Constance Trescot

Susan Hood had been a week at St. Ann before she was able to learn anything of the design, so steadily held, that had brought Constance back to a place which she, at least, wished never to see again.

She found the house made pretty and far more comfortable, and a part of the back porch converted into a conservatory. There were riding-horses,—the best they had ever had,—and, in fact, every sign of intention to make St. Ann a place of long, if not permanent, residence.

It seemed also to Susan that there was more cordiality in the many women and the few men who dropped in after their easy Southern way. Evidently there was here some change. It had never been her sister’s habit or desire to be on terms of cordial relation to society at large, so that her present absence of reserve, and her rather watchful eagerness to please everybody, for a time puzzled the elder woman.

No one entered Trescot’s library except Constance. She herself kept it dusted, neat, and unchanged. Susan understood why, being Constance, she should spend daily certain hours alone where Trescot had lived with her and his books. “It would not have been my way,” said Susan; “but, then, I am commonplace.” She thought unwholesome her sister’s attitude in the presence of a great calamity, and found, too, something that seemed to her false in the contrasted aspects of Constance’s life. Then, as usual with her, she convicted herself of ignorant want of charity, having never been in love; and said she must really rid herself of what she called cynicism—as if the cynical are themselves ever conscious of the quality.

A week after her arrival they were seated alone before the fire, now grateful at close of day in the November weather.

“Constance,” said Susan, “tell the maid not to let in any visitors. I want to talk to you. We are so rarely alone, and this constant effort to be agreeable to people you certainly were once far from liking is rather surprising.”

Constance, ignoring a part of her sister’s indictment, said: “My dear, you can’t choose here whom you will see. I never refuse to see people. They don’t understand it. At St. Ann you are always at home if you are in.”

“You must have changed your ways, Conny.”

“Yes, I have,” she returned, with a glance at Susan, who was busily cutting the leaves of a book.

She was at once aware that it would not long be possible to hide from so acute an observer as Susan what she was doing, and why she had returned to St. Ann. Indeed, she confessed to herself a certain prospect of relief in being able to break down the barriers of reserve which she had set up. The old affection, strangely weakened by her marriage and her incapacity to care deeply for more than one person at a time, was returning in full force. When she had confessed that, as Susan said, she had changed, both were silent for a moment, when Susan returned:

“You have been unlike my Constance all summer. I can understand that grief like yours may take many forms; but while abroad you would see no one, not even the most interesting people; here you see every one, even that plaintive little shrivel of a woman, Miss Althea. What brought you here, Constance?”

“I knew that you would ask. It is very simple. A man has murdered my husband and utterly wrecked my life. I tried—oh, very hard!—to accept it as other women accept such things. I could not. I know I shall shock you when I say that for a time I thought of suicide. Then it seemed to me that I must kill him. If I had been a man he would have been dead to-day.”

“Oh, sister! How can you say such things?”

Taking no notice of the gentle protest, Constance continued:

“I gave it up because death is no punishment; it merely destroys the power to feel and suffer. I want that man to feel such anguish as he brought into my life, and I want to know that he suffers. I came here resolved to find some way to make him wretched. I know now that he is sensitive. It seems incredible, but he is. And let me say once for all that I shall go my way, and I shall succeed—I know I shall succeed in making his life unbearable—oh, such as he has made mine!”

Susan had thought of many explanations of her sister’s return, but certainly not of this. She had ceased using the paper-knife, and, as Constance spoke with increasing passion, closed the book. A look at the stern, set face, so white, so beautiful, made the elder woman sure that here was a side of character which was serious and new to her, and not to be dealt with lightly. Turning to her sister, she exclaimed: “Dear, dear sister, drop this; come away with me. Let us go abroad again.”

“No.”

“But it is horrible, and what can you do? Think how that dear fellow would have felt. Think what he did feel even in the face of insult; how patiently he bore with the behavior of these people. Oh, Conny!”

“You may rest assured, Susan, that I have thought of all that; but I am not like you—nor, alas! like him. I have no beliefs which teach me to sit down and cry and pretend to forgive. I don’t believe that any one ever does forgive a wrong so cruel. I, at least, cannot, and I never will—never!”

“You can do nothing. Your lives are far apart. What can you do? Even if revenge were right, you are helpless.”

It seemed to Susan’s common sense past belief.

