His dignity did not, however, interfere with his seeking to drown his slight in the good, old-fashioned way. He solaced himself beyond prudence with the varied products of the hotel bar, and then settled himself solitary in his sleigh and jingled homeward. His road took him past the Parsonage, and he enlivened the lonely way by scraps of songs, reflections upon the perfidy of women, and portentous yawns at intervals of two or three minutes. In fact, by the time he had gone a mile the most predominant sensation he had was sleepiness, and half a mile more came very near making a second Endymion of him. From this, however, he was preserved by the very sudden stoppage of his sleigh, which threw him on his knees against the dasher, and forcibly knocked his eyes open. He rolled over to the ground, but, happening to light on his feet, he stood unsteadily erect, and asked a very tall and powerful man, who was holding his horse's head, when he was going to let that drop?

Receiving no intelligible answer, he stumbled in the powerful man's direction, perhaps contemplating the performance of some deed of desperate valor. Meanwhile the object of his hostility had relinquished his hold of the horse, and appeared kneeling on the ground, supporting the form of a woman, dressed in a tasteful white dress, with dark, disordered hair lying around her colorless face.



CHAPTER XXX.

LOST.

Mr. Reynolds immediately paused, and regarded this group for some moments with an air of singular sagacity and archness.

"I say, young fellow," ejaculated he, at length, with an evident effort to attain distinctness of utterance, "that sort of thing won't do, you know."

Bressant looked up and recognized the rustic bacchanalian for the first time. He had always had a peculiar antipathy to this young gentleman; but at this moment it was intensified into a loathing. How could he ask assistance from such a degraded creature as this?

The recognition had been mutual, and Mr. Reynolds, tacking unsteadily around, brought himself to bear in such a position as to catch a fair view of Sophie's face, with the spot of blood on her chin. The first glance so terrified him, that he utterly, forsook his footing, and came abruptly to the ground, never once taking his eyes from the face, all the way. But the shock of his fall, and the awful solemnity of what he saw, sobered him considerably. He turned to Bressant, and eyed him with anxious earnestness.

"Why, you're the fellow she's engaged to, ain't you? What on earth's been the row? She ain't dead, is she? How did she get here? In her wedding-rig, too, by golly!"

Bressant's frame vibrated with a savage impulse; but Mr. Reynolds, not being of a sensitive temperament, was not at all disconcerted.

"Well, say, I guess she'd better be fetched home, first thing," said he, bestirring himself to arise from the chilly seat he had taken. "Lucky I happened along, too. Guess you was hoping I might, wasn't you? Well, you hoist her under the arms, and I'll hang on by the feet—ain't that it? and we'll have her into the sleigh in no time."

"Don't touch her!" said the other, fiercely. "Let her alone, you drunken fool!"

"Now, look here, Mr. Bressant," rejoined Bill Reynolds, resting his hands on his knees, and looking intently in Bressant's face, "I may not be rich and a swell, like you are; but I guess I'm an honest man, any way, as much as ever you be; and I ain't insulting nobody by helping take home a poor frozen girl. I don't care if she is engaged to you. You don't mean to keep her here till morning do you? and seeing she ain't married yet, I guess the right place for her to be in, is her father's house."

Perhaps it was the moonlight, glinting on Bill's immovable eye-glasses, that gave extraordinary impressiveness to his words; or it may have been Bressant's reflection, that this young country bumpkin, sullied with drink, coarse and ignorant though he was, would have probably found his sense of equality in no way diminished, had he known more of the facts to which the present catastrophe was a sequel; at all events, he made no further objections. His manner changed to an almost submissive humbleness, and, without more words, he helped Bill to place the insensible woman in the sleigh.

"That's the talk," remarked Mr. Reynolds, as he drew the sleigh-robe over her. "Now, then, Mr. Bressant, just you jump in and hold on to her, and I'll lead the horse along. We'll be there in half a shake."

"No," replied Bressant, after a mental conflict as violent as it was brief; "I'll lead the horse myself." The only pleasure now left to this young man was to insult and torture himself to the utmost of his ingenuity. He had forfeited all right to protect or care for Sophie, and it was with a savage satisfaction that he resigned it to Bill Reynolds, as being the worthier and better man. It was the quixoticism of self-degradation, but was doubtless not without some wholesome influence.

In three minutes more they were at the Parsonage-gate. They made a stretcher of the sleigh-robe, and carried Sophie in on it. The gate, flapping-to behind them, sounded like a fretful and querulous complaint. As they mounted the porch-steps, which creaked and crackled beneath their weight, the door was opened by Cornelia, in her travelling-dress. Her face expressed so vividly the unspeakable horror which she felt as her eyes rested on her sister's half-opened lids, that Bressant, seeing it, was stricken anew with the perception of his own misery. As Cornelia looked up from the pure and innocent features—which never had worn an awful and forbidding expression until now, when all power of expression was gone—her glance and Bressant's met; but, after a moment's encounter, both dropped their eyes, with an involuntary shudder. Their trial and sentence were condensed into so seemingly brief a space.

But Bill Reynolds neither dealt in nor appreciated such refinements upon the good old ways of communicating sentiments.

"Good-evening, Miss Valeyon," exclaimed he. "I guess we didn't expect to see one another again to-night. Pray don't imagine, miss, that I bear you any grudge. At times like this personal considerations don't count—not with me. I'll shake hands with you, Miss Valeyon, first chance I get, and we'll be just as much friends as ever we was before. That's the right way, I guess."

The door of the guest-chamber stood open, and the sleigh-robe, with its burden, was laid upon the bed whereon Bressant had spent so many weary days. Then the voice of the professor, who had been awakened by the noise and the sound of feet, was heard from the top of the stairs, demanding to know what was the matter.

"Come down," said Bressant, stepping to the guest-chamber door. "Be quick!"

He spoke more slowly and deeply than was his wont. In spite—or perhaps in consequence—of his abasement, forlornness, and unworthiness, he showed a dignity and impressiveness which were novel in him. The boyishness, vivacity, and motion, had quite vanished. There were a depth and hollowness in his eyes which gave a singular power to his face. There must have been a vein of genuine strength and nobleness in the man, or he would have been too much crushed to show any thing but weak despair or brutal sullenness. Had Professor Valeyon's attention been directed to the point, he might have recognized his pupil as being now thoroughly grounded in the elements of emotional experience.

The old gentleman, in dressing-gown and slippers, came thumping hastily down-stairs, in response to Bressant's summons. The strange solemnity in the latter's tone, no less than the ominousness of the hour, probably gave him premonition of some disaster. He reached the threshold of the room, and paused a moment there, settling his spectacles with trembling fingers, and looking from one silent face to another. The room was lighted only by the declining moon, which shone coldly through the windows. The bed, and that which was on it, were in shadow. In an instant or two, however, the professor's eyes made the discovery to which none of those who stood about had had the nerve to help him. And then the old man proved himself to be the most stout-hearted of them all. He only said "Sophie" in a voice so profoundly indrawn as scarcely to be audible; then walked unfalteringly across the room, bent over the bed, and proceeded to examine whether there were yet life in his daughter or not. Even the moonlight seemed to wait and listen.

"Bring a candle," said be, presently, breaking the awful silence.

Cornelia brought it, and the warmer light inspired a sickly flicker of hope into the expectant faces. The little ormolu-clock on the mantel-piece whirred, and struck half-past one. As the ring of the last stroke faded away, Professor Valeyon raised himself, and turned his face toward the others. So strongly did his soul inform his harsh and deeply-lined features, that it seemed, for a moment, as if there were a majestic angel where he stood.

"Be of good cheer," quoth the old man—for no smaller words than those which Christ had spoken seemed adequate to clothe his thought; "she is not dead; we shall hear her speak again."

Bressant threw up his arms, as if about to shout aloud; but only gave utterance to a gasping breath, and, stepping backward, leaned heavily against the wall, near the door. Cornelia, standing in the centre of the room, broke into quivering, lingering sobs, opening and clinching her hands, which hung at her side. Bill Reynolds, however, being overcome with joy, at once gave intelligible manifestation of it.

"Good enough!" cried he, slapping his leg, and looking from one to another with a giggle of relief. "Bully for her! Bless you, I knew Sophie Valeyon warn't dead. Speak again! I believe you. She'll tell us what's the matter, I guess."

Professor Valeyon rapidly and collectedly gave his directions as to what steps were to be taken, and in a few minutes every thing was being done that skill could do. Snow was brought in to encourage back the life it had dismayed, and camphor and coffee awaited their turn to take part in the resuscitation. Slow and reluctant it was, like dragging a dead weight up from an unknown depth. More than another hour had passed away before Sophie's eyelids quivered, and a slight tremor moved her lips. By-and-by she opened her eyes, slowly and uncertainly, let them close again, and once more opened them; and, after several inaudible efforts, there came, like an echo from an immeasurable distance, one word, twice repeated:

"Bressant! Bressant!"

They looked around for him, but he was not in the room, nor in the house. Questioning among themselves, none could tell whether it were an hour or a minute since he had departed. When life began to take fresh hold on her he had so loved and wronged, his heart had failed him, and, without a word, he had gone out and away. But not to escape; for on no heart was the weight of sorrow and suffering so heavy as on his.



