University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
A HERO, BUT NOT HEROIC.

`SHALL I ever be strong in mind or body again?”
said Walter Gregory with irritation as he
left the sidewalk and crowded into a Broadway omnibus.

The person thus querying so despairingly with
himself was a man not far from thirty years of age,
but the lines of care were furrowed so deeply on his
handsome face that dismal, lowering morning, the
first of October, that he seemed much older. Having
wedged himself in between two burly forms that
suggested thrift down town and good cheer on the
Avenue, he appears meagre and shrunken in contrast.
Though tall, he is thin. His face is white
and drawn instead of being ruddy with health's rich
warm blood. There is scarcely anything remaining
reminding one of the period of youth, so recently vanished;
neither is there the dignity and consciousness
of strength that should come with maturer
years. His heavy light-colored moustache and pallid

face gave him the aspect of the blasé man of
the world who had exhausted himself and life at an
age when wisely directed manhood should be just
entering on its richest pleasures.

And such an opinion of him would be correct
with some hopeful exceptions and indications. The
expression of irritation and self-disgust still remaining
on his face as the stage rumbles down town is a
hopeful sign. His soul at least is not surrounded
by a Chinese wall of conceit. However perverted
his nature may be it is not a shallow one, and he
evidently has a painful sense of the wrongs committed
against it. Though his square jaw and the
curve of his lip indicate firmness, one could not look
upon his contracted brow and half-despairing expression,
as he sits oblivious of all surroundings,
without thinking of a ship drifting helplessly and in
distress. There are encouraging possibilities in the
fact that from those windows of the soul, his eyes, a
troubled rather than an evil spirit looks out. A
close observer would see at a glance that he was not
a good man, but he might also note that he was not
content with being a bad one. There was little of
the rigid pride and sinister hardness or the conceit
often seen on the faces of men of the world who
have spent years in spoiling their manhood; and
the sensual phase of coarse dissipation was quite
wanting.

You will find in artificial metropolitan society
many men so emasculated that they are quite vain
that they are blasé, and who, with conscious superiority,

smile disdainfully at those still possessing simple,
wholesome tastes for things which they in their
indescribable accent characterize as a “bore.”

But Walter Gregory looked as one who early
found the dregs of evil life very bitter, and his face
was like that of nature when smitten with untimely
frosts.

He reached his office at last, and wearily sat
down to the routine work at his desk. Instead of
the intent and interested look with which a young
and healthful man would naturally enter on his business,
his manner was rather that of dogged resolution
to work whether he felt like it or not, and with
harsh disregard of his physical weakness.

The world will never cease witnessing the wrongs
that men commit against each other; but perhaps
if the wrongs and cruelties that people commit on
themselves could be summed up the painful aggregate
would be much larger.

As Gregory sat bending over his writing, more
from weakness than from a stooping habit, his senior
partner came in, and seemingly was struck by the
appearance of illness and feebleness on the part of
the young man. The unpleasant impression haunted
him, for having looked over his letters he came
out of his private office and again glanced uneasily
at the colorless face, which gave evidence that only
sheer force of will was spurring a failing hand and
brain to their tasks.

At last Mr. Burnett came and laid his hand on
on his junior partner's shoulder, saying kindly:

“Come, Gregory, drop your work. You are ill.
The strain upon you has been too long and severe.
The worst is over now, and we are going to pull
through better than I expected. Don't take the
matter so bitterly to heart. I admit myself that the
operation promised well at first. You were misled,
and so were we all, by downright deception. That
the swindle was imposed on us through you was
more your misfortune than fault, and it will make
you a keener business man in the future. You have
worked like a galley-slave all summer to retrieve
matters, and have taken no vacation at all. You
must take one now immediately, or you will break
down altogether. Go off to the woods—fish, hunt,
follow your fancies: and the bracing October air will
make a new man of you.”

“I thank you very much,” Gregory began. “I
suppose I do need rest. In a few days I can better
leave—”

“No,” interrupted Mr. Burnett, with hearty emphasis;
“drop everything. You know I like things
done right away. As soon as you finish that letter
be off. Don't show your face here again till November.”

“I thank you for your interest in me,” said
Gregory, rising. “Indeed, I believe it would be
good economy, for if I don't feel better soon I shall
be of no use here or anywhere else.”

