Surely there could have been no more remarkable coincidence than this proximity in "Willard's Magazine" of the work of Basil Everman and of Eleanor Bent. It seemed to Mrs. Lister that their connection must be blazoned thereby to the world, that the two compositions must bear on their faces evidence which the least discerning could interpret. Things done in secret could not be hidden; all her efforts of years to save the name of Basil from disgrace were of no avail before the power of God's law. She had given one painful, fascinated reading to the "Scarlet Letter"; to her, now, Basil and his companion were approaching the scaffold in the market-place for their final acknowledgment of common guilt.
After a few days she rose, white and trembling, from her bed and went once more into a suspicious world. She had faced it for twenty years, she would face it again.
But in spite of her terror, the coincidence apparently suggested nothing to Waltonville, brought back no damning recollection to any human being. The memory of mankind is short; that which she had desired was accomplished; Basil's swinging step, his bright eyes, his dark, beautiful hair were long ago forgotten; the step so like his, the eyes lit by the same fire, the mass of dark curls recalled his image as little as did this youthful writing connect itself with his work. As a matter of fact, Eleanor's account of a semi-pathetic, semi-humorous college incident was not in the least like Basil's work, but to Mary Alcestis writing was writing.
Waltonville's response to Basil's story was varied. Mrs. Scott did not think it in any way remarkable; it reminded her, she said, of the productions of Edgar Allan Poe, and was therefore a little old-fashioned.
"He gave us long ago our fill of horrors," said she lightly. "And I don't think this is even as horrible as 'The Black Cat' and it certainly doesn't compare with 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue.'"
With Utterly's opinions as a stepping-stone she had leaped far above him, as one might leap from a supporting hand into a high saddle. She talked until her husband blushed, until his soul writhed. As for Basil Everman's story, she thought Utterly had been absurd to talk about a thousand dollars.
"I warrant that Mrs. Lister has searched through every old trunk in the attic," said she.
Dr. Scott stirred with one of his uneasy little motions, but made no other answer. He was having a restless, unhappy summer, the worst he had passed since his marriage. There was literally nothing in life which was worth while. He longed to go away, he longed for the companionship of those with kindred tastes and gentle ways, he longed for a sight of the foreign lands of which he dreamed. He stood sometimes and looked about his house with its frivolous and worthless gauds; he thought of the bill for Mrs. Scott's outing, postponed a little this year beyond its usual date, and then of how simply one could live in Italy for a springtime.
Italy!—He took a book from his shelf and opened it.
"A city of marble, did I say? nay, rather a golden city, paved with emerald. For truly, every pinnacle and turret glanced or glowed, overlaid with gold or bossed with jasper. Beneath the unsullied sea drew in, deep breathing, to and fro, its eddies of green wave.... It lay along the face of the waters, no larger, as its captains saw it from their masts at evening, than a bar of the sunset that could not pass away; but for its power, it must have seemed to them that they were sailing in the expanse of heaven, and this a great planet whose orient edge widened through the ether. A world from which all ignoble care and petty thoughts were banished, with all the common and poor elements of life. No foulness nor tumult in those tremulous streets, that filled, or fell, beneath the moon; but rippled music of majestic change, or thrilling silence. No weak walls could rise above them; no low-roofed cottage, or straw-built shed. Only the strength as of rock, and the finished setting of stones most precious. And round them, far as the eye could reach, still the soft moving of stainless waters, proudly pure; as not the flower, so neither the thorn nor the thistle, could grow in the glancing field. Ethereal strength of Alps, dreamlike, vanishing in high procession beyond the Torcellan shore; blue islands of Paduan hills, poised in the golden west. Above free winds and fiery clouds ranging at their will;—brightness out of the north, and balm from the south, and the stars of evening and morning clear in the limitless light of arched heaven and circling sea."