But his grim and legal guardians tramped along in the most stolid and indifferent manner. The gathering rabble at their heels had no terror for them. Indeed, they rather enjoyed parading before respectable citizens this dangerous substratum of society. It was a delicate way of saying, "Behold in these your peril, and in us your defence. We are necessary to your peace and security. Respect us and pay us well."

They represented the majesty of the law, which could lay its strong hand on high and low alike, and the publicity which was like a scorching fire to Haldane brought honor to them.

Although the journey seemed interminable to the culprit, they were not long in reaching the police court, where the magistrate presiding had already entered on his duties. All night long, and throughout the entire city, the scavengers of the law had been at work, and now, as a result, every miserable atom of humanity that had made itself a pestilential offence to society was gathered here to be disposed of according to sanatory moral rules.

Hillaton was a comparatively well-behaved and decorous city; but in every large community there is always a certain amount of human sediment, and Haldane felt that he had fallen low indeed, when he found himself classed and huddled with miserable objects whose existence he had never before realized. Near him stood men who apparently had barely enough humanity left to make their dominating animal natures more dangerous and difficult to control. To the instincts of a beast was added something of a man's intelligence, but so developed that it was often little more than cunning. If, when throwing away his manhood, man becomes a creature more to be dreaded than a beast or venomous reptile, whichever he happens most to resemble, woman, parting with her womanhood, scarcely finds her counterpart even in the most noxious forms of earthly existence. She becomes, in her perversion, something that is unnatural and monstrous; something, so opposite to the Creator's design, as to suggest it only in caricature, or, more often, in fiendish mockery. The Gorgons, Sirens, and Harpies of the ancients are scarcely myths, for their fabled forms only too accurately portray, not the superficial and transient outward appearance, but the enduring character within.

Side by side with Haldane stood a creature whose dishevelled, rusty hair, blotched and bloated features, wanton, cunning, restless eyes, combined perfectly to form the head of the mythological Harpy. It required little effort of the imagination to believe that her foul, bedraggled dress concealed the "wings and talons of the vulture." Being still unsteady from her night's debauch, she leaned against the young man, and when he shrank in loathing away, she, to annoy him, clasped him in her arms, to the uproarious merriment of the miscellaneous crowd that is ever present at a police court. Haldane broke away from her grasp with such force as to make quite a commotion, and at the same time said loudly and fiercely to the officer who had arrested him:

"You may have power to take me to jail, but you have not, and shall not have, the right nor the power to subject me to such indignities."

"Silence there! Keep order in the court!" commanded the judge.

The officer removed his prisoner a little further apart from the others, growling as he did so:

"If you don't like your company, you should have kept out of it."

Even in his overwhelming anxiety and distress Haldane could not forbear giving a few curious glances at his companions. He had dropped out of his old world into a new one, and these were its inhabitants. In their degradation and misery he seemed to see himself and his future reflected. What had the policeman said?—"Your company," and with a keener pang than he had yet experienced he realized that this was his company, that he now belonged to the criminal classes. He who yesterday had the right to speak to Laura Romeyn, was now herded with drunkards, thieves, and prostitutes; he who yesterday could enter Mrs. Arnot's parlor, might now as easily enter heaven. As the truth of his situation gradually dawned upon him, he felt as if an icy hand were closing upon his heart.

But little time, however, was given him for observation or bitter revery. With the rapid and routine-like manner of one made both callous and expert by long experience, the magistrate was sorting and disposing of the miserable waifs. Now he has before him the inmates of a "disorderly house," upon which a "raid" had been made the previous night. What is that fair young girl with blue eyes doing among those coarse-featured human dregs, her companions? She looks like a white lily that has been dropped into a puddle. Perhaps that delicate and attractive form is but a disguise for the Harpy's wings and claws. Perhaps a gross, bestial spirit is masked by her oval Madonna-like face. Perhaps she is the victim of one upon whom God will wreak his vengeance forever, though society has for him scarcely a frown.

The puddle is suddenly drained off into some law-ordained receptacle, and the white lily is swept away with it. She will not long suggest a flower that has been dropped into the gutter. The stains upon her soul will creep up into her face, and make her hideous like the rest.

The case of Egbert Haldane was next called. As the policeman had said, his own admissions were now used against him, for the confidential clerk, and, if there was need, the broken-nosed reporter, were on hand to testify to all that had been said. The young man made no attempt to conceal, but tried to explain more fully the circumstances which led to the act, hoping that in them the justice would find such extenuating elements as would prevent a committal to prison.

The judge recognized and openly acknowledged the fact that it was not a case of deliberate wrongdoing, and he ordered the arrest of the superior young gentleman who had introduced the New York gamblers to their victim; and yet in the eye of the law it was a clear case of embezzlement; and, as Mr. Arnot's friend, the magistrate felt little disposition to prevent things from taking their usual course. The prisoner must either furnish bail at once, or be committed until he could do so, or until the case could be properly tried. As Haldane was a comparative stranger in Hillaton there was no one to whom he felt he could apply, and he supposed it would require some little time for his mother to arrange the matter. Upon his signifying that he could not furnish bail immediately, the judge promptly ordered his committal to the common jail of the city, which happened to be at some distance from the building then employed for the preliminary examinations.

It was while on his way to this place of detention that he heard Mrs. Arnot's voice, and encountered her eyes and those of Laura Romeyn. His first impulse was to end both his suffering and himself by some desperate act, but he was powerless even to harm himself.

The limit of endurance, however had been reached. The very worst that he could imagine had befallen him. Laura Romeyn had looked upon his unutterable shame and disgrace. From a quivering and almost agonizing sensibility to his situation he reacted into sullen indifference. He no longer saw the sun shining in the sky, nor the familiar sights of the street; he no longer heard nor heeded the jeering rabble that came tramping after. He became for the time scarcely more than a piece of mechanism, that barely retained the power of voluntary motion, but had lost ability to feel and think. When, at last, he entered his narrow cell, eight feet by eight, the wish half formed itself in his mind that it was six feet by two, and that he might hide in it forever.

He sat down on the rough wooden couch which formed the only furniture of the room, and buried his face in his hands, conscious only of a dull, leaden weight of pain. He made no effort to obtain legal counsel or to communicate his situation to his mother. Indeed, he dreaded to see her, and he felt that he could not look his sisters in the face again. The prison cell seemed a refuge from the terrible scorn of the world, and his present impulse was to cower behind its thick walls for the rest of his life.



CHAPTER XIV

MR. ARNOT'S SYSTEM WORKS BADLY

Mr. Arnot was so disturbed by his wife's visit that he found it impossible to return to the routine of business, and, instead of maintaining the cold, lofty bearing of a man whose imperious will awed and controlled all within its sphere, he fumed up and down his office like one who had been caught in the toils himself. In the morning it had seemed that there could not have been a fairer opportunity to vindicate his iron system, and make it irresistible. The offending subject in his business realm should receive due punishment, and all the rest be taught that they were governed by inexorable laws, which would be executed with the certainty and precision with which the wheels moved in a great factory under the steady impulse of the motor power. But the whole matter now bade fair to end in a tangled snarl, whose final issue no one could foretell.

He was sensitive to public opinion, and had supposed that his course would be upheld and applauded, and he be commended as a conservator of public morals. He now feared, however, that he would be portrayed as harsh, grasping, and unfeeling. It did not trouble him that he was so, but that he would be made to appear so.

But his wife's words in reference to the withdrawal of her large property from his business was a far more serious consideration. He had learned how resolute and unswerving she could be in matters of conscience, and he knew that she was not in the habit of making idle threats in moments of irritation. If, just at this time, when he was widely extending his business, she should demand a separate investment of her means, it would embarrass and cripple him in no slight degree. If this should be one of the results of his master-stroke, he would have reason to curse his brilliant policy all his days. He would now be only too glad to get rid of the Haldane affair on any terms, for thus far it had proved only a source of annoyance and mortification. He was somewhat consoled, however, when his confidential clerk returned and intimated that the examination before the justice had been brief; that Haldane had eagerly stated his case to the justice, but when that dignitary remarked that it was a clear case of embezzlement, and that he would have to commit the prisoner unless some one went security for his future appearance, the young fellow had grown sullen and answered, "Send me to jail then; I have no friends in this accursed city."

To men of the law and of sense the case was as clear as daylight.

But Mr. Arnot was not by any means through with his disagreeable experiences. He had been a manufacturer sufficiently long to know that when a piece of machinery is set in motion, not merely the wheels nearest to one will move, but also others that for the moment may be out of sight. He who proposes to have a decided influence upon a fellow-creature's destiny should remember our complicated relations, for he cannot lay his strong grasp upon one life without becoming entangled in the interests of many others.

Mr. Arnot was finding this out to his cost, for he had hardly composed himself to his writing again before there was a rustle of a lady's garments in the outer office, and a hasty step across the threshold of his private sanctum. Looking up, he saw, to his dismay, the pale, frightened face of Mrs. Haldane.

"Where is Egbert?—where is my son?" she asked abruptly.

