The Last Meetin
 
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 The Last Meeting /* 
 
 33 ??2 
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 By BRANDER MATTHEWS 
 
 New York 
 
 International Association of Newspapers and Authors 
 1901
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1885 
 BY BRANDER MATTHEWS 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 SOUTH RIVER BINDERY CO. 
 
 PUNTERS AND BINDERS 
 
 KKW YORK
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. FREDERICK OLYPHANT, i 
 
 II. MRS. BUTTON AT HOME, 12 
 
 III. THE DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE, ... 27 
 
 IV. IN THE " LOVER S RETREAT," 44 
 
 V. THE FULL SCORE, 61 
 
 VI. THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART, .... 83 
 
 VII. AFTER DINNER, 102 
 
 VIII. A STRANGE COINCIDENCE, 116 
 
 IX. THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND, 135 
 
 X. THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES, ........ 155 
 
 XI. FOUND FLOATING IN THE BAY, 174 
 
 XII. A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING, 187 
 
 XIII. No NEWS, 204 
 
 XIV. GLAD TIDINGS, 218 
 
 XV. THE LAST MEETING, 235 
 
 XVI. AFTER MANY DAYS, 260
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FREDERICK OLYPHANT. 
 
 HPHERE are not wanting those willing to abuse 
 1 the climate of New York, but even the most 
 vindictive of these, after declaring that the cold 
 of winter, the dust of spring and the heat of 
 summer are alike intolerable, finds himself con 
 strained to confess that there is nothing to be 
 said against the few brief weeks of delight which 
 intervene after the hot spells of the African sum 
 mer and before the cold snaps of the Arctic 
 winter. In these rich and mellow days of the 
 Fall to use the good old English word often 
 ignorantly miscalled an Americanism the air 
 is both balmy and bracing ; and the joy of living, 
 the mere animal pleasure of existence, is the 
 portion of every healthy man as he takes his 
 walks abroad. This season is not the mild and 
 enervating Indian summer which may sometimes
 
 2 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 follow it after a frost or two ; it is the Fall as it is 
 seen at its best along the Atlantic coast, after it 
 has begun to paint the trees and the vines in 
 ruddy colors which recall the war-paint of the 
 departed inhabitants of these shores. It is the 
 season of perfect bodily felicity, when men return 
 to town, rested and refreshed and ready to buckle 
 to their winter s work. 
 
 On the afternoon of a day toward the end of 
 October, a day which was a sample of the very 
 best the clerk of the weather can offer to his 
 American customers, Mr. Frederick Olyphant, 
 a young artist, left his studio, in an odd little 
 building just back of Tenth Street, and, passing 
 through a dim alley way into the quiet side- 
 street worn by the feet of three generations of 
 the artists of New York, turned toward Fifth 
 Avenue, pausing only to glance at the clock in 
 the picturesque tower of the Jefferson-Market 
 Court-house. There was a little tang to the wind 
 as he walked briskly to the corner and started 
 up town. He was going to Mrs. Button s, who, 
 that afternoon, was At Home, Tea at Four 
 O Clock. It was almost the first tea of the 
 season. As a rule, Frederick Olyphant disliked 
 teas, but at Mrs. Button s he hoped to meet Miss 
 Winifred Marshall, with whom he was in love, 
 and who had promised to marry him. 
 
 Frederick Olyphant was as handsome and as 
 manly a young American as one could have
 
 FREDERICK OL YPHANT. 3 
 
 found in a walk from Central Park to the Battery, 
 There was an air of resolute self-reliance about 
 him. He had clean and clear-cut features ; his eyes 
 were deep brown ; he wore a full beard trimmed 
 squarely below his chin, and a dark brown mus 
 tache curled away from his upper lip. The 
 American and the stranger within his gates are 
 alike ready to praise the beauty of American 
 women, a beauty as lovely in its bloom as it is 
 fragile and fleeting, though it is gaining sturdi- 
 ness and lasting longer every year, now that 
 American girls live more in the open air and are 
 borrowing the common-sense notions and the 
 healthful habits of English women. But less, 
 indeed, one may say little, is heard about the 
 good looks of American men, although they are 
 almost as much deserving of comment. There is 
 character in the face of an American, and a student 
 of human nature who should stand in Broadway 
 taking notes need complain of no monotony of 
 feature. Now and again he would see a face 
 which might have been painted by one of the 
 great Venetians : there is the same shrewdness, 
 elevation, and mercantile nobility for New 
 York, like Venice, is a city by the sea, and her 
 merchants are princes. There are young men, 
 too, whose faces are prophetic of the future of 
 the New World young men whose faces are 
 lighted by hope and strengthened by determina 
 tion ; young men in whose eyes can be seen
 
 4 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 what the English term Pluck and the Ameri 
 cans call Grit Many of these young men, 
 eager and energetic, robust in health, and athletic 
 in gait, have their full share of Anglo-Saxon 
 good looks. As handsome as any in vigor and 
 vitality and in manly strength was Frederick 
 Olyphant, walking rapidly and firmly up Fifth 
 Avenue that October afternoon, in the hope of a 
 meeting with Winifred Marshall. 
 
 Frederick Olyphant s paternal grandfather had 
 been a Scotchman, but the rest of his ancestry 
 for two hundred years back was New England to 
 the core, sons and daughters of clergymen, given 
 to high thinking and accepting plain living with 
 out complaint or protest. Frederick s father was 
 the first of the family to venture forth from New 
 England to New York. This was no doubt due 
 to the transmitted influence of his father, Fred 
 erick s grandfather, a Scot abroad, at home 
 anywhere. At the battle of Seven Pines, Major 
 Olyphant was shot through the heart ; and when 
 Frederick was twenty-one, a week before he was 
 graduated at the New England College, of which 
 his great-grandfather had been President, his 
 mother died also, and he was left alone in the 
 world to fight his own battles as a man must. 
 
 From his father and from his mother Fred 
 erick Olyphant inherited what was once known 
 as " a modest competence ; " in other words, he 
 \ad a small, fixed, secure income, quite sufficient
 
 FREDERICK OL YPHANT. 
 
 5 
 
 to provide him with bread : his butter he must 
 earn himself. This lifting above the necessity of 
 pot-boilers and of hack-work is a great boon to 
 an artist or an author who has the wish always 
 to do his best. Olyphant had early determined 
 to be a painter ; and pictorial art, especially in 
 the beginning, is like literature in that it is a good 
 staff and a bad crutch. To Olyphant his income 
 was a blessing, for it enabled him to study as long 
 as he chose, not merely in the schools of art, 
 but at large among men. He had been born 
 with a certain adventurous restlessness in his 
 blood, and he roamed over the world seeing life. 
 After a hard winter s work in New York he spent 
 a summer in studying the Indians of the Pueblos 
 in New Mexico, and in evolving a new theory of 
 their descent from the Aztecs of Montezuma. 
 The year after, he went with the whaling fleet to 
 the North Pacific. During the war between 
 Russia and Turkey he pushed to the front as the 
 special pictorial correspondent of the Gotham 
 Gazette. For three years he did his best at the 
 Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. 
 
 At all times he delighted in athletic exercises ; 
 he was a mighty swimmer, a skater of grace and 
 endurance and an adroit and skillful fencer. He 
 was a wonderful shot with the rifle and also with 
 the revolver of his native land ; his fellow students, 
 in the atelier of M. Gerabanel, still tell of his 
 shooting the spots from the five of spades with a
 
 5 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 revolver, using the sixth shot to drive in the tack 
 by which the card was affixed to the opposite 
 wall of the studio, a distance of twenty metres. 
 
 It must not be supposed from this that Fred 
 erick Olyphant was a prodigy in any way, a 
 variant on the accepted type of Admirable 
 Crichton. There were many things which he 
 never attempted, although whatever he did, 
 he did well. He had no ear for music, for 
 example, and to earn a king s ransom he could 
 not distinguish Yankee Doodle from God 
 save the Queen. And he had no taste for 
 science ; it was with difficulty that he had 
 picked up enough knowledge of figures to 
 master the elements of navigation. 
 
 Yet another marked defect in his character was 
 his carelessness as to what he wore. Although he 
 was an artist, he was also a campaigner, a camper- 
 out, and a sailor ; and he was triply reckless in 
 his attire. He never knew what he had on. He 
 was wholly free from vanity, and he gave as little 
 thought as possible to his clothes or to his 
 personal appearance. He went always to a good 
 tailor, wherever he might be, and bought clothes 
 of the best quality : then he put them on and 
 wore them without change until they were worn 
 out It was altogether a matter of chance 
 whether he was the best-dressed man in a room 
 or the worst. He had never quite understood 
 whether his friend Rudolph Vernon, the poet,
 
 FREDERICK OL YPHANT. y 
 
 was serious or not, when he asked Frederick s 
 opinion about a new hat, and wanted to know 
 whether Frederick thought the contour becoming 
 to the poet s head. It was Olyphant s own habit 
 to take the first hat that fitted him comfortably, 
 regardless of its shape. For months he had been 
 wearing a black felt hat, very easy to the 
 head but quite unpresentable. Nor had this 
 carelessness of attire grown on Frederick with 
 his wanderings ; he had always had it; in his 
 sophomore year at college a new-comer, trying 
 to identify his classmates and to learn their 
 names, referred to Olyphant as " the man 
 who was better dressed than he seemed to 
 be." As the painter walked up Fifth Avenue in 
 the clear sunlight of an October day, there was 
 no fault to be found with his clothes, which were 
 almost new, having been worn only two weeks. 
 Life is composed of two parts, so the Arab 
 proverb tells us, the past, which is a dream, and 
 the future, which is a wish. As Frederick 
 Olyphant recalled the nearly thirty years of 
 life which were his past, he thought of this 
 proverb. His past had little more of substance 
 than a dream. He had seen much, he had learnt 
 much, he had hoped more, but he had dorre little. 
 Now, at last, that the future was a wish indeed, 
 he regretted that he had not begun earlier and 
 that he had not accomplished more. Perhaps it 
 is hardly fair to expect that the man with five
 
 g THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 talents shall get quite as good interest on his 
 having as the man with but two : in time and by 
 toil the average man may make cent, per cent., 
 but we must not expect gains in this proportion 
 from the more highly endowed genius. Critics 
 of foremost authority had declared that genius 
 was scarcely too strong a word to apply to what 
 they saw in the last two or three pictures which 
 Frederick Olyphant had painted. His work was 
 imaginative in a high degree, though at times it 
 might seem only fantastic. His fine allegory 
 The End of Time and Space had been hung 
 on the line at the Royal Academy the spring 
 before, while at the same time his Spectre of 
 the Brocken had taken a second prize at the 
 Paris Salon. A German journalist, reviewing the 
 annual exhibitions of London and Paris, declared 
 that these two pictures revealed the coming of a 
 new man, of a new force in art ; and that the 
 Old World should take it as a warning that this 
 light broke from the New World. But praise 
 like this made Frederick Olyphant ashamed of 
 himself; he knew better than his critics; all that 
 he was willing to acknowledge to himself was 
 that he had learnt the rudiments of his trade. 
 He knew how to say whatever he had to say ; 
 but what he might have to express in the future 
 depended wholly on the essential richness of his 
 own nature. 
 
 The mellow sunshine, which bathed him in
 
 FREDERICK OL YPHANT. g 
 
 molten gold at every crossing in his quick march 
 to his tryst with the woman he loved, was not 
 brighter than the hopes which filled his heart. 
 He had youth and health and friends ; and there 
 was nothing to which he might not aspire. He 
 had the future before him, and the future is a 
 wish, said the Arab proverb ; and he had already 
 attained the summit of his desire for she loved 
 him. He marveled at his good fortune and re 
 ceived it as an omen, for he had inherited from 
 Scotland or from New England a full share of 
 intangible superstition. Knowing his own un- 
 worthiness, he wondered how it was that she had 
 chosen him. He accepted her love as the direct 
 gift of heaven, as inexplicable as it was precious. 
 He called up before him her lovely image, and 
 he was lifted up by high and beautiful thoughts. 
 For her sake he would work hard and do his 
 best and put behind him all that was low or 
 mean or paltry. 
 
 As he strode resolutely up Murray Hill, he 
 saw an early evening star rising above the hori 
 zon and seeming to lead him on, respondent to 
 the exalted hope which filled him. She would 
 be his guiding star in life, as pure and as beauti 
 ful as the light which beamed faint and far beyond 
 him. He found himself wondering whether that 
 distant orb were inhabited, and whether any of 
 its inhabitants were one-half as happy as he. 
 Then his gaze dropped, and he took note of the
 
 IO THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 throng which filled the avenue. Men and 
 women and children, on foot and in carriages, 
 going to the Park and coming back from their 
 business ; and as he looked at them, they seemed 
 to be happy, most of them, and to be smiling and 
 laughing and to be at ease with the world. But 
 there was none of them with whom he would 
 dream of changing places. There were no ten 
 of them whose combined felicity could equal 
 his. The world was bright and the people he 
 met were smiling, but no one had as good cause 
 for rejoicing as he : and he gave thanks in his 
 heart. 
 
 Once at the crest of Murray Hill, Frederick 
 Olyphant slackened his pace, and again gazed 
 up at the star, before he turned into Thirty-sixth 
 Street, where Mrs. Sutton was at home, and 
 where he knew he should find Miss Marshall. 
 His thoughts were raised above earthly things 
 into the glorified ether which lovers only may 
 inhabit. So little was he attending to the men 
 and women about him that it was no wonder that 
 he did not know that he was followed, and that a 
 man, a stranger probably, and from his attire 
 apparently a foreigner, had hung on his foot 
 steps ever since he left his studio. This 
 strange follower kept fifty paces or so in the 
 rear of the artist. As Olyphant turned sharply 
 out of the avenue, the man on his trail hastened 
 forward as though unwilling to let his quarry
 
 FREDERICK OL YPHANT. 1 1 
 
 slip from his sight. The stately house of Judge 
 Gillespie, where his only daughter, Mrs. Sutton, 
 was to dispense tea that afternoon, is but a few 
 yards from Fifth Avenue, and Frederick Oly- 
 phant was mounting its broad steps before the 
 curious attendant who had dogged him for 
 nearly half an hour reached the corner. The 
 young painter stood for a moment before the 
 door, enjoying the glory of the sinking sun as 
 it flooded the narrow street with its golden 
 radiance. The stranger at the corner of the 
 avenue fell back as Olyphant, recalled to the 
 affairs of this world, gave a hasty glance up 
 and down the street, and then rang the bell; 
 he watched the door open to admit the guest 
 and then close behind him. He walked slowly 
 past the house as though questioning whose 
 it might be. Then he sat himself down on a 
 doorstep opposite and waited.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MRS. SUTTON AT HOME. 
 
 WHEN Judge Gillespie s daughter was at 
 boarding-school, whither she had been 
 sent at twelve years of age, shortly after her 
 mother died, Judge Gillespie s house was as 
 comfortable and as commonplace a dwelling as 
 one could find anywhere on either side of Fifth 
 Avenue. But when Judge Gillespie s daughter 
 came back from boarding-school, after having 
 finished her education, and when she came out 
 in society, a great change was wrought in the 
 appearance of the house ; it was swept and gar 
 nished and its old-fashioned furniture was hidden 
 as far as possible under new-fangled draperies. 
 And when finally, in her second year of society, 
 Miss Gillespie met her fate in the person of 
 Charley Sutton, the only son of Judge Button, 
 of San Francisco (who had been the head of 
 the great law-firm of Pixley & Sutton ever 
 since the death of Senator Pixley), she made it 
 a condition of her remaining in New York that 
 she should be allowed to do what she pleased 
 with the house and to spend just as much money 
 
 12
 
 AIRS. SUTTON A T HOME. 1 3 
 
 in altering, redecorating and furnishing, as she 
 saw fit. Judge Gillespie was pleased with the 
 match ; he saw an eternal fitness in the mating 
 of a daughter of a judge with the son of a 
 judge ; but he did not want to lose his only 
 child, and he was prepared to grant her all she 
 asked if in return she would keep house for him 
 as she had ever since she left school. It hap 
 pened that Mr. Charles Sutton had made up his 
 mind to remove to New York, even before Miss 
 Gillespie had accepted his hand and heart His 
 sister, Mrs. Eliphalet Duncan, had already mar 
 ried a New Yorker, and he was quite ready and 
 willing to be received into Judge Gillespie s 
 house as a son. 
 
 Mrs. Sutton was a determined little woman, as 
 clever as she was pretty, and having her full share 
 of the precocious dignity which is the distin 
 guishing characteristic of a widower s only 
 daughter. She had taste, too, good taste, and 
 plenty of it, and of the very latest variety. 
 She knew what she wanted ; she planned ma 
 turely ; and when she went to Europe on her 
 bridal trip, she left exact and elaborate instruc 
 tions behind her. The workmen took possession 
 of Judge Gillespie s old house and tore it limb 
 from limb. He fled to Newport, and even took 
 an autumn trip to Colorado. When Mrs. Sutton 
 returned to New York from her wedding tour, 
 she found a house exactly to her taste ; it was
 
 14 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 the old house no longer; it was made over, 
 altered, redecorated, changed from cellar to attic ; 
 and it was a year before Judge Gillespie felt at 
 home in it. From the Beauvais tapestry which 
 hung in the hall, and the quaint wrought-iron 
 railing which protected the staircase of the 
 richest Californian redwood, everything in the 
 house was new and modern and in accordance 
 with the taste of to-morrow. 
 
 When Mrs. Sutton was At Home she stood to 
 receive her guests in the front drawing-room, 
 which she had hung and decorated in exact 
 accord with her complexion. As she was a 
 woman of much common sense she had not al 
 lowed her advanced taste to run wild ; and the 
 front drawing-room looked less like a section of 
 the South Kensington Museum or of a Nurem 
 berg curiosity-shop than do many other front 
 drawing-rooms in which a wandering Briton feels 
 like a John Bull in a china-shop. There was an 
 abundance of rugs, so that unwary man need not 
 slip on the treacherously polished floor. There 
 were many oddly shaped chairs and sofas cov 
 ered with soft stuffs whereon a man might sit at 
 ease. There were silver lamps with silk shades, 
 and there were candles in sconces high on the 
 walls, casting down a dim religious light upon 
 the attendant vestals who guarded the low altar 
 whereon the fire kept the water boiling and 
 who were frequent in pouring libations of tea.
 
 MRS. SUTTON A T HOME. 1 5 
 
 Mrs. Eliphalet Duncan sat before the little bow- 
 legged table on which the tea-things stood. Mrs. 
 Sutton had another table from which she dis 
 pensed cups of white-capped chocolate and dishes 
 of many-colored cakes. Miss Pussy Palmer and 
 Miss Winifred Marshall were " receiving " with 
 Mrs. Sutton a mysterious function made known 
 to the other guests by the absence of bonnets from 
 the heads of these two young ladies. Mr. Lau 
 rence Laughton was talking to Judge Gillespie, 
 while his eyes followed Miss Marshall as she 
 glided about the room in fulfillment of her 
 duties as a deputy-hostess. 
 
 " As I understand it," the Judge was saying, 
 judiciously, "the difference between a Tea and a 
 Reception is solely a difference of fare of pro 
 vender, if I may venture to use the word." 
 
 " I see," answered Laurence Laughton ; " at a 
 Tea, you get tea and cakes, while at a Reception, 
 you expect a square meal." 
 
 " Precisely. And the result is that man, being 
 a worshiper of his stomach, shuns Teas, although 
 he is sometimes seen at a Reception." 
 
 " Well, I believe you are right," said Laugh- 
 ton. " We are two men here and we feel, both 
 of us, I take it, like a cat in a strange garret." 
 
 " Qu allait-il faire dans cette garret ? " quoted 
 the Judge, who prided himself on his accent, 
 and who had once adapted a play from the 
 French.
 
 !$ THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " A Tea is an excuse for gathering together a 
 lot of women, old and young, so that they can 
 admire each others gowns to each others faces," 
 remarked Laughton, " and that being the case, I 
 think your daughter is to be congratulated on 
 the success of her afternoon." 
 
 " There are quite a dozen ladies here at this 
 early hour I think," answered the Judge, with 
 paternal pride. 
 
 " Two more I ve been counting. And now 
 is the Scripture fulfilled, which said that seven 
 women shall lay hold of one man." 
 
 " Why, Uncle Larry, how can you say so ? " 
 interrupted Mrs. Sutton, with whom Laurence 
 Laughton was a great favorite. He was a young 
 man of a little more than forty, and he was no 
 relation to her, but he had willingly accepted 
 her, and many another pretty girl, as his niece by 
 brevet. 
 
 " Why, shouldn t I say so ? " he answered. 
 " Fourteen ladies here and two men only your 
 father and I. Twice seven are fourteen." 
 
 " Don t tell me that," replied Mrs. Sutton, mer 
 rily. " I refuse to acknowledge it. I m like 
 Mrs. Martin there. I never could learn the 
 multiplication table and, what s more, I don t 
 believe it is so ! " 
 
 Laughton laughed at this declaration of femi 
 nine principle. 
 
 " Have a cup of chocolate ? " asked the hostess.
 
 MRS. BUTTON A T HOME. i y 
 
 " Well, I don t know but that I will sit up 
 and take a little nourishment," answered Uncle 
 Larry, dropping into a low arm-chair by the 
 side of Mrs. Sutton, as Miss Winifred Marshall 
 crossed the room to meet a new-comer. From 
 his new position Laughton was at liberty to fol 
 low all Miss Marshall s movements. But his 
 view was at once cut off by Miss Pussy Palmer, 
 who came and stood before him. 
 
 " Uncle Larry," said this lively young lady, 
 who was most becomingly dressed in a silver- 
 gray plush velvet, which fitted her lithe little 
 figure to perfection, " I want to know : Is 
 Frederick Olyphant going to be here this after 
 noon ? " 
 
 " I want to know, too," was Uncle Larry s 
 guarded answer. 
 
 " But is he ? " she persisted, seating herself 
 on the arm of a sofa. 
 
 " Well, I don t know. I shouldn t wonder if 
 he did come. Why ? " 
 
 " Because I want to see him so badly. Uncle 
 Larry ! " ejaculated Miss Pussy, with mysterious 
 vehemence, " can you keep a secret ? Well, I m 
 desperately in love with Mr. Olyphant." 
 
 " You don t say ? " asked Uncle Larry, with 
 amused interest; " and does he return your young 
 affections ? " 
 
 " I don t know and I don t care. I m not 
 serious, you know. But I think he s just splendid.
 
 !g THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 I only met him for the first time on Sunday, and 
 I think he s the handsomest man I ever saw ! 
 Don t you think so ? " 
 
 " Well, I don t know how many handsome 
 men you have ever seen," was Uncle Larry s 
 natural response. 
 
 " Now I do. He s lovely. He has the most 
 beautiful eyes you can imagine. Why, he s as 
 handsome, in his way, as Winifred is in hers. 
 You call her pretty, don t you ? " continued Miss 
 Pussy. 
 
 "No; I call her beautiful," said Laughton, 
 seriously. 
 
 " That s what I say. I think she s just the 
 loveliest girl I ever saw and she s as good as 
 she is pretty ! And to think that she is going 
 to throw herself away on a man ! It s perfectly 
 ridiculous ! " 
 
 Uncle Larry, with a certain tremulousness of 
 voice, asked, " Is she engaged ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; she isn t engaged, but she s sure to be 
 some day, you know. The men are all after her 
 now, and she ll have to take one of them to get 
 rid of the rest." 
 
 Miss Palmer was not very observant, and 
 she rattled along without noticing Laughton s 
 little sigh of relief. $e raised his hand to his 
 mouth and stroked and curled his heavy auburn 
 mustache. His eyes crossed the room, as he 
 raised them again, and rested on the erect figure
 
 MRS. SUTTON A T HOME. ig 
 
 of Miss Marshall. She was slightly taller than 
 the generality of women, but just then she seemed 
 of an unusual height, for she towered above a 
 little man who had entered the room a minute 
 or two before, and who now stood by her side, 
 rubbing his hands together in a self-deprecatory 
 manner. 
 
 " Why, there s Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley," 
 cried Pussy Palmer as soon as she saw him. 
 " Isn t he sweet ? I just doat on Englishmen 
 when they re nice. And he isn t half bad, don t 
 you know ! " 
 
 Uncle Larry smiled at her broad caricature of 
 the English accent. 
 
 " Now, you watch," she continued, " and you ll 
 see. He wants to come over here and talk tome. 
 He thinks I m great fun, though I don t be 
 lieve he thinks I m good form, don t you know ? 
 But the Duchess will capture him from me, you 
 see if she doesn t. Sometimes I think the Duch 
 ess doesn t quite approve of me." Miss Palmer 
 said this with an innocent expression, as though 
 wondering how it came to pass that anybody 
 could fail to approve of a brightsome little body 
 like herself. She was given to accepting herself 
 as a kitten, whose actions were playful, inconse 
 quent, and harmless. 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, having received a 
 cup of tea from Mrs. Duncan, was slowly making 
 a way for himself through a sudden throng of
 
 20 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 ladies to where Miss Palmer sat on the arm of 
 the sofa. His path led him near a lady of portly 
 presence and of a dignified manner. This was 
 Mrs. Martin, whom certain of her younger friends 
 chose to call the Duchess of Washington Square. 
 She caught the Englishman s eye as he passed, 
 and he obeyed her imperious glance and meekly 
 took a seat on a stool by her side. 
 
 " There now ! " said Miss Palmer to Mr. 
 Laughton, " didn t I tell you ? She s a regular 
 body-snatcher when she gets a-going. Of course, 
 / don t care, but it s pretty rough on the 
 stranger to get taken in like that." 
 
 Uncle Larry listened with amusement to the 
 innocent prattle of his companion. He wondered 
 how soon she would experience a change of 
 heart, forswear slang and reform her picturesque 
 vocabulary. Just now Miss Pussy was a showy 
 little woman, rather pretty and very young, 
 wearing her bright bronze hair cut short like a 
 boy s. In another year or two, thought the ex 
 perienced Larry, her tip-tilted nose will be the 
 only reminder of her present pertness, and she 
 will be as quiet and mild in manner as an 
 American girl should be. 
 
 Miss Pussy Palmer was the only daughter of 
 a very wealthy man who had lately removed to 
 New York from a little town in the interior of 
 Pennsylvania. Mr. Palmer had once been a bar 
 keeper, if report may be relied on, and he had
 
 MRS. SUTTON A T HOME. 2 1 
 
 struck oil literally, not figuratively. A three- 
 hundred-barrel well had been discovered on a 
 small farm he had taken for a debt. After ex 
 hausting the enjoyments of his native town, and 
 after building and endowing a free public library 
 for its inhabitants, Mr. Palmer had felt the stir 
 rings of social ambition. As Mr. Delancey Jones 
 neatly put it, " Palmer formerly mixed for the 
 best men of Beanville and now he wants to 
 mix with the best men of New York." In this 
 laudable desire he was seconded by his only child, 
 who had just been graduated from a very 
 fashionable school where her lively humor and 
 her sweet temper had made her a great favorite 
 with her classmates. When they came out they 
 promised to help her to come out also. And 
 she had come out with a vengeance, thought 
 Uncle Larry. He wondered why it was that 
 this rattle-brain girl, who was kind-hearted 
 enough, but who had scarcely as yet more than a 
 veneer of " the manners and tone of good 
 society," should be an intimate friend of Wini 
 fred Marshall, who was reserved and proud, and 
 whom most people thought cold and haughty. 
 
 " Doesn t Winnie look lovely this afternoon ? " 
 asked Pussy, breaking in on Laughton s reflec 
 tions. " I don t wonder she always wears black ; 
 it s so becoming to her. And that big yellow 
 bow suits her style down to the ground." 
 
 Laughton felt the justice of this feminine re-
 
 22 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 mark. The severity of the rich black silk which 
 fitted Miss Marshall s beautiful figure as no dress 
 fits a woman whose lines are not graceful curves, 
 was relieved by one large and several smaller 
 bows of a deep golden yellow, which accentuated 
 boldly her ivory complexion and her dense 
 black hair. She wore a bunch of yellow roses 
 fastened at her waist. 
 
 " She s got a color, too, and that s always 
 becoming to her. Don t you think she looks a 
 little restless ? " 
 
 " I had not remarked it," answered Uncle 
 Larry, considering Miss Marshall even more in 
 tently than before. Perhaps she felt the force of 
 his gaze, for she looked up and smiled at him 
 brightly. 
 
 "Of course, you wouldn t see anything," said 
 Miss Pussy, "you re a man. But I know her, 
 and I guess she s getting tired of waiting for her 
 young man." 
 
 Laurence Laughton found himself wishing 
 that the reform of Miss Palmer s language might 
 take place even sooner than he had anticipated. 
 " Her young man ? " he repeated, coldly. 
 
 " You know whom I mean." 
 
 " Indeed, I do not" 
 
 " Then you are blind or else you must be in 
 love yourself, Uncle Larry. Why, everybody has 
 seen how devoted Frederick Olyphant has been 
 to her all summer. I heard of it in a dozen
 
 MKS. BUTTON A T HOME. 23 
 
 letters. Girls were writing to me about it all the 
 time." 
 
 Laughton wished that girls had found some 
 more profitable employment for their leisure. 
 
 " He just worships the ground she walks on. 
 I don t suppose she cares for him, you know, 
 but he can t keep his eyes off her. That s what 
 I m told. And I ll punish him for being late to 
 day that is, if he comes at all. I ll waylay him, 
 and get up a flirtation with him in spite of his 
 teeth. You see if I don t ! " Despite the free 
 dom of her vocabulary there was no trace or 
 taint of vulgarity in Pussy Palmer s manner : 
 her brilliant smile made a man ready to forgive 
 linguistic enormities greater than hers. 
 
 At this moment there was a change of posi 
 tion. Mrs. Sutton called Miss Marshall to take 
 her place at the chocolate table. Once ensconced 
 behind this counter, the lady in charge could 
 serve only one customer at a time, for the little 
 table was almost in a corner, and access on one 
 side was cut off by a projecting Japanese cabinet. 
 Scarcely had Winifred taken her seat, before 
 Frederick Olyphant entered the room by the 
 door nearly opposite to her. Their eyes met at 
 once, and a smile lighted both faces. 
 
 " There he is now," cried Pussy Palmer. 
 "Uncle Larry, you go and get me a cup of 
 chocolate and a cake. I haven t had a single 
 bite yet, and I am as hungry as a cannibal in
 
 24 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Lent." She gave this order with a child-like 
 imperiousness which was one of her most fasci 
 nating little ways. 
 
 As Laurence Laughton left her to obey this 
 command, she waylaid Frederick Olyphant. 
 Laughton noticed that, as Miss Marshall was 
 preparing the cup of chocolate, her color height 
 ened and then fled, leaving her with an unwonted 
 paleness. When he returned to Miss Pussy, he 
 found that she had installed Olyphant in his 
 place. 
 
 " You must not make me sit down now," 
 Olyphant was saying ; " I am famished, I want a 
 cup of chocolate, or I shall expire of inanition." 
 
 " You shall have it at once," responded the 
 lively Pussy, taking the cup from Laurence s 
 hand and putting it in Olyphant s, despite his 
 ineffectual protest. " Here s my cup. It s leap- 
 year, and so it is a girl s privilege to wait on a 
 man. Uncle Larry, will you please get me 
 another cup ? " 
 
 Laughton smiled at the pitiful expression on 
 Olyphant s face, and departed again on his quest. 
 He remarked a defiant excitement in Winifred 
 Marshall s manner, and he caught a fierce gleam 
 from her large, black eyes. 
 
 " You are not well this afternoon," he ven 
 tured to remark, with ill-concealed interest. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am," she answered, as her tea-rose 
 complexion grew richer under his gaze.
 
 MRS. BUTTON AT HOME. 2 $ 
 
 " You look excited. I think you are feverish," 
 he urged; " let me take you out of this crowd." 
 
 " Thank you, Uncle Larry," she said, with a 
 pleasant laugh, " but I m having too good a 
 time here to want to go just yet. Here s Pussy s 
 . r ;jcond cup ! " 
 
 " It s her first really, for she gave the other to 
 Fred," explained Laurence, inadvertently. 
 
 " I did not know he liked chocolate," said 
 Winifred, quickly. " He told me once that he 
 couldn t drink it ! " 
 
 " Perhaps Miss Palmer has cast a spell over 
 him, and he must perforce partake of the potion 
 she proffers him." 
 
 And after this alliterative speech, Uncle Larry 
 took the second cup to Pussy, who was in vio 
 lent combat with the painter on the subject of 
 art, about which she, of course, knew less than 
 nothing, and about which he had deep convic 
 tions. 
 
 " Uncle Larry," she cried, as Laughton ap 
 proached, " you must come to my rescue. I ve 
 been telling Mr. Olyphant that I m just mad 
 about art; and yet he won t give me any art 
 news." 
 
 Laughton had a keen recollection of a visit to 
 the gallery of pictures of which Miss Palmer s 
 father was the proud possessor, and he recalled 
 only two or three works of real value amid a 
 mob of paintings which looked as though they
 
 2 6 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 might, in some earlier stage of existence, have 
 
 been chromos. He smiled gently, and asked, 
 " What do you want to know ? " 
 " I d like to know what he s painting now." 
 " I ll tell you that," said Olyphant, " if you 
 
 promise not to ask any questions about it." 
 " I promise." 
 " It s to be called The Sharpness of Death/" 
 
 said the painter. 
 
 " Oh, I think that s a horrid name ! " cried Pussy, 
 
 pretending to shiver ; " can t you change it ? "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 MISS PALMER had relieved Laurence 
 Laughton of the second cup of chocolate, 
 and he felt himself at liberty to pass on, abandon 
 ing the unwilling Olyphant to the tender mercies 
 of Pussy. On his way across the room to rejoin 
 Winifred Marshall, he was hailed by Mrs. Martin : 
 " Colonel Laughton I mean, Mr. Laughton ! " 
 Laurence Laughton had come out of four years 
 of hard fighting in the Army of the Potomac 
 with the title of Colonel, U. S. V. a title he 
 made haste to lay aside as soon as he was mus 
 tered out. He had retained the erect bearing of 
 the soldier, and he had always the gentleness of 
 manner which generally characterizes the man 
 of war. Yet this gentleness failed to prevent his 
 annoyance whenever his military rank was 
 flaunted in the face of strangers. Mrs. Martin 
 knew this, but she was a great respecter of titles, 
 and it was hard to forbear the use of his. She 
 seemed so sorry for this slip, however, that he 
 relaxed the frown with which he had approached 
 her. 
 
 27
 
 2 g THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " I m so glad to see you here this afternoon," 
 she said ; " I thought you did not condescend to 
 teas." 
 
 "Well, I don t know that I do," Laughton 
 answered. 
 
 " But you must, or you would not have come 
 to-day," continued Her Grace. " I was saying to 
 Winifred Marshall, the last time we met you at a 
 reception, that you were getting to be quite a 
 society man." 
 
 " I m afraid I do not really deserve the compli 
 ment," he replied, with only a dim suspicion of a 
 smile at the corner of his lips. 
 
 " You know Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, don t 
 you ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know Uncle Larry," interrupt . ..1-1. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley, who was sitting by the side 
 of the Duchess. " There is a club called The 
 Full Score, and we are all going to dine at 
 Uncle Larry s house to-night." 
 
 " Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley," said Mrs. Mar 
 tin, "seems to take an interest in Miss Palmer " 
 
 " Such a lively girl ! " interrupted Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley. 
 
 " But she is not good style," said Mrs. Martin, 
 as though passing sentence. 
 
 Laurence Laughton joined Winifred Marshall 
 again, and lost the rest of the conversation between 
 the Duchess and her English friend. Perhaps it 
 was as well that he did not hear it.
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 29 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley was a nice little 
 man, with a pair of little mutton-chop whiskers, 
 and a little trick of rubbing his hands together 
 gently. He had a very quiet manner and a very 
 deep voice, which seemed wholly out of place in 
 the mouth of such an unassuming little fellow. 
 He was the younger son of a younger son of an 
 English peer. The title was old and the head of 
 the house was poor. He had to support himself 
 as best he could ; he was an artist, not without 
 talent ; he was a critic, with much minute know 
 ledge of obscure points in the history of art; he 
 was a poet, in his leisure moments; he had 
 written a novel or two ; and he had had a classi 
 cal play damned. There was a rumor that he 
 had once contributed to the Saturday Review a 
 social essay on the Idiosyncrasies of Ratiocina 
 tion : and there was no doubt that he had once 
 written to the Times, for the letter was extant : it 
 was a protest against the conduct of a policeman 
 at Charing Cross. He had lately inherited a small 
 but sufficient income from an aunt whom he had 
 never seen. In his politics he was an advanced 
 radical ; and, although delighted with America, 
 he deprecated the spirit of conservatism, which 
 he declared to be the chief characteristic of the 
 United States. It was understood that he was 
 at work on a volume of Notes on America ; 
 and he had lectured before the Nineteenth Cen 
 tury Club on the British Peerage.
 
 ^o THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Naturally the Duchess took a great fancy to Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley and piloted him through 
 the shallows of New York society. She had a 
 broad tolerance for all political heresies ; it was 
 only lapses from the conventionalities of polite 
 society that she visited with swift and fatal 
 punishment. Mrs. Martin was known to her 
 familiars as the Duchess of Washington Square, 
 because she was as prominent in society as 
 might be the most exalted peeress in her own 
 right, and because she dwelt in Washington 
 Square, which has now regained the fashion it 
 had lost for a score of years. She had a majesty 
 of demeanor and an amplitude of raiment which 
 was wont to strike awe into the breasts of all 
 beholders ; but she was ever gracious, as became 
 a lady whose social superiority did not need to 
 be asserted ; and to an Englishman, the younger 
 son of a younger son of a peer, she was 
 doubly gracious, as became a lady who had 
 once lived in Philadelphia, and whose great 
 grandfather had been a Tory during the Revolu 
 tion. She was very hospitable ; she was an 
 admirable hostess ; and her Sunday evenings in 
 Lent were delightful gatherings. It is true that 
 purists had declared the company " rather 
 mixed " ; and when Uncle Larry once vouched 
 for a lady on the ground that he had met her 
 at Mrs. Martin s, Delancey Jones said, scornfully, 
 " You might as well say you had met her in
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 3* 
 
 Central Park." It was Delancey Jones, too, 
 who, in allusion to Mrs. Martin s fondness for 
 bringing out new people, had wickedly called 
 her a " social incubator " a gibe for which the 
 kind-hearted Duchess had not readily forgiven 
 him, although she had been accustomed formerly 
 to refer to him as " Dear Jones." 
 
 " Miss Pussy Palmer is not as beautiful as 
 Miss Marshall," said Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley 
 to the Duchess after Uncle Larry had left them ; 
 "pas tout a fait, but she is a most fascinating 
 little woman." 
 
 " I trust you will not allow her to fascinate 
 you," remarked the Duchess, with dignity. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no. But she is a type ; I like to 
 study her. She s so different to our English 
 girls, you know." 
 
 " She is very different from most American 
 girls, I am happy to believe. Look at Winifred 
 now : see her perfect manners." 
 
 " I m delighted to look at Miss Marshall, I m 
 sure. She is by way of being a very handsome 
 girl," retorted Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, "but 
 she doesn t look happy, and Miss Palmer is so 
 very jolly, don t you know." 
 
 " So you do not think that Winifred is happy ? " 
 asked the Duchess. 
 
 " I knew she was not happy directly I saw 
 her," declared Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, with 
 more perspicuity than the Duchess had credited
 
 32 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 him with. Keener observers than the jolly little 
 Englishman had seen traces of a permanent sor 
 row in Winifred Marshall s usually sad expres 
 sion. It was rarely that her eyes lighted or that 
 her countenance glowed with pleasure, although 
 she had been known not unfrequently to affect a 
 gaiety as boisterous as was possible to so re 
 served a nature. When she was off her guard 
 and the set smile faded from her lips and her 
 features could be seen in betraying repose, even 
 a dull man might mark the veil of haunting 
 melancholy which clouded her face. As the 
 Duchess and Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley looked 
 at her across the room, they saw her glance 
 about with an air of bold defiance, at variance 
 with her usual gentle demeanor. She had just 
 given Uncle Larry a cup of chocolate, heaped 
 high with frothing cream, and, as he stirred it in 
 silence for a moment, she was surveying the still 
 thronging guests. Although she forebore reso 
 lutely to look long in that direction, her eyes kept 
 returning, involuntarily to the sofa where Fred 
 erick Olyphant sat by the side of Pussy Palmer. 
 
 " She s a stunning fine girl ! " said Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley ; " it s an awful pity she shouldn t 
 be happy." 
 
 " She has a noble character, and she has led a 
 sad life," responded Mrs. Martin. 
 
 " Dear me ; you don t say so ? " queried the 
 Englishman ; " has she had a cruel step-mother ? "
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 33 
 
 " How did you know that ? " asked the Duch 
 ess, in surprise. 
 
 "I didn t know it at all. I guessed it, you 
 know. We Britishers can guess sometimes, like 
 you Yankees do." 
 
 " If you have never heard her story, I suppose 
 I ought to tell you " 
 
 " I shall be delighted, I m sure." 
 
