“Beriah Sellers, Missouri,” was the courteous acknowledgment that the

lawyer was correct.

“Mr. Sellers; you know the parties here, you are a friend of the

family?”

“Know them all, from infancy, sir. It was me, sir, that induced Silas

Hawkins, Judge Hawkins, to come to Missouri, and make his fortune. It

was by my advice and in company with me, sir, that he went into the

operation of--”

“Yes, yes. Mr. Sellers, did you know a Major Lackland?”

“Knew him, well, sir, knew him and honored him, sir. He was one of the

most remarkable men of our country, sir. A member of congress. He was

often at my mansion sir, for weeks. He used to say to me, 'Col. Sellers,

if you would go into politics, if I had you for a colleague, we should

show Calhoun and Webster that the brain of the country didn't lie east

of the Alleganies. But I said--”

“Yes, yes. I believe Major Lackland is not living, Colonel?”

There was an almost imperceptible sense of pleasure betrayed in the

Colonel's face at this prompt acknowledgment of his title.

“Bless you, no. Died years ago, a miserable death, sir, a ruined man, a

poor sot. He was suspected of selling his vote in Congress, and probably

he did; the disgrace killed him, he was an outcast, sir, loathed by

himself and by his constituents. And I think, sir”----

The Judge. “You will confine yourself, Col. Sellers to the questions of

the counsel.”

“Of course, your honor. This,” continued the Colonel in confidential

explanation, “was twenty years ago. I shouldn't have thought of

referring to such a trifling circumstance now. If I remember rightly,

sir”--

A bundle of letters was here handed to the witness.

“Do you recognize, that hand-writing?”

“As if it was my own, sir. It's Major Lackland's. I was knowing to these

letters when Judge Hawkins received them. [The Colonel's memory was a

little at fault here. Mr. Hawkins had never gone into details with him

on this subject.] He used to show them to me, and say, 'Col, Sellers

you've a mind to untangle this sort of thing.' Lord, how everything

comes back to me. Laura was a little thing then. 'The Judge and I were

just laying our plans to buy the Pilot Knob, and--”

“Colonel, one moment. Your Honor, we put these letters in evidence.”

The letters were a portion of the correspondence of Major Lackland with

Silas Hawkins; parts of them were missing and important letters were

referred to that were not here. They related, as the reader knows,

to Laura's father. Lackland had come upon the track of a man who was

searching for a lost child in a Mississippi steamboat explosion years

before. The man was lame in one leg, and appeared to be flitting from

place to place. It seemed that Major Lackland got so close track of him

that he was able to describe his personal appearance and learn his name.

But the letter containing these particulars was lost. Once he heard of

him at a hotel in Washington; but the man departed, leaving an empty

trunk, the day before the major went there. There was something very

mysterious in all his movements.

Col. Sellers, continuing his testimony, said that he saw this lost

letter, but could not now recall the name. Search for the supposed

father had been continued by Lackland, Hawkins and himself for several

years, but Laura was not informed of it till after the death of Hawkins,

for fear of raising false hopes in her mind.

Here the District Attorney arose and said,

“Your Honor, I must positively object to letting the witness wander off

into all these irrelevant details.”

Mr. Braham. “I submit your honor, that we cannot be interrupted in this

manner. We have suffered the state to have full swing. Now here is a

witness, who has known the prisoner from infancy, and is competent

to testify upon the one point vital to her safety. Evidently he is a

gentleman of character, and his knowledge of the case cannot be shut out

without increasing the aspect of persecution which the State's attitude

towards the prisoner already has assumed.”

The wrangle continued, waxing hotter and hotter. The Colonel seeing the

attention of the counsel and Court entirely withdrawn from him, thought

he perceived here his opportunity, turning and beaming upon the jury,

he began simply to talk, but as the grandeur of his position grew upon

him--his talk broadened unconsciously into an oratorical vein.

“You see how she was situated, gentlemen; poor child, it might have

broken her heart to let her mind get to running on such a thing as that.

You see, from what we could make out her father was lame in the left leg

and had a deep scar on his left forehead. And so ever since the day

she found out she had another father, she never could run across a lame

stranger without being taken all over with a shiver, and almost fainting

where she stood. And the next minute she would go right after that man.

Once she stumbled on a stranger with a game leg; and she was the most

grateful thing in this world--but it was the wrong leg, and it was days

and days before she could leave her bed.

Once she found a man with a scar on his forehead and she was just going

to throw herself into his arms, but he stepped out just then, and there

wasn't anything the matter with his legs. Time and time again, gentlemen

of the jury, has this poor suffering orphan flung herself on her knees

with all her heart's gratitude in her eyes before some scarred and

crippled veteran, but always, always to be disappointed, always to be

plunged into new despair--if his legs were right his scar was wrong,

if his scar was right his legs were wrong. Never could find a man that

would fill the bill. Gentlemen of the jury; you have hearts, you have

feelings, you have warm human sympathies; you can feel for this poor

suffering child. Gentlemen of the jury, if I had time, if I had the

opportunity, if I might be permitted to go on and tell you the thousands

and thousands and thousands of mutilated strangers this poor girl has

started out of cover, and hunted from city to city, from state to state,

from continent to continent, till she has run them down and found they

wan't the ones; I know your hearts--”

By this time the Colonel had become so warmed up, that his voice,

had reached a pitch above that of the contending counsel; the lawyers

suddenly stopped, and they and the Judge turned towards the Colonel and

remained for several seconds too surprised at this novel exhibition to

speak. In this interval of silence, an appreciation of the situation

gradually stole over the audience, and an explosion of laughter

followed, in which even the Court and the bar could hardly keep from

joining.

Sheriff. “Order in the Court.”

The Judge. “The witness will confine his remarks to answers to

questions.”

The Colonel turned courteously to the Judge and said,

“Certainly, your Honor--certainly. I am not well acquainted with the

forms of procedure in the courts of New York, but in the West, sir, in

the West--”

The Judge. “There, there, that will do, that will do!”

“You see, your Honor, there were no questions asked me, and I thought

I would take advantage of the lull in the proceedings to explain to the

jury a very significant train of--”

The Judge. “That will DO sir! Proceed Mr. Braham.”

“Col. Sellers, have you any reason to suppose that this man is still

living?”

“Every reason, sir, every reason.

“State why”

“I have never heard of his death, sir. It has never come to my

knowledge. In fact, sir, as I once said to Governor--”

“Will you state to the jury what has been the effect of the knowledge of

this wandering and evidently unsettled being, supposed to be her father,

upon the mind of Miss Hawkins for so many years!”

Question objected to. Question ruled out.

Cross-examined. “Major Sellers, what is your occupation?”

The Colonel looked about him loftily, as if casting in his mind

what would be the proper occupation of a person of such multifarious

interests and then said with dignity:

“A gentleman, sir. My father used to always say, sir”--

“Capt. Sellers, did you ever see this man, this supposed father?”

“No, Sir. But upon one occasion, old Senator Thompson said to me, its my

opinion, Colonel Sellers”--

“Did you ever see any body who had seen him?”

“No, sir: It was reported around at one time, that”--

“That is all.”

The defense then spent a day in the examination of medical experts in

insanity who testified, on the evidence heard, that sufficient causes

had occurred to produce an insane mind in the prisoner. Numerous cases

were cited to sustain this opinion. There was such a thing as momentary

insanity, in which the person, otherwise rational to all appearances,

was for the time actually bereft of reason, and not responsible for his

acts. The causes of this momentary possession could often be found in

the person's life. [It afterwards came out that the chief expert for the

defense, was paid a thousand dollars for looking into the case.]

The prosecution consumed another day in the examination of experts

refuting the notion of insanity. These causes might have produced

insanity, but there was no evidence that they have produced it in this

case, or that the prisoner was not at the time of the commission of the

crime in full possession of her ordinary faculties.

The trial had now lasted two weeks. It required four days now for the

lawyers to “sum up.” These arguments of the counsel were very important

to their friends, and greatly enhanced their reputation at the bar

but they have small interest to us. Mr. Braham in his closing speech

surpassed himself; his effort is still remembered as the greatest in the

criminal annals of New York.

Mr. Braham re-drew for the jury the picture of Laura's early life; he

dwelt long upon that painful episode of the pretended marriage and the

desertion. Col. Selby, he said, belonged, gentlemen; to what is called

the “upper classes.” It is the privilege of the “upper classes” to prey

upon the sons and daughters of the people. The Hawkins family, though

allied to the best blood of the South, were at the time in humble

circumstances. He commented upon her parentage. Perhaps her agonized

father, in his intervals of sanity, was still searching for his lost

daughter. Would he one day hear that she had died a felon's death?

Society had pursued her, fate had pursued her, and in a moment of

delirium she had turned and defied fate and society. He dwelt upon the

admission of base wrong in Col. Selby's dying statement. He drew a vivid

picture of the villain at last overtaken by the vengeance of Heaven.

Would the jury say that this retributive justice, inflicted by an

outraged, and deluded woman, rendered irrational by the most cruel

wrongs, was in the nature of a foul, premeditated murder? “Gentlemen;

it is enough for me to look upon the life of this most beautiful and

accomplished of her sex, blasted by the heartless villainy of man,

without seeing, at the end of it; the horrible spectacle of a gibbet.

Gentlemen, we are all human, we have all sinned, we all have need of

mercy. But I do not ask mercy of you who are the guardians of society

and of the poor waifs, its sometimes wronged victims; I ask only that

justice which you and I shall need in that last, dreadful hour, when

death will be robbed of half its terrors if we can reflect that we have

never wronged a human being. Gentlemen, the life of this lovely and once

happy girl, this now stricken woman, is in your hands.”

The jury were visibly affected. Half the court room was in tears. If a

vote of both spectators and jury could have been taken then, the verdict

would have been, “let her go, she has suffered enough.”

But the district attorney had the closing argument. Calmly and without

malice or excitement he reviewed the testimony. As the cold facts were

unrolled, fear settled upon the listeners. There was no escape from

the murder or its premeditation. Laura's character as a lobbyist in

Washington which had been made to appear incidentally in the evidence

was also against her: the whole body of the testimony of the defense

was shown to be irrelevant, introduced only to excite sympathy, and not

giving a color of probability to the absurd supposition of insanity.

The attorney then dwelt upon the insecurity of life in the city, and the

growing immunity with which women committed murders. Mr. McFlinn made a

very able speech; convincing the reason without touching the feelings.

The Judge in his charge reviewed the testimony with great show of

impartiality. He ended by saying that the verdict must be acquittal or

murder in the first degree. If you find that the prisoner committed

a homicide, in possession of her reason and with premeditation, your

verdict will be accordingly. If you find she was not in her right mind,

that she was the victim of insanity, hereditary or momentary, as it has

been explained, your verdict will take that into account.

As the Judge finished his charge, the spectators anxiously watched the

faces of the jury. It was not a remunerative study. In the court room

the general feeling was in favor of Laura, but whether this feeling

extended to the jury, their stolid faces did not reveal. The public

outside hoped for a conviction, as it always does; it wanted an example;

the newspapers trusted the jury would have the courage to do its duty.

When Laura was convicted, then the public would turn around and abuse

the governor if he did not pardon her.

The jury went out. Mr. Braham preserved his serene confidence, but

Laura's friends were dispirited. Washington and Col. Sellers had been

obliged to go to Washington, and they had departed under the unspoken

fear the verdict would be unfavorable, a disagreement was the best they

could hope for, and money was needed. The necessity of the passage of

the University bill was now imperative.

