University of Virginia Library

A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR.
JOHN OAKHURST.

HE always thought it must have been fate.
Certainly nothing could have been more
inconsistent with his habits than to have been
in the Plaza at seven o'clock of that midsummer
morning. The sight of his colorless face in
Sacramento was rare at that season, and, indeed,
at any season, anywhere publicly, before two
o'clock in the afternoon. Looking back upon it
in after-years in the light of a chanceful life, he
determined, with the characteristic philosophy
of his profession, that it must have been fate.

Yet it is my duty, as a strict chronicler of
facts, to state that Mr. Oakhurst's presence
there that morning was due to a very simple
cause. At exactly half-past six, the bank being
then a winner to the amount of twenty thousand
dollars, he had risen from the faro-table,
relinquished his seat to an accomplished assistant,
and withdrawn quietly, without attracting
a glance from the silent, anxious faces bowed
over the table. But when he entered his luxurious

sleeping-room, across the passage-way,
he was a little shocked at finding the sun streaming
through an inadvertently opened window.
Something in the rare beauty of the morning,
perhaps something in the novelty of the idea,
struck him as he was about to close the blinds;
and he hesitated. Then, taking his hat from
the table, he stepped down a private staircase
into the street.

The people who were abroad at that early
hour were of a class quite unknown to Mr. Oakhurst.
There were milkmen and hucksters delivering
their wares, small tradespeople opening
their shops, housemaids sweeping doorsteps,
and occasionally a child. These Mr. Oakhurst
regarded with a certain cold curiosity, perhaps
quite free from the cynical disfavor with which
he generally looked upon the more pretentious
of his race whom he was in the habit of meeting.
Indeed, I think he was not altogether displeased
with the admiring glances which these humble
women threw after his handsome face and figure,
conspicuous even in a country of fine-looking
men. While it is very probable that this
wicked vagabond, in the pride of his social isolation,
would have been coldly indifferent to the
advances of a fine lady, a little girl who ran admiringly
by his side in a ragged dress had the
power to call a faint flush into his colorless

cheek. He dismissed her at last, but not until
she had found out — what, sooner or later, her
large-hearted and discriminating sex inevitably
did — that he was exceedingly free and open-handed
with his money, and also — what,
perhaps, none other of her sex ever did — that
the bold black eyes of this fine gentleman were
in reality of a brownish and even tender gray.

There was a small garden before a white
cottage in a side-street, that attracted Mr.
Oakhurst's attention. It was filled with roses,
heliotrope, and verbena, — flowers familiar
enough to him in the expensive and more portable
form of bouquets, but, as it seemed to him
then, never before so notably lovely. Perhaps it
was because the dew was yet fresh upon them;
perhaps it was because they were unplucked:
but Mr. Oakhurst admired them — not as a
possible future tribute to the fascinating and
accomplished Miss Ethelinda, then performing
at the Varieties, for Mr. Oakhurst's especial benefit,
as she had often assured him; nor yet as a
douceur to the inthralling Miss Montmorrissy,
with whom Mr. Oakhurst expected to sup that
evening; but simply for himself, and, mayhap,
for the flowers' sake. Howbeit he passed on,
and so out into the open Plaza, where, finding a
bench under a cottonwood-tree, he first dusted
the seat with his handkerchief, and then sat
down.

It was a fine morning. The air was so still
and calm, that a sigh from the sycamores seemed
like the deep-drawn breath of the just awakening
tree, and the faint rustle of its boughs as
the outstretching of cramped and reviving limbs.
Far away the Sierras stood out against a sky
so remote as to be of no positive color, — so remote,
that even the sun despaired of ever reaching
it, and so expended its strength recklessly
on the whole landscape, until it fairly glittered
in a white and vivid contrast. With a very
rare impulse, Mr. Oakhurst took off his hat,
and half reclined on the bench, with his face to
the sky. Certain birds who had taken a critical
attitude on a spray above him, apparently began
an animated discussion regarding his possible
malevolent intentions. One or two, emboldened
by the silence, hopped on the ground at his feet,
until the sound of wheels on the gravel-walk
frightened them away.

Looking up, he saw a man coming slowly
toward him, wheeling a nondescript vehicle, in
which a woman was partly sitting, partly reclining.
Without knowing why, Mr. Oakhurst
instantly conceived that the carriage was the
invention and workmanship of the man, partly
from its oddity, partly from the strong, mechanical
hand that grasped it, and partly from a
certain pride and visible consciousness in the

manner in which the man handled it. Then
Mr. Oakhurst saw something more: the man's
face was familiar. With that regal faculty of
not forgetting a face that had ever given him
professional audience, he instantly classified it
under the following mental formula: “At
'Frisco, Polka Saloon. Lost his week's wages.
I reckon — seventy dollars — on red. Never
came again.” There was, however, no trace of
this in the calm eyes and unmoved face that
he turned upon the stranger, who, on the contrary,
blushed, looked embarrassed, hesitated,
and then stopped with an involuntary motion
that brought the carriage and its fair occupant
face to face with Mr. Oakhurst.

