He unfolded some old newspapers and periodicals of a departed period, bearing proof of certain of his own handicraft. "Might have been a writer--poet--that sort of thing!" He smiled quizzically. "Not so bad. Not so bad. I couldn't do as well to-day, I'm afraid. Seem to have lost it--let go somewhere. I never could depend on myself--never could depend--ah, what's this? Yes, here are the ladies, God bless them--la-ladies--God bless 'em!" The lower tray was filled with pictures of girls or women of all types, some of them beautiful, some of them coarse, most of them attractive from a certain point of view. "God! what a lot!" he murmured. "How did I do it? By asking, I reckon. Six--six--six of one--six of another. Women and men alike, eh? Well, I don't know. Ask 'em, you win. Or, don't ask 'em, you win." His hand fell upon the frame of a little mirror laid away in the old trunk. He picked it up and gazed steadily at what it revealed. "Changed," he said, "changed a lot. Must have gone a pace, eh? Lawyer. Judge. Writer-man. Poet. I thought these beat all of that,"-- and he looked down again at the smiling faces. He picked them up one at a time and laid them on the bed beside him. "Alice, Nora, Clara, Kate, Margaret--I'll guess at the names, and guess at some of the faces now. It's the same, all alike, the hunting of love: the hunting--the hunt--ing--of--love! Great thing. But of course we never do find it, do we? Ladies, good night." This he said in half- mocking solemnity. He bowed ironically; yet his face was more uneasy now than wholly mocking. He looked once more at the trunk-tray, and found what he apparently half-feared to see. "Madam!" he whispered. "Madam! Alice!" He gazed at a face strong and full, with deep curved lips, and wide jaw, and large dark eyes, deeply browed and striking, the face of a woman to beckon to a man, to make him forget, for a time--and that was Alice Ellison as he had known her years ago, before--before--He turned away and would not look at this. He tried to laugh, to mock. "Bless you, ladies," he said, "I've often said I would like to see you all together in the same room. Eh--but the finding of it--oh, we never do find it, do we? Not love. I never could depend on myself. "What! What's this!" he exclaimed, as his hand now touched something else, a hard object in the bottom of the trunk, beneath the tray. "Why, here's my old pistol. Twelve years old. I thought I'd lost it. Loaded! My faith, loaded for twelve years. Wonder if it would go off." He sat on the edge of the bed, looking into the trunk, the revolver in his hand. Slowly, slowly, as though against his will, his face turned, and he found himself looking down at the pictured smiling faces that stared up at him. The last picture seemed to frighten him with its smile. All the pictures smiled. "Alice!" he whispered. "My God!" cried Henry Decherd, suddenly. "They're alive! They're coming to life!"