CHAPTER XXXI.

MOTHER AND SON.

The grand ball at Abbie's was still in progress, though showing signs of approaching dissolution, when Bressant entered the house quietly at a side-door, and crept up to his room. He wished not to be seen or heard by anybody; but it happened that Abbie saw him, and the sight partly alarmed and partly relieved her. She could now account for the mysterious disappearance of Cornelia some hours before. But why had Bressant returned so secretly? and why were his movements all so surreptitious? Something must be out of order, either at the Parsonage or elsewhere. She reflected and conjectured, and of course became momentarily more and more uneasy. Nor did a short visit to his door relieve her apprehensions: a confused and non-descript sound had proceeded from within, as if the young man were packing up. Whither could he be going, she asked herself, on the very eve of his marriage?

It is never difficult to find cause for anxiety; but it seemed to Abbie that the misgivings she entertained were reasonable and logical. Bressant had made up his mind to desert Sophie, because the fortune which he had all his life considered his own turned out to belong to another, on whose generosity he was too proud or too suspicious to depend. He was going off, either to struggle through poverty to a fortune of his own making, or, giving himself up to his misfortune, to remain all his life in want and misery; or, perhaps—Abbie did not openly admit this alternative, but still, knowing what she thought she did of his nature and the circumstances, the suspicion had existence—perhaps, in conjunction with a certain evil-disposed person in New York, he contemplated fraudulently absconding.

Now, Abbie imagined that the key whereby alone all these difficulties could be unlocked, lay in her own hands. It was a key of which, so long as her own interest alone had been concerned, she had refused to avail herself; but, when the welfare of those she loved was called into question, she made up her mind (in spite of pride—her strongest passion next to love) to make use of it without hesitation.

When the last guests had taken their departure, Abbie went to her room, and looked at herself in the glass, by the light of a kerosene-lamp. She was dressed plainly, though becomingly enough, in black silk; a lace cap rested on her gray hair; her face was worn and wrinkled, but had a fine expression about it, that would have recalled former beauty to the memory of any one who had known her in early life. She was deeply excited, without being at all nervous, the excitement being so profoundly rooted as to be really a part of herself.

"Why am I happy?" she asked herself. "No, not because I've buried all my pride. Because I've found a reason to justify me in burying it: that's why!"

She went, for the third time that night, to Bressant's door, and this time turned the latch and pushed it open. He was sitting at his table, with his head on his arms. His trunk and a large iron-bound box lay packed and strapped beneath the window, which was thrown wide open. The rush of air between that and the door roused the young man: he got slowly to his feet, and came forward.

"I don't want to see you," said he, with a heavy utterance. "I warn you to go away. You and I had better have nothing to say to each other."

"We must; the time to speak has come!" she returned. "I've come to you, because you could not bring yourself to rely on me. It's your own want of faith—"

"You'd better not go on," interrupted Bressant, with a strange smile. "I had more faith than you imagine. But there are some mountains that faith can't move."

"Why do you still keep me off?" cried Abbie, in a tone which might have made his heart bleed, except that of late it had been stabbed so often. "Good God! am I so repulsive to you that, for the sake of being happy and comfortable all your life, you can't bring yourself to recognize my existence? Don't imagine I want to buy your love or toleration with this money of mine. I want nothing in exchange—nothing! I can't help the knowledge that I shall have made you rich, and so put happiness in your power; but I ask no acknowledgment—no return. Take every thing and go! Leave me here and believe that I am dead! Is that enough?"

"A great deal too much! You'll be sorry you've said all this. If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't have said a word of it."

"Oh, you are hard to please, indeed!" exclaimed Abbie, gazing at him and shuddering. "I pray God your heart is so cold to no one else as to me! Poor Sophie! She would die at one such word."

"Don't speak her name," said Bressant, in a tone so stern as to be equivalent to a threat.

He held his eyes down, so that the ugly gleam in them was hidden. Abbie had no thought of fearing him as yet, and she would have her say.

"Do you think I don't know you're going to leave her? If it's because you don't love her, I can say no more. You are beyond any help in this world. But if you do, let me save her, even if I must oblige you in doing it! You know little of her love, though, if you think she can be happier with you rich than poor. Oh! are you so cold yourself as to believe you are acting generously to her in this? Go back to her, or she will die!"

The old woman took fire as she spoke, and many of the signs of age were for the time obliterated. Some of the power and brilliancy of her youth shone again in her eyes; her form seemed to acquire a different and statelier contour. In the earnestness of her speech, involuntary gestures accompanied her words; free from all exaggeration, and so truly and gracefully fitted to her meaning as to be virtually invisible. But Bressant was not won by it: his expression grew more ugly and repellent with every successive sentence.

"You fool!" said he, coming one heavy step nearer, and frowning down upon her; "I warned you away; I told you to be silent. You've meddled with what was no concern of yours; you've thrust yourself where you had no right to come—"

"No right!" she interrupted, with an intensity of indignant emphasis that seemed adequate to smite to the ground the towering figure that faced her. Then, clasping her hands, and in a voice of yearning, ineffable tenderness, she added, "Oh, I have prayed for you, and wept for you, and loved you so! For your own sake, my darling, do not use such words to me!" Here she held out her arms, and tears ran hot down her faded cheeks. "Am I not your mother? Are you not my son?"

"No!" answered Bressant.

He threw so tremendous a weight of malignant energy into the utterance of this single word, although not raising his voice higher than his usual tone, that the moral effect upon the woman was as if he had dealt her a furious blow on the breast. Completely stunned at first, she stood as if dead, except that her body, upright and rigid, vibrated slightly from side to side, like a column about to fall. So sudden, too, had been the shock, that her arms still remained outstretched, and the track of her tears still glistened upon her cheeks, tears shed so utterly in vain as to acquire a trait of ghastly absurdity.

As sense and reflection began to dawn again, the first instinctive defence she attempted was that of incredulity. It was to gain breathing-space rather than from any hope in its efficacy. But afterward, following the ability to hear and the capacity to comprehend, the grim reality settled darkly down. Her life for the last twenty-five years, then, had been a miserable blunder; her love, hopes, and fears wasted, and turned to ridicule; her self-sacrifice, a wretched self-deception, a throwing of all possibilities of happiness into the bottomless pit, whence no return could ever come to her; every thought, aspiration, and desire, which had visited her heart had been a mockery—meaningless and empty. This was the reality to which she was awakened. And, lest this should not be sufficient, here stood one before whom she had abased and humbled herself, whose insolence she had borne meekly and lovingly, whose feet she had set upon her neck. Here he stood, insolent and unfeeling still; a false impostor, whom might God refuse to pardon!

And who and what was he? Oh, what punishment was terrible enough for him? Surely—surely God would not allow him to escape! What was he?

These thoughts must have written themselves in the woman's eyes, which were now awful to behold—eager, questioning, and malevolent. Bressant forced a harsh laugh, as men will when they find themselves opposed by impotent rage. Certainly Abbie had no other claim to be considered an amusing spectacle. Had not her revengeful rage upheld her, she must have swooned. But it was a hideous kind of vitality, unwholesome to contemplate. Bressant laughed by main strength.

"You can't solace yourself even with that," said he, shaking his head. "Up to three days ago I was as much in ignorance as you. It was no fault and no concern of mine; you and Professor Valeyon chose to deceive yourselves, and me. Nobody can be more innocent than I! Nobody can regret more, on some accounts, that our relationship is no closer!".

In this last sentence the tone of mockery he had assumed was somewhat overstrained; a suspicion of underlying sincerity grated through it.

"Don't say you didn't know!" said Abbie, in a guttural voice, clasping and wringing her hands, and turning her head from one side to another; "don't dare to say it! No—no! you did—you did! You did know it, and God will punish you—God will condemn you! He must—He will!" She could not endure to believe that, having been defrauded in her love, she was to be defrauded also in her hate and thirst for revenge. She could live by either; but to be deprived of both was death!

Bressant made no reply to her uncanny petition, and a silence followed. Abbie stood wringing her hands, waving her head, and drawing her breath sobbingly between her teeth. Was she the same woman—stately, and almost beautiful—who had spoken so loftily and tenderly but a few minutes before? Are human generosity and affection founded on no securer basis? Her appearance was now revolting. Suddenly a thought struck her.

"Ah! but she—she can't escape," she broke forth, seizing upon the idea with a grisly eagerness of exultation. "You can't get her away from me; I know her, oh! I know her, and I condemn her, I hate her—God! how I hate her. She shall never be forgiven—never, never. You can never cheat me out of her, for I know her."

Abbie pressed both hands to her head.

"You had better hold your tongue, old woman," Bressant said, in a low voice, and a deadlier passion than anger looked from his eyes as he fastened them upon her. "You're so hungry to send a soul to hell, take care you don't find yourself there. Do you think your past life can save you? Wait till I've told you what it has been. You began by blasting a true man's life, trusting too easily, against all internal evidence, to the lies that were told you about him. Next, you married the liar, not loving him, but so that the other might hear it, and believe you had forgotten him; so you acted a lie to him, and prostituted yourself bodily and spiritually to gratify your pride and revenge. Not the sort of thing that gets people to heaven, so far, is it?"

