The hotelkeeper, noting Power's absence from the dining-room, sent a maid to remind him that the meal was being served. Power started violently when the girl's soft-spoken words broke in on his reverie. For an instant he dreamed that Nancy had come, that he would feel her fingers clasped over his eyes, hear her voice. "It is so hot and quiet here," he explained, smiling pleasantly, "that I was nearly asleep. I don't need any lunch, thank you." Yet never had man seemed more wakeful. The girl thought that surely he must be ill, and in pain, and she wondered why his wife had left him; for Nancy's departure was already known to the hotel servants, since nothing could happen in that secluded nook without their cognizance, and Willard's corner in horse-flesh that morning had been much discussed in the kitchen. Granite, however, put in an appearance soon, and insisted that Power should eat. "You'll be headin' for N' York, I reckon," he said, "an' there ain't no sort o' sense in makin' that long trip on an empty stummick. You jest take my say-so, Mr. Power, an' eat yer meals reg'lar, an' you'll size up things altogether different when you set down to yer breakfast tomorrow." His well-meant advice caused a thrill of agony. Breakfast without Nancy! The dawn of the first day when she was not by his side! The mind often works in grooves, and Power's thoughts flew back to that other day when he lay crushed on the ledge. As he walked to the hotel with the guide, his leg seemed to be almost broken again, and he moved with difficulty. Afterward, he spoke and acted in a curiously mechanical way. He was aware that he gave Granite detailed instructions, and paid him far more than the friendly disposed fellow was inclined to accept, and stowed himself and various portmanteaus in the buggy when the hotel proprietor warned him it was time he should set out. He remembered, too, being told that a young lady and an elderly man had taken tickets for New York by the midday train from Racket; but the journey thenceforth was a meaningless blank. He gave no heed to the passing of the hours. He did not even know when the train reached the Grand Central Station. Before he realized that he must bestir himself, one of the attendants had to ask him sarcastically where he wanted to go, as the engineer thought he wouldn't butt into Park Avenue that morning. Still behaving like one in a dream, he wandered out of the station into 42d Street, drifted down Fifth Avenue, and entered the Waldorf Hotel. Here, luckily, he was recognized by a clerk--an expert who never forgot a patron's name or face--and was allotted rooms. Otherwise, he would certainly have been turned away politely; for his unkempt appearance and half-demented air offered the poorest of recommendations to one of New York's palatial hotels. "What about your baggage, Mr. Power?" inquired the clerk, whose private opinion favored the view that this erstwhile spick-and-span client had been "hitting it up some."