"Take this gentleman up to Miss Ferguson's apartment," said Ralston. "I'll wait below for you. You can have just ten minutes, understand?"
He returned to the sidewalk. The cabby had fallen asleep again. A feeling of intense loneliness swept over him. He longed to throw himself inside the hansom and rest his exhausted frame. His bones ached and his muscles seemed strange and raspy, and he kept himself awake by walking nervously backward and forward before the house. He could hardly keep his eyes from closing and his knees trembled as if he were convalescing from an illness.
"I did it!" he repeated over and over to himself. "By George! I did it!--saved him for her. Only for me and he would be what he called himself--'a dead one.'"
The sunlight in the street grew momentarily brighter. Milk wagons groped their way from door to door, the horses stopping undirected at the proper places, and starting up again in response to uncouth roars from the drivers.
An elevated train rattled by at the end of the street, and some workmen in overalls, conversing loudly in a foreign dialect, hurried noisily past. A few maids unchained front doors, gave the rugs feeble flaps, and eyed Ralston curiously before going inside to resume their domestic duties.
He found that he was walking in a circle. His brain had fallen asleep. He realized that he had been dreaming, but the dream was vague and indistinct. Then he heard the faint sound of distant music. A housemaid dropped her rug and ran toward the avenue. Two pedestrians turned back in the same direction. A driver jumped into his milk wagon and sent the horse galloping.
Ralston listened. Yes, the music was getting louder. They were playing "Good-by, Little Girl, Good-by!" It must be the regiment on their way from the armory to the ferry. He looked at his watch with a lump in his throat. It was "good-by" for him as well as for Steadman. There was no longer any doubt. Perhaps he could get a commission. He'd go away, anyhow.
A hastily formed group of spectators on the corner began to wave their hats. The band was very near. A squad of figures stepping briskly in time came into view, at their head the erect form of Colonel Duer. He could recognize the other members of the staff, the adjutant, the commissary, the quartermaster, the doctor--he knew them all. On the left trudged the chaplain.