The Sword of Damocles Part 49

XL.

HALF-PAST SEVEN.

"I would it were midnight, Hal, and all well."

--HENRY IV.

The library was dim; Bertram, who had felt the oppressive influence of the great empty room, had turned down the lights, and was now engaged in pacing the floor, with restless and uneven steps, asking himself a hundred questions, and wis.h.i.+ng with all the power of his soul, that Mr.

Sylvester would return, and by his appearance cut short a suspense that was fast becoming unendurable.

He had just returned from his third visit to the front door, when the curtain between him and the hall was gently raised, and Paula glided in and stood before him. She was dressed for the street, and her face where the light touched it, shone like marble upon which has fallen the glare of a lifted torch.

"Paula!" burst from the young man's lips in surprise.

"Hus.h.!.+" said she, her voice quavering with an emotion that put to defiance all conventionalities, "I want you to take me to the place where Mr. Sylvester is gone. He is in danger; I know it, I feel it. I dare not leave him any longer alone. I might be able to save him if--if he meditates anything that--" she did not try to say what, but drew nearer to Bertram and repeated her request. "You will take me, won't you?"

He eyed her with amazement, and a shudder seized his own strong frame.

"No," cried he, "I cannot take you; you do not know what you ask; but I will go myself if you apprehend anything serious. I remember where it is. I studied the address too closely, to readily forget it."

"You shall not go without me," returned Paula with steady decision. "If the danger is what I fear, no one else can save him. I must go," she added, with pa.s.sionate importunity as she saw him still looking doubtful. "Darkness and peril are nothing to me in comparison with his safety. He holds my life in his hand," she softly whispered, "and what will not one do for his life!" Then quickly, "If you go without me I shall follow with Aunt Belinda. Nothing shall keep me in the house to-night."

He felt the uselessness of further objection, yet he ventured to say, "The place where he has gone is one of the worst in the city; a spot which men hesitate to enter after dark. You don't know what you ask in begging me to take you there."

"I do, I realize everything."

With a sudden awe of the great love which he thus beheld embodied before him, Bertram bowed his head and moved towards the door. "I may consider it wise to obtain the guidance of a policeman through the quarter into which we are about to venture. Will you object to that?"

"No," was her quick reply, "I object to nothing but delay."

And with a last look about the room, as if some sensation of farewell were stirring in her breast, she laid her hand on Bertram's arm, and together they hurried away into the night.

BOOK V.

WOMAN'S LOVE.

XLI.

THE WORK OF AN HOUR.

Base is the slave that pays."--HENRY V.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor h.e.l.l a fury like a woman scorned."

--CONGREVE.

Mr. Sylvester upon leaving the bank, had taken his usual route up town.

But after an aimless walk of a few blocks, he suddenly paused, and with a quiet look about him, drew from his pocket the small slip of paper which Bertram had laid on his table the night before, and hurriedly consulted its contents. Instantly an irrepressible exclamation escaped him, and he turned his face to the heavens with the look of one who recognizes the just providence of G.o.d. The name which he had just read, was that of the old lover of Jacqueline j.a.pha, Roger Holt, and the address given, was 63 Baxter Street.

Twilight comes with different aspects to the broad avenues of the rich, and the narrow alleys of the poor. In the reeking slums of Baxter Street, poetry would have had to search long for the purple glamour that makes day's dying hour fair in open fields and perfumed chambers. Even the last dazzling gleam of the sun could awaken no sparkle from the bleared windows of the hideous tenement houses that reared their blank and disfigured walls toward the west. The chill of the night blast and the quick dread that follows in the steps of coming darkness, were all that could enter these regions, unless it was the stealthy shades of vice and disease.

