y grind. Through that, as through, the later vicissitudes of his
career, his mind clung, with a curious, mechanical persistency, to that
troublesome vow which he had made.

The difficulty lay in his entire constitutional lack of vicious
tendencies. He had no taste for drink and none for bad company; highway
robbery was played out, and the modern substitutes for it were too
ignoble to be thought of. Had that not been the case his perplexities
might have found an easy solution, for more than one golden opportunity
offered for bald, barefaced breach of trust. One day in particular, he
found himself in the street with thirty thousand dollars in his
trousers' pocket. This not unprecedented situation derived its special
significance from the fact that the day was the one fixed for Frances
Lester's marriage. As Dirke walked up the street he saw, in fact, the
carriages drawn up before Trinity Church, and he knew that the ceremony
was going forward. He was struck with the dramatic possibilities of the
moment. Were he to decamp on the spot, he might be in time to get into
the morning papers, and Frances would know with what _eclat_ he had
celebrated her wedding day. He raised his hand to signal a cab, but the
driver did not see him, and ten minutes later the money had gone to
swell his employers' bank-account. He had often questioned what would
have been his next step, supposing that particular cab-driver had had
his wits about him and seen the signal. He was loath to admit that he
would merely have been at the expense of driving the few blocks to the
same destination which he had reached more economically on foot!

He had returned in time to stand among the crowd on the sidewalk and see
the bridal party issue from the church. When bride and bridegroom
crossed the narrow space between the awning and the carriage door, Dirke
had his first opportunity of seeing the Count de Lys. He could not but
perceive that the man was the possessor of a high-bred, handsome face,
but perhaps it was, under the circumstances, not altogether surprising
that he found the handsome face detestable. The mere sight of the black
moustache and imperial which the Frenchman wore so jauntily was enough
to make the unhappy broker's clerk forswear all kindred ornaments to the
end of his days.

A broker's clerk he did not long remain, however. He was too restless
for that, too much at odds with the particular sort of life his
situation forced him into. Within