r
 
 A SLAYE 
 
 OF 
 
 CIECUMSTANCES 
 
 A STOEY OF NEW YORK 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST DE LANCEY PIERSON 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW YORK, & SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.
 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED WITH THE ESTEEM AND 
 REGARD OF THE AUTHOR.
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 
 
 THE FALL OF LINDA JEX 
 
 V (!N PREPARATION),
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN MADISON SQUARE. 
 
 A BURST of music from a brilliantly lighted house facing 
 Madison Square roused a young man who had been sleeping 
 for the past half hour on one of the hard benches under the 
 electric lamps. He yawned, opened his eyes wearily, and 
 shuffled off in the direction of the lights and of the echoes of 
 Strauss that sounded pleasantly in the cold, deserted square. 
 When he arrived at the great stone steps leading up to the 
 spacious doorway of the house, he sat down. You could then 
 see that he was a very shabby young man, cowed and sullen- 
 looking, and that he wore an old pair of carpet slippers instead 
 of shoes, and was generally disreputable. 
 
 Having seated himself on the lowest step as comfortably as 
 he could, he began a careful search of. all his pockets and the 
 linings of his coat, and then put what he had found into his 
 hat. There was a broken .clay pipe, a piece of a cigar, an old 
 pocket-book, and a dirty visiting card. He threw the first 
 three things into the middle of the street, but held the last for 
 some time between his thumb and finger, studying it. 
 
 "Huh!" he grunted; "last relic of a respectable existence! 
 I guess I shan't need you any more," and his face was 
 thoughtful as he tore the card up, and looked out on the cold 
 square, peopled only with shadows and outcasts like himself. 
 Then he swore softly under his breath, and seemed to feel 
 much relieved. His very shabby hat being removed, the 
 sharp October breeze disturbed a tangle of brown curls that 
 were rather wasted on such a dilapidated object. His face, 
 too, was rather mild-looking for a night-owl ; though it was 
 
 1
 
 2 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 pale and haggard. He hummed the tune over to himself, as 
 he sat there, keeping time with his slippered feet on the pave- 
 ment. 
 
 " If I had a waltz I might feel warmer," he said to himself; 
 " but I don't know but the supper that comes afterwards 
 would be more of a treat, taking one consideration with 
 another. The question just now before the house is, shall I 
 break a window and thus earn my board and lodging ? or 
 shall I knock down the first man I see and provide for at least 
 six months of the impenetrable future ? No, that won't do, for 
 the man might strike back ; I guess I'll decide in favor of the 
 window." 
 
 As he sat there soliloquizing, a stout man in a gibus hat and 
 a very light overcoat came along. He was an excellent type 
 of the sleek, easy-going man-about-town, and carried himself 
 moreover in stiff military style. Something about the young 
 man on the step seemed to attract his attention, for he stopped 
 under the street lamp to look back at the lonely, huddled-up, 
 crouching figure. The careful inspection he gave the waif 
 seemed to meet with his approval, for he nodded to himself, 
 and then, swinging his cane in a neatly-gloved hand, disap- 
 peared around the corner. The young man on the steps had 
 watched the coming and going of this sleek, well-fed appari- 
 tion. By-and-by he began to nod, and soon his head drooped 
 and he fell into a troubled doze, while the breeze made merry 
 with his rags and with the tangled curls that swept his fore- 
 head. It may have been an hour or perhaps only ten minutes 
 that he lay in this condition. When he woke up it was to find 
 that the provokingly prosperous-looking individual in the 
 light overcoat had again appeared under the lamp-post, and 
 had resumed his scrutinizing and speculative examination. 
 He thought that perhaps he might be dreaming, and closed 
 his eyes. Opening them quickly again, he found the same 
 man in the same place, still regarding him with the same look 
 of half inquiry. 
 
 " And who might you be ? " asked the well-dressed stranger, 
 continuing his mental inventory of the shabby young man, 
 including the slippers. 
 
 " None of your business," was the prompt reply, as he gath- 
 ered himself and his rags together, and prepared to shuffle
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN MADISON SQUARE. 3 
 
 away. '' If these steps belong to you, take 'em. They're none 
 too comfortable to sleep on." 
 
 " Well, where are you going ? " persisted the other. 
 
 " To the devil, where you can go too," sullenly, as he shuffled 
 away, walking very slowly lest he should lose his slippers, 
 which flapped about his feet and threatened to fall off. 
 
 The man in the light overcoat burst into a loud laugh that 
 startled the outcasts on the benches in the square, and called 
 forth some profanity from the shabby young man. 
 
 "Come, come," he said, good-naturedly; "you're too low 
 down in the world to be cheeky, my good fellow." 
 
 "Doivt 'good-fellow' me," was the savage reply; "I'm not 
 your lackey ; " and he shook off the detaining hand that rested 
 lightly on his arm. " What do you want of me, anyway ? " 
 
 " You shall know in a moment, my fiery young friend. To 
 be brief, I should like to be of service to you. I see you are 
 down, and I would like to put you on your legs again." 
 
 The young man examined him from head to foot. "You 
 must be a new type of a philanthropist. The last one I met 
 wore goloshes, and gave me a tract on gluttony. What kind 
 of literature do you distribute to suffering humanity ? " with 
 a sneer. 
 
 The other laughed. "I assure you that I am a different 
 style of Samaritan than you have ever encountered before. 
 Allow me to introduce myself to you," and the stranger made 
 an elaborate bow ; ' ' Captain Rivington Shrike, at your ser- 
 vice." 
 
 "I cannot give you my card,'' said the other, "because I 
 have just torn the last one up," looking back at the pieces of 
 pasteboard that were fluttering over the walk. ' ' I thought I 
 shouldn't need it any longer, or the name either." 
 
 ' ' But really, my dear fellow, a man must have some kind of a 
 name ; he can't get along very well without it, don't you know." 
 
 " I am not so sure about that," said the ragged young man, 
 blinking like an owl in the light of the street-lamp; " I never 
 got any good out of the name I threw away. I think I'll try 
 a new one and see if I don't have any better luck." 
 
 " Very sensible of you, I am sure," said the captain, who 
 seemed vastly amused- " but I must call you something."
 
 4 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "Call me anything you like," preparing to move off again. 
 
 "Just one moment ! Where are you going ? " 
 
 "You are, it strikes me, unnecessarily curious. I am going 
 to find an alley- way where I can sleep. What are you trying 
 to get out of me?" 
 
 "lam going to see that to-night you are better lodged, to 
 begin with. I may decide to do more, but that will depend 
 pretty much on yourself." 
 
 "Nothing crooked, is it?" asked the other suspiciously; 
 "because I had an opportunity to go into the sawdust game 
 with a most accomplished swindler." 
 
 " We will talk about that part of the programme some other 
 time. I have no doubt that we shall get along famously to- 
 gether. Now, what do you want me to call you? " 
 
 " Oh, most anything will do. One name is just as good as 
 another to me." 
 
 "Well, I'll call you John Brent, if you don't mind. It's not 
 an original name with me, but it sounds well ; how do you like 
 it?" 
 
 "It's a kind of a full-dress name for a man of my limited 
 wardrobe, but I guess it will fit for the present." 
 
 "I got it out of some novel," said the Captain, "so it ought 
 to be good." 
 
 ' ' Having given me a name, what is the next move ? " scru- 
 tinizing the mild blue eyes and round, smiling face that con- 
 fronted him. " If you are interested in me and you appear 
 to be I warn you now, at the start, that I am just as likely to 
 repay any kindness you may do me with ingratitude as not. 
 Now," relapsing into sullenness, "you can use your own dis- 
 cretion about playing the good Samaritan." 
 
 " I am not going to ask for any confidences. I have knocked 
 about the world a good deal, and am a tolerable judge of faces. 
 Keep all your secrets locked up, if you will ; I shall not search 
 for the key. God knows, we all have our little burying- 
 grounds that we don't care to have disturbed. I have a select 
 assortment of ghosts I don't want to see myself. It is a very 
 fortunate thing for you that we met, however." 
 
 "For you or me?" 
 
 ' ' Well, for both of us. From this hour I will begin and see 
 if I can improve your condition."
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN MADISON SQUARE. 5 
 
 "There's a splendid field for your labors," said the young 
 man, with a good deal of bitterness in his voice. "You can- 
 not begin your miracles too soon to suit me." 
 
 " I may come in a questionable shape for a good fairy," was 
 the reply ; "but I am just as well equipped for the task. You 
 are in rags, no one will dispute. Very well, you shall shine 
 in broadcloth. You have been living like the prodigal, on 
 husks." 
 
 "No! free lunches," interrupted the other, with a grim 
 attempt at humor. 
 
 The Captain frowned at this irrelevancy in the midst of his 
 oratory, and went on : 
 
 ' ' Henceforth you shall become intimately acquainted with 
 the flavor of Strasbourg pie ; in short, you shall live as befits 
 a man of gentle blood, for, in spite of the drawbacks in the 
 way of clothes and" looking at the slippers "shoes,! am 
 sure you have at some time in your life been an ornamental if 
 not valuable member of society. We shall see what a fresh 
 start will do for you. In the first place 
 
 The Captain's speech was cut short, as the ponderous door 
 of the great house opened, showing a spacious hall lit by brass 
 lanterns and glittering candelabras, and, on either side, lines 
 of lackeys in canary-colored liveries. 
 
 About the lights the departing guests fluttered like gay moths. 
 The carriages began to arrive suddenly before the door, and 
 Captain Shrike thought it advisable to seek a less conspicuous 
 position in the shadow of the stone lions guarding the entrance. 
 John Brent, half -hidden by his friend's portly form, listlessly 
 watched the stream of elegantly dressed men and women as 
 they tripped down the stone steps, an avalanche of satins and 
 broadcloths. He heard the tinkle of French boots and the 
 rustle of starched skirts, but it was half in a doze, for he was 
 very sleepy. 
 
 One by one the carriages swept away with their elegant 
 burdens, and were swallowed up in the darkness. Two people 
 the last to go stood on the steps waiting for their coupe a 
 lithe young girl, leaning on the arm of a stout, oily-looking 
 man, whose face was expressive of extreme self-satisfaction 
 and pomposity. He was talking to the lady in a strident 
 voice, but she seemed to give little heed to his words. Her
 
 G A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 face looked pale and tired in the light of the street-lamp. On 
 the way to the carriage her soft plush mantle brushed 
 John Brent as he crouched in the shadow. It seemed to rouse 
 him up, and he turned and looked at her curiously. 
 
 " Who is that ? " he asked, noticing that Captain Shrike had 
 bowed to the couple. 
 
 "Take a good look at her," whispered the other; ".that is 
 the young lady you are going to marry." 
 
 Brent was about to reply to this remarkable speech, when 
 the carriage-door slammed with a bang, and he felt the Cap- 
 tain's hand on his arm. 
 
 " Come," said the latter; "it is time I introduced you to the 
 Impecunious Club."
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE IMPECUNIOUS CLUB. 
 
 A CLEAN-LOOKING brick house faces Blackwell's Island in the 
 upper part of the city. It is like all the other dwellings in 
 Beekman Place, except that in front of the oak door there is a 
 horse-block that looks like a cake of Castile soap, and that 
 Venetian blinds of a peculiarly ugly green cover the windows. 
 
 Nothing at all suspicious about the edifice, you would say ; 
 and it looks as if it might be the home of some retired green- 
 grocer who cared little for modern innovations. The back 
 porch, which overlooks the copper-colored river, is a pleasant 
 place from which to watch the shipping, provided you have 
 no aversion to bilge-water, the odor of which always seems to 
 hang in the air, and gets into everything at meals, and gives 
 everyone a sailor-like smell. When the warm weather comes 
 on, the German families who live on the river-front move their 
 tables out in the back yard of an evening, eat indigestible 
 suppers, consume an alarming amount of liquids, and have a 
 general good time. In number 603, singing is often heard at a 
 late hour ; but otherwise it is quiet enough, and the neighbors 
 seem rather proud that there is some mystery attachedto its 
 walls. The brass door-plate exhibits the name " J. F. Jones"; 
 but who "Jones" is, the inhabitants of Beekman Place have 
 never made any effort to find out, for they are mostly a hard- 
 working set of householders, too intent on chasing the nimble 
 dollar to waste time in detective work. 
 
 The inhabitants of 603 seemed to be mostly young men of 
 fashion, who were generally seen coming out of the house in 
 the afternoon, and who returned very late at night, after the 
 majority of the good people on the block had been sleeping 
 some hours. There is nothing Suspicious about the young men, 
 except that they dress better than anyone else in the street, 
 and do not seem to have any work to do in particular. 
 
 7
 
 8 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 In this house, in the second story back, John Brent awoke, 
 just as a chirpy little brass clock on the mantelpiece began to 
 strike the hour of twelve in shrill yet musical chimes. He 
 yawned and looked about him doubtfully, wonderingly, and 
 then rubbed his eyes for a moment and sat bolt upright in bed. 
 The room was furnished with dignified simplicity. Every- 
 thing was massive and elegant, and the two large windows 
 commanded a fine view of the river and the shipping. Brent 
 recalled the events of the preceding night slowly. He could 
 remember well enough having met with a stranger in a light 
 overcoat; also a beautiful face that flashed like a meteor 
 through his brain ; but that was all. Meanwhile, he lay very 
 still, because he was a little afraid to move, lest the noisy 
 brass clock might walk away on its smart little legs, and the 
 furniture collapse and sink through the floor like a transfor- 
 mation scene in a pantomime. So he lay very still, and 
 thought and wondered, and wondered and thought. At the 
 end of five minutes' cogitation he had made up his mind not to 
 be surprised at anything he saw or heard, but to take matters 
 as they came, with a thankful heart. He had a philosophic 
 mind, this young man, and to step from the gutter to such 
 comfortable quarters astonished him for the nonce; but he 
 was equal to the occasion. He got out of bed finally and went 
 over to the pier-glass between the two windows and examined 
 the reflection of a tall young man in a blue striped night-gown 
 for some moments meditatively. 
 
 " Yes," he added, stroking a stubbly beard that sprouted on 
 his chin ; ' ' same man ! same man ! I recognize the face at once. 
 Didn't know but that it might have changed too, in the night. 
 Glad it's all right ; shouldn't know exactly how to get on with 
 any other kind of a face. What I need in particular is a 
 shave." 
 
 He made a face at himself in the glass, and hummed a comic- 
 opera air as he proceeded to dress in some clothes he found 
 at the foot of the bed. He wondered not a little what had 
 become of his rags and the terrible slippers, but he found he 
 had made a good exchange. The new suit fitted him nicely, 
 and was decidedly more stylish in cut, if not so well ventilated 
 as that which he had worn the day before. After he had com- 
 pleted his toilet he looked at himself again in the glass, and
 
 THE IMPECUNIOUS CLUB. 9 
 
 the contemplation of his charms seemed to give him satisfac- 
 tion, for he nodded several times approvingly. Blackwell's 
 Island loomed up, with its sombre buildings, as he stood by 
 the window and looked out on the muddy river. 
 
 "Well, I am glad I didn't wake up over there," with a 
 shiver. "I shouldn't think anybody in this neighborhood 
 would go wrong as long as those frowning buildings were in 
 front of their noses." 
 
 The sputtering anthracite burning in the grate filled the 
 room with a pleasant warmth, and he lingered in its glow as 
 he looked meditatively about the apartment. 
 
 He noticed then for the first time that the only pictures in 
 the place were a row of some twenty cabinet photographs in 
 little oak frames, and that they were all of women. Had he 
 fallen into a modern blue-beard's den? he wondered, as he went 
 closer to examine the collection. 
 
 It was certainly not a gallery of national beauties, for the 
 majority were elderly, far from good-looking, and dowdy to a 
 degree. One portrait over the fire-place attracted his atten- 
 tion^ It was that of a young girl of about twenty, an oval 
 face framed in by a cluster of dark curls and lit by a pair of 
 large, mournful eyes. Brent started at the sight of this pict- 
 ure as if the face had been a familiar one. Somewhere in his 
 life he had met the owner of those eyes, but when and how he 
 could not exactly recall, though he puzzled his brain for some 
 time. Through his mind there flitted a number of faces 
 which had figured in his past. Where had he seen her? In 
 the Grand Theatre, Detroit, with her husband? No, the carpet- 
 dealer's wife was fat and considerably over thirty. In the 
 cars at Grand Rapids? No. In the ballet at Niblo's? Never! 
 Was it a face singled out of a crowd a Macy shop-girl? Was 
 it yes, he remembered now; he had seen her in the street, 
 last night ! It was she he had seen coming down the steps of 
 the great house in Madison Square, with a soft light on her 
 face, leaning on the arm of the stout man with the great 
 diamond in his shirt, and the smirk, and the rough, coarse 
 voice. To John Brent it seemed like a year since she had 
 flashed by him. He found himself studying the picture atten- 
 tively. There was no name on the card, no clew to her iden- 
 tity ; only a number that told nothing. How came the por-
 
 10 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 trait in that room? What relation did she bear to the jaunty 
 man-about-town he had met the night before? he found him- 
 self wondering. Somehow he was not at all pleased to find 
 her picture on Captain Shrike's walls ; it was out of place. 
 
 " Don't let me disturb you," said a voice at his elbow; "I 
 am glad you have the good taste to pick out the gem of my 
 collection." 
 
 The very man he had been thinking about stood before him, 
 nodding and smiling in a friendly way. 
 
 "You recognize our little friend of last evening?" he added, 
 seating himself leisurely in the most comfortable chair in the 
 room, and lighting a cigarette with a lazy hand. "She is 
 rather pretty." 
 
 "Well, yes," said Brent; and then he looked at the picture 
 again, and at Shrike's still smiling face, and sat down and 
 began drumming on the top of the table nervously with his 
 fingers. He wanted to say something, and did not know 
 exactly how to begin. 
 
 " Captain," he finally broke in, " before we go any further, 
 let us come to some kind of an understanding. I know too 
 much of the world and of men to believe that you have taken 
 me in from any disinterested motives. I used to believe in 
 such unselfish philanthropy; I don't any more. That was 
 before I came to New York. The question now suggests 
 itself forcibly, What are you going to do for me, and what 
 am I going to do for you? " 
 
 " Exactly," said the captain, smiling and displaying a very 
 even set of teeth. ' ' You are quite right in thinking that my 
 motives are purely selfish. I have a project on hand, and I 
 needed help to carry it out. Fate or the devil threw you 
 into my hands; I thought you were the very man for my 
 purpose; so here you are, and here I am." 
 
 "Well, before we go any further," said Brent, impatiently, 
 " what is the Impecunious Club ? " 
 
 " As you will in all probability become a member, it is only 
 right you should know. The Impecunious Club is a secret 
 society, and was founded by me in 1886, or rather, I thought 
 of the plan for the club in that year. When I started it, 
 there were only five members; it was finally increased to 
 twelve, and twelve has been the limit ever since. To begin
 
 THE IMPECUNIOUS CLUB.' H 
 
 with, we were all men of good family and good looks, but con- 
 foundedly poor, and having _been born with expensive tastes 
 we made up our minds that the society which stimulated 
 extravagance in living should gratify those tastes. I was the 
 man who solved the problem how that was possible to be 
 done, and the result is that I have enriched an army of impe- 
 cunious friends, who now enjoy the luxuries they were born 
 to inherit. The club was founded to fill a long-felt financial 
 want. I had made a careful study of social life in all its 
 branches, and had come to the conclusion that too much 
 money was being taken out of the country by foreign noble- 
 men and adventurers of doubtful character ; in other words, 
 that too much American money was being diverted from its 
 lawful channels. It was with a view to putting a stop to these 
 depredations from abroad that I founded the Impecunious 
 Club." Captain Shrike rolled out the last sentence as tri- 
 umphantly as if he were announcing the discovery of a new 
 continent. 
 
 " In other words," continued the captain, " the members of 
 this club are offered every facility to marry young women of 
 property, whose only misfortune is that they are rich. The 
 membership of the club is strictly limited to twelve. You, 
 for instance, will fill the place of a gentleman who has just 
 left us." 
 
 "Dead?" asked Brent. 
 
 "No, next thing married," said the other, grinning ami- 
 cably. " That's the way the beggars all do. Go off and leave 
 me, one by one. Before the year's out I expect an entirely 
 new set of men. You will be gone, for one," with a laugh. 
 
 " Then, if I join the club? " 
 
 "You will be able to dress well, eat well, and sleep well, as 
 far as your conscience is concerned." 
 
 " And how is all this paid for? " 
 
 "Very simple, very! All you have to do when you marry 
 is to sign an agreement promising to pay into the treasury of 
 the club ten per cent of the income you receive. See? " 
 
 "Yes, I see;" and the other's face grew very thoughtful. 
 ' ' But what I don't see is, how you find men who are ready to 
 go into this scheme for trapping girls into marriage." 
 
 "You would be surprised to know that such monsters are
 
 12 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 very plentiful in New York society. It is, after all, a very 
 easy way of making a fortune. Now, I leave it to you." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it is, when you come down to a question of 
 pure calculation. But, on the other hand, you are consigning 
 these people to a life of misery." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that. You look at the matter from an 
 entirely American point of view. Schopenhauer will bear me 
 out in saying that a marriage is just as likely to prove happy, 
 even if the contracting parties have never met until they reach 
 the church-door. Besides, under the existing state of things 
 in society, it is possible for people to live for years in the same 
 house and never see each other from one year's end till the 
 next. All a man in society asks for is, that his wife shall 
 speak good grammar, look well at the head of a table, dress 
 well, be discreet in her flirtations, if she have any, and not be 
 of a too inquiring mind. I don't see why husbands of the 
 Impecunious-Club brand are not just as good as any in the 
 market. The modern wife is not exacting; she knows the 
 weakness of humanity, and is not looking for a demigod." 
 
 " Yet a man must be wanting in self-respect who lends him- 
 self to such a scheme," said Brent, a little faintly; for some- 
 how the sentences that he wanted to use did not formulate 
 quickly. 
 
 " Well, see if you can't compromise with your conscience," 
 said Shrike, with something of a sneering tone in his voice ; 
 " there is certainly no compulsion in the matter," as he rose 
 to go, with a yawn. " In case you want to back out and I 
 sincerely trust you will not be so foolish, for your own sake, 
 why, you will find your your the garments you had on last 
 night in yonder closet," with a wave of the hand ; " and I don't 
 mind asking my coachman to drop you off at the place where 
 I found you in Madison Square." 
 
 " But, Captain" faltered the young man, as visions of that 
 cold step arose forcibly in his mind. 
 
 "There, there," said the other, good-naturedly, "don't say 
 another word until you have had some breakfast. You can't 
 be heroic on an empty stomach, and I am going to give you 
 all the chance in the world to make up your mind," as he bus- 
 tled to the door. " After you have done justice to our frugal 
 fare, and want to discuss the matter over calmly, just ring
 
 THE IMPECUNIOUS CLUB. 13 
 
 the bell ; I shall be down in the library ; " and this peculiar 
 individual disappeared in a flash of blue and yellow through 
 the doorway, leaving a very bewildered young man behind 
 him. 
 
 Brent sat down and eyed the fire thoughtfully. He was 
 thinking very hard, and was in a state of hesitancy. His 
 views of honor were perfectly correct and sound, but taking 
 his circumstances into consideration the captain's offer was a 
 strong temptation. On the one hand was want and misery, 
 on the other a life of ease and luxury. Most young men 
 of his age, placed in the same position, would not have 
 hesitated a moment about accepting the latter. Brent had 
 somewhere perhaps at a mother's knee acquired some strong 
 views regarding honor, though he did not always have the 
 courage of his convictions. He wanted to be strong, but his 
 will-power was weak ; and here was a struggle that needed all 
 his best energies and heroism of purpose. 
 
 After a while he went over to the closet and looked in. The 
 sight of the familiar old rags and the carpet slippers em- 
 broidered with cabbage roses revived all the misery he had 
 passed through. Could he go back to it now? he asked him- 
 self. It must have been the sight of those slippers that made 
 him slam the closet-door with an oath, and resume his old 
 place by the fire. 
 
 " Shall I put on those rags again? " he said to himself. 
 
 Then his eyes wandered over the glossy diagonal coat he 
 was wearing, and the neatly-fitting trousers ; and he sighed. 
 The portrait over the mantelpiece again seemed to interest 
 him, for his eyes rested on it for some time, as if the contem- 
 plation gave him pleasure ; and at intervals he found his eyes 
 wandering to the girl's pure face, as if he would like to ask 
 her help. 
 
 A little Russia-leather book was lying on the table, and in 
 an absent-minded way his fingers strayed among its leaves. 
 It was an address book, he could see, and contained only the 
 names of women, some forty in all. He understood the mean- 
 ing of the book at once ; it was the directory of the eligible 
 young ladies of property of New York, who were shining 
 marks for the members of the Impecunious Club. Those who 
 had large properties had their names marked with a star, and
 
 14 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 opposite each was the amount of her income. Brent felt an 
 insatiable desire to know if the young lady who looked down 
 at him so pleasantly from above the fire-place was on the list. 
 He noted the number on the rim of the photograph, and saw 
 that it corresponded with one in the book. There he read, 
 " Tillinghurst, Marcia; No. 66, $000,04." By examining the 
 book he found that the figures placed after each name were 
 intended to be read backwards, so that No. 66 was credited 
 with an income of forty thousand. 
 
 "So that is the young lady Captain Shrike expects me to 
 marry," he said to himself, as his eyes wandered from the 
 name in the book to the picture on the wall, and then back 
 again. 
 
 He felt rather ashamed of himself whenever he encountered 
 those dark eyes, so he slammed the directory on the table, and 
 strode over to the window to divert his thoughts. He was 
 standing there, when a neat old woman entered and laid out 
 a savory breakfast on the table, retiring as silently as she 
 came. 
 
 Brent was looking out at the muddy river, thinking up some 
 noble sentiment to floor" Captain Shrike with when he saw 
 him a speech that would cause that amiable villain to writhe 
 with shame. In the midst of manufacturing his rhetorical 
 torpedo, however, he got a whiff of the fried chicken smoking 
 on the table, and somehow his sentimental and heroic meta- 
 phors got mixed, and the next thing he knew he was burning 
 his tongue over a cup of steaming mocha. 
 
 When he had quite finished the meal and never was a 
 repast enjoyed more, for it was twenty-four hours since he 
 had tasted food he found himself again looking at the gloomy 
 buildings of Blackwell's Island that loomed up over the sugar- 
 bowl. The weather had changed since he had last seen the 
 gray stone piles, the flagged courts, and close-shaven grass 
 plots. A drizzling rain was falling now, and what had been 
 a bright bit of background for the river and the shipping, was 
 now a black blot, swimming in mist and rain. 
 
 " It would have been either that or the river if I had gone 
 on much longer," he said to himself, with a grimace. "What 
 is the difference? "
 
 THE IMPECUNIOUS CLUB. 15 
 
 He went over to the corner and pulled the bell-rope almost 
 savagely, filling the house with echoes. 
 
 "Well?" asked Captain Shrike, as he appeared leisurely in 
 the doorway. 
 
 "I have made up my mind to stay/' was the reply.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MAKING OF A MILLIONAIRE. 
 
 As Captain Shrike drove down town with his protege the 
 next morning, he said, "It is now time that we played our 
 first cards. I will show you how a millionaire may be manu- 
 factured in this great city on a very small amount of money. 
 New York people, I have learned from experience, delight in 
 being humbugged. Society here is the happy hunting-ground 
 for the charlatans of all nations. It supports in regal style men 
 and women who can't sing, and actors who can't act, and lends 
 the protection of its purple to people of shady record and the 
 offscourings of foreign nobility. The more of a humbug you 
 are, the better are your chances of success. I'm a bit of a one 
 myself," added the captain, with a grim smile, "and I advise 
 you to become one too." 
 
 The carriage rolled into Fifth Avenue, and John Brent 
 watched with interest the architectural panorama as it un- 
 folded itself before his eyes. He was still a little bewildered 
 at the sudden turn in his fortunes. The transition from the 
 miseries of the old life to the lazy luxuries of the new, was cer- 
 tainly a pleasant change; yet he was a little worried at the 
 price he must eventually pay for it all. 
 
 Captain Shrike, noticing that he was preoccupied, imagined 
 that he had begun already to repent of his bargain. 
 
 "Come, come, this won't do," nudging him with a very 
 sharp elbow. " Don't pull such a long face; you are not going 
 to be married to-day, don't you know. And I say," pointing 
 suddenly out of the window, "there is Papa Tillinghurst's 
 house now. Ah, I thought that would rouse you, me boy," as 
 the young man followed with his eyes the direction of the cap- 
 tain's expressive forefinger. ' ' Now, isn't that a.better lodging- 
 place than a brown stone step? There's about a million dollars 
 cemented in those walls, and the place was deuced cheap at 
 that. Some time I shall be driving by the house as I am to- 
 
 16
 
 THE MAKING OF A MILLIONAIRE. 17 
 
 day, and see you lolling up there in the bow- window ; or per- 
 haps you will live in the room over the library," continued the 
 captain, in a provoking way. "What! you don't care? 
 Mercy ! what a peculiar man you are, to be sure ! Why, the 
 prospect of getting so much for so little ought to make you 
 wild with delight." 
 
 "I wonder you have never tried for this brilliant prize your- 
 self," said Brent slowly. 
 
 "Perhaps I may yet, if you don't seize the opportunity," the 
 other replied, with a laugh. "I know that Papa Tillinghurst 
 would be only too glad to have me for a son-in-law ; in fact, he 
 has said so before this. I wonder sometimes myself why I let 
 such a good chance slip by. I am not in the habit of losing a 
 good thing. Perhaps one reason is because the young lady 
 herself don't fancy me particularly ; but oh, I say, just have a 
 look at that little woman going up there on the right-hand side 
 of the street." 
 
 A slender, black-eyed woman, in an English ulster of huge 
 check pattern, was tripping by, leading a diminutive little ter- 
 rier by a string. 
 
 "That is Mrs. Wilton," said Captain Shrike, "Mrs. Beverly 
 Wilton, late of Belair, West Virginia. This is the first time I 
 have seen her this year, unattached to a Southern general. 
 She rarely goes unprovided with some old military bore, full 
 of reminiscences of the civil war. I don't know where she gets 
 such a large and unfailing supply of the article, but I suppose 
 they have come North to fill up the magazines with war 
 papers. I point Mrs. Wilton out to you because I admire her 
 greatly. She is the most delightful little humbug of which 
 this great city can boast. She has neither money nor beauty, 
 and yet she has forced herself into a certain society, and is get- 
 ting gradually a grip on the higher circles. Talk about putting 
 your best foot forward ! Why, she puts her whole body for- 
 ward, so to speak. She shares a hall bedroom with another 
 impecunious friend, up among the chimney-pots of a Broadway 
 hotel. Then she gives receptions once a week. The proprie- 
 tors let her have a reception-room on the second floor on Tues- 
 days, where you are regaled with Chatham Street claret, stale 
 biscuits, and her reminiscences of high life at Belair. The de- 
 2
 
 18 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 vices and ingenuity she uses to save money would fill a large 
 volume. She would dress well if she had an income of three 
 dollars a week; and if she ever consents to sell her soul, it will 
 be for some new and wonderful garment that will make all the 
 other women in town mad with envy. I heard a story of her 
 the other day that was very amusing. It seems the hotel peo- 
 ple wanted to charge her four dollars a week for a fire, and she 
 knew that she could not afford it. Something had to be done, 
 however, for the cold weather was coming on, and dresses 
 were getting more decollete than ever, so she hit upon this in- 
 genious scheme. She expressed a great Saratoga trunk she 
 owned to a neighboring wood-yard, and had it filled up with 
 hickory logs to the brim. The trunk was about as large as a 
 Central Park flat-building, so it held a great deal. She then 
 had it expressed back to her, and the total cost of it all was not 
 more than a dollar and a half. I tell you, Brent, I am posi- 
 tively awed by the Napoleonic way that woman goes about, 
 deceiving the world in general, on such a meagre capital. As 
 dinner-parties are a clear gain to her, she seldom loses one dur- 
 ing the season. I think she must scent the smell of the cook- 
 ing afar off, like an old war-horse does the smoke of battle. By 
 Jove ! I sometimes think I ought to marry her, 'pon my soul I 
 do. We should make such a splendid pair to batten on soci- 
 ety ; " and the captain grew thoughtful, as if he was consider- 
 ing the scheme. " But I hope I have not been tiring you," to 
 Brent. 
 
 ' ' On the contrary, I have been very much interested. But 
 where are we heading for now?" as the carriage rolled into 
 Madison Square. 
 
 "First to the Madison Bank to deposit $1000 in your name. 
 You will find it convenient to have some money up-towri to 
 pay small bills with." 
 
 " Is it not risky to put so much money at the disposal of a man 
 you have only known for twenty -four hours ? " asked Brent. 
 He was not at all displeased, however, with the fact of having 
 funds again. 
 
 "Oh, no," the captain replied calmly; "I don't believe you 
 would stoop to crime ; you might be the cat's-paw of another, 
 but not of your own accord." 
 
 The young man's face flushed at this frankness, but he said
 
 THE MAKI.\V OI'' A MILLIONAIRE. 19 
 
 nothing, as the carriage had by this time rolled up in front of 
 the bank. 
 
 "My friend Brent," said Captain Shrike, after introducing 
 him to the cashier when they had entered, "has most of his 
 money tied up in Western securities. As soon as he is able to 
 seU out to advantage I shall persuade him to bank here." 
 
 "I am quite sure we shall be able to take care of his money," 
 was the reply. "Stock in the Madison is now forty above 
 par." 
 
 The deposit was made, and they were bowed out. 
 
 "That cashier," said Shrike, as they got into the carriage 
 again, " is a member of the Impecunious Club. I got him in 
 myself, because I knew he would be invaluable to borrow money 
 or securities from. Leave it to him to spread the report that 
 you have large funds in the bank. It will be noised all over 
 town in a week that a Western millionaire is in the market. 
 My! what a rush will be made for you by match-making 
 mammas as soon as you show your nose in society ! How I do 
 delight in imposing on these aristocrats ! " and the captain 
 rubbed the palms of his hands together and grinned. 
 
 Their next visit was to Carter & Kickshaw's, the great 
 Fifth Avenue tailors, who boasted openly that they charged 
 more for clothes than any other house in the city, and conse- 
 quently had more orders on hand generally than they could 
 fill. Here Brent allowed himself to be measured for a number 
 of suits of clothes, suitable for every occasion ; and Captain 
 Shrike found a chance to whisper in the ear of the head of the 
 firm that his friend was a Western millionaire, so they were 
 at liberty to charge him the stiffest kind of prices. 
 
 ' ' Old Kickshaw, " he explained, when they were again in 
 the carriage, " is a most infernal old rascal, but he gets the 
 trade of all the rich men in the city, except your esteemed 
 father-in-law elect, who has his clothes chopped out by some 
 Sixth Avenue cloth-butcher; and it is therefore the proper 
 caper to come here and be swindled." 
 
 " What was your reason for persuading me into getting that 
 horrible orange-colored waistcoat ? " 
 
 " Why, my dear fellow, that will be worth at least a thou- 
 sand dollars to you, 'pon honor, as an advertisement. You 
 see, it is a new thing, and you are probably, the first man who
 
 20 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 has had the temerity to order one from that cloth. The 
 worthy nabobs are rushing there every day now to order their 
 winter suits, and they will of course be shown specimens of 
 that horrible stuff. The exclamations will be universal that it 
 is frightful. Kickshaw will retaliate that he has just sold one 
 to the Western millionaire, Mr. John Brent. The garrulous 
 old liar will then fill them up with stories about your eccen- 
 tricity and fabulous wealth, until they are all curious to see 
 you. Oh ! I assure you, twenty-five dollars was not thrown 
 away on that nightmare of a garment." 
 
 "And am I to make a bill-board of myself for advertising 
 purposes ? " asked Brent, in a rather disgusted tone of voice. 
 
 "Come, come, that's not bad," said the captain, with a 
 boisterous laugh. " Well, I don't know but you may regard 
 yourself in that light. Have you never noticed that when a 
 show is a particular humbug, it makes up for the deficiency 
 by the gorgeousness of the lithographs and printing? Ha, ha! 
 that's not bad, comparing yourself to a bill-board." 
 
 Brent frowned, but said nothing. 
 
 " You are not quite sure," continued Shrike, "whether you 
 are doing right in embarking in this enterprise. I regret to 
 see so much pride in a man of your years. I used to cherish 
 a fine assortment of noble sentiments myself some years ago. 
 They are pretty shop- worn now ; for the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil have conspired to kill nearly all the good there was 
 in me. " He did not speak as if he particularly regretted his 
 lost illusions, but rather as if he was glad they were gone. 
 
 " In thinking over what you are 'pleased to call our enter- 
 prise," said Brent, "has it ever occurred to you that perhaps 
 the young lady herself might put a veto on your plans at the 
 last moment ? Even while you are bargaining for her hand 
 she may be in love with somebody else." 
 
 " Don't be alarmed, me boy. I have taken everything into 
 consideration. I know her like a book, and am sure she is 
 entirely unattached. In the first place, she hates society, and 
 consequently has not had much of a chance of meeting any- 
 body, unless in a clandestine way, and she is hardly the kind 
 of a girl to fall in love with a coachman or a clerk in a dry- 
 goods store." 
 
 "I should hardly think so."
 
 THE MAKING OF A MILLIONAIRE. 21 
 
 "'Now, you, I may say, are rather good-looking in an effem- 
 inate way ; and, moreover, the history of your life is romantic, 
 and will attract a young girl who has not dropped all her 
 illusions." 
 
 "Why, what do you know about my past history ?" Brent 
 asked, quickly. 
 
 " Nothing further than last night. I have a fertile imagina- 
 tion, though, and it won't take me very long to fit you out 
 with a romantic career that will make Haggard blush for his 
 laurels. All you have to do is to go in and win. With the 
 financial and moral support of the Impecunious Club, defeat 
 is almost impossible. Bets of two to one are freely offered on 
 your success, and no takers." 
 
 "How delightful!" exclaimed Brent, with a grimace. 
 " How will the Club begin the campaign ? " 
 
 " They will be of benefit to you in many ways. You have 
 now a host of mysterious protectors, bent on your service. 
 As they all move in the best sets, they will see that every 
 report is circulated that is liable to advance your cause. I 
 will teach you the sign by which you can recognize the mem- 
 bers of the Club, wherever and whenever you meet them. In 
 case of necessity you need have no compunctions about call- 
 ing on them for aid, either to back up an assertion or should 
 you run short of money. You will be sure to find them ready 
 and willing to oblige. In a week, thanks to the efforts of this 
 devoted band, half the women in New York society will have 
 a curiosity to see you. Now, mark my words." 
 
 "You are certainly a remarkable man, Captain Shrike," 
 said Brent, who was rather amazed at all he heard. 
 
 " After lunch, "said Shrike, "I shall go over to the Argen- 
 tine Club and propose your name. There you will get 
 acquainted with all the richest men in town. For the present 
 we shall allow you two hundred a month for pocket-money : 
 properly managed, that ought to be enough. When you are 
 in the Club, always smoke the most expensive cigars and 
 drink the dearest wines, when you need such things. Tip the 
 waiters with nothing less than a bank-note. They are the 
 greatest gossips in the world, and will spread the story of your 
 generosity. I will post you later about the Western securi- 
 ties you own. In speaking of your investments, do so in a
 
 22 A XL AYR OF 
 
 careless way, as if the very mention of money had become 
 tiresome to you. I would also advise you to take an expensive 
 pew in the Church of the Heavenly Hope, and go there regu- 
 larly. Many a man have I known to leave a poker-game Sun- 
 day morning in order to get to that church. You see, it gives 
 people who don't know you the impression that you are not 
 altogether devoured with the greed of money-getting, and 
 have begun to think of higher things. Oh! I tell you, it is a 
 most paying investment. The rector, the Rev. Sebastian 
 Satine, is always ready to distribute a hundred dollars or more 
 among the poor of the parish, and being a man who visits a 
 good deal among his parishioners, is sure to give you good 
 advertising returns." 
 
 " You have laid out a very attractive programme for me," 
 Brent said, as he concluded. 
 
 "In an hour I must be in Wall Street," looking at his 
 watch ; " I suppose you have never speculated ? " 
 
 "Never." 
 
 ' ' You don't look as if you had nerve enough for that sort of 
 work. Well, I shall buy a little stock in your name for the 
 present. It will give you some reputation on the Street, and 
 will certainly not cost me any more. A few daring plunges 
 at first will give the brokers something to talk about, and will 
 be a good advertisement. But here is the Brunswick. We'll 
 get out and have a snack," and he rapped on the window for 
 the coachman to stop. " To-night," he added, " I shall want 
 your society for a german or something that is to be given by 
 Mrs. Axminster of Madison Avenue. It is time you took your 
 first plunge in the Circean bowl. Miss 66 might turn up," 
 meaningly, " and the game would begin. For this afternoon 
 you can enjoy yourself as you think best. I shan't need you." 
 
 "You talk as if you had bought me," said Brent, with some 
 bitterness in his voice. 
 
 The other laughed. ' ' That's what it amounts to, in cold 
 English, I suppose; and I am paying for you on the instalment 
 plan."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FALL OF J. CUMMINGS RAWDON. 
 
 SOME time ago an enormous sign hung from a building on 
 the north-west corner of Broadway and Canal Street, that 
 could be read with ease five blocks away. The merchant who 
 was so anxious to claim public recognition in this way was a 
 pompous Englishman boasting of the high-sounding name of 
 J. Cummings Rawdon ; and he dealt in wholesale flour. His 
 enemies and he had a goodly number were unkind enough 
 to say that he was an escaped ticket-of-leave man ; but, any- 
 way, he had gravitated from behind the counter of a corner 
 grocery-store to be the proprietor of a great and flourishing 
 trade, with dealings in Australia and Europe, and a financial 
 credit that seemed unimpeachable. 
 
 One day, up the steep stairs leading to the main offices of 
 this establishment, a dingy and bedraggled looking pedler was 
 toiling, all unmindful of the threatening signs on the walls 
 that forbade gentlemen of his profession the building. He 
 belonged to that irrepressible army who worry business men 
 early and late. In his pack he carried a rich and varied 
 assortment of suspenders, collar buttons, and odds-and-ends 
 from Chatham Street auction-rooms. He seemed to be even 
 more ragged than the generality of his class, and shuffled 
 along, with eyes on the ground, as if he were momentarily 
 expecting a kick, or had lost something. Arriving at the 
 main-office floor he walked boldly into the private room of the 
 great Rawdon himself, and attempted to sell to that eminent 
 merchant a pair of green suspenders embroidered with sham- 
 rocks. To say that J. Cummings Rawdon was surprised 
 would be to put it mildly. For a moment he stared at the 
 ragged apparition as if in doubt whether or not to believe his 
 senses. If his head clerk had asked for a day's leave of ab- 
 sence he could not have been more astonished. 
 
 "How how did this creature get in here? " he finally found 
 
 23
 
 24 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 strength to roar out. "Here, you," to one of the group of 
 frightened clerks who sprang forward at the sound of his 
 voice, "why don't you look who comes in here? Go to the 
 cashier and get your wages. I'll see if I have got to support a 
 lot of lazy dogs only to be insulted." 
 
 By this time the unfortunate pedler had been hustled out 
 of the building with many a parting kick from the excited 
 clerks, who left him swearing vociferously and vowing all 
 manner of unpleasant things. 
 
 "Be glad you are not all of you discharged," said their em- 
 ployer, as they returned sheepishly to their desks. ' ' The next 
 time, off you go; " and they knew he meant it. 
 
 That evening, as J. Cummings Eawdon was walking up and 
 down in front of the doorway of his building, waiting for his 
 carriage to take him home for the day, he felt a hand laid 
 suddenly on his arm. He turned and recognized the pedler 
 who had roused his ire that very morning. 
 
 " How dare you? " he exclaimed, raising his heavy cane with 
 a furious gesture. 
 
 "Drop that, governor," exclaimed the other, in a hoarse 
 whisper, as he held the other's arm. "Drop it, I say;" and 
 there was a look in the man's sharp little eyes that made the 
 flour merchant tremble. 
 
 " What do you want with me? Don't keep me waiting," he 
 stammered, cursing the fact that he saw no policeman. 
 
 " Just this, Mr. J. Cummings Rawdon. You had me kicked 
 out of your place this morning same as you would a stray dog. 
 Well, we don't always forget these things, nor forgive 'em. 
 I'll make you crawl for this, some day, damn you I " and he 
 was gone in the crowd. 
 
 "Bah!" was Rawdon's exclamation, as he brushed off his 
 coat-sleeve, which still bore the marks of the pedler's dirty 
 fingers. ' ' Threats ! idle threats ! " 
 
 But somehow he was strangely thoughtful as he got into his 
 coupe and rode up-town. Of course, he could afford to laugh 
 at such a miserable creature ; yet, for many nights afterward, 
 he saw a fierce, hungry face in his dreams, and it worried him 
 strangely. 
 
 Eight years from that time the commercial world was 
 startled one morning with the news that the great house of J.
 
 TIIE FALL OF J. CUMMINGS KAWDON. '25 
 
 Cummings Rawdon had failed, with liabilities of over a mil- 
 lion. No one would believe at first that the thing could be 
 true. Rawdon had never been liked very much by his busi- 
 ness acquaintances, for they envied him his phenomenal 
 prosperity, and many were glad that he was overthrown. 
 Rawdon, for some time previously, had been borrowing money 
 to carry on his business; but he had hoped to weather the 
 storm. He had depended largely on the established credit of 
 the house to help him through the emergency, but some one 
 seemed to be secetly at work to destroy his prestige, and it 
 was necessary to pay an exorbitant interest for every loan. 
 The crash came when he least expected it, and just at a 
 time when he thought he saw the way clear through his diffi- 
 culties. It was a crushing blow to the pompous pride and 
 insolent love of power that had been the leading characteris- 
 tics of his narrow existence. He had lorded it so long over 
 his fellows that he felt all the more crushed and disgraced. 
 Every cent had to be given up to his creditors, even the great 
 gilt sign which had been his pride, and which had shone like 
 a beacon of promise before his eyes when he rolled down-town 
 every morning to his work. 
 
