Paul Ralston by Mary Jane Holmes

As it was Sunday morning there were not as many people as usual on the piazza of the Harbor Hotel when Jack went up the steps, and seated himself in an arm chair. As it chanced, none of the men knew him, and all glanced curiously at him, wondering who he was. He knew they were looking at him, and cursed them under his breath with a bitter sense of humiliation, remembering that he was once one with them,-their equal,-whose hand they would have grasped had they known him, and whom they would have congratulated upon his sister's marriage. Now they passed him by with a stare, while he looked after them angrily. They were so respectable and jaunty in their fresh morning suits, telling of city tailors with whom he was once familiar. He had his wedding garments in his trunk, but the clothes he wore were travel stained and shabby with his long journey, his debauch in Chicago, and the hours he sat in the dampness upon the beach. The starch was out of his collar and cuffs; the crease was out of his trousers,-there were spots on his coat and vest and patches of sand on his shoes; seedy, those who passed him by thought him, and very seedy he looked, as the piazza began to fill with men and women who had come out for an airing before going in to their breakfast. None of the newcomers gave him more than a casual glance, although among them were some whom he had seen in Oak City before.

"Nobody knows me any more; nobody wants me," he was thinking, when Paul Ralston came up the steps, happy and handsome and a little anxious, too, as his eyes scanned the moving crowd.