 " Because," continued Mrs. Martin, speaking 
 out of the fullness of years of social experience, 
 " if you do not know it, you might accidentally 
 make some awkward allusion to it and " 
 
 " And that would be very unpleasant indeed," 
 assented Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, who had a 
 slight difficulty in pronouncing the letter R ; he 
 did not flatten it into W as do some of his country 
 men, nor could he give it any roll at all. In gen 
 eral he avoided the difficulty by omitting the 
 troublesome consonant. In the present instance 
 what he really said was that it " would be ve y 
 unpleasant indeed." 
 
 But the ear of the Duchess of Washington 
 Square was not attuned to the seizing of 
 orthoepic subtleties, and if in no others, in matters 
 of pronunciation at least she accepted the will 
 for the deed. 
 
 " It is not a very easy story to tell. However, 
 
 I ll do it as well as I can, if I can only remember 
 
 all the names." Here the worthy Mrs. Martin 
 
 did herself injustice, for upon all points of descent 
 
 3
 
 34 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 and intermarriage her memory was unimpeach 
 able. She knew and remembered the exact date 
 of everybody s birth although she kept her 
 own carefully concealed and she could give 
 you the exact date of everybody s death. Dear 
 Jones had said once that the Duchess had a 
 " tombstone memory." 
 
 " I have lent you my ears," said the attentive 
 little Englishman. 
 
 " I suppose I must begin at the very beginning. 
 Did you ever hear of Captain Thaxter Ran 
 dolph ? " 
 
 " Wasn t he a traveler or some fellow of that 
 sort?" asked Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley. 
 
 " That s the man. He was an Arctic explorer. 
 At least he was an army officer. I can remember 
 when he was a professor at West Point ; " and 
 here a vague smile flitted across Mrs. Martin s 
 face as though she had recalled a tender memory. 
 " And, of course, he went with his State. When 
 the war broke out he was a Virginian, you know, 
 one of the real old Randolphs. So when the 
 war was over he had nothing to do. He did not 
 care to go to Egypt or to Brazil, as so many of 
 the best people in the South did. He got his 
 friends together and they raised the money for 
 an expedition to discover the open polar sea." 
 
 " I remember now," said Mr. Hobson-Chol 
 mondeley ; " very interesting, I m sure." 
 
 " During the war, Captain Randolph had
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 35 
 
 married Miss Winifred Southgate, who had been 
 ordered out of Washington and sent through 
 the lines, because she was a rebel spy and was 
 constantly sending news to the enemy. She 
 used to flirt with the Union officers in the most 
 outrageous way, and sometimes they would let 
 out a military secret or two, and she would send 
 this valuable information at once to the rebel 
 chiefs." 
 
 " Clever girl," remarked the listener. 
 
 " But not at all the sort of woman you would 
 like to marry." 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! " was the quick response. 
 
 " Once in Richmond," continued the Duchess, 
 " Miss Southgate flirted with the Rebel officers just 
 as she had flirted with the Union officers in 
 Washington." 
 
 " She didn t play spy on both sides, did she ? " 
 asked Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley. " That would 
 be a mean trick." 
 
 " Oh, no. She was too good a rebel to do 
 that. With the Southern officer she flirted and 
 carried on because she liked it. And one day 
 Thaxter Randolph married her." 
 
 " Poor chap," remarked the Englishman, with 
 kindly feeling for a fellow-man in trouble. 
 
 " I suppose she fascinated him. They say she 
 was very pretty, and the men were always after 
 her. I remember hearing Judge Gillespie once 
 describe her as a tall, handsome woman with
 
 36 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 an aggressive bust and a deficiency in her code 
 of defensive morality. " 
 
 " Very clever, indeed," laughed Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley ; " brings the woman before you 
 at once like a picture. Apropos, I wish it would 
 bring her before us. I think I should like to see 
 her." 
 
 " If you will only be patient, I will tell you 
 what became of her all in good time," said th- 
 Duchess, with a slight severity of tone, for she 
 did not like interruptions when she was engaged 
 in a narrative. 
 
 " Mille pardons" promptly apologized the 
 interrupter. 
 
 Mrs. Martin graciously resumed : 
 
 " Thaxter Randolph had married Winifred 
 Southgate, in 1863, and he had time to find her 
 out by 1865 ; and sometimes I have been in 
 clined to suspect that one reason why he went 
 up to the North Pole was to get away from his 
 wife. She had wealthy relatives here in New 
 York, and he left her with them ; and scarcely 
 was his ship out of sight of Sandy Hook before 
 she began flirting again. The man she saw 
 most of was Hildreth Marshall, the famous 
 architect, you know. He was no fit company 
 for any married woman certainly not in those 
 days. He had studied in Paris for years, and I 
 suppose it was there that he had learnt all his 
 wickedness. When he first came back he had
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE, 37- 
 
 so bad a reputation that all the women wanted 
 to ask him to dinner just to -see if he was as 
 wicked as people said. He was a handsome 
 man, and he had delightful manners. When he 
 first made the acquaintance of Mrs. Randolph 
 he was building the Church of Saint Mary 
 Magdalen, you know, in Twenty-seventh Street,. 
 the one with the lovely stained glass windows, 
 illustrating the text, Let him who is without 
 sin amongst you cast the first stone. They 
 say that when he went up in the morning to 
 oversee the work, he was sure to find Mrs. Ran 
 dolph walking down as he was walking up, and 
 that they met in this way almost every day. 
 That was the winter when Captain Randolph 
 was locked in the ice near Cape Despair." 
 
 " It was a cold day for Captain Randolph, 
 as you say here," remarked Mr. Hobson-Chol- 
 mondeley, with a smile which betrayed his con 
 sciousness of having said a good thing. 
 
 " You must have picked up that slang from 
 Pussy Palmer," retorted Mrs. Martin. 
 
 " Is it slang ? " answered the Englishman, 
 innocently ; " I thought it was an Americanism." 
 
 " Before Captain Randolph returned to civili 
 zation, late the next summer, Mr. Marshall had 
 gone to France. But somebody must have told 
 the Captain the gossip about his wife, for one day 
 in September, nearly twenty years ago, he left his 
 house and went to a hotel and blew his brains out."
 
 3 8 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 " Dear me ! " was the listener s sole tribute to 
 this tragic reminiscence. 
 
 " In a few weeks Mrs. Randolph sailed for 
 Europe. People said she had gone to meet 
 Hildreth Marshall, but it happened that he 
 returned to New York ten days or two weeks 
 after her departure. In her hurry to remove 
 herself away from New York with its painful 
 associations and they must have been painful 
 even to her she left her little child behind her." 
 
 " Did she have a child, then ? " asked Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley, in astonishment. 
 
 "Winifred over there, in front of you; the 
 Winifred, now called Miss Marshall, is the only 
 daughter of Mrs. Randolph," answered the 
 Duchess, enjoying his surprise. 
 
 " Then I do not wonder she is not happy, 
 But" 
 
 " Listen, and you shall hear all. When Hil 
 dreth Marshall learnt that Captain Randolph had 
 committed suicide and that Mrs. Randolph had 
 gone to Europe, leaving the baby Winifred 
 behind, he sought the child out and took a great 
 fancy to it. When Mrs. Randolph died he 
 adopted Winifred." 
 
 " I was wondering how it was her name was 
 Marshall. And so Mrs. Randolph is dead ? " 
 
 " Her end was almost as terrible as her hus 
 band s. She lived in Paris until the siege, in 
 volved in all sorts of intrigues, political and
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 39 
 
 personal. She had a great liking for politics, 
 and she was always scheming and plotting. 
 During the siege of Paris, while the French 
 government was at Bordeaux, she came over here 
 on some sort of a secret mission. She was a very 
 pretty woman then ; but she was not received at 
 all, although the men gave her dinners at Del- 
 monico s. Hildreth Marshall avoided her, and 
 went out West for two months to be out of her 
 reach. She petted Winifred, with a great show 
 of affection, and she dressed her up in the latest 
 French fashions. Then, suddenly, without 
 notice, she went away again, as unexpectedly 
 as she had come. She had taken the steamer 
 Ville de Nice for Bordeaux, where her political 
 friends were, but she never arrived. The Ville 
 de Nice was caught in a great gale in the Bay of 
 Biscay and sprang a leak. They had to run the 
 ship ashore and to land in the small boats. 
 The surf, which was very high, upset the boat 
 Mrs. Randolph was in. All the other passengers 
 were saved ; but Mrs. Randolph sank to the bot 
 tom at once, dragged down by the weight of 
 twenty thousand dollars in gold which she had 
 concealed about her." 
 
 " That is an odd way to die," commented Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley. " There s a Frenchman s 
 book about Les Morts Bizarres, you know, but 
 there isn t anything even in that queerer than 
 your story. Did they ever get the gold ? "
 
 4Q THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " When the storm went* down, they found the 
 body with the gold on it" 
 
 " How very singular ! " 
 
 " As soon as the mother was out of the way, 
 Hildreth Marshall adopted Winifred. I have 
 heard that Mrs. Randolph left the child to him 
 by will. He was devoted to Winifred, and no 
 father could have been fonder ; and she wor 
 shiped him. She had never really had a mother 
 to love her, and, of course, she could not help 
 loving Hildreth Marshall. He was ready to 
 make any sacrifice for her. Judge Gillespie says 
 that Marshall would not have married at all, 
 except to give his adopted daughter the benefit 
 of his wife s care." 
 
 " Dangerous experiment, I fancy," ventured 
 the Englishman. 
 
 " It was a very dangerous experiment, indeed, 
 and it turned out very badly, as it happened. 
 Mrs. Marshall never liked Winifred, and although 
 she did not actually ill-treat her, the child was 
 never happy. I used to have the poor little 
 thing at my house as often as I could, but her 
 .step-mother hated to let her come to me. I 
 suppose she was afraid that Winifred might 
 complain ; but she never said a word : she was 
 staunch and loyal and kept her sorrows to herself. 
 I think it was the knowledge that he had made a 
 mistake which saddened Hildreth Marshall s 
 -death-bed. He left Winifred half his fortune and
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 41 
 
 he appointed Judge Gillespie her guardian. He 
 died only two years ago so Winifred has not 
 gone into society at all until this year. I believe 
 Mrs. Sutton is going to give her a Delmonico 
 ball just before Lent." 
 
 Mr. Hobson - Cholmondeley scarcely heard 
 these last sentences. He was looking at Miss 
 Winifred Marshall, with kindly interest in his 
 eyes. Then he turned to Mrs. Martin, and 
 asked : 
 
 " Do you suppose she knows the whole 
 wretched story, as you have told it to me ? " 
 
 " I hope not, sincerely," answered the Duchess. 
 " She has had enough sadness and sorrow with 
 out that. She has lost her mother and her 
 father ; she has had an adopted step-mother to 
 tyrannize over her ; and her childhood and youth 
 have been far from happy." 
 
 " I suppose, now, that all these things affect 
 her chances? " asked the English visitor. 
 
 " Her chances ? " queried the Duchess, doubt 
 fully. 
 
 " Of getting married, don t you know ? " 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Martin, " I think not ; Wini 
 fred has a great many admirers. There s Mr. 
 Olyphant, the artist, and Colonel Laughton 
 he s not very young, perhaps, but it would be an 
 excellent match." 
 
 While Mrs. Martin and Mr. Hobson-Chol- 
 mondeley were talking about her, Miss Winifred
 
 42 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Marshall arose from the little seat behind the 
 chocolate-table and left the room, smiling at 
 them pleasantly as she passed their corner near 
 the door. For a few minutes already the throng 
 of ladies had begun to lessen, and there were 
 signs of an early ending of the social ceremony. 
 
 " I must be going ; really I must ! " said Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley, holding out his hand to 
 the Duchess, and giving hers a hearty shake. 
 " I have to thank you for a very pleasant after 
 noon, and I shall try to remember the interesting 
 tales you have told me." 
 
 Then he made his way to Mrs. Sutton, who 
 was now presiding over the tea-table. 
 
 " Can t I have another cup of tea ? " he asked, 
 plaintively, rubbing his hands together gently. 
 
 " Why, certainly," answered Mrs. Sutton, pre 
 paring the beverage. " It s so kind of you to 
 like it, though it is genuine English breakfast 
 tea." 
 
 In England, Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley had 
 never heard of " English breakfast tea," and he 
 wondered what it might be, not knowing that it 
 was an American invention. Although he was 
 not gifted with even a man s small share of tact, 
 he did not express his wonder. Instead, he pro 
 duced a little speech, w r hich had served him 
 before. He took the cup which Mrs. Sutton 
 handed him, and he sipped a little, and said : 
 
 " Delicious, simply delicious. Your tea, Mrs.
 
 DUCHESS OF WASHINGTON SQUARE. 43 
 
 Sutton, is like the waters of the fountain of Trevi, 
 in Rome, you know, because when a fellow has 
 once tasted it, he is bound to return again for 
 some more." 
 
 " Qui a bu, boira" remarked Judge Gillespie, 
 who was standing just behind his daughter. 
 
 Before Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley could cap 
 the Judge s quotation, he was seized by Miss 
 Pussy Palmer, who had been doing her best to 
 get up a mild flirtation with Frederick Olyphant, 
 but who abandoned the painter the instant that 
 the pleasant little Englishman escaped from the 
 Duchess.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IN THE " LOVER S RETREAT." 
 
 TUDGE GILLESPIE was an easy-going man, 
 moving through life along the line of least 
 resistance; for the sake of peace, he had 
 allowed his daughter to do whatever she pleased, 
 when once he had consented to her reconstruc 
 tion of his comfortable house. There was only 
 -one relic of the earlier state of the house which 
 he strove to save. This was a verandah, in the 
 rear of the dining-room, and overlooking the 
 spacious grass plot which extended behind the 
 house to the next street. On this verandah, in 
 the pleasant mornings and evenings of spring 
 and fall, the Judge liked to smoke his cigar while 
 he read the newspaper. But his daughter was 
 remorseless, and in the reconstruction of the 
 house, the verandah had made way for a retreat 
 of her own devising, a compromise between a 
 bay-window and a conservatory. This extension 
 beyond the dining-room was rather too large to 
 be called a bay-window, and it was decidedly 
 too small to be dignified with the name of a con 
 servatory. It was a very pretty little greenery, 
 
 44
 
 IN THE "LO VER S RE TREA T." 4$ 
 
 and, although its glass and iron afforded few 
 architectural opportunities, Mrs. Sutton had con 
 trived to give it a Japanese effect, by the use of 
 a hanging lantern or two, and a few transparent 
 shades of Japanese manufacture, and by the 
 moulding and painting of the slight iron uprights 
 in imitation of the bamboo. As Dear Jones 
 had said when Mrs. Sutton rashly asked his 
 opinion, it was quite as Japanese as any one 
 could expect in New York ; and it harmonized 
 so well with the dining-room, which was fitted 
 with a mantel and wainscoting of solid English 
 oak, the spoil of an Elizabethan manor-house. 
 Mrs. Sutton may have seen the latent sarcasm 
 in Dear Jones s praise ; but it did not lessen her 
 liking for the Bower, as she called it, and she 
 closed her eyes resolutely to any insufficiency 
 or incongruity. The Bower had a southern 
 exposure, and even in mid-winter it was arrayed 
 with plants in full bloom. From the dining-room 
 it was divided only by the delicate tracery of a 
 teak-wood screen, the involute interstices of 
 -which were veiled and obscured by the polished 
 leaves of a luxuriant ivy, twining to the ceiling 
 and almost masking the narrow entrance. This 
 natural screen, thus beautifully parting the 
 Bower from the rest of the world, made it a 
 favorite resort of those of Mrs. Sutton s young 
 friends who had tender confidences to exchange. 
 Uncle Larry had called it one day the " Lover s
 
 46 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Retreat"; and he declared that three of the 
 most important engagements of the season had 
 been made within its shallow recesses. 
 
 When Miss Pussy Palmer released Mr. Fred 
 erick Olyphant, he looked about the drawing- 
 room to find Winifred Marshall, but she was not 
 visible. The guests were thinning out rapidly, 
 and locomotion was no longer difficult. He 
 passed through the music-room into the dining- 
 room but she was not there. He wondered if 
 she could have gone to her room without giving 
 him a chance to speak with her. He did not 
 think she could be so cruel, as she knew he had 
 come to Mrs. Button s tea only that he might 
 have a few words with her. He had walked the 
 length of the house without finding her, until he 
 stood before the screen, which parted the dining- 
 room from the Bower. Then, with a sudden 
 stride, he brushed through the pendent ends of 
 ivy and stood beside the woman he loved. 
 
 " Winifred ! " 
 
 " Fred ! " 
 
 There was a slight suggestion of coldness in 
 her greeting, contrasting sharply with the 
 warmth of his. 
 
 " Why didn t you come to my rescue," he 
 asked, " and release me from that chatterbox ? " 
 
 Winifred moved slightly, so that he had to take 
 away the arm he had thrown around her waist 
 as he kissed her when he entered the Bower.
 
 2N THE "LO FEZ S RE TREA TV 47 
 
 " I thought you were enjoying your conversa 
 tion with the chatterbox, as you call her." 
 
 "A chatterbox she is ! " said Frederick. 
 
 " She is a friend of mine, remember," replied 
 Winifred. "And she is a very pretty girl, too 
 I ve heard you say so. And you have called her 
 amusing; so I never thought of interrupting 
 you." 
 
 " Winifred ! " said Olyphant, gravely. 
 
 " Well ? " she answered, with slight petulance. 
 
 " You are not jealous, are you ? " 
 
 " Jealous ? Of Pussy ? No, indeed ! " she re 
 plied, indignantly. 
 
 " What else am I to think ? " 
 
 " You may think what you please, but you 
 have no right to make such absurd accusations. 
 Jealous, why, Fred, I am astonished at you ! " 
 
 " Come, Winifred, we must not quarrel, I I 
 should never forgive myself if I said an unkind 
 word to you ! " 
 
 " Then why do you do it?" 
 
 "Did I?" 
 
 " You did." 
 
 " Then won t you forgive me ? " 
 
 " I don t see why I should." 
 
 " But you will, dear, won t you ? " he urged. 
 
 " I don t know," was her hesitating answer. 
 
 " Yes, you do. You know you are going to 
 forgive me, why should I have to persuade 
 you ? "
 
 4 8 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " But I like to be persuaded," and she smiled. 
 
 He kissed her again. 
 
 " Then I am forgiven ? " he asked. 
 
 " Just this once," she replied, " but you must 
 never do it again." 
 
 Fred laughed lightly. " I do not know now 
 what it is I have done," he said, " but I promise 
 never to do it again." 
 
 " Now, tell me what Pussy was talking about 
 to you all that time." 
 
 "I was talking about you," answered Fred. 
 " I really don t know what she was talking 
 about." 
 
 " Perhaps she was satisfied to look at you. I 
 heard her say once that you were the handsomest 
 man she had ever seen." 
 
 " I m sorry I cannot return the compliment. 
 She s a pretty girl, of course, but " 
 
 " So; you confess it?" cried Winifred, archly. 
 
 " I can t help seeing it. She s pretty enough 
 as girls go " 
 
 " As girls go ! hear him ! " said Winifred, laugh 
 ing, with a slight undercurrent of excitement; " I 
 cannot allow my sex to be spoken of disrespect 
 fully, even by you." 
 
 "If they were all like you, Winifred, I could 
 not help being respectful to them all," answered 
 her lover, earnestly. 
 
 " Well, Pussy is pretty enough as girls go ; 
 now, go on ! "
 
 IN THE "LO YER S RE TREA T. " 49 
 
 "But how can I think of her," he asked, 
 f< when I have seen you ! " 
 
 " Fred ! " 
 
 " I hope I have taste enough," continued the 
 artist, with feeling, " not to confuse merely trivial 
 prettiness with a royal beauty like yours." 
 
 A rich blush mantled Winifred s cheek as he 
 fixed his ardent eyes on hers. She hesitated. 
 " You do not," she said, " you do not really 
 think I m pretty ? " And she gave him a little 
 side-glance as enchanting as possible. 
 
 " Look through my eyes into my heart," was 
 his answer, " and you will contradict yourself!" 
 
 " Then you do love me a little ? " she asked. 
 
 " Love you ? I cannot do anything else. Have 
 I not told you so a hundred times ?" 
 
 " Perhaps but I like to hear it again." 
 
 " And it delights me to repeat it," said the 
 lover. " I love you with all my heart and soul. 
 It is happiness to be with you, to see you, to 
 think of you. Why, Winifred, you are more 
 to me than all the world more than this world 
 and the next ! " 
 
 " Hush, Fred ; you must not say that ! " 
 
 " But I have said it, and I mean it ! " 
 
 " I would rather you did not mean it," she 
 said, gently laying her hand on his arm. We 
 must try and help one another to do our duty in 
 this world that we may deserve the next." 
 
 " Winifred, you are my Providence, my fortune, 
 4
 
 C O THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 my fate ! " He lifted her hand from his arm and 
 kissed it. As he lowered it from his lips, his 
 eyes fell on the ring on her finger. His expres 
 sion changed and a cloud passed over his face. 
 
 " Where did you get that ring ? " he asked. 
 
 " It was my mother s indeed, it is almost the 
 only relic of her I have." 
 
 " How is it that I have never seen it before ? " 
 
 " It has been locked up in the Judge s safe for 
 the summer, and I got it out only this morning. 
 It is an unusually fine opal, and my mother had 
 it on when she died," said Winifred, with a soft 
 ening voice. 
 
 " That is a sad memory to have attached to an 
 unlucky stone," remarked Olyphant. 
 
 " Do you believe in the opal s bringing bad 
 luck ? Are you superstitious ? " she asked, in 
 wonder. 
 
 " Have you just found out that fault of mine? " 
 he queried in return. " I must confess I am 
 half inclined to believe in amulets and in omens. 
 You know I am a mystic and I have traveled 
 in the East, where it is sacrilege to doubt signs 
 and wonders." 
 
 She had taken the ring from her finger and 
 held it in her hand doubtfully. " It seems 
 impossible that anything as beautiful as this 
 should bring ill-fortune." 
 
 He gazed at the ring for a moment, as though 
 peering with a subtler insight into its mysterious
 
 IN THE "LO VER S RE TREA T." 5 j 
 
 heart. " Does not its iridescence," he asked at 
 last, " remind you of the dying embers of hope ? " 
 
 " How strangely you said that ! " murmured 
 Winifred ; " I believe you really are superstitious 
 and you half convert me." 
 
 " Let me wear the ring for you," he said, sud 
 denly. 
 
 " And give you my bad luck ? " she answered, 
 clenching her hand lest he might take the stone. 
 
 " From you to me nothing is of ill omen. I 
 can take the bad luck away from you, but it will 
 not bring me any ill-fortune. Let me have it," 
 and he took her unwilling hand. 
 
 " I should like you to wear a ring of mine, 
 Fred, but not this one." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because because ft is an opal." 
 
 " But this opal is the ring of yours I want ; I 
 shall be satisfied with no other, and, if you must 
 know, I need a ring to wear now, for I cannot 
 find my cat s-eye." 
 
 " Isn t it very unlucky to lose a cat s-eye ? " 
 she asked, with a little hesitation. 
 
 " So they say," was his answer. " But if so, 
 the loss has done its evil work for to-day, I 
 trust, and the bad spirit is exorcised." 
 
 " Have you had bad news to-day ? " she 
 queried at once, with sudden interest. 
 
 " Give me the ring and I will tell you." 
 
 She allowed him to open her hand and to
 
 jj 2 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 take the opal which he put on the little finger of 
 his left hand. Then he kissed her palm where 
 the ring had lain, and he said : 
 
 " The bad luck I have had to-day is passed, I 
 hope. It was to be kept from you for an hour 
 by a chatterbox. Isn t that the worst fate which 
 can befall me, now I know that you love me ? " 
 
 " Oh, Fred ! " 
 
 " Couldn t you see I wanted to be by your 
 side?" he continued. 
 
 " Then why didn t you come ? " she retorted, 
 archly. 
 
 " How could I get away ? I was in the toils 
 of the chatterbox." 
 
 " Remember that she is a friend of mine." 
 
 " Then I wish your friends all knew that we 
 were engaged. When I got away from Pussy 
 Palmer, I was in mortal fear lest the Duchess 
 might seize me." 
 
 " She s a dear old lady." 
 
 " If she had kept me from you for another 
 hour, I should have been ready to denounce 
 her as a worldly and self-seeking old woman." 
 
 " She has been a kind friend to me, Fred." 
 
 " Then I will forgive her all she may say 
 about me in the future. And it is not her fault 
 if she detains me. She doesn t know that I 
 belong to you." 
 
 " Nobody knows it." 
 
 " Why should not everybody know it ? I d
 
 IN THE "Z.O VER S RE TREA T." 5 3 
 
 like to cry it aloud from the house-top, I m so 
 proud of you ! " 
 
 A sudden sensitiveness sent its tremor through 
 Winifred. " But I do not want to be cried 
 aloud from the house-top ; my love for you is 
 the tenderest secret of my heart I shrink from 
 having it talked over at clubs and street-corners." 
 
 " Why should you care about idle gossip ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " I am over-sensitive, I suppose," she said, 
 with a little shiver of disgust. 
 
 " It is six weeks since you let me tell you that 
 I loved you, and in these six short weeks I have 
 had only stolen meetings with you, as though 
 in my love for you there was something to be 
 ashamed of; and yet you know that nothing in 
 the future, no success in life, no honors, no 
 glory, can ever make me proud if I am not proud 
 now, because you love me ! " 
 
 Winifred said nothing; she looked at him 
 with love in her eyes. 
 
 " I fear I am fanciful," she said, with some lit 
 tle excitement in her manner. " I cannot bear 
 to share the secret of my love with any one and 
 every one. As long as we alone know it, we 
 belong to each other and the world is none the 
 wiser." 
 
 " But unless you want to have a secret mar 
 riage after a secret engagement, people must 
 know it, sooner or later," persisted Frederick.
 
 54 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " I have told you what I think of a fashionable 
 wedding in New York," she answered, vehem 
 ently. " I think it is disgusting. On the most 
 important day of my life, I don t want to be a 
 staring-stock for everybody. Sooner than be 
 married at Grace Church with six bridesmaids, 
 eight ushers, little girls strewing flowers and the 
 wedding march from Lohengrin, I believe I d 
 elope ! I think I would rather be married by 
 the mayor, or even by an alderman. I could not 
 make such a degrading show of myself. I 
 should feel as though they were selling tickets 
 at the door ! " And Winifred ended this rack- 
 less speech with a sharp satiric laugh which 
 betrayed not a little nervous strain. 
 
 " Surely, you will not ask me to consent to a 
 private marriage ? " questioned Frederick. 
 
 "A private wedding is just what I want," she 
 answered. 
 
 " But not a secret wedding? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; people must know some day, I sup 
 pose. But there is no need to make a spectacle 
 of ourselves when we get married, is there ? " 
 
 " Don t you want a few friends to be present ? " 
 
 " I have very few friends, indeed. I could fill 
 a house with my acquaintances and I can take 
 all my friends out driving in one carriage. There 
 are not a dozen persons I care to have invited to 
 the wedding. And I don t see why anything need 
 be said about the engagement until until "
 
 JN THE "LO VER S RE TREA T." 5 5 
 
 " Until we know when we are to be married," 
 added Frederick, coming to her rescue. " Have 
 it as you please, my darling. Your will is law 
 to me. I will keep my tongue tied and say 
 nothing." 
 
 " It is best to let the engagement be a secret yet 
 a while," she went on. " Perhaps we are not 
 sure of one another. How do I know you will 
 not tire of me ? " 
 
 " Winifred ! " cried Frederick, with ardor, as he 
 threw his arm about her and turned her face up 
 to his. 
 
 " Well," she said, gazing up into his eyes, with 
 confidence, as though satisfied on that score. 
 " How do you know I haven t made a mistake 
 in trying to love you ? " 
 
 " Do not torture me," he said, gently, yet firmly. 
 " We must not trifle with our love ; it is too 
 sacred to jest with, if it is too sacred to be talked 
 about. And if you have told nobody of our en 
 gagement, I will tell nobody until you bid me." 
 
 " I have told nobody at all that is to say 
 well, I have told nobody " and here Winifred 
 paused in momentary confusion. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I know I ought not to have done it, Fred, 
 but I did. I was writing to Baby Van Renssel- 
 laer, you know she married Delancey Jones last 
 spring. She was really a friend of mine, and 
 she is away on her wedding trip, and so I
 
 56 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 thought she would understand me, and I let it 
 slip out." 
 
 " You wrote her that we were engaged ? " 
 
 " Yes ; was it very wrong ? " 
 
 " It was not wrong at all," answered Freder 
 ick, with a suspicion of coldness in his voice ; 
 " you are at liberty to tell whom you please." 
 
 " But I did not mean to tell even her," cried 
 Winifred, impetuously. 
 
 " But you did tell her." 
 
 " Why shouldn t I if I wanted ? " asked Wini 
 fred, with a return of her earlier excitement. 
 " You just said I could tell whom I pleased." 
 
 " Certainly," answered Fred. " The matter is 
 not worth talking about." 
 
 "Then why do you keep on talking about it?" 
 
 If Frederick Olyphant had let the question 
 drop then and there, he would have spared him 
 self many hours of self-reproach. But he could 
 not let it rest. He was logical, masculine, and 
 persistent. So he went on : 
 
 " Because I wondered why you would not let 
 me tell Uncle Larry, if you meant to tell Mrs. 
 Jones ? " 
 
 " But I did not mean to tell her at all ! " re 
 plied Winifred, with equal persistence. " It 
 slipped out by accident. You can tell Uncle Larry, 
 if you like, you can take as many men into 
 your confidence as you please ! " 
 
 " You must not speak sharply to me, Wini-
 
 IN THE "LOVER S RETREAT." 
 
 57 
 
 fred," he said, gently, suppressing his feeling. 
 " I am wrong, of course. Whatever you do is 
 
 right." 
 
 She drew herself up with dignity, and asked 
 him, in a voice which trembled in spite of her 
 efforts to control it, " Do you think it is manly to 
 vent your sarcasm on the woman you pretend to 
 love ? " 
 
 " Pretend to love ? " cried Fred, forgetting 
 himself. " You do not mean to say that you 
 doubt my love for you ? " 
 
 " If you loved me, you would not treat me in 
 this outrageous way ! " 
 
 Frederick Olyphant was a just man ; he was 
 just to himself as to others, and he could not 
 listen to this charge calmly. 
 
 " Perhaps I had better relieve you of the in 
 sult of my presence ? " he asked, fiercely. 
 
 " Perhaps you had ! " she replied, mastered by 
 the excitement which had been gaining on her 
 all the afternoon. " And perhaps you had bet 
 ter refrain from calling again !" she added, as he 
 moved toward the door of the Bower. 
 
 " Winifred ! " he cried, in a last appeal, as he 
 stood with hand on the ivy-clad screen. 
 
 " Mr. Olyphant," was her icy retort. They 
 stood for a moment facing each other in silence. 
 Before either of them spoke again, Mrs. Sutton 
 came into the dining-room and discovered them. 
 
 " Why, is that you, Mr. Olyphant ? " she cried.
 
 58 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, with what composure he 
 could muster ; " Miss Marshall and I have been 
 having a chat here in the Bower." 
 
 " It s a lovely spot for a quiet flirtation, isn t 
 it?" said Mrs. Sutton, as he withdrew from the 
 door in the screen to allow her to enter the 
 Bower. 
 
 He waited a few seconds, hoping for a kind 
 word from Winifred. But she stood silent and 
 haughty. He turned to go at last 
 
 " Won t you stay to dinner with us ? " asked 
 Mrs. Sutton. " The Judge is always glad of a 
 chance to chat with you, and if he has to go 
 out early, Winifred and I will try to amuse you." 
 
 " I am sorry that I have an engagement," was 
 his answer, " or I would remain with pleasure. 
 As it is, I fear I have trespassed here too long. 
 I have to thank you for my afternoon." 
 
 " I am very glad you have amused yourself," 
 said Mrs. Sutton, graciously ; and then, without a 
 word from Winifred, Olyphant left the house. 
 
 It is a pity that the story of lovers quarrels 
 need ever be told, for it is a miserable story, at 
 best. Winifred Marshall and Frederick Olyphant 
 loved each other with the deep passion of strong 
 and noble natures ; they had been betrothed for 
 six weeks ; and this was the first time they had 
 not found themselves of one mind. It was their 
 first misunderstanding, and it turned on a trifle that 
 neither of them could declare with exactness.
 
 Iff THE "LOVER S KETXEAT." 
 
 59 
 
 Each felt a sense of injustice and injury; and each 
 was sustained by false pride. Perhaps if Mrs. 
 Sutton had not intervened when she did, just as 
 Olyphant was about to go, he might have stayed 
 his feet or Winifred might have recalled him. 
 15 ut it was not to be. Theirs was a true love, 
 and its course was not smooth. They quarreled, 
 as lovers will ; they parted, as lovers before 
 them, have done a many times ; and the pain and 
 smart of the parting were bitter and hard to 
 bear. 
 
 It was about the edge of dusk when Frederick 
 Olyphant left Mrs. Button s and walked hastily to 
 Fifth Avenue, with his head high in the air and 
 a keen pang in his heart. The sun had set and 
 a dim haze clouded the streets. The afternoon 
 had been bright and joyous, but the evening was 
 gray and dreary. When Olyphant arrived at the 
 corner of Fifth Avenue, he gave no thought to 
 the star he had hailed as he ascended Murray Hill, 
 and he cast no glance behind him ; he turned 
 sharply and strode down the avenue at a sturdy 
 pace. Had any one been trying to follow, he 
 must needs have moved briskly. 
 
 But as Frederick Olyphant left Winifred Mar 
 shall farther and farther behind him his pace 
 slackened and his stride relaxed. He walked 
 on in deep thought, with his head down and his 
 I .r.v-ds behind him. He felt as though the light 
 hr.;l crone cut of his life. The streets, which had
 
 6o THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 been gay as he passed them on his way to meet 
 her, seemed now, as he came back from seeing 
 her, dull and dismal. Even the people had 
 changed in their manner toward him ; before he 
 had remarked the many fine-looking men and 
 the crowds of smiling pretty girls ; now he saw 
 only withered old hags and ungainly ruffians, 
 who scowled as he strode by them. As he crossed 
 Madison Square, there was a chill sprinkle of 
 rain, and he wondered why he should feel the 
 cold keenly, after the hardening of two campaigns 
 with the Russian troops. And so, with changing 
 thoughts and an aching heart, he plodded on his 
 dismal way, until at last he rang the bell at 
 Laurence Laughton s door. 
 
 At that moment Winifred Marshall had locked 
 herself in her own room, after sending word that 
 she had too severe a headache to sit at dinner. 
 She lay on her bed, weeping hot tears of self- 
 reproach.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 
 
 MR. LAURENCE LAUGHTON was a uni 
 versal favorite, especially with dumb animals, 
 with little children and with young ladies. He 
 could not always at once recognize every pretty 
 girl who greeted him as "Uncle Larry." He was 
 a young man of a little more than forty years of 
 age, a young man still, for all his two-score years 
 and more. No one had ever ventured to call 
 him old or even to think of him as elderly, for he 
 always felt young and mingled with young people ; 
 and he thought of himself always as young, and 
 while a woman is as old as she looks, a man is 
 as old as he feels. There was as yet no suspicion 
 of baldness on his head, thickly covered with 
 rich auburn hair, with a graceful tendency to 
 curl. There was no hint of grey as yet in the 
 long tawny mustache which drooped over his 
 lip. His bearing was always erect and military. 
 He was not an ill-favored man, even if one did 
 not regard the intelligence and the kindliness 
 which shone from his face. 
 
 61
 
 62 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Larry Laughton was a man of varied accom 
 plishments ; he told a story excellently, with an 
 abundance of dry and unaffected humor ; he 
 played a fairly good game of billiards ; he rode 
 as became a colonel of cavalry ; and Miss Pussy 
 Palmer had been heard to declare that he danced 
 divinely, although when he was enticed to a ball 
 he was more likely than not to sit out the cotil 
 lion in a quiet corner with a clever woman. He 
 was the sole executor of a wealthy aunt, and the 
 management of this estate gave him sufficient 
 occupation and a sufficient income for his modest 
 wants. He was fond of traveling, and he ran 
 across the ocean nearly every summer, ready for 
 a trip to Spain or to Sweden, and yet content to 
 dwell quietly in London, where he had number 
 less friends. During the Russo-Turkish war he 
 had spent several months in the field with 
 Frederick Olyphant, going afterward through 
 the Holy Land and up the Nile, taking notes by 
 the way. These impressions he had been 
 persuaded to publish and his Myrrh, Aloes and 
 Cassia/ aided by Olyphant s illustrations, had 
 been one of the milder successes of the year in 
 which they were published. He owned his 
 house in New York in Fifth Avenue, not far 
 from Union Square ; and he kept it open for his 
 friends. And of friends he had a many. As 
 Frederick Olyphant once said, " Uncle Larry had 
 a gift for friendship." He was prompt with a
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 63 
 
 kind word for all strugglers ; and during the past 
 twenty years many a young author and artist 
 had found in Larry an uncle who did not 
 demand security for what he might lend. He 
 had a faculty of divining silent grief; and in 
 ministering to it his touch was as delicate as his 
 insight was keen. He was a man to whom his 
 friends turned for consolation whenever trouble 
 fell on them. He was a man, also, without 
 whom no festivity was complete. 
 
 It was Laughton who had suggested the 
 founding of The Full Score, a little club which 
 was to dine with him on the evening of the day 
 when Mrs. Sutton gave her tea. Half-a-dozen 
 of his friends happening to be returning to New 
 York on the same ocean-steamer one September, 
 he had proposed that they form a dining-club to 
 be limited to twenty and to dine together three 
 times a year, in the fall and in the spring in 
 New York, and in the early summer in London. 
 Like Larry himself, most of the members of The 
 Full Score were unattached bachelors, artists, 
 authors, actors and musicians, almost as frequent 
 in their visits to London during the season as 
 he was. Although all the members were Ameri 
 cans, except the latest, Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley, some of them were sure to be in London 
 every year, enough of them, in fact, to make a 
 dinner-party exceeding the canonical limit of 
 nine. The name of the club, The Full Score,
 
 64 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 indicated the extent of its membership and con 
 tained a suggestion also of its artistic charac 
 teristics. It was now four or five years old, and 
 its three dinners a year had been partaken of 
 regularly with an abundance of good-talk and a 
 strengthening of the bonds of good-fellowship. 
 In London the club dined about here and there, 
 trying one restaurant after another, from Green 
 wich to Richmond. In New York The Full 
 Score were always the guests of Laurence Laugh- 
 ton, who gave them two dinners a year, one 
 toward the end of October, the other about the 
 beginning of April. 
 
 As Frederick Olyphant walked straight from 
 Mrs. Sutton s, he was the first arrival at Uncle 
 Larry s. He was as familiar in the house as 
 though he were a younger brother of its owner 
 and rarely indeed does a closer and a deeper 
 friendship unite two men than that which bound 
 together Laurence Laughton and Frederick 
 Olyphant : they had faced death side by side. 
 Therefore, when the door was opened by the 
 faithful Bridget, who had been in Uncle Larry s 
 employ for fifteen years and more, Fred passed 
 her with a smile and a query as to where Mr. 
 Laughton might be found. 
 
 " He s been home this half-hour, sir, and he s 
 in his room now." 
 
 Olyphant hung up his hat in the hall ; and he 
 went up stairs, where he was received with much
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 65 
 
 pantomimic enthusiasm by Bundle o Rags, 
 Laughton s favorite little terrier. 
 
 " You are the first to come," said Uncle Larry, 
 as Olyphant entered the dressing-room where 
 the host was vigorously brushing his hair. 
 " Have a cocktail while we are waiting ? " 
 
 " I don t want a drink now," answered his 
 friend, in a spiritless voice ; " and I doubt if I can 
 do honor to your dinner." 
 
 " What has made you so down-in-the-mouth?" 
 asked Larry, turning sharply around and looking 
 at Olyphant with interest. 
 
 " I m good-for-nothing to-night ; dull and mis 
 erable." 
 
 " You are not ill, are you ? " 
 
 " I m sick at heart; don t question me about 
 the reason, for I mustn t tell you. And I have 
 an oppression in my head, too." 
 
 " In your head? there s nothing in that, you 
 know," said Larry, encouragingly, " if there is 
 not anything else." 
 
 " There s really nothing more, I suppose ; and 
 yet I feel, somehow, as though something was 
 going to happen ; I feel much as I felt in Plevna 
 when you nursed me through that attack." 
 
 " Well, I don t know that you have any call 
 to have another of those attacks now," said 
 Uncle Larry, cheerfully. " Brace up, man, and 
 don t borrow trouble ; most anybody will lend 
 it to you quick enough, but you have to pay 
 5
 
 66 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 such heavy interest on the loan that it s not a 
 profitable transaction." 
 
 " Oh, I m all right ! Don t worry about me." 
 And Olyphant made a resolute effort to shake 
 off the gloom which had enfolded him. " What 
 time is the dinner ? " 
 
 " Seven, as usual." 
 
 "And how many are there to be ? " 
 
 " Fourteen this time unless Dear Jones 
 manages to get here." 
 
 " Is he back ? " asked Olyphant. 
 
 " I suppose so," answered Larry. " The City of 
 Constantinople arrived about noon, and they were 
 to come on her." 
 
 " Then he ll be here, of course." 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry ; " when 
 a man arrives home from his wedding-trip he is 
 not very likely to leave his bride and come to a 
 stag dinner." 
 
