e instant he felt as though he must turn to the passers and claim
their protection from himself. He had stopped again, and was standing
under a great pole that supported an electric light. In the globe was a
dim, round ball of red, and suddenly it flared up into a flame of the
palest lemon, edged with blue. "It is my courage," he said, "I have done
with hesitation now." He hailed and boarded a passing car. "Hesitation,
indeed!" he repeated. "As if I had not known all through that when the
time came there would be none!" He put his hand again to his
breast-pocket; it was there.

He had taken the seat nearest to the door, absently, as he would have
taken any other, and the conductor found it necessary to touch him on
the shoulder before he could extract the fare. He had no American money,
he discovered, and would have left the car had not the conductor finally
agreed to take his chances with a small piece of foreign gold, though
not, however, until he had bit it tentatively with his teeth. It was
evident that he viewed Tristrem with suspicion.

At Twentieth Street Tristrem swung himself from the moving vehicle, and
turned into Gramercy Park. He declined to think; the rehearsals were
over, he did not even try to recall the role. He had had a set speech,
but it was gone from him as the indecision had gone before. Now he was
to act.

He hurried up the stoop of Weldon's house and rang the bell, and as
there seemed to him some unnecessary delay, he rang again, not
violently, but with the assurance of a creditor who has come to be paid.
But when at last the door was opened, he learned that Weldon was not at
home.

As he went down the steps again there came to him a great gust and rush
of joy. He would go now, he had been fully prepared, he had tried his
best. If Weldon had been visible, he would not have hesitated. But he
had not been; that one chance had been left them both, and now, with a
certitude that had never visited his former indecisions, he felt it was
written that that deed should never be done. He gasped as one gasps who
has been nearly stifled. The obsession was gone. He was free.

In the street he raised his arms to testify to his liberty reconquered.
Yet, even as they fell again, he knew that he was tricking himself. A
tremor beset him, and to steady himself he clutched at an area-rail.
Whether he stood there one minute or one hour he could not afterward
recall. He remembered only that while he loitered Weld