By a large table on which lay open books and scattered papers, in the confusion and disorder of hasty use, sat my friend writing. He rose as I entered, and though time had made some change in my appearance and much more in his, we knew each other at once.
He was thinner and paler than when I had last seen him, and all the buoyancy of his disposition had gone. Then he was the soul of fun and innocent mirth, now he was grave, reserved, and business-like, and his features wore a deep tinge of melancholy. He was chatty and companionable, however, to me; and as passing from one lively topic to another we talked of old times and college freaks, his reserve wore away, and his face lighted up with smiles which probably had not played upon it for years before, and which made him look much more like my old friend Harry Eagleton. Maturity and old age are marvelously indulgent to the faults and follies of their youth, and while we recalled one scene after another of high frolic or absurd amusement, we almost felt ready for their mischief again.
As we warmed in a conversation of such a character, old sympathies revived, and our remarks became closer and more personal. I freely went over the general course of my life since we had parted, and with apparently equal openness he spoke of his own career. He had partly prepared himself for the bar in the proper department of the institution in which he had been graduated, had completed his training in a private office in the same city, had determined to settle there permanently in his profession, had come to the bar under favorable auspices, and with a delay much less than he had feared, and was now in the full tide of successful practice, reaping the fruits of an honorable and a lucrative business.
I asked him, after some time, after his father and sister. In a moment all sprightliness passed from his countenance, and he answered me with the deepest gravity.
His father had been dead for several years; his sister was living with him, a confirmed and hopeless invalid.
I did not mention Ellis’s name, or push my inquiries further, but after a short and awkward silence touched abruptly on my own matters, and produced the papers which bore upon the business that had led me to his office. It was soon arranged. His clear comprehension of facts which I deemed complicated, and his better information as to their bearing and effect soon simplified a case of much importance, put it in a light more favorable to my own interest than I had anticipated, and directed my future course toward those concerned with me in the result.
This over, our social chat re-commenced; and though I feared to intrude upon his time, he pressed me to remain seated, with an urgency which I could not resist. We were soon wandering away again with the memories which had already proved so pleasant, and which seemed to freshen and increase as we went on. After a prudent hesitation as to the propriety of doing so, which perhaps yielded in the end rather to inclination than to judgment, I availed myself of some accidental turn in our conversation, and related the adventure of my journey to the west.
I began the story without hinting to him that his name was involved. As I went on step by step, his eye became fixed on mine with increasing interest. I mentioned the letter and its address, and was about to tell its contents, when Eagleton rose suddenly, took me by the hand and led me into an inner room. As I left the office I saw what I had not noticed until then. In the shadow of a large, high case, in a remote part of the apartment, with his hands folded listlessly before him, and his head drooping heavily over his lap, sat a young man apparently about twenty-five years of age. In all our lively and even noisy conversation, not a breath or motion had apprised me of his presence. Without seeming to observe him, however, I followed my friend. I felt satisfied that I was now about to be gratified by some disclosure connected with a history in regard to which all my former curiosity had returned.
He closed the door between the rooms, handed me a chair, drew another opposite to it, and as we sat down facing each other, he begged me to resume my narrative. He eyed me steadily as I proceeded, and at times expressions passed over his features whose meaning, with all my skill, I could not fathom—expressions of changing but controlled emotion.
I told the story to its end. With an accuracy of memory which surprised me, and seemed strangely supplied for the call of the occasion, I repeated this letter as I have given it already. When I mentioned the arrival of the servant to hurry me away, a shade of disappointment was evidently perceptible. When I spoke of the sudden movement of the younger of the prisoners, the hasty opportunity I had obtained, by his change of position, of examining his face, and then described his forbidding and depraved appearance, all his eager interest returned, and he bent forward as he sat, intent upon every word that passed my lips.