look back, I see occasions when our politeness seems to have altered the whole course of the future." it, undoubtedly!-charm me into choosing darkness instead of light?-But I am tired," she said, with a sudden change "You are right. I have always been of voice; "I am going below." sorry for it." Adams tried to see her face, but she kept it persistently turned from him. "Don't regret that you made a sick boy so happy!" "If I had only been able to make myself a little more disagreeable to your friend," Nancy proceeded, smoothly, "he would have gone out of our-of your life. That spring sowed the seeds—” "Of an unfair dislike and opposition to Livingston that you were never able to overcome!" interrupted Adams. "I never made the slightest effort to overcome it." "Then I shall not see you again. I leave the boat at four to-morrow morning." "If I stayed on deck all night we should be no nearer agreement than we are now," said Nancy, moving away. "You will not forget that you have promised to listen to my notes for the biography?" "I didn't promise." He followed her to the door of her stateroom. "You will come if I send for you?" he persisted. "Oh yes," she said, with a little laugh that was half bitter, "I shall come; you "And yet-you could have done so if know I shall. Good night." you had cared to try." Adams waited; but Nancy was looking down at the foaming, seething water, and did not speak; the noise and dash of it shut them alone together. "Do you see the phosphorescence in that big wave?" she said at last. "It gleams up at us from below like a bad soul; there is fascination, of a kind, in watching for it." Adams leaned on the rail beside her. "You might have saved him, Nancy;" his voice was very low. "From what?" "From-himself." Nancy did not hear from Adams again until shortly after her return to the city in September, when she received a note from him begging her to come to him that evening after dinner. It had been oppressively hot all day, but a dry harsh wind sprang up in the course of the afternoon; and when Nancy entered her carriage it was blowing almost a gale; the lights in the streets were swinging, casting wild, dancing shadows, and, for a moment, she hesitated; for Adams was staying at the old family place, which was a mile or two beyond "Leonard! Have you heard something the city limits; but something in the about him?” "There is nothing to hear! He needed your help. Why did you refuse?" "I never liked him-" "But you could have loved him." Nancy turned her head and looked into Adams's face. "You have never before wanted the truth, in regard to him, Leonard." "This concerns you and me. You could have loved Livingston, and yet you would not. Why? Was it my fault? What unconscious, subtle treachery was I guilty of?" "Leonard, Leonard, Leonard!" cried Nancy. "Do you torture yourself often this way? What excuse would there have been for me if I had let the attraction of that magnetism-oh, he had tone of his note overcame her reluctance, and she went on. Out in the country the hot, enervating blast roved over the fields and gardens, with rain in its breast; and as they sped through the night, the trees, blue, ghostly, and tragic, raced beside them. Nancy. clutching her wraps to her throat, leaned forward to watch their swaying branches. Adams's man servant was watching for them when they drove up the avenue, and as he came out to the step of the carriage, the lamps shone directly into his face. For a moment Nancy, who had known him for years, did not recognize him; some process of disintegration had been going on in the man; his formerly plump face was thin and worn, his bright color completely gone; and his eyes, thickened and opaque, stared at her mournfully. Why, Henderson!" said Nancy, taken off her guard. "What is the matter?" "Nothing, Miss Nancy. Mr. Leonard is waiting in the library." Henderson led the way down the hall and opened the door to let her go by; a look of strong dislike settled on his face as he watched her advance towards Adams, who rose, and stood a moment rearranging his papers before he came towards her. "Ah, Nancy!" he said, "I gave you up when it began to blow." Nancy scanned his face. The hollows about his eyes were cavernous, and his thin, small hand felt dry and burning, even through her glove. "Perhaps you are not ready for me?" "Yes, I am ready, — only will you take this place?" Nancy came forward and seated herself in the light of the large lamp that was standing on the writing-table. "You have done your best to kill yourself!" she said, but her glance did not meet his. "Oh, I shall pull through!" He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, following the direction of her eyes that were roaming uneasily over the enormous dark room which had been added to the main part of the building at the time when Livingston, as Governor of the State, had made it his headquarters. "What is it?" he said. "You can't believe he isn't here somewhere!" she whispered. "No wonder the newspapers thought it all belonged to him! This room is so like him; it is full of him!" A streak of color dyed Adams's cheek. "Forgive me!" Nancy murmured. "I am always stumbling on things that way, and the impression was so unexpectedly vivid,-I-" After all, it was good of you not to avoid him," said Adams. "Others come in here and behave as if he had never been. Each time they do it he dies anew!