"One night the crisis in his life came. He was at a Bowery theatre, to see a Christmas pantomime. It was a fairy spectacle, and the stage was crowded with ballet-girls. There was one among them, the loveliest creature, it seemed to him, he had ever seen, with whom, in one mad moment, he fell passionately in love. A friend of his, by name Furniss, laughed at his raptures. 'Don't you know her, Harry?' said he; 'she boards in the same house with you. She is a little grisette, a little shop-girl, only hired to look pretty, standing there, while this fairy pantomime lasts. You have seen her fifty times.'
"Yes, he had seen her repeatedly. He remembered it when his friend spoke, and he had never thought of her until now. The new infatuation took possession of him, body and soul. He made her acquaintance next morning, and found out she was, as his friend had said, a shop-girl. What did he care; if she had been a rag-picker, it would have been all one to this young madman. In a fortnight he proposed; in a month they were married, and the third step on the road to ruin was taken.
"Had she been a good woman—an earnest and faithful wife—she might have made a new man of him, for he loved her with a passionate devotion that was part of his hot-headed nature. But she was bad—as depraved as she was fair—and brought his downward course to a tragical climax frightfully soon.
"Before her marriage, this wretched girl had had a lover—discarded for a more handsome and impetuous wooer. But she had known him longest, and, perhaps, loved him best. At all events, he resumed his visits after marriage, as if nothing had happened. The young husband, full of love and confidence, suspected no wrong. He sanctioned the visits and was on most friendly terms with the discarded suitor. For some months it went on, this underhand and infamous intimacy, and the wronged husband saw nothing. It was Furniss who first opened his eyes to the truth, and a terrible scene ensued. The husband refused passionately to believe a word against the truth and purity of the wife he loved, and called his friend a liar and a slanderer.
"'Very well,' said Furniss, coolly, 'bluster as much as you please, dear boy, and, when you are tired, go home. It is an hour earlier than you generally return. He will hardly have left. If you find your pretty little idol alone, and at her prayers, disbelieve me. If you find Mr. Crosby enjoying a tête-à-tête with her, then come back and apologize for these hard names.'"
"He went off whistling, and the half-maddened husband sprang into a passing stage and rode home. It was past ten, but he was generally at the gambling-table each night until after one, and his wife had usually retired ere his return. He went upstairs softly, taking off his boots, and noiselessly opened the door. There sat his wife, and by her side, talking earnestly, the discarded lover. He caught his last words as he entered:
"'You know how I have loved—you know how I do love, a thousand times better than he! Why should we not fly at once. It is only torture to both to remain longer.'
"They were the last words the unfortunate man ever uttered. The gambler had been drinking—let us hope the liquor and the jealous fury made him for the time mad. There was the flash, the report of a pistol; Crosby, his guilty wife's lover, uttered a wild yell, sprang up in the air, and fell back shot through the heart."
There was another dead pause. Captain Danton's steady voice momentarily failed, and Reginald Stanford sat in horrified silence.
"What came next," continued the Captain, his voice tremulous, "the madman never knew. He has a vague remembrance of his wife's screams filling the room with people; of his finding himself out somewhere under the stars, and his brain and heart on fire. He has a dim remembrance of buying a wig and whiskers and a suit of sailor's clothes next day, and of wandering down among the docks in search of a ship. By one of those mysterious dispensations of Providence that happen every day, the first person he encountered on the dock was myself. I did not know him—how could I in that disguise—but he knew me instantly, and spoke. I recognized his voice, and took him on board my ship, and listened to the story I have just told you. With me he was safe. Detectives were scouring the city for the murderer; but I sailed for England next day, and he was beyond their reach. On the passage he broke down; all the weeks we were crossing the Atlantic he lay wandering and delirious in a raging brain-fever. We all thought, Doctor and all, that he never would reach the other side; but life won the hard victory, and he slowly grew better. Kate returned, as you know, with me. She, too, heard the tragical story, and had nothing but pity and prayer for the tempest-tossed soul.