The Man Who Couldn't Sleep

uiet night why sleep should be denied me, and doing my best to keep from thinking of Mary Lockwood.

man in a rather odd-looking velour hat. My eyes followed him from the moment he first turned eastward out o

Statue and wandered on under the park trees in some way reminded me of my own. I, too, knew only too well what it was

my interest in the white-faced girl who sat within twenty p

of the dead. It was, I remembered, once more long past midnight, the hour of suspended life in the emptied canyons of the lamp-strung st

espondent droop to the shoulders. I asked myself idly who or what he could be. I wondered if, like myself, he was merely haunted by the curse of wakefulness, if the same bloodho

about the square with its bench-rows filled with huddled and motionless sleepers. These sleepers, with their fallen heads and twisted limbs, with their contorted and moveless bodies, made the half-lit square as horrible as a battlefield. Clouded by the heavy shadows of the par

n he flung himself down on an empty seat. I could see his white and haggard face as he watched the splashing fountain. I could see his shadowy and unhappy eye

go down to his pocket, pause there a moment, and then suddenly lift again. As it did so my eye caught the white glimmer of metal. I could see th

ame to me was that I could never reach him in time. Some soberer second thought was to the effect that even my interference was us

at must have been between fear and defeat. I saw the arm slowly sink to his side. He was

only my plain and decent duty. Yet I hesitated for a mome

side, I saw him fling the revolver vehemently from him. It went glimmering and tumbling along

ragic gesture of utter misery. Each palm was pressed in on the corded cheek-bones, with the finger-ends h

ing up at the stars. Before I fully realized the meaning of her movement, she slipped the weapon out of sight, and passed silently on down the winding asphalt walk, between

t a second glance at the man in the velour hat, crouched there i

. He did not move at first, so I shook him again.

," I began, puzzled as to how t

" I explained, as I still let

in utter listlessness, shaki

He shrank back and moved away. Then he turne

e leave me alo

hes sat up and stared at us with

ng a fool of yourself

wn business,

nd to keep it

" he flung ba

med strangely removed from that exaltation which tradition impute

uixotic fires in my body. Then he rose to his feet and conf

ay, struck me as funn

waste furthe

r figure, the equally mysterious a

nd pass westward between a granite-columned church and the towering obelisk of a more modern god of commerce. I kept my eyes on t

f the black-clad figure. It was moving eastward on the south s

but let herself in with a pass-key. Once the door had closed on her, I sauntered toward this house. To go farther at such an hour was out of the question. But

in the velour hat. I ran my eye from bench to bench of sleepers, but he was not among them. I went over the park, walk by walk, but my search was unrewarded. Then I circled about into Broad

crept over me. I realized that I had walked for miles. I had forgotten my own trouble

l. For the first time that week there was no need of the bitter lash of chloral hydrate to beat back the bloodhounds of wake

to the unwashed window draperies. Equally unprepossessing was the corpulent and dead-eyed landlady in her faded blue house-wrapper; and equally depressing did I find the slatternly and bared-armed servant who was delegated to

of life as I handed over my four dollars. The listless eyes, I could see, were touched with regret at the thought that she had not asked for more. I tr

sage, and then perplexed me by declaring that all she set out to do, since her legs went back on her, was to keep her first two floors dece

, a figure in black rustled down the narrow s

t. It outlined her figure, as thin as that of a medieval saint from

arpness. About her, quite beyond the fact that her eyes were the most unhappy eyes I had ever seen, hung a muffled air of tragedy, the air of a spirit both bewildered and baffl

rs. Once in my new quarters, I glanced absently about at the sulphur-yellow wallpaper and th

ack who happened to pass us in

ic retort of the bare-armed girl. I turned to i

my new-found and cynical young

into the startled and somewhat incredulous h

, an also-ran! And unless she squares wit' the madam by Sat'r

ak of luck. It was plain that I was to be on the same floor w

almly and quietly stepped out into the little hall, pushed open the door of the rear room, and sli

ots and brick walls. On the sill of one window stood an almost empty milk-bottle. Beside the other wind

