There is a saying to the effect that any one who walks long enough in front of the Grand HÔtel will, in the course of time, encounter all his acquaintances, past, present and to be. On the second day after the dinner in the Parc Monceau, Mr. Blydenburg crossed the boulevard. It was an unpleasant afternoon of the kind which is frequent in the early winter: the air was damp and penetrating, and the sky presented that unrelieved and cheerless pallor of which Paris is believed to be the unique possessor. Mr. Blydenburg’s spirits were affected; he was ill at ease and inclined to attribute his depression to the rawness of the air and the blanched sky above him. He was to leave Paris on the morrow, and he felt that he would be glad to shake its mud from his feet. He was then on the way to his banker’s to close an account, and as he trudged along, with an umbrella under his arm and his trousers turned up, in spite of the prospect of departure he was not in a contented or satisfied frame of mind.

For many hours previous he had cross-questioned himself in regard to Incoul. He knew that in speaking out his mind he had done right, yet he could not help perceiving that right-doing and outspokenness are not always synonymous with the best breeding. Truth certainly is attractive, particularly to him who tells it, but one has to be hospitably inclined to receive it at all times as a welcome guest. Beside, he told himself, Incoul was a man to whom remonstrance was irksome, he chafed at it no matter what its supporting truths might be. Perhaps then it would have been better had he held his tongue. Incoul was his oldest friend, he could not afford to lose him; at his time of life the making of new ones was difficult. And yet did he seek him in a conciliatory mood it would be tantamount to acknowledging that Incoul had been in the right, and the more he thought the matter over the more convinced he became that Incoul was in the wrong. Leigh, he could have sworn, was innocent. The charge that had been brought against him was enough to make a mad dog blush. It was preposterous on the face of it. Then, too, the young man had been given no opportunity to defend himself. The honest-hearted gentleman did not make it plain to his own mind how Leigh could have defended himself even had the opportunity been offered, but he waived objections; his faith was firm. He was enough of a logician to understand that circumstantial evidence, however strong, is not unrebuttable proof, and he assured himself, unless the young man confessed his guilt, that he at least would never believe it.

He was not, therefore, in a contented or satisfied frame of mind; he was irresolute how to act to Incoul; he did not wish to lose an old friend and he was physically unable to be unjust to a new one. After crossing the boulevard he passed the Grand HÔtel and just as he left the wide portals behind him he saw Mr. Wainwaring with whom two days before he had dined in the Parc Monceau. He bowed and would have continued his way, but Mr. Wainwaring stopped him.

“You have heard, have you not?” he asked excitedly, “you have heard about Mrs. Incoul?”

“Heard what?”

“It appears that on going to bed on Sunday night she turned the gas on instead of turning it off. They smelled the gas in the hall and tried to get into the room, but the door was locked; finally they broke it down. They found her unconscious though still breathing; they worked over her for five hours, but it was no use.”

Blydenburg grounded his umbrella on the pavement for support. “Good God!” he muttered. “Good God!”

“Yes,” Mr. Wainwaring continued, “it is terrible! A sweeter girl never lived. My daughter knew her intimately; she went there this morning to see her and learned of it at the door. I have just been up there myself. I thought Incoul might see me, but he couldn’t. Utterly prostrated I suppose. I can understand that. We all know how devoted he was. He will never get over it—never.”

Blydenburg still held to his umbrella for support.

“I must go there,” he said.

“Yes, go by all means; he will see you, of course. Poor Incoul! I am heartily sorry for him. After all, wealth is not happiness, is it?”

At this platitude Blydenburg would have gone, but Mr. Wainwaring had more news to impart. “You know about young Leigh, Mrs. Manhattan’s brother, don’t you?” he continued.

Blydenburg looked down at his umbrella in a weary way.

“Yes, I was there,” he answered, “but I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, you mean that affair at the club. Well, it appears that it is true. From what I make out of the papers, he went to his hotel afterwards, and took a dose of morphine. It was his only way out of it. I couldn’t bear him, could you?”

Blydenburg nodded vacantly. “He must have been guilty.”

“As to that there is no doubt. De la DÈche says it is a wonder he was not caught before. Well, good day; tell Incoul how profoundly grieved we all are. Good day.”

Presently Blydenburg found himself in a cab. He was a trifle dazed at what he had heard. He was not brilliant; he was very tiresome at times, the sort of a man that likes big words and small dictionaries, yet somehow he was lovable and more human than many far cleverer than he. To his own misfortune he had a heart, and in disasters like these it bled. He would have crossed the Continent to bring a moment’s pleasure to the girl that had been asphyxiated in her bed, and he would have given his daughter to the man who had been choked down to the grave. Then, too, as nearly as he could see, he had wronged Incoul and Incoul was in great grief. As the Urbaine rolled on, his thoughts did not grow nimbler. In his head was a full, aching sensation; he felt benumbed, and raised the collar of his coat. Soon the cab stopped before the house in the Parc Monceau. He had no little set speech prepared; he wanted merely to take his friend by the hand and let him feel his sympathy unspoken, but when the footman came in answer to his ring, he was told that Mr. Incoul could see no one. He went back to his cab. It had begun to rain, but he did not notice it, and left the window open.

As the cab rolled down the street again, Mr. Incoul, who had been occupied with the morning paper, sent for the courier.

“Karl,” he said, when the man appeared, “I will go over your accounts.”

THE END.

Paris, January-March, 1887.

PUBLICATIONS

OF

BENJAMIN & BELL

No. 744 BROADWAY

NEW YORK

SUMMER READING.

