Barwood began to be affected by a nervous dread brought on by his too close study and constant preoccupation with this subject.  As he alone had felt this interest and prosecuted this strange inquiry, might it not be that he was being drawn in some mysterious way within the influence of the fatal money?  Perhaps he himself was to be involved in its relentless course.  He shuddered at the thought, and yet was borne irresistibly on, as he believed, in his pursuit.  He imagined at times that he felt a peculiar influence from the touch of certain pieces.  This he held to be a clairvoyant sense that they had figured in crimes.  Perhaps contact with a hand affected by powerful passion had imparted to them subtle properties capable of being detected by a sensitive organization.

In such study and speculation Barwood passed the spring and summer of 1870.  Towards the middle of August occurred the well-remembered flurry in Wall Street consequent upon the breaking out of the French and Prussian War.  Gold jumped up to one hundred and twenty-three.  Money was loaned at ruinous rates.  The whole financial system was disturbed.  Silver, then withdrawn from circulation, has not reappeared to this day.

The effect of these events upon Barwood although not immediately apparent, was highly important.  With the disappearance of specie, the daily sight and handling of which had given his conception a tangible support, its strength declined.  It was not forgotten at once, nor indeed at all.  But time drew it away by little and little.  It threw mists of distance and hues of strangeness about it, until at length Barwood looked back upon it, far remote, as a vague object of wonderment.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 2:  Diary, June, 1870.]

* * * * *

IV.

THE HOLBROOK FARM.

The day had been sultry.  Even after sunset the atmosphere was oppressive, and pavements and railings in the city were warm to the touch from the steady blaze to which they had been subjected.  At the Holbrook farm, however, occasional puffs of air stirred the silver poplars skirting the road, and waved the brown timothy grass that grew knee-deep up to the veranda.

Porto Rico and Carter’s boy turning somersaults in the grass—­entirely without the knowledge of the discreet Carter himself, it may be assumed—­suddenly relinquished this fascinating sport to rush for the privilege of holding Barwood’s horse, Porto Rico’s longer legs and general force of character gave him the preference.  He jumped into the saddle as soon as Barwood was out of it, and trotted off to the stable with Carter’s boy whooping and bobbing his woolly head in the rear.

“Never you mine,” said Carter’s boy, “I’ll have the other gen’l’m’n.”

“No other gen’l’m’n a’n’t comin’,” said Porto Rico.  “Don’t I done tole you dey don’t bofe come de same day?”