TO MARGARET.

E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn....

When Jack, with the agility of a railroad employé, landed on his feet all right, he stood watching the disappearing train, annoyed, disappointed, and mystified. He usually found moderate speech sufficient for daily use, and as he walked back slowly toward his club, all he said was: "Well, if all women are like Nina, I don't think I altogether understand them!"

He felt lonely already, and for diversion bethought himself of turning and going down to the Ideal to inspect the preparations for the race to be sailed on the following day. There he met Charley Dusenall, and as the yacht gently rose and fell on the slight swell coming in from the lake, these two sat watching some of the racing spars floating alongside and rolling about in the wavelets of the evening breeze, soaking themselves tough for the coming contest.

"What's the matter with you?" said Charley, noticing how grumpy and silent Jack was. "The old story, I suppose. Has Her Majesty gone back on you again?"

Jack grunted assent.

"Onlypro tem., though?" asked Charley.

"Oh yes, onlypro tem., of course, but still—"

"I know. Deuced unpleasant. But, after all, what does it matter about a woman or two when you have got a boat under you that can cut the eye-teeth out of an equinoctial and make your soul dance the Highland fling. Bah, chuck the whole thing up. Finish your grog and we'll have another. Vive le joy, as we say in Paris."

Jack's face grew less long. "That's all very well, but—"

"Rubbish! you want to hug your melancholy to yourself. Rats! whistle it down the wind. D'you think I don't know? Look at me! D'you think I haven't been through the whole gamut—from Alpha to Omaha—with all the hemidemisemiquavers thrown in? Lord, I have quavered whole nights. And I say that le jew ne vaut pas the candle."

"You are quite Frenchy to-night," said Jack, brightening.

"I always get more or less Parisian after eight o'clock at night. Dull as a country squire in the morning, though. Woke up awfully English, and moral to-day. By the way, you had better sleep on board to-night, so as to be ready in good time to-morrow. And don't be spoiling your nerves with the blues. I want you to tool her through to-morrow, and get over your megrims first. Remember this, that—

Womankind more joy discoversMaking fools than keeping lovers."

"Perhaps you are right," smiled Jack, getting up as if to shake himself clear of his gloom. "And yet—

To be wroth with one we loveDoth work like madness in the brain."

"There isn't much the matter with you," said Charley, as he saw Jack swing over the water and make a gymnastic tour round a backstay. And when the second gun was fired the next morning, and the Ideal was preening her feathers as she swept through a fleet of boats, there was nothing very sad about Jack. When the huge club topsail, sitting flat as a board, caused her to careen gently as she zipped through the preliminary canter, and when in the race she drew out to windward, eating up into the wind every chance slant, Charley was watching how Jack's finger-tips gently felt the wheel, and how his eager eye took in everything, from the luff of the topsail to the ripples on the water or the furthest cloud, and he whispered in his ear: "What about Her Majesty just now, old man?"

Jack was too intent on getting up into a favoring breath of air to answer; but he tossed his head to signify that he was all right, and fell to marveling that he had not thought of Nina for a full hour.

In spite of the yachting, however, it was difficult to keep from being lonely at other times, especially at the chambers, because Geoffrey was out of town, taking his summer vacation, and Jack was forced to fly from the desolation in the city and pass most of his nights on the Ideal. This, with the afternoon sailing and a daily bulletin sent to Nina, addressed to Montreal, served to help him to pass away the time until the return of Geoffrey, who was greeted, as it were, with open arms. Their bachelor quarters were very homelike and comfortable. The sitting-room and library, which they shared together, always seemed a little lonely when either of them was absent.

Hampstead was pleased to get back to his luxurious arm-chair and magazines. Jack's unsuspicious and welcoming face gave the place all the restfulness of home after a period of more or less watchfulness against detection. They stretched out their legs from the arm-chairs in which they sat, and smoked and really enjoyed themselves in the old way among their newspapers and books. After having settled in New York, when he first came to America, Geoffrey had employed an old friend, on whose secrecy he could rely, to call at his father's house in Shropshire and procure for him all his old relics and curiosities. These the friend had sent out to him. Every one of them recalled some more or less interesting memory, and as they hung drying in the dust that Mrs. Priest seldom attempted to remove they were like a tabular index of Geoffrey's wanderings, on which he could cast his eyes at night and unconsciously drop back into the past. There were whips, Tartar bridles, Arab pipes and muskets, and old-fashioned firearms. No less than six cricket bats proclaimed their nationality, as an offset against the stranger trophies. There were foils and masks, boxing-gloves, fishing-rods, snow-shoes, old swords, and any quantity of what Mrs. Priest called "rotten old truck, only fit for a second-'and shop." Besides all this, there were hanging shelves, covered with cups and other prizes that Geoffrey and Jack had won in athletic contests. Even the ceiling was made to do duty in exhibiting some lances and a central trophy composed of Zulu assegais and Malay arrows and such things. These, with the large bookcases of books, and, of course, Mrs. Priest, constituted their Penates.

Here Geoffrey ensconced himself for several evenings after his return, immersed in his books until long after Jack had knocked out his last pipe and turned in. His manner of taking his holidays had been an episode which was forgotten now if anything arose to divert him, something for him to smile at, but powerless to distract his attention from a good article in the Nineteenth Century.

But he did not visit Margaret for three or four days after his return. When he saw her again, all his better nature came to the fore. He delighted again in the quiet worship he felt for her now that he could see more clearly the beauties of temperate life. "Now," he said, as he stretched himself in his arm-chair one night, after having visited Margaret earlier in the evening, "now, I will soon get married. With Margaret, goodness will not only be practicable, but, I can imagine, even enjoyable." Then, after a while, his mind recurred to his holidays, which seemed to have been a long time ago. He yawned over the subject, and thought it was time to go to bed. "Heigh-ho! I have exhausted the devil and all his works now. He has got nothing more to offer me that I care to accept. Now I have done with risks and worries. If I can only get my money affairs straightened out I'll get married in September. Federal stock is bound to rise, with the new changes in the bank, and then I'll be all right. I'll just let Lewis have my horse and trap. He'll give me more than I paid for them. The seven hundred will wipe out a few things, and then if I can turn myself round again, I'll get married at once."

