CHAPTER I - MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WITH A CHRISTMAS GIFT.

     “For, O; for, O the hobby horse is forgot.”

      ­HAMLET.

It was a clear winter evening.  Mr. Sylvester sat in his library, musing before a bright coal fire, whose superabundant heat and blaze seemed to make the loneliness of the great empty room more apparent.  He had just said to himself that it was Christmas eve, and that he, of all men in the world, had the least reason to realize it, when the door-bell rang.  He was expecting Bertram, whose advancement to the position of cashier in place of Mr. Wheelock, now thoroughly broken down in health, had that day been fully determined upon in a late meeting of the Board of Directors.  He therefore did not disturb himself.  It was consequently a startling surprise, when a deep, pleasant voice uttered from the threshold of the door, “I have brought you a Christmas present;” and looking up, he saw Miss Belinda standing before him, with Paula at her side.

“My child!” was his involuntary exclamation, and before the young girl knew it, she was folded against his breast with a passionate fervor that more than words, convinced her of the depth of the sacrifice which had held them separate for so long.  “My darling! my little Paula!”

She felt her heart stand still.  Gently disengaging herself, she looked in his face.  She found it thin and wan, but lit by such a pleasure she could not keep back her smile.  “You are glad, then, of your little Christmas present?” said she.

He smiled and shook his head; he had no words with which to express a joy like this.

Miss Belinda meanwhile stood with a set expression on her face, that, to one who did not know her, would immediately have proclaimed her to be an ogress of the very worst type.  Not a glance did she give to the unusual splendor about her, not a wavering of her eye betokened that she was in any way conscious that she had just stepped from the threshold of a very humble cottage, into a home little short of a palace in size and the splendor of its appointments.  All her attention was concentrated on the two faces before her.

“The ride on the cars has made Paula feverish,” cried she, in sharp clear tones that rang with unexpected brusqueness through the curtained alcoves of that lordly apartment.

They both started at this sudden introduction of the prosaic into the hush of their happy meeting, but remembering themselves, drew Miss Belinda forward to the fire and made her welcome in this house of many memories.

It was a strange moment to Paula when she first turned to go up those stairs, down which she had come in such grief eight months or more ago.  She found herself lingering on its well-remembered steps, and the first sight of the rich bronze image at the top, struck her with a sense of the old-time pleasure, that was not unlinked with the old-time dread.  But the aspect of her little room calmed her.  It was just as she had left it; not an article had been changed.  “It is as if I had gone out one door and come in another,” she whispered.  All the months that had intervened seemed to float away.  She felt this even more when upon again descending, she found Bertram in the library.  His frank and interesting face had always been pleasant to her, but in the joy of her return it shone upon her with almost the attraction of a brother’s.  “I am at home again,” she kept whispering to herself, “I am at home.”

Miss Belinda was engrossed in conversation with Bertram, so that Paula was left free to take her old place by Mr. Sylvester’s side, where she sat with such an aspect of contentment, that her beauty was half forgotten in her happiness.

“You remembered me, then, sometimes in the little cottage in Grotewell?” asked he, after a silent contemplation of her countenance.  “I was not forgotten when you left the city streets?”

She answered with a bright little shake of her head, but she was inwardly wondering as she looked at his strong and picturesque face, with its nobly carved features and melancholy smile, if he had been absent from her thoughts for so much as a moment, in all these dreary months of separation.

“I did not believe you would forget,” he gently pursued, “but I scarcely dared hope you would lighten my fireside with your face again.  It is such a dismal one, and youth is so linked to brightness.”

The flush that crossed her cheek, startled him into sudden silence.  She recovered herself and slowly shook her head.  “It is not a dismal one to me.  I always feel brighter and better when I sit beside it.  I have missed your counsel,” she said; “brightness is nothing without depth.”

His eyes which had been fixed on her face, turned slowly away.  He seemed to hold an instant’s communion with himself; suddenly he said, “And depth is worse than nothing, without it mirrors the skies.  It is not from shadowed pools, such bright young lips should drink, but from the waves of an inexhaustible sea, smote upon by all the winds and sunshine of heaven.”

In another moment, however, he was all cheerfulness.  “You have brought me a Christmas present,” cried he, “and we must make it a Christmas holiday indeed.  Here is the beginning:”  and with one of his old grave smiles, he handed Bertram a little note which had been awaiting him on the library table.  “But Paula and Miss Belinda must have their pleasure too.  Paula, are you too tired for a ride down town?  I will show you New York on a Christmas eve,” continued he to Miss Walton, seeing that Paula’s attention was absorbed by the expression of sudden and moving surprise which had visited Bertram’s face, upon the perusal of his note.  “It is a stirring sight.  Nothing more cheering can be found the wide world over, for those who have a home and children to make happy.”

“I certainly should enjoy a glimpse of holiday cheer,” assented Miss Belinda.  And Paula recalled to herself by the sound of her aunt’s voice, gayly re-echoed her assertion.

So Samuel was despatched for a carriage, and in a few minutes they were all riding down Fifth Avenue, en route for Tiffany’s, Macy’s, and any other store that might offer special attractions.  It was a happy company.  As they rolled along, Paula felt her heart grow lighter and lighter, Mr. Sylvester was almost gay, while even Aunt Belinda condescended to be merry.  Bertram alone was silent, but as Paula caught short glimpses of his face, while speeding past some illuminated corner, she felt that it was that silence which is “the perfectest herald of joy.”

“I shall make you get out and mix with the crowd,” said Mr. Sylvester.  “I want you to feel the throb of the great heart of the city on such a night as this.  It is as if all men were brothers ­or fathers, I should say.  People that ordinarily pass each other without a sign, nod and smile with pleasing recognition of the evening’s cheer.  Grave and reverend seigniors, are not ashamed to be seen carrying packages by the dozen.  Indeed, he who is most laden is considered the best fellow, and he who is so unfortunate as to show nothing but empty arms, feels shy if not ashamed; a condition of mind into which I shall soon fall myself, if we do not presently reach our destination.”

Paula never forgot that night.  As from the midst of our common-place memories, some one hour stands out distinct and strange, like a sweet foreigner in a crowd of village faces, so to Paula, this ride through the lighted streets, with the ensuing rush from store to store, piloted by Bertram and Miss Belinda, and protected by Mr. Sylvester, was her one weird glimpse into the Arabian Nights’ country.  Why, she could not have told; why, she did not stop to think.  She had been to all these places before, but never with such a heart as this ­never, never with such an overflowing heart as this.

“I have washed away my reproach,” cried Mr. Sylvester, coming out to the carriage with his arms full of bundles.  “Aunt Belinda is to blame for this; she set the example, you see.”  And with a merry laugh, he tossed one thing after another into Paula’s lap, reserving only one small package for himself.  “I scarcely know what I have bought,” said he.  “I shall be as much surprised as any one, when you come to undo the bundles.  ‘A pretty thing,’ was all I waited to hear from the shop girls.”

“There is a small printing press for one thing,” cried Paula merrily.  “I saw the man at Holton’s eye you with a certain sort of shrewd humor, and hastily do it up.  You paid for it; probably thinking it one of the ‘pretty things.’  We shall have to make it over to Bertram, as being the only one amongst us who by any stretch of imagination can be said to be near enough the age of boyhood to enjoy it.”

“I do not know about that,” cried Bertram, with a ringing infectious laugh, “my imagination has been luring me into believing that I am not the only boy in this crowd.”

And so they went on, toying with their new-found joy as with a plaything, and hard would it have been to tell in which of those voices rang the deeper contentment.

The opening of the packages on the library-table afforded another season of merriment.  Such treasures as came to light!  A roll of black silk, which could only have been meant for Miss Belinda.  A casket of fretted silver, just large enough to hold Paula’s gloves; a scarf-ring, to which no one but Bertram could lay claim; a bundle of confections, a pair of diamond-studded bracelets, a scarf of delicate lace, articles for the desk, and knick-knacks for the toilet table, and last, but not least, in weight at least, the honest little printing-press.

“Oh, I never dreamed of this,” said Paula, “when we chose Christmas eve for our journey.”

“Nor would you have done right to stay away if you had,” returned Mr. Sylvester gayly.

But when the sport was all over, and Paula stood alone with Mr. Sylvester in the library, awaiting his last good-night, the deeper influences of this holy time made themselves felt, and it was with an air of gentle seriousness, he told her that it had been a happy Christmas eve to him.

“And to me,” returned Paula.  “Bertram too, seemed very happy.  Would it be too inquisitive in me to ask what good news the little note contained, to work such wonders?”

A smile such as was seldom seen on Mr. Sylvester’s face of late, flashed brightly over it.  “It was only a card of invitation to dinner,” said he, “but it came from Mr. Stuyvesant, and that to Bertram means a great deal.”

The surprise in Paula’s eyes made him smile again.  “Will it be a great shock to you, if I tell you that the name of the woman for whom Bertram made the sacrifice of his art, was Cicely Stuyvesant?”

“Cicely? my Cicely?” Her astonishment was great, but it was also happy.  “Oh, I never dreamed ­ah, now I see,” she went on naively.  “That is the reason she refrained from coming to this house; she was afraid of meeting him.  But to think I should never have guessed it, and she my dearest friend!  Oh, I am very happy; I admire Bertram so much, and it is such a beautiful secret.  And Mr. Stuyvesant has invited him to his house!  I do not wonder you felt like making the evening a gala one.  Mr. Stuyvesant would not do that if he were not learning to appreciate Bertram.”

“No; there is method in all that Mr. Stuyvesant does.  More than that, if I am not mistaken, he has known this beautiful secret, as you call it, from the first, and would be the last to receive Bertram as a guest to his table, if he did not mean him the best and truest encouragement.”

“I believe you are right,” said Paula.  “I remember now that one day when I was spending the afternoon with Cicely, he came into the room where I was, and finding me for the moment alone, sat down, and in his quaint old-fashioned manner asked me in the most abrupt way what I thought of Bertram Sylvester.  I was surprised, but told him I considered him one of the noblest young men I knew, adding that if a fine mind, a kind heart, and a pure life were open to regard, Bertram had the right to claim the esteem of all his friends and associates.  The old gentleman looked at me somewhat curiously, but nodded his head as if pleased, and merely remarking, ’It is not necessary to mention we had this conversation, my dear,’ got up and proceeded slowly from the room.  I thought it was simply a not unnatural curiosity concerning a young man with whom he had more or less business connection; but now I perceive it had a deeper significance.”

“He could scarcely have found a more zealous little advocate for Bertram if he had hunted the city over.  Bertram may be more obliged to you than he knows.  He has been very patient, but the day of his happiness is approaching.”

“And Cicely’s!  I feel as if I could scarcely wait to see her with this new hope in her eyes.  She has kept me without the door of her suspense, but she must let me across the threshold of her happiness.”

The look with which Mr. Sylvester eyed the fair girl’s radiant face deepened.  “Paula,” said be, “can you leave these new thoughts for a moment to hear a request I have to make?”

She at once turned to him with her most self-forgetful smile.

“I have been making myself a little present,” pursued he, slowly taking out of his pocket the single package he had reserved from the rest.  “Open it, dear.”

With fingers that unconsciously trembled, she hastily undid the package.  A little box rolled out.  Taking off its cover, she took out a plain gold locket of the style usually worn by gentlemen on their watch-chains.  “Fasten it on for me,” said he.

Wondering at his tone which was almost solemn, she quietly did his bidding.  But when she essayed to lift her head upon the completion of her task, he gently laid his hand upon her brow and so stood for a moment without a word.

“What is it?” she asked, with a sudden indrawing of her breath.  “What moves you so, Mr. Sylvester?”

“I have just taken a vow,” said he.

She started back agitated and trembling.

“I had reason to,” he murmured, “pray at nights when you go to bed, that I may be able to keep it.”

“What?” sprang to her lips; but she restrained herself and only allowed her glance to speak.

“Will you do it, Paula?”

“Yes, oh yes!” Her whole heart seemed to rush out in the phrase.  She drew back as at the opening of a door in an unexpected spot.  Her eye had something of fear in it and something of secret desperation too.  He watched her with a gaze that strangely faltered.

“A woman’s prayers are a man’s best safeguard,” murmured he.  “He must be a wretch who does not feel himself surrounded by a sacred halo, while he knows that pure lips are breathing his name in love and trust before the throne of the Most High.”

“I will pray for you as for myself,” she whispered, and endeavored to meet his eyes.  But her head drooped and she did not speak as she would have done a few months before; and when a few instants later they parted in their old fashion at the foot of the stairs, she did not turn to give him the accustomed smile and nod with which she used to mount the stairs, spiral by spiral, and disappear in her little room above.  Yet he did not grieve at the change, but stood looking up the way she had gone, like a man before whom some vision of unexpected promise had opened.

CHAPTER II - A QUESTION.

     “Think on thy sins.” ­OTHELLO.

The next morning when Mr. Sylvester came down to breakfast, he found on the library-table an exquisite casket, similar to the one he had given Paula the night before, but larger, and filled with flowers of the most delicious odor.

“For Miss Fairchild,” explained Samuel, who was at that moment passing through the room.

With a pang of jealous surprise, that, however, failed to betray itself in his steadily composed countenance, Mr. Sylvester advanced to the side of the table, and lifted up the card that hung attached to the beautiful present.  The name he read there seemed to startle him; he moved away, and took up his paper with a dark flush on his brow, that had not disappeared when Miss Belinda entered the room.

“Humph!” was her immediate exclamation, as her eye rested upon the conspicuous offering in the centre of the apartment.  But instantly remembering herself, advanced with a cheerful good-morning, which however did not prevent her eyes from wandering with no small satisfaction towards this fresh evidence of Mr. Ensign’s assiduous regard.

“Paula is remembered by others than ourselves,” remarked Mr. Sylvester, probably observing her glance.

“Yes; she has a very attentive suitor in Mr. Ensign,” returned Miss Belinda shortly.  “A pleasant appearing young man,” she ejaculated next moment; “worthy in many respects of success, I should say.”

“Has he ­do you mean to say that he has visited you in Grotewell?” asked Mr. Sylvester, his eye upon the paper in his hand.

“Certainly; a few more interviews will settle it.”

The paper rustled in Mr. Sylvester’s grasp, but his voice was composed if not formal, as he observed, “She regards his attentions then with favor?”

“She wears his flowers in her bosom, and brightens like a flower herself when he is seen to approach.  If allowed to go her way unhindered, I have but little doubt as to how it will end.  Mr. Ensign is not handsome, but I am told that he has every other qualification likely to make a gentle creature like Paula happy.”

“He is a good fellow,” exclaimed Mr. Sylvester under his breath.

“And goodness is the first essential in the character of the man who is to marry Paula,” inexorably observed Miss Belinda.  “An open, cheerful disposition, a clear conscience and a past with no dark pages in its history, must mark him who is to link unto his fate our pure and sensitive Paula.  Is it not so, Mr. Sylvester?”

The advertisements in that morning’s Tribune must have been unusually interesting, judging from the difficulty which Mr. Sylvester experienced in withdrawing his eyes from them.  “The man whom Paula marries,” said he at last, “can neither be too good, too kind, or too pure.  Nor shall any other than a good, kind, and pure man possess her,” he added in a tone that while low, effectually hushed even the slow-to-be-intimidated Miss Belinda.  In another moment Paula entered.

Oh, the morning freshness of some faces!  Like the singing of birds in a prison, is the sound and sight of a lovely maiden coming into the grim, gray atmosphere of a winter breakfast room.  Paula was exceptionally gifted with this auroral cheer which starts the day so brightly.  At sight of her face Mr. Sylvester dropped his paper, and even Miss Belinda straightened herself more energetically.  “Merry Christmas,” cried her sweet young voice, and immediately the whole day seemed to grow glad with promise and gaysome with ringing sleigh-bells.  “It’s snowing, did you know it?  A world of life is in the air; the flakes dance as they come down, like dervishes in a frenzy.  It was all we lacked to make the day complete; now we have everything.”

“Yes,” said Miss Belinda, with a significant glance at the table, “everything.”

Paula followed her glance, saw the silver box with its wealth of blossoms, and faltered back with a quick look at Mr. Sylvester’s grave and watchful countenance.

“Mr. Ensign seems to be possessed of clairvoyance,” observed Miss Belinda easily.  “How he could know that you were to be in town to-day, I cannot imagine.”

“I wrote him in my last letter that in all probability I should spend the holidays with Mr. Sylvester,” explained Paula simply, but with a slow and deepening flush, that left the roses she contemplated nothing of which to boast.  “I did so, because he proposed to visit Grotewell on Christmas.”

There was a short silence in the room, then Mr. Sylvester rose, and remarking with polite composure, “It is a very pretty remembrance,” led the way into the dining-room.  Paula with a slow drooping of her head quickly followed, while Miss Belinda brought up the rear, with the look of a successful diplomat.

A meal in the Sylvester mansion was always a formal affair, but this was more than formal.  A vague oppression seemed to fill the air; an oppression which Miss Belinda’s stirring conversation found it impossible to dissipate.  In compliance to Mr. Sylvester’s request, she sat at the head of the table, and was the only one who seemed able to eat anything.  For one thing she had never seen Ona in that post of honor, but Paula and Mr. Sylvester could not forget the graceful form that once occupied that seat.  The first meal above a grave, no matter how long it has been dug, must ever seem weighted with more or less unreality.

Besides, with Paula there was a vague unsettled feeling, as if some delicate inner balance had been too rudely shaken.  She longed to fly away and think, and she was obliged to sit still and talk.

The end of the meal was a relief to all parties.  Miss Belinda went up stairs, thoughtfully shaking her firm head; Mr. Sylvester sat down again to his paper, and Paula advanced towards the dainty gift that awaited her inspection on the library table.  But half way to it she paused.  A strange shyness had seized her.  With Mr. Sylvester sitting there, she dared not approach this delicate testimonial of another’s affection.  She did not know as she wished to.  Her eyes stole in hesitation to the floor.  Suddenly Mr. Sylvester spoke: 

“Why do you not look at your pretty present, Paula?”

She started, gave him a quick glance, and advanced hurriedly towards the table; but scarcely had she reached it when she paused, turned and hastened over to his side.  He was still reading, or appearing to read, but she saw his hand tremble where it grasped the sheet, though his face with its clear cut profile, shone calm and cold against the dark background of the wall beyond.

“I do not care to look at it now,” said she, with a hurried interlacing of her restless fingers.

He turned towards her and a quick thrill passed over his countenance.  “Sit down, Paula,” said he, “I want to talk to you.”

She obeyed as might an automaton.  Was it the tone of his voice that chilled her, or the studied aspect of his fixed and solemn countenance?  He did not speak at once, but when he did, there was no faltering in his voice, that was lower than common, but deep, like still waters that have run into dark channels far from the light of day.

“Paula, I want to ask you a question.  What would you think of a man that, with deliberate selfishness, went into the king’s garden, and plucking up by the roots the most beautiful flower he could find there, carried it into a dungeon to pant out its exquisite life amid chill and darkness?”

“I should think,” replied she, after the first startled moment of silence, “that the man did well, if by its one breath of sweetness, the flower could comfort the heart of him who sat in the dungeon.”

The glance with which Mr. Sylvester regarded her, suddenly faltered; he turned with quickness towards the fire.  “A moment’s joy is, then, excuse for a murder,” exclaimed he.  “God and the angels would not agree with you, Paula.”

There was a quivering in his tone, made all the more apparent by its studied self-possession of a moment before.  She trembled where she sat, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again, awed by his steady and abstracted gaze, now fixed before him in gloomy reverie.  A moment passed.  The clock ticking away on the mantel-piece seemed to echo the inevitable “Forever! never!” of Longfellow’s old song.  Neither of them moved.  At length, in a low and trembling voice, Paula spoke: 

“Is it murder, when the flower loves the dark of the dungeon more than it does the light of day?”

With a subdued but passionate cry he rose hastily to his feet.  “Yes,” said he, and drew back as if he could not bear the sight of her face or the glance of her eye.  “Sunshine is the breath of flowers; sweet wooing gales, their natural atmosphere.  He who meddles with a treasure so choice does it at his peril.”  Then as she hurriedly rose in turn, softened his whole tone, and assuming his usual air of kindly fatherhood, asked her in the most natural way in the world, what he could do to make her happy that day.

“Nothing,” replied she, with a droop of her head; “I think I will go and see Cicely.”

A short sigh escaped him.  “The carriage shall be ready for you,” said he.  “I hope your friend’s happiness will overflow into your own gentle bosom, and make the day a very pleasant one.  God bless your young sweet heart, my Paula!”

Her breast heaved, her large, dark, mellow eyes flashed with one quick glance towards his face, then she drew back, and in another moment left his side and quietly glided from the room.  His very life seemed to go with her, yet he did not stir; but he sighed deeply when, upon turning towards the library-table, he found that she had carried away with her the silent testimonial of another and more fortunate man’s love and devotion.

CHAPTER III - FULL TIDE.

     “A skirmish of wit between them.”

      ­MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Man thinks he is strong, and lays his foundations, raises his walls, and dreams of his completed turrets, without reckoning the force of the gales or the insidious inundating of the waters that may bring low the mounting structure before its time.  When with a firm hand, Mr. Sylvester thrust back from his heart the one delight which of all the world could afford, seemed to him at that moment the dearest and the best, he thought the struggle was over and the victory won.  It had not even commenced.  He was made startlingly alive to this fact at the very next interview he had with Paula.  She had just come from Miss Stuyvesant, and the reflection of her friend’s scarcely comprehended joy was on her countenance, together with a look he could not comprehend, but which stirred and haunted him, until he felt forced to ask if she had seen any other of her old friends, in the short visit she had paid.

