Though by the unexpected pet.i.tion to enter his privacy--a pet.i.tion he could scarce ever deny to Isabel, since she so religiously abstained from preferring it, unless for some very reasonable cause, Pierre, in the midst of those conflicting, secondary emotions, immediately following the first wonderful effect of Lucy's strange letter, had been forced to put on, toward Isabel, some air of a.s.surance and understanding concerning its contents; yet at bottom, he was still a prey to all manner of devouring mysteries.

Soon, now, as he left the chamber of Isabel, these mysteriousnesses re-mastered him completely; and as he mechanically sat down in the dining-room chair, gently offered him by Delly--for the silent girl saw that some strangeness that sought stillness was in him;--Pierre's mind was revolving how it was possible, or any way conceivable, that Lucy should have been inspired with such seemingly wonderful presentiments of something a.s.sumed, or disguising, or non-substantial, somewhere and somehow, in his present most singular apparent position in the eye of world. The wild words of Isabel yet rang in his ears. It were an outrage upon all womanhood to imagine that Lucy, however yet devoted to him in her hidden heart, should be willing to come to him, so long as she supposed, with the rest of the world, that Pierre was an ordinarily married man. But how--what possible reason--what possible intimation could she have had to suspect the contrary, or to suspect any thing unsound? For neither at this present time, nor at any subsequent period, did Pierre, or could Pierre, possibly imagine that in her marvelous presentiments of Love she had any definite conceit of the precise nature of the secret which so unrevealingly and enchantedly wrapt him. But a peculiar thought pa.s.singly recurred to him here.

Within his social recollections there was a very remarkable case of a youth, who, while all but affianced to a beautiful girl--one returning his own throbbings with incipient pa.s.sion--became somehow casually and momentarily betrayed into an imprudent manifested tenderness toward a second lady; or else, that second lady's deeply-concerned friends caused it to be made known to the poor youth, that such committal tenderness toward her he had displayed, nor had it failed to exert its natural effect upon her; certain it is, this second lady drooped and drooped, and came nigh to dying, all the while raving of the cruel infidelity of her supposed lover; so that those agonizing appeals, from so really lovely a girl, that seemed dying of grief for him, at last so moved the youth, that--morbidly disregardful of the fact, that inasmuch as two ladies claimed him, the prior lady had the best t.i.tle to his hand--his conscience insanely upbraided him concerning the second lady; he thought that eternal woe would surely overtake him both here and hereafter if he did not renounce his first love--terrible as the effort would be both to him and her--and wed with the second lady; which he accordingly did; while, through his whole subsequent life, delicacy and honor toward his thus wedded wife, forbade that by explaining to his first love how it was with him in this matter, he should tranquilize her heart; and, therefore, in her complete ignorance, she believed that he was willfully and heartlessly false to her; and so came to a lunatic's death on his account.

This strange story of real life, Pierre knew to be also familiar to Lucy; for they had several times conversed upon it; and the first love of the demented youth had been a school-mate of Lucy's, and Lucy had counted upon standing up with her as bridesmaid. Now, the pa.s.sing idea was self-suggested to Pierre, whether into Lucy's mind some such conceit as this, concerning himself and Isabel, might not possibly have stolen.

But then again such a supposition proved wholly untenable in the end; for it did by no means suffice for a satisfactory solution of the absolute motive of the extraordinary proposed step of Lucy; nor indeed by any ordinary law of propriety, did it at all seem to justify that step. Therefore, he know not what to think; hardly what to dream.

Wonders, nay, downright miracles and no less were sung about Love; but here was the absolute miracle itself--the out-acted miracle. For infallibly certain he inwardly felt, that whatever her strange conceit; whatever her enigmatical delusion; whatever her most secret and inexplicable motive; still Lucy in her own virgin heart remained transparently immaculate, without shadow of flaw or vein. Nevertheless, what inconceivable conduct this was in her, which she in her letter so pa.s.sionately proposed! Altogether, it amazed him; it confounded him.

