®mm\\ Utttesiiig § ME FUND y6 /pg \\- BOUGHT WITH THE INCO FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT THE GIFT OF iienru m. Sage 1891 ...... A..S..^../.. XXIX. Dreeme his own Interireter 839 XXX Densdeth's Dark Room 953 BIOGBAPHICAL SKETCH OP THE AUTHOB, By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. Theodore Winthrop's life, like a fire long smouldering, suddenly blazed up into a clear, bright flame, and vanished. Those of us who were his friends and neighbors, by whose firesides he sat familiarly, and of whose life upon the pleas- ant Staten Island, where he lived, he was so important a part, were so impressed by his intense vitality, that his death strikes us with peculiar strangeness, like sudden winter- silence falling upon these humming fields of June. As I look along the wooded brook-side by which he used to come, I should not be surprised if I saw that knit, wiry, light figure moving with quick, firm, leopard tread over the grass, — the keen gray eye, the clustering fair hair, the kind, serious smile, the mien of undaunted patience. If you did not know him, you would have found his greeting a little constrained, — not from shyness, but from genuine modesty and the habit of society. You would have remarked that he was silent and observant, rather than talkative ; and whatever he said, however gay or grave, would have had the reserve of sadness upon which his whole character was drawn. If it were a woman who saw him for the first time, she would inevitably see him through a slight cloud of mis- apprehension ; for the man and his manner were a little at rariaoce. The chance is, that at the end of five minutes 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ■he would have thought him conceited. At the end of five months she would hare known him as one of the simplest and most truly modest of men. And he had the heroic sincerity which belongs to such modesty. Of a noble ambition, and sensitive to applause, — as every delicate nature veined with genius always is, — lie would not provoke the applause by doing anything which. although it lay easily within bis power, was yet not wholly approved by him as worthy. Many men are ambitious and full of talent, and when the prize does not fairly come they snatch at it unfairly. This was precisely what he could not do. He would strive and deserve ; but if the crown were not laid upon his head in the clear light of day and by confession of absolute merit, he could ride to his place again and wait, looking with no envy, but in patient wonder and with critical curiosity, upon the victors. It is this which he expresses in the paper in the July number of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, " Washington as a Camp," when he says, " I have heretofore been proud of my individuality, and re- sisted, so far as one may, all the world's attempts to merge me in the mass." It was this which made many who knew him much, but not truly, feel that he was purposeless and restless. They knew his talent, his opportunities. Why does he not con- centrate ? Why does he not bring himself to bear ? He did not plead his ill-health ; nor would they have allowed the plea. The difficulty was deeper. He felt that he had shown his credentials, and they were not accepted. " I can wait, I can wait," was the answer his life made to the impa- tience of his friends. We are all fond of saying that a man of real gifts will fit himself to the work of any time ; and so he will. But it is not necessarily to the first thing that offers. There is always latent in civilized lociVy a certain amount of what may bt OF THE AUTHOR. 1 called Sir Philip Sidney genius, which will seem elegant aad listless and aimless enough until the congenial chance ap- pears. A plant may grow in a cellar ; hut it will flower only under the due sun and warmth. Sir Philip Sidney was but a lovely possibility, until he went to be Governor of Flush- ing. What else was our friend, until he went to the war? The age of Elizabeth did not monopolize the heroes, and they are always essentially the same. When, for instance, I read in a letter of Hubert Languet's to Sidney, " Yon are not over-cheerful by nature," or when, in another, he speaka of the portrait that Paul Veronese painted of Sidney, and says, " The painter has represented you sad and thought- ful," I can believe that he is speaking of my neighbor. Or when I remember what Sydney wrote to his younger brother, — " Being a gentleman born, yon purpose to furnish your- self with the knowledge of such things as may be serviceable to your country and calling," — or what he wrote to Lan- guet, — "Our Princes are enjoying too deep a slumber: I can- not think there is any man possessed of common under- standing who does not see to what these rough storms are driving by which all Christendom has been agitated now these many years," — I seem to hear my friend, as he used to talk on the Sunday evenings when he sat in this huge cane- chair at my side, in which I saw him last, and in which I shall henceforth always see him. Nor is it unfair to remember just here that he bore one of the few really historic names in this country. He never spoke of it ; but we should all have been sorry not to feel that he was glad to have sprung straight from that second John Winthrop who was the first Governor of Connecticut, the younger sister colony of Massachusetts Bay, — the John Winthrop who obtained the charter of privileges for his colony. How clearly the quality of the man has been transmitted 1 How brightly tho old name shines ont again I 8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH He was born in New Haven on the 22d of September, 1828, and was a grave, delicate, rather precocious child He was at school only in New Haven, and entered Yale College just as he was sixteen. The pure, manly morality which was the substance of his character, and his brilliant exploits of scholarship, made him the idol of his college friends, who saw in him the promise of the splendid career which the fond faith of students allots to the favorite class- mate. He studied for the Clark scholarship, and gained it ; and his name, in the order of time, is first upon the roll of that foundation. For the Berkeleian scholarship he and another were judged equal, and, drawing lots, the other gained the scholarship ; but they divided the honor. In college his favorite studies were Greek and mental philosophy. He never lost the scholarly taste and habit. A wide reader, he retained knowledge with little effort, and often surprised his friends by the variety of his information. Yet it was not strange, for he was born a scholar. His mother was the great-granddaughter of old President Ed- wards; and among his relations upon the maternal side, Winthrop counted six Presidents of colleges. Perhaps also in this learned descent we may find the secret of his early seriousness. Thoughtful and self-criticising, he was peculiarly sensible to religious influences, under which his criticism easily became self-accusation, and his sensitive seriousness grew sometimes morbid. He would have studied for the ministry or a professorship, upon leaving college, except for his failing health. In the later days, when I knew him, the feverish ardor of the first religious impulse was past. It had given place to a faith much too deep and sacred to talk about, yet holding him always with serene, steady poise in the purest region of life and feeling. There was no franker or more •ympathetie companion for young men of his own age thar OF THE AUTHOB. 9 He ; but bis conversation fell from bis lips as unsullied as bit soul. He graduated in 1848, when he was twenty years old ; and for the sake of his health, which was seriously shat- tered, — an ill-health that colored all his life, — he set out upon his travels. He went first to England, spending much time at Oxford, where he made pleasant acquaintances, and walking through Scotland. He then crossed over to France and Germany, exploring Switzerland very thoroughly upon foot, — once or twice escaping great dangers among the mountains, — and pushed on to Italy and Greece, still walk- ing much of the way. In Italy he made the acquaintance of Mr. W. H. Aspinwall, of New York, and upon his return became tutor to Mr. Aspinwall's son. He presently accom- panied his pupil and a nephew of Mr. Aspinwall, who were going to a school in. Switzerland; and after a second short tour of six months in Europe he returned to New York, and entered Mr. Aspinwall's counting-house. In the em- ploy of the Pacific Steamship Company he went to Panama and resided for about two years, travelling, and often ill of the fevers of the country. Before his return he travelled through California and Oregon, — went to Vancouver's Island, Fuget Sound, and the Hudson Bay Company's, sta- tion there. At the Dalles he was smitten with the small- pox, and lay ill for six weeks. He often spoke with the warmest gratitude of the kind care that was taken of him there. But when only partially recovered be plunged off again into the wilderness. At another time he fell very ill upon the plains, and lay down, as he supposed, to die ; but after some time struggled up and on again. He returned to the counting-room, but, unsated with adventure, joined th% disastrous expedition of Lieutenant Strain. During the time he remained with it his health was still more weakened, and he came home again in 1854 1* 10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH In tue folio ring year he studied law and was admitted U the bar. In 1856 he entered heartily into the Fremont campaign, and from the strongest conviction. He went into some of the dark districts of Pennsylvania and spoke incessantly. The roving life and its picturesque episodes, with the earnest conviction which inspired him, made the summer and autumn exciting and pleasant. The following year he went to St. Louis to practise law. The climate was unkind to him, and he returned and began the practice in New York. But he could not be a lawyer. His health was too uncertain, and his tastes and ambition allured him elsewhere. His mind was brimming with the results of observation. His fancy was alert and inventive, and he wrote tales and novels. At the same time he delighted to haunt the studio of his friend Church, the painter, and watch day by day the progress of his picture, the Heart of the Andes. It so fired his imagination that he wrote a description of it, in which, as if rivalling the tropical and tangled richness of the picture, he threw together such heaps and masses of gorgeous words that the reader was dazzled and bewildered. The wild campaigning life was always a secret passion with him. His stories of travel were so graphic and warm, that I remember one evening, after we had been tracing upon the map a route he had taken, and he had touched the whole region into life with his description, my younger brother, who had sat by and listened with wide eyes all the evening, exclaimed with a sigh of regretful satisfaction, as the door closed upon our story-teller, " It 's as good as Rob- inson Crusoe I " Yet, with all his fondness and fitness for that kind of life, or indeed any active administrative func- tion, his literary ambition seemed to be the deepest and strongest. He had always been writing. In college and «pm Us OF THE AUTHOR. 1\ (ravels he kept diaries ; and he has left behind him several »ovels, tales, sketches of travel, and journals. The first published writing of his which is well known is his descrip- lion, in the June (1861) number of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, of the March of the Seventh Regiment of New Vork to Washington. It was charming by its graceful, •parkling, crisp, off-hand dash and ease. But it-is only the practised hand that can " dash off" effectively. Let any »ther clever member of the clever regiment, who has never written, try to dash off the story of a day or a week in the life of the regiment, and he will see that the writer did that little thing well because he had done large things carefully. Yet, amid all the hurry and brilliant bustle of the articles, the author is, as he was in the most bustling moment of the life they described, a spectator, an artist. He looks on at himself and the scene of which he is part. He is willing to merge his individuality ; but he does not merge it, for he could not. So, wandering, hoping, trying, waiting, thirty-two years of his life went by, and they left him true, sympathetic, patient. The sharp private griefs that sting the heart so deeply, and leave a little poison behind, did not spare him. But he bore everything so bravely, so silently, — often silent for a whole evening in the midst of pleasant talkers, but not impertinently sad, nor ever sullen, — that we all loved him a little more at such times. The ill-health from which he always suffered, and a flower-like delicacy of temperament, the yearning desire to be of some servi :e in the world, coupled with the curious, critical introspection which marks every sensitive and refined nature and paralyzes action, overcast his life and manner to the common eye with pen- giveness and even sternness. He wrote verses in which his heart seems to exhale in a sigh of sadness. But he was not in the least a sentimentalist. The womanly grace of ten* 12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH perament merely enhanced the unusual manliness of hit character and impression. It was like a delicate carnation upon the cheek of a robust man. For his humor was ex- uberant. He seldom laughed loud, but his smile was sweet and appreciative. Then the range of his sympathies was so large, that he enjoyed every kind of life and person, and wa3 everywhere at home. In walking and riding, in skat- ing and running, in games out of doors and in, no one of us all in the neighborhood was so expert, so agile as he. For, above all things, he had what we Yankees call faculty, — the knack of doing everything. If he rode with a neighbor who was a good horseman, Theodore, who was a Centaur, when he mounted, would put any horse at any gate or fence ; for it did not occur to him that he could not do whatever was to be done. Often, after writing for a few hours in the morning, he stepped out of doors, and, from pure love of the fun, leaped and turned summersaults on the grass, before going up to town. In walking abont the island, he constantly stopped by the road-side fences, and, grasping the highest rail, swung himself swiftly and neatly over and back again, resuming the walk and the talk without delay. I do not wish to make him too much a hero. " Death," says Bacon, "openeth the gate to good fame." When a neighbor dies, his form and quality appear clearly, as if he had been dead a thousand years. Then we see what we only felt before. Heroes in history seem to us poetic be- cause they are there. But if we should tell the simple truth of some of our neighbors, it would sound like poetry. Winthrop was one of the men who represent the manly and poetic qualities that always exist around us, — not great genius, which is ever salient, but the fine fibre of manhood that makes the worth of the race. Closely engaged with his literary employments, and more quiet than ever, he took less active part in the last election OF THE AUTHOR. IS But when the menace of treason became ah aggressive act, he saw very clearly the inevitable necessity of arms. We all talked of it constantly, — watching the news, — chafing at the sad necessity of delay, which was sure to confuse foreign opinion and alienate sympathy, as has proved to be the case. As matters advanced and the war-cloud rolled up thicker and blacker, he looked at it with the secret satisfaction that war for such a cause opened his career both as thinker and actor. The admirable coolness, the prompt- ness, the cheerful patience, the heroic ardor, the intelligence) the tough experience of campaigning, the profound con- viction that the cause was in truth "the good old cause," which was now to come to the death-grapple with its old enemy, Justice against Injustice, Order against Anarchy, — all these should now have their turn, and the wanderer and waiter "settle himself" at last. We took a long walk together on the Sunday that brought the news of the capture of Fort Sumter. He was thoroughly alive with a bright, earnest forecast of his part in the com- ing work. Returning home with me, he sat until late in the evening talking with an unwonted spirit, saying play- fully, I remember, that, if his friends would only give him a horse, he would ride straight to victory. Especially he wished that some competent person would keep a careful record of events as they passed ; " for we are making our history," he said, ■" hand over hand." He sat quietly in the great chair while he spoke, and at last rose to go. We went together to the door, and stood for a little while upon the piazza, where we had sat peacefully through so many golden summer-hours. The last hour foi as had come, but we did not know it. We shook hands, and he left me, passing rapidly along the brook-side under the trees, and so in the soft spring starlight vanished from my sight forever. The next morning came the President's proclamation 14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Winthrop went immediately to town and enrolled himself in the artillery corps of the Seventh Regiment. During the two or three following days he was very busy and very happy. On Friday afternoon, the 19th of April, 1861, I stood at the corner of Courtland Street and saw the regi- ment as it marched away. Two days before, I had seen the Massachusetts troops going down the same street. Dur- ing the day the news had come that they were already engaged, that some were already dead in Baltimore. And the Seventh, as they went, blessed and wept over by a great city, went, as we all believed, to terrible battle. The setting sun in a clear April sky shone full up the street. Mothers' eyes glistened at the windows upon the glistening bayonets of their boys below. I knew that Winthrop and other dear friends were there, but I did not see them. I saw only a thousand men marching like one hero. The music beat and rang and clashed in the air. Marching to death or victory or defeat, it mattered not They marched for Justice, and God was their captain. From that moment he has told his own story until he went to Fortress Monroe, and was made acting military secretary and aid by General Butler. Before he went, he wrote the most copious and gayest letters from the camp. He was thoroughly aroused, and all his powers happily at play. In a letter to me soon after his arrival in Washing- ton, he says : — " I see no present end to this business. We must conquer the South. Afterward we must be prepared to do its police in its own behalf, and in behalf of its black population, whom this war must, without precipitation, emancipate. We must hold the South as the metropolitan police holdi New York. All this is inevitable. Now I wish to enroll myself at once in the Police of the Nation, and for life, if the nation will take me. I do not see that I can put my OF THE AUTHOR. 16 Mlf — experience and character — to any more useful use My experience in this short campaign with the Sev- enth assures me that volunteers are for one purpose ana regular soldiers entirely another. We want regular soldiers for the cause of order in these anarchical countries, and we want men in command who, though they may be valuable sj temporary satraps or proconsuls to make liberty possible where it is now impossible, will never under any circum- itances be disloyal to Liberty, will always oppose any scheme of any one to constitute a military government, and will be ready, when the time comes, to imitate Washington. We must think of these things, and prepare for them Love to all the dear friends This trip has been all a lark to an old tramper like myself." Later he writes : — "It is the loveliest day of fullest spring. An aspen under the window whispers to me in a chorus of all its leaves, and when I look out, every leaf turns a sunbeam at me. I am writing in Yiele's quarters in the villa of Somebody Stone, upon whose place or farm we are encamped. The man who built and set down these four great granite pillars in front of his house, for a carriage-porch, had an eye or two for a fine site. This seems to be the finest possible about Washington. It is a terrace called Meridian Hill, two miles north of Pennsylvania Avenue. The house commands the vista of the Potomac, all the plain of the city, and a charm- ing lawn of delicious green, with oaks of first dignity just coming into leaf. It is lovely Nature, and the spot has snatched a grace from Art. The grounds are laid out after a fashion, and planted with shrubbery. The snowballs are at their snowballiest Have you heard or — how many times have you used the simile of some one, Bad-muss or Cadmus, or another hero, who sowed the dragon's teeth, and they came up dragoons a hundred-fold and infantry 16 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH a thousand-fold T Nil admirari is, of course, my frame ol mind; but I own astonishment at the crop of soldiers. They must ripen awhile, perhaps, before they are to be named quite soldiers. Ripening takes care of itself; and by the harvest-time they will be read/ to cut down. " I find that the men best informed about the South do not anticipate much severe fighting. Scott's Fabian policy will demoralize their armies. If the people do not bother the great Cunctator to death before he is ready to move to assured victory, he will make defeat impossible. Meanwhile there will be enough outwork going on, like those neat jobs in Missouri, to keep us all interested. Know, com- rade, that I am already a corporal, — an acting corporal, selected by our commanding officer for my general effect of pipe-clay, my rapidity of heel and toe, my present arms, etc., but liable to be ousted by suffrage any moment. Quod faustum sit, I had already been introduced to the Secretary of War I called at 's and saw, with two or three others, on the sofa. Him my prophetic soul named my uncle Abe But in my uncle's house are many nephews, and whether nepotism or my transcen- dent merit will prevail we shall see. I have fun, — I get experience, — I see much, — it pays. Ah, yes! But in these fair days of May I miss my Staten Island. War stirs the pulse, but it wounds a little all the time. " Compliment for me Tib [a little dog] and the Wisterias — also the mares and the billiard-table. Ask to give you t' other lump of sugar in my behalf. Should return, say that I regret not being present with an unpremeditated compliment, as thus, — 'Ah! the first rose of summer 1 ' I will try to get an enemy's button for , should the enemy attack. If the Seventh returns presently, I am afraid I shall be obliged to return with then for a time. But I mean to see this job through, somehow. OF THE AUTHOR. 17 In such an airy, sportive vein he wrote, with the firm purpose and the distinct thought visible under the sparkle Before the regiment left Washington, as he has recorded, he said good-by and went down the bay to Fortress Mon- roe. Of his unshrinking and sprightly industry, his good head, his warm heart, and cool hand, as a soldier, General Butler has given precious testimony to his family. "1 loved him as a brother," the General writes of his young aid. The last days of his life at Fortress Monroe were doubt- less also the happiest. His energy and enthusiasm, and kind, winning ways, and the deep satisfaction of feeling that all his gifts could now be used as he would have them, showed him and his friends that his day had at length dawned. He was especially interested in the condition and fate of the slaves who escaped from the neighboring region and sought refuge at the fort. He had never for an instant forgotten the secret root of the treason which was desolating the land with war ; and in his view there would be no peace until that root was destroyed. In his letters written from the fort he suggests plans of relief and comfort for the refugees ; and one of his last requests was to a lady in New York for clothes for these poor pensioners. They were promptly sent, but reached the fort too late. As I look over these last letters, which gush and throb with the fulness of his activity, and are so tenderly streaked with touches of constant affection and remembrance, yet are so calm and duly mindful of every detail, I do not think with an elder friend, in whom the wisdom of years has only deepened sympathy for all generous youthful impulse, of Virgil's Marcellus, "Heu, miserande puerl" but I recall rather, still haunted by Philip Sidney, what he wrote, just before his death, to his father-in-law, Walsingham, — "I think a wise and constant man ought never to grieve whilt he doth play, as a man may say, his own part truly." * 18 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH The sketches of the campaign in Virginia, which Winthrof had commenced in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, would have been continued, and have formed an invaluable me- moir of the places, the men, and the operations of which he was a witness and a part. As a piece of vivid pictorial description, which gives the spirit as well as the spectacle, his "Washington as a Camp" is masterly. He knew not only what to see and to describe, but what to think ; so that in his papers you are not at the mercy of a multitudinous mass of facts, but understand their value and relation. The disastrous day of the 10th of June, at Great Bethel, need not be described here. It is already written with tears and vain regrets in our history. It is useless to pro- Song the debate as to where the blame of the defeat, if blame there were, should rest. But there if an impression somewhat prevalent that Winthrop planned che expedition, which is incorrect. As military secretary of the command- ing general, he made a memorandum of th<3 outline of the plan as it had been finally settled. Precisely what that memorandum (which has been published) was, he explains in the last letter he wrote, a few hours before leaving the fort. He says: "If I come back safe, I will send you my notes of the plan of attack, part made up from the General's hints, part my own fancies." This defines exactly his responsibility. His position as aid and military secretary, his admirable qualities as adviser under the cir- cumstances, and his personal friendship for the General, brought him intimately into the council of war. He em- barked in the plan all the interest of a brave soldier con- templating his first battle. He probably made suggestion! some of which were adopted. The expedition was the first move from Fort Monroe, to whicn che country had been long looking in expectation. Then* were the reasom Or THE AUTHOR. II why hs felt M peculiar a responsibility for its success ; and after the melancholy events of the earlier part of the day, he saw that its fortunes could be retrieved only by a dash of heroic enthusiasm. Fired himself, he sought to kindle others. For one moment that brave, inspiring form is plainly visible to bis whole country, rapt and calm, standing upon the log nearest the enemy's battery, the mark of their sharpshooters, the admiration of their leaders, waving his sword, cheering his fellow-soldiers with his bugle voice of victory, — young, brave, beautiful, for one moment erect and glowing in the wild whirl of battle, the next falling forward toward the foe, dead, but triumphant. On the 19th of April, 1861, he left the armory-door of the Seventh, with his hand upon a howitzer; on the 21st of June his body lay upon the same howitzer at the same door, wrapped in the flag for which he gladly died as the symbol of human freedom. And so, drawn by the hands of young men lately strangers to him, but of whose bravery and loyalty he had been the laureate, and who fitly mourned him who had honored them, with long, pealing dirges and muffled drums, he moved forward. Yet such was the electric vitality of this friend of ours, that those of us who followed him could only think of him as approving the funeral pageant, not the object of it, but Btill the spectator and critic of every scene in which he wai apart We did not think of him as dead. We never shall In the moist, warm midsummer morning, he was alert, alive immortal CECIL DREEME CHAPTER I. stillfleet and his news. Home! The Arago landed me at midnight in mid winter. It was a dreary night. I drove for- lornly to my hotel. The town looked mean and foul. The first omens seemed unkindly. My spirits sank full fathom five into Despond. But bed on shore was welcome after my berth on board the steamer. I was glad to be in a room that did not lurch or wallow, and could hold its tongue. I could sleep, undisturbed by moaning and creaking woodwork, forever threat- ening wreck in dismal refrain. It was late next morning when a knock awoke me. I did not say, "Bntrez," or "Herein." Some fellows adopt those idioms after a week in Paris op a day in Heidelberg, and then apol- ogize, — "We travellers quite lose our mother tongue, ycu know." B CECIL Dram. "Come in," said I, glad to use the vernac- ular. A Patrick entered, brandishing a clothes-broom as if it were a shillalah splintered in a shindy. " A jontlemin wants to see yer honor," said he. A gentleman to see me ! Who can it be ? I asked myself. Not Densdeth already! No, he is probably also making a late morning of it after our rough voyage. I fear I should think it a lit- tle ominous if he appeared at the threshold of my home life, as my first friend in America. Bah ! Why should I have superstitions about Dens- deth ? Our intimacy on board will not continue on shore. What 's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecu- ba?" " A jontlemin to see yer honor," repeated the Pat, with a peremptory flourish of his weapon. " What name, Patrick ? " " I misremember the name of him, yer honor. He's a wide-awake jontlemin, with three mus- tasshes, — two on his lip, and one at the pint of his chin." Can it be Harry Stillfleet? I thought. He cannot help being wide-awake. He used to wear his beard d la three-moustache mode. His ap- pearance as my first friend would be a capital omen. " Show him up, Pat ! " said *I. " He shows himself up," said a frank, electric roice. " Here he is, wide-awake, three mous CECIL DKEEME. 38 fcaohes, first friend, capital omen. Hail Colum- bia ! beat the drums ! Robert Byng, old boy, how are you ?■" "Harry Stillfleet, old boy, how are you?" " I am an old boy, and hope you are so too." " I trust so. It is the best thing that can be said of a full-grown man." " I saw your name on the hotel book," Still- fleet resumed. " Rushed in to say, ' How d' ye do ? ' and < Good-bye ! ' I 'm off to-day. Any friends out in the Arago ? " " No friends. A few acquaintances, — and Densdeth." " Name Densdeth friend, and I cut you bing- bang ! " " What ! Densdeth, the cleverest man I have ever met ? " « The same." " Densdeth, handsome as Alcibiades, or per- haps I should say Absalom, as he is Hebrew- ish ? " " That very Alcibiades, — Absalom, — Dens- deth." " Densdeth, the brilliant, the accomplished, — who fascinates old and young, who has been everywhere, who has seen everything, who knows ihe world de profimdis, — a very Midas with the gold touch, but without the ass's ears ? Dens- deth, the potent millionnaire ? " 24 CECIL DREEME. " Yes, Byng. And lie can carry a great rmuy more adjectives. He has qualities enough to make a regiment of average men. But my friends must be built of other stuff." " So must mine, to tell the truth, Harry. But he attracts me strangely. His sardonic humor suits one side of my nature." " The cynical side ? " " If 1 have one. The voyage would have beep a bore without him. I had never met and hardly heard of him before ; but we became intimate at once. He has shown me much attention." " No doubt. He knows men. You have a good name. You are to be somebody on your own account, we hope. Besides, Densdeth was probably aware of your old friendship with the Deumans." " He never spoke of them." " Naturally. He did not wish to talk tragedy." " Tragedy ! What do you mean ? " " You have not heard the story of Densdeth ond Clara Deninan ! " cried StiUfleet, in surprise. " No. Shut up in Leipsic, and crowding my studies to come home, I have not heard a word of New York gossip for six months." " This is graver than gossip, Byng. It hap- pened less than three months ago. Densdeth was to have married Clara Denman." " The cynical Densdeth marry that strange child ! " CECIL DREEME. 26 " You forget your ten years' absence. The strange child grew up a noble woman." " Not a beauty, — that I cannot conceive." " No ; but a genius. Once in a century Na- ture sends such a brave, earnest, tender, indig- nant soul on this low earth. All the men of genius were in love with her, except myself. But Densdeth, a bad genius, seemed to have won her. The wedding-day was fixed, cards out, great festivities ; you know how a showy man like Denman would seize the occasion for splen- dor. One night she disappeared without sign. Three days afterward she was floated upon the beach down the bay, — drowned, poor thing ! " " What ! " cried I, " Clara Denman, my weird little playmate ! Dead ! Drowned ! I did not imagine how tenderly I had remembered her." " I was not her lover," said Harry, " only a friend ; but the world has seemed a mean and lonely place since she passed away so cruelly." The mercurial fellow was evidently greatly affected. " She had that fine exaltation of nature," continued he, " which frightens weak people. They said her wild, passionate moods brought her to the verge of madness." "A Sibylline soul." "Yes, a Sibyl who must see and know and suffer. Har friends gave out that she had a* * 26 CECIL DBEEME. tually gone mad with a fever, and so, while hei nurse was asleep, she stole ont, erred about the city, fell into the river, and was drowned." " Not suicide ! " " Never ! with such a healthy soul. Yet some people do not hesitate to say that she drowned herself rather than be forced to marry Dens- deth." " These are not the days of forced marriages." " Moral pressure is more despotic than physi- cal force. I fancy our old friend Churm may think there was tyranny in the business, though he never speaks of it. You know he was a sup- plementary father and guardian of those ladies. Fie was absent when it all happened." " And the Denmans, — how do they seem to bear it ? " " Mr. Denman was sadly broken at first. I used to meet him, walking about, leaning feebly on Densdeth's arm, looking like a dead man, or one just off the rack. But he is proud as Luci- fer. He soon was himself again, prouder than before." " And Emma Denman ? " " I have had but one glimpse of her since the younger sister's death. Her beauty is signally heightened by mourning." " Such a tragedy must terribly blight hei life. Will they see me, do you think T 1 CECIL DREEME. 27 should like to offer my sympathy, for old friend- ship's sake." " As an old friend, they will see you, of course. In fact, conspicuous people, like the Denmans, cannot long shelter themselves behind a sorrow. But come, old fellow, I have been talking sol- emnly long enough. Tell me about yourself. Come home ripe ? Wild bats sowed ? Beady to give us a lift with civilization ? " " Ripe, I hope. Not raw, as I went. Nor rotten, as some fellows return. Wild oats ? I keep a few handfuls still in my bag, for home sowing. As to civilization ; let me get my pou st6 and my handspike set, and I will heave with a will, lift or no." " Suppose you state your case in full, as if you were a clown in the ring, or a hero on the stage." I had been dressing while he talked. My toilette was nearly done. I struck an attitude and replied, "My name is Robert Byng, 'as I sailed.' " " Name short, and with a good crack to it ; man long and not whipper-snapper. Name dis- tinguished ; bearer capable. State your age, Byng the aforesaid." " Twenty-six." " The prisoner confesses to twenty-six. Tha judge in the name of the American people d» 28 CECIL DBEEME. mands, ' Whj then have n't you been five years at the bar, or ten years at the desk ? Why are you not in command of a clipper ship, or in Congress, or driving an omnibus, 01 clearing a farm ? Where is your door-plate ? Where is vour wife ? What school does your eldest son go to ? Where is your mark on the nineteenth century ? ' " " Bah, Harry ! Don't bore me with your Young A-inericanism ! I know it is not sincere. Let me mature, before you expect a man's work of me!" " The culprit desires to state," says Stillfleet, as if he were addressing an audience, " that he was born to a fortune and a life of idle- ness and imbecility, that he would gladly be imbecile and idle now, like nous autres; but that losing his parents and most of his money at an unsophisticated age, while in Europe, he consulted the Oracle how he should make his living. ' What is that burn on your thumb ? ' asked the Oracle. ' Phosphorus,' replied Master Bob. ' How came that hole in your sleeve ? ' Oracle inquires. 'Nitric acid,' Byng responds. ' It was the cat that scratched your face ? ' says Oracle. ' No,' answers the youtih, ' my retort burst before it was half full of gas.' ' Phospho- rus on your thumb,' Oracle sums up, ' nitric Mjid on your sleeve, and your face clawed with CECIL DKEEME. 