“And, dear,” she went on, “suppose the impossible; suppose you ruin this wretch, make him suffer, what good will it do?”

“It will make me happy—as happy as I can ever be.”

“Happy, Constance! Can revenge bring happiness? Will it not serve only to keep open wounds which ought to close? Does it not keep in your mind thoughts of a bad man, in place of the beauty and nobleness of the man whose death you wish to avenge? To be in thought a murderer—to wish to kill—that seems to me so dreadful that I ask myself if you can be your own self, or if disease or shock has changed you. Let it all go—oh, dear Conny, let it go. Leave it to God to deal with this man. Be sure that in the end he will repay. He has his ways.”

Constance stood up. “His ways—yes. Suppose I am the instrument of his justice. Why not? How do you know? That seems horrible to you; but I can’t help it; we have no common ground. I have love, and loss, and hate; you have never known them. Leave me to do what I think right, for neither man nor woman can turn me nor stop me. I will never willingly speak of this again, and neither must you.”

Puzzled, worried, and hurt, Susan saw that to reason would be vain; that the appeal of affection was thus lightly put aside filled her with slowly gathering anger.

“I shall do now as you say; but I make no promises. You surely do not expect me to help you.”

“I do not. I want you to be the dear, good woman you are. I shall neither ask nor need help.”

“You certainly will not get it from me; I think it wicked, foolish.”

“Yes, yes,” said Constance; “from your point of view, not from mine. But you will not love me the less? I could not bear that. Only, dear, let us never talk of this any more. I am not a child. I am not hysterical or insane. I shall not trouble your life. We will live like other people. Now, that is all.” She bent over and kissed the elder sister, who sat staring into the fire, her hands clasped about her knees. Accepting the kiss coldly, Susan looked up, but finding no comfort in the set face of her sister, her own eyes full of tears,—for she loved with a deep and changeless love, and wished to be able to respect as well as to love,—she rose and said as she stood: “I shall never have a moment’s peace; I shall always be thinking of what you may do. You have made me very unhappy.”

“I am sorry,” said Constance.

Susan left her, saying: “I wish you were more sorry.”

Despite her assertion of certainty, Constance was not secure as to what her future course should be; while Susan, as their life went on in its usual way, regained her belief that Constance would some day acknowledge her schemes to be as absurd as they appeared to her own good sense.

In the morning, a few days later, Constance was leaving General Averill’s house when she saw, for only the second time since her return, the largely built figure of Greyhurst. He came upon her suddenly as she stood at the gate between the high rows of box. His face changed. He half raised his hand in obedience to the habit of salute, dropped it, and went on.

She turned out of the gate, paused a moment, and followed him. Half-way down the slope to the main street he looked back. He saw twenty feet behind him the tall, black-robed woman. He turned to go up the main street. It was the busy hour near to noon. Both were familiar figures. People looked after them in wonder. Two gentlemen in talk on the board sidewalk lifted their hats as she went by, and, observing Greyhurst in front of her, remarked on it as strange. Did Greyhurst know who was behind him? Did she recognize the man? They passed on. At his office he looked back once more. She was very near, and had raised her veil. She met his gaze with steady eyes. He saw the white face with its look of immeasurable pain, and, passing into the house, fell on a chair, limp and wet with the sudden sweat of an emotion akin to terror.

Nor was she less observant. She was aware of the quick change in a face where all expressions revealed themselves with distinctness, and went on her way with her share of a moment of agitation, murmuring: “I must be to him like a ghost. I know now that he suffers—and he shall suffer.”

From that time she was more frequently seen in the morning hours on the one busy street of the town. Now and then, as if by chance, she came upon the man she sought, but was careful not to overdo that which would lose force by repetition. Twice she followed him on his homeward way. The last time was at dusk. He became aware of her presence as he left the verge of the town and turned into West Street. She kept her place some few paces behind him. He did not look back, but was terribly conscious of her nearness. He could not have described or analyzed the form of distress which knowledge of her presence brought upon him. He longed to look back at her, and was sure that to do so would abruptly freshen the memory of all he desired to forget. Now, for the first time, he felt fear in its purity—such fear as the child has when going up-stairs in the dark—fear unassociated with a definite object or distinct idea.

At his own gate he turned and looked back. The tall black figure was but ten steps away. Of a sudden, obeying one of those unreasonable impulses to which he was subject, he went toward her.

