New York."

Poor Colin! But there was no appeal.

The end of our trip had come, suddenly, unreasonably, stupidly,
like this.

"So we've got to be shot into New York like a package through a tube,
after all!" said Colin. "No lordly gates of the Hudson for us! What a
fool I feel, to be the one to spoil our trip like this!"

And the tears glistened in our eyes, as we pressed each other's hand in
that dreary inn bedroom, with the shadow of we knew not what for Colin
over us--for our comradeship had been very good, day by day, together on
the open road.

Our train did not go till midnight, so we had a long melancholy evening
before us; but the doctor had given Colin some mysterious potion
containing rest, and presently, as I sat by his side in the gray
twilight, he fell into a deep sleep--a sleep, alas! of fire and wandering
talk. It was pitiful to hear him, poor fellow--living over again in
dreams the road we had travelled, or making pictures of the road he
still dreamed ahead of us. Never before had I realized how entirely his
soul was the soul of a painter--all pictures and colour.

"O my God!" he would suddenly exclaim, "did you ever see such blue in
your life!" and then again, evidently referring to some particularly
attractive effect in the phantasmagoria of his fever, "it's no use--you
must let me stop and have a shot to get that, before it goes."