However, I
attempt no excuses for myself; I need them no more than a judge in the Dark
Ages needed to apologize for ordering a witch to the stake. I could no
more have done differently than a fish could breathe on land or a man
under water. I did as all the others did--and I had the justification of
necessity. Right of might being the prevailing code, when men set upon
me with pistols, I met them with pistols, not with the discarded and
antiquated weapons of sermon and prayer and the law.

And I thought extremely well of myself and of my pistols that June
afternoon, as I was hurrying up town the moment the day's settlement on
'Change was finished. I had sent out my daily letter to investors, and its
tone of confidence was genuine--I knew that hundreds of customers of a
better class would soon be flocking in to take the places of those I had
been compelled to teach a lesson in the vicissitudes of gambling. With a
light heart and the physical feeling of a football player in training, I
sped toward home.

Home! For the first time since I was a squat little slip of a shaver the
word had a personal meaning for me. Perhaps, if the only other home of mine
had been less uninviting, I should not have looked forward with such high
beating of the heart to that cold home Anita was making for me. No, I
withdraw that. It is fellows like me, to whom kindly looks and unsought
attentions are as unfamiliar as flowers to the Arctic--it is men like me
that appreciate and treasure and warm up under the faintest show or shadowy
suggestion of the sunshine of sentiment. I'd be a little ashamed to say how
much money I handed out to beggars and street gamins that day. I had a home
to go to!

As my electric drew up at the Willoughby, a carriage backed to make room
for it. I recognized the horses and the coachman and the crest.

"How long has Mrs. Ellersly been with my wife?" I asked the elevator boy,
as he was taking me up.

"About half an hour, sir," he answered. "But Mr. Ellersly--I took up his
card before lunch, and he's still there."

Instead of using my key, I rang the bell, and when Sanders opened, I said:
"Is Mrs. Blacklock in?" in a voice loud enough to penetrate to the
drawing-room.

As I had hoped, Anita appeared. Her dress told me that her trunks had
come--she had sent for her trunks! "Mother and father are here," said she,
without looking at me.

I followed her into the drawing-room and, for the benefit of the servants,
Mr.