"I see not the writing; know not yet, by mine own eye, that they are meant for me; yet, in these hands I feel that I now hold the final poniards that shall stab me; and by stabbing me, make me too a most swift stabber in the recoil. Which point first? — this!"
He tore open the left-hand letter:-
"Sm:-You are a swindler. Upon the pretense of writing a popular novel for us, you have been receiving cash advances from us, while passing through our press the sheets of a blasphemous rhapsody, filched from the vile Atheists, Lucian and Voltaire. Our great press of publication has hitherto prevented our slightest inspection of our reader's proofs of your book. Send not another sheet to us. Our bill for printing thus far, and also for our cash advances, swindled out of us by you, is now in the hands of our lawyer, who is instructed to proceed with instant rigor.
"(Signed)
Steel, Flint Asbestos."
He folded the left-hand letter, and put it beneath his left heel, and stood upon it so; and then opened the right-hand letter.
"Thou, Pierre Glendinning, art a villainous and perjured liar. It is the sole object of this letter imprintedly to convey the point-blank lie to thee; that taken in at thy heart, it may be thence pulsed with thy blood, throughout thy system. We have let some interval pass inactive, to confirm and solidify our hate. Separately, and together, we brand thee, in thy every lung-cell, a liar;-liar, because that is the scornfullest and loathsomest title for a man; which in itself is the compend of all infamous things. "(Signed)
Glendinnino Stanly "Frederic Tartan."
He folded the right-hand letter, and put it beneath his right heel; then folding his two arms, stood upon both letters.
"These are most small circumstances; but happening just now to me, become indices to all immensities. For now am I hate-shod! On these I will skate to my acquittal! No longer do I hold terms with aught. World's bread of life, and world's breath of honor, both are snatched from me; but I defy all world's bread and breath. Here I step out before the drawn-up worlds in widest space, and challenge one and all of them to battle! Oh, Glen! oh, Fred! most fraternally do I leap to your rib-crushing hugs! Oh, how I love ye two, that yet can make me lively hate, in a world which elsewise only merits stagnant scorn! — Now, then, where is this swindler's, this coiner's book? Here, on this vile counter, over which the coiner thought to pass it to the world, here will I nail it fast, for a detected cheat! And thus nailed fast now, do I spit upon it, and so get the start of the wise world's worst abuse of it! Now I go out to meet my fate, walking toward me in the street."
As with hat on, and Glen and Frederic's letter invisibly crumpled in his hand, he-as it were somnambulously-passed into the room of Isabel, she gave loose to a thin, long shriek, at his wondrous white and haggard plight; and then, without the power to stir toward him, sat petrified in her chair, as one embalmed and glazed with icy varnish.
He heeded her not, but passed straight on through both intervening rooms, and without a knock unpremeditatedly entered Lucy's chamber. He would have passed out of that, also, into the corridor, without one word; but something stayed him.
The marble girl sat before her easel; a small box of pointed charcoal, and some pencils by her side; her painter's wand held out against the frame; the charcoal-pencil suspended in two fingers, while with the same hand, holding a crust of bread, she was lightly brushing the portrait-paper, to efface some ill-considered stroke. The floor was scattered with the breadcrumbs and charcoal dust; he looked behind the easel, and saw his own portrait, in the skeleton.
At the first glimpse of him, Lucy started not, nor stirred; but as if her own wand had there enchanted her, sat tranced.
"Dead embers of departed fires lie by thee, thou pale girl; with dead embers thou seekest to relume the flame of all extinguished love! Waste not so that bread; eat it-in bitterness!"
He turned, and entered the corridor, and then, with outstretched arms, paused between the two outer doors of Isabel and Lucy.
"For ye two, my most undiluted prayer is now, that from your here unseen and frozen chairs ye may never stir alive;- the fool of Truth, the fool of Virtue, the fool of Fate, now quits ye forever!"
As he now sped down the long winding passage, some one eagerly hailed him from a stair.
"What, what, my boy? where now in such a squally hurry? Hallo, I say!"
But without heeding him at all, Pierre drove on. Millthorpe looked anxiously and alarmedly after him a moment, then made a movement in pursuit, but paused again.
"There was ever a black vein in this Glendinning; and now that vein is swelled, as if it were just one peg above a tourniquet drawn over-tight. I scarce durst dog him now; yet my heart misgives me that I should.-Shall I go to his rooms and ask what black thing this is that hath befallen him? — No; not yet;-might be thought officious-they say I'm given to that. I'll wait; something may turn up soon. I'll into the front street, and saunter some; and then-we'll see."
V
Pierre passed on to a remote quarter of the building, and abruptly entered the room of one of the Apostles whom he knew. There was no one in it. He hesitated an instant; then walked up to a book-case, with a chest of drawers in the lower part.
"Here I saw him put them:-this, — no-here-ay-we'll try this."
Wrenching open the locked drawer, a brace of pistols, a powder flask, a bullet-bag, and a round green box of percussion-caps lay before him.
"Ha! what wondrous tools Prometheus used, who knows? but more wondrous these, that in an instant, can unmake the top-most three-score-years-and-ten of all Prometheus' makings. Come: here's two tubes that'll outroar the thousand pipes of Harlem.-Is the music in 'em? — No? — Well then, here's powder for the shrill treble; and wadding for the tenor; and a lead bullet for the concluding bass! And, — and, — and, — ay; for the top-wadding, I'll send 'em back their lie, and plant it scorching in their brains!"
He tore off that part of Glen and Fred's letter, which more particularly gave the lie; and halving it, rammed it home upon the bullets.
He thrust a pistol into either breast of his coat; and taking the rearward passages, went down into the back street; directing his rapid steps toward the grand central thoroughfare of the city.
It was a cold, but clear, quiet, and slantingly sunny day; it was between four and five of the afternoon; that hour, when the great glaring avenue was most thronged with haughty-rolling carriages, and proud-rustling promenaders, both men and women. But these last were mostly confined to the one wide pavement to the west; the other pavement was well-nigh deserted, save by porters, waiters, and parcel-carriers of the shops. On the west pave, up and down, for three long miles, two streams of glossy, shawled, or broadcloth life unceasingly brushed by each other, as long, resplendent, drooping trains of rival peacocks brush.
Mixing with neither of these, Pierre stalked midway between. From his wild and fatal aspect, one way the people took the wall, the other way they took the curb. Unentangledly Pierre threaded all their host, though in its inmost heart. Bent he was, on a straightforward, mathematical intent. His eyes were all about him as he went; especially he glanced over to the deserted pavement opposite; for that emptiness did not deceive him; he himself had often walked that side, the better to scan the pouring throng upon the other.
Just as he gained a large, open, triangular space, built round with the stateliest public erections;-the very proscenium of the town;-he saw Glen and Fred advancing, in the distance, on the other side. He continued on; and soon he saw them crossing over to him obliquely, so as to take him face-and-face. He continued on; when suddenly running ahead of Fred, who now chafingly stood still (because Fred would not make two, in the direct personal assault upon one), and shouting "Liar! Villain!" Glen leaped toward Pierre from front, and with such lightning-like ferocity, that the simultaneous blow of his cowhide smote Pierre across the cheek, and left a half-livid and half-bloody brand.