For several days after this he saw Margaret; and the more he saw of her the more he really longed for the life that seemed best. He was tired of plot and counterplot. As one whose intellect was generally a discerning one, when not clouded by exciting vagaries, he had had, all his life, the idea of enjoying goodness for itself—at some time or other. And entering Margaret's presence seemed like going to a pure spring fountain from which he came away refreshed. She had the quick brain that could skim off the best of his thought and whip it up and present it in a changed and perhaps more pleasing form. Even the look of her hands, the way she held up cut flowers, and delighted in their faintest odors (to him quite imperceptible) showed how much keener and more refined her sensibilities were than his own and made him marvel to find that in some respects she lived in a world wherein it was a physical impossibility for him to enter. As the days wore on in which he daily saw her, he found himself making little sacrifices for her sake, and even practicing a trifle of self-denial. He did things that he knew would please her, and afterward he felt all the healthy glow and ability for virtue which are the essences that gracious deeds distill. "Doing these things makes me better," he said. "This moral happiness is a thing to be worked up. I can not cultivate goodness in the abstract. I must have something tangible—something to understand; and if good deeds pay me back in this sort of way I may yet become, partly through my deeds, what she would wish me to be."

Full of all this, while ruminating late one night, he took it into his head to put it into verse, and he rather liked the simple lines.

My Love! I would Love's true disciple be,That, 'neath the king of teachers' gracious art,Refined sense and thought might be to meThe stepping-stones to lead me to thy heart;That thine own realm of peace I too might share.Where Nature's smallest things show much designTo teach kind thoughts for all that breathe; and where,As music's laws compel by rule divine,Naught but obeying good gives joy and rest;Where thou can'st note the immaterial scentOf thought and thing, which we gross men at bestCan hardly know, with senses often lentTo heavy joys that leave us but to longFor that unknown which makes thyself a song.

From gracious deeds exhale the perfumes rareOf active rest, glad care, and hopeful trustThe soul snuffs these, well pleased, and seems to share,For once, a joy in concord with the dust.Thus simple deeds, through Love, make known th' unknown—That immaterial most substantial gainWhich makes of earth a heaven all its own.And claims from spirit-land no sweeter reign.So, while I learn in thine own atmosphereTo live, guard thou with patience all my ways,For chance compels when weakness rules, and fearOf self brings blackest night unto my days;E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn,And darkness breaks before the blushing morn.

He wondered that the word "soul" had as yet no synonym to express what he meant without, as he said, "borrowing the language of superstition." For this he claimed poetical license. He was amused at the similarity of his verse to some kind of religious prayer or praise. "Perhaps," he said, "all loves, when sufficiently refined, have only one language—whether the aspirations be addressed to Chemosh or Dagon or Mary or Jahveh, or to the woman who embodies all one knows of good. But perhaps, more likely, the song that perfect love sings in the heart has no possible language, but is part of 'the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of the world,' and to which we have all been trying to put words, in religions and poems.

"In twenty thousand years from now," he said, smiling, "archæologists will be fighting over a discussion as to whether, in these early days, any superstition still existed. Just before they come to blows over the matter my sonnets will be found, produced, and deciphered, and there will be rejoicing on one side to have it proved that at a certain time Anno Domini (an era supposed to refer to one Abraham or Buddha) man still claimed that a local god existed called 'Margaret,' who was evidently worshiped with fervor.

"But certainly," he added, as he read the sonnet for the third time, "their mistake will not be such a palpable one as that about the Song of Solomon."

Never but once to meet on earth again!She heard me as I fled—her eager toneSank on my heart, and almost wove a chainAround my will to link it with her own,So that my stern resolve was almost gone."I can not reach thee! whither dost thou fly?My steps are faint. Come back, thou dearest one!Return, ah me! return!"—The wind passed byOn which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.Shelley,The Revolt of Islam.

Shelley,The Revolt of Islam.

After a prolonged visit in Montreal, Nina had been back in Toronto for a short time, during which she had seen no one except Jack, whose two visits she had rendered so unpleasant that he felt inclined to do anything fromhara-karito marrying somebody else.

At this time Geoffrey received a note one morning, addressed in Nina's handwriting. He turned pale as he tore it open:

"Dear Mr. Hampstead: I wish to see you for a moment this afternoon. If not too much trouble, would you call here at five o'clock?"Yours sincerely,"Mossbank,Tuesday."Nina Lindon."

"Dear Mr. Hampstead: I wish to see you for a moment this afternoon. If not too much trouble, would you call here at five o'clock?

"Yours sincerely,

"Mossbank,Tuesday.

"Nina Lindon."

There was nothing very exciting on the face of this line, nothing to create wrath. Yet Geoffrey tore it into shreds as if it had struck him a blow and was dangerous.

When he was shown into the drawing-room at Mossbank that afternoon, he was stepping forward with courteous demeanor and a faint "company smile" on his face, ready to look placidly and innocently upon any people who might be calling at the time. He passed noiselessly over the thick carpets toward the place where Nina was sitting, seeing quickly that there was nobody else in the room, but aware that the servant was probably at the door.

"How-de-do, Miss Lindon?" he said aloud, for the benefit of the inquisitive. "So you have come back to Toronto at last?"

"Yes," said Nina, also with an engaging smile. "And how have you been since I saw you last?" There was a charming inflection in her "company voice" as she said these words. Then, raising her tone a little, she said "Howard."

The servant outside the door took several steps in a circle on the tesselated pavement of the hall to intimate that he approached from afar and then appeared.

"Shut the door, please, Howard," said Nina softly. The man obliterated himself.

As soon as they were alone the heavenly sweetness of the caller and the called upon vanished. Geoffrey's face became grave and his eyes penetrating. He went toward her and took her hand in an effort to be kind, while he looked at her searchingly with a pale face. Nina looked weary and anxious. Neither of them spoke for a while. As Geoffrey regarded her, she turned to him beseechingly with both anxiety and affection in her expression. What he interpreted from the unhappiness of her visage was more than sufficient to disturb his equanimity. He got up and walked silently and quickly twice backward and forward. During this moment his mind apparently made itself up on some point finally, for, as he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, the tension of his face gave place to something more like nonchalance and kindness.

"You have something to tell me?" he said, in tones that endeavored to be kind.

Nina's face—sad, sorrowful, and tearful—bent itself low that she might hide it from his sight. "Yes," she managed to say at last, almost inaudibly.

Geoffrey endeavored to assist her. "Don't say any more," said he. "Bad news, I suppose?"

"The very worst," cried Nina, starting up, her eyes dilating wildly and despairingly with a sudden accession of fear.

