lij: 178E "'* THE ALBATROSS NOVELS By ALBERT ROSS 23 Volumes May be had wherever books are cold, at th price you paid for this volume Black Adonis, A Garston Bigamy, The Her Husband's Friend His Foster Sister His Private Character In Stella's Shadow Love at Seventy Love Gone Astray Moulding a Maiden Naked Truth, The New Sensation, A Original Sinner, An Out of Wedlock Speaking of Ellen Stranger Than Fiction Sugar Princess, A That Gay Deceiver Their Marriage Bond Thou Shalt Not Thy Neighbor's Wife Why I'm Single Young Fawcett's Mabel Young Miss Giddy G. W. DILUNGHAM CO. Publishers :: :: New York AN ORIGINAL SINNER. BY ALBERT Ross. AUTHOR OF "THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE," " IN STELLA'S SHADOW, "WHY I'M SINGLE," "Tnou SHALT NOT," " His PRIVATE CHARACTER," ETC. " The eternal error /" he mused. " The cardinal mistake. No man knows him- self. No woman knows herself. A word, a touch, a look, and the angel becomes a demon" Page 133. NEW YORK: reT, i89i, r G. w. MLUNWMH. G. W. Dittingham Co., Publishers. \AUrtghts reserved. ] CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. Designed for the Ministry 9 II. The Best Shod Woman in Boston 21 III. " I like Albert Ross and Ouida." 33 IV. " She's not like other girls." 36 V. The Laws of Heredity 54 VI. " I love your daughter." 60 VII. Was Lettie in Love ? 70 VIII. A Picture of Innocence 80 IX. " My God ! they will be killed !"..... 92 X. Hell Fire and that Sort of Thing 105 XI. A Dangerous Companion 1 16 XII. " No woman knows herself." 126 XIII. Midnight and Bessie 137 XIV. A Game of Hearts 146 XV. " If we're not found out." 158 XVI. Mark Melton's Protest 168 XVII. Compelling a Kiss 179 XVIII. " She will probably have children.". . . 190 XIX. My Brother's Keeper 203 XX. Off for Arcadie 214 XXI. " No, I never loved you." 221 XXII. " Good-night, my wife." 227 XXIII. Another Man's Bride 239 XXIV. A Confidential Talk 250 XXV. " I wanted you to suffer." 261 w 2132421 VI CONTENTS. Chapter Page XXVI. In the Face of Dishonor 267 XXVII. Champagne and Grapes 274 XXVIII. " There is a devil in him." 284 XXIX. A House of Sin 293 XXX. A Man of God 300 XXXI. " I think you have killed me." 307 XXXII. Clyde Morley's Diary 317 XXXIII. " What is marriage for ?" 328 XXXIV. A Little Sieight-of-Hand 336 TO MY READERS. Perhaps the strongest criticism that could be brought against this story is that it is improbable. To that charge. I am willing in advance to plead guilty. A similar idea, without the least pretence of probability, which has been worked out by one of the masters of English fiction, stands easily among the first half dozen great books that have seen the light in this generation. The tale / tell could have happened and his could not ; but the lesson I desire to teach will be no less apparent should you guess my chief secret and think you could have done as much had you been associated with the brothers Morley. The inadvisability of saying more on this head will be better appreciated when the final pages are fin- ished. There are still ghouls who assail each novel of mine without reading aline of it, though most of the notices which come to me tell a different tale. One writer gravely announces that " Thy Neighbor's Wife " is " not as bad as its boastful preface would seem to indicate." Let those of you who have a copy handy read that preface again, and see if you can find a word that justifies this slander. Another, signing a woman's name, declares that the same novel is morally worse just think of it ! than " even 'Speaking of Ellen.' " Has she ever opened [vii] TO MY HEADERS. the covers of that story of a pure, high-souled work- ing-girl, that the noblest modern apostle of reform wrote me he hoped a hundred thousand beside himself would read ? The 80.000 people who have already purchased the novel, and the hundreds of thousands who have read it, can give the right name to that kind of "criticism." My thanks are due to the press for a thousand kind words during the past year. An occasional exception like those mentioned only make the con- trast the greater. Last winter I spent pleasurably in Florida, Louis- iana, other parts of the South and the great Republic beyond. Everywhere I was importuned to locate a novel in that section, and some day I may do so. At present my plans are too far developed in other direc- tions. The kindness I met and the numerous testi- monies to the popularity of my works which I found alike in the gorgeous hotels of St. Augustine and the mining camps of Mexico I shall never forget. Once more I must express my appreciation of the flattering communications of my numerous corres- pondents, to whom, as well as to all my other readers, in this centennial year, I wish health and happiness. ALBERT Ross. Cambridge, Mass., May, 1893. AN ORIGINAL SINNER. CHAPTER I. DESIGNED FOR THE MINISTRY. As he entered the village church, every eye in the congregation was raised. Pale to such a degree that one who did not know him might have suspected serious illness, with restless dark eyes accentuated by the pallor that surrounded them, with clean shaven face and hair combed back on both sides, Clyde Morley always attracted attention, and to-day there was a new reason why he should be the observed of all observers. Everybody knew that he had decided to go on a long journey in search of health, it was said and that this was probably the last Sunday he would be seen in Arcadie for many months. They watched him enter the holy edifice, in com- pany with his guardian, Rev. Dr. Welsh, the pastor ; and as the pair walked slowly down the broad aisle it came into many minds that some day Reverend Mr. Morley would ascend that pulpit. The aged minister was hardly more saintly in their eyes that this young 10 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. man, now not over twenty-three, who had been brought up after his parents' deaths under the im- mediate eye of the good Doctor. Mr. Morley took his seat in his pew, bending his head devoutly in silent prayer. The clergyman gave out the opening hymn, and when it was finished announced his text. Perhaps no sermon delivered in that church had ever received less attention. It was only when a veiled reference was made to the prospective depart- ure of the young man who was in the thoughts of all that a temporary interest in the discourse was excited. They had known him from a boy, and had watched him as he grew older, feeling that he was something above themselves, almost above the earth on which he trod. He had talked little religion to them, but his life had seemed a perpetual light. The boys always thought of him when the minister dis- coursed of the youth of Jesus ; the old men raised their hats to him instinctively ; the matrons half believed that virtue exuded from his garments. No young woman of marriageable age ever in- cluded Mr. Morley in her dreams of matrimony. Those who gathered at the Judean sepulchre would as soon have thought of marriage with the angel who rolled away the stone on that first Easter morning. He had never been backward in the church meet- ings. No other prayer seemed so simple, unaffected and yet so powerful. But he had done more than speak and pray. He had been known to gather a crop for a poor widow, stopping on the way home to show a group of boys how to play a scientific game of ball. No one would be likely to forget the time when he risked his life to save a pet dog belonging DESIGNED FOR THE MINISTRY. 11 to a Kittle fellow in his Sunday-school class, that had fallen into the millstream ; nor how, when the scar- let fever raged, and it was impossible to hire experi- enced nurses, he left college to come home and spend six weeks caring for the more violent cases in the improvised hospital. " Others talk about Christ, but he lives him," was the expression of a woman whom he had more than once befriended. When he was asked if he intended to devote his life to preaching the gospel, Morley sometimes an- swered, humbly, " Yes, if I ever grow to think myself worthy." The inquirers went their ways impressed with his sincerity, though not in the least understanding him. If he was not fit to preach, they wondered who could be. Dr. Welsh had many a talk with him upon the subject. " You underrate yourself," he said. " You ought to proceed at once to finish your divinity course. A great work is open to you. The harvest is plenty and the laborers far too few." Then Morley shook his head doubtfully, as he replied : "No man has aright to set himself upas a teacher until his own life is secure. He should live down every temptation before he undertakes such a lofty mission." The good clergyman smiled amiably. " One would be more than human if he were never tempted," he answered. " Don't imagine that we of the pulpit are created of different clay from our con- gregations. On the contrary, it is because we are accustomed to the same tendencies that we are able 12 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. to advise and instruct them. We are told that the greatest One who ever bore our likeness was ' tempted in all points like as we are.'" Morley answered in a very low voice : " But we are not told that he yielded." "No, my son, and neither will you." It was impossible for Dr. Welsh to connect " his boy" with anything like a real transgression. " How can we tell ?" was the reply. '"Let him that standeth take heed,' saith the Scripture. I want to go away awhile and mix with the world. A teacher does well to attend the school from which his pupils are to come." Dr. Welsh did not fully approve of this idea, but he saw that Clyde was set on it and that it was not wise to object too much. He only thought of the time that would be lost before getting to work in the Master's vineyard, for he felt that this young man would be safe anywhere. His spiritual nature shone from his clear forehead. Clyde would never be one to eat meat or drink wine if thereby he caused his brother to offend. "Go, my dear boy," he said, feelingly, "but be not absent too long. Every day is so much taken from the work you are called to do." Morley looked at his guardian affectionately. " How certain you seem to be of what my duty is," he said. " Perhaps some other field may yet seem wiser for me to follow. I feel that the pulpit is not a thing to decide upon without full consider- ation. Many enter that sacred profession who are unfitted for it, to the great scandal of religion. How frequently we read of councils called to sit in judg- ment on ministers accused of immoralities. To be DESIGNED FOR THE MI.TT^TRY. 13 sure they are often acquitted, for which we should thank God ; but the ideal pastor is one against whom no breath of suspicion could lodge. Leave this matter to me, for no one else can decide it so well. I will write to you frequently and let you know how I am progressing." It was a grief to the minister to think of even a possibility of his ward's giving up the profession for which he had done so much to fit him, but he be- lieved it would come about all right yet. Clyde only wanted a chance to debate the matter fully in his own mind. He was to take his books with him and devote a portion of each day to study. Surely the Holy Spirit would guide him aright. The doctor had great faith and he tried to rest content. On the Sunday in question, Mr. Morley spoke earnestly to his class, urging the boys not to be any less regular in attendance because he was absent. And at the close of his remarks he said some things which made them wonder. " Truth is truth and right is right, whatever individuals may do to shame it. When I am far from you, remember only the best things you have known of me. Do not confound my actions with the precepts I have given you, should there ever come a time when I forget to live up to them. Let con- science be your guide, and you cannot go far wrong." One of the boys suggested that the teacher had spoken as if he might never return to Arcadie ; at which the tears came into his eyes and those of all the others. " Life is uncertain at best," replied Morley, with emotion. " Every good-bye may be a final one. I hope that this will not Drove so, but if it does if it 14 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. does remember that the sins of other men will be no excuse for yours. If you would be happy in this world and the next, you must always be upright and honorable, in every relation of life." At the simple meal which Dr. Welch's puritanic ideas allowed him to have served on Suuday, little was said either by him or Mr. Morley. The heart of the clergyman was heavy. He loved this youth as well as if his own blood flowed in his veins. He had taken him to fill a vacant place in his house, when a little son died in infancy. Living alone with a housekeeper, he had missed the bright face and cheerful voice during the long term that Clyde had passed in college at Amherst, and had looked for- ward with delight to the time when the study of Christian precepts would be carried on under his own supervision. Now, after a few months of this work, his pupil was to abandon it suddenly and go out into the world, with no definite time set for return even with a partial intimation that he might never take it up again. Morley could not confide to this man the reasons that actuated him in his decision. He felt that he must go, that he could not risk a longer delay. He hoped the fit would pass away and that he should come back content to obey the wishes of the one whom he loved like a father. But he could promise nothing. He could only leave that to the future, which seemed very uncertain to him. When the dinner was ended he went to his chamber and sat down to think. To think ! Had he not thought enough, for the love of heaven ! How could he accomplish anything by thinking more? " Poor, dear, good old doctor !" he said to himself. I/ESIGNED FOR THE MINISTRY. 15 " He little knows what is raging in the soul of the young saint in whom he has such confidence. He little dreams that if I did not leave Arcadie I might bring a curse upon the place instead of a blessing. Yes, I must go and see what the world is like. I must go and find what there is in it that so delights and fascinates my brother my brother Frank." Strange as it may seem, a smile came into the pale face as this name was uttered. But it faded in u moment as other thoughts followed. "Were ever twin brothers so little alike!" he demanded. " How can it be, born of one mother in the self-same hour, that one of them listens only to the voice of God and the other hearkens continually to the deceits of earth ? How is it that one only hopes to prove his worthiness to preach religion till his hair is gray and his step faltering, asking no higher reward than the consciousness of duty wel? performed, while the other thinks present joy the full complement of supreme existence, and even doubts if there be intelligent life beyond it ? Why has one lived as safe from the allurements of sin as a vestal virgin, while the other walks in a worldly path with thoughtless steps. And these men are brothers twin brothers who ought to be as much alike in soul as they are in feature. Ah, Frank, Frank ! I know not whether I love or hate you most !" The smile came again, in strange contradiction of the words spoken, and then the saddest expression of all followed. The face of the thinker was buried in his hands as if he would hide something that he could not bear to contemplate. " What is the matter with me !" he exclaimed, nervouslv. when he looked uo a^-a-in. '* I have been 16 AN ORIGINAL SIN NEK. well taught. From a baby I have been pointed out as a model of goodness. I have been guarded from all evil company. Good Dr. Welsh crammed me full of commentaries as regularly as he gave me oat- meal, during my entire boyhood. " I was not three feet high when I learned that I was destined to be a clergyman. I was the prize scholar in the Sunday-school when I was seven. Even then the other little fellows changed the subjects of their conversation when I came among them at their play. If one of them wanted to swear he would substitute some milder expletive in deference to my presence. When I grew older the girls told me their troubles as freely as if I were a mother to every one of them. They gave me their sweetest smiles, but the nature of the smile has changed now. It is not the kind they give to other young men. There is a sort of ' Your reverence ' in it. I wonder what some of them would say if they knew the things that sometimes creep into my head !" Mr. Morley shivered. Several young maidens of the village were crossing the green field in front of the house at that moment, and he paused to look after them till they were out of sight. " What right have I to watch them ?" he muttered . relapsing into his reverie. " If I should speak a word of love to one, she would scream, stop her ears and fly, thinking me insane. Has it not always been so ? When I went to Amherst, I was elected, without being consulted, president of the Y. M. C. A. of the college. I suppose the letter that I bore from Dr. Welsh did that. The professors treated me like some piece of rare porcelain, upon which the vulgar breath must not be permitted to blow. I was asked DESIGNED FOB THE MINISTBY. 17 to take charge of religious meetings oftener than any of my associates. I was treated not only by the faculty but by my classmates as a sort of superior being. I have read that there is sin in the life of a student. So far as my knowledge goes, that state- ment is a complete libel. No one would have had the hardihood to let anything of the kind come under my observation. I finished my four years and then began to study for a divinity course, here in this village of Arcadie, sleepy enough for the dreams of a poet. There is my life outlined. Is it any wonder, looking back over such an existence and feeling as I do, that I should ask, ' What ails me ?' " There was a desperate cadence in the voice, for these words were spoken aloud. At the end there was a pause, as if the speaker half expected some other voice would answer him. " I think I know where the trouble began," he went on. "Tired of doing nothing but study, I offered myself in my second year for the sophomore crew, shocking my professors extremely. But I pulled a very good oar, and when we won the race the boys gave me a good share of the credit. I felt the strength of a giant and I knew we must win. I heard the boys talk about the strangeness of so religious a man entering a race, but I could not see that I had done any violence to my creed, by exer- cising the muscles of my arms and back. The next term I joined the college nine, and the students began to admit that prayer was not wholly incom- patible with the ability to pitch a ball. During the next year, I spent a great deal of time in the gymnasium, and began to take lessons in fencing and boxing. That came near precipitating a col- 18 AN ORIGINAL 8INNEB. lision. One of the professors, who took a deep inter- est in my spiritual welfare, assured me that boxing was unchristian. He said we were told in the Bible to present the other cheek when struck, instead of studying how to get in a return blow in the most effective manner. Still, he did not reproach me when I found his daughter one dark night, on a lonely street, in the grasp of a ruffian, and broke his jawbone. After that, the professor held his peace about the sinfulness of such strong training as I was indulging in. And yet I know to-day that the good man was right all the time and that I was wrong." Another bevy of girls were crossing the field and the student stopped to observe them as they climbed a stile. "I was wrong," he repeated. "To have carried out my purpose of remaining a saint I never should have developed my body. Strengthening my muscles gave new power to my heart, which gorged itself with rivers of red blood and sent them out in every artery till they intoxicated my brain. The better animal I became the less fit was I to be what I had intended. I am five feet eleven, and weigh a hun- dred and eighty pounds just forty more than I can carry off with safety. I have tried the most violent exercise, and my vitality has steadily increased instead of diminishing. I have ridden horseback, climbed hills, walked twenty miles a day, hoed pota- toes, sawed wood. Result, more life, more blood than I know what to do with. Nobody suspects my trouble. They see that I am tall and muscular, but they also see that I am pale, and that tired rings are forming under my eyes. They call my look * intel- DESIGNED FOE THE MINI8TKY. 19 Jectual,' and ' spiritual.' That men should live fifty years in this world and know no more than that ! Am I unlike all the rest, and passing through an entirely novel succession of experiences ? They talk of Original Sin. Can it be that I am an Original Sinner?" Failing to find a reply to his numerous inquiries, either in his own mind or elsewhere, Mr. Morley rose from his seat by the window and went to his writing- desk, from which he took some sheets of paper and an envelope. Seating himself at the desk he dipped a pen in ink. As he began to write, the smile came back to his troubled face. " I must write to Frank," he said, " to dear Frank, that twin brother, so like me in feature, so unlike me in everything else. I must tell him that I am going away from Arcadie, in search of change, on a vaca- tion, the length of which is undetermined. It may be that I shall see Frank before I return, but for the present I must ask him to send my letters when he writes (he is such a bad correspondent), to the care of Mr. Leavitt, Nassau street, New York. But particular- ly is it my duty to warn Frank in this epistle against the snares in the world where he abides, and which he knows much more of, no doubt, than I can tell him. Of course he would not actually do wrong things really wicked ones this twin brother of mine ; but, nevertheless, his course keeps him in constant peril." There seemed nothing in that soliloquy to justify the continued presence of a smile on the face of Mr. Morley, but truth compels the author of this book to say that it still rested there. As the reader will not meet him again for many days when he exhibits 20 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. anything but his customary sedateness, it may be well to note the exception to the rule. He dipped his pen again in the ink and went on with the letter, pausing at the end of each sentence to read it slowly. The entire composition occupied him for an hour and covered three sheets of common letter paper. When he had written, " Your Affectionate Brother," and affixed his name, he sat back in his chair and read the entire production again, weighing it care- fully in his mind as he proceeded. Then he took an envelope and wrote this upon it : Mr. Frank Morley, Quincy House, Boston, Mass. The address seemed to have a special attraction for him, and he sat looking at it for some minutes without moving. " Yes," he said, brightening, " Frank must still be stopping at the Quincy House. If he had changed his address, he surely would have told me." He placed the letter in the envelope, stamped, sealed it, and put it in his pocket. Then he turned to the mirror above his mantel. " Intellectual ! Spiritual, is it !" he said to his re- flection. " I could give it another name ; but what does it matter? Muscles like iron, a heart beating like the great hammer of a mill, and pale enough for an invalid ! I wish there was some evil to combat that only required physical strength. Macaulay tells of a bishop who threw off his cassock and donned jack-boots to fight James II. This face and frame of mine are at war, and the frame will win, if I don't THE BEST SHOD WOMAN IN BOSTON. 21 have a care. No, I don't mean that ! I am still strong enough mentally to guard myself. A few months of change will make me all right, and then Clyde Morley, like Richard, will be himself again !" He went to the post-office to put his letter in at the orifice in the door, bowing to all he met, but stop- ping to speak to none. And more than one woman remarked afterwards that she had never seen his face so like an angel's ! CHAPTER II. THE BEST SHOD WOMAN IN BOSTON. " There's the best shod woman in Boston !" A loud laugh from the half dozen companions of Mr. Frank Morley greeted this statement. One of them, Mark Melton, a young medical student, did not join in the hilarity, but with the others it was universal. The party sat at the window of the Revere Club, situated near the corner of Tremont and Park streets. A young lady, who had just passed, in company with one more elderly, was the cause of the remark that convulsed the crowd. "You wanted to know what interested me so in her, and I answered you honestly," continued Mr. Morley. "It's no small thing to find a woman as well shod as she. If you don't believe it, make a tour of the fashionable streets or the retail quarter and see for yourself. You will find plenty of expensive gowns, elegant hats, handsomely arranged 22 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. hair and pretty faces. But the boots what are they, for the most part ? Dowdy things, run over at the heel, marked and scarred by use, badly shaped, muddy if there has been a shower or a watering- cart along within half a day. Then, if this young lady comes by, you may note the difference. The dictionary does not contain adjectives enough to express the admirable character of her foot-gear. To see her after the others is like coming out of the hot parlor of a summer hotel upon the broad piazza that overlooks the sea." The coterie, all but Melton, indulged in another laugh. " Bah Jove ! It takes Fwankie to makes com- pa-wisons !" It was Charlie Wilkins who said this, an over- dressed young fellow who, had he lived at the pres- ent day, would have been called a dude. But this occurred long ago, when that word had not been coined, and about eight months, by-the-way, after Clyde Morley left the village of Arcadie. Frank was a tall, handsome fellow, liked by every- one in the club, of which he was the soul and life. He was dressed in a business-looking suit of gray, with a bright cravat and a slouch hat, which he kept on his head, even inside the clubhouse. He had a rather long, drooping moustache, which he was in the habit of fondling considerably. He devoted a portion of each day to the reading of law at an office on Court street, but he never seemed pushed by his engagements, acting like one who knows the world is before him and means to take his time in dealing with it. The Revere was not an aristocratic organization, THE BEST SHOD WOMAN IN BOSTON. 23 being composed for the most part of young fellows employed in the large wholesale houses. Its quarters were not expensive and its cuisine was limited. It afforded a meeting-place one might almost say loafing-place for its members at a moderate cost, and a lunch that was a little cheaper than it would have been outside. Frank, who could have afforded a much dearer club, had taken a great fancy to this one, being naturally of democratic tendencies, and he was found here nearly every day from twelve to two. " This is not such a laughing matter as you seem to think," he went on to say, still maintaining his gravity amid the laughter of his associates. "To many women clothes are a religion. Let a girl's new hat fail to arrive Saturday night and ten to one she will be missed from church on Sunday. Let her discover that one of her chums has a newer cloak than she and you will find her strictly 'at home* until papa's purse remedies the deficiency. Most of them pay enough for boots to get better results than they do, but it requires positive genius to dress the feet as they should be. The young lady who passed just now would excite their envy, as she does my admiration, if they could see themselves with my eyes." Mr. Wilkins raised himself languidly from the sofa on which he was reclining at nearly full length and adjusted his glass. "Excuse me, de-ar boy," he drawled, "but how the de-vil do you know so much about it? You're not mar-wied and no one ever knew you to call on a gi-rl." " Observation, Charlie," was the quick reply. 24 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " Observation and listening to fellows better informed than I." Between this question and answer the laughs of the party were repeated as before. Silas Clarke, a reporter on the Evening Sphere, put in a word then. " I can explain it, boys. Frank is so bashful that when he meets a girl he does not dare look at her face. His gaze seeks the sidewalk, and naturally enough he gets a good view of her feet." Wilkins rang the bell at that and when the stew- ard appeared, he inquired what the boys would have to drink. He declared that the last joke of Clarke's had made him thirsty actually parched his throat, 'pon honor ! " You're not ex-actly wight, old fellow," said Charlie, when he had moistened his palate. " Clo-thes aren't v he acts toward her. I fear it would strike both of them as preposterous if any man should talk of taking her away, and I don't believe I shall ever have the courage to try it." Morley laughed ; a low, gurgling laugh that ha affected. " If / wanted her," said he, "TV find a way. You must pluck up heart, old man. Someone else will get her, if you don't." Melton looked at him gratefully. " I knew you wouldn't want her, Frank. Why is it you never do want a woman ? Are you going to live all your life a bachelor ?" The other man grew more sober. "I think that's the way the fates have marked it out," he said. " I wouldn't make agood husband. And it's not that I don't like women, as you seem to think. No, it's because I like them too well. I can't think of confining my attentions even my eyesight to any single one of the fascinating creatures. Now, you're quite different in your make-up. You'd marry that pretty piece of Dresden china there and never look at another bit of bric-a-brac, if you lived a century." Melton bowed in cordial assent. "Yes, I would," he said, gravely. " Well, if you want her, you must have her," con- tinued Morley, with an air of conviction. " The greatest pleasure of life is in wanting tilings and get- ting them. An appetite and something to eat are said by men of your profession to be the two great de- "SHE'S NOT LIKE OTHER GIKLS." 51 siderata. Neither is very valuable if taken without the other. You want the Colonel's pretty daughter. I don't say it is a sensible desire, and I don't say it's not. The point \n my mind is merely that you have the want and must gratify it. We will sit down to- gether to-morrow, and get up a plan to move imme- diately upon her intrenchments. They will be guarded by her military papa, well versed, as one might suppose, in the science of defense, but we will carry them, nevertheless." The student looked up gratefully. "You are very kind, Frank. You have put cour- age into my heart. But let us not wait until to-mor- row. Give me some idea now that will send me to my room with new hope." It was a very serious matter to him, and the good- nature of his companion was affected instantly. "Well, my boy, let us see. The main thing is a beginning. Now, is it wiser to win the heart of the girl, and try to get the father's consent afterwards, or to train all our guns upon the colonel and trust to Miss Lettie's obeying him, as she is evidently in the habit of doing without protest." " I would never marry her unless she had learned to care for me," said Melton, earnestly. " We should have to wait a long time, I fear, at the best. I can- not think of a wife until I begin to do something at my profession, say in two years or so. All I hope for now is to gain a sort of foothold to let her understand my sentiments. I am willing to endure delay, but I want something to encourage me." Morley bowed with satisfaction. " In that case some way must be devised of getting the idea into the girl's head that you care for her. 52 AN ORIGINAL SINNEK. That will make it safe for you to wait, when she has begun to reciprocate, you know. As for the pater, he likes you already. Keep up your cribbage and you'll have him solid. When the final crash comes, offer him a corner in your mansion where he and you can keep on with the cards. Now, how can we get into communication with Miss Lettie ? I have a plan. What's the name of the girl you told me she chums with ? Bright, Bessie Bright, that's it. I will get acquainted with Bessie." He looked so confident that he had hit on a feas- ible scheme that Melton hesitated before he asked him how he was going to manage it. " I don't exactly know, myself," replied Frank, with another laugh. " Probably, I shall have to take a room there. I haven't the bashfulness with which you credit me, and if I want to get on speaking terms with anyone it doesn't take long to accom- plish it. I will ask my friend Bessie " " Your friend ?" " My friend that is to be." " Oh !" " I will ask her all about Miss Fuller, and her habits of going and coming, and the first you know, we shall all meet accidentally and you will have the opportunity to begin your suit. Then I shall be able, from time to time, to give you a lift by sound- ing your praises, which I cat? surely do with a good conscience. She Bessie will repeat what I tell her to Miss Lettie, and the seed will begin to take root." Melton was cheered by these expressions, for they showed that Frank was disposed to aid him, and he wanted his help very much. The friends parted at "SHE'S NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS." 53 the corner of Tremont street and West Chester Park, agreeing to meet on the following day at the Revere Club. Morley felt that his reputation as a prophet de- pended on his carrying out the plan which he had outlined to Mark, and on the second day after the suggestion he rang the bell at the house on Shawmut avenue, and inquired for Miss Bessie Bright. When that young lady appeared, he begged pardon for troubling her, mentioned the names of the Fullers as slight acquaintances of his, and asked whether there were any vacant lodgings to let. There were not, to his relief, for he did not want to establish himself on the premises, if he could help it. But he managed to prolong his stay for fifteen or twenty minutes, and to make himself agreeable to the young lady during that time. He spoke of in- tending to call on the Colonel, but was informed that the gentleman had gone out some minutes earlier, a fact of which he was very well aware, hav- ing waited in the vicinity till this occurred before he presented himself. "Miss Lettie is in, "said Bessie, glad to impart any information to so polite a young man. "And if you like I will tell her that you are here." "Oh, no," said he, lightly. "I could not think of troubling you. I can call at any time. However," he hesitated " if she likes to come down here a moment just to receive my regrets at missing her father" Bessie said she would call her, and retired to do so. Presently the girls returned together, and Lettie recognized Mr. Morley with a pleased smile. Then there seemed sufficient excuse for ten min- AN ORIGINAL SINNER. utes more of casual talk, and feeling that she was in a manner introduced now to this agreeable stranger, Miss Bessie thought she would be glad to meet him again. She said perhaps one of the rooms would be vacant in the course of a few weeks, as a lodger talked of moving ; and Frank said he should cer- tainly call to ascertain. In the presence of her friend, Miss Lettie remained nearly as taciturn as in that of her father, but Miss Bessie talked freely enough to make up for it. She was a typical New England girl, afraid of nothing under heaven, and vivacious to a degree. Upon the strength of Bessie's invitation Frank Morley came to the house several times during the next month, always when the Colonel happened to be out. And thinking it more proper than to be alone with him, Miss Bright usually went up to get Lettie to join the party. Frank was certainly making rapid progress in the interest of his friend. CHAPTER V. THE LAWS OF HEREDITY. The humorist as well as the chief cynic of the Revere Club was Silas Clarke, the tall, lanky fellow attached to the staff of the Evening Sphere. A good deal of his wit was at the expense of Charlie Wilkins, though there was a sort of friendship between the men, quite at variance with their extremely THE LAWS OF HEREDITY. 55 opposite natures and circumstances. Wilkins, who had inherited money, was provided abundantly with the necessary funds to make life comfortable. Clarke found his twenty dollars a week pretty short commons. Wilkins was always dressed in the height of fashion, if not beyond it. Clarke's clethes wore the appearance of having been made a long time ago for some other man. Wilkins, while by no means a fool, was an easy butt for those of his acquaintances who wanted to amuse themselves. Clarke was suspicious of pitfalls and seldom caught napping. If Clarke was short of money towards the latter end of a week and he usually was Wilkins was always ready to " lend " him some. If Charlie discovered, long after everybody else, that Clarke had been making a guy of him, he forgave the joker with the best humor and fell just as easily into the next snare set for his feet. Wilkins' chief weakness was a desire to get married to about every pretty girl he met. He had confided his partiality for several girls, one after another, to his friend Clarke, and was indebted to him for the fact that he still remained a bachelor. Clarke had a notion, aside from his tendency to find a joke in everything, that Charlie would be of much more use to him if he remained in a single state, and determined to keep him out of matrimony as long as possible. "It's a damned important thing, this getting married," said Silas to him, one day, at the club, when the rest of the boys were out. "A man must think of a good many things except his own taste and fancy. Really he is about the last person whose pleasure should be consulted." 56 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. " Gwa-cious ! " exclaimed Charlie, struck with astonishment. "The present system is all wrong," pursued Clarke, delighted at the close attention he was re- ceiving. " It is left to the man to propose. Tha initiative and referendum, as they say in Switzerland, are entirely with him. Now you will readily see that it ought to rest with the woman. She is the one who has got to stand or fall by the bargain. And there are others too seldom considered the prospective children." Wilkins uttered another exclamation. " You had not thought of them !" said Clarke, dryly. " No, I will wager not. Do you ever think of anything? What did you imagine marriage to be, a picnic ? Did you have an impression that it was a sort of clambake, with watermelon and green corn ad libitum ? I am ashamed of you, Mr. Wilkins ! " Whenever Clarke got so far as to apply the word " Mister " to his friend, Charlie always fell into the deepest melancholy. " Now this girl that you called my attention to this morning," Clarke went on, with an air of re- proach. " Of what nationality, what race is she ? Did you pause to consider that question at all ? Did you reflect on anything except the condition of your pulse ? You are an American, brought op after the manner of your countrymen. She is a Jewess. Don't tell me you didn't know it." Wilkins stammered that he did know it, and knew it very well, but that she was unusually pretty and well bred. " Pretty and well bred !" echoed Clarke, scorn* THE LAWS OF HEREDITY. 