He went to this, sat down and opened it, laid paper out, and then with his elbow on the desk and his head leaning on the palm of his hand, he fell into deep thought.
At length he began to write rapidly. He soon finished and sealed this letter. Then he wrote a second and a longer one, sealed that also. One--the first written--he put in the secret drawer of the desk; the other he dropped into his pocket.
Then he took "a long, last, lingering look" around the room. This was the room in which he had first met Cora after long years of separation; where he had passed so many happy evenings with her, when his official duties as an assemblyman permitted him to do so; this was the room in which they had plighted their troth to each other, and to which, only six hours before, they had returned--to all appearance--a most happy bride and groom. Ah, Heaven!
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:
"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!"