champing up and
down the suite of rooms, cursing himself uselessly.

Suddenly he paused. He was in front of the cabinet which had come via
Bordentown from Queen Caroline Murat. Behind its closed door there was
still the bottle on the label of which a kilted Highlander was
dancing. He must have a refuge from his thoughts, or else he would go
mad. He was already as near madness as a man could come and still be
reckoned sane.

He opened the door of the cabinet. The bottle and the glass stood
exactly where he had placed them on that morning when he had tried to
begin going to the devil, and had failed. Now there was no longer that
same mysterious restraint. He was not thinking of the devil; he was
thinking only of himself. He must still the working of his mind.
Anything would do that would drug his faculties, and so....

It was after midnight when he dragged himself out of a stupor which
had not been sleep. Being stupor, however, it was that much to the
good. He had stopped thinking. He couldn't think. His head didn't
ache; it was merely sore. He might have been dashing it against the
wall, as figuratively he had done. His body was sore too--stiff from
long sitting in the same posture, and bruised as if from beating. All
that was nothing, however, since misery only stunned him. To be
stunned was what he had been working for.

Out in the air the wind of the May night was comforting. It soothed
his nerves without waking the dormant brain. Instead of looking for a
taxi he began walking up the Avenue. Walking too was a relief. It
allowed him to remain as stupefied as at first, and yet stirred the
circulation in his limbs. He meant to walk till he grew tired, after
which he would jump on an electric bus.

But he did not grow tired. He passed the great milestones, Fourteenth
Street, Twenty-third Street, Forty-second Street, Fifty-ninth Street,
and not till crossing the last did he begin to feel fagged. He was
then so near home that the impulse of doggedness kept him on foot. He
was a strong walker, and physically in good condition, without being
wholly robust. Had it not been for the kilted Highlander he would
hardly have felt fatigue; but as it was, the corner of East
Sixty-seventh Street found him as spent as he cared to be.

Advancing toward his door he saw a man coming in the other direction.
There was nothing in that, and he would scarcely have noticed him,
only for the fact that at this hour of the night pedestrians