elief that he could if he tried, he went out
to walk the streets. He went down to the river first, and stood for a
little while gazing at the ruins of the two warehouses, and that was
like a man with a headache beating his skull against a wall. As he stood
on the blackened wharf, he saw how the charred beams rose above him
against the sky like a gallows, and it seemed to him that nothing could
have been a better symbol, for here he had hanged his self-respect.
"Reproach her!" He, who had so displayed his imbecility before her! Had
he been her father's best friend, he should have had too great a
sense of shame to dare to speak to her after that night when her quiet
intelligence had exhibited him to himself, and to all the world, as
nought else than a fool--and a noisy one at that!

Suddenly a shudder convulsed him; he struck his open palm across his
forehead and spoke aloud, while, from horizon to horizon, the night air
grew thick with the whispered laughter of observing hobgoblins:

"And even if there had been no stairway, we could have slid down the
hose-line!"

He retraced his steps, a tall, gray figure moving slowly through the
blue darkness, and his lips formed the heart-sick shadow of a smile when
he found that he had unconsciously turned into Carewe Street. Presently
he came to a gap in a hedge, through which he had sometimes stolen to
hear the sound of a harp and a girl's voice singing; but he did not
enter there tonight, though he paused a moment, his head bowed on his
breast.

There came a sound of voices; they seemed to be moving toward the
hedge, toward the gap where he stood; one a man's eager, quick, but very
musical; the other, a girl's, a rich and clear contralto that passed
into Tom's soul like a psalm of rejoicing and like a scimitar of flame.
He shivered, and moved away quickly, but not before the man's voice,
somewhat louder for the moment, came distinctly from the other side of
the hedge:

"After all," said the voice, with a ripple of laughter, "after all,
weren't you a little hard on that poor Mr. Gray?"

Tom did not understand, but he knew the voice. It was that of Crailey
Gray.

He heard the same voice again that night, and again stood unseen. Long
after midnight he was still tramping the streets on his lonely rounds,
when he chanced to pass the Rouen House, which hostelry bore, to the
uninitiated eye, the appearance of having closed its doors upon all
hospitalities for the night, in stri