Then with sullen bravado, still staring at his reflection in the glass, he took off the glass shade of the clock, touched the pendulum and stopped it; then turning his back, crept to his chair, and sat down again.

The silence was profound, not a sound was audible but the creaking of his clothes as he leaned heavily against the edge of the desk and drew his agitated breath. He raised the candle and bent his gloomy face over the paper which he held before him. It was a note of his late firm indorsed by Lawrence Newt & Co. He gazed at his uncle's signature intently, studying every line, every dot--so intently that it seemed as if his eyes would burn it. Then putting down the candle and spreading the name before him, he drew a sheet of tissue paper from a drawer and placed it over it.

The writing was perfectly legible--the finest stroke showed through the thin tissue. He filled a pen and carefully drew the lines of the signature upon the tissue paper--then raised it--the fac-simile was perfect.

Taking a thicker piece of paper, he laid the note before him, and slowly, carefully, copied the signature. The result was a resemblance, but nothing more. He held the paper in the flame of the candle until it was consumed. He tried again. He tried many times. Each trial was a greater success.

Tearing a check from his book he filled the blanks and wrote below the name of Lawrence Newt & Co., and found, upon comparison with the indorsement, that it was very like. Abel Newt grinned; his lips moved: he was muttering "Dear Uncle Lawrence."

He stopped writing, and carefully burned, as before, the check and all the paper. Then covering his face with his hands as he sat, he said to himself, as the hot, hurried thoughts flickered through his mind,

"Yes, yes, Mrs. Lawrence Newt, I shall not be master of Pinewood, but I shall be of your husband, and he will be master of your property.

Practice makes perfect. Dear Uncle Lawrence shall be my banker."

His brain reeled and whirled as he sat. He remembered the words of his friend the General: "Abel Newt was not born to fail."

"No, by God!" he shouted, springing up, and clenching his hands.

He staggered. The walls of the room, the floor, the ceiling, the furniture heaved and rolled before his eyes. In the wild tumult that overwhelmed his brain as if he were sinking in gurgling whirlpools--the peaceful lawn of Pinewood--the fight with Gabriel--the running horses--the "Farewell forever, Miss Wayne"--the shifting chances of his subsequent life--Grace Plumer blazing with diamonds--the figure of his father drumming with white fingers upon his office-desk--Lawrence and Gabriel pushing him out--they all swept before his consciousness in the moment during which he threw out his hands wildly, clutched at the air, and plunged headlong upon the floor, senseless.

CHAPTER LXXV.

REMINISCENCE.

On the very evening that General Belch and Abel Newt were sitting together, smoking, taking snuff, sipping wine, and discussing the great principles that should control the action of American legislators and statesmen, Hope Wayne and Mrs. Simcoe sat together in their pleasant drawing-room talking of old times. The fire crackled upon the hearth, and the bright flames flickering through the room brought out every object with fitful distinctness. The lamp was turned almost out--for they found it more agreeable to sit in a twilight as they spoke of the days which seemed to both of them to be full of subdued and melancholy light. They sat side by side; Hope leaning her cheek upon her hand, and gazing thoughtfully into the fire; Mrs. Simcoe turned partly toward her, and occasionally studying her face, as if peculiarly anxious to observe its expression.

It might have happened in many ways that they were speaking of the old times. The older woman may have intentionally led the conversation in that direction for some ulterior purpose she had in view. Or what is more likely than that the young woman should constantly draw her friend and guardian to speak of days and people connected with her own life, but passed before her memory had retained them?

After a long interval, as if, when she had once broken her reserve about her life, she must pour out all her experience, Mrs. Simcoe began:

"When I was twenty years old, living with my father, a poor farmer in the country, there came to pass the summer in the village a gentleman, a good deal older than I. He was handsome, graceful, elegant, fascinating. I saw him at church, but he did not see me. Then I met him sometimes upon the road, idly sauntering along, swinging a little cane, and looking as if village life were fatiguing. He seemed at length to observe me. One day he bowed. I said nothing, but hurried on. When I was a little beyond him I turned my head. He also was turning and looking at me.

