He wondered if Alicia would ignore his letter or if she would come to him. Surely she could not be so heartless as to throw him over at such a moment. Crushed in his left hand was a copy of the _New York Herald_ containing an elaborate account of the brilliant reception and musicale given the previous evening at her home. With an exclamation of impatience he rose from his seat, threw the paper from him, and began to pace the floor.
Was this the end of everything? Had he reached the end of his rope? He must pay the reckoning, if not to-day, to-morrow. As his eyes wandered around the room and he took mental inventory of each costly object, he experienced a sudden shock as he recalled the things that were missing. How could he explain their absence? The art dealers were already suspicious. They were not to be put off any longer with excuses. Any moment they might insist either on the immediate return of their property or on payment in full. He was in the position to do neither. The articles had been sold and the money lost gambling. Curse the luck! Everything had gone against him of late. The dealers would begin criminal proceedings, disgrace and prison stripes would follow. There was no way out of it. He had no one to whom he could turn in this crisis.
And now even Alicia had deserted him. This was the last straw. While he was still able to boast of the friendship and patronage of the aristocratic Mrs. Howard Jeffries he could still hold his head high in the world. No one would dare question his integrity, but now she had abandoned him to his fate, people would begin to talk. There was no use keeping up a hopeless fight--suicide was the only way out!
He stopped in front of a mirror, startled at what he saw there. It was the face of a man not yet thirty, but apparently much older. The features were drawn and haggard, and his dark hair was plentifully streaked with gray. He looked like a man who had lived two lives in one. To-night his face frightened him. His eyes had a fixed stare like those of a man he had once seen in a madhouse. He wondered if men looked like that when they were about to be executed. Was not his own hour close at hand? He wondered why the clock was so noisy; it seemed to him that the ticks were louder than usual. He started suddenly and looked around fearfully. He thought he had heard a sound outside. He shuddered as he glanced toward the little drawer on the right-hand side of his desk, in which he knew there was a loaded revolver.