Morton was fatigued and sick at heart. He had practised self-control till he was tired of it; and he allowed a shade of emotion to pass across his face. "There is a woman in it," said Buckland, regarding him with a scrutinizing eye. "Why do you say that?" demanded Morton, startled and dismayed at this home thrust. "Are not women the source of nine tenths of our sufferings?" replied Buckland. "The world is a huge, clashing, jangling, disjointed piece of mechanism, and they are the authors of its worst disorder." "Sometimes," said Morton, "men will blame women for sufferings which they might, with better justice, lay at their own doors." Buckland raised his head quickly, and looked in his companion's face. "It may be so," he said, after a moment's pause. "Perhaps you are right,--perhaps you are right. But, let that be as it will, there are no miseries in life to match those which spring out of the relation of the sexes." Morton, for reasons of his own, did not care to pursue the subject, and his companion relapsed into his former silence. After a time, they went into the smoking room, where Buckland lighted a cigar. Morton observed that, as he did so, his fingers trembled in a manner which showed that his whole nervous system was shattered and unstrung. "I would not advise you to smoke much," said Morton; "you have not the constitution to bear it." Buckland smiled bitterly. He had grown reckless whether he injured himself or not. They seated themselves near the window; but Buckland soon grew uneasy, alternately looking at his watch and gazing into the street. At length he rose, and asked Morton to walk out with him. The latter, on the principle that misery loves company, readily complied; and they went down Broadway nearly to the Bowling Green. Here Buckland turned, and they retraced their steps to within a few squares of the Astor House. This they repeated several times, Morton's companion constantly resisting every movement on his part to vary in the least the course of their promenade. While their walk was up the street, Buckland, though evidently restless and uneasy, had the same abstracted air as before; but when they moved in the opposite direction, his whole manner changed, and he seemed anxiously on the watch, as if for some person whom he expected every moment to meet. It was about eight in the evening. The street was brilliant with gas; crowds of people, men and women, were moving along the sidewalk; and upon each group, as it approached, Buckland bent a gaze of eager scrutiny.