"Would that same conscience be kind enough to suggest that your present conduct is an impertinence, sir?"

"So it might, madam; just as the pilot is impertinent when he cries out, 'Hard, port! breakers ahead!'"

"I am therefore to infer, sir," said she, with a calm dignity, "that my approach to a secret danger--of which I can have no knowledge--is a sufficient excuse for the employment of language on your part, that, under a less urgent plea, had been offensive?"

"You are," said I, boldly.

"Speak out, then, sir, and declare what it is."

"Nay, madam, if the warning find no echo within, my words are useless. I have said I would ask you a question."

"Well, sir, do so."

"Will you answer it frankly? Will you give it all the weight and influence it should bear, and reply to it with that truthful spirit that conceals nothing?"

"What is your question, sir? You had better be speedy with it, for I don't much trust to my continued patience."

I arose at this, and, pa.s.sing behind the back of my chair, leaned my arms on the upper rail, so as to confront her directly; and then, in the voice of an accusing angel, I said, "Old woman, do you know where you are going?"

"I protest, sir," said she, rising, with an indignation I shall not forget--"I protest, sir, you make me actually doubt if I know where I am!"

"Then let me tell you, madam," said I, with the voice of one determined to strike terror into her heart--"let me tell you; and may my words have the power to awaken you, even now, to the dreadful consequences of what you are about!"

"Shalley! Shalley!" cried she in amazement, "is this gentleman deranged, or is it but the pa.s.sing effect of your conviviality?" And with this she swept out of the room, leaving me there alone, for I now perceived--what seemed also to have escaped her--that the Minister had slipped quietly away some time before, and was doubtless at that same moment in the profoundest of slumbers.

I took my departure at once. There was no leave-taking to delay me, and I left the house in a mood little according with the spirit of one who had partaken of its hospitalities; I am constrained to admit I was the very reverse of satisfied with myself. It was cowardly and mean of me to wreak my anger on that old woman, and not upon him who was the really great offender. He it was I should have arraigned; and with the employment of a little artifice and some tact, how terrible I might have made even my jesting levity! how sarcastic my sneers at fashionable vice! Affecting utter ignorance about his life and habits, I could have incidentally thrown out little episodes of all the men who have wrecked their fortunes by abandoned habits. I would have pointed to this man who made a brilliant opening in the House, and that who had acquired such celebrity at the Bar; I would have shown the rising statesman tarnished, the future chief justice disqualified; I would have said, "Let no man, however modest his character or unfrequented his locality, imagine that the world takes no note of his conduct; in every cla.s.s he is judged by his peers, and you and I, Doubleton, will as a.s.suredly be arraigned before the bar of society as the pickpocket will be charged before the beak!"

I continued to revolve these and such like thoughts throughout the entire night. The wine I had drunk fevered and excited me, and added to that disturbed state which my own self-accusings provoked. Doubts, too, flitted across my mind whether I ought not to have maintained a perfect silence towards the others, and reserved all my eloquence for the poor girl herself. I imagined myself taking her hand between both mine, while, with averted head, she sobbed as if her heart would break, and, saying, "Be comforted, poor stricken deer! be comforted; I know all. One who is far from perfect himself, sorrows with and compa.s.sionates you; he will be your friend, your adviser, your protector. I will restore you to that home you quitted in innocence. I will bring you back to that honeysuckled porch where your pure heart expanded in home affections."

Nothing shall equal the refined delicacy of my manner; that mingled reserve and kindness--a sort of cross between a half-brother and a canon of St. Paul's--shall win her over to repentance, and then to peace. How I fancied myself at intervals of time visiting that cottage, going, as the gardener watches some cherished plant, to gaze on the growing strength I had nurtured, and enjoy the luxury of seeing the once drooping flower expanding into fresh loveliness and perfume. "Yes, Potts, this would form one of those episodes you have so often longed to realize." And then I went on to fancy a long heroic struggle between my love and that sentiment of respect for worldly opinion which is dear to every man, the years of conflict wearing me down in health, but exalting me immensely in every moral consideration. Let the hour of crowning victory at last come, I should take her to my bosom and say, "There is rest for thee here!"

"His Excellency begs that you will call at the legation, as early as you can, this morning," said a waiter, entering with the breakfast tray; and I now perceived that I had never gone to bed, or closed my eyes during the night.

"How did this message come?" I asked.

"By the cha.s.seur of his Excellency."

"And how addressed?"

"'To the gentleman who dined yesterday at the legation. '"

I asked these questions to ascertain how far he persisted in the impertinence of giving me a name that was not mine, and I was glad to find that on this occasion no transgression had occurred.

