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LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 

 A ROMANCE OF 
 OLD NEW YORK 
 
BY EDGAR FAWCETT 
 * 
 
 A DEMORALIZING MARRIAGE 
 Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00 
 
 DOUGLAS DUANE, AND SINFIRE 
 Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00 
 
A ROMANCE OF 
 OLD NEW YORK 
 
 BY 
 
 EDGAR FAWCETT 
 
 PHILADELPHIA & LONDON 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 1897 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
Copyright, 1897 
 
 by 
 J. B. Lippincott Company 
 
A ROMANCE OF 
 OLD NEW YORK. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE two young men had just 
 turned a corner of State 
 Street, and had come full 
 into view of the Battery, green 
 and breezy, with its flashes from 
 the broad bay beyond, glimpsed be- 
 tween foliage of maple and elm. 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Burr." 
 "Good-morning, sir; good-morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Mark Frankland raised his hat, 
 
 and the short, slender gentleman 
 
 with the clear-cut face and large, 
 
 dark-blue, sparkling eyes saluted 
 
 7 
 
 2041824 
 
A Romance of 
 
 him in like way, though somewhat 
 more ceremoniously. 
 
 Mark's friend gave a little annoyed 
 shrug. " How can you treat that 
 man with such respect?" he said, a 
 note of scorn in his voice. 
 
 Mark made no reply till they had 
 both seated themselves on a bench 
 in the great verdurous common. 
 Over them leaned a tree whose 
 boughs turned the vivid May sun- 
 shine into twinkling arabesques of 
 gold. 
 
 "I was somehow brought up," 
 said Mark Frankland, stretching his 
 shapely limbs, which were tired 
 after hours spent in his merchant 
 father's office near by on South 
 Street, " I was somehow brought 
 up, Gerald, to treat Aaron Burr like 
 a gentleman." 
 
 "Humbug!" scoffed Gerald Suy- 
 dam. " He isn't a gentleman. He's 
 
 8 
 
Old New York 
 
 a horrible scoundrel, and you know 
 it ! That Blennerhassett business 
 dyes him black as one, and then his 
 duel with Hamilton " 
 
 " Oh, I know just what you're 
 going to say," broke in Mark, dash- 
 ing his cambric kerchief over a dust- 
 spot on the sleeve of his cinnamon- 
 colored coat. " Dad has his ideas 
 about all the outrageous buncombe 
 printed and talked on the subject 
 of Hamilton, and so have I. The 
 truth is, Gerald, that Alexander 
 Hamilton, with all his talents and 
 virtues, was very far from being a 
 saint." 
 
 "And thousands of people are 
 willing to swear that Aaron Burr is 
 very near to being a devil." 
 
 "The masses are nearly always 
 wrong," said Mark, staring down at 
 one of the burnished buttons on his 
 low-cut " Washingtonian" waist- 
 
 9 
 
A Romance of 
 
 coat. "As you know, Colonel 
 Burr is a welcome guest at my 
 father's house, and often drops in 
 there to supper of an evening." 
 
 "Oh, I know," nodded Gerald 
 Suydam, with a smile of polite dis- 
 approbation. " The countenance of 
 your family, Mark, has been a de- 
 cided feather in his cap. When 
 Burr returned from his four years' 
 absence abroad, in 1812, it was for 
 some time an actual disgrace to be 
 seen in his company. Now, eight 
 years later, in 1820, his position 
 would not be much better but for 
 the civility shown him by certain of 
 our leading townsfolk." 
 
 With furtive amusement Mark 
 scanned his companion's face. 
 
 " Mr. Varick Verplanck happens 
 to be among these, Gerald." 
 
 "Oh, yes; I grant it." 
 
 Mark laid a hand on Gerald's 
 
Old New York 
 
 shoulder. His voice, usually care- 
 less, deepened; an unwonted gravity 
 sobered his brightness. 
 
 " I know, Gerald, how your people 
 hold him in abhorrence. But dad 
 and Mr. Verplanck are right. Burr, 
 for a man of his splendid intellect, 
 has done madly foolish things." 
 
 "Foolish, eh?" 
 
 " Oh, come, now. If his Blenner- 
 hassett scheme had succeeded, if he 
 had made himself Aaron I., Emperor 
 of Mexico, and his young grand- 
 child, Aaron Burr Alston, heir pre- 
 sumptive to the throne, with his 
 daughter, Theodosia, an imperial 
 princess, with General Wilkinson 
 commander-in-chief of the army, 
 and with Blennerhassett minister to 
 England, if he had accomplished, 
 I say, this melodramatic, filibuster- 
 ing purpose, we would to-day be 
 praising his brilliant capacities, and 
 
A Romance of 
 
 forget the fact of his having shot in 
 a duel the man who for years abused 
 and assailed him both with tongue 
 and pen. After all, we must re- 
 member, even our great Washing- 
 ton was a rebel " 
 
 "But not a traitor, " sharply struck 
 in Gerald. 
 
 " He'd have been hanged as one 
 if the British had caught him 
 hanged with hardly more cere- 
 mony than they showed our poor 
 Nathan Hale when they strung 
 him up on that apple-tree in old 
 Rutgers Orchard, now the junc- 
 tion of Market Street and East 
 Broadway. All rebels, my dear 
 Gerald, are looked upon as traitors 
 till they succeed." 
 
 " I hate, Mark, to hear you com- 
 pare Burr with "Washington. It 
 positively sickens me!" And Ger- 
 ald Suydam folded his arms with a 
 
Old New York 
 
 look of defiance on his dark, virile 
 face. 
 
 "Nonsense!'* admonished Mark, 
 lifting a forefinger. " Nobody re- 
 veres and honors Washington's 
 memory more than do I. He was a 
 man infinitely above Burr in morale, 
 I admit, though I doubt if in real 
 mental power he equalled him." 
 
 "Idiocy rank idiocy!" breathed 
 Gerald. 
 
 "Thanks, old fellow. I don't 
 mind having an intimate friend tell 
 me, now and then, that I'm a fool. 
 It rather wakes me up to a healthful 
 sense of my own deficiencies." 
 
 " Now, Mark, you know very 
 well that I didn't mean " 
 
 " Oh, of course you didn't. There 
 shake hands. You've never met 
 Burr; you've never been under the 
 marvellous spell of his magnetic 
 personality. I have, Gerald. I've 
 13 
 
A Romance of 
 
 heard him tell of those four years 
 he spent abroad from 1808 till 1812 
 as an exile and a wanderer. The 
 tears have flooded my eyes while I 
 listened. Though received with 
 delighted graciousness by the most 
 distinguished citizens of London, 
 Edinburgh, Stockholm, Hamburg, 
 Gotha, Weimar, and finally Paris, 
 his sufferings in those foreign lands 
 were terrible past belief. Almost 
 everywhere he was an object of 
 governmental suspicion and dis- 
 trust " 
 
 "Naturally." 
 
 " Well, yes, naturally, I concede. 
 But his torments of poverty 'would 
 have wrung the stoniest heart. 
 Think of it ! A man who had been, 
 but a few years before, Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the United States, and had 
 come within an ace of being our 
 President, subsisted for weeks at a 
 14 
 
Old New York 
 
 time, in Paris, on a few francs a day ! 
 And not only had he to fight this 
 form of hardship. The government 
 of Napoleon kept him under inces- 
 sant surveillance, and his efforts to 
 quit the shores of France were for 
 months agonizingly delayed. At 
 last he did escape, after thwartings 
 and rebuffs that might have driven 
 to madness a spirit less resolute 
 and cheerful. He landed here in 
 New York secretly and by night. 
 The same torments of poverty still 
 dogged him, and to these the odium 
 was added of nearly every one who 
 recognized him as Aaron Burr. 
 But with indomitable pluck and 
 nerve he resumed the practice of 
 law a profession, you will grant, in 
 'which, during former years, he had 
 shone superb and almost unique. 
 And then, scarcely a year later, 
 came the crushing blow of his 
 15 
 
A Romance of 
 
 adored daughter's death. And such 
 a death ! The Charleston steamer 
 which bore Theodosia Alston to 
 the father "whose "worship she had 
 always so devotedly returned never 
 reached this port. You recall the 
 harrowing stories, Gerald, of its 
 having been boarded by pirates, 
 and of Theodosia's unknown yet 
 possibly terrific fate." 
 
 " Oh, yes. I remember. Who 
 does not?" 
 
 " Burr bore this ghastly affliction 
 with mighty stoicism. A great light 
 went out of his life, but he per- 
 mitted no one to see the awful 
 darkness which followed there. 
 Since then he has striven to rise 
 above the crushing effects of his 
 bereavement, and such effort does 
 him honor, in its dignity, calmness, 
 and reserve. He may not always 
 have been a good man, but he 
 
 16 
 
Old New York 
 
 surely knows how to suffer like a 
 true one !" 
 
 "Oh," laughed Gerald, though 
 not quite amiably, "here's enthusi- 
 asm run riot ! I see that Burr has 
 mesmerized you ; they say he can 
 do it with both men and "women, 
 though especially the latter." 
 
 "You end your sentence with a 
 sneer," said Mark Frankland. " But 
 let me tell you that nearly all Burr's 
 reported gallantries are the coinage 
 of his relentless enemies." 
 
 "Do you mean to say ?" be- 
 gan Gerald, rather hotly. 
 
 " I mean to say that he has always 
 had a native and peculiar power of 
 charming women. He is now in his 
 sixty-fourth year, and yet scarcely 
 less vigorous and healthful than if he 
 were five-and-thirty. His manner, 
 to every woman he meets, young or 
 old, comely or plain, is the essence 
 2 17 
 
A Romance of 
 
 of courtesy, jollity, admiration, and 
 delicate tact. Hence all sorts of 
 bugaboo tales are circulated con- 
 cerning his sorry licentiousness." 
 
 " 'Would you care to have him pay 
 his courtly compliments to your 
 sister," asked Gerald, with smoul- 
 dering obstinacy, "provided you had 
 a sister?" 
 
 Mark rose, stretching his legs and 
 arms, and giving his smart attire a 
 few dainty touches. 
 
 "Lord 'a mercy, man," he said, 
 " I've seen him hold a silk skein for 
 my sweetheart by the half-hour at 
 a time, and deliberately get it all of 
 a tangle, and whisper pretty things 
 to her with a roguish look at myself, 
 and set her laughing like an April 
 brook and blushing like a June rose, 
 and I've never any more dreamed of 
 feeling jealous of him than if he'd 
 been my great-grandfather." 
 
 18 
 
Old New York 
 
 " By your sweetheart," said Ger- 
 ald, rising also and following his 
 friend, " you of course mean Char- 
 lotte Verplanck." 
 
 "Whom else could I mean?" re- 
 plied Mark, with a slight inflection 
 of haughty surprise. " Surely you 
 know that we've been engaged for 
 more than a fortnight." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know. You . . told 
 me, you remember. Besides, I had 
 drawn my inferences." 
 
 Gerald murmured these words in 
 an abstracted way. His eyes were 
 lowered upon the path beneath him, 
 and he stroked his chin with ner- 
 vous fingers. 
 
 Mark made no answer. He looked 
 very happy and genial, there in the 
 vernal light, under the variant shad- 
 ows of waving trees. 
 
 " Perhaps you've noticed," Gerald 
 went on, slow-voiced and with an 
 19 
 
A Romance of 
 
 accent of melancholy, "that I never 
 go up yonder any more." 
 
 Mark started. He understood at 
 once that "up yonder" meant the 
 big brick mansion of Mr. Varick 
 Verplanck, on Broadway, only a 
 block or two beyond the grassy cir- 
 cle of Bowling Green. 
 
 "Yes," he said, a little awkwardly, 
 " I have noticed that you've given up 
 visiting Pamela." 
 
 Gerald lifted his head, now, with 
 an exasperated sigh. " Look here, 
 Mark. I wanted to tell you some- 
 thing when we began our little 
 walk. But your enthusiastic eu- 
 logy of Colonel Burr kept it back. 
 I don't suppose you will like to 
 hear it, but I can't help that." 
 
 "Not like to hear it ? Why, 
 is it anything so very disagree- 
 able?" 
 
 " Yes ; it has relation to Pamela's 
 
Old New York 
 
 illness. They say she has become 
 a very sick girl." 
 
 " She isn't at all well, certainly. 
 Charlotte is anxious about her sister, 
 and so is Mr. Verplanck." 
 
 "They say, Mark, that the girl is 
 rapidly going into a decline. " 
 
 " I trust it's nothing so bad as 
 that, Gerald. Though Charlotte and 
 her father are both worried, still, 
 only yesterday, Dr. Wainwright told 
 him that he thought it a trouble of 
 the nerves, and that it might not 
 prove at all serious. They're going 
 to take her off into the country soon 
 to their place at Throgg's Neck, 
 you know. You and I have spent 
 some pleasant hours there, in recent 
 summers, have we not?" 
 
 "Yes, Mark, when I believed 
 Pamela Verplanck cared for me. 
 But now it's clear to my mind that 
 she has never cared." 
 
A Romance of 
 
 "And I suppose you still want 
 her to care ?" said Mark, slowly. 
 
 "Want her to care! Good God, 
 man, why don't you ask me if I 
 want her to be dying of love for 
 you?" 
 
 Mark turned like a flash, and the 
 two faced one another. 
 
 "Who's been telling you, Gerald, 
 such rubbish as this ?" 
 
 " Never mind. It has come from 
 a credible source." 
 
 " From the gabbling tongues of 
 gossips." Mark's blue eyes were 
 ablaze, and his lips had curled in a 
 sneer. 
 
 Gerald looked sorrowful but firm. 
 "I believe it is true," he said. 
 Then a stormy grief stamped every 
 feature, and his voice became vi- 
 brant with tremors that he plainly 
 sought to hide. " Past observations 
 confirm it now. Certain of her acts 
 
 22 
 
Old New York 
 
 and words recur to me . . . Oh, 
 Mark," he broke off, with a great 
 burst of vehemence, "if this were 
 true of any other living man but 
 yourself I should hate him I 
 should feel like killing him ! But 
 we've been friends from boyhood 
 we were college classmates we 
 shared each other's likings and 
 sports and scrapes and troubles; 
 we're distant kinsmen by blood, but 
 brothers in affection, sympathy. I 
 can't hate you no, I can't!" 
 
 Mark saw the tears glitter in his 
 friend's big, dusky eyes. Gerald 
 flung himself on a bench near by, 
 and sat there, his lithe young body 
 swerved sideways, biting his lips 
 and clenching both hands. 
 
 Mark walked on, pausing at the 
 
 water's edge. He felt horribly 
 
 shocked at Gerald's late words. A 
 
 vision of Charlotte Verplanck, the 
 
 23 
 
A Romance of 
 
 girl he loved and meant to marry, 
 rose before him, with her plump 
 yet lissome shape, her damask 
 cheeks, her ropes of crinkled blue- 
 black hair. Then came a vision of 
 her sister, Pamela, once the rosiest 
 and winsomest of blondes, now 
 sallow and languid, with half her 
 beauty gone and the pallor as of 
 mortal sickness replacing it. 
 
 A shiver passed through Mark ; a 
 sense of gruesome omen darkened 
 the luminous May air. Yet his look 
 was stubborn, rebellious, incredu- 
 lous, as he murmured, half aloud, 
 
 " It isn't true it can't be true. 
 Pamela dying of love for me ! Old 
 women's tea-table tattle ! And Ger- 
 ald has listened to it! Well, all 
 the bigger fool he. There always 
 was a babyish, hysterical streak in 
 Gerald, despite his many manly and 
 honest traits!" 
 
 24 
 
Old New York 
 
 M 
 
 II. 
 
 r ARK stood for some time 
 on the very verge of the 
 Battery, either watching 
 or seeming to watch the hazy blue 
 of the Staten Island hills and the 
 sparkle of the Narrows and the 
 glimmering curve of the Jersey 
 coast. These looked then, no doubt 
 (seventy-five years ago), much the 
 same as they have often looked on 
 pleasant afternoons of our own later 
 springtides. But the bay was far 
 less full of craft, and did not show 
 a single steamboat, though thirteen 
 years had passed since Robert Ful- 
 ton's genius had caused the Cler- 
 mont to puff her triumphant way 
 from New York to Albany in thirty- 
 two hours, and now there were 
 25 
 
A Romance of 
 
 lines running between this and 
 other ports in half the time. On 
 Mark's right towered a structure 
 which has since been dwarfed into 
 Castle Garden, but was then Fort 
 Clinton, a grim redoubt, with black 
 muzzles of cannon peering sea- 
 ward through embrasures eight feet 
 thick. 
 
 Soon a pang of pity assailed 
 Mark. He veered round, changing 
 his view of the merry and scintillant 
 waters for one of bowery and path- 
 woven arcades. Just then he saw 
 Gerald approaching him. Without 
 a word spoken by either, the two 
 friends linked arms and walked 
 along the main marine promenade 
 for some time in complete silence, 
 bowing now and then to acquaint- 
 ances of either sex ; for this was 
 the fashionable hour of strollers on 
 the Battery, and one bowed, if one 
 26 
 
Old New York 
 
 had the privilege of knowing them, 
 to Beeknians, Livingstons, De Pey- 
 sters, and other scions of aristoc- 
 racy in a town which numbered 
 only a hundred thousand inhabi- 
 tants at the most. 
 
 Presently conversation was re- 
 sumed between the young men. 
 Mark spoke cheeringly of the 
 chances in favor of Pamela Ver- 
 planck's recovery, scoffed the idea 
 of her illness having the sentimental 
 origin assigned it, and counselled 
 Gerald, with earnest warmth, to 
 hope that the future would smile on 
 his present despairing suit. 
 
 That evening he was expected to 
 sup with the Verplancks at seven 
 o'clock. He went to their house 
 in a mood of unwonted depression. 
 It had deeply wounded him to learn 
 that so silly and unfounded a tale had 
 got wind concerning poor sick Pa- 
 27 
 
A Romance of 
 
 mela and himself. The thought that 
 it might have reached Charlotte's 
 ears, or those of her father, filled 
 him, too, with embarrassing dread. 
 
 Charlotte soon came fluttering to 
 meet him, in the prim, formal, colo- 
 nial-looking parlor, with its spider- 
 legged hair-cloth furniture and its 
 massive mahogany doors. 
 
 He kissed her on one blooming 
 cheek, but she darted coyly back- 
 ward before he could kiss the other. 
 
 " You're late, sir," she said. 
 " Supper's on the table, and father 
 and Pamela and I had almost given 
 you up. Dinah's a tyrant, you know, 
 and always makes deliberate failures 
 of both her muffins and corn-cakes 
 when she's asked to postpone them 
 a single minute. Father's said 
 ' grace' ; and, oh, I forgot Colonel 
 Burr is supping with us this even- 
 ing, too." 
 
 28 
 
Old New York 
 
 "Colonel Burr?" repeated Mark, 
 remembering his recent little pane- 
 gyric of that celebrity. " And Char- 
 lotte," he went on, "pray tell me: 
 how is your sister?" 
 
 "A little brighter since morning, 
 I think." 
 
 "That's good news." 
 
 " She came down to supper, 
 though somewhat too feeble. I 
 believe, really, Mark, that she only 
 came because of you." 
 
 " Because of me ? Nonsense !" 
 
 " "Why, how uncivilly you say 
 that. Are you sorry poor Pamela 
 should be glad to have you come ?" 
 
 " Sorry ? I ? How absurd, Char- 
 lotte ! Shall we go down, then ?" 
 