Mr. Sylvester standing before the darkest and most threatening of the many dark and threatening houses that c.u.mbered the street, was a sight to draw more than one head from the neighboring windows. Had it been earlier, he would have found himself surrounded by a dozen ragged and importunate children; had it been later, he would have run the risk of being garroted by some skulking a.s.sa.s.sin; as it was, he stood there unmolested, eying the structure that held within its gloomy recesses the once handsome and captivating lover of Jacqueline j.a.pha. He was not the only man who would have hesitated before entering there. Low and insignificant as the building appeared--and its two stories certainly looked dwarfish enough in comparison with the two lofty tenement houses that pressed it upon either side--there was something in its quiet, almost uninhabited aspect that awakened a vague apprehension of lurking danger. A face at a window would have been a relief; even the sight of a customer in the noisome groggery that occupied the ground floor. From the dwellings about, came the hum of voices and now and then the sound of a shrill laugh or a smothered cry, but from this house came nothing, unless it was the slow ooze of a stream of half-melted snow that found its way from under the broken-down door-way to the gutter beyond.

Stepping bravely forward, Mr. Sylvester entered the open door. A flight of bare and rickety steps met his eye. Ascending them, he found himself in a hall which must have been poorly lighted at any time, but which at this late hour was almost dark. It was not very encouraging, but pressing on, he stopped at a door and was about to knock, when his eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, he detected standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the story above, the tall and silent figure of a woman. It was no common apparition. Like a sentinel at his post, or a spy on the outskirts of the enemy's camp, she stood drawn up against the wall, her whole wasted form quivering with eagerness or some other secret pa.s.sion; darkness on her brow and uncertainty on her lip. She was listening, or waiting, or both, and that with an entire absorption that prevented her from heeding the approach of a stranger's step. Struck by so sinister a presence in a place so dark and desolate, Mr. Sylvester unconsciously drew back. As he did so, the woman thrilled and looked up, but not at him. A lame child's hesitating and uneven step was heard crossing the floor above, and it was towards it she turned, and for it she composed her whole form into a strange but evil calmness.

"Ah, he let you come then!" Mr. Sylvester heard her exclaim in a low smothered tone, whose attempted lightness did not hide the malevolent nature of her interest.

"Yes," came back in the clear and confiding tones of childhood. "I told him you loved me and gave me candy-b.a.l.l.s, and he let me come."

A laugh quick and soon smothered, disturbed the surrounding gloom. "You told him I loved you! Well, that is good; I do love you; love you as I do my own eyes that I could crush, crush, for ever having lingered on the face of my betrayer!"

The last phrase was muttered, and did not seem to convey any impression to the child. "Hold out your arms and catch me," cried he; "I am going to jump."

She appeared to comply; for he gave a little ringing laugh that was startlingly clear and fresh.

"He asked me what your name was," babbled he, as he nestled in her arms.

"He is always asking what your name is; Dad forgets, Dad does; or else it's because he's never seen you."

"And what did you tell him?" she asked, ignoring the last remark with an echo of her sarcastic laugh.

"Mrs. Smith, of course."

She threw back her head and her whole form acquired an aspect that made Mr. Sylvester shudder. "That's good," she cried, "Mrs. Smith by all means." Then with a sudden lowering of her face to his--"Mrs. Smith is good to you, isn't she; lets you sit by her fire when she has any, and gives you peanuts to eat and sometimes spares you a penny!"

"Yes, yes," the boy cried.

"Come then," she said, "let's go home."

She put him down on the floor, and gave him his little crutch. Her manner was not unkind, and yet Mr. Sylvester trembled as he saw the child about to follow her.

"Didn't you ever have any little boys?" the child suddenly asked.

The woman shrank as if a burning steel had been plunged against her breast. Looking down on the frightened child, she hissed out from between her teeth, "Did he tell you to ask me that? Did he dare--" She stopped and pressed her arms against her swelling heart as if she would smother its very beats. "Oh no, of course he didn't tell you; what does he know or care about Mrs. Smith!" Then with a quick gasp and a wild look into the s.p.a.ce before her, "My child dead, and her child alive and beloved! What wonder that I hate earth and defy heaven!"

She caught the boy by the hand and drew him quickly away. "You will be good to me," he cried, frightened by her manner yet evidently fascinated too, perhaps on account of the faint sparks of kindness that alternated with gusts of pa.s.sion he did not understand. "You won't hurt me; you'll let me sit by the fire and get warm?"

"Yes, yes."

"And eat a bit of bread with b.u.t.ter on it?"

"Yes, yes."