29 gas explosions, — there is only one thing for you to do. Be a chemist ! ' Which he became. Is that a straight story, Byng?" " Near enough ! " said I, laughing at mj friend's rattling history of my life. " And here he is, fellow-citizens," Stillfleet continued. " He has seen the world and had his fling in Paris, where he picked up a little chemistry and this half-cynical manner and half-sceptical method, which you remark. He has also got a small supply of science and an abundance of dreaminess and fatalism in Ger- many. But he is a fine fellow, with a good complexion, not dishonest blue eyes, not spoilt in any way, and if America punishes him prop- erly, and puts his nose severely to the grind- stone, he may turn out respectable. I '11 offer you three to two, Byng, the Devil don't get you. Speak quick, or I shall want to bet even." " You rascal ! " said I. " I would go at you with an analysis after the same fashion, if I were not too hungry. Come down and breakfast." " Here is a gentleman from Sybaris ! " cried Stillfleet. " ' Come and breakfast ! ' says he, lifting himself out of his bed of rose-leaves at mid-day. Why, man ! I breakfasted three hours ago. I 've been up to the Reservoir and down to the Exchange and over to Brooklyn since. That 's the style you have to learn, twenty thou- 80 CECIL DBEEME. sand miles an hour, hurrah boys! go ahead! ' En avant, marrche ! ' ' Marrrrche ! ' Yes ; I took breakfast three hours ago, — and a stout one, — to fortify me for the toil of packing to go to Washington. But I '11 sit by and check your come-ashore appetite." CHAPTER II. CHRYSALIS COLLEGE. 8rn.TiFi.KBr escorted me down to the long, desolate dining-room of my hotel, the Ohuzzle- wit. The great Ohuzzlewit dined there on his visit to America, and damned his dinner with such fine irony, that the proprietor thought himself complimented, and re-baptized his hotel. " Here you are," said my friend, " at a crack house on the American plan. You can break- fast on fried beefsteak, hard eggs, cafS cm delay, soggy toast, flannel cakes, blanket cakes, and wash-leather cakes. You can dine on mock soup, boiled porpoise, beef in the raw or in the chip, watery vegetables, quoit pies, and can have your choice at two dollars a bottle of twelve kinds of wine, all mixed in the same cellar, and labelled in the same shop. You can sup on soused tea, dusty sponge-cake, and Patrick d discretion. How do you like the bill of fore ? " " Marine appetites are not discriminating. But, Harry," I continued, when I had ordered 82 CECIL DKEEME. my breakfast, " you spoke of going to Washing ton. I thought only raff — Congressmen, con- tractors, and tide-waiters — went there." " Civilization makes its missionaries acquainted with strange lodgings. They arc building a big abortion of a new Capitol. I go, as an architect, to expunge a little of the Goth and the Vandal out of their sham-classic plans." " Beware ! Reform too soon, and you risk ostracism. But before you go, advise me. Where am I to live ? Evidently not here at the Chuzzlewit. Here the prices are large, and the rooms little. I must have a den of my own, where I can swing a cat, a longish cat." " Why not take my place off my hands ? It is big enough to swing a royal Bengal tiger in. I meant to lock it up, but you shall occupy and enjoy, if you like. It's a grand chance, old fellow. There 's not such another Rubbish Pal- ace in America." " Excellent ! " said I. " But will you trust me with your plunder ? " " Will I trust you ? Have n't we been brats together, lads together, men together ? " " We have." "Haven't we been comrades in robbing or- chards, mobbing tutors, spoiling the Egyptians of mummies, pillaging the Tuileries in '48. Hare n't we been the historic friends, Demon CECIL DKEEMK. 3H and Pythagoras, — no, Damon and Pythias ? Answer mo that ! " " We have." " Well, then, enter my shop, studio, palace, and use and abuse my tools, rubbish, valuables, as you like. Really, Byng, it will be a great favor if you will fill my quarters, and keep down the rats with my rat rifle, while I am in Wash- ington trying to decorate the Representative Chamber so that it will shame blackguards to silence." " Now," said I, after a pause, and a little stern champing over a tough Chuzzlewit chop, " all ready, Harry; conduct me to your den." We left the Chuzzlewit by the side door on Mannering Place, and descended from Broadway as far as Ailanthus Square. On the corner, fronting that mean, shabby enclosure, Stillfleet pointed out a hugo granite or rough marble building. " There I live," said he. " It 's not a jail, as you might suppose from its grimmish aspect. Not an Asylum. Not a Retreat. No lunatics, that I know of, kept there, nor anything mys- terious, guilty, or out of the way." " Chrysalis College, is it not ? " " You have not forgotten its monastic phiz f " " No ; I remember the sham convent, sham castle, modern-antique affair. But how do you 34 CECIL DREEMF, happen to be quartered there ? Is the College defunct ? " "Not defunct; only without vitality. The Trustees fancied that, if they built roomy, their college would be populous ; if they built marble, it would be permanent ; if they built Gothic, it would be scholastic and mediaeval in its in- fluences ; if they had narrow, mullioned win- dows, not too much disorganizing modern thought would penetrate." " "Well, and what was the result ? " " The iesult is, that the old nickname of Chrysalis sticks to it, and whatever real name ft may have is forgotten. There it stands, big, battlemented, buttressed, marble, with windows like crenelles ; and inside they keep up the tra- ditional methods of education." " But pupils don't beleaguer it ? " " That is the blunt fact. It stays an in- effectual high-low school. The halls and lecture- rooms would stand vacant, so they let them to lodgers." " You are not very grateful to your land- lords." " I pay my rent, and have a right to criti- cise." " Who live thero besides you ? " " Several artists, a brace of young doctors, one or two quiet men about town, Churm, and CECIL DRKEMK. 35 " Churm ! How is that noblo old fellow ? I count upon reclaiming his friendship." " How is Churm ? Just the same. Tranquil sage ; headlong boy. An aristocratic radical. A Timon without gall. Says the wisest things ; does the kindest. Knows everything ; and yet is always ready for the new truth that nulli- fies the old facts. He cannot work inside of the institutions of society. He calls them ' shingle- cells,' tight and transitory. He cannot get over nis cynical way of putting a subject, though there is no cynic in his heart. So the world rotes him odd, and lets him have his own way." " Lucky to get liberty at cost of a nickname ! Who would not be called odd to be left free ? " " If Churm were poor, he would be howled at as a radical, a destructive, an infidel." " I suppose he is too rich and powerful to be barmed, and too intrepid to care." " Yes ; and then there is something in Churm's vigor that disarms opposition. His generosity hoists people up to his level. But here we are, Byng, at the grand portal of the grand front." " I see the front and the door. Where is the grandeur ? " " Don't put on airs, stranger ! We call this imposing, magnifique, in short, pretty good. Dp goes your nose ! You have lived too long in Florence. Rminnii«w.jji and Giotto have spoiU 86 CECIL DBEEMK. you. Well, I will show you something better inside. Follow me ! " We entered the edifice, half college, half lodg ing-house, through a large doorway, under a pointed arch. The interior was singularly ill- contrived. A lobby opened at the door, com- municating with a dim corridor running through the middle of the building, parallel to the front. A fan-tracery vaulting of plaster, peeled and crumbling, ceiled the lobby. A marble stairway, with iron hand-rails, went squarely and clumsily up from the door, nearly filling the lobby. Stillfleet led the way up-stairs. He pointed to the fan-tracery. " This of course reminds you of King's College Chapel," said he. " Entirely," replied I. " Pity it is deciduous ! " and I brushed off from my coat several flakes of its whitewash. The stairs landed us on the main floor of the building. Another dimly lighted corridor, an- swering to the one below, but loftier, ran from end to end of the building. This also was paved with marble tiles. Large Gothicish doors opened along on either side. The middle room on the rear of the corridor was two stories high, and served as chapel and lecture-room. On either side of this, a narrow staircase climbed to the upper floors, CECIL DREEME. 37 By the half-light from the great window over the doorway where we had entered, and from a small single mullioned window at the northern end of the corridor, there was a bastard mediae- valism of effect in Chrysalis, rather welcome after the bald red-brick houses without. " How do you like it ? " asked Stillfleet. " It 's not old enough to be romantic. But then it does not smell of new paint, as the rest of America does." We turned up the echoing corridor toward the north window. We passed a side staircase and a heavily padlocked door on the right. On the left was a class-room. The door was open. We could see a swarm of collegians buzzing for such drops of the honey of learning as they could get from a lank plant of a professor. We stopped at the farther door on the right, adjoining the one so carefully padlocked. It oore my friend's plate, — H; Stillfleet, CHAPTER III. RUBBISH PALACE Stiiafleet drew a great key, aimed at the keyhole, and snapped the bolt, all with a myste- rious and theatrical air. " Now," said he, " how is your pulse ? " " Steady and full. Why should n't it be ? " " Shut your eyes, then ! Open sesame ! Eyes eight ? Enter into Rubbish Palace ! " He led me several steps forward. " Open ! " he commanded. " Whore am I ? " I cried, staring about in sur- prise. " City of Manhattan, corner of Mannering Place and Ailanthus Square,. Chrysalis College Buildings." " Harry," said I, " this is magic, phantasma- goria. Outside was the nineteenth century ; here is the fifteenth. When I shut my eyes, I was in a seedy building in a busy modern town ; T open them, and here I am in the Palazzo Sfor- sa of an old Italian city, in the great chamber where there was love and hate, passion and do CECIL DEEEME. 3$ spair, revelry and poison, long before Columbus crackod the egg." " It is rather a rum old place," said Stillfleet, twisting his third moustache, and enjoying my s'irprise. " Trot out your Bengal tiger. Let me swing him, and measure the dimensions." " Tiger and I did that long ago. It is thirty feet square and seventeen high." " Built for some grand college purpose, I sup- pose." " As a hall, I believe, for the dons to receive lions on great occasions. But lions and great occasions never come. So I have inherited. It is the old story. ' Sic vos non vobis cedificatis cedes.' How do you like it ? Not too sombre, eh ? with only those two narrow windows open- ing north ? " " Certainly not too sombre. I don't want the remorseless day staring in upon my studies. How do I like it ? . Enormously. The place is a romance." " It is Dantesque, Byronic, Victor Hugoish." " Yes," said I, looking up. " I shall be sure of rich old morbid fancies under this ceiling, with its frescoed arabesques, faded and crumbling." " You have a taste for the musty, then," said Harry. " Anything is better than the raw. The Chuz 40 CECIL DREEMrl zlewit has given me enough of that. Well, Har- ry, your den is my den, if you say so." " Yours to have and to hold while I am gone, and much romance may you find here. Lot me show you the whole. Here 's my bath-room, ' replete,' as the advertisements say, ' with every convenience.' Here, alongside, is my bedroom." He opened doors in the wall opposite the win- dows. " A gilded bedstead ! " said I. " It was Marshal Soult's, bought cheap at his " A yellow satin coverlet ! " " Louis Philippe's. Citizen Sabots stole it from the Tuileries in '48 and sold it to me." " But what is this dark cavern, next the bed- room ? " I asked. " Where does that door at the back open ? " " Oh ! that is my trash room. Those boxes contain ' Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff.' I was jockeyed with old masters once, as my compatri- ots still are. I don't hang them up and post myself for a greenhorn." " But that door at the back ? " " What are you afraid of, Byng ? " " 1 ask for information." " Tour voice certainly trembled. No danger. Rachel will never peer through and hiss ' he flambeau fume encore.'' No Lady Macbeth will CECIL DREEME. 41 inarch in, wringing her hands that never will bo clean." " I hope not, I am sure." " It is clear you expect it. Your tone is ominous." " Indeed. A Palazzo Stoma style of place inspires Palazzo Sforza fancies, perhaps. B\it really, Harry, where does the door open ? " " It does not open, and probably will not till doomsday. It is bolted solid on my side, what- ever it be on the other. It leads to a dark room." " A dark room ! that is Otrantoish." " A windowless room, properly an appendage to this. But there is another door on the corri dor. You may have noticed it, closed with s heavy padlock. The tenant enters there, and asks no right of way of me." " The tenant, who is he ? I should know my next neighbor." " You know him already." " Don't play with my curiosity. Name." " Densdeth." " Densdeth," I repeated, aware of a slight un- easiness. " What use has he for a dark room ? — here, too, in this public privacy of Chrysalis ? " " The publicity makes privacy. Densdeth says it is his store-room for books and furniture." " Well, why not ? You speak incredulously.'' 42 CECIL DftEEMB. "Because there is a faint suspicion that ha lies. The last janitor, an ex-servant of Dens- deth's, is dead. None now is allowed to enter there except the owner's own man, a horrid black creature. He opens the door cautiously, and a curtain appears. He closes the door be- fore he lifts it. Densdeth may pestle poisons, grind stilettos, sweat eagles, revel by gas-light there. What do I know ? " " You are not inquisitive, then, in Chrysalis." "No. We have no concierge by the street- door to spy ourselves or our visitors. We can live here in completer privacy than anywhere wi Christendom. Daggeroni, De Bogus, or Made- moiselle des Mollets might rendezvous with my neighbor, and I never be the wiser." " Well, if Densdeth is well bolted out of my quarters, I will not pry into his. And now I '11 look about a little at your treasures." " Do ; while I finish packing. I cannot quite decide about taking clean shirts to Washington. In a clean shirt I might abash a Senator." " Abash without mercy ! the country will thank you," said I. " But, old fellow, what a wealth of art, virtu, and rococo you have here ! " " I have sampled all the ages of the world. No era has any right -to complain of neglect," says Stillfleet, patronizingly. " You will find speci- mens of the arts from Tubal Cain's time down. CECIL DfiEEMB. 43 One does not prowl about Europe ten years with- out making a fair bag of plunder. How old Ghurm enjoys my old books, old plates, and old objets!" " I hope ho will not desert the place when its proper master is gone. Where are his quarters in Chrysalis ? " " Story above, southwest corner, with an eye to the sunset. Odd fellow he is ! He lurks here in a little hermit cell, when he might live in a gold house with diamond window-panes." " Is he so rich ? " " Croesus was a barefooted pauper to him." " Not a miser, — that I know." " No ; he spends as a prairie gives crops. But always for others. He would be too lavish, if he were not discretion itself. Only his personal habits are ascetic." " Perhaps he once had to harden himself stern- ly against a sorrow, and so asceticism grew a habit." " Perhaps. He is a lonely man. Well, here I am, packed, abashing shirts and all ! Come down now. I must exhibit you, as my successor, to Locksley, the janitor of Chrysalis, — and it capital good fellow he is." CHAPTER IV. THE PALACE AND ITS NEIGHBORS. Stillfleet and I passed out into the chillj marble-paved corridor. The young Chrysalids in the class-room seemed to be in high revolt. They were mobbing their lank professor. We could see the confusion through the open door. " He takes it meekly, you see," said Stillfleet. " He knows that the hullabaloo is n't half pun- ishment enough for his share in the fiction of call- ing the place a college." We descended the main stairway. The white- washed fan-tracery snowed its little souvenir on us as we passed. On the ground floor, a few steps along the damp corridor, was the door marked "Janitor." Stillfleet pulled the bell. A cheerful, hand- some, housewifely woman opened. " Can we come in, Mrs. Locksley ? " said my mend. " You are always welcome, Mr. Stillfleet." We entered a compact little snuggery. There CECIL DREEME. 46 was something infinitely honest and trusty in the effect and atmosphere of the place. Three junior Locksleys caught sight of Still- fleet. They rushed at him, with shouts and gam- bols enough for a dozen. I love to see children kitten it securely about a young man. They know friends and foes with- out paying battles and wounds for the knowledge. They seem to divine a sour heart, a stale heart, or a rotten heart, by unerring instinct. If a man is base metal, he may pass current with the old counterfeits like himself ; children will not touch him. " The world has smoked and salted me," said Stillfleet, " and tried to cure mo hard as an old ham. But there is a fresh spot inside me, Byng, and juveniles always find it. I 've come to say good-bye, children," he continued ; " but here 's Mr. Bob Byng, he '11 take my place. His head is full of fairy stories for Dora. His fingers make windmills and pop-guns almost without knowing it. Think of that, Hall ! " Dora, a pretty damsel of twelve, and Hall, a ten-year-old male and sturdy, inspected me crit- ically. Was I bogus ? Their looks said, they thought not. " As for Key Locksley here," said Harry, " all he wants is romp and sugar-plums. This is Mr. Byng, Key. ' Some in his pocket and some in 46 CECIL DREEME. his sleeve, he 's made of sugar-plums I do be- lieve.' " So Master Key, a toddler, accepted me as his Lord Chief Confectioner. " Now, children," said Stillfleet, with mock gravity, " be Mr. Byng's monitors. Require him to set you a good example. Tell him young men generally go to the bad without children to watch over them." " Many a true word is spoken in jest," said Mrs. Locksley. " But where is your husband ? " my friend asked. " I must exhibit his new tenant to him." " Coming, sir ! " said a voice from the bedroom adjoining. I had heard a rustling and crackling there, as if some one was splitting his way into a starchy (ilean shirt. At the word, out came Locksley, a bristly little man. His hair and beard were so stiff that I fancied at once he could discharge a volley of hairs, as a porcupine shoots quills at a foe. This bristliness and a pair of keen black eyes gave him a sharp, alert, and warlike look, as if he were quick to take alarm, but not likely to be frightened. No danger of the hobblede- hoys of Chrysalis, the College, riding roughshod over such a janitor. I detected him as a man who had seen better CECIL DREEME. 47 days, and hoped to see them again, by Iris shirt- collars. They were stiff as Calvinism and whito as Spitzbergen. Such collars are the badge of men who, though low in the pocket, are not down in the mouth. So long as there is starch in the shirt, no matter how little nap the coat wears ; but limp linen betokens a desponding spirit, and presently there will be no linen and despair. " Locksley," said Stillfleet, in his rattling, Frenchy way, " here 's my friend Byng, Rob- ert Byng, Esquire, of Everywhere and Nowhere. I pop out and he pops in to Rubbish Palace. He 's been a half-century in Europe and knows no more of America than the babe unborn. Pro- tect his innocence in this strange city. Save him from Peter Punk. Don't let him stay out after curfew. He must not make any low ac- quaintances in Chrysalis. He has a pet animal, the Orgie, picked up in Paris, very noisy and bites ; don't allow him to bring it into these quiet cloisters. Well, I trust him to you and Mrs. Locksley. I 'm off for Washington. Good by, all ! " He shook hands with janitor and janitress, kissed Dora, tweaked the boys, and fled riotously. I saw him and his traps into a carriage and off, — off and out of the era of my life which I describe in these pages. With him I fear the merry element disappears from a sombre story. 48 CECIL DREEME. 1 perceived what a lonely fellow I was, as soon as I lost sight of Stillfleet. " Every man has his friends, if he can only find them," I said to myself. " But here I am, a returned absentee, and not a soul knows me, except Densdeth. Exit Harry Stillfleet ; manet Densdeth. I believe I will look him up. Why should I make a bSle noir of such an agreeable fellow ? He won't bite. He 's no worse than half the men I 've known. But first I must transfer myself bag and baggage to Chrysalis." The Chuzzlewit unwillingly disgorged me and my traps, after so short a period of feeding upon us. The waiter, specially detailed to keep me waiting if my bell rang, handled his clothes- broom, when he saw me depart, as- if he would like to knock me down, lock me up, and make me pay a princely ransom for my liberty. I escaped, however, without a skirmish or the aid of a policeman, and presently made my for- mal entry into Rubbish Palace. " Great luck ! " thought I, beginning to un- pack and arrange, " to find myself at home the first day." " Dreadful bore, to beat through this great city on a house-hunt ! " I picked up a newspaper on Stillfleet's table, and read the advertisements. "Lodgings for a single gentleman of pious CECIL DREEME. 49 ** Fine suite of apartments to let. N. B. Dods- ley's Band practises next door, and can be heard free of expense, at all hours of day or night." " Parlor and bedroom over Dr. Toothaker's office in Bond Street. Murderers, Coroners, Banjoists, and District Attorneys need not ap- Fly-" 1 was glai to have escaped inquiring into such places, and to tumble into luxury at once. And comfort ? I asked myself. How as to comfort ? My new quarters were almost too grandiose for comfort. That simple emotion was hardly suffi- ciently ambitious for an apartment big enough to swing a tiger, fifteen feet from tip to tip, in. There was no chimney, and therefore none of the domestic cheerfulness of an open fire. But an open fire would have interfered with the Italian aspect of the chamber. To keep the temperature up to Italy, I had a mighty stove, a great architectural pile of cast-iron, elaborate as if Prometheus had been a mediaeval saint, and this were his shrine. I looked about my great room, and it seemed to me more and more as if I were tenanting the museum of some old virtuoso Tuscan marquis, the last habitable chamber of his palazzo, the treasury where he had huddled all the heir- looms of the race since they were Counts of 3 D 60 CECIL DREEME. Etruria, long before Romulus cubbed it with wolves and Remus scorned earth-works. It is idle to say that the" scenery about a man's life does not affect his character. It does so just in proportion to his sensitiveness. A clown, of course, might inhabit the Palace of Art, with the Garden of Eve in front and the Garden of Ar- mida behind, and still never have any but clown- ish thoughts in his clown's noddle. Whatever else I was, I was certainly not a clown. My being was susceptible to every touch and every breath of influence. My new home and its scenery took me at once in hand, and began to string me to harmony with itself. I fell into a spiritual mood befitting the place. A romantic place. And Stillfleet's collection heightened the ro- mantic effect. Stillfleet was a fellow of the prac- tical and artistic natures well combined, with a bizarre slash, a bend dexter of oddity running through him. Pact, beauty, and fun were all represented in his museum. He had, as he said, sampled all the ages. The ages when beings were brutes, and did nothing but feed and drink and fight and frisk and die, leaving no sign but an unwieldy skeleton, were represented in this Congress by a great thigh- bone, which a shambling mammoth had spent bis iays in exaggerating CECIL DKEEME. 51 The fossil stood to symbolize the first kick of animal life against chaos. From that beginning the series went on rapidly. The times when Art put its fancies into amorphous, into grotesque, into clumsy forms, had all contributed some typ- ical object. Then of things of beauty, joys forever, there was abundance. There were models of the most mythological temples, and the most Christian spires and towers. There were prints and pic- tures, old and young. There were curiosities in iron and steel, in enamel and ivory, in glass and gem, in armor and weapons. I will not attempt at present to catalogue this museum, or give any distinct impression of it. On that first afternoon I did not pause to an- alyze. I should liave plenty of time in future, and now I had my own traps to arrange. That must be done systematically, so that I should be a settled man from the start. I felt, however, as I proceeded with my un- packing and bestowing, a fine sense of order in the apparent whimsical disorder of the objects about me. The pictures had not alighted on the walls merely at the first convenient perch. There was method in all the contrasts and confusions ol the place. That modern French picture, for example, o' masquers — a painting all vigor, all abandon, all 52 CECIL DREEME. untcrriued and riotous color — had not without spiritual, as well as artistic significance, ranged itsell' beside a scene of a meagre Franciscan in a cavern, contemplating a scourge, a cup, and a crust. There was propriety in setting a cast of the Venus of Milo in a corner with the armor of a knight and the pike of a Puritan. As I went on putting my chattels to rights and making myself at home in a methodic way, the atmosphere of the spot more and more affected me. I am careful in stating this dreamy influ- ence. A certain romantic feeling of expectation took possession of me. I had no definite life be- fore me. I was passive, and awaiting events. A man at work resists emanations and miasms; a man at rest is infected. I looked about the room. Everything in it seemed watching me. I fancied that the ancient objects were weary of being regarded as dead cu- riosities, as fossils. They seemed to reclaim their former semi-animation, to desire to be the prop- erties of an actual drama, to long to sympathize with joy and sorrow, as they had dumbly sympa- thized long ago. I felt myself becoming a dramatic personage, but with no rdle yet assigned. "Here is the stage," I thought. " Here is the Bcenery. Here is such a hall as conspirators, when there were conspirators, would have held CECIL DftREME. 68 tryst in. But the vindictive centuries are dead and gone. There is no Vehm to sit here in som- bre judgment. And if there were a Vehm, the age of crime is over. I dare say I shall lead a commonplace life enough here, — study, smoke. 3leep, just as if the room were not thirty feel square, dimly lighted with mullioned windows, and hung with pictures grim with three centuries of silent monitorship. " Lucky that I 'm not superstitious ! " my thought continued. " I never shall peer behind the bed for ghosts, or for fiends into the coal-bin. A. superstitious man might well be uneasy here. If I wanted to give a timid fellow the horrors, I would shut him up in this very room for a single night without light and without cigars. I don't believe a guilty man could stand it at all. If one had fathered villain purposes, those bastards of the soul's begetting would be sure to return and plague their parent in these lodgings. No, a guilty man could never live here a day. " Densdeth, now, — how would he like to be quartered in Rubbish Palace ? I forget that he does occupy the next room. By the way, I will see whether the door to his dark room is fast on my side." I crowded between the piles of packing-cases in Stillfieet's lumber-closet to examine. Unless Densdeth were a spirit, and could squeeze through f>4 CECIL DREEME. a keyhole, I was safe from a visit by that en trance. Stillfleet had screwed on this door a grand piece of ancient ironmongery, a bolt big enough to bold the gate of a condemned cell. As I stooped to admire the workmanship of the old bolt, I was aware of the faint fragrance of a subtle and luxurious perfume. Stillfleet's boxes were musty enough. The scent was only perceptible at the door. It must come from the other side. " Odor of boudoir, not store-room," I thought. " But perhaps he keeps a box of some precious nard stored here, and it has sprung a leak. Never mind, Mr. Byng ; keep your nose for your own Cologne-bottle. Boudoir or magazine, re- member it is Densdeth's, a man you mistrust." I shut the closet-door, left the coffins of Still- fleet's Old Masters in their dark vault, and re- turned to my work. In another half-hour all my traps had found their places. Everything, from boots to Bible, was where it would come to hand at need. I laid my matches so that I need not grope about in the formidable dimness of my chamber when I entered at night. It was five o'clock. I felt a great want of so ciety, and an imperative appetite for dinner. " Why not venture," I asked myself, " to knock at Mr. Churm's door up-stairs ? Perhaps CECIL DREEME. 55 he will dine with me at the Chuzzlewit, o_* show me a better place. He will not think me imper- tinent, I am sure, in making myself known anew to him." I took the nearest staircase for the floor above, expecting to find there another corridor running the whole length of the building, as below. A locked door, however, at the left of the landing obstructed my passage towards Churm's side of Chrysalis. At the right also was a door, cutting off that portion of the corridor. It stood ajar. As I was turning to descend, and find my way by the other staircase to Churm's lodgings, the question occurred to me, " Have I a neighbor overhead ? Densdeth beside me, — who is above ? By what name shall I chide him, if in dancing his breakdowns he comes crashing through the centre-piece of my ceiling ? I should be glad to have a fine fellow close at hand to serve me as a counterblast to Densdeth. I must have friends, and if I can find one in my neighbor, so much the better." I pushed open the door, and entered the little hall ; it was lighted, as below, by a narrow mul- lioned window, — only half-lighted at that hou: of a winter's afternoon. A lonely, dismal place. The ceiling, instead of showing a tidy baldness under recent comb- ings by a housemaid's broom, was all hairy with 66 CECIL DBEEMR. cobwebs. 1 was surprised that no spider had slung himself across the doorway, making the lobby a cave of Adullam. There were two doors on the right. Each was labelled " To Let." The light was so faint by this time that I was obliged to approach close to satisfy myself that "To Let" was not the name of a tenant. On the left the same unprofitable nonentity occupied the room over Densdeth's. The fourth door, corresponding to my own, remained. I inspected that in turn. An ordinary visiting-card was tacked to the door. It bore a name neatly printed by hand. I deciphered it with difficulty by the twilight through the grimy window : — Cecil Dreeme, Painter. A modest little door-plate. Its shyness inter- ested me at once. Some men force their name and business on the world's eye, as the vulgar and pushing announce their presence by a loud voice and large manner. A person of conscious power will let his works speak for him. Take care of the work, and the name will take care of itself. " Mr. Cecil Dreeme," I said to myself, " is some confident genius, willing to have his nam6 CECIL DREEME. 67 remain in diminutive letters on a visiting-card until the world writes it in big capitals in Val- halla. Here he lurks and works, ' like some poet hidden in the realm of thought.' By and by a great picture will walk out through this cobwebby corridor. " Cecil Dreeme," I repeated. " My neighbor overhead has a most musical, most artistic name. Dreeme, — yes ; the sound, if not the spelling, fits perfectly. A painter's life, if common theo- ries be true, should be all a dream. Visions of Paradises and Peris should always be with him. No vulgar, harsh, or cruel realities should shat- ter his placid repose. Cecil, too, — how fortu- nate that those liquid syllables were sprinkled upon him by the surplice at the font. Tom or Sam or Peter would have been an unpardonable discord." Cecil Dreeme ! The melodious vagueness of die name gently attracted me. It was to mine what the note of a flute is to the crack of a rifle. Cecil Dreeme — Robert Byng. " There is a contrast to begin with," I thought. " Our professions, too, are antagonistic. Chem- istry — Art. Formulas — Inspirations. Anal- ysis — Combination. I work with matter ; he with spirit. I unmake ; he makes. I split atoms, unravel gase*j ; he grafts lovely image r>8 CECIL DREEME. upon lovely image, and weaves a thousand gos- samers of beauty into one transcendent fabric." As these fancies ran through my brain, I be gan to develop a lively curiosity in my neighbor overhead. ' Remember that I was a ten years.' absentee, without relatives, without sure friends, wanting society, and just now a thought romanticized by the air and scenery of Rubbish Palace. I began to long to be acquainted with this gentleman above me, this possible counterblast to Densdeth, this possible apparition through my ceiling at the heel of a breakdown. " Docs he, their, dance breakdowns ? " I thought. " Is he perhaps a painter of the frowzy class, with a velvet coat, mop of hair and mile of beard, pendulous pipe and a figurante on the bowl, and with a Diisseldorf, not to say Bohe- mian, demeanor. Is he a man whose art is a trade, who paints a picture as he would daub the side of a house ? Or is he the true Artist, a refined and spiritualized being, Raphael in look, Fra Angelico in life, a man in force, but with the feminine insight, — one whose labor is love, one whose every work is a poem and a prayer ? Which ? Shall I knock and discover ? An ar- tist generally opens his doors hospitably to an amateur. "No" I decided, "I will not knock. We CECIL DKEEME. 69 shall meet, if Destiny has no objection. Two in the same Chrysalis, we cannot dodge each othe/ without some trouble. If I am lonely by and by, and yearn for a friend, and he does not dance through my centre-piece, I will fire a pistol-ball through his floor. Then apology, laugh, confes sion, and sworn friendship, — that is, of course, if he is Raphael-Angelico, not Bohemian-Diissel- dorf." These fancies, so long in the telling, flashed rapidly through my mind. I turned away from the door, with its quiet announcement of the name and business of a tenant, not precisely evading, but certainly not inviting notice. I made my way down, and up again by the other staircase to the same floor. Here I found the same arrangement of rooms, but more popu- lation and fewer cobwebs. The southern expos- ure was preferred to the northern, in that chilly structure. I knocked at Mr. John Churm's door in the southwest corner of the building. No " Come in." I must dine alone at the Chuzzlewit. As I stepped from Chrysalis, I gave a look to Ailanthus Square in front. " This will never do ! " I exclaimed. It was a wretched place, stiffly laid out, shah- 60 CECIL DREEME. bily kept, planted with mean, twigless trees, and in the middle the basin of an extinct fountain filled with foul snow, through which the dead cats and dogs were beginning to sprout at the solicitation of the winter's sunshine. A. dreary place, and drearily surrounded oy red brick houses, with marble steps monstrous white, and blinds monstrous green, — all destined to be boarding-houses in a decade. " This will never do ! " I exclaimed again. " Outdoor life offers no temptation. I am forced inward to indoor duties and pleasures. Objects in America are not attractive. I must content myself with people. And what people ? My first day wanes, Stillfleet is off, and I have made no acquaintance but a musical name on a dcor in a dusty cornet of Chrysalis." CHAPTER V. CHURM AGAINST DENSDETH. 