 The dining-room was in the base- 
 ment, only a few steps from the 
 kitchen. As she returned thither, 
 Charlotte took her vacated place 
 at the head of the table, before 
 29 
 
A Romance of 
 
 two high silver kettles, one for tea, 
 one for coffee. A turbaned negress 
 was in waiting, with a dish of 
 smoking corn-cakes. Except a plate 
 or two of cooling muffins, this was 
 the only warm viand. For the 
 rest, there was cold sliced meat, 
 marmalade in low heavy cut-glass 
 bowls, and a large decanter of whis- 
 key. 
 
 "No stimulant, thank you, sir," 
 Colonel Burr was saying, while 
 Mark approached him with out- 
 stretched hand. He was waving 
 away the proffered decanter with 
 his own slim white hand, but he in- 
 stantly reversed it in Mark's direc- 
 tion, and gave to the young man a 
 most cordial greeting. Already the 
 belated guest had spoken a word of 
 welcome and apology to both Pa- 
 mela and her father. 
 
 " How horribly ill Pamela is look- 
 so 
 
Old New York 
 
 ing!" Mark thought, as he seated 
 himself. 
 
 " Colonel," said Varick Verplanck, 
 pouring some syrup on a corn-cake 
 which he had already carefully but- 
 tered, " I have rarely, if ever, known 
 so abstemious a military man as 
 yourself. Indeed, if you will allow 
 me to say so, it has for years been 
 my experience that all soldiers are 
 rather liberal drinkers." 
 
 Aaron Burr laughed, crumbling a 
 bit of bread between his shapely, 
 womanish fingers. "Oh, sir," he 
 replied, " I'm no longer a soldier. 
 I'm only a poor struggling lawyer 
 in a great city, nine-tenths of 
 whose inhabitants think me the 
 most evil of reprobates." 
 
 Charlotte was just then re-filling 
 
 with coffee the speaker's third cup. 
 
 "Colonel Burr," she exclaimed, 
 
 with her bare arm curved over the 
 
 31 
 
A Romance of 
 
 shining implement in a way that 
 Mark silently adored, "you are the 
 last of men, I should say, to disdain 
 the dignity of being a soldier. Only 
 the other day somebody had the 
 impudence to tell me that you had 
 played but a minor part at the siege 
 of Quebec in 1775. I wouldn't have 
 that for a moment. I stood up 
 for you with great valiance, feeling 
 thrice-armed because my quarrel 
 was just." 
 
 "Dear young lady," said Burr, 
 his mobile face mellowing into 
 an instant smile, "you make me 
 feel recompensed for one of the 
 hardest campaigns in all my mili- 
 tary career. " 
 
 "Pardon me, colonel," said Ver- 
 planck, with a stately little bow. 
 " Our good and great Washington 
 did that in the succeeding year, 
 half by raising your rank and half 
 32 
 
Old New York 
 
 by seeking you as his guest at 
 Richmond Hill." 
 
 "Ah, sir," sighed Burr, slowly 
 stirring the coffee which had now 
 reached him, " Washington labored 
 under the disadvantage of not being 
 one of the most charming young 
 women I have ever known, and 
 also of serving his friends with 
 very indifferent coffee by no means 
 the ambrosial beverage which your 
 gifted daughter has the magic art of 
 brewing." 
 
 "A very happy compliment, sir," 
 laughed Mark Frankland, "but we 
 all suspect, I fear, that it is paid 
 Miss Charlotte for the modest 
 purpose of turning conversation 
 away from your brilliant exploits 
 at Quebec." 
 
 "True, indeed!" cried Charlotte. 
 " I insisted that as the aide-de- 
 camp of General Arnold you not 
 3 33 
 
A Romance of 
 
 only fought with fine bravery, but 
 endured the severest privations in 
 that arduous winter march. " 
 
 " Still more might be told," here 
 struck in Pamela, who was trifling 
 with her food rather than eating it, 
 and whose glance kept haunting 
 Mark's face in a way that he would 
 probably not have observed but 
 for his late converse with Gerald. 
 "When General Montgomery met 
 his heroic death," the girl con- 
 tinued, "there among those masses 
 of ice on the borders of St. Law- 
 rence, Colonel Burr or Major Burr, 
 as he was then called caught the 
 body of the fallen patriot and bore 
 it to shelter "within his own lines, 
 amid a shower of bullets from the 
 British troops." 
 
 " Brava, Pamela !" exclaimed 
 Charlotte, waving a teaspoon in 
 applausive mock frenzy. "But 
 
 34 
 
Old New York 
 
 why, dear sister, did you not ad- 
 dress Colonel Burr while you re- 
 called in such neat phrase his glo- 
 rious act of courage ?" 
 
 The invalid turned suddenly to- 
 ward Charlotte with a wild look of 
 irritation and challenge. 
 
 "What do you mean ?" she asked. 
 
 " Why, only this, dear Pamela: 
 all the time you spoke you were 
 looking straight at Mark Frankland, 
 yonder, as though he and not Colo- 
 nel Burr were the author of this 
 handsome historic deed/' 
 
 " 1 I didn't know . . I I didn't 
 intend," stammered Pamela. The 
 next moment, with twitching fea- 
 tures, she rose from the table, in 
 evident disarray. As she hurried 
 toward the door, Charlotte followed 
 her. Both girls disappeared, and 
 soon a sound of sobs broke from 
 the outer hall, promptly growing 
 35 
 
A Romance of 
 
 fainter as if through increased dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Mr. Verplanck looked almost pitia- 
 bly embarrassed, and presently said, 
 with apologetic suavity, to Burr, 
 
 " My poor child's health is 
 wretchedly broken. Pray forgive 
 her curious outburst of sensitive- 
 ness. It comes merely from shat- 
 tered nerves, poor Pamela, and is 
 quite foreign to her gentle and kindly 
 nature." 
 
 "As if I did not know that, my 
 dear Verplanck !" hastened Burr, 
 with the richest show of sympathy. 
 He went on speaking, in his fluent 
 and cordial way; but meanwhile 
 Verplanck's look had transferred 
 itself to Mark, who almost guiltily 
 lowered his own. 
 
 Burr left unusually early, that 
 evening, being called away, as he 
 stated, by the necessity of preparing 
 36 
 
Old New York 
 
 a brief in an imminent and urgent 
 law-case. Verplanck went with 
 him to the front door up-stairs, and 
 then rejoined Mark in the basement 
 dining-room. 
 
 "That man is a wonder," Ver- 
 planck said, after the little silence 
 that ensued upon his return. " Can 
 I help you to anything more, Frank- 
 land ?" 
 
 " Nothing more, sir," said Mark, 
 and added, in the polite idiom of the 
 time, " I have had a great plenty, 
 thank you have supped most 
 heartily on your excellent victuals." 
 
 "As I -was saying," Verplanck 
 resumed, " Colonel Burr is a won- 
 der. There in his office just off 
 Broadway in Reade Street, he goes 
 on practising law and actually suc- 
 ceeding, in the teeth of enormous 
 debt and a national unpopularity 
 which is inveterate." 
 
 37 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Here Verplanck rose again, and 
 brought his chair to within a few 
 inches of Mark's. He had a fine, 
 cameo-like face, to which his high 
 stock lent distinction. He laid one 
 hand on Mark's shoulder for a 
 moment, saying quickly and with 
 graver voice, 
 
 " But I did not mean, now that 
 we are alone together, to men- 
 tion so threadbare a topic as that 
 of poor Aaron Burr's complete 
 social downfall, or his remarkable 
 struggle against tides of disaster. 
 The truth is, Frankland, I was 
 rather glad he made so early a de- 
 parture." 
 
 " Glad, Mr. Verplanck ?" 
 
 "Yes. It gives me a chance to 
 speak with frankness on a subject 
 very painful, and yet commandingly 
 important. A subject, Frankland, 
 that concerns my daughter. " 
 38 
 
Old New York 
 
 "Miss Charlotte ?" said Mark, 
 with a speed almost tumultuous. 
 
 " No not Charlotte. . . You and 
 I have spoken of her not long ago, 
 in privacy like this, have we not ?" 
 
 "Indeed, yes," replied* Mark, 
 flushing, and with a fiery sweetness 
 in tone and look. " You have sanc- 
 tioned my addresses, dear sir, and 
 I am waiting with only too much 
 eagerness the time when you will 
 permit them to be made public." 
 
 "It is not of Charlotte that I 
 wish to speak, but of Pamela," 
 slowly said Verplanck. 
 
 Mark furtively gnawed his lips. 
 "Poor Miss Pamela seems to be 
 very sick." 
 
 " She is very sick." Envisaging 
 Mark suddenly with his kind, faded, 
 sorrowful eyes, Verplanck went on : 
 "Yesterday Dr. Wainwright gave 
 me his final word. Our dear Pa- 
 
 39 
 
A Romance of 
 
 mela is doomed. It is atrophy of 
 the heart ; the end has become cer- 
 tain. My poor darling is wasting 
 away just as her mother did, twelve 
 years ago. I myself recognize the 
 symptoms. Her mother was much 
 older than Pamela when she went, 
 it is true. But I can see the same 
 forlorn change, made all the more 
 evident because of an intense ma- 
 ternal resemblance." 
 
 "Yes, yes," murmured Mark, 
 aimlessly, and without even the in- 
 terrogative note in his voice. He 
 was pierced by a peculiar dread, 
 which he could not explain and 
 could only feel. 
 
 "There is no chance," pursued 
 Verplanck, "of saving my child's 
 life. But there is a chance of mak- 
 ing her very happy during the few 
 months -which now remain to her. 
 Charlotte has lately suspected this 
 40 
 
Old New York 
 
 chance. To me its cheering possi- 
 bility has become certain. Mark 
 Frankland, my youngest daughter 
 has fallen in love with you. She is 
 passionately attached to you. It is 
 a violent and absorbing infatuation. " 
 
 Verplanck quitted his chair, and 
 walked away, with bowed head. 
 Mark sat quite still for a slight 
 while. Then he abruptly rose and 
 met the elder man as he turned and 
 faced him in the mellow candle- 
 light. 
 
 "You tell me this, sir," he said, 
 with agitation, " and I perceive that 
 the telling of it costs you deep re- 
 gret/' 
 
 " Regret and humiliation both I" 
 
 "And your telling it at all," pur- 
 sued Mark, "shows the intensity 
 of your conviction. Still, you may 
 be wrong. If you are " 
 
 " I am not wrong. The thing is 
 41 
 
A Romance of 
 
 beyond doubt." Here Verplanck for 
 a moment shrouded his face in a 
 kerchief, dashing it hastily across 
 his eyes as he again looked full at 
 Mark. "Listen, my boy: Pamela 
 has herself confessed to me this 
 infatuation. In a way, being the 
 younger, she is my favorite, though 
 God knows I love each daughter 
 with deepest affection ! I would 
 take in Charlotte's case no other 
 course than I am taking in hers. 
 Yes, she has told me, though in the 
 most sacred secrecy. I violate my 
 promise to her, and in doing so I 
 firmly believe, Frankland, that I am 
 telling the first actual lie of my 
 whole life. Yet it is a lie told in 
 the passionate fatherly hope of 
 easing her final hours on earth. 
 We will soon go into the country, 
 as you know. She loves the old 
 farm at Throgg's Neck, so replete 
 42 
 
Old New York 
 
 for her with childish memories. 
 Change of scene, partial change of 
 air, may cause her to rally a little 
 and seemingly improve. But, as I 
 have said, the end is both sure and 
 near. She cannot last through the 
 summer. Yesterday she was so 
 weak for hours that she could 
 scarcely lift a hand. Then youth 
 and native vitality conquered again, 
 and to-day she has been better. 
 Your expected coming, Frankland, 
 had much to do with this altered 
 state. Charlotte's thoughtless 
 words, entirely innocent, caused 
 the nervous shock that you saw. 
 And yet, as I said, Charlotte is not 
 ignorant of the truth. And, more 
 than this (as . . as I think I before 
 hinted), she is willing to join with 
 me in the request I am now about 
 to make." 
 
 There was silence, and Mark 
 
 43 
 
A Romance of 
 
 looked wonderingly at the pale, 
 distressed face before him. 
 
 " What request ?" he asked. 
 
 "This, Frankland, this." . . And 
 then Verplanck, with eager, plain- 
 tive volubility, spoke on for several 
 seconds. 
 
 Mark sprang up from the table, 
 shocked, with darkening brows. 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" he exclaimed, 
 " not that ! Of all things, not that ! 
 Believe me, sir, I could not possibly 
 consent!" 
 
Old New York 
 
 III. 
 
 AT this same moment, after 
 hearing every "word that 
 Mark had just spoken, Char- 
 lotte slipped into the room. She 
 divined swiftly the motive of her 
 lover's flurried speech. She went 
 up to Verplanck's side and said, con- 
 fronting Mark, with a hand thrown 
 suddenly about her father's neck, 
 
 " I know what it is to which 
 you will not consent. But pray 
 let me join my entreaty with 
 father's !" 
 
 "It would be hypocrisy," shud- 
 dered the young man. 
 
 " Hypocrisy," Charlotte urged, 
 "in a merciful cause!" 
 
 " It would ease that poor child's 
 last hours," pleaded Verplanck, 
 45 
 
A Romance of 
 
 " far beyond any comfort that could 
 reach her." 
 
 "And no one but we three," per- 
 sisted Charlotte, " would ever know 
 the truth." 
 
 "The truth!" Mark echoed, for- 
 lornly. " Call it, rather, the false- 
 hood!" 
 
 Charlotte's face hardened a little. 
 "It would be justifiable," she said. 
 "You could do it for my sake, if 
 you chose, as a sacrifice." 
 
 "I would make, for you," pro- 
 tested Mark, "almost any sacri- 
 fice." 
 
 "Make this, then," said Ver- 
 planck, with melancholy sternness. 
 
 "Make this, then," said Char- 
 lotte, echoing her father with ten- 
 der emphasis. 
 
 "Soil my honor," faltered Mark, 
 half as if to his own thoughts, 
 "by asking a woman to be my 
 4 6 
 
Old New York 
 
 wife whom I do not love and 
 whom I have no intention of mar- 
 ry ing ?" 
 
 "Ah, if you put it that way!" 
 sighed Verplanck. 
 
 "And you need not put it that 
 way," fervidly supplemented Char- 
 lotte. "Tell yourself, instead, that 
 you would be acting a merciful part 
 to a dying girl !" 
 
 Mark moved away. Verplanck's 
 eyes and those of his daughter 
 followed him as he passed, with 
 lowered head, to the opposite end 
 of the room. Abruptly he paused, 
 turned, and then said, 
 
 " Pamela has always been capri- 
 cious since a little girl. You both 
 know how many were her whims 
 and how quickly they would alter. 
 I think you both exaggerate, in your 
 love and pity for her, this new 
 fancy. Not long ago she was all 
 
 47 
 
A Romance of 
 
 smiles to poor Gerald Suydam. 
 Suddenly she chose to treat him 
 with great coolness. The year 
 before last, if I err not, she would 
 scarcely notice Colonel Burr ; now, 
 as we have lately witnessed, she 
 cannot hold him in too high esteem. 
 I I feel confident," finished Mark, 
 dashing out these latter words with 
 impetuous force, "that this is a 
 mere mood, and will vanish as 
 quickly as it came." 
 
 " It will only vanish with her 
 death," sighed Verplanck. 
 
 Charlotte looked at Mark with 
 every sign of its old sweetness 
 gone from her face. 
 
 "Very well, then," she said. 
 " If you think like this you cannot 
 be persuaded, that is all." 
 
 "Yes," Verplanck sighed, "that 
 is all." He went up to Mark and 
 held out his hand. He was very 
 48 
 
Old New York 
 
 pale, and the hand that Mark took 
 felt strangely cold. " I don't deny 
 what you've just said, Frankland, 
 my boy. She's been a perfect 
 will-o'-the-wisp for changeability, 
 whimsicality, ever since she was 
 five years old " 
 
 "No, father " 
 
 "Yes, Charlotte, it's true. And 
 what we ask is not merely difficult 
 it's ridiculous. Now that he re- 
 fuses, as I suppose any sensible 
 man would, I begin to see its entire 
 absurdity." He gave a wistful, apol- 
 ogetic glance at Mark. " Good-night. 
 Pardon a father who spoke far more 
 from his paternal fondness, anxiety, 
 sense of coming bereavement, than 
 from the rational stand-point of 
 which you have reminded him." 
 And before Mark could find even a 
 fragmentary sentence of response, 
 Verplanck had quitted the room. 
 
 4 49 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Charlotte, however, remained, 
 and hardly ten minutes had elapsed 
 when Mark was informing her that 
 she deported herself like the most 
 unfeeling termagant. 
 
 Then their first real quarrel oc- 
 curred. "Very well," said Char- 
 lotte; "termagants oughtn't to 
 marry." 
 
 Mark burst into a laugh. " Oh, 
 Charlotte ! Was there ever such a 
 situation? You threaten to break 
 our troth because I will not make 
 love to another woman !" 
 
 "You must not speak like that," 
 fumed Charlotte, "of my poor, 
 dying sister! It's it's grossly 
 disrespectful." 
 
 " How is it, in the name of common 
 sense ? To call her another woman ? 
 Certainly she isn't another man." 
 
 " Now you're horribly flippant 
 and cruel, besides !" 
 50 
 
Old New York 
 
 " Charlotte, my dear girl, do be 
 sensible !" 
 
 " I'm human if that's what you 
 mean by not being sensible." 
 
 " It strikes me that you're in- 
 human, toward myself." 
 
 " I'm not speaking of you or 
 thinking of you. I'm speaking and 
 thinking of poor, dear Pamela." 
 
 " But you're asking me to behave 
 like the most insincere of mortals." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know. You can 
 phrase it that way, if you please." 
 
 " Phrase it that way ! But I don't 
 want to conduct myself that way." 
 
 "You ought to want to under 
 the circumstances. All men can, 
 if they choose." 
 
 "What a magnificent revelation 
 of your faith in our sex ! So we're 
 all rascals at heart, are we ? I'm 
 glad to learn you have so lofty an 
 opinion of us." 
 
 51 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Charlotte began to weep. "The 
 more I see of your sex," she 
 quavered, "the loftier seem your 
 opinions of yourselves." 
 
 Her tears troubled Mark very 
 much. They troubled him more as 
 they continued to flow. He went 
 near to her and touched one of her 
 firm, ivory wrists, and told her that 
 it broke his heart to see her weep. 
 She at once put the wrist behind 
 her back, and receded a little, and 
 answered to the effect that his 
 heart was an organ whose brittle- 
 ness he entirely misrepresented. 
 He endeavored to argue this point 
 with her, mildly and very miser- 
 ably, and at last, with a volcanic 
 desperation, exclaimed, 
 
 "Oh, very well! I'll be goose 
 
 enough, traitor enough, to attempt 
 
 this idiotic masquerade ! But 
 
 heaven help me to carry it through 
 
 52 
 
Old New York 
 
 in any other than the most bungling 
 fashion ! Oh, I promise you I'll cut 
 a pretty figure ! And pray how will 
 you like it if you see me hugging 
 Pamela with all my might, and 
 swearing to her eternal devotion ?" 
 
 "Pamela," frowned Charlotte, 
 " is far too much of an invalid to be 
 hugged! You must behave very 
 carefully. You must recollect the 
 delicate state of her health." 
 
 "How delightful!" he groaned. 
 " Go on, please, with your in- 
 structions." 
 
 She fluttered to him, and, with 
 the nodding head-movement of a 
 bird, kissed him lightly and swiftly 
 on either cheek. 
 
 "I knew you'd consent!" Her 
 own cheeks were roses, her eyes 
 were liquid stars. " Now you're 
 my own dear Mark again !" 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he objected, 
 53 
 
A Romance of 
 
 with sarcastic calm ; " I've become 
 Pamela's dear Mark." 
 
