“Matter, my boy!” said he, with a bitter laugh; “it’s a big question you ask. But I’ll tell you if you’ll listen.”
I repented of having asked the question, he looked so haggard and excited. However, there was nothing for it but to sit still while he, pacing to and fro in the room, told me his story in his own way.
“This is not the first time you have been curious about me, Batchelor. You have suspected I was or had been something different from the poor literary hack you see me, and you have been right, my boy.”
He stopped short in his walk as he said this, and his eyes flashed, just as I had sometimes seen Jack’s eyes flash in the old days.
“Sixteen—no, seventeen—years ago I was the happiest man alive. I can see the little cottage where we lived, my wife and child and I, with its ivy-covered porch and tiny balcony, and the garden which she so prided in behind. It seemed as if nothing could come and disturb our little paradise. I was not rich, but I had all I wanted, and some to spare. I used to walk daily across the field to—where the bank of which I was manager was situated, and they—she and the boy—came to meet me every evening on my return. I felt as if my life was set fair. I could picture no happiness greater than our quiet evenings, and no hope brighter than a future like the present.”
Here Mr Smith paused. This picture of a happy home he had drawn with a dreamy voice, as one would describe a fancy rather than a reality. After a pause he went on:
“The thing I thought impossible happened suddenly, fearfully, while I was even hugging myself in my prosperity and happiness. She died. A week before she had given me a sister for my boy. Our cup of joy seemed full to overflowing. The mother and child throve as well as any one could expect. She was to get up next day, and I was to carry her down stairs, and set her for a little amongst her flowers in the little drawing-room. I wished her good-bye gaily that morning as I went off to my work, and bade her be ready for me when I returned.
“Ah! what a return that was! At mid-day a messenger rushed into the bank and called to me to come at once to my wife. I flew to her on the wings of terror, and found her—dead!”
Here the speaker paused again. His voice had trembled at the last word, but his face was almost fierce as he turned his eyes to me.
I said nothing, but my heart bled for him. “The hope had gone from my life. I had no ballast, nothing to steady me in the tempest. My hope had been all in the present, and it perished with her. I cared for nothing, my little children were a misery to me, the old home was unendurable. I got leave of absence from my employers, and came up here—desperate. I dashed into every sort of dissipation and extravagance; I tried one excitement after another, if only I could drown every memory I had. I abandoned myself to so-called ‘friends’ of the worst sort, who degraded me to their own level, then forsook me. Still I plunged deeper—I was mad. My one dread was to have a moment to myself—a moment to think of my home, my children, my wife. How I lived through it all I cannot think—and I did not care.