Richard Dowling

“ Lavirotte stumbled and fell backwards. O'Donnell struggled for a moment to regain his upright position, but his strength was spent; he was unconscious, and subsided in the middle of the road. Now was Lavirotte's opportunity. O'Donnell could not have resisted a child. The most cowardly cut-throat that ever lifted steel need have no fear of him. The darkness increased as the night went on. By this time it had grown so great that it was impossible to see an arm's length. The sky, for all the light it gave, might as well have been the solid earth. ”

“ The word "she" brought back to his enchanted eyes the vision he had seen on the beach. He said to himself: "My mother has no right to be so quick. For all I know to the contrary, she may be engaged to Lavirotte." Then aloud he said: "Mother, I assure you, there is no 'she.' I never said two civil words to any girl in all my life." "Eugene," she said, dropping into her lap the woollen stocking she was knitting for him, "no young man ever yet thought of marriage until thinking of some girl had put the thought into his head." ”

“ It was possible to walk about the streets, no doubt, until death overtook her; but why should she wait for death. If Death were coming, why should she not go and meet him half-way? Still it was hard to die. To die now in the full summer, when one was young and full of health, although bankrupt in hope, when the sun was bright, and the air was clear, and great London at its most beautiful. To die now without even the chance of communicating with him, Dominique? ”

“ Don't you know the Lawlors are shareholders in the bank, and that they, too, are ruined?" "But," said Mrs. Vernon, drawing herself up, "the Lawlors were old friends of mine. I knew them before you did. We were children together. They will be glad to see me, although you have been unfortunate in business." "Glad to see you! Woman, they would thrust you out of doors with curses. When people are ruined they do not pay much heed to friendship, nor are they over nice in the way they express their anger. ”

“ What's the matter?" cried O'Donnell, rendered almost powerless, more by astonishment than pain. "Death!" cried the infuriated man--"your death!--that's what's the matter." And, withdrawing the knife, lie raised his arm once more aloft. O'Donnell now plainly saw that he was indeed dealing with a madman, or, at least, with a man who seriously intended taking his life. Still retaining his hold on the right wrist, he seized Lavirotte by the throat and shook him violently. ”

“ When that meeting took place on the beach, whereat he introduced Ellen to O'Donnell, he had noticed the latter's start of amazed admiration. "What," thought Lavirotte, "is he hit too; he, the invincible! he, the adamantine man, who has hitherto withstood all the charms of her lovely sex? It would be curious to watch this. Will he too make love, and fail--succeed? Ah." When this thought first occurred to Lavirotte he paused in a dim, dazed way. Of all men living he wished best to O'Donnell, now that he might regard himself as dead. ”

“ My life is of no further use to me or to those I love, or to the business I have made, nor even would it be any use to those whom I shall not be able to pay. For although no one could work the business as well as I, if things had not come to this pass, I am too old now to work for others where I have so long worked for myself." He let go the door and stood unsupported for a while. "If they should find in the strong-room of James O'Donnell nothing but the unimpeachable records of his honest life, and his bones!" ”

“ He says his great anxiety to be up is that he may come to you and shake your hand." The tears stood in Lavirotte's eyes. "God bless my boy," he cried. "God bless my boy, Eugene. I am not worthy to know him. I am not worthy to know you. I am not worthy to live. I am not fit to die. I am an outcast from earth, from heaven, and from hell." "Just before I left him to come and see you"--the young girl's colour heightened slightly--"I took his hand to say good-bye to him, even for this little time," she smiled. "I took his hand in mine; in this hand," holding out her right. ”

“ Dora Harrington, now an outcast from home, and fortune, and friends, found herself in the great city of London absolutely without resources of any kind. Her money was gone, she knew. Her guardian and she were no more than business correspondents. Her lover's position in Glengowra forbade the hope he might ever be able to marry her, and she had within herself no art or knowledge by which she could hope to earn a living. ”

