The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-10-01
CHAPTER. XIII

suutc VI IoomS OH irving pace, one OF
the bivouacs of Bohemia. Delatole and
he had parted in q silence that was sui.
try.
His plunges in Wall street kept him
we'll supplied with money for the time
being, and of the future he thought but
little.
The secret had changed its aspect. He
no longer cared to face it. 1t was now
a monstrous fear maddening him with
whispers of a hundred possibilities, prod
ding him, sending out false alarms and
slowly chilling his assurance into an
ever present premonition. Since the day
Felix Dawson left him with the declara-
ton, ''Oh, yes, I'll have it back" he had
not seen nor heard of him. This abso-
lutte withdrawal was more significant
than threats. Suppose he had incon-
testable proof, after all? What if ho
lied when he said he had no copy? What
if he could produce witnesses to prove
he had written the play? Would this
man some day appear again, relentless
i'll his quiet way, and hurl the bomb
shell that would bring his false life in
ruins about his ears?
His rupture with Delatole-that, too,
made him uneasy. Oh, it was load
from his heart to have told him the truth.
to have seen the sullen surprise deepen
into Il stolid hatred in his horrid eyes. 1t
was relief. IL balm, but it brought a
danger in its wake. Suppose they met,
these two who for different reasons
would rejoice in his overthrow. Then
indeed might he shudder. a; "latole would
follow the scent insatial/.. He would
come like yulture to pick his bones.
Even if proof were not possible he would
SO damn him with suspicion, so besmeur
him with the trail of his innuendoes, so
riddle him with the darts of his acrid
humor, his prestige would be lost for
ever. Delatole had the power, the OPP
portunity and the answering patience
to write an enemy down and out of ex-
istence.
These dangers lay in wait for him at
some turning i'll the darkness beyond his
vision. But there was something more
terrible-a voice that spoke to him as no
living voice could. Mystic and person
al. it came from his soul Conscience
like the giant of fairy lore, sometimes
awakens refreshed and hungry from n
seven years sleep. III this interval of
inaction 1T was impossible for Tom to
look back OH the short life he had so
quickly and completely degraded and
feel no pang.
The heartburning, the anxiety, left
their haggard marks upon his face. He
grew thin, he became morose and mel
ancholy. His world lost sight of him,
but hidden i'll some corner of the crowd
ed theater, driven there by Il restless fas-
cination, by the same resistless impulse
which forces the murderer to feast his
shrinking eyes upon his victim. he night
~ watched the play that told him in
every line he was thief.
His nights were sleepless and filled
with fears--intolerahle links between
morbid, feyerish t'.,ys 30 1.anl: heavi-
~, trying to find in The aaning odors of
brandy an assua cement for the ache i'll
his heart.
This was Toms life now. And across
this waste, like a pale ray trembling
from pure, open skies, came IL longing,
persistent as a thirst, TO see Virginia.
He could not account for it. IT was
not that he fancicd their friendship
might be in any degree renewed, indeed
at this period, never more undeservlng
Of glance from her eyes. But the de-
sire was there. not forcible enough to
send him seeking her, yet with him al
ways. While fearing, half expecting to
come face to face with Dawson, he was
unconsciously looking for her OH the
streets, in shops and at the theater.
Two years had passed, and he had new
err CHANGED upon her. Such thing could
only be possible III a city like New York,
where interests lie so widely apart and
life rushes in great circles, one within
another, never meeting. Virginia was
scarcely Il mile from him, yet not seek
ing each other they could not have been
more separate had they lived in different
towns. Bohemia and Chelsea square are
antithetic-the one all fever, struggle,
laughter, frailty, the other somnolent in
an odor of sanctity, ruffled only by trem-
ulous chimes as the days walk demurely
on.
Yet, so strange is the affinity between
thought and sequence, Tom felt scarcely
any surprise when one night at the thea
ter he lifted his languid eyes and saw
Virginia in a lower box.
There she was as he had so often pic
tured her through these useless, feverish,
fear haunted days. His sick soul ragged
with yearning, and in all the crowded,
half lit house he only saw her face. He
scarcely seemed to breathe. His eyes
devoured her. The dear face! There
was no other like it in the world.
The light was i'll her eyes, the red in
her arching lips. the soft fire of expect