THE COLONEL CONTINUES TO BE LED INTO TEMPTATION.
On the cars between New York and Washington Carter encountered the
Governor of Barataria. After the customary compliments had been
exchanged, after the Governor had acknowledged the services of the
famous Tenth, and the Colonel had eulogized the good old State, the
latter spoke of the vacant lieutenant-colonelcy in the regiment, and
asked that it might be given to Colburne.
"But I have promised that to Mr. Gazaway," said the Governor, looking
slightly troubled.
"To Gazaway!" roared Carter in wrathful astonishment. "What! to the same
Gazaway? Why--Governor--are you aware--are you perfectly aware why he
left the regiment?"
The Governor's countenance became still more troubled, but did not lose
its habitual expression of mild obstinacy.
"I know--I know," he said softly. "It is a very miserable affair."
"Miserable! It is to the last degree scandalous. I never heard of
anything so utterly contemptible as this fellow's behavior. You
certainly cannot know---- If you did, you wouldn't think of letting this
infernal poltroon back into the regiment. He ought to have been
court-martialed. It is a cursed shame that he was not shot for
misbehavior in presence of the enemy. Let me tell you his story."
The Governor had an air which seemed to say that it would be of no use
to tell him anything; but he folded his hands, bowed his head, crossed
his legs, put a pastille in his mouth, and meekly composed himself to
listen.
"This Gazaway is the greatest coward that I ever saw," pursued the
Colonel. "I positively think he must be the greatest coward that ever
lived. At Georgia Landing he left his horse, and dodged, and ducked, and
squatted behind the line in such a contemptible way that I came near
rapping him over the head with the flat of my sabre. At Camp Beasland he
shammed sick, and skulked about the hospitals, whimpering for medicine.
I sent in charges against him then; but they got lost, I believe, on the
march; at any rate, they never turned up. At Port Hudson I released him
from arrest, and ordered him into the fight, hoping he would get shot. I
privately told the surgeon not to excuse him, and I told the blackguard
himself that he must face the music. But he ran away the moment the
brigade came under fire. He was picked up at the hospital by the
provost-guard, and sent to the regiment in its advanced position. The
officers refused to obey his orders unless he proved his courage first
by taking a rifle and fighting in the trenches. They equipped him, but
he wouldn't fight. He trembled from head to foot, said he didn't know
how to load his gun, said he was sick, cried. Then they kicked him out
of camp--actually and literally booted him out--put the leather to him,
sir. That is the last time that he was seen with the regiment. He was
next picked up in the hospitals of New Orleans, and sent to the front by
Emory, who would have shot him if he had known what he was. He was in
command of Fort Winthrop, and wanted to surrender at the first summons.
Nothing but the high spirit of his officers, and the gallantry of the
whole garrison, saved the fort from its own commander. I tell you, sir,
that he is a redemptionless sneak. He is a disgrace to the regiment, and
to the State, and to the country. He is a disgrace to every man in both
services--to every man who calls himself an American. And you propose
to restore him to the regiment!"
The Governor sighed, and looked very sad, but at the same time as meekly
determined as Moses.
"My dear Colonel, I knew it all," he said. "But I think I am right. I
think I am acting out our American principle--the greatest good of the
greatest number. I must beg your patient hearing and your secrecy. In
the first place, Gazaway is not to keep the commission. It is merely
given to whitewash him. He will accept it, and then resign it. That is
all understood."
"But what the ---- do you want to whitewash him for? He ought to be
gibbeted."
"I know. Very true. But see here. We _must_ carry the elections. We
_must_ have the government supported by the people. We _must_ give the
administration a clear majority in both houses of Congress. Otherwise,
you see, Copperheadism and Secession, false peace and rebellion will
triumph."
"But the way to carry the elections is to whip the rebels, my God!--to
have the best officers and the best army, and win all the victories, my
God!"
The Governor smiled as if from habit, but pursued his own course of
reasoning resolutely, without noticing the new argument. His spunk was
rising a little, and he had no small amount of domination in him,
notwithstanding his amiability.
"Now Gazaway's Congressional district is a close one," he continued,
"and we fear that his assistance is necessary to enable us to carry it.
I grieve to think that it is so. It is not our fault. It is the fault of
those men who will vote a disloyal ticket. Well, he demands that we
shall whitewash him by giving him a step up from his old commission. On
that condition he agrees to insure us the district. Then he is to
resign."
