PART II.

I.

To those that have suffered certain things there are forms of entertainment which neither amuse nor bore, but which pain. And this evening, as Justine sat in the stalls, the play which was being given, and which, as plays go, was endurable enough, caused her no pleasure, no weariness even, only a longing to get away and be alone. Now and then a shudder visited her, her hand tightened on her fan, and at times she would close her eyes, dull her hearing, and try to fancy that her girlhood was recovered, that she was free again, that she was dead, that her husband was--anything imaginable in fact, save the knowledge that she was there, side-by-side with him, and that presently they would return together to the hideousness of their uptown flat.

She had been married now a little more than two years, and during the latter portion of that time life had held for her that precise dose of misery which is just insufficient to produce uncertainties of thought in a mind naturally exalted. There had indeed been moments in which the possibility of insanity had presented itself, and there had been moments also in which she would have welcomed that possibility as a grateful release: but those moments had passed, the possibility with them; and this evening as she sat in the stalls her outward appearance was much such as it had been two years before. But within, where her heart had been, was a cemetery.

Among our friends and acquaintances there are always those who to our knowledge have tombstones of their own. But there are others that evolve a world--one that glows, subsides, and dies away unknown to any save themselves. The solitudes of space appall; the solitudes of the heart can be as endless as they. In those which Justine concealed, a universe had had its being and its subsidence; a universe with gem-like hopes for stars--one in which the sun had been so eager its rays had made her blind. There had been comets gorgeous and tangential as aspirations ever are; there had been the colorless ether of which dreams are made; and for cosmic matter there was love. But now it was all dispersed; there was nothing left, one altar merely--the petrefaction of a prayer erected long since in the depths of her distress, and which for conscience' sake now and then she tended still.

And now, as the play at which she assisted unrolled before her unseeing eyes, one by one scenes from another drama rose unsummoned in its stead. First was the meeting with Mistrial at Tuxedo, then the episode at Aiken, the marriage that followed, and the banishment that ensued: a banishment, parenthetically, which at the time being she was powerless to understand. Her father's anger had indeed weighed on her; but it was not wholly that--she was too much in love to let it be more than a shadow on her delight; nor was it because of unfamiliar lands: it was that little by little, through incidents originally misunderstood and then more completely grasped, the discovery, avoided yet ever returning, came to her, stayed with her, and made her its own--that the man whom she had loved and the man whom she had married were separate and distinct.

The psychologist of woman has yet to appear, and if he keep us waiting may it not be because every woman he analyzes has a sister who differs from her? The moment he formulates a rule it is over-weighted by exceptions. Woman often varies, the old song says; but not alone in her affections does she do so: she varies in temperament as well. And, after all, is it not the temperament that makes or mars a life? Justine, in discovering that the man she married and the man whom she loved were separate and distinct, instead of being disgusted with herself and with him, as you, madam, might have been, tried her utmost to forget the lover and love the husband that had come in his place. In this effort she had pride for an aid. The humiliation which the knowledge of self-deception brings is great, but when that knowledge becomes common property the humiliation is increased. The world--not the world that ought to be, but the world as it is--is more apt to smile than condole. There may be much joy in heaven over the sinner that repents: on earth the joy is at his downfall. And according to the canons we have made for ourselves, Justine, in listening to the dictates of her heart instead of to those of her father, had sinned, so grievously even that that father had bid her begone from his sight. She was aware of this, and in consequence felt it needful to hold her head the higher. And so for a while she made pride serve as fig-leaf to her nakedness. If abashed at heart, at least the world should be uninformed of that abashment.

This effort on her part Mistrial hindered to the best of his ability. Whether or not he loved her, whether save himself he was capable of loving anyone, who shall say? Men too are difficult to decipher. There were hours when after some _ecart_ he would come to her so penitent, so pleasant to the eye, and seemingly so afflicted at his own misconduct, that Justine found the strength--or the weakness, was it?--to forgive and to forget anew.

During this period they lived not sumptuously, perhaps, but in that large and liberal fashion which requires a ponderable rent-roll to support; and at that time, however Mistrial comported himself elsewhere, in her presence he had the decency to seem considerate, and affectionate as well. But meanwhile, through constant demands, the value of the letter of credit into which he had converted the better part of her mother's estate became impaired. Retrenchment was necessary, and that is never a pleasant thing. The man that passes out of poverty into wealth finds the passage so easy, so Lethean even, that he is apt to forget what poverty was; but when, as sometimes happens, he is obliged to retrace his steps, he walks bare of foot through a path of thorns. To count gold, instead of strewing it, is irritating to anyone not a sage, and Mistrial, who was not a sage, was irritated; and having, a wife within beck and call he vented that irritation on her.

It was at this time that Justine began to feel the full force of the banishment. That her husband was, and in all probability would continue to be, unfaithful to her, was a matter which she ended by accepting with a degree of good sense which is more common than is generally supposed. At first she had been indeed indignant, and when in that indignation her anger developed into a heat that was white and sentiable, Mistrial experienced no remorse whatever, only a desire to applaud. He liked the force and splendor of her arraignment; it took him out of himself; it made him feel that he was appreciated--feared even; that a word from him, and a tempest was loosened or enchained.

But what is there to which we cannot accustom ourselves? Justine ended, not by a full understanding of the fact that man is naturally polygamous; but little by little, through channels undiscerned even by herself, the idea came to her that, if the man she loved could find pleasure in the society of other women, it was because she was less attractive than they. It was this that brought her patience, the more readily even in that, at her first paroxysm, Mistrial, a trifle alarmed lest she might leave him, had caught her in his arms, and sworn in a whisper breathed in her ear, that of all the world he loved her best.

Madam, you who do the present writer the honor to read this page are convinced, he is sure, that your husband would rather his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth than break the vow which bound you to him. But you, madam, have married a man faithful and tried. You know very well with what dismay he tells you of Robinson's scandalous conduct, and you know also how he pities Robinson's poor little wife; yet when, in your sorrow at what that poor little woman has to put up with, you are tempted to go and condole with her, pause, madam--Mrs. Robinson may be equally tempted to condole with You.

There are--in Brooklyn, in Boston, and in other recondite regions--a number of clever people who have been brought up with the idea that Divorce was instituted for just such a thing as this. Yet in one hundred cases out of a hundred-and-one a woman who appeals to the law never does so because her husband has broken a certain commandment. If his derelictions are confined to that particular offence she may bewail, and we all bewail with her; but if she wants the sympathy of judge, of jury, and of newspaper-public too, she must be prepared to allege other grievances. She must show that her husband is unkind, that he is sarcastic, that he is given to big words and short sentences; in brief, that he has developed traits which render life in common no longer to be endured.

It was traits of this description that Mistrial unexpectedly developed, and it was during their development that the sense of banishment visited Justine. She was unable to make further transference of her affections; the lover had disappeared; the husband she had tried to love in his place had gone as well. For sole companion she had a man who had worn a mask and dropped it; where he had been considerate, he was selfish; when he spoke, it was to find fault; now that he could no longer throw her money out of the windows, he threw his amiability in its stead. By day he was taciturn, insultingly dumb; at night he was drunk.

Mistrial had served his novitiate where the _pochard_ is rare. It is we that drink, and with us the English, the Slavs, and Teutons; but in the East and among the Latins sobriety is less a matter of habit than of instinct. And in lands where man prefers to keep his head clear, Mistrial, at that age, which is one of the most impressionable of all, had seen no reason to lose his own. But presently the small irritations of enforced economy affected his manners, and his habits as well. He took to absinthe in the morning, and, as he happened to be in France, he drank at night that brutal brandy they give you there. Not continuously, it is true. There were days when the man for whom Justine had forsaken her home returned so completely she could almost fancy he had never gone. Then, without a word of warning, at the very moment when Faith was gaining fresh foothold, the tragi-comedy would be renewed; he was off again, no one knew whither, returning only when the candle had been utterly consumed.

Such things are enough to affect any woman's patience, and Justine's became wholly warped. It was unaccountable to her that he could treat her as he did. She watched the gradual transformation of the perfect lover into the perfect beast with a species of sorrow--a dual sorrow in whose component parts there was pity for herself and for him as well.