"I was old enough to know why I turned. Yes, and so was he. How well I remember the peaceful western light that fell along the fields and touched the trees so kindly! Every thing was still. The birds dropped hurrying homeward notes, and the cows were coming in from the pasture.

I was going after our cow, but I leaned a long time on the bars and looked at the new moon timidly showing herself in the west. Then I looked at my clumsy gown, and thick shoes, and large hands, and thought of the graceful, elegant man, who had not bowed to me insolently. I imagined that a gentleman used to city life must find our country ways tiresome.

I pitied him, but what could I do?

"Once in the meadows I was following up the brook to find cardinal flowers. The brook wound through a little wood; and as I was passing, looking closely among the flags and pickerel-wood, I suddenly heard a voice close to me--'The lobelia blossoms are further on, Miss Jane.' I knew instantly who it was, and I was conscious of being more scarlet than the flowers I was seeking.

"Well, dear," said Mrs. Simcoe, after pausing for a few moments, "I can not repeat every detail. The time came when I was not afraid to speak to him--when I cared to speak to no one else--when I thought of him all day and dreamed of him all night--when I wore the ribbons he praised, and the colors he loved, and the flowers he gave me; when he told me of the great life beyond the village, of lofty and beautiful women he had known, of wise men he had seen, of the foreign countries he had visited--when he twined my hair around his finger and said, 'Jane, I love you!'"

Her eyes were excited, and her voice was hurried, but inexpressibly sad.

Hope sat by, and the tears flowed from her eyes.

"A long, long time. Yet it was only a few months--it was only a summer.

He came in May, and was gone again in November. But between his coming and going the roses in our garden blossomed and withered. So you see there was time enough. Time enough! Time enough! I was heavenly happy.

"One day he said that he must go. There was some frightful trouble in his eye. 'Will you come back?' I asked. I tremble to remember how sternly I asked it, and how cold and bloodless I felt. 'So help me God!' he answered, and left me. Left me! 'So help me God!' he murmured, as his tears fell upon my cheek and he kissed me. 'So help me God!'--and he left me. Not a word, not a look, not a sign had he given me to suppose that he would not return; not a thought, not a wish had he breathed to me that you might not hear. His miniature hung in a locket around my neck, even as my whole heart and soul hung upon his love. 'So help me God!'

he whispered, and left me.

"He did not come back. I thought my heart was frozen. My mother sighed as she went on with her hard, incessant work. My father tried to be cheerful. 'Cry, girl, cry,' my mother said; 'only cry, and you'll be better.' I could not cry; I could not smile. I could do nothing but help her silently in the long, hard work, day after day, summer and winter.

I read the books he had given me. I thought of the things he had said.

I sat in my chamber when the floor was scrubbed, and the bread baked, and the dishes washed, and the flies buzzed in the hot, still kitchen. I can hear them now. And there I sat, looking out of my window, straining my eyes toward the horizon--sometimes sure that I heard him coming, clicking the gate, hurrying up the gravel, with his eager, handsome, melancholy face. I started up. My heart stood still. I was ready to fall upon his breast and say, 'I believe 'twas all right.' He did not come. 'So help me God!' he said, and did not come.

"My father brought me to New York to change the scene. But God had brought me here to change my heart. I heard one Sunday good old Bishop Asbury, and he began the work that Summerfield sealed. My parents presently died. They left nothing, and I was the only child. I did what I could, and at last I became your grandfather's housekeeper."

As her story proceeded Mrs. Simcoe looked more and more anxiously at Hope, whose eyes were fixed upon her incessantly. The older woman paused at this point, and, taking Hope's face between her hands, smoothed her hair, and kissed her.

"Your grandfather had a daughter Mary."

"My mother," said Hope, earnestly.

"Your mother, darling. She was as beautiful but as delicate as a flower.