 He slept very ill that night, and 
 informed his father, the next day, 
 that he felt too unwell to appear at 
 the "store." His father, who had 
 been often accused by strait-laced 
 acquaintances of indulging him 
 foolishly, at once grew worried and 
 advised his son by all means to 
 leave ledgers and accounts alone 
 and get as many hours as he could 
 in the open air. 
 
 " It's a fine day, Mark," said Ezra 
 Frankland, "finer than yesterday." 
 The old merchant had lost three 
 children before their mother died. 
 Mark, the last left, was the apple of 
 his eye. "You might go up in the 
 country say as far as the canal. 
 It's pleasant and shady up there, by 
 this time. You could drop in at 
 your aunt Elizabeth's place and get 
 
 54 
 
Old New York 
 
 dinner. She'd be mighty glad to 
 see you." 
 
 The "canal" was where Canal 
 Street now roars with traffic. It 
 had been, until 1809, or thereabouts, 
 the famed Collect Pond, a pictu- 
 resque resort of boating parties in 
 summer and skaters in winter. It 
 was now transformed into a broad 
 canal, with paved streets and lines 
 of trees on either side. Mark might 
 easily have gone thither by stage- 
 coach, but he preferred to avoid a 
 haunt consecrated, in former times, 
 by many happy strolls with Char- 
 lotte. 
 
 The thing that he had consented 
 to do filled him with sorrowful dis- 
 may. His honest nature revolted 
 from it; the thought of its odious 
 coming experience darkened the 
 blue May sky over Bowling Green, 
 and gave to the familiar dormer- 
 55 
 
A Romance of 
 
 windowed brick houses along 
 Broadway a dreary, alien look. 
 
 He loitered up past Trinity 
 Church, at whose doors, not many 
 years before, Gouverneur Morris 
 had delivered to an immense con- 
 course his impassioned funeral 
 eulogy over the bier of Hamilton. 
 Prim, colonial, and in spots village- 
 like, the town gave no prophecy of 
 those prodigious changes which 
 awaited it. How Mark would have 
 marvelled and thrilled if for a few 
 instants all should have been fore- 
 shadowed to him as the future des- 
 tined it, a monstrous post-office 
 looming from the placid lower angle 
 of City Hall Park ; huge sky-scrap- 
 ing structures upheaving themselves 
 in Printing House Square; legions 
 of massive edifices shutting out all 
 view of either Hudson or East 
 River; Wall Street growing in a 
 56 
 
Old New York 
 
 trice from drowsy quietude to bustle 
 and tumult ; the hubbub of countless 
 vehicles deafening one's ears ; the 
 clangor of the cable cars blending 
 with thunders from elevated trains; 
 the wider thoroughfares vying in 
 their streams of pedestrianism with 
 the peaceful side-streets ; and human 
 life everywhere intensifying itself, 
 materializing itself, making itself an 
 imperious, vivid, unavoidable domi- 
 nance ! 
 
 In his perplexity and depression 
 he somehow thought of Aaron Burr, 
 and soon drifted into a little dingy 
 pair of rooms on Reade Street, not 
 far from where the old white marble 
 Stewart building now stands. Mark 
 was always sure of a glad welcome 
 when he crossed the threshold of 
 this office, which thousands of his 
 countrymen would have deemed 
 their feet soiled by touching. 
 
 57 
 
 Jam * 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Burr, seated before a broad table 
 loaded with papers and books, rose 
 and cordially clasped the hand of 
 his young friend. The next mo- 
 ment he turned toward a man who 
 had been stationed at his elbow as 
 Mark appeared. The man's attire 
 was not of the choicest, but he had 
 an honest, intelligent look. 
 
 "This bill, colonel, has been run- 
 ning a good while. " 
 
 Burr laid a hand on his arm. 
 "I know it, my good fellow," he 
 answered, with a faint shrug and 
 the most sympathetic of smiles. 
 " But, alas ! the well is dry to-day." 
 Here he pointed to a square hole 
 made of piled books in the centre 
 of the table, and then suddenly 
 dove a searching hand into its 
 hollow. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! not a dollar 
 left ! I don't see how my well got 
 58 
 
Old New York 
 
 so dry as soon as this. I received 
 quite a sum of money two or three 
 days ago. But people came to me 
 with all sorts of piteous stories. 
 Those are nearly the only kinds of 
 people, except my few clients, who 
 do come nowadays. And I must 
 have . . er . . miscalculated the 
 amount of . . er . . water that my 
 poor little well contained." 
 
 " I should very much like to have 
 the money this morning, colonel/' 
 persisted the man, in a voice urgent 
 yet low. 
 
 " So sorry . . so sorry, my friend ! 
 Come again in a few days. There's 
 no telling but what you may find 
 me a perfect Crcesus then. No 
 telling, I assure you." 
 
 A few more words were inter- 
 changed between debtor and creditor 
 before the latter at length reluc- 
 tantly took his leave. 
 59 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Burr turned, with his most 
 charming smile, to Mark. "You 
 know about my well, don't you?" 
 he said, motioning for his guest to 
 be seated. 
 
 "Yes," smiled Mark; "you've 
 told me about it. Ah, colonel, if 
 you'll let me say so, it's strange 
 that a man of your great powers 
 should be such a child in money 
 matters!" 
 
 "You may say to me anything 
 you please, my dear Mark. You 
 may scold me as much as you like. 
 By the Eternal, as my stanch old 
 friend Andrew Jackson is wont to 
 swear, I deserve a sound flogging 
 very often for my improvidence !" 
 
 " Your well, as you name it, colo- 
 nel, has no doubt been dried up by 
 charities. You're the most chari- 
 table man I've ever known." 
 
 "Yes, my boy immorally so. 
 60 
 
Old New York 
 
 I give what belongs to others!" 
 Here Burr sighed ; then, with return 
 of the brisk sparkle which had briefly 
 left his dark blue eyes, 
 
 " Pray, to what do I owe the 
 honor of this visit? You look 
 troubled. Gad, I hope you've got 
 into some scrape that I can legally 
 pull you out of! I like dealing with 
 you sons of rich merchants." And 
 here he laughed his mellow, con- 
 tagious laugh. "You're sheep, sir, 
 worth the pleasure of shearing." 
 
 " I haven't got into any scrape of 
 that sort, colonel." 
 
 "Then it's a woman I'll be 
 bound it's a woman, you sly young 
 blade !" And Burr gave his visitor 
 a sharp slap on the thigh. " If so, 
 Mark, you're devilish sensible to 
 come to an old veteran sinner like 
 me." 
 
 " Don't paint yourself in black 
 
 01 
 
A Romance of 
 
 colors, colonel. I won't have you 
 do so even in jest. . . Yes," added 
 Mark, with a solemn little nod, " it 
 is a woman." And then he told 
 something that made his listener's 
 fine face both pale and darken. 
 
 "How extraordinary !" burst from 
 Burr, when he had ended. 
 
 " You you think, sir, I am wrong 
 in having consented?" 
 
 " Wrong ? In the name of decent 
 compassion, no ! Poor Verplanck ! 
 poor Charlotte ! and ah, poor Pa- 
 mela ! What a situation ! Zounds ! 
 somebody ought to put it on the 
 stage and play it over at the Park 
 Theatre ! Ah, no, no I don't mean 
 that, my boy I don't mean any- 
 thing so heartless!" Tears stood 
 in the speaker's eyes those eyes 
 which had blazed in battle, which 
 had helped the oratoric art of their 
 possessor to electrify listening 
 62 
 
Old New York 
 
 senates. "Bravo, my dear Mark! 
 Your resolve has just the right 
 note in it a note of chivalry all 
 the surer because so difficult, so un- 
 usual, so austere ! I don't wonder 
 you found it hard to consent. 
 Pamela's a chameleon, as you've 
 just hinted. But all her volatile, 
 mutable frivolity becomes sancti- 
 fied, now, by the nearness of death. 
 Good God! what a love-test! But 
 you'll stand it you'll carry it to a 
 mournfully triumphant end. I, for 
 one, trust you. And as for blessing 
 you, I leave that to her father and 
 sister especially the last ! Don't 
 waver in the least. I've seen life ; 
 I know women. And, believe me, 
 Charlotte will love you all the 
 better in years to come for having 
 served her with so splendid a 
 loyalty! 1 ' 
 
A Romance of 
 
 IV. 
 
 AARON BURR'S encomium 
 and encouragement dwelt 
 stimulatingly with Mark for 
 a good while after he had gone 
 forth again into the glad spring 
 weather from those dismal and al- 
 most poverty-stricken little cham- 
 bers fronting the old City Hall. His 
 nerves were still in a state of marked 
 disquiet, however, since the ordeal 
 of his coming dissimulation was to 
 begin that same afternoon. He 
 stopped at a tobacconist's shop 
 below the American Museum on the 
 corner of Ann Street, and bought a 
 few cigars of fairly good quality the 
 best which he could procure at four 
 cents apiece. He lit one of them, 
 and stood looking up abstractedly at 
 6 4 
 
Old New York 
 
 the impossible animals painted on 
 wooden ovals and dotting the entire 
 facade of the spacious building. 
 
 "Oh, it's you, Mark?" said a 
 voice ; and, turning, he beheld Ger- 
 ald Suydam. 
 
 "Good-morning," replied Mark. 
 " You're at leisure, like me ?" 
 
 " No, indeed," returned Gerald, 
 as they walked southward in mu- 
 tually accepted company. " Father 
 sent me up to Pearl Street about a 
 bill of lading. He's a good deal 
 stricter with me, as you know, than 
 yours is with you. He says he was 
 brought up not to shirk business, or 
 Suydam, Van Horn & Co. wouldn't 
 be the merchants they are to-day. 
 I suppose he's right. But I often 
 wish he were as lax and complai- 
 sant as your father is." 
 
 " Oh, dad knows how to scold, 
 sometimes." 
 
 5 65 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Gerald laughed. " I wonder what 
 mine would say if he saw me smok- 
 ing a cigar in the street. . . And, by 
 the bye, Mark, isn't it a little daring 
 of you?" 
 
 "Daring? Humbug !" 
 
 "Well, you know/ 1 demurred 
 Gerald, with an assertive head-toss, 
 " folks will talk." 
 
 "Oh, I know, yes." 
 
 " Three-quarters of your male ac- 
 quaintance, in your own rank of life, 
 think that for a man of your age to 
 smoke a cigar during business hours 
 is an act of gross dissipation. Here 
 comes old Mr. Ludlow Vanderveer. 
 I can see the look of horror gather- 
 ing on his puckered little face." 
 
 "I shall pretend I don't see it," 
 said Mark, a trifle sullenly "or its 
 owner, either." After moving on a 
 few more yards, however, he threw 
 away his cigar. "The fact is, Ger- 
 
 66 
 
Old New York 
 
 aid," he continued, " I'm a good deal 
 upset ; I feel like having something 
 to soothe me and I don't take big 
 sly draughts of Jamaica rum, as 
 they say Mr. Ludlow Vanderveer 
 does. A rather nasty thing has 
 happened to me since I saw you 
 yesterday, Gerald. It concerns our 
 recent talk, too. I don't know that 
 I ought to tell it you. I I meant 
 to tell scarcely a soul. But I'll let 
 you know it if you give me your 
 solemn oath that you'll keep it the 
 deadest of secrets." 
 
 With curiosity instantly roused, 
 Gerald hesitated, nevertheless, to 
 engage in so momentous a compact. 
 He was excessively conscientious, 
 and had a strong streak of piety be- 
 sides; he had once seriously thought 
 of studying for the ministry. 
 
 " Oh, very well," said Mark, with 
 pitiless disregard of his reluctance, 
 67 
 
 * 
 
A Romance of 
 
 "perhaps it's better I did not tell 
 you. After all, it might only make 
 you unhappy. " 
 
 This was too much for Gerald, 
 and he soon agreed to face the full 
 profanity of the "solemn oath." 
 When he had made complete ac- 
 quiescence, Mark divulged his im- 
 portant tidings. 
 
 The recital caused Gerald to turn 
 pale as paper. "You're shocked," 
 said Mark, watching him. 
 
 "I'm horrified," came the gasped 
 answer. 
 
 "You think me wrong, then, to 
 have consented?" 
 
 " Unspeakably wrong !" 
 
 For a moment Mark forgot him- 
 self. 
 
 " I've just been talking it all over 
 with an older and much wiser man 
 than you are. Colonel Burr thinks 
 the act heroic in its mercy." 
 
 68 
 
Old New York 
 
 " Aaron Burr may think so !" ex- 
 claimed Gerald, with haughty in- 
 tolerance. "And I dare say he is 
 much wiser than I am. But, oh, 
 Mark!" and here the young man's 
 voice for a moment failed him, 
 " why why did you tell it me at 
 all ? The girl I love ! you know 
 how dearly I have loved her, and 
 love her still ! And to dream of de- 
 ceiving her so terribly ! It's ghastly 
 it's unpardonable. The fact that 
 she is dying makes it all the more 
 so. . . Mark, Mark, I I am ashamed 
 of you !" 
 
 And with glittering eyes and steps 
 that reeled unsteadily, Gerald hur- 
 ried from his friend, who stood 
 staring after him, half in anger, half 
 in self-reproach. 
 
 
A Romance of 
 
 V. 
 
 "W DON'T want to go into the 
 country at all this summer!" 
 
 JL exclaimed Pamela Verplanck, 
 a few days later, to her sister Char- 
 lotte. " It will be such a long, 
 horrid journey for him to take every 
 day from the city by stagecoach." 
 
 "Couldn't you get along," asked 
 Charlotte, "with his coming three 
 times a week?" 
 
 " No. I must see him every day. 
 I'll speak to father about our not 
 leaving. He'll consent ; he does 
 anything I ask, now I'm so sick." 
 Here Pamela leaned forward in her 
 easy-chair and took a little hand- 
 mirror from a side table. " Char- 
 lotte," she presently said. 
 
 "Well, Pamela." 
 70 
 
Old New York 
 
 " Don't you think I look rather 
 better than I did?" She turned 
 away from the mirror and almost 
 avidly scanned Charlotte's fair and 
 healthful face with her own haggard, 
 glassy eyes. 
 
 Charlotte was sewing industri- 
 ously at some useful fabric. Like 
 nearly all the ladies of her land and 
 time, young or old, she rarely plied 
 her needle, except in company, at 
 lighter decorative tasks. 
 
 "Yes," she said, not meaning a 
 word, "you do look better, I think." 
 Then she added, very sweetly, 
 "And you feel stronger, do you 
 not?" 
 
 " I feel happier, and there's so 
 much in that ! It has been such a 
 strange, delicious surprise to me, 
 this realization that Mark wants me 
 for his wife ! And to think, Char- 
 lotte, how I always suspected 
 71 
 
A Romance of 
 
 always believed, in fact that he pre- 
 ferred^^/ I asked him about this 
 yesterday/' 
 
 " Did you ?" said Charlotte, stitch- 
 ing away. 
 
 "Yes; and he laughed, and an- 
 swered what do you think he 
 answered?' 1 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know, Pamela 
 dear." 
 
 "Perhaps I shouldn't tell you; it 
 may annoy you. But never mind ; 
 you're not sick like me ; you won't 
 bother about it." 
 
 "Tell me what Mark said," Char- 
 lotte gently urged. She had let her 
 work fall unheeded in her lap. 
 
 "He said," hesitated Pamela, 
 "that . . that well, Charlotte, that 
 he had always somehow felt you 
 were cut out for an old maid." 
 
 Charlotte's needle was now mak- 
 ing quick, diligent plunges. She had 
 72 
 
Old New York 
 
 lowered her face a little, perhaps to 
 hide its insurgent wave of color. 
 
 That evening she met Mark soon 
 after he arrived. " How is your 
 sister?'* he at once asked. 
 
 " Her spirits are greatly im- 
 proved. " 
 
 "Your own do not seem exactly 
 buoyant. " 
 
 Charlotte gnawed, for a moment, 
 her rosy underlip. " I don't think 
 it quite good taste in you," she 
 presently said, "to tell Pamela I 
 was cut out for an old maid." 
 
 Mark started. "Did I tell her 
 that ? Oh, yes, I believe I did." 
 
 "You believe you did!" bristled 
 Charlotte. " Of course you're very 
 well aware that you did ! And you 
 might not have said anything quite 
 so hateful about me." 
 
 " But I'm not inventive, Char- 
 lotte." 
 
 73 
 
A Romance of 
 
 " It seems to me that you are, 
 Mark very !" 
 
 " I'm not used to this sort of 
 dreadful deception. I naturally 
 say the first thing (in the way of a 
 falsehood) that comes into my 
 head." 
 
 Charlotte looked unpacified. "You 
 need not have uttered, then, quite 
 so glaring a falsehood that's all." 
 
 Mark smothered something de- 
 cidedly like an oath. " I warned 
 you that I'd make a botch of the 
 whole abominable affair." 
 
 " Hush ! She may be listen- 
 ing." 
 
 " I don't care if she is ; I wish 
 she were!" he growled, quite 
 wildly. 
 
 "Mark!" 
 
 " Oh, you're not so haughty, now. 
 I've frightened away your dudgeon, 
 have I?" 
 
 74 
 
Old New York 
 
 Charlotte drew herself up. " I 
 didn't think you could be so cow- 
 ardly/' she flung at him. 
 
 " No ; neither did I. Nor so de- 
 ceitful, either. And instead of get- 
 ting encouragement from you, the 
 arch-conspirator (for I'm certain you 
 set your father up to this whole un- 
 canny game), I receive reprimands 
 and reproaches. It's too frightfully 
 unjust. I can't endure it I won't 
 endure it there !" 
 
 " Mark," implored Charlotte, " for 
 my sake, persevere !" She was now 
 all clemency and contrition. " Re- 
 member, it will be only for so short 
 a time!" 
 
 " But you won't even let me kiss 
 you while it continues !" 
 
 "No: that seems too much like 
 hypocrisy." 
 
 "But, in the name of the Lord 
 Almighty, what is it already?" 
 75 
 
A Romance of 
 
 " Don't swear, Mark, please. It's 
 a . . a splendid piece of self-sacri- 
 fice. Recollect how Colonel Burr 
 regarded it." 
 
 "And how did Gerald Suydam 
 regard it ?" 
 
 " You should never have told him 
 at all. I was thoroughly right in 
 scolding you for doing so." 
 
 " Of course ; you're always thor- 
 oughly right in scolding me," wailed 
 Mark; "and you've done nothing 
 else, whenever we've been alone 
 together, since this hideous business 
 began." 
 
 Charlotte benignly patted him on 
 the shoulder. " I'll try to be more 
 self-controlled in the future," she 
 murmured. And then she opened 
 the gates of heaven to him by 
 giving him a smile that bathed all 
 her face in tender glory and made 
 her dimples glow for him like stars 
 76 
 
Old New York 
 
 and rosebuds magically mixed. 
 "There, now; be good and brave 
 and noble. Go upstairs and see 
 poor dear Pamela. In a little while 
 supper will be ready. "We're going 
 to have waffles " 
 
 " I detest waffles. They never 
 agree with me." 
 
 " Then you needn't eat these. / 
 mixed them, though, in the kitchen, 
 with my own hands." 
 
 "Then I'll devour twenty!" He 
 tried to slip an arm about her waist, 
 but she darted backward and raised 
 a monitory finger. . . 
 
 May ended, that year, with a 
 few days of our proverbial New 
 York heat, but June proved delight- 
 fully salubrious. Dr. Wainwright 
 scowled a little when Mr. Ver- 
 planck informed him that his invalid 
 daughter was obstinately adverse 
 to leaving town. Then, after a 
 77 
 
A Romance of 
 
 slight interval of seeming medita- 
 tion, the doctor suddenly shrugged 
 his shoulders and said, with crisp 
 brevity, 
 
 " Oh, very well. Let her have 
 her own way." 
 
