t she
was indifferent to appreciation from others.

He did not go back to the office after lunch. Several important matters
were coming up; if he got within reach they might conspire to make it
impossible for him to be with her on time. If his partners, his clients
knew! He the important man of affairs kneeling at the feet of a
nobody!--and why? Chiefly because he was unable to convince her that he
amounted to anything. His folly nauseated him. He sat in a corner in the
dining room of the Lawyers' Club and drank one whisky and soda after
another and brooded over his follies and his unhappiness, muttering
monotonously from time to time: "No wonder she makes a fool of me. I
invite it, I beg for it, damned idiot that I am!" By three o'clock he
had drunk enough liquor to have dispatched the average man for several
days. It had produced no effect upon him beyond possibly a slight
aggravation of his moodiness.

It took only twenty minutes to get from New York to her house. He set
out at a few minutes after three; arrived at twenty minutes to four. As
experience of her ways had taught him that she was much less friendly
when he disobeyed her requests, he did not dare go to the house, but,
after looking at it from a corner two blocks away, made a detour that
would use up some of the time he had to waste. And as he wandered he
indulged in his usual alternations between self-derision and passion. He
appeared at the house at five minutes to four. Patrick, who with Molly
his wife looked after the domestic affairs, was at the front gate gazing
down the street in the direction from which he always came. At sight of
him Pat came running. Norman quickened his pace, and every part of his
nervous system was in turmoil.

"Mr. Hallowell--he's--_dead_," gasped Pat.

"Dead?" echoed Norman.

"Three quarters of an hour ago, sir. He came from the lobatry, walked in
the sitting room where Miss Dorothy was oiling the furniture and I was
oiling the floor. And he sets down--and he looks at her--as cool and
calm as could be--and he says, 'Dorothy, my child, I'm dying.' And she
stands up straight and looks at him curious like--just curious like. And
he says, 'Dorothy, good-by.' And he shivers, and I jumps up just in time
to catch him from rolling to the floor. He was dead then--so the doctor
says."

"Dead!" repeated Norman, looking round vaguely.

He went on to the house, Pat walking beside him and chattering on and
on--a stream of words Nor