er
it was it saved him. He could not face that semblance of his haunting
thought; and turning away he cowered down on the neighbouring curbstone,
where he sat for several minutes, with his head buried in his hands;
when he arose again he was his own daring and sinister self. Knowing
that he was now too much master of his faculties to ignore me any
longer, I walked quickly away and left him. I knew where he would be at
six o'clock and had already engaged a table at the same restaurant. It
was seven, however, before he put in an appearance, and by this time he
was looking more composed. There was a reckless air about him, however,
which was perhaps only noticeable to me; for none of the habitues of
this especial restaurant were entirely without it; wild eyes and unkempt
hair being in the majority.

I let him eat. The dinner he ordered was simple and I had not the heart
to interrupt his enjoyment of it.

But when he had finished and came to pay, then I allowed the shock to
come. Under the bill which the waiter laid at the side of his plate was
the inevitable steel coil; and it produced even more than its usual
effect. I own I felt sorry for him.

He did not dash from the place, however, as he had from the liquor
saloon. A spirit of resistance had seized him and he demanded to know
where this object of his fear had come from. No one could tell him (or
would). Whereupon he began to rave and would certainly have done himself
or somebody else an injury if he had not been calmed by a man almost as
wild-looking as himself. Paying his bill, but vowing he would never
enter the place again, he went out, clay white, but with the swaggering
air of a man who had just asserted himself.

He drooped, however, as soon as he reached the street, and I had no
difficulty in following him to a certain gambling den, where he gained
three dollars and lost five. From there he went to his lodgings in West
Tenth Street.

I did not follow him. He had passed through many deep and wearing
emotions since noon, and I had not the heart to add another to them.

But late the next day I returned to this house and rang the bell. It was
already dusk, but there was light enough for me to notice the unrepaired
condition of the iron railings on either side of the old stoop and to
compare this abode of decayed grandeur with the spacious and elegant
apartment in which pretty Mrs. Holmes mourned the loss of her young
husband. Had any such comparison ever bee