iends and
his generally stupid performances while under the spell of the wolf, but
he thought also of the excuse he had, and conscience was half appeased.

So he was alone, the same old Selkirk or Robinson Crusoe, without a man
Friday, without even a parrot and goats; alone in his once familiar
hotel and his office, in a city where he was distinctly of the native
sort, where he had seen, it seemed to him, every one of the great
"sky-scraping" buildings rise from foundation-stone to turret, where he
should be one whose passage along the street would be a series of
greetings. He yearned for companionship. His pulse quickened when he met
one of his lately persecuting bill-collectors on the street and received
from him a friendly recognition of his bow and smile. He became affable
with elevator-men and policemen. But he was lonely, very lonely.

The days drifted into long weeks, when one day the mail-carrier, once so
regular in his calls, now almost a stranger, appeared and cast upon
George Henry's desk a letter returned uncalled for. The recipient
examined it with interest. It did not require much to excite his
interest now.

The returned letter was one which he had sent enclosing a check to a Dr.
Hartley, to whom he had become indebted for professional services at one
time. He had never received a bill, but had sent the check at a venture.
Its return, with the postoffice comment, "Moved, left no address,"
startled him. Dr. Hartley was Her father. George Henry pondered. Was it
a dream or reality, that a few months ago, while he was almost submerged
in his sea of difficulties, he had read or heard of Dr. Hartley's death?
He had known the doctor but slightly, well as he had known his daughter
Sylvia, of the dark eyes, but it seemed impossible that in any state of
mind such a thing as Dr. Hartley's reported death should have made no
impression upon him. He was aroused now, almost for the first time, and
was really himself again. The benumbing influence of his face-to-face
fight with poverty and inactivity disappeared. Sylvia lived again,
fresh, vital and strong in her hold upon him. He was renewed by the
purpose in life which he had allowed to lapse in his desperate days of
defeat. He would find Sylvia. She might be in sorrow, in trouble; he
could not wait, but leaped out of his office and ran down the long
stairways, too hurried and restless to wait for the lagging elevator of
the great building where he had suffered so mu