Reuben May had been but a short time back in London when one evening,
as he was closing the shutters of his small shop, a boy presented
himself, saying he was the landlady's nephew at Knight's Passage, and
had been sent by her to ask Mr. May for some of the things he was
taking care of for Eve Pascal.
"Why, what does she want them for?" asked Reuben curtly.
"She wants them for Eve Pascal herself," said the boy. "Eve Pascal has
come back again: she came back this morning, only she hadn't got any
one to send till now."
"All right," said Reuben, returning to his shutter-closing and then
proceeding to fasten the door: "I'll go round and speak to her myself."
"Then you won't want me?" said the boy, not sorry to be released by his
stern-looking companion.
"No: you can go your own way," replied Reuben, already several paces in
advance, and walking with such rapid strides that a few minutes brought
him to the house which had been the scene of all the romance his life
had ever known.
"Oh, Mr. May!" but, paying no heed to the landlady's voice and without
a pause, Reuben ran up the different flights of stairs, knocked at the
door, opened it, and found himself at once in the presence of Eve:
"Eve!"
"Reuben!"
And then silence, each looking at the other, wondering what could
have wrought such a change; for the bodily fatigue and mental anxiety
undergone by Reuben had told as heavily on his appearance as the sorrow
Eve had endured had told on hers, although the absence of original
comeliness made the alteration in him less generally noticeable.
"Have you been ill, Eve?" and as he put the question a wild thought
sprang up that perhaps her suffering had been on his account, and,
stirred by this prompting, Reuben took her hand in his and looked with
tender anxiety into her face.
"No," she said, quietly withdrawing her hand, "I have not been ill.
Have you? You look very ill."
"Oh, that's on account of my having walked most of the way back here
from Plymouth: it's a stiffish tramp, you know, and took the little
flesh I had off my bones."
Eve paused for an instant, as if trying to repress the over-haste of
her question: then she said, while her face was half turned away, "Did
you go straight on to Plymouth after I saw you?"
"I got to Plymouth before daylight the next morning. I was forced to
rest a bit here and there on the way, as I'd come the same ground
once before that day; but the night was fine; so, as I didn't care
about stopping anywheres, I stumped on without waiting to see Triggs
even--made a message do for him--and started off on my journey."
"Then you never went near Looe at all?" Eve exclaimed with eagerness.
"Ah!" replied Reuben, evading a direct reply by a little laugh, under
which he heralded his answer, "you may be sure I didn't stop to inquire
the names of all the places I passed through: I was in too hot haste to
turn my back on them for anything of that sort."
"Oh, thank God!" said Eve; and at the words her whole mind and body
seemed to relax from the strain imposed on them by the suspicion that
in some indistinct way on her had rested the blame of the betrayal.
"'Thank God'?" repeated Reuben sharply. "Thank God for what?"
"For not making me the betrayer of those who put their trust in me."
Reuben's face turned crimson, but so engrossed was Eve by her own
satisfaction that his sudden confusion was lost upon her, and she
continued: "I may as well tell you, Reuben, that a terrible trouble
has fallen upon me and mine since I parted with you. That very night
some one played us false and betrayed the Lottery into the hands of the
revenue."
"I can't see what else was to be expected," said Reuben stolidly: "when
men run their necks into a noose they may be pretty sure of some day
finding the knot drawn tight."
"I was so afraid that you might have laid hold on anything I said to
you, and had been led in any way to tell it against them," sighed Eve,
paying no heed to the taunt with which Reuben had hoped to sting her.
"And supposing I had," he said, "oughtn't you to thank me for doing it?
Don't tell me, Eve"--and he threw into his tone a mixture of contempt
and bitterness--"that you've come to take it as a trial that those you
talk of belonging to are forced into taking to honest ways."
"Those I belong to have been hunted down like dogs," she cried. "A
price has been set upon their lives, and one of them has been dragged
away up here that they may try and hang him if they can."
"What?" exclaimed Reuben, starting to his feet--"hang him? Who are they
going to hang? What can they hang him for? Is it your cousin, Adam
Pascal, you're talking of?"
"No: I wish it was," said Eve, her face quivering with the emotion the
relation of these details stirred within her; "but, though 'twas in
fair fight, 'twas Jerrem shot the man."
"Shot what man?" gasped Reuben.
"The revenue-man. The Lottery was lying still, waiting for the tide to
come up, when the boats crept up behind them in the dark; and if it
hadn't been for Adam not one among their crew would have lived to tell
the tale, but by his word he kept his own men quiet--all but Jerrem,
who fired his gun, and down the revenue-man fell, dead."
Reuben stifled the exclamation which rose to his lips, and Eve, to
whose days of pent-up misery the repetition of these woes seemed to
bring relief, continued: "At first all blamed Adam and praised Jerrem,
but almost at once the soldiers came, and they'd only barely time to
hide away from them. Adam went to the mill, and was there a week and
more; and then some one told him that 'twas I was the cause of their
being betrayed; and it drove him so mad with jealousy and rage that he
told of the place where Jerrem was hid; and the next day the soldiers
came again, dragged Jerrem out and carried him away. And now, though
uncle spends every guinea he has got, 'tis almost sure that through
Adam's word Jerrem will be hanged; for they say they've brought them
both to London, and that they're lodged in Newgate jail."
Up to this time Reuben's eyes seemed riveted upon Eve's face, but as
she paused he bent his head and sunk it down upon the table near--a
movement that at any former time would naturally have awakened some
surprise, but now Eve had grown so familiar with the aspect of sorrow
that she regarded all visible emotion as an outburst of the certain
sympathy to be expected from her hearers. "Now you know why it is,
Reuben," she continued, "that I feel so glad that you had no hand in
anything of this; for you must overlook the anger that I showed at
that time. I've been sorry for it often since, and feared you'd count
me over-bold for talking as I did. Not that I'm changed, Reuben, nor
think one bit the less of Adam for what's happened. No; and though all
the world should turn their backs on him, I'd stand by his side; and
to prove it I must find him out and tell him that, in spite of all
they've told him, in heart and tongue I've never been untrue to him."
