The following morning was warm and springlike, and Arthur was sufficiently strong and well to walk out a little in the open air. He had been seated upon the veranda conversing with Beverly and Harold, when the latter proposed a stroll with Beverly, with whom he wished to converse in relation to his proposed marriage. As the beams of the unclouded sun had already chased away the morning dew, and the air was warm and balmy, Arthur walked out into the garden and breathed the freshness of the atmosphere with the exhilaration of a convalescent freed for the first time from the sick-room. Accidentally, or by instinct, he turned his steps to the little grove which he knew was Oriana's favorite haunt; and there, indeed, she sat, upon the rustic bench, above which the drooping limbs of the willow formed a leafy canopy. The pensive girl, her white hand, on which she leaned, buried among the raven tresses, was gazing fixedly into the depths of the clear sky, as if she sought to penetrate that azure veil, and find some hope realized among the mysteries of the space beyond. The neglected volume had fallen from her lap, and lay among the bluebells at her feet. Arthur's feeble steps were unheard upon the sward, and he had taken his seat beside her, before, conscious of an intruder, she started from her dream.
"The first pilgrimage of my convalescence is to your bower, my gentle nurse. I have come to thank you for more kindness than I can ever repay, except with grateful thoughts."
She had risen when she became aware of his presence; and when she resumed her seat, it seemed with hesitation, and almost an effort, as if two impulses were struggling within her. But her pleasure to see him abroad again was too hearty to be checked, and she timidly gave him the hand which his extended palm invited to a friendly grasp.
"Indeed, Mr. Wayne, I am very glad to see you so far recovered."
"To your kind offices chiefly I owe it, and those of my good friends, your brother and Harold, and our excellent Miss Randolph. My sick-room has been the test of so much friendship, that I could almost be sinful enough to regret the returning health which makes me no longer a dependent on your care. But you are pale, Miss Weems. Or is it that my eyes are unused to this broad daylight? Indeed, I trust you are not ill?"
"Oh, no, I am quite well," she answered; but it was with an involuntary sigh that was in contrast with the words. "But you are not strong yet, Mr. Wayne, and I must not let you linger too long in the fresh morning air. We had best go in under shelter of the veranda."
She arose, and would have led the way, but he detained her gently with a light touch upon her sleeve.
"Stay one moment, I pray you. I seem to breathe new life with this pure air, and the perfume of these bowers awakens within me an inexpressible and calm delight. I shall be all the better for one tranquil hour with nature in bloom, if you, like the guardian nymph of these floral treasures, will sit beside me."
He drew her gently back into the seat, and looked long and earnestly upon her face. She felt his gaze, but dared not return it, and her fair head drooped like a flower that bends beneath the glance of a scorching sun.
"Miss Weems," he said at last, but his voice was so low and tremulous that it scarce rose above the rustle of the swinging willow boughs, "you are soon to be a bride, and in your path the kind Destinies will shower blessings. When they wreathe the orange blossoms in your hair, and you are led to the altar by the hand to which you must cling for life, if I should not be there to wish you joy, you will not deem, will you, that I am less your friend?"
The fair head drooping yet lower was her only answer.
"And when you shall be the mistress of a home where Content will be shrined, the companion of your virtues, and over your threshold many friends shall be welcomed, if I should never sit beside your hearthstone, you will not, will you, believe that I have forgotten, or that I could forget?"
Still lower the fair head drooped, but she answered only with a falling tear.
"I told you the other day that we should be strangers through life, and why, I must not tell, although perhaps your woman's heart may whisper, and yet not condemn me for that which, Heaven knows, I have struggled against—alas, in vain! Do not turn from me. I would not breathe a word to you that in all honor you should not hear, although my heart seems bursting with its longing, and I would yield my soul with rapture from its frail casket, for but one moment's right to give its secret wings. I will bid you farewell to-morrow"—
"To-morrow!"
"Yes, the doctor says that the sea air will do me good, and an occasion offers to-morrow which I shall embrace. It will be like setting forth upon a journey through endless solitudes, where my only companions will be a memory and a sorrow."
He paused a while, but continued with an effort at composure.
"Our hearts are tyrants to us, Miss Weems, and will not, sometimes, be tutored into silence. I see that I have moved, but I trust not offended you."
"You have not offended," she murmured, but in so low a tone that perhaps the words were lost in the faint moan of the swaying foliage.
"What I have said," he continued earnestly, and taking her hand with a gentle but respectful pressure, "has been spoken as one who is dying speaks with his fleeting breath; for evermore my lips shall be shackled against my heart, and the past shall be sealed and avoided as a forbidden theme. We are, then, good friends at parting, are we not?"
"Yes."
"And, believe me, I shall be happiest when I think that you are happy—for you will be happy."
She sighed so deeply that the words were checked upon his lips, as if some new emotion had turned the current of his thought.
"Are younothappy?"
