ieve how I suffer! Often I pray, and my prayer always is: 'O dear
God, don't allow me to _think_. Lash me with Thy wrath; heap burdens on
me, but don't let me _think_.' They say there's a hell hereafter. They
lie: it's here, now."

I was astonished at his vehemence. His face was wrenched with pain, and
his eyes full of remorseful misery.

"What about your friends?"

"Oh, them--I died long ago, died in the early '80's. In a little French
graveyard there's a tombstone that bears my name, my real name, the name
of the 'me' that was. Heart, soul and body, I died. My sisters mourned
me, my friends muttered, 'Poor devil.' A few women cried, and a
girl--well, I mustn't speak of that. It's all over long ago; but I must
eternally do something, fight, drink, work like the devil--anything but
think. I mustn't _think_."

"What about your guardian angel?"

"Yes, sometimes I think he's going to give me another chance. This is
no life for a man like me, slaving in the drift, burning myself up in
the dissipation of the town. A great, glad fight with a good sweet woman
to fight for--that would save me. Oh, to get away from it all, get a
clean start!"

"Well, I believe in you. I'm sure you'll be all right. Let me lend you
the money."

"Thank you, a thousand thanks; but I cannot take it. There it is
again--my pride. Maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe I'm a lost soul, and my
goal's the potter's field. No; thanks! In a day or two I'll be
fighting-fit again. I wouldn't have bored you with this talk, but I'm
weak, and my nerve's gone."

"How much money have you got?" I asked.

He pulled a poor piece of silver from his pocket.

"Enough to do me till I join the pick-and-shovel gang."

"What are those tickets in your hand?"

He laughed carelessly.

"Chances in the ice pools. Funny thing, I don't remember buying them.
Must have been drunk."

"Yes, and you seem to have had a 'hunch.' You've got the same time on
all three: seven seconds, seven minutes past one, on the ninth--that's
to-day. It's noon now. That old ice will have to hurry up if you're
going to win. Fancy, if you did! You'd clean up over three thousand
dollars. There would be your new start."

"Yes, fancy," he echoed mockingly. "Over five thousand betting, and the
guesses as close as peas in a pod."

"Well, the ice may go out any moment. It's awful rotten."

With a curious fascination, we gazed down at the mighty river. Around us
was a glow of spring sunshine, above us t