“Yes,” said she, with a distressed blush.  “Mr. Ensign was unexpectedly there.”

It is comparatively easy to restrain your own hand from snatching at a treasure you greatly covet, but it is much more difficult to behold another and a lesser one grasp and carry it away before your eyes.  He succeeded in hiding the shadow that oppressed him, but he was constrained to recognize the sharpness of the conflict that was about to be waged in the recesses of his own breast.  A conflict, because he knew that a lift of his finger, or a glance of his eye would decide the matter then, while in a week, perhaps, the glamour of a young sunshiny love, would have worked its inevitable result, and the happiness that had so unexpectedly startled upon him in his monotonous and sombre path, would have wandered forever out of his reach.  How did he meet its unexpected rush.  Sternly at first, but with greater and greater wavering as the days went by, each one revealing fresh beauties of character and deeper springs of feeling in the enchanting girl thus brought in all her varied charm before his eyes.  Why should he not be happy?  If there were dark pages in his life, had they not long ago been closed and sealed, and was not the future bright with promise?  A man of his years was not through with life.  He felt at times as he gazed upon her face with its indescribable power of awakening far-reaching thoughts and feelings in callous breasts long unused to the holy influence of either, that he had just begun to live; that the golden country, with its enticing vistas, lay all before him, and that the youth, which he had missed, had somehow returned to his prime, fresh with more than its usual enthusiasm and bright with more than its wonted hopes and projects.  With this glorious woman at his side, life would be new indeed, and if new why not pure and sweet and noble?  What was there to hinder him from making the existence of this sweet soul a walking amongst gentle duties, satisfied dreams and holy aspirations?  A past remorse?  Why the gates could be closed on that!  A strain of innate weakness for the world’s good opinion and applause?  Ah! with love in his life such a weakness must disappear; besides had he not taken a vow on her dear head, that ought to hedge him about as with angel’s wings in the hour of temptation?  Men with his experience do not invoke the protection of innocence to guard a degraded soul.  Why, then, all this hesitation?  A great boon was being offered to him after years of loneliness and immeasurable longing; was it not the will of heaven, that he should meet and enjoy this unexpected grace?  He dared to stop and ask, and once daring to ask, the insidious waters found their way beneath the foundations of his resolution, and the lofty structure he had reared in such self-confidence, began to tremble where it stood, though as yet it betrayed no visible sign of weakness.

Meanwhile, society with its innumerable demands, had drawn the beautiful young girl within its controlling grasp.  She must go here, she must go there; she must lend her talents to this, her beauty to that.  Before she had decided whether she ought to remain in the city a week, two had flown by, and in all this time Mr. Ensign had been ever at her side, brightening in her own despite, hours which might else have been sad, and surrounding her difficult path with proofs of his silent and wary devotion.  A golden net seemed to be closing around her, and, though as yet, she had given no token of a special recognition of her position, Miss Belinda betrayed by the uniform complacence of her demeanor, that she for one regarded the matter as effectually settled.

The success which Bertram had met in his first visit at Mr. Stuyvesant’s, was not the least agitating factor in this fortnight’s secret history.  He was too much a part of the home life at Mr. Sylvester’s, not to make the lightest thrill of his frank and sensitive nature felt by all who invaded its precincts.  And he was in a state of repressed expectancy at this time, that unconsciously created an atmosphere about him of vague but restless excitement.  The hearts of all who encountered his look of concentrated delight, must unconsciously beat with his.  A strain sweeter than his old-time music was in his voice.  When he played upon the piano, which was but seldom, it was as if he breathed out his soul before the holy images.  When he walked, he seemed to tread on air.  His every glance was a question as to whether this great joy, for which he had so long and patiently waited, was to be his?  Love, living and apotheosized, appeared to blaze before them, and no one can look on love without feeling somewhere in his soul the stir of those deep waters, whose pulsing throb even in the darkness of midnight, proves that we are the children of God.

Cicely was uncommunicative, but her face, when Paula beheld it, was like the glowing countenance of some sculptured saint, from which the veil is slowly being withdrawn.

Suddenly there came an evening when the force of the spell that held all these various hearts enchained gave way.  It was the night of a private entertainment of great elegance, to be held at the house of a friend of Miss Stuyvesant.  Bertram had received formal permission from the father of Cicely, to act as his daughter’s escort, and the fact had transformed him from a hopeful dreamer, into a man determined to speak and know his fate at once.  Paula was engaged to take part in the entertainment, and the sight of her daintily-decked figure leaving the house with Mr. Ensign, was the last drop in the slowly gathering tide that was secretly swelling in Mr. Sylvester’s breast; and it was with a sudden outrush of his whole determined nature that he stepped upstairs, dressed himself in evening attire, and deliberately followed them to the place where they were going.  “The wealth of the Indies is slipping from my grasp,” was his passionate exclamation, as he rode through the lighted streets.  “I cannot see it go; if she can care more for me than for this sleek, merry-hearted young fellow, she shall.  I know that my love is to his, what the mighty ocean is to a placid lake, and with such love one ought to be panoplied as with resisting steel.”

A stream of light and music met him, as he went up the stoop of the house that held his treasure.  It seemed to intoxicate him.  Glow, melody and perfume, were so many expressions of Paula.  His friends, of whom there were many present, received him with tokens of respect, not unmingled with surprise.  It was the first time he had been seen in public since his wife’s death, and they could not but remark upon the cheerfulness of his bearing, and the almost exalted expression of his proud and restless eye.  Had Paula accompanied him, they might have understood his emotion, but with the beautiful girl under the care of one of the most eligible gentlemen in town, what could have happened to Mr. Sylvester to make his once melancholy countenance blazon like a star amid this joyous and merrily-laughing throng.  He did not enlighten them, but moved from group to group, searching for Paula.  Suddenly the thought flashed upon him, “Is it only an hour or so since I smiled upon her in my own hall, and shook my head when she asked me with a quick, pleading look, to come with them to this very spot?” It seemed days, since that time.  The rush of these new thoughts, the final making up of this slowly-maturing purpose, the sudden allowing of his heart to regard her as a woman to be won, had carried the past away as by the sweep of a mountain torrent.  He could not believe he had ever known a moment of hesitancy, ever looked at her as a father, ever bid her go on her way and leave the prisoner to his fate.  He must always have felt like this; such momentum could not have been gathered in an hour; she must know that he loved her wildly, deeply, sacredly, wholly, with the fibre of his mind, his body and his soul; that to call her his in life and in death, was the one demanding passion of his existence, making the past a dream, and the future ­ah, he dared not question that!  He must behold her face before he could even speculate upon the realities lying behind fate’s down-drawn curtain.

Meanwhile fair faces and lovely forms flitted before him, carrying his glance along in their train, but only because youth was a symbol of Paula.  If these fresh young girls could smile and look back upon him, with that lingering glance which his presence ever invoked, why not she who was not only sweet, tender, and lovely, but gifted with a nature that responded to the deep things of life, and the stern passions of potent humanity.  Could a merry laugh lure her while he stood by?  Was the sunshine the natural atmosphere of this flower, that had bloomed under his eye so sweetly and shed out its innocent fragrance, at the approach of his solemn-pacing foot?  He began to mirror before his mind’s eye the startled look of happy wonder with which she would greet his impassioned glance, when released from whatever duties might be now pressing upon her; she wandered into these rooms, to find him awaiting her, when suddenly there was a stir in the throng, a pleased and excited rush, and the large curtain which he had vaguely noticed hanging at one end of the room, uplifted and ­was it Paula? this coy, brilliant, saucy-eyed Florentine maiden, stepping out from a bower of greenery, with finger on her lip, and a backward glance of saucy defiance that seemed to people the verdant walks behind her with gallant cavaliers, eager to follow upon her footsteps?  Yes; he could not be mistaken; there was but one face like that in the world.  It was Paula, but Paula with youth’s merriest glamour upon her, a glamour that had caught its radiant light from other thoughts than those in which he had been engaged.  He bowed his head, and a shudder went through him like that which precedes the falling knife of the executioner.  Even the applause that greeted the revelation of so much loveliness and alluring charm, passed over him like a dream.  He was battling with his first recognition of the possibility of his being too late.  Suddenly her voice was heard.

She was speaking aloud to herself, this Florentine maiden who had outstripped her lover in the garden, but the tone was the same he had heard beside his own hearthstone, and the archness that accompanied it had frequently met and encouraged some cheerful expression of his own.  These are the words she uttered.  Listen with him to the naïve, half tender, half pettish voice, and mark with his eyes the alternate lights and shadows that flit across her cheek as she broodingly murmurs: 

He is certainly a most notable gallant.  His “Good day, lady!” and his “Good even to you!” are flavored with the cream of perfectest courtesy.  But gallantry while it sits well upon a man, does not make him one, any more than a feather makes the cap it adorns.  For a Tuscan he hath also a certain comeliness, but then I have ever sworn, in good faith too, that I would not marry a Tuscan, were he the best made man in Italy.  Then there is his glance, which proclaims to all men’s understandings that he loves me, which same seems overbold; but then his smile!

Well, for a smile it certainly does credit to his wit, but one cannot live upon smiles; though if one could, one might consent to make a trial of his ­and starve belike for her pains. (She drops her cheek into her hand and stands musing.)

Mr. Sylvester drew a deep breath and let his eyes fall, when suddenly a hum ran through the audience about him, and looking quickly up, he beheld Mr. Ensign dressed in full cavalier costume, standing behind the musing maiden with a half merry, half tender gleam upon his face, that made the thickly beating heart of his rival shrink as if clutched in an iron vise.  What followed, he heard as we do the words of a sentence read to us from the judge’s seat.  The cavalier spoke first and a thousand dancing colors seemed to flash in the merry banter that followed.

Martino. ­She muses, and on no other than myself, as I am ready to swear by that coy and tremulous glance.  I will move her to avow it. (Advances.) Fair lady, greeting!  A kiss for your sweet thoughts.

Nita. (With a start). ­A kiss, Signior Martino?  You must acknowledge that were but a sorry exchange for thoughts like mine, so if it please you, I will keep my thoughts and you your kiss; and lest it should seem ungracious in me to give nothing upon your asking, I will bestow upon you my most choice good day, and so leave you to your meditations. (Curtseys and is about to depart.)

Martino. ­You have the true generosity, lady; you give away what it costs you the dearest to part from.  Nay, rumple not your lip; it is the truth for all your pretty poutings!  Convince me it is not.

Nita. ­Your pardon, but that would take words, and words would take time, and time given to one of your persuasion would refute all my arguments on the face of them. (Still retreating.)

Martino. ­Well, lady, since it is your pleasure to be consistent, rather than happy, adieu.  Had you stayed but as long as the bee pauses on an oleander blossom, you would have heard ­

     Nita. ­Buzzing, signior?

     Martino. ­Yes, if by that word you would denominate vows of
     constancy and devotion.  For I do greatly love you, and would
     tell you so.

     Nita. ­And for that you expect me to linger! as though vows
     were new to my ears, and words of love as strange to my
     understanding as tropical birds to the eyes of a Norseman.

     Martino. ­If you do love me, you will linger.

     Nita. ­Yet if I do, (Slowly advancing) be assured it is
     from some other motive than love.

     Martino. ­So it be not from hate I am contented.

     Nita. ­To be contented with little, proves you a man of much
     virtue.

     Martino. ­When I have you, I am contented with much.

     Nita. ­That when is a wise insertion, signior; it saves you
     from shame and me from anger. ­Hark! some one calls.

     Martino. ­None other but the wind; it is a kindly breeze, and
     grieves to hear how harsh a pretty maiden can be to the lover
     who adores her.

     Nita. ­Please your worship, I do not own a lover.

     Martino. ­Then mend your poverty, and accept one.

     Nita. ­I am no beggar to accept of alms.

     Martino. ­In this case, he who offers is the beggar.

     Nita. ­I am too young to wear a jewel of so much pretension.

     Martino. ­Time is a cure for youth, and marriage a happy
     speeder of time.

     Nita. ­But youth needs no cure, and if marriage speedeth
     time, I’ll live a maid and die one.  The days run swift enough
     without goading, Signior Martino.

     Martino. ­But lady ­

Nita.. ­Nay, your tongue will outstrip time, if you put not a curb upon it.  In faith, signior, I would not seem rude, but if in your courtesy you would consent to woo some other maiden to-day, why I would strive and bear it.

     Martino. ­When I stoop to woo any other lady than thee, the
     moon shall hide its face from the earth, and shine upon it no
     more.

     Nita. ­Your thoughts are daring in their flight to-day.

     Martino. ­They are in search of your love.

     Nita. ­Alack, your wings will fail.

     Martino. ­Ay, when they reach their goal.

     Nita. ­Dost think to reach it?

     Martino. ­Shall I not, lady?

     Nita. ­’Tis hard to believe it possible, yet who can tell? 
     You are not so handsome, signior, that one would die for you.

     Martino. ­No, lady; but what goes to make other men’s faces
     fair, goes to make my heart great.  The virtue of my manhood
     rests in the fact that I love you.

     Nita. ­Faith! so in some others.  ’Tis the common fault of the
     gallants, I find.  If that is all ­

     Martino. ­But I will always love you, even unto death.

     Nita. ­I doubt it not, so death come soon enough.

     Martino. (Taps his poiniard with his hand.) ­Would you
     have it come now, and so prove me true to my word?

     Nita. (Demurely). ­I am no judge, to utter the doom that
     your presumption merits.

     Martino. ­Your looks speak doom, and your sweet lips hide a
     sword keener than that of justice.

Nita. ­Have you tried them, signior, that you speak so knowingly concerning them? (Retreating.) Your words, methinks, are somewhat like your kisses, all breath and no substance.

     Martino. ­Lady! sweet one! (Follows her.)

     Nita. ­Nay, I am gone. (Exit.)

     Martino. ­I were of the fools’ fold, did I fail to follow at
     a beck so gentle. (Exit.)

That was not all, but it was all that Mr. Sylvester heard.  Hastily retreating, he went out into the corridor and ere long found himself in the conservatory.  He felt shaken; felt that he could not face all this unmoved.  He knew he had been gazing at a play; that because this Florentine maiden looked at her lover with coyness, gentleness, tenderness perhaps, it did not follow that she, his Paula, loved the real man behind this dashing cavalier.  But the possibility was there, and in his present frame of mind could not be encountered without pain.  He dared not stay where men’s eyes could follow him, or women’s delicate glances note the heaving of his chest.  He had in the last three hours given himself over so completely to hope.  He realized it now though he would not have believed it before.  With man’s usual egotism he had felt that it was only necessary for him to come to a decision, to behold all else fall out according to his mind.  He had forgotten for the nonce the power of a youthful lover, eager to serve, ready to wait, careful to press his way at every advantage.  He could have cursed himself for the folly of his delay, as he strode up and down among the flowering shrubs in the solitude which the attractions of the play created.  “Fool! fool!” he muttered between his teeth, “to halt on the threshold of Paradise till the door closed in my face, when a step would have carried me where ­” He grew dizzy as he contemplated.  The goal looks never so fair as when just within reach of a rival’s hand.

A vigorous clapping, followed by a low gush of music, woke him at last to the realization that the little drama had terminated.  With a hasty movement he was about to return to the parlors, when he heard the low murmur of voices, and on looking up, saw a youthful couple advancing into the conservatory, whom at first glance he recognized for Bertram and Miss Stuyvesant.  They were absorbed in each other, and believing themselves alone, came on without fear, presenting such a picture of love and deep, unspeakable joy, that Mr. Sylvester paused and gazed upon them as upon the sudden embodiment of a cherished vision of his own imaginings.  Bertram was speaking ordinary words no doubt, words suited to the occasion and the time, but his voice was attuned to the beatings of his long repressed heart, while the bend of his proud young head and the glance of his yearning eye were more eloquent than speech, of the leaning of his whole nature in love and protection towards the dainty, flushing creature at his side.  It was a sight to make old hearts young and a less happy lover sick with envy.  In spite of his gratification at his nephew’s success, Mr. Sylvester’s brow contracted, and it was with difficulty he could subdue himself into the appearance of calm benevolence necessary to pass them with propriety.  Had it been Paula and Mr. Ensign!

He did not know how it was that he managed to find her at last.  But just as he was beginning to realize that wisdom demanded his departure from this scene, he suddenly came upon her sitting with her face turned toward the crowd and waiting ­for whom?  He had never seen her look so beautiful, possibly because he had never before allowed himself to gaze upon her with a lover’s eyes.  She had exchanged her piquant Roman costume for the pearl gray satin in which Ona had delighted to array her, and its rich substance and delicate neutral tint harmonized well with the amber brocade of the curtain against which she sat.

Power, passion and purity breathed in her look, and lent enchantment to her form.  She was poetry’s unique jewel, and at this moment, thought rather than merriment sat upon her lips, and haunted her somewhat tremulous smiles.  He approached her as a priest to his shrine, but once at her side, once in view of her first startled blush, stooped passionately, and forgetting everything but the suspense at his heart, asked with a look and tone such as he had never before bestowed upon her, if the play which he had seen that evening had been real, or only the baseless fabric of a dream.

She understood him and drew back with a look almost of awe, shaking her head and replying in a startled way, “I do not know, I dare not say, I scarcely have taken time to think.”

“Then take it,” he murmured in a voice that shook her body and soul, “for I must know, if he does not.”  And without venturing another word, or supplying by look or gesture any explanation of his unexpected appearance, or as equally unexpected departure, he bowed before her as if she had been a queen instead of the child he had been wont in other days to regard her, and speedily left her side.

But he had not taken two steps before he paused.  Mr. Ensign was approaching.

“Mr. Sylvester! you are worse than the old woman of the tale, who declaring she would not, that nothing could ever induce her to ­did.”

“You utter a deeper truth than you realize,” returned that gentleman, with a grave emphasis meant rather for her ears than his.  “It is the curse of mortals to overrate their strength in the face of great temptations.  I am no exception to the rule.”  And with a second bow that included this apparently triumphant lover within its dignified sweep, he calmly proceeded upon his way, and in a few moments had left the house.

Mr. Ensign, who for all his careless disposition, was quick to recognize depths in others, stared after his commanding figure until he had disappeared, then turned and looked at Paula.  Why did his heart sink, and the lights and joy and promise of the evening seem to turn dark and shrivel to nothing before his eyes!

CHAPTER IV - TWO LETTERS.

    “I have no other but a woman’s reason,
    I think him so, because I think him so.”

     ­TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

A woman who has submitted to the undivided attentions of a gentleman for any length of time, feels herself more or less bound to him, whether any special words of devotion have passed between them or not, particularly if from sensitiveness of nature, she has manifested any pleasure in his society.  Paula therefore felt as if her wings had been caught in a snare, when Mr. Ensign upon leaving her that evening, put a small note in her hand, saying that he would do himself the pleasure of calling for his reply the next day.  She did not need to open it.  She knew intuitively the manly honest words with which he would be likely to offer his heart and life for her acceptance; yet she did open it almost as soon as she reached her room, sitting down in her outside wraps for the purpose.  She was not disappointed.  Every line was earnest, ardent, and respectful.  A true love and a happy cheerful home awaited her if ­the stupendous meaning latent in an if!

With folded hands lying across the white page, with glance fixed on the fire always kept burning brightly in the grate, she sat querying her own soul and the awful future.  He was such a charming companion; life had flashed and glimmered with a thousand lights and colors since she knew him; his very laugh made her want to sing.  With him she would move in sunshiny paths, open to the regard of all the world, giving and receiving good.  Life would need no veils and love no check.  A placid stream would bear her on through fields of smiling verdure.  Dread hopes, strange fears, uneasy doubts and vague unrests, would not disturb the heart that rested its faith upon his frank and manly bosom.  A breeze blew through his life that would sweep all such evils from the path of her who walked in trust and love by his side.  In trust and love; ah! that was it.  She trusted him, but did she love him?  At one time she had been convinced that she did, else these past few weeks would have owned a different history.  He came upon her so brightly amid her gloom; filled her days with such genial thoughts, and drew the surface of her soul so unconsciously after him.  It was like a zephyr sweeping over the sea; every billow that leaps to follow seems to own the power of that passing wind.  But could she think so now, since she had found that the mere voice and look of another man had power to awaken depths such as she could not name and scarcely as yet had been able to recognize? that though the billows might flow under the genial smile of her young lover, the tide rose only at the call of a deeper voice and a more imposing presence?

She was a thinking spirit and recoiled from yielding too readily to any passing impulse.  Love was a sacrament in her eyes; something entirely too precious to be accepted in counterfeit.  She must know the secret of her inclinations, must weigh the influence that swayed her, for once given over to earth’s sublimest passion, she felt that it would have power to sweep her on to an eternity of bliss or suffering.

