d;
and to this there was added a wonder which had never come into his life
before. For surely, he argued, this great river was the high road to an
El Dorado of which he had often dreamed; to that shadowy land of valley
and of mountain which his imagination so ardently desired. Let a man
find employment upon the deck of one of those splendid ships and
henceforth the whole world would be open to him. Alban debated this as a
possible career, and as he thought of it the spell of the craving for
new sights and scenes afar mastered him to the exclusion of all other
thoughts. Who was to forbid him; who had the right to stand between him
and his world hunger so irresistibly? When a voice within whispered a
girl's name in his ear, he could have laughed aloud for very derision. A
fine thing that he should talk of the love of woman or let his plans be
influenced for the sake of a pretty face! Why, he would be a beggar
himself in a week, it might be without a single copper in his pocket or
a roof to shelter him! And he was just the sort of man to live on a
woman's earnings--just the one to cast the glove to fortune and of his
desperation achieve the final madness. No, no, he must leave London. The
city had done with him--he had never been so sure of anything in all
his life.

It was an heroic resolution, and shame that hunger should so maltreat
it. When twelve o'clock struck and Alban remembered how poor a breakfast
he had made, he did not think it necessary to abandon any of his old
habits, at least not immediately; and he went, as he usually had done,
to the shabby dining-room in Union Street where he and Lois had taken
their dinners together for many a month past. Boriskoff's daughter was
already at table and waiting for him when he entered; he thought that
she was unusually pale and that her expectancy was not that of a common
occasion. Was it possible that she also had news to tell him--news as
momentous as his own? Alban feared to ask her, and hanging his cap on a
peg above their table without a word, he sat down and began to study the
greasy menu.

"What's the luck, Alb, dear--why do you look like that?"

Little Lois asked the question, struck by his odd manner and appearance.

He answered her with surprising candor--for the sudden determination
came to him that he must tell Lois.

"No luck at all, Lois."

"Why, you don't mean--?"

"I do, and that's straight. There is no further need of my services--"

"You've got