te-dappled pinto. On the chintz-covered bureau stood a half-filled carton of soda-biscuits. Beside this, again, lay an empty candy-box. From the mirror of this bureau smiled down a face that was familiar to me. It was a magazine-print of Harriet Walter, the

oom and its record of courageous struggles, I took a bank-note from my waistcoat pocket, folded it, opened the top drawer of the bureau and dropped the bill int

in the broken-armed rocking-chair, and tried desperately

half-opened door listening, I felt sure I heard the sound of something that was half-way between a sob and a gasp. Then came the steps again, and

t was not a moan. But what startled me into sudden action was the noise that follo

thing was wrong. I ran to the closed door, kn

ace as white as chalk, with bluish-gray shadows about the closed eyes. Besi

the thin throat, I dropped on one knee and tore open the neck of her blouse. Then I got water from the stoneware jug on the wash-stand and sprinkled the placid and colorles

own Morningside Avenue in a touring-car driven by Percy Alward Adams, the son of the well-known Traction Magnate. The brake had apparently refused to work on Cathedral Hill, and the car had collided with a pillar of the Elevated Railway at the corner of One-hundred-and-ninth Street. Adams

the girl beside me gave signs of returning life. I was still sousing a ridiculous amount of water o

zing about the room. Then s

" I tried to explain. "But it'

ee the perplexed movement of her hands, the unuttered inquiry s

ighbor," I told her, "and

shook her whole body. There seemed something indescribably childlike

going to slip out for a minu

instructed him to send the motor-hamper and two bottles of Burgundy to me at once. Then I called up St. Luke's Hospital. There, strangely enough, I

lorless face showed only too plainly that this shock from which she had suffered had left her indifferent to all other currents of life, as though every further stroke of fate had been re

rom a saucer-edge. But I made her take more of it. I persisted, until

made a move, as though to speak. But as she did so I could see the quick gush of tears that cam

he cried brokenly and

w hours' time, I was encountering the second young person w

he Burgundy out for her to drink. Then I picked u

unsteady finger to t

now her?"

en to know he

n her long?" a

" I answered. "Since she

the strange tie that bound them together; one the open and flash

Harriet Wal

, bitterly. The wine, I imagine

!" was her somewhat

urgundy glass from her hand. I wanted her mind to remai

?" she half declared, half inqui

it mean to yo

ave heard; so I rep

" she sobbed, "the

y?" I i

her face wit

you!" she moaned.

inite reason why this young woman's

e four blank walls of a cell. Her face was without hope.

to me, but more as though s

dies, I

t my efforts were useless. I could wring nothing more out of the unhappy and tragic-eyed

hought it over the more it began to get on my nerves. So I determined on a

promptly enough, but with a look of sophistication ab

," I told him as I s

s to the condition of Harriet Walter. It was not even admitted, whe

y's," I tried to explain. "And I've

ficial looked at

very many friends. And some of

d. For answer he pointed to a figure

ve been insisting on seeing her," he e

een my start as I glanced out at the slowly pacing figure. For it was that of a young

o know that man'

lory-James Mallory

glad to get out to the street, to the open air and the clea

could see that he resented my addressing him, although he showed no surprise as I did so by name. It was not unti

of the unsteady fingers and twitching eyelids showed me the tensi

nd if you'll be so good as to step in my car,

" the white-faced yo

onsiderable alacrity, for his f

till eying me with open hostility. I struggled to keep my t

able that we should be able to be friends ourselves," I t

retorted. There was something likable about his aud

lub of mine?" I suggested. "Or, better still, on the v

g the river. And there I exerted a skill of which I had once been proud, in ordering a dinner which I thought might appeal to the poignantly unhappy young man who sat across the table from me. I

of them?" he suddenly demanded. I noticed that

uld I th

ulated, with that abject self-pity which ma

u," I suggested. "Or per

e up against what I'm up again

d a compensating relief in merely beholding that look o

what the troub

s head. Then he s

u known Harriet W

she first appeared for the Fresh Air Fund at the Plaza. Tha

was the youth's unexpected exclamat

ut West?

