ke to
pay for my clothes. I'm leaving twenty dollars. It's all I have just
now. You can do whatever you like with the furniture. I won't want
it.--CARRIE."

He dropped the note and looked quietly round. Now he knew what he
missed. It was the little ornamental clock, which was hers. It had gone
from the mantelpiece. He went into the front room, his bedroom, the
parlour, lighting the gas as he went. From the chiffonier had gone
the knick-knacks of silver and plate. From the table-top, the lace
coverings. He opened the wardrobe--no clothes of hers. He opened the
drawers--nothing of hers. Her trunk was gone from its accustomed place.
Back in his own room hung his old clothes, just as he had left them.
Nothing else was gone.

He stepped into the parlour and stood for a few moments looking vacantly
at the floor. The silence grew oppressive. The little flat seemed
wonderfully deserted. He wholly forgot that he was hungry, that it was
only dinner-time. It seemed later in the night.

Suddenly, he found that the money was still in his hands. There were
twenty dollars in all, as she had said. Now he walked back, leaving the
lights ablaze, and feeling as if the flat were empty.

"I'll get out of this," he said to himself.

Then the sheer loneliness of his situation rushed upon him in full.

"Left me!" he muttered, and repeated, "left me!"

The place that had been so comfortable, where he had spent so many days
of warmth, was now a memory. Something colder and chillier confronted
him. He sank down in his chair, resting his chin in his hand--mere
sensation, without thought, holding him.

Then something like a bereaved affection and self-pity swept over him.

"She needn't have gone away," he said. "I'd have got something."

He sat a long while without rocking, and added quite clearly, out loud:

"I tried, didn't I?"

At midnight he was still rocking, staring at the floor.

Chapter XLIII. THE WORLD TURNS FLATTERER--AN EYE IN THE DARK

Installed in her comfortable room, Carrie wondered how Hurstwood had
taken her departure. She arranged a few things hastily and then left for
the theatre, half expecting to encounter him at the door. Not finding
him, her dread lifted, and she felt more kindly toward him. She quite
forgot him until about to come out, after the show, when the chance of
his being there frightened her. As day after day passed and she heard
nothing at all, the thought of being bothered by him passed. In a