I should hardly do justice to the position she
will occupy in this veracious chronicle by describing
the lady now, if, indeed, I am able to
do it at all. Certainly the popular estimate
was conflicting. The late Col. Starbottle — to
whose large experience of a charming sex I have
before been indebted for many valuable suggestions
— had, I regret to say, depreciated her fascinations.
“A yellow-faced cripple, by dash!
a sick woman, with mahogany eyes; one of your
blanked spiritual creatures — with no flesh on
her bones.” On the other hand, however, she
enjoyed later much complimentary disparagement
from her own sex. Miss Celestina Howard,

second leader in the ballet at the Varieties, had,
with great alliterative directness, in after-years,
denominated her as an “aquiline asp.” Mlle.
Brimborion remembered that she had always
warned “Mr. Jack” that this woman would
“empoison” him. But Mr. Oakhurst, whose
impressions are perhaps the most important,
only saw a pale, thin, deep-eyed woman, raised
above the level of her companion by the refinement
of long suffering and isolation, and a
certain shy virginity of manner. There was a
suggestion of physical purity in the folds of her
fresh-looking robe, and a certain picturesque
tastefulness in the details, that, without knowing
why, made him think that the robe was her
invention and handiwork, even as the carriage
she occupied was evidently the work of her
companion. Her own hand, a trifle too thin,
but well-shaped, subtle-fingered, and gentle-womanly,
rested on the side of the carriage, the
counterpart of the strong mechanical grasp of
her companion's.

There was some obstruction to the progress
of the vehicle; and Mr. Oakhurst stepped forward
to assist. While the wheel was being
lifted over the curbstone, it was necessary that
she should hold his arm; and for a moment her
thin hand rested there, light and cold as a snow-flake,
and then, as it seemed to him, like a

snow-flake melted away. Then there was a
pause, and then conversation, the lady joining
occasionally and shyly.

It appeared that they were man and wife;
that for the past two years she had been a great
invalid, and had lost the use of her lower limbs
from rheumatism; that until lately she had
been confined to her bed, until her husband —
who was a master-carpenter — had bethought
himself to make her this carriage. He took her
out regularly for an airing before going to work,
because it was his only time, and — they attracted
less attention. They had tried many doctors,
but without avail. They had been advised to
go to the Sulphur Springs; but it was expensive.
Mr. Decker, the husband, had once saved eighty
dollars for that purpose, but while in San Francisco
had his pocket picked — Mr Decker was so
senseless! (The intelligent reader need not be
told that it is the lady who is speaking.) They
had never been able to make up the sum again,
and they had given up the idea. It was a dreadful
thing to have one's pocket picked. Did he
not think so?

Her husband's face was crimson; but Mr.
Oakhurst's countenance was quite calm and
unmoved, as he gravely agreed with her, and
walked by her side until they passed the little
garden that he had admired. Here Mr. Oakhurst

commanded a halt, and, going to the door,
astounded the proprietor by a preposterously
extravagant offer for a choice of the flowers.
Presently he returned to the carriage with his
arms full of roses, heliotrope, and verbena, and
cast them in the lap of the invalid. While she
was bending over them with childish delight,
Mr. Oakhurst took the opportunity of drawing
her husband aside.

“Perhaps,” he said in a low voice, and a
manner quite free from any personal annoyance,
— “perhaps it's just as well that you lied to her
as you did. You can say now that the pick-pocket
was arrested the other day, and you got
your money back.” Mr. Oakhurst quietly
slipped four twenty-dollar gold-pieces into the
broad hand of the bewildered Mr. Decker.
“Say that — or any thing you like — but the
truth. Promise me you won't say that.”

The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly
returned to the front of the little carriage.
The sick woman was still eagerly occupied with
the flowers, and, as she raised her eyes to his,
her faded cheek seemed to have caught some
color from the roses, and her eyes some of their
dewy freshness. But at that instant Mr. Oakhurst
lifted his hat, and before she could thank
him was gone.

I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly

broke his promise. That night, in the very
goodness of his heart and uxorious self-abnegation,
he, like all devoted husbands, not only
offered himself, but his friend and benefactor,
as a sacrifice on the family-altar. It is only fair,
however, to add that he spoke with great fervor
of the generosity of Mr. Oakhurst, and dwelt
with an enthusiasm quite common with his
class on the mysterious fame and prodigal vices
of the gambler.

“And now, Elsie dear, say that you'll forgive
me,” said Mr. Decker, dropping on one knee
beside his wife's couch. “I did it for the best.
It was for you, dearey, that I put that money
on them cards that night in 'Frisco. I thought
to win a heap — enough to take you away, and
enough left to get you a new dress.”

Mrs. Decker smiled, and pressed her husband's
hand. “I do forgive you, Joe dear,”
she said, still smiling, with eyes abstractedly
fixed on the ceiling; “and you ought to be
whipped for deceiving me so, you bad boy! and
making me make such a speech. There, say no
more about it. If you'll be very good hereafter,
and will just now hand me that cluster of roses,
I'll forgive you.” She took the branch in her
fingers, lifted the roses to her face, and presently
said, behind their leaves, —

“Joe!”

“What is it, lovey?”

“Do you think that this Mr. — what do you
call him? — Jack Oakhurst would have given
that money back to you, if I hadn't made that
speech?”

“Yes.”

“If he hadn't seen me at all?”

Mr. Decker looked up. His wife had managed
in some way to cover up her whole face
with the roses, except her eyes, which were
dangerously bright.