At that moment Mr. Arnot admitted to himself that he had never been asked so embarrassing a question in all his life. Before him was his wife's friend, a lady of the highest social rank, and she was so unmistakably a lady that he could treat her with only the utmost deference. He saw with alarm himself the mother's nervous and trembling apprehension, for there was scarcely anything under heaven that he would not rather face than a scene with a hysterical woman. If this was to be the climax of his policy he would rather have lost the thousand dollars than have had it occur. Rising from his seat, he said awkwardly:

"Really, madam, I did not expect you here this morning."

"I was on my way to New York, and decided to stop and give my son a surprise. But this paper—this dreadful report—what does it mean?"

"I am sorry to say, madam, it is all too true," replied Mr. Arnot uneasily. "Please take a chair, or perhaps it would be better for you to go at once to our house and see Mrs. Arnot," he added, now glad to escape the interview on any terms.

"What is too true?" she gasped.

"I think you had better see Mrs. Arnot; she will explain," said the unhappy man, who felt that his system was tumbling in chaos about his ears. "Let me assist you to your carriage."

"Do you think I can endure the suspense of another moment? In mercy speak—tell me the worst!"

"Well," said Mr. Arnot, with a shiver like that of one about to plunge into a cold bath, "I suppose you will learn sooner or later that your son has committed a very wrong act. But," he added hastily, on seeing Mrs. Haldane's increasing pallor, "there are extenuating circumstances—at least, I shall act as if there were."

"But what has he done—where is he?" cried the mother in agony. Then she added in a frightened whisper, "But the matter can be hushed up—there need be no publicity—oh, that would kill me! Please take steps—"

"Mr. Arnot," said a young man just entering, and speaking in a piping, penetrating voice," I represent the 'Evening Spy.' I wish to obtain from you for publication the particulars of this disgraceful affair" Then, seeing Mrs. Haldane, who had dropped her veil, and was trembling violently, he added, "I hope I am not intruding; I—"

"Yes, sir, you are intruding," said Mr. Arnot harshly.

"Then, perhaps, sir, you will be so kind as to step outside for a moment. I can take down your words rapidly, and—"

"Step outside yourself, sir. I have nothing whatever to say to you."

"I beg you to reconsider that decision, sir. Of course, a full account of the affair must appear in this evening's 'Spy.' It will be your own fault if it is not true in all respects. It is said that you have acted harshly in the matter—that it was young Haldane's first offence, and—"

"Leave my office!" thundered Mr. Arnot.

The lynx-eyed reporter, while speaking thus rapidly, had been scrutinizing the veiled and trembling lady, and he was scarcely disappointed that she now rose hastily, and threw back her veil as she said eagerly:

"Why must the whole affair be published? You say truly that his offence, whatever it is, is his first. Surely the editor of your paper will not be so cruel as to blast a young man forever with disgrace!"

"Mrs. Haldane, I presume," said the reporter, tracing a few hieroglyphics in his note-book.

"Yes," continued the lady, speaking from the impulse of her heart, rather than from any correct knowledge of the world, "and I will pay willingly any amount to have the whole matter quietly dropped. I could not endure anything of this kind, for I have no husband to shelter me, and the boy has no father to protect him."

Mr. Arnot groaned in spirit that he had not considered this case in any of its aspects save those which related to his business. He had formed the habit of regarding all other considerations as unworthy of attention, but here, certainly, was a most disagreeable exception.

"You touch my feelings deeply," said the reporter, in a tone that never for a second lost its professional cadence, "but I much regret that your hopes cannot be realized. Your son's act could scarcely be kept a secret after the fact—known to all—that he has been openly dragged to prison through the streets," and the gatherer of news and sensations kept an eye on each of his victims as he made this statement. A cabalistic sign in his note-book indicated the visible wincing of the enraged and half-distracted manufacturer, whose system was like an engine off the track, hissing and helpless; and a few other equally obscure marks suggested to the initiated the lady's words as she half shrieked:

"My son dragged through the streets to prison! By whom—who could do so dreadful?"—and she sank shudderingly into a chair, and covered her face with her hands, as if to shut out a harrowing vision.

"I regret to say, madam, that it was by a policeman," added the reporter.

"And thither a policeman shall drag you, if you do not instantly vacate these premises!" said Mr. Arnot, hoarse with rage.

"Thank you for your courtesy," answered the reporter, shutting his book with a snap like that of a steel trap. "I have now about all the points I wish to get here. I understand that Mr. Patrick M'Cabe is no longer under any obligations to you, and from him I can learn additional particulars. Good-morning."

"Yes, go to that unsullied source of truth, whom I have just discharged for lying and disobedience. Go to perdition, also, if you please; but take yourself out of my office," said Mr. Arnot recklessly, for he was growing desperate from the unexpected complications of the case. Then he summoned one of his clerks, and said in a tone of authority, "Take this lady to my residence, and leave her in the care of Mrs. Arnot."

Mrs. Haldane rose unsteadily, and tottered toward the door.

"No," said she bitterly; "I may faint in the street, but I will not go to your house."

"Then assist the lady to her carriage;" and Mr. Arnot turned the key of his private office with muttered imprecations upon the whole wretched affair.

"Whither shall I tell the man to drive?" asked the clerk, after Mrs. Haldane had sunk back exhausted on the seat.

The lady put her hand to her brow, and tried to collect her distracted thoughts, and, after a moment's hesitation, said:

"To the prison."

The carriage containing Mrs. Haldane stopped at last before the gloomy massive building, the upper part of which was used as a court-room and offices for city and county officials, while in the basement were constructed the cells of the prison. It required a desperate effort on the part of the timid and delicate lady, who for years had almost been a recluse from the world, to summon courage to alight and approach a place that to her abounded in many and indefinite horrors. She was too preoccupied to observe that another carriage had drawn up to the entrance, and the first intimation that she had of Mrs. Arnot's presence occurred when that lady took her hand in the shadow of the porch, and said:

"Mrs. Haldane, I am greatly surprised to see you here; but you can rely upon me as a true friend throughout this trial. I shall do all in my power to—"

After the first violent start caused by her disturbed nervous condition, Mrs. Haldane asked, in a reproachful and almost passionate tone:

"Why did you not prevent—" and then she hesitated, as if she could not bring herself to utter the concluding words.

"I could not; I did not know; but since I heard I have been doing everything in my power."

"It was your husband who—"

"Yes," replied Mrs. Arnot, sadly, completing in thought her friend's unfinished sentence. "But I had no part in the act, and no knowledge of it until a short time since. I am now doing all I can to procure your son's speedy release. My husband's action has been perfectly legal, and we, who would temper justice with mercy, must do so in a legal way. Permit me to introduce you to my friend, Mr. Melville. He can both advise us and carry out such arrangements as are necessary;" and Mrs. Haldane saw that Mrs. Arnot was accompanied by a gentleman, whom in her distress she had not hitherto noticed.

The janitor now opened the door, and ushered them into a very plain apartment, used both as an office and reception-room. Mrs. Haldane was so overcome by her emotion that her friend led her to a chair, and continued her reassuring words in a low voice designed for her ears alone:

"Mr. Melville is a lawyer, and knows how to manage these matters. You may trust him implicitly. I will give security for your son's future appearance, should it be necessary, and I am quite satisfied it will not be, as my husband has promised me that he will not prosecute if the money is refunded."

"I would have paid ten times the amount—anything rather than have suffered this public disgrace," sobbed the poor woman, who, true to her instincts and life-long habit of thought, dwelt more upon the consequent shame of her son's act than its moral character.

"Mr. Melville says he will give bail in his own name for me," resumed Mrs. Arnot, "as, of course, I do not wish to appear to be acting in opposition to my husband. Indeed, I am not, for he is willing that some such an arrangement should be made. He has very many in his employ, and feels that he must be governed by rigid rules. Mr. Melville assures me that he can speedily effect Egbert's release. Perhaps it will save you pain to go at once to our house and meet your son there."

"No," replied the mother, rising, "I wish to see him at once. I do appreciate your kindness, but I cannot go to the place which shelters your husband. I can never forgive him. Nor can I go to a hotel. I would rather stay in this prison until I can hide myself and my miserable son in our own home. Oh, how dark and dreadful are God's ways! To think that the boy that I had brought up in the Church, as it were, should show such unnatural depravity!" Then, stepping to the door, she said to the under-sheriff in waiting, "Please take me to my son at once, if possible."

"Would you like me to go with you?" asked Mrs. Arnot, gently.

"Yes, yes! for I may faint on the way. Oh, how differently this day is turning out from what I expected! I was in hopes that Egbert could meet me in a little trip to New York, and I find him in prison!"



