deacon might at
the last moment sacrifice a good trade out of spite--the lawyer was to
telegraph him at once at the Waldorf.

Then he looked up the time the Berringdon train left and wrote a note
giving Mrs. Wentworth final detailed instructions.

Then still unwilling to trust himself alone with his thoughts,
Donaldson remained about the lobby. He felt in touch here with all the
wide world which lay spread out below the night sky. He studied with
interest the weary travellers who were dropped here by steamers which
had throbbed across so many turbulent watery miles, by locomotives hot
from their steel-held course. The ever-changing figures absorbed him
until, with her big shouldered husband, a woman entered who remotely
resembled her he had been forced to leave to the protection of one old
serving maid. Then in spite of himself, his thoughts ran wild again.

He hungered to get back to his old office, where, if he could find
nothing else to do for her, he could at least bury himself in his law
books. This unknown man strode across the lobby so confidently--every
sturdy line of him suggesting blowsy strength. The unknown woman
tripped along at his heels in absolute trust of it. And he, Donaldson,
sat here, a helpless spectator, with a worthier woman trusting him as
though he were such a man.

In rebellion he argued that it was absurd that such a passion as his
towards a woman of whom he had seen so little should be genuine. His
condition had made him mawkishly sentimental. He had been fascinated
like a callow youngster by her delicate, pretty features; by her deep
gray eyes, her budding lips, her gentle voice. He would be writing
verse next. He was free--free, and in one stroke he had placed the
world at his feet. He was above it--beyond it, and every living human
soul in it. He rose as though to challenge the hotel itself, which
represented the crude active part of this world.

But with the memory of his afternoon, his declaration of independence
lasted but a moment. He was back in the green fields with her--back in
the blazing sunshine with her, and the knowledge that from there, not
here, the road began along which lay everything his eager nature craved.

Well, even so, was he going to cower back into a corner? There still
remained to him five days. To use them decently he must keep to the
present. The big future--the true future was dead. Admit it. There
still remained a little future. Let hi