The tears that, in spite of her endeavor, burst from beneath the downcast lids, answered him as words could not have done. He was agitated and unnerved, and, leaning his brow against his hand, remained silent while she wept.
"Harold is a noble fellow," he said at last, after a long silence, and when she had grown calmer, "and deserves to be loved as I am sure you love him."
"Oh, he has a noble heart, and I would die rather than cause him pain."
"And you love him?"
"I thought I loved him."
The words were faint—hardly more than a breath upon her lips; but he heard them, and his heart grew big with an undefined awe, as if some vague danger were looming among the shadows of his destiny. Oriana turned to him suddenly, and clasped his hand within her trembling fingers.
"Oh, Mr. Wayne! you must go, and never see me more. I am standing on the brink of an abyss, and my heart bids me leap. I see the danger, and, oh God! I have prayed for power to shun it. But Arthur, Arthur, if you do not help me, I am lost. You are a man, an honest man, an honorable man, who will not wrong your friend, or tempt the woman that cannot love you without sin. Oh, save me from myself—from you—from the cruel wrong that I could even dream of against him to whom I have sworn my woman's faith. I am a child in your hands, Arthur, and in the face of the reproaching Providence above me, I feel—I feel that I am at your mercy. I feel that what you speak I must listen to; that should you bid me stand beside you at the altar, I should not have courage to refuse. I feel, oh God! Arthur, that I love you, and am betrothed to Harold. But you are strong—you have courage, will, the power to defy such weakness of the heart—and you will save me, for I know you are a good and honest man."
As she spoke, with her face upturned to him, and the hot tears rolling down her cheeks, her fingers convulsively clasped about his hand, and her form bending closer and closer toward him, till her cheek was resting on his bosom, Arthur shuddered with intensity of feeling, and from his averted eyes the scalding drops, that had never once before moistened their surface, betrayed how terribly he was shaken with emotion.
But while she spoke, rapt as they were within themselves, they saw not one who stood with folded arms beside the rustic bench, and gazed upon them.
"As God is my hope," said Arthur, "I will disarm temptation. Fear not. From this hour we part. Henceforth the living and the dead shall not be more estranged than we."
He arose, but started as if an apparition met his gaze. Oriana knelt beside him, and touched her lips to his hand in gratitude. An arm raised her tenderly, and a gentle voice murmured her name.
It was not Arthur's.
Oriana raised her head, with a faint cry of terror. She gasped and swooned upon the intruder's breast.
It was Harold Hare who held her in his arms.
Arthur, with folded arms, stood erect, but pale, in the presence of his friend. His eye, sorrowful, yet calm, was fixed upon Harold, as if awaiting his angry glance. But Harold looked only on the lifeless form he held, and parting the tresses from her cold brow, his lips rested there a moment with such a fond caress as sometimes a father gives his child.
"Poor girl!" he murmured, "would that my sorrow could avail for both. Arthur, I have heard enough to know you would not do me wrong. Grief is in store for us, but let us not be enemies."
Mournfully, he gave his hand to Arthur, and Oriana, as she wakened from her trance, beheld them locked in that sad grasp, like two twin statues of despair.
They led her to the house, and then the two young men walked out alone, and talked frankly and tranquilly upon the subject. It was determined that both should leave Riverside manor on the morrow, and that Oriana should be left to commune with her own heart, and take counsel of time and meditation. They would not grieve Beverly with their secret, at least not for the present, when his sister was so ill prepared to bear remonstrance or reproof. Harold wrote a kind letter for Oriana, in which he released her from her pledged faith, asking only that she should take time to study her heart, but in no wise let a sense of duty stand in the way of her happiness. He took pains to conceal the depth of his own affliction, and to avoid whatever she might construe as reproach.
They would have gone without an interview with Oriana, but that would have seemed strange to Beverly. However, Oriana, although pale and nervous, met them in the morning with more composure than they had anticipated. Harold, just before starting, drew her aside, and placed the letter in her hand.
"That will tell you all I would say, and you must read it when your heart is strong and firm. Do not look so wretched. All may yet be well. I would fain see you smile before I go."
But though she had evidently nerved herself to be composed, the tears would come, and her heart seemed rising to her throat and about to burst in sobs.
"I will be your true wife, Harold, and I will love you. Do not desert me, do not cast me from you. I cannot bear to be so guilty. Indeed, Harold, I will be true and faithful to you."
"There is no guilt in that young heart," he answered, as he kissed her forehead. "But now, we must not talk of love; hereafter, perhaps, when time and absence shall teach us where to choose for happiness. Part from me now as if I were your brother, and give me a sister's kiss. Would you see Arthur?"
She trembled and whispered painfully:
"No, Harold, no—I dare not. Oh, Harold, bid him forget me."
"It is better that you should not see him. Farewell! be brave. We are good friends, remember. Farewell, dear girl."