Abbie still pressed her hands to her head, and stared before her without speaking.

"You were false to your marriage vows; after that, you neglected your husband no less than he you; you never tried to make yourself lovable to him; you were the only wronged one! you could do no wrong yourself! At last you had a son."

She raised her eyes, which, during the last few minutes had become bloodshot, and fixed them fearfully upon the young man's face, as he continued:

"You loved him, as most females do love their young, and yet not so generously as most. It was not as his father's child, but only as your own, that he was dear to you; he was your child, a part of yourself, and you loved him only because you loved yourself.

"When he was still a baby you left your husband's house, and thereby, if justice were done, forfeited the recognition of good women, and pure society; but you took great credit to yourself because you left your son and your money behind you. Was it nothing in the balance, then, the scandal, worse than any poverty, which the recovery of your property would have caused? Nothing but self-sacrifice, to leave a sickly child to all the advantages that wealth could give it? Well, a month afterward, in spite of wealth, your son died."

At this announcement, Abbie's convulsive strength, which had thus far served to keep her erect and motionless, exhaled itself in a long groan, and left her placid and nerveless. Seeing her about to fall, Bressant put forth his hands and grasped her arms below the shoulder, holding her thus while he went on. Her eyes were closed and her head fell forward on her bosom; but, so blinded was the young man by the remorseless passion which had gradually been working up within him, he failed to perceive that the old woman's ears were no longer sensible to his voice, nor her heart sensitive to his words.

"He died, and I was younger than he, but stronger, and more like my father. I was put in his place, and was called by his name. I grew up proud of what I thought my aristocratic birth! I resolved to become the most famous of mankind, and I found an angel and was going to marry her. But the evil began to come with the good: it began long ago, and in many ways, and I tried to overcome it, or provide against it, one way or another. You benevolent people had led me into a battle-field, unarmed, and then left me to fight my way through; and I should have done it, too, but at the last I had myself to fight against, and then I gave in. Why, I had been dead and buried more than twenty years—why don't you laugh at that?—and had been imposed upon all that time by this miserable nameless outcast, myself! whose father's name was Adultery and his mother's Sin. That was a parentage to be proud of, wasn't it? And yet, I swear before God, I'm better contented it should be so, than to be the son of an honest marriage, with such a woman as you for my mother."

As he loosened the hold of one hand, to emphasize this oath, the senseless body, which he had been upholding, swung round, and swayed, toward the floor. He dropped the arm which remained in his grasp, and the red flush on his cheek and forehead died away into pallor, as he looked down at the dark heap of clothes lying at his feet. Finally he stooped down, and lifted her on to the sofa.

"She's not dead," muttered he, after scrutinizing the woman's face for a moment; "she has her punishment, though, like the rest of us."

He wrote an address on a couple of pieces of paper which he found in the drawer of the table, and fastened them to the box and trunk with some mucilage. Then he took his fur cap, and having banged on the fat Irish servant-girl's door, and told her that her mistress was lying insensible in his study, he left the house without delay. It wanted still an hour to the time for the earliest morning train to New York, and, as the young man did not care to subject himself to questions and remarks from the officials at the village depot, he determined to walk down the track, a distance of between four and five miles, to the station below. Off he started accordingly, and, arriving there in ample time, was able to eat a good breakfast of cold meat, hard-boiled eggs, and crackers—all the solid contents of the refreshment-room—before his train got in. He bought his ticket, stepped on board, flung himself into a seat, and left all behind him.



CHAPTER XXXII.

WHERE TWO ROADS MEET.

The velvet-cushioned seat on which he sat felt very comfortable, and the great speed at which he was being carried along was agreeable to him. He had been busily occupied, with little rest of any kind, and scarcely any sleep, for nearly three days; and his mind had been all the time engrossed by the most harrowing thoughts and experiences. It was all over now; nothing could ever again give him apprehension or anxiety; the past was dead and never could live again; the future was arranged, and it was simple enough: he, and the woman who had given him birth, would sail together for Europe on Monday morning, at twelve o'clock. He would have abundant wealth—all the property had been converted into ready money, and would be taken with them—and he might live as luxuriously, as sensually, as much like a pampered animal as he pleased, or as he could. He would forget that he had a mind, or a heart, or a soul; they had none of them served him in good stead; but he had some reliance on his body. There were few that could compare with it in the world, and he felt convinced that he should be able to derive a great deal of enjoyment out of it before the time for its death and decay came round. At all events, he was resolved that no form of indulgence to his bodily appetites should go unproved; and when one grew stale he would try another. With such enormous vitality and capacity to be and to appreciate being voluptuous, he could hardly fail to avenge himself for the hardships he had undergone thus far.

So he leaned back on the crimson velvet-cushion of his seat, and felt very comfortable and composed, thinking of nothing in particular. He became pleasantly interested, as the daylight began to make things visible without, in trying to count the number of wires on the telegraph-poles. It would have been easy enough if they had only kept along at an invariable level; but they were always rising—rising—then jumping through the pole with a snap!—then ducking suddenly—sinking, crossing one another—sometimes scudding along close to the ground, then flying up beyond the range of the window—anon scooting beneath a dark arch—now indistinguishable against a pine-wood—then rising—rising—jumping—ducking—sinking—as before. Though exerting all his faculties of observation, it was impossible to be quite certain how many wires there were.

He was nearly alone in the car, and would probably continue to be for an hour or so at least. He reversed the seat in front of him, and put up his feet, leaving the telegraph-wires to scud and dodge unnoticed. He fixed his eyes upon the sweltering stove in the farther corner of the car. There was a roaring fire within, as he could tell by the vivid red that glowed through the draught-holes beneath the door, and showed here and there along the cracks. The sides of the car against which the stove stood was protected with zinc; a number of short sticks of wood were piled beside it, ready to replenish the fire, and some of them were already smoking a little, as if in anticipation. Presently the brakeman came in, with a flurry of cold air, his neck and head rolled up in a dirty-brown knit woolen tippet, and clumsy gloves on his hands. He took the poker, and opened the stove-door with it, peeped into the red-hot interior a moment, grasped a solid chunk of wood from the pile, and popped it in cleverly; then he stood for a moment, patting the stove with his gloved hands, to warm them, till, in response to the whistle, he dashed out, slamming the doors as only car-doors can be made to slam, and Bressant could dimly distinguish him, through the frosted window, working away at the brake.

They drew up, with much squeaking and grating, at a small, snuff-colored, clap-boarded depot, where a boy, about sixteen, with a big green carpet-bag, kissed an elderly lady in a black hood, who was evidently his mother, and jumped aboard with his bag, in a great hurry, lest she should behold the tears in his eyes. He entered the car in which Bressant sat, and established himself and his bag on the seat immediately in front of that upon which the former's feet were resting.

The snuff-colored station and the woman in the black hood slipped away, and were seen no more. The boy, after scratching a peep-hole through the frost-work on his window, and taking a last survey through it of the snow-covered fields he was leaving, produced a large blue-spotted handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers, and retired with it into the privacy of his own feelings.

He was a rather delicate-looking boy, with large gray eyes and soft brown hair, and was evidently not much in the habit of traveling. Perhaps this was the first time he had ever left home, thought Bressant, in the idleness of his inactive mind. His mother was a widow; her dark dress and black hood, and pale, over-worked face looked like it. Besides, if the boy had had a father, of course he would have been down to see him off. Probably there were sisters, too; the boy looked somehow as if he had been brought up with sisters; but they would not have followed him down to the station; they kissed him good-by at the house-door, leaving it to his mother to see the very last of him. For be had resolved to go forth into the world and make his fortune, not to encumber his poor mother with his support any longer. He was going, probably, to New York, to be a clerk or an errand-boy in some dry-goods store, or banking-house, or insurance-office. Once a week—oftener, perhaps—he would write home to his mother, sending his love to her and to the girls, telling them how much he wanted to see them all again, but that he was doing pretty well, and was working, and going to work, very hard. He would be rich some day, and they should all come to New York then and live in his house on Fifth Avenue!

Bressant, comfortably extended on his two seats, with his long future of bodily case and indulgence opening before him—his freedom from all ties to bind him to any spot, or necessities to compel him to any labor—Bressant found that the thought of this innocent boy, going forth into the world, with his green carpet-bag, his loving heart, his assurance of being loved, his ambition to establish his mother and sisters on Fifth Avenue, was becoming quite annoying to his mental serenity. He would think of him no more, therefore, and, to aid himself in this resolve, he closed his eyes, so as to avoid seeing him. Being really somewhat weary after his manifold exertions and continued sleeplessness, his eyes closed very naturally.

But the boy was not to be so easily got rid of. He almost immediately turned round in his seat, and directed a steadfast gaze out of his gray eyes at Bressant's reclining figure. Presently, he pronounced, in a low voice, yet which was distinctly audible to the deaf man's ears, two words, the effect of which was to make the other start up in his seat, and stare about him in amazement and alarm.

The boy met his glance with great calmness and gentleness, and held out his hand as if to grasp Bressant's.

