University of Virginia Library

35. CHAPTER XXXV.

“And,” said the strange gentleman,
as he drew his velvet-lined cloak over
his shoulders,—“And what in the deuce
do you know about Margaret Dunbar?”

To which Harry, somewhat taken
aback by the cool manner of the gentleman,
replied, after a little hesitation,—
“Know about her?” Why, God bless
you! she is my wife!”

And drawing the individual a little
aside, near a mirror which reflected their
widely different faces, he told him, in his
frank, honest way, the whole story: how
he had loved Margaret—married her an
hour before his departure for California
—been delayed there by circumstances,
over which he had no control, three years
instead of simply one—how he had come
back rich, with money enough to make
Margaret comfortable all her days—
and—

“The fact is, here I am, a little yellow,
and a little broken down, but with
the rocks, you see? And I can't find

my wife! God help me! she is not
dead, is she?”

The frank manner of Harry evidently
gave the well-dressed stranger a favorable
impression of him, which perhaps
was not lessened by the story of the
trunks, (packed with gold dust,) aboard
the steamer, to say nothing of a glimpse
of the heavy gold chain which encircled
Harry's sunburnt throat. He showed
his white teeth in a pleasant smile.

“Sit down, Mr. Morgan!” and he pointed
to a sofa near the mirror. “I've often
heard Margaret speak of you. And the
fact is, I am her cousin. My name is
Burke, Stanley Burke. Now you certainly
have heard Margaret speak of
me?”

Harry was not quite sure that he had,
but still there was a floating impression
upon his mind about one Stanley Burke,
a member of a wealthy branch of the
Dunbar family. Yes! he was sure that
he had heard Margaret speak of him a
hundred times.

“Yes, I have heard her speak of you
—and—” his voice was thick, his blue
eyes moistened with something that was
very like a tear—“and she is not dead,
is she?”

How he bent forward, and looked
Stanley Burke in the face, on his eagerness
to hear his reply! That gentleman
suffered the velvet-lined cloak to drop a
little from his shoulders, as he replied,—
“Dead! bless you, no! It was only yesterday
morning I saw her, alive and well,
and —.”

Harry did not like to ask the question
which rose to his lips, “She is not married,
is she?” it choked him only to
think of it. So he blunted forth another
question,—“A rumor came home that I
was dead, I believe. Margaret never believed
it, eh?”

“She wears black for you now,” was
the response of Stanley Burke. “The
poor girl will be mad to see you; in fact,
unless properly prepared for the intelligence,
it will drive her mad to know that
you are alive—mad with joy, you understand?”

Harry leaned back upon the sofa like
a man suddenly overcome by irreparable
calamity, or overwhelming joy. For a
moment he was dim of sight; all sorts
of ringing sounds were in his ears. The
memory of three years of hard adventure
in California, in which he had seen starvation,
death, and crime, in their ugliest
shapes; the consciousness that he had
come back rich, all faded away before the
thought, “Margaret is living! Margaret
is true to me!”

And as soon as he recovered his speech
he did a very bad thing; he gave some
vent to his feelings in an oath, which
properly looked into was not so much of
an oath as a prayer.

And then he talked with Stanley
Burke for at least an hour, and the manner
of the well-dressed gentleman quite
won his confidence. It seemed as though
they had been acquainted for years.

Margaret had removed from Broomestreet,
and was living with her mother
further up town. The death of a distant
relative, who had made Margaret his
heir, placed them in very comfortable
circumstances. She was no longer forced
to strain her eyes, all day and late at
night, at her needle. She was sad and
melancholy about Harry's death, but
still young and blooming, and with a
faint hope in her heart that he would yet
return. Such was the story of Mr.
Alfred Stanley, which he told in many
words, and in the blandest manner, with
every kind of display of his white teeth,
and a steady twinkle of his small glittering
eyes.

“And this letter, which by chance dropped
from my hand,”—he quietly held the
letter before Harry's eyes,—“is one
which I wrote to her about a year ago,
giving her some hope of your return.
The fact is, I had heard some favorable
news. But, before I could send it to her,
I met her in person, and so there was no
use of giving it to her. I threw it in my
trunk; and to-day it must have been taken
by me from the same trunk, with some
legal papers which I wished to examine.
I did not know it was about me until it
dropped from my pocket. It has turned
out quite a lucky circumstance, for it has
been the means of bringing you and me
together. Would you like to look at it?”

“Not to-night—not to-night,” replied
Harry. “First of all I want to see Margaret.
You will take me at once to her
residence?”

It would have been better for Harry
—much better—had he looked into that
letter!

“The fact is, Margaret and her mother

are out of town on a visit to a relative
who lives near Tarrytown,” replied Stanley
Burke, quietly depositing the letter
in his pocket-book; “but,” he continued
as he observed Harry's down-fallen countenance,
“they'll be back to-morrow. I
can prepare them for your appearance.
By George! an idea strikes me. Why
not go up there to-night with your traps
and trunks, so as to be on hand at the
time of their return. You see, I'm not
often in town, but when I am, Mrs. Dunbar
gives me a spare room, which you
and I can occupy to-night. I have a
night-key which will let us in.”

And the well-dressed man, looking at
Harry all the while, passed his hand over
his spotless shirt-bosom, through his
well-oiled whiskers and short-cut hair, a
pleasant smile, meantime, lighting up his
masked face.

It was a good idea—capital! Harry
thought so, and lost no time in carrying
it out.

