Nothing But the Truth. Isham Frederic Stewart

He could be a wandering Jew as well as a Doppleganger, if he wanted to.

      He made out now two shadows, or figures, in the moonlight. Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence were walking and talking together, but somehow he wasn’t at all curious about them. His mental faculties seemed numbed, as if his brain were way off somewhere – between the earth and the moon, perhaps. Then he heard the purring of a car, which seemed way off, too. He saw Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence get into the car and heard Mrs. Dan murmur something about the village and the telegraph office, and the car slid downward. Bob watched its rear light receding this way and that, like a will-o’-the-wisp, or a lonesome firefly, until it disappeared on the winding road. A cool breeze touched him without cooling his brow. Bob threw away a cigar. What’s the use of smoking when you don’t taste the weed?

      He wondered what he should do now? Go to bed, or – ? It was too early for bed. He wouldn’t go to bed at that hour, if he kept to that even-tenor-of-his-way condition. He hadn’t violated any condition, so far. Those fellows who had inveigled him into this wild and woolly moving-picture kind of an impossible freak performance would have to concede that. There could be no ground for complaint that he wasn’t living up to the letter and spirit of his agreement, even at the sacrifice of his most sacred feelings. Yes, by yonder gracious lady of the glorious moon! He wondered where his gracious lady was now and what she was doing? Of course, the hammer-thrower was with her.

      “Are you meditating on your loneliness, Mr. Bennett?” said a well-remembered voice. The tones were even and composed. They were also distantly cold. Bob wheeled. Stars of a starry night! It was she.

      She came right up and spoke to him – the pariah – the abhorred of many! His heart gave a thump and he could feel its hammering as his glowing eyes met the beautiful icy ones.

      “How did you get rid of him?” he breathed hoarsely.

      “Him?” said Miss Gwendoline Gerald, in a tone whose stillness should have warned Bob.

      “That sledge-hammer man? That weight-putter? That Olympian village blacksmith, I mean? The fellow with the open honest face?”

      “I don’t believe I understand,” observed the young lady, straight and proud as a wonderful princess in the moonlight. Bob gazed at her in rapture. Talk about the shoulders of that girl who had given him the cold shoulder at the dinner-table! – Miss Gwendoline’s shoulders were a thousand times superior; they would cause any sculptor to rave. Their plastic beauty was that of the purest marble in that pure light. And that pure, perfect face, likewise bathed in the celestial flood of light – until now, never had he quite realized what he had lost, in losing her.