"Was it you?" exclaimed the latter, bewildered. "How did you know that name, and who are you?" As he spoke, he mechanically took the extended hand in his own.

"Why, don't you know me?" answered the boy, smiling, and, at the same time, drawing him, by a slight but decided traction, to sit down by him. "Me—your best friend?"

Something in the voice, something in the manner, and in the expression of the eyes, but, most of all, the smile, seemed strangely familiar to Bressant. The touch of the hand, too, he thought be recognized—it soothed and yet controlled him. Still, he was unable to recall exactly who the boy was, or where he had seen him before.

"I've had so much to think of lately," murmured he, partly to himself, partly by way of excusing his forgetfulness, passing his hand over his forehead.

"Yes, indeed!" returned the latter, in a tone of tender sympathy, that vibrated gratefully along Bressant's nerves. "But we know each other, and we are friends—that is enough."

"How strange that I should meet you here, and at such a time!" said Bressant, musingly. And he wondered at himself for feeling glad, instead of sorry, that the encounter should have taken place. But the boy looked up in surprise.

"Strange? No! I'm sure it's the most natural thing in the world. How could it have happened otherwise? Should I have been your friend if I had failed you now?"

"But do you know every thing?" Bressant demanded—less, however, because he doubted that it should be so than as wishing to receive full assurance thereof. "Do you know all that has happened during these last six months, and yet are willing to be with me and speak to me?"

"It has been a terrible time, to be sure," said the boy, sadly; "you should have kept your promise and come to me at your first trouble. It might have saved you from a great deal. And yet I can see how, in the end, it may all be for the best."

Bressant shook his head dejectedly. "I've lost what I never can regain!" said he, "and there are three stains—falsehood, dishonor, and treachery—that never can be washed out."

"Don't say that!" exclaimed the boy, earnestly and hopefully. "God teaches us, you know, not to be in despair, because without hope—hope of becoming better—we can't be really repentant."

"I'm not repentant, certainly—I have no hope," rejoined Bressant. But, even as he spoke the words, he was conscious of that within him which contradicted them. Either the influence of the boy's gentle and trustful spirit, or a new opening of his own inward eyes, had borne in upon him a vision of hitherto unconsidered possibilities.

The boy seemed to read his thoughts. "You do not believe all you say," observed he. "Remember, it was because you repented of your dishonest purposes toward Abbie, and felt that you had wronged your better self with Cornelia, that you first resolved to give up Sophie, as being no longer worthy of her, and that proved that your love for her at least was noble and unselfish."

"But afterward—afterward I became worse than ever!" exclaimed Bressant, who would not dare to entertain a hope until the full depth of his sin had been brought forward for the pure and clear-sighted eyes of his companion to look upon and judge. "When I found out my shameful secret—when I learned what a thing I was, even with no sin of my own to drag me down—I didn't care what crime I committed! A kind of evil intelligence seemed to come to me. I saw that Cornelia loved me, and that I had her in my power, so I went back to get her, to take her with me to Europe. There was no repentance in that!"

"It would have been a terrible sin!" said the boy, with a slight shudder. "But God prevented you from committing it."

"But I'm a thief still, and a coward, for I sneaked away in the night, fearing to meet Sophie's eyes, and afraid to tell the professor what I was and what I had done. I left all the burden of my sins to be borne by women and an infirm old man, and I am going, with a stolen fortune, to forget I ever had a heart or a soul."

"Are you going, and do you think you can forget?" asked the boy, with a smile.

"Don't you give me up yet?" returned Bressant, trembling. "What is left for me?"

"Why, every thing is left for you!" exclaimed the boy, his smile brightening in his eyes. "You seem to forget that you haven't gone off with any stolen money yet! You must begin at the next station, and devote your whole life—no less will answer—to redeeming yourself. Only be sure not to delay, and not to hesitate."

Bressant looked at his companion, and thought there was something divine and unearthly almost in his manner, and especially in the light that came from his gray eyes.

"As for the stolen money," the boy continued, "all you have to do about that is, to let it alone; it is safe, and will be cared for. But you must go straight to the Parsonage. Your marriage-day is Sunday; be sure you are there by noon. It may be you will not find Sophie there; but she will leave a gift for you, at any rate, and you must be in time to claim it."

"But how can I ask Sophie's forgiveness, and the professor, and Cornelia?"

"Trust wholly in Sophie," returned the other, with an accent of loving reproof, "never doubt her love and forgiveness. You must make your peace with the professor as best you can; but perhaps he has found that to forgive in himself which will enable him to be more charitable to you. As for Cornelia, she and you must recompense each other for the evil you have mutually wrought upon each other."

"How recompense each other?" questioned Bressant, in surprise; "it was not a high nor a true love that we felt for each other; it was a love of the passions and senses."

"Therefore let it be the work of your lives—a work of penitence and punishment—to elevate and refine your love, which has been degraded, until it become worthy of the name of love in its highest sense. You have lowered each other, and now each must help to raise the other up. The work can be delegated to no one else."

"But Sophie," murmured Bressant, pressing his hand over his eyes.

"Sophie is lost to you," responded his companion, with a tremulous sigh. "Perhaps if you had kept yourself pure and true through all temptations, she might have been yours. But you failed, and every failure must bring its loss. The air of such a love as that is too fine for you to breathe now; you could not be happy nor at ease; but do not grieve for her—only mourn for your own deterioration, and strive faithfully, and with constant effort, to make it good. Sophie—she will be happier, and better cared for, than, as your wife, she could ever have been."

"But I shall go back to poverty and disgrace, and perhaps to hatred!"

"The evil you have done will be a clog upon you; but its very weight will assure you that your face is turned toward heaven. Life will never be to you what you dreamed of making it six months ago. You will find it hard and practical, weary and monotonous; but once in a while, perhaps, you will catch a breath of air from heaven itself, and will be refreshed, or a ray of its light will glimmer on your path, and show you where to tread. The end may be a long way off, but you cannot say you have no chance of reaching it."

"Oh, if I only might!" sighed he; "but I've been nothing but a curse, so far, to every one I've known!"

"Not so, either," returned his companion, with a smile so celestial that Bressant knew at last it could be no other than the spirit of Sophie herself that had been speaking to him. "You have shaken Professor Valeyon's confidence in his wisdom and judgment, and the value of his experience; you have made him realize that the more God has to do with education the better; you have broken down Cornelia's self-complacency, and shown her that a beautiful body cannot be safe or happy without a soul to take care of it. Abbie has learned from you that love, and generosity, and self-sacrifice, may all be worthless if they be founded only upon individual grounds, to the exclusion of humanity; and Sophie has been taught, by the love she has felt for you, to be humble and charitable, and to see how easily self-interest and pride may be made to look like zeal for others, and benevolence."

And then Bressant seemed to be conscious that Sophie was bidding him farewell, but he could not see her nor touch her; he was shaken with grief, and yet was filled with a strange kind of happiness, and a feeling of resolute power. Gradually the influence of her presence faded away, and he seemed alone.

Some one shook him by the shoulder. He looked up and saw the conductor; in the background a lady and gentleman waiting to sit down. The car was full of people.

"Come, sir," said the conductor, "you're a pretty big man, but you didn't pay for more than one seat, I reckon. You've been sleeping-here for more than a hundred miles; if you want to sleep any more I expect you'd better get out and go to an hotel."

Bressant removed his feet from the extra seat, and, the conductor having reversed it, the lady and gentleman took their places. As for the boy with the green bag and the blue-spotted handkerchief, he was nowhere to be seen; he must have left the train at a previous station.

The train had stopped, and Bressant, glancing out of the window, saw that they were at some large railway-junction.

"How far are we from New York?" he asked of the conductor, with his hand to his ear to catch the reply.

"Be there in two hours," shouted back that gentleman, in reply.

"When does the next train go through here in the opposite direction?"

"We're just awaiting for one to come along and give us the track—and there she is now," returned the conductor, as he took his departure.

The whistle screamed malevolently, and, with a jerk and a rattle, the car began to move off. Bressant rose suddenly from his seat, walked quickly along the aisle to the door, passed through to the platform, grasped the iron balustrade with one hand, and swung himself lightly to the ground. The whistle screamed again like a disappointed fiend.

"Guess that young man was up late last night," remarked the conductor to the brakeman; "a powerful sound sleep he was in, anyhow."

"Off on a spree to New York, most like," responded the brakeman, tightening his dirty-brown tippet around his neck, "and thought better of it at the last minute."



CHAPTER XXXIII.

TILL THE ELEVENTH HOUR.

Her fruitless call for Bressant seemed quite to exhaust Sophie. For a long time afterward she hardly opened her mouth, except to swallow some hot black coffee. The professor sat, for the most part, with his finger on her pulse, his eyes looking more hollow and his forehead more deeply lined than ever before, but with no other signs of anxiety or suffering. Cornelia came in and out—a restless spirit. She awaited Sophie's recovery with no less of dread than of hope. Her life hung, as it were, upon her sister's. The moment in which Sophie recovered her faculties enough to think and speak would be the last that Cornelia could maintain her mask of honor and respectability, for Cornelia knew that Sophie was in possession of her secret; she had been up in her room, and the open window had told the story.

