“My uncle, old Mount Rorke, wants me to marry an heiress, and I have nothing except what he allows me, or scarcely anything. She used to wear a broad-brimmed straw hat, and the shadow fell over her face. I made a lot of sketches. I must show them to you one of these days when you come up to town, and I filled an album with verses. I used to write them at night. My window was right in front of the river, and the moon used to sail past, and in the morning I used to read her the poems I made overnight beneath the branches of the cedar, where we used to run the boat. But the father was a brute. I got the best of him once though. It was a private view day at the Academy, and he had forbidden Nellie to speak to me--even to notice me. I went straight up to her, and took her away under his very nose before he could stop us. We walked about all day. Oh! he was mad.”
“If she was willing to brave her father in that way, why was your engagement broken off?”
“My uncle was so very difficult to deal with. I didn't see her for some time.” Frank did not say--perhaps, he did not know--that his engagement had been broken off through his own instability and weakness of character. The young lady, whom he called Nellie, had told him she would wait if he would elect a profession and work for a place in it. But Frank had not been able to forego late hours and restaurants, and Nellie had married some one who could. “You know I converted her. Doesn't her father hate me for that! We used to go to high mass at the oratory. I explained to her the whole of the Catholic religion.”
“But I thought you didn't believe in it yourself?”
“I am talking of some time ago; besides, a woman, it isn't quite the same thing; and if I have saved her soul! I don't know if I told you that I was writing a novel; I don't think I did. The idea of it is this: A young man has loved three women. The first charmed him by her exceeding beauty; he lives with her for a time. The second captivates him, or rather holds him through his senses; his love for her is merely a sensuality; then he falls in love with a fair young girl as pure as falling snow of any stain in deed or in thought; he is engaged to marry her--or, I don't know, I haven't made up my mind on that point, perhaps it would be better if he did marry her. Well, the woman whom he has loved with a merely sensual passion comes back, and to revenge herself she tries to tempt the good girl to go wrong; she talks to her of men and pleasures; this is a good idea, I think, for I feel sure it is women far more than men who lead women astray. Then the first woman whom he has loved for her beauty merely, comes along and continues the diabolical work of the first, by suggesting--I don't know, anything--that the young girl should go in for dress; the young man finds out the scheme, and to save the girl he murders her, he is thrown into prison, he is tried, and in the crowded Court he makes a great speech--he tells how he murdered her to save her from sin, he tells the judge that on the Judgment Day a pure white soul will plead for him. What an opportunity for a piece of splendid writing! The Court would be filled with fashionable women, that weep and sob, they cannot contain themselves, the judge would wish to stop the young man, but he cannot. What a splendid scene to describe! And the young man goes to execution confident, and assured that he has done well. What do you think of it?”