath from Haldane.
"Look here, young man," he said; "the devil isn't so far off from either of us that you need shout for him."
"True, indeed! he isn't far off, and he has everything his own way in this world. Listen to this"—and he read with sharp, bitter emphasis the following editorial paragraph, headed "Unnatural Depravity":
"Being ever inclined to view charitably the faults and failings of others, and to make allowance for the natural giddiness of youth, we gave a rather lenient estimate, not of the crime committed by Mr. Arnot's clerk, Egbert Haldane, but of the young man himself. It would seem that our disposition to be kindly led us into error, for we learn from our most respectable German contemporary, published in this city, that this same unscrupulous young fraud has been guilty of the meanness of taking advantage of a poor foreigner's ignorance of our language. Having found it impossible to obtain lodgings among those posted in the current news of the day, and thus to impose on any one to whom he was known, he succeeded in obtaining board of a respectable German, and ran up as large a bill as possible at the bar, of course. When the landlord of the hotel and restaurant at last asked for a settlement, this young scapegrace had the insolence to insist that he had paid every cent of his bill, though he had not a scrap of paper or proof to support his assertion. Finding that this game of bluster would not succeed, and that his justly incensed host was about to ask for his arrest, he speedily came down from his high and virtuous mood, and compromised by pretending to offer all the money he had.
"This was undoubtedly a mere pretence, for he had worn a valuable watch in the morning, and had parted with it during the day. Though the sum he apparently had upon his person was scarcely half payment, the kind-hearted German took him at his word, and also left him seventy-five cents to procure lodgings elsewhere. In what role of crime he will next appear it is hard to guess; but it seems a pity that Mr. Arnot did not give him the full benefit of the law, for thus the community would have been rid, for a time at least, of one who can serve his day and generation better at breaking stone under the direction of the State than by any methods of his own choosing. He is one of those phenomenal cases of unnatural depravity; for, as far as we can learn, he comes from a home of wealth, refinement, and even Christian culture. We warn our fellow-citizens against him."
"A-a-a-h!" ejaculated Mr. Growther, in prolonged and painful utterance, as if one of his teeth had just been drawn. "Now that is tough! I don't wonder you think Satan had a finger in that pie. Didn't I tell you the editors made up half that's in the papers? I don't know what started this story. There's generally a little beginning, like the seed of a big flauntin' weed; but I don't believe you did so mean a thing. In fact, I don't think I'm quite mean enough to have done it myself."
"You, and perhaps one other person, will be the only ones in town, then, who will not believe it against me. I know I've acted wrong and like a fool; but what chance has a fellow when he gets credit for evil only, and a hundred-fold more evil than is in him? Curse it all! since every one insists that I have gone wholly over to the devil, I might as well go."
"That's it, that's it! we're all right at his elbow, a-helpin' him along. But how did this story start? The scribbler in the German paper couldn't have spun it, like a spider, hully out of his own in'ards."
Haldane told him the whole story, sketching the "kind-hearted German" in his true colors.
At its conclusion Mr. Growther drew a long, meditative breath, and remarked sententiously, "Well, I've allers heard that 'sperience was an awfully dear school; but we do learn in it. I'll bet my head you will never pay another dollar without takin' a receipt."
"What chance will I ever have to make another dollar? They have raised a mad-dog cry against me, and I shall be treated as if I were a dog."
"Why don't you go home, then?"
"I'll go to the bottom of the river first."
"That would suit the devil, the crabs, and the eels," remarked Mr.Growther.
"Faugh! crabs and eels!" exclaimed Haldane with a shudder of disgust.
"That's all you'd find at the bottom of the river, except mud," responded Mr. Growther, effectually quenching all tragic and suicidal ideas by his prosaic statement of the facts. "Young man," he continued, tottering to his feet, "I s'pose you realize that you are in a pretty bad fix. I ain't much of a mother at comfortin'. When I feel most sorry for any one I'm most crabbed. It's one of my mean ways. If there's many screws loose in you, you will go under. If you are rash, or cowardly, or weak—that is, ready to give up-like—you will make a final mess of your life; but if you fight your way up you'll be a good deal of a man. Seems to me if I was as young and strong as you be, I'd pitch in. I'd spite myself; I'd spite the devil; I'd beat the world; I'd just grit my teeth, and go fur myself and everything else that stood in my way, and I'd whip 'em all out, or I'd die a-fightin'. But I've got so old and rheumatic that all I can do is cuss. A-a-h!"
"I will take your advice—I will fight it out," exclaimed the excitable youth with an oath. Between indignation and desperation he was thoroughly aroused. He already cherished only revenge toward the world, and he was catching the old man's vindictive spirit toward himself.
Mr. Growther seemed almost as deeply incensed as his guest at the gross injustice of the paragraph, which, nevertheless, would be widely copied, and create public opinion, and so double the difficulties in the young man's way; and he kept up as steady a grumble and growl as had his sorely disquieted dog in the afternoon. But Haldane lowered at the fire for a long time in silence.
"Well," concluded the quaint old cynic, "matters can't be mended by swearin' at 'em, is advice I often give myself, but never take. I s'pose it's bed-time. To-morrow we will take another squint at your ugly fortunes, and see which side pints toward daylight. Would you mind readin' a chapter in the Bible first?"
"What have I to do with the Bible?"
"Well, the Bible has a good deal to say about you and most other people."