57 fully. " That is a great consideration, isn't it ? Have you studied the laws of heredity, Mr. Wilkins? Are you aware that your sons, should you marry this woman, would be Sheeneys ?" " Bali Jove ! " uttered Charlie, growing faint. " Have you reflected that, notwithstanding the beauty of the mother, these sons of yours might and probably would have hooked noses and round shoulders ? Are you aware that in consummating such a union you would doom yourself to become the father of old-clothes merchants and peripatetic peddlers ? Of course you have not given that little matter any thought ! And as children almost invariably follow the religion of their mothers* would it not be agreeable to listen to the wails of your boys as they were subjected to the rite of Moses before a large and interested congregation ?" " Howible !" came from the shaking auditor. "'Abraham Wilkins!' ' Lew Wilkins!' 'Moses Wilkins!'" pursued the tormentor. "How nice those names would sound ! She would present you with at least a dozen of them, for the fecundity of Jewesses is well known. Then her relations would throng your house at the ten thousand feasts of your wife's church Isaac, Simeon, Noah, and the rest, until you couldn't tell whether you were in Boston or Jerusalem !" From the pale lips there issued a murmur of pro- test. " Shall I go on ?" demanded Clarke. "Oh, no! Thede-vil!" *' This will be the first and last chapter of Hebrews for you, I hope," continued Silas, with severity. "Supposing you had not happened to confide in me, 58 AN ORIGINAL 8INNEK. but had gone on and married this girl ? Take warn- ing and never follow your inclinations, for they will certainly lead you to sheol !" " Oh-me-Gard !" The entrance of Frank Morley, Mark Melton and several other members of the club, put a stop to this conversation. Wilkins' depressed appearance was noticed, but several sly winks from Silas prevented the asking of any questions at that time. Lunches were ordered and other subjects were debated around the tables. The recuperative powers of Wilkins were so great that in the course of five minutes he appeared to have forgotten the beautiful Jewess for whom he felt quite willing to die that morning. He ate as heartily as the others, and even entered into their discussions with his ordinary interest. " Where's that preacher-brother you were telling us about?" asked Clarke of Morley, who had taken a seat at table exactly opposite to him. " I'm dying to see that fellow." " He's coming to Boston some time this winter," replied Frank, calmly. "You'll have a chance to argue all you like, then. But he'll floor you. He's got the alpha and omega of theology at the ends of his fingers." "Strange what a difference there can be in broth- ers !" interposed the young man from the leather- store on High street." Morley ignored the covert sarcasm. "Yes," he answered, "Clyde and I are not much alike, except in personal appearance." Wilkins' thoughts were back for a moment to the subject of heredity, which had interested him immensely. THE LAWS OF HEREDITY. 59 " I think that's the stwan-gest thing," he drawled. " Being born of one mo-ther at one ti-me, a fellow would think you ought to be exact pa-wallels in ev-\vything." Morley bowed assent to the proposition. " Nature's a queer old lady," said he. " She seems to take delight in contrasts. Now, Clyde thinks he was sent upon this earth to regenerate it. All the sins and woes of mankind bear on his indi- vidual frame. His twin brother thinks it quite enough to look out for No. i. He goes through life with his eyes fixed on the ground, while I " " Raise them at least to the height of a pretty girl's boots," laughed Clarke. " I haven't forgotten the day you showed us ' the best shod woman in Boston." And I know now who she is, too, for I reported a military ball the other night at which she danced with her father. Yes," he added, pleased at having attracted the attention of everyone in the room, " and quite as pretty I found her on a nearer view as she appeared on the sidewalk. But my opportunity to observe her was cut short by her departure before eleven o'clock with another pretty girl who had come for her in a carriage. However, I got intro- duced to the old man, and made the best impression I could on him." He intimated so much more than he said that the hearers grew quite envious of him, at least all but two, who had much stronger feelings. And one remarked audibly that no one had quite the oppor- tunities of a newspaper man, who could go every- where and meet everybody. "In personal appearance, as I was saying," said Morley, to put a stop to this> " there is a strong 60 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. resemblance between me and my brother. So much, in fact, that we have been mistaken for each other. Clyde was asked one day on a railroad train to take a hand at a game of euchre, which he would not have touched for his life ; and the last time I was at home, I was requested to lead in prayer at a church meeting." This was considered sufficiently funny to draw a laugh from everyone present. The conversation, however, soon took another turn, and when Morley and Melton had finished their lunch they strolled down the street together. CHAPTER VI. "I LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER." The month was October. As they reached tha Common a gust of autumn wind blew around them the first dry leaves of the elms. It was chilly and the pedestrians whom they met walked rapidly. " How many times have you met her now ?" asked Mark, anxiously. " Four," replied Morley, with a smile. " I am a welcome visitor, if I am any judge. And so would you be if you were not so dreadfully afraid of your- self. I thought, that time you called there with me, you would faint away before I got you out again." Melton looked discouraged. " I know I acted like a dunce," he admitted, " but you are so perfectly easy under all circumstances *I LOVE YOtTR DAUGHTEB." 61 that your presence makes me the more constrained. I talked well enough with her the first time I called, but then I had not conceived the idea of trying to make her mine for life." "All the more reason why you should brace up now/' laughed Morley. "You will have to do your own proposing. I have succeeded in establishing a foothold at Miss Bessie's through which I can bring you into the presence of your loved one, but it is for you to do the rest. Miss Fuller's case is different from any other that I have ever known. She does not guess in advance what one is going to say. It is easy to see that her heart and her experiences are entirely virgin. I tried to hint to her something of the state of your feelings, the last time I was there, and she did not seem to understand me in the least. You will have to put on a very different front from your present one, if you expect to gain any standing in that quarter. I am not sure, after all, but your best course is to go direct to the Colonel. She is such a dutiful child, she will do anything he tells her. If he says, ' My dear, you will please marry Mr. Melton,* it will be quite the same to her as if he said, ' Lettie, it is ten o'clock and time you were in bed.' " It did not strike Melton, any more than it had on the previous occasion, that the right way to win a wife was through the medium of her father. He felt that the first thing was to make an impression on the damsel herself. He believed that when he had gained her affection it would give him courage to brave the presence of all the retired colonels in the world. The young men continued their walk along the mall, into Tremont street again and then into Shawmut avenue, 62 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. for it had been agreed between them that they would make another call upon Miss Bright and her friend that very afternoon. When Miss Bessie appeared and escorted them into the small parlor, Mark felt that he was brave enough to dare anything. When she went upstairs and returned with Miss Lettie he found that his bravery had oozed out of the pores of his skin and that he was as great a coward as ever. There was, truth to tell, but little opportunity to make clear the state of his mind, with another couple present, but \ie thought Lettie ought to see it in his eyes or detect it in his voice, and it was evident she did nothing of the kind. She did not seem to have the least embarrassment in his presence. The quartette laughed and talked together like other acquaintances, and when the time came to go, Mark knew that, so far as his objects were concerned, he stood exactly where he did when he entered the house. " I can't bear it !" he exclaimed, impatiently, as the pair walked back toward the business centre. " I shall go to the Colonel and talk to him. It is the only way. As disagreeable as it is, I must do it. I am used to men. The most he can do is to kick me down stairs. I shall never be content till I have tried. At present this matter is seriously interfer- ing with my studies. I think of it night and day. If I am led to hope that Lettie will marry me I can renew my efforts to take high rank in my class. If I find that I must give her up well, it won't make much difference." Morley stood on the sidewalk and took his com- panion by the arm, to shake him with mock anger. That's enough of that kind of talk, Mark," he **I LOTE YOTJB DAUGHTER." 63 said. " You're not going to be made a fool of by any woman, no matter how attractive she is. The poet hit the nail on the head when he wrote ' If she be not fair to me, What care I how fair she be.* You want the Colonel's pretty daughter, and I hope as long as 3^>u do want her you'll succeed. But if tf-ou fail v "on't do anything worse than pass a couple of sleepless nights and then go back to your studies with twice the vim you had before. Going to the devil for a woman is a trick of novel heroes, not of flesh and blood men ! If we're to be friends, let's have no more of that sort of thing." Melton was silent. He felt that his entire future depended on that bit of femininity he had just left. He was not the only young man in the world even outside of novels who has had feelings of that kind. And, for the time, they were very real to him. He had an engagement the very next evening to play a game at Col. Fuller's, and during the time that elapsed he screwed his courage up to the task of mak- ing some sort of a beginning of introducing the sub- ject that lay nearest his heart. The evening came. The game proceeded as usual, with Miss Lettie sitting nearby, half-absorbed in a paper-covered book. Mark sat at the table so that the girl was opposite to him, and behind her father, but not by the utmost effort could he obtain the least attention from her of a surreptitious nature. Miss Fuller seemed wholly unacquainted with even the alphabet of flirtation r and Mark did not expect any exhibition that implied AN ORIGINAL SINNER. a warmer feeling. The hands of the mantel clocfc pointed to ten when she rose, as punctual as the time-piece itself, to bid her father and his guest good-night. The kiss she gave the Colonel and the parting salutation with which she left his visitor were neither more nor less impressive than on each former occasion. Melton had lost almost everything that evening. It was hard for him to fix his mind on such stupid things as cards in the presence of a much more important thought. He had determined to say something, though he did not know how far his courage would permit him to go. " I shall graduate next June," he remarked, as he moved his chair back a little from the table, when the last game was finished. " So you have told me." Mark thought for a second how much truth there was in this quiet observation. He must have men- tioned the fact to Col. Fuller a dozen times or more, since he had known him. " To be sure," he stammered. " I was only going to say that after I graduate I intend to begin at once the practice of medicine in this city." " Better go away," was the Colonel's brusque sug- gestion. " Boston has too many doctors now. There are some streets almost full of them." There was not much encouragement in this. " I am going to begin practice at once after grad- uating," repeated Mark, feeling like an amateur actor under the eye of a severely strict stage mana- ger, " either in Boston or some other city. I have not much money, but I think I shall be able to make myself a position in a short time." He rather liked "l LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER.* 65 the sound of that phrase. " I I want to get estab- lished, and as soon as I find myself able tc do so I want to get married." It was out now ! No, it wasn't. Col. Fuller evi- dently had not the least notion that this intention had any reference to his household. "That's a foolish idea," he commented, with the freedom for which he was famous. " No man ought to marry before he is thirty. I didn't, and," his face darkened, "if I hadn't married at all, it would have been quite as well. A wife drags a young man down. He needs a number of years' start in life before he encumbers himself with extra baggage. Women of the present age want too much. Why, it has cost me six hundred dollars in the last twelve months to dress merely to dress that child of mine !" Happiness ! The name of Lettie had got into the Conversation without Mark's bringing it there ! "Miss Fuller certainly dresses with exquisite taste," he remarked. "Does she?" growled the military gentleman, " I don't know anything about that. I know it costs like the devil for her clothes. It's about as much as my half-pay will do to meet my bills." Was this a point in his armor that the young aspir- ant for the hand of that girl might fairly punc- ture ? It did not seem to Melton that six hundred dollars was too great an investment for the clothing of that beautiful creature. He would be most happy could the expenditure of that sum be transferred to him. The income of any half-successful physician would be ample to meet that slight drain. * You cannot hope, he said, slowly, " that th 66 AN ORIGINAL 8INNEB. pleasure of paying her bills will always remain your own." Col. Fuller, whose military bearing never entirely left him, seemed to grow more erect than ever as he listened to these audacious words. " Will you kindly explain your meaning ?" he asked-, frigidly. Now that he was near enough to the enemy in the words of the commander at Bunker Hill to " see the whites of his eyes," Melton felt that it was no time to falter. " I mean, sir," he answered, respectfully, "that a young lady of your daughter's goodness and beauty will not be without suitors. And that the day must come when you will have to surrender her to the care of a husband." Col.Fuller'seyes were fixed in no agreeable way upon the author of this sentiment and, as the young man rfinished, a slight shade of contempt appeared there. "I hardly know how to understand your remarks," ilie said, icily. " I do not know what gives you any right to address such observations to me. My family affairs are my own. Because you have been invited ihere to play a game of cards is no reason why you should trench upon a subject with which you cannot possibly have anything to do." He had gone too far to retreat now. Mark felt that he must know his fate before he left the house. "My excuse is this, Col. Fuller," he answered, boldly. " I love your daughter. I want your per* mission to seek to win her. If I succeed in doing so, I shall have the best possible incentive to make a name and fortune at my profession. I consider my- ftelf a man of honor, and I cannot see anything dig* W I LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER."' 67 reputable in entertaining the hope that some day, when I am in a pecuniary condition to assume the care of a wife, I may claim the only woman I have ever loved." Col. Fuller seemed too astounded for some mo- ments to reply. He looked like one who had heard things he could not comprehend. " I don't know what you are talking about," he broke forth at last. " You are a lad yet a school- boy, to put it accurately. How old are you ? Twenty-three or four. You have no money to speak of. Your success in life is still problematical. The last thing that should be in your head at present is an affair of love. But the absurdity grows greater when you talk of being allowed to whisper such things to a young girl like my Lettie. Why, she is the merest child hardly twenty and knows about as much what marriage means as one of the dolls she has but recently discarded. By George, Mel- ton, I don't know whether to get angry with you or to extend you my sympathy ! For, take my word for it, you are on a dangerous road. I took you for a sensible young fellow, whom I was glad to know a creditable son to one of the bravest fathers that ever rode into battle. Are you going to turn out an addle-pated milksop, talking of girls and marriage before you are out of college ? Upon my word, I thought better of you !" The voice had become so much kinder toward the last than it was at the beginning of this philippic that Melton brightened a little. " Forgive me, Colonel, if I have offended you," he said, earnestly, " but this is a serious thing to me. I am not talking to you about contracting marriage 68 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. at present, quite the contrary. All I wish to know is that when I am able to do so and it will not be so far away, either the one I have learned to love with no slight devotion will not, on account of my silence, be pledged to another. If you do not wish me to speak to her on this subject I promise not to do so. But I beg you not to treat my state- ment lightly, for unless I can marry Miss Lettie I shall be single to the end of my life." The elder man looked puzzled for a moment, and then burst into a good-natured laugh. 44 1 cannot get over the ludicrousness of the thing," he said. "You are such a boy to come seriously with that kind of a proposition. I will say this, how- ever. Perhaps, if it was five years later, and you were established in a paying business had, let us say, ten thousand dollars, even, to your credit in the bank I would not give my child to any one with more willingness than to the son of my old com- panion-in-arms, Maj. Melton. At present, all talk of the kind is simply ridiculous, and you will see it when you go home and quietly think it over. Let me set your mind at rest on one point, though. You have no rival to fear. I think my child has never spoken in private to a man in her life, unless it was the first evening you came here. If I were to give you full leave to say what you please to her, she would not understand a word. She would come to me when you had gone and say, ' Papa, what was Mr. Melton talking about ?' And it will not be to-day nor to-morrow that she gains greater wisdom. I have enough to support her and myself in a modest way, thank God ! and she shall keep her innocence a little longer." "l LOVE TOUB DAUGHTER." 69 It was not at all what Mark wanted, but he was fain to be content. He assured the Colonel that he should at some future date return with additional years and fortune to repeat his request. The father of his beloved smilingly met this proposition and they parted as usual, with the next night for cribbage the last word on the Colonel's lips. At noon the next day Mark told Frank Morley, nearly word for word, all that had passed at the Colonel's rooms. " You did very well," was the latter's comment. "Very well, indeed. Buoyed up by hope, the five years won't go so slow as you might think. I'm not so sure about the ten thousand, though. That's a more doubtful matter." Mark responded that this was the least of his fears. He would get the money, if he had to amputate some fellow's head instead of an arm or a finger. " The old man must be a fool, though," mused Morley, after he had gone his way, " if he really thinks any girl of twenty in this age is as blankly innocent as he pretends his Lettie is. I wonder if he ever reads those yellow novels of hers. Can she be merely a white page, without a pencil mark upon it ? I believe I'll make it my business to find out." 70 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. CHAPTER VII. WAS LETTIE IN LOVE ? As any one acquainted ever so little with the work- ings of the feminine mind may have imagined, Miss Lettie Fuller had been giving a good deal more thought to the two young men who had come to visit her father than she showed on the surface. All the repression in the world does not prevent a girl from thinking of the other sex when she has reached the age of twenty. The novels that she freely purchased told of love and lovers. They de- picted the heartaches of sorrowful maidens and the restless nights of smitten swains. She had not yet reached a point where she could fully sympathize with the serious way in which these subjects were treated, but to say the least she was much interested in them. She knew that the chief end of a woman's life was marriage, and that " old maids " were seldom spoken of except in a pitying or contemptuous way. It followed, then, that she Miss Lettie Fuller would probably become, in the course of time, Mrs. Somebody Else. And it was very natural that she should let her thoughts roam a little into that other pasture when the only two young men she had ever had near her were en evidence. To Lettie her father had always been absolute. She had obeyed him as rigidly as any of the soldiers he used to command, and if he had given out decorations for good behavior she would surely WAS LETTIE IN LOVE? 71 have worn a handsome number of them. There was no friction between them, for when one orders and the other obeys without question there is little chance for that sort of thing. The Colonel had a limited income, the exact extent of which he knew. His taste were moderate and he had been quite wil- ling, notwithstanding the sharp way in which he quoted the figures to Melton, that Lettie should use all unexpended balances in adorning herself. He did not know that she had attracted wide attention on account of the excellence of her dress, and would not have been pleased to learn the fact. He considered her still his "child," whom he purposely kept in ignorance of the world as long as he could, feeling that it was best for her to postpone the advent of responsible womanhood to the latest possible moment. Finding his own pleasure best served at the Veterans' Club, lie was glad Lettie had such a com- panion as Miss Bessie Bright. To him they were not "young ladies," who might attract the attention of men, but mere girls, as safe to send out of doors as they had been ten years before, when they went to the grammar school. Lettie always told him, of her own accord, where she had passed the afternoon, if she went out, and in the evening she did not go unless the landlady accompanied her, except on those rare occasions when her father went himself. When the clock pointed to ten she gave him the good-night kiss and retired to her little bedroom. Discipline could hardly be more perfect than this, according to the ideas of the retired officer, who had written a book on that very subject, as applied to the army, and ought to know what he was talking about. 72 AN OBIGINAL SINNER. Bessie and Lettie had many conversations regard- ing the young men, which would have been far from pleasing to the Colonel could he have heard them. Bessie was the more talkative of the twain, but Lettie proved a good listener, which is not the least important part of a good conversation. "I wish your father didn't keep you so strict," said Bessie, on one of those afternoons when the " boys," as they called them, had been at the house. H It is such a pity that we cannot go to a matinee or \o ride with them." Lettie opened her blue eyes wider, but did not otherwise reply. She was wondering how it would seem to be riding out with two young gentlemen, and whether it was really such an improper thing as is appeared at first thought. " They're as nice a pair of fellows as I ever met," continued Bessie. " Mr. Morley is awfully jolly, isn't he? Mr. Melton is the still one, but he looks a thousand things, if he doesn't say them. I shouldn't wonder if he went up to your august papa some day and asked him for your hand." Lettie gave a little start. "Oh, Bessie !" she exclaimed. " Well, it wouldn't be so wonderful, "persisted her friend. " Frank I mean Mr. Morley has told me a good deal about him. He is the straightest young fellow in the world, and devoted to his studies. Next summer he graduates, and will go at once to practicing medicine. Certainly if any one needs a wife it is a doctor, and he never takes his eyes off you when he is here." Lettie shivered, not enough to attract attention. Sbc was thinking of the inside of a doctor's office, a WAS LETTIK IN LOVE? 73 surgeon's, with bandages and arnica and the general impression of suffering that goes with them. So wrapt up was she in the disagreeableness of this idea that she quite forgot to remonstrate with Miss Bright for the character of her observation, as she at first intended to do. " You make me smile, sometimes, my dear," pur- sued the vivacious girl. " One would imagine you were in short clothes, to listen to you and your father. Why, you are twenty, a whole year older than I, four years older than my own mother was when she married my father." This drew out an observation from the listener. " Married at sixteen, Bessie ? That's much too early !" "My mamma didn't think so, bless her heart!" was the reply. " And for my part I'm glad of it, for if she had waited five or six years I should be only just entering my teens, and of all ages I think that is the meanest. Now, auntie doesn't put any particular restrictions on me. I could go with Frank of course, I mean Mr. Morley ; I wonder why I always use his first name if I chose, to the theatre or to drive. But the fact is I am a little afraid to go with him alone, and I should like it so well if w? could make up the party of four. He hasn't really asked me to go except with you two, but I know he would if he thought it would be of any use." Miss Fuller concluded from these statements that she was acting as a damper on the pleasures of her friend and was sorry for it. " There is nothing to keep you from going with 1 Frank,' " she said, putt ; ~* an emphasis on the 74 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " if you wish to. I don't see, myself, why you should hesitate." "Well, there isn't any reason," replied the girl, laughing and blushing, " unless you won't laugh at me, Lettie, will you ? unless it is because I like him too much." Miss Fuller opened her eyes wider than ever. Was it possible that she was in the personal presence of a real Romance, like those she had read of in thtf books with covers of yellow ? Was her friend Bessie struck with that strange complaint of which she had dreamed and wondered ? "You don't mean," she said slowly, " that you are in 1-o-v-e ?" At this pointed question Bessie blushed more than ever. " I I don't know exactly what I mean," she answered, nervously. " It isn't right, I suppose, for a girl to get in love until the adored one gives some direct indication of the state of his own feelings. But I tell you this, Lettie, because you are the only confidant I have I do like Frank." She hesitated, as the name came out and Lettie responded, simply " That is right, Bessie. I don't see why you should not call him Frank to me." " I'm afraid I shall call him that to his face next," smiled Bessie, heaving a sigh. " And I'm sure I don't want to do it just yet, though he's told me I ought. He always talks with me a little while, you know, when he first comes, before I go up to call you, and he say some very nice things. Nothing to mean anything, though," she added ruefully. WAS LETTIE IN LOVE? 75 This had become more interesting to the listener than any novel she had ever read. " What does he say ?" she asked. " Oh, just ordinary things. Only, sometimes, he adds that I am looking well, or that I ought to take the air more. And then he asks if you could not arrange it to go with him and Mark he says Mark and me, on some kind of an excursion. And when I tell him that I am afraid it could not be done, he looks discouraged and I get desperate." The Colonel's daughter was very immobile. " I wonder why he never says anything about it when 7am there," she said. " I tell him it would be useless," explained Bessie. "I know your father so well that I thought it best not to let Frank trouble you with such a request." "You are very kind." There was irony in this response, but Bessie Bright did not notice it. It was the first bit of irony that had ever passed the lips of Lettie Fuller, and she hardly recognized its quality herseK. Behind it was a faint touch of jealousy. She did not like it because Frank Morley had been so much more confidential with Miss Bright than with her ; and the reason given that his friend Melton had eyes for her alon< was no more pleasing. There arose in her breast an incipient rebellion against the strictness of her father, which would, she knew, forbid the use of their apartment for the purpose of receiving the visits of these young men, even in the presence of Miss Bright, whom he trusted implicitly. She had never broached the subject to him, but she understood the tenor of his mind too well to have any doubt about the mat- ter. It seemed to her true, what Bessie said, that 76 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. she was quite old enough to be released a little from leading strings. " Mr. Morley has told me a great deal about his friend," Bessie went on to say, after a momentary pause. " Do you want to hear it ?" Miss Fuller thought nothing could fail to interest her that Frank Morley had said and she indicated an affirmative. "Well, the first time he came, that night your father was out, he conceived a great admiration for you. He told Frank about you a few days after. You were passing a club to which they belong and some of the members noticed you, and when you were out of sight Mr. Melton said he knew you a little and that your father was a friend of his. And Frank says it was easy to see even then the impression you made on him. And he says he has come to play cards with the Colonel solely on your account, and that he will be sure to speak out before a great while." Another mental glance at the contents of an imaginary surgeon's office came to Miss Lettie, and she shuddered at the sights and scents she found there. " I wonder why he waits so long," she said, coolly. The irony was there again, for in the last ten minutes this girl had learned the use of that most subtle and dangerous weapon. Miss Bessie looked at her friend with astonish- ment, for the double nature of her reply was lost on her. " How can he do anything," she asked, " when he has no opportunity to meet you alone ? A man can WAS LETTIE IN LOVE? 77 hardly say, 'I love you,' when there are other per- sons present." " I love you /" What strange, mysterious meaning there was in those words. For the first time in her life Lettie Fuller realized that they might mean some- thing to her if spoken by the right lips. " No, that is true," she said, absently, as the nature of Bessie's observation dawned upon her through the mist. " I would not like to advise you to deceive your father," added Bessie, covertly, " but at the same time I doubt if you will ever receive a declaration of love in any other way. If you insist on telling each evening every step you have taken during the day, you can't get far. Of course, you could meet him here, in my parlor, and Frank and I could make an excuse to go out for a walk ; but that would look too much like a plan. Wouldn't it ?" Miss Lettie assented, saying it would look quite too much like a plan, and that she could not think of it. " He might write to you, as I was telling Frank yesterday," continued the young matchmaker, "but there is need of something like a preliminary talk. And he is mortally afraid of you, beside. He does not know but you would take his letter direct to the Colonel, and that his visits to your apartment for the sake of cribbage would be cut short in conse- quence." The Colonel's daughter nodded her opinion that there was certainly something in that. She knew, however, that she should never take such a letter to her father, and that from this day forth she should never put implicit confidence in him. It seemed as T8 AN ORIGINAL SINNEK. if he had set out to work her an injury, and that it had become necessary to defe-nd herself. 44 But he has had a talk with the Colonel already," said Bessie, guardedly. "Frank told me not to tell you of this yet, but I can't help it. You might as well know. He told him he loved you, night before last" Miss Lettie rose from her chair in sheer amaze- ment. " Bessie !" she exclaimed. 44 It is the truth." 44 Mr. Melton told my father " " Yes." The blue eyes grew angry. 41 Without speaking to me " "That is exactly what he asked leave to do," said Bessie, sorry that she had broken her promise to Morley. She had never seen Lettie with that expression on her face, and dreaded the storm that seemed to be gathering. " And what did my father tell him ?" asked Lettie, coldly. The red lips were set close together as they awaited the reply. " He said you were both too young to think of such matters, and that Mr. Melton must wait till he was older and had an established business." " How long did he think he should wait ? Did he set any time ?" Sarcasm, deep and strong, was in these words, but the hearer did not suspect them. " Five or six years, I think he said. But Mr. Melton has no idea of carrying out that plan. He means to propose as soon as he feels that he has WAS LETTIE IN LOVE ? 79 enough business to feel certain of being able to sup- port you." Miss Fuller winced. Her indignation had been growing steadily stronger. At that moment she almost hated her father. What right had he to tell this impudent young man anything that implied a right to hope for her consent to marry him. "When he could support her," indeed ! It seemed the height of assurance for him to say anything whatever to her father about her. His course might be very high- toned and honorable, but it was also very absurd. Perhaps she might have learned to like him had he pursued the usual methods, but now she was sure she should always detest him. It was lucky he had been put off by the Colonel, or he might hava gained courage to come with his proposal at once. Lettie was so little acquainted with love matters that she hardly felt equal yet even to the task ot refusing an applicant for her hand. She hoped Mr. Melton would not be so silly as to press his suit at present, for she would not only have to refuse him, but she might not be able to do it in the correct and graceful style of which she had read in the yellow- covered story !^ooks. " Well, he won't trouble me for some time," she answered, with a forced laugh, " if he waits till his financial ability is equal to the emergency." "It's better than plunging into marriage as so many do," responded Bessie, " when they've not got a penny to buy bread. Though, if / loved a man," and here her eyes grew dreamy, " I wouldn't care how poor he was.' Miss Fuller looked at her searchingly. * And you do love one," she said. SO AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " Oh," cried Bessie, with a start, " I don't know as I exactly love him ! I haven't known him so very long, you know. But, really, he's nice ; don't you think so ?" And Lettie said, yes, she thought he was very nice indeed, and that she hoped Bessie would marry him and that they would be happy all their lives. And when she had left her friend, and was in the seclusion of her own room, she took a tumbler that lay on the bureau and broke it between her fin- gers. The art of dissimulation is one of the weapons given to women, in their contest with the world. Lettie Fuller met her father at dinner, with the quiet face with which he was so familiar, and he never dreamed that under that calm exterior a raging cal dron had begun to seethe and bubble. CHAPTER VIII. A PICTURE OF INNOCENCB. Another month passed away. Frank Morley no longer stayed at the Quincy House. He had a room on Shawmut avenue, where the Fullers lived and where Miss Bessie Bright's aunt officiated as land- lady. When a chamber was vacated, he went up to look at it, with Bessie as his guide, and found it very pleasant indeed. The room seemed full of sunshine, partly, no doubt, because the happy young girl was there, and it contrasted favorably with the little A PICTCKE OF INNOCENCE. 81 closet-like apartment that he occupied in the hotel. The price was less than he was paying, so there could be no objection on that score. Had it been higher he would have taken it just the same. And it augured for what was to come when he placed his arm about Bessie's waist and snatched a kiss, " to seal the bargain," (as he said) before they descended again to the lower floor. I am not going to pretend that this was a strictly proper piece of conduct on the part of either of these young people, for Bessie deserves her full share of blame for not protesting. To be sure she said, in a surprised tone, " Oh, Frank !" but there was nothing in her voice to imply that she seriously objected to the familiarity. She had fallen so deeply in love with the young fellow that she had, in the familiar parlance, " lost her head " completely. He had said nothing to her that could be construed into a declar- ation nothing, in fact, but what any man might say to any woman with whom he was acquainted. But Bessie's nature was as warm as the auburn haiir on her head, and she could not resist the impulses that thronged to her giddy brain. One kiss given and taken without protest is apt to be followed by others, and Frank was not slow in accepting the opportunities that his residence in the house gave him. Mrs. Bright, the widowed aunt of Miss Bessie, liked him from the start, and made no objection when Bessie said he had asked her to accompany him to the theatre or for a walk to the Common or Public Garden. She had been brought up had the elder lady in the country, where every man is supposed innocent till he is proved guilty, and she was rather flattered that such a young gen* 82 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. tleman as Mr. Morley should take such an interest in her niece. He was studying law, and would un- doubtedly become a great pleader in time. Bessie must ultimately marry, and why should she discour- age a friendship that seemed so auspicious ? Had Mrs. Bright happened to be where she could see the frequent embraces and stolen kisses she might have whispered a word of caution in the ear of her niece, but even then she would not have considered these acts anything worthy of great denunciation. She had been a girl herself, and in the Maine town where she had married, a little love-making of this sort was not objected to by the most careful parents. All they thought necessary was to tell the girls that men were not always to be trusted, and that a great deal of common-sense must be kept in requisition. It was November when Mr. Morley changed his lodgings, and one of the first things he did after becoming established in his new home was to get on still more intimate terms with Col. Fuller. He did not play cribbage, and consequently could not use that avenue to his good will, which Mark Melton had found so happily open. But he had a fund of humor that the Colonel began to fancy, a way of arguing with and then agreeing with him, that flattered his pride. Col. Fuller liked controversy, but could not bear contradiction. He was never happier than when he had beaten an opponent in a dispute, and Frank very early discovered this trait of his. He resolved to humor the ex-officer " to the top of his bent." When the Colonel found that Frank always had to admit that he was in the wrong, he liked his society immensely, and encouraged him A PICTURE OF INNOCENCE. 