"My God! what a disgraceful muddle!" was Carter's indignant comment.
The Governor looked almost provoked at seeing that the Colonel would
not appreciate his difficulties and necessities.
"I sacrifice my own feelings in this matter," he insisted. "I assure you
that it is a most painful step for me to take."
He forgot that he was also sacrificing the feelings of Captain Colburne
and of other deserving officers in the gallant Tenth.
"I wouldn't take the step," returned the Colonel. "I'd let the election
go to hell before I'd take it. If that is the way elections are carried,
let us have done with them, and pray for a despotism."
After this speech there was a silence of some minutes. Each of these men
was a wonder to the other; each of them ought to have been a wonder to
himself. The Governor knew that Carter was a roué, a hard drinker,
something of a Dugald Dalgetty; and he could not understand his
professional chivalry, his passion for the honor of the service, his
bitter hatred of cowards. The Colonel knew the Governor's upright moral
character as an individual, and was amazed that such a man could
condescend to what he considered dirty trickery. In one respect, Carter
had the highest moral standpoints. He did wrong to please himself, but
it was under the pressure of overwhelming impulse, and he paid for it in
frank remorse. The other did wrong after calm deliberation, sadly
regretting the alleged necessity, but chloroforming his conscience with
the plea of that necessity. He was at bottom a well-intentioned and
honorable man, but blinded by long confinement in the dark labyrinths of
political intrigue, as the fishes of the Mammoth Cave are eyeless
through the lack of light. He would have shrunk with horror from Carter
had he known of that affair with Madame Larue. At the same time he could
commission a known coward above the heads of heroes, to carry a
Congressional district. And, in order that we may not be too hard upon
him, let us consider his difficulties; let us suppose that he had
elevated the Bayard and thrown the Bardolph overboard. In the first
place all the wire-pullers of his following would have been down upon
him with arguments and appeals, begging him in the name of the party, of
the country, of liberty, not to lose the election. His own candidate in
the doubtful district, an old and intimate friend, would have said, "You
have ruined my chances." All the capitalists and manufacturers who
depended on this candidate to get this or that axe sharpened on the
Congressional grindstone, would have added their outcries to the
lamentation. Thinking of all this, and thinking too of the Copperheads,
and what they would be sure to do if they triumphed, he felt that what
he had decided on was for the best, and that he must do it. Gazaway must
have the lieutenant-colonelcy until the spring election was over; and
then, and not before, he must make way for some honorable man and brave
officer.
"But how can this fellow have such a political influence?" queried the
Colonel. "It ought to be easy enough to expose him in the newspapers,
and smash him."
"The two hundred men or so who vote as he says never read the
newspapers, and wouldn't believe the exposure."
"There is the majority left," observed Carter, after another pause.
"Captain Colburne might have that--if he would take promotion under
Gazaway."
"I have given that to my nephew, Captain Rathbun," said the Governor,
blushing.
He was not ashamed of his political log-rolling with a vulgar coward,
but he was a little discomposed at confessing his very pardonable and
perhaps justifiable nepotism.
"Captain Rathbun," he pursued hastily, "has been strongly recommended by
all the superior officers of his corps. There is no chance of promotion
in the cavalry, as our State has only furnished three companies. I have
therefore transferred him to the infantry, and I placed him in your
regiment because there were two vacancies."
"Then my recommendation goes for nothing," said Carter, in gloomy
discontent.
"Really, Colonel, I must have some authority in these matters. I am
called commander-in-chief of the forces of the State. I am sorry if it
annoys you. But there will be--I assure you there will soon be--a
vacancy for Captain Colburne."
"But he will have to come in under your nephew, I suppose."
"I suppose so. I don't see how it can be otherwise. But it will be no
disgrace to him, I assure you. He will find Major Rathbun an admirable
officer and a comrade perfectly to his taste. He graduated from the
University only a year after Captain Colburne."
"Excuse me if I leave you for half an hour," observed Carter, without
attempting to conceal his disgust. "I want to step into the smoking-car
and take a segar."
"Certainly," bowed the Governor, and resumed his newspaper. He was used
to such unpleasant interviews as this; and after drawing a tired sigh
over it, he was all tranquillity again. The Colonel was too profoundly
infuriated to return to his companion during the rest of the journey,
much as he wanted his influence to back up his own application for
promotion.
