e
more and see the end. I lingered in San Francisco, indemnifying myself
after the hardships of the cruise, spending money, regretting it,
continually promising departure for the morrow. Why not go indeed, and
keep a watch upon Bellairs? If I missed him, there was no harm done, I
was the nearer Paris. If I found and kept his trail, it was hard if I
could not put some stick in his machinery, and at the worst I could
promise myself interesting scenes and revelations.

In such a mixed humour, I made up what it pleases me to call my mind,
and once more involved myself in the story of Carthew and the _Flying
Scud_. The same night I wrote a letter of farewell to Jim, and one of
anxious warning to Dr. Urquart, begging him to set Carthew on his guard;
the morrow saw me in the ferry-boat; and ten days later, I was walking
the hurricane-deck on the _City of Denver_. By that time my mind was
pretty much made down again, its natural condition: I told myself that I
was bound for Paris or Fontainebleau to resume the study of the arts;
and I thought no more of Carthew or Bellairs, or only to smile at my own
fondness. The one I could not serve, even if I wanted; the other I had
no means of finding, even if I could have at all influenced him after he
was found.

And for all that, I was close on the heels of an absurd adventure. My
neighbour at table that evening was a 'Frisco man whom I knew slightly.
I found he had crossed the plains two days in front of me, and this was
the first steamer that had left New York for Europe since his arrival.
Two days before me meant a day before Bellairs; and dinner was scarce
done before I was closeted with the purser.

"Bellairs?" he repeated. "Not in the saloon, I am sure. He may be in the
second class. The lists are not made out, but--Hullo! 'Harry D.
Bellairs?' That's the name? He's there right enough."

And the next morning I saw him on the forward deck, sitting in a chair,
a book in his hand, a shabby puma skin rug about his knees: the picture
of respectable decay. Off and on, I kept him in my eye. He read a good
deal, he stood and looked upon the sea, he talked occasionally with his
neighbours, and once when a child fell he picked it up and soothed it. I
damned him in my heart; the book, which I was sure he did not read--the
sea, to which I was ready to take oath he was indifferent--the child,
whom I was certain he would as leave have tossed overboard--all seemed
to me elements in a theatric