The Breaking Point.............................................................................................................................................1

Mary Roberts Rhinehart ...........................................................................................................................1

Heaven and earth," sang the tenor, Mr. Henry Wallace, owner of the Wallace garage. His larynx, which gave

him somewhat the effect of having swallowed a crabapple and got it only part way down, protruded above

"Heaven and earth," sang the bass, Mr. Edwin Goodno, of the meat market and the Boy Scouts. "Heaven and

earth, are full " His chin, large and fleshy, buried itself deep; his eyes were glued on the music sheet in his

"Are full, are full, are full," sang the soprano, Clare Rossiter, of the yellow colonial house on the Ridgely

Road. She sang with her eyes turned up, and as she reached G flat she lifted herself on her toes. "Of the

The choir room in the parish house resounded to the twenty voices of the choir. The choir master at the piano

kept time with his head. Earnest and intent, they filled the building with the Festival Te Deum of Dudley

Elizabeth Wheeler liked choir practice. She liked the way in which, after the different parts had been run

through, the voices finally blended into harmony and beauty. She liked the small sense of achievement it gave

her, and of being a part, on Sundays, of the service. She liked the feeling, when she put on the black cassock

and white surplice and the small round velvet cap of having placed in her locker the things of this world, such

as a rosecolored hat and a blue georgette frock, and of being stripped, as it were, for aspirations.

At such times she had vague dreams of renunciation. She saw herself cloistered in some quiet spot,

withdrawn from the world; a place where there were long vistas of pillars and Gothic arches, after a

She would go home from church, however, clad in the rosecolored hat and the blue georgette frock, and eat

a healthy Sunday luncheon; and by two o'clock in the afternoon, when the family slept and Jim had gone to

the country club, her dreams were quite likely to be entirely different. Generally speaking, they had to do

with love. Romantic, unclouded young love dramatic only because it was love, and very happy.

Sometime, perhaps, some one would come and say he loved her. That was all. That was at once the beginning

and the end. Her dreams led up to that and stopped. Not by so much as a hand clasp did they pass that wall.

"Of the majesty, of the majesty, of the majesty, of Thy gloory," sang Elizabeth. And was at once a nun

What appeared to the eye was a small and rather ethereal figure with sleek brown hair and wistful eyes; nice

eyes, of no particular color. Pretty with the beauty of youth, sensitive and thoughtful, infinitely loyal and

capable of suffering and not otherwise extraordinary was Elizabeth Wheeler in her plain wooden chair. A

figure suggestive of no drama and certainly of no tragedy, its attitude expectant and waiting, with that

alternate hope and fear which is youth at twenty, when all of life lies ahead and every tomorrow may hold

Clare Rossiter walked home that night with Elizabeth. She was a tall blonde girl, lithe and graceful, and with

"Do you mind going around the block?" she asked. "By Station Street?" There was something furtive and yet

"Yes. I You're so funny, Elizabeth. It's hard to talk to you. But I've got to talk to somebody. I go around by

She saw that Clare desired to be questioned, and at the same time she felt a great distaste for the threatened

confidence. She loathed arminarm confidences, the indecency of dragging up and exposing, in whispers,

things that should have been buried deep in reticence. She hesitated, and Clare slipped an arm through hers.

"You don't know, then, do you? Sometimes I think every one must know. And I don't care. I've reached that

Her confession, naive and shameless, and yet somehow not without a certain dignity, flowed on. She was

mad about Doctor Dick Livingstone. Goodness knew why, for he never looked at her. She might be the dirt

under his feet for all he knew. She trembled when she met him in the street, and sometimes he looked past her

Elizabeth listened in great discomfort. She did not see in Clare's hopeless passion the joy of the flagellant, or

the selfdramatization of a neurotic girl. She saw herself unwillingly forced to peer into the sentimental

windows of Clare's soul, and there to see Doctor Dick Livingstone, an unconscious occupant. But she had a

certain fugitive sense of guilt, also. Formless as her dreams had been, vague and shy, they had nevertheless

centered about some one who should be tall, like Dick Livingstone, and alternately grave, which was his

professional manner, and gay, which was his manner when it turned out to be only a cold, and he could take a

few minutes to be himself. Generally speaking, they centered about some one who resembled Dick

Livingstone, but who did not, as did Doctor Livingstone, assume at times an air of frightful maturity and

"Sometimes I think he positively avoids me," Clare wailed. "There's the house, Elizabeth. Do you mind

She moved on and Clare slowly followed her. The Rossiter girl's flow of talk had suddenly stopped. She was

They walked on in silence. The flow of Clare's confidences had ceased, and her eyes were calculating and a

"There's a good bit of talk about him," she jerked out finally. "I suppose you've heard it."

"Oh, gossip. You'll hear it. Everybody's talking about it. It's doing him a lot of harm."

"I don't believe it," Elizabeth flared. "This town hasn't anything else to do, and so it talks. It makes me sick."

She did not attempt to analyze the twisted motives that made Clare belittle what she professed to love. And

she did not ask what the gossip was. Half way up Palmer Lane she turned in at the cement path between

borders of early perennials which led to the white Wheeler house. She was flushed and angry, hating Clare

for her unsolicited confidence and her malice, hating even Haverly, that smiling, treeshaded suburb which

She opened the door quietly and went in. Micky, the Irish terrier, lay asleep at the foot of the stairs, and her

father's voice, reading aloud, came pleasantly from the living room. Suddenly her sense of resentment died.

With the closing of the front door the peace of the house enveloped her. What did it matter if, beyond that

door, there were unrequited love and petty gossip, and even tragedy? Not that she put all that into conscious

thought; she had merely a sensation of sanctuary and peace. Here, within these four walls, were all that one

should need, love and security and quiet happiness. Walter Wheeler, pausing to turn a page, heard her singing

as she went up the stairs. In the moment of the turning he too had a flash of content. Twentyfive years of

married life and all well; Nina married, Jim out of college, Elizabeth singing her way up the stairs, and here

by the lamp his wife quietly knitting while he read to her. He was reading Paradise Lost: "The mind is its own

On Sunday mornings, during the service, Elizabeth earnestly tried to banish all worldly thoughts. In spite of

this resolve, however, she was always conscious of a certain regret that the choir seats necessitated turning

her profile to the congregation. At the age of twelve she had decided that her nose was too short, and nothing

had happened since to change her conviction. She seldom so much as glanced at the congregation. During her

slow progress up and down the main aisle behind the Courtney boy, who was still a soprano and who carried

the great gold cross, she always looked straight ahead. Or rather, although she was unconscious of this,

slightly up. She always looked up when she sang, for she had commenced to take singing lessons when the

So she still lifted her eyes as she went up the aisle, and was extremely serious over the whole thing. Because

it is a solemn matter to take a number of people who have been up to that moment engrossed in thoughts of

food or golf or servants or business, and in the twinkling of an eye, as the prayer book said about death, turn

Nevertheless, although she never looked at the pews, she was always conscious of two of them. The one near

the pulpit was the Sayres' and it was the social calendar of the town. When Mrs. Sayre was in it, it was the

"I am speaking for Mrs. Sayre. Mrs. Sayre would like to have the pleasure of Miss Wheeler's company on

When the Sayre pew was empty, the town knew, if it happened to be winter, that the Florida or Santa Barbara

The other pew was at the back of the church. Always it had one occupant; sometimes it had three. But the

behavior of this pew was very erratic. Sometimes an elderly and portly gentleman with white hair and fierce

eyebrows would come in when the sermon was almost over. Again, a hand would reach through the grill

behind it, and a tall young man who had had his eyes fixed in the proper direction, but not always on the

rector, would reach for his hat, get up and slip out. On these occasions, however, he would first identify the

owner of the hand and then bend over the one permanent occupant of the pew, a little old lady. His speech

was as Yea, yea, or Nay, nay, for he either said, "I'll be back for dinner," or "Don't look for me until you see

"Don'tlookformeuntilyouseeme" cases, and Doctor Dick had acquired a car, which would not freeze

when left outside all night like a forgotten dog, and a sense of philosophy about sleep. That is, that eleven

When he went to church he listened to the sermon, but rather often he looked at Elizabeth Wheeler. When his

eyes wandered, as the most faithful eyes will now and then, they were apt to rest on the flag that had hung,

ever since the war, beside the altar. He had fought for his country in a sea of mud, never nearer than two

hundred miles to the battle line, fought with a surgical kit instead of a gun, but he was content. Not to all the

Had he been asked, suddenly, the name of the tall blonde girl who sang among the sopranos, he could not

The Sunday morning following Clare Rossiter's sentimental confession, Elizabeth tried very hard to banish

all worldly thoughts, as usual, and to see the kneeling, rising and sitting congregation as there for worship.

