Another tenth of August had come round!

Only a man who has but one anniversary in his life, the backward and
forward shadows of which make an unbroken circle over the whole year,
can appreciate my existence. One cannot escape such a date. You may
never speak of it. You may forswear calendars, abjure newspapers,
refuse to date a letter; you may even lose days in a drunken stupor.
Still there is that in your heart and your brain which keeps the
reckoning. The hour will strike, in spite of you, when the day comes
round on the dial of the year.

I had been living for some time in a city far distant from my native
land. Half the world stretched on either side between me and the spot
I tried to forget, and which floated forever, like a vision, between
me and reality.

I had remained longer than usual in this city, for the simple reason
that it was the hot season, and while the natives could stand it by
day, visitors, unused to the heat, were forced to sleep by day and
wander abroad by night, a condition that made it possible for me to
feel my fellowmen about me nearly the entire twenty-four hours.

It was night.

I was sitting alone on the balcony of my room, looking down on to the
crowded bridges of the city where throngs were passing, and filled my
eyes and mind.

It was the very hour at which I had last seen her. There was no clock
in sight--I always guarded against that in selecting my room. I had