ine dust of snow.

Daniel rushed in feverish haste, like an escaped convict, headlong on,
without aim or purpose, solely bent upon escaping. But, when he had gone
some distance, the motion, the cold night-air, and the keen wind playing
in his hair, restored him to consciousness. Then he became aware that he
was still in evening costume, bareheaded, and that he had left his hat
and his overcoat in Miss Brandon's house. Then he remembered that Count
Ville-Handry was waiting for him in the great reception-room, together
with M. Elgin and Mrs. Brian. What would they say and think? Unhappy
man, in what a sad predicament he found himself!

There might have been a way to escape from that hell; and he himself, in
his madness, had closed it forever.

Like one of those dissipated men who awake from the heavy sleep after a
debauch, with dry mouth and weary head, he felt as if he had just been
aroused from a singular and terrible dream. Like the drunkard, who, when
he is sobered, tries to recall the foolish things he may have done under
the guidance of King Alcohol, Daniel conjured up one by one all his
emotions during the hour which he had just spent by Miss Brandon's
side,--an hour of madness which would weigh heavily upon his future
fate, and which alone contained in its sixty minutes more experiences
than his whole life so far.

At no time had he been so near despair.

What! He had been warned, put on his guard, made fully aware of all of
Miss Brandon's tricks; they had told him of the weird charm of her eyes;
he himself had caught her that very evening in the open act of deceiving
others.

And in spite of all this, feeble and helpless as he was, he had let
himself be caught by the fascinations of this strange girl. Her voice
had made him forget every thing, every thing--even his dear and beloved
Henrietta, his sole thought for so many years.

"Fool!" he said to himself, "what have I done?"

Unmindful of the blast of the tempest, and of the snow which had begun
to fall, he had sat down on the steps of one of the grandest houses in
Circus Street, and, with his elbows on his knees, he pressed his brow
with his hands, as if hoping that he might thus cause it to suggest to
him some plan of salvation. Conjuring up the whole energy of his will,
he tried to retrace his interview with Miss Brandon in order to find out
by what marvellous transformation it had begun as a terrible combat, and
ended as a love-scene. And recalling