1 had hardly taken my first spoonful of hike warm mock soup at the long, crowded dinner table of the Chuzzlewit, when General Blinckers. a Yellow-passenger on the Arago, caught sight of me. He bowed, with a burly, pompous, militia- general manner, and sent me his sherry. It was tine Chuzzlewit Amontillado, so a gorgeous label announced, and sunshine, so its date alleged, had ripened it a score of years before on an aro- matic hill-side of Spain. But the bottle was very young for old wine, the label very pretentious for famous wine, and my draught, as I expected, gnawed me cruelly. In a moment came a bow from Governor Bluf- fer, also fellow-passenger, and his bottle of the Chuzzlewit champagne, — label prismatic and glowing, bubbles transitory, wine sugary and vapid. Bluffer was of Indiana, returning from a trip to Europe as a railroad-bond placer. He had placed his bonds, second mortgages of the Mud 62 CECIL DREEME defontaine Railroad, with groat success. His State would now become first in America, first in Christendom. He was sure of it. And by way of advancing the process, he had proposed to me to become " Professor of Science " in the Terryhutte University, — salary five third mort- gages of the Muddefontaine per annum. Blinckers was of Tennessee, wild-land agent. Ho had been urgent all the passage that I should take post as Professor in the Nolachucky State Polytechnic School, — salary a thousand acres per annum of wild land in the Cumberland Mountains. Both of these offers I had declined ; but I was obliged to the two gentlemen. I bowed back to their bows, and sipped the liquids they had sent me without mouthing. Presently, as I glanced up and down the table, 1 caught sight of Densdeth's dark, handsome face. He had turned from his companion, and was looking at me. He lifted his black mous- tache with a slight sneer, and pointed to untasted glasses of Blinckers and Bluffer standing before rdm. " See ! " his glance seemed to say. " Libations at the shrine of Densdeth, the miUionnaire. Those old chaps would kiss my feet, if I hinted it." Then he held up his own private glass, as if to say, with Comus, — CECIL DBEEME. 00 " Behold this cordial julep here, That flames and dances in his crystal bounds ! " A dusty magnum stood beside him, without label, but wearing a conscious look of impor- tance. He carefully filled a goblet with its purple contents, and despatched it to me by his own servant. Densdeth was a coxcomb, partly by nature, partly for effect. He liked to call attention to himself as the Great Densdeth. He always had special wines, special dainties, and special ser- vice. " It pays to be conspicuous," he said to me, on board the steamer. " I don't attempt to hum- bug fellows like you, Byng," — and at this I of course felt a little complimented, — " but we must take men as we find them. They arc asses. I treat them as such. Ordinary people adore luxury. They love to see it, whether they share it or not. A little quiet show and lavishness on one's self is a capital thing to get the world's confidence. " Besides, Byng," he continued, " I love lux- ury for its own sake. I mean to have the best for all my senses. I keep myself in perfect health, you see, for perfect sensitiveness and perfect enjoyment. Why should n't I take the little trouble it requires to have the most deli- cate wine, and other things the most delicate, 64 CECIL DREEME. always at command ? Life is short. Apres, U dSluge, or worse." While I was recalling these remarks, Dens- deth's servant had deposited the wine at my right. He was an Afreet creature, this ser- vant, black, ugly, and brutal as the real Mumbo Jumbo. Yet sometimes, as he stood by his mas- ter, I could not avoid perceiving a resemblance, and fancying him a misbegotten repetition of the other. And at the moments when I mis- trusted Densdeth, I felt that the Afreet's repul- sive appearance more fitly interpreted his mas- ter's soul than the body by which it acted. I raised the goblet to my mouth. The aroma was delicious. " Densdeth," I thought, " must have had a cask of the happiest vintage of Burgundy's di- vinest juice hung in gimbals, and floated over the Atlantic in the June calms." I put the fragrant draught to my lips, and bowed my compliments. Densdeth was studying me, with a covert ex- pression, — so I felt or fancied. I interpreted his look, — " Young man, I saw on the steamer that you were worth buying, worth perverting. I have spent more civility than usual on you already. How much more have I to pay ? Are you a cheap commodity? Or must I give time and pains and study to make you mine ? " CECIL DBEEME. hi Do these fancies seem extravagant ? They must justify themselves hereafter in this history. I sot down Densdeth's glass, untasted. " What does it mean," thought I, " this man's strange fascination ? When his eyes are upon me, I feel something stir in my heart, saying, ' Be Densdeth's ! He knows the mystery of life.' I begin to dread him. Will he master my will ? What is this potency of his V How has he got this lodgment in my spirit ? Is he one of those fabulous personages who only exist while they are preying upon another soul, who are torpid unless they are busy contriving a dam nation ? Why has he "been trying to turn me inside out all the voyage ? Why has he kept touching the raw spots and the rotten spots in my nature ? I can be of no use to him. What does he want of me? Not to make me better and nobler, — that I am sure of. No ; I will not touch his wine. I will keep clear of his atten- tions." By the way of desperate evasion, I seized and tossed off, first, Governor Bluffer's mawkish champagne, and then the acrid fabrication with which Blinckers had honored me. Of course the rash and feeble dodge was futile. I was not to be let off in that way. There stood Densdeth's wine, attracting me like some magic philter. It became magnetic 66 CECIL DREEME. with Densdeth's magnetism. I could almost sec an imp in the glass, — not the teetotaller's bottle- imp, but a special sprite, urging me, " Drink, and let the draught symbolize renewed intimacy with Densdeth ! Drink, and accept his proffered alliance. Be wise, and taste ! " The vulgar scenery of the long dining-room faded away from my eyes. The vulgar, dressy women, the ill-dressed, vulgar men, the oleagi- nous waiters, all became distant shadows. I heard the clatter and bustle and pop about me, as one hears the hum of mosquitos outside a bar at drowsy midnight. I was conscious of nothing but the wine — the philter — and him who had poured it out. Absurd ! Yes ; no doubt. But fact. Cer- tainly a Chuzzlewit dining-room is a shrine of the commonplace ; but even there such a mood is possible under such an influence. Densdeth was exceptional. I sat staring at the silly glass of wine, and began to make an unwholesome test of my self- control. I recalled the typical legend of Eve and the apple, and exaggerated the moral im- portance of my own incident after the same fashion. " If I resist this symbolic cup," thought I, " 1 »m my own man ; if I yield, I am Densdeth's." When a man is weak enough to put slavery CECIL DREEME. 67 and freedom thus in the balance, it is plain that he will presjntly be a slave. "Bah ! " I thought. " What harm, after all, can this terrible person do me ? Why should n't I accept his alliance ? Why should n't I study him, and learn the secret of his power." My slight resistance was about to yield to the spiritual enticement of the wine, when suddenly an outer force broke the spell. A gentleman had just taken a vacant chair at my right. Absorbed in the milie of my owi! morbid fancies, I had merely perceived his pres ence, without noticing his person. Suddenly this new-comer took part in the drama. He flirted his napkin, and knocked Densdeth's wine-glass over into my plate. The purple fluid made an unpleasant mixture with my untouched portion of fish. " Thank you ! " I exclaimed, waking at once from my half-trance, my magnetic stupor, and feeling foolish. I turned to look at my unexpected ally. Per- haps some clumsy oaf who had never brandished a napkin before, and struck wide, like a raw swordsman. No. My neighbor was a gentleman. He held «ut his hand cordially. " Have I waked you fully, Byng ? " he asked. " Mr. Charm ? " said I. 68 CECIL DREEME. He nodded We shook hands. The toucl dissipated my brief insanity. " You have been in a state of coma so long over that wine," said he, " that I thought I would give you a fillip of help." I tried to laugh. " No," resumed Churm. " Only escaped dan gers show their comic side. You are not safe from Densdeth yet. You would have yielded just now if I had not spilled the glass." " Yielded ! " I rejoined. " Not exactly ; I was proposing to test his mysterious influ- ence." " Never try that ! Don't dive into temptation to show how stoutly you can swim. Once fairly under water in Acheron, and you never come tc the top again." " Face Satan, and he flies, is not your motto, then." " Face him when you must ; fly him when you may." "But really, — Devil and Densdeth; is it quite polite to identify them ? " I asked. " If you do not wish to see them melt into one, keep yourself from both." " And stay in a pretty paradise of innocence ? ' " I cannot jest about this, Byng. I knew «> fresh, strong, pure soul, — fresher, stronger. purer than the fairest dreams of perfection. II C1.0IL DftEEME. 69 was the dostiny of such a soul to battle with Densdeth and be beaten. Yes ; defeated, and driven to madness or despair." " You are speaking of Clara Denman." " I am." As he replied, I looked up and caught Dens- deth's eye. He took my glance and carried it with his to the upper end of the table. A flam- boyant demirep was seated there. Densdeth marked that I observed her, and then smiled sinister, as if to say : " Byng, the romantic, there is the type of American women ; look at her, and correct your boyish ideal." Churm noticed this by-play. " But better madness and death for my dear child," said he, sadly, " than Densdeth ! " Then waiving the subject, he continued: "You were surprised to find me at your side." " It was an odd chance, certainly." " No chance. Locksley told me that you had moved in from the Chuzzlewit, as Stillfleet's suc- cessor. I knocked at Rubbish Palace door. You were out. I thought you might be dining here. I looked in, saw you, and took my seat at your side. I did not hurry recognition. I was curi- ous to see if you would know an old friend." " I have called upon you already," said I. " I am a big boy, but I wanted to put myself undei tutelage." 70 CECIL DKEEME. " Well, we are in the same Chrysalis ; we will try to take care of each other till our wing." My lively interest in the name Cecil Dreeme recurred to me. "Are there others worth knowing in Chrys- alis ? " I asked. " No. Bright fellows like brighter places. Only an old troglodyte like myself burrows in such a cavern. Nobody but Stillfleet could have kept in jolly health there. Take care it does not make you sombre." " It will suit my sober, plodding habits. But tell me, do you know anything of a Mr. Dreeme, a painter, fellow-lodger of ours ? I saw his name on a door as I was looking for yours ? Is he a rising genius ? Must I know him ? " As I asked these questions, it happened that Densdeth laughed in reply to some joke of his guest. Densdeth's smile, unless he chose to let it pass into a sneer, was gentlemanly and winning. A little incredulous and inattentive I had found it when I spoke of heroism, charity, or self-sacrifice. It pardoned belief in such whimsies as a juve- nility. His laugh, however, expressed a riper cynicism. It was faithless and cruel, — I had sometimes thought brutally so. Breaking in at this moment, rather loudly for the public place, it seemed to strike at the ro CECIL DRKKMK. Tl mantic interest I had felt in the name Cecil Dreenu . What would a man of the world think of such idle fancies as I had indulged apropos of the painter's door-card ? I really hoped Churm would be able to reply, " 0, Dreeme ! He is a creature with a seedy velvet coat, frowzy hair, big pipe, — rank Diisseldorf. Don't know him!" " There is a young fellow of that name in the building," said Churm. " I have never happened to see him. Locksley says he is a quiet, gentle- manly youth from the country, who lives retired, works hard, and minds his own business." Neither my friend nor I ventured upon serious topics for the rest of the dinner. " I have an errand down town," said he. " You shall walk with me, and afterwards we will discuss your prospects over a cigar at Chrys- alis." So we talked Europe — a light subject to Americans — until dessert was over, and the Chuzzlewit guests began to file out, wishing they had not taken so much pie and meringue on top of the salad, and had given to the Tract Society the two dollars now racking their several brains and rioting in their several stomachs, in the form of sherry or champagne. Churm and I joined the procession. We were battling for our hats in the lobby with a brace of 72 CECIL DREEMK. seedy gents who proposed to appropriate them, when Densdeth came out. He saluted me cordially and Churm iistantly. No love between these two. Apart from any moral contrast, their temperaments were too op- posite to combine. Antagonistic natures do not necessarily make man and woman hostile, even when they are imprisoned for life in matrimony ; domestic life stirs and stirs, slow and steady, and at last the two mix, like the oil and mustard in a mayonnaise. But the more contact, the more repulsion, in two men of such different quality as Churm and Densdeth. Both were quiet and self-possessed, and yet it seemed to me that, if a thin shell of decorum and restraint between them should be broken by any outer force, the two would clash together like explosive gases, and the weaker be utterly con- sumed away. I had already had hints, as I have stated, that they had causes for dislike. I could not wonder, as I saw them standing side by side. They were as different as men could be and yet ne men. I observed them with a certain premonition that I was to be in some way drawn into the battle they must fight or were fighting. With which captain was I to be ranged ? Densdeth was a man of slight, elegant, active figure, and of clear, colorless, olive complexion CECIL DRF.F.ME. 73 His hair was black and studio lsly arranged He was shaved, except a long drooping mous- tache, — that he could not have spared ; it served sometimes to conceal, sometimes to emphasize, a ■sneer. His nose was a delicate aquiline, and his other fine-cut features corresponded. His eyes were yellow, feline, and restless, — the only rest- less thing about him. They glanced from your lips to your eyes and back, while you talked with him, as if to catch each winged word, and compare it with the expression perched above. Quick and sidelong looks detect a swarm of Pleiads where the steady gaze sees only six. Densdeth seemed to have learnt this lesson from astronomy ; he shot his glance across your face to catch expressions which fancied themselves latent. Keen eyes Densdeth's to recognize a villain. Churm was sturdy and vigorous ; well built, one would say, not well made ; built for use, not made for show. His Saxon coloring of hair and complexion were almost the artistic contrast to Densdeth's Oriental hues. He wore his hair and thick brown beard cut short. His features were all strongly marked and finished somewhat in the rough, not weakened by chiselling and mending. His eyes were blue, frank, and earnest. He looked his man fair and square in the face, and never swerved until each had had his say Keen enough, 74 CECIL DRKEME. too, Glmrm's eyes. They were his lanterns tc search for an honest man and friend, not for a rogue and tool. These men's voices also proclaimed natures at war. In wild beasts the cry reveals the character- So it docs in man, — a cross between a beast and a soul. If beast is keeping soul under, he lets the world know it in every word his man speaks. The snarl, the yelp, and the howl are all there for him that has ears to hear. If the soul in the man has good hope and good courage, through all his tones sound the song of hope and the paean of assured vic> tory. Churm's voice was bold and sweet, with a sharp edge. He was outspoken and incisive. Any mind, not muffled by moss or thicket, would hear itself echo when he spoke. His laugh, if it made free to leap out for a holiday, was a boy's laugh, frank, merry, and irrepressible. There was, however, underneath all his cheerful, inspir- ing, and forgiving tones, a stern Rhadamanthine quality, as of one to whom profound experience has given that rare, costly, and sorrowful right, — the right to judge and condemn. Densdeth spoke with a delicate lisp, or rather Spanish softness. There was a snarl, however, beneath these mild, measured notes. He soothed CECIL DREEME. 7ft you ; but you felt that there was a claw curled under the velvet. As to his laugh, it was jackal, — a cruel, traitorous laugh, without sympathy or humor, — a sneer given voice. But this ugly sound it was impossible to be much with Dens- deth and not first echo and then adopt. The same general contrast of nature was visi- ble in the costumes of these gentlejnen. Even a coat may be one of the outward signs by which we betray the grace or disgrace tbat is in us. Churm was in fatigue dress. He looked water- proof, sun-proof, frost-proof. No tenderness for his clothes would ever check him from wading a gutter or storming a slum, if there were man to be aided or woman to be saved. He dressed as if life were a battle, and lie were appointed to the thick of the fight, too well known a generalissimo to need a uniform. Densdeth was a little too carefully dressed His clothes had a conscious air. His trousers hung as if they felt his eye on them, and dreaded a beating if they bagged. His costume was gen- erally quiet, so severely quiet that it was evident he desired to be flagrant, and obeyed tact rather than taste. In fact, taste always hung out a pro- test of a diamond stud, or an elaborate chain or eye-glass. Still these were not glaring errors, and Densdeth's distinguished air and marked Orientalism of face made a touch of spk'mlcr tolerable. 76 CECIL DREKMK. I fckctcli a few of the external traits of these two. I might continue the contrast at length. Even at that period of my acquaintance they had become representative personages to me. And now, as I look back upon that time, I find that I divined them justly. They in some measure per- sonified to me the two opposing forces that war for every soul. As they bowed coldly to each other in the hall of the Chuzzlewit, and turned to me, I seemed at once to become conscious of their rival influences. My dual nature felt the dual attraction. " Glad to see you again, Byng," said Dens- deth, offering his hand. " Will you walk into my parlor ? I am quartered here for a day or two. Come ; I can give you an honest cigar and a thimbleful of Chartreuse." " Thank you," I replied. " Another time, if you please. Just now I am off with Mr. Churm." " Au revoir ! " says Densdeth. " But let me not forget. to mention that I have seen our friends, Mr. and Miss Denman. They hope for a call from you, for old friendship's sake. If I had known of your former intimacy there, we should have had another tie on board the steamer." His yellow eyes came and went as he spoke, exploring my face to discover, " What has Churm told him of me and Clara Denman ? What has he heard of that tragedy ? Something, but how much ? " CECIL DBEEME. 77 * Miss Denman will be, at home to-morrow, at anc," he continued. " I took the liberty to promise that you would accept my guidance, and pay your respects at that hour." " You are very kind," I of course said. " 1 will go with pleasure." " I will call for you, then, at Chrysalis. I heard here at the hotel-office that you had moved into Harry Stillfleet's grand den. I felicitate you." " You have a den adjoining," said I, my tone no doubt betraying some curiosity. " 0, my lumber-room," he replied, carelessly. " I find it quite a convenience. A nomad bach- elor like myself needs some place to store what traps he cannot carry in his portmanteau." " Well, Mr. Churm," said I, as we walked off together ; " you see I cannot evade Densdeth. He is my first acquaintance at home, my next- door neighbor in Chrysalis, and now he takes the superintendence of my re-introduction to old friends. Fate seems determined that I shall clash against him. I am not sure whether my self is elastic enough to throw him off, even if I desire to." " No self gets a vigorous repelling power until it is condensed by suffering." " Then I would rather stay soft and yielding," said I, lightly. " But, Mr. Churm, before I call 78 CECIL DREEME. upon the Denmans, you must tell me the whole story of their tragedy, otherwise I may wound them ignorantly." " I desire to do so, my dear boy, for many reasons. We will have a session presently at your rooms, and talk that history through." He walked on down Broadway, silent and moody. " Observe where I lead you," said he, turning to the east through several mean, narrow streets. " Seems to me," said I, " you have fouler slums here than Europe tolerates." " If you could see the person I am going to visit, you would understand why. If men here must skulk because they are base, or guilty, or imbecile, they strive to get more completely out of sight, and shelter themselves behind more stenches than people do -in countries where the social system partially justifies degradation. But here we are, Byng. I have brought you along with a purpose." Churm stopped in front of a mean, frowzy row of brick buildings. He led the way through a most unsavory alley into a court, or rather space, serving as a well to light the rear range of a tenement-house. In a guilty-looking entry of this back building Churm left me, while he en- tered a wretched room. It '-6 no part of my purpose to describe this CECIL DKEKME. 7S dismal place, or to moralize over it. Perhaps at that time in my life I had too little pity for poverty, and only a healthy disgust for filth. I remained outside, smoking and listening to the jackal-voices, of the young barbarians crying for supper from cellar to garret of the building. " You will remember this spot," said Churm, issuing after a few moments, and leading the way out again. " My poor victimized nose will have hard work to forgot it." " And the name Towner," my friend con- tinued. " Also Towner," I rejoined. And probably my tone expressed the query, " Who is he ? " " Towner is the tarnished reverse of that bur nished medal Densdeth, — Densdeth without gild ing." " Did Deiip^eth fling him away into this hole ? " " He is lying perdu here, hid from Densdeth and the world. He has been a clerk, agent, tool, slave, of the Great Densdeth. The poor wretch has a little shrivelled bit of conscience left. It twinges him sometimes, like a dying nerve in a rotten tooth. He sent for me the other day, by Locksley, saying that he was sick, poor, and penitent for a villany he had done against me, and wanted to confess before he lied, and before Densdeth could and him again 80 CECIL DREEME. This is my third visit. He cannot make up hi* impotent mind to confession. He must speak soon, or concealment will kill him. I am to come down to-night at eleven and watch with him." " Till when you will watch with me in Chrys- alis." " Yes ; and now I suppose you wonder why I brought you here." " To teach me that republics are unsavory ? " " Perhaps I want you to take an interest in this poor devil, in case I should be absent ; per- haps I wish you to see the result of the Dens- deth experiment, when it does not succeed ; perhaps — well, Byng, you will promise me to expend a little of your superabundant vitality on my patient, if he needs it ? " " Certainly ; but understood, that you pay to have me deodorized and disinfected after each visit." I could not give a cheerful turn to the talk Churm walked on, silent and out of spirits. CHAPTER VI. CHURM AS CASSANDRA. We turned from Broadway down Cornwallis Place, parallel to Mannering Place, and entered Chrysalis by the side door upon that street. "I have a word to say to the janitor," said Churm. Pretty Dora Locksley admitted us to the snug- gery. Lighted up, it was even more cheerful than when I saw it with Stillfleet. The table was set for supper. The bright teapot, the bright plates, the bright knives and forks, had each its own bright reflection of the gas-light to contrib- ute to the general illumination. Mrs. Locksley, the bright cause of all this bril liancy, was making the first cut into a pumpkin- pie of her own confection, as we entered. It was the ideal pumpkin-pie. Its varnished surface shone with a rich, mellow glow, and all about its marge a ruffle of paste of fairest complexion lifted, like the rim of delighted hills about a happy valley. As Mrs. Locksley's knife cleft the soil of this sweet vale, fragrant incense steamed ** r 82 CECIL DREEME. up into the air. What nose would not sniff away all remembrance of the mephitic odors it had inhaled, to entertain this fresh, wholesome emanation ? Mine did at once. I felt myself deodorized from the sour souvenirs of Towner's slum.- The moral atmosphere, too, of this honest, cheerful, simple home-scene acted as a moral disinfectant. The healthy picture hung itself up in a good light in my mental gallery. It was well it should be there. Chrysalis owed me this, as a contrast to the serious pictures awaiting me along its dusty halls, as a foil to a sombre tableau hid behind the curtain at the vista's end. Mrs. Locksley offered a quadrant of her pie to Churm. - " I resign in Mr. Byng's favor," said he. " Hail Columbia ! " cried I, accepting the resig- nation ; and as I eat I felt my Americanism re- vive. " I've just seen Towner again," Churm says, " and am to sit up with Mm." " Poor fellow ! " said Locksley. " Has he any chance ? " " Poor fellow, indeed ! " cried Mrs. Locksley, in wrath, evidently sham. " Dont waste ' poors ' on him, William. Did n't he as much as kill my poor sister, and ruin us ? " "You don't look very ruinous, Molly. No; jrou're built up fresh by losing mo.iey, and not CECIL OKEEME. 83 having an Irish Biddy to feed you on mud-pies. We must not bear malice, wife ! " "We don't, William. And the proof is this jelly I 've made for him." "Right!" says Locksley. " But, Mr. Churm," he continued, and here his bristly aspect intensi- fied, as if a foe were at hand, " Mr. Densdeth is back in the steamer. He 's been here to day, asking for Towner. But he got nothing out of me." " The sight of Densdeth would kill- the man. He shivers at the mere thought of his old master. We must keep him hid until he dies or gets some life into IiLjI. Good night." " A trusty fellow, the janitor," said I, as we walked up stairs. " Trusty as a steel bolt on an oak door." "He will keep my secrets, if I have any, as one of his collegians ? He won't stand on the corner and button-hole everybody with the news that I never go to bed, and hardly ever get up ? He won't put njy 'leeds or misdeeds in the news- papers 1 " " No. If you should say to him, ' Locksley, I 've got a maggot in my head. I am going to lock myself up in Rubbish Palace and train it. I want to hibernate for three months and not see a soul, except you with my meals. Let me be forgotten ! ' Locksley would reply, ' Very 84 CECIL DREEME. well, sir! And you would be as secluded as if you had gone to Kamtschatka." " You speak as if such things happened in Chrysalis." " They might, under Locksley." " How refreshing," said I, " to find such a place and such a person plump in the middle of New York ! But tell me, what is Locksley to Towner ? " " Towner married our janitor's wife's sister. Locksley is a very clever machinist. He was a prosperous locksmith, manufacturing locks of a patent of his own, until Towner persuaded him to indorse his paper. Towner had some fine scheme by which he meant to make him- self independent of Densdeth, and so escape from his service. His old master had become hateful to him. But Densdeth did not propose to let his serf go free. He made it his business, so both the men think, to spoil the specula- tion, and ruin the two, financially. Locksley lost everything. I got him this place, until he could look about and take a fresh start." I opened my door. From the back of the sombre apartment, the great black stove, with its isinglass door, like a red Cyclops eye, stared at the strangers. The gas-light from the streel shone faint through the narrow windows. " Ghostly scenery ! " said I, glancing about. CECIL DREEMfi. 85 The oasts and busts stood white and ghostly in the corners, and by the door of the lumber- room a suit of armor, holding a spiked mace in its fingerless gauntlets, reflected the dull glow of the fire-light. " Those great carved arm-chairs," said Churm, " stand as if the shadows of so many black-robed inquisitors had just quitted them." " What a chamber this would have been," I said, " for the sittings of a secret tribunal, a Vehmgericht! Imagine yourself and me en- throned, with crapes over our faces, and Locks- ley, armed with one of these halberds of Still- fleet's, leading in the culprit." " Have you selected your culprit ? " " Well, Densdeth is convenient. He might be brought in from that dark room of his, next door. The scene becomes real to me. Come, Mr. Churm, you shall pronounce sentence. Put on the black cap, and speak ! " " I condemn him to bless as many lives as he has cursed." " A gentle penalty ! " said 1. " But it may take time. Who knows but you are making a Wandering Jew of our handsome Absalomitish friend ? Fiat lux ! " I continued, striking a match, and lighting my chandelier. " Vanisb the Vehm and the halberd ! Appear the nine teenth century and the cigar! Take onel" 8?) CECIL DfcEEME. Churm smoked for some time in grave silence. At last he began. " I loved your father, Robert, like a brother. For his sake and your own, I wish to be yom" friend." His benignant manner, even more than the words, touched me. I felt my eyes fill with tears. " Thank you," said I, " for my father's sake and my own. I yearn, as only a fatherless man can, for such a friend as you may be. I hoped I might count upon you." " We have met but those few times in Europe since your boyhood. I think I know something of you. Still I may as well have more facts. What do you think of yourself? Person and character, now, in a paragraph." " Person you see ! " said I, standing up, straight as an exclamation-point. " Harry Stillfleet made me parade this morning, and pronounced me rea- sonably fit for service, legs, lungs, and looks. Character, — as to my character, it is not yet compacted enough for inspection. My soul grows slow as a century-plant. You can hardly look for blossoms at the end of the first twenty-five years. I am a fellow of good intentions, — that is the top of my claim. But whether I am to be a pavior of hell or a promenader of heaven, is as hell or heaven pleasee. It seems to me that my CECIL DREEME. 87 allotted method of forming myself is by passing out of myself into others. I am dramatic. 1 adopt the natures of my companions, and act as if I were they. When I have become, in my proper person, a long list of dramatis persona, I shall be ready to live my life, be it tragedy, comedy, or romance. And there you have me, Mr. Churm, in a rather lengthy paragraph ! " " I understand. And now you have come home, a working-man, who wishes 'se ranger'?" " I should like to find my place." " Your place to live you have found already. Your place to labor will not be hard to find. Capable men of your trade are in demand. I have no doubt I can settle you to-morrow." " You are a friend indeed," said I. "Home and handicraft disposed of; — and now this young absentee, with his place to live and his place to labor arranged, is beginning to think of the other want, namely, somebody to love. How is that, Byng ? " " ' Hoc erat in votis ! ' " said I, bashfully. '' It was in mine, when I was, like you, im- pressible, affectionate, trustful, and in my twen- ties. My forties have a confidence and a special warning to offer you, Robert, if you will accept it." " No mature man has ever given me the bene- fit of his experience. Yours will be most pre M8 CECIL DREEMK. "I strip off the battens, and slide back the hatches, and show you a cell in my heart which I thought never to uncover. But there comes a time, after a man's grief has become historical to himself, when he owes the lesson of his own tragedy to some other man. You are the man to whom my story belongs." " Why am I the one ? " " That you must discover for yourself. I tell you my tale. You must adapt it to your own circumstances. You must put in your own set of characters from the people you meet. I point a moral for you ; I have no right to impale others upon it." " You might misunderstand and wrong them ? " " I might. This bit of personal history I am about to give you explains my connection with the Denmans." " It will lead you then to the mystery ( f Clara's death?" « Yes." CHAFTER VII. CHUBM'S STORY. Chubm took refuge with his cigar for a mo ment. " Twenty-four years ago," lie began, jerking his short sentences away as if oach was an arrow in his heart, — " twenty-four years ago I was a young man about New York. There came s beautiful girl from the country. Poor ! She had rich friends in town. They wanted a flower for their parlors. They took her. Emma -Emma Page was her name." He repeated the name, as if it was barbed and would not come from him without an agonized effort. " She charmed all," he continued. " She fas cinated me. Strangely, strangely. I will no* analyze her power. You will see what know) edge it implied. I was a simple, eager fellow Eager to love, as you are." " /only said willing" I interjected. " The wish soon ripens to frenzy. Presently the lady and I were betrothed. I was a passiop 90 CECIL DREEME. ate lover. You would not think it to look at me now, with this coat and these clodhopper shoes." He forced a smile. " Shaggy jackets and thick shoes with* an or- chestral creak are de rigueur for lovers now," vejoined I, trying to lighten the growing gloom of Churm's manner. "We wore smooth black, and paper soles," said he. " Ah, well ! I was a loyal, undoubting heart. I loved and I trusted wholly." He paused, and drew his cigar to a fresh light Then, as he remained silent and grew moodier, 1 recalled him to the subject, and asked, "You lost her ? By death ? " " By death, Byng ? Yes, by the death of my love. She stabbed it. Shall I tell you how ? Poor child ! one single poisoned look of hers, one single phrase that proved a tainted nature, stabbed and poisoned my love dead, dead, dead." Again he was silent. Pity would not let me speak. " This may seem disloyalty," he by and by re- sumed. " But she is dead and pardoned long ago. I must be loyal to the living. You may run the risk I ran. I give to you, to you only, to you peculiarly, the warning of my misery. If you are ever harmed as I was, you will owe the same to your son, or your friend." I was full of youthful, unshaken self-conn- CECIL DREEME. 91 dence. I saw no danger, anticipated no wound. I could not make the personal application Churm suggested. I listened, greatly touched and interested, but without foreboding. " A look and a word," Churm began again, " seemed to flash upon me the conviction that the woman I loved was sullied. A foul-minded man may do foul wrong by such a fancy. My mind was pure. My first impulse was to rebel against the agonizing doubt, and be truer and tenderer than before. You comprehend the feel- ing?" " Thoroughly. Your impulse would be mine." '"Love,"' said I to myself, '"tests love,'" Churm continued. " ' I mistrust, because I do not love enough. I must beware of being personally base and cruelly unjust to her. My suspicion shall be the evanescent dream of an unwhole- some instant, — like Ophelia's song.' But still the anguish and the dread stayed in my heart. What could I do ? Wait? Watch? Make my- self a spy to examine this seeming sully, and find it an indelible stain ? Uncover the bad side of my nature, apply it to hers, and study the kind " A child is a terrible vengeance to a mother who has ever lowered her womanhood, by thought or act. What tortures she would have endured, — so she now too late thinks, — if she could have purged and made anew the nature she has transmitted to an innocent being ! But there it lies before her in the cradle, the embodiment of her inmost thought. There lies the heir, and the waste of his heritage is irreclaimable." " Don't be so cruelly stern," said I. " You out-Herod Herod, in the converse. You massa- cre the Innocents because they are guilty. This is the old dead dogma of original sin, redivivus and rampant." " No ; the dogma is dead, and science handles the facts without the trammels of an impious theory. Life cures, and Death renews. But Life should be a feast, not a medicine. " Emma's birth," he continued, " transformed Mrs. Denman. For a year she was a faithful mother. " Denman did not like his wife so well in thif capacity. They diverged widely. To be hand- some for him and showy for the public was his notion of Mrs. Denman's office. The second year flowed rough. " At the end of it, Clara was born, the child of a woman chastened and purified. " A fortnight aftei her birth, Denman came to me. 96 CECIL DREEME. " ' My wife is desperately ill,' said he. ' She wishes to see you.' " I went calmly to this farewell interview with my old love. The husband seemed to abdicate in my behalf. '"I am to die,' she said, almost gayly. ' I have sent for you, because I trust you wholly. Dear friend, here are my daughters ! Befriend them for my sake ! I feel that you will under- stand the yearnings of young souls. Make them what you once hoped of me ! Will you not be the father of their spiritual life ? Forgive me, dear friend, for the old wrong, for the old wrongs! Prove that you have pardoned me by loving mine. Good-bye.' " Churm was silent awhile. He lighted a fresh cigar and smoked steadily. The smoke lifted slowly in ths still ro)m, and hung in wreaths overhead. He sat looking vaguely into the shifting cloud CHAPTER VIII. CLARA DENMAN, DEAD. 1 watched Churm, as he smoked. Love, dislcyalty, penitence, death, — were these all unrealities, that he could speak of them in his own history so calmly ? Could a man be hurt as he had been, and overlive unscarred? I had heard cool men say, that " the tragedies of this life become the comedies of another, and that we should some time smile to recall our cruellest battles here, as now we smile to watch the jousts of flies in a sunbeam." Churm's tragedy was still tragedy to him. He had begun to recite it with evident pain. But the pain of his tone be- came indifference before he closed ; and now he sat there smoking, as if he had related gravely, but without emotion, the mishaps of some stran- ger. I wondered. He looked through the smoke, caught my wondering eye, smiled soberly, and said : " Such an experience as I have described is like a shirt of Nessus, which one wears until the prickles of 98 CECIL DREEME. its poisoned serge have thoroughly toughened his skin. When it ceases to gall, lie strips it off and hangs it by the highway for whoever runs to take ; or if he finds some sensitive friend, like you, Robert, ho lays it upon his shoulders, and says, ' Wear this ! The edge of its torture is gone. It will harden you for the garment the Fates are weaving for you.' " " Dear mo ! " said I, shrugging my shoulders. " Have I got to stand haircloth and venom : Well, if that is the common lot, and I cannot escape, I am much obliged to you for trying to make me pachydermatous. But you have not succeeded very well. The story of another's pain makes my heart softer." " Sympathy for others is stout armor for one's self. But, Byng, you have heard the first trage- dy of the series ; listen to the second ! " " The second ! Is there a third ? Is the series a trilogy ? " " The third is unwritten. The march of events has paused while Densdeth was off. And to-day he steps from behind the curtain with you, a new character, half inclined to be his satellite. Per- haps you liava a part to play." There was a vein of seriousness in this seem- ing banter. . " Perhaps ! " said I, puffing a ring of smoke away. " But pray go on, I am eager to hear thfe whole," CECIL DREEME. 