The Court waited for some time, but the jury gave no signs of coming in.

Mr. Braham said it was extraordinary. The Court then took a recess for

a couple of hours. Upon again coming in, word was brought that the jury

had not yet agreed.

But the jury had a question. The point upon which they wanted

instruction was this. They wanted to know if Col. Sellers was related to

the Hawkins family. The court then adjourned till morning.

Mr. Braham, who was in something of a pet, remarked to Mr. O'Toole that

they must have been deceived--that juryman with the broken nose could

read!

CHAPTER LVII.

The momentous day was at hand--a day that promised to make or mar the

fortunes of Hawkins family for all time. Washington Hawkins and Col.

Sellers were both up early, for neither of them could sleep. Congress

was expiring, and was passing bill after bill as if they were gasps and

each likely to be its last. The University was on file for its third

reading this day, and to-morrow Washington would be a millionaire and

Sellers no longer, impecunious but this day, also, or at farthest the

next, the jury in Laura's Case would come to a decision of some kind or

other--they would find her guilty, Washington secretly feared, and then

the care and the trouble would all come back again, and these would be

wearing months of besieging judges for new trials; on this day, also,

the re-election of Mr. Dilworthy to the Senate would take place. So

Washington's mind was in a state of turmoil; there were more interests

at stake than it could handle with serenity. He exulted when he thought

of his millions; he was filled with dread when he thought of Laura. But

Sellers was excited and happy. He said:

“Everything is going right, everything's going perfectly right. Pretty

soon the telegrams will begin to rattle in, and then you'll see, my boy.

Let the jury do what they please; what difference is it going to make?

To-morrow we can send a million to New York and set the lawyers at work

on the judges; bless your heart they will go before judge after judge

and exhort and beseech and pray and shed tears. They always do; and they

always win, too. And they will win this time. They will get a writ of

habeas corpus, and a stay of proceedings, and a supersedeas, and a new

trial and a nolle prosequi, and there you are! That's the routine,

and it's no trick at all to a New York lawyer. That's the regular

routine--everything's red tape and routine in the law, you see; it's

all Greek to you, of course, but to a man who is acquainted with those

things it's mere--I'll explain it to you sometime. Everything's going

to glide right along easy and comfortable now. You'll see, Washington,

you'll see how it will be. And then, let me think ..... Dilwortby will

be elected to-day, and by day, after to-morrow night he will be in New

York ready to put in his shovel--and you haven't lived in Washington all

this time not to know that the people who walk right by a Senator whose

term is up without hardly seeing him will be down at the deepo to say

'Welcome back and God bless you; Senator, I'm glad to see you, sir!'

when he comes along back re-elected, you know. Well, you see, his

influence was naturally running low when he left here, but now he has

got a new six-years' start, and his suggestions will simply just weigh

a couple of tons a-piece day after tomorrow. Lord bless you he could

rattle through that habeas corpus and supersedeas and all those things

for Laura all by himself if he wanted to, when he gets back.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Washington, brightening, “but it is so.

A newly-elected Senator is a power, I know that.”

“Yes indeed he is.--Why it, is just human nature. Look at me. When we

first came here, I was Mr. Sellers, and Major Sellers, Captain Sellers,

but nobody could ever get it right, somehow; but the minute our bill

went, through the House, I was Col. Sellers every time. And nobody could

do enough for me, and whatever I said was wonderful, Sir, it was always

wonderful; I never seemed to say any flat things at all. It was Colonel,

won't you come and dine with us; and Colonel why don't we ever see you

at our house; and the Colonel says this; and the Colonel says that; and

we know such-and-such is so-and-so because my husband heard Col. Sellers

say so. Don't you see? Well, the Senate adjourned and left our bill

high, and dry, and I'll be hanged if I warn't Old Sellers from that

day, till our bill passed the House again last week. Now I'm the Colonel

again; and if I were to eat all the dinners I am invited to, I reckon

I'd wear my teeth down level with my gums in a couple of weeks.”

“Well I do wonder what you will be to-morrow; Colonel, after the

President signs the bill!”

“General, sir?--General, without a doubt. Yes, sir, tomorrow it will

be General, let me congratulate you, sir; General, you've done a great

work, sir;--you've done a great work for the niggro; Gentlemen allow me

the honor to introduce my friend General Sellers, the humane friend

of the niggro. Lord bless me; you'll' see the newspapers say, General

Sellers and servants arrived in the city last night and is stopping

at the Fifth Avenue; and General Sellers has accepted a reception and

banquet by the Cosmopolitan Club; you'll see the General's opinions

quoted, too--and what the General has to say about the propriety of a

new trial and a habeas corpus for the unfortunate Miss Hawkins will not

be without weight in influential quarters, I can tell you.”

“And I want to be the first to shake your faithful old hand and salute

you with your new honors, and I want to do it now--General!” said

Washington, suiting the action to the word, and accompanying it with all

the meaning that a cordial grasp and eloquent eyes could give it.

The Colonel was touched; he was pleased and proud, too; his face

answered for that.

Not very long after breakfast the telegrams began to arrive. The first

was from Braham, and ran thus:

“We feel certain that the verdict will be rendered to-day. Be it good or

bad, let it find us ready to make the next move instantly, whatever

it may be.” “That's the right talk,” said Sellers. “That Braham's a

wonderful man. He was the only man there that really understood me; he

told me so himself, afterwards.”

The next telegram was from Mr. Dilworthy:

“I have not only brought over the Great Invincible, but through him

a dozen more of the opposition. Shall be re-elected to-day by an

overwhelming majority.” “Good again!” said the Colonel. “That man's

talent for organization is something marvelous. He wanted me to go out

there and engineer that thing, but I said, No, Dilworthy, I must be

on hand here,--both on Laura's account and the bill's--but you've no

trifling genius for organization yourself, said I--and I was right. You

go ahead, said I--you can fix it--and so he has. But I claim no credit

for that--if I stiffened up his back-bone a little, I simply put him in

the way to make his fight--didn't undertake it myself. He has captured

Noble--. I consider that a splendid piece of diplomacy--Splendid, Sir!”

By and by came another dispatch from New York:

“Jury still out. Laura calm and firm as a statue. The report that the

jury have brought her in guilty is false and premature.” “Premature!”

gasped Washington, turning white. “Then they all expect that sort of a

verdict, when it comes in.”

And so did he; but he had not had courage enough to put it into

words. He had been preparing himself for the worst, but after all his

preparation the bare suggestion of the possibility of such a verdict

struck him cold as death.

The friends grew impatient, now; the telegrams did not come fast enough:

even the lightning could not keep up with their anxieties. They walked

the floor talking disjointedly and listening for the door-bell. Telegram

after telegram came. Still no result. By and by there was one which

contained a single line:

“Court now coming in after brief recess to hear verdict. Jury ready.”

“Oh, I wish they would finish!” said Washington. “This suspense is

killing me by inches!”

Then came another telegram:

“Another hitch somewhere. Jury want a little more time and further

instructions.” “Well, well, well, this is trying,” said the Colonel. And

after a pause, “No dispatch from Dilworthy for two hours, now. Even

a dispatch from him would be better than nothing, just to vary this

thing.”

They waited twenty minutes. It seemed twenty hours.

“Come!” said Washington. “I can't wait for the telegraph boy to come all

the way up here. Let's go down to Newspaper Row--meet him on the way.”

While they were passing along the Avenue, they saw someone putting up a

great display-sheet on the bulletin board of a newspaper office, and an

eager crowd of men was collecting abort the place. Washington and the

Colonel ran to the spot and read this:

“Tremendous Sensation! Startling news from Saint's Rest! On first ballot

for U. S. Senator, when voting was about to begin, Mr. Noble rose in

his place and drew forth a package, walked forward and laid it on the

Speaker's desk, saying, 'This contains $7,000 in bank bills and was

given me by Senator Dilworthy in his bed-chamber at midnight last night

to buy--my vote for him--I wish the Speaker to count the money and

retain it to pay the expense of prosecuting this infamous traitor for

bribery. The whole legislature was stricken speechless with dismay and

astonishment. Noble further said that there were fifty members present

with money in their pockets, placed there by Dilworthy to buy their

votes. Amidst unparalleled excitement the ballot was now taken, and J.

W. Smith elected U. S. Senator; Dilworthy receiving not one vote! Noble

promises damaging exposures concerning Dilworthy and certain measures

of his now pending in Congress. “Good heavens and earth!” exclaimed the

Colonel.

“To the Capitol!” said Washington. “Fly!”

And they did fly. Long before they got there the newsboys were running

ahead of them with Extras, hot from the press, announcing the astounding

news.

Arrived in the gallery of the Senate, the friends saw a curious

spectacle--every Senator held an Extra in his hand and looked as

interested as if it contained news of the destruction of the earth. Not

a single member was paying the least attention to the business of the

hour.

The Secretary, in a loud voice, was just beginning to read the title of

a bill:

“House-Bill--No. 4,231,--An-Act-to-Found-and-Incorporate-the

Knobs-Industrial-University!

--Read-first-and-second-time-considered-in-committee-of-the-whole-ordered-engrossed

and-passed-to-third-reading-and-final passage!”

The President--“Third reading of the bill!”

The two friends shook in their shoes. Senators threw down their extras

and snatched a word or two with each other in whispers. Then the gavel

rapped to command silence while the names were called on the ayes and

nays. Washington grew paler and paler, weaker and weaker while the

lagging list progressed; and when it was finished, his head fell

helplessly forward on his arms. The fight was fought, the long struggle

was over, and he was a pauper. Not a man had voted for the bill!

Col. Sellers was bewildered and well nigh paralyzed, himself. But no man

could long consider his own troubles in the presence of such suffering

as Washington's. He got him up and supported him--almost carried him

indeed--out of the building and into a carriage. All the way home

Washington lay with his face against the Colonel's shoulder and merely

groaned and wept. The Colonel tried as well as he could under the dreary

circumstances to hearten him a little, but it was of no use. Washington

was past all hope of cheer, now. He only said:

“Oh, it is all over--it is all over for good, Colonel. We must beg our

bread, now. We never can get up again. It was our last chance, and it is

gone. They will hang Laura! My God they will hang her! Nothing can

save the poor girl now. Oh, I wish with all my soul they would hang me

instead!”

Arrived at home, Washington fell into a chair and buried his face in his

hands and gave full way to his misery. The Colonel did not know where to

turn nor what to do. The servant maid knocked at the door and passed in

a telegram, saying it had come while they were gone.

The Colonel tore it open and read with the voice of a man-of-war's

broadside:

“VERDICT OF JURY, NOT GUILTY AND LAURA IS FREE!”

CHAPTER LVIII.

The court room was packed on the morning on which the verdict of the

jury was expected, as it had been every day of the trial, and by

the same spectators, who had followed its progress with such intense

interest.

There is a delicious moment of excitement which the frequenter of

trials well knows, and which he would not miss for the world. It is that

instant when the foreman of the jury stands up to give the verdict, and

before he has opened his fateful lips.

The court assembled and waited. It was an obstinate jury.

It even had another question--this intelligent jury--to ask the judge

this morning.

The question was this: “Were the doctors clear that the deceased had no

disease which might soon have carried him off, if he had not been shot?”