83 fco come up and spend as many evenings as he liked in his sitting-room. Poor Melton used to hear with a faint feeling of envy of the pleasant hours that Morley passed in this way, for the only time Mark could get into the Colonel's apartment with any show of excuse was on the cribbage nights, now reduced to one each week. On these occasions it was painfully evident that it was the game and not his visitor for which the Colonel cared, though he never let the evening pass without some allusion to his old friend, Maj. Melton, whom he had loved like a brother. Frank had that off-hand way which made it easy for him to step in at any time, for a minute or two, as he used to say, and to step out again if he saw that was the best thing to do. But he was generally welcome, and Col. Fuller began to be missed at his club quite often before the year ended. Miss Lettie occupied the same position, to all appearance, with reference to the two gentlemen, that she did when Frank moved into the house. She seemed the same obedient daughter, the same picture of innocence and guilelessness. She always had a book in her hand or some fancy-work in her lap in front of the open grate, sometimes busy upon it and often idling with her eyes on the coals. Look up as suddenly as he might, never could Morley find her gaze fixed on him, or detect her listening to the con- versation between him and her father, which she heard, to be sure, but did not seem to notice. At ten there was the invariable putting down of the work or the book, the good-night kiss for her father and the courteous adieu to himself. Night after night, when he was there, it was always these things 84 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. and nothing more, and the steady watcher found himself puzzled to know what to make of her. " She's not a fool," he used to mutter. " She knows more than she appears to ; but how well she carries off her little game !" Melton talked with him every day about the matter so near to his heart, and the only advice he received was, the one so tiresome under all circumstances, to " have patience." Nothing was to be gained by precipitation, Morley told him. Things must take their course. It would be useless to attack the Colonel again, for the old boy was quick-tempered and might throw cold water over the whole affair. Mark could see for himself how little Lettie under- stood his feelings, and could judge the probabil- ity of the effect of trying to make them plain to her. " Let things take their course," he said, repeatedly. " Study like a Trojan, and graduate with high honors. Then buy a saw and a ton of senna and proceed to make a place for yourself among the other humbugs in your line. Show that you are a man, and not the schoolboy with which he taunted you. Then come to him again, and he will make your road easy, take my word for it." Melton tried to be encouraged by this, but did not find it exactly what he wanted. "I wish I had your way of doing things," he answered. "If you were in my place, and had your mind fixed on Miss Fuller, you would have managed to tell her so and to secure her consent long before now. Her father would have been your ally from the first, and next spring, practice or no practice, you would have been able to call her yours." Morley gave a shake to his head. A PICTURE OF INNOCENCE. 85 " If I were in your place," he corrected, " I should think of anything sooner than marriage. The old gentleman was right, after all. You need a hun- dred things much more than you need a wife. I have only consented to help you because I know when sucli a delusion strikes a man it is as real to him as if it were true." "And you never intend to marry ?" "My dear boy," replied Morley, " what sort of a husband would / make ? Leave my desires out of the question, you ought to have some pity for the woman I might be crazy enough to wed." Mark looked serious. " There is a girl who is learning to think a great deal of you," he said. " If you are indeed a confirmed bachelor, you ought to let her know it before she gets her affections too deeply enlisted." Morley knew very well whom Melton meant, but he affected surprise for an instant. " I can't think of any one who fits your descrip- tion," he said, slowly, " unless it's the little straw- berry blonde niece of my landlady." Melton's indignation showed for an instant in his countenance. "You're not heartless, and yet you often like to appear so," he said. " You must have noticed how much Bessie thinks of you, and you have no right to permit it unless you mean something by your attentions." The law student elevated his eyebrows. " Attentions, Mark ?" he replied. " What do you mean going to two or three matinees and for an occasional walk ? Is Miss Bright unable to bear those ' attentions ' without unsettling her brain ? I 86 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. won't do her the injustice to believe you. But, to make sure, I will mention, the next time we are alone together, that I am cut out for a single man and shall never put the cords of wedlock about my neck." " You ought to tell her that," said Mark, earnestly. "You ought to tell her as if you meant it, too." Morley was struck by the sincerity of his compan- ion's manner. "I think my life is made up mainly of the things I should not do," he said. " I am a walking exempli- fication of the lines in the Episcopal prayer-book, about doing those things we ought not to have done, and leaving undone those things we ought to have done. But I'll tell Bessie, if you say so. I'll even get a card painted, containing the fact, and wear it around my throat like a dog-collar, for the benefit of all other maidens concerned. I don't mean to be frivolous, but I never cared enough about a girl to see why one should honor me with her special con- sideration." Melton's thoughts flowed slower than those of his companion, and he revolved his statement for some moments in his mind before answering. " I am surprised, Frank," he said, finally. " I thought you went to her house and took a room on purpose to be near her." Morley laughed despairingly. " It is ever the reward of virtue to be misunder- stood," he said, dismally. " Now the fact is that I took that room so as to get on better and more intimate terms with quite another family." Mark uttered an exclamation. " The Fullers !" he cried. " Oh, Frank, I beg your pardon ! Why did I not realize it before ? Your A PICTURE OF INNOCENCE. 87 went there solely on my account, and I never had the wU to see it." He grasped his friend's hand warmly, but as soon as he could easily do so, Frank drew it away. He did not like that sort of thing. " I went there to be near the Fullers," he repeated. *" I am succeeding very well in making their acquaint- ance. When the time comes for you to speak out again, it may not be so bad to have a friend and champion near the throne." Melton's gratitude showed itself in many expres- sions of good-will, to which Morley paid little atten- tion. He was thinking of Bessie and wondering how he should keep his promise. The easiest way was not to keep it at all, and after considerable debate in his mind he came to the conclusion that this was just what he probably should do. He had an idea that were he to say to Miss Bessie in so many words that he never intended marrying, it would put an end to those special privileges which he now enjoyed, and render his stay at her aunt's much less attractive. Selfishness was becoming ingrained in him. He did not wish to cause others suffering, but he did mean to make this world about as agree- able as he could for Mr. Frank Morley. "'For this, among the rest, was I ordained,'" he quoted to himself, as he walked home that after- noon. " Nature speaks out in me, and I have decided to give her a fair trial. I have been observing the methods of the Great Mother of us all ; and I do not find that her lamps bear any special signal for the benefit of moths. If my light attracts one of those gilded insects even one whose hair is of the color of Australian gold I shall merely let her come on 88 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. Her wings are her own, and if she chooses to sing them it is her affair. Men have evolved some silly notions which make them unique among the things of earth. I shall return to my natural state and set an example to my benighted brethren." He walked along, noticing nothing and no orve in his absorption. " My brother Clyde would say I am a wretch to entertain such views," he mused. "My brother Clyde has been badly educated. He has been under the tutelage of priests and old men in petticoats until the natural good sense in him is distorted. My brother Clyde, were he here, and could he read my mind, would hold up before me the terrors of a heli in the next world and a remorseful death-bed in this, predicting them both to be my lot in case 1 allow my patron saint Nature to have her way. He would tell the girl with the auburn locks that I am a dangerous companion all the more dangerous from seeming so entirely the opposite. What a fool is that twin brother of mine ! Does he find any enjoyment in this life for himself? Does the course he preaches bring happiness to him ? And if not, how can he have the assurance to recommend it to others ? "The next time I go to see Niagara I mean to argue with the rush of waters, just as they are about to take their plunge into the abyss, protesting that they are wrong to carry with them the sticks and straws sometimes the men and women who hap- pen to get lured into their eddies. They will listen to me, I know, if they do not. I will send for Clyde, for they will hear him. I wonder where he is now. It is many months since he went from home, an-L ii,:i- mate friend I had, a man who loved her with all his soul. I may not be the best man in the world, and I am sure my brother Clyde would say so, but from the moment I saw in what direction my steps were leading I turned them aside." It was impossible not to understand him. Lettie Fuller, with her limited knowledge of men, never dreamed that there was anything in this statement but the confession it appeared, wrung from him by the depth of his feelings. She pitied him extremely, and thought how harshly she had judged him in her ignorance. " You should not have told me this," she whispered, sadly. " But as long as you have done so, may I not also confide something to you ? I never shall marry Mr. Melton. If he entertains a contrary belief, the sooner he ceases to hold it the better. I know he has spoken to my father. I know that my father has given him an intimation that in a few years I may give a favorable answer. It is quite wrong. I re- spect him, but I do not love him, and I never shall do so. As he has not said anything to me directly on this subject, it may be over-hasty to tell these things, but I count on your reticence. I feel that I have no right to permit any one to think I can take a course that I know is impossible." He tried to interrupt her several times while she was speaking, but she waved him to silence with her hand. When she finished he expressed surprise, saying he supposed the matter as good as settled. He went further and alluded to the obedience she had always shown her father, which he thought would affect her in all matters, but she answered that it was A GAME OF HEARTS. 155 a woman's duty even to disobey her parents rather than marry a man for whom she could not care. " Papa is not used to having me question his com- mands," she continued, " and he may bring a strong pressure to bear upon me, but I shall be firm." He seemed unable to comprehend the situation, and botli sat for some time without speaking. " It will not do to tell Mark at present," he said at last. " He would lose his diploma, and perhaps go to the dickens. He is terribly set on marrying you. Why, you can't imagine the amount of talk he has made to me about it. I am kis only close friend, you see, and he tells me everything. He has planned his whole life with you as the central figure. He is going to be successful, because his success will bene- fit you. He is going to become famous, because you will enjoy his fame. Withdraw his hope suddenly, at this time, and I am not sure but it would ruin him." Miss Fuller said she was very sorry, and she spoke the truth. She added that of course she could say nothing to Mark until he spoke to her, which she knew he had promised the Colonel not to do for a long time. But before he reached the time when he felt warranted in addressing her, she hoped some means would be taken to undeceive him. She felt a sort of guilt in this tacit permission to expect a different result, though she had no hand in it. " You lead me to bring against you the charge you brought against me," said Frank, reproachfully. "How can you wonder that /do not wish to marry, when you object to it so strongly. But, perhaps," he cried, suddenly, "perhaps your reason is the same that you have loved, still love, another !" 156 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. How had he penetrated the inmost recesses of her heart and dragged that fact to light ! Her trepida- tion assured him he had struck the right trail. "It is true !" he exclaimed. "And I need not look far, either, to find the person who has won you ! Had I not cause enough to hate him without this new reason ?" He had raised his voice so loud that Lettie feared it would be heard beyond the walls of the apart- ment, and she raised both hands deprecatingly. He seemed to realize the danger, for he spoke in lower tones. "Saint as he is and sinner as I am, we are both made of flesh and blood! He has found time, has he, between his prayers, to speak of human things into a human ear, and that a woman's ? Well, you have put some confidence in me, give me a little more. Are you going to marry him ?" The girl paled at the question. " Come !" he said, almost roughly. " Answer." "You go on so fast, I can hardly follow you," she gasped. "He has never asked me to marry him, has never said anything ever remotely approaching such a thing." He devoured her with half-shut eyes. " How, then, do you know he loves you ?" Her confusion increased visibly. "Oh, Mr. Morley," she gasped, "be generous and say no more. I do not know that he loves me !'* " But you love him!" She covered her burning face with her hands. "Oh, you need not be ashamed of it !" he replied, swallowing something that had stuck in his throat. " Hearts are about the same, I imagine, whether A GAME OP HEARTS. 157 they beat in a masculine breast or a feminine one. Well, listen to me, Miss Lettie. You have been taught to think of me as lacking in the cardinal virtues. I will show you that I have at least one decent quality. In every way that lies in my power I will help you, yes, even at the cost of disloyalty to Mark Melton. I do not know that Clyde will ever marry, for he is fanatical to a degree on the subject of religion, and may think his whole life should be devoted to that, but you may count on me at all times as your friend." Grateful at this unexpected kindness, and at the same time overcome with mortification at the atti- tude in which she was placed, Lettie suffered him to take her hands from her face and impress a tender kiss upon one of them. " I will never harbor an evil thought of you again," she stammered. "You are so good !" " No, no, no !" he answered, shaking his head. " This is only a spasmodic attack which may never recur. But I will keep my promise. I will write to him oftener and always speak of you. I will go to see him, if he does not come here, and I shall know what to say." An innate consciousness that there was something unmaidenly in this came into her head, but she did not know how to escape the arrangement, which she certainly thought very noble on Frank's part. " A sister-in-law ?" mused Morley, an hour later, in the solitude of his room. " I am not sure but that is the best thing of the two." 158 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. CHAPTER XV. "IF WE'RE NOT FOUND OUT." That spring in Boston was much like other springs. The frosts disappeared, the keen March winds blew up the Bay, the April showers brought out the green leaves on the trees and May opened the buds of the earliest flowers. The characters in our story all remained in the city. Col. Fuller pursued unaltered the course of life he had so long indulged in, rarely going far out of the beaten path that lay between his rooms and Veteran Club. Lettie read her novels, visited the shops where women's apparel was sold, talked with Bessie or with Frank Morley, and Went to bed punctually as the clock struck ten with visions in her head of a divinity student who had never returned. Bessie aided her aunt about the housework as of yore, her arm entirely well, and listened for the only footsteps that had any charm for her, the footsteps of a certain student of law who lodged in the house. Mark Melton studied with all his might, determined that it should not be his fault if he did not graduate with honors, for the diploma meant a great step toward accomplishing the desire of his heart. And Frank went from the house to Court street studying not less the themes he found on Shawmut avenue than those presented to him in the musty books over which he had to pore. The interest he now seemed to take in Lettie's wishes made him a welcome visitor to her. It was " IF WE'RE NOT FOUND OUT." 159 common for him to watch till the Colonel disap- peared for the afternoon or evening and then go stealthily to her room, to pass an hour or two in her company. Lettie had ceased to be the guileless girl he had once known. She knew his inquiries for her father were fictitious, for he came too frequently just after his departure to allow of the supposition that each occurrence of the kind was an accident. Finally, they used to laugh together when he made the inquiry, as she opened the door. Once, when he made a mistake, thinking the Colonel had gone out, and found him in, he asked for a book he had seen in the library, excused himself from remaining, and half an hour later, when ocular demonstration assured him that the coast was clear, he returned to secure the real object of his first visit, an unin- terrupted chat with the daughter. Lettie was becoming a past mistress of the art of double dealing. Still assuming the same demure- ness when her father was present, acting like the lit- tle girl he had always known, she had become quite a different creature. It would have startled the old war-horse considerably had he been able to open a window of her brain and see what went on there. Bessie knew of very few of these visits. She gen- erally thought Frank out of the house when they occurred. Col. Fuller's habits were so absolutely clock-like that he could be depended upon not to come home before a certain hour. Bessie, on the contrary, was liable to come in at any moment, as she and Lettie used little ceremony with each other. However, she always knocked, which gave time for a slight preparation, and after she had surprised them once, Lettie made a proposition. In case she 160 AX ORIGINAL SINNER. should come up again, Frank was to retire into her chamber, till she could arrange some excuse to get rid of the unwelcome visitor. Frank raised no objection to this, though, to tell the truth, it more than astonished him. He could not understand the peculiar quality of mind that Miss Fuller had developed under her unusual train- ing. With a father content to command, and with no mother to advise or direct her, Lettie had thrown down nearly every barrier that women ordinarily erect about themselves when educated in the usages of refined society. Her bedroom was pretty and well-kept, and she never dreamed of there being any- thing improper in telling a young man to secrete him- self there in such an emergency. Much of their talk was of Clyde, and it was never pleasant to contemplate its interruption. Bessie would think it strange if she found Frank there often, and it was just as well that she should not, as it might lead her to asking questions that no one would care to answer. The first time Frank retreated into the bedroom he had to remain there some time, as Bessie would not understand the vague hints that Lettie threw out. He did not mind it, however, in the least. In fact, he was rather interested in his prison-house. Feeling secure from interruption as long as he could hear the girls* voices, he made quite a thorough exam- ination of the room. He found that Lettie slept on a brass bedstead under the snowiest counterpane im- aginable ; that the pillows on which her head was laid were large and soft. He pinched the mattress and found it made of hair, and experienced a pleas- ure in learning that it was not of feathers, which he "IF WE'KE NOT FOUND OUT." 161 considered unhealthy. The dressing-case was cov- ered with trophies of her skill with the needle, but no photographs were seen except one of her father in his uniform, apparently taken in the days of the war. The counterfeit presentments of numerous male individuals, so common to young girls' bureaus were conspicuous by their absence. Neither was there a picture of herself, and he began to wonder if she had never had any. The chairs and the sofa were in as good taste as the garments she was in the habit of wearing. The few pictures on the walls were evidently the Colonel's, being devoted to mil- itary subjects. It took some time for Frank to note all these things. As the talking in the other room continued, be opened a closet door, and saw a great array of dresses and skirts hanging from the hooks. Some Of them the gowns he recognized as those he had Seen her wear. He put his hand upon the silks and worsteds, and stroked them gently, as one strokes the bad,, of a cat or a favorite dog. He thought the clothes of an attractive woman became a part of her acquired a tinge of her personality. He had said once that they should no more be sold to strangers than an amputated arm. If they accum- ulated beyond the capacity of the receptacles in- tended for them, they should be cremated at a solemn ceremony. He looked upon the floor and saw dozens of boots, slippers and gaiters, all made to fit one tiny pair of feet. A sentimental feeling oppressed him. Had he been certain he would not be detected in the act, he would have knelt and kissed them, with all the rev- erence that an African pays to his little wooden god. 162 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. And still he heard the voices. He prayed that Bessie might prolong her call, for his eyes turned to the drawers of a bureau, and his fingers itched to open them. Yes, the girls we\j talking still. Ono drawer was partly opened, and he drew it out a little farther. Bottles with scents that were familiar, brushes that had been passed over her hair, combs, button-hooks, gloves of many shades, handkerchiefs, knick-knacks innumerable. He paused to wonder how a girl brought up like her had learned the value of these things. Was it an instinct inherent in the feminine breast, this longing for prettiness, for deli- cate effects ? Everything seemed arranged after a definite method, so different from the helter-skelter style of his own dressing-case on the floor below. Frank Morley had run through an exhibition of paintings, containing three hundred specimens, in half an hour. He could have gazed on the treasures of this one drawer till night fell and not have feasted his eyes half enough. Still the voices. He pushed the drawer slowly back and opened the next one. White, white, white ! Nothing but white ! Did they wear so many white things, then ? She must have a heavy laundry bill. In the next one, there were twenty kinds of hosiery to match the shoes. As he took one pair in his hands to see if they were silk, he heard a door open and dropped them precipitately. It was not the door of the room he occupied, but the outer door leading to the hall. Bessie was going at last. A blush of conscious guilt the guilt of deceit was on Lettie's face, as she came to release him. He sat there in a rocker, looking the picture of con- " IF WE'RE NOT FOUND OUT." 163 tent, when she opened the door and shot a quick glance at him to see what she could read in his face. " She's gone ?" he asked, smiling. " At last," said Lettie, drawing a long breath. " I thought at one time she had sent for her baggage and meant to move in." "Why," said Frank, "it wasn't long." " More than three-quarters of an hour !" " By the clock ?" She nodded three or four times. " I heard the Colonel say, the other day, that clock was fast," laughed Frank, making no move to rise. " I thought it had only been five minutes. What a bijou of a room this is !" Lettie looked gratified. She still stood in the doorway, with her hand on the knob. " Do you like it ?" " It is exquisite ! It is almost enough to make a man forswear his intentions of being a perpetual bachelor, to see such taste. Sit down and let us proceed wherever we left off when your caller came." But Lettie said she thought the parlor would be the best place to talk in, and Frank rose slowly to follow her. "There is only one trouble with the parlor," said he. " We shall have to lower our voices so that any one passing through the hall cannot hear. And that gives me a feeling as if we were conspirators." " I know it," she admitted. "But you don't care ?" " Not a bit if we're not found out !" They both laughed together, then, softly; but after* wards Frank grew sober. 164 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " Do you know what I thought, in that chamber ?** ' No." She looked at him inquiringly. " That all the taste there displayed would go some day to adorn the home of my brother !" When he spoke in this way, and it was not the first time he had uttered similar sentiments, she had a pity for him that was too deep for words. She could not understand how it was that she had once come so near to hating him, at that time when he urged the claims of Melton to her hand. It was mere loyalty to his friend, and she ought to have understood how little his task was to his taste. " I don't see how you can be so sure," she said, still rosy. " I mean about him, about your brother. He never comes here, and as far as I can tell he has nearly forgotten me. He writes you to give his regards to Col. Fuller and daughter, but that is not much to build on. If I could go where he is could make some excuse for coming into his life again it would be something. Here I am as lost to him as if I were in the middle of Asia." Frank Morley's eyelids grew heavy. " You are as sure of him as you are of heaven," he answered. " He has no other woman in mind. He believes in marriage. He gave you more of his attention, according to what you tell me, than he has given to all the girls he has seen hitherto put together. He will come back here this summer I will make him. He will call on you again ; and then everything lies in your hands." She shook her head doubtfully. " How ? How does everything lie in my hands ?' " My God !" he cried. " Are you so ignorant of "IF WE'KE NOT FOUND our." 165 your own powers ? You could make any man love you, though hjs nature were of the consistency of granite, and Clyde is as much clay as I am. It is his constant fear that he will be betrayed into giving way to the passions that beset him. Must I speak more plainly ?" Lettie shook her head, but in a different way. "You have spoken almost too plainly now, but I never can win the love of your brother in that way. I cannot, even if it is the only alternative." Not knowing how much he could say with im- punity to this strange girl, Frank paused for a moment. " It is a delicate matter," he said. " Clyde cannot be won in any ordinary fashion. He is full of odd whims, is one mass of cross-purposes. If he marries at all, it will be because he thinks it his duty. For instance, you remember his expressions relating to Bessie and me ?" She assented. " He said, and he put the same words into your mouth, that a man had no right to make a woman love him and then think himself free from the con- sequences. He has dinned that into my ears, time and again, and his letters teem with it. If he returns to Boston I should say when he returns he will come to see you as he used. At the proper time I will hold up before his eyes the sermon he has read to me and see if he can get behind his own preach- ing." The pretty face took on a look of deep distress. Lettie did not like the plan at all. She wanted Clyde to come to her, as men did in the novels she had read, with a nice speech telling how he bad 'oved her 166 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. ever so long, and could not be happy unless she became his wife. And she had decided just how she would meet him, with eyes downcast and with her voice adjusted to a delicious tremble. And when the little word " Yes " had been lisped and it always was lisped in every book she had read she expected that the manly lips would drink a draught from hers the first kiss, except her father's, that she had ever had from any man. It was with a feeling of joy and pride that she remembered she could say to him with perfect truth, "Yours are the only lips, Clyde, dear, that ever touched mine." She had woven a pretty romance that she wanted carried out exactly accord- ing to programme, and she did not relish the entirely different scheme which Frank had concocted. It had one merit, perhaps, however, that should not be lost sight of it might succeed where hers could fail, but she meant to try hers first and only adopt the other in case of dire emergency. " When do you think he'll be likely to come here ?" she asked, demurely. "In the summer," he answered. "I am going away to the hills for several weeks and that would be his most likely time. He doesn't like me well enough to come when I'm here if he can help it. In fact, I think it is my presence in Boston that has kept him away so long." She looked up and laughed comically. " Oh, why couldn't you have gone away ?" she said. " I could," he answered, with a trace of bitterness. " But is it not enough for him that he is to be the final victor ? Upon my life. Lettie, I fear you never "IP WE'RE NOT FOUND OUT." 167 will be happy with him ! I don't say this from any selfish reason, but because I honestly believe it. Suppose he should conclude that his marriage had made him the saint he aspires to be, and should take a pulpit somewhere and settle down as a pastor? Would that life suit you ?" . Her face grew radiant at the suggestion. " Any life that he thought best would suit me," she replied. " I have learned in my father's house to find my pleasure in doing what he wishes, and it would be the same with my husband." He thought the comparison worthy of another. " You have learned to receive a gentleman caller without your father's knowledge," said he, mean- ingly. " Probably it would not take you long to free yourself of irksome conditions if a husband imposed them on you." She looked frightened at the thought he had put into her head. " Ah ! that is different," she exclaimed. " I should never do the least thing without my hus- band's consent. If he was unreasonable, I might argue with him, but I should obey. I cannot see how a wife can do otherwise and be safe." " Cases have been known," he suggested, sarcas- tically. She would not debate a point on which she felt so positive a conviction. A glance at his watch told him it was time to go, and he rose. "Have patience," he said, gently, taking both her hands in his, "and your fairy god-mother will turn her stick into a mate for you. And now, if little Bessie should see me walking out of here, what shall I say ?" 168 AN OBIGINAL SINNEB. "You need not tell her how long you stayed," said Lettie, wisely. "You and I have a right to our secret." He paused at the door, a place it was always hard for him to pass. " If I understand you," he said, " a secret is all right for an unmarried woman, but a woman who weds must have none." " I never shall if I marry," she said, decidedly. He went out thinking how willingly he would wager all his earthly possessions that she would have plenty of them, in that case. CHAPTER XVI. MARK MELTON'S PROTEST. Early in the summer Clyde Morley went home to his village of Arcadie. He had changed little in outward appearance since he left there, and the townspeople pleasantly lifted their hats to him as they had always done. Dr. Welsh took him in his arms as if he had been his real son. Indeed, he was quite the same thing to him. " You haven't been as good a correspondent as you once were," he said to the young man, with mild reproach. " You will have a good deal to tell me of your travels. I only hope you have decided to settle down now. I long to see you fairly engaged on the work of redeeming the world before I pass away from it," Clyde glanced at the speaker uneasily. MARK MELTON'S PROTEST. 169 " You speak as if you were ill," said he. " I am not well," replied the Doctor, " and I know that my time at the longest is brief. But that does not matter. I have done what I could, with the limited powers God gave me. You have much superior talents, and if I can leave you installed in my place I shall die content." Clyde did not like to tell the whole truth or any- thing near it to this good old man. He had never felt farther from the ministry than now, but he did not have the moral courage to own it where he knew it would give so much pain. He expressed a wish to travel another season, as a cause for postpone- ment. When the clergyman argued against this, he brought up still other reasons, no more satisfactory, and heard them disposed of in the same way. And at last he made a partial breast of his difficulty, say ing he was oppressed by his old fear that he was not good enough to set himself up as a teacher of religion. " I am sorry for this," replied Dr. Welsh, with an expression of sadness on his venerable countenance. " My advice to you is to put all such thoughts behind you, as inventions of Satan. Enter the ministry, take a parish and go about the work of the Master, leaving the result to him. The best thing for you to do, after that is accomplished, is to find some discreet woman of godly life and conversation for a helpmate. With your duties pressing upon you, and such a wife by your side, you would go onward and upward in your calling, and laugh at the fears that have held you in bondage." Clyde felt guilty as he listened. Why had he ever thought himself fitted for the pulpit ? "A discreet 170 AN ORIGINAL BINNEB. woman of godly life !" Not an atom of his composi- tion reflected pleasure at the picture. He imagined some dowdy female, with long face and badly arranged hair, marching solemnly up a church aisle, with spectacles across the bridge of a severe nose. He had never seen but one girl who much interested him whom he would not prefer death by the rope to marrying and she was not at all like the old Doctor's description. Were it not for this ever-pres- ent nightmare of the ministry he would have whis- pered words of love in the ear of that girl, and he felt convinced it would not have been in vain. Until this question was settled, he could say nothing to her. If he had to give up all that was sweet in this life to become a better candidate for the next world, she would be included in the things sacrificed. There had been a time when he believed the satis- faction of well-doing its own sufficient compensation. The physique that had come with growing manhood had played the devil with that. At the present moment he was neither one thing nor the other. He could not count himself a follower of Good, and still he was too much attracted by it to be a contented adherent of Evil. This could not go on forever. He must choose between the two paths. He could not do it quite yet, and so he remained in the midst of the desert, as unhappy as might have been ex- pected from his situation. Arcadie was duller than ever to him. He went to see " his widows," as he used to call them, certain poverty-stricken women whom he had helped finan- cially in the past, and whom he had arranged with Dr. Welsh to aid during his absence. Their thanks grated on his ears. Their assurances that they had MA.RK MELTON'S PROTEST. 171 never forgotten him in their supplications made him almost doubt the efficacy of prayer. There were no less than ten of them who had prayed for him, according to their own statements, twice each day. Allowing three hundred and sixty-five days to the year, he began a mental computation of the number of petitions sent upward in his behalf. The figures were appalling, considering that he had steadily grown worse instead of better all the time. " My brother would say my brother Frank " he mused, " that this was proof positive of the non- existence of a Deity who has the power and the will to heed those who address him. These old women have prayed, and I have prayed, but where are the answers ? Supposing it should be true that there is no God ! That would settle the question of my duty pretty effectually. But, what am I saying ? Why, this is Atheism !" Atheism ! A thought of such a thing, and in Arcadie ! He wondered how such an idea could have entered his head in that village. But if it were so lie could not help thinking if there was no truth in the things he had been taught to be- lieve if this life was all how pleasant he could make it ! Some people said this was so, and many who did not say it acted as if they believed it. Clyde thought the majority of those he met managed to get a good deal out of this world, as they were pass- ing through. And it seemed to him that he got nothing nothing but doubt, and distress, and temptation. When July came he knew that Frank was away (rom Boston, as were most other people who could afford it in that month, though many might have 172 AW ORIGINAL SINNER. been quite as comfortable had they remained near its invigorating east winds and taken their outings on the harbor boats and the suburban street-car lines. He wanted to see the friends he had made there, and he wrote to Mark Melton, saying that he thought of coming. Mark, who had graduated from his school, responded with enthusiasm that nothing would please him better. He added, incidentally, that happening to be at Col. Fuller's after receiving Clyde's letter, he had mentioned the matter to them; and that both the Colonel and his daughter had expressed much delight at the prospect of seeing him again. In a few days Clyde bade farewell to the good minister of Arcadie, promising to think seriously of the matter of going into the pulpit that autumn, and was met at Boston station by Melton, who grasped his hands witli all the warmth of his nature. " I never was so glad !" exclaimed Mark. " Since Frank went away I have been dying for some one to talk with. There is only one subject, you know, that really interests me, and that I cannot discuss except with you and him." Honest fellow ! It gave a twinge to the heart of Clyde Morley to think of the perfect faith of this young man. Why had fate not reversed its arrange- ments, letting him be the physician and Mark the priest ? "And how are our friends?" asked Clyde, as the pair strolled up Portland street together, disdaining the cars and carriages, in a way they had. "The Colonel has had a slight attack of an old trouble dating from the late unpleasantness, but he is better now. There is a bullet or two in his body MAKK MELTON'S PROTEST. 