“People will soon be congratulating me on my daughter’s very splendid marriage.  Congratulating me!  Good Heaven, what a mockery!  Congratulating me on the loss of my only child, to a foreigner, whom I half dislike and more than half suspect—­though without being able to justify either feeling.  What do you think, Ishmael?  Is that a subject for congratulation.  But, good Heaven, boy! what is the matter with you?  Are you ill?” he suddenly exclaimed, pausing before the young man and noticing for the first time the awful pallor of his face and the deadly collapse of his form.

“Are you ill, my dear boy?  Speak!”

“Yes, yes, I am ill!” groaned Ishmael.

“Where? where?”

“Everywhere!”

The judge rushed to the table and poured out a glass of brandy and brought it to him.

But the young man, who was habitually and totally abstinent, shook his head.

“Drink it! drink it!” said the judge, offering the glass.

But Ishmael silently waved it off.

“As a medicine, you foolish fellow—­as a medicine!  You are sinking, don’t you know!” persisted the judge, forcing the glass into Ishmael’s hand.

Ishmael then placed it to his lips and swallowed its contents.

The effect of this draught upon him, unaccustomed as he was to alcoholic stimulants, was instantaneous.  The brandy diffused itself through his chilled, sinking, and dying frame, warming, elevating, and restoring its powers.

“This is the fabled ‘elixir of life.’  I did not believe there was such a restorative in the world!” said Ishmael, sitting up and breathing freely under the transient exhilaration.

“To be sure it is, my boy!” said the judge heartily, as he took the empty glass from Ishmael’s hand and replaced it on the waiter.  “But what have you been doing to reduce yourself to this state?  Sitting up all night over some perplexing case, as likely as not.”

“No.”

“But I am sure you overwork yourself.  You should not do it, Ishmael!  It is absurd to kill yourself for a living, you know.”

“I think, Judge Merlin, that, as you are so soon about to leave Washington, and as there is so little to do in your office, I should be grateful if you would at once release me from our engagement and permit me to leave your employment,” said Ishmael, who felt that it would be to him the most dreadful trial to remain in the house and meet Claudia and Vincent as betrothed lovers every day, and at last witness their marriage.

The judge looked annoyed and then asked: 

“Now, Ishmael, why do you wish to leave me before the expiration of the term for which you were engaged?”

And before Ishmael could answer that question, he continued: