he sits there with clenched hands,
the dust and ashes of a broken marriage and a loveless
life, and the knowledge, too late, of all that might have
been.

And it is to this hotel that The Woman's Husband is
following her.

But The Man does not know that she is in the hotel, nor
that she has left her husband; it is only accident that
brings them together. And it is only by accident that he
has come into her room, at night, and stands there--rooted
to the threshold. Now as a matter of fact, in real life,
there is nothing at all in the simple fact of walking
into the wrong room of an hotel by accident. You merely
apologise and go out. I had this experience myself only
a few days ago. I walked right into a lady's room--next
door to my own. But I simply said, "Oh, I beg your pardon,
I thought this was No. 343."

"No," she said, "this is 341."

She did not rise and "confront" me, as they always do in
the snoopopathic stories. Neither did her eyes flash,
nor her gown cling to her as she rose. Nor was her gown
made of "rich old stuff." No, she merely went on reading
her newspaper.

"I must apologise," I said. "I am a little short-sighted,
and very often a _one_ and a _three_ look so alike that
I can't tell them apart. I'm afraid--"

"Not at all," said the lady. "Good evening."

"You see," I added, "this room and my own being so alike,
and mine being 343 and this being 341, I walked in before
I realised that instead of walking into 343 I was walking
into 341."

She bowed in silence, without speaking, and I felt that
it was now the part of exquisite tact to retire quietly
without further explanation, or at least with only a few
murmured words about the possibility of to-morrow being
even colder than to-day. I did so, and the affair ended
with complete _savoir faire_ on both sides.

But the Snoopopaths, Man and Woman, can't do this sort
of thing, or, at any rate, the snoopopathic writer won't
let them. The opportunity is too good to miss. As soon
as The Man comes into The Woman's room--before he knows
who she is, for she has her back to him--he gets into a
condition dear to all snoopopathic readers.

His veins simply "surged." His brain beat against his
temples in mad pulsation. His breath "came and went in
quick, short pants." (This last might perhaps be done by
one of the hotel bellboys, but otherwise it is hard to
imagine.)

And The Woman--"Noiseless as his step had been, she seemed
to _sense_ his presenc