For a moment she was afraid, but did not move. He stopped before her and said: “My God! have you no pity? Cannot you see how I suffer?”

“Suffer!” she cried. “I am glad that you suffer! Pity? I have for you such pity as you had for him and me!”

With no more words, she crossed the street, and her dark figure was lost in the deepening gloom. The man looked after her for a moment, and then walked back to his house, and, moving heavily, went up the steps, murmuring, “My God! my God!”

Before this he had thought it hardly strange that he met her so often, for every one met almost daily in the one business street. He had felt it keenly. But now he became certain that she had of purpose chosen to meet and follow him. This sudden sense of being causelessly afraid for a little while occupied his consciousness to the shutting out of other thought. He was a man who had been in battle fearless, and so rash as to be blamed for leading his men into needless peril. What now did he dread? He did not know, and that troubled him. These revelations of what lies hidden in the abysses of the mind are, at times, startling evidence of how little we know of the world of self. That it was not physical fear was what disturbed him most.

When seated in his library, he succeeded in fastening his attention on the tangled accounts of a bankrupt client’s business. He was apt at figures and liked to deal with them. After two hours of hard work he began to consider the situation in which he was placed. To have it continue would be intolerable. He had to be absent for a week, but must return for a day to speak at or near the county town. Then he was to go to California and attend to certain mining interests in which the governor and other political friends were concerned. He would be away at least two months, and, for more than one reason, looked forward with relief to this absence, and with hope as to what it might bring into his life.

However adroitly Constance managed to make her encounters with Greyhurst seem to be accidental, the fact that she did not avoid him, as most women so situated would have done, excited very natural surprise in the little town.

When it became common knowledge that she purposely followed him, the interest and consequent gossip increased. She had made herself liked, but now even her closest friends felt her actions to be indecorous and inexplicably out of relation to an existence so full of good sense and so notable for well-bred regard for the decencies of life. When Mrs. Averill, greatly distressed by the gossip which soon came to her ears, thought proper to talk of Constance to Susan Hood, the latter became fully awakened to the results of her sister’s behavior.

To reason with her would be vain. For a moment she thought of the new rector, with whom she had formed friendly relations, but knew, alas! how futile would be that resort. Mrs. Averill, remembering her former defeat, was indisposed to renew her own efforts, and at last laid the matter before her husband, who had already heard quite too much of it.

He said: “My dear Eleanor, a lady without a husband usually relies on one of two men—her preacher or her doctor. Ask Dr. Eskridge to see her. He ought to be able to influence her, if any one can. He is a gentleman and will see this outrageous conduct in a proper light. As concerns myself, I can do nothing, and whether she annoys that man or not I do not care. But Constance must not be talked about. I had to stop some young fellows at the club last night.”

“Do you think, Edward, that the man feels it?”

“Yes; you asked me that before. This, or something, is affecting him deeply. Ever since he killed poor Trescot he has been—well, softer, less easily put out. But of late he is moody and silent; every one notices it.”

“I wish he would go away, or that she would. However, I will talk to Susan, who is in despair, and I will see the doctor.”

She did both, and, as a consequence, the next morning Dr. Eskridge called on Mrs. Trescot. He led a busy life, and she had seen but little of the cheerful, ruddy, rather stout old man with small bright eyes and alert ways. He had been at one time in charge of the State asylum for the insane, and then, during the war, a surgeon in Pickett’s division of the Confederate army.

While waiting for Mrs. Trescot he looked at the pictures, and then fell with interest upon a magazine, which he laid down as Constance with both hands made him welcome, reproaching him with neglect of an old patient.

“If I come I stay too long, and I am a busy old fellow. I was reading in this journal an account of Pickett’s charge. I was behind his line and got somehow too near. I have still a memorial in my leg. May I take the journal home?”

“Of course. My husband was on the hill. How strange it all seems!”

He looked at the mournful figure and the sad white face, and said to her:

“You will not mind my saying that I and others of our old army both liked and respected your husband.”

“Oh, I know, I know. And he was so sure of the soldiers—so patient with the feeling against us! Oh, doctor, why did I bring him here? He did not want to come. I urged it. I am so unhappy!”

It was the usual story. We must confess to some one—a priest, or, better, to the large, wise charity of the doctor. It was a relief to the woman, who was indisposed to talk of her husband even to Susan, and still less to pour out to any one else her abiding regret at having allowed her eager love to overrule George Trescot’s wish to wait until he could offer her a home in Boston.