CHAPTER XV

HALDANE'S RESOLVE

It was not in accordance with nature nor with Haldane's peculiar temperament that he should remain long under a stony paralysis of shame and despair. Though tall and manlike in appearance, he was not a man. Boyish traits and impulses still lingered; indeed, they had been fostered and maintained longer than usual by a fond and indulgent mother. It was not an evidence of weakness, but rather a wholesome instinct of nature, that his thoughts should gradually find courage to go to that mother as his only source of comfort and help. She, at least, would not scorn him, and with her he might find a less dismal refuge than his narrow cell, should it be possible to escape imprisonment. If it were not, he was too young and unacquainted with misfortune not to long for a few kind words of comfort.

He did not even imagine that Mrs. Arnot, the wife of his employer, would come near him in his deep disgrace. Even the thought of her kindness and his requital of it now stung him to the quick, and he fairly writhed as he pictured to himself the scorn that must have been on Laura's face as she saw him on his way to prison like a common thief.

As he remembered how full of rich promise life was but a few days since, and how all had changed even more swiftly and unexpectedly than the grotesque events of a horrid dream, he bowed his head in his hands and sobbed like a grief-stricken child.

"O mother, mother," he groaned, "if I could only hear your voice and feel your touch, a little of this crushing weight might be lifted off my heart!"

Growing calmer after a time, he was able to consider his situation more connectedly, and he was about to summon the sheriff in charge of the prison, that he might telegraph his mother, when he heard her voice as, in the company of that official, she was seeking her way to him.

He shrank back in his cell. His heart beat violently as he heard the rustle of her dress. The sheriff unlocked the grated iron door which led to the long, narrow corridor into which the cells opened, and to which prisoners had access during the day.

"He's in that cell, ladies," said the officer's voice, and then, with commendable delicacy, withdrew, having first ordered the prisoners in his charge to their cells.

"Lean upon my arm," urged a gentle voice, which Haldane recognized as that of Mrs. Arnot.

"O, this is awful!" moaned the stricken woman; "this is more than I can endure."

The pronoun she used threw a chill on the heart of her son, but when she tottered to the door of his cell he sprang forward with the low, appealing cry:

"Mother!"

But the poor gentlewoman was so overcome that she sank down on a bench by the door, and, with her face buried in her hands, as if to shut out a vision that would blast her, she rocked back and forth in anguish, as she groaned:

"O Egbert, Egbert! you have disgraced me, you have disgraced your sisters, you have disgraced yourself beyond remedy. O God! what have I done to merit this awful, this overwhelming disaster?"

With deep pain and solicitude Mrs. Arnot watched the young man's face as the light from the grated window fell upon it. The appeal that trembled in his voice had been more plainly manifest in his face, which had worn an eager and hopeful expression, and even suggested the spirit of the little child when in some painful emergency it turns to its first and natural protector.

But most marked was the change caused by the mother's lamentable want of tact and self-control, for that same face became stony and sullen. Instead of showing a spirit which deep distress and crushing disaster had made almost childlike in its readiness to receive a mother's comfort once more, he suddenly became, in appearance, a hardened criminal.

Mrs. Arnot longed to undo by her kindness the evil which her friend was unwittingly causing, but could not come between mother and son. She stooped down, however, and whispered:

"Mrs. Haldane, speak kindly to your boy. He looked to you for sympathy. Do not let him feel that you, like the world, are against him."

"O no," said Mrs. Haldane, her sobs ceasing somewhat, "I mean to do my duty by him. He shall always have a good home, but oh! what a blight and a shadow he has brought to that home! That I should have ever lived to see this day! O Egbert, Egbert! your sisters will have to live like nuns, for they can never even go out upon the street again; and to think that the finger of scorn should be pointed after you in the city where your father made our name so honorable!"

"It never shall be," said Haldane coldly. "You have only to leave me in prison to be rid of me a long time."

"Leave you, in prison!" exclaimed his mother; "I would as soon stay here myself. No; through Mrs. Arnot's kindness, arrangements are made for your release. I shall then take you to our miserable home as soon as possible."

"I am not going home."

"Now, this is too much! What will you do?"

"I shall remain in this city," he replied, speaking from an angry impulse. "It was here I fell and covered myself with shame, and I shall here fight my way back to the position I lost. The time shall come when you will no longer say I'm a disgrace to you and my sisters. My heart was breaking, and the first word you greet me with is 'disgrace'; and if I went home, disgrace would always be in your mind, if not upon your tongue. I should have the word and thought kept before me till I went mad. If I go home all my old acquaintances would sneer at me as a mean-spirited cur, whose best exploit was to get in jail, and when his mother obtained his release he could do nothing more manly than hide behind her apron the rest of his days. As far as I can judge, you and my sisters would have no better opinion of me. I have been a wicked fool, I admit, but I was not a deliberate thief. I did hope for a little comfort from you. But since all the world is against me, I'll face and fight the world. I have been dragged through these streets, the scorn of every one, and I will remain in this city until I compel the respect of its proudest citizen."

The moment he ceased his passionate utterance, Mrs. Arnot said kindly and gravely:

"Egbert, you are mistaken. There was no scorn in my eyes, but rather deep pity and sorrow. While your course has been very wrong, you have no occasion to despair, and as long as you will try to become a true man you shall have my sympathy and friendship. You do not understand your mother. She loves you as truly as ever, and is willing to make any sacrifice for you. Only, her fuller knowledge of the world makes her realize more truly than you yet can the consequences of your act. The sudden shock has overwhelmed her. Her distress shows how deeply she is wounded, and you should try to comfort her by a lifetime of kindness."

"The best way I can comfort her is by deeds that will wipe out the memory of my disgrace; and," he continued, his impulsive, sanguine spirit kindling with the thought and prospect, "I will regain all and more than I have lost. The time shall come when neither she nor my sisters will have occasion to blush for me, nor to seclude themselves from the world because of their relation to me."

"I should think my heart was sufficiently crushed and broken already," Mrs. Haldane sobbed, "without your adding to its burden by charging me with being an unnatural mother. I cannot understand how a boy brought up as religiously as you have been can show such strange depravity. The idea that a child of mine could do anything which would bring him to such a place as this!"

His mother's words and manner seemed to exasperate her son beyond endurance, and he exclaimed passionately:

"Well, curse it all! I am here. What's the use of harping on that any longer? Can't you listen when I say I want to retrieve myself? As to my religious bringing up, it never did me a particle of good. If you had whipped my infernal nonsense out of me, and made me mind when I was little—There, there, mother," he concluded more considerately, as she began to grow hysterical under his words, "do, for God's sake, be more composed! We can't help what has happened now. I'll either change the world's opinion of me, or else get out of it."

"How can I be composed when you talk in so dreadful a manner? You can't change the world's opinion. It never forgives and never forgets. It's the same as if you had said, I'll either do what is impossible or throw away my life!"

"My dear Mrs. Haldane," said Mrs. Arnot, gently but firmly, "your just and natural grief is such that you cannot now judge correctly and wisely concerning this matter. The emergency is so unexpected and so grave that neither you nor your son should form opinions or make resolves until there has been time for calmer thought. Let me take you home with me now, and as soon as Egbert is released he can join you there."

"No, Mrs. Arnot," said Haldane decidedly; "I shall never enter your parlor again until I can enter it as a gentleman—as one whom your other guests, should I meet them, would recognize as a gentleman. Your kindness is as great as it is unexpected, but I shall take no mean advantage of it."

"Well, then," said Mrs. Arnot with a sigh, "nothing can be gained by prolonging this painful interview. We are detaining Mr. Melville, and delaying Egbert's release. Come, Mrs. Haldane; I can take you to the private entrance of a quiet hotel, where you can be entirely secluded until you are ready to return home. Egbert can come there as soon as the needful legal forms are complied with."

"No," said the young man with his former decision, "mother and I must take leave of each other here. Mother wants no jail-birds calling on her at the hotel. When I have regained my social footing—when she is ready to take my arm and walk up Main street of this city—then she shall see me as often as she wishes. It was my own cursed folly that brought me to the gutter, and if mother will pay the price of my freedom, I will alone and unaided make my way back among the highest and proudest."

"I sincerely hope you may win such a position," said Mrs. Arnot gravely, "and it is not impossible for you to do so, though I wish you would make the attempt in a different spirit; but please remember that these considerations do not satisfy and comfort a mother's heart. You should think of all her past kindness; you should realize how deeply you have now wounded her, and strive with tenderness and patience to mitigate the blow."

"Mother, I am sorry, more sorry than you can ever know," he said, advancing to her side and taking her hand, "and I have been bitterly punished; but I did not mean to do what I did; I was drunk—"

"Drunk!" gasped the mother, "merciful Heaven!"

"Yes, drunk—may the next drop of wine I take choke me!—and I did not know what I was doing. But do not despair of me. I feel that I have it in me to make a man yet. Go now with Mrs. Arnot, and aid in her kind efforts to procure my release. When you have succeeded, return home, and think of me as well as you can until I make you think better," and he raised and kissed her with something like tenderness, and then placed within Mrs. Arnot's arm the hand of the poor weak woman, who had become so faint and exhausted from her conflicting emotions that she submitted to be led away after a feeble remonstrance.

