And then, at last, one cold, rainy night in late November he resumed his stealthy journeys to lower Fifth Avenue atop of the stage, protected by a thick ulster and hidden as well as he could be in the shelter of a rigidly grasped umbrella. Alighting in front of the Brevoort, he slunk rather than sauntered up the Avenue until he came to the cross-town street in which she lived,—in which he once had lived. It was a fair night for such an adventure as this. There were but few people abroad. The rain was falling steadily and there was a gusty wind. He had left his club at ten o'clock, and all the way down the Avenue he was alone on the upper deck of the stage. Afterwards he chuckled guiltily to himself as he recalled the odd stare with which the conductor favoured him when he jestingly inquired if there was "any room aloft." Walking down the street toward Sixth Avenue, he peered out from beneath the umbrella as he passed his grandfather's house across the way. There were lights downstairs. A solitary taxi-cab stood in front of the house. He quickened his pace. He did not want to charge himself with spying. A feeling of shame and mortification came over him as he hurried along; his face burned. He was not acting like a man, but as a love-sick, jealous school-boy would have behaved. And yet all the way up Sixth Avenue to Fifty-ninth Street,—he walked the entire distance,—he wondered why he had not waited to see who came forth from Anne's house to enter the taxi-cab. For a week he stubbornly resisted the desire to repeat the trip down-town. In the meantime, Simmy had developed into a most unsatisfactory informant. He suddenly revealed an astonishing streak of uncommunicativeness, totally unnatural in him and tantalising in the extreme. He rarely mentioned Anne's name and never discussed her movements. Thorpe was obliged to content himself with an occasional word from Lutie,—who was also painfully reticent,—and now and then a scrap of news in the society columns of the newspapers. Once he saw her in the theatre. She was with other people, all of whom he knew. One of them was Percy Wintermill. He began on that night to hate Wintermill. The scion of the Wintermill family sat next to Anne and there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had resigned himself to defeat in the lists. If Anne saw him she did not betray the fact. He waited outside for a fairer glimpse of her as she left the theatre. What he saw at close range from his carefully chosen position was not calculated to relieve his mind. She appeared to be quite happy. There was nothing in her appearance or in her manner to indicate that she suffered,—and he _wanted_ her to suffer as he was suffering. That night he did not close his eyes.