The idea that he had married her uniquely because of her father's wealth, that he was impatient to get it, and that when he got it he would squander all he could on other women, occurred to her only in the remotest ways, and then only through some expression which, in his exasperation of the diminishing bank account and the unreasonable time which it took her father to forgive her, fell from him now and then by chance. For Mistrial had indeed counted on that forgiveness. He had even counted on receiving it by cable, of finding that it had preceded and awaited them before their ship reached France. And when, to use an idiom of that land, it made itself expected, he was confident that the longer it delayed the completer it would be. At the utmost he had not dreamed that the old man would detain it more than a few months; but when twenty-four went by, and not only no forgiveness was manifest, but through his own improvidence the funds ran low,--so low, in fact, that unless forgiveness were presently forthcoming they would be in straits indeed,--he dictated a letter, penitent and humble, one in which impending poverty stood out as clearly as though it had been engraved, and which it revolted her to send. Its inspiration, however, must have been patent to Mr. Dunellen, for that gentlemen's reply, expressed in the third person, was to the effect that if his daughter returned to him he would provide for her as he had always done, but in no other circumstances could he assist.

Had Justine been anyone but herself she might have acted on the invitation: but the tone of it hurt her; she was annoyed at having permitted herself to send the letter Mistrial had dictated, and to which this was the reply. Her pride was up--all the more surely because she knew her father had been right; and there is just this about pride--as a matter of penitence it forces us to suffer those consequences of our own wrongdoing which through a simple confession it were easy to escape. To Justine such confession was impossible. She had left her father in the full certainty that he was wrong, and when she found he was not, death to her were preferable to any admission of the grievousness of her own mistake.

At this juncture Mistrial's aunt assisted at the funeral of a sister spinster, sat in a draught, caught cold in her throat, and, the glottis enlarging, strangled one night in her bed. By her will the St. Nicholas Hospital received the bulk of her property. The rest of her estate was divided among relatives; to her nephew Roland Mistrial--3d no longer--was bequeathed the princely sum of ten thousand dollars in cash. At the news of this munificence Roland swore and grit his teeth. Had his circumstances been different it is probable that the ten thousand, together with some enduring insult, he would have flung after her to the eternal purgatory where he prayed she had gone. As it was, the modicity of the bequest sobered him. Through some impalpable logic he had counted but little on any inheritance at all; he had indeed hoped vaguely that she might die and leave him what she had; and it may even be that, had he learned that her will was in his favor, and had a suitable opportunity presented itself, in some perfectly decorous manner he would have hastened his aunt's demise. But concerning her will he had no information; moreover, during his visit to the States the old lady saw as little of him as she could help; and when she did see him, in spite of gout and the ailments of advancing years there was such a rigidity in her manner that the nephew told himself she might live long enough to see him hanged. As a consequence he had expected nothing. But when the news of her death reached him, together with the intelligence that instead of the competence he might possibly have had he was mentioned merely to the tune of ten thousand dollars,--this outrage, in conjunction with Dunellen's relentlessness, sobered him to that degree, that for a day and a night he gave himself to a debauch of thought. From this orgy he issued with clearer mind. It may be--though the idea advanced is one that can only be hazarded--it may be that had his aunt disposed of her estate in his favor he would there and then have washed his hands of the job he had undertaken, and left his wife to her own devices. As it was, he saw that, to keep his head above water, the only possible plank was one that Mr. Dunellen might send in his reach; and it was with the knowledge that before the present scanty windfall disappeared some conquest of Honest Paul's affection should be attempted that he determined to return to New York. Once there again, who knew what might happen? Surely, if the preceding year Mr. Dunellen had strength for violence, to the naked eye he was even then manifestly infirm. There was no gainsaying the matter--he at least would not live very long. As to the disposition of his property after death Mistrial was still assured. Whatever his attitude might be for the present, in the end he could not wholly disinherit Justine--at least one-half the property must come to her. On that fact Mistrial would have staked his life; after all, it was the one hope he had left; and an ultimate hope, we all know, is the thing we part with last.

Thereupon he recovered himself. He became amiable and considerate--a change of demeanor which gave Justine a chill. She consented nevertheless to the return trip, and the day after arriving called at her father's house. When she got back to the hotel where they had put up Mistrial was waiting for her. In answer to his questions she told him that her father was willing to receive her, but her alone. "You must take your choice," he had said, she repeated--"You must take your choice."

"And what is that choice?" Mistrial had asked.

"I have made it," she answered, "and by it I will abide."

But at this he had expostulated; and when, seeing at last what he meant--understanding that he would have her feign a compliance for the sake of coin which at her father's death she could come back and share with him--when, divining the infamy of his thought, she refused, he had struck her in the face.

Because a man is not Chesterfield, it does not follow he is Sykes. Mistrial had never struck a woman before, and in this initial assault it is probable that he was actuated less by a desire to punish than by that force which overmasters him who has ceased to be master of himself. By instinct he was not a gentleman; for some time past he had not even taken the trouble to appear one; yet at that moment, dancing in derision before him, he saw the letters that form the monosyllable Cad. The sense of abasement he displayed was so immediate and sincere, that Justine, who, trembling with anger and disgust, stood staring in his face, read it there and understood. Instead of separating them forever, the blow reunited their hands. During the week that followed they were nearer to each other than they had been for months before. The reconciliation was seemingly complete. Mistrial made himself the lover again, and Justine permitted herself to be wooed. They left their hotel and found a flat--a furnished apartment in the neighborhood of Central Park; and there the storm departing placed a rainbow in its stead.

A rainbow, however, is not a fixture, and this one went its way. While Justine closed her eyes Mistrial's were alert. He had no intention of suffering her to be disinherited, and though it was well enough to rely on the courts it was better still not to be forced to do so. Rather than run an avoidable risk he would have abandoned his wife, and forced her through that abandonment to return to her father's house, convinced that afterwards he could win her together with the estate back again to him. Meanwhile another interview could not in any way jeopardize the chances to which he clung. On the contrary, it might be highly serviceable. Mr. Dunellen, he had learned, was much broken; he had given up his practice, the the world even, everything in fact save perhaps the devil that was in him, and sat uncompanioned in the desolate and spacious emptiness of his house. It was only natural that he should wish to coerce his daughter into obedience; yet now that he saw she was steadfast, her pride unhumbled still, it was not improbable that he would yield; it was presumable even that he was then waiting, weak of heart, prepared at her next advance to welcome and forgive.

Of these things Mistrial made his wife aware, and it was then that the rainbow departed. His arguments were as revolting as the cynicism they exhaled. But she made no attempt to combat them. Since she had seen her father she had felt a sorrow for him that Mistrial's altered demeanor had given her time to heed. She knew that his attitude was due to her defiance of his express commands, but she had no reason to suppose that he had any other objection to her husband than such as his poverty might have caused or instinctive antipathy might bring. But now, her own experience aiding, she knew that he had been right; and, as he seemed feeble and dispassionate, in answer to Mistrial's arguments she tied her bonnet-strings and went. It was early in the afternoon when she started, it was night when she returned.

Mistrial had been waiting for her, and when she entered the room in which he sat he rose eagerly and aided her with her wrap. He was impatient, she could see; and she was impatient also.

"Why did you not tell me of Guy's sister?" she began, at once.

And as he answered nothing she continued: "Years ago I knew of what she died; it was only to-day I learned that it was you who murdered her."

"It is a lie."

"Oh, protest. I knew you would."

"From whom is it you heard this thing? Not from your father, I am sure." As Mistrial spoke he gazed at her inquisitorially with shrewd, perplexing eyes.

"What does it matter?" she answered. Her head was thrown back, her lips compressed. "What does it matter since the charge is true?"

"But it is false," he cried; "it is a wanton lie. Your father never could have stated it."

"Ah, but he did, though; and Guy was there to substantiate what he said."

"Guy!" As he pronounced her cousin's name there came into his face an expression which she knew and which she had learned to dread. "Madam, you mean your lover, I suppose. And it is his _ipse dixit_ you accept in preference to mine?"

"Mistrial, you know he is not my lover."

"I know he was in love with you, and you with him."

"So he was; so he is, I think; and it was not until this night I saw my own mistake."

"_Voila!_" said Roland, suddenly calmed. He paused a second, and after eying the polish of his finger-nails, affected to flick a speck of dust from his sleeve. "Your cousin is mad," he added.

"He is sane as--" and Justine hesitated for a simile.