Mrs. Arnot sent Mr. Melville to the prisoner, and also the food she had brought. She then took Mrs. Haldane to a hotel, where, in the seclusion of her room, she could have every attention and comfort. With many reassuring words she promised to call later in the day, and if possible bring with her the unhappy cause of the poor gentlewoman's distress.



CHAPTER XVI

THE IMPULSES OF WOUNDED PRIDE

That which at first was little more than an impulse, caused by wounded pride, speedily developed into a settled purpose, and Haldane would leave his prison cell fully bent on achieving great things. In accordance with a tendency in impulsive natures, he reacted from something like despair into quite a sanguine and heroic mood. He would "face and fight the world, ay, and conquer it, too." He would go out into the streets which had witnessed his disgrace, and, penniless, empty-handed, dowered only with shame, he would prove his manhood by winning a position that would compel respect and more than respect.

Mrs. Arnot, who returned immediately to the prison, was puzzled to know how to deal with him. She approved of his resolution to remain in Hillaton, and of his purpose to regain respect and position on the very spot, as it were, where, by his crime and folly, he had lost both. She was satisfied that such a course promised far better for the future than a return to his mother's luxurious home. With all its beauty and comfort it would become to him almost inevitably a slough, both of "despond" and of dissipation—dissipation of the worst and most hopeless kind, wherein the victim's ruling motive is to get rid of self. The fact that the young man was capable of turning upon and facing a scornful and hostile world was a good and hopeful sign. If he had been willing to slink away with his mother, bent only on escape from punishment and on the continuance of animal enjoyment, Mrs. Arnot would have felt that his nature was not sufficiently leavened with manhood to give hope of reform.

But while his action did suggest hope, it also contained elements of discouragement. She did not find fault with what he proposed to do, but with the spirit in which he was entering on his most difficult task. His knowledge of the world was so crude and partial that he did not at all realize the herculean labor that he now became eager to attempt; and he was bent on accomplishing everything in a way that would minister to his own pride, and proposed to be under obligations to no one.

Mrs. Arnot, with her deep and long experience, knew how vitally important it is that human endeavor should be supplemented by divine aid, and she sighed deeply as she saw that the young man not only ignored this need, but did not even seem conscious of it. Religion was to him a matter of form and profession, to which he was utterly indifferent. The truth that God helps the distressed as a father helps and comforts his child, was a thought that then made no impression on him whatever. God and all relating to him were abstractions, and he felt that the emergency was too pressing, too imperative, for considerations that had no practical and immediate bearing upon his present success.

Indeed, such was his pride and self-confidence, that he refused to receive from Mrs. Arnot, and even from his mother, anything more than the privilege of going out empty-handed into the city which was to become the arena of his future exploits.

He told Mrs. Arnot the whole story, and she had hoped that she could place his folly and crime before him in its true moral aspects, and by dealing faithfully, yet kindly, with him, awaken his conscience. But she had the tact to discover very soon that such effort was now worse than useless. It was not his conscience, but his pride, that had been chiefly wounded. He felt his disgrace, his humiliation, in the eyes of men almost too keenly, and he was consumed with desire to regain society's favor. But he did not feel his sin. To God's opinion of him he scarcely gave a thought. He regarded his wrong act in the light of a sudden and grave misfortune rather than as the manifestation of a foul and inherent disease of his soul. He had lost his good name as a man loses his property, and believed that he, in his own strength, and without any moral change, could regain it.

When parting at the prison, Mrs. Arnot gave him her hand, and said:

"I trust that your hopes may be realized, and your efforts meet with success; but I cannot help warning you that I fear you do not realize what you are attempting. The world is not only very cold, but also suspicious and wary in its disposition toward those who have forfeited its confidence. I cannot learn that you have any definite plans or prospects. I have never been able to accomplish much without God's help. You not only seem to forget your need of Him, but you are not even willing to receive aid from me or your own mother. I honor and respect you for making the attempt upon which you are bent, but I fear that pride rather than wisdom is your counsellor in carrying out your resolution; and both God's word and human experience prove that pride goes but a little way before a fall."

"I have reached a depth," replied Haldane, bitterly, "from whence I cannot fall; and it will be hereafter some consolation to remember that I was not lifted out of the mire, but that I got out. If I cannot climb up again it were better I perished in the gutter of my shame."

"I am sorry, Egbert, that you cut yourself off from the most hopeful and helpful relations which you can ever sustain. A father helps his children through their troubles, and so God is desirous of helping us. There are some things which we cannot do alone—it is not meant that we should. God is ever willing to help those who are down, and Christians are not worthy of the name unless they are also willing. It is our duty to make every effort of which we ourselves are capable; but this is only half our duty. Since our tasks are beyond our strength and ability, we are equally bound to receive such human aid as God sends us, and, chief of all, to ask daily, and sometimes hourly, that His strength be made perfect in our weakness. But there are some lessons which are only learned by experience. I shall feel deeply grieved if you do not come or send for me in any emergency or time of special need. In parting, I have one favor to ask, and I think I have a right to ask it. I wish you to go and see your mother, and spend at least an hour with her before she returns home. As a matter of manly duty, be kind and gentle. Remember how deeply you have wounded her, and that you are under the most sacred obligations to endure patiently all reproaches and expressions of grief. If you will do this you will do much to regain my respect, and it will be a most excellent step toward a better life. You can gain society's respect again only by doing your duty, and nothing can be duty more plainly than this."

After a moment's hesitation he said, "I do not think an interview with mother now will do either of us any good; but, as you say, you have a right to ask this, and much more, of me. I will go to her hotel and do the best I can; but somehow mother don't understand human nature—or, at least, my nature—and when I have been doing wrong she always makes me feel like doing worse."

"If you are to succeed in your endeavor you are not to act as you feel. You are to do right. Remember that in your effort to win the position you wish in this city, you start with at least one friend to whom you can always come. Good-by," and Mrs. Arnot returned home weary and sad from the day's unforeseen experiences.

In answer to Laura's eager questioning, she related what had happened quite fully, veiling only that which a delicate regard for others would lead her to pass in silence. She made the young girl womanly by treating her more as a woman and a companion than as a child. In Mrs. Arnot's estimation her niece had reached an age when her innocence and simplicity could not be maintained by efforts to keep her shallow and ignorant, but by revealing to her life in its reality, so that she might wisely and gladly choose the good from its happy contrast with evil and its inevitable suffering.

The innocence that walks blindly on amid earth's snares and pitfalls is an uncertain possession; the innocence that recognizes evil, but turns from it with dread and aversion, is priceless.

Mrs. Arnot told Laura the story of the young man's folly substantially as he had related it to her, but she skilfully showed how one comparatively venial thing had led to another, until an act had been committed which might have resulted in years of imprisonment.

"Let this sad and miserable affair teach you," said she, "that we are never safe when we commence to do wrong or act foolishly. We can never tell to what disastrous lengths we may go when we leave the path of simple duty."

While she mentioned Haldane's resolution to regain, if possible, his good name and position, she skilfully removed from the maiden's mind all romantic notions concerning the young man and her relation to his conduct.

Laura's romantic nature would always be a source both of strength and weakness. While, on the one hand, it rendered her incapable of a sordid and calculating scheme of life, on the other, it might lead to feeling and action prejudicial to her happiness. Mrs. Arnot did not intend that she should brood over Haldane until her vivid imagination should weave a net out of his misfortunes which might insnare her heart. It was best for Laura that she should receive her explanations of life in very plain prose, and the picture that her aunt presented of Haldane and his prospects was prosaic indeed. He was shown to be but an ordinary young man, with more than ordinarily bad tendencies. While she commended his effort in itself, she plainly stated how wanting it was in the true elements of success, and how great were her fears that it would meet with utter failure. Thus the affair ended, as far as Laura was concerned, in a sincere pity for her premature lover, and a mild and natural interest in his future welfare—but nothing more.

Mr. Arnot uttered an imprecation on learning that his wife had gone security for Haldane. But when he found that she had acted through Mr. Melville, in such a way that the fact need not become known, he concluded to remain silent concerning the matter. He and his wife met at the dinner-table that evening as if nothing unusual had occurred, both having concluded to ignore all that had transpired, if possible. Mrs. Arnot saw that her husband had only acted characteristically, and, from his point of view, correctly. Perhaps his recent experience would prevent him from being unduly harsh again should there ever be similar cause, which was quite improbable. Since it appeared that she could minister to his happiness in no other way save through her property, she decided to leave him the one meagre gratification of which he was capable.

The future in its general aspects may here be anticipated by briefly stating that the echoes of the affair gradually died away. Mr. Arnot, on the receipt of a check for one thousand dollars from Mrs. Haldane's lawyer, was glad to procure Mr. Melville's release from the bond for which his wife was pledged, by assuring the legal authorities that he would not prosecute. The superior young man, who made free drinks the ambition of his life, had kept himself well informed, and on learning of the order for his arrest left town temporarily for parts unknown. The papers made the most of the sensation, to the disgust of all concerned, but reference to the affair soon dwindled down to an occasional paragraph. The city press concluded editorially that the great manufacturer had been harsh only seemingly, for the sake of effect, and with the understanding that his wife would show a little balancing kindness to the culprit and his aristocratic mother. That Haldane should still remain in the city was explained on the ground that he was ashamed to go home, or that he was not wanted there.