 " Do you think Mrs. Delancey Jones would 
 object, then?" 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but I hardly expect him. In 
 time I suppose we shall all be tied to some pretty 
 woman s apron strings you and I and all of us." 
 
 Olyphant gave Larry a sharp look to see if 
 there was any ulterior significance in these 
 words. 
 
 " When The Full Score were organized as a 
 club, we were all bachelors, and now the girls are 
 carrying us into camp every year. Charley
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 67 
 
 Sutton and Eliphalet Duncan and Rudolph 
 Vernon and Dear Jones, one after another, have 
 joined the married majority." 
 
 " Friend after friend departs," quoted Fred, 
 with an effort at cheerfulness. 
 
 " But they come back after a while," retorted 
 Larry, " and knock at the gate again." Just then 
 there was a ring at the door. " There s one of 
 them, now the married men are always the first 
 to come. Even if Dear Jones fails us, we can 
 count on all the rest of them." 
 
 "And there s Poor Bob White, he is sure to 
 be here and he was the first of us to get 
 married," remarked Fred, with a sudden recur 
 rence of his melancholy, humorously heightened 
 by the lugubrious strains of a hand-organ just 
 under the window. 
 
 Larry Laughton put on his coat and they went 
 down to greet the arriving guests. In the hall 
 they met Rudolph Vernon, the poet, and his 
 intimate friend, J. Warren Payn, the young com 
 poser. Rudolph Vernon was always precise in 
 his attire; there was no touch of poetic frenzy in 
 his garb ; he had been heard to say that he 
 " didn t see why a poet shouldn t dress like a gen 
 tleman." He had brought back from Paris a 
 long blue-black, cloak-overcoat, buttoning high 
 in the throat, draped with an ample cape, mak 
 ing him look, as Larry said promptly, " like a 
 younger son of one of the Pilgrim Fathers."
 
 68 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Mr. J. Warren Payn, who had set to music 
 several of Vernon s songs, was the organist of 
 two Episcopalian churches, for one of which he 
 composed a full choral service every Easter ; his 
 spare time he spent on the score of a comic opera, 
 of which he had high hopes, and fragments of 
 which were frequently sung for him by the obliging 
 ladies and gentlemen of his church choir. 
 
 " Well, Payn," asked Uncle Larry ; " how are 
 you getting on with Montezuma ? " The com 
 poser s friend knew that Montezuma was the 
 title of the comic opera. 
 
 " First rate ! " answered the composer. " I have 
 finished scoring the second act and I have just 
 had a capital idea for a topical song in the third 
 good for four encores every night." 
 
 There came another ring at the bell, and Mr. 
 Charles Sutton and his brother-in-law, Mr. 
 Eliphalet Duncan, arrived together. They were 
 followed shortly by Mr. Robert White, who 
 wrote for the Gotham Gazette under the name of 
 * Poor Bob White. Then came Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley, rubbing his hands together 
 gently. 
 
 " I m not late, am I ? " he asked, in his deep 
 voice. " I should be so sorry to have kept you 
 waiting." 
 
 In a few minutes Laughton s rooms began to 
 fill up. As is often the case in bachelors houses, 
 the front parlor, devoid of feminine attraction, was
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 
 
 69 
 
 abandoned, and the men clustered naturally in 
 the more masculine library. Uncle Larry s house 
 was three rooms deep; the parlor fronted the 
 avenue, the dining-room was in the rear, and the 
 library with its huge folding-doors connected the 
 two. Like most middle rooms in New York 
 houses, the library had no windows; and in the 
 daytime it received its light wholly from the dining- 
 room on one side and from the parlor on the other. 
 But at night, lamps over against the mirror, and a 
 bright fire of crackling hickory, made it as warm 
 and pleasant a retreat as one could wish in 
 winter. The two longer walls of the library were 
 lined with bookcases, broken on one side by the 
 fire-place, a structural part of the book-case it 
 divided. On the other side, in one of the sec 
 tions of the book-case, was a little door, concealed 
 by a curtain and leading into the hall ; although 
 this door was the only means of entrance directly 
 into the library, it was very rarely used, as most 
 people passed through the parlor or the dining- 
 room. 
 
 High over the bookcases and close under the 
 ceiling, was ranged Uncle Larry s collection of 
 death-masks, a collection in which he took great 
 delight, which had cost him an infinity of pains, 
 and which was absolutely without equal in the 
 United States. There from the top of the wall, 
 staring down at the chance visitor, with their 
 sightless eyes, were the faces of the great Dante,
 
 * o THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 of Goethe and of Lincoln, wise above other men, 
 with their features now relaxed beyond recogni 
 tion almost, and fixed here forever in death. 
 There were strange juxtapositions among those 
 blank white visages, and men who reviled each 
 other when they lived were now cheek-by-jowl, 
 now that they were dead. There are contrasts in 
 death as in life ; and a man might moralize for a 
 month upon the plaster-casts which hung over 
 the bookcases in Uncle Larry s library. 
 
 " What a charming house you have here," said 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, to the host as he 
 entered the library; " really, I had no idea." Then 
 he raised his eyes, and saw the long line of 
 white faces, silent and staring. " Dear me ! " he 
 ejaculated, his voice dropping even lower with 
 surprise. * Pray, what are these ? " 
 
 " That s a collection of death-masks I have 
 been getting together during the last twenty 
 years," Uncle Larry answered. 
 
 " Fancy now ! " said Mr. Hobson-Cholmon 
 deley. " You Americans have such queer tastes." 
 
 " We air a remarkable people," declared 
 Charley Sutton, talking through his nose, " and 
 you Britishers ought to know it." 
 
 " Really you do use some of the most extra 
 ordinary words," continued Mr. Hobson-Chol- 
 monde-ley. " I went down to the city this 
 morning " 
 
 " To the city ? " asked Sutton, in surprise.
 
 THE FULL SCORE. yi 
 
 " Yes, to Wall Street, you know," explained 
 the Englishman. "And there was a great excite 
 ment there ; it appears they have just struck a 
 bonanza; is that the word ?" 
 
 " Bonanza that s right enough." 
 
 " A bonanza in the Baby Mine, and they say it 
 is bound to be a big boom." 
 
 Mr. Sutton was a Californian by birth, and gos 
 sip about mines was as the breath of his nostrils. 
 "A bonanza in the Baby Mine ? " he cried, with 
 great interest. " I don t believe it, I guess it is 
 salted." 
 
 " Salted?" queried Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, 
 not understanding, " Qu est-ce que cest que $a f " 
 
 " I mean, that it was a put up job, that they 
 found only the silver they had put there them 
 selves," explained Mr. Sutton. 
 
 " Dear me," exclaimed the Englishman, " do 
 they do things like that ? " 
 
 " Don t they? But I don t care; I ve got a lot 
 of stock in the Baby Mine and this find will let 
 me out." 
 
 " Only fancy," remarked Mr. Hobson-Chol 
 mondeley, dubiously, rubbing his hands together 
 in wonder as to whether the Californian were 
 chaffing him or not. 
 
 In the meanwhile, other members of The 
 Full Score had arrived. There was a young 
 doctor of twenty-five, who was fortunately as 
 bald as a billiard ball, and who therefore passed
 
 j 2 TffE LAST MEETING. 
 
 for thirty-five, to the material increase of the 
 confidence of his patients and his own practice. 
 There was a young sculptor, who had recently 
 finished the fifth Soldier s Memorial he had been 
 commissioned to execute within three years, and 
 who was beginning to wish that he might have a 
 chance to commemorate the victories which 
 peace hath as well as war. There was a young 
 painter, who had given up ambitious historical 
 subjects, to devote himself to household decora 
 tion, wall-papers and stained-glass, and who was 
 rapidly making both a name and a fortune. 
 
 The guests gathered in the library, with little 
 groups overflowing into the parlor. Rudolph 
 Vernon was holding forth to Warren Payn and 
 Robert White against the absurdities of modern 
 society. " I agree with Lord Byron," he declared, 
 vehemently, 
 
 " Society is now one polished horde, 
 
 Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores, and Bored. " 
 
 " There s another Byronic quotation more 
 pertinent just now," interrupted White; "lam 
 waiting for 
 
 That all -softening, overpowering knell, 
 The tocsin of the soul the dinner bell. " 
 
 " And you shall have it as soon as the last 
 man comes," declared Uncle Larry, who had 
 chanced to hear the quotation.
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 
 
 73 
 
 " We are all here now," responded White, 
 "except Harry Brackett, and he asked me to 
 have him excused, as he might be very late or 
 even kept away altogether." 
 
 " What s the matter?" asked Larry. 
 
 " The opera company arrived on the City of 
 Constantinople this afternoon, and he has to 
 interview them all for the Gotham Gazette." 
 
 " What, all of them ?" enquired the host. 
 " Then, we need wait no longer. Let us pass 
 into the banqueting hall ! " 
 
 The folding-doors were thrown open, and the 
 ample table in the dining-room stood revealed. 
 Laughton s own household was not equal to a din 
 ner fit to set before The Full Score, for Larry, 
 although of simple tastes himself, and ready to 
 rough it on occasion, was not unfriendly to the 
 good things of this life ; and, moreover, he had 
 a due and proper respect for the fine art of 
 dining. He was fond of having his friends about 
 him, and more than once had her grace, the 
 Duchess of Washington Square, matronized 
 lively little parties of young people, dining with 
 their Uncle Larry before going to the play, or 
 supping with him after feasting on the horrors of 
 tragedy. He always suited his fare to his com 
 pany ; and he set before The Full Score a very 
 different bill of fare from that discussed by the 
 young ladies whom Mrs. Martin had under her 
 wing. The entrees and the ices were Larry s
 
 74 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 chief care when he had young people of both 
 sexes about his board ; while for a stag-dinner he 
 gave his attention mainly to the game and to the 
 wines. Although the dinner was vicariously 
 supplied, the cook and the waiters had been to 
 the house a dozen times before, and everything 
 was served with perfect precision. Laughton 
 was an excellent host, unassuming and all-seeing, 
 never putting himself forward and yet never for 
 getting that he was the host, and that the host 
 should hold himself responsible for the comfort 
 and enjoyment of the guests. 
 
 As The Full Score placed themselves about 
 the round table, every man choosing his own seat, 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley broke the silence by 
 remarking, in a deep voice, " Tiens, tiens, we are 
 only thirteen." 
 
 "Thirteen?" repeated Frederick Olyphant, 
 turning a little paler. 
 
 " Thirteen precisely," responded the little Eng 
 lishman ; " I counted directly we came in." 
 
 " There s luck in odd numbers, said Rory 
 O More." This was the solace offered by Charley 
 Sutton. 
 
 "And it is Friday, too ! " added Rudolph 
 Vernon. 
 
 "Thirteen?" repeated Olyphant, counting 
 hastily in the hope that there had been an error. 
 " If it is, I suppose it cannot be helped." 
 
 " It doesn t make you uncomfortable, does
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 
 
 75 
 
 it ? " asked Robert White, who sat at Olyphant s 
 right hand, as Olyphant sat at Larry s. 
 
 " Why not ? " responded Frederick, trying to 
 turn it off with a laugh. " I accept all superstitions 
 as premonitions of future scientific discovery." 
 
 " We are thirteen now, but it is only until 
 Harry Brackett arrives," urged Larry, " and he is 
 sure to be here before we break up. So this 
 thirteen doesn t count ! " 
 
 " Perhaps we ought to do as the old Gauls are 
 said to have done," suggested White ; " when 
 ever they found themselves thirteen they drew 
 lots and killed one of their number on the spot, 
 for fear that the unlucky combination should 
 cause somebody s death in the course of a twelve 
 month." 
 
 " Perhaps " hazarded Rudolph Vernon, " we 
 might send for a fourteenth " 
 
 " To fill this living sonnet, as I suppose you 
 poets would call it," interrupted Sutton, looking 
 at Vernon. 
 
 " I know a man who lives around the corner," 
 continued Vernon, "and you all know him; he s 
 a fellow poet. If I propose him as a member I 
 know you will all give him a unanimous vote 
 in the negative." 
 
 " You must mean Tapp ? " said Sutton. 
 
 " Of course," added Eliphalet Duncan. 
 
 " Tapp it is," Vernon responded. " Do you 
 want him as a member of this club ? "
 
 76 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 There was a sudden and tumultuous shout of 
 " No ! " from everybody else, a shout which bore 
 testimony to the extreme unpopularity of Mr. S. 
 Clozen Tapp, a young poet not without ability, 
 but best known for his lofty self-appreciation and 
 for his over-sensitiveness to criticism. 
 
 " Gentlemen," began Eliphalet Duncan, " I 
 draw your attention to this terrapin ; it is 
 divine ! " 
 
 " Liph worships his stomach," was the com 
 ment of his brother-in-law. 
 
 " And pampers his god with burnt offerings," 
 added White. 
 
 " The undevout gastronomer is mad," Uncle 
 Larry declared. 
 
 Mr. Robert White noticed that Frederick 
 Olyphant had turned all his glasses upside down. 
 " You are not a cold-water man, are you," he 
 asked, in surprise. "Do you stick to croton 
 extra sec ? " 
 
 " Why not ? " Fred demanded. 
 
 " That s another of your left-handed ideas," 
 rejoined White. " You drink cold water, and 
 you object to thirteen at table." 
 
 " Look not on the wine when it is red," quoted 
 Fred, with a smile. 
 
 " I have always considered that a most mis 
 leading text," said Uncle Larry, intervening, " for 
 it drives a man to white wines, which are not 
 half as wholesome as the red."
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 
 
 77 
 
 Thus led into a gentle debate, Frederick 
 Olyphant struggled vigorously with the gloom 
 which oppressed him, and also with the purely 
 physical discomfort about which he had spoken 
 to Uncle Larry on his arrival. He took his 
 share in the paradoxical discussions of Shakspere 
 and the musical glasses, which form the staple 
 of talk at a gathering of enthusiastic young men, 
 most of whom had strong artistic inclinations, 
 even when they were not by profession workers 
 in one art or another. 
 
 Toward the end of the dinner the conversation 
 took a turn which forced Olyphant to the front. 
 One of the lawyers was making fun of Mr. S. 
 Clozen Tapp s last novel, A Young Lady from 
 Long Island, which White irreverently called 
 The Girl from Gowanus. He was especially 
 satirical on the introduction of a duel into an 
 American novel in this last quarter of the nine 
 teenth century. 
 
 " That s all very well," retorted Rudolph Vernon, 
 " and I do not want to say a word in defence of 
 Tapp s book, but the disappearance of the duel 
 gave as great a blow to romantic fiction as it did 
 to polite manners ! " 
 
 " The duel hasn t altogether disappeared." 
 declared Charley Sutton ; " in New Centreville, 
 once, I saw two men fight with bowie-knives. 
 Out West many a man dies with his boots on." 
 
 "Fancy!" said Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley,
 
 j 8 777^ LAST MEE TING. 
 
 making mental notes of a new fact in Ameri 
 can civilization. 
 
 " I don t call butchery with bowie-knives a 
 duel," retorted the poet, indignantly. " A duel 
 is an affair of honor, fought out with rapier and 
 dagger " 
 
 " Pistols and coffee," interrupted White. 
 
 "The duel," continued Vernon, not noticing 
 this interjection, " got its artistic value from the 
 fact that it was often the final station of an elab 
 orate scheme of revenge. But now, nobody dare 
 use revenge as the basis of a story." 
 
 " Good subject for an old-fashioned essay for 
 the Arctic Monthly" Olyphant suggested : " On 
 the Disappearance of Revenge as an Element of 
 Modern Fiction. " 
 
 " I think that revenge has gone out in litera 
 ture," White remarked, " because it has gone out 
 in life. Nowadays a man doesn t sit up nights 
 to hate another man; he cuts him in the avenue 
 on Sunday, and thanks God he is rid of a 
 knave ! " 
 
 " Well, I don t know," Uncle Larry interposed. 
 " Out West, as Charley Sutton said, men still 
 take speedy vengeance on their enemies. Out 
 West there is still a survival of the ordeal by 
 battle, and disputes are settled by the arbitra 
 ment of the bowie-knife." 
 
 " But, Uncle Larry," urged White, " that is 
 quick temper, not slow revenge."
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 79 
 
 " Poor Bob is right this time," said Eliphalet 
 Duncan ; " revenge is played out." 
 
 " It may be played out in the West, Liph," de 
 clared Frederick Olyphant, " but in the East it 
 is alive and kicking." 
 
 " In Corsica, now," suggested Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley. 
 
 " In Corsica, and still farther East, in the 
 Levant, generally," continued Olyphant. "Wher 
 ever the Turk and the Greek have met, there are 
 long hatreds yet, and the slow revenge of malig 
 nity is as possible now as it was in the Middle 
 Ages in Italy." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " asked Mr. Hobson-Chol- 
 mondeley. 
 
 " I know it ! In London and in New York a 
 man s life may be safe enough from revenge ; we 
 English-speakers are a law-abiding race in the 
 main, and our law is served out to us with jus 
 tice, for the most part. But in the Orient revenge 
 is a motive more potent than love." 
 
 " How very interesting ! " said Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley. 
 
 Frederick Olyphant had warmed to his wock 
 as he spoke, and his wonted reserve was broken 
 through. 
 
 " Why, if I were to die to-night," he went on, 
 " if I were to be killed suddenly and myster 
 iously, even here in New York, I should know 
 that my death lay at the door of one man, a man
 
 80 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 whom I have met only twice, but who warned 
 me that the third meeting would be fatal." 
 
 " Tiens, tiens" said Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley. 
 
 "You mean Constantine Vollonides, I sup 
 pose?" asked Larry. " The man with the Black 
 Heart." 
 
 " That s the man," returned Olyphant, " Con 
 stantine Vollonides." 
 
 " You ought to tell them the whole story, 
 Fred," remarked Uncle Larry ; " how you saved 
 the man s life the first time you met him ; how 
 you spared his life the second time ; and how he 
 then warned you that the third meeting would 
 be the last meeting." 
 
 " I say, Fred, this is not fair," declared White ; 
 " you might have let me interview you for the 
 Gotham Gazette : it would have been copied in 
 half the papers in the country." 
 
 Fred smiled and answered, " I did tell Harry 
 Brackett something about it once, and he worked 
 it up in one of his out-of-town letters." 
 
 " Then you must tell us now," cried Charley 
 Sutton. " The truth, the whole truth and noth 
 ing but the truth ! " 
 
 Olyphant shook his head. 
 
 " But you must ; we insist," said Bob White. 
 
 Fred remained silent. He had a sudden 
 return of the oppression, physical and moral, 
 from which he had been suffering since he
 
 THE FULL SCORE. 8 1 
 
 parted from Winifred Marshall. He felt that it 
 would be impossible for him to tell the story. 
 
 " Uncle Larry, to you we appeal," White 
 cried ; " you are the Lord of the Revels and the 
 Keeper of the Green Seals, and you must unlock 
 the lips of the great silent man." 
 
 " Come, Fred," Uncle Larry began, when 
 Olyphant interrupted him : 
 
 " Let me suggest as a compromise that you 
 make Uncle Larry tell the story." 
 
 " I accept the amendment," said Charley 
 Sutton, promptly ; " Gentlemen of The Full 
 Score, those of you who are in favor of hearing 
 from Mr. Laurence Laughton the strange story 
 of Constantine Vollonides, the man with the 
 Black Heart, will please say Aye ! " 
 
 There was a thunderous chorus of Ayes. 
 
 " But I protest," began Uncle Larry. 
 
 " Contrary minded, No," continued Sutton. 
 " The motion seems to be carried, it is carried. 
 Uncle Larry has the floor." 
 
 " Uncle Larry has no use for the floor at this 
 early hour of the evening," responded the host. 
 " But I am willing to tell the tale, if Fred won t." 
 
 " Fred won t," said Olyphant. " And if you 
 will excuse me, Larry, I ll go into the library 
 and write a note." 
 
 " You mustn t go, Fred," urged Robert White. 
 " How do we know what kind of a yarn Larry 
 will spin us, if you are not here to see fair play." 
 6
 
 82 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " Perhaps I shall get back before he comes 
 to the sticking-point," replied Olyphant, as he 
 rose from the table and passed into the library. 
 He was perfectly at home in Laughton s house, 
 and knew just where to help himself to paper 
 and pen and ink. He took his seat before the 
 large desk-table in the centre of the library, in 
 front of the blazing fire of crackling hickory logs, 
 and began to write a letter to Winifred Marshall.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 / 
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. 
 
 * \TOW, Uncle Larry, tell us the tale of the 
 
 1 1 man with the Black Heart. No doubt it 
 is gruesome and weird, not to say marvelous 
 and melodramatic," said Poor Bob White. 
 " Nothing extenuate nor aught set down in 
 malice, but give us the cold truth, la verite 
 frappee, as we say in French." 
 
 " Well, I don t know," responded Uncle Larry, 
 "just how to tell you the story or exactly where 
 to begin." 
 
 " Begin at the beginning, of course," suggested 
 Rudolph Vernon ; " strike the lead at the out- 
 croppings and get right down to pay-gravel, as 
 Charley Sutton would say." 
 
 " Invoke the Muse," retorted the young 
 Caltfornian ; " perhaps she will help you out, and 
 even if she doesn t, you fill out ten lines or so, 
 which is worth consideration when editors pay 
 for poetry at column-rates." 
 
 " You see, the difficulty is," Uncle Larry 
 continued, " that I wasn t present at the first 
 meeting between Fred and Vollonides. I can 
 
 83
 
 8 4 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 bear witness to the second, because I was there 
 all the while ; but as to the first, my evidence is 
 not evidence at all, is only hearsay. I had liefer 
 Fred told you himself; still, if he won t, I must do 
 the best I can to give you at least tdie pith of 
 the story." 
 
 " Tell the tale as best you can," remarked 
 White, encouragingly, as he lighted another 
 cigarette. 
 
 " Well," said Uncle Larry, " as you all know, 
 Frederick Olyphant was the special pictorial 
 correspondent of the Gotham Gazette all through 
 the little unpleasantness between the turbaned 
 Turk and the Russian bear. I did not get out 
 there to see him until near the end of the tussle. 
 Then I heard an allusion to the man with the 
 Black Heart, and I asked Fred for full particulars. 
 At first he was a recalcitrant witness, but I 
 managed to get at the main facts by dint of hard 
 labor ; and here they are : 
 
 " Frederick Olyphant was with the Russian 
 troops all through the terrible winter campaign. 
 As the representative of an important newspaper 
 and as an American, he was doubly welcome, 
 and his labors were made as pleasant for him as 
 possible. The Russian officers were as friendly 
 as he could wish, and he was allowed special 
 privileges. One day he was with the advance 
 guard as it entered a little town called Tartar- 
 Bazardjik. Just as Fred was going to get some-
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. gj 
 
 thing to eat, he saw a squad of soldiers dragging 
 off a poor devil to instant execution. The man 
 had been caught looting. Now, there was no 
 end of stealing in those days ; your teeth were 
 not safe in your head if you slept with your 
 mouth open ; and the Russian officers had orders 
 to stop it short, and to shoot any man caught in 
 the act. Fred had seen lots of poor wretches, 
 half-a-dozen at a time, stood up against a blank 
 wall and dropped with a single volley from a 
 company detailed for the purpose. It was not 
 his business to interfere. But something about 
 this man in Bazardjik attracted his attention, and 
 as the soldiers passed him he looked at the 
 fellow carefully. There was an air of pride 
 about the man, despite his desperate condition ; 
 his eye, as it glanced about like that of a hunted 
 beast, was as sharp as a needle ; plainly enough 
 the fellow was not a vulgar thief. Acting on a 
 sudden impulse, Fred determined to save the 
 man s life. Throwing up his hand, and speaking 
 as one having authority, he commanded the 
 men to halt ! The Russian soldier is as docile 
 as he is brave, and he is used to being ordered 
 about sharply. The soldiers who were leading 
 the man away to death stopped short and saluted 
 Fred, whom they took for an officer of high 
 rank, judging from his manner. Their captive 
 drew himself up and looked at Fred. It was the 
 look of a man who did not fear death, although
 
 86 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 he longed for life. Fred asked the corporal, who 
 was in command of the little squad of soldiers, 
 what the fellow had been doing. He had been 
 caught stealing bread, the Russian answered. 
 Now, in those troublesome times to loot food 
 was no great crime ; Fred had done it himself, 
 when he had to choose between starvation and 
 a helping of himself without so much as a by- 
 your-leave. So he determined to save the 
 prisoner. The man is my servant, he said to 
 the soldiers, let him go. I will chastise him. 
 And as the Russians released him, Fred, he 
 struck him across the shoulders with his whip, 
 and called him a dog, and ordered him to carry 
 the baggage up stairs. The corporal and his 
 men hesitated a little as they saw their prey 
 pass from their hands, but Fred paid no atten 
 tion to their murmurings, and ordered his new 
 servant harshly, and struck him again once or 
 twice, to disarm suspicion, until at last the 
 soldiers yielded and made off." 
 
 " Really, now," ventured Mr. Hobson-Chol- 
 mondeley," did Mr. Olyphant truly save a man s 
 life ? " 
 
 " Well, he did," Uncle Larry replied. 
 
 " What has this to do with the Black Heart ? " 
 asked Rudolph Vernon. 
 
 " Well, I ll tell you, if you will give me time ;" 
 and Uncle Larry lighted one of the tiny little 
 cigars he always affected.
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. gy 
 
 "Gentlemen of The Full Score!" cried Charley 
 Sutton, " silence for the Chair ! " 
 
 Uncle Larry took a long pull at his little cigar 
 and then went on : 
 
 " While Fred was ordering about the man he 
 had rescued, he was sizing him. up and taking 
 stock of him. And he wasn t any too pleased 
 with the result of his observations. The man was 
 apparently a Greek. He had small black eyes, 
 given to quick underhand glances ; but, as Fred 
 thought, this furtive look might be due to the 
 desperate strait the man was in. He had a little 
 pointed black mustache, under which there was 
 a gleam of teeth seen through a treacherous 
 smile. He had a dead white face and in the 
 centre of his forehead he had a birth-mark, a 
 curious stain in the shape of a human heart. 
 Fred found out after, that when the man was not 
 excited this red scar burned and blazed on his 
 forehead like the gory socket of the Cyclops 
 eye. But at all times of mental strain, the birth 
 mark became surcharged with blood, and it sank 
 deeper and darker into the white skin, until at 
 last there stood out on the man s forehead a black 
 heart ! " 
 
 " And didn t Fred ever discover who the fellow 
 was, and where he came from?" asked Eliphalet 
 Duncan. 
 
 " Well, he did," Laurence Laughton replied. 
 " The man s name was Constantine Vollonides.
 
 88 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 He was a Levantine Greek, and his mother had 
 been a Corsican." 
 
 " If he was a Corsican by descent and a Levan 
 tine by training, he was prepared both by 
 heredity and by environment to cherish revenge 
 as a sacred duty, and not to be scrupulous in its 
 attainment." This was the contribution of Mr. 
 Rudolph Vernon, whose poetry was sometimes 
 super-saturated with scientific phraseology. 
 
 " You have rung the bell this time," said Uncle 
 Larry. " Constantine Vollonides was an incarna 
 tion of the vendetta, and he was as free from all 
 scruple as only a Levantine can be; and, more 
 than this, he was a Greek, with the intolerable 
 pride of a Greek, and with all the sensitiveness 
 which accompanies that pride. He had a feeling 
 of humiliation that he had been forced to accept 
 a menial position from Fred, even though it 
 was to save his life. And he never forgave Fred 
 for the few light blows given him in the presence 
 of the soldiers to lessen their suspicion. He felt 
 degraded at the thought that there was a man 
 living whom he had called master, and who had 
 struck him." 
 
 " But didn t the fellow see that Fred had done 
 this only in the hope of saving his life ? " asked 
 Eliphalet Duncan. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry ; " he 
 may have seen it well enough ; I suppose he 
 did; but it made no difference. It was no let
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. 
 
 8 9 
 
 or hindrance to the hatred he bore Fred ever 
 after." 
 
 " Of course," remarked Eliphalet Duncan, 
 " but he had other motives for his hatred, too ! " 
 
 " He had," answered Uncle Larry, " or at least 
 his existing hatred was greatly intensified by a 
 little episode which took place a few hours after 
 Fred first met him. As Fred s apparent servant, 
 Vollonides got knowledge of the hiding-place of 
 a kindly old Turkish gentleman whom Fred was 
 also trying to shield; and out of pure cussedness, 
 apparently, and with incredible meanness, the 
 Greek betrayed this Turk to the Russians, and 
 the old gentleman was most brutally ill-treated ; 
 in fact, he died from his injuries. Of course, when 
 Fred heard of this he was wild, and he just gave 
 Vollonides a piece of his mind. Fred told the 
 fellow he had intervened in his behalf out of no 
 kindness to him, and that he regretted already 
 what he had done, and that he had saved his 
 worthless life only as he would have saved the 
 life of any other wretched cur. Now, Fred can 
 use early English when he tries, and he let the 
 Greek have it hot and heavy. And if Vollonides 
 had hated Fred before, for the blows of the whip, 
 he hated him after with a ten-fold hatred, 
 because of the stinging scorn with which he 
 had been lashed." 
 
 " Truly, a most unpleasant person, I should 
 say," remarked Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley.
 
 g THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 "And what might his position be? I mean was 
 he a man of family ? " 
 
 " I believe he had not a little pride of birth, 
 and he was a man of some small means, too ; he 
 was full of splendid financial schemes, and it was 
 in spying out the land to prospect for one of 
 these that he had got caught between the lines 
 and robbed and left for dead. In the desperation 
 of hunger he had taken the bread, for the theft 
 of which the Russians were going to shoot him. 
 Oddly enough, he never bore malice against the 
 soldiers who arrested him. On the contrary, he 
 hated the Turk as only a Greek can. As soon 
 as he could get off scart-free he left Fred, without 
 a word of thanks ; and the next time we heard 
 of him, he had been the chief instrument of the 
 surprise and capture by the Russians of an im 
 portant Turkish fort, impregnable except against 
 treachery. You see, he was no coward, and no 
 common villain, though he was as capable of 
 mischief and as capable in making mischief as 
 lago or the Prince of Darkness himself." 
 
 " It is a pity," suggested Eliphalet Duncan, 
 " that Fred, who has some superstitions, had not 
 yet another, that he did not share the unwill 
 ingness of the inhabitants of the northern coasts 
 of Scotland, who hesitate to help a drowning 
 man, for fear that they may be made respon 
 sible for the support and care of the man whose 
 life they have saved."
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. gi 
 
 " You have told us about the first meeting 
 between Fred and the man with the Black 
 Heart," said Charley Sutton, " now shed some 
 light on the second." 
 
 " Turn yourself full on, Uncle Larry, and give 
 us the latest news and all the particulars," urged 
 Bob White. 
 
 " Well," said Uncle Larry, " at the tail-end of 
 the war, when peace was certain and we were all 
 making ready to go our several ways, we got up 
 a dinner over in Pera, a few Americans, a lot of 
 correspondents and some of our particular friends 
 among the Russian officers. Vollonides was in 
 Constantinople then, and one of the officers 
 bro K ght him to the dinner. He made himself 
 pleasant eaough until he caught sight of Fred, 
 and then the blood rushed to his forehead, and I 
 saw the black heart for the first time. Generally, 
 Vollonides was a man of easy conversation, but 
 that evening he was ugly and as cantankerous a 
 cuss as the devil could find anywhere to do his 
 dirty work. The Russian officers had began to 
 know his ways and to find out his peculiarities ; 
 and one of then* leaned over to me and whispered 
 When you see the black heart, beware ! 
 From this officer I pumped a lot of facts about 
 Constantine Vollonides, how he had been making 
 money, hand over fist, how he had half-a-dozen 
 financial schemes on foot, how he was estab 
 lishing in business the chief members of his
 
 2 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 family, how he had one brother in Southern 
 California." 
 
 " You don t say so ? " interrupted Charley 
 Sutton ; " down in Old California ? " 
 
 " Down on the peninsula somewhere," answered 
 Laughton. " I got my information from a Russian ; 
 and, of course, he didn t know California from 
 Kalamazoo." 
 
 " Proceed, your story interests me strangely," 
 said J. Warren Payn, in apt parody of the man 
 nerisms of the latest imported tragedian. 
 
 Uncle Larry started his little cigar again, and 
 continued : 
 
 " When I was warned against this Constantine 
 Vollonides, I took notice of him, and I sawjKhat 
 he kept glancing stealthily at Fred, and , ^*L-. 
 me that his expression was very vindictive. 
 This surprised me, and I doubted what I saw, 
 because it seemed to me impossible that a man 
 should bear malice against another man for sav 
 ing his life. I ought to tell you that the room 
 we were in had been decorated by two or three of 
 the residents with flags and arms, and with any 
 number of pictures of scenes in the war, cut from 
 the illustrated papers. Among these was a full 
 page portrait of Constantine Vollonides, pub 
 lished in the Illustrated London News just after 
 he had made himself known by his services to 
 the Russian cause. And, of course, there were 
 lots and lots of Fred s sketches. One of the
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. 
 
 93 
 
 correspondents said something to Vollonides 
 about one of these sketches of Fred s, and 
 Vollonides made some disparaging remark. 
 The correspondent protested, and Vollonides 
 repeated his remark, out loud, so that everybody 
 could hear it. Fred couldn t help hearing it; but 
 he didn t let on or take notice. Then Vollonides 
 began to criticise Fred s sketches, one by one, 
 in a most offensive manner. Fortunately, they 
 were at opposite ends of the table, and down at 
 our end we made as much noise as we could to 
 try and drown his remarks. But it was no use. 
 He stood up before one picture and declared that 
 it could only have been drawn by a coward, 
 skulking out of the line of danger. Then the 
 officer who had invited him tried to get him to 
 keep quiet ; but that wasn t any use either. The 
 man was set on having his own will." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," asked Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley, as Laugh ton paused to take a 
 fresh cigar, " that the fellow really wanted to pick 
 a quarrel with the man who had saved his life? " 
 
 " He couldn t wait to pick a quarrel," returned 
 Uncle Larry ; " he just took up any quarrel that 
 was handy ; and if one didn t come handy, he 
 meant to make it. At last he insulted Fred so 
 grossly that notice had to be taken of it; I 
 needn t tell you what the insult was, for it was as 
 low in its expression as it was malignant in its 
 intent. Fred felt that as an American among
 
 g4 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 strangers it was his duty to speak up. He asked 
 me to go across the room and demand an apology. 
 Constantine Vollonides smiled a sinister smile of 
 self-satisfaction as I came up to him, and referred 
 me to the officer whose guest he was. This 
 officer was a gentleman, and a very disgusted man 
 he was indeed ; but he was powerless. Vollonides 
 refused to apologize, and it was arranged that the 
 meeting should take place on the spot." 
 
 " A duel ? " asked Rudolph Vermon, eagerly. 
 
 " That was the size of it," responded Larry. 
 
 " A duel in a room across a handkerchief, in 
 the regular old fashion ? I should have joyed to 
 see it," cried the poet. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, " a 
 duel is all very well to read about or to hear 
 about, but it isn t any fun when it s your best 
 friend who is going to stand up to be shot at." 
 
 " Why did they fight in the room ? " asked 
 Charley Sutton. 
 
 " For several reasons. The insult had been 
 public, and it was only fair that those who had 
 heard it should be present at the meeting. Then, 
 many of those at the dinner were going off and 
 away the next morning. Then, too, secrecy and 
 despatch were necessary, and there was no place 
 where we could get these better than the room 
 we were in a long, large room, big enough to 
 serve as the banqueting hall for a state dinner." 
 
 "And they fought a duel in a dining-room?"
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. 0,5 
 
 inquired Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, with deep 
 anxiety. 
 
 " They fought a duel across the dining-room 
 table ! " said Uncle Larry. 
 
 " Dear me ! " sighed Mr. Hobson-Cholmonde 
 ley ; " how very dreadful ! " 
 
 "Of course, Fred did not want to fight the 
 fellow," continued Uncle Larry, " and he had me 
 declare that he would be satisfied without an 
 apology, if Vollonides would withdraw the opprob 
 rious epithets. The Greek refused with a scorn 
 ful laugh. I never saw any human being look 
 as devilish as he did, when he laughed then, with 
 that black heart burned deep into his forehead 
 like a brand of Cain. He wanted swords ; but 
 we chose revolvers, with only one chamber 
 loaded. The men were to stand on opposite 
 sides of the dinner-table, about ten paces apart, 
 At the word they were to have the right to fire, 
 either where they stood, or after advancing to the 
 table midway between them." 
 
 " That s almost as deadly a duel as a fight with 
 bowie-knives in a dark cabin," Charley Sutton 
 remarked. 
 
 " As Fred took his place, with his revolver in 
 his right hand, he asked Vollonides to withdraw 
 the insult. Are you afraid to face me? was 
 the only answer he got from the Greek. Fred 
 repeated his request in a manly and dignified way, 
 making a last appeal to avoid bloodshed, if pos-
 
 9 6 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 sible. You see, most the men there had seen 
 Fred under fire, and they knew he was no coward, 
 so he could go farther for the sake of peace than 
 his pride would perhaps have let him go at 
 another time. And again Vollonides scoffed at 
 him. Are we babies, he asked, that we should 
 waste time in idle talk ? No. I will not retract 
 what I said. I will repeat it ! And he did. 
 Well, Fred, he stood still and silent a moment, 
 and then he said, I have given you a last chance 
 to save your life. Now I shall shoot you through 
 the heart ! It wasn t at all like Fred to boast, 
 but the man had outraged him and he meant 
 what he said." 
 
 " And did he do it ? " J. Warren Payn asked, 
 with excited interest. 
 
 "Who is telling this tale ; you or I ? " inquired 
 Laurence Laughton, sarcastically. " If I am 
 telling it, let me tell it in my own way." 
 
 " Take your time, Uncle Larry," said Poor 
 Bob White ; " so long as we are in at the death 
 at last, we are in no hurry." 
 
 " Well," Laughton continued, " Fred stood on 
 one side of the room and Vollonides at the other, 
 and the dining-table divided the distance between 
 them. The rest of us gathered at the two ends 
 of the room. I let the officer, who was the 
 second of Vollonides, give the signal. He asked 
 them if they were ready. Then he counted, One, 
 Two, Three Fire ! At the word a swift sound
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. 
 
 97 
 
 slit the air; Vollonides had fired at Fred and 
 missed him. The bullet had grazed Fred s ear, 
 and then had lodged itself deep in the wall behind 
 his head. Fred had reserved his fire. He was 
 quite calm and collected. He walked slowly up 
 to the table, and then covered Vollonides with 
 the point of his pistol. I will say for the fellow, 
 that he was not a coward. He stood up firmly 
 and he looked Fred in the eye. His face was 
 whiter than ever, and the black heart in his 
 forehead was blacker than ever, but he did not 
 tremble. Fred kept the revolver aimed at the 
 man s breast for at least ten seconds ; it seemed 
 an hour to us. What it must have been to the 
 Greek I can only guess." 
 
 "Why didn t Fred shoot him dead?" asked: 
 Charley Sutton. 
 
 "But that would have been murder!" ejacu 
 lated the horrified Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley. 
 
 " He said he was going to plug him in the 
 heart," pursued the young Californian. " Why 
 didn t he do it?" 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry; " per 
 haps he thought it would be too cold-blooded a 
 deed. Perhaps he did not want to take away the 
 life he had saved once already. Yet he had said 
 he would shoot him through the heart That 
 was why he hesitated so long. Then he slowly 
 raised his revolver until it covered the birth 
 mark on the Greek s forehead. Vollonides did 
 7
 
 ,og THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 not quail ; he looked right along the barrel into 
 Fred s eye. Then Fred raised the revolver a 
 little higher yet and fired and sent his bullet into 
 the left breast of the portrait of Constantine 
 Vollonides the portrait which hung right over 
 the head of the original ! " 
 
 "Fancy now!" said Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley. 
 
 " So the accused escaped on a technicality," 
 .suggested Eliphalet Duncan, the lawyer. 
 
 " Fred would have done better if he had 
 dropped him in his tracks," Charley Sutton 
 remarked. 
 
 " I understand well enough why he let him 
 go," Rudolph Vernon declared ; " but the story 
 would have been more picturesque, more poetic, 
 if he had killed him." 
 
 " It was a very close call for Fred," resumed 
 Charley Sutton. 
 
 " Well, it was," said Uncle Larry ; " if the 
 Greek s bullet had gone an inch to the right, it 
 would have found its billet in Fred s head. Fred 
 has the bullet now ; I dug it out of the wall and 
 gave it to him. He had it mounted in a gold 
 vulture s claw, and he wears it on his watch- 
 chain. 
 
 "Didn t the fellow want to fight again?" 
 asked Charley Sutton, for whom all tales of 
 mortal combat had a morbid fascination. 
 
 " Well, he wanted to fight," Uncle Larry went
 
 THE MAN IV J TH THE BLACK HEART. ^ 
 
 on ; " he was full of fight, but his friends refused 
 to let him, and at last they had to take him 
 away. He passed near Fred as he went out, and 
 he said, We have met twice, and twice my life 
 has been in your hands; the third time, your 
 life will be in mine, and I shall not spare it, 
 unless I can find a punishment worse than 
 death ! " 
 
 " He was a cheerful person for a small dinner 
 party," said Bob White, " Let us rejoice that he 
 does not belong to The Full Score." 
 
