She rose quietly and carried the candle to Abel. There was an
inexpressible weariness and pathos in all her movements: a kind of
womanly tranquillity that was touchingly at variance with the impression
of her half-coarse appearance. As Abel watched her he remembered the
women whom he had tried to marry. His memory scoured through his whole
career. He thought of them all variously happy.
"I swear! to think I should come to you!" he said at length, looking at
his companion, with an indescribable bitterness of sneering.
Kitty Dunham sat at a little distance from him on the end of a sofa. She
was bowed as if deeply thinking; and when she heard these words her head
only sank a little more, as if a palpable weight had been laid upon her.
She understood perfectly what he meant.
"I know I am not worth loving," she said, in the same low voice, "but my
love will do you no harm. Perhaps I can help you in some way. If you are
ill some day, I can nurse you. I shall be poor company on the long
journey, but I will try."
"What long journey?" asked Abel, suddenly and angrily.
"Where we are going," she replied, gently.
"D---- it, then, don't use such am-am-big-'us phrases. A man would think
we were go-going to die."
She said no more, but sat, half-crouching, upon the sofa, looking into
the fire. Abel glanced at her, from time to time, with maudlin grins and
sneers.
"Go to bed," he said at length; "I've something to do. Sleep all you can;
you'll need it. I shall stay here 'till I'm ready to go, and come for you
in the morning."
"Thank you," she answered, and rose quietly. "Good-night!" she said.
"Oh! good-night, Mrs. De-de-liah--superb Jo-Jones!"
He laughed as she went--sat ogling the fire for a little while, and then
unsteadily, but not unconsciously, drew a pocket-book from his pocket and
took out a small package. It contained several notes, amounting to not
less than a hundred thousand dollars signed by himself, and indorsed by
Lawrence Newt & Co.--at least the name was there, and it was a shrewd eye
that could detect the difference between the signature and that which was
every day seen and honored in the street.
Abel looked at them carefully, and leered and glared upon them as if they
had been windows through which he saw something--sunny isles, and luxury,
and a handsome slave who loved him to minister to every whim.
"'Tis a pretty game," he said, half aloud; "a droll turnabout is life.
Uncle Lawrence plays against other people, and wins. I play against Uncle
Lawrence, and win. But what's un-dred--sousand--to--him?"
He said it drowsily, and his hands unconsciously fell. He was asleep in
his chair.
He sat there sleeping until the gray of morning. Kitty Dunham, coming
into the room ready-dressed for a journey, found him there. She was
frightened; for he looked as if he were dead. Going up to him she shook
him, and he awoke heavily.
"What the h----'s the matter?" said he, as he opened his sleepy eyes.
"Why, it's time to go."
"To go where?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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