"I suppose," replied the Judge, "that we are losing our atmosphere. Reeling it off, so to speak, slowly, as we revolve. Our planet has entered some portion of the ethereal space where the conditions are sucking us dry of oxygen. As it recedes from the earth the water disappears, and we shall be left to revolve like the moon, without air and without liquid, and consequently without life."
He said this meditatively, less as if he were answering my question than if he were formulating his own fears.
"Then," I remarked, "if this takes place gradually, the millions have got to struggle and writhe and fight together in suffocation. We can at least blow our brains out and cheat such a fate."
"I should hate," said the Judge, "to think that the man who was to marry Kate had not the bravery to face his destiny."
That was all that was said. We came down, and some ripples of intelligence reached us during the afternoon from one or two persons who made their way into the house. We learned that in the frenzy of fear the populace were committing the most extraordinary excesses. The shore line of the Atlantic was crowded with people, many of whom plunged into the ocean in the vain attempt to get away. The scenes in the city were too revolting to narrate, for a large class of the community, released from all restraint of moral and civil law, were bent on securing all the lawless pleasures that force could command, during the few hours that was left to them. And the line was steadily coming East. Chicago was cut off at twelve o'clock. And at four intelligence had ceased coming from Buffalo. At this time the sound of the winds was like the roar of the sea. I had torn myself away from the window where I had been staring at the now packed and struggling masses of people, and had locked myself in the room with the dead body of Kate. There was a vial of opium on her table that had been used for neuralgia; I swallowed it, and sat down by the bedside. I know not how long I remained there. But a loud report, as of a discharged cannon, roused me. I remember staggering and panting in the dark, with a semi-consciousness that the end had come, and I now know that report was occasioned by the bursting of the drums of my ears.
I remember nothing more. I have given you a plain statement of my experiences in that crisis, and I dare say they are uneventful enough by the side of the experiences of millions.
SHALL HE MARRY HER?
CHAPTER I
When I met Taylor at the club the other night, he looked so cheerful I scarcely knew him.
"What is it?" cried I, advancing with outstretched hand.
"I am going to be married," was his gay reply. "This is my last night at the club."
I was glad, and showed it. Taylor is a man for whom domestic life is a necessity. He has never been at home with us, though we all liked him and he, in his way, liked us.
"And who is the fortunate lady?" I inquired; for I had been out of town for some time and had not as yet been made acquainted with the latest society news.
"My intended bride is Mrs. Walworth, the young widow – "
He must have seen a change take place in my expression, for he stopped.
"You know her, of course," he added, after a short study of my face.
I had by this time regained my self-possession.
"Of course," I repeated, "and I have always thought her one of the most attractive women in town. Another shake upon it, old man?"
But my heart was heavy and my mind perplexed, notwithstanding the forced cordiality of my tones, and I took an early opportunity to withdraw by myself and think over the situation.
Mrs. Walworth! She was a pretty woman, and what was more, she was, to all appearance, a woman whose winning manners bespoke a kindly heart. "Just the person," I contemplated, "whom I would pick out for the helpmate of my somewhat exacting friend, if – " I paused on that if. It was a formidable one, and grew none the smaller or less important under my broodings. Indeed, it seemed to dilate until it assumed gigantic proportions, worrying me and weighing so heavily upon my conscience that I at last rose from the newspaper at which I had been hopelessly staring, and looking up Taylor again, asked him how soon he expected to become a Benedict.
His answer startled me. "In a week," he replied, "and if I have not asked you to the ceremony, it is because Helen is not in a position to – "
I supposed he finished the sentence, but I did not hear him. If the marriage was so near, of course it would be folly on my part to attempt to hinder it. I drew off for the second time.
But I could not remain easy. Taylor is a good fellow, and it would be a shame to allow him to marry a woman with whom he could never be happy. He would feel any such disappointment so keenly, so much more keenly than most men. A lack of principle or even of sensibility on her part, would make him miserable. Anticipating heaven, it would not take a hell to make him wretched, a purgatory would do it. Was I right, then, in letting him proceed in his intentions regarding Mrs. Walworth, when she possibly was the woman who – I paused and tried to call up her countenance before me. It was a sweet one and possibly a true one. I might have trusted her for myself, but I do not look for perfection and Taylor does, and will certainly go to the bad if he is deceived in his expectations. But in a week! It is too late for interference – only it is never too late till the knot is tied. As I thought of this, I decided impulsively, and perhaps you may say unwisely, to give him a hint of his danger, and I did it in this wise.
"Taylor," said I, when I had him safely in my own rooms, "I am going to tell you a bit of personal history, curious enough I think to interest you even upon the eve of your marriage. I do not know when I shall see you again, and I should like you to know how a lawyer and a man of the world can sometimes be taken in."
He nodded, accepting the situation good-humoredly, though I saw by the abstraction with which he gazed into the fire, that I should have to be very interesting to lure him from the thoughts that engrossed him. As I meant to be very interesting, this did not greatly concern me.
"One morning last spring," I began, "I received in my morning mail a letter, the delicate penmanship of which at once attracted my attention and awakened my curiosity. Turning to the signature, I read the name of a young lady friend of mine, and, somewhat startled at the thought that this was the first time I had ever seen the handwriting of one I knew so well, I perused the letter with an interest that presently became painful as I realized the tenor of its contents. I will not quote the letter, though I could, but confine myself to saying that after a modest recognition of my friendship for her – quite a fatherly friendship, I assure you, as she is only eighteen and I, as you know, am well on toward fifty – she proceeded to ask, in an humble and confiding spirit, for the loan – do not start – of fifty dollars. Such a request coming from a young girl, well connected, and with every visible sign of being generously provided for by her father, was certainly startling to an old bachelor of settled ways and strict notions, but remembering her youth and the childish innocence of her manner, I turned over the page and read as her reason for proffering such a request, that her heart was set upon aiding a certain poor family that stood in immediate need of food, clothes, and medicines, but that she could not do what she wished because she had already spent all the money allowed her by her father for such purposes, and dared not go to him for more, as she had once before offended him by doing this, and feared if she repeated her fault he would carry out the threat he had then made of stopping her allowance altogether. But the family was a deserving one and she could not see any member of it starve, so she came to me, of whose goodness she was assured, convinced I would understand her perplexity and excuse her – and so forth and so forth, in language quite childlike and entreating, which, if it did not satisfy my ideas of propriety, at least touched my heart, and made any action which I could take in the matter extremely difficult.