e night: stealing softly back again to
press her forehead against the window: and the quiet hopelessness of her
face began to be pricked with terror.

"Good-night, gentlemen," said Abel, huskily and savagely.

There was a laugh around the table at which he had been playing.

"Takes it hardly, now that he's got money," said one of his old cronies.
"He's made up with Uncle Lawrence, I hear. Hope he'll come often, hey?"
he said to the bank.

The bank smiled vaguely, but did not reply.

It was after two, and Abel burst into the street. He had been drinking
brandy, and the fires were lighted within him. Pulling his hat heavily
upon his head, he moved unsteadily along the street toward the ferry. The
night was starry and still. There were few passers in the street; and no
light but that which shone at some of the corners,-the bad, red eye that
lures to death. The night air struck cool upon his face and into his
lungs. His head was light.--He reeled.

"Mus ha' some drink," he said, thickly.

He stumbled, and staggered into the nearest shop. There was a counter,
with large yellow barrels behind it; and a high blind, behind which two
or three rough-looking men were drinking. In the window there was a sign,
"Liquors, pure as imported."

The place was dingy and cold. The floor was sanded. The two or three
guests were huddled about a stove--one asleep upon a bench, the others
smoking short pipes; and their hard, cadaverous faces and sullen eyes
turned no welcome upon Abel when he entered, but they looked at him
quickly, as if they suspected him to be a policeman or magistrate, and as
if they had reason not to wish to see either. But in a moment they saw it
was not a sober man, whoever he was. Abel tried to stand erect, to look
dignified, to smooth himself into apparent sobriety. He vaguely hoped to
give the impression that he was a gentleman belated upon his way home,
and taking a simple glass for comfort.

"Why, Dick, don't yer know him?" said one, in a low voice, to his
neighbor.

"No, d---- him! and don't want to."

"I do, though," replied the first man, still watching the new-comer
curiously.

"Why, Jim, who in h---- is it?" asked Dick.

"That air man's our representative. That ain't nobody else but Abel
Newt."

"Well," muttered Jim, sullenly, as he surveyed the general appearance of
Abel while he stood drinking a glass of brandy--"pure as imported"--at
the counter--"well, we've done lots for him: what's he go