"For God's sake!" gasped the little liquor-seller.

Jim and Dick stood hesitatingly, glaring at Abel. Jim struck his teeth together. Ned joined them, and they surrounded Abel.

"What in ---- do you mean by striking me, you drunken pig?" growled Jim, but not yet striking. Conscious of his strength, he had the instinctive forbearance of superiority, but it was fast mastered by the maddening liquor.

"Time to go home! Time to go home!" cried the thin piping voice of the liquor-seller.

"What the ---- do you mean by insulting my friend?" half hiccuped Dick, shaking his head threateningly, and stiffening his arm and fist at his side as he edged toward Abel.

The hard black eyes of Abel Newt shot sullen fire; His rage half sobered him. He threw his head with the old defiant air, tossing the hair back.

The old beauty flashed for an instant through the ruin that had been wrought in his face, and, kindling into a wild, glittering look of wrath, his eye swept them all as he struck heavily forward.

"Time to go home! Time to go home!" came the cry again, unheeded, unheard.

There was a sudden, fierce, brutal struggle. The men's faces were human no longer, but livid with bestial passion. The liquor-seller rushed into the street, and shouted aloud for help. The cry rang along the dark, still houses, and startled the drowsy, reluctant watchmen on their rounds. They sprang their rattles.

"Murder! murder!" was the cry, which did not disturb the neighbors, who were heavy sleepers, and accustomed to noise and fighting.

"Murder! murder!" It rang nearer and nearer as the watchmen hastened toward the corner. They found the little man standing at his door, bareheaded, and shouting,

"My God! my God! they've killed a man--they've killed a man!"

"Stop your noise, and let us in. What is it?"

The little man pointed back into his dim shop. The watchmen saw only the great yellow round tanks of the liquor pure as imported, and pushed in behind the blind. There was no one there; a bench was overturned, and there were glasses upon the counter. No one there? One of the watchmen struck something with his foot, and, stooping, touched a human body. He started up.

"There's a man here."

He did not say dead, or drunk; but his tone said every thing.

One of them ran to the next doctor, and returned with him after a little while. Meanwhile the others had raised the body. It was yet warm. They laid it upon the bench.

"Warm still. Stunned, I reckon. I see no blood, except about the face.

Well dressed. What's he doing here?" The doctor said so as he felt the pulse. He carefully turned the body over, examined it every where, looked earnestly at the face, around which the matted hair clustered heavily:

"He has gone upon his long journey!" said the young doctor, in a low, solemn tone, still looking at the face with an emotion of sad sympathy, for it was a face that had been very handsome; and it was a young man, like himself. The city bells clanged three.

"Who is it?" he asked.

Nobody knew.

"Look at his handkerchief."

They found it, and handed it to the young doctor. He unrolled it, holding it smooth in his hands; suddenly his face turned pale; the tears burst into his eyes. A curious throng of recollections and emotions overpowered him. His heart ached as he leaned over the body; and laying the matted hair away, he looked long and earnestly into the face. In that dim moment in the liquor-shop, by that bruised body, how much he saw! A play-ground loud with boys--wide-branching elms--a country church--a placid pond. He heard voices, and summer hymns, and evening echoes; and all the images and sounds were soft, and pensive, and remote.

The doctor's name was Greenidge--James Greenidge, and he had known Abel Newt at school.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

WAITING.

The woman Abel had left sat quivering and appalled. Every sound started her; every moment she heard him coming. Rocking to and fro in the lonely room, she dropped into sudden sleep--saw him--started up--cried, "How could you stay so?" then sat broad awake, and knew that she had dozed but for a moment, and that she was alone.

"Abel, Abel!" she moaned, in yearning agony. "But he kissed me before he went," she thought, wildly--"he kissed me--he kissed me!"

Lulled for a moment by the remembrance, she sank into another brief nap--saw him as she had seen him in his gallant days, and heard him say, I love you. "How could you stay so?" she cried, dreaming--started--sprang up erect, with her head turned in intense listening. There was a sound this time; yes, across the river she heard the solemn city bells strike three.

Wearily pacing the room--stealthily, that she might make no noise--walking the hours away, the lonely woman waited for her lover.

The winter, wind rose and wailed about the windows and moaned in the chimney, and in long, shrieking sobs died away.

"Abel! Abel!" she whispered, and started at the strangeness of her voice.

She opened the window softly and looked out. The night was cold and, calm again, and the keen stars twinkled. She saw nothing--she heard no sound.

She closed it again, and paced the room. There were no tears in her eyes; but they were wide open, startled, despairing. For the first time in her terrible life she had loved.

"But he kissed me before he went," she said, pleadingly, to herself; "he kissed me--he kissed me!"

She said it when the solemn city bells struck three. She said it when the first dim light of dawn stole into the chamber. And when the full day broke, and she heard the earliest footfalls in the street, her heart clung to it as the only memory left to her of all her life:

"He kissed me! he kissed me!"

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

DUST TO DUST.

Scarcely had Abel left the bank, after obtaining the money, than Gabriel came in, and, upon seeing the notes which Mr. Van Boozenberg had shown him, in order to make every thing sure in so large a transaction, announced that they were forged. The President was quite beside himself, and sat down in his room, wringing his hands and crying; while the messenger ran for a carriage, into which Gabriel stepped with Mr.

Van Boozenberg, and drove as rapidly as possible to the office of the Chief of Police, who promised to set his men to work at once; but the search was suddenly terminated by the bills found upon the body of Abel Newt.

The papers were full of the dreadful news. They said they were deeply shocked to announce that a disgrace had befallen the whole city in the crime which had mysteriously deprived his constituency and his country of the services of the young, talented, promising representative, whose opening career had seemed to be in every way so auspicious. By what foul play he had been made way with was a matter for the strictest legal investigation, and the honor of the country demanded that the perpetrators of such an atrocious tragedy should be brought to condign punishment.

The morning papers followed next day with fuller details of the awful event. Some of the more enterprising had diagrams of the shop, the blind, the large yellow barrels that held the liquor pure as imported, the bench, the counter, and the spot (marked O) where the officer had found the body. In parlors, in banks, in groceries and liquor-shops, in lawyers' rooms and insurance offices, the murder was the chief topic of conversation for a day. Then came the report of the inquest.

There was no clew to the murderers. The eager, thirsty-eyed crowd of men, and women, and children, crushing and hanging about the shop, gradually loosened their gaze. The jury returned that the deceased Abel Newt came to his death by the hands of some person or persons unknown. The shop was closed, officers were left in charge, and the body was borne away.

General Belch was in his office reading the morning paper when Mr.

William Condor entered. They shook hands. Upon the General's fat face there was an expression of horror and perplexity, but Mr. Condor was perfectly calm.

"What an awful thing!" said Belch, as the other sat down before the fire.

"Frightful," said Mr. Condor, placidly, as he lighted a cigar, "but not surprising."