"Four months ago," he said aloud in his surprise, "the same man sat in this same club, before this same window, and"—he paused, while his hand ran along the arm of the chair as he glanced down at it,—"in this very chair. He fretted because life could not give him enough of excitement and contest—could not give him love. Well, to show him that her resources were boundless, Life gave him all he wanted—then took back her gifts." Relapsing into silence again with a heavy sigh, he contemplated the strange warp of destiny.
Trusia, his beloved Trusia,—where was she? Wealth had not been spared, nor time, in a hitherto fruitless effort to locate her. On this, his first excursion from the sick-room, he was already planning to take up the search himself—to scour Europe until he found her. Yet some instinct, stronger than he dared admit, warned him that she was closer to him where he now sat.
Puzzled, he gazed out the window, hoping that the panorama of the moving crowds would ease his worried mind. A man's face detached itself from the encircling throng, catching and holding Carter's attention. He leaned eagerly forward, why, he could not have explained. At this, the man, also turned and looked. An impartial observer of both would have said that these two were in doubt as to whether they recognized each other. The man on the sidewalk, while clean, was rather seedy-looking and apparently a foreigner. His face was drawn and hollow as though privation had sculptured there. His beard was full and streaked with gray. His eyes alternately burned with the fires of inward visions and dulled with disappointment at hopes destroyed. Carter arose and went closer to the window, with steps still unsteady in his convalescence.
The stranger had passed, but, noting Carter's action, repassed, evidently as much at loss as the man inside. To him, too, there was something strangely familiar about the thin, pale face, the languid, hopeless air, of the man in the club window,—but they were not the attributes of the man he remembered. Nor was this shade the vigorous friend he had known so short a while before.
Carter walked deliberately out to the street and extended his hand to the passer-by who had so strangely moved him. Recognition was complete.
"It is you, at last, Sobieska," he said as the thin hand of the Krovitzer closed over his own. A smile lighted up the half-veiled eyes, he read in the American's soul that word of their distress had come too late.
"Come into the club," Carter urged him. Sobieska smiled grimly as he glanced down at his shabby garments. Carter understood.
"Let's walk out to the Park," suggested the Krovitzer. "I have something to tell you that I know you are anxious to hear. Wait, though, until we get out of the crowd. You don't want Fifth Avenue as an audience, do you?" he asked as he noted the quick joy which lit Carter's face.
"Just one question," Calvert begged. "Is she well?"
"Yes," replied the Krovitzer, confining himself to the naked assent. Then, pitying the man who had been so wofully shaken since their parting in Krovitch, he opened the gate of Pity a bit and added, "She is in New York."