David Lockwin has finished his meal. He rises.
"Coming back," says the monument-maker confidentially to his inquirer, "I can fix you a beautiful memorial for much less money and it will answer every purpose."
"I'll see you again," says the customer, cooling rapidly away from the business. "I must go to the North Side and get back here by 9 o'clock."
Why shall not David Lockwin take the night train and leave this living tomb in which the world has put him?
"In which I put myself!" he corrects.
It all hurts him yet it delights him. "She loved me after I was dead," he vows and forgets the sting of poverty.
Now about this going to New York to-night. He would like to be prevented from that journey. What shall do that for David Lockwin?
"Davy's sarcophagus!"
The thought seizes him with violence. Of course he cannot go. He seeks his room. He throws himself on his bed and gives way to all his grief. It takes the form of love for Davy. David Lockwin weeps for golden-head. He weeps for the past. He is living. He ought to be dead. He is poor. He is misshapen in feature. He is hungry for human sympathy. The world is giving him a stone. Oh, Davy! Davy!
The outside electric lights make a thousand monuments, hospitals, sarcophagi, portraits and panics on the chamber walls. The hours go past. There is a bustle in the hotel. There is a sound of merriment in the banqueting hall, directly below. The satisfaction of having dealt tenderly by the beloved dead is expressing itself in choice libations and eloquent addresses.