University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
IN WHICH THE GENERAL GOES THROUGH A GREAT MANY TRIALS,
AND MEETS AT LAST THE ONE HE HAS SO LONG ANTICIPATED.

The fact that the General had deposited the proceeds of his
foreign sales of arms with a European banking house, ostensibly
subject to draft for the materials of his manufactures, has
already been alluded to. This deposit had been augmented
by subsequent sales, until it amounted to an imposing sum,
which Mrs. Dillingham ascertained, from the little account-book,
to be drawing a low rate of interest. With the proprietor,
this heavy foreign deposit was partly a measure
of personal safety, and partly a measure of projected iniquity.
He had the instinct to provide against any possible contingencies
of fortune or crime.

Two or three days after his very agreeable call upon Mrs.
Dillingham, he had so far mastered his difficulties connected
with the International Mail that he could find time for
another visit, to which he had looked forward with eager anticipation.

“I was very much interested in your little book, Mr.
Belcher,” said the lady, boldly.

“The General is one of the ablest of our native authors,
eh?” responded that facetious person, with a jolly laugh.

“Decidedly,” said Mrs. Dillingham, “and so very terse
and statistical.”

“Interesting book, wasn't it?”

“Very! And it was so kind of you, General, to let me see
how you men manage such things!”

“We men!” and the General shrugged his shoulders.

“One man, then,” said the lady, on seeing that he was
disposed to claim a monopoly in the wisdom of business.

“Do you remember one little item—a modest little item—
concerning my foreign deposits? Eh?”

“Little item, General! What are you doing with so much
money over there?”

“Nothing, or next to nothing. That's my anchor to windward.”

“It will hold,” responded the lady, “if weight is all that's
needed.”

“I intend that it shall hold, and that it shall be larger before
it is smaller.”

“I don't understand it;” and Mrs. Dillingham shook her
pretty head.

Mr. Belcher sat and thought. There was a curious flush
upon his face, as he raised his eyes to hers, and looked intensely
into them, in the endeavor to read the love that hid
behind them. He was desperately in love with her. The
passion, a thousand times repelled by her, and a thousand
times diverted by the distractions of his large affairs, had
been raised to new life by his last meeting with her; and the
determinations of his will grew strong, almost to fierceness.
He did not know what to say, or how to approach the subject
nearest to his heart. He had always frightened her so easily;
she had been so quick to resent any approach to undue familiarity;
she had so steadily ignored his insinuations, that he
was disarmed.

“What are you thinking about, General?”

“You've never seen me in one of my trances, have you?”
inquired Mr. Belcher, with trembling lips and a forced laugh.

“No! Do you have trances?”

“Trances? Yes; and visions of the most stunning character.
Talbot has seen me in two or three of them.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“Not at all. The General's visions are always of a celestial
character,—warranted not to injure the most delicate constitution!

I feel one of them coming on now. Don't disturb
me.”

“Shall I fan you?”

“Do, please!”

The General closed his eyes. He had never before betrayed
such excitement in her presence, and had never before appeared
so dangerous. While she determined that this should
be her last exposure to his approaches, she maintained her
brave and unsuspecting demeanor, and playfully waved her
fan toward him.

“I behold,” said the General, “a business man of great
ability and great wealth, who discovers too late that his wife
is unequally yoked with an unbeliever. Love abides not in
his home, and his heart is afloat on the fierce, rolling sea. He
leaves his abode in the country, and seeks in the tumultuous
life of the metropolis to drown his disappointments. He there
discovers a beautiful woman, cast in Nature's finest mould,
and finds himself, for the first time, matched. Gently this
heavenly creature repels him, though her heart yearns toward
him with unmistakable tenderness. She is a prudent woman.
She has a position to maintain. She is alone. She is a friend
to the wife of this unfortunate gentleman. She is hindered in
many ways from giving rein to the impulses of her heart.
This man of wealth deposits a magnificent sum in Europe.
This lady goes thither for health and amusement, and draws
upon this sum at will. She travels from capital to capital, or
hides herself in Alpine villages, but is found at last by him
who has laid his wealth at her feet.”