“ Men don't go ripping one another open for anything else nowadays." "I swear to you, O'Malley, as far as I am concerned, there was no row, and that I did not strike him." "Who else was with you?--although I'm not in the least curious. That was a tremendous blow. I can't make it out. If he had stabbed you first, I don't think you could have struck that blow. I can't make it out. I can't do any more for you now. You mustn't lie on it, you know." "O'Malley," said O'Donnell, "I want you to do me a great favour." ”

“ No man could have been baser or more unworthy than I. And yet there is a use in my baseness, for has it not given him an opportunity of forgiving me--fine-hearted gentleman as he is--and you of showing me that you are the noblest as well as the most beautiful woman alive?" "You are too hard upon yourself, and too generous to--us," the girl said, colouring. ”

“ Pleasant people are less degraded by affectation than solemn people. Your solemn man is generally a swindler of some kind, and nearly always selfish and insincere. Ellen Creagh looked the embodiment of good-humoured candour, and the ideal of health and beauty. She was as blithe and wholesome as the end of May; she was a northern Hebe, a goddess of youth and joy. The name of the young man lying on the shingles was Eugene O'Donnell. He lived in the important seaport of Rathclare, where his father was the richest and most respected merchant and shipowner. ”

“ In all likelihood I shall never see Lavirotte or O'Donnell again. I am off next week." "I am very sorry to lose you; but you're sure to come back to see the old ground shortly." "I don't think I shall," said the other, carelessly. "It costs a lot for the mere travelling, and you know none of my people live here about. Anyway, when I get to London, supposing I am curious, which I am not, I can find out all about it; for I know an artist there who told me all about Lavirotte and the girl." "How on earth did you find anything out about one man in such a big place as London?" ”

“ To look straight down one should raise himself slightly on the parapet of the embrasure. Then he saw a perpendicular chasm, two hundred feet deep on his side, a hundred feet deep on the side opposite. On the four sides of the leads were four such chasms, and in all of them lay the dark heavy gloom of that summer night, save where once in each cleft there burned a fiery point--the gas-lamp--to scare the unlawful and light the harmless through the silent ways--part of the mighty city-labyrinth lying below. On the leads it was impossible to see anything. ”

“ The old man, of course, knew he was standing on two deed-cases in the strong-room of his business place; that he held a revolver in his hand; that there were burglars without and money within, and that he was threatened with suffocation. The question now was, whether they would succeed in bursting open that door before the rising tide of poisonous gas reached his nostrils. The lamp being now extinguished, and there being some ventilation to the safe, the deadly gas, which would be sufficient to destroy life, was rising at a greatly diminished rate. ”

“ And while he was thinking thus, and as he was mentioning his friend's name to her, he saw her, too, start and seem for a moment confused. He could easily understand why it was O'Donnell had started. Such beauty as hers appeared potent enough to infuse the Belvidere Apollo with action. But why should she start? Woman is not overwhelmed by the beauty of man, as man is by the beauty of woman. Here it was that the demon of jealousy first entered the soul of Dominique Lavirotte ”

“ When, on the night after the failure of Vernon and Son, Lionel Crawford heard from Dora Harrington the name of Dominique Lavirotte, and repeated it after her, he was filled with amazement. "This is the most extraordinary thing," he said, "that ever happened to me in all my life. Dominique Lavirotte," he repeated for the second time. "I am amazed!" "Do you know him?" the girl asked. "Well! Why, he owns the place I am taking you to. It isn't much of a place. It is only the tower of an old church. They are always talking of buying it from him and taking it down. ”

“ He had no worldly prospect, and her little fortune was wholly gone. If death would only come in some pleasant shape she would greet it gladly; but the notion of wooing death was cold and repugnant. The waters of the river were chill, and full of noises and foul contagion. People had not willed themselves into life; why should they not be allowed to will themselves out of it? For hours she walked along the crowded streets of London. ”

“ They were free and open-hearted themselves, and they liked free and open-hearted souls like O'Donnell. They did not like swarthy skins; and now and then in the newspapers they read that men with swarthy skins drew knives and struck their dearest friends; that foreigners were treacherous, and not to be trusted with the lives, into the homes, or with the honour of law-abiding folk. They knew, it being a seaport, that foreigners spoke a gibberish which they affected to understand, and which was in reality no better than the language of Satan. ”