09 " After his wife's death, Penman said to in i, ' Mr. Churm, Emma told me that you were will ing, for old friendship's sake, to give an eye to my two poor girls' education. Suppose you take the whole responsibility off my hands. I will make their million apiece for them. You shall teach them how to spend it.' I gladly accepted this godfatherly post. The girls became to me as my own children. " I shall say nothing to you," Churm .here Interjected, " of Emma." " Why not ? " I asked. " You will see her. Judge for yourself! Olara you will never see. Of her I will speak. But first what do you remember of the sisters ? " " They were my pets when I was a school-boy. Emma I recollect as a lovely, fascinating, caress- ing little thing. Clara was shy and jealous, full of panics that people disliked her for her ugliness. I might have almost forgotten them, except for a sweet, simple, girlish letter they jointly wrote me upon my father's death. It touched me greatly." " I remember," said Churm. " Clara con- sulted me as to its propriety. Dear child! sympathy always swept away her reserve. But you speak of her ugliness, Robert ? " " She was original, unexpected ; but certainly without beauty. In fact, ugly and awkward, beside Emma." 100 CECIL DREEME. " Sho became beautiful to me by the light that was in her. I could not criticise the medium through which shone so fair a soul. She edu- cated me ; not I her. She illuminated for me the new tiuths, she interpreted the new oracles ; and so I have not fallen old and staid among my rudiments, as childless men, with the best intentions, may." " You give me," said I, " a feeling of per- sonal want and personal robbery by her death." " Fresh, earnest, unflinching soul ! " Churm sadly continued. " How she flashed out of being all the false laws that chock the mind's divine liberty ! Not the laws of refinement and high-breeding ; they, the elastic by-laws of the fundamental law of love, are easy harness to the freest soul. In another house than Den- man's, among allies, not foes, what a noble poem her life would have been ! " " Foes ! " said I. " Was there no love for her at home ? " " Denman admired his daughters. Love re- mains latent in him. He has not outgrown bis passion for the grosser fictions, wealth, power, show." " But Emma ! The two sisters did not love one another ? If not, where was the fault ? " " Nature made them dissonant." " Thei- foster-father could not harmonize them?" CKCIL DREEMK. 101 •* I did my best, Byng. But young women need a mother. I suppose the mothers in so- ciety shrug up their shoulders, when they talk of Clara's disappearance and death, and say, ' What could you expect of a young person, whose nurse, governess, and chaperon was that odd Mr. Churm?'" " You were absent when she disappeared ? " " Away from my post. In England. On some patent business." " Pity ! " " I curse myself when I think of it. A.bout this misery, Robert, I have not learned to be calm." " You did not approve her proposed marriage with Densdeth, — that I am sure." " I knew nothing of it." " What ! your ward, your child, did not write, did not consult you on so grave a matter?" " Her letters had been constant. They sud- denly ceased. Her last had been a pleading cry to me to succor her father against his grow- ing intimacy with Densdeth. I wrote that I would despatch my business, and hasten home. I never heard again. There was foul play." " Suppression of letters ? " " Yes ; or I was belied to her." " Such a woman would not lightly abandon a faith." 102 CECIL DREEMK. " Only some villanous treason could destroy her faith in me. And such I do not doubt there has been. I make no loose charges. But why was I kept in the dark ? " " No rumor of the marriage reached you ? " " A rumor merely. Do you know Van Beester ? " " That banking snob who tries to be a swell ? a fellow who talks pro-slavery and fancies it aristocracy ? Yes ; I was bored with him once at a dinner in Paris." " Van Beester was put in my state-room on board the steamer when I returned. He had been in England, consummating a railroad job. The old story. Eight per cent third mortgage bonds, convertible. Enormous land grant. Road running over Noman's Land into Nowhere. Ono of Densdeth's schemes. Denman also had an interest." " A swindle ? Something Muddefontaineish ? " "0 no ! Noman's Land, the day the road was done, would become Everybody's Farm. No- where would back into the wilderness. Up would sprout the metropolis of Somewhere. Swindle, Robert ? Your term is crude." " I suppose Van Beester did not offer it to the English gudgeons under that name." " It, was a mighty pretty bait for them, — two mUi«c«>s in savory portions, a thousand each. I CECIL PREEME. 103 forget whether some large gudgeon's gills had taken the whole at one gulp ; or whether a shoal of small fry had nibbled the worms off the bob. But the whole loan had been stomached in Lon don, and Van Beester was going home in high feather." " A blatant nuisance, of course. And you could not abate or escape him." u No ; unless I shoved him through our port- hole, or slipped through myself. Densdeth was the man's hero. He could never talk without parading Densdeth. ' Such talents for finance ! ' he would exclaim. . ' Such knowledge of men ! Such a versatile genius! Billiards or banking, all one to him ! Never loses a bet ; never fails in a project ! Such a glass of fashion ! Such a favorite with the fair sex ! ' " " Pah ! ' Fair sex ! ' I can fancy the loath- some fellow's look and tone," I exclaimed. " Then, in a pause of his sea-sickness," Churm continued, " he spoke of the Denmans. ' Mr. Denman so princely ! Daughters so charming ! For his part he admired Emma,' — ' Emma,' the scrub called her. ' But then there was some- thing very attractive, very exciting, about Clara, and he did n't wonder that Densdeth had selected her, — lucky girl ! ' ' What do you mean ? ' cried I, appalled. ' Don't you know ? ' said the fellow chuckling over his bit of fashionable intelligence 104 CECIL DREEME. ' I have it from the best authority, Dcnsdeth him self. Here is his letter. I got it the morning we sailed. He is to be married the twenty-third Blow, breezes ! and we shall get there in time for the wedding.' " " You could interpret her pleading cry, now," said I. " I seem to hear it repeated in every blast : ' Help, dear friend, dear father, — for my moth- er's sake ! ' A maddening voyage that was ! Dark waters, Robert ! I shall hate the insolent monot ony of ocean all my days. I c,ould do nothing but walk the deck and tally the waves, or stand over the engine and count the turns." " People would laugh at a fellow of my age," said I, " for such conduct. It is lover4ike." " I loved Clara, as if she were spirit of my spirit. When the pilot boarded us, before dawn on the twenty-third, I was up chafing about the ship. He handed me his newspaper. The first thing I saw was Clara Denman's name among the deaths." " Cruel ! " exclaimed I. " I thanked God for it. Better death than that marriage ! " " There is still something incomprehensible to me in your horror of Densdeth. I only half feel it myself ; Stillfieet more than half feels it. Whal is it ? What is he ? " CECIL DREEME. 105 " We will talk of hiin another time," Churm replied. " Now I must hasten on. I found, as I said, Clara's name among the deaths, and inside the paper a confused story of her disappearance and drowning. " I was so eager to hear more, that I smug- gled myself ashore in the health-officer's gig, and took the quarantine ferry-boat to town, for speed. While I was looking for a hack at the South Ferry, the return coaches of a funeral to Greenwood drove off a boat just come into the slip. " In the foremost coach I saw the Denmans and Densdeth. " I pulled open the door and sprang in. " I can never forget Denman's look when he saw me. He blenched and shrank into his corner of the carriage, cowed. " There sat Densdeth, colorless and impassive, opposite me. By my side was Emma, weeping under a heavy veil, and Denman, with a mean and guilty look, beside her. " ' It is not my fault,' Denman said, feebly stretching out both liis hands, as if he expected a blow from me. 'I acted for the best, as 1 thought, so help me' God ! ' " Densdeth interposed. His smooth, cool man- aer always puts roughness in the wrong. " ' This is a sad pleasure, Mr. Churm,' said 5* 106 CECIL UREEME. he. ' If we had looked for your return, wo would have deferred this sorrowful ceremony.' " ' Denmau ! ' said I. He started, and held out his hands in vague terror. " ' Denman ! ' I repeated. ' Here has been some crime. What have you done with that Innocent girl ? Who or what murdered her ? ' "' No,' said he, drearily. 'She is dead. That is bitter enough. Not murdered ! 0, not mur- dered ! Do not be so harsh with an old friend ! ' " ' Denman,' said I, ' an older friend than you committed her daughter into my hands on her death-bod. In her name 1 accuse you. I say, you have tried to crowd this poor child into a marriage she abhorred. I say you drove her to death. I say you murdered her, — you and Densdeth.' " He gave me a dull look, — a pitiful look, for that proud, stately man, — and turned appeal- ingly to his supporter. " ' Mr. Churm,' said Densdeth, ' it is not like you to talk in this hasty way. I refuse to be insulted. My own distress shows me how the shock may have unbalanced you. But this heat and these baseless charges are poor sympathy for a parent, a sister, and a betrothed, coming from the funeral of one dear to them. Is it manly, Mr. Churm, to assail us ? I appeal to your real CECIL BKEEME. 107 generosity not to sharpen our grief by such cru elty.' "Of course he was right. I was a brute if they were not guilty. I was silenced, not sat isfied. "Densdeth went on, with thorough self-pos- session. The man's olive skin is a mask to him. " ' You have a right, Mr. Churm,' said he, ' to hear all the facts of Clara's death. I will state them. Ten days ago she took a sharp fever from a cpld. One afternoon she became a little light- headed. But at evening she was doing well, and in such a healthy, quiet sleep that we thought she needed no watching. Indeed, we believed her recovered from the trifling attack. In the morn- ing she was gone, — gone, and left no clew. We instantly organized search, with all the care that the tenderest affection could suggest.' " ' Yes, yes ! we did our best ! ' Denman eager- ly interrupted. " ' Pour days ago,' continued Densdeth with- out pause, ' her body was found, floated ashore on Staten Island. It was disfigured by the chances of drowning, but there were no marks •ji injury before death. She was fully identified. Wo suppose, and the doctor concurs, that at night her fever and lightheadedness returned, that she left the luouse, strayed toward the river, fell from some dock, and was drowned.' 108 CECIL DREEME. " Denman shivered as Densdetli concluded his curt, business-like statement. " ' Yes, yes, Churm ! ' said he again. ' I did my best. Do not say murder, again ! Do not be so harsh with an old friend ! Tell him, Dens- deth, tell him how we spent care and time and money to recover the poor child. Do not let him think anything was neglected.' " He looked feebly from Densdeth to me. Then he turned to his daughter. " ' Speak, Emma ! ' said he, almost peevishly. ' Why do you not help justify your father ? Tell Mr. Churm that your sister's death is only a misery, no fault of ours.' " Emma made no reply, but sobbed uncon- trollably behind her veil." " Poor girl ! " I interjected, as Churm paused to look at his watch. " A dark beginning of life for her ! I pity her most tenderly." " It is almost eleven," said Churm. " I must go to my patient, Towner, without delay. And now I can say to you, that I believe he knows something of Clara's tragedy. When he speaks,. I shall learn where the guilt lies." " You suspect guilt then ? " I asked. " The facts do not satisfy you ? Have you a theory on the subject?" " I have no doubt the final facts are as Dens- deth gave them. But what are the precedent CECIL DREEME. 1 OS* ftwts ? What crazed my child ? What un- balanced her healthy organization of mind and body ? No trifling influenza. No bashful bridal panic of a girl. No, Byng ; among them, they had hurt her heart and soul. There is the murder ! Her father I believe to be in Dens deth's power." " How ? " I asked. " How I can only divine from parallel cases. Denman has perhaps overstepped honesty to clutch wealth. Densdeth knows it. Densdeth has said, ' Give me your daughter, or be posted as a rogue ! ' Denman has made the common mistake, that, if he could elude the shame of de- tection, he would escape the remorse of guilt." " So they took advantage of your absence to use quasi force with the lady ? " " Yes ; and they belied me, or Clara would have awaited my protection. Ah, Robert, I dread some crushing infamy was revealed to her in that house. No common shame, no com mon sorrow, would have maddened her to wan der off and die. And now good night, Robert Keep this tragedy in mind — in both its parts One such story, well meditated with the char- acters in view, may be the one needful lesson and warning of a life. And let the whole be a sacred confidence witli you alone-! " " It shall be. Good night." 110 CECIL DBEKME. He wrung my hand and went out. Let me recall him as he turns away. A sturdy, not clumsy, man of middle height ; fair skin, ruddy, not too red ; nose resolute, not despotic ; firm upper lip, gentle lower; glance keen, not astute, nor. vulpine ; expression calm, not cold ; smile humorous and sympathetic ; voice and laugh of the heart, hearty; a thor- oughly lovable man, — the man of all others to be husband and father. Besides, a man of vast ability and scope. Na- ture seemed to have no secrets from him. He handled the mechanic forces, he wielded social forces, with the same masterly grasp. Wher- ever civilization went, it bore his name as an inventor, an organizer and benefactor to man- kind. He was skill,, order, and love. And yet he lived alone and weary; his life, as he had told me to-night, all desolated bj the shadow of a sin. CHAPTER IX. LOCKSLEY'S SCARE. Chorm's steps went echoing along the ccrridor, echoing down the stairs. The front door of Chrysalis clanged to after him. Rumbling echoes of the clang marched to and fro along the halls, and fumbled for quiet nooks in the dark distances of the building. There I could hear them lie down to repose, and whisper, ' Silence.' Silence and sleep reigned. I was little disposed to sleep. T lighted a fresh cigar and fell into a revery. Why, I first asked myself, had Churm so urged the history of his unhappy love personally upon me ? Why was he so earnest and emphatic in his warning ? The two tragedies were detached. He might hare simply recalled the fact of his guardianship, and then described the fate of his ward. But he had gone back and forced him- self to uncover his wound, — why ? Not for my sympathy. No ; he had outlived the need of sympathy. Besides, no loyal man would betray fcht3 error of a woman once loved, for pity's sake. 112 CECIL DREEME. No; some strong sense of duty had compelled him to take a father's place, and say to me, " Be- ware ! " I puzzled myself awhile, inquiring, What did he see in my temperament or my circumstances to make this warning needful ? No solution of the question came to me. I dismissed the sub- ject, and thought with a livelier interest over the Denman tragedy. I began to perceive how much I had uncon- sciously counted upon the friendship of the Den- mans. It was a rough shock to learn that I must doubt of Denman' s thorough worth., He, too, was a friend of my father. His was an impor- tant figure in the background of my boyish recollections. A large, handsome man I remem- bered him, a little conscious in his bearing, but courteous, hospitable, open-handed, using wealth splendidly, — in fact, my ideal of what a rich man should be. It was a grave disappointment to me to be forced to dismiss this personage, and set up instead in my mind the Denman Churm had described. My hero was, in plain words, a rogue, a coward, and a slave. I perceived, too, that half unconsciously I had kept alive pretty little romantic fancies about Emma and Clara. Living so many years in Italy and France, among women with minds deflowered Dy the confessional, and among the homely dam- CECIL DREEME. 118 sels of Germany, I was eager for the society of fresh, frank, graceful, girlish girls at home. The Denmaus had often visited my imagination, com- panions of my sunniest memories of childhood. The earliest pleasure of my return I had looked for in the revival of this intimacy. But now I found one dead mysteriously, the other's life clouded by a tragedy. My pretty fancies all perished. I began to dread my interview with Emma Dcnman to-morrow. Densdeth to be my usher ! What if she, like her father, had deteriorated under Densdeth's influence ? To cure myself of this sorry thought, I looked up among my treasures the letter which the two girls had written me several years ago, upon my father's death. It came to me in a friendless, foreign land, one desolate summer, while I was convalescing from an attack of the same fever that orphaned me. Precious little childish epistle, now yellow with age ! 1 remembered how I read it, slowly and feebly, one sultry Italian day, when the sluggish licat lay clogged and unrippled in the streets of the furnace-like city. I recalled how I read it, pausing between the sentences, and feeling each as sweet as the cool, soothing touch of the hand of love on a throbbing forehead. I unfolded the letter, and re-read it revwently 114 CECIL JUKEKMK. and with a certain tragic interest. Clara was tlie scribe. These were her quaint, careful characters, her timid, stiff, serious, affectionate phrases. I pictured to myself the two girls signing this sisterly missive, blushing perhaps with a maid- enly shyness, smiling with maidenly confidence, sobered by their gentle sympathy for my grief. Then, with a sudden shifting of the scenes, there came up before me a picture of the sad drama so lately enacted in Mr. Denman's house. Clara driven to madness or despair, Emma be- reaved, Denman lost to self-respect, Churm be- lied ; and in the background a malignant shadow, — Densdeth. All at once a peremptory knock at my door disturbed me. A stout knock, thrice repeated. The visitor meant to be heard and answered. I was fresh from the French theatres, where three great blows behind the curtain announce its lifting. " What ! " thought I, " does the drama march ? Is a new act beginning ? Am I playing a part in the Denman trilogy ? And what new charactei appears at midnight in the dusky halls of Chrys- alis ? Who follows Densdeth and Churm ? Who precedes Emma Denman ? " I opened the door, wide and abruptly. Locksley stood there, with fist uplifted to pound again. CECIL DKEEME. 115 The sudden draught put out his candle. The corridor had a sombre, mysterious look. " Come in," said I. " Is Mr. Churm here ? " he asked, in an anx- ious tone. " No ; he left me at eleven, to go to his in- valid, down town." " I hoped to catch him. I wanted his advice very much." He looked at me earnestly, as he spoke, as if studying my face for a solution of some difficulty. " Come in out of the dark and cold ! " said I. He entered. The bristly man had a worried, doubtful look, quite different from his alert, war- like expression of the morning. He was porcu- pine still, but porcupine badly badgered. He glanced nervously about the room, with the air of one excited and slightly apprehensive. The suit of armor with the spiked mace, standing sentry at the lumber-room door, gave him a start. " Empty iron ! " said I ; " and he can't strike with that billy he holds." " I 've seen the old machine a hundred times," Iiocksley rejoined. " It only jumped me because I 'm all on end with worry." " Can I help ? My advice is at your service, if it 's worth having, and you choose to trust a stranger." *' 0, I know you 're the right sort. We 've 116 CECIL DREEME. made up our minds about that, big and little, down to the Janitory. But I don't want tc bother you." " Never mind ! What is the trouble ? Bur- glars ? Or slow fire ? " " Why, you see, sir," said Locksley, " I 'm in considerable of a scare about that young paiutei up-stairs." He pointed to the centre-piece of the ara- besqued ceiling. I looked \ip, almost expecting to see a pair of legs dangling through, according *o my fancy of the afternoon. " What ? " said I, my interest wide awake. " The one overhead ? " " Yes, sir." " Mr. Cecil Dreeme ? I saw the name on a card above." " Mr. Cecil Dreeme, and I 'm afraid some- thing 's come to him." "Is he missing ? " " No ; he 's there. But I have n't seen him these two days. Dora went up with his break- fast this morning, and with his dinner. No one answered when she knocked. I 've just been up, and hammered a dozen thumps on his door. 1 could n't raise a sound inside." Locksley's voice sank to an anxious whispei as he spoke. " What do you fear ? " said J. CECIL DREEME. 117 "Sickness or starvation, — one of them I 'm afraid has come to him. Or perhaps he 's punying away for want of open air and sun- shine, and some friend to say ' Hurrah boys ! ' to him." " You have a pass-key, of course ; why did n't you push in ? " " I would have shoved straight through, and seen what was the matter, if Mr. Dreeme had been like other young fellows. But he is n't. He might be there dying alone, and I should n't like to interfere on my own hook, against his particular orders not to be disturbed. What do you say, Mr. Byng ? Suppose it 's a case of life and death, — shall I break in?" " It is a delicate matter to advise upon. A gentleman's house is his castle. I must have my facts before I become accomplice to a bur- glary. What do you know of Mr. Dreeme's health or habits to make you anxious?" " Not over much. But more than any one else." " He is reserved then ? " My curiosity about the name was increasing, as the slight mystery seemed to thicken. " Reserved, sir ! I don't believe a soul in the city knows a word of him, except us Locks- leys. He 's one of the owl kind." " A friendless stranger," said I, recalling my 118 CECIL EREEME. fancies of the afternoon, by his door. *' A. man with the shyness and jealousy of an artist await- ing recognition. He does not wish to be known at all until he is known to fame." " That sounds like it, partly," Locksley re- turned. " But there must be other reasons for his keeping so uncommon dark." "What! Poverty? Creditors? Crime?" " Crime and Mr. Drecme ! You 'd drop that notion, if you saw him. Not that ! No ; nor poverty exactly. He can pay his omnibus yet, and need n't go on the steps, and risk a ' Cut behind.'" " What then ? " I asked, unwilling to pry dis- loyally, and yet eager to hear more. " I suspicion that something 's hit him where he lives, and he 's lying by till the wonnd heals. I know how a man feels when the world 's mean to him. He wants to get out of sight, and hide in a den like old Chrysalis. That was the way with me when I failed, and Mr. Densdeth put up my creditors not to let me take the Stillwell. I was mighty near hiding in Hellgate." " How did he happen to shelter in Chrysa- lis ? " I asked. " I shall have to tell you all the little 1 know. I 've halted because we Locksleys prom ised Mr. Dreeme not to be public about him CECIL DfcEEME. lift We Ve kept it close. But you 're one of the kind, Mr. Byng, that a man naturally wants to open his self to." " I 'm not leaky ; depend upon that ! " " Well," said Locksley, fairly uncorked at last, and overrunning with his story ; " Mr. Dreeme came in, after ten, one night about three months ago, and says he, ' I 've just got to town by the late train. The last time I was down, I saw the card out, " Studios to Let." Will you show me what there is ? ' ' Well, says I.' ' It 's pretty well along in the night to be hiring a studio ! ' ' Yes,' says he, mild as you please, but knowing his own mind ; ' but I 've got to have one. I 'm not hard to satisfy, and if I could move in right off, I should save the money they 'd take from me at the Chuzzlewit, or some other costly hotel.' ' You 're not so flush as you 'd like to be, perhaps,' says I. ' No,' says he, ' if flush means rich, I 'm not.' " " So you got him as a tenant," said I, trying to hurry the narrator. " Yes ; he was such a pleasant-spoken young man that I took to him. Besides, not being flush made him one of my family, — and a big family it is ! " " We must not forget, Locksley, that while we discuss, he may be suffering." " That 's true. T must talk short, and talk 120 CECIL DftEEME. ing short is n't natural to my trade. Piling iron trains a man to bo slow, just as hammer- ing iron practises him to bounce his words like a sledge on an anvil. Well ; I took Mr. Dreeme up-stairs, and showed him the studio overhead. It lias closets and bath, like this room. He said that would do him. He paid me a quarter in advance, and camped right in, with a small bundle he had." " Gritty fellow ! " " Grit as the Quincy quarry ! or he 'd never have stuck there alone for three months, paint ing like time, and never stirring out till night." " That is enough to kill the man ! Never till night! Not to meals, or to buy materials ? Not to meet a friend, to see the world ? " " The world and people are what he wants to dodge. I buy him all his materials. He took the last tenant's furniture just as it stood, — and it 's only about Sing-Sing allowance. He don't seem to need all sorts of old rubbish to put ideas into him, as the other painters do. I fitted him out, according to list, wi, f .h sheets and towels, and clothes too. He said he could n't knock off work for no such nonsense as clothes. He must paint, or he should n't have money for clothes or victuals." " A resolute recluse, concentred upon his art," said I. " And about his meals ? " CECIL DREEMK 12] "Mother Locksley cooks 'em, and Dora lakes em up when I 'm off. But he don't eat enough (o keep a single-action cockroach on his rounds." " Poor fellow ! I don't wonder he has but a hermit's appetite." I am ashamed to say that interest in tins determined withdrawal from the world made me forget for a moment that the cxilij might be in urgent need of relief. " Mrs. Locksley," continued the janitor, " has never seen him. He has had the children up, md drawn their likenesses, like as they can be. But women he don't seem to want to have any- thing to do with." " Ah ! " cried I. " Here we have a clew ! Some woman has wronged him ; so he is going through a despair. That is an old story. He edits it with unusual vigor." "That's what my wife and I think," says Locksley. " He loved some girl, she went crook- ed, and so things look black to him." " What ! " thought I. " Is he passing through Churm's ' dark waters ' ? Strange if I should encounter at once another illustration of that sorrow ! " After my dramatic fashion of identifying my- self with others, I put myself in Mr. Dreeme's place, and shrank from so miserable a solution of his exile. " Perhaps," I propounded, " some flirt haa s 122 CECIL DREEMS. victimized the poor fellow, and l.c does not yet realize that we all must take our Bachelor of Arts at a flirt's school, to become Master of the Arts to know and win a true woman." Locksley smiled, then shook his head, and his worried look returned. " No," said he ; " that kind of a girl makes a man want to be among folks and forget her. Mr. Dreeme has had a worse hurt than that. But whatever wounded him, for the last two weeks he 's been growing paler and punier every day. Some says the smell of paint is poison. I don't believe there's any strychnine so bad as moping off alone, and never seeing a laugh, and never playing at give and take, rough and smooth, out in the world." " You 're right," said I ; " but let us get through our talk, and see what is to be done." "To-night," continued Locksley, "just as 1 was wrastling to get off my wet boots, — they stuck like all suction, did them boots, but I couldn't go to bed in 'em, — just then my wife began talking to me about Mr. Dreeme. ' What do you suppose has come to him ? ' says she. ' No answer when Dora went up with his breakfast ; no answer when she knocked with his dinner. I mistrust he 's sick,' says she. While she wap talking, a scare — the biggest kind of a scare — come to me about him. ' Wife,' says I, ' a scare CECIL DREEME. 1123 has coma to me about Mr. Dreeme.' 'Is it a prickly scare, William ? ' says she. ' Prickly outside and in,' says I ; ' I feel as if I 'd swallowed a peck of teazles, and was rolling in a bin of 'em.' ' William,' says she, ' scares is sent, and the prickly scares calls for hurries. Just you run up, and lay your fist hard against Mr. Dreeme's door, and if he don't speak, and you can't hear him snore through the keyhole, go to Mr. Churm, and whatever he says do, you do ! Mr. Churm always threads the eye the first shove.' So 1 went up, and rapped, and the more I knocked, the emptier and deader it sounded. Mr. Churm is gone. What shall we do, Mr. Byng? The young man may be up there on his back with a knife into him, or too weak to call out, and pant- ing for brandy or opodildoc. My scare gets worse and worse." " I begin to share it. We will go and break in at once. Light your candle, while I find a bottle of Mr. Stillfleet's brandy." CHAPTER X. OVERHEAD, WITHOUT. Among the other treasures of Rubbish Palace, [ had inherited Stillfleet's liqueur-case. It was on a generous scale, — a grand old oaken chest, bristling with griffins' heads and claws, armed with massive iron handles, and big enough to hold all the favorite tipples of a royal household, or to hide a royal pair if they heard a Revolution coming up the stairs. Stillfleet had traced the pedigree of his chest to within three generations of Ginevra, in her family. He had no doubt that this was the identical coffer which that sportive lady had made her coffin. " Clip ! " said Stillfleet, shutting down the lid as he told me this legend in the afternoon. " Clip ! listen to that snap-lock ! Fancy her feelings ! Taste that gin ! ' GeniSvre ' from Ginevra's box. I like to keep my nectars in a coffin ; it 's my edition of the old plan of drink- ing from a scull. Life is short. ' Come, my lad, and drink some beer ! ' " CECIL DKEEME. 12ft To this grand sarcophagus 1 proceeded to seek a restorative for Cecil Dreeine. Locksley's alter- native, " opodildoc," was not at hand. Lifting the heavy lid, instead of poor Ginevra's bare bones, I found a joyous array of antique flasks and goblets. They flashed at me as the gas-light struck them, each with the merry wink of a practised bacchanal. I saw the tawny com- plexion of the brandy shining through a tall bottle, old enough to have figured at the banquet of the Borgia. Around this stately personage, and gaping for the generous juices he might impart, was a circle of glasses, the finest work of the best days of Venice, clear and thin as bubbles, and graceful as the cups of opening flowers. 1 took the decanter and a glass, and, thus armed, followed Locksley into the corridor. His prickly scare had so teazled the poor fel- low that he was now quite like a picture of Re- morse or Despair. It was entirely dark in the building. Our single candle carried its little sphere of light along with it. Beyond and over- head might have been the vaults and chambers of a cavern, for all we could see. Passing Densdeth's padlocked door, we turned toward the side staircase. I looked up and down the well of the stairs. No oubliette ever showed a blacker void. It almost seemed to my excited 126 CECIL DREKME. imagination that we ought to hear the gurgle of a drowning prisoner, flung down into that dark ness by us, his executioners. " Awful black ! " said Locksley, and the shadow of his bristly hair on the wall stiffened with alarm By the dim gleam of the candle, the paint of the wood and stucco of the walls of Chrysalis changed to oak and marble. The sham antique vanished. It became an actual place, not mere theatrical scenery. Seen by daylight, the whole edifice was so unreal and incongruous, that I should not have been surprised to see a squad pf scene-shifters at work sliding it off and rolling it up, and leaving Ailanthus Square nothing but its bald brick houses to stare at. Now, as we climbed up the stairs, torch-bearer ahead, cup- bearer behind, Chrysalis passed very well for a murky old castle of the era of plots, masks, poi- son, and vendetta. " Yes," thought I, " Locksley's three knocks did announce a new act in my drama. Cecil Dreeme is the new actor. He follows Densdeth and Churm, he precedes Emma Denman. Is he in the plot ? Is he underplot, counterplot, or episode ? I hope, poor lonely fellow, that he has not already passed off the stage, as Locksley dreads. That would be a dismal opening of my life in Chrysalis." The janitor now pushed open the partition- CECIL DKF.EME. 127 door from the upper landing into the northern corridor. The haggard moon, in its last quarter, hung just above a chimney of Mannering Place oppo- site, like a pale flame struggling up from a fur- nace Its weird light slanted across the mul- lion of the narrow window. There was just enough of this feeble pallor to nullify the peering light of Locksley's candle. Ghostly, indeed, the spot appeared ! My anxiety and my companion's alarm were lively enough to shape a score of ghosts out of- a streak of moonshine. " To Let," the tenant of the left-hand rooms, had no business with us, nor we with him. On the other side was the modest little card : — Cecil Dreeme, Painter. Destiny had brought us together. I was about to know him, alive or dead. Alive or dead ! That doubt in both our minds made us hesitate an instant. Locksley looked up to me for orders. " Knock ! " whispered I. He knocked gently. If there were a sick man within, his hearing, sharpened by silence, would abhor a noiss. We both listened, without whisper or sigh. 128 CECIL PREEME. Locksley deposited his candle on the floor ana put his ear to the keyhole. The low light flung a queer, distorted shadow of him on the wall. It seemed a third person, of impish aspect, not med- dling with our proceedings, but watching them scornfully. No answer. Not even the weak " Come in " of an invalid. Locksley " laid his fist to the door," without respect to his knuckles. " Nothing," whispered he, " except a sound of emptiness."' We now both knocked loudly, and gave the door a rough shake, as if it merited ungentle handling for obstructing the entrance of well- wishers. After this uproar, dead silence again, except a" low grumble of echoes, turning over in their sleep, to mutter anathemas at the disturbers of their repose. " Locksley," I whispered, " we are wasting time. Try your pass-key." He introduced the key. His shadow, exagger- ated and sinister, bent over him as he worked. " I nmst pick it," said he, turning to me witli a dogged burglar-look on his honest face. " His key is in the lock inside. But I have n't been poking into keyholes ever since I was knee-high to a katydid for.nothing." CECII DREEME 129 He took from his pocket a pair of delicate pin- cers. He manipulated for a moment. Presently I heard the key rattle and then drop inside. That unlawful noise should awake any sleeper ! We paused and listened. No sound. Awe flowed -n and filled the silent stillness. Again we looked at each other, shrinking from an interchange of apprehension. " I 'm afraid he is — not living," Locksley breathed at last. " Don't stop ! Open ! " He put in his pass-key and turned. The bolt of the latch also yielded to this slight pressure. The door opened a crack without warning. Our candle, standing on the floor, bent its flame over, peering tlirough into the darkness within. Be fore I could snatch it up, the inquisitive little bud of fire had been dragged from its stem by the draught. The candle was out. By the pallid moonlight we could just see each other's anxious faces. We could also see, through the narrow crack of the door, that the same faint, unsubstantial glimmer filled the room. This ghostly light repelled me more than the dark- ness. It could show the form, but not the ex- pression of objects ; and form without expression is death. " I have matches," whispered Locksley. He drew one across the sole of his shoe. It 6* I 130 CECIL IJREEMK flashed phosphoric, illuminated the breadth of sturdy cowhide upon which the janitor trod, and went out. " Take time with the next," said I. " I must go in at once." CHAPTER XI. OVERHEAD, WITHIN. The same door which we had battered aiid shaken so rudely I now pushed open with quiet, almost reverent hand. Was I entering into the presence of Death ? No sleep but that, it seemed to me, could hug a sleeper so close as to silence his answer or his protest at our noise. So I stole into the tacit chamber, eagerly, and yet with my nerves in that timorous tremor when they catch influences, as lifting ripples catch sun- rise before the calms. I pushed back the door against the close, repel- lent atmosphere within. Holding it, still, as it were a shield against some sorrowful shock I was to encounter, I paused a breath to see my way. The force of the faint moonlight brought it only as far as the middle of the room. There there was a neutral ground, not light, not dark, a vague in which forms could be discerned by intent vision. I involuntarily closed my eyes, to give sight the V62 CECIL DKEEME. recoil before the leap. When I opened them, and flung my look forward to grapple with what ii could find, the first object it seized was a small splash of white light, half drowned in the dim- ness. The moonbeams were also, without much vigor, diving to examine this sunken object. Their entrance, or perhaps my own trembling eagerness, seemed to make a little fluctuation about it. I steadied and accustomed my glance, and presently deciphered the spot as a mass of white drapery in a picture, standing upon an easel. While I was making this out, I heard behind me the crack and fizz of Locksley's second failure with his matches. The little sound was both ally and stimulant. I advanced another step, and my groping sight detected a large arm-chair posted before the easel. Hanging over the arm of the chair, where the moonlight could not reach, I saw another faint, pale spot. It was where a hand would rest. Was it a hand ? Beckoned forward by this doubt, I moved on and saw, flung back in the arm-chair, a shadowj figure. A man ? Yes ; dim form and deathly face, — a man ! The air of the room was close and sickly. I choked for breath. Life needs a double portio» at such moments. CECIL DRKEMF. 