She therefore forced herself to probe deep into the past, and pitilessly asked her conscience, what her emotions had been in reference to Mr. Sylvester before she positively knew that love for her as a woman had taken the place of his former fatherly regard.  Her blushing cheek seemed to answer for her.  Right or wrong, her life had never been complete away from his presence.  She was lonesome and unsatisfied.  When Mr. Ensign came she thought her previous unrest was explained, but the letter from Cicely describing Mr. Sylvester as sick and sorrowful, had withdrawn the veil from the delusion, and though it had settled again with Mr. Sylvester’s studied refusal to accept her devotion, was by this evening’s betrayal utterly wrenched away and trampled into oblivion.  By every wild throb of her heart at the sound of his voice in her ear, by every out-reaching of her soul to enter into his every mood, by the deep sensation of rest she felt in his presence, and the uneasy longing that absorbed her in his absence, she knew that she loved Mr. Sylvester as she never could his younger, blither, and perhaps nobler rival.  Each word spoken by him lay treasured in her heart of hearts.  When she thought of manly beauty, his face and figure started upon her from the surrounding shadows, making all romance possible and poetry the truest expression of the human soul.  While she lived, he must ever seem the man of men to charm the eye, affect the heart, and move the soul.  Yet she hesitated.  Why?

There is nothing so hard to acknowledge to ourselves as the presence of a blemish in the character of those we love and long to revere.  It was like giving herself to the rack to drag from its hiding-place and confront in all its hideous deformity, the doubt which, unconfessed perhaps, had of late mingled with her great reverence and admiring affection for this not easily to be comprehended man.  But in this momentous hour she had power to do it.  Conscience and self-respect demanded that the image before which she was ready to bow with such abandon, should be worthy her worship.  She was not one who could carry offerings to a clouded shrine.  She must see the glory shining from between the cherubim.  “I must worship with my spirit as well as with my body, and how can I do that if there is a spot on his manhood, or a false note in his heart.  If I did but know the secret of his past; why the prisoner sits in the dungeon!  He is gentle, he is kindly, he loves goodness and strives to lead me in the paths of purity and wisdom, and yet something that is not good or pure clings to him, which he has never been able to shake loose.  I perceive it in his melancholy glance; I catch its accents in his uneven tones; it rises upon me from his most thoughtful words, and makes his taking of a vow fearfully and warningly significant.  Yet how much he is honored by his fellow-men, and with what reliance they look up to him for guidance and support.  If I only knew the secrets of his heart!” thought she.

It was a trembling scale that hung balancing in that young girl’s hand that night.  On one side, frankness, cheerfulness, manly worth, honest devotion, and a home with every adjunct of peace and prosperity; on the other, love, gratitude, longing, admiration, and a dark shadow enveloping all, called doubt.  The scale would not adjust itself.  It tore her heart to turn from Mr. Sylvester, it troubled her conscience to dismiss the thought of Mr. Ensign.  The question was yet undecided when she rose and began putting away her ornaments for the night.

What was there on her dressing-table that made her pause with such a start, and cast that look of half beseeching inquiry at her own image in the glass?  Only another envelope with her name written upon it.  But the way in which she took it in her hand, and the half guilty air with which she stole back with it to the fire, would have satisfied any looker-on I imagine, that conscience or no conscience, debate or no debate, the writer of these lines had gained a hold upon her heart, which no other could dispute.

It was a compactly written note and ran thus: 

“A man is not always responsible for what he does in moments of great suspense or agitation.  But if, upon reflection, he finds that he has spoken harshly or acted unwisely, it is his duty to remedy his fault; and therefore it is that I write you this little note.  Paula, I love you; not as I once did, with a fatherly longing and a protective delight, but passionately, yearningly, and entirely, with the whole force of my somewhat disappointed life; as a man loves for whom the world has dissolved leaving but one creature in it, and that a woman.  I showed you this too plainly to-night.  I have no right to startle or intimidate your sweet soul into any relation that might hereafter curb or dissatisfy you; if you can love me freely, with no back-lookings to any younger lover left behind, know that naught you could bestow, can ever equal the world of love and feeling which I long to lavish upon you from my heart of hearts.  But if another has already won upon your affections too much for you to give an undivided response to my appeal, then by all the purity and innocence of your nature, forget I have ever marred the past or disturbed the present by any word warmer than that of a father.

“I shall not meet you at breakfast and possibly not at dinner to-morrow, but when evening comes I shall look for my soul’s dearer and better half, or my childless manhood’s nearest and most cherished friend, as God pleaseth and your own heart and conscience shall decree.

     “EDWARD SYLVESTER.”

Miss Belinda was very much surprised to be awakened early the next morning, by a pair of loving arms clasped yearningly about her neck.

Looking up, she descried Paula kneeling beside her bed in the faint morning light, her cheeks burning, and her eyelids drooping; and guessing perhaps how it was, started up from her recumbent position with an energy strongly suggestive of the charger, that smells the battle afar off.

“What has happened?” she asked.  “You look as if you had not slept a wink.”

For reply Paula pulled aside the curtain at the head of her bed, and slipped into her hand Mr. Ensign’s letter.  Miss Belinda read it conscientiously through, with many grunts of approval, and having finished it, laid it down with a significant nod, after which she turned and surveyed Paula with keen but cautious scrutiny.  “And you don’t know what answer to give,” she asked.

“I should,” said Paula, “if ­Oh aunt, you know what stands in my way!  I have seen it in your eyes for some time.  There is some one else ­”

“But he has not spoken?” vigorously ejaculated her aunt.

Without answering, Paula put into her hand, with a slow reluctance she had not manifested before, a second little note, and then hid her head amid the bedclothes, waiting with quickly beating heart for what her aunt might say.

She did not seem in haste to speak, but when she did, her words came with a quick sigh that echoed very drearily in the young girl’s anxious ears.  “You have been placed by this in a somewhat painful position.  I sympathize with you, my child.  It is very hard to give denial to a benefactor.”

Paula’s head drew nearer to her aunt’s breast, her arms crept round her neck.  “But must I?” she breathed.

Miss Belinda knitted her brows with great force, and stared severely at the wall opposite.  “I am sorry there is any question about it,” she replied.

Paula started up and looked at her with sudden determination.  “Aunt,” said she, “what is your objection to Mr. Sylvester?”

Miss Belinda shook her head, and pushing the girl gently away, hurriedly arose and began dressing with great rapidity.  Not until she was entirely prepared for breakfast did she draw Paula to her, and prepare to answer her question.

“My objection to him is, that I do not thoroughly understand him.  I am afraid of the skeleton in the closet, Paula.  I never feel at ease when I am with him, much as I admire his conversation and appreciate the undoubtedly noble instincts of his heart.  His brow is not open enough to satisfy an eye which has accustomed itself to the study of human nature.”

“He has had many sorrows!” Paula faintly exclaimed, stricken by this echo of her own doubts.

“Yes,” returned her aunt, “and sorrow bows the head and darkens the eye, but it does not make the glance wavering or its expression mysterious.”

“Some sorrows might,” urged Paula tremulously, arguing as much with her own doubts as with those of her aunt.  “His have been of no ordinary nature.  I have never told you, aunt, but there were circumstances attending Cousin Ona’s death that made it especially harrowing.  He had a stormy interview with her the very morning she was killed; words passed between them, and he left her with a look that was almost desperate.  When he next saw her, she lay lifeless and inert before him.  I sometimes think that the shadow that fell upon him at that hour will never pass away.”

“Do you know what was the subject of their disagreement?” asked Miss Belinda anxiously.

“No, but I have reason to believe it had something to do with business affairs, as nothing else could ever arouse Cousin Ona into being at all disagreeable.”

“I don’t like that phrase, business affairs; like charity, it covers entirely too much.  Have you never had any doubts yourself about Mr. Sylvester?”

“Ah, you touch me to the quick, aunt.  I may have had my doubts, but when I look back on the past, I cannot see as they have any very substantial foundation.  Supposing, aunt, that he has been merely unfortunate, and I should live to find that I had discarded one whose heart was darkened by nothing but sorrow?  I should never forgive myself, nor could life yield me any recompense that would make amends for a sacrifice so unnecessary.”

“You love him, then, very dearly, Paula?”

A sudden light fell on the young girl’s face.  “Hearts cannot tell their love,” said she, “but since I received this letter from him, it has seemed as if my life hung balancing on the question, as to whether he is worthy of a woman’s homage.  If he is not, I would give my life to have him so.  The world is only dear to me now as it holds him.”

Miss Belinda picked up Mr. Ensign’s letter with trembling fingers.  “I thought you were safe when the younger man came to woo,” said she.  “Girls, as a rule, prefer what is bright to what is sombre, and Mr. Ensign is truly a very agreeable as well as worthy young man.”

“Yes, aunt, and he came very near stealing my heart as he undoubtedly did my fancy, but a stronger hand snatched it away, and now I do not know what to do or how to act, so as to awaken in the future no remorse or vain regrets.”

Miss Belinda opened the letters again and consulted their contents in a matter-of-fact way.  “Mr. Ensign proposes to come this afternoon for his answer, while Mr. Sylvester defers seeing you till evening.  What if I seek Mr. Sylvester this morning and have a little conversation with him, which shall determine, for once and all, the question which so troubles us?  Would you not find it easier to meet Mr. Ensign when he comes?”

“You talk to Mr. Sylvester, and upon such a topic!  Oh, I could not bear that.  Pardon me, aunt, but I think I am more jealous of his feelings than of my own.  If his secret can be learned in a half-hour’s talk, it must be listened to by no one but myself.  And I believe it can,” she murmured reverently; “he is so tender of me he would never let me go blindfold into any path, concerning which I had once expressed anxiety.  If I ask him whether there is any good reason before God or man why I should not give him my entire faith and homage, he will answer honestly, though it be the destruction of his hopes to do so?”

“Have you such trust as that in his uprightness as a lover, and the guardian of your happiness?”

“Have not you, aunt?”

And Miss Belinda remembering his words on the occasion of his first proposal to adopt Paula, was forced to acknowledge that she had.

So without further preliminaries, it was agreed upon that Paula should refrain from making a final decision until she had eased her heart by an interview with Mr. Sylvester.

“Meantime, you can request Mr. Ensign to wait another day for his answer,” said Miss Belinda.

But Paula with a look of astonishment shook her head.  “Is it you who would counsel me to such a piece of coquetry as that?” said she.  “No, dear aunt, my heart is not with Mr. Ensign, as you know, and it is impossible for me to encourage him.  If Mr. Sylvester should prove unworthy of my affection, I must bear, as best I may, the loss which must accrue; but till he does, let me not dishonor my womanhood by allowing hope to enter, even for a passing moment, the breast of his rival.”

Miss Belinda blushed, and drew her niece fondly towards her.  “You are right,” said she, “and my great desire for your happiness has led me into error.  Honesty is the noblest adjunct of all true love, and must never be sacrificed to considerations of selfish expediency.  The refusal which you contemplate bestowing upon Mr. Ensign, must be forwarded to him at once.”

And with a final embrace, in which Miss Belinda allowed herself to let fall some few natural tears of disappointment, she dismissed the young girl to her task.

CHAPTER V - PAULA MAKES HER CHOICE.

                    “Good fortune then,
    To make me bless’t or cursed’st among men.”

     ­MERCHANT OF VENICE.

It was evening in the Sylvester mansion.  Mr. Sylvester who, according to his understanding with Paula, had been absent from his home all day, had just come in and now stood in his library waiting for the coming footfall that should decide whether the future held for him any promise of joy.

He had never looked more worthy of a woman’s regard than he did that night.  A matter that had been troubling him for some time had just been satisfactorily disposed of, and not a shadow, so far as he knew, lay upon his business outlook.  This naturally brightened his cheek and lent a light to his eye.  Then, hope is no mean beautifier, and this he possessed notwithstanding the disparity of years between himself and Paula.  It was not, however, of sufficiently assured a nature to prevent him from starting at every sound from above, and flushing with quite a disagreeable sense of betrayal when the door opened and Bertram entered the room, instead of the gentle and exquisite being he had expected.

“Uncle, I am so full of happiness, I had to stop and bestow a portion of it upon you.  Do you think any one could mistake the nature of Miss Stuyvesant’s feelings, who saw her last night?”

“Hardly,” was the smiling reply.  “At all events I have not felt like wasting much but pleasant sympathy upon you.  Your pathway to happiness looks secure, my boy.”

His nephew gave him a wistful glance, but hid his thought whatever it was.  “I am going to see her to-night,” remarked he.  “I am afraid my love is something like a torrent that has once burst its barrier; it cannot rest until it has worked its channel and won its rightful repose.”

“That is something the way with all love,” returned his uncle.  “It may be dallied with while asleep, but once aroused, better meet a lion in his fury or a tempest in its rush.  Are you going to test your hope, to-night?”

The young man flushed.  “I cannot say.”  But in another moment gayly added, “I only know that I am prepared for any emergency.”

“Well, my boy, I wish you God-speed.  If ever a man has won a right to happiness, you are that man; and you shall enjoy it too, if any word or action of mine can serve to advance it.”

“Thank you!” replied Bertram, and with a bright look around the apartment, prepared to take his leave.  “When I come back,” he remarked, with a touch of that manly naïveté to which I have before alluded, “I hope I shall not find you alone.”

Ignoring this wish which was re-echoed somewhat too deeply within his own breast for light expression, Mr. Sylvester accompanied his nephew to the front door.

“Let us see what kind of a night it is,” observed he, stepping out upon the stoop.  “It is going to rain.”

“So it is,” returned Bertram, with a quick glance overhead; “but I shall not let such a little fuss as that deter me from fulfilling my engagement.”  And bestowing a hasty nod upon his uncle, he bounded down the step.

Instantly a man who was loitering along the walk in front of the house, stopped, as if struck by these simple words, turned, gave Bertram a quick look, and then with a sly glance back at the open door where Mr. Sylvester still stood gazing at the lowering heavens, set himself cautiously to follow him.

Mr. Sylvester, who was too much pre-occupied to observe this suspicious action, remained for a moment contemplating the sky; then with an aimless glance down the avenue, during which his eye undoubtedly fell upon Bertram and the creeping shadow of a man behind him, closed the door and returned to the library.

The sight of another’s joy has the tendency to either unduly depress the spirits or greatly to elate them.  When Paula came into the room a few minutes later, it was to find Mr. Sylvester awaiting her with an expression that was almost radiant.  It made her duty seem doubly hard, and she came forward with the slow step of one who goes to meet or carry doom.  He saw, and instantly the light died out of his face, leaving it one blank of despair.  But controlling himself, he took her cold hand in his, and looking down upon her with a tender but veiled regard, asked in those low and tremulous tones that exerted such an influence upon her: 

“Do I see before me my affectionate and much to be cherished child, or that still dearer object of love and worship, which it shall be the delight of my life to render truly and deeply happy?”

“You see,” returned she, after a moment of silent emotion, “a girl without father or brother to advise her; who loves, or believes she does, a great and noble man, but who is smitten with fear also, she cannot tell why, and trembles to take a step to which no loving and devoted friend has set the seal of his approval.”

The clasp with which Mr. Sylvester held her hand in his, tightened for an instant with irrepressible emotion, then slowly unloosed.  Drawing back, he surveyed her with eyes that slowly filled with a bitter comprehension of her meaning.

“You are the only man,” continued she, with a glance of humble entreaty, “that has ever stood to me for a moment in the light of a relation.  You have been a father to me in days gone by, and to you it therefore seems most natural for me to appeal when a question comes up that either puzzles or distresses me.  Mr. Sylvester, you have offered me your love and the refuge of your home; if you say that in your judgment the counsel of all true friends would be for me to accept this love, then my hand is yours and with it my heart; a heart that only hesitates because it would fain be sure it has the smile of heaven upon its every prompting.”

“Paula!”

The voice was so strange she looked up to see if it really was Mr. Sylvester who spoke.  He had sunk back into a chair and had covered his face with his hands.  With a cry she moved towards him, but he motioned her back.

“Condemned to be my own executioner!” he muttered.  “Placed on the rack and bid to turn the wheel that shall wrench my own sinews!  My God, ’tis hard!”

She did not hear the words, but she saw the action.  Slowly the blood left her cheek, and her hand fell upon her swelling breast with a despairing gesture that would have smitten Miss Belinda to the heart, could she have seen it.  “I have asked too much,” she whispered.

With a start Mr. Sylvester rose.  “Paula,” said he, in a stern and different tone, “is this fear of which you speak, the offspring of your own instincts, or has it been engendered in your breast by the words of another?”

“My Aunt Belinda is in my confidence, if it is she to whom you allude,” rejoined she, meeting his glance fully and bravely.  “But from no lips but yours could any words proceed capable of affecting my estimate of you as the one best qualified to make me happy.”

“Then it is my words alone that have awakened this doubt, this apprehension?”

“I have not spoken of doubt,” said she, but her eyelids fell.

“No, thank God!” he passionately exclaimed.  “And yet you feel it,” he went on more composedly.  “I have studied your face too long and closely not to understand it.”

She put out her hands in appeal, but for once it passed unheeded.

“Paula,” said he, “you must tell me just what that doubt is; I must know what is passing in your mind.  You say you love me ­” he paused, and a tremble shook him from head to foot, but he went inexorably on ­“it is more than I had a right to expect, and God knows I am grateful for the precious and inestimable boon, far as it is above my deserts; but while loving me, you hesitate to give me your hand.  Why?  What is the name of the doubt that disturbs that pure breast and affects your choice?  Tell me, I must know.”

“You ask me to dissect my own heart!” she cried, quivering under the torture of his glance; “how can I?  What do I know of its secret springs or the terrors that disturb its even beatings?  I cannot name my fear; it has no name, or if it has ­Oh, sir!” she cried in a burst of passionate longing, “your life has been one of sorrow and disappointment; grief has touched you close, and you might well be the melancholy and sombre man that all behold.  I do not shrink from grief; say that the only shadow that lies across your dungeon-door is that cast by the great and heart-rending sorrows of your life, and without question and without fear I enter that dungeon with you ­”

The hand he raised stopped her.  “Paula,” cried he, “do you believe in repentance?”

The words struck her like a blow.  Falling slowly back, she looked at him for an instant, then her head sank on her breast.

“I know what your hatred of sin is,” continued he.  “I have seen your whole form tremble at the thought of evil.  Is your belief in the redeeming power of God as great as your recoil from the wrong that makes that redemption necessary?”

Quickly her head raised, a light fell on her brow, and her lips moved in a vain effort to utter what her eyes unconsciously expressed.

“Paula, I would be unworthy the name of a man, if with the consciousness of possessing a dark and evil nature, I strove by use of any hypocrisy or specious pretense at goodness, to lure to my side one so exceptionally pure, beautiful and high-minded.  The ravening wolf and the innocent lamb would be nothing to it.  Neither would I for an instant be esteemed worthy of your regard, if in this hour of my wooing there remained in my life the shadow of any latent wrong that might hereafter rise up and overwhelm you.  Whatever of wrong has ever been committed by me ­and it is my punishment that I must acknowledge before your pure eyes that my soul is not spotless ­was done in the past, and is known only to my own heart and the God who I reverently trust has long ago pardoned me.  The shadow is that of remorse, not of fear, and the evil, one against my own soul, rather than against the life or fortunes of other men.  Paula, such sins can be forgiven if one has a mind to comprehend the temptations that beset men in their early struggles.  I have never forgiven myself, but ­” He paused, looked at her for an instant, his hand clenched over his heart, his whole noble form shaken by struggle, then said ­“forgiveness implies no promise, Paula; you shall never link yourself to a man who has been obliged to bow his head in shame before you, but by the mercy that informs that dear glance and trembling lip, do you think you can ever grow to forgive me?”

“Oh,” she cried, with a burst of sobs, violent as her grief and shame, “God be merciful to me, as I am merciful to those who repent of their sins and do good and not evil all the remaining days of their life.”

“I thought you would forgive me,” murmured he, looking down upon her, as the miser eyes the gold that has slipped from his paralyzed hand.  “Him whom the hard-hearted sinner and the hypocrite despise, God’s dearest lambs regard with mercy.  I learned to revere God before I knew you, Paula, but I learned to love Him in the light of your gentleness and your trust.  Rise up now and let me wipe away your tears ­my daughter.”

She sprang up as if stung.  “No, no,” she cried, “not that; I cannot bear that yet.  I must think, I must know what all this means,” and she laid her hand upon her heart.  “God surely does not give so much love for one’s undoing; if I were not destined to comfort a life so saddened, He would have bequeathed me more pity and less ­” The lifted head fell, the word she would have uttered, stirred her bosom, but not her lips.

It was a trial to his strength, but his firm man’s heart did not waver.  “You do comfort me,” said he; “from early morning to late night your presence is my healing and my help, and will always be so, whatever may befal.  A daughter can do much, my Paula.”

She took a step back towards the door, her eyes, dark with unfathomable impulses, flashing on him through the tears that hung thickly on her lashes.

“Is it for your own sake or for mine, that you make use of that word?” said she.

He summoned up his courage, met that searching glance with all its wild, bewildering beauty, and responded, “Can you ask, Paula?”

With a lift of her head that gave an almost queenly stateliness to her form, she advanced a step, and drawing a crumpled paper from her pocket, said, “When I went to my room last night, it was to read two letters, one from yourself, and one from Mr. Ensign.  This is his, and a manly and noble letter it is too; but hearts have right to hearts, and I was obliged to refuse his petition.”  And with a reverent but inexorable hand, she dropped the letter on the burning coals of the grate at their side, and softly turned to leave the room.