173 that they cannot remove. By all that's holy, I wish I could get them out ! It might give him a better opinion of me. I think I'll propose it to him !" " But if you made a fatality of the case " smiled Clyde. "That's worth considering," replied Mark. "I guess I'd better let him alone. He's around again now, at any rate. And Miss Lettie, she's the same as ever. Beautiful, good, everything that's desirable; only there's no reason to think she would be any more likely to smile on a proposal of marriage from me than there was* a year ago." Clyde was not very sorry to hear this. He would have been surprised to hear the opposite. He liked Lettie, and meant to spend some of his time in her company while in the city. It was much better that she should not be engaged to be married, for that would restrict the conversation a good deal. She was destined to belong to Melton some day he understood it was agreed on practically by her father but there was no need of haste in making the preliminary arrangements. "You're an impatient fellow," was his reply. " Here you are, on the sure road to preferment in everything you seek. You have your diploma, you are going to put out your shingle, you have only to get the paltry sum of ten thousand dollars together, and, presto ! the girl you love is yours ! And yet you are always lamenting the slowness of events. Do you know you strike me as a most ungrateful wretch, and I shall not be surprised if fortune turns her back on you in sheer disgust for your sins." " I try to be patient," said Mark, " but it's hard work. It will be easier now you're here, for you'll 174 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. see her and talk with her, and may be able to tell me something, from time to time. I go up and play cribbage with the Colonel every Friday evening, but I never dare to allude to what we said before. Since his illness he's grown more crotchety than ever, and the least thing ruffles his plumage." Mark went on to say that he had engaged an office, and had sat there patiently for four days with- out seeing a customer. As it was midsummer, and as he was wholly unknown, he did not get discour- aged, however. Doctors who now had large incomes had told him that their early experience was about the same. One had offered him a small percentage to go into partnership, but he preferred to try the independent plan first. Then they spoke of Frank, and Clyde, who never looked quite the same when he was on that subject, asked how his brother had been behaving himself. *' Why, like a gentlemen, as he always does," laughed Mark. " He has studied law the usual hours and I have had the benefit of a good many of his evenings. The most of his w/Vbehavior is in your own vivid imagination." Mark had known Clyde so long now that he spoke to him with perfect freedom. On this subject he felt that he had a right to be particularly blunt, for he could not understand the continued antipathy that Clyde exhibited. "You feel certain it is all right with that young lady at the house, the landlady's niece ?" inquired Clyde, impressively. "Why shouldn't it be?" demanded Melton. "I don't think they are alone together three times in a month. I must remonstrate with you again, Mr. MARK MELTON X S PROTEST. 175 Morler. When you get an idea into your head, it seems next to impossible to dislodge it." Clyde did not reply to this raillery. He was occupied in deep thought. " Does he visit the Fullers as much as ever ?" he asked. "Oh, I don't know how much. He goes in to talk with the Colonel of an evening sometimes. The Colonel likes him, too. I wish he liked me half as well. If it wasn't for the fact that my father and he were companions-in-arms I wouldn't be in it at all." The listener paused to digest this statement. "You talk with Miss Fuller sometimes?" he said next. "Oh, yes." "And not always when her father is present." Melton reddened a little. " It is seldom I get the chance, but if he's out and she asks me to go in, I don't refuse." "And on such occasions excuse the apparent inquisitiveness what do you talk about ?" Mark stopped a moment to think. "I hardly know," he said. "All kinds of things that come up at random, I should say. Everything except the subject I would most prefer." " Sometimes, perhaps, of of him /" The hesitation to pronounce the name of his brother nettled Mark. "Of Frank?" he asked. "Yes, and the last time I was there most of our time was taken up with you" The intended effect of this observation was lost on the divinity student. " What did she say of Frank of my brother ?" he asked. 176 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " She couldn't say any ill of him. What she said was in his favor." " Are you sure she could not say any ill of him ?" Melton protested vigorously at that. " Come, come !" he cried. " Don't carry it too far !" Clyde put his hand soothingly on the arm of his companion. " I know him so well," he said. " I know what is in him, what he is capable of. And I tell you Mark, in all sincerity, if I were in love with a grl and intended to marry her, she should never be one minute alone with him." Melton's heart gave a bound and then pulsated slower for some seconds. "It might at least depend a little on the girl," he ventured, frigidly. " No," was the earnest reply, " not at all. She could not come into contact with him and retain all her purity. As certain chemicals destroy by indistinguishable processes the textures of fabrics brought into connection with them, so such natures as his undermine the virtue of women without the victims having the least idea of the disintegrating process that is going on. Do you think I like to say these things, that you stare at me so ? My God, Melton, he is my brother ! He is the twin of my body ! What does that innocent girl know of the arts of a designing man ? As much as the little bird of the fascinations of the rattlesnake ; no more." But Mark refused to entertain the subject seriously. He was agitated, to be sure, but not because he thought there could be anything in the suggestions thrown out. He had long ago come to regard the MARK MELTON'S PROTEST. 177 attitude of Clyde's mind as unnatural and morbid, when his brother was concerned. There were two people in the world that Mark loved above all others Lettie Fuller and Frank Morley. He believed he knew at least one of them, the dangerous one, if Clyde was to be considered a judge, and he would have trusted him anywhere. As he had told Clyde long before, he thought a man with a depraved mind could not go on month after month in the close com- panionship of an intimate friend and not reveal what was in him, or at least give some hint of its existence. As to Lettie, the sentiments of a young lover were too strong to allow him to think of his sweetheart as a possible victim to the machinations of any 'one. True, she was innocent, but she also had common sense, and it would require more than the sugges- tion of a chance acquaintance to swerve her from the path of rectitude. Beside this, she never had. an opportunity to meet any man alone. She was either at her home, where her father kept a watchful eye upon her, or if she went out for any length of time it was with Bessie or Mrs. Bright. Clyde might have talked till doomsday for all the effect it would have had on Mark, so certain was he of the baselessness of the insinuations. " If you will do all you can for me, Clyde," he said, after a long pause, in which he had been revolving these things in his mind, " it will not be a great while before your bugbears will become as impossi- ble as they are improbable. I have recently been left a few thousand dollars by the will of a relation, and can safely marry without danger of starvation either for myself or wife. The medical practice that I expect will make it unnecessary, I hope, to draw 178 AN ORIGINAL SINNEE. much on this sum, and I intend to make it larger instead of smaller as fast as I am able. My desire is to render myself independent, that I may spend the latter part of my days in rest from my profession, perhaps in foreign travel. Col. Fuller thinks a great deal of you, and a word in my behalf will count for much with him. When you meet the Colonel, if you will let him know this fact incidentally, and note its effect, I will thank you. I hope that his scruples will be overcome when he finds that the question of being fully able to support his daughter is not to be considered, and that he will allow me to speak to her very soon." This was said in a halting way that showed how deeply the matter affected the speaker and Clyde Morley had abundant time to arrange his answer. " I will speak to him, certainly," he said. " Your marriage would settle everything, of course. A girl who is married is safe ; everybody know that. Yes, if she marries you, that will end all danger." No one not blindly infatuated could have heard these ironical words without penetrating the satire that lurked beneath them. Mark, however, saw nothing, and was profuse in his thanks. Before they parted Clyde had agreed to see the Colonel that very evening, and to introduce the sub' ject, if he could. COMPELLING A KISS. CHAPTER XVII. COMPELLING A KISS. Half an hour later, a pale figure stood in front of a mirror in a room at the Parker House. " Is this Clyde Morley ?" it was saying. " Is this the man who has existed for the past year only as a protest against the infamies of his brother? I had better have died than have lived to carry in my mind the things that have crept there. There was a time when these thoughts that now rack my brain would have been impossible. I have warned people against Frank, but which of us is now the worse ? He at least does not carry about with him the garb of pro- fessed saintliness, to blind the eyes of those he would betray. They may take him for what he is, a man of the world, without pretence. If he deceives them, it is in a measure the fault of their indiscretion. But I talking, talking, always talking about the sins of others I am more likely to prove the real villain. Is there any escape, or has the devil got me fast in his clutches ?" He fell heavily into a chair and sat perfectly still for several minutes, oppressed by his emotions. "I have none of his excuses none but this mad rush of the senses, that I have striven so long to combat. He is an atheist. / believe in an all-seeing and an all-requiring God. He looks upon life as a flower to be picked if it meets his pleasure, /regard it as a sacred trust to be accepted with reverent 180 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. care and yielded up with a full account, when its little day is done. He could betray the friend who trusts in him, the woman who loves him, if it suf- ficed to gratify the whim of the moment, and feel no sting of conscience. If / did either, the wrong would haunt me to my dying day, and curse the bed on which my soul took flight. And yet the path he has taken is more than likely to be mine the evil from which I have warned him / may yet perpetrate. I must look the possibilities in the face and not delude myself any longer." Again there was a space of silence, while the brain of the thinker throbbed with the thoughts that filled it. " Could I, by going directly to some distant part of the country, and taking up the profession of the ministry, shield myself from the damning tempta- tions that have grown to seem a part of my exist- ence ? Is good Dr. Welsh right in telling me that the safest place for a professed Christian is where he can attend to his Master's business ? In such a field, weighted with new and abundant cares, would that girl's face keep its distance, or would it continue to come between me and my God ? Oh, there are so many questions I would like answered, and there is not one thing I am sure of ! " Let me think. " Supposing I ask her to marry me. I have then done a lasting wrong to Melton, who has trusted in my honor, and who would be right in calling me a traitor and a hypocrite. It would probably be the breaking up of his career, so deep is his attachment to her. But if, on the other hand, I leave her to him. I condemn her to a life of unhappiness, for she COMPELLING A KISS. 181 never has and she never can love him as a wife should. Is it a kindness to assist him to gain her under those circumstances ? Is it not better, even for him, that they are never united ?" A long breath came, as he caught at this thought, and then he rejected it. " Self, self, nothing but self !" he ejaculated. " Sophistries are they all, yes, every one of these things I am saying. I want that girl, and every- thing that seems to justify me in trying to win her I eagerly embrace. Trying to win her ! Why, I have won her already ! I have done unblushingly the thing I so condemned in Frank. Lettie loves me. It does not take a wise eye to see that. If I say the word she will leave home, father, everything to share my life. But can I take her with honor ? No. Shall I take her without it, and try to blind my eyes by the fact that I am to devote my life to the service of the God I have outraged ? That is equally absurd. Oh ! you evil spirit, who have led me into this slough, show me some way out of it !" Clyde rose and threw this last exclamation at the atmosphere, but there came no reply. He paused again, and a sense of dreariness came over him. He had been abandoned in the desert, and the caravan had moved on, heedless of his strait. Once he would have found refuge in prayer, but that no longer suf- ficed him. Say what he might, he had not the abid- ing faith he had formerly possessed. The strong, ath- letic body could no more be controlled by the over- tasked brain. The maddened horse with the bits in his teeth recks not the rein of his rider. It was too late to guide the animal, who had a taste of his own strength '182 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. and of his master's weakness. And yet, even as things seemed most desperate, Clyde did not wholly give up the fight. He had struggled too long to throw down everything in a moment of discourage- ment. He might be dashed in pieces over the preci- pice in front of him, but he would hold out till the last. With this reflection there came new vigor into his mind. He would at least try to keep his word with Melton. He would go to the house on Shawmut avenue and talk with Col. Fuller and say what Mark had asked him to say. Perhaps the Colonel would refuse to give up his daughter upon any less terms than he had before stated the years yet to elapse and the actual demonstration of Melton's ability to support her out of the profits of his profession. Perhaps he had changed his mind altogether and would not give his consent to her marrying Mark under any circumstances ! Clyde tried honestly to crush down these thoughts, for he felt that they were not the ones he ought to encourage, but they persisted in crowding themselves upon him. At least they made it easier for him to go to the Colonel's and ascertain the state of his mind. After partaking of a light repast, he walked a conveyance would not have enabled him to take the exercise he felt so much in need of to Mrs. Bright's, where Bessie met him at the door. The young girl started at sight of him she was never wholly easy in his presence, and she had not expected to see him this time but he only bowed with gravity and inquired if Col. Fuller was at home. Bessie answered that the Colonel was out, but that COMPELLING A KISS. 183 Miss Lettie was in, and Clyde said he would go up, if she pleased, and wait for him. As he ascended the stairs it struck him as strange that he had not thought of the probability that the Colonel would be at the Veternns Club at that time of day, for he had visited there before when that knowledge was the chief reason for his coming. The rapt mood in which he had been ever since his talk with Melton was the cause of his forgetfulness. He was not sorry, however, that he should see Lettie alone a little while before her father's return. It would give him an opportunity to study her, and help him decide whether he had the strength to carry out the resolve he had been making on the way to the house. Lettie started even more violently than Bessie had done, when she opened the door to him. She knew he had talked of coming to Boston, for Frank had written to her of this fact, and she had remained at home both afternoon and evening for more than a week in the fear that she might miss him if she went out. But now that he stood before her eyes the shock was a pronounced one, and she could not con- ceal her feelings. Realizing fully all that was pass- ing in her mind, he pretended not to notice it, and taking her hand in his for one brief moment as it hung limp at her side he murmured the words that rose to his lips. " It was thoughtless of me not to send a messenger earlier in the day," he said, as he took a chair. " I have been gone so long that your father's habit of spending most of his evenings out quite slipped my mind. Nevertheless, I am glad to see you, and 184 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. if you will permit me, I will rest here till hi* return." Lettie came to herself suddenly. She wondered what he would think of her manner. She knew she had not even invited him to enter, that he had taken the hand she had not held out and the chair she had not offered him. She stammered an apology, saying she had been so surprised that she had expected some one else that she was not feeling quite well. He smiled in his grave way, affecting not to notice her abstraction, and began to ask her the ordinary questions of one who has been absent, until he had her at her ease again. He talked a little of himself, told of the places he had visited, of the idle life he had led because he could not yet bring himself to enter on anything more useful, at which he admitted his shame. But he said he believed this would be his last summer as a wanderer, that by the autumn he would have begun to atone for the sins of omission of which he was guilty. Then he spoke of the ministry and his hope to do some good in it, though he still had great doubts of his worthiness. And Lettie listened with strange feelings, wondering if there was something more at the end, something she would much rather have heard, and to which this might be only a prelude ; listened, till the step of her father was heard on the stair, and her heart sank because the man she loved had spoken nothing of what she wished to hear. The Colonel was in a rather bad temper. His daughter noted the frown on his face the moment the door was opened. He had lost a game of crib- bage before leaving the club, with a new member, and it disturbed him a good deal. When he was out COMPELLING A KISS. 185 of temper everybody in his circle usually came in for their share of its effects. He had noticed for the first thing that Lettie was out of bed, and as it was past ten o'clock he had opened his mouth to ask the reason in tones that would not have been of the softest kind. Just in time to stop him she mentioned the name of their visitor. Upon hearing it, the Colonel's face underwent an instant transformation. He strode toward Clyde and placed his hand heartily in that of the young man. " By George, I'm glad to see you !" he cried. "What an age it is since you were here! Where have you kept yourself ? Well, well ! (Lettie, you can go to bed.) Hope you're not in a hurry. I want to talk with you for two hours, at least." Lettie had felt her fondness for this father grow- ing less and less for a long time, but at this moment she had a sense of actual outrage that she could hardly endure. He had no right to throw that order to her, in the presence of this man, as if she were a three-years' child. It degraded her, it lowered her in the estimation of him for whom she cared more than for all other men combined. The angry tears flew to her eyes, as she turned to execute her father's bidding. At her bedroom door she remembered the guest, and turning towards him, unmindful of the drops that were overflowing on her cheek, she bade him good-night in a voice that was scarcely audible. Clyde felt a strong inclination to lift his hand and smite this blind parent, if possibly that might rouse him to a sense of what he had done. The girl had hardly left the room, when the Colonel remembered the omission of which she had been guilty. She 186 AN OBIGINAL SINNEK. had not kissed him. Excusing himself he went to her door and knocked upon it. " Lettie !" Clyde heard the voice and noted its defiant ring. The Colonel did not notice that, however. He could not have comprehended such a thing in this child, who had never had any will of her own since he had first seen her in her mother's arms, twenty-one years before. " Lettie, you have forgotten." " What have 1 forgotten t" Again the defiant ring. Clyde wished he was further away. He feared there was going to be a collision that he would rather not witness. " You did not kiss me." For five seconds, that seemed like five hours, there was no reply. " Did I not ?" said the voice, at last. " Well, I will do it to-morrow." " No, I want it now." It was a question in the girl's mind for a moment what she would do. She thought she never could kiss him again without repugnance. He had in- sulted her before the only person whose presence would have made her mind it. But she did not want trouble while Mr. Morley was there, and she thought perhaps he would blame her for the part she had already played. "Wait a minute, then," she said. Clyde tried to picture to himself the girl as she was in that room. Was the delay caused by her desire to wipe from her eyes the telltale traces of her anger and grief ? Or had she already removed COMPELLING A KISS. 187 some of her outer garments, making herself unfit for exhibition in the presence of one not a member of the family? Strange for a student of divinity were the pictures he drew in that brief moment before she opened the door and came into the Col- onel's presence. " Good-night." Lettie uttered the words in the perfunctory man- ner she had used from childhood, and touched the bronzed cheek of her father with her lips. At the same moment she cast a look at Clyde that spoke as plainly as words what was in her mind. She could not help it. He might think less of her for the spirit of rebellion, but she wanted him to know. " Excuse me for this interruption," said Col. Fuller affably, as his daughter disappeared again. " I hardly need apologize to you over a family matter, but I deem it of the greatest importance that there shall be no deviation from an arrangement once established." Clyde did not utter a word, either in approval or disapproval of this sentiment, and the Colonel natu- rally considered that enough had been said upon that head. He turned the conversation upon other things, and as he did most of the talking, and as his guest was quite willing to have him, there was no pause in the flow of words until the hands of the mantel clock pointed to half-past eleven. By an unaccountable freak of the intellect Clyde found himself growing stronger in his purpose of saying something in favor of Mark Melton's cause than he had ever been. When he had decided to go up to the room where Miss Fuller was sitting alone, it seemed to him a most dangerous proceeding and 188 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. one little likely to forward the enterprise he had un- dertaken. When the Colonel sent her to bed in that rough way, and the girl turned her wet eyes upon him, he could have murdered someone, almost, in the first flush of his sympathy. He was in no mood at that moment to ask anything of his host, and hardly able to endure even his company and his voluble discourse. But as the minutes flew by the thought of Melton grew upon him, the sentiment that he owed something to the sacred name of friendship and the cause of truth. He would do as he had agreed, allude to the subject, and see what might come of it, at any cost. "Do you see much of Mr. Melton?" he asked, when an opportunity presented itself. " Oh, he comes up Friday evenings, for a game," replied Col. Fuller, coldly. " I do not see much of him otherwise than that." " He has had a little stroke of luck," said Clyde. Then, as the Colonel looked up inquiringly, he explained : " A relation has left him some money." Col. Fuller did not seem much interested, but he inquired the amount, as a matter, apparently, of form. " Five or six thousand dollars, I believe. A tidy windfall to a young fellow just beginning practice. It will be a great aid to him, in getting a good house to set up in ; and in case he should want to to marry or anything of that kind." The Colonel has ceased to be interested, when the word " marry " caught his ear. "He won't get married, not right away," he replied, confidentially. " I don't mind telling you that he came to me once and asked for Lettie. You COMPELLING A KISS. 189 won't say anything, of course. I told him they were both too young to talk of such a thing, but that if he did well I might think of it, five or ten years later. He hasn't spoken since, but I know it's not out of his mind. Marriage !" exclaimed the old gentle- man. " What the deuce do these boys see so fine in it, I wonder? Before they're out of school they want to get a woman tied to them for life ! I was thirty when I married, and I should be ninety, if I had to live my life over again. I tell you, sir, it's the biggest nonsense any man ever got into his head !" Clyde remarked that Mark was not at all a bad sort of young fellow though. " He's a baby !" cried the Colonel. " He's a milk- sop ! Nothing like his father, the Major. There was a man for you ! Ready to jump into any scrimmage, caring no more for a shower of bullets than any one else would for a shower of rain. If he wanted to marry a girl, sir, he wouldn't ask any one, not even her, I really believe. He'd ride down to her house, and take her across his saddle, sir, and gallop to the nearest minister's." Clyde could not help a smile as he asked if this manner of procedure met with the approval of the narrator. " Hang it, no !" laughed the Colonel. " But you couldn't help admiring the spirit of the fellow, after all. When he was a lieutenant, and under my com- mand, he stole a pair of ducks right out of my mess- tent, in broad daylight, and I went down to have it out with him. By George, sir ! I fell in love with the bravado of the cuss. I dined with him that night and let him help me to a plate of my own 190 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. birds, sir ! The rascal actually talked at the table of the expense he had been to in getting them, in- venting the damnedest stories you ever heard, and I never spoke out once. This boy of his is a baby ; but he's his father's son and I shan't forget that. When he's old enough, and she is, he can have her, for the love I bore my dearest friend." At the reminiscense, the Colonel wiped a suspic- ious looking drop of moisture from his eye, and Clyde thought it a good time to take his departure. " You can't marry until you are five years older, Mark," he said to Melton the next day, " unless you are willing to kidnap and ride off with her." Then, as Mark looked at him blankly, he related the gist of the Colonel's statement. "I'm afraid there's not much hope, then," was Mark's rueful reply. " Don't say I advised you," said Morley, with a cutting accent. " But if it was my case I'd not wait long. I'd go to her and speak up like a man. If he's not willing I'd take her without. If you've no horse to saddle, try a Pullman car. Wait five years or one year or one month and you risk every- thing !" CHAPTER XVIII. "SHE WILL PROBABLY HAVE CHILDREN." The Revere Club languished when Frank Morley was out of town. To be sure, Mark Melton had a habit of lounging in there for a lunch as of yore ; Charlie Wilkins came because he had nothing els "SHE WILL PROBABLY HAVE CHILDBEN." 191 to do ; Silas Clarke dropped around whenever he wanted to borrow a dollar or two of Charlie ; and the young man from the leather house on High street still made it a practice to eat there because he could get a better lunch for his money than at any of the outside restaurants. But the club as a whole became a very dull institution that summer when Frank stayed away longer than usual, and when nobody had authority to state when he would return or even where he was spending his time. " What the de-vil do you sup-pose the fel-low is do-ing?" drawled Wilkins, one warm afternoon, addressing himself to Clarke. " He's al-ways talk- ing about study-ing law, but he ne-ver gwad-uates or o-pens an of-fice. I wish, on my so-ul, he wouldn't be so de-vilish mys-te-wious." " Pshaw !" ejaculated Clarke. " Leave him alone to know his own business. That psalm-singing brother of his is in town and you can't get Frank to show up while they're liable to run into each other." Wilkins looked interested. " The de-vil !" he replied. " What is the fel-low doing he-re ?" " How the hades should I know ?" was the answer. " Whenever I see him he's fooling around Melton, who thinks there's something in him worth cultiv- ating, blessed if I can see what ! I've got an idea, Charlie, that I'll tell you if you can keep your mouth shut tight enough." Wilkins announced in his halting way that the opening referred to should be religiously kept sealed so far as this matter was concerned. "Well, you know Melton goes a good deal to see Col. Fuller, the old ex-army officer who lives on 192 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. Shavvmut avenue, the one with the pretty daughter that Frank called the best shod woman in Boston one day when we were all sitting at the window there. The old man plays cribbage, and Mark gives him a game once or twice a week. Now, it's plain enough to me that this is only a blind to get on the right side of his royal highness, and that the girl is the real object of the campaign." Charlie could only exclaim, in a feeble voice, " The de-vil!" This being his favorite method of express- ing all ideas of whatever magnitude. " Melton goes there," pursued Clarke, with a wise expression, " with the view of capturing the pretty daughter. But another man has also set his eyes in that direction, for I happen to know that Mr. Frank Morley rooms in that very house. Now, is it the only place in Boston where he could obtain a lodging ? Is it the most central one for a young man whose office work, when he does any, is on Court street ? By no means. Why, then, does he room there ? Because he, also, has his eye on the best shod feet in the Hub of the Universe !" The plot thus outlined was so deep and cunning in the estimation of Mr. Wilkins that even his custom- ary exclamation failed to satisfy him. He reclined in his favorite position, marveling at the newspaper acumen that had enabled Clarke to come to such a stupendously wise decision. " That makes two applicants for the hand I should say the feet of Miss Fuller," continued Clarke, after pausing to note the effect of his guesses. " But that, it appears, is not enough. There must be a third one. And who is this third one ? I have happened to pass the house twice in the last week, " SHE WILL PBOBABLY HAVE OHILDBEN. J> 193 at about eight o'clock in the evening, and I have seen another man at the bell. That other man now, Charlie, if you let this out I'll kill you was the preacher !" Charlie roused himself enough to repeat *' The de- vil !" a great many times, until Silas thought it best to stop him. " Who has the best show out of this interesting party ? You know what Mark is, too honest to live and too slow to breathe, almost. He has no chance at all. We'll leave him out of the combination from the start. While he and the old man are playing cribbage the girl will lose her heart to one of the other two. Which one ? Well, you may put me down for a fool if I don't think it is most likely to be the minister." Wilkins had got as far as " The de " when he was interrupted. " For Heaven's sake, Charlie, leave your patron saint alone for a minute and listen to me ! Where a girl is at stake the fellow on the ground has a chance worth two of the other one's. This gospel-spouter is here and Frank is the Lord only knows where. If he knew what his brother is up to he'd show up pretty sudden, you can bet your life. I'd give a dollar to get hold of his address, for I hate every form of preacher worse than I do poison. I've asked Melton and he says he doesn't know. The minister knows, of course, but that's all the good it will do me. I consider it the duty of a member of the Revere Club to protect the interests of a brother when he is away. Now, the thing to do is for one of us to go up there to that house on Shawmut avenue, engage a room, and watch proceedings." 194 AN ORIGINAL SINNEE. Firmly believing that Clarke was one of the wisest men on this planet, Wilkins cordially indorsed this suggestion. " But who the de-vil can do it ?" he inquired. " You can." Charlie began to stammer, " I I I " "Yes, you you you! You can and you must. You have nothing else to do. Go up there and get a room. It is the summer season and you are sure to find one empty. Don't mind how good it is or how poor engage it and send a trunk there. And when you have a key to the premises, clear out that thick head of yours and discover what is going on." It took a good hour before Wilkins could be made to believe that this plan was really feasible. He /made every excuse in the world to get out of it, but Oarke would not yield an inch. Ciiarlie plead the hardship of having to leave his luxurious apartments on Marlboro street ; the pickle he would be in if Frank returned and suspected the part he was play- ing ; and finally, in a burst of confidence, he re- vealed the fact that at this present time he was devoting himself assiduously to winning the affec- tions of a doo-cid pretty gi-rl, with whom he had recently become acquainted. Clarke's brow was at once covered with a thunder- cloud. "Again!" he exclaimed. "Goodness, Charlie, are you never going to let up on this sort of thing?" " But but you have-n't seen her," protested poor Charlie, with a frightened look. " She's a tweas-ure, a pos-tive tweas-ure! I'm su-re you'd say I was wight this time, de-ar boy." " SHE WILL PROBABLY HAVE CHILDREN," 195 Clarke shook his head rapidly. "It's not a question of ' tweasures,'" he replied, with dignity, mocking the pronunciation of his com- panion. " It's a question of heredity. You will have to look on the matter as one of crossing breeds exclusively. You wanted a while ago to cross the Yankee with the Jew, and before that with the Ger- man, and I told you what the effect would be. You were wise enough to see the application. Now, what is the name of this girl that you have at pres- ent under consideration ?" With a shaking voice Wilkins imparted the infor- mation that she was called Marie Lamartine. Then Clarke's brow grew yet darker. " French !" he cried. " French, by all that's imbecile ! Heavens ! If you marry that girl she will probably have children, and what will they be? What will they be? Don't evade the question. Come, what will those children be ?" He had not paused for the slightest moment, to give an opportunity for a reply, but his manner was so frigid as to set Wilkins' teeth to chattering. " What will they be ?" he repeated, for the third time. " Can you hope they will not smell of garlic ? Will they occupy their time principally in catching frogs, or will they not ? If they are sons, will they drink anything but absinthe when they grow up ? If daughters, will they refrain on any occasion from dancing the can-can ? You ought to know some- thing of French habits, at your age. You must have read books that give an inkling of it. Do you want a wife who will feel it absolutely necessary to her position in society that she must have at least seven lovers ?" t96 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. The distressed auditor could only gasp " Gwa- cious !" " I ought never to be surprised at you again," con- tinued Silas, in a tone of great severity. " You have become so used to considering marriage in the mere light of an amusement, that you forget its true mean- ing. Now, listen to me. You must give up seeing Mile. Lamartine." " Oh-me-Gard !" " And you must go at once to engage a room on Shawnut avenue." "The de-vil !" Clarke enforced his direction without loss of time. " Go up to the door as large as life, mind you, and not as if you were a pickpocket in disguise. If there is any kind of a room there, engage it, and before night get in enough baggage so you can stay. Don't talk to me about this and that, but do as I tell you. We don't want that psalm-singer to carry off the rightful bride of Frank Morley, and we are the only ones who can stop him." Accustomed as he was to being guided by Clarke, Charlie made but a feeble resistance after this, and with grave doubts of his ability to accomplish any- thing he set out an hour later to the address given him. He felt much dejected as he contemplated the abandonment of his amour with pretty Marie, which had been progressing in a harmless and semi-platonic way for a fortnight. Marie, it may as well be said, was not of aristocratic lineage, but Charlie had no scruples against making love to her on that ac- count. She was the accredited nurse to one of the babies which on pleasant days make the centre of Commonwealth avenue to blossom as the rose. "SHE WILL PROBABLY HAVE CHILDEEJT." 