There were intervals during the three months which followed when I
believed that I was walking in a dream, and waking would find me
grubbing at my desk in New York. It was so unreal for these days;
mosaic romance in the heart of prosaic fact! Was there ever the like?
It was real enough, however, in the daytime, when the roar of London
hammered at my ears, but when I sat alone in my room it assumed the
hazy garments of a dream. Sometimes I caught myself listening for
Hillars: a footstep in the corridor, and I would take my pipe from my
mouth and wait expectantly. But the door never opened and the
footsteps always passed on. Often in my dreams I stood by the river
again. There is solace in these deep, wide streams. We come and go,
our hopes, our loves, our ambitions. Nature alone remains. Should I
ever behold Gretchen again? Perhaps. Yet, there was no thrill at the
thought. If ever I beheld her again it would be when she was placed
beyond the glance of my eye, the touch of my hand. She was mine, aye,
as a dream might be; something I possessed but could not hold. Heigho!
the faces that peer at us from the firelight shadows! They troop along
in a ghostly cavalcade, and the winds that creep over the window sill
and under the door--who can say that they are not the echoes of voices
we once heard in the past?
I was often on the verge of sending in my resignation, but I would
remember in time that work meant bread and butter--and forgetfulness.
When I returned to the office few questions were asked, though my
assistant looked many of them reproachfully. I told him that Hillars
had died abroad, and that he had been buried on the continent at his
request; all of which was the truth, but only half of it. I did my
best to keep the duel a secret, but it finally came out. It was the
topic in the clubs, for Hillars had been well known in political and
literary circles. But in a month or so the affair, subsided. The
world never stops very long, even when it loses one of its best friends.
One late October morning I received a note which read:
"JOHN WINTHROP: "Dear Sir--I am in London for a few days, homeward bound from a trip to
Egypt, and as we are cousins and 'orphans too,' I should like the
pleasure of making your acquaintance. Trusting that I shall find you
at leisure, I am, "Your humble servant, "PHILIP PEMBROKE."