Beverly had been waiting with the carriage, and as the time was short, he called to Harold. Arthur, who stood at the carriage wheel, simply raised his hat to Oriana, as if in a parting salute. He would have given his right hand to have pressed hers for a moment; but his will was iron, and he did not once look back as the carriage whirled away.
In the drawing-room of an elegant mansion in a fashionable quarter of the city of New York, toward the close of April, a social party were assembled, distributed mostly in small conversational groups. The head of the establishment, a pompous, well-to-do merchant, stout, short, and baldheaded, and evidently well satisfied with himself and his position in society, was vehemently expressing his opinions upon the affairs of the nation to an attentive audience of two or three elderly business men, with a ponderous earnestness that proved him, in his own estimation, as muchau faitin political affairs as in the routine of his counting-room. An individual of middle age, a man of the world, apparently, who was seated at a side-table, carelessly glancing over a book of engravings, was the only one who occasionally exasperated the pompous gentleman with contradictions or ill-timed interruptions.
"The government must be sustained," said the stout gentleman, "and we, the merchants of the North, will do it. It is money, sir, money," he continued, unconsciously rattling the coin in his breeches pocket, "that settles every question at the present day, and our money will bring these beggarly rebels to their senses. They can't do without us, sir. They would be ruined in six months, if shut out from commercial intercourse with the North."
"How long before you would be ruined by the operations of the same cause?" inquired the individual at the side-table.
"Sir, we of the North hold the wealth of the country in our pockets. They can't fight against our money—they can't do it, sir."
"Your ancestors fought against money, and fought passably well."
"Yes, sir, for the great principles of human liberty."
"Which these rebels believe they are fighting for. You have need of all your money to keep a respectable army in the field. These Southerners may have to fight in rags, as insurgents generally do: witness the struggle of your Revolution; but until you lay waste their corn-fields and drive off their cattle, they will have full stomachs, and that, after all, is the first consideration."
"You are an alien, sir, a foreigner; you know nothing of our great institutions; you know nothing of the wealth of the North, and the spirit of the people."
"I see a great deal of bunting in the streets, and hear any quantity of declamation at your popular gatherings. But as I journeyed northward from New Orleans, I saw the same in the South—perhaps more of it."
"And could not distinguish between the frenzy of treason and the enthusiasm of patriotism?"
"Not at all; except that treason seemed more earnest and unanimous."
"You have seen with the eyes of an Englishman—of one hostile to our institutions."
"Oh, no; as a man of the world, a traveller, without prejudice or passion, receiving impressions and noting them. I like your country; I like your people. I have observed foibles in the North and in the South, but there is an under-current of strong feeling and good sense which I have noted and admired. I think your quarrel is one of foibles—one conceived in the spirit of petulance, and about to be prosecuted in the spirit of exaltation. I believe the professed mutual hatred of the sections to be superficial, and that it could be cancelled. It is fostered by the bitterness of fanatics, assisted by a very natural disinclination on the part of the masses to yield a disputed point. If hostilities should cease to-morrow, you would be better friends than ever."
"But the principle, sir! The right of the thing, and the wrong of the thing! Can we parley with traitors? Can we negotiate with armed rebellion? Is it not our paramount duty to set at rest forever the doctrine of secession?"
"As a matter of policy, perhaps. But as a right, I doubt it. Your government I look upon as a mere agency appointed by contracting parties to transact certain affairs for their convenience. Should one or more of those contracting parties, sovereignties in themselves, hold it to their interest to transact their business without the assistance of an agent, I cannot perceive that the right can be denied by any provision of the contract. In your case, the employers have dismissed their agent, who seeks to reinstate the office by force of arms. As justly might my lawyer, when I no longer need his services, attempt to coerce me into a continuance of business relations, by invading my residence with a loaded pistol. The States, without extinguishing their sovereignty, created the Federal Government; it is the child of State legislation, and now the child seeks to chastise and control the parent. The General Government can possess no inherent or self-created function; its power, its very existence, were granted for certain uses. As regards your State's connection with that Government, no other State has the right to interfere; but as for another State's connection with it, the power that made it can unmake."
"So you would have the government quietly acquiesce in the robbery of public property, the occupation of Federal strongholds and the seizure of ships and revenues in which they have but a share?"
"If, by the necessity of the case, the seceded States hold in their possession more than their share of public property, a division should be made by arbitration, as in other cases where a distribution of common property is required. It may have been a wrong and an insult to bombard Fort Sumter and haul down the Federal flag, but that does not establish a right on the part of the Federal Government to coerce the wrong-doing States into a union with the others. And that, I take it, is the avowed purpose of your administration."
"Yes, and that purpose will be fulfilled. We have the money to do it, and we will do it, sir."
A tall, thin gentleman, with a white cravat and a bilious complexion, approached the party from a different part of the room.
