chance. I only got a pleasant
greeting and a bright look, that was all. I was longing to get her into
a corner, and have a little comfort, and a little good advice. But I
couldn't. Misfortunes never come singly. To-day every thing has been
blacker than midnight. Number Three, Miss Phillips, and the widow, are
all turning against a fellow. I think it's infernally hard. I feel Miss
Phillips's treatment worst. She had no business to come here at all
when I thought she was safe in New Brunswick. I dare say I could have
wriggled through, but she came and precipitated the catastrophe, as
the saying is. Then, again, why didn't she take me when I offered
myself? And, for that matter, why didn't Number Three take me that
other time when I was ready, and asked her to fly with me? I'll be
hanged if I don't think I've had an abominably hard time of it! And now
I'm fairly cornered, and you must see plainly why I'm thinking of the
river. If I take to it, they'll shed a tear over me, I know; whereas,
if I don't, they'll all pitch into me, and Louie'll only laugh. Look
here, old boy, I'll give up women forever."

"What! And Louie, too?"

"Oh, that's a different thing altogether," said Jack; and he subsided
into a deep fit of melancholy musing.

CHAPTER XXII.

I REVEAL MY SECRET.--TREMENDOUS EFFECTS OF THE REVELATION.--MUTUAL
EXPLANATIONS, WHICH ARE BY NO MEANS SATISFACTORY. JACK STANDS UP FOR
WHAT HE CALLS HIS RIGHTS.--REMONSTRANCES AND REASONINGS, ENDING IN A
GENERAL ROW.--JACK MAKES A DECLARATION OF WAR, AND TAKES HIS DEPARTURE
IN A STATE OF UNPARALLELED HUFFINESS.

I Could hold out no longer. I had preserved my secret jealously for two
entire days, and my greater secret had been seething in my brain, and
all that, for a day. Jack had given me his entire confidence. Why
shouldn't I give him mine? I longed to tell him all. I had told him of
my adventure, and why should I not tell of its happy termination? Jack,
too, was fairly and thoroughly in the dumps, and it would be a positive
boon to him if I could lead his thoughts away from his own sorrows to
my very peculiar adventures.

"Jack," said I, at last, "I've something to tell you."

"Go ahead," cried Jack, from the further end of his pipe.

"It's about the Lady of the Ice," said I.

"Is it?" said Jack, dolefully

"Yes; would you like to hear about it?"

"Oh, yes, of course," said Jack, in the same tone.

Whereupon I began with the evening of the concert, an