It was a time of awful suspense. Cornelia wished there had been somebody there to talk with; even Bill Reynolds would have been welcome now. He, however, had departed long ago, having bethought himself that his horse was catching its death o' cold, standing out there with no rug on. She was entirely alone; she hardly dared to think, for fear something guilty should be generated in her mind; and, though every moment was pain, without stop or mitigation, every moment was inestimably precious, too; it was so much between her and revelation. She almost counted the seconds as they passed, yet rated them for dragging on so wearily. Every tick of the little ormolu clock marked away a large part of her life, and yet was wearisome to so much of it as remained. Sometimes she debated whether she could not anticipate the end by speaking out at once, of her own free-will; but no, short as her time was, she could not afford to lose the smallest fraction of it—no, she could not.

Bethinking herself that her father would be lost to her after the revelation had taken place, Cornelia felt a consuming desire to enjoy his love to the fullest possible extent during the interval. She wanted him to call her his dear daughter—to hold her hand—to pat her check—to kiss her forehead with his rough, bristly lips—to tell her, in his gruff, kind voice, that she was a solace and a resource to him. The thousand various little ways in which he had testified his deep-lying affection—she had not noticed them or thought much of them, so long as she felt secure of always commanding them—with what different eyes she looked back upon them now. Oh! if they might all be lavished upon her during these last few remaining hours or minutes. Should she not go and sit down at his knee, and ask him to pet her and caress her?

No; she would not steal the love for which her soul thirsted, even though he whom she robbed should not feel the loss. She had stripped him of much that would doubtless seem to him of far more worth and importance; but, when it came to taking, under false pretenses, a thing so sacred as her father's love, Cornelia drew back, and, spite of her great need, had the grace to make the sacrifice. Let it not be underrated: a woman who sees honor, reputation, and happiness slipping away from her, will struggle hardest of all for the little remaining scrap of love, and only feel wholly forlorn after that, too, has vanished away.

At length, about daybreak or a little after, Sophie spoke, low, but very distinctly:

"I'm going to sleep; don't wake me or disturb me;" and almost immediately sank into a profound slumber—so very profound, indeed, that it rather bore likeness to a trance. Yet, her pulse still beat regularly, though faintly, and at long intervals, and her breath went and came, though with a motion almost imperceptible to the eye.

"Is it a good sign? Will she get well now?" asked Cornelia, as she and her father stood looking down at her.

"She'll never get well, my dear," said Professor Valeyon, very quietly. "Her mind and body both have had too great a shock—far too great. More has happened than we know of yet, I suspect. But we shall hear, we shall hear. Yes, sleep is good for her: it'll make her comfortable. Her nerves will be the quieter."

"O papa! papa! is our little Sophie going to die?" faltered Cornelia; and then she broke down completely. She had not fully grasped the idea until that moment; but the very tone in which her father spoke had the declaration of death in it. It was not his usual deep, gruff, forcible voice, shutting off abruptly at the end of his sentences, and beginning them as sharply. It had lost body and color, was thin, subdued, and monotonous. Professor Valeyon had changed from a lusty winter into a broken, infirm, and marrowless thaw.

He stood and watched her weep for a long while, bending his eyes upon her from beneath their heavy, impending brows. Heavy and impending they were still, but the vitality—the sort of warm-hearted fierceness—of his look was gone—gone! A young and bitter grief, like Cornelia's, coming at a time of life when the feelings are so tender and their manifestation of pain so poignant—is terrible enough to see, God knows! but the dry-eyed anguish of the old, of those who no longer possess the latent, indefinite, all-powerful encouragement of the future to support them—who can breathe only the lifeless, cheerless air of the past—grief with them does not convulse: it saps, and chills, and crumbles away, without noise or any kind of demonstration. The sight does not terrify or harrow us, but it makes us sick at heart and tinges our thoughts with a gloomy stain, which rather sinks out of sight than is worn away.

"Will you stay and watch with her, my dear?" said the old man, at last. "She'll sleep some hours, I think. I'll take a little sleep myself. Call me when she wakes."

So Cornelia was left alone to watch her sleeping and dying sister. All the morning she sat by the bed, almost as motionless as Sophie herself. Her mind was like a surf-wave that breaks upon the shore, slips back, regathers itself, and undulates on, to break again. Begin where she would, she always ended on that bed, with its well-known face, set around with soft dark hair, always in the same position upon the pillow, which yielded beneath it in always the same creases and curves. By-and-by, wherever she turned, still she saw that face, with the pillow rising around it; and when she shut her eyes, there it was, growing, in the blackness, clearer the more she tried to avert her mind.

It seemed to Cornelia—for time enters involuntarily into our thoughts upon all subjects—that the present order of things must have existed for a far longer period than a single night. How could the events of a few hours wear such deep and uneffaceable channels in human lives? But our souls have a chronology of their own, compared with the vividness and instantaneous workings of which, our bodies bear but a dull and lagging part. Sorrow and joy, which act upon the soul immediately, must labor long ere they can write themselves legibly and permanently upon our faces.

Cornelia fell to wondering, too—as most people under the pressure of grief are prone to do—whether there were any sympathy or any connection between the world and the human beings who live upon it. Her eyes wandered hither and thither about the room, and found it almost startling in its unaltered naturalness. There was the same view of trees, road, and field, out of the window; and the same snow which had fallen before the tragedy, lay there now. Even in Sophie's face there was no adequate transformation. Indeed, being somewhat reddened and swollen by the reaction from freezing, a stranger might have supposed that she was tolerably stout and glowing with vitality. And Cornelia looked at her own hands, as they lay in her lap: they were as round and shapely as ever; and there, upon the smooth back of one, below the forefinger, was a white scar, where she had cut herself when a little girl. Moreover—Cornelia started as her eyes rested upon it, and the blood rose painfully to her face—there was a dark, discolored bruise, encircling one wrist: Bressant's last gift—an ominous betrothal ring!

Thus several hours passed away, until, at length, Cornelia raised her eyes suddenly, and encountered those of Sophie, fixed upon her.

What a look was that! At all times there was more to be seen in Sophie's eyes than in most women's; but now they were fathomless, and yet never more clear and simple. Cornelia read in them all and more than legions of words could have told her. There were visible the complete grasp and appreciation of Cornelia's and Bressant's crime; the realization of her own position between them; pity and sympathy for the sinners, too, were there; and love, not sisterly, nor quite human, for Sophie had already begun to put on immortality—but such a love as an angel might have felt, knowing the temptation and the punishment. Before that look Cornelia felt her own bitterness and anguish fade away, as a candle is obliterated by the sun. She saw in Sophie so much higher a capacity for feeling, so much profounder and more sublime an emotion, that she was ashamed of her own beside it.

There was at once a comprehensiveness and a particularity in Sophie's gaze which, while humbling and abasing Cornelia, brought a comforting feeling that full justice, upon all points, had been done her in Sophie's mind. There was no lack of charity for her trials and temptations, no vindictiveness. Cornelia felt no impulse to plead her cause, because aware that all she could say would be anticipated in her sister's forgiveness. Nay, she almost wished there had been some bitterness and anger against which to contend. Perhaps it may be so with our souls in their judgment-day; God's mercy may outstrip the poor conjectures we have formed about it. He may see palliation for our sins, which we ourselves had not taken into account.

After a few moments, Sophie beckoned Cornelia to come near, and, as the latter stood beside the bed, took her by the hand and smiled.

"I've been all this time with Bressant," were her first words, spoken faintly, but with a quiet and serene assurance.

Cornelia made no answer; indeed, she could not speak. Strange and incomprehensible as Sophie's assertion was, she did not think of doubting but that in some way it must be true. Sophie continued:

"Before I went to sleep, I prayed God to send my spirit to him; and we have been together. Neelie, he is coming back!"

"Coming back! Sophie, coming back! For what?"

"Don't look so frightened, my darling. He will tell you why when he gets here. That will be to-morrow at noon."

"O Sophie! Sophie! the day and hour of your marriage!"

Cornelia sank upon her knees, and hid her face upon the edge of the bed. But Sophie let her hand wander over her head, with a soothing motion.

"No, dear; that's all over, Neelie dear, you know. Not the day and hour of my marriage any more. Neelie, I want to ask you something."

Cornelia lifted her head from the bedside; then, divining from Sophie's face, ere it was spoken, what her question was to be, faintness and terror seized upon her, and she clasped her hands over her eyes. The unexpectedness of Sophie's first awakening, and her subsequent strange speech concerning Bressant, had driven from Cornelia's head the matter which had monopolized her thoughts and fears before; and it now recurred to her with an effect almost as overwhelming as if the idea had been a new one.

"I couldn't do it," said she, huskily; "it seemed worse than killing myself. I believe it would have killed me to have stood before him, with his eyes upon my face, and have told him—told him—"

"Yes, dear, yes; it must not be you, Neelie. How is he? Does he seem well and cheerful?"

"I don't know—I've hardly dared to look at him, or speak to him. He's been lying down, I believe, since you went to sleep."

"Ask him to come to me," Sophie said, after a pause. "I will speak to him; I'll tell him; it will be best that I should do it; and you will trust me?"