“Paula!” With a bound the stern and hitherto forcibly repressed man, leaped to her side.  “My darling! my life!” and with a wild, uncontrollable impulse, he caught her for one breathless moment to his heart; then as suddenly released her, and laying his hand in reverence on her brow, said softly, “Now go and pray, little one; and when you are quite calm, an hour hence or a week hence whichever it may be, come and tell me my fate as God and the angels reveal it to you.”  And he smiled, and she saw his smile, and went out of the room softly, as one who treadeth upon holy ground.

Mr. Sylvester was considered by his friends and admirers as a proud man.  If a vote had been cast among those who knew him best, as from what especial passion common to humanity he would soonest recoil, it would have been unanimously pronounced shame, and his own hand would have emphasized the judgment of his fellows.  But shame which is open to the gaze of the whole world, differs from that which is sacred to the eyes of one human being, and that the one who lies nearest the heart.

As Paula’s retreating footsteps died away on the stairs, and he awoke to the full consciousness that his secret was shared by her whose love was his life, and whose good opinion had been his incentive and his pride, his first sensation was one of unmitigated anguish, but his next, strange to say, that of a restful relief.  He had cast aside the cloak he had hugged so closely to his breast these many years, and displayed to her shrinking gaze the fox that was gnawing at his vitals; and Spartan though he was, the dew that had filled her loving eyes was balm to him.  And not only that; he had won claim to the title of true man.  Her regard, if regard it remained, was no longer an airy fabric built upon a plausible seeming, but a firm structure with knowledge for its foundation.  “I shall not live to whisper, ’If she knew my whole life, would she love me so well?’”

His first marriage had been so wholly uncongenial and devoid of sympathy, that his greatest longing in connection with a fresh contract, was to enjoy the full happiness of perfect union and mutual trust; and though he could never have summoned up courage to take her into his confidence, unsolicited, now that it had been done he would not have it undone, no, not if by the doing he had lost her confidence and affection.

But something told him he had not lost it.  That out of the darkness and the shock of this very discovery, a new and deeper love would spring, which having its birth in human frailty and human repentance, would gain in the actual what it lost in the ideal, bringing to his weary, suffering and yearning man’s nature, the honest help of a strong and loving sympathy, growing trust, and sweetest because wisest encouragement.

It was therefore, with a growing sense of deep unfathomable comfort, and a reverent thankfulness for the mercies of God, that he sat by the fire idly watching the rise and fall of the golden flames above the fluttering ashes of his rival’s letter, and dreaming with a hallowing sense of his unworthiness, upon the possible bliss of coming days.  Happiness in its truest and most serene sense was so new to him, it affected him like the presence of something strangely commanding.  He was awe-struck before it, and unconsciously bowed his head at its contemplation.  Only his eyes betrayed the peace that comes with all great joy, his eyes and perhaps the faint, almost unearthly smile that flitted across his mouth, disturbing its firm line and making his face for all its inevitable expression of melancholy, one that his mother would have loved to look upon.  “Paula!” came now and then in a reverent, yearning accent from between his lips, and once a low, “Thank God!” which showed that he was praying.

Suddenly he rose; a more human mood had set in, and he felt the necessity of assuring himself that it was really he upon whom the dreary past had closed, and a future of such possible brightness opened.  He walked about the room, surveying the rich articles within it, as the possible belongings of the beautiful woman he adored; he stood and pictured her as coming into the door as his wife, and before he realized what he was doing, had planned certain changes he would make in his home to adapt it to the wants of her young and growing mind, when with a strange suddenness, the door upon which he was gazing flew back, and Bertram Sylvester entered just as he had come from the street.  He looked so haggard, so wild, so little the picture of himself as he ventured forth a couple of hours before, that Mr. Sylvester started, and forgetting his happiness in his alarm, asked in a tone of dismay: 

“What has happened?  Has Miss Stuyvesant ­”

Bertram’s hand went up as if his uncle had touched him upon a festering wound.  “Don’t!” gasped he, and advancing to the table, sat down and buried his face for a moment in his arms, then rose, and summoning up a certain manly dignity that became him well, met Mr. Sylvester’s eye with forced calmness, and inquired: 

“Did you know there was a thief in our bank, Uncle Edward?”

CHAPTER VI - THE FALLING OF THE SWORD.

                      “Foul deeds will rise,
    Though all the world o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.” ­HAMLET.

Mr. Sylvester towered on his nephew with an expression such as few men had ever seen even on his powerful and commanding face.

“What do you mean?” asked he, and his voice rang like a clarion through the room.

Bertram trembled and for a moment stood aghast, the ready flush bathing his brow with burning crimson.  “I mean,” stammered he, with difficulty recovering himself, “that when Mr. Stuyvesant came to open his private box in the bank to-day, that he not only found its lock had been tampered with, but that money and valuables to the amount of some twelve hundred dollars were missing from among its contents.”

“What?”

The expression which had made Mr. Sylvester’s brow so terrible had vanished, but his wonder remained.

“It is impossible,” he declared.  “Our vaults are too well watched for any such thing to occur.  He has made some mistake; a robbery of that nature could not take place without detection.”

“It would seem not, and yet the fact remains.  Mr. Stuyvesant himself informed me of it, to-night.  He is not a careless man, nor reckless in his statements.  Some one has robbed the bank and it remains with us to find out who.”

Mr. Sylvester, who had been standing all this while, sat down like a man dazed, the wild lost look on Bertram’s face daunting him with a fearful premonition.  “There are but four men who have access to the vault where the boxes are kept,” said he:  then quickly, “Why did Mr. Stuyvesant wait till to-night to speak to you?  Why did he not notify us at once of a loss so important for us to know?”

The flush on Bertram’s brow slowly subsided, giving way to a steady pallor.  “He waited to be sure,” said he.  “He had a memorandum at home which he desired to consult; he was not ready to make any rash statement:  he is a thinking man and more considerate than many of his friends are apt to imagine.  If the lock had not been found open he would have thought with you that he had made some mistake; if he had not missed from the box some of its contents, he would have considered the condition of the lock the result of some oversight on his own part or of some mistake on the part of another, but the two facts together were damning and could force upon him but one conclusion.  Uncle,” said he, with a straightforward look into Mr. Sylvester’s countenance, “Mr. Stuyvesant knows as well as we do who are the men who have access to the vaults.  As you say, the opening of a box during business hours and the abstracting from it of papers or valuables by any one who has not such access, would be impossible.  Only Hopgood, you and myself, and possibly Folger, could find either time or opportunity for such a piece of work; while after business hours, the same four, minus Folger who contents himself with knowing the combination of the inner safe, could open the vaults even in case of an emergency.  Now of the four named, two are above suspicion.  I might almost say three, for Hopgood is not a man it is easy to mistrust.  One alone, then, of all the men whom Mr. Stuyvesant is in the habit of meeting at the Bank, is open to a doubt.  A young man, uncle, whose rising has been rapid, whose hopes have been lofty, whose life may or may not be known to himself as pure, but which in the eyes of a matured man of the world might easily be questioned, just because its hopes are so lofty and its means for attaining them so limited.”

“Bertram!” sprang from Mr. Sylvester’s white lips.

But the young man raised his hand with almost a commanding gesture.  “Hush,” said he, “no sympathy or surprise.  Facts like these have to be met with silent endurance, as we walk up to the mouth of the cannon we cannot evade, or bare our breast to the thrust of the bayonet gleaming before our eyes. ­I would not have you think,” he somewhat hurriedly pursued, “that Mr. Stuyvesant insinuated anything of the kind, but his daughter was not present in the parlor, and ­” A sigh, almost a gasp finished the sentence.

“Bertram!” again exclaimed his uncle, this time with some authority in his voice.  “The shock of this discovery has unnerved you.  You act like a man capable of being suspected.  That is simply preposterous.  One half hour’s conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant on my part will convince him, if he needs convincing, which I do not believe, that whoever is unworthy of trust in our bank, you are not the man.”

Bertram raised his head with a gleam of hope, but instantly dropped it again with a despairing gesture that made his uncle frown.

“I did not know that you were inclined to be so pusillanimous,” cried Mr. Sylvester; “and in presence of a foe so unsubstantial as this you have conjured up almost out of nothing.  If the bank has been robbed, it cannot be difficult to find the thief.  I will order in detectives to-morrow.  We will hold a board of inquiry, and the culprit shall be unmasked; that is, if he is one of the employees of the bank, which it is very hard to believe.”

“Very, and which, if true, would make it unadvisable in us to give the alarm that any public measures taken could not fail to do.”

“The inquiry shall be private, and the detectives, men who can be trusted to keep their business secret.”

“How can any inquiry be private?  Uncle, we are treading on delicate ground, and have a task before us requiring great tact and discretion.  If the safe had only been assaulted, or there were any evidences of burglary to be seen!  But we surely should have heard of it from some one of the men, if anything unusual had been observed.  Hopgood would have spoken at least.”

“Yes, Hopgood would have spoken.”

The tone in which this was uttered made Bertram look up.  “You agree with me, then, that Hopgood is absolutely to be relied upon?”

“Absolutely.”  A faint flush on Mr. Sylvester’s face lent force to this statement.

“He could not be beguiled or forced by another man to reveal the combination, or to relax his watch over the vaults entrusted to his keeping?”

“No.”

“He is alone with the vaults where the boxes are kept for an hour or two in the early morning!”

“Yes, and has been for three years.  Hopgood is honesty itself.”

“And so are Folger and Jessup and Watson,” exclaimed Bertram emphatically.

“Yes,” his uncle admitted, with equal emphasis.

“It is a mystery,” Bertram declared; “and one I fear that will undo me.”

“Nonsense!” broke forth somewhat impatiently from Mr. Sylvester’s lips; “there is no reason at this time for any such conclusion.  If there is a thief in the bank he can be found; if the robbery was committed by an outsider, he may still be discovered.  If he is not, if the mystery rests forever unexplained, you have your character, Bertram, a character as spotless as that of any of your fellows, whom we regard as above suspicion.  A man is not going to be condemned by such a judge of human nature as Mr. Stuyvesant, just because a mysterious crime has been committed, to which the circumstances of his position alone render it possible for him to be party.  You might as well say that Jessup and Folger and Watson ­yes, or myself, would in that case lose his confidence.  They are in the bank, and are constantly in the habit of going to the vaults.”

“None of those gentlemen want to marry his daughter,” murmured Bertram.  “It is not the director I fear, but the father.  I have so little to bring her.  Only my character and my devotion.”

“Well, well, pluck up courage, my boy.  I have hopes yet that the whole matter can be referred to some mistake easily explainable when once it is discovered.  Mistakes, even amongst the honest and the judicious, are not so uncommon as one is apt to imagine.  I, myself, have known of one which if providence had not interfered, might have led to doubts seemingly as inconsistent as yours.  To-morrow we will consider the question at length.  To-night ­Well, Bertram, what is it?”

The young man started and dropped his eyes, which during the last words of his uncle had been fixed upon his face with strange and penetrating inquiry.  “Nothing,” said he, “that is, nothing more;” and rose as if to leave.

But Mr. Sylvester put out his hand and stopped him.  “There is something,” said he.  “I have seen it in your face ever since you entered this room.  What is it?”

The young man drew a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.  Mr. Sylvester watched him with growing pallor.  “You are right,” murmured his nephew at last; “there is something more, and it is only justice that you should hear it.  I have had two adventures to-night; one quite apart from my conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant.  Heaven that watches above us, has seen fit to accumulate difficulties in my path, and this last, perhaps, is the least explainable and the hardest to encounter.”

“What do you allude to?” cried his uncle, imperatively; “I have had an evening of too much agitation to endure suspense with equanimity.  Explain yourself.”

“It will not take long,” said the other; “a few words will reveal to you the position in which I stand.  Let me relate it in the form of a narrative.  You know what a dark portion of the block that is in which Mr. Stuyvesant’s house is situated.  A man might hide in any of the areas along there, without being observed by you unless he made some sound to attract your attention.  I was, therefore, more alarmed than surprised when, shortly after leaving Mr. Stuyvesant’s dwelling, I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and turning, beheld a dark figure at my side, of an appearance calculated to arouse any man’s apprehension.  He was tall, unkempt, with profuse beard, and eyes that glared even in the darkness of his surroundings, with a feverish intensity.  ‘You are Mr. Sylvester,’ said he, with a look of a wild animal ready to pounce upon his prey.  ‘Yes,’ said I, involuntarily stepping back, ‘I am Mr. Sylvester.’  ’I want to speak to you,’ exclaimed he, with a rush of words as though a stream had broken loose; ’now, at once, on business that concerns you.  Will you listen?’

“I thought of the only business that seemed to concern me then, and starting still farther back, surveyed him with surprise.  ’I don’t know you,’ said I; ‘what business can you have with me?’ ’Will you step into some place where it is warm and find out?’ he asked, shivering in his thin cloak, but not abating a jot of his eagerness.  ‘Go on before me,’ said I, ‘and we will see.’  He complied at once, and in this way we reached Beale’s Coffee-Room, where we went in.  ‘Now,’ said I, ’out with what you have to say and be quick about it.  I have no time to listen to nonsense and no heart to attend to it.’  His eye brightened; he did not cast a glance at the smoking victuals about him, though I knew he was hungry as a dog.  ‘It is no nonsense,’ said he, ’that I have to communicate to you.’  And then I saw he had once been a gentleman.  ’For two years and a half have I been searching for you,’ he went on, ’in order that I might recall to your mind a little incident.  You remember the afternoon of February, the twenty-fifth, two years ago?’

“‘No,’ said I, in great surprise, for his whole countenance was flushed with expectancy.  ’What was there about that day that I should remember it?’ He smiled and bent his face nearer to mine.  ’Don’t you recollect a little conversation you had in a small eating-house in Dey Street, with a gentleman of a high-sounding voice to whom you were obliged continually to say ‘hush!’” I stared at the man, as you may believe, with some notion of his being a wandering lunatic.  ’I have never taken a meal in any eating-house in Dey Street,’ I declared, motioning to a waiter to approach us.  The man observing it, turned swiftly upon me.  ’Do you think I care for any such petty fuss as that?’ asked he, indicating the rather slightly built man I had called to my rescue, while he covertly studied my face to observe the effect of his words.

“I started.  I could not help it; this use of an expression almost peculiar to myself, assured me that the man knew me better than I supposed.  Involuntarily I waved the waiter back and turned upon the man with an inquiring look.

“‘I thought you might consider it worth your while to listen,’ said he, smiling with the air of one who has or thinks he has a grip upon you.  Then suddenly, ’You are a rich man, are you not? a proud man and an honored one.  You hold a position of trust and are considered worthy of it; how would you like men to know that you once committed a mean and dirty trick; that those white hands that have the handling of such large funds at present, have in days gone by been known to dip into such funds a little too deeply; that, in short, you, Bertram Sylvester, cashier of the Madison Bank, and looking forward to no one knows what future honors and emoluments, have been in a position better suited to a felon’s cell than the trusted agent of a great and wealthy corporation?’

“I did not collar him; I was too dumb-stricken for any such display of indignation.  I simply stared, feeling somewhat alarmed as I remembered my late interview with Mr. Stuyvesant, and considered the possibility of a plot being formed against me.  He smiled again at the effect he had produced, and drew me into a corner of the room where we sat down.  ’I am going to tell you a story,’ said he, ’just to show you what a good memory I have.  One day, a year and more ago, I sauntered into an eating-house on Dey Street.  I have not always been what you see me now, though to tell you the truth, I was but little better off at the time of which I speak, except that I did have a dime or so in my pocket, and could buy a meal of victuals ­if I wished.’  And his eyes roamed for the first time to the tables stretching out before him down the room.  ’The proprietor was an acquaintance of mine, and finding I was sleepy as well as hungry, let me go into a certain dark pantry, where I curled up amid all sorts of old rubbish and went to sleep.  I was awakened by the sound of voices talking very earnestly.  The closet in which I was hidden was a temporary affair built up of loose boards, and the talk of a couple of men seated against it was easy enough to be heard.  Do you want to know what that conversation was?’

“My curiosity was roused by this time and I said yes.  If this was a plot to extort money from me, it was undeniably better for me to know upon just what foundations it rested.  I thought the man looked surprised, but with an aplomb difficult to believe assumed, he went on to say, ’The voices gave me my only means of judging of the age, character, or position of the men conversing, but I have a quick ear, and my memory is never at fault.  From the slow, broken, nervously anxious tone of one of the men, I made up my mind that he was elderly, hard up, and not over scrupulous; the other voice was that of a gentleman, musical and yet pronounced, and not easily forgotten, as you see, sir.  The first words I heard aroused me and convinced me it was worth while to listen.  They were uttered by the gentleman.  ’You come to me with such a dirty piece of business!  What right have you to suppose I would hearken to you for an instant!’ ‘The right,’ returned the other, ’of knowing you have not been above doing dirty work in your life time.’  The partition creaked at that, as though one of the two had started forward, but I didn’t hear any reply made to this strange accusation.  ‘Do you think,’ the same voice went on, ’that I do not know where the five thousand dollars came from which you gave me for that first speculation?  I knew it when I took it, and if I hadn’t been sure the operation would turn out fortunately, you would never have been the man you are to-day.  It came out of funds entrusted to you, and was not the gift of a relative as you would have made me believe.’  ‘Good heaven!’ exclaimed the other, after a silence that was very expressive just then and there, ‘and you let me ­’ ’Oh we won’t go into that,’ interrupted the less cultivated voice.  ’All you wanted was a start, to make you the successful man you have since become.  I never worried much about morals, and I don’t worry about them now, only when you say you won’t do a thing likely to make my fortune, just because it is not entirely free from reproach, I say, remember what I know about you, and don’t talk virtue to me.’

“‘I am rightly punished,’ came from the other, in a tone that proved him to be a man more ready to do a wrong thing than to face the accusation of it.  ’If I ever did what you suppose, the repentance that has embittered all my success, and the position in which you have this day placed me, is surely an ample atonement.’  ‘Will you do what I request?’ inquired the other, giving little heed to this expression of misery, of which I on the contrary took special heed.  ‘No,’ was the energetic reply; ’because I am not spotless it is no sign that I will wade into filth.  I will give you money as I have done scores of times before, but I will lend my hand to no scheme which is likely to throw discredit on me or mine.  Were you not connected to me in the way in which you are ­’ ‘You would pursue the scheme,’ interrupted the other; ’it is because you know that I cannot talk, that you dare repudiate it.  Well I will go to one ­’ ‘You shall not,’ came in short quick tones, just such tones as you used to me, sir, when we first entered this room.  ’You shall leave the country before you do anything more, or say anything more, to compromise me or yourself.  I may have done wrong in my day, but that is no reason why I should suffer for it at your hands, tempter of youth, and deceiver of your own flesh and blood! You shall never bring back those days to me again; they are buried, and have been stamped out of sight by many an honest dealing since, and many as I trust before God, good and sterling action.  I have long since begun a new life; a life of honor, and pure, if successful, dealing.  Not only my own happiness, but that of one who should be considered by you, depends upon my maintaining that life to the end, unshadowed by unholy remembrances, and unharrassed by any such proffers as you have presumed to make to me here to-day.  If you want a few thousand dollars to leave the country, say so, but never again presume to offend my ears, or those of any one else we may know, with any such words as you have made use of to-day.’  And the spiritless creature subsided, sir, and said no more to that rich, honored, and successful man who was so sensitive to even the imputation of guilt.

“But I am not spiritless and just where he dropped the affair, I took it up.  ‘Here is a chance for me to turn an honest penny,’ thought I, and with a deliberation little to be expected of me, perhaps, set myself to spot that man and make the most out of the matter I could.  Unfortunately I lost the opportunity of seeing his face.  I was too anxious to catch every word they uttered, to quit my place of concealment till their conversation was concluded, and then I was too late to be sure which of the many men leaving the building before me was the one I was after.  The waiters were too busy to talk, and the proprietor himself had taken no notice.  Happily as I have before said, I never forget voices; moreover one of the two speakers had made use of a phrase peculiar enough to serve as a clue to his identity.  It was in answer to some parting threat of the older man, and will remind you of an expression uttered by yourself an hour or so ago.  ’Do you suppose I will let such a little fuss as that deter me?’ It was the cue to his speech, by which I intended to hunt out my man from amongst the rich, the trusted and the influential persons of this city, and when found, to hold him.’

“‘And you think you have done this?’ said I, too conscious of the possible net about my feet to be simply angry.  ‘I know it,’ said he; ’every word you have uttered since we have been here has made me more and more certain of the fact.  I could swear to your voice, and as to your use of that tell-tale word, it was not till I thought to inquire of a certain wide-awake fellow down town, who amongst our business men were in the habit of using that expression, and was told Mr. Sylvester of the Madison Bank, that I was enabled to track you.  I know I have got my hand on my man at last and ­’ He looked down at his thread-bare coat and around at the tables with their smoking dishes, and left me to draw my own conclusion.

“Uncle, there are crises in life which no former experience teaches you how to meet.  I had arrived at such a one.  Perhaps you can understand me when I say I was well nigh appalled.  Denial of what was imputed to me might be wisdom and might not.  I felt the coil of a deadly serpent about me, and knew not whether it was best to struggle or to simply submit.  The man noted the effect he had made and complacently folded his arms.  He was of a nervous organization and possessed an eye like a hungry wolf, but he could wait.  ‘This is a pretty story,’ said I at last, and I reject it altogether.  ’I am an honest man and have always been so; you will have to give up your hopes of making anything out of me.’  ’Then you are willing,’ said he, ’that I should repeat this story to one of the directors of your bank, whom I know?’