-I thought I should like to show you what I've done," he went on after a short pause. "Some of these are my own journals,—I always had a habit of jotting things down. Others are "-Adams hesitated" are notes, mainly in the form of-Livingston's journals.” tiently. "When I was gathering the material for the St. Louis speech I made notes, here and there, of the manner in which his thoughts had probably been marshalled. I knew the workings of his mind better than I did my own, for I cared more about them; and I made these notes, partly to beguile my sorrow, as if he had written them himself.-Do not speak, Nancy! It is a fiction and a fairy-tale; I know it; but at the same time it is the truth. I have made him live again; these pages breathe of the man himself even to the turn of a phrase! In all essentials he has been with me, in actual vital communication, for the last six months. Listen to this." Nancy dropped her hands in her lap and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes against the glare of the lamp. Adams began to read. He seemed to have reconstructed the whole of Livingston's life; no touch was lacking to the vivid reality of the portraiture; faults were there in all their original ugliness, neither palliated nor excused; weaknesses were given in simple nakedness, with no kindly veil of explanation; traits that no one had suspected were most daringly revealed; but, always, behind this bristling rampart of apparently unlovely truths, the figure of Livingston towered, convincingly colossal. As the narrative approached later years it became less specific; but for every great speech that Livingston had delivered, and for every famous essay that he had written, a quantity of marvellous notes had been collected,-golden thoughts, perfect in expression and arrangement; agonizing aspirations; titanic spiritual struggles, and Adams read them, pleading and arguing at once, with a passionate intensity. At last he stopped. Nancy was leaning forward eagerly; she did not turn her face away, and he saw that her eyes were running over with tears. "What though you couldn't love him!" he cried. "You needn't refuse him, now, the cold balm of appreciation. Why, even to me you gave that!" Nancy's tears stopped; she smiled faintly, ironically. "Even to you," she "You know that he never wrote any repeated, in a low voice. "And have you thing of the kind!" ever asked for more, Leonard?" Adams stretched out his hand impa Adams walked down the room to where a dim light burned in front of a tall portrait of Livingston, and stood looking up at it. "You are not convinced,” he said, raising his voice slightly. "All my work goes for nothing." For a few minutes Nancy made no answer; then she spoke: "What are you going to do with it?" "Yes," she said; "there never has been any one but you, Leonard; for me-Livingston did not exist! But don't let that worry you; it has been a sorrow, of "I shall write the greatest biography course, but a happy sort of sorrow." that ever was written." "About whom?" "About a thinker, a statesman, a patriot, a poet!” She was gone. He made a step to follow her, and then sank down upon a chair. He did not know how long he had remained there, dazed, and not quite un "Yes." Nancy's voice was faint, yet derstanding what had happened, when clear. "All that!" "Confess that you loved him! It is not too late now to make that poor reparation; you haven't the right to withhold it." "I always loved him." He wheeled and ran towards her with his hands outstretched. "Forgive me! I should never have dragged it from you. But why did you conceal it from him all these years?" There was something piteous in his tones. "Tell me why." Nancy rose, drawing her long carriagewrap about her. "Why?" she repeated. The man about whom you have written never cared to know!" Henderson appeared with wine and biscuit. "Shall you want anything more, sir?" he said, leaning his hand heavily upon the table. "No," said Adams. "Don't you think you have worked enough for one while, sir?" suggested Henderson. Adams looked up in surprise. Henderson took his hand from the table and balanced himself unsteadily upon his feet; his eyes were wild in his reddened face. "When do you expect to have the-story done, sir?" he asked. "It may take a year." Henderson's muscles seemed to stiffen and grow firmer. "And may I ask, sir, if you are counting on following out the lines you have sketched-in these "Livingston did grovel,- quite; but here?" he waved his hand towards the "Never cared! What could he have done more than he did? Would you ask Livingston to grovel?" that is not Livingston." 