And, filled with the desire of seeing the man she loved, Eve clasped
her hands and sat trying to revolve her plans, while Reuben commenced
pacing the little room with a troubled air.
Suddenly bringing himself to a stand before Eve, he said, "Eve, be
sure your sin will find you out."
"No, Reuben--no;" and she put up her hand as if to avert the
continuance of any homily: "'tis of no good talking like that. Sorrow
has sealed up my heart against taking condemnation or comfort from
anything of that sort."
"It isn't of you I'm thinking," he exclaimed. "Oh," he cried, giving
vent to his pent-up feelings, "down into what a pitfall a minute's evil
passion may fling a man! To think that I, while I was crying vengeance
against others, was drawing down the wrath of God upon my own head,
stamping myself with the brand of Cain, and doing the devil's work by
sending men to death with all their sins still heavy on their souls!"
"Reuben, what is it you mean?" and seizing hold of him with both her
hands, Eve gazed into his face.
"That the thought you had was true," he said, "and that 'twas me who
dropped the paper in that told them where the Lottery would be found;"
and a tremor ran through Reuben's frame: his pulses for a moment
quickened, and then grew faint and seemed to die away; while Eve
uttered neither word nor sound: her eyes drooped, her hold relaxed,
and tottering she sank back into the seat behind her, and there sat
motionless and still as one carved out of stone.
The abandonment of hope, the unutterable despair of face and form,
so unlike anything which Reuben had ever seen in Eve, touched him as
no reproaches could have done. That depth of misery which words can
neither describe nor express pierced his inmost soul and added to the
stings with which conscience was already smiting him. Not for the act
of betrayal, for had there been no Eve to prompt him Reuben would have
looked upon it as an act of justice that he should aid the law against
men who set order and government at defiance, and though each man on
board had met his death Reuben would have held his conscience free of
any tittle of reproach; but, equitable and unyielding to himself as
well as to others, he full well knew that when he wrote the words which
sealed the Lottery's fate justice was clean gone out of his mind. He
neither knew nor cared what might become of the men whose safety he
betrayed: the whole rancor of his hate was turned against his rival;
and the paper he flung into the rendezvous window was as much a blow
aimed at Adam as if he had dealt him a thrust and had stabbed him in
the dark.
"Eve," he said, "words are but poor things at a time like this, and if
I spoke from now till never I couldn't make you see by them the misery
I feel; but if you'll trust me this far, I swear by Him who sees us
both and knows our hearts that no stone shall be unturned, no thing
undone. I'll walk London over, and neither rest day nor night till I
find out Adam Pascal and his comrade and tell them the whole truth.
And when I say this," he added, his face working with emotion, "don't
fancy 'tis because of love of you, Eve: I know that, come what may, we
never can be nothing more than friends now; but oh--" and he held out
his hands toward her--"let's at least be that, Eve: let me help you to
set yourself clear with the man who, be he what he may, it seems you've
given all your heart to; and you--you help me to rid myself of the
thought that I've led into sin and hurried on to death fellow-creatures
whose godless lives I'd now give my own to save. Together, if we set
our minds to work, there's no knowing what we mayn't do yet. Warrants
have been quashed and pardons given when men have reached the very
gallows' foot; and as for getting in, why Mr. Osborne knows Newgate
prison, every inch, from going there with old Silas Told when he was
living, and he'll do anything for me; so there'll be no fear about
that. And you know _me_, Eve: you know how when I'm set upon a thing I
strain my utmost nerve to get it done;" and, pausing, he stood watching
with mingled hope and fear the effect of his words--first, the flush
of spreading color, then the quivering mouth and eyes, and finally the
rush of tears which lifted up and cleared away that stone-like gloom.
A ray of hope seemed once more near, and catching at the feeblest
chance of being brought again face to face with Adam, Eve, unable to
speak, stretched out her hand, which Reuben took, grasped it almost
to pain, then let it go, and with it every hope of love that lingered
still for Eve.
The rest of the time was spent in explanations of the various incidents
relating to the all-engrossing event, the details which bore upon it,
the circumstances which surrounded it, until, from following out all
these into their different channels, Reuben began to have a clearer
conception of the men, their characters, their individual virtues and
collective failings, growing interested in them almost against his
will. The hour was late before he recollected that until he reached his
home he could hardly settle his plans so as to secure an entrance into
the prison on the following day. Bidding Eve good-night, he left the
house and walked away, only stopping at the turn of the street to step
into the road and cast his wistful gaze up to the window of the room
which to him now was as the tomb of his dead love.
An ordinary workingman standing in an obscure street is not a figure
to arouse much interest, and Reuben's stolid face gave little index to
the varied emotions which surged within his troubled heart. He was able
to return the gruff "Good-night!" the watchman gave, and the old man,
passing on, went wondering as to the cause of such anxious survey on
Reuben's part. For as he stood his thoughts ran here and there, and by
the magic of their power showed to his view the long-gone joys of other
days. He watched the struggling birth of love, scorched himself in its
flame, and felt by turns the tortures and delights its presence gives
to those who live on hope alone: then sadly saw it fade from out his
sight, sicken and faint almost to death, and yet it did not die until
by that one action he had robbed it of life and killed it evermore.
Yes, love was dead, and love was Eve; and for Reuben May the Eve he had
loved so fondly lived no longer.