So well do I know, that I do not retire--not just yet. Instead, on a pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly--whose name happens to be Mary--is watching as I take down the receiver to reply. CHAPTER III--THE OTHER MAN It is useless to dissimulate longer, then. I am discovered, and I know I am discovered. "Hello, Sandford," I greet without preface. "Sandford!" (I am repeating in whispers what he says for my Polly's benefit.) "Sandford! How the deuce did you know?" "Know?" With the Hyde-like change comes another, and I feel positively facetious. "Why I know your ring of course, the same as I know your handwriting on a telegram. What is it? I'm busy." "I'm busy, too. Don't swell up." (Imagine "swell up" from Sandford, the repressed and decorous!) "I just wanted to tell you that the honkers are coming." "No! You're imagining, or you dreamed it!... Anyway, what of it? I tell you I'm busy." "Cut it out!" I'm almost scared myself, the voice is positively ferocious. "I heard them not five minutes ago, and besides, the storm signal is up. I'm getting my traps together now. Our train goes at three-ten in the morning, you know." "Our-train-goes-at-three-ten--in-the-morning!" "I said so." "_Our_ train?" "Our train: the one which is to take us out to Rush Lake. Am I clear? I'll wire Johnson to meet us with the buckboard." "Clear, yes; but go in the morning--Why, man, you're crazy! I have engagements for all day to-morrow." "So have I." "And the next day." "Yes." "And the next." "A whole week with me. What of it?" "What of it! Why, business--" "Confound business! I tell you they're coming; I heard them. I haven't any more time to waste talking, either. I've got to get ready. Meet you at three-ten, remember." "But--" "Number, please," requests Central, wearily. CHAPTER IV--CAPITULATION Thus it comes to pass that I go; as I know from the first I shall go, and Sandford knows that I will go; and, most of all, as Mary knows that I will go. In fact, she is packing for me already; not saying a word, but simply packing; and I--I go out-doors again, sidling into a jog beside the bow-window, to diminish the din of the wind in my ears, listening open-mouthed until-- Yes, there it sounds again; faint, but distinct; mellow, sonorous, vibrant. _Honk!_ _honk!_ _honk!_ and again _honk!_ _honk!_ _honk!_ It wafts downward from some place, up above where the stars should be and are not; up above the artificial illumination of the city; up where there are freedom, and space infinite, and abandon absolute.