“Going out for a walk, cousin?” asked Mrs. Clay, as he passed her.

How the trivial question irritated him! He bowed, afraid to utter a word, lest it should be an offensive one. His nerves felt bare, his teeth on edge.

Miss Bird looked more deeply than her friend had, and in the one timid glance she gave the gentleman saw a painful trouble underneath his cool exterior.

“I hope he didn't hear what we were saying of him before dinner,” she remarked apprehensively.

“No, indeed!” was the confident response. “He scarcely hears what you say to him, still less what is said of him.”

“But he looked displeased,” persisted the anxious Bird.

Mrs. Clay cast a sarcastic glance on her subordinate. “My dear,” she said with decision, “the less you occupy yourself with my cousin's feelings, the better for you. Your solicitude will be quite thrown away.”

Bird sighed faintly, and resigned herself to being snubbed.

Mr. Bently walked up-stairs slowly, dreading to be alone, and shut himself into his room; and, when there, desolation settled upon him. It is not pleasant to be sick in one's own home, with loving and solicitous friends surrounding one with their cares, and taking every task from the weak hands; it is still less pleasant when, though friends are near, they are powerless to lift the burden which only those helpless hands can carry; but how far more miserable, how far more cruel than any other desolation on earth, is it when sickness falls upon one who must work, and the sick one is not only oppressed by the burden of duties unperformed, but is himself a burden, coldly and grudgingly tended, or tended not at all? Mr. Bently knew well the extent of his cousin's friendship, and the worth of her Chinese compliments, and he would far rather have fallen in the street, and been left to the tender mercies of strangers, than fall ill in her house.

Morning came, and it was breakfast-time, by no means an early hour. Mrs. Clay had put off the meal half an hour on her cousin's account. “He has at least one polite habit—he does not rise early,” she said. “But then he is as regular as a clock in his late hour.”

He was not prompt this morning, however, for they waited ten minutes after breakfast was on the table, and rang a second bell, and still their visitor did not appear.

Miss Bird suggested that he had looked unwell the evening before, and might be unable to come down.

“Really, how thoughtful you are!” Mrs. Clay said with cutting emphasis. “I had quite forgotten. Perhaps, my son, you will go up and see if Miss Bird is right.”

“My son” objected to being made a messenger of. “If the old fellar wanted to sleep, let him sleep. Don't you say so, Clem?”

Clementina always agreed with her brother; the two prevailed, and the “old fellar” was left to sleep, or toss and moan, or be consumed with fever and thirst, or otherwise entertain himself as he or fate should choose, while the family breakfasted at their leisure.

It is scarcely worth while to put Clementina and Arthur Clay in print. They are insignificant and, in a small way, disagreeable objects, and their like is often met with to the annoyance of many. The mental ignorance and lack of capacity which we lose sight of when they are overmantled by the loveliness of good-will, in such as these become contemptible by being placed on [pg 631] pedestals of presumption and ill-nature, and hateful when they are set as obstacles and stumbling-blocks in the way of souls who would fain walk and look upward.

Breakfast over, and no Mr. Bently appearing, Mrs. Clay felt called on to make inquiries, and, accordingly, dispatched a servant to her cousin's door, while she herself listened at the foot of the stairs. She heard a knock, but no reply, then a second knock, followed by the servant's voice, as if in answer to some one within.

“Paper under the door, sir? Yes, sir!”

She was half way up the stairs by this time, and snatched the slip of paper which the man had found pushed out under Mr. Bently's door. “What in the world can be the matter? Where are my eye-glasses? Cousin Bently is such a frightful writer that, really—”

While the lady is adjusting her glasses, and her children and companion are gathering about her, we will read this document, for there will be no time afterward. It is short, and is strongly scented with camphor.

“I am ill, and, it is possible, may have small-pox. It has been where I was a fortnight ago. Keep away from me, and send for a doctor.”

Confusion ensued. Screams resounded from the parlor; orders and counter-orders were given, only one fixed idea penetrating that chaos—to get away from the house as quickly as possible. Carriages were got out, silver and valuables piled into them by Bird, who alone would go upstairs, and who was made to do everything, and in less than half an hour the whole family started for the city. The servants, all but the gardener, had already fled.

“But who is to take care of Mr. Bently?” Bird asked, pausing at the carriage door.

