consequence, but, if you let the idea permeate you, ultimately
perhaps it may. By the way, that is a new man you have, isn't it?"

In the wreckage amid which Annandale was floundering the question was
like a rope; he caught at it and swam up.

"Who? Harris? Yes, the other poor devil I had was run over and died in
an ambulance."

Orr tapped at his foot with his stick. "I may be in error," he said,
"but I think I have seen him before."

"Then it must have been in London. He has been here only a short time.
He tells me he used to be with Catty."

Catty was a relative of Annandale, a New York girl who had married the
Duke of Kincardine.

"Possibly," said Orr. "Well," he added, reverting to the episode that
had brought him there, "I am sorry for all this. I know you are. I
will write to Sylvia and tell her so."

"Please do."

Annandale stood up and accompanied him to the door. When he turned
life seemed blank as the blanks of the night.

CHAPTER VII

SWEET-AND-TWENTY

What Sylvia replied to Orr's communication, whether indeed she replied
at all, Annandale was not informed. He himself wrote to her. The
letter was long; it was also abject. But he got no answer. He wrote
again. The result was the same.

Then both at her and at himself he rebelled. He had supped on
humiliations. He had no appetite for more. With some bravery, yet
without bravado, he tore a leaf from his life and on it wrote Finis.
The epitaph was figurative, but he thought it final. He thought that
he could dictate to Fate. It is a mistake that many make.

Presently it surprised him to find how laborious is the task of
putting people out of your life. If you have cared for them they will
come back. In the pages of a book, in the pauses of speech, suddenly
you behold them. In sleep they will not let you be. When you awake,
there they are. However detestable their behavior may have been, in
dream they visit and caress you. It takes time and vigilance; it takes
more, it takes other faces to disperse them.

In spite of the Finis, Sylvia Waldron declined to be dismissed. She
haunted Annandale. To memories of her he could not always show the
door. Sometimes they were masked. Occasionally they reproached him.
Again they seemed to say that did he but find out how, all might yet
be well between them. But usually they came and stood gazing at him in
love and grief eternal.

Then he would start. But what could he do? Besides, there was the
Fin