ncisco on
a midday ferryboat and went to the club and on to his office, as normal
and conventional a man of business as could be found in the city. But as
the evening lengthened, the night called to him. There came a quickening
of all his perceptions and a restlessness. His hearing was suddenly
acute; the myriad night-noises told him a luring and familiar story;
and, if alone, he would begin to pace up and down the narrow room like
any caged animal from the wild.

Once, he ventured to fall in love. He never permitted himself that
diversion again. He was afraid. And for many a day the young lady,
scared at least out of a portion of her young ladyhood, bore on her
arms and shoulders and wrists divers black-and-blue bruises--tokens of
caresses which he had bestowed in all fond gentleness but too late
at night. There was the mistake. Had he ventured love-making in the
afternoon, all would have been well, for it would have been as the quiet
gentleman that he would have made love--but at night it was the uncouth,
wife-stealing savage of the dark German forests. Out of his wisdom, he
decided that afternoon love-making could be prosecuted successfully; but
out of the same wisdom he was convinced that marriage as would prove
a ghastly failure. He found it appalling to imagine being married and
encountering his wife after dark.

So he had eschewed all love-making, regulated his dual life, cleaned up
a million in business, fought shy of match-making mamas and bright-eyed
and eager young ladies of various ages, met Lilian Gersdale and made
it a rigid observance never to see her later than eight o'clock in the
evening, run of nights after his coyotes, and slept in forest lairs--and
through it all had kept his secret safe save Lee Sing... and now,
Dave Slotter. It was the latter's discovery of both his selves that
frightened him. In spite of the counter fright he had given the burglar,
the latter might talk. And even if he did not, sooner or later he would
be found out by some one else.

Thus it was that James Ward made a fresh and heroic effort to control
the Teutonic barbarian that was half of him. So well did he make it
a point to see Lilian in the afternoons, that the time came when
she accepted him for better or worse, and when he prayed privily and
fervently that it was not for worse. During this period no prize-fighter
ever trained more harshly and faithfully for a contest than he trained
to subdue the wild savage in him. A