"Like those who pretend to believe it, it has nothing good to say about me. I've had about all the hard names I can stand for one night."
"Read where it hits some other folks, then."
"Oh, I will read anywhere you like. It's a pity if I can't do that much for perhaps the only one now left in the world who would show me a kindness."
"That's a good fellow. There's one chapter I'd like to hear to-night. The words come out so strong and hearty-like that they generally express just my feelin's. Find the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, and read where it says, 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.'"
Haldane read the chapter with much zest, crediting all its denunciation to others, in accordance with a very general fashion. When he came to the words, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers," the old man fairly rubbed his hands together in his satisfaction, exclaiming:
"That's it! that's genuine! that's telling us sleek, comfortable sinners the truth without mincin'! No smooth, deludin' lies in that chapter. That's the way to talk to people who don't want their right hand to know what cussedness their left hand is up to. Now, Jeremiah Growther, the next time you want to do a mean thing that you wouldn't have all the town know, just remember what a wrigglin' snake in the grass you are."
With this personal exhortation Mr. Growther brought the evening to a close, and, having directed Haldane to his comfortable quarters, hobbled and mumbled off to an adjoining room, and retired for the night. The dying fire revealed for a time the slumbering cat and dog, but gradually the quaint old kitchen faded into a blank of darkness.
Throughout an early breakfast Mr. Growther appeared to be revolving some subject in his mind, and his question, at last, was only seemingly abrupt, for it came at the end of quite a long mental altercation, in which, of course, he took sides against himself.
"I say, young man, do you think you could stand me?"
"What do you mean?" asked Haldane.
"Well, before you say no, you ought to realize all the bearin's of the case. The town is down on you. Respectable people won't have nothin' to do with you, any more than they would walk arm in arm with the charcoal-man in their Sunday toggery. I aren't respectable, so you can't blacken me. I've showed you I'm not afraid to trust you. You can't sleep in the streets, you can't eat pavin'-stuns and mud, and you won't go home. This brings me to the question again: Can you stand me? I warn you I'm an awful oncomfortable customer to live with; I won't take any mean advantage of you in this respect, and, what's more, I don't s'pose I'll behave any better for your sake or anybody else's. I'm all finished and cooled off, like an old iron casting, and can't be bent or made over in any other shape. You're crooked enough, the Lord knows; but you're kind o' limber yet in your moral j'nts, and you may git yourself in decent shape if you have a chance. I've taken a notion to give you a chance. The only question is, Can you stand me?"
"It would be strange if I could not stand the only man in Hillaton who has shown a human and friendly interest in me. But the thing I can't stand is taking charity."
"Who's asked you to take charity?"
"What else would it be—my living here on you?"
"I can open a boardin'-house if I want to, can't I? I have a right to lend my own money, I s'pose. You can open a ledger account with me to a penny. What's more, I'll give you a receipt every time," added the old man, with a twinkle in his eye; "you don't catch me gettin' into the papers as 'kind-hearted' Mr. Growther."
"Mr. Growther, I can scarcely understand your kindness to me, for I have no claim on you whatever. As much as I would like to accept your offer, I scarcely feel it right to do so. I will bring discredit to you with certainty, and my chances of repaying you seem very doubtful now."
"Now, look here, young man, I've got to take my choice 'twixt two evils. On one side is you. I don't want you botherin' round, seein' my mean ways. For the sake of decency I'll have to try to hold in a little before you, while before my cat and dog I can let out as I please; so I'd rather live alone. But the tother side is a plaguy sight worse. If I should let you go a-wanderin' off you don't know where, the same as if I should start my dog off with a kick, knowin' that every one else in town would add a kick or fire a stun, I couldn't sleep nights or enjoy my vittels. I'd feel so mean that I should jest set and cuss myself from mornin' till night. Look here, now; I couldn't stan' it," concluded Mr. Growther, overcome by the picture of his own wretchedness. "Let's have no more words. Come back every night till you can do better. Open an account with me. Charge what you please for board and lodgin', and pay all back with lawful interest, if it'll make you sleep better." And so it was finally arranged.
Haldane started out into the sun-lighted streets of the city as a man might sally forth in an enemy's country, fearing the danger that lurked on every side, and feeling that his best hope was that he might be unnoted and unknown. He knew that the glance of recognition would also be a glance of aversion and scorn, and, to his nature, any manifestation of contempt was worse than a blow. He now clung to his literary ventures as the one rope by which he could draw himself out of the depths into which he had fallen, and felt sure that he must hear from some of his manuscripts within a day or two. He went to the post-office in a tremor of anxiety only to hear the usual response, "Nothing for E. H."
With heavy steps and a sinking heart he then set out in his search for something to do, and after walking weary miles he found only a small bit of work, for which he received but small compensation. He returned despondently in the evening to his refuge at Mr. Growther's cottage, and his quaint good Samaritan showed his sympathy by maintaining a perpetual growl at himself and the "disjinted world" in general. But Haldane lowered at the fire and said little.
Several successive days brought disappointment, discouragement, and even worse. The slanderous paragraph concerning his relations with Mr. Shrumpf was copied by theMorning Courier,with even fuller and severer comment. Occasionally upon the street and in his efforts to procure employment, he was recognized, and aversion, scorn, or rough dismissal followed instantly.