"Horrible shame, by Jove!" he muttered, while chewing rather than
smoking his segar. "I wish the whole thing was in the hands of the War
Department. Damn the States and their rights! I wish, by (this and that)
that we were centralized."
Thus illogically ruminated the West Pointer; not seeing that the good is
not bad merely because it may be abused; not seeing that Centralism is
sure to be more corrupt than Federalism. The reader knows that such
cases as that of Gazaway were not common. They existed, but they were
exceptional; they were sporadic, and not symptomatic. In general the
military nominations of the Governor did honor to his heart and his
head. It was Colburne's accidental misfortune that his State contained
one or two doubtful districts, and that one of them was in the hands,
or was supposed to be in the hands, of his contemptible superior
officer. In almost any other Baratarian regiment the intelligent,
educated, brave and honorable young captain would have been sure of
promotion.
Carter was troubled with a foreboding that his own claims would meet
with as little recognition as those of Colburne. He took plain whiskeys
at nearly every stopping-place, and reached Washington more than half
drunk, but still in low spirits. Sobered and rested by a night's sleep,
he delivered his dispatches, was bowed out by General Halleck, and then
sought out a resident Congressional friend, and held a frank colloquy
with him concerning the attainment of the desired star.
"You see, Colonel, that you are a marked man," said the M. C. "You have
been known to say that the war will last five years."
"Well, it will. It has lasted nearly three, and it will kick for two
more. I ought to be promoted, by (this and that) for my sagacity."
"Just so," laughed the M. C. "But you won't be. The trouble is that you
say just what the Copperheads say; and you get credit for the same
motives. It is urged, moreover, that men like you discourage the nation
and cheer the rebels."
"By Jove! I'd like to see the rebel who would be cheered by the news
that the war will last two years longer."
The honorable member laughed again, in recognition of the hit, and
proceeded:
"Then there is that old filibustering affair. When you went into that
you were not so good a prophet as you are now; and in fact it is a very
unfortunate affair at present; it stands in your way confoundedly. In
fact, you are not a favorite with our left wing--our radicals. The
President is all right. The War Department is all right. They admit your
faithfulness, ability and services. It is the Senate that knocks you. I
am afraid you will have to wait for something to turn up. In fact, I
don't see my way to a confirmation yet."
Carter swore, groaned, and chewed his cigar to a pulp.
"But don't be discouraged," pursued the M. C. "We have brought over two
or three of the radicals to your side. Three or four more will do the
job. Then we can get a nomination with assurance of a confirmation. I
promise you it shall be attended to at the first chance. But you must
come out strong against slavery. Abolition is your card. New converts
must be zealous, you know."
"By Jove, I _am_ strong. I didn't believe in arming the negro once; but
I do now. It was a good movement. I'll take a black brigade."
"Will you? Then you can have a white one, I guess. By the way, perhaps
you can do something for yourself. A good many of the Members are in
town already. I'll take you around--show you to friends and enemies. In
fact you can do something for yourself."
Carter did something in the way of treating, giving game-suppers,
flattering and talking anti-slavery, smiling outwardly the while, but
within full of bitterness. It seemed to him a gross injustice that the
destiny of a man who had fought should be ruled by people who slept in
good beds every night and had never heard a bullet whistle. He thought
that he was demeaning himself by bowing down to members of Congress and
State wire-pullers; but he was driven to it by his professional rage for
promotion, and still more urgently by the necessity of increasing his
income. When he left Washington after the two weeks' stay which was
permitted to him, his nomination to a brigadiership was promised, and he
had strong hopes of obtaining the Senatorial confirmation. At New York
he called on Mrs. Larue. He had not meant to do it when he quitted the
virtuous capital of the nation, but as he approached her he felt drawn
towards her by something stronger than the engine. Moreover, he thought
to himself that she might do something for his promotion if she could
be induced to go to Washington and try the ponderosity of the United
States Senate with that powerful social lever of hers, _la sainte
passion_, etc.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" she exclaimed. "Why were you not
frank with me, _mon ami_? I would have gone. I would have worked day and
night for you. I would have had such fun! It would have been delicious
to humbug those abolitionist Senators. I would have been the ruin of Mr.
Sumnaire and Mr. Weelsone. There would have been yet more books
dedicated to Sainte Marie Madeleine."