“I looked at him; he returned my gaze with a cold nonchalence more suggestive of a deep laid purpose, than even his previous glance of feverish determination.  I immediately let my eye run over his scanty clothing and loose flowing hair and beard.  ‘Yes,’ said I, with as much sarcasm as I knew how to assume, ’if you dare risk the consequences, I think I may.’  He at once drew himself up.  ‘You think,’ said he, ’that you have a common-place adventurer to deal with; that my appearance is going to testify in your favor; that you have but to deny any accusation which such a hungry-looking, tattered wretch as I, may make, and that I shall be ignominiously kicked out of the presence into which I have forced myself; that in short I have been building my castle in the air.  Mr. Sylvester, I am a poor devil but I am no fool.  When I left Dey Street on the twenty-fifth of February two years ago, it was with a sealed paper in my pocket, in which was inscribed all that I had heard on that day.  This I took to a lawyer’s office, and not being, as I have before said, quite as impecunious in those days as at present, succeeded in getting the lawyer, whom I took care should be a most respectable man, to draw up a paper to the effect that I had entrusted him with this statement ­of whose contents he however knew nothing ­on such a day and hour, to which paper a gentleman then present, consented at my respectful solicitation to affix his name as witness, which gentleman, strange to say, has since proved to be a director of the bank of which you are the present cashier, and consequently the very man of all others best adapted to open the paper whose seal you profess to be so willing to see broken.’

“‘His name!’ It was all that I could say.  ‘Stuyvesant,’ cried the man, fixing me with his eye in which I in vain sought for some signs of secret doubt or unconscious wavering.  I rose; the position in which I found myself was too overwhelming for instant decision.  I needed time for reflection, possibly advice ­from you.  A resolution to brave the devil must be founded on something more solid than impulse, to hold its own unmoved.  I only stopped to utter one final word and ask one leading question.  ‘You are a smart man,’ said I, ’and you are also a villain.  Your smartness would give you food and drink, if you exercised it in a manner worthy of a man, but your villainy if persisted in, will eventually rob you of both, and bring you to the prison’s cell or the hangman’s gallows.  As for myself, I persist in saying that I am now and always have been an honest man, whatever you may have overheard or find yourself capable of swearing to.  Yet a lie is an inconvenient thing to have uttered against you at any time, and I may want to see you again; if I do, where shall I find you?’ He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a small slip of folded paper, which he passed to me with a bow that Chesterfield would have admired.  ‘You will find it written within,’ said he ’I shall look for you any time to-morrow, up to seven o’clock.  At that hour the lawyer of whom I have spoken, sends the statement which he has in his possession to Mr. Stuyvesant.’  I nodded my assent, and he moved slowly towards the door.  As he did so, his eyes fell upon a roll of bread lying on a counter.  I at once stepped forward and bought it.  Vile as he was, and deadly as was the snare he contemplated drawing about me, I could not see that wolfish look of hunger, and not offer him something to ease it.  He took the loaf from my hands and bit greedily into it but suddenly paused, and shook his head with a look like self-reproach, and thrusting the loaf under his arm, turned towards the door with the quick action of one escaping.  Instantly, and before he was out of sight or hearing, I drew the attention of the proprietor to him.  ‘Do you see that man?’ I asked.  ’He has been attempting a system of blackmail upon me.’  And satisfied with thus having provided a witness able of identifying the man, in case of an emergency, I left the building.

“And now you know it all,” concluded he; and the silence that followed the utterance of those simple words, was a silence that could be felt.

“Bertram?”

The young man started from his fixed position, and his eyes slowly traversed toward his uncle.

“Have you that slip of paper which the man gave you before departing?”

“Yes,” said he.

“Let me have it, if you please.”

The young man with an agitated look, plunged his hand into his pocket, drew out the small note and laid it on the table between them.  Mr. Sylvester let it lie, and again there was a silence.

“If this had happened at any other time,” Bertram pursued, “one could afford to let the man have his say; but now, just as this other mystery has come up ­”

“I don’t believe in submitting to blackmail,” came from his uncle in short, quick tones.

Bertram gave a start.  “You then advise me to leave him alone?” asked he, with unmistakable emotion.

His uncle dropped the hand which till now he had held before his face, and hastily confronted his nephew.  “You will have enough to do to attend to the other matter without bestowing any time or attention upon this.  The man that robbed Mr. Stuyvesant’s box, can be found and must.  It is the one indispensable business to which I now delegate you.  No amount of money and no amount of diligence is to be spared.  I rely on you to carry the affair to a successful termination.  Will you undertake the task?”

“Can you ask?” murmured the young man, with a shocked look at his uncle’s changed expression.

“As to this other matter, we will let it rest for to-night.  To-morrow’s revelations may be more favorable than we expect.  At all events let us try and get a little rest now; I am sure we are both in a condition to need it.”

Bertram rose.  “I am at your command,” said he, and moved to go.  Suddenly he turned, and the two men stood face to face.  “I have no wish,” pursued he, “to be relieved of my burden at the expense of any one else.  If it is to be borne by any one, let it be carried by him who is young and stalwart enough to sustain it.”  And his hand went out involuntarily towards his uncle.

Mr. Sylvester took that hand and eyed his nephew long and earnestly.  Bertram thought he was going to speak, and nerved himself to meet with fortitude whatever might be said.  But the lips which Mr. Sylvester had opened, closed firmly, and contenting himself with a mere wring of his nephew’s hand, he allowed him to go.  The slip of paper remained upon the table unopened.

That night as Paula lay slumbering on her pillow, a sound passed through the house.  It was like a quick irrepressible cry of desolation, and the poor child hearing it, started, thinking her name had been called.  But when she listened, all was still, and believing she had dreamed, she turned her face upon her pillow, and softly murmuring the name that was dearest to her in all the world, fell again into a peaceful sleep.

But he whose voice had uttered that cry in the dreary emptiness of the great parlors below, slept not.

CHAPTER VII - MORNING.

    “Two maidens by one fountain’s joyous brink,
    And one was sad and one had cause for sadness.”

Cicely Stuyvesant waiting for her father at the foot of the stairs, on the morning after these occurrences, was a pretty and a touching spectacle.  She had not slept very well the night before, and her brow showed signs of trouble and so did her trembling lips.  She held in her hand a letter which she twirled about with very unsteady fingers.  The morning was bright, but she did not seem to observe it; the air was fresh, but it did not seem to invigorate her.  A rose-leaf of care lay on the tremulous waters of her soul, and her sensitive nature thrilled under it.

“Why does he not come?” she whispered, looking again at the letter’s inscription.

It was in Mr. Sylvester’s handwriting, and ought not to have occasioned her any uneasiness, but her father had intimated a wish the night before, that she should not come down into the parlor if Bertram called, and ­Her thoughts paused there, but she was anxious about the letter and wished her father would hasten.

Let us look at the little lady.  She had been so bright and lovesome yesterday at this time.  Never a maiden in all this great city of ours had shown a sweeter or more etherial smile.  At once radiant and reserved, she flashed on the eye and trembled from the grasp like some dainty tropical creature as yet unused to our stranger clime.  Her father had surveyed her with satisfaction, and her lover ­oh, that we were all young again to experience that leap of the heart with which youth meets and recognizes the sweet perfections of the woman it adores!  But a mist had obscured the radiance of her aspect, and she looks very sad as she stands in her father’s hall this morning, leaning her cheek against the banister, and thinking of the night when three years ago, she lingered in that very spot, and watched the form of the young musician go by her and disappear in the darkness of the night, as she then thought forever.  Joy had come to her by such slow steps and after such long waiting.  Hope had burst upon her so brilliantly, and with such a speedy promise of culmination.  She thrilled as she thought how short a time ago it was, since she leaned upon Bertram’s arm and dropped her eyes before his gaze.

The appearance of her father at length aroused her.  Flushing slightly, she held the letter towards him.

“A letter for you, papa.  I thought you might like to read it before you went out.”

Mr. Stuyvesant, who for an hour or more had been frowning over his morning paper with a steady pertinacity that left more than the usual amount of wrinkles upon his brow, started at the wistful tone of this announcement from his daughter’s lips, and taking the letter from her hand, stepped into the parlor to peruse it.  It was, as the handwriting declared, from Mr. Sylvester, and ran thus: 

     “DEAR MR. STUYVESANT: 

“I have heard of your loss and am astounded.  Though the Bank is not liable for any accident to trusts of this nature, both Bertram and myself are determined to make every effort possible, to detect and punish the man who either through our negligence, or by means of the opportunities afforded him under our present system of management, has been able to commit this robbery upon your effects.  We therefore request that you will meet us at the bank this morning at as early an hour as practicable, there to assist us in making such inquiries and instituting such measures, as may be considered necessary to the immediate attainment of the object desired.

     “Respectfully yours,

     “EDWARD SYLVESTER.”

“Is it anything serious?” asked his daughter, coming into the parlor and looking up into his face with a strange wistfulness he could not fail to remark.

Mr. Stuyvesant gave her a quick glance, shook his head with some nervousness and hastily pocketed the epistle.  “Business,” mumbled he, “business.”  And ignoring the sigh that escaped her lips, began to make his preparations for going at once down town.

He was always an awkward man at such matters, and it was her habit to afford him what assistance she could.  This she now did, lending her hand to help him on with his overcoat, rising on tip-toe to tie his muffler, and bending her bright head to see that his galoshes were properly fastened; her charming face with its far-away look, shining strangely sweet in the dim hall, in contrast with his severe and antiquated countenance.

He watched her carefully but with seeming indifference till all was done and he stood ready to depart, then in an awkward enough way ­he was not accustomed to bestow endearments ­drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead; after which he turned about and departed without a word to season or explain this unwonted manifestation of tenderness.

A kiss was an unusual occurrence in that confiding but undemonstrative household, and the little maiden trembled.  “Something is wrong,” she murmured half to herself, half to the dim vista of the lonely parlor, where but a night or so ago had stood the beloved form of him, who, bury the thought as she would, had become, if indeed he had not always been, the beginning and the ending of all her maidenly dreams:  “what? what?” And her young heart swelled painfully as she realized like many a woman before her, that whatever might be her doubts, fears, anguish or suspense, nothing remained for her but silence and a tedious waiting for others to recognize her misery and speak.

Meanwhile how was it with her dearest friend and confident, Paula?  The morning, as I have already declared, was bright and exceptionally beautiful.  Sunshine filled the air and freshness invigorated the breeze.  Cicely was blind to it all, but as Paula looked from her window preparatory to going below, a close observer might have perceived that the serenity of the cloudless sky was reflected in her beaming eyes, that peace brooded above her soul and ruled her tender spirit.  She had held a long conversation with Miss Belinda, she had prayed, she had slept and she had risen with a confirmed love in her heart for the man who was at once the admiration of her eyes and the well-spring of her deepest thoughts and wildest longings.  “I will show him so plainly what the angels have told me,” whispered she, “that he will have no need to ask.”  And she wound her long locks into the coil that she knew he best liked and fixed a rose at her throat, and so with a smile on her lip went softly down stairs.  O the timid eager step of maidenhood when drawing toward the shrine of all it adores!  Could those halls and lofty corridors have whispered their secret, what a story they would have told of beating heart and tremulous glance, eager longings, and maidenly shrinkings, as the lovely form, swaying with a thousand hopes and fears, glided from landing to landing, carrying with it love and joy and peace.  And trust!  As she neared the bronze image that had always awakened such vague feelings of repugnance on her part, and found its terrors gone and its smile assuring, she realized that her breast held nothing but faith in him, who may have sinned in his youth, but who had repented in his manhood, and now stood clear and noble in her eyes.  The assurance was too sweet, the flood of feeling too overwhelming.  With a quick glance around her, she stopped and flung her arms about the hitherto repellant bronze, pressing her young breast against the cold metal with a fervor that ought to have hallowed its sensuous mould forever.  Then she hurried down.

Her first glance into the dining-room brought her a disappointment.  Mr. Sylvester had already breakfasted and gone; only Aunt Belinda sat at the table.  With a slightly troubled brow, Paula advanced to her own place at the board.

“Mr. Sylvester has urgent business on hand to-day,” quoth her aunt.  “I met him going out just as I came down.”

Her look lingered on Paula as she said this, and if it had not been for the servants, she would doubtless have given utterance to some further expression on the matter, for she had been greatly struck by Mr. Sylvester’s appearance and the sad, firm, almost lofty expression of his eye, as it met hers in their hurried conversation.

“He is a very busy man,” returned Paula simply, and was silent, struck by some secret dread she could not have explained.  Suddenly she rose; she had found an envelope beneath her plate, addressed to herself.  It was bulky and evidently contained a key.  Hastening behind the curtains of the window, she opened it.  The key was to that secret study of his at the top of the house, which no one but himself had ever been seen to enter, and the words that enwrapped it were these: 

“If I send you no word to the contrary, and if I do not come back by seven o’clock this evening, go to the room of which this is the key, open my desk, and read what I have prepared for your eyes.

“E.  S.”

CHAPTER VIII - THE OPINION OF A CERTAIN NOTED DETECTIVE.

                            “But still there clung
    One hope, like a keen sword on starting threads uphung.”

­REVOLT OF ISLAM.

“Facts are stubborn things.” ­ELLIOTT.

Meanwhile Mr. Stuyvesant hasted on his way down town and ere long made his appearance at the bank.  He found Mr. Sylvester and Bertram seated in the directors’ room, with a portly smooth-faced man whose appearance was at once strange and vaguely familiar.

“A detective, sir,” explained Mr. Sylvester rising with forced composure; “a man upon whose judgment I have been told we may rely.  Mr. Gryce, Mr. Stuyvesant.”

The latter gentleman nodded, cast a glance around the room, during which his eye rested for a moment on Bertram’s somewhat pale countenance, and nervously took a seat.

“A mysterious piece of business, this,” came from the detective’s lips in an easy tone, calculated to relieve the tension of embarrassment into which the entrance of Mr. Stuyvesant seemed to have thrown all parties.  “What were the numbers of the bonds found missing, if you please?”

Mr. Stuyvesant told him.

“You are positively assured these bonds were all in the box when you last locked it?”

“I am.”

“When was that, sir?  On what day and at what hour of the day, if you please?”

“Tuesday, at about three o’clock, I should say.”

“The box was locked by you?  There is no doubt about that fact?”

“None in the least.”

“Where were you standing at the time?”

“In front of the vault door.  I had taken out the box myself as I am in the habit of doing, and had stepped there to put it back.”

“Was any one near you then?”

“Yes.  The cashier was at his desk and the teller had occasion to go to the safe while I stood there.  I do not remember seeing any one else in my immediate vicinity.”

“Do you remember ever going to the vaults and not finding some one near you at the time or at least in full view of your movements?”

“No.”

“I have informed Mr. Gryce,” interposed Mr. Sylvester, with a ring in his deep voice that made Mr. Stuyvesant start, “that our chief desire at present is to have his judgment upon the all important question, as to whether this theft was committed by a stranger, or one in the employ and consequently in the confidence of the bank.”

Mr. Stuyvesant bowed, every wrinkle in his face manifesting itself with startling distinctness as he slowly moved his eyes and fixed them on the inscrutable countenance of the detective.

“You agree then with these gentlemen,” continued the latter, who had a way of seeming more interested in everything and everybody present than the person he was addressing, “that it would be difficult if not impossible for any one unconnected with the bank, to approach the vaults during business hours and abstract anything from them without detection?”

“And do these gentleman both assert that?” queried Mr. Stuyvesant, with a sharp look from uncle to nephew.

“I believe they do,” replied the detective, as both the gentlemen bowed, Bertram with an uncontrollable quiver of his lip, and Mr. Sylvester with a deepening of the lines about his mouth, which may or may not have been noticed by this man who appeared to observe nothing.

“I should be loth to conclude that the robbery was committed by any one but a stranger,” remarked Mr. Stuyvesant; “but if these gentlemen concur in the statement you have just made, I am bound to acknowledge that I do not myself see how the theft could have been perpetrated by an outsider.  Had the box itself been missing, it would be different.  I remember my old friend Mr. A ­, the president of the police department, telling me of a case where a box containing securities to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars, was abstracted in full daylight from the vaults of one of our largest banks; an act requiring such daring, the directors for a long time refused to believe it possible, until a detective one day showed them another box of theirs which he had succeeded in abstracting in the same way. But the vaults in that instance were in a less conspicuous portion of the bank than ours, besides to approach an open vault, snatch a box from it and escape, is a much simpler matter than to remain long enough to open a box and choose from its contents such papers as appeared most marketable.  If a regular thief could do such a thing, it does not seem probable that he would.  Nevertheless the most acute judgment is often at fault in these matters, and I do not pretend to have formed an opinion.”

The detective who had listened to these words with marked attention, bowed his concurrence and asked if the bonds mentioned by Mr. Stuyvesant were all that had been found missing from the bank.  If any of the other boxes had been opened, or if the contents of the safe itself had ever been tampered with.

“The contents of the safe are all correct,” came in deep tones from Mr. Sylvester.  “Mr. Folger, my nephew and myself went through them this morning.  As for the boxes I cannot say, many of them belong to persons travelling; some of them have been left here by trustees of estates, consequently often lie for weeks in the vaults untouched.  If however any of them have been opened, we ought to be able to see it.  Would you like an examination made of their condition?”

The detective nodded.

Mr. Sylvester at once turned to Mr. Stuyvesant.  “May I ask you to mention what officer of the bank you would like to have go to the vaults?”

That gentleman started, looked uneasily about, but meeting Bertram’s eye, nervously dropped his own and muttered the name of Folger.

Mr. Sylvester suppressed a sigh, sent for the paying-teller, and informed him of their wishes.  He at once proceeded to the vaults.  While he was gone, Mr. Gryce took the opportunity to make the following remark.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “let us understand ourselves.  What you want of me, is to tell you whether this robbery has been committed by a stranger or by some one in your employ.  Now to decide this question it is necessary for me to ask first, whether you have ever had reason to doubt the honesty of any person connected with the bank?”

“No,” came from Mr. Sylvester with sharp and shrill distinctness.  “Since I have had the honor of conducting the affairs of this institution, I have made it my business to observe and note the bearing and character of each and every man employed under me, and I believe them all to be honest.”

The glance of the detective while it did not perceptibly move from the large screen drawn across the room at the back of Mr. Sylvester, seemed to request the opinions of the other two gentlemen on this point.

Bertram observing it, subdued the rapid beatings of his heart and spoke with like distinctness.  “I have been in the bank the same length of time as my uncle,” said he, “and most heartily endorse his good opinion of the various persons in our employ.”

“And Mr. Stuyvesant?” the immovable glance seemed to say.

“Men are honest in my opinion till they are proved otherwise,” came in short stern accents from the director’s lips.

The detective drew back in his chair as if he considered that point decided, and yet Bertram’s eye which had clouded at Mr. Stuyvesant’s too abrupt assertion, did not clear again as might have been expected.

“There is one more question I desire to settle,” continued the detective, “and that is, whether this robbery could have been perpetrated after business hours, by some one in collusion with the person who is here left in charge?”

“No;” again came from Mr. Sylvester, with impartial justice.  “The watchman ­who by the way has been in the bank for twelve years ­could not help a man to find entrance to the vaults.  His simple duty is to watch over the bank and give alarm in case of fire or burglary.  It would necessitate a knowledge of the combination by which the vault doors are opened, to do what you suggest, and that is possessed by but three persons in the bank.”

“And those are?”

“The cashier, the janitor, and myself.”

He endeavored to speak calmly and without any betrayal of the effort it caused him to utter those simple words, but a detective’s ear is nice and it is doubtful if he perfectly succeeded.

Mr. Gryce however limited himself to a muttered, humph! and a long and thoughtful look at a spot on the green baize of the table before which he sat.

“The janitor lives in the building, I suppose?”

“Yes, and is, as I am sure Mr. Stuyvesant will second me in asserting, honesty to the back-bone.”

“Janitors always are,” observed the detective; then shortly, “How long has he been with you?”

“Three years.”

Another “humph!” and an increased interest in the ink spot.

“That is not long, considering the responsibility of his position.”

“He was on the police force before he came to us,” remarked Mr. Sylvester.

Mr. Gryce looked as if that was not much of a recommendation.

“As for the short time he has been with us,” resumed the other, “he came into the bank the same winter as my nephew and myself, and has found the time sufficient to earn the respect of all who know him.”

The detective bowed, seemingly awed by the dignity with which the last statement had been uttered; but any one who knew him well, would have perceived that the film of uncertainty which had hitherto dimmed the brightness of his regard was gone, as if in the other’s impressive manner, if not in the suggestion his words had unconsciously offered, the detective had received an answer to some question which had been puzzling him, or laid his hand upon some clue which had till now eluded his grasp.  The inquiries which he made haste to pursue, betrayed, however, but little of the tendency of his thoughts.

“The janitor, you say, knows the combination by which the vault doors are opened?”

“The vault doors,” emphasized Mr. Sylvester.  “The safe is another matter; that stands inside the vault and is locked by a triple combination which as a whole is not known to any one man in this building, not even to myself.”

“But the boxes are not kept in the safe?”

“No, they are piled up with the books in the vaults at the side of the safe, as you can see for yourself, if you choose to join Mr. Folger.”

