Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/8



had come to town for the express purpose of doing a certain act, but as the hour for action approached he felt his ardor rapidly ebbing. Of the ardor that comes from hope, indeed, he had felt little from the first; so little that as he whirled along in the train he wondered to find himself engaged in this fool's errand. But in default of hope he was sustained, I may almost say, by despair. He should fail, he was sure, but he must fail again before he could rest. Meanwhile he was restless enough. In the evening, at his hotel, having roamed aimlessly about the streets for a couple of hours in the dark December cold, he went up to his room and dressed, with a painful sense of having but partly succeeded in giving himself the figure of an impassioned suitor. He was twenty-nine years old, sound and strong, with a tender heart, and a genius, almost, for common-sense; his face told clearly of youth and kindness and sanity, but it had little other beauty. His