 " He was a regular old-time villain," Charley 
 Sutton added. " Ha, ha ! a time will come ! " 
 
 " And was that the last you saw of him ? " 
 Rudolph Vernon asked. 
 
 " I never saw him again, and I am quite sure 
 Fred has not, either," answered Larry. 
 
 " And where is he now ? " urged Charley 
 Sutton. 
 
 " In heaven, perhaps," Uncle Larry replied, 
 " or in the other place. I don t know, and as 
 long as I am in this world, I don t care." 
 
 " I think that if I were Fred," Rudolph Vernon 
 declared, " I should not feel safe while that man 
 was alive." 
 
 " Neither should I," assented Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley. 
 
 " I should always be afraid," continued the 
 poet, " that sooner or later that Greek would 
 turn up and stab me in the back."
 
 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 " Fred is not afraid," replied Uncle Larry, 
 " because he does not know what it is to fear any 
 man. He is superstitious, you know, and if he 
 fears anything, it is the unknown. Besides, he is 
 something of a fatalist, and he is inclined to cry 
 Kismet it is Fate ! " 
 
 " All the same," said Charley Sutton, " he 
 must think sometimes about the man with the 
 Black Heart. A fellow never could forget an 
 experience like his ! " 
 
 " And Fred does think of it," rejoined Rudolph 
 Vernon ; " don t you remember what he said 
 to-day at dinner before Uncle Larry told us the 
 story ? He said that if he were to be killed 
 to-night, or if he were to disappear mysteriously, 
 his death or his disappearance would lie at the 
 door of a man whose life he had saved." 
 
 " Surely, you do not think the Greek would 
 dare to follow him to this country ? " inquired 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley. 
 
 " The man s a Levantine," replied Rudolph 
 Vernon, " half Greek and half Corsican. There 
 is no limit to the journey he might take to accom 
 plish his revenge." 
 
 " Cestcurieux! c est trescurieux" ventured Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley. 
 
 " I say, Uncle Larry," Charley Sutton asked, 
 " when was this duel ? " 
 
 " In 1878." 
 
 "And we are in October, 1884 six years.
 
 THE MAN WITH THE BLACK HEART. IOI 
 
 Perhaps by tnis time the man with the Black 
 Heart is dead." 
 
 " Perhaps he is," answered Uncle Larry, as his 
 guests rose from the table and passed into the 
 library ; all but two or three, who had begun a 
 discussion on aesthetics, which bade fair to be 
 interminable.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 IN the library they found Frederick Olyphant 
 seated at the desk-table in the centre of the 
 room. He had written his letter, and he was 
 engaged in sealing the envelope with wax, which 
 he stamped with the leaden bullet grasped in a 
 golden vulture s claw. Ever since he had worn 
 the miscarrying messenger of death as a charm 
 on his watch-chain, he had taken pleasure in 
 using it as a seal. It gave a firm impression of a 
 hollow sphere ; and it was at once simple and 
 unique, two qualities which the artist held in 
 the highest esteem. 
 
 As Laurence Laughton stood by the broad, 
 flat desk, Olyphant looked up and held up his 
 letter. "Would the faithful Bridget post this 
 for me, Uncle Larry ? I couldn t rest till I had 
 written it, and I d like to see it off as soon as 
 possible." 
 
 " Of course she would," responded the host, 
 touching the button of an electric bell, wfcich 
 was immediately heard to tinkle sharply some 
 where in the dim recesses of the basement. " The 
 
 IO2
 
 AFTER DINXER. 
 
 103 
 
 faithful Bridget has taken a great fancy to you,. 
 Fred, and she will run to the corner lamp-post 
 with it, if the cook and the waiters have gone, 
 and I suppose they have by this time, for the 
 faithful Bridget bundles them out as soon as 
 she can." 
 
 The faithful Bridget was the chief of Uncle 
 Larry s household. She was an Irishwoman, 
 now long past middle age, who had come to 
 Laurence s mother thirty years before, as cook. 
 She ruled the house with a mild despotism 
 under which Laughton was sometimes restive. 
 Although she had two assistants to aid her in her 
 household labors, she still prepared the few 
 simple meals which the master of the house took 
 at home. She resented not a little the intrusion 
 of the professional cooks and waiters who served 
 the more elaborate repasts which Laurence 
 Laughton offered his friends, and she sent them 
 away the instant that their work was done. The 
 faithful Bridget was herself indefatigable and she 
 took pride in her housekeeping. She was known 
 to most of the frequenters of the house, for she 
 generally opened the door herself. 
 
 As she came into the library in answer to 
 Laughton s ring, she was greeted with a chorus : 
 " Hello, Bridget," " How are you, my aged 
 darling ?" " She looks younger every day, so 
 she does ! " Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley listened 
 in perturbed surprise; but the faithful Bridget
 
 104 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 received these pleasantries with amiable scorn. 
 " Good evening to yez, gintlemin," was all she 
 said. 
 
 " Bridget, Mr. Olyphant wants to know if it 
 would be too much trouble to ask you to post a 
 letter for him before you go to bed? " asked the 
 master of the house, with the courtesy he always 
 showed to servants. 
 
 " Sure it s no trouble at all," answered Bridget; 
 " and it s many a mile I d walk for Mr. Frederick, 
 let alone going to the corner here ! " 
 
 " I shall be very much obliged to you, indeed," 
 said Olyphant, handing her the letter. 
 
 " I ll take it over at once," she said, " and then 
 it s going to bed I am. These dinners and these 
 waiters and these cooks are a-wearing the life 
 out of me." 
 
 As she withdrew to the regions below, White 
 said, " Larry, you are under petticoat government! 
 The faithful Bridget rules you with a rod of iron. 
 You dare not say your soul is your own ! " 
 
 " What man may say that ? " asked Fred, com 
 ing to his friend s assistance. 
 
 " Whatman is bulldozed by a faithful Bridget? " 
 rejoined White. " Why, Uncle Larry, thou art 
 the man. Now, I would not allow any Bridget 
 to rule my roast. I abjure the Hibernian. When 
 I advertise for a cook, I shall add, that, like the 
 Government of these United States, I reserve the 
 right to reject all Bids."
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 105 
 
 Before the sudden shower of groans which 
 greeted this merry jest, Poor Bob White retreated 
 into the parlor, taking with him Mr. J. Warren 
 Payn. They opened the piano and betook 
 themselves to music ; Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley joined them ; he had written the words of 
 a sweetly sentimental French song, and Mr. J. 
 Warren Payn had set them to music for him. 
 
 " I m not quite satisfied with the accompani 
 ment yet," said the composer, " but I will try it 
 for you." 
 
 " You may venture the experimentum in corpore 
 vilo" responded Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, with 
 scholarly jocularity. 
 
 " That s Latin, I take it," remarked Mr. Robert 
 White, " for try it on a dog ; isn t it ? " 
 
 " Really," replied the little Englishman, with a 
 faint smile, rubbing his hands together nervously, 
 " you have so many of these Americanisms that 
 I can t pretend to keep up with them all." 
 
 " I m not quite sure," the composer continued, 
 as he played the introduction, " that the air I 
 have written is absolutely original." 
 
 " Probably it isn t," White interrupted : " now- 
 a-days nothing is original except sin. And in 
 music, I believe plagiarism is not a sin." 
 
 " Let us hope it is not an unpardonable sin," 
 said Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, uneasily. 
 
 One or two other members of The Full Score, 
 hearing the first notes of the new song, lounged
 
 10 6 THE LAST MEETING, 
 
 from the library into the parlor and joined the 
 little group about the piano. The door which 
 opened into the parlor from the hall folded back 
 against the piano, and as this inconvenienced 
 White, he closed it, and made more room about 
 the instrument. 
 
 There was another little knot of men in the 
 dining-room, where the discussion of aestheticism 
 had drifted slowly into a debate on international 
 manners. 
 
 " My definition of politeness is very simple," 
 Rudolph Vernon was declaring, with emphasis ; 
 " and yet it is comprehensive. Politeness is the 
 outward and visible sign of an inward and 
 spiritual grace." 
 
 " Of course, but what do you suggest as a 
 means of grace?" asked Eliphalet Duncan, who, 
 as a half-Scotchman, took a keen interest in 
 considering the minor points of theological 
 metaphysics. 
 
 " But that definition won t help you any," 
 ventured Charley Sutton, " when you are hav 
 ing high words and passing low language with 
 the driver of a growler in London at two o clock 
 in the morning, and there s no policeman in 
 sight." 
 
 " There is no international standard of manners, 
 and it is unfortunate," continued the poet " Every 
 people has its own conventionalities. Now the 
 beauty of my definition is that it takes a lofty
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 lO/ 
 
 view, that it soars above these lesser and often 
 very little points of difference, and that it goes 
 right to the essentials." 
 
 " It is hard to frame a definition of an English 
 gentleman," Eliphalet Duncan remarked, " which 
 does not fit an American tramp quite as well. It 
 must turn on abstinence from work." 
 
 Rudolph Vernon quoted : 
 
 " When Adam delve and Eve span 
 Who was then the genileman ? " 
 
 " I like Davy Crockett s definition best," added 
 Charley Sutton. " He said General Jackson was 
 a perfect gentleman ; he set the whiskey -jug on the 
 table and looked the other way!" 
 
 " In England they think not only that a man 
 is no gentleman, but that he is going to the devil 
 if he does not wear a high hat on Sunday," said 
 Eliphalet Duncan. 
 
 " And in France a man wears a dress-coat in 
 the morning to a wedding, and he puts on white 
 kids when he goes to propose. " This contribu 
 tion to sociological science came from Charley 
 Sutton. 
 
 " Who was it said," Rudolph Vernon asked, 
 " that it was only the very highest civilization 
 which permits the high hat, the glass eye and 
 the false tooth?" 
 
 " I don t see why all nations cannot dwell 
 together in unity," Charley Sutton suggested ;
 
 IO8 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " let s be a happy family, as the monkey said to 
 the parrot." 
 
 " In my experience, now," Rudolph Vernon 
 began, " I give it to you for what it is worth " 
 
 " If you are going to give us your experience, 
 I don t object," interrupted Charley Sutton, "but 
 do not offer to lend it to us. I have found that 
 experience is like a dress-coat ; it never fits any 
 body but the owner." 
 
 In the course of a few minutes the little knot 
 of disputants in the dining-room, and the little 
 group about the piano in the parlor, gradually 
 absorbed all the members of The Full Score, 
 except Frederick Olyphant and Laurence 
 Laughton, who were left alone in the library, 
 sitting before the hearth, whereon a cheery blaze 
 of hickory sparkled and sang. 
 
 " You are out of sorts this evening, aren t you ?" 
 asked Laughton, with the fatherly interest he 
 always felt toward Olyphant. 
 
 " I am, indeed," Fred answered, quickly; " how 
 could I help feeling miserable when I " He 
 checked himself suddenly, flushed a little and 
 said, "But I have made amends now, and I shall 
 sleep better for it." 
 
 Laughton had no desire to pry into his friend s 
 secrets ; but he could not help suspecting that 
 the sending of the letter had given relief to his 
 friend s unwonted excitement. 
 
 " That is," continued Olyphant, " if I sleep at
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 IO9 
 
 all, which I doubt. My mind is easier now, 
 but my body rebels. I have a dull pain in my 
 head, and I feel a feverish irritation." 
 
 " You have been driving your machinery too 
 hard," said Uncle Larry. " How is the picture 
 getting on ? " 
 
 " Do you mean The Sharpness of Death ? " 
 the artist asked ; " it s nearly done ; in fact, it is 
 quite done, if I could only convince myself of it." 
 
 " Then take my advice. Drop it for ten days ; 
 spend a week in the Adirondacks. To-morrow 
 is the first of November, and it s perhaps a little 
 late for camping out, but it won t hurt two old 
 campaigners like us." 
 
 " Would you go with me ? " 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 Olyphant knew that Laughton had important 
 and pressing engagements early in November, 
 and he was touched with the willingness to lay 
 aside business at the call of friendship. 
 
 " It is very kind of you, Uncle Larry," he 
 said, " and I should be delighted to go with you 
 but but I cannot leave New York for a minute 
 now." 
 
 " Your work will be all the better for your 
 vacation." 
 
 "Oh, it is not my work it is well, I cannot 
 tell you why I must not go. I hope to be able to 
 tell you soon. But there is no use in talking to 
 me about a trip out of town ; I am in New York
 
 1 1 THE LAST JIIEE TING. 
 
 now, and I shall stay in New York till the spring 
 and then well, then, something will happen, I 
 hope ! " 
 
 " Beware how you bend the bow till it break!" 
 Uncle Larry suggested, with kindly interest in 
 his tone. " All work and no play isn t a good 
 scheme of living for any man." 
 
 " Oh, I have play enough," returned Fred, 
 " and I do not suppose I work so very hard, 
 either. I wonder sometimes whether I have 
 accomplished anything at all, or whether I ever 
 shall accomplish anything. We little men of 
 to-day toil on, each in our little groove ; we dig 
 each in our special little trench, throwing up the 
 earth at the sides, until we half believe we are 
 twice as deep as we are. I stand up in my little 
 ditch sometimes and look out over my little mounds 
 at the broad world around me, and I wonder 
 whether the result of my work has not been to 
 hide me from the rest of the people. And worse 
 yet, I wonder whether the work itself was worth 
 doing, and whether I have done it as well as I 
 could, and whether I have put into it the best I 
 had to give; and then, when I look at the things I 
 have painted, and when I acknowledge that I have 
 done my best, I feel what a shallow trifler I am, 
 straying along the margin of the limitless universe." 
 
 " I suppose every man has moments of 
 profound discouragement and self-questioning," 
 said Laughton, gravely.
 
 AFTER D INKER. ! i j 
 
 " Do you think so ? " asked Fred. " Do you 
 believe other men are conscious that they had 
 done their best, and then wonder whether their 
 best were worth doing at all ? " 
 
 " I am sure of it," Uncle Larry answered. 
 
 " Then I have partners in my misery," Fred 
 rejoined. " That is some comfort." 
 
 "Just look at that fire," said Uncle Larry, 
 starting forward to reconstruct it. " Only a 
 minute or two ago, it was blazing as merrily as 
 may be, and now it is as despondent as you 
 are. A hickory fire on a modern hearth needs 
 as many delicate attentions as the latest fine lady, 
 and it puts on as many airs, and is as variable 
 and as moody. Rudolph Vernon could write a 
 poem on the total depravity of the hickory, 
 although as the hickory is fore-ordained to the 
 flames, I don t know what else was to have been 
 expected from it." Uncle Larry knelt by the 
 hearth as he turned a glowing stick between the 
 andirons and lifted two others across it. Then 
 two or three judicious whiffs of the bellows blew 
 them into a blaze. As Laughton saw the success 
 of his skillful efforts, he felt the pride which is 
 the chief characteristic of all fire-makers from 
 the time of Prometheus to the present. " There," 
 he said, " there, Fred ; look at that ! There s a 
 blaze for you ! There s a fiery furnace to roast 
 the blue devils out of you. What do you say to 
 that?"
 
 112 
 
 He rose to his feet and restored the bellows to 
 its pendent place beside the tongs. Not hearing 
 from Fred any response to his queries, he turned 
 to see the cause of his silence. The chair in 
 which Olyphant had been sitting was empty. 
 Suddenly it struck Laughton that as he had 
 dropped a heavy stick of hickory on the and 
 irons, he had heard Fred say, " I ll be back 
 in a minute." He recalled this dimly and 
 doubtfully ; and, at best, it was a vague impression. 
 He wondered why Fred should leave him in the 
 middle of an interesting chat, breaking off 
 abruptly their discussion of the reason of things. 
 It was not like Fred to do that. He made 
 sure that the painter had joined the men in 
 the dining-room. Perhaps Fred had felt a 
 recurrence of his oppression, and had gone into 
 the dining-room for a glass of water or a 
 drop of a more stimulating beverage. There 
 was no reason why Laughton should follow 
 Olyphant about from room to room, although he 
 confessed to himself a secret uneasiness, due in 
 part to Fred s morbid despondency, and still 
 more to his physical oppression. Laughton 
 feared that the artist had overworked himself, 
 and that he had over-worried about his work. 
 Fred was a sturdy fellow, and he was in excellent 
 condition, but there is a strain which will crush 
 the strongest and the soundest. 
 
 Uncle Larry had been standing with his back
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 to the fire as he made these reflections. Almost 
 involuntarily he walked to the wide doorway 
 which connected the library and the dining-room. 
 There the little group of talkers still clustered 
 about one end of the dining-room ; and from 
 jEstheticism and politeness the discussion had 
 drifted to temperance. 
 
 " I don t take any stock in the Blue Ribbon 
 crowd," Charley Sutton was saying. " They 
 think drink is at the bottom of all the deviltry in 
 the world. Now, that, if you will excuse the poor 
 oun, is an argument /w/ hock ergo propter hock? 
 
 " Let him die a lingering death," cried the 
 horror-stricken Rudolph Vernon. " Hale him 
 away to the deepest dungeon neath the castle 
 moat. Two deaths were not punishment enough 
 for one pun." 
 
 " Have you such a thing as a dungeon in the 
 house, Uncle Larry ? " Eliphalet Duncan queried, 
 as he looked up and saw his host standing 
 beside him. 
 
 " Where is Fred ? " Laughton asked, too 
 pre-occupied to hear or to heed the question put 
 to him. 
 
 " He hasn t been in here since dinner," 
 answered Duncan. " I thought he was in the 
 library talking to you." 
 
 " So he was until a few minutes ago. Then 
 he slipped out, and I supposed he might have 
 come in here, or at least passed through." 
 8
 
 1 1 4 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 " Of course," replied Duncan, " he might have 
 been seen in here, but we haven t seen him at all ; 
 and he could not have passed through the room 
 because I closed the door into the hall just after 
 dinner on account of the draught, and it has not 
 been opened since." 
 
 Laughton saw that the little group was 
 gathered at the end of the dinner table, very near 
 the door into the hall, and they were so seated 
 that even had the door been open no one could 
 have passed them to go out without disturbing 
 the whole party. He knew, too, that the door, 
 which was a sliding one, was a little out of repair, 
 and moved slowly and with a harsh noise. He 
 felt sure, therefore, that Fred had not gone out 
 through the dining-room. He remained a few 
 minutes in humorous chat. Then he began to 
 wonder why Fred did not return, if he really 
 had said, " I ll be back in a minute." As soon 
 as he could break loose from the jolly circle in 
 the dining-room Laughton walked through the 
 library into the parlor, expecting to see Fred 
 among those gathered about the piano. 
 
 But Olyphant was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 As Laughton entered the room, Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley was singing the last stanza of a 
 ballad of Heine s. When the music ceased, 
 Uncle Larry asked Robert White, who was lean 
 ing against the door into the hall, " Where is 
 Fred?"
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 " I don t know," answered Poor Bob White, 
 facetiously ; " I haven t got him concealed about 
 my person. You may search me, if you like, 
 and I will submit to the indignity." 
 
 " How long is it since he went out ? " was 
 Laughton s next question. 
 
 " Has he gone out?" returned White, seriously, 
 seeing, by Laughton s look, that jocularity was 
 misplaced at that moment. 
 
 " Why, didn t he pass through here to go out 
 into the hall a few minutes ago ? " asked Uncle 
 Larry, with great surprise. 
 
 " No," answered White. " Nobody has gone 
 through this door, since we began to have a little 
 music, for I have been leaning against it all the 
 time. And beside, Fred hasn t even been in 
 here since dinner." 
 
 Then where had he gone ? And how had he 
 left the library ? 
 
 Laurence Laughton opened the door against 
 which White had been leaning, and called loudly, 
 " Fred ! Fred ! " Then after a pause he called 
 again, " Fred ! " 
 
 But there was no answer to his cry.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 R. HOBSON-CHOLMONDELEY noted 
 the expression of puzzled surprise on Lau 
 rence Laughton s face, as he closed the door 
 into the hall. " Qi Jcst-cc qiiil y a ? " he asked, 
 at once. " Has anything happened ? " 
 
 " Well, I don t know," answered Uncle Larry ; 
 " perhaps, and again, perhaps not. But the fact 
 is that Olyphant has disappeared." 
 
 " Why shouldn t he ? " W T hite demanded. 
 " This is a free country, and the constitution 
 guarantees to every man the right to disappear 
 whenever he likes." 
 
 " Is there anything strange in Olyphant s 
 going away, that you seem so put out, Uncle 
 Larry," asked Mr. J. Warren Payn, turning about 
 on the piano-stool. 
 
 " There is nothing so strange in his leaving 
 us," replied Larry, doubtfully ; " I half expected 
 him to go early, as he was not feeling well." 
 
 " Well, then," began White. 
 
 " But what is strange," continued Laughton, 
 116
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE njr 
 
 " is the method of his going. In fact, I don t see 
 how he got out at all ! " 
 
 " I suppose he walked out," White suggested, 
 "just as we all walked in, through the door." 
 
 " But the doors were closed," said Larry, with 
 a little impatience. 
 
 " This door was closed," White admitted ; " I 
 can bear witness to the fact that he did not go 
 out through this room, but there s a door from 
 the dining-room into the hall, isn t there ? " 
 
 " That door was shut too," returned Larry, 
 " and Sutton and Duncan were sitting so close 
 to it that nobody could get by." 
 
 " I am ready to take my Alfred-David that 
 he did not make his exit by this door," repeated 
 White. 
 
 " So am I," declared Mr. J. Warren Payn. 
 
 " Moi aussi," Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley 
 added. 
 
 " Let s take a look at the other door," White 
 suggested, and the rest of the party followed 
 him through the library into the dining-room. 
 
 As they entered, Charley Sutton looked up 
 and asked. 
 
 " What was Fred doing in the other room, 
 Uncle Larry ? " 
 
 " Well, I don t know," answered Uncle Larry ; 
 " because he wasn t there at all." 
 
 " If he wasn t there, where was he ? " returned 
 the young Californian.
 
 1 1 8 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 " That s just what we are trying to find out," 
 rejoined White. " Have you and Duncan been 
 sitting just as you arc for long ? " 
 
 " We have been here nearly an hour, I take it," 
 Duncan answered. 
 
 " Without moving ? " 
 
 " Without a move," said Sutton. 
 
 " And Fred didn t go out through that door ? " 
 
 " Of course, he did not," replied Duncan. 
 
 " Who said he did ? " Charley Sutton added. 
 
 " You see, it is exactly as I told you," said 
 Uncle Larry. 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley gazed about the 
 dining-room in wonder, and remarked, " It is 
 most extraordinary, most extraordinary, indeed." 
 
 " You do not mean to suggest that Fred has 
 vanished ? " asked Rudolph Vernon " gone and 
 left no sign ? " 
 
 " That is exactly what he has done," Uncle 
 Larry explained. "He was talking with me here 
 in the library. Then I leant forward to rearrange 
 the fire. When I sat down again, Fred was gone. 
 I have an indistinct impression that while I was 
 attending to the hickory I heard him say, I ll be 
 back in a minute ! but I cannot be sure about 
 this ; I was not paying attention to him just then, 
 and I recall his words, if they were his words, 
 only in the vaguest way. When he did not return, 
 I came for him here in the dining-room ; but he 
 was not here, and you said he had not been here."
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. ng 
 
 " Not since dinner," Vernon declared. 
 
 " Then I went into the parlor," continued Uncle 
 Larry, " and he had not been there, either. And 
 if he has not left these rooms through the parlor- 
 door or the dining-room door, how has he left 
 them ? That s what I want to know." 
 
 " He hasn t taken French leave, you know 
 thawed and resolved himself into adieu, has he?" 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley ventured to inquire; 
 but most of those present took a serious interest 
 in Olyphant s disappearance, and therefore ignored 
 the little Englishman s little joke. 
 
 Robert White had been standing on the rug 
 before the fire in the library, the spot on which 
 Fred Olyphant had last been seen. He was 
 considering carefully the means of exit from the 
 three rooms : " If he had opened the windows 
 in either the parlor or the dining-room, we 
 should have seen him, and heard him, and felt 
 the draught. And I know he did not cross the 
 parlor to go to the window." 
 
 " And I am as sure that he did not cross the 
 dining-room to go to the window," declared 
 Rudolph Vernon. 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley took his stand 
 on the rug by the side of White ; he was 
 rubbing his hands together gently, and he wore 
 a puzzled smile as he strenuously applied his 
 logical faculty to the solution of the problem. 
 " I suppose there isn t a door going into the
 
 120 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 hall from this library, now?" he queried, insinu 
 atingly. 
 
 " But there is!" answered White ; "of course, 
 there is ; and it is concealed behind that curtain 
 there, across the opening in the bookcase 
 opposite us." 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, 
 " that you need bother about that little door, 
 because it is locked, and the key is up stairs in 
 my room." 
 
 " Let s see, if it is locked now," suggested 
 White, who was a true journalist, and who 
 therefore had a full share of the detective 
 faculty. 
 
 He crossed the library, and lifting the light 
 curtain which masked the passage through the 
 bookcase, he tried to open the door into the hall. 
 It was locked. 
 
 Perhaps a diagram of the first floor of Lau 
 rence Laughton s house showing the arrangement 
 of the parlor, library and dining-room, will make 
 the peculiar conditions of the puzzle which the 
 members of The Full Score were trying to solve 
 a little clearer to the reader. 
 
 "This door is locked now," said White; "but 
 was it locked a little while ago ? " 
 
 "Is it locked now?" echoed Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley. 
 
 " It is always kept locked," Uncle Larry 
 answered.
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 121 
 
 " Hasn t it been open at all ? " persisted the 
 journalist. 
 
 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 w 
 
 PARLOR 
 
 P LIBRARY D 
 
 n 
 
 B.C. 
 
 D" 
 VESTIBULE 
 
 HALL 
 
 D 
 
 DINING ROOM 
 
 w 
 
 w 
 
 vs 
 
 W_\Vindows. F Fire-places. P Piano. S Sideboard. T Tables. 
 
 D Doors. D Little door in bookcase of Library hidden behind 
 
 curtain. B-C Bookcases. D" Street door. 
 
 " Of course," said Eliphalet Duncan, " it must 
 have been open some time or other."
 
 ! 2 2 THE LA S T MEE TING. 
 
 " It was unlocked early in the week," the host 
 declared, " when the faithful Bridget had this 
 floor cleaned. I found the door open, and told 
 Bridget to lock it up and to leave the key in my 
 bureau, where I always keep it. As the door is 
 locked now, I do not doubt that the key is in 
 my room." 
 
 " Voulez-vous que je vous dise?" Mr. Hob- 
 son-Cholmondeley remarked in his deep voice ; 
 " I believe Mr. Olyphant went out through this 
 little door." 
 
 "But it is locked," retorted Charley Sutton; 
 " you don t think Fred went out through the 
 key-hole, do you ? " 
 
 " I don t know how he went out, or why he 
 went out," persisted the Englishman, " but 
 directly I saw that little door, I made sure that 
 he went out that way." 
 
 " But I have the key which locked it I ll 
 bring it down," said Uncle Larry, and he opened 
 the door from the parlor into the hall. A sud 
 den exclamation from him brought the others 
 rapidly after him. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Charley Sutton. 
 
 " Have you a clue ? " White queried. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, 
 " but Fred s hat is gone." 
 
 " There s his coat," remarked Rudolph Ver- 
 non. 
 
 "I see his coat," replied Uncle Larry, " but
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 123 
 
 his hat has gone. It is an odd-looking head 
 piece that no one but Fred would dare to wear, 
 and it is not here. He always hung it on one 
 special hook and this is the hook and there is 
 nothing on it." 
 
 " If he took his hat?" asked Vernon, thought 
 fully, " why shouldn t he take his coat too ? " 
 
 Robert White said nothing. He went straight 
 to the door in the hall leading into the library, 
 and tried it from the outside. Beyond all doubt 
 it was locked, and the key had been taken out. 
 
 " That isn t half as puzzling as to guess how 
 he got out of the library," responded Charley 
 Sutton. " We know he didn t go through the 
 dining-room; Rudolph here says he didn t 
 pass through the parlor ; and the only door in 
 the library is locked. Now, how the devil did 
 he get out? It beats the King s puzzle with 
 the apple-dumplings." 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, with tha pugna 
 cious self-assertion of a little man, said: "He 
 came through that door in the book-case. I ll 
 lay you odds he did ! " 
 
 " Then," returned Uncle Larry, coming down 
 stairs again with the key in his hand, " then he 
 must have gone up through the chimney to get 
 the key, for I found it where I said it was, in 
 the top drawer of my bureau." 
 
 " Perhaps he had a key of his own, you 
 know," suggested Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley
 
 124 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 mildly, slightly staggered by the evidence of the 
 key, and yet clinging to his theory with the 
 utmost pertinacity. 
 
 Charley Sutton laughed. " Do you take Fred 
 Olyphant for a burglar," he asked, " coming here 
 to Uncle Larry s with a bunch of false keys in 
 his pocket? " 
 
 " He came out through that little door," Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley declared again, as calmly 
 and firmly as a British square would receive a 
 charge of French cavalry. " C est mon dernier 
 mot." 
 
 " There s no use trying to convert Chum," 
 acknowledged Charley Sutton ; " when he s sot, 
 he s sot, and there s an end." 
 
 " With some men," Mr. Rudolph Vernon 
 remarked, judicially, " argument is like a ham 
 mer : it only drives in their false opinions more 
 firmly." 
 
 " Let me see the key, Uncle Larry," asked 
 White, and Laughton handed it to him. He 
 examined it carefully ; but it told no secrets, if it 
 had any to tell. He put it in the lock, and it 
 turned easily and the door opened. From the 
 hall one could not see into the library because 
 of the curtain which hung across the opening 
 in the bookcase. Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley 
 went back into the library through the parlor, 
 and lifting up the curtain of this little door, he 
 passed out into the hall. " Voila" he said,
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 125 
 
 " he left the library by this door. Ce riest pas 
 plus difficile que fa/" 
 
 " But the door was locked ! " Charley Sutton 
 cried. " Do you think Fred was an Esoteric 
 Buddhist, and that he dematerialized himself 
 and went plumb through the black-walnut 
 panels of the door ? " 
 
 " The door may not have been locked," Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley reiterated, " or he may 
 have had a key, I m sure I don t know. But I 
 feel it in my bones, you know, that he passed 
 through that door, just like I did a minute 
 ago." 
 
 Here White surprised the company by appear 
 ing in the doorway on his hands and knees, 
 bearing a candle and examining the carpet. 
 
 " Trying to pick up the trail ? " asked Charley 
 Sutton, sarcastically. 
 
 " Exactly so," answered White, rising to his 
 feet ; " I thought I might find a clue but there 
 is nothing." He set down the candle and stood 
 for a moment in thought. Then he looked care 
 fully up and down the hall and along the stair 
 case. Suddenly his face brightened, and he took 
 three quick strides, which brought him to the 
 door of the vestibule. 
 
 " Got it ? " asked Charley Sutton. 
 
 " Perhaps," was the answer. " Just look 
 here!" 
 
 The members of The Full Score crowded
 
 I2 6 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 around the journalist as he stood at the end of 
 the hall. 
 
 " This inside door is not shut tight," he said. 
 
 "That s so," Charley Sutton cried; " it s ajar, 
 a good half inch, too ! " 
 
 " What does that prove ? " Vernon inquired. 
 
 " It proves nothing," answered White, " but it 
 fits into a theory of mine." 
 
 " Out with your theory ! " 
 
 " It is slight and incomplete, but you shall 
 have it for what it is worth. Fred was not feel 
 ing well, so Uncle Larry told us " 
 
 " He complained of an oppression in the head," 
 explained Laughton, who had been listening 
 silently and sadly to the queries and conjectures 
 of his guests. An expression in his face 
 seemed to indicate that he took the matter to 
 heart more than the others, and that he thought 
 it more serious. 
 
 " He had an oppression in the head," \Vhite 
 continued, " and he felt the need of fresh air, 
 which might make him feel better. While Uncle 
 Larry was making the fire, he slipped out into 
 the hall" 
 
 " But how? " asked Vernon. 
 
 " How did he get out ? " cried Charley Sutton. 
 
 " Through the little door in the library," Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley repeated, deliberately. 
 
 " There I am puzzled," White went on ; " I do 
 not know how he got out of the library. I can-
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 127 
 
 not even guess But that he did get out some 
 how is certain, for he was in the library and he 
 is there no longer. Once out here in the hall, 
 he took his hat." 
 
 " Are you sure it was there at all ? " asked 
 Duncan. 
 
 " Yes," responded White, " for I remember 
 seeing it on its customary hook as I came in. 
 He felt an oppression, he needed air, he took 
 his hat and he stepped to the front door. As he 
 did not intend to go home, but only to stand on 
 the steps for a minute or two, he did not put on 
 his overcoat, and he left the inner door ajar that 
 he might come back without ringing." 
 
 " Then he may be on the steps now," Vernon 
 suggested. 
 
 " Of course he may be, but I doubt it," White 
 responded, opening the inner door and passing 
 into the vestibule He tried to pry open the 
 street-door, without touching the knob, to see if 
 that also had been left ajar. But it was firmly 
 closed. Having made sure of this, the journalist 
 opened the door and stepped out upon the stoop. 
 There was no one there. The chilly azure radiance 
 of the electric light illumined the deserted avenue. 
 Scarcely any one was in sight except a policeman, 
 leisurely walking down on the opposite side, swing 
 ing his club jauntily, and closing the area-gates. 
 
 " He isn t here," said Charley Sutton, following 
 White out on the stoop.
 
 ! 2 8 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 " No ! " answered the journalist, gravely, " and 
 I hardly expected to find him here." 
 
 " Why not? " asked the Californian. " Don t 
 you take stock in your own theory? " 
 
 " My theory only accounted for his going to 
 the door; it did not pretend to explain the reason 
 that he did not return." 
 
 " Perhaps he changed his mind and went 
 home." 
 
 " Perhaps." This was said doubtfully. 
 
 " You don t think so ? " 
 
 " No," replied White, " I do not Fred would 
 not have gone without his overcoat ; he was too 
 old a campaigner to run risks; he had had 
 too many real hardships to invent new ones, 
 and it would be a hardship to go without an 
 overcoat on a night as cold as this, and after so 
 sudden a fall of temperature. And, more than 
 that, Fred would not have left us without a 
 word. That is not like him." 
 
 " Then what do you think ? " asked Rudolph 
 Vernon, who had joined them on the stoop. 
 
 " I do not like to think at all." 
 
 "Are you afraid some harm has come to 
 Fred ? " inquired Charley Sutton. 
 
 " Why else should he not have come back ? " 
 returned White. 
 
 " After all," retorted Charley, " we are not 
 sure that he came out ; that s only your theory." 
 
 " That s all," admitted White.
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 I2 9 
 
 " And even if he did come out here," con 
 tinued the Californian, " he may have gone 
 home." 
 
 " True," admitted White again; " he may have 
 done so. But, " and he paused in doubt 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " But I do not think so." 
 
 " Then what can have happened ? " 
 
 " I don t know." 
 
 Nothing was said for a few moments. Then 
 Rudolph Vernon, who had stepped to the outer 
 edge of the stoop, waved his hand to the heavens 
 and said, " See the majestic sadness of the solemn 
 night; is it not superb ? I never stand out in the 
 nocturnal silence that I do not declare my pre 
 ference for the Argus eyes of night above the 
 Cyclops eye of day." The poet paused, evidently 
 pleased with his conceit. " Look there ! " he said, 
 sharply ; and as he pointed they all turned to 
 look up the avenue. High above the horizon, 
 higher than when Fred looked up at it that after 
 noon as he went to see Winifred Marshall, there 
 shone a brilliant star. As the poet spoke, the 
 star blazed up for a second, and then slid sud 
 denly downward across the heavens and out of 
 sight. 
 
 They went in silently and closed the door. 
 
 They found that Uncle Larry and Mr. Hob- 
 
 son-Cholmondeley, with two or three others, were 
 
 engaged in a thorough search of the building. It 
 
 9
 
 130 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 was a total puzzle how Fred had got out of the 
 three rooms on the first floor, but as he was not 
 in any one of these three rooms, it was advisable 
 to ascertain whether or not he had left the house. 
 The remaining members of The Full Score were 
 in the library, and as White, Sutton and Vernon 
 joined them, they were debating the circum 
 stances of Fred s strange disappearance. The 
 ghastly faces of the silent row of death-masks 
 looked down upon them as though listening 
 intently. 
 
 " Did you notice how uncomfortable Fred was 
 when he saw we were only thirteen," asked Mr. 
 J. Warren Payn. 
 
 " Who would have expected him to be super 
 stitious ? " Vernon inquired. 
 
 " But he was very superstitious," responded 
 Charley Sutton ; " he hated Friday. He told me 
 once that it was his unlucky day, and that when 
 ever anything wrong happened to him, it was 
 sure to be on a Friday." 
 
 "Well, to-day is Friday, isn t it?" Mr. J. 
 Warren Payn suggested. 
 
 " So it is ! " cried Sutton. 
 
 " Strange, indeed ! " murmured Vernon. 
 
 "It was odd, wasn t it," continued Sutton, 
 " what he said about that fellow out in the East 
 who hated him so ; he said that if he were to die 
 to-night mysteriously, his death would be the 
 work of that man."
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 131 
 
 " Do you remember the man s name? " asked 
 Vernon. 
 
 " Of course I do," replied Sutton ; " I ve heard 
 Fred speak of him before. Harry Brackett and 
 I got part of the story out of him one day last 
 summer. His name was " 
 
 A sharp ring of the front door bell, always 
 audible in the library, put a stop to the discus 
 sion. Laurence Laughton and those who had 
 been aiding him in a fruitless search of the house 
 were coming down the stairs as the bell rang. 
 Laughton went to the door himself. There was 
 a moment of strained attention. Then the cheery 
 voice of Harry Brackett was heard : 
 
 " Hello, Uncle Larry, how are you ? I was 
 afraid the boys would all be gone before I could 
 turn up. I ve had a terrible job to get interviews 
 out of all those polyglot tramps who have come 
 over here to sing at the Academy. I say, it s 
 cold to-night, isn t it ? There is an eager and 
 a nipping wind, and I ll take a little nip myself." 
 
 " The feast is over, and the faithful Bridget has 
 gone to-bed," said Uncle Larry, trying to be 
 cheerful, despite an obstinate sinking of the 
 heart, " but I think we can give you a bite and 
 a sup." 
 
 Harry Brackett took a seat before the fire in 
 the dining-room, and began an attack on the 
 remains of the dinner. " I m as hungry as a 
 hunter," he said, not noting the constrained atti-
 
 132 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 tude of his friends, " and as cold as a scientific 
 sermon. And I have been working like a horse 
 all the afternoon. The City of Constantinople, 
 with the whole operatic company on board, was 
 in dock at noon, and yet I have only just fin 
 ished my story and sent it down. I had the 
 devil s own luck. First off, the manager took 
 me for a new deputy-sheriff, and it was three 
 hours before I could get at him, and I got only 
 a stickful when I did get it no news, either ; 
 of course, he promises lots of novelties, but he 
 let it leak out that he meant to rely on the 
 regular fly-blown operas we are all dead tired 
 of. Next I went for the new tenor, and I ve 
 given him a notice from Noticeville, just out of 
 charity, because he s the ugliest man in the 
 English language. His mouth and his ears are 
 three sizes larger than current styles. But here 
 I am, talking a straight streak." 
 
 " Go on," urged Charley Sutton; " don t mind 
 my feelings ; keep right on." 
 
 " I do talk, and that s a fact," admitted Harry 
 Brackett, helping himself to a particularly 
 appetizing pear. " I believe I could converse 
 the kick out of a mule. A man has to be handy 
 with his tongue when he gets into the Apollo 
 House. There s a queer den for you, all sorts 
 and conditions of men, women and children, 
 mostly show-folks. There s a German tragedian 
 and a French opera-bouffe troupe, and a Russian
 
 A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. 
 
 133 
 
 violinist, and an Italian fakir, and but, I say, 
 I m doing all the talking." 
 
 " Of course," said Eliphalet Duncan. 
 
 " And you fellows stand round and say noth 
 ing," continued Harry Brackett, "just as though 
 something had happened." 
 
 " Something has happened," White answered. 
 
 " I thought so," Brackett declared ; " you all 
 look as serious as a conference." 
 
 "Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, "that 
 it s exactly serious. But Fred Olyphant is missing. 
 He was here a few minutes ago, and now he is 
 gone, and we are all greatly puzzled about it." 
 
 " You don t think anything has happened to 
 him, do you ? " asked Brackett, with interest. 
 
 " Of course," answered Eliphalet Duncan, " we 
 have no reason to think that. But we do not 
 know where he is." 
 
 " And we don t know how he got out of the 
 library," added Sutton. 
 
 " We have called him, and he has not 
 answered," Vernon said ; " we have sought, and 
 we have not found." 
 
 " That is quite queer, isn t it ?" Harry Brackett 
 replied ; " and do you think " Then he stopped 
 abruptly, as a new idea seemed to strike him. 
 " Oh, I say, did Fred ever tell any of you fellows 
 about a bad man with a black heart he met out 
 East somewhere, a sort of a Corsican Greek 
 with a villainous name ? "
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " Do you mean Constantine Vollonides ?" 
 asked Laughton. 
 
 " Yes, that s the man. Well, he s here ! " 
 replied Harry Brackett. 
 