Now, that vague, fearful feeling stole into him, that, rail as all atheists will, there is a mysterious, inscrutable divineness in the world--a G.o.d--a Being positively present everywhere;--nay, He is now in this room; the air did part when I here sat down. I displaced the Spirit then--condensed it a little off from this spot. He looked apprehensively around him; he felt overjoyed at the sight of the humanness of Delly.

While he was thus plunged into this mysteriousness, a knock was heard at the door.

Delly hesitatingly rose--"Shall I let any one in, sir?--I think it is Mr. Millthorpe's knock."

"Go and see--go and see"--said Pierre, vacantly.

The moment the door was opened, Millthorpe--for it was he--catching a glimpse of Pierre's seated form, brushed past Delly, and loudly entered the room.

"Ha, ha! well, my boy, how comes on the Inferno? That is it you are writing; one is apt to look black while writing Infernoes; you always loved Dante. My lad! I have finished ten metaphysical treatises; argued five cases before the court; attended all our society's meetings; accompanied our great Professor, Monsieur Volvoon, the lecturer, through his circuit in the philosophical saloons, sharing all the honors of his ill.u.s.trious triumph; and by the way, let me tell you, Volvoon secretly gives me even more credit than is my due; for 'pon my soul, I did not help write more than one half, at most, of his Lectures; edited--anonymously, though--a learned, scientific work on 'The Precise Cause of the Modifications in the Undulatory Motion in Waves,' a posthumous work of a poor fellow--fine lad he was, too--a friend of mine. Yes, here I have been doing all this, while you still are hammering away at that one poor plaguy Inferno! Oh, there's a secret in dispatching these things; patience! patience! you will yet learn the secret. Time! time! I can't teach it to you, my boy, but Time can: I wish I could, but I can't."

There was another knock at the door.

"Oh!" cried Millthorpe, suddenly turning round to it, "I forgot, my boy.

I came to tell you that there is a porter, with some queer things, inquiring for you. I happened to meet him down stairs in the corridors, and I told him to follow me up--I would show him the road; here he is; let him in, let him in, good Delly, my girl."

Thus far, the rattlings of Millthorpe, if producing any effect at all, had but stunned the averted Pierre. But now he started to his feet. A man with his hat on, stood in the door, holding an easel before him.

"Is this Mr. Glendinning's room, gentlemen?"

"Oh, come in, come in," cried Millthorpe, "all right."

"Oh! is that _you_, sir? well, well, then;" and the man set down the easel.

"Well, my boy," exclaimed Millthorpe to Pierre; "you are in the Inferno dream yet. Look; that's what people call an _easel_, my boy. An _easel_, an _easel_--not a _weasel_; you look at it as though you thought it a weasel. Come; wake up, wake up! You ordered it, I suppose, and here it is. Going to paint and ill.u.s.trate the Inferno, as you go along, I suppose. Well, my friends tell me it is a great pity my own things aint ill.u.s.trated. But I can't afford it. There now is that Hymn to the Niger, which I threw into a pigeon-hole, a year or two ago--that would be fine for ill.u.s.trations."

"Is it for Mr. Glendinning you inquire?" said Pierre now, in a slow, icy tone, to the porter.

"Mr. Glendinning, sir; all right, aint it?"

"Perfectly," said Pierre mechanically, and casting another strange, rapt, bewildered glance at the easel. "But something seems strangely wanting here. Ay, now I see, I see it:--Villain!--the vines! Thou hast torn the green heart-strings! Thou hast but left the cold skeleton of the sweet arbor wherein she once nestled! Thou besotted, heartless hind and fiend, dost thou so much as dream in thy shriveled liver of the eternal mischief thou hast done? Restore thou the green vines! untrample them, thou accursed!--Oh my G.o.d, my G.o.d, trampled vines pounded and crushed in all fibers, how can they live over again, even though they be replanted! Curse thee, thou!--Nay, nay," he added moodily--"I was but wandering to myself." Then rapidly and mockingly--"Pardon, pardon!--porter; I most humbly crave thy most haughty pardon." Then imperiously--"Come, stir thyself, man; thou hast more below: bring all up."