183 Dead ? Is he dead ? I seemed to screa n the unspoken question to my heart. It cost me an effort to master the involuntary human shudder at such an encounter. I sprang forward where the pale hand without motion beckoned, and the pale face pleaded for succor. Nothing of the repellent magnetism of a corpse as my hand approached the forehead. But as little the responsive thrill of life waken- ing at life's touch, and renewing with a start the old delicious agony of conscious being. I laid my hand upon the brow. Cold ! But surely not the cold of death ! This was no dead man whom I anxiously, and the moon impassively, were studying. Tranced, not dead, so instinct told me. Life might be latent, but it was there. I felt tears of relief start into my eyes. Whoever has lived knows that timely death is the great prize of life ; who can regret when a worthy soul wins it ? But this untimely perish- ing of a brother-man, alone and helpless in the dark and cold, was pure waste and ruin. Locksley now came to my side, sheltering his lighted candle. " Dead ? " gasped he, and stopped silent before the arm-chair. " No, no," I whispered, and the curdling whis- per showed me how deep my horror had been. 134 CECIL DREEME. " No ; only fainted, I trust. Open the window ! Fresh air is the first want." " Fresh air he shall hare, if there 's any blow- ing," says Locksley, briskly. " Fresh air beats the world for stiddy vittles." While he worked at the window, I poured a compacter restorative than air out of Stillflcet's flask. I gently forced a few drops of the brandy down the unconscious man's throat, and expended a few sprinkles to bathe his forehead. " It is the painter, Locksley ? " I asked. "Yes sir." And so began my acquaintance with Cooil Dreeme. CHAPTER XII. DREEME, ASLEEP. A current of wintry wind flowed in as Locks- Icy lifted the sash. " Fresh air is prime for the inside," said he, " But warm air for the outside is the next beat thing. Shall I light a fire in the stove ? " " Do ; but first hand me that plaid." I wrapped my unresisting patient in the shawl. He was a mere dead weight in my hands. 1 shuddered to think that his life might be drifting away, just out of my reach. " I hope we are not too late," I said. " Shall I fetch a doctor ? " asked Locksley. " Fire first. Then doctor — if he does not re- vive." " There 's no kindling-wood," says Locksley, from the closet. " I '11 run down to your place, Mr. Byng, and get some." " Pray do ! " He hurried off. I was left alone with tho tranced man. I repeated the little dose of bran- dy, and stood aside to let the light of the candle fall upon his face. 136 CECIL DREEME. " Stop ! " said Delicacy. " Respect the young man's resolute incognito." " Too late ! " I thought in reply. " Incognito has nearly murdered him. I shall knock it in the head without ceremony. Besides, Fate has appointed me his physician ; how can I doctor him intelligently without feeling the pulse of his soul by studying his face ? " The first question I asked the pale, voiceless countenance was, whether I was not committing the impertinence of trying to force a man to live who had wished to kill himself. Suicide ? No ; I don't see any blood. I smell no laudanum. Here has been unhappiness, but no despair, no self-disgust. A pure life and a clear intellect, — so the face publishes. Such a youth might wear out with work or a wound ; he would never abdicate his birthright to live and learn, to suffer and be strong. Clearly no suicide. " No," my thought continued rapidly, " Locks- ley has supplied the theory of Mr. Dreeme's case. His face illustrates and confirms it. A man of (genius, ardent, poor, and nursing a wound. The wound may be merely a scratch, he may merely have had the poet's quarrel with vulgar life ; but, great or small, the hurt has consigned him to this unwholesome solitude, and here he has lav- ished his mind and body on his art. No, Cecil Dreeme, you are dying because you have igno- CECIL DREEME. 187 rantly lived too intensely. But the world does not willingly let such faces die. I myself feel the need of you. Even with your eyes closed, the light gone, your countenance tells me of the pres- ence of a character and an experience riper and deeper than my own. What have you been taught by suffering, what have you divined by genius, that you wear maturity so patiently upon your sad young face ? " I took the candle and held it to his lips. Did he breathe ? The flame flickered. But the air flowing in from without might have caused that ; and I would not close the window until the keen northern blast had scourged out every breath of languor from the stifling room. I withdrew the candle. Curiosity urged me to study the face more in detail. But that seemed disloyal to the sleeper. I had made up my mind that my patient was worthy of all my care. He was not dead, that I should dissect him. While a face can protect itself by the eye, — which is shield to ward, blade to parry, and point to assail, — one feels not much scruple in staring. But what right had I to profit by this chance lifting of the visor of a disarmed man, who wished to do his battle of life unknown ? I therefore stopped intentionally short of a thorough analysis of his countenance. Fair play and my anxiety botli made me content with my 138 CECIL DREEME. general impressions. It is error to waste the first look and the first few moments, if one wishes to comprehend a face, — to see into it. No after observations are so sharp and so unprejudiced. Roughly then, — Cecil Dreeme's face was re- fined and sensitive, the face of a born artist. Separately, the features were all good, well cut and strong. Their union did not produce beauty. It was a face not harmonized by its construction, but by expression, — by the impression it gave of a vigorous mind, controlling varied and perhaps discordant elements of character into unison. There was force, energy, passion, and no lack of sweetness. Short, thick, black hair grew rather low over a square forehead. The eyebrows were heavy and square. The hollow checks were all burnt away by the poor fellow's hermit life. He wore no beard, so that he was as far from the frowzy Dusseldorfer of my fancy as from the pretty, poetic young Raphael. This was a man of another order, not easy to classify. His coun- tenance seemed to interpret his strange circum- stances. The face and the facts were consistent, and both faithful to their mystery. All this while I was chafing his hands, and watching intently for some tremor of revival. Presently the silBiice and the lifeless touch grew so appalling, that I was moved to call aloud : " Dreeme ! Cecil Dreeme ! " CECIL DBEEMK 139 I half fancied that he stirred at this. Yes! No! Trance was master still. Life must be patient. If it wrestled too soon, it might get a fatal fall. I dreaded the thought of my invalid giving one gasp, shuddering with one final spasm, and then drooping into my arms — dead. Locksley now came clattering into the lobby, dropping billets from an over-load of kindling- wood. He shot down his armful by the stove, and ap- proached the figure in the arm-chair. " Any pulse ? " said he, taking the cold hand in his. " Is there any ? " I asked, eagerly. "I shouldn't wonder," he replied, "if the blood was starting, just a little, like water under ice in the early spring." Locksley repeated the experiment with the candle. " He breathes," he whispered. There was for a moment no draught, and the flame certainly trembled before Dreeme's lips. " He can't be said to be coming to," again whispered the janitor. "That's too far ahead. But he 's out of the woods, and struck the cart- track leadin' to the turnpike." "Thank God!" " Ay ! that always ! " said Locksley, gravely. 140 CECIL DBEEME. " Now here goes at the fire ! You '11 hear a rumblin' in this stove before many minutes that would boost a chimney-sweep." He heaped in his kindling-stuff, ani lighted it. The pleasant noise of fire began. Locks'.ej left the stove, intoning hollow music, like an automaton bassoon, and turned to me : " Looks pretty gritty, — Mr. Dreeme, — don't he ? And pretty mild too ? " " Both," said I. " Not many would have stood it out alone in such a bare barn as this." For the first time I gave myself an instant to glance about the studio. A bare barn indeed ! Half-carpeted, furnished with a table, a chest of drawers, and two or three chairs. The three doors, corresponding to my bath-room, bedroom, and lumber r room, were the only objects to break the monotony of the un- adorned walls. After the lavish confusion of Rubbish Palace, this place looked doubly bleak and forlorn. To paint here, without one single attractive bit of color or form to relieve the eyo and subsidize the fancy, was a tour deforce, like a blind man's writing a Paradise Lost, or a deaf man's composing a symphony. " He 's had to wind his whole picture out of his head," said Locksley, following my glance. M and it ain't so bad either, if you could see il CECIL DREEME. 141 fair by daylight. Look at it there ! It 's ono of those pictures that make a man feci savage and sorry all at once." Lear and his Daughters, — that was tho pic- ture on Dreeme's easel. I glanced at it, as I continued my offices about him. The faint light of one candle gave it a certain mysterious reality. The background retired, the figures projected. They stirred almost, almost spoke. It seemed that I ought to know them, but that, if I did not catch the likeness at the first look, I could never see it. " That large and imposing figure, the King ! — wipe out the hate from his face, and I have surely seen the face. The Regan is in shadow; but the Goneril, — what features do I half remember that scorn might so despoil of beauty ? Ah ! that is the power of a great artist. His creations become facts. This is not imagination, it is history. At last here is my vague conception of Lear real- ized." The Cordelia I recognized at once. " Cecil Dreeme himself. He needed, it seems, but little womanizing. A very noble figure, even as I see it faintly. Tenderness, pity, undying love for the harsh father, for the false sisters, all these Dreeme's Cordelia — Dreeme's self idealized - expresses fully." These observations, made in the dim light, 142 CECIL DBEEME. were interrupted by a little stir and gasp of oui patient. We watched anxiously and in silence. Fresh air, warm wrappings, brandy, and the magnetism of human touch and human presence, were pre- vailing. . Yes ; there could be no doubt ; h< breathed faintly. The fire in the stove was now roaring loud. That lusty sound and the dismal wind without could not overpower the low, feeble gasps of the unconscious man. " We 've got him, hooray ! " said Locksley, in an excited whisper. We shook hands, like victors after a charge. I could have seized the bristly janitor, and whirled him into a Pyrrhic breakdown, without respect to my ceiling below. " Air he 's got," says Locksley, " and fire he 'a got, and a friend he 's got ; now for some food for him ! If you say so, I '11 just jiff round to Bagpypes, first block in Broadway, and get some oysters. He has n't touched a mouthful to-day, unless he can eat anthracite out of the coal-bin. Starvation's half the trouble. An oyster is all the world in one "bite. Let's get some oysters into him, and we '11 build him up higher than a shot-tower in an hour's time ! " " Just the thing ! " said I. " But here, taV* some money ! " CECIL DliKEMK. 148 " You may go your halves," says the honest fellow. "But, Mr. Byng," — he hesitated, and looked at me doubtfully, — " suppose he wakes up while I 'm gone, and finds a stranger here ? " " I '11 justify you. I will show him that I 'm a friend before he 's made me out a stranger." "That's right, sir. I think you've got a call here, a loud call. See how things has worked round. You come home, with nobody to look after, you come into Chrysalis, and the very first night a scare is sent to me. I go after Mr. Churm, as is ordered by my wife and the prickles of the scare. I don't find him ; I do find you. You don't say, ' Janitor, this is none of my business. Apply at the sign of the Good Samaritan, across the way ! ' No ; you know it 's a call. You take hold ; and here we are, and the boy a coming to on the slow train. When he gets to the depot, Mr. Byng, I hope you '11 stand by him and stick to him." " I will be a brother to him, Locksley, if he will let me." " Let or no let, Mr. Byng. You 've got a call to pad to him like a soldier-coat to a Governor's Guard. But here I go talkin' off, and where 's the oysters ? " He hurried away. I was left alone with Cecil Dreeme. Locksley's urgent plea was hardly needed. I 144 CECIL DREEME. felt every moment more brotherly to this desolate being, consigned to me by Fate. " Poor fellow ! " I thought. " He, I am sure, will not requite me witli harm for saying him, as old proverbs too truly say the baser spirits may.'* I wheeled him close to the stove. The room still seemed a dark and cheerless place to come back to life in. I tried to light the gas. It was chilled. There was a little ineffectual sputter as I touched the tube ; a few sparks sprang up, but no flame backed them. " It must be compelled to look a shade more cheerful, this hermitage ! " I thought. So I ran down in the dark to my own quarters for more light. Rubbish Palace was generous as Fortunatus's purse. Whatever one wanted came to hand. More light was my present demand. I found it in a rich old bronze candelabrum, bristling with candles. More wrappings, too, I thought my patient might require. I flung across my arm a blanket from my bed, and that gorgeous yellow satin coverlet, once Louis Philippe's. Perhaps, also, Dreeme might fancy some other drink than brandy when the oysters came. There was Grinevra's coffer, again presenting a plen- teous choice. I snatched up another old flask, beaming with something vinous and purple, pock- eted another Venetian goblet, and, thus rein- forced, hastened up-stairs. CECIL DREEME. 145 Now that the deadly distress of my alarm for the painter was reduced to a healthy anxiety, I could think what a picture I presented marching along, with my antique branch of six lighted candles in one hand, the mass of shining drapery on my arm, and in the other hand the glass, flashing with the red glimmers of its wine. But this walking tableau met no critics on the stairs , and when I pushed open Dreeme's door, he did not turn, as I half hoped he might, and survey the night-scene with a painter's eye. I deposited my illumination on the table. Then I began to envelop my tranced man in that soft satin covering, whose color alone ought to warm him. All at once, as, kneeling, I was arranging thin robe of state about Dreeme's feet, I became con scious, by I know not what magnetism, that lie had opened his eyes, and was earnestly looking at me. I would not glance up immediately. Better that he should recognize me as a friend, at a friend's work, before I as a person challenged him, eye to eye. I kept my head bent down, and let him ex- amine me, as I felt that he was doing, with hollow, melancholy eyes. CHAPTER XIII. DBEEME, AWAKE. 1 felt that the pale face of Cecil Dreenie was regarding me with its hollow, sad eyes, as I arrayed him in the splendid spoil of the Tuileries. Saying to himself, perhaps, I thought, " What does this impertinent intruder want ? Am I to be compelled to live against my will ? I excluded air; rejected food and fire, — must self-appointed friends thrust themselves upon me, and jar my calm accord with Death ? " I might be in a false position after all. My services and my apparatus might be merely oflB cious. I evaded Dreeme's look, and, moving to the table behind him, I occupied myself in pouring out a sip from the flask I had just brought. The purple wine sparkled in the goblet. In such a glass Bassanio might have pledged Portia. No sooner had I stepped aside, than Dreeme stirred, and there came to me a voice, like thf echo of a whisper : " Do not go." CECIL DREEME. 147 " No," said I, " I am here." Thus invited, I came forward and looked at him, eye to eye. Wonderful eyes of his ! None ever shone truer, braver, steadier. These large dark orbs, now studying me with such sad earnestness, com- pleted, without defining, my first impressions of the man. Here was finer vision for beauty than the vision of creatures of common clay. Here was keener insight into truth ; here were the deeper faith, the larger love, that make Genius. A priceless spirit ! so I fully discerned, now that the face had supplied its own illumination. A priceless spirit ! and so nearly lost to the world, which has persons enough, but no spirits to waste. As we regarded each other earnestly, 1 per- ceived the question flit across my mind : " Had I not had a glimpse of that inspired face before ? " " Why not ? " my thought replied. " I may have seen 1dm copying in the Louvre, sketching in the Oberland, dejected in the Coliseum, elated in St. Peter's, taking his coffee and violets in the Cafe" Done", whisking by at the Pitti Palace ball. Artists start up everywhere in Europe, like but- terflies among flowers. He may have flashed across my sight, and imprinted an image on my brain to which his presence applies the ste^w scopic counterpart. 148 CECIL DREEME. This image, if it existed, was too faint to hold its own with the reality. It vanished, or only remained a slight blur in my mind. 1 satisfied myself that I was comparing Dreerae with his idealized self in the picture. "You are better," said I. There came a feeble, flutter-like " Yes," in reply. He still continued looking at me in a vague, bewildered way, his great, sad eyes staring from h*s pale face, as if he had not strength to close them. " I have been giving you brandy," I said ; " let me offer a gentler medicine." I held out the cup. Then, as he made no sign of assent, I felt that he might have a reason- able hesitation in taking an unknown draught from a stranger hand. I sipped a little of the wine. It was fragrant Port with plenty of body and a large proportion of soul. Magnifi- cent Mafra at its royalist banquet never poured out richer juices to enlarge a Portuguese king into manhood. It had two flavors. One would say that the grapes which once held it bottled within the dewy transparency of their rind had hung along the terraces beside the sea, drirk ing two kinds of sunshine all the long after- noons of ripe midsummer. Every grape had 'elt the round sun gazing straight and steadily CECIL DREEME. 149 at it, and enjoying his countenance within, as a lover loves to see his own image reflected in his lady's eye. And every grape besides had taken in the broad glow of sunshine shining back from the glassy bay its vineyard over hung, or the shattered lights of innumerable ripples, stirred when the western winds came slinging themselves along the level sunbeams of evening. Harry Stillfleet ! why did n't you have a pipe, instead of a quart, of the stuff? Why not an ocean, instead of a sample ? I sipped a little, like a king's wine-taster. . " Port, not poison, Mr. Dreeme," said I. " This Venice glass would shiver with poison, and crack with scorn at any dishonest beverage." He seemed to make a feeble attempt at a smile, as I proffered the dose. " Your health ! " his lips rather framed than uttered. I put the glass to his mouth. An unexpected picture for mid-nineteenth cen- tury, and a corner of rusty Chrysalis ! a strange picture! — this dark-haired, wasted youth, robed like a sick prince, and taking his posset from a goblet fashioned, perhaps, in a shop that paid rent to Shylock. Dreeme closed his eyes, and seemed to let the wholesome fever of his draught revivify him. By this time the room was warm and comfoi table. The stove might bo ugly as a 160 CECIL DREEME. cylindrical fctisli of the blackest Africa ; but \1 radiated heat with Phoebus-like benignity. " How cheerful ! " murmured the painter, looking up again, his forlorn expression de- parted. " Fire ! Light ! 1 am a new being ! " " Not a spirit, then ! " said I. There was still something remote and ghost-like in the bewil- dered look of his hollow eyes. " No spirit ! This is real flesh and blood." I smiled. " Not much of either." " Have I to thank you that I am not indeed a spirit ? " asked he slowly, but seeming to gain strength as he spoke. " Locksley, the janitor, first, and me, second, you may thank, if life is a boon to you." " I thank both devoutly. Life is precious, while its work remains undone." Here he closed his eyes, as if facing labor and duty again was too much for his feebleness. When he glanced up at me anew, I fancied I saw an evanescent look of recognition drift across his face. This set me a second time turning over the filmy leaves of the book of portraits in my brain. Was his semblance among those legions of faces packed close and set away in order there ? No. I could not identify him. The likeness drifted away from me, and vanished, like a perplexing strain of music, once just trembling at the lips. CECIL DREEME. 151 but now gone with the breath, refusing to be sung. 1 thought it not best to worry him with in- quiries ; so I waited quietly, and in a moment he began. " Will you tell me what has happened ? How came I under your kind care ? Yours is a new face in Chrysalis." " I must give the face a name," said I. " Let me present myself. Mr. Robert Byng." " In return, know me as Mr. Cecil Dreeme. Will you shake hands with your grateful patient, Mr. Byng." He weakly lifted an attenuated hand. Poor fellow ! I could hardly keep my vigorous fist from crushing up that meagre, chilly handful, so elated was I at his recovery and his gratitude. " I owe you an explanation, of course," said I. ' I am a new-comer, arrived from Europe only last night. Mr. Stillfleet, an old comrade, ceded his chambers below to me this afternoon. Locks ley came to my door at twelve o'clock, looking for my friend Mr. Churm, who had been sitting with me. Churm had gone. Locksley was in great alarm. I volunteered my advice. He took mo into his confidence, so far as this: he said that you were a young painter, living in the clos- est retirement, for reasons satisfactory to your- self, and that he feared you were dying from 1&'2 CECIL DREEMk. overwork, confinement, solitude,, and perhaps mental trouble. I said you must be helped at once. We came up, and banged at your dooi heartily. No answer. We took the liberty tc pick your lock and break into your castle. Then we took the gieater liberty to put life into you, in the form of air, warmth, and alcohol." " Pardonable liberties, surely." " Yes ; since it seems you did not mean to die." " Suicide !" said Dreeme, reproachfully. "No, thank God ! You did not accuse me of that, Mr. Byng!" " When we were knocking at your door, and hearing only a deathly silence, I dreaded that you had let toil and trouble drive you to despair." " Overwork and anxiety were killing me, with- rmt my knowledge." " And solitude ? " said I. " And that solitude of the heart which is the brother of death. Yes, Mr. Byng, I have been extravagant of my life. But innocently. Be- lieve it ! " There was such eager protest iii his look and tone, that I hastened to reassure him. " When I saw your face, Mr. Dreeme, I read- there too much mental life and too much moral life fcr suicide. I see brave patience ii your countenance. Besides, you have too much sense CECIL DRKKMK. 163 to rush out and tap Death on the cold shoulder, and beg to be let out of life into Paradise before you have earned your entrance fee. You know, as well as I do, that Death keeps suicides shiver ing in Chaos, without even a stick and a knife to notch off the measureless days, until the allotted dying hour they vainly tried to anticipate comes round." Dreeme's attention refused to be averted from his own case by such speculations. " I have been struggling with dark waters, — dark waters, Mr. Byng," said he. " Churm's very phrase to describe his sorrow," I thought. " Who knows but Dreeme'f grief is the same ? " " Struggling like a raw swimmer," he con tin ued t "And when I was drowning, I find you sent to give me a friendly hand. It is written that I shall not die with all my work undone. No, no. I shall live to finish." He spoke with strange energy, and turned toward his easel as he closed. " You refer to your picture," said I, pleased to see his artist enthusiasm kindle so soon. " My picture ! " he rejoined, a little carelessly, as if it were of graver work he had thought. " How does it promise ? I have put my whole heart into it. But hand cannot always speak loud enough or clear enough to interpret heart." 154 CECIL DREEME. " Hand has not stammered or muinl led here," I replied. " My first glance showed me that. But I must have daylight to study it as it de- serves. Am I right in recognizing you as the Cordelia of the piece ? " " For lack of a better model, I remodelled my- self, and intruded there in womanly guise. My work is unfinished, as you see ; but if you had not interposed to-night, I should have painted no more." He shuddered, and seemed to grow faint again at the thought of that desolate death lie had hardly escaped. " Let me cheer you with a fresh dose of vital- ity," said I. " A little more Lusitanian sun in crystal of Venice." This time he was strong enough himself to raise the cup to his lips. He sipped, and smiled gratefully ; — and really a patient owes some thanks to a doctor who restores him with nectar smooth and fragrant, instead of rasping his throat and flaying his whole interior with the bitters sucked by sour-tempered roots from vixenish soils. " It was a happy fate, a kind Providence," said Dreeme, " that sent to me in my extremity a gentleman whose touch to mind and body is fine and gentle as a woman's." "Thank you," rejoinrjd 1. "But remember that I am only acting as Mr. Churm's substitute CECIL DREEME. 155 [ hope you will let me bring him to you in the morning." " No," said he, almost with rude emphasis. I looked at him in some surprise. " You seem to have a prejudice against the name," I re- marked. " Why should I ? I merely do not wish to add to my list of friends." "But Mr. Churm is the very ideal friend, — stanch as oak, true as steel, warm and cheery arf sunshine, eager as fresh air, tender as midsum- mer rain. Do let me interest him in you. He is just the man to befriend a lonely fellow." D.reeme shook his head, resolutely and sadly. " You seem to mistrust my enthusiasm," I said " It is tragic to me," he returned, " to hear a generous nature talk so ardently of its friendships Have you had no disappointments ? Has no one you loved changed and become abased ? " " One would almost say you were trying to shake my faith in my friend." " Why should I ? I speak generally." Here the partition door of the lobby without opened, and we heard footsteps. " Friend Locksley, with some supper for you," said I, half annoyed at the interruption of our tSled-tSte. •' How kind ! how thoughtful of you both ! " and tears started in Drcemo's eyes as lie spoke. CBA.PTER XIV. A MILD ORGIE. Locksley came boldly in, breathlessly. "All right, I see, Mr. Dreeme," he panted. " All right, Locksley ! thanks to you and Mi . Byng." " I 've been gone," says the janitor, " long enough to make all the shifts of a permutation lock." He deposited a huge basket on the table. " Bagpypes's was shut," he continued. " So was De Grope's. I had to go up to Selleridge's. He 's an open-all-night-er. Selleridge's was full nf fire-company boys, taking their tods after a run. Selleridge could n't stop pouring and mix- ing and stirring and muddling. ' Firemen comes first,' says he. ' They 've got to have their extin guishers into 'em.' So I jumped up on the counter, and says I, ' Boys, I 've got a sick man to oyster up, and if he ain't oystered up on time he'll be a dead shell.' So the red flannels- d rawed off, like real bricks. I got my oysters, and came away like horse-power. CECIL DREEME. 157 Locksloy took breath, and began to arrange hit vivers on the table. " Six Shrewsburys," he pronounced, bestowing their portly shells before him. " For a roast, if Mr. Dreeme likes. Twelve Blue-Pointers, every one little as a lady's ear. Them for a stew, if Mr. Dreeme likes better. Paper of mixed crack- ers, — Boston butters, Wilson's sweets, and Wing's pethy. Pad of butter. Plate of slaw, ready vinegared. I wanted to leave the slaw ; but Selleridge said, ' No ; slaw and oysters was man and wife, and he should n't be easy in his mind if he sent one out and kep' the other.' And here 's some Scotch ale, in a scrumptious little stone jug, to wash all down." "You will appall Mr. Dreeme's invalid appe- tite with these piles of provender/' said I. " On the contrary, my spirits rise with the sight of a banquet and guests to share it," Dreeme returned. " Nibble on a Wing's pethy," says Locksley, handing the crackers, " while I plant a Shrews- bury to cook in the stove." " I did not know how ravenous I was," Dreeme , said, taking a second " pethy." "Dora had a hearty cry," says the janitor, " because she could n't get any word when she came up with your meals to-day, Mr. Dreeme." " Poor child ! I heard her knock in the morn- 158 CECIL DREEME. ing; but I was half asleep, and too weak to an- swer. All at once my strength, ignorantly over tasked, had failed. Later, I managed to struggle up and dress myself. Then I found my way to this arm-chair before my picture. There I sat all day, sometimes unconscious, sometimes conscious of a flicker of life. Dora came with my dinner. I heard hsr knock. When I perceived that I could not speak or stir in answer, utter desola- tion darkened down upon me. I felt myself sink away, and seemed to drown, slowly, slowly, with- out pain or terror. Immeasurable deeps of space crushed me. But by and by I felt my course reversed. I was rising, slowly as I had sunk. At last I knew the pang and thrill of life. 1 woke and saw Mr. Byng restoring me." Dreeme recited this history with strange im- passiveness. " You take it pretty cool," says Locksley. " It seems as if you was making up a tale about somebody else, — holding off your death at arm's length and talking about it." " Mr. Dreeme speaks as an artist," said I, try- ing, with a blundering good-humor, to make our parley less sombre. " He already looks at this passage in his life as a peril quite escaped, and so material for dramatic treatment." " Death and resurrection ! " said Dreeme, gravely " Suppose, Mr. Byng, that you were CECIL DREEME. 159 worn down to die by agony for sins not your own, could you believe that such an incomplete death as mine makes atonement ? Could you hope that your strong suffering had purged the guilty souls clean ? Could you have faith thaf their lives would renew and amend, as vital force came back to the life that had sorrowed unto death for them ? " " Solemn questions, Mr. Dreeme," I replied. " Are you quite well enough yet to entertain them ? " Here the Shrewsbury in the stove recalled us to mundane phenomena, by giving a loud wheeze. " There she blows ! " cried Locksley. He grappled the crustaceous grarlee with the tongs, and popped him on a plate. A little fra- grant steam issued from the calcined lips, invit- ingly parted. " Roast oysters," says Locksley, " always wheezes when they 're done to a bulge. If you want 'em done dry, wait till the music's all cooked out of 'em. Tins is a bulger," he con- tinued, deftly whisking off the top shell. "Down U, Mr. Dreeme, without winking ! " Dreeme obeyed. Locksley consigned another of the noble race of Shrewsbury to fiery martyrdom. Then ha turned again to the painter. " You won't go and die again ? " said he. 1(50 CECIL DKEEME. Dreeme smilod, and shook his head. " Not," says the janitor, with queer earnestucst of manner, " that I would n't come in any time on call and help liven you up, howsever dead you might be. But it ain't good for you ; it 's unwholesome, — tell him so, Mr. Byng." " Be informed, then, Mr. Dreeme," said I, " that dying is not good for you. I intend not to let you take any more of it. I prescribe in stead a generous life, and I hope you will allow me to aid in administering the remedy." " That 's right," says Locksley, " mix in, Mr. Byng. And now, if you say so, I '11 run down and get Mr. Stillfleet's volcano and stew-pan to stew the Blue-Pointers. They 're waiting, mild as you please, and not getting a fair show." The busy fellow bustled off. " Mixing in is my trade," said I. " I am a chemist. Pardon me if I seem to mingle myself too far and too soon in your affairs." "I feel no danger from you, Mr. Byng. I accept most gratefully your kind and gentleman- like interference." He spoke with marked dignity. Indeed, al- though the circumstances of our meeting had brought us so near togetner, me reserve and set- tled self-possession of his manner kept me at a wide distance. No fear that ho would not pro tect himself against intrusion. CECIL DREEME. 161 Locksley now reappeared with the stew-pan and alcohol-lamp. He went at his cookery with a blundering frenzy of good-will. It was quite idle for.Dreerae to protest that he would be killed by this culinary kindness. " Just one Blue-Pointer ! " says the janitor- cook, forking out a little oyster of pearly com- plexion from where it lay heads and points among its fellows. " Just one ! It '11 top off the Shrewsburys, as a feather tops off a com- modore." • The bristly fellow's earnestness, as he stood seductively holding up the neat morsel, was so comic, that Dreeme let himself laugh heartily. I had heard no laugh since Densdeth's at the Chuzzlewit dinner-table. That scoffing tone of his which broke in upon my queries to Ohurm regarding Cecil Dreeme was still in my ears. The memory of Densdeth's laugh still misrepre- sented to me all laughter. Laughter, if I took that as its type, was only the loud sneer of a ruthless cynic. Such a laugh made honor seem folly, truth weakness, generosity a bid for richer requital, chivalry the hypocrisy of a knave. I was hardly conscious how much faith had gone out of me, expelled by his sneering tone, until Dreeme's musical, child-like laugh redressed the wrong. Instantly the wound of Densdeth's cynicism was healed. I was freshened again, and lt>2 CECIL DKKEME. tuned anew to all sweet influences. Honor seemed wisdom ; truth the only strength ; gener- osity its own reward ; chivalry the expression in manners of a loyal heart. All the brave joyous ness of my nature responded to this laugh of Dreeme's, and spoke out boldly in my echoing one. Each of us perceived new sympathy in the other. Locksley now made his reappearance with the volcano. The oysters crackled in the stove, fizzed and bubbled over the lamp on the table. The poetic temperament takes in happiness and good cheer as a bud takes sunshine. Drecme expanded more and more. His silver laugh flowed free in chastened merriment. He seemed to forget that an hour ago he had been dying, friendless and alone ; to forget whatever sorrow or terror had driven him to this unnatural se- clusion, up in the shabby precincts of Chrysalis College. We were a merry trio. Reaction after the anxiety of the evening exhilarated me to my best mood. Locksley too was in high feather His harangue at Selleridge's had loosed his tongue, — never in truth a very tight one, — and ho vented no end of odd phrases over the banquet. Stillfleet's antique flasks and goblets figured decorously at the board. They were spectator! CECIL DKKEME. 