“I shall give the gardener orders to get a doctor and nurse,” Mrs. Clay said impatiently, fuming with selfish terror.

“But I'm not afraid,” Bird hesitated. “I've been vaccinated. And it's hard to leave him alone.”

“Nonsense!” cried the lady. “I shall allow nothing of the sort. It is not necessary, and, besides, it is not proper. Do get in, if you are going to town. It really seems to me, Miss Bird, that you are altogether too much interested in Mr. Bently.”

Then, at last, Bird perceived what was in the speaker's mind, and, as most women would in such circumstances, laid down her better impulses at the feet of meanness. Crushed and ashamed, and, at the same time, weakly and despairingly angry, she took her place in the carriage, and listened in silence to the lamentations and complaints of her companions.

“How could Cousin Bently do such a thing? How could he come to me when he knew he had been so exposed?”

That Mr. Bently had only learned from the paper of the evening before to what he had been exposed, and had only thought during the night what might be the meaning of his illness, the lady did not inquire into.

At the garden gate stood James, the gardener. Mrs. Clay stopped long enough to give him hurried directions to get a doctor and nurse, and do all that was necessary for the invalid, then ordered the coachman to drive on.

“I hope John isn't with us,” one of the young ones said presently. “He was round Cousin Bently all day yesterday.”

No; Bird, recollecting that fact also, had shut John into one of the [pg 632] chambers, and left him there. She ventured to hope that he would not be left to starve, but no one responded to her merciful wish.

The cause of all this terror and confusion had seen the departure of the family without being surprised at it. He had not undressed, but had lain on a sofa all night, and, when morning came, had written the warning which proved so effectual, and then sank into an arm-chair near the window, longing for air. He expected the family to keep away from him, and was neither sorry nor indignant that they had removed themselves still further. Of course a doctor would be sent, and of course there was some one to take care of him. He sat and waited for that some one to enter. Perhaps it was James. He saw the gardener shut and fasten the gate after the carriage went out, and he heard the locking of the stable door. He waited, but no one came. Well, the house must be attended to first, and he would be patient, though thirst, and alternate fever and chills, and racking pains were tormenting him. He was annoyed, too, by John's efforts to escape from the next room, and would have gone to release the creature but for the fear of spreading contagion.

A distant door opened and shut; he heard a distant heavy step, and thanked God that relief and companionship were at hand. But the sounds ceased, and no one came near him. He saw James, the gardener, laden with packages, hurry down the avenue, and disappear into the public road, and a thrill of fear shot through him. The scene outside swam before his eyes, and grew dark for a moment. Could it be that they had all gone away, and left him to die alone? No; he could not believe it! James had perhaps gone to bring the doctor. He would wait patiently, since wait he must.

An hour passed, and no one came. There was no sound in the house but that occasional whining and barking from the next room; no sound outside except when a carriage rolled swiftly by in the road. He saw no person coming. It was impossible to endure that thirst any longer. He went into the bathroom, and wet his hands and face, and drank of the tepid water there. His head reeled at sight of the stairs, and he did not dare to attempt to descend. Returning to his chamber, he fell on to the sofa, and, for the first time in his life, fainted; coming back to life again as though emerging from outer darkness, but not into light—into a sickening half-light, rather. So hours passed, and he knew without a doubt that he was utterly deserted, and that a lonely and terrible death threatened him. Could he do nothing to avert it? He recollected that Mrs. Clay had a medicine closet in the bathroom. Possibly, if he could reach it, something might be found there to relieve, if not to cure, him. What mountains molehills can change into sometimes! This man, so strong and full of life but a day before, now lay and gave his whole mind to planning how he should save himself a few steps in going to the bathroom again, how he could avoid the stairs, lest he should fall, and whether he could this time cross the corridor to release that troublesome, whining dog. Whenever, weary and confused, he lost himself a moment in a half sleep, that whining and scratching assumed terrible proportions in his imagination, and became the fierce efforts of wild beasts to reach him. He started up now and then, with wide-open eyes, to assure himself that he was not in a menagerie; to fix in his mind the picture of that airy chamber, with [pg 633] its clear tints of green and amber, its open windows showing the long veranda outside, and the bright perspective of foliage and sky.