There was evidently one jury man who didn't want to waste life, and was

willing to stake a general average, as the jury always does in a civil

case, deciding not according to the evidence but reaching the verdict by

some occult mental process.

During the delay the spectators exhibited unexampled patience, finding

amusement and relief in the slightest movements of the court, the

prisoner and the lawyers. Mr. Braham divided with Laura the attention of

the house. Bets were made by the Sheriff's deputies on the verdict, with

large odds in favor of a disagreement.

It was afternoon when it was announced that the jury was coming in.

The reporters took their places and were all attention; the judge

and lawyers were in their seats; the crowd swayed and pushed in eager

expectancy, as the jury walked in and stood up in silence.

Judge. “Gentlemen, have you agreed upon your verdict?”

Foreman. “We have.”

Judge. “What is it?”

Foreman. “NOT GUILTY.”

A shout went up from the entire room and a tumult of cheering which the

court in vain attempted to quell. For a few moments all order was lost.

The spectators crowded within the bar and surrounded Laura who, calmer

than anyone else, was supporting her aged mother, who had almost fainted

from excess of joy.

And now occurred one of those beautiful incidents which no

fiction-writer would dare to imagine, a scene of touching pathos,

creditable to our fallen humanity. In the eyes of the women of the

audience Mr. Braham was the hero of the occasion; he had saved the life

of the prisoner; and besides he was such a handsome man. The women could

not restrain their long pent-up emotions. They threw themselves upon Mr.

Braham in a transport of gratitude; they kissed him again and again,

the young as well as the advanced in years, the married as well as

the ardent single women; they improved the opportunity with a touching

self-sacrifice; in the words of a newspaper of the day they “lavished

him with kisses.”

It was something sweet to do; and it would be sweet for a woman to

remember in after years, that she had kissed Braham! Mr. Braham himself

received these fond assaults with the gallantry of his nation, enduring

the ugly, and heartily paying back beauty in its own coin.

This beautiful scene is still known in New York as “the kissing of

Braham.”

When the tumult of congratulation had a little spent itself, and order

was restored, Judge O'Shaunnessy said that it now became his duty to

provide for the proper custody and treatment of the acquitted. The

verdict of the jury having left no doubt that the woman was of an

unsound mind, with a kind of insanity dangerous to the safety of the

community, she could not be permitted to go at large. “In accordance

with the directions of the law in such cases,” said the Judge, “and

in obedience to the dictates of a wise humanity, I hereby commit Laura

Hawkins to the care of the Superintendent of the State Hospital

for Insane Criminals, to be held in confinement until the State

Commissioners on Insanity shall order her discharge. Mr. Sheriff, you

will attend at once to the execution of this decree.”

Laura was overwhelmed and terror-stricken. She had expected to walk

forth in freedom in a few moments. The revulsion was terrible. Her

mother appeared like one shaken with an ague fit. Laura insane! And

about to be locked up with madmen! She had never contemplated this. Mr.

Graham said he should move at once for a writ of 'habeas corpus'.

But the judge could not do less than his duty, the law must have its

way. As in the stupor of a sudden calamity, and not fully comprehending

it, Mrs. Hawkins saw Laura led away by the officer.

With little space for thought she was rapidly driven to the railway

station, and conveyed to the Hospital for Lunatic Criminals. It was

only when she was within this vast and grim abode of madness that she

realized the horror of her situation. It was only when she was received

by the kind physician and read pity in his eyes, and saw his look of

hopeless incredulity when she attempted to tell him that she was not

insane; it was only when she passed through the ward to which she

was consigned and saw the horrible creatures, the victims of a double

calamity, whose dreadful faces she was hereafter to see daily, and was

locked into the small, bare room that was to be her home, that all her

fortitude forsook her. She sank upon the bed, as soon as she was left

alone--she had been searched by the matron--and tried to think. But her

brain was in a whirl. She recalled Braham's speech, she recalled the

testimony regarding her lunacy. She wondered if she were not mad; she

felt that she soon should be among these loathsome creatures. Better

almost to have died, than to slowly go mad in this confinement.

--We beg the reader's pardon. This is not history, which has just been

written. It is really what would have occurred if this were a novel.

If this were a work of fiction, we should not dare to dispose of Laura

otherwise. True art and any attention to dramatic proprieties required

it. The novelist who would turn loose upon society an insane murderess

could not escape condemnation. Besides, the safety of society, the

decencies of criminal procedure, what we call our modern civilization,

all would demand that Laura should be disposed of in the manner we

have described. Foreigners, who read this sad story, will be unable to

understand any other termination of it.

But this is history and not fiction. There is no such law or custom as

that to which his Honor is supposed to have referred; Judge O'Shaunnessy

would not probably pay any attention to it if there were. There is no

Hospital for Insane Criminals; there is no State commission of lunacy.

What actually occurred when the tumult in the court room had subsided

the sagacious reader will now learn.

Laura left the court room, accompanied by her mother and other friends,

amid the congratulations of those assembled, and was cheered as she

entered a carriage, and drove away. How sweet was the sunlight, how

exhilarating the sense of freedom! Were not these following cheers the

expression of popular approval and affection? Was she not the heroine of

the hour?

It was with a feeling of triumph that Laura reached her hotel, a

scornful feeling of victory over society with its own weapons.

Mrs. Hawkins shared not at all in this feeling; she was broken with the

disgrace and the long anxiety.

“Thank God, Laura,” she said, “it is over. Now we will go away from this

hateful city. Let us go home at once.”

“Mother,” replied Laura, speaking with some tenderness, “I cannot go

with you. There, don't cry, I cannot go back to that life.”

Mrs. Hawkins was sobbing. This was more cruel than anything else, for

she had a dim notion of what it would be to leave Laura to herself.

“No, mother, you have been everything to me. You know how dearly I love

you. But I cannot go back.”

A boy brought in a telegraphic despatch. Laura took it and read:

“The bill is lost. Dilworthy ruined. (Signed) WASHINGTON.” For a moment

the words swam before her eyes. The next her eyes flashed fire as she

handed the dispatch to her mother and bitterly said,

“The world is against me. Well, let it be, let it. I am against it.”

“This is a cruel disappointment,” said Mrs. Hawkins, to whom one grief

more or less did not much matter now, “to you and, Washington; but we

must humbly bear it.”

“Bear it;” replied Laura scornfully, “I've all my life borne it, and

fate has thwarted me at every step.”

A servant came to the door to say that there was a gentleman below who

wished to speak with Miss Hawkins. “J. Adolphe Griller” was the name

Laura read on the card. “I do not know such a person. He probably comes

from Washington. Send him up.”

Mr. Griller entered. He was a small man, slovenly in dress, his tone

confidential, his manner wholly void of animation, all his features

below the forehead protruding--particularly the apple of his

throat--hair without a kink in it, a hand with no grip, a meek, hang-dog

countenance. He was a falsehood done in flesh and blood; for while every

visible sign about him proclaimed him a poor, witless, useless weakling,

the truth was that he had the brains to plan great enterprises and

the pluck to carry them through. That was his reputation, and it was a

deserved one. He softly said:

“I called to see you on business, Miss Hawkins. You have my card?”

Laura bowed.

Mr. Griller continued to purr, as softly as before.

“I will proceed to business. I am a business man. I am a lecture-agent,

Miss Hawkins, and as soon as I saw that you were acquitted, it occurred

to me that an early interview would be mutually beneficial.”

“I don't understand you, sir,” said Laura coldly.

“No? You see, Miss Hawkins, this is your opportunity. If you will enter

the lecture field under good auspices, you will carry everything before

you.”

“But, sir, I never lectured, I haven't any lecture, I don't know

anything about it.”

“Ah, madam, that makes no difference--no real difference. It is not

necessary to be able to lecture in order to go into the lecture tour.

If ones name is celebrated all over the land, especially, and, if she is

also beautiful, she is certain to draw large audiences.”

“But what should I lecture about?” asked Laura, beginning in spite of

herself to be a little interested as well as amused.

“Oh, why; woman--something about woman, I should say; the marriage

relation, woman's fate, anything of that sort. Call it The Revelations

of a Woman's Life; now, there's a good title. I wouldn't want any better

title than that. I'm prepared to make you an offer, Miss Hawkins, a

liberal offer,--twelve thousand dollars for thirty nights.”

Laura thought. She hesitated. Why not? It would give her employment,

money. She must do something.

“I will think of it, and let you know soon. But still, there is very

little likelihood that I--however, we will not discuss it further now.”

“Remember, that the sooner we get to work the better, Miss Hawkins,

public curiosity is so fickle. Good day, madam.”

The close of the trial released Mr. Harry Brierly and left him free

to depart upon his long talked of Pacific-coast mission. He was very

mysterious about it, even to Philip.

“It's confidential, old boy,” he said, “a little scheme we have hatched

up. I don't mind telling you that it's a good deal bigger thing than

that in Missouri, and a sure thing. I wouldn't take a half a million

just for my share. And it will open something for you, Phil. You will

hear from me.”

Philip did hear from Harry a few months afterward. Everything promised

splendidly, but there was a little delay. Could Phil let him have a

hundred, say, for ninety days?

Philip himself hastened to Philadelphia, and, as soon as the spring

opened, to the mine at Ilium, and began transforming the loan he had

received from Squire Montague into laborers' wages. He was haunted with

many anxieties; in the first place, Ruth was overtaxing her strength in

her hospital labors, and Philip felt as if he must move heaven and

earth to save her from such toil and suffering. His increased pecuniary

obligation oppressed him. It seemed to him also that he had been one

cause of the misfortune to the Bolton family, and that he was dragging

into loss and ruin everybody who associated with him. He worked on day

after day and week after week, with a feverish anxiety.

It would be wicked, thought Philip, and impious, to pray for luck; he

felt that perhaps he ought not to ask a blessing upon the sort of labor

that was only a venture; but yet in that daily petition, which this

very faulty and not very consistent young Christian gentleman put up, he

prayed earnestly enough for Ruth and for the Boltons and for those

whom he loved and who trusted in him, and that his life might not be a

misfortune to them and a failure to himself.

Since this young fellow went out into the world from his New England

home, he had done some things that he would rather his mother should not

know, things maybe that he would shrink from telling Ruth. At a certain

green age young gentlemen are sometimes afraid of being called milksops,

and Philip's associates had not always been the most select, such as

these historians would have chosen for him, or whom at a later, period

he would have chosen for himself. It seemed inexplicable, for instance,

that his life should have been thrown so much with his college

acquaintance, Henry Brierly.

Yet, this was true of Philip, that in whatever company he had been he

had never been ashamed to stand up for the principles he learned from

his mother, and neither raillery nor looks of wonder turned him from

that daily habit he had learned at his mother's knees.--Even flippant

Harry respected this, and perhaps it was one of the reasons why Harry

and all who knew Philip trusted him implicitly. And yet it must be

confessed that Philip did not convey the impression to the world of a

very serious young man, or of a man who might not rather easily fall

into temptation. One looking for a real hero would have to go elsewhere.

The parting between Laura and her mother was exceedingly painful to

both. It was as if two friends parted on a wide plain, the one to

journey towards the setting and the other towards the rising sun, each

comprehending that every step henceforth must separate their lives,

wider and wider.

CHAPTER LIX.