But for the first time she wondered. Some of the faces were blank, as though behind the steady gaze the mind

had wandered far afield, or slept. Some were intent, some even devout. But for the first time she began to feel

that people in the mass might be cruel, too. How many of them, for instance, would sometime during the day

She changed her position, and glanced quickly over the church. The Livingstone pew was fully occupied, and

well up toward the front, Wallie Sayre was steadfastly regarding her. She looked away quickly.

Came the end of the service. Came down the aisle the Courtney boy, clean and shining and carrying high his

glowing symbol. Game the choir, two by two, the women first, sopranos, altos and Elizabeth. Came the men,

bass and tenor, neatly shaved for Sunday morning. Came the rector, Mr. Oglethorpe, a trifle wistful, because

always he fell so far below the mark he had set. Came the benediction. Came the slow rising from its knees of

Doctor Dick Livingstone stood up and helped Doctor David into his new spring overcoat. He was very

content. It was May, and the sun was shining. It was Sunday, and he would have an hour or two of leisure.

And he bad made a resolution about a matter that had been in his mind for some time. He was very content.

He looked around the church with what was almost a possessive eye. These people were his friends. He knew

them all, and they knew him. They had, against his protest, put his name on the bronze tablet set in the wall

Half smiling, he glanced about. He did not realize that behind their bows and greetings there was something

Outside in the street he tucked his aunt, Mrs. Crosby, against the spring wind, and waited at the wheel of the

car while David entered with the deliberation of a man accustomed to the sagging of his old sidebar buggy

under his weight. Long ago Dick had dropped the titular "uncle," and as David he now addressed him.

"You're going to play some golf this afternoon, David," he said firmly. "Mike had me out this morning to

David chuckled. He still stuck to his old horse, and to the ancient vehicle which had been the signal of

distress before so many doors for forty years. "I can trust old Nettie," he would say. "She doesn't freeze her

radiator on cold nights, she doesn't skid, and if I drop asleep she'll take me home and into my own barn,

"I'm going to sleep," he said comfortably. "Get Wallie Sayre I see he's back from some place again or ask

a nice girl. Ask Elizabeth Wheeler. I don't think Lucy here expects to be the only woman in your life."

Followed a short silence with Dick driving automatically and thinking. Finally he drew a long breath.

"All right," he said, "how about that golf you need exercise. You're putting on weight, and you know it.

And you smoke too much. It's either less tobacco or more walking, and you ought to know it."

"You loaned them to Jim Wheeler last fall. If you get three of them back you're lucky." Mrs. Crosby's voice

was faintly tart. Long ago she had learned that her brother's belongings were his only by right of purchase,

and were by way of being community property. When, early in her widowhood and her return to his home,

she had found that her protests resulted only in a sort of clandestine giving or lending, she had exacted a

promise from him. "I ask only one thing, David," she had said. "Tell me where the things go. There wasn't a

"I'll run around to the Wheelers' and get them," Dick observed, in a carefully casual voice. "I'll see the Carter

"Give Elizabeth a kiss for me," he called over his shoulder, and went chuckling up the path.

Mrs. Crosby stood on the pavement, gazing after the car as it moved off. She had not her brother's simplicity

nor his optimism. Her married years had taken her away from the environment which had enabled him to live

his busy, uncomplicated life; where, the only medical man in a growing community, he had learned to form

Black and white, right and wrong, the proper course and the improper course he lived in a sort of

twodimensional ethical world. But to Lucy Crosby, between black and white there was a gray noman's

land of doubt and indecision; a halfway house of compromise, and sometimes David frightened her. He was

She passed the open door into the waitingroom, where sat two or three patient and silent figures, and went

back to the kitchen. Minnie, the elderly servant, sat by the table reading, amid the odor of roasting chicken;

outside the door on the kitchen porch was the freezer containing the dinner icecream. An orderly Sunday

"I'll unpin your veil for you," she offered, obligingly. "You've got time to lie down about ten minutes. Mrs.

"She'll talk, all right," Minnie observed, her mouth full of pins. "She'd be talking to me yet if I'd stood there.

"I don't like to hear you speak so of the patients who come to the house, Minnie."

"Well, I don't like their asking me questions about the family either," said Minnie, truculently. "She wanted to

know who was Doctor Dick's mother. Said she had had a woman here from Wyoming, and she thought she'd

"I think she should bring her questions to the family," she said, after a silence. "Thank you, Minnie."

Bonnet in hand, she moved toward the stairs, climbed them and went into her room. Recently life had been

growing increasingly calm and less beset with doubts. For the first time, with Dick's coming to live with them

ten years before, a boy of twentytwo, she had found a vicarious maternity and gloried in it. Recently she had

been very happy. The war was over and he was safely back; again she could sew on his buttons and darn his

socks, and turn down his bed at night. He filled the old house with cheer and with vitality. And, as David

gave up more and more of the work, he took it on his broad shoulders, efficient, tireless, and increasingly

She put her bonnet away in its box, and suddenly there rose in her frail old body a fierce and unexpected

resentment against David. He had chosen a course and abided by it. He had even now no doubt or falterings.

Just as in the first anxious days there had been no doubt in him as to the essential rightness of what he was

doing. And now This was what came of taking a life and moulding it in accordance with a predetermined

She sat down near her window and rocked slowly, to calm herself. Outside the Sunday movement of the little

suburban town went by: the older Wheeler girl, Nina, who had recently married Leslie Ward, in her smart

little car; Harrison Miller, the cynical bachelor who lived next door, on his way to the station news stand for

the New York papers; young couples taking small babies for the air in a perambulator; younger couples, their

That, too, she reflected bitterly! Dick was in love. She had not watched him for that very thing for so long

without being fairly sure now. She had caught, as simple David with his celibate heart could never have

caught, the tone in Dick's voice when he mentioned the Wheelers. She had watched him for the past few

months in church on Sunday mornings, and she knew that as she watched him, so he looked at Elizabeth.

The office door closed and Mrs. Morgan went out, a knitted scarf wrapping her ears against the wind, and

following her exit came the slow ascent of David as he climbed the stairs to wash for dinner.

He opened the door and came in, a bulky figure, still faintly aromatic of drugs, cheerful and serene.

"Yes. Shut the door and come in. I want to talk to you." He closed the door and went to the hearthrug. There

was a photograph of Dick on the mantel, taken in his uniform, and he looked at it for a moment. Then he

"She usually has," he said. "I never knew you considered it worth repeating. No. Nothing in particular."

The very fact that Mrs. Morgan had limited her inquiry to Minnie confirmed her suspicions. But somehow,

For a moment there was silence. The canary in its cage hopped about, a beady inquisitive eye now on one,

"Wallie Sayre!" snorted David. "He's never done a day's work in his life and never will." He reflected on that

with growing indignation. "He doesn't hold a candle to Dick. Of course, if the girl's a fool "

Hands thrust deep into his pockets David took a turn about the room. Lucy watched him. At last:

"You're evading the real issue, David, aren't you?" "Perhaps I am," he admitted. "I'd better talk to him. I think

"I don't mean that, exactly," Lucy persisted. "I mean, won't he want a good many things cleared up before he

Some of the ruddy color left David's face. He stood still, staring at her and silent.

Her voice trailed off. She could not even now easily recall those days when Dick was drilling on the golf

"What if she is? She's loyal to the core, in the first place. In the second, she's criminally liable. As liable as I

"There is one thing, David, I ought to know. What has become of the Carlysle girl?"

"She left the stage. There was a sort of general conviction she was implicated and I don't know, Lucy.

Sometimes I think she was." He sighed. "I read something about her coming back, some months ago, in 'The

Valley.' That was the thing she was playing the spring before it happened." He turned on her. "Don't get that

Outside the slamming of an automobile door announced Dick's return, and almost immediately Minnie rang

the old fashioned gong which hung in the lower hall. Mrs. Crosby got up and placed a leaf of lettuce between

"Dinner time, Caruso," she said absently. Caruso was the name Dick had given the bird. And to David: "She

"Probably." Then his anger and anxiety burst out. "What difference can it make about her? About

Donaldson's wife? About any hangover from that rotten time? They're gone, all of them. He's here. He's safe

"Hi, up there!" ho called lustily. "Come and feed a starving man. I'm going to muffle the doorbell !"

He stood smiling up at them, very tidy in his Sunday suit, very boyish, for all his thirtytwo years. His face,

smilingly tender as he watched them, was strong rather than handsome, quietly dependable and faintly

"In the language of our great ally," he said, "Madame et Monsieur, le diner est servi."