But when his eyelids drooped again, and he sank back into half sleep and half fainting, back came the painful phantoms to torment him till they were once more chased away for a time.

Toward evening he roused himself to make that difficult pilgrimage of fifty paces in search of healing and refreshment, bathed eagerly his face and head, and found his cousin's medicine closet. But when he had reached that, his strength was nearly exhausted. He had only enough left to take down the laudanum bottle, and get back to his room with it. Laudanum might dull this pain, and quiet the excited nerves. Once more John must wait. He could not stop to release him.

The room in which the dog was confined had a window on the balcony that ran past Mr. Bently's room. That window was open, but the blind was shut, and John, despairing of escape through the door, had turned all his efforts toward unfastening this blind, and had several times been near success, when the spring, flying back, had defeated him.

The invalid's bath of cold water had refreshed him somewhat. He hated to take the laudanum. He had never been an intemperate man, and had always shrunk from swallowing anything which could in the least degree isolate his mind from the control of his will. He would bear the pain a little longer.

He lay there and thought, and visions of happy homes rose up before him. At this hour of early twilight, the lamps were being lighted, or people sat by firelight, and children, grown languid and sleepy with the long day's play, leaned silent on their mothers' laps. At this hour, men of thought, intellectual workers, laid aside the weightier labors of their profession to indulge in an exhilarating contention of wits, so much happier than other workers, in that their recreations do not retard, but rather accelerate their work. It is but dancing at evening with Terpsichore, or pacing with Calliope along the margin of the same road which he had travelled by day in a dusty chariot, or walked encumbered by his armor. In their lighter intellectual contests, what sparks were sometimes struck out to live beyond the moment that gave them birth! What random beams of light shot now and then into seeming nothingness, and revealed an unsuspected treasure!

All these scenes of social comfort and delight rose before the sufferer's mind with tantalizing distinctness, fairer and fuller in the vision than he had ever known the reality to be. He felt like a houseless wanderer who, freezing and starving in the street, sees through lighted windows the warmth and joy of the home circle.

Mr. Bently was not a pious man. He had a deep sentiment of reverence, and a firm belief that somewhere there is an inflexible truth that deserves an obedience absolute and unquestioning. But controversy had spoiled him for religious feeling, which is, perhaps, too delicate for rough handling, and in the clash of warring creeds some freshness and spontaneity had been lost to his convictions. Reaching truth, winning battles for truth, he had been like a traveller at the end of a long journey, when he scarcely cares in his weariness for the goal attained, but must needs eat and sleep. He had spent too much time and strength in wiping away the mire flung on the garments of religion to be any longer [pg 634] quick in enthusiastic homage. “Pity 'tis, 'tis true.” The butterfly you would save from the net loses the down from its wings with your most careful handling; the friend you defend from calumny you dethrone even while defending. The feeling that dictated that brutal egotism, “CÆsar's wife must not be suspected,” dwells in a less arrogant form in most human hearts, and rare indeed is that soul which sets its love as high, after even the most triumphantly refuted accusation, as it was before.

Desertion and imminent death chilled this man's heart, and he had no mind to turn to God, save in a cold recognition of his power and wisdom. Love entered not into his thoughts, but despair did.

The pain increased, the dizziness came back. He stretched his hand for the glass and vial of laudanum, and tried with a shaking hand to pour out what he could guess to be an ordinary potion. There was no reason why he should suspect that that bottle might have been standing in the house so long as to have made even the smallest dose of its contents deadly. As he measured, and tried to recollect how much he should take, pouring out unknowingly what would have been for him Lethe indeed, a louder rattle and bang at the blind of the next room proclaimed the success of the four-footed prisoner. There was a scampering on the veranda, a dog's head, eager and bright-eyed, was thrust in at the window of the sick-room, then, with an almost human cry of joy, John flew at its occupant.

Away went bottle and glass, breaking and spilling—no laudanum for Mr. Bently that day. Down went Mr. Bently among the sofa pillows, prostrated by the unexpected onset; and love, and delight, and absolute devotion, in the form of an uproarious Skye terrier unconscious and uncaring for risks, nestled in the breast of the deserted man, were all over his face and neck, and through his hair, and speaking as plainly as though human speech had been their interpreters.

When the man comprehended, recovering from his first confusion, reason and endurance stood aside and veiled their faces, and a greater than they took their place.