“I was wrong,” she said; “and it was I who killed him. But for me, he would be alive now—now!”

“My dear,” he said, “we do what seems best to us, and who can predict the far-away results? I tell a man to go to Europe, and the ship goes down at sea. Am I to blame?”

“Oh, that is different. I was selfish. I did not do what was best. I should have known it was not. I loved as few women love. I could not wait; I wanted him near me always. I should be ashamed to confess how I felt. How did I come to speak of it? I never do.”

He saw that she was wiping her eyes as he returned:

“You are in a mood to assume blame. You are wrong. Mr. Trescot was fully advised by older men, his friends, that it was wise to come here. And, after all, I am right, and there is no use in our vain regrets. If we use the errors or mistakes of the past to wreck our present and make us useless—what of that?”

“Am I useless, doctor?”

He saw that he was astray, and said: “No; I must be pardoned—you are not; but if I am not mistaken, you are doing that which will surely end in ruining your health and making you useless.”

She drew herself up and regarded him with steady eyes. This man understood her and the strain to which she was subjecting herself. That, too, was a relief.

“I am sure that you know I am right,” he urged. “And let me say a few words more. You are exciting talk and gossip by what you are doing. Your sister and your friends are hurt and troubled and—pardon me—ashamed.”

“They have asked you to come here and try to make me do as other weak, helpless women have done?”

“Yes; but I should not so state it.”

“Doctor, you are the one person I can or will talk to freely of this matter. Listen to me.”

“I will.”

“This man murdered my husband. If he had killed your wife, you would have shot him as you would any other wild beast.”

“I would,” he said.

“This accursed town goes through the farce of a trial. He is free. He prospers. Except a few, who cares for the death of a Yankee officer? The man will go to the legislature—perhaps, some day, to Congress. At first people are a little shocked. It was pretty bad, they say. Does no one here punish a murderer? No one! I, at least, cannot sit down and do nothing. I am still too much of a woman to kill him; and, after all, death does not punish—or, if it does, should I ever know? I mean to ruin this man, and I can. These mild women who love in their weak way are shocked. What does that matter to me?”

“I will tell you how it matters,” he said. “I have heard you rave in your illness. I, at least, can understand; I, at least, cannot altogether blame you. But there are two or three things I want to urge upon you. I do not propose to discuss the right and wrong of this matter; but I entreat you to listen to me as patiently as I have listened to you.”

“I will do so.”

“You are following Greyhurst at times. No, do not interrupt me; let me have my say. It has excited unpleasant talk—too unpleasant to repeat. At the club and among the women it is discussed”—he hesitated—“even laughed at.” He knew how bitter was the medicine. “I wish to be frank with you. I know this man. He is by birth and early breeding a gentleman. I am making no plea for him. Who, indeed, could? I am sure that not only has he not escaped self-torment, but that your following him is probably a severe punishment. But what of yourself?”

“Of myself, doctor? I have never in this matter given myself a thought.”

“No, no; and that is the trouble. You are thinking of one thing, and are regardless of everything else, of every one else—of sister, friends, of all who love you. If any woman I did not know and like as I do you were to take so petty a mode of avenging a wrong as great as you have suffered, I should not hesitate to say how it looks to me and to those you cannot fail to respect.”

“What do you mean, doctor?”

“I mean that it is vulgar.”

She colored slightly. “You have certainly the courage of your opinions—”

“And, too,” he said, “a very great regard for a lady who should be far above the use of such means.”

Nothing he had said or could have said affected her as did this sentence. She saw it all in a minute, and gave way at once.

“If it be true that he suffers through me, I am glad to have hurt the man. But I see the force of what you say. I shall not do as I have done; and there are other ways which will neither annoy my friends nor make me seem ridiculous.”

“Thank you,” he said, well pleased. “But that is not all. You speak of other ways. Take care. The steady thinking on anything that involves emotion is full of peril to a woman like you; in fact, to any one, man or woman.”

“I know that. It is true, and I am guarding myself with care. I have taught myself to deal coldly with this matter. I keep myself busy. I ride; I read; I draw; I go among your poor. I have had my lesson.”

“But what do you mean to do?”

“Now there, my dear doctor, I must stop. I do not know. I mean to ruin this man, to drive him to despair.”

