central; but you can't get behind the motives of such people. They
never think of the trouble and the harm they do us; they only think
of themselves."

London was now awake; the streets were a-clatter with cabs; the pick
of the navvy resounded; night loiterers were disappearing and giving
place to hurrying early risers. In the resonant morning the young men
walked together to the Corner. There they stopped to bid each other
good-bye. John called a cab, and returned home in intense mental
agitation.

"It really is terrible," said Mike. "It isn't like life at all, but
some shocking nightmare. What could have induced her to do it?"

"That we shall probably never know," said Thompson; "and she seemed
brimming over with life and fun. How she did dance! ..."

"That was nerves. I had a long talk with her, and I assure you she
quite frightened me. She spoke about the weariness of living;--no,
not as we talk of it, philosophically; there was a special accent of
truth in what she said. You remember the porter mentioned that she
asked if No. 57 was occupied. I believe that is the room where she
used to meet her lover. I believe they had had a quarrel, and that
she went there intent on reconciliation, and finding him gone
determined to kill herself. She told me she had had a lover for the
last four years. I don't know why she told me--it was the first time
I ever heard a lady admit she had had a lover; but she was in an
awful state of nerve excitement, and I think hardly knew what she was
saying. She took the letter out of her bosom and read it slowly. I
couldn't help seeing it was in a man's handwriting; it began, '_Ma