In his eyes there was not only tenderness but a somewhat emphasized affection, as though he meant to

demonstrate, not only to them but to himself, that this new thing that had come to him did not touch their old

relationship. For the new thing had come. He was still slightly dazed with the knowledge of it, and

considerably anxious. Because he had just taken a glance at himself in the mirror of the walnut hatrack, and

had seen nothing there particularly to inspire well, to inspire what he wanted to inspire.

At the foot of the stairs he drew Lucy's arm through his, and held her hand. She seemed very small and frail

"Some day," he said, "a strong wind will come along and carry off Mrs. Lucy Crosby, and the Doctors

Livingstone will be obliged hurriedly to rent aeroplanes, and to search for her at various elevations!"

"I forgot them, David," he said guiltily. "Jim Wheeler went out to look them up, and I I'll go back after

"I'd like to cut office hours on Wednesday night, David. I've asked Elizabeth Wheeler to go into town to the

"What are you going to see, Dick?" Mrs. Crosby asked. "Will you have some dumplings?"

"I will, but David shouldn't. Too much starch. Why, it's 'The Valley,' I think. An actress named Carlysle,

He ate on, his mind not on his food, but back in the white house on Palmer Lane, and a girl. Lucy Crosby,

The Wheeler house was good, modern and commonplace. Walter Wheeler and his wife were like the house.

Just as here and there among the furniture there was a fine thing, an antique highboy, a Sheraton sideboard or

some old cut glass, so they had, with a certain mediocrity their own outstanding virtues. They liked music,

believed in the home as the unit of the nation, put happiness before undue ambition, and had devoted their

For many years their lives had centered about the children. For years they had held anxious conclave about

whooping cough, about small early disobediences, later about Sunday tennis. They stood united to protect the

Now that the children were no longer children, they were sometimes lonely and still apprehensive. They

feared motor car accidents, and Walter Wheeler had withstood the appeals of Jim for a half dozen years. They

feared trains for them, and journeys, and unhappy marriages, and hid their fears from each other. Their

But they saw life reaching out and taking them, one by one. They saw them still as children, but as children

determined to bear their own burdens. Jim stayed out late sometimes, and considered his manhood in

question if interrogated. Nina was married and out of the home, but there loomed before them the possibility

of maternity and its dangers for her. There remained only Elizabeth, and on her they lavished the care

It was their intention and determination that she should never know trouble. She was tenderer than the others,

more docile and gentle. They saw her, not as a healthy, normal girl, but as something fragile and very

Nina was different. They had always worried a little about Nina, although they had never put their anxiety to

each other. Nina had always overrun her dress allowance, although she had never failed to be sweetly

penitent about it, and Nina had always placed an undue emphasis on things. Her bedroom before her marriage

was cluttered with odds and ends, cotillion favors and photographs, college pennants and small unwise

And Nina had "come out." It had cost a great deal, and it was not so much to introduce her to society as to put

a family recognition on a fact already accomplished, for Nina had brought herself out unofficially at sixteen.

There had been the club ballroom, and a great many flowers which withered before they could be got to the

hospital; and new clothing for all the family, and a caterer and orchestra. After that, for a cold and tumultuous

winter Mrs. Wheeler had sat up with the dowagers night after night until all hours, and the next morning had

let Nina sleep, while she went about her household duties. She had aged, rather, and her determined smile had

She was a good woman, and she wanted her children's happiness more than anything in the world, but she

had a faint and sternly repressed feeling of relief when Nina announced her engagement. Nina did it with

"Don't ring for Annie for a minute, mother," she said. "I want to tell you all something. I'm going to marry

"Well, he'll come around to see me before there's any engagement. Has that occurred to either of you?"

"Oh, he'll be around. He'd have come tonight, but Howard Moore is having his bachelor dinner. I hope he

doesn't look shot to pieces tomorrow. These bachelor things ! We'd better have a dinner or something,

There had been the dinner, with a silver loving cup bought for the occasion, and thereafter to sit out its

useless days on the Sheraton sideboard. And there had been a trousseau and a wedding so expensive that a

small frown of anxiety had developed between Walter Wheeler's eyebrows and stayed there.

For Nina's passion for things was inherent, persisting after her marriage. She discounted her birthday and

Christmases in advance, coming around to his office a couple of months before the winter holidays and

"It's like this, daddy," she would say. "You're going to give me a check for Christmas anyhow, aren't you?

"I don't understand it, Nina. You and Leslie have a goad income. Your mother and I "

"You didn't have any social demands. And wedding presents! If one more friend of mine is married "

He would get out his checkbook and write a check slowly and thoughtfully. And tearing it off would say:

"Now remember, Nina, this is for Christmas. Don't feel aggrieved when the time comes and you have no gift

But he knew that when the time came Margaret, his wife, would hold out almost to the end, and then slip into

It wasn't quite fair, he felt. It wasn't fair to Jim or to Elizabeth. Particularly to Elizabeth.

Sometimes he looked at Elizabeth with a little prayer in his heart, never articulate, that life would be good to

her; that she might keep her illusions and her dreams; that the soundness and wholesomeness of her might

keep her from unhappiness. Sometimes, as she sat reading or sewing, with the light behind her shining

He was in arms at once a night or two before Dick had invited Elizabeth to go to the theater when Margaret

"Yes. And you were pretty sick of it. Full of roistering young idiots. Piano and phonograph going at once,

pairs of gigglers in the pantry at the refrigerator, pairs on the stairs and on the verandah, cigarashes my

cigars and cigarettes over everything, and more infernal spooning going on than I've ever seen in my life."

"Love? Any of the Sayre tribe? Jim Sayre drank himself to death, and this boy is like him. And Jim Sayre

wasn't faithful to his wife. This boy is well, he's an heir. That's why he was begotten."

"Why? Because he gets up when you come into the room? Why in heaven's name don't you encourage real

"Walter, have you ever thought there was anything queer about Dick Livingstone's coming here?"

"But nobody ever dreamed that David and Lucy had a nephew. Then he turns up, and they send him to

"I've got some relations I haven't notified the town I possess," he said grimly.

"Well, there's something odd. I don't believe Henry Livingstone, the Wyoming brother, ever had a son."

"Mrs. Cook Morgan's sisterinlaw has been visiting her lately. She says she knew Henry Livingstone well

years ago in the West, and she never heard he was married. She says positively he was not married."

"And trust the Morgan woman to spread the good news," he said with angry sarcasm. "Well, suppose that's

true? Suppose Dick is an illegitimate child? That's the worst that's implied, I daresay. That's nothing against

Dick himself. I'll tell the world there's good blood on the Livingstone side, anyhow."

"That's different," he retorted, and retired into gloomy silence behind his newspaper. Drat these women

anyhow. It was like some fool female to come there and rake up some old and defunct scandal. He'd stand up

for Dick, if it ever came to a showdown. He liked Dick. What the devil did his mother matter, anyhow? If

this town hadn't had enough evidence of Dick Livingstone's quality the last few years he'd better go

"I'm going to take a walk," he said briefly, and went out. He always took a walk when things disturbed him.

On the Sunday afternoon after Dick had gone Elizabeth was alone in her room upstairs. On the bed lay the

sort of gown Nina would have called a dinner dress, and to which Elizabeth referred as her dark blue. Seen

thus, in the room which was her own expression, there was a certain nobility about her very simplicity, a

"She's the saintlylooking sort that would go on the rocks for some man," Nina had said once, rather

flippantly, "and never know she was shipwrecked. No man in the world could do that to me."