197 Charlie had made her acquaintance in the most off- hand fashion, and would undoubtedly have talked to her of matrimony in time had it not been for the interference of his self-constituted guardian. As he rode in a street car toward the house he sought, he recalled the bewitching ways of his charmer, and the delicious accent with which she had answered his good-mornings. He had intended to invite her to a little supper that very evening, having progressed so far as to learn that she was allowed to be out after the baby's bedtime, which occurred at six. He did not fancy the new task he had been given half as much as he did a tete-a-tete with such a little fairy as Marie. But, of course, Clarke was right. It was the duty of a Man and Wilkins prided himself upon that title to think of his prospective offspring vbove all things. " Gwa-cious !" It was a narrow escape ! " The de-vil !" He would not go so far again without seeking his friend's advice. If Charlie was confused when he rang the door- bell at Mrs. Bright's he was much more so when, in- stead of a servant, Miss Bessie came to answer it. He recognized her as the young lady whom he had seen on several occasions with Miss Fuller, and as he knew nothing of her relationship to the landlady of the house, he was so much at a loss what to say, that he stood stock-still at the threshold, never uttering a word ; until at last Bessie asked him, in a surprised tone, whether he wished to see any one. " Ya-as, of course," he replied. " Ya-as. I wa-nted to know, you know, if there were any w-wooms to let, you know." And hav'og delivered himself of this sentence with 198 AN OBIGINAL SINNER. great difficulty, he paused to catch his breath, which bore great evidence of an intention to desert him permanently. " There is one," said Bessie. "It is on the top floor, and the price is three dollars a week. Will you look at it ?" Charlie stared at her for some seconds in stupid surprise. " Ya-as ! Ya-as, of course !" he ejaculated, sud- denly recovering himself. " Ya-as ! He-re." He took out his purse. " I will pay a month in ad- vance and and I will send my my thi-ngs, you know, this eve-ning." A fear that she was dealing with a lunatic began to enter Bessie's mind. " You will go up and see the room first ?'" she asked. " No ; that is, ya-as !" said Wilkins. " But I'm not particular, you know. I'm sure it will suit me. Ya-as." Bessie asked him to come in and wait a moment in the parlor. Then she went into the kitchen and got one of the girls to come with her, as she did not like to go up stairs with him alone. The girl, who was a very comely Irish lass, smiled broadly as she saw the new lodger, but Charlie paid no attention to her. He just peeped into the room, which he said suited him exactly, and then he tendered the money again. " We only want one week's pay at a time," said Bessie. " If you wish to give me three dollars when you come to-night I will have a receipt ready." Quite glad to escape from the presence of the two girls Wilkins accepted the opportunity to get out of W 8HE WILL PROBABLY HAVE CHILDREN." 199 the house. That evening he installed himself in his room and began his role of amateur detective. " It's doo-cid close, the box they put me in," he told Clarke, at the club, the next day. '' I thought I ne-ver should get to sleep in it, you know. I don't weally fawn-cy it, bah Jove ?" "You stick to it till you find out something about that parson," said Clarke, decidedly. " And incident- ally see if you can get Frank's address out of any of them. Say there is a letter for him that ought to be forwarded. If one person in the house don't know it, ask the others. Here is the first chance you have ever had to distinguish yourself, and you must make the most of it." Wilkins was not long in getting into the good graces of at least one member of the household the pretty servant girl who had gone up with Bessie to show him his room. Her name was Maggie and she had the duty among other things of putting his room in order. Charlie took the easiest way of making friends with her, which was by a liberal douceur, and she openly expressed her opinion below stairs that the new lodger was " a gintleman," before he had been twenty-four hours in the house. As no one suspected her reason for coming to this decision her verdict was accepted by the landlady and her niece, and they congratulated themselves on their tenant, who had turned out to be merely eccentric and not dangerous, as had at first been feared. Charlie soon learned that Maggie knew nothing of the whereabouts of Mr. Frank Morley. He also learned that she had asked Miss Bessie about the matter and that this young lady was no wiser than herself. Maggie did chatter a good deal, however, 200 AN OKIGINAL 8INNES. about the Fullers, and Mr. Clyde never made a call upon either the Colonel or his daughter that the fact fas not promptly communicated to Wilkins. Still there was not much of value to this in itself, and Silas Clarke expressed great impatience with his detective when he told him how little he was learn* ing. A week passed by before anything transpired worthy of record. Then a strange thing occurred. Charlie came in very late one night, using his pass- key so quietly as not to disturb any one. As he ascended the stairs he noticed a dim light in the room at the left that he had been told was re- served for the use of Frank Morley, never being let in his absence. The thick coverings prevented the least sound of his feet, and, somewhat startled by the unexpected discovery, he trod as lightly as possible. As he came opposite the door he heard a heavy whisper that was unmistakeably a man's, and a lighter one that he recognized as belonging to Miss Bright. Feeling like an eavesdropper who may at any moment be unmasked, and yet anxious to penetrate the mystery which he believed was being enacted so near him, Charlie crept slowly up the second flight, and paused breathless before climbing to his chamber above. There was something of honor in the breast of this peculiar young fellow. Had it been an ordin- ary matter, he would have gone straight to his room preferring not to know what was going on. But he had come into this house on a certain mission. Every day since he entered it he had been urged to renewed vigilance by the man who had sent him " SHE WILL PROBABLY HAVE CHILDREN." 201 there. Possibly this strange visitor, in whose room Bessie trusted herself at an hour past midnight, might be worth knowing about. He would wait a little while and see if anything was to be learned. Should it appear that this secret had nothing to do with the matter he had in hand, horses would not drag his knowledge from him. As he paused there, the voices grew a little louder. The girl was protesting against something plead- ing in tones that quite forgot the danger of dis- covery. Then the man's voice increased in volume also, as if he, too, had lost the sense of time and place. The other lodgers at this house were famous for the soundness of their slumbers, or surely some of them might have been awakened now, for the noise was distinct in the hallway, and Wilkins began even to distinguish words. " No, no, no!" It was Bessie's voice. " Go, I beg of you ! I pray, I beseech you, go!" " Hush !" was the reply, in an almost angry tone. " Do you want the whole house to know I am here ? And you pretend to love me !" Then the girl's voice again : " I do love you, God knows I do ! But you must go ! Yes, you must ! Be wise, my darling !" All of these words could now be heard perfectly by the astonished Wilkins. It began to dawn on his brain that he had heard the man's voice some- where before, but he could not connect it with any- thing definite. But as he stood there wondering, he heard the girl again, this time in a shriller voice, and with her accents evidently inspired by terror. " Frank ! Frank ! Oh, God help me!" 202 AN ORIGINAL 8INNEE. For several seconds no sound that could penetrate into the hallway followed these last exclamations. Wilkins' face was white as a sheet, but his heart ex- perienced a determination that he had never known in his life. He descended the stairs, two steps at a time, and grasped the handle of the door that led into Morley's room. The bolt was not shot and in an instant he stood in the presence of those whose conversation he had heard. Frank Morley, for it was he, sprang to his feet in an attitude of defiance. Then, seeing who the intruder was, he clapped his hands a moment to his head and sank into a chair. Bessie threw a look at Charlie that he never forgot, and for a little space the tableau was unaltered. " I I beg your pawdon !" said Charlie, at last. " It was doo-cid stoo-pid of me, bah Jove ! Thought I was on my own flo-or, doncherknow. Ya-as." He withdrew instantly and the couple were alone again. Their frightened eyes sought those of each other. "There ts a God," whispered Morley, hoarsely, " and he has heard you ! He has saved us, and I yes, I thank him. Do not fear for Wilkins. He is a queer fellow, but true blue. He never will tell what he has seen. Good-night." He did not offer to touch the girl in any way, but went silently down the stairs and out of doors. And the new lodger heard the latch click behind him before he retired into his own chamber. MY BROTHER'S KEEPEB. 203 CHAPTER XIX. MY BROTHER'S KEEPER. Wilkins had come so suddenly to the knowledge that Frank Morley was in the house, and Frank had disappeared so suddenly afterwards, there was no opportunity to say a word to him on the particular subject which was the cause of Charlie's being on the premises. It was not till some hours later, lying in the stillness of his room, that it came into his head what he had missed. However, he consoled himself with the reflection that he could not very well have begun a series of questions at such an inauspicious moment, nor have imparted what he wanted the young law student to hear. More than this, Charlie had a dim notion that he did not care so much to further the designs and wishes of Mr. Frank Morley as he had a few hours earlier. He began to think his late friend one whose acquaintance he had about as lief consider at an end. Charlie was no prude. He had no objection to any man's kissing a pretty girl when he liked, provided the pretty girl was will- ing. But he did not think the little formality of finding out whether shewas willing wholly unworthy of attention. And he was quite certain that when it became strikingly evident that she was not willing, the would-be lover should reconsider his intention without loss of time. The next day, when Silas Clarke asked him as usual if he had learned anything, he replied eva- 204 AN OBIGINAL SINNER. sively. He had been at the club for more than an hour before the time that Morley was in the habit of calling, when in the city, and had kept his eyes on the door, expecting momentarily to see him enter. He supposed the natural course would be for Frank to seek him out and apologize for, or at least attempt a palliation of his conduct, and he had deter- mined not to make a fuss about it, though he knew he never should think the same of him again. But when the figure of Morley did* not appear, Wilkins began to think the matter stranger than ever. " It's doo-cid que-er Fwank stays so long away," he lisped, to Clarke. " Confound him, yes ! But, then, he never does things like any one else." " He wouldn't come to town and not show up here ?" ventured Wilkins, interrogatively. "Why, he might," answered Clarke. "And that's one of the reasons why your guard at Shawmut avenue is necessary. He might come home for a day or two, for something, and slip off without my seeing him. But if you are as solid with the Irish girl as you think, he couldn't do that without your knowing. And if he should come there, it wouldn't take three minutes for you to put the flea in his ear that his brother will bear watching." No, it wouldn't take three minutes to do that, thought poor Charlie, if the three minutes were like any ordinary three. When they were filled with wholly unexpected incidents, however, that was another matter. Charlie met Bessie in the hallway that afternoon, when he went in. She seemed about to speak to him, but apparently changed her mind at the last MY BROTHER'S KEEPEB. 205 moment and went into the parlor instead. He saw enough of her face to realize that it was paler than ordinary, and that she was suffering. Had he had the courage he would have stopped and said some- thing to her, for he felt the impulse, but he did not know exactly how to do it. Arriving at his room he found Maggie there, shutting the windows on account of a thunder-storm that was rising, and when he asked her whether she had yet heard any- thing of Mr. Morley, she answered that she had not. '* Do you aw think Miss Bes-sie is, aw partic- ular-ly stwuck with him ?" " Well, I do be thinking sometimes that she likes him pretty well," said Maggie. " He be's a nice young fellow, and Miss Bessie ain't blind." Mr. Clyde Morley had been at the house only once since that night when Col. Fuller insisted in his presence that his daughter should obey him. This time also the Colonel had been at home, and at the regulation hour Lettie kissed him and vanished into her chamber. But on the evening following the one when Frank was seen by Wilkins, Clyde came again. Bessie admitted him, the servants being busy at other work, and contrary to recent habit, he paused a moment to speak to her. " Is Col. Fuller at home ?" It was his ordinary question, but he spoke in a kinder tone than he generally used when talking with her, a thing she was quick to notice. "No, sir, he is out, but Miss Fuller is in. Will you step up and wait ?" She had said that to him more than once before, but her voice was affected by his manner, from which 206 AN ORIGINAL SINNKE. she had been led to feel that he would do more than ask these questions. "I will, but, before I do so, may I not have a word with you ?" She led the way into the parlor, trembling. She was always afraid of him, and to-day more than ever. What could he intend to say ? Was it possible he had heard of the events of the previous evening ?" " You are not at ease," were his first words. " I pray you calm yourself. I have a message for you." She looked at him with an expression of surprise. He had a message for her ! "My brother my brother Frank," he began, and the cloud that always found its way to his forehead came with the name, " was in Boston yesterday. I had a brief interview with him a business inter- view that could not well be avoided. We are not in the habit of meeting when it can be helped." His tones grew more and more severe as he proceeded. " Before we parted he inquired if I was likely to call here, and when I told him yes, he asked me to say something to you." He waited, partly to gain a better command over his voice, and partly to allow her to compose her- self. " I was astonished, I need not say," he continued, "at such a request, and told him I should much pre- fer he intrusted his message to some other person. 'When you learn what it is,' he replied, ' you may be more willing to be the bearer of it. I want you to say to Bessie that I am going far away, and may not be able to bid her farewell. I want you to pay what I owe Mrs. Bright, with enough to cover a month's MY BROTHER'S KEEPER. 207 notice, and send me the receipt.' And this is the message I bring." . There was a good deal of womanly courage in the breast of this young girl, and even as she heard what seemed like her death-knell, she did not forget to launch back at him an arrow of her own. "I fear, Mr. Morley, that you could not have brought news more agreeable to yourself. And lam not sure but the decision which you report was in- fluenced in no small measure by your own advice." "You are much in error," he answered, mildly, " at least as to the latter intimation. If you knew my brother better you would understand that noth- ing would give him more pleasure than to go exactly contrary to my suggestions." Bessie could not help asking at what time Mr. Morley had seen his brother. She could hardly believe that Frank had come to visit her after taking this resolve. "I said 'yesterday,'" he corrected, " but to be strictly accurate it was to-day. Our business was finished in the afternoon, and I supposed he had left the city, but at some hour in the night two or three o'clock, I should judge he came to my room and awoke me. Something had happened to excite and make him nervous. 'You go to Col. Fuller's some- times ?' he asked. 'Yes.' ' Do you think you shall go there to-day ?' * Probably this evening.' ' Would you do me the favor to ask for Miss Bright and tell her that I am going far away, and shall give up my room ? Pay what is due, with a month in advance, and tell Bessie I may not be able to say farewell to her.* I asked him no questions, but promised as requested. You have the entire conversation,'* 208 AN ORIGINAL SINNEK. Bessie wished to close the interview. She wanted to be alone where she could relieve her overcharged feelings in tears. The cruelty of this sudden deser- tion was more then she could bear without some such demonstration, and she did not want this heart- less brother of her lost one to know the extent of her sorrow. She rose, as if to permit him to leave. " Listen to me a moment, little girl," said the grave voice of the man at her side, and she thought it had suddenly become surcharged with a new melody. " Your heart is sad, but believe me, this should be the brightest hour of your life. As long as Frank Morley lives he will be a menace to the tranquility of women. Beneath an attractive exterior he hides a capacity for evil incredible to one who does not know the truth. I would not say these things of him if I could do otherwise. He is blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh. And I tell you, when you thank God for especial blessings, count it his greatest that he has led that man out of your life and will never suffer him to return." He was gone. He had ascended the stairway. She heard him knock on the door of the Fullers' apartment. She heard the door open and close. She was utterly desolate. The man she had loved that she still loved, in spite of his faults had gone his way, without even the consolation of a parting word. How her heart rebelled at the harsh verdict his brother had rendered ? She knew why Frank had gone. He was overcome with shame at the remembrance of his actions. He could not bear to face her again, after what his passion had led him to disclose of his wild nature. Yet this was not the conduct of a thoroughly bad MY BBOTHER'S KEEPEB. 209 man. Had he been what his brother charged he would have returned to her, and waited a better time to renew his overtures. No, he was not all evil. She could hear his voice again declaring that there was a God, and that he thanked him for averting his dreamed of sin. She wished he had left an intimation of his future place of abode, that she might write and tell him how fully she forgave. Poor Bessie ! She would have journeyed to him, no matter what distance he was away, and let him know her feelings from her own lips. Lettie Fuller had seen Clyde Morley sober before, but never so much so as now. For some minutes after he entered her parlor he spoke only in mono- syllables, acting as if the air of the place oppressed him. She asked him finally if he was ill, for she could account for his strange manner in no other way. " I I don't know," was his reply. " I am hardly ill, and yet I am not well. I had a letter this morn- ing bringing sad news, and it troubles me deeply." She saw that he intended to tell her more, and waited patiently. " An old man, a dear old man, who has been more than a father to me, is at the point of death. He wants to see me before he passes away, and I dread the ordeal." Miss Fuller looked puzzled, but still she held her peace. " It is not a long story," he went on. " This friend of mine is a minister of the gospel. I was left when a small boy in his charge. He decided that I should be educated to his profession. Under his tutelage I was prepared for college, always with this end iq 210 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. viev,'. When I graduated I entered a divinity school. In the natural course of things I should now be settled over some parish. Circumstances have made me hesitate to enter the pulpit. This has grieved my dear guardian intensely. He fears that I may ultimately abandon the profession altogether, and before he dies he wishes my solemn promise to enter upon it." Lettie waited a moment, and as he did not speak she asked if this clergyman lived very far from Bos- ton. " Only a few hours' ride." " Why do you not go to him ?" " Because I am not ready to make the promise he craves, and I do not like to stand by his dying-bed and refuse it." " I supposed, papa supposed," she said, " that you were certain to be a minister. We did not imagine it was an open question. Papa dislikes the church so much he has had to strain every point in your favor, and the fact that he likes you so well in spite of it is much to your credit." He thanked her by a nod and asked with some interest whether she shared her father's opinions in relation to the church in general. "Why, really," she answered, diffidently, "I know very little about it. I never was inside a church in my life." " Indeed ! Then you cannot have a very clear idea as to what is meant by the profession of a clergyman." She shook her head. "I understand they preach the doctrines of their MY BROTHER'S KEEPER. 211 denominations every Sunday, and sometimes visit their parishioners." " Yes. And do you also understand that they are required to be better men to live holier lives than the average of their fellows ?" No, Lettie did not know that. And she did not look as if the fact made much impression upon her. " That is my trouble," he confessed, looking her full in the eyes. " I am afraid I am not good enough to be a minister; that temptations may come which I cannot withstand, and that I may be a stumbling- block to others." These technical terms only combined to confuse the girl's brain. He was talking of things of which she knew nothing. "It is unfortunate," she said, finally. " It is," he replied. " And just at present it makes it very hard for me." They had grown so pensive upon this matter, that he turned the conversation of his own will into another channel, by referring to the events of that evening when the Colonel had called her out of her chamber. " Pardon me for saying I was sorry for you," he said. " But in a sense he was right. He is your father and can command you." " He has no right to insult me before others," she said, bridling at the recollection. " But he did not think. You are to him but the child you were when you first came under his charge. He does not notice that time is passing. Then, he is of the army, and accustomed to unquestioning obedience." 212 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. Lettie had picked up a book from the table and was turning its leaves rapidly. " You may call me very bold, Mr. Morley, but there are many times of late when it seems as if I could not bear these things much longer. I have been repressed until my spirit is nearly ready to break forth.* When it comes it will be all at once, like an explosion." He felt a sympathy for her. Was not his own life like that always on the verge of an explosion ? He also had been repressed until he could hardly endure it. He reached over and took her hand in his without thinking what he was doing. " Lettie !" She looked up at him with half-parted lips. "Lettie, I I think " There was a noise on the stairs and landing. A hurried knock at the door cut short the rest of his sentence. Miss Fuller, much chagrined at the in- terruption, went to see who had come, and found a little group, of which Bessie, Maggie and one of the lodgers made a part. *' Oh, Lettie !" exclaimed Bessie, " your father has been taken ill, at Jiis club. Some men are bringing him upstairs." Miss Fuller was so annoyed that she could hardly control herself enough to answer with politeness. But Clyde came to her rescue, and began to move the furniture out of the path of the men who were bearing the helpless form. He knew which the Col- onel's room was, and opened the door that led into it, and the sick man was at once carried there and laid on the bed. MY BROTHER'S KEEPER. 213 "I don't know exactly what they call it," said one of the members of the club, who had come along. "He hasn't been quite well for a good while. He's half full of lead, you know, that was shot into him by the rebels. Ah, here's the doctor. He may be able to explain the technical points better." Dr. Brennan did not stop, howe/ver, to explain any- thing. He directed the men who had carried the Col- onel to remove his clothing and get him into the bed as soon as possible. The patient was conscious, but very weak, and he offered no comment or resistance to anything that was prescribed by the physician, an old acquaintance of army days. In fifteen minutes the doctor came out of the bedroom and informed those gathered in the parlor that the Colonel was "comfortable," a term that always confuses laymen in such cases, for it is usually applied when the party alluded to seems very uncomfortable indeed. Mrs. Bright's experience was brought into play, and she undertook the task of receiving and carrying out the instructions of the doctor. Lettie, who looked slightly dazed, was of no use whatever, and nobody expected much of her. Bessie, feeling that sympathy was required, put her arms around the girl's waist, but Lettie quietly released herself. The principal thought in her mind was that her father had added a new grievance to the too long list she held against him. He might have selected some other moment to have been brought home in this state, than the one she had longed for with all her soul. " Lettie !" It was Clyde speaking again, as they stood apart from the others. He had called her by the familiar 214 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB. name once more, but it was only to say that he was going, and that he would try and look in the next day to see if he could be of any service. She saw him take his hat and leave and she thought her head would burst. " I came very near saying something foolish, I'm afraid," Clyde remarked, mentally, as he took his way to the Parker House. CHAPTER XX OFF FOR ARCADIE. In a day or two Wilkins received a short letter from Frank Morley, dated at New York, asking him to say to the boys at the club that as he was about to remove to another part of the country which he did not specify he should have to sever his mem- bership in the organization. He sent a money-order sufficient to pay his dues for six months in advance, in order to leave with the books square in his favor, and said a few trite things about regretting circum- stances which made it impossible for him to say good-bye in person. There was no allusion to the affair at Shawmut avenue, for Frank had the fullest confidence that he need say nothing to keep Wilkins from divulging that secret. Charlie read the letter several times, to make sure there was no hidden meaning anywhere between the lines, and then he gave it to the treasurer of the club along with the money-order, and considered his duty ended in the matter. OFF FOB ARCADIE. 215 Great was the dismay at the Revere when this news was disseminated. Silas Clarke could hardly be persuaded to believe it genuine at first. He thought it one of Morley's jokes, which that indi- vidual would come round in a few weeks and laugh over. It piqued him that the letter should have been sent to Wilkins, instead of to himself. He did not remember that Frank and Charlie had been on any specially intimate terms. If Frank were to write to any one a genuine letter of this kind, he said, it would be either to himself or to Mark Melton. On the whole, Mark was the person most likely to have been made the confidant of such a decision. But after Clarke had expressed this opinion freely for an hour or two to all comers, Melton entered the club, and put an end to speculation by announcing that he had received a letter of similar import and that he had no doubt much to his regret that it was genuine. Mark looked soberer than usual and his opinion was soon accepted by all, even the young man who worked in the High street leather house. "Well, that's the end of this club!" exclaimed Clarke, when he could doubt no longer. " It's dul- ler than the devil here when he's away, and if he's not coming back we might as well close up shop." " I tell you what we could do," suggested another member, with an inclination to humor. "We might get that brother of his to join in his place." This raised a slight laugh, but Clarke uttered such a groan of distress that the levity was very brief in its duration. " Such a joke ought to subject its author to expul- sion," he protested. " For heaven's sake, don't let's hear anything more of that kind !" 216 AN ORIGINAL 8INNEB. Theu rising, he motioned to Wilkins to follow him, and went out upon the street. "I suppose you've got ivo idea what is the cause of this," he said, watching his companion narrowly. Charlie replied by a shake of his head. " Well, there's no need of your staying at that house now, as I see. If Frank has abandoned the field it's not our business to interest ourselves for him. Confound it ! I wish I understood what he is up to !" Charlie did not say much at first. He was thinking that he did not want to leave Shawmut avenue just yet. The blue eyes of his chambermaid had been having an entrancing effect upon him of late. Ig- norant and unsophisticated as Maggie was, he had found a charm about her that captured his sus- ceptible imagination. He wondered if Clarke would find any fault with this entanglement, and thinking it best to put a brave front on the matter, he finally revealed his dilemma. "I don't want to leave just yet, de-ar boy," he stammered. "There's some-body the-re that I find vewy inter-westing." Clarke started and assumed a severe expression. "A woman, I'll wager a dollar !" he exclaimed. Wilkins admitted the correctness of the diagnosis. " Nat-uwally," he said. " What the devil have you struck now ?" Always awed when Silas spoke in that tone, Char- lie manfully stood his ground and began to expatiate with considerable vehemence on the personal charms of Miss Maggie O'Donaghue. " Such a fawm as you nev-er saw, de-ar boy ! Eyes like like the sky, you know ! Teeth as OFF FOB ARCADIE. 217 wegular as if they were bou-ght in the sto-re, 'pon honah ! She's a weal beauty, perfectly entwanc- ing !" Silas eyed him with a look of dejection. "And her name is Maggie O'Donaghue !" he cried, drawing a discouraged breath. Charlie said it was. " And you are trying to think yourself in love with her !" Charlie, a little frightened at the ferocity of his friend's manner, asked what there was in the case to make it so very terrible. "Oh, this fellow !" cried Clarke, apostrophizing the trees on the Common, under which the pair were now walking. " Is there any hope for him ? Shall I save him once more, or shall I let him go to the dogs and have done with it ?" More and more alarmed, Wilkins begged an explanation. "Irish!" cried Clarke, desperately. "Irish as Mrs. Murphy's pig ! Do you know nothing of the laws of heredity as applied to a case like this? Pretty form ! Blue eyes ! What a narrow view to take of one of the most awful responsibilities of life !" Reduced now to a trembling condition, Wilkins inquired humbly if his friend would kindly tell him the worst. " I will," replied Silas, after pausing for considera- tion. " I will this time. But if it occurs again you must go to some one beside me. Now let us imagine that you marry this Maggie. She will have seventeen children, to begin with !" "Gwa-cious!" was Charlie's response. " You 218 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. don't m-mean she will have them a-all to be-gin with, de-ar boy !" "To begin with !" repeated Clarke, solemnly. " Eleven of them will be boys. Before one of those lads is ten years old he will be renowned in the neighborhood as a pugilist. By the time he is fifteen he will have knocked out his father accord- ing to the Queensberry rules, from which you will have no right to appeal." "Dwead-ful!" came in shivering accents from Wilkins' pale lips. "The other six children that this woman will bear you to begin with, remember ! will probably be girls. I do not know positively that this will be so, but it is my opinion. They will have beauty, of course, because they are Irish, but their brogue will be of a kind you can cut with a knife. They will marry, each of them, men with an O and an apos- trophe in front of their surnames, and they will visit you at Christmas with nineteen kids apiece !" Charlie took in the full terror of the picture and murmured, " Oh-me-Gard !" " Now go ahead and marry this Miss O'Donaghue," said Clarke savagely. " I do not advise you to the contrary. But when your grandchildren come home to roost like chickens remember that I t-o-l-d y-o-u!" He left the young man abruptly, and Wilkins walked in a very despondent mood to Shawmut avenue. With the fickleness that characterized his feelings toward the opposite sex he had come to have a great affection for Maggie. There was noth- ing for it now but to leave the house. He had been OFF FOE ARCADIE. 219 criticising Frank Morley rather severely in his thoughts for going away so quietly, but he thought he would have to do the same. He knew he had made an impression on Maggie, and he could not face her astonished looks when she learned of his inten- tion to vacate. As he blundered along the sidewalk, heedless of the passers, he ran into a pedestrian, and as he raised his hat to make an apology, he saw that it was none other than Clyde Morley. "I beg your paw-don!" said Charlie, much con- fused at the discovery. " I was vewy careless, bah Jove !" "Don't mention it," was the polite reply. "I think I have had the pleasure of seeing you before. Are you not a member of the Revere Club? Yes, I thought so. I was there once in company of Mr. Melton Mr. Mark Melton." " Ya-as," responded Wilkins, more confused than ever at the recognition. It seemed to him as if this man knew that he had been watching him for the past fortnight. "I we-member vewy well. You are aw Mr. Morley." Mr. Morley admitted the correctness of the state- ment with a courteous bow. As they were now at the house of Mrs. Bright, both men paused, appar- ently to finish the conversation before entering. " I am going to call on Col. Fuller, who lives here," said Morley. "I wonder if you know him. He was taken ill recently at his club and brought home." "Ya-as," replied Wilkins, "I heard of it. In fact aw I woom in the house myself, you know." Mr. Morley expressed his surprise. " I suppose you know my brother my brother 220 AN ORIGINAL SINNEtt. Frank, very well, then," he suggested. And the c/oud came across his face. "Ya-as. Oh, ya-as !" " He does not room here any longer, I under- stand," pursued Morley. " No. He wrote me that he should not return at i pwe-sent." Clyde looked much interested. " Did he, indeed ? And did he say anything to indicate why he departed so suddenly ?" Charlie replied in the negative. "And excuse me, I am his brother, you remem- ber have you no idea ?" The penetrating look that accompanied the inquiry brought the color to Charlie's features. " Not the slight-est," he answered. " We were not what you call in-timate, you know. He only wote me to tell the bo-ys at the Wevere." Finding that there was nothing to be learned in this quarter, Mr. Morley rang the bell, while Wilkins took out his key and entered. It was Maggie who came to the door, and Charlie was glad to escape from her while her attention was attracted to the caller. " Can you tell me how the Colonel is this morn ing?" asked Clyde of the girl. "Very comfortable, sir," she answered. "The doctor was here an hour ago and said he was doing well. I think, jist at this minute, sir, he's aslape." Clyde took a card from his pocket and wrote on it, "I called to inquire about your father and am glad to learn he is no worse. Shall be out of the city for a few days. If he is able to understand, please tell him I was here." t( NO } I HAVE NEVER LOVED YOU." 221 Handing this to Maggie he left the house without going upstairs. Fifteen minutes walk brought him again to his hotel, where he packed a hand-bag with a few articles, and telling the clerk he would be absent a night or two, he started, again on foot, for one of the northern depots. CHAPTER XXI. " NO, I HAVE NEVER LOVED YOU." Morley never rode if he could help it. Walking seemed to subdue the growing fever in his veins better than any other form of exercise. There were few days that he did not cover at least a dozen miles, and sometimes he walked twenty, going far out into the suburbs, and wandering through by- paths and lonely wooded roads. That night the train that came nearest to the village of Arcadie left him at the station. There were four miles yet to cover, but he rejected with impatience the offer of a local hackman to take him over for a dollar and a half. Even a reduction of the tariff to a dollar only brought back a shake of the head from the moving figure, already a dozen rods on its way. Clyde walked with long, quick strides, using arms as well as legs, and few professional pedestrians could have passed him on that journey. When the lights of the hamlet hove in sight he was sorry that there was not yet a few more miles of walking before he reached it. 222 AN ORIGINAL SINNEE. "There's his house," he whispered, looking across the fields. " There is the roof under which he taught me what my duty was, and forget to tell me what to do with this torrent, this avalanche that threatens at all seasons to engulf me. Dear old man ! I don't suppose he even had a thought that ought to have been strangled since the hour of his birth ! I wish I could escape seeing him again. It is going to be painful to both of us. Of course, I must not tell him the whole truth. That would be nothing less than cruelty. But if he asks me to make him a direct promise, what shall I do then ? Shall I refuse, and embitter his dying moments ; or shall I consent and break it as soon as he is in his grave ? Here is a place at which the most conscientious might well hesitate. Ah, well ! I cannot say what I shall do until the moment. I never can tell in advance what is coming. I will go to his bedside and do the best I can under the circumstances." The woman who had the ordering of the old min- ister's household looked gratified when she saw whose face had brought her to the door. " He is nearly through with this world," she said, Wiping away a tear, as she sat down with the new- comer in the parlor. " He has not been able to speak for some hours, but he can still understand what is said to him. He wrote this little note with the last strength he had, and asked that it be given to you as soon as you should arrive." Clyde took the note, and opened the envelope with fingers that seemed growing numb. He antici- pated its contents and he dreaded them. " You know the wish that lies nearest my heart. "NO, I HAVE NEVER LOVED YOU." 223 If I am unable to converse with you when you come, you will know what I hope to hear." The penciling was scrawly, and bore evidence of having been written with great effort. Clyde pulled himself together and asked if he could see the Doc- tor at once. The housekeeper went to ascertain and in a few minutes returned with the information that he might go up. Never in his life had such emotion overcome him as when he saw the wasted form of his friend, pre- ceptor and guardian lying on that bed. Tears he had not dreamed of shedding flew to his eyes. He clasped the thin hand and sat down by the couch unable for some minutes to utter a word. The nurse, at a signal from the housekeeper, left the room with her, and Clyde was left alone with the dying man. When he was able to raise his head and observe