“No! It was you, Elsie — it was all along of
seeing you that made him do it.”

“A poor sick woman like me?”

“A sweet, little, lovely, pooty Elsie — Joe's
own little wifey! How could he help it?”

Mrs. Decker fondly cast one arm around her
husband's neck, still keeping the roses to her
face with the other. From behind them she
began to murmur gently and idiotically, “Dear,
ole square Joey. Elsie's oney booful big bear.”
But, really, I do not see that my duty as a
chronicler of facts compels me to continue this
little lady's speech any further; and, out of
respect to the unmarried reader, I stop.

Nevertheless, the next morning Mrs. Decker
betrayed some slight and apparently uncalled-for
irritability on reaching the Plaza, and presently
desired her husband to wheel her back

home. Moreover, she was very much astonished
at meeting Mr. Oakhurst just as they
were returning, and even doubted if it were he,
and questioned her husband as to his identity
with the stranger of yesterday as he approached.
Her manner to Mr. Oakhurst, also, was quite in
contrast with her husband's frank welcome.
Mr. Oakhurst instantly detected it. “Her husband
has told her all, and she dislikes me,” he
said to himself, with that fatal appreciation of
the half-truths of a woman's motives that
causes the wisest masculine critic to stumble,
He lingered only long enough to take the business
address of the husband, and then lifting
his hat gravely, without looking at the lady,
went his way. It struck the honest master-carpenter
as one of the charming anomalies of his
wife's character, that, although the meeting was
evidently very much constrained and unpleasant,
instantly afterward his wife's spirits began
to rise. “You was hard on him, a leetle hard;
wasn't you, Elsie?” said Mr. Decker deprecatingly.
“I'm afraid he may think I've
broke my promise.” — “Ah, indeed!” said the
lady indifferently. Mr. Decker instantly stepped
round to the front of the vehicle. “You look
like an A 1 first-class lady riding down Broad-way
in her own carriage, Elsie,” said he. “I
never seed you lookin' so peart and sassy
before.”

A few days later, the proprietor of the San
Isabel Sulphur Springs received the following
note in Mr. Oakhurst's well-known, dainty
hand:—

It was only the last sentence of this letter
that provoked criticism. “I can understand,”
said Mr. Hamlin, a professional brother, to whom
Mr. Oakhurst's letter was shown, — “I can
understand why Jack goes in heavy and builds;
for it's a sure spec, and is bound to be a mighty
soft thing in time, if he comes here regularly.
But why in blank he don't set up a bank this
season, and take the chance of getting some of
the money back that he puts into circulation in
building, is what gets me. I wonder now,” he
mused deeply, “what is his little game.”

The season had been a prosperous one to Mr.
Oakhurst, and proportionally disastrous to several
members of the legislature, judges, colonels,
and others who had enjoyed but briefly the
pleasure of Mr. Oakhurst's midnight society.
And yet Sacramento had become very dull to
him. He had lately formed a habit of early
morning walks, so unusual and startling to his
friends, both male and female, as to occasion
the intensest curiosity. Two or three of the
latter set spies upon his track; but the inquisition
resulted only in the discovery that Mr.
Oakhurst walked to the Plaza, sat down upon
one particular bench for a few moments, and
then returned without seeing anybody; and the
theory that there was a woman in the case was
abandoned. A few superstitious gentlemen of
his own profession believed that he did it for
“luck.” Some others, more practical, declared
that he went out to “study points.”

After the races at Marysville, Mr. Oakhurst
went to San Francisco; from that place he
returned to Marysville, but a few days after was
seen at San José, Santa Cruz, and Oakland.
Those who met him declared that his manner
was restless and feverish, and quite unlike his
ordinary calmness and phlegm. Col. Starbottle
pointed out the fact, that at San Francisco, at
the club, Jack had declined to deal. “Hand

shaky, sir; depend upon it. Don't stimulate
enough — blank him!”

From San José he started to go to Oregon by
land with a rather expensive outfit of horses
and camp equipage; but, on reaching Stockton,
he suddenly diverged, and four hours later
found him with a single horse entering the
cañon of the San Isabel Warm Sulphur Springs.

It was a pretty triangular valley lying at the
foot of three sloping mountains, dark with pines,
and fantastic with madrono and manzanita.
Nestling against the mountain-side, the straggling
buildings and long piazza of the hotel
glittered through the leaves, and here and there
shone a white toy-like cottage. Mr. Oakhurst
was not an admirer of Nature; but he felt something
of the same novel satisfaction in the view,
that he experienced in his first morning walk in
Sacramento. And now carriages began to pass
him on the road filled with gayly-dressed women;
and the cold California outlines of the landscape
began to take upon themselves somewhat
of a human warmth and color. And then the
long hotel piazza came in view, efflorescent
with the full-toiletted fair. Mr. Oakhurst, a
good rider after the California fashion, did not
check his speed as he approached his destination,
but charged the hotel at a gallop, threw
his horse on his haunches within a foot of the

piazza, and then quietly emerged from the
cloud of dust that veiled his dismounting.