"Hush, hush!" said Geoffrey, laying his hand soothingly and kindly on her arm. "You must not give way like that. You must control yourself. We have both of us too much at stake to tell our story to every one who likes to listen. Come and let us sit down and talk things over sensibly."

She gave him a quick look, half reproach, as if to say, "It is easy foryouto be calm." But she sat down beside him, holding his coat-sleeve with both hands—hardly knowing what she did.

Hampstead leaned back, crossed his long legs in front of him, and counted the eyelet holes in his boot. Then he took her hand, in order to appear kind and to deal with the matter in an off-hand way.

"As Thackeray says, Nina, 'truly, friend, life is strewn with orange-peel.' Now and then we get a bad tumble; but we always get up again. And I don't think that we ought to allow ourselves to be counted among those weak creatures who most complain of the strength of a temptation that takes at least a year to work up. After all, there is no denying Rochefoucauld's wisdom when he said: 'C'est une espèce de bonheur de connaitre jusques à quel point on doit être malheureux.' I have been in a good many worries one way or another, and I always got out of them. We will get out of this one all right, so cheer up and take heart."

"I don't see how," said Nina, turning her head away and feeling a sudden hope. What was he going to say? Then she recollected that she had lavished a small income on a dress especially for this interview. Perhaps if he had an idea worth the hearing the dress might help it out. She arose, as if absently, and walked to the side window and rested her elbows against the sash in front of her. The attitude was graceful. As she turned half over her shoulder to look back at him she could hardly have appeared to better advantage. Her dress was really magnificent, and it fitted a form that was ideal. In spite of his late resolutions, Geoffrey was affected by the cunningly devised snare. A quick thought came through his head, which he banished about as quickly as it came.

"Well, of course, there is only one thing to be done," said he decisively, in a tone which told her that so far she had failed.

"What is that, dear Geoffrey? Do tell me, for I am very, very miserable. And say it kindly, Geoffrey. Don't be too hard with me now."

As she said this she swept toward him. She sank down beside him and kissed him, and looked up into his face. Again the thought came to him. Here were riches. Here was a woman whose beauty was talked about in every city in Canada, who could be his pride, who cared for him despairingly. If he wished, this mansion and wealth could be his. The delicate perfumes about her seemed to steal into his brain and affect his thought.

An hour ago his resolves for himself had appeared so unchangeable that they seemed of themselves to prop him up. And now he found himself trying, with a brain that refused to assist him, to prop up his resolutions, trying to remember what their best merits had been. One glimmer of an idea was left in him—a purpose to preserve his fealty to Margaret, and he thought that, if he could only get away for a moment to think quietly, he might remember what the best points of his resolutions had been. The perfumes, the beauty, the wealth, the liking he felt for her, the duty he owed to her, and perhaps her concentration upon what she desired—all conspired against him. But, with this part of an idea left to him, he succeeded in being able slightly to turn his head away.

When she asked him again what was to be done there was an unreal decisiveness in his voice as he said:

"Of course, the only thing to be done is for you to immediately marry Jack."

She sprang from him as if he had stabbed her. She was furious with disappointment.

"I will never marry Jack! What a dishonorable thing to propose!"

The idea of dishonor to Jack seemed, for the first time, quite an argument. When the ethics of a matter can be utilized they suddenly seem cogent.

"Very well," said Geoffrey, shrugging his shoulders and rising as if to go away. "My idea was 'any port in a storm'—a poor idea, perhaps, and certainly, as you say, entirely dishonorable, but still feasible. Of course, if you have made up your mind not to marry him, we may as well consider the interview as ended. I'm afraid I have nothing more to suggest."

He did not intend to go away, but he held out his hand as if about to say good-by. She stood half turned away trying to think. The idea of his leaving her to her trouble dazed her. She was terrified to realize that she would be without help.

"Oh, how cruel you are!"

She almost groaned as she spoke. She was in despair. She put her hands to her head hopelessly, her eyes dilated with trouble.

"Don't go yet, Geoffrey." Then she tried to nerve herself for what she had to say. After a pause: "Geoffrey, I can say things to you now, that I could never have said before. I must speak to you fully before you go. I must leave no stone unturned. There is no one to help me, so I must look after myself in what must be said. I went away with you, Geoffrey, because I loved you." She bit her lips to stay her tears and stopped to regain a desperate fortitude. "I cared for you so much that being with you seemed right—nay more, sacred. Oh, it drags me to the dust to speak in this way! But I must. Does not my ruin give me a right to speak? The question of a girl's reticence must be put away. I am forced to do the best I can for myself. And now I say, will you stand by me?" Her head drooped and her hands hung down by her side with shame at the position she forced herself to take when she added: "Will you do me justice, Geoffrey? Will you marry me?"

Hampstead was about to speak, but she knew at once that she had asked too much, and she continued more quickly and more despairingly: "Nay, I won't ask so much. I only ask you to take me away. I am distracted. I don't know what to do. I will do anything. I will be your slave. You need not marry me—only take me away and hide me—somewhere—anywhere—for God's sake, Geoffrey, from my shame—from my disgrace."

She was on her knees before him as she said these last words. If our pleasure-loving acquaintance could have changed places with a galley-slave at that moment he would have done so gladly.

The first thing he did was to endeavor to quiet the wildness of her despair. To be surprised by any person with her on her knees before him in an agony of tears would be a circumstance difficult to explain away.

As soon as he began to talk, it seemed to him a most dastardly thing to sacrifice Margaret's life now to conceal his own wrong-doing. In the light of this idea, Nina's wealth and beauty suddenly became tawdry. Margaret's nobility and happiness suddenly seemed worth dying for. They must not be wrecked in a moment of weakness. As if dispassionately, he laid before Nina the history of their acquaintance, and also his 'other obligations.' Really, it placed him in a very awkward, not to say absurd, position. He wished to do what was right, but did not see his way at all clear. The only way was to efface himself entirely, and consider only what was due to others. Before the world he was engaged to Margaret, and had been so all along. She had his word that he would marry her. If it were only "his word" that had to be broken, that might be done. But was the happiness of Margaret's life to be cast aside? Which, of the two, was the more innocent—which, of the two, had the better right or duty to bear the brunt of the disaster?

The way he effaced his own personality in this discourse was almost picturesque. Justice blindfold, with impartial scales in her hand, was nothing to him.