163 rather than actors. The janitor proposed Mr. Dreeine's health. " I hardly expected, Locksloy," said I in reply, '' when Stillfleet warned you that I would try to introduce the Orgie here, that you were to be my chief abettor." " The mildest Orgie ever known ! " said Dreeme. " Rather a feast of thanksgiving. But shall we end it now ? I see you grow weary." " I do, healthily weary. Ah, Mr. Byng ! you cannot conceive the blissful revulsion in my life since last night, when I fell asleep alone and without hope, — over-weary with work, weary to death of life." " Would you like me to camp with a blanket oil your floor, in case you should need any- thing?" " No," he replied, rather coldly. " I shall do well. I would not incommode you." " Good night then, my dear Mr. Dreeme. Pray understand that our new friendship must not be slept out of existence." No doubt my tone betrayed that his sudden cold manner had made me fancy such a result. "0 no!" he said ardently. "1 am not a person of many professions, but I do not forget. And I need your kindness still, and shall need V Pray," continued he, " keep my secret. I 164 CECIL DBEEME. do not wish to be known, until my liibcrnatio is over. Locksley has been pretty faithful thin far." " Until Mr. Byng arrived to make a traitor of me," said the janitor, with compunction. " Such treachery is higher loyalty," Breemc rejoined. " You find me hiding my light under a bushel, but don't suspect me, Mr. Byng, of anything worse than a freak, or an ambitious fancy." Not either of these, I was sure, from his un- happy attempt at a smile as he spoke. But he threw himself upon my good faith so utterly, that I resolved never to open my eyes, to shut them even to any flash of suspicion of his secret that any circumstance might reveal. " Good night ! " And so we parted. "We've hit the bull's-eye true," said Locks- ley, as we descended. " You suited him even better than Mr. Churm could have done." " Mysterious business ! Such an odd place to hide in ! And his name on the door, too ! " " Who would think of searching for a run- away in a respectable old den like this. Perhaps the name is not his A wrong name puts people on the wrong scent. It 's having no name that is suspicious. And if he 'd put ' Panther,' instead of ' Painter,' on his door, it would n't have kept people away any better. Who goes to a young CECIL DREEMK. 106 painter's door? They have trouble enough to get any notice." "I believe you are right. Will you come in and let me give you a cigar ? " " No I thank you, sir. Miss Locksley has got a natural nose against tobacco. If I go. to bed scented, she'll wake up and scallop me with questions. Good night, sir." And we parted at the main staircase. - " A full day," I thought, as I entered my room. No danger of my being bored, if events crowd in this way in America. Here certainly is romance. Destiny has brought Cecil Dreeme and me together without a break-down on his side of the ceiling, or a pistol-shot from me below. Poor fellow ! who knows but, even so young, he has had some cruel experience like Churm's? But hold! I must not pry into his affairs. I might strike tragedy, and tragedy I do not lo» J. So to bed, and no dreams of Dreeme. CHAPTER XV. A MORNING WITH DENSDETH. 1 slept late after our gentle Orgie, my second night on shore. A loud rapping awoke me. I opened. Churm was at the door, stout stick in hand, stout shoes on his feet, stout coat on his back, — the sturdiest man to be seen, search a continent for his fellow ! He had the Herculean air of one who has been out giving the world a lift by way of getting an appetite for breakfast. " Good morning," said he, marching in. " This will never do, my tallish young Saxon, come home to work ! " " What ? " " Nine A. M., and your day's task not begun! " "I worked too late last night." " At the mysteries of your trade ? I doubt if you encountered a deeper one than I in my watch." " Perhaps, and perhaps not. What was yours ? " " The heart of a wrong-doer." " That transcends my trade's methods of an alysis " CECIL DKEEME. 167 "And in this case, my powers." " You are speaking of your protigS, Towner," said I, going on with my toilette. " Of him. He has a confession to make to me. He dares not quite confess. He comes up timorously, like a weak-kneed horse to his leap ; then he seems to see something on the other side ; he flinches and sheers into a Serbonian bog of lies." " Afraid of the consequences of confession ? " " Not of the ordinary punishment of guilt, nor of any ordinary revenge from his ancient master in evil." " Namely, as you allege, Densdeth." " Densdeth." " I shall grow perverse enough to take Dens- deth's part, and cast my shell to de-ostracize him from his moral ostracism, if I hear him called The Unjust by all the world." " Don't be Quixotic, Byng. There is more vanity than generosity in that." " And what dreadful vengeance does your weak- ling fear ? " " He thinks that, if he betrays his master, he shall never save himself from that master's clutch. Densdeth will pursue him and debase his soul through all the eternities, as he has done 'n tb.it life." " Quite a metaphysical distress ! " 168 CE(TL DKEEME. " Don't laugh at him ! It is a real agony with him ; and who knows but the danger is real ? " " You do not got at what the poor devil has done in which you are interested ? " "Not at all. And his moral struggle with himself, and defeat, have plunged him back into such pitiable weakness of body, that we have lost all we had gained. The doctor says that it will kill him to see me again for weeks." " So Densdeth is respited. Well, I will study him in the interval, and find out for myself whether he is 'main de fer, sous patte de ve- lours.'' " " Very welh, Byng ; I see you are resolved to buy your experience. Densdeth has magnetized you. He does most young men." " I don't know yet whether I shall turn to him my positive or negative pole. He may repel, instead of attracting, as soon as I get within his sphere. I acknowledge that I am drawn to him." " Now then, enough of such topics. My vigils have given me an appetite. I want to reverse ' qui dort dine,' and read ' qui dSjeune dorl.' " " "Where shall we go ? Chuzzlewit, Patrick rampant, flannel cakes, and Densdeth ? " " No ; a better place. The Minedurt, close by." " Unpropitious name ! " " Surnames go by contraries. This is old Knickerbocker. It should read ' The Grotto of Xeatncss,' instead of the ' Minedurt.'" CECIL DREEfoE. 169 An avenue — The Avenue — flows up hill, northward, from the middle of Ailanthus Square. Charm conducted me a few blocks along that channel of wealth. He stopped in front of the Minedurt, a hotel with restaurant attached. Re- spectable could not have been more distinctly stamped upon a building, if it had been written up in a great label across the front, and in a hundred little labels everywhere, like the big red Ten and the little red tens on a bank-bill. " Notice that large house across the street," said Churm, halting before this respectable estab- lishment. " I do. It is nearer civilization than anything 1 have seen. A fine house. Happy the owner ! if he appreciates architecture." " Happy ! " said Churm, bitterly. " It is Den- man's house ! He had ancestral acres here, and was one of the first to perceive that the cream would settle in his grandfather's cow-pasture." " Stop a moment ! The tragedy of my old playmate gives the house a strange sanctity in my eyes." " It is cursed," said Churm. " No happiness to its tenants, — only harm to its friends, until the wrong done my child there lias been ex- piated." " Has not her father's grief atoned for hit error ? " 170 CECIL DREEME. "You cannot understand my feelingu, Byng You did not know Clara Denman." I paused to inspect the mansion, sanctified to me by death. Death sanctifies, birth consecrates a home. Sanctified? But the death here was perhaps a suicide. So some alleged. Can a suicide sanc- tify ? Does it not desecrate ? Do not some churches deny the corpse, a self-slayer flung away, its hiding-place in holy ground ? No suicide near the sleeping saints ! A man may strangle himself with good dinners, or poison himself with fine old Madeira or coarse old Mo- nongahela; a bad conscience, gnawing day and night, may eat away his heart ; he may have murdered the woman that once loved him, by judicious slow torture ; he may have murdered the friend that trusted him, by a peevish No, when it was help or death ; no matter ! He will be allowed as comfortable a grave as a sexton can dig, six feet by two in soft soil under green sod, and the priest will dust his dust with all the compliments in the burial service. But let him have put a knife to his throat, or a bullet in his brain, because he could not any longer face the woman he had wronged, or the friend he had betrayed, — what shudders then of sexton and priest ! No place for him beside the glutton and the drunkard ! The cruel husband or the false CKCIL DRF.EMK. 171 friend would shiver in his coffin at si.ch propin- quity. Out with him ! Out with the accursed thing ! To the dogs with the carrion ! Not sanctified, — saddened, I could, without any one's protest, consider Mr. Denman's house. Hundreds, no doubt, every day envied the happy owner. How grand to possess that stately edi- fice of contrasted freestones, purple and drab ; those well-cut pilasters ; that dignified roof, in the old chateau manner, fitly capping the whole ; that majestic portal ; those great windows, heavi- ly draped, but allowing the inner magnificence to peer through, conscious, but not ostentatious ; — how grand to stand and call this mine ! Hundreds, no doubt, envied Mr. Denman every day. First in the morning, journeymen, hurry- ing by with a poor dinner in a tin canister ; next, Tittlebat Titmouse, on his way to the counter ; then some clerk of higher degree, seller by the piece instead of the yard, by the cargo instead of the pound, bustling down town to his desk ; next the poor book-keeper, with twelve hundred a year, and a mouth to every hundred ; then the broken-down merchant, who must show himself on the Street, though the Street noted him nc more ; and so on in order, the financial digni tary, the club-man lounging to his late breakfast or his morning stroll, the country cousin seeing the lions, the woman of fashion driving up to 172 CECIL DKEEME- drop a card ; and then at sunset the pretty girl walking up town with her lover; and then at night the night-bird skulking by ; — all these envied the tenants of the Denman mansion, or at least fancied them fortunate. And all houses announce as little as that the miseries that may dwell within ! " Come, Byng," said my friend, " you cannot see into the heart of that house by staring at it." We passed in to our breakfast. Over our coffee we glided into cheerful talk. I consulted Churm, and he frankly advised me as to my future. And so, speaking of my own prospects, we spoke of the hopes and duties of my generation to our country. " We are the first," said I, " who understand what an absolute Republic means, and what it can do." " The first as a generation. Individuals have always comprehended it," said Churm. " And now, acting together, on a larger scale, with a grander co-operation, we will inaugurate the new era for the noblest manhood and the purest womanhood the world has ever known." I had spoken ardently. At once, as if in echo to my words, I heard Densdeth's cynic laugh behind me. My enthusiasm perished. CECIL DREEME 173 I turned uneasily. Was Densdetli laughing fti, my silly boyish fervors ? He was sitting two tables off, breakfasting with a well-known man about town. Densdeth's com- panion was one of those who have beauty which they debase, talents which they bury, money which they squander. He was a man of fine genius, but genius under a murky cloud, flash- ing out rarely in a sad or a scornful way. A man sick of himself, sorry for himself. A wasted life, hating itself for its waste, wearing itself out with self-reproach that it was naught. Some evil influence had clutched him after his first success and his first sorrow. Thenceforth his soul was paralyzed. The success had nurtured a lazy pride, instead of an exalting ambition. The sorrow had made him tender to himself and hard to others. What was that evil influence ? Could it be in the dark face beside him? Densdetli nodded to me familiarly, as I turned. " Don't forget," said he, " our appointment at one. You know Raleigh, I believe." Mr. Raleigh and I bowed cordially. We had met in Europe. We had sympathized on art and nature. I had touched only his bettei side, though I saw the worse. I liked Raleigh and fancied, as a boy fancies, that I had a certau power over him, and that for gorid. We all rose together after our breakfast. 174 CKCIL DKEKMK.- " Are you killing time, or nursing it, Byng ? " said Densdeth. " Killing it for a day or two, until I acclimate to the atmosphere of work." " Unless you have something better to do, drop over with us to the club. You must know the men. We will have a game of billiards until one." " Yes, come, Byng," invited Raleigh's sweet voice. " Thank you," I said. " Business, in the form of Mr. Churm, deserts me. Pleasure woos. I yield." " Take care ! " said Churm to me, as we walked away. " I see you insist upon personal expe- rience." " yes ! Nothing vicarious for me ! I will nibble at our friend. I '11 try not to bite, for fear of the poison you threaten." Churm left us, and walked across Ailanthus Square, on his way down toWn. " I must look in at my quarters for a moment," said I to the others ; " will you lounge on, and let me overtake you, or honor me with a visit ? " " Let us drop in, Raleigh," said Densdeth. " I am curious to see how the old place looks, with Stillfleet's breezes out and Byng's calms in." I did the honors, and then, establishing my guests with cigars, I excused myself, and ran up- CECIL DREEME. 176 stairs to give gcod morning 1j Cecil Dreeme. Churui's presence and a lively appetite together had delayed this duty. Besides, I had felt that he ought not to bo disturbed too early. I knocked, and spoke my name. The recluse might sport oak to the knock alone. " Coming," responded his gentle voice. Presently the door opened enough to admit me, but not to display the interior of the cham- ber to any inquisitive passer. I was struck, even more than last night, by the singular, refined beauty of the youth. And then his body was so worn and thin, that Ms soul seemed to get very close to me. His personal magnetism — that is, the touch of his soul on mine — affected me more keenly than before. It was having cumulative intlu- ence. The mighty medicines for soul and body always do. And so do the poisons. " You are looking quite vigorous and cheerful this morning," I said, exaggerating a little. "I congratulate you on your leap out of death into full life." " It is to you I owe it," he said, with deep feeling. He grasped my hand, and then dropped it suddenly again, as if he feared he was taking a liberty. 170 CECIL PRKEME. (How exactly I remember every word arid gesture of those first interviews ! All, Cecil Dreeme ! how little I fancied then what sal vage you were to pay me for my succor!) " You are hard at work again, I see." I point- ed to his palette and brushes. " Be cautious ! Do not overdo it! You must be under my or- ders for a while." I was conscious of claiming this power a little timidly, such was the quiet dignity of the . young man. " I will try to be wiser now, since I have a friend who is willing to admonish me." " Now," continued he, as if to turn atten- tion from himself, " look at my picture ! I want a slashing criticism. You cannot find fault? that I do not see myself." I stepped back to look at it. A work of power ! Crude, indeed ; but with force enough to justify any crudity. . Its deep tragedy struck me silent. " Do not spare me," said Dreeme. " Silence is severer than blame. Say, at least, that it is pretty well for a novice, — pretty well consid- ing my years and my practice." " What has happened to you ? " said I, staring at his pale, worn face. " What right have you, in the happy days of youth, to the knowledge that has taught you to paint tragedy thus 1 CECIL DBEEME. V I Wliat unknown agony have you undergone 1 Mr. Dreeme, your picture is a revelation. I pity you from my heart." "You do not believe," said he, evasive*/, " thai imagination can supply the want of ex- perience ? " " Imagination must have experience to trans- fuse into new facts. You, of course, have not had an unjust father, like your Lear, nor a disloyal sister, like your Goneril ; nor have you felt a withering curse, as your Cordelia does. But tyranny and treachery must have touched you. They have initiated you into their modes of action and expression. Do not find inquisi- tiveness implied in my criticism. I pity you too much for the ability and impulse to paint thus, to be curious how it came." " Believe, then," said Dreeme, " and it may help you to make allowances for me, that I know in my own life what tragedy means. That experience commands me to do violence to my love of beauty and happy scenes, and paint agony, as I have done there. And now, pray let us be technical. That white drapery, — how 'does it fall? Are the lines stiff? Is there too much starch. in the linen, or too little ? " " Technicality another time. I am uncivil even in delaying so long. Two gentlemen are waiting for me below." 178 CECIL DKEKME. " Your friend, Mr. Churm ? " he asked, look ing away. " No. Mr. Densdeth and Mr. Raleigh." " Densdeth ! " said he, with a slight shudder " You see I have the susceptible nerves of an artist. I tremble at the mere sound of such an ill-omened name. Should you not naturally avoid a person called Densdeth?" And as if the sound fascinated him, he repeated, " Dens- deth ! Densdeth!" " Name and man are repulsive ; but attrac- tive also. Attractive by repulsion." " Take my advice, and obey the repulsion. Poisons are not made bitter that we may school ourselves to like them. If this person, with a boding name, repels you, do not taste him, as one tastes opium. Curiosity may make you a slave." " Odd, that you, a stranger, should have the usual prejudice against Densdeth ! " " Consider that I am as one raised from the dead, and so perhaps clairvoyant. I use my power to warn you, as you have saved me." " Thank you," said I : "I will see you this evening, and tell you how far I am ruined by a morning with this bite noir. If lie spoils me, you must repair the harm." I walked to the door. He released me with a cautious glance into the hall. I ran down stain and apologized for my delay to my guests. CECIL DREEME. 179 ''It is a privilege to wait, my dear fellow," said Densdeth, " in such a treajurc-house. We have been looking at these droll old tapestries of Purgatory and a hotter place. Raleigh insists that the seducing devil, wooing those revellers to hell, is my precise image." " No doubt of it," says Raleigh. " You must be ^tephistophiles himself. Those fifteenth-cen- tury fellows have got your portrait to the life. It seems you were at the same business then, as now." Densdeth laughed. Raleigh and I laughed in answer. Both had caught that mocking tone of his. " Not only are you the devil of the tapestry," said Raleigh, " but I see myself among your vic- tims." " You flatter me," said Densdeth, again with his sinister laugh. " Yes, and Byng too, and certain ladies we know of. I really begin to be lazily supersti- tious. Don't make it too hot for me, Densdeth, when you get me below. I 've only been a nega- tive sinner in this world, — no man's enemy but my own." Raleigh's jest was half earnest. That and the demonish quality in Densdeth quickened my glance at the old altar-cloth, which hung on the wall, among Stillfleet's prints and pictures. 180 CECIL DKEKME. Under these impressions, I did indeed identify Densdeth with the cloven-hoofed tempter in this characteristic bit of mediaeval art. Raleigh was surely there, in the guise of a languid Bacchanal, crowned with drooping vine-leaves. I myself was also there, — a youth, only, half consenting, dragged along by an irresistible attraction. And continuing my observations, I recognized other friends, faintly imaged in the throng on the tap- estry. An angel, looking sadly at the evil one's triumph and my fall, was Cecil Dreeme's very self. And up among the judges sat Churm, ma- jestic as a prophet of Michael Angelo. " Come," said Densdeth, — he was by chance standing in the exact attitude of the Tempter in the tapestry, — " come ; we shall have but just time for Byng's introduction and our game of billiards." " Lead on, your majesty ! " said Raleigh. " We needs must follow, — to billiards or the bottomless pit." We walked to the club. It was the crack club then. Tears ago it went to pieces. Its gentle- men have joined better. Its legs and loafers have sunk to bar-rooms. The loungers there were languid when we en- tered. No scandal had yet come up from Wall Street ' none down from Murray Hill. CECIL DREEME. 181 The morning was still virgin of any story of disaster-to character, financial or social. The day had not done its duty, — a mere dies non, and promising only to be dies perdita. To be sure it was still a young day. It might still ruin somebody, pocket or reputation. Some- body, man or woman, might go to protest, and shame every indorser, before three o'clock. But everybody at the club had made it seven bells ; eight bells would presently strike, and no sign of the day's ration of scandal. They could not mumble all the afternoon over the stale crusts of yesterday ; they could not put bubble into yesterday's heel-taps. Everybody was bored. Life was a burden at the windows, by the fire, at the billiard-tables, of that rotten institution. Densdeth's arrival made a stir. " See these gobemouches" whispered Raleigh to me. " They think Densdeth, the busy man, would never come here at this hour in the morn- ing, unless some ill had happened, — unless there were some new man to jeer, or woman to flout. Now see how he will treat them." The languid loungers lost their air of non- chalance. There was a general move toward our party. The click of balls upon the tables was still. The players came forward, cue in hand. These unknightly knights of the Long Tabk stood about us, with the blunted lances 1 82 CECIL DBEEMK of a blunted chivalry, waiting to chuckle ovei the fate of some comrade in the dust, of some damsel soiled with scorn. Remember, that these were only the baser sort of the members. Heroes may sometimes lounge. Real heroes may play billiards, like the Phelan, and be heroes still. Densdeth's manner with his auditory was a study. " Pigs," he seemed to say, " I suppose I must feed you. Gobble up this and this, ye rabble rout! Take your fare and my mental kicking with it." Soon he tired of the herd, and led the way to a billiafd-table, apart. " I wanted to show you, Byng," said he, with an air of weary disgust, " what kind of men will be your associates among the idlers." " The busy men are nobler, I hope," said I. " You shall see. I will give you the entrSe to the other worlds, — the business world, the liter- ary world, the religious world, all of them. Pos- sibly you may not have quite outlived your illusions. Possibly you may have fancied that men are to be trusted on a new continent. Pos- sibly you may believe in the success of a society and polity based on the assumption that man- kind is not an ass when he is not a villain, and vice versa." " I had some such fancy." CECIL DKEEME. 183 41 Better be disenchanted now, than disap- pointed by and by. Apropos, don't suppose I often degrade myself to the level of that swinish multitude of scandal-mongers. But when I saw them so greedy, I could not forbear giving them diet, according to their stomachs." " What an infernal humbug you are, Dens- deth! " said Raleigh, marking a five^shot; "you love to spoil those boys, and keep the men spoilt. If you were out of the world, they would all reform, and go to sucking honey, instead of poison." " We are all humbugs," rejoined Densdeth ; "I want to put Byng on his guard against me and the rest. He might get some unhappy notion, that in .America men arc brave and women are pure." I kept my protest to myself, willing to study Densdeth further. Densdeth led the conversation, as indeed he never failed to do. He was a keen, hard analyzer of men, utterly sceptical to good motives. There is always just such a proportion of selfishness in every man's every act ; there must be, because there is a man in it. It may be the larger half, the lesser half, a fraction, the mere dust of an atom, that makes the scale descend. Densdeth always discovered tlu selfish purpose, put it in focus, held up a lens of his own before it. A.1 134 CECIL DREEME. once it grew, and spread, and seemed the whole. Densdeth was the Apostle of Disenchantment No paradisiacal innocence where he entered He revealed evil everywhere. That was at the core, according to him, however smooth the sur- face showed. Power over others consisted in inding that out. And that power was the only thing, except sensuality, worth having. Thus I condense my impressions of him. I did not know him, in and in, out and out, after this first morning at the club, nor after man.y wch meetings. I learnt him slowly. Yet I tliink I divined him from the first. I did not state to my own mind, then, why he captivated me, — why he sometimes terrified me, — why I had a hateful love for his society. In fact, the power of deeply analyzing character comes with a maturity that I had not attained. I was to pay price for my knowledge. Dens- deth's shadow was to fall upon me. My danger with evil personified, in such a man as Densdeth, was to sear into me a profound and saving horror of evil. One does not read the moral, until the tale is told. We played our billiards. One o'clock struck. We left Raleigh to be bored with the world and sick cf himself, to knock the balls about, and wish he had been born a blacksmith or a hod carrier. CECIL DREKMK. 185 Densdeth and I walked to the Deinuans. " You will see a very captivating young lady," he said, with a sharp and rapid glance at me. I was aware of a conscious look. He caught it also. " Aha, Byng ! a little tenderness for the old playmate ! Well, perhaps she has been waiting for you. She has looked coldly on scores of lovers." There was a familiarity in his tone which offended me. It seemed to sneer away the deli- cacy I felt towards one with whom I had childish passages of admiration ten years ago. I was angry at his disposing of my destiny and hers at once. In turn, I looked sharply at him, and said, in the same-careless tone, " How does Miss Den- man compare with her sister ? " Not a spark of emotion in his impassive face. There might have been a slight smile, as if to say, " This boy fancies that he is able to probe me, and learn why I courted the less beautiful sister, and what I did to drive her mad and to death." But the smile vanished, and he said, quietly : " We will not speak of the dead, if you please. Among the living, Miss Denman stands alone. A great prize, Byng! People that pre- tend to know say that Mr. Denman is a million naire. See what a grand house he lives in ! " " Grand houses sometimes make millionna>rot 186 CECIL DREKME. paupers," I remarked, thinking of what Churn? had told me. " I am quite sure no pauper owns this," Dens- deth said, measuring it with a look, as we walked up the steps. I remembered what Churm had said, and fancied I saw at least mortgagee, if not pro- prietor, in my companion's eye. Was he in- specting to see if his house needed a trowelful of mortar, or a gutter repaired ? CHAPTER XVI. EMMA DENMAN. Densdeth rang. We were admitted at once. The footman introduced us.into a parlor fronting on the avenue. The interior of the house was worthy of its stately architecture. I do not de- scribe. People, not things, passions, not objects, are my topics. Presently, in a mirror at the end of the long suite of rooms, I was aware of the imaged figure of a young lady approaching. Semblance before substance, instead of preparing me for the inter- view, it almost startled me. I half fancied that shadowy reflection to be the spirit of the dead sister watching. The living sister was coming in the body ; the presence of the sister dead tarried in the background, curious to see what would grow from the germ of a childish friendship re- vived. In a moment the lady herself stepped forward. No thought of shadows any more ! She, the substance, took a stand among thf Soremost figures in my drama. 188 CKCIL DKKEME. The effect of the room where I sat was rich and festal, almost to the verge of gorgeousness. Had sorrow dared to intrude among such courtly splendors? Carpets thick with the sunburnt flowers of late summer, — had these felt the trail- ing step that carries grief on to another moment of grief ? Heavy crimson curtains, — must these have uttered muffled echoes when a sigh, out- ward bound, drifted against their folds ? And deep-toned pictures, full of victory and jubilee, — could they not outface the pale countenance of mourning in that luxurious room ? It made the power of sorrow and the bitterness of death seem far more giant in their strength, that they had crowded in hither, and hung a dim film of funereal black before all this magnificence. Crimson was the chief color in carpet, cur- tains, and walls. This deep, rich background magically heightened the effect of the pale, ele- gant figure in deep mourning who was approach- ing. Emma Denman passed in front of the mirror, erasing her own reflection there. She came forward, and offered her hand to me with shy cordiality. The shyness remembered the old familiar playmate of the days of "little hus- band and little wife " ; the cordiality was for the unforgotten friend. I found no change, only development, in Einma CECIL DRKEJIE. 189 D. nman. Still the same fitful fascinaticn thnt had been her charm as a child. It seized me at ouce. I lost my power of quiet discrimination. I can hardly analyze her power even now. These subtle influences refuse to be subject to my chem- ical methods and my formulas. It was not the power of beauty, alone. Physi- cal beauty she had, but something higher also. Nor spiritual beauty alone, but something other. The mere flesh-and-blood charms, lilies and roses, the commonplace traits of commonplace women, whose inventory describes the woman, she could afford to disdain. It was a face that forbade all formal criticism. No passport face. Other women one names beautiful for a feature, a smile, or a dimple, — that link between a feature and a smile. Hers was a face suffused with the fine essence of beauty. It seemed to wrong the whole, if one let eyes or mind make any part distinct. Grace she had, — exquisite grace. Grace is perhaps a more subtle charm than beauty. Beau- ty is passive ; grace is active. Beauty reveals the nature ; grace interprets it. Beauty wins ; grace woos. Emma Denman's coloring did not classify her. Her hair was in the indefinite shades between light and dark. One would not expect from her the steadiness of the fair temperaments, noi the 190 CECIL DKEEME. ardor of their warmer counterparts in hue. No dismissing her with the label of a well-known type. I must have a new and composite thought in my mind while I curiously studied her. Her eyes wanted color. They were not blue and constant, not black and passionate. Indeed, but for their sparkle and vivacity, they would have seemed expressionless. Restless eyes ! they might almost have taken a lesson from Dens deth's, so rapid were they to come and go, so evanescent and elusive was their glance. But Densdeth's were chasing eyes ; hers were flying. Her swift eyes, her transitory smile, her motions, soft as the bend of a branch, light as the spring of a bird, lithe as the turn of a serpent, all were elements in her singular fascination, — it was almost elfin. She was in deep mourning ; and, partly be- cause mourning quickens sympathy, partly be- cause to a person of her doubtful coloring positive contrasts are valuable, it seemed the very dress to heighten her beauty. And yet, as I saw her afterwards, I found that all costume and scenery became thus tributary to her, and all objects and people so disposed themselves, and all lights and shades so fell, as to define and intensify her charm. Densdeth witnessed our recognition, and then excused himself. " He had business with Mr CECIL DREEME. 191 Denman in the library, and would join us by and by." We both breathed freer upon his exit. It was impossible not to feel that he was always reading every act and thought ; and that consciousness of a ruthless stare turned in upon one's little innocencies of heart is abashing to young people. Miss Denman had seemed uneasy while Dens- deth stayed. She" changed her seat, and with it her manner, as lie departed. The chair she now took brought her again within range of the distant mirror. Her shadow became a third party in our interview. When I observed it, its presence disturbed me. Sometimes, as before, I fancied it the sprite of the sister dead, some- times the double of the person before me, — her true self, or her false self, which she had dis- missed for this occasion, while she made her impression upon # me. Strange fancies ! faintly drifting across my mind. But I did not often observe that dim watcher in the mirror. My companion engaged me too closely. Now that Densdeth was gone, we sat in quiet mood, and let our old ac- quaintance renew itself. Our talk was hardly worth chronicling. Words cannot convey the gleam of pleasure with which our minds alighted together on the same mem- ory of days gone by, as we used to spring upon 192 CECIL DREEME. a flower in the field, or a golden butterfly by the wayside. " Ah ! those sorrowless days of childhood ! '" I said. " Not painless, — not quite painless ! " " There are never any painless days," said she. " No. Pain is the elder brother of Pleasure. But the days when the sense of injury passed away with the tears it compelled ; when the sense of wrong-doing vanished with the light penance of a pang, with the brief penitence of an hour, and left the heart untainted. Those days were sorrowless." As I spoke thus, Emma Denman suddenly burst into tears. I had not suspected her of any such uncon- trollable emotion. She had seemed to me one to smile and flash, hardly earnest enough for an agony. " Pardon me," she said, quelling her tears, " but since those bright days I have suffered bitter sorrow. As you, my old playmate, speak, all that has passed since we met comes up newly." This was all she said, at the moment, of her rister's death. I respected the recent wound. I had no right to renew her distress even by sympathy. I changed the subject. " I find myself," said I, " between two oppo- sites, as guardians for my second childhood at CECIL DREEME. 19<1* CECIL DfcEKME. — my dear friend, Robert Byng, — that man it ■ml to the core. Yon call mo your Mentor, your good influence ; take my warning ! Obey «ie, and shun him, as you would a fiend. You gay that I have a fresh nature ; believe that my instinct of aversion for a villain is unerring. " " Is not this prejudice ? " said I, somewhat moved by his panic, but still fancying so much alarm idle. " It might before have been prejudice, de- rived from your own account of him ; but now [ have seen him, face to face." " A glance merely, and in a dusky light." " Yes, but one look at that face of his scars it into the heart." " You seem to have been as inquisitive about him as he about you. He studied your back pretty thoroughly. In fact, I believe it was to observe you that he made such parade of break- ing up his delinquent cigar. He evidently meant to know for what comrade I was abandoning the charms of the Bilkes soirSe." " I shudder at the thought of such a man's observation. What iigly fate brought me here ? " Dreeme turned, and looked back. I involuntarily did the same. The Avenue, at that late hour, was nearly deserted of promenaders. As far away as two blocks behind us, I noticed the spark of a cigar, CECIL I1RKEMF.. 