When Mr. Noble's bombshell fell in Senator Dilworthy's camp, the

statesman was disconcerted for a moment. For a moment; that was all. The

next moment he was calmly up and doing. From the centre of our country

to its circumference, nothing was talked of but Mr. Noble's terrible

revelation, and the people were furious. Mind, they were not furious

because bribery was uncommon in our public life, but merely because here

was another case. Perhaps it did not occur to the nation of good and

worthy people that while they continued to sit comfortably at home and

leave the true source of our political power (the “primaries,”) in the

hands of saloon-keepers, dog-fanciers and hod-carriers, they could go on

expecting “another” case of this kind, and even dozens and hundreds of

them, and never be disappointed. However, they may have thought that to

sit at home and grumble would some day right the evil.

Yes, the nation was excited, but Senator Dilworthy was calm--what was

left of him after the explosion of the shell. Calm, and up and doing.

What did he do first? What would you do first, after you had tomahawked

your mother at the breakfast table for putting too much sugar in your

coffee? You would “ask for a suspension of public opinion.” That is

what Senator Dilworthy did. It is the custom. He got the usual amount of

suspension. Far and wide he was called a thief, a briber, a promoter of

steamship subsidies, railway swindles, robberies of the government in

all possible forms and fashions. Newspapers and everybody else called

him a pious hypocrite, a sleek, oily fraud, a reptile who manipulated

temperance movements, prayer meetings, Sunday schools, public charities,

missionary enterprises, all for his private benefit. And as these

charges were backed up by what seemed to be good and sufficient,

evidence, they were believed with national unanimity.

Then Mr. Dilworthy made another move. He moved instantly to Washington

and “demanded an investigation.” Even this could not pass without

comment. Many papers used language to this effect:

“Senator Dilworthy's remains have demanded an investigation. This sounds

fine and bold and innocent; but when we reflect that they demand it at

the hands of the Senate of the United States, it simply becomes matter

for derision. One might as well set the gentlemen detained in the public

prisons to trying each other. This investigation is likely to be like

all other Senatorial investigations--amusing but not useful. Query. Why

does the Senate still stick to this pompous word, 'Investigation?' One

does not blindfold one's self in order to investigate an object.” Mr.

Dilworthy appeared in his place in the Senate and offered a resolution

appointing a committee to investigate his case. It carried, of course,

and the committee was appointed. Straightway the newspapers said:

“Under the guise of appointing a committee to investigate the late Mr.

Dilworthy, the Senate yesterday appointed a committee to investigate

his accuser, Mr. Noble. This is the exact spirit and meaning of the

resolution, and the committee cannot try anybody but Mr. Noble without

overstepping its authority. That Dilworthy had the effrontery to offer

such a resolution will surprise no one, and that the Senate could

entertain it without blushing and pass it without shame will surprise

no one. We are now reminded of a note which we have received from the

notorious burglar Murphy, in which he finds fault with a statement of

ours to the effect that he had served one term in the penitentiary and

also one in the U. S. Senate. He says, 'The latter statement is untrue

and does me great injustice.' After an unconscious sarcasm like that,

further comment is unnecessary.” And yet the Senate was roused by the

Dilworthy trouble. Many speeches were made. One Senator (who was accused

in the public prints of selling his chances of re-election to his

opponent for $50,000 and had not yet denied the charge) said that, “the

presence in the Capital of such a creature as this man Noble, to testify

against a brother member of their body, was an insult to the Senate.”

Another Senator said, “Let the investigation go on and let it make an

example of this man Noble; let it teach him and men like him that

they could not attack the reputation of a United States Senator with

impunity.”

Another said he was glad the investigation was to be had, for it was

high time that the Senate should crush some cur like this man Noble, and

thus show his kind that it was able and resolved to uphold its ancient

dignity.

A by-stander laughed, at this finely delivered peroration; and said:

“Why, this is the Senator who franked his baggage home through the mails

last week--registered, at that. However, perhaps he was merely engaged

in 'upholding the ancient dignity of the Senate,'--then.”

“No, the modern dignity of it,” said another by-stander. “It don't

resemble its ancient dignity but it fits its modern style like a glove.”

There being no law against making offensive remarks about U. S.

Senators, this conversation, and others like it, continued without let

or hindrance. But our business is with the investigating committee.

Mr. Noble appeared before the Committee of the Senate; and testified to

the following effect:

He said that he was a member of the State legislature of the

Happy-Land-of-Canaan; that on the --- day of ------ he assembled himself

together at the city of Saint's Rest, the capital of the State, along

with his brother legislators; that he was known to be a political enemy

of Mr. Dilworthy and bitterly opposed to his re-election; that Mr.

Dilworthy came to Saint's Rest and reported to be buying pledges of

votes with money; that the said Dilworthy sent for him to come to

his room in the hotel at night, and he went; was introduced to

Mr. Dilworthy; called two or three times afterward at Dilworthy's

request--usually after midnight; Mr. Dilworthy urged him to vote for

him; Noble declined; Dilworthy argued; said he was bound to be elected,

and could then ruin him (Noble) if he voted no; said he had every

railway and every public office and stronghold of political power in the

State under his thumb, and could set up or pull down any man he chose;

gave instances showing where and how he had used this power; if Noble

would vote for him he would make him a Representative in Congress; Noble

still declined to vote, and said he did not believe Dilworthy was going

to be elected; Dilworthy showed a list of men who would vote for him--a

majority of the legislature; gave further proofs of his power by telling

Noble everything the opposing party had done or said in secret caucus;

claimed that his spies reported everything to him, and that--

Here a member of the Committee objected that this evidence was

irrelevant and also in opposition to the spirit of the Committee's

instructions, because if these things reflected upon any one it was

upon Mr. Dilworthy. The chairman said, let the person proceed with his

statement--the Committee could exclude evidence that did not bear upon

the case.

Mr. Noble continued. He said that his party would cast him out if he

voted for Mr. Dilworthy; Dilworthy said that that would inure to

his benefit because he would then be a recognized friend of his

(Dilworthy's) and he could consistently exalt him politically and make

his fortune; Noble said he was poor, and it was hard to tempt him so;

Dilworthy said he would fix that; he said, “Tell, me what you want, and

say you will vote for me;” Noble could not say; Dilworthy said “I will

give you $5,000.”

A Committee man said, impatiently, that this stuff was all outside

the case, and valuable time was being wasted; this was all a plain

reflection upon a brother Senator. The Chairman said it was the quickest

way to proceed, and the evidence need have no weight.

Mr. Noble continued. He said he told Dilworthy that $5,000 was not

much to pay for a man's honor, character and everything that was

worth having; Dilworthy said he was surprised; he considered $5,000

a fortune--for some men; asked what Noble's figure was; Noble said he

could not think $10,000 too little; Dilworthy said it was a great deal

too much; he would not do it for any other man, but he had conceived

a liking for Noble, and where he liked a man his heart yearned to help

him; he was aware that Noble was poor, and had a family to support, and

that he bore an unblemished reputation at home; for such a man and such

a man's influence he could do much, and feel that to help such a man

would be an act that would have its reward; the struggles of the poor

always touched him; he believed that Noble would make a good use of this

money and that it would cheer many a sad heart and needy home; he would

give the $10,000; all he desired in return was that when the balloting

began, Noble should cast his vote for him and should explain to the

legislature that upon looking into the charges against Mr. Dilworthy of

bribery, corruption, and forwarding stealing measures in Congress he had

found them to be base calumnies upon a man whose motives were pure and

whose character was stainless; he then took from his pocket $2,000 in

bank bills and handed them to Noble, and got another package containing

$5,000 out of his trunk and gave to him also. He----

A Committee man jumped up, and said:

“At last, Mr. Chairman, this shameless person has arrived at the point.

This is sufficient and conclusive. By his own confession he has received

a bribe, and did it deliberately.

“This is a grave offense, and cannot be passed over in silence, sir. By

the terms of our instructions we can now proceed to mete out to him such

punishment as is meet for one who has maliciously brought disrespect

upon a Senator of the United States. We have no need to hear the rest of

his evidence.”

The Chairman said it would be better and more regular to proceed with

the investigation according to the usual forms. A note would be made of

Mr. Noble's admission.

Mr. Noble continued. He said that it was now far past midnight; that

he took his leave and went straight to certain legislators, told

them everything, made them count the money, and also told them of the

exposure he would make in joint convention; he made that exposure, as

all the world knew. The rest of the $10,000 was to be paid the day after

Dilworthy was elected.

Senator Dilworthy was now asked to take the stand and tell what he knew

about the man Noble. The Senator wiped his mouth with his handkerchief,

adjusted his white cravat, and said that but for the fact that public

morality required an example, for the warning of future Nobles, he would

beg that in Christian charity this poor misguided creature might be

forgiven and set free. He said that it was but too evident that this

person had approached him in the hope of obtaining a bribe; he had

intruded himself time and again, and always with moving stories of his

poverty. Mr. Dilworthy said that his heart had bled for him--insomuch

that he had several times been on the point of trying to get some one to

do something for him. Some instinct had told him from the beginning that

this was a bad man, an evil-minded man, but his inexperience of such had

blinded him to his real motives, and hence he had never dreamed that

his object was to undermine the purity of a United States Senator. He

regretted that it was plain, now, that such was the man's object and

that punishment could not with safety to the Senate's honor be withheld.

He grieved to say that one of those mysterious dispensations of an

inscrutable Providence which are decreed from time to time by His wisdom

and for His righteous, purposes, had given this conspirator's tale a

color of plausibility,--but this would soon disappear under the clear

light of truth which would now be thrown upon the case.

It so happened, (said the Senator,) that about the time in question, a

poor young friend of mine, living in a distant town of my State, wished

to establish a bank; he asked me to lend him the necessary money; I said

I had no, money just then, but world try to borrow it. The day before

the election a friend said to me that my election expenses must be

very large specially my hotel bills, and offered to lend me some money.

Remembering my young, friend, I said I would like a few thousands now,

and a few more by and by; whereupon he gave me two packages of bills

said to contain $2,000 and $5,000 respectively; I did not open the

packages or count the money; I did not give any note or receipt for

the same; I made no memorandum of the transaction, and neither did my

friend. That night this evil man Noble came troubling me again: I could

not rid myself of him, though my time was very precious. He mentioned my

young friend and said he was very anxious to have the $7000 now to begin

his banking operations with, and could wait a while for the rest. Noble

wished to get the money and take it to him. I finally gave him the

two packages of bills; I took no note or receipt from him, and made no

memorandum of the matter. I no more look for duplicity and deception in

another man than I would look for it in myself. I never thought of

this man again until I was overwhelmed the next day by learning what a

shameful use he had made of the confidence I had reposed in him and

the money I had entrusted to his care. This is all, gentlemen. To the

absolute truth of every detail of my statement I solemnly swear, and I

call Him to witness who is the Truth and the loving Father of all whose

lips abhor false speaking; I pledge my honor as a Senator, that I have

spoken but the truth. May God forgive this wicked man as I do.

Mr. Noble--“Senator Dilworthy, your bank account shows that up to

that day, and even on that very day, you conducted all your financial

business through the medium of checks instead of bills, and so kept

careful record of every moneyed transaction. Why did you deal in bank

bills on this particular occasion?”

The Chairman--“The gentleman will please to remember that the Committee

is conducting this investigation.”

Mr. Noble--“Then will the Committee ask the question?”

The Chairman--“The Committee will--when it desires to know.”

