not be borne.  He was of a mind to rush to the wharf and take another leap into the dark waters, and this time without a life-line.  From this he was restrained only by the thought that if he used infinite caution, at infrequent intervals, at a great distance, he still might look upon his wife.  This he assured himself would be possible only after many years had aged him and turned his hair gray.  Then on second thoughts he believed to wait so long was not absolutely necessary.  It would be safe enough, he argued, if he grew a beard.  He always had been clean-shaven, and he was confident a beard would disguise him.  He wondered how long a time must pass before one would grow.  Once on a hunting-trip he had gone for two weeks without shaving, and the result had not only disguised but disgusted him.  His face had changed to one like those carved on cocoanuts.  A recollection of this gave him great pleasure.  His spirits rose happily.  He saw himself in the rags of a tramp, his face hidden in an unkempt beard, skulking behind the hedges that surrounded his house.  From this view-point, before sailing away from her forever, he would again steal a look at Jeanne.  He determined to postpone his departure until he had grown a beard.  Meanwhile he would plead illness, and keep to his room, or venture out only at night.  Comforted by the thought that in two weeks he might again see his wife, as she sat on the terrace or walked in her gardens, he sank peaceably to sleep.

The next morning the landlord brought him the papers.  In them were many pictures of himself as a master of foxhounds, as a polo-player, as a gentleman jockey.  The landlord looked at him curiously.  Five minutes later, on a trivial excuse, he returned and again studied Jimmie as closely as though he were about to paint his portrait.  Then two of the other boarders, chums of the landlord, knocked at the door, to borrow a match, to beg the loan of the morning paper.  Each was obviously excited, each stared accusingly.  Jimmie fell into a panic.  He felt that if already his identity was questioned, than hiding in his room and growing a beard nothing could be more suspicious.  At noon, for West Indian ports, a German boat was listed to sail from the Twenty-fourth Street wharf.  Jimmie decided at once to sail with her and, until his beard was grown, not to return.  It was necessary first to escape the suspicious landlord, and to that end he noiselessly packed his trunk and suit-case.  In front of the house, in an unending procession, taxi-cabs returning empty from the Twenty-third Street ferry passed the door, and from the street Jimmie hailed one.  Before the landlord could voice his doubts Jimmie was on the sidewalk, his bill had been paid, and, giving the address of a hotel on Fourteenth Street, he was away.