The little room assigned me was cleanly; it had an air of comfort about it greatly in contrast with the slovenly chamber I had just left. The gentle creature made nothing of undressing me, lamenting the while as if I had been a stricken child that had unexpectedly fallen into her motherly hands.
I had made no allusion to my brother as yet. I could not speak of him, and only ventured to ask the woman as she was leaving me how long he had been in this condition. "I might ask you the same question, miss, for surely it is not a day nor a month that has brought him to this."
To this! What a world of misery there was in that one simple word! It seemed to carry with it the low wailing of a lost soul.
We were to have paid my brother a visit soon, my mother and I. It was to have been a surprise, and I had gone so far as to arrange the dress I should wear, for I was anxious to appear at my best before Arthur's friends. And here I was spending my first night in New York. No kin of mine had bid me welcome. No brother had folded me in his loved embrace, and held me out to see how pretty I had grown, proudly kissing me again and again, and telling me how happy my coming had made him.
In my peaceful days I had thought of all this; and oh! how easily it might have been!
I arose early; but, early as it was, the woman had apprised Arthur of my arrival. I found him morose and sullen. He demanded my reasons for coming so abruptly upon him. He had not asked after my mother, nor given me one word of kindly greeting; and when, in a harsh tone, he asked why I thus intruded myself, my great reserve of womanly strength fled from me, and I cried long and bitterly.
He was naturally kind and gentle. He came to me, wiped the tears from my cheek, and told me he did not intend to be cruel. His hand trembled violently, as he laid it on my head, and his whole frame shook and quivered, though I could see he made a desperate effort to control himself. When he had recovered his composure, he seemed to know why I had come, and implored me not to say one word to him; he was miserable enough already.
"Come home with me, Arthur dear," I whispered. "You can soon change your life, and be your own self again."
I ventured to tell him that mother had been taken very ill, when, with a look, he begged me to say no more. He could not bear even an allusion to his condition, and I had no wish to harass him. What a slave he had become to the one ruling passion of his life!
Regardless of my presence, he drank again and again from a bottle near him. Once when I laid my hand upon the glass, he told me that he needed it to steady his nerves, and he would be all right soon. It was in vain that I urged him to accompany me home. He told me he had another situation in view, not anything like the one he had just left, but very good in its way. I could tell my mother this; it might comfort her.'Twas all the hope I had to carry home.