"It can't be done with money, Mr. Pursely," said the new comer, "Unless the great, the divine principle of universal human liberty is invoked. An offended but merciful Providence has given the people this chance for redemption, in the opportunity to strike the shackle from the slave. I hold the war a blessing to the nation and to humanity, in that it will cleanse the land from its curse of slavery. It is an invitation from God to wipe away the record of our past tardiness and tolerance, by striking at the great sin with fire and sword. The blood of millions is nothing—the woe, the lamentation, the ruin of the land is nothing—the overthrow of the Union itself is nothing, if we can but win God's smile by setting a brand in the hand of the bondman to scourge his master. But assuredly unless we arouse the slave to seize the torch and the dagger, and avenge the wrongs of his race, Providence will frown upon our efforts, and our arms will not prevail."
A tall man in military undress replied with considerable emphasis:
"Then your black-coated gentry must fight their own battle. The people will not arm if abolition is to be the watchword. I for one will not strike a blow if it be not understood that the institutions of the South shall be respected."
"The government must be sustained, that is the point," cried Mr. Pursely. "It matters little what becomes of the negro, but the government must be sustained. Otherwise, what security will there be for property, and what will become of trade?"
"Who thinks of trade or property at such a crisis?" interrupted an enthusiast, in figured trowsers and a gay cravat. "Our beloved Union must and shall be preserved. The fabric that our fathers reared for us must not be allowed to crumble. We will prop it with our mangled bodies," and he brushed a speck of dust from the fine broadcloth of his sleeve.
"The insult to our flag must be wiped out," said the military gentleman. "The honor of the glorious stripes and stars must be vindicated to the world."
"Let us chastise these boasting Southrons," said another, "and prove our supremacy in arms, and I shall be satisfied."
"But above all," insisted a third, "we must check the sneers and exultation of European powers, and show them that we have not forgotten the art of war since the days of 1776 and 1812."
"I should like to know what you are going to fight about," said the Englishman, quietly; "for there appears to be much diversity of opinion. However, if you are determined to cut each others' throats, perhaps one pretext is as good as another, and a dozen better than only one."
In the quiet recess of a window, shadowed by the crimson curtains, sat a fair young girl, and a man, young and handsome, but upon whose countenance the traces of dissipation and of passion were deeply marked. Miranda Ayleff was a Virginian, the cousin and quondam playmate of Oriana Weems, like her an orphan, and a ward of Beverly. Her companion was Philip Searle. She had known him in Richmond, and had become much attached to him, but his habits and character were such, that her friends, and Beverly chiefly, had earnestly discouraged their intimacy. Philip left for the North, and Miranda, who at the date of our story was the guest of Mrs. Pursely, her relative, met him in New York, after a separation of two years. Philip, who, in spite of his evil ways, was singularly handsome and agreeable in manners, found little difficulty in fanning the old flame, and, upon the plea of old acquaintance, became a frequent visitor upon Miranda at Mr. Pursely's mansion, where we now find them, earnestly conversing, but in low tones, in the little solitude of the great bay window.
"You reproach me with vices which your unkindness has helped to stain me with. Driven from your presence, whom alone I cared to live for, what marvel if I sought oblivion in the wine-cup and the dice-box? Give me one chance, Miranda, to redeem myself. Let me call you wife, and you will become my guardian angel, and save me from myself."
"You know that I love you, Philip," she replied, "and willingly would I share your destiny, hoping to win you from evil. Go with me to Richmond. We will speak with Beverly, who is kind and truly loves me. We will convince him of your good purposes, and will win his consent to our union."
"No, Miranda; Beverly and your friends in Richmond will never believe me worthy of you. Besides, it would be dangerous for me to visit Richmond. I have identified myself with the Northern cause, and although, for your sake, I might refrain from bearing arms against Virginia, yet I have little sympathy with any there, where I have been branded as a drunkard and a gambler."
"Yet, Philip, is it not the land of your birth—the home of your boyhood?"
"The land of my shame and humiliation. No Miranda, I will not return to Virginia. And if you love me, you will not return. What are these senseless quarrels to us? We can be happy in each other's love, and forget that madmen are at war around us. Why will you not trust me, Miranda—why do you thus withhold from me my only hope of redemption from the terrible vice that is killing me? I put my destiny, my very life in your keeping, and you hesitate to accept the trust that alone can save me. Oh, Miranda! you do not love me."
"Philip, I cannot renounce my friends, my dear country, the home of my childhood."
"Then look you what will be my fate: I will join the armies of the North, and fling away my life in battle against my native soil. Ruin and death cannot come too soon when you forsake me."
Miranda remained silent, but, through the gloom of the recess, he could see the glistening of a tear upon her cheek.
The hall-bell rang, and the servant brought in a card for Miss Ayleff. Following it, Arthur Wayne was ushered into the room.
She rose to receive him, somewhat surprised at a visit from a stranger.
"I have brought these letters for you from my good friend Beverly Weems," said Arthur. "At his request, I have ventured to call in person, most happy, if you will forgive the presumption, in the opportunity."
