ce! the deuce! the--"

He hummed a bar or two of a new waltz, took a puff at his cigarette,
winked affably at the idol, put on his coat, and without a second glance
at the glass went out whistling a lively tune.

Hamil, dressed for dinner, but looking rather worn and fatigued, passed
him in the hall.

"You've evidently had a hard day," said Malcourt; "you resemble the last
run of sea-weed. Is everybody dining at this hour?"

"I dined early with Mrs. Cardross. Mrs. Carrick has taken Shiela and
Cecile to that dinner dance at the O'Haras'. It's the last of the
season. I thought you might be going later."

"Are you?"

"No; I'm rather tired."

"I'm tired, too. Hang it! I'm always tired--but only of Bibi. Quand
meme! Good night.... I'll probably reappear with the dicky-birds. Leave
your key under that yellow rose-bush, will you? I can't stop to hunt up
mine. And tell them not to bar and chain the door; that's a good
fellow."

Hamil nodded and resumed his journey to his bedroom. There he
transferred a disorderly heap of letters, plans, contracts, and
blue-prints from his bed to a table, threw a travelling rug over the
bed, lay down on it, and lighted a cigar, closing his eyes for a moment.
Then he opened them wearily.

He did not intend to sleep; there was work waiting for him; that was why
he left the electric bulbs burning as safeguard against slumber.

For a while he smoked, flat on his back; his cigar went out twice and he
relighted it. The third time he was deciding whether or not to set fire
to it again--he remembered that--and remembered nothing more, except the
haunted dreams in which he followed _her_, through sad and endless
forests, gray in deepening twilight, where he could neither see her face
nor reach her side, nor utter the cry which strained in his throat....
On, on, endlessly struggling onward in the thickening darkness, year
after year, the sky a lowering horror, the forest, no longer silent, a
twisting, stupefying confusion of sound, growing, increasing, breaking
into a hellish clamour!--

Upright on his bed he realised that somebody was knocking; and he slid
to the floor, still stupid and scarcely convinced.

"Mrs. Carrick's compliments, and is Mr. Hamil quite well bein' as the
lights is burnin' an' past two o'clock, sir?" said the maid at the door.

"Past _two_! O Lord! Please thank Mrs. Carrick, and say that I am going
to do a little work, and that I am perfectly well."

He closed the d