“Not necessary.  The janitor, then, is the only man besides yourselves, who under any circumstances or for any reason, could get at those boxes after business hours?”

“He is.”

“One question more.  Who is the man to attend to those boxes?  I mean to ask, which of the men in your employ is expected to procure a box out of the vaults when it is called for, and put it back in its place when its owner is through with it?”

“Hopgood usually does that business, the janitor of whom we have just been speaking.  When he is upstairs or out of the way, any one else whom it may be convenient to call.”

“The janitor, then, has free access to the boxes at all times, night and day?”

“In one sense, yes, in another, no.  Should he unlock the vaults at night, the watchman would report upon his proceedings.”

“But there must be time between the closing and opening of the bank, when the janitor is alone with the vaults?”

“There is a space of two hours after seven in the morning, when he is likely to be the sole one in charge.  The watchman goes home, and Hopgood employs himself in sweeping out the bank and preparing it for the business of the day.”

“Are the watchman and the janitor on good terms with one another?”

“Very, I believe.”

The detective looked thoughtful.  “I should like to see this Hopgood,” said he.

But just then the door opened and Mr. Folger came in, looking somewhat pale and disturbed.  “We are in a difficulty,” cried he, stepping up to the table where they sat.  “I have found two of the boxes unlocked; that belonging to Hicks, Saltzer and Co., and another with the name of Harrington upon it.  The former has been wrenched apart, the latter opened with some sort of instrument.  Would you like to see them, sir?” This to Mr. Sylvester.

With a start that gentleman rose, and as suddenly reseated himself.  “Yes,” returned he, carefully avoiding his nephew’s eye; “bring them in.”

“Hicks, Saltzer and Co., is a foreign house,” remarked Mr. Stuyvesant to the detective, “and do not send for their box once a fortnight, as I have heard Mr. Sylvester declare.  Mr. Harrington is on an exploring expedition and is at present in South America.”  Then in lower tones, whose sternness was not unmixed with gloom, “The thief seems to have known what boxes to go to.”

Bertram flushed and made some passing rejoinder; Mr. Sylvester and the detective alone remained silent.

The boxes being brought in, Mr. Gryce opened them without ceremony.  Several papers met his eye in both, but as no one but the owners could know their rightful contents, it was of course impossible for him to determine whether anything had been stolen from them or not.

“Send for the New York agent of Hicks, Saltzer and Co.,” came from Mr. Sylvester, in short, business-like command.

Bertram at once rose.  “I will see to it,” said he.  His agitation was too great for suppression, the expression of Mr. Stuyvesant’s eye, that in its restlessness wandered in every direction but his own, troubled him beyond endurance.  With a hasty move he left the room.  The cold eye of the detective followed him.

“Looks bad,” came in laconic tones from the paying teller.

“I had hoped the affair begun and ended with my individual loss,” muttered Mr. Stuyvesant under his breath.

The stately president and the inscrutable detective still maintained their silence.

Suddenly the latter moved.  Turning towards Mr. Sylvester, he requested him to step with him to the window.  “I want to have a look at your several employees,” whispered he, as they thus withdrew.  “I want to see them without being seen by them.  If you can manage to have them come in here one by one upon some pretext or other, I can so arrange that screen under the mantel-piece, that it shall not only hide me, but give me a very good view of their faces in the mirror overhead.”

“There will be no difficulty about summoning the men,” said Mr. Sylvester.

“And you consent to the scheme?”

“Certainly, if you think anything is to be gained by it.”

“I am sure that nothing will be lost.  And sir, let the cashier be present if you please; and sir,” squeezing his watch chain with a complacent air, as the other dropped his eyes, “talk to them about anything that you please, only let it be of a nature that will necessitate a sentence or more in reply.  I judge a man as much by his voice as his expression.”

Mr. Sylvester bowed, and without losing his self-command, though the short allusion to Bertram had greatly startled him, turned back to the table where Mr. Folger was still standing in conversation with the director.

“I will not detain you longer,” said he to the paying teller.  “Your discretion will prevent you from speaking of this matter, I trust.”  Then as the other bowed, added carelessly, “I have something to say to Jessup; will you see that he steps here for a moment?”

Mr. Folger again nodded and left the room.  Instantly Mr. Gryce bustled forward, and pulling the screen into the position he thought best calculated to answer his requirements, slid rapidly behind it.  Mr. Stuyvesant looked up in surprise.

“I am going to interview the clerks for Mr. Gryce’s benefit,” exclaimed Mr. Sylvester.  “Will you in the meantime look over the morning paper?”

“Thank you,” returned the other, edging nervously to one side, “my note-book will do just as well,” and sitting down at the remote end of the table, he took out a book from his pocket, above which he bent with very well simulated preoccupation.  Mr. Sylvester called in Bertram and then seated himself with a hopeless and unexpectant look, which he for the moment forgot would be reflected in the mirror before him, and so carried to the eye of the watchful detective.  In another instant Jessup entered.

What was said in the short interview that followed, is unimportant.  Mr. Jessup, the third teller, was one of those clear eyed, straightforward appearing men whose countenance is its own guarantee.  It was not necessary to detain him or make him speak.  The next man to come in was Watson, and after he had gone, two or three of the clerks, and later the receiving teller and one of the runners.  All stopped long enough to insure Mr. Gryce a good view of their faces, and from each and all did Mr. Sylvester succeed in eliciting more or less conversation in response to the questions he chose to put.

With the disappearance of the last mentioned individual, Mr. Gryce peeped from behind the screen.  “A set of as honest-looking men as I wish to see!” uttered he with a frank cordiality that was scarcely reflected in the anxious countenances about him.  “No sly-boots among them; how about the janitor, Hopgood?”

“He shall be summoned at once, if you desire it,” said Mr. Sylvester, “I have only delayed calling him that I might have leisure to interrogate him with reference to his duties, and this very theft.  That is if you judge it advisable in me to tamper with the subject unassisted?”

“Your nephew can help you if necessary,” replied the imperturbable detective.  “I should like to hear what the man, Hopgood, has to say for himself,” and he glided back into his old position.

But Mr. Sylvester had scarcely reached out his hand to ring the bell by which he usually summoned the janitor, when the agent of Hicks, Saltzer & Co. came in.  It was an interruption that demanded instant attention.  Saluting the gentleman with his usual proud reserve, he drew his attention to the box lying upon the table.

“This is yours, I believe, sir,” said he.  “It was found in our vaults this morning in the condition in which you now behold it, and we are anxious to know if its contents are all correct.”

“They have been handled,” returned the agent, after a careful survey of the various papers that filled the box, “but nothing appears to be missing.”

Three persons at least in that room breathed more easily.

“But the truth is,” the gentleman continued, with a half smile towards the silent President of the bank, “there was nothing in this box that would have been of much use to any other parties than ourselves.  If there had been a bond or so here, I doubt if we should have come off so fortunately, eh?  The lock has evidently been wrenched open, and that is certainly a pretty sure sign that something is not right hereabouts.”

“Something is decidedly wrong,” came from Mr. Sylvester sternly; “but through whose fault we do not as yet know.”  And with a few words expressive of his relief at finding the other had sustained no material loss, he allowed the agent to depart.

He had no sooner left the room than Mr. Stuyvesant rose.  “Are you going to question Hopgood now?” queried he, nervously pocketing his note-book.

“Yes sir, if you have no objections.”

The director fidgeted with his chair and finally moved towards the door.  “I think you will get along better with him alone,” said he.  “He is a man who very easily gets embarrassed, and has a way of acting as if he were afraid of me.  I will just step outside while you talk to him.”

But Mr. Sylvester with a sudden dark flush on his brow, hastily stopped him.  “I beg you will not,” said he, with a quick realization of what Hopgood might be led to say in the forthcoming interview, if he were not restrained by the presence of the director.  “Hopgood is not so afraid of you that he will not answer every question that is put to him with straightforward frankness.”  And he pushed up a chair, with a smile that Mr. Stuyvesant evidently found himself unable to resist.  The screen trembled slightly, but none of them noticed it; Mr. Sylvester at once rang for Hopgood.

He came in panting with his hurried descent from the fifth story, his face flushed and his eyes rolling, but without any of the secret perturbation Bertram had observed in them on a former occasion.  “He cannot help us,” was the thought that darkened the young man’s brow as his eyes left the janitor, and faltering towards his uncle, fell upon the table before him.

Everything was reflected in the mirror.

“Well, Hopgood, I have a few questions to put to you this morning,” said Mr. Sylvester in a restrained, but not unkindly tone.

The worthy man bowed, bestowed a salutatory roll of his eyes on Mr. Stuyvesant, and stood deferentially waiting.

“No, he cannot help us,” was again Bertram’s thought, and again his eyes faltered to his uncle’s face, and again fell anxiously before him.

“It has not been my habit to trouble you with inquiries about your management of matters under your charge,” continued Mr. Sylvester, stopping till the janitor’s wandering eyes settled upon his own.  “Your conduct has always been exemplary, and your attention to duty satisfactory; but I would like to ask you to-day if you have observed anything amiss with the vaults of late? anything wrong about the boxes kept there? anything in short, that excited your suspicion or caused you to ask yourself if everything was as it should be?”

The janitor’s ruddy face grew pale, and his eye fell with startled inquiry on Mr. Harrington’s box that still occupied the centre of the table.  “No, sir,” he emphatically replied, “has anything ­”

But Mr. Sylvester did not wait to be questioned.  “You have attended to your duties as promptly and conscientiously as usual; you have allowed no one to go to the vaults day or night, who had no business there?  You have not relaxed your accustomed vigilance, or left the bank alone at any time during the hours it is under your charge?”

“No sir, not for a minute, sir; that is ­” He stopped and his eye wandered towards Mr. Stuyvesant.  “Never for a minute, sir,” he went on, “without I knew some one was in the bank, who was capable of looking after it.”

“The watchman has been at his post every night up to the usual hour?”

“Yes sir.”

“There has been no carelessness in closing the vault doors after the departure of the clerks?”

“No sir.”

“And no trouble,” he continued, with a shade more of dignity, possibly because Hopgood’s tell-tale face was beginning to show signs of anxious confusion, “and no trouble in opening them at the proper time each morning?”

“No sir.”

“One question more ­”

But here Bertram was called out, and in the momentary stir occasioned by his departure, Hopgood allowed himself to glance at the box before him more intently than he had hitherto presumed to do.  He saw it was unlocked, and his hands began to tremble.  Mr. Sylvester’s voice recalled him to himself.

“You are a faithful man,” said that gentleman, continuing his speech of a minute before, “and as such we are ready to acknowledge you; but the most conscientious amongst us are sometimes led into indiscretions.  Now have you ever through carelessness or by means of any inadvertence, revealed to any one in or out of the bank, the particular combination by which the lock of the vault-door is at present opened?”

“No sir, indeed no; I am much too anxious, and feel my own responsibility entirely too much, not to preserve so important a secret with the utmost care and jealousy.”

Mr. Sylvester’s voice, careful as he was to modulate it, showed a secret discouragement.  “The vaults then as far as you know, are safe when once they are closed for the night?”

“Yes sir.”  The janitor’s face expressed a slight degree of wonder, but his voice was emphatic.

Mr. Sylvester’s eye travelled in the direction of the screen.  “Very well,” said he; and paused to reflect.

In the interim the door opened for a second time.  “A gentleman to see Mr. Stuyvesant,” said a voice.

With an air of relief the director hastily rose, and before Mr. Sylvester had realized his position, left the room and closed the door behind him.  A knell seemed to ring its note in Mr. Sylvester’s breast.  The janitor, released as he supposed from all constraint, stepped hastily forward.

“That box has been found unlocked,” he cried with a wave of his hand towards the table; “some one has been to the vaults, and I ­Oh, sir,” he hurriedly exclaimed, disregarding in his agitation the stern and forbidding look which Mr. Sylvester in his secret despair had made haste to assume, “you did not want me to say anything about the time you came down so early in the morning, and I went out and left you alone in the bank, and you went to the vaults and opened Mr. Stuyvesant’s box by mistake, with a tooth-pick as you remember?”

The mirror that looked down upon that pair, showed one very white face at that moment, but the screen that had trembled a moment before, stood strangely still in the silence.

“No,” came at length from Mr. Sylvester, with a composure that astonished himself.  “I was not questioning you about matters of a year agone.  But you might have told that incident if you pleased; it was very easily explainable.”

“Yes sir, I know, and I beg pardon for alluding to it, but I was so taken aback, sir, by your questions; I wanted to tell the exact truth, and I did not want to say anything that would hurt you with Mr. Stuyvesant; that is if I could help it.  I hope I did right, sir,” he blundered on, conscious he was uttering words he might better have kept to himself, but too embarrassed to know how to emerge from the difficulty into which his mingled zeal and anxiety had betrayed him.  “I was never a good hand at answering questions, and if any thing really serious has happened, I shall wish you had taken me at my word and dismissed me immediately after that affair.  Constantia Maria would have been a little worse off perhaps, but I should not be on hand to answer questions, and ­”

“Hopgood!”

The man started, eyed Mr. Sylvester’s white but powerfully controlled countenance, seemed struck with something he saw there, and was silent.

“You make too much now, as you made too much then of a matter that having its sole ground in a mistake, is, as I say, easily explainable.  This affair which has come up now, is not so clear.  Three of the boxes have been opened, and from one certain valuables have been taken.  Can you give me any information that will assist us in our search after the culprit?”

“No sir.”  The tone was quite humble, Hopgood drew back unconsciously towards the door.

“As for the mistake of a year ago to which you have seen proper to allude, I shall myself take pains to inform Mr. Stuyvesant of it, since it has made such an impression upon you that it trammels your honesty and makes you consider it at all necessary to be anxious about it at this time.”

And Hopgood unused to sarcasm from those lips, drew himself together, and with one more agitated look at the box on the table, sidled awkwardly from the room.  Mr. Sylvester at once advanced to the screen which he hastily pushed aside.  “Well, sir,” said he, meeting the detective’s wavering eye and forcing him to return his look, “you have now seen the various employees of the bank and heard most of them converse.  Is there anything more you would like to inquire into before giving us the opinion I requested?”

“No sir,” said the detective, coming forward, but very slowly and somewhat hesitatingly for him.  “I think I am ready to say ­”

Here the door opened, and Mr. Stuyvesant returned.  The detective drew a breath of relief and repeated his words with a business-like assurance.  “I think I am ready to say, that from the nature of the theft and the mysterious manner in which it has been perpetrated, suspicion undoubtedly points to some one connected with the bank.  That is all that you require of me to-day?” he added, with a bow of some formality in the direction of Mr. Sylvester.

“Yes,” was the short reply.  But in an instant a change passed over the stately form of the speaker.  Advancing to Mr. Gryce, he confronted him with a countenance almost majestic in its severity, and somewhat severely remarked, “This is a serious charge to bring against men whose countenances you yourself have denominated as honest.  Are we to believe you have fully considered the question, and realize the importance of what you say?”

“Mr. Sylvester,” replied the detective, with great self-possession and some dignity, “a man who is brought every day of his life into positions where the least turning of a hair will sink a man or save him, learns to weigh his words, before he speaks even in such informal inquiries as these.”

Mr. Sylvester bowed and turned towards Mr. Stuyvesant.  “Is there any further action you would like to have taken in regard to this matter to-day?” he asked, without a tremble in his voice.

With a glance at the half open box of the absent Mr. Harrington, the agitated director slowly shook his head.  “We must have time to think,” said he.

Mr. Gryce at once took up his hat.  “If the charge implied in my opinion strikes you, gentlemen, as serious, you must at least acknowledge that your own judgment does not greatly differ from mine, or why such unnecessary agitation in regard to a loss so petty, by a gentleman worth as we are told his millions.”  And with this passing shot, to which neither of his auditors responded, he made his final obeisance and calmly left the room.

Mr. Sylvester and Mr. Stuyvesant slowly confronted one another.

“The man speaks the truth,” said the former.  “You at least suspect some one in the bank, Mr. Stuyvesant?”

“I have no wish to,” hastily returned the other, “but facts ­”

“Would facts of this nature have any weight with you against the unspotted character of a man never known by you to meditate, much less commit a dishonest action?”

“No; yet facts are facts, and if it is proved that some one in our employ has perpetrated a theft, the mind will unconsciously ask who, and remain uneasy till it is satisfied.”

“And if it never is?”

“It will always ask who, I suppose.”

Mr. Sylvester drew back.  “The matter shall be pushed,” said he; “you shall be satisfied.  Surveillance over each man employed in this institution ought sooner or later to elicit the truth.  The police shall take it in charge.”

Mr. Stuyvesant looked uneasy.  “I suppose it is only justice,” murmured he, “but it is a scandal I would have been glad to avoid.”

“And I, but circumstances admit of no other course.  The innocent must not suffer for the guilty, even so far as an unfounded suspicion would lead.”

“No, no, of course not.”  And the director bustled about after his overcoat and hat.

Mr. Sylvester watched him with growing sadness.  “Mr. Stuyvesant,” said he, as the latter stood before him ready for the street, “we have always been on terms of friendship, and nothing but the most pleasant relations have ever existed between us.  Will you pardon me if I ask you to give me your hand in good-day?”

The director paused, looked a trifle astonished, but held out his hand not only with cordiality but very evident affection.

“Good day,” cried he, “good-day.”

Mr. Sylvester pressed that hand, and then with a dignified bow, allowed the director to depart.  It was his last effort at composure.  When the door closed, his head sank on his hands, and life with all its hopes and honors, love and happiness, seemed to die within him.

He was interrupted at length by Bertram.  “Well, uncle?” asked the young man with unrestrained emotion.

“The theft has been committed by some one in this bank; so the detective gives out, and so we are called upon to believe. Who the man is who has caused us all this misery, neither he, nor you, nor I, nor any one, is likely to very soon determine.  Meantime ­”

“Well?” cried Bertram anxiously, after a moment of suspense.

“Meantime, courage!” his uncle resumed with forced cheerfulness.

But as he was leaving the bank he came up to Bertram, and laying his hand on his shoulder, quietly said: 

“I want you to go immediately to my house upon leaving here.  I may not be back till midnight, and Miss Fairchild may need the comfort of your presence.  Will you do it, Bertram?”

“Uncle!  I ­”

“Hush! you will comfort me best by doing what I ask.  May I rely upon you?”

“Always.”

“That is enough.”

And with just a final look, the two gentlemen parted, and the shadow which had rested all day upon the bank, deepened over Bertram’s head like a pall.

It was not lifted by the sight of Hopgood stealing a few minutes later towards the door by which his uncle had departed, his face pale, and his eyes fixed in a stare, that bespoke some deep and moving determination.

CHAPTER IX - BLUE-BEARD’S CHAMBER.

                   “Present fears
    Are less than horrible imaginings.” 
      ­MACBETH.

Clarence Ensign was not surprised at the refusal he received from Paula.  He had realized from the first that the love of this beautiful woman would be difficult to obtain, even if no rival with more powerful inducements than his own, should chance to cross his path.  She was one who could be won to give friendship, consideration, and sympathy without stint; but from the very fact that she could so easily be induced to grant these, he foresaw the improbability, or at least the difficulty of enticing her to yield more.  A woman whose hand warms towards the other sex in ready friendship, is the last to succumb to the entreaties of love.  The circle of her sympathies is so large, the man must do well, who of all his sex, pierces to the sacred centre.  The appearance of Mr. Sylvester on the scene, settled his fate, or so he believed; but he was too much in earnest to yield his hopes without another effort; so upon the afternoon of this eventful day, he called upon Paula.

The first glimpse he obtained of her countenance, convinced him that he was indeed too late.  Not for him that anxious pallor, giving way to a rosy tinge at the least sound in the streets without.  Not for him that wandering glance, burning with questions to which nothing seemed able to grant reply.  The very smile with which she greeted him, was a blow; it was so forgetful of the motive that had brought him there.

“Miss Fairchild,” he stammered, with a generous impulse to save her unnecessary pain, “you have rejected my offer and settled my doom; but let me believe that I have not lost your regard, or that hold upon your friendship which it has hitherto been my pleasure to enjoy.”

She woke at once to a realization of his position.  “Oh Mr. Ensign,” she murmured, “can you doubt my regard or the truth of my friendship?  It is for me to doubt; I have caused you such pain, and as you may think, so ruthlessly and with such lack of consideration.  I have been peculiarly placed,” she blushingly proceeded.  “A woman does not always know her own heart, or if she does, sometimes hesitates to yield to its secret impulses.  I have led you astray these last few weeks, but I first went astray myself.  The real path in which I ought to tread, was only last night revealed to me.  I can say no more, Mr. Ensign.”

“Nor is it necessary,” replied he.  “You have chosen the better path, and the better man.  May life abound in joys for you, Miss Fairchild.”

She drew herself up and her hand went involuntarily to her heart.  “It is not joy I seek,” said she, “but ­”

“What?” He looked at her face lit with that heavenly gleam that visited it in rare moments of deepest emotion, and wondered.

“Joy is in seeing the one you love happy,” cried she; “earth holds none that is sweeter or higher.”

“Then may that be yours,” he murmured, manfully subduing the jealous pang natural under the circumstances.  And taking the hand she held out to him, he kissed it with greater reverence and truer affection than when, in the first joyous hours of their intercourse, he carried it so gallantly to his lips.