Nina said no word from beginning to end. All she heard in the discourse was something to show her more and more that what she wished must be given up. It was something to know that at least she had tried every means in her power to move him—feeling that she had a helpless woman's right to do so. And as the deep, kindly tones went on they calmed her and gradually compelled her tacitly and wearily to accept his suggestion, while his ingenuity showed her the sinuous path that lay before her.

At the same time, in spite of all his arguments and her own resolutions, she could not clearly see why she should be the one to suffer instead of Margaret. Margaret had so much more strength of character to assist her. The ability to bear up under sorrow and trouble was a virtue she was ready to acknowledge to be weaker in herself than in others. The confession of this weakness, through self-pity, seemed half a virtue, even though only made to insist upon compensations.

The next day, Jack called by appointment.

"I thought I would just send for you, Jack," said Nina, looking half angry and half smiling. "I felt as if I wanted to give trouble to somebody, and I thought you were the most available person."

"Go ahead, then, old lady. I can stand it. There is nothing a fellow may not become accustomed to."

Jack seated himself in one of Nina's new easy-chairs which yielded to his weight so luxuriously that he thought he would like to get one like it. He felt the softness of the long arms of the chair, and then, regaining his feet, turned it round.

"That's a nice chair, Nina. How much did it put the old man back?"

Nina looked at him inquiringly.

"Cost—you know. How much did it spoil the old man?"

"How do I know? He bought it in New York with a lot of things. Do you suppose I keep an inventory of prices to assist me in conversation?"

"I wish you did. I'd like to get one. But I don't know. When we get married you can hand it out the back gate to me, you know, and then we'll be one chair ahead—and a good one, too."

"I do wish you would leave off referring to getting married," said Nina. And then, "By the way, that is what I wanted to speak to you about—"

Jack smiled. "Be careful," he said. "Don't set me a bad example by referring to the subject yourself."

"Well, I will, for a change. I have been making up my mind to end this way of dragging on existence. This sort of neither-one-thing-nor-the-other has got to end. It wearies me. I am not half as strong as I was. I went away to pick up, and now I am no better."

"And how do you propose to end it?" Jack was surprised at the decision in her voice.

"I propose to break it off all together," said she firmly.

"Of course," said Jack, "there is no other alternative for you but marriage."

Nina was startled at first by these words. But he had only spoken them casually.

"Certainly. A break off or marriage are the only alternatives. Going on like this is what I will not stand any longer."

Jack was shaking in his shoes for fear this was the last of him. He controlled his anxiety, though, and shutting his eyes, he leaned back, supinely, as if he knew that what he said did not matter much. She would do as she liked—no question about that!

"I have, I think, at some previous time," said he, from the recesses of the chair where he was calmly judicial with his eyes shut, "advocated the desirability of marriage. I think I have mentioned the subject before. Of course, this is only an opinion, and not entitled, perhaps, to a great deal of weight."

Nina for the first time in her life was annoyed that Jack was not sufficiently ardent. The unfortunate young man had had cold water thrown over him too many times. He was getting wise. To-day he was keeping out of range. Nina had been decidedly eccentric lately and might give him hiscongéat any moment. She was evidently in a queer mood still, and, to-day, Jack would give her no chance to gird at him.

This well-trained care on his part bid fair to make things awkward. She saw that it had become necessary to draw him out, and with this object in view she asked carelessly, as if she had been absent-minded and had not heard him:

"What did you say then, Jack?"

"I was merely hinting, delicately, as an outsider might, that, of the two important alternatives, marriage seems to offer you a greater scope for breaking up theennuiof a single life that a mere change from one form of single life to another."

Jack did not see the bait she was holding out. He would not rise to it. Really, it was maddening to have to leadJackon. He had been "trained down too fine."

"Well, for my part," she said laughingly, with her cheek laid against the soft plush of the sofa, "I don't seem to care now which of the alternatives is adopted."

Jack remained quiet when he heard this. Then he said coolly: "If I were not a wise man, that speech of yours would unduly excite me. But you said you wanted some one to annoy, and I won't give you a chance. If I took the advantage of the possibilities in your words we would certainly have a row. No, old lady, you are setting a trap for me, in order that you may scold afterward. You like having a row with me, but you can't have one to-day. 'Burnt child'—you know."

What could be more provoking than this. Nina, in spite of her troubles, saw the absurdity of her position, and laughed into the plush. But her patience was at an end. She sat upright again and said vehemently:

"Jack Cresswell, you are a born fool!"

He looked up himself, then, from the chair. There was an expression in Nina's face that he had not seen for a long time—a consenting and kind look in her eyes. He got up, slowly, without any haste, still doubtful of the situation; and as he came toward her his breath grew shorter. "I believe I am a fool, but I could not believe what I wished. Is it true, Nina, that you will take me at last?"

"Listen! Come and sit down, boy, and behave yourself."

Jack obeyed mechanically.

She turned around to face him, while she commanded his obedience and gave her directions with finger upraised, as if she were teaching a dog to sit up.

"To-morrow you will call upon my father at his office and ask his consent to our immediate marriage."

"Tell me to do something hard, Nina. I feel rather cooped up, just now. I could spring over that chandelier. I don't mind tackling the old man—that's nothing. Haven't you got some lions' dens that want looking after?"

"You'll feel tired enough when you come out of father's den, I'll warrant."

"I dare say. What if he refuses?"

"Jack," said Nina, "I am an heiress. I dictate to every man but my father. I have always had my own way, and always mean to have it. So, beware! But I don't care, now, whether he refuses or not. I have come to the conclusion that it was this long engagement that worried me, and I am going to end it in short order. I am getting as thin as a scarecrow. My bones are coming through my dress." Nina felt the top of one superbly rounded arm and declared she could feel her collar-bone coming through in that improbable place. "No, I don't care whether he refuses or not. I am going to marry you, Jack, before the end of the week."

Next day Jack found himself not quite so brave as he thought he would be on entering Mr. Joseph Lindon's office. He was ushered into a rather shabby little room, which the millionaire thought was quite good enough for him. He took a pride in its shabbiness. Joseph Lindon, he said, did not have to impress people with brass and Brussels. There was more solid monetary credit in his threadbare carpet than in all the plate glass and gilt of any other establishment in the city.