 "Poor child !" lamented Ver- 
 planck. " You mean, of course, 
 doctor, that the end is so near " 
 
 " No," interrupted the other, with 
 sharp, unexpected dissent, " I don't 
 mean anything of the sort." Then 
 he spoke a few more words that 
 caused his hearer's face to light up 
 with eager gladness. 
 
 " Why, doctor, you can't possibly 
 imply . . ?" 
 
 " It's no implication, Mr. Ver- 
 planck," was the rather stiff retort. 
 " It's an assertion, as far as it goes, 
 and you may take it for what it's 
 worth." 
 
 " But," almost panted Verplanck, 
 78 
 
Old New York 
 
 " it seems to go very far and to be 
 worth a great deal." 
 
 "Your daughter, sir, has decidedly 
 improved. That is all I dare to 
 state at present." 
 
 " But you stated (and Dr. Wilton, 
 in consultation "with you, also 
 stated) that my darling's heart was 
 fatally diseased." 
 
 "/ never stated it, sir. Wilton 
 did, I think. But please don't tell 
 Wilton either that I stated he stated 
 it or that I myself didn't state it." 
 Here Dr. Wainwright, who had a 
 large good-humored mouth, closed 
 his lips in morose compression. 
 The next moment he grumblingly 
 pursued, " Wilton and I have known 
 one another forty years, and we're 
 the best of friends. But we aver- 
 age one severe professional quarrel 
 every six months. There's no use 
 in adding to the number." And 
 79 
 
A Romance of 
 
 very soon afterward Dr. Wain- 
 wright took his leave. 
 
 Verplanck was so thrilled with 
 happy hope that for several hours 
 he went about his various duties 
 in a kind of delicious daze. From 
 this pleasant condition Charlotte 
 rudely roused him, however, by 
 the tidings that Pamela had had 
 another of her weak seizures while 
 Mark was reading aloud to her 
 from Moore's " Lalla Rookh" a 
 work then in great vogue among 
 sweethearts of both the "mother 
 country" and our own. 
 
 80 
 
Old New York 
 
 VI. 
 
 BUT Pamela's illness proved 
 transient. The next day she 
 was decidedly better, and 
 remained thus all through the fol- 
 lowing week, during which the 
 thermometer stood so high that it 
 filled Vauxhall Garden, up town 
 between Broadway and the Bowery 
 and partly on the site of the present 
 Astor Library, with citizens who 
 came to take cooling drinks there 
 and hear the playing of the band. 
 
 "I really think/' said Mark to 
 Charlotte, one day, " that you ought 
 to use your influence with her on the 
 subject of going to Throgg's Neck/' 
 
 " I haven't any influence," replied 
 Charlotte. " Nobody has, nowa- 
 days, except you." 
 
 6 81 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Mark suppressed a groan, " But 
 it would let me ' off duty* a little." 
 
 " Do you find your ' duty' so 
 tedious ?" 
 
 "You know very well that I 
 wouldn't endure doing it at all but 
 for these occasional stolen inter- 
 views with you." 
 
 " At Throgg's Neck/' said Char- 
 lotte, with maddening sedateness, 
 "you wouldn't see me half as often 
 as you see me now." 
 
 "True," he blustered, "but how 
 do I see you now ? As if I were a 
 prisoner up at the jail near Chatham 
 Row, and you were allowed some- 
 times to dawn on me before the 
 gratings of my cell. . . By the way, 
 it strikes me that Pamela is won- 
 derfully stronger and better." 
 
 "Yes, Mark. Isn't it charming 
 to see the change?" 
 
 "Charming? Oh, yes of course 
 82 
 
Old New York 
 
 it's charming. But then, don't you 
 know, we . . we didn't expect her 
 to recuperate like this." 
 
 " Recuperate ! What a curious 
 word!" 
 
 " It's a perfectly good English 
 word." 
 
 "I didn't say it wasn't," retorted 
 Charlotte, with sternness. " But, 
 for all that, it has such a large, 
 heartless, lawyer-like sound. I may 
 be unreasonable, of course." 
 
 " It strikes me that you're thor- 
 oughly unreasonable." 
 
 The next fortnight was a crucial 
 one for Mark. Pamela, when weak 
 and languid, was often a petulant 
 and exacting mistress. But now, 
 when each day seemed to lend her 
 fresh vitality, she became almost 
 tyrannically wilful. 
 
 " I like you to give me my medi- 
 cine," she would say to Mark, " and 
 83 
 
A Romance of 
 
 yet you always manage to arrive 
 just after I have taken it." Or 
 again, " I send both Charlotte and 
 father out of the room, so that we 
 can be alone together (as two lovers 
 ought to be, at least once a day), 
 and you sit staring at me in the 
 oddest silence. You make me do 
 all the talking." 
 
 "You talk so well," said Mark, 
 veiling his misery behind a smile. 
 
 " And then there's another point : 
 you're not half so much overjoyed 
 at my recovery as father and Char- 
 lotte seem to be. Why, pray, is 
 this?" 
 
 "Oh, Pamela," said Mark, with 
 an acute conscience-pang, "you 
 surely can't think I am not pleased 
 to have you get well !" 
 
 " Pleased ?" And she rapped him 
 on the ear somewhat sharply with 
 the fan that had lain in her lap. " I 
 8 4 
 
Old New York 
 
 should think, sir, you might choose 
 some warmer word/' 
 
 " I I meant it to be warm, Pa- 
 mela, but I have not your expres- 
 sive gifts of language." 
 
 " Oh, you haven't?" she mocked. 
 " It seems to me that in former 
 days I have heard you employ a 
 good deal of both fluency and elo- 
 quence when the mood stirred 
 you." 
 
 On the following afternoon he 
 found her dressed in bonnet and 
 mantilla and 'waiting for him in the 
 parlor. 
 
 " I've been feeling so well to- 
 day," she announced, "that I asked 
 Dr. Wainwright if I could not go 
 out. He has consented, but re- 
 stricts me to a stroll of only three 
 times round Bowling Green." 
 
 Charlotte and her father now en- 
 tered the room. Mark wondered, 
 85 
 
A Romance of 
 
 as he greeted them, "whether they 
 observed how pale he had grown. 
 
 " It will be my first appearance 
 out of doors since our engage- 
 ment/' continued Pamela, with a 
 few dainty touches at her long 
 plum-colored mitts. " Of course, 
 as it hasn't been made publicly 
 known yet, I suppose I oughtn't 
 to take your arm. Still," she 
 added, -with a gay flirt of her 
 pretty frilled gown, " I believe I 
 will, after all. People can say 
 what they please. Besides, very 
 few that we care about may see us ; 
 so many of them have gone into 
 the country." 
 
 Mark caught Charlotte's eye. 
 She dropped her look and turned 
 away, trying to smile ; he saw how 
 painful a failure she made of the 
 effort. Then he glanced at Varick 
 Verplanck. The latter gave a twist 
 
 86 
 
Old New York 
 
 to his stock with both hands, and 
 then coughed nervously. 
 
 "Wait supper for us/' called out 
 Pamela, merrily, as she went into 
 the hall. " I expect to have quite 
 an appetite when I return/' 
 
 Their walk, three times round 
 Bowling Green, was torture to 
 Mark. The heat had relented of 
 late ; it was a perfect midsummer 
 evening. Flashes from the Bay came 
 to them between the tossing trees 
 of the Battery. The sun, setting in 
 great splendor, as though far out at 
 sea, shot bars of dusty gold over 
 the railed enclosure of the Green, 
 gilding its clustered lilac-bushes. 
 Overhead some gauzy clouds had 
 grown a spectral pink. Pamela had 
 taken Mark's arm, and she leaned 
 upon it with a jauntily confidential 
 air. Her face, below its big white- 
 feathered bonnet of straw, gleamed 
 87 
 
A Romance of 
 
 with distinct semblance of its for- 
 mer prettiness; rose-tints like re- 
 flections from the sky touched it, 
 and a new, clear sparkle, as of 
 restored health, radiated from the 
 gaze which she turned, at brief 
 intervals, toward her companion. 
 
 They met few people, and none 
 whom they chanced to know. Pa- 
 mela laughed and chatted with 
 spirited volubility. 
 
 " Do you know, Mark, I feel able 
 to walk ten times the distance pre- 
 scribed by Dr. Wainwright ? Isn't 
 it a lovely evening ? I suppose that 
 if anybody should see us walking 
 arm in arm like this the inference 
 would merely be that you'd taken 
 me out for an invalid's airing, as an 
 old friend of the family. . . And 
 by the way, Mark, do you know 
 that a very important matter oc- 
 curred to me this morning ? I con- 
 
 88 
 
Old New York 
 
 sider that you've been sadly remiss 
 not to have thought of it. Perhaps 
 you did think of it, however, and 
 my illness prevented you from 
 carrying it into effect. Can't you 
 guess 'what I mean ?" 
 
 " No, Pamela . . really . . I can't/' 
 
 " My engagement ring, you know, 
 Mark. I haven't yet received any." 
 
 "True. . . I I will see to it at 
 once." 
 
 When they paused at the stoop 
 of her home Pamela declared that 
 she was not in the least tired. 
 During supper she insisted on eat- 
 ing one or two things that were 
 forbidden to her, and even spoke 
 of sitting up that evening a full hour 
 beyond her accustomed time of re- 
 tiring. On this plan, however, Ver- 
 planck laid an immediate veto ; but 
 it was nearly nine o'clock when she 
 went upstairs at Charlotte's side. 
 89 
 
A Romance of 
 
 The torment in Mark's soul at 
 last found vent. He faced Ver- 
 planck there in the prim parlor, 
 whose walls seemed to re-echo with 
 Pamela's merry good-night and 
 with her firmly declared resolve to 
 enjoy a similar walk on the morrow 
 " only ever so much longer." 
 
 " Mr. Verplanck," he said, a little 
 hoarsely, "you know that I love 
 your daughter Charlotte." 
 
 "Yes, Mark, I know." 
 
 " And that I had asked you to 
 let me marry her, and that you 
 had promised me our engagement 
 should transpire as soon as Char- 
 lotte completed her twenty-first 
 year." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 At this point Mark despairingly 
 lifted both hands. "And now Pa- 
 mela shows every sign of getting 
 permanently well !" 
 90 
 
Old New York 
 
 "You are right," murmured Ver- 
 planck. " I I spoke with Wain- 
 wright this afternoon. He has no 
 longer the least doubt. My dear 
 child is getting well with a most 
 remarkable speed. It has all been, 
 from the outset, a great medical 
 mistake. Her trouble was nervous, 
 not organic.*' 
 
 " Delightful tidings for you, sir. 
 Delightful they would be for myself 
 
 as well, were it not Still, need I 
 
 explain ?" 
 
 "No naturally." 
 
 " I granted your earnest request," 
 Mark went on, with a dreary wild- 
 ness. " Charlotte abetted you in 
 this request. Her entreaties, I 
 admit, were my chief cause of con- 
 sent. But, now what is to be 
 done ?" 
 
 Verplanck folded his arms and 
 began to pace the floor, giving no 
 91 
 
A Romance of 
 
 answer except one or two perplexed 
 shakings of his gray head. 
 
 "Up to the present time," pro- 
 ceeded Mark, "my position was 
 defensible ; I now feel that it is 
 rapidly losing all excuse. You must 
 agree with me, Mr. Verplanck, that 
 the life-saving motive of my action 
 will soon cease to exist. 1 ' 
 
 "I can't deny this." 
 
 "And hence, sir, a single course 
 will remain. Pamela, as soon as 
 possible, must be told everything." 
 
 "As soon as possible," said a 
 voice in the doorway. " But now 
 is too early," Charlotte went on, 
 with her face all anxiety, her tones 
 all tremor. " Now it might kill her 
 to be told!" 
 
 For a few seconds of silence 
 these three people alarmed, bewil- 
 dered, distressed stared into one 
 another's faces. 
 
 92 
 
Old New York 
 
 Suddenly Mark gave a cry of 
 bitter intolerance. 
 
 "I cannot go on like this," he 
 said, seizing both of Charlotte's 
 hands. " It will drive me crazy. 
 The better she gets the harder I 
 find it to play lover. To-day was an 
 agony. To-morrow will be worse. 
 
 Next day Oh, I cannot, I can- 
 
 notr 
 
 93 
 
A Romance of 
 
 VII. 
 
 CHARLOTTE forcibly with- 
 drew her hands. A pained 
 shine filled her humid 
 eyes; the corners of her mouth 
 were trembling. 
 
 " If you want to kill my poor 
 sister/ 1 she said, "you will shatter 
 this new happiness. All we now 
 ask is that you shall wait. . . Is it 
 not so?' 1 And she turned with 
 tragic appeal to her father. 
 
 "Yes," replied Verplanck, dis- 
 mally. "That is all we ought to 
 ask, beyond a doubt." 
 
 " If it were only that 1" burst from 
 Mark. "I'd wait willingly enough. 
 But it's not merely waiting, at all ; 
 it's acting; it's getting every nerve 
 of my body in a tingle ; it's lying as 
 
 94 
 
Old New York 
 
 I've never dreamed I could lie. 
 Here is Pamela suddenly waking to 
 the fact that I've given her no en- 
 gagement ring. I've got to get her 
 one to-morrow, I suppose. What 
 a horrible mockery !" 
 
 Charlotte made toward him a 
 quick, consoling movement. "Oh, 
 never mind, Mark ! It will do for 
 me hereafter!" 
 
 He gave a harsh laugh. " Here- 
 after ? A year from now ? Or two ? 
 Or three?" 
 
 " Her convalescence," said Ver- 
 planck, with solemnity, biting his 
 lips, "is is extraordinarily swift. 
 In a month she may be well 
 enough to hear all." 
 
 "And denounce me as a villain." 
 
 "If she did that now'' pleaded 
 Charlotte, " it might kill her." 
 
 "I don't believe so," avowed 
 Mark. " I don't believe my my 
 95 
 
A Romance of 
 
 mendacity has helped her recovery 
 in the least. She has always been 
 freakish, as you've both agreed. 
 I chanced to become one of her 
 freaks. She wasn't half as sick a 
 girl as the doctors thought, or as 
 either of you thought, and this 
 physical betterment was bound, in 
 any case, to come. She nearly 
 broke poor Gerald Suydam's heart 
 a year or two ago. Perhaps she 
 wanted to try and break mine. 
 But she will never succeed.' 1 He 
 looked full at Charlotte. "It was 
 broken before. You've got one 
 piece, and I retain the other." 
 
 "Then I'll never give it back to 
 you, so that you can mend the 
 fragments and live a contented 
 life," mournfully flashed Charlotte, 
 " unless you stand firm for a while 
 longer in this trying and most un- 
 foreseen difficulty." 
 96 
 
Old New York 
 
 " Oh, as you please !" cried Mark, 
 while he walked toward the door 
 with scowling face. 
 
 But here Verplanck hurried to 
 Mark, and threw an arm detain- 
 ingly, persuasively, round his neck. 
 Charlotte's manner softened, a mo- 
 ment later. Then Mark, pierced 
 with pity and feeling new throbs 
 of love as he watched her worried 
 face, felt also twinges of remorse. 
 Perhaps all three were simulta- 
 neously beset by a sense of humor 
 at the novel and totally unantici- 
 pated relations in which they stood. 
 If so, all three realized, as well, the 
 profanity of open laughter; and 
 though many more words were 
 spoken by each of them, Mark left 
 the house, that evening, with his 
 burden of bondage weightier than 
 ever, and a full recognition of the 
 wretchedly unsettled state in which 
 7 97 
 
A Romance of 
 
 all plaints and importunings had left 
 his future. 
 
 Compassion, as he receded from 
 the house, faded once more into 
 qualms of self-injury. " What on 
 earth am I going to do?" he in- 
 wardly moaned. " How on earth 
 am I going to keep it up? The 
 strain has already become unbear- 
 able !" 
 
 A yellow segment of moon was 
 dropping low toward the west, 
 flinging its glamorous light on the 
 Brooklyn shore and making the 
 dormer-windowed roofs of State 
 Street darkly visible, as Mark drew 
 near the house in which he lived. 
 He had seen few passers, for the 
 hour was a little beyond ten, and 
 this meant, in the New York of that 
 period, almost what midnight would 
 mean now. Just as he had set his 
 foot on the first step of his own 
 98 
 
Old New York 
 
 stoop a figure came forward from 
 the farther dimness. 
 
 " Gerald !" 
 
 "Yes, Mark; it's I. For over an 
 hour I've waited in there with your 
 father. But he grew drowsy, so I 
 left, and have kept up a kind of 
 sentinelship ever since." 
 
 " You wanted to see me, then ?" 
 
 A closer view showed Mark how 
 pale and drawn was Gerald's face. 
 
 " I did see you, Mark, this evening, 
 just before twilight. I avoided you 
 both; but I watched you." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " It was horrible ! She leaned 
 upon your arm ; she looked up at 
 you and smiled. She bore the signs 
 of illness, but I could note that she 
 was no longer feeble or sickly. Oh, 
 Mark Frankland, I, who love that 
 girl as dearly as I do, turned faint 
 and giddy at the devilish sight!" 
 
 99 
 
A Romance of 
 
 "Devilish, eh?" muttered Mark. 
 
 "Yes there's no other word for 
 it. You've bound me by an oath 
 to secrecy, and it's an oath that my 
 honor will not let me break. But 
 when I think of the part you're 
 enacting when I think of the awful 
 falsehood that you, who call your- 
 self a gentleman, have been willing 
 to live and persevere in for days 
 past, then do I feel almost justified 
 in scorning the promise I gave you, 
 and publishing to society at large 
 your shameless conduct !" 
 
 Mark's right foot had till now 
 rested on the lowest step of the 
 stoop. He drew it quickly back 
 upon the sidewalk, and faced Ger- 
 ald. He was very indignant. The 
 mental irritation and turmoil of 
 hours past seemed to centre in one 
 choking ferment at his heart, and 
 thence to send up in his brain a sort 
 
Old New York 
 
 of fiery mist. He was taller than 
 Gerald, and he now loomed above 
 his former friend with every feature 
 blent into one solid mask of wrath. 
 But he did not speak loudly; he 
 had the air of a man who disdains 
 explosiveness. 
 
 "You have insulted me grossly, 
 and you shall pay for it hereafter. 
 Only a friendship of so many years 
 could keep me from striking you 
 down like a vulgar ruffian as you 
 know very well I have the power 
 to do. But for this jealous and 
 cowardly misvaluation of motives 
 honorable and disinterested, be sure 
 that you shall answer at some fu- 
 ture time. I do not care to engage 
 now in a quarrel whose cause might 
 be guessed, and hence drag into 
 publicity a family I esteem. But 
 later I shall force you into either 
 facing me at the pistol's point or 
 
A Romance of 
 
 amply retracting your insolence of 
 to-night. Even to-morrow, if you 
 please, however, you may send me 
 your seconds, though it is in order 
 that I, as the aggrieved party, 
 should send you mine." 
 
 " I will meet you anywhere and 
 at any time," replied Gerald, firmly. 
 " I am not the coward you have 
 called me. But I loathe duel- 
 ling, and think it murder. And 
 therefore I should fire in the air, 
 though you might kill me if you 
 chose." 
 
 These words were so character- 
 istic of Gerald so instinct with 
 recollections to his hearer of a na- 
 ture which he had long known as 
 noble and brave, though deeply 
 tinged with what he himself had 
 often declared tiresome puritanism 
 that they wrought a speedy emo- 
 tional change. 
 