The General revealed his vision with occasional glances
through half-closed eyes at the face that hung bowed before
him. It was a desperate step, but he had determined to take
it when he entered the house. Humiliated, tormented, angry,
Mrs. Dillingham sat before him, covering from his sight as
well as she could the passion that raged within her. She
knew that she had invited the insult. She was conscious that
her treatment of him, from the first, though she had endeavored

to change her relations with him without breaking his
friendship, had nursed his base passion and his guilty purpose.
She was undergoing a just punishment, and acknowledged to
herself the fact. Once she would have delighted in tormenting
him. Once she would not have hesitated to drive him
from her door. Once—but she was changed. A little boy
who had learned to regard her as a mother, was thinking of
her in the distant woods. She had fastened to that childish
life the hungry instincts of her motherly nature. She had
turned away forever from all that could dishonor the lad, or
hinder her from receiving his affection without an upbraiding
conscience.

Mr. Belcher's instincts were quick enough to see that his
vision had not prospered in the mind to which he had revealed
it; and yet, there was a hesitation in the manner of the
woman before him which he could not explain to himself, if
he admitted that his proposition had been wholly offensive.
Mrs. Dillingham's only wish was to get him out of the house.
If she could accomplish this without further humiliation, it
was all she desired.

“General,” she said, at last, “You must have been drinking.
I do not think you know what you have said to me.”

“On the contrary, I am perfectly sober,” said he, rising
and approaching her.

“You must not come near me. Give me time! give me
time!” she exclaimed, rising and retreating.

Mr. Belcher was startled by the alarmed and angry look
in her eyes. “Time!” he said, fiercely; “Eternity, you
mean.”

“You pretend to care for me, and yet you disobey what
you know to be my wish. Prove your friendship by leaving
me. I wish to be alone.”

“Leave you, with not so much as the touch of your hand?”
he said.

“Yes.”

The General turned on his heel, took up his hat, paused at

[ILLUSTRATION]

“The General as a Trance-medium.”

[Description: 590EAF. Illustration page. Image of a man sitting bolt upright in a chair with a wild look in his eyes. The woman on the sofa next to him is leaning as far away from the man as she can and has her fan in front of her face.]

the door as if hesitating what to do; then, without a word,
he went down stairs and into the street, overwhelmed with
self-pity. He had done so much, risked so much, and accomplished
so little! That she was fond of him there was no
question in his own mind; but women were so different from
men! Yet the villain knew that if she had been easily won
his heart would have turned against her. The prize grew
more precious, through the obstacles that came between him
and its winning. The worst was over, at least; she knew his
project; and it would all come right in time!

As soon as he was out of the house, Mrs. Dillingham burst
into a fit of uncontrollable weeping. She had passed through
the great humiliation of her life. The tree which she had
planted and nursed through many years of unworthy aims had
borne its natural fruit. She groaned under the crushing punishment.
She almost cursed herself. Her womanly instincts
were quick to apprehend the fact that only by her own consent
or invitation, could any man reach a point so near to
any woman that he could coolly breathe in her ear a base proposition.
Yet, with all her self-loathing and self-condemnation,
was mingled a hatred of the vile man who had insulted
her, which would have half killed him had it been possible for
him to know and realize it.

After her first passion had passed away, the question concerning
her future came up for settlement. She could not
possibly remain near Mr. Belcher. She must not be exposed
to further visits from him. The thought that in the little
account-book which she had copied there was a record that
covered a design for her own destruction, stung her to the
quick. What should she do? She would consult Mr. Balfour.

She knew that on that evening Mr. Belcher would not be at
home, that after the excitements and disappointments of that
day he would seek for solace in any place but that which held
his wife and children. So, muffled in a slight disguise, and
followed by her servant, she stole out of her house during the

evening, and sought the house of the lawyer. To him she
poured out her heart. To him she revealed all that had
passed between her and the proprietor, and to him she committed
the care of the precious document of which she had
possessed herself, and the little note that accompanied it.

Mr. Balfour advised her to leave the city at once, and to go
to some place where Mr. Belcher would not be able to find
her. He knew of no place so fit for her in every respect as
Number Nine, with his own family and those most dear to
her. Her boy and his father were there; it was health's own
home; and she could remain away as long as it might be
necessary. She would be wanted as a witness in a few
months, at furthest, in a suit which he believed would leave
her persecutor in a position where, forgetting others, he
would be absorbed in the effort to take care of himself.

