Up to this time Reuben's eyes seemed riveted upon Eve's face, but as she paused he bent his head and sunk it down upon the table near—a movement that at any former time would naturally have awakened some surprise, but now Eve had grown so familiar with the aspect of sorrow that she regarded all visible emotion as an outburst of the certain sympathy to be expected from her hearers. "Now you know why it is, Reuben," she continued, "that I feel so glad that you had no hand in anything of this; for you must overlook the anger that I showed at that time. I've been sorry for it often since, and feared you'd count me over-bold for talking as I did. Not that I'm changed, Reuben, nor think one bit the less of Adam for what's happened. No; and though all the world should turn their backs on him, I'd stand by his side; and to prove it I must find him out and tell him that, in spite of all they've told him, in heart and tongue I've never been untrue to him." And, filled with the desire of seeing the man she loved, Eve clasped her hands and sat trying to revolve her plans, while Reuben commenced pacing the little room with a troubled air.
Suddenly bringing himself to a stand before Eve, he said, "Eve, be sure your sin will find you out."
"No, Reuben—no;" and she put up her hand as if to avert the continuance of any homily: "'tis of no good talking like that. Sorrow has sealed up my heart against taking condemnation or comfort from anything of that sort."
"It isn't of you I'm thinking," he exclaimed. "Oh," he cried, giving vent to his pent-up feelings, "down into what a pitfall a minute's evil passion may fling a man! To think that I, while I was crying vengeance against others, was drawing down the wrath of God upon my own head, stamping myself with the brand of Cain, and doing the devil's work by sending men to death with all their sins still heavy on their souls!"
"Reuben, what is it you mean?" and seizing hold of him with both her hands, Eve gazed into his face.
"That the thought you had was true," he said, "and that 'twas me who dropped the paper in that told them where the Lottery would be found;" and a tremor ran through Reuben's frame: his pulses for a moment quickened, and then grew faint and seemed to die away; while Eve uttered neither word nor sound: her eyes drooped, her hold relaxed, and tottering she sank back into the seat behind her, and there sat motionless and still as one carved out of stone.
The abandonment of hope, the unutterable despair of face and form, so unlike anything which Reuben had ever seen in Eve, touched him as no reproaches could have done. That depth of misery which words can neither describe nor express pierced his inmost soul and added to the stings with which conscience was already smiting him. Not for the act of betrayal, for had there been no Eve to prompt him Reuben would have looked upon it as an act of justice that he should aid the law against men who set order and government at defiance, and though each man on board had met his death Reuben would have held his conscience free of any tittle of reproach; but, equitable and unyielding to himself as well as to others, he full well knew that when he wrote the words which sealed the Lottery's fate justice was clean gone out of his mind. He neither knew nor cared what might become of the men whose safety he betrayed: the whole rancor of his hate was turned against his rival; and the paper he flung into the rendezvous window was as much a blow aimed at Adam as if he had dealt him a thrust and had stabbed him in the dark.
"Eve," he said, "words are but poor things at a time like this, and if I spoke from now till never I couldn't make you see by them the misery I feel; but if you'll trust me this far, I swear by Him who sees us both and knows our hearts that no stone shall be unturned, no thing undone. I'll walk London over, and neither rest day nor night till I find out Adam Pascal and his comrade and tell them the whole truth. And when I say this," he added, his face working with emotion, "don't fancy 'tis because of love of you, Eve: I know that, come what may, we never can be nothing more than friends now; but oh—" and he held out his hands toward her—"let's at least be that, Eve: let me help you to set yourself clear with the man who, be he what he may, it seems you've given all your heart to; and you—you help me to rid myself of the thought that I've led into sin and hurried on to death fellow-creatures whose godless lives I'd now give my own to save. Together, if we set our minds to work, there's no knowing what we mayn't do yet. Warrants have been quashed and pardons given when men have reached the very gallows' foot; and as for getting in, why Mr. Osborne knows Newgate prison, every inch, from going there with old Silas Told when he was living, and he'll do anything for me; so there'll be no fear about that. And you know me, Eve: you know how when I'm set upon a thing I strain my utmost nerve to get it done;" and, pausing, he stood watching with mingled hope and fear the effect of his words—first, the flush of spreading color, then the quivering mouth and eyes, and finally the rush of tears which lifted up and cleared away that stone-like gloom.
A ray of hope seemed once more near, and catching at the feeblest chance of being brought again face to face with Adam, Eve, unable to speak, stretched out her hand, which Reuben took, grasped it almost to pain, then let it go, and with it every hope of love that lingered still for Eve.
The rest of the time was spent in explanations of the various incidents relating to the all-engrossing event, the details which bore upon it, the circumstances which surrounded it, until, from following out all these into their different channels, Reuben began to have a clearer conception of the men, their characters, their individual virtues and collective failings, growing interested in them almost against his will. The hour was late before he recollected that until he reached his home he could hardly settle his plans so as to secure an entrance into the prison on the following day. Bidding Eve good-night, he left the house and walked away, only stopping at the turn of the street to step into the road and cast his wistful gaze up to the window of the room which to him now was as the tomb of his dead love.