"A week went by, and in the presence of a minister of God I swore to a lie. Richard West swore to another, for he was no more capable of love than of honor. Then followed what, woman though you already are, I cannot tell you of—prostitution, outrage, that left me a poor dishonored thing—my womanhood a curse, and the creeping horror of physical repugnance to a loathsome touch my bridal portion! God forgive those who forced me to this! God forgive them!—I do not know that I ever can! Ten years afterwards I saw one happy day—the first since my engagement. It was when Richard West was shot down in a gambling-house by one of his victims, and brought home dead!
"Now, Emily, you know, better than any other living, the heart of the woman who is supposed to be so calm and placid! Now you can have some idea what I have suffered to-night, when I saw the same pit opening for you? Do you understand me? Have I said enough?"
"Enough, dear, dear Aunt, but not one word too much! I understand you, I know you, now! Oh, save me, save me at any sacrifice from this marriage!" And the young girl was sobbing in the arms of Aunt Martha, who now that her story was told grew her gentle self again, and smoothed down the brown hair with a promise of aid and sympathy which was not likely to be forfeited.
CHAPTER IV.
Another Adventure of the Two Friends—The Light In The Window—A Singular Spot on the Wall—A Climb, A Tumble and a Pursuit—How It All Ended for the Time.
We left Walter Harding and Tom Leslie, at the conclusion of a former chapter, coming out from the lodgings of the latter, on Bleecker Street near Elm, Leslie accompanying Harding out to a car on the Bowery before betaking himself to bed. "Man proposes but God disposes," says the French proverb: There is "a divinity that shapes our ends," even in the matters of going to bed and getting into railroad cars. It was somewhat longer than either had expected, before he reached the "desired haven" of home and a bed-chamber.
It was past midnight when the two friends reached the Bowery, and the Third Avenue cars, on one of which Harding was going up, were running less frequently than early in the evening. There was not one of the green lights in sight down the Bowery from the corner of Bleecker Street, and the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to make its appearance. Then they grew tired and restless, as people very soon do who are waiting for cars (or boiling tea-kettles, or marriage-days, or any thing of that kind); and they walked down to the corner of Prince to meet the tardy conveyance. There was a green light coming up, some blocks down the Bowery, but it seemed to the two sleepy fellows as if it would never reach the corner. They walked listlessly a block or two down Prince Street toward Broadway, still arm in arm as they had left the house on Bleecker. They wheeled to walk back. Suddenly the eyes of Harding were attracted by the very bright light in one of the upper windows of an old brick house on Prince Street, large and stately and giving evidence of having once been the residence of some person of fortune, though now a little dilapidated.
"People in that house must have an interest in one of the Gas Companies," said Harding, "by the quantity of light they show at this time of night! Why, the window is all ablaze!"
Tom Leslie looked up, as his friend spoke. They were on the opposite side of the street from the house in question, and consequently had a fair view of the lighted window. It was very light indeed, a perfect flood of gas-light pouring on a white curtain that partially covered the whole sash. Partially, not altogether. Whether accidentally or by intention, it was swept away at the lower right-hand corner, leaving a little of the top of the white wall of the room visible, with the edge of the ceiling. Was there ever a man (or woman) who did not look in through a half-closed curtain, precisely because there is no propriety whatever in doing so? Willis has made some of his most taking verbal photographs, during his "lookings on at the war" at Washington, from the glimpses caught of the lower half lengths of notables, more or less undressed, through windows supposed to be closed against outside observation.