Carroll brushed his overcoat and hat carefully, and put them on. He went out of the house and took the road to the trolley-line. It was still very cold, and the rime of the morning lay yet on the shaded places. In the road, in the full glare of the sun, were a few dark, damp places. The sky was very clear, with a brisk wind from the northwest. It was at Carroll's back and urged him along. He walked quite rapidly. He had a curious singleness of purpose, as unreasoning and unreflective as an animal in search of food. He was going to Port Willis for chloroform to satisfy a hunger keener than any animal's, to satisfy the keenest hunger of which man, body and soul together, is capable, a hunger keener than that of love or revenge, the hunger for the open beyond the suffocating fastnesses of life. He met several people whom he knew, and bowed perfunctorily. One or two turned and looked after him. Two ladies, starting on a round of calls, Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn, again looked forth from the window of Samson Rawdy's best coach, and at the intent man hurrying along the sidewalk.
“I wonder where's he going,” Mrs. Lee said, in a hushed tone. She was just approaching a house where they meditated calling, and she was rubbing on her violet-scented white gloves. Mrs. Lee looked worn and considerably thinner than usual, and she was uncomfortably conscious of her last season's bonnet. “My bonnet doesn't look very well to make calls,” she had remarked, when she entered the coach, hired, as usual, at her companion's expense.
“It looks very well indeed,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, in a covertly triumphant voice. She herself wore a most gorgeous new bonnet with a clump of winter roses crowning her gray pompadour. “It isn't the one you wore last winter, is it?” asked she.
“Yes,” admitted Mrs. Lee.
“You don't mean it! I thought it was new,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, lying comfortably.
“No, it's my old bonnet. I thought maybe it would do a while longer,” said Mrs. Lee, meekly.
“I heard yesterday that a good many folks in Banbridge had been losing money through Captain Carroll,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, with appositeness.
Mrs. Lee colored. “Have they?” said she.
“I heard so.”
“Who is that man coming?” said Mrs. Lee, quickly, striving to turn the conversation. Then she directly saw that the man was Carroll himself.