“That's it,” said old Mr. Burnett kindly; “sick
and blue, they go together. Now be off to the
woods, and send me some game. I won't inquire

too sharply whether you brought it down with lead
or silver.”

Walter soon left, the office, and made his arrangements
to start on his trip early the next morning.
His purpose was to make a brief visit to the home
of his boyhood and then to go wherever a vagrant
fancy might lead.

The ancestral place was no longer in his family,
though he was spared the pain of seeing it pass into
the hands of strangers. It had been purchased a
few years since by an old and very dear friend of his
deceased father—a gentleman by the name of Walton.
It had so happened that Walter had rarely
met his father's friend, who had been engaged in
business at the West, and of his family he knew
little more than that there were two daughters—
one that had married a Southern gentleman, and
one, much younger, residing with her father. Walter
had been much abroad as the European agent of
his house, and it was during this absence that Mr.
Walton had retired from business and purchased the
old Gregory homestead. Walter felt sure, however,
that though a comparative stranger himself he would,
for his father's sake, be a welcome visitor at the
home of his childhood. At any rate he determined
to test the matter, for the moment he found himself
at liberty he felt a strange and eager longing to revisit
the scenes of the happiest portion of his life.
He had meant to pay such a visit in the previous
spring, soon after his arrival from Europe, when his
elation at being made partner in the house which he

so long had served as clerk reached almost the point
of happiness.

Among those who had welcomed him back, was
a man little older than himself, who, in his absence,
had become known as a successful operator
in Wall Street. They had been quite intimate
before Walter went abroad, and the friendship was
renewed at once. Gregory quite prided himself on
his knowledge of the world, and was not one by
nature inclined to make hasty trust; and yet he
did place implicit confidence in Mr. Hunting, and
regarded him as a much better man than himself,
for he was quite an active member of a church, and
his name figured on several charities, while Walter
had almost ceased attending any place of worship,
and spent his money selfishly upon himself, or foolishly
upon others, giving only as prompted by some
passing impulse. Indeed, Mr. Hunting had occasionally
ventured to remonstrate with him against his
tendencies to dissipation, saying that a young man
of his prospects should not damage them for the
sake of passing gratification. Now, Gregory was
exceedingly ambitious and bent upon accumulating
wealth, and making a brilliant figure in business
circles.

In addition to the ordinary motives which would
naturally lead him to desire such success he was incited
by a secret one more powerful than the others
combined.

Before going abroad, when but a clerk, he had
been the favored suitor of a beautiful and accomplished

girl. Indeed, the understanding between
them almost amounted to an engagement, and he
revelled in a passionate, romantic attachment at an
age when the blood is hot, the heart enthusiastic,
and not a particle of worldly cynicism and adverse
experience had taught him to moderate his rose-hued
anticipations. She seemed the embodiment
of goodness, as well as beauty and grace, for did she
not repress his tendencies to be a little fast? Did
she not with more than sisterly solicitude, counsel
him to shun certain florid youth whose premature
blossoming indicated that they might early run to
seed? and did he not, in consequence, cut Guy
Bummer, the jolliest fellow he ever knew? Indeed,
more than all, had she not ventured to talk religion
to him, so that for a time, he regarded himself in a
very “hopeful frame of mind” and was quite inclined
to take a mission class in the same school with
herself? How lovely and angelic she once appeared
stooping in elegant costume from her social height
to the little ragamuffins of the streets that sat gaping
around her? As he gazed adoringly, while waiting
to be her escort home, his young heart swelled
with the impulse to be good and noble also.

But one day she caused him to drop out of his
roseate clouds with a terrible fall. With much
sweetness and resignation, and with appropriate
sighs, she said that “it was her painful duty to tell
him that their intimacy must cease—that she had
received an offer from Mr. Grobb, and that her parents,
and, indeed, all of her friends, had urged her

to accept him. She had been led to feel that they,
with their riper experience and knowledge of life,
knew what was best for her, and therefore she had
yielded to their wishes and accepted the offer.” She
was commencing to add, in a sentimental tone, that
had “she only followed the leadings of her heart”—
when Walter, at first too stunned and bewildered to
speak, recovered his senses and interrupted with:

“Please don't speak of your heart, Miss Bently.
Why mention so small a matter? Go on with your
sale by all means. I am a business man myself, and
do not feel called upon to interfere with any man's
bargain, even though he is getting cheated.” And he
turned on his heel and strode from the room, leaving
Miss Bently quite ill at ease. The young man's first
expression of having received, as it were, a staggering
blow and then his bitter satire made quite an impression
on her cotton and wool nature, and for a
time her transaction with Mr. Grobb did not wear the
aspect in which it had been presented by her friends.
But her little world so confidently and continually
reiterated the statement that she had made a “splendid
match” that her qualms vanished, and she felt
that what all asserted must be true, and so entered
on the gorgeous preparations as if the wedding were
all and the man nothing.