more closely, he saw that the ray of intelligence in the gaze of the old minister was clear, though faint. He had reached the point he expected when he penned the note. He could not speak, but his power to comprehend remained. He knew that Clyde had come, and he wanted more than anything else, in the few seconds remaining to him, to know that his ward would enter the profession which he had marked out for him. " I have, waited so long," began Clyde, tremu- lously, holding up the note to show that he had received and read it, " because I wanted to make sure of my fitness. I will try harder than ever to feel that I ought to begin the work you wish. I will try very, very hard." There was a perceptible pressure in the hand he 224: AN ORIGINAL SINNES, held, and when it relaxed Clyde realized that a change had taken place a change of which he did not at once know the full import. He summoned the attendant, who found that the feeble spark of life had fled. The old clergyman had fought Death off till he could hear the words he wanted, and then had gone peaceably to his reward. After the funeral, Clyde returned to Boston and made arrangements for leaving the city. He learned that Col. Fuller had partially recovered from his attack and was considered in no danger of an imme- diate return of it. He wanted to see Lettie and say something kind to her, but he did not dare put him- self under the power of her presence. The promise he had made to Dr. Welsh must be carried out at alt hazards. He could not be fairly said to have "tried " if he went back to the one who was the greatest danger in his path. He wrote a letter to Melton and another to Miss Fuller, and he thought as he mailed them how much he was getting to be like that twin brother he had so denounced. There was a coward- ice in both of them that was wonderfully similar. Clyde had the better reason for the course he was pursuing, but the methods used were identical. The letter to Melton was not of sufficient importance to be given here. The one to Lettie was as follows : " Dear Miss Fuller : The one of whom I told you my friend and former guardian has departed this life. Just before his spirit took flight I promised him to try as hard as I could to devote what talents I possess to the profession for which he intended me. In order to keep that promise I must forget all other ties, bury all other hopes that have ever crept into my " NO, I HAVE NEVER LOVED YOU." 225 heart. I am going to the West, and doubt if I shall return. "Miss Fuller, one whom I know and esteem enter- tains the hope that you will some day become his wife. Pardon me for saying that I trust this union will be consummated, and that you both will be happy. If I am not too presumptuous, let me add that long delays are never advisable in such matters. Give my regards to your father and tell him I shall earnestly hope for his speedy recovery "Your Friend, " CLYDE MORLEY." Like a blow on the head from a heavy bludgeon was this letter to its recipient. For a long time it stunned more than it pained her. When she came to herself a little she found that some of her nerves seemed to have undergone a partial paralysis. A reckless spirit, a devil-may-care vein permeated her. She had thought so much of this man, had placed so much of her hopes for the future on him, there was nothing but a blank remaining now that he was out of the picture. She was compelled to conceal the distress she felt, for there was no one to under- stand what ailed her. And when Mark Melton took courage one evening to hint at what he desired she surprised him by an answer that he had feared it would take a long time to win. "Yes, I will marry you," she said, as if she were talking in her sleep. "My darling !" he cried, attempting to embrace her. " Then you have loved me all the time ?" She drew away from him, refusing the contact with his arms. AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " No. I have not loved you, and I do not now. I have heard that love and marriage are not neces- sary adjuncts. I will marry you, if you wish, but with a definite understanding that you shall wait for my love to grow, no matter how long it may take." He had a momentary look of disappointment, but his face cleared again. He thought this a mere freak on the part of an inexperienced girl, that would dis- appear soon enough in the sunshine of her wedding morning. " I accept you on those terms," he replied. " And now for a kiss to bind the bargain." "Oh, I can't give you that yet !" she cried, with a little sensation of terror. " You will have to wait for for everything, till I change my feelings. I want to be perfectly honest with you. I cannot live much longer with papa things have grown disa- greeable of late till I can't bear them. You must think of it awhile whether you really want to take me for I don't know as I ever should learn to love you like like a wife." Her voice sank so low that he could hardly hear the last word. " Per- haps, when you have considered it fully, you will see that it is best we should part now, and I don't want you to make any mistake." But, sinister as this sounded, Melton was too fond a lover to let it change his purpose. No, he told her, he should need no time for consideration. He would marry her as early as she would set the day, the earlier the better ; he would take her to his home, where she should be her own mistress in everything ; his only care would be to make her happy. Then he referred to her father, saying he "GOOD-NIGHT, MY WIFE." 227 feared there would be his chief trouble, and the Col- onel would think a very long delay advisable. "I shall not depend on his consent," replied the girl, in a cold tone. " I am now of age and have a right to marry if I wish. But, there is one thing more. I cannot live in Boston. We must remove to some other city." Mark had already thought of trying New York and when he suggested that city the girl said it would suit her as well as any other. Quite over- joyed, it was not so hard to break the news to Col. Fuller as he had feared. Lettie stood by his side as he imparted the information to the father of his betrothed. " Two children ! That is what you are !" was the angry exclamation of the ex-officer. " You are mad to think of such a thing for ten years yet !" But, though he raved for days, the wedding pre- parations were quietly begun. And Mark's only regret during the next month was that he did not have Frank Morley there to give him his counsel and advice. CHAPTER XXII. "GOOD-NIGHT, MY WIFE." If there were not abundance of evidence to the contrary it would seem incredible that any man would be willing to take a partner for life on such terms as Lettie Fuller offered to Mark Melton- The 228 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. present writer never pretended to comprehend the peculiar state of the masculine mind which is willing to enter into a compact of that duration, with a woman who does not pretend the slightest affection for the one she is to wed. The hope and belief that time will bring things around all right that love will grow spontaneously with the passage of years seems ingrained in such natures and no doubt the result is sometimes the one anticipated. But, on the whole, the risk is no light one. Even with strong love at the beginning of the marriage relation, we often see the gradual change which turns it into indifference, if not dislike. What, then, is the prospect where no love is felt at all ? Is there anything to assure the husband that he has not taken to his bosom one whose fealty he has no right to expect one who may at any time repudiate the hateful bargain she has foolishly made. And if there is something so incredible in the action of the man, what can be said of that of the wife, who thus ac- cepts the most sacred obligations given to a human being, without even the excuse of some poor girl she would despise, who gives her all to the lover who has won her heart ? But marriages of this kind happen so often that they almost cease to attract attention, and certainly do not lessen the public estimation of those who are parties to them. " Do you suppose she loves him ?" is a common question, when a marriage is under discussion. " No, but she esteems him and he will be a good husband for her. Everybody says it is a suitable match." " Everybody " says a good many things, if rumor "GOOD-NIGHT, MY WIFE." 229 is to be believed, and "Everybody" has a good many sins to answer for. Melton loved Lettie so devoutly that the mere thought of winning her nearly turned his young head. He had never cared for another girl. For the past year and more all his plans for life had been made with her as the central figure. He was not very well acquainted with the world outside his own narrow sphere. It was the nature of his mind to estimate things by appearances. He had watched the idol of his heart going about in her little apart- ment, obeying without question each desire of her father. When she little suspected his proximity, he had followed her upon the street at a respectful distance and noted the propriety of her conduct. It was not to spy upon her that he had done this, but because he was fascinated by the girl, and wished to lose no opportunity to observe her. Now, that she had promised to marry him, either with or without the consent of Col. Fuller, he was carried away with his joy. Say what she might about not loving him, Mark reasoned that she could not consider him distasteful. She liked him, or she would never give her consent, and love would come later. Oh, yes, it would certain- ly come, for he would do everything to deserve it, and when a husband deserved his wife's love it must be- come his! So thought this ignorant young man, and his happiness grew as he contemplated his prospects. Mark did not want the marriage to take place without the consent of the Colonel, if if was possible to obtain it. It was a great satisfaction to him to reflect, however, that the refusal of that gentleman was no longer an insuperable obstacle. As Letti* 280 AN ORIGINAJL SINNER. had remarked, she was now of age, and cculd do as she pleased in such an important matter. After further consultation with Miss Fuller, Mark deter- mined to talk again with the Colonel about it. Col. Fuller had now recovered enough to sit up in a chair, but he was still confined to the house, and likelyto be for some time, according to the opinion of his physician. Not being able to go to his club, he grew very irritable, and life with him became almost unbearable for his daughter. While she had quietly determined that she would pursue her own course hereafter, she was in no haste to precipitate a collision. Her separation from Clyde Morley, capped by his cruel letter, had made her desperate, but she still bided her time before letting her father know the state of her mind. Above all things she did not wish him to suspect the cause of her changed feelings, and she took a certain pleasure in thinking that the constant nagging which he now gave her would answer as a sufficient excuse when she should decide to throw off her submissive attitude and announce her new declaration of independence. I think it is Dickens who speaks of an ex-army officer, somewhere in his novels, as "a retired bull- dog on half-pay." No better description can be given to Col. Horace Fuller during those weeks which followed his collapse in the club-house. Noth- ing suited him. His food was always too hot or too cold ; his bed-room was either too stuffy or it was full of draughts. Lettie was the slowest attendant a man had ever known. The condition of the Colonel's purse did not justify him, he thought, in keeping the nurse that had been at first engaged, beyond a fort- night. Lettie had nothing else to do, the Colonel told ** GOOD-NIGHT, MY "WIFE.** 231 Dr. Brennan, and it would be a good thing for her to have a little exercise besides gadding the streets. The girl stood by when this brutal expression was used, but not a muscle of her face quivered. Her father had degraded her once before the man she loved, and all he might say after that could not have the least effect upon her. The lead that remained in the officer's body seemed to irritate him terribly. He formed no direct resolve to be ugly to his child, but she happened to be the one in the way, and every blow descended on her head. He was entirely deceived by her submissive manner, which she did not change in any degree, and as time passed on he grew worse and worse. "Money !" he exclaimed, when she mentioned one day that her purse was empty. "What do you do with so much money ? My God, girl, I'm not a banker ! You have been altogether too extrava- gant, and you will have to stop it ! You don't need a thing. You are dressed already better than any other girl on the avenue. No, I haven't a cent to throw away, and you needn't ask me again." Lettie made no reply, but went to his purse, which was kept in the secretary, and took out what she wanted. He always told her to go to it when the doctor, or the apothecary, or the laundress or the landlady were to be paid. She went to it now and took a hundred dollars ; then she went down street and spent half of it in boots and hosiery, and the other half in a hat and some handkerchiefs. Melton came quite frequently at first, thinking it a sort of duty to cheer the confinement of his friend, but the Colonel used him so cavalierly that he soon ceased to call. When three or four days passed 232 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. without him, Col. Fuller began to complain that he was deserted by every one, and that he should think a young man who aspired to the position of his son-in-law would find time to come occasionally and see if he needed anything. Lettie told this to Mark, whom she used to meet for short conferences in the parlor below, and he sprang up with delight and said lie would go up at once. " Oh, let him wait," said Miss Fuller, darkly. " I( won't hurt him." The next day and the next the Colonel got to harping on this string entirely. He told Lettie that he had promised her to Mark, but that he should certainly retract the promise if the young physician continued to absent himself from the house. The girl presented an immovable countenance, and her father could not tell whether the announcement was pleasing to her or otherwise. In the irritable con- dition in which he now was, he would have taken any ground that he thought the most likely to be dis- tasteful to her. " If you were married, there would be some one to care for me," he broke out, when she came in from a few minutes' walk in the open air. " If I had a son-in-law, he would not leave me hour after hour with no one to see whether I lived or died. If that young fellow is going to have you, we might as well have it over. And if he's not, the sooner we know it the better. There are other men as good as he in the world. By George ! Where's that parson ? With all his ministerial notions, I'd give more for him than a dozen ordinary fellows ! Where the devil do you suppose he has gone ? It's strange you never got to caring anything for him. I thought at one time you ''GOOD-NIGHT, MY WIFE." 233 would. I really did. It seemed to me that he managed to get here a good many evenings before I came home from the club. I honestly thought he was getting notions into his head about you. You could have held him if you had known enough. You'll never get another one like him, if you live a hundred years." Lettie bit her lips with pain ; but she said noth- ing. " I'm going to send for Melton," continued the Colonel. " If I'm to be sick the rest of my life I want some one to see that I don't starve or freeze to death. He's not much of a man, but he'd do that. Maj. Melton's son would be decent with his father's old commander. I'm going to send for him and ask him if he wants you, and if he does I'm going to tell him he must take you now." As Lettie still kept silence, the Colonel grew more irritable, and finally burst forth " What ails you ? Can't you say anything ?" With a powerful effort the girl controlled herself. " What do you wish me to say ?" " I wish you to say you'll marry him !" he retorted, savagely. " I will marry him," she replied, quietly. " And as soon as the arrangements can be made, too !" "As soon as the arrangements can be made." Col. Fuller was not at all pleased to find her so entirely tractable. In the state of his disease he wanted someone to quarrel with. *' What's the matter with the girl !" he exclaimed, after looking hard at her. "Is she a parrot? Do you mean to tell me you love this fellow, after all?" 234 AN ORIGINAL SINNEK. She returned his look undaunted. "I do not," she said. "You do not.'' "No." "But you'll marry him, just the same." " I have said so." " What the devil do you mean !" he cried, hotly. The exclamation jarred on her. She decided to make this man feel something of the sentiment with which he had of late inspired her. " / mean," she answered, as calmly as if speaking the most ordinary things, " that I am going to marry Mr. Melton, and within a few weeks. I do not love him, and I have told him so. He accepts me as I am. I mean that it will not make the least difference in the matter whether it meets your approval or does not. / mean that before a month has passed I shall no longer be where you can address such words to me as you have been using for the past few weeks." All at once, and so quietly that he hardly knew what had happened, Col. Fuller saw the fabric he had been years in erecting dissolve before his eyes. This girl, who had obeyed him like a slave or, as he would have said, like a soldier was in a state of rank mutiny. He saw also that he was helpless to prevent what she announced her intention of doing. He knew she had passed her twenty-first birthday. There was a determination about her manner quite out of accord with her calm expressions. His heart sank. He did not know what to dread. Was he to be left in his age and illness to the tender mercies of strangers and servants ? So affected was he by the discovery that he had no strength to reply to his daughter's assertions. " GOOD-NIGHT, MY WIFE." 235 He turned his face from her and closed his eyec. His thoughts during the next hour was of a most bitter nature. When Lettie brought his supper, which she did exactly as usual, he refused to touch it. After it had remained by his side for a sufficient time, she removed it without speaking. The dis- position to complain that he was hungry came over him, but he realized that the time for this sort of thing was past. Soon after he heard a step in the room and looked up to see Mark Melton. " I hope you are better this evening, sir," said Mark, kindly. A tear trickled down the old man's cheek. " I hear that you are going to take my daughter from me," he said, tremulously. " She has promised to marry me," replied Mark. " We shall have a nice home in New York, and I certainly hope you will live with us." The sight he was witnessing affected him strongly. "It is late for me to make changes," said the Col- onel, shaking his head dolefully. " Beside, I don't think she would wish me to go." Melton walked into the next room and persuaded Lettie to come with him. "Tell him that is not so," he whispered. "Tell him we shall always think it a privilege to have him at our home." There was no responsive expression on the girl's countenance. "You can do whatever you please about it," she said, coldly. Mark imagined that Lettie hesitated to ask him to include her father in his household, from feelings of delicacy. And he said to Col. Fuller with evident 236 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. earnestness that his house should always shelter him, if he would honor it with his presence. But the Col- onel was so completely prostrated that he relapsed into silence and did not seem to hear what was said. " Everything is nearly ready as far as I am con- cerned," Mark told Lettie, as he stood with her at the street-door that evening, before taking his departure. "I have engaged the flat I spoke of on Forty-third street, and an office on Sixth avenue, and have made arrangements about furniture. I wish you would go with me to see to some of the things, as I want everything to be of the kind you prefer." " No," said Lettie, impassively, " I do not need to see them." "And you are quite sure," asked Mark, " that you wish only the least formal ceremony ? I thought girls usually like to show their orange blossoms," he added with an attempt at raillery. " I am quite sure," she said. " I want nothing but a perfectly quiet affair with nobody there except what is absolutely necessary to cover the law." Mark looked up inquiringly. " You will want Mrs. Bright, of course, and Bessie." Lettie reddened unaccountably at the mention of those names, or was it at only one of them ? " Neither. If witnesses are required, get someone else." "Why," he exclaimed, "I did not know you felt that way toward them !" He thought she might explain, but she did not. " I wish Frank Morley was here," he said, present- ly, " or even Clyde. Say, wouldn't it be jolly if Clyde, who is probably by this time a full-fledged minister, could read the service ? It's so strange "GOOD-NIGHT, MY WIFE." 237 those two brothers should have left this part of the country as they did, without leaving their address to anybody. It doesn't seem a bit like Frank, who always claimed to care a great deal for me. Clyde is different. ! shouldn't be surprised at anything he did. He's a sort of monomaniac on some questions. Well, perhaps they'll turn up after a while. Maybe we'll meet them in New York. They spend a good deal of time there, off and on." He was looking at the passing street-cars, or he might have noticed the peculiar expression of her countenance. She was thinking how " awfully jolly'* it would be to have Clyde Morley read the service that should bind her to this man whom she did not love ; whom he had advised her to marry, knowing she did not love ! Awfully, awfully jolly that would be! On the morning when the ceremony was to be performed, Lettie had a few plain words with her prospective husband. " It is not too late for you to retract your promise," she said, glancing at the clock. " I will not attempt to influence you in the least. When you asked me to marry you, I told you frankly and honestly that I did not love you. I do not love you now, and I doubt if I ever shall. If you should think this over once more, and decide to go your way and let me go mine, it will make no ill feeling on my part. If, on the contrary, you wish to marry me as I am, it must be with the understanding that you may have to wait a long time perhaps forever before I can give you more than my respect and esteem." He was distressed that she should again allude to the subject, and at such a time. He repeated that 238 AN ORIGINAL 8INNOB. he was ready to take her, to win her love if he could, and if not to give her, as long as he lived, his truth and loyalty. If anything could have moved her, it would have been this proof of the deep affection he bore her, but she was callous to everything. It was arranged that the Colonel should remain for the present at Mrs. Bright's, with a male attend- ant,, who had been specially engaged. Lettie had stipulated that nothing in the nature of a wedding tour should be taken, that she should go directly with Melton to the apartment he had furnished at New York and take up the regular order of keeping house. When they reached it, he showed her through the rooms, and introduced her to the one servant they would find it necessary to keep, seeming fearful lest something he had bought should prove displeas- ing, but she made no comment. " This is your bedroom, my dear," he said, show- ing her into a tastily furnished chamber. " Mine is the one adjoining, with the connecting door. A doctor is so liable to be called up in the night that I thought it would be a pity to risk disturbing you." She thanked him with a nod, and they went into the parlor to spend the rest of the evening. At eleven o'clock he laughingly alluded to the hour, saying that she had a right to exceed her father's limits now. She arose and walked with him to the chamber he had designated as hers, and turned on the threshold to say good-night. The action was a complete dismissal. He looked crestfallen, but gal- lantly lifted one of her hands and kissed it. " Good-night, my wife" he said, meaningly. And she answered, catching her breath, " Good-night, my Ausband" ANOTHER MAN'S BRIDE. 239 She closed the door softly and turned the key. Then she sank upon the floor and clasped her hands together till the nails cut into her flesh. " What have I done! What have I done!" she moaned, rocking herself wildly to and fro. CHAPTER XXIII. ANOTHER MAN'S BRIDE. Ten weeks had passed since Clyde Morley left Boston. He had started on his Western journey with the vision of good Dr. Welsh before his eyes, and the strongest determination to crush out the passion that had grown up in him for Lettie Fuller. He knew that this love, were it permitted to get full sway, would make it impossible to devote his life to the cause of religion. There was nothing about her dainty figure, her doll-like face or her strangely im- passive brain to help him on the road he had prom- ised to follow. Everything connected with her led him away from his duty as he conceived it. His only course was to flee from the little temptress who, without speaking a word to dissuade him, could do more in holding him back from the pulpit than a legion of ordinary sirens. Though Clyde could have gone to the proper authorities and obtained a license to preach he was not quite ready yet to do that. He felt his unworthi- ness more than ever. He wanted to begin as he could hold out, and he went to a mission at Chicago, 240 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. making no claims of a theological education, but only asking that he might be set to work. The men and women on the mission committee received him doubt- fully at first, but his evident earnestness soon im- pressed them. He was sent out with another brother into some of the worst places in the city, to relieve distress and to bring comfort to the sick and dying. AS Clyde always drew whatever funds he needed from his own purse, and never asked the mission to assist him in any way, the managers came to con- sider him a valuable assistant, and for some time he found relief for his feelings in the extreme arduous- ness of the work assigned him. The mission had many branches and one of its agents, happening to come to Chicago from New York, was made cognizant of the value of the work of the new assistant. A consultation was held between him and the others as to whether such work would not be even more valuable in the metropolis of the East than in the great city of the West, and with the spirit that animates the true missionary it was decided that if Mr. Morley would consent to go to New York it was best for him to do so. Quite content, Clyde cheerfully took the journey, and was assigned to one of the hardest localities in the lower part of Manhattan Island. Here he labored diligently, but each day he managed to get a brief respite from his duties a sort of breathing spell, as it were and was in the habit of riding on some of the street-cars as far as Central Park, where he could take a walk amid the trees. On one of these excursions he was astonished to see on the sidewalk the familiar form of Mark Melton. ANOTHER MAN'S BRIDE. 241 His first idea was to spring from the car and ac- cost his old friend, but on reflection he restrained himself. He did not care to enter into explanations as to the cause of his sudden withdrawal from Bos- ton life or to state his present occupation to one who would hardly be likely to appreciate his reasons for entering upon it. It occurred to him that Mark had probably just come over to New York for a day on some business, and would be gone by the morrow. But as he thought of these things he saw the object of his reflections turn the corner of Forty-third street, and a curiosity to know what he could have to do in that residential locality took possession of the watcher. Clyde left the car and, proceeding slowly, saw his friend stop at an apartment-house, between Seventh and Eighth avenues, to open the door of which he took a key from his pocket quite in the manner of one who enters his own dwelling. "That's mysterious !" exclaimed Clyde to himself. "Is it possible he has moved here ?" He waited long enough to be reasonably certain that Mark had left the vestibule, and then sauntered across. A colored janitor was upon the steps, engaged in polishing the brass railings. As an excuse for his questionings, Clyde inquired whether there were any suites to let in the building, and was told that there was one, up two flights of stairs, which the janitor would show him if he desired. Thinking this the best manner of finding out what he wanted, Clyde said he would look at the rooms. " How many familes have you here ?" he inquired, as he was inspecting the premises to which the man led him. " Sixteen, sir." 24:2 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " And what sort of people are they ?" Then the janitor, after the manner of janitors the world over, began to expatiate on the particularly eligible quality of his tenants. He began at the ground-floor to name them, and to tell, as far as he was able, their business. "Well, sir, on the lower floor there is Mr. Young's family, he's an insurance man down in Nassau street; on the other side is Mrs. Lord, she's a widow, and most respectable ; over her are Dr. Melton and his wife, only been here a little while, but the nicest kind of folks ; then, in the rear " "That is sufficient," interrupted Mr. Morley, sud. denly. " I will think of the matter of engaging the flat and let you know. Here is something for your trouble." Into the hand of the astonished janitor he slipped a five-dollar bill and hastened into the street. Sev- eral people who saw him between the house and the corner of the avenue suspected that the well-dressed gentleman had been drinking, so dizzily did he walk. At the corner he accosted the driver of a cab. "Into the park," he said, in response to the query where he wished to go. " Into the park. Drive slowly till I tell you again." Then he drew down the curtains and gave himself up to his emotions. " She has married him !" he muttered. " I ought to have expected it. It was my last advice to her. But to suddenly come to the actual knowledge that is hard !" He sank as low in the seat he occupied as the con- tour of the carriage would permit, and buried his face in his hands. ANOTHER MAN'S BKIDE. 343 "Married ! Oh, God !" he groaned. " Married ! And they are living here in New York ! I may meet them together at any hour ! I told her to do it, but I did not think she would. I thought the love she seemed to have for me would have lasted a little longer. Ah ! It is the way with women ; when one is out of sight he is forgotten. Less than three months and she is married ! Married and settled down with her husband, as if she had never seen or heard of me !" He shook as though he had the ague, though the November day was warm and he was fully clothed. "What shall I do?" he continued, trying to think. " Shall I remain in the city, with the constant risk of seeing them at unexpected times ? Or shall I go direct to them, and have it over ? It will take a little preparation before I can face her, in the new relation she has assumed. But on the whole, that will be the better way. We must meet sometime, and it is best to arrange it when I can best bear the shock." The cab reached the Park and the driver walked his horses slowly among the winding roads. Clyde Morley's dejection was complete. All at once he saw the full extent of his passion. Could any power have sent him back three months in his life, no promise made to the dying clergyman, no belief in the duty he had to carry the Gospel to a lost world, would have prevented his marrying this girl. It was not until he found her irretrievably lost to him that he realized the extent of the love he had for her. Married ! He repeated the word a hundred times as if it were some fearful spectre that would not be 244 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. laid. Married ! He thought of that form lying in the arms of another, the kisses of another on her lips, the oh, it was unbearable ! How could it be accomplished so quickly? Why had there not been some way to warn him, that he might have flown, even as Melton stood with her at the altar, and snatched the prize from his hands ? He lifted the curtain and told the driver to take him to a station of the L road on Third avenue. Arriving there he dismissed the cab and took a train to his lodgings, which he had located in the poorer quarter, in order to be nearer his work. How unin- teresting it all seemed to him now ! He climbed the staircase and entered his chamber with a positive feeling of nausea for his plain surroundings. A letter lay on the table, sent by one of his com- panions in the mission work, referring to certain details, and closing with the words : " And now, my dear brother, may God have you in his holy keeping." Bah ! How sickening the expression seemed ! " God will never have me in hts keeping !" he cried, in mental agony. " He never has had me in it. I have been all my life in the power of the Evil One, and my struggles to escape have availed me nothing." He sat down to try to think about it about her. He would wait a week or so before he called. He would need that length of time to get the requisite coolness. Yes, he would wait a week. In the meantime, however, he must make some excuse to escape the mission duties. He could not go on with them in the way he felt. He must plead illness. He looked in the mirror and knew that no one would doubt him if he said he was not well. Pale as he ANOTHER MAN'S BRIDE. 245 had always been, his countenance was of more than ordinary whiteness to-day. An hour later he decided that he would not wait a week. Three or four days would suffice to get himself into shape. He would not be such a coward. She was married, and he must make the best of it. All that was necessary was a formal call. There was nothing to be so frightened about. Three or four days was quite enough to wait. Two days even ought to answer ; say the day after to-morrow. The sooner it was over the better. And before another hour, he had decided to call the next day, and was impatient at the long time that would elapse before the sun would rise to usher that day in. He did not try to sleep that night. He thought in the long hours of darkness of what he would say when he met her, just how he would carry himself, what words he would use to conceal from her how much he cared for what had happened. For it would not do to let her know now that it was too late to find a remedy. -""He did not want Melton there the first time he called that might prove too em- barrassing. One of them at a time was quite enough to encounter. Afterwards, when he got used to the changed order of things and people did get used to everything, almost he could visit them together and not mind it. But on the first call he wanted Mark to be out. It was easy to take up a position near the house where he could see him when he went away to his office. He thought it all over, just what he would say. He would pretend that he had been looking for a flat for a friend and had happened to hear the name of Melton mentioned by the janitor, and had 24:6 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. rung the bell just to see if possibly it was his old ac- quaintance. Oh, it was simple enough ! He grew elated as he thought how very simple it was, and what a great bugbear he had been making of it all this time. It was only a quarter past nine when Clyde saw Melton leave the house, and not ten minutes later when the bell to his apartment was sounded and the servant's hand withdrew the bolt after the New York method. Clyde was half inclined to run away, in- stead of ascending the stairs, but he summoned all his courage and went up, breathing harder as he reached the landing and wondering what had become of his resolutions. The servant, a pretty young woman of German birth, stood at the apartment- door. In response to his request to see Dr. Melton she stared slightly, as she said that gentleman had gone out. This was the first visitor they had had. "Then I will see Mrs. Melton." " Ees it Meesis Melton you weesh ?" inquired the woman, surprised. " Mrs. Melton." He thought the words would choke him the first time and he could hardly enunciate them again, but he managed to do so. The woman showed him into the parlor, and asked if he would give her his card. It struck him that if he sent his name, Lettie might refuse to see him he did not know why, but he thought of this and he answered, " Tell her it is an old acquaintance." Mrs. Melton had not yet left her room when the message was brought, though she was quite ready to do so. It was her habit to have her coffee brought to the chamber, and she never appeared until after ANOTHER MAW'S BRIDE. 247 Mark had gone out. She was dressed in a tasty morning-gown, and her hair was becomingly ar- ranged in a half-girlish fashion. When the girl knocked and told her that a gentleman was waiting in the parlor to see her, she could hardly believe her cars. " A gentleman ! And did he not give you a card ?" The girl repeated that the gentleman had said he was an old acquaintance, and Lettie was more puz- zled than ever. She thought it might be one of the veterans that her father had sometimes brought to the house on Shawmut avenue. It must be some- one from Boston, and someone who knew the Col- onel, for she had no other acquaintances who could have learned her address. So she said, " Very well, I will be out directly." Then she took another look at herself in the glass, and walked into the parlor. A night of preparation had done nothing for Clyde Morley, so far as making it any easier to meet her was concerned. He stood in the centre of the room, too nervous to remain seated, and as she stepped across the threshold, he advanced toward her with an impetuous stride. His eyes were aflame, his hands were outstretched, his nostrils dilated, his lips parted. " Lettie f" he cried, in a hoarse vrhisper. The girl staggered and leaned against the door that had closed behind her. She saw everything at one glance. He might talk to her for months and years and he could tell her nothing more. All that he could have said was mirrored in his suffering face. " I^ttie /" he repeated. And they stood there fac- 248 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. ing each other, with ten feet of space still between them. " They call me Mrs. Melton now," she said, slowly. " Will you be seated ?" He took a step nearer, and she seemed to shrink closer to the wall against which she rested, as if to keep further from him. "I know your name," he said, in trembling tones. " I know it too well. Forgive me, if for one moment I forgot, and called you by another that I once had the privilege of using." She gained strength by the delay, and her voice grew a little firmer. " Then you do, sometimes, forget ?" she said, iron- ically. " You have occasional lapses of memory ? But I have none. I remember everything." She paused a moment, and seeing that he was about to break out again, repeated, " Won't you sit down ?" He was near a sofa and he fell rather than sat upon it. Athlete as he was, something had sapped the vigor in his muscles and left him very weak. " I am sorry my husband is not in," she pursued, taking a chair close to where she had stood. " He would be glad to see you. We did not know you were in the city." He was like a petrified man. How could she speak to him in that way ? Her husband ! " We have been married two weeks," she went on. " I suppose you saw it in the papers. We came here at once. I was tired of Boston. Dr. Melton's office is on Sixth avenue, not very far away. He will return at one o'clock to lunch, and will tell you everything. You have not taken off your outside coat. Is it not rather warm here?" ANOTHER MAN 7 S BRIDE. 