I hesitated considerably about going to him. Was I to accept that slippery morality that says, "I see no more than I please in the man I dine with," or was I to go boldly on and denounce this offender to himself? What if he were to say, "Potts, let us play fair; put your own cards on the table, and let us see are you always on the square? Who is your father? how does he live? Why have you left home, and how? What of that horse you have--"

"No, no, not stolen--on my honor, not stolen!" "Well, ain't it ugly?

Is n't the story one that any relating might, without even a spice of malevolence, make marvellously disagreeable? Is the tale such as you 'd wish to herald you into any society you desired to mix with?" It was in this high, easy, and truly companionable style that conscience kept me company, while I ate two eggs and a plate of b.u.t.tered toast "After all,"

thought I, "might it not prove a great mistake not to wait on him?

How if, in our talk over politics last night, I may have dropped some remarkable expression, a keen appreciation of some statesman, an extraordinary prediction of some coming crisis? Maybe it is to question me more fully about my 'views' of the state of Europe." Now I am rather given to "views of the state of Europe." I like that game of patience, formed by shuffling up all the governments of the Continent, and then seeing who is to have the most "tricks," who's to win all the kings, and who the knaves. "Yes," thought I, "this is what he is at. These diplomatic people are consummately clever at pumping; their great skill consists in extracting information from others and adapting it to their own uses. Their social condition confers the great advantage of intercourse with whatever is remarkable for station, influence, and ability; and I think I hear his Excellency muttering to himself, 'remarkable man that--large views--great reach of thought--wish I could see more of him; must try what polite attentions may accomplish.' Well,"

said I, with a half sigh, "it is the old story, _Sic vos non vobis_; and I suppose it is one of the curses on Irishmen that, from Edmund Burke to Potto, they should be doomed to cram others. I will go. What signifies it to _me?_ I am none the poorer in dispensing my knowledge than is the nightingale in discoursing her sweet music to the night air, and flooding the groves with waves of melody: like _her_, I give of an affluence that never fails me." And so I set out for the legation.

As I walked along through the garden, a trimly-dressed French maid pa.s.sed me, turned, and repa.s.sed, with a look that had a certain significance. "It was monsieur dined here yesterday?" said she, interrogatively; and as I smiled a.s.sent, she handed me a very small sealed note, and disappeared.

It bore no address but the word "Mr.------;" a strange, not very ceremonious direction. "But, poor girl!" thought I, "she knows me not as Potts, but as Protector. I am not the individual, but the representative of that wide-spread benevolence that succors the weak and consoles the afflicted. I wonder has she been touched by my devotion? has she imagined--oh, that she would!--that I have followed her hither, that I have sworn a vow to rescue and to save her? Or is this note the cry of a sorrow-struck spirit, saying, 'Come to my aid ere I perish '?"

My fingers trembled as I broke the seal; I had to wipe a tear from my eye ere I could begin to read. My agitation was great; it was soon to be greater. The note contained very few words; they were these:--

"Sir,--I have not communicated to my brother, Sir Shafley Doubleton, any circ.u.mstance of your unaccountable conduct yesterday evening. I hope that my reserve will be appreciated by you, and

"I am, your faithful servant,

"'Martha Keats."

I did not faint, but I sat down on the gra.s.s, sick and faint, and I felt the great drops of cold perspiration burst out over my forehead and temples. "So," muttered I, "the venerable person I have been lecturing is his Excellency's own sister! My exhortations to a changed life have been addressed to a lady doubtless as rigid in morals as austere in manners." Though I could recall none of the words I employed, I remembered but too well the lesson I intended to convey, and I shuddered with disgust at my own conduct. Many a time have I heard severest censure on the preacher who has from the pulpit scattered words of doubtful application to the sinners beneath; but here was I making a direct and most odious attack upon the life and habits of a lady of immaculate behavior! Oh, it was too--too bad! A whole year of sackcloth and ashes would not be penance for such iniquity. How could she have forgiven it? What consummate charity enabled her to pardon an offence so gross and so gratuitous? Or is it that she foresaw consequences so grave, in the event of disclosure, that she dreaded to provoke them?

What might not an angry brother, in such a case, be warranted in doing?