But just then Elizabeth looked totally unlike shipwreck. Nothing seemed more like a safe harbor than the

Wheeler house that afternoon, or all the afternoons. Life went on, the comfortable life of an upper

middleclass household. Candles and flowers on the table and a neat waitress to serve; little carefully

planned shopping expeditions; fine handsewing on dainty undergarments for rainy days; small tributes of

books and candy; invitations and consultations as to what to wear; choir practice, a class in the Sunday

school, a little work among the poor; the volcano which had been Nina overflowing elsewhere in a smart little

She looked what she was, faithful and quietly loyal, steady and serene; not asking greatly but hoping much;

full of small unvisualized dreams and little inarticulate prayers; waiting, without knowing that she was

Sometimes she worried. She thought she ought to "do something." A good many of the girls she knew wanted

to do something, but they were vague as to what. She felt at those times that she was not being very useful,

and she had gone so far as to lay the matter before her father a couple of years before, when she was just

"That's it," she had said despondently. "I don't know. I haven't any particular talent, you know. But I don't

"Well, I don't think it likely that I'll have to," he had observed, dryly. "But here's the point, and I think it's

important. I don't intend to work without some compensation, and my family is my compensation. You just

hang around and make me happy, as you do, and you're fulfilling your economic place in the nation. Don't

That had comforted her. She had determined then never to marry but to hang around, as he suggested, for the

She picked up the blue dress and standing before her mirror, held it up before her. It looked rather shabby,

she thought, but the theater was not like a dance, and anyhow it would look better at night. She had been

thinking about next Wednesday evening ever since Dick Livingstone had gone. It seemed, better somehow,

frightfully important. It was frightfully important. For the first time she acknowledged to herself that she had

been fond of him, as she put it, for a long time. She had an odd sense, too, of being young and immature, and

as though he had stooped to her from some height: such as thirtytwo years and being in the war, and having

She heard Nina coming up the stairs. At the click of her high heels on the hard wood she placed the dress on

the bed again, and went to the window. Her father was on the path below, clearly headed for a walk. She

Nina came in and closed the door. She was smaller than Elizabeth and very pretty. Her eyebrows had been

drawn to a tidy line, and from the top of her shining head to her brown suede pumps she was exquisite with

the hours of careful tending and careful dressing she gave her young body. Exquisitely pretty, too.

"I really don't know what to do with father," she said. "He flies off at a tangent over the smallest things.

Elizabeth dear, can you lend me twenty dollars? I'll get my allowance on Tuesday."

"Well, ask mother for the rest, won't you? You needn't say it's for me. I'll give it to you Tuesday."

"Then I'll borrow it from Wallie Sayre," Nina said, accepting her defeat cheerfully. "If it was an ordinary bill

"You oughtn't to play bridge for money," Elizabeth said, a bit primly. "And if Leslie knew you borrowed

"I forgot! Wallie's downstairs, Elizabeth. Really, if he wasn't so funny, he'd be tragic."

"Pooh! That's what you think now. Wallie's a nice person. Lots of girls are mad about him. And he has about

all the money there is." Getting no response from Elizabeth, she went on: "I was thinking it over last night.

You'll have to marry sometime, and it isn't as though Wallie was dissipated, or anything like that. I suppose

"Be nice to him, anyhow," she said. "He's crazy about you, and when I think of you in that house! It's a

wonderful house, Elizabeth. She's got a suite waiting for Wallie to be married before she furnishes it."

Elizabeth looked around her virginal little room, with its painted dressing table, its chintz, and its white bed

While she smoothed her hair before the mirror Nina surveyed the room and her eyes lighted on the frock.

"Are you still wearing that shabby old thing?" she demanded. "I do wish you'd get some proper clothes. Are

Nina sat down again on the bed, her eyes on her sister, curious and not a little apprehensive.

"It's the first time it's ever happened, to my knowledge," she declared. "I know he's avoided me like poison. I

"Clare is ridiculous," she said. "She hasn't any reserve, or dignity, or anything else. And I don't see what my

"Really !" she said. "You needn't jump down my throat, you know." She considered, her eyes on her sister.

"Don't go and throw yourself away on Dick Livingstone, Sis. You're too goodlooking, and he hasn't a cent.

A suburban practice, out all night, that tumbledown old house and two old people hung around your necks,

for Doctor David is letting go pretty fast. It just won't do. Besides, there's a story going the rounds about him,

"I've hardly spoken a dozen words to him in my life. But just remember this. When I do find the man I want

to marry, I shall make up my own mind. As you did," she added as a parting shot.

She was rather sorry as she went down the stairs. She had begun to suspect what the family had never

guessed, that Nina was not very happy. More and more she saw in Nina's passion for clothes and gaiety, for

small possessions, an attempt to substitute them for real things. She even suspected that sometimes Nina was

"Hello," he said, "I was on the point of asking Central to give me this number so I could get you on the

Wallie, in spite of Walter Wheeler's opinion of him, was an engaging youth with a wide smile, an air of

careless wellbeing, and an obstinate jaw. What he wanted he went after and generally secured, and

Elizabeth, enlightened by Nina, began to have a small anxious feeling that afternoon that what he wanted just

"You couldn't pass the word along that you are going to be engaged for the next half hour?"

"You are as hard to isolate as a as a germ," he complained. "I gave up a perfectly good golf game to see

you, and as your father generally calls the dog the moment I appear and goes for a walk, I thought I might see

"You're so cool and sweet," he said. "I I wish you liked me a little." He smiled up at her, rather wistfully. "I

She drew her hand away. Something Nina had said, that he knew his way about, came into her mind, and

made her uncomfortable. Back of him, suddenly, was that strange and mysterious region where men of his

sort lived their furtive manlife, where they knew their way about. She had no curiosity and no interest, but

"There are plenty like me," she said. "Don't be silly, Wallie. I hate having my hand kissed."

"I wonder," he observed shrewdly, "whether that's really true, or whether you just hate having me do it?"

When Nina came in he was drawing a rough sketch of his new power boat, being built in Florida.

Nina's delay was explained by the appearance, a few minutes later, of a rather sullen Annie with a tea tray.

Afternoon tea was not a Wheeler institution, but was notoriously a Sayre one. And Nina believed in putting

one's best foot foremost, even when that resulted in a state of unstable domestic equilibrium.

"Put in a word for me, Nina," Wallie begged. "I intend to ask Elizabeth to go to the theater this week, and I

"What's the play?" Nina inquired negligently. She was privately determining that her mother needed a tea cart

"Or something is right. She retired years ago, at the top of her success. She was a howling beauty, I'm told. I

never saw her. There was some queer story. I've forgotten it. I was a kid then. How about it, Elizabeth?"

He looked downcast over that, and he was curious, too. But he made no comment save:

"Just imagine," said Nina. "She's going with Dick Livingstone. Can you imagine it?"

But Wallace Sayre could and did. He had rather a stricken moment, too. Of course, there might be nothing to

it; but on the other hand, there very well might. And Livingstone was the sort to attract the feminine woman;

"He's not a bit attractive," Nina was saying. "Quiet, and well, I don't suppose he knows what he's got on."

"Oh, I don't know," he said, with masculine fairness. "He's a good sort, and he's pretty much of a man."

He went soon after that, keeping up an appearance of gaiety to the end, and very careful to hope that

"She's a wonder, they say," he said from the doorway. "Take two hankies along, for it's got more tears than

He went out, holding himself very erect and looking very cheerful until he reached the corner. There however

he slumped, and it was a rather despondent young man who stood sometime later, on the center of the

"You treat him like a dog," she said. "Oh, I know you're civil to him, but if any man looked at me the way

Wallie looks at you I don't know, though," she added, thoughtfully. "It may be that that is why he is so

But when she glanced at Elizabeth she saw that she had not heard. Her eyes were fixed on something on the

street beyond the window. Nina looked out. With a considerable rattle of loose joints and four extraordinarily

David did not sleep well that night. He had not had his golf after all, for the Homer baby had sent out his

advance notice early in the afternoon, and had himself arrived on Sunday evening, at the hour when Minnie

was winding her clock and preparing to retire early for the Monday washing, and the Sayre butler was

announcing dinner. Dick had come in at ten o'clock weary and triumphant, to announce that Richard

Livingstone Homer, sex male, color white, weight nine pounds, had been safely delivered into this vale of

David lay in the great walnut bed which had been his mother's, and read his prayer book by the light of his

evening lamp. He read the Evening Prayer and the Litany, and then at last he resorted to the thirtynine

He got up and took to pacing his room, a portly, solid old figure in striped pajamas and the pair of knitted

bedroom slippers which were always Mrs. Morgan's Christmas offering. "To Doctor David, with love and a

At last he got his keys from his trousers pocket and padded softly down the stairs and into his office, where

he drew the shade and turned on the lights. Around him was the accumulated professional impedimenta of

many years; the oldfashioned surgical chair; the corner closet which had been designed for china, and which

held his instruments; the bookcase; his framed diplomas on the wall, their signatures faded, their seals a little

dingy; his desk, from which Dick had removed the old ledger which had held those erratic records from

which, when he needed money, he had been wont and reluctant to make out his bills.

Through an open door was Dick's office, a neat place of shining linoleum and small glass stands, highly

modern and businesslike. Beyond the office and opening from it was his laboratory, which had been the

fruit closet once, and into which Dick on occasion retired to fuss with slides and tubes and stains and a

Sometimes he called David in, and talked at length and with enthusiasm about such human interest things as

the Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, and the Friedlander bacillus. The older man would listen, but his eyes

David went to the bookcase and got down a large book, much worn, and carried it to his desk

An hour or so later he heard footsteps in the hall and closed the book hastily. It was Lucy, a wadded dressing

"You drink this and come to bed, David," she said peremptorily. "I've been lying upstairs waiting for you to

"I just got to thinking things over, Lucy," he explained, his tone apologetic. "There's no use pretending I'm

"Well, it's in God's hands," she said, quite simply. "Take this up and drink it slowly. If you gulp it down it

She stood by while he replaced the book in the bookcase and put out the lights. Then in the darkness she

"You'd better take the milk yourself, Lucy," he said. "You're not sleeping either."

