"When you went away, I began to recall your words—I had scarcely heard them—and then I realized what you wanted. It seemed very beautiful to me and—will you believe it—I wanted to give it to you, be it for you. But as the hours slipped by the fear grew that I could not, grew to certainty. And I was afraid that if I stayed, I would cheat you. And so, in fear, I ran away. "I know I must have seemed very cruel to you that morning. And I am writing all this in the hope that you will understand that I was harsh because I was afraid, it was the cruelty of weakness. I wanted to put my arms about you and cry. You will see that it was better that I did not. For now—with a cool head—it is very clear to me, not only that I could not be to you what you wish, but that at bottom I do not want to. I do not love you. "I would like to make this sound less brutal, but it is true. It’s not only in regard to socialism that our view-points are miles apart, but also in this matter of love. "The porter is calling the ’bus for my steamer. I must stop or miss the tender. It is just as well. If I have not shown you in these few pages what I feel, I could not in twice as many." I was not man enough to take my medicine quietly. The letter jerked me out of my lethargy, threw me into a rage, the worst mood of my life. I cursed Suzanne, cursed love, cursed Europe. I engaged passage on the first boat home. I took along Suzanne’s rucksac with the intention of having its contents laundered and returning it to her with a flippant, insulting note. I occupied most of the time till the boat sailed, on its composition. On board I drank hoggishly, gambled recklessly—and as such things often go—won heavily. But the last night out, anchored off quarantine, the fury and the folly left me. After all I had been making an amazing tempest in a teapot. What did it matter whether my love affair went straight or crooked? I felt so much the spoiled child, that I was ashamed to look up at the eternal, patient stars. After the vague open spaces of the sea, the crowded harbor, the distant glow and hum of the great city, seemed real indeed. A flare of rockets shot up from Coney Island, dazzled a moment and went out. I laughed. The lower lights along the shore were not so brilliant—but abiding. I leaned over the rail and strained my eyes towards the city. And it seemed as if life came to me through the night as a thing which one might hold in the hand and study. The Tombs and all its people, corrupt judges and upright criminals. In a few days I would drop back into the rut among them. What had become of Sammy Swartz? A pick-pocket of parts, he had, when I left, been virtuously scrubbing floors in an office building—a deadly grind, compared to the dash and adventure of his old life. What held him to it? Was it only fear of prison or some vague reaching out for rectitude? Was he still "on the square" or had he gone back to the "graft?"