Cresswell paused on the threshold as he entered, and then, feeling glad that nobody else was in the room, advanced toward Mr. Lindon. Lindon saw him out of the corner of his eye as he came in, and a saturnine smile relaxed his face while he completed a sentence in a letter which he was writing.

"Good morning, Jack," he said briskly. "Come at last, have you?"

This was rather disconcerting, but Jack replied: "Yes, and you evidently know why." He said this cheerfully and with considerable spirit, but Mr. Lindon's next remark was a little chilling.

"Just so. I was afraid you would come some day. Let us cut it short, my boy. I have a board meeting in ten minutes."

"Well, you know all I've got to say. Now, what do you say?"

This was a happy abruptness on Jack's part, and Lindon rather liked him for it. It seemed business like. It seemed as if Jack thought too highly of Mr. Lindon's sagacity to indulge in any persuasion or argument. He lay back in his chair with an amused look.

"Why dammit, boy, she's not in love with you."

Jack shrugged his shoulders and smiled—as if that was point on which modesty compelled him to be silent But his individuality asserted itself.

"Is that all the objection?"

Evidently, abruptness and speaking to the point were preferred in this office, and Jack was prepared to give the millionaire all the abruptness he wanted.

"No," said Lindon. "Of course, that is not all. But I know, as a matter of fact, that my daughter does not care a pin about you. Don't think I have been making money all my life. I can tell when a woman is in love as well as any man. I have watched Nina myself when you were with her, and I tell you she does not care half enough for you to marry you."

"She says she does," said Jack, determined not to be browbeaten by this man's force.

"I don't believe a word of it, if she does say so. I was afraid, at one time, that she was going to make a goose of herself with you, and I waltzed her off to the Continent. But after she came back I thoroughly satisfied myself that she was in no danger, or else, my boy, you would not have had the run of my house as you have had. Under the circumstances, Jack, I was always glad to see you, since we came back last, and hope to see you always, just the same. Quite apart, however, from anything she may say or consent to, I have other plans for my daughter. I have no son to carry on the name, but my daughter's marriage will be a grand one. With her beauty and my money, she will make the biggest match of the day. I did not start with much of a family myself, but I can control family. When Nina marries, sir, she marries blood; nothing less than a dook, sir,—nothing less than a dook will satisfy me. And I'll have a dook, sir; mark my words!"

When his ambition was aroused, Mr. Lindon sometimes reverted to the more marked vulgarity of forty years ago.

Jack arose. The interview was ended as far as he was concerned.

Lindon felt kindly toward him. He was one of the few young men who were not overawed by his money and obsequious on account of his wine.

"Well, good-by," he said. "Don't let this make any interruption in your visits to Mossbank. You'll always find a good glass of wine ready for you with Joseph Lindon. I rather like you, Jack, and if you ever want any backing, just let me know. But, my boy"—here Lindon regarded him as kindly as his keen, business-loving face would allow, and he laid his hand on his arm—"my lad, you must be careful. Remember what an old man says—you're too honest to get along all through life without getting put upon. You must try to see into things a little more. Just try and be a little more suspicious. If you don't, somebody will 'go for you,' sure as a gun."

Jack saw that this was intended kindly, and he took it quietly, wondering if Joseph Lindon, while looking so uncommonly sober, could have been indulging in a morning glass of wine. He went out, and Mr. Lindon watched his free, manly bearing as he passed to the front door.

"If I had a son like that," he said warmly, "Nina could marry whom she liked. That boy would be family enough for me. He would have enough of the gentleman about him both for himself and his old father. Lord, if I had a son like that I'd make a prince of him! I'd just give him blank checks signed with my name. Darned if I wouldn't!"

To give a son unfilled signed checks seemed to be a culmination of parental foolishness which would show his fondness more than anything else he could do. Perhaps he was right.

Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances incalculable as the descent of thistledown.—George Eliot'sRomola.

During Jack's visit to her father's office, Nina passed the time in desultory shopping until she met him on King Street.

"I need not ask what your success was," said she, smiling, as she joined him. "Your face shows that clearly enough."

"Nothing less than a dook," groaned Jack, good-humoredly. "He seems to think they can be had at auction sales in England."

"I am glad he refused," said Nina, "because his consent would delay my whims. We have done our duty in asking him, and now I am going to marry you to-morrow, Jack."'

"To-morrow?"

"Yes, I am afraid, dear Jack, that if I allowed the marriage to be put off till next week or longer you might change your mind." She gave Jack a look that disturbed thought. Affection toward him on her part was something so new that this, together with her startling announcement, made it difficult for him accurately to distinguish his head from his heels.

"But I can not leave the bank at a moment's notice."

"No; but you can get your holidays a week sooner. You were going to take them in a week."

"Had we not better wait, then, for the week to expire?"

"Fiddlesticks! Don't you see that I want to give you a chance? What I amreallyafraid of is that I shall change my own mind. Father said only yesterday he was thinking of taking me to England at once. If you don't want to take your chances you can take your consequences instead."

It did not seem anything new or strange to Jack that she should give a little stamp of her foot imperiously, and in all the willfulness of a spoiled child determine suddenly upon carrying out a whim in spite of any objections. And Jack needed no great force of argument to push him on in this matter. His head was throbbing with excitement. To think of the bank was habitual to him; but the wildness of the new move commended itself to his young blood. The holidays were a mere matter of arrangement, for the most part, between the clerks, and he thought he saw his way to arranging for a fortnight's absence. "I'll make it all right," he said, thinking aloud. "I will arrange it with Sappy."

Whether "Sappy" was the bank manager or a fellow-clerk did not at the moment interest Nina.

"Why, Nina, I didn't know you were a person to go in for anything half so wild. It suits me. It will be the spree of my life! But how have you arranged everything? or have you arranged anything?"

"Oh, there is nothing very much to arrange. I know you can not leave the bank finally without giving due notice. So we will just go off now and get married, and when you come back, after a week or so, you can give the usual notice and then we will go to California. If your brother there wants you to go into the grape-farming he must know well enough that you have better chances there than here in the bank, and if, after all, the business there did not get on well, I dare say father will have changed his mind by that time."

"And how will you account for your absence from home?"

"Nothing simpler," said she, with a sagacious toss of her head. "I am just telegraphing to Sophronia B. Hopkins at Lockport, New York. You remember Sophronia B., when she was with us? I have telegraphed that I am coming to see her. She will answer to say 'Come along'; and then I will put her off for a couple of weeks and tell her to keep any letters forwarded for me from here until I come."