"O Sophie!" was all that Cornelia could say; but it expressed at least the fullness of her heart. What must be the love and tenderness that could undertake such a task as this! How great the trial for a nature delicate and shrinking, like Sophie's, to bear witness before their own father of her sister's sin against herself! But Sophie was as brave as she was feminine and delicate.

Cornelia's gratitude, however, was mingled still with a despairing agony, and her life seemed to be escaping from her. If this cup might but pass!

"He will not be to me as you are, Sophie. He will never look at me again."

"Do not fear," replied Sophie, with her faint but incomparable smile. "If I can forgive you, surely he must. Go and call him, and then stay in your room till he comes to you."

But Cornelia, as she left the room upon her heavy errand, shook her head, and drew a shivering breath. She knew her father would look upon the matter more from the world's point of view than Sophie did; and it was a curious example of the strength of the material element in Cornelia, that she more feared to meet her father's eye, whom she felt would understand that aspect of her disgrace, than Sophie's, who probably had a more acute and certainly a more exclusive perception of her spiritual accountability.

As she was beginning to mount the stairs, she met her father already on his way down. He noticed the wretchedness depicted on her face, and, supposing it to be all on Sophie's account, did what he could to comfort her.

"Don't despair, my child," quoth the old man, laying his hands on her shoulders. "Nothing is so hopeless that we mayn't trust in God to better it."

The words seemed to apply so felicitously that Cornelia tried to think it a good omen sent from heaven. Then he bent over and kissed her forehead—perhaps before she was aware, perhaps not; but she took it, praying that it might prove a blessing to her hereafter, even if it were the last she were destined to receive. She passed on into her own room without speaking, and sat down there to wait.

To wait! and for what, and how long? till her father came to her? But suppose he were not to come? She would stay there, perhaps, an hour—that would be long enough—yes, too long; but still let it be an hour; and then, he not coming, what should she do? Go to him? No, she would never dare, never presume to do that. What then? steal down-stairs, a guilty, hateful thing, softly open the door which would never open to her again, and run away through the snow? The world would be before her, but snow and ice would but faintly symbolize its coldness. Was it likely that heaven itself would yield her entrance after her father's door had closed upon her?

But would not Sophie prevail, and turn his heart to forgiveness? Oh! but why was it not probable, and more than probable, that the argument would result the other way?—that her father, by a clear and stern representation of the real heinousness of her offense, would convince Sophie that Cornelia was entitled to nothing but condemnation? There would be nothing to urge against the justice of such a sentence—nothing.

Perhaps Sophie's courage might fail her, or her strength give way, leaving the ugly story but half told, and then her father would come to her to learn the rest. What should she do then? How much more terrible to be obliged to tell him then, after having made up her mind that her sister was to take the burden off her shoulders, than it would have been before any such resource had presented itself! How much more awful to meet her father when aroused by suspicion and anger, and perhaps loathing, than to begin her confession while his face was as she had always seen it, when turned toward her—loving and tender!

She could not sit still, at last, but rose up from her chair to walk the room—not from the old, restless energy, which needed physical exercise to keep it within bounds, for Cornelia was now white and faint, from exhaustion of mind and body, but from the tumult of pervading fear and delusive hope—the attention strained to catch some sound from below, and the dread lest it should never come. As the suspense grew more painful, the rapidity of her walk increased.

She expected now, every moment, to catch herself shrieking aloud, or performing some mad action or other. How long had she been up there already? Was it an hour yet? It must be an hour. Oh! it was more. Was he never coming, then?—never? O God! was there no forgiveness? Cornelia's walk had gone on quickening until it was almost a run. She was circling round and round the room, like a wild animal—was growing dizzy and exhausted, but was afraid to stop: better her body should give way than her mind—and, all the time, her ears were alert for the slightest sound.

She halted, wild-eyed and unsteady on her feet, her hand trembling at her lips. A step in the passage below, ascending the stairs slowly and heavily. Oh! did it come in mercy? She tried to draw a meaning from the sound—then dared not trust her inference. The steps had gained the landing now—were advancing along the entry toward her door. Did they bear a load of sorrow only, or of hate and condemnation likewise?

They paused at her threshold—then there was a knock, thrice repeated—not loud, nor rapid, nor regular, nor precise—rather as one heart might knock for admittance to another. Cornelia tried to say "Come in," or to open the door, but could neither speak nor move. Iron bands seemed to be clasped around all her faculties of motion. Would he go away and leave her?

The door opened, turning slowly and hesitatingly on its hinges, until it disclosed her father's venerable figure. His limbs seemed weak; his shoulders drooped; but Cornelia looked only at his face. His eyes were deep and compassionate. He held out his arms, which shook slightly but continually: "Come, my daughter," said he.

She was his daughter still! She cried out, and, walking hurriedly to him, laid herself close against him, and he hugged her closer yet—poor, miserable, erring creature though she was.

So the three were reunited—and not superficially, but more intimately and indissolubly than ever before. They would not be apart, but remained together in Bressant's room—Sophie on the bed, with an expression of divine contentment on her face, Cornelia and the professor sitting near.

"Papa," said Sophie, as the afternoon came on, "I want to make my will."

Cornelia caught her breath sharply, and, turning away her face, covered her eyes with her hand. Professor Valeyon's gray eyebrows gathered for a moment—then he steadied himself, and said, "Well, my dear."

It was not a very intricate matter. The various little bequests were soon made and noted down as she requested. After all was disposed of, there was a little pause.

"Neelie, dear," then said Sophie, turning her eyes full upon her, "I bequeath my love to you."

Cornelia perceived the hidden significance in the words, and blushed so deep and warm that the tears were dried upon her cheeks. Sophie went on, before she could make any reply:

"And I have something left for you, too, papa, though I know no one needs it less than you. But you may be called on for a great deal, so I bequeath you my charity. I haven't had it so very long myself."

The professor bowed his head, and, the will being complete, he took off his spectacles, and wiped them with his handkerchief.

"I was telling Neelie this morning, papa," resumed Sophie, after a while, "that I had been—that I'd had a dream that I was with Bressant; and I feel sure—though I suppose you'll think it nothing but a sick fancy of mine—that he will be here to-morrow noon."

The professor looked at Sophie, startled and anxious; but her appearance was so composed, straight-forward, and full of faith, he could not think her wandering.

"Do you know where he has been, my dear? or where he is now?" asked he, gently.

"I cannot tell that. I knew and understood a great deal in my dream that I cannot remember now," she answered. "I only know that he will be here to-morrow, and, papa, and you, Neelie, whether you believe as I do or not, I want you to get ready to receive him. Let it be in this dear old room—I lying here as I am now, and you sitting so beside me. We'll wait for him to-morrow morning until twelve o'clock. If I should die before then, let my body stay here until noon, for I want him to see my face when he comes, so that he'll always remember how happy I looked. But if, after that little clock on the mantel-piece strikes twelve, still he isn't here, then you may do with me as you will. I shall not know nor mind."

After this little speech, Sophie became very silent, being, in truth, too weak and worn out to speak or move, save at long, and ever longer, intervals. All that night, Professor Valeyon carried an aching and mistrustful heart; but Cornelia had a red spot in either cheek, never fading nor shifting. Sophie appeared to wander several times, murmuring something about darkness, and snow, and deadly weariness. A snow-storm had set in toward evening, and lasted until daybreak, a circumstance which seemed to cause Sophie considerable anxiety.

By ten o'clock all the preparations were made according to Sophie's wish, and there was nothing to do but to wait. Cornelia sat brooding with folded arms, and the feverish spots on her cheeks. Occasionally she restlessly varied her position, seldom allowing her eyes to stray around the room, however, save that once in a while they sought Sophie's colorless, ethereal face, as a thirsty soul the water. The professor stood much at the window, and once or twice he imagined he caught a glimpse, somewhere down the road, of a darkly-clad woman's figure; but she never came nearer, and he decided it must be a hallucination of his fading eyes.

Eleven o'clock struck from the little ormolu timepiece. A few moments afterward Sophie stirred slightly as she lay, and the professor and Cornelia listened breathlessly for what she would say.

She lifted her heavy lids, and turned her eyes, a little dimmer now than heretofore, but steady and confident, first on her father, then on her sister.

"Till noon—remember!" said she.

Nothing more was heard, after that, but the hasty ticking of the little ormolu clock, as its hands traveled steadily around the circle.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE HOUR AND THE MAN.

Bressant jumped on to the platform of the newly-arrived train. The cars were pretty full; but, coming at last to a vacant seat by the side of a clean-shaven gentleman with a straight, hard mouth, and a glossy-brown wig, curling smoothly inward all around the edge, he dropped into it without ceremony.

The train left the depot and hurried away over the road which Bressant had just traversed in the opposite direction. He sat with his arms folded, appearing to take no notice of any thing, and his neighbor with the wig read the latest edition of a New-York paper with stern attention, occasionally altering the position of his stove-pipe hat on his head. By-and-by, the conductor, a small, precise man, with a dark-blue coat, cap to match, a neatly-trimmed sandy beard, shaved upper lip, and an utterance as distinct and clippy as the holes his steel punch made in the tickets, came along upon his rounds.

