Then, turning, he surveyed himself in a mirror.
"Good heavens, what a spectacle I am! People must have thought I was a maniac—and they were not far from wrong—but I am all right now. I am going to Eva and confess my villainy, and ask her forgiveness. I will swear my faith to her. She will forgive me—she must forgive me. And as for Evelin, all is over with her after what passed last night. Last night! was it only last night? It seemed an age."
He made a quick motion as if to drive away an unpleasant memory, then throwing off his outer garments he opened the door of a little dressing-room.
"I will bathe, and confess, and be born again," he said, with a little laugh.
Twenty minutes afterward he emerged a new man in reality—as far as outward appearances were concerned. Cleanly shaven and scrupulously attired, no one would have recognized in him the dusty, wild-looking figure of an hour before. He glanced at the clock.
"Yes—I have plenty of time," he thought. "No. 74 West L——Street, east side; I will look at her letter again to make sure. Bless her sweet face! I can hardly wait until I see it again. If she only is not ill, but—good God, it is gone!"
He had looked in the breast pocket of his street coat, that still hung on the rack; it was empty. He stood holding the coat, with a puzzled expression on his face, trying to think.
"I know I put it in that pocket—I recollect it distinctly," he said, aloud; "perhaps it fell out when I took off my coat."
He looked hastily about the floor, then hurried out into the studio, searching rapidly and carefully. His face grew more and more troubled. Could anyone have come in during his absence and picked it up? Perhaps Harry had been here; if so, it was safe. As he stood there reflecting, trying to solve the mystery, he was looking directly at the weapons upon the wall. All at once he noticed that there was something different about their arrangement. Something was missing. It was the dagger! Then it all came to him. "Evelin!" he shouted. "Good God!"
He had wasted valuable time searching for the letter. He could hardly reach the place of appointment by six unless he could catch some kind of a vehicle.