He looked curious, glanced at his watch, pondered an instant, and promised to call in an hour.

She bowed and returned home, with an almost intolerable weight on her heart.  She sat with her face buried in her hands, collecting her thoughts, and, when summoned to meet Eugene, went down with a firm heart, but trembling frame.  It was more than probable that she would be misconstrued and wounded, but she determined to hazard all, knowing how pure were the motives that actuated her.  He seemed restless and ill at ease, yet curious withal, and, after some trifling commonplace remarks, Beulah seated herself on the sofa beside him, and said: 

“Eugene, why have you shunned me so pertinaciously since your return from Europe?”

“I have not shunned you, Beulah; you are mistaken.  I have been engaged, and therefore could visit but little.”

“Do not imagine that any such excuses blind me to the truth,” said she, with an impatient gesture.

“What do you mean?” he answered, unable to bear the earnest, troubled look of the searching eyes.

“Oh, Eugene! be honest—­be honest!  Say at once you shunned me lest I should mark your altered habits in your altered face.  But I know it all, notwithstanding.  It is no secret that Eugene Graham has more than once lent his presence to midnight carousals over the wine-cup.  Once you were an example of temperance and rectitude, but vice is fashionable and patronized in this city, and your associates soon dragged you down from your proud height to their degraded level.  The circle in which you move were not shocked at your fall.  Ladies accustomed to hear of drunken revels ceased to attach disgrace to them, and you were welcomed and smiled upon, as though you were all a man should be.  Oh, Eugene!  I understand why you have carefully shunned one who has an unconquerable horror of that degradation into which you have fallen.  I am your friend, your best and most disinterested friend.  What do your fashionable acquaintances care that your moral character is impugned and your fair name tarnished?  Your dissipation keeps their brothers and lovers in countenance; your once noble, unsullied nature would shame their depravity.  Do you remember one bright, moonlight night, about six years ago, when we sat in Mrs. Williams’ room at the asylum and talked of our future?  Then, with a soul full of pure aspirations, you said:  ’Beulah, I have written “Excelsior” on my banner, and I intend, like that noble youth, to press forward over every obstacle, mounting at every step, until I too stand on the highest pinnacle and plant my banner where its glorious motto shall float over the world!’ ‘Excelsior!’ Ah, my brother, that banner trails in the dust!  Alpine heights tower far behind you, dim in the distance, and now with another motto—­’Lower still’—­you are rushing down to an awful gulf.  Oh, Eugene! do you intend to go on to utter ruin?  Do you intend to wreck happiness, health, and character in the sea of reckless dissipation?  Do you intend to spend your days in disgusting intoxication?  I would you had a mother, whose prayers might save you, or a father, whose gray hairs you dared not dishonor, or a sister to win you back from ruin.  Oh, that you and I had never, never left the sheltering walls of the asylum!”