Jack was astonished. "I thought your head was only valuable as an ornament," said he, with affectionate rudeness.

"I have never, with you, had occasion to use it before. To-morrow, at half-past seven in the morning, you will take the train for Hamilton. I will take the 9.30 and we will go through to Buffalo together, where we will arrive about two o'clock, and then we can be married there and go West. But we need not arrange anything more now. You will be at the Campbells' to-night, and anything further can be spoken about there. Go off now to the bank and get everything ready. And, by the way, Jack"—here she held out her hand as if for good-by—while she asked, with what seemed to Jack an almost unimaginable coquetry and beauty, "you won't change your mind, dear Jack?" She gave him one glance from under her sweeping eyelashes, and then she left him to grope his way to the bank.

She thought, as she walked along, "I think I have read somewhere that 'whom the gods wish to take they first drive mad,' or something like that. It is just as well, as Geoffrey suggested, to keep Jack slightly insane to-day. It will prevent him from thinking my proposal strange. Poor Jack! To-day he would give me his right arm as a present. How shabbily I have treated him, and how well he has always behaved!"

About eleven on the following forenoon, Jack was waiting in the dining-room of the Hamilton railway station, looking out through the window to see Nina's train come in. He thought it better to escape observation in this way. Nor did Nina indulge in looking out the window of the Pullman. Everything had been fully arranged, and as the bridge train moved out of the station, Jack left his obscure post of observation and hastily passed through the crowd on the station and got on board the "smoker" in front. When clear of Hamilton he made his way back through the cars to the drawing-room car, where he found Nina, who was beginning to look a little anxious for his arrival.

The train took nearly two hours to trundle along to the bridge. For a time they talked together, but Nina was feeling the reaction of the excitement of getting away. She had had a good deal to do, and she did not feel that going away with Jack would prevent her from enjoying a fairly comfortable nap in the large swinging arm-chairs. She soon dozed off, and Jack, who was pleased to see her rest, walked to the end of the car and back again to calm his nerves. This sort of thing was new to him. He had a novel with him, but he could not read it. His "only books were woman's looks" to-day. Other people's adventures seemed poor to him just now, in comparison with his own.

While thus moving about restlessly he became a little interested in an elderly gentleman, evidently a clergyman, who was sitting unobtrusively behind a copy of the Detroit Church Herald. He passed this retiring person several times, in loitering about, and then, seeing him with his paper laid down beside him, stopped and said cheerfully:

"Got the car all to ourselves to-day."

"Yes," said the grave-looking person, with an American accent. "And pleasant, too, on a warm day like this. It's worth the extra quarter to get out from among the crying babies and orange-peel and come in here and travel comfortably. Going far?"

"Only as far as Buffalo," said Jack, taking a seat beside him, for want of anything better to do.

"That is where I reside."

"Ah, indeed!" said Jack. "You make Buffalo the scene of your official duties?"

The other nodded. "I have been for a visit to Detroit, and now I am going back to relieve my superior in the church, so that he may take a holiday also. I think we clergy need a holiday as much as any other people I ever saw. Do you know Buffalo at all?"

"Never was there in my life," said Jack.

"Humph! Well, it ain't a bad place, Buffalo, when you know the people well. I have only been there five years, but I have found in our congregation some real nice folks. Of course, mine is the Episcopal Church, and I have generally found the Episcopalians, in my sojournings in different places, to be the superior people of the locality."

From the compliment to the Episcopalians it was evident that the clergyman had no doubt Jack belonged to that aristocratically inclined sect, and Jack smiled at his friend's shrewdness, forgetting the fact that "Church of England—mild, acquiescent, and gentlemanly"—was written all over him, and that the cut of his clothes, the shape of his whisker, the turn of his head when listening, and even the solidity of his utility-first boots made it almost impossible for any person to suppose he belonged to any other denomination.

"I have heard," Jack said, "that the Buffalo people, many of them, have lots of money, and that they give freely to the churches. I suppose money is an element in a congregation which gentlemen of your calling do not object to?"

It seemed to Jack that the long gray eyes of the minister smiled at this point more because he thought he was expected to smile than from any sense of mirth. He was a grave man, who, behind a dignified reserve, seemed capable of taking in a great deal at a glance.

"No one can deny the power of money," he said. "But, though there is a good deal of it in St. James's Church, what with a paid choir, and the church debt, and repairs, and the new organ, and the paying of my superior in office, I can tell you there is not very much left for the person who plays second fiddle, as one may say."

"Ah!" said Jack sympathetically.

"When a man has a wife and a growing family to support and bring up in a large city, and prices away up, twelve hundred dollars a year don't go a very great ways, young man, and if it were not for our perquisites some of us would find it difficult to make both ends of the string meet around the parcel we have got to carry."

Jack was becoming slightly interested in this man and was wondering what his previous history was. He wondered that his new acquaintance had not made more money than he seemed to possess. There was something behind his grave immobility of countenance that suggested ability of some sort, he did not know what. His slightly varying expressions of countenance did not always seem to appear spontaneously, but to be placed there by a directing intelligence that first considered what expression would be the right one. It seemed like a peculiar mannerism which might in another man be the result of a slightly sluggish brain.

They conversed with each other all the way to the bridge, and although the dignified reserve of the clergyman never quite thawed out, Jack began to rather like him and be interested in his large fund of information about the United States and anecdotes of frontier life in California, where as a youth he had had a varied experience.

Their baggage was examined by the customs officer on the American side of the bridge, and the clergyman noticed a monogram in silver on Nina's shopping-bag, "N. L.," and the initials "J. C." on Jack's valises, and came to the conclusion from Jack's studied attentions to Nina when she awoke that, if the young couple were not married yet, it was quite time they were; and no doubt it entered the clerical mind that there might be a marriage fee for himself to come out of the little acquaintance. In view of this he renewed the conversation himself after the car went on by the New York Central toward Buffalo. Jack introduced the Rev. Matthew Simpson to Nina, and he made the short run to Buffalo still shorter with amusing stories of clerical life, ending up with one about his own marriage, which was not the less interesting on account of its being a runaway match and the fact that he had never regretted it. Jack felt that behind this elderly man's dignity there was a heart that understood the world and knew what young people were. So he told a short story on his account, which did not seem to surprise the reverend gentleman a great deal, and it was arranged that he should perform the ceremony for them at the hotel. On arriving in Buffalo they left their luggage at the station, intending to go on to Cleveland at four o'clock. On the way up Main Street, Mr. Simpson pointed out St. James's Church—a large edifice, partly covered with ivy—and also showed the parsonage where he lived. He urged them to wait and be married in the church, but Nina shunned the publicity of it and pleaded their want of time.

