Fashion and Famine

by Ann S. Stephens

Jacob looked into his master's eyes with a calm stare: "Look at me, Mr. Leicester! I have grown since you saw me at old Mr. Wilcox's! No doubt you have forgotten the awkward boy, who tended your horse, and pointed out the best trout streams for you? But I—I shall never forget! No angry looks—no frowns, sir! The rocks we climbed together would feel them more than I do."

"Go on—go on—I would learn more," said Leicester, paling fearfully about the mouth. "You have been a spy in my service!"

"Yes—a spy—a keeper of your most dangerous secrets! I read the letter from Georgia—I have that old copy-book, which was to have sent Robert Otis, my own nephew, to state prison. There is a check of ten thousand, which I can lay my hand on at any moment—you comprehend! I saw it written—I saw it pass from your hand to his. I was in the back room. Villain! I am your master."

The palor spread up from Leicester's mouth to his temples, leaving a dusky ring around his eyes. For the first time in his life, this man of evil and stern will was terrified. Yet wrath was stronger in his heart than fear, even then. His white lips curled in fierce disdain. He turned towards Ada, who lay with her face buried in the silken pillows, conscious of nothing but her own unutterable wretchedness. She did not feel the fiendish glance that he cast upon her; but Jacob saw it, and his grey eyes kindled, till they seemed black as midnight: "If you wish to see another, come in here—come, I say! Victims are plenty about you; come in."

Jacob looked terribly imposing in this burst of indignation. His awkward form dilated into rude grandeur—his wrath, ponderous and intense, rolled forth like some fathomless stream, whose very tranquillity is terrible. He flung his powerful arm around Leicester, and drew him forward as if he had been a child.

Through the dressing-room, still flooded with soft light and redolent of flowers, and into the bed-chamber beyond, Jacob strode, grasping his companion firmly with one arm. He paused close by the bed. With an upward motion of his arms, he flung aside the cloud of lace that fell over it, and pointed to a form that lay underneath, pillowed, as it were, upon a snow drift. "Look! here is another!" said Jacob, towering above the man who had been his master—for there was no stoop in his shoulders then—"look! it is your last victim—to all eternity, the last!"

Leicester did look, for his gaze was fascinated by the soft eyes lifted to his from the pillow; the sweet, sweet smile that played around that lovely mouth. It went to his soul—that impenetrable soul—that Ada's anguish had failed to reach.

"She heard it all. She saw everything that passed between you and your wife," said Jacob.

"What—and smiles upon me thus?" There was something of human feeling in his voice. He stooped down, and put back some raven tresses that fell over the eyes that were searching for his.

Then the smile broke into a laugh so wild with insane glee, that even Leicester shuddered and drew back. Florence started up in the bed. The lace of her wedding garments was crushed around her form—her arms were entangled in the rich white veil which still clung, torn and ragged, to the diamond star fastened over her temple. The cypress and jessamine wreath, half torn away, hung in fragments among her black tresses. She saw that Leicester avoided her, and tearing the veil fiercely, set both her arms free. She leaned half over the bed, holding them out, as a child aroused from sleep, pleads for its mother. Leicester drew near, for a fiend could not have resisted that look. She caught both his hands, drew herself up to his bosom, and then began to laugh again.