idered me a reprobate?" asked Abel, half-sneeringly, the
smoke rising from his mouth.

Lawrence Newt did not answer.

"I am like other young men," continued Abel. "I am fond of living well,
of a good horse, of a pretty woman. I drink my glass, and I am not afraid
of a card. Really, Uncle Lawrence, I see no such profound sin or shame in
it all, so long as I honestly pay the scot. Do I cheat at cards? Do I lie
in the gutters?"

"No!" answered Lawrence.

"Do I steal?"

"Not that I know," said the other.

"Please, Uncle Lawrence, what do you mean, then?"

"I mean the way, the spirit in which you do things. If you are not
conscious of it, how can I make you? I can not say more than I have.
I came merely--"

"As a handwriting upon the wall, Uncle Lawrence?"

Lawrence Newt rose and stood a little back from the table.

"Yes, if you choose, as a handwriting on the wall. Abel, when the
prodigal son _came to himself_, he rose and went to his father. I came
to ask you to return to yourself."

"From these husks, Sir?" asked Abel, as he looked around his luxurious
rooms, his eye falling last upon the French print of Lucille, fresh from
the bath.

Lawrence Newt looked at his nephew with profound gravity. The young
man lay back in his chair, lightly holding his cigar, and carelessly
following the smoke with his eye. The beauty and intelligence of his
face, the indolent grace of his person, seen in the soft light of the
lamp, and set like a picture in the voluptuous refinement of the room,
touched the imagination and the heart of the older man. There was a look
of earnest, yearning entreaty in his eyes as he said,

"Abel, you remember Milton's Comus?"

The young man bowed.

"Do you think the revelers were happy?"

Abel smiled, but did not answer. But after a few minutes he said, with a
smile,

"I was not there."

"You _are_ there," answered Lawrence Newt, with uplifted finger, and in a
voice so sad and clear that Abel started.

The two men looked at each other silently for a few moments.

"Good-night, Abel."

"Good-night, Uncle Lawrence."

The door closed behind the older man. Abel sat in his chair, intently
thinking. His uncle's words rang in his memory. But as he recalled the
tone, the raised finger, the mien, with which they had been spoken, the
young man looked around him, and seemed half startled and frightened by
the stillness, and awe-struck by the midnight hour. He moved his head
rapidly and arose,