On returning to his wife's room, he found he had done no little mischief. Agnes was in hysterical convulsions, and the nurse was frantically sending all the people in the house after the doctor, and declaring that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife and his child too.
The doctor looked very grave when he came, turned Joe at once out of his wife's room, and stayed so long that he began to be thoroughly scared and to wish he had let the matter alone. The most profound quiet was enjoined, the doctor declaring that he would not answer for the consequences of another attack.
It was several days before Joe was allowed to enter his wife's room; and when he did so, he brought with him a peace-offering,—a silver cup for the baby and an Indian shawl for Agnes, the object of her lifelong ambition: so that he was received again into favour.
Agnes had a pretty sharp quarrel with Mrs. Van Horn upon the occasion; and, though a peace was finally patched up by their husbands, they were never so intimate afterwards.
There was some excuse for Joe's irritable temper. He was, in fact, a very unhappy man; and he was growing more and more so every day. He was, as John Caswell said, a man of good impulses and of a kind and amiable disposition. He could not shut his eyes to the difference between right and wrong. He knew that his business was an injurious one; that it was doing great harm in the community,—even the open and avowed part of it, and much more that branch which was concealed. He knew that his fine house and his good-looking wife and his pleasant little suppers were used by Van Horn as "pits to catch vain-glorious fools withal," as John Bunyan says; to attract that prey which furnished the best part of their profits. His pride, as well as his better feeling, revolted against such a use; and he and his partner had had more than one dispute, in which he was always conquered by Mr. Van Horn's superior coolness.
That very morning there had been a sharp altercation between them on the subject of young Haskins, the only son of Joe's former employer at the chemical works,—a somewhat weak-minded young man, too well supplied with money, but quite deficient in brains. George Haskins had just come from college, where he had been rather "fast," and where he had acquired a decided taste for wine and cards.
Mr. Van Horn insisted that Joe should renew his acquaintance with this lad, and bring him to one of Mrs. Van Horn's card-parties. Joe resisted, well knowing how the matter would end, and feeling bound by former kindness received from the elder Mr. Haskins. He resisted, and was conquered as usual; and very mean did he appear in his own eyes, as he did the bidding of his partner and called upon the poor victim to invite him to his house,—so mean that an extra glass of brandy was required to quiet the twinges of conscience and restore him to the place he desired to hold in his own esteem. These extra glasses were becoming every-day matters with Joe; and Van Horn had more than once cautioned him that he was drinking too much.
"You will get the horrors some day, if you are not careful. You will by-and-by think you can't do without it, and then you will go to the dogs."
"I went to the dogs when I first went into this business," said Joe, with an oath. "I wish the whole concern had been sunk before I ever saw it! There is poor little Mrs. Hazel turned out of her boarding-place this morning,—so Williams tells me. All her pretty things and bridal presents kept by the landlord to pay for their board."
"That is a pity; but such things will happen," replied Mr. Van Horn, coolly. "Hazel has no moderation. I suppose he lost every cent of his pay, and more besides, the last time he was here. He had a run of bad luck; but he would keep on playing till he was cleaned out."