For a time he honestly tried to obtain the means of livelihood, but this became more and more difficult. People of whom he asked employment naturally inquired his name, and he was fairly learning to hate it from witnessing the malign changes in aspect and manner which its utterance invariably produced. The public had been generally warned against him, and to the natural distrust inspired by his first crime was added a virtuous indignation at the supposed low trickery in his dealing with the magnanimous Mr. Shrumpf, "the poor but kind-hearted German." Occasionally, that he might secure a day's work in full or in part, he was led to suppress his name and give analias.
He felt as if he had been caught in a swift black torrent that was sweeping him down in spite of all that he could do; he also felt that the black tide would eventually plunge him into an abyss into which he dared not look. He struggled hard to regain a footing, and clutched almost desperately at everything that might impede or stay his swift descent; but seemingly in vain.
His mental distress was such that he was unable to write, even with the aid of stimulants; and he also felt that it was useless to attempt anything further until he heard from the manuscripts already in editorial hands. But the ominous silence in regard to them remained unbroken, As a result, he began to give way to moods of the deepest gloom and despondency, which alternated with wild and reckless impulses.
He was growing intensely bitter toward himself and all mankind. Even the image of his kind friend, Mrs. Arnot, began to merge itself into merely that of the wife of the man who had dealt him a blow from which he began to fear he would never recover. He was too morbid to be just to any one, even himself, and he felt that she had deserted and turned against him also, forgetting that he had given her no clew to his present place of abode, and had sent a message indicating that he would regard any effort to discover him as officious and intrusive. He quite honestly believed that by this time she had come to share in the general contempt and hostility which is ever cherished toward those whom society regards as not only depraved and vile, but also dangerous to its peace. It seemed as if both she and Laura had receded from him to an immeasurable distance, and he could not think of either without almost gnashing his teeth in rage at himself, and at what he regarded as his perverse and cruel fate. At times he would vainly endeavor to banish their images from his mind, but more often would indulge in wild and impossible visions of coming back to them in a dazzling halo of literary glory, and of overwhelming them with humiliation that they were so slow to recognize the genius which smouldered for weeks under their very eyes.
But his dreams were in truth "baseless fabrics" for at last there came a letter addressed to "E. H.," with the name of a popular literary paper printed upon it. He clutched it with a hand that shook in his eagerness, and walked half a mile before finding a nook sufficiently secluded in which to open the fateful missive. There were moments as he hastened through the streets when the crumpled letter was like a live coal in his hand; again it seemed throbbing with life, and he held it tighter, as though it might escape. With a chill at heart he also admitted that this bit of paper might be a poniard that would stab his hope and so destroy him.
He eventually entered a half-completed dwelling, which some one had commenced to build but was not able to finish.
It was a wretched, prosaic place, that apparently had lost its value even to the owner, and had become to the public at large only an unsightly blot upon the street. There was no danger of his being disturbed here, for the walls were not sufficiently advanced to have ears, and even a modern ghost would scorn to haunt a place whose stains were not those of age, and whose crumbling ruins resulted only from superficial and half-finished work. Indeed, the prematurely old and abortive house had its best counterpart in the young man himself, who stole into one of its small, unplastered rooms with many a wary glance, as though it were a treasure-vault which he was bent on plundering.
Feeling at last secure from observation, he tremblingly opened the letter, which he hoped contained the first instalment of wealth and fame. It was, indeed, from the editor of the periodical, and, remembering the avalanche of poetry and prose from beneath which this unfortunate class must daily struggle into life and being, it was unusually kind and full; but to Haldane it was cruel as death—a Spartan short-sword, only long enough to pierce his heart. It was to the following effect:
"E. H.—DEAR SIR: It would be easier to throw your communication into the waste-basket than thus to reply; and such, I may add, is the usual fate of productions like yours. But something in your letter accompanying the MSS. caught my attention, and induced me to give you a little good advice, which I fear you will not take, however. You are evidently a young and inexperienced man, and I gather from your letter that you are in trouble of some nature, and, also, that you are building hopes, if not actually depending, upon the crude labors of your pen. Let me tell you frankly at once that literature is not your forte. It you have sent literary work to other parties like that inclosed to me you will never hear from it again. In the first place, you do not write correctly; in the second, you have nothing to say. We cannot afford to print words merely—much less pay for them. What is worse, many of your sentences are so unnatural and turgid as to suggest that you sought in stimulants a remedy for paucity of ideas. Take friendly advice. Attempt something that you are capable of doing, and build your hopes onthat. Any honest work—even sawing wood—well done, is better than childish efforts to perform what, to us, is impossible. Before you can do anything in the literary world it is evident that years of culture and careful reading would be necessary. But, as I have before said, your talents do not seem to be in this direction. Life is too precious to be wasted in vain endeavor; and that reminds me that I have spent several moments, and from the kindliest motives, in stating to you facts which you may regard as insults. But were the circumstances the same I would give my own son the same advice. Do not be discouraged; there is plenty of other work equally good and useful as that for which you seem unfitted. Faithfully yours, —— ——"
The writer has known men to receive mortal wounds in battle, of which, at the moment, they were scarcely conscious. The mind, in times of grand excitement, has often risen so far superior to the material body that only by trickling blood or faintness have persons become aware of their injuries. But "a wounded spirit, who can bear?" and when did hope, self-love, or pride, ever receive home-thrusts unconsciously?
