I feel as
if a second man had been grafted into me.
At first he seemed only a pleasure-loving
simpleton, of whose company I was rather ashamed,
and whom I used to hide under my coat
when I walked the Embankment, in London.
But now he is strong and sullen, and he is
fighting for his life at the cost of mine.
That is his one activity: to grow strong.
No creature ever wanted so much to live.
Eventually, I suppose, he will absorb me altogether.
Believe me, you will hate me then.
And what have you to do, Hilda, with
this ugly story? Nothing at all. The little boy
drank of the prettiest brook in the forest and
he became a stag. I write all this because I
can never tell it to you, and because it seems
as if I could not keep silent any longer. And
because I suffer, Hilda. If any one I loved
suffered like this, I'd want to know it. Help
me, Hilda!
B.A.
CHAPTER IX
On the last Saturday in April, the New York "Times"
published an account of the strike complications
which were delaying Alexander's New Jersey bridge,
and stated that the engineer himself was in town
and at his office on West Tenth Street.
On Sunday, the day after this notice appeared,
Alexander worked all day at his Tenth Street rooms.
His business often called him to New York,
and he had kept an apartment there for years,
subletting it when he went abroad for any length of time.
Besides his sleeping-room and bath, there was a
large room, formerly a painter's studio, which he
used as a study and office.
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