“Have you spoken to any of your friends?”
“No. It's no use,” he said, bitterly; “they are all like me, or they know me.”
“And hasn't your wife some relations who are in business?”
“The last people I should apply to. No. I'm going to look around. Major, do you happen to know a cheap lodging-house that is respectable?”
“I don't know any that is not respectable,” the Major replied, in a huffy manner.
“I beg your pardon,” said Jack. “I want to reduce expenses.”
The Major did know of a place in the neighborhood where he lived. He gave Jack the address, and thereafter the club and his usual resorts knew him no more.
As the days went by and nothing happened to break the monotony of his waiting and his fruitless search, he became despondent. Day after day he tramped about the city, among the business portions, and often on the East Side, to see misery worse than his own. He had saved out of the wreck his ample wardrobe, his watch, and some jewelry, and upon these he raised money for his cheap lodgings and his cheap food. He grew careless of his personal appearance. Every morning he rose and went about the city, always with less hope, and every night he returned to his lodging, but not always sober.
One day he read the announcement that Mrs. Rodney Henderson and Miss Tavish had sailed for Europe. That ended that chapter. What exactly he had expected he could not say. Help from Carmen? Certainly not. But there had never been a sign from her, nor any word from Mavick lately. There evidently was nothing. He had been thrown over. Carmen evidently had no more use for him. She had other plans. The thought that he had been used and duped was almost more bitter than his loss.
In after-days Jack looked back upon this time with a feeling akin to thankfulness for Carmen's utter heartlessness in regard to his affairs. He trembled to think what might have happened to him if she had sent for him and consulted him and drawn him again into the fatal embrace of her schemes and her fascinations. Now he was simply enraged when he thought of her, and irritated with himself.