The well-meaning letter, written by the kindly editor, and full of wholesome advice, cut like a surgeon's knife in some desperate case when it is a question whether the patient can endure the heroic treatment necessary. Haldane's stilted and unnatural tales had been projected into being by such fiery and violent means that they might almost be termed volcanic in their origin; but the fused mass which was the result, resembled scoria or cinders rather than fine metal shaped into artistic forms. Although his manuscripts could have been sold in the world's market only by the pound, he had believed, or, at least, strongly hoped otherwise, like so many others, who, with beating hearts, have sent the children of their brains out to seek their fortunes with no better results.
The unbroken and ominous silence of the returned manuscript is a severe disappointment even to those who from safe and happy homes have sought to gain the public ear, and whose impelling motive toward literature is scarcely more than an impulse of vanity. But to Haldane the letter, which in giving the editorial estimate of one of his stories revealed the fate of all the others, brought far more than a mere disappointment. It brought despair and the recklessness and demoralization which inevitably follow. The public regarded him as a depraved, commonplace vagabond, eminent only in his capacity for evil and meanness, and he now inclined strongly to the same view of himself. True self-respect he had never possessed, and his best substitute, pride, at last gave way. He felt that he was defeated for life, and the best that life could now offer was a brief career of sensual pleasure. Mrs. Arnot and Laura Romeyn were so far removed from him as the stars; it was torment to think of them, and he would blot out their memory and the memory of all that he had hoped for, with wine and excitement. It seemed to him that the world said to him with united voice, "Go to the devil," and then made it impossible for him to do otherwise.
Since he was defeated—since all his proud assurances to his mother that he would, alone and unaided, regain his lost good name and position in society, had proved but empty boasts—he would no longer hide the fact from her, not in the hope of being received at home as a repentant prodigal (even the thought of such a course was unendurable), but with the purpose of obtaining from her the means of entering upon a life of vicious pleasure.
The young man's father—impelled both by his strong attachment for his wife, and also by the prudent forethought with which men seek to protect and provide for those they love, long after they have passed away from earthly life—had left his property wholly in trust to his wife, associating with her one or two other chosen counsellors. As long as she lived and remained unmarried she controlled it, the husband trusting to her affection for her children to make suitable provision for them. He had seen with prophetic anxiety the mother's fond indulgence of their only son, and the practical man dreaded the consequences. He therefore communicated to her verbally, and also embodied in his will, his wish that his son should have no control over the principal of such portion of the estate as would eventually fall to him until he had established a character that secured the confidence of all good men, and satisfied the judgment of the cautious co-executors. The provisions of the will still further required that, should the young man prove erratic and vicious, his income should be limited in such ways as would, as far as possible, curb excess.
Haldane knew all this, and in the days of his confidence in himself and his brilliant future had often smiled at these "absurd restrictions." The idea that there would ever be any reason for their enforcement was preposterous, and the thought of his fond, weak mother refusing anything that he demanded, was still further out of the range of possibility.
The wretched youth now sank into a far lower depth than he had ever yet reached. He deliberately resolved to take advantage of that mother's weakness, and for the basest ends. While under the influence of hope and pride, he had resolved to receive no assistance even from her, so that he might wholly claim the credit of regaining all that he had lost; but now, in the recklessness of despair, he proposed not only to ask for all the money he could obtain, but, if necessary, extort it by any means in his power.
He and the forlorn place of his bitter revery grew more and more into harmony. The small, half-finished apartment of the ruinous new house became more truly the counterpart of his life, it was bare; it was unsightly from the debris of its own discolored and crumbling walls. The possibility of sweet home scenes had passed from it, and it had become a place in which an orgy might be hidden, or some revolting crime committed. To precisely this use Haldane put his temporary refuge before leaving it; for excesses and evil deeds that the mind has deliberately resolved upon are virtually accomplished facts as far as the wrong-doer is concerned. Before leaving his dingy hiding-place Haldane had in the depths of his soul been guilty of drunkenness and all kinds of excess. He also purposed unutterable baseness toward the widowed mother whom, by every principle of true manhood, he was bound to cherish and shield; and he had in volition more certainly committed the act of self-destruction than does the poor wretch who, under some mad, half-insane impulse, makes permanent by suicide the evils a little fortitude and patient effort might have remedied. There is no self-murder so hopeless and wicked as that of deliberate sin against one's own body and soul.
No man becomes a saint or villain in an hour or by a single step; but there are times when evil tendencies combine with adverse influences and circumstances to produce sudden and seemingly fatal havoc in character. As the world goes, Haldane was a well-meaning youth, although cursed with evil habits and tendencies, when he entered the isolated, half-finished house. He was bad and devilish when he came out upon the street again, and walked recklessly toward the city, caring not who saw or recognized him. In the depths of his heart he had become an enemy to society, and, so far from hoping to gain its respect and good-will, he defied and intended to outrage it to the end of life.
A man in such a mood gravitates with almost certainty toward the liquor-saloon, and Haldane naturally commenced drinking at the various dens whose doors stood alluringly open. His slender purse did not give him the choice of high-priced wines, and to secure the mad excitement and oblivion he craved, only fiery compounds were ordered—such as might have been distilled in the infernal regions to accomplish infernal results; and they soon began to possess him like a legion of evil spirits.
If Shakespeare characterized the "invisible spirit of wine" as a "devil" in the unsophisticated days of old, when wine was wine, and not a hell-broth concocted of poisonous drugs, what unspeakable fiends must lurk in the grimy bottles whose contents, analyzed and explained, would appall some, at least, of the stolid and stony-hearted venders!
Haldane soon felt himself capable of any wickedness, any crime. He became a human volcano, that might at any moment pass into a violent and murderous action, regardless of consequences—indeed, as utterly incapable of foreseeing and realizing them as the mountain that belches destruction on vineyard and village.
We regard ourselves as a civilized and Christian people, and yet we tolerate on every corner places where men are transformed into incarnate devils, and sent forth to run amuck in our streets, and outrage the helpless women and children in their own homes. The naked inhabitants of Dahomey could do no worse in this direction.
But Haldane was not destined to end his orgy in the lurid glare of a tragedy, for, as the sun declined, the miserable day was brought to a wretched and fitting close. Unconsciously he had strayed to the saloon on whose low steps Messrs. Van Wink and Ketchem had left him on the memorable night from which he dated his downfall. Of course he did not recognize the place, but there was one within that associated him inseparably with it, and also with misfortunes of his own. As Haldane leaned unsteadily against the bar a seedy-looking man glared at him a moment, and then stepped to his side, saying:
"I'll take a few dhrinks wid ye. Faix! after all the trouble ye've been to me ye oughter kape me in dhrink the year."
Turning to the speaker, the young man recognized Pat M'Cabe, whom he also associated with his evil fortunes, and toward whom he now felt a strong vindictiveness, the sudden and unreasoning anger of intoxication. In reply, therefore, he threw the contents of his glass into Pat's face, saying with a curse:
"That is the way I drink with such as you."
Instantly there was a bar-room brawl of the ordinary brutal type, from whose details we gladly escape. Attracted by the uproar, a policeman was soon on hand, and both the combatants were arrested and marched off to the nearest police station. Bruised, bleeding, disheveled, and with rent garments, Haldane again passed through the streets as a criminal, with the rabble hooting after him. But now there was no intolerable sense of shame as at first. He had become a criminal at heart; he had deliberately and consciously degraded himself, and his whole aspect had come to be in keeping with his character.
It may be objected that the transformation had been too rapid. It had not been rapid. His mother commenced preparing him for this in the nursery by her weak indulgence. She had sown the seeds of which his present actions were the legitimate outgrowth. The weeds of his evil nature had been unchecked when little, and now they were growing so rank as to overshadow all.
Multitudes go to ruin who must trace their wrong bias back to cultivated and even Christian homes.
The mad excitement of anger and drunkenness was speedily followed by stupor, and the night during which Haldane was locked up in the station-house was a blank. The next morning he was decidedly ill as the result of his debauch; for the after-effects of the vile liquor he had drank was such as to make any creature save rational man shun it in the future with utter loathing.
But the officers of the law had not the slightest consideration for his aching head and jarring nerves. He was hustled off to the police court with others, and he now seemed in harmony with the place and company.
Pat M'Cabe was a veteran in these matters, and had his witnesses ready, who swore to the truth, and anything else calculated to assist Pat, their crony, out of his scrape. Unfortunately for Haldane, the truth was against him, and he remained sullen and silent, making no defence. The natural result, therefore, of the brief hearing, was his committal to the common jail for ten days, and the liberation of Pat, with a severe reprimand.
Thus, after the lapse of a few brief weeks, Haldane found himself in the same cell whence he had gone out promising and expecting to accomplish so much. He could not help recalling his proud words to his mother and Mrs. Arnot as he looked around the bare walls, and he was sufficiently himself again to realize partially how complete and disgraceful had been his defeat. But such was his mood that it could find no better expression than a malediction upon himself and the world in general. Then, throwing himself upon his rude and narrow couch, he again resigned himself to his stupor, from which he had been aroused to receive his sentence.
It was late in the afternoon when he awoke, and his cell was already growing dusky with the coming night. It was a place congenial to shadows, and they came early and lingered till the sun was high.
But as Haldane slowly regained full consciousness, and recalled all that had transpired, he felt himself to be under a deeper shadow than the night could cast. The world condemned him, and he deserved condemnation; but he was also deserving of pity. Scarcely more than twenty, he had seemingly spoiled his life utterly. It was torment to remember the past, and the future was still darker; for his outraged physical nature so bitterly resented its wrongs by racking pains that it now seemed to him that even a brief career of sensual gratification was impossible, or so counterbalanced with suffering as to be revolting. Though scarcely more than across the threshold of life, existence had become an unmitigated evil. Had he been brought up in an atmosphere of flippant scepticism he would have flung it away as he would a handful of nettles; but his childish memory had been made familiar with that ancient Book whose truths, like anchors, enable many a soul on the verge of wreck to outride the storm. He was too well acquainted with its teachings to entertain for a moment the shallow theory that a man can escape the consequences of folly, villany, and unutterable baseness by merely ceasing to breathe.
He could not eat the coarse food brought to him for supper, and his only craving was for something to quench his feverish thirst. His long lethargy was followed by corresponding sleeplessness and preternatural activity of brain. That night became to him like the day of judgment; for it seemed as if his memory would recall everything he had ever done or said, and place all before him in the most dreary and discouraging aspect.
He saw his beautiful and aristocratic home, which he had forfeited so completely that the prison would be more endurable than the forced and painful toleration of his presence, which was the best he could hope for from his mother and sisters; and he felt that he would much rather stay where he was for life than again meet old neighbors and companions. But he now saw how, with that home and his father's honored name as his vantage ground, he might have made himself rich and honored.