Whatever feverish excitement might have
raged within, all his habitual calm returned as
he stepped upon the piazza. With the instinct
of long habit, he turned and faced the battery
of eyes with the same cold indifference with
which he had for years encountered the half-hidden
sneers of men and the half-frightened
admiration of women. Only one person stepped
forward to welcome him. Oddly enough, it
was Dick Hamilton, perhaps the only one
present, who by birth, education, and position,
might have satisfied the most fastidious
social critic. Happily for Mr. Oakhurst's reputation,
he was also a very rich banker and
social leader. “Do you know who that is
you spoke to?” asked young Parker with
an alarmed expression. “Yes,” replied Hamilton
with characteristic effrontery. “The
man you lost a thousand dollars to last week.
I only know him socially.” “But isn't he a
gambler?” queried the youngest Miss Smith.
“He is,” replied Hamilton; “but I wish, my
dear young lady, that we all played as open and
honest a game as our friend yonder, and were
as willing as he is to abide by its fortunes.”

But Mr. Oakhurst was happily out of hearing
of this colloquy, and was even then lounging

listlessly yet watchfully along the upper
hall. Suddenly he heard a light footstep
behind him, and then his name called in a familiar
voice that drew the blood quickly to his
heart. He turned, and she stood before him.

But how transformed! If I have hesitated
to describe the hollow-eyed cripple, the
quaintly-dressed artisan's wife, a few pages ago,
what shall I do with this graceful, shapely,
elegantly-attired gentlewoman into whom she
has been merged within these two months? In
good faith she was very pretty. You and I, my
dear madam, would have been quick to see
that those charming dimples were misplaced for
true beauty, and too fixed in their quality for
honest mirthfulness; that the delicate lines
around these aquiline nostrils were cruel and
selfish; that the sweet virginal surprise of these
lovely eyes were as apt to be opened on her
plate as upon the gallant speeches of her dinner
partner; that her sympathetic color came and
went more with her own spirits than yours.
But you and I are not in love with her, dear
madam, and Mr. Oakhurst is. And, even in the
folds of her Parisian gown, I am afraid this
poor fellow saw the same subtle strokes of
purity that he had seen in her homespun robe.
And then there was the delightful revelation
that she could walk, and that she had dear

little feet of her own in the tiniest slippers of
her French shoemaker, with such preposterous
blue bows, and Chappell's own stamp — Rue de
something or other, Paris — on the narrow sole.

He ran toward her with a heightened color
and outstretched hands. But she whipped her
own behind her, glanced rapidly up and down
the long hall, and stood looking at him with a
half-audacious, half-mischievous admiration, in
utter contrast to her old reserve.

“I've a great mind not to shake hands with
you at all. You passed me just now on the
piazza without speaking; and I ran after you, as
I suppose many another poor woman has done.”

Mr. Oakhurst stammered that she was so
changed.

“The more reason why you should know me.
Who changed me? You. You have re-created
me. You found a helpless, crippled, sick,
poverty-stricken woman, with one dress to her
back, and that her own make, and you gave her
life, health, strength, and fortune. You did;
and you know it, sir. How do you like your
work?” She caught the side-seams of her
gown in either hand, and dropped him a playful
courtesy. Then, with a sudden, relenting
gesture, she gave him both her hands.

Outrageous as this speech was, and unfeminine
as I trust every fair reader will deem it,

I fear it pleased Mr. Oakhurst. Not but that
he was accustomed to a certain frank female
admiration; but then it was of the coulisse,
and not of the cloister, with which he always
persisted in associating Mrs. Decker. To be
addressed in this way by an invalid Puritan, a
sick saint with the austerity of suffering still
clothing her, a woman who had a Bible on the
dressing-table, who went to church three times
a day, and was devoted to her husband, completely
bowled him over. He still held her
hands as she went on, —

“Why didn't you come before? What were
you doing in Marysville, in San José, in Oakland?
You see I have followed you. I saw
you as you came down the cañon, and knew
you at once. I saw your letter to Joseph, and
knew you were coming. Why didn't you write
to me? You will some time! — Good-evening,
Mr. Hamilton.”

She had withdrawn her hands, but not until
Hamilton, ascending the staircase, was nearly
abreast of them. He raised his hat to her
with well-bred composure, nodded familiarly to
Oakhurst, and passed on. When he had gone,
Mrs. Decker lifted her eyes to Mr. Oakhurst.
“Some day I shall ask a great favor of you.”

Mr. Oakhurst begged that it should be now.
“No, not until you know me better. Then,
some day, I shall want you to — kill that man!”

She laughed such a pleasant little ringing
laugh, such a display of dimples, — albeit a little
fixed in the corners of her mouth, — such an
innocent light in her brown eyes, and such a
lovely color in her cheeks, that Mr. Oakhurst
(who seldom laughed) was fain to laugh too.
It was as if a lamb had proposed to a fox a
foray into a neighboring sheepfold.

A few evenings after this, Mrs. Decker arose
from a charmed circle of her admirers on the
hotel piazza, excused herself for a few moments,
laughingly declined an escort, and ran over to
her little cottage — one of her husband's creation
— across the road. Perhaps from the
sudden and unwonted exercise in her still convalescent
state, she breathed hurriedly and
feverishly as she entered her boudoir, and once
or twice placed her hand upon her breast. She
was startled on turning up the light to find her
husband lying on the sofa.

“You look hot and excited, Elsie love,” said
Mr. Decker. “You ain't took worse, are you?”

