"Hands off!" he said again, looking at Lawrence Newt, and then in a sneering tone:

"Oh! the Reverend Gabriel Bennet! Come, I licked you like--like--like hell once, and I'll--I'll--I'll--do it again. Stand back!" he shouted, with drunken energy, and struggling to free his arms.

But Gabriel and Lawrence Newt held fast. The others rose and stood looking on, Mrs. Newt hysterically weeping, and May pale with terror.

Alfred Dinks laughed, foolishly, and gazed about for sympathy. Gerald Bennet drew his wife's arm within his own.

The old man sat quietly, only turning his head toward the noise, and looking at the struggle without appearing to see it.

Finding himself mastered, Abel swore and struggled with drunken frenzy.

After a little while he was entirely exhausted, and sank upon the floor.

Lawrence Newt and Gabriel stood panting over him; the rest crowded into the hall. Abel looked about stupidly, then crawled toward the staircase, laid his head upon the lower step, and almost immediately fell into a deep, drunken slumber.

"Come, come," whispered Gerald Bennet to his wife.

They took Mrs. Newt's hand and said Good-by.

"Oh, dear me! isn't it dreadful?" she sobbed. "Please don't, say any thing about it. Good-night."

They shook her hand, but as they opened the door into the still moonlight midnight they heard the clear, hard voice in the parlor, and in their minds they saw the beating of the bony fingers.

"Riches have wings! Riches have wings!"

CHAPTER LXXII.

GOOD-BY.

The happy hours of Hope Wayne's life were the visits of Lawrence Newt.

The sound of his voice in the hall, of his step on the stair, gave her a sense of profound peace. Often, as she sat at table with Mrs. Simcoe, in her light morning-dress, and with the dew of sleep yet fresh upon her cheeks, she heard the sound, and her heart seemed to stop and listen.

Often, as time wore on, and the interviews were longer and more delayed, she was conscious that the gaze of her old friend became curiously fixed upon her whenever Lawrence Newt came. Often, in the tranquil evenings, when they sat together in the pleasant room, Hope Wayne cheerfully chatting, or sewing, or reading aloud, Mrs. Simcoe looked at her so wistfully--so as if upon the point of telling some strange story--that Hope could not help saying, brightly, "Out with it, aunty!" But as the younger woman spoke, the resolution glimmered away in the eyes of her companion, and was succeeded by a yearning, tender pity.

Still Lawrence Newt came to the house, to consult, to inspect, to bring bills that he had paid, to hear of a new utensil for the kitchen, to see about coal, about wood, about iron, to look at a dipper, at a faucet--he knew every thing in the house by heart, and yet he did not know how or why. He wanted to come--he thought he came too often. What could he do?

Hope sang as she sat in her chamber, as she read in the parlor, as she went about the house, doing her nameless, innumerable household duties.

Her voice was rich, and full, and womanly; and the singing was not the fragmentary, sparkling gush of good spirits, and the mere overflow of a happy temperament--it was a deep, sweet, inward music, as if a woman's soul were intoning a woman's thoughts, and as if the woman were at peace.

But the face of Mrs. Simcoe grew sadder and sadder as Hope's singing was sweeter and sweeter, and significant of utter rest. The look in her eyes of something imminent, of something that even trembled on her tongue, grew more and more marked. Hope Wayne brightly said, "Out with it, aunty!" and sang on.

Amy Waring came often to the house. She was older than Hope, and it was natural that she should be a little graver. They had a hundred plans in concert for helping a hundred people. Amy and Hope were a charitable society.

"Fiddle diddle!" said Aunt Dagon, when she was speaking of his two friends to her nephew Lawrence. "Does this brace of angels think that virtue consists in making shirts for poor people?"

Lawrence looked at his aunt with the inscrutable eyes, and answered slowly,

"I don't know that they do, Aunt Dagon; but I suppose they don't think it consists in _not_ making them."

"Phew!" said Mrs. Dagon, tossing her cap-strings back pettishly. "I suppose they expect to make a kind of rope-ladder of all their charity garments, and climb up into heaven that way!"

"Perhaps they do," replied Lawrence, in the same tone. "They have not made me their confidant. But I suppose that even if the ladder doesn't reach, it's better to go a little way up than not to start at all."

"There! Lawrence, such a speech as that comes of your not going to church. If you would just try to be a little better man, and go to hear Dr. Maundy preach, say once a year," said Mrs. Dagon, sarcastically, "you would learn that it isn't good works that are the necessary thing."

"I hope, Aunt Dagon," returned Lawrence, laughing--"I do really hope that it's good words, then, for your sake. My dear aunt, you ought to be satisfied with showing that you don't believe in good works, and let other people enjoy their own faith. If charity be a sin, Miss Amy Waring and Miss Hope Wayne are dreadful sinners. But then, Aunt Dagon, what a saint you must be!"

Gradually Mrs. Simcoe was persuaded that she ought to speak plainly to Lawrence Newt upon a subject which profoundly troubled her. Having resolved to do it, she sat one morning waiting patiently for the door of the library--in which Lawrence Newt was sitting with Hope Wayne, discussing the details of her household--to open. There was a placid air of resolution in her sad and anxious face, as if she were only awaiting the moment when she should disburden her heart of the weight it had so long secretly carried. There was entire silence in the house. The rich curtains, the soft carpet, the sumptuous furniture--every object on which the eye fell, seemed made to steal the shock from noise; and the rattle of the street--the jarring of carts--the distant shriek of the belated milkman--the long, wavering, melancholy cry of the chimney-sweep--came hushed and indistinct into the parlor where the sad-eyed woman sat silently waiting.

At length the door opened and Lawrence Newt came out. He was going toward the front door, when Mrs. Simcoe rose and went into the hall, and said, "Stop a moment!"

He turned, half smiled, but saw her face, and his own settled into its armor.

Mrs. Simcoe beckoned him toward the parlor; and as he went in she stepped to the library door and said, to avoid interruption,

"Hope, Mr. Newt and I are talking together in the parlor."

Hope bowed, and made no reply. Mrs. Simcoe entered the other room and closed the door.

"Mr. Newt," she said, in a low voice, "you can not wonder that I am anxious."

He looked at her, and did not answer.

"I know, perhaps, more than you know," said she; "not, I am sure, more than you suspect."

Lawrence Newt was a little troubled, but it was only evident in the quiet closing and unclosing of his hand.

They stood for a few moments without speaking. Then she opened the miniature, and when she saw that he observed it she said, very slowly,

"Is it quite fair, Mr. Newt?"

"Mrs. Simcoe," he replied, inquiringly.

His firm, low voice reassured her.

"Why do you come here so often?" asked she.

"To help Miss Hope."

"Is it necessary that you should come?"

"She wishes it."

"Why?"

He paused a moment. Mrs. Simcoe continued:

"Lawrence Newt, at least let us be candid with each other. By the memory of the dead--by the common sorrow we have known, there should be no cloud between us about Hope Wayne. I use your own words. Tell me what you feel as frankly as you feel it."