The misspent days and years of the past became like so many reproachful ghosts, and he realized that he had idled away the precious seed-time of his life, or, rather, had been busy sowing thorns and nettles, that had grown all too quickly and rankly. Thousands had been spent on his education; and yet he was oppressed with a sense of his ignorance and helplessness. Rude contact with the world had thoroughly banished self-conceit, and he saw that his mind was undisciplined and his knowledge so superficial and fragmentary as to be almost useless. The editor of the paper whose columns he had hoped to illumine told him that he could not even write correctly.
While in bitterness of soul he cursed himself for his wasted life, he knew that he was not wholly to blame. Indeed, in accordance with a trait as old as fallen man, he sought to lay the blame on another. He saw that his own folly had ever found an ally in his mother's indulgence, and that, instead of holding him with a firm yet gentle hand to his tasks and duties, she had been the first to excuse him from them and to palliate his faults. Instead of recalling her fond and blind idolatry with tenderness, he felt like one who had been treacherously poisoned with a wine that was sweet while it rested on the palate, but whose after-taste is vile, and whose final effect is death.
There is no memory that we cherish so sacredly and tenderly as that of our parents' kind and patient love. It often softens the heart of the hardened man and abandoned woman when all other influences are powerless. But when love degenerates into idolatry and indulgence, and those to whom the child is given as a sacred trust permit it to grow awry, and develop into moral deformity, men and women, as did Haldane, may breathe curses on the blindness and weakness that was the primal cause of their life-failure. Throughout that long and horrible night he felt only resentment toward his mother, and cherished no better purpose toward her than was embodied in his plan to wring from her, even by methods that savored of blackmail, the means of living a dissipated life in some city where he was unknown, and could lose himself in the multitude.
But the ten days of enforced seclusion and solitude that must intervene seemed like an eternity. With a shudder he thought of the real eternity, beyond, when the power to excite or stupefy his lower nature would be gone forever. That shadow was so dark and cold that it seemed to chill his very soul, and by a resolute effort of will he compelled his mind to dwell only on the immediate future and the past.
Day at last dawned slowly and dimly in his cell, and found him either pacing up and down like some wild creature in its cage, turning so often by reason of the limited space as to be almost dizzy, or else sitting on his couch with his haggard face buried in his hands.
After fighting all night against the impulse to think about Mrs. Arnot and her niece, he at last gave up the struggle, and permitted his mind to revert to them. Such thoughts were only pain now, and yet for some reason it seemed as if his mind were drawn irresistibly toward them. He felt that his deep regret was as useless and unavailing as the November wind that sweeps back and forth the withered and fallen leaves. His whole frame would at times tremble with gusts of remorseful passion, and again he would sigh long and drearily.
He now realized what a priceless opportunity he had lost. It was once his privilege to enter Mrs. Arnot's beautiful home assured of welcome. She had been deeply interested in him for his mother's sake, and might have become so for his own. He had been privileged to meet Laura Romeyn as her equal, at least in social estimation, and he might have made himself worthy of her esteem, and possibly of her affection. He saw that he had foolishly clamored, like a spoiled child, for that which he could only hope to possess by patient waiting and manly devotion; and now, with a regret that was like a serpent's tooth, he felt that such devotion might have been rewarded.
But a few months ago, whose life had been more rich with promise than his, or to whom had been given a better vantage-ground? And yet he had already found the lowest earthly perdition possible, and had lost hope of anything better.
In his impotent rage and despair he fairly gnashed his teeth and cursed himself, his fate, and those who had led to his evil fortunes. Then, by a natural revulsion of feeling, he sobbed like a child that has lost its way and can discover no returning path, and whose heart the darkness of the fast-approaching night fills with unutterable dread.
He was a criminal—in his despair he never hoped to be anything else—but he was not a hardened criminal and was still capable of wishing to be different. In the memory of his bitter experience a pure and honorable life now appeared as beautiful as it was impossible. He had no expectation, however, of ever living such a life, for pride, the cornerstone of his character, had given way, and he was too greatly discouraged at the time to purpose reform even in the future. Without the spur and incentive of hope we become perfectly helpless in evil; therefore all doctrines and philosophies which tend to quench or limit hope, or which are bounded by the narrow horizon of time and earth, are, in certain emergencies, but dead weights, dragging down the soul.
At last, from sheer exhaustion, he threw himself on his couch, and fell into a troubled sleep, filled with broken and distorted visions of the scenes that had occupied his waking hours. But he gradually became quieter, and it appeared in his dream as if he saw a faint dawning in the east which grew brighter until a distinct ray of light streamed from an infinite distance to himself. Along this shining pathway an angel seemed approaching him. The vision grew so distinct and real that he started up and saw Mrs. Arnot sitting in the doorway, quietly watching him. Confused and oblivious of the past, he stepped forward to speak to her with the natural instinct of a gentleman. Then the memory of all that had occurred rolled before him like a black torrent, and he shrank back to his couch and buried his face in his hands. But when Mrs. Arnot came and placed her hand on his shoulder, saying gently, but very gravely, "Egbert, since you would not come to me I have come to you," he felt that his vision was still true, and that God had sent his angel.