249 She left the chair she occupied and went to one of the windows to open it. She passed close to him and he caught his breath as the fragrance of a per- fume she used came to his nostrils. The air from the window blew on his forehead gratefully. But still he sat there rigid, as if frozen. "It is a pleasant flat, don't you think so?" said Mrs. Melton, glancing around the room. " The location is very good, too, for what we could afford to pay. Dr. Melton picked out all the furnishings. He had some extra things put in. This little bell-rope, for instance, communicates with the kitch- en, so that I can call my servant at any time with* out rising from here. There are similar contri- vances in every one of our eight rooms. It is very convenient." Why did she give him that hint? What did he care about the bells ? Did she think he intented to strangle her ? " My father has been quite ill," continued Mrs. Melton, glad that she could keep him so long from speaking. " You were there yes, I remember when he was brought home. He has never fully recovered. He is now at his old rooms, under the care of a nurse, but he will be taken here as soon as he feels able to travel." He heard her and said nothing. He was gradually coming to himself, but he could not yet enter into the conversation. " Dr. Melton was speaking of you only yesterday. He wondered why we heard nothing about you or your brother. Frank was a great friend of my hus- band, and he feels much injured because he has never written him a line. One of the first things you will 250 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. be asked when he comes is if you can get his address. My husband has found it rather lonely here in New York, I am afraid. When my father arrives it will be a little better for him, as they will play cribbage together. Business is not coming very fast, I think, though he does not complain. He did not expect it would be very plenty at first." Clyde staggered to his feet. He wanted to get out into the air. Every time she uttered those words, " My husband," it was like striking him a blow on the left breast. "You cannot wait?" said Mrs. Melton, rising also, and much relieved, to tell the truth, at the prospect of seeing him depart so quietly. "When will you come again ? I am sure my husband will be very glad to see you." He tried to say something, tried twice, and failed. Then he crept toward the door, and went through the passageway with his lips moving. He was pray- ing that he might not meet Mark Melton ! CHAPTER XXIV. A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. Mrs. Melton was hardly less excited over this visit than Clyde, though she mananged to conceal her feelings better. She said nothing to her husband about it, for she was not much in the habit of telling him things, and she was not sure it would be best A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 251 tf he ever came to know it in any other way, it would do no harm. She was not called upon to explain her actions. She lived under the same roof with Mark, his nominal wife, but no nearer to him than on the first day she entered the house. He had made no protest against the peculiar way in which she was carrying out the oaths she had taken. Besides this, he had assumed the work of a brother practitioner who had been compelled to go abroad for his health, and was so pleased with being busy that he had a compensation, in some degree, for the lack of cordiality at his home. As the days passed Lettie Melton began to fear she should not see Clyde again. She did not want to torture this man, who had undoubtedly been punished severely already, but there arose in her heart the old longing for his companionship the old love for the old lover, that even her marriage had not killed. She had no intention of letting him know the con- dition of her mind, should he ever happen to come again. She meant to treat him merely as any ac- quaintance of her ante-nuptial days. She wanted very much to see him. Her life was wholly empty now, and anything that savored of the old time would be more than welcome. Sitting in his office one afternoon, Dr. Melton received a call from a most unexpected person Mr. Frank Morley. Delighted, he rose and grasped the hands of the young man in both his own. " My dear boy," he exclaimed, " is it possible this is you ? Sit down and tell me, for heaven's sake, where you have kept yourself all this time, and why you have never written me a single line." 252 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. Frank looked ill and it was plain that he had lost in weight. He took the proffered chair and assumed an easy position, after his old manner. ' Well, Mark," he answered, " you know it is on of my habits not to write many letters. I have been travelling over the country, and have only recently returned. As soon as I heard you were in the city I took the pains to look you up." Mark had not borne so cheerful an expression for a long time, as he did at these words. The sight of Frank took him him back to the days of his student life. " I won't find any fault, so long as you are here now," he said. " But, you're not looking well, old fellow. If you will accept the advice of a physician and I sha'n't charge you anything for it you'll take some iron without delay. How odd it is to see you here ! What a lot of things have happened since you went off ! It's only a few months and yet it seems a century." Frank laughed, not quite naturally, but Melton did not notice that. "And you've been married, in the meantime," he said. " Of course a few weeks of wedded bliss is equal to a century of ordinary life." Melton's face sobered preceptibly. He was not a good hand at deception, and though he did not intend to reveal his secret troubles, he could not pretend a greater happiness than he felt. He did not answer the insinuation directly, but replied that he was liv- ing only a short distance away, and would be glad to have Frank go home with him to dinner. " I'll go, as you are so kind," said Morley, "though I dread that sort of thing ordinarily, as a cat drrads A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 253 water. I mean," he explained, " that matrimony is so wholly unsuited to my tastes that I am afraid to get into very close contact with it while it is fresh. I can't imagine how you two will seem in such a rela- tion as that. And I did all I could to bring it about, didn't I ? I used to go up to the Colonel's and sing your praises, you remember, just because you wanted me to, and never because it was the thing I would have advised. Where is the old gentleman now ? Here with you, I suppose." Melton replied that Col. Fuller had been ill and had not yet felt like undertaking the journey, but that it was understood he would come later. The Doctor had a constrained air that his visitor could not help noticing, but it would not have been the part of good breeding to allude to it, and Frank said nothing on that subject. Instead, he turned the conversation toward his brother, inquiring whether Melton had seen anything of him since his marriage. " No," was the answer. " He seemed as mucn. taken out of the world as you. I would have liked to have had him perform the the ceremony, could I have found him at the time, but " He stopped, noticing something most peculiar in Frank's expression. " I didn't know," stammered the other, " that he was ordained yet. Has he, then, become at last a full-fledged preacher ? Clyde has not used me any better than he has you of late. I have not had a line from him for ever so long. I wonder if he is settled, as they call it, anywhere." Dr. Melton did not know and could suggest no way of discovering. He proposed that, as it was 254 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. now five o'clock, he might close the office and go. around to his flat, if Frank was willing, so that they could have a little time before dinner for conversa- tion with Mrs. Melton. Frank raised the point that perhaps he ought not to go, when the lady of the hcruse was not expecting him, but this was overruled. Dr. Melton said there would be only the ordinary repast, to be sure, but among such old friends too much ceremony was not required. He should expect Frank to run in on them as freely as he had done when they lived in Boston, and he might as well begin in the informal fashion he would have to fol- low. The young lawyer looked up at the windows of the apartment-house when the Doctor indicated the edifice, after they had turned the cornerof Forty-third street. He was far from his ease, but he had sum- moned all his will and was certain his host and hostess would not suspect the condition of his mind. He cared a great deal for Lettie Fuller, though he had stepped aside for his brother Clyde, upon finding that she had set her heart on that individual. He wanted to hear from her own lips how it had happened that in so short a time she accepted another suitor, whom she had always professed to dislike. At the door of the residence he had a strong inclination to run away, but when Mark said, " Here we are," he made a great effort and mechan- ically ascended the stairs. Dr. Melton entered his flat with a pass-key, and ushered his visitor into the parlor, which happened to be vacant at the time. Bidding him remove his wraps and make himself at home, he went in search JL CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 255 of Mrs. Melton. Frank, still standing in the center of the parlor, heard a knock on a panel of a door, and Lettie's voice saying : "Yes, I will be out in a few minutes." " A good deal of ceremony for a couple three weeks married," he muttered. The Doctor returned, saying that Mrs. Melton would be in very shortly. He took Frank's things and put them in the little vestibule and went on talking with him as if nothing had happened so im* portant to many lives since the former days of theii meeting. Finally, after fifteen minutes or so, Mrs. Melton came. It did not take Frank a moment to see that a great change had been wrought in her appearance. She was five years older in looks than she had seemed when he last saw her, in Boston. There was a new hardness about her mouth, a more set expression to her eyes, a greater rigidity to her figure. The only thing that was not changed was the remarkable taste of her costume. She had on a prettier dress than ever. " I did not expect this pleasure," she murmured, looking at the carpet rather than at his face. " It is so long since we heard from you, I thought you in- tended to desert us altogether." He replied by telling how busy he had been and what a poor correspondent he was. The trio talked in this manner until the dinner was announced. Before the dessert was disposed of a message came asking that Dr. Melton come immediately to a house on Seventy-fourth street. " Business is of the first importance," said Mark, as he rose to leave the room, " and especially a busi- 256 AN OEIGINAL SINNEK. ness like mine. I will try and return in an hour or so, but if I am detained make yourself agreeable to Mrs. Melton, and don't be long in giving us another call." , Mr. Morley was uncomfortable after the departure of the Doctor He ate gingerly of the fruit and sipped his black coffee as if he wanted to make it last as long as possible. "Your brother has been here," said Mrs. Melton, suddenly. Frank started. 44 1 understood from Mark that he had not seen him," he replied. " He has not, but /have," she replied, pointedly. Then she waited a moment and added : " Mr. Mor- ley, I have confided in you before, and I am going to do so again. There is no harmony whatever between my husband and me." Frank swallowed the rest of the coffee, wiped his lips nervously on a napkin, and pushed back his chair a little from the table. " Why is it necessary that I should know this ?" h ventured. "I have no other friend in the world," she answered, with dilated eyes. " It seems as if I must tell someone." There was a bitterness in his tone as he uttered the next sentence. " I suppose you told Clyde." The doctor's wife half rose from herchair, and her face was very pale. " Pardon me, Mr. Morley," she said. *' 1 will trouble you no more." "You mistake me." he responded. **I have not A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 257 forgotten how much you affected to care for that brother of mine, and I do not see anything strange in supposing that he would have had your confidence quite as quickly as myself." She did not say a word and he went on : " It is not to be expected that I, who know noth- ing at all about the matter, should be able to com- prehend the strange things that have happened. The last time you and I talked together your whole heart was rilled with one vision only that of my brother. There was no place in it for any other man, and least of all for the one who has since be- come your husband. How did this miracle take place ? How was it that you were able so soon to forget the old love and take on the new? As you say, Mrs. Melton, we were friends and confidants, and I think you might answer me." Mrs. Melton winced and hesitated a few moments before replying. " A most unhappy combination of events has brought me here," she said. " You are the only man in the world to whom I would take the pains to jus- tify myself. I know I can put the fullest confidence in you. I told you the truth; I did love your brother. One day he left Boston and wrote me a farewell letter, in which he urged me to this marriage. Was there anything left for me to do but to follow his advice ?" She spoke in such a low tone that he had to pay the utmost attention in order to hear her, though they were not separated by more than five or six feet of floor space. He could see that the strongest koi of emotion possessed her. 258 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. "Well," he answered, cuttingly, "he has been here, you say." She seemed trying, not very successfully, to grasp his meaning. " Yes, he has been here ; but he said almost noth- ing. He looked distressed, but his actions were as unaccountable as ever. I thought he regretted what had happened, but I am not sure even of that" Frank Morley uttered an impatient cry. " What could he do if he did regret it ? A mar- riage is a marriage, I suppose." "Yes," she said, drawing a long breath, "in one sense it is. But I do not think there are many marriages just like mine. I told Dr. Melton I did not love him, and that if he married he must promise to wait till that love developed before he -claimed anything more than my hand. He took me at my word. With the exception that we have lived >under the same roof and dined at the same table I have been no wife to him." Morley leaned toward her with a feverish eager- ness. " Take care !" he said. " There is no need of say- ing anything untrue. Do you mean " She reddened like a peony. " I swear it to you !" she said. " He is very kind. I do not think many men would be equally so. He has taken me at my word." The visitor devoured the face before him with his eyes. " And is he satisfied ?'* " Ah, no ! But I cannot help that. I do not love him any more than I did on my wedding-day. How can I show him an affection I do not feel '" A CONFIDENTIAL TALK. 259 He still regarded her with astonishment. " Did you tell this to Clyde?" he asked, finally. Then she reddened more than ever. " I could not have told him had it been necessary to save my life," she said. " Why ? Because you love him ?" He leaned forward again, eagerly, ready to catch the first words as they fell. " More because I hate him, I think, "she answered, the color forsaking her cheek all at once. " Love him ! Ought I to love a man who has caused me such suffering ?" Morley sat upright again. " Whether you ought or not, you do /" he re- sponded. " It is he who stands between you and your husband. He, the clergyman, the priest, the teacher of morals ! He, the man, but for whom you might at this moment have been my own !" Her eyes opened wide at this statement. " Your own !" she repeated. " Your own ! You have told me a hundred times that you should never marry." , " Yes," he said. " And all the time you knew better. You knew that while I had never thought of such a thing before I met you, you had me soul and body to do with what you pleased. You could see nothing but him, but you knew enough of me for that. It took the black coat to satisfy you, and I tried to reconcile myself to the inevitable. Listen, Lettie Fuller, for I will not call you by the name you have assumed in your anger ! You love Clyde Morley as well as ever, and if he comes here often enough, he will wia you yet, as surely as if he did AN ORIGINAL SINNER. not bear a catechism in his hand and wear the odor of sanctity upon his brow." She shook her head with great decision. " He could not and he would not," she said. " I am married. I fully recognize the obligations I have assumed. Your brother will not trouble me. It is a week since he came, and I have no doubt he has left the city." The servant knocked on the door, and as she entered Mrs. Melton rose with her guest in order to allow the clearing of the table. When they were again seated in the parlor the conversation was resumed. "Did you never care anything for me ?" he asked her, in a tremulous voice. "Yes, I liked you very much, and still do so, Remember what I said when I commenced my con- fession there is no other man in the world to whom I would have made it." Her hand lay on the arm of her chair and he pressed his own upon it. " May you always retain your confidence," he said, with feeling. "Tell me more. You like me to-day better than you do better than " " Dr. Melton ? Much better," she answered, warm- ly. " I never have liked Dr. Melton. But this does not make me forget that he is my husband." He raised his head with dignity. " I have not asked you to forget it," he said. " By no means," she replied, with some confusion. " And you do not think I ever will ?" She shook her head with downcast eyes. " There is one thing I would do, if it were of any use," he said, soberly. " I would ask you to leave this "l WANTED YOU TO SUFFER." 261 man and return to your old home until a divorce could be obtained, and then " She stopped him, seeming frightened at the mere proposition. " Oh, that is out of the question !" she said. " Do not say anything more like that, I beg you !" He could no longer conceal his agitation. He rose, saying it was best he should be going, and she did not think it wise to stop him. " I hope we shall see you often," she said, as she handed him his wraps'. " You may," he replied. " I expect to stay in New York most of the winter. You have nothing to fear from me. I know where the line is and shall keep to it. But can I say something else ?" She waited for him to finish, wondering what it would be. "Clyde Morley used to warn people against me," he said earnestly. "Things have changed now, and it is my duty to warn them against him. Be on your guard ! He may seem a saint and an angel, but he is also a man!" Lettie Melton's heart beat rapidly as she realized the full purport of those expressions. CHAPTER XXV. "I WANTED YOU TO SUFFER." Clyde Morley had not left the city. He had only returned to his labors with renewed zeal, striving to bury himself in his work. He rose every morning as soon as it was light and took a long walk among the 262 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. poorer streets, or rather the streets where the poorer class live and toil. Many of them came to know his face and to feel the strength of his kindly smile and outstretched hand. After taking his breakfast in a cheap restaurant for the purpose of imbibing at the same time as much as he could of the life of these people he had his regular engagements until three or four o'clock, and again in the evening, unless he made special arrangements to have someone take his place. The gospel he preached had a good deal more to do with soap and water than with theology, and he was more apt to give a caller a bottle of medicine or a pair of mittens than a tract on trinitarianism. This made him seem to some of his associates not quite up to the orthodox standard, but they found him much too useful to criticize deeply. But, wherever he went, into whatever haunt of poverty he penetrated, a face and form went with him the face and form of Dr. Melton's wife. Work could not blot out her image from his mind. The miles he walked each day, the rigorousness of the plain diet he used, the hour's practise he took with the dumbbells and pulls in a gymnasium, had no effect on this problem. He wanted that girl as he had never wanted anything else in his life. And when he could bear it no longer, he posted himself one afternoon in the vicinity of her residence, waited as he had done before till her husband left the house, and then rang the bell. The servant recognized him, and went to tell her mistress that the gentleman who had called several weeks before was in the parlor. Mrs. Melton's breatb came faster, for she had wanted him to come "I WANTED YOU TO 8UFFEB." ever since the day his brother was there, and had hoped that each ring at the bell might be his. She realized something of the danger there was in meet- ing him the uncontrollable impetuosity of his tem- per but her life was so utterly empty that she welcomed even the risks that attended this meeting. When she entered the parlor and spoke to him she saw at once that he was in a very different mood from that which he had exhibited on the former occasion. "I am glad to see you again, Mr. Morley," she said, with cordiality. '* You have been so long in coming that I feared you had left the city." He explained his absense, in a very ordinary tone, by telling of the work in which he was engaged and of the claims it had upon his time. Then they talked of other things and she took occasion to men- tion the call that his brother had made upon them. He did not seem much interested in hearing about Frank, only asking if she supposed he was still in the city. She told him her husband was doing well, and that her father had not yet felt able to under- take the ride from Boston. When these topics had been discussed quite in the fashion of the ordinary caller and his hostess, Clyde began abruptly to speak of other matters. " We ought to have a better understanding, Lettie," he said, suddenly. "Oh, don't mind my use of your Christian name ; it comes more naturally to me than your new one. I have a confession to make. It won't hurt you to hear it, for it can mean nothing now. I want to tell you that I love you." It did not surprise her to hear this, but the words sent a strange thrill through her frame. 264 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " I want you to know," he repeated slowly, " how dearly I love you. I want you to know that I would give worlds to undo that knot which ties you to another. You permeate my life as nothing else has ever done. The loss of you is sending me rapidly to the grave." She uttered a sharp cry, and pressed her hands over her heart. " I am not finding fault with any one," he pro- ceeded, with deliberation. " If any person is to blame it is undoubtedly myself, and yet I did not know. I was trying to reconcile my duty with my desires. On one side was my promise to Dr. Welsh that I would try to embrace the ministry. On the other was you. I felt that, with you in my arms, I should have no time nor thought left for God. To be true to my highest instincts I must resolve upon a life of celibacy, since you were the only woman I had ever cared for or ever could. I am not yet sure I was wrong. I only know that the sacrifice was more than I have had the strength to endure ; and that I am steadily failing in health and shall soon be among the missing." The musical monotony of his voice acted on her like an anodyne. His words made her forget every- thing but the suffering he endured and the pain it caused in her own breast. She rose from the chair she had taken, and drawing a hassock to his feet, threw herself upon it and laid her head upon his knees. A vibration caused by the contact passed over him, but he did not act otherwise perturbed. He put his hands on her head, and taking the pins out of her hair bathed his palms in it slowly. " I WANTED YOU TO SUFFER." 265 " I have done you a great injury," he proceeded. " I advised you to marry a man you did not love the most terrible thing conceivable, as it now appears to me. You did as I bade you, and this union can have had no other effect than to debase you. To render unto a man whom you do not love the duties of a wife must make you feel that there are no other depths to which you can sink. I was thinking only of myself, and I have killed the most sacred aspirations of the one I loved." She wanted him to know, and yet she hesitated to tell him. Perhaps he would not believe her ! "One minute, Clyde," she said, putting an arm about his waist to hold him closer. " Listen for one minute. There is a door between his room and mine. That door has never been opened. He gave me the key and I have lost it." He lifted a handful of her hair and pressed it against his face. " Poor girl !" he murmured. " You are even more unhappy than I thought you." " No," she said. " I am not unhappy. I was until this moment. Now there is no woman on earth so contented as I." " Bnt this cannot last !" he cried. " There can be no enduring happiness in such meetings as this, lia- ble to be interrupted at any moment by one who has a legal right to claim every sign of your affection." She drew his sad face down and looked into the anxious eyes. "I wanted you to suffer," she whispered. "I think I even hated you, after you wrote me that let- ter. I was reckless and did not care what became of me. But now I would shield you from every pang. 266 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. I want you to live and to be happy again. Don't inter- pose your scruples. They have ruined our happiness once. Let them go. You will come here often. There will be days of sunshine for me still. Clyde ! There is nothing sure in this world but love ! Has a mere ceremony the power to take from me the rap- ture I feel when your hands touch me ?" He was silent for a long time, with her hair in his fingers. He wanted to think as she did, but between them there rose such an insurmountable wall ! " You forget a very important thing," he said, at last. "Your " The word was so disagreeable to him that he could not utter it. "lam not likely to forget him," she responded. *' He will not interfere with us. He has a new bride his profession and seems wholly bound up in her. All the time he is at home is when at meals, and from late in the evening till breakfast. Very often he is called out at night. I assure you, he will not be in our way." But Clyde, with all his willingness to agree with her, felt the contemptible quality of the position in which he would be placed and still hesitated. What- ever of manliness there was left in him rebelled against this double dealing. "This is not a thing to decide lightly," he said. " We we must think it over." She looked up at him in such a way that he was for the moment much disconcerted. "What is there to think over ?" she asked. "If you will come here, what more can we ask ? I don't understand what you mean." It was evident she did not. The divinity student 267 felt how little the meagre food, the long walks, the athletic exercises had done for him. With an effort he took his hands from her hair and sat upright. " You had best get a chair," he suggested, kindly. "This position would not look well if a caller should appear." She raised her head from his lap. " My servant would not enter without knocking," she said, "and Dr. Melton would have to use his key. We could not well be safer. If you do not like to have me here, however, I will rise." He assisted her to her feet. "You do not doubt my love?" he asked earnestly. "No. But I do not think you care as much for me as I do for you. If you did, you would not be so suspicious." " We must use reason, Lettie. If Dr. Melton should enter and find us in the position we occupied a moment ago, what do you suppose he would think ?" She shrugged her shoulders as much as to say she could not answer that, and began to do up her hair at the mirror. She had hardly finished it when an event occurred which surprised both of them and startled at least one. CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE FACE OF DISHONOR. Dr. Melton walked unannounced into the room. " Well, upon my word," he exclaimed, in a pleased tone. " I did not know you were here, Mr. Morley ! The servant must have left the outer door open when 268 AN ORIGINAL SINNEB, she admitted you. I ran home," he went on to say to his wife, "to tell you I have had a consultation call at Harlem which will prevent my coming to dinner. The call is at half-past five, so I have a little time to visit before I go. Come, Mr. Morley, explain where you have kept yourself all this time." Clyde was thankful for the length of these speeches, as he had felt quite a shock when the Doctor first appeared on the scene. He could not help thinking what might have happened had he come in ten minutes earlier. It was not likely that he would have relished seeing his wife sitting at the feet of his old friend, her unbound hair lying spread over his knees. He had time to notice, also, that Mark seemed to bear his matrimonial disappoint- ment very well, and a feeling of contempt for such a man rose in his mind. But it was necessary to repress all this, and he responded to the invitation to tell where he had been by relating the particulars of the work in which he was engaged. " And so you are sacrificing comfort, luxury, even health on the altar of public good," said Melton. "Do you know it seems to me a very noble thing of you ? Well, I'll volunteer this much aid, if you care to accept it. Should any of your poor families happen to live within a mile of my office, I'll doctor them for nothing." Clyde thanked him, saying he would certainly send him some patients. By this time the extra-pal- lid appearance of Mr. Morley had begun to alarm the young physician. " Excuse me for saying so," he ejaculated, " but you need a doctor yourself as bad as any one I've seen lately. I don't think this work agrees w'th IN THE FACE OF DISHONOR. 269 your health. It's all well enough, you know, to lift up the fallen and succor the weak, but no one has a right to sacrifice himself in doing it. Seriously, Mr. Morley, I want you to take a course of medicine." Clyde tried to smile away the idea. He reminded Dr. Melton that he had always been pale and that no amount of drugs could put the sort of ruddy color into his cheek that the Doctor had in his. " It's no laughing matter," replied Melton, soberly. "I wish you would let me make a slight examina- tion, just to test some things I have in mind." " Willingly, in the interest of science," responded Mr. Morley, with another smile. The doctor turned to his wife. " Lettie, if you will leave us alone for a few moments " As she rose to leave the room, her eyes met those of the visitor. She did not like to go. " Is it so serious a matter as to drive her away ?" asked Clyde, deprecatingly. " You will have to remove your coat," explained Melton, briefly. Without another word Lettie took her departure, but as she closed the door, her eyes met Clyde's again. " Your heart is very weak," said the doctor, after listening awhile at that organ. " It is unaccountably so. You are evidently overdoing. You must be careful. What you want is the most nourishing food and complete rest. You used to walk a great deal. I am afraid you still do so, and you are not able to stand it." He looked at Clyde questioningly. 270 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. "1 suppose I average ten miles a day," was the answer. " You must quit that at once," said Dr. Melton, positively. "Where do you dine ?" Clyde smiled sarcastically. " At some restaurant in or around the Bowery." " In order to be among the people you seek to serve, eh ? I give you strict orders to exchange those restaurants for Delmonico's, at least for awhile. What do you have for breakfast ?" " Sometimes a cup of coffee, sometimes nothing." " Terrible ! You want the best beefsteak you can find. What do you usually drink with your dinner?" The sarcastic smile was growing bitter. "Never anything but water." Dr. Melton put up the watch with which he had been counting his patient's pulse. " You will drink a bottle of Bass with your steak every morning, a pint of port and a glass of cham- pagne with your dinner. Come, sir, I am not joking with you. It is a serious matter. Your heart needs solid food to build it up and you must let your body rest or there will be trouble. It is all well enough to try to prepare the souls of the East Side for Heaven, but you don't need to send yourself there in advance, and that is what you are doing at light- ning speed." Clyde put on his coat, wondering as he did so how he could apprise Mrs. Melton of the fact that he was again fit for her eyes to behold. "Will you promise ?" demanded P" "lton- with his hand on the other's shoulder. Clyde shook his head. IN THE FACE OF DISHONOR. 271 41 What you ask is impossible," he said. " I cannot explain, but it is impossible." "Very well," said the Doctor, shortly. " I give you six months to live." " It is quite enough," responded Clyde, wearily. Melton stared at him and then wrote out a pre- scription. "You've got hypochondria, along with the rest, have you ? One would think you had met with some terrible misfortune. Something must be done to get you out of this train of thought." He walked to the door and called his wife. When she made her appearance he told her of his diagnosis, " He will have to begin treatment at once," he said. ''You must help me persuade him. Nothing but tonics and the best of food, taken with absolute regularity, can save him. It is not often I tell a patient so much of his condition, but I took Mr. Morley for a man of sense and I thought it best to let him know." Mrs. Melton bowed. She felt a sense of alarm at the revelation, and wondered how much she was to blame for it. " He has been walking ten or fifteen miles a day," continued the Doctor. " He must stop it. In his weak condition, it is simply suicidal. It won't do to trifle with a thing like this. His meals must be pre- scribed for him as well as his medicine. I would not say this if there was the least room for doubt. Ask any other physician in New York, if you think it open to question," he said, to Morley. "I'll tell you what to do," he added, warmly. " Come here and live with us till we get you on the right road. Drop all you- mission business for a month or two. 272 AN ORIGINAL SINNBE. and stay where I can have you under my own observation." Clyde was startled at the proposition. He dared not look at Mrs. Melton, but he knew instinctively that her eyes were searching him, ready to indorse the suggestion. To his relief Dr. Melton took out his watch, saying he must be going, if he would keep his appointment. " It's a poor fellow that there is little probability of our saving," he said. " He would not listen to his physician when he told him to drop business, three months ago, and now I fear he is booked through. Think of my proposition, Mr. Morley. Lettie, say all you can to persuade him. We haven't much room, but you'll be welcome, and if you are here I shall make sure my directions are being fol- lowed. Well, good-afternoon." It was ten minutes later before either of the two people left in that parlor spoke an audible word. It was Mrs. Melton then. " You will come ?" she said, anxiously. "How can I ?" he cried. " How can I accept his kindness and live under his roof, and at the same time continually dishonor him ?" A strange look came into her face. "It will not dishonor him to dine at his table and sleep in his apartment," she replied. " Or to talk and to act to his wife as I have been doing to-day ?" " We should have to be sure of the hall-door," shfe responded, thoughtfully. He was impatient to tell her of the fever that was on him, of the pains he had taken to deaden it by his long walks and his poor fare, but he could not. IN THE FACE OF DISHONOR. 273 He felt that she would not understand without a deeper explanation than he was ready to make. " I should always be here and he would nearly always be away," Clyde said, speaking his thoughts aloud. " I should sit with his wife at breakfast, where he never joins her ; at lunch, which he takes in haste and I at leisure ; at dinner, liable to be broken in upon in his case by professional calls, and in mine by nothing. In the morning I am to drink malt liquors and at night champagne ! My God !" She came to him and touched him on the arm with her soft hand. "You will come. He is quite right, you are not well." He pushed his chair back a little so that he could look her full in the face. "If I do come," he said, "you must enter into a conspiracy with me." " A conspiracy ?" "Yes. I must deceive him. I shall require your aid. I won't drink ale for breakfast. I will drink no more wine for dinner than is necessary to blind his eyes. He will insist on my following his directions. I shall rely on you to help me deceive him." She opened her eyes very wide and asked why he wished to evade these very reasonable regulations. " No matter why. It is enough that I do that I will not come here unless you promise what I ask. And I shall take walks, too, walks that he must not know of as long and tiring, perhaps even more so, than ever. If I come here you are not to question me, or to dissuade me from anything I choose to do.