CHAPTER XVII

AT ODDS WITH THE WORLD

Haldane kept his promise to spend an hour with his mother. While he told her the truth concerning his folly, he naturally tried to place his action in the best light possible. After inducing her to take some slight refreshment, he obtained a close carriage, and saw her safely on the train which would convey her to the city wherein she resided. During the interview she grew much more composed, and quite remorseful that she had not shown greater consideration for her son's feelings, and she urged and even entreated him to return home with her. He remained firm, however, in his resolution, and would receive from her only a very small sum of money, barely enough to sustain him until he could look around for employment.

His mother shared Mrs. Arnot's distrust, greatly doubting the issue of his large hopes and vague plans; but she could only assure him that her home, to which she returned crushed and disconsolate, was also his.

But he felt that return was impossible. He would rather wander to the ends of the earth than shut himself up with his mother and sisters, for he foresaw that their daily moans and repinings would be daily torture. It would be even worse to appear among his old acquaintances and companions, and be taunted with the fact that his first venture from home ended in a common jail. The plan of drifting away to parts unknown, and of partially losing his identity by changing his name, made a cold, dreary impression upon him, like the thought of annihilation, and thus his purpose of remaining in Hillaton, and winning victory on the very ground of his defeat, grew more satisfactory.

But he soon began to learn how serious, how disheartening, is the condition of one who finds society arrayed against him.

It is the fashion to inveigh against the "cold and pitiless world"; but the world has often much excuse for maintaining this character. As society is now constituted, the consequences of wrong-doing are usually terrible and greatly to be dreaded; and all who have unhealthful cravings for forbidden things should be made to realize this. Society very naturally treats harshly those who permit their pleasures and passions to endanger its very existence. People who have toilsomely and patiently erected their homes and placed therein their treasures do not tolerate with much equanimity those who appear to have no other calling than that of recklessly playing with fire. The well-to-do, conservative world has no inclination to make things pleasant for those who propose to gratify themselves at any and every cost; and if the culprit pleads, "I did not realize—I meant no great harm," the retort comes back, "But you do the harm; you endanger everything. If you have not sense or principle enough to act wisely and well, do not expect us to risk our fortunes with either fools or knaves." And the man or the woman who has preferred pleasure or passing gratification or transient advantage to that priceless possession, a good name, has little ground for complaint. If society readily condoned those grave offences which threaten chaos, thousands who are now restrained by salutary fear would act out disastrously the evil lurking in their hearts. As long as the instinct of self-preservation remains, the world will seem cold and pitiless.

But it often is so to a degree that cannot be too severely condemned. The world is the most soulless of all corporations. In dealing with the criminal or unfortunate classes it generalizes to such an extent that exceptional cases have little chance of a special hearing. If by any means, however, such a hearing can be obtained, the world is usually just, and often quite generous. But in the main it says to all: "Keep your proper places in the ranks. If you fall out, we must leave you behind; if you make trouble, we must abate you as a nuisance." This certainty has the effect of keeping many in their places who otherwise would drop out and make trouble, and is, so far, wholesome. And yet, in spite of this warning truth, the wayside of life is lined with those who, for some reason, have become disabled and have fallen out of their places; and miserably would many of them perish did not the Spirit of Him who came "to seek and save the lost" animate true followers like Mrs. Arnot, leading them likewise to go out after the lame, the wounded, and the morally leprous.

Haldane was sorely wounded, but he chose to make his appeal wholly to the world. Ignoring Heaven, and those on earth representing Heaven's forgiving and saving mercy, he went out alone, in the spirit of pride and self-confidence, to deal with those who would meet him solely on the ground of self-interest. How this law works against such as have shown themselves unworthy of trust, he at once began to receive abundant proof.

He returned to the hotel whence he had just taken his mother, but the proprietor declined to give him lodgings. It was a house that cherished its character for quietness and eminent respectability, and a young gambler and embezzler just out of prison would prove an ill-omened guest. On receiving a cold and peremptory refusal to his application, and in the presence of several others, Haldane stalked haughtily away; but there was misgiving and faintness at his heart. Such a public rebuff was a new and strange experience.

With set teeth and lips compressed he next resolved to go to the very hotel where he had committed his crime, and from that starting-point fight his way up. He found the public room more than usually well filled with loungers, and could not help discovering, as he entered, that he was the subject of their loud and unsavory conversation. The "Evening Spy" had just been read, and all were very busy discussing the scandal. As the knowledge of his presence and identity was speedily conveyed to one and another in loud whispers, the noisy tongues ceased, and the young man found himself the centre of an embarrassing amount of observation. But he endeavored to give the idlers a defiant and careless glance as he walked up to the proprietor and asked for a room.

"No, sir!" replied that virtuous individual, with sharp emphasis; "you have had a room of me once too often. It's not my way to have gamblers, bloats, and jail-birds hanging around my place—'not if the court knows herself; and she thinks she does.' You've done all you could to give my respectable, first-class house the name of a low gambling hell. The evening paper even hints that someone connected with the house had a hand in your being plucked. You've damaged me hundreds of dollars, and if you ever show your face within my doors again I'll have you arrested."

Haldane was stung to the quick, and retorted vengefully:

"Perhaps the paper is right. I was introduced to the blacklegs in your bar-room, and by a scamp who was a habitual lounger here. They got their cards of you, and, having made me drunk, and robbed me in one of your rooms, they had no trouble in getting away."

"Do you make any such charge against me?" bellowed the landlord, starting savagely forward.

"I say, as the paper says, perhaps," replied Haldane, standing his ground, but quivering with rage. "I shall give you no ground for a libel suit; but if you will come out in the street you shall have all the satisfaction you want; and if you lay the weight of your finger on me here. I'll damage you worse than I did last night."

"How dare you come here to insult me?" said the landlord, but keeping now at a safe distance from the incensed youth. "Some one, go for a policeman, for the fellow is out of jail years too soon."

"I did not come here to insult you, I came, as every one has a right to come, to ask for a room, for which I meant to pay your price, and you insulted me."

"Well, you can't have a room."

"If you had quietly said that and no more in the first place, there would have been no trouble. But I want you and every one else to understand that I won't be struck, if I am down;" and he turned on his heel and strode out of the house, followed by a volley of curses from the enraged landlord and the bartender, who had smirked so agreeably the evening before.

A distorted account of this scene—published in the "Courier" the following day, in connection with a detailed account of the whole miserable affair—added considerably to the ill repute that already burdened Haldane; for it was intimated that he was as ready for a street brawl as for any other species of lawlessness.

The "Courier," having had the nose of its representative demolished by Haldane, was naturally prejudiced against him; and, influenced by its darkly-colored narrative, the citizens shook their heads over the young man, and concluded that he was a dangerous character, who had become unnaturally and precociously depraved; and there was quite a general hope that Mr. Arnot would not fail to prosecute, so that the town might be rid of one who promised to continue a source of trouble.

The "Spy" a rival paper, showed a tendency to dwell on the extenuating circumstances. But it is so much easier for a community to believe evil rather than good of a person, that mere excuses and apologies, and the suggestion that the youth had been victimized, had little weight. Besides, the world shows a tendency to detest weak fools even more than knaves.

After his last bitter experience Haldane felt unwilling to venture to another hotel, and he endeavored to find a quiet boarding-place; but as soon as he mentioned his name, the keepers, male and female, suddenly discovered that they had no rooms. Night was near, and his courage was beginning to fail him, when he at last found a thrifty gentlewoman who gave far more attention to her housewifely cares than to the current news. She readily received the well-dressed stranger, and showed him to his room. Haldane did not hide his name from her, for he resolved to spend the night in the street before dropping a name which now seemed to turn people from him as if contagion lurked in it, and he was relieved to find that, as yet, it had to her no disgraceful associations. He was bent on securing one good night's rest, and so excused himself from going down to supper, lest he should meet some one that knew him. After nightfall he slipped out to an obscure restaurant for his supper.

His precaution, however, was vain, for on his return to his room he encountered in a hallway one of the loungers who had witnessed the recent scene at the hotel. After a second's stare the man passed on down to the shabby-genteel parlor, and soon whist, novels, and papers were dropped, as the immaculate little community learned of the contaminating presence beneath the same roof with themselves.

"A man just out of prison! A man merely released on bail, and who would certainly be convicted and tried!"

With a virtue which might have put "Caesar's wife" to the blush, sere and withered gentlewomen pursed up their mouths, and declared that they could not sleep in the same house with such a disreputable person. The thrifty landlady, whose principle of success was the concentration of all her faculties on the task of satisfying the digestive organs of her patrons, found herself for once at fault, and she was quite surprised to learn what a high-toned class of people she was entertaining.