A young man of Haldane's age is capable of despairing thoughts, and even of desperate moods, of quite extended continuance; but it usually requires a long lifetime of disaster and sin to bury hope so deep that the stone of its sepulchre is not rolled away as the morning dawns. Haldane had thought that his hope was dead; but Mrs. Arnot's presence, combined with her manner, soon made it clear, even to himself, that it was not; and yet it was but a weak and trembling hope, scarcely assured of its right to exist, that revived at her touch and voice. His heart both clung to and shrank from the pure, good woman who stood beside him.
He trembled, and his breast heaved convulsively for a few moments, and she quietly waited until he should grow more calm, only stroking his bowed head once or twice with a slight and reassuring caress. At last he asked in a low, hoarse voice:
"Do you know why I am here?"
"Yes, Egbert."
"And yet you have come in kindness—in mercy, rather."
"I have come because I am deeply interested in you."
"I am not worthy—I am not fit for you to touch."
"I am glad you feel so."
"Then why do you come?"
"Because I wish to help you to become worthy."
"That's impossible. It's too late."
"Perhaps it is. That is a question for you alone to decide; but I wish you to think well before you do decide it."
"Pardon me, Mrs. Arnot," he said emphatically, raising his head, and dashing away bitter tears; "the world has decided that question for me, and all have said in one harsh, united voice, 'You shall not rise.' It has ground me under its heel as vindictively as if I were a viper. You are so unlike the world that you don't know it. It has given me no chance whatever."
"Egbert, what have you to do with the world?"
"God knows I wanted to recover what I had lost," he continued in the same rapid tone. "God knows I left this cell weeks since with the honest purpose of working my way up to a position that would entitle me to your respect, and change my mother's shame into pride. But I found a mad-dog cry raised against me. And this professedly Christian town has fairly hunted me back to this prison."
Mrs. Arnot sighed deeply, but after a moment said, "I do not excuse theChristian town, neither can I excuse you."
"You too, then, blame me, and side against me."
"No, Egbert, I side with you, and yet I blame you deeply; but I pity you more."
He rose, and paced the cell with his old, restless steps. "It's no use," he said; "the world says, 'Go to the devil,' and gives me no chance to do otherwise."
"Do you regard the world—whatever you may mean by the phrase—as your friend?"
"Friend!" he repeated, with bitter emphasis.
"Why, then, do you take its advice? I did not come here to tell you to go to perdition."
"But if the world sets its face against me like a flint, what is there for me to do but to remain in prison or hide in a desert, unless I do what I had purposed, defy it and strike back, though it be only as a worm that tries to sting the foot that crushes it."
"Egbert, if you should die, the world would forget that you had ever existed, in a few days."
"Certainly. It would give me merely a passing thought as of a nuisance that had been abated."
"Well, then, would it not be wise to forget the world for a little while? You are shut away from it for the present, and it cannot molest you. In the meantime you can settle some very important personal questions. The world has power over your fate only as you give it power. You need not lie like a helpless worm in its path, waiting to be crushed. Get up like a man, and take care of yourself. The world may let you starve, but it cannot prevent you from becoming good and true and manly; if you do become so, however, rest assured the world will eventually find a place for you, and, perhaps, an honored place. But be that as it may, a good Christian man is sustained by something far more substantial than the world's breath."
Out of respect for Mrs. Arnot, Haldane was silent. He supposed that her proposed remedy for his desperate troubles was that he should "become a Christian," and to this phrase he had learned to give only the most conventional meaning.
"Becoming a Christian," in his estimation, was the making of certain professions, going through peculiar and abnormal experiences, and joining a church, the object of all this being to escape a "wrath to come" in the indefinite future. To begin with, he had not the slightest idea how to set in motion these spiritual evolutions, had he desired them; and to his intense and practical nature the whole subject was as unattractive as a library of musty and scholastic books. He wanted some remedy that applied to this world, and would help him now. He did not associate Mrs. Arnot's action with Christian principle, but believed it to be due to the peculiar and natural kindness of her heart. Christians in general had not troubled themselves about him, and, as far as he could judge, had turned as coldly from him as had others. His mother had always been regarded as an eminently religious woman, and yet he knew that she was morbidly sensitive to the world's opinion and society's verdict.
From childhood he had associated religion with numerous Sunday restraints and the immaculate mourning-dress which seemed chiefly to occupy his mother's thoughts during the hour preceding service. He had no conception of a faith that could be to him what the Master's strong sustaining hand was to the disciple who suddenly found himself sinking in a stormy sea.
It is not strange that the distressed in body or mind turn away from a religion of dreary formalities and vague, uncomprehended mental processes. Instant and practical help is what is craved; and just such help Christ ever gave when he came to manifest God's will and ways to men. By whose authority do some religious teachers now lead the suffering through such a round-about, intricate, or arid path of things to be done and doctrines to be accepted before bringing them to Christ?
But when a mind has become mystified with preconceived ideas and prejudices, it is no easy task to reveal to it the truth, however simple. Mrs. Arnot had come into the light but slowly herself, and she had passed through too many deep and prolonged spiritual experiences to hope for any immediate and radical change in Haldane. Indeed, she was in great doubt whether he would ever receive the faithful words she proposed speaking to him; and she fully believed that anything he attempted in his own strength would again end in disheartening failure.
"Egbert," she said gently, but very gravely, "have you fully settled it in your own mind that I am your friend and wish you well?"
"How can I believe otherwise, since you are here, and speaking to me as you do?"
