Thus ecstasy ebbed to despondency. He looked around him in the fading
day, to find himself opposite the closed gates of the Botanical Gardens,
in the southwestern portion of the city . . . . An hour later he had
made his way back to Dalton Street with its sputtering blue lights and
gliding figures, and paused for a moment on the far sidewalk to gaze at
Mr. Bentley's gleaming windows. Should he go in? Had that personality
suddenly lost its power over him? How strange that now he could see
nothing glowing, nothing inspiring within that house,--only a kindly old
man reading a newspaper!

He walked on, slowly, to feel stealing on him that desperate longing for
adventure which he had known so well in his younger days. And he did not
resist. The terror with which it had once inspired him was gone, or
lingered only in the form of a delicious sense of uncertainty and
anticipation. Anything might happen to him--anything would be grateful;
the thought of his study in the parish house was unbearable; the Dalton
Street which had mocked and repelled him suddenly became alluring with
its champaigns of light and inviting stretches of darkness. In the block
ahead, rising out of the night like a tower blazing with a hundred
beacons, Hodder saw a hotel, heard the faint yet eager throbbing of
music, beheld silhouetted figures flitting from automobiles and carriages
across the white glare of the pavement,--figures of men and women.

He hastened his steps, the music grew louder and louder in his ears, he
gained the ornamental posts crowned by their incandescent globes, made
his way through the loiterers, descended the stone steps of the
restaurant, and stood staring into it as at a blurred picture. The band
crashed a popular two-step above the mingled voices and laughter. He sat
down at a vacant table near the door, and presently became aware that a