As the astounded porter turned, he whispered to Millthorpe--"Is he safe?--shall I bring 'em?"

"Oh certainly," smiled Millthorpe: "I'll look out for him; he's never really dangerous when I'm present; there, go!"

Two trunks now followed, with "L. T." blurredly marked upon the ends.

"Is that all, my man?" said Pierre, as the trunks were being put down before him; "well, how much?"--that moment his eyes first caught the blurred letters.

"Prepaid, sir; but no objection to more."

Pierre stood mute and unmindful, still fixedly eying the blurred letters; his body contorted, and one side drooping, as though that moment half-way down-stricken with a paralysis, and yet unconscious of the stroke.

His two companions, momentarily stood motionless in those respective att.i.tudes, in which they had first caught sight of the remarkable change that had come over him. But, as if ashamed of having been thus affected, Millthorpe summoning a loud, merry voice, advanced toward Pierre, and, tapping his shoulder, cried, "Wake up, wake up, my boy!--He says he is prepaid, but no objection to more."

"Prepaid;--what's that? Go, go, and jabber to apes!"

"A curious young gentleman, is he not?" said Millthorpe lightly to the porter;--"Look you, my boy, I'll repeat:--He says he's prepaid, but no objection to more."

"Ah?--take that then," said Pierre, vacantly putting something into the porter's hand.

"And what shall I do with this, sir?" said the porter, staring.

"Drink a health; but not mine; that were mockery!"

"With a key, sir? This is a key you gave me."

"Ah!--well, you at least shall not have the thing that unlocks me. Give me the key, and take this."

"Ay, ay!--here's the c.h.i.n.k! Thank'ee sir, thank'ee. This'll drink. I aint called a porter for nothing; Stout's the word; 2151 is my number; any jobs, call on me."

"Do you ever cart a coffin, my man?" said Pierre.

"'Pon my soul!" cried Millthorpe, gayly laughing, "if you aint writing an Inferno, then--but never mind. Porter! this gentleman is under medical treatment at present. You had better--ab'--you understand--'squatulate, porter! There, my boy, he is gone; I understand how to manage these fellows; there's a trick in it, my boy--an off-handed sort of what d'ye call it?--you understand--the trick! the trick!--the whole world's a trick. Know the trick of it, all's right; don't know, all's wrong. Ha! ha!"

"The porter is gone then?" said Pierre, calmly. "Well, Mr. Millthorpe, you will have the goodness to follow him."

"Rare joke! admirable!--Good morning, sir. Ha, ha!"

And with his unruffleable hilariousness, Millthorpe quitted the room.

But hardly had the door closed upon him, nor had he yet removed his hand from its outer k.n.o.b, when suddenly it swung half open again, and thrusting his fair curly head within, Millthorpe cried: "By the way, my boy, I have a word for you. You know that greasy fellow who has been dunning you so of late. Well, be at rest there; he's paid. I was suddenly made flush yesterday:--regular flood-tide. You can return it any day, you know--no hurry; that's all.--But, by the way,--as you look as though you were going to have company here--just send for me in case you want to use me--any bedstead to put up, or heavy things to be lifted about. Don't you and the women do it, now, mind! That's all again.

Addios, my boy. Take care of yourself!"

"Stay!" cried Pierre, reaching forth one hand, but moving neither foot--"Stay!"--in the midst of all his prior emotions struck by these singular traits in Millthorpe. But the door was abruptly closed; and singing Fa, la, la: Millthorpe in his seedy coat went tripping down the corridor.

"Plus heart, minus head," muttered Pierre, his eyes fixed on the door.

"Now, by heaven! the G.o.d that made Millthorpe was both a better and a greater than the G.o.d that made Napoleon or Byron.--Plus head, minus heart--Pah! the brains grow maggoty without a heart; but the heart's the preserving salt itself, and can keep sweet without the head.--Delly!"

"Sir?"

"My cousin Miss Tartan is coming here to live with us, Delly. That easel,--those trunks are hers."

"Good heavens!--coming here?--your cousin?--Miss Tartan?"

"Yes, I thought you must have heard of her and me;--but it was broken off; Delly."