Jack and Nina had some dinner at the Genesee House, while Mr. Simpson got the marriage license ready. As luck would have it, Mr. Simpson himself issued marriage licenses, which, as he explained, also assisted him to eke out his small income; and as soon as they had had a hurried lunch, they all retired to a private parlor and the marriage ceremony was performed very quietly.

Two waiters were called in as witnesses, and it was arranged that on their return to Buffalo in a few days, they could call at the parsonage and then sign the church register, for which there was now no time before the four o'clock train left for Cleveland. The license was produced, filled out, and signed in due form, and on the large red seal were stamped the words, "Matthew Simpson, Issuer of Marriage Licenses." The presence of the stamp showed that he was a duly authorized person, and satisfied Jack that in employing a chance acquaintance he was not making any mistake.

They were glad when the ceremony was finished, and Jack was very pleasant with Mr. Simpson. They all got into the cab again, and rattled off toward the station. As they came near the parsonage of St. James's Church, Mr. Simpson said he thought he would go as far as the suburbs with them in their train to see how some people in the hospital were getting on. He said he would get down, now, at the parsonage, because he wished to take something with him to one of the patients, but that they must not risk losing the train.

"I will take another cab and meet you at the train. It is not a matter of much moment if I fail to catch it; but, Mr. Cresswell, if you get a bottle of wine into the car (perhaps you will have time to get it at the station), I will be pleased to drink Mrs. Cresswell's health."

"That's a capital idea," said Jack with spirit. "The wine will be doubtful, perhaps, but that won't be my fault. And now," he added, as the carriage stopped at the parsonage, "I want to leave with you your fee, Mr. Simpson, and I hope you will not consider that it cancels our indebtedness to you." Jack pulled out a roll of bills.

"Never mind, my dear young man," said Mr. Simpson heartily, "any time will do. I will catch you at the station, and, if I don't, you can leave it with me when you return here to sign the register."

Mr. Simpson got out, and Jack, finding he had only two five dollar bills, the rest being all in fifties, was rather in a dilemma how to pay Mr. Simpson twenty dollars for his fee.

"Here;" he said hurriedly, handing out a fifty, "you get this changed, if you have time, on your way down. You may possibly miss us at the station, and I can not hear of your waiting until we return."

"Very well," said Mr. Simpson, speaking as fast as his tongue would let him, "I will have to take my chance, and, if I can not catch you, just call in for the balance when you return. Don't lose a moment!" With a wave of his hand and a direction to the driver, Mr. Simpson went hurriedly up the parsonage steps, and the cab dashed off toward the Michigan Southern depot.

Jack had time to purchase the wine, which ought to have been good, judging from the price. Unfortunately, Mr. Simpson was too late to join them. The train went off without him, and Jack and Nina drank his jolly good health in half the bottle, and afterward the Pullman conductor struggled successfully with the rest.

Altogether they were in high spirits, Jack especially, and Nina's thankfulness for being safely married to one of the best of men made her very amiable.

Mr. and Mrs. John Cresswell approached Buffalo again, from the West, at the close of Jack's two weeks' holidays. They decided that it would be better for Nina to go straight to Lockport on the train which connected with the one on which they were traveling. There was nothing for Nina to do in Buffalo but sign the register and get her marriage "lines" from Mr. Simpson, and Jack could do this, they thought, without a delay on her part to do so. To arrange about the register she had written her name on a narrow slip of paper which Jack could paste in the book at the parsonage. This they considered would suffice, and Nina went on to pay her intended visit to Sophronia B. Hopkins. The run to Lockport occupied only a short time, and then she went to her friend's house.

In the mean time Jack, who was not like the husband in Punch in that stage of the honeymoon when the presence of a friend "or even an enemy" would be a grateful change of companionship, walked up Main Street smoking a cigar and trying to make the best of his sudden bereavement. He said after the first ten minutes that he was infernally lonely, but still the flavor of the cigar was from fair to middling. And, after all, tobacco and quiet contemplationhavea place in life which can not be altogether neglected, and they come in well again after a while, no matter what may have caused their temporary banishment.

He strolled leisurely up to the parsonage and inquired for Mr. Simpson. The maid-servant said he did not live there. Jack thought this was strange.

"I mean the clergyman who has charge of the church alongside."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Toxham lives here. He is inside. Will you walk in?"

Jack was ushered into a clergyman's library, where a thin man with a worn face was sitting. Jack bowed, introduced himself, and said he had come here to see Mr. Matthew Simpson, "one of the associate clergymen in St. James's Church close by."

"I do not think I know anybody by the name of Simpson," said the clergyman. "My name is Toxham. I have no associate clergyman with me in the neighboring church. My church is called St. Luke's, not St. James's. I don't think there is any St. James's Church in Buffalo." Jack grasped the back of the chair and unconsciously sat down to steady himself. A horrible fear overwhelmed him. His face grew ashen in hue, and the clergyman jumped up in a fright, thinking something was going to happen.

"It's all right," said Jack weakly. "Sit down, please. You have given me a shock, and I feel as I never felt before. There, I am better now."

As he wiped away the cold perspiration that had started out in beads on his forehead he related the facts as to his marriage to Mr. Toxham, who was greatly shocked.

An idea occurred to him, and on looking through the city directory, as a sort of last chance, he found the name "Matthew Simpson, issuer of marriage licenses."

Jack started up, filled with wild and sudden hope. He got the address, and dashed from the house before Mr. Toxham could give him a word of advice. Arrived at the office of Matthew Simpson, he walked in and asked for that gentleman.

"I am Matthew Simpson," said the man he spoke to.

Jack looked at him as if he had seven heads, feeling the same trembling in the knees which he had felt when with Mr. Toxham. "Really," he thought, "if this goes on I'll be a driveling idiot by nightfall."

"Did you issue a marriage license on, let me see, two weeks ago to-morrow—on the 23d?"

"More than likely I did. Perhaps a good many on that day. You don't look as if you wanted one yourself. Anything gone wrong? But you can have one if you like. I do the biggest business in Buffalo. I sell more marriage licenses than any two men between here and—"

"Turn up your books," interrupted Jack savagely. He was beginning to wish to kill somebody.

