“I must see her. I must see her, and let her know. I must see her to-day--before to-morrow morning--before she is married. After, that, after she is married, as she will be to-morrow morning--after that, I can never see her. She will have no right to let me see her--no right to think of me, to hear from me--a married woman--another man's wife.... The letter--the letter I have been writing to her--she will never read it. Waste time--waste paper--waste effort. No use sending it. No use finishing it. After to-morrow morning, after she is married, she will have no right to receive it--to receive any thing from me.......Oh, I say, I must see her. If I am ever to see her, ever to let her know, it must be to-day. To-day, or never. After to-day--to-morrow--a married woman--she can never let me approach her--never--never.... Yes, to-day--right away--at once. I must see her right away, at once.... Oh, Love! To think of seeing you--really seeing you--and speaking to you! Oh, Christine--to-day, this very day, at last!.... There, there! Let me be calm. Let me think. How shall I--how can I manage it? To see her? Let me think.” He pressed his hands hard against his brow, beneath which his brain seemed to have become a whirlpool, sucking into black confusion every faculty for thought he had. He repeated two or three times: “Let me think;” and kept crushing his brow between his hands, to subdue, if he could, that dizzy, stupid feeling. At last he went on, stammeringly, and in a voice which, from husky, had grown thin and feeble:-- “I must not go to see her at her house. No, that would not do. That would not be fair to her. What would people think, who saw me? They might overhear what I said to her. I might not be able to see her alone. I might--I might meet _him_ there. No, I must not go to her house. But this is what I will do. I will write her a note--a little short note--asking her--begging her--to let me have five minutes' speech with her--to come and give me five minutes' speech with her--in Central Park--among our pine-trees in Central Park. She will do it. It is such a little thing, I am sure she will do it. She can't have the heart to refuse to do it. No, no!.... There! I will write the note, and send it at once. In half an hour she will receive it. She will come right away. Within two hours--within two hours from now--I--I shall--I shall see her!” With about as clear a realization of what he was doing as he might have had if he had indeed been the worse for drink, so dazed and bewildered did he feel, he opened his trunk, and took from it the materials for writing. Then, seating himself at the table, with a drunken man's comprehension of what he wrote, upon paper that swayed boisterously up and down under his eyes, he dashed off the following note:--