249 and as the smoker passed a gas-light, I could see him take the cigar from his lips with a white-gloved hand. He even seemed to bran- dish it triumphantly. " He is following us!" cried Dreeme. The painter whirled me about a corner, and dragged me, almost at a run, along several humbler streets. At last we turned into one of the avenues by the North River, far away from the beat of any guest of Mrs. Bilkes. There Dreeme paused, and spoke. " Good exercise I have given you by my panic," said he, with a forced laugh. " How absurd I have been ! Pardon me ! You are aware how nervous I get, being so much shut up alone. And then, you know, I was only hurrying you away from your devil." " Strange fellow you are, Dreeme ! I sup- pose this very strangeness is one element of your control over me. You excite my curi- osity in degree, though not in kind, quite as much as Densdeth does. And now that you and he are brought together, I hope these two mysterious personages will explain each other by some flash of hostile electricity. I wait for light from the meeting of the thunder-clouds." " It must be very late," said Dreeme in a weary tone. " What a dismal part of the city ! This squalo* sickens me. These rows of grog- n* 250 OECIL DREEME. shops iiifect me with utter hopelessness. Sin — sin everywhere, and the sorrow that never can Oe divorced from sin ! How can we escape ? How can we save others ? These nocturnal wanderings of ours have told me of a breadth and a depth of misery that years of a charitable lifetime would never have revealed. If I ever have opportunities for action and influence, I shall know my duty, and how to do it. I see, Mr. Byng, as I have before told you, that you do not thoroughly share my sympathy for pov- erty and suffering and crime." " Perhaps not fully. My heart is not so tender as yours. I cannot seem to make other people's distress my personal business, as you do. I en- dure the misfortunes of strangers with reasonable philosophy. Suffering, like pain, I suppose is to be borne heroically, until it passes off. Every man has his hard times." " You are not cruel," said Dreeme, " but you talk cruelly on a subject you hardly understand. Wait until the hours of your own bitterness come, and you will learn the precious lesson of sym pathy ! You will soften to others, and most to those who suffer for no fault of theirs, — the wronged, driven to despair by wrong-doing in those they love, — the erring, visited with what we name ruin, for some miserable mistake of inexperience. But let us hasten home ! I have CECIL DKEKME. 2. r . 1 never felt so sick at heart, sc doubtful of the future, so oppressed by the ' weary weight of all this unintelligible world,' as I do at this mo- ment." " Dreemo, are you never to take your future into your own hands, and live a healthy, natural life, like other men ? Think of yourself ! Do not be so wretched with other people's faults ! You rannot annihilate the troubles that have made you unhappy ; but do not brood over them. Be young, and live young, in sunshine and gayety." " Be young ! " said he, more drearily than ever. " Yes ; make me your confidant ! Face down your difficulties ! If you do not trust my experi- ence, and think me too recent in the country to give you practical help, there is my friend, Mr. Churm. He will be here to-morrow from a journey. Churm is true as steel. Trust him ! He and I will pull you through." " I trust no one but you. Do not press me yet. I am generally contented, as you know, with my art and your society. Only to-night tnc sight of that bad man has discomposed me." " Discomposed 'is a mild term," said 1, as I unlocked the outer door of Chrysalis. " Well, 1 am composed now. But I wish," Baid he hi a trcpidating way, that belied lsi> 252 CECIL KEEME. words, " that you would see me safe to mj door." I did so, and we parted, closer friends than ever. Densdeth, Cecil Dreeine, Emma Denman, — these three figures battled strargely in my dreams. CHAPTER XXI. LYDIAN MEASURES. 1 3INED en famille at Mr. Denman's the daj after that panic-struck night walk with Cecil Dreeme. " You are looking pale and thin, Emma," said Mr. Denman, as his daughter rose to leave us to our claret. " You need more variety in your life. Why not let Byng take you to the opera, to-night ? Our box has stood vacant, now, these many weeks." " Yes," said I, " it is the new opera to-night." Emma glanced at her black dress. " Go ! " said Denman, with something of harsh- ness in his tone, " that need not cloud your life ' forever." " Do go," said I. " I will," she said, with a slight effort. " But I shrink from appearing in public again." " It is time you should get over that feeling. We shall soon be receiving company again," said her father. " So be ready when Byng and I har^ had our cigars." 254 CECIL DREEME. She was ready, and we drove to the Opera- House together. Her mourning was exquisitely becoming to her slight, graceful, refined figure. The startled and almost timorous manner I had noticed in our first interview had lately grown more marked. This shy, feminine trait excited instant, sympa- thy. It recalled how her life had been shocked by the sudden news of a tragedy. She seemed to have learned to tremble, lest she might en- counter at any moment some new disaster sad- der than the first. This was probably mere nervousness after her long grief, so I thought. Yet sometimes, when I spoke to her with any suddenness, she would start and shrink, and turn from me ; then, exercising a strong control over herself, she would return, smile away the fleeting shiver, and be again as self-possessed and gay as ever. As we entered the Opera-House and took our places in Mr. Denman's conspicuous box, the glare of the lights and the eyes of a great audi- ence making a focus upon her affected Emma with the panic I have described. She turned to me with the gesture of one asking protection, aimost humbly. " T must go," she said ; " I cannot bear to have all the world staring at me in this blank, hard, cruel way. They hurt me, — these people, pry jig into my heart to find the sorrow there." CECIL DKEEME. 2f)ft "In a moment it will bo an old story," said 1. ' Do not think of going, dear Emma. The change and the excitement of the music will do you good. This nervousness of a debutante will pass away presently." Dear Emma ! The first time that any such tender familiarity had passed my lips. And my manner, too, I perceived, expressed a new and deeper solicitude. I perceived this ; so did my companion. She looked at me, with a strange, fixed expres- sion, as if she were resisting some potent impulse. Then a hot blush came into her cheeks. She sank into her seat, and fanned herself rapidly. Her brilliant color remained. "Emma," said I, bending toward her, "what splendid change has befallen you ? You are at this moment beautiful beyond any possible dream of mine." " Do not speak to me," she said ; " I shall burst into tears before all these people. This crowd, after my seclusion, confuses and frightens me. Let me be quiet a moment ! " All the world, of course, was immediately aware of the reappearance of the beautiful Miss Denman. There was much curiosity, and some genuine sympathy. "Nods and becks and wreathed smiles" came to her from the boxes on every side. Her entrie was a triumph — as suet triumphs go. 2f>6 CECIL DREEME. To avoid this inspection, she took her lorgnetto and glanced about the house. I followed ite direction. I saw her pause a moment on the group of men in the lobby. At the same time we both recog- nized Densdeth, regarding us. He was laughing with Raleigh and others. I seemed almost to hear the sharp tone of that cynical, faithless laugh of his. All the color faded out of Emma Denman's face. She sank back, almost cowering. Cower- ing, — the expression does not exaggerate the effect of her gesture. She cowered into the corner of the box, and hid her face behind hei fan. I should have spoken to demand the reason of her strange distress, when the leader of the or- chestra rapped ; there was a hush, and the new overture began with a barbaric blare of trumpets. So the opera went on, to the great satisfaction of all dilettanteism. It was thoroughly debilitating, effeminate mu- sic. No single strain of manly vigor rose, from end to end of the drama. Never would any noble sentiment thrill along the fibres of the soul in response to those Lvdian measures. It was music to steep the being in soft, luxurious lan- guors; to make all eftbrt seem folly, all ardor madness, all steady toil impossible : — music to Ian CECIL DREEME 251 the mind in somnolence, in a careless consent to whatever was, were it but bodily ease and moral stagnancy. There was no epic dignity, no tragic elevation, no lyrical fervor, in the new opera. Passion it had ; but it was a dreamy passionateness, not the passion that wakes action, nervous and intent. Even its wild strains, that meant terror and dan- ger, came like the distant cry of wild beasts in a heavy midnight of the tropics, — a warning so far away, that it would never stir the slumbers of the imperilled. Always this music seemed to sound and sing, with every note of voice or instrument, — " Brethren, what have we to do with that idle fiction of an earnest life ? While we live, let us live in sloth. Let us deaden ourselves with soft intoxications and narcotic stupors, out of reach of care. Why question ? Why wrestle ? Why agonize ? Here are roses, not too fresh, so as to shame the cheeks of revelry. Here is the dull, heavy sweetness of tropic perfume. Here is wine, dark purple, prostrating, Lethean. Here are women, wooing to languid joys. Here is sweet death in life. So let us drowse and slum- oer, while the silly world goes wearily along." Emasculated music ! Such music as tyranny over mind and spirit calls for, to lull its un- manned subjects into sensual calm. Such as an 258 CECIL DREEME. Italian priesthood has encouraged, to make itt people forget that they were men, and remember that they were and would ever be slaves. Music that no tyrant need ever dread, lest it should nerve the arm of a tyrannicide. Music that would never ring to any song of freedom, or chime with any lay of tender and ennobling love. The story was as base as the strain. There was tragedy, indeed, in it, and death. But a neat, graceful, orderly death, in white 'jatin. Nothing ugly, like blood and pangs ; nothing dis- tressing, like final repentance with tears, or final remorse with sobs and anguish. The moral was, that after a life of revelry, not too frantic, to die by digestible poison, when pleasure began to pall, was a very proper and pretty exit. Delicious music, and only soothing if music were simply a corporeal influence, but utterly enervating to the soul. I felt it. I was aware of a deterioration in myself. I passed into a Sybaritic mood, — a mood of consent, — of ac- cepting facts as they were, and missing nothing that could give a finer joy to my sensuous tran- quillity. In this frame of mind, the degree and kind of niv passion for Emma Don man satisfied me wholly. I yielded to it. And she, in the same lulled and dreamy state, lost the dignity of manner which had kept us apart- bTie no longer shrank as she had been CEOIL DHEKMK. 259 wont to do when my voice or words conveyed a lover meaning. Her shyness was gone. She seemed to yield herself to me, fully and finally. All the while the swelling, flowing, soothing strains of honeyed music hung around us, and when the movement of the drama paused, our minds pursued the same intention in our talk. We agreed that all regret was idle ; that sor- row was more idle than regret; that error brought its little transitory pang, and so should be forgotten ; that mundane creatures should not be above mundane joys in this fair world, reek- ing with sights, and sounds of pleasure, and all lavish with what sense and appetite desire. We agreed that it was all unwisdom to perplex the soul with too much aspiration ; better not aspire than miss attainment, and so pine and waste, as one might sigh his soul away that loved a cloud. Between the acts, I saw Densdeth moving about, welcome everywhere, — the man who had the key of the world. A golden key Densdeth carried. All the salable people, and, alas! that includes all but a mere decimation, threw open their doors to Densdeth. Opera-box and the tenants of the box were free to him. The drpma was nearly done, and he had not been to pay his respects to Emma Denman, though he had bowed and smiled in congratu te*io» . 260 CECIL DREEME. " Densdeth does not come to tell you how bril liantly you are looking to-night," I said. " I do not need his verdict," she said, coldly enough ; — and then, as if I might take the cold- ness to myself, she added, " since I have yours, and it is favorable." " Yes ; my verdict is this, — Guilty, — guilty of being your most fascinating self, — guilty of a finer charm to-night than ever before." " Guilty ! " she said, turning from me. " Guil- ty, thrice repeated ! Do use some less ominous word." The music ceased. The curtain slowly de- scended, and hid the sham death-scene. There was the usual formal applause. The conceited tenor in his velvet doublet, unsullied by his late despair, the truculent basso, now in jovial mood, the prima donna, past her prime, sidled along, hand in hand, behind the foot-lights, and bowed to the backs of two thirds of the audience, and to the muffled resonance of the white gloves of the other third. The spiritual influence of the opera remained, mingled with a slight forlornness, the reaction after luxurious excitement. I left Emma Denman in the corridor, and went to find the carriage. CHAPTER XXII. A LAUGH AND A LOOK. In the lobby of the Opera-House was the usual throng, — fat dowagers, quite warm enough with their fat, and wretchedly red-hot under a grand exhibition of furs ; pretty girls, in the prettiest of opera-cloaks, white and pink and blue, and with downy hoods ; anxious papas, indifferent brothers, bored husbands, eager lovers, ineligible young men taking out mamma, while her daughter hung on the arm of the eligible. Such was the scene within the Quatorze Street lobby. Without, in a raw, drizzly March night, was a huddle of coaches, and on every box a coachman, swearing his worst. It was some time before, in the confusion, I could find the Denman carriage. At last I dis- covered it, and went up-stairs for Emma. As I ran up the stairs, and was just at the top steps, whence I should turn into the corridor where the lady was waiting, I heard the ominoui sound of Densdeth's laugh. It came from where she stood. I paused. 262 CECIL DREEME. Instantly, in answer, and in thorough sympathy with that hateful tone, I heard another laugh. It seemed even baser, more cynical and false, thai: Densdeth's ; for threaded in it, and tarnished by the contact, were silver notes I had often heard in genuine merriment. " Emma Denman ! " I thought, with a shiver " How dares she let herself respond to his debas ing jests ? How can she echo him, — and echo that jarring music familiarly, as if she had long been a pupil of the master ? " The pang of this question drove me forward. I turned into the corridor. Only those two were standing there, — Dens- deth and she. His back was turned toward me. The glare of a gas-light overhead fell full upon her. The languor caused by that enfeebling music was visible in her posture and expression. Her manner, too, to a sensitive observer like myself, betrayed a certain drowsy recklessness. And then, as I entered the corridor by a side-door, before she was conscious of my pres- ence, she gave Densdeth a look which curdled my blood. I may live long. I am not without a share of happiness. I am at peace. God has given me much that is good and beautiful. The atmos- phere of my existence is healthy. Bu< there if CECIL DREEME. 263 one memory in my heart which I have never ventured to recall until this moment, — which I bear down upon and crowd back whenever it stirs and struggles to burst up into daylight. There is one memory which has power to burn away my earthly bliss with a single touch, and to throw such a ghastly coloring over all the world, that my neighbor seems a traitor and my Creator my foe. That memory is the look I saw Emma Denman give to Densdeth. It was my revelation of evil in the woman 1 had honestly and earnestly resolved to love and trust. It showed to me first, by the fiery pang of a personal experience, the curse of sin. Sin, — I fancied that I knew it well enough. Sin, — I had been wont to class myself lightly among its foes ; to feel a transitory gloom when I heard of its harm ; to wonder and protest, nonchalantly, at its existence ; to believe that its power was broken, with the other ancient tyrannies, and that it would presently accept a banishment and leave the world to a better day. Ah no ! I' had never dreamed a dream of what is sin. But now the revelation came to me. I am a stalwart man. This blow aged and enfeebled me as might a sorrowful lifetime. The weight of the thousands of ill-doing years, all the accumulated evil of the old bad centuries, ros« suddenly, like a mountain, and fell upon me. 1M CECIL DREEME. I cannot describe this look of hers. I do not wish to. It is enough to say that it told me of a dishonorable secret between the two. It told me that at this moment, however it might be in a mood of stronger self-possession, she felt no compunction, no remorse, no agony, that such a secret existed, — nothing but an indo- lent acquiescence in the treason. And this was the interpretation of so much mystery. This justified my instinctive suspicions. This punished my generosity and my resolve to quell the warnings of nature. This explained the inexplicable. In that one instant I learned my capacity for an immortal misery. They heard my step. Densdeth turned, and bowed to me politely enough, smiling also, as if to himself, behind his black moustache. It was not the first time that his scornful smile had seemed to me to take a cast of tri- umph as he regarded me. But such fleeting expression had always disappeared, stealing back like an assassin who has peered out too soon, and may awake his drowsy victim. I too had always had my own covert smile. For I was quite satisfied that Densdeth was never to win any very substantial victory over me. I could seek his society in perfect safety, so I fancied against its debasing influence. He never should wield me as he did Raleigh, nor master me as CECIL DBKEME. 266 he did that swinish multitude at the club, 01 those wolves in Wall Street. But now his vanishh.g smile of triumph chilled me. This harm was a more deadly harm than aught I had dreamed of as in any man's power. If I was so wronged in my faith, what would hinder me henceforth from losing all faiths, and bo becoming the hateful foe of my race, andl being forced into detested alliance with this un- holy spirit — tins corruption — Densdeth ! I wrapped the lady's cloak about her. In this duty I by chance touched her arm. M> hands had become icy cold, — so this touch re- vealed to me, — and I shivered. She felt tho shock, and shivered also. Then she took my arm, and moved forward hastily, as if the spot had become hateful to her. Densdeth bowed, and left us. We walked down stairs. She clung to my arm wearily. I pitied her with such deep and sorrowful pity for the seeming discovery of this evening, that I felt that I must speak kindly; I spoke, and my voice sounded to me like the voice o* one unknown, so desolate it was. " Emma, you are tired. Poor child ! " " Emma ! " — there was no withdrawing into forms again. Ah, nevermore ! Nothing doua could be undone. 12 266 CECIL DREEME. " You are very kind," she said, with an altered manner, — sadness instead of languor. " No one has ever been so tender with me. Robert ' why did you not come years ago ? " While my answer to this pleading question lingered, we entered the lobby. A young lady, standing there alone and for lorn, pounced upon Emma Denman. "Dear Emma!" cried Miss Matilda Mildood, " I 'm so glad you are here. Do take me home. Our coachman is wild with drink, and my brother Pursy is in danger of h:« life." " I shall be most happj,'' said Emma. I put the ladies into the Denmau carriage, rescued Pursy from his scuffle, and we drove off together. Pursy Mildood was a compliment-box, Matilda a rattle-box. Pursy played his little selection of compliments to Miss Denman. Matilda rattled to me. They filled time and space, as it was their business to do. Trifiers have their office in this world of racking passions and exhausting purposes. I needed this moment's pause. I could not have endured the tete-a-tete with Emma in the carriage. The interval, while Matilda sprinkled me with a drizzle of opera talk and fashionable gossip, gave me time to bethink myself. What must T do and say ? "SOIL DBEEME. 267 To-night, nothing. To-night, if I spoke in my agony, I must ac- cuse. Let me wait for a calmer moment. Let me reflect, and assure myself that my thought was not doing a pure heart a cruel and irrepa- rable wrong: The Mildoods' house was opposite the Den- mans'. Compliments and prattle came to an end, unconscious of the emotions they had for a time diverted. Wo dropped brother and sister at their door, and drove across. I handed Emma out, unlocked the door witb her key, and stepped within to say good night. CHAPTER XXIII. A PARTING. " Your hands were like ice, when you ^uclied my arm," said Emma Denman. " You have taken cold. Come in. I will play Hebe, and make you a goblet of hot nectar." " No, I must go. Good night." " Mr. Byng, Robert ! What has happened?" " Do not ask me?" " You appall me with your voicft of a Rhada- manthus. Have I offended you ? Is it fatal ? " The light of a large globe in the hall fell full upon her face as she spoke. All the eager, tri- umphal look of the early evening had departed". All the languid acquiescence was gone. Gone was even the faintest shadow of the expression that had turned my blood to i ;e. Pale horror — yes, no less than horror — seemed suddenly to have mastered her. Was she too now first learning the sin and misery of sin ? She stood in the grand hall of the stately house, a slight, elegant figure in mourning, with the abundant drapery of her cloak falling about CECIL DREEME. 269 hei. There were no other lights except the tempered brilliancy of the globe overhead. It was after midnight. We were quite alone, ex- cept that a white statue, severely robed from head to foot, and just withdrawn in a niche, watched our interview, as it might be the ghostly presence of Clara Denman dead. As Emma stood awaiting my answer, her look of horror quieted. She seemed to me like one who has heard her death-sentence, and is ro signed. I could not force myself to answer, and she 6poke again. " Robert, if you have fault to find with me, do not tell me so to-night. To-morrow, — come to- morrow ! Perhaps we may still be friends. Good night." She gave me her hand. It was burning hot. I held it in mine. There we stood, — the chaste and ghostly statue watching. We could not separate. I trusted her again. 1 cursed myself for my doubts. Should I, for the chance of one brief, passing look, sacrifice the woman whom I had maturely concluded that I loved, who loved me, — for so I was persuaded ? Should I stain a maiden's image in my heart with this foul suspicion, — a suspicion I dared not state to myself in terms ? 270 CECIL DRKKME. Could I there erase from my mind all those pleasant memories of childhood, so sweetly anew revived, and all the riper confidences of our friendship, and believe that this brilliant crea- ture's life was one monstrous lie, which she must daily, hourly, momently, harden herself to repeat ? Could I convince myself that her fascination was utter treachery, — that she, a grisly witch at heart, had carefully, with fairest-seeming spell, and lulling daily all my doubts away, entranced me until she deemed me wholly hers ? Had I not been for the moment under the sickly influence of that enervating music ? Had not my mind gained a permanent taint in the debasing society I had refused to resolutely shun ? "Was I not doing her foul injustice, and visiting it unfairly and cruelly upon her, that I had let myself be the comrade of ignoble and sensual people, — of Densdeth, to whom no purity was sacred ? Could she, my only intimate among women, be responsible for the lowering of my moral tone, so that I did not abhor, and had not been for these late months loathing, all contact with vice ? It must be that a man who loves a pure and ele- vating woman will no more palter with evil. He is abashed by her whiteness of soul. He will not carry into her presence the recent taint of stain- ing associates. He will strive to breathe no other CECIL DBEEME. 271 but that sweet serenity of atmosphere where she dwells, and so refresh and recreate his holier being. Ah, these bitter doubts ! They did in my sink- ing heart justify themselves. And so, as I could not speak the tender, trust- ful, joyful lover words, nor any words but sad reproaches and questions of distrust, I stood there, silent, holding fast her hand. Then, in the silence, the terrible thought over- came me, that if by any syllable or gesture, or even by the dismay of an involuntary look, I should convey my suspicions to Emma Denman, there would be another tragedy in that ill-omened house, another despair, another mystery, — no mystery to me, — and all the sickening horror of a death. " Good-night," said Emma again. But still she did not withdraw her hand. We did not hold each other with the close grasp of earnest, confident friendship, nor with that strong pressure of love which seems to strive to make the two beings one life. It was a nerve- less, lifeless clutch. Her burning hand had grown icy cold in mine. She held me feebly, as a drowning woman might wearily, and every weary moment still more wearily, cling to the fainting shoulder of a drowning man, as the groat solemn waves fell on him, one by one. 272 CECIL DREEME. A dreary moment. It tore something frou my earthly life thai never can return. My youth faded away from me, as we stood there miserably. My youtb shrank and withered, never to revive again and be the same bright youth, whatever warmth of after sunshine came. The blight of sin was upon me. Tlie sense of an unknown horror of sin grew about me, and I became a coward for the moment, — a coward, smitten down by the dread that for me, forever, faith was utterly dead, and so my heart would be imbittcrcd into a vague and fiendish vengeance for its loss. " Robert," said she, at last, " you will not speak. You are murdering me with this omi- nous silence. How have you learned all at once to hate me ? " " Hate you ? " " Worse then ! Do you distrust me ? " " Why should I ? We will not speak of this now. That music has taken all the manliness out of me, — that, or some power as subtle. I will see you to-morrow. By broad daylight, all the ugly fancies that beset me now will vanish." " Yes," she said, more drearily than ever ; "fancies fade with sunshine; facts grow moie fatally prominent. Good night." She withdrew her hand. She moved wearily and sadly away, — a slight, CECIL DREEME. 273 graceful figure ±n mourning, draped with the heavy folds of a cloak. Half-way up the stairs she paused and turned, grasping the massive dark rail with both hei white hands. Light from the floor above threw her face and form into magical relief, hardly less a statue than that marble figure watching us. " Good-bye," she said, in a tone mournful as a last adieu. " Good night," I answered ; and so we parted. I walked hastily home to Chrysalis. It was a jaw March night, with a cold storm threatening, and uttering its threats in melancholy blasts and dashes of sleet. How chilly, lonely, ghostly it looked' in the marble-paved corridors of Chrysalis ! I opened the great door in front with my pass-key. The wind banged it after me with a loud clap. But no closed door could repel the urgent chase of that night's cruel thoughts. I was wretchedly timorous and superstitious after these excitements. As I passed the pad- locked door of Densdeth's dark room, next to mine, I fancied him lurking within, and leering triumphantly at me through the key-hole. And then in the sound of the storm, sighing along the halls and staircases, and shaking the narrow windows, I seemed to hear that mocking laugh jf Densdeth's, — that hard, exulting laugh of 12* K 274 CECIL DKEEME. his, — that expressive laugh, — raying, with all the cruelty of scorn, and proclaiming to the scoff- ing legions who love the fall of noble souls, — "Here, at last! here* is another who trusted and is deceived. Now his illusions are over. He will join us frankly, and share our jolly joys. Welcome, Robert Byng, " to a new experiment of life ! Come ; you shall have revenge ! You shall spoil the happiness of others, as your own is spoilt. We offer you the delicious honey of revenge. Sweet it is ! ah, yes ! the sweetest thing! You shall be one of us, — a tempter. Come ! " Such sounds seemed to me to issue from that dark room of Densdeth's, to clothe themselves with those tones of his, which I had heard to- night echoed by the lips of the woman I longed to love, and to pervade the building, like a bat- winged flight of fiendish presences, claiming me as their comrade, whether I would or no. I entered my great, dusky chamber. The fire had gone out ; it was chilly and dark within. In the faint light from the street lamp, streaming through the narrow mullioned windows, the an- cient furniture, carved with odd devices of grif- fins, looked grotesque and weird. All the pic- tures, statues, reliefs, and casts in the room stared at me strangely. Was I suddenly another man than the undejected person who had lived CECIL DKEEME. 276 bo many weeks under their inspection? The portrait of Stillfleet's mother, a large, diguified woman, gazed kindly and pityingly upon me, with a mother's look, as I lighted the gas. On the table Locksley had deposited a parcel addressed to me. I unwrapped it. It was the frame I had ordered for my present, Cecil Dreeme's sketch. I put it in the frame, and examined it again. Only a sketch ; but very masterly, full of color, full of expression, full of sweet refinement not diminishing its power. " If it were not for Dreeme," I said aloud, " I should despair. Him I trust. Him 1 love with a love passing the love of women. If I should lose, him, if he should abandon me, I might be ready to take the world as Densdeth wishes. What can a soul do without one near and com- rade soul to love and trust ? " Then the mocking wind through the corridors, and all along the wintry streets without, answered me with new scoffs of the same derisive laughter. I lifted my eyes from the picture. That ancient tapestry caught my eye, where Raleigh had found Densdeth in the demon. That malignant face — Densdeth's, and no other — was looking at me with a meaning smile. I tore down the tapestry, and slunk to bed- The bletsing sleep, foreshadower of that larger 276 CECIL DREKME. blessing death, fell upon me. Sleop, the death after the brief cycle of a day, received me ten- derly, and restored me, that I might be mau enough to bear the keener pangs and siernoi griefr of the morrow. CHAPTER XXIV. FAME AWAITS DRKEME. 1 was indisposed next morning to face my as- sociates at the club, or any chance acquaintance at the Minedurt. I went off and took a dismal, solitary breakfast at Selleridge's. The place had a claim on my gratitude, since it had supplied the materials of our gentle orgie in Chrysalis. As I walked forlornly back, I endeavored to prepare myself for my appointed interview with Emma Denman. I knew that a woman may blind herself to the measure and quality of a man's admiration ; I knew that she can even desperately accept his heart ; but I also knew that only a woman thoroughly deteriorated by deceit can listen to a lover's final words of trust, and still conceal from him one single fact in all her history that might forbid his love. She must reveal, or let her lover know she cannot reveal. She will, unless she has grown base and shameless, scorn to be a lie — yes, even for a moment, after the avowal of love — a lie to one she loves, whatever the truth 278 CECIL DREEME. may cost. I believed that, if I went to Fmnia Denman, and said, " We are before God, I love you," she would be true, and, if the truth com- manded, would say, " Robert, you must not." So waiting until our interview, I held my agony under, as one presses a finger upon a torn artery, while the surgeon lingers. In the letter-box in my door at Chrysalis I found this note : — "lam not well. I cannot see you this morn ing. I will write again, — perhaps to-day, per haps to-morrow. " Emma Denman." My finger on the bleeding artery a little longer, While I stood reading and re-reading this bil let, in the bewilderment of one thrust back into suspense from the brink of certainty, I heard a knock at my door. I opened. It was Pensal, the artist. Pensal occupied a studio in a granite house which continues the architecture of Chrysalis along Mannering Place. It had once been a residence for the President. But perhaps the salary of that official grew contingent, — perhaps it was paid in Muddefontaine bonds. Certain it was that no President now dwelt in this sup plementary building ; but, like the main Chrysalis 't was let to lodgers. Among these was Pensal CBC1L PfcEEMK. 279 A friendship had begun to crystallize between us. He was a profound observer, as well as a great artist. Pensal came in, and looked at me for a moment in silence. " What is it ? " said I. " What new do you find in my face ? " " Much. And you too have stepped into the Valley of the Shadow of Death ? Well, a friend can only say, God help you ! It comes to us all." " Yes, Pensal, the shadow is upon me." " It will pass away. You cannot believe it now ; but the shadow will drift away. It cannot blight the immortal man. Be sure of that ! " " But there is immortal grief." " While you think so, you have a right to looK a hundred years older than you did yesterday. But, Byng, I came to ask you a favor, ^ot to criticise you. I am in a sea of troubles." " ' Take arms, and by opposing end them.' " " Very well for you to say, who ,know better this moment by your own experience. So far as taking arms — that is towels and sponges — against my sea can go, I have ended it ; but its wet bottom remains. The fact is, that I am suf- fering from a vulgar misery. My Croton pipe burst in the thaw last night. My studio is the bed of a lake with all manner of drowned ento- mology, looking slimy and ichthyological." 280 CECIL DREEMK " Do bring your work over here." "Thank you-. You have anticipated my re quest." " You are a godsend to me. I could not toler- ate this morning a fellow with a new treasure- trove of scandal, the last cynical joke or base story " ; — and I thought of Densdeth, and other men, the coarsened and exaggerated shadows of Dense* eth, who sometimes lounged in upon me for a lazy hour. " I will be a treble godsend," said Pensal. " 1 will bring you not only myself, but two friends, whose lips or hearts are never sullied with any lung scandalous or cynical." " A pair of plaster casts, — a pair of lay fig- ires ? " " You are cynical yourself. No ; two men, lresh and pure." " En avant, with such sports of Nature ! " " With such types of manhood ! Sion, the sculptor, is in town for a day or two. I caught him last night, and he promised to sit to me this morning. Towers, also, is to come and stir up Sion while he sits, — to put him through his paces of expression." " Ah, Towers and Sion ! I withdraw my doubts If my great barn here will serve you, pray bring your tools and your men over at once." Pensal went off for his friends. CECIL DKEEME. 'M I was delighted with this interruption. It was a tourniquet on the bleeding artery. I had felt too forlorn to solace myself with Cecil Dreeme's society this morning. I was con- scious, also, that I could not see him now without pouring forth the whole story of my doubtful love for Emma Denman, my hesitant resolve to be her lover, the shock of last night, and the suspense of to-day. All this, with only the name "sup- pressed, I knew must gush from me when I saw my friend of friends. And yet, by a certain in explicable instinct, I shrank from thrusting such confidence upon him. I loved him too much, and with too peculiar a tenderness, to tell him that I had fancied I loved even a woman better than him. I had said to myself, " I will wait for my usual evening walk with Dreeme, and then, if my heart opens toward him, I will let the current flow. He cannot console ; he will teach me to be pa- tient." Meantime I welcomed the visit of Pensal and our two friends, as a calm distraction in my mis- erable mood. I was too much shaken and un- manned to trust myself out in the world and at my tasks. Presently Pensal arrived with the two gentle- men, and set up his easel before my window. I need hardly describe men so well known as 282 CECIL DREEME. the three artists, Sion, Towers, and Pensal. In deed, as their business in this drama is merely to hasten one event by a few hours, it would be impertinent to distinguish them as salient char- acters. I glance at them merely, as they enter, halt a moment, do their part and disappear. It was a blessed relief to me that morning to have their society. And now that I compel my-" self to write this sorrowful history, the relief is hardly less, to pause here and recall how blessed then it was. I had never known fully until then what it was to have the friendship of pure and true hearts. Pensal sat down and wielded his crayon with a rapid hand. Each of the party, artist, sitter, critic, began to scintillate, to flash and glow, according to the fire that was in him. Stillfleet's collection suggested much of our conversation. It was, as I have said, an epitome of all history. My three guests took the Ameri- can view of history ; that, give the world results,' the means by which those results were attained cease to be of any profound value or interest. Everything ancient is perpetually on its trial, — whether its day has not come to be superannuated, and so respectably buried. Antiquity deserveb commendation and gratitude ; but no peculiar reverence or indulgence. The facts and systems of the past are mainly rubbish now ; what is CECIL DREEME. 