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316 me, and it was under its spur that I first set about seeking her.

The pursuit soon grew upon me. It fed the flame of my hope, and it soothed me with the sense that I was acting. I walked miles and miles in the north of London, all about Regent's Park, St. John's Wood, Camden Town, Kentish Town, and Hampstead. I spent hours wandering over the heath, because I had made up my mind that she would come to it for fresh air. I looked into the windows of the houses of each street as I went slowly down it, and time and again I could not get myself out of a street for the assurance that as soon as I left it she would come into it at the further end. Time and again I saw her in the distance, and hurried after her with a heart beating high, only to find a stranger. I came to my club to dine always late, I played bridge badly, but my partners endured my play, for I was holding the splendid cards of the unlucky in love. I never refused an invitation to go round to another man's rooms and play after the closing of the club, for always I strove to return at the last possible moment to the loathed emptiness of my rooms.

My temper grew uncertain, or rather certainly bad. I began to point out the mistakes of my partners at bridge to them with an excessive bitterness, and to resent their pointing out mine with even greater bitterness. I bullied mercilessly the