He went in and sitting on the side of his bed sipped at his milk. Lucy was right. It was not in their hands. He

had the feeling all at once of having relinquished a great burden. He crawled into bed and was almost

So sometime after midnight found David sleeping, and Lucy on her knees. It found Elizabeth dreamlessly

unconscious in her white bed, and Dick Livingstone asleep also, but in his clothing, and in a chair by the

window. In the light from a street lamp his face showed lines of fatigue and nervous stress, lines only

revealed when during sleep a man casts off the mask with which he protects his soul against even friendly

But midnight found others awake. It found Nina, for instance, in her draped French bed, consulting her

jeweled watch and listening for Leslie's return from the country club. An angry and rather heartsick Nina.

And it found the night editor of one of the morning papers drinking a cup of coffee that a boy had brought in,

and running through a mass of copy on his desk. He picked up several sheets of paper, with a photograph

clamped to them, and ran through them quickly. A man in a soft hat, sitting on the desk, watched him idly.

"Beverly Carlysle," commented the night editor. "Back with bells on!" He took up the photograph. "Doesn't

Louis Bassett, star reporter and feature writer of the TimesRepublican, smiled reminiscently.

"She was a wonder," he said. "I interviewed her once, and I was crazy about her. She had the stage set for me,

all right. The papers had been full of the incident of Jud Clark and the night he lined up fifteen Johnnies in the

lobby, each with a bouquet as big as a tub, all of them in top hats and Inverness coats, and standing in a row.

"Probably that's the reason," said the city editor, drily. "Go and see her, and get over it. Get her views on the

"You might ask, too, what she thinks has become of Judson Clark," he added. "I have an idea she knows, if

When he finished medical college Dick Livingstone had found, like other men, that the two paths of ambition

and duty were parallel and did not meet. Along one lay his desire to focus all his energy in one direction, to

follow disease into the laboratory instead of the sick room, and there to fight its unsung battles. And win. He

It was not until he had completed his course and had come home that he had realized that David was growing

old. Even then he might have felt that, by the time David was compelled to relinquish his hold on his

practice, he himself would be sufficiently established in his specialty to take over the support of the

household. But here there was interposed a new element, one he had not counted on. David was fiercely

jealous of his practice; the thought that it might pass into new and alien hands was bitter to him. To hand it

down to his adopted son was one thing; to pass it over to "some young whippersnapper" was another.

Nor were David's motives selfish or unworthy. His patients were his friends. He had a sense of responsibility

to them, and very little faith in the new modern methods. He thought there was a great deal of tomfoolery

about them, and he viewed the gradual loss of faith in drugs with alarm. When Dick wore rubber gloves

"I've delivered about half the population of this town," he said, "and slapped 'em to make 'em breathe with my

For by that time Dick had made his decision. He could not abandon David. For him then and hereafter the

routine of a general practice in a suburban town, the long hours, the varied responsibilities, the feeling he had

sometimes that by doing many things passably he was doing none of them well. But for compensation he had

Now and then he chafed a little when he read some article in a medical journal by one of his fellow

enthusiasts, or when, in France, he saw men younger than himself obtaining an experience in their several

specialties that would enable them to reach wide fields at home. But mostly he was content, or at least

resigned. He was building up the Livingstone practice, and his one anxiety was lest the time should come

when more patients asked for Doctor Dick than for Doctor David. He did not want David hurt.

After ten years the strangeness of his situation had ceased to be strange. Always he meant some time to go

back to Norada, and there to clear up certain things, but it was a long journey, and he had very little time.

And, as the years went on, the past seemed unimportant compared with the present. He gave little thought to

Just when he had fallen in love with Elizabeth Wheeler he did not know. He had gone away to the war,

leaving her a little girl, apparently, and he had come back to find her, a woman. He did not even know he was

in love, at first. It was when, one day, he found himself driving past the Wheeler house without occasion that

The future at once became extraordinarily important and so also, but somewhat less vitally, the past. Had he

He sat in' his chair by the window the night after the Homer baby's arrival, and faced his situation. Marriage

meant many things. It meant love and companionship, but it also meant, should mean, children. Had he the

right to go ahead and live his life fully and happily? Was there any chance that, out of the years behind him,

there would come some forgotten thing, some taint or incident, to spoil the carefully woven fabric of his life?

On the Monday night after he had asked Elizabeth to go to the theater he went into David's office and closed

the door. Lucy, alive to every movement in the old house, heard him go in and, rocking in her chair overhead,

her hands idle in her lap, waited in tense anxiety for the interview to end. She thought she knew what Dick

would ask, and what David would answer. And, in a way, David would be right. Dick, fine, lovable,

upstanding Dick, had a right to the things other men had, to love and a home of his own, to children, to his

But suppose Dick insisted on clearing everything up before he married? For to Lucy it was unthinkable that

any girl in her senses would refuse him. Suppose he went back to Norada? He had not changed greatly in ten

Some time later she heard the office door open and then close with Dick's characteristic slam. He came up the

stairs, two at a time as was his custom, and knocked at her door. When he came in she saw what David's

"Put on your things," he said gayly, "and we'll take a ride on the hilltops. I've arranged for a moon."

"It makes you sleep, you know. I'm going, if I have to ride alone and talk to an imaginary lady beside me."

She rather imagined that that had been his first idea, modified by his thought of her. She went over and put a

On Wednesday he was in a state of alternating high spirits and periods of silence. Even Minnie noticed it.

"Mr. Dick's that queer I hardly know how to take him." she said to Lucy. "He came back and asked for

noodle soup, and he put about all the hardware in the kitchen on him and said he was a knight in armor. And

It was when he was ready to go out that Lucy's fears were realized. He came in, as always when anything

unusual was afoot, to let her look him over. He knew that she waited for him, to give his He a final pat, to

inspect the laundering of his shirt bosom, to pick imaginary threads off his dinner coat.

"Well?" he said, standing before her, "how's this? Art can do no more, Mrs. Crosby."

"I'll brush your back," she said, and brought the brush. He stooped to her, according to the little ceremony she

had established, and she made little dabs at his speckless back. "There, that's better."

"Because I'm thinking of taking a little trip. Only ten days," he added, seeing her face. "You could

"Why should you go back there?" she asked, in a carefully suppressed voice. "Why don't you go East? You've

"On the other hand, why shouldn't I go hack to Norada?" he asked, with an affectation of lightness. Then he

put his hand on her shoulders. "Why shouldn't I go back and clear things up in my own mind? Why shouldn't

"I've got to know," he said, almost doggedly. "I can't take a chance. I believe I am. I believe David, of course.

When he had gone she got her salts bottle and lay down on her bed. Her heart was hammering wildly.

Elizabeth was waiting for him in the livingroom, in the midst of her family. She looked absurdly young and

very pretty, and he had a momentary misgiving that he was old to her, and that Heaven save the mark!

that she looked up to him. He considered the blue dress the height of fashion and the mold of form, and

having taken off his overcoat in the hall, tried to put on Mr. Wheeler's instead in his excitement. Also,

becoming very dignified after the overcoat incident, and making an exit which should conceal his wild

exultation and show only polite pleasure, he stumbled over Micky, so that they finally departed to a series of

He felt very hot and slightly ridiculous as he tucked Elizabeth into the little car, being very particular about

her feet, and starting with extreme care, so as not to jar her. He had the feeling of being entrusted temporarily

with something infinitely precious, and very, very dear. Something that must never suffer or be hurt.

On Wednesday morning David was in an office in the city. He sat forward on the edge of his chair, and from

time to time he took out his handkerchief and wiped his face or polished his glasses, quite unconscious of

either action. He was in his best suit, with the tie Lucy had given him for Christmas.

Across from him, barricaded behind a great mahogany desk, sat a small man with keen eyes and a neat brown

beard. On the desk were a spotless blotter, an inkstand of silver and a pen. Nothing else. The terrible order of

"Rather on the contrary, I should say. The stronger the character the greater the smash."

"I've read all you've written on the subject," he said finally. "Especially since the war."

