“Horrible!  Don’t speak of it!  It makes me tremble.  I am not worthy to defend or even advocate a life of endeavor and victory, Mantel, and I will not try; but I know that I am right.”

“Yes, Dave, you are right; I know it as well as you.  I am only talking to ease my conscience.  I know I ought to snap these cords, and I know I can.  But I also know that I am grinding here in this devil’s mill while every bad man makes sport and every good man weeps!  And I know that I shall keep on grinding while you and thousands of other noble fellows with less brains, perhaps, and fewer chances than mine, make wild dashes for liberty and do men’s work in the world.  But here I am, cold and dead, and here I remain.”

“Can nothing persuade you—­not love?  I love you, Mantel!  Come, let us go together.  Who knows what we can do if we try?  I must persuade you!”

“I am like a ship in a sea of glue.  You touch me, but you don’t persuade me!  It’s no use.  I cannot budge.  The aspirations you awaken in my soul leap up above the surface like little fishes from a pond, and as quickly fall back again!  No, I cannot go.  Don’t press me—­it makes me feel like the young man in the gospel, who made what Dante calls ’the great refusal;’ he saw that young man’s ‘shade’ in hell.”

They were sitting on the sill of a deep window in what had once been one of the most fashionable mansions of the city.  The sash was raised, and the light of the moon fell full upon their young faces.  They ceased speaking after Mantel had uttered those solemn words, and looked out over the housetops to the water of the great river.  It was long after midnight, and not a sound broke the stillness.  Fleecy clouds were drifting across the sky, and a vessel under full sail was going silently down the river toward the open sea.  They had involuntarily clasped each other’s hands, and as their hearts opened and disclosed their secrets they were drawn closer and closer together until their arms stole about each other’s necks.  For a few brief moments they were boys again.  The vices that had hardened their hearts and shut their souls up in lonely isolation relaxed their hold.  That sympathy which knit the hearts of David and Johnathan together made their’s beat as one.

David broke the silence.  “I cannot bear to leave you, Mantel.  Join me.  Such feelings as these which stir us so deeply to-night do not come too often.  It must be dangerous to resist them.  I suppose there are slight protests and aspirations in the soul all the time, but these to-night are like the flood of the tide.”

“Yes,” said Mantel; “the Nile flows through Egypt every day, but flows over it only once a year.”

“And this is the time to sow the seed, isn’t it?”

“So they say.  But you must remember that you feel this more deeply than I do, Davy.  I am moved.  I have a desire to do better, but it isn’t large enough.  It is like a six-inch stream trying to turn a seven-foot wheel.