It is the custom to satirize or bitterly denounce
such girls, but perhaps they are more to be pitied.
They are the natural products of artificial society, in
which wealth, show, and the social eminence which

is based on dress and establishment are held out as
the prizes of a woman's existence. The only wonder
is that so much heart and truth assert themselves
among those who all their life have seen wealth
practically worshipped, and worth, ungilded, practically
snubbed. From ultra fashionable circles a girl
is often seen developing into the noblest womanhood,
while narrow, mercenary natures are found
where far better things might have been expected.
If such girls as Miss Bently could only be kept
quietly one side, like a bale of merchandise, till
wanted, it would not be so bad; but some of them
are such brilliant belles and incorrigible coquettes
that they are like certain Wall Street speculators
who threaten to “break the street” in making their
own fortunes.

Some natures can pocket a fair lady's refusal
with a good-natured shrug as merely a bad venture
and hope for better luck next time, but more cannot,
especially if they are played with and deceived.
Walter Gregory pre-eminently belonged to the latter
class. In early life he had breathed the very atmosphere
of truth, and his tendency to sincerity ever
remained the best element of his character. His
was one of those fine-fibred natures, most susceptible
to serious wounding and injury. Up to this time
his indiscretions had only been those of foolish,
thoughtless youth, while aiming at the standard of
manliness and style in vogue among his city companions.
High-spirited young fellows, not early
braced by principle, must pass through this phase as

in babyhood they cut their teeth. If there is true
metal in them and they are not perverted by exceptionally
bad influences they outgrow the idea that to
be fast and foolish is to be men as naturally as they
do their roundabouts.

It is often not so much what a man does as the
state of the heart that prompts the act. In common
parlance, Walter was as good-hearted a fellow as
ever breathed. Indeed he was quite inclined to
noble enthusiasms.

If Miss Bently had been what he imagined her,
she might have led him swiftly and surely into true
manhood; but she was only an adept at pretty
seeming with him, and when Mr. Grobb offered her
his vast wealth, with himself as the only incumbrance,
she was at once herself, and closed the bargain
promptly.

But perhaps it can be safely said, that in no den
of iniquity in the city could Walter Gregory have
received such moral injury as poisoned his very soul
when, in Mr. Bently's elegant and respectable parlor
the “angel” he worshipped “explained how
she was situated,” and from a “sense of duty”
stated her purpose to yield to the wishes of her
friends. Walter had seen Mr. Grobb quite often,
but had given him no thought, supposing him some
elderly relative of the family. That he was the
accepted suitor of the girl who had sung for him
sentimental ballads with tender, meaning glances,
who had sweetly talked to him of religion and mission
work, seemed a monstrous perversion. Call it

unjust, unreasonable, if you will, and yet it was the
most natural thing in the world for one possessing
his sensitive, intense nature to pass into harsh, bitter
cynicism and to regard Miss. Bently as a type of
the girl of the period.

A young man is far on the road to evil when he
loses faith in woman. During the formative period
of character, of earthly influences, she is the most
potent in making or marring him. A kind refusal,
where no false encouragement has been given, often
does a man good, and leaves his faith intact, but such
an experience as that of young Gregory was like putting
that in a fountain which would stain and embitter
the waters of the stream in all its length.

At the early age of twenty-two he became what
is usually understood by the phrase, “A man of the
world. Still his moral nature could not sink into
the depths without many a bitter outcry against
its wrongs. It was with no slight effort that he
drowned the memory of his early home and its
good influences. During the first two or three
years he occasionally had periods of passionate
remorse, and made spasmodic efforts toward better
things. But they were made in human strength,
and in view of the penalties of evil, rather than
because enamored of the right. Some special temptation
would soon sweep him away into the old life,
and thus because of his broken promises and his
repeated failures, he at last lost faith in himself also,
and lacked that self-respect without which no man

can cope successfully with his evil nature, and an
evil world.