Old New York 
 
 "Look here, Gerald/' Mark said, 
 with abrupt, gruff feeling, "you've 
 just called me, in so many words, 
 a brute. I answer that you're a 
 fool. Shall it be quits between us ? 
 Quits, I mean, till either you apolo- 
 gize or I admit myself criminally 
 sinful through seeking to save a 
 fellow-creature's life." 
 
 Gerald had clutched the wooden 
 railing of the court-yard near him. 
 'With bent head he answered, 
 
 " I spoke rashly, madly I grant 
 it. But my love for that poor girl 
 has almost crazed me." Here he 
 raised his head, and the weird light 
 made his features ghostly. 
 
 Mark sprang toward him, and put 
 both arms about his form. There 
 were tears in his eyes. Of old he 
 had fought many a battle for Gerald, 
 always weaker than he, always far 
 more the student than the athlete. 
 103 
 
A Romance of 
 
 A surge of boyish memories over- 
 swept him now, as he gently shook 
 Gerald's slenderer frame. 
 
 "You stupid fellow! Do you 
 think I wouldn't go through fire-and- 
 water to give you the girl you love 
 if only I could? Do you dream I 
 don't adore Charlotte ? Do you fancy 
 this thing isn't half killing me with 
 vexation and botheration and in- 
 fernal embarrassment? Do you 
 suppose I ever expected it would 
 grow into such a horrible mess and 
 muddle? Do you suspect that 
 Charlotte did, or that her father did ? 
 Do you imagine we're not, all three 
 of us, half out of our wits with 
 consternation and excitement? 
 
 Their eyes met, quite close. 
 "Mark," began the other, brokenly, 
 "I'm sorry I . ." 
 
 "There . . there; that's enough." 
 The sweat-drops were glistening on 
 104 
 
Old New York 
 
 Gerald's white face. Mark whipped 
 out his handkerchief and mopped 
 them off. " Go home and try to get 
 some sleep. I'll see you, or write 
 you, soon. God knows, if you don't 
 sleep a wink you won't, I'll wager, 
 be a whit worse off than this poor 
 rival bugaboo into which you've ab- 
 surdly magnified me !" 
 
 105 
 
A Romance of 
 
 VIII. 
 
 r Y dear Mark," said Aaron 
 Burr, the next morning, 
 "it's all a very interest- 
 ing and extraordinary case." 
 
 Mark, in his despair, had dropped 
 into the grimy Reade Street rooms, 
 and had made a clean breast there 
 of all his troubles. Burr, who was 
 the most brilliant talker in the town 
 that prided itself on despising him, 
 possessed also the tactful if less 
 rare art of being a perfect listener. 
 He now leaned back in his chair 
 before the great flat desk so chaotic- 
 ally laden with papers and books, 
 and musingly brushed against his 
 chin the feathered end of an ink- 
 stained quill. 
 
 " Colonel," suddenly exclaimed 
 1 06 
 
Old New York 
 
 Mark, after quite a long silence, " I 
 feel that I am boring you. There 
 were several people waiting to see 
 you in the little hall outside before 
 I came in, and I've been here an 
 unconscionable time already." 
 
 Burr gave one of his gay, sweet 
 laughs. " Thank God, they're not 
 creditors this time, Mark ! I've 
 paid up all pressing debts for at 
 least a fortnight. The fellows with 
 mighty demands on me can't be 
 among those you saw; they'd have 
 pushed in without the least cere- 
 mony if they were. No, my boy, 
 they're only beggars. They know 
 the well isn't dry this morning. 
 It's astonishing how the poor devils 
 manage to flairer the repletion of 
 that well! That's what comes of 
 being a confirmed ass with one's 
 money. They know I can't resist 
 them when they begin their doleful 
 107 
 
A Romance of 
 
 tales. Old military comrades; old 
 political supporters ; new (but starv- 
 ing) sympathizers with me in my 
 ' fallen greatness. 1 And some of 
 them such delightful impostors ! 
 I'm afraid I too often reward the 
 last merely for amusing me by their 
 brazen impudence. " 
 
 "Well, colonel," said Mark, 
 drawing a deep breath as once again 
 his host's full, sweet laugh rose and 
 died away, " I'm a beggar, too, 
 though merely for a few crumbs of 
 wholesome counsel." 
 
 " Those I want to give you those 
 I will give you if I can," returned 
 Burr, at once relapsing into his 
 former serious pose. " Indeed, I 
 would make them a whole loaf, 
 were it only in my power. . . You 
 tell me that a ship has just reached 
 Boston, bringing your firm valuable 
 goods, about whose custom-duties 
 
 108 
 
Old New York 
 
 your father thinks there may be 
 serious disagreements." 
 
 "Yes, colonel." 
 
 "And that he has just told you 
 he deems it advisable for either him 
 or yourself to make an immediate 
 journey to Boston?" 
 
 "Yes, colonel." 
 
 Burr continued to muse. The 
 quill dropped unheeded from his 
 fingers. Again and again he passed 
 a hand slowly across his forehead. 
 On a sudden he gave Mark one 
 quick, imperative look. 
 
 "Go to Boston." 
 
 " You advise retreat, then ? You, 
 a soldier?" 
 
 "Go to Boston," Burr repeated, 
 in much lower and more lingering 
 voice. He seemed to address his 
 own thoughts. He had changed his 
 attitude once more. His clenched 
 right hand, with its elbow resting on 
 109 
 
A Romance of 
 
 the front of the desk, was now sup- 
 porting his slanted head. Watch- 
 ing his meditative face, full of 
 shrewdness and power, Mark 
 thought of how this man had 
 escaped but by one or two votes 
 being President of his country, and 
 of how the brilliancy and audacity 
 of his statesmanship had once made 
 him the idol of that country as well. 
 
 "I have it," Burr said, at last, 
 rising. " If there is any path out 
 of the whole pathetic yet absurd 
 tangle, I seem to have discerned 
 one." 
 
 He now fixed upon Mark a look 
 that brimmed both with sympathy 
 and command. It amazed its re- 
 cipient, because at once so tender 
 and so austere. The next moment 
 he quickly approached the young 
 man, and sank into a chair at his 
 side. 
 
Old New York 
 
 " I want to do you a service, my 
 boy, and I think that I can. But 
 you must throw yourself with a 
 certain amount of blind confidence 
 on my proffered assistance. You 
 must not ask leading questions ; you 
 must permit yourself to regard me, 
 Aaron Burr, as your good genius, 
 and to envelop myself in a cloud of 
 benevolent mysticism. I've always 
 had a romantic streak in me, and I 
 think that provided any future his- 
 torian ever condescends to treat me 
 at all he will be a very dull person 
 if he does not perceive that my 
 many faults and few virtues are all 
 touched by the element of the pic- 
 turesque. Surely " (with a sigh 
 sweeping through these next words) 
 " my misfortunes have been! Yes, 
 everything said, I have succeeded 
 picturesquely, I have failed pictu- 
 resquely, I have starved pictu- 
 
A Romance of 
 
 resquely, and now (if it be not too 
 bold self-flattery) I am travelling 
 toward my allotted limit of three- 
 score years and ten with a kind of 
 dogged self-reliance that is nothing 
 if not picturesque." 
 
 "True, colonel. I've no word of 
 dissent." 
 
 Burr's hand clasped lightly his 
 listener's arm. " So now I propose 
 to solve this little social problem 
 after my own picturesque pleasure. 
 You must go to Boston, and you 
 must remain there if it be weeks 
 and weeks till I bid you return. 
 Easy enough to write Pamela letters 
 of excuse. Your detention is un- 
 avoidable ; a law-suit is threatened ; 
 it is all a matter involving thousands 
 of dollars. As for your father, you 
 must make him your willing abettor 
 not a hard task, since I well know 
 that he adores you. There these 
 
 112 
 
Old New York 
 
 are my instructions. I will send 
 you the formulas, now and then, of 
 your various needful letters to Pa- 
 mela; you will amplify them at 
 your own discretion. As regards 
 your real love-letters to -Charlotte, 
 those must always be addressed 
 to me. I will see that they are 
 safely delivered. Cupid himself 
 could not serve you as a more effi- 
 cient courier, and I a sadly mature 
 Cupid, it is conceded will be far 
 discreeter." 
 
 "Colonel/* hesitated Mark, "I 
 
 " One word more. This Mr. Ger- 
 ald Suydam, who is so love-lorn 
 and heart-stricken . . has Pamela 
 ever given him any solid encourage- 
 ment ?" 
 
 " Yes in the past." 
 
 " The past ! You youngsters talk- 
 ing about a past ! You mean that 
 
 8 113 
 
A Romance of 
 
 she threw him over a little while 
 ago." 
 
 " I fear that describes it." 
 
 "For no cause?" 
 
 "Caprice. The same sort of ca- 
 price that made her " 
 
 " I understand. She treated him 
 shabbily then." Burr scanned the 
 floor a moment, with something like 
 a retrospective smile lighting the 
 edges of his clean-cut lips. " I 
 know that type of woman. . . I long 
 ago marked the difference between 
 Pamela and Charlotte. One is like 
 a loose-clinging vine in a strong 
 breeze ; the other is like a tall, 
 sturdy rose-tree, conscious of its 
 strength, though careless of its 
 beauty. . . Ah me! is there any 
 type of woman, English, American, 
 French, German, that I have not 
 known and tested in my long, 
 chequered life !" 
 
 114 
 
Old New York 
 
 He started out of his re very 
 the next instant, and spoke once 
 more to his companion with the 
 electric vivacity and directness 
 which he always gave to any 
 theme that roused his sincere in- 
 terest. 
 
 " As I said, Mark, these are my in- 
 structions. You depart to-morrow 
 by the early-morning stagecoach. 
 Meanwhile, your departure is to be 
 kept wholly secret. There must 
 be no farewells. You are simply 
 forced to leave town. As you 
 know, I am ami de la maison at the 
 Verplanck home. I will drop in 
 there after you have begun your 
 journey/' Here Burr rose, push- 
 ing back his chair. "Now," he 
 finished, "is it a compact? I am 
 forcing you into no groove of action ; 
 I am merely pointing to one which 
 you can adopt or not, as you desire. 
 "5 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Yet if you ask me for farther details 
 of my own intended course, I can 
 only answer 'mystery'." 
 
 "But why 'mystery', colonel?" 
 asked Mark, now rising also. 
 " Since you have really convinced 
 yourself that you have hit upon 
 some happy exit from this distress- 
 ing maze, why are you so deter- 
 mined to shroud in reticence the 
 actual nature of your design ?" 
 
 Burr pursed his lips inscrutably, 
 and tapped Mark's breast with an 
 outstretched forefinger. 
 
 " Because, my boy," he answered, 
 "with serious face though twinkling 
 eyes, " I'm about to head a forlorn 
 hope in your behalf. And I can't 
 help preferring that you should 
 poke fun at me after I have failed 
 in it than disturb my old nerves by 
 doubts and misgivings before I've 
 set forth on my desperate attempt." 
 
 116 
 
Old New York 
 
 "In any case, dear colonel," 
 answered Mark, with impulsive 
 heartiness, " I should never dream 
 of poking fun at a man whose 
 abilities I so prize and admire!" 
 
 117 
 
A Romance of 
 
 IX. 
 
 WHEN Pamela Verplanck re- 
 ceived the letter that told 
 her of Mark's departure 
 for Boston, she gave a dismayed 
 scream and looked on the verge of 
 swooning. 
 
 "What is it?" cried Charlotte, 
 terrified. And then, with amaze- 
 ment, she, too, read the truth. 
 
 "To go without bidding me a 
 single good-by!" mourned Pamela. 
 " And such a fearful distance off 
 as Boston ! Why, he will be two 
 weeks getting there I" 
 
 "Horrible!" shuddered poor 
 Charlotte ; and in an uncontrollable 
 paroxysm of suffering, she threw 
 herself upon a lounge. 
 
 While she sobbed, Pamela 
 us 
 
Old New York 
 
 watched her with tearful eyes, 
 through which sparks of suspicion 
 began gradually to prick like needle- 
 points. 
 
 " You're . . you're very over- 
 come," she managed, with strangled 
 voice. 
 
 " Oh, it's for your sake, Pamela," 
 wildly fibbed poor Charlotte, drag- 
 ging herself from the lounge. " I 
 do so hope this news will not put 
 you back. You were getting along 
 so splendidly." Then she kissed 
 Pamela's forehead, and smoothed 
 her hair. " Let me give you your 
 medicine, dear; it's . . it's time you 
 took it." 
 
 "Oh, I've had medicine enough 
 for one day!" And Pamela waved 
 a limp hand toward the letter. 
 "Your lips are cold, sister, and 
 you're trembling. You feel this 
 shock as much as I do." 
 119 
 
A Romance of 
 
 "On your account, you know, 
 dear." 
 
 " But he used to be so devoted 
 to you." 
 
 "I've explained that. He he 
 felt the usual shyness and and re- 
 luctance of lovers. . . Do you think 
 you're less agitated, now? Take 
 this." 
 
 Pamela took the medicine offered 
 her. She lay back in her rocking- 
 chair, and closed her eyes. She 
 looked paler than for a good while 
 previously, and in her face were 
 reminders of former enfeeblement 
 and prostration. 
 
 Charlotte, all this while, was 
 struggling to be calmer. She suc- 
 ceeded, and chiefly for the reason 
 that she felt certain Mark would 
 soon send her some sort of ex- 
 planation concerning his flight. 
 
 "It zs a flight," she told her 
 

 Old New York 
 
 father, when he returned from his 
 office at dinner-time, one o'clock. 
 "You remember what he said to 
 us the night before last. And 
 he never came at all yesterday. 
 Oh, father, it's all very plain! 
 He means to stay in Boston till 
 Pamela is either out of danger or 
 dead." 
 
 Verplanck gave a great start. 
 " But you say that she is now 
 taking a quiet doze, and that you 
 feel the shock will not be at all 
 disastrous." 
 
 "I feel so I hope so!" mur- 
 mured Charlotte, as she helped 
 her father to soup from the tureen 
 of sprigged china looming before 
 her. 
 
 "There's no doubt," said Ver- 
 planck, nervously crumbling his 
 bread, "that this Boston invoice 
 may cost the firm of Frankland, 
 
 121 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Livingston & Vanderwater a good 
 deal of trouble. They had had 
 ominous advices regarding it some 
 time ago, as commercial gossip 
 informed me. Possibly Mark's 
 vanishment may have been quite 
 unavoidable, after all." 
 
 " I am nearly certain," said Char- 
 lotte," that he must have left some 
 message for me." Her sweet eyes 
 were full of mingled hope and doubt 
 as she fixed them on her father's. 
 "And yet he may have feared that 
 the fact of such a message would 
 be discovered by Pamela." Here 
 she trembled, drooping her gaze. 
 " Oh, perhaps I shall never hear 
 directly from him through all the 
 weeks of his absence ! That will 
 be torture!" 
 
 Verplanck sipped his soup as 
 though it were nauseous. " Char- 
 lotte," he at length sighed, " I wish, 
 
Old New York 
 
 now, that we had never persuaded 
 him to attempt this deception !" 
 
 "Father! Was not our darling's 
 life at stake?" 
 
 " It seemed so ; . . and yet it may 
 only have seemed : who knows ? 
 There is bitter injustice in forcing 
 upon you, my child, so stern a 
 trial." 
 
 "Never mind me," said Char- 
 lotte. " I shall try very hard to 
 bear everything, for her sake. If 
 she suffers no relapse I shall find 
 my consolation there. In Mark's 
 letter to Pamela he promises that 
 he will soon write her again. Give 
 the child three more weeks of in- 
 creasing health, and she will have 
 become her old self. Then we may 
 break the whole truth to her, and 
 though our tidings inflict great 
 sorrow it will not be the sorrow 
 that kills!" 
 
 123 
 
A Romance of 
 
 "Ah," faltered Verplanck, in 
 doleful undertone, " I shall hate 
 that hour of revelation !" 
 
 " Not more than I shall hate it, 
 father, heaven knows!" 
 
 Rather late that afternoon Dr. 
 Wainwright called, and found his 
 patient somewhat weaker, though 
 not to any alarming extent. " I 
 regret," he said to Charlotte, "that 
 she should still rebuff the idea of 
 going off into the country. Now 
 is just the time when such a 
 change would aid nature in working 
 thorough restoration. I could but 
 rarely visit her, of course, at 
 Throgg's Neck, yet you could send 
 me frequent bulletins of her ad- 
 vancement or retrogression." 
 
 "I will speak with her again on 
 the subject," said Charlotte. "It 
 is quite probable, doctor, that I 
 may now induce her to go." 
 124 
 
Old New York 
 
 That evening, a little after supper, 
 Aaron Burr dropped in. Pamela 
 was upstairs, preparing for bed, 
 since the doctor had still enjoined, 
 above all things, a continuance of 
 early hours. Verplanck received 
 the guest, and for some time they 
 spoke together. Then Charlotte 
 came into the parlor, and there was 
 more talk, intermingled, on the 
 girl's part, with some very eager 
 and almost breathless listening. 
 And at last Charlotte said, with 
 deep throbs in her voice, 
 
 " Oh, Colonel Burr, so he has told 
 you everything! And you are to 
 receive the letters he sends me ! It 
 is all so strange ! I did not dream 
 he would rush away like this ! But 
 I see, now, that the strain was be- 
 yond his endurance. Father sees 
 it, too do you not, father? And 
 will he write me often, Colonel 
 125 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Burr? Did did he leave me any 
 parting message? If so, do you 
 remember it? Could you repeat it 
 word for word?" 
 
 " No need for that, my dear Miss 
 Charlotte," said Burr, rising with 
 his most graceful bow and handing 
 her a paper. 
 
 Charlotte seized the paper with a 
 stifled cry of joy, and hurried to one 
 of the lighted candelabra. She read 
 it through again and again (it was a 
 passionate love-letter) with leaping 
 pulses and glistening eyes. 
 
 "I greatly regret,'* Verplanck 
 meanwhile said to Burr, "that 
 Mark Frankland should have rushed 
 off like this." 
 
 "Really, my friend," was Burr's 
 reply, "every fresh day counted 
 with him." 
 
 " Then you think it was entirely 
 business?" 
 
 126 
 
Old New York 
 
 "Oh, entirely." 
 
 " But he had time, colonel, to 
 visit you." 
 
 "Ah, my dear Verplanck! surely 
 you wouldn't compare a half-hour's 
 chat with me to the wear and tear of 
 interviews with both your daughters ! 
 And such differing interviews each 
 so trying in its special way !" 
 
 " I see. . . He has made you his 
 confidant, has he not ?" 
 
 "Yes; and a very safe one, as I 
 hope you feel assured." 
 
 "Remember, colonel," said Ver- 
 planck, with the courtesy of the 
 gentleman softly coloring his dis- 
 tressed mien, "that I have long 
 been among your friendly sup- 
 porters." 
 
 "Who than I should know it 
 better?" broke from Burr, his voice 
 charged with its own rich and pe- 
 culiar vibrance. "You chose to 
 127 
 
A Romance of 
 
 join the small minority, and at a 
 time when my foes and detractors 
 were legion as indeed they still re- 
 main ! "With all my poor wounded 
 and battered heart, Verplanck, I 
 thank you now, as I have more than 
 once thanked you in the past." 
 
 "Tell me," said Verplanck, re- 
 turning the pressure of his guest's 
 hand, " did not Mark Frankland 
 show fear lest our beloved Pamela 
 might be again imperilled by his 
 sudden desertion?" 
 
 With the instantaneous alertness 
 of the trained tactician, Burr made 
 answer, 
 
 " He had great trust in her coming 
 recovery. He regarded her as now 
 on the sure road to restored health." 
 
 "Ah, how could he know? how 
 could he know?" Verplanck threw 
 out, in dubious dolor. 
 
