y next resource, I repaired to his former lodging
at Homburg, where I thought it possible he had left property which he
would sooner or later send for. There I learned that he had indeed just
telegraphed from Cologne for his luggage. To Cologne I immediately
despatched a line of inquiry as to his prosperity and the cause of his
silence. The next day I received three words in answer--a simple
uncommented request that I would come to him. I lost no time, and
reached him in the course of a few hours. It was dark when I arrived,
and the city was sheeted in a cold autumnal rain. Pickering had
stumbled, with an indifference which was itself a symptom of distress, on
a certain musty old Mainzerhof, and I found him sitting over a
smouldering fire in a vast dingy chamber which looked as if it had grown
gray with watching the _ennui_ of ten generations of travellers. Looking
at him, as he rose on my entrance, I saw that he was in extreme
tribulation. He was pale and haggard; his face was five years older.
Now, at least, in all conscience, he had tasted of the cup of life! I
was anxious to know what had turned it so suddenly to bitterness; but I
spared him all importunate curiosity, and let him take his time. I
accepted tacitly his tacit confession of distress, and we made for a
while a feeble effort to discuss the picturesqueness of Cologne. At last
he rose and stood a long time looking into the fire, while I slowly paced
the length of the dusky room.

"Well!" he said, as I came back; "I wanted knowledge, and I certainly
know something I didn't a month ago." And herewith, calmly and
succinctly enough, as if dismay had worn itself out, he related the
history of the foregoing days. He touched lightly on details; he
evidently never was to gush as freely again as he had done during the
prosperity of his suit. He had been accepted one evening, as explicitly
as his imagination could desire, and had gone forth in his rapture and
roamed about till nearly morning in the gardens of the
Conversation-house, taking the stars and the perfumes of the summer night
into his confidence. "It is worth it all, almost," he said, "to have
been wound up for an hour to that celestial pitch. No man, I am sure,
can ever know it but once." The next morning he had repaired to Madame
Blumenthal's lodging and had been met, to his amazement, by a naked
refusal to see him. He had strode about for a couple of hours--in
another mood--and then had