me, or forgetting the dull, prosy things I say about the curse of
idleness, and the habits of cynical thinking, and the perils of
vacant-minded indulgence. You will forgive me--and you will forget me.
That will be as it should be. Good-by."

Gatewood, sobered, surprised, descended the stairs and hailed a hansom.




CHAPTER VI


All the way to the Whip and Spur Club he sat buried in a reverie from
which, at intervals, he started, aroused by the heavy, expectant beating
of his own pulses. But what did he expect, in Heaven's name? Not the
discovery of a woman who had never existed. Yet his excitement and
impatience grew as he watched the saddling of his horse; and when at
length he rode out into the sunshine and cantered through the Park
entrance, his sense of impending events and his expectancy amounted to a
fever which colored his face attractively.

He saw her almost immediately. Her horse was walking slowly in the
dappled shadows of the new foliage; she, listless in her saddle,
sometimes watching the throngs of riders passing, at moments turning to
gaze into the woodland vistas where, over the thickets of flowering
shrubbery, orioles and robins sped flashing on tinted wings from shadow
to sun, from sun to shadow. But she looked up as he drew bridle and
wheeled his mount beside her; and, "Oh!" she said, flushing in
recognition.