And she ­oh, difference of time and feeling ­did not remember as of yore, the noble days of chivalry, though he was in this moment, so much more than ever the true knight and the reproachless cavalier.

For Paula’s heart was heavy.  Fears too unsubstantial to be met and vanquished, had haunted her steps all day.  The short note which Mr. Sylvester had written her, lay like lead upon her bosom.  She longed for the hours to fly, yet dreaded to hear the clock tick out the moments that possibly were destined to bring her untold suffering and disappointment.  A revelation awaiting her in Mr. Sylvester’s desk up stairs?  That meant separation and farewell; for words of promise and devotion can be spoken, and the heart that hopes, does not limit time to hours.

With Bertram’s entrance, her fears took absolute shape.  Mr. Sylvester was not coming home to dinner.  Thenceforward till seven o’clock, she sat with her hand on her heart, waiting.  At the stroke of the clock, she rose, and procuring a candle from her room, went slowly up stairs.  “Watch for me,” she had said to Aunt Belinda, “for I fear I shall need your care when I come down.”

What is there about a mystery however trivial, that thrills the heart with vague expectancy at the least lift of the concealing curtain!  As Paula paused before the door, which never to her knowledge had opened to the passage of any other form than that of Mr. Sylvester, she was conscious of an agitation wholly distinct from that which had hitherto afflicted her.  All the past curiosity of Ona concerning this room, together with her devices for satisfying that curiosity, recurred to Paula with startling distinctness.  It was as if the white hand of that dead wife had thrust itself forth from the shadows to pull her back.  The candle trembled in her grasp, and she unconsciously recoiled.  But the next moment the thought of Mr. Sylvester struck warmth and determination through her being, and hastily thrusting the key into the lock, she pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold.

Her first movement was that of surprise.  In all her dreams of the possible appearance of this room, she had never imagined it to be like this.  Plain, rude and homely, its high walls unornamented, its floor uncovered, its furniture limited to a plain desk and two or three rather uncomfortable-looking chairs, it struck upon her fancy with the same sense of incongruity, as might the sight of a low-eaved cottage in the midst of stately palaces and lordly pleasure-grounds.  Setting down her candle, she folded her hands to still their tremblings, and slowly looked around her.  This was the spot, then, to which he was accustomed to flee when oppressed by any care or harassed by any difficulty; this cold, bare, uninviting apartment with its forbidding aspect unsoftened by the tokens of a woman’s care or presence!  To this room, humbler than any in her aunt’s home in Grotewell, he had brought all his griefs, from the day his baby lay dead in the rooms below, to that awful hour which saw the wife and mother brought into his doors and laid a cold and pulseless form in the midst of his gorgeous parlors!  Here he had met his own higher impulses face to face, and wrestled with them through the watches of the night!  In this wilderness of seeming poverty, he had dreamed, perhaps, his first fond dream of her as a woman, and signed perhaps his final renunciation of her as the future companion of his life!  What did it mean?  Why a spot of so much desolation in the midst of so much that was lordly and luxurious?  Her fears might give her a possible interpretation, but she would not listen to fears.  Only his words should instruct her.  Going to the desk, she opened it.  A sealed envelope addressed to herself, immediately met her eyes.  Taking it out with a slow and reverent touch, she began to read the long and closely written letter which it contained.

And the little candle burned on, shedding its rays over her bended head and upon the dismal walls about her, with a persistency that seemed to bring out, as in letters of fire, the hidden history of long ago, with its vanished days and its forgotten midnights.

CHAPTER X - FROM A. TO Z.

     “A naked human heart.” ­YOUNG.

“My Beloved Child: 

“So may I call you in this the final hour of our separation, but never again, dear one, never again.  When I said to you, just twenty-four hours ago, that my sin was buried and my future was clear, I spake as men speak who forget the justice of God and dream only of his mercy.  An hour’s time convinced me that an evil deed once perpetrated by a man, is never buried so that its ghost will not rise.  Do as we will, repent as we may, the shadowy phantom of a stained and unrighteous youth is never laid; nor is a man justified in believing it so, till death has closed his eyes, and fame written its epitaph upon his tomb.

“Paula, I am at this hour wandering in search of the being who holds the secret of my life and who will to-morrow blazon it before all the world.  It is with no hope I seek him.  God has not brought me to this pass, to release me at last, from shame and disgrace.  Suffering and the loss of all my sad heart cherished, wait at my gates.  Only one boon remains, and that is, your sympathy and the consolation of your regard.  These, though bestowed as friends bestow them, are very precious to me; I cannot see them go, and that they may not, I tell you the full story of my life.

“My youth was happy ­my early youth, I mean.  Bertram’s father was a dear brother to me, and my mother a watchful guardian and a tender friend.  At fifteen, I entered a bank, the small bank in Grotewell, which you ought to remember.  From the lowest position in it, I gradually worked my way up till I occupied the cashier’s place; and was just congratulating myself upon my prospects, when Ona Delafield returned from boarding-school, a young lady.

“Paula, there is a fascination, which some men who have known nothing deeper and higher, call love.  I, who in those days had cherished but few thoughts beyond the ordinary reach of a narrow and somewhat selfish business mind, imagined that the well-spring of all romance had bubbled up within me, when my eyes first fell upon this regal blonde, with her sleepy, inscrutable eyes and bewildering smile.  Ulysses within sound of the siren’s voice, was nothing to it.  He had been warned of his danger and had only his own curiosity to combat, while I was not even aware of my peril, and floated within reach of this woman’s power, without making an effort to escape.  She was so subtle in her influence, Paula; so careless in the very exercise of her sovereignty.  She never seemed to command; yet men and women obeyed her.  Peculiarities which mar the matron, are often graces in a young, unmarried girl, whose thoughts are a mystery, and whose emotions an untried field.  I believed I had found the queen of all beauty and when in an unguarded hour she betrayed her first appreciation of my devotion, I seemed to burst into a Paradise of delights, where every step I took, only the more intoxicated and bewildered me.  My first realization of the sensuous and earthly character of my happiness came with the glimpse of your child-face on that never-to-be-forgotten day when we met beside the river.  Like a star seen above the glare of a conflagration, the pure spirit that informed your glance, flashed on my burning soul, and for a moment I knew that in you budded the kind of woman-nature which it befitted a man to seek; that in the hands of such a one as you would make, should he trust his honor and bequeath his happiness.  But when did a lover ever break the bonds that imprisoned his fancy, at the inspiration of a passing voice.  I went back to Ona and forgot the child by the river.

“Paula, I have no time to utter regrets.  This is a hard plain tale which I have to relate; but if you love me still ­if, as I have sometimes imagined, you have always loved me ­think what my life had been if I had heeded the warning which God vouchsafed me on that day, and contrast it with what it is, and what it must be.

“I went back to Ona, then, and the hold which she had upon me from the first, took form and shape.  As well as she could love any one, she loved me, and though she had offers from one or two more advantageous sources, she finally decided that she would risk the future and accept me, if her father consented to the alliance.  You who are the niece of the man of whom I must now speak, may or may not know what that meant.  I doubt if you do; he left Grotewell while you were a child, and any gossip concerning him must ever fall short of the real truth.  Enough, then, that it meant, if Jacob Delafield could see in my future any promises of success sufficient to warrant him in accepting me as his son-in-law, no woman living ought to hesitate to trust me with her hand.  He was the Squire of the town, and as such entitled to respect, but he was also something more, as you will presently discover.  His answer to my plea was: 

“‘Well, how much money have you to show?’

“Now I had none.  My salary as cashier of a small country bank was not large, and my brother’s prolonged sickness and subsequent death, together with my own somewhat luxurious habits, had utterly exhausted it.  I told him so, but added that I had, somewhere up among the hills, an old maiden aunt who had promised me five thousand dollars at her death; and that as she was very ill at that time ­hopelessly so, her neighbors thought ­in a few weeks I should doubtless be able to satisfy him with the sight of a sum sufficient to start us in housekeeping, if no more.

“He nodded at this, but gave me no distinct reply.  ‘Let us wait,’ said he.

“But youth is not inclined to wait.  I considered my cause as good as won, and began to make all my preparations accordingly.  With a feverish impatience which is no sign of true love, I watched the days go by, and waited for, if I did not anticipate, the death which I fondly imagined would make all clear.  At last it came, and I went again into Mr. Delafield’s presence.

“‘My aunt has just died,’ I announced, and stood waiting for the short, concise,

“‘Go ahead, then, my boy!’ which I certainly expected.

“Instead of that, he gave me a queer inexplicable smile, and merely said, ’I want to see the greenbacks, my lad.  No color so good as green, not even the black upon white of ‘I promise to pay.’

“I went back to my desk in the bank, chagrined.  Ona had told me a few days before that she was tired of waiting, that the young doctor from the next town was very assiduous in his attentions, and as there was no question as to his ability to support a wife, why ­she did not finish her sentence, but the toss of her head and her careless tone at parting, were enough to inflame the jealousy of a less easily aroused nature than mine.  I felt that I was in hourly danger of losing her, and all because I could not satisfy her father with a sight of the few thousands which were so soon to be mine.

“The reading of my aunt’s will, which confirmed my hopes, did not greatly improve matters.  ‘I want to see the money,’ the old gentleman repeated; and I was forced to wait the action of the law and the settlement of the estate.  It took longer than even he foresaw.  Weeks went by and my poor little five thousand seemed as far from my control as on the day the will was read.  There was some trouble, I was not told what, that made it seem improbable that I should reap the benefit of my legacy for some time.  Meanwhile Ona accepted the attentions of the young doctor, and my chances of winning her, dwindled rapidly day by day.  I became morbidly eager and insanely jealous.  Instead of pursuing my advantage ­for I undoubtedly possessed one in her own secret inclination towards me ­I stood off, and let my rival work his way into her affections unhindered.  I was too sore to interrupt his play, as I called it, and too afraid of myself to actually confront him in her presence.  But the sight of them riding together one day, was more than I could endure even in my spirit of unresistance.  ‘He shall not have her,’ I cried, and cast about in my mind how to bring my own matters into such shape as to satisfy her father and so win her own consent to my suit.  My first thought was to borrow the money, but that was impracticable in a town where each man’s affairs are known to his neighbor.  My next was to hurry up the settlement of the estate by appeal to my lawyer.  The result of the latter course was a letter of many promises, in the midst of which a great temptation assailed me.

“Colonel Japha, of whose history you have heard more or less true accounts, was at that time living in the old mansion you took such pains to point out to me in that walk we took together in Grotewell.  He had suffered a great anguish in the flight and degradation of his only daughter, and though the real facts connected with her departure were not known in the village, he was so overcome with shame, and so shattered in health, he lived in the utmost seclusion, opening his doors to but few visitors, among whom I, for some unexplained reason, was one.  He used to say he liked me and saw in me the makings of a considerable man; and I, because he was Colonel Japha and a strong spirit, returned his appreciation, and spent many of my bitter and unhappy hours in his presence.  It was upon one of these occasions the temptation came to which I have just alluded.

“I had been talking about his health and the advisability of his taking a journey, when he suddenly rose and said, ‘Come with me to my study.’

“I of course went.  The first thing I saw upon entering was a trunk locked and strapped.  ‘I am going to Europe to-morrow,’ said he, ’to be gone six months.’

“I was astonished, for in that town no one presumed to do anything of importance without consulting his neighbors; but I merely bowed my congratulations, and waited for him to speak, for I saw he had something on his mind that he wished to say.  At last it came out.  He had a daughter, he said, a daughter who had disgraced him and whom he had forbidden his house.  She was not worthy of his consideration, yet he could not help but remember her, and while he never desired to see her enter his doors, it was not his wish that she should suffer want.  He had a little money which he had laid by and which he wished to put into my hands for her use, provided anything should happen to him during his absence.  ‘She is a wanderer now,’ he cried, ’but she may one day come back, and then if I am dead and gone, you may give it to her.’  I was not to enter it in the bank under his name, but regard it as a personal trust to be used only under such circumstances as he mentioned.

“The joy with which I listened to this proposal amounted almost to ecstacy when he went to his desk and brought out five one thousand dollar bills and laid them in my hand.  ‘It is not much,’ said he, ’but it will save her from worse degradation if she chooses to avail herself of it.’

“Not much; oh no, not much, but just the sum that would raise me out of the pit of despondency into which I had fallen, and give me my bride, a chance in the world, and last, but not least, revenge on the rival I had now learned to hate.  I was obliged to give the colonel a paper acknowledging the trust, but that was no hindrance.  I did not mean to use the money, only to show it; and long before the colonel could return, my own five thousand would be in my hands ­and so, and so, and so, as the devil reasons and young infatuated ears listen.

“Colonel Japha thought I was an honest man, nor did I consider myself otherwise at that time.  It was a chance for clever action; a bit of opportune luck that it would be madness to discard.  On the day the vessel sailed which carried Colonel Japha out of the country, I went to Mr. Delafield and showed him the five crisp bank notes that represented as it were by proxy, the fortune I so speedily expected to inherit.  ’You have wanted to see five thousand dollars in my hand,’ said I; ’there they are.’

“His look of amazement was peculiar and ought to have given me warning; but I was blinded by my infatuation and thought it no more than the natural surprise incident to the occasion.  ’I have been made to wait a long time for your consent to my suit,’ said I; ’may I hope that you will now give me leave to press my claims upon your daughter?’

“He did not answer at once, but smiled, eying meanwhile the notes in my hand with a fascinated gaze which instinctively warned me to return them to my pocket.  But I no sooner made a move indicative of that resolve, than he thrust out his cold slim hand and prevented me.  ’Let me see them,’ cried he.

“There was no reason for me to refuse so simple a request to one in Mr. Delafield’s position, and though I had rather he had not asked for the notes, I handed them over.  He at once seemed to grow taller.  ’So this is your start off in life,’ exclaimed he.

“I bowed, and he let his eyes roam for a moment to my face.  ’Many a man would be glad of worse,’ smiled he; then suavely, ’you shall have my daughter, sir.’

“I must have turned white in my relief, for he threw his head back and laughed in a low unmusical way that at any other time would have affected me unpleasantly.  But my only thought then, was to get the money back and rush with my new hopes into the room from which came the low ceaseless hum of his daughter’s voice.  But at the first movement of my hand towards him, he assumed a mysterious air, and closing his fingers over the notes, said: 

“‘These are yours, to do what you wish with, I suppose?’

“I may have blushed, but if I did, he took no notice.  ’What I wish to do with them,’ returned I, ’is to shut them up in the bank for the present, at least till Ona is my wife.’

“‘Oh no, no, no, you do not,’ came in easy, almost wheedling tones from the man before me.  ’You want to put them where they will double themselves in two months.’  And before I could realize to what he was tempting me, he had me down before his desk, showing me letters, documents, etc., of a certain scheme into which if a man should put a dollar to-day, it would ’come out three and no mistake, before the year was out.  It is a chance in a thousand,’ said he; ’if I had half a million I would invest it in this enterprise to-day.  If you will listen to me and put your money in there, you will be a rich man before ten years have passed over your head.’

“I was dazzled.  I knew enough of such matters to see that it was neither a hoax nor a chimera.  He did have a good thing, and if the five thousand dollars had been my own ­But I soon came to consider the question without that conditional.  He was so specious in his manner of putting the affair before me, so masterful in the way he held on to the money, he gave me no time to think.  ‘Say the word,’ cried he, ’and in two months I bring you back ten thousand for your five.  Only two months,’ he repeated, and then slowly, ‘Ona was born for luxury.’

“Paula, you cannot realize what that temptation was.  To amass wealth had never been my ambition before, but now everything seemed to urge it upon me.  Dreams of unimagined luxury came to my mind as these words were uttered.  A vision of Ona clad in garments worthy of her beauty floated before my eyes; the humble home I had hitherto pictured for myself, broadened and towered away into a palace; I beheld myself honored and accepted as the nabob of the town.  I caught a glimpse of a new paradise, and hesitated to shut down the gate upon it.  ‘I will think of it,’ said I, and went into the other room to speak to Ona.

“Ah, if some angel had met me on the threshold!  If my mother’s spirit or the thought of your dear face could have risen before me then and stopped me!  Dizzy, intoxicated with love and ambition, I crossed the room to where she sat reeling off a skein of blue silk with hands that were whiter than alabaster.  Kneeling down by her side, I caught those fair hands in mine.

“‘Ona,’ I cried, ’will you marry me?  Your father has given his consent, and we shall be very happy.’

“She bestowed upon me a little pout, and half mockingly, half earnestly inquired, ’What kind of a house are you going to put me in?  I cannot live in a cottage.’

“‘I will put you in a palace,’ I whispered, ’if you will only say that you will be mine.’

“‘A palace!  Oh, I don’t expect palaces; a house like the Japhas’ would do.  Not but what I should feel at home in a palace,’ she added, lifting her lordly head and looking beautiful enough to grace a sceptre.  Then, archly for her, ‘And papa has given his consent?’

“‘Yes,’ I ardently cried.

“‘Then Dr. Burton might as well go,’ she answered.  ’I will trust my father’s judgment, and take the palace ­when it comes.’

“After that, it was impossible to disappoint her.

“Paula, in stating all this, I have purposely confined myself to relating bare facts.  You must see us as we were.  The glamour which an unreasoning passion casts over even a dishonest act, if performed for the sake of winning a beautiful woman, is no excuse in my own soul for the evil to which I succumbed that day, nor shall it seem so to you.  Bare, hard, stern, the fact confronts me from the past, that at the first call of temptation I fell; and with this blot on my character, you will have to consider me ­unhappy being that I am!

“I did not realize then, however, all that I had done.  The operation entered into by Mr. Delafield prospered, and in two months I had, as he predicted, ten thousand dollars instead of five, in my possession.  Besides, I had just married Ona, and for awhile life was a dream of delight and luxury.  But there came a day when I awoke to an insight of the peril I had escaped by a mere chance of the die.  The money which I had expected from my aunt’s will, turned out to be amongst certain funds that had been risked in speculation by some agent during her sickness, and irrecoverably lost.  The expression of her good-will was all that ever came to me of the legacy upon which I had so confidently relied.

“I was sitting with my young wife in the pretty parlor of our new home, when the letter came from my lawyer announcing this fact, and I never can make you understand what effect it had upon me.  The very walls seemed to shrivel up into the dimensions of a prison’s cell; the face that only an hour before had possessed every conceivable charm for me, shone on my changed vision with the allurement, but also with the unreality of a will-o’-the-wisp.  All that might have happened if the luck, instead of being in my favor, had turned against me, crushed like a thunderbolt upon my head, and I rose up and left the presence of my young wife, with the knowledge at my heart that I was no more nor less than a thief in the eyes of God, if not in that of my fellow-men; a base thief, who if he did not meet his fit punishment, was only saved from it by fortuitous circumstances and the ignorance of those he had been so near despoiling.

“The bitterness of that hour never passed away.  The streets in which I had been raised, the house which had been the scene of my temptation, Mr. Delafield’s face, and my own home, all became unendurable to me.  I felt as if each man I met must know what I had done; and secret as the transaction had been, it was long before I could enter the bank without a tremor of apprehension lest I should hear from some quarter, that my services there would no longer be required.  The only comfort I received was in the thought that Ona did not know at what a cost her hand had been obtained.  I was still under the glamour of her languid smiles and countless graces, and was fain to believe that notwithstanding a certain unresponsiveness and coldness in her nature, her love would yet prove a compensation for the remorse that I secretly suffered.

“My distaste for Grotewell culminated.  It was too small for me.  The money I had acquired through the use of my neighbor’s funds burned in my pocket.  I determined to move to New York, and with the few thousands I possessed, venture upon other speculations.  But this time in all honesty.  Yes, I swore it before God and my own soul, that never again would I run a risk similar to that from which I had just escaped.  I would profit by the money I had acquired, oh yes, but henceforth all my operations should be legitimate and honorable.  My wife, who was fast developing a taste for ease and splendor, seconded my plans with something like fervor, while Mr. Delafield actually went so far as to urge my departure.  ‘You are bound to make a rich man,’ said he ’and must go where great fortunes are to be secured.’  He never asked me what became of the five thousand dollars I returned to Colonel Japha upon his arrival from Europe.

“So I came to New York.

“Paula, the man who loses at the outset of a doubtful game, is fortunate.  I did not lose, I won.  As if in that first dishonest deed of mine I had summoned to my side the aid of evil influences, each and every operation into which I entered prospered.  It seemed as if I could not make a mistake; money flowed towards me from all quarters; power followed, and I found myself one of the most successful and one of the most unhappy men in New York.  There are some things of which a man cannot write even to the one dear heart he most cherishes and adores.  You have lived in my home, and will acquit me from saying much about her who, with all her faults and her omissions, was ever kind to you.  But some things I must repeat in order to make intelligible to you the change which gradually took place within me as the years advanced.  Beauty, while it wins the lover, can never of itself hold the heart of a husband who possesses aspirations beyond that which passion supplies.  Reckless, worldly and narrow-minded as I had been before the commission of that deed which embittered my life, I had become by the very shock that followed the realization of my wrong-doing, a hungry-hearted, eager-minded and melancholy-spirited man, asking but one boon in recompense for my secret remorse, and that was domestic happiness and the sympathetic affection of wife and children.  Woman, according to my belief, was born to be chiefly and above all, the consoler.  What a man missed in the outside world, he was to find treasured at home.  What a man lacked in his own nature, he was to discover in the delicate and sublimated one of his wife.  Beautiful dream, which my life was not destined to see realized!

