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Perhaps at another season we should not have thought the streets so melancholy: perhaps even in our admiration we did not pay full justice to Captain Swendon, with the majority of his sex, was never less a hero than when at home.
"Father," she said, "you are spending the whole day with Mr. Neckart. You have not told Sutphen the town news. I am afraid the old man will be hurt." "That's a fact: I'll go over directly. You will like to be alone a while, Neckart, at any rate. Come, Jane." Neckart rose: "You are not going over to those rough fellows, Miss Swendon? There are no women there." Jane laughed.
"David is with him, and I want you to take me home." ... Before daylight the next morning Captain Swendon was summoned by David to his master. A keen north-east wind had caused a sudden change in the weather, and Mr. Laidley had sunk rapidly, and was now scarcely conscious. "It is only what I anticipated," said the physician, meeting the captain at the door.
When the iron and nails broke they all sat down and talked the matter over, with any other subject which happened to be lying loosely about on the fallow fields of their minds. When Captain Swendon came up they shook hands gravely with him, and made room for him on the bottom of an up-turned, worm-eaten scow.
Neckart smiled: he could only guess the result of his experiment, but he did guess it. "Miss Swendon did not ask me to sing again," he said to the captain. "Well, no. The song hurt her somehow. Jane had always an unaccountable dislike to music," apologetically. "I'm exceedingly fond of it myself: it's a passion with me. I enjoy anything from an organ to a jewsharp. But she does not.
When he was a boy, too poor to pay for schooling, he used to go to the captain at night for help in his Greek or mathematics. Swendon had always preferred the companionship of younger men than himself, and was never without a "following" of clever, unruly schoolboys, whom he was as ready to help when they were lazy, as to tip with silver half-dollars when he had them.
Van Ness received the card and command with a smile and bow, meant for the bystanders: "Of course, Charlotte, you understand that these payments must soon stop. I shall rid myself of any legal claims you have upon me before marrying another woman." "Oh, I've no doubt you'll walk strictly according to law! You will not run the risk of a lawsuit, much less prosecution, even for Miss Swendon.
"I have known this necessity which lay upon me for years, Miss Swendon," he said quietly, but leaning forward to watch her immovable face. "It is my duty to isolate myself as other men need not do. The more dear" his voice failed suddenly, but he recovered himself in a moment and went on "the more dear a woman is to me, the more I must shut her out of my sight.
"Self-control? I tell you, it's super-human! I've thought sometimes it was a divine power sustaining him. Why, I saw that man at his mother's deathbed. She lay in his arms, and he sang to her hymns, you know sang to her in a clear, unbroken voice until her spirit had passed out of hearing. I couldn't have done it, even for a stranger." "I am sure you could not," said Miss Swendon.
How can I see Swendon?" interrupting himself. "Where is their house?" Mr. Neckart hesitated a moment: "I am going there this evening to dine and spend the night, and I will take you with me. It will be a surprise which the captain will like." "The very thing! Precisely!
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