Mrs Decker's face had paled, but now flushed
again. “No,” she said; “only a little pain
here,” as she again placed her hand upon her
corsage.

“Can I do any thing for you?” said Mr.
Desker, rising with affectionate concern.

“Run over to the hotel and get me some
brandy, quick!”

Mr. Decker ran. Mrs Decker closed and
bolted the door, and then, putting her hand to
her bosom, drew out the pain. It was folded
foursquare, and was, I grieve to say, in Mr.
Oakhurst's handwriting.

She devoured it with burning eyes and
cheeks until there came a step upon the porch;
then she hurriedly replaced it in her bosom,
and unbolted the door. Her husband entered.
She raised the spirits to her lips, and declared
herself better.

“Are you going over there again to-night?”
asked Mr. Decker submissively.

“No,” said Mrs. Decker, with her eyes fixed
dreamily on the floor.

“I wouldn't if I was you,” said Mr. Decker
with a sigh of relief. After a pause, he took a
seat on the sofa, and, drawing his wife to his
side, said, “Do you know what I was thinking
of when you came in, Elsie?” Mrs. Decker
ran her fingers through his stiff black hair, and
couldn't imagine.

“I was thinking of old times, Elsie: I was
thinking of the days when I built that kerridge
for you, Elsie, — when I used to take you out to
ride, and was both hoss and driver. We was
poor then, and you was sick, Elsie; but we was
happy. We've got money now, and a house;
and you're quite another woman. I may say,

dear, that you're a new woman. And that's
where the trouble comes in. I could build you
a kerridge, Elsie; I could build you a house,
Elsie — but there I stopped. I couldn't build
up you. You're strong and pretty, Elsie, and
fresh and new. But somehow, Elsie, you ain't
no work of mine!”

He paused. With one hand laid gently on
his forehead, and the other pressed upon her
bosom, as if to feel certain of the presence of her
pain, she said sweetly and soothingly, —

“But it was your work, dear.”

Mr. Decker shook his head sorrowfully. “No,
Elsie, not mine. I had the chance to do it
once, and I let it go. It's done now — but not
by me.”

Mrs. Decker raised her surprised, innocent
eyes to his. He kissed her tenderly, and then
went on in a more cheerful voice, —

“That ain't all I was thinking of, Elsie. I
was thinking that maybe you give too much of
your company to that Mr. Hamilton. Not that
there's any wrong in it, to you or him; but it
might make people talk. You're the only one
here, Elsie,” said the master-carpenter, looking
fondly at his wife, “who isn't talked about,
whose work ain't inspected or condemned.”

Mrs. Decker was glad he had spoken about it.
She had thought so too. But she could not well

be uncivil to Mr. Hamilton, who was a fine gentleman,
without making a powerful enemy.
“And he's always treated me as if I was a born
lady in his own circle,” added the little woman,
with a certain pride that made her husband
fondly smile. “But I have thought of a plan.
He will not stay here if I should go away. If,
for instance, I went to San Francisco to visit
ma for a few days, he would be gone before I
should return.”

Mr. Decker was delighted. “By all means,”
he said, “go to-morrow. Jack Oakhurst is
going down; and I'll put you in his charge.”

Mrs. Decker did not think it was prudent.
“Mr. Oakhurst is our friend, Joseph; but you
know his reputation.” In fact, she did not
know that she ought to go now, knowing that
he was going the same day; but, with a kiss, Mr.
Decker overcame her scruples. She yielded
gracefully. Few women, in fact, knew how to
give up a point as charmingly as she.

She staid a week in San Francisco. When
she returned, she was a trifle thinner and paler
than she had been. This she explained as the
result of perhaps too active exercise and excitement.
“I was out of doors nearly all the time,
as ma will tell you,” she said to her husband,
“and always alone. I am getting quite independent
now,” she added gayly. “I don't want

any escort. I believe, Joey dear, I could get
along even without you, I'm so brave!”

But her visit, apparently, had not been productive
of her impelling design. Mr. Hamilton
had not gone, but had remained, and called upon
them that very evening. “I've thought of a
plan, Joey dear,” said Mrs. Decker, when he had
departed. “Poor Mr. Oakhurst has a miserable
room at the hotel. Suppose you ask him, when
he returns from San Francisco, to stop with us.
He can have our spare-room. I don't think,”
she added archly, “that Mr. Hamilton will call
often.” Her husband laughed, intimated that
she was a little coquette, pinched her cheek, and
complied. “The queer thing about a woman,”
he said afterward confidentially to Mr. Oakhurst,
“is, that, without having any plan of her
own, she'll take anybody's, and build a house
on it entirely different to suit herself. And
dern my skin if you'll be able to say whether or
not you didn't give the scale and measurements
yourself! That's what gets me!”

