earch of food. He was going to Port
Willis for chloroform to satisfy a hunger keener than any animal's,
to satisfy the keenest hunger of which man, body and soul together,
is capable, a hunger keener than that of love or revenge, the hunger
for the open beyond the suffocating fastnesses of life. He met
several people whom he knew, and bowed perfunctorily. One or two
turned and looked after him. Two ladies, starting on a round of
calls, Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn, again looked forth from the window
of Samson Rawdy's best coach, and at the intent man hurrying along
the sidewalk.

"I wonder where's he going," Mrs. Lee said, in a hushed tone. She was
just approaching a house where they meditated calling, and she was
rubbing on her violet-scented white gloves. Mrs. Lee looked worn and
considerably thinner than usual, and she was uncomfortably conscious
of her last season's bonnet. "My bonnet doesn't look very well to
make calls," she had remarked, when she entered the coach, hired, as
usual, at her companion's expense.

"It looks very well indeed," said Mrs. Van Dorn, in a covertly
triumphant voice. She herself wore a most gorgeous new bonnet with a
clump of winter roses crowning her gray pompadour. "It isn't the one
you wore last winter, is it?" asked she.

"Yes," admitted Mrs. Lee.

"You don't mean it! I thought it was new," said Mrs. Van Dorn, lying
comfortably.

"No, it's my old bonnet. I thought maybe it would do a while longer,"
said Mrs. Lee, meekly.

"I heard yesterday that a good many folks in Banbridge had been
losing money through Captain Carroll," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with
appositeness.

Mrs. Lee colored. "Have they?" said she.

"I heard so."

"Who is that man coming?" said Mrs. Lee, quickly, striving to turn
the conversation. Then she directly saw that the man was Carroll
himself.

"Why, it's Captain Carroll himself!" said Mrs. Van Dorn, and then
Mrs. Lee wondered, in her small, hushed voice, where he was going.

Samson Rawdy, driving, looked sharply at him. He even leaned far out
from the seat after he had passed, and watched to make sure he did
not take the road to the railroad station. Then he began, for the
hundredth time mentally, calculating the amount that was still owing
him. It was not much, only a matter of two dollars and some cents,
but his mind dwelt upon it.

"Seems to me he looked queer," Mrs. Lee remarked, thoughtfully, after
Carroll had passed.

"How do you mean?"

"I don't