Living in a boarding-house with none of the
restraints and purifying influences of a good home,
he formed intimacies with brilliant but unscrupulous
young men. The theatre became his church, and
at last the code of his fast, fashionable set was that
which governed his life. He avoided gross, vulgar
dissipation, both because his nature revolted at it,
and also on account of his purpose to permit nothing
to interfere with his prospects of advancement in
business. He meant to show Miss Bently that she
made a bad business speculation after all. Thus
ambition became the controlling element in his character;
and he might have had a worse one. Moreover,
in all his moral debasement he never lost a
decided tendency towards truthfulness and honesty.
He would have starved rather than touch anything
that did not belong to him, nor would he allow
himself to deceive in matters of business, and it
was upon these points that he specially prided himself.

Before going abroad he made the acquaintance
of young Hunting, who morally seemed superior to
his other associates, and quite an intimacy sprung
up between them.

Gregory's unusual business ability, coupled with
his knowledge of French and German, led to his
being sent abroad as agent of his firm. Five years
of life in the materialistic and skeptical atmosphere
of Continental cities confirmed the evil tendencies

which were only too well developed before he left
his own land.

He became what so many appear to be in our
day, a practical materialist and atheist. Present
life and surroundings, present profit and pleasure,
were all in all. He in no sense recognized the existence
of a soul within himself having distinct needs
and interests. His thoughts centred wholly on the
comfort and pleasures of the day and that which
would advance his earthly ambition. His skepticism
was not intellectual and in reference to the
Bible and its teachings, but practical and in reference
to humanity itself. He believed that with few
exceptions men and women lived for their own profit
and pleasure, and that religion and creeds were matters
of custom and fashion or the accident of birth.
Only the reverence in which religion had been held
in his early home kept him from sharing fully in the
contempt which the gentlemen he met abroad
seemed to have for it. He could not altogether
despise his mother's faith, but regarded her as a
gentle enthusiast in what she did not fully understand.
From the class of companionships which he
had formed, and at the standpoint from which he
viewed society, it seemed to him that unless influenced
by some interested motive a liberal-minded
man of the world must of necessity outgrow these
things. With the self-deception of his kind he
thought he was broad and liberal in his views, when
in reality he had lost all distinction between truth
and error, and was narrowing his mind down to

things only. Jew or Gentile, Christian or Pagan, it
was becoming all one to him. Men changed their
creeds and religions with other fashions, but all
looked after what they believed to be the main
chance, and he purposed to do the same.

As time passed on, though he began to admit to
himself that it was strange that one who made
all things bend to his pleasure did not secure
more. He wearied of certain things. Stronger
excitements were needed to spur his jaded senses.
His bets, his stakes at cards grew heavier, his pleasures
more gross, till a delicate organization so revolted
at its wrongs and chastised him for excess
that he was deterred from self-gratification in that
direction.

Some men's bodies are a “means of grace to
them.” Coarse dissipation is a physical impossibility,
or swift suicide in a very painful form. Young
Gregory found that only in the excitements of the
mind could he hope to find continued enjoyment.
His ambition to accumulate large wealth and become
a brilliant business man most accorded with
his tastes and training, and on these objects he
gradually concentrated all his energies, seeking in
club-rooms and places of fashionable resort, recreation
only from the strain of business.

He recognized that the best way to advance his
own interests was to serve his employers well; and
this he did so effectually that at last he was made a
partner in the business, and, with a sense of something
more like pleasure than he had known for a

long time, returned to New York and entered upon
his new duties.

As we have said, among those who warmly
greeted and congratulated him, was Mr. Hunting,
and they gradually came to spend considerable time
together, and business and money-getting were their
favorite themes. Walter saw that his friend was as
keen on the track of fortune as himself, and apparently
had been much more successful. Mr. Hunting
intimated that after one reached the charmed
inner circle, Wall Street was perfect Eldorado, and
seemed to take pains to drop suggestions occasionally
of how an investment shrewdly made by one
with his favored point of observation often secured
almost in a day greater return than a year of plodding
business.

