till the rush of a trembling train on the elevated,
the voice of a belated reveler, a flitting female figure at a street
corner, the roll of a livery hack over the ragged pavement. But mainly
the noise of the town was hushed, and in the sharp air the stars, far off
and uncontaminated, glowed with a pure lustre.

Farther up town it was quite still, and in one of the noble houses in the
neighborhood of the Park sat Edith Delancy, married not quite a year,
listening for the roll of wheels and the click of a night-key.

II

Everybody liked John Corlear Delancy, and this in spite of himself, for
no one ever knew him to make any effort to incur either love or hate.
The handsome boy was a favorite without lifting his eyebrows, and he
sauntered through the university, picking his easy way along an elective
course, winning the affectionate regard of every one with whom he came in
contact. And this was not because he lacked quality, or was merely
easy-going and negative or effeminate, for the same thing happened to him
when he went shooting in the summer in the Rockies. The cowboys and the
severe moralists of the plains, whose sedate business in life is to get
the drop on offensive persons, regarded him as a brother. It isn't a bad
test of personal quality, this power to win the loyalty of men who have
few or none of the conventional virtues. These non-moral enforcers of
justice--as they understood it liked Jack exactly as his friends in the
New York clubs liked him--and perhaps the moral standard of approval of
the one was as good as the other.

Jack was a very good shot and a fair rider, and in the climate of England
he might have taken first-rate rank in athletics. But he had never taken
first-rate rank in anything, except good-fellowship. He had a great many
expensive tastes, which he could not afford to indulge, except in
imagination. The luxury of a racing-stable, or a yacht, or a library of
scarce books bound by Paris craftsmen was denied him. Those who account
for failures in life by a man's circumstances, and not by a lack in the
man himself, which is always the secret of failure, said that Jack was
unfortunate in coming into a certain income of twenty thousand a year.
This was just enough to paralyze effort, and not enough to permit a man
to expand in any direction. It is true that he was related to millions
and moved in a millionaire atmosphere, but these millions might never
flow into his bank account. They w