<text>
<front>
<titlePage>
<docTitle><titlePart type=main>Watch and Ward
<byLine>by
<docAuthor>Henry James</docAuthor></byLine>
<docImprint>Library of America, 1983</docImprint>
</titlePage>
</front>
<body>
<DIV0 TYPE="chapter" N="CI">
<HEAD>Chapter I</HEAD>
<p>Roger Lawrence had come to town for the express purpose of doing a
certain act, but as the hour for action approached he felt his ardor
rapidly ebbing away. Of the ardor that comes from hope, indeed, he had
felt little from the first; so little that as he whirled along in the
train he wondered to find himself engaged in this fool's errand. But
in default of hope he was sustained, I may almost say, by despair. He
would fail, he was sure, but he must fail again before he could rest.
Meanwhile he was restless enough. In the evening, at his hotel, having
roamed aimlessly about the streets for a couple of hours in the dark
December cold, he went up to his room and dressed, with a painful
sense of having but pa . . .