Mr. Noble--“Which will not be during this century perhaps.”

The Chairman--“Another remark like that, sir, will procure you the

attentions of the Sergeant-at-arms.”

Mr. Noble--“D--n the Sergeant-at-arms, and the Committee too!”

Several Committeemen--“Mr. Chairman, this is Contempt!”

Mr. Noble--“Contempt of whom?”

“Of the Committee! Of the Senate of the United States!”

Mr. Noble--“Then I am become the acknowledged representative of a

nation. You know as well as I do that the whole nation hold as much

as three-fifths of the United States Senate in entire

contempt.--Three-fifths of you are Dilworthys.”

The Sergeant-at-arms very soon put a quietus upon the observations of

the representative of the nation, and convinced him that he was not in

the over-free atmosphere of his Happy-Land-of-Canaan:

The statement of Senator Dilworthy naturally carried conviction to the

minds of the committee.--It was close, logical, unanswerable; it bore

many internal evidences of its truth. For instance, it is customary in

all countries for business men to loan large sums of money in bank bills

instead of checks. It is customary for the lender to make no memorandum

of the transaction. It is customary, for the borrower to receive the

money without making a memorandum of it, or giving a note or a receipt

for it's use--the borrower is not likely to die or forget about it.

It is customary to lend nearly anybody money to start a bank with

especially if you have not the money to lend him and have to borrow it

for the purpose. It is customary to carry large sums of money in bank

bills about your person or in your trunk. It is customary to hand a

large sum in bank bills to a man you have just been introduced to (if

he asks you to do it,) to be conveyed to a distant town and delivered

to another party. It is not customary to make a memorandum of this

transaction; it is not customary for the conveyor to give a note or a

receipt for the money; it is not customary to require that he shall get

a note or a receipt from the man he is to convey it to in the distant

town. It would be at least singular in you to say to the proposed

conveyor, “You might be robbed; I will deposit the money in a bank and

send a check for it to my friend through the mail.”

Very well. It being plain that Senator Dilworthy's statement was rigidly

true, and this fact being strengthened by his adding to it the support

of “his honor as a Senator,” the Committee rendered a verdict of “Not

proven that a bribe had been offered and accepted.” This in a manner

exonerated Noble and let him escape.

The Committee made its report to the Senate, and that body proceeded to

consider its acceptance. One Senator indeed, several Senators--objected

that the Committee had failed of its duty; they had proved this man

Noble guilty of nothing, they had meted out no punishment to him; if the

report were accepted, he would go forth free and scathless, glorying in

his crime, and it would be a tacit admission that any blackguard could

insult the Senate of the United States and conspire against the sacred

reputation of its members with impunity; the Senate owed it to the

upholding of its ancient dignity to make an example of this man

Noble--he should be crushed.

An elderly Senator got up and took another view of the case. This was

a Senator of the worn-out and obsolete pattern; a man still lingering

among the cobwebs of the past, and behind the spirit of the age. He

said that there seemed to be a curious misunderstanding of the case.

Gentlemen seemed exceedingly anxious to preserve and maintain the honor

and dignity of the Senate.

Was this to be done by trying an obscure adventurer for attempting to

trap a Senator into bribing him? Or would not the truer way be to find

out whether the Senator was capable of being entrapped into so shameless

an act, and then try him? Why, of course. Now the whole idea of the

Senate seemed to be to shield the Senator and turn inquiry away from

him. The true way to uphold the honor of the Senate was to have none but

honorable men in its body. If this Senator had yielded to temptation

and had offered a bribe, he was a soiled man and ought to be instantly

expelled; therefore he wanted the Senator tried, and not in the usual

namby-pamby way, but in good earnest. He wanted to know the truth

of this matter. For himself, he believed that the guilt of Senator

Dilworthy was established beyond the shadow of a doubt; and he

considered that in trifling with his case and shirking it the Senate was

doing a shameful and cowardly thing--a thing which suggested that in

its willingness to sit longer in the company of such a man, it was

acknowledging that it was itself of a kind with him and was therefore

not dishonored by his presence. He desired that a rigid examination be

made into Senator Dilworthy's case, and that it be continued clear into

the approaching extra session if need be. There was no dodging this

thing with the lame excuse of want of time.

In reply, an honorable Senator said that he thought it would be as well

to drop the matter and accept the Committee's report. He said with some

jocularity that the more one agitated this thing, the worse it was for

the agitator. He was not able to deny that he believed Senator Dilworthy

to be guilty--but what then? Was it such an extraordinary case? For

his part, even allowing the Senator to be guilty, he did not think his

continued presence during the few remaining days of the Session would

contaminate the Senate to a dreadful degree. [This humorous sally was

received with smiling admiration--notwithstanding it was not wholly new,

having originated with the Massachusetts General in the House a day or

two before, upon the occasion of the proposed expulsion of a member for

selling his vote for money.]

The Senate recognized the fact that it could not be contaminated by

sitting a few days longer with Senator Dilworthy, and so it accepted the

committee's report and dropped the unimportant matter.

Mr. Dilworthy occupied his seat to the last hour of the session. He said

that his people had reposed a trust in him, and it was not for him to

desert them. He would remain at his post till he perished, if need be.

His voice was lifted up and his vote cast for the last time, in support

of an ingenious measure contrived by the General from Massachusetts

whereby the President's salary was proposed to be doubled and every

Congressman paid several thousand dollars extra for work previously

done, under an accepted contract, and already paid for once and

receipted for.

Senator Dilworthy was offered a grand ovation by his friends at home,

who said that their affection for him and their confidence in him were

in no wise impaired by the persecutions that had pursued him, and that

he was still good enough for them.

[The $7,000 left by Mr. Noble with his state legislature was placed

in safe keeping to await the claim of the legitimate owner. Senator

Dilworthy made one little effort through his protege the embryo banker

to recover it, but there being no notes of hand or, other memoranda to

support the claim, it failed. The moral of which is, that when one

loans money to start a bank with, one ought to take the party's written

acknowledgment of the fact.]

CHAPTER LX.

For some days Laura had been a free woman once more. During this time,

she had experienced--first, two or three days of triumph, excitement,

congratulations, a sort of sunburst of gladness, after a long night of

gloom and anxiety; then two or three days of calming down, by degrees--a

receding of tides, a quieting of the storm-wash to a murmurous

surf-beat, a diminishing of devastating winds to a refrain that bore the

spirit of a truce-days given to solitude, rest, self-communion, and

the reasoning of herself into a realization of the fact that she was

actually done with bolts and bars, prison horrors and impending death;

then came a day whose hours filed slowly by her, each laden with some

remnant, some remaining fragment of the dreadful time so lately ended--a

day which, closing at last, left the past a fading shore behind her and

turned her eyes toward the broad sea of the future. So speedily do we

put the dead away and come back to our place in the ranks to march in

the pilgrimage of life again.

And now the sun rose once more and ushered in the first day of what

Laura comprehended and accepted as a new life.

The past had sunk below the horizon, and existed no more for her; she

was done with it for all time. She was gazing out over the trackless

expanses of the future, now, with troubled eyes. Life must be begun

again--at eight and twenty years of age. And where to begin? The page

was blank, and waiting for its first record; so this was indeed a

momentous day.

Her thoughts drifted back, stage by stage, over her career. As far as

the long highway receded over the plain of her life, it was lined with

the gilded and pillared splendors of her ambition all crumbled to ruin

and ivy-grown; every milestone marked a disaster; there was no green

spot remaining anywhere in memory of a hope that had found its fruition;

the unresponsive earth had uttered no voice of flowers in testimony that

one who was blest had gone that road.

Her life had been a failure. That was plain, she said. No more of that.

She would now look the future in the face; she would mark her course

upon the chart of life, and follow it; follow it without swerving,

through rocks and shoals, through storm and calm, to a haven of rest

and peace or shipwreck. Let the end be what it might, she would mark her

course now--to-day--and follow it.

On her table lay six or seven notes. They were from lovers; from some

of the prominent names in the land; men whose devotion had survived

even the grisly revealments of her character which the courts had

uncurtained; men who knew her now, just as she was, and yet pleaded as

for their lives for the dear privilege of calling the murderess wife.

As she read these passionate, these worshiping, these supplicating

missives, the woman in her nature confessed itself; a strong yearning

came upon her to lay her head upon a loyal breast and find rest from

the conflict of life, solace for her griefs, the healing of love for her

bruised heart.

With her forehead resting upon her hand, she sat thinking, thinking,

while the unheeded moments winged their flight. It was one of those

mornings in early spring when nature seems just stirring to a half

consciousness out of a long, exhausting lethargy; when the first faint

balmy airs go wandering about, whispering the secret of the coming

change; when the abused brown grass, newly relieved of snow, seems

considering whether it can be worth the trouble and worry of contriving

its green raiment again only to fight the inevitable fight with the

implacable winter and be vanquished and buried once more; when the sun

shines out and a few birds venture forth and lift up a forgotten song;

when a strange stillness and suspense pervades the waiting air. It is a

time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the

past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the

future but a way to death. It is a time when one is filled with vague

longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote

solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, What is the use of

struggling, and toiling and worrying any more? let us give it all up.

It was into such a mood as this that Laura had drifted from the musings

which the letters of her lovers had called up. Now she lifted her head

and noted with surprise how the day had wasted. She thrust the letters

aside, rose up and went and stood at the window. But she was soon

thinking again, and was only gazing into vacancy.

By and by she turned; her countenance had cleared; the dreamy look was

gone out of her face, all indecision had vanished; the poise of her head

and the firm set of her lips told that her resolution was formed. She

moved toward the table with all the old dignity in her carriage, and all

the old pride in her mien. She took up each letter in its turn, touched

a match to it and watched it slowly consume to ashes. Then she said:

“I have landed upon a foreign shore, and burned my ships behind me.

These letters were the last thing that held me in sympathy with any

remnant or belonging of the old life. Henceforth that life and all that

appertains to it are as dead to me and as far removed from me as if I

were become a denizen of another world.”

She said that love was not for her--the time that it could have

satisfied her heart was gone by and could not return; the opportunity

was lost, nothing could restore it. She said there could be no love

without respect, and she would only despise a man who could content

himself with a thing like her. Love, she said, was a woman's first

necessity: love being forfeited; there was but one thing left that could

give a passing zest to a wasted life, and that was fame, admiration, the

applause of the multitude.

And so her resolution was taken. She would turn to that final resort

of the disappointed of her sex, the lecture platform. She would array

herself in fine attire, she would adorn herself with jewels, and stand

in her isolated magnificence before massed audiences and enchant them

with her eloquence and amaze them with her unapproachable beauty. She

would move from city to city like a queen of romance, leaving marveling

multitudes behind her and impatient multitudes awaiting her coming.

Her life, during one hour of each day, upon the platform, would be a

rapturous intoxication--and when the curtain fell and the lights were

out, and the people gone, to nestle in their homes and forget her, she

would find in sleep oblivion of her homelessness, if she could, if not

she would brave out the night in solitude and wait for the next day's

hour of ecstasy.

So, to take up life and begin again was no great evil. She saw her way.

She would be brave and strong; she would make the best of what was left

for her among the possibilities.

She sent for the lecture agent, and matters were soon arranged.