“The birth of my only child was my first great consolation.  With the opening of her blue eyes upon my face, a well-spring deep as my unfathomable longing, bubbled up within my breast.  Alas, that very consolation brought a hideous grief; the mother did not love her child; and another strand of the regard with which I still endeavored to surround the wife of my youth, parted and floated away out of sight.  To take my little one in my arms, to feel her delicate cheek press yearningly to mine, to behold her sweet infantile soul develop itself before my eyes, and yet to realize that that soul would never know the guidance or sympathy of a mother, was to me at once rapture and anguish.  I sometimes forgot to follow up a fortunate speculation, in my indulgence of these feelings.  I was passionately the father as I might have been passionately the husband and the friend.  Geraldine died; how and with what attendant circumstances of pain and regret, I will not, dare not state.  The blow struck to the core of my being.  I stood shaken before God.  The past, with its one grim remembrance ­a remembrance that in the tide of business successes and the engrossing affection which had of late absorbed me, had been well-nigh swamped from sight ­rose before me like an accusing spirit.  I had sinned, and I had been punished; I had sown, and I had reaped.

“More than that, I was sinning still.  My very enjoyment of the position I had so doubtfully acquired, was unworthy of me.  My very wealth was a disgrace.  Had it not all been built upon another man’s means?  Could the very house I lived in be said to be my own, while a Japha existed in want?  In the eyes of the world, perhaps, yes; in my own eyes, no.  I became morbid on the subject.  I asked myself what I could do to escape the sense of obligation that overwhelmed me.  The few sums with which I had been secretly enabled to provide Colonel Japha during the final days of his ruined and impoverished life, were not sufficient.  I desired to wipe out the past by some large and munificent return.  Had the colonel been living, I should have gone to him, told him my tale and offered him the half of my fortune; but his death cut off all hopes of my righting myself in that way.  Only his daughter remained, the poor, lost, reprobated being, whom he was willing to curse, but whom he could not bear to believe suffering.  I determined that the debt due to my own peace of mind should be paid to her.  But how?  Where was I to find this wanderer?  How was I to let her know that a comfortable living awaited her if she would only return to her friends and home?  Consulting with a business associate, he advised me to advertise.  I did so, but without success.  I next resorted to the detectives, but all without avail.  Jacqueline Japha was not to be found.

“But I did not relinquish my resolve.  Deliberately investing a hundred thousand dollars in Government bonds, I put them aside for her.  They were to be no longer mine.  I gave them to her and to her heirs as completely and irrevocably, I believed, as if I had laid them in her hand and seen her depart with them.  I even inserted them as a legacy to her in my will.  It was a clear and definite arrangement between me and my own soul; and after I had made it and given orders to my lawyer in Grotewell to acquaint me if he ever received the least news of Jacqueline Japha, I slept in peace.

“Of the years that followed I have small need to speak.  They were the years that preceded your coming, my Paula, and their story is best told by what I was when we met again, and you made me know the sweet things of life by entering into my home.  Woman as a thoughtful, tender, elevated being had been so long unknown to me!  The beauty of the feminine soul with its faith fixed upon high ideals, was one before which I had ever been ready to bow.  All that I had missed in my youth, all that had failed me in my maturing manhood, seemed to flow back upon me like a river.  I bathed in the sunshine of your pure spirit and imagined that the evil days were over and peace come at last.

“A rude and bitter shock awoke me.  Ona’s father, who had followed us to New York, and of whose somewhat checkered career during the past few years, I have purposely forborne to speak, had not been above appealing to us for assistance at such times as his frequently unfortunate investments left him in a state of necessity.  These appeals were usually made to Ona, and in a quiet way; but one day he met me on the street ­it was during the second winter you spent in my home ­and dragging me into a restaurant down town, began a long tale, to the effect that he wanted a few thousands from me to put into a certain investment, which if somewhat shady in its character, was very promising as to its results; and gave as a reason why he applied to me for the money, that he knew I had not been above doing a wrongful act once, in order to compass my ends, and therefore would not be liable to hesitate now.

“It was the thunderbolt of my life.  My sin was not then buried.  It had been known to this man from the start.  With an insight for which I had never given him credit, he had read my countenance in the days of my early temptation, and guessed, if he did not know, where the five thousand dollars came from with which I began my career as speculator.  Worse than that, he had led me on to the act by which he now sought to hold me.  Having been the secret agent in losing my aunt’s money, he knew at the time that I was cherishing empty hopes as regarded a legacy from her, yet he let me dally with my expectations, and ensnare myself with his daughter’s fascinations, till driven mad by disappointment and longing, I was ready to resort to any means to gain my purpose.  It was a frightful revelation to come to me in days when, if I were not a thoroughly honest man, I had at least acquired a deep and ineradicable dread of dishonor.  Answering him I know not how, but in a way that while it repudiated his proposition, unfortunately acknowledged the truth of the suppositions upon which it was founded, I left him and went home, a crushed and disheartened man.  Life which had been so long in acquiring cheerful hues, was sunk again in darkness; and for days I could not bear the sight of your innocent face, or the sound of your pure voice, or the tokens of your tender and unsuspecting presence in my home.  But soon the very natural thought came to comfort me, that the sin I so deplored was as much dead now, as it was before I learned the fact of this man’s knowledge of it.  That having repented and put it away, I was as free to accept your gentle offices and the regard of all true men, as ever I had been; and beguiled by this plausible consideration, I turned again to my one visible source of consolation, and in the diversion it offered, let the remembrance of this last bitter experience pass slowly from my mind.  The fact that Mr. Delafield left town shortly after his interview with me, and smitten by shame perhaps, forbore to acquaint us with his whereabouts or afflict us with his letters, may have aided me in this strange forgetfulness.

“But other and sharper trials were in store; trials that were to test me as a man, and as it proved, find me lacking just where I thought I was strongest.  Paula, that saying of the Bible, ’Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,’ might have been written over the door of my house on that day, ten months ago, when we two stood by the hearthstone and talked of the temptations that beset humanity, and the charity we should show to such as succumb to them.  Before the day had waned, my own hour had come; and not all the experience of my life, not all the resolves, hopes, fears of my later years, not even the remembrance of your sweet trust and your natural recoil from evil, were sufficient to save me.  The blow came so suddenly! the call for action was so peremptory!  One moment I stood before the world, rich, powerful, honored, and beloved; the next, I saw myself threatened with a loss that undermined my whole position, and with it the very consideration that made me what I was.  But I must explain.

“When I entered the Madison Bank as President, I gave up in deference to the wishes of Mr. Stuyvesant all open speculation in Wall Street.  But a wife and home such as I then had, are not to be supported on any petty income; and when shortly after your entrance into my home, the opportunity presented itself of investing in a particularly promising silver mine out West, I could not resist the temptation; regarding the affair as legitimate, and the hazard, if such it were, one that I was amply able to bear.  But like most enterprises of the kind, one dollar drew another after it, and I soon found that to make available what I had already invested, I was obliged to add to it more and more of my available funds, until ­to make myself as intelligible to you as I can ­it had absorbed not only all that had remained to me after my somewhat liberal purchase of the Madison Bank stock, but all I could raise on a pledge of the stock itself.  But there was nothing in this to alarm me.  I had a man at the mine devoted to my interests; and as the present yield was excellent, and the future of more promise still, I went on my way with no special anxiety.  But who can trust a silver mine?  At the very point where we expected the greatest result, the vein suddenly gave out, and nothing prevented the stock from falling utterly flat on the market, but the discretion of my agent, who kept the fact a secret, while he quietly went about getting another portion of the mine into working order.  He was fast succeeding in this, and affairs were looking daily more promising, when suddenly an intimation received by me in a bit of conversation casually overheard at that reception we attended together, convinced me that the secret was transpiring, and that if great care were not taken, we should be swamped before we could get things into working trim again.  Filled with this anxiety, I was about to leave the building, in order to telegraph to my agent, when to my great surprise the card of that very person was brought in to me, together with a request for an immediate interview.  You remember it, Paula, and how I went out to see him; but what you did not know then, and what I find some difficulty in relating now, is that his message to me was one of total ruin unless I could manage to give into his hand, for immediate use, the sum of a hundred thousand dollars.

“The facts making this demand necessary were not what you may have been led to expect.  They had little or nothing to do with the new operations, which were progressing successfully and with every promise of an immediate return, but arose entirely out of a law-suit then in the hands of a Colorado judge for decision, and which, though it involved well-nigh the whole interest of the mine, had never till this hour given me the least uneasiness, my lawyers having always assured me of my ultimate success.  But it seems that notwithstanding all this, the decision was to be rendered in favor of the other party.  My agent, who was a man to be trusted in these matters, averred that five days before, he had learned from most authentic sources what the decision was likely to be.  That the judge’s opinion had been seen ­he did not tell me how, he dared not, nor did I presume to question, but I have since learned that not only had the copyist employed by the judge turned traitor, but that my own agent had been anything but scrupulous in the use he had made of a willing and corruptible instrument ­and that if I wanted to save myself and the others connected with me from total and irremediable loss, I must compromise with the other parties at once, who not being advised of the true state of affairs, and having but little faith in their own case, had long ago expressed their willingness to accept the sum of a hundred thousand dollars as a final settlement of the controversy.  My agent, if none too nice in his ideas of right and wrong, was, as I have intimated, not the man to make a mistake; and when to my question as to how long a time he would give me to look around among my friends and raise the required sum, he replied, ‘Ten hours and no more,’ I realized my position, and the urgent necessity for immediate action.

“The remainder of the night is a dream to me.  There was but one source from which I could hope in the present condition of my affairs, to procure a hundred thousand dollars; and that was from the box where I had stowed away the bonds destined for the use of the Japha heirs.  To borrow was impossible, even if I had been in possession of proper securities to give.  I was considered as having relinquished speculation and dared not risk the friendship of Mr. Stuyvesant by a public betrayal of my necessity.  The Japha bonds or my own fortune must go, and it only remained with me to determine which.

“Paula, nothing but the ingrained principle of a lifetime, the habit of doing the honest thing without thought or hesitation, saves a man at an hour like that.  Strong as I believed myself to be in the determination never again to flaw my manhood by the least action unworthy of my position as the guardian of trusts, earnest as I was in my recoil from evil, and sincere as I may have been in my admiration of and desire for the good, I no sooner saw myself tottering between ruin and a compromise with conscience, than I hesitated ­hesitated with you under my roof, and with the words we had been speaking still ringing in my ears.  Ona’s influence, for all the trials of our married life, was still too strong upon me.  To think of her as deprived of the splendor which was her life, daunted my very soul.  I dared not contemplate a future in which she must stand denuded of everything which made existence dear to her; yet how could I do the evil thing I contemplated, even to save her and preserve my own position!  For ­and you must understand this ­I regarded any appropriation of these funds I had delegated to the use of the Japhas, as a fresh and veritable abuse of trust.  They were not mine.  I had given them away.  Unknown to any one but my own soul and God, I had deeded them to a special purpose, and to risk them as I now proposed doing, was an act that carried me back to the days of my former delinquency, and made the repentance of the last few years the merest mockery.  What if I might recover them hereafter and restore them to their place; the chances in favor of their utter loss were also possible, and honesty deals not with chances.  I suffered so, I had a momentary temptation towards suicide; but suddenly, in the midst of the struggle, came the thought that perhaps in my estimate of Ona I had committed a gross injustice, that while she loved splendor seemingly more than any woman I had ever known, she might be as far from wishing me to retain her in it at the price of my own self-respect, as the most honest-hearted wife in the world; and struck by the hope, I left my agent at a hotel and hurried home through the early morning to her side.  She Was asleep, of course, but I wakened her.  It was dark and she had a right to be fretful, but when I whispered in her ear, ‘Get up and listen to me, for our fortune is at stake,’ she at once rose and having risen, was her clearest, coldest, most implacable self.  Paula, I told her my story, my whole story as I have told it to you here.  I dropped no thread, I smoothed over no offence.  Torturing as it was to my pride, I laid bare my soul before her, and then in a burst of appeal such as I hope never to be obliged to make use of again, asked her as she was a woman and a wife, to save me in this hour of my temptation.

“Paula, she refused.  More than that, she expressed the bitterest scorn of my mawkish conscientiousness, as she called it.  That I should consider myself as owing anything to the detestable wretch who was the only representative of the Japhas, was bad enough, but that I should go on treasuring the money that would save us, was disgraceful if not worse, and betrayed a weakness of mind for which she had never given me credit.

“‘But Ona,’ I cried, ’if it is a weakness of mind, it is also an equivalent to my consciousness of right living.  Would you have me sacrifice that?’

“’I would have you sacrifice anything necessary to preserve us in our position,’ said she; and I stood aghast before an unscrupulousness greater than any I had hitherto been called upon to face.

“‘Ona,’ repeated I, for her look was cold, ’do you realize what I have been telling you?  Most wives would shudder when informed that their husbands had perpetrated a dishonest act in order to win them.’

“A thin strange smile heralded her reply.  ‘Most wives would,’ returned she, ’but most wives are ignorant.  Did you suppose I did not know what it cost you to marry me?  Papa took care I should miss no knowledge that might be useful to me.’

“‘And you married me knowing what I had done!’ exclaimed I, with incredulous dismay.

“’I married you, knowing you were too clever, or believing you to be too clever, to run such a risk again.’

“I can say no more concerning that hour.  With a horror for this woman such as I had never before experienced for living creature, I rushed out of her presence, loathing the air she breathed, yet resolved to do her bidding.  Can you understand a man hating a woman, yet obeying her; despising her, yet yielding?  I cannot, now, but that day there seemed no alternative.  Either I must kill myself or follow her wishes.  I chose to do the latter, forgetting that God can kill, and that, too, whom and when He pleases.

“Going down to the bank, I procured the bonds from my box in the safe.  I felt like a thief, and the manner in which it was done was unwittingly suggestive of crime, but with that and the position in which I have since found myself placed by this very action, I need not cumber my present narrative.  Handing the bonds to my agent with orders to sell them to the best advantage, I took a short walk to quiet my nerves and realize what I had done, and then went home.

“Paula, had God in his righteous anger seen fit to strike me down that day, it would have been no more than my due and aroused in me, perhaps, no more than a natural repentence.  But when I saw her for whose sake I had ostensibly committed this fresh abuse of trust, lying cold and dead before me, the sword of the Almighty pierced me to the soul, and I fell prostrate beneath a remorse to which any regret I had hitherto experienced, was as the playing of a child with shadows.  Had I by the losing of my right arm been able to recall my action, I would have done it; indeed I made an effort to recover myself; had my agent followed up with an order to return me the bonds I had given him, but it was too late, the compromise had already been effected by telegraph and the money was out of our hands.  The deed was done and I had made myself unworthy of your presence and your smile at the very hour when both would have been inestimable to me.  You remember those days; remember our farewell.  Let me believe you do not blame me now for what must have seemed harsh and unnecessary to you then.

“There is but little more to write, but in that little is compressed the passion, longing, hope and despair of a lifetime.  When I told you as I did a few hours ago that my sin was dead and its consequences at an end, I repeat that I fully and truly believed it.  The hundred thousand dollars I had sent West, had been used to advantage, and only day before yesterday I was enabled to sell out my share in the mine, for a large sum that leaves me free and unembarrassed, to make the fortune of more than one Japha, should God ever see fit to send them across my pathway.  More than that, Mr. Delafield, of whose discretion I had sometimes had my fears, was dead, having perished of a fever some months before in San Francisco; and of all men living, there were none as I believed, who knew anything to the discredit of my name.  I was clear, or so I thought, in fortune and in fame; and being so, dreamed of taking to my empty and yearning arms, the loveliest and the purest of mortal women.  But God watched over you and prevented an act whose consequences might have been so cruel.  In an hour, Paula, in an hour, I had learned that the foul thing was not dead, that a witness had picked up the words I had allowed to fall in my interview with my father-in-law in the restaurant two years before; an unscrupulous witness who had been on my track ever since, and who now in his eagerness for a victim, had by mistake laid his clutch upon our Bertram.  Yes, owing to the similarity of our voices and the fact that we both make use of a certain tell-tale word, this patient and upright nephew of mine stands at this moment under the charge of having acknowledged in the hearing of this person, to the committal of an act of dishonesty in the past.  A foolish charge you will say, and one easily refuted.  Alas, a fresh act of dishonesty lately perpetrated in the bank, complicates matters.  A theft has been committed on some of Mr. Stuyvesant’s effects, and that, too, under circumstances that involuntarily arouse suspicion against some one of the bank officials; and Bertram, if not sustained in his reputation, must suffer from the doubts which naturally have arisen in Mr. Stuyvesant’s breast.  The story which this man could tell, must of course shake the faith of any one in the reputation of him against whom it is directed, and the man intends to repeat his story, and that, too, in the very ears of him upon whose favor Bertram depends for his life’s happiness and the winning of the woman he adores.  I adore you, Paula, but I cannot clasp you to my heart across another sin.  If the detectives whom we shall call in to-morrow, cannot exonerate those connected with the bank from the theft lately committed there ­and the fact that you have been allowed to read this letter, prove they have not ­I must do what I can to relieve Bertram from his painful position, by taking upon myself the onus of that past transgression which of right belongs to my account; and this once done, let the result be for good or ill, any bond between you and me is cut loose forever.  I have not learned to love at this late hour, to wrong the precious thing I cherish.  Death as it is to me to say good-bye to the one last gleam of heavenly light that has shot across my darkened way, it must be done, dear heart, if only to hold myself worthy of the tender and generous love you have designed to bestow upon me.  Bertram, who is all generosity, may guess but does not know, what I am about to do.  Go down to him, dear; tell him that at this very moment, perhaps, I am clearing his name before the wretch who has so ruthlessly fastened his fang upon him; that his love and Cicely’s shall prosper, as he has been loyal, and she trusting, all these years of effort and probation; that I give him my blessing, and that if we do not meet again, I delegate to him the trust of which I so poorly acquitted myself.  But before you go, stop a moment and in this room, which has always symbolized to my eyes the poverty which was my rightful due, kneel and pray for my soul; for if God grants me the wish of my heart, he will strike me with sudden death after I have taken upon myself the disgrace of my past offences.  Life without love can be borne, but life without honor never.  To come and go amongst my fellow-men with a shadow on the fame they have always believed spotless!  Do not ask me to attempt it!  Pray for my soul, but pray too, that I may perish in some quick and sudden way before ever your dear eyes rest upon my face again.

“And now, as though this were to be the end, let me take my last farewell of you.  I have loved you, Paula, loved you with my heart, my mind and my soul.  You have been my angel of inspiration and the source of all my comfort.  I kneel before you in gratitude, and I stand above you in blessing.  May every pang I suffer this hour, redound to you in some sweet happiness hereafter.  I do not quarrel with my fate, I only ask God to spare you from its shadow.  And He will.  Love will flow back upon your young life, and in regions where our eye now fails to pierce, you will taste every joy which your generous heart once thought to bestow on

     “EDWARD SYLVESTER.”

CHAPTER XI - HALF-PAST SEVEN.

     “I would it were midnight, Hal, and all well.”

      ­HENRY IV.

The library was dim; Bertram, who had felt the oppressive influence of the great empty room, had turned down the lights, and was now engaged in pacing the floor, with restless and uneven steps, asking himself a hundred questions, and wishing with all the power of his soul, that Mr. Sylvester would return, and by his appearance cut short a suspense that was fast becoming unendurable.

He had just returned from his third visit to the front door, when the curtain between him and the hall was gently raised, and Paula glided in and stood before him.  She was dressed for the street, and her face where the light touched it, shone like marble upon which has fallen the glare of a lifted torch.

“Paula!” burst from the young man’s lips in surprise.

“Hush!” said she, her voice quavering with an emotion that put to defiance all conventionalities, “I want you to take me to the place where Mr. Sylvester is gone.  He is in danger; I know it, I feel it.  I dare not leave him any longer alone.  I might be able to save him if ­if he meditates anything that ­” she did not try to say what, but drew nearer to Bertram and repeated her request.  “You will take me, won’t you?”

He eyed her with amazement, and a shudder seized his own strong frame.  “No,” cried he, “I cannot take you; you do not know what you ask; but I will go myself if you apprehend anything serious.  I remember where it is.  I studied the address too closely, to readily forget it.”

“You shall not go without me,” returned Paula with steady decision.  “If the danger is what I fear, no one else can save him.  I must go,” she added, with passionate importunity as she saw him still looking doubtful.  “Darkness and peril are nothing to me in comparison with his safety.  He holds my life in his hand,” she softly whispered, “and what will not one do for his life!” Then quickly, “If you go without me I shall follow with Aunt Belinda.  Nothing shall keep me in the house to-night.”

He felt the uselessness of further objection, yet he ventured to say, “The place where he has gone is one of the worst in the city; a spot which men hesitate to enter after dark.  You don’t know what you ask in begging me to take you there.”

“I do, I realize everything.”

With a sudden awe of the great love which he thus beheld embodied before him, Bertram bowed his head and moved towards the door.  “I may consider it wise to obtain the guidance of a policeman through the quarter into which we are about to venture.  Will you object to that?”

“No,” was her quick reply, “I object to nothing but delay.”

And with a last look about the room, as if some sensation of farewell were stirring in her breast, she laid her hand on Bertram’s arm, and together they hurried away into the night.