His wandering gaze fell on the open writing desk, which in his misery he had forgotten to close.  He went to it and shut down the lid.

Then he passed out of the room, took his hat from the rack in the hall, opened the front door, passed out, closed it behind him, and left the house forever.

Outside was pandemonium.  The illuminations in the windows had died down, but the streets were full of revelers, too much exhilarated as yet to retire, even if they had any place to retire to; for on that summer night many visitors to the inauguration chose to stay out in the open air until morning rather than to leave the city and lose the show.

Once again the hum and buzz of many voices was broken by a shrill cry of: 

“Hooray for Rothsay!” which was taken up by the chorus and echoed and re-echoed from one end to the other of the city, and from earth to sky.

Poor Rothsay himself passed out upon the sidewalk, unrecognized in the obscurity.

An empty hack was standing at the corner of the square, a few hundred feet from the house.

To this he went, and spoke to the man on the box: 

“Is this hack engaged?”

“Yes, sah, it is—­took by four gents as can’t get no lodgings at none of the hotels, nor yet boarding houses—­no, sah.  Dere dey is ober yonder in dat dere s’loon cross de street—­yes, sah.  But it don’t keep open, dat s’loon don’t, longer’n twelve o’clock—­no, sah.  It’s mos’ dat now, so dey’ll soon call for dis hack—­yes, sah!”

Rothsay left the talkative hackman and passed on.

A hand touched him on the arm.

He turned and saw old Scythia, clothed in a long, black cloak of some thin stuff, with its hood drawn over her head.

Rothsay stared.

“Come, Rule!  You have tested woman’s love to-day, and found it fail you; even as I tested man’s faith in the long ago, and found it wrong me!  Come, Rule!  You and I have had enough of falsehood and treachery!  Let us shake the dust of civilization off our shoes!  Come, Rule!”

CHAPTER VI.

THE WIDOWED BRIDE.

The amazement and confusion that followed the discovery of the mysterious disappearance of Governor-elect Regulas Rothsay, on the morning of the day of his intended inauguration, has been already described in an earlier chapter of this story.

The most searching inquiries were made in all directions without any satisfactory result.

Then advertisements were put in all the principal newspapers in all the chief towns and cities throughout the country, offering large rewards for any information that should lead to the discovery of the missing man or of his fate.

These in time drew forth letters from all points of the compass from people anxious to take a chance in this lottery of a reward, and who fabricated reports of the lost governor having been seen in this, that, or the other place, or of his body having been found here, there or elsewhere.