"I always make a charge for a search," said the man cunningly, which was not true.

"Well, damn it, I can pay you. Look lively now, or the police will do it for me in five minutes, and put you where your frauds will be of no use to you."

It was Mr. Simpson's turn to lose color now. He was one of the trustees of a public institution in Buffalo, and people should be careful how they talk too suddenly about police to trustees. The books were produced, and Jack hurriedly looked over the list of the licenses sold on the 23d of the last month, and was surprised to find that one had been sold to himself. His age was entered and sworn to as fifty-five years, and the license was to marry Nina Lindon, spinster, aged twenty years. The addresses given were all Buffalo.

"There has been a great fraud done here," said Jack vehemently.

"All perfectly regular, my dear sir," said Mr. Simpson. "I remember the circumstance well. Old party, called John Cresswell, came in, dressed like a preacher, and wanted a license for himself. 'All right, my old covey,' says I to myself; 'trust an old stager like you to pick up the youngest and best.' So I perdooced the papers, which took about five minutes to fill up. He took the oath, I sealed and stamped the license, like this one here, and as soon as he got it he took out his purse and there was nothing in it. His face fell about a quarter of a yard. 'My goodness,' he says. 'I have come out without any money!' He then laid down the license and rushed to the door, and then turned round and says, quite distressed: 'I'll take a cab,' says he, 'and drive home and get your money. They're all waiting at the church for the marriage to take place, but, of course, you must be paid first.'"

"Well, I hated to see an old gent put about so, and his speaking about 'taking a cab' and coming from 'home' in such a natural, put-about sort of way kinder made me think he was solid, and, like a dum fool, I slings him the license and tells him to call in after the ceremony. He thanked me, with what I should call Christian gratitude in his face. Yes, sir, it was Christian gratitude, there, every time. And—would you believe it?—the old boozer never showed up since!"

"Ha!" said Jack, who only heard the main facts of what Simpson was saying. "Did you never see this old man before?" he added.

"Well, that is a funny thing about it. It seemed to me I knew the face. That was one thing that made me trust him. I could not swear to it, but I have a great mind for faces, and I believe I have, at some time or other, sold the old coon a license before."

Jack thought this would account for the old man, while on the train, giving the name Matthew Simpson, when he had the whole scheme quickly arranged in his head. Still, it might be that he was in fact some profligate, ruined clergyman, who played these confidence games to make a livelihood. The license was issued in his and Nina's names, and, although incorrect on its face and not paid for, might still, he thought, be a legal license for him to claim abona-fidemarriage under. If the license was good enough, the next thing to do was to go to the police office and find out what he could there. "The marriage might be a good one still."

He threw down the price of the license for Mr. Simpson, and asked him to be good enough to keep the papers in his possession carefully, as they might be required afterward. He left Mr. Simpson rather mystified as to the interest he took in the matter, and then, having still two hours before train-time, he repaired to the police headquarters. There he related in effect what had taken place to Superintendent Fox. Two or three quiet-looking men were lounging about, seeming to take but little interest in Jack's story. Detectives are not easily disturbed by that which excites the victim who tells his unfortunate experience. These fellows were smoking cigars, and they occasionally exchanged a low sentence with each other in which Jack thought he heard the word "Faro-Joseph." What that meant he did not know; but he described the gentleman of dignified aspect, whom he had known on the train as Rev. Matthew Simpson, and then he heard one of them mutter "Faro-Joseph" again, while they nodded significantly.

One of the men, who had his boots on a desk in front of him, was consulting his note-book. He then said:

"On the 23d of last month Faro-Joseph got off the train at the Central Depot at two o'clock. On the 26th he left on the Michigan Southern at 10P. M."

It dawned upon Jack that his clerical friend was called "Faro-Joseph" in police circles.

"Why did you not warn me when you saw me in company with this man. He got off the train with me at the the time you say. Surely I should have had some word from you!"

"Well, gent, I tell you why. I was just about to arrest another man, and in the crowd I did not see that you were with him. Don't remember ever seeing you before. I might pass you twenty times and never know I had seen you. You're not the kind we reaches out for. Now, I dare say, unless a woman is of a fine figure—tall, possibly, or the kind of figure you admire—chances are you don't see her at all. That is, you could not tell afterward whether you had seen her or not. Same thing here. You're not the kind we hunt."

Jack turned to the superintendent and asked him whether this man, Faro-Joseph, was not really at one time a clergyman. The superintendent smiled pityingly.

"Why, he only started the sky-pilot game during the last ten years, and only takes it up occasionally. Though I believe it's his best holt. As a Gospel-sharp he'll beat anybody out of their socks. He's immense on that lay. What I call just perfect. He's all on the confidence ticket now and the pasteboards. Has quite given up the heavy business. Why, sir, you would forgive him most anything if you could see him handle card-board. We pulled him for a 'vag.' one night about four months ago; and, just to find out how he did things, I played a little game with him after we let him go on promise to quit. We put the stakes about as low as they could be put—five-cent ante, and twenty-five cent limit—just for the experiment. Now, sir, you would be surprised. He cheated me from the word 'go,' and I don't know yet how it was done. If he dealt the cards he would get an all-fired hand himself, and if I dealt him nothing he'd bluff me right up the chimney. For poker he has no match, I believe. All I know about that game is that I lost three dollars in thirty minutes."

"Perhaps you have his record written down somewhere?" said Jack, feeling sick at heart, and yet fascinated by the account of Faro-Joseph.

"Perhaps we have," said the superintendent, smiling toward one of the loungers near by. "Just come in this way."

The superintendent opened a large case like a wardrobe, and began flapping back a large number of thin flat wings that all worked on separate hinges. These wings were covered with photographs of criminals—a terrible collection of faces—and from one of them he took a very fair likeness of our clerical friend in another dress. Pasted at the back of the photograph was a folded paper containing a list in fine writing of his known convictions and suspected offenses for a period of over forty years. He had been burglar, counterfeiter, and forger, which the superintendent called the 'heavy business' that he had given up. Since those earlier days he had been train-gambler, confidence-man, and sneak-thief.

There was nothing to be done. Faro-Joseph never had been a clergyman. To put the law in force was out of the question for several reasons. Jack got away to catch his train for Toronto and to think and think what it would be best to do about Nina, and where and how they could get married properly.

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