These remarks were not lost on Gregory, and the
wish became very strong that he might share in
some of the splendid “hits” by which his friend
was accumulating so rapidly.

Usually Mr. Hunting was very quiet and self-possessed,
but one evening in May he came into Walter's
rooms in a manner indicating considerable excitement
and elation.

“Gregory!” he exclaimed, “I am going to
make my fortune.”

“Make your fortune! You are as rich as Crœ
sus now.”

“The past will be as nothing. I've struck a
mine rather than a vein.”

“It's a pity some of your friends could not share
in your luck.”

“Well, a few can. This is so large, and such a
good thing, that I have concluded to let a few intimates
go in with me. Only all must keep very quiet
about it;” and he proposed an operation that
seemed certain of success as he explained it.

Gregory concluded to put into it about all he had
independent of his investment in the firm, and also
obtained permission to interest his partners, and to
procure an interview between them and Mr. Hunting.

The scheme looked so very plausible that they
were drawn into it also; but Mr. Burnett drew Walter
aside and said:

“After all, we must place a great deal of confidence
in Mr. Hunting's word in this matter. Are
you satisfied that we can safely do so?”

“I would stake my life on his word in this case,”
said Walter, eagerly, “and I pledge all I have put
in the firm on his truth.”

This was the last flicker of Walter's old enthusiasm
and trust in anybody or anything, including
himself. With the skill of almost genius Mr. Hunting
adroitly, within the limits of the law, swindled them
all and made a vast profit out of their losses. The
transaction was not generally known, but even some
of the hardened gamblers of the street said “it was
to bad.”

But the bank-officers with which Burnett & Co.
did business knew about it, and if it had not been,

for their leniency and aid the firm would have failed.
As it was it was an all-summer struggle to regain
the solid ground of safety.

At first the firm was suspicious of Gregory and
disposed to blame him very much. But when he
proved to them that he had lost his private means
by Hunting's treachery, and insisted on making over
to them all his right and title to the property he had
invested with them, they saw that he was no confederate
of the swindler, but had suffered more than
any of them.

He had, indeed. He had lost his ambition.
The large sum of money that was to be the basis of
the immense fortune he had hoped to amass was
gone. He had greatly prided himself on his business
ability, but had signalized his entrance on his
new and responsible position by being over-reached
and swindled in a manner that had impoverished
himself and almost ruined his partners. He grew
very misanthropic, and was quite as bitter against
himself as others. In his estimation people were
either cloaking their evil or had not been tempted,
and he felt that after Hunting dropped the mask he
would never trust any one again.

It may be said, all this is very unreasonable.
Yes, it is; but then people will judge the world by
their own experience of it, and some natures are
more easily warped by evil and wrong than others.
No logic can cope with feeling and prejudice.
Because of his own misguided life and the wrong he
had received from others, Walter Gregory was no

more able to form a correct estimate of society than
one partially blind to judge of colors. And yet he
belonged to that class who claim to pre-eminently
know the world. Because he thought he knew it
so well he hated and despised it, and himself as part
of it.

The months that followed his great and sudden
downfall dragged their slow length along. He
worked early and late, without thought of sparing
himself. If he could only see what the firm had lost
through him made up, he did not care what became
of himself. Why should he? There was little in
the present to interest him, and the future looked, in
his depressed, morbid state, as monotonous and barren
as the sands of a desert. Seemingly, he had
exhausted life, and it had lost all zest for him.

But while his power to enjoy had gone, not so
his power to suffer. His conscience was uneasy, and
told him in a vague way that something was wrong.
Reason, or, more correctly speaking, instinct, condemned
his life as a wretched blunder. He had
lived for his own enjoyment, and now, when but half
through life, what was there for him to enjoy?
He was like a ship on a voyage, out of provisions in
mid-ocean.

As in increasing weakness he dragged himself to
the office during a sultry September day, the thought
occured to him that the end was nearer than he expected.

“Let it come,” he said bitterly. “Why should
I live.”

The thought of his early home recurred to him
with increasing frequency, and he had a growing
desire to visit it before his strength failed utterly.
Therefore, it was with a certain melancholy pleasure
that he found himself at liberty, through the
kindness of his partner, to make this visit, and at the
season, too, when his boyish memories of the place,
like the foliage, would be most varied and vivid.