She gave her hand, and welcomed him gracefully and warmly, and, having introduced Mr. Searle, excused herself while she glanced at the contents of Beverly's letter. While thus employed, Arthur marked her changing color; and then, lifting his eyes lest his scrutiny might be rude, observed Philip's dark eye fixed upon her with a suspicious and searching expression. Then Philip looked up, and their glances met—the calm blue eye and the flashing black—but for an instant, but long enough to confirm the instinctive feeling that there was no sympathy between their hearts.
A half-hour's general conversation ensued, but Philip appeared restless and uneasy, and rose to take his leave. She followed him to the parlor door.
"Come to me to-morrow," she said, as she gave her hand, "and we will talk again."
A smile of triumph rested upon his pale lips for a second; but he pressed her hand, and, murmuring an affectionate farewell, withdrew.
Arthur remained a few moments, but observing that Miranda was pensive and absent, he bade her good evening, accepting her urgent invitation to call at an early period.
"Well, Arthur," said Harold Hare, entering the room of the former at his hotel, on the following evening, "I have come to bid you good bye. I start for home to-morrow morning," he added, in reply to Arthur's questioning glance. "I am to have a company of Providence boys in my old friend Colonel R——'s regiment. And after a little brisk recruiting, ho! for Washington and the wars!"
"You have determined for the war, then?"
"Of course. And you?"
"I shall go to my Vermont farm, and live quietly among my books and pastures."
"A dull life, Arthur, when every wind that blows will bring to your ears the swell of martial music and the din of arms."
"If I were in love with the pomp of war, which, thank heaven, I am not, Harold, I would rather dwell in a hermit's cave, than follow the fife and drum over the bodies of my Southern countrymen."
"Those Southern countrymen, that you seem to love better than the country they would ruin, would have little remorse in marching over your body, even among the ashes of your farm-house. Doubtless you would stand at your threshold, and welcome their butchery, should their ruffian legions ravage our land as far as your Green Mountains."
"I do not think they will invade one foot of Northern soil, unless compelled by strict military necessity. However, should the State to which I owe allegiance be attacked by foreign or domestic foe, I will stand among its defenders. But, dear Harold, let us not argue this sad subject, which it is grief enough but to contemplate. Tell me of your plans, and how I shall communicate with you, while you are absent. My distress about this unhappy war will be keener, when I feel that my dear friend may be its victim."
Harold pressed his hand affectionately, and the two friends spoke of the misty future, till Harold arose to depart. They had not mentioned Oriana's name, though she was in their thoughts, and each, as he bade farewell, knew that some part of the other's sadness was for her sake.
Arthur accompanied Harold a short distance up Broadway, and returning, found at the office of the hotel, a letter, without post-mark, to his address. He stepped into the reading-room to peruse it. It was from Beverly, and ran thus:
"RICHMOND,May—, 1861."DEAR ARTHUR: The departure of a friend gives me an opportunity to write you about a matter that I beg you will attend to, for my sake, thoroughly. I learned this morning, upon receipt of a letter from Mr. Pursely, that Miranda Ayleff, of whom we spoke together, and to whom I presume you have already delivered my communication, is receiving the visits of one Philip Searle, to whom, some two years since, she was much attached.Entre nous, Arthur, I can tell you, the man is a scoundrel of the deepest dye. Not only a drunkard and a gambler, but dishonest, and unfit for any decent girl's society. He is guilty of forgery against me, and, against my conscience, I hushed the matter only out of consideration for her feelings. I would still have concealed the matter from her, had this resumption of their intimacy not occurred. But her welfare must cancel all scruples of that character; and I therefore entreat you to see her at once, and unmask the man fully and unequivocally. If necessary you may show my letter for that purpose. I would go on to New York myself immediately, were I not employed upon a State mission of exceeding delicacy and importance; but I have full confidence in your good judgment. Spare no arguments to induce her to return immediately to Richmond."Oriana has not been well; I know not what ails her, but, though she makes no complaint, the girl seems really ill. She knows not of my writing, for I would not pain her about Miranda, of whom she is very fond. But I can venture, without consulting her, to send you her good wishes. Let me hear from you in full about what I have written. Your friend."BEVERLY WEEMS.""P.S.—Knowing that you must yet be weak with your late illness, I would have troubled Harold, rather than you, about this matter, but I am ignorant of his present whereabouts, while I know that you contemplated remaining a week or so in New York. Write me about the ugly bite in the shoulder, from which I trust you are well recovered. B.W."
"RICHMOND,May—, 1861.
