The inanimate objects about him, the chairs, the table, the door towards which he was moving, seemed to have life. “Well, good-day.” Old Floyd remained in the centre of the room, the books and letters held awkwardly under his stiff arm. “I see that you were not expecting this revelation, but you might as-well have been told to-day as later. I understand that the Duncans and Prices up your way are under wrong impressions about your social standing, but I didn't want to be the one to open their eyes. I really don't care myself. However, a thing like that is sure to get out sooner or later.” “They shall know the truth,” said Floyd, with the lips of a dead man. “I shall not sail under false colors. Good-day, Mr. Floyd.” Out into the broad, balmy sunlight the young man went. There was a despondent droop upon him. His step was slow and uncertain, his feet seemed to him to have weights attached to them. He walked on to the corner of the next street and leaned against a tree. From the city's palpitating heart and stony veins came the hum of traffic on wheels, the clanging of bells, the escaping of steam. Near by some one was practising a monotonous exercise on a piano. He looked up at the sky with the stare of a subject under hypnotic influence. A lump was in his dry throat. He made an effort to swallow it down, but it stuck and pained him. Persons passing caught sight of his face and threw back stares of mute inquiry as they moved on. After half an hour of aimless wandering here and there through the crowded streets, he paused at the door of a bar-room. He recognized the big gilt sign on the plate-glass windows, and remembered being there years before at midnight with some jolly friends and being taken to his hotel in a cab. After all, whiskey now, as then, would furnish forgetfulness, and that was his right. He went in and sat down at a little round table in the corner of the room. On a shelf near him was a bowl of brown pretzels, a plate of salted pop-corn, a saucer of parched coffee-beans mixed with cloves. One of the bartenders came to him, a towel over his arm. “What will you have, sir?” he asked. “Rye whiskey straight,” said the customer, his eyes on the sawdust at his feet. “Bring the bottle along.” XXVI TO Cynthia the day on which she expected Floyd to return from Atlanta passed slowly. Something told her that he would come straight to her from the station, on his arrival, and she was impatient to hear his news. The hack usually brought passengers over at six o'clock, and at that time she was on the porch looking expectantly down the road leading to the village. But he did not come. Seven o'clock struck--eight; supper was over and her parents and her grandmother were in bed.