 " Here ? " cried Charley Sutton. 
 
 " Yes, here, in New York. I suppose he 
 arrived on the City of Constantinople. At all 
 events, he s at the Apollo House. I saw the 
 name on the register not an hour ago." 
 
 A sudden silence fell upon the little group 
 gathered about the table in the dining-room. 
 Laughton looked up and caught White s eyes 
 fixed on him with an inquiring look. 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley was the first to 
 speak. " Tiens, tiens ! " he said ; " it is certainly 
 a very strange coincidence."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 A FTER The Full Score had departed at last, 
 !JL Laurence Laughton passed a restless night ; 
 his mind was ill at ease and he was in love. It 
 was not until just before dawn that he fell into a 
 heavy and unrefreshing slumber; and it was 
 almost noon when he was able to rouse himself 
 and to rise. The faithful Bridget brought him 
 his coffee and a note from Robert White. His 
 tangled little terrier, Bundle o Rags, sat on the 
 chair opposite, watching him with the sharp eyes 
 of canine affection, while he sipped his coffee 
 and read the note. White wrote that on leaving 
 Uncle Larry s house the night before, he had 
 gone straight to Olyphant s studio, where he 
 had roused the negro attendant, only to learn 
 that the artist had not been home since the after 
 noon ; he had called there again in the morning 
 as he went down town, and he had received the 
 same answer Olyphant had not returned to his 
 studio since he left it to go to Mrs. Button s tea. 
 W 7 hite suggested that if Uncle Larry would join 
 him, it might be well to go to the artist s 
 
 135
 
 136 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 quarters that afternoon, and to interrogate the 
 sable servitor more elaborately, and to see if they 
 might not discover some sort of a clue to the 
 mysterious disappearance of the night before. 
 
 Laughton wondered why it was that the read 
 ing of this note deepened the gloom which en 
 compassed him about. He was depressed 
 beyond expression. It was only with an effort 
 that he was able to rouse himself to the perform 
 ance of the routine work which demanded imme 
 diate attention. His mind kept flying away from 
 the matter in hand ; again and again he caught 
 himself holding his pen in the air and gazing 
 vacantly into space. Bundle o Rags seemed to 
 divine his need of sympathy. He followed all 
 his master s movements with an inquiring eye 
 and a tender solicitude to anticipate his slightest 
 wish. Once as Larry had lost himself in an 
 indeterminate day dream, he was brought back 
 to consciousness by the insertion of the mop- 
 like head of Bundle o Rags into the left hand, 
 which he had allowed to hang pendent by the 
 side of the chair. The little dog thrust his head 
 into his master s hand as though to recall his 
 presence, and to remind him of the warm sympa 
 thy which a good dog always feels for his master. 
 Larry patted the head of his devoted pet. " Good 
 dog," he said, gently, " good dog ; " and Bundle o 
 Rags wagged his tail with an abundant joy. 
 
 Despite the companionship of the dog and the
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 137 
 
 necessity of imperative work, the day wore away 
 slowly and painfully ; yet it drew to a close at 
 last. For an hour or two before Robert White 
 called for Laurence Laughton to go with him to 
 Olyphant s studio, the avenue before Uncle 
 Larry s door was filled with the serried ranks of 
 a political procession, which rent the air with the 
 shrill music of its brazen band, and with the 
 unanimity of its oft-repeated party cries. It was 
 the Saturday before election, and the business 
 men of the city had turned out in force to show 
 their faith in the candidate of the reform move 
 ment. Merchants and lawyers, tradesmen and 
 mechanics, each grouped under the banner of 
 his guild, marched in their thousands to prove 
 the sincerity of their political faith. Ordinarily 
 a sight like this a spectacle as purely American 
 as one could find any where or any time would 
 have aroused Laughton s keenest interest. But 
 even the old war-tunes, as band after band blared 
 them forth, failed for once to stir his blood. He 
 was glad when a sharp ring of his door-bell told 
 him that Robert White had come. 
 
 They shook hands in the hall. 
 
 " This is a good show," said the journalist, nod 
 ding his head toward the avenue, up which a brass 
 band of unusual discordance was now proceeding. 
 " We shall put our man in with a rush on Tuesday." 
 
 "Well, I don t know," Uncle Larry responded, 
 doubtfully, with his thoughts in the air.
 
 138 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " I do," replied the journalist. " Never pro 
 phesy unless you know, is a good motto, but I 
 can almost say I do know now. This procession 
 will send us up the river with a rousing majority, 
 and the State is safe." 
 
 With no little difficulty Laughton and White 
 forced their way gently through the crowds 
 which lined the side-walks, and which warmed 
 up with the enthusiasm of the paraders and sent 
 back answering cheers. In a few minutes the 
 two men reached Fourteenth Street, and crossing 
 the procession they continued down Fifth 
 Avenue, almost as bare and deserted below as 
 above it had been crowded and excited. The 
 day was dull and drear; and there was a chill 
 wind which smote them with double force, now 
 that they were no longer protected by the throng 
 of the procession and of its spectators. 
 
 Laughton and White walked along silently. 
 The journalist had a fancy for the solution of 
 puzzles, and more than once, as a volunteer, he 
 had cleared up mysteries which baffled the less 
 intelligent detectives of the regular police. In 
 the present instance he felt himself at sea, with 
 no firm ground under his feet. How Olyphant 
 could have got out of Laughton s library, and 
 why he should go and make no sign these were 
 the problems which White was turning over and 
 over. The journalist did not know how much 
 weight to attach to the presence in New York,
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 139 
 
 of the one deadly enemy Fred had. As yet he 
 could not see how Constantine Vollonides could 
 have had any hand in the artist s disappearance. 
 
 While White applied himself to these problems, 
 with a resolute desire to solve them, he had not 
 the strong personal interest in the solution 
 which Laurence Laughton had : and he was 
 able to consider them in a more favorable frame 
 of mind. Laughton was conscious of a numb 
 ing of his faculties as he strove to concentrate 
 them ; he was weighed down by an inexplicable 
 dread. The melancholy of autumn had seized 
 him, and it intensified his own dreary doubt. 
 The reddening leaves were blown from the scant 
 trees, and fell about his feet. At the corner of 
 Eleventh Street, there was a misanthropic engine 
 of torture, of the kind known as piano-organs, 
 from which a sturdy Italian was slowly grinding 
 forth the lugubrious strains of a ballad of 
 temporary popularity, beseeching the hearer to 
 wait till the clouds roll by. The trembling notes 
 of this pitiful song emphasized Laughton s unac 
 countable misery. Even the sudden, sharp clang 
 of a fire-engine, which rushed down the avenue, 
 drawn by eager horses, urged to their utmost 
 speed, even this, which stirs the blood of the 
 true New Yorker upon his death-bed, failed for 
 once to rouse Laughton from his lethargic misery. 
 
 At Tenth Street, they turned and walked 
 toward Sixth Avenue. When they had arrived
 
 J4Q THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 almost opposite the old Studio Building, which 
 has harbored three generations of the painters 
 and sculptors of New York, and just before they 
 caught sight of the tall red bell-tower of the 
 Jefferson-Market Court-house, the most pictur 
 esque public building of the city, they stayed 
 their feet in front of a row of dingy little houses, 
 two-stories high, and built of dull and faded 
 brick. Under the high stoop of one of these 
 desolate and most prosaic habitations, and lurk 
 ing half out of sight, as though it were ashamed 
 of itself, there was a low door. Going down two 
 or three steps, Robert White rang the bell by 
 the side of this unobtrusive entrance. In the 
 distance the bell was heard to jangle harshly. 
 White and Laughton stood on the low door-step 
 for a minute or more, before there were any 
 sounds of an answer to their appeal. Then a 
 shuffling along the passage-way announced the 
 approach of the venerable Andrew Jackson. A 
 bolt was drawn, a key turned in a lock, and 
 the door opened, revealing a long low passage 
 under the house to a yard in the rear. Holding 
 the door ajar was Andrew Jackson, a tall thin 
 negro, with a full head of curly white hair ; he 
 had a most benevolent expression, and he spoke 
 with an elaborate precision. 
 
 " Is that you, Mr. Laughton? Excuse me, sir, 
 for not having been quicker to open the door, but 
 I have my neuralgy to-day, and I am threatened
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 1^1 
 
 with pneumony, and I cannot get about as spry 
 as I would like to. Walk in, sir. And this is 
 Mr. White ; walk in, sir ; walk right in." And 
 Andrew Jackson held the door open before them, 
 waving them in with the most graceful gestures. 
 
 " Is Mr. Olyphant at home ? " asked White. 
 
 " Not yet, sir," answered the old negro ; " not 
 yet. But he will be long bimeby, he will be long ; 
 step in out of the cold, gentlemen." And mak 
 ing way for them, with a polite bow, he hastened 
 to close the door, and to shut out the chill wind 
 which was pouring along the damp passage. 
 Andrew Jackson was as straight as an arrow, and as 
 handsome as only an old negro of the better sort 
 can be. He was very exact in his use of the Eng 
 lish language, and the few elisions he still permitted 
 himself seemed as though they were survivals of 
 an earlier and ungrammatical stage of culture. 
 
 " Mr. Olyphant hasn t been home since yes 
 terday afternoon?" queried White. 
 
 " That is what I told you last night, sir, when 
 you called me from my bed," replied the 
 darkey, with dignity, and without any tone of 
 reproach in his voice. " And that is what I told 
 you this morning again, Mr. White. Mr. Fred 
 erick went out yesterday afternoon, and he has 
 not yet returned. Will you walk up to the 
 studio, gentlemen, and wait for him ? " 
 
 White and Laughton exchanged affirmative 
 glances.
 
 142 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 "There is a fire in the studio, gentlemen," 
 urged the courtly negro, shivering in the chill air 
 of the passage. 
 
 " Lead on, I ll follow thee," White declared. 
 
 Andrew Jackson conducted them through the 
 passage into the small yard in the rear of the 
 house. Holding his body erect, he shuffled 
 across this yard, which was only a few paces 
 square, to a small oddly-shaped building which 
 filled the end of the lot. This building looked 
 as though it had recently been repaired and 
 repainted after many years of neglect and decay ; 
 and such was the fact. A few months before, 
 Olyphant, in his search for a studio, happened 
 upon this tumble-down old house on the rear of 
 a lot. The situation was exactly what he wished, 
 the rent was modest, and the owner offered to 
 pay for the repairs. The walls were solid enough, 
 and the roof could be made tight. There was 
 something bizarre about the building which 
 fascinated Fred, and he had taken possession of 
 it with great pleasure. The house was tiny; the 
 basement held a kitchen ; the ground-floor served 
 as a sitting-room and a dining-room ; on the 
 floor above were two little bed rooms, one for 
 the artist and one for Andrew Jackson, who was 
 his man-of-all work, cook, and chambermaid, 
 messenger and model at need. The attic floor, 
 under a quaint gable roof, Olyphant took for 
 his studio ; he removed all the partitions, he put
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 143 
 
 in enormous skylights, he enlarged the fireplaces, 
 he had had the walls and the roof made water 
 proof and wind-tight; and here he worked, 
 shut off from all extraneous distractions, as 
 though he were at the top of a high tower, with 
 Andrew Jackson as a jealous sentinel on guard 
 at the foot of the stair. 
 
 The walls of the room on the ground-floor, 
 contrived a double debt to pay, and to serve both 
 as a dining-room and as a sitting-room, were 
 divided into irregular rectangular panels, most of 
 which contained pictures, studies, and sketches 
 by Olyphant s fellow-painters. Along one side 
 of the room was a series of battle-pieces, reminis 
 cences of Olyphant s Russo-Turkish experience : 
 they were cold and pitiless in their exposure of 
 the irredeemable brutality of war. It was into 
 this room that Andrew Jackson led Laughton 
 and White. 
 
 " There s a fire here too, gentlemen," he said, 
 as he held open the door for them to enter, bow 
 ing low, " and I can make a little punch for 
 you, if you would like it, to keep out the 
 cold?" 
 
 Laughton shook his head and White answered, 
 " No, thank you, Andy, we are neither cold nor 
 thirsty." 
 
 " Mr. Olyphant has some very good whiskey, 
 sir," persisted the negro, persuasively. 
 
 " Tell me, Andy," asked White, suddenly, " is
 
 144 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 this the first time Mr. Olyphant has been out all 
 night ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, sir not the first time at all. He 
 did not come home one night about two weeks 
 ago, sir." 
 
 "Two weeks ago?" intervened Laughton. 
 " About two weeks ago he stayed all night with 
 me ; we were talking till very late, and he took a 
 bed at my house instead of going home." 
 
 " Yes, sir," Andrew Jackson corroborated, 
 "that is what he said when he returned. He 
 informed me that he had spent the night at your 
 residence, sir." 
 
 " And is that the only time ? " continued 
 White. 
 
 " No, sir ; I think not," Andrew Jackson 
 answered, trying to recollect. " In the summer, 
 sir, he was often away from home at night 
 especially over Sunday." 
 
 " I can account for that too," Laughton de 
 clared ; " he used to go to Coney Island for the 
 night. After I got back from Europe we ran 
 down together two or three times to stay over 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Did he notify you when he was going to be 
 away ? " asked White. 
 
 " Sometimes he did, sir, and sometimes he 
 did not. He did pretty much as he happened 
 to feel like," replied Andrew Jackson. " He 
 was not very regular in his comings and
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 145 
 
 goings, sir, and there is many a good dinner I 
 have had to eat here all alone after getting it 
 ready for him. I expect him in soon now, sir, 
 because to-day is Saturday, and Saturday is his 
 reception-day. He receives in his studio the 
 ladies and gentlemen who call. There have 
 been two ladies here already this afternoon." 
 
 " Two ladies ? " asked Laughton, surprised ; 
 " what ladies ? " 
 
 " I really do not know, sir," answered An- 
 drv Jackson. " They were young ladies, sir. 
 One of them was very handsome, sir, with dark 
 hair and dark eyes, and the other was smaller 
 and younger, and she had reddish hair, sir, and 
 it was cut short like a boy s almost but she was 
 quite a lady." 
 
 " That sounds like a description of Pussy 
 Palmer," White suggested, with a smile ; " but 
 who can the other girl be ? " 
 
 With the jealousy of a lover Laughton had 
 made an instant guess at the other. But he 
 said nothing. 
 
 " The handsome young lady called the little 
 one Pussy, sir," confirmed Andrew Jackson. 
 
 " Then it was the Palmer girl ! " White de 
 clared, laughing; " it s just like her." 
 
 " The two ladies came together, sir, about an 
 hour ago. They went up to the studio, and 
 looked about for a few minutes, and then they 
 came down here, sir, and when I asked what
 
 146 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 name I should say called, the taller lady took a 
 rose from a big bunch she had pinned at her 
 waist, and she said to give that to Mr. Olyphant 
 when he came in and he would know who it 
 was. There is the rose, sir." 
 
 A quaint Venetian ewer stood on a little table 
 at the window, and in this there rested a superb 
 yellow rose. To Uncle Larry it seemed 
 strangely like the yellow roses which he had 
 seen fastened to the girdle of Winifred Marshall 
 the afternoon before. But perhaps this was 
 fancy, he said to himself; there is more than one 
 tall, handsome, dark-haired girl in New York, 
 and there are yellow roses in plenty. 
 
 " Shall we go up stairs ? " asked White, and 
 Laughton waked from his day-dream and 
 assented. 
 
 Andrew Jackson, despite the rheumatism which 
 twisted his long legs, preceded them briskly, 
 and yet with dignity, up the little stairs leading 
 to the attic. The studio occupied the whole top 
 of the house, and it was none too large. The 
 stairs came up in one corner unexpectedly and 
 with a certain picturesque abruptness. In the 
 large fire-place which dominated the room, there 
 sparkled and crackled a comfortable fire which had 
 taken the chill from the air. The dull and fading 
 light of a dreary autumn afternoon came in, gray 
 and cold, through the broad sky-lights. Antique 
 cabinets and curious old presses were filled with
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 147 
 
 a heterogeny of costumes ; and other costumes 
 in tumultuous abundance were visible through 
 the half-opened door of a closet. There were 
 three or four tables of varying design and age ; 
 and no two of the chairs were alike ; they 
 were all studio properties bought one at a time, 
 to serve the special purpose of a picture. Against 
 the walls ^ were dozens of huge portfolios filled 
 with photographs and engravings and studies. 
 Two easels held pictures partly finished. On 
 one was the Sharpness of Death, the work 
 to which Olyphant had been giving his best 
 thought for the past few months. On the other 
 was a canvas concealed by a cloth thrown care 
 fully over it. A chair near this was littered with 
 brushes, tubes of paint, bits of charcoal and what 
 not. Around the studio, here and there, against 
 the wall, or leaning upon a table, were canvases 
 of all sizes, bits of color, " effects " seized and 
 set down at the moment, anatomical studies, 
 careful copies from life, side by side with faces 
 which were expression only, as they were almost 
 without features. Nowhere was there anything 
 flashy or facile or meretricious; there was no 
 c/iic to be seen ; there was no me/e reveling in 
 manual cleverness ; there were rather the evi 
 dences of the hard work of an honest workman, 
 toiling as best he knew how to overcome and to 
 conquer a rebel material, and to force the erring 
 hand to do the bidding of the brain.
 
 148 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Upon its side on a settee reclined a lay-figure 
 swathed in Oriental draperies richly embroidered. 
 A dagger was thrust into the figure behind the 
 shoulder, as though its point were meant for the 
 heart. 
 
 Laughton had given himself up to the pathos 
 of the deserted studio, when White touched him 
 and pointed to the murdered lay-figure. 
 
 " That is a startling thing for us to see just 
 now, isn t it?" asked the journalist. 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied Andrew Jackson, before 
 Laughton had roused himself to respond ; " it 
 frightened the young ladies a good deal. The 
 little one with the hair cut short shrieked right 
 out, but the other one went up to it at once." 
 
 " Did the two young ladies come up here ? " 
 Laughton asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir," answered Andrew Jackson. 
 " When Mr. Olyphant is not in, I always show 
 the studio to ladies. They were very much 
 interested, sir, very much." 
 
 " You say one of the young ladies was not 
 frightened at this assassination here ? " White 
 asked ; " I wonder who it was." 
 
 Laughton gave White a sharp glance as though 
 to share in any guess he might make. 
 
 Andrew Jackson straightened a fold in the 
 drapery of the lay-figure, and continued, " No, 
 sir, she was not afraid at all. She came over 
 here to it, and she put her hand on the dagger,
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 149 
 
 so and just then I heard something drop. I 
 thought it sounded like a ring, but the young 
 lady said it was a cat s eye." Here Andrew 
 Jackson smiled a smile of conscious knowledge. 
 " Of course, sir, I knew better than that. I knew 
 that if a cat let her eye fall on the floor it would 
 not make a noise like a gold ring. I thought 
 the young lady wanted to have some fun, per 
 haps ; and so, sir, I said nothing; nothing at 
 all ! " 
 
 " Did she show you the cat s-eye ? " Laughton 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh, no, sir," answered Andrew Jackson, 
 smiling again as sagely as before ; " she did not 
 show it to me. She told the other young lady 
 that she was very glad to have found it." 
 
 Laughton was standing near the easel holding 
 the covered canvas. He stepped forward im 
 patiently and, with an effort, he asked, " What 
 was this young lady like ? " 
 
 White looked at him in surprise. 
 
 Andrew Jackson answered, " I told you, sir, 
 already, she was a very handsome young lady, 
 tall and " Here Andrew Jackson happened to 
 look up, and his eyes fell on the picture 
 on the easel, from which Laughton s 
 impatient movement had shaken the cover. 
 " Why, there, sir," cried the negro, " there s a 
 portrait of the young lady, sir, quite as good as 
 a photograph."
 
 ISO 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 On the canvas from which the curtain had 
 fallen thus opportunely, there were only a few 
 bold, rapid strokes in charcoal, outlining a female 
 head. 
 
 " Why, it is Miss Marshall ! " White cried. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " asked Laughton, facing 
 him, sternly. 
 
 " Yes," answered White, gazing at the portrait 
 again, " or, at any rate, it is strangely like her. 
 That head alone," he continued, enthusiastically, 
 " would be enough to prove the genius of 
 Frederick Olyphant. See how he has seen into 
 the girl s soul, and how he has set down the 
 spiritual essence of her character in a few touches 
 of black-and-white. It is marvelous." 
 
 Laurence Laughton looked at the picture 
 intently. It was Winifred Marshall beyond a 
 doubt Winifred Marshall without the veil of 
 haunting melancholy which was wont to shroud 
 her face ; Winifred Marshall with the light of 
 love in her eyes. Sick at heart, Laughton lifted 
 the cloth and covered the canvas again with 
 care. Then he said, "Let s be going ; we have 
 discovered nothing as yet." 
 
 As they passed down stairs and out into the 
 yard, White sighed and said : " Well, I confess 
 I am disappointed. I had hoped that we might 
 find some clue to Fred s fate." 
 
 " What, sir," asked Andrew Jackson, seizing 
 White s arm in his right hand and talking with
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. x 5 x 
 
 great excitement, " you didn t think nothing 
 has happen to Mas r Frederick, do you, sah ? " 
 
 " We do not know," White answered, gently. 
 " We are trying to find out what has become of 
 him." 
 
 " Then he ain t a-comin back bimeby ? An 
 that s why you ve been askin questions? Poor 
 Mas r Frederick ! Poor Mas r Frederick " And 
 the faithful servant had to make an effort to keep 
 back the sobs that rose to his throat. 
 
 " Do you know anybody who has a grudge 
 against Mr. Olyphant ? " White inquired, when 
 they stood once more in the street. 
 
 " No, sah ; Mas r Frederick never hurted no 
 one, sah ; I know that, sah," answered the poor 
 negro, with all his precision of speech and all 
 his pride of manner gone from him. " And 
 there ain t no suspicious characters been about 
 here, neither. I don t believe Mas r Frederick 
 ever laid eyes on a Voodoo woman." 
 
 White could not keep back a smile, but to 
 hide it from the devoted negro, he said, " So there 
 have been no suspicious characters about here ?" 
 
 " No, sah, none. That is, sah, not to-day, 
 sah." 
 
 " Was there a suspicious character here yester 
 day ? " asked White, hastily. 
 
 " Well, sah, I don t know, sah. But yesterday 
 afternoon, just after Mas r Frederick go, sah, I 
 was out here, polishing the door-knob, sah, and
 
 152 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 a strange man came by, and he stopped, and he 
 asked me if Mas r Frederick Olyphant lived here, 
 and I said he did, but he had just gone. Then 
 the strange man went right down the street after 
 Mas r Fred." 
 
 " This was yesterday afternoon ? " White asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; yesterday afternoon abotit three or 
 four o clock," answered Andrew Jackson. 
 
 White hesitated a moment, then he inquired : 
 
 " Why do you call this strange man a suspi 
 cious character ? " 
 
 In his turn Andrew Jackson hesitated. At 
 last he answered : "He gave me a gold dollar not 
 to tell any one he had called. And you are the 
 first one I have told at all." 
 
 " He gave you a gold dollar ? " Laughton 
 asked, in sharp surprise. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " What was he like ? " 
 
 " He was a peculiar-looking man, sir, although 
 he was dressed like a perfect gentleman. I 
 noticed his boots, and he had very small feet. I 
 misdoubt he was a stranger a foreigner." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because he had a queer accent. He spoke 
 English nearly as well as we do, sir," and 
 Andrew Jackson made a polite bow ; " but he had 
 a queer accent very queer." 
 
 " Was he a Frenchman ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, sir. No, he was not a Frenchman.
 
 THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND. 
 
 153 
 
 I speak French myself that is, I speak it a little 
 and I know he was not a Frenchman. And 
 he did not seem like a German. Perhaps, sir. 
 he was an I-talian." 
 
 " An Italian ? " repeated Laughton, mechani 
 cally, as he and White exchanged a meaning 
 glance. " Had he any other peculiarity ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; no except his white face, that 
 was very white, sir, very white indeed." 
 
 " Was there a scar in the centre of the fore 
 head ? " asked Laughton, quickly. 
 
 " How did you know that, sir," said Andrew 
 Jackson, taken aback. 
 
 " Did he have a scar there ? Yes or no ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir; he did at least I thought I saw 
 a scar there, but he had a hat on and " 
 
 " Had he a dark mustache ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir a black mustache ? " 
 
 " That is the man ! " said Laughton to White. 
 
 " Constantine Vollonides ? " White asked. 
 
 " Constantine Vollonides," answered Laughton. 
 
 They left Andrew Jackson standing with dig 
 nity before the underground passage to Olyphant s 
 studio, and they walked rapidly to the Apollo 
 House, where Harry Brackett had seen the 
 name of Constantine Vollonides on the register. 
 By this time darkness had fallen on the city, but 
 at Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street, the 
 political procession was still passing, and the air 
 was filled with the martial strains of the John
 
 154 
 
 THE LAST MEETING, 
 
 Brown march. Hurriedly crossing to Union 
 Square, Laughton and White made their way 
 at once to the Apollo House, which was only 
 a stone s throw beyond. 
 
 They went to the office and asked the clerk, 
 "Is Mr. Constantine Vollonides staying here?" 
 
 " He has gone," the clerk answered, with the 
 curtness which is the chief characteristic of the 
 hotel clerk. 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 " Last night" 
 
 " At what time ? " 
 
 The clerk called across the hall to a porter, 
 " Pete, what time last night did the gent in 47 
 go?" 
 
 Pete replied promptly, " He come in a little 
 after eleven, and I got him a coupe, and he went 
 up to the Grand Central to catch the midnight 
 train for Chicago." 
 
 As Laughton and White came out of the hotel, 
 the latter asked, " What time was it when you 
 missed Fred last night ? " 
 
 " A little after ten, I think." 
 
 White whistled meditatively. " And Constan 
 tine Vollonides did not return to the hotel till 
 after eleven," he said.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. 
 
 next day was Sunday, and Frederick 
 J_ Olyphant had last been seen on Friday 
 evening; for nearly forty-eight hours he had not 
 been heard from. A certain aroma of eccen 
 tricity clung about the artist, and some of his 
 friends thought it perfectly possible that he had all 
 at once taken the freak of going off by himself, 
 to get away from the turmoil and the worry of 
 the city. Possible, this might be, but probable it 
 was not. As Bob White summed up the situa 
 tion, there were three problems to solve : First, 
 how had Fred got ont of Uncle Larry s library ? 
 second, why had he gone without warning ? and, 
 third, where was he now? The presence of 
 Constantine Voilonides in New York, his inquiry 
 at the artist s studio, and his sudden departure 
 from town, shortly after Olyphant s disappearance, 
 these were all circumstances which complicated 
 the situation not a little. They might be signi 
 ficant, and again they might be only fortuitous 
 coincidences. 
 
 When Monday morning came and brought no
 
 I 5 6 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 news, Robert White went to Laurence Laughton, 
 and suggested that the time had come to call on 
 the police, and to get what aid they might give. 
 Laurence was anxious not to arouse public 
 speculation, knowing how unpleasant all notoriety 
 would be to the artist were he to return as sud 
 denly as he had gone. But White convinced 
 him that to inform the proper authorities was a 
 duty they had no right to postpone any longer, 
 and he yielded at last, although still unwilling. 
 They went together to police headquarters, which 
 they found in a high state of activity, as the 
 morrow would be election day, when a double 
 responsibility is imposed on the police of New 
 York. In the course of his work on the Gotham 
 Gazette, Robert White had had occasion to meet 
 Inspector Barnes, the head of the detective force, 
 and he knew him to be courteous, prompt, active, 
 and full of resource. To Inspector Barnes, there 
 fore, he sent up his card, and despite the pressure 
 of work, he and Laughton were invited at once 
 into the private office of the inspector, who 
 received them cordially. 
 
 " What can I do for you to-day, gentlemen ? " 
 asked the inspector, lighting a fresh cigar. 
 
 Robert White made a plain statement of the 
 case. Inspector Barnes listened attentively, 
 smoking in silence and never interrupting except 
 to put a pertinent question at the apt moment. 
 When the story was told he meditated a minute
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. 
 
 or two. Then he took up a pen and made a few 
 notes. He asked for a full description of the 
 missing man, and said that he would have the 
 general alarm sent out at once, and that the 
 whole force of the police would thereafter be on 
 the lookout. He added that he doubted whether 
 there was any need to be excited, as in all pro 
 bability Mr. Olyphant would soon reappear all 
 right, and with a valid reason for his absence. 
 In view of this fortunate contingency, Laugh- 
 ton begged that as little publicity as possible be 
 given to the disappearance. As they were 
 making ready to leave the inspector to his work, 
 he asked again about Laurence s library, and 
 about the means of egress from it. Laughton 
 made a sketch-plan of his ground-floor, and the 
 inspector jotted a few more notes on the back 
 of this and put it away in a drawer. Then he 
 inquired whether Mr. Olyphant was likely to 
 have had any money or valuables on his person, 
 and also whether he was known to have any 
 enemies. Thus interrogated, Laughton sat 
 down again and told the inspector about Con- 
 stantine Vollonides, setting forth the grounds of 
 the quarrel at Pera, the threat of the Greek that 
 the next meeting should have a different ending, 
 and his arrival in New York a few hours before 
 Olyphant s strange disappearance. The inspector 
 listened attentively, and asked if the Greek was 
 still in New York. " It will do no harm to
 
 i S 8 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 have him watched," he remarked, when he was 
 informed that Constantine Vollonides had left 
 the city for Chicago on the midnight train of 
 Friday. " First of all, we must find out whether 
 he really took that train or not. You may rely 
 on me to attend to that." 
 
 Again White and Laughton arose to go, 
 thanking the inspector for his courtesy. 
 
 " One word more, gentlemen," said he, as they 
 reached the door, " Is there a woman in the 
 case." 
 
 Instantly White and Laughton replied together, 
 " No." 
 
 " Indeed ? " returned Inspector Barnes. " That 
 complicates matters a little." Then he held the 
 door open for them and they passed out. When 
 they had gone, he touched a bell, and he gave 
 instructions to the officer who responded to the 
 summons to go to the Apollo House and to find 
 the driver of the carriage which took Constan 
 tine Vollonides to the Grand Central Depot on 
 Friday night, and to ascertain whether or not 
 the Greek had taken the midnight train ; and if 
 he had, to discover when and where he had left 
 the train ; whether at Chicago or at some point 
 .short of Chicago. 
 
 A day passed, and two days and three days, 
 and the friendly prediction of Inspector Barnes 
 was not realized : Frederick Olyphant did not 
 reappear. A President of the United States was
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. 
 
 elected on Tuesday ; and for several days there 
 after there was some slight doubt as to the 
 result of the vote. For a little while the most 
 intense excitement prevailed throughout the 
 nation, and the newspapers had no space to spare 
 for an incident so unimportant comparatively as 
 the disappearance of one man. Toward the end 
 of the week public opinion began to settle, and 
 in the minds of even the most violent political 
 partisans, doubt gave way slowly to the assur 
 ance of defeat or of victory. But the sickening 
 uncertainty of Olyphant s fate was not resolved 
 away by any definite news. Some of his friends 
 felt that they would rather be told positively of 
 his death than remain in the intolerable doubt 
 into which the mystery of his vanishing had 
 plunged them. 
 
 Laurence Laughton opened his newspaper 
 every morning in fear and trembling. He 
 dreaded to see an imaginative account of Fred 
 erick s disappearance spread through two or 
 three columns, with an abundance of needless 
 detail, vulgar and personal. Fortunately, the 
 newspapers found metal more attractive to their 
 readers in the description of the final throes of 
 the political trouble. And so the dull days 
 dragged on, and he had only the " no news " 
 which is never " good news." At last a full 
 week had passed; it was again Friday, just seven 
 days since The Full Score had met at his house
 
 ! 60 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 to dine ; and he had promised to go to dinner at 
 Mrs. Martin s. 
 
 The Duchess of Washington Square had 
 always been very fond of Miss Phyllis Van 
 Renssellaer; she it was who had introduced 
 Dear Jones to her, and she had been a party to 
 his ardent courtship. She rejoiced at their mar 
 riage and sent them a pair of beautiful silver lamps 
 as a wedding present. And now when Mr. 
 and Mrs. Delancey Jones returned on the 
 City of Constantinople from their summer 
 Avedding-trip in Europe, Mrs. Martin made haste 
 to give them a dinner. As a matter of course, 
 Laurence Laughton was the first one to be 
 invited. The Duchess of Washington Square 
 could not give a dinner to Dear Jones and Baby 
 Van Renssellaer and not ask their best friend, 
 Uncle Larry. It was almost as much a matter 
 of course that Miss Winifred Marshall should be 
 the next on the list, for the close intimacy of 
 Miss Van Renssellaer and Miss Marshall was 
 well known to the Duchess. Indeed, if it had 
 not been for the certainty that he should see 
 Winifred, Laurence would have excused himself 
 from the dinner ; he was in no mood for the very 
 .small talk and idle babble which is bandied about 
 briskly at a fashionable dinner. Ordinarily he 
 was an expert at this conversational battledore 
 and shuttle-cock, but he had no mind now for 
 frivolity and froth. He was too fond of Olyphant
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. jgj 
 
 not to take his fate to heart, and until the doubt 
 was resolved Laurence was not in the vein for 
 chaff and chatter. Yet to sit beside Winifred for 
 an hour or two, or even to be able to gaze upon 
 her across the table, to feast his eyes with a sight 
 of the woman he loved this was a felicity he 
 had not strength to forego. And he did not 
 regret that he had mastered his repugnance 
 when he saw that good fortune and the Duchess 
 of Washington Square had decided that he 
 should take in to dinner Miss Winifred Marshall, 
 She greeted him cordially as though she were 
 indeed glad to see him ; there was a heartiness in 
 her welcome which he had never before noted 
 since love had sharpened his eyes to spy out 
 even the smallest sign. She was as superbly beau 
 tiful as ever, despite the dark lines under the 
 eyes, telling of loss of sleep, and despite the look 
 of doubt and anxiety which lurked upon her 
 face. His heart beat high as he offered her his 
 arm. She took it with a confiding gesture, as 
 though she expected counsel or comfort from 
 him. During the dinner he noted that to him 
 at least she revealed none of the haughtiness 
 which he had considered one of her chief char 
 acteristics, and which he had even thought to 
 accord aptly with her splendid beauty. She 
 listened to him with deference ; and to him she was 
 all gentleness. She was a tamed bird, and 
 Laurence wondered what had wroughtthe change.
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Twice or thrice he caught her eyes fixed on him 
 with a questioning gaze, as though she were 
 trying to make up her mind. After he had 
 talked to her for an hour, he began to resent her 
 attitude toward him ; it was too confiding; in a 
 word, too filial. Now, his love for her was not 
 paternal. He was twice her age, he knew, but at 
 forty he felt himself a young man still. He 
 rebelled against a confidence which seemed to say 
 that he was too old for a girl to need to be on 
 her guard. This feeling of resentment almost 
 betrayed him into harsh and hasty words, which 
 he luckily cut short as they came to the tip of 
 his tongue. Then, as he looked in her face and 
 saw the loneliness and the melancholy which 
 were always to be seen there, now intensified and 
 accentuated by doubt and dread, he felt a sudden 
 pang of poignant self-reproach. He was moved 
 almost to ask if he could not be of service to her, 
 and to bid her command him, for she had the right ; 
 he was her faithful servant forever, and it was a 
 joy for him to be at her beck and call, for he 
 loved her. But at the dinner-table, with neigh 
 bors next to them on each side and near to them 
 opposite, there was no fit occasion to speak. 
 They talked about trifles and laughed sadly 
 about nothing. Tw r ice, when there was an ani 
 mated conversation going on all around them, 
 she leaned forward and made ready to say some 
 thing to him, which apparently she did not wish
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES, ^3 
 
 to be heard by the others. As it happened there 
 was an accidental lull in the political discussion 
 which had been raging, and the young statesmen 
 about the dinner-table stopped fighting their battles 
 o er and turned their attention first to the Roman 
 punch and then to the canvas-backs. The same 
 ill-fortune pursued them after dinner. Twice again 
 Winifred manceuvred skillfully to get Uncle 
 Larry where she could have a moment s personal 
 converse with him, and twice her innocent scheme 
 was frustrated by accident. The first time was 
 shortly after dinner, and then Mr. Hobson-Chol- 
 mondeley joined them at once and began to com 
 pliment Miss Marshall on her dress. Before 
 Pussy Palmer could capture him and lead him 
 away, a little group had formed about them. The 
 second time was just before the gathering was 
 about to break up; and then it was Mrs. Jones 
 who bore down upon them. 
 
 " Uncle Larry, I haven t had a chance to talk 
 to Winifred all the evening. I mean to take her 
 home in my cab. You and Lance can walk up 
 together ! " 
 
 Against this peremptory mandate no protest 
 would have been availing. Uncle Larry bowed 
 low and said : 
 
 " Your Majesty s lightest wish is to me a law ! * 
 
 And then .Mrs. Jones bore Winifred away that 
 they might perform the mysterious rite known 
 to women as " putting on their things."
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 When they reappeared, duly apparelled, Dear 
 Jones cried : 
 
 " Phyllis, you are not going out without some 
 thing on your head ? " 
 
 " Indeed I am," answered the bride ; " I don t 
 need anything. I m not light-headed and I 
 shan t blow away." 
 
 Already Dear Jones knew that remonstrance 
 was useless. He sighed sarcastically. " Uncle 
 Larry," he said, " you see how well she loves, 
 honors and obeys." 
 
 Then he took Winifred down the steps and 
 put her into the cab, while Laughton escorted 
 Mrs. Jones and ensconced her by the side of 
 Miss Marshall. As the cab drove off the bride 
 called back to them : 
 
 " Uncle Larry, don t keep Lance up late. It 
 isn t good for his health ! " 
 
 " Do you hear that ? " said Dear Jones to Uncle 
 Larry ; " I m under petticoat government already." 
 
 " You seem to thrive under it," retorted Lau 
 rence, as they turned into Fifth Avenue and 
 began to walk up briskly against a shrill- 
 tongued wind which made them button their 
 overcoats tightly across. " A strong govern 
 ment is good for you ; and what you need is 
 one-woman power." 
 
 " Then I ve got what I need," answered Jones. 
 * I kiss my chains, of course, and I adore my 
 jailer; but I am bound hand and foot."
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. ^ 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry ; " I 
 suppose you can get a divorce in Indiana or 
 Connecticut if she treats you cruelly." 
 
 " It s the most delicious cruelty in the world, 
 Uncle Larry no home is complete without it" 
 
 " If you have a home already," Laughton de 
 clared, " you must have been pretty quick about 
 it." 
 
 " I was quick and I have a home. It is a 
 flat, up at the top of a huge house, overlook 
 ing Central Park take the elevator. We have 
 a tiny little parlor, and a tiny little library, and a 
 tiny little kitchen, and a tiny little dining-room, 
 where we hope soon to give Uncle Larry a tiny 
 little dinner. I have grand prospects now I 
 can see all over the Park. I have the first floor 
 counting from the roof down it s a sky-parlor, 
 excellently adapted for astronomical research. 
 Altogether it is the most delightful little den 
 you ever saw, although there isn t room enough 
 in the whole apartment to swing a mouse, let 
 alone a cat, did I desire to indulge in that feline 
 amusement." 
 
 " I m glad you are happy, my boy," said 
 Uncle Larry, with a sigh. 
 
 "Why not?" replied Dear Jones. "Isn t 
 everybody happy now ? My malison on the 
 man who dares to be miserable ! I ll none of 
 him." 
 
 As they passed Tenth Street, Jones happened
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 to think of Olyphant, and he asked Laughton 
 how it was that he had not met the painter since 
 his return. 
 
 " Don t you know he hate not been seen since 
 a week ago to-night?" Laurence asked, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 " No," answered Dear Jones, " I know nothing 
 at all. I am newly married. I am just back 
 from Europe, and I have just found, furnished 
 and moved into a flat. I have heard that a 
 President of these United States was elected this 
 week. But further than this I am absolutely 
 ignorant. Tell me all about it." 
 
 Before Laughton could tell him the half of the 
 tale they had arrived before Uncle Larry s 
 door. 
 
 " Come in for a few minutes," he said to Jones, 
 " and smoke a cigar, and I will give you the rest 
 of the story on the spot." 
 
 " You can have me for twenty minutes pre 
 cisely," remarked Dear Jones, as he looked at 
 his watch while Uncle Larry was opening the 
 door. " I have not been home later than 
 midnight as yet, and I don t want to spoil my 
 record." 
 
 They walked into the library, and Laughton. 
 lighted the gas. Jones looked up at the cornice 
 and saw the silent row of death-masks standing 
 out in lurid relief. 
 
 " Ugh ! " ho groaned with a shiver ; " we are
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. 
 
 down among the dead men here with a 
 vengeance. This is just the place for a tale of 
 mystery. Have you such a thing as an oubliette 
 in the house ? " 
 
 " You don t think I killed him, do you ? " 
 asked Laughton, with sudden savageness. 
 
 "Why not? " Jones replied, laughing. " Per 
 haps you have him concealed somewhere about 
 the premises, in solitary confinement in the 
 cellar, for instance." 
 
 Laughton listened to this ill-timed levity with 
 ill-concealed impatience. " Shall I tell you about 
 it or not ? " he asked, abruptly. 
 
