51. CHAPTER LI.
A WARNING.
A few evenings afterward, when Abel called to know how
the ladies had borne the fatigues of the feast, Mrs. Plumer
said, with smiles, that it was a kind of fatigue ladies bore
without flinching. Miss Grace, who was sitting upon a sofa
by the side of Sligo Moultrie, said that it was one of the feasts
at which young women especially are supposed to be perfectly
happy. She emphasized the last words, and her bright black
eyes opened wide upon Mr. Abel Newt, who could not tell if
[ILLUSTRATION]
Three In The Morning.
[Description: 538EAF. Page 310. In-line Illustration. Image of a man in evening clothes and top hat walking out of a doorway.]
he saw mischievous malice or a secret triumph and sense of
release is them.
“Oh!” said he, gayly, “it would be too much for me to
hope to make any ladies, and especially young ladies, perfectly
happy.”
And he returned Miss Plumer's look with a keen glance
masked in merriment.
Sligo Moultrie wagged his foot.
“There now is conscious power!” said Abel, with a laugh,
as he pointed at Miss Plumer's companion.
They all laughed, but not very heartily. There appeared to
be some meaning lurking in whatever was said; and like all
half-concealed meanings, it seemed, perhaps, even more significant
than it really was.
Abel was very brilliant, and told more and better stories
than usual. Mrs. Plumer listened and laughed, and declared
that he was certainly the best company she had met for a
long time. Nor were Miss Plumer and Mr. Moultrie reluctant
to join the conversation. In fact, Abel was several times surprised
by the uncommon spirit of Sligo's replies.
“What is it?” said Abel to himself, with a flash of the black
eyes that was startling.
All the evening he felt particularly belligerent toward Sligo
Moultrie; and yet a close observer would have discovered no
occasion in the conduct of the young man for such a feeling
upon Abel's part. Mr. Moultrie sat quietly by the side of
Grace Plumer—“as if somehow he had a right to sit there,”
thought Abel Newt, who resolved to discover if indeed he
had a right.
During that visit, however, he had no chance. Moultrie
sat persistently, and so did Abel. The clock pointed to eleven,
and still they did not move. It was fairly toward midnight
when Abel rose to leave, and at the same moment Sligo Moultrie
rose also. Abel bade the ladies good-evening, and passed
out as if Moultrie were close by him. But that young man
remained standing by the sofa upon which Grace Plumer was
seated, and said quietly to Abel,
“Good-evening, Newt!”
Grace Plumer looked at him also, with the bright black
eyes, and blushed.
For a moment Abel Newt's heart seemed to stand still!
An expression of some bitterness must have swept over his
face, for Mrs. Plumer stepped toward him, as he stood with
his hand upon the door, and said,
“Are you unwell?”
The cloud dissolved in a forced smile.
“No, thank you; not at all!” and he looked surprised, as
if he could not imagine why any one should think so.
He did not wait longer, and the next moment was in the
street.
Mrs. Plumer also left the room almost immediately after
his departure. Sligo Moultrie seated himself by his companion.
“My dear Grace, did you see that look?”
“Yes.”
“He suspects the truth,” returned Sligo Moultrie; and he
might have added more, but that his lips at that instant were
otherwise engaged.
Abel more than suspected the truth. He was sure of it, and
the certainty made him desperate. He had risked so much
upon the game! He had been so confident! As he half ran
along the street he passed many things rapidly in his mind.
He was like a seaman in doubtful waters, and the breeze was
swelling into a gale.
Turning out of Broadway he ran quickly to his door, opened
it, and leaped up stairs.
To his great surprise his lamp was lighted and a man was
sitting reading quietly at his table. As Abel entered his visitor
closed his book and looked up.
“Why, Uncle Lawrence,” said the young man, “you have
a genius for surprises! What on earth are you doing in my
room?”
His uncle said, only half smiling,
“Abel, we are both bachelors, and bachelors have no hours.
I want to talk with you.”
Abel looked at his guest uneasily; but he put down his hat
and lighted a cigar; then seated himself, almost defiantly, opposite
his uncle, with the table between them.
“Now, Sir; what is it?”
Lawrence Newt paused a moment, while the young man
still calmly puffed the smoke from his mouth, and calmly regarded
his uncle.
