When the car had passed he returned to the road. A few paces further on the trees at his right hand opened up, and a wonderful panorama was spread before him; a great, dark, gleaming river far below, and on the other side myriads upon myriads of fairy-like white lights like fireflies arrested in mid-flight. From this direction came the faint hum he had remarked.
Evan knew instinctively that this was the city, and that he must get there. He saw further that he was bound in the wrong direction. The way he was heading the lights were thinning out; the thickest clusters were behind him. His instinct further told him that where the lights were thick he would find a means of crossing the river. So he retraced his steps.
Bye and bye houses began to rise alongside the road, all dark-windowed and still. "It is very late," thought Evan. Finally the road came to an end at the gates of a ferry-house. Evan automatically produced a coin to pay his fare, and passed on board the boat. There were but few passengers. He gave them a wide berth.
Reaching the other shore he started walking towards the centre of the city. Coming to a place where trains of cars passed to and fro on a trestle overhead, he climbed a flight of steps to a station, and producing another coin, took a seat in the first train that came. He was perfectly able to see, to hear, to read the advertising cards in the train, but it was all new and inexplicable to him. Some power outside of his consciousness was directing his steps. In the brightly-lighted car he shivered under the gaze of his fellow-passengers, but nobody paid him any special regard.
At a certain station something stirred his feet, and they bore him off the train, down the steps and through certain streets to a certain door facing upon a little Park. Fronted by this door his hand dived into his pocket and brought forth a key which opened it. Like a sleep-walker he mounted to the top of the house and entered a room there. Something in the aspect of this room caused a deep sigh of satisfaction to escape him; he knew where everything was without lighting the gas. Undressing and climbing into bed he fell into a dreamless sleep.
He was awakened by a pillow flung at his head. He beheld a grinning, sharp-featured face under a shock of lank, molasses-candy-coloured hair, a face as dear and familiar to him as the room, and he knew that the owner of it was called Charley.
"Aren't you going to get up to-day?"
"Go to Hell!" said Evan, grinning back. Oh but the sight of his friend was good to his eyes! Something real, something familiar, something that identified this poor wandering soul and gave it a locus.
"You must have made a night of it," remarked Charley.
Some deep instinct still bade Evan to conceal his condition. "What's for breakfast?" he cried, jumping up.