 A month after Rawdon's failure had been published to the 
 world, he stood one morning on the corner of Canal Street, 
 looking up listlessly at the building that had once been his 
 own, but was now being remodelled and decorated for its new 
 purchaser. A kind of mist crept into his eyes as he watched 
 the painters and gilders moving about their work, standing 
 unnoticed on the corner where he had fought so many finan- 
 cial battles, now a nobody lost in the crowd flowing back and 
 forth. It was hard for him to begin life over again, now that 
 youth and strength were no longer his, and old age was creep- 
 ing on. He had been a hard, unfeeling man all his life. He 
 could not point to one generous act in all his business career ; 
 yet now that his sceptre had gone from him, he sorrowed, 
 even as might a dethroned king whose palace was dust, and 
 whose throne was in the hands of the usurper. 
 
 " That's a pretty fine building," remarked a stout little man 
 in a broadcloth suit, who had rolled out of the crowd and 
 seemed to be interested in the painters' work. 
 
 " Yes," said Rawdon, in a surly voice,
 
 G A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " If the city keeps on growing the way it has for the last ten 
 years, that property will be worth a sight of money," added 
 the voluble stranger, who had made up his mind to talk. " I 
 remember the old owner of this place well enough, and a pom- 
 pous old party he was, to be sure. He was a man of about 
 your build, I should think," not noticing the frown. " He 
 called himself J. Cummings Rawdon, though I doubt if he 
 ever come honestly by the name. Any man who would try to 
 defraud his creditors the way he done wasn't a bit too good 
 for anything." 
 
 Rawdon clinched his fingers nervously together, as if he 
 would gladly have strangled the stout little stranger with the 
 mocking, smiling face. He did his best to conceal his feelings, 
 however, for he was a little curious to know what would be 
 said of him, however unpleasant it might be. 
 
 " He was a regular howlin' swell, " continued the loquacious 
 little man ; ' ' drove as fine a team of horses as you ever see in 
 your life, and lived in high old style up by Central Park. No 
 one imagined he was going to play out in such a hurry." 
 
 " And what do you imagine the reason was for his sudden 
 falling from power? " asked Rawdon, who was interested in 
 spite of himself. 
 
 " Well, I understands it were all one man, and one only as 
 brought this giant to grass." 
 
 " One man ?" 
 
 "So I hear about town, and a most curious story it is. 
 Sounds most like a yarn out of a book than anything else. It 
 seems that, some eight years or so ago, this here Rawdon, as 
 he called himself, had a visit from some poor devil of a ped- 
 ler, a mean, low-down sort of a party, who forced his way 
 into the great man's office ; and what do you suppose hap- 
 pened then ? " 
 
 " I can't imagine," Rawdon answered, feebly. 
 
 "Well, this pedler tried to sell the old chap a pair of sus- 
 penders, and got kicked out of the place in fine shape. But I 
 suppose I'm tirin' you with all this stuff ? " eyeing the ex-flour- 
 dealer with curious glances. 
 
 "Not at all, not at all," Rawdon stammered. " On the con- 
 trary, I am quite interested in your anecdote. " 
 
 " What does this low-lived pedler do after bein' kicked out
 
 THE FALL OF J, CUMMINGS RAWDON. 27 
 
 so handsomely ? Did he feel like making J. Cummings 
 Rawdon a Christmas present ? Well, not much, he didn't. 
 He nailed Rawdon that night as he was getting into his car- 
 riage. They had some hard words together. The pedler 
 swore he would get square some day for being kicked out. 
 He' 1 
 
 But Rawdon had seized the little man by the arm firmly, 
 and dragged him into the hall-way of the building. 
 
 ' ' How do you know all this ? " he stammered hoarsely. 
 " Who in the devil's name are you ? " 
 
 He was strangely excited, while the fat little individual 
 never lost for a moment his smiling complacency. 
 
 "Who am I ?." he asked, coolly shaking off the other's arm. 
 ' ' I don't see what that's got to do with the question ; but 
 you can have it just the same, if it will do you any good. 
 The fact is, they are now in the act of hanging out my card 
 in the front of the building;" and as Rawdon paused, half- 
 stupefied in the dim light of the hall, the little man slipped 
 by him and up the stairs littered with the debris of sawdust 
 and shavings. 
 
 The ex-flour-dealer looked after the retreating figure with 
 bewilderment written on his countenance. It had all hap- 
 pened in such a short space of time that he could hardly 
 realize what had taken place. But he knew that he had met 
 his enemy face to face, the unseen power that had worked 
 silently against him all the past five or six years, the hidden 
 foe who had undermined the foundations of his credit, until 
 the structure that had withstood so many financial storms 
 toppled to its fall and overwhelmed him in the ruins. Why 
 had he not choked that little grinning devil when he was in 
 his power, he asked nimself, stung with the memory of the 
 other's taunts. At that moment he could have committed 
 murder. When cooler reflection came it showed him the help- 
 lessness of his condition. A ruined man, he had no means of 
 revenge. The mercy he had shown his rivals in the past was 
 being meted out to him. The encounter seemed to have 
 pematurely aged him as he stumbled out into the noise and 
 jar of the street with despair in his heart. He looked up with 
 an unsteady glance at the name of the man who had ruined 
 him, Two sturdy workmen were just swinging the heavy
 
 28 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 sign into place under the second-story windows. Rawdon 
 felt a strange eagerness to know the name of the man who, 
 alone and unaided, had been able to pull down the great busi- 
 ness it had taken so many years to establish. He crossed the 
 street to the shadow of a friendly awning where he could see 
 the building without being a conspicuous figure in the crowd. 
 Others besides himself had gathered around the corner to see 
 the great sign go up, but they were actuated by a different curi- 
 osity than he. They assembled in groups, chatting about the 
 building, and chaffing the workmen over their slowness a 
 good-natured crowd such as springs up so mysteriously in a 
 New York street when a horse falls down or a child is run 
 over, coming from no one knows where, and disappearing as 
 strangely as it came. It seemed to Kawdon, standing in the 
 shadow of the opposite building, that the workmen dawdled 
 over their work, and he grew impatient and more angry. 
 At last the sign was swung into place, brighter, larger, gaudier 
 than the old familiar one that had greeted him for years. He 
 read the name with swimming eyes. The great Roman capi- 
 tals seemed floating in fire. 
 
 JOHN TILLINGHURST. 
 
 GENERAL BROKER. 
 
 That was all. Just then he caught sight of a pair of beady 
 eyea peering at him over the gilt edge of the sign, and a round, 
 grinning face. It seemed to him that those fat lips were mov- 
 ing, that they were saying, "Damn you, I've made you crawl." 
 With an oath he slunk away in the crowd, and from that hour 
 the business world heard no more of J. Cummings Rawdon.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AT THE ARGENTINE CLUB. 
 
 " I SHALL certainly die laughing," exclaimed Freddy Pixley, 
 overcome with hilarity, as he rolled about in the leather- 
 covered chair he was sitting in. Such members of the club 
 as were trying to read the morning's papers looked at the 
 young man and scowled ; some even swore mildly to them- 
 selves. 
 
 " What idiotic nonsense are you giggling at now, Freddy ? " 
 asked Captain Shrike, who had just entered, and was leaning 
 against the edge of the table. 
 
 "Why, you see, Shrike," answered Pixley, as soon as he 
 had recovered his breath, "I laid a wager with Bleek De 
 Peyster just noAv, as we sat here, that the first person to pass 
 the window during the next quarter of an hour would be black, 
 and he bet that he, she, or it would be white; and only think," 
 with another uncontrollable fit of laughter, "if along didn't 
 come a Chinaman ; and now Bleek wants to declare the bet 
 off. I want you to be the referee in the matter. Any fool 
 ought to know that a Chinaman is nearer black than white. 
 You are just in time to decide, for I don't think it is a square 
 " stopping to adjust a lurid cravat of black and orange 
 stripes that had worked its way over his ears during his con- 
 tortions. 
 
 "Oh, you would like me to be referee, would you?" said 
 Captain Shrike, admiring his shoes. "I shall certainly not 
 encourage you in your silly bets." 
 
 "Come now, Shrike, you are real unfriendly ." 
 
 "Not a bit of it ; but I always want to sit down on you when, 
 you try to make an ass of yourself. Can't you get rid of your 
 money in any other way than by making silly bets ? Better 
 a good deal buy lottery tickets or start a daily paper or or 
 give it to me." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Freddy, giggling again, "I know you always 
 
 39
 
 30 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 spend your money sensibly, you do! Oh, you rascal," poking 
 the captain in the ribs, much to that gentleman's disgust, " I 
 have found out how you while away the weary hours." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean." 
 
 ''Don't, eh? You don't want to know. Why, my boy, it's 
 all over town, pon my honor. West Thirty-fourth Street- 
 second flat deep mourning yellow curls! Oh, what a sly 
 dog you are, to be sure !" And young Mr. Pixley again doubled 
 himself up with mirth, while Captain Shrike looked savage 
 enough to brain a baby. 
 
 It was almost eleven o'clock in the morning, and only a few 
 of the older members of the Argentine Club, who had outlived 
 the possibility of sleeping late, had put in an appearance. 
 
 Freddy Pixley, better known in the club under the sobriquet 
 of "XX.," because his father's fortune had been made out of a 
 famous ale of that brand, sat in an embrasure of the window, 
 looking out on Fifth Avenue. In appearance he was a short, 
 stubby little man, with sandy hair and a pink complexion. 
 Though he dressed with about the same taste as a stable boy 
 or a horse jockey, his face expressed more weakness than 
 depravity. Had he been born with a pewter spoon in his 
 mouth instead of a gold one, it is quite possible that in the end 
 he would have made a valuable member of the community. 
 As it was, the very kindness of his nature led him into snares 
 and pitfalls, which friends and acquaintances were always 
 ready to spread for him. He was splendid game for the thou- 
 sands of men and women who make capital out of the vanities 
 of their fellow-creatures. Impecunious club men knew him to 
 be a " pigeon" whom it required little strategy to work ; and 
 women of the world and half -world found they could easily 
 twist the little millionaire around their dainty fingers. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all the drains upon his purse, his fortune 
 steadily increased and multiplied. The judicious investments 
 made by the old brewer continued to reap a golden harvest, 
 and the wonderful luck that had attended him in the last 
 years of his life had become the heritage of the son. Freddy 
 never let the cares of business worry him any, leaving the 
 entire charge of his affairs in the hands of some impecunious 
 relatives, who, strange as it may seem, did the best for his 
 interests.
 
 AT THE ARGENTINE CLUB. 31 
 
 He lived in a modest house in Irving Place, alone with his 
 sister, a young lady whose mission in the world was to keep 
 match-making mammas from marrying him off to their 
 daughters. Freddy had managed so far to elude the matri- 
 monial noose, but he had had many narrow escapes. Lovely 
 women of" the very bluest blood had fainted again and again 
 in his arms, and allowed him to save them from the waves, at 
 every resort on the coast worth mentioning. Young ladies of 
 blood not so blue had offered even more tempting invitations 
 to matrimony ; but though he was no modern St. Anthony, 
 he had generally come out of the fray smiling and in good 
 form. 
 
 This morning, Freddy had got up as early as eight o'clock, 
 owing to a bad night, and was feeling rather shaky. In 
 consequence of this, the waiter had placed within easy reach 
 a pale lemon-colored decoction, known as a Christian cocktail, 
 supposed by club-men to possess rare virtues as a bracer. 
 
 During the conversation above related, the young man had 
 found occasion to visit this beverage very frequently, as it 
 shimmered seductively on a sorrento table, in a tall glass. 
 
 " I did't see you at Mrs. Boodleton's last night," said Captain 
 Shrike, winking agressively at a little milliner who tripped by 
 on her way to work, up the avenue. 
 
 " Not much! I was afraid of being run down, so I gave up 
 going there. It got to be a sort of ' money-or-your-life ' 
 arrangement." 
 
 "Well, you didn't miss much, I assure you. I shudder when 
 I think of that glass of Ohio sherry I was forced to taste " 
 with a grimace. "Ugh! It was like swallowing a black 
 draught." 
 
 "What a humbug Mrs. Boodleton is, to be sure," said 
 Freddy, with his gurgling laugh. " I have run the gauntlet of 
 the whole crew. It is really marvellous how that woman 
 manages to get into the best set, and sport around town with 
 her daughter as if they really had millions. * When you read 
 the elaborate accounts of their receptions in the society papers 
 you would never imagine that they hired a boarding-house 
 parlor from two to four one day in the week, and lived them- 
 selves in the fourth story back." 
 
 " You are a regular old woman for gossip, Freddy. I should
 
 32 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 like to know how you manage to get hold of everybody's 
 private history." 
 
 "I haven't got on to your record yet, old man," with a 
 laugh, ' ' but when I do find the key of your skeleton-closet, 
 look out for me. I should feel it my duty to publish the whole 
 history in the Town Tattler." 
 
 " No one would read it, I am sure, my dear fellow," said the 
 captain, twisting the long ends of his moustache. " I am afraid 
 I have led a lively, though stereotyped existence. But, speak- 
 ing of Mrs. Boodleton brings up 
 
 "The devil?" 
 
 " No, Dora. Now Dora wouldn't be half bad, if she weren't 
 limbed like an English hunter." 
 
 "Oh, Do' is all right in her way. If I was a marrying man, 
 which I am not, and wanted a real ornamental head-piece for 
 my table, I am half sure that I should go in for that young 
 woman." 
 
 ' ' I hear that they came near running you down at Lennox 
 last year, and that you had a narrow escape." 
 
 "Yes, it was a close shave; I had to hunt cover, they led 
 me such a lively chase. Pity the mother will throw her at 
 everybody's head. She might have married long ago and 
 well if it hadn't been for the old lady. I am downright sorry 
 for that girl." 
 
 " Don't begin to pity her, or they may nail you yet." 
 
 ' ' Oh, no, they have given me up as a bad job. The mamma 
 now circulates the report that her daughter refused me on the 
 ground of immorality. Nice thing to say about a fellow! No 
 wonder I feel like striking back. I believe they are chasing up 
 that new man, Brent, poor fellow! By the way, Shrike," 
 wheeling around in his chair, "who is he anyway? You 
 seem to be the only one that knows where the beggar came 
 from. Who is he, and what is he? People keep on asking 
 me, and I don't know what to say." 
 
 " Oh, Brent is all right," said Captain Shrike, carelessly. 
 "The only trouble with him is that he is bothered with too 
 much money, just like you. His father and mine used to be 
 old chums at school, and that is the way I came to fall in 
 with him. All his people died, so he came on East to see life.
 
 AT TIIE ARGENTINE CLUB. 33 
 
 For the old gentleman's sake I thought I would see that he 
 was taken care of." 
 
 "And his money too, I suppose," giggled Freddy. 
 
 " Yes, if he wants me to. Good-looking chap." 
 
 ' ' Well, rather ; but not exactly in my style. Don't see why 
 the women should rave about him so." 
 
 " Of course you don't. He has just turned up in time to put 
 your nose out of joint, me boy. You won't be such a social 
 martyr now that there is a rival Richmond in the field. You 
 have ruled the matrimonial hen-roost too long." 
 
 ' ' That's all very well ; but why women fancy him I can- 
 not imagine." 
 
 "Well," said the captain, rather rudely, " they have fancied 
 you, so no man has a right to despair. He is going to invest 
 his money in Eastern securities. " 
 
 " Why don't you get him to take a block of my Pneumatic 
 Railroad stock? The first dividend will be " 
 
 " Be still ; here comes Tillinghurst." 
 
 A stout little man in a sleek broadcloth suit approached 
 them. His round face was wreathed in smiles, causing his fat 
 cheeks to pucker up in strange pleats, almost concealing his 
 beady little eyes. 
 
 " What were you saying about Pneumatic Railroad stock? " 
 he asked, extending a pudgy finger to shake. " I unloaded a 
 lot last week, and have been glad of it ever since ; " and he 
 sank into a leather-covered chair, with a sigh of relief, blink- 
 ing as the sun fell across his eyes. "lam sorry you have got 
 so much of it on hand, Freddy," he continued. "You may 
 have luck, but it won't come out of such lamb's-bait as the 
 P. R. R. Get out while you can. " 
 
 "Get out yourself," said Freddy, ungraciously. "I dare 
 say you have been hammering it down so as to be able to buy 
 it up cheap. When I hear of you abusing a stock I wire my 
 brokers to buy a big block of it." 
 
 "Come, come, gentlemen, no snarling!" said Shrike, inter- 
 fering good-naturedly. " If you want to use up your strength, 
 let us have a three-handed game of billiards before lunch." 
 
 " Not much! I wouldn't budge out of this nook for a thou- 
 sand dollars," said Freddy, curling himself up in his chair 
 preparatory to dozing off. 
 3
 
 34 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "And I," said the broker, " don't care to budge until I have 
 had something to eat," looking at his watch. 
 
 " I am waiting for a friend," the captain replied; "we can 
 have a co-operative snack if you don't mind. You must 
 know John Brent. Big man in the West ; used to own a 
 whole county. " 
 
 " Can't place him now." 
 
 "I know he told me he wanted to meet you. Has some 
 money he wants to invest, I believe. Be gentle when you get 
 your hands on his money. He is a friend of mine." 
 
 " That means you will want fifty per cent, out of what I 
 make from him, eh?" asked Mr. Tillinghurst, with a knowing 
 leer. 
 
 " What a memory you have! " Shrike replied, looking un- 
 easily at Freddy, whose head was nodding. 
 
 "It's an expensive luxury to be a friend of yours some- 
 times," the broker continued, not noticing the other's frown. 
 " But where do you lunch to-day? " 
 
 ' ' At Torretti's. Ever been there ? " 
 
 "Don't think I have. I'm not much on lunch anyway; 
 generally save up for dinner." 
 
 ' ' It's a little hole in the ground on Seventeenth Street. No 
 style at all, but he makes a salmi with white wine that is a 
 dream and a delight. By the way, how do you like your new 
 house?" 
 
 "Why don't you come up and see how we like it? Nice sort 
 of friend you are, and haven't been near us in two months." 
 
 " Oh, it can't be as long as that." 
 
 "Yes it is, yes it is." 
 
 "Well, one reason, Mr. Tillinghurst, is because your daugh- 
 ter has no particular fondness for yours truly. " 
 
 "All your imagination. She's queer, you know, but she 
 means well. There ain't a better-hearted girl in New York." 
 
 " No signs of her getting married yet? " 
 
 "No surface indications, as they say in mining lingo. There 
 ain't any call for her to be in a hurry as I can see. If she 
 can't do any better than take one of them giraffes I see up at 
 Mrs. Axminster's, why I hope she may die an old maid, that's 
 all."
 
 AT THE ARGENTINE CLUB. 35 
 
 "You must miss the old house a good deal, you lived there 
 so many years." 
 
 " I do, but I am getting used to it. You wouldn't know our 
 parlor now at all." 
 
 "I suppose not." 
 
 " Marcia, you know, is death on having everything artistic. 
 Consequently she has put all the wax-flowers and sea-shells 
 that I used to like up in the garret, and given that ' Orphan 
 Child ' by Todgers away to the cook." 
 
 "I am afraid I should approve of the innovations," said the 
 captain, with a smile. 
 
 " Well, this artistic business may be all right; I don't know 
 much about it. But what I do know is that home ain't ex- 
 actly home when I don't see around me the old things I've 
 grown old looking at," a little pathetically. But he spoilt the 
 effect by adding, "But you were saying something about 
 lunch?" 
 
 " Here is Brent now," as that young man's graceful figure 
 filled the doorway. 
 
 A luxurious life, with plenty of money and very little to 
 trouble him, had transformed John Brent into a typical man 
 of fashion. He had never been born to fight the battles of ad- 
 versity ; it would have been a shame to spoil those handsome 
 hands by rough toil : he had been planned as a social luxury, 
 not a necessity ; and he looked at his best in a boudoir or an 
 opera-box. 
 
 He was modestly dressed in a neat-fitting diagonal cut-away 
 coat and gray tweed trousers, and held himself with military 
 exactness. His blue eyes sparkled, and his entire expression 
 was one of peace with the world and mankind in general. 
 Captain Shrike regarded his protege with much the same 
 delight that Pygmalion did the charms of his creation. 
 
 "You are going to tell me I am late," said Brent pleasantly. 
 
 "Well, you are hardly on time." Then, turning to the 
 broker, ' ' Mr. Tillinghurst, this is John Brent, of whom you 
 have heard me speak. " 
 
 The broker extended his pudgy hand towards Brent, and 
 lifted his eyes slowly to the young man's face. Then he sank 
 back in his chair trembling and pale as death. 
 
 "Why, man, what ails you?" asked Shrike, unable to make
 
 36 A SLAVE OF CIECUMSTANCES. 
 
 out the cause of the fear depicted on his friend's countenance. 
 
 "Oh, only one of my usual attacks," said the broker, at- 
 tempting to smile. " I dare say I frightened you, Mr. Brent. 
 It's my heart; always did trouble me from a child." 
 
 " I am sure you are entirely excusable," Brent replied; but 
 he was just a little mystified at the scene. 
 
 "Well, let us go to lunch," broke in the captain; " you 
 need something to brace up on, Tillinghurst. " 
 
 "lam afraid you will have to excuse me, gentlemen," was 
 the reply; "I have had such a shaking up that I don't think 
 I could eat a mouthful. Some other day I shall be most 
 happy," with a peep out of the corner of his eye at Brent. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! You'll be all right in a few minutes," urged 
 the captain. 
 
 "Not to-day," the broker answered. " But you must bring 
 your friend up to the house to see us," he added. His voice 
 still quavered from his recent excitement. 
 
 "I will, I will," said the captain. "Sorry you can't go 
 with us." 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst looked pale and ill as they said good morn- 
 ing, and left him huddled up in the great arm-chair, his flabby 
 face bent on his breast, his pudgy hands hanging limp and 
 motionless at his sides. 
 
 The Captain's quick eye took in this picture as he left the 
 club. "I don't believe it was his heart that troubled him at 
 all," he said to himself; "it was his conscience. These two 
 have met before ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE NABOB'S HOME. 
 
 WHEN John Tillinghurst became first known to the world 
 in general as a philanthropist and millionaire, he occupied a 
 little, dirty, brown-stucco house on the corner of Tenth Street 
 and University Place. A dingy old edifice it was, with rusty 
 iron gratings over the French windows, and half-covered with a 
 yellow vine that grew rank about the walls that were crumbling 
 with decay. A peculiar round window in the roof looked like 
 a blear eye to the passers-by in the street, and gave the build- 
 ing a sinister, not to say mysterious appearance. The old 
 house, however, was dear to the broker's heart, for here, many 
 years ago, the patient white-faced woman he had called his 
 wife had died, and here his daughter Marcia had grown up 
 under his care to beautiful Avomanhood. He had taken the old 
 house when he was a comparatively poor man, and had hoped 
 to die as he had lived, in the shadow of its mouldy walls ; but 
 as he grew richer every year, he became ambitious, and 
 wanted a palace of his own, if only to be on an architectural 
 level with his rivals. 
 
 Tillinghurst was very proud of his daughter, but he was 
 also somewhat afraid of her. She seemed to know more about 
 the world in general than he did, with all his years of experi- 
 ence. When he went out with her first in society, he allowed 
 her to do all the talking. He knew his own shortcomings, 
 and was a little afraid to say much or express an opinion, lest 
 he should disgrace himself before the lovely young woman he 
 was privileged to call his daughter. As his fortune continued 
 to grow and multiply, and his power increased, some of this 
 feeling of diffidence wore off. People began to make much of 
 him, and though he saw through every scheme to win his 
 favor, he accepted the homage as one of the perquisites of 
 fortune, and became more confident in his conversation. As 
 he told a snuffy old man who used to play cribbage with him 
 
 37
 
 38 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 once a week, " If I can't fetch people with my brains, I can 
 with my money ; and I don't see as it makes much difference 
 which way you take 'em." 
 
 After Marcia had graduated from a fashionable boarding- 
 school, and had settled down with her books and music, her 
 father had expressed a desire that she should have a com- 
 panion, but had finally been persuaded that such a thing 
 would be an unnecessary luxury. Marcia argued that she 
 was quite able to take care of herself, and that a companion 
 would be only in the way. To tell the truth, she was a little 
 afraid that bringing such a commodity into the house would 
 result in her father's second marriage, and she was not 
 prepared to see him make a fool of himself. He was an 
 unintellectual companion for a girl of her attainments, but 
 he was fond of her in his rough way, and she returned the 
 affection with fervor. 
 
 Tillinghurst had great aims for his daughter. He wanted 
 her to become a social star, to be mentioned in all the society 
 papers, and have her dresses talked about all over town. 
 Her inclinations were entirely different, and they often 
 clashed when the subject of her going out more into the world 
 came up. She wanted to lead a quiet existence, removed from 
 the worries and cares of fashionable life. She had a moderate 
 opinion of her capabilities. The praise of intelligent minds 
 she enjoyed, but for the commendation of the fools that made 
 up the crowd she cared nothing. Belonging to the nouveaux 
 riches, she was thrown very little into the company of brainy 
 people, and consequently took more pleasure in books than in 
 the doubtful dissipations of the reception and kettledrum. Her 
 father could not understand this apathy; he thought it was 
 one of the benefits of riches to be able to move* on a higher 
 plane than your less fortunate neighbors. What was the 
 good of having money if you couldn't look down on your fel- 
 lows who lagged in the race? Marcia wanted most to be let 
 alone to find her pleasure in books, and in the old piano, with 
 its yellow keys, that had been a friend from childhood. Her 
 father allowed her plenty of pocket-money, and she expended 
 it wisely on the wants of the poor people in the neighborhood. 
 It seemed to her, in a measure, a compensation that the 
 daughter should return some of the money her father had
 
 TEE NABOB'S HOME. 39 
 
 wrested from the poor ; for John Tillinghurst was a hard man 
 to work for, and Shylock-like, he demanded his pound of flesh 
 from those beneath him. 
 
 When he found himself a millionaire he began to think of 
 building a new house. He had purchased the site of the old 
 aqueduct between Forty-first and Forty-second streets some 
 years before, with a view to some day building on it. He 
 spoke of the plan one day to his daughter, and seemed elated 
 at the prospect of leaving University Place. 
 
 Marcia had expected that, sooner or later, he would want to 
 build further up town, where most of his business acquaint- 
 ances had their homes. But it was not without some pangs 
 that she thought of leaving the old house and its dingy little 
 garden. She was an old-fashioned girl, and disliked changes, 
 a feeling she doubtless inherited from her mother, who xised 
 generally to take to her bed for a week when they moved to 
 any new place. She consented readily to her father's plans, 
 but she could not share in his enthusiasm. It was with sin- 
 cere regret in her heart that she bade good-bye to the dirty 
 old stucco walls that she loved, and moved into the great 
 Moorish palace which her father had reared as a monument to 
 his success. Most of all did she regret leaving her poor pen- 
 sioners behind her; but she often found opportunity to slip 
 away to the crowded tenements, where many a poor soul 
 looked forward to her coming. Society was at her feet, if she 
 had wanted it. Her father was a very rich man, but he was 
 not, as everyone supposed, the richest man in the city. In 
 consequence of the absurd reports regarding the Tillinghurst 
 fortune, the girl had been for a time besieged with suitors. Her 
 father, who was mortally afraid that she would marry and 
 leave him alone in that vast house, proved an admirable buffer 
 in keeping objectionable young men away. In his eyes objec- 
 tionable men Avere young men without money. 
 
 Every attack made by the fortune-hunters being repulsed, 
 they retired in good order and left her alone. It was even 
 rumored by the disgruntled that she had taken vows of 
 chastity, and intended to enter a convent at twenty -five. Lit- 
 tle cared she what they thought; her simple life was 
 hardly changed after she came to live in the Fifth Avenue
 
 40 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 mansion. Nor did its grandeur in the least turn her head, or 
 stimulate a desire for much society. 
 
 Her father, try as he would to overcome the feeling, was 
 home-sick in his palace, and longed for the old home in Uni- 
 versity Place. Many an evening he would slip away down 
 town and take a look at the mouldy old place that had been 
 the scene of his early joys and sorrows, and leaning on its 
 rusty railings, would live the past over again. 
 
 The formalities he was compelled to observe as the propri- 
 etor of a Fifth Avenue mansion were irritating to a man who, 
 all his life, had never been worried with the exigencies of po- 
 lite society. The very presence of his servants (and he had an 
 army of them) were a standing menace to his happiness. He 
 was often tempted to kick the melancholy -looking butler, who 
 seemed to be counting every mouthful that he took at his meals. 
 
 But the house had been one of his pet hobbies, and with his 
 usual grit he resolved to stand by it. He felt that his self- 
 imposed martyrdom might result in Marcia's lasting happi- 
 ness ; and as for himself, he could get his amusement out of 
 daring speculations and plunges in the commercial whirlpool. 
 He took a certain pride in his house, though he did not enjoy 
 it. When he came home every afternoon at five o'clock, he 
 would ramble through the various rooms, look at his figure 
 reflected in the myriad mirrors on the walls, smooth out the 
 Chinese silk curtains on the windows, and pass his hands over 
 the plush on the furniture, as if he were caressing a pet cat. 
 Poor millionaire ! He tried hard to enjoy his elegant drawing- 
 rooms, but he never left them for his little den over the 
 kitchen without a sigh of relief. 
 
 The day Mr. Tillinghurst encountered John Brent at the Ar- 
 gentine Club he did not make his usual tour of inspection on 
 returning home, but walked straight up-stairs to his study. 
 He sat down by his desk, and for some time seemed lost and 
 preoccupied. In the uncertain light that filled the room, his 
 face looked worn and pale. In u few moments he started up 
 and began to busy himself searching through the papers in his 
 desk. As he did not seem to find what he was looking for he 
 became excited, and scattered everything right and left that 
 impeded his movements. Impatience, vexation, and even fear 
 were depicted on his face, as the paper he searched for did not
 
 THE NAVOR'S HOME. 41 
 
 turn up. "I was sure it was here," he muttered, as he 
 emptied drawer after drawer of their contents. 
 
 Here Marcia found him at dinner time, on his knees before a 
 huge pile of papers which he was examining with trembling 
 fingers. He started visibly as she entered, and looked at her 
 curiously for some moments. When she kissed him, his lips 
 were cold as ice. 
 
 " Why, papa, what is the matter ? " 
 
 "Nothing, nothing at all," he answered, a little pettishly. 
 "I have been trying to find a plagued receipt. If I don't find 
 it, I may have to pay the bill over again." 
 
 " Well, at least wait until after dinner, papa," as the bell 
 rang in the lower hall, ' ' and then I may be able to help you 
 find it." 
 
 "You wouldn't know it if you saw it," he said, rustling 
 among his papers. "Well, let it go for the present," he added, 
 closing the desk with a slam. 
 
 "Marcia," he asked, as they went down the stairs together, 
 " did you ever hear me mention the name of Brent before?" 
 
 " I cannot remember." 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 "Quite sure." 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst sighed, and passed one hand wearily over 
 his forehead. 
 
 ' ' I met a young man to-day of that name, and somehow I 
 thought I had met him long ago." 
 
 Marcia noticed that he looked worried, but forbade herself 
 questioning him. It was not the first time she had seen her 
 father in a dejected mood. As he grew older the attacks grew 
 more and more frequent, and he often spent half of the night 
 walking up and down his room. It worried her to see him so 
 depressed, but as he never offered her his confidence, she was 
 too proud to ask him. 
 
 They sat down to their dinner in silence, only broken when 
 the broker asked the butler to fill his glass. He was nervous 
 and dispirited, and Marcia did not try to force a conversation. 
 The sombre magnificence of the room only added to the gen- 
 eral depression. The candelabras on the great table by which 
 this lonely-looking couple sat, seemed to burn with bluish 
 flames that threw strange shadows on the embossed walls.
 
 42 A SLA VE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 The creaking boots of the two waiters, in their sombre clothes, 
 echoed along the polished floors, and seemed to rouse other 
 sounds beneath and above. The logs burning in the great 
 fire-place gave out queer hissing sounds, with now and then a 
 snap like the crack of a whip. 
 
 Marcia shivered, and the banker, catching sight of the mel- 
 ancholy butler, wished with all his heart that he was back eat- 
 ing tripe and onions in the back kitchen of the old house in 
 University Place. They were both glad when the solitary 
 meal was over, and they could get away to the parlor. 
 
 "What has been the trouble between you and Captain 
 Shrike?" asked Mr. Tillinghurst, as he sat down by the fire- 
 place ; " I met him to-day. " 
 
 "No trouble at all. Why do you ask?" she said, spreading 
 her hands out over the flames, though the room was like a hot- 
 house. 
 
 "Well, I kind of imagined so from the way he spoke. He 
 hasn't been here for two months, and he used to come so often." 
 
 "Yes, papa." She did not seem to be listening to him, as 
 her eyes peered into the flames with a far-away look. 
 
 " You don't like Shrike, now, honestly, do you?" 
 
 "No, I don't." 
 
 " And why not? " a little querulously. 
 
 " I I don't think he is a good man," timidly. 
 
 Her father laughed. " Why, I don't know that he is any the 
 worse for running around with the boys a little. Better sow 
 his wild oats now, than wait until he's married, I say. They 
 have got to come up some time, Marsh." 
 
 "Yes, papa." 
 
 " I wish you would try and like Captain Shrike." 
 
 "Yes, papa." 
 
 "He's a fine fellow good-looking, good family, and a fort- 
 une. I know you will like him in time. Don't believe all the 
 silly stories you get from Fanny Pixley. He has been a 
 mighty good friend to me in days gone by, and I don't want to 
 appear ungrateful now that I have got up in the world." 
 
 " I'll try and think better of him for your sake, papa." She 
 looked up into his face with such an expression of love that he 
 stooped and kissed her softly on the forehead. 
 
 "You are a good girl, Marsh," a little huskily, as he stroked
 
 TIIE NABOB'S HOME. 43 
 
 her hair. " I only wish your mother could have lived to be as 
 proud of you as I am." 
 
 The smoke of the burning logs or his own thoughts caused 
 him to rub his eyes with the back of his hand; for some 
 moments they neither of them said a word. 
 
 " How are your theatricals coming on? " he asked at length. 
 " Seems to me you have been rehearsing that piece as long as 
 I can remember." 
 
 "Why, how can you say so? It has only been about three 
 months." 
 
 " It ought to be good, with so much fixin'." 
 
 "Why, aren't you coming to see it? You know you have 
 bought a proscenium box." 
 
 ' ' Did I indeed ? Well then, I suppose I must go. It's for 
 charity, and ought to be encouraged, I reckon, though I'm not 
 much on such shows. Don't you go and get the barn-storming 
 fever on you, now, Marsh, like Mrs. Tilbury Trotter. They do 
 say that when a girl gets the stage fever on her that it's more 
 deadly than the Yellow Jack, and strikes in deeper. There's 
 lots of girls right in your set that has had attacks of dramatic 
 malaria. You've met lots of 'em, I dare say. They go round 
 spouting pieces at receptions for a starter, get their ideas on 
 dress from the lithographs in bar-room windows, talk slang, 
 and bleach their hair lemon-color. They may be all right, but 
 they get themselves up all wrong," said Mr. Tillinghurst, 
 stumbling in his eloquence. " But there! I'm talking like an 
 old fool. As if you wasn't able to take care of .yourself ! 
 You've done so all your life, and I guess can for the rest of it 
 without much of my interference. I want to like everyone 
 you like," he added, laying his great rough palm on her dress 
 with a caressing gesture, moving it slowly over the soft sur- 
 face. " What I want most is to get you out in the world more, 
 to enjoy this money that I get so little fun out of except in a 
 business way. If we don't pitch some of it away it will 
 smother us. But there ! " his face clouding over suddenly, "I 
 came near forgetting all about that paper. " 
 
 " I wish I could make you forget all your troubles as easily," 
 she said, still half detaining him as he would turn away. 
 
 ' ' Troubles ! " with a queer laugh. ' ' Bah ! I haven't got any ; 
 I buried 'em all long ago."
 
 44 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "But you will let me help you look for this paper?" she 
 asked, as the old weary look passed over his face. " You have 
 been working hard all day, while I have been reading novels. 
 Do let me help you." 
 
 "I don't believe you could, Marsh. You you see, this is 
 something in cypher, and you wouldn't recognize it if you saw 
 it, I don't believe." 
 
 " A receipt in cypher? " she asked. 
 
 "Yes," hurriedly. "Queer idea, wasn't it?" 
 
 Then, turning without another word, he went up the stairs 
 alone, leaving her standing in the middle of the rug, with 
 clasped hands and wondering eyes. "I wish I wish,'' she 
 said, as she went back to her seat by the fire, ' ' he would tell 
 me his troubles." 
 
 She picked up a book, but could not read. The sound of his 
 footsteps died away in the direction of his study. 
 
 Before his desk Mr. Tillinghurst sat, his face bowed in his 
 hands. The floor was strewn with papers, and some elegant 
 books had fallen from their shelves on to the floor during the 
 fever of the search. The millionaire was reading over for the 
 twentieth time a little yellow-stained piece of paper that bore 
 some faint writing in a strange female hand. His hands 
 shook as he folded it up with a sigh and shut it up in his safe, 
 that was set in the wall on the right-hand side of the room. 
 He looked pale and worn, as he stood in the centre of the floor, 
 with the strong gas-light on his face, that brought out every 
 wrinkle with startling distinctness. 
 
 " What a fool I am to be sure!" he said, with a strange 
 laugh ; ' ' why, I am trembling all over like a girl, " as he 
 noticed his unsteady hands. He went over to the closet and 
 poured himself out a stiff glass of brandy, gulping it down raw. 
 The color returned in a measure to his face. " I must be get- 
 ting in my second childhood to be so frightened. That that 
 happened too long ago too long ago." 
 
 He turned out the light and lumbered up-stairs to bed, for- 
 getting to say good-night to Marcia,
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "NUMBER 66." 
 
 CAPTAIN SHRIKE, when he introduced John Brent into the 
 polite world of New York fashion, equipped him not only with 
 money, but with blood. Backsheesh may be the open-sesame 
 to the majority of the social portals of the metropolis, but 
 there is a certain inner holy of holies where you cannot gain 
 admittance without exhibiting your family tree or your grand- 
 mother, and Shrike knew it. The fact that Brent was sup- 
 posed to have come from the West was against him from the 
 start. The majority of New York society people believe that 
 the West is still in a hopeless state of barbarism, rampant with 
 red shirts and bad grammar, and sorely in need of an aesthetic 
 missionary to labor in its midst. The captain therefore gave 
 out that his protege was of noble English family, and that his 
 father had come to America to repair the fortunes of the 
 house, dissipated by a younger brother. He even went so far 
 as to show his intimates a photograph of a moated grange, 
 very ivy-grown and Tudoresque, which was supposed to be 
 Brent's ancestral home, now in the hands of another. 
 
 This pleasant fiction set people talking, and Brent soon found 
 himself a very much sought-after young man, and in danger 
 of being spoilt by too much adulation. To start with, he was 
 good-looking, modest, and supposed to be rich ; small wonder 
 was it that he soon found few gates closed to him. Even the 
 Van Bleeker Schermerhorns,whqhad a horror of the nouveaux 
 riches, and who had been known to have an editor horse- 
 whipped for mentioning their illustrious names in his society 
 columns, opened their aristocratic though dirty gates. True , 
 it was that Miss Eudora Schermerhorn was saying good-bye to 
 her twenties, and that the family patrimony had been reduced 
 to a beggarly pittance; but anything approaching a money 
 marriage in the Van Bleeker Schermerhorn's ranks had not 
 been known since the days of their illustrious ancestor, old 
 
 45
 
 46 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 Wouter Van Twiller. To them, blood was everything; but, 
 of course, if a young man had both ! 
 
 Did Brent feel the stings of conscience while he was thus 
 being courted. If he had any attacks of remorse they did not 
 keep him awake nights or interfere with his digestion. There 
 were times, especially when he had nothing to do, when he felt 
 rather ashamed of himself ; but then some new pleasure would 
 come up and crowd out all memories but those of the present. 
 
 By a beneficent arrangement, the man or Avoman in fashion- 
 able life has little time for introspective views. A constant 
 succession of duties and pleasures leaves them very little alone 
 with themselves. Philosophers are unkind enough to say that 
 members of the elegant world are people of such meagre minds 
 that they rush together because they dread being left alone 
 with their own barren intellects. It might be more kind to 
 say that society is composed of people who have something to 
 forget or nothing to remember. At least, it is easy for the 
 man of fashion, or woman either, to escape the pillory of their 
 own consciences by keeping always in the rush of the current. 
 
 John Brent should not be blamed because he could look, with 
 equanimity at least, on a life of imposition. So far, he was 
 only having a good time on the money supplied by the Impe- 
 cunious Club ; the worst part of the bargain was yet to come, 
 when he must pay for the luxuries he now enjoj'ed. In the 
 meantime he was content to drift idly with the tide, enjoying 
 all the pleasures that fortune put in his reach. Whenever he 
 found himself in an introspective mood and he tried never to 
 let his conscience take the floor he would walk down to Mad- 
 ison Square and take a look at the bench where he had lain on 
 the night that Shrike took him in. It always sent him home 
 again whistling, and quite satisfied with his condition. 
 
 Captain Shrike's operations in his name on the Street had 
 been very successful, and a few daring plunges got his name 
 into the papers and added to his reputation socially and in a 
 business way. He came to be regarded as a young financier 
 of great promise, and Mr. Tillinghurst, who always worshipped 
 successful people, took a great fancy to him. 
 
 "When I was his age," the broker said, in confidence, to old 
 Van Bleeker Schermerhorn, who hated him, as he knew, with 
 the true hate of a patrician for a parvenu " When I was that
 
 "NUMBER 66." 47 
 
 young man's age, I was peddling things from door to door, 
 and living on cheese-parings. They seem to be able to make 
 money quicker in these times than when I was a young man. " 
 
 And then he would launch out in a flood of reminiscences, 
 while Van Bleeker would resort to his smelling-salts, as if the 
 garrulous old man's conversation even smelt of the perspira- 
 tion of trade. 
 
 John Brent's meeting with Marcia Tillinghurst was under no 
 startling circumstances, and amid very ordinary surroundings. 
 In fact, he had dreaded meeting her, and chance had favored 
 him for a long time ; but Shrike, who had an eye for business, 
 arranged that they should meet at the ball given by the Am- 
 sterdam Club at Delmonico's. 
 
 " I don't want to give you a chance to fall in love with any- 
 one else," he said, with a meaning smile, as he handed him 
 the ticket. 
 
 Somehow, it took Brent a very long time to get ready that 
 evening; and twice he came near cutting himself with the 
 razor, his hand trembled so. 
 
 Had he been asked he would have had difficulty in explain- 
 ing his emotions at that time, but he certainly felt strangely 
 unnerved, or, as Captain Shrike would say in club parlance, 
 "rocky." 
 
 He drove down to the ball, forgetting that he had promised 
 to call for Freddy Pixley on the way. He felt a desire to ask 
 the driver to return, but he did not dare to thwart Shrike. 
 He tried to argue with himself that it was childish to be afraid 
 of a woman whom he had never met. If he had been going to 
 meet her as an honest man he would have felt differently ; for 
 the mournful eyes he had seen in the square that night still 
 haunted him. He lit a cigarette to soothe his nerves ; he knew 
 he must put on a bold front for the encounter. 
 
 There was only one light in the Tillinghurst mansion as he 
 rolled by it. He imagined as he lay there on the soft cushions 
 that he could see Marcia standing before her mirror preparing 
 for the ball. "Poor girl!" he said to himself, as the picture 
 rose before his view; " you little know the conspiracy that is 
 on foot to dispose of you." 
 
 The sight of the millionaire's palace looming up in the night 
 brought other pleasant fancies to a man of his strong imagina-
 
 48 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 tion. He could see a carpet of scarlet velvet reaching from 
 the grand entrance to the curb-stone, where a carriage waited 
 with impatient horses. And down the soft scarlet expanse 
 came tripping a lithe, graceful young woman, in a smart trav- 
 elling suit, leaning on the arm of a noble-looking young man, 
 while behind the couple rose a fashionable group of people 
 who harried them with rice and old slippers. And there stood 
 Papa Tillinghurst at the door of the carriage, with tears in his 
 eyes, and a check for a handsome sum in his hand, which he 
 pressed upon the reluctant bridegroom, and and 
 
 But the carriage rolled up to Delmonico's, and his dreams 
 were broken by the profanity of the coachmen who blocked up 
 the street. There were about two hundred people present 
 when Brent entered the ball-room. The Amsterdam Club 
 prided themselves on giving only the most select entertain- 
 ments, and there was always an overhauling of family his- 
 tories and the Americana-Heraldica when the tickets were 
 given out. 
 
 Fanny Pixley had taken up her stand in the centre of the 
 room, and was enjoying the homage of half-a-dozen lanky 
 young men with piping voices, who chattered like apes. Her 
 face, which was as delicately colored as a sevres ornament, 
 would have delighted Watteau, and inspired a poem in Beau- 
 delaire. An overweening confidence in the effect of her own 
 charms, however, robbed her features of half their beauty. 
 Her face was generally revolving like a pin- wheel in her efforts 
 to distribute her smiles and melting glances over a large ex- 
 panse of high-collared young men. Admirers she had by the 
 score ; they were ticketed off in her ivory address-book under 
 different headings those who took her to lunch, and those 
 who might be depended on for the opera and theatre. Fragile 
 and delicate-looking, she went through the season in a mad 
 gallop without any respite. She never wanted to rest. A 
 quiet life would have probably worn her out much sooner than 
 the noisy excitement in which she moved. The crash of music, 
 the chatter of the dinner-table, the mysteries of the toilet, all 
 acted as a tonic on this social cyclone. 
 
