"To be happy," he answered, with the old hard, black light in his eyes.

She almost shuddered as she heard the tone and saw the look, and yet she did not feel as if she could escape the spell of his power.

"To be happy!" she repeated. "To be happy!"

Her voice fell as she spoke the words; Her life had not been a long one.

She had laughed a great deal, but she had never been happy. She knew Abel from old days. She saw him now, sodden, bloated--but he fascinated her still. Was he the magician to conjure happiness for her?

"What is your plan?" she asked.

"I have two passages taken in a brig for the Mediterranean. We go to New York a day or two before she sails. That's all."

"And then?" asked his companion, with wonder and doubt in her voice.

"And then a blissful climate and happiness."

"And then?" she persisted, in a low, doubtful voice.

"Then Hell--if you are anxious for it," said Abel, in a sharp, sudden voice.

The poor woman cowered as she sat. Men had often enough sworn at her; but she recoiled from the roughness of this lover as if it hurt her. Her eyes were not languishing now, but startled--then slowly they grew dim and soft with tears.

Abel Newt looked at her, surprised and pleased.

"Kitty, you're a woman still, and I like it. It's so much the better.

I don't want a dragon or a machine. Come, girl, are you afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Of me--of the future--of any thing?"

The tone of his voice had a lingering music of the same kind as the lingering beauty in her face. It was a sensual, seductive sound.

"No, I am not afraid," she answered, turning to him. "But, oh! my God! my God! if we were only both young again!"

She spoke with passionate hopelessness, and the tears dried in her eyes.

Later in the evening Mrs. Delilah Jones appeared at the French minister's ball.

"Upon the whole," said Mr. Ele to his partner, "I have never seen Mrs.

Jones so superb as she is to-night."

She stood by the mantle, queen-like--so the representatives from several States remarked--and all the evening fresh comers offered homage.

"_Ma foi!_" said the old Brazilian ambassador, as he gazed at her through his eye-glass, and smacked his lips.

"_Tiens!_" responded the sexagenarian representative from Chili, half-closing one eye.

CHAPTER LXXXV.

GETTING READY.

Hope Wayne had not forgotten the threat which Abel had vaguely thrown out; but she supposed it was only an expression of disappointment and indignation. Could she have seen him a few evenings after the ball and his conversation with Mrs. Delilah Jones, she might have thought differently.

He sat with the same woman in her room.

"To-morrow, then?" she said, looking at him, hesitatingly.

"To-morrow," he answered, grimly.

"I hope all will go well."

"All what?" he asked, roughly.

"All our plans."

"Abel Newt was not born to fail," he replied; "or at least General Belch said so."

His companion had no knowledge of what Abel really meant to do. She only knew that he was capable of every thing, and as for herself, her little mask had fallen, and she did not even wish to pick it up again.

They sat together silently for a long time. He poured freely and drank deeply, and whiffed cigar after cigar nervously away. The few bells of the city tolled the hours. Ele had come during the evening and knocked at the door, but Abel did not let him in. He and his companion sat silently, and heard the few bells strike.

"Well, Kitty," he said at last, thickly, and with glazing eye. "Well, my Princess of the Mediterranean. We shall be happy, hey? You're not afraid even now, hey?"

"Oh, we shall be very happy," she replied, in a low, wild tone, as if it were the night wind that moaned, and not a woman's voice.

He looked at her for a few moments. He saw how entirely she was enthralled by him.

"I wonder if I care any thing about you?" he said at length, leering at her through the cigar-smoke.

"I don't think you do," she answered, meekly.

"But my--my--dear Mrs. Jones--the su-superb Mrs. Delilah Jo-Jones ought to be sure that I do. Here, bring me a light: that dam--dam--cigar's gone out."

She rose quietly and carried the candle to Abel. There was an inexpressible weariness and pathos in all her movements: a kind of womanly tranquillity that was touchingly at variance with the impression of her half-coarse appearance. As Abel watched her he remembered the women whom he had tried to marry. His memory scoured through his whole career. He thought of them all variously happy.

"I swear! to think I should come to you!" he said at length, looking at his companion, with an indescribable bitterness of sneering.

Kitty Dunham sat at a little distance from him on the end of a sofa. She was bowed as if deeply thinking; and when she heard these words her head only sank a little more, as if a palpable weight had been laid upon her.

She understood perfectly what he meant.

"I know I am not worth loving," she said, in the same low voice, "but my love will do you no harm. Perhaps I can help you in some way. If you are ill some day, I can nurse you. I shall be poor company on the long journey, but I will try."

"What long journey?" asked Abel, suddenly and angrily.