-that's a Canadi

s younger

enty-four. She changed her name from Wils

ked, for I could see the wine had

ed. "I'm the man sh

it was several weeks now since Harriet Walter's engagement to young Adams had been officiall

to marry you?" I asked. "Remember, this is not p

two years ago," he ans

ely?" I

ke a great actress. We all tried to keep her from it, but she said it was her career. She'd been having a hard time of it then, those first six months. So I came through to New York and wanted to take her back, to get her out of all that sort of thing. But sh

he sudden fame that had come to her, the name in electrics over the Broadway th

"After I'd waited two years, after she'd given me her promi

he never e

out of her hotel. She went off to Narragans

. There had seemed little that was deliberately venal o

did you do

if I could only see her face to face she'd be able to ex

n't even see y

nst me; something's changed her. Sh

ll this is withou

They seemed to take me for a crank, or paranoeic of some kind, up there at the hospital. And then I gave up. I felt I'd about reached the end of my rope. I thought it all over, quite calmly,

quate reply, for at a bound my thoughts went back

was the prompt and bitter challe

ment before attemp

of the mystery. I'd have made some effort to find out the rea

mit his listless li

reason," h

t be," I m

ere or what it i

iction. "There's a reason for all

rying to fit the edges of the two broken stories together. It was not eas

nd it out?" he was l

ooked up, fixed my eyes on hi

re is a reason, do yo

uestion, as I was

ern is tha

ke, it's going to be some co

dead silence for

was going to be before he spoke. "But it's no use. It's all ove

'm going to find out

oing to find that

ptuously, a little excitedly, "and by ten o'c

ine-like warmth soon disappeared. A reaction set in, once we were out in the cool night

as his, I knew, were not uncommon. There were plenty of amiable cranks who carried about some fixed conviction of their one-tim

g. There was still the mystery of the girl in the Twenty-fourth Street rooming

club for a minute or two, leaving Mallory in the car. Then I dodged back to the reading-room,

ry had claimed, her birthplace was recorded as Lansing, Michigan. She had been educated at the Gilder Seminary in Boston, and had later studied one year at the Wheatley Dramatic School in New York. From

not been so far wrong. The young man in t

sty stairs to my third-floor room, and seated him with a cigar and a magazine between those four bald and depressing walls with their sul

sense of frustration, of defeat, of helplessness, swept through me. This was fo

t and pulled open the top drawer of the chintz-covered bureau. There lay my ban

t. I still held it in my hand, staring down at it, when I heard the creak of t

e moment I swung around. It was not so much ter

re?" she asked, with a

of mine," I temporized, as I held the revol

speak for a

uddenly demanded. She sank into a chair, pu

on knowing

right

et Walter," was the answer

er anger nor resentment on her face. All I c

ry quietly. Something in her voi

I told her. "I only want to c

said very simply.

late!" I bli

ut it?" was her listl

I know where this revolver came from, just when and where

s. Then she dropped them to her si

ew it would come, some day. And I haven't the

, that the moment w

ly, as I gazed down at the fragile and gi

oaty monotone. "It began when I saw I was a failure, when

I demanded, st

me come. I worked, oh, so hard! And when I left the school all I could get was a place in the chorus. I was ashamed to tell them. I pretended I had a part, a real part. He kept a

en?" I

m extra work with moving pictures to reader in the City Library classes. But I still kept going to the agencies, t

ridge the ever-recurring breaks in her t

tep, she went up. He wrote me that I must be getting famous, for he'd seen my picture on a magazine-cover. It was hers. I pretended it was mine. I pretended I was doing the things sh

ofundities of human life. I felt shaken by a sudden pity for these two bound and unhappy spirits, at

ves even at that moment under the same roof, crushed under the weight of their uns

e. I dreaded every advance she made. It wasn't jealousy, it was more than that; it was fear, terror. She seemed to be feeding on me, day by day, month by month. I k

re," I said. "She has

left?" was he

a sort of nightmare, but now it's over.

r thin hands hopelessly togethe

ing for some start as the name

d, "he'd hate

l care for hi

, I always cared for him. But he'd never understan

ing for yo

d figure for a moment. Then

after me. Young Mallory, with his watch in his

o'clock-and no

tled," was

e quiet hall to the

of "Harrie!" and her answering cry of "Jamie" as the white

part was over and done. But the sight of those two young people, in each other's arms, made my thoughts turn back to Mary