 Her dresses were miracles, and yet they had never been 
 through the custom-house. An Irish modiste, with a French 
 name, made her toilets; but who this incomparable dress
 
 "NUMBER 66." 49 
 
 maker was, not even her most intimate friends could tell. 
 Her dress to-night was of exceptional elegance. A skirt of 
 heliotrope silk, covered with festoons of Valenciennes lace, 
 was surmounted by a boddice of saffron moire, with large but- 
 tons of sevres ware, while a jabot of rare old lace fell in a cas- 
 cade from throat to waist. The costume would have been try- 
 ing to anyone but a girl of her shell-like complexion and 
 dainty coloring. 
 
 ' ' Now, don't begin by saying something complimentary 
 about my dress," she said, as Brent approached. "Do you 
 know, 1 have heard nothing else all the evening. Just as if 
 I had made it, and only wore it, like a dressmaker, for an 
 advertisement ! " with a pout. 
 
 ' ' I wasn't going to say a word about your toilet, I assure 
 you. Now you mention the fact, however, I can't help saying 
 that it is rather pretty. I was going to speak to you about 
 the theatricals on Wednesday." 
 
 " You were there? " 
 
 " Yes, I led the clacque. Your death-scene was intensely 
 realistic; in fact, horrible." 
 
 "I should think so," said Fanny, with a shudder. "You 
 know, the property-man made a mistake, and put a bottle of 
 red ink on the table instead of a vial of poison." 
 
 "And you took it." 
 
 " I had to; every "one was looking at me. I ought to have 
 been realistic, for I went through all the agonies of death while 
 disposing of that ink." 
 
 They chattered on for some moments, until a waltz began, 
 and her partner came to claim her. Brent had been to Brook- 
 lyn that day, and was in no mood to dance. He strolled over 
 to the corner where he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Wilton. She 
 was talking to General Horatio Seaton, a little man with gray 
 imperials and a ruddy complexion. He had never forgiven the 
 North its share in the war, and was a perfect gatling-gun of 
 military reminiscences. 
 
 Mrs. Wilton, in a marvellous costume of pomegranate satin, 
 covered with black lace, looked like anything but the occu- 
 pant of a Broadway garret. The brilliant Parisian diamonds 
 sparkled brightly at her white throat: they were a present 
 4
 
 50 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 from the Duke Alexis, she said, and no one dared dispute the 
 assertion. 
 
 "Ah was just sayin' to the general," she remarked, with a 
 strong Southern accent, "that ah wundahed why sasahty 
 people, who have so much time on their hands, never exercise 
 any ingenuity in gettin' up entertainments. Yeh's New York, 
 supposed to be the greatest city in the country, and the social 
 programme consists of a ball one day, a musicale the next, 
 and a dinnah-pahty the next, an' so on with few variations." 
 
 " And would you like to revive the social amusements of the 
 middle ages? " asked Brent. ' ' Under such conditions, General, 
 you military men would get the best of us poor civilians, I am 
 afraid. Imagine, if you can, a couple of those slender youths 
 who are hovering about Fanny Pixley, in a tourney, running 
 full tilt at each other, trying to break each other's heads." 
 
 "It would at least be a manly pastime," said the general, 
 sniffing the air as if he detected the smell of the supper, "and 
 it would keep up a warlike spirit that is dying out except in 
 the South." 
 
 " No, ah don't knaw aboot the tourneys," said Mrs. Wilton, 
 " for then all the matrimonial prizes would be won by brawn 
 and not brains. But we are at the other extreme. There's 
 nothing romantic about sasahty nowadays." 
 
 "I am afraid you will search in vain for poetry in New 
 York life. For my part I don't hunger for the romantic ; I 
 have had enough pastoral pleasure in my boyhood to last me 
 all my life." 
 
 "Oh, I dare say I should tire of paradise itself, for that 
 matter," yawning behind her fan. 
 
 " I confess that New York has still some charms for me," 
 said Brent. " So far I have not had a chance to tire of its 
 many seductions. How about you, General? " 
 
 ' ' Oh, I am not hard to suit ; a soldier is easy to satisfy. 
 Enough to eat, enough to drink that is all. " 
 
 " He is engaged just now on a work on the Civil Wah," put 
 in Mrs. Wilton "a very remarkable book, too, from the 
 glance I had at the manuscript." 
 
 The little general bowed his head very meekly. " At least I 
 shall tell the true story of Bull's Run," he murmured. 
 
 Brent groaned inwardly, but said nothing.
 
 "NUMBER 66." 51 
 
 "There goes Mrs. Prentice Follansbee," remarked Mrs. 
 Wilton, as a lady in pearl-colored satin swept by in the waltz 
 with a whir of starched draperies. "Ah don't see how she 
 gains admittance in a place like this. They know well enough 
 she will turn round and describe the whole of it in detail in 
 some horrid society paper she writes for. Ah understand she is 
 about to publish a book on New Yoke high life, giving every- 
 body fits." 
 
 ' ' Novel- writing seems to be quite an epidemic in society now. 
 There's Mrs. Fawnley, the tobacco-dealer's wife, who blooms in 
 print every two or three years, not to mention Frank Castor, 
 with his historic drivel. " 
 
 The orchestra struck up a waltz, and Brent was soon floating 
 around the room with the fair widow in his arms ; while the 
 general, who did not dance, and did not want anyone else to, 
 whom he was with, looked on and scowled. 
 
 " What do you want to waltz with that woman for? " asked 
 Captain Shrike, who met Brent a few minutes afterwards, 
 flushed and heated. " She will never do you a bit of good, 
 and has a devil of a tongue." 
 
 " We are probably drawn together by the ties of companion- 
 ship, I imagine," said Brent, with a grimace, as he wiped his 
 heated face. " We are both of us frauds, and ought therefore 
 to be chummy." 
 
 Shrike smiled grimly. " Well, you've got lots of company 
 here to-night," as his eyes roamed around the room. "We 
 needn't blush with the best of 'em. Look at the Van Bleeker 
 Schermerhorns. Never tired of talking about their descent 
 and old Wouter Van Twiller. Always bragging about their 
 blood, and at the same time satisfied to live on the charity of 
 their relations, because they believe trade is degrading. There 
 is a whole family of frauds for you. Then we have Mrs. Ken- 
 drick Hewson and her daughter. Look at the diamonds! 
 There are enough to fill a pint measure. Their place on Madi- 
 son Avenue near Thirty-fourth Street is a perfect treasure- 
 house. The dress Miss Hewson is wearing cost a cool thou- 
 sand, if it cost a penny. Where do all the dollars come from? 
 Hewson gets a salary of five thousand a year, and spends ten 
 on himself. Who is the family banker? That tall, lazy -look- 
 ing man in the doorway, twisting his blonde moustache, could
 
 52 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 answer if he wanted to. He gave the mission fund a thousand 
 this year, and was talked about in all the papers. He is the 
 skeleton in the Hewson closet a skeleton with a material 
 pocket-book. Here we have old Jeff Thompson, of the Concen- 
 trated Insurance Company; lovely -looking old man, is he not? 
 Note his mild blue eyes and snowy hair, and the benignant 
 smile that plays about his pink face. He is principally cele- 
 brated for being in love with his wife. Society cannot under- 
 stand how two old people who are married can be fond of each 
 other, so they regard this couple with awe and attention. I 
 have no doubt he does love his wife, but unfortunately, he is 
 unable to concentrate his affections in any one place, and 
 but I'll tell you the story some day of this genial old mino- 
 taur,' stopping short in the midst of his eloquence. " Ah, my 
 boy. take courage! In figurative language, you are a good 
 egg among a lot of bad ones. Sail in without any cou.puiic- 
 tions ; be a humbug among humbugs, and they will all have a 
 better opinion of you." 
 
 The babble of many voices reached them as they stood there. 
 The swishing of starched skirts and the shuffling of many 
 feet were like the droning of innumerable bees. The perfume 
 from the banks of roses that filled the four corners of the 
 room, and from the superb flowers that were worn by the 
 dancers, rose in the air like incense that was almost stifling. 
 The two men moved over to the only open window, eager for 
 a breath of fresh air. Bits of conversation were borne to them 
 as the kaleidoscopic crowd shifted to and fro, and the volup- 
 tuous music rose and fell. Some of the scraps of chattel- 
 caused them to smile. 
 
 " Is that Jen Atherson ? " 
 
 "Yes. She has had her dresses cut an inch lower in the 
 neck this year. I suppose that's for the colonel's benefit. 
 Look at the salt-cellars ! Anybody would know she was forty 
 by her neck." 
 
 ' ' Your friend Annie seems to be starring it to-night, in that 
 violet satin and point lace." 
 
 "Rather a nice dress to hire from a Fourth- A venue cos- 
 tumer." 
 
 " How did you come to know she got it there ? "
 
 "NUMJiERM," 53 
 
 "I I was there looking for some private theatrical cos- 
 tumes." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 Two club men. ' ' Frankie Caldecott looks younger than ever 
 to-night. Gad ! she used to be an old flame of the governor's." 
 
 " She'll ring you in next, old chap, if you don't look out. 
 She's warranted never to fade, and fast colors. What do you 
 suppose she is up to now ? " 
 
 " Going on the stage ? " 
 
 " No, she is writing her autobiography." 
 
 " Impossible! Why, it would be suppressed." 
 
 Brent was amusing himself listening to the scraps of conver- 
 sation, when Captain Shrike touched him on the arm. 
 "Look!" he said, nodding in the direction of the doorway. 
 " Behold, your fate awaits you! " 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst had just entered the ball-room with his 
 daughter. Brent hardly dared to look at her at first; he felt 
 ashamed of his position. She only glanced carelessly about 
 the room, but he was sure she was looking indignantly at him. 
 He was aware of mumbling some commonplace remarks as 
 Shrike introduced him, and then they w T ere left alone together 
 in one corner, while the captain discreetly retired to where 
 he could watch his charge. 
 
 At the first sound of her voice Brent felt reassured, and 
 some of his old confidence returned to him. It soothed him 
 like a pleasant melody, a forgotten song that is recalled. He 
 felt that she was studying him from head to foot, and weigh- 
 ing him well. He was embarrassed in the presence of this 
 gentle, soft-eyed girl, who was so different from the chattering 
 magpies he had been accustomed to meet in the polite world. 
 
 Her costume was in keeping with her modest appearance 
 and calm repose. It was a blue-black velvet, made severely 
 plain, and piped at the edges and seams with w T hite satin ; her 
 only jewels were a string of pear-shaped pearls that clasped 
 tightly her white throat. The excitement of the occasion had 
 brought a delicate flush to her otherwise pale cheek, and her 
 sorrowful-looking eyes sparkled with shifting lights. 
 
 Brent, as his confidence became reassured, could not take 
 his glance away from her face.
 
 54 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "You don't go out into society much, Miss Tillinghurst ? " 
 he said, after an awkward silence. 
 
 " Not as much as papa would have me," was the reply. " I 
 am afraid he has begun to regard me as a very incomprehen- 
 sible person. I am more unsophisticated in regard to social 
 matters than blase. It simply doesn't interest me to go to 
 receptions and parties." 
 
 "For my part," said Brent, "I need an atmosphere of 
 society in order to be happy. I need the friction of crowds. 
 While I see more in the swim to condemn than to praise, the 
 study of these shams is none the less interesting. My position 
 in the social world is one of genial pessimism. Why, I have 
 picked up any number of scraps regarding human nature here 
 to-night that have amused me vastly." 
 
 ' ' I am afraid, Mr. Brent, that you are a dangerous char- 
 acter, if you go about taking these mental photographs. It 
 doesn't do to go to the root of these social questions. You 
 must be a little near-sighted when you go around the ring. 
 The use of a microscope will not strengthen your faith in your 
 fellow-men, or in women either." 
 
 " I confess I have a prying mind," said Brent, with a smile. 
 " Until the past few months I have seen very little of the world, 
 or of society either, and I am still intoxicated with its pleas- 
 ures. I suppose the fever attacks every man sometime in his 
 life, like composing verses or the measles." 
 
 "I don't believe your case is hopeless," returned Miss 
 Tillinghurst ; ' ' but I trust you will not become a social hedge- 
 hog, as I am now regarded," with a laugh. 
 
 It seemed strange, but he found nothing to say to her. 
 
 "Would you like to waltz down to the other end of the 
 room ? " he asked, as the music started in one of Waldteufel's 
 dreamy melodies. "I think Fanny Pixley is motioning to 
 you." 
 
 The waves of the waltz caught them up and bore them out 
 into the silken, billowy sea, islanded with black. The lights 
 quivered with the rushing feet, and the air was drowsy with 
 the perfume that hung like a mist over the wavering heads. 
 Brent was conscious of nothing tangible but the soft form in 
 his arms, and the loosened lock of hair that burst from its 
 fillet and swept his cheek.
 
 " NUMBER 66." 55 
 
 The delight of that dance lasted but a moment. He caught 
 sight of Captain Shrike's grinning face in the crowd. The 
 enchanted sea was once more a crowd of painted women and 
 perspiring men.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 "THE GAME'S AFOOT.'' 
 
 " HERE'S an account of the racket last night, if you care to 
 read it," said Captain Shrike, tossing a newspaper across the 
 table where they dawdled over a late breakfast. "I see they 
 have you in as large as life, and next to Miss Tillmghurst 
 too." 
 
 "I never read the society columns on principle," returned 
 Brent, ' ' unless it is in an English paper. In this country the 
 department seems to be generally given over to imbecile, para- 
 graphers, and is about on an intellectual par with the adver- 
 tisements." 
 
 " At the same time we cannot afford to despise them," was 
 the response. " There is nothing like the newspaper to make 
 a thing go, from a medicine sham to a social sham. We can 
 abuse journalists as much as we please in private, but it is sad 
 but true that they have it in their power to make or mar a 
 man ; and it's a good deal worse for a woman. Look at your 
 friend Mrs. Boodleton ! She is diplomatic enough to be for- 
 ever asking Jim Walker of the Telephone to dinner. Person- 
 ally she does not care a cent for him ; yet witness the results. 
 Suppose we say that having him to dinner costs three dollars, 
 which it don't. Well, after being primed to a proper pitch 
 with her wines and stuff, he goes off and writes about half a 
 column describing the magnificent receptions they give (in the 
 boarding-house parlor), and dilates upon the family diamonds 
 and Dora Boodleton's jewels. Why, me boy, it is a splendid 
 advertisement ; splendid ! You must keep in with the society 
 reporters, if you want to succeed in society. They are the 
 Midas-power of the press; tread lightly on their corns. A few 
 strokes of the pen, and they have transformed a dingy flat 
 into a palace, a shabby back -parlor into a stately drawing- 
 room, a cabbage-garden into a conservatory, a sandwich- 
 
 56
 
 " THE GAME'S AFOOT:'' 57 
 
 lunch into a collation worthy of Lucullus. Therefore I say, 
 Heaven bless 'em ! " 
 
 Brent did not seem to be listening ; he was eyeing the table- 
 cloth in his peculiar moody fashion. 
 
 ' ' Do you notice how much space is devoted to describing 
 Mrs. Wilton's costume?" asked Shrike, who had resumed his 
 paper. "You can remember yourself that it was nothing 
 remarkable at all, yet here I find it described down to the 
 minutest trifle, even to the beads on her slippers. Clever 
 woman! I can see by this that somebody's palm has been 
 crossed. Now, she will buy five hundred copies of the paper, 
 and ship them around to her friends, especially marked. 
 Result, she will be asked to spend a few weeks at some one's 
 country-house next summer, and once within the walls she is 
 good for the entire season. I must begin to work the press in 
 your interest, me boy." 
 
 Brent's only answer was to go over to the window, where 
 he stood for some moments looking out on the street. 
 "I wish," he said finally, "that you would not be forever 
 reminding me of my position." 
 
 "Oh, indeed !" was the mocking reply; "you don't like to 
 be worried in this affair at all. I have all the trouble of 
 engineering it through, while you sport around, and then get 
 in a bad humor if I remind you of your obligations. Some- 
 times I feel like throwing up the whole affair." 
 
 " I have no doubt you find me very poor material for your 
 purpose," was Brent's reply. " Have patience with me, and I 
 dare say I shall become in time a villain after your own 
 heart, " bitterly. 
 
 " Come, come, that's no way to talk; be a man." 
 
 " There's the rub," was the ungracious reply; "I can't be a 
 man and do as I am doing." 
 
 ' ' You had better trundle some of your convictions down to 
 the docks and dump them overboard ; they are too heavy for 
 you to carry under the circumstances." 
 
 "I wish I could." 
 
 ' ' You don't want to go back to your old life again. Why, 
 man, you fancy this girl already. I read it in your eyes last 
 night. If you give up the fight, you must give up her too." 
 
 Brent started. "Let us not talk of her," he said, huskily,
 
 58 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "As you say, I could not go back to the old life again never! 
 It is too late to turn back." He poured himself out a glass of 
 brandy at the side-board and gulped it down greedily. " You 
 have had my promise, and I will stick by it. Sink or swim, 
 we will stand together in this matter." 
 
 "Well said, me boy, and in after-years you will thank your 
 uncle for putting you up to such a good thing. Everything is 
 working beautifully,*' rubbing his hands together slowly; 
 " everything points to success." 
 
 " I will tell you one thing, Shrike," Brent said, after some 
 moment's silence ; " I am getting tired of doing nothing. It 
 gives me too much time to think. I used to lend a busy life 
 before I met you," his face flushing slightly at the recollec- 
 tion, " and I'm tired of being an idler. Get me something to 
 do. I'm naturally lazy, but if I had regular hours I should be 
 much happier, I am sure." 
 
 "It ought to be easy enough to find a berth for a man in 
 your position," said the captain, meditatively. "If a rumor 
 got around that you had lost all your money it would be dif- 
 ferent. Thanks to me, you have considerable reputation as a 
 financier. How would you fancy a broker's ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I should ruin the concern in a week. I should 
 much rather get into some business where I should have no 
 chance of tangling things up so that the firm could never un- 
 snarl themselves." 
 
 " You want, in short, what is known in vulgar parlance as a 
 soft snap. Short hours, little work, and much importance. 
 For you, such a position should be easy to find. You brace 
 your friends, and I will mine, and between us both it will be 
 strange if you don't find a safe and lucrative lodgment." 
 
 " The sooner the better," was Brent's reply. "Fashionable 
 loafing seems to be about as dull as the more vulgar variety. 
 Where are you going this morning ? " 
 
 " I have to meet a friend at the Grand Central at eleven," 
 looking at his watch, " but I shall lunch at Torretti's about two, 
 If you happen to be around the neighborhood, drop in. And 
 by the way, I was going to forget something of importance. I 
 want you to invest $10,000 with John Tillinghurst. " 
 
 "What, I?" 
 
 you-, it will inspire confidence, and I have my reasons,"
 
 " THE GAME'S AFOOT." 59 
 
 "But there is only about $200 in the bank to my account." 
 
 "There will be much more; in fact, all you need. The 
 cashier, you will recollect, is a member of the club." 
 
 "And what if this money is lost ? You know I am a perfect 
 child about money matters." 
 
 ' ' Have no concern on that score ; it will not be lost. The old 
 fox will return you a large percentage in order to inspire you 
 with confidence to get you to invest more. It is like most 
 other forms of gambling ; you will be allowed to win heavily at 
 first, that you may be secured more easily in the end." 
 
 " But the labor market is in such a troubled condition that 
 no man's money is safe." 
 
 "Oh, that will all blow over; don't be alarmed. Working- 
 men tire of strikes as soon as they find out how unprofitable 
 they are to all concerned." 
 
 " I confess my sympathies are with the poor devils, though at 
 present I am a member of the bloated aristocracy," said Brent. 
 
 "Socialistic, eh ? " with a laugh. "I am afraid you are too 
 stylish and too fond of dress to pose as a labor reformer," as 
 they parted at the door. 
 
 Shrike watched him get into the carriage, and then turned 
 away, shaking his head. "There's some noble clay in that 
 vessel," he remarked to himself; " pity it has so many leaks." 
 And swinging his cane jauntily, he set off down-town, his face 
 a picture of content. 
 
 John Tillinghust occupied the most modest set of offices to 
 be found in the great building he owned on the corner of 
 Broadway and Canal Street. There was not a superfluous bit 
 of furniture, even in the private office of the millionaire him- 
 self; everything looked ponderous and uncomfortable. On 
 the only visit Marcia had ever made to the building, she had 
 suggested putting in some pictures and bric-a-brac, but he 
 stoutly resented any attempts at innovation. 
 
 ' ' I want all my help to know when they come here, that it 
 ain't a ladies' parlor where they can dawdle away their time. 
 These rooms are cleared for action; we don't go in for style." 
 
 Tillinghurst called himself a broker, but he took a hand in 
 most anything that promised a large return, from lending 
 money on furniture to buying out a business. In addition to 
 dealing in genera] stocks he was the, owner of the Empire,
 
 CO A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 Flour Mills at 113th Street and the Goshen Sugar Eefinery at 
 Hunter's Point, besides being a silent partner in a number of 
 other lesser concerns. His clerks were very different from the 
 generality of brokers' clerks. They dressed simply, and 
 looked like English butlers, moving about their work silently, 
 with never a smile or a joke. Most of them had been with Mr. 
 Tillinghtirst a long while, and had consequently absorbed his 
 manners and brusque way of talking. They did not love him 
 as a task-master, for he always exacted one hundred cents on 
 the dollar; but the pay was always sure, and he never for- 
 got those who served him well. 
 
 Brent, obedient to the orders of his " matrimonial manager," 
 as Captain Shrike was pleased facetiously to call himself, 
 found Mr. Tiliinghurst engaged when he sent in his card that 
 morning. 
 
 He was assigned a seat in the little waiting-room that was 
 separated from the money-spinner's den by a glass partition. 
 A more uninviting place to wait in could not be well imagined. 
 There was a hard, shiny little hair-sofa in one corner, a great 
 yellow earthenware cuspadore on the floor, a glazed map of 
 New York on the walls, and the advertisement of an Accident 
 Insurance Company. This last proved to be the most interest- 
 ing thing in that doleful room. It presented a series of graphic 
 illustrations of ladies and gentlemen, in green and red cos- 
 tumes, being blown to pieces and run over and chopped up in 
 the most approved style. 
 
 Brent was studying this work of art when the sound of 
 angry voices reached him from the direction of the private 
 office, so loud that he could not help hearing some things said. 
 It was evident that Mr. Tiliinghurst was receiving a delega- 
 tion of working-men, for he heard the broker say, in an irri- 
 tated voice: " I don't see how I can afford to come down to an 
 eight-hour schedule without cutting the pay down too, and I 
 suppose that wouldn't suit you at all ? " 
 
 There was a negative growl, and a shuffle of heavy boots. 
 
 "An' is that all ye have to say to the delygation ? " asked a 
 hoarse voice. 
 
 "All, for the present," Mr Tiliinghurst replied. "I know 
 better than you do what my stuff brings in the market, and I
 
 " THE GAME 'S AFOOT." 61 
 
 am paying all I can, unless I want to run the business for 
 fun." 
 
 The door clicked, as if the men were about to leave ; Brent 
 caught sight of several tousled heads and some muddy-look- 
 ing boots. 
 
 "If we take that message back to the men," said the owner 
 of two of the boots, ' 'as I am a livin' man they'll all go out on 
 a strike ; they will indeed, sir. " 
 
 "Well, let 'em strike and be damned." Then, catching 
 sight of John Brent at that moment, his face underwent a 
 complete change of expression. "Come in," he called out 
 cheerily, his face in a broad smile. 
 
 Brent pushed by the three sullen, disappointed-looking men 
 going out. They seemed so downcast at the result of their 
 mission that he felt sorry for them. He would have liked to 
 say a word to them, but the sharp voice of the millionaire 
 recalled him to himself and to the business before him. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Tillinghurst, as he grasped the extended 
 hand and. shook it warmly, " I am downright glad to see you, 
 though it isn't such an age since we met. I dare say you 
 heard some of the things I said to those men who just went 
 out. They come from my sugar refinery at Hunter's Point, 
 and a precious sulky lot they are to deal with. Making a fuss 
 again about their wages. Want to work eight hours a day 
 and get the same pay. They know, the rascals, that it is the 
 busy season, and that we have more orders ahead now than 
 we can fill without running over-time." 
 
 "And what are you going to do about the matter?" asked 
 Brent, seating himself at the broker's elbow. 
 
 " What am I going to do? Why, not give in an inch: that's 
 what I am going to do. The more they get, the more they 
 want. I'm not going to get left in the lurch right now ; if they 
 strike, let 'em. I'll close the mill and go out of the business. 
 It's been tried in Massachusetts and worked first-rate. I don't 
 believe in these labor unions, and never did. I got along all 
 right, when I was a young man, without walking delegates 
 and master-workman humbugs ; and what did then ought to 
 do now." He was talking excitedly, with his face flushed and 
 his eyes sparkling. 
 
 "There ought to be someway of disposing of your case
 
 62 A SLA VE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 without resorting to extreme measures," Brent ventured. 
 " Some day I am going to buy a factory and try some of my 
 schemes on the working-men. There must be a way of deal- 
 ing with the labor problem besides using force." 
 
 ' ' You wouldn't think so if you had been through all the 
 experience I have had with 'em," drawing his lips tightly 
 together. "I've tried every way under the sun, and have 
 come to the solemn conclusion that the only way to get along 
 with the working-man is to keep him down. However, you 
 didn't come all the way down here to get my opinion on the 
 labor question, that's certain. How did you like the ball last 
 night? My daughter mentioned meeting you." 
 
 " Yes, I had that pleasure." 
 
 "Queer girl, ain't she? That is, everybody says so when 
 they first meet her. Did you notice that dress she had on?" 
 
 " I noticed that it became her," the young man replied, a 
 little mystified at the question. 
 
 "Well, it wasn't a patch to the one I had ordered for her to 
 wear to the affair. When she came home and saw it, she said 
 it was what is the French for too low-cut in the neck? Any- 
 way, she wouldn't wear it, and put on some old thing she'd 
 worn a dozen times. Spunky little thing, she is," wagging 
 his head back and forth. " Never did I see any one like her." 
 
 "You ought to be rather glad than sorry for that," said 
 Brent. 
 
 "I am, I am; but then that girl is up in the clouds so much 
 that it ain't often she gets near enough to earth forme to en joy 
 talking to her. Sometimes I wish she wasn't quite so knowing, 
 more on the style of Fanny Pixley, for instance. There's a girl 
 for you ! Why, I suppose there ain't much going on in society 
 but what she knows of." 
 
 " I have always thought," put in Brent, mildly, "that there 
 was a good deal going on in society that it was best a girl 
 should not know." 
 
 " True, true !" said the other, wagging his head. " I don't go 
 out much myself in the giddy throng, but whenever I do I am 
 pretty sure to trip over something queer before I've got very 
 far. But let us get down to business ; I'd ramble on all day if 
 Marcia was the subject." 
 
 Brent wanted to say he could do the same thing, but he
 
 "THE GAME'S AFOOT." 63 
 
 remarked, "I came to see you to-day to get you to help me 
 out of a predicament." 
 
 "Not financial, I hope," said the broker, pursing up his lips 
 as if he wanted to smile, but somehow was ashamed to. 
 "Well, out with it, and if it's in a business way, here you 
 are!" 
 
 " It is business, and I think in your line. In short, I have 
 been living so modestly for the past three months that I have 
 accumulated over and above my income a little over ten 
 thousand dollars that I don't know what to do with." 
 
 The other stopped drumming with his fat fingers on the 
 table, and looked at Brent with amazement and admiration on 
 his face. "Ten thousand dollars, eh? Well now, that ain't 
 half bad for a man of your age ; " and he resumed his drum- 
 ming, as if he were trying to count on his fingers just how 
 much the entire income must be. 
 
 "Yes, ten thousand dollars," said Brent; "and I want to 
 get rid of it badly." 
 
 " Why don't you put it in my hands?" 
 
 "I was about to suggest that but such a small sum, Mr. 
 Tillinghurst it would hardly be worth your trouble." 
 
 " Oh, for a friend, you know, is a different thing," the 
 millionaire replied, with a gracious wave of his hand; "for a 
 friend, anything ! " 
 
 "I may add," said Brent, "that I may be able to place in 
 your hands a like amount every three months, if I continue 
 to live in the same modest way that I have been doing ; that 
 is, until 
 
 "Until you get married, eh? " asked the other, with a bois- 
 terous laugh. "Ah, then, my boy, you will find your wife 
 can help you get rid of the surplus without any trouble at all." 
 
 Brent felt that his face was flushing ; he did not know ex- 
 actly why. 
 
 "Lookout, my boy," rattled on the broker. "The crowd 
 are after you, and a mighty hungry pack they are, too. Don't 
 be cornered. I should hate to see such a fine fellow as you 
 captured by some scheming hussy." 
 
 Something in the tone nettled Brent. 
 
 "There is no occasion to be alarmed as yet, Mr. Tilling- 
 hurst," he added quickly.
 
 64 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " Of course not, of course not; but it's just as well to be pre- 
 pared for what might happen. That's the check, eh?" as 
 Brent handed him a slim strip of paper. ' ' Well, I'll see that 
 it works hard for you and brings in some returns. I'll guar- 
 antee you at least seven per cent., but in these troubled times 
 a man never knows where he is coming out." 
 
 "We woa't quarrel about the interest," said Brent ; " I know 
 you will do the best you can for me. But I was going to 
 say-" 
 
 A sharp rap on the door caused him to pause in his sentence. 
 
 " Don't move," said Tillinghurst ; " it's only my confidential 
 clerk," as a gray head was stuck in the doorway. " Come in, 
 Mr. Hawkins." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Tillinghurst, but I thought you 
 were alone," the old man quavered, as he looked at Brent 
 doubtfully, blinking like an owl in the sunlight. 
 
 " Well, if you've got anything to say, out with it," was the 
 reply. ' ' Don't stand on ceremony because Mr. Brent is here. 
 He is, I may say, one of our stockholders, and therefore en- 
 titled to know a few of the secrets of the firm," and he grinned 
 in a reassuring way. 
 
 "Well, it's just this, sir," said the old clerk, not quite satis- 
 fied whether he ought to speak out or not; "I've just been 
 telephoned for by the Empire Mills." 
 
 " Well, well, well; what's the trouble up there? " 
 
 ' ' Heaps of trouble. The men are all dissatisfied and talk of 
 another strike, particularly the old hands. The detective you 
 put on duty reports that Superintendent Jim Connors is 
 secretly encouraging them in their demand for higher wages." 
 
 "That's the way, that's the way," roared Mr. Tillinghurst, 
 as he walked nervously up and down the office, clinching his 
 fists ; ' ' that's the way with those fellows. I might have known 
 that hang-dog-looking Connors would turn on me sooner or 
 later. That's what I get for doing the Eev. Mr. Satine a 
 favor. He said it would be a noble act to give that poor devil 
 a lift, because he had a big family. Well, he'll get a lift now. 
 I'll lift him out, that's what I'll do ; " and the broker shut his 
 teeth together closely, in that peculiar way which his enemies 
 knew always meant mischief. 
 
 "Hawkins," he called, peremptorily, stopping short in the
 
 " THE GAME'S AFOOT. 1 ' 65 
 
 middle of the floor, his face still wearing its disagreeable 
 expression. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Make out Connors' discharge, and bring it to me to sign at 
 once, do you hear?" 
 
 " But, sir," trembled the other, "if you discharge him, half 
 of the men will follow, and here we are, right in the midst of 
 the busy season. As it is, we have to work over-time to fill all 
 our orders. I'd wait a bit, sir." 
 
 " Well, I won't, and that's flat. Do you suppose," stamping 
 his feet, ' ' that I am going to let that Irishman walk over me 
 just to save a few dollars? Go at once and make out that 
 discharge-paper, and don't have so much to say another time ; 
 I have too many advisers now for my own good." 
 
 The clerk disappeared in the direction of the counting-room 
 without another word. 
 
 "This is a nice state of affairs," gasped Mr. Tillinghurst, 
 sinking into a chair, and addressing no one in particular. 
 " If I could only get my hand on the man that invented trades 
 unions I'd make it hot for him, that's all ; " and from the 
 expression on his face it was safe to infer that he meant 
 it. "Nice fix I'm in, taking things all around. The Goshen 
 Refinery all ready for a strike, and now this fuss up at the 
 Empire Mills. It's just like Jim Connors to walk right out 
 of the place as soon as he gets my letter, and leave me with- 
 out a superintendent, or a blessed soul to look after my inter- 
 ests; just like the ungrateful cuss. I suppose I'll have to 
 leave my business and go up there and tend to things my- 
 self. 
 
 " No need of that," said Brent, touching him gently on the 
 arm ; " I'll go myself." 
 
 If a torpedo had exploded under the worthy millionaire's 
 chair, he could not have started with more surprise than he 
 did. 
 
 " You?" he asked, in a tone of amazement. 
 
 "Yes, why not ? I worked several years in a Western flour- 
 mill, and know the business thoroughly. Now, don 't laugh," 
 as the broker's face puckered up in ominous creases ; "there 
 must be some fatality in your losing a superintendent just at 
 this time." 
 5
 
 66 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " Why, what do you mean? " 
 
 " Only that I was going to ask you, before I went away, if 
 you knew where I could get something to do." 
 
 "Why, I always thought you were an elegant man of lei- 
 sure, who rather looked down on poor working-folks like us." 
 
 "Quite the contrary. I am tired of loafing, even if the 
 loafing-ground is draped with satin and carpeted with Axmin- 
 ster. I thought I should never tire of idleness, because I 
 worked so hard as a boy ; but I am getting restless, and want 
 something to occupy my mind." 
 
 " Let me shake hands on that," said the broker, extending 
 a great fat hand, which Brent shook gravely; " I thought 
 you had more in you than those lanky fellers I meet out and 
 around, who couldn't make three dollars a week if they had 
 to earn it themselves. I like to see a man work, and hard 
 too ; let the women-folks do the dawdlin' about ; it won't do 
 for able-bodied men like you and me. I thought you were 
 joking at first, but now I know you are serious, why, I'll do 
 all I can for you." 
 
 " All I ask is, that you will try me for a few weeks up at 
 the mills ; and if I don't get along with the men, a hint will 
 easily get rid of me." 
 
 " But your social obligations, what of them?" asked Mr. 
 Tillinghurst. " Won't it be rather hard at first to give up 
 all the pink suppers and kettledrums and afternoon what- 
 do-you-call-'ems? " with a suspicion of a grin on his face. 
 
 " I am quite sure I can get along with a smaller quantity of 
 social hilarity. It's only when a man is idle that he takes 
 pleasure in such entertainments." 
 
 "Well! I am in such a corner that I don't know where to 
 turn. I don't know as you could mix things up any worse if 
 you wanted to. So I don't mind if you do try your hand at 
 the mills. Any man that's at all smart ought to get along up 
 there. The foremen all know the business thoroughly, and all 
 you will have to do is to examine their daily reports and keep 
 your weather eye open. If you get in a snarl or don't know 
 what to do, just consult Jenkins; he's only the book-keeper 
 of the mills, but he knows the whole business from top to 
 bottom. Connors never was much more than a figure-head 
 anyway, and if you and I hold consultations once in a while,
 
 "THE GAME'S AFOOT." 67 
 
 I guess the Empire Mills won't go under quite yet awhile. 
 You are quite certain you are in earnest? " 
 
 "Quite," said Brent, and there was no doubt that he had 
 made up his mind fully. 
 
 " And you will begin ? " 
 
 " To-morrow, if you like." 
 
 ' ' Good ! Come up to my house to-night, and we'll talk the 
 matter over. I can post you a*bout your duties in a half -hour. 
 I don't believe you will have any trouble if you begin by put- 
 ting your foot down. Don't begin by being kind, that's all, 
 for they will only jump on you the first chance they get." 
 
 " I shall try to do right, I hope," said the young man eva- 
 sively, as he said good-bye and left the office. 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst watched the young man from the window 
 as he got into his carriage and was whirled up-town, then he 
 sat down by his desk and gave vent to a low and prolonged 
 whistle. 
 
 "Well, there's a queer character for you! Ten thousand 
 dollars surplus out of his quarter's income, and anxious to 
 work eight hours a day. Never made any mention of salary 
 either. I won't be the first to suggest it. Hum ! he's not 
 much of a business man ; but he's plucky. Blame it all, he's 
 plucky," shaking his head back and forth.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OLD MAN BOWKER. 
 
 "I HOPE Joe ain't goin' to mix hisself up in none of this 
 trouble. Porter's folks is downright starvin' ever sence he 
 went out of the shop this day three weeks." 
 
 The speaker was a slender young woman, with a pale face 
 and watery blue eyes, who wore a smart little bonnet and a 
 gay blue-and- white shawl. She was seated in a wicker rock- 
 ing-chair, by the window, looking out at the dirty children 
 playing about the fountain in Bolger's Court. 
 
 ' ' I thought I'd drop in to see if there was any news from 
 up above," she added, addressing an elderly woman bending 
 over a wash-tub in one corner of the room. ' ' You ain't heerd 
 nothin', have you, Mrs. Skerritt? " 
 
 "No, I ain't, Malvina," stopping to wring a flaming red 
 garment. " But there's a good bit o' talk up there among the 
 men, and I shouldn't wonder if Joe took a hand in it. He's 
 kind of fond of speakin' out his idees, is Joe. I used to be 
 proud of it, but in these times it's likely to git him into 
 trouble." 
 
 " He can speak as much as he has a mind to, so long as he 
 don't go into no strikes," said the girl. "What would become 
 of the money he saved up to buy our furniture with, if they 
 was ordered out? It would go like like melted butter." 
 
 "Oh, I got faith in Joe," said the elderly woman, again 
 bending over her tub with a sigh. "I know he won't do 
 nothin' rash. He's just like the Walkers, and they was always 
 a cautious crowd." 
 
 ' ' Yes, but if the Brotherhood orders him out, he's got to 
 go," said the young woman, rocking backwards and forwards 
 in her chair furiously ; " and then the money '11 go too." 
 
 " Why don't the Brotherhood pay 'em so much a week when 
 they are out on strike? " asked Mrs. Skerritt. 
 
 "Well, they pretends to ; but, bless yer soul, there is so many 
 
 68
 
 OLD MAN EOWKER. 69 
 
 strikes nowadays that there ain't nigh enough money to go 
 round. Jim Quigley drew three dollars last Saturday from 
 the 'sociation, but what's that for a sick wife and three chil- 
 dren, and the rent five a month." 
 
 ' ' Well, there ain't no use of thinkin' about it till the time 
 comes," said Mrs. Skerritt, with a sigh. " We've weathered 
 some pretty hard times since George was took away, and I guess 
 we kin get along in some kind o' shape if there is a strike. " 
 
 "Well, I hope so," said Malvina, taking some knitting from 
 her pocket and beginning to work. 
 
 ' ' What I don't like is him goin' so much to the meetin's up 
 in Sixth Street. It don't do him 110 good to hear them Eoosh- 
 ians and Dutchmen making speeches and talkin' agin' the laws 
 and what they'd do if they only had their way and could blow 
 the capitalists into kingdom come. I wish you'd say some- 
 thin' to him, Malvina. It ain't no good for me. " 
 
 " I will that, " said the girl, "I met him one night comin' 
 home with the fellow they call Heckelmann, a Dutchman that 
 lives in Walker's alley, and was arrested for beatin' his wife. 
 He's one of them agitators, and has got a regular prison face 
 on him, though Joe says he's mighty smart for a furriner. 
 But how's your rheumaticks, Mrs. Skerritt?" with a rapid 
 change of the subject. 
 
 "Well, it ain't so bad, Malvina," straightening herself up. 
 " There ain't nothing so good for sech things as turpentine and 
 peppermint. I wouldn't have it so bad if I could keep these 
 two rooms clean and dry. I never see sich wet walls in all 
 my life, and I keep a fire goin' most o' the time." 
 
 ' ' Have you seen them new sanitary flats on East Broad- 
 way?" asked Malvina. "I hear they was built for poor folks, 
 and is clean and well ventilated. They looks real handsome 
 from the outside, and the rent ain't so dear, neither." 
 
 The old woman shook her head. "You could never get Joe 
 to move into such a place, Malvina. He wouldn't put Tip with 
 the rules and regulations. When my old man was alive, we 
 tried one of them flats in Jersey City. It was a beautiful place 
 just as clean and dry ; and the rooms, if they was small, had 
 nice big windows and high ceilings. I could ha' stood it well 
 enough, but father wouldn't mind the rules, so we left and 
 came here."
 
 70 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "Why, was the rules hard?" 
 
 "No, they wasn't so hard when you come to think 'em over, 
 but it galled the men to be treated like children. " For one 
 thing, everybody had to be indoors by ten o'clock. No beer or 
 anything stronger was allowed in the place. Rooms had to be 
 swept on Tuesdays and Fridays, and there was a woman who 
 went all over the house on these days to see that it was done." 
 
 ' ' Well, that couldn't have been a hard rule for you to follow, 
 Mrs. Skerritt," said the girl, looking at the spotless floor and 
 the polished array of platters and dishes on the dresser. 
 
 "I know that, but it made me mad to have somebody 
 watchiii' over me all the time to see that I kep' everything 
 clean just as if I didn't know enough to do it alone." 
 
 "I suppose they got up the laws for them as didn't," said 
 Malvina. "I know it'd be a mighty good thing if they'd make 
 old Bowker on the floor below clean up his place a bit. I 
 never see so much dirt in my life. It's about a foot deep over 
 everything. " 
 
 ' ' What a man he is, to be sure ! I fix up a bit for him now 
 and then, but bless me, I don't have time to look after my own 
 work, let alone anybody else's. That reminds me that he's 
 laid up with a fever just now. I must drop in an' see him 
 before dinner-time." 
 
 " It ain't any catchin' fever, is it? " asked Malvina, with some 
 hesitation. 
 
 "No, just a tech of agy, that's all. He's been workin' purty 
 hard that is, for an old man. Diggin' trenches for water pipes 
 somewhere up town. Kerosene and raw eggs is the thing for 
 him. Mercy!" stopping to wring apiece of clothing, ''how 
 that old fellow has changed since he first come here with his 
 wife. He was kind o' spruce-lookin' ; and she w T as a lady if I 
 ever see one. They took the first floor parlor when they came, 
 but as things went from bad to worse, they kept moving into 
 meaner rooms higher up in the building. She caught her death 
 while movin' into that very room where he's a lyin' now on his 
 back, poor man. It changed him fearful. It's a pity he didn't 
 die along o' her, instead o' hangin' on miserable, drinking his- 
 self into the grave." Mrs. Skerritt paused to wipe the suds 
 out of her eyes. " What a sight o' misery these old walls has
 
 OLD NAN BOWKEE. , 71 
 
 seen !" she remarked, half to herself, as she dried her hands 
 on her apron, and set the tub away under the closet shelves. 
 
 "Look,"' said Malvina, suddenly starting up and pointing 
 into the court-yard; "ain't that the daughter of Joe's boss 
 comin' in?" 
 
 " That's so, it is," said Mrs. Skerritt, peeping out; " and she's 
 sure to drop in here, and all the clothes from the wash layin' 
 round everywhere. Here. Malvina, help me tidy things up a 
 bit. I wouldn't have the young lady see the room in this 
 shape for anything." 
 
 They bustled about so effectively that they soon restored 
 things to their places, and were still dusting the chairs when a 
 knock sounded at the door. 
 
 Marcia had brought Fanny Pixley with her, that young lady 
 having expressed a desire, some time ago, to view the field of 
 her friend's labors. She was drawn more by curiosity than by 
 sympathy, for she was the kind of girl who abhorred poverty 
 in all its shapes. True it was, that, every Sunday afternoon, 
 she taught a group of youngsters the elements of religion in 
 the basement of the church of the Heavenly Hope, where Mr. 
 Satine held forth ; but she endured the task only because it was 
 fashionable in her set, and a duty that she could not well omit. 
 Marcia had urged her to wear an unassuming attire on this 
 trip among the city's poor, and she had reluctantly given up 
 the opportunity of donning a new costume, which had just 
 come home from the modiste's, and attired herself in a black 
 velvet gown, trimmed with jet, and a Rembrandt hat with 
 dark blue ostrich plumes. Marcia, who was dressed in a neat 
 alpaca, without an inch of trimming on it, frowned at Fanny 
 Pixley's rather theatrical get-up, but she said nothing. 
 
 The young ladies were warmly welcomed by Mrs. Skerritt, 
 who put tidies on her best chairs for her guests, and seemed 
 overwhelmed with the importance of the call. 
 
 " This is Joe's young woman," she said, introducing Malvina, 
 who seemed to have suddenly lost her power of speech, and 
 could only regard Fanny Pixley's costume in mute wonder. 
 " She and Joe is to be married in the spring." 
 
 It was now Malvina's opportunity to blush, a performance 
 which Miss Pixley regarded with some interest, not to say 
 wonder.
 
 72 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " I have been hearing some very good news about your son," 
 said Marcia, pleasantly. 
 
 " And is that so, Miss? Well, now, I'm downright glad to 
 hear you say it," beamed Mrs. Skerritt. 
 
 "My father's superintendent, Mr. Brent " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Brent; I've heard Joe speak of him." 
 
 " He says Joe is one of the best workmen in the mill, and 
 may be made foreman before the winter's over." 
 
 "Well, now, Joe'll be downright glad to hear that. Mal- 
 vina," to the girl, who was still studying the Rembrandt hat 
 and its waving plumes, "did you hear that, Malvina, what 
 the lady says about Joe? " But the girl was too absorbed in 
 taking an inventory of Fanny's costume to pay much atten- 
 tion, even though it concerned her lover. 
 
 " And how is your good father, Miss? " asked Mrs. Skerritt. 
 She hated the millionaire cordially, but wanted to seem polite 
 to her fair guest. 
 
 " Very well, thank you," said Marcia. "I am going to get 
 him to speak to Mr. Bolger about these damp walls. I am sure 
 half of the sickness in the building comes from them. It ought 
 to be different." 
 
 "And it's very kind of you, Miss, to be wastin' your 
 thoughts on us poor folks, " Mrs. Skerritt broke in gratefully. 
 " And would you mind statin' at the same time that the gas 
 leaks in the basement that bad that I'm always dreamin' I've 
 fallen into a sewer; and there's the McGintys on the fourth 
 back, who are always emptyin' things out the window. It 
 was only yesterday that I had me head out talkin' to the milk- 
 man, when they empties out a load of ashes that tuck me in the 
 neck and most knocked me into the court ; and they'd ought to 
 put up a railin' around the fountain, for them childers is always 
 droppin' through into the basin, and and But she was 
 too exhausted to go on, and sat down and mopped her face 
 for some moments with the corner of her apron. 
 
