“Stop!”

He came up close to me.  Every trace of angry excitement had vanished.  Calm and self-possessed, but very mournfully, he said,—­

“Are you willing I should put my arm in yours, and walk back with you to the inn?  I am alone,—­and God above knows,” he added, after a pause, “how utterly so.”

I could only bow an assent, for this sudden exhibition of weakness was annoying to me.  My new acquaintance took my arm, much in the manner a child would do, and we walked along together.

“I am staying at the same house with you,” he said, as we proceeded.  “Did you know it?”

“No, I did not.”

“Yes,” he continued,—­“I saw you when you dismounted, and I knew you at once.  Don’t you recognize me?” he inquired, sadly.

“I do,” was all I replied.

“So much the better!” he went on.  “I like your countenance,—­nay, I love to look at your face.  You are a good man; do you know it?  I suppose not:  the good are never conscious, and I should not tell you.  Excuse my rude approach just now:  the Devil had for a moment dominion over me.  Will you remain here awhile?  Shall we sit and be together?  And will you—­say, will you talk with me?”

I promised I would.  My feelings, despite his miserable weakness, were becoming interested, and in this manner we reached the inn.  Then I persuaded this strange person to sit down in my room, where I ordered something comfortable provided for supper.  In fact, I thought it the best thing I could do for him.  Very soon I gained his entire confidence.  After two or three days he exhibited to me a small portrait, exquisitely painted, of a most lovely young girl, and permitted me to copy it.  It is one of the three which you see on the wall there.  The others, I need not add, are portraits of the man himself in the two moods I have described.  For his history, it teaches its lesson, and I shall tell it to you.  He narrated it to me the evening before he left the inn, where we spent two weeks or more, and I have neither seen nor heard from him since.  Seated near me, in my room, he gave the following account of himself.

* * * * *

I was born in Frankfort.  My parents had several children, all of whom died in infancy except me.  I was the youngest, and I lived through the periods which had proved so fatal to the rest.  The extraordinary care of my mother, who watched me with a melancholy tenderness, no doubt contributed to save a life which in boyhood, and indeed to a mature age, was at the best a precarious one.  My parents were respectable people, in easy circumstances.  I grew up selfish and effeminate, in consequence of being so much indulged.  I exhibited early a studious disposition, and it was decided to give me an accomplished education, with reference to my occupying, could I attain it at a future day, a chair in some university.  My mother was a very religious woman.  From the first, she