** Thinking this only a fancy that would wear away 274 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. in time, Lettie consented without more delay, and to her joy Clyde told her he would bring his baggage to the house within a week. CHAPTER XXVII. CHAMPAGNE AND GRAPES. After the departure of Mrs. Melton from Boston Bessie Bright was in a state of dejection. She had not been as close a friend of Lettie as she once was, for a number of months, but the Colonel's daughter still came the nearest of any one to being her con- fidant. Now there was absolutely no one to go to with the story of her heartaches. Bessie had began to realize how much attached Lettie had become to Clyde Morley, and at one time she had woven a dream of the day when she and her friend should be sisters-in-law, both happy in the possession of the husbands they loved. Then came the succession of events that burst the bubble. Frank went away after that unhappy evening when Charlie Wilkins surprised them in his room, and not a word had ever come to say whether he was dead or living. And Lettie, to the surprise of her friend and every one else who knew her, had consented to a hasty mar- riage to Dr. Melton and had left the city for New York, where she seemed as much out of the world to Bessie as if they had buried her in a tomb. When Bessie first heard of the intended marriage she could hardly credit the report. She knew that Clyde had not been at the house for some time and CHAMPAGNE AND GRAPES. 875 that Melton came much oftener than formerly ; she knew that Col. Fuller had expressed a preference for the medical man ; and she knew that since his latest attack of illness he had made existence almost un- bearable for his child. But she had learned that Lettie had a will of her own under her calm exterior, and had never supposed she could be persuaded into marrying one man while she loved another. When there was little doubt of the correctness of the report she called Miss Fuller into the parlor one day and asked her how it could possibly be true. "It's simple enough," replied Lettie, with an air of defiance. " Dr. Melton has asked me to marry him and I have accepted." " But Lettie," stammered the other, " I was so sure that you loved " " Were you ?" was the cool retort. " You should know that in these days marriage and love are two very different things. I have no doubt you think, at this moment, that you love a certain person whom I will not name ; and neither have I any doubt that when you marry it will be quite another man." The tears rose to Bessie's eyes. Here was a mystery she could not penetrate. The attitude of Lettie's mind seemed to her unutterably sad. " You will not be happy in such a marriage," she said. " Where there is no love there will always be trouble." " I do not expect to be happy. It is a long time since I knew the meaning of the word. My marriage is settled upon and that is the end of it." This confession horrified Bessie extremely. " Oh, Lettie !" she cried. " If you will not care for yourself, think how unfair this is to him? * 276 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. Miss Fuller laughed discordantly. "To Dr. Melton ? Recollect, my dear, that it is of his own seeking. I did not ask him to marry me. It was his proposition. He knows I do not love him ; there has been no deception." Bessie shivered at the iciness of her friend's man- ner. "Does he also know," she inquired, with chatter- ing teeth, " that you love another ?" An expression little short of anger came over Let- tie's face. " If he does," she replied, " he knows much more than I. Why do you say such things ? It may hap- pen to anyone to form attachments and then break them. A liking for a man does not necessarily com- pel one to be an old maid on his account. Don't be silly, Bessie. There are more men in the world than one, and you will do like me when your time comes." Bessie shook her head as if that could never be. " You seem so different from yourself lately, Let- tie," she said, " that I hardly know what to make of you. I am sure I shall cry all night for you the day you are married. I wish you could at least postpone it for six months or a year. It is a dread- ful thing to marry without love ! Perhaps, if you waited, you would see it. Oh, won't you hesitate a little longer before taking a step you cannot re- trace !" Miss Fuller responded that the day was set, and that a postponement would interfere with all of her plans. " And now let me talk a little plainly," she added. " This is the last time I stall ever be able to discuss CHAMPAGNE AND GRAPES. 277 ttiis matter with you, and I know you will never de- bate my affairs with a third person. I loved Clyde Morley. There is no reason why I should deny that to yon. I found myself caring for him before I knew what I was about. He is an ascetic, a man destined for the priesthood of his church, and as unlikely to marry as a monk. I had no business to become attached to him ; but my experience in life, as you know, is very narrow. When I realized the truth I put him out of my heart with a firm hand. As I told you, I do not love Dr. Melton. He knows it, and he takes me with no deception on my part. We are going away. Boston is distasteful to me now and I had rather live elsewhere. You have given me what you call good advice and I thank you for it, though I cannot change my plans. Now let me give a little counsel to you. Frank Morley is as little likely to marry as his brother. They are a strange pair. Don't let all the roses in your cheeks fade away because he once said pretty things to you. Cast him out of your thoughts as I have cast the other from mine. You are too young to look on the dark side of this world because some masculine voice has made your heart beat faster." The tears that had gathered in Bessie's eyes began to fall. " I feel that you are right about Frank," she said, " but I care too much for him to think there ever can be any one to take the place he has held. It does not matter I am not afraid to be an old maid I shall live here and be with Auntie all my life. But it seems dreadful to me to think of doing as you will, vowing love and honor and truth to a man who has never touched your heart." 278 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " He understands it," replied Lettie, quickly. " He knows that the words I am to utter in the ceremony are with a mental reservation." " But if you should ever love some one else after you are married ?" suggested Bessie. "Think how awful that would be !" Miss Fuller shrugged her shoulders. "That is the most improbable thing your virid imagination could have suggested," she said. " Come Bessie, we are wasting words. I am to be married. If you cannot congratulate me, don't say anything to discourage me. And when your time comes, dear, I will be equally considerate." That was the last they said on that subject before the wedding-day. The Brights had already been informed by Col. Fuller that there would be no invitations to the ceremony. When the carriage departed with the newly-made bride and bride- groom the house seemed lonelier than it had ever been. Bessie fulfilled her promise by crying all night at what she regarded as the unhappy fate of her long-time friend. Had they taken Lettie's body to the tomb the girl could hardly have thought the event a sadder one. About a week after the departure of Dr. and Mrs. Melton, Bessie was told that Mr. Charles Wilkins wished to see her in the parlor. The young man still retained his room, though he seldom occupied it, and Bessie supposed his errand on this particular occasion was to give notice of its intended surrender. She was rather sorry, as there were already several rooms vacant, and the prospect was that Col. Fuller's suite would soon be added to the number, but she CHAMPAGNE AND GRAPES. 279 put the best face possible on the matter and re- sponded at once to the call. " I I beg your paw-don," stammered Charlie, in his awkward way. " It is weally too bad to trouble you over such a small mat-ter. But I want to know, you know, whether you can give me the ad-dwess of of Mr. Mor-ley." Bessie blushed scarlet. " Mr. Morley," she repeated. " Mr. Clyde Mor- ley ?" It was a pardonable evasion and Wilklns so con- sidered it. " N-no, if you pi-ease," he answered. " Mr. Fwank Morley. You see he belongs to a cl-ub with me and there are seve-wal let-ters wait-ing the-re for him." Miss Bessie replied that she did not know the address of Mr. Frank. Her agitation as she pro- nounced the name was not lost on the observer. " I was afwaid that is, I thought paw-sibly you you wouldnt know, you know," said Charlie, as if he was glad, on the whole, to hear it. " Now, there is ano-ther thing I want to see a-bout. Could I change my woom to one on a low-er floor, you know ? Could I could you let me have the one Fwank used to oc-cupy ?" Again the crimson swept over the girl's face. How could she ever forget the night when Wilkins opened the door of that room, and what he must have seen and suspected ? " I will inquire," she said, to get an excuse to leave him, even for a moment, though she knew very well that the room was to let, as she had shown it twice that day to applicants. In a short time she returned, after bathing her hot cheeks, and 280 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. said the room was at the service of Mr. Wilkins if he wished it. " But, excuse me," she added, " you are here so little now that I was afraid we were going to lose you entirely." Charlie smiled with gratification. " It is vewy kind of you, you know, " he managed to say, "to think about me at all. The fact is, I have another woom in fact, sev-ewal of them in another part of the ci-ty. But I wan-der awound so much I weally need this one, you know. Ya-as, you are vewy kind to think about it, bah Jove !" In her straightforward way Bessie replied that as there were several rooms to let in the house she was naturally pleased to retain all of the tenants possi- ble, and Charlie's countenance fell a little as he real- ized that her interest in him was of a commercial nature only. He had been building rather heavily on her statement of a few moments back. " I can get you some fel-lows, if you wa-nt, you know," he said, rallying himself in time. " I know a fel-low who would take the woom I am giv-ing up, you know. His name is Clarke and he was a gweat fwiend of Fwank." He had no sooner said this than he wished he had omitted to mention the latter cir- cumstance. "Of course," he explained, * we are all f wiends of Fwankie, at the club." And when he had said that he concluded that it would have been better to have omitted the latter statement as well as the first. " I should be glad to let him the room," said Bes- sie, hiding her confusion as best she could. "My aunt depends a good deal on her rents for her living, and when there are several vacancies it is unpleasant." CHAMPAGNE AND GRAPES. 28J Wilkins spent some seconds in digesting this fact. " Ya-as," he said, at last. " It must be dc-vilish dis-agweeable, you know, to have a lot of emp-ty wooms. Why, of course. But I'll fill them up for you. I'll make the whole cl-ub come here and woom, if you say so." Bessie glanced at him with a feeling of uneasiness. Was he trying to make love to her? She would have stopped that in short order, but there was nothing in his face to confirm the suspicion. She concluded that it was only his good-nature that had spoken, and she thanked him, saying there were two other rooms to let at present and that Col. Fuller's three would probably be vacated before a great while. "Oh, ya-as," he replied. "His daugh-ter has gone away, hasn't she ? I knew Mel-ton. Of course, we all knew Mel-ton at the club, and we were de-vilish sorry to lose him, bah Jove ! We knew he was twy-ing to get the gi-rl, you know, but we never thought he could do it, you know. He's a doo-cid lucky fel-low !** Miss Bright began to think that the conversation was taking a wider range then she had anticipated and brought it to a close by saying that she would have Mr. Wilkins' things taken to his new room and that it would be ready for his occupancy that very evening. It was only an hour later that Charlie reappeared at the house, dragging in his triumphal precession Mr. Silas Clarke, who engaged the chamber on the upper floor with very little ado. As Clarke had recently been discharged from the Even- ing Sphere, and was relying entirely upon loans from Wilkins for his support, he was much pleased to get a chamber where his benefactor would be so AN ORIGINAL SINNER. handy ; and, as Charlie was sure to have to pay for it, either directly or indirectly, it did not much matter to Silas. The next day Wilkins brought up the young man from the leather store on High street and installed him in the other vacant room, and Bessie went about the house singing for the first time in weeks. In some way, not very clear to either of them, Wil- kins managed to strike up an acquaintance with Col. Fuller. It is probable that a present of champagne and grapes which he asked Maggie to offer out of his stock one evening, when he had a little party of friends at a caterer's collation, may have been the basis of the thing. At any rate Col. Fuller and Wilkins found themselves on a very good footing with each other, and Charlie got into the habit of spending a great deal of his time in the military gentleman's apartments. The Colonel was still confined to the house by his complaints at least as far as being able to go to his club was concerned and he had been so mortally lonely of late that any visitor was more than welcome. Charlie's good-nature was a sovereign balm for his host's occasional lapses into ill-temper, and they got along together famously. On some of the brightest days Wilkins had his carriage driven around to the door and begged as a special favor that the Colonel would accompany him for an hour or so into the suburbs. As the carriage was now on runners it was easy to get into and Charlie had infinite patience with the slow steps and frequent pauses of the invalid. Add to this that all the latest magazines, including a number, both native and foreign, devoted to army matters, were brought in from CHAMPAGNE AND GRAPES. 283 Wilkins* room weekly by Maggie, and that Charlie made a martyr of himself in the game of cribbage, which he detested, it is no wonder that he filled a very important place in the dull life of the sick man. It was to this condition of things that Mrs. Melton .owed her freedom from the presence of her father much more than to his actual physical ailments. The Colonel cherished a rather bitter feeling toward bis daughter. He was glad to escape having to be at her mercy, as in his weak condition he felt he would be in her New York home. She wrote to him once a week, but there was nothing of the usual exchange of endearments in the correspondence. There never had been much of that between these two, and nothing of recent occurrence was likely to make a change in that direction. Dr. Melton also wrote, and his letters were of a kinder nature. He had a real sympathy for the invalid. He did not intimate anything about the strained relations between himself and his wife, and Col. Fuller had no suspicion of the lack of cordiality that pre- vailed. At last came a note in which the Doctor mentioned the name of Morley; and as Wilkins hap- pened to be in his room when the mail arrived, the Colonel read one paragraph out loud. **Mr. Clyde Morley, whom you doubtless remem- ber very well, is staying with us at present. I found him in a very bad state of health, and he has put him- self under my care. I hope to bring him around all right in a short time." Wilkins had difficulty in refraining from uttering an exclamation that rose to his lips. The words he came so near were " Qhme-Gard 7* 284 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. " If / were mar-wied to that gi-rl," he was saying to himself, "I wouldn't want that pweacher in the house, bah Jove ! He was com-ing to see her every day for weeks when they were he-re, and I thought sure he would mar-wy her. I won-der if he is as sick as Melton thinks. Weally I'd like to know, you know." A more than usually violent attack of illness made Mrs. Bright telegraph, a fortnight-Mater, for Mrs. Melton to come to the side of her fatner. When the Colonel rallied and found Lettie there he asked in a harsh tone who had sent for her and plainly showed his disapproval of the proceeding. She stayed only one night, and as he seemed to have recovered from the fit, she returned to New York on the following day. Wilkins saw a good deal of her during her stay, for he was constant in his attendance on her father, and was thunderstruck in the change that time and experience had wrought in the delicate, shrinking girl he remembered. *' A weg-ular ti-ger-cat !'* he said. " I'm glad it's Mel-ton and not I who's got her to look after, bah Jove !" CHAPTER XXVIIL " THERE IS A DEVIL IN HIM !" Clyde Morley was undoubtedly a sick man. Eir. Melton was certain of that, but what he could not understand was why no improvement took place under the regimen he had prescribed. A good rare "THERE 18 A DEVIL IN HIM!" 985 iteak and a bottle, of ale in the morning ought to tnake a better pulse than he found in his patient's wrist. Roast beef with port and champagne at dinner should, according to his calculations, bring a little color into the cheek, and not a particle was visible. The heartbeats were uneven, sometimes almost imperceptible, and again much too rapid. There was a trembling of the body and a slight shaking at the hands. Dr. Melton wanted to bring in a brother practitioner and get the benefit of his observations, but Clyde would not hear a word of it. " Why, I'm all right!" he would exclaim. "I'm subject to spells of this kind. I've had them before and recovered. Give me time, that's all." Mrs. Melton knew that Morley's morning steak was untasted and that not a drop of the ale had ever gone down his throat. She knew that when Mark was at dinner, Clyde made only a pretense of drink- ing wine which she had mixed with water, and that if the Doctor was out he never touched it. She plead with him more than once to obey the instruc- tions he had received, but he turned a deaf ear to her. He had his reasons, and he would not explain, and that was all he would say. He went out every morning, pretending to take a ride only, for that Mark admitted would be good for him ; and when the carriage was in the Park he left the driver to doze under the trees, while he plunged into the by- paths and walked until he could walk no longer. But the length and rapidity of these walks were curtailed now. He could not bear such promenades as those to which he had been used. He was cer- tainly fading away. When Mrs. Melton went to Boston, he left tha 236 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. house or a day or two, promising the doctor to be careful about over-exerting himself and to keep up the full measure of his diet. He would have prom- ised anything. He spoke of a friend whom he intended to visit, and said he would return in a few days. The truth was he dreaded the lonesomeness of the apartment while Lettie was to be away, and could not bear the thought of sitting at meals alone with Dr. Melton. Mrs. Melton guessed the cause of his departure and was much pleased thereat. When she returned there was a terrible day or two without him, as she did not know his address and he had expected she would stay longer. But something happened to break the monotony of the second day. Frank Morley sent in his card. "What a way you have of drooping out of the clouds when one least expects to see you !" was hef greeting. *' If you had come at any other time I should have been able to present you to your brother, who now makes his home with us." Frank did not seem like himself. He bowed absently and said he knew that Clyde lived there, and also that he was out of town, or she might be certain he never would have called. " Still that unaccountable anger between you ?" she said, reproachfully. "What should have lessened it?" he asked. "Do you think it makes me like him better because he is here with you, while I " He paused, as if overcome by his feelings, and she felt the dampness under her eyelids. " Hush !" she answered, soothingly. " He is Ml invalid, under the care of my husband." " THERE IS A DEVIL I3C HIM !" 287 He uttered an expression in which a sneer was unconcealed. " Then he must be recovering rapidly," he said. " No. He is growing worse daily. I I wish I might ask you something, Mr. Morley." " You know," he responded, " that you can ask me anything." " Well, then, can you explain why he refuses to eat and drink the foods and liquids that the Doctor pre- scribes ? He is committing suicide, to put it plainly. Those things are necessary to give him strength ; and yet, knowing it, he will not let them pass his lips." Frank smiled ironically. " It would not take me long to assign a reason. There is a devil in him in spite of his theological education, and he is trying to starve him out." She wrinkled her forehead and looked blankly at him. "A devil?" she echoed. " Certainly. He is troubled with a devil that yout presence excites and that certain foods and drinks would make unmanageable. He is not committing suicide, Mrs. Melton. He is being murdered! You are slowly doing him to death." She uttered a shriek. " What am / doing to him !" she asked, growing white. " I have urged him with all my power to follow his physician's directions." He laughed in her face. " No doubt. Well, you will see what happens. Now, I am going. I only came up to take a last look of you. I am not in much better health than 288 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. he, though I may not show it so strongly. You will never see me again." She felt a shiver passing over her, as if her hand had touched a corpse. " You do not speak of dying ?" she said, trying to smile. " Yes. Death is sure to claim me before the end of another year, probably much sooner. I shall not outlive my brother. We are twins, we came into the world on one day. An old fortune-teller once predicted that we would leave it in like manner." Mrs. Melton rose, and getting a shawl from the next room wrapped it about her. " Then you think your brother " She could not finish. He nodded with an air of conviction. " I saw him a week ago, when he did not know it. He is marked for the grave. Pshaw ! Don't start like that ! Nothing is more natural than dying. We shall go about the same time." The shawl was not warm enough for her, and she drew closer to the fire that was burning in the grate. "You are wrong ! I know you must be wrong !" she muttered. " Dr. Melton says he will recover if he only takes the medicine and eats the food he orders. And he must do it. I will compel him, when he returns. He has no right to end his life in such a way." Frank Morley laughed again, recklessly. " He won't obey you, "he said, " I know him well enough for that. It lies in his mind this way ' Shall I sacrifice my body or my soul f " " VHBRB IS A DKVIL IN HIM !" 889 Slowly the thought began to dawn upon her. It jvas some minutes before she could speak again. " He will not contend that he has a right to kill fiimself !" she said, finally. " There are two deaths, in his belief. The physical death is the one he is now courting. To invite the other would be damnation. If there is anything in his doctrines, a legion of angels will bear his spirit aloft when it leaves its earthly tenement, and Satan will gnash his teeth with rage to find that his prey has escaped." The bitter smile was on his lips as he finished the sentence and rose. " Good-bye, Mrs. Melton. Good-bye for this world. If there is another, I am not so sure we may not meet again. But never here; never after to-day." He frightened her so much that she could not even open her lips to bid him an adieu, and long after he had left the house she shivered over the grate with the shawl around her. On the third day from this Clyde returned. He came in the morning, just after Dr. Melton had gone to his office. Lettie heard his step in the parlor and, dressed in the loose gown she usually wore only in her chamber, she came to greet him, throwing her half bare arms about his neck and covering his pale face with kisses. "Oh, Clyde, Clyde!" she gasped. "Why have you stayed so long ! I dreamed three nights together that you were dead ! You will not die ! Tell me you will not die ! On the day they take you to the grave they will take me also !" She talked in this wild way until the servant rang 290 AX OKIGINAL SUTOEB. the little ball which showed that breakfast was served, and he had no opportunity to say a word in reply. " Your brother has been here," she said, as they were seated at the table and he had begun to sip his coffee. " He frightened me so ! He was looking very ill, and he said it was predicted when you were in your cradles that you would die together ! Oh, Clyde, you cannot be so cruel as to condemn your- self to death, when it would kill me to lose you !" He motioned toward the kitchen door to warn her to lower her voice. Then he said that Frank had been very foolish to repeat old wives' tales to her. People died when their time came, regardless of soothsayers or sybils. " No, no !" she cried. *' If a man starves himself as you do, he hastens his natural time. I remember when you were strong and well. Can I forget the day you took that team of horses by the rein with one hand and dragged me from under their feet with the other, as easily as if we had all been so many toys? And now you are slowly letting the life flow out of you, because you will not take what is necessary to sustain and nourish it. For God's sake for my sake, if you care anything for me begin this morning to take the food you need. Try to bring back the strength you have so recklessly thrown away !" She took the steak from under its cover and pushed it toward him. Then she drew the cork from the bottle and filled his glass with the ale. "Drink it, I implore you !" she said, holding the tumbler to his lips. " Drink it ! How can you refuse me ?" "THERE is A DEVIL IN HIM!" 291 Gently but firmly he took the glass from her and put it aside. But he drew her sorrowful face closer and kissed it. She burst into a flood of tears. " Won't you drink it ? Won't you eat the meat ?'* she asked, clinging to his breast. He shook his head. " I know your reason !" she sobbed, averting her face. " After a great deal of thinking I have guessed it. You believe you might become dangerous to me. Yes, that is it ; I am sure that is it ! But it is not true. I am the wife of another man. You could not make me false to him. I am certain of my own resolutions. I love you ; oh, there is no need of my telling you that ! Yes, I would give my life for you, but not my honor. Recover your health. We will love each other always and still we will never forget ! You will certainly die if you do not take more nourishment. Dr. Melton is right. And it will be I who have murdered you !" In this vein she continued talking to him until they had to leave the dining-room. In the parlor she renewed her entreaties, but they had no effect. All she could get from him in the way of answer was that slow shake of the head, when she appealed to him directly. The only time he spoke was when she told him he could not live a year if he persisted in the course he was following. " It is better," he said, then. " It is much better." That afternoon Dr. Melton proposed to his patient to exchange bedrooms with him. He said the one Morley occupied did not have enough sun and was better suited to a healthy man than a partial invalid. Clyde tried to refuse the kindness, for he was already 292 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. troubled by the favors he was receiving, but the transfer of his belongings had been accomplished before he was consulted, and the Doctor's things had been taken to the other chamber. The invalid did not think of the proximity of Mrs. Melton or he might have held owt longer against the change. It was only when he awoke in the middle of the night and heard her stifled sobbing through the connect- ing door that it occurred to him how near she was now. He had not slept very well of late and it was near morning when his eyelids closed. Long before that time the sounds in the other chamber had ceased. One evening, when Dr. Melton was out, and they were sitting, as was their wont, he in an easy chair and she on a hassock at his feet, Lettie looked up at him searchingly. "I found something to-day," she said. "You remember I told you that I lost it, the key to the door between his room and mine." He paused before he answered. " The door is between your room and mine now," he said. " Yes. Of course the door is the same. I found the key in the pocket of a dress I have not worn for several months. See 1" It was an ordinary looking key, that would not have attracted attention anywhere else, but he took it in his hand as if it had some kind of magic power. "This will open the door between my room and yours ?" he said, musingly. " Yes. I tried it this morning." Half absently he placed it in his pocket, and she laid her head again on his knees in the position she had been when she first spoke of the key. He A HOUSE OF SIN. 293 stroked her head with his hand for half an hour more, and then the clock struck ten and they sepa- rated. Clyde did not go to bed till after midnight. He sat in his room, with the door-key in his hand, paler than ever in the moonlight that filled the chamber. Like a statue he sat there, moving not a muscle, with his rapt face turned toward the stars. At last he took from a drawer a photograph and placed it on the outside of the bureau. It was the counterfeit presentment of his friend and guardian, Dr. Welsh. The sight of the beloved and revered features seemed to give him the strength he needed. Rais- ing a window as quietly as he could, he threw some- thing far out into the night. "When my sins are read out of the Great Book," he whispered to the portrait, "you will rise in my behalf and tell of one that I crushed down !" CHAPTER XXIX. A HOUSE OF SIN. For some weeks there was no change in the con- dition of Dr. Melton's patient, except a steady loss of strength that could have but one ending, if con- tinued. Mark finally had his suspicions aroused that his directions were not being followed, and set himself to ascertain if this was true. Under close examination he drew from the servant the fact that the steaks she cooked each morning were found un- 294 AN ORIGINAL 6INNEB. touched, and thai the ale was regularly poured into the little sink in the dining-room instead of being drunk. That the dinners were not partaken of with much appetite he was himself a witness, and the sleight-of-hand tricks by which Clyde evaded drink- ing the wine were soon apparent. Melton grew indig- nant when he had completed his discoveries. He got Morley into his office, and had a straight talk with him. " If you're bound to die it is as easy for you to do it somewhere else as in my house," he said. " I have tried to save you, but I'm not able to perform mir- acles. No one can build you up on weak tea and buttered toast. I don't believe you have swallowed a drop of the iron I gave you. I never heard of such a case. What's the matter with you, man ? I can't understand you at all !" " You wish me to go away ?" asked Clyde, trem- ulously. " Very well, I will go." " I wish you to do as you are told and become a strong, healthy man again," was the impatient reply. " You know you are more than welcome at my home. But hang it ! you are ruining my reputation by persisting in committing suicide under my roof. People will think it's my treatment that's running you down. You look more like a ghost every day." Morley heard him listlessly. " Shall I go, then ?" he inquired. " No, you won't !" replied the Doctor. " You will stay. But I wish to goodness something would happen to give you the shock you need. If that clogged brain of yours could only get a good jar, you would come out of your lethargy. I'm not certain but a little work back on the East Side with your A HOUSE OF SIN. 295 missionaries would be of advantage. At present, you have nothing whatever to think of and your hypo is growing at a fearful rate." Strangely enough the suggestion in reference to the mission succeeded in arousing Mr. Morley to such an extent that he went to pay a visit to his old friends that very afternoon. They had not heard from him for so long that they supposed him dead, but his ex- planation of illness, borne out by the appearance of his form and face, was enough for them, and they welcomed him warmly. One of the ladies had just had a call from a house of evil-repute, where a woman was said to be dying, and she asked Clyde if he was willing to accompany her, as she hesitated about going to such a place alone. Really pleased at the invitation, and glad of an opportunity to divert his mind from his troubles, he accepted with alacrity. Procuring a carriage they were driven to one of the East Side streets in the higher num- bers, close to Avenue A. The house was one of those fearful excrescences on the surface of our civilization where unhappy women spend the dullest and most miserable of lives in order that men may indulge their evil propensities, and that the " madames " who own the places may accumulate fortunes without personal labor. If every girl who thinks it fascinating to begin the downward road could be taken through one of these resorts, and comprehend its full horror, fewer of them, I opine, would leave the path of virtue. Even the best of the occupants are mere slaves, receiving literally nothing for their broken lives but the food they eat. The terms on which they are engaged prevent their accumulating money enough to enable 296 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. them to go away with anything in their purses, and the remarkable bookkeeping to which they are sub- jected leaves them always in debt to their land' ladies. Things are done every day in houses of this kind, in enlightened America, which would fill r.he streets with rioters could the public at large fully comprehend them. But the consciences of the male patrons are easily calloused and interference by *:he law is rare. Little as the proprietors of these houses care fof their inmates as a general thing, they are apt to have a superstitious fear when death approaches. Many a poor girl hears the only words of religious consol- ation that she has listened to in years, after her hearing has become dulled by the cold hand of the Great Destroyer. It is then that the Catholic priest, whose words of warning long ago passed unheeded; the Protestant minister, who might have saved this brand from the burning had she but come to him step softly into the darkened chamber and hold be- fore the glazing eyes the crucifix or the promises made for those who trust in their Saviour. The mis- sionaries of whom Clyde Morley had been one had of late done a good deal of this work. They were more certain to respond without delay than some of the regular pastors, who could not always come as soon as wanted. Besides this, many of the girls pre- ferred to tell their sorrowful stories to the good women of the mission rather than to men. Before the bell could be pulled, Mr. Morley and his companion heard the sound of a piano, from which emanated a lively tune, to which soprano voices kept accompaniment. It would not do for those girls to put on sober faces merely because A HOUSE OF STS 29? Azrael had spread his dark wings over the bed on which lay one of their number. The proprietress knew that customers who might drop in wanted to be met with smiles and gaiety. In response to the ring a negress opened the street-door. Clyde saw seven or eight young women dressed in evening cos- tume that displayed freely their arms and necks, peeping with an air of pretended mischief through the half-closed hangings of the parlor. As soon as the black dress of Miss Thompson was seen, how- ever, there was a quick drawing back. The singing ceased abruptly, and the tune on the piano died away into silence. " Right dis way," said the colored woman, preced- ing the callers up the stairs. Mr. Morley hesitated at the door of the chamber. "You would best go in first," he said to Miss Thompson. The colored woman conducted Clyde to a cham- ber adjacent, and left him while she took his com- panion into the presence of the dying one. Clyde found his breath coming harder, as he realized where he was. He had no doubt this room belonged to one of the regular inmates of the establishment, and his mind conjured up a hundred pictures, as he looked about him. What sins had not been commit- ted there ! Year after year, some poor girl had used that room for the most unholy of all practices the selling for gold of the heartless kiss, the distaste- ful embrace ! Upon the bureau were several photo- graphs, some of them of men. He gazed at the lat- ter with a horrible fascination. What kind of crea- tures must they be whose likenesses would adorn such a chamber? 298 AN ORIGINAL SINNER. But the faces did not look as he imagineu they would. Perhaps some of them were brothers, long lost fathers now lonely in the distant home, weep- ing for the children who had disappeared in the great maelstrom of life and never been heard of again. Or, maybe, they were lovers of the old days, kept for the sake of what had been. Or and here Clyde gave a gasp even if they were patrons of the house, they might look like the rest of mankind. He knew that men were none too good, at the best. Some of those who came here were perhaps no worse than others who preyed on fresher fields, who prided themselves on their superior taste and would have shunned a house like this, as if some infectious dis- ease lurked in its atmosphere. And then it came over him like a heavy weight, was he himself any too good ? Was the course he had pursued for the past few months much better than that of those he was mentally criticising? He walked up and down the floor, his head begin- ning to whirl. There came into his mind a sugges- tion he had once heard of the best way to reform the world the easy way of letting each man reform himself. What had he been thinking of ? He had tried to imagine that he had a mission to regenerate the earth, and he had been unable to control the wickedest man on it. Was he the wickedest man on earth? In his own esteem, yes. He thought of his life since the day he left Arcadie. Had it been any- thing but evil? It was true he had committed no really criminal act, judged by the laws of men. though he had narrowly escaped even that. But what was he doing to-day, in the home of a man who had tried to befriend him ? Was his position- there -?y better A HOUSE OF SIN. 299 was it not infinitely worse than if he spent the same time in this house which filled him with such aversion ? Surely he was alienating a wife from her duty. He was doing what he could to keep off the day when she should be reconciled to her husband. With all his good resolves, he knew he had been dan- gerously near to the chief offence. He had walked on the extreme edge of a cliff, from which, if he once fell, no arm could ever stretch out long enough to save him. "But I love her!" came the excuse ready to his hand. " Have you any right to love her ?" was the answer of his now aroused conscience. " Have you ever read the tenth command ? Have you any morg right to steal her affection than to take Melton's purse or his goods ? He has invited you within hi doors with full faith in your honor and integrity. You have no business to remain there with the terri ble danger staring you in the face !" Morley heard the voice of his conscience 45 if it was a human tongue. " There is no real danger," he muttered " We understand our limitations. Have we not proven our strength in all this time ?" A mocking laugh answered him. " Fool !" it cried. " Since men and wair*