ication, in the present state of affairs, might even overturn a
policy--or, at least, in the opinion of the Advocate, could not be done
without. I need not say that the article in question represented his
own views with remarkable exactitude, and he looked to it to further his
rising influence in London. As he grew greater, he was more often in the
south, and we saw less and less of him. On the other hand, the practical
work of the _Review_ fell more and more upon me.

So this night, as I say, I was late, and on turning out into the
south-going street which leads past the Surgeons' Hall and St. Patrick's
Square--my mind being busy with an extra article which I must write to
give our readers the necessary number of sheets--for the first and
certainly for the last time in my life I continued my train of thought
without remembering either that I was a married man, or that my little
Irma must be tired waiting for me.

In mitigation of sentence I can only urge the day-long preoccupations in
which I had been plunged, and the article, suddenly become necessary,
which I must begin to write instanter. But at any rate, excuse or no
excuse, it is certain that I woke from my daydream to find myself in
Rankeillor Street, almost at the foot of the old Craven stairs which, as
a bachelor, I had climbed so often.

Then, with a sudden shamed leap of the heart and a plunge of the hand
into my breeches pocket for my door key, I turned about. I had
forgotten, though only for a moment, the little wife working among her
cloud of feathery linen and trimmings, and the little white house round
the corner above the Meadows. You may guess whether or no I hurried
along between ash "backets" of the most unparklike Gifford Park, how
sharply I turned and scudded along Hope Park, dodging the clothes' posts
to the right, from which prudent housewives had removed the ropes with
the deepening of the twilight.

The dark surface of the Meadows spread suddenly before me in an
amplitude of bleakness. A thin, sleety scuff of passing snow-cloud beat
in my face. A tall man wrapped in a cloak edged suspiciously nearer as
if to take stock of me, but my haste, and perhaps a certain wildness in
the disorder of my dress and hat made him think better of it--that is,
if indeed he ever thought ill of it--and with a muttered "Good-e'en to
ye," he passed upon his way.

I could see it now. The light in the window, the two candles that were
always set at the elbow of t