They went forth from the saloon together,
Harry in barbarian garb, leaning
on the arm of the well-dressed man, who,
as they hurried along Broadway and
down the street which led to the steamer,
kept up a continual flow of talk about
Margaret, telling a thousand anecdotes
about her which quite won Harry's
heart.

Arrived at the pier where, in the
gloomy night and under the leaden sky,
the steamer lay, Mr. Burke procured a
carriage, had Harry's luggage brought
ashore, one huge trunk lashed on behind,
one fixed on the box, and a plethoric carpet
bag put on the front seat inside; after
which, the driver being perched on
his seat, over the topmost trunk, Harry
and Stanley Burke entered, and the carriage
rolled away.

As they sat side by side on the back
seat, Stanley Burke, his face lighted up
by an occasional lamp gleam, talked
pleasantly and in his easy way about
Margaret, and Harry, his heart beating
quickly under his coarse coat, hung on
his every word.

“Decidedly, Stanley Burke is a good
fellow!” thought Harry, “and if he
wants helping along, I'm his man!”

Here the carriage stopped, in a dark
part of a street which, near the head of
Broadway, branched off toward the East
River, in front of a four-storied dwelling,
which stood silent and dark in the
shadow, its windows closed from side-walk
to roof.

“A grand kind of building!” muttered
Harry as they descended from the carriage.

“The home of Margaret,” replied
Stanley Burke. “The lower floor is, as
you see, occupied as a store; Margaret
and her mother have the rest of it to
themselves. My room is in the back
part of it, on the third floor.”

And opening the side door with a
night-key, Stanley Burke directed the
driver to unlash the trunks, and bring
them into the dark entry, which being
done, Burke left Harry and the driver
alone in the dark entry, while he went
up stairs to get a light.

He presently returned, holding the
light above his head, as he came down
the stairway, his usual bland smile playing
over his face. And he held the light
while the driver, (a pock-marked Hibernian,
who blew hard, and swore much
in a low voice,) assisted by Harry, carried
the trunks, one at a time, up three
pair of stairs, into the back room. Trunks
and carpet-bag being safely deposited
there, and the driver paid and dismissed,
Harry and Burke sat down in the room,
and looked on each other's faces by the
light of the candle.

It was a very comfortable place. A
moderate fire simmered in an air-tight
wood stove. The sofa on which they
sat was covered with red velvet. An
elegant French bedstead stood in one
corner, near a mahogany article of furniture,
which did not look precisely like a
book-case, nor yet like a bureau, but
seemed a combination of both. The
walls, covered with subdued colored paper,
were ornamented with a few choice
pictures, in slight gilt frames—pictures
very warm, Gallic and oriental.

It was altogether an elegant yet cozy
apartment.

Resting one arm on the arm of the
sofa, and seated in an attitude which
did justice to his fine apparel and muscular
frame, Stanley Burke quietly watched
his rough friend, who was gazing about
him with expanded eyes.

“A quiet little place, which Aunt
Dunbar is kind enough to let me have,
in one corner of her house. Don't you
think so?” said Mr. Burke.

'Snug as a bug in a rug,” was the unclassical
response of Harry.

“Here you can remain quietly with
me, and to-morrow morning you will see
Margaret. Ah! I had quite forgotten!”
continued Mr. Stanley Burke, as he rose
and assumed his cloak, hat and gloves.
“I have an engagement which will only
keep me for an hour. You must excuse
me for that time, my dear Morgan.
When I come back, we'll have a nice little
supper from the restaurant in Broadway.
Until then, amuse yourself with
books and papers on the table.”

“O don't mind me,” replied Harry; “I
can put in the time quite comfortably.
Have you got such a thing as a good
Havana cigar?”

Burke showed his white teeth in a
pleasant smile as he presented his cigar
case. “A present from a particular
friend in Havana.”

And as Harry lighted the fragrant
cigar, and stretched himself, red shirt,
coarse coat and all, on the velvet sofa,
Mr. Stanley Burke regarded him with a
quiet smile, and then, with the words,—
“Back in an hour, Morgan,” left the
room.

There was no light to shine upon him,
or to show the peculiar expression of his
face, as he went down the dark staircase.

“In the house where Margaret lives!”
ejaculated Harry, as he watched the
white smoke-wreaths floating to the
ceiling. “Pretty good luck, this, after
all your adventures, Harry!”

And Harry fell into a pleasant reverie,
in which he saw the form of Margaret
clad in mourning, her face not so blooming
as of old, but still beautiful in its pallor,
framed in a black bonnet, appear almost
visibly amid the smoke-wreaths
which went up from his cigar. “How
glad she'll be to see me!” And his
heart, at the thought, beat all the quicker
under his coarse coat.

All at once a new idea seemed to
strike him.

“Why not go out, and buy some decent
clothes? I can be back before
Burke returns. I should like to shake
hands with a decent coat and clean shirt,
once more.” Burke had left his night-key,
on a duplicate, on the table. Harry
secured this key, put on his slouched hat,
and went quietly down the dark stairway
and from the house. In less than
a quarter of an hour he found himself in
Canal-street, in front of one of those
stores which, in flaming signs and pictorial
handbills, offer to furnish “Cheap
Shirts” to a benighted world. The
“Only original shirt store, on the cheap
system, in the world!” was the startling
announcement which appeared in the
window, in big letters, revealed by the
dazzling gas-light. After a careful survey
of the contents of the window, Harry
resolved to enter and make a purchase;
and enter he did. Better, much
better for Harry, had he looked at the
letter which Burke had held before his
eyes; but a thousand times better for
him had he never put a foot in the Canal-street
shirt store.