She burst into a laugh at these jolly ideas, and waltzed about the room
with a mimicry of love-making in her eyes and gestures.
"But I can not go alone, you perceive; do you not?" she resumed, sitting
down by his side and laying one hand caressingly on his shoulder. "I
should have no position alone, and there is not the time for me to
create one. Moreover, I have paid for my passage to New Orleans in the
Mississippi."
"Well, we shall be together," said Carter. "That is my boat. But what a
cursed fool I was in not taking you to Washington!"
"Certainly you were, _mon ami_. It is most regrettable. It is
_désespérant_."
As far as these two were concerned, the voyage south was much like the
latter part of the voyage north, except that Carter suffered less from
self-reproach, and was generally in higher spirits. He had not money
enough left to pay for his meals and wine, but he did not hesitate to
borrow a hundred dollars from the widow, and she lent it with her usual
amiability.
"You shall have all I can spare," she said. "I only wish to live and
dress _comme il faut_. You are always welcome to what remains."
What could the unfortunate man do but be grateful? Mrs. Larue began to
govern him with a mild and insinuating domination; and, strange to say,
her empire was not altogether injurious. She corrected him of a number
of the bearish ways which he had insensibly acquired by life in the
army, and which his wife had not dared to call his attention to,
worshipping him too sincerely. She laughed him out of his swearing, and
scolded him out of most of his drinking. She mended his stockings,
trimmed the frayed ends of his necktie, saw to it that his clothes were
brushed; in short, she greatly improved his personal appearance, which
had grown somewhat shabby under the influences of travelling and
carousing; for the Colonel was one of those innumerable male creatures
who always go to seediness as soon as womankind ceases to care for them.
With him she had no more need of coquetries and sentimental prattle; and
she treated him very much as a wife of five years' standing treats her
husband. She was amiable, pains-taking, petting, slightly exacting,
slightly critical, moderately chatty, moderately loving. They led a
peaceable, domestic sort of life, without much regard to secrecy,
without much terror at the continual danger of discovery. They were old
sinners enough to feel and behave much like innocent people. Carter's
remorse, it must be observed, had arisen entirely from his affection for
his wife, and his shame at having proved unworthy of her affectionate
confidence, and not at all from any sense of doing an injury to Mrs.
Larue, nor from a tenderness of conscience concerning the abstract
question of right and wrong. Consequently, after the first humiliation
of his fall was a little numbed by time, he could be quite comfortable
in spirit.
But his uneasiness awakened at the sight of Lillie, and the pressure of
her joyful embrace. The meeting, affectionate as it seemed on both
sides, gave him a very miserable kind of happiness. He did not turn his
eyes to Mrs. Larue, who stood by with a calm, pleased smile. He was led
away in triumph; he was laid on the best sofa and worshipped; he was a
king, and a god in the eyes of that pure wife; but he was a very
unhappy, and shamefaced deity.
"Oh, what charming letters you wrote!" whispered Lillie. "How good you
were to write so often, and to write such sweet things! They were such a
comfort to me!"
Carter was a little consoled. He _had_ written often and affectionately;
he had tried in that way to make amends for a concealed wrong; and he
was heartily glad to find that he had made her happy.
"Oh, my dear child!" he said. "I am so delighted if I have given you any
pleasure!"
He spoke this with such a sigh, almost a groan, that she looked at him
in wonder and anxiety.
"What is the matter, my darling?" she asked. "What makes you sad? Have
you failed in getting your promotion? Never mind. I will love you to
make up for it. I know, and you know, that you deserve it. We will be
just as happy."
"Perhaps I have not altogether failed," he replied, glad to change the
subject. "I have some hopes yet of getting good news."
"Oh, that will be so delightful! Won't it be nice to be prosperous as
well as happy! I shall be so overjoyed on your account! I shall be too
proud to live."
In his lonely meditations Carter frequently tried himself at the bar of
his strange conscience, and struggled hard to gain a verdict of not
guilty. What could a fellow do, he asked, when a woman would persist in
flinging herself at his head? He honestly thought that most men would
have done as he did; that no one but a religious fanatic could have
resisted so much temptation; and that such resistance would have been
altogether ungentlemanly. To atone for his wrong he was most tender to
his wife; he followed her with attentions, and loaded her with presents.
