"Sometimes, when the Knight has come, and the wife wishes to show the glories of her soul, 'the wild swan has deserted, and a rat has gnawed the reed.' Let the wild and flowery little pool of womanhood which is yours—yours, dearest—grow somewhat less strange to you than it would have been—last evening—so that when you see me again you will see it as a part of me, and, without a word or look from me, know me, even more than you now do,
"Yours,
"Elizabeth."
Florian read it again and again. Sometimes he blushed—not with shame, but with the embarrassment of a girl—at the fervid eloquence. And then he would feel a twinge of envy for this Eugene Brassfield who could be to such a girl "a perfect lover."
"From one soon to be a bride," said he to himself, "to the man she loves: it's the sweetest letter ever written. I wonder how long ago she wrote it! Here's the date: 7th January, 1901. Odd, that she should mistake the year! But it was the 7th, no doubt. By the way, I don't know the day of the week or month, or what month it is! Here, boy! Is that the morning paper?"
He seized the paper feverishly, held it crushed in his hand until the boy left him, and then spread it out, looking for the date. It was January the 8th, 1901! The letter had been written the preceding evening. Whatever had happened to this man Brassfield, had occurred within the past sixteen hours. And, great God! where had Florian Amidon been since June, 1896? All was dark; and, in sympathy with it, blackness came over his eyes, and he rode into New York in a dead faint.
III
ANY PORT IN A STORM
Cosimo: Join us, Ludovico! Our plans are ripe,
Our enterprise as fairly lamped with promise
As yon steep headland, based, 'tis true, with cliff,
But crowned with waving palms, and holding high
Its beaconing light, as holds its jewel up,
Your lady's tolling finger! Come, the stage
Is set, your cue is spoke.
Ludovico: And all the lines
Are stranger to my lips, and alien quite
To car and eye and mind. I tell thee, Cosimo,
This play of thine is one in which no man
Should swagger on, trusting the prompter's voice;
For mountains tipped with fire back up the scene,
Out of the coppice roars the tiger's voice:
The lightning's touch is death; the thunder rends
The very rocks whereon its anger lights,
The paths are mined with gins; and giants wait
To slay me should I speak with faltering tongue
Their crafty shibboleth! Most dearest coz,
This part you offer bids me play with death!
I'll none of it.
—Vision of Cosimo.
"Comin' round all right, now, suh?" said the learned-looking porter. "Will you go to the Calumet House, as usual, suh? Ca'iage waitin', if you feel well enough to move, suh."