 " Fire away," answered Jones, helping himself 
 to one of Uncle Larry s little cigars from a bunch 
 which filled a cup of Japanese cloisonne on the 
 mantlepiece. 
 
 Jones leaned back in an easy chair; and 
 Laughton began walking up and down the room, 
 as he set forth the circumstance of Olyphant s 
 last day in New York. When he came to the 
 search for the artist and the absolute impossibility 
 of finding any clue to his fate, Jones started up 
 and said : 
 
 " I say, Uncle Larry, this is serious. Now, 
 just stop prowling up and down like a bear in a 
 cage, or a peripatetic philosopher, and tell me 
 again just how it was that he went." 
 
 " To sum up in as few words as possible," 
 answered Laurence, " he was standing on this
 
 !63 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 rug here as I am now, and he suddenly dis 
 appeared." 
 
 " He vanished and made no sign, just as though 
 he had been sitting on Aladdin s carpet, but the 
 carpet is still here, and the man is gone. It is odd." 
 
 "Odd?" replied Laughton, impatiently; "odd? 
 It is absolutely incomprehensible." 
 
 " That s what I said," replied Jones ; " it is very 
 odd indeed. One thing is certain, he is gone. 
 Now, I don t believe, all things considered, that 
 he went willingly." 
 
 "Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, 
 dubiously ; " why should he go ? " 
 
 " I know reasons why he shouldn t," answered 
 Jones. 
 
 Laughton looked at him for a moment intently, 
 but said nothing. 
 
 " And if he did not go willingly," Jones con 
 tinued, " there s a bold, bad man at the bottom 
 of it. Now, whom do you suspect ? " 
 
 " Circumstances seem to point to a Greek, 
 named Constantine Vollonides, who " 
 
 "What?" interrupted Jones, "a man with a 
 scar on his forehead like a black heart ? " 
 
 " Do you know him ? " Larry asked, in aston 
 ishment. 
 
 "Why not?" answered Jones. "Didn t he 
 cross with me in the City of Constantinople a 
 week ago ? And now I come to think of it, 
 didn t he try to pump me about Fred ? "
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. ify 
 
 It was Uncle Larry s turn to ask for informa 
 tion. 
 
 " I ll tell you all I know," said Dear Jones. "I 
 met the man in the smoking-room. He was a 
 white-faced fellow ; indeed, he had the whitest 
 face of any man I ever saw. He had a thin 
 black mustache and a little imperial, and pierc 
 ing black eyes ; in fact, if it had not been for the 
 scar on his forehead, I should say he looked just 
 like Edwin Booth, as Ictgo" 
 
 " That is the man," Laughton declared. 
 
 " He seemed a good enough sort of a fellow," 
 continued Dear Jones, " and I thought he took a 
 fancy to me. He lost a bet on the run the first 
 day and another the next day ; of course, I didn t 
 trust him : I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts. 
 But he stuck to me and we let him into a little 
 game of poker, with which we filled up the long 
 afternoon. And I half suspected that he let me 
 win. Then, as we got nearer to New York, he 
 began to ask all sorts of questions about America 
 and the people here. I remember I mentioned 
 you, and he said he had met you in the East during 
 the war, with a friend of yours, an artist, Mr. 
 Oripant. I said Frederick Olyphant ? and he 
 said, yes, he thought Olyphant was the name. And 
 then he asked me about Fred, casually, of course, 
 but pertinaciously. I see now that he was pump 
 ing me. Luckily I did not let out much, though 
 I believe I did tell him about the engagement."
 
 I/O 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " What engagement ? " asked Laughton, in a 
 hard voice, and with a sudden chill at his heart, 
 as he stopped short in his walk and stood before 
 Jones. 
 
 " Why, Fred s, of course. Don t you know ? " 
 
 " No, I do not know." 
 
 " Oh, I forgot it was a secret. You must keep 
 it, or I shall get well scolded." 
 
 " I can keep a secret," said Uncle Larry, slowly. 
 
 " Well, you see, Phyllis and Winifred were 
 always great friends, and when Winifred was 
 engaged, just like a girl, she felt she must tell 
 somebody, so she wrote it over to Phyllis under 
 a solemn pledge of secresy, and Phyllis got the 
 letter just before we sailed, and she told me in 
 strict confidence, as between man and wife. And 
 I w r as just fool enough to let it out to the 
 Greek." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me that Frederick Oly- 
 phant was engaged to be married to Winifred ? " 
 asked Laurence Laughton, slowly, and with an 
 effort to swallow a lump in his throat. 
 
 " Yes ; but it s a dead secret, remember ; you 
 mustn t let it out as I have done ! " 
 
 Laughton sat down silently and stared before 
 him at the empty fireplace. He did not hear the 
 clock strike. 
 
 Dear Jones jumped up. " Half-past eleven ? " he 
 cried ; " my time has come. The henpecked 
 bridegroom must be up and away. So-long,
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. \>j\ 
 
 Uncle Larry, see you later." As they passed 
 into the hall, Jones turned to Laughton, and said, 
 with feeling, " Don t think me heartless, Uncle 
 Larry, because I am lively and flippant. I trust 
 nothing has happened to Fred and for the pres 
 ent I refuse to believe that there is really any 
 cause for anxiety ; he will turn up all right, never 
 fear ! But if I can do anything to help in the 
 search for him, call on me and I shall be on deck 
 at once." 
 
 Laurence Laughton went to the door with 
 Jones and saw him depart. Then he locked and 
 bolted the door, and put out the gas on the 
 ground-floor. He did this regular nightly work 
 with a dull mechanical precision, going about it 
 with fixed and staring eyes, like a man walking 
 in his sleep. He went up to his own room and 
 threw himself on the bed, and buried his face in 
 the pillow. He was not a weakling, to weep, but 
 the contact of the cool linen was refreshing to 
 his throbbing head and to his dry and burning 
 eye-lids. There was an utter physical abandon 
 ment in his prone position. He knew the worst 
 now. He had hardly hoped for himself; he had 
 suspected that there was another ; he had 
 doubted whether that other was the missing man 
 or not. Now, he knew. Winifred loved Fred 
 and they were betrothed. This it was that 
 Fred could not tell him when they talked just 
 before they parted. This was the meaning of
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 her visit to his studio on the Saturday afternoon; 
 and this was the secret of the single yellow rose 
 she had left as a token of love. Laurence was 
 glad she had chosen Fred, for he was worthy of 
 her : he would make her happy since she had 
 set her heart on him : he was a noble fellow, and 
 they were well mated. Laurence wished that 
 Fred were standing before him that he might 
 give him his good wishes and bid him live for 
 her and make her happy. He could master his 
 own misery, he hoped, if only he knew that she 
 were happy. Men had loved before him, and had 
 lost; and, after all, Fred was more worthy of her. 
 Then, all at once, he remembered that Fred was 
 not before him, that he was gone, no one knew 
 where or how, that for ought any one could tell, 
 he might be dead. Dead ? The dreadful word 
 rang in his brain. Dead ? And if Fred were 
 
 dead, why then ? Then in time perhaps 
 
 Winifred might forget him. If Fred had disap 
 peared finally and forever, in time, perhaps, there 
 might be a chance for another to win her. 
 
 Laurence Laughton put these selfish thoughts 
 from him resolutely and at once. He arose and 
 began again to pace the floor. For Winifred s 
 sake, he said to himself, the mystery of Fred s 
 fate must be cleared up. For her sake, there 
 must be certainty. Fredrick Olyphant must be 
 found alive or dead. For her sake, Laurence 
 Laughton hoped that he might be found alive
 
 THE RETURN OF DEAR JONES. j^j 
 
 and well. And he promised himself that he 
 would not give over the quest until he had 
 fathomed the mystery. 
 
 He paused in his walk and stood for a moment 
 at the window, looking out into the black night. 
 From a dark corner of the room, Bundle o Rags 
 had been watching his master, and the little dog 
 judged that the time had now come to offer sym 
 pathy ; so he came forward gently and jumped 
 into the chair by his master s side and thrust his 
 hairy little head into the palm of his master s 
 hand. And immediately Uncle Larry felt com 
 forted by the thought that he had faithful friends.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FOUND FLOATING IN THE BAY. 
 
 /CERTAIN of the New York newspapers art 
 V^> accustomed to publish on Sunday a special 
 column devoted to a consideration of What is 
 Going on in Society; it is an impertinent and 
 an offensive custom, borrowed perhaps from the 
 London weekly papers, which thrive on the 
 retailing of petty gossip about lords and ladies. 
 On the Sunday after Mrs. Martin s dinner to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Delancey Jones, which was the second 
 Sunday since the meeting of The Full Score, 
 there appeared in one of these articles a para 
 graph, setting forth, in the forcible-feeble style 
 which the writers of such stuff are wont to affect, 
 that much interest had been aroused in society 
 by the remarkable rumors now flying about town 
 anent the extraordinary disappearance of a very 
 promising young artist, who had been the hero 
 of the most romantic adventures in the East, and 
 whose pictures had been greatly admired at the 
 last exhibition of the Royal Academy in London 
 and at the last Salon in Paris. The writer of the 
 paragraph kindly gave the missing man a certifi-
 
 FOU\ 7 D FLOATING IN THE BAY. 
 
 175 
 
 cate of good character, by adding that the gos 
 sips were at a loss to suggest a reason for his 
 sudden flight, as no scandal had hitherto been 
 attached to his name. 
 
 The allusion to Frederick Olyphant was 
 unmistakable, and it made hopeless any attempt 
 to keep the matter out of the papers. On the 
 Monday morning, and for several mornings 
 thereafter, the first place in the newspapers of 
 New York was given up to a statement of 
 the circumstances of Olyphant s disappearance. 
 Every detail which could be gleaned by the most 
 industrious of reporters, or invented by the most 
 imaginative, was laid before the readers of the 
 newspapers, with a luxury of alluring and alliter 
 ative head-lines. A little evening paper called 
 the Comet surpassed itself and broke the record : 
 under the familiar heading " Frederick s Freak;" 
 and accompanied by a portrait of the artist and 
 an outline sketch of the incomplete picture, The 
 Sharpness of Death/ it gave a most circumstan 
 tial account of Olyphant s departure for Europe, 
 in company with an unknown lady supposed to 
 be the wife of a distinguished member of the 
 diplomatic corps at Washington. The other 
 newspapers had no difficulty in showing that the 
 artist had not sailed for Europe on the steamer 
 indicated, and that no member of the diplomatic 
 corps at Washington had lost a wife not even 
 the Turkish minister, who had several, and could
 
 ! 76 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 have spared one with less inconvenience than his 
 colleagues. The Comet corrected these unim 
 portant details, and re-affirmed the substantial 
 accuracy of its story, which it strengthened by the 
 publication of a second portrait of Olyphant, a 
 little less like him even than the first. As Dear 
 Jones said, if the artist were as ugly in body and 
 mind as these portraits represented him to be, he 
 was fully justified in committing suicide and in 
 escaping from his misery as soon as might be. 
 
 In an obscure corner of the Gotham Gazette of 
 Wednesday, there was a short paragraph which 
 read as follows : 
 
 "Found Floating in the Bay. A tangled 
 mass of seaweed, floating with the tide, 
 caught the attention of little Oscar Brauti- 
 gam at a dock at Fort Hamilton yesterday 
 morning. Mixed with the seaweed was a tuft of 
 human hair. The bright little boy shouted for 
 assistance, and in a few minutes those who came 
 at his call drew from the watery seaweed the 
 dead body of a man. The body had been in the 
 water nearly a week, as far as could be judged by 
 appearances. It was clothed in a well-made suit 
 of clothes, the work of Goole & Co., the London 
 tailors. A handsome gold watch and a heavy 
 gold chain was found on the person of the 
 deceased, together with a knife, and a pocket-book 
 containing nearly twenty dollars. There were 
 no papers by which the remains could be ident
 
 FOUND FLOATING IN THE BAY. 
 
 177 
 
 fied nor was the under-linen marked. The body 
 Avas that of a man between thirty and forty. There 
 were no marks to indicate that the man had met 
 with violence. It is supposed that he committed 
 suicide. The body was taken in charge by 
 Coroner Stennett, of Bay Ridge, who will hold an 
 inquest to-day." 
 
 In the course of a twelvemonth the dark 
 waters of New York Bay cover many a crime 
 and hide many a secret ; not always do they give 
 up their dead ; and yet the finding of a floating 
 body is common enough to call forth no special 
 attention. It happened however that the para 
 graph above was read by Harry Brackett. " Read 
 your own paper, " was the first of the rules by 
 which the staff of the Gotham Gazette was 
 governed. Harry Brackett read his own paper; 
 he saw this paragraph, and he started at once 
 for Bay Ridge. It had struck him that an ex 
 amination of this dead man and of his effects 
 might solve the mystery of Olyphant s fate. 
 
 When he arrived at Bay Ridge, he sought 
 out Coroner Stennett, whom he knew of old, 
 and with whom he maintained pleasant relations, 
 as was his duty as a reporter. He got sight 
 of the body, but he found, as he had expected, 
 that from long exposure it was beyond recogni 
 tion. All that he could say with certainty was 
 that the dead man was not unlike Olyphant. and 
 that it was quite possible that this was the body
 
 IjS THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 ofOlyphant. He examined the clothes on the 
 body, and he noted the name of the tailor Pie 
 discovered that the collar of the coat was torn as 
 though in a struggle, and he thought he could 
 see on the body certain slight marks of blows. 
 These might have been inflicted since death, but 
 Harry Brackett thought not. He asked to see 
 the pocket-book, but he found nothing in this of 
 any significance, save a cutting from the Gotham 
 Gazette, printed on the morning of election day ; 
 the Tuesday of the week before and four days 
 after Olyphant had disappeared. If therefore the 
 body was that of the artist, he had lived four days 
 after the Friday night dinner of The Full. Score. 
 Then the Coroner showed him the watch and 
 chain. The watch bore the monogram " F. O." 
 or " O. F.," surmounted by an inscription in 
 Oriental characters. Harry Brackett tore a thin 
 sheet of paper from his note-book, and took a 
 rubbing of the side of the watch case. Then he 
 examined the watch-chain, which had not been 
 wholly cleansed from the seaweed twisted about 
 it in the water. When he had removed this, he 
 made a discovery. At the end of the chain there 
 was a golden claw, like a vulture s, clutching in its 
 talons a leaden bullet. As Harry Brackett was 
 examining this singular charm, the link parted 
 which had bound it to the chain, and the claw 
 remained in his hand. 
 
 Late that afternoon, as Laurence Laughton
 
 FOUND FLOATING IN THE BAY. 
 
 179 
 
 was gazing vacantly out of his window at a first 
 slight and premature flurry of snow which was 
 obscuring the glory of the November sunset, 
 there came a sudden ring at his door. A few 
 seconds later, Harry Brackett was ushered into 
 the parlor. By the expression on his face, 
 Laughton knew he had news. 
 
 " You have heard something," he cried, 
 striding across the room and grasping Brackett 
 by the hand ; " speal^, man ! Out with it ! " 
 
 " Don t tire yourself by being too hasty," 
 answered the reporter, who, despite his deep in 
 terest in Olyphant, could never free himself from 
 a constitutional levity of manner. " There was 
 a man once died in a hurry, and he never ceased 
 to regret it." 
 
 " Tell me" 
 
 " Let s begin at the beginning," interrupted 
 Brackett, " that ll save time. Read this para 
 graph." And he handed the newspaper which 
 described the finding of the body at Fort 
 Hamilton. 
 
 " Surely you do not think that this is Fred ? " 
 asked Laughton. 
 
 "Well, now, Uncle Larry, you hold your 
 horses. I m not going to say what I think ; I ll 
 give you facts, solid facts." 
 
 " Go on, then, in your own way," said Larry, 
 wearily. 
 
 Brackett sat down on the piano-stool and began :
 
 jg THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " As soon as I read that paragraph I 
 made a straight streak for Bay Ridge. I know 
 Coroner Stennett ; we used to go to school 
 together in Brooklyn. He took me right in to 
 see the remains. They are unrecognizable " 
 
 " Then what makes you think that Fred " 
 Laughton began again. He checked himself, as 
 Brackett raised his hand, and said, " Tell me all 
 you know as soon as you can." 
 
 " Who was Fred s tailor ? " asked the reporter. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, " I 
 think he got his things in London, but I don t 
 remember the name " 
 
 " What is Goole & Co. ? " Brackett inquired. 
 
 " Goole & Co. that s the name," answered 
 Laurence ; " why " 
 
 " The clothes found on the body \vere made 
 by Goole & Co." 
 
 Laughton sighed gently. " Go on," he said. 
 
 " Did you ever see his watch ? " Brackett asked. 
 
 " Often." 
 
 " Was it marked ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " It had his monogram, F. O., with an inscrip 
 tion in Arabic, meaning Allah is good, and pray 
 ing him to guard the possessor of the watch. 
 It was given to him by an old Turkish merchant, 
 whose life he had saved during the war." 
 c " Would you recognize it ? " asked Brackett.
 
 FO UND FL OA TING IN THE BAY. i g \ 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The reporter laid before Uncle Larry the thin 
 slip of paper on which he had made a rubbing 
 of the side of the watch-case. Laughton knew 
 it as soon as he saw it. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " that is his watch." 
 
 " It was found on the body," continued the 
 reporter, " and at the end of the watch-chain 
 was this." And he opened his hand, and on the 
 palm of it lay the golden vulture s claw, grasp 
 ing the bullet of lead. 
 
 Laughton looked at it earnestly ; he had seen 
 it often before ; he knew how superstitiously 
 Olyphant clung to it ; and he saw the full 
 significance of its presence in his house under 
 the sad circumstances. " So there s an end," he 
 said, softly to himself, and for the first time 
 since his friend had gone, he gave up the hope 
 of seeing him again, alive and in the flesh. 
 
 " Your are too previous, Uncle Larry," re 
 sponded the reporter, who had caught Laughton s 
 words, " altogether too previous. So was I. It 
 seemed to me a pretty clear case, and I thought 
 The Full Score would have to order a rosewood 
 casket, and a silver plate engraved with Frederick 
 Olyphant s name. I confess I thought there 
 couldn t be any doubt, and " 
 
 " How can there be any now ? " interrupted 
 Laughton, with a look at the golden claw with its 
 leaden bullet as it lay on the table.
 
 1 82 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " It s lucky I went to the office before coming 
 up here. I had a talk with Bob White ; he writes 
 brevier now, but he doesn t put on any more airs, 
 and we get on first rate. I told him what I ve 
 told you, and I showed him what I ve showed 
 you. First thing he asked was, whether I was 
 dead sure that this was Fred s body." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well, I had to tell him that of course I 
 wasn t sure, but I hadn t any doubts. Then he 
 asked me if this body had the scar of a bullet- 
 wound in the left arm just by the elbow. Do 
 you remember that Fred had been wounded 
 there ? " 
 
 " He had," answered Laughton, eagerly ; " it 
 was a bad wound, and it left an ugly scar. Was 
 this scar on on the body ? " 
 
 " I hadn t noticed it ; in fact, I thought it 
 wasn t there, but to make sure I telegraphed the 
 coroner, and here s his reply." 
 
 He held out a yellow slip of paper, which 
 Laughton seized and read greedily. It said that 
 there were no scars on the left arm of the body 
 except near the wrist. 
 
 " Fred s wound was in the upper arm near the 
 shoulder," Laughton declared when he had 
 read the telegram. " Then he is not dead ! 
 Thank God for that ! " 
 
 " You are altogether in too much of a hurry, 
 Uncle Larry," suggested the reporter. " This
 
 FOUND FLOATING IN THE BAY. 
 
 133 
 
 doesn t prove that Fred isn t dead, not at all. 
 But it does make it very improbable that this is 
 his body. We must look elsewhere now. In 
 the meantime, we wanted to make sure about 
 this corpse; and we are trying to find out who 
 the man was, who was found dead wearing Fred s 
 clothes." 
 
 " Have you found out ? " 
 
 " Bob White asked me to go up and see In 
 spector Barnes ; and I did, and I showed him 
 the paragraph \vhich was in the man s pocket- 
 book. There were three or four First Ward 
 politicians mentioned in that paragraph, regular 
 heelers. Now that was a clue." 
 
 " How so?" asked Laurence. 
 
 " It was a little bit of a clue, but it was big 
 enough to pull up a string by. If this man cut 
 out a paragraph about a lot of First Ward 
 heelers, he probably knew them, and perhaps 
 they know him. And when a man who has on 
 a second-hand suit of clothes, and who has 
 twenty dollars in his pocket, in a brand-new 
 pocket-book too, and who was alive on the 
 morning of election day, is found floating in the 
 bay a week after election, it is a fair inference 
 that when he was alive he was a cheap politician, 
 a loafer, a worker, as they call them now, who 
 had been set up or staked by his boss on elec 
 tion morning, who bought a swell second-hand suit 
 of clothes, and who got into an election-day row,
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 at the end of which he found himself in the 
 river. That s what Inspector Barnes thinks, and 
 before the week is out we hope to know all about 
 the man who owns the remains now at Bay 
 Ridge." 
 
 " But you are sure now that it is not Fred s 
 body ? " Laughton asked, anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I m sure enough, but I shall be 
 surer yet when I know whose body it is. It 
 will be a pure joy to me to restore those remains 
 to the rightful owner and it will give the 
 Gotham Gazette a beat on all the other papers." 
 
 Laughton lighted a little cigar and sat back in 
 his chair. " If you find out who this man is, 
 it will help us to find out what has become of 
 Fred." 
 
 " I don t see why ? " 
 
 " Because as this man had on Fred s clothes 
 probably, and certainly his watch, perhaps he had 
 a hand in robbing Fred." 
 
 " That s so," said Brackett ; " and now you 
 put it that way, I don t see how the man came to 
 have both Fred s clothes and his watch. He 
 could have bought the clothes second-hand, but 
 where did he get the watch ? " 
 
 " True," answered Laughton ; " it is an extra 
 ordinary coincidence that since Fred has been 
 robbed, one man should have both his clothes 
 and his watch, unless he was one of the rob 
 bers."
 
 FOUND FLOATING IN THE BAY. 
 
 I8 5 
 
 " I don t believe he was. Of course, he may 
 have had a hand in it some of those ward- 
 politicians are game for anything ; but I doubt 
 it." 
 
 " When do you expect any news ? " 
 
 " Inspector Barnes has his men at work now," 
 replied Brackett, taking his hat to go, " and we 
 may strike the trail at any minute." 
 
 Uncle Larry rose and again offered a cigar to 
 his visitor, whom he accompanied to the door. 
 " You will let me know as soon as you hear any 
 thing? " he asked. 
 
 " I ll keep you posted right up to date, and 
 if anything has happened to Fred, we will make 
 it hot for the other man you hear me ! " 
 Harry Brackett answered as he went down the 
 steps. 
 
 The next day the Gotham Gazette alone, of 
 all the New York newspapers, contained the full 
 details of the discovery of Frederick Olyphant s 
 watch on the body of an unknown man found 
 floating in the bay. 
 
 Two days later the Gotham Gazette was able 
 to show that the body in the hands of Coroner 
 Stennett, at Bay Ridge, was that of one Micky 
 Oliver, a First Ward loafer, who had served one 
 term in State prison for repeating. The body 
 was positively identified, from the scar on the 
 wrist, by his brother, the keeper of a low 
 sailor s boarding-house. At the inquest it was
 
 j86 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 brought out that Oliver, after having been very hard 
 up for months, suddenly appeared on the Satur 
 day before election, with a fine suit of clothes, a 
 new hat, a gold watch and chain, and a well-filled 
 pocket-book. The manner of his death remained 
 without explanation.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A M ESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 
 
 IT will be remembered by those who are 
 familiar with the chronicles of New York 
 society that the winter of 1884-85 was one of 
 the most brilliant on record, and fhat the season 
 began unusually early. As a general rule, the 
 great balls of the year are given in the ten or 
 twelve weeks between the first of December and 
 j. ish Wednesday. But this year the Van Siclen 
 ball, which proved to be altogether the grandest 
 affair of the winter, took place on the fourteenth 
 of November. It was given to celebrate the 
 nuptials, so the society reporters informed 
 the world, of Miss Miranda Hitchcock, the only 
 daughter of the great lawyer, Abner Hitchcock, 
 the senior partner of the firm of Hitchcock & 
 Van Renssellaer, with Mr. Edward Van Siclen, 
 the only son and heir of old Schermerhorn Van 
 Siclen, who was at once the leading representa 
 tive of one of the oldest families of the Knicker 
 bocker aristocracy, and one of the chief oper 
 ators in Wall Street. In the famous corner in 
 Transcontinental Telegraph, old man Van Siclen 
 
 187
 
 j g 3 THE LAST MEE TING, 
 
 had squeezed Sam Sargent to the tune of nearly 
 two millions ; and although Sargent had since 
 made another million or so on the Street, he 
 had not wrenched it from Van Siclen, who had 
 added the two millions of spoils to the snug 
 little sum he had already accumulated. It was 
 the contemplation of this snug little sum thus 
 neatly rounded out, which suggested to old man 
 Van Siclen that he ought to do something for 
 society, and he seized at the occasion of his son s 
 wedding to give a ball. Of course, it would 
 have been more in accordance with the usages 
 of society, if the ball had been given by the 
 bride s parents, but hypercriticism like this did 
 not debar any one from accepting Mrs. Van 
 Siclen s invitation. Even during the excitemJ-... 
 of the election, rumors were flying about as to 
 the wonders which the Van Siclen ball was to 
 disclose, and, as soon as the election was once 
 settled, society gave itself up to the ball. It was 
 understood that a temporary ball-room was to 
 be built over the garden in the rear of the Van 
 Siclen house ; and it was informally asserted 
 that the supper would be served as soon as the 
 first guest arrived, and that it would continue to 
 be served on demand until the last guest de 
 parted. Mrs, Van Siclen had been heard to say 
 that she intended that it should be as easy to 
 get terrapin or canvas-back at five o clock in the 
 morning as it was at midnight.
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 
 
 189 
 
 The invitations had been sent out nearly six 
 weeks in advance, and before most of those in 
 vited had returned to town. Laurence Laugh- 
 ton had found his awaiting him when he got 
 back from Europe, the first week in October. 
 He had accepted at once, as he took a curious 
 delight in the passing show ; but as the time 
 drew nigh and there was no news of Frederick 
 Olyphant, he gave up all idea of going. In the 
 fortnight since Olyphant s disappearance, in the 
 week since he had learned of Winifred s engage 
 ment to Fred, Laurence had tasted the bitterness 
 of life, and he had learned to look on existence 
 with a seriousness hitherto foreign to his light- 
 hearted nature. He had never held with Gay, 
 that " Life is a jest and all things show it," and 
 he had done his work in the world nobly and 
 earnestly, cheerfully, yet seriously. But to him 
 the work had been easy in the main, and usually 
 he went at it with a light heart. Now, alas, he 
 saw the world as through a gray curtain, and he 
 felt as though the light had gone out of his life. 
 In sheer joyousness of existence he had never 
 before thought that the question, " Is life worth 
 living ? " was worth discussion. A great change 
 had come over him, moral rather than physical, 
 though the lines on his face were tense and set 
 as they never had been before. His friends told 
 him that he was not looking well, and advised 
 him to take a holiday. He shook his head
 
 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 gently and answered that he had work to do. Ha 
 was as thoughtful of others as ever, and as 
 considerate and kind-hearted. Those who relied 
 on him for advice found him as prompt and as 
 apt as he was wont to be. 
 
 He had not seen Winifred since the Duchess s 
 dinner to Dear Jones and his bride, and he 
 wondered why she had looked at him appeal- 
 ingly, as though she had something to ommu- 
 nicate if she only might venture. He did not 
 dare to conjecture how the newspaper articles, 
 now appearing every morning and every evening, 
 might affect her. He loved her, but he had to 
 confess to himself that he knew little of her 
 character or of its strength. That she was a 
 woman with unusual force of will, and an 
 abnormal power of self-restraint, he knew ; and 
 he believed that he had seen enough of her to 
 guess that the haughty coldness which struck 
 strangers as her chief characteristic was but the 
 thin shell masking a tender, loving, passionate 
 nature. It was the outward sign of the reserve of a 
 proud and sensitive girl, conscious of strong feel 
 ings, and knowing herself capable of a depth of pas 
 sion of which she chose not to be suspected. He 
 knew all the circumstances of the strange story of 
 her birth, and he knew how these circumstances, 
 and the cloud of gossip which always encompassed 
 her about on account of these circumstances, must 
 have fretted her sensitive soul from her youth up.
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. igi 
 
 About ten o clock on the night of the great 
 Van Siclen ball, Laurence Laughton was 
 silently pacing the ground floor of his house, 
 now resolutely thinking out the problem of 
 Olyphant s disappearance from those rooms 
 exactly a fortnight before, and now letting his 
 thoughts run away to Winifred Marshall, her 
 beauty, his hopeless love for her, the sad history 
 of her childhood, and the appeal to him which 
 he fancied he had read in her eyes when last 
 they met. So absorbed was he in his thoughts, 
 both bitter and sweet, that he did not hear the 
 ring of his door-bell, nor the passing of the faith 
 ful Bridget to answer it. It was not until the 
 parlor-door opened, and a lady entered, that he 
 was aroused from his meditation. 
 
 As he paused in his walk to take note of this 
 unexpected interruption, the lady threw back 
 her hood. It was Pussy Palmer, dressed for the 
 ball, and with her hair glittering with diamonds. 
 
 " Miss Palmer ! " Laughton cried, in astonish 
 ment. 
 
 " And Miss Palmer is not alone," replied the 
 vivacious Pussy, as another lady appeared in the 
 doorway by her side. " Guess who this is ? " 
 
 " Winifred ! " cried Laughton, as she threw off 
 the lace veil which had covered her head; " Miss 
 Marshall, I mean." 
 
 " You didn t expect us, did you, Uncle Larry?" 
 asked Miss Pussy.
 
 ig 2 THE LAST MEETING. ^ 
 
 Laurence did not answer her ; he was gazing 
 at Winifred. To his mind, he had never seen her 
 look more radiantly beautiful. The full ball- 
 dress revealed to the best advantage her superb 
 figure, well developed despite its girlish grace. 
 The face was weary and sad, and there was a 
 burning spot on each cheek which told of ex 
 citement. As she entered the room, she gave 
 him a frank and appealing look from her honest 
 and trustful eyes : it was the same look he had 
 seen in them a week before. 
 
 " It s a surprise party Winnie and I have got 
 up for you," continued Pussy, " and you are very 
 rude not to say you are delighted to see us." 
 
 " But I am delighted," answered Laughton, 
 recovering himself, " and I hasten to say so." 
 
 Winifred stood still near the door, and from 
 the burning red spot of her cheeks, a blush 
 spread slowly over her face and neck. 
 
 " Have you forgotten that it is leap-year ? " 
 the lively Miss Palmer went on, with a certain 
 bewitching friskiness of manner suggesting the 
 amusing ways of a little kitten, and thus giving 
 point to her nickname. " Have you forgotten that 
 there is only one more month? We old maids must 
 seize time on the fly, or we shall lose our last chance. 
 Can t you guess what we are here for ? It s only to 
 ask you to marry one of us ; take your choice ; if 
 you don t see what you want, ask for it, x&& please 
 report any incivility to the proprietor ! "
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 
 
 193 
 
 "Oh, Pussy!" was Winifred s reproachful in 
 terruption. 
 
 " I m all right, Winnie; I m breaking the ice,, 
 that s all," explained Miss Palmer in self-defence,. 
 " It wouldn t do to tell Uncle Larry, all at once,, 
 that we have come on important business." 
 
 " You are welcome here always, whatever may" 
 bring you," said Laurence ; "now sit down and 
 make yourselves at home." 
 
 " If you don t mind, Uncle Larry, I ll let my 
 maid help me off with my things ; she s in the 
 hall;" and Pussy Palmer stepped to the door, 
 and cried, " Venez done, Titine!" 
 
 As a neat-looking French maid entered the 
 room and said "Bon soir, M sicu" Pussy explained 
 that " Ernestine doesn t speak a word of English, 
 so you can talk right out in meeting just as if 
 she was a graven image." 
 
 Ernestine aided the two girls in removing; 
 their cloaks, which she placed on the piano. 
 
 " Now, Uncle Larry, let s be serious," began 
 Pussy, glancing about the room with a short 
 sighted, half closing of the eye-lids, an involuntary 
 trick of hers, which Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley 
 had declared to be " very fetching." 
 
 "Am I not serious ? " said Laurence, in a tone of 
 voice which made Winifred gaze at him earnestly 
 and wonderingly. 
 
 " We have come here for a talk, a consultation 
 with you at least, Winnie has ; and I came to play 
 13
 
 194 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 propriety," Miss Palmer continued, with the 
 hearty frankness which was one of her char 
 acteristics. 
 
 Laughton turned toward Winifred, whose blush 
 came back again, though she met his eyes calmly 
 and steadily. 
 
 " Miss Marshall knows that she may command 
 me," said Laughton, inwardly chafing against 
 the cold formality of the phrase. 
 
 " Then you give me a book ; anything will do. 
 I never read, you know, so everything is bound 
 to be fresh to me ; and I ll take a seat in the 
 library with Titine here, and Winnie can have 
 her talk out with you." 
 
 Laughton crossed to the case where he kept 
 his French books, and he took down two. He 
 gave 1 Abbe Constantin to Miss Palmer, and 
 he handed to Ernestine one of the adventurous 
 tales of M. Fortune du Boisgobey. He rolled a 
 comfortable arm-chair before the hickory fire in 
 the library, and he saw Miss Pussy curl herself up 
 in it as snugly as she could without damaging 
 her gorgeous apparel. 
 
 Then he went back into the parlor, where 
 Winifred still stood motionless, with her arm 
 resting lightly on the piano. She started for 
 ward impulsively, with outstretched hand. 
 
 "Mr. Laughton," she said; "I mean, Uncle 
 Larry, for it is only by thinking that you have 
 been kinder than a relative that I am encouraged
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 
 
 95 
 
 to come to you. I felt that I must come ; I 
 could not help it. I know you are surprised to 
 see me here, and in this dress. You need not 
 deny it ; your eyes betrayed you." 
 
 Laurence had been about to protest, but he 
 changed his mind. He recognized her as a 
 woman to whom a man might tell the truth. He 
 drew up a chair for her. When she was seated, 
 he sat down in front of her. 
 
 " I wanted to see you," she said; "I have 
 wanted for a week, but I had no chance till now. 
 I told Pussy, and it was she who suggested our 
 coming here to night on our way to the ball. 
 Yes ; you may well look surprised. I know 
 all you can say, and I feel it myself more than 
 you can say it. The man I love, the man I am 
 going to marry, is missing, and people think he 
 may be dead and here am I dressed for a ball. 
 And I shall go to the ball, and dance, and try to be 
 merry, while my heart aches. I shall have as 
 good a time as I can ; if I did not, I think I should 
 lie down and die, I must forget for a little while. 
 If I do nothing but think, think, think, all the 
 time, I shall go mad. That s why I am on my 
 way to the ball, and that s why I mean to be as 
 gay as I can." 
 
 She paused for a moment, and dried the tears 
 which sprang to her eyes. 
 
 " Of course, I should not do this," she continued, 
 " if people knew that I was engaged to Fred, for
 
 196 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 it would not be paying him the respect he 
 deserves ; but nobody knows it, and I am free to 
 do as I please, and to govern my life as I like. 
 It s a poor privilege, but I may as well take advan 
 tage of it." She twisted up the handkerchief 
 which she had moistened with her tears. " That 
 is why I am going to the ball," she said, reso 
 lutely. " Now, I will tell you why I am here." 
 She looked about the parlor with a yearning 
 curiosity, and the tears came afresh. " I wanted to 
 see the room where he was last ; and I wanted 
 you to tell me all about it, all about his sudden 
 disappearance." 
 
 Laurence had been watching her, with infinite 
 pity in his eyes. " I shall be glad to tell you 
 anything and everything I can," he said, " but 
 do you think that it is best to dwell on " 
 
 She raised her head and sat upright, as she 
 interrupted him : " If I can bear to read it in a 
 cruel newspaper, cannot I hear it from you ? Do 
 not deny me this ; " and the resolute ring in her 
 voice softened into pleading tones. " Tell me the 
 whole story, everything. I want to hear it all. 
 Begin at the beginning and go on to the very end." 
 
 Thus adjured, Laurence did as she bade him. 
 He began at the beginning, and told the whole 
 story. She listened with glistening eyes, glanc 
 ing about the room as he set forth the strange 
 sequence of events. 
 
 When he had come to the end of the tale, she
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 
 
 I 9 7 
 
 sat silent for a few moments. At last, she drew 
 a long breath and raised her head again. " It is 
 no use," she sighed. " I cannot understand it. 
 I do not see how he went out, or why. But I 
 know he is not dead ! " 
 
 " You know it ? " asked Laurence. 
 
 " I feel it, I am sure of it. Why, Uncle Larry, 
 he is all I have in the world, and if I lose him, 
 what have I left ? " 
 
 Involuntarily, Laurence held out his hand to 
 her. She took it without hesitation, and 
 returned the gentle pressure. 
 
 " I know I have you, Uocle Larry, and Pussy, 
 and I have other friends, too, who are kind to 
 me, in their way, but I loved him ! " 
 
 Laurence bore this without wincing; he 
 stiffened a little, but he made no other sign. 
 
 " I have found life lonely enough, at best, and 
 desolate enough," Winifred continued, "but if 
 he were dead " Here the tears filled her eyes 
 again, and her rising sobs choked her. 
 
 " But he is not dead. I shall see him again. 
 I do not know why he went or where he is, but 
 I shall see him again that I know, as I know 
 anything. I cannot think what has become of 
 him, but he is not dead." 
 
 Laurence caught the contagion of her fakh, 
 and his doubt gave way to hope. 
 
 " Then you do not think he went away from 
 here of his own accord ? " he asked.
 
 jog THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " Of course not," she replied. " Why should 
 he ? I was here." 
 
 Laurence felt the force of this confident 
 expression of trusting affection. 
 
 " And he has not committed suicide, as some 
 people foolishly suggest ; of course, they do not 
 know him as I know him. Why should he 
 commit suicide ? He must have been certain of 
 my love for him. You do not think he could 
 have doubted that, Uncle Larry, for all I teased 
 him so, and treated him so shamefully ? " 
 
 Fortunately for Laurence, he saw that he was 
 not expected to raply. To express her pent-up 
 feelings was a great relief to Winifred, but she 
 looked for no commonplace consolation. 
 
 " I did behave badly to him ; how I wish he 
 were here that I could beg his pardon." She 
 stretched out the damp handkerchief slowly, and 
 then suddenly crushed it into a ball as she looked 
 up again and said, "We had quarrelled; that is 
 what has made me feel so badly. It was all my 
 fault, of course ; he was always kind and generous ; 
 and I shall never forgive myself, never." For 
 the first time Winifred Marshall broke down 
 completely ; she laid her head back wearily and 
 sobbed. She had a strong will, and she 
 used it. She set her teeth and stopped the sobs. 
 Then she sat erect, and said, " I must not give 
 way like this. If I give way now, I am lost. I 
 must keep up somehow, and I will." She drew
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 
 
 a long breath, and looked Laughton straight in 
 the eye. 
 
 " Before we quarrelled he had begged a ring 
 of mine, and I let him wear it, because he had lost 
 his own. Mine was an opal, and I suppose it 
 was that which has brought this bad luck ; he 
 was always superstitious about stones, and I see 
 now that he was right. I thought he would 
 come in the morning to give me my ring back again, 
 but he never came. I waited for him all the 
 morning, but he did not come. Nothing came 
 but a letter." 
 
 " A letter ? " said Laurence, in surprise. 
 
 " Yes, he wrote me from here," she answered. 
 
 " I remember now," rejoined Laurence, recalling 
 the note Olyphant had asked the faithful Bridget 
 to post for him. 
 
 " As he did not come to me, I thought I would 
 go to him. It was Saturday afternoon, and his 
 studio was always open to visitors. Pussy went 
 with me, but he was not there. We went up to 
 the studio, and I found the ring he had lost." 
 
 " So it was you ?" said Laughton. 
 
 " Did you hear of us ? " she replied. " I found 
 the ring in his studio ; it is a cat s-eye, and I have 
 it now ; and he has mine. The cat s-eye is lucky, 
 you know, and he lost his ; and the opal is un 
 lucky and he is wearing mine. It is no wonder 
 we are all in doubt and trouble." 
 
 " You said you had a letter ?" Laurence inquired.
 
 20O 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, with a return of the 
 blush. 
 
 Laurence saw the color cover her face, and 
 would have been glad to have said no more, but 
 he had no right to neglect any possible source 
 of information as to Olyphant s fate. " Did it con 
 tain any suggestion as to his future movements ? " 
 he asked, gently, taking his eyes from hers. 
 
 " No," she answered, firmly ; " but you shall 
 see it; perhaps it is best." She put her hand into 
 her dress, where the letter lay concealed, next to 
 her heart. " Here it is," she said, and she kissed 
 it. " I will read it to you." 
 . " It may not be necessary, if you think " 
 
 " I will read it," she said, with gentle firmness ; 
 " it is better that I should, and it comforts me 
 to hear him say that he loves me." 
 