Bressant put his hands into his pockets, and discovered, with some consternation, that he had but a comparatively small amount of money left; his newly-accepted poverty was certainly losing no time in making itself felt. However, such as it was, he handed it to the conductor, and inquired how near it would take him to his proposed destination.

"Eighty-one miles, rail," responded the official, as he took and clipped the ticket of the gentleman with the newspaper; "comes shorter by road, seventy-four to seventy-five," and he proceeded down the aisle, snapping up tickets on one side or the other, as a hen does grains of corn.

Bressant covered his eyes with his hand, and amused himself by performing a little sum in mental arithmetic. The amount of money he had given the conductor represented a distance which it would take a certain length of time—say four hours—to traverse. It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and consequently would be eight before that distance was accomplished. From eight o'clock Saturday night, till twelve o'clock Sunday noon, was sixteen hours, and in sixteen hours he must travel, on foot, and through the snow, seventy-five miles of unknown roads.

"Four and a half miles an hour, and nothing to eat since breakfast," said Bressant to himself. He took his hand from his eyes, and passed it down his face to his beard, which he twisted and turned unmercifully. "It's lucky it isn't any more," remarked he, philosophically.

In the course of half an hour or so, the straight-mouthed gentleman, having finished the last column of his paper, folded it up into the smallest possible compass, and handed it politely to Bressant. The latter accepted it abstractedly, and, opening one fold, read the first paragraph which presented itself, his interest increasing as he proceeded. It was in the column of latest local news, and, after bewailing, in choice language, the frightful prevalence, even among the highest aristocracy, of opium-eating and kindred indulgences, it went on to particularize the sad case of an esteemed lady, of great wealth and high connections, widow of a scion of one of our oldest families, who, having unwisely yielded herself, during many years past, to an inordinate use of morphine, as an antidote to nervous disorder, had, on the previous evening, in a temporary paroxysm of madness, succeeded in taking her own life. "No other cause can be assigned for the rash act," pursued the paragraph, "Mrs. V—— being, in all other respects than as regarded this unfortunate weakness, blessed beyond the average. She was at the moment, it is understood, contemplating immediate departure for a lengthened sojourn in Europe, taking with her an only son, a young man of fine attainments, and a recent graduate of one of our first theological seminaries, who desired to seek, among the European capitals, at once for the recreation and culture, which the arduous preparation for and the enlightened prosecution of his exalted calling rendered respectively necessary and desirable. It is not known whether this sad casualty will cause him to relinquish his design."

After finishing this paragraph, which discreetly suppressed any further personality than to remark that the deceased bore one of those quaint old Knickerbocker surnames which are in New York synonymous with haut ton and gentility, Bressant folded up the paper, and, resting his arms upon the back of the seat in front of him, made them a pillow for his forehead. This position he maintained so long, that his neighbor with the wig came to the conclusion that he must be either asleep or drunk; and, by way of arriving at some solution of the question, abstracted from his hand the rolled-up newspaper which protruded out of it. At this the young man roused himself, and presently turned to him of the wig, and thanked him for his loan with an earnestness which appeared to him, under the circumstances, rather uncalled for. He began to doubt the prudence of sitting next to so large a man, of so singular a behavior, and took advantage of the next vacancy that occurred to shift his quarters, carrying the newspaper with him.

Darkness had fallen, and the lighted interior of the crowded car had duplicated itself, through the medium of the glass window-pane, upon the black vacancy without, long before the train halted at the station which marked the boundary of Bressant's riding privilege. He got out, and was immediately smitten in the face by the cold, impalpable fingers of a thick falling snow-storm.

A bobbing lantern, carried by an invisible man, was all that came to welcome him. He walked into the waiting-room, which was lighted by a lamp with a dirty tin reflector behind it, and was furnished with a few well-worn chairs, painted gray, and polished by use; a couple of spittoons, and a pyramidal stove containing the ashes of the day's fire. The plaster walls were ornamented by many-colored railway cards, and by a fly-spotted and dusty map. A clock was fastened over the door.

He turned to the man with the lantern (who was standing in the door-way, looking as if he rather suspected Bressant contemplated stealing some of the valuables of the place), and asked him whether he could tell him the nearest road to his destination. After considerable questioning and delay, the man finally announced his entire ignorance in the matter; and Bressant was just about to make him a sharp rejoinder, when his eyes happened to fall upon the map. He stepped up to it, and found it to be of the State in which they were.

By the aid of the lantern, and a good deal of dusting, he finally discovered the spot in which he then stood, and managed to trace out a doubtful line of road, between that and the place whither he was bound. There seemed to be few cross-roads, however, and such as there were he rapidly noted in his memory. In one place the road ran off in a kind of loop, to pass through an outlying village, and, by making a cross-cut at that point, he might save himself five or six miles. But since, on calculation, he found it would be at least six o'clock in the morning before he got to the loop in question, he decided not to risk abandoning, in the state he would then be in, the beaten track for any such problematical advantage.

As he left the dirty waiting-room, and the invisible man with the lantern, the clock over the door marked five minutes past eight. Although it was more than twelve hours since he had eaten food, he was not (owing to having passed so much of the day in sleep) so hungry as he might have been. Nevertheless, appreciating what a task was before him, he would have given any thing that he could call his own for a good meal before starting. But he had handed over his last cent to the conductor, and now, time pressed him.

He was young and strong, and no one was more tireless in walking than he; his joints were firm as iron, yet supple and springy; his muscles tough and lean, of immense enduring power; his lungs were deep, and he breathed easily through his nostrils; his gait was long and elastic; but, had he been twice the man he was, the journey upon which he was now started would have been no child's play; being what he was, it was nothing less than a hazard of life and death. But Bressant seemed to think the peril quite worth encountering, in consideration of the chance of arriving by noon next day at the Parsonage-door; and, for the first time in his life, he felt grateful to God for the mighty bones and sinews he had given him. This was the time to use them, if they were paralyzed forever after!

Having gained the road, he set off with a long, swinging stride, such as the Indians use, half-way between a walk and a run. As long as he could keep that up, he would be making six miles an hour—a mile and a half over the necessary rate; but he well knew he would need all his surplus before morning broke, and was determined to make it as large as possible before want of food weakened him. The road, except for the snow, was favorable for speed, being nearly level and tolerably straight; but the flakes flying into his eyes made it impossible to be sure of his footing; and the various ruts and inequalities, common to all American turn-pikes, and aggravated by the half-frozen snow covering, caused him several slips and stumbles; trifling matters enough at other times, but now, when every unnecessary breath and false step would count up terribly, in the end, quite sufficiently serious.

The vigorous motion, however, sent the blood singing through his body from head to foot. He felt exhilarated and braced. The driving snow melted pleasantly on his warm face, and ran down into his thickly-curling beard, crusted over with frozen breath and sleet. The cold air came long and refreshingly into his wide-open nostrils. He took off his fur cap and threw open the breast of his pea-jacket. His exuberant physical sensations wrought a corresponding effect upon his previous mental gloom: he found himself looking to the future with dawnings of a new hope and cheerfulness. At no time in his life had he felt himself existing through so wide and full a range. He was a man now in full breadth and height, and, as he looked back upon his previous life, he could trace, as from a lofty vantage-ground, the plan and bearing of his former thoughts and deeds.

He remarked the wide discrepancies between what he had proposed and what he had accomplished. How insignificant circumstances had effected momentous results! He saw how, whenever failure and dishonor had filtered in, it was where weakness, self-indulgence, or untruthfulness, had left an opening. He saw how one wrong had been a sure and easy path to another, until in the end he had groveled face downward in the mire.

His mind turned on the two women between whom his path had lain: how highly he had aimed, and how low he had fallen! How enviable would have been his fate had he consistently kept to either! for each had been peerless in her way. How despicable was his position having greedily grasped at both! And now the one was dying, and the other degraded like himself. A worthy record that!

One was dying: yes, that he knew, and felt that upon his speed and resolution did it depend whether in this world he might hope for the blessing of forgiveness from her lips. The thought urged him on, like an ever-fretting spur. He butted yet more swiftly into the darkness and against the reeling snow-flakes, and the road lay in steadily-lengthening stretches behind him. She was waiting for him—that he felt—and was striving, with all her kind and loving might, to hold herself in life until he came. God help him, then, to be there at the appointed hour!

And Cornelia? Of her he ventured not much to think. She was, perchance, the key whereby, for her and for himself, this dark riddle should hereafter be resolved. As Adam might labor for redemption only with his sin about his neck, so they, out of the fabric woven of their disgrace, must seek to fashion garments in which worthily to appear at heaven's gates.

As his mind rambled thus, he came to the outskirts of a long, wooded tract, which—for the map, as he had seen it at the railway-station, was clearly marked out in his memory, from the beginning to the end of his route—he knew was upward of ten miles from his starting-point; and, as near as he could judge (his watch, lying at the bottom of the fountain-basin in the Parsonage-garden, had never been replaced), it must be rather more than half-past nine o'clock. He maintained the same long, swinging trot, as unfalteringly as ever, though, perhaps, a trifle less springily than at first. The footing was deep and heavy, the thick fir-trees having kept the snow from being blown off the road, as in more exposed situations. Bressant was wet to his skin, for the temperature had risen, and the flakes melted as fast as they fell. Most of his glow and vigor remained, however, and he was no whit disheartened or doubtful. But the sky bent darkly over him, and the tall trees shut out all but a strip even of the scanty light that came thence. The moon would not rise for hours yet.