 "It won't do to ask for too much at once, Mrs. Skerritt," 
 said Marcia. ' ' The reforms must be brought about by degrees. 
 You leave it all to me, and I have no doubt that, in time, 
 Bolger's Court will be equal to any tenement in the neighbor- 
 hood." 
 
 She had made up her mind some time ago that the court
 
 OLD MAN BOWKER. 73 
 
 was a good field for her to try some of her pet projects. A 
 model tenement house it should be, she resolved, if money 
 could accomplish such an end. 
 
 " And now, how are all my charges since I was here last? " 
 asked Marcia, looking at her watch. " I have very little time 
 to spend here to-day, so I thought I'd come to you first and 
 get all the news. Teh 1 me what has happened, and what is 
 needed, and who needs it." 
 
 Malvina, having managed to get a corner of Fanny Pixley's 
 dress in her fingers, was examining it curiously, and too 
 deeply interested to hear anything of the conversation. 
 
 "Well, "began Mrs. Skerritt, counting on her fingers, "that 
 gal on the top floor as was starvin' last week has got work. 
 It's only shirts at eight cents a piece, but then it buys her vit- 
 tles, if she works eighteen hours a day. Then there's the 
 twins in the third back. Well, they're just eatin' their heads 
 off. I tell you what you might do, Miss, if you feels like it." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 ' ' Mr. Watkins as sells papers at Fulton Market has broken 
 his leg." 
 
 Fanny Pixley shuddered at the sound of this unfamiliar 
 word, but took care not to express her disgust aloud. 
 
 "I will send him a doctor at once," said Marcia. "Not 
 serious, I hope?" 
 
 " Oh, no, Miss, it was only a wooden one; but he can't go 
 on with his business until he gets a new one." 
 
 '' He shall have the best the market affords," Marcia 
 laughed, "with all modern improvements. Well, what 
 next?" 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Skerritt, thoughtfully, "perhaps you 
 wouldn't mind lookin' in on old man Bowker." 
 
 " Bowker Bowker? I don't think I have ever seen him." 
 
 " Perhaps not, Miss. He's kind of gone up here, they say," 
 tapping her forehead with a long, red finger ; ' ' though I always 
 found him a harmless sort o' chap." 
 
 " What is the trouble? " 
 
 "He's dreadful sick with some kind of fever." 
 
 ' ' Oh ! " shrieked Fanny Pixley, looking towards the door as 
 if she was tempted to bolt. 
 
 " It ain't nothin' catchin', Miss," continued Mrs. Skerritt, a
 
 74 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 little scornfully, addressing that young lady. "It's not me 
 that has been a mother eight times as would let ye go to the 
 poor creature if it was dangerous. He's just breakin' down, 
 is old man Bowker. You can a'most see through him, and 
 when he coughs it's like a watchman's rattle. He's had some 
 sad story, I know by his face. He goes shufflin' about the 
 court like a ghost, and scarin' women folks half to death as 
 miserable a lookin' man as ever drew breath. You may have 
 noticed him sunning himself out in the yard some day." 
 
 " I think I met him once on the stairs. He glared at me, 
 and then passed on." 
 
 " Oh, he's very harmless, Miss. Only a bit daft on account 
 of troubles." 
 
 "And he is sick and in want? I'll go and see him now," 
 rising. "Here," to Mrs. Skerritt, taking a bill out of her 
 pocket-book and handing it; "that will restore Mr. Wat- 
 kins' missing member. Come, Fanny." 
 
 ' ' But, surely, Marcia, you won't go into a room where there 
 is a fever," protested that young lady, adjusting her bonnet 
 by the small looking-glass nailed on the wall. ' ' Think of the 
 risk." 
 
 " Oh it's nothing that ye can catch, ladies," interposed Mrs. 
 Skerritt. " I've seen the poor old man this blessed day, and 
 it's nothin' more nor less than a touch of fever and agy, that's 
 all. Malvina '11 go and show you the way, won't you? " turn- 
 ing to the young person. 
 
 "That I will," promptly replied Joe's fiancee, eager not to 
 lose sight of the wonderful velvet dress ; ' ' and it's help the 
 poor old chap needs, bad enough," as she led the way out of the 
 room, well pleased to be the guide of two such elegant young 
 ladies. 
 
 " I'm sure this will be the death of me, Marcia," Fanny mur- 
 mured, as they bade hospitable Mrs. Skerritt good-bye and 
 crossed the hallway. 
 
 " But you needn't come in unless you want to, Fanny." 
 
 " Oh, I can't leave you," was the response. " Something ter- 
 rible might happen to you, and then I should nev-er forgive 
 myself, never," almost in a whimper. 
 
 Marcia smiled in spite of herself at the thought of Fanny in 
 the role of protector in time of danger, but said nothing, as
 
 OLD MAN BOWSER. 75 
 
 they threaded their way through the dim-lit hallway, filled 
 with noisome odors. 
 
 Fanny Pixley's high-heeled French shoes tinkled strangely 
 on the rough, uneven planks of the floor, as she felt her way 
 along, smelling-bottle in hand, wishing in her heart that she 
 had gone to the Gillespies' reception, instead of wasting the 
 afternoon in a tenement-house. 
 
 " I'll go in first," said Malvina, pausing in front of a door at 
 the end of the gallery. "Then -I'll let you know if you can 
 come in." She left them standing in the hall, and disappeared. 
 
 "Oh, how can you run such risks?" piped Fanny Pixley. 
 " What a girl you are, Marcia! " 
 
 "It is not too late for you to turn back," said Marcia, as 
 Malvina beckoned them in. 
 
 Fanny said no more, but timidly followed her friend on tip- 
 toe through the door. 
 
 The room in which the girls found themselves was small and 
 damp, and lit only by a dirty skylight, through which the 
 sunshine fell dimly, as if loath to enter such a dismal hole. 
 Some broken bits of bread and a rusty coffee-pot stood on the 
 only chair in the room, and the fire-place was empty and 
 cold-looking. Marcia shuddered in spite of herself. 
 
 Old man Bowker lay on a straw mattress in one corner of 
 the room. His lips were moving to and fro as he murmured 
 incoherent words to himself, apparently unconscious that he 
 had visitors. His thin, pinched features were flushed , an 
 unnatural red, and the veins in his forehead stood out like 
 knotted cords. His bony hands moved about the many- 
 colored patchwork quilt as if he were writing something, and 
 his watery -blue eyes rolled helplessly in their sockets. 
 
 Malvina left the girls in the half-darkness and approached 
 the bed. 
 
 "Mr. Bowker, Mr. Bowker," she called, gently. "There's 
 two young ladies that have come to see you." 
 
 He looked at her vacantly, as if he had not understood ex- 
 actly what she said. Then his eyes, wandering about the 
 room, saw the two girls standing motionless in the corner. 
 "To see me ? " he asked, incredulously. 
 
 "Yes, to see you." 
 
 He laughed a strange laugh that filled the old room with
 
 7G A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 peculiar echoes. Fanny Pixley could hardly repress a tiny 
 scream, and clung even closer to her friend. Marcia came 
 forward. 
 
 "I was visiting Bolger's Court," she said softly, "and Mal- 
 vina here, " lay ing her hand on the girl's shoulder, "told me 
 you were ill, so I came to see if I could not do something 
 for you." 
 
 "But what do you get out of it ? " he asked suspiciously. 
 
 " What do I get ? the satisfaction of doing good. You are 
 in trouble, sick; I want to help you." 
 
 "And without any hope of reward ? " 
 
 " Without any hope of reward." 
 
 He looked at her curiously, and laughed again. " The world 
 must be growing better," he said, wagging his head back and 
 forwards, and staring at her with dull, lack-lustre eyes. " Yes, 
 it nmst be growing better. " 
 
 "I hope so." 
 
 " There's lots o' chance for improvement, ain't there?" 
 
 "You have suffered a good deal," she said soothingly. " Be- 
 lieve me, there is still much good in the world." 
 
 "There maybe, but it don't come my way. I guess it's 
 mostly confined to Fifth Avenue and Murray Hill," chuckling 
 to himself. ' ' You look as if you came from that neighbor- 
 hood," he added, touching her dress with a long, bony finger, 
 and staring at Fanny Pixley, who retired behind her friend. 
 " That looks like real velvet, and I believe it is. We don't see 
 much of such things in this end of the town." 
 
 "You have lived here a long while, Mr. Bowker ?" Marcia 
 said, trying to change his rambling talk. 
 
 " About a month, that's all; before that I used to live up by 
 the Hill, too." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 "Yes, and it's so. Is the fight still going on there?'' he 
 asked earnestly. 
 
 " The fight ? " she said puzzled ; " what fight ? " 
 
 " Why, the fight that is never finished. It's a good while 
 since I've been in the world, but I suppose things are pretty 
 much the same. The fight for fame and fortune and money 
 does that still go on ? I was once in the thick of it, but they 
 downed me. I fell down, and. the wheels, went over me ; ground.
 
 OLD NAN BOWKEE. 77 
 
 me to powder. We've had lots of that sort of cripples in 
 Bolger's Court wrecks thrown on these dirty sands like so 
 much drift-wood, only fit to to burn. Yes, they'll burn, " with 
 a chuckle ; " no doubt they'll burn," breaking into a fit of laugh- 
 ter. 
 
 " I hope you will soon get over this attack, Mr. Bowker," 
 Marcia ventured. This horrible old man frightened her, with 
 his claw-like hands and livid face. 
 
 "Yes, yes," rolling his eyes. "But I don't mind being 
 delirious. I forget where I am and who I am ; then I go back 
 about ten years or more, and live my life all over again , and 
 I whistle and sing. Why, it's just as good as being a boy once 
 more ; " he broke into a fit of coughing that shook him like a 
 leaf. 
 
 As he shivered a good deal, Marcia bade Malvina make up a 
 fire in the hearth, and the blazing logs soon restored a com- 
 fortable temperature to the damp air of the room. 
 
 "Would you say I was crazy?" asked old man Bowker, 
 suddenly pausing in the midst of a song he was humming to 
 himself in quavering tones, and looking at her earnestly. 
 
 " What makes you think so ? " she asked. 
 
 " Every one tells me so around here. The children run 
 away from me. I've begun to think so myself. I'd like to kill 
 some of them, that's all," with savage emphasis. 
 
 " Hush, you mustn't say that," laying her finger on her lips. 
 "You are ill; you don't know what might happen to you. 
 Suppose you were to die to-night." 
 
 "Oh, no, I won't," he said, confidently. " I'm not going to 
 die that is, not just yet." 
 
 " How do you know ? Your fate is in another's hands." 
 
 It was plain he was getting more delirious. 
 
 " I shan't die, I tell you; no, not till I've squared accounts. 
 I was a book-keeper once, ye see, and I like to see accounts 
 kept straight. The debit and credit ain't balanced yet," mak- 
 ing figures in the air with a long, bony finger; "when they 
 are, why, I'll die without a whimper ; but not till then not 
 till then." 
 
 The words rolled hoarsely in his throat ; he rubbed his worn 
 hands together and sighed. She rose to go. 
 
 "Don't leave me," he pleaded, turning his white face, with
 
 78 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 its beseeching eyes, towards her. ' ' You are the sweetest thing 
 I've seen in all these long years, since since I was a man ;" 
 and a tear trickled down his wasted cheek as he held out his 
 hands pleadingly ; " don r t go just yet." 
 
 " I must," she said. 
 
 " But you will come again? " 
 
 " Yes, some day, when I hope to find you much better." 
 
 She slipped a couple of silver dollars down on the chair when 
 he was not looking. His hand was still extended, and she 
 could not refuse to take it as she bade him good-bye. He 
 pressed hers feebly, but seemed loath to let her go. 
 
 "Come, I'll show you the way down, Miss Tillinghurst," said 
 Malvina, opening the door. 
 
 The words had scarcely left the girl's lips when Marcia felt 
 the grasp on her hand suddenly tighten, until she could hardly 
 repress a scream of pain. The sight of the old man's changed 
 face alarmed her. His thin lips worked convulsively, and the 
 pale-blue eyes rolled helplessly in their sockets, while he strove 
 in vain to speak. He seemed to be trying to get up. 
 
 " Oh, he's took dreadful bad, Miss," cried Malvina, as Marcia 
 tore herself away from his grasp. " Let us go before he gets 
 any worse." 
 
 "Yes yes, go!" he cried hoarsely, shaking his nerveless 
 hands at them, while his long fingers seemed to writhe like 
 snakes. " G away as far as you can." Then, catching sight 
 of the money on the chair, he took it up and hurled it at Marcia 
 with a curse that made her shudder. 
 
 Malvina, who alone had kept her presence of mind, pushed 
 the frightened girls through the door, and closed it after them 
 hastily. They could hear his voice growling out curses as they 
 sped along the corridor, with blanched faces and beating 
 hearts. 
 
 Fanny Pixley had much to say at the dinner that night. 
 She was glad of the adventure for the reason that it gave her 
 something to talk about. As for Marcia, she looked troubled 
 for many days after. The livid face of the old man was ever 
 before her, his curses still rang in her ears, waking or sleeping 
 his memory haunted her.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE EMPIRE MILLS. 
 
 "THERE'S some hungry fellows hangin' around Wilkins' 
 shoe-factory to-day, I guess. This is the fourth week since 
 they struck, and my old woman says they're playing to hard 
 luck, some of 'em." 
 
 The speaker was one of a crowd of working-men seated on a 
 lumber-pile in front of the Empire Mills. It was twelve o'clock, 
 and most of them had lunch-cans open, from which they 
 brought forth as many curious-looking things in the way of 
 eatables as are produced from a conjuror's marvellous hat. 
 There was the sound of champing teeth and the gurgle of 
 flowing coffee and tea in the air. 
 
 " Wilkins' ain't the only shoe-shop closed," said a man with 
 a beard almost up to his eyes, who spoke with difficulty, having 
 just put a tea-biscuit into his mouth. ' ' The city shop closed 
 yesterday, and there ain't no knowin' when they're goin' to 
 open agen. It's my opinion, from all I hear, that the Union'll 
 shut 'em all up. That'll bring the capitalists down on their 
 marrows; " and he took a copious draught of cold coffee, and 
 sighed. "That'll make 'em whistle kind 'o small, eh, Sker- 
 ritt? " to the young man. 
 
 " Perhaps the strikers'll whistle small too, Jim," said a young 
 man in a clean blue jumper and brown overalls, who sat on the 
 top of the board-pile, a bright-faced fellow with sandy hair and 
 pale-blue eyes. "If you've ever been in a strike, you'll know 
 it ain't much fun. For my part, I don't see niuch use of 'em 
 anyway. Seems to me the working-men always gets the worst 
 of it." 
 
 "Oh, you think so, do you?" said the man with the beard. 
 "Well, mebbe they does, and mebbe they doesn't. Anyway, 
 it makes these here moneyed chaps learn that there's power in 
 the poor. It reminds them of the power of the people that 
 
 79
 
 80 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 we has laws they are bound for to respect," falling to on a 
 pickle, well satisfied with his eloquence. 
 
 "You vos right, Shim," said a greasy -looking man at his 
 elbow, with a double chin and black, vicious-looking eyes, 
 who was eating a sausage in wild animal fashion. "Off dey 
 vould stir tings oup here mit a shtrike, I dink it would do us 
 all goot. It would bring dot tarn gapitalist mit his senses so 
 quick vot nefer vos." 
 
 " Oh, your're a foreigner, Julius," said the young man in the 
 jumper. "You don't understand them things at all. We 
 don't want no Nihilism or whatever you call it introduced in 
 this here country. The Brotherhood of Labor '11 do all for us 
 that we wants, and by square means." 
 
 "Oh, is dot so?" sneered the apostle of fire and blood. 
 "You like dose laws, I expose, vot your rich mens make for 
 himself, eh? You like every tings closed auf Sunday, dose gal- 
 leries unt museums, on de only day vot verkingmens can get 
 about? You like to get shtamped auf your neck by the iron 
 heels off a decrayted civilization?" with an impassioned 
 gesture. 
 
 "Come off, Dutchy," irreverently shouted some of the 
 younger men in the group. 
 
 "Come off, you say?" asked the German angrily. " A nice 
 set of fellows you vos. Afraid mit your own skins for fear you 
 get bounced by de boss for sayin 1 vot you tinks. Look at dose 
 fellers down-town. Vot you tink of, dem, eh? Votyoutinkof 
 dem? Dey don't get fair wages, unt out dey valks auf der 
 shops, to show dere employers dot dey don't care a tamn by 
 dem. Veil, pooty soon, dose employers dey find dey make 
 no monish until dey get down unt crawl unt beg dose beauti- 
 ful verking-men off dey vouldn't come back. Oh, it vos nice 
 ven you make a gapitalist do shust vot you vant. Vot I say 
 is, if you don't like de laws, vy, do away vid 'em." 
 
 " We may have to fall in line with the rest of the strikers, 
 Dutch," said Joe Skerritt. " I ain't heard what they're goin' 
 to do about Connors bein' discharged." 
 
 " That was a shame," said the man with the beard. "They 
 fired Jim Connors for no reason at all, and put this here dude 
 Brent in his place, who looks as if he never done a day's work 
 in bis life, I hear he's one o' the stockholders of the mills, and
 
 THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE EMPIRE MILLS. 81 
 
 that's the reason he's got the job. The idee o' puttin' a regular 
 swell for a boss over us fellows. It's a downright insult, that's 
 what it is, gotten up by old Mother Tillinghurst. I suppose 
 Brent don't get no salary, so they keep him." 
 
 " Off I had my vay," said the socialist, ''I vould take dot 
 boss out some fine evening und put him under dot pump. My. 
 vot fun ! " 
 
 "Well, if you was to try anything like that, Dutch, you 
 would stand mighty liable to get your head punched," said 
 Joe Skerritt, cutting off a block of cheese from the hunk in his 
 hand, and stowing it away in his mouth. " Brent ain't none 
 the worse for it if he does take a notion to dress well and wear 
 clean linen, as I can see. We ain't never had no fairer super- 
 intendent since I been here, and I, for one, am going to stand 
 by him." His remarks were received with approval by the 
 crowd. " I tell you what, boys, made me take such a fancy to 
 this swell. I found out it was him that had the pay raised 
 twenty per cent for all over-time work. I'd like to know if 
 that ain't the fair thing in the man? " 
 
 " He's got a great pull down yonder," said the man with the 
 beard, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "And money! 
 well, I hear he has pretty near as much as old money-bags." 
 
 "Dot's all right," said Heckelmann. "He got dose pay 
 raised pecause he had to do sometings ven he first came in de 
 mills dot vould make him solid vid the men. He vas a shly 
 dog, and don't you forget it. He vill make dot money up out 
 of our shkins some tay, now you shust vait and see." 
 
 "That's just like you, Julius," said Joe Skerritt. "If you 
 can't croak about somethin' to-day, you growl about somethin' 
 that's goin' to happen to-morrow. You're a regular old kicker ; 
 s'pose you dry up? " 
 
 "Veil, veil, I don't vant to quarrel mit you, Joe; but you 
 vos all wrong, as you vill find out some tay ; " shutting his 
 dinner-pail with a savage click. "I used to get took in by 
 dese aristocrats, but I don't any more. Oh, I know too 
 much." 
 
 " You do, do you? " said Joe, in banter. " But there's the 
 bell, boys; time's up," as the bell in the tower of the mill rang 
 out sharply. 
 
 There was a sudden closing of lunch-cans, putting on of
 
 82 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES, 
 
 coats, a few yawns, and then the crowd shuffled into the door 
 of the factory, and separated to their various tasks. 
 
 John Brent had found the position of superintendent of the 
 Empire Mills anything but a sinecure. But he was a much 
 happier man since he had taken the position and seemed to 
 get on fairly well with the men. 
 
 Captain Shrike was very much pleased Avith the new turn of 
 affairs. In the move his protege had taken alone and of his 
 own accord, he saw more promise for the future success of his 
 plans. 
 
 Brent found that his position gave him frequent opportuni- 
 ties to call at Mr. Tillinghurst's house in the evening, to talk 
 over plans for operating the mills. It was natural that he 
 should meet Marcia very often, and not infrequently she 
 joined in the conversation, for Mr. Tillinghurst, who believed 
 her to be one of the most intelligent women in the world, was 
 always glad to get her views, even on business. 
 
 Brent had been at first a little shy in the presence of this 
 cold, stately young woman, whose eyes seemed to read his 
 character at a glance. He was a little bit afraid of her until 
 the ice had been fairly broken between them, and his visits to 
 the house on Fifth Avenue became more constant. 
 
 Soon he began to look forward to these calls with pleasure, and 
 he made every excuse to prolong them when he arrived. To 
 tell the truth, father and daughter were both glad to see him, 
 for neither liked the bustle and hurry of society, and much 
 preferred the placid pleasures of home-life, and an evening 
 spent with a congenial friend. 
 
 So Brent became a welcome guest at the millionaire's house, 
 and though he very seldom saw Marcia except in her father's 
 presence, a bond of friendship was established between them, 
 and they began to understand each other thoroughly. 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst, if he noticed at all the danger in which he 
 had placed his daughter in allowing a young man to visit the 
 house so often, at least kept his own counsel and said nothing. 
 When, by slow degrees, Brent became more interested in 
 Marcia, he felt a burdening sense of the shame of his posi- 
 tion. It stung him to think that he had ever bargained with 
 Captain Shrike to win her. He was glad that he had so 
 much work on hand which would prevent him from thinking
 
 THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE EMPIRE MILLS. 83 
 
 too much of the unmanly part he had to play in that social 
 comedy. 
 
 To men in business-life there was plenty to think of and worry 
 about. The troubled condition of the labor market bothered 
 the millionaire a great deal. The number of strikers in and 
 around the city was increasing daily, and already he had been 
 compelled to close the Goshen Refinery at Hunter's Point. It 
 was only a question of time, he felt, before the Empire Mills 
 would follow ; and he was therefore making haste to dispose 
 of his stocks, in order that he might be ready for the crisis 
 which was sure to come. 
 
 In business circles the all-absorbing topic of the day was the 
 labor agitation. The commercial world trembled at every 
 rumor of a social revolution. The danger of a panic on Wall 
 Street was imminent. 
 
 John Tillinghurst went about among his friends and in the 
 business world with a genial smile on his face, and laughed 
 down their fears of impending danger. Other capitalists of 
 the city were equally anxious that the public confidence 
 should be restored, and banded themselves together to resist 
 the encroachments of the strikers, whom they resolved to 
 starve into submission. 
 
 By spending millions they succeeded in settling many 
 troubles in the labor camp, and for a while it looked as if the 
 stream of commerce was again to flow placidly on its way. 
 Tillinghurst, who had been studying the matter, knew better. 
 It was the rumble of the earthquake beneath his feet that he 
 heard. The red hand of Socialism was lifted against the city, 
 waving a torch of fire. 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst spent several hours in the week now, con 
 suiting with John Brent at the Empire Mills. The older man 
 was for being firm in resisting the workingmen's demands, 
 while the younger urged moderation. It was therefore 
 natural that they frequently clashed, but Brent generally got 
 what he wanted, for Marcia, who often took part in their 
 deliberations at home, always threw her influence in the 
 balance in favor of the employes. 
 
 One day, Mr. Tillinghurst came, in great excitement, into 
 the superintendent's office, where Brent was seated writing. 
 
 "What do you think ? " he gasped, sinking into a chair, his
 
 4 A SLA VE OF Clll C I'M -S 'l\ 1 -V C E8. 
 
 face purple with rage, as he waved a newspaper wildly to and 
 fro over his head. ' ' Those damned strikers have burnt my 
 mill down at Hunter's Point." 
 
 " But it was insured? " asked Brent. 
 
 "Not a cent. The insurance ran out yesterday, and I was 
 about to renew it to-day. The devils! they must have got 
 wind of how things stood, and just laid for me;'' and Mr. Til- 
 linghurst groaned and stamped his feet with impotent rage. 
 
 "And will you rebuild? " 
 
 "Never, never! I'll never put up a brick. There's two 
 hundred thousand dollars gone, if there is a cent, not counting 
 what I lost on the strike. Did you ever know of such con- 
 founded fools as these men are ? They were well enough 
 satisfied with their wages, but wanted me to discharge a fore- 
 man who had served me well for ten years, and I naturally 
 refused to do it. So they struck. Ah, I know what you are 
 going to say," as Brent w r as about to speak. " You are going 
 to tell me that I can afford to lose that factory. Well, I sup- 
 pose I shan't go broke if every building I own is burnt to the 
 ground , but to have these confounded hounds that I have fed 
 and clothed all these years destroying my property, why 
 why, it makes me tearing mad, that's all ; " and he walked up 
 and down the room, fuming, and mopping his face with his 
 huge silk handkerchief. ' ' How's everything going on here ? " 
 he said, pausing in front of Brent's desk. 
 
 " No sign of trouble yet, that I can see." 
 
 " The men seem to take to you kindly enough. I was kind 
 of afraid they might kick when I removed one of their kind 
 and put you in." He had calmed down, and was talking as if 
 nothing had happened to ruffle his temper. 
 
 "Oh, yes, we get on very well together," said Brent. "I 
 try to treat them well, and I think they rather like me. We 
 have a foreign element here, however, that try to stir up 
 mischief. I've had to reprove several of them for expressing 
 their socialistic views in working-hours." 
 
 "You want to weed all such chaps out. They are at the 
 bottom of the trouble, depend on it. If it hadn't been for a 
 confounded Eussian, with a smooth tongue, who went about 
 the gin-mills lecturing to my men, why, the Goshen Refinery 
 would be standing now," with regret. " I don't see the use of
 
 THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE EMPIRE MILLS. 85 
 
 these Unions anyway. I got along very well without 'em, 
 and I don't see why anybody else shouldn't. It's all bosh 
 that they do any good. The ' Brotherhood of Labor ' is a 
 humbug." 
 
 ' ' Would you like to take a look through the mills ? " asked 
 Brent, reaching for his coat. 
 
 "Yes; I think it stirs 'em up to think that I'm still on the 
 look-out." 
 
 They left the office and crossed the courtyard, entering the 
 main room of the mill, where the machines were sending up 
 clouds of white dust in showers that settled on everything, 
 like snow. The men, covered by this, looked like pallid spec- 
 tres, as they moved to and fro about their work, with slip 
 pered feet that made no sound as they walked. 
 
 "There's no better flour than that in the country," said Mr. 
 Tillinghurst, stopping to scoop up some from a half-filled 
 barrel by one of the machines, allowing it to filter slowly 
 through his fingers. Then, turning to Brent, he said, in a low 
 voice, "What a tough-looking foreigner that is, feeding that 
 machine," as the scowling face of the German socialist was 
 seen above the feeder. " Who is he, anyway ?" 
 
 "That's Heckelmann. He's a good workman, but I have 
 had some trouble with him. You see, he lets his tongue get 
 the best of his brain sometimes." 
 
 " Well, don't keep anybody on a minute if you think they 
 are going to stir up a fuss. The time has come for decisive 
 action. If you show these fellows that you are afraid of 
 them, why, they will walk all over you. Fire out the malcon- 
 tents, and the others will go on all right. I tell you what I 
 think you had better do, Brent. Get a placard" announcing 
 that, in case of a strike, no one will be taken back to work in 
 the mills. It might stave off the trouble if any of 'em were 
 thinking about such a thing." 
 
 "I rather think it would, hasten the catastrophe," said 
 Brent, quietly. 
 
 " Ah, well, perhaps you know best; but if I hadn't used so 
 much moderation in the past towards my men, why, I'd be a 
 good bit better off to-day. But who's that chap over there 
 with the sandy hair? He looks like a bright one." 
 
 " He is one of the best in the mills. That's Joe Skerritt."
 
 86 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " Hum! nice, honest face; but you can't trust any of 'em," 
 as he walked on to the door again. " I don't see," added Mr. 
 Tillinghurst, as he paused on the threshold, ' ' but that things 
 are going very smooth here. You know the south end of the 
 city is a good bit sfcrred up, and half the industries are at a 
 standstill. Perhaps we may escape the trouble altogether." 
 
 "Well, I hope so," said Brent, heartily, "both on your 
 account and the men's." 
 
 "There you go again with your sj 7 mpathy for the men," 
 with a smile. "I half believe you're a socialist yourself," 
 poking at him playfully with a pudgy finger. 
 
 " Well, if I am, I shall not strike," said Brent. 
 
 "By the way, you didn't get around last night. Marsh ex- 
 pected you, too. Come around early and take dinner ; I ex- 
 pect Shrike will be there, that's all. My cook has got up a 
 surprise dish which he promises to be something remarkable ; 
 but I don't want to get your hopes up. You'll come, though? " 
 
 "With pleasure, but I may be a little late." 
 
 " Oh, well, we'll give you until seven. But," pausing, while 
 his face suddenly became grave and changed, ' ' you told me 
 you used to work in a flour-mill at St. Louis." 
 
 "Yes, that was about five years ago." 
 
 "I used to know a family of your name living in Detroit, 
 and I was trying to establish a relationship." 
 
 "I have no relations living," said Brent, his face a little 
 flushed at the peculiar questions. " What the devil is he driv- 
 ing at?" he said, under his breath, watching Mr. Tillinghurst 
 curiously. 
 
 " I was travelling through Illinois in 1879," said the broker; 
 "had a horse and carriage, and was taking things easy. 
 Beautiful scenery in the northern part of the State." 
 
 "Yes, yes; so I've been told." 
 
 " Perhaps the most beautiful town I came across was a little 
 place called Carter's Ford," eyeing Brent out of the corner of 
 his eye, who started visibly. "But I must be getting down- 
 town, "as he shook hands and walked across the courtyard, 
 with his eyes thoughtfully bent on the ground. 
 
 " Can he suspect who I am? " was the question John Tilling- 
 hurst was asking himself in his heart, "or is this merely a 
 coincidence? " He sighed as he stepped into the carriage, and
 
 THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE EMPIRE MILLS. 87 
 
 bade the driver hurry home. He was not altogether satisfied 
 with the result of his visit. 
 
 In his arm-chair in the superintendent's office, John Brent 
 watched the departure. "I wonder why he mentioned Car- 
 ter's Ford?" he asked himself. "Was it a warning that he 
 knows that I am sailing under false colors? Is Shrike playing 
 a double game? " he sighed, as he thought of Marcia.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CAPTAIN SHRIKE BECOMES CONFIDENTIAL. 
 
 "CAPTAIN SHRIKE, you know everyone; tell me who that 
 very distinguished-looking man is, speaking to Marcia Tilling- 
 hurst. Bless me ! but he looks as if he were going to eat her. 
 Who is he? " 
 
 "That," said the captain, slowly adjusting his eyeglass; 
 "why, my dear Mrs. Meacham, that is John Brent." 
 
 '' Well," said the lady, adjusting a lemon-colored curl over a 
 wrinkle on her forehead, " well, I never heard of him before." 
 
 "And you pretend to be a society woman, " sighed the cap- 
 tain, compassionately. "Why, that young man has been the 
 subject of more discussion than any one since Pugthorpe ran 
 away with his cook. My dear madam, have you been winter- 
 ing in Morristown? " 
 
 Mrs. Meacham laughed shrilly. 
 
 " They seem to be very much interested in each other," said 
 she, looking across the expanse of glistening bald heads and 
 yellow curls in front of them, to the couple in the corner; "a 
 spring wedding will follow, eh? " 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know," said Shrike, a little savagely. 
 "How could you imagine such a thing? She has money, 
 beauty, accomplishments; while he " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know anything against the young man," the 
 captain hastened to say. "You see, I introduced him into the 
 best society here, got him into the clubs, you know, and gave 
 him the fling of the town of course I must stand by him. 
 But he's not the same fellow he was once. Had too much 
 adulation of late; it has spoilt him," and the captain cast a 
 stealthy glance over at the object of the conversation. 
 
 "Not dissipated, I hope?" said Mrs. Meacham, shrugging 
 her white shoulders. 
 
 "Well, you know what young men are. Go out, you know, 
 
 88
 
 CAPTAIN SllRIKE BECOMES CONFIDENTIAL. 89 
 
 with the boys, and well, if they are at all weak, why they 
 run down-hill pretty fast." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Meacham, and then drifted into another 
 subject. ' ' By the way, there is Mrs. Wixon ; have you read 
 her new novel on Russian life? It's perfectly delightful, called 
 ' the Countess ' ' the Countess ' oh, its some horribly long 
 Russian name that I can't remember just now. The hero is 
 a serf who falls in love with the countess, and she with him, 
 and then the count, he kills them both, and they die in each 
 other's arms in the most delightful way. Why, Captain, you 
 ought to read it. " 
 
 "Yes, from your description I know I should like it," said 
 the captain dryly. 
 
 The rooms were beginning to fill up. Mrs. Smithsonia 
 Wixon only gave four receptions during the year, and, in 
 theatrical parlance, she " always drew a crowd." You met all 
 sorts of people in her drawing-rooms. The social strata be- 
 came inextricably mixed. Murray Hill jostled West Four- 
 teenth Street, and nearly everyone present was celebrated or 
 notorious for something literary, artistic, or scientific. Most 
 of the men had long hair and short names, and most of the 
 women short hair and long names. 
 
 The babel of voices blended into a hoarse roar. Everyone 
 seemed talking at once, and talking fast. Scraps of conversa- 
 tion welled up from the surging sea of silks and laces and 
 broadcloth. 
 
 Mrs. Wixon stood at the head of the room, by the door, and 
 spoke to everyone by a wrong name as each new arrival came 
 in. At her side stood Mrs. Wellington Brasher, the distin- 
 guished Western poetess, dressed in a sea-green silk, trimmed 
 with worsted lace, looped up with sea-shells in the form of 
 buckles. She affected short curls, talked with a lisp, and gen- 
 ei^ally carried in her bosom the manuscript of a poem, which 
 she was willing to recite on the smallest provocation. 
 
 Mrs. Brasher was a fine business woman, and appreciated 
 the power of the press. If she knew there were many news- 
 paper-men around, she was sure to commit some eccentricity, 
 in order to get her name in the papers. She never lost a 
 chance to get a free advertisement, even if it came to endors- 
 ing a patent soap or face-powder,
 
 90 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 On the night in question she had succeeded in gaining the 
 ears of two reporters, who had promised to write articles about 
 her visit to the morgue the day before ; so she was radiant. 
 She had cultivated a smile which had won her many friends, 
 and she was using it to advantage. It was a sort of confiden- 
 tial smile, that took especially well with the men. It seemed 
 to say, ' ' You are the one I have been waiting to see ; I am 
 happy knowing you are here." 
 
 Shrike, who had been studying the crowd for some time, 
 particularly John Brent and his companion, turned again to 
 Mrs. Meacham. 
 
 "By the way," he asked, with his peculiar drawl, "who is 
 that fat man over there, with his hair in his eyes like a Scotch 
 terrier, and the decollete collar? " 
 
 "That," said the little lady, adjusting her glasses to her 
 eyes, " is Watkins Mudge, the distinguished artist, who made 
 money by going off and dying." 
 
 " Dying ! " echoed the captain. "Why, you alarm me. How 
 can a man make money by going and dying? Insurance? " 
 
 "Oh, of course I don't mean that the man really died and 
 was buried. Dear, no! He was very unsuccessful, starving, 
 in fact, and lived in a little tumble-down house near High 
 Bridge, furnished with nothing but the pictures he had painted 
 and couldn't sell. He had a wife and no end of children. 
 General misery all around. He made up his mind one night 
 that he would commit suicide. Jumped into the East River, 
 but found the water too cold, and swam ashore. He was 
 ashamed to go home and be laughed at, so he spent a week in 
 a Brooklyn boarding-house. When he did get back, he found 
 that the news of his death had brought hundreds to see his 
 house, and that his wife, like a prudent woman, had disposed 
 of every picture he had stored away, at a high figure. He is 
 all the fashion now, and rolls in his own carriage." 
 
 "Dear me! " said the captain, tugging at his whiskers; "I 
 wonder why half the people here to-night are not tempted to 
 try the same experiment." 
 
 " Oh, they have," said Mrs. Meacham. "A good many have 
 tried it since, but it won't work. But here comes Mr. Tilling- 
 hurst heading towards us; let me escape him while I can;" 
 and the little woman wriggled dexterously through the wail
 
 CAPTAIN SHRIKE BECOMES CONFIDENTIAL. 91 
 
 of dowagers in front of them, just as the portly form of the 
 broker was seen tossing in a sea of silk, very red in the face 
 and puffing like a tug-boat, until a friendly tide floated him 
 up to the wall where Captain Shrike stood. 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst could not speak for several moments, but 
 stood panting and mopping his great forehead with a scarlet 
 handkerchief that almost matched his face in tint. His rotund 
 form was encased in a tight-fitting dress suit of such shiny 
 broadcloth that the broker looked as if he had been freshly 
 oiled from head to foot for the occasion. On his ample shirt- 
 bosom a diamond as large as a hickory nut sent forth sparks 
 of fire. 
 
 "Hello, Shrike," he said, familiarly, still rubbing his great 
 fat cheeks and puffing hoarsely; "did you ever see such a 
 gang as this? I'm not much on literary people anyway, but 
 Marcia would bring me here. I was for going to Dixon's to- 
 night. You know Jim Dixon? Splendid fellow! Head of the 
 white-goods department at Pilkins & Co." 
 
 "The what department?" asked the captain, coldly. 
 
 "The white goods, muslins, etc." 
 
 " Oh, you mean he is in trade? " with a little scorn. 
 
 " Yes, and devilish good trade, I should say. Ten thousand 
 a year and an interest in the business." 
 
 '' You wouldn't think that was much, now, Tillinghurst, 
 would you? " asked the captain cautiously. 
 
 "Well, no," with a laugh, " I don't suppose I would; but I 
 remember when I was worth only $500, and I was never hap- 
 pier in all my life. People say I've added four naughts to 
 that figure since," chuckling, " and I guess they ain't very far 
 off." 
 
 "Your daughter will be quite an heiress." 
 
 " Well, I don't believe she'll have to come on her relations if 
 I die to-morrow. It's a peck of money to leave to a little mite 
 of a girl like that, just turned twenty." 
 
 " But she may marry before you are ready to leave it." 
 
 "Well, that's it. I'd die a good bit happier if I knew she 
 was comfortably fixed for life. I don't want a knock-kneed 
 chap, with nuthin' but a pair of smart-looking whiskers and a 
 soft voice, to walk oft: with all the money I doubled myself up 
 getting."
 
 92 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 The captain laughed softly to himself, and cast another look 
 over to the corner where Brent was sitting, while the banker's 
 eyes instinctively sought the same direction. 
 
 " Yes, I was looking at them," said the banker, meditatively, 
 as if he had been addressed. 
 
 "Them?" 
 
 "Yes, Marcia and young Brent; and I don't half like it 
 either," with a rumble in his throat. " See here, Shrike; you 
 introduced that young man into my house, and vouched for 
 him, or rather you said he was all right. " 
 
 "Well, what is the matter with him?" interrupted the 
 other, a little irritably. 
 
 "I don't object to the man's looks, and he acts fair enough, 
 and works well enough when he has a mind to, though I take 
 it he's kind of changeable, from those restless eyes of his. But 
 that ain't neither here nor there. I want to know something 
 about the man my girl is going to take up with for life. I'd 
 like to see some of the back numbers of his record." 
 
 "Why, you don't think there is anything serious between 
 them? " ventured the captain. 
 
 "I don't think anything," snapped the broker. "But he's 
 been to our house three nights running this week, on business 
 I know ; but he pays a good deal more attention to her than to 
 me. They meet at some of these afternoon teas when I'm down 
 town, and and I don't exactly know what to do. I ain't dis- 
 posed to be hard on a young man who's trying to get along in 
 the world, but there is something about this chap that makes 
 me suspicious." 
 
 "Of what?" asked the captain, quickly. 
 
 " Well, that's what I want to find out; that's what I came 
 here to-night to see you about. I want you to tell me what 
 you know about this Brent. The best isn't too good for 
 Marcia, I can tell you. If I put my foot down, I'll break this 
 affair off short ; but if he's all right he shall have her. I've 
 known you a good while, Shrike, and I think I can put a good 
 deal of trust in you, and 
 
 " Hush! " said the captain, as Marcia and Brent walked by 
 them just at that moment. 
 
 The girl's sweet oval face was flushed with a soft rose-color,
 
 CAPTAIN SHRIKE BECOMES CONFIDENTIAL. 93 
 
 and her eyes were sparkling. Brent's looked weary and worn 
 in the blue light that the chandelier cast over them. 
 
 Shrike said something under his breath as he bowed to 
 them, and then the crowd swallowed them up. He took the 
 broker's arm, and they made their way up-stairs to the smok- 
 ing-room, which they found deserted by everyone except old 
 Mr. Wixon, who had escaped from the crowd and was now 
 sound asleep and snoring vociferously. The place offered 
 every opportunity for a quiet talk. 
 
 In the meantime Brent and Marcia had left the crowded 
 parlors and sought refuge in the embrasure of the dining-room 
 bow-window. 
 
 ' ' Your father and Captian Shrike seem to be holding a coun- 
 cil-of -war to-night, " said the young man, seating himself on 
 an ottoman at her side. 
 
 " And you would rather not see them together? " she asked, 
 studying his face. "Jack, I am afraid you are not very 
 steadfast in your friendships. You used to go everywhere 
 with Captain Shrike, and now you seldom speak to each other, 
 that is, when I am around. I don't blame you for dropping 
 his acquaintance, because I don't believe it will ever do you 
 any good ; but I am afraid you are fickle. Tell me why you 
 have quarrelled." 
 
 Brent hesitated. " It is a long story, which you would not 
 understand," flushing painfully and' turning away, his eyes. 
 " We we were partners in a business enterprise." 
 
 " Oh, I see; in some financial trouble. I heard that you had 
 been speculating in stock, I suppose? " 
 
 "Yes," he replied, laughing bitterly, " in live-stock. I may 
 as well tell you," he continued, as she regarded him with 
 wondering eyes, ' ' that I was fool enough to enter into an 
 agreement with Captain Shrike when I when I first came to 
 New York, an agreement which I now find myself unable to 
 keep. It is this which has worried me all along." 
 
 The old, haggard look she had noticed of late came into his 
 face as he turned away, unabled to meet her steadfast gaze. 
 He was in trouble, deep trouble, she could easily see. 
 
 " Don't tell me any more, ".she said gently, laying her hand 
 softly on his shoulder. ' ' I dare say you think me an officious, 
 meddling little woman. I am glad there is nothing serious
 
 94 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 the matter between you and Captain Shrike. I do not care to 
 have him for a friend, but I should fear him as an enemy, 
 relentless, unforgiving." 
 
 "Why, dear, we can afford to laugh at him," said Brent, 
 looking up with a bright expression on his face. "I could 
 never bring myself quite to hate him, even if 1 wanted to. I 
 can never forget that it was through him I first met you." 
 
 "You don't believe much in fate, then?" she said, with a 
 smile. 
 
 " Fate is nothing without opportunity," said Brent. 
 
 " And I was the opportunity you embraced, eh?" was the 
 laughing response. " But I am afraid, Jack, we are losing all 
 the entertainment," looking towards the crowded parlors. 
 " Miss Murray is going to recite ' The Broken Heart.' " 
 
 ' ' But you don't want to hear that again ; I have heard it at 
 least eight times this winter." 
 
 " And I not at all. Does she give any advice for mending 
 broken hearts? It must be such an uncomfortable thing to 
 carry around. I am sure Fanny Pixley has broken hers in 
 small bits to distribute around, for it seems to me that fully" 
 ten of the men that I meet are in love with her, and that the 
 others are about to become so. Give me your arm, Jack ; it is 
 time we returned." 
 
 " But why? " he pleaded. " Wait a few moments longer." 
 
 " We must not. We we shall be talked about. Dear me, 
 I am getting to say 'we' as fluently as an editor," smiling. 
 ' Come, Jack, don't be silly, give me your arm." 
 
 He drew a long face, and rose from his seat with a gesture 
 of mock despair. 
 
 " Now, if we had not moved, your father would never have 
 seen us," he said, as the broker's bald head was seen bobbing 
 up and down like a cork at the other end of the room. 
 "We" 
 
 " Well, what about we? " she asked teasingly. 
 
 " We never have an opportunity to say two words to each 
 other." 
 
 Just then, Mrs. Wixon clapped her hands for silence, as Mrs. 
 Brasher was going to read a poem, so Brent and Marcia went 
 back to their cosy corner to wait until it was over. Little at- 
 tention did they pay to the poem or to the enthusiatic spouter,
 
 CAPTAIN SHRIKE BECOMES CONFIDENTIAL. 95 
 
 with her waving arms and strident voice. They were think- 
 ing of something else, far more interesting perhaps, which 
 flowed, too, in a poetic channel something that interested 
 them deeply, those two who sat alone in the soft-lit room. 
 And as they must needs speak in a whisper, their heads were 
 very close together. Let us respect their solitude. 
 
 An hour later Captain Shrike was seated at a table in the 
 cafe of the Argentine Club, sipping a glass of absinthe. It was 
 after midnight, and the captain had evidently been indulging 
 in several other strong beverages besides that opalescent 
 liquid which shimmered at his side, for his eyes looked weak 
 and uncertain, and his head rolled about loosely. He had 
 started in on a fresh glass when John Brent entered. The 
 captain stopped drumming his white fingers on the polished 
 table, and looked at him curiously. 
 
 "You look pretty gay to-night; been trying a game up- 
 stairs? " he asked. 
 
 " You know I never play cards," said the other quietly. 
 
 " Then something's put you in high feather. Oh, I know; 
 I saw you to-night with the little Tillinghurst. That's it. 
 Things are going finely. It was easy enough to see that ;" and 
 he laughed uproariously. 
 