Straightway, all the papers were filled with her name, and all the dead

walls flamed with it. The papers called down imprecations upon her head;

they reviled her without stint; they wondered if all sense of decency

was dead in this shameless murderess, this brazen lobbyist, this

heartless seducer of the affections of weak and misguided men; they

implored the people, for the sake of their pure wives, their sinless

daughters, for the sake of decency, for the sake of public morals, to

give this wretched creature such a rebuke as should be an all-sufficient

evidence to her and to such as her, that there was a limit where the

flaunting of their foul acts and opinions before the world must stop;

certain of them, with a higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a

sharper torture, uttered no abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of

mocking eulogy and ironical admiration. Everybody talked about the new

wonder, canvassed the theme of her proposed discourse, and marveled how

she would handle it.

Laura's few friends wrote to her or came and talked with her, and

pleaded with her to retire while it was yet time, and not attempt to

face the gathering storm. But it was fruitless. She was stung to the

quick by the comments of the newspapers; her spirit was roused, her

ambition was towering, now. She was more determined than ever. She would

show these people what a hunted and persecuted woman could do.

The eventful night came. Laura arrived before the great lecture hall in

a close carriage within five minutes of the time set for the lecture to

begin. When she stepped out of the vehicle her heart beat fast and her

eyes flashed with exultation: the whole street was packed with people,

and she could hardly force her way to the hall! She reached the

ante-room, threw off her wraps and placed herself before the

dressing-glass. She turned herself this way and that--everything was

satisfactory, her attire was perfect. She smoothed her hair, rearranged

a jewel here and there, and all the while her heart sang within her, and

her face was radiant. She had not been so happy for ages and ages, it

seemed to her. Oh, no, she had never been so overwhelmingly grateful and

happy in her whole life before. The lecture agent appeared at the door.

She waved him away and said:

“Do not disturb me. I want no introduction. And do not fear for me; the

moment the hands point to eight I will step upon the platform.”

He disappeared. She held her watch before her. She was so impatient that

the second-hand seemed whole tedious minutes dragging its way around

the circle. At last the supreme moment came, and with head erect and

the bearing of an empress she swept through the door and stood upon the

stage. Her eyes fell upon only a vast, brilliant emptiness--there were

not forty people in the house! There were only a handful of coarse men

and ten or twelve still coarser women, lolling upon the benches and

scattered about singly and in couples.

Her pulses stood still, her limbs quaked, the gladness went out of her

face. There was a moment of silence, and then a brutal laugh and an

explosion of cat-calls and hisses saluted her from the audience. The

clamor grew stronger and louder, and insulting speeches were shouted at

her. A half-intoxicated man rose up and threw something, which missed

her but bespattered a chair at her side, and this evoked an outburst of

laughter and boisterous admiration. She was bewildered, her strength was

forsaking her. She reeled away from the platform, reached the ante-room,

and dropped helpless upon a sofa. The lecture agent ran in, with a

hurried question upon his lips; but she put forth her hands, and with

the tears raining from her eyes, said:

“Oh, do not speak! Take me away-please take me away, out of this

dreadful place! Oh, this is like all my life--failure, disappointment,

misery--always misery, always failure. What have I done, to be so

pursued! Take me away, I beg of you, I implore you!”

Upon the pavement she was hustled by the mob, the surging masses roared

her name and accompanied it with every species of insulting epithet;

they thronged after the carriage, hooting, jeering, cursing, and even

assailing the vehicle with missiles. A stone crushed through a blind,

wounding Laura's forehead, and so stunning her that she hardly knew what

further transpired during her flight.

It was long before her faculties were wholly restored, and then she

found herself lying on the floor by a sofa in her own sitting-room,

and alone. So she supposed she must have sat down upon the sofa and

afterward fallen. She raised herself up, with difficulty, for the air

was chilly and her limbs were stiff. She turned up the gas and sought

the glass. She hardly knew herself, so worn and old she looked, and so

marred with blood were her features. The night was far spent, and a dead

stillness reigned. She sat down by her table, leaned her elbows upon it

and put her face in her hands.

Her thoughts wandered back over her old life again and her tears flowed

unrestrained. Her pride was humbled, her spirit was broken. Her memory

found but one resting place; it lingered about her young girlhood with a

caressing regret; it dwelt upon it as the one brief interval of her life

that bore no curse. She saw herself again in the budding grace of her

twelve years, decked in her dainty pride of ribbons, consorting with

the bees and the butterflies, believing in fairies, holding confidential

converse with the flowers, busying herself all day long with airy

trifles that were as weighty to her as the affairs that tax the brains

of diplomats and emperors. She was without sin, then, and unacquainted

with grief; the world was full of sunshine and her heart was full of

music. From that--to this!

“If I could only die!” she said. “If I could only go back, and be as I

was then, for one hour--and hold my father's hand in mine again, and see

all the household about me, as in that old innocent time--and then

die! My God, I am humbled, my pride is all gone, my stubborn heart

repents--have pity!”

When the spring morning dawned, the form still sat there, the elbows

resting upon the table and the face upon the hands. All day long the

figure sat there, the sunshine enriching its costly raiment and flashing

from its jewels; twilight came, and presently the stars, but still the

figure remained; the moon found it there still, and framed the picture

with the shadow of the window sash, and flooded it with mellow light; by

and by the darkness swallowed it up, and later the gray dawn revealed it

again; the new day grew toward its prime, and still the forlorn presence

was undisturbed.

But now the keepers of the house had become uneasy; their periodical

knockings still finding no response, they burst open the door.

The jury of inquest found that death had resulted from heart disease,

and was instant and painless. That was all. Merely heart disease.

CHAPTER LXI.

Clay Hawkins, years gone by, had yielded, after many a struggle, to the

migratory and speculative instinct of our age and our people, and had

wandered further and further westward upon trading ventures.

Settling finally in Melbourne, Australia, he ceased to roam, became a

steady-going substantial merchant, and prospered greatly. His life lay

beyond the theatre of this tale.

His remittances had supported the Hawkins family, entirely, from the

time of his father's death until latterly when Laura by her efforts in

Washington had been able to assist in this work. Clay was away on a long

absence in some of the eastward islands when Laura's troubles began,

trying (and almost in vain,) to arrange certain interests which had

become disordered through a dishonest agent, and consequently he knew

nothing of the murder till he returned and read his letters and papers.

His natural impulse was to hurry to the States and save his sister

if possible, for he loved her with a deep and abiding affection. His

business was so crippled now, and so deranged, that to leave it would

be ruin; therefore he sold out at a sacrifice that left him considerably

reduced in worldly possessions, and began his voyage to San Francisco.

Arrived there, he perceived by the newspapers that the trial was near

its close. At Salt Lake later telegrams told him of the acquittal, and

his gratitude was boundless--so boundless, indeed, that sleep was driven

from his eyes by the pleasurable excitement almost as effectually as

preceding weeks of anxiety had done it. He shaped his course straight

for Hawkeye, now, and his meeting with his mother and the rest of the

household was joyful--albeit he had been away so long that he seemed

almost a stranger in his own home.

But the greetings and congratulations were hardly finished when all the

journals in the land clamored the news of Laura's miserable death. Mrs.

Hawkins was prostrated by this last blow, and it was well that Clay was

at her side to stay her with comforting words and take upon himself the

ordering of the household with its burden of labors and cares.

Washington Hawkins had scarcely more than entered upon that decade which

carries one to the full blossom of manhood which we term the beginning

of middle age, and yet a brief sojourn at the capital of the nation had

made him old. His hair was already turning gray when the late session

of Congress began its sittings; it grew grayer still, and rapidly, after

the memorable day that saw Laura proclaimed a murderess; it waxed grayer

and still grayer during the lagging suspense that succeeded it and after

the crash which ruined his last hope--the failure of his bill in the

Senate and the destruction of its champion, Dilworthy. A few days

later, when he stood uncovered while the last prayer was pronounced over

Laura's grave, his hair was whiter and his face hardly less old than the

venerable minister's whose words were sounding in his ears.

A week after this, he was sitting in a double-bedded room in a cheap

boarding house in Washington, with Col. Sellers. The two had been living

together lately, and this mutual cavern of theirs the Colonel

sometimes referred to as their “premises” and sometimes as their

“apartments”--more particularly when conversing with persons outside. A

canvas-covered modern trunk, marked “G. W. H.” stood on end by the door,

strapped and ready for a journey; on it lay a small morocco satchel,

also marked “G. W. H.” There was another trunk close by--a worn, and

scarred, and ancient hair relic, with “B. S.” wrought in brass nails on

its top; on it lay a pair of saddle-bags that probably knew more about

the last century than they could tell. Washington got up and walked the

floor a while in a restless sort of way, and finally was about to sit

down on the hair trunk.

“Stop, don't sit down on that!” exclaimed the Colonel: “There, now

that's all right--the chair's better. I couldn't get another trunk like

that--not another like it in America, I reckon.”

“I am afraid not,” said Washington, with a faint attempt at a smile.

“No indeed; the man is dead that made that trunk and that saddle-bags.”

“Are his great-grand-children still living?” said Washington, with

levity only in the words, not in the tone.

“Well, I don't know--I hadn't thought of that--but anyway they can't

make trunks and saddle-bags like that, if they are--no man can,” said

the Colonel with honest simplicity. “Wife didn't like to see me going

off with that trunk--she said it was nearly certain to be stolen.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why, aren't trunks always being stolen?”

“Well, yes--some kinds of trunks are.”

“Very well, then; this is some kind of a trunk--and an almighty rare

kind, too.”

“Yes, I believe it is.”

“Well, then, why shouldn't a man want to steal it if he got a chance?”

“Indeed I don't know.--Why should he?”

“Washington, I never heard anybody talk like you. Suppose you were a

thief, and that trunk was lying around and nobody watching--wouldn't you

steal it? Come, now, answer fair--wouldn't you steal it?

“Well, now, since you corner me, I would take it,--but I wouldn't

consider it stealing.

“You wouldn't! Well, that beats me. Now what would you call stealing?”

“Why, taking property is stealing.”

“Property! Now what a way to talk that is: What do you suppose that

trunk is worth?”

“Is it in good repair?”

“Perfect. Hair rubbed off a little, but the main structure is perfectly

sound.”

“Does it leak anywhere?”

“Leak? Do you want to carry water in it? What do you mean by does it

leak?”

“Why--a--do the clothes fall out of it when it is--when it is

stationary?”

“Confound it, Washington, you are trying to make fun of me. I don't know

what has got into you to-day; you act mighty curious. What is the matter

with you?”

“Well, I'll tell you, old friend. I am almost happy. I am, indeed. It

wasn't Clay's telegram that hurried me up so and got me ready to start

with you. It was a letter from Louise.”

“Good! What is it? What does she say?”

“She says come home--her father has consented, at last.”

“My boy, I want to congratulate you; I want to shake you by the hand!

It's a long turn that has no lane at the end of it, as the proverb says,

or somehow that way. You'll be happy yet, and Beriah Sellers will be

there to see, thank God!”

“I believe it. General Boswell is pretty nearly a poor man, now. The

railroad that was going to build up Hawkeye made short work of him,

along with the rest. He isn't so opposed to a son-in-law without a

fortune, now.”