The next week Mr. Oakhurst was installed in
the Deckers' cottage. The business relations of
her husband and himself were known to all, and
her own reputation was above suspicion. Indeed,
few women were more popular. She was
domestic, she was prudent, she was pious. In a
country of great feminine freedom and latitude,

she never rode or walked with anybody but her
husband. In an epoch of slang and ambiguous
expression, she was always precise and formal
in her speech. In the midst of a fashion of ostentatious
decoration, she never wore a diamond,
nor a single valuable jewel. She never permitted
an indecorum in public. She never countenanced
the familiarities of California society.
She declaimed against the prevailing tone of
infidelity and scepticism in religion. Few people
who were present will ever forget the dignified
yet stately manner with which she
rebuked Mr. Hamilton in the public parlor for
entering upon the discussion of a work on materialism,
lately published; and some among
them, also, will not forget the expression of
amused surprise on Mr. Hamilton's face, that
gradually changed to sardonic gravity, as he
courteously waived his point; certainly not Mr.
Oakhurst, who, from that moment, began to be
uneasily impatient of his friend, and even — if
such a term could be applied to any moral quality
in Mr. Oakhurst — to fear him.

For during this time Mr. Oakhurst had begun
to show symptoms of a change in his usual
habits. He was seldom, if ever, seen in his old
haunts, in a bar-room, or with his old associates.
Pink and white notes, in distracted handwriting,
accumulated on the dressing-table in his rooms

at Sacramento. It was given out in San Francisco
that he had some organic disease of the
heart, for which his physician had prescribed
perfect rest. He read more; he took long walks;
he sold his fast horses; he went to church.

I have a very vivid recollection of his first
appearance there. He did not accompany the
Deckers, nor did he go into their pew, but came
in as the service commenced, and took a seat
quietly in one of the back-pews. By some mysterious
instinct, his presence became presently
known to the congregation, some of whom so far
forgot themselves, in their curiosity, as to face
around, and apparently address their responses
to him. Before the service was over, it was
pretty well understood that “miserable sinners”
meant Mr. Oakhurst. Nor did this mysterious
influence fail to affect the officiating clergyman,
who introduced an allusion to Mr. Oakhurst's
calling and habits in a sermon on the architecture
of Solomon's temple, and in a manner so
pointed, and yet labored, as to cause the
youngest of us to flame with indignation. Happily,
however, it was lost upon Jack: I do not
think he even heard it. His handsome, colorless
face, albeit a trifle worn and thoughtful, was
inscrutable. Only once, during the singing of a
hymn, at a certain note in the contralto's voice,
there crept into his dark eyes a look of wistful

tenderness, so yearning and yet so hopeless, that
those who were watching him felt their own
glisten. Yet I retain a very vivid remembrance
of his standing up to receive the benediction,
with the suggestion, in his manner and tightly-buttoned
coat, of taking the fire of his adversary
at ten paces. After church, he disappeared
as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately
escaped hearing the comments on his rash act.
His appearance was generally considered as an
impertinence, attributable only to some wanton
fancy, or possibly a bet. One or two thought
that the sexton was exceedingly remiss in not
turning him out after discovering who he was;
and a prominent pew-holder remarked, that if he
couldn't take his wife and daughters to that
church, without exposing them to such an influence,
he would try to find some church where
he could. Another traced Mr. Oakhurst's presence
to certain Broad Church radical tendencies,
which he regretted to say he had lately noted
in their pastor. Deacon Sawyer, whose delicately-organized,
sickly wife had already borne
him eleven children, and died in an ambitious
attempt to complete the dozen, avowed that the
presence of a person of Mr. Oakhurst's various
and indiscriminate gallantries was an insult to
the memory of the deceased, that, as a man, he
could not brook.

It was about this time that Mr. Oakhurst,
contrasting himself with a conventional world
in which he had hitherto rarely mingled, became
aware that there was something in his face,
figure, and carriage quite unlike other men, —
something, that, if it did not betray his former
career, at least showed an individuality and
originality that was suspicious. In this belief,
he shaved off his long, silken mustache, and
religiously brushed out his clustering curls every
morning. He even went so far as to affect a
negligence of dress, and hid his small, slim,
arched feet in the largest and heaviest walking-shoes.
There is a story told that he went to his
tailor in Sacramento, and asked him to make
him a suit of clothes like everybody else. The
tailor, familiar with Mr. Oakhurst's fastidiousness,
did not know what he meant. “I mean,”
said Mr. Oakhurst savagely, “something respectable,
— something that doesn't exactly fit me,
you know.” But, however Mr. Oakhurst might
hide his shapely limbs in homespun and homemade
garments, there was something in his carriage,
something in the pose of his beautiful
head, something in the strong and fine manliness
of his presence, something in the perfect
and utter discipline and control of his muscles,
something in the high repose of his nature, — a
repose not so much a matter of intellectual ruling

as of his very nature, — that, go where he
would, and with whom, he was always a notable
man in ten thousand. Perhaps this was never
so clearly intimated to Mr. Oakhurst, as when,
emboldened by Mr. Hamilton's advice and assistance,
and his own predilections, he became a
San-Francisco broker. Even before objection
was made to his presence in the Board, — the objection,
I remember, was urged very eloquently
by Watt Sanders, who was supposed to be the
inventor of the “freezing-out” system of disposing
of poor stockholders, and who also
enjoyed the reputation of having been the impelling
cause of Briggs of Tuolumne's ruin and
suicide, — even before this formal protest of
respectability against lawlessness, the aquiline
suggestions of Mr. Oakhurst's mien and countenance,
not only prematurely fluttered the
pigeons, but absolutely occasioned much uneasiness
among the fish-hawks who circled below
him with their booty. “Dash me! but he's as
likely to go after us as anybody,” said Joe
Fielding.