 " Nobody can know. But he sur- 
 128 
 
Old New York 
 
 mised, he inferred." After a little 
 pause, Burr quickly added, "The 
 future, inexorably, is a blank; we 
 can only paint there what gay or 
 sad shapes we choose. Paint gay 
 ones, my dear friend. It's always 
 so much wiser. I'm painting them 
 now." 
 
 "You, Burr?" 
 
 "Yes. I see the whole horrid 
 complexity, but I feel certain there's 
 a way out of it." 
 
 "What way?" sped the eager 
 query. 
 
 " Bless me, man ! As if I knew ! 
 As if I didn't merely hope !" 
 
 But Aaron Burr knew, all the 
 while or, with his characteristic 
 sublime self-reliance, persuaded 
 himself that he knew. Only, if 
 Verplanck had offered to pay, there 
 on the spot, every penny of his 
 goading and omnivorous debts, very 
 9 129 
 
A Romance of 
 
 probably he would not have dis- 
 closed (so strange was the wayward 
 and baffling nature of this unique 
 man) the why and wherefore of his 
 covert conviction. 
 
 130 
 
Old New York 
 
 x. 
 
 IN a few more days Pamela made 
 no objection to leaving town. 
 It was no longer a question of 
 her going into the country for sani- 
 tary benefits, however. She could 
 now not only take her walks abroad, 
 but take them with her old springy 
 step, and alone, had she so desired. 
 One afternoon she did so desire, 
 waving away Charlotte's offer to ac- 
 company her with quite a superb air. 
 
 " No, if you please. I want to 
 write Mark to-morrow that I went 
 out all by myself. How does my 
 frock look behind ? I don't wish it 
 to be too long ; it feels as if it almost 
 touched the ground/' 
 
 " Not at all, Pamela. And your 
 bronze slippers show underneath it 
 131 
 
A Romance of 
 
 very prettily. But are you sure 
 they're not too thin ?" 
 
 " No ; the weather's very dry. 
 Now don't dream of following me, 
 Charlotte." 
 
 " I promise you I will not." 
 
 But Charlotte watched her from 
 one of the upper windows till she 
 was hidden by the curving street. 
 Pamela bore herself with secure se- 
 renity. She did not wish that any 
 acquaintance whom she might meet 
 should detect in her gait or de- 
 meanor the least sign of the inva- 
 lid. It was a sluggish, gray after- 
 noon, but she moved along with 
 a positive buoyancy. Health was 
 coming back to her, and in every 
 fibre and vein she rejoiced at its 
 gracious advent. 
 
 The hour was about five o'clock, 
 and several people who had still 
 remained in town, and who be- 
 132 
 
Old New York 
 
 longed to her small social world, 
 came face to face with her. Three 
 or four of these stopped her with 
 ardent congratulations. One of 
 them was an old lady with silky 
 white hair, old enough to be her 
 grandmother, and indeed a friend 
 of that deceased ancestress on the 
 paternal side. 
 
 " My dear child ! I'm so glad to 
 see you out/' said the lady, kissing 
 her. 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Van Rensse- 
 laer. It's very nice to be out, I can 
 assure you." 
 
 " And all alone ! Isn't it a little 
 imprudent ? My home is just here 
 in Beaver Street. Won't you come 
 in and let me give you a glass of 
 blackberry wine ? You look a . . a 
 little tired." 
 
 But Pamela politely declined the 
 blackberry wine, and sauntered on- 
 133 
 
A Romance of 
 
 ward. Her social world, as before 
 has been said, was a small one. No 
 marvel, then, that just as she came 
 within sight of the big, breezeless 
 trees of the Battery, Gerald Suy- 
 dam should dawn upon her sight. 
 
 Pamela put out her hand in the 
 prettiest way. She had once merci- 
 lessly snubbed Gerald, and knew 
 that he had been in love with her 
 to the verge of distraction when she 
 did so. But now her humor was 
 roseate and benign. Mark's de- 
 parture had jarred on her most 
 harshly, but it had not, after all, 
 repressed the current of her reas- 
 sertive health. 
 
 " I haven't seen you for a long 
 time, Gerald," she said, amused by 
 his evident confusion. " I hope you 
 have been quite well ?" 
 
 "Yes yes quite," floundered 
 poor Gerald. "And I'm so glad 
 134 
 
Old New York 
 
 you're well enough to go out alone 
 like this." 
 
 " Thank you/ 1 she said, while his 
 eyes devoured her face. A roguish 
 impulse made her add, " I'm the 
 least bit tired. Would you mind 
 holding my parasol and strolling 
 with me to a bench here in the 
 Green ? I think I should like to rest 
 for about five minutes. " 
 
 Would Gerald mind ? He grabbed 
 the parasol so tremulously that he 
 almost dropped it. And literally he 
 did not know what he was saying 
 as he blurted forth, 
 
 " It seemed to me that Mark 
 Frankland's rushing off in such 
 sudden style would make you worse 
 again! I'm I'm so glad, Pamela, 
 that it hasn't." 
 
 In an instant the girl's eyes began 
 to glitter strangely. But she kept 
 her gaze away from Gerald as they 
 135 
 
A Romance of 
 
 walked on together. She knew 
 very well that meeting her again in 
 this abrupt style, and having her 
 treat him so blandly, had gone to 
 his head like some dizzying elixir. 
 
 " Has Mark Frankland told you, 
 then?" she asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! And I've suffered so 
 on your account ? But perhaps be- 
 fore he went he he disclosed the 
 whole secret. I think he must have 
 done so. He wouldn't have dared 
 leave on such a long journey as 
 from here to Boston without letting 
 you know how he'd been deceiving 
 you/ 1 
 
 By this time they were entering 
 the little park. Pamela sank on 
 one of the empty benches. As 
 Gerald took his place at her side 
 he gave a short, faint cry. 
 
 " You look paler. Are you feeling 
 ill again?" 
 
 136 
 
Old New York 
 
 "No," replied Pamela, trying to 
 smile. "What you said, however," 
 she went on, measuring each word 
 as though between lips that had 
 somehow oddly stiffened "what 
 you said, a minute ago, Gerald, in- 
 terested me. Please continue, will 
 you not ? I want to hear more." 
 
 "What I said?" fell feebly from 
 Gerald. 
 
 He had, in reality, only the 
 vaguest recollection of what words 
 had just left him. He had been 
 almost like a man talking in his 
 sleep. He was not guilty of break- 
 ing his oath to Mark. The intensity 
 of his agitation had betrayed him 
 into breaking it this, and this alone. 
 
 He stared helplessly at Pamela 
 as she repeated, in quiet tones, 
 every word of his recent pell-mell, 
 automatic sentences. 
 
 Then, as she finished, his body 
 137 
 
A Romance of 
 
 drooped weakly forward, and he 
 began, in hurried fashion, to trace 
 scrolls and flourishes with the tip 
 of her parasol on the gravelled path 
 at his feet. 
 
 " Give me that parasol," at length 
 commanded Pamela, quite placidly, 
 " and please at once explain to me 
 what you have lately said." 
 
 138 
 
Old New York 
 
 XL 
 
 AS he handed her the parasol, 
 Gerald looked with de- 
 spairing eyes into the face 
 of the girl he worshipped. 
 
 "I I've disgraced myself," he 
 groaned. " I I didn't know what 
 I was saying! Pamela, you can't 
 have forgotten how dearly I love 
 you ! And seeing you on a sudden, 
 like this " 
 
 " I understand," she put in, with 
 icy repose. "You spoke of my 
 being deceived by Mark Frankland, 
 What did you mean by that?" 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't ask me! I I 
 don't even recollect that I said it." 
 
 " But you must tell me you 
 must tell me everything," insisted 
 Pamela, grasping his arm. 
 139 
 
A Romance of 
 
 And before they left the little park 
 he had told her. He felt unspeak- 
 ably guilty, and yet his sense of 
 error was far less potent because 
 of their after-talk than because of 
 his first divulgence. As she rose 
 and reapproached the gate, he said, 
 following her, 
 
 " Since I had begun, I was forced 
 to finish. Mark Frankland will look 
 on me as a perjurer, I suppose, and 
 despise me as one. But the dis- 
 closure I made was involuntary.' 1 
 
 "Yes, no doubt," Pamela said, 
 vaguely. 
 
 "Ah," he brought out, with for- 
 lorn accents, "perhaps you despise 
 me now!" 
 
 She shook her head in negation. 
 "Not at all, Gerald. I should 
 rather despise my own stupid 
 credulity." She stopped, just out- 
 side the gate. "Thank you," she 
 140 
 
Old New York 
 
 added, and gave him her hand for 
 a moment. 
 
 " Are you going back home now?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "May I not go with you?" he 
 pleaded. 
 
 " You're very kind, but I . . well, 
 I want to be alone for a little while." 
 
 "Can I come and see you?" he 
 persisted. " Will you not let me 
 come and see you some evening?" 
 
 " I I retire quite early, Gerald. 
 My doctor is still a good deal of a 
 despot, you know." 
 
 " But in the afternoon, Pamela?" 
 
 "We are going into the country 
 quite soon. . . We are going to 
 Throgg's Neck." 
 
 " Dear old Throgg's Neck ! What 
 
 joyful times we used to have there ! 
 
 It was there, Pamela, that you first 
 
 filled me with happy hope. And 
 
 141 
 
A Romance of 
 
 only such a short while ago ! I 
 can't tell you how often I've lived 
 over in my dreams that one last 
 delicious fortnight." 
 
 " Great changes come in short 
 intervals, Gerald. Good-by." And 
 Pamela, knowing that she was 
 cruel, yet not wishing to be, struck 
 northward at a quick pace. After 
 she had gone a block or two, her 
 progress slackened. She felt a 
 little faint, and wondered if her 
 old illness would now crushingly 
 revisit her. " Why not ?" she asked 
 herself. " I have discovered that 
 in their pity for me, in their wish 
 to save me from death, they have 
 made of me a most miserable dupe 
 and fool!" 
 
 Walking slower, she soon caught 
 sight of her own home. And then, 
 with the passing of physical weak- 
 ness, came upon her a shamed and 
 142 
 
Old New York 
 
 haughty reluctance to let either 
 Charlotte or her father learn of her 
 disillusion. In reality, even the 
 severe shock just dealt her had no 
 power to throw her back upon a bed 
 of sickness. She had been growing 
 too steadily and radically better 
 for any such result. This news 
 might retard her full recovery, and 
 plunge her into mental wretched- 
 ness, but fate had permanently 
 snatched her from that dire col- 
 lapse, and with revivified stamina 
 she would go on living, despite 
 the knowledge that she had been 
 cozened and hoodwinked after this 
 humiliating fashion. 
 
 These thoughts were flooding her 
 mind as she now turned westward 
 and entered Rector Street, moving 
 parallel with the green lawns and 
 gleaming grave-slabs that sur- 
 rounded Trinity Church, then 
 143 
 
A Romance of 
 
 deemed a most grand structure 
 since its re-erection in 1790 from the 
 ashes to which it had been reduced 
 in 1776. 
 
 It was pardonable in so young a 
 creature as Pamela that she felt far 
 more forcibly, just now, the sting of 
 wounded pride than the heartache 
 of bereavement. She was barely 
 nineteen years old, and since child- 
 hood, as we know, had been the 
 prey of many random and transitory 
 whims. As the whole situation 
 cleared to her she had not one re- 
 sidual qualm of resentment against 
 either her father or sister. But in- 
 dignation was sombrely gathering 
 its energies, each fresh minute, 
 with Mark Frankland for a cause. 
 If they had wanted him to play the 
 benignant hypocrite, that was no 
 excuse for his having accepted such 
 a role. She found herself tingling 
 144 
 
Old New York 
 
 with shame and rage (both of which 
 perhaps acted tonically rather than 
 debilitatingly) as she slipped farther 
 away from the broad brick front of 
 her own dwelling. 
 
 "To think/* were her passionate 
 reflections, "that when father told 
 him my secret he shouldn't have 
 remembered he was born a gentle- 
 man, and at once have refused to 
 deport himself otherwise ! And 
 then the gross falsehoods he uttered 
 with such glibness ! I might forgive 
 him even those, but I can't forgive 
 him the answers they drew from 
 me. Those will go on mortifying 
 me for the rest of my life I'm sure 
 they will!" 
 
 She stopped, now, in the bitter- 
 ness of her bleeding girlish pride, 
 and looked through the iron railings 
 of Trinity churchyard at the placid 
 graves of the dead. Perhaps the 
 
 10 145 
 
A Romance of 
 
 sensations that these awoke blent 
 with memories of how near to 
 death she had believed herself only 
 a few weeks ago. Anyway, her 
 savage arraignment of Mark became 
 in a manner tranquillized, and she 
 was just concluding that she felt 
 calm enough to return and meet 
 Charlotte, when a brisk voice 
 sounded at her side : 
 
 "Miss Pamela! Can I believe it 
 is really you ? And quite unaccom- 
 panied ?" 
 
 "Quite, colonel," she answered, 
 shaking hands with Aaron Burr. 
 
 "All the more encouraging !" he 
 exclaimed. " But I must not tell 
 your people that I found you so 
 dolefully employed." He pointed 
 with a rebuking smile at the grave- 
 yard, but something in Pamela's 
 look made the smile quickly fade. 
 
 She looked at him with a sudden 
 146 
 
Old New York 
 
 childlike wistfulness that soon 
 changed to a more self-reliant gaze. 
 As a little girl she had been taught 
 to regard him leniently by the open 
 leniency of her father. Then had 
 come one of her causeless antipa- 
 thies. And later, as we have seen, 
 she had got to admire him alto- 
 gether on her own account. She 
 had fought battles for him with girl 
 friends, had denied gloomy rumors 
 concerning him, had praised his wit 
 and grace and fine breeding. At 
 the same time she knew he was 
 a pariah, though she always had 
 maintained that he was a social 
 martyr as well. He had fascinated 
 her as a personality, a presence, 
 more than she knew. And now a 
 strange yet natural impulse seized 
 her natural, at least, in a maid so 
 volatile, alterant, and impetuous of 
 temperament. 
 
 147 
 
A Romance of 
 
 She would disclose to no one 
 the tidings conveyed by Gerald! 
 She would not breathe to any 
 living soul a word of her new and 
 mortifying discovery. She would 
 pretend, when Mark Frankland 
 returned from Boston, that she 
 had not only outlived her ardent 
 attachment, but had replaced it 
 with another, more absorbing and 
 intense. If her health did not 
 break down again, if her vitality 
 increased and throve, she would 
 use every effort to dazzle and cap- 
 ture this elderly widower beau. 
 He might respond merely in a self- 
 flattered way; she already caught 
 herself hoping that he would never 
 dream of taking her blandishments 
 too seriously. But she meant to 
 exert them. It should be a ven- 
 geance of deceit for deceit. In his 
 own coin she would pay Mark 
 148 
 
Old New York 
 
 back. She saw herself practising 
 before her mirror the glacial glance 
 that she would give him when they 
 next should meet. And if her pre- 
 tended heart-change did not plunge 
 a dagger of chagrin deep into his 
 masculine vanity, then she knew 
 of no weapon that could deal it 
 a more effective wound. All this 
 trend of resolve in her was hardly 
 measurable by time. " My good 
 Colonel Burr," she soon answered, 
 " is it queer that you find me star- 
 ing into a graveyard when I was 
 expecting, only so short a while 
 since, to take up permanent lodg- 
 ings there ?" 
 
 "Don't speak like that, Miss Pa- 
 mela ! You pain me to the soul !" 
 
 "Ah," she said, very smoothly 
 and wooingly, " I should hate for a 
 moment to cloud your sunshine !" 
 
 "And why pray, why?" asked 
 149 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Burr, drawing nearer to her. 
 Somehow, in a second, the girl 
 perceived that he was handsomer 
 than she had ever suspected. The 
 afternoon was dim, but its light still 
 stayed searching. She had always 
 before seen him in rooms either 
 where candles glimmered or cur- 
 tains obstructed glare. Now it 
 amazed her that maturity had left 
 his tintings so fresh, and given not 
 a single tired trace to the clear, 
 white lids of his beautiful magnetic 
 eyes. 
 
 " Why ?" Pamela repeated. " Oh, 
 because your cheerfulness has al- 
 ways affected me with such a holi- 
 day sort of feeling! I should hate 
 to miss it when I met you." Here 
 she smiled, and for an instant all 
 hint of her convalescence fleeted; 
 she had the air of a wilted plant 
 that responds, leaf and stem, to 
 150 
 
Old New York 
 
 some stimulant dewfall. "And I 
 hope to meet it oftener in the near 
 future. We are soon going to 
 Throgg's Neck, and this summer 
 you should not ignore the invitation 
 father has often given you to come 
 and make us a long visit." 
 
 Burr looked at her steadily for a 
 moment. "My dear young lady," 
 he said, "ever since I returned to 
 my native land from those four 
 years of exile, leisure has been for 
 me a lost joy and struggle a con- 
 tinuous requisite. But now that 
 you double the delights of your 
 father's hospitality by promising me 
 your own welcome as well, I am 
 tempted to wish he would repeat 
 his invitation, which I should surely 
 accept in the teeth of every obstacle 
 save illness or death. " 
 
 He gave what to-day would in- 
 deed be called an old-fashioned 
 151 
 
A Romance of 
 
 bow, bending low his body, lifting 
 his hat with high-crooked elbow, 
 and placing one hand just above 
 his heart. 
 
 At the same time he was reflect- 
 ing, " Bless us, could luck be more 
 apposite ? The first steps of my 
 plan to pull poor Mark Frankland 
 out of the mire have been smoothed 
 for me as if by destiny itself!" 
 
 152 
 
Old New York 
 
 XII. '*'' 
 
 TOWARD the end of that 
 same week the Verplancks 
 left town for their country 
 home. It was a great wooden 
 house, that might have been far 
 more angularly ugly while yet es- 
 caping such charge ; for the lovely 
 elms and chestnuts and oaks that 
 shadowed its lawn, and the rocky 
 shore, indented by coves of pearly 
 sand, that you reached by only a 
 short walk from its front verandah, 
 were charms that made its archi- 
 tectural uncouthness an easy thing 
 to forget. 
 
 Pamela had had a distinct relapse, 
 
 after coming home from her walk 
 
 that evening, and Charlotte kept 
 
 accusing herself, in affectionate 
 
 153 
 
A Romance of 
 
 terror, of foolish indulgence. But 
 the conviction of having been falsely 
 alarmed soon cheered her. 
 
 " I fatigued myself a little ; that 
 was all," declared Pamela. "See 
 if I don't bear our drive into the 
 country as well as you do." 
 
 She bore it almost as well, if not 
 quite. And when she got to Shady 
 Shore (which was the name of their 
 summer abode) she delighted her 
 father by merrily informing him 
 that he would soon be wishing 
 Charlotte could only equal her 
 plumpness and color. 
 
 "There's now not a grain of 
 doubt," said Verplanck to Charlotte, 
 "that she has taken a new lease of 
 life." 
 
 "Yes, father," was the answer; 
 " and yet her gayety has not always 
 the right ring." 
 
 " How is that, my daughter?" 
 154 
 
Old New York 
 
 " I suspect that she is very 
 angry at Mark, yet for some reason 
 speaks of him as though she were 
 not." 
 
 " H . . m yes," mused Verplanck. 
 " Now that she is getting so well 
 we must think about undeceiving 
 her." 
 
 "Undeceiving her!" shuddered 
 Charlotte. " Oh, father, I do so 
 dread that ! And yet it must come, 
 must it not?" 
 
 " It certainly must, my child." 
 
 * ' Father ! ' ' Charlotte suddenly 
 said, as though a fresh and pungent 
 idea had occurred to her. 
 
