At ten-forty-six he skulked out of the club by a side entrance, jumped
into a cab and had himself driven to the East Thirty-fourth Street ferry,
arriving there just in time to miss the last train for Greenfields.

Denied the shelter alike of his lodgings, his club, and his country home,
the young man in despair caused himself to be conveyed to the Bartholdi
Hotel, where, possessed of a devil of folly, he preserved his incognito by
registering under the name of "M. Daniels." And straightway retired to his
room.

But not to rest. The portion of the mentally harassed, sleeplessness, was
his; and for an hour or more he tossed upon his bed (upon which he had
thrown himself without troubling to undress), pondering, to no profit of
his, the hundred problems, difficulties, and disadvantages suggested or
created by the events of the past twenty-four hours.

The grey girl, Anisty, the jewels, himself: unflagging, his thoughts
circumnavigated the world of his romance, touching only at these four
ports, and returning always to linger longest in the harbor of sentiment.

The grey girl: strange that her personality should have come to dominate
his thoughts in a space of time so brief! and upon grounds of intimacy so
slender!... Who and what was she? What cruel rigor of circumstance had
impelled her to seek a livelihood in ways so sinister? At whose door
must the blame be laid, against what flaw in the body social should the
indictment be drawn, that she should have been forced into the ranks of the
powers that prey--a girl of her youth and rare fiber, of her cultivation,
her charm, and beauty?

The sheer loveliness of her, her grace and gentleness, her ingenuous