The end
justifies any amount of labor that can be spent upon this matter."
"And you," I asked.
"Will do my part when you have done yours."
CHAPTER XVI
THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS
And what success did I meet? The best in the world. And by what means
did I attain it? By that of the simplest, prettiest clue I ever came
upon. But let me explain.
When after a wearisome day spent in an ineffectual search through the
neighborhood, I went home to my room, which as you remember was a
front one in a lodging-house on the opposite corner from Mr. Blake, I
was so absorbed in mind and perhaps I may say shaken in nerve, by the
strain under which I had been laboring for some time now, that I
stumbled up an extra flight of stairs, and without any suspicion of
the fact, tried the door of the room directly over mine. It is a
wonder to me now that I could have made the mistake, for the halls
were totally dissimilar, the one above being much more cut up than the
one below, besides being flanked by a greater number of doors. But the
intoxication of the mind is not far removed from that of the body, and
as I say it was not till I had tried the door and found it locked,
that I became aware of the mistake I had made.
With the foolish sense of shame that always overcomes us at the
committal of any such trivial error, I stumbled hastily back, when my
foot trod upon something that broke under my weight.
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