"His mother, you mean. Were you never aware that insanity is hereditary? If his sister--presupposing that the accusation which he formulates against me was originally advanced by her--if his sister--whom, by the way, I never saw but once--if his sister accused me of complicity, then she suffered from the hereditary taint as well. If I was guilty of what your cousin charges, why was I not arrested, tried, and sentenced? But are you such a dolt you cannot see that Guy is mad--mad not only by nature, but crazed by jealousy as well. You say you know he loves you. You have even the candor to admit that you love him! Now ask yourself what would any impartial hearer deduce from statements such as yours?"

"My father was an impartial hearer, and he--"

"But how is it possible to be so blind? Can you not see that your cousin has prejudiced him against me? I said, impartial hearer. But let the matter drop. I tell you the charge is false; believe it or not, as you prefer. There is, however, just this in the matter: if the charge is made again, I will have your cousin under arrest. You forget that there is such a thing as libel still."

Again he paused, and strove to collect himself; there was a design in the carpet which appeared to interest him very much, but presently he looked up again.

"Now tell me," he said, "what did your father say?"

"Nothing, save what he said before."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing that you would care to hear." Her eyes roamed from the neighbourly ceiling over to him and back again. "He said," she added, "that if I persisted in living with you his money would go to my child, if I had one; if I had none, then to Guy."

"Were you alone with him when he said this, or was Guy, as you call him, there?"

"No, I was alone with him; Guy came later."

"And is he aware of this provision?"

For all response Justine shrugged her shoulders.

"Does he know it, I ask you?"

"He does not," she answered. "Father told me that he never would, until the will was read."

"H'm." And for a moment Mistrial mused. Then presently he smiled--yet was it a smile?--a look that an hallucinated monk in a medieval abbey might have seen on that imaginary demon who, flitting by him, the forefinger outstretched, whispered as he vanished through the wall, "Thou art damned, dear friend! thou art damned!" "H'm," he repeated; "and in view of the provisions of your father's will, will you tell me why is it that you are without a child?"

As he spoke he had arisen, and, smiling still, though now as were he questioning her in regard to the state of the weather, he looked into her eyes. She had drawn yet further back into the chair in which she sat; a deadly sickness overcame her; to her head there mounted the nausea of each one of his many misdeeds. The memory of the blow of the week before, one which, despite her seeming forbearance, had not ceased to rankle, returned to her; and with it, one after another in swift succession, she rememorated the offences of the past. But soon she too was on her feet and fronted him. "Why is it I am without a child?" she repeated. Her voice was low and clear, and between each word she permitted a little pause to intervene. "Why is it?"

The subtlety of his reproach battening on nerves already overwrought was exciting her as nothing had done before. "It is you," she cried, "who are to blame. What have you done with your youth? What have you done with your manhood? Look at me, Roland Mistrial! If I have borne you no child it is because monsters never engender." As she spoke, with one gesture she tore her bodice down. Her breast, palpitant with health and anger too, heaving at the sheer injustice of his reproach, confronted and confuted him. "It is there that women have their strength; tell me, if you can, what have you done with yours?"

And thereat, with a look a princess might give to a lackey who had dared to question her, she turned and left him where he stood.

The next day he tried to make his peace with her. In this he succeeded, or flattered himself he had, for subsequently she consented to accompany him to the play. And as she sat in the stalls it was of these things that she thought.

II.

The information which Mistrial gleaned concerning the provisions of his father-in-law's will was bitter in his mouth. On the morrow he gave some time to thought--he read too a little. The taunt which Justine had flung at him, bit; and with the idea of dulling the hurt and of ministering also to his own refreshment, he consulted a book which treated of certain conditions of the nervous system, and a work on medical jurisprudence as well. But literature of that kind is notoriously unsatisfactory. It may suggest, yet the questions which it prompts remain unanswered. Roland put the volumes down: they were productions of genius, no doubt, but to him they were nothing more. From the pursuit of exact knowledge he turned and looked out into the street.

The hour then was midway in one of those green afternoons which we are apt to fancy the adjunct of lands we never see, and as he looked he saw astride a bay hunter a man ambling cautiously over the stones. From the roofs opposite a breath of lilacs came, and a breeze that was neither cool nor warm loitered on its way from the river beyond. Mistrial let the breeze, the fragrance, the fulfilment of spring, pass unnoticed. The bay hunter had caught his eye: it seemed to him that an argument with an imperative horse was just the thing he needed most, and a little later he secured a cob from a stable on the street above.

The cob was docile enough, affecting once only to regard a sewer-grating in the bridle-path as a strange, unhallowed thing which it was needful to avoid. But the initial shy was the last. The spur gave him such a nip that during the remainder of the ride, whatever distasteful object he may have encountered, he gave no outward evidence of abhorrence. He had an easy canter, a long and swinging trot; and now on one, now on the other, they passed through and out of the Park, and on beyond the brand-new edifices that line Seventh Avenue, to that scantier outlying district where the Harlem begins and the city ends. And here as he was about to turn he noticed a gig such as physicians affect. In it was a negro driving, and at his side sat Justine's cousin, Guy.

"H'm!" mused Mistrial; "judging by the locality, his patients must be the last people in the city." At the moment the feebleness of the jest pleasured him; then simultaneously the unforgotten hatred crackled in his breast. At each one of the important epochs of his life that man had stood in his way. It was he that had forced him from college at the moment when honors were within his reach. It was he that had kept him from his father's side at the time when he might have saved his father's estate. It was he that had come between Dunellen and himself at the hour when he could have persuaded Justine's father to give him Justine's hand. It was he that had forced him to elope with her. It was because of him that he was now enjoying the small miseries of the shabby genteel. It was he, unless Providence now intervened, who would inherit the wealth he had toiled to make his own. And it was he who the day before had again crossed and halted in his path.

These premises, however colored, were logical enough in this--the natural deduction sprang out and greeted the eye. And, as they flashed before him, Mistrial saw himself rinsing out each one in blood squeezed from Thorold's throat. In the fury which suddenly beset him he could have found the strength, the courage it may be, to have torn him from the gig in which he sat, to have trampled on him with horse's hoofs, bent over and beat him as he writhed on the ground, and exulted and jubilated in the doing of it. Then indeed, though he swung for it, the ultimate victory would be his. If he stamped Thorold out of existence, though his own went with it, he would not have suffered wholly in vain; in facing the gallows he would have the joy of knowing that even were he prevented from bathing in the Dunellen millions, so was Thorold too.

But when he looked out from himself his enemy had disappeared. A woman in an open landau passed and bowed. Mechanically Mistrial raised his hat. To every intent and purpose he was self-possessed--occupied, if at all, but with those threads of fancy that float in and out the mind. As he raised his hat, he smiled; the woman might have thought herself the one it gave him the greatest pleasure to salute. Her carriage had not advanced the jump of a cat before he had forgotten that she lived. But no one can turn his brain into a stage, create for it, and feel a drama such as he had without some outward manifestation, be it merely a strangled oath. On the horse he rode his knees had tightened, he gave a dig with the spur, and went careering down the street. In that part of New York you are at liberty to cover a mile in two minutes. Roland covered thirty squares at breakneck speed.