MR. INCOUL’S MISADVENTURE.

By EDGAR SALTUS,

Author of “Balzac: A Study,” “The Anatomy of Negation,” “The Philosophy of Disenchantment,” etc.

12mo, cloth. Finely printed by Gilliss Brothers & Turnure.
Price, $1.00.

SOCIETY VERSE

BY

AMERICAN WRITERS.

Edited by Ernest de Lancey Pierson.

12mo, cloth, uncut edges, gilt tops, with ornamental and unique design on front cover. Elegantly printed on fine paper by the De Vinne Press.

Price, $1.25.

This collection of about eighty poems represents the best vers de sociÉtÉ and dainty lyrics which have appeared in this country. It is virtually the first representative collection of vers de sociÉtÉ by American writers ever published. Some of the contributions appear for the first time in this volume, and among the forty-three writers represented are Thomas Bailey Aldrich, H. C. Bunner, Helen Gray Cone, Robert Grant, Clinton Scollard, Oscar Fay Adams, Walter Learned, Bessie Chandler, Harrison Robertson, Charles Henry LÜders, Ruth Hall, A. E. Watrous, Samuel Minturn Peck, and Louise Imogene Guiney.

FIRST EDITION OF AN ORIGINAL WORK
BY LEIGH HUNT.

THE BOOK OF THE SONNET.

Comprising an Essay on the Cultivation, History and Varieties of the species of poem called the Sonnet, with a selection of English Sonnets, with copious notes, now first published from the original MSS. of Leigh Hunt. An Essay on American Sonnets and Sonneteers, with a Selection of Sonnets, by S. Adams Lee.

Large Paper Edition of One Hundred Numbered Copies, Printed from Type in 1867, but now FIRST Published.

Illustrated with Two Finely Etched Portraits from Rare Prints.

Two Vols., 8vo, Boards, Uncut Edges, $6.00

The above work was published by William Evarts Benjamin before the formation of the present firm. As the edition is almost exhausted the price has been advanced from $5.00 to $6.00.

SHAKESPEARE IN FACT AND
IN CRITICISM.

BY

APPLETON MORGAN, A.M., LL.B.,

President of the New York Shakesperean Society; Author of “The Law of Literature,” “The Shakespearean Myth,” “Some Shakespearean Commentators,” “Venus and Adonis,” “A Study of Warwickshire Dialect,” etc., etc.

12mo, cloth, uncut edges. Ornately printed on fine paper by the De Vinne Press. Price, $1.50.

The work consists of nine essays under the following titles:

Mr. Morgan’s line of Shakespeare study being out of the beaten track of commentary and comment, and his “The Shakespearean Myth” or “William Shakespeare and Circumstantial Evidence,” having attracted unusual attention, as well in England as in the United States and Germany—in which last-named countries two editions have been exhausted—the publishers feel that a new volume from the same pen, and embodying the results of five years of further and riper study from Mr. Morgan’s own standpoint, but with better lights, will be welcomed with interest by students of Shakespeare.

Messrs. BENJAMIN & BELL beg to announce that by special arrangement with the author, they have secured the American Market on the FOURTH EDITION, Revised and greatly enlarged, of

THE BOOK-LOVER’S ENCHIRIDION;

OR, THOUGHTS ON

The Solace and Companionship of Books,

Selected from Writers of every age, from Solomon and Cicero to Carlyle, Emerson and Ruskin.

BY

ALEXANDER IRELAND,

Author of “Memoir and Recollections of Ralph Waldo Emerson,” &c.

12mo, pp. 512, cloth, gilt tops, uncut edges. Price, $1.50.

The sale, within ten months, of two editions of this work encouraged the compiler to prepare a Third Edition, enlarged by the addition of two hundred pages. This, too, was so well received, that the whole impression, consisting of 3,700 copies, has been exhausted in less than nine months. A Fourth Edition, carefully revised, and with further additions, is now presented to the public in the hope that the volume may continue to attract a steadily increasing number of thoughtful readers.

This, the Fourth Edition, bound in this country, from English sheets and with English publishers’ imprint, contains almost double the matter of any previous edition sold in America, the Third Edition having been sold exclusively in England. A descriptive circular, containing sample page, fac-simile of title page, and opinions of the Press and Men of Letters, will be sent upon application to the publishers.

THE

LONGFELLOW

COLLECTORS’ HAND-BOOK.

A Bibliography of First Editions.

ONLY 250 COPIES PRINTED.

12mo, half parchment, $1.50.

This little manual contains exact transcripts of the titles, collations, and detailed descriptions, in order of publication, of every book written or edited by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is of particular value to collectors, librarians and booksellers, because it describes the anonymous works and the text-books published when Longfellow was a professor at Bowdoin College.

This book was first published by William Evarts Benjamin before the formation of the present firm.

THE

POETS and POETRY

OF AMERICA.

A Satire by “Lavante,” reprinted from the original, published in Philadelphia in 1847. With an introductory argument by Geoffrey Quarles, to show that it was written

BY

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

12mo, paper cover, 50 cents.

The publishers submit this little brochure as a literary curiosity, believing it will prove of interest to the admirers of Poe.

In Preparation—to be Issued in the Fall.

A SELECTION

FROM THE

POETRY OF LEIGH HUNT.

With a prefatory sketch and a reproduction of a portrait in water colors

BY SIR DAVID WILKIE.

Hitherto unpublished and now in the possession of the publishers.

To be Daintily Printed in a 12mo Volume.