sed of vulgar fear of death. In his case, indeed, it may have
required more courage to close his mouth than to open it. Be that as
it might, the question as to the degree and nature of his guilt was
still unsettled in his mind. Moreover, had he been clear on this
point, he yet distrusted the competence of human laws to do him
justice. He shrank from surrender, less as affecting his person than
as superseding his judgment. But, failing himself and mankind, to what
other court can he appeal? Should the fitting tribunal appear, will he
have the nerve to face it?

He did not go to the Astor House, notwithstanding the trouble he had
taken to ask his way thither. He coasted along the more obscure
thoroughfares, seeming to find something congenial in them. Here were
people, many of whom had also committed crimes, whose eyes he need
not shun to meet, who were his brethren. To be sure, they gave him no
friendly glances, taking him for some dainty aristocrat, whom idle
curiosity had led to their domains. But Helwyse knew the secret of his
kinship; and he perhaps indulged a wild momentary dream of proclaiming
himself to them, entering into their life, and vanishing from that
world that had known him heretofore. It is a shorter step than is
generally supposed, from human height to human degradation.

A pale girl with handsome features, careless expression, and somewhat
disordered hair, leant out of a low window, her loose dress falling
partly open from her bosom as she did so.

"Where are you going, my love?" inquired she, with a professionally
attractive smile. "Aren't you going to give me a lock of that sweet
yellow hair?--there's a duck!"

It so happened that Helwyse had never before been openly accosted by a
member of this class of the community. Was this infringement of the
rule the result of his own fall, or of the girl's exceptional
effrontery? He had an indignant glance ready poised, but forbore to
hurl it! The worst crime of the young woman was that she disposed of
herself at a rate of remuneration exactly corresponding to the value
of the commodity; whereas he, less economical and orderly, had
mortgaged his own soul by disposing of some one else's body, and was,
if anything, out of pocket by the transaction! Undoubtedly the young
woman had the best of it; very likely, had she been aware of the
circumstances, she would not have deigned him so much as a smile. He
therefore neither yielded to her solicitations nor rebuke