Greenleaf was so completely absorbed by the danger of losing the last hold upon Alice, that he forgot his most excusable anger against the vindictive woman who still lingered, enjoying her victory.  He sank into a chair, buried his face in his hands, and for some time neither looked up nor replied to her taunts.

“Come, now,” said she, “don’t take it so hard.  Is my handsome sister-in-law obdurate?  Never mind; don’t be desolate; other women will be kind,—­for you are just the man to attract sentimental damsels.  Cheer up! you will find a new affinity before night, I haven’t a doubt.”

Roused at length, Greenleaf stood up before the mocking fiend, so radiant in her evil smiles, and said,—­

“You enemy of all that is good, what brought you here?  Keep in your own sphere, if there is one for you in this world.”

“I came to see my sister, as you know.  It was a most unexpected pleasure to meet you.  I came to tell her that brother Henry has either run away or killed himself, it doesn’t matter which.”

“Pray, follow him.  I assure you we shall mourn your absence as bitterly as you do his.”

“Well, good-bye,” she said, still laughing in the same terrible tone.  “Better luck next time.”

The door closed upon her, and Greenleaf drew a long breath—­with a sense of infinite relief.

“Come,” said Easelmann, entering a moment later,—­“come, let us go.  We have done quite enough for one day.  You wouldn’t take my advice, and a pretty mess you have made of it.”

CHAPTER XXXII.

When the remains of John Fletcher were borne to the grave, the memory of his faults was buried with him.  “Poor fellow!” was the general ejaculation in State Street,—­at once his requiescat and epitaph.  But the great wheels of business moved on; Bulls and Bears kept up their ever-renewing conflicts and their secret machinations; new gladiators stepped into the ring; new crowds waited the turn of the wheel of Fortune; and new Fletchers were ready to sacrifice themselves, if need were, for the Bullions of the exchange.  Who believes in the efficacy of “lessons”?  What public execution ever deterred the murderer from his design?  What spectacle of drunkenness ever restrained the youthful debauchee?  What accession, however notable, to the ranks of “the unfortunate” ever made the fascinated woman pause in her first steps toward ruin?

No,—­human nature remains the same; and the erring ones, predestined to sin by their own unrestrained passions, wait only for the overmastering circumstances to yield and fall.  When any of these solemn warnings are held up to the yet callow sinner, what does he propose to do?  To stop and repent?  No,—­to be a little more careful and not be caught.

Not that precepts and examples are useless.  All together go to make up the moral government of the world,—­pervading like the atmosphere, and like it resting with uniform pressure upon the earth.  Crime and folly will always have their exemplars, but retribution furnishes the restraining influence that keeps evil down to its average.  As locks and bolts are made for honest men, not for thieves, so the moral law and its penalties are for those who have never openly sinned.