As she spoke the doctor considered her resolute face. He had an insecure belief that she would in some way compass her ends. She would collect this debt of vengeance, with usury thereto. How she would do it he could not imagine. He expressed his doubts, and even more than he felt, in the hope of inducing her to give up altogether her use of means full of danger to her mental health. She turned on him at last with her reply:

“You say that I am powerless and that I shall not only harm myself, but hurt all who love me, and yet do this man no real injury. I want one friend who will credit me with not being a fool, and what I say is for you alone.”

“That, of course, Mrs. Trescot.”

She then told him what she had done with the telegram and the letter.

“I cannot blame you,” he said, as she finished a perfectly calm statement. “I do not blame you. I shall say no more. I had far rather you left vengeance to Him who soon or late is sure to punish as man cannot. I see that I, at least, am unable to convince you. But take care; you are on a dark and dangerous way. I shall say no more to Mrs. Averill than that you will occasion no further talk by what you do.”

“Yes,” she said, rising; “thank you, my good doctor. I shall be glad to have you put an end to this gossip. Good-by.”

He went out to his gig, saying to himself as he drove away: “The man is doomed. If she persists he will do something—God knows what. He will be unable to bear it. These sensitive people never can stand still and wait. They are always nettled into doing something.” He began to consider, as he drove into the country, whether he had ever seen any one like Constance Trescot. He at last smiled with the satisfied nod of a man who has found what he was looking for. There was something feline in her delicate ways, her grace of movement, her neatness, the preservation of primitive passions and instincts, her satisfaction in the chase and in torturing. “Let us add,” said the old doctor, “the human intelligence, and we have her. Get up, Bob! It is as near as we shall ever get.”

Two days later the doctor received a note:

“But she stayed, for all that,” said the doctor. “How will it end?”

Others were as curious; and over the cocktails and juleps at the club on the evening of the stump-speaking, the ex-Confederates and others discussed this novel vendetta. As the doctor entered with Colonel Dudley, a young fellow was describing the scene and the evident effect upon Greyhurst. Another, a little older, said: “I saw her follow him down the street. How the deuce could she want to come back here? It must be awful.”

“Yes; for him.”

Said Dudley: “You boys had better drop that. I took this lady to the meeting. No one knew that Mr. Greyhurst was to speak. And let me, as an old fellow, remind you that we do not discuss ladies here.”

“Oh, but, colonel, this was such an amazing thing.”

“Would make a good article,” said the editor, as they sat down.

“But never will, sir,” remarked the doctor, sharply, over the shrubbery of his julep.

“Of course not,” said the editor.

The young fellows apologized, and the colonel began to chat with the doctor.

A few minutes later Greyhurst entered the smoke-filled room. Without speaking to any one else, he went over to where Dudley sat. “Will you do me the favor to speak to me a few minutes? Not outside,” he added a little louder, as men looked around. The old Confederate rose, saying, “Of course; but let no one take away my julep.”

“Not outside,” Greyhurst repeated. “Up-stairs, colonel.”

Dudley followed him to the room above, where were two candles, some chairs, a poker-table, and mildewed walls.

“Let us sit down,” said Greyhurst. “I shall not keep you long.”

“Very good; it is chilly here. What is it?”

Greyhurst said: “You will, I know, pardon me if I am wrong; but you as much as told me I must leave the board of the orphan home. I have since learned, or inferred, that Mrs. Trescot was behind the matter.”

“Yes, in a way; indirectly. In fact, I have no reason to conceal from you that she declined to leave in the hands of the managers the money she gave, because you were on the board. I thought her justified, but of course I could not bring a lady’s name into the matter when I talked to you.” Dudley was not a man to excuse his actions. He expected an angry answer. To his surprise, Greyhurst said quietly:

“Yes, she was justified. May I ask if, when you rode out with her to the meeting this afternoon, you were aware that I was to speak?”

“I was not. Is that all?” asked the colonel, as he stood up.

“Yes, that is all,” said Greyhurst, in tones both sad and gentle; “and, sir, I trust that you will accept my excuses for such unusual questions.”

“It is all right,” said the colonel. Then, seeing that Greyhurst still lingered, standing, with one thumb on the table, something struck him in this large, square-shouldered man with the dark eyes. Either curiosity or faintly felt pity, or both, made him say:

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes; if I may keep you a few minutes.”

“Pray, go on.”