 "Well, my dear?" 
 
 " Colonel Burr is coming, the day 
 after to-morrow, to pay us a long 
 visit. Why should we not induce 
 him to break the news ? Pamela is 
 very fond of him, you know. We 
 might ask him to use with her all 
 
A Romance of 
 
 his wondrous diplomacy and adroit- 
 ness. " 
 
 They did so, a short time after 
 Burr's arrival. But the colonel 
 managed to leave upon them no 
 more definite impression, in the 
 way of answer, than an inscrutably 
 amiable smile. He had his own 
 line of action to follow, not theirs. 
 A kind of social luminosity at once 
 diffused itself from him, in whose 
 rays his entertainers basked without 
 thinking how or why. This man, 
 who had survived the ruin of kingly 
 hopes, who had but lately been 
 pierced by the anguish of an adored 
 daughter's death and that of a treas- 
 ured grandson as well, who had 
 seen popularity and honor turn 
 avoidance and odium, could never- 
 theless deport himself with an 
 almost boyish blitheness, here in 
 the company of unprejudiced 
 156 
 
Old New York 
 
 friends. Even the servants of Ver- 
 planck, most of whom were blacks, 
 became his fervent admirers. He 
 was up earlier in the morning, by at 
 least two hours, than any of the 
 family, and took long rides on horse- 
 back, sometimes choosing an ani- 
 mal of doubtful temper, that his past 
 military experience and splendid 
 equestrian skill made him easily 
 subdue. In his radiant flow of 
 spirits there was no abatement, and 
 yet even the most frolicsome traits 
 of his humor and geniality were im- 
 bued with a dignity vague though 
 beyond dispute. 
 
 He told them (with inimitable 
 eloquence, pathos, and fun) of his 
 triumphs and failures, his successes 
 and defeats, during four years of 
 foreign life. It was not a common 
 thing to meet any one then who had 
 crossed the Atlantic, for our crawl- 
 157 
 
A Romance of 
 
 ingly slow mail-packets had still left 
 us a nation of stay-at-homes. He 
 brimmed 'with amusing tales of pri- 
 vations and annoyances during that 
 thirty-five days' trip. He described, 
 with poignant satire and unfailing 
 mirth, the social London of 1808, 
 where he had met on terms of 
 intimacy the most important fre- 
 quenters of Holland House, where 
 he had hobnobbed with Lord 
 Bridgewater and Godwin and the 
 painter Fuseli and the young 
 Charles Lamb, and where he had 
 formed an undying friendship with 
 the wide-famed Jeremy Bentham. 
 "And all this while/ 1 he would 
 sometimes gaily add, " I was liv- 
 ing on potatoes in lodgings whose 
 shabby locality I dared not name, 
 lest the Belgravian gentry who 
 heard of them might hold up hor- 
 rified hands. 
 
 158 
 
Old New York 
 
 He recounted the most diverting 
 tales of his struggles to escape from 
 Paris, while a rigid surveillance 
 guarded him there on every side, 
 and the great, unapproachable Na- 
 poleon, now wedded to a Hapsburg 
 princess and anxiously awaiting the 
 birth of the King of Rome, refused 
 him the audience he so eagerly 
 craved. " Dukes and counts were, 
 alas," he would say, "my constant 
 enforced associates ! They were 
 forever measuring out yards and 
 yards of red tape in which they both 
 decorated and entangled me. I only 
 wish some of it had been salable in 
 those ticklish times; for there was 
 an old woman, as I well remember, 
 who kept a little stand in the Rue 
 de Seine, and I had to make a d&tour 
 in passing her for a whole week, 
 because I owed the poor old soul 
 two sous for a cigar." 
 159 
 
A Romance of 
 
 Pamela's health was at length 
 so reinvigorated that she insisted 
 on accompanying Burr in an oc- 
 casional horseback ride. " I'll 
 promise to bring her home to you 
 as fresh as when she started," he 
 would say to either Charlotte or 
 Verplanck. But by and by he 
 would bring her home with a flush 
 on her cheeks and a fire in her eyes 
 that drew from her sister a faint 
 though puzzled frown. 
 
 When Verplanck took a town- 
 ward trip in the stagecoach, his 
 guest did not always go with him. 
 And when he did not, Charlotte 
 found Shady Shore somewhat 
 lonely, for the colonel and Pamela 
 would spend longer and longer in- 
 tervals in strolls and tte-ci-ttes. 
 Once Charlotte said, with a kind of 
 chiding tone, to her sister, 
 
 "Mark's letters from Boston 
 
 160 
 
Old New York 
 
 come frequently, I see. But you 
 seem to dash off very brief answers, 
 of late." 
 
 " Yes," replied Pamela, with chin 
 at an airy angle and eyelids flutter- 
 ing. " Life is so quiet here, you 
 know, that I've scarcely anything 
 to write him. Besides, he sends 
 me so little news about his own 
 doings. It seems very strange, cer- 
 tainly, that mere business should de- 
 tain him east so long. There are 
 quite as many pretty faces to be met 
 on Boston Common, I'll venture, as 
 on our own Battery." 
 
 "Oh, Pamela!" shot out Char- 
 lotte, unguardedly reproachful. 
 
 " How can you believe him so ?" 
 
 She stopped dead short, crimsoning 
 to her temples. She had next her 
 bosom, that very minute, an elo- 
 quent love-letter which Burr had 
 yesterday received in his own mail 
 
 II 161 
 
>*. : i 
 
 A Romance of 
 
 from town, and had slipped into her 
 hand when certain no prying glance 
 was near. 
 
 The days went on, and Burr did 
 not speak of departing. It was al- 
 most autumn, and some of the open 
 fields were seas of fluctuant golden- 
 rod, while sapphire knots of asters 
 and thickets of glossy-beaded elders 
 vied in color with the yellowing 
 or reddening apples glimpsed amid 
 rusted orchard leafage. A few 
 neighboring Westchester residents, 
 friends of the Verplancks, had in- 
 terchanged visits with them since 
 the coming of Aaron Burr. Others 
 had expressed decided disapproval 
 of his presence at Shady Shore, 
 and refused to darken its doorways 
 while he abode there. 
 
 Every summer three or four 
 grand private balls would be given ; 
 and now, almost at the beginning 
 162 
 
Old New York 
 
 of September, and still during the 
 sojourn of Burr, it happened that 
 the Van Wagenens, who owned a 
 large and beautiful inland estate, 
 five or six miles farther northward 
 than that of the Verplancks, chose 
 to entertain in their usual lavish 
 way. Their ball was to be one of 
 special note, and there was even a 
 rumor that President Monroe might 
 come on from the White Sulphur 
 Springs to attend it. The Ver- 
 plancks had received invitations, 
 but none had been sent to Colonel 
 Burr, notwithstanding his known 
 presence at Shady Shore. There 
 were imperative reasons why Var- 
 ick Verplanck should, with at least 
 one of his daughters, attend the 
 ball. He had hoped that Burr 
 would take final leave a week 
 before the present date. But he 
 had still stayed on, and had so often 
 163 
 
A Romance of 
 
 been seen in walks and drives and 
 rides with Pamela that gossip had 
 very palpably begun its condemning 
 murmurs. Meanwhile the colonel 
 had not attempted, as Pamela's 
 father felt but too well assured, to 
 enlighten his child regarding Mark 
 Frankland's deceptive attitude. 
 
 "Pamela is an enigma/' Char- 
 lotte had lately said to her father, 
 feeding with fresh fuel the flame of 
 his new disquiet. " I often think 
 she has forgotten the very existence 
 of Mark. There are times, father, 
 when I fancy that Colonel Burr has 
 deliberately tried to . . to turn her 
 mind in another direction." 
 
 "Good heavens, Charlotte! you 
 don't mean that he has dared, at 
 his age, and with his shabby repu- 
 tation (however undeserved it may 
 be) to rouse any . . any sentiment in 
 Pamela?" 
 
 164 
 
Old New York 
 
 But Charlotte swiftly denied the 
 least security of conviction. All 
 she stuck to was the undoubted 
 fact that Pamela had now become 
 deeply interested in Colonel Burr, 
 and seemed ill at ease when an 
 hour passed for her unshared by his 
 company. 
 
 "If she were a boy," muttered 
 Verplanck, half to himself, "I'd 
 send her on a voyage round the 
 world, yes, as a sailor before the 
 mast!" 
 
 " She isn't a boy, father," sighed 
 Charlotte, " and she isn't any longer 
 even a girl. She's become a woman, 
 and a very complicated, mysterious, 
 unmanageable one." 
 
 Two days before the Van Wage- 
 nen ball, Verplanck said at dinner, 
 
 " You, Pamela, will probably 
 care to go with me to Oakland 
 on Wednesday evening. As your 
 165 
 
A Romance of 
 
 health, my dear, has now so splen- 
 didly reasserted itself, you should 
 give some of your town friends 
 the chance of congratulating you. 
 Charlotte, he added, in a slightly 
 chilled and strained voice, "will 
 perhaps care to remain at home 
 and have the colonel graciously 
 let her beat him at backgam- 
 mon." 
 
 " I'm sure," said Charlotte (think- 
 ing of her last letter from Mark, 
 in which he announced his near 
 return), "that I should greatly prefer 
 such an arrangement." 
 
 " Father will have to go alone, 
 then," affirmed Pamela, with her 
 lips, now full and pink, a defiant 
 pout. Then she turned to Burr, 
 smiling saucily. "The colonel 
 knows I would resent any such 
 condescension at backgammon, but 
 he may have the honor, that even- 
 
 166 
 
Old New York 
 
 ing, of continuing with me his valu- 
 able lessons at whist." 
 
 "On Wednesday/ 1 said Burr, "I 
 shall have returned to the city. 
 Already," he went on, looking with 
 directness at his host, " I have been 
 tempted too long away from my 
 dreary little office in Reade Street 
 by the charming courtesies of this 
 charming home." 
 
 Pamela's eyes fired, and her 
 cheeks flushed. "No, no!" she 
 exclaimed. "You are not going for 
 a week yet! I made you promise 
 so this very afternoon." 
 
 "You made me," corrected Burr, 
 with a kind of smiling sadness, 
 " feel very sorry that I could not so 
 promise." 
 
 Pamela gave her head a mutinous 
 
 toss. " There's no power that could 
 
 force me to the Van Wagenens' 
 
 ball," she said, looking straight at 
 
 167 
 
A Romance of 
 
 her father, "unless it were a ques- 
 tion of putting me in a strait-jacket 
 and carrying me there." 
 
 "Oh, Pamela !" reproved Char- 
 lotte. 
 
 " I mean every word of what I 
 say ! You and father can go, Char- 
 lotte, if you please. But while 
 Colonel Burr was under our roof as 
 our guest the Van Wagenens paid 
 us a personal insult when they re- 
 frained from sending him an invita- 
 tion. I, for one, shall pocket no 
 such insult. Others of my family 
 may do as they desire. " 
 
 Burr sat perfectly still. His face, 
 in the candle-light, which a soft 
 breeze caused slightly to waver, 
 could not have looked more motion- 
 less if it had been stone instead of 
 flesh. 
 
 168 
 
Old New York 
 
 XIII. 
 
 AMID dead silence Pamela 
 rose and left the table. It 
 was not until she had dis- 
 appeared that Burr said, addressing 
 Verplanck, 
 
 "You must know that I had 
 neither expectation nor desire to re- 
 ceive a card for this ball. On Tues- 
 day morning I had intended return- 
 ing to New York. No one, as you 
 must realize, can regret more than I 
 do this unpleasant little develop- 
 ment. " 
 
 Verplanck bowed, though not 
 cordially. He glanced, in a rather 
 dazed way, at the table, as if to 
 assure himself that the fruits served 
 there betokened an end of the meal. 
 Then he cast his eyes about the 
 169 
 
A Romance of 
 
 room, as if to make certain that the 
 servants were gone. Soon he said, 
 quite softly, to Charlotte, 
 
 " My daughter, will you be good 
 enough to leave Colonel Burr and 
 myself together for a few minutes ?" 
 
 Charlotte at once rose and glid- 
 ingly disappeared. 
 
 Verplanck sat with bent head for 
 several seconds. Then, meeting 
 Burr's polite yet firm gaze, he 
 began : 
 
 " Colonel, these later weeks have 
 produced in Pamela, as you your- 
 self have no doubt perceived, an im- 
 mense change. If she were not my 
 own child, and I were not overjoyed 
 by her thorough recovery, I might 
 call it a change almost ludicrous; 
 and you know why. But for a still 
 more powerful reason, as it pains 
 me to tell you, I cannot call it that. 
 The truth is, my friend, Pamela's 
 170 
 
Old New York 
 
 frequent appearances in your so- 
 ciety the spying and prying of 
 occasional visitors at Shady Shore 
 possibly even the gossip of domes- 
 tics as well have caused certain 
 unkind rumors. . . I trust you will 
 believe, Burr, that I speak with no 
 idle wish to wound you." And 
 here Verplanck rested his hand, for 
 a moment, on the other's arm. 
 
 " You could not wound me by 
 such a revelation," Burr serenely 
 answered. " I would not be the 
 hunted and maligned man I am if 
 calumnies and aspersions of all 
 sorts had not grown familiar to me 
 as the motions of hands and feet. . . 
 Well, now, since you have spoken 
 thus frankly, I will be equally frank 
 in return. But before uttering a 
 word of my intended confession, I 
 wish to make you another and much 
 briefer one." 
 
 171 
 
A Romance of 
 
 "Confession?" murmured Ver- 
 planck. " I have never supposed 
 
 "You have never supposed any 
 but the most charitable things of 
 me. You have painted me, as I am 
 too guiltily aware, far less black 
 than I deserve. But enough of that. 
 The world, as you well know, im- 
 putes to Aaron Burr many atroci- 
 ties of conduct." At this point, 
 without the faintest theatric import, 
 yet with much marked solemnity, 
 he lifted his right hand. "But I 
 swear to you that in spite of all 
 slanderous contrary statements, I 
 hold no crime more detestable than 
 that of a woman's betrayal. I have 
 never had but one child my be- 
 loved and lost Theodosia ! Yet if 
 I had had a son, and he had 
 brought dishonor upon a family by 
 ruining a daughter of it, I would 
 172 
 
Old New York 
 
 shoot him as I would shoot a 
 dog!"* 
 
 Verplanck, paler than usual, 
 slowly inclined his head. " Such 
 avowal from you," he said, in 
 smothered and uneasy voice, "was 
 of course needless. Yet perhaps 
 I may unwittingly have drawn it 
 forth." His serious face now 
 brightened inquiringly. "And the 
 other ' confession' to which you 
 referred?" 
 
 Burr leaned backward in his chair. 
 Deep thought seemed to absorb him 
 for a short while ; then, with an 
 access of soft vivacity, he began 
 to speak, straightening his posture, 
 and at times waving slightly be- 
 fore him both delicate and shapely 
 hands. 
 
 * See Parton's Life of Aaron Burr, vol. 
 ii. page 308. 
 
 173 
 
A Romance of 
 
 His first few sentences were 
 graphic yet succinct. They told of 
 Mark's visit, that morning, to his 
 chambers, and of the young man's 
 distressed entreaty for counsel in 
 a frame of mind bordering almost 
 upon frenzy. 
 
 " I then conceived a friendly idea 
 of aiding him," Burr went on, "and 
 that idea I have endeavored to carry 
 out. It is difficult to speak of the 
 idea: . . how shall I make it clear 
 enough without having you think 
 me a monster of vainglory? Yet 
 that is something so different from 
 what, in all justice, I want to have 
 you think me ! . . My dear Ver- 
 planck, I was the lover of my own 
 sweet daughter. I never meet a 
 young woman seldom even a ma- 
 tured one that I don't feel it in me 
 to make her fond of me, to persuade 
 her that I'm a vastly amusing and 
 174 
 
Old New York 
 
 engaging fellow. The odd part of 
 the matter is that this impulse 
 didn't die in me twenty years ago 
 that it has not only survived in 
 me, but survived with unlessened 
 ardor and tenacity. They have told 
 shameful lies about me in my re- 
 lations with women (notably in the 
 case of poor Margaret Moncrieffe), 
 but beneath all their lies a certain 
 stratum of truth has lain. I was 
 born with the power of making 
 women like me, just as some men 
 are born with the power of con- 
 trolling horses, others with that of 
 sailing ships. My power I might 
 have terribly abused, nor would I 
 for an instant claim that I have not 
 often used it with wayward folly. 
 But I have never, as my enemies 
 often state, steeped it in infamy. . . 
 And so, Verplanck, when Mark 
 Frankland bemoaned to me his 
 
A Romance of 
 
 wretched situation, wrought by the 
 recovery of a girl whose last hours 
 he had been called upon to con- 
 sole with falsely amorous protes- 
 tations when he cried miserably 
 to me, * Colonel, here I am, the 
 sworn and loyal sweetheart of one 
 sister while bound by charitable 
 falsehoods to another another who 
 will claim the fulfilment of every 
 deceitful promise I have given 
 her/ then did I, caring for the 
 young man and pitying his unfor- 
 tunate yet wholly blameless posi- 
 tion, bethink me of a plan to save 
 him." 
 
 "To save him, Burr?" 
 
 " Oh, to pull him out of a hole, 
 if you like blunter speech, my good 
 man to smooth and straighten the 
 entire sad yet ridiculous turmoil. 
 Do you guess, now, what this plan 
 was?" 
 
 176 
 
Old New York 
 
 "I think I do." 
 
 "He did not, nor would I tell him. 
 I merely ordered him to prolong his 
 stay in Boston." Here Burr lifted 
 toward his lips the fragment of a 
 cut peach that lay on his fruit-plate. 
 Then he flung the morsel back 
 again, rising. 
 
 " I don't think my plan has 
 failed," he said, meeting Ver- 
 planck's look with his cool, blue, 
 steady eye. 
 
 Verplanck rose also. " It may 
 have gone too far." 
 
 Burr shrugged his shoulders. 
 " At her age ! The impression will 
 doubtless fade in another month." 
 His voice mellowed queerly, now, 
 and a pensive gravity overspread 
 his sensitive face. " Absence will 
 do its sure work, just as it did in 
 the case of Mark Frankland." 
 
 "There his absence, as you seem 
 12 177 
 
A Romance of 
 
 to forget," said Verplanck, with 
 gathering sternness, "was aided in 
 its effect by your own presence." 
 
 "True. . . Well, I've done my 
 duty as a friend in need." 
 
 "To Frankland yes. But what 
 about your neglect of it toward 
 myself?" 
 
 The two men faced each other. 
 Verplanck' s eyes were very cold. 
 From Burr's lips broke a glittering 
 smile. 
 
 "How," he asked, "have I neg- 
 lected it there? To disembarrass 
 Mark was surely to disembarrass 
 yourself and your daughter, Char- 
 lotte, as well." 
 
 "You have been playing with 
 edged tools, Burr," said Verplanck, 
 haughtily and gruffly ; " worse you 
 have been playing with fire." 
 
 "In desperate cases desperate 
 remedies. I took them." 
 178 
 
Old New York 
 
 " And without my consent. Do 
 you call that fair dealing?" 
 
 "As fair," sped the answer, "as 
 for you to force a poor love-smitten 
 lad like Frankland into acting the 
 hypocrite." 
 
 Verplanck started. He caught 
 from the table a crumpled napkin, 
 held it an instant to his mouth, and 
 then cast it down. 
 
 " I I did that to save my child's 
 life." 
 
 "And 7 acted as the friend and 
 well-wisher of your other child's 
 accepted husband." 
 
 "I deny your claim in so acting." 
 
 "Mark Frankland will justify it." 
 
 " How should that concern me ?" 
 
