Theodore Winthrop

“ I did not quite give up my womanhood, as Cecil. And Dreeme, — it occurred to me that, if ever in life I should escape danger and be at peace, my present episode of disguise and concealment would be recalled by me only as a dream. And from such a fancy, half metaphysical, half mere girlishness, I named myself. My danger must excuse the alias.”
A girlish fancy! Every moment it came to me more distinctly that Cecil Dreeme and I could never be Damon and Pythias again. Ignorantly I had loved my friend as one loves a woman only. This was love, — unforced, self-created, undoubting, complete. ”

“ Mr. Densdeth treated me with personal respect. He left the ugly work to my father, his slave. Ah, my poor father!”
“And your sister, — what part did she take?”
“My sister!” said Cecil Dreeme, with burning cheeks, and as she spoke her hand grasped mine convulsively. “My sister kept aloof. She offered me no sympathy. She repelled my confidence, as she had long done. I had no friend to whom I could say, ‘Save me from him who should love me dearest, who should brave whatever pang there is in public shame, rather than degrade his daughter to such ignominy.’ Ah me! ”

“ Cecil Dreeme glanced uneasily at me and at the dagger I still carried.
“No,” said I, interpreting the look; “not by me! not by any of us! An old vengeance has overtaken him. Towner killed him, and also lies there dead.”
“Towner!” said Dreeme, “he was another bad spirit of the baser sort to my father. Both dead! Densdeth dead! May he be forgiven for all the cruel harm he has done to me and mine!” ”

“ Churm were here, you would not dare sacrifice me.’ ‘Mr. Churm,’ he replied, ‘would have no sympathy for this freak of rejecting a man so distinguished and unexceptionable as Mr. Densdeth.’ And, indeed, there came presently a letter from you to that effect. It was you, — style, hand, everything, even to the most delicate characteristic expressions. ”

“ Meantime Churm’s bays whirled us merrily over the frozen turnpike, through the brisk air of that March evening. We might, for all the passers knew, have left a warm and kindly fireside, and now were speeding back to our own cheerful homes, talking as we went of rural hospitality, and how wealthy with content was life in a calm old country-house.
But thinking of what might start up between Cecil Dreeme and me, and part us, I let fall the hand I held.
“No, Robert!” said Cecil, reaching out that slight hand again, and taking mine. “I cannot let my friend go. ”

“ No amateur can be. I was a diligent observer, a conscientious student, a laborious plodder. I had not been baptized by sorrow and necessity. Power, if I have it, came to me with pangs.”
“That is the old story,” said I. “Genius is quickened, if not created, by throes of anguish in the soul.”
“Such is the history of my force. Well, as I said, that fancy of an artist’s life in Chrysalis came back to me. ”

“ And when I looked at her she flushed again. “He has been a brother, — yes, closer than a brother to me. I should have died, body and soul, starved and worn out for lack of affection and sympathy, unless he had come, sent by God.” ”

“ Strange power of sin to deaden the soul! He was not touched. No shudder at his sacrilege! No great heart-breaking pang of self-loathing! He answered my giant agony with compliments. ‘A wonderful actress,’ he said, ‘I was. ”