The psychoanalyst put his finger tips together, judicially. "Yes. The war bore me out," he observed with a

certain complacence. It added a great deal to our literature, too, although some of the positions are not well

"Absolutely. All of us. We can go just so far. Where the mind is strong and very sound we can go further than

when it is not. Some men, for instance, lead lives that would break you or me. Was there was there such a

"The mind is a strange thing," went on the little man, musingly. "It has its censors, that go off duty during

sleep. Our sternest and often unconscious repressions pass them then, and emerge in the form of dreams. But

of course you know all that. Dream symbolism. Does the person in this case dream? That would be

"I see," he nodded. "Of course the walling off of a part of the past you said a part ?"

"Practically all of it. I'll tell you about that later. What about the walling off?"

"It is generally the result of what we call the protective mechanism of fear. Back of most of these cases lies

fear. Not cowardice, but perhaps we might say the limit of endurance. Fear is a complex, of course. Dislike,

in a small way, has the same reaction. We are apt to forget the names of persons we dislike. But if you have

David moistened his dry lips. "Yes," he admitted. "It might not have done so, but the the person who made

this experiment used suggestion. The patient was very ill, and weak. It was desirable that he should not

identify himself with his past. The loss of memory of the period immediately preceding was complete, but of

course, gradually, the cloud began to lift over the earlier periods. It was there that suggestion was used, so

that such memories as came back were, well, the patient adapted them to fit what he was told."

David got up and reached for his hat. Then he braced himself for the real purpose of his visit.

"What I have been wondering about," he said, very carefully, "is this: this mechanism of fear, this wall how

"It's like a dam, I take it. It holds back certain memories, like a floodgate. Is anything likely to break it

"Possibly something intimately connected with the forgotten period might do it. I don't know, Livingstone.

We've only commenced to dig into the mind, and we have many theories and a few established facts. For

He talked on, with David nodding now and then in apparent understanding, but with his thoughts far away.

He knew the theories; a good many of them he considered poppycock. Dreams might come from the

subconscious mind, but a good many of them came from the stomach. They might be safety valves for the

mind, but also they might be rarebit. He didn't want dreams; what he wanted was facts. Facts and hope.

The office attendant came in. She was as tidy as the desk, as obsessed by order, as wooden. She placed a pad

"Let me know if I can be of any further assistance, Doctor," he said. "And I'll be glad to see your patient at

"That's about it. Of course since the conditions that produced the setting up of the defensive machinery were

unhappy, I'd say that happiness will play a large part in the situation. That happiness and a normal occupation

will do a great deal to maintain the status quo. Of course I would advise no return to the unhappy

Outside, in the corridor, David remembered to put on his hat. Happiness and a normal occupation, yes. But no

Nevertheless, he felt vaguely comforted, and as though it had helped to bring the situation out into the open

and discuss it. He had carried his burden alone for ten years, or with only the additional weight of Lucy's

apprehensions. He wandered out into the city streets, and found himself, some time later, at the railway

Across from the station was a large billboard, and on it the name of Beverly Carlysle and her play, "The

Valley." He stood for some time and looked at it, before he went in to buy his ticket. Not until he was in the

He attended to his work that evening as usual, but he felt very tired, and Lucy, going in at nine o'clock, found

him dozing in his chair, his collar half choking him and his face deeply suffused. She wakened him and then,

sitting down across from him, joined him in the vigil that was to last until they heard the car outside.

She had brought in her sewing, and David pretended to read. Now and then he looked at his watch.

At midnight they heard the car go in, and the slamming of the stable door, followed by Dick's footsteps on the

walk outside. Lucy was very pale, and the hands that held her sewing twitched nervously. Suddenly she stood

Louis Bassett was standing at the back of the theater, talking to the publicity man of The Valley company,

Fred Gregory. Bassett was calm and only slightly interested. By the end of the first act he had realized that

the star was giving a fine performance, that she had even grown in power, and that his sentimental memory of

Beside his robust physique, Gregory, the publicity man, sank into insignificance. Even his pale spats, at

which Bassett had shot a contemptuous glance, his highly expensive tailoring, failed to make him appear

more than he was, a little, dapper man, with a pale cold eye and a rather too frequent smile. "She's the best

there is," was his comment. He hesitated, then added: "She's my sister, you know. Naturally, for business

But if he expected Gregory to follow the lead he was disappointed. His eyes, blank and expressionless, were

"This whole tour has been a triumph. She's the best there is," Gregory repeated, "and they know it."

He checked himself suddenly, and stood, clutching the railing, bent forward and staring into the audience.

Bassett watched him, considerably surprised. It took a great deal to startle a theatrical publicity man, yet here

"There's a man sitting down there see here, the sixth row, next the aisle; there's a girl in a blue dress beside

For perhaps two minutes Gregory continued to stare. Then he moved over to the side of the house and braced

against the wall continued his close and anxious inspection. After a time he turned away and, passing behind

the boxes, made his way into the wings. Bassett's curiosity was aroused, especially when, shortly after,

Gregory reappeared, bringing with him a small man in an untidy suit who was probably, Bassett surmised,

He saw the small man stare, nod, stand watching, and finally disappear, and Gregory resume his former

position and attitude against the side wall. Throughout the last act Gregory did not once look at the stage. He

continued his steady, unwavering study of the man in the sixth row seat next the aisle, and Bassett continued

His long training made him quick to scent a story. He was not sure, of course, but the situation appeared to

him at least suggestive. With the end of the play he wandered out with the crowd, edging his way close to the

man and girl who had focused Gregory's attention, and following them into the street. He saw only a tall man

with a certain quiet distinction of bearing, and a young and pretty girl, still flushed and excited, who went up

the street a short distance and got into a small and shabby car. Bassett noted, carefully, the license number of

Then, still curious and extremely interested, he walked briskly around to the stage entrance, nodded to the

Gregory was not in sight, but the stage manager was there, directing the striking of the last set.

"What d'you mean, fainted?" inquired the stage manager, with a touch of hostility.

"I was with him when he thought he recognized somebody. You know who. You can tell him I got his

The stage manager's hostility faded, and he fell into the trap. "You know about it, then?"

"It's just possible it's a chance resemblance. I'm darned if I know. Look at the facts! He's supposed to be dead.

Ten years dead. His money's been split up a dozen ways from the ace. Then I knew him, you know I don't

think even he would have the courage to come here and sit through a performance. Although," he added

Bassett gave him a cigar and went out into the alley way that led to the street. Once there, he stood still and

softly whistled. Jud Clark! If that was Judson Clark, he had the story of a lifetime.

For some time he walked the deserted streets of the city, thinking and puzzling over the possibility of

Gregory's being right. Sometime after midnight he went back to the office and to the filing room. There, for

two hours, he sat reading closely old files of the paper, going through them methodically and making

occasional brief notes in a memorandum. Then, at two o'clock he put away the files, and sitting back, lighted

It was all there; the enormous Clark fortune inherited by a boy who had gone mad about this same Beverly

Carlysle; her marriage to her leading man, Howard Lucas; the subsequent killing of Lucas by Clark at his

Wyoming ranch, and Clark's escape into the mountains. The sensational details of Clark's infatuation, the

drama of a crime and Clark's subsequent escape, and the later certainty of his death in a mountain storm had

filled the newspapers of the time for weeks. Judson Clark had been famous, notorious, infamous and dead, all

But if Judson Clark had died, the story still lived. Every so often it came up again. Three years before he had

been declared legally dead, and his vast estates, as provided by the will of old Elihu Clark, had gone to

universities and hospitals. But now and then came a rumor. Jud Clark was living in India; he had a cattle

First then, grant that Clark was still living and had been in the theater that night. It became necessary to grant

other things. To grant, for instance, that Clark was capable of sitting, with a girl beside him, through a

performance by the woman for whom he had wrecked his life, of a play he had once known from the opening

line to the tag. To grant that he could laugh and applaud, and at the drop of the curtain go calmly away, with

such memories behind him as must be his. To grant, too, that he had survived miraculously his sensational

disappearance, found a new identity and a new place for himself; even, witness the girl, possible new ties.

At half past two Bassett closed his memorandum book, stuffed it into his pocket, and started for home. As he

passed the Ardmore Hotel he looked up at its windows. Gregory would have told her, probably. He

wondered, half amused, whether the stage manager had told him of his inquiries, and whether in that case

they might not fear him more than Clark himself. After all, they had nothing to fear from Clark, if this were

No. What they might see and dread, knowing he had had a hint of a possible situation, was the revival of the

old story she had tried so hard to live down. She was ambitious, and a new and rigid morality was sweeping

the country. What once might have been an asset stood now to be a bitter liability.

He slowed down, absorbed in deep thought. It was a queer story. It might be even more queer than it seemed.