Presently he drew the animal in and suffered him to walk. During the run he had had no time to think; he had been occupied only in keeping the horse he rode out of the way of vehicles, and in preventing that possible cropper which comes when we expect it least. But as the cob began to walk, the present returned to him with a rush. About the animal's neck the fretting of the reins had produced a lather; the breeze had died away. Mistrial felt overheated too, and he drew out a handkerchief and wiped his face. Even while he drew it from his pocket an idea came to him, fluttered for a second as ideas will, and before he got the handkerchief back it had gone, leaving him just a trifled dazed. But in a moment he called to it, and at his bidding it returned. It was minute, barely fledged as yet; but as the horse jogged on, little by little it expanded, and to such an extent that before he reached the park its pinions stretched from earth to sky. Whoso is visited with inspirations knows with what diabolical swiftness they can enlarge and grow. When Mistrial put the horse back in the stable the idea which at first he had but dimly intercepted possessed him utterly. It succeeded even in detaining his step: he walked up the street instead of down; at a crossing he hesitated; night had come, and as he loitered there, suddenly the whole avenue was bright as day. The vengeance which not an hour before he could have wreaked on Thorold seemed now remote and paltry too. There need be no shedding of blood, no scandal, no newspaper notoriety, no police, no coroner to sit upon a corpse, no jury to bring a verdict in. There need be nothing of this: a revenge of that order was in bad taste, ill-judged as well. To make a man really suffer, sudden death was as a balm in comparison to some subtle torment that should gnaw at the springs of life, retreat a moment, and then returning make them ache again, and still again, forever his whole life through. The French woman is not so ill-advised when she pitches a cup of vitriol in her betrayer's face. In Spain, in Italy even, they stab; the deed is done; the culprit has had no chance to experience anger, pain even, or remorse. He is dead. The curtain falls. But a revenge that blasts and corrodes, one that leaves the victim living, sound in body and in limb, and yet consumed by an inextinguishable regret, burning with tortures from which he can never escape--a thing like that is the work, not of an apprentice, but of a master in crime. Yet when the victim receives that cup of vitriol, not from another's hands, but from his own; when he has been lured into devastating his own self;--it is no longer a question of either apprentice or of master: it is the artist that has been at work. To gain the Dunellen millions was to Mistrial a matter of paramount importance; but to gain them through the instrumentality of the man whom he hated as no one ever hates to-day, particularly when that man was the one to whom those millions were provisionally bequeathed, when he was one whom Mistrial--justly or unjustly, it matters not--fancied and believed was plotting for them; to gain them, not only through him, but through his unwitting, unintentional agency, through an act which, so soon as he learned its purport, all his life through he would regret and curse;--no, that were indeed a revenge and a reparation too. And as he thought of it there entered his eyes a look perplexing and enervating--that look which demons share with sphinxes and the damned.

III.

During the two years which Mistrial had passed in the society of his wife, opportunities of studying her there had been in plenty. He knew her to be docile and headstrong; weak, if at all, but with that weakness that comes of lassitude; violent when provoked, prone to forgive, sensitive, impulsive, yet obdurate; in brief, the type of woman that may be entreated, but never coerced. He knew her faults so well he could have enumerated them one after the other on his finger-tips: her qualities, however, had impressed him less; it may be that he had accepted them as a matter of course. He was aware that she was honest; he had noticed that she was capable of much self-sacrifice; of other characteristics he had given little heed. It goes without the telling, that in regard to what is known as jealousy he had not suffered even an evanescent disquietude. And that night and during the morning that followed, as he occupied himself in nursing the idea which had visited him on horseback, that particular fact occurred to him more than once. But one does not need to be a conspirator to understand that the steadiest virtue is as susceptible of vice as iron is of rust.

Justine had announced that her cousin was still in love with her; she had announced with equal distinctness that she recognized her own mistake; while for himself he was convinced that she no longer cared. To these things he added certain deductions which his experience of men and women permitted him to draw; and had the result they presented been made to order, it could not have fitted more perfectly into the scheme which he had devised.

It was then high noon. Through the window came the irresistible breath of a rose in bloom. As he left the house it surrounded him in the street. He smiled a greeting at it. "I have spring in my favor," he mused, and presently boarded a car.

The principles of successful enterprise may be summarized as consisting of a minute regard for details, and an apparent absence of zeal. Mistrial's many mistakes had taught him the one and trained him in the other. When the car he had taken reached the Gilsey House, he alighted, hailed a four-wheeler, stationed it in such a manner that it commanded a view of the adjacent street, coached the driver in regard to a signal he might give, entered the cab, lit a cigarette, and prepared to wait.

In that neighborhood there are four or five basement houses of the style that is affectioned by milliners, dentists, and physicians. One of these particularly claimed Mistrial's attention. He saw a woman in gray enter it, and almost simultaneously a woman come out; then a man leading a child went in; and in a little while the first woman reappeared. Mistrial glanced at his watch; it lacked a minute of one. "He has a larger practice than I thought," he reflected. The woman in gray had now nearly reached the cab in which he sat, and from sheer force of habit he was preparing to scrutinize her as she passed, when the door of the house reopened and Thorold appeared on the step. He looked up the street, then down. He had his hat on, and his every-day air. In a second Mistrial had drawn the curtain and was peering through the opening at the side. He saw Thorold leave the step and turn toward Fifth Avenue; he signalled to the driver, and the cab moved on.

At the corner Thorold turned again, the cab at his heels, and Mistrial saw that the physician was moving in the direction of Madison Square. It occurred to him that Thorold might be going to Mr. Dunellen's, and on the block below, as the latter crossed the asphalt, he made sure of it. But opposite the Brunswick the cab stopped; Thorold was entering the restaurant.

Cold chicken looks attractive in print. A minute or two later, as Mistrial examined the bill of fare, he ordered some for himself; he ordered also a Demidorf salad,--a compound of artichokes' hearts and truffles, familiarly known as Half-Mourning,--and until the waiter returned hid himself behind a paper. Thorold meanwhile, who was seated at an adjoining table, must have ordered something which required longer preparation, for Mistrial finished the salad before the physician was served. But Mistrial was in no hurry; he had a pint of claret brought him, and sipped it leisurely. Now and then he glanced over at Thorold, and twice he caught his eye. At last Thorold called for his bill. Mistrial paid his own, and presently followed him out into the street. When both reached the sidewalk, Mistrial, who was a trifle in the rear, touched him on the arm.

"Thorold," he said; and the physician turned, but there was nothing engaging in his attitude: he held his head to one side, about his lips was a compression, a contraction in his eyes; one arm was pendent, the other pressed to his waistcoat, and the shoulder of that arm was slightly raised. He looked querulous and annoyed--a trifle startled, too.

"Thorold," Mistrial repeated, "give me a moment, will you?"

The physician raised the arm that he had pressed against his waistcoat, and, with four fingers straightened and the fifth askew, stroked an imaginary whisker.

"It is about Justine," Mistrial continued. "She is out of sorts; I want you to see her."

"Ah!" And Thorold looked down and away.

"Yes, I had intended to speak to Dr. McMasters; but when by the merest chance I saw you in there I told myself that, whatever our differences might be, there was no one who would understand the case more readily than you."

As Mistrial spoke he imitated the discretion of his enemy; he looked down and away. The next moment, however, both were gazing into each other's face.

"H'm." Thorold, as he stared, seemed to muse. "I saw her the other day," he said, at last; "she looked well enough then."

"But can't a person look well and yet be out of sorts?"

Mistrial was becoming angry, and he showed it. It was evident, however, that his irritation was caused less by the man to whom he spoke than by the physician whom he was seeking to consult. This Thorold seemed to grasp, for he answered perplexedly:

"After what has happened I don't see very well how I can go to your house."

"Look here, Thorold: the past is over and done with--ill done, you will say, and I admit it. Be that as it may, it has gone. At the same time there is no reason why any shadow of it should fall on Justine. She is really in need of some one's advice. Can you not give it to her?"

"Certainly," Thorold answered, "I can do that;" and he looked very sturdy as he said it. "Only--"

"Only what? If you can't go as a friend, at least you might go as a physician."

Thorold's hand had slid from his cheek to his chin, and he nibbled reflectively at a finger-nail.

"Very good," he said; "I will go to her. Is she to be at home this afternoon?"

"The evening would be better, I think. Unless, of course--" and Mistrial made a gesture as though to imply that, if Thorold's evening were engaged, a visit in the afternoon might be attempted.

But the suggestion presumably was acceptable. Thorold drew out a note-book, at which he glanced.

"And I say," Mistrial continued, "I wish--you see, it is a delicate matter; Justine is very sensitive--I wish you wouldn't say you met me. Just act as though--"

"Give yourself no uneasiness, sir." Thorold had replaced the note-book and looked up again in Mistrial's face. "I never mention your name." And thereat, with a toss of the head, he dodged an omnibus and crossed the street.

For a moment Mistrial gazed after him, then he turned, and presently he was ordering a glass of brandy at the Brunswick bar.

It was late that night when he reached his home. During the days that followed he had no fixed hours at all. Several times he entered the apartment with the smallest amount of noise that was possible, and listened at the sitting-room door. At last he must have heard something that pleased him, for as he sought his own room he smiled. "_Maintenant, mon cher, je te tiens._"

The next day he surprised Justine by informing her that he intended to pay a visit to a relative. He was gone a week.

IV.