It wanted but a few days before the close of
the brief summer season at San Isabel Warm
Springs. Already there had been some migration
of the more fashionable; and there was an
uncomfortable suggestion of dregs and lees in

the social life that remained. Mr. Oakhurst
was moody. It was hinted that even the secure
reputation of Mrs. Decker could no longer protect
her from the gossip which his presence
excited. It is but fair to her to say, that, during
the last few weeks of this trying ordeal, she
looked like a sweet, pale martyr, and conducted
herself toward her traducers with the gentle,
forgiving manner of one who relied not upon
the idle homage of the crowd, but upon the
security of a principle that was dearer than
popular favor. “They talk about myself and
Mr. Oakhurst, my dear,” she said to a friend;
“but heaven and my husband can best answer
their calumny. It never shall be said that my
husband ever turned his back upon a friend in
the moment of his adversity, because the position
was changed, — because his friend was poor,
and he was rich.” This was the first intimation
to the public that Jack had lost money, although
it was known generally that the Deckers had
lately bought some valuable property in San
Francisco.

A few evenings after this, an incident occurred
which seemed to unpleasantly discord with the
general social harmony that had always existed
at San Isabel. It was at dinner; and Mr. Oakhurst
and Mr. Hamilton, who sat together at a
separate table, were observed to rise in some

agitation. When they reached the hall, by a
common instinct they stepped into a little
breakfast-room which was vacant, and closed
the door. Then Mr. Hamilton turned with a
half-amused, half-serious smile toward his friend,
and said, —

“If we are to quarrel, Jack Oakhurst, — you
and I, — in the name of all that is ridiculous,
don't let it be about a” —

I do not know what was the epithet intended.
It was either unspoken or lost; for at that very
instant Mr. Oakhurst raised a wineglass, and
dashed its contents into Hamilton's face.

As they faced each other, the men seemed to
have changed natures. Mr. Oakhurst was
trembling with excitement, and the wineglass
that he returned to the table shivered between
his fingers. Mr. Hamilton stood there, grayish
white, erect, and dripping. After a pause, he
said coldly, —

“So be it. But remember, our quarrel
commences here. If I fall by your hand, you
shall not use it to clear her character: if you
fall by mine, you shall not be called a martyr.
I am sorry it has come to this; but amen, the
sooner now, the better.”

He turned proudly, dropped his lids over his
cold steel-blue eyes, as if sheathing a rapier,
bowed, and passed coldly out.

They met, twelve hours later, in a little hollow
two miles from the hotel, on the Stockton
road. As Mr. Oakhurst received his pistol
from Col. Starbottle's hands, he said to him in a
low voice, “Whatever turns up or down, I shall
not return to the hotel. You will find some
directions in my room. Go there” — But
his voice suddenly faltered, and he turned his
glistening eyes away, to his second's intense astonishment.
“I've been out a dozen times with
Jack Oakhurst,” said Col. Starbottle afterward,
“and I never saw him anyways cut before.
Blank me if I didn't think he was losing his
sand, till he walked to position.”

The two reports were almost simultaneous.
Mr. Oakhurst's right arm dropped suddenly to
his side, and his pistol would have fallen from
his paralyzed fingers; but the discipline of
trained nerve and muscle prevailed, and he kept
his grasp until he had shifted it to the other
hand, without changing his position. Then
there was a silence that seemed interminable, a
gathering of two or three dark figures where a
smoke-curl still lazily floated, and then the hurried,
husky, panting voice of Col. Starbottle in
his ear, “He's hit hard — through the lungs —
you must run for it!”

Jack turned his dark, questioning eyes upon
his second, but did not seem to listen, — rather

seemed to hear some other voice, remoter in
the distance. He hesitated, and then made
a step forward in the direction of the distant
group. Then he paused again as the figures
separated, and the surgeon came hastily toward
him.

“He would like to speak with you a moment,”
said the man. “You have little time to lose, I
know; but,” he added in a lower voice, “it is
my duty to tell you he has still less.”

A look of despair, so hopeless in its intensity,
swept over Mr. Oakhurst's usually impassive
face, that the surgeon started. “You are hit,”
he said, glancing at Jack's helpless arm.

“Nothing — a mere scratch,” said Jack hastily.
Then he added with a bitter laugh, “I'm
not in luck to-day. But come: we'll see what
he wants.”

His long, feverish stride outstripped the surgeon's;
and in another moment he stood where
the dying man lay, — like most dying men, —
the one calm, composed, central figure of an
anxious group. Mr. Oakhurst's face was less
calm as he dropped on one knee beside him, and
took his hand. “I want to speak with this
gentleman alone,” said Hamilton, with something
of his old imperious manner, as he turned
to those about him. When they drew back, he
looked up in Oakhurst's face.

“I've something to tell you, Jack.”

His own face was white, but not so white as
that which Mr. Oakhurst bent over him, — a face
so ghastly, with haunting doubts, and a hopeless
presentiment of coming evil, — a face so piteous
in its infinite weariness and envy of death, that
the dying man was touched, even in the languor
of dissolution, with a pang of compassion; and
the cynical smile faded from his lips.

“Forgive me, Jack,” he whispered more
feebly, “for what I have to say. I don't say it
in anger, but only because it must be said. I
could not do my duty to you, I could not die
contented, until you knew it all. It's a miserable
business at best, all around. But it can't be
helped now. Only I ought to have fallen by
Decker's pistol, and not yours.”