“Without a fortune, indeed! Why that Tennessee Land--”

“Never mind the Tennessee Land, Colonel. I am done with that, forever

and forever--”

“Why no! You can't mean to say--”

“My father, away back yonder, years ago, bought it for a blessing for

his children, and--”

“Indeed he did! Si Hawkins said to me--”

“It proved a curse to him as long as he lived, and never a curse like it

was inflicted upon any man's heirs--”

“I'm bound to say there's more or less truth--”

“It began to curse me when I was a baby, and it has cursed every hour of

my life to this day--”

“Lord, lord, but it's so! Time and again my wife--”

“I depended on it all through my boyhood and never tried to do an honest

stroke of work for my living--”

“Right again--but then you--”

“I have chased it years and years as children chase butterflies. We

might all have been prosperous, now; we might all have been happy, all

these heart-breaking years, if we had accepted our poverty at first and

gone contentedly to work and built up our own wealth by our own toil and

sweat--”

“It's so, it's so; bless my soul, how often I've told Si Hawkins--”

“Instead of that, we have suffered more than the damned themselves

suffer! I loved my father, and I honor his memory and recognize his good

intentions; but I grieve for his mistaken ideas of conferring happiness

upon his children. I am going to begin my life over again, and begin

it and end it with good solid work! I'll leave my children no Tennessee

Land!”

“Spoken like a man, sir, spoken like a man! Your hand, again my boy! And

always remember that when a word of advice from Beriah Sellers can help,

it is at your service. I'm going to begin again, too!”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, sir. I've seen enough to show me where my mistake was. The law

is what I was born for. I shall begin the study of the law. Heavens and

earth, but that Braham's a wonderful man--a wonderful man sir! Such a

head! And such a way with him! But I could see that he was jealous of

me. The little licks I got in in the course of my argument before the

jury--”

“Your argument! Why, you were a witness.”

“Oh, yes, to the popular eye, to the popular eye--but I knew when I was

dropping information and when I was letting drive at the court with an

insidious argument. But the court knew it, bless you, and weakened every

time! And Braham knew it. I just reminded him of it in a quiet way, and

its final result, and he said in a whisper, 'You did it, Colonel, you

did it, sir--but keep it mum for my sake; and I'll tell you what you

do,' says he, 'you go into the law, Col. Sellers--go into the law, sir;

that's your native element!' And into the law the subscriber is going.

There's worlds of money in it!--whole worlds of money! Practice first in

Hawkeye, then in Jefferson, then in St. Louis, then in New York! In the

metropolis of the western world! Climb, and climb, and climb--and wind

up on the Supreme bench. Beriah Sellers, Chief Justice of the Supreme

Court of the United States, sir! A made man for all time and eternity!

That's the way I block it out, sir--and it's as clear as day--clear as

the rosy-morn!”

Washington had heard little of this. The first reference to Laura's

trial had brought the old dejection to his face again, and he stood

gazing out of the window at nothing, lost in reverie.

There was a knock-the postman handed in a letter. It was from Obedstown,

East Tennessee, and was for Washington. He opened it. There was a note

saying that enclosed he would please find a bill for the current year's

taxes on the 75,000 acres of Tennessee Land belonging to the estate of

Silas Hawkins, deceased, and added that the money must be paid within

sixty days or the land would be sold at public auction for the taxes,

as provided by law. The bill was for $180--something more than twice the

market value of the land, perhaps.

Washington hesitated. Doubts flitted through his mind. The old instinct

came upon him to cling to the land just a little longer and give it

one more chance. He walked the floor feverishly, his mind tortured by

indecision. Presently he stopped, took out his pocket book and counted

his money. Two hundred and thirty dollars--it was all he had in the

world.

“One hundred and eighty . . . . . . . from two hundred and thirty,” he

said to himself. “Fifty left . . . . . . It is enough to get me home .

. . . . . . Shall I do it, or shall I not? . . . . I wish I had somebody

to decide for me.”

The pocket book lay open in his hand, with Louise's small letter in

view. His eye fell upon that, and it decided him.

“It shall go for taxes,” he said, “and never tempt me or mine any more!”

He opened the window and stood there tearing the tax bill to bits and

watching the breeze waft them away, till all were gone.

“The spell is broken, the life-long curse is ended!” he said. “Let us

go.”

The baggage wagon had arrived; five minutes later the two friends were

mounted upon their luggage in it, and rattling off toward the station,

the Colonel endeavoring to sing “Homeward Bound,” a song whose words he

knew, but whose tune, as he rendered it, was a trial to auditors.

CHAPTER LXII.

Philip Sterling's circumstances were becoming straightened. The prospect

was gloomy. His long siege of unproductive labor was beginning to tell

upon his spirits; but what told still more upon them was the undeniable

fact that the promise of ultimate success diminished every day, now.

That is to say, the tunnel had reached a point in the hill which was

considerably beyond where the coal vein should pass (according to all

his calculations) if there were a coal vein there; and so, every foot

that the tunnel now progressed seemed to carry it further away from the

object of the search.

Sometimes he ventured to hope that he had made a mistake in estimating

the direction which the vein should naturally take after crossing the

valley and entering the hill. Upon such occasions he would go into

the nearest mine on the vein he was hunting for, and once more get the

bearings of the deposit and mark out its probable course; but the result

was the same every time; his tunnel had manifestly pierced beyond the

natural point of junction; and then his spirits fell a little lower. His

men had already lost faith, and he often overheard them saying it was

perfectly plain that there was no coal in the hill.

Foremen and laborers from neighboring mines, and no end of experienced

loafers from the village, visited the tunnel from time to time, and

their verdicts were always the same and always disheartening--“No coal

in that hill.” Now and then Philip would sit down and think it all over

and wonder what the mystery meant; then he would go into the tunnel and

ask the men if there were no signs yet? None--always “none.”

He would bring out a piece of rock and examine it, and say to himself,

“It is limestone--it has crinoids and corals in it--the rock is right”

Then he would throw it down with a sigh, and say, “But that is nothing;

where coal is, limestone with these fossils in it is pretty certain to

lie against its foot casing; but it does not necessarily follow that

where this peculiar rock is coal must lie above it or beyond it; this

sign is not sufficient.”

The thought usually followed:--“There is one infallible sign--if I could

only strike that!”

Three or four times in as many weeks he said to himself, “Am I a

visionary? I must be a visionary; everybody is in these days; everybody

chases butterflies: everybody seeks sudden fortune and will not lay one

up by slow toil. This is not right, I will discharge the men and go at

some honest work. There is no coal here. What a fool I have been; I will

give it up.”

But he never could do it. A half hour of profound thinking always

followed; and at the end of it he was sure to get up and straighten

himself and say: “There is coal there; I will not give it up; and coal

or no coal I will drive the tunnel clear through the hill; I will not

surrender while I am alive.”

He never thought of asking Mr. Montague for more money. He said there

was now but one chance of finding coal against nine hundred and ninety

nine that he would not find it, and so it would be wrong in him to make

the request and foolish in Mr. Montague to grant it.

He had been working three shifts of men. Finally, the settling of a

weekly account exhausted his means. He could not afford to run in debt,

and therefore he gave the men their discharge. They came into his cabin

presently, where he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his

hands--the picture of discouragement and their spokesman said:

“Mr. Sterling, when Tim was down a week with his fall you kept him on

half-wages and it was a mighty help to his family; whenever any of us

was in trouble you've done what you could to help us out; you've acted

fair and square with us every time, and I reckon we are men and know a

man when we see him. We haven't got any faith in that hill, but we have

a respect for a man that's got the pluck that you've showed; you've

fought a good fight, with everybody agin you and if we had grub to go

on, I'm d----d if we wouldn't stand by you till the cows come home! That

is what the boys say. Now we want to put in one parting blast for luck.

We want to work three days more; if we don't find anything, we won't

bring in no bill against you. That is what we've come to say.”

Philip was touched. If he had had money enough to buy three days' “grub”

he would have accepted the generous offer, but as it was, he could not

consent to be less magnanimous than the men, and so he declined in

a manly speech; shook hands all around and resumed his solitary

communings. The men went back to the tunnel and “put in a parting blast

for luck” anyhow. They did a full day's work and then took their leave.

They called at his cabin and gave him good-bye, but were not able to

tell him their day's effort had given things a mere promising look.

The next day Philip sold all the tools but two or three sets; he also

sold one of the now deserted cabins as old, lumber, together with its

domestic wares; and made up his mind that he would buy provisions with

the trifle of money thus gained and continue his work alone. About the

middle of the afternoon he put on his roughest clothes and went to the

tunnel. He lit a candle and groped his way in. Presently he heard the

sound of a pick or a drill, and wondered, what it meant. A spark of

light now appeared in the far end of the tunnel, and when he arrived

there he found the man Tim at work. Tim said:

“I'm to have a job in the Golden Brier mine by and by--in a week or ten

days--and I'm going to work here till then. A man might as well be at

some thing, and besides I consider that I owe you what you paid me when

I was laid up.”

Philip said, Oh, no, he didn't owe anything; but Tim persisted, and

then Philip said he had a little provision now, and would share. So for

several days Philip held the drill and Tim did the striking. At first

Philip was impatient to see the result of every blast, and was always

back and peering among the smoke the moment after the explosion. But

there was never any encouraging result; and therefore he finally lost

almost all interest, and hardly troubled himself to inspect results at

all. He simply labored on, stubbornly and with little hope.

Tim staid with him till the last moment, and then took up his job at

the Golden Brier, apparently as depressed by the continued barrenness of

their mutual labors as Philip was himself. After that, Philip fought his

battle alone, day after day, and slow work it was; he could scarcely see

that he made any progress.

Late one afternoon he finished drilling a hole which he had been at work

at for more than two hours; he swabbed it out, and poured in the powder

and inserted the fuse; then filled up the rest of the hole with dirt and

small fragments of stone; tamped it down firmly, touched his candle to

the fuse, and ran.

By and by the dull report came, and he was about to walk back

mechanically and see what was accomplished; but he halted; presently

turned on his heel and thought, rather than said:

“No, this is useless, this is absurd. If I found anything it would only

be one of those little aggravating seams of coal which doesn't mean

anything, and--”

By this time he was walking out of the tunnel. His thought ran on:

“I am conquered . . . . . . I am out of provisions, out of money. . . .

I have got to give it up . . . . . . All this hard work lost! But I

am not conquered! I will go and work for money, and come back and have

another fight with fate. Ah me, it may be years, it may, be years.”

Arrived at the mouth of the tunnel, he threw his coat upon the ground,

sat down on a stone, and his eye sought the westering sun and dwelt upon

the charming landscape which stretched its woody ridges, wave upon wave,

to the golden horizon.

Something was taking place at his feet which did not attract his

attention.

His reverie continued, and its burden grew more and more gloomy.

Presently he rose up and, cast a look far away toward the valley, and

his thoughts took a new direction:

“There it is! How good it looks! But down there is not up here. Well, I

will go home and pack up--there is nothing else to do.”

He moved off moodily toward his cabin. He had gone some distance before

he thought of his coat; then he was about to turn back, but he smiled at

the thought, and continued his journey--such a coat as that could be of

little use in a civilized land; a little further on, he remembered that

there were some papers of value in one of the pockets of the relic, and

then with a penitent ejaculation he turned back picked up the coat and

put it on.

He made a dozen steps, and then stopped very suddenly. He stood still a

moment, as one who is trying to believe something and cannot. He put

a hand up over his shoulder and felt his back, and a great thrill shot

through him. He grasped the skirt of the coat impulsively and another

thrill followed. He snatched the coat from his back, glanced at it,

threw it from him and flew back to the tunnel. He sought the spot where

the coat had lain--he had to look close, for the light was waning--then

to make sure, he put his hand to the ground and a little stream of water

swept against his fingers:

“Thank God, I've struck it at last!”