Her determination was taken at once. Mr. Balfour accompanied
her home, and gave her all the necessary directions
for her journey; and that night she packed a single
trunk in readiness for it. In the morning, leaving her house
to the care of trusty servants, she rode to the station, while
Mr. Belcher was lolling feverishly in his bed, and in an hour
was flying northward toward the place that was to be her summer
home, and into a region that was destined to be associated
with her future life, through changes and revolutions of
which she did not dream.

After her thirty-six hours of patient and fatiguing travel,
the company at Jim Fenton's hotel, eager for letters from the
city, stood on the bank of the river, waiting the arrival of
the guide who had gone down for the mail, and such passengers
as he might find in waiting. They saw, as he came in sight,
a single lady in the stern of the little boat, deeply veiled,
whose name they could not guess. When she debarked among
them, and looked around upon the waiting and curious
group, Harry was the first to detect her, and she smothered
him with kisses. Mr. Benedict stood pale and trembling.
Harry impulsively led her toward him, and in a moment they

were wrapped in a tender embrace. None but Mrs. Balfour,
of all who were present, understood the relation that existed
between the two, thus strangely reunited; but it soon became
known, and the little romance added a new charm to the life
in the woods.

It would be pleasant to dwell upon the happy days and the
pleasant doings of the summer that followed—the long twilights
that Mr. Benedict and Mrs. Dillingham spent upon the water,
their review of the events of the past, the humble confessions
of the proud lady, the sports and diversions of the wilderness,
and the delights of society brought by circumstances
into the closest sympathy. It would be pleasant to remain
with Jim and “the little woman,” in their new enterprise and
their new house-keeping; but we must return to the city, to
follow the fortunes of one who, if less interesting than those
we leave behind, is more important in the present stage and
ultimate resolution of our little drama.

Soon after Mrs. Dillingham's departure from the city, Mr.
Belcher missed her. Not content with the position in which
he had left his affairs with her, he called at her house three
days after her disappearance, and learned that the servants
either did not know or would not tell whither she had gone.
In his blind self-conceit, he could not suppose that she had
run away from him. He could not conclude that she had
gone to Europe, without a word of her purpose breathed to
him. Still, even that was possible. She had hidden somewhere,
and he should hear from her. Had he frightened her?
Had he been too precipitate? Much as he endeavored to
explain her sudden disappearance to his own advantage, he
was left unsatisfied and uneasy.

A few days passed away, and then he began to doubt.
Thrown back upon himself, deprived of the solace of her
society, and released from a certain degree of restraint that
she had always exercised upon him, he indulged more freely
in drink, and entered with more recklessness upon the excitements
of speculation.

The General had become conscious that he was not quite the
man that he had been. His mind was darkened and dulled
by crime. He was haunted by vague fears and apprehensions.
With his frequent and appalling losses of money, he had lost
a measure of his faith in himself. His coolness of calculation
had been diminished; he listened with readier credulity to
rumors, and yielded more easily to the personal influences
around him. Even the steady prosperity which attended his
regular business became a factor in his growing incapacity for
the affairs of the street. His reliance on his permanent
sources of income made him more reckless in his speculations.

His grand scheme for “gently” and “tenderly” unloading
his Crooked Valley stock upon the hands of his trusting
dupes along the line, worked, however, to perfection. It
only required rascality, pure and simple, under the existing
conditions, to accomplish this scheme, and he found in the
results nothing left to be desired. They furnished him with
a capital of ready money, but his old acquaintances discovered
the foul trick he had played, and gave him a wide berth. No
more gigantic combinations were possible to him, save with
swindlers like himself, who would not hesitate to sacrifice him
as readily and as mercilessly as he had sacrificed his rural
victims.

Mrs. Dillingham had been absent a month when he one
day received a polite note from Mr. Balfour, as Paul Benedict's
attorney, requesting him, on behalf of his principal, to
pay over to him an equitable share of the profits upon his
patented inventions, and to enter into a definite contract for
the further use of them.

The request came in so different a form from what he had
anticipated, and was so tamely courteous, that he laughed over
the note in derision. “Milk for babes!” he exclaimed, and
laughed again. Either Balfour was a coward, or he felt that
his case was a weak one. Did he think the General was a
fool?