At the same time that he had a guilt upon his soul which might have
killed her had she discovered it, he would not stint her wardrobe, nor
forget to kiss her every time he went out, nor fail to bring her
bouquets every evening. He has been known to leave his bed at midnight
and walk the street for hours, driving away dogs whose howling prevented
her from sleeping. Deeds like this were his penance, his expiation, his
consolation.
He was now on duty in the city. High Authority, determined to make
amends for the neglect with which this excellent officer was treated,
offered him the best thing which it had now to give, the
chief-quartermastership of the Department of the Gulf. His pay would
thereby be largely increased in consequence of his legal commutations
for rooms and fuel, besides which there was a chance of securing large
extra-official gleanings from such a broad field of labor and
responsibility. But Carter realized little out of his position. He could
keep his accounts of Government property correctly; but except in his
knowledge of returns, and vouchers, and his clerk-like accuracy, he was
not properly speaking a man of business; that is to say, he had no
faculty for making money. He was too professionally honorable to lend
Government funds to speculators for the sake of a share of the profits.
He would not descend to the well-known trickery of getting public
property condemned to auction, and then buying it in for a song to sell
it at an advance. In the case of a single wagon he might do something of
the sort in order to rectify his balances in the item of wagons; or he
might make a certificate of theft in a small affair of trousers or
havresacks which had been lost through negligence, or issued without a
receipt. But to such straits officers were frequently driven by the
responsibility system; he sheltered himself under the plea of necessity;
and did nothing worse. In fact, his position was a temptation without
being a benefit.
It was a serious temptation. A great deal of money passed through his
hands. He paid out, and received on account of the Government, thousands
of dollars daily; and the mere handling of such considerable sums made
him feel as if he were a great capitalist. Money was an every day,
vulgar commodity, and he spent it with profusion. Before he had been in
his place two months he was worm-eaten, leaky, sinking with debts. No
one hesitated to trust a man who had charge over such an abounding
source of wealth as the chief-quartermastership of the Department of the
Gulf. He lived sumptuously, drank good wines, smoked the best cigars,
and marketed for the Ravenel table in his own name, blaspheming the
expense whether of cost or credit. Remembering that his wife needed
gentle exercise, and had a right to every comfort which he could
furnish, he gave her a carriage, and pair of ponies, and of course set
up a coachman.
"Can you afford it, my dear?" asked Lillie, a little anxious, for she
was aware of his tendency to extravagance.
"I can afford anything, my little one, rather than the loss of you,"
replied the Colonel after a moment's hesitation.
She wanted to believe that all was well, and therefore the task of
convincing her was easy. Her trust was constant, and her adoration
fervent; they were symptomatic of her physical condition; they were for
the present laws of her nature. It was more than usually painful to her
now to be separated long from her deity. When he went out it was, "Where
are you going? When will you come back?"--When he returned it was, "How
long you have been gone! Oh, I though you would come an hour ago?" It
was childish, but she did not perceive it, and if she had, she could not
have helped it. She clung to him, and longed after him because she must;
there was a bond of unity between them which clasped her inmost life.
Meanwhile how about Mrs. Larue? No one could have been more discreet,
more corruptly sagacious, more sunnily amiable, than this singular
woman. She petted Lillie like a child, helped her in her abundant sewing
labors, brought her as many bouquets as the Colonel himself, scolded
her for imprudencies, forbade this dish and recommended that, laughed at
her occasional despondencies, and cheered her as women know how to cheer
each other. She seemed like the truest friend of the young woman whom
she would not have hesitated much to rob of her husband, provided she
could have wished to do it. This kindness was not hypocrisy, but simple,
unforced good nature. It was natural, and therefore, agreeable to her to
be amiable; and as she always did what she liked to do, she was a
pattern of amiability. To have quarreled seriously with Lillie would
have been a downright annoyance to her, and consequently she avoided
every chance of a disagreement, so far at least as was consistent with
her private pleasures. She had not the slightest notion of eloping with
the Colonel; she did not take passions sufficiently _au grand sérieux_
for that; she would not have isolated herself from society for any man.
Notwithstanding Mrs. Larue's sugar mask Lillie was at times disposed to
fight her; not, however, in the slightest degree on account of her
husband; only on account of her father. The sly Creole, partly for her
own amusement indeed, but chiefly to divert suspicion from her
familiarity with Carter, commenced a coquettish attack upon the Doctor.