That night the stars, dim and distant, were scattered like specks of frost on some wide, blue window-pane. At intervals a shiver of wheels crunching the resistant snow stirred the lethargy of the street, and at times a rumble accentuated by the chill of winter mounted gradually, and passed on in diminishing vibrations. Within, a single light, burning scantily, diffused through the room the drowsiness of a spell. In the bed was Justine, her eyes dilated, her face attenuated and pinched. One hand that lay on the coverlid was clinched so tightly that the nails must have entered the flesh. Presently she moaned, and a trim little woman issued from a corner with the noiseless wariness of a rat. As she passed before the night-light, the silhouette of a giantess, fabulously obese, jumped out and vanished from the wall. For a moment she scrutinized her charge, burrowing into her, as it were, with shrewd yet kindly eyes. Again a moan escaped the sufferer, the wail of one whose agony is lancinating--one that ascended in crescendos and terminated in a cry of such utter helplessness, and therewith of such insistent pain, that the nurse caught the hand that lay on the coverlid, and unlocking the fingers stroked and held it in her own. "There, dear heart--there, I know."

Ah, yes, she knew very well. She had not passed ten years of her existence tending women in travail for the fun of it. And as she took Justine's hand and stroked it, she knew that in a little while the agony, acuter still, would lower her charge into that vestibule of death where Life appears. Whether or not Justine was to cross that silent threshold, whether happily she would find it barred, whether it would greet and keep her and hold her there, whether indeed it would let the child go free, an hour would tell, or two at most.

But there were preparations to be made. The nurse left the bed and moved out into the hall. In a room near by, Mistrial, occupied with some advertisements in the _Post_, sat companioned by a physician who was reading a book which he had written himself. At the footfall of the nurse the latter left the room. Presently he returned. "Everything is going nicely," he announced, and placidly resumed his seat.

It was the fourth time in two hours that he had made that same remark. Mistrial said nothing. He was gazing through the paper he held at the wall opposite, and out of it into the future beyond.

Since that day, the previous spring, on which he had set out to visit a relative, many things had happened, yet but few that were of importance to him. On his return from the trip, during one fleeting second, for the first time since he had known Justine, it seemed to him that she avoided his eyes. To this, in other circumstances, he would have given no thought whatever; as matters were, it made him feel that his excursion should not be regarded as time ill-spent. Whether it had been wholly serviceable to his project, he could not at the time decide. He waited, however, very patiently, but he seldom waited within the apartment walls. At that period he developed a curious facility for renewing relations with former friends. Once he took a run to Chicago with an Englishman he had known in Japan; and once, with the brother of a lady who had married into the Baxter branch of the house of Mistrial, he went on a fishing trip to Canada. These people he did not bring to call on his wife. He seemed to act as though solitude were grateful to her. Save Mrs. Metuchen, Thorold at that time was her only visitor, and the visits of that gentleman Mistrial encouraged in every way that he could devise. Through meetings that, parenthetically, were more frequent on the stair or in the hallway than anywhere else, the two men, through sheer force of circumstances, dropped into an exchange of salutations--remarks about the weather, reciprocal inquiries on the subject of each other's health, which, wholly formal on Thorold's part, were from Mistrial always civil and aptly put. After all, was he not the host? and was it not for him to show particular courtesy to anyone whom his wife received?

To her, meanwhile, his attitude was little short of perfection itself. He was considerate, foresighted, and unobtrusive--a course of conduct which frightened her a little. Two or three months after he had struck her in the face she made--_a propos_ of nothing at all--an announcement which brought a trace of color to her cheeks.

The following afternoon he happened to be entering the house as Dr. Thorold was leaving it. Instead of greeting him in the nice and amiable fashion which he had adopted, and which Thorold had ended by accepting as a matter of course, he halted and looked at the physician through half-closed eyes. Thorold nodded, cavalierly enough it is true, and was about to pass on; but this Mistrial prevented. He planted himself squarely in his way, and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Mrs. Mistrial has no further need of you," he said. "Send your bill to me."

He spoke from the tips of his lips, with the air and manner of one dismissing a lackey. At the moment nothing pertinent could have occurred to Thorold. He stared at Mistrial, dumbly perplexed, and plucked at his cuff. Mistrial nodded as who should say, "Put that in your pipe;" and before Thorold recovered his self-possession he had passed up the stairs and on and out of sight.

It was then that season in which July has come and is going. The city was hot; torrid at noonday, sultry and enervating at night. Fifth Avenue and the adjacent precincts were empty. Each one of the brown-stone houses had a Leah-like air of desertion. The neighborhood of Madison and of Union Squares was peopled by men with large eyes and small feet, by women so deftly painted that, like Correggio, they could have exclaimed, "_Anch' io son pittore_." In brief, the Southern invasion had begun, and New York had ceased to be habitable.

But Newport has charms of its own; and to that lovely city by the water Mistrial induced his wife; and there, until summer had departed, and autumn too, they rested and waited. During those months he was careful of her: so pleasantly so, so studious of what she did and of what she ate, that for the first time since the honeymoon she might have, had she tried, felt at ease with him again. But there were things that prevented this--faith destroyed and the regret of it. Oh, indeed she had regrets in plenty; some even for her father; and, unknown to Mistrial, once or twice she wrote him such letters as a daughter may write. She had never been in sympathy with him; as a child he had coerced her needlessly; when she was older he had preached; later, divining that lack of sympathy, he had striven through kindlier ways to counteract it. But he had failed; and Justine, aiding in the endeavor, had failed as well. When father and child do not stand hand-in-hand a fibre is wanting that should be there.

In December Mistrial and his wife returned to town. A date was approaching, and there was the _layette_ to be prepared. Hour after hour Justine's fingers sped. The apartment became a magazine of swaddling-clothes. One costume in particular, a worsted sack that was not much larger than a coachman's glove, duplicated and repeated itself in varying and tender hues. Occasionally Mistrial would pick one up and examine it furtively. To his vagabond fancy it suggested a bag in which gold would be.

But now the hour was reached. And as Mistrial sat staring into the future, the goal to which he had striven kept looming nearer and ever nearer yet. Only the day before he had learned that Dunellen was failing. And what a luxury it would be to him when the old man died and the will was read! Such a luxury did it appear, that unconsciously he manifested his contentment by that sound the glutton makes at the mention of delicious food.

His companion--the physician--turned and nodded. "I know what you are thinking about," he announced; and with the rapt expression of a seer, half to Mistrial, half to the ceiling, "It is always the case," he continued; "I never knew a father yet that did not wonder what the child would be; and the mothers, oh! the mothers! Some of them know all about it beforehand: they want a girl, and a girl it will be; or they want a boy, and a boy they are to have. I remember one dear, good soul who was so positive she was to have a boy that she had all the linen marked with the name she had chosen for him. H'm. It turned out to be twins--both girls. And I remember--"

But Mistrial had ceased to listen. He was off again discounting the inheritance in advance--discounting, too, the diabolism of his revenge. The latter, indeed, was unique, and withal so grateful, that now the consummation was at hand it fluttered his pulse like wine. He had ravened when first he learned the tenour of the will, and his soul had been bitter; but no sooner had this thing occurred to him than it resolved itself into a delight. To his disordered fancy its provisions held both vitriol and opopanax--the one for Thorold, the other for himself.

The doctor meanwhile was running on as doctors do. "Yes," Mistrial heard him say, "she was most unhappy; no woman likes a rival, and when that rival is her own maid, matters are not improved. For my part, the moment I saw how delicate she was, I thought, though I didn't dare to say so, I thought her husband had acted with great forethought. The maid was strong as an ox, and in putting her in the same condition as his wife he had simply and solely supplied her with a wet-nurse. But then, at this time particularly, women are so unreasonable. Not your good lady--a sweeter disposition--"

Whatever encomium he intended to make remained unfinished. From the room beyond a cry filtered; he turned hastily and disappeared. The cry subsided; but presently, as though in the interval the sufferer had found new strength or new torture, it rose more stridently than before. And as the rumor of it augmented and increased, a phrase of the physician's returned to Mistrial. "Everything is going very nicely," he told himself, and began to pace the floor.

A fraction of an hour passed, a second, and a third. The cry now had changed singularly; it had lost its penetrating volume, it had sunk into the rasping moan of one dreaming in a fever. Suddenly that ceased, the silence was complete, and Mistrial, a trifle puzzled, moved out into the hall. There he caught again the murmur of her voice. This time she was talking very rapidly, in a continuous flow of words. From where he stood Mistrial could not hear what she was saying, and he groped on tip-toe down the hall. As he reached the door of the room in which she was, the sweet and heavy odor of chloroform came out and met him there; but still the flow of words continued uninterruptedly, one after the other, with the incoherence of a nightmare monologuing in a corpse. Then, without transition, in the very middle of a word, a cry of the supremest agony rang out, drowning another, which was but a vague complaint.

