and I went
to their piers and made all sorts of inquiries, but I could find out
nothing. Then I went to your club, to your lawyer's office, and several
other places where I supposed you might go, but no one had seen or heard
of you. Then a fear began to creep over me that you had had some greatly
depressing news from Miss Laniston, and that you had made away with
yourself."

"Walkirk!" I exclaimed, "how dared you think that?"

"Men in the nervous condition I was," he answered, "think all sorts of
things, and that is one of the things I thought. Finally I went to Miss
Laniston's house again, and this time I found her, and learned what had
happened. Then I went to the pier, ordered the trunk sent back here, for
I knew there was no question now of the trip to Europe, and here I am."

It was easy to see that whatever pleasure the turn in my affairs may
have given Walkirk, he was disappointed at losing his trip to Europe;
but I thought it well not to reopen his wounds by any allusion to this
fact, and contented myself by saying the most earnest and cordial things
about what he had done and suffered for me that day, and inwardly
determining that I would make full amends to him for his lost journey.

In about ten days I received a message by cable from Liverpool, which
was sent by my stenographer, informing me that he had gone aboard the
steamer, as per agreement, and being busy writing letters to send back
by the pilot, had not discovered that Walkirk and I were not on board
until it was too late. The message was a long one, and its cost, as well
as that of the one by which I informed the stenographer that he might
come home, and the price of the man's passage to Liverpool and back,
besides the sum I was obliged to pay him for his lost time, might all
have been saved to me, had the fellow been thoughtful enough to make
himself sure that we were on board before he allowed himself to be
carried off. But little rubs of this kind were of slight moment to me at
that time.

On the day after things had been taken for granted between Sylvia and
myself, I saw her at her mother's house, and I must admit that although
it had given me such exquisite pleasure to feel that she was mine in the
coarse gray gown of a "sister," it delighted me more to feel she was
mine in the ordinary costume of society. She was as gay as a butterfly
ought to be which had just cast off its gray wrappings and spread its
wings to the coloring light.

I fo