he hour like Terror in the castle dungeon, where the outcast
prisoner lies upon the damp stones writhing in feverish despair. While
they were up in heaven together, I was down in--the hospital or at Mrs.
Dewey's. Mr. and Mrs. Tescheron were at home in Ninety-sixth Street.
The bill of folly had been paid and Mr. Tescheron hoped the episode had
closed, although Gabrielle's manner continued to indicate that she had
not suffered so deeply as the strength of her attachment to the outlaw
had led him to believe she would. What was the secret? He did not ask
her, for having paid nearly $5,000 (more, but he didn't know it),
working along his own lines, he did not care to admit that his daughter
had outgeneraled him. A premonition that she had done so prepared him in
moments of reflection to hear the truth. He fought against the concept
every time it flashed before him, but with weakening strength, as the
outclassed fighter staggers groggily to the ropes. What match was he,
what adversary I, for Cupid, lacking the inspiration the god gave to his
faithful adherents? If you ask me why I am so familiar with Mr.
Tescheron's fears and numerous other matters recorded here, I make reply
that I have investigated all the sources of information in any way
connected with these events, and have drawn out the persons who were
involved in Hosley's career by many conversations. If this statement
does not satisfy, then I have one that will. I quote that great
authority, William Makepeace Thackeray, who tells us in Vanity Fair that
a novelist is supposed to know everything, and am I not treating the
subject as a novelist, using for the most part fictitious names and
places to shield from public ridicule the good people whose judgment may
seem weak, and actions exaggerated, in the temperature of cold type
scanned by prudent, judicial-minded readers? Icebergs will boil under
certain conditions. Human beings, I find, have their solid, liquid and
gaseous states. Be not surprised, therefore, if Tescheron, frigid when
surrounded by his cracked ice and cold-storage products at the fish
market, becomes pliable or volatile material in Hoboken under the heat
of fear and temper, and, before cooling, is wrought into strange shapes
by the artisan, Smith. Poor Tescheron! Innocently I made him pay a
pretty penny! But he needed a good hammering.

"Gabrielle, are you really to be married against your father's wishes,
my dear?" asked Mrs. Gibson, sadly, drawing Gab