VII. IN WHICH THERE IS A MADMAN. Mr. Flint sips vino d'oro-The Stranger-The Letter—Mr. Flint Outwitted-Mr. Flint's Photograph-The Madman's Story-The wrecked Soul-How Mr. Flint is troubled by his Conscience, and dreams of a Pair of Eyes. THE same night on which Mortimer was writing in the books of Flint & Snarle, Mr. Flint sat in the library of his bachelor home, sipping a glass of vino d'oro; and as the bells of Trinity Church fell faintly on his ear, he drew a massive gold watch from his fob, and, patting it complacently on the back, scrutinized its face as if he would look it out of countenance. Then he yawned a couple of times and thought of bed. "There's a gintleman without, sur," said Michel, putting his comical head in at the library door, "there's a gintleman without, sur," and he emphasized the 'gintleman.' "What sort of a person, Michel ?" "A very quare one indade. Is Mr. Flint in?' 'He is sur,' sez I. 'I want to see him,' sez he. sez he. Your kard, sur,' sez I. He stared at me a minit, and laughed. Then, sez he, without the least. riverence for your worship, 'Give this to owld Flint !" And Michel, exploding with laughter, handed Flint a knave of clubs very much soiled. "Michel!" said Mr. Flint, drawing himself up to his full altitude, "kick him down the steps!" "Thanks!" said a voice directly behind Michel, who had retreated to the doorway. The voice was so near and unexpected that Michel's crisp hair stood on end with fright. The door was thrown wide open, and a fine looking man, with the bearing of a sailor, stood between them. Mr. Flint turned as white as his immaculate shirt-bosom; and Michel, whose love of fun had got the better of his scare, regarded the intruder with a quizzical, inquiring air, peculiarly Irish. Michel," said Mr. Flint, "you may go." That gentleman, not expecting such an order, hesitated. "Yes, sur." "Michel," said the stranger, "your master speaks to you." "Sure I heard him, sur." Michel left the room and carefully closed the door after him; but Flint, who knew his inquiring proclivities, opened it suddenly, and found Michel on all fours with his ear to the key-hole. The door was opened so unexpectedly that the listener did not discover the fact for the space of ten seconds. When he looked up and beheld his master, the intense expression of his face was superbly ludicrous. To say that he shot to the subterranean regions of the kitchen like a flash of lightning, does not border on fiction. The man laughed it was a low, peculiar laugh, sadder than some men's tears. "Are you glad to see me?" and the man repeated his laugh. "No: you are a devil!" "I have been away three years, as I promised you." "Well, what do you want ?" "Have I ever seen you when you did not?" "No, Flint, you never did. But you saw me once when I had an unstained soul-when I could have looked up to Heaven and said, 'I am poor, Father, but I am honest.' Have you enough money to pay for a lost soul? Oh Flint, I am a wrecked man! If it had only been murder-if I had killed a man in the heat of passion--but a poor innocent babe in the cold snow! The child! the little babe! Ah, Flint, I never see the white snow coming down but I think of it. Those eyes are always with me. They follow me out to sea. They haunt me in the long watches. One night, when a storm had torn our rigging to tatters, and we heard the breakers on the lee-shore, I saw her standing by the binnacle light, and, so help me Heaven! she had grown to be a woman. I fainted at the wheel. You heard of the shipwreck. How could a ship keep clear of the rocks and the helmsman in a trance? Forty souls went down, down! Hist! who said that? Not I. No, not I! I am a maniac!" "Don't go on that way," pleaded Snarle, giving uneasy looks toward the door, which he regretted having locked. "Why ?" "It is not pleasant." "What isn't?" "Your eyes-your words. What can I do for you ?" The man's excitement lulled for a moment. He replied, carelessly: |