he pieces on the floor.

Mortified and somewhat ashamed, I put down my own glass.

"You should not have exasperated me," I cried, and walked away beyond
temptation, to the other side of the room.

His spirits had received a dampener, but in a few minutes he seized
upon a cigar and began smoking; as the wreaths curled over his head he
began to talk, and this time it was on subjects totally foreign to
myself and even to himself. It was good talk; that I recognized,
though I hardly listened to what he said. I was asking myself what
time it had now got to be, and what was the meaning of my
incarceration, till my brain became weary and I could scarcely
distinguish the topic he discussed. But he kept on for all my seeming,
and indeed real, indifference, kept on hour after hour in a monologue
he endeavored to make interesting, and which probably would have been
so if the time and occasion had been fit for my enjoying it. As it
was, I had no ear for choicest phrases, his subtlest criticisms, or his
most philosophic disquisitions. I was wrapped up in self and my cruel
disappointment, and when in a certain access of frenzy I leaped to my
feet and took a look at the watch still lying on the table, and saw it
was four o'clock in the morning, I gave a bound of final despair, and
throwing myself on the floor, gave myself up to the heavy sleep that
mercifully came to relieve me.

I was roused by feeling a touch on my breast. Clapping my hand to the
spot where I had felt the intruding hand, I discovered that my watch
had been returned to my pocket. Drawing it out I first looked at it
and then cast my eyes quickly about the room. There was no one with
me, and the doors stood open between me and the hall. It was eight
o'clock, as my watch had just told me.

That I rushed from the house and took the shortest road to the steamer,
goes without saying. I could not cross the ocean with Dora, but I
might yet see her and tell her how near I came to giving her my company
on that long voyage which now would only serve to further the ends of
my rival. But when, after torturing delays on cars and ferry-boats,
and incredible efforts to pierce a throng that was equally determined
not to be pierced, I at last reached the wharf, it was to behold her,
just as I had fancied in my wildest moments, leaning on a rail of the
ship and listening, while she abstractedly waved her hand to some
friends below, to the words of the man who had never