 She unfolded the letter and began to read it: 
 
 " My darling Winifred : 
 
 " I am here at Uncle Larry s, and the boys 
 are having a good time in the dining-room ; I have 
 left them for a moment to write to you. I could 
 not let the night go by without telling you that 
 I love you, and that I cannot live without you. 
 My head is in a whirl of agony at the thought of 
 losing you. I do not remember what w r e said to 
 one another this afternoon and why should we 
 recall hard words spoken in anger? I do not 
 remember why we quarrelled, but I confess now
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 2 OI 
 
 that it was my fault ; I know it could not have 
 been yours, Winifred. I am infirm of temper at 
 times, as you have seen, and I may try your 
 patience sorely, but you will make the best of 
 me, won t you, my darling? I am altogether 
 unworthy of you I know it only too well but I 
 love you, I love you, I love you ! Forgive me, 
 then, because of my love. Forgive me, my darling, 
 and let me come to you to receive my pardon, for 
 the last time, for there must never again be any 
 disagreement between us. If we quarrelled again, 
 perhaps you could not forgive me again ; and if 
 I lost you, I should lose all there is in the world 
 worth living for and working for. Life is of no 
 use to me, without you. 
 
 Good-night, my darling. I shall feel better 
 now that I have begged you to forgive me. 
 Forgive and forget is a poor motto for me just 
 now, for I want you to forgive me, but if you 
 were to forget me, I should die. 
 
 "Good night, once more, my Winifred. 
 
 " Your Fred." 
 
 Winifred read this through to the end without 
 again breaking down, although her voice trem- 
 bkd as she lingered over the tender words. 
 
 " There," she said to Laurence, " you see he is 
 not dead. He cannot be dead ; I love him so, 
 oh, Uncle Larry, I love him so ! I think of him 
 day and night, even in my prayers to God, my
 
 2Q2 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 thoughts wander to him. It would be so hard to 
 lose him I could never love any one else. Oh, 
 Uncle Larry, can t you do something to comfort 
 me ? I know he is not dead, but I am so miser 
 able while he is away ! " 
 
 And again the tears flooded her eyes, and she 
 bent her head forward, weeping over the hand 
 which Laurence had extended in sympathy. 
 
 " You were his best friend, and so I came to 
 you. But I know there is nothing to be done. 
 I must be brave and wait ; he will come back to 
 me. Do not mind my crying there, you see I 
 have stopped ; I can cry and nobody will guess 
 it ten minutes after." 
 
 The clock in the library struck eleven. 
 
 " Come, girls," said Pussy Palmer, closing her 
 book, and rising ; " time s up." 
 
 " I know it," answered Winifred ; " I will be 
 ready in a minute. I wonder if girls in the 
 country who read about girls in the city going 
 to balls ever think that they may take sad hearts 
 with them. But if going to balls will help me 
 keep up my courage, I shall go ; and I shall do 
 my best to enjoy myself, as I know Fred would 
 want me to. I must swim on the topmost wave 
 of society and gaiety ; if I go under for a second 
 I shall drown. And I must not drown or die ; I 
 must be ready for him. He will come back to 
 me, I know it. All I have to do is to keep up 
 till he comes to me."
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING. 
 
 203 
 
 These last few words had been said with fever 
 ish volubility, and the red spot in her cheek 
 burned fiercer than ever. She threw on her 
 cloak, hastily fastening it at the throat, and she 
 took up the bunch of yellow roses she had held 
 in her hand as she came in. 
 
 " I have to thank you, Uncle Larry, for listen 
 ing to me patiently. I know I have troubled 
 you, but it relieves me so to talk to a kind friend 
 on whose strength I feel I can lean." 
 
 Laurence answered that she might always 
 rely on him. Ernestine gathered up their 
 belongings, and there was a rustle of trains, and 
 then they were gone. He put them into the 
 carriage ; and as he came up his steps he felt the 
 first drops of the storm which had been threat 
 ening all the afternoon. Before he could get on 
 his overcoat, the rain was falling in torrents ; he 
 buttoned the coat about him and walked forth 
 into the storm. He went up Fifth Avenue, pass 
 ing the brilliantly-lighted mansion of Schermer- 
 horn Van Siclen, and thrusting himself through 
 the crowd of curious spectators who braved the 
 rain to see the arriving guests as they tripped 
 under the awning from their carriages to the 
 door. Then he went on up to Central Park, 
 and he walked around the Park before he 
 turned homeward. The first faint indications of 
 the dawn were visible in the East as Laurence 
 Laughton came back to his own house. ,.*
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NO NEWS. 
 
 FOR days, for weeks after the unexpected 
 visit of Winifred Marshall and Pussy 
 Palmer to Laurence Laughton, there was no 
 news. There was absolutely no change in the 
 situation ; and the anxious inquirers, despite all 
 their efforts, were no nearer to a solution of the 
 mystery of Olyphant s disappearance. All that 
 money could do, was done; and, at Laughton s 
 expense, the leading detectives of New York 
 had put their wits to work to find a clue which 
 might lead them into the heart of the labyrinth. 
 It was all in vain. Thanksgiving came and 
 went, leaving in the hearts of Olyphant s friends, 
 and of the woman who loved him, no new cause 
 for giving thanks. Day followed day, and week 
 followed week, and they remained in the same 
 mist of uncertainty and doubt. 
 
 One day in December, Laurence Laughton 
 received a note from Robert White, asking him 
 to go with him that afternoon to the Police 
 Headquarters in Mulberry Street, to see Inspec 
 tor Barnes, who had requested them to call, as 
 204
 
 NO NEWS. 
 
 205 
 
 he had something to communicate. Laughton 
 and White presented themselves in the office of 
 the inspector at the hour he had named. He 
 received them with the same courtesy he had 
 displayed on their previous visit. 
 
 " It is a very little bit of news I have for you, 
 gentlemen," he said, when they were seated. 
 
 " Every little helps," suggested White. 
 
 " No man despises trifles less than I," replied 
 the inspector. " If my experience has taught 
 me nothing, it has at least taught me this many 
 a mickle makes a muckle, as the Scotch say." 
 
 " What is your mickle ? " asked Laughton. 
 
 " Only this," answered the inspector: " On the 
 night that Mr. Olyphant was missing, a Greek 
 named Constantine Vollonides left New York on 
 the midnight train for Chicago. This Greek bore 
 a grudge against your friend, and you think it 
 possible that he had a hand in the disappearance ? " 
 
 " I am convinced of it," Laughton declared. 
 
 " Very well," continued Inspector Barnes ; " in 
 that case we shall have accomplished something, 
 if we can lay hands on the Greek." 
 
 " Have you got him ? " interrupted Laughton, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " No," answered the officer, " but we have 
 news of him. I have been trying for now nearly 
 a month, in fact, ever since you first came to me, 
 to trace this Vollonides. Only last night I 
 received the first definite information of a kind
 
 2o6 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 that I could rely on. The Greek bought a ticket 
 for Chicago, and he left New York on the mid 
 night train for Chicago ; that was all we knew. 
 I could not find out whether he ever arrived in 
 Chicago or not. Now as I say, I have trustworthy 
 information that he left the train probably at 
 Buffalo, though he may possibly have alighted 
 at Niagara Falls." 
 
 " What is to be done now ? " Laughton 
 asked. 
 
 " We must first ascertain whether he is still in 
 Buffalo or Niagara, or whether he simply got off 
 the train there to throw us off the track. I have 
 written to the chief of police at both places, 
 asking them to look the man up, and to let me 
 know as soon as they find any trace of him." 
 
 "Do you think he is there now?" White 
 inquired. 
 
 The inspector thought for a moment, and then 
 answered, " No, I do not. I am of the impres 
 sion that his alighting there was only a blind. 
 He may have doubled on his tracks, and returned 
 here, or he may have gone to Chicago by one of 
 the other lines of railroad. It would be well to 
 have Chicago searched as well as Buffalo." 
 
 " I will attend to that," said Laughton. 
 
 " And, of course," continued the inspector, 
 " we have no right to assume that Chicago was 
 really his objective point. He may have gone 
 there, or he may not."
 
 NO NEWS. 
 
 2O7 
 
 " It can do no harm to have him looked for 
 there as well as in Buffalo," Laughton declared. 
 
 " Certainly not," said the inspector. 
 
 " And he may even have gone to San Fran 
 cisco," added Laughton. " I know that he had 
 a brother somewhere in Southern California." 
 
 There was a slight pause in the conversation, 
 and then Inspector Barnes asked : "Have either 
 of you gentlemen ever seen this Greek ? " 
 
 " I have," Laughton answered. 
 
 " Would you recognize anything belonging to 
 liim ? " the officer inquired. 
 
 " I might," said Laughton, doubtfully. 
 
 " A ring, for instance ? " 
 
 " I do not recall any peculiar ring of his," 
 Laughton replied; "but perhaps I should if I 
 saw it." 
 
 " When he quit the cars at Niagara or Buffalo 
 he left a ring behind him. It was found by one 
 of the men who clean up the cars that s why I 
 have been so long in getting any news ; the man 
 hoped to keep the ring for himself. But he was 
 seen to pick it up by another man, who remem 
 bered that it had been worn by a passenger on 
 the midnight train, very like the Greek as you 
 have described him to me. Besides, Vollonides 
 arrived here on the City of Constantinople, did he 
 not?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Laughton, " only a few hours 
 before Fred disappeared."
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " I find that it is the custom of the line to give 
 out charts of the course of the ship, on the back 
 of which is printed a list of the passengers. A 
 chart of this sort, with a list of the passengers on 
 the City of Constantinople, was found with the 
 ring. It was rolled up, and the ring had been 
 put on it, much as a napkin ring is put on a 
 napkin." 
 
 " Have you the ring ? " asked White. 
 
 " Here it is," answered the inspector, taking; 
 it from his desk. 
 
 Laughton held out his hand for it, and as 
 soon as Inspector Barnes laid the ring on his 
 palm, he walked to the window that he might 
 get a good look at it. Even by the fading light 
 of a December afternoon, he knew the ring at 
 once. 
 
 " Do you recognize it ? " asked the inspector. 
 
 " I do," answered Laughton. 
 
 "Then it belonged to the Greek?" said 
 White. 
 
 " No," replied Laughton, slowly; " it belongs to 
 the young lady Olyphant was engaged to. She 
 lent it to him the last time she saw him. I noticed 
 it on his hand only a few minutes before he dis 
 appeared." 
 
 " It is an opal," White noted. 
 
 " I think you have here another link in the 
 chain which connects the Greek with Mr. Oly- 
 phant s disappearance," the inspector remarked.
 
 NO NEWS. 209 
 
 " Your friend wore this ring at your house on 
 the night he was missing, and the next day it is 
 found on the seat of the railroad car, where 
 Vollonides had been sitting." 
 
 " It is scarcely possible to explain this on any 
 other theory than that Vollonides took the ring 
 from Olyphant, after Olyphant left Mr. Laughton s 
 house," White asserted. 
 
 " That is the way I look at it," the inspector 
 agreed. 
 
 " Then the first thing we have to do is to find 
 the Greek," declared White. 
 
 "And when we get him," added Laughton, 
 with a fierceness foreign to his gentle manner, 
 " we ll wring the truth out of him, willy-willy." 
 
 " It s like looking for a needle in a haystack 
 to try and find one man out of the fifty millions 
 in these United States. But we shall do it 
 sooner or later," White added. 
 
 " You may count on my aid," said Inspector 
 Barnes. 
 
 But even with the aid of Inspector Barnes they 
 did not find Constantine Vollonides ; and they 
 did not find Frederick Olyphant. Both men 
 had vanished and made no sign. They had dis 
 appeared as completely as though the earth had 
 opened and swallowed them up. Buffalo was 
 scoured by the detectives, and Niagara, but with 
 no result. Chicago was searched as it had never 
 14
 
 2io THE. LAST MEETING. 
 
 been searched before, but no trace of the Greek 
 was found. Laurence Laughton had offered a 
 reward large enough to stimulate the interest of 
 every detective in the United States, but their 
 diligence and industry and vigilance were not 
 profitable. 
 
 The dull days followed one another more 
 slowly than ever, and they brought no change. 
 There was always the same inexplicable mystery. 
 Christmas came, but Providence did not vouchsafe 
 to Winifred Marshall the one Christmas gift 
 which she longed for with all the passionate 
 earnestness of her nature. New Year s day 
 followed Christmas, and the new year did not 
 open any more brightly for her than the old 
 year had closed. 
 
 In January the newspapers exposed a gigantic 
 scheme of blackmailing which had been planned 
 with extraordinary astuteness, and a singularly 
 acute knowledge of the weak side of human 
 nature. Certain developments in the case led 
 Robert White to believe that the scheme had 
 been in preparation for a long while, and that its 
 originators might have been accomplices in the 
 capture of Frederick Olyphant. Incredible as it 
 might appear, the journalist convinced himself 
 that the outlaws had considered the possibility of 
 adding to blackmail the profits of holding pris 
 oners to ransom ; in other words, they were pre-
 
 NO NEWS. 211 
 
 pared to transplant to the United States in the nine 
 teenth century the methods and practices of the 
 brigands of Greece. But it did not take White 
 
 o 
 
 very long to discover that he was on a false scent, 
 and that the reckless plotters whose elaborate 
 devices for tradiwg on the weaknesses of their 
 fellow-men had filled the newspapers for days, 
 could not have shared in the abduction or the 
 murder of Frederick Olyphant. By personal 
 intestigation he assured himself that they had 
 no knowledge of Constantine Vollonides, and that 
 they abuld tell him nothing about Olyphant s fate. 
 
 The winter draw slowly to a close, but the 
 brightening skies brought no good news to fulfill 
 the hopes by which Winifred Marshall was 
 buoyed up. J^ust before Lent began a party of 
 har friends set out for New Orleans, to see the 
 Mardi Gras processions. Mr. and Mrs. Delancey 
 Jones, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sutton, headed 
 1foe party, and they asked Winifred and Pussy 
 Palmer to join them. Winifred refused at once. 
 She told Mrs. Jones that she did not know when 
 Fred would return, but it was her duty to remain 
 in New York that he might find her at once when 
 he sought her. Pussy Palmer was very anxious 
 to go ; she said she thought it would be " dead 
 loads of fun"; she tried to persuade Winifred 
 to change her mind : but when she found tkat 
 her friend was fixed in the determination to
 
 2 1 2 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 remain in New York, she magnanimously re 
 mained also, knowing that Winifred relied on her 
 companionship. 
 
 As it happened, Miss Pussy Palmer had her 
 reward in this world. Schermerhorn Van Siclen 
 and his family were hugely delighted with the 
 success of their great ball, and they were moved 
 to astonish society again. Young Mrs. Van Siclen, 
 the bride, formerly Miss Miranda Hitchcock, was 
 a young lady of fertile invention, and she sug 
 gested a fish-dinner for the first week in Lent. 
 Mr. Van Siclen s father had been a Long Island 
 fisherman, a fact to which he sometimes referred, 
 much to his wife s disgust ; and he accepted the 
 fish-dinner as highly appropriate. He deter 
 mined also that as the Van Siclen ball had been 
 the great ball of the season, so the Van Siclen 
 fish-dinner should deserve and demand record 
 in the annals of the highest gastronomy. The 
 ingenuity of the Van Siclens and of their pro 
 fessional advisers was tasked to the utmost to 
 furnish variety. In the centre of the table was a 
 huge block of ice, frozen in which, as though 
 swimming, was a little school of sea-robins, whose 
 variegated colors were illumined by half a 
 dozen tiny electric lamps, also frozen into the 
 block of ice. Other of these little lamps were con 
 cealed here and there amid the flowers on the table. 
 The oysters on the half shell reposed on thin 
 disks of ice. There was a clam-soup and
 
 NO NEWS. 
 
 213 
 
 there was a bisque of crabs which surpassed 
 description. There was terrapin which pleased 
 even the old bachelors. There was pompano, 
 and there was every other fish which could be 
 procured for love of money. The ice-creams 
 simulated the humble red-herring ; and the 
 finger bowls had tiny gold-fish swimming 
 about in them. These were joys which Pussy 
 Palmer would have lost had she gone to New 
 Orleans for Mardi Gras; and as she was amused 
 by the successive courses with their surprises, she 
 was very glad that she had remained in New 
 York. 
 
 " I tell you what," she said to Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley, who had taken her into dinner, 
 " it pays to be self-sacrificing. Virtue is its own 
 reward, and honesty is the best policy." 
 
 " C est vrai" Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley re 
 plied. " Who ever would have thought you had 
 so many kinds of fish here ? I ve seen more 
 fish here to-day than I ever saw in London, you 
 know ; and yet we Britishers live on an island, 
 and we ought to have no end of fish." 
 
 The gossip must be recorded here which 
 asserts that Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley had been 
 very attentive to Miss Pussy Palmer all winter. 
 Charley Sutton had seen them together, and he 
 had remarked that it looked as though " Hob- 
 Chum was beginning to take notice." 
 
 Mrs. Martin, who had long before this discov-
 
 214 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 ered tke good qualities concealed beneath the 
 young girl s extravagance of speech, had 
 resolved that she should marry the little English 
 man ; and it was generally believed that the 
 Duchess of Washington Square was a special 
 partner with heaven in the business of match 
 making to use a phrase of Dear Jones s. Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley had been heard to de 
 clare that he had had enough of globe-trotting, 
 and that he meant to get a wife and settle down. 
 " Better get one with money," suggested Charley 
 Sutton, " and then you can settle up." Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley flushed scarlet : " I don t 
 owe you anything, do I ? " he asked, uncomfort 
 ably ; that he was sometimes impervious to a 
 joke was the chief defect of his character. " You 
 don t owe me anything but respect," answered 
 Charley Sutton ; " and I ll lend you a piece of 
 advice. If you want to get married, hang out a 
 sign, Eligible Bachelor For Sale, and maybe 
 some pretty girl will run away with you." 
 " That s not half bad, that idea," Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley had said ; " but do you think it 
 would be good form ? " 
 
 Pussy Palmer confessed to herself that she 
 was very fond of the little Englishman, and she 
 looked favorably on his timid suit. People said 
 she flirted with him outrageously, but Mr. Hob 
 son-Cholmondeley had not complained. Any one 
 who watched them, as they sat side by side at
 
 NO NEWS, 
 
 21$ 
 
 the Van Siclen fish-dinner, would have ventured 
 a guess that they were interested in each other. 
 Miss Pussy had allowed her rich auburn 
 hair to grow into the most enchanting little curls, 
 and she had arranged it with consummate art to 
 set off her radiant complexion, which was " as 
 clear as a spring morning after a heavy dew " : 
 so Rudolph Vernon had once described it. 
 
 " I m getting old," she said ; " I m losing all 
 my illusions, and my dolly is stuffed with sawdust" 
 
 " Tiens, tiens" chirped Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley, making a mental record of the curious 
 fact that in America young ladies out in society 
 still played with dolls. 
 
 " I used to think once," Pussy continued, 
 " that I might have what I wanted the next day, 
 now I don t expect it till next week, and I don t 
 always get it even then." 
 
 " What ever do you want that you do not 
 have?" asked Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley. 
 
 " Oh, lots of things. I wanted to go to New 
 Orleans, but I m glad I didn t go, now. I 
 wanted to get out of teaching a class in Sunday- 
 school. I want, most of all perhaps, to learn to 
 control my temper ; why, yesterday at lunch, I 
 got so mad with myself, that I should have 
 talked scripture, if there hadn t been ladies 
 present." 
 
 "Oh, indeed?" said Mr. Hobson-Cholmon 
 deley, meditatively.
 
 2 1 6 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 " Of course," she went on, " the one thing I d 
 give anything to see, is to see Fred Olyphant 
 come back." 
 
 " But you never will see that, you know," Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley declared. 
 
 " Why not ? " she asked, fiercely. 
 
 " Because he is dead," was the Englishman s 
 answer. 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I am sure of it. He walked out of the little 
 door in Mr. Laughton s library, the one covered 
 by a curtain, you know, and he walked right to 
 the Battery and was drowned." 
 
 " I don t believe it. I know he s alive ! " cried 
 Pussy, indignantly ; " and I don t see how you 
 can say such things either." 
 
 " Je dis ce queje pense" responded Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley, a little taken aback by this out 
 burst. 
 
 " Then you had better think about something 
 else," returned the American girl. 
 
 " But they found his body," persisted the 
 Englishman, not knowing when to stop. 
 
 " They didn t do anything of the sort so, here 
 now ! I am not going to let you brow-beat me in 
 this way," the young lady declared, with emphasis. 
 " Frederick Olyphant is alive, and he will come 
 back some day." 
 
 " I am afraid not," said Mr. Hobson-Cholmon 
 deley, when he had far better have said nothing.
 
 A r O NEWS. 
 
 217 
 
 " But I tell you he will ! " she rejoined ; " and 
 I ll make you think so, too." 
 
 " You can t do that, Miss Pussy," he said, with 
 a smile; "really, you know, you can t do that." 
 
 " Well, if you want to talk to me, I ll make you 
 wish for his return, for I forbid you ever to speak 
 to me again until Frederick Olyphant comes 
 back ! " And she said this defiantly and firmly ; 
 and the Englishman thought he had never seen 
 her looking as lively and as pretty. 
 
 " Come, now, Miss Pussy," he began, " it s 
 really too bad you know " 
 
 " That s enough," she said, rising from the 
 table with the other ladies; "you have heard the 
 sentence of the court. Until Frederick Olyphant 
 comes back I will not listen to you." 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley rubbed his hands 
 together gently as he saw Miss Palmer retreat 
 from the dining-room. But despite his utmost 
 effort and his most effective special pleading he 
 was unable to get his fair judge to reverse her 
 decision.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 "PHE fish-dinner of the Van Siclenswas the chief 
 JL topic of talk in the town until the time drew 
 nigh for the inauguration of the new President of 
 the United States, who had been elected four days 
 after Olyphant s disappearance. The enterprising 
 newspapers which had spread before their hun 
 dred thousand readers the full bill-of-fare of that 
 Lenten repast, with an illustrative diagram of the 
 dinner-table, placing the guests accurately, and 
 giving a picturesque estimate of their fortunes, 
 individual and collective, were adequate to the 
 new occasion, and kindly provided the future 
 President with ready-made Cabinets recon 
 structed daily. After the inauguration, the new 
 President appointed his own Cabinet, and the 
 newspapers devoted themselves to chronicling the 
 small-talk of the inauguration-ball. The month 
 of March went out like a lamb, exposing its 
 fleece of snow until its last day, and then April 
 came foolishly forward ; but the revolving months 
 left those who loved Frederick Olyphant in the 
 218
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 same gnawing uncertainty. He had been gone 
 for five months, and nothing definite had been 
 discovered in regard to his disappearance, 
 nothing, that is to say, more definite or more 
 precise than the facts which have been set down 
 in the preceding pages. 
 
 Winifred Marshall s faith in her lover and in 
 his life did not flag or falter ; but hope deferred 
 made her heart sick. The good news was a long 
 time coming. She did not doubt, still less did 
 she despair, but a vague dread began to steal 
 over her, and now and again her strength failed 
 her. She was strong of will, and she nerved 
 herself to conquer a weakness which was almost 
 wholly physical. Yet the struggle told upon her, 
 a/id the strain was as much as she could stand. 
 Pussy Palmer was with her friend every day, but 
 she could not deny that Winifred had begun to 
 droop and to decline. Pussy feared, so she con 
 fessed to Uncle Larry, that if relief did not come 
 scon, Winifred would fade away, and that when 
 Fred did return at last, he would not find his 
 bride. Laurence Laughton saw that Winifred 
 looked wearied and worn. She kept a brave 
 heart, and her beauty grew in pathos ; but her 
 body was ready to break down. She had always 
 had High Church ideas, and the fasting she im 
 posed on herself in Lent was more than she could 
 bear. He remonstrated with her in vain, until 
 he told her that she had no right to risk her
 
 2 2O TIIE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 health, since Fred would not be pleased if he 
 came back and found her weak and waning. 
 She felt the force of this argument, and a few 
 days afterward Laurence noted with pleasure that 
 her walk was firmer, and that there was a fresher 
 color in her cheek. She and Pussy took long 
 rides in the Park every morning, regardless of the 
 inclemencies of the climate. When Easter came, 
 Laughton looked across the church, and he 
 thought she seemed encouraged and refreshed, 
 as though she had obtained some spiritual com 
 fort unknown to him. He could not take his 
 eyes off her during the long service, and when he 
 left the church the dull pain at his heart hurt 
 more than ever before. 
 
 The Full Score was to have its Spring dinnev.- 
 at Laurence Laughton s on the Friday after 
 Easter, April loth, more than five months since 
 the previous meeting, at which Frederick Oly- 
 phant had made his last appearance. 
 
 In Uncle Larry s dining-room there gathered 
 Poor Bob White and the poetic Rudolph Vernon, 
 Charley Sutton and Eliphalet Duncan, Mr. J. 
 Warren Payn, the composer, and Hobson-Chol- 
 mondeley, who had not yet succeeded in getting 
 speech again with Miss Pussy Palmer. Harry 
 Brackett, who had arrived late at the previous 
 meeting, and Dear Jones, who had not been 
 there at all, were also among the guests. 
 
 Harry Brackett liked Dear Jones, and he was
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 221 
 
 greatly given to the humorous banter of those he 
 liked. 
 
 " I am told," he was heard to say during a 
 break in the conversation, " that Jonesy is an 
 architect now not that I have ever seen any 
 thing he has built." 
 
 " That s because I haven t built a jail yet, " 
 retorted Dear Jones. 
 
 " Speaking of jails," Brackett continued, im- 
 perturbably, * reminds me of what I have also 
 been informed, and that is, that Jonesy studied 
 music and wrote songs and such before he took 
 to building Eastlake pig-pens." 
 
 " Somebody once said," Rudolph Vernon 
 remarked, " that architecture was frozen music." 
 
 " Do you mean to suggest that Jones s opera 
 would have been a frost ? " asked Charley 
 Sutton. 
 
 Dear Jones came forward in self-defence. " I 
 never wrote an opera," he explained, " though I did 
 once begin an oratorio on the subject of Jezebel ; 
 but I did not advance beyond the composition 
 of a Chorus of Barking Dogs." 
 
 " It s lucky you didn t go any further," 
 returned Harry Brackett ; " barking dogs don t 
 bite and musical critics do ! " 
 
 " Are not all critics dogs ? " asked Rudolph 
 Vernon, humorously exaggerating a poet s pro 
 per contempt for cynicism. 
 
 " I will not allow the critics to be abused,"
 
 222 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Jones declared ; " did not one of them say only 
 the other day that a Queen Anne cottage of 
 mine reminded him of the Parthenon ? It was 
 either the Parthenon or St. Peter s, I forget which." 
 
 " The praise of a fool is bitter," said the poet, 
 sententiously. 
 
 " But whfo ever believed that the man who 
 praised him could be a fool ? " Dear Jones 
 inquired. " I don L The man who praises 
 me is a person of remarkable discernment, 
 and of the highest intellectual attributes." 
 
 " Of course," assented Eliphalet Duncan. 
 
 " I have known critics," said Mr. Hobson- 
 Chc-lmondeley, judicially, " who were tant soit 
 pen commonplace persons." 
 
 "Well, I should say so," Robert White re 
 sponded; " sojne critics don t know enough to 
 keep over night Why, when I wrote a satirical 
 paper for the Arctic Monthly, which I called An 
 Inquiry into the Alleged Collaboration of Ba 
 con and Shakspere in writing Punch-and-Judy/ 
 a man in an up-country newspaper called me to 
 account gravely for the insubstantiality of my 
 argument just as if I .could provide not only 
 the merry jes.fr but also the sense of humor for 
 its proper enjoyment/ 
 
 " I remember a man down-east or out-west, I 
 forget which," said Dear Jones, " who com 
 plained of the insubstantiality of Fred Oly- 
 phant s Vision of No-Man s Land. "
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 223 
 
 " Fancy now," Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley re 
 marked. " It s something curious to think that 
 poor Olyphant was at work on a picture called 
 the Sharpness of Death, when he died himself." 
 
 " If he really is dead ? " said White, gravely. 
 
 " Dear me," asked Mr. Hobson-Cholmon 
 deley ; " do you doubt it ? " 
 
 " Most decidedly I doubt it," answered White. 
 
 " So do I," added Laughton. 
 
 " Really now," the little Englishman rejoined, 
 " I wish I could. His death was most unfortu 
 nate, for he was a good fellow, you know, 
 jusqu au bout des ongles. But I haven t any 
 doubt that he walked out of that door in the 
 library, and went down to the Battery, and was 
 drowned." 
 
 " But that was not his body we found," said 
 Harry Brackett. 
 
 " And he did not go out of that door in the 
 library," Laughton declared, "for it was locked." 
 
 " Are you quite sure of that, Uncle Larry ?" 
 asked Robert White. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Laughton ; " we 
 found it locked, you remember, and the key was 
 on my table up stairs." 
 
 " But let us apply what the logicians call the 
 process of exclusion," persisted White. " Fred 
 was in this house on the night of October 3ist; 
 he was on this floor, in one of these three rooms, 
 parlor, library, dining-room. Now, he must
 
 224 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 have got out by an opening of some sort. The 
 only openings are the chimneys, windows and 
 doors. The chimneys are too small for human 
 egress. The windows could not have been 
 opened without our knowledge ; it is simply im 
 possible that Fred could have gone into either 
 the parlor or the dining-room and opened a 
 window and got out, without being seen by the 
 men in those rooms. Therefore, he must have 
 made his exit by one of the doors. Now, there 
 are three doors and three only one in the par 
 lor, one in the dining-room here, and the little 
 one behind the curtain in the library. The door 
 in the parlor is easily disposed of it was closed, 
 and I was leaning against it : therefore I know 
 that Fred did not go out that way." 
 
 " And I know he did not go out by the door 
 in this room," interrupted Charley Sutton, " for 
 I was sitting just in front of it, with my feet up 
 on a chair, and nobody could have passed with 
 out disturbing me." 
 
 " The door was shut tight," added Rudolph 
 Vernon, " for I remember what a rattle it made 
 as I slid it to." 
 
 " Therefore," declared White, " as Fred could 
 not have gone up the chimney or out of the 
 window, and as he did not go out of the door 
 here in the dining-room, or out of that in the 
 parlor, he must have gone out of the little door 
 in the library. Q. E. D."
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 2 2$ 
 
 " That s what I said directly I heard he was 
 gone," said Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, rubbing 
 his hands together gently. 
 
 " But that little door was locked," Laughton 
 replied. 
 
 " It was locked when you tried it ; yes. But 
 was it locked earlier in the evening ? " asked 
 White. " And when had it been unlocked last 
 before that night." 
 
 " I have a vague recollection," answered 
 Laurence, " that it had been open two or three 
 days before, during the cleaning of the house. I 
 told the faithful Bridget, I remember, to lock it 
 up again, when the cleaning was over, and to 
 take the key up to my room. And she must 
 have done it, because we found the door locked 
 and we found the key up stairs." 
 
 " That is all very well," White returned ; " but 
 it is just as easy to say that Fred must have 
 gone through this door, for he could not have 
 got out any other way; and that he did get out 
 somehow we all know, because the watch he 
 wore and the ring he had on, have been found 
 elsewhere. The door had been open, as you 
 confess : now, why not let us ask the faithful 
 Bridget when she locked it ? " 
 
 "Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, "per 
 haps you might have her up. I don t suppose 
 she will remember, but it won t do any harm to 
 ask her, and I think she likes to come up when 
 15
 
 22 6 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 there s company." He told one of the waiters 
 to request the faithful Bridget to step up stairs. 
 
 " You conduct the examination-in-chief," said 
 Charley Button to White, " and I ll cross-examine 
 for the defence." 
 
 " Unless you want every cross-question to 
 bring a crosser answer," Uncle Larry ventured 
 to remark, " perhaps it would be best to let me 
 extract the information." 
 
 " I object," Charley Sutton began. 
 
 " Of course," interposed Eliphalet Duncan ; 
 but the court overrules the objection, and allows 
 the exception." 
 
 A pleasant old Irish voice was heard on the 
 stairs leading up from below calling, " Come 
 here, sir, come here ! Bundle o Rags ! Bundle 
 o Rags ! Oh, the little wretch, there s no holding 
 him ! " and Bundle o Rags bounded into the 
 dining-room at full speed, stopping short by 
 the side of Uncle Larry, where he threw him 
 self back on his haunches and began to beg at 
 once. 
 
 "Sure, there s no holding him, sir, none at 
 all. Do what I will, he s out of my hands before 
 I know where I am," said the faithful Bridget, as 
 she entered the dining-room, and came to the 
 head of the table. " Good evening, gentlemen," 
 she added, as she saw the assembly. 
 
 " How are you, Bridget? " was shouted at her 
 from all parts of the table.
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 227 
 
 " It s well I am, barring a taste of the rheuma 
 tics in my feet." 
 
 As Uncle Larry gave Bundle o Rags the bone 
 for which he had been mutely pleading since 
 his sudden appearance, he noticed that one of 
 the dog s eyes was abnormally free from the 
 shaggy hair which generally begirt it. " What is 
 the matter with his left eye, Bridget ? " he asked. 
 
 " Sure, I don t rightly know, sir ; I think it s 
 that Cleopatrick, sir, the kitten. They re so 
 playful together there s no keeping them apart. 
 I think when she combed his bang the morning, 
 she stuck her finger in his eye. But she s a 
 good kitten, is that Cleopatrick, sir; there s no 
 harm in her." 
 
 " Bridget," Laughton began, " do you remem 
 ber when that little door in the library was open, 
 the one behind the curtain, I mean ? " 
 
 " Sure I do, sir," she answered, promptly ; " we d 
 been after cleaning the house, and I had the key 
 down and I opened it." 
 
 " Do you remember my telling you to lock 
 it up?" 
 
 " Indeed I do, sir. And by the same token I 
 forgot it. As you know, sir, it isn t often I for 
 get my duty, but I clean forgot that, so I did." 
 
 Robert White looked at Laughton with a smile 
 of triumph, as the host asked, " Well, when did 
 you lock the door, Bridget?" 
 
 " It was for two days I forgot it, sir ; but twas
 
 22 8 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 no wonder, sir. I was flustered with getting the 
 house ready for the dinner. Sure, twas then you 
 had all these gentlemen to dinner." 
 
 " And that was two days after I had told you 
 to lock the door?" Laughton inquired. 
 
 " Sure it was, sir, and twas the night of the 
 dinner I locked it. I was going up to bed, and 
 as I passed the hall here, the door was open and 
 then I minded me, I had to lock it, and I turned 
 the key then, and I took it up to your room, sir." 
 
 " You say you found the door open as you 
 passed ? " asked Laughton. 
 
 " Indeed it was, sir, all along of my not having 
 locked it before. Twas open half-way across the 
 hall, as though somebody had been through it, 
 though it was shut in the morning, that I m 
 sure." 
 
 " And what time was it when you went to bed 
 that night ? " 
 
 " Twas my regular time, ten or the half after," 
 replied the faithful Bridget. 
 
 " That will do, Bridget," said Uncle Larry ; 
 41 thank you. You can take Bundle o Rags down 
 with you." 
 
 But Bundle o Rags heard this, and he seized 
 his bone in his teeth and he fled into the parlor, 
 where he hid himself under the furthermost 
 corner of a sofa. The faithful Bridget pursued 
 him swiftly, but he resisted her blandishments 
 and refused to come forth.
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 229 
 
 " You may let him stay up," Laurence called 
 to her. " I ll attend to his case." 
 
 " Very well, sir, if you say so," and the faithful 
 Bridget withdrew. 
 
 " It is always mean to say, I told you so, but 
 I cannot resist the temptation just this once," said 
 White to Laughton. 
 
 " Dixif" remarked Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, 
 "je vous lai dit! " 
 
 Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley was a kindly, good- 
 hearted little fellow, but as Charley Sutton put 
 it, " he is as obstinate as they make em ; and he 
 has no more tact than a hedgehog." 
 
 " I think it is plain enough now how Fred got 
 out of the room," White declared ; " he walked 
 out through the little door in the library, leaving 
 it ajar. The curtain concealed this fact from 
 Uncle Larry. Fred took his hat and left the 
 house. Then, while Uncle Larry was looking for 
 him in the parlor and in the dining-room, Bridget 
 came up to go to bed. She saw the library door 
 open, she locked it and she took the key up 
 stairs to Uncle Larry s room." 
 
 " I have always said," Mr. Hobson-Cholmon 
 deley declared, " that poor Olyphant walked out 
 through that little door, and that he went down, 
 to the Battery and that he is drowned." 
 
 " And I say he isn t drowned," Robert White 
 retorted; " I believe he is alive." 
 
 " Then where is he ? " asked the Englishman.
 
 230 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " I don t know." 
 
 " And why doesn t he turn up? " persisted the 
 obstinate little fellow. 
 
 " I don t know," White answered. " But I 
 think he is alive, and I think he will surely turn 
 up." 
 
 " So do I," Laughton agreed. 
 
 "T3ut there s no common-sense m believing in 
 a thing contrary to the facts," Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley urged. 
 
 "Here are the facts," rejoined White, "and 
 here is my interpretation of them : Fred had no 
 reason to go away ajnd hide ; indeed, he had the 
 best of reasons for staying here. Therefore we 
 may assume that his absence or disappearance 
 is not voluntary. He was known to have a 
 bitter enemy who had a hereditary passion for 
 revenge. We know this enemy arrived in New 
 York a few hours before Fred vanished. There 
 fore wfe may believe that this enemy was the 
 cause of Fred s disappearance." 
 
 "Do you think Vollonides killed Fred?" 
 asked Charley Sutton. 
 
 " Ijlo, I do not thhik so now. If he had killed 
 him he would not have left Fred s ring lying 
 about in a cafr ; he was too sharp for that. Be 
 side, he was a quick-witted Greek, and he was 
 wily enough and cruel enough to know that 
 instant death is not the worst of fates. To live 
 and to suffer and to know that those we love are
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 suffering, is worse than death, many degrees 
 worse. Now, on the boat which brought him 
 here, Vollonides picked up a bit of information 
 about Fred and " 
 
 " And the man who gave him that information 
 has been kicking himself for a fool ever since," 
 interrupted Jones. 
 
 " Quite right too," commented Harry Brackett. 
 
 " This information," White continued, " may 
 have made him change his mind. No doubt he 
 had come here to kill Fred. Instead of killing 
 him he preferred to secrete him somewhere, to 
 spirit him away, leaving doubt and dismay be 
 hind, and causing many times as much misery 
 as a certainty of death." 
 
 " But what has he done with him ? " asked. 
 Jones ; " I m told that the Bastille is now out of 
 repair." 
 
 " And the press-gang has lost its power," 
 added Eliphalet Duncan. 
 
 " Twenty years ago," Charley Sutton remarked,, 
 " we might have thought he had been shanghaied." 
 
 " Shang-what ? " asked Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley. 
 
 " Shanghaied that is, drugged and shipped as 
 a sailor on a vessel bound for Shanghai or any 
 other long voyage." 
 
 " Dear me," ejaculated Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley, " that s something dreadful. Do they do> 
 it now ? "
 
 232 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " I haven t heard of a case for years now," 
 Charley Sutton answered. " But once upon a 
 time New York was a famous port for Shang- 
 haiers. And a poor devil who was shanghaied 
 was wiped out as completely for the time being 
 as though he had been pressed in England or 
 sent to the Bastille in France." 
 
 " C est curieux" said Mr. Hobson-Cholmon- 
 deley, meditatively. Then, turning to Robert 
 White, he asked, aggressively, " So you think 
 poor Olyphant has been shanghaied ? " 
 
 " I don t say that," White replied ; " I have no 
 idea what Vollonides has done to him. But I do 
 not believe that the Greek has killed him, since 
 he knew that doubt as to his fate would be 
 more cruel than death." 
 
 " I never went in for subtlety," said Mr. 
 Hobson-Cholmondeley, with dogged determina 
 tion ; " and what I said I stick to. I say poor 
 Olyphant went out of that little door in the 
 library, and that he went down to the Battery 
 and was drowned in the Bay." 
 
 " And I say that I think he is alive," retorted 
 White. 
 
 " There are mysteries," intervened Rudolph 
 Vernon, " that no man has ever solved. We do 
 not know the name of the man who wore the 
 Iron Mask " 
 
 " And nobody knows who struck Billy Patter 
 son," Charley Sutton remarked, casually.
 
 GLAD TIDINGS. 
 
 233 
 
 " And it may be," continued the poet, disre 
 garding the young Californian s interruption, 
 " that the mystery of Fred s disappearance may 
 also remain unsolved and insoluble." 
 
 " It would not surprise me if the bell were to 
 ring at any moment, and if Fred walked right in 
 on us now and here," said Laughton, who had 
 been listening silently. 
 
 As if in answer to his words, there came a 
 sharp ring at the door-bell. A sudden hush fell 
 upon the little group of Olyphant s friends. 
 There was a minute of anxious expectation, and 
 then the door opened and the faithful Bridget 
 entered with a telegram-envelope in her hand. 
 
 " It s a false alarm," said Charley Sutton, with 
 a sigh. " I wish it wasn t," and the conversation 
 sprang up again as Laurence Laughton took the 
 envelope, and, after a hasty apology, tore it open. 
 He read the telegram in silence, and drew a long 
 breath. Then, without a word he passed it to 
 Robert White. The journalist glanced at it and 
 sprang to his feet. He was younger than 
 Laughton and he had less self-control. 
 