Motive, motive, that was the word. What motive lay behind action. Conscious and unconscious, every

As a matter of fact, Beverly Carlysle had shown less anxiety than her brother. Still pale and shocked, he had

gone directly to her dressingroom when the curtain was rung down, had tapped and gone in. She was sitting

wearily in a chair, a cigarette between her fingers. Around was the usual litter of a stage dressingroom after

the play, the long shelf beneath the mirror crowded with powders, rouge and pencils, a bunch of roses in the

corner washstand basin, a wardrobe trunk, and a maid covering with cheesecloth bags the evening's

"Yes," he said absently. "Go on out, Alice. I'll let you come back in a few minutes."

"What's the matter?" she asked rather indifferently. "If it's more quarreling in the company I don't want to

"Neither would I, if somebody told me," he agreed sullenly. "I saw him. Don't you suppose I know him? And

She was worried by that time, but far more collected than he was. She sat, absently tapping the shelf with a

"All right," she said. "Suppose he was? What then? He has been in hiding for ten years. Why shouldn't he

continue to hide? What would bring him out now? Unless he needed money. Was he shabby?"

"I'd better see Joe," she reflected. "Go and get him, Fred. And tell Alice she needn't wait."

She got up and moved about the room, putting things away and finding relief in movement, a still beautiful

woman, with rather accentuated features and an easy carriage. Without her makeup the stage illusion of her

youth was gone, and she showed past suffering and present strain. Just then she was uneasy and resentful,

startled but not particularly alarmed. Her reason told her that Judson Clark, even if he still lived and had been

there that night, meant to leave the dead past to care for itself, and wished no more than she to revive it. She

Her brother came back, and she turned to meet him. To her surprise he was standing inside the door, white to

"Saunders !" he said chokingly, "Saunders, the damned fool! He's given it away."

"He told Bassett, of the TimesRepublican," he managed to say. "Do you do you know what that means?

He looked up at her, his face twitching. "They're hound dogs on a scent, Bev. They'll get the story, and blow

"I know." He was suddenly emotional. He reached out and took her hand. "Poor old Bev!" he said. "After the

She was calmer than he was, less convinced for one thing, and better balanced always. She let him stroke her

"I'd better make sure that was Jud first," he offered, after a time, "and then warn him."

"No!" she commanded sharply. "No, Fred. You let the thing alone. You've built up an imaginary situation,

and you're not thinking straight. Plenty of things might happen. What probably has happened is that this

She sent him out for a taxi soon after, and they went back to the hotel. But, alone later on in her suite in the

Ardmore she did not immediately go to bed. She put on a dressing gown and stood for a long time by her

window, looking out. Instead of the city lights, however, she saw a range of snowcapped mountains, and

sheltered at their foot the Clark ranch house, built by the old millionaire as a place of occasional refuge from

the pressure of his life. There he had raised his fine horses, and trained them for the track. There, when late in

life he married, he had taken his wife for their honeymoon and two years later, for the birth of their son. And

there, when she died, he had returned with the child, himself broken and prematurely aged, to be killed by

Six years his own master, Judson had been twentyone to her twenty, when she first met him. Going the

usual pace, too, and throwing money right and left. He had financed her as a star, ransacking Europe for her

stage properties, and then he fell in love with her. She shivered as she remembered it. It had been desperate

Standing by the window, she wondered as she had done over and over again for ten years, what would have

happened if, instead of marrying Howard, she had married Judson Clark? Would he have settled down? She

had felt sometimes that in his wildest moments he was only playing a game that amused him; that the

hardheaded part of him inherited from his father sometimes stood off and watched, with a sort of interested

detachment, the follies of the other. That he played his wild game with his tongue in his cheek.

She left the window, turned out the lights and got into her bed. She was depressed and lonely, and she cried a

little. After a time she remembered that she had not put any cream on her face. She crawled out again and

Dick rose the next morning with a sense of lightness and content that sent him singing into his shower. In the

old stable which now housed both Nettie and the little car Mike was washing them both with indiscriminate

wavings of the hose nozzle, his old pipe clutched in his teeth. From below there came up the odors of frying

The world was a good place. A fine old place. It had work and play and love. It had office hours and visits

and the golf links, and it had soft feminine eyes and small tender figures to be always cared for and looked

She liked him. She did not think he was old. She thought his profession was the finest in the world. She had

wondered if he would have time to come and see her, some day. Time! He considered very seriously, as he

shaved before the slightly distorted mirror in the bathroom, whether it would be too soon to run in that

afternoon, just to see if she was tired, or had caught cold or anything? Perhaps tomorrow would look better.

"The top of the morning to you. D'you think Minnie would have time to press my blue trousers this

There was the sound of her chair being pushed back in the diningroom, of a colloquy in the kitchen, and

"Some day, Minnie," he announced, "you will wear a halo and with the angels sing."

This mood of unreasoning happiness continued all morning. He went from house to house, properly grave

and responsible but with a small song in his heart, and about eleven o'clock he found time to stop at the

village haberdasher's and to select a new tie, which he had wrapped and stuffed in his pocket. And which,

inspected in broad day later on a country road, gave him uneasy qualms as to its brilliance.

At the luncheon table he was almost hilarious, and David played up to him, albeit rather heavily. But Lucy

was thoughtful and quiet. She had a sense of things somehow closing down on them, of hands reaching out

from the past, and clutching; Mrs. Morgan, Beverly Carlysle, Dick in love and possibly going back to

Norada. Unlike David, who was content that one emergency had passed, she looked ahead and saw their

Nevertheless when she herself admitted a new patient for Dick that afternoon, she had no premonition of

trouble. She sent him into the waitingroom, a tall, robust and youngish man, perhaps in his late thirties, and

On the other hand, Louis Bassett was feeling more or less uncomfortable. There was an air of peace and quiet

respectability about the old house, a domestic odor of baking cake, a quietness and stability that somehow

made his errand appear absurd. To connect it with Judson Clark and his tumultuous past seemed ridiculous.

When, hat in hand, he walked into Dick's consulting room, he had made up his mind that he would pay the

price of an overactive imagination for a prescription, walk out again, and try to forget that he had let a chance

But, as he watched the man who sat across from him, tilted back in his swivel chair, he was not so sure. Here

was the same tall figure, the heavy brown hair, the features and boyish smile of the photograph he had seen

the night before. As Judson Clark might have looked at thirtytwo this man looked.

He made his explanation easily. Was in town for the day. Subject to these headaches. Worse over the right

It wasn't Clark. It couldn't be. Jud Clark sitting there tilted back in an old chair and asking questions as to the

nature of his fictitious pain! Impossible. Nevertheless he was of a mind to clear the slate and get some sleep

that night, and having taken his prescription and paid for it, he sat back and commenced an apparently casual

"I should think you'd be in the city. Limitations to this sort of thing, aren't there?"

"Not exactly. I was raised on a ranch in Wyoming. My father had a ranch out there."

"Wyoming !" the reporter commented. "That's a long way from here. Anywhere near the new oil fields?"

"Not far from Norada. That's the oil center," Dick offered, goodnaturedly. He rose, and glanced again at the

Bassett was puzzled. It seemed to him that there had been a shade of evasion in the other man's manner,

slightly less frankness in his eyes. But he showed no excitement, nothing furtive or alarmed. And the open

and unsolicited statement as to Norada baffled him. He had to admit to himself either that a man strongly

"Norada?" he said. "That's where the big Clark ranch was located, wasn't it? Ever happen to meet Judson

Bassett found himself being politely ushered out, considerably more at sea than when he went in and slightly

irritated. His annoyance was not decreased by the calm voice behind him which said:

"Better drink considerable water when you take that stuff. Some stomachs don't tolerate it very well."

The door closed. The reporter stood in the waitingroom for a moment. Then he clapped on his hat.

He was disappointed and a trifle sheepish. Life was full of queer chances, that was all. No resemblance on

earth, no coincidence of birthplace, could make him believe that Judson Clark, waster, profligate and fugitive

from the law was now sitting up at night with sick children, or delivering babies.

After a time he remembered the prescription in his hand, and was about to destroy it. He stopped and

examined it, and then carefully placed it in his pocketbook. After all, there were things that looked queer.