A flush like fire came into Jack's cheek, and
he would have risen; but Hamilton held him
fast.

“Listen! In my pocket you will find two
letters. Take them — there! You will know
the handwriting. But promise you will not
read them until you are in a place of safety.
Promise me.”

Jack did not speak, but held the letters between
his fingers as if they had been burning
coals.

“Promise me,” said Hamilton faintly.

“Why?” asked Oakhurst, dropping his
friend's hand coldly.

“Because,” said the dying man with a bitter
smile, — “because — when you have read them
— you — will — go back — to capture — and
death!”

They were his last words. He pressed Jack's
hand faintly. Then his grasp relaxed, and he
fell back a corpse.

It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and Mrs.
Decker reclined languidly upon the sofa with a
novel in her hand, while her husband discussed
the politics of the country in the bar-room of
the hotel. It was a warm night; and the French
window looking out upon a little balcony was
partly open. Suddenly she heard a foot upon
the balcony, and she raised her eyes from the
book with a slight start. The next moment the
window was hurriedly thrust wide, and a man
entered.

Mrs. Decker rose to her feet with a little cry
of alarm.

“For Heaven's sake, Jack, are you mad?
He has only gone for a little while — he may
return at any moment. Come an hour later,
to-morrow, any time when I can get rid of
him — but go, now, dear, at once.”

Mr. Oakhurst walked toward the door, bolted
it, and then faced her without a word. His face

was haggard; his coat-sleeve hung loosely over
an arm that was bandaged and bloody.

Nevertheless her voice did not falter as she
turned again toward him. “What has happened,
Jack. Why are you here?”

He opened his coat, and threw two letters in
her lap.

“To return your lover's letters; to kill you
— and then myself,” he said in a voice so low
as to be almost inaudible.

Among the many virtues of this admirable
woman was invincible courage. She did not
faint; she did not cry out; she sat quietly
down again, folded her hands in her lap, and
said calmly, —

“And why should you not?”

Had she recoiled, had she shown any fear or
contrition, had she essayed an explanation or
apology, Mr. Oakhurst would have looked upon
it as an evidence of guilt. But there is no
quality that courage recognizes so quickly as
courage. There is no condition that desperation
bows before but desperation. And Mr.
Oakhurst's power of analysis was not so keen as
to prevent him from confounding her courage
with a moral quality. Even in his fury, he could
not help admiring this dauntless invalid.

“Why should you not?” she repeated with
a smile. “You gave me life, health, and happiness,

Jack. You gave me your love. Why
should you not take what you have given? Go
on. I am ready.”

She held out her hands with that same infinite
grace of yielding with which she had taken
his own on the first day of their meeting at the
hotel. Jack raised his head, looked at her for
one wild moment, dropped upon his knees beside
her, and raised the folds of her dress to his
feverish lips. But she was too clever not to
instantly see her victory: she was too much
of a woman, with all her cleverness, to refrain
from pressing that victory home. At the same
moment, as with the impulse of an outraged
and wounded woman, she rose, and, with an imperious
gesture, pointed to the window. Mr.
Oakhurst rose in his turn, cast one glance upon
her, and without another word passed out of
her presence forever.

When he had gone, she closed the window
and bolted it, and, going to the chimney-piece,
placed the letters, one by one, in the flame of
the candle until they were consumed. I would
not have the reader think, that, during this
painful operation, she was unmoved. Her hand
trembled, and — not being a brute — for some
minutes (perhaps longer) she felt very badly,
and the corners of her sensitive mouth were
depressed. When her husband arrived, it was

with a genuine joy that she ran to him, and
nestled against his broad breast with a feeling
of security that thrilled the honest fellow to
the core.

“But I've heard dreadful news to-night,
Elsie,” said Mr. Decker, after a few endearments
were exchanged.

“Don't tell me any thing dreadful, dear: I'm
not well to-night,” she pleaded sweetly.

“But it's about Mr. Oakhurst and Hamilton.”

“Please!” Mr. Decker could not resist the
petitionary grace of those white hands and that
sensitive mouth, and took her to his arms.
Suddenly he said, “What's that?”

He was pointing to the bosom of her white
dress. Where Mr. Oakhurst had touched her,
there was a spot of blood.

It was nothing: she had slightly cut her hand
in closing the window; it shut so hard! If
Mr. Decker had remembered to close and bolt
the shutter before he went out, he might have
saved her this. There was such a genuine irritability
and force in this remark, that Mr.
Decker was quite overcome by remorse. But
Mrs. Decker forgave him with that graciousness
which I have before pointed out in these pages.
And with the halo of that forgiveness and marital
confidence still lingering above the pair, with
the reader's permission we will leave them, and
return to Mr. Oakhurst.

But not for two weeks. At the end of that
time, he walked into his rooms in Sacramento,
and in his old manner took his seat at the faro-table.

“How's your arm, Jack?” asked an incautious
player.

There was a smile followed the question,
which, however, ceased as Jack looked up
quietly at the speaker.

“It bothers my dealing a little; but I can
shoot as well with my left.”

The game was continued in that decorous
silence which usually distinguished the table at
which Mr. John Oakhurst presided.