“Abel, you are not a fool. You know the inevitable results
of certain courses. I want to fortify your knowledge by my
experience. I understand all the temptations and excitements
that carry you along. But I don't like your looks, Abel;
and I don't like the looks of other people when they speak
of you and your father. Remember, we are of the same
blood. Heaven knows its own mysteries! Your father and
I were sons of one woman. That is a tie which we can neither
of us escape, if we wanted to. Why should you ruin
yourself?”
“Did you come to propose any thing for me to do, Sir, or
only to inform me that you considered me a reprobate?”
asked Abel, half-sneeringly, the smoke rising from his mouth.
Lawrence Newt did not answer.
“I am like other young men,” continued Abel. “I am fond
of living well, of a good horse, of a pretty woman. I drink
my glass, and I am not afraid of a card. Really, Uncle Lawrence,
I see no such profound sin or shame in it all, so long as
I honestly pay the scot. Do I cheat at cards? Do I lie in
the gutters?”
“No!” answered Lawrence.
“Do I steal?”
“Not that I know,” said the other.
“Please, Uncle Lawrence, what do you mean, then?”
“I mean the way, the spirit in which you do things. If you
are not conscious of it, how can I make you? I can not say
more than I have. I came merely—”
“As a handwriting upon the wall, Uncle Lawrence?”
Lawrence Newt rose and stood a little back from the
table.
“Yes, if you choose, as a handwriting on the wall. Abel,
when the prodigal son came to himself, he rose and went to
his father. I came to ask you to return to yourself.”
“From these husks, Sir?” asked Abel, as he looked around
[ILLUSTRATION]
"Thou Art The Man!"
[Description: 538EAF. Page 314. One man sits with his feet up smoking a cigar while a second man stands in front of him. He has a top hat in one hand and is pointing towards the seated man with his other.]
his luxurious rooms, his eye falling last upon the French
print of Lucille, fresh from the bath.
Lawrence Newt looked at his nephew with profound gravity.
The young man lay back in his chair, lightly holding his
cigar, and carelessly following the smoke with his eye. The
beauty and intelligence of his face, the indolent grace of his
person, seen in the soft light of the lamp, and set like a picture
in the voluptuous refinement of the room, touched the imagination
and the heart of the older man. There was a look of
earnest, yearning entreaty in his eyes as he said,
“Abel, you remember Milton's Comus?”
The young man bowed.
“Do you think the revelers were happy?”
Abel smiled, but did not answer. But after a few minutes
he said, with a smile,
“I was not there.”
“You are there,” answered Lawrence Newt, with uplifted
finger, and in a voice so sad and clear that Abel started.
The two men looked at each other silently for a few moments.
“Good-night, Abel.”
“Good-night, Uncle Lawrence.”
The door closed behind the older man. Abel sat in his
chair, intently thinking. His uncle's words rang in his memory.
But as he recalled the tone, the raised finger, the mien,
with which they had been spoken, the young man looked
around him, and seemed half startled and frightened by the
stillness, and awe-struck by the midnight hour. He moved
his head rapidly and arose, like a person trying to rouse himself
from sleep or nightmare. Passing the mirror, he involuntarily
started at the haggard paleness of his face under the
clustering black hair. He was trying to shake something off.
He went uneasily about the room until he had lighted a
match, and a candle, with which he went into the next room,
still half-looking over his shoulder, as if fearing that something
dogged him. He opened the closet where he kept his
wine. He restlessly filled a large glass and poured it down
his throat—not as if he were drinking, but as if he were taking
an antidote. He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and
half-smiled a sickly smile.
But still his eyes wandered nervously to the spot in which
his uncle had stood; still he seemed to fear that he should see
a ghostly figure standing there and pointing at him; should
see himself, in some phantom counterpart, sitting in the chair.
His eyes opened as if he were listening intently. For in the
midnight he thought he heard, in that dim light he thought
he saw, the Prophet and the King. He did not remember
more the words his uncle had spoken. But he heard only,
“Thou art the man! Thou art the man!”
And all night long, as he dreamed or restlessly awoke, he
heard the same words, spoken as if with finger pointed—
“Thou art the man! Thou art the man!”