Without taking the note to Cavendish, who had told him
to bring ten thousand dollars when he came again, and without
consulting anybody, he wrote the following note in answer:—

Mr. Belcher read over this letter with great satisfaction. It
seemed to him very dignified and very wise. He had saved
his ten thousand dollars for a while, at least, and bluffed, as
he sincerely believed, his dreaded antagonist.

Mr. Balfour did more than to indulge in his professional
smile, over the frank showing of the General's hand, and the
voluntary betrayal of his line of defence. He filed away the
note among the papers relating to the case, took his hat,
walked across the street, rang the bell, and sent up his card
to Mr. Belcher. That self-complacent gentleman had not expected
this visit, although he had suggested it. Instead, therefore,

of inviting Mr. Balfour to his library, he went down to
the drawing-room, where he found his visitor, quietly sitting
with his hat in his hand. The most formal of courtesies
opened the conversation, and Mr. Balfour stated his business
at once. “You were kind enough to offer to show me the
assignment of Mr. Benedict's patents,” he said. “I have
called to see it.”

“I've changed my mind,” said the General.

“Do you suspect me of wishing to steal it?” inquired Mr.
Balfour.

“No, but the fact is, I wrote my note to you without consulting
my lawyer.”

“I thought so,” said Mr. Balfour. “Good-day, sir.”

“No offence, I hope,” said Mr. Belcher, with a peculiar
toss of the head, and a laugh.

“Not the least,” said the lawyer, passing out of the door.

The General felt that he had made a mistake. He was in
the habit of making mistakes in those days. The habit was
growing upon him. Indeed, he suspected that he had made
a mistake in not boldly exhibiting his assignment. How to
manage a lie, and not be managed by it, was a question that
had puzzled wiser heads than that of the General. He found
an egg in his possession that he was not ready to eat, though
it was too hot to be held long in either hand, and could not
be dropped without disaster.

For a week, he was haunted with the expectation of a suit,
but it was not brought, and then he began to breathe easier,
and to feel that something must be done to divert his mind
from the subject. He drank freely, and was loud-mouthed
and blustering on the street. Poor Talbot had a hard time,
in endeavoring to shield him from his imprudences. He
saw that his effort to make his principal “last” was not likely
to be successful.

Rallied by his “friends” on his ill luck, the General declared
that he only speculated for fun. He knew what he
was about. He never risked any money that he could not

afford to lose. Everybody had his amusement, and this was
his.

He was secure for some months in his seat as President of
the Crooked Valley Railroad, and calculated, of course, on
buying back his stock in his own time, at his own price. In
the meantime, he would use his position for carrying on his
private schemes.

The time came at last when he wanted more ready money.
A grand combination had been made, among his own unprincipled
set, for working up a “corner” in the Muscogee
Air Line, and he had been invited into it. He was flattered
by the invitation, and saw in it a chance for redeeming his
position, though, at bottom, the scheme was one for working
up a corner in Robert Belcher.

Under the plea that he expected, at no distant day, to go
to Europe, for rest and amusement, he mortgaged his house,
in order, as he declared, that he might handle it the more easily
in the market. But Wall street knew the fact at once, and
made its comments. Much to the proprietor's disgust, it
was deemed of sufficient importance to find mention in the
daily press.

But even the sum raised upon his house, united with that
which he had received from unloading his Crooked Valley
stock, was not sufficient to give him the preponderance in the
grand combination which he desired.

He still held a considerable sum in Crooked Valley bonds,
for these were valuable. He had already used these as collaterals,
in the borrowing of small sums at short time, to
meet emergencies in his operations. It was known by moneylenders
that he held them. Now the General was the manufacturer
of these bonds. The books of the corporation were
under his control, and he intended that they should remain
so. It was very easy for him to make an over-issue, and hard
for him to be detected in his fraud, by any one who would be
dangerous to him. The temptation to make this issue was
one which better men than he had yielded to in a weak

moment, and, to the little conscience which he possessed, the
requisite excuses were ready. He did not intend that any
one should lose money by these bonds. He only proposed a
temporary relief to himself. So he manufactured the bonds,
and raised the money he wanted.

Meantime, the members of the very combination in which
he had engaged, having learned of his rascally operation with
the stock, were secretly buying it back from the dupes along
the road, at their own figures, with the purpose of ousting
him from the management, and taking the road to themselves.
Of this movement he did not learn, until it was too late to be
of use to him.

