Wentworth Higginson was, at that period, the gallant minister of the Free Church at Worcester, a man with the Revolutionary soul of fire, and the incarnate nucleus of that glorious public spirit which is still prompt to defend a man against the kidnappers in the heart of the old Commonwealth.
“Meanwhile,” pursued Muriel, “I’ll take care of poor Roux.”
“Oh, Muriel!” said Harrington, fervently, “there is no nobleness, no tenderness, like yours.”
In the wan moonlight he saw her color under his impassioned gaze. She did not reply for a moment, but turning her face away, she laid her hand upon his arm, and its almost imperceptible tremor sent a mystical, sweet agitation through his being.
“It is nothing but a duty,” she replied, presently, in a gentle voice. “A clear and simple duty. Life opens plainlier to me every day, and I see that I have wealth and strength and youth, that I may succor and protect the poor!”
No more was said, but tranced in thoughts and feelings too sacred and deep for words, they moved in silence through the dim and solitary streets, vaguely lit by the wan lustre of the moon. There were lights in the houses as they passed, for it was not yet ten o’clock, but save a few boys, white and negro, fantastically playing in some of the streets, and half-dispirited in their nocturnal games by the strange bleakness of the air, they hardly met a person.
Lights glimmered dimly in the windows of Southac street, but Roux’s windows were in darkness. Some negro boys, sitting on the wooden steps of his abode, made way for them, and ascending they entered the open outer door, and tapped at the panels of his room. No answer. They tapped louder. No answer still. Harrington, oddly remembering the strenuous snoring of Tugmutton on the nights in March when Roux was sick, and he had watched with him, put his ear to the door and listened for those tokens of the fat boy’s slumbers. But no sound reached him.
“Pray Heaven nothing has happened,” said Muriel. “Let us try the other door.”
Harrington turned to the opposite side of the passage, and knocked loudly. There was an instant stir within, and presently the door opened, and a strange little wizened colored man, not more than four feet high, with a pair of tin-rimmed spectacles on his shrunken nose, and a long coat reaching nearly to his heels, appeared, with a copy of the “Commonwealth” newspaper in his left hand, and in the other a tallow candle stuck in a bottle which he held above his head. Harrington had seen him before, though he had forgotten his name.