ne, but after we had
passed, something, I cannot tell what, brought back another remembrance,
trivial in itself, but yet a link in the chain that was destined sooner
or later to lead me out of the maze into which I had stumbled. It was
merely this; that as I rode along the streets on that memorable morning,
searching for that mark on the curbstone from which I hoped so much, I
had come upon a spot where the pavement had been freshly washed. With
that unconscious action of the brain with which we are familiar, I
looked at the sidewalk a moment, running even then with the water that
had been cast upon it, and then gave a quick glance at the house. That
glance, account for it as you will, took in the picture before it as the
camera catches the impression of a likeness, and though in another
instant I had forgotten the whole occurrence, it needed but a certain
train of thought or perhaps a certain state of emotion to revive it
again.

A noble cause for such an act of unconscious cerebration you will say, a
freshly washed pavement: _Le jeu ne faut pas la chandelle._ And so I
thought too, or would have thought if I had not been so interested in
the pursuit in which I was engaged, and if the idea had not suggested
itself that water and a broom might obliterate chalk-marks from
curbstones, and that the imps that preside over our mental forces would
not indulge in such a trick at my expense unless the play _was_ worth
the candle. At all events, from the moment I made this discovery, I
fixed my faith on that house as the one which held the object of my
search, and though I contented myself with merely noting the number of
the street as we left it, I none the less determined to pursue my
investigations, till I had learned beyond the possibility of a doubt
whether my conjectures were not true.

A perseverance worthy of a better cause you will say, but you are no
longer twenty-five and under the influence of your first passion. I own
I was astonished at myself and frequently paused in the pursuit I had
undertaken, to ask if I were the same person who but a fortnight before
laughed at the story of a man who had gone mad over the body of an
unknown woman he had saved from a wreck only to find her dead in his
arms.

The first thing I did was to ascertain the name of the gentleman
occupying the house I have specified. It was that of one of our
wealthiest and most respectable bankers, a name as well known in the
city--as your own for