He lit a candle and ran into the tunnel; he picked up a piece of rubbish

cast out by the last blast, and said:

“This clayey stuff is what I've longed for--I know what is behind it.”

He swung his pick with hearty good will till long after the darkness had

gathered upon the earth, and when he trudged home at length he knew he

had a coal vein and that it was seven feet thick from wall to wall.

He found a yellow envelope lying on his rickety table, and recognized

that it was of a family sacred to the transmission of telegrams.

He opened it, read it, crushed it in his hand and threw it down. It

simply said:

“Ruth is very ill.”

CHAPTER LXIII.

It was evening when Philip took the cars at the Ilium station. The news

of his success had preceded him, and while he waited for the train, he

was the center of a group of eager questioners, who asked him a hundred

things about the mine, and magnified his good fortune. There was no

mistake this time.

Philip, in luck, had become suddenly a person of consideration, whose

speech was freighted with meaning, whose looks were all significant. The

words of the proprietor of a rich coal mine have a golden sound, and his

common sayings are repeated as if they were solid wisdom.

Philip wished to be alone; his good fortune at this moment seemed an

empty mockery, one of those sarcasms of fate, such as that which spreads

a dainty banquet for the man who has no appetite. He had longed for

success principally for Ruth's sake; and perhaps now, at this very

moment of his triumph, she was dying.

“Shust what I said, Mister Sederling,” the landlord of the Ilium hotel

kept repeating. “I dold Jake Schmidt he find him dere shust so sure as

noting.”

“You ought to have taken a share, Mr. Dusenheimer,” said Philip.

“Yaas, I know. But d'old woman, she say 'You sticks to your pisiness. So

I sticks to 'em. Und I makes noting. Dat Mister Prierly, he don't never

come back here no more, ain't it?”

“Why?” asked Philip.

“Vell, dere is so many peers, and so many oder dhrinks, I got 'em all

set down, ven he coomes back.”

It was a long night for Philip, and a restless one. At any other time

the swing of the cars would have lulled him to sleep, and the rattle and

clank of wheels and rails, the roar of the whirling iron would have only

been cheerful reminders of swift and safe travel. Now they were voices

of warning and taunting; and instead of going rapidly the train seemed

to crawl at a snail's pace. And it not only crawled, but it frequently

stopped; and when it stopped it stood dead still and there was an

ominous silence. Was anything the matter, he wondered. Only a station

probably. Perhaps, he thought, a telegraphic station. And then he

listened eagerly. Would the conductor open the door and ask for Philip

Sterling, and hand him a fatal dispatch?

How long they seemed to wait. And then slowly beginning to move, they

were off again, shaking, pounding, screaming through the night. He drew

his curtain from time to time and looked out. There was the lurid sky

line of the wooded range along the base of which they were crawling.

There was the Susquehannah, gleaming in the moon-light. There was a

stretch of level valley with silent farm houses, the occupants all at

rest, without trouble, without anxiety. There was a church, a graveyard,

a mill, a village; and now, without pause or fear, the train had mounted

a trestle-work high in air and was creeping along the top of it while a

swift torrent foamed a hundred feet below.

What would the morning bring? Even while he was flying to her, her

gentle spirit might have gone on another flight, whither he could not

follow her. He was full of foreboding. He fell at length into a restless

doze. There was a noise in his ears as of a rushing torrent when a

stream is swollen by a freshet in the spring. It was like the breaking

up of life; he was struggling in the consciousness of coming death: when

Ruth stood by his side, clothed in white, with a face like that of an

angel, radiant, smiling, pointing to the sky, and saying, “Come.” He

awoke with a cry--the train was roaring through a bridge, and it shot

out into daylight.

When morning came the train was industriously toiling along through the

fat lands of Lancaster, with its broad farms of corn and wheat, its mean

houses of stone, its vast barns and granaries, built as if, for storing

the riches of Heliogabalus. Then came the smiling fields of Chester,

with their English green, and soon the county of Philadelphia itself,

and the increasing signs of the approach to a great city. Long trains

of coal cars, laden and unladen, stood upon sidings; the tracks of other

roads were crossed; the smoke of other locomotives was seen on parallel

lines; factories multiplied; streets appeared; the noise of a busy

city began to fill the air;--and with a slower and slower clank on the

connecting rails and interlacing switches the train rolled into the

station and stood still.

It was a hot August morning. The broad streets glowed in the sun, and

the white-shuttered houses stared at the hot thoroughfares like closed

bakers' ovens set along the highway. Philip was oppressed with the heavy

air; the sweltering city lay as in a swoon. Taking a street car, he rode

away to the northern part of the city, the newer portion, formerly the

district of Spring Garden, for in this the Boltons now lived, in a small

brick house, befitting their altered fortunes.

He could scarcely restrain his impatience when he came in sight of the

house. The window shutters were not “bowed”; thank God, for that. Ruth

was still living, then. He ran up the steps and rang. Mrs. Bolton met

him at the door.

“Thee is very welcome, Philip.”

“And Ruth?”

“She is very ill, but quieter than she has been, and the fever is a

little abating. The most dangerous time will be when the fever leaves

her. The doctor fears she will not have strength enough to rally from

it. Yes, thee can see her.”

Mrs. Bolton led the way to the little chamber where Ruth lay. “Oh,” said

her mother, “if she were only in her cool and spacious room in our old

home. She says that seems like heaven.”

Mr. Bolton sat by Ruth's bedside, and he rose and silently pressed

Philip's hand. The room had but one window; that was wide open to admit

the air, but the air that came in was hot and lifeless. Upon the table

stood a vase of flowers. Ruth's eyes were closed; her cheeks were

flushed with fever, and she moved her head restlessly as if in pain.

“Ruth,” said her mother, bending over her, “Philip is here.”

Ruth's eyes unclosed, there was a gleam of recognition in them, there

was an attempt at a smile upon her face, and she tried to raise her thin

hand, as Philip touched her forehead with his lips; and he heard her

murmur,

“Dear Phil.”

There was nothing to be done but to watch and wait for the cruel fever

to burn itself out. Dr. Longstreet told Philip that the fever had

undoubtedly been contracted in the hospital, but it was not malignant,

and would be little dangerous if Ruth were not so worn down with work,

or if she had a less delicate constitution.

“It is only her indomitable will that has kept her up for weeks. And if

that should leave her now, there will be no hope. You can do more for

her now, sir, than I can?”

“How?” asked Philip eagerly.

“Your presence, more than anything else, will inspire her with the

desire to live.”

When the fever turned, Ruth was in a very critical condition. For two

days her life was like the fluttering of a lighted candle in the wind.

Philip was constantly by her side, and she seemed to be conscious of

his presence, and to cling to him, as one borne away by a swift stream

clings to a stretched-out hand from the shore. If he was absent a moment

her restless eyes sought something they were disappointed not to find.

Philip so yearned to bring her back to life, he willed it so strongly

and passionately, that his will appeared to affect hers and she seemed

slowly to draw life from his.

After two days of this struggle with the grasping enemy, it was evident

to Dr. Longstreet that Ruth's will was beginning to issue its orders to

her body with some force, and that strength was slowly coming back. In

another day there was a decided improvement. As Philip sat holding her

weak hand and watching the least sign of resolution in her face, Ruth

was able to whisper,

“I so want to live, for you, Phil!”

“You will; darling, you must,” said Philip in a tone of faith and

courage that carried a thrill of determination--of command--along all

her nerves.

Slowly Philip drew her back to life. Slowly she came back, as one

willing but well nigh helpless. It was new for Ruth to feel this

dependence on another's nature, to consciously draw strength of will

from the will of another. It was a new but a dear joy, to be lifted up

and carried back into the happy world, which was now all aglow with the

light of love; to be lifted and carried by the one she loved more than

her own life.

“Sweetheart,” she said to Philip, “I would not have cared to come back

but for thy love.”

“Not for thy profession?”

“Oh, thee may be glad enough of that some day, when thy coal bed is dug

out and thee and father are in the air again.”

When Ruth was able to ride she was taken into the country, for the pure

air was necessary to her speedy recovery. The family went with her.

Philip could not be spared from her side, and Mr. Bolton had gone up to

Ilium to look into that wonderful coal mine and to make arrangements for

developing it, and bringing its wealth to market. Philip had insisted on

re-conveying the Ilium property to Mr. Bolton, retaining only the share

originally contemplated for himself, and Mr. Bolton, therefore, once

more found himself engaged in business and a person of some consequence

in Third street. The mine turned out even better than was at first

hoped, and would, if judiciously managed, be a fortune to them all. This

also seemed to be the opinion of Mr. Bigler, who heard of it as soon as

anybody, and, with the impudence of his class called upon Mr. Bolton for

a little aid in a patent car-wheel he had bought an interest in. That

rascal, Small, he said, had swindled him out of all he had.

Mr. Bolton told him he was very sorry, and recommended him to sue Small.

Mr. Small also came with a similar story about Mr. Bigler; and Mr.

Bolton had the grace to give him like advice. And he added, “If you

and Bigler will procure the indictment of each other, you may have the

satisfaction of putting each other in the penitentiary for the forgery

of my acceptances.”

Bigler and Small did not quarrel however. They both attacked Mr. Bolton

behind his back as a swindler, and circulated the story that he had made

a fortune by failing.

In the pure air of the highlands, amid the golden glories of ripening

September, Ruth rapidly came back to health. How beautiful the world is

to an invalid, whose senses are all clarified, who has been so near the

world of spirits that she is sensitive to the finest influences, and

whose frame responds with a thrill to the subtlest ministrations of

soothing nature. Mere life is a luxury, and the color of the grass,

of the flowers, of the sky, the wind in the trees, the outlines of the

horizon, the forms of clouds, all give a pleasure as exquisite as the

sweetest music to the ear famishing for it. The world was all new and

fresh to Ruth, as if it had just been created for her, and love filled

it, till her heart was overflowing with happiness.

It was golden September also at Fallkill. And Alice sat by the open

window in her room at home, looking out upon the meadows where the

laborers were cutting the second crop of clover. The fragrance of it

floated to her nostrils. Perhaps she did not mind it. She was thinking.

She had just been writing to Ruth, and on the table before her was a

yellow piece of paper with a faded four-leaved clover pinned on it--only

a memory now. In her letter to Ruth she had poured out her heartiest

blessings upon them both, with her dear love forever and forever.

“Thank God,” she said, “they will never know”

They never would know. And the world never knows how many women there

are like Alice, whose sweet but lonely lives of self-sacrifice, gentle,

faithful, loving souls, bless it continually.

“She is a dear girl,” said Philip, when Ruth showed him the letter.

“Yes, Phil, and we can spare a great deal of love for her, our own lives

are so full.”

APPENDIX.

Perhaps some apology to the reader is necessary in view of our failure

to find Laura's father. We supposed, from the ease with which lost

persons are found in novels, that it would not be difficult. But it was;

indeed, it was impossible; and therefore the portions of the narrative

containing the record of the search have been stricken out. Not because

they were not interesting--for they were; but inasmuch as the man was

not found, after all, it did not seem wise to harass and excite the

reader to no purpose.

THE AUTHORS