"Well, I am going to test your faith in me and my kindness. I am going to speak plainly, and perhaps you may think even harshly. You are very sick, and if I am to be your physician I must give you some sharp, decisive treatment. Will you remember through it all that my only motive is to make you well?"
"I will try to."
"You have kept away from me a long time. Perhaps when released from this place you will again avoid me, and I may never have another opportunity like the present. Now, while you have a chance to think, I am going to ask you to face the consequences of your present course. Within an hour after passing out of this cell you will have it in your power to trample on your better nature and stupefy your mind. But now, if you will, you have a chance to use the powers God has given you, and settle finally on your plan of life."
"I have already trampled on my manhood—what is worse, I have lost it. I haven't any courage or strength left."
"That can scarcely be true of one but little more than twenty. You are to be here in quietness for the next ten days, I learn. It is my intention, so far as it is in my power to bring it about, that you deliberately face the consequences of your present course during this time. By the consequences I do not mean what the world will think of you, but, rather, the personal results of your action—what you must suffer while you are in the world, and what you must suffer when far beyond the world. Egbert, are you pleased with yourself? are you satisfied with yourself?"
"I loathe myself."
"You can get away from the world—you are away from it now, and soon you will be away from it finally—but you can never get away from yourself. Are you willing to face an eternal consciousness of defeat, failure, and personal baseness?"
He shuddered, but was silent.
"There is no place in God's pure heaven for the drunkard—the morally loathsome and deformed. Are you willing to be swept away among the chaff and the thorns, and to have, forever, the shameful and humiliating knowledge that you rightfully belong to the rubbish of the universe? Are you willing to have a sleepless memory tell you in every torturing way possible what a noble, happy man you might have been, but would not be? Your power to drown memory and conscience, and stupefy your mind, will last a little while only at best. How are you going to endure the time when you must remember everything and think of everything? These are more important questions than what the world thinks of you."
"Have you no pity?" he groaned.
"Yes, my heart overflows with pity. Is it not kindness to tell you whither your path is leading? If I had the power I would lay hold of you, and force you to come with me into the path of life and safety," she answered, with a rush of tears to her eyes.
Her sympathy touched him deeply, and disarmed her words of all power to awaken resentment.
"Mrs. Arnot," he cried, passionately, "I did mean—I did try—to do better when I left this place; but, between my own accursed weakness and the hard-hearted world, I am here again, and almost without hope."
"Egbert, though I did not discourage you at the time, I had little hope of your accomplishing anything when you left this cell some weeks since. You went out to regain your old position and the world's favor, as one might look for a jewel or sum of money he had lost. You can never gain even these advantages in the way you proposed, and if you enjoy them again the cause will exist, not in what you do only, but chiefly in what youare. When you started out to win the favor of society, from which you had been alienated partly by misfortune, but largely through your own wrong action, there was no radical change in your character, or even in your controlling motives. You regretted the evil because of its immediate and disagreeable consequences. I do not excuse the world's harshness toward the erring; but, after all, if you can disabuse your mind of prejudice you will admit that its action is very natural, and would, probably, have been your own before you passed under this cloud. Consider what the world knows of you. It, after all, is quite shrewd in judging whom it may trust and whom it is safe to keep at arm's-length. Knowing yourself and your own weaknesses as you do, could you honestly recommend yourself to the confidence of any one? With your character unchanged, what guarantee have you against the first temptation or gust of passion to which you are subjected? You had no lack of wounded pride and ambition when you started out, but you will surely admit that such feelings are of little value compared with Christian integrity and manly principle, which render anything dishonorable or base impossible.
"I do not consider the world's favor worth very much, but the world's respect is, for it usually respects only what is respectable. As you form a character that you can honestly respect yourself, you will find society gradually learning to share in that esteem. Believe me, Egbert, if you ever regain the world's lost favor, which you value so highly, you will discover the first earnest of it in your own changed and purified character. The world will pay no heed to any amount of self-assertion, and will remain equally indifferent to appeals and upbraidings; but sooner or later it will find out just what you are in your essential life, and will estimate you accordingly. I have dwelt on this phase of your misfortune fully, because I see that it weighs so heavily on your heart. Can you accept my judgment in the matter? Remember, I have lived nearly three times as long as you have, and speak from ripe experience. I have always been a close observer of society, and am quite sure I am right. If you were my own son I would use the same words."
"Mrs. Arnot," he replied slowly, with contracted brow, "you are giving me much to think about. I fear I have been as stupid as I have been bad. My whole life seems one wretched blunder."
"Ah, if you will onlythink, I shall have strong hopes of you. But in measuring these questions do not use the inch rule of time and earth only. As I have said before, remember you will soon have done with earth forever, but never can you get away from God, nor be rid of yourself. You are on wretched terms with both, and will be, whatever happens, until your nature is brought into harmony with God's will. We are so made, so designed in our every fibre, that evil tortures us like a diseased nerve; and it always will till we get rid of it. Therefore, Egbert, remember—O that I could burn it into your consciousness—the best that you can gain from your proposed evil course is a brief respite in base and sensual stupefaction, or equally artificial and unmanly excitement, and then endless waking, bitter memories, and torturing regret. Face this truth now, before it is too late. Good-by for a time. I will come again when I can; or you can send for me when you please;" and she gave him her hand in cordial pressure.
He did not say a word, but his face was very white, and it was evident that her faithful words had opened a prospect that had simply appalled him.