"DEAR ARTHUR: The departure of a friend gives me an opportunity to write you about a matter that I beg you will attend to, for my sake, thoroughly. I learned this morning, upon receipt of a letter from Mr. Pursely, that Miranda Ayleff, of whom we spoke together, and to whom I presume you have already delivered my communication, is receiving the visits of one Philip Searle, to whom, some two years since, she was much attached.Entre nous, Arthur, I can tell you, the man is a scoundrel of the deepest dye. Not only a drunkard and a gambler, but dishonest, and unfit for any decent girl's society. He is guilty of forgery against me, and, against my conscience, I hushed the matter only out of consideration for her feelings. I would still have concealed the matter from her, had this resumption of their intimacy not occurred. But her welfare must cancel all scruples of that character; and I therefore entreat you to see her at once, and unmask the man fully and unequivocally. If necessary you may show my letter for that purpose. I would go on to New York myself immediately, were I not employed upon a State mission of exceeding delicacy and importance; but I have full confidence in your good judgment. Spare no arguments to induce her to return immediately to Richmond.
"Oriana has not been well; I know not what ails her, but, though she makes no complaint, the girl seems really ill. She knows not of my writing, for I would not pain her about Miranda, of whom she is very fond. But I can venture, without consulting her, to send you her good wishes. Let me hear from you in full about what I have written. Your friend.
"BEVERLY WEEMS."
"P.S.—Knowing that you must yet be weak with your late illness, I would have troubled Harold, rather than you, about this matter, but I am ignorant of his present whereabouts, while I know that you contemplated remaining a week or so in New York. Write me about the ugly bite in the shoulder, from which I trust you are well recovered. B.W."
Arthur looked up from the letter, and beheld Philip Searle seated at the opposite side of the table. He had entered while Arthur's attention was absorbed in reading, and having glanced at the address of the envelope which lay upon the table, he recognized the hand of Beverly. This prompted him to pause, and taking up one of the newspapers which were strewn about the table, he sat down, and while he appeared to read, glanced furtively at hisvis-à-visover the paper's edge. When his presence was noticed, he bowed, and Arthur, with a slight and stern inclination of the head, fixed his calm eye upon him with a searching severity that brought a flush of anger to Philip's brow.
"That is Weems' hand," he muttered, inwardly, "and by that fellow's look, I fancy that no less a person than myself is the subject of his epistle."
Arthur had walked away, but, in his surprise at the unexpected presence of Searle, he had allowed the letter to remain upon the table. No sooner had he passed out of the room, than Philip quietly but rapidly stretched his hand beneath the pile of scattered journals, and drew it toward him. It required but an instant for his quick eye to catch the substance. His face grew livid, and his teeth grated harshly with suppressed rage.
"We shall have a game of plot and counterplot before this ends, my man," he muttered.
There were pen and paper on the table, and he wrote a few lines hastily, placed them in the envelope, and put Beverly's letter in his pocket. He had hardly finished when Arthur reëntered the room, advanced rapidly to the table, and, with a look of relief, took up the envelope and its contents, and again left the room. Philip's lip curled beneath the black moustache with a smile of triumphant malice.
"Keep it safe in your pocket for a few hours, my gamecock, and my heiress to a beggar-girl, I'll have stone walls between you and me."
The evening was somewhat advanced, but Arthur determined at once to seek an interview with Miss Ayleff. Hastily arranging his toilet, he walked briskly up Broadway, revolving in his mind a fit course for fulfilling his delicate errand.
To shorten his way, he turned into a cross street in the upper part of the city. As he approached the hall door of a large brick house, his eye chanced to fall upon a man who was ringing for admittance. The light from the street lamp fell full upon his face, and he recognized the features of Philip Searle. At that moment the door was opened, and Philip entered. Arthur would have passed on, but something in the appearance of the house arrested his attention, and, on closer scrutiny, revealed to him its character. One of those impulses which sometimes sway our actions, tempted him to enter, and learn, if possible, something further respecting the habits of the man whose scheme he had been commissioned to thwart. A moment's reflection might have changed his purpose, but his hand was already upon the bell, and the summons was quickly answered by a good-looking but faded young woman, with painted cheeks and gay attire. She fixed her keen, bold eyes upon him for a few seconds, and then, tossing her ringlets, pertly invited him to enter.
"Who is within?" asked Arthur, standing in the hall.
"Only the girls. Walk in."
"The gentleman who came in before me, is he there?"
"Do you want to see him?" she asked, suspiciously.
"Oh, no. Only I would avoid being seen by any one."
"He will not see you. Come right in." And she threw open the door, and flaunted in.
Arthur followed her without hesitation.
Bursts of forced and cheerless laughter, and the shrill sound of rude and flippant talk, smote unpleasantly upon his ear. The room was richly furnished, but without taste or modesty. The tall mirrors were displayed with ostentation, and the paintings, offensive in design, hung conspicuous in showy frames. The numerous gas jets, flashing among glittering crystal pendants, made vice more glaring and heartlessness more terribly apparent. Women, with bold and haggard eyes, with brazen brows, and cheeks from which the roses of virgin shame had been plucked to bloom no more forever—mostly young girls, scourging their youth into old age, and gathering poison at once for soul and body—with sensual indolence reclined upon the rich ottomans, or with fantastic grace whirled through lewd waltzes over the velvet carpets. There was laughter without joy—there was frivolity without merriment—there was the surface of enjoyment and the substance of woe, for beneath those painted cheeks was the pallor of despair and broken health, and beneath those whitened bosoms, half veiled with gaudy silks, were hearts that were aching with remorse, or, yet more unhappy, benumbed and callous with habitual sin.
