ational anger of an ugly
dream, flamed up quickly and fiercely. He opened his lips as though to
vent his rage, but for an instant his tottering reason regained a
momentary poise. Checking himself with an effort ten thousand times
greater than that he would have used in his former state and in the
world, he bowed his head upon his breast and stood for a little while
with fingers interlocked, clinching his trembling hands together. So he
stood for a while, brooding, until at last Sandy and his escort made a
motion as if to pass by. Then he spoke again.

"Stop a bit!" said he, looking up--"stop a bit!" His voice was hoarse
and constrained, and he looked neither to the right nor to the left, but
straight at that one of the men to whom he had spoken before. "Sir,"
said he, and then clearing his husky voice--"sir," again, "I have
learned a lesson--the greatest lesson of my life! I have looked into my
heart, and I have seen--I have seen myself--God help me,
gentlemen!--I--maybe I am no better than this man."

The crowd, which had been increasing, as crowds do, began to jeer at the
words, for, like most crowds, it was of a nether sort, and enjoyed the
unusual sight of the gentleman and the aristocrat abasing and
humiliating himself before the reformed drunkard.

At the sound of that ugly jeering laugh Colonel Singelsby quivered as
though under the cut of a lancet, but he never removed his eyes from the
man to whom he spoke. For a moment or two he bit his nether lip in his
effort for self-control, and then repeated, in a louder and perhaps
harsher voice, "I am no better than this man!" He paused for a moment,
and the crowd ceased its jeering to hear what he had to say. "I ask only
this," he said, "that you will take me where you are taking him, and
that I may enjoy such happiness as he is about to enjoy."

Instantly a great roar of laughter went up from the crowd, which had now
gathered to some twenty or thirty souls. The man to whom Colonel
Singelsby had spoken shook his head calmly and impassively.

"It cannot be," said he.

Colonel Singelsby turned white to the very lips, his eyes blazed, and
his breath came thick and heavily. His nostrils twitched spasmodically,
but still, with a supreme effort--a struggle so terrible that few men
happily may ever know it or experience it--he once more controlled the
words that sprang to his lips and struggled for utterance. He swallowed
and swallowed convulsively. "Sir," said he at la