 Brent looked at him nervously. He was irritated at the 
 man's insolence, and his fingers twitched convulsively. But 
 he only said, " You are disposed to have fun with me to-night, 
 Captain Shrike. Pray leave Miss Tillinghurst's name out of 
 the question." 
 
 "Ah, indeed! ain't I her friend, and her father's friend? 
 Who are you who pretend to tell me when I shall use her 
 name and when not? " asked Shrike hotly, bringing his hand 
 down on the table with a thump. 
 
 "I'll tell you," said Brent, hoarsely, in a whisper; "I am 
 the man she is going to marry ; the man she accepted not an 
 hour ago," taking him by the arm. " Do you remember what 
 you said to me that night we stood by the house in Madison 
 Square and she came down the steps? Well, it has all come 
 true ; your very words." 
 
 "Not yet," said Shrike, wagging his head back and forth 
 in a maudlin way. " Not yet." 
 
 "Not yet?"
 
 96 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 ' ' No ; I had a talk with Papa Tillinghurst this very night. 
 He is rather doubtful of you. Wants me to vouch for your 
 respectability, etc. It remains with me whether you get his 
 consent or not." 
 
 " I know that, Shrike; I know that," said the other, a little 
 excitedly. " But you'll say a good word for me, won't you? " 
 
 "I will not," said the other, bringing his fist down on the 
 table with a bang that sent the glass into splinters, "not a 
 damned word. Fool! Can't you see that I love her my- 
 self? "
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BRENT'S CONFESSION. 
 
 WAS Captain Shrike in earnest, or had he been drinking and 
 made the statement in a joke? This and a thousand other 
 questions John Brent asked himself as he walked up and down 
 his room that night. Something, however, persuaded him 
 that the captain meant what he said ; and look at the matter 
 how he would, he could only see misery for himself in the 
 future. 
 
 The events of the evening had completely unnerved him, 
 and he was only adding to his agitation by smoking an inde- 
 finite number of cigarettes as he walked up and down the floor. 
 To have learned from Marcia herself that she loved him, to 
 have had the cup of happiness lifted to his lips, had filled him 
 with a wild ecstasy. But the captain's words had dashed the 
 cup from him, and he was helpless to save himself. He had 
 never once imagined that Captain Shrike might possibly be- 
 come a rival. He knew him to be an intimate friend of her 
 father's, and was aware that of late he had been a frequent 
 caller at their house ; but beyond these things there was noth- 
 ing in the captain's manner to indicate that he was in love 
 with Marcia. It required no clairvoyant powers for Brent to 
 foresee that, unless she was steadfast to him through good and 
 ill report, and loved him with an umvavering faith which could 
 not be shaken, his happiness was gone. It would not take a 
 man like the captain very long to tear down the airy castle 
 which he had built for his protege, and send him out into 
 the world again, branded as a fraud and a humbug, while he 
 himself stepped into the niche left vacant. 
 
 Brent could imagine the delight there would be in certain 
 circles when the truth became known. How the society 
 papers would jeer at him, and hint that they knew of the hum- 
 bug all along, and that it was another warning that New York 
 circles should heed, and stop taking up nobodies without pro- 
 7 ' 97
 
 98 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 per investigation ! It made Brent writhe when he thought of 
 Marcia, Could she trust him after his deceit? He hardly 
 dared flatter himself that she could, and yet it was the only 
 slender straw he had to cling to. He resolved that he would 
 tell Marcia everything the next night. 
 
 The gray morning was creeping in through the half-open 
 shutters before he thought of sleep, and when the breakfast- 
 bell rang he was still staring aimlessly at the ceiling, trying to 
 realize his condition. 
 
 He went through his work at the mill mechanically that 
 day. and was harsher than ever with the men. He was glad 
 when it was all over, and he had a chance to slip out and 
 away from the clatter of the machines and the rough voices 
 about him, and be alone. He wanted to nerve himself up to 
 the point so that he could tell her all that evening. He wanted 
 to receive his sentence and be done with suspense. Shrike, he 
 knew, would make the worst of the story if it was left to him 
 to tell. Brent resolved to forestall him. How wearily the 
 hours crept by until it was time to go ! And yet he went by 
 the house several times before he dared enter. Marcia re- 
 ceived him in the little library that her father had arranged 
 for her in the second story, where she spent most of her time 
 reading and writing. She was deep in a book when he entered, 
 and looked up with a pleased expression of surprise, that 
 brought a bright blush to her cheek. He stood for some 
 moments regarding her, thinking what a pretty picture she 
 made in her white-cashmere watteau dress, trimmed with old 
 lace, the only color being in her cheeks and in a rose half hid- 
 den in the lace at her breast, her shapely head half thrown 
 back, a smile of welcome on her lips. He looked at her, and 
 half a sigh escaped him. 
 
 " What does that sigh mean, sir? " she asked. 
 
 He had advanced as if he wanted to kiss her ; then he hesi- 
 tated and sat down. 
 
 "That sigh," he said, " was a sigh of satisfaction at being 
 here, at seeing you." 
 
 " You don't say that as if you meant it, Jack, dear," with a 
 certain sense of proprietorship in her voice ; ' ' and I should 
 say by the tired look in your eyes that you were out late last 
 night. Come now, weren't you?" provokingly.
 
 BEENT'S CONFESSION. 99 
 
 "Only about an hour later than you. Fact is, Marcia, I 
 couldn't sleep. You ought to know why as well as anybody 
 else. It isn't a thing that happens very often in a fellow's life, 
 so he can afford to lose one night's sleep in consequence. " 
 
 " Do you know, you have an excellent reputation for keep- 
 ing regular hours. That is, Fanny Pixley says so, who I sup- 
 pose gets it from Fred. They say you are quite different from 
 the generality of club men." 
 
 "What nonsense, Marcia! lam not any better than the 
 average man, or any worse. You want to leave a wide mar- 
 gin for errors of judgment in your estimate of me," with a 
 gloomy intonation in his voice. 
 
 " I don't think I have gone very far wrong," she said, softly. 
 " The first time I ever saw you, I said to myself, ' Here is a 
 man whose face is full of truth, and open as the day.' I have 
 had no occasion since to doubt that estimate." 
 
 Brent smiled feebly. He could not look at her, but turned 
 his head away as if to shut out the sight of her face. 
 
 " Marcia," he said finally, "has it ever occurred to you that 
 you know very little about me? Let me see how long is it 
 since the Amsterdam Club had their ball ? " 
 
 " It is just two months, reckoned by the calendar." 
 
 "Two months, and in that time we have met, loved, and 
 become engaged. " 
 
 " Now, my dear Jack, what are you trying to get at ? " 
 
 " Only that you might be deceived in me after all. Society, 
 you know, is full of adventurers. What if I should be one ? " 
 
 " I don't understand you," she said, a little blankly. "If 
 this is a jest " 
 
 " But it is not a jest." 
 
 She started, and looked at him with an expression which 
 denoted at once wonder and alarm. 
 
 "Oh, I am sober enough," he added, as if he thought she 
 had a suspicion he had been dining out. "I tell you this, 
 Marcia, to put you on your guard." 
 
 ' ' As if I needed it ! How queerly you talk ! " 
 
 " I will tell you what I mean, if you will listen something 
 I have been wanting to tell you all along, only I was too big 
 a coward." 
 
 " About yourself ?"
 
 100 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 '' About myself." His lips trembled a little, and he drew a 
 long breath. 
 
 " Go on," she said, and leaned her head on her hand again. 
 
 "Some months ago, a young man sat on the steps of a 
 house in Madison Square. He was an outcast, in rags, cold, 
 hungry, a stranger in the city." He waited as if he had 
 expected her to say something, but she did not sti^. 
 
 "It was night, and he was looking around for a place to 
 sleep. Chance threw in his way a gentleman who offered to 
 clothe him and put him on his feet again on certain condi- 
 tions that he would " he hesitated and could not go on. 
 
 " I am listening," she said quietly; " what then ? " 
 
 "On condition that he would marry a' certain young lady 
 of wealth, who would be thrown in his way. A part of her 
 fortune was to be paid by this this outcast to the man who 
 had cared for him." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Things were so arranged," he went on slowly, " that this 
 young man met the lady they met often they 
 
 "Oh, this is infamous!" cried Marcia, starting to her feet 
 and walking away from him, twisting her handkerchief ner- 
 vously in her fingers. "To be made the subject of such a 
 shameful scheme, to be bartered for by two men as if I were 
 a common creature of the streets ! You need not mention the 
 names I know that you were the young man and I oh 
 She sat down and wept, covering her face with her hands, her 
 whole body shaken with sobs. He saw how miserable she 
 was, and his heart bled for her. 
 
 "Don't make it too hard for me," he said hoarsely, going 
 towards her. 
 
 She made a movement to waive him back, but he paid no 
 attention to it. 
 
 "Marcia, for God's sake hear me out," he pleaded, "and 
 then judge ma I was forced into this thing. I was desperate 
 at the time, and would have grasped at anything to save 
 myself. You cannot understand. You are young ; life is dear 
 to you. You don't know what it is to be alone and stai'ving 
 in a pitiless city, such as this. The temptation was so great, 
 the risk so small. I saw that, sooner or later, I must be 
 driven even to crime. For I wanted to live, and I was dying
 
 BRENT'S CONFESSION. 101 
 
 slowly by inches. When this man came, I was ready for 
 anything ; I did not stop to count the cost. I knew his offer 
 meant food, home, clothes, and I seized it. I was weary of 
 the struggle for life, and saw a chance to lift myself out of 
 want." 
 
 " But your honor ? " she murmured. 
 
 "Honor!" he said, "ah, what thinks a starving man of 
 honor ? That night I began to play the part I have sustained 
 ever since, of a Western millionaire ; and everyone believed 
 in me. Marcia, as God is my witness, my love for you is an 
 honest one. It is hard for you to believe me under the cir- 
 cumstances, but I swear it is true. It has made the burden 
 all the harder for me to bear, to love you so and then deceive 
 you." 
 
 "And this man, this other man ? " she asked. 
 
 " Was Captain Shrike." 
 
 " I thought so," was the answer. 
 
 "When I first found out that I loved you," he added, "I 
 tried to break away, but my courage failed me. I was not 
 strong enough. I still wanted to linger on in a fool's paradise, 
 and comfort my conscience with promises that you should 
 know all. Well, you do know all now," he said bitterly 
 " every jot of my perfidy. Now, say you despise me and let 
 me go." 
 
 She did not seem to understand what he said, but sat still 
 and motionless, with her eyes on the ground. The crackling 
 anthracite in the grate was the only sound that broke the still- 
 ness. 
 
 "Have you told me all this of your own accord?" she 
 asked, at length, raising her head, but not looking at him. 
 
 "I will be frank with you," he stammered. "You shall 
 know all I have to tell. You may as well hear it from my 
 lips as another. After leaving you last night " he paused, 
 and drew a long breath "I went to the club. Shrike and I 
 had a quarrel. He said I should never marry you, that he 
 loved you himself." 
 
 She shuddered, and Brent was glad. 
 
 "Fighting for possession 1" Marcia said. "What have I 
 done that I should be placed in such a position ? Oh, Jack,
 
 102 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 how could you ? " covering her face with her hands and sob- 
 bing as if her heart would break. 
 
 "Ah, how could I, indeed ?" he groaned, kneeling beside 
 her. "Don't be lenient towards me, for I deserve to be pun- 
 ished. When I knew I loved you, Marcia, I could not tell you. 
 Oh, I could not give you up. " 
 
 She saw him kneeling there, with his face buried in his 
 hands, overcome with the grief of the moment, and she pitied 
 him. 
 
 " Leave me now," she said; " I must think over all you have 
 said." 
 
 "I dare not ask for any hope," he said sadly. " I know 
 there can be no forgiveness." 
 
 ' ' I suppose this story will all come out in the papers ; every- 
 body will know it ? " she asked, wearily. 
 
 "We are in Captain Shrike's power. It remains to be seen 
 what he will do." 
 
 " I expect no mercy from him," she replied, clinching her 
 teeth. 
 
 "Oh, what misery I have brought upon you!" he said, 
 penitently. ' ' Who could have foreseen this trouble ? " 
 
 " Yet I am glad you told me." 
 
 "Glad?" 
 
 ' ' Yes, glad ; for now, at least, we start fair. You have told 
 me everything ? " 
 
 "Everything that has happened since I came to New York." 
 
 " And before that ?" 
 
 " Before that I lived in St. Louis for three years. My home 
 was in a little town in Michigan, called Carter's Ford." 
 
 "And you are alone in the world ? " 
 
 "Alone," he said, sadly. "But I have pained you enough 
 for one evening," as he took up his hat and coat to go. "Try 
 and think of me as kindly as you can," he added, regarding 
 her wistfully. 
 
 She did not turn her head. 
 
 "I shall not see you again until until you send for me. 
 Silence will spare you the pain of a refusal. Good-night." 
 
 " Good -night, " she answered softly, half turning her head. 
 
 He lingered a moment, then turned away with a sigh, and
 
 13 BENT'S CONFESSION. 103 
 
 groped his way down the dimly-lit stairs. Would he ever go 
 up that flight with a lightened heart again, he wondered. 
 
 Captain Shrike was just coming in 'the front-door as he 
 opened it to go out. He almost stumbled over him. 
 
 " Well, is our fair friend in a mood for a pleasant surprise ? " 
 asked the captain, insolently. 
 
 "I have spared you the trouble," said Brent, coldly; "I 
 have told her myself." 
 
 Something in the expression of his face warned Shrike that 
 it would be perilous for him to say more, and he made way 
 for Brent to pass by. 
 
 "Well, 111 be d ," said the captain, under his breath, 
 in a tone of surprise. 
 
 Then he suddenly forgot what he had come for, and walked 
 hastily away in the opposite direction to that which Brent had 
 taken.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN MAKES A DISCOVERY. 
 
 IT was ten o'clock the next morning when Brent sought Cap- 
 tain Shrike's room, resolved to know the worst. He felt too 
 shaken by the occurrences of the past few days to go to the 
 mills, and had telegraphed an excuse to Mr. Tillinghurst, ex- 
 plaining his necessary absence. 
 
 Captain Shrike received his visitor with an affable smile. 
 He was seated in a soft arm-chair, by a window in the room 
 where Brent had first become acquainted with the inner work- 
 ings of the Impecunious Club. He wore the same gorgeous 
 dressing-gown as on that memorable occasion, and he was 
 puffing a huge cigarette, which sent out volumes of perfumed 
 smoke. 
 
 Brent sat down, without waiting to be asked, in a corner of 
 the room. He was silent for some moments, not knowing ex- 
 actly how to begin the conversation. The appearance of 
 Shrike, smiling and debonair, rather squelched the bitter 
 words he had come to say. The captain's coolness and sang- 
 froid acted as a cold douche on his passion, and he grew singu- 
 larly calm. 
 
 " You are looking rather ratty this morning, me boy," said 
 the captain, pushing a decanter towards him, which stood on 
 the centre- table. "Here ! take a drink ; you'll feel better." As 
 Brent did not avail himself of the offer, he went on: "I see by 
 that rueful countenance of yours, that you have called on me 
 to make some disagreeable remarks ; in short, to kick up a fuss 
 with yours truly. Eh, am I right?" showing his white, even 
 teeth. "You are the easiest man to read I ever met." 
 
 "I came simply to ask," said Brent, coldly, "what you are 
 going to do ? " 
 
 The captain burst out laughing. ' ' Well, come now, that's 
 good. What am I going to do? Why, pursue the even tenor of 
 my nefarious career, to put it in high-flown language. It isn't 
 
 104
 
 THE CAPTAIN MAKES A DISCOVERY. 105 
 
 a question of what I am going to do, but what you are going 
 to do ? You are in the position of a squatter who has been 
 occupying ground that didn't belong to him. The rightful 
 owner conies along in this case it is me and you have to 
 remove. It seems to me you are a very hard young man to 
 suit, if I know anything. In the first place, you are offered an 
 opportunity to marry a very estimable young lady, and are 
 supplied with the means whereby you can cut a respectable 
 figure in society; and all the time you growl because you 
 don't think you are doing the right thing in selling yourself, 
 etc. And now, when that objection is removed, and you have 
 ample opportunity to develop your highly moral principles on 
 bread and water, the proper fare for the virtuous, why, you 
 are again disposed to kick in the traces. Man, what do 
 " you want ? " exclaimed the captain, in mild exasperation. 
 
 " What do I want ?" asked the other. "You know well 
 enough what I want. You dragged me into this thing. Through 
 you I met Marcia Tillinghurst. I am not forgetful that you 
 have done many things for me, though you have been only 
 acting for your own interest all along. n He was talking with 
 vehemence now, his face growing flushed and excited. 
 
 "But I will be fair," put in the captain, mildly. "You 
 shall not be left without means. I don't mind " 
 
 " Fool ! " cried Brent ; "do you think it is money I want? " 
 
 He could not trust himself to say any more, but paced up 
 and down the room nervously. 
 
 "On the day I am married to Miss Tillinghurst," pursued 
 the captain, without apparently noticing that he had been 
 interrupted, "you shall have five thousand dollars." 
 
 "But," sneered the other, " why do you imagine you can 
 ever win her?" 
 
 "Oh, that will be no trouble," nodding his head confidently, 
 " you being out of the race." 
 
 "But I am not out of the race." 
 
 "No? I thought you were. What do you think Papa 
 Tillinghurst will say when he learns that you are a humbug, a 
 fraud, an adventurer. Now, don't get excited, me dear boy," 
 as the other started to his feet. " Of course, I am speaking 
 in figurative language. Well, what do you think the worthy- 
 papa will say to such an alliance? "
 
 106 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "I will leave that to Marcia," murmured Brent, who saw 
 too well the hopelessness of his position. 
 
 " And you are sure of her affection? " 
 
 ''Quite sure." 
 
 "Ah, well, women change their passions about as often as 
 they do their bonnets. The affection she may have formed 
 for you is at best a sentimental one. Her father favors my 
 suit, and always has. He has hinted to me time and again 
 that he would like me for a son-in-law. That alone is a very 
 big point in my favor. His daughter is very fond of him, and 
 will try to obey his wishes. It may be a slight wrench at 
 first, when she finds she must give you up, but she will soon 
 get used to her new position." 
 
 " A very nice programme you have laid out," said the other, 
 bitterly. "And what is to become of me in the meantime? 
 How do you dispose of me? " 
 
 ' ' I should advise you to disappear, to sink back into the same 
 oblivion from which I drew you, now that you have no further 
 use for the name of John Brent. By the . way, what is your 
 real name? It has entirely slipped my mind." 
 
 ' ' Impossible, for I never told you, " said the other dryly. 
 "But you were disposing of me. Go on, I beg." 
 
 "Well, of course I want you to resign as superintendent of 
 the Empire Mills." 
 
 "That is, you demand that I shall." 
 
 "Well, yes, if you put it in that way. It would save a 
 great deal of disagreeable explanation on my part. It will 
 be just as easy, if you will follow my instructions, to sink out 
 of sight as quickly as you appeared, without any fuss and 
 without any scandal. See?" 
 
 " And what if I were to turn round and make an exposure 
 of you and your confederates in the Impecunious Club? Did 
 that ever occur to you?" said Brent, trying to play a bold 
 card. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the captain, blandly; "that has occurred 
 to me, dear boy, and been weighed and considered. I think 
 your chances of pulling me down are very small. In the first 
 place it would be an unequal struggle of twelve against one, 
 and you would not be strong enough to meet us in a fair fight. 
 Your social reputation has been entirely built up through my
 
 TEE CAPTAIN MAKES A DISCOVERY. 1Q7 
 
 instrumentality. What is easier than for me to whisper in the 
 ears of those who have had the favor of entertaining you, that 
 I have been very mi^Kh deceived in your character, that I have 
 been imposed upon, and that they ought to look out for them- 
 selves ; that we have made a mistake, etc. ? " 
 
 "And you would go about telling this? " 
 
 " Certainly. Why not? An architect who has built a house 
 wrong certainly ought to have the privilege of pulling the 
 structure down. I made you ; it is my privilege to unmake 
 you." 
 
 The captain made all these statements with a smiling air, as 
 if he were reading a copy of a comic paper. If he noticed at 
 all that his visitor was suffering, he said nothing, but rattled 
 off his remarks unperturbed, as if they were pleasantries. 
 Brent was no match for the other's volubility, so he went over 
 to the window and stood looking out on the copper-colored 
 river, as it flowed by Blackwell's Island. He almost envied the 
 convicts at work on the grass-plots in front of the gray-stone 
 buildings, he felt so friendless and miserable at that moment. 
 He knew the captain was a strong rival, and doubt would rise, 
 though he tried to drive it out of his heart, that Marcia might 
 not be able to withstand the strong pressure brought against 
 her, and that she would give way, and Shrike would triumph. 
 He did not want to think this. He wanted to believe that she 
 would remain true through all his deception, and trust him 
 in spite of the world. 
 
 "I know what you are thinking about," broke in the cap- 
 tain's voice harshly. "You are thinking about playing the 
 hand alone. Well, I admire your pluck, and I am very sorry 
 it could not have been used in a more promising struggle. I 
 am really sorry." 
 
 "Spare me your pity," said Brent. "I have not fallen so 
 low that I need that." 
 
 "Bitter, eh?" laughed the captain, good-naturedly; "bitter 
 against your benefactor, who has made a millionaire of you 
 and clothed you all these months. Ah me, the ingratitude 
 of this world ! A real philanthropist is never properly appre- 
 ciated until he dies. I really don't see how you can blame me 
 if you have fallen in love with the young lady. I never bar- 
 gained with you for that. In love and war, me boy, you
 
 108 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 know, we cannot but avail ourselves of the arms at hand. I 
 am your rival. I am the strongest in the fight, and you must 
 go under. It is the law of life, and we must obey it. " 
 
 "We shall see," said Brent, turning around. "I have still 
 the egotism to think that I have some chance in this race. 
 The prize will be to the swift." 
 
 "Then you are not going to take up with my offer? Re- 
 member, it means five thousand dollars, immunity from 
 scandal, the only condition being that you slip out of sight. " 
 
 "And I refuse it. You have everything, you think, in your 
 favor. Well, we shall see. I am confident that she has not 
 entirely forgotten me." 
 
 For once the cap tain lost his temper and swore. "You are 
 a headstrong idiot. Having entangled yourself in a hopeless 
 snarl, you will not let me assist you out of it. You are rather 
 excited now, and due allowance must be made for that: I will 
 give you until Saturday to make up your mind whether you 
 will follow my prescription or not. Then, if you are still 
 stubborn, why, in vulgar parlance, I will ' blow the gaff. ' " 
 
 "My answer will be the same then as to-day," said Brent, 
 taking up his hat. "I should be unworthy of any good 
 woman's love if I allowed myself to be bought off for five 
 thousand dollars," he added hotly, as he turned to the door. 
 
 "You will have a different story to tell next week," said the 
 captain, rising with the same bland smile, which had never 
 left his face but once during the conversation. 
 
 The other bowed and walked out of the house. The captain 
 sat down in his arm-chair again, and for five minutes puffed 
 industriously at his cigarette. 
 
 "It's a pity we had to come to a quarrel. There's some- 
 thing about Brent that I can't help liking. Confound the dog, 
 there is something in him in spite of his mulishness. But it 
 won't do for me to turn soft now. He means fight, and I shall 
 have to give it to him. When he finds that all his supplies are 
 to be cut off, and that he must drop from Delmonico's to 
 Chatham Street restaurants, why, it may bring him to his 
 knees. I'll get out that old suit he wore the night I found him 
 in Madison Square. I've never hunted through it to find out 
 what his real name is." 
 
 He left his comfortable arm-chair with a sigh, and unlocked
 
 THE CAPTAIN MAKES A DISCOVERY. 109 
 
 the closet door. He found all the old clothes rolled up on the 
 top shelf, and dragged them down with a gas-lighter, which 
 stood by the fire-place. 
 
 "Well, to think that that howling swell- once occupied these 
 old rags ! " was the captain's comment, as he poked among the 
 shabby garments. "I can't afford to be fastidious if I want 
 to find out anything," he muttered, as he fished up an old 
 unbleached shirt out of the pile and examined it critically. 
 On the tag at the end of the bosom he could see some faint 
 marks, as if a name had once been written there. He carried 
 it to the light and examined it closely. Then he whistled loud 
 and long, and his eyes sparkled with pleasure. Yes, undoubt- 
 edly, the marks stood for a name. He adjusted his glasses 
 and finally made out the letters. They spelt George Walton 
 or Waldon he could not exactly make up his mind which. 
 He put the rags back in the closet, but the tag he cut off and 
 placed in his pocket-book.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MR. GEEDGE APPEARS ON THE SCENE. 
 
 AT nine o'clock on that evening, Captain Rivington Shrike, 
 attired in full dress, a white kersey top-coat, and with his mil- 
 itary moustache waxed in two formidable spikes, tripped out 
 of the door of the club-house in Beekman Place, and sauntered 
 towards his carriage, which stood in waiting. He was in ex- 
 cellent humor, it would seem, for he whistled a merry air from 
 an opera bouffe as he buttoned his kid gloves, and his step was 
 light on the pavement. As he was getting into his carriage 
 someone touched him on the shoulder, and a whining voice at 
 his elbow exclaimed : 
 
 ' ' You haven't the price of a pint, mebbe, have you now, Mr. 
 Shrike?" 
 
 The captain turned to confront a trembling, withered old 
 man, in a seedy diagonal suit, so covered with mud that its 
 owner must have been rolling in the gutter. The whining 
 voice came from behind a dirty yellow beard, forming the 
 fringe to a dull red face, from which two bleary blue eyes 
 looked at the captain piteously. 
 
 "It ain't likely as you'd know me, I'm that changed," shiv- 
 ered the remnant, in a quavering voice. 
 
 "Come here," said Shrike, shortly, pushing him with no 
 gentle hand in the direction of the street lamp. 
 
 Under the light he examined the dirty man critically and 
 slowly, and then gave a prolonged whistle of surprise. 
 
 "I should say," he drawled, "that you were once David 
 Gredge." 
 
 " Yes, sir yes, sir," quavered the other, in his feeble piping 
 voice, as he rubbed his bony hands together. "That's it; I 
 was once Dave Gredge, but I'm nothin' but his ghost now. 
 Things have changed since them days, Mr. Shrike that is, 
 Captain Shrike. The wheels has taken another turn, and those 
 as was up is down. I've been going down and down, lower 
 
 110
 
 MR. GRELGE APPEARS ON TIIE SCENE. HI 
 
 than I ever thought a body could go. There don't seem to be 
 any bottom when ye get started," with a long sigh like a 
 whine. 
 
 "You don't blame anyone but yourself, I hope," said the 
 captain, curtly, for he was beginning to tire of the old man's 
 loquacity. " You brought it all on yourself." 
 
 "I don't blame nobody," said Gredge, sadly. "It's my own 
 fault that I'm where I am. I know it ; I ain't had any cause 
 to forget it." 
 
 " Well, come, come ; don't keep me here all night. I am in 
 a hurry. Here's a dollar, if that is any good to yoii." 
 
 The old man seized the bill eagerly and thrust it away in the 
 lining of his greasy hat. 
 
 " I I didn't know but you might put me in the way o' get- 
 tin' somethin' to do? " eagerly. 
 
 The captain laughed outright. 
 
 " Why, man, you couldn't keep a place for a week. You 
 lost your position with Tillinghurst through drink, and it has 
 been the same story ever since. It's too late for you to pull in. 
 You know it yourself." 
 
 "But is it right, " he whined, "that John Tillinghurst, 
 whom I worked for years ago, when he hadn't hardly a dollar, 
 should be livin' in high style, while I tramp the streets like a 
 stray dog? He thinks I'm dead; and mighty glad the thought 
 makes him, I dare say. If he knew I was still on deck, it 'ud 
 spoil some of his sleep o' nights," rubbing his dirty palms 
 together in a thoughtful way. "It 'ud give him some bad 
 dreams." 
 
 " You don't seem to love your old employer," said Shrike. 
 
 "Well, I guess not; I ain't any cause to. I served him so 
 well when he was a poor man. and he might have given me a 
 show when he grew rich, instead o' turnin' me out to die in 
 the streets. Like him? " he added, with vehemence; "I'd like 
 to get him down where I am, and let him suffer as I have 
 suffered." 
 
 His anger was so terrible that Shrike drew back in alarm. 
 There was something horrible in the rage of this miserable old 
 man, still quivering from the effects of a recent debauch, his 
 watery -blue eyes rolling in their sockets, and his dirty, yellow 
 hair blowing about his face,
 
 112 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 A thought suddenly struck the captain. Perhaps Gredge 
 knew something about Tillinghurst, something that might be 
 used to bring the millionaire to terms. 
 
 "This is rather dry work talking here," he said, carelessly; 
 "suppose we adjourn where we can have a chat in private." 
 
 The eyes of the old man lit up, and he rubbed his poor lips 
 together as if he scented liquor afar off. The prospect of a 
 drink stimulated him to keep up with Shrike's military stride, 
 and he shuffled along the pavement like a much younger man. 
 
 Second Avenue was but a step, and they soon found them- 
 selves established in a little room off the bar of the corner 
 saloon. The captain ordered sherry for himself and a bottle of 
 gin and some water for Gredge, and after the waiter had gone 
 away and closed the door, he said impatiently: " Now, if you 
 have anything to tell, be quick about it. I have an appoint- 
 ment at ten, and it is now half -past nine," looking at his watch. 
 
 Mr. Gredge, having absorbed two glasses of gin-aiid water, 
 leaned back in his chair in a comfortable attitude, and seemed 
 in no hurry whatever to begin. "I don't see, beggin' your 
 pardon, what difference it could make to a gent like you, if 
 me and Tillinghurst did have a row,'' eyeing the captain curi- 
 ously. 
 
 "That is my business," said the other quietly. " You were 
 once his confidential clerk ; you knew all his secrets. It was 
 only a few months before you left his employ that he myste- 
 riously rose from being a second hand furniture dealer and 
 tenement-house banker to 
 
 " Yes, that was a jump," interrupted Gredge, pouring him- 
 self out a stiff drink, and draining the glass without drawing 
 breath. " There ain't many men could do the trick as he done, 
 steppin' from a dirty store on Seventh Avenue to the Rawdon 
 Building on Broadway. Wonder what become of the owner 
 of that big building. Another man that Tillinghurst plowed 
 under, though he was a proud old duffer, and likely deserved 
 what he got. S'pose he's drinkin' himself to death or tryin' 
 to, somethin' like me; " and Gredge sighed, and had resource to 
 the bottle again to drown his thoughts. 
 
 Captain Shrike was in despair. Gredge already looked 
 drowsy, and might fall asleep in the midst of the conversation. 
 Fifteen minutes had passed, and still the old book-keeper was
 
 MR. GREDGE APPEARS ON THE SCENE. H3 
 
 far away from the subject in which he was interested. Some- 
 thing must be done. 
 
 "Come, come," he said, shaking the old man by the arm 
 impatiently ; " I didn't come here to listen to the story of 
 your life. I may give you five dollars if I hear anything in- 
 teresting. You were talking about John Tillinghurst." 
 
 "I was just getting to that," said Gredge. "How you do 
 hurry a chap, to be sure ! I I don't know as I got much to 
 tell anyway," with a foolish leer. "Leastways, you wouldn't 
 think it much." 
 
 "lean tell better when I hear what it is. Here, take an- 
 other drink," pushing the bottle towards him. 
 
 ' ' I will take another, thank you kindly, Mr. Shrike. Well, 
 as I was sayin', you have wondered, perhaps, by what trick 
 Tillinghurst got to be a rich man? " 
 
 Shrike nodded. 
 
 "I know you wouldn't care to hear the story unless you was 
 going to use it against him, and that's what I want. Nobody 
 would believe me, if I told all I know, for he's too high up 
 and I'm too low down, so I'll let you take it out of him. Til- 
 linghurst, you know, never had any family. He was born in 
 the streets, and got his livin' as best he could, just as I am 
 now. He had scraped together some money as a pedler, and 
 with that he started in a basement on Seventh Avenue, deal- 
 ing in old furniture, second-hand stuff, and lendin' money at 
 big interest to poor folks in the neighborhood. I was his 
 chief clerk, cashier, errand boy, and general utility, and took 
 a hand too in cleanin' stoves and rubbing up furniture'. Til- 
 linghurst did a good deal of speculation, too, and made, quite 
 a reputation on the Street among the small brokers, who 
 thought him a cautious buyer and a good man to follow." 
 
 Mr. Gredge paused to take another drink, and then pro- 
 ceeded: "But Tillinghurst had a run of bad luck, and be- 
 gan using the money that had been deposited with him, and 
 all that was swallowed up in speculations. I knew he was 
 getting roady to skip out of town the moment he saw the jig 
 was up, but I said nothing, because I thought there might be 
 a chance for me to carry on the business. Things was looking 
 pretty black, when one day an elderly sort o' woman came 
 into the shop and asked for Tillinghurst. They talked to- 
 8
 
 114 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 gether for about two hours, and though I listened at the par- 
 tition,.! couldn't hear a word." 
 
 "And you don't know the result of that conversation?" 
 asked the captain, eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, bless you, yes. Tillinghurst told me afterwards that 
 the woman was a relation of his from the West, and that she 
 had come on to see him with a view of investing some money." 
 
 " And is that all?" 
 
 "Not yet. The worst is to come," said the ex-clerk, 
 stopping to mop the perspiration from his forehead with a 
 dingy handkerchief. "The very next morning that woman 
 was picked up near the pier at the foot of West Twenty- 
 second Street dead ! " 
 
 "Dead?" 
 
 "Yes; and there was no receipt found on the body that she 
 had ever given Tillinghurst a cent." 
 
 " But you don't mean to insinuate, man, that he had any- 
 thing to do with her death? " 
 
 "No no. He was a bad 'un, but he always kept as much 
 as he could inside the law. It was only chance that threw 
 her in his way." 
 
 " But the money, what became of that? " 
 
 "Nobody knows but Tillinghurst. It was a few months 
 after her death that he blossomed out as a financier. Mind 
 you, I don't accuse him o' stealin' that money. Oh no," with 
 a chuckle; "I wouldn't for the world; but it was a queer 
 affair a mighty queer affair." 
 
 ' ' But this this woman must have had relations who would 
 look after her interests who must have known of this money," 
 pursued Shrike. 
 
 " No, I don't think she had a soul to look after her. I found 
 out in an indirect way that she left a little son out in the 
 Western town which she came from, and I guess it was on his 
 account that she wanted to invest this money." 
 
 " And you heard nothing more of the boy? " 
 
 "Not a word," said Gredge, drowsily. "As no one knew 
 the woman's name but us two, she was buried without any, at 
 Tillinghurst's expense. He made capital out of her funeral, 
 you may imagine." 
 
 "And you, I suppose, aided him in robbing the orphan of
 
 ME. GREDGE APPEARS ON THE SCEXE. H5 
 
 his inheritance? " asked Shrike. "Gredge, you are a bigger 
 scoundrel than I thought you were." 
 
 " 'Scuse me, Cap'n, but what could I do? Had no proofs he 
 ever got any money. Poor men can't be too particular. " The 
 liquor was beginning to affect him, and his head swayed to 
 and fro as he sat there. " 'Sides, none o' my bishness lookin' 
 up a orphan. I shpose now I'll get my five dollarsh," holding 
 out a trembling hand. 
 
 "You don't deserve it," said Shrike, with contempt, laying a 
 gold piece on the table. 
 
 Gredge fumbled at it blindly in his drunken way, but could 
 not lift it up : at length his head drooped and he fell forward 
 in a stupor. 
 
 Captain Shrike rose to go. "If what he has told me to- 
 night is true," standing over the crouching figure, "my time 
 has been well spent." 
 
 He walked out of the room on tiptoe, for fear of disturbing 
 the other's drunken slumbers, and told the bar-keeper to look 
 after Gredge when he should wake. The moment he found 
 himself on the sidewalk a sudden thought struck him like an 
 inspiration. He returned hastily to the room where he had 
 left Gredge. 
 
 The drunken book-keeper was snoring vociferously, his face 
 buried in a dirty coat-sleeve, surrounded by a puddle of spilt 
 gin that trickled out of a broken bottle at his side. 
 
 Captain Shrike seized him by the arm and shook him vig- 
 orously, but he still snored on. It was not until a syphon of 
 soda-water had been squirted into his face, accompanied by 
 several vigorous kicks from the captain's lacquered boots, that 
 he regained consciousness. 
 
 " Shtrange !" he murmured ; "didn't look like rainsh," rub- 
 bing his eyes with a dirty fist. 
 
 " Here, wake up," with another kick. 
 
 "Oh, it's you, Shrike?" 
 
 "Yes, I want to ask you a question." 
 
 "Good old Shrike good old " he murmured brokenly. 
 
 " What was the name of this woman who was found on the 
 pier? " asked the captain, bending down to the other's ear. 
 
 " What woman? " blinking his eyes. 
 
 "The woman you were telling about, you know, that called
 
 116 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 on Tillinghurst. Here's another dollar to make you remember 
 better," laying it on the table. 
 
 " Her name was " but his eyes closed as if he was going off 
 into sound slumber again. 
 
 " Yes, what was it? " asked Shrike, eagerly. 
 
 " Wa Wa Wa Waldon/' yawned the book-keeper, doub- 
 ling up again on the table and resuming his snoring. 
 
 " Waldon!" exclaimed the captain, his face brightening up. 
 "Ah, the devil is working well for me to-night. You can't 
 refuse me fora son-in-law now, John Tillinghurst," as he left 
 the room hastily, with a triumphant step.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BLOW FALLS. 
 
 ABOUT the same time in the evening that Captain Shrike's 
 coupe drew up at the Tillinghurst mansion. John Brent was 
 seated before the fire in his room, reading over for the twentieth 
 time a note he had received at the dinner-table. 
 
 " I shall expect you on Wednesday," Marcia had written, 
 "between three and four, when everything can be explained." 
 
 He could hardly take his eyes off the handwriting ; every 
 curve and twist in the characters seemed to fill him with new 
 hope. He had left his fate in her hands, and now, of her own 
 free will, she had called him back. It would have been so 
 easy, he argued over and over again to himself, to have re- 
 mained silent, the least painful of all refusals. But she had 
 written, had called him to her side. What other construction 
 could he put on her words, but that she loved him well enough 
 to defy society and the world for his sake? Such an exulta- 
 tion filled his heart that had the whole Impecunious Club been 
 present, headed by Captain Shrike, he could have snapped his 
 fingers in their faces and thrown down the gauntlet of his 
 defiance. In all the months he had lived in the bubbling 
 gayety of New York society, he had never felt so joyous and 
 light-hearted as at that moment. A feeling of intense relief 
 possessed his spirit, is if he had rid himself of some vexing 
 burden that lay heavy on his soul. 
 
 It was daybreak before he went to bed. What did he care, 
 for sleep? He did not want to forget. He wanted to live in 
 the present, that was now so sweet. There all his dreams, his 
 hopes, his ambitions centred. 
 
 When he came down to the breakfast-table after his sleep- 
 less night, a letter in a yellow envelope lay at his plate. He 
 recognized John Tillinghurst's crooked chirography at a 
 glance. He took it up and looked at it curiously. 
 
 117
 
 118 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "Some instructions about the mills, I suppose," he said care- 
 lessly, as he opened it with a table-knife. 
 
 "You will not be surprised to hear," wrote Mr. Tillinghurst, 
 "that the hands at the Empire Mills have struck for eight 
 hours a day at the same wages. I have made up my mind to 
 shut up the mills rather than give in. A few months' living on 
 bread and water, or even less, will bring these chaps to their 
 knees. At least, I'm going to see how the scheme'll work. 
 Under the circumstances, I am compelled to dispense with 
 your services. Thanking you for the faithful manner you 
 have conducted my business," etc. 
 
 " At least, Shrike has not exposed me yet," murmured Brent- 
 He noticed that the letter bore the postmark of the morning 
 before. It had evidently been delayed in coming. For the 
 present, at least, he was safe. He even began to hope that, at 
 the last moment. Captain Shrike had been tempted to relent 
 and save him from exposure ; yet he hardly dared cherish such 
 a Utopian dream. 
 
 The loss of his position as superintendent of the Empire Mills 
 troubled him very little. He had never been paid any salary, 
 and he had been offered a better position in a broker's office 
 by a club acquaintance. He was sorry for the men, who 
 would suffer bitterly in the end. Knowing the unyielding 
 nature of the millionaire, he had warned the hands at the mill 
 that they were making a hazardous experiment in crossing his 
 will. 
 
 The voices of demagogues and pot-house orators, however, 
 had prevailed, and they had struck. To the many it meant 
 great discomfort and want, and even starvation ; but conscious 
 that they were doing a brave act in defying the capitalists, 
 they had closed their ears to the supplications of their wives 
 and children, and marched to battle against a more fearful foe 
 than monopoly the ravening wolf of want and hunger. 
 
 Brent finished his breakfast in short order, for he was too 
 excited to care to eat. He went out into the street to walk 
 off some of the nervousness he felt, before making that mo- 
 mentous call on Marcia that was to make or mar his life. 
 
 The day was bright with sunshine, and Fifth Avenue gay 
 with people. Everyone of importance seemed about, eager to 
 bask in the generous warmth of the sun, that caused the silver
 
 THE 7JLOTF FALLS. 119 
 
 and gold harnesses to sparkle on the horses clattering down 
 the street, and brought out in greater relief the colors in the 
 bright winter costumes worn by the women. 
 
 Brent thought he had never seen that famous thoroughfare 
 so filled with life ; and the tinkle of boots, the clatter of horses, 
 and the occasional voices of the drivers were like a pleasant 
 song in his ears. 
 
 The rector of the Heavenly Hope came hurrying along, his 
 arms filled with soberly bound volumes, the long tails of his 
 clerical coat flying in the wind. 
 
 " I did not see you at church last Sunday," he gasped, drift- 
 ing up alongside of Brent. " So sorry, for the Bishop of Ripon 
 was present, and delivered a most eloquent address on the 
 subject of foreign missions. Several in the congregation were 
 very much affected." 
 
 Brent wanted to ask to what amount of money they had been 
 affected, but only said : 
 
 "lam afraid business matters, of late, have occupied my 
 mind more than spiritual, Mr. Satine. You may have heard 
 of the trouble at the Empire Mills. Mr. Tillinghurst probably 
 told you." 
 
 "No, not exactly," said the clergyman with a sigh; "and 
 yet I suspected something must be wrong, as he only contrib- 
 uted half the sum he did last year to the mission fund," shak- 
 ing his head sadly. "What seems to be the difficulty ? " 
 
 " The men have struck." 
 
 "Misguided creatures!" murmured Mr. Satine, lifting his 
 eyes heavenward, and raising his hands with a despairing gest- 
 ure. " When will the toiling millions learn not to abuse their 
 God-given power? I fear they have much misery in store for 
 them, poor creatures ! " 
 
 " I wonder you don't labor among them," said Brent slyly; 
 " I am sure there could be no grander field a man could choose 
 for mission work." 
 
 "True true! " said the minister, with an air of conviction. 
 " And yet they prefer to worship a demagogue instead of a 
 God. I will consult with Mr. Tillinghurst, and see if some- 
 thing cannot be done. Bless me ! but I hear of nothing but 
 strikes all the town over. Some of the most solid and respect-
 
 120 A SLA VE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 able men in my congregation have been actually threatened by 
 these lawless men." 
 
 "I have no doubt," said Brent. "Perhaps if the rich 
 members of your congregation spent less on foreign missions 
 and paid better wages, there would be less want, and the 
 Christian religion would make quite as much advance. These 
 poor people have their own wrongs, Mr. Satine; it is not 
 strange that, in their anger, they sometimes strike blindly." 
 
 "lam afraid your position as superintendent of the Mills 
 has given your mind a socialistic bias," said Mr. Satine, shak- 
 ing his head. "The time has come when capital must take 
 decisive action, or it will be overwhelmed. I am worried at 
 the aspect of things. These meetings that are being held 
 nightly in the lower part of the city mean danger. It looks 
 like a second French revolution." 
 
 Mr. Satine shivered at the thought, and looked around him 
 hurriedly, as if he expected the arrival of a mob bent on mur- 
 der. 
 
 "It would be a bad thing for the members of your church, 
 Mr. Satine," said Brent, maliciously. " I believe the richest 
 men in the town have pews in your church. " 
 
 "It is so reported," with satisfaction. " I believe my congre- 
 gation have been singularly blessed in this world's riches, and 
 for that reason I am anxious. What do you think, Mr. Brent, 
 of the trouble?" 
 
 "I think we are on' the eve of a great crisis. The hun- 
 dred thousand men who are out of employment in this city 
 must find some vent for their animal strength before long. 
 They will not starve contentedly while so much extravagance 
 and luxury exist among the rich. Unless something is done 
 to employ the strength of these idlers, the city, in a few weeks, 
 will be ripe for anarchy." 
 
 "You alarm me," exclaimed the minister, raising his hands 
 with a despairing gesture. "Well, come what will, you will 
 find the rector of the Heavenly Hope at the side of his congre- 
 gation, should the Lord see fit to visit them with trials, Mr. 
 Brent ; " and Mr. Satine, with a bow, disappeared with his 
 books into a brown- stone house they were just passing. 
 
 "Much he cares about the poor ! " said Brent, as he con-
 
 THE BLOW FALLS. 121 
 
 tinned his way. " He is thinking more of his fifteen thousand 
 a year salary than of ameliorating anybody's condition." 
 
 On the corner of one of the streets he saw Joe Skerritt and 
 a group of idlers, some of whom he remembered as having 
 been employed once at the Empire Mills. Joe acknowledged 
 his salutation with a cheery " Good morning," but the others 
 only scowled and nodded. Brent had always taken a fancy 
 to Joe, and felt sorry he was mixed up in the strike. There 
 was good material in the lad, but he would be ruined by such 
 company. 
 