 " In this way : you plunged Mark 
 into an undeserved and cruel diffi- 
 culty." 
 
 " From which you presumed to 
 try and extricate him." 
 179 
 
A Romance of 
 
 "At his request yes. And you, 
 by no means at his request, had 
 presumed to place him there." 
 
 " These are your old lawyer's 
 tricks," growled Verplanck, half 
 turning away. " God knows I'm 
 no match for you. Neither was the 
 country, even though it tried you 
 for treason and a kind of treason 
 no baser, after all, than this using of 
 your wanton arts on my innocent 
 girl!" 
 
 Burr folded his arms, with eyes 
 blazing yet with composure immo- 
 bile, and with manner melancholy 
 though austere. 
 
 "You prove yourself a coward 
 to reproach me with my past mis- 
 fortunes," he said; and his voice, 
 not seemingly raised, could have 
 been heard farther than many a 
 voice of more apparent volume. 
 " But by insulting me while I am 
 1 80 
 
Old New York 
 
 your guest you strip yourself, be- 
 sides, of all right to be called a 
 gentleman." 
 
 "Let me go, Charlotte!" came 
 a cry just beyond a half-closed 
 door. 
 
 " No, no, Pamela !" 
 
 "I will I tell you I will!" And 
 Pamela, violently agitated, rushed 
 into the room. " Colonel Burr is 
 right!" she flung to her father. 
 " You have just insulted him I 
 heard what you said. And often I 
 have heard you speak so differently ! 
 ' More sinned against than sinning* 
 those were the words you often 
 used. And not seldom, too, have 
 you said of him that he was the 
 most slandered and unjustly per- 
 secuted of all the great all the few 
 very great statesmen our country 
 has thus far produced !" 
 
 "Pamela," stormily commanded 
 
 181 
 
A Romance of 
 
 her father, "leave this room at 
 once!" 
 
 "No; not till I've told you a 
 few plain facts. I feel, though I'm 
 not sure, that you have upbraided 
 Colonel Burr for showing me kind- 
 ness through these past weeks ; I 
 feel this because of certain hints 
 you've dropped, father, full of bitter 
 discontent. And now I'll inform 
 you, fearlessly and openly, that 
 Colonel Burr's presence in this 
 house in no way concerned my 
 change of feeling toward Mark 
 Frankland for on that change 
 I'm sure you and Charlotte have 
 passed comments together. . . 
 Indeed, Charlotte admitted to me 
 
 " Pamela ! f ' her sister exclaimed. 
 
 " admitted to me, only yester- 
 day, that you had both wondered at 
 my indifference, and the slight time 
 182 
 
Old New York 
 
 I gave to the answering of Mark's 
 love-letters." 
 
 A burst of ironical laughter pre- 
 ceded Pamela's next words. " Love- 
 letters, forsooth ! All the time we 
 have been at Shady Shore I knew 
 the truth ! I kept it hidden ; in my 
 frequent talks with Colonel Burr I 
 was tempted to tell him, but I did 
 not. Gerald Suydam, on the first 
 day I went out alone after my ill- 
 ness, met me and made everything 
 plain. Mark Frankland had con- 
 fided to him your plot yours and 
 Charlotte's. It was a terrible de- 
 ception but I forgave you. I knew 
 your love for me, your dread that I 
 might die, had prompted it. And 
 all this time you have thought that 
 Colonel Burr's goodness in deigning 
 to treat me civilly and cordially was 
 my reason for caring less and less 
 about Mark. No disgust and con- 
 183 
 
A Romance of 
 
 tempt were my reason ! I may 
 be wrong, and I may judge him 
 with partiality and prejudice, but it 
 seems to me that he should have 
 told both you and Charlotte it were 
 better to lose a daughter and a sister 
 than to take so hypocritic a means 
 of saving her life ! And his false- 
 hoods, as I now firmly believe, never 
 saved my life. Nothing saved it but 
 the will of nature, the turn for the 
 better in my malady, whatever that 
 really was. And so you wrong 
 Colonel Burr most cruelly, father, 
 when you even suspect that he has 
 had the least share in my disregard 
 of Mark. Scarcely ever, in our talks, 
 have we even mentioned his name. 
 Oh, I did not hear much that you 
 said, but I heard enough to sicken 
 me with horror and shame. You to 
 sneer at his ' lawyer's tricks/ when 
 I have heard you, again and again, 
 184 
 
Old New York 
 
 praise his legal abilities as glorious ! 
 You to accuse him of using wanton 
 arts on an innocent girl, when every 
 new moment of his companionship 
 has taught me more and more to 
 respect while I admired him ! . . Oh, 
 colonel," she continued, still keep- 
 ing her eyes on her father's face, 
 now ashen and deeply perturbed, 
 " I am certain that father will make 
 you amends for the dreadful insult 
 he has just paid you ! I am certain 
 
 that his sense of honor " 
 
 And there Pamela paused. In 
 the spot where Burr had stood was 
 vacancy. He had quietly vanished. 
 
 185 
 
A Romance of 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AT once, after leaving the 
 dining-room, Burr went to 
 his own apartment upstairs 
 and gathered together all his pos- 
 sessions all very simple and easy 
 of redisposition within his trunk 
 employing that speed and dexterity 
 which were half due to his early 
 military life and half to the years 
 of hardship which had succeeded 
 it. Then he pulled the bell-rope, 
 and held a little consultation with 
 the black servant who soon ap- 
 peared. In that crisp, concise form 
 of speech which he knew so well 
 how to adopt, Burr made it clear 
 that he wanted a conveyance as 
 soon as possible, and one that 
 should bear himself and his lug- 
 
 186 
 
Old New York 
 
 gage to a certain small hotel about 
 a mile distant, where he meant to 
 pass the night. When the man 
 departed he plainly understood and 
 had promised carefully to obey. 
 Every servant at Shady Shore was 
 now Burr's sworn friend; his power 
 of attracting inferiors by an occa- 
 sional kind word or smile was a 
 minor feature of his almost historic 
 personal charm. 
 
 When sure that his order would 
 be carried out to the letter, and that 
 within a half-hour his trunk would 
 be waiting for him in a vehicle near 
 one of the smaller lawn gates, Burr 
 went downstairs and stood for a 
 moment in the dimmish hall. He 
 had meant to leave the house forth- 
 with by its rear door, but seeing that 
 the front door at the end of the wide 
 hall was open, and feeling the cool, 
 salty breeze that pulsed below its 
 187 
 
A Romance of 
 
 lintel, he remembered that he would 
 have ample leisure to steal out by 
 this mode of egress and get a fare- 
 well glimpse of the wooded shore- 
 land which recent associations had 
 taught him to treasure. 
 
 All prepared for final departure, 
 he moved past two or three lamp-lit 
 rooms, looking neither to right nor 
 left. Then came the gloom of the 
 high-columned portico ; then the 
 descent of its steps, and then the 
 waterward slope of the lawns. Off 
 beyond the Sound a full moon had 
 lately risen, but at first he had only 
 a sense of its elfin glamours up be- 
 tween the interspaces of the many 
 dark and stately trees. Presently 
 he came to the water's edge, where 
 a full tide lapped the rocks and a 
 splendid pathway of rippled silver 
 broadened from the shadowy Long 
 Island shore. Between two great 
 
 188 
 
Old New York 
 
 tree-trunks there was a rustic seat 
 which he well knew. He sank into 
 it, and watched the magnificent 
 lunar glow and listened to the 
 drowsy, voluminous cadences of 
 the soft wind among the bowering 
 trees. It was a perfect night one 
 of those few exquisite ones which 
 our rather churlishly hot American 
 summers are apt to spare us. Burr, 
 who loved nature with the soul of a 
 poet, cherished all its grandeur and 
 sweetness at their full, rich worth. 
 
 "Well," he thought, "I have 
 striven to do a friend service, and 
 have received scorn for my wage. 
 Has it often been otherwise with 
 me, through all my curious, twisted, 
 calamitous life ? No doubt the 
 things I have done that men call 
 evil things have mostly, if not all of 
 them, sprung from just this sense 
 of disesteemed effort, underprized 
 189 
 
A Romance of 
 
 purpose, misvalued energy. . . Let 
 that dear, wilful girl say what she 
 chooses I did snatch her from the 
 woful results of her own unfortu- 
 nate sentiment. It has not been 
 Gerald Suy dam's disclosure ; it has 
 been my own steadily worked-out 
 method of consolement, distraction, 
 mentally and emotionally alike." 
 
 "Colonel Burr." 
 
 He rose quickly as his own name 
 mingled itself with the rustlings of 
 the trees. Then he saw Pamela 
 standing near him. 
 
 "You you are going away," she 
 said, her glance having gathered 
 in this fact by a swift measuring 
 survey of his altered dress. " I 
 saw you from my window upstairs. 
 You came here I know why to 
 bid our pleasant haunts a silent 
 farewell." Her eyes were shining 
 wildly in the sylvan dusk of the 
 190 
 
Old New York 
 
 place. She was bareheaded, and 
 clad in a light simple frock whose 
 high-waisted fashion of the period 
 became her frail yet rounded shape, 
 and blew backward in the marine 
 night-breeze with a fairy effect of 
 gossamer pliancy. 
 
 " Father was very wrong in- 
 famously wrong to speak as he 
 did, and you are right to go. Yet 
 I feel you cannot be angry you 
 have long borne too much un- 
 merited insult for that; you are 
 only grieved to the depths of your 
 soul your noble and patient soul! 
 But still, father will make you 
 amends I am certain of it. Unless 
 
 " And here Pamela suddenly 
 
 paused. 
 
 "Unless . . ?" Burr questioned, 
 with an involuntary repetition of 
 the girl's own word. 
 
 " Unless you are willing that I 
 191 
 
A Romance of 
 
 should share with you your future. 
 I know this is madly bold of me 
 I know that you may despise me 
 for it. But to-morrow I could meet 
 you if you are really going to- 
 night, as I know you are and then, 
 provided . . . " 
 
 "My dear Pamela," said Burr, 
 drawing nearer to her, as she again 
 paused, "what are you saying? 
 Share my future, child? How 
 could you possibly share it but in 
 one way ?" 
 
 "That is the way I mean," she 
 gasped. Her bosom rose and fell in 
 quick pulsations below her delicate 
 bodice. She looked like a young, 
 sweet, fiery angel, with her scintil- 
 lant eyes, and her parted lips, and 
 her wind-waved floss of hair, and 
 her fluttering draperies. 
 
 "That is the way I mean," she 
 again said, each word in a sort of 
 192 
 
Old New York 
 
 sobbed staccato. "The one way 
 the honorable way ! I I pity you 
 so deeply ! You have told me much 
 of your past life, and you have 
 always spoken of its weakness, its 
 failure, its wrongdoing. But I have 
 seen more than you chose to show 
 me, and I have fancied that you 
 might care to let me stand between 
 you and your vilifiers not making 
 the least sacrifice far from that 
 but helping where I could, and 
 healing where I could, and always 
 giving you the devotion and as- 
 suagement and comfort of which 
 you have unconsciously taught me 
 to believe you so worthy !" 
 
 Burr stood quite still as her plead- 
 ing impetuosity became silence. 
 He saw that she had stretched both 
 hands half-way, as if to meet the 
 response of his own. But for a 
 while he did not take them. It 
 13 193 
 
A Romance of 
 
 was only a brief while, and yet its 
 interval was packed for him with 
 a mighty temptation. 
 
 His advanced years had brought 
 with them none of the feebleness 
 they bring to many another man. 
 This was more than proved by his 
 marriage, fourteen years later, to 
 Madame Jumel, a woman whom he 
 did not love, and in wedding whom, 
 at Fort Washington, just fifty years 
 from the time that he had wedded 
 the mother of his adored Theo- 
 dosia,* he committed what was 
 almost the crowning folly of his 
 strange career. 
 
 And now, before one of his sus- 
 ceptible nature and splendid physi- 
 cal hardihood, there rose this temp- 
 
 * The same clergyman, a Dr. Bogert, who 
 had performed that earlier ceremony, united 
 him, fifty years later, to Madame Jumel. 
 194 
 
Old New York 
 
 tation of immense potency. To 
 humor Pamela's wish he had only 
 to make an acquiescent sign. To- 
 morrow she might become his wife 
 she, the daughter of Varick Ver- 
 planck, a man widely honored, a 
 merchant of conspicuous wealth 
 and influence, the friend of Clay 
 and Adams and Randolph, one who 
 had but to lift his hand in order to 
 find himself mayor of the city or 
 governor of the State. Here would 
 be rehabilitation, past dispute. The 
 returned exile, the despised outcast, 
 the erstwhile fugitive, would have 
 achieved incalculable social gain. 
 Many might still refuse to counte- 
 nance him, but many more would 
 regard him on totally altered terms. 
 The chance, the opportunity, was 
 priceless. And was he not capable 
 of bestowing on this enthusiastic 
 and impassioned girl a fondness and 
 195 
 
A Romance of 
 
 fidelity which would shield her 
 against disappointment, repentance, 
 ennui ? Might she not become an 
 old man's darling in every sweetest, 
 most reverent, most enviable sense? 
 But the picture had its reverse 
 side. Such a match, on her part, 
 must prove, after all, a fatal mis- 
 take. And, besides, she was too 
 young to be trusted with the arbi- 
 tration of its wisdom or unwisdom, 
 its policy or impolicy, its prudence 
 or rashness. No ; he might indeed 
 have "gone too far," as Verplanck 
 had lately said; but he would go 
 not a step farther. He had alien- 
 ated her from Mark, and had taken 
 that course solely through an im- 
 pulse of friendly aid. Here his task 
 should end. A few recent weeks 
 of this girl's existence he had made 
 his own. Her future was like some 
 frangible crystalline thing which 
 196 
 
Old New York 
 
 honor and conscience forbade him 
 to handle, forbade him even to 
 touch. " Honor and conscience in 
 an Aaron Burr!" so many would 
 cry scorningly, if they knew. But 
 they should not know. They had 
 enough of his alleged criminalities 
 to wreak expression upon. Let 
 them glut their spleen with those. 
 "Pamela," he soon said, very 
 gently, taking both her hands, " I 
 promise you always to guard with 
 my life, as a sacred confidence, your 
 tender and lovely disclosure. But 
 for your own sake, dear child, I 
 answer that the granting of your 
 wish would be on my part a dis- 
 loyalty, a treachery, even a cow- 
 ardice as well. I say this boldly, 
 though hating to wound. And what 
 hurt I inflict will, believe me, cease 
 more speedily than you dream. 
 Your days are bright with promise 
 197 
 
A Romance of 
 
 and hope mine are darkened with 
 the shadows of approaching old 
 age, apart from those of bereave- 
 ment, poverty, and ruthless popular 
 dislike. With all my soul I thank 
 you I dare not trust myself to say 
 more. . . I shall never forget you 
 shall watch your joys with a great 
 gladness hereafter, and grieve 
 deeply for your sorrows which 
 may a merciful God lighten, if He 
 does not wholly avert!* 1 
 
 For a moment Burr's lips drew 
 nearer to hers. Then, as with stout 
 effort, he receded a little, still clasp- 
 ing her hands. On each of these he 
 pressed two or three quick kisses, 
 and where the kisses fell, big heavy 
 tears fell, too. 
 
 Then he dashed the tears away 
 
 with either freed hand, for they 
 
 blinded him in the dimness. And 
 
 without another look at Pamela, 
 
 198 
 
Old New York 
 
 who stood pale and tremulous, he 
 hurried off among the enshrouding 
 trees. . . 
 
 Later, he found that the vehicle, 
 with his trunk inside it, waited in 
 the precise spot where he had de- 
 sired it to meet him. Entering, he 
 was borne to the inn at which he 
 had purposed passing the night, 
 spent there many sleepless hours, 
 and finally, early on the following 
 morning, was driven by stagecoach 
 to New York. 
 
 * * 5fC * # * 
 
 Two days afterward he sat in his 
 office. The time was a half-hour 
 or so before noon. On his desk lay 
 a letter, which he had repeatedly 
 read. It was from Varick Ver- 
 planck, and it teemed with contri- 
 tion and apology. 
 
 " Kind old friend !" Burr at length 
 murmured, aloud, while he slowly 
 199 
 
A Romance of 
 
 refolded the letter. " As if it needed 
 so much fine rhetoric to make me 
 forgive you ! And as if I didn't 
 realize, five minutes afterward, that 
 you never meant a word of your 
 insult !" He gave a long, slow sigh. 
 
 "Ah, Varick Verplanck, if all the 
 stabs I've got from my fellow-men 
 had only drawn as little blood as 
 yours did, how much happier and 
 braver and thankfuller a man the 
 present moment would find me !" 
 
 His low words had hardly died 
 away when Mark Frankland, 'with 
 tumultuous lack of ceremony, burst 
 into his office. "My dear colonel! 
 Give me both your hands to shake ! 
 I'm so glad to see you again and 
 thank you !" 
 
 "You arrived home to-day, 
 Mark?" 
 
 " No last night at about nine, 
 miserably tired with that endless 
 
Old New York 
 
 jolting journey, as you may well 
 believe. Now that we can sail by 
 steam, why can't we ride by it ?" 
 
 " We shall, in a short time. Note 
 my words before five years have 
 passed, that brilliant Englishman, 
 George Stephenson, will have per- 
 fected his engine, and blessed the 
 century with a priceless boon. . . 
 You received my letter when you 
 reached home?" 
 
 "Yes. Ah, colonel! And that 
 was your * plan* ! Oh, you sly 
 wizard!" Mark broke into a roar 
 of the blithest laughter. Then, 
 seeing the sadness on Burr's face, 
 he swiftly added, 
 
 " But I do trust there's been no 
 no disastrous complication?" 
 
 "No . . none." 
 
 " And Pamela does not guess the 
 truth?" 
 
 " She does not guess that /well, 
 
A Romance of 
 
 you understand. Regarding the 
 other part of it, Gerald Suydam, as 
 I wrote you yesterday, broke faith 
 with you and told her of your mer- 
 ciful duplicity." 
 
 " Gerald Suydam yes !" cried 
 Mark, his face clouding. "Whom 
 should I run against this very morn- 
 ing, before I had gone half-way to 
 father's office, but that same tanta- 
 lizing young person ! One minute 
 he implored my pardon for letting 
 the cat out of the bag to Pamela, 
 and the next he spoke with jealous 
 wrath and scorn of you." 
 
 " He had heard certain rumors, 
 then, from Shady Shore ? Well, he 
 may set his excited mind at rest. 
 Some day, if he prove himself a 
 wise and patient wooer, he may 
 win Pamela for his wife, after all. 
 It's by no means certain, however. 
 His way to matrimony will be a 
 
Old New York 
 
 rough one, I promise him. It is 
 not paved 'with ease and peace, like 
 yours and Charlotte's. " 
 
 Mark's face brightened again. 
 "Ah, colonel!" he exclaimed, leap- 
 ing up from the chair into which he 
 had thrown himself, "if Charlotte 
 and I marry and have children, I 
 should like to fling defiance at all 
 your foes by calling our first boy 
 Aaron Burr Frankland !" 
 
 " I'm sure you would not be 
 capable of doing anything so un- 
 fatherly," said Burr, shaking his 
 head, with a grim smile. Then, 
 after a moment, the smile grew 
 limpid, genial, characteristic. "Call 
 him by another name, my boy. Call 
 him after the woman whose life 
 brought me more happiness than 
 all my successes, and whose death 
 has dealt me more pain than all my 
 other sorrows combined. " 
 203 
 
A Romance of Old New York 
 
 "You mean . . Theodosia ?" said 
 Mark Frankland, softly. 
 
 " Yes ! Call your first boy, if God 
 gives you one Theodore !" 
 
 THE END. 
 
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