It was known, in advance, by the combination, that the
working up of the corner in Muscogee Air Line would be a
long operation. The stock had to be manipulated with great
care, to avoid exciting a suspicion of the nature of the
scheme, and the General had informed the holders of his
notes that it might be necessary for him to renew them before
he should realize from his operations. He had laid all his
plans carefully, and looked forward with an interest which
none but he and those of his kind could appreciate, to the
excitements, intrigues, marches and counter-marches of the
mischievous campaign.

And then came down upon him the prosecution which he
had so long dreaded, and for which he had made the only
preparation consistent with his greedy designs. Ten thousand
dollars of his ready money passed at once into the hands of
Mr. Cavendish, and Mr. Cavendish was satisfied with the fee,
whatever may have been his opinion of the case. After a last
examination of his forged assignment, and the putting of
Phipps to an exhaustive and satisfactory trial of his memory
with relation to it, he passed it into the lawyer's hands, and
went about his business with uncomfortable forebodings of
the trial and its results.

It was strange, even to him, at this point of his career, that
he felt within himself no power to change his course. No

one knew better than he, that there was money enough in
Benedict's inventions for both inventor and manufacturer.
No one knew better than he, that there was a prosperous
course for himself inside the pale of equity and law, yet he
found no motive to walk there. For the steps he had taken,
there seemed to no retreat. He must go on, on, to the end.
The doors that led back to his old life had closed behind him.
Those which opened before were not inviting, but he could
not stand still. So he hardened his face, braced his nerves,
stiffened his determination, and went on.

Of course he passed a wretched summer. He had intended
to get away for rest, or, rather, for an exhibition of himself
and his equipage at Newport, or Saratoga, or Long Branch;
but through all the burning days of the season he was obliged
to remain in the city, while other men were away and off
their guard, to watch his Wall street operations, and prepare
for the coup de grace by which he hoped to regain his lost
treasure and his forfeited position. The legal trial that
loomed up before him, among the clouds of autumn, could
not be contemplated without a shiver, and a sinking of the
heart. His preparations for it were very simple, as they
mainly related to the establishment of the genuineness of his
assignment.

The months flew away more rapidly with the proprietor
than with any of the other parties interested in the suit, and
when, at last, only a fortnight was wanting to the time of
the expected trial, Mr. Balfour wrote to Number Nine, ordering
his family home, and requiring the presence of Mr. Benedict,
Mrs. Dillingham, Harry and Jim.

Just at this time, the General found himself in fresh difficulty.
The corner in Muscogee Air Line, was as evasive as
a huckleberry in a mouth bereft of its armament. Indeed,
to use still further the homely but suggestive figure, the General
found that his tongue was in more danger than his huckleberry.
His notes, too, secured by fraudulent collaterals,
were approaching a second and third maturity. He was

without ready money for the re-purchase of his Crooked
Valley stock, and had learned, in addition, that the stock
had already changed hands, in the execution of a purpose
which he more than suspected. Large purchases of material
for the execution of heavy contracts in his manufactures had
drained his ready resources, in the department of his regular
business. He was getting short, and into a tight place. Still
he was desperate, and determined to sacrifice nothing.

Mr. Benedict and Jim, on their arrival in the city, took up
their residence in Mrs. Dillingham's house, and the landlord
of Number Nine spent several days in making the acquaintance
of the city, under the guidance of his old companion,
who was at home. Jim went through a great mental convulsion.
At first, what seemed to him the magnitude of the life,
enterprise and wealth of the city, depressed him. He declared
that he “had ben growin' smaller an' smaller every
minute” since he left Sevenoaks. “I felt as if I'd allers
ben a fly, crawlin' 'round on the edge of a pudden,” he said,
when asked whether he enjoyed the city. But before the
trial came on, he had fully recovered his old equanimity.
The city grew smaller the more he explored it, until, when
compared with the great woods, the lonely rivers, and the
broad solitudes in which he had spent his life, it seemed like
a toy; and the men who chaffered in the market, and the
women who thronged the avenues, or drove in the park, or
filled the places of amusement, came to look like children,
engaged in frolicsome games. He felt that people who had so
little room to breathe in must be small; and before the trial
brought him into practical contact with them, he was himself
again, and quite ready to meet them in any encounter which
required courage or address.