 Knots of idlers such as he had passed were visible on nearly 
 every corner. It was an unusual sight on that fashionable 
 thoroughfare, sacred to the plutocracy. The men were quiet 
 enough, but there was something mysterious about their 
 manner as they chatted together. The views which Brent had 
 stated to the rector of the Heavenly Hope revived in his mind. 
 The officious policemen saw that the groups did not remain 
 standing long in one place, but that they scattered, only to 
 gather again on another block. It looked as if half of the un- 
 employed in the city had taken possession of the street. As 
 the men passed by some of the more elegant houses, they 
 made remarks in a jeering way, and a chambermaid who 
 was washing a window came in for her share of their boister- 
 ous attempts at humor. 
 
 Some of Mr. Satine's misgivings arose in Brent's thoughts as 
 he strode v along that bright morning. He was an unemployed 
 man himself ; he had no money but a few dollars in the world, 
 and he sympathized with them. But he could think of noth- 
 ing else but the face he expected to meet that afternoon. 
 Would it be with a smile or a frown ? He knew that his fu- 
 ture was in her keeping. She could make or mar him by her 
 answer. He spent the morning roaming about down-town 
 among his business acquaintances. Everything was dull 
 on Wall Street, owing to the unsettled aspect of the labor 
 market. He was in hopes that he might see a chance to get 
 something to do, and he received a good deal of encourage- 
 ment. Freddy Pixley was delighted at the prospect of get- 
 ting Brent into his office,- and made an engagement on the 
 spot. They had lunch together at two o'clock, and a bottle of 
 wine, and Brent took the Elevated up to Forty-second Street
 
 122 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 in a very comfortable frame of mind. He felt as light-hearted 
 as a school-boy, and whistled as he crossed the park towards 
 the great house whose massive front rose above the neighbor- 
 ing chimney-pots. What was she doing ? what was she think- 
 ing about ? he wondered. As he went up the steps, there was 
 the sound of a window being shut down in the upper story ; 
 but he thought nothing of it as he rang the bell. 
 
 " This card for Miss Tillinghurst," he said to the lackey who 
 opened the door, thrusting the pasteboard into the man's palm 
 instead of laying it on the salver. 
 
 ' ' Well, why don't you start ? " as the dignitary in blue and 
 gold showed no signs of moving, but eyed him stolidly as he 
 arranged his hair at the hall mirror. 
 
 " If you please, sir, Miss Tillin'urst is out," he said gently. 
 
 "Out!" exclaimed Brent, almost choking. "Out!" he 
 echoed. 
 
 ' ' Out, I said, sir. " 
 
 "But I am here by appointment," stammered the young 
 man. Then, suddenly aware of the absurdity of his position 
 in attempting to explain matters to a flunkey, he found 
 strength enough to say, as he turned on his heel, " Well, when 
 she comes in, give her this card. I I may call later." 
 
 The great door swung behind him. The street before him 
 seemed swimming like a river. There was a mist wherever 
 he looked, and he had to grope his way down the steps by 
 holding on to the balustrade. The sword had fallen. She was 
 lost to him forever ! 
 
 "You have been calling on our friend over the way?" 
 asked a cheery voice at his elbow, as he crossed the street. 
 
 Captain Shrike stood before him, twirling his cane and look- 
 ing at him curiously. 
 
 "Yes," with an attempt at a laugh to hide his evident 
 emotion. 
 
 " And they were out ? " 
 
 " I do not see why I should answer you, " said Brent, in a 
 hoarse voice. 
 
 " Certainly not," was the cool reply. " But I was going to 
 suggest that if you call on Mr. Tillinghurst you will find him 
 in his office. Marcia I just saw at the window as you were
 
 THE BLOW FALLS. 1^3 
 
 coming out ; " and, with a nod, his tormentor strolled down 
 the avenue. 
 
 Brent stood looking after him blankly. Was it true ? Had 
 she been there all the time ? He turned the corner and looked 
 up at the house again. But its window eyes were blank, and 
 all the curtains drawn. What did it matter anyway ? She 
 had given him up forever. 
 
 He staggered on without seeing where he was going. The 
 wc.-ither changed towards evening and a heavy rain fell. He 
 did not heed it, though it wet him to the skin. He saw noth 
 ing ; he heard nothing. He ran into people on his way, and 
 several times came near being beaten down by the horses' feet 
 in crossing the streets. When he finally came to the East 
 River, the noise around the docks acted on his nerves, and 
 aroused him somewhat from the lethargy into which he had 
 fallen. 
 
 Along the docks the gin-mills flashed forth their myriad 
 lights. Drunken stevedores and sailors jostled each other on 
 the sidewalks. A man with his face bleeding from a recent 
 wound was singing vociferously a song about home and mother, 
 as he sat unsteadily on a fire-plug. Two children fought over 
 a can of beer they were taking into a sailor's lodging-house, 
 whose windows, like bleared eyes, looked out through the 
 rain. 
 
 The rattle of tins and glasses being filled for thirsty cus- 
 tomers mingled with street sounds. Brent shuddered in spite 
 of himself, and turned away and resumed his aimless journey 
 through the mist and rain. His eyeballs seemed too large for 
 their sockets, and pained him ; his heart seemed on fire, and 
 \\.is consuming him; while his brain reeled and his breath 
 came thick and hard. He crawled out to the end of one of the 
 wharves, and looked down on the gray and sullen waters that 
 flowed softly by the shiny posts towards the sea. The mist 
 had blotted out the sight of the city, and across the gray ex- 
 panse came the dull sound of fog-horns. Lights, green and 
 blue and red, flitted like strange fire-flies through the misty 
 veil that hid the shipping. He reached out his hands towards 
 the waters, and reeled and fell.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 
 
 ALMOST A LIFE. 
 
 ON the same night that Captain Shrike encountered Gredge, 
 he had a long interview with Mr. Tillinghurst in the broker's 
 private study. The discussion had evidently pleased him, for 
 he whistled to himself as he made his way down the dimly 
 lighted stairs. The hour was late, and the butler had gone the 
 rounds to turn down the lights, so he had to grope his waj- 
 towards the door. Even when he stumbled over the hat -rack 
 in his exit, the triumphant look never left his face, and he 
 even repressed the favorite oath that was always ready on his 
 lips. 
 
 John Tillinghurst waited until the street-door clanged on 
 his departing visitor, and then returned to the arm-chair in 
 front of his desk, which he sank into with a sigh. The gas- 
 light shining through the globe of opalescent glass showed a 
 pale, drawn face and quivering lips. The interview that was 
 just over had changed him from a genial, smiling individual 
 into a worn and tired old man. Could this drawn, despairing 
 face belong to the successful capitalist ? this limp, dejected 
 form embody the soul of the most undaunted financier of his 
 time ? He hardly knew himself as he looked for a moment in 
 the hand-glass at his side, and he had to resort to the decanter 
 in his closet a number of times before the color was restored 
 to his pallid, flabby cheeks. 
 
 The glass shook so in his quivering hands at first that he 
 could hardly get it to his lips, and he finally threw it from 
 him with a curse, and drank from the decanter long and deep. 
 
 "What a coward you are getting to be in your old age, 
 John !" he said to himself . "Brace up! it won't do to show 
 the write feather now." 
 
 He sat for some moments with his head resting on one of his 
 great fat hands, thinking very hard and studying the coals 
 that sputtered in the grate. 
 
 124
 
 ALMOST A LIFE. 125 
 
 " Damn that Shrike! " bringing his hand down on the desk 
 with a blow. " Whoever would have thought that he would 
 round on me this way ? Been playing with me all along like 
 a cat with a mouse, and having enjoyed himself at that game, 
 is ready to pounce on me any moment and chew me up. Yes, 
 that's it; chew me up." 
 
 The rustling of the curtain startled him, and he closed the 
 inside shutters. 
 
 "He's got me hard and fast, curse him!" he muttered, walk- 
 ing up and down the room; "right down under his feet, 
 where he can stamp me out if he wants to ; where I've got 
 many a man, many a man ; " and a sickly smile puckered up 
 his tallowy cheeks. 
 
 Then he straightened himself up, and the light revived in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " But I've been up so long that I can't get down in the dirt, 
 and live like a dog again. I did when I was young. I'd do 
 most anything rather than go back to that. Curse the luck ! 
 How did he get hold of that story ? I might have died here 
 in peace but for that damned, meddling scoundrel. What's 
 to be done ? I mustn't let him walk over. I mustn't ; I won't. 
 I've weathered too many tough storms to hunt a hole now. 
 What's to be done ? " seating himself again by the fire, and 
 relapsing into thought. 
 
 For fully five minutes he sat there, with his eyes on the fire. 
 An impatient exclamation from time to time broke from his 
 lips, as his thoughts revealed the hopelessness of his situation, 
 that he was hemmed in from all sides, that an impenetrable 
 wall hid his future. The clock ticked merrily on the mantel- 
 piece. The fire, flaming up in weird tongues of flame, covered 
 the walls with strange shivering shadows. 
 
 "He must have Marcia," he muttered. "If she consents 
 there will be no disgrace." His thoughts wandered off again. 
 " But she won't consent never ! I saw that last night when I 
 hinted that I should like him for a son-in-law. It roused the 
 devil in her. She hates him. It blazed out of her eyes. That 
 moment I couldn't help being proud of her. She was glori- 
 ous!" 
 
 The clock ticked on. The heavy breathing of the man could 
 be distinctly heard as he bent over the fire.
 
 126 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " The only way out of it is for her to sacrifice herself for my 
 sake. She'd do it in a minute if I asked her. " A light came 
 into his eyes that softened the lines in his gross, sordid face, 
 making his expression soft and gentle. " But shall I let her ? 
 Shall I let her ruin her life ? and and when she loves another 
 and that other the man the man " his words sank into a 
 whisper and he moved uneasily. 
 
 " No, no," he cried fiercely, starting up; "she's young and 
 bright, and all life is before her. I'm old and battered, and 
 might drop out any time, and small loss it would be. She 
 mustn't suffer for my crime, sacrifice herself for my sin. I'm 
 a damned coward to think of such a thing. John, be a man 
 for once in your life. You've done some dirty things in your 
 time; wipe 'em out with one generous act." His face grew 
 transfigured for a moment, and he drew himself up to his full 
 height, as he walked firmly over to his desk. 
 
 "If I was out of the way," he whispered, with one hand on 
 the knob of the upper drawer. " If I was out of the way," he 
 repeatedly softly, "Shrike might do his worst and hurt 
 nobody. She would be free to marry the man she loves, and 
 I should be forgotten by Brent, if not forgiven. " 
 
 With nervous hands he opened the drawer, as if in haste 
 lest he should change his mind. A handsome pair of French 
 duelling pistols lay before him. He took them out of the case 
 and flung them on the table, the firelight flashing on the pol- 
 ished barrels. 
 
 " Stocks will be cheap to-morrow," he said, smiling grimly ; 
 " the big bull of the market will have gone to grass." 
 
 He stood looking at the pistols for some moments, and then 
 began nervously and hastily to examine the charges. They 
 seemed all right. How devilish the instruments of death 
 looked, as the fire shining on the steel seemed to touch them 
 with flame. 
 
 He cocked one pistol with a steady hand and pointed it 
 towards his breast. His lips were drawn firmly together in 
 that peculiar way his opponents in the business world under- 
 stood to mean mischief and determination. He could count 
 every tick of the clock as his thumb bore down on the trigger, 
 but it seemed scarcely as loud as the beating of his own 
 heart.
 
 ALMOST A LIFE. 127 
 
 The hammer fell, but there was only a click. The cartridge 
 did not go off. He flung it from him with a curse, and took 
 up the other pistol. This cartridge he examined carefully. 
 He was trembling now, the tension on his nerves had been 
 so great. The loading was all right; there could be no mis- 
 take this time in its going off. 
 
 He was quivering as he pointed the muzzle towards his 
 breast and fired, just as something struck his arm. The 
 sound of the explosion in the closed room dazed him. He 
 hardly knew what had taken place, except that he had been 
 miraculously saved that he was still alive. 
 
 A strange sense of gratitude welled up in the heart of the 
 man who a few minutes ago had been eager to die. A love of 
 living had returned to him. He thanked God in his heart. 
 Marcia was crouching at his feet, sobbing. The sight of her 
 revived all the bitter thoughts. 
 
 " What did you do it for, Marsh? " he gasped. " What did 
 you do it for?" staring wild-eyed at his daughter's face, as 
 she kneeled at his feet, her dark hair falling on her white 
 wrapper like a mantle. " Why didn't ye let me go? You 
 don't know, Marsh, what pain it might have saved ye if that 
 bullet had only found its mark." 
 
 "What do you mean, papa? I don't understand," she said 
 tremulously, raising her tear-stained face to his. ' ' You don't 
 know what you are saying, " bursting again into tears. 
 
 "Yes, I do," he replied huskily; "yes, I do, Marsh, and I 
 ain't liable never to forget it. I'll tell ye what ye brought 
 me back to life again for. It's to rot my old bones away in 
 a mouldy jail, with murderers and cut-throats and robbers 
 and" 
 
 " Hush! " laying her hand on his mouth; " you are raving. 
 Calm yourself you are mad." 
 
 " I wish I was I wish I was; but it's all God's gospel, as I 
 stand here a miserable wretch brought back from death. Sit 
 here, Marsh," lifting her into a chair. "I'll tell ye why I 
 wanted to end the game to-night, and would have if you had 
 not turned up as you did." 
 
 She looked at him wild-eyed, as if still doubtful of his sanity, 
 but listened. 
 
 " Captain Shrike has been here to-night. We had a long
 
 128 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 talk," he rattled on nervously. " Somewhere somehow I 
 don't know he has got hold of a secret a secret that con- 
 cerns me. I am in I am in his grip. He can squeeze the life 
 out of me whenever he wants t6. He can make my name a 
 disgrace in New York, in the country. He can ruin us both 
 forever." 
 
 He covered his face with his hands. , His breathing could be 
 distinctly heard above the ticking of the clock. 
 
 Marcia sat staring at the wall as if carven out of stone. 
 Once or twice she moved her lips as if to speak, but no words 
 came. Finally she whispered : 
 
 " What was this this crime of which you speak? " 
 
 " I took some money when I was a poor devil which did not 
 belong to me. It was the capital out of which I made my 
 fortune." 
 
 Her set lips moved: "We will give up every cent we will 
 go out of this house empty-handed, and leave every penny, 
 beg, starve 
 
 He shook his head sadly, slowly : " It is not money that 
 will buy his silence. " 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 He looked at her wonderingly, curiously, a wistful expres- 
 sion in his eyes. Why did she not speak? The fixed glance 
 frightened him. But for a slight shudder that she gave as he 
 spoke, he might have imagined that she did not hear. The 
 color had entirely left her face. With great mournful eyes 
 riveted on the wall, and her long hair falling about her in 
 disorder, she looked like the Christian maiden in the arena of 
 the Roman Coliseum, awaiting the spring of the tiger that 
 was to bring her death. 
 
 How long they sat there silent neither knew or cared. The 
 clock ticked on, the fire smouldered and grew cold on the 
 hearth. The gray light of morning filtered through the half- 
 closed shutters and fell upon the girl's white face and quiver- 
 ing lips, and on the limp figure of the millionaire, a huddled 
 heap by his desk. His face was buried in his hands ; he seemed 
 oblivious of her presence. 
 
 At last her eyes fell upon him as he sat there so full of de-
 
 ALMOST A LIFE. 129 
 
 spair. She crept over to his side and laid one hand softly 
 on the grief-bowed head. 
 
 " Papa," she murmured ; " papa." 
 
 He did not stir. 
 
 She hent nearer and whispered in his ear: 
 
 " Papa, Captain Shrike shall be paid his price." 
 
 " Oh, Marsh! " he cried, starting to his feet and opening his 
 arms wide ; but she had glided away. 
 
 He turned back into the room again with faltering steps. 
 
 " Well I I didn't ask her to do it," he tried to comfort 
 himself by saying.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 BKENT'S NEW HOME. 
 
 THE first sign of returning consciousness that John Brent 
 experienced was in dull pains that felt like a drill working 
 slowly through his brain. Gradually the balls of fire that 
 were floating before his eyes settled into a steady glare. He 
 moved uneasily, and struck out blindly with one hand. Then 
 he rubbed his eyes, that seemed full of burning heat, and 
 Looked wonderingly around him. What he saw was a dirty 
 window, with one pane filled up with greasy tin, through 
 which the noonday sun filtered feebly. The four walls were of 
 a sickly green color, like the scun\ on a mill-pond, and they 
 oozed moisture, and smelt damp and grave-like. A rat 
 scurried across the floor as he raised his head, and regarded 
 him for a moment critically with its sharp little eyes, before 
 diving into its hole with a farewell squeak of surprise or won- 
 der. There was no furniture in the room but an old soap-box 
 that looked strangely out of place in such surroundings, and 
 the bed on which he was lying. He noticed then that though 
 the room was dingy, everything was clean about the bed, from 
 the unbleached muslin sheets to the log-cabin quilt. Where 
 Brent was he could not imagine, and his heavy brain refused 
 to struggle with the problem. He felt bruised, as if he had 
 been beaten with clubs ; and all he cared to do was to lie on his 
 back in a half-doze and watch a great spider swinging on an 
 aerial trapeze above his head. It was raining without, and 
 the steady patter of the drops tinkling on the pane seemed to 
 soothe him and quiet the throbs of his brain, the jumping 
 pains that felt as if some one was cracking his skull with a 
 hammer and cold chisel. 
 
 He was drifting off into another troubled sleep again, when 
 he heard the sound of shuffling, slippered feet by the door. A 
 preliminary cough announced that some one was coming. 
 
 " Are you all right ?" asked a cheery voice; and a tousled 
 
 130
 
 BRENT'S NEW HOME. 131 
 
 head, covered with yellow hair, was stuck grotesquely through 
 the crack of the door. 
 
 " What, Joe Skerritt ? " asked Brent, turning so quickly that 
 he gave his bruised arm a painful wrench. " Is it really you, 
 Joe ? " 
 
 "Now, don't say a word," was the rejoinder. " Mother says 
 you ain't to open your head until you has a cup of tea." 
 
 "Come in, I want to speak to you," noticing for the first 
 time that he could only turn his head with difficulty. 
 
 " Must obey orders," growled Joe, slouching into the room 
 in an embarrassed way, and taking a seat on the soap-box by 
 the bed. 
 
 " Now, then, Joe; I want you to answer some questions." 
 
 "Yes, sir," working with a loose button on his coat and 
 looking like a culprit. " But you hadn't ought to talk much, 
 sir," with an air of mild protestation. 
 
 "I won't," said Brent. "Just tell me in as few words as 
 possible what I am doing here, where I came from, and, in 
 short, all you know." 
 
 " Well, there ain't much to tell, Mr. Brent. You you see 
 I went out to find old man Bowker, who's been on a bender, 
 and try and fetch the old chap home an' an' I got down by 
 the docks where he hangs out when he's in liquor, an' an' I 
 seen you actin' kind o' strange on the end of one of them piers, 
 an' I laid low behind a cotton-bale, and when you went all of 
 a heap and came near tumblin' into the river, I hauled you 
 home. You was took dreadful bad with fhe fever, and didn't 
 know nobody, whisperin' and singin' and actin' most strange. 
 I brought you here 'cause I didn't know what else to do." 
 
 " And what is here ? " 
 
 " Well, this is Bolger's Court." 
 
 " And where you live ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir. It ain't much of a place," apologetically "that 
 is, for the likes of you but " 
 
 "Joe," cried Brent, " you are an angel ! " 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed I ain't," exclaimed the other. 
 
 "Yes, you are; don't contradict me. You took care of me 
 when I was alone in the world, when I had no place to turn. 
 I thought I didn't have a friend, but, by God, I believe you 
 are worth the whole pack that I lost."
 
 132 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 Joe blushed to the roots of his hair. "You you mustn't 
 excite yourself, sir ; it might bring on [the fever again, mother 
 says. " 
 
 " I won't, Joe, I won't. But just one question more: is this 
 your room ? " 
 
 "Ye-e-e-s," reluctantly. 
 
 " Just as I thought. And how long have I lain here ? " 
 
 "Two weeks." 
 
 " Two weeks! " exclaimed Brent, and the words went echo- 
 ing through his brain. 
 
 It was a long time to be away from the world. He won- 
 dered what new turn the wheel of fortune had taken in those 
 fourteen days. Was she ? But no, he did not want to 
 think about her. He did not want to think at all. It made 
 his head ache. 
 
 " Joe," he said, after a moment's silence; " Joe." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Now don't call me sir, or we shall quarrel. Call me 
 Jack." 
 
 " Yes, sir," was the meek response. 
 
 "Did did I say much when I was delirious anything 
 about what led me down to the pier that night ? " 
 
 "Well," said Joe, twisting his hat in his hands nervously, 
 and hesitating to speak, "you did certainly say a good deal, 
 but it was mostly mixed up. Anyway," his face lighting up, 
 "no one could have heard what you said but me 'cause 
 'cause I kept everybody away." 
 
 Brent's hand closed over Joe's red, pudgy fingers with a 
 warm and hearty grasp. " But you must have known that 
 that I had no friendsthat I had broken with them all. " 
 
 "I knowed that you'd had some trouble with old Til- 
 linghurst that he'd been cuttin' up rough with you, and 
 that- 
 
 " We won't speak of that," said Brent sadly, as if he divined 
 that Joe was going to say something about Marcia. He wanted 
 to try and make believe that he had come on a visit to Bolger's 
 Court, and that the events of the past had only been a part of 
 his delirium. 
 
 "You can be sure," said Joe finally, as if he guessed 
 what was running in the other's mind, " that whatever. I did
 
 BRENT'S NEW HOME. 133 
 
 hear while you was sick, it won't never go any further. I am 
 a reg'lar oyster, I am, for knowin' how and when to shut up. " 
 
 "It's a very good fault," said Brent, with a faint smile. 
 "I'm sure I couldn't confide a secret into better keeping than 
 to you, Joe. You are treating me a great deal better than I 
 deserve." 
 
 " You were very kind to me at the mill, sir, very. We fel- 
 lows that has to work for a livin' don't always forget favors. 
 But there ! I've been chatterin' away here, when mother told 
 me to fetch you a cup of tea as soon as you'd woke up. I 
 won't be a minute; " and he shuffled out of the room as noise- 
 lessly as the great flapping carpet slippers he wore would 
 allow. 
 
 A mist came into Brent's eyes as he thought of this poor 
 fellow's unselfish kindness. The few encouraging words he 
 had said to Joe at the mills had borne golden fruit. He did not 
 feel the misery of his position so keenly now since he had a 
 friend, and a true one. A love of living returned to him. He 
 had wanted to die that night when he knew that Marcia had 
 forgotten him, but now that it was over he felt as if the fiery 
 trials through which he had so lately passed had done him 
 good. What had happened had sobered him down materially. 
 He was not the gay, careless, vacillating young man about 
 town who had given New York so much to talk about. 
 
 He made up his mind that for the present he would make 
 his home with the Skerritts in Bolger's Court. Perhaps an 
 opportunity would come when he might be able to return the 
 kindness they had lavished on him during his long illness. 
 He remembered then that he had some money in his pocket on 
 that day of disaster, some bills he had drawn out of the bank 
 to buy yes, to buy an engagement ring. There was another 
 ring on that finger now, he thought sadly. He did not want 
 to think about Marcia at all ; but it was not so easy to blot out 
 memories that were burnt into his very nature. He heard her 
 voice in the tinkle of the rain on the glass, and the rustle of 
 her dress in the whispers of the wind. Looking around the 
 room again, he saw that the suit of clothes he had worn on 
 that eventful day was piled up at the foot of the bed, care- 
 fully brushed and folded. Near them was a shirt, glossy 
 with starch, done up in Mrs. Skerritt's best style. It seemed
 
 134 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 to Brent that wherever his eye turned he found some fresh 
 traces of the kindness of this poor family, and his heart 
 swelled with gratitude. 
 
 He found his money all safe in the watch-pocket where he 
 had stowed it away. It gave him new courage to feel the 
 crisp bank-notes in his hands, for now he might indirectly be 
 able to repay the Skerritts for their kindness. He saw that 
 there was enough money for him to live upon for several 
 months to come, and then, if the worst came, he could fall 
 back on his watch and diamond studs. Altogether he was not 
 so badly off. His condition of mental misery was not so pain- 
 ful as he had imagined it would be under the circumstances. 
 He was young and of a naturally buoyant temperament, 
 and if he could only get some work, and hard work, he argued 
 to himself, he could in time live down the old life, and per- 
 haps forget that it had ever existed. His head was still spin- 
 ning, but a nervous impulse made him get up and dress. Joe, 
 entering noiselessly with a cup of tea and a toasted bun in 
 his hand, was surprised to see his patient climbing into his 
 trousers. 
 
 " Say, this is against orders, ye know," he said, with a mild 
 look of remonstrance. ' ' You wasn't to get up for a week yet," 
 laying the breakfast down on the soap-box. 
 
 " Oh, pshaw, Joe; I'm all right, "exclaimed Brent cheerfully ; 
 " a little stiff in the joints; that's all. Perhaps you can lend 
 me a razor to get rid of this beard," rubbing with nervous fin- 
 gers the stubby growth of hair that had accumulated during 
 his illness. 
 
 Joe was off in a minute to get the required article, and 
 handed it to Brent with a doubtful expression on his face. 
 
 "I don't know as I can recommend it, sir. I lent it to old 
 man Bowker the other day, and it's my opinion he used it to 
 open oysters with. You might try the heel ; that's the only 
 place that don't seem to be all nicked up." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say it will do very well," said Brent cheerfully, 
 lathering himself with a liberal hand, while Joe helped him 
 by holding the cup. 
 
 He saw by the broken mirror between the window's, as he 
 shaved, that his face had strangely altered since his illness, 
 and looked pale and haggard. It seemed as if he had added
 
 BRENT'S NEW HOME. 135 
 
 fully ten years to his life since the night Joe had found him 
 on the pier. 
 
 "What are you doing now, Joe? " he asked, as he finished 
 the painful duty, and sat down on the edge of the bed and 
 began to devour the frugal breakfast greedily. ' ' I suppose the 
 mills are still closed, and the strike continues, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, we're still out," said Joe, with a sigh. " And from 
 the looks of things about town, there don't seem to be any 
 chance of the mills startin' up again. The weeks you've been 
 sick, sir, has been terrible ones for workin' folks. Almost 
 every factory's closed, and the streets is jest full of people out 
 of jobs. I guess we ain't seen the worst of these strikes yet. 
 So many idlers ain't going to starve in a rich city like this 
 without kickin' up a row. They goes prowlin' around like a 
 lot o' tigers, some of them foreigners, as if they'd like to eat 
 somebody raw, with a slice of lemon." 
 
 ' ' I hope you haven't mixed yourself up in any of these 
 labor troubles, Joe? " 
 
 " Well, I has to stand by the Brotherhood, of course, 'cause 
 I belong to it. It's the third week now since we left the mills," 
 with another sigh. 
 
 "And how have you managed to live all that time?" 
 asked Brent, with his mouth full of bread and tea. 
 
 " Oh, we had a few dollars saved up we " 
 
 "Who's we?" 
 
 ' ' Why, Malvina and me. I had a little money laid by to 
 get furniture with when we were married, but that's all going ; 
 slow but sure. " 
 
 "Why, don't the Brotherhood provide for you after order- 
 ing the strike ? " asked Brent, in amazement. 
 
 " They did at first, but I've only had two dollars from the 
 treasurer this week. Ye see, there is so many strikes going 
 on about town and in the neighborhood that there ain't 
 enough money to go around. I'm a good bit better off than 
 the married men, though. I don't see how they stand it 
 nohow." 
 
 "It must be hard all around," said Brent. "But don't you 
 get discouraged, Joe. If I ever get on my feet again, I'll see 
 that you don't suffer," laying his hand kindly on the other's 
 shoulder.
 
 136 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "Now, don't," said Joe, almost ready to blubber. "We 
 ain't done anything at all for you to make such a fuss about. 
 I'm downright glad to see you here in the house, though 
 wishin' the 'commodations was better." 
 
 "They are much better than I deserve, I dare say," said 
 Brent seriously. "And now, Joe," he cried cheerfully, "that 
 I have slept and eaten and arranged my toilet, take me to see 
 your excellent mother that I may thank her for her kind- 
 ness. " 
 
 "I'll let you see her," said Joe with a laugh; "but you 
 don't want to thank her, She don't like it says it flustrates 
 her." 
 
 Brent promising that he would not, young Mr. Skerritt piloted 
 him through the tortuous passage-ways of Bolger's Court to 
 a neighboring room, where Mrs. Skerritt was found, as usual, 
 half-way into a wash-tub, surrounded by an incongruous 
 assortment of remarkable underclothes, stretched on lines 
 across the room. She was surprised to see him out of bed so 
 soon, but when she had dried her hands, she gave him a 
 hearty welcome, and he felt more at home than he had since 
 he came to New York. He was glad indeed that his lines had 
 fallen in such pleasant places, as they fixed up an arm-chair 
 for him out of reach of the flying suds, where he could toast 
 himself by the fire and look out on the street. It was pleasant 
 for him to sit there and rest, in that homely room, with the 
 old woman's quaint speeches to break in on his thoughts when 
 they threatened to become disagreeable, and Joe's kindly face 
 beaming upon him through the row of flaming red shirts, like 
 a benignant blonde cherub. 
 
 The spirit of home thrived in that air, misty with suds and 
 redolent of brown soap, There was a soothing song in the 
 gurgle of the teapot on the hob, and a whole eloquent address 
 of welcome in the crackling logs in the old brick fire-place. 
 
 A great peace seemed to fill John Brent's mind as he sat 
 there, such as he had not known in all the months of bustle 
 and excitement and dissipation, when he had passed from one 
 pleasure to another in a vain search for the waters of happi- 
 ness. 
 
 For the present he made up his mind that he could not do 
 better than live with the Skerritts, and indirectly he thought
 
 BRENTS NEW HOME. 137 
 
 he might be able [to make them some return for all their 
 trouble. He knew, the first time that he saw Mrs. Skerritt's 
 broad, homely face, that to offer her money would be an 
 insult ; but he argued that he could do much by strategy for 
 their comfort. He spoke to Joe about staying at Bolger's 
 Court. 
 
 "Just what I was hoping you'd do, on'y I didn't dare sug- 
 gest it," was that young man's reply. "There's just the room 
 you want, near mine. Feller that used to live in it was a 
 switchman on the Elevated, and got run over." Cheerfully, 
 ' ' It's one of the driest rooms in the house ; you can get it for a 
 dollar and a half a week, and eat your meals with us if you 
 think you can stand mother's cooking." 
 
 Brent had a look at the room, and found it light and dry. 
 Mrs. Skerritt consented to buy him a bed and stove and some 
 few pieces of furniture at the second-hand dealer's on the 
 corner, that afternoon; so he lost no time in clinching the 
 bargain. At Joe's suggestion, he bought a common suit of 
 working clothes, for a diagonal cutaway and tweed trousers 
 looked rather out of place in Bolger's Court. He wondered, 
 when he put on his new suit, if his friends would be able to 
 recognize, in the slim-looking man in overalls and blue-plaid 
 jumper and flannel shirt, the debonair and graceful leader 
 of the german, John Brent. 
 
 He supped that evening with the family. Malvina, who 
 had dropped in to tea, was rather disconcerted at his presence, 
 which she illustrated by blushing furiously every time he 
 looked at her ; and she came several times near choking when 
 his foot happened to touch hers by mistake under the table. 
 
 The menu was not elaborate, but Brent was surprised at the 
 partiality he evinced for such homely fare as bread and tea 
 and baked beans. As for the conversation, it was principally 
 on the subject of strikes ; but he felt at home and at ease, and 
 after a pipe with Joe, he retired to his new room, encouraged 
 in spirit, and feeling a new hope in his heart, a new strength 
 for the struggle.
 
 . CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MARCIA HEARS SOME BAD NEWS. 
 
 Mr. JOHN TILLINGHURST was in an excellent mood that after- 
 noon, as he tapped lightly on the door of his daughter's room 
 with a neatly-gloved hand. He was dressed more sprucely 
 than usual, with a clove pink in his button-hole, and he swung 
 a youthful-looking cane back and forth, as he stood impatiently 
 on the threshold. 
 
 " Marcia," he called, as his knock was not answered. 
 
 " Come in," said a voice faintly. 
 
 He walked in with a quick stride, and then paused in the 
 middle of the room and looked at his daughter curiously. 
 "Come come, what does this mean? Why, you haven't 
 begun to dress yet, and it's half-past four," taking out his 
 watch and snapping it with an angry click. 
 
 " I am not going," said Marcia, looking up at him as she lay 
 extended on the sofa, her head resting on one arm. 
 
 "How's that?" asked Mr. Tillinghurst, tapping his boots 
 impatiently with his cane, though he heard perfectly well.- 
 
 "I said I was not going," she repeated, slowly. 
 
 "But, Marcia, you you must come; think what a predica- 
 ment you put Captain Shrike in. Here's his cousin, Mrs. 
 Townsend, has given this reception, and asked people to meet 
 you. Don't don't make a fool of me too." 
 
 She did not seem to hear what he was saying, and he re- 
 garded her wonderingly. 
 
 " Come, Marcia, now do this to please me. You ain't like 
 most girls. You can dress in ten minutes if you want to. I 
 don't ask you for a favor very often. " 
 
 She looked at him steadily for a moment, and he cowered. 
 His mind went back to that scene one morning in his study. 
 
 " You can easily beg me off, papa," she said wearily, after 
 neither of them had spoken for several minutes. "If Captain 
 Shrike chooses to make engagements for me, he cannot expect 
 
 138
 
 MARCIA HEARS SOME BAD NEWS. 139 
 
 me to keep them. I don't feel like going my head aches 
 horribly." 
 
 " But it will only be for an hour or so," he pleaded. 
 
 " I cannot help it, papa; I cannot help it," she cried, cover- 
 ing her face with her hands. "Oh, tell them anything you 
 please. Can't you see that I am miserable, that I can hardly 
 hold my head up ;" and she burst into an uncontrollable fit of 
 weeping that shook her body spasmodically, as she swayed to 
 and fro with her face buried in her hands. 
 
 In his clumsy way, Mr. Tillinghurst felt sorry for her, and 
 pitied her tears. He put down his cane, and came nearer to 
 her, and laid his great red hand gently on her shoulder. ' 
 
 "Why will you think of him, Marsh?" he asked. "He 
 wasn't worth a thought. Do you think if he had cared so 
 much about ye he Avould have sneaked away as he did, with 
 never a word to no one, and without saying good-bye even. I 
 hate to see you waste a thought on him." 
 
 " How do you know he did not say good-bye to me before he 
 went away?" she demanded, raising her tear-stained face 
 defiantly towards him. "How do you know? " 
 
 Tillinghurst turned his head away ; he saw he had made a 
 mistake. " Well well," he stammered, " of course, I had no 
 way of finding out for certain; but but then you never said 
 anything about his calling, and so and so I of course 
 imagined imagined that he had not done so," turning his hat 
 around in his hands nervously, and looking like a school-boy 
 who was going to recite. "You saw him, then?" he asked, 
 looking at her out of the corner of his eye. 
 
 "No, "she said, slowly and distinctly. "You had trained 
 your servant too well for that. Now don't add a lie to what 
 you have done," as he was about to speak. " John told me all 
 about it before he went away that he was paid to tell Mr. 
 Brent that I was out when he came in answer to my appoint- 
 ment. You see, you made a mistake in discharging a servant 
 who had been so faithful in aiding your schemes." 
 
 "Well, really, Marcia, I'm sure I only did it for the best. 
 Don't be too hard on me if T tried to break up all meetin's 
 between you and Brent. You may live to thank me for it ; 
 indeed, you may ; " and emboldened by the listless attention
 
 140 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 she gave to his words, he came a little nearer, but did not dare 
 look her straight in the face. 
 
 " You need not be afraid," she said coldly; " I shall not try 
 to shirk my part of the contract. The marriage shall take 
 place," drawing her lips tightly together. 
 
 " Thank you, Marsh, thank you," he murmured, brokenly. 
 
 "You might have spared me the disgrace," she added, " of 
 planning with your servants to deceive me." 
 
 " But you don't know," he moaned, cowering down by the 
 side of the sofa, " how much, how very much depends on this. 
 I am an old man, Marsh ; a very old man ; and I'm fighting 
 hard to make my last years of life years of peace." 
 
 " You can never earn peace by such methods as you have 
 chosen. I have given you my word," as the tears welled up 
 in her eyes again; "you know I won't break it." 
 
 " Yes, I know, I know," trying to find her hand. 
 
 She raised him gently, almost tenderly. How old he looked, 
 she thought, as she led him across the room. 
 
 "Papa," she said, as they stood in the doorway, "you can 
 trust me, can you not? " He nodded slowly, almost sadly. 
 "I pity you from the bottom of my heart, but don't don't let 
 me despise you." 
 
 He could not find a word to say as he stood there. She had 
 glided into the room again, and closed the door. He thought 
 he heard sounds of sobbing, but he may have been mistaken. 
 
 He struck his hand on the balustrade sharply. "By God, 
 I'm not fit to have a daughter like that ! " he exclaimed, as he 
 groped his way down the dimly lighted stairs and into the 
 street. 
 
 Marcia was crying, crying as if her heart would break. It 
 was more for shame that her father should stoop to plot with 
 his servants to watch her movements that caused the tears to 
 flow. It seemed as if gradually she was losing respect for her 
 father ; yet knowing how fearful he was lest his crime should 
 be discovered, she could not help pitying him. 
 
 She felt better after 'she had cried away the long pent-up 
 tears. After all, it was a pleasure to her to have discovered 
 that Brent had made an effort to see her, that she need no 
 longer do him the injustice t.o think that he had sneaked out of 
 sight without a word.
 
 MARCIA HEARS SOME BAD NEWS. 141 
 
 But what had become of him? How had he disappeared? 
 She could not ask Shrike, for though they were engaged to be 
 married, she tried to see as little of him as possible. It wor- 
 ried her 'that every one in society kept asking the question 
 over and over again. 
 
 " Oh, do tell us, Miss Tillinghurst, what has become of that 
 delightful Mr. Brent?" 
 
 It brought the tears to her eyes to be constantly harried by 
 this question that she could not answer. She was not enough 
 of a society woman to be an adroit liar, so that she could only 
 stammer out that she had not seen him in several weeks, but 
 believed that he had gone West to look after his property 
 there. 
 
 How she wished in her heart that she knew where he really 
 was, if only to be able to stave off the inquiring minds who 
 pretended to be interested in his welfare. 
 
 Lots of unpleasant stories were floating around about the 
 young man, industriously circulated by the ladies who had in 
 vain courted his attention, seconded by those glib-tongued, 
 insidious "matrons whose charms he had been cold to. The 
 most credited story was that he had embezzled the funds of 
 the Empire Mills, and had escaped to Canada with his plunder, 
 and that noble-minded Mr. Tillinghurst had refused to prose- 
 cute. 
 
 And Marcia had the shame of seeing that her father never 
 denied this infamous lie, but looked mysterious, as if he knew 
 a great deal more about the matter than he cared to tell, and 
 wagged his head solemnly, as if he regretted the young man's 
 perfidy. Spiteful little paragraphs began to appear in the 
 society papers about Brent's disappearance hints that the edi- 
 tors of these sapient sheets had known all along that he was 
 a humbug; that even now he was the co-respondent in a pecul- 
 iarly scandalous St. Louis divorce suit ; and that, if the truth 
 were known, he had not acted like a St. Anthony with some 
 of New . York's fashionable favorites. 
 
 So the slanders ran like prairie fire, across the city, and 
 Marcia read every paragraph, and cried over them, and 
 succeeded in getting herself into that miserable condition that 
 is only possible to a girl who has given all the love of her 
 heart into one man's keeping.
 
 142 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 After her fit of crying on that day, Marcia did a very queer 
 thing. After bathing her burning eyes in cold water, she 
 dressed herself in the modest little black alpaca dress that she 
 usually wore on, her tenement-house visits, and, heavily veiled, 
 crept stealthily down the servants 1 stairway, and so out through 
 the side-door that led to Forty-first Street. Then she crossed to 
 Third Avenue and rode up-town to Fiftieth Street, where she 
 got out and walked briskly towards the east side. The lights 
 were beginning to bloom out in the gin-mills, and a man 
 spoke to her as she crossed Second Avenue, but she did not 
 turn back, only hastening her footsteps as she neared Beek- 
 man Place. 
 
 She had never been in this part of the city before, but she 
 had often heard the little club-house described in a jocular 
 way by Captain Shrike, and knew it at once by the Venetian 
 blinds on the windows and the castile-soap-looking horse-block 
 in front of the door. 
 
 What if she should meet Shrike there, she asked herself in 
 fear. Then she looked at her watch, and saw that it was after 
 five, and that he was probably on his way to some dinner- 
 party, and that she need not be alarmed. 
 
 She drew her veil closer over her face as she stood in front 
 of the club-house door. How wildly her heart beat as she 
 rang the bell ! Her mind was full of strange fancies conjured 
 up by the sight of the house where he had lived. What if he 
 were inside ill dying 
 
 Her imaginative flights were cut short by the door opening. 
 A hard-featured woman in a neat black gown eyed her curi- 
 ously. 
 
 " Well, mum, and what do you want?" 
 
 " I I wanted to ask," trembled Marcia, somewhat awed by 
 the stony glare of this female Cerebus, ' ' if there is a gentle- 
 man by the name of Brent stopping here?" 
 
 The woman looked her over again, and then burst into a loud 
 laugh. 
 
 " So ye're one o' them? " she said, chuckling in her throat. 
 "Well, Mr. Brent's went away. He ain't been here for ten 
 days or more." 
 
 "And do you know where he has gone? " asked Marcia. 
 
 "I hears," said the woman, looking about mysteriously,
 
 MARCIA HEARS SOME SAD NEWS. 143 
 
 " that he's went to California to get married. That is, I've 
 been told so." 
 
 The door swung to with a clang. Marcia was alone on the 
 steps. Married ! The word rang like a dull pain through her 
 brain ; she leaned heavily on the railing for support ; the street 
 grew misty before her eyes. What had that horrible woman 
 meant when she said, "So you are one of them? " Her heart 
 grew sick at the painful thoughts that surged through her 
 brain. Oh, it was infamous. 
 
 She turned away with faltering steps, only anxious how to 
 get away from that hateful neighborhood, and regretting, oh, 
 so bitterly, that she had ever come. 
 
 Her father might have been right after all, when he said 
 that Brent was not w r orth wasting a thought upon. There 
 had always been some mystery about him that she had 
 wondered at, an unaccountable uneasiness when he spoke 
 of his antecedents. He had probably been thinking of that 
 woman in California, and was afraid lest his secret should be 
 found out. 
 
 The tears rushed to Marcia's eyes, as she thought how she 
 had been deceived in him, and she crept home like a culprit 
 and hid herself in her room, where she wept away her sorrows 
 on the pillow, and tried to shut out of her heart the memory 
 of the man who had grown so dear to her. 
 
 Had Marcia been able to look through the oaken door of 
 the club-house in Beekman Place, as she was leaving, she 
 would have heard Captain Shrike say to the hard-featured 
 woman : 
 
 "Bravo, Mrs. Clinch! that California yarn of yours ought 
 to do the business."
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISIT. 
 
 " Miss TILLINGHTJRST," said a timid voice as she was hurrying 
 down Fifth Avenue the next morning, " Miss Tillinghurst ! " 
 
 " What, Joe Skerritt?" as the well-knit figure came bound- 
 ing towards her with giant strides. " Nothing serious in the 
 Court, is there, Joe? " mistaking his embarrassed air for bad 
 news. " Malvina and your mother are well, I hope? " 
 
 "Oh, they're well enough," said Joe uneasily; "I I had 
 something else to tell you, Miss Tillinghurst, but I didn't know 
 exactly where to begin. You ain't ashamed to be seen walk- 
 ing in the street with me? " he asked, looking doubtfully at 
 her trim tweed ulster and then at his own faded corkscrew 
 suit, that bore the stamp of a misfit parlor. 
 
 She laughed heartily. "You ought to know me better than 
 that, Joe. I hope I shall always have as honest and upright a 
 young man to take a walk with me as you." 
 
 Joe blushed to the roots of his yellow hair, and seemed to 
 fancy the compliment highly. 
 
 "If you are afraid," she added, "of stirring gossip among 
 fashionable friends, we will go down Park Avenue ; " and suit- 
 ing the words with the action, she turned down Fortieth Street, 
 while Joe paddled along meekly by her side, looking as if he 
 would have liked to run away, but did not dare to. 
 
 "I thought you had something to tell," said Marcia, after 
 they had walked some blocks, and the young man showed no 
 sign of breaking the silence. 
 
 "Well, I I did, Miss," stammered Joe; "but I didn't know 
 exactly how to begin. I'm puzzled whether I ought to say 
 anything at all, for it ain't really any business of mine. In 
 fact, it ain't in my line at all." 
 
 Miss TUlinghurst looked at him curiously. 
 
 "Well, Joe, whatever it is, out with it. I am quite sure it 
 
 144
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISIT. 145 
 
 must be something important, or you would not be so myste- 
 rious. Would I be interested? " 
 
 "You'd ought to be," he nodded. 
 
 " Something about Mr. Brent," she cried impulsively, laying 
 her hand on his arm. 
 
 He nodded again. Her face was so eager that he knew he 
 might go on with his story. 
 
 " Mr. Brent has been livin' with us down to the Court there, 
 ten days or more. " 
 
 A sigh of relief came from Marcia's lips. ' ' And he is all 
 safe and well? " she asked anxiously. 
 
 ''Oh, he's safe enough," returned Joe; "you leave it to 
 mother to take care of him ; but he's been powerful sick. Had 
 a terrible fever, and we did think he'd never get rid of it." 
 
 A mist came into Marcia's eyes as she thought of him. A 
 sense of shame came over her, as if she had been responsible 
 for his illness. " And how how did he come to you, Joe?" 
 she faltered. 
 
 " It's a long story, Miss; would you care to hear it? " 
 
 "Very much." 
 
 " I found him down on the docks one rainy night, actin' 
 strange like. I thought at first he'd took too much wine for 
 his head, but it wa'n't that. He seemed most daft about some- 
 thing." 
 
 She turned her head away, lest he should see her tell-tale 
 face. 
 