But, then, "business is business." Poor Haldane was but one uncertain lodger, and here were a dozen or more "regulars" arrayed against him. The sagacious woman was not long in climbing to the door of the obnoxious guest, and her very knock said, "What are you doing here?"

Haldane's first thought was, "She is a woman; she will not have the heart to turn me away." He had become so weary and disheartened that his pride was failing him, and he was ready to plead for the chance of a little rest. Therefore he opened the door, and invited the landlady to enter in the most conciliating manner. But no such poor chaff would be of any avail with one of Mrs. Gruppins' experience, and looking straight before her, as if addressing no one in particular, she said sententiously:

"I wish this room vacated within a half-hour."

"If you have the heart of a woman you will not send me out this rainy night. I am weary and sick in body and mind. I wouldn't turn a dog out in the night and storm."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir," said Mrs. Gruppins, turning on him indignantly; "to think that you should take advantage of a poor and defenceless widow, and me so inexperienced and ignorant of the wicked world."

"I did not take advantage of your ignorance: I told you who I was, and am able to pay for the room. In the morning I will leave your house, if you have so much objection to my remaining."

"Why shouldn't I object? I never had such as you here before. All my boarders"—she added in a louder tone, for the benefit of those who were listening at the foot of the stairs—"all my boarders are peculiarly respectable people, and I would not have them scandalized by your presence here another minute if I could help it."

"How much do I owe you?" asked Haldane, in a tone that was harsh from its suppressed emotion.

"I don't want any of your money—I don't want anything to do with people who are lodged at the expense of the State. If you took money last night, there is no telling what you will take to-night."

Haldane snatched his hat and rushed from the house, overwhelmed with a deeper and more terrible sense of shame and degradation than he had ever imagined possible. He had become a pariah, and in bitterness of heart was realizing the truth.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE WORLD'S VERDICT—OUR KNIGHT A CRIMINAL

A few moments before his interview with the thrifty and respectable Mrs. Gruppins, Haldane had supposed himself too weary to drag one foot after the other in search of another resting-place; and therefore his eager hope that that obdurate female might not be gifted with the same quality of "in'ards" which Pat M'Cabe ascribed to Mr. Arnot. He had, indeed, nearly reached the limit of endurance, for had he been in his best and most vigorous condition, a day which taxed so terribly both body and mind would have drained his vitality to the point of exhaustion. As it was, the previous night's debauch told against him like a term of illness. He had since taken food insufficiently and irregularly, and was, therefore, in no condition to meet the extraordinary demands of the ordeal through which he was passing. Mental distress, moreover, is far more wearing than physical effort, and his anguish of mind had risen several times during the day almost to frenzy.

In spite of all this, the sharp and pitiless tongue of Mrs. Gruppins goaded him again to the verge of desperation, and he strode rapidly and aimlessly away, through the night and storm, with a wilder tempest raging in his breast. But the gust of feeling died away as suddenly as it had arisen, and left him ill and faint. A telegraph pole was near, and he leaned against it for support.

"Move on," growled a passing policeman.

"Will you do me a kindness?" asked Haldane; "I am poor and sick—a stranger. Tell me where I can hire a bed for a small sum."

The policeman directed him down a side street, saying, "You can get a bed at No. 13, and no questions asked."

There was unspeakable comfort in the last assurance, for it now seemed that he could hope to find a refuge only in places where "no questions were asked."

With difficulty the weary youth reached the house, and by paying a small extra sum was able to obtain a wretched little room to himself; but never did storm-tossed and endangered sailors enter a harbor's quiet waters with a greater sense of relief than did Haldane as he crept up into this squalid nook, which would at least give him a little respite from the world's terrible scorn.

What a priceless gift for the unhappy, the unfortunate—yes, and for the guilty—is sleep! Many seem to think of the body only as a clog, impeding mental action—as a weight, chaining the spirit down. Were the mind, in its activity, independent of the body—were the wounded spirit unable to forget its pain—could the guilty conscience sting incessantly—then the chief human industry would come to be the erection of asylums for the insane. But by an unfathomable mystery the tireless regal spirit has been blended with the flesh and blood of its servant, the body. In heaven, where there is neither sin nor pain, even the body becomes spiritual; but on earth, where it so often happens, as in the case of poor Haldane, that to think and to remember is torture, it is a blessed thing that the body, formed from the earth, often becomes heavy as earth, and rests upon the spirit for a few hours at least, like the clods with which we fill the grave.

The morning of the following day was quite well advanced when Haldane awoke from his long oblivion, and, after regaining consciousness, he lay a full hour longer trying to realize his situation, and to think of some plan by which he might best recover his lost position. As he recalled all that had occurred he began to understand the extreme difficulty of his task, and he even queried whether it were possible for him to succeed. If the respectable would not even give him shelter, how could he hope that they would employ and trust him?

After he had partaken of quite a hearty breakfast, however, his fortunes began to wear a less forbidding aspect. Endowed with youth, health, and, as he believed, with more than usual ability, he felt that there was scarcely occasion for despair. Some one would employ him—some one would give him another chance. He would take any respectable work that would give him a foothold, and by some vague, fortunate means, which the imagination of the young always supplies, he would achieve success that would obliterate the memory of the past. Therefore, with flashes of hope in his heart, he started out to seek his fortune, and commenced applying at the various stores and offices of the city.

So far from giving any encouragement, people were much surprised that he had the assurance to ask to be employed and trusted again. The majority dismissed him coldly and curtly. A few mongrel natures, true to themselves, gave a snarling refusal. Then there were jovial spirits who must have their jest, even though the sensitive subject of it was tortured thereby—men who enjoyed quizzing Haldane before sending him on, as much as the old inquisitors relished a little recreation with hot pincers and thumb-screws. There were also conscientious people, whose worldly prudence prevented them from giving employment to one so damaged in character, and yet who felt constrained to give some good advice. To this, it must be confessed, Haldane listened with very poor grace, thus extending the impression that he was a rather hopeless subject.

"Good God!" he exclaimed, interrupting an old gentleman who was indulging in some platitudes to the effect that the "way of the transgressor is hard"—"I would rather black your boots than listen to such talk. What I want is work—a chance to live honestly. What's the use of telling a fellow not to go to the devil, and then practically send him to the devil?"

The old gentleman was somewhat shocked and offended, and coldly intimated that he had no need of the young man's services.

A few spoke kindly and seemed truly sorry for him, but they either had no employment to give, or, on business principles, felt that they could not introduce among their other assistants one under bonds to appear and be tried for a State-prison offence that was already the same as proved.

After receiving rebuffs, and often what he regarded as insults, for hours, the young man's hope began to fail him utterly. His face grew pale and haggard, not only from fatigue, but from that which tells disastrously almost as soon upon the body as upon the mind—discouragement. He saw that he had not yet fully realized the consequences of his folly. The deep and seemingly implacable resentment of society was a continued surprise. He was not conscious of being a monster of wickedness, and it seemed to him that after his bitter experience he would rather starve than again touch what was not his own.

But the trouble is, the world does not give us much credit for what we think, feel, and imagine, even if aware of our thoughts. It is what we do that forms public opinion; and it was both natural and just that the public should have a very decided opinion of one who had recently shown himself capable of gambling, drunkenness, and practical theft.

And yet the probabilities were that if some kind, just man had bestowed upon Haldane both employment and trust, with a chance to rise, his bitter lesson would have made him scrupulously careful to shun his peculiar temptations from that time forward. But the world usually regards one who has committed a crime as a criminal, and treats him as such. It cannot, if it would, nicely calculate the hidden moral state and future chances. It acts on sound generalities, regardless of the exceptions; and thus it often happens that men and women who at first can scarcely understand the world's adverse opinion, are disheartened by it, and at last come to merit the worst that can be said or thought.

As, at the time of his first arrest, Haldane had found his eyes drawn by a strange, cruel fascination to every scornful or curious face upon the street, so now he began to feel a morbid desire to know just what people were saying and thinking of him. He purchased both that day's papers and those of the previous day, and, finding a little out-of-the-way restaurant kept by a foreigner, he "supped full with"—what were to him emphatically—"horrors"; the dinner and supper combined, which he had ordered, growing cold, in the meantime, and as uninviting as the place in which it was served.

His eyes dwelt longest upon those sentences which were the most unmercifully severe, and they seemed to burn their way into his very soul. Was he in truth such a miscreant as the "Courier" described? Mrs. Arnot had not shrunk from him as from contamination; but she was different from all other people that he had known; and he now remembered, also, that even she always referred to his act in a grave, troubled way, as if both its character and consequences were serious indeed.

There was such a cold, leaden despondency burdening his heart that he felt that he must have relief of some kind. Although remembering his rash invocation of fatal consequences to himself should he touch again that which had brought him so much evil, he now, with a reckless oath, muttered that he "needed some liquor, and would have it."

Having finished a repast from which he would have turned in disgust before his fortunes had so greatly altered, and having gained a little temporary courage from the more than doubtful brandy served in such a place, he obtained permission to sit by the fire and smoke away the blustering evening, for he felt no disposition to face the world again that day. The German proprietor and his beer-drinking patrons paid no attention to the stranger, and as he sat off on one side by himself at a table, with a mug of lager before him, he was practically as much alone, and as lonely, as if in a desert.