Through a gush of tears which were but the spray of a subsiding wave of bitterness, this soul raised its eyes, and beheld a new light. It lost sight of the Almighty in a vision of the Heavenly Father.

The flight that followed was painful, but not unsoothed. The dog, perceiving at once that his friend was ill, became quiet. He lay with head pressed close to the restless arm, and, if the sick man moaned, he answered with a pitying whine. Once he left the room, and wandered through the whole house in search of help, whined and scratched at every closed door, and, finding no one, came back with an air of distress and perplexity. Later, when Mr. Bently seemed very ill, John ran out onto the balcony, and barked loudly, as if calling for relief.

Morning came again, and the sick man's pain gave place to a deathlike faintness, resulting from lack of nourishment. For thirty-six hours nothing had passed his lips but water, and that no longer ran from the faucet when he tried it. He crept down-stairs, stair by stair, holding by the balusters, like a little child. There was no water to be seen in the dining-room, and he did not know where to find any. He reached the parlor, lay down on the floor, and prayed for death or for life—anything to put an end to that nightmare of misery. It seemed that [pg 635] death was coming. His hands and feet grew cold with an unnatural chill, and, though the morning sunshine poured through the windows, all looked dim to his eyes. His senses seemed to be slowly receding, without pain, without any power or wish on his part to recall them. He lay and waited for death.

And while he waited, as one hears sounds in a dream he heard a door open and shut, then a quick, light step that ran up-stairs. John, standing over his friend, left him, and rushed to the parlor door, barking wildly, but was unable to get out, the door having swung to. In vain he tried it with his paws, and thrust his small nose into the crack. It was too heavy for him to move.

Suddenly, while Mr. Bently gazed with languid, half unconscious eyes at the creature, the door was pushed wide open, and a woman stood on the threshold. She was neither young nor old, but simply at the age of perfection, which is a variable age, according to the person. Her face was a full oval, but white now as hoar-frost. All its life seemed to centre in the large hazel eyes that were piercing with a terrified search. She wore her fair hair like a crown, piled high above the forehead in glossy coils like sculptured amber. Over one temple a black and gold moth was poised, as though it had just alighted there, its wings widespread. The long black folds of a velvet robe fell about her superb form, sweeping far back from her swift but suddenly arrested step. Scintillating fringes of gold quivered against the large white arms, edged the short Greek jacket, and ran in a single flash down either side of the train. A diamond cross lay like a sunbeam on her bosom, a single diamond twinkled in each small ear.

There was but an instant's pause, then she crossed the room quickly, and knelt by him.

“My God! my God!” she murmured, and lifted his head on her arm. “What fiendish cruelty!”

Her touch and voice recalled him to himself. He tried to put her away. “Leave me, Marian, I beg of you! Do not endanger yourself for me!”

But even while bidding her go, every nerve in him grew alive with the joyous conviction that he would not be obeyed, and that, danger or no danger, she would not desert him. Here were strength, help, and the power to command. She brought the world with her, this queenly woman, who had not even snatched the gloves from her hands since last night's ball, but had hurried to seek news of him, after the first confused rumor, to call doctor and nurse, to rush to him herself with all the speed her panting horses could make.

“Leave you? Never!”

He asked no questions, but resigned himself. How delightful the sickness, how sweet the pain, that led to this! How thrice blessed the desertion that gave her to him!

In half an hour, the doctor had come and given his decision. Mr. Bently's illness was merely a violent cold with fever, and a few days of careful nursing would make all right. In another half hour, he was established in a pleasant chamber in Mr. Willis' house, with a nurse in close attendance, the whole family anxiously ministrant, John an immovable fixture in the sick-room; and, later, Mrs. Marcia Clay besieging the house for news of poor dear Cousin Bently, and protesting and explaining to the very coldest of listeners, declaring that nothing but her duty to her family, etc.; and what was the meaning of that broken bottle and glass, and ineradicable laudanum [pg 636] stain on the carpet in her house? Was it possible that Cousin Bently had thought of taking any of that terrible stuff that she meant to have thrown away ages before? And would they bring down John? Arthur had asked for him.

Some one went to Mr. Bently's room for John, but came back without him. The invalid was reported to have flown into something like a passion on learning the messenger's errand, and to have held the dog firmly in his arms.