283 precious is the spirit of the present, which those systems have reared, or at least failed to strangle, and those facts have mauled strong and tempered fine. These three great artists act on this theory, adapted to art. Hence their vigor. Hence also their recognition by a nation whose principle is faith in the present, — the only healthy faith for a man or Man. While the magnetic current of a lively conver- sation flowed, Pensal worked away at his paper. Presently, on the blank surface, a semblance of a man's face began to appear, rather fancied than distinguished, as we behold a countenance far away, and say, " Who is it ? " — the question implying the instant answer, as we approach, « It is he ! " Sion's head, mildly lion-like, grew forth from the sheet, — lion-like, with its heavy mane of hair and beard. A potent face, but gentle. Slowly the creation grew more distinct. TUe face drew near, and demanded recognition for its spiritual traits. It was Sion's self. And yet it was not the riion w'jo sat there Deforc us, in high spirits, making joke*?, telling stories, laughing with a frank and almost boyish gayety of heart, as if his life was all careless jubi- lee, and never visited by those dreams of tondor 284 CECIL DRKKMK. naj, of pensive and of melancholy sweetness, which he puts into undying marble. Yet it was this joyous companion too, and the other and many another Sion, whom we had always known, but never perceived that we had known, until this moment. In fact, Pensal, a master, had not merely seized and combined the essence of all Sion's possible looks in all possible moods ; but he had divined and created the inspiration the sculptor's face would wear, if changeful mortal features could show the calm and final beauty of the immortal soul. The picture was Sion's apotheosis. " Come and look at yourself, Sion," said Tow- ers, as this expression at last by a subtle touch revealed itself. " Pensal has drawn you as y<5u will look in Valhalla, if you are a good boy, and don't make any bad statues, and so get youi own niche there at last." Sion stepped round to survey himself. " I am lucky," said he, " Pensal, to havo nothing to be ashamed of lurking in my heart. You would be forced to obey your insight, drag it out, and set it inexorably in full view, in my portrait. It 's well for Byng, there, that you are not doing him this morning." " Why ? " said I. " You look as if ' Et tu, Brute ? ' had beer giving you a deadly stab. But what a pooi CECIL DREEME. 28f. bunglci, compared with Pensal, the sun is in picturing men ! " continued Sion. " To say nothing of his swelling our i:.oses and blubber- ing our lips, spoiling our lights and blackening our shades, he can only take us as we choose to look while he is having his little wink at us." " And a man cannot choose to look his noblest on occasion. A got-up look is generally a grim- ace," says Towers. " Well, Pensal," said Sion, " your picture con- vinces me that I am not a miserable failure and a humbug, who cannot see anything in marble or out. Now let me free for a moment. I am tired of sitting to be probed and flayed." Sion took his furlough, and strayed about the room, glancing at Stillfleet's precious objects. 1 stepped aside to get a cigar for Pensal. " Ah ! " cried Sion. " Here is a fresh tiling. This was never painted in Europe ; and yet 1 do not know any one here who could do it." He had found the sketch, my present from Cecil Dreeme." In my sickness of heart last night, I had neglected the painter's injunction, and left it exposed on my table, half covered by a newspaper. Sion held it up for inspection. Now that it had been seen, there was nothing m do, except to get the approval of these final authorities, and communicate it to Preeme. 286 CECIL DBEEME. " It is a new hand," said I, " what do you think of it ? " " She has greit power, as well as delicacy," said Pensal, — the others waiting for him to speak. " She ! Who ? " I asked. " The artist." " Odd fancy of yours ! It is a man." " What ! and paint only a back view of a woman ? I supposed that being a woman, as the general handling too suggests, she took less interest in her own sex ; or, on the other hand, fancied that she could not represent it worthily." " no ! " said I. " He had no female model." " Probably," said Towers, " he is too young to have a woman's image in his brain, which fevers him until he wreaks it on a canvas." " Man or woman," said Sion, " and I confess it seems to me to have a somewhat epicene character, it is a very promising work, — a pretty anecdote well told. I should like to see what this C. D.-s-it seems to be so signed — can do in other subjects calling for deeper feeling." " A friend of mine in the building has other drawings and sketches by the same hand. I will see if I can borrow them," said I. " Do," said Sion. " If they are worthy of this, we must know him, and have him known at once. Fame waits him. Here is that fine something called Genius." CEC1I DKEEMli. 287 If Dreeme would only profit by this chance, and give his fame into the hands of my frionds, his success was achieved. I forgot my own sorrows, and rail up-stairs, sager to persuade the recluse to seize this mo- ment, to terminate his exile and step forth into the light of day. CHAPTER XXY. GHURM BEFORE DREEME'S PICTURE Pull of hope for my friend, I left the three artists below, and darted up to his studio. I knocked lightly, thinking a quick ear listened, and a quick voice would respond. No answer. I knocked again, distinctly and deliberately, and listened with some faint beginning of anx- iety. Yesterday I had not seen him. Was he ill again ? Still no answer. All the remembrance of the night when Locks ley and I first made entrance there rushed back upon me. I knocked once more, and spoke my name. Again no answer. I thundered at the door, striking it hard enough to hurt the dull wood that was baffling me. Profound silence within. " Is it possible that he has ventured out into daylight ? It would be an unlucky moment for his first absence, now when good-fortuue waits to CECIL DKEEMK. 289 oefall him. His Fame is here, holding her breath to trumpet him, and he is away." At the same time I doubted much if he could have gone. His terror of exposing himself was still great, and would be more extravagant after his panic-struck flight from Densdeth. An indefinable dread seized upon me. i re- sisted, and dashed down stairs to the janitor's room. I knocked peremptorily. Locksley peered out, holding the* door ajar. " Dreeme ! " whispered I, panting, " do you know anything of Dreeme ? " " It 's you, sir," says Locksley. " Come in. It was only strangers I was keeping out." " Don't let any one enter," said a voice within, — a miserable voice, between a whimper, and a moan. " He won't hurt you, Towner," said Locksley. " This is Mr. Byng, a friend of Mr. Churm's." The janitor looked worn and worried. By the stove, in a rocking-chair, sat, slinking, a misera- ble figure of a man. There sat Towner, a blood- less, unwholesome being, sick of himself, — that most tenacious and incurable of all disieases. There he sat, sick with that chronic malady, himself, — a self all vice, all remorse, and all de- spair. Himself, — his cowering look said that he knew the fatal evil that was devouring his life, 13 1 290 CECIL DREEMR. and that lie longed to free himself from its bane by one bold act of surgery, such as his evasive eyes would never venture to face, such as his n3x-veless fingers dared not execute. My glance identified the man, but I did not pause to study him. I had my own troubles tc consider. "Locksley," I said, seizing him by the arm, " where is Cecil Dreeme ? " My perturbation communicated itself to the janitor. * " Yes," said he, " I had n't given my mind to it ; but he did not answer when Dora went up with his breakfast. Then Towner was brought in, and we 've been So busy with him that I forgot to send her up again." " He is not there. He does not answer my knock." " Going out in the daytime is as unlikely for him as the sun's showing at midnight. I mis- trust something 's happened." " Do not say so, Locksley. Disaster to him is misery to me. Yes, double misery to-day ! " " Did you have your walk together last night ? ' " No. I was at the opera until late." " We must try his door again." " I can't be left here alone," feebly protested Towner. " Dora will take care of you." CECIL DREEME. 291 " But Densdeth might come," shuddered the invalid. " He never comes here. He 'd better not," said Locksley, bristling. " Who keeps the key of his dark room ? " •" His servant, I suppose. Come, Mr. Byng." Locksley led the way up stairs. " Towner is n't long for this world, you see," said he. " We thought he 'd better die among friends. Mr. Churm will be back this morning to talk to him, and get his facts." It was afternoon, and the boys of Chrysalis, the College, were skylarking in the main corri- dor. Their rumor died away as we climbed the stairs. It was as quiet at Cecil Dreeme's door as on the night when we first forced entrance, — as quiet without, and, when we knocked, as silent within. Locksley tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened. We entered, in a tremor of ap- prehension. My friend of friends was gone ! Gone ! and another, some unfriendly and insolent intruder, had been there desecrating the place. The pirture of Lear was flung from the easel and lying on the floor. The portfolio was open, and its drawings scattered. Upon one — a sketch of two sisters tending a mild and venerable father — a careless heel had trodden. JBJvea ibe 292 CECIL DBEEME. bedroom the same rude visitor had violated, and articles of the young painter's limited ward robe lay about. How different from the ordei that usually lent elegance to his bare walls and scanty furniture ! Locksley and I looked at each other in indig- nant consternation. " My old scare has got hold, and is shaking me hard," said the janitor. " Some of them he was hiding from must have found him out, and been here rummaging, to pry into what he 's been at all this time. When did you see him, Mr. Byng ? " " Not yesterday. Night before last, — can it be only night before last that we met Dens- deth ? " " Densdeth ! " said Locksley, bristling more than ever with alarm. " Is he in this business ? " " I dread to think so," said I, unnerved, and sinking into Dreeme's arm-chair. And then across my mind flitted my friend's warnings against Densdeth, the meeting at Mrs. Bilkes's steps, the covert inspection, Densdeth's trium- phant, cruel look, the panic, the flight, the con- versation, — all the mystery of Dreeme. " What are we going to do ? " said Locksley, staring at me, in a maze. " Henry Clay's ghost could n't persuade me that Mr. Dreeme had got himself into a scrape. Something *s hap CECIL DBEEMK. 293 pened to the lad His enemies have taken hold of him. Why did you leave him, Mr. Byng ? " " Why did I leave him ? Why ? To be taught the bitterest lesson a soul can learn," said I; and again I seemed to hear that mocking sound of Densdeth's laugh, echoed from the lips of Emma Denman, in the corridor of the Opera- House ; again I seemed to see that hateful look of hers. The blight fell upon me more cruelly. I could not act. " If Mr. Churm were only here ! " said Locks- ley, forlornly, seeing my prostration. With the word, there came through the open door the sound of a heavy trunk bumping up the staircase, now dinting the wall, and now cracking the banisters, and presently we heard Churm's hearty voice hail from below : " Hillo, porter ! that 's the wrong way." " There comes help," cried Locksley. " Call him up," said I, and the janitor hurried after him. In came Churm, sturdy, benevolent, wise. His moral force reinvigorated me at a glance. His keen, brave face solved difficulty, and cleared doubt. " What is it, Byng ? " said he. " What has come to this young painter ? " Before I could answer, his eye caught Dreeme's picture of Lear, resting against the easel, where 294 CECIL DREEME. I had replaced it. His calm manner was gone He sprang forward, kneeled before the easel stared intently. Then he looked eagerly at me. " What does this mean ? " he exclaimed. " Mean ! " repeated I, astonished at his manner " Yes. Who painted this ? " He spoke almost frantically. " Cecil Dreeme," I replied. " Cecil Dreeme ! Cecil Dreeme ! Who is Cecil Dreeme ? " " The young painter who lives here." " Where is he ? Where ? " " Gone, spirited away, I fear." " What are you doing here," said he, almost fiercely. " Mr. Churm," said I, " I do not under- stand your tone nor your manner. What do you know of this recluse ? " . I seemed faintly to remember how Dreeme had shown a slight repugnance, more than once, when I named Churm as a trusty friend. " You, — what do you know," he rejoined, staring again at the picture. " Tell- me, sir ; what do you know ? " "In a word, this," replied I, resolved not to take offence at his roughness. " The even- ing I moved into Chrysalis, Locksley called me to go up with him to this chamber. He feared the tenant was dying alone." CECIL DREEME. *J3it " Poor child ! poor child ! " interjected Churm " We broke in, and found him in a death- trance. Locksley's thoughtfulness saved him, We soon warmed, fed, and cheered him back to life." " God bless you both ! " said Churm, fervently. " Churm," I asked, " what does this mean ? Do you know my friend ? " " Go on ! Tell your story ! " " Little to tell of fact, much of feeling. There was a mystery about Mr. Dreeme. I took him, mystery and all, unquestioned, to my heart of hearts. He was utterly alone, and I befriended him. I befriended unawares an angel. He has been blue sky to me." " I am sure of it," said Churm ; " but the facts, Byng ! the facts of his disappearance ! " " He kept himself absolutely secluded. He never saw out-of-doors by daylight. We walked together constantly in the evening. I made it my duty to force him to a constitutional every day. We were walking as usual night before last, when we met Densdeth." " No ! " exclaimed Churm, vehemently. " Dens- deth ! I have been waiting for that name. Has he put his cloven hoof on this trail ? " " Densdeth observed us. I noticed ugly tri- umph in his face. Dreeme was struck with a panic at this meeting. I thought it instinct. It 29tf CECIL DREKMR may have been knowledge. Dcusdetli, we bus pected, followed us. Dreeme dragged me away in flight. But it would be easy for Densdeth, if he pleased, to watch Chrysalis, see me enter, and identify my companion. I am all in the dark, Churm. Can you help me to any light ? " " Let us hope so ! Locksley, is Towner here ? " " Yes sir ; and ready to make a clean breast of it." " Bring him up to Mr. Byng's quarters. I have no fire, and the poor creature must be coddled. I may take this liberty, Byng? You are inter- ested. It may touch the question of Dreeme. It does so, I believe." " Certainly ; my room is yours. Pensal was there, drawing Sion ; but he will be done by this time. But, my dear friend, do you penetrate this mystery of Cecil Dreeme's ? Tell me at once. He is dearer to me than a brother." " Robert," said Churm, with grave tenderness of manner, " look at that picture, — that tragic protest against a parental infamy. Have you ever seen those faces ? " " Dreeme womanized himself for his Cordelia. I have sometimes had a flitting fancy that I had seen people like his Lear and Goneril. They are types so vigorous that they seem real." " They are real." " Who ? Churm, if you know anything of mj friend, do not agonize me by concealment." CECIL DKEEME. 297 ■' Be blind until your eyes open ! " We were at my door as he spoke. Artist, sitter, and critic were moving to depart. 1 made the apology of " business " for quitting them. " Keep at such business," said Pensal, with a keen glance at mo, " and you will knock off the other seventy-five years of your new century." "Yes," said Towers (artist's insight again), " Byng has taken a dip into counter-irritation and mended his paralysis of this morning." " A fair stab," says Sion, " has made him forget the foul one." So they took their leave. " Do you remember," Churm said, as he seated himself in a great arm-chair of black carved oak, " my fancy, when we first talked here, that this would be a fit chamber for a Vchmgericht ? " " It was prophetic. We are to try the very culprit you hinted then, — Densdeth." " Not in person, unless he may he lurking there in his dark room, to listen." " Do not speak of it ! Now that I begin to know more of Densdeth, the thought of that place sickens me." " He has harmed you, then, in my absence." " I fear a bitter treachery," said I ; and my checks burned as I spoke. " Is it so ? " said Churm, sadly. " i dreaded 13* 298 CECIL DRKEME. it, and warned you as clearly as I dared. But we will "save Cecil Dreeme. Yes, the ruin is ■ terrible, — but this last must be saved." Here Locksley entered, with Towner following, wrapped in a great dressing-gown. It was plain, as Locksley had said, that the invalid was not long for this world. But yet there seemed to glimmer through the man's weakness a little remnant of force, well-nigh quenched. It might still burn hot for an instant, if a blast touched it ; but such a flash would search out all the fuel, and leave only ashes when it expired. CHAPTER XXVI. TOWNER. The invalid peered cautiously into my room, halting on the threshold to inspect. " Who is there ? " said he. " Nobody but Mr. Churm," replied Locksley. " Promise me that on your honor ! " " Certainly. But have n't you known me long enough to be sure that I 'm always upon honor ? Come on ! " He entered feebly, shrinking from the sound of his own footsteps. " Is there nobody in those small rooms ? " he asked. " Nobody listening ? " " Show him, Locksley, to satisfy him," said I. Towner examined my bath-room, my bed- room, and then my lumber-room. " Where does that door in the lumber-room open ? " said he, tremulously. " Into Dens- deth's dark room ? " "Yes."- "Take me down stairs again, Lockj'ey. I can't stay here." SOO CECIL DBEKME. " Why, man ! " said I, " the door is bolted solid ; those heavy boxes are between us and : t, and here is another door which we can close and lock. Three of us too to protect you. You are safe from Densdeth." " You don't know him ! " and Towner shud dered, and would have fallen. Locksley dropped him into an arm-chair by the stove. He seemed hopelessly prostrated. I poured him out some brandy. The antique flask and goblet touched his fancy. He exam- ined them with a pleased, childish interest, and glanced about the room, observing the objects, while he sipped his restorative with feeble lips. " Evidently not a bad man by nature," 1 thought. " Only an impressible one, — one who should cry daily and hourly, ' Lord, deliver me from temptation ! ' If his superior being and chosen guide had been a hero, and not a devil like Densdeth, he might never have become the poor dastard he is." " You have a pretty place here, Mr. Byng," said Towner, revived by his brandy, and assum- ing the air of a welcome guest and patronizing critic. It sat strangely on him after his recent trepidation. The man had the small social van ity of connoisseurship. It was one of Dens- deth's favorite weaknesses ; he loved to make confident ignoramuses talk of horses, wines, pio CECIL DREEME. 801 hires, subjects on which a little knowledge gen- erally makes a man a fool. Densdoth had nc doubt found Towner's ambition toward the tastes of a gentleman a mighty ally in mastering the man. " Yes, quite a museum," replied I, humoring him. Talking a little, I thought, would tran- quillize him for business, — the hard task of con- fessing himself a culprit. " Very fine paintings ! " he continued. " I have a taste for such things. Not a connoisseur ! Only an amateur, with a smattering of knowl- edge ! Art refines the character wonderfully. I wish I had been introduced to it younger. You would n't guess now, Mr. Byng, what kind of scenery surrounded my childhood." " No," said I, growing impatient. " What ? " " My father was the county jailer of Highland County. Instead of pictures and statues, my ear- liest recollections are of thieves pitching pennies in the jail-yard. Bad schooling for a boy, was it not ? I remember the first hanging I saw, as if it were yesterday. The man's name was Benton Dulany. He robbed and killed his father. In his dying speech he said, that he never should have got religion, if it had n't been for his errors ; but now he was going straight to Abraham's bosom. And then a man, up in an elm-tree out- side the jail-yard, shouted, ' Say, Benton ! tel3 302 CECIL DRKEME. old Abe to keep some bosom ft r me ! ' Every body roared, and the drop fell." " You know what you came here for, Towner," said Churm, sternly. " Not to babble about your youth." " Yes, yes," said the invalid, uneasily. " But I don't want you to be too hard on me. I want you to see that I have n't had a fair chance. No one ever showed me how to keep straight, and naturally I went crooked." " If I had not understood your character long ago, I should not have interfered to protect you," said Churm. " But come to the point ! " " You will keep me safe from Densdeth ? " " He shall never touch you." " His touch on my heart is what I dread, Mr. Churm. The first time he saw me, he laid his finger on the bad spot in my nature, and it itched to spread. I .'ve been his slave, soul and body, from that moment. God knows I 've tried to draw back times enough. He always waited until I was just beginning to regain my self- respect. Then he would come up to me, in his quiet way, and look at me with his yellow eyes, and smile at me with that devilish smile, and say, " Come, Towner, don't be a prig ! Here 's some- thing for you to do." It was always a villany and I always did it. It would take me days to tell you the base things I have done to help CECIL DREEME. 303 Densdeth to his million and his j. owcr. He has been the malignant curse of my life. J feel him now in my very soul, whispering me not to make confidants of people that will only bate me for my guilt and scorn me for my weaknoss." " Brother-in-law," said Locksley, " you ought to know better than to think of hate and scorn when you face Mr. Churm." " I do know better. I know that thee are only devil-whispers. If I had merely been in general a bad man, Mr. Churm, I could endure your just judgment, and if you said mercy and pardon, I could believe that God would approve your sentence. But I have wronged you and yours. Can you forgive that ? " " Try me," said Churm. " Mr. Churm," said the invdid, " I have always lied to you about the death of Clara Denman." " So I supposed," Churm said, quietly ; " but io you know anything of her fate." *' Nothing. You may get some clew from jriiai I tell you." " Speak, then," said Churm ; " I listen." " I need not go through a long story to tell fou how Densdeth mastered Mr. Denman. It is really a short story, and old enough. Denman dad an uneasy feeling that, with all his money, he was Nobody. He fancied more, money would 304 CECIL DREEME. make him Somebody. That was basis enough for Densdeth. What a child Denman was in his hands ! It was Densdeth who suggested, and 1 who had to stand the odium of, that first scheme of Denman's, to trample on the rights of the minority, and get the property oi his railroad company into his own hands." " I remember your share in the business," said Churm. " I suspected Densdeth's. Poor Den man ! " " Poor Denman ! " repeated Towner, peevishly. " I don't see why he should have more sympathy than others." " No more, but equal pity," rejoined Churm. " That transaction was Densdeth's first victory over Denman. From that time Denman, and whatever he had, was Densdeth's. If I am not wrong, there is another, still in that house, that he has harmed, if not spoiled." I sat by, in agony, listening, — in sorrow first, to find the reconstructed fabric of my respect for my father's friend and my own on the way to ruin, — in agony, now, at this dark allusion, which my heart interpreted. I sat by, listening, in a crushed mood, for further revelations of guilt and sorrow. Pitiable ! and I seemed to detect, even in the remorse and self-reproach of the pitiful object before me, a trace of vulgar triumph that he vas not the only sinner in the CECIL DREEME. 30. r ; world, nor the only sufferer from the taint of sin. " Densdeth led Denman on, step by step," continued Towner, " deeper and deeper into his gigantic financial schemes. You know how vain Denman is. He began to fancy himself Some- body. ' Bah ! ' said Densdeth to me, ' the booby will try to walk alone presently. Then he will have to go on his knees to me to keep him up.' And so it was. Denman devised an operation. A crisis came. Denman delayed ruin — what money-men call ruin — by a monstrous fraud. We had expected it, and we alone dis- covered it. ' Now,' said Densdeth to me, ' I have got the man.' ' What more do you want,' said I, ' than you have already gained by him ? ' ' I want his daughter Clara,' he said. ' She is the most brilliant woman in the world, — the only fit wife for me. But she will not think so, and I shall have to use force. Force is vul- gar. I don't like it ; but no creature shall baffle me.' " So, to be brief, Densdeth said, ' Denman, compel your daughter to marry me, or you go to prison ! ' " Denman at once began to apply a father's force to the young lady. As he urged her more and more, she spoke of appealing to you, Mr Cliurra." T 306 CECIL DREEME. " Poor child ! and I was absent ! " said Churin " ' Ah'! ' said Densdeth," continued the sick man, " when Denman told him of this. ' Hera is business for Towner, that accomplished pen- man. Now, Towner ! Letter first from Mr. Churm, in London, — " My dear Clara : 1 have heard with heartfelt satisfaction of your ap proaching marriage with your father's friend and mine, Mr. Densdeth," &c. Letter second, — " My dear Clara : It gives me great pain to know from your father that your mind is not made up as to your marriage. It is impossible to find a more distinguished or worthier gentle- man than my friend Densdeth, or one who will make yoxi happier. Do not alienate me by folly in this" important matter," \ U> Densdetli ! to the daily agony of a life with him ' Little as I knew her, I felt that she was an exceptional soul, worthy of all tender loyaltj from all men. I must do something to repah my wrong to her. I must at least inform her of the forgeries. I was too weak-spirited to do it myself. I called in a woman to help me. " She was another that Densdetli had spoilt. She hated and dreaded him as much as I did. She naturally resented his marriage to another woman. I sent her to see Clara Denman. Dens- detli found it out, and stopped it. He finds out everything, sooner or later He suspected me of an attempt to revolt from his dominion. He suspected me of instigating the young woniai to show herself to his future wife. He made me stand by and listen, while, in his cool, cruel way, he sneered the poor girl into utter despair. She went off and drowned herself." " Ah ! " cried Churm, " it was she whose body was found, — she, and not xz.y dear child." " It was she," replied Towner. " Nobody cared for her, or missed her. She was not unlike Miss Denman in person. The disappear- ance of a young lady of fashion had made a noise. A great reward wa? offered. Scores of people identified the body. It had been greatly injured by the chances of frowning." CECIL DREEME. 309 " Did Denman believe it to be his daughter's?" " Entirely. It was the easiest solution. And no doubt he felt more at peace to suppose her dead than living, and likely to return and re proach him with his tyranny." " And Donsdeth ? " " He did at first. He did not believe that any woman could have eluded the strict and instant search he instituted and conducted all over the country. I myself cannot believe that she es- caped alive." " Perhaps Densdeth searched too far away from home," said Churm, glancing at me. " He went to Europe for that purpose. When he missed the real drowned woman, he came to me, and charged me with aiding Miss Den- man to escape, and substituting the body. He soon discovered that I knew nothing of it. ' Towner,' said he, ' I am convinced that Miss Denman, my future wife, is alive. She fancies she is free from me. Bah ! Did you ever know any one baffle my pursuit? She shall not. 1 want her, and must have her, — beautiful, un- tamed creature! but silly, and not willing to adore me, as her sex does! In 'act, she got idle fancies in her head at last, and was really rude. She talked about abhorrence. Abhor- rence of me! She said our marriage would ue an infamy, for reasons she would not soil he» 310 CECIL DRKEMR tongue to give. She actually faced me, ar. ,' said that. She said it, facing me, looking mo straight in the eyes, not sobbing off in a corner, as most women would have done. It was splendid ! Fine tragedy ! and real too. Nothing ever entertained me so much. I would rather have her point at me, and call me villain, thai any other woman fondle me, — that I have had enough of. yes, she is alive, and I must have her. What a fool I was to fancy for a moment that such a being would drown herself, or be drowned by an accident, — quite unworthy of my intelligence, such a belief! I have a clew now. I have no doubt she has gone off to Europe, disguised as a man. She cannot elude me there. There or here, I will find her, 1 must have some more scenes with her. I should like to have one every day. Everything bores me now. I hunger to see again the magnifi- cent scorn with which she repelled me when she fancied she had reason to. I want to see that loathing recoil from my touch. Ah ! noth- ing like it ! I should like to trample on her moral sense every day. If I could only sully her, and make her hate herself as she does me, and then stand by to watch her convulsions of self-contempt, — that would be worth living for. Perhaps I can manage even that. Who knows ? But I must get her in hand first. 11 v CECIL DBEEME. 31] cue of course is that she is mad. The simplest methods are the best. Let me once have her in some uninquisitive madhouse, like Huffmire ? B here at Bushley, and sometliing can be done. At least I can put her in a straight-jacket, auri see her chafe, or sit, too proud to chafe, facing her fate with those great eyes, solemn and passion- ate. Denman will back me in whatever I do. If it gives you any satisfaction, Towner, to know that there is a wretcheder scrub than you, Den- man is the man. I love to joke him about the State's prison, and make him grovel and implore. He is delightfully base. He will swear his daughter into a madhouse, and keep her there half a century, if I will only let him live in his house, and be pointed at as the great Denman. Pah ! ' " Towner sank back in his ch&L*, exhausted. It had cost him a giant effort to be free from his ancient allegiance to his fiend. We three sat silent a moment, appalled by the depth of evil revealed to us in one human heart. In this pause all the events and • scenes of my life in Chrysalis drifted across my mind, and all my history for the past three months, culminating in last night's horror and to-day's agony, passed before me. Again I saw, as in a picture, Emma Denman standing, a slight, 812 CECIL DREEME. elegant figure in mourning, in the dimly lighted hall of the stately house. Again I marked on her pale face the deepening look of despair and pitiless self-abhorrence. Again I felt the blight- ing touch of her cold hand. Again there smote me the same throb of anguish I had perceived when I entered Cecil Dreeme's chamber and found him fled. And Densdeth was in all this. The thought cowed me. I was ready to say, with Towner, ''Why struggle vainly any more with this de- mon ? " Even as I uttered this hopeless cry within ray soul, there came a quick step along the uv.iidor, and a knock at my door CHAPTER XXVII. RALEIGH'S REVOLT. A.c this sound Towner half raised himself from tlm arm-chair, where he sat, cowering. " Don't let Win in ! Don't let anybody in ! " he breathed, in au alarmed whisper. The knock was repeated urgently. I stepped to the door and opened it a crack. Raleigh was without, — the man about town, of noble instincts and unworthy courses, who has already passed across these pages. " Pray, drop in again, Raleigh," said I ; " 1 have some people here on business." " I must see you now. It may be life and death." " To whom ? " I asked, eagerly. He too had been a friend of Densdeth's. He might have knowledge of these mysteries. " To one worth saving." I observed him more particularly. All his usual nonchalance had departed. He was pale and anxious ; but withal, his face expressed his better self, the nobler man I had always reeoy nized in him. 14 314 CECIL DRKEMfi. " What is it ? " said I, stepp.ng out into the corridor. " Not liere ! " said Raleigh in a whisper. And tie pointed to the door of Densdeth's dark room. " What ? " I also whispered, with an irrepres- sible dread stealing over rne, " Densdeth again ! " " Come in then," I continued ; "we are al- ready trying and condemning him." "Who are these?" said Raleigh, bowing slightlj to Churm, and pointing to Locksley and Towner The latter sat with his face covered by his hands. " Foes of Densdeth, both ! Sufferers by him ! '• " Mr. Churm," said Raleigh, " I know you do not trust me much. But I came here to find you and Byng. Meeting you saves precious time. I have wasted hours already, struggling in mj heart to throw off the base empire of Densdeth. I have done it. I am free cf him forever. I can speak. I have seen your ward, Clara Den- man ! " " Speak ! speak ! " cried Churm, seizing his arm. " Alive, and in danger ! I was riding home tills morning before dawn, from Bushley, — never mind on what unworthy errand I had been. Going down a hill, my horse slipped on the ice, and fell badly. I was getting him on his legs again, when a carriage came slowly climbing up the slope beside me. You know what a night it CECIL DEEEME. 31£ was, — stormy, with bursts of moonlight. Thore was light enough to give me a view of the j-?"p3e in the carriage. Two women, one a hag I weu know, tho other veiled. Two men, Densdeth and that black rascal, his servant. I knew them. They could not recognize me kneeling behind my horse. ' Mischief ! ' I thought. It was nono of my business, but I got my horse up, and fol- lowed. Do you know Huffmire's Asylum ? " " Locksley ! " said Ohurm, " quick ! Run to my stable, and have the bays put to the double wagon ! Quick, now ! Have them here in five minutes ! " Locksley hurried off. "Right!" said Raleigh, "you understand me. Yes, Densdeth had Clara Denman in that car- riage." " My poor child ! " said Churm. ''• Her inno- cent life bears all the burden of others' sins." " I rode after the carriage until I saw it stop at Huffmire's gate. Then I dismounted, let my horse go, and ran up in the shelter of some cedars by the road-side. I knew that Huffmire's Insane Asylum is no better than a private prison foi whoever dares to use it. No one was stirring at that early hour, and it was some time before the bell was answered. At last, Huffmire himself came to the gate. Densdeth got out to parley witli him. While they talked, the veiled hul) 316 CECIL 1/ilBKME. managed, by a rapid movement with her tied hands, to strike aside her veil and look out. 1 saw her. I cannot be deceived. It was Clara Denman \ " " Is Locksley never coming with those horses ? " muttered Churm. " It was she, strangely dressed, altered, and pale, but firm and resolute as ever. I had bul a glimpse. The hag and Densdeth's servant dragged her back. Huffmire undid the gate. They drove in. I caught my horse and rode off." " Why did you not tear her away from that villain? " said Churm, fiercely. " Mr. Churm, hear me through ! I said to myself, ' This is none of my business. Clara Denman, whom the world thought dead, has come to light, mad, and Densdeth, the friend of the family, her betrothed, has very naturally been selected to put her into a madhouse.'" " But the hour, the place ! And Densdeth ! " " Yes ; these excited my suspicions. I remem- bered the impression that Miss Denman had committed suicide rather than be forced into a marriage with Densdeth. Intimate as I have been with him, I can comprehend how to a nature like hers he would be a horror." "But," said I, "this seems almost incredi bio, this audacious *Hucti