In a dull, vague way it occurred to him that it was very fitting that those present should speak in a foreign and unknown tongue, and act and look differently from all classes of people formerly known to him. He was in a different world, and it was appropriate that everything should appear strange and unfamiliar.

Finding that he could have a room in this same little, dingy restaurant-hotel, where he had obtained his supper, he resolved that he would torture himself no more that night with thoughts of the past or future, but slowly stupefy himself into sleep.



CHAPTER XIX

THE WORLD'S BEST OFFER—A PRISON

After a walk in the sweet April sunshine the following morning, a hearty breakfast, and a general rallying of the elastic forces of youth, Haldane felt that he had not yet reached the "brink of dark despair."

Indeed, he had an odd sense of pride that he had survived the ordeal of the last two days, and still felt as well as he did. Although it was but an Arab's life, in which every man's hand seemed against him, yet he still lived, and concluded that he could continue to live indefinitely.

He did not go out again, as on the previous day, to seek employment, but sat down and tried to think his way into the future somewhat.

The first question that presented itself was, Should he in any contingency return home to his mother?

He was not long in deciding adversely, for it seemed to him to involve such a bitter mortification that he felt he would rather starve.

Should he send to her for money?

That would be scarcely less humiliating, for it was equivalent to a confession that he could not even take care of himself, much less achieve all the brave things he had intimated. He was still more averse to going to Mrs. Arnot for what would seem charity to her husband and to every one else who might hear of it. The probability, also, that Laura would learn of such an appeal for aid made him scout the very thought.

Should he go away among strangers, change his name, and commence life anew, unburdened by the weight which now dragged him down?

The thought of cutting himself off utterly from all whom he knew, or who cared for him, caused a cold, shivering sense of dread. It would, also, be a confession of defeat, an acknowledgment that he could not accomplish what he had promised to himself and to others. He had, moreover, sufficient forethought to perceive that any success which he might achieve elsewhere, and under another name, would be such a slight and baseless fabric that a breath from one who now knew him could overturn it. He might lead an honorable life for years, and yet no one would believe him honorable after discovering that he was living under an alias and concealing a crime. If he could build himself up in Hillaton he would be founded on the rock of truth, and need fear no disastrous reverses from causes against which he could not guard.

Few can be more miserable than those who hold their fortunes and good name on sufferance—safe only in the power and disposition of others to keep some wretched secret; and he is but little better off who fears that every stranger arriving in town may recognize in his face the features of one that, years before, by reason of some disgraceful act, fled from himself and all who knew him. The more Haldane thought upon the scheme of losing his identity, and of becoming that vague, and, as yet, unnamed stranger, who after years of exile would still be himself, though to the world not himself, the less attractive it became.

He finally concluded that, as he had resolved to remain in Hillaton, he would keep his resolution, and that, as he had plainly stated his purpose to lift himself up by his own unaided efforts, he would do so if it were possible; and if it were not, he would live the life of a laborer—a tramp, even—rather than "skulk back," as he expressed it, to those who were once kindred and companions.

"If I cannot walk erect to their front doors, I will never crawl around to the back entrances. If I ever must take to keep from starving, it will be from strangers. I shall never inflict myself as a dead weight and a painfully tolerated infamy on any one. I was able to get myself into this disgusting slough, and if I haven't brains and pluck enough to get myself out, I will remain at this, my level, to which I have fallen."

Thus pride still counselled and controlled, and yet it was a kind of pride that inspires something like respect. It proved that there was much good metal in the crude, misshapen ore of his nature.

But the necessity of doing something was urgent, for the sum he had been willing to receive from his mother was small, and rapidly diminishing.

Among the possible activities in which he might engage, that of writing for papers and magazines occurred to him, and the thought at once caught and fired his imagination. The mysteries of the literary world were the least known to him, and therefore it offered the greatest amount of vague promise and indefinite hope. Here a path might open to both fame and fortune. The more he dwelt on the possibility the more it seemed to take the aspect of probability. Under the signature of E. H. he would write thrilling tales, until the public insisted upon knowing the great unknown. Then he could reverse present experience by scorning those who had scorned him. He recalled all that he had ever read about genius toiling in its attic until the world was compelled to recognize and do homage to the regal mind. He would remain in seclusion also; he would burn midnight oil until he should come to be known as Haldane the brilliant writer instead of Haldane the gambler, drunkard, and thief.

All on fire with his new project, he sallied forth to the nearest news-stand, and selected two or three papers and magazines, whose previous interest to him and known popularity suggested that they were the best mediums in which he could rise upon the public as a literary star, all the more attractive because unnamed and unknown.

His next proceeding indicated a commendable amount of shrewdness, and proved that his roseate visions resulted more from ignorance and inexperience than from innate foolishness. He carefully read the periodicals he had bought, in the hope of obtaining hints and suggestions from their contents which would aid him in producing acceptable manuscripts. Some of the sketches and stories appeared very simple, the style flowing along as smoothly and limpidly as a summer brook through the meadows. He did not see why he could not write in a similar vein, perhaps more excitingly and interestingly. In his partial and neglected course of study he had not given much attention to belles-lettres, and was not aware that the simplicity and lucid purity of thought which made certain pages so easily read were produced by the best trained and most cultured talent existing among the regular contributors.

He spent the evening and the greater part of a sleepless night in constructing a crude plot of a story, and, having procured writing materials, hastened through an early breakfast, the following morning, in his eagerness to enter on what now seemed a shining path to fame.

He sat down and dipped his pen in ink. The blank, white page was before him, awaiting his brilliant and burning thoughts; but for some reason they did not and would not come. This puzzled him. He could dash off a letter, and write with ease a plain business statement. Why could he not commence and go on with his story?

"How do those other fellows commence?" he mentally queried, and he again carefully read and examined the opening paragraphs of two or three tales that had pleased him. They seemed to commence and go forward very easily and naturally. Why could not he do the same?

To his dismay he found that he could not. He might as well have sat down and hoped to have deftly and skilfully constructed a watch as to have imitated the style of the stories that most interested him, for he had never formed even the power, much less the habit, of composition.

After a few labored and inconsequential sentences, which seemed like crude ore instead of the molten, burning metal of thought left to cool in graceful molds, he threw aside his pen in despair.

After staring despondently for a time at the blank page, which now promised to remain as blank as the future then seemed, the fact suddenly occurred to him that even genius often spurred its flagging or dormant powers by stimulants. Surely, then, he, in his pressing emergency, had a right to avail himself of this aid. A little brandy might awaken his imagination, which would then kindle with his theme.

At any rate, he had no objection to the brandy, and with this inspiration he again resumed his pen. He was soon astonished and delighted with the result, for he found himself writing with ease and fluency. His thoughts seemed to become vivid and powerful, and his story grew rapidly. As body and mind flagged, the potent genii in the black bottle again lifted and soared on with him until the marvellous tale was completed.

He decided to correct the manuscript on the following day, and was so complacent and hopeful over his performance that he scarcely noted that he was beginning to feel wretchedly from the inevitable reaction. The next day, with dull and aching head he tried to read what he had written, but found it dreary and disappointing work. His sentences and paragraphs appeared like clouds from which the light had faded; but he explained this fact to himself on the ground of his depressed physical state, and he went through his task with dogged persistence.

He felt better on the following day, and with the aid of the bottle he resolved to give his inventive genius another flight. On this occasion he would attempt a longer story—one that would occupy him several days—and he again stimulated himself up to a condition in which he found at least no lack of words. When he attained what he supposed was his best mood, he read over again the work of the preceding day, and was delighted to find that it now glowed with prismatic hues. In his complacence he at once despatched it to the paper for which it was designed.

Three or four days of alternate work and brooding passed, and if various and peculiar moods prove the possession of genius, Haldane certainly might claim it. Between his sense of misfortune and disgrace, and the fact that his funds were becoming low, on one hand, and his towering hopes and shivering fears concerning his literary ventures, on the other, he was emphatically in what is termed "a state of mind" continuously. These causes alone were sufficient to make mental serenity impossible; but the after-effects of the decoction from which he obtained his inspiration were even worse, and after a week's work the thought occurred to him more than once that if he pursued a literary life, either his genius or that which he imbibed as its spur would consume him utterly.

By the time the first two stories were finished he found that it would be necessary to supplement the labors of his pen. He would have to wait at least a few days before he could hope for any returns, even though he had urged in his accompanying notes prompt acceptance and remittance for their value.

He went to the office of the "Evening Spy," the paper which had shown some lenience toward him, and offered his services as writer, or reporter; and, although taught by harsh experience not to hope for very much, he was a little surprised at the peremptory manner in which his services were declined. His face seemed to ask an explanation, and the editor said briefly:

"We did not bear down very hard on you—it's not our custom; but both inclination and necessity lead us to require that every one and everything connected with this paper should be eminently respectable and deserving of respect. Good-morning, sir."