“I am in a situation, Colonel Dudley, which is very unusual. I was unfortunate a year ago—most unfortunate; and since Mrs. Trescot has returned to St. Ann I fear that my presence, our accidental encounters, our—well, I find it difficult to avoid her. I put it as a man must do about a lady. It has become unendurable.” He did not wish to complain that he was haunted by this living ghost. He looked steadily at the old colonel, and added: “I hope I make myself understood?” He was unwilling to say that she followed him.

“I suppose,” said Dudley, coldly, “that I must admit that you do. It is plain enough as you put it—unusual, too, as you state; but let me add that I do not propose to discuss with you this lady’s course.”

Greyhurst said promptly: “I did not expect you to do that. I wish to ask advice of an older man as to what, as a gentleman, I should do.”

“I can’t give it, Mr. Greyhurst. There are reasons why even to be asked is disagreeable to me. I allowed you to question me in regard to my presence with Mrs. Trescot at that meeting. I answered you frankly. But I did not like it, sir; I did not like it. If I had declined to reply we should have quarreled. I think this talk had better end before my temper gives out—or yours.”

Greyhurst had been looking down as they talked, seeming to weigh his words. Now, with something like a wan smile on his dark face, he said quickly, as he looked up: “No man, Colonel Dudley, can ever quarrel with me again, or make me quarrel.”

Dudley’s face cleared as he said at once, in his frank, pleasant way: “I misunderstood. You must pardon me. I am free to say to you that, little as I like or approve this lady’s course, you, sir, can do nothing. I did not mean to advise, but now I have done so, and I have only this to add. None of us who know Mrs. Trescot are likely to stop her. I saw her at the meeting. If ever a woman hated a man, she hates you. Whether she is justified in her course or not, you know best. You have made me speak out, and I have had to express myself in a way, sir, which is not agreeable to me and cannot be pleasant to you.”

“I have said that she is justified,” said Greyhurst, slowly. “I have had no day since—since I killed that man which has not been full of regret. I do not hesitate to say so to you. But a man must live. I cannot go away; I have not the means. What can I do?”

“Do? Damn it! you can do nothing.”

“Thank you; that is my own unhappy conclusion. At all events, I shall be released for a time. I go to California next week, and shall be gone a month, or even two. You know, it is about Dexter’s mines.”

He said next, with a certain timidity: “Would you do me the great favor to allow me to refer to you some business matters while I am absent?”

Dudley hesitated, and then replied shortly: “Yes; tell them to come to me.”

“Thank you,” said Greyhurst.

Upon this, they went down-stairs in silence. As Greyhurst turned to go out, the old colonel, for the first time, put out his hand, saying: “I am sorry for you, Greyhurst, both for the past and for the present. Good night.”

The lawyer made no reply, and the colonel went back to his euchre and the julep and the doctor.

“I was afraid,” said the old army comrade, “that there might be something unpleasant.”

“No; but I had to speak my mind. He was as sweet-tempered as—well, as you are, doctor.”

“Then he is changed. In fact, since he killed Trescot he is strangely patient. Every one notices it.”

“Damn him!” said Dudley. “I don’t think he would even kill a fly now. Your deal, doctor.”

The game went on to the end, and the colonel, who had won, said, laughing: “You are not in your usual form, Eskridge.”

“No; my mind was elsewhere. I was thinking of Greyhurst, and what a mess he has made of his life. I do not believe the man has a friend in the world; and I suppose he quarrels with John Greyhurst as often as with others. Many of us are not our own friends. I doubt a little if he is even his own acquaintance.”

Dudley laughed. “You have a queer way of putting things.”

The doctor was in his speculative vein. He went on.

“It was simple murder, that good fellow’s death. I wonder how a man feels after he has done a thing like that. If he is educated and imaginative, and has power to feel, it must set him apart, as it were, in a kind of awful loneliness—a sort of solitary imprisonment in himself.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose men take it that way, Eskridge.”

“Some; not all. Of course there are brutes who have no power to suffer for what they do.”

“And you think this man does suffer?”

“I do. I am sure of it.”

“And so am I. Another julep, doctor?”

“No; I must go. I have one dying man to see, and there is another soul about to fill up the ranks. You see, I live on the skirmish-line of life.”

“What the deuce do you mean?”

“Oh, I leave you to digest my remark.” He went out, laughing.