 " Is there news ? " asked Charley Sutton. 
 
 " From Fred?" added Duncan, who was quick 
 to read a face. 
 
 " Yes," answered White. " He s alive ! and 
 he will be here in a week ! " 
 
 The Full Score arose as one man and gave a 
 ringing cheer.
 
 234 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 The telegram was from Frederick Olyphant 
 in San Francisco. This is what it said : 
 
 " All right. Shall leave here for New York 
 on first train. Break the news to her."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 FREDERICK OLYPHANT S story the 
 story of his strange disappearance, of his- 
 peculiar adventures, of his existence during the 
 five months and more that he was missing, of 
 the awful fate which was prepared for him by 
 the devilish malignity of his enemy, of his. 
 escape from the plot laid against him, and of his 
 last meeting with Constantine Vollonides can. 
 best be told in this place and in his own words, 
 as he set it down at the loving request of Wini 
 fred Marshall, who wished to have an exact 
 record of the things which befell her lover while 
 he was away from her. 
 
 On the evening of the last day of October,. 
 1884, so his narrative began I went to a din 
 ner of The Full Score at Laughton s. After 
 dinner we broke up into little groups. Some of 
 the men remained in the dining-room, smoking 
 over their coffee. Others went into the parlor 
 and stood about the piano, while some one 
 played. Uncle Larry and I were alone in the 
 library. I wrote you a letter and I gave it to 
 
 235
 
 236 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 Bridget to post. I had been feeling miserable 
 ever since I parted from you and it was no 
 wonder. After I had written the letter, my 
 spirits revived a little, though I was dull and 
 jaded. Larry told me that I had been work 
 ing too hard, and that I ought to rest. I 
 recall every word of the talk we had how I 
 gave vent to the discouragement which had 
 possessed me, and how he tried to put heart 
 into me with the manly kindness I have always 
 found in him. For once I took no comfort in 
 his counsel. I knew he was right in saying 
 that I had worked too hard, and that I had 
 confined myself too closely. A sense of physi 
 cal oppression seized me again, and I felt that if 
 I had not air, and cold, fresh air at once, I should 
 choke. Uncle Larry, with his back to me, was 
 bending over the fire, building up the hickory 
 logs ; there were laughing knots of men in both 
 the parlor and the dining-room. With a hasty 
 and perhaps inarticulate word of explanation to 
 Larry, I pushed through the curtain which 
 hung across the opening in the bookcase and 
 concealed the little door leading into the hall. 
 This door was unlocked, and I passed through 
 it, leaving it open. Seizing my hat from the 
 stand in the hall, I stepped out upon the stoop 
 and stood in the outer air with the house-door 
 ajar behind me. 
 
 Almost opposite Larry s house is one of
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 237 
 
 the iron masts which support the electric 
 lamps, and leaning against this tall post was a 
 man whose figure seemed to be remotely famil 
 iar to me, but to whom I paid no attention at the 
 moment. The sharp air of the chill October night 
 revived me. The avenue was quiet and deserted, 
 and the faint echoes of a noisy torchlight pro 
 cession crossing Union Square were the only 
 sounds that broke the silence. As I turned to go 
 back into the house, I saw that a man was 
 coming up the steps, and I recognized him as the 
 man I had seen standing against the post on the 
 other side of the street. I could not close the 
 door in his face, and I delayed until he stood 
 beside me. 
 
 " Do you wish to see Mr. Laughton ? " I said, 
 turning toward him. His slouch hat was pulled 
 down over his face, and he was muffled in a scarf 
 which concealed his features, yet I saw, or I 
 thought I saw, a man whom I had not met for 
 years. I drew back instinctively, and stood on 
 my guard. Suddenly I became conscious of a 
 strong odor, a strange and pungent perfume of 
 overpowering and enervating fragrance. I recalled 
 dimly that I had met this same curious scent once 
 before in the East at a fortune-teller s, at the 
 house of an old hag, accused of dealing in 
 poisons. My suspicions were aroused, but under 
 the influence of the mysterious and penetrating 
 drug, w will was inert and my muscles were
 
 238 THE LAST MEE TING. 
 
 I 
 
 lifeless. I fell forward supinely into the arms or 
 the stranger. I was aware that he closed the 
 door of the house gently, and that he then bore 
 me down the steps to the sidewalk, half carrying 
 me and half aiding my automatic movements. At 
 the corner he stopped a carnage, and then I be 
 came wholly unconscious. It seemed as though 
 I were in the power of my enemy, and that he was 
 binding me with cords, and that all my struggles 
 were vain. Then I burst my bonds asunder and 
 soared upward toward an ineffable glory, which 
 shone farther and farther aloft in the etherial space 
 beyond the world. But gradually the light faded 
 away and all was dim, dark, and at last black as 
 midnight. Solitude encompassed me about, and 
 a sense of desolate loneliness weighed me down 
 and chilled me. Slowly I awoke, to find myself 
 full of dull aches and nauseating pain. I was 
 alone and in the dark. There was a rhythmical 
 motion of the flooring under me. As my senses 
 came to me, doubtfully at first, but after a while 
 more clearly, I knew that I was on the water. 
 I staggered to my feet, and in a few minutes I 
 had made sure that I was in the hold of a ship. 
 I had been kidnapped and the boat was bear 
 ing me away from you. My strength returned, 
 and my wrath arose. 
 
 For a long while there was no answer to my 
 call. I could hear voices, and the creaking of 
 cordage, and now and again the tramp of feet on.
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 239 
 
 deck far above my head. As my eyes became 
 used to the darkness, I saw that I was in the 
 lazaretto, the little compartment often found 
 under the captain s cabin of a sailing vessel. 
 Around me were barrels of beef and boxes of 
 provisions and other of the ship s stores. The 
 only mode of egress from this lazaretto was 
 through the hatch into the cabin above. As no 
 attention was paid to my angry outcry, I heaped 
 up a few boxes and, standing upon them, I began 
 to hammer on the deck above me. When I had 
 nearly worn myself out in the vain effort to force 
 some one to release me, there were footsteps 
 overhead, and the hatch was opened. I was 
 almost blinded at first by the sudden flood of 
 light, and my head was dazed with pain. " Let 
 me out ! " I cried, to the man who had lifted the 
 hatch. 
 
 " Che ? " he said, in Italian, " what have we 
 here ? " 
 
 He was a stout, good-looking and good- 
 natured Italian, and I took him to be the steward 
 of the vessel. 
 
 " Let me out ! " I cried, in Italian, thrusting 
 myself up into the cabin. " And now where is 
 the captain ? " 
 
 He answered that the captain was on deck. I 
 sprang up the companion-way and stood again 
 in the open air. I was on the deck of an Italian 
 bark of about twelve hundred tons. We were
 
 240 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 heading east-southeast, and there was a stiff 
 breeze from the northwest. We were out of 
 sight of land. The sun was high in the heavens 
 and it was nearly noon : I had been unconscious 
 for at least twelve hours, and perhaps longer. 
 
 As I came on deck the captain was standing 
 amidships, getting ready to take an observation. 
 He was a wily and wiry little Genoese, with sharp 
 and piercing eyes and a full black beard. He 
 turned to me as I rushed up the hatchway, and 
 asked, 
 
 " Who is this ? " 
 
 There was an affectation of surprise in his 
 voice, but angry as I was, I noticed that he 
 seemed not a little uneasy, and that he glanced 
 restlessly about. In answer to his question, a 
 burly ruffian with heavy eyebrows and an evil 
 mouth he was the first mate said that I was 
 the sailor who had been brought on board dead 
 drunk. 
 
 " I am not a sailor," I declared; "and I was 
 not drunk ! " 
 
 " Oh ho 1 " cried the mate. " He was not 
 drunk ! and he was so stupid with drink that we 
 had to hoist him aboard, and put him in the 
 lazaretto ! " 
 
 " I was not drunk," I repeated, " though I 
 may have been drugged." 
 
 " That s a likely story," sneered the mate. 
 
 " And I am not a sailor ! " I continued, vehem-
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 24! 
 
 ently ; " I am an American. I demand that you 
 set me ashore at once." 
 
 The captain hesitated a moment, and then 
 seemingly made up his mind. " I have nothing 
 to do with all this. You are engaged as a sailor, 
 and you must do your work and " 
 
 " But I am not a sailor, I tell you ! " I repeated. 
 
 " You must be a sailor, or why are you here?" 
 the captain returned. 
 
 " I do not know why I am here," I replied, 
 "nor how I got here. I am an American a 
 gentleman not a sailor! I can prove to you 
 what I say ! " 
 
 " How ? " asked the captain, coldly, keeping 
 his piercing eyes on me. 
 
 I was about to say that my note-book, my 
 pocket-book, my watch, would all show that I 
 was what I pretended to be, but as I put my 
 hands to my pockets I saw that my clothes had 
 been changed. I had on a suit of coarse sailor s 
 clothes, and the pockets were empty. 
 
 " It seems I have been robbed, too !" I shouted, 
 for I had no longer any control over my temper. 
 " My clothes have been taken from me, and my 
 money and my watch " and here I saw that 
 the ring you had lent me was gone also " and 
 an opal ring ! I want them back at once, and I 
 want to be set ashore." 
 
 " I cannot take" my ship back just to oblige a 
 sailor," said the captain. 
 16
 
 242 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " But I am not a sailor ! " I replied, " and I 
 will pay you well." 
 
 The captain gave me another piercing glance ; 
 then he said, " Enough of this ! I have lost 
 time enough. You are now at sea, on my ship, 
 and you must do your work. When we get to 
 port you can go, not before." 
 
 " To what port are you bound ? " I asked, as I 
 began to feel the helplessness of my position. 
 
 " San Francisco," answered the burly mate. 
 
 " San Francisco ? " I repeated, in horror. 
 
 " San Francisco is our port," the mate replied, 
 with a harsh laugh; " and it may be six months 
 before you get ashore." 
 
 " Six months ! " I cried, in agony. " I cannot 
 do it ! Put me ashore now, for the love of 
 God ! " 
 
 " Enough of this," said the captain again, as 
 he raised his instrument to take the sun. " Have 
 this man go forward ! " 
 
 " Go forward," ordered the mate, striking me 
 on the shoulder. My heart was full of rage and 
 despair. It was a joy to have some one whom I 
 could hit back. I felt like a wild beast as I 
 sprang at the mate and knocked him down. 
 Two of the crew pulled me from him. He rose 
 to his feet unsteadily and seized a belaying-pin. 
 The men released me, and I looked him in the 
 eye. Without a word he felled me to the deck 
 with a blow of the pin. As I lay motionless he
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 243 
 
 was about to strike me again, when a voice, with 
 a strong Maltese accent, said, " Let him alone 
 now. Do not kill him; we shall want him soon 
 enough if this gale keeps on." Then the same 
 voice said " Take him into the forecastle." 
 
 When I came to it was late at night, and I was 
 lying in a bunk in the forecastle. The ship was 
 tossing, and there was a hard gale from the north 
 west. I lay dozing as it struck eight bells and 
 the men off watch came into the forecastle. They 
 were full of rough sympathy. They told me 
 that the mate was a brute, but that it was lucky 
 I had struck him and not the captain, or I should 
 be at the bottom of the sea with a dagger in my 
 heart. They said that the captain was quiet 
 enough generally, but a very devil when roused. 
 He was half owner of the bark, which was called 
 the Vengeance of God, There were thirteen men 
 before the mast, including myself: I thought 
 of the night before, when we had also been thir 
 teen at Uncle Larry s dinner. With the cook, 
 steward, carpenter, two mates and the captain, 
 we were nineteen all told. The men informed 
 me that I had been put in the starboard watch 
 the captain s watch, as it is called where I 
 should be under the second mate, who was a 
 good fellow, kindly and not overbearing; but 
 unfortunately careless. It was the second mate 
 who had interposed to save me. The crew soon 
 turned in and left me alone with myself.
 
 244 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 The absolute helplessness of my position burst 
 upon me with overpowering force, and I knew 
 the futility of resistance. It was worse than use 
 less for me to rage, to storm, to threaten. The 
 captain did not fear me, and I could not conquer 
 him by force. My only chance was to bide my 
 time, to trust to good fortune to come to my 
 rescue, and in the meanwhile to make the best of 
 it. I was alone, miles offshore, in a foreign ship, 
 without a friend. It took little reflection to 
 prove to me that I was powerless, that my fate 
 was no longer in my own control, and that I had 
 best accept the inevitable with a good grace. I 
 abandoned all hope of rebellion, and determined 
 to do my duty while I was aboard the boat, ready 
 to seize tke first chance to leave it. 
 
 I knew nothing about the ship, or the captain, 
 or the crew, but I was aware that the cruelty of 
 a captain may make his ship a floating hell. I 
 did not dare to guess what was in store for me, 
 or what ill-fortune the future might bring forth. 
 I could not tell whether the captain was the ac 
 complice or the hireling of the man who had 
 wrought this wrong against me. I did not know 
 whether I could expect mercy from him, but I did 
 know that I was wholly in his power, and that my 
 utmost effort would avail nothing. He could do 
 with me as he pleased ; he could keep me in chains ; 
 he could condemn me to solitary confinement; 
 he could torture me at will. Yet the fear of these
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 245 
 
 things did not dishearten me, for I felt that I 
 could bear them, nay, more, that I would prefer 
 them to the mental anguish I was undergoing. The 
 thought that I had parted from you in anger, that 
 I had been torn from you without a word of ex 
 planation or a chance of farewell, that I could not 
 bid you take heart and be of good cheer, that I 
 had left you plunged in depths of doubt which 
 must slowly turn to despair this was almost 
 more than I could bear. The galley slave, 
 chained to the oar; the prisoner for life, confined 
 in the dark cell ; the victim of the Inquisition 
 pinioned to the rack these may each of them 
 suffer the tortures of the damned (and I foresaw 
 that I might soon be made to suffer as they 
 suffered), but what was the pain inflicted on the 
 body, however acute, and however prolonged, 
 compared with the protracted agony of soul 
 which I saw before me. The ingenuity of a 
 fiend could have found no keener punishment. 
 
 In the morning, when it came the turn of my 
 watch to go on deck, I went with them. 
 
 " Ah," said the captain, as he saw me. " You 
 have come to your senses, have you ? Now let s 
 have no more of this nonsense ! " 
 
 The gale had moderated during the night, and 
 we were sent up aloft to set all sail, for we had 
 been running under very little canvas. I felt 
 that the captain kept his eye on me, and I did
 
 246 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 my work as neatly and as quickly as I could. 
 You know that I am fond of the sea, and that I 
 have had my share of experience as a sailor-man. 
 Even the Italian terms were not strange to me, 
 for I had been all around the Mediterranean in an 
 Italian boat. 
 
 As I came down from the rigging the captain 
 called me. 
 
 " Here, you ! " he cried. 
 
 I came to him. 
 
 " You said you were not a sailor," he said. 
 " You lie, it seems. You are a sailor." 
 
 I answered that I had told the truth, and that 
 I was not a sailor, although I had sailed a boat 
 many a time, and had even studied navigation. 
 The captain looked at me as I said this, but he 
 made no reply. For weeks after this, he did not 
 speak to me or take any notice of me ; and yet 
 I was conscious not infrequently that his sharp 
 eyes were on me. He spared me the irons, the 
 imprisonment, the bodily torture, I had half ex 
 pected. In the main, he did not treat his crew 
 badly, and he treated me as he treated the 
 others. Although I felt that he gave me more 
 attention than he bestowed on the rest of the 
 crew, yet he did not abuse me or offer me any 
 indignity. Except for the constant watchfulness 
 with which he followed me, he showed the same 
 indifference to me as to the other men before 
 the mast. I studied his face as occasion served,
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 247 
 
 and I thought it was not the face of a bad man : 
 he was high-tempered and he was weak, rather 
 than evil. I was in doubt whether he was the 
 accomplice of the villain who had betrayed me 
 into his hands. From chance words dropped 
 by the second mate, the friendly Maltese, in 
 whose watch I was, I began to believe that per 
 haps it was not the captain, but the ruffianly 
 first mate who was responsible for my involun 
 tary voyage. I felt that this fellow hated me. 
 I knew I hated him. 
 
 We had a stiff breeze behind us all the way 
 down the coast and across the equator. The 
 weather was warm and delightful. We were 
 making good time. I hoped for a storm which 
 would force us to put into port, but as there 
 seemed no chance of that, I rejoiced that we 
 sailed along as fast as we did. I counted every 
 knot that we made, and I checked off the miles 
 we had yet to make. I did my daily work, the 
 dull routine work of a sailor on a sailing vessel 
 when all sails are set and stay set for weeks at a 
 time. The work was not hard, and it did not 
 employ my thoughts. It occupied my hands, but 
 it left my mind free and there were days when 
 I thought I should go mad. I saw all the doubt 
 and all the misery that my unexpected depart 
 ure and inexplicable absence would surely cause. 
 I knew that it might be months and months 
 before word from me could reach you if it evet
 
 248 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 reached you at all. I knew that I might never 
 leave the ship alive, and that I might never sec 
 land again ; and you would not know what had 
 become of me. I could not fail to imagine the 
 agony and the anguish of uncertainty which you 
 would feel. I thought of it day and night. 
 You were never out of my mind. Yet there 
 was no way out of the misery, and there was no 
 use in rebelling : I must bear it with the forti 
 tude I knew you would show, and it was the 
 thought of your example which gave me 
 strength. Many a night, as I stood on the 
 forecastle looking out over the ocean, I saw 
 you as I had seen you last in the Bower 
 through the opening in the screen, half hidden 
 by the vines. I saw you with the bunch of 
 yellow roses at your waist, faintly outlined 
 against the descending dusk. It was a beautiful 
 vision and a gracious memory ; and I loved to 
 recur to it. Though it pained me, it comforted 
 me also. Yet when I saw it, I did not dare to 
 wonder how you accounted for my sudden 
 absence : I knew you loved me and I trusted 
 you. 
 
 If it had not been for my thoughts the life 
 would have been endurable ; the Vengeance of 
 God was a new boat, and the captain knew his 
 business. The crew were good-natured, and I 
 had their rough sympathy. The second mate 
 was kindly, and I had only the first mate to be
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 249 
 
 on my guard against. The sailors were all 
 afraid of him, and they believed he had the evil 
 eye. He never looked at me without hatred in 
 his glance. Fortunately, I was not in his watch. 
 I paid no attention to him, but did my work , 
 quietly and steadily. 
 
 Off the Rio de la Plata we got into a pomparo, 
 which is the name they give to a local storm, 
 often found there and peculiar to that region. It 
 began with a black cloud in the northwest, like 
 the first warning of a summer squall. It was the 
 captain s watch, and the second mate was on duty 
 in his stead. This second mate was a jolly and 
 careless Maltese, and he did not take the warn 
 ing the cloud gave. The captain chanced to 
 come on deck, and the instant he saw the storm 
 coming, he knew what was wanted. We had all 
 sails set. First we took in the royals and then 
 the top-gallant sails. Then we went to work on 
 the flying-jib and the gaff-top-sail ; at the same 
 time we clewed the top-sail yards down and close- 
 reefed the main-top-sail. By the time we got 
 these in, it was blowing pretty fresh and we had 
 hard work to take in the fore-top-sail ; and, after all, 
 it was no use, for although we got it clewed up 
 the wind blew it clean off. The captain held the 
 second mate responsible for this mishap, and he 
 broke him and appointed me. I refused and 
 pleaded hard for the Maltese. It was no use. 
 The captain was determined that the man should
 
 250 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 not hold the place any longer. I still refused, 
 but I yielded when the Maltese himself begged 
 me to take the place, suggesting that as I was 
 going to leave the ship at the first port, I might 
 then urge his re-appointment. The first mate, the 
 stalwart ruffian who had struck me, did what he 
 could to prevent my promotion. But I accepted 
 the position. I did not know how large a share the 
 captain had had in my abduction, and I guessed 
 that he might have given me the post of mate 
 as a peace-offering. 
 
 I had made early inquiries as to the chance 
 of sending a letter, and I had learned that unless 
 we happened to be stopped by a passing ship 
 which was most unlikely the first possible 
 opportunity would be off Pernambuco. There 
 the fishermen put off in light catamarans, and 
 they are often met with in the track of vessels 
 bound around the Horn ; they are always willing 
 to take letters, accepting the gift of a bottle of 
 liquor or of a piece of beef as pre-payment of 
 postage. On the chance of sending by a passing 
 ship, I had written a long letter to you ; but the 
 days went by and no ship hailed us. We were 
 becalmed for a while in the tropics, and it was 
 quite seven weeks after we had left New York 
 before we came within the range of the Pernam 
 buco fishermen. As the possibility of commu 
 nicating with you shone nearer and nearer, I felt 
 happier. I began to accept my separation, if
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 251 
 
 only I could tell you where I was and how it 
 was I had been taken away. I wrote you a long 
 letter pouring out the love that filled my heart 
 and strengthened me. 
 
 But my spirits sank as rapidly as 1:hey had 
 risen when we passed off Pernambuco and no 
 fishing-craft had be en seen. It might be, after 
 all, that I was not to have the chance of sending 
 my letter. At last, on Christmas Eve, the look 
 out cried out first that there was a sail in sight 
 later, that it was a fisherman s catamaran ; and 
 then I knew that I might send you as a Christ 
 mas present news of the man who loved you and 
 longed for you and thought of you, and of you 
 only, day and night, as he sailed further and 
 further away from you. 
 
 I told the captain I had a letter to send. He 
 gave me a piercing look ftcon his penetrating 
 eyes, and said that I mfght put it in his bundle, 
 which was in his cabin. I did so, and by the 
 time I was again on deck, the frail little craf., 
 with two fishermen on board, was almost along 
 side of us. We hailed them and threw them a 
 rope, and they made fast. The captain gave them 
 a piece of beef in exchange for a few fish. Then 
 he asked them if they would take letters to land 
 for us. They agreed willingly, and the captain 
 sent the mate for the bundle. When it came, he 
 bade the steward get a bottle of spirits, and he 
 passed the bottle and the bundle of letters over
 
 252 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 the side to the fishermen. Then the catamaran 
 was cast loose, and in a few minutes it had 
 dropped behind us out of sight in the night 
 fall. 
 
 I walked my watch that night with a warm 
 heart, thinking of you and calculating that you 
 might get my letter in less than a month, possibly 
 by the middle of January. But this hope and 
 this joy did not abide with me long. 
 
 When we got down to the Horn, we had a fair 
 wind from the north, and the captain tried to go 
 through the Straits of Lemaire, between the 
 mainland of South America and Statenland. 
 But we had scarcely got well into the straits 
 before we struck a heavy gale from the south 
 west. We had to make a harbor, and in tacking 
 ship, as she came up with her head to the wind, 
 we shipped a tremendous sea, which took the 
 first mate off the forecastle. We never saw him 
 again. The captain made me first mate, and at 
 my request re-appointed the former second mate 
 to his old position. Now that the first mate was 
 gone, I was the only man on board, except the 
 captain, who knew how to navigate a ship ; but 
 none of the sailors were jealous of me or be 
 grudged my advancement. I was told to take 
 possession of the first mate s cabin. The first 
 thing I found there, hidden in a corner, was my 
 letter to you ! The evil wretch had stolen it as he 
 brought the letters from the captain s cabin to
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 the side of the boat. I was so happy at the hope 
 of writing to you that I had not suspected him. 
 And now his treachery had plunged me from 
 heaven to hell again. It was lucky for the man 
 that he was dead. Repining was useless, I knew, 
 and I resolved to make the best of my ill-fortune. 
 I had at least the consolation that I had accom 
 plished the half of my journey. 
 
 Then the wind foiled us, and we made slow 
 sailing for a while. But the longest voyage must 
 draw to an end at last. About a week before we 
 could hope to reach San Francisco, we made 
 land, and I caught my first glimpse of the coast 
 of lower California, and my heart beat high, 
 knowing that I should soon set foot on the soil 
 you trod, though I might be separated from you 
 by thousands of miles. 
 
 The Maltese was again the second mate ; so 
 far from being jealous of my promotion over his 
 head, he was grateful to me for his reappoint- 
 ment. As we came up the Pacific coast, I be 
 came aware that he had a trick of lingering near 
 me, and of hesitating, as though he had some 
 thing he would like to say, but did not know how 
 to broach the subject. When I was once firmly 
 convinced of this, I waited for a favorable occa 
 sion, and then I got him to talk. He began on an 
 indifferent subject, but he soon turned the con 
 versation to the dead mate, the ferocious ruffian 
 who had been washed overboard.
 
 254 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " Tis a good thing he is dead," said the Mal 
 tese. " He had the evil eye." 
 
 " Twas a sudden death," I suggested, hoping 
 to lead him on, as I began to suspect that he 
 knew something about my abduction. 
 
 " Tis not for you to speak for him," returned 
 the Maltese. " He was your enemy, and the friend 
 of your enemy." 
 
 " The friend of my enemy," I repeated. 
 * " You are not a sailor," he answered. " You 
 did not come on this voyage willingly. You 
 were sold by an enemy. It was the dead man 
 who brought you on board, and he was paid. 
 There was another man in the boat when he 
 brought you. This man gave him money. This 
 man was your enemy, for he " Then the 
 Maltese hesitated 
 
 " Go on," I cried. 
 
 " No, I have said enough," he answered. 
 
 " Do you know the other man ? " I asked. 
 
 " No," he replied; " I had seen him only once 
 before." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " In front of Oliver s. " 
 
 I knew that " Oliver s " was a sailor s board 
 ing-house of the worst character. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " In the afternoon, talking to the dead man 
 plotting mischief together." 
 
 That was all I could get out of him. Plainly
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 255 
 
 enough he knew more. But I could not per 
 suade him to tell me. 
 
 The night after we made the coast, there was 
 a full moon, and the man on the lookout put his 
 trust in the light and went to sleep. It was my 
 watch, but the spread of canvas kept me from 
 seeing out. About midnight there came a sud 
 den crash, followed by loud cries of alarm. We 
 had run into a small sail-boat, and it had filled 
 and sunk. The ship was rounded to at once, 
 and a boat was lowered, and I went back in it to 
 where we could see the men who had been in the 
 sail-boat, now struggling in the water. The crew 
 gave way sturdily, but the distance was too great. 
 One of the men threw up his hands and sank 
 for the last time, long before we could reach him. 
 The other had a stronger will and more resist 
 ance. There was a high sea, stirred up by the 
 gale which had blown their boat off shore, and 
 the waves were fast overcoming the survivor. 
 As we came near him, he sank. We waited on 
 our oars in the hope that he would rise, and our 
 hopes were justified. He came to the surface 
 within an oar s length of me, but with the life 
 almost beaten out of him. The men backed 
 the boat, and I reached out to drag him out of the 
 water. As he clasped my hand convulsively the 
 moonlight fell full on our faces. He knew me, 
 and I knew him ; he was the man who had 
 drugged me and sold me as a sailor ; he was the
 
 256 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 man who had tried to shoot me ; he was the one 
 enemy I had in the world, though I had saved 
 his life once, and though I had spared it again. 
 How he came to be there I did not know, but 
 I recognized him beyond a doubt, and I saw the 
 black heart burn on his bare forehead. And he 
 recognized me ; he gave me a look of hatred, as 
 he said " Not again! " and with a sudden wrench, 
 he released his hand from mine, threw it above 
 his head and sank ! 
 
 We waited, resting on our oars, but he did 
 not rise again. I had met Constantine Volloni- 
 des for the last time ! 
 
 The next morning the Maltese came to me. 
 
 " You tried to save a man s life last night," he 
 said. 
 
 " Yes," I answered, " but the man was 
 drowned." 
 
 " Paolo tells me," he continued, Paolo was 
 the name of a sailor in my watch, who had been 
 in the boat with me the night before, " that the 
 man drowned himself. Tis well. He was a bad 
 man. He is better dead." 
 
 " Did you know him ? " I asked, in astonish 
 ment. 
 
 " No," he replied ; " Paolo was with me in New 
 York when your enemy talked to the dead mate. 
 Paolo saw the man last night. It is the same 
 man. Your enemy is dead. It is well."
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 257 
 
 " He was my enemy," I said, " and he is 
 dead." 
 
 The Maltese lingered by me as though he had 
 something more to say. I had a presentiment 
 that he would tell me now what he had refused 
 to tell me before. 
 
 He came closer to me and lowered his voice. 
 " Did you ever hear of the Brotherhood of the 
 Sea ? " he asked, in an awed whisper. 
 
 Now, in my wanderings along the shores of 
 the Mediterranean I had been told of a secret 
 order of sailors, a sort of marine Carbonari. 
 I had heard more evil than good of the 
 Brotherhood of the Sea, and I had come to look 
 on it as a league of outlaws, half brigands and 
 half pirates. I told the Maltese what I knew. 
 
 " True," he said, " they are bad men. The 
 dead mate belonged to the Brotherhood of the 
 Sea. So did your enemy." 
 
 " How do you know ? " I asked. 
 
 " I know," he answered ; " that is enough." 
 Then he paused and gave me a kindly look. 
 " Did it pain you much to make this voyage ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Did it pain me much ? " I repeated and then 
 I told him how I had suffered unspeakable tor 
 ment every hour since I had left New York, not 
 knowing what might befall you. 
 
 He listened sympathetically, and said, " If one 
 voyage were bad, two would be worse." 
 17
 
 2 5 8 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I cried. 
 
 Again he hesitated a little and drew nearer to 
 me. " You have heard of the Brotherhood of 
 the Sea did you ever hear of the way in which 
 the Brotherhood of the Sea punished a traitor ? " 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 " He was drugged, as you were. He was 
 shipped as a sailor, as you were. When he 
 reached port, he was drugged again and shipped 
 on another vessel. And so on v again and again. 
 He was never allowed to set foot on land. He 
 was passed from ship to ship, never knowing 
 where he was going. His friends would never 
 hear of him again. He might live forever at 
 sea, going from ship to ship, and from port to 
 port." 
 
 " Well ? " I said. 
 
 " Well, that was to be your fate ! " he answered. 
 
 " I was to be drugged again," I cried ; " and 
 shipped again ? I cannot believe it. Even his 
 devilish malignity would revolt from that." 
 
 " Yes," answered the Maltese, gravely. " That 
 was to be your fate, I know." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 " I know. No matter how. There is a mem 
 ber of the Brotherhood on board this boat. No 
 matter who. He talks to me. I know. The 
 dead mate talked to him. All was prepared. 
 They were to get a great price. Your enemy 
 would be in California, and when you had been
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 shipped to the Indies, the dead mate was to tell 
 your enemy." 
 
 And from this fate, far worse than death, I had 
 been saved only by the wave which swept the 
 mate overboard as we were going through the 
 Straits of Lemaire. 
 
 Less than a week after Constantine Vollonides 
 had unclasped his hand from mine, under the 
 moonlight, off the Californian coast, the Ven 
 geance of God made the Golden Gate, and ran in 
 between the heads and up to San Francisco. An 
 hour after we had dropped anchor, I telegraphed 
 Uncle Larry to break the news to you. And in 
 another hour I was in the train for New York.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 
 
 A BOUT the middle of April there came a 
 \. bright and glorious spring day ; a radiant 
 day of royal weather made for poets and lovers. 
 Winifred Marshall stood in the drawing-room of 
 Mrs. Button s house with her hat on. She was 
 dressed in a suit of dark blue cloth, which 
 revealed the exquisite curves of her graceful 
 figure. As she fastened her glove, she glanced 
 again at the clock. Laurence Laughton had 
 come in the morning, with a telegram from 
 Frederick Olyphant, announcing his arrival in 
 New York at five that afternoon ; and Winifred 
 had at once besought Uncle Larry to take her to 
 meet him. It was not yet four ; but she was 
 impatient and her heart beat fast. When the door 
 bell rang with a gong-like clang, she ran into the 
 hall. But it was not Laurence Laughton. It 
 was Pussy Palmer. 
 
 " Oh, Winifred ! " cried this vivacious young 
 lady, " I ve such news ! " 
 
 " Yes ? " responded Winifred, with her mind 
 miles away. 
 260
 
 AFTER MANY DA VS. 2 6l 
 
 " What do you think? I m going to be " 
 
 Here Miss Palmer broke off abruptly, having 
 detected her friend s absence of mind. 
 
 " Well," said Winifred, after there had been 
 a little silence, " go on ; what is it? " 
 
 " Winnie Marshall ! " Pussy replied, reproach 
 fully. " I think it is just horrid of you. Here I 
 come with news, real important news, and you 
 go on thinking about something else all the time 
 and don t pay any attention to me at all." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Pussy," Winifred an 
 swered, bending forward impulsively and kissing 
 her friend. " I know I was not listening to you. 
 I I was thinking of something else. Fred will 
 be in New York in an hour ! " 
 
 "Will he ? " cried the impulsive Miss Palmer, 
 jumping up and clapping her hands. " I m so 
 glad ! Then you can be married the same time 
 I am ! " 
 
 " Are you engaged ? " Winifred asked. 
 
 " Of course I am. That s what I came to tell 
 you. I ve got him at last ! I couldn t quite 
 make up my mind for a long while whether I 
 wanted him or not, and I forbade his speaking to 
 me until we heard from Fred. But now we have 
 heard from Fred, and the little man is so much 
 in love with me, that I took pity on him, and I 
 shall be Mrs. Hobson-Cholmondeley. 
 
 " He is a good fellow," Winifred said, " and I 
 feel sure he will make you happy."
 
 2 62 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 " I ll make it warm for him, if he doesn t," 
 retorted Miss Palmer, with the supreme confi 
 dence of a young lady quite able to take care of 
 herself. She wore a huge black Rembrandt hat 
 which was most becoming to her fair skin and 
 bright hair. 
 
 " And when did it happen ? " inquired 
 Winifred. 
 
 " Only just now. You are the first one I ve 
 told. We shan t announce it for a week or two 
 yet. I never expected it; at least, not all of a 
 sudden. He went to the Cooking-School with 
 me this afternoon, and I made chicken-croquettes. 
 And as we were going home, he said that those 
 chicken-croquettes were very good, and I agreed, 
 and said that I should be a boss cook, sooner or 
 later. Then he blushed and hesitated, and said 
 he wished he could engage me permanently as 
 his boss cook. And I said, Oh, Mr. Hobson- 
 Cholmondeley ! Then he went on and told me 
 that he had loved me for weeks, and he felt he 
 couldn t live without me and without my 
 croquettes, I suppose. He seemed so serious, as 
 if he really meant it. And he has very pretty 
 hair, don t you think so ? There s a lovely wave 
 in it right over his forehead. So I had to accept 
 him. He s very short, I know ; but then I am 
 short too ; we re a pair. If we lose our money, 
 we can go and be midgets in a dime-museum : I 
 shouldn t wonder if it would be lots of fun ! "
 
 AFTER MANY DA VS. 
 
 263 
 
 There was another clang of the door-bell, and 
 Laurence Laughton was ushered into the draw 
 ing-room. 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Larry," cried Pussy Palmer, 
 " I ve such news for you. Guess if you can." 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Uncle Larry, "per 
 haps you are going to be married ? " 
 
 " Somebody must have told you ! " Pussy 
 declared, in a disappointed tone. 
 
 "And who is the victim ? " asked Laughton, 
 smiling. 
 
 " It s Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley." 
 
 " I thought it was to be a secret," interrupted 
 Winifred. 
 
 " So it is. I m not going to tell a soul" Miss 
 Palmer retorted. " I don t mind you, Uncle 
 Larry. You don t count ! " 
 
 "No, I don t count now," echoed Laurence, 
 sadly. 
 
 Winifred looked up at him and caught his 
 weary expression, the only visible sign of the 
 severe struggle for self-mastery. She came up 
 to him, with one of her impulsive movements, 
 and seized his hand, and said. 
 
 " My best friend, how can I ever thank you 
 enough for all the comfort and strength you have 
 given me ? " 
 
 " By saying nothing more about it," he 
 answered, raising her hand gently to his lips. 
 Winifred gave him a long and earnest look; and
 
 264 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 it may be that she had then her first intimation 
 of the truth. 
 
 " And now we must hurry along lively," said 
 Laurence, " if we want to see Fred s arrival." 
 
 "I ll skip along," Pussy Palmer remarked; 
 " I ve got to walk down to Washington Square, 
 to see the Duchess." 
 
 " You have a secret to tell her, too, I suppose," 
 Laurence suggested, as they passed out of the 
 house. 
 
 " That s real mean of you," laughed Pussy ; 
 " but, of course, I may give her a hint or two. 
 She is such a dear old soul." 
 
 Laurence could not help wondering how Mrs. 
 Martin would look if she could have heard her 
 self called, " a dear old soul." He raised his hat 
 as Pussy turned down the Avenue, after she had 
 three times embraced Winifred with exuberant 
 affection. 
 
 When Winifred Marshall and Laurence 
 Laughton arrived at the Grand Central Depot, it 
 lacked but a few minutes of five, but the Pacific 
 Express was nearly half an hour behind time. 
 They walked impatiently up and down the long 
 platform, absorbed in their own thoughts, and 
 exchanging only an occasional word. Laughton 
 was in no mood for perfunctory conversation, 
 and Winifred was too happy not to remain silent 
 willingly.
 
 AFTER MANY DA YS. 2 6$ 
 
 At last the train came in sight ; the locomotive 
 darted ahead, and was switched off on a side 
 track without the building, while the cars, im 
 pelled by their acquired momentum, rolled for 
 ward of their own accord to their appointed 
 place. On the front platform of the foremost 
 car stood Frederick Olyphant, peering ahead 
 eagerly. Before the train stopped he sprang off 
 and clasped Winifred in his arms. She fell upon 
 his neck, sobbing with the relief of joyous ex 
 citement. The throng of belated passengers 
 pushed by them, every man intent on his own 
 business, and scarcely deigning to give a glance 
 to this meeting of lovers after a long parting. 
 
 " My darling," said Fred, as he kissed her 
 forehead and soothed her with his strong hands. 
 
 " Oh, Fred ! Fred ! you have come back to 
 me at last ! I have waited so long so very 
 long," she said, trying to control herself. 
 
 " I will get you a carriage," said Laurence, 
 after he and Fred had exchanged a silent grasp 
 of the hand. 
 
 Laughton put them into the carriage and 
 closed the door. 
 
 " You are coming with us, Uncle Larry ? " 
 urged Winifred, her eyes still wet with tears. 
 
 " I will leave you two alone, now," Laurence 
 answered; " I have just remembered that there is 
 a man at the Windsor Hotel whom I ought to 
 see before he goes away."
 
 2 66 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 She understood him then. 
 " You will dine with me to-night, Uncle 
 Larry," said Fred. " I will call for you." 
 
 As the carriage drove on, Winifred gazed at 
 her lover. " How strong and well you look, 
 Fred, and how beautifully brown you are." 
 
 Fred took her by the shoulders gently, and 
 turned her toward him and held her at arm s 
 length, while he examined her. " You have 
 suffered, Winifred, my darling ; I can see it in 
 your face. But you are more beautiful than 
 ever!" 
 
 She let her head fall upon his breast, and said, 
 in a low and trembling voice, " Have you for 
 given me, Fred ? " 
 
 " Forgiven you for what, my darling ? " asked 
 he. 
 
 " For the wicked way I treated you the day 
 we parted ? " 
 
 His only answer was another silent kiss. 
 
 " You may forgive me," she went on, " for 
 you are so noble and good ; but I can never 
 forgive myself." 
 
 There was another little space of silence. 
 
 Words could not express the happiness Oly- 
 phant felt. He accepted the few short minutes 
 of this first meeting with Winifred as a full com 
 pensation for the long months of loneliness and 
 misery. 
 
 " Do you remember," she said, at last, just
 
 AFTER MANY DA YS. 
 
 267 
 
 before the carriage stopped. " Do you remem 
 ber my lending you my ring?" 
 
 " The opal? Oh yes, but it was stolen from 
 me." 
 
 " I have it," she returned ; " I have put it away 
 for ever. It brought us ill luck, as it brought 
 my mother ill luck, and it shall never be worn 
 again. But your cat s-eye is lucky. I found 
 that, and I have worn it ever since, and at last it 
 has brought me luck for it has brought you 
 back to me ! " 
 
 He kissed her again as the carriage drew up 
 before Mrs. Button s door. 
 
 The wedding took place a month later, about 
 the middle of May. It was as quiet as a wed 
 ding can well be. There were not more than 
 twenty present. Among them were Mr. and 
 Mrs. Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Delancey Jones, Miss 
 Pussy Palmer, and Mr. Hobson-Cholmondeley, 
 whose wedding was to take place early in the 
 fall ; and, of course, Mr. and Mrs. Sutton, in 
 whose house the ceremony was held. Winifred 
 had insisted on being married in the Lover s 
 Retreat, the little Bower at the end of Mrs. 
 Sutton s dining-room. It was there, she said, that 
 she had so cruelly wronged Fred, and it was there 
 that they had parted, and there she wished to be 
 married. The Lover s Retreat was therefore 
 decked with the fresh flowers of spring. It was
 
 2 68 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 just large enough to contain the contracting 
 parties, with the clergyman, Judge Gillespie, 
 who was to give away the bride, and Laurence 
 Laughton, who was the best man. The bride 
 looked surpassingly beautiful in her white silk 
 and creamy lace, and with the orange-blossoms 
 in her hair. The flowers she carried in her hand 
 were not white, as custom rules : she bore a 
 bunch of yellow roses which he had sent her. 
 
 THE END.
 
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