desire, and for that he wooed a damsel passing jauntily with a jug in her hand, first telling her that he knew her name was Mary, at which singular piece of divination she betrayed much natural astonishment.  But a fine round silver coin and an urgent request for an envelope, told her as plainly as a blank confession that this was a lover.  She informed him that she lived three streets off, where there were shops.  “Well, then,” said Wilfrid, “bring me the envelope here, and you’ll have another opportunity of looking down the area.”

“Think of yourself,” replied she, saucily; but proved a diligent messenger.  Then Wilfrid wrote on a fresh slip: 

“When I said ‘Free,’ I meant free in heart and without a single chain to keep me from you.  From any moment that you please, I am free.  This is written in the dark.”

He closed the envelope, and wrote Emilia’s name and the address as black as his pencil could achieve it, and with a smart double-knock he deposited the missive in the box.  From his station opposite he guessed the instant when it was taken out, and from that judged when she would be reading it.  Or perhaps she would not read it till she was alone?  “That must be her bedroom,” he said, looking for a light in one of the upper windows; but the voice of a fellow who went by with:  “I should keep that to myself, if I was you,” warned him to be more discreet.

“Well, here I am.  I can’t leave the street,” quoth Wilfrid, to the stock of philosophy at his disposal.  He burned with rage to think of how he might be exhibiting himself before Powys and his sister.

It was half-past nine when a carriage drove up to the door.  Into this Mr. Powys presently handed Georgiana and Emilia.  Braintop followed the ladies, and then the coachman received his instructions and drove away.  Forthwith Wilfrid started in pursuit.  He calculated that if his wind held till he could jump into a light cab, his legitimate prey Braintop might be caught.  For, “they can’t be taking him to any party with them!” he chose to think, and it was a fair calculation that they were simply conducting Braintop part of his way home.  The run was pretty swift.  Wilfrid’s blood was fired by the pace, until, forgetting the traitor Braintop, up rose Truth from the bottom of the well in him, and he felt that his sole desire was to see Emilia once more—­but once! that night.  Running hard, in the midst of obstacles, and with eye and mind fined on one object, disasters befell him.  He knocked apples off a stall, and heard vehement hallooing behind:  he came into collision with a gentleman of middle age courting digestion as he walked from his trusty dinner at home to his rubber at the Club:  finally he rushed full tilt against a pot-boy who was bringing all his pots broadside to the flow of the street.  “By Jove! is this what they drink?” he gasped, and dabbed with his handkerchief at the beer-splashes, breathlessly hailing the looked-for cab, and, with hot brow and