Haldane's pre-eminence consisted only in his lack of respectability; and after the brave visions of the past week, based on his literary toil, this cool, sharp-cut statement of society's opinion quenched about all hope of ever rising by first gaining recognition and employment among those whose position was similar to what his own had been. As he plodded his way back to the miserable little foreign restaurant, his mind began to dwell on this question:

"Is there any place in the world for one who has committed a crime, save a prison?"



CHAPTER XX

MAIDEN AND WOOD-SAWYER

Before utterly abandoning all hope of finding employment that should in some small degree preserve an air of respectability, Haldane resolved to give up one more day to the search, and on the following morning he started out and walked until nightfall. He even offered to take the humblest positions that would insure him a support and some recognition; but the record of his action while in Mr. Arnot's employ followed him everywhere, creating sufficient prejudice in every case to lead to a refusal of his application. Some said "No" reluctantly and hesitatingly, as if kindly feelings within took the young man's part; but they said it, nevertheless.

For the patient resolution with which he continued to apply to all kinds of people and places, hour after hour, in spite of such disheartening treatment, he deserved much praise; but he did not receive any; and at last, weary and despondent, he returned to his miserable lodgings. He was so desperately depressed in body and mind that the contents of the black bottle seemed his only resource.

Such a small sum now remained that he felt that something must be done instantly. He concluded that his only course now was to go out and pick up any odd bits of work that he could find. He hoped that by working half the time he might make enough to pay for his board at his present cheap lodging-place. This would leave him time to continue his writing, and in the course of a week more he would certainly hear from the manuscripts already forwarded. On these he now built nearly all his hope. If they were well received and paid for, he considered his fortunes substantially restored, and fame almost a certainty in the future. If he could only produce a few more manuscripts, and bridge over the intervening time until he could hear from them, he felt that his chief difficulties would be past.

Having decided to do a laborer's work, he at once resolved to exchange his elegant broadcloth for a laborer's suit, and he managed this transfer so shrewdly that he obtained quite a little sum of money in addition.

It was well that he did replenish his finances somewhat, for his apparently phlegmatic landlord was as wary as a veteran mouser in looking after his small interests. He had just obtained an inkling as to Haldane's identity, and, while he was not at all chary concerning the social and moral standing of his few uncertain lodgers, he proposed henceforth that all transactions with the suspicious stranger should be on a strictly cash basis.

It was the busy spring-time, and labor was in great demand. Haldane wandered off to the suburbs, and, as an ordinary laborer, offered his services in cleaning up yards, cutting wood, or forking over a space of garden ground. His stalwart form and prepossessing appearance generally secured him a favorable answer, but before he was through with his task he often received a sound scolding for his unskilful and bungling style of work. But he in part made up by main strength what he lacked in skill, and after two or three days he acquired considerable deftness in his unwonted labors, and felt the better for them. They counteracted the effects of his literary efforts, or, more correctly, his means of inspiration in them.

Thus another week passed, of which he gave three days to the production of two or three more brief manuscripts, and during the following week he felt sure that he would hear from those first sent.

He wrote throughout the hours of daylight on Sunday, scarcely leaving his chair, and drank more deeply than usual. In consequence, he felt wretchedly on Monday, and, therefore, strolled off to look for some employment that would not tax his aching head. Hitherto he had avoided all localities where he would be apt to meet those who knew him; and by reason of his brief residence in town there were comparatively few who were familiar with his features. He now recalled the fact that he had often seen from his window, while an inmate of Mrs. Arnot's home, quite a collection of cottages across a small ravine that ran a little back of that lady's residence. He might find some work among them, and he yielded to the impulse to look again upon the place where such rich and abundant happiness had once seemed within his grasp.

For several days he had been conscious of a growing desire to hear from his mother and Mrs. Arnot, and often found himself wondering how they regarded his mysterious disappearance, or whether reports of his vain inquiry for work had reached them.

With a pride and resolution that grew obstinate with time and failure, he resolved that he would not communicate with them until he had something favorable to tell; and he hoped, and almost believed, that before many days passed, he could address to them a literary weekly paper in which they would find, in prominent position, the underscored initials of E. H. Until he could be preceded by the first flashes of fame he would remain in obscurity. He would not even let Mrs. Arnot know where he was hiding, so that she might send to him his personal effects left at her house. Indeed, he had no place for them now, and was, besides, more morbidly bent than ever on making good the proud words he had spoken. If, in the face of such tremendous odds he could, alone and unaided, with nothing but his hands and brain, win again all and more than he had lost, he could compel the respect and admiration of those who had witnessed his downfall and consequent victorious struggle.

Was the girl who had inspired his sudden, and, as he had supposed, "undying" passion, forgotten during these trying days? Yes, to a great extent. His self-love was greater than his love for Laura Romeyn. He craved intensely to prove that he was no longer a proper object of her scorn. She had rejected him as a slave to "disgusting vices," and such he had apparently shown himself to be; but now he would have been willing to have dipped his pen in his own blood, and have written away his life, if thereby he could have filled her with admiration and regret. Although he scarcely acknowledged it to himself, perhaps the subtlest and strongest impulse to his present course was the hope of teaching her that he was not what she now regarded him. But he was not at that time capable of a strong, true affection for any one, and thoughts of the pretty maiden wounded his pride more than his heart.

After arriving at the further bank of the ravine, back of Mrs. Arnot's residence, he sat down for a while, and gave himself up to a very bitter revery. There, in the bright spring sunshine, was the beautiful villa which might have been a second home to him. The gardener was at work among the shrubbery, and the sweet breath of crocuses and hyacinths was floated to him on the morning breeze. There were the windows of his airy, lovely room, in comparison with which the place in which he now slept was a kennel. If he had controlled and hidden his passion, if he had waited and wooed patiently, skilfully, winning first esteem and friendship, and then affection, yonder garden paths might have witnessed many happy hours spent with the one whom he loved as well as he could love any one save himself. But now—and he cursed himself and his folly.

Poor fellow! He might as well have said, "If I had not been myself, all this might have been as I have imagined." He had acted naturally, and in accordance with his defective character; he had been himself, and that was the secret of all his troubles. He sprang up, exclaiming in anger:

"Mother made a weak fool of me, and I was willing to be a fool. Now we are bothing reaping our reward."

He went off among the cottages looking for employment, but found little encouragement. The people were, as a general thing, in humble circumstances, and did their work among themselves. But at last he found, near the ravine, a small dwelling standing quite apart from any others, before which a load of wood had been thrown. The poor woman whose gateway it obstructed was anxious to have it sawed up and carried to her little wood-shed, but was disposed to haggle about the price.

"Give me what you please," said Haldane, throwing off his coat; "I take the job;" and in a few moments the youth who had meditated indefinite heights of "gloomy grandeur" appeared—save to the initiated—as if he had been born a wood-sawyer.

He was driving his saw in the usual strong, dogged manner in which he performed such tasks, when a light step caused him to look up suddenly, and he found himself almost face to face with Laura Romeyn. He started violently; the blood first receded from his face, and then rushed tumultuously back. She, too, seemed much surprised and startled, and stopped hesitatingly, as if she did not know what to do. But Haldane had no doubt as to his course. He felt that he had no right to speak to her, and that she might regard it as an insult if he did; therefore he bent down to his work again with a certain proud humility which Laura, even in her perturbation, did not fail to notice.

In her diffidence and confusion she continued past him a few steps, and, although he expected nothing less, the fact that she did not recognize or speak to him cut to his heart with a deeper pain than he had yet suffered. With a gesture similar to that which he made when she saw him on the way to prison, he dashed his hat down over his eyes, and drove his saw through the wood with savage energy.

She looked at him doubtfully for a moment, then yielding to her impulse, came to his side. His first intimation of her presence was the scarcely heard tones of her voice mingling with the harsh rasping of the saw.

"Will you not speak to me, Mr. Haldane?" she asked.

He dropped his saw, stood erect, trembled slightly, but did not answer or even raise his eyes to her face. His pain was so great he was not sure of his self-control.

"Perhaps," she added timidly, "you do not wish me to speak to you."

"I now have no right to speak to you, Miss Romeyn," he answered in a tone which his suppressed feelings rendered constrained and almost harsh.

"But I feel sorry for you," said she quickly, "and so does my aunt, and she greatly—"

"I have not asked for your pity," interrupted Haldane, growing more erect and almost haughty in his bearing, quite oblivious for a moment of his shirt-sleeves and bucksaw. What is more, he made Laura forget them also, and his manner embarrassed her greatly. She was naturally gentle and timid, and she deferred so far to his mood that one would have thought that she was seeking to obtain kindness rather than to confer it.

"You misunderstand me," said she: "I do respect you for the brave effort you are making. I respect you for doing this work. You cannot think it strange, though, that I am sorry for all that has happened. But I did not intend to speak of myself at all—of Mrs. Arnot rather, and your mother. They do not know where to find you, and wish to see and hear from you very much. Mrs. Arnot has letters to you from your mother."