"It's a boy," the nurse exclaimed.

And Justine through a rift of consciousness caught and detained the speech. "So much the better," she moaned; "he will never give birth."

V.

"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord."

To this, Mistrial, garbed in black, responded discreetly, "Amen."

He was standing opposite the bier. At his side was Justine. Before him Dr. Gonfallon, rector of the Church of Gethsemane,--of which the deceased had been warden,--was conducting the funeral rites. To the left was Thorold. Throughout the length and breadth of the drawing-room other people stood--a sprinkling of remote connections, former constituents, members of the bar and of the church, a few politicians; these, together with a handful of the helpless to whom the dead statesman had been trustee, counsellor too, and guide, had assembled there in honor of his memory. At the door, sharpening a pencil, was a representative of the Associated Press.

For the past few days obituaries of the Hon. Paul Dunellen varied from six inches to a column in length. One journal alone had been circumspect. No mention of the deceased had appeared in its issues. But in politics that journal had differed with him--a fact which accounted sufficiently for its silence. In the others, however, through biographies more or less exact, fitting tributes had been paid. The _World_ gave his picture.

Yet now, as Dr. Gonfallon, in words well calculated to impress, dwelt on the virtues of him that had gone, the tributes of the newspapers seemed perfunctory and trite. Decorously, as was his custom, he began with a platitude. Death, that is terrible to the sinner, radiant to the Christian, imposing to all, was here, he declared, but the dusk of a beautiful day which in departing disclosed cohorts of the Eternal beckoning from their glorious realm. Yet soon he warmed to his work, and eulogies of the deceased fell from him in sonorous periods, round and empty. He spoke of the nobility of his character, the loyalty he displayed, not to friends alone, but to foes as well. He spoke of that integrity in every walk of life which had won for him the title of Honest Paul--a title an emperor might crave and get not. He spoke too of the wealth he had acquired, and drew a moral from the unostentatiousness of his charities, the simplicity of his ways. He dwelt at length on the fact that, however multiple the duties of his station had been, his duty to his Maker was ever first. Then, after a momentary digression, in which he stated how great was the loss of such as he, he alluded to the daughter he had left, to that daughter's husband, sorely afflicted himself, yet, with a manliness worthy of his historic name, comforting the orphan who needed all his comfort now; and immediately from these things he lured another moral--an appeal to fortitude and courage; and winding up with the customary exordium, asked of Death where was its sting.

Where was it indeed? A day or two later Mistrial found time to think of that question and of other matters as well. It was then six weeks since the birth of the child, and Justine, fairer than ever before, was ministering to it in the adjacent room. Now and again he caught the shrill vociferation of its vague complaints. It was a feeble infant, lacking in vitality, distressingly hideous; but it lived, and though it died the next minute, its life had sufficed.

Already the will had been read--a terse document, and to the point; precisely such an one as you would have expected a jurist to make. By it the testator devised his property, real and personal, of whatever nature, kind, and description he died seized, to his former partners in trust for the eldest child of his daughter Justine, to its heirs, executors, and assigns forever. In the event of his daughter's demise without issue, then over, to Guy Thorold, M.D.

No, the sting concerning which Dr. Gonfallon had inquired was to Mistrial undiscerned. There was indeed a prick of it in the knowledge that if the old man had lasted much longer it might have been tough work to settle the bills; but that was gone now: Honest Paul paid all his debts, and he had not shirked at Nature's due. He was safely and securely dead, six feet under ground at that, and his millions were absolute in his grandson. Yes, absolute. At the thought of it Mistrial laughed. The goal to which for years he had striven was touched and exceeded. He had thrown the vitriol, the opopanax was his.

We all of us pretend to forgive, to overlook, to condone, we pretend even to sympathize with, our enemy. Nay, in refraining from an act that could injure him who has injured us, we are quite apt to consider ourselves the superior of our foe, and not a little inclined to rise to the heights of self-laudatory quotation too. It is an antique virtue, that of forbearance; it is Biblical, nobly Arthurian, and chivalresque. But when we smile at an injury, it is for policy's sake--because we fear, rarely because we truly forgive, more rarely yet because of indifference. Our magnanimity is cowardice. It takes a brave man to wreak a brave revenge.

Mistrial made few pretensions to the virtues which you and I possess. He was relentless as a Sioux, and he was treacherous as the savage is; he had no taste for fair and open fight. However his blood had boiled at the tableau of imaginary wrongs, however fitting the opportunity might have been on the afternoon when he met his enemy at the city's fringe, he had the desire but not the courage to annihilate him there. But later, when the possibility which he had intercepted came, he feted, he coaxed it; and now that the hour of triumph had rung, his heart was glad. In the disordered closets of his brain he saw Thorold ravening at the trap into which he had fallen, and into which, in falling, he had lost the wherewithal to call the world his own. Ten million in exchange for an embrace! Verily, mused Mistrial, he will account it exceeding dear. And at the thought of what Thorold's frenzy must be, at the picture which he drew of him cursing his own imprudence and telling himself again and again, until the repetition turned into mania, that that imprudence could never be undone, he exulted and laughed aloud.

Money, said Vespasian, has no odor. To our acuter nostrils it has: so nauseating even can it be, that we would rather be flung in the Potter's-field than catch the faintest whiff. But Mistrial, for all the sensitiveness that ancestry is supposed to bring, must have agreed with the Roman. To him it was the woof of every hope; whatever its provenance, it was an Open Sesame to the paradise of the ideal. He would have drawn it with his teeth from a dung-heap, only he would have done it at night.

There are men that can steal a fortune, yet can never cheat at cards, and Mistrial was one of their race; he could not openly dishonor himself in petty ways. Many a scoundrel has a pride of his own. It is both easy and difficult to compare a bandit to a sneak-thief, Napoleon to Cartouche. Mistrial had nothing of the Napoleon about him, and he was lacking even in the strength which Cartouche possessed. But among carpet highwaymen commend me to his peer.

And now, as he thought of the will, Gonfallon's query recurred to him, and he asked himself where was that sting? Not in the present, surely--for that from a bitterness had changed to a delight; and as for the future, each instant of it was sentient with invocations, fulfilled to the tips with the surprises of dream. The day he had claimed but a share in; the morrow was wholly his. He could have a dwelling in Mayfair and a marble palace on the Mediterranean Sea. For a scrap of paper he would never miss there was a haunt of ghosts dozing on the Grand Canal. In spring, when Paris is at her headiest, there, near that Triumphal Arch which overlooks the Elysian Fields, stood, _entre cour et jardin_, an hotel which he already viewed as his own. And when he wearied of the Old World, there was the larger and fuller life of the New. There was Peru, there was Mexico and Ecuador; and in those Italys of the Occident were girls whose lips said, Drink me; whose eyes were of chrysoberyl and of jade. _Ah, oui, les femmes; tant que le monde tournera il n'y aura que ca._ With blithe anticipation he hummed the air and snapped his fingers as Capoul was wont to do. At last he saw himself the Roland Mistrial that should have been, prodigal of gold, sultanesque of manner, feted, courted, welcomed, past-master in the lore and art of love.

There were worlds still to be conquered; and before his hair grizzled and the furrows came he felt conscious of the possession of a charm that should make those worlds his own. He had waited indeed; he had toiled and manoeuvred; but now the great clock we call Opportunity had struck. Let him but ask, and it would be given. Wishes were spaniels; he had but a finger to raise, and they fawned at his feet. And then, as those vistas of which we have all caught a glimpse rose in melting splendor and swooned again through sheer excesses of their own delights, suddenly he bethought him of the multiples of one and of two.

Heretofore he had taken it for granted that if Dunellen left the estate to his grandchild the income accruing therefrom would, until the grandchild came of age, pass through his own paternal hands. And in taking this for granted he had recalled the fable that deals not of the prodigal son, but rather of the prodigal father. That income should spin. By a simple mathematical process than with which no one was more familiar, he calculated that, at five per cent, ten million would represent a rent-roll of five hundred thousand per annum. Of that amount a fraction would suffice to Justine and to her son. The rest--well, the rest he knew of what uses he could put it to.

