For how could Lawrence know of the book that was kept in the bureau drawer—­of the rose whose benediction lay forever fragrant upon those united names?

“I am really sorry for Hal Battlebury,” said the merchant to himself.  “He is such a good, noble fellow!  I should have supposed that Miss Waring would have been so very happy with him.  He is so suitable in every way; in age, in figure, in tastes—­in sympathy altogether.  Then he is so manly and modest, so simple and true.  It is really very—­very—­”

And so he mused, and asked and answered, and thought of Hal Battlebury and Amy Waring together.

It seemed to him that if he were a younger man—­about the age of Battlebury, say—­full of hope, and faith, and earnest endeavor—­a glowing and generous youth—­it would be the very thing he should do—­to fall in love with Amy Waring.  How could any man see her and not love her?  His reflections grew dreamy at this point.

“If so lovely a girl did not return the affection of such a young man, it would be—­of course, what else could it be?—­it would be because she had deliberately made up her mind that, under no conceivable circumstances whatsoever, would she ever marry.”

As he reached this satisfactory conclusion Lawrence Newt paced up and down before the window, with his hands still buried in his pockets, thinking of Hal Battlebury—­thinking of the foreign youth with the large, melancholy eyes pining upon a bed of pain, and reciting Petrarch’s sonnets, in the miserable room opposite—­thinking also of that strange coldness of virgin hearts which not the ardors of youth and love could melt.

And, stopping before the window, he thought of his own boyhood—­of the first wild passion of his young heart—­of the little hand he held—­of the soft darkness of eyes whose light mingled with his own—­again the palm-trees—­the rushing river—­when, at the very window upon which he was unconsciously gazing, one afternoon a face appeared, with a black silk handkerchief twisted about the head, and looking down into the court between the houses.

Lawrence Newt stared at it without moving.  Both windows were closed, nor was the woman at the other looking toward him.  He had, indeed, scarcely seen her fully before she turned away.  But he had recognized that face.  He had seen a woman he had so long thought dead.  In a moment Amy Waring’s visit was explained, and a more heavenly light shone upon her character as he thought of her.

“God bless you, Amy dear!” were the words that unconsciously stole to his lips; and going into the office, Lawrence Newt told Thomas Tray that he should not return that afternoon, wished his clerks good-day, and hurried around the corner into Front Street.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

ABEL NEWT, vice SLIGO MOULTRIE REMOVED.

The Plumers were at Bunker’s.  The gay, good-hearted Grace, full of fun and flirtation, vowed that New York was life, and all the rest of the world death.