 "I was afraid he wanted to jump into the river, and was 
 goin' to speak to him, when he fell all of a heap in a dead 
 faint." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " And then I gave a man a quarter to help me carry him to 
 the Court, which wasn't very far off, and there he has been 
 ever since." 
 
 " And you tell me he is perfectly well now?" 
 
 " Well, he was much better when I left him. Ye see, Miss, he 
 would get up 'fore we wanted him to, an' an' that brought on 
 a relapse. He's a bit delirious, but he's in a fair way to mend." 
 
 They walked on for some moments in silence, Marcia too 
 much occupied with her own troubled thoughts to say much. 
 
 "Joe," she said at length, "I want you to do me a great 
 10
 
 146 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 favor. I know you will you have been so kind to tell me 
 this. Now, do one thing more." 
 
 " YouVe only got to ask, Miss, if I can do it." 
 
 " Well, I want you to let me see him." 
 
 "You see him?" 
 
 " Yes, and without anyone knowing of it, even your mother. 
 Do you think he would know me? " 
 
 Joe shook his head. " He don't even know me. But I don't 
 know whether it could be managed or not, slippin' you into 
 the Court." 
 
 "But they are used to seeing me there, and no one would 
 know what I came for." 
 
 "I don't know that myself," said Joe bluntly. "Well, it 
 ain't much that either you or Mr. Brent could ask o' me or 
 mine that I wouldn't try to do, Miss Marcia. And I'll help you 
 all I can. Mother's out washin' for a lady to-day, so I guess 
 there'll be nobody around." 
 
 " I knew you would help me," she said, giving Joe so grate- 
 ful a look that the honest fellow blushed with pleasure. "But, 
 remember, you must tell no one of this visit." 
 
 "Not even Mr. Brent?" 
 
 " Not even Mr. Brent." 
 
 Joe nodded silently, and they resumed their walk across 
 Union Square. Here Marcia asked him to get a coupe, and 
 into the vehicle they bundled, and were soon rattling over the 
 pavement in the direction of Bolger's Court, Joe enjoying the 
 ride so much that he was sorry when the familiar old rookery 
 came in sight. 
 
 "You stay in the carriage, Miss Tillinghurst, while I run 
 up-stairs and see if everything is all right," he whispered, as 
 the carriage drew up to the side- walk, to the wonder and great 
 delight of some dirty children, who were rolling in the mud 
 like lively young turtles. 
 
 Marcia had not long to wait before Joe returned. He was 
 not used to managing mysterious interviews, and the novelty 
 of the thing rather amused him, though he would never have 
 made a success as an intriguing conspirator. 
 
 "I don't see a soul about," he said. "There's a few old 
 parties sunnin' of ther'selves in the yard, but they are all pen-
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISIT. 147 
 
 sioners of yours, and it won't matter if ye do run across 
 them." 
 
 He piloted her in silence up the treacherous stairs, the 
 mysteries of which she had never been able to solve, though 
 she had been up and down them so often. 
 
 A voice was growling out a song from the landing above in 
 a hoarse, beery voice, 
 
 " Oh, I love my love in the morning, 
 An' I love my love all day." 
 
 The song broke down with an oath, as the singer tripped over 
 something. 
 
 "It's old man Bowker," said Joe; "he's been on a bender, 
 and this is his last day. It always takes him a week to get 
 over one he made it two weeks when his wife died. If you'll 
 come this way, we won't come near him, " leading her through 
 a side passage in the mouldy old honeycomb. 
 
 Marcia, who remembered her last meeting with old man 
 Bowker, was only too glad to avoid seeing him. 
 
 " Oh, I love my love in the morning, 
 I love my love all day." 
 
 And then the husky voice ceased, and the sound of maudlin 
 weeping sounded along the passage. 
 
 "This is the room," said Joe, softly. "I'll take a peep in 
 and see if things is all right." 
 
 He disappeared inside, leaving Marcia on the threshold with 
 a strangely beating heart. There were only a few boards be- 
 tween her and the man she loved, the man whom she had 
 caused to suffer so. What must he think of her, she moaned, 
 and only yesterday she had been willing to believe that he 
 had given his love to another. What had she ever done that 
 so much sorrow should be thrust upon her? What sin of 
 omission, that she should be called to sacrifice her youth, her 
 life, and suffer a martyrdom of shame? 
 
 She was all a-tremble with painful emotions when Joe tip- 
 toed out of the room, with one finger on his lips. 
 
 "He's sleepin','' he whispered; "I wouldn't wake him, for 
 it might make him worse and excite him." 
 
 Marcia pushed by him without an answer. Joe was forgot-
 
 148 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 ten. Through the open door she had caught sight of a white 
 face and a mop of tousled curls above the gaudy patchwork 
 quilt by the greasy-looking window. 
 
 Five minutes ten minutes fifteen minutes passed, while 
 Joe stood in the passage guarding the door. 
 
 When Marcia did come out, Joe saw she had been crying. 
 He pitied her in his heart, though he could find no words to 
 comfort her. 
 
 "Joe," she said earnestly, as they made their way slowly 
 down the gloomy corridor, " do all you can for him, for my 
 sake." 
 
 " I don't have to be asked to do that," he said bluntly. 
 
 ''I I only wish it were possible for me to be near him, as 
 you are, Joe," she faltered. " You could not understand were 
 I to tell you why it is I can't be here at his side." 
 
 He looked at her misty eyes and trembling lips. 
 
 " I know, Miss Marcia. Let's hope it'll be all right in the 
 end. I'm sure no one could blame you. I used to think, 
 when you came down here to see mother, that you were so 
 high up in the world that you couldn't feel that you couldn't 
 love like poor folks ; but your heart's pretty much in the same 
 place as ours after all." 
 
 He wanted to sympathize with her so much, but the 
 words came awkwardly to his lips. He could face Malvina's 
 glances unflinchingly, but somehow Miss Tillinghurst's great, 
 mournful eyes disconcerted him. 
 
 " Will you come again? " he asked. 
 
 "If I could," she murmured; "if I only could," so sadly 
 that he looked at her hard. To her it seemed the last time 
 that she should ever see John Brent. Their paths now lay a 
 different way. 
 
 "Well, if you can come again," said Joe, half suspecting 
 what was running in her mind, "if you can come, why I'll 
 fix things for you." 
 
 She pressed his hand gratefully as he helped her into the 
 carriage, too sad to make any rejoinder. Joe watched it roll 
 away with a thoughtful expression on his freckled face. 
 
 " The need of money ain't the wust thing, after all," he said, 
 as he turned on his heel. " Here, she's got everything but the 
 man she wants. I guess Malvina and me needn't kick."
 
 A MYSTERIOUS VISIT. 149 
 
 Brent was awake when he came back, and seemed to be 
 much better, for he recognised Joe and was free from delir- 
 ium, though the fever still burned in his face. 
 
 " I am glad to see you better, sir," said Joe, cracking some 
 ice for his patient. " I dare say we will have you out in a few 
 days." 
 
 "I've been delirious again, Joe? " 
 
 "Well, yes, sir, you've been a bit out of your head. But 
 how did you know it? " 
 
 " Because it seemed to me, I half remember that in my 
 sleep I woke up and saw a woman kneeling here by the side 
 of my bed, and then and then she cried," and he looked at 
 the gay coverlet as if to see if there were traces of tears. 
 "And then she cried," repeated the sick man in a dazed sort 
 of way. "And then "hesitating. 
 
 " And then? " asked the other. 
 
 "And then she leaned over me and kissed me." 
 
 "Well, now, what a beautiful dream .'"said Joe, pounding 
 the ice with a great deal of noise. ' ' You'd ought to go to 
 sleep, sir, an' an' try to dream it all over again."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A BIT OF SOCIAL NEWS. 
 
 LIFE in Bolger's Court was not without variety. John Brent 
 spent the days of his convalescence in studying his neighbors. 
 The window of his room looked out on the court-yard, with its 
 fountain and dirty children, and its slatternly women going 
 and coming with pitchers of water all day. 
 
 They began chattering at an early hour and kept it up until 
 dusk. Then the pitchers had another mission to fulfil. 
 Most of them found their way into McGrogan's on the corner, 
 where they were filled up to the brim with beer or ale; and 
 many a shock-haired little messenger stopped to take a sly sip 
 on the way home with his precious burden. After Bolger's 
 Court had been supplied with liquids, the trouble began. 
 Residents who had spent many years in the dingy building 
 knew the meaning of those peculiar sounds thnt broke dis- 
 cordantly on the silent night. 
 
 Certain yells denoted that old man Bowker had come home 
 drunk, and was quarrelling with himself in the passage-way ; 
 still others, followed by blows, told the story to the inmates 
 that Mrs. Porter was being beaten by her lord and master. 
 
 It was generally three o'clock in the morning before the 
 sounds died away, and at five the Court was again ready for 
 business, and the bustle and noise were resumed. 
 
 Yet Brent was satisfied with his life, though he had hardly 
 been further than the corner since he came to live with the 
 Skerritts. It was so different from the existence he had been 
 leading that the novelty of his situation pleased him. All his 
 ambitions seemed to have gone from him. He did not care to 
 mix with the world again, or its people, who, he thovight, had 
 treated him so badly. He felt as if he could end his days in 
 Bolger's Court without a pang for the luxuries he had lost, if 
 time would only allow him to forget. Ah ! there was the rub 
 
 150
 
 A BIT OF SOCIAL NEWS. 151 
 
 if he could only forget ! Idleness gave him so much time to 
 think, and then his thoughts would all run one way of her. 
 
 The weeks went by and brought many changes to the Sker- 
 ritt household. The strikers still held out, and their ranks 
 were daily augmented by new recruits. The whole city was 
 in an uproar, and capitalists trembled for their property. The 
 manufactories were closed in and around the city, and the 
 labor organizations of the country had turned into the district 
 assemblies over a million in money. But this million was not 
 like the miraculous loaves and fishes, it could feed only so 
 many ; and provisions had never been so high as at the present 
 moment. 
 
 Joe Skerritt received only a dollar a week now from the dis- 
 trict treasurer, and he saw the savings he had scraped together 
 by hard toil melt away. It would be a long time now before 
 he should be able to marry Malvina, but he was as cheerful as 
 ever at home. 
 
 Brent, who had still considerable money left, from a Bolger's 
 Court point of view, found many opportunities of helping the 
 worthy people who had so unselfishly befriended him. A 
 shawl that Mrs. Skerritt needed, a delicacy for the table, 
 like tripe and onions, of which Joe was passionately fond, a 
 ribbon for Malvina in these simple ways he could easily give 
 them pleasure ; arid seldom were people more appreciative. 
 
 Yet often, as Brent watched Joe and Malvina together, he 
 lumbering and ungraceful in his attempts to play the lover, 
 she blushing and embarrassed under the fire of his glances, a 
 thought came over him as he stealthily watched them, a 
 thought of the dream he had come near realizing. The sight 
 of these two always set his mind wandering back to that world 
 he had lost, to that woman he wanted to forget. 
 
 Queer, indeed, were many of the characters that found shel- 
 ter in that mouldy tenement. The ranks of its lodgers were 
 recruited from every branch of life. The odds-and-ends of 
 society had found their way into Bolger's Court, and Brent 
 found food for thought in studying them and their peculiari- 
 ties. Old man Bowker he could not exactly make out. There 
 was something pathetic and yet repellent about the miserable 
 old gray-head. He might discuss the tariff question with you 
 in the morning, and howl ribald songs and swear all the after-
 
 152 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 noon. There was no placing any dependence on Bowker's 
 movements, and for that reason he never kept a place. How 
 he managed to keep big miserable old body out of the grave so 
 long, nobody could tell ; for when interrogated on the subject 
 of his business, he would say he was a speculator on Wall 
 Street, or turn off the question with some jest. It was evident 
 that he had a mysterious income of a few dollars a week from 
 some unknown source. Sober, he was an interesting though 
 not cultivated man to talk to, Brent found. Drunk, a fiend of 
 hell could not blaspheme so or exhibit such passions incarnate. 
 Even the inmates of Bolger's Court bolted their doors with 
 extra precaution the nights when Bowker was "on a bender." 
 
 It was six o'clock on a certain April evening that the Sker- 
 ritt family, including John Brent, sat down at the table to 
 discuss a ham bone and bread and tea. Joe was the only one 
 in the group who seemed at all disposed to talk, and talk he 
 would, in spite of the huge cubes of bread that passed in under 
 his moustache at regular intervals. 
 
 " Wot's the news, Joe?" asked Mrs. Skerritt, passing him a 
 cup of tea. "Is it so the shoemakers gave the police a hot 
 time last night?" 
 
 "Yes; an' I on'y wish I'd been there, that's all," said Joe. 
 "I'm never on hand for a good time, anyway. You see the 
 men was hangin' around the factory rather late at night, and 
 the perlice thought they were goin' to set fire to it, and tried 
 to drive 'em away. I hear three of the cops got their heads 
 broke in the scrap what followed." 
 
 "Oh, ain't that just awful," piped Malvina, who had a feel- 
 ing heart. 
 
 "Naw, serve 'em right. Nice workin'-gal you are, Malvina, 
 sidin' with the enemies of labor. I'm ashamed of ye; there 
 now ! " 
 
 "Well, they should ought to behave theirselves, them shoe- 
 makers," added his fiancee stoutly. 
 
 " Now, what do you women know about the rights of labor? " 
 
 " We knows that all we gets out of them 'ere strikes is mostly 
 starvation," said Mrs. Skerritt bluntly, wiping a plate vigor- 
 ously with a napkin. " I never knew nothin' good to come of 
 'em, anyway." 
 
 ' ' But ain't a feller's manhood got anything to do with it ? Do
 
 A SIT OF SOCIAL NEWS. 153 
 
 you want to see your own flesh and blood,'' with a sweep of 
 the arm that upset the pickle jar, " ground d@\vn beneath the 
 victorious hoofs of a degraded aristocracy ? " asked Joe. 
 
 "Bravo ! " said Brent, knocking on the table. " Why, Joe, 
 I did not know that you were such an orator." 
 
 " Well, them words is not exactly mine, sir," said Joe, half 
 apologetically ; " I heard em last week at the meeting of the 
 Reconstructionists at Hoskins. " 
 
 "The Reconstructionists?" asked the other; "why, I 
 thought you belonged to the regular Brotherhood of Labor? " 
 
 "Well, I do I thought I would try this other s'ciety on 
 the quiet, to see what they was up to. They's mostly made 
 up o' Socialists and sech. Lively times they have too at 
 their meetin's, particularly when the Rooshians gets up full of 
 beer they goes in for harsh measures towards the aristocracy ; 
 wants to fire their houses, and so on." 
 
 "Better keep out o ' such company, Joe," said his mother, 
 while Malvina cast a reproving glance. 
 
 " Oh, it don't hurt me none," said the young man cheerfully. 
 " They don't get Josie into any such scrape not much.'' 
 
 A timid tap at the door, and Mr. Bowker stood among them. 
 "I beg pardon for intruding," he said, half apologetically; " I 
 was going up-town, and I thought Joe might want to go along 
 to the meeting. I'll wait outside." 
 
 " No, you won't, "said Joe, with polite rudeness. " Sit down 
 and have a cup of tea," pushing Bowker into a chair that Mrs. 
 Skerritt had already dusted preparatory to his occupying it. 
 
 "How's Wall Street? " asked Joe ; for it was a joke with him 
 to say that whenever he met Mr. Bowker. 
 
 " I can say without any exaggeration," with a grim smile, 
 "that Wall Street is pretty nigh dead, Joe. There's nobody 
 buyin' stocks, and everyone wants to selj. What do you 
 think of Western Union down to sixteen? " 
 
 "I should say it meant ruin for somebody," said Brent, 
 looking up. "Where is this trouble going to end? It will 
 wreck the city." 
 
 "Let her go," said Bowker cheerfully. " I could sit on the 
 Tribune tower and fiddle like a second Nero, while she burnt ; 
 yes, and while some of the people in the city sizzled," he
 
 154 ^ SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 exclaimed, vehemently, while Malvina stared at him with 
 wild eyes, and let fall an " Oh! " 
 
 "Why, you do really give a body the shivers, Mr. Bowker," 
 said Mrs. Skerritt, holding up her hands. ' ' However can you 
 be so bloodthirsty, when you might die to-night with sech 
 words on your lips? " 
 
 "No, I ain't goin' to die jest yet awhile," said the old man, 
 firmly; " I ain't quite through, I ain't." 
 
 "You seem to know all about it," said Mrs. Skerritt; "I 
 suppose you've got the day down fine when ye're goin' to 
 die," sarcastically. 
 
 " After I square matters, then I'm ready to croak, but but 
 not before ; " and he turned around and looked out thought- 
 fully on the street, now full of dusky shadows. 
 
 The Skerritt family looked at each other knowingly, but 
 said nothing. Mrs. Skerritt shook her head and heaved a 
 sigh of great volume. It was evident to her mind that the old 
 man was not quite right in his head. 
 
 " You're not goin' to one o' them meetin's, are you, Joe? " 
 she asked a little anxiously, as her only hopeful gulped down 
 the rest of his tea and picked up his hat. 
 
 "Well, I was thinkin' of goin' with Mr. Bowker," Joe said, 
 a little sheepishly. " I won't be gone long," in response to 
 Malvina's reproachful glances. " It stirs a feller up to hear 
 them speakers." 
 
 "Yes, stirs up all the deviltry in ye," said his mother, 
 bluntly, as she prepared to wash the dishes. 
 
 " I'm sorry you're not in sympathy with the cause, Mrs. 
 Skerritt," said old man Bowker, turning around. 
 
 "The cause, I find, is generally rum," was the grim 
 response. 
 
 This rather floored Mr. Bowker, but he only said: " Well, if 
 I had a son, and such a likely lad as Joe, I'd be mighty glad if 
 he'd interest himself in the down-trodden and oppressed, and 
 in the upholding of the rights of man. n 
 
 " Bosh ! " said the sturdy matron ; " they can't uphold their- 
 selves without the aid of a lamp-post when they comes home 
 from them agitatin' meetings. I wish there wasn't no work- 
 ing-men's s'cieties in New York, I do," said Mrs. Skerritt, as
 
 A BIT OF SOCIAL NEWS. 155 
 
 she threw the ham-bone at the cat, who happened to be pass- 
 ing at that moment. 
 
 Mr. Bowker sighed as he rose, and shook his head : ' ' Perhaps 
 you wouldn't mind going along too, Mr. Brent? " 
 
 That young man looked up from the piece of yesterday's 
 paper he had been reading, and shook his head. 
 
 "I'm afraid, Mr. Bowker, I should be out of place among 
 the hard workers. I am an idler, you know, though it is more 
 from necessity than from anything else." 
 
 ''You're a victim, rather, of aristocratic tyranny," for Mr. 
 Bowker knew most of his story; "and your place ought to be 
 in our ranks. Yer heart's a working-man's, if ye do look like 
 you'd rolled out of Murray Hill. Come around and be stirred 
 up, as Joe says. " 
 
 "Yes, come," said young Mr. Skerritt, who had evidently 
 won Malvina over to his side in the interval, for she said 
 nothing about hid going. 
 
 Brent started up suddenly, as if a new thought had struck 
 him, something that excited his mind. "Certainly I'll go, 
 certainly," he exclaimed, rising hastily from the table and 
 looking about for his hat. "As you were saying, my place 
 is in the ranks of the Reconstructionists. " 
 
 Had the Skerritt family been curious, they might have won- 
 dered at the sudden change in their lodger, who seemed all 
 eagerness now to join Mr. Bowker and Joe. They were too 
 simple-minded to imagine that the piece of old newspaper was 
 in any way connected with his new decision. Yet a para- 
 graph in that greasy sheet had stirred up a host of memories. 
 It was these words in the society column that had caused 
 John Brent his sudden change of mind : 
 
 " The troubled condition of the city does not appall the stout 
 heart of Mr. John Tillinghurst, the eminent financier. We 
 learn that he is to give a ball on the twenty-first of this month, 
 at his residence on the corner of Forty-first Street and Fifth 
 Avenue, that will surpass even the glories of the old Vander- 
 bilt fete. It is given in honor of the approaching marriage of 
 his daughter, Miss Marcia Tillinghurst, to Captain Eivington 
 Shrike, the well-known member of the Argentine Club and 
 Captain of the First New York Hussars,"
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 BEFORE THE BALL. 
 
 A GRAY sky, changed into rain, was what Marcia Tillinghurst 
 looked out at, on the morning of the 21st of April. Spiteful 
 gusts of wind rattled the window-shutters, moaned at the 
 corners of the street, and hurried pedestrians along on their 
 way. She turned away again into the room and shivered, 
 though a fire was burning brightly in the grate, its flames 
 casting fantastic shad.ows on the walls. 
 
 It was not that dull, gray sky that had sent a chill to her 
 heart, nor the dolorous, dismal weather; it was because her 
 eyes fell upon a satin skirt that had been thrown carelessly 
 over the back of a chair, the seed-pearls in the embroidery 
 glistening in the light, the long white veil hanging over it like 
 a puff of smoke. 
 
 It was a part of her wedding-dress, and as her eyes fell on 
 the cream- white folds, she shuddered as though she had been 
 confronted by a spectre. She could hear the scurrying of 
 many feet in the great hall below, and the rattle of hammers. 
 The decorators, she knew, were at work on the walls, prepar- 
 ing for the ball in the evening. Above the noise and clatter 
 she heard her father's voice directing the workmen. After a 
 few moments he knocked at her door and entered. He looked 
 a little pale and worried, though he tried to conceal his ner- 
 vousness by appearing cheerful. 
 
 "I wish you would come down-stairs, Marsh," he said, look- 
 ing at her a little suspiciously. "I want you to see if these 
 fellows are doing things right. This affair's going to cost me 
 a pretty penny, and I don't want it to be a fizzle." 
 
 She did not seem to be paying any attention to his words, 
 but kept her eyes fixed on a pattern on the carpet. 
 
 " Why do you give this party? " she asked, at length. 
 
 "Well," he gasped, sinking into a chair, "that is a pretty 
 question to ask. I declare, Marsh, you do vex me sometimes, 
 
 156
 
 BEFORE THE BALL. 157 
 
 you really do. Why'do I give it? Why, in honor of your 
 marriage." 
 
 "In honor of my marriage?" she said slowly. 
 
 "That's what I said." 
 
 "There is no honor about it. It's a dishonor!" she ex- 
 claimed, with sudden vehemence. 
 
 Then, in a gentler mood, she went over to her father and 
 put her arm around his neck. He would not look at her ; he 
 could not. 
 
 "Papa." 
 
 " Well, Marsh? " his clear, business-like voice quavered. 
 
 " You've always been good to me." 
 
 " I've tried to." 
 
 ' ' And yet, for all that, you are willing to sacrifice me now 
 to give me to a man I can never love." 
 
 " But, dear, didn't I tell you? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," laying a hand on his lips. " I know you told 
 me that we should be ruined, that we were in Captain Shrike's 
 power, that we lived in the shadow of the sword, and that he 
 could ruin our lives. You have not told me what this secret 
 was, and I will not ask you ; but there must be some alterna- 
 tive. I would do anything to save you from harm, but the 
 price is so much to pay, my life, my youth, my happiness, 
 all ruined ; " she covered her face with her hands, and one 
 choking sob escaped her. "Listen, papa," she said; "let us 
 go away from here to some spot where no one will know us, 
 and where we can live in peace. If you have wronged any 
 one, make what reparation you can, and let us start fresh with 
 a clean page before us. Let Captain Shrike speak out ; we will 
 only laugh at him. At best, he can only rob us of money ; he 
 cannot take me away from you. We shall be together, and 
 can defy the world." She had spoken rapidly, and her cheeks 
 were flushed and her eyes were bright. 
 
 John Tillinghurst shook his head sadly. "You don't know 
 what you ask, Marsh. This man has it in his power to trample 
 me under foot, to make me an outcast and a pariah. Don't 
 think I haven't sorrowed for you and tried not to give up ; 
 but it's no use fighting such odds. Just think of all the years 
 I lived like a dog, and scrimped and starved and toiled to get 
 where I am now. Oh, you don't know what it is to ask a man
 
 158 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 to begin life again at my age, after fighting such a hard 
 fight." 
 
 "But it will all come out some day, this secret," she fal- 
 tered, " and then it will be too late; " and there was a moan 
 in her voice. 
 
 " But what do you object to in Captain Shrike? " 
 
 "Everything; I don't love him." 
 
 " Well, there is no saying that you won't. He's good-look- 
 ing, smart, and he loves you enough for both." 
 
 ' ' Ah, what does guch love amount to, when he would force 
 me into marrying him against my will." 
 
 " Well, that's the military in him. He wants you at any 
 price, even if he has to declare war. Come now, Marsh, be 
 reasonable. There's many a girl in Murray Hill would be glad 
 of a enhance to step into your boots ; now, make no mistake. 
 There's Fanny Pixley, who, I know, would give her eyes to be 
 Mrs. Captain." 
 
 She wrung her hands and made no reply. 
 
 " 1 couldn't back out now, Marsh, if I wanted to," he said 
 half apologetically; " all the invitations out and the trousseau 
 bought. Why, New York would never get over laughing at 
 me." 
 
 He looked at her curiously, as she did not answer, and 
 something like a wave of regret swept through his mind. He 
 came near her and stood for a moment looking at her with 
 downcast eyes. She was the figure of a sorrowing Niobe. 
 
 "You you ain't so very angry with me, now, are you, 
 Marsh?" he asked, reaching out a great pudgy hand, and 
 stroking her hair softly. 
 
 " No, papa," she said listlessly, avoiding his caress. 
 
 ' ' And you will come down in a bit and see to them decora- 
 tions?" 
 
 "Yes, papa." 
 
 "That's a good girl." 
 
 He kissed her on the forehead in a clumsy way, and slouched 
 out of the room, never looking back. If he had done so a 
 moment later, he would have seen his daughter kneeling by 
 the bed, her hands clasped over her face, convulsed in a 
 paroxysm of weeping. 
 
 How that dreary day passed she never knew exactly. She
 
 BEFORE THE BALL. 159 
 
 remembered going down-stairs for a few moments, and hearing, 
 half in a dream, her father's voice as he asked her advice about 
 decoration, and she remembered replying something; but that 
 was all. 
 
 She had tried to be calm, but there was too much despair in 
 her heart. This party given in her honor seemed to bring that 
 dreadful marriage-day so near that she could not think of it 
 without a shudder. Under the pretence of a headache, she 
 managed to escape to her room, away from her garrulous 
 father, with his clumsy efforts at sympathy. 
 
 When the evening came she dressed herself, and was sur- 
 prised to see how pale she looked. The dress had been ordered 
 for the occasion from Pingat, and was a marvel of white satin 
 and lace. She looked like a statue moulded out of snow when 
 she had put it on. It was ten o'clock, and the guests were be- 
 ginning to arrive when she came out of her room. The great 
 logs were burning in the open fire-place in the hall. She 
 stopped for a moment to warm her hands in the blaze, though 
 it was oppressively hot. Captain Shrike came in as she stood 
 there. 
 
 "You are shivering as if you had a chill, dear," he said, tak- 
 ing one of her hands in his. " Come now, this won't do, you 
 know. We shall have to have a dance, if only to warm you 
 up." 
 
 "I shall not dance to-night," bending again towards the 
 blaze, and putting one foot on the brass railing about the 
 fireplace. 
 
 " Not dance ! But but what will the guests think? " 
 
 "I do not care." 
 
 "Ah, well," biting his lip, for he had a quick temper, "do 
 as you please, Marcia; but it will only give everyone some- 
 thing to talk about. At least you ought to dance with me 
 once, considering circumstances." 
 
 "You will soon have it in your power to command me to 
 obey you," she said, bitterly. 
 
 He looked at her for some moments suspiciously. 
 
 " Marcia," and he seized her arm tightly, " I know why this 
 marriage is repugnant to you." 
 
 "Let me go; you are hurting my wrist," she said weakly. 
 
 " Not until you have heard me."
 
 160 -A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " Well, I am listening." 
 
 "You love this man. who calls himself Brent. I know it, I 
 read it in your eyes. You love him yet." 
 
 A slight flush passed over her pale face, her arm trembled 
 on his, but in a moment she had collected herself. 
 
 "You are a clairvoyant, Captain," with a light laugh. " Let 
 us join the guests. " 
 
 " She loves him; I know it," said Captain Shrike to himself, 
 as he led the way to the stairs. A seething noise came from 
 below, the babble of many voices. The rush had begun. 
 
 Marcia had recovered herself, and a slight flush of excite- 
 ment tinted her pale cheek a delicate rose. The captain 
 straightened himself up and gave his moustache an extra 
 twist. They passed the gauntlet of fashionable inspection, 
 looking the very beau ideal of a handsome and devoted pair, 
 as they entered the main hall leading to the ball-room. No 
 one could have known that anything had happened. 
 
 "So distinguished ! " said the ladies, referring to the captain. 
 
 "Lucky devil ! " said the men, looking at Marcia.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 MR. TILLINGHURST' s BALL. 
 
 Mr. TILLINGHURST stood leaning against the bronze Psyche 
 that held aloft a lantern of many colors, at the foot, of the 
 broad stairway, the lights from the colored glasses giving his 
 bald head a strange striped effect, and distorting his smiling 
 countenance into a fantastic expression as grotesque as a Greek 
 mask. 
 
 He had never in all his career had such a number of distin- 
 guished people under his roof before, and it was very likely 
 that he never would again, for a great many who secretly 
 scorned him had been drawn there that evening because there 
 was a gloom over society, and his ball was the only social 
 event at the time. Tillinghurst knew it top, perhaps, and 
 tried to get all the amusement he could by circulating freely 
 among the guests, with a word for everyone, and particularly 
 for those exclusive Knickerbocker ladies who he knew detested 
 him. 
 
 He was certainly entitled to some enjoyment on that occa- 
 sion, for he had spent his money without stint. A canopy of 
 glacier blue satin, looped up at intervals with silver stars, 
 transformed the three great parlors into a spacious tent, while, 
 the walls were hidden with flowers set close together in intri- 
 cate patterns, illuminated here and there by tulips and tiger 
 lilies of glass, in which electric lights were burning. The four 
 corners of the room were filled with banks of Gloire de Dijon 
 roses, in the midst of which tiny perfumed fountains sent up 
 their jewelled spray : while in the conservatory, close-hidden 
 by a small grove of lemon trees in bloom, a string band filled 
 the air with voluptuous melodies. Tillinghurst persuaded 
 himself, not without the aid of an occasional glass of amber 
 sherry during the evening, that he was a very happy man ; 
 that he was doing just the best thing in the world for Marcia's 
 happiness, though she might not be aware of the fact; and 
 11 161
 
 162 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 that he ought to be very proud of getting such a distinguished- 
 looking son-in-law. When, through the mazes of the crowd, 
 or the shifting changes of that kaleidoscopic gathering, he 
 came upon his daughter and saw how pale and cold and list- 
 less she looked, he felt very much like a coward, and sneaked 
 away from the sight of her mournful, reproachful eyes. But 
 he had gone too far now to retreat ; the marriage must and 
 should take place. 
 
 The guests there that night saw, in their smiling host, only 
 the counterfeit presentment of a prosperous self-made man, 
 whose millions gilded all his faul-ts and all his sins of omission. 
 But John Tillinghurst saw beyond the shifting, gay -colored 
 crowd that thronged his parlors. He saw a thin, ragged, 
 hungry-looking man, with a box on his back and another in 
 his hand, who toiled up steep stairs and prowled about dingy 
 offices and crawled home to a kennel late at night, where he 
 supped on stale bread and staler beer, and laid down to 
 troubled sleep. 
 
 As his memory went wandering back into the mazes of that 
 miserable by-way of his life, the broker shuddered, and he 
 took another turn through the parlors to assure himself that 
 he was really and truly the owner of the house, and not that 
 outcast of old. 
 
 What was it that had turned his thoughts towards those old 
 days which he had been so glad to bury ? Was it the sight of 
 Marcia's pleading eyes, or the bold face of Captain Shrike, his 
 son-in-law elect by compulsion, the man who held his future 
 in the hollow of his hand, who could drag him down to the old 
 level of misery and want ? 
 
 After such unpleasant memories Mr. Tillinghurst had again 
 recourse to the sherry. Why the devil did they keep rising 
 in his mind, on that evening above all others, when he wanted 
 to be gay and joyous, and get his money's worth of real 
 blooded society 1 
 
 He ran into Captain Shrike in the hall, and looked at him 
 curiously. 
 
 " Why don't you try to cheer Marcia up a bit ? " he asked. 
 ' ' Seems to me she's the only one in the place who is not hav- 
 ing a good time." 
 
 " The best way for me to cheer her up, I think," said the
 
 ME. TILLINGHURST^ S BALL. 103 
 
 captain grumpily, " is by not going near her. I left her with 
 Freddy Pixley when I found I couldn't get a word out of her 
 except yes or no." 
 
 " Oh, shell come round, never fear." 
 
 " It will take a long time, I am afraid. Tillinghurst, you 
 deceived me in this matter. You said the girl liked me, you 
 know you did." 
 
 "As a friend, certainly; but she's just as likely as not to 
 hate you as a husband. I tell you what, Shrike ; you don't 
 know how to court a girl ; now, when I was waiting on her 
 mother " 
 
 "Oh, bosh!" 
 
 " Well, anyhow, you must go slow. Marcia's had pretty 
 much her own way all her life, and she don't want to be 
 broken to harness in too great a hurry. She's high-strung, 
 and'll baulk every time. You military fellers are all fire and 
 fury. She'll come round, you mark my words." 
 
 " I hope so," said the captain slowly. "You, John Tilling- 
 hurst, have every reason to bring this match to a successful 
 issue." 
 
 The millionaire shivered. " I wish it was all over," he said, 
 and he meant it. 
 
 " And I too. I love her, Tillinghurst, and I'll do the best I 
 can for her. I may have forced you to give her to me, but I 
 had to have her at any cost. " 
 
 "I might have done worse," said the other doubtfully. 
 " It's the first time I ever forced her to do anything." 
 
 He left Shrike alone and passed on, glad to get away from a 
 subject that troubled his conscience. 
 
 In the hall a man in full dress, with sharp black eyes, 
 stopped to speak to him. 
 
 "I brought another man with me to-night," he said; 
 " thought there might be work for two." 
 
 "That's right, Dawkins, keep a look-out for the light-fin- 
 gered. There must be about two bushels of diamonds in the 
 room yonder. I never saw a crowd dance so much and enjoy 
 themselves so hearty. The people seem to be glad to get out 
 and have a good time, in spite of the labor troubles. A sneak 
 could make a good haul if he got up in the coat-room."
 
 164 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " Not so much fear about that as there is something else," 
 said Dawkins, significantly. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "Read that," handing a telegram; "I got it from police 
 headquarters as I came up here." 
 
 The millionaire laughed as he read it. 
 
 " Bosh! " he exclaimed, tossing it back; " I have heard that 
 rumor before." 
 
 "But I believe it," said the detective, calmly. 
 
 " What would you have me do ? Dismiss the guests ? Get 
 up before them ah 1 and announce that Fifth Avenue is 
 besieged, and that they must fly for their lives ? Well, that 
 is a good joke ! " and he laughed uproariously. 
 
 "We shall see something," said the detective, significantly, 
 as he moved away. "And you cannot blame me if there is 
 trouble, Mr. Tillinghurst ; you have been warned in time." 
 
 The millionaire shrugged his shoulders, and returned to the 
 ball-room with a smile 011 his face, but with a strange sinking 
 sensation in his heart. He had seen the clouds hovering over 
 the city before this ; were they about to break in storm and 
 lightning ? 
 
 He did not think of his personal safety ; that was last in his 
 thoughts; but he knew that an outbreak of the people meant 
 ruin for all his enterprises, wreckage of all his schemes. In 
 vain he mingled among his guests and tried to speak cheer- 
 fully; the words of the detective had strangely disquieted 
 him. He searched for Dawkins, but that worthy had disap- 
 peared, leaving only his words behind him to rankle. 
 
 " You haven't told us where .you are going for your wedding 
 tour," said Fanny Pixley, who was one of the groTip sur- 
 rounding Marcia in a corner of the room. . "Don't think of 
 Europe! Some friends of mine tried the trip, and they got 
 so disgusted with each other on the way over that they ap- 
 plied for a divorce on arriving in Liverpool." 
 
 "I haven't thought of the matter at all," said Marcia, 
 slowly. Her head ached, and she would have been glad to 
 have escaped from Fanny's chatter. 
 
 "Why, I should think that would be the very first thing 
 you would think of," piped Miss Pixley, little thinking of the 
 pain she was unconsciously inflicting. ' ' I am sure if I had
 
 MR. TILLINGUURST'S HALL. 165 
 
 such a pretty lot of dresses as you have, I should want to go 
 to some real gay place to show them off. I wonder how it is 
 that people are always able to tell a newly-married couple. 
 It must be dreadfully embarrassing, don't you think so? " 
 
 But Marcia did not want to think of anything about that 
 dreadful marriage that hung over her like a sword of Damo- 
 cles. She was even glad when the garrulous Mrs. Wilton 
 came tripping forward on General Beaton's arm, wonderfully 
 clad in orange and purple brocade, that gave her a barbaric 
 appearance. 
 
 "AAV don't know when aw've enjoyed a ball so much, my 
 deah Miss Tillinghurst," twittered the widow. "It reminds 
 me of the birthday party given in my honor at Belair, when I 
 danced the cotillon with Lord Oxenford." 
 
 " How long ago was that, Mrs. Wilton? " asked Fanny Pix- 
 ley, who detested her, and never lost an opportunity of say- 
 ing something disagreeable. 
 
 "When was it?" repeated Mrs. Wilton, slowly. As she 
 was making the story out of the whole cloth, it took her some 
 time to think. "Ah Ah was a mere child at the time," she 
 said, hesitatingly. "Ah think about eighteen. Just ten 
 years ago," with a simper. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Wilton!" exclaimed Fanny, with an expression 
 of mock dismay. 
 
 "What, child?" 
 
 " You said only last night that you didn't come to Belair 
 to live until you were twenty-two." 
 
 Mrs. Wilton looked as if she would like to throttle Miss 
 Pixley then and there, but she contented herself by say- 
 ing: "Ah never was much at remembering dates, anyway, 
 but I have got everything down in my diary at home. " 
 
 "Everything?" asked Fanny, significantly. "Oh, now, 
 my dear Mrs. Wilton, I do hope you will let me see it. I 
 should think it would be dangerous for a woman to trust 
 everything to a little book." 
 
 Mrs. Wilton looked at her so viciously that Fanny paused 
 in dismay. 
 
 "General," said the widow, turning to her gray-haired 
 slave at her elbow, "I dare say you have not forgotten that 
 delightful night at Belair."
 
 166 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 "It could not be forgotten," said the general. "I have 
 described the occasion in my book, ' Social Life in the South.' 
 You must really let me send you a copy, Miss Tillinghurst." 
 
 Marcia, who had only caught a word here and there of the 
 conversation, thanked him. 
 
 "Ah, those were palmy days," sighed Mrs. Wilton. 
 
 "I think," pursued the general, "that my book will be 
 found a great help to society people up north, in suggesting 
 amusements of an interesting character." 
 
 "You ought to be able to give us some points in flirtation, 
 General," said Fanny Pixley, with a significant look at the 
 widow. ' ' Southern men have such a reputation as lady- 
 killers." 
 
 The general paid no attention except to scowl. " This ball, 
 Miss Tillinghurst," he continued, "is the most tasteful that 
 I have attended this winter. It really it really compares 
 favorably with those I have attended in Charleston," with 
 overwhelming emphasis. 
 
 "It's very kind of you to say that, General Seaton," said 
 Marcia feebly, wishing she was in bed. " Papa was very 
 anxious that it should be a success. " 
 
 Why did they not go away and bore some one else? 
 
 "And there is supper," exclaimed the widow, who had a 
 rare faculty for being able to scent a dinner through a key- 
 hole, and now was all impatience to descend on the viands. 
 
 Mrs. Wilton's scent was correct, for in a moment the folding- 
 doors on the opposite side of the hall were thrown open, dis- 
 closing a long table, glittering with cut glass, and gold and 
 silver plate, while on either side two rows of stolid men in 
 black stood in dignified repose. 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilton, overcome with rapture ; and 
 she dragged the general away, just as he was launching forth 
 into an eloquent description of a book he had written or was 
 going to write or something ; and she never let him go until 
 he had found her a seat near the boar's head, whose gilt tusks 
 shone diabolically at one end of the table. 
 
 Marcia was glad of the respite, and took Captain Shrike's 
 arm almost with a sense of pleasure when he came towards 
 her. " You will think me very rude for not dancing with you
 
 MR. TILLlNGriUIiST'S BALL. 167 
 
 this evening," she said, half apologetically, "but my head 
 aches terribly. " 
 
 " I thought you did not look well," he said kindly. " I dare 
 say this noise and worry were too much for you." 
 
 The crowd, weary of the dance, surged into the great dining- 
 room, and filled its every nook and corner with glistening 
 silks and satins and oily-looking broadcloths. The clatter of 
 dishes and clashing silver, the popping of corks, and the 
 gurgling- of pouring wine drowned the sounds of ordinary con- 
 versation. 
 
 Mrs. Wilton, safely ensconced near the head of the table, 
 kept three waiters attending to her wants. As Freddy Pixley 
 remarked, " The camel is laying in a supply; " and certainly 
 her stowage capacity seemed unlimited. 
 
 As soon as the wines made their appearance, Captain Shrike 
 drank early and often, and was soon in such a pleasant frame 
 of mind that he did not notice whether Marcia sulked or not. 
 He was chatting noisily with Fanny Pixley, and some of his 
 stories, related in rather a loud voice, caused some of the 
 genuine old Dutch descendants who sat opposite to him to 
 seek refuge in smelling-salts very frequently, and to regard 
 him" with looks of refined horror. 
 
 Shrike was just reaching for his fifth glass of champagne, 
 when the distant booming of cannon was heard, and the sound 
 of fire-arms. 
 
 Tillinghurst, who was raising a glass of wine to his lips, 
 turned deadly pale, and let it fall with a crash on to his plate, 
 where it shattered noisily. 
 
 The eyes of every one were turned on him wonderingly. 
 What was the trouble? He was quivering as if in a fit. Just 
 at that moment a noise was heard in the hall. Dawkins, 
 spattered with mud and-dressed as a common laborer, pushed 
 by the frightened flunkeys and stood before the astounded 
 guests. 
 
 " Go home while there is time," he cried, hoarsely. "Lock 
 yourselves in. The police have been overpowered, and the 
 mob is .hurrying towards Murray Hill ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXHL 
 
 THE LAST IN THE DINING-ROOM. 
 
 IF the detective had announced that the house was about to 
 fall and overwhelm them, he could not have struck more 
 terror into the hearts of that brilliant gathering. The words 
 had scarcely left his lips when a mad rush was made for the 
 doors. The agonized screams of the women as they were 
 trampled under foot by the men, and the noise of breaking 
 glass and falling furniture, were a fit accompaniment to that 
 wild stampede. 
 
 All sense of friendship was forgotten in the struggle. The 
 great table, with its weight of crystal and plate, was over- 
 turned, and littered the Persian rugs with a glittering debris. 
 The candelabras, broken on the floor, poured little rivulets of 
 fire through the fallen mass, and one end of the satin table- 
 cloth burned slowly where it had caught flame from a candle. 
 
 In two minutes the room was clear of people. Only a satin 
 slipper here and there, a shred of blood-stained lace, a crushed 
 bouquet, or a gleaming jewel, told the story of the struggle that 
 had taken place. 
 
 Still John Tillinghurst stood at the head of the table, his eyes 
 half closed, as if unconscious of the terrible scene that had just 
 occurred, just as he had stood when the distant booming of the 
 cannon had sent that dreadful chill to his heart. He was like 
 a man in a dream, so still, so calm he stood in the midst of 
 that glittering ruin the broken glass and the gold and silver 
 plate, the crushed, wine-drenched flowers, the candles burning 
 smokily on the floor, and filling the dim-lit cavernous room 
 with a misty blue vapor. 
 
 Some one touched him on the arm, and then he started with 
 a sudden gasp of fear. 
 
 Marcia stood before him, pale as a spectre, her hair falling 
 loosely about her face, where it had escaped its fastenings, her 
 
 168
 
 THE LAST IN THE DINING-ROOM. 169 
 
 hands bleeding where she had been trampled down among the 
 broken bits of glass from the table. 
 
 He looked at her as if he had never seen her before. 
 
 "Come, "she said, huskily, clutching at his sleeve. "You 
 must not stay here. You have enemies in that mob. They 
 would kill you if they found you." 
 
 " Where is Shrike? " he asked, slowly. 
 
 " Gone gone like the rest.'' 
 
 "Coward ! " muttered the old man between his teeth. 
 
 "But hurry, papa," she urged, trying to rouse him up; 
 "hurry; there is no time to be lost. A few moments and it 
 may be too late." 
 
 "Do you think I'm afraid o' those curs?" he muttered. 
 " Why, I'll make 'em get down and lick the dust for this. See 
 if I don't. I own a thousand of 'em, and they shall pay me 
 back in blood ; " and his eyes glittered with that ominous light 
 which his enemies knew so well meant mischief. 
 
 " But we must not waste, time here," Marcia urged, trying 
 to drag him away towards the door. " Nothing you could say 
 would make any impression on these infuriated men. They 
 want your life, and they will have it. Oh, come before it is 
 too late ! " 
 
 "I built this house with my money," he growled stubbornly. 
 " I can't give it up for those devils to ruin. You go, Marcia, 
 and don't be afraid of me. I'll stick here as long as there's a 
 stone left in the walls ; and let 'em come on, damn 'em, if they 
 will." 
 
 Marcia was ready to faint with despair. She kneeled down 
 weakly at his feet, leaning against a corner of the overturned 
 table to keep herself from falling. 
 
 " Then I will stay here and die with you," she said, in a fal- 
 tering though determined voice. 
 
 He looked at her doubtfully in his stupid way. 
 
