it all. If he
had but bestirred himself sooner! Instead of struggling against that
which every throb of his heart convinced him was false, he had dawdled
with the impossible and toyed with apostils of grief. At the first
obstacle he had turned aside. Where he should have been resolute, he had
been weak. He had taken mists for barriers. A child frightened at its
own shadow was never more absurd than he. And Viola--it was not
surprising that the color had deserted her cheeks. It was no wonder that
in his imbecile silence she had gone away. It was only surprising that
she had not gone before. And if she had waited, might it not be that she
waited expectant of some effort from him, hoping against hope, and when
he had made no sign had believed in his defeat, and left him to it.
There was no blame for her. And now, if he were free again, that very
liberty was due not to his own persistence, but to chance. Surely she
was right to go. Yet--yet--but, after all, _it was not too late_.
Wherever she had gone he could follow. He would find her, and tell her,
and hold her to him.

Already he smiled in scenes forecast. The exasperation had left him.
Whether he came to Narragansett or journeyed to Paris, what matter did
it make? The errand was identical, and the result would be the same. How
foolish of him to be annoyed because he had not found her, in garlands
of orange-blossoms, waiting on a balcony to greet his coming. The very
fact of her absence added new weight to the import of his message. Yes,
he would return to town at once, and the next steamer would bear him to
her.

And then, unconsciously, through some obscure channel of memory, he was
back where he had once been, in a _Gasthof_ in the Bavarian Mountains.
It was not yet dusk. Through the window came a choir of birds, and he
could see the tender asparagus-green of neighborly trees. He was seated
at a great, bare table of oak, and as he raised from it to his lips a
stone measure of beer, his eyes rested on an engraving that hung on the
wall. It represented a huntsman, galloping like mad, one steadying hand
on the bridle and the other stretched forward to grasp a phantom that
sped on before. Under the picture, in quaint German text, was the
legend, _The Chase after Happiness_. "H'm;" he mused, "I don't see why I
should think of that."

"That's the gist of it all," Jones was saying. "It's the fashion to rail
against critics. I remember telling one of the guild the other da