he looked up, the _coupe_ was far off, nearly at the
boulevard. To attempt overtaking it now would have been folly indeed;
and Daniel remained there, overwhelmed and defeated.

What could he do? It occurred to him that he might hasten to Maxime, and
ask him for advice. But fate was against him; he gave up that idea. He
went slowly back to his lodgings, and threw himself into an arm-chair,
determined not to go to bed till he had found a way to extricate himself
from the effects of his egregious folly.

But he had now been for two days agitated by the extremest alternatives,
like a man out at sea, whom the waves buffet, and throw--now up to the
shore, and now back again into open water. He had not closed an eye for
forty-eight hours; and, if the heart seems to be able to suffer almost
indefinitely, our physical strength is strictly limited. Thus he fell
asleep, dreaming even in his sleep that he was hard at work, and just
about to discover the means by which he could penetrate the mystery of
Miss Brandon.

It was bright day when Daniel awoke, chilled and stiffened; for he had
not changed his clothes when he came home, and his fire had gone out.
His first impulse was one of wrath against himself. What! he succumbed
so easily?--he, the sailor, who remembered very well having remained
more than once for forty, and even once for sixty hours on deck,
when his vessel was threatened by a hurricane? Had his peaceful and
monotonous life in his office during the last two years weakened him to
such a point, that all the springs of his system had lost their power?

Poor fellow! he knew not that the direst fatigue _is_ trifling in
comparison with that deep moral excitement which shakes the human system
to its most mysterious depths. Nevertheless, while he hastened to kindle
a large fire, in order to warm himself, he felt that the rest had done
him good. The last evil effects of his excitement last night had passed
away; the charm by which he had been fascinated was broken; and he felt
once more master of all his faculties.

Now his folly appeared to him so utterly inexplicable, that, if he had
but tasted a glass of lemonade at Miss Brandon's house, he should have
been inclined to believe that they had given him one of those drugs
which set the brains on fire, and produce a kind of delirium. But he had
taken nothing, and, even if he had, was the foolish act less real for
that? The consequences would be fatal, he had no doubt.

He