The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1893-09-18
CHAPTER KIN.

The next fortnight saw an important
change in Toms life. He left the Uni.
versity building and took q cheaper
suite of rooms ON Irving place, one of
the bivouacs of Bohemia. Delatole and
ne had parted in silence that was sui.
try.
His plunges in Wall street kept him
well 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
monstrous fear maddening him with
whispers of 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-
tion, "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 he
lied when he said he had no copy? What
6 hs could produce witnesses to prove
he had written the play? Would this
man some day appear again, relentless
IN 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 o stolid hatred in his horrid eyes. 1t
was q relief, Q balm, but it brought
danger in its wake. Suppose they met,
these two VINO for different reasons
would rejoice in his overthrow. Then
indeed might he shudder. -, ,elatole would
follow the scent insatial/. He would
come like q vulture to pick his bones.
Even IL proof were not possible he would
80 damn him with suspicion, so besmear
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 in 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, il came from his soul. Conscience,
like the giant of fairy lore, sometimes
awakens refreshed and hungry from a
seven years sleep In this interval of
inaction it was impossible for Tom to
look back on the short life he had SO
quickly and completely degraded and
feel no pang.
The heartburning, the anxiety, left
their haggar6 marks upon his face. He
grew thin. he became morose and mel
ancholy. His world lost sight of him.
but hidden in some corner of the crowd
ed theater, driven there by restless fas-
cination, by the samc resistless impulse
which forces the murderer to feast his
shrinking eyes upon his victim. he night
1y watche,l the play that told him in
every line he was thief.
His nights were sleepless and filed
with fears-intolerable links between
morbid. foyerish days. He drank heavi-
ly, trying to find in the flaming odors OF
brandy an assuagement for the ache in
his heart.
This was Toms life now. And across
this waste, like pale ray trembling
from pure, open skies, came longing,
persistent as thirst, TO see Virginia.
He could not account for it. II was
not that he fancied their friendship
might be in any degree renewed, indeed
he never seemed farther from her than
ut this period. never more undeserving
+ 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 10 face with Dawson, he was
unconsciously looking for her on the
streets, in shops and at the theatcr.
Two years had passed, and he had new
er chanced upon her. Such thing could
only be possible in city hike New York,
where interests lie so widely apart and
hfe rushes In great circles, one within
smother. never meeting. Virginia was
scarcely mile from him, yet not seek
rs eech other they could not have been