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“Then I drank more; and after that I do not know what happened until I awoke with a dazed sense of having heard a woman scream and of being in the midst of some confusion. I felt a blow on my head and a grip on my arm and heard a voice shouting in my ear, ‘You scoundrel, I ‘ll kill you!’ I was in another room, my friend’s wife was sobbing hysterically on a lounge, and he was gripping and shaking me and pointing a pistol at my head.

“He said I had shamefully insulted his wife and that he was going to kill me. And I was drunk enough to believe him, and maudlin enough to beg for my life and to accept with tears what terms he was willing to offer. It was finally settled that he should keep me under his personal charge until I could get five thousand dollars from my father to pay over to him. Then he made me write a letter to my father which he dictated.

“He locked me in a room with himself, put the key in his pocket, waited until he thought I had gone to sleep, and then threw himself down on the bed with the pistol in his hand and was soon fast asleep.

“But instead of going to sleep I was rapidly getting sober enough to understand what a rat in a hole I had made of myself, and I was so overcome with horror and shame that I felt I would rather die than face my father again. I put the letter, which he had left lying on a table, in my pocket. With my knife I took out the screws of the door lock and was soon creeping stealthily downstairs. As I turned the first street corner I saw that my keeper was rushing after me in hot pursuit. Day was just breaking, and through the dim, deserted streets I ran at the top of my speed, turning corners, dodging down side streets, trying my best to get out of sight of my pursuer. He kept close behind me, but at last I reached the docks,–where I meant to drown myself,–just enough ahead of him to dodge behind a pile of lumber.

“My sudden appearance startled some poor wretch, who was crouched there, making his preparations for eternity, just as I myself was about to do. He gave me one scared look, as if he feared I was some one come to stop him, and jumped into the water. In his sudden leap one foot dragged after him the little pile of clothing and the letter he had been writing.

“I crouched down into a hiding-place, so startled by this sudden apparition, in the very act of doing what I had made up my mind to do, that I drew back from the deed with sudden awe and shrinking. I had no time to think before my pursuer dashed up, calling my name loudly. He had seen the suicide and thought it was I. He waited about and watched for the body a while and then went away, and that was the last I ever saw of him.

“When I crawled out of my hiding-place I had no idea what I was going to do. The suicidal impulse had spent itself, and although I had escaped from my pursuer for the moment I was so afraid of meeting him again that I slunk along like a criminal. But strong as that fear was, I would rather have met him than faced my father. Soon I came to a wharf where a steamer was taking aboard passengers for California. At once my determination was made. I hurried to a pawnbroker’s shop, and from my watch and what little jewelry I had I realized enough money to buy a steerage ticket, and in a few hours was on my way, under a new name.