The doctors said a long salt voyage would strengthen her. So your grandfather sent her in the ship of one of his friends to India. In India she staid several weeks, and met a young man of her own age, clerk in a house there. Of course they were soon engaged. But he was young, not yet in business, and she knew the severity of your grandfather and his ambition for her. At length the ship returned, and your mother returned in it. Scarcely was she at home a month than your grandfather told me that he had a connection in view for his daughter, and wanted me to prepare her to receive the addresses of a gentleman a good deal older than she, but of the best family, and in every way a desirable husband.

He was himself getting old, he said, and it was necessary that his daughter should marry. Your mother loved me dearly, as I did her. Gentle soul, with her soft, dark, appealing eyes, with her flower-like fragility and womanly dependence. Ah me! it was hard that your grandfather should have been her parent.

"She was stunned when I told her. I thought her grief was only natural, and I was surprised at the sudden change in her. She faded before our eyes. We could not cheer her. But she made no effort to resist. She did not refuse to see her suitor; she did not say that she loved any one else. I think she had a mortal fear of her father, and, dear soul! she could not do any thing that required resolution.

"One day your grandfather said at dinner, 'To-morrow, Miss Mary, your new friend will be here.'

"All night she lay awake, trembling and tearful; and at morning she rose like a spectre. The stranger arrived. Mary kept her room until dinner-time. Then we both went down to see the new-comer. He was in the library with your grandfather, and was engaged in telling him some very amusing story when we came in, for your grandfather was laughing heartily. They both rose upon seeing us.

"'Colonel Wayne, my daughter,' said your grandfather, waving his hand toward her. He bowed--she sank, spectre-like, into a chair.

"'Mrs. Simcoe, Colonel Wayne.'

"Our eyes met. It was my lover. He was too much amazed to bow. But in a moment he recovered himself, smiled courteously, and seated himself; for he saw at once what place I filled in the household. I said nothing. I remember that I sank into a chair and looked at him. He was older, but the same charm still hovered about his person. His voice had the same secret music, and his movement that careless grace which seemed to spring from the consciousness of power. I was conscious of only two things--that I loved him, and that he was unworthy the love of any woman.

"During dinner he made two or three observations to me. But I bowed and said nothing. I think I was morally stunned, and the whole scene seemed to me to be unreal. After a few days he made a formal offer of his hand to Mary Burt. Poor child! Poor child! She trembled, hesitated, fluttered, delayed. 'You must; you shall!' were the terrible words she heard from her parent. She dreaded to tell the truth, lest he should force a summary marriage. Hope, my child, you could have resisted--so could I; she could not. 'Only, dear father,' she said, 'I am so young. Let me not be married for a year.' Her father laughed and assented, and I think she instantly wrote to her lover in India.

"People came driving out to congratulate. 'Such a reasonable connection!'

every body said; 'a military man of fine old family. It is really delightful to have a union sometimes take place in which all the conditions are satisfactory.'

"All the time his miniature hung round my neck. Why? Because, in the bottom of my soul, I still believed him. I had heard him say, So help me God!'

"He went away, and sometimes returned for a week. I was comforted by seeing that he did not love your mother, and by the confidence I had that she would not marry him. I was sure that something would happen to prevent.

"The year was coming round. One night your mother appeared in my room in her night-dress; her face was radiant, and she held a note in her hand.

It was from her lover. He had thrown himself upon a ship when her letter reached him, and here he was close at hand. Full of generous ardor, he proposed to marry her privately at once; there was no other way, he was sure.

"'Will you help us?' she said, after she had told me every thing.

"'But you are two such children,' I said.

"'Then you will not help. You will make me marry Colonel Wayne.'

"I tried to see the matter calmly. I sought the succor of God. I do not say that I did just what I should have done, but I helped them. The heart is weak, and perhaps I was the more willing to help, because the fulfillment of her plan would prevent her becoming the wife of Colonel Wayne. The time was arranged when she was to go away. I was to accompany her, and she was to be married.