But now, suddenly, with that abruptness with which disaster looms, there came to him a doubt. He rememorated the provisions of the will, and in them he discerned unprompted some tenet of law or of custom which, during the legal infancy of the child, might inhibit the trustees from paying over any larger amount than was needful for its maintenance and support. Then at once the fabric of his dreams dissolved. The vitriol had corroded, but the savor of the opopanax had gone. For a little while he tormented his mustache and nibbled feverishly at a finger-nail. To see one's self the dupe of one's own devices is never a pleasant sight. Again he interrogated what smattering of law he possessed; but the closer he looked, the clearer it seemed to be that in its entirety the income of the estate could not pass through his hands. From five hundred thousand the trustees might in their judgment diminish it to some such pocket-money as ten; they could even reduce it to five; and, barring an action, he might be unable to persuade them that the sum was absurd. The idea, nude and revolting as Truth ever is, raised him to an unaccustomed height of rage; he would not be balked, he declared to himself; he would have that money or--

Or what? The contingency which he then interviewed, one which issued unsummoned from some cavern in his mind, little by little assumed a definite shape. He needed no knowledge of the law to tell him that he was that brat's heir. Did it die at that very moment the estate became absolute in him. There would be no trustees then to dole the income out. The ten millions would be his own. As for the trustees, they could deduct their commission and retire with it to New Jersey--to hell if it pleased them more. But the estate would be his. That there was no gainsaying. Meanwhile, there was the brat. He was a feeble child; yet such, Mistrial understood, had Methusaleh been. He might live forever, or die on the morrow. And why not that night?

As this query came to him, he eyed its advance. It was yet some distance away, but as it approached he considered it from every side. And of sides, parenthetically, it had many. And still it advanced: when it started, its movements were so slow they had been hardly perceptible; nevertheless it had made some progress; then surer on its feet it tried to run; it succeeded in the effort; at each step it grew sturdier, swifter in speed; and now that it reached him it was with such a rush that he was overpowered by its force.

He rose from his seat. For a moment he hesitated. To his forehead and about his ears a moisture had come. He drew out a handkerchief; it was of silk, he noticed--one that he brought from France. Absently he drew it across his face; its texture had detained his thought. Then on tip-toe he moved out into the corridor and peered into the room at the end of the hall.

It was dimly lighted, but soon he accustomed himself to the shadows and fumbled them with his eyes. On the bed Justine lay; sleep had overtaken her; her head was aslant on the pillow, her lips half closed; the fingers of one hand cushioned her neck; the other hand, outstretched, rested on the edge of a cradle. She had been rocking it, perhaps. From the floor above sank the sauntering tremolo of a flute, very sweet in the distance, muffled by the ceiling and wholly subdued. In the street a dray was passing, belated and clamorous on the cobblestones. But now, as Mistrial ventured in, these things must have lulled Justine into yet deeper sleep; her breath came and went with the semibreves a leaf uses when it whispers to the night; and as he moved nearer and bent over her the whiteness of her breast rose and fell in unison with that breath. Yes, surely she slept, but it was with that wary sleep that dogs and mothers share. A movement of that child's and she might awake, alert at once, her senses wholly recovered, her mind undazed.

Mistrial, assured of her slumber, turned from the bed to the cradle, and for a minute, two perhaps, he stood, the eyebrows raised, the handkerchief pendent in his hand, contemplating the occupant. And it was this bundle of flesh and blood, this lobster-hued animal, that lacked the intelligence a sightless kitten has,--it was this that should debar him! _Allons donc!_

His face had grown livid, and his hand shook just a little; not with fear, however, though if it were it must have been the temerity of his own courage that frightened him. At the handkerchief which he held he glanced again; one twist of it round that infant's throat, a minute in which to hold it taut, and it would be back in his pocket, leaving strangulation and death behind, yet not a mark to tell the tale. One minute only he needed, two at most; he bent nearer, and as he bent he looked over at his wife; but still she slept, her breath coming and going with the same regular cadence as before, the whiteness of her breast still heaving; then very gently, with fingers that were nervously assured, he ran the handkerchief under the infant's neck: but however deftly he had done it, the chill of the silk must have troubled the child; its under lip quivered, then both compressed, the flesh about the cheek-bones furrowed, the mouth relaxed, and from it issued the whimper of unconscious plaint. The call may have stirred the mother in some dream, for a smile hovered in her features; yet immediately her eyes opened, she half rose, her hand fell to her side, and, reaching out, she caught and held the infant to her.

"My darling," she murmured; and as the child, soothed already, drowsed back again into slumber, she turned to where her husband stood. "What is it?"

From above, the tremolo of the flute still descended; but the dray long since had passed, and the street now was quiet.

"What is it?" she repeated. She seemed more surprised than pleased to see him there.

Mistrial, balked in the attempt, had straightened himself; he looked annoyed and restless.

"Nothing," he answered, and thrust the handkerchief back in his pocket, as a bandit sheathes his dirk. "Nothing. I heard that bastard bawling, and I came in to make him stop."

"Bastard? Is it in that way you speak of your child?"

As she said this she made no visible movement; yet something in her attitude, the manner in which she held herself, seemed to bid him hold his peace, and this he noticed, and in noticing resented. "There," he muttered; "drop the Grand Duchess, will you? The brat is Thorold's; you know it, and so do I."

For a little space she stared as though uncertain she had heard aright, but the speech must have re-echoed in her ears; she had been sitting up, yet now as the echo reached her she drooped on the pillow and let her head fall back. In her arms the child still drowsed. And presently a tear rolled down her face, then another.

"Roland Mistrial, you have broken my heart at last."

That was all; the ultimate words even were scarcely audible; but the tears continued--the first succeeded by others, unstanched and undetained. Grief had claimed her as its own. She made no effort to rebel; she lay as though an agony had come from which no surcease can be. And as one tear after the other passed down and seared her face there was a silence so deathly, so tangible, and so convincing, that he needed no further sign from her to tell him that the charge was false. In all his intercourse with her, whatever cause of complaint there had been, never had he seen her weep before; and now at this unawaited evidence of the injustice and ignominy of his reproach he wished she would be defiant again, that he might argue and confute. But no word came from her--barely a sob; nothing, in fact, save these tears, which he had never seen before. And while he stood there, visited by the perplexity of him to whom the unawaited comes, unconsciously he went back to the wooing of her: he saw her clear eyes lifted in confidence to his own, he heard again the sweet confession of her love, he recalled the marks and tokens of her trust, and when for him she had left her father's house; he saw her ever, sweet by nature, tender-hearted, striving at each misdeed of his to show him that in her arms there was forgiveness still. And he recalled too the affronts he had put upon her, the baseness of his calculations, the selfishness of his life; he saw the misery he had inflicted, the affection he had beguiled, the hope he had tricked, and for climax there was this supreme reproach, of which he knew now no woman in all the world was less deserving than was she. And still the tears unstanched and undetained passed down and seared her cheeks; in the mortal wound he had aimed at her womanhood all else seemingly was forgot. She did not even move, and lay, her child tight clasped, the image of Maternity inhabited by Regret.

And such regret! Mistrial, unprompted, could divine it all. The regret of love misplaced, of illusions spent, the regret of harboring a ruffian and thinking him a knight. Yes, he could divine it all; and then, as such things can be, he grieved a moment for himself.

But soon the present returned. Justine still was weeping; he no longer saw her tears, he heard them. Surely she would forgive again. It could not be that everything had gone for naught. He would speak to her, plead if need were, and in the end she would yield. She must do that, he told himself, and he groped after some falsity that should palliate the offence. He would tell her that he had been drinking again; he would deny his own words, or, if necessary, he would insist she had not heard them aright. Indeed, there was nothing that might have weight with her which he was not ready and anxious to affirm. If she would but begin, if in some splendor of indignation such as he had beheld before she would rise up and upbraid him, his task would be diminished by half. Anything, indeed, would be better than this, and nothing could be worse; it was not Justine alone that the tears were carrying from him, it was the Dunellen millions as well. Oh, abysses of the human heart! As he queried with himself, at the very moment he was experiencing his first remorse, the old self returned, and it was less of the injury he had inflicted that he thought than of the counter-effect that injury might have on him. In the attempt to throttle the child he had been balked, yet of that attempt he believed Justine to be suspicionless. Other opportunities he would have in plenty; and even were it otherwise, the child was weakly, and croup might do its work. With the future for which he had striven, there, in the very palm of his hand, how was it possible that he should have made this misstep? But he could retrieve it, he told himself; he was a good actor, it was not too late. For a little while yet he could still support the mask, and, recalling the sentimental reveries of a moment before, the forerunner of a sneer came and loitered beneath the fringes of his mustache.

"Justine!" He moved a step or two to where she lay. "Justine--"

His voice was very low and penitent, but at the sound of it she seemed to shrink. "Could she _know_?" he wondered.

Then immediately, through the scantness of the apartment, he heard the outer bell resound. Enervated as he was, the interruption affected him like a barb. There was some one there whom he could vent his irritation on. He hurried to the hall, but a servant had preceded him. The door was open, and on the threshold Thorold stood.

Mistrial nodded--the nod of one who is about to throw his coat aside and roll his shirt-sleeves up. "Is it for your bill you come?" he asked.

Thorold hesitated, and his face grew very black. He affected, however, to ignore the taunt. He turned to the servant that still was waiting there. "Is my cousin at home?" he asked.

"She is," Mistrial announced, "but not to you."

"In that case," Thorold answered, "I must speak to someone in her stead."

Mistrial made a gesture, and the servant withdrew.

"I have to inform my cousin," Thorold continued, "that Mr. Metuchen came to me this evening and said that when my uncle died he was in debt--"

"Stuff and nonsense!"

"He asked me to come and acquaint Justine with the facts. They are here." With this Thorold produced a roll of papers. "Be good enough to explain to her," he added, "that this is the inventory of the estate." And, extending the documents to his host, he turned and disappeared.

In the cataleptic attitude of one standing to be photographed Mistrial listened to the retreating steps; he heard Thorold descend the stairs, cross the vestibule, and pass from the house. It seemed to him even that he caught the sound of his footfall on the pavement without. But presently that, too, had gone. He turned and looked down the hall. Justine's door was closed. Then at once, without seeking a seat, he fumbled through the papers that he held. The gas-jet above his head fell on the rigid lines. In the absence of collusion--and from whence should such a thing come?--in the absence of that, they were crystal in their clarity.

There were the assets. Shares in mines that did not exist, bonds of railways that were bankrupt, loans on Western swamps, the house on Madison Avenue, mortgaged to its utmost value, property on the Riverside, ditto. And so on and so forth till the eye wearied and the heart sickened of the catalogue. Then came the debit account. Amounts due to this estate, to that, and to the other, a list of items extending down an entire page of foolscap and extending over onto the next. There a balance had been struck. Instead of millions Honest Paul had left dishonor. Swindled by the living, he had swindled the dead.

"So much for trusting a man that bawls Amen in church," mused Mistrial.

As yet the completeness and amplitude of the disaster had not reached him. While he ran the papers over he feigned to himself that it was all some trick of Thorold's, one that he would presently see through and understand; and even as he grasped the fact that it was not a trick at all, that it was truth duly signed and attested, even then the disaster seemed remote, affecting him only after the manner of that wound which, received in the heat of battle, is unnoticed by the victim until its gravity makes him reel. Then at once in the distance the future on which he had counted faded and grew blank. Where it had been brilliant it was obscure, and that obscurity, increasing, walled back the horizon and reached up and extended from earth to sky. The papers fell from his nerveless hand, fright had visited him, and he wheeled like a rat surprised. Surely, he reflected, if safety there were or could be, that safety was with Justine.

In a moment he was at her door. He tried it. It was locked. He beat upon it and called aloud, "Justine."

No answer came. He bent his head and listened. Through the woodwork he could hear but the faintest rustle, and he called again, "Justine."

Then from within came the melody of her voice: "Who is it?"

"It is I," he answered, and straightened himself. It seemed odd to him she did not open the door at once. "I want a word with you," he added, after a pause. But still the door was locked.

"Justine," he called again, "do you not hear me? I want to speak to you."

Then through the slender woodwork at his side a whisper filtered, the dumb voice of one whom madness may have in charge.

"It is not to speak you come, it is to kill."

"Justine!" he cried. All the agony of his life he distilled into her name, "Justine!"

"You killed your child before, you shall not kill another now."

VI.

"City Hall!"

The brakemen were shouting the station through the emptiness of the "Elevated."

In the car in which Mistrial sat a drunken sailor lolled, and a pretty girl of the Sixth Avenue type was eating a confection. Above her, on a panel opposite, the advertisement of a cough remedy shone in blue; beyond was a particolored notice of tennis blazers: and, between them, a text from Mark, in black letters, jumped out from a background of white:

"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

During the journey from his home Mistrial had contemplated that text. Not continuously, however. For a little space his eyes had grazed the retreating throngs over which the train was hurrying, and had rested on the insufferable ugliness of the Bowery. Once, too, he had found himself staring at the girl who sat opposite, and once he had detected within him some envy of the sailor sprawling at her side. But, all the while, that text was with him, and to the jar of the car he repeated for refrain a paraphrase of his own: "How shall it damage a man if he lose his own soul and gain the whole world?"

How indeed? Surely he had tried. For three years the effort had been constant. It was because of it he had married, it was for this he had sought to throttle his child. What his failure had been, Dunellen's posthumous felony and Justine's ultimate reproach indistinctly yet clearly conveyed. No, the world was not gained; he had played his best and he had lost: he could never recover it now.

And as the brakeman bawled in his face, the paraphrase of the text was with him. He rose and passed from the car. Beneath he could discern a grass-plot of the City Park. In spite of the night it was visibly green. The sky was leaden as a military uniform that has been dragged through the mud. From a window of the Tribune Building came a vomit of vapor. And above in a steeple a clock marked twelve.

The stairway led him down to the street. For a moment he hesitated; the locality was unfamiliar. But a toll-gate attracted him; he approached it, paid a penny, and moved onto the bridge. There, he discovered that on either side of him were iron fences and iron rails; he was on the middle of the bridge, not at the side. A train shot by. He turned again and reissued from the gate.

On the corner was another entrance, and through it he saw a carriage pass. It was that way, he knew; and he would have followed the carriage, but a policeman touched him on the arm.

"Got a permit?"

Mistrial shook his head. Why should he have a permit? And, moved perhaps by the mute surprise his face expressed, the policeman explained that the ordinary pedestrian was allowed to cross only through the safeguards of the middle path.

"I will get a cab," he reflected, and for his convenience he discerned one loitering across the way. This he entered, gave an order to the driver, and presently, after paying another toll, rolled off the stonework on to wood.

He craned his neck. Just beyond, a column of stone rose inordinately to the lowering sky; he could see the water-front of the city; opposite was Brooklyn, and in front the lights of Staten Island glowed distantly and dim. The cab was moving slowly. He took some coin from his pocket, placed it on the seat, opened the door, and, stepping from the moving vehicle, looked at the driver. The latter, however, had not noticed him and was continuing his way leisurely over the bridge and on and into the night. Mistrial let him go undetained. He had work now to do, and it was necessary for him to do it quickly; at any moment another carriage might pass or some one happen that way.

Beneath, far down, a barge was moving. He could see the lights; they approached the bridge and vanished within it. The railing, now, he saw was too high to vault, and moreover there was a bar above it that might interfere. He tossed his hat aside and clambered on the iron rail.

"You'll get six months for that," some one was crying.

But to the threat Mistrial paid no heed. He had crossed the rail, his hands relaxed, and just as he dropped straight down to the river below, he could see a policeman, his club uplifted, hanging over the fence, promising him the pleasures of imprisonment. Such was his last glimpse of earth. A multitude of lights danced before his eyes; every nerve in his body tingled; his ears were filled with sudden sounds; he felt himself incased in ice; then something snapped, and all was blank.

The next day a rumor of the suicide was bruited through the clubs.

"What do you think of it, Jones?" Yarde asked.

The novelist plucked at his beard. There were times when he himself did not know what he thought. In this instance, however, he had already learned of the disaster that had overtaken the Dunellen estate, and weaving two and two sagaciously together, he answered with a shrug.

"What do I think of it? I think he died like a man who knew how to live"--an epitaph which pleased him so much that he got his card-case out and wrote it down.

THE END.

By the same Author.

A TRANSACTION IN HEARTS. EDEN. THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK. MR. INCOUL'S MISADVENTURE. A TRANSIENT GUEST. THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION. THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISENCHANTMENT.

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