“ The men of Rathclare, a town ten miles off, declared he was the handsomest man they had ever seen, and yet felt their candour ill-requited when their sweethearts and wives concurred. With Dominique Lavirotte in the boat was Ellen Creagh. She was not a native of Rathclare, but of Glengowra, the small seaside and fishing town situate on Glengowra Bay, over which the boat was now lazily gliding in the cool blue light of the afternoon. Ellen Creagh was tall and slender, above the average height of women, and very fair. ”

“ Lavirotte." "Mr. Lavirotte--Mr. Lavirotte! Did Mr. Lavirotte stab Eugene?" "Yes, a mere nothing, though, a pin-hole. You will be angry with me for causing you any uneasiness when you know how slight it is." "Why did Lavirotte stab Eugene?" "Because there was some foolish quarrel; I really don't know what. It's ridiculous to call the thing a stab; it's a mere scratch." "Is Lavirotte hurt?" "Yes; he is more hurt than O'Donnell. But putting the two hurts together, I assure you they're hardly worth talking of." The straightforward calmness of this girl was terrifying him. ”

“ In the town of Rathclare, no young man was more popular than Eugene O'Donnell, and the people there thought it a thousand pities that he should select as his favourite friend a man who was not only not a resident of Rathclare, but a foreigner, with mysterious ways and an uncertain temper. ”

“ May I ask your name?" "Lionel Crawford," said the old man. "I live in the room above this, because my business requires me to be near the roof by night." "Your business requires you," she said, "to be near the roof by night." By this time he had made the tea, and she had drunk a little, and begun to be refreshed. "Can it be you are an astronomer?" "No, no," he said. "I am no astronomer, and yet all the matters of weather interest me greatly. The rain to-night may be worth a fortune to me." "You are a farmer, perhaps," she said. "Or no, that cannot be; but you own land?" ”

“ Ugly cut." "Is it much?" said O'Donnell, very weak now. "Yes, it's a good hit." "Will it do for me?" "I don't think so, if you have luck. He has a much better chance of going than you. What did you hit him with, O'Donnell? It was a terrible blow. Something blunt--a stone, or something of that kind. It's a downright shame that two young fellows like you, of good education, and so on, should fall to hacking and battering one another in this brutal way, and at midnight, too. It's more like assassination than fighting. A woman in the matter, eh?" "For heaven's sake, hush, O'Malley." ”

“ Thus to be saved from the fate she intended for herself that night, to find in her protector a friend of his, and then to be confronted with a mystery in which Dominique had a part, were, surely, enough things to make this night ever memorable. "Mr. Crawford," said the girl, "I can never forget the service and the kindness you have done me. Will you not do me an additional favour by telling me something of this secret which affects him?" The girl had finished the tea and eaten some bread by this time. "Take off your hat," he said. ”

“ We are the closest friends. He is the best of good fellows, and reputed--ah, I envy him--to be a woman-hater." At length the boat glided slowly through the green channel that led from the plain of the violet bay to the ridge of blue shingle. Lavirotte handed the girl out as soon as they reached the beach, and, as he did so, said: "You have no objection to know my friend?" ”

“ Then it began to be realised that not only had the shareholders lost all their money invested in shares, but that every man who, as principal or trustee, held even one of these shares, was liable to the last shilling he had in the world. It had over and over again been suggested by outside shareholders that the business should be formed into a limited company. William Vernon always shook his head at this, and said that if you limit the responsibility you limit the enterprise, and so reduce the profits. ”

“ Again the young girl coloured. "I will, if you wish it, and I am sure he will consent." "Will you ask him, for then I shall have something to say to you?" She left the room and returned in a few minutes. "Nothing will give him greater pleasure. He is delighted at the notion. He would have asked you only----" Here she paused. "I understand," he said. "Only for what occurred once between you and me. I am told there is bad news, the worst news, of Vernon and Son to-day. Do you believe in fate?" "I do not believe in fate." ”