Would the world call any vengeance exorbitant? I studied her last phrase over and over, "I hope my reserve will be appreciated by you." This may mean, "I reserve the charge,--I hold it over you as a bail bond for the future; diverge ever so little from the straight road, and I will say, 'Potts, stand forward and listen to your indictment.' She may have some terrible task in view for me, some perilous achievement, which I cannot now refuse. This old woman may be to me as was the Old Man of the Sea to Sinbad. I may be fated to carry her forever on my back, and the dread of her be a living nightmare to me." "At such a price, existence has no value," said I, in despair. "Worse even than the bondage is the feeling that I am no longer, to my own heart, the great creature I love to think myself. Instead of Potts the generous, the high-spirited, the confiding, the self-denying, I am Potts the timorous, the terror-stricken, and the slave."

Out of my long and painful musings on the subject, I bethought me of a course to take. I would go to her and say:--

"Listen to this parable. I remember once, when a member of the phrenological club, a stupid jest was played off upon the society by some one presenting us with the cast of a well-known murderer's skull, and asking for our interpretations of its development. We gave them with every care and deliberation: we pointed out the fatal protuberances of crime, and indicated the depressions, which showed the absence of all prudential restraints; we demonstrated all the evidences of badness that were there, and proved that, with such a head, a man must have thought killing no murder. The rejoinder to our politeness was a small box that arrived by the mail, labelled, 'the original of the cast forwarded on the 14th.' We opened it, and found a pumpkin! The foolish jester fancied that he had cast an indelible stain upon phrenology, quite forgetting the fact that his pumpkin had personated a skull which, had it ever existed, would have presented the characteristics we gave it." I would say, "Now, madam, make the application, and say, do you not rather commend than condemn? are you not more ready to applaud than upbraid me?"

Second thoughts rather deterred me from this plan; the figurative line is often dangerous with elderly people. It is just as likely she would mistake the whole force of my ill.u.s.tration, and bluntly say, "I 'd beg to remark, sir, I am not a pumpkin!"

"No; I will not adventure on this path. There is no need that I should ever meet her again, or, if I should, we may meet as utter strangers."

This resolve made, I arose boldly, and walked on towards the house.

His Excellency, I learned, was at home, and had been for some time expecting me. I found him in his morning room, in the same costume and same occupation as on the day before.

"There's the 'Times,'" said he, as I entered; "I shall be ready for you presently;" and worked away without lifting his head.

Affecting to read, I set myself to regard him with attention. Vast piles of papers lay around him on every side; the whole table, and even the floor at his feet, was littered with them. "Would," thought I,--"would that these writers for the Radical press, these scurrilous penny-a-liners who inveigh against a bloated and pampered aristocracy, could just witness the daily life of labor of one of these spoiled children of Fortune. Here is this man, doubtless reared in ease and affluence, and see him, how he toils away, from sundown to dawn, unravelling the schemes, tracing the wiles, and exposing the snares of these crafty foreigners. Hark! he is muttering over the subtle sentence he has just written: 'I am much grieved about Maria's little girl, but I hope she will escape being marked by the malady.'" A groan that broke from me here startled him, and he looked up.

"Ah! yes, by the way, I want you, Paynter."

"I am not Paynter, your Excellency, my name is--"

"Of course, you have your own name for your own peculiar set; but don't interrupt. I have a special service for you, and will put it in the 'extraordinaires.' I have taken a little villa on the Lake of Como for my sister, but, from the pressure of political events, I am not able to accompany her there. She is a very timid traveller, and cannot possibly go alone. You 'll take charge of her, therefore, Paynter,--there, don't be fussy,--you 'll take charge of her and a young lady who is with her, and you 'll see them housed and established there. I suppose she will prefer to travel slowly, some thirty miles or so a day, post horses always, and strictly avoiding railroads; but you can talk it over together yourselves. There was a Bobus to have come out--"

"A Bobus!"

"I mean a doctor,--I call every doctor, Bobus,--but something has detained him, or, indeed, I believe he was drowned; at all events, he's not come, and you 'll have to learn how to measure out ether and drop morphine; the 'companion' will help you. And keep an account of your expenses, Paynter,--your own expenses for F. O.,--and don't let her fall sick at any out-of-the-way place, which she has rather a knack of doing; and, above all, don't telegraph on any account. Come and dine,--six."

"If you will excuse me at dinner, I shall be obliged. I have a sort of half engagement."

"Come in about nine, then," said he, "for she'd like to talk over some matters. Look out for a carriage, too; I don't fancy giving mine if you can get another. One of those great roomy German things with a cabriolet front, for Miss--I forget her name--would prefer a place outside. Kramm, the landlord, can help you to search for one; and let it be dusted and aired and fumigated and the drag examined and the axles greased,--in a word, have your brains about you, Paynter. Good-bye." Exit as before.