John was his! No one else should have him. Whatever crime it might be called to refuse to give him up—stealing, embezzling, false imprisonment—he was ready to be accused and convicted of it, and would go to jail for it with the dog in his arms.

Mrs. Clay was enchanted to be able to oblige her cousin in such a trifle, and would he speak freely when he wanted anything? and then went home and told all her family in confidence that Mr. Bently was a raving maniac.

Reader, according to our promises at the beginning of this history, we should stop here. The scene has changed, the time already exceeds twenty-four hours, and only the characters remain the same. But we have not done. There is something more which we are pining to tell. Shall we stop, then, and perish in silence, rather than transgress rules made by a people “dead and done with this many a year,” whose whole country, with themselves on it, could have been thrown into one of our inland seas without making it spill over? No! Perish the unities!

Scene II.—Large parlor, rosy-tinted all through with reflections from sunset, from firelight, and from red draperies. After-dinner silence pervading, open folding-doors giving a view through a suite of rooms, in the furthest of which an old gentleman sleeps in his arm-chair. Or, perhaps, it is a picture of a library, with an old gentleman asleep in it. The stillness is perfect enough for that. Mr. Bently, convalescent, first dinner down-stairs since his illness, stands near a window looking out, but watchful of the inside of the parlor, and of a lady who sits at an embroidery-frame near the same window. The lady is superficially dignified and tranquil, but there is an unusual color in the cheeks, and a slight unsteadiness in the fingers, which tell her secret conviction that something is going to happen. This is the first time the two have met since Miss Willis found the deserted man lying half senseless on Mrs. Clay's parlor floor.

He is thinking of that time now, and that an acknowledgment is due, and wondering how it is to be made, half a mind to be angry, rather than grateful, for the service. Such is man. All the bitterness of his lonely life rises up before him. Gray hairs are on his head, lines of age mark his face, but his heart protests against being set aside as too old for anything but dry speculation and love of abstract truth.

“I have been seeking for some proper terms in which to express to you my grateful sense of your humanity in coming to me when I was left sick and alone, but I cannot find them,” he said at length, facing her.

“There is no need to say anything about it,” she replied quietly, setting a careful silken stitch. “I could not have done otherwise.”

Having begun, the gentleman could not stop, or would not.

“I am sure you meant well, but did you do well?” he went on. “Could you not have been content to send the doctor, without coming yourself? Did you reflect that you [pg 637] were apparently incurring peril, and that for a man who had a heart as well as a head, and, worse yet, for a man whose heart had for years striven vainly to forget you? You have deprived me of the shield and support of even attempted indifference. I can no longer try to forget you, or think of you coldly, without the basest ingratitude.”

Will the reader pardon Mr. Bently for expressing himself so grammatically? It was through the force of a long habit, which even passion could not break. It is true that, according to Gerald Griffin, Juno herself, when angry, spoke bad Latin; but then, Juno was a woman.

Allons, donc. We are ourselves interested in this conversation, and are pleased to observe that, though the speaker's moods and tenses are not flagrant, his eyes and cheeks are.

The lady glanced up swiftly with that smile, half shy, half mirthful, with which a woman who knows her power, and means to use it kindly, receives the acknowledgment of it.

“Why should you think coldly of me, or forget me?” she asked.

Mr. Bently met her glance with stern eyes. “Does a man willingly submit to slavery?” he demanded. He had not suspected Marian Willis of coquetry.

She looked down at her work again, the smile fading, but the mouth still sweet, slowly threaded her needle with a rose-pink floss, and said as slowly, “I do not wish you to forget me.”

One who has seen the sun strike through a heavy fog, stop a moment, then fling it asunder, all in silence, without breath of breeze, but making a bright day of a dark one, knows how Mr. Bently's clouded face cleared at those words, and the look of her who spoke them.

No more was said then. Enough is as good as a feast, and both tasted in that moment the full sweetness of a happiness the more perfect because apparently incomplete.

On one point our mind is made up—this story shall not end with a marriage. A marriage there was, at seven o'clock one spring morning, in the little suburban church, with only three visible witnesses; and the marriage feast was—be it said with all reverence and adoration—manna from heaven, the Bread of Angels!

