"He _said_ Mr. Morton, sir. This is his card, sir."
Morton looked at the card, and read the name of his classmate Rosny.
"Very well. Ask the gentleman to come up.--No,--here,"--as the servant was retreating along the passage,--"where is he?"
Morton adjusted his dress, strove to banish from his features all traces of the emotion which had just overwhelmed him, went down stairs, and met Rosny with an air of as much cordiality as if there were nothing in his mind but the pleasure of seeing an old friend. Rosny, his first welcome over, surveyed him from head to foot.
"A good deal changed! Thinner,--darker complexioned, decidedly older. And yet you've weathered it well. It's a thing that I could never stand,--to be boxed up in four stone walls. I would throttle the jailer first, and then knock my brains out against the stones."
"Did Shingles tell you of my being here?"
"Yes, I met him just now, with his eyes bigger than ever. When I saw him making a dive at me across the street, among the omnibuses and carriages, I knew that something extraordinary was to pay."
"_You_ have changed your outward man, too, since I saw you last," said Morton, looking at his companion's costume, which consisted of a gray volunteer uniform.
"Yes, I'm in Uncle Sam's pay now.--Off for Mexico in a day or two;--revel in the Halls of the Montezumas, you know."
"What rank do you hold in the service, Dick?"
"You'll please to address me as Major Rosny; that is, till good luck and the Mexican bullets make a colonel of me.--I have just dropped in to shake hands with you. I have an appointment to keep in five minutes. You have nothing particular to do to-day--have you?"
"Nothing very particular," said Morton, hesitating.
"Then come and dine with me at Delmonico's at four o'clock. What!--you don't mean to say no, do you?--Is that the way you treat your friends? Come, I shall be here at four, precisely. _Au revoir._"
And, with his usual celerity of motion, Rosny left the hotel.
Morton slowly remounted to his room, locked the door this time, to keep out intruders, seated himself, and gave himself up to his dark and morbid reveries.
"God! of what is this world made! Villany thrives, and innocent men are racked with the pangs of hell. Poverty starving its victims,--luxury poisoning them;--the passions of tigers and the mean vices of reptiles;--treacherous hatred, faithless love;--deceitful hope, vain struggles, endless suffering,--a hell of misery and darkness. A fair sunrise, to cheat the eye;--then clouds and storms, blackness and desolation! To look back over the last five years! Then I was basking in sunshine; and out of that brightness what a doom is fallen on me! My life--my guiding star quenched in a vile morass--lost forever in the arms of this accursed villain!"