 "No you you mustn't. They're a rough lot, and they 
 might not respect a woman. Go, Marcia, and leave me to 
 face these devils alone. I've done it before, and by God, I can 
 do it again," setting his teeth together in the old vicious way. 
 
 " I will only go with you, papa. Oh, rouse yourself," shak- 
 ing him by the arm ; " there is still time for us to get away."
 
 170 -I SLAVE OF 
 
 She crawled over to the window and threw up the curtain. 
 A bright moonlight filled that strange disordered room with 
 its weird light. She opened the window and looked out on 
 the street. It was silent as a street in a dead city, only from 
 the direction of down-town came an occasional sound of fire- 
 arms and the rattle of drums. The sky was tinged an omi- 
 nous red from burning buildings. To Marcia it looked like a 
 sea of blood. 
 
 She closed the window again and turned to her father. He 
 had not moved, standing as still as if stupefied. She crawled 
 over to the buffet, the only piece of furniture that had not 
 been overturned in the struggle, and poured out half a glass 
 of brandy from the decanter. He drank it greedily, and then 
 for the first time a slight flush came back into his pale cheeks. 
 
 " Are they coming? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes, in a moment they will be here," she cried. "There 
 is not a moment to be wasted. Come," she said, half support- 
 ing him; " we shall escape yet." 
 
 " Yes, yes, Marsh, we will go," murmured the old man. 
 "Hurry, hurry!" she cried, urging him on. "Did you 
 hear that? " as a defiant yell only a few blocks away sent a 
 shudder to her heart. " If they find us here it means death." 
 
 Half supporting and half pushing him, for Mr. Tilling- 
 hurst acted like one palsied, they made their way slowly and 
 painfully over the disordered floor, with its broken plate and 
 ragged bits of cut glass. 
 
 The terror of the situation gave strength to the weak, al- 
 most fainting girl. It was not so much her own life she 
 feared to jeopardize, but his, this father who would have given 
 her over shamelessly to the arms of a man she loathed. They 
 had made their way painfully towards the door leading out 
 into the hall, when Marcia started back with a cry of dismay. 
 
 A man dressed in greasy overalls and a juniper, his face 
 smudged with lamp-black, stood in the hall surveying them 
 calmly, silently. 
 
 Marcia shrank away as he advanced. A feeling of faintness 
 came over her. Her brain seemed on fire as she clutched 
 blindly at the wall to keep herself from falling. Still the 
 man advanced towards them.
 
 THE LAST IN THE DINING-ROOM. 171 
 
 " Don't be alarmed, Miss," he said huskily; "I've come to 
 save you both." 
 
 Marcia's heart gave a glad leap. 
 " You you here, John Brent? " 
 " Yes; who else should be with you now? " he said.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 IT was no time for either Brent or Marcia to be sentimental. 
 From the street they could hear the hoarse shouts of the 
 mob and the tramp of many feet. To linger, even for a 
 moment, in the house meant certain death. 
 
 " We must leave the house at once," said Brent, authorita- 
 tively. "Your father seems stupefied here, let me help 
 you. " He thrust Marcia aside and then took hold of the old 
 man's arm. " To the roof," he said to Marcia, pointing up- 
 stairs; " it is our only M)pe." 
 
 She went on ahead, only stopping now and then to turn her 
 head to look back at her father, expecting every moment to 
 see the furious mob pour in the doorway and call to them to 
 stop. Brent's presence, however, gave her new courage, 
 though he seemed to avert his eyes every time she tried to 
 look him straight in the face. Now that he was there to help 
 her father along, they made rapid progress. Tillinghurst still 
 seemed loath to leave his home, but Brent firmly but kindly 
 urged him on for his daughter's sake, and he obeyed reluc- 
 tantly. They had reached the fourth floor in safety, when a 
 howl was heard from the street in front of the house, and the 
 stamping of many feet and the rattle of fire-arms. 
 
 "Quick quick!" cried Brent, pushing Mr. Tillinghurst up 
 the short flight of steps leading to the skylight. Marcia could 
 not lift the trap, it was so heavy. Brent, as he helped her, 
 touched her hands by mistake, and started visibly. 
 
 Did he hate her so, she wondered? 
 
 They had just gained the roof, and closed and fastened the 
 trap, when a howl of rage from the mob in the street as- 
 sured them that the house had been vacated just in time. 
 
 From their high place on the roof, the fugitives saw down 
 the street a seething mass of humanity waving torches and 
 screaming 'hoarsely, while the sound of breaking glass told,
 
 THE ESCAPE. 173 
 
 the story that they were smashing the windows of the houses 
 they passed by. 
 
 Tillinghurst was trembling fearfully, and Brent made haste 
 to hurry his charges away from the sight of the crowd in the 
 street. In the direction of Madison Square they saw that 
 the air was filled with sparks from burning buildings, and 
 that all the sky was tinted a deep, lurid red. 
 
 They made their way with difficulty over the uneven roofs, 
 and several times Marcia came near falling, if Brent had not 
 been there to lend her assistance, though he had his hands full 
 in taking care of her father. 
 
 So, by painful degrees, they made their way over the house- 
 tops until they reached the corner of Sixth Avenue, and stood 
 now on the top of a small French flat that had been lately 
 built, and was still in an unfinished condition. Brent, who 
 seemed to be perfectly familiar with the ground, led them 
 down through the trap in the roof to the top floor of the build- 
 ing. At the end of the hall a fire-escape led into a narrow 
 court, littered with lumber and a debris of building material. 
 
 " Can you go down that ladder alone, do you think? " Brent 
 asked Marcia. " It is our only chance." 
 
 "I will try," she said; and though trembling all over from 
 the effects of the recent excitement, she commenced to cau- 
 tiously make the perilous descent, while Brent watched her 
 eagerly. 
 
 " When are we going home? " asked Mr. Tillinghurst feebly; 
 and Brent was reminded that he had a still greater charge on 
 his hands to care for. 
 
 " Soon, very soon, I hope," the young man tried to say cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 If the millionaire had been taking a narcotic he could not 
 have acted in a more stupefied way than he did. 
 
 Brent shook him rather forcibly by the arm : ' ' We must go 
 down that ladder," pointing to the fire-escape; " do you think 
 you are strong enough to make the effort? " 
 
 "I I I'll try, John," he said, feebly. 
 
 Brent took a rope out of his coat pocket, and making a noose 
 out of it, slipped it over Mr. Tillinghurst's arms, and then fast- 
 ened it securely to his own waist. With a few soothing and 
 comforting words, he persuaded the old man to attempt thy
 
 174 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 descent. A moving white figure at the bottom of the ladder 
 assured him that Marcia was safe, but was watching them 
 anxiously. 
 
 How long it took to go down that ladder! To Brent it 
 seemed hours. Twice Tillinghurst slipped, and would have 
 fallen if the rope securely tied to Brent's waist had not saved 
 him from a terrible death on the flagging below . 
 
 Marcia gave a sigh of relief as the two black figures, clinging 
 like giant flies to the narrow ladder, came nearer and nearer, 
 and at last stood beside her. 
 
 Brent, who had evidently arranged everything beforehand, 
 dragged out of the great rain-spout that ran down the side 
 of the flat a long black mantle, with a hood, and a pair of felt 
 slippers. 
 
 " Put these on," he said to Marcia; "your ball dress would 
 attract attention, and we are not out of danger yet." 
 
 The white satin slippers, embroidered with seed-pearls, were 
 exchanged for the more homely ones of gray felt. Brent pre- 
 tended to hide the ones she had taken off in a box of shavings 
 near by, but he found a chance to slip one of them into his 
 pocket, as Marcia was wrapping herself up in the cloak. 
 
 The old broker had no hat on his head, so Brent took off the 
 greasy Kossuth he was wearing, and put it on Tillinghurst's 
 head, turning up the collar of the old man's dress suit at the 
 same time, and pinning it securely together at the throat. 
 
 In that uncertain light no one would have been able to recog- 
 nize the millionaire and his daughter ; and, to aid their flight, 
 a heavy fog had arisen that made even common objects indis- 
 tinct. 
 
 Thus equipped they set out, Brent holding on to the broker 
 to help him along, with Marcia, on the other side of her father, 
 trying, weak as she was, to aid his uncertain footsteps. The 
 streets through which they passed were silent and deserted; 
 only from the direction of Murray Hill came hoarse cries and 
 the occasional sound of firing. 
 
 "This isn't the way home, is it?" asked Mr. Tillinghurst, 
 querulously. 
 
 " Yes, yes," Brent replied; "it takes longer to get there on 
 account of the fog."
 
 THE ESCAPE. 175 
 
 The old man mumbled as if he had some doubts about the 
 matter. 
 
 So they led him along down the avenue, as if he had been a 
 wayward child; and only now and then he stopped to express 
 a fear that they had lost their way ; but a few words readily 
 soothed him. 
 
 The fog was so thick when the little party at last arrived at 
 Fourteenth Street, opposite Macy's, that Brent could hardly 
 see the outlines of the elevated station. 
 
 They made their way east now, as cautiously and as silently 
 as possible, for the red blots in the mist warned them that they 
 were approaching a dangerous neighborhood. Union Square 
 was one of the rally ing-places of the mob, Brent knew; but he 
 was in hopes that they had by this time scattered to the upper 
 part of Fifth Avenue, where their field of vengeance lay. 
 
 The red spots in the mist grew brighter as they neared the 
 square, but whether the light proceeded from bonfires or from 
 torches in the hands of the rioters, Brent could only speculate. 
 
 Crossing University Place, some black object came lurching 
 along through the mist, and ran straight into them. 
 
 A man rather uncertain in his steps and dressed in a long 
 cloak looked at them and then swore mildly. Slung across 
 his shoulder he had a gun, which -wobbled so in his nervous 
 fingers that it looked as if it might fall at any moment and 
 explode. 
 
 " Wash dish? " he exclaimed, unsteadily laying one hand on 
 Brent's shoulder, and trying to keep his head steady enough to 
 look at the young man. "Why ze deveil ain't you up-to\vn 
 shtead o' mousin' round here, heh?" lurching forward heavily. 
 "Heh?" 
 
 ' ' Well, you see, my family followed me out on the barri- 
 cades," said Brent, with a laugh, " and I'm getting them 
 home. " 
 
 " Right ye be, ole man," roared the other, " No place for old 
 folks when patriots lay out despots. But who'sh girl? " look- 
 ing at Marcia curiously; "who'sh gal? she ain't ole folk'sh 
 not by damn side she ain't ole folk'sh." 
 
 He reeled forward as if he wanted to put his arm around 
 her, but Brent interposed in a good-natured way.
 
 176 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 ' ! Here here, fair play!" he said; "that's my wife;" and 
 Marcia little knew the pain the words cost him to utter. 
 
 "Your wife, eh? Well, all I got to shay is, you got bully 
 
 good taste; if you haven't, d me. But shay," getting his 
 
 arm affectionately about Brent's neck; "you get your folksh 
 home as soon as you can, for there's goin' to be a high old time 
 Tip the avenue, pretty soon. The boys is went up there to drag 
 old Tillinghurst out of his cage an' an' when they get him, 
 they're they're goin' to make him eat that notice about not 
 takin' strikers back, and then they're goin' to to 
 
 " Oh, I'll be there," interrupted Brent, with a laugh, fearing 
 that Tillinghurst, who seemed to wake up at the sound of his 
 name, would betray them. 
 
 "But what's .matter wish ole man? " asked the sentry, look- 
 ing suspiciously at the old broker. 
 
 "Oh, never mind him," Brent returned; "little gone up 
 here," tapping his forehead significantly. 
 
 " I see I see," mumbled the other. " Shay, you don't hap- 
 pen to carry a flask, do you? Thish patriotism is might' dry 
 worksh." 
 
 " I've got what is just as good," said Brent, laying a silver 
 dollar in the man's dirty palm. 
 
 " Come along," cried tha't worthy, dragging Brent along by 
 the arm. ' ' We'll go and fill up at Mrs. Muggins' an' an' 
 then we'll go and see the aristocrats burn; yes, see 'em burn." 
 
 " Not to-night, old man," said Brent, gently; " I have to get 
 my folks home; but I will see you later. Go and drink on me 
 to tne success of the cause. '' 
 
 "I'll drink to anything," said the inebriate, staggering 
 away. "Now, you come back," he bawled through the fog; 
 " for I'll wait for ye; " and then the mist blotted him out. 
 
 "A narrow escape," gasped Brent, as he hurried them 
 along. " If I am not much mistaken we have passed the worst 
 danger." 
 
 At the corner of Third Avenue Marcia started with a cry of 
 fear. The body of a man was swinging to-and fro from a 
 lamp-post. Brent hastily dragged the fainting girl away from 
 the terrible sight. They hurried down the avenue as rapidly 
 as they could now. The fog had turned from a dull gray to a 
 sickly yellow, and they knew that the morning was slowly
 
 THE ESCAPE. 177 
 
 breaking. Marcia and Brent felt a great sense of relief when 
 they finally turned down the familiar little side-street and 
 came in sight of the black blot they knew was Bolger's Court. 
 
 For once the dingy old rookery was silent, and if the dirty 
 entrance had not been so familiar, Brent might have imagined 
 that he had lost his way and strayed into the wrong house. 
 Every one in the place apparently, including the noisy Mr. 
 Bowker, had rushed to the centre of the excitement on upper 
 Fifth Avenue. Brent could not have chosen a better retreat 
 for his friends, for no one would have thought of finding the 
 millionaire and his daughter under the same roof that shel- 
 tered their enemies. 
 
 Kindly-faced Mrs. Skerritt was standing on the first land- 
 ing, shading a candle with one hand, as the fugitives entered. 
 
 "I was afraid something had happened to ye," she said, 
 looking at the two critically. ' ' Dear, dear, but these is terri- 
 ble times ; and to think that my Joe should be mixed up in it ! 
 Ah, Miss, it's a sorry day for ye's all ; I'm afraid them villains 
 won't leave a stone of yer beautiful house standin'." 
 
 " Never mind about the house, Mrs. Skerritt," said Marcia, 
 hastily. " I'm not so worried about that as I am about my 
 father." 
 
 "And what might ail the poor gentleman?" holding her 
 light near the old man's face. " Is he sick? " 
 
 "Yes, the shock has been too much for him; a few days' 
 rest with proper care is all he needs. Have you any place 
 you can put us? " 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Brent saw to that," exclaimed Mrs. Skerritt, as 
 she led the way up the stairs ; ' ' and as I told him, he couldn't 
 have been more particular if he was bringin' home a bride." 
 
 Luckily the light was so dim that Brent could not see the 
 tell-tale blush that rose to Marcia's cheek. 
 
 The limited resources of the court, always crowded, had 
 been severely taxed to accommodate the expected guests. 
 Brent had expended quite a sum of money out of his limited 
 store in fixing up his room, which Marcia was to occupy, in a 
 suitable manner. And Joe's room, where her father was to 
 lodge, had received the same decorative treatment. 
 
 Marcia, as soon as she crossed the threshold of Brent's room, 
 knew the hand that had exhibited such taste in covering up 
 12
 
 178 ^ SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 the ghastly walls and transforming it into a cosy nest ; and 
 her conscience smote her at every fresh evidence of his unself- 
 ish kindness. 
 
 "I wanted to say," said Brent, as he paused for a moment in 
 the corridor before leaving her, ' ' that I will sit up with your 
 father; he might get worse during the morning and need 
 a doctor. If you need anything, Mrs. Skerritt is easy to 
 awake." 
 
 " I don't think I ought to trouble you so much, Mr. Brent," 
 said Marcia, keeping her eyes on the ground. "You you 
 have done already more than we had reason to expect." 
 
 "I will say good- night," he added coldly, not noticing how 
 tremulous her voice was. " If your father is worse I will take 
 the liberty of rapping on your door ; " preparing to go. 
 
 She made a step towards him, then paused and hesitated : 
 "You you will at least let me thank you for what you have 
 done." 
 
 "Certainly! Good-night;" how harsh his voice sounded! 
 
 "Good-night," she said, with lingering emphasis. 
 
 His footsteps echoed down the corridor. 
 
 " What a wretch I am! " she sobbed, when she found herself 
 in her room again. " He will never forgive me never! "
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE GUESTS AT BOLGER'S COURT. 
 
 THE latest news from the siege of Fifth Avenue reached Bol- 
 ger's Court. Mrs. Skerritt, in her trips back and forth to the 
 fountain in the court-yard for water, heard everything that 
 was of interest from the slatternly women whose husbands 
 were with the mob and guarding the barricades. 
 
 Marcia was regaled with a detailed description of every- 
 thing that had happened during the night. The entire avenue, 
 from Madison Square to Central Park, was in the hands of the 
 mob, who had barricaded the side-streets against the approach 
 of other forces, with furniture looted from the houses. The 
 rage of the rioters seemed centred on Fifth Avenue, because 
 some of the richest manufacturers and capitalists, like Tilling- 
 hurst, lived there ; and the neighbors of these nabobs had to 
 suffer with them, though for no fault of their own. A dis- 
 crimination, however, was shown in the houses to be sacked ; 
 for those marked out for vengeance had each been labelled the 
 night before with a cross in red chalk, a sign of the Recon- 
 structionists ; and, except for breaking the windows, the other 
 houses were spared. 
 
 In order to arm the mob, the various armories of the city 
 regiments had been pillaged, and the fire-arms distributed 
 among the men. The military power of the city was crippled, 
 and the citizens made only a few feeble attempts to rescue 
 the unhappy people on the avenue. 
 
 So far the mob had sacrificed only a few lives. A police- 
 sergeant who had charged the rioters at the head of a squad of 
 blue-coats had been shot down ; and a capitalist who refused 
 to allow his house to be pillaged had been promptly hung from 
 a lamp-post ; but his wife and family had been allowed to leave 
 unmolested. 
 
 Even the rioters themselves knew that they could not hold 
 the street very long ; but a thirst for vengeance against their 
 
 179
 
 180 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 oppressors, and the calls of hunger, had driven them into this 
 mad undertaking, and they were enjoying their triumph, even 
 if it was only to be of short duration. 
 
 John Brent's time was so occupied looking after his guests 
 that the events of the siege troubled him very little. Mr. Til- 
 linghurst had been delirious all night, and a doctor was found 
 necessary. He had babbled of strange things during his ill- 
 ness, and once or twice Brent had heard his own name men- 
 tioned in connection with certain circumstances which set him 
 wondering. 
 
 Sitting there, in the dimly lighted room, waiting for the 
 morning, the rich man's talk served to keep him awake. He 
 found himself piecing together the bits of the strange story as 
 they fell from the old man's lips. Each new sentence spoken 
 during the delirium only verified Brent's fears that the help- 
 less man who lay before him, tossing with the fever, was the 
 one who had robbed him of his inheritance. He might have 
 forgiven the loss of the money, but he could not forgive the 
 loss of the woman he loved. 
 
 He saw it all now clearly, as he walked up and down that 
 narrow room with quick, nervous strides. Captain Shrike had 
 in some way come into possession of the broker's secret, and 
 had used it to force a marriage with Marcia. It was a great 
 sense of relief to Brent to learn that, after all, she had been 
 driven to act as she did, and that it was not of her own free 
 will. 
 
 What if she still loved him? But no! that was too much 
 happiness for him to expect. Yet, somehow, the old love 
 revived within him in all its intensity, and he felt a fresh 
 hope rise in his heart. 
 
 He was in a happier mood than he had experienced since 
 the day he turned away from her door in despair. 
 
 About ten o'clock in the morning Marcia came in, and see- 
 ing how pale Brent looked, insisted on relieving him. 
 
 " Did papa talk much during his delirium? " she asked, a little 
 afraid lest Brent might have learned the secret that had been 
 the cause of all the misery. 
 
 " A great deal," said Brent evasively, " but so brokenly as 
 to be almost unintelligible. The doctor says he will pull 
 through all right as soon as this fever leaves him. I will go
 
 THE GUESTS AT BOLGER'S COURT. 181 
 
 and see if breakfast is not ready. You must need something 
 strengthening after the adventures of last night." 
 
 She let him go without another word. There was some- 
 thing in the quiet way he went about ministering to her com- 
 fort, that could not be paid with mere thanks. She was awed 
 by the magnanimous spirit that could suffer as he had suffered, 
 without a word of reproach for the one who had caused all 
 the misery. Why did he look at her in that cold, unrelenting 
 way, whenever their eyes met? Had she not suffered too on 
 account of that wretched marriage affair? 
 
 Mrs. Skerritt bustled into the room in a few moments with 
 the breakfast, and Marcia, who was faint from the occurrences 
 of the past twelve hours, was glad of even such plain fare as 
 Bolger's Court provided. 
 
 "Has Mr. Brent gone out?" she asked, when Mrs. Skerritt 
 had arranged the breakfast on the table. 
 
 "I think he did, Miss. Did you want him for anything? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no," hastily. 
 
 " 'Cause I think he's stepped around to the market to get 
 some beef to make beef -tea for your father, as the doctor 
 ordered. Oh, he's a rare one for lookin' after other people's 
 wants, is Mr. Brent. My Joe says there ain't another like him 
 in the world ; " and the good woman's face lit up with enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 " He has a kind heart," said Marcia, simply, pleased and yet 
 pained as she listened to Mrs. Skerritt's praise. 
 
 " Well, I should say so. If all the aristocrats was built out 
 of the same stuff as him, we wouldn't be havin' these strikes 
 nor anything like the troubles we're swimmin' in now ; " and 
 so she rattled on for some moments, until the arrival of the 
 doctor cut short her garrulity. 
 
 The morning passed, but John Brent did not return. Marcia 
 began to be uneasy, to worry about his absence. Her father, 
 however, called for all her watchful care. He was delirious 
 again, and talking in his sleep. His brain seemed full of 
 chaotic visions ; he raved about his house, his money, about 
 Shrike. His mind went wandering back in the mazes of 
 -memory. He was starving; he was swearing at J. Cummings 
 Rawdon, and snarling at Gredge. 
 
 Then a name came up she had never heard before, a name
 
 182 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 that he kept repeating over and over again to himself. Then 
 she heard Brent's name ; and then, piece by piece, she added 
 sentence to sentence, and knew that he was the man her 
 father had wronged. Tears of shame filled her eyes. She 
 felt doubly guilty now of having wronged Brent. What had 
 he not suffered at their hands ! And yet, to make the burden 
 of obligation more, he had saved them from the fury of the 
 mob when every hope was gone. Oh ! if he would only come 
 back, she murmured, as she sat there in the darkened room, 
 she would beg his forgiveness even on her knees. 
 
 But after awhile, as he did not come, and worn out with 
 watching, Marcia sobbed herself to sleep, a sleep broken with 
 strange dreams, where she saw the menacing face of Brent 
 lifted towards her threateningly. 
 
 The object of her thoughts had been spending the day in the 
 interest of his guests, and returned home at evening laden 
 with purchases. Something nice and delicate from the mar- 
 ket for Mr. Tillinghurst, and some flowers for Marcia just 
 the kind he had been wont to send her every day during those 
 brief weeks of their engagement. 
 
 He was in a very pleasant mood as he turned into the Court. 
 It was such a delight to be living under the same roof that 
 sheltered the woman he loved, and to be able to minister to 
 her wants. He begrudged the time spent away from her side, 
 and yet, until she made some sign or gave him some token 
 that she loved him still, he did not dare to speak out. 
 
 He met her at the head of the stairs. Her face was like 
 death, and she was trembling. 
 
 " Have you seen him? " she gasped. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "My father!" 
 
 " Is he not in his room? " 
 
 " No no," she sobbed. " God forgive me ! I fell asleep this 
 afternoon, and when I awoke he had gone! " And she wrung 
 her hands in despair. "I'm afraid he has gone back to the 
 house," she moaned. " He will be killed ! " 
 
 " And you have searched the Court thoroughly? " 
 
 She nodded dumbly. 
 
 "Go back to your room, Marcia I mean Miss Tilling-
 
 THE GUESTS AT BOLGER'S COURT. 183 
 
 hurst," he said kindly, leading her away from the stairs, " and 
 rest assured that I will find him." 
 
 "Where are you going?" she faltered, as he laid his 
 bundles down at his feet. 
 
 " To find your father, and bring him back." 
 
 " Oh, let me go too," she pleaded. 
 
 He shook his head. "It would be impossible. I can cross 
 the lines in safety, but for you it might be worse than death.'' 
 
 "And you are going to risk your life for him? You are 
 going into that murderous crowd? " 
 
 "Yes; good-night." 
 
 He ran down the stairs, away from her pleading eyes that 
 thrilled him so. 
 
 "Jack oh, Jack ! " she cried after him but he was gone !
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 MR. TILLINGHURST MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 WHEN John Tillinghurst saw that his daughter was sound 
 asleep, he began to act in a very strange way. After looking 
 cautiously about the room for some moments, he slipped noise- 
 lessly out of bed so as not to disturb her slumbers, and began 
 to dress himself slowly, keeping an eye on her all the time, 
 and mumbling to himself incoherently. 
 
 Though the fever still burned in his face, he knew well 
 enough what he was about, for once, when Marcia stirred in 
 her sleep, he skipped back into bed again, and peered at her 
 for some moments until satisfied that she was not going to 
 wake up. As she continued to sleep he cautiously resumed his 
 toilet. 
 
 His dress coat had been carried off by Mrs. Skerritt to be 
 cleaned : but a coat belonging to her son Joe lay on the chair in 
 its place, and the millionaire did not hesitate a moment about 
 putting it on. It took him a long while to dress, because his 
 hands trembled so; but at last he finished the task, and with 
 one farewell look at Marcia, he crossed the threshold and crept 
 slowly and noiselessly down the stairs. He had but one object 
 in view, and that was to get to his house on Fifth Avenue 
 and save it from the mob in spite of everything. 
 
 No one seeing him come out of Bolger's Court would have 
 recognized the broken-down old man, with the flushed, feverish 
 face, who looked as if he was just getting over a debauch. 
 His trousers were torn in several places from sliding down the 
 fire-escape the night before, and a dirty, slouched hat covered 
 the upper part of his face, as a stubbly, iron-gray beard hid 
 the lower. Under the circumstances, he looked like a broken- 
 down clerk, as he shuffled on his way, mumbling to himself, 
 and keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. When he arrived 
 at Thirty -fourth Street he walked west until he reached Fifth 
 Avenue. Here he was interrogated by a drunken sentry, but 
 
 184
 
 J/JJ. TILLINGHURST MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 185 
 
 handing over his watch to the incorruptible patriot, he was 
 allowed to resume his way. 
 
 Tillinghurst's eyes brightened as he found himself once 
 more in the old familiar avenue. A frown gathered on his 
 forehead, however, when he saw the changes that had been 
 wrought by the mob. The centre of the street was piled with 
 broken furniture, window curtains, and paintings taken from 
 the houses ; and in some places the elegant debris had been 
 fired and was still smouldering. He could not walk a step 
 without coming upon some fresh evidence of pillage ; and on 
 one corner a blue-coated policeman was swaying to and fro, 
 suspended from a lamp-post, with an awful expression on his 
 pallid face. Over the marble portico of the Stewart palace 
 someone had written in charcoal in bold characters, "This 
 was the house of a tyrant ; " and on the massive oaken door 
 was nailed a blood-red liberty cap. 
 
 Tillinghurst saw no one as he shuffled along. He had the 
 whole avenue to himself, and only the rattle of drums from 
 the direction of Madison Square told that the revolutionists 
 were still at their posts. 
 
 What had become of the inmates of the brown-stone palaces 
 he passed? If he had cared to look closely, he would have 
 seen pale faces pressed against the basement gratings, where 
 the flower of New York society were waiting with trembling 
 hearts expecting every moment to be summoned out to die. 
 
 Some houses that had been marked for pillage had their 
 doors torn off and their windows smashed in, giving glimpses 
 of rich interiors, where the furniture had been broken ana 
 the pictures on the walls slashed into ribbons. 
 
 On the disordered mind of John Tillinghurst these sights? 
 if he noticed them, made no impression whatever. He was 
 only interested in getting to his own house, being filled with 
 the mad thought that he was still in time to save it from the 
 hands of the mob. 
 
 When he finally arrived in front of the elegant stone pile 
 that had been his home, he found that it had suffered more 
 than any mansion on the avenue, and -tears of rage filled his 
 eyes. The great oak door, torn from its hinges, lay broken on 
 the sidewalk, and the broad stone steps were piled high with 
 the parlor furniture and bric-a-brac, so smashed that nothing
 
 186 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 definite could be distinguished in the many-colored mass, but 
 here and there a scrap of amber-colored satin window-curtains. 
 
 A sigh came from the old man's breast as he clambered over 
 the pile laboriously and entered the hall. 
 
 Here he found his paintings, the remains of a Meissonier, a 
 Daubigny, and a dozen others, torn up in small pieces and 
 scattered over the tiles. 
 
 Everywhere wreck and ruin met his eye. They had spared 
 nothing that could be smashed or disfigured. 
 
 The beautiful Broadwood piano that had been Marcia's de- 
 light was nothing now but a pile of kindling wood. A naiad 
 by St. Gaudens, that stood in the centre of the drawing-room, 
 looked pathetic with its broken arms; and some facetious 
 hand had tied a dirty red handkerchief over the eyes and 
 written on the pedestal with a bloody finger, "Justice." 
 
 Tillinghurst's breast swelled with emotion as he followed 
 in the track of ruin, with eyes wavering and teeth grinding 
 harshly together as he viewed each new outrage. 
 
 The old man entered the dining-room last of all, and as he 
 crossed the threshold he thought of the change that had taken 
 place since the night before, when he had stood at the head of 
 the table, the host of one of the most brilliant gatherings the 
 metropolis had ever seen. 
 
 The shutters were still closed and the light through a broken 
 pane came reluctantly, as though loth to enter upon that scene 
 of ruin. One sunbeam, striking upon the pile of broken glass 
 and plate and faded flowers, made one bright spot in the midst 
 of the gloom. 
 
 Something moving in one corner of the room startled Tilling 
 hurst's attention. He opened a window-shutter cautiously, 
 and keeping close to the wall, crept nearer the dark, vacillat- 
 ing object. He made out slowly the outlines of a man, who 
 was busy at work pouring bottles of brandy, which he took 
 out of the buffet, over a pile of books that he had brought evi- 
 dently from the library adjoining. 
 
 Tillinghurst watched him for some moments as if stupefied, 
 while the man went on busily with his work, tearing up the 
 books and pouring the alchol over them, mumbling something 
 to himself as he did so. 
 
 At last the old man's addled brain succeeded in understand-
 
 MR. TILLINGIIURST MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 187 
 
 ing the situation. This creature in black was about to fire the 
 house, and it was plainly his duty to prevent it. He was 
 about to make some angry exclamation, but suddenly changed 
 his mind, and went over and tapped the bending figure lightly 
 on the shoulder. The stranger jumped forward with an excla- 
 mation of fear, and as Tillinghurst stepped back a ray of light 
 from the window fell full upon his face. The incendiary exam- 
 ined it slowly and critically, and then burst into a loud laugh, 
 that was harsh as the bark of a dog. 
 
 "Oh, it is you, is it?" he said. "Well, you're just in time 
 to see the fun; " and he again busied himself pouring brandy 
 on the debris. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" said Tillinghurst, hoarsely. 
 "I never saw you before; " eying the shabby man for a mo- 
 ment, as if trying to remember his face. 
 
 "Oh yes, you have, John Tillinghurst," snarled the other. 
 "Look at me well, and try and think hard;" and he pushed 
 his face close up to the other's, while the words hissed through 
 his teeth. " If you've forgotten me, I've not forgotten you. I 
 am the man that led the mob here last night, and what they 
 forgot to do I'm here to finish up." 
 
 "But I never saw you before," quavered the old man, 
 alarmed at the fierce eyes that glared at him like a wolf's. 
 
 "You lie," screamed the other, pushing him toward the win- 
 dow till he stood in the light, and all his red, sodden features 
 were prominent. " You know me I'm old man Bowker." 
 
 ' ' I I don't ; I never heard the name before. " 
 
 "Look well." 
 
 Tillinghurst peered tremblingly into the face so close to his 
 own, and then turned pale. 
 
 "Yes, I was J. Cummings Eawdon; now I'm what's left of 
 him," pushing the old man from him. " I am not pretty, am 
 I, Mr. Millionaire? and I owe you one for marring my beauty, 
 and I owe you one for making me crawl. Those were the 
 words. They're burned into my heart. Well, it's your time 
 to crawl now," his face inflamed with hate. 
 
 He hastily applied a fusee which he had evidently prepared, 
 to the inflammable pile. A long tongue of flame shot up to the 
 ceiling. 
 
 "Stand off! " he cried, as Tillinghurst, trembling with rage,
 
 188 A SLAVE OF CIBCUM8TANCE8. 
 
 rushed forward. "I've waited years for this; to-night my 
 score against you will be wiped out." 
 
 For a moment the two men stood and glared at each other 
 like wild beasts, then Tillinghurst lifted up a chair, and hurled 
 it with all his strength at Eawdon. With a mocking laugh 
 the other jumped lightly aside, and the next minute he had 
 the old man by the throat and a terrible struggle followed. 
 
 Over and over the floor they rolled ; the glass cut them, and 
 their hands and faces were bleeding ; but still they fought on, 
 while the fire, increasing in volume, filled the air with a heavy, 
 sickening smoke. 
 
 Eawdon, whose hands had never lost their deadly clutch on 
 Tillinghurst's throat, saw that the old man was choking, and 
 renewed his efforts to throttle him. In a few minutes he felt 
 the other's hands fall away, limp and impotent, while the eyes 
 were closed as if in death, and his face was ashen gray. 
 
 "You made me crawl, eh?" snarled Rawdon, as he got up 
 and spurned his enemy's body with his foot ; ' ' well, how do 
 you like some of it yourself I " 
 
 The fire was not burning fast enough to suit him, so he 
 busied himself tearing down the window-curtains and throw- 
 ing them into the flames. He wanted to make sure this time 
 that only ashes would be left of his enemy's home. 
 
 At last he had piled on to the fire everything in the room 
 that would burn, and he turned to go. The smoke was now so 
 dense that it made him gasp for breath ; but he lingered a mo- 
 ment to feel about on the floor with his foot for Tillinghurst's 
 body. To his alarm he could not find it. He spent several 
 valuable moments in trying to find out if his enemy had 
 crawled away. At last the flames drove him to the door, gasp- 
 ing and choking from the sickening smoke. He put his hand 
 on the knob to turn it, and then his heart grew cold within 
 him. The door was locked! 
 
 Tillinghurst, feigning unconsciousness, had crept away when 
 his back had been turned, and had locked him in ; and he was 
 caged like a rat in a trap. In vain he pounded and cursed and 
 screamed and battered his head against the door in his mad 
 rage. The stout oaken panels could not be even shaken by 
 the assault. Then, on his knees, he prayed to Tillinghurst to 
 let him out, but the only reply he received was the sound of
 
 MR. T1LL1NGIIURST MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 189 
 
 mocking laughter, and the crackling of the flames that crept 
 nearer and nearer to him. In his frenzy he dug his nails 
 into the walls, in a vain effort to lift himself above the fury 
 of the flames that reached out their lurid tongues, as if 
 hungry for his life. Slowly, insidiously the tide of fire en- 
 compassed him, and enfolded him with a fiery veil. A scream 
 of hopeless agony burst from his lips as he fell down into the 
 flames which he himself had kindled, never to rise again. 
 
 The morning broke in mist and rain. The great house was 
 only a pile of smouldering walls, and in front of the black, 
 cavernous doorway an abject figure walked, now sobbing, now 
 laughing and mumbling incoherently to himself. 
 
 No one would have recognized in that pitiful object the once 
 dapper financier, John Tillinghurst. 
 
 Here John Brent found him after a long search, seated on 
 the horse-block, babbling to himself, his gray hair sodden with 
 rain, his teeth chattering, and his face flushed with fever. 
 
 Gently but firmly he led the old man away from the house 
 he had reared with so much pride, now a smouldering ruin.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 TWO SHADOWS ON THE WALL. 
 
 THE siege of Fifth Avenue ended in forty-eight hours, and 
 only the barricades in the streets and the broken doors and 
 windows of the brown stone and marble palaces told the story 
 of the storm. On the arrival of the troops called out by the 
 governor, the mob had scattered to their holes and hiding- 
 places, and were allowed to go unmolested. The police knew 
 the ringleaders in the revolutionary ranks, and when the time 
 came it would be easy enough to find them. 
 
 On the second day the sun set on a city bustling with activ- 
 ity and life, and in the evening the electric lights flashed forth, 
 the elevated trains were running, the telegraph wires had been 
 repaired, and the theatres were opened to a multitude of 
 people, only too eager to forget the troubles they had just 
 passed through. 
 
 The approaches to Fifth Avenue were now guarded at every 
 point by Zalinski dynamite guns, and all suspicious characters 
 lingering about the great thoroughfare were locked up if they 
 could not satisfactorily explain their business. 
 
 John Brent had removed his guests from Bolger's Court to a 
 quiet little hotel on West Eleventh Street, where the comforts 
 of a home might be enjoyed at a moderate price. Captain 
 Shrike had not been heard of since the night when he showed 
 his bravery by trampling women down in the escape from the 
 Tillinghurst house. A club acquaintance of Brent's was the 
 authority for saying that he had seen that questionable war- 
 rior on board of a train for Philadelphia, in company with a 
 burlesque actress who sang at the Alhambra, but he may have 
 been mistaken. Brent did not care to make any investigation 
 to verify the statement, for he hoped he had seen the last of 
 the smug-faced rascal who had played such havoc with his 
 happiness. 
 
 Mr. Tillinghurst had not recovered from his experience in 
 
 190
 
 TWO SHADOWS ON THE WALL. 191 
 
 the deserted house, and the doctors all pronounced him hope- 
 lessly insane ; though there was a possibility that he might in 
 time recover some of his reason. His insanity was of the 
 mildest form, however ; and Marcia found no difficulty what- 
 ever in managing him, and would not hear of the doctor's 
 proposition to get a nurse. 
 
 The events of the past few days had made him a tottering 
 old man, with trembling limbs and wavering eyes, and hair 
 white as snow. He would sit for hours in the sun, babbling to 
 himself and singing, and sometimes he would make some re- 
 marks to Marcia which were so well worded that she could 
 hardly believe he was mad at all. But the light in those 
 sunken eyes only flickered for a moment, and then went out \ 
 and next he would be singing about his wife, and the old life 
 when he was so miserably poor. 
 
 Marcia was so lonely, left to the society of only this poor 
 old man. Brent seldom stayed long when he came to see 
 them now, pleading business as an excuse. He dropped in for 
 a few moments in the morning and evening, to see if there was 
 anything that she wanted, and then hurried away, as if he 
 feared to stay very long in Marcia's company. 
 
 One afternoon, by the doctor's advice, she took her father 
 up Fifth Avenue to have a look at the ruins of their home, hop- 
 ing that the sight of it might serve to awaken some intelli- 
 gence in his mind. 
 
 The fire had cleared out everything inflammable, but the iron 
 and marble stairs and the floors of terra-cotta tiles had resisted 
 the flames, and they were able to enter the blackened, melan- 
 choly entrance that seemed like a great fireplace. 
 
 She stood a moment deep in thought in the centre of the hall. 
 Here John Brent had stood that night when he saved them 
 from the mercy of the mob. What would have become of 
 them, she thought, with a shudder, if he had not been there to 
 encourage them and point out a way of escape? She sighed 
 deeply. Was she always to come upon some fresh proof of her 
 indebtedness to him this man she had spurned? 
 
 "I'll never give a ball again," quavered Mr. Tillinghurst, 
 leaning on his daughter's arm. " Just see how they've ruined 
 everything; " and a tear trickled down his pale cheek. 
 
 Marcia soothed him as best she could; and as he seemed
 
 192 A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 very much exhausted from his walk, she fixed him up a place 
 in one corner of the dining-room, where the sun shone 
 brightly, and where he could look out on the passers-by in the 
 street. He was soon wandering in thought again through the 
 old by-ways of his life, and had forgotten all about where he 
 was, as he broke,out into a song he had heard, perhaps in his 
 boyhood, keeping time with his long, knobby fingers on the 
 sill. 
 
 As he never stirred from his seat until led away by some- 
 one, Marcia took a look through the deserted rooms, that now 
 had a pathetic interest to her eyes. 
 
 Could that gaping hole in the centre of the drawing-room be 
 the fire-place by which she had sat so many evenings, and 
 skimmed over novels, and idled away her time, and where 
 he had come, and they had read Mrs. Browning's sonnets to- 
 gether? Oh! surely this could not be the place, and she could 
 not, in truth, be that happy girl whose heart was thrilled with 
 the words. And Marcia found herself repeating 
 
 " A saddened face beloved did bear, 
 A heavy heart beloved have I borne 
 From " 
 
 "This is a sad home-coming for you, Miss Tillinghurst," 
 said a voice at her elbow. 
 
 John Brent stood in the doorway, surveying her curiously ; 
 she flushed and lowered her eyes. 
 
 "It is harder than I thought," she faltered. "I did not 
 know before that I had any sentimental feeling for the old 
 house; but remembering what it was it has a pathetic a 
 pathetic interest now." 
 
 "It will all be rebuilt, and on a grander scale than ever," he 
 said cheerfully, coming nearer to her. 
 
 "Never by me." 
 
 He gave her a quick, suspicious look. 
 
 " Why, Miss Tillinghurst? You surely " 
 
 "Mr. Brent," she interrupted, her face paling, "it is time 
 that everything should be made clear to you. My father 
 robbed you of your inheritance yes, robbed you," as he lifted 
 his hand with a gesture of dissent ; " there is no other name for 
 it. I heard the whole stoi'y of your wrongs the other day dur-
 
 TWO SHADOWS ON THE WALL. 193 
 
 ing his delirium. He had confessed to me the story of his 
 crime before, and it was the price of Captain Shrike's silence 
 that I should marry him. I did not know that you were the 
 one so cruelly wronged, or I should never have consented not 
 at any price." 
 
 "You should not credit the ravings of a man in delirium," 
 said Brent ; ' ' you will not surely believe 
 
 " Mr. Brent," she cried, facing him, "do you doubt the truth 
 of what I am saying? " 
 
 He stammered, and twisted his hat nervously in his fingers. 
 
 "I I wanted to tell you," she faltered, " that we will give 
 up everything, and that it is a matter of regret that there is 
 not more. I know," as he was about to speak, "that there 
 are many things that we cannot repay, wrongs that can never 
 be forgotten but will you not say that at least you forgive?" 
 
 She looked at him with tear-dimmed eyes and quivering lips, 
 and his heart bled for her. 
 
 " Miss Tillinghurst," he said slowly, for the words came with 
 difficulty, " I will not attempt to say that I knew nothing of 
 this this past occurrence ; but it is all over now, and I dare 
 say I am all the more of a man for the experience. It will be 
 easier for me to forgive, but not so easy to forget. I cannot 
 let you beggar yourself for my sake ; you have a burden in 
 your father now to care for. I am young and strong, and am 
 already assured of a good income. I came to bid you good- 
 bye." 
 
 "Good-bye? " she echoed. 
 
 "Yes, I am going to Chicago; I have been offered a splendid 
 chance in business there that I cannot afford to neglect." 
 
 "And you were going away without say ing a word about 
 the wrong that had been done you? " 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 " I am glad that, even at this late hour, there is still time to 
 make restitution," as she read her answer in his downcast 
 eyes. "You will at least let me have that satisfaction?" 
 
 " Since you wish it. But I am sorry that you heard of this 
 story." 
 
 He saw that, to a woman of her pride, it would be an insult 
 to insist on her keeping the money. He had hoped that she 
 would never hear how her father had robbed him. The con- 
 13
 
 104 A SLAVE OF Cltt 
 
 versation r:id pained her greatly. He saw that it would be 
 merciful to her to shorten it. 
 
 "Let us rejoin your father," he said, after a moment's 
 silence; "he might get into danger if he chanced to move/' 
 
 Marcia's face flushed greatly, for she had for the time 
 forgotten all about her charge during their conversation. Ho 
 was only in the next room, however, and they would surely 
 have heard if any danger had befallen him. 
 
 As they crossed the threshold they saw the pathetic figure 
 of the old man seated in the window, the sunlight on his white 
 hair and sunken, lustreless eyes, while his nerveless hands 
 were moving about restlessly in the air, as if he were writing 
 imaginary characters. 
 
 " I'll have to put up more margin," he murmured, as they 
 entered ; " always more margin. " 
 
 Marcia, absorbed in the sad spectacle, which, though famil- 
 iar, seemed like a fresh sorrow to her then, did not look where 
 she was going, and tripped over a ragged piece of flooring. 
 She would have fallen if Brent had not caught her in his arms. 
 
 " Marcia Marcia! " he cried, " would you let me go away 
 without a word and I might never see you again? " 
 
 "I have only filled your life with misery," she sobbed; 
 "there is no misfortune that you cannot trace to me or 
 mine 
 
 "Don't speak of what is past," he said gently, as she disen- 
 gaged herself from his arms. "We agreed to forget that. 
 Marcia, I thought I could leave you with a simple good-bye, 
 but the sight of that dear old room where we used to meet re- 
 vived the old memories which I have been trying hard to for- 
 get." 
 
 " Why are you going away ? " she faltered, tapping the floor 
 nervously with her foot. " I I thought you liked New 
 York." 
 
 ' ' I am going away because the woman I love will not say 
 the word to call me back. " 
 
 He looked at her flushed face and downcast eyes eagerly, 
 as if he expected an answer. It did not come, and he turned 
 with a sigh. 
 
 "Good-bye, Miss Tillinghurst." holding out his hand ; "good- 
 bye."
 
 TWO SHADOWS ON THE WALL. 195 
 
 "You shall not go, Jack," the tears gathering in her eyes, 
 as she stepped hastily toward him. 
 
 "Marcia!" he cried, gladly. 
 
 A shaft of sunlight showed two shadows outlined against 
 the smoke-stained wall, one with upturned face, and the other 
 leaning forward with outstretched arms. Only for a moment 
 the shadows stood in that position, then 
 
 "A risky speculation in futures," murmured the old broker, 
 as he recorded some figures in the air with his nerveless fin- 
 gers.
 
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