Another hour passed on over the toiling man. He had now begun to get among hills, and his course was always either up or down. This was in some degree a relief, affording change of movement to his muscles; but it probably lost him some little time, and certainly gave plenty of exercise to his lungs. Something of the superabundant warmth was leaving his body. He replaced his cap and buttoned up his jacket. What would not half a dozen biscuits have been worth to him now!

On and on. The hills opened, and in the inclosure they made lay a small village, with its white meeting-house and clustering dwellings. The windows were many of them alight: the people were sitting up for the new year. Bressant wondered whether it would dawn for any of them so strangely as for him! As he hurried along the empty street, a sign over one of the doors, barely discernible in the darkness, attracted his attention. He paused close to it, and made out the words, "West India goods and groceries;" and at once his fancy reveled in the savory eatables stored beyond his reach. What cheese and butter, what hams, biscuits, and apples; what salted codfish and strings of sausages, were there! Had the store been open, he would have been tempted to rush in, knock the salesman senseless, and make off with whatever he could carry. Strange thoughts these for a man bound on an errand of life and death! But hunger is no respecter of occasions, however inopportune, or of emotions, however incongruous. Bressant passed on. He was now twenty-five miles on his way, and as he came beneath the meeting-house clock, it struck twelve: the new year had come! To Bressant it brought only the knowledge that he was seven miles ahead of his time; and this served in some measure to counteract the depression caused by his hunger. But on—on! There were still fifty miles to go!

The village vanished, like the old year, behind him. He was now crossing a lofty plateau, over which swept the wind, strong and chilly. He began to feel the cold now, and his wet clothes, once in a while, made him shiver. His physical exhilaration had left him, and his long trot, save where a downward slope favored him, had gradually sobered into a quick walk. His shoes, soaked with snow-water, began to chafe his feet. But he knew better than to stop for rest: the only safety lay in keeping steadily on; and on he kept, his mouth set grimly, and his head a little bent forward.

From the top of the plateau was a gradual descent of some five miles; and here Bressant again fell into a run, reaching the bottom, without extraordinary exertion, in a trifle less than three-quarters of an hour. He felt the need of his watch very keenly now; it would have been a great assistance and encouragement to know just how much he was doing. He could no longer afford to waste any strength, even in making calculations; he was fully occupied in putting one foot before another.

How dark, and cold, and blankly disheartening it was! He had now completed fifty miles, though he knew it not; but it seemed to him as if he had been full a hundred. His feet, rubbed raw, and stiffened by the cold, were beginning to retard his pace alarmingly. His face and lips were pale; a sensation of emptiness and chilled vitality pervaded his body. It had come down to grim hard work; every step was a conscious effort; and yet he had no time to spare.

The storm had lightened considerably, but the young man's eyes were dull and heavy; it was a constant struggle to keep awake. He scarcely attended to the road, but plunged along, careless of where he trod. Suddenly, however, and for the first time since starting, he came to a dead halt, and, after gazing about him a moment, cried out in dismay. And well he might, for he stood in a field, with no sign anywhere of road or path! In his sleepy inattention, he had lost his way and wandered he knew not whither.

At first he was too much paralyzed by this discovery to think or act. He threw himself face downward on the snow, and lay like a log. God was against him! How could he go on? Ah, how sweet felt that cold bed! Let him lie there in peace, to move no more! Surely he had done his best; who could blame him for a failure beyond his power to avert? The darkness would pass over him, and leave him stretched there motionless; the first light of morning would mark the dark outlines of his prostrate figure, and he would not turn to greet it. Daylight would succeed, the sun would climb the sky and shine down upon him warmly; but he would be insensible as to the darkness or the cold. Twilight would settle over the field again, and night, following, would find him as she had left him, prone upon his face, with outstretched arms. For he would be dead—dead—dead—and at rest!

But the end had not yet come. Ere he had quite sunk into insensibility, he was conscious of a feeling within him, as if some one were pulling—pulling at his heart, with a force benign and loving, yet strong as death itself. He staggered to his feet, and, stumbling as he walked, set his face against the cold and cheerless sky once more. The pulling at his heart-strings seemed to draw him steadily in one certain direction; he traversed acres of field and pasture-land blind and insensible to every thing save this mysterious guide. In his weak and exhausted state his spiritual perceptions were doubtless less incumbered than when he was in full possession of his strength. So he was drawn undeviatingly on and on, until, unexpectedly, he found himself in a road again. Then he recognized that it was Sophie's spirit which had rescued him from death and failure. He had unconsciously made the short cut across the fields, which he had noticed and decided not to attempt when examining the map. He had saved five miles in distance, equal to fully an hour in time. The thought inspired him anew, and gave him further strength. With such divine encouragement, he could falter and hesitate no more.

Morning began to break dully over the sullen clouds as he resumed in earnest his weary journey. Each yard of ground passed was now a battle gained—every breath drawn a sobbing groan. Hills and dales rose successively before him, clothed in the dead-white snow that had become a nightmare to his darkening sight. He reeled sometimes as he walked, dizzy from lack of sleep; a thousand fantastic fancies flitted through his hot brain; a deadly lethargy began once more to creep over his senses, but he gnawed the flesh of his lips to keep back consciousness. And still, when will grew powerless, he felt the mysterious strain upon his heart.

Only ten miles more! But they seemed by far the longer part of the whole way. He was now within the range of his walks while living at the boarding-house, and could see in his mind every slope and ascent, every curve and angle, that lay between him and the Parsonage-door; and he felt the weight of every hill upon his shoulders. At the risk of falling, he stooped, snatched a handful of snow, and put it inside his cap, so that it lay, cold and refreshing, upon his brain. Then he took a handful in either hand, and so kept on.

The minutes grew into hours; the hours seemed to become days; but there, at last, the well-known village lay! How reposeful and unconcerned the houses looked, as if there were no such thing in the world as effort, despair, or victory! As he came near, Bressant tried to nerve himself, to walk erect and steady, to clear and concentrate his swimming sight and confused head. He dreaded to meet the village-people, to have them come staring and questioning about him, whispering and laughing among themselves, and asking one another what was the matter with the man who was engaged to the minister's daughter on this his wedding-morning. Just then he felt a gentle pulling at his heart!

Presently he was in the village. There was a disjointed vision of faces, some of which he knew, floating around him. Once in a while he caught the sound of a voice through the humming in his ears. Were they offering him assistance? warning him? calling to him? He knew not, nor cared. He passed on, feebly but desperately. He saw the clock on the church-steeple mark half-past eleven; still in time, thank God! but no time to lose.

How well he knew the road, over which he was now groping his staggering and uncertain way! In how many moods he had walked it, actuated by how many different passions and impulses! And now he was as one dead, whose body is dragged strangely onward by some invincibly-determined will. A great fear suddenly seized upon him that here, upon this very last mile of all the weary ones he had trod since the previous night-fall, he was going to sink down, and give up his life and his attempt at the same moment. Oh, Heaven help him to the end! O Sophie, let not the tender strain upon his heart relax!

For nothing less than that can save him now! His eyes see no longer; his feet stumble in ignorance; he sleeps, and dreams of events which happened—was it long ago?—upon this road. Here he met and talked with Cornelia, that autumn day. Back there, they paused on the brow of the hill, one moonlight night, was that so long ago, too? Here, some time in the past, he had found a lifeless body in the snow, clad in a bridal dress; here, he had caught a runaway horse by the head, and—

He fell headlong to the ground. The shock partly awoke him. He struggled up to his knees—was there any one assisting him?—another struggle—he was on his feet. Right before him lay the house—the old Parsonage; there were the gate, the path, the porch. He made a final effort—it forced a deadly sweat from his forehead—and still there was a vague sense of being supported and directed by some one—he could not stop to see or question who; but, had it not been for that support, he must have failed. The gate opened, with its old creak and rattle, before him; a hand he saw not held it till he passed through.

Now, at the moment when he had fallen in the road, of the three who had all along been awaiting him within—of these three, two only were left. But, so quietly had the third departed, the others perceived not that she was gone. The features, which remained, wore an expression of angelic happiness. It was as she had wished.

At the same moment, too, through a rift in the dull sky, a little gleam of sunshine—the first of that gray day—descended, and rested upon Bressant. It accompanied him to the gate, and, still keeping close to him, slipped up the path between the trees, and even followed him on to the porch, where it brightened about him, as he put his hand to the latch. Was it a symbol of some loving spirit, newly set free from its mortal body, come to watch over him for evermore?

An old woman, who stood without clutching the palings of the gate, saw Bressant open the door and pass inward, and the sunshine entered with him. The door was left ajar—might she not enter too? Just then, a little ormolu clock, on the mantel-piece inside, gave a preliminary whirr, and hastily struck the hour of noon. As if in answer to a signal, the sun smiled broadly forth, and quite transfigured the weather-beaten old Parsonage.

THE END