Yet there, like a crushed pearl upon a heap of garbage, lingers the trace of beauty; and there, surely, though sepulchred in the caverns of vice, dwells something that was once innocence, and not unredeemable. But whence is the friendly word to come, whence the guardian hand that might lift them from the slough. They live accursed by even charity, shunned by philanthropy, and shut from the Christian world like a tribe of lepers whose touch is contagion and whose breath is pestilence. In the glittering halls of fashion, the high-born beauty, with wreaths about her white temples and diamonds upon her chaste bosom, gives her gloved hand for the dance, and forgets that an erring sister, by the touch of those white fingers, might be raised from the grave of her chastity, and clothed anew with the white garments of repentance. But no; the cold world of fashion, that from its cushioned pew has listened with stately devotion to the words of the Redeemer, has taught her that to redeem the fallen is beneath her caste. The bond of sisterhood is broken. The lost one must pursue her hideous destiny, each avenue of escape blocked by the scorn and loathing which denies her the contact of virtue and the counsel of purity. In the broad fields of charity, invaded by cold philosophers, losing themselves in searching unreal and vague philanthropies, none so practical in beneficence as to take her by the hand, saying, "Go, and sin no more."
But whenever the path of benevolence is intricate and doubtful, whenever the work is linked with a riddle whose solving will breed discord and trouble among men, whenever there is a chance to make philanthropy a plea for hate, and bitterness and charity can be made a battle-cry to arouse the spirit of destruction, and spread ruin and desolation over the fair face of the earth, then will the domes of our churches resound with eloquence, then will the journals of the land teem with their mystic theories, then will the mourners of human woe be loud in lamentation, and lift up their mighty voices to cry down an abstract evil. When actual misery appeals to them, they are deaf; when the plain and palpable error stalks before them, they turn aside. They are too busy with the tangles of some philanthropic Gordian knot, to stretch out a helping hand to the sufferer at their sides. They are frenzied with their zeal to build a bridge over a spanless ocean, while the drowning wretch is sinking within their grasp. They scorn the simple charity of the good Samaritan; theirs must be a gigantic and splendid achievement in experimental beneficence, worthy of their philosophic brains. The wrong they would redress must be one that half the world esteems a right; else there would be no room for their arguments, no occasion for their invective, no excuse for their passion. To do good is too simple for their transcendentalism; they must first make evil out of their logic, and then, through blood and wasting flames, drive on the people to destruction, that the imaginary evil may be destroyed. While Charity soars so high among the clouds, she will never stoop to lift the Magdalen from sin.
Arthur heaved an involuntary sigh, as he gazed upon those sad wrecks of womanhood, striving to harden their sense of degradation by its impudent display. But an expression of bewildered and sorrowful surprise suddenly overspread his countenance. Seated alone upon a cushioned stool, at the chimney-corner, was a young woman, her elbows resting upon her knees, and her face bent thoughtfully upon her palms. She was apparently lost in thought to all around her. She was thinking—of what? Perhaps of the green fields where she played in childhood; perhaps of her days of innocence; perhaps of the mother at whose feet she had once knelt in prayer. But she was far away, in thought, from that scene of infamy of which she was a part; for, in the glare of the gaslight, a tear struggled through her eyelashes, and glittered like a ray from heaven piercing the glooms of hell.
Arthur walked to her, and placed his hand softly upon her yellow hair.
"Oh, Mary!" he murmured, in a tone of gentle sorrow, that sounded strangely amid the discordant merriment that filled the room.
She looked up, at his touch, but when his voice fell upon her ear, she arose suddenly and stood before him like one struck dumb betwixt humiliation and wonder. The angel had not yet fled that bosom, for the blush of shame glowed through the chalk upon her brow and outcrimsoned the paint upon her cheek. As it passed away, she would have wreathed her lip mechanically with the pert smile of her vocation, but the smile was frozen ere it reached her lips, and the coarse words she would have spoken died into a murmur and a sob. She sank down again upon the cushion, and bent her face low down upon her hands.
"Oh, Mary! is it you! is it you! I pray heaven your mother be in her grave!"
She rose and escaped quickly from the room; but he followed her and checked her at the stairway.
"Let me speak with you, Mary. No, not here; lead me to your room."
He followed her up-stairs, and closing the door, sat beside her as she leaned upon the bed and buried her face in the pillow.
It was the child of his old nurse. Upon the hill-sides of his native State they had played together when children, and now she lay there before him, with scarce enough of woman's nature left to weep for her own misery.