66 Who, then?" note-books on the table. Nancy drew her cloak closer. "I do you know about it?" "What "And I would like to say, sir, that they're lies!" "Have you lost your senses?" "He was a man," persisted Henderson; "that there's an angel;—him and me didn't hold with angels! You used to pretend you didn't know it; and because you didn't see anything with your bodily eyes, or hear anything with your bodily ears, you think you can write what you please about him; but I knew Mr. Livingston,-I was the only one who did,— and he was a man! There was enough go in him to supply the world; I never felt I was human so long as he was around. I was that amused I never had an ache or a pain. I know what I'm talking about-those journals and things you've written are lies! If you don't believe me, ask Miss Nancy; she's known the truth from the beginning; there's no deceiving that devil of a woman!" "Henderson, you are drunk; go to your room." "I'm not so drunk as I was, sir," said Henderson; "I've scared myself sober!But, Master Leonard, if you're going to publish that, I give you notice: you'll have to get another man." He walked unsteadily to the study door. Adams stood in front of the table. Six months of unceasing labor and of intense creative energy lay before him. Never once had he faltered; his touch from the beginning had been sure; and he had put on his colors with the certainty of an expert and the confidence of genius. "But I did not know!" He cried out suddenly. "I do not know! This is the truth," he struck his own papers heavily with his hand. "I have drawn the immortal, underlying Good! Drawn it as Livingston embodied it; - and Nancy says it is not Livingston. I-not Livingston," he repeated, mechanically; and then his own thoughts, running far ahead, seemed to turn on him and cry back: "Not Livingston!" "If this is not Livingston," returned Adams, "who, then, is it?" Suppose I wanted to publish them?” said Henderson. "You shall not! But, even if you did, you would not be believed.—Is there any use in appealing to you on account of the harm you might do?" "Not a bit." "Very well, then, all that the friends of Mr. Livingston would say is that your journals were an attempt to extort blackmail, and that, failing, you had resort to publication." "Why do you take it for granted that my journals would be no credit to Mr. Livingston?" said Henderson, deliberately. "You've not even seen them; I haven't told you a thing that's in them?" He spoke slowly, picking his words. "These here journals of mine," he went on, are nothing but a plain man's account of the plain dealings between a master and his servant. Sometimes there'll be not more than a line a day 66 "You, Leonard! Who else? Look for weeks together; but they're true, and again and you will see." Could it be true? He turned back to his papers as if in search of explanation, and as he did so, looked up with surprise to see Henderson standing again near the table. "I think you ought to know, sir," said the man, "that I have a couple of journals of my own." "You have journals?" "I kept a record. Mr. Livingston was very particular about expenses,—and I'd like you to know, sir, that certain things were never charged to you." Henderson spoke defiantly. "Will you give me those records?" "No, sir." "Will you sell them?" Henderson flushed angrily, and turned to leave the room. "Come back!" Adams commanded. "What are you keeping them for?" "I suppose you wouldn't believe me, I won't sell. I'll give you your choice of two ways, though: if you take mine and burn them without looking into them, you've got to burn these of yours; but if you'll agree to read mine, you may have them to do with as you choose. And I'll not even ask you, sir, to tell me what you decide." "Where are your papers?" "Up-stairs." "Get them." Henderson left the room, and came back in a few minutes with a couple of dingy black morocco diaries in his hand. Silently, he reached them towards Adams, who motioned him to put them down upon the table. "Are these all?" Henderson snatched the books back again. "I trusted you, sir," he said, respectfully. "I beg your pardon." Henderson silently laid the diaries on |