Or so Paula thought; but when she was returning upstairs after her solitary breakfast—Mrs. Sylvester was too tired and Mr. Sylvester too much engaged to eat, as the attentive Samuel informed her—the door of Ona’s room swung ajar, and she distinctly heard her give utterance to the following exclamation:
“What! give up this elegant home, my horses and carriage, the friends I have had such difficulty in obtaining, and the position which I was born to adorn? I had rather die!” And Paula feeling as if she had received the key to the enigma of the last night’s unaccountable manifestations, was about to rush away to her own apartment, when the door swayed open again and she heard his voice respond with hard and bitter emphasis,
“And it might be better that you should. But since you will probably live, let it be according to your mind. I have not the courage—”
There the door swung to.
An hour from that Mr. Sylvester left the house with a small valise in his hand, and Mrs. Sylvester dressed in her showiest costume, entered her carriage for an early shopping excursion.
And so when Paula whispered to herself, “I did not dare to tell him; I did not dare to tell anyone, but—” she thought of those terrible words, “Die? It might be better, perhaps, that you should!” and then remembered the ghastly look of immeasurable horror with which a few hours later, he staggered away from that awful burden, whose rigid lines would never again melt into mocking curves, and to whom the morning’s wide soaring hopes, high reaching ambitions and boundless luxuries were now no more than the shadows of a vanished world; life, love, longing, with all their demands, having dwindled to a noisome rest between four close planks, with darkness for its present portion and beyond—what?
XXI
Departure
“Forever and forever, farewell Cassius.
Julius Caesar
If we do meet again, why we shall smile;
If not, why then, this parting was well made.”
Samuel had received his orders to admit Mr. Bertram Sylvester to his uncle’s room, at whatever hour of the day or night he chose to make his appearance. But evening wore away and finally the night, before his well-known face was seen at the door. Proceeding at once to the apartment occupied by Mr. Sylvester, he anxiously knocked. The door was opened immediately.
“Ah, Bertram, I have been expecting you all night.” And from the haggard appearance of both men, it was evident that neither of them had slept.
“I have sat down but twice since I left you, and then only in conveyances. I have been obliged to go to Brooklyn, to—”
“But you have found him?”
“Yes, I found him.”
His uncle glanced inquiringly at his hands; they were empty.
“I shall have to sit down,” said Bertram; his brow was very gloomy, his words came hesitatingly. “I had rather have knocked my head against the wall, than have disappointed you,” he murmured after a moment’s pause. “But when I did find him, it was too late.”
“Too late!” The tone in which this simple phrase was uttered was indescribable. Bertram slowly nodded his head.
“He had already disposed of all the papers, and favorably,” he said.
“But—”
“And not only that,” pursued Bertram. “He had issued orders by telegraph, that it was impossible to countermand. It was at the Forty Second Street depot I found him at last. He was just on the point of starting for the west.”
“And has he gone?”
“Yes sir.”
Mr. Sylvester walked slowly to the window. It was raining drearily without, but he did not notice the falling drops or raise his eyes to the leaden skies.
“Did you meet anyone?” he asked at length. “Anyone that you know, I mean, or who knows you?”
“No one but Mr. Stuyvesant.”
“Mr. Stuyvesant!”
“Yes sir,” returned Bertram, dropping his eyes before his uncle’s astonished glance. “I was coming out of a house in Broad Street when he passed by and saw me, or at least I believed he saw me. There is no mistaking him, sir, for anyone else; besides it is a custom of his I am told, to saunter through the downtown streets after the warehouses are all closed for the night. He enjoys the quiet I suppose, finds food for reflection in the sleeping aspect of our great city.” There was gloom in Bertram’s tone; his uncle looked at him curiously.
“What house was it from which you were coming when he passed you?”
“A building where Tueller and Co. do business, shady operators in paper, as you know.”
“And you believed he recognized you?”
“I cannot be sure, sir. It was dark, but I thought I saw him look at me and give a slight start.”
Ah, how desolate sounds the drip, drip of a ceaseless rain, when conversation languishes and the ear has time to listen!
“I will explain to Mr. Stuyvesant when I see him, that you were in search of a man with whom I had pressing business,” observed Mr. Sylvester at last.
“No,” murmured Bertram with effort, “it might emphasize the occurrence in his mind; let the matter drop where it is.”
There was another silence, during which the drip of the rain on the window-ledge struck on the young man’s ears like the premonitory thud of falling earth upon a coffin-lid. At length his uncle turned and advanced rapidly towards him.
“Bertram,” said he, “you have done me a favor for which I thank you. What you have learned in the course of its accomplishment I cannot tell. Enough perhaps to make you understand why I warned you from the dangerous path of speculation, and set your feet in a way that if adhered to with steadfast purpose, ought to lead you at last to a safe and honorable prosperity. Now—No, Bertram,” he bitterly interrupted himself as the other opened his lips,