Lillie was sometimes in a desperate fright lest she should entrap him
into a marriage. She thought that she understood Mrs. Larue perfectly,
and she felt quite certain that she was by no means good enough for her
father. In her estimation there never was a man, unless it might be her
husband, who was so good, so noble, so charming as this parent of hers;
and if she had been called on to select a wife for him, I doubt whether
any woman could have passed the examination to which she would have
subjected the candidates.
"I perfectly spoil you, papa," she said, laughing. "I pet you and admire
you till I suppose I shall end by ruining you. If ever you go out into
the world alone, what will become of you? You will miss my care
dreadfully. You mustn't leave me; it's for your own good--hear? You
mustn't trust yourself to anybody else--hear?"
"I hear, my child," answers the Doctor. "What a charming little Gold
Coast accent you have!"
"Pshaw! It isn't negro at all. Everybody talks so. But I wonder if you
are trying to change the subject."
"Really I wasn't aware of a subject being presented for my
consideration."
"Oh, you don't understand, or you won't understand. I do believe you
have a guilty conscience."
"A guilty conscience about what, my child? Have the kindness to speak
plainly. My mind is getting feeble."
"Ain't you ashamed to ask me to speak plainly? I don't want to speak
plainly. Do you actually want to have me?"
"If it wouldn't overpower your reason, I should like it. It would be
such a convenience to me."
"Well, I mean, papa," said Lillie, coloring at her audacity, "that I
don't like Mrs. Larue!"
"Don't like Mrs. Larue! Why, she is as kind to you as she can possibly
be. I thought you were on the best of terms."
"I mean that I don't like her well enough to call her Mamma."
"Call her Mamma!" repeated the Doctor, staring over his spectacles in
amazement. "You don't mean?--upon my honor, you are too nonsensical,
Lillie."
"Am I? Oh, I am so delighted!" exclaimed Lillie eagerly. "But I _was_ so
afraid."
"Do you think I am in my dotage?" inquired the Doctor, almost indignant.
"No no, papa. Don't be vexed with me. I dare say it was very absurd in
me. But I do think she is so artful and designing."
"She is a curious woman, we know," observed Ravenel. "She certainly has
some--peculiarities."
Lillie laughed outright, and said, "Oh yes," with a gay little air of
satire.
"But she is too young to think of me," pursued the Doctor. "She can't be
more than twenty-five."
"Papa!!" protested Lillie. "She is thir--ty! Have you lost your memory?"
"Thirty! Is it possible? Really, I am growing old. I am constantly
understating other people's ages. I have caught myself at it repeatedly.
I don't know whether it is forgetfulness, or inability to realize the
flight of time, or an instinctive effort to make myself out a modern by
showing that my intimates are youthful. But I am constantly doing it. Do
you recollect how I have laughed about Elderkin for this same trick? He
is always relating anecdotes of his youth in a way which would lead you
to suppose that the events happened some fifteen or twenty years ago.
And yet he is seventy. I mustn't laugh at Elderkin any more."
"Nonsense!" said Lillie. "You are not a bit like him. He blacks his hair
to correspond with his dates. He means to humbug people. And then you
are not old."
"But, to return to Mrs. Larue," observed the Doctor. "She has a clear
head; she is pretty sensible. She is not a woman to put herself in a
false or ridiculous position. I really have not observed anything of
what you hint."
"Oh no. Of course not. Men never do; they are _so_ stupid! Of course you
wouldn't observe anything until she went on her knees and made you a
formal declaration. I was afraid you might say, 'Yes,' in your
surprise."
"My dear, don't talk in that way of a lady. You degrade your own sex by
such jesting."
However, the Doctor did in a quiet way put himself on his guard against
Mrs. Larue; and Lillie, observing this, did also in a quiet way feel
quite elated over the condition of things in the family. She was as
happy as she had ever been, or could desire to be. It was a shocking
state of deception; corruption lilied over with decorum and smiling
amiability; whited sepulchres, apples of Sodom, blooming Upas. Carter
saw Mrs. Larue as often as he wanted, and even much oftener, in a
private room, which even his wife did not know of, in rear of his
offices. Closely veiled she slipped in by a back entrance, and
reappeared at the end of ten minutes, or an hour, or perhaps two hours.
It was after such interviews had taken place that his wife welcomed him
with those touching words. "Oh, where have you been? I thought you never
would come."
He would have been glad to break the evil charm, but he was too far gone
to be capable of virtuous effort.