Mrs. Clay was, of course, shocked at this affair. Where was the trousseau, where the fuss, the presents that might have been, the rehearsal at a fashionable church, the organ music, the crowd of dear criticising friends, the reception, cake and wine, journey, what not—all the parade, weariness, and extravagance which have so often changed a sacrament into a ceremony? Where, indeed? They had no existence outside of the lady's disappointed wishes.

She did not even see what she called this “positively shabby affair,” and we will not dwell on it. Turn we to the final scene.

Does the reader object that John bears too small a part in the story named for him? On the contrary, the whole story is because of John. You have, perhaps, seen a painting of the procession at the coronation of George IV., pages and pages of magnificent persons, names, and costumes, the brilliant pageant of the long-extended queue, all because of one person in it. The figure is rather large, apparently, for use in this place, but only apparently; for John's record is better than any king's, in that it is unstained.

A year has passed. In the midst of a fair area of gardens and trees stands a pleasant house. Only a window or two are open, for the spring is not yet far advanced. Underneath [pg 638] a large old pine, tree not far from the porch, a hole has been dug, and at one side of it stands Mr. Bently, spade in hand, and at the other his wife. This little pit is lined with green boughs, and the lady stoops and carefully and soberly adds one more. On the heap of earth thrown up rests a box.

This much is visible to a young man who comes strolling up the path from the gate. He pauses, and looks on in astonishment. He recollects of having heard somewhere that Cousin Bently's dog John was accidentally shot, and that Mrs. Bently cried about it. Can it be possible that they are making a funeral over John? That would be too funny.

Mr. Bently stooped, took the box in his arms, and placed it carefully down among the green boughs. Standing upright then, he wiped his eyes, and muttered a trembling, “Poor fellow!”

“Good-morning!” said a brisk voice at his elbow. “I'm sorry Johnnie met with a mishap. Are you burying him here?”

The vapid, mean, supercilious face gave them both such a shock that they reddened and frowned. No one could have been less welcome at that moment than Arthur Clay.

Mrs. Bently answered his question with a brief, “Yes.”

“Oh! well, there are dogs enough in the world,” said the young man, meaning to be consoling.

“There are puppies enough!” muttered Mr. Bently, and began shovelling the earth savagely into the grave.

“Please go into the house, and wait for us, Arthur,” the lady said, with polite decision. She had no mind to have this last touching rite spoiled by such an intrusion.

But young Mr. Clay was in an obliging mood. “Thank you; I'd just as lief stay, and rather. I never attended a canine funeral before.”

There was a momentary silence, then Mrs. Bently spoke again, with still more decision and far less suavity: “On the whole, you must excuse us from seeing you any longer this morning. If you had gone to the door, the servant would have told you that we do not receive any one to-day.”

The young man gave an angry laugh. “Oh! certainly! I wouldn't for the world intrude on your sorrow. Good-morning! It's a pity, though, that dogs are not immortal, isn't it? You might have John canonized.”

Mr. Bently flashed his eyes round at the speaker. “What!” he thundered, “you immortal, and my dog NOT!”

If they had been two Parrott guns, instead of two eyes and a mouth, Mr. Arthur Clay could not have retreated more precipitantly.

The grave was filled in and covered over with boughs, two sighs were breathed over it, then the couple walked, arm in arm, slowly toward the house.

“He was a perfect creature!” Mr. Bently said, after a silence.

“Yes!” assented the wife. “Only he would bounce at one so.”

“Marian,” said her husband solemnly, “if it hadn't been for John's habit of bouncing at his friends, you would have had no husband.”

It was well meant, but unfortunately worded. The lady pouted, being by no means an ideal, perfect, pattern woman, but only a natural and charming one, with varying moods and whims playing, spraylike, over the deeps of principle and religion. “Don't be too sure of that!” she made answer to him.

Mr. Bently never bristled with virtues when his wife made such remarks. [pg 639] He smiled now, full of kindness. “I meant to say that I should have had no wife,” he corrected himself.

At that, the pout, which was only a rebellious muscle, not a rebellious heart, disappeared. “It means the same thing, you most patient of men!” exclaimed his wife fervently.

They reached the porch, and stood there a moment, looking back to the mound under the pine-tree.

“It is a comfort to think,” said the wife, “that for one year of his life we made him such a happy dog.”

Then they went in, and the door closed behind them.