"Mary, how is this? Look up, child," he said, taking her hand kindly. "I had rather see you thus, bent low with sorrow, than bold and hard in guilt. But yet look up and speak to me. I will be your friend, you know. Tell me, why are you thus?"
"Oh, Mr. Wayne, do not scold me, please don't. I was thinking of home and mother when you came and put your hand on my head. Mother's dead."
"Well for her, poor woman. But how came you thus?"
"I scarcely seem to know. It seems to me a dream. I married John, and he brought me to New York. Then the war came, and he went and was killed. And mother was dead, and I had no friends in the great city. I could get no work, and I was starving, indeed I was, Mr. Wayne. So a young man, who was very handsome, and rich, I think, for he gave me money and fine dresses, he promised me—Oh, Mr. Wayne, I was very wrong and foolish, and I wish I could die, and be buried by my poor mother."
"And did he bring you here?"
"Oh no, sir. I came here two weeks ago, after he had left me. And when he came in one night and found me here, he was very angry, and said he would kill me if I told any one that I knew him. And I know why; but you won't tell, Mr. Wayne, for it would make him angry. I have found out that he is married to the mistress of this house. He's a bad man, I know now, and often comes here drunk, and swears at the woman and the girls. Hark! that's her room, next to mine, and I think he's in there now."
The faint sound of voices, smothered by the walls, reached them from the adjoining chamber; but as they listened, the door of that room opened, and the loud and angry tones of a man, speaking at the threshold, could be distinctly heard. Arthur quietly and carefully opened the door of Mary's room, an inch or less, and listened at the aperture. He was not mistaken; he recognized the voice of Philip Searle.
"I'll do it, anyhow," said Philip, angrily, and with the thick utterance of one who had been drinking. "I'll do it; and if you trouble me, I'll fix you."
"Philip, if you marry that girl I'll peach; I will, so help me G—d," replied a woman's voice. "I've given you the money, and I've given you plenty before, as much as I had to give you, Philip, and you know it. I don't mind that, but you shan't marry till I'm dead. I'm your lawful wife, and if I'm low now, it's your fault, for you drove me to it."
"I'll drive you to hell if you worry me. I tell you she's got lots of money, and a farm, and niggers, and you shall have half if you only keep your mouth shut. Come, now, Molly, don't be a fool; what's the use, now?"
They went down the stairway together, and their voices were lost as they descended. Arthur determined to follow and get some clue, if possible, as to the man's, intentions. He therefore gave his address to Mary, and made her promise faithfully to meet him on the following morning, promising to befriend her and send her to his mother in Vermont. Hearing the front door close, and surmising that Philip had departed, he bade her good night, and descending hastily, was upon the sidewalk in time to observe Philip's form in the starlight as he turned the corner.
It was now ten o'clock; too late to call upon Miranda without disturbing the household, which he desired to avoid. Arthur's present fear was that possibly an elopement had been planned for that night, and he therefore determined, if practicable, to keep Searle in view till he had traced him home. The latter entered a refreshment saloon upon Broadway; Arthur followed, and ordering, in a low tone, some dish that would require time in the preparation, he stepped, without noise, into an alcove adjoining one whence came the sound of conversation.
"Well, what's up?" inquired a gruff, coarse voice.
"Fill me some brandy," replied Philip. "I tell you, Bradshaw, it's risky, but I'll do it. The old woman's rock. She'll blow upon me if she gets the chance; but I'm in for it, and I'll put it through. We must manage to keep it mum from her, and as soon as I get the girl I'll accept the lieutenancy, and be off to the wars till all blows over. If Moll should smoke me out there, I'll cross the line and take sanctuary with Jeff. Davis."
"What about the girl?"
"Oh; she's all right," replied Philip, with a drunken chuckle. "I had an interview with the dear creature this morning, and she's like wax in my hands. It's all arranged for to-morrow morning. You be sure to have the carriage ready at the Park—the same spot, you know—by ten o'clock. She can't well get away before, but that will be time enough for the train."
"I want that money now."
"Moll's hard up, but I got a couple of hundred from her. Here's fifty for you; now don't grumble, I'm doing the best I can, d—n you, and you know it. Now listen—I want to fix things with you about that blue-eyed chap."
The waiter here brought in Arthur's order, and a sudden silence ensued in the alcove. The two men had evidently been unaware of the proximity of a third party, and their tone, though low, had not been sufficiently guarded to escape Arthur hearing, whose ear, leaning against the thin partition, was within a few inches of Philip's head. A muttered curse and the gurgling of liquor from a decanter was all that could be heard for the space of a few-moments, when the two, after a brief whisper, arose and left the place, not, however, without making ineffectual efforts to catch a glimpse of the occupant of the tenanted alcove. Arthur soon after followed them into the street. He was aware that he was watched from the opposite corner, and that his steps were dogged in the darkness. But he drew his felt hat well over his face, and by mingling with the crowd that chanced to be pouring from one of the theatres, he avoided recognition and passed unnoticed into his hotel.