orgetfulness of the frosty night outside,
while the carved wood-work and the great mirrors and soft-hued
paintings, in their gilded frames, on the walls, and the deep carpets on
the floors spoke of comfort. But the beautiful room was a mockery, for
the promised comfort, was not there--only futile luxury. Upon that
bright hearth was warmth for the body, but none for the spirit, for
before it sat the master and mistress--the presiding geniuses of the
house--upon whose oneness the structure of the _home_ must stand, or
without it fall into ruin; there they sat, wrapped in moods so out of
sympathy and tune that speech was as impossible between them as if they
had been of different tongues, and each unknown to the other.

Meantime, Edgar Poe was spending his last hours at the University in the
dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No
farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was
invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the
quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this gentle guest The Dreamer
confided his past sins and his penitence, while he laid upon the glowing
coals the year's accumulation of exercise books, and the like, which had
served their purpose and were finished and done with, and watched the
devouring flames leap from the little funeral pyre they made into the
chimney.

More than anything he had ever done in his life, he told his companion,
he regretted the making of the gambling debts for which Mr. Allan would
have to advance the money to pay. But, as has been said, he reckoned
without Mr. Allan, who settled all other obligations, but utterly
ignored the so-called "debts of honor."

"Debts of honor?" he queried with contempt. "Debts of _dishonor_, I
consider them."

And that was his last word upon the subject.

CHAPTER XII.

The late January night was bitterly cold, and clear as crystal. There
was a metallic glitter about the round moon, shining down from a
cloudless, blue sky--too bright to show a star--upon the black and bare
trees and shrubbery in the terraced garden of the Allan homestead.

Edgar Poe looked from his casement upon the splendor of the beautiful,
but frigid and unsympathetic night. Bitterness was in his heart
contending with a fierce joy. At last it had come--the breach with Mr.
Allan--and he was going away! He knew not where, but he was going, going
into the wide world to seek fame and fortune.

He ha