He had ten minutes to wait, and he wandered to the newsstand. He made a casual inspection of its display,

bought a newspaper and was turning away, when he stopped and gazed after a man who had just passed him

The reporter looked after him with amused interest. Gregory, too! The Livingstone chap had certainly started

something. But it was odd, too. How had Gregory traced him? Wasn't there something more in Gregory's

presence there than met the eye? Gregory's visit might be, like his own, the desire to satisfy himself that the

man was or was not Clark. Or it might be the result of a conviction that it was Clark, and a warning against

himself. But if he had traced him, didn't that indicate that Clark himself had got into communication with

him? In other words, that the chap was Clark, after all? Gregory, having made an inquiry of a hackman, had

started along the street, and, after a moment's thought, Bassett fell into line behind him. He was extremely

interested and increasingly cheerful. He remained well behind, and with his newspaper rolled in his hand

assumed the easy yet brisk walk of the commuters around him, bound for home and their early suburban

Half way along Station Street Gregory stopped before the Livingstone house, read the sign, and rang the

doorbell. The reporter slowed down, to give him time for admission, and then slowly passed. In front of

Harrison Miller's house, however, he stopped and waited. He lighted a cigarette and made a careful survey of

the old place. Strange, if this were to prove the haven where Judson Clark had taken refuge, this old brick

twostory dwelling, with its ramshackle stable in the rear, its small vegetable garden, its casual beds of

Elizabeth had gone about all day with a smile on her lips and a sort of exaltation in her eyes. She had, girl

fashion, gone over and over the totally uneventful evening they had spent together, remembering small

She had, for instance, mentioned Clare Rossiter, very casually. Oh very, very casually. And he had said:

She was very happy. He had not seemed to find her too young or particularly immature. He had asked her

opinion on quite important things, and listened carefully when she replied. She felt, though, that she knew

about onetenth as much as he did, and she determined to read very seriously from that time on. Her mother,

missing her that afternoon, found her curled up in the library, beginning the first volume of Gibbon's "Rome"

"Are you expecting any one, Elizabeth?" she asked, with the frank directness characteristic of mothers, and

Elizabeth, fixing a date in her mind with terrible firmness, looked up absently and said:

At three o'clock, with a slight headache from concentration, she went upstairs and put up her hair again;

rather high this time to make her feel taller. Of course, it was not likely he would come. He was very busy. So

many people depended on him. It must be wonderful to be like that, to have people needing one, and looking

Nevertheless when the postman rang her heart gave a small leap and then stood quite still. When Annie

slowly mounted the stairs she was already on her feet, but it was only a card announcing: "Mrs. Sayre,

However, at half past four the bell rang again, and a masculine voice informed Annie, a moment later, that it

would put its overcoat here, because lately a dog had eaten a piece out of it and got most awful indigestion.

The time it took Annie to get up the stairs again gave her a moment so that she could breathe more naturally,

and she went down very deliberately and so dreadfully poised that at first he thought she was not glad to see

"I came, you see," he said. "I intended to wait until tomorrow, but I had a little time. But if you're doing

"I was reading Gibbon's 'Rome,'" she informed him. "I think every one should know it. Don't you?"

"I wanted to improve my mind," she explained. "I felt, last night, that youthat you know so many things, and

Settled in the livingroom, they got back rather quickly to their status of the night before, and he was moved

"I didn't really intend to wait until tomorrow," he said. "I got up with the full intention of coming here

today, if I did it over the wreck of my practice. At eleven o'clock this morning I held up a consultation ten

minutes to go to Yardsleys and buy a tie, for this express purpose. Perhaps you have noticed it already."

"Neat but not gaudy, eh?" He grinned at her, happily. "You know, you might steer me a bit about my ties. I

have the taste of an African savage. I nearly bought a purple one, with red stripes. And Aunt Lucy thinks I

They talked, those small, highly significant nothings which are only the barrier behind which go on the eager

questionings and unspoken answers of youth and love. They had known each other for years, had exchanged

the same give and take of neighborhood talk when they met as now. Today nothing was changed, and

He was watching her intently. She had a singular feeling that behind this, as behind everything that afternoon,

was something not spoken. Something that related to her. Perhaps it was because of his tone.

And in that "only for a few weeks" there lay some of the unspoken things. That he would miss her and come

back quickly to her. That she would miss him, and that subconsciously he knew it. And behind that, too, a

"Only for a few weeks," he repeated. "I thought perhaps, if you wouldn't mind my writing to you, now and

She felt suddenly very lonely, as though he had already gone, and slightly resentful, not at him but at the way

things happened. And then, too, everyone knew that once a Westerner always a Westerner. The West always

called its children. Not that she put it that way. But she had a sort of vision, gained from the moving pictures,

of a country of wide spaces and tall mountains, where men wore quaint clothing and the women rode wild

"You may never come back," she said, casually. "After all, you were born there, and we must seem very quiet

"Quiet!" he exclaimed. "You are heavenly restful and comforting. You " he checked himself and got up.

"Then I'm to write, and you are to make out as much of my scrawl as you can and answer. Is that right?"

"If you do !" he threatened her. "You're to write me what you're doing, and all about yourself. Remember,

And, if their voices were light, there was in both of them the sense of a pact made, of a bond that was to hold

them, like clasped hands, against their coming separation. It was rather anticlimacteric after that to have him

She went with him to the door and stood there, her soft hair blowing, as he got into the car. When he looked

back, as he turned the corner, she was still there. He felt very happy affable, and he picked up an elderly

He got back to the office at half past six to find a redeyed Minnie in the hall.

AT half past five that afternoon David had let himself into the house with his latch key, hung up his overcoat

on the old walnut hat rack, and went into his office. The strain of the days before had told on him, and he felt

weary and not entirely well. He had fallen asleep in his buggy, and had wakened to find old Nettie drawing

him slowly down the main street of the town, pursuing an erratic but homeward course, while the people on

He went into his office, closed the door, and then, on the old leather couch with its sagging springs he

Almost immediately, however, the doorbell rang, and a moment later Minnie opened his door.

He got up clumsily and settled his collar. Then he opened the door into his waitingroom.

A small, dapper man, in precisely the type of clothes David most abominated, and wearing lightcolored

"I'm afraid I've made a mistake. A Doctor Livingstone left his seat number for calls at the box office of the

David stiffened, but he surveyed his visitor impassively from under his shaggy white eyebrows.

Gregory was convinced that he had made a mistake. Like Louis Bassett, the very unlikeliness of Jud Clark

being connected with the domestic atmosphere and quiet respectability of the old house made him feel

intrusive and absurd. He was about to apologize and turn away, when he thought of something.

"There are two names on your sign. The other one, was he by any chance at the theater last night?"

He was trying to place Gregory, to fit him into the situation; straining back over ten years of security, racking

"Just what have you come to find out?" he asked, as Gregory turned and looked around the room.

Gregory shot a sharp glance at him, but all he saw was an elderly man, with heavy white hair and fierce

shaggy eyebrows, a portly and dignified elderly gentleman, rather resentfully courteous.

"Sorry to trouble you," be said. "I suppose I've made a mistake. I is your nephew at home?"

David's wild impulse was to smash Gregory to the earth, to annihilate him. His collar felt tight, and he pulled

"He is tall, rather spare? And he took a young lady to the theater last night?" Gregory persisted.

Somehow it began to dawn on him that there was nothing inimical in this strange visitor, that he was anxious

and ill at ease. There was, indeed, something almost beseeching in Gregory's eyes, as though he stood ready

to give confidence for confidence. And, more than that, a sort of not unfriendly stubbornness, as though he

"Sit down," he said, relaxing somewhat. "Certainly my nephew is making no secret of the fact that he went to

But Gregory did not sit down. He stood where he was, and continued to eye David intently.

"I don't know just what it conveys to you, Doctor, but I am Beverly Carlysle's brother."

David lowered himself into his chair. His knees were suddenly weak under him. But he was able to control

"Something happened last night at the theater. It may be important. I'd have to see your nephew, in order to

David's ruddy color had faded. He opened a drawer of his desk and produced a copy of the photograph of

Gregory studied it carefully, carrying it to the window to do so. When he confronted David again he was

certain of himself and his errand for the first time, and his manner had changed.

He placed the photograph on the desk, and sitting down, drew his chair close to David's. "I'll not use any

names, Doctor. I think you know what I'm talking about. I was sure enough last night. I'm certain now."

"We'll start like this. God knows I don't want to make any trouble. But I'll put a hypothetical case. Suppose

that a man when drunk commits a crime and then disappears; suppose he leaves behind him a bad record and

an enormous fortune; suppose then he reforms and becomes a useful citizen, and everything is buried."

"Suppose there's a woman mixed up in that situation. Not guiltily, but there's a lot of talk. And suppose she

lives it down, for ten years, and then goes back to her profession, in a play the families take the children to

see, and makes good. It isn't hard to suppose that neither of those two people wants the thing revived, is it?"

"You mean, then, that there is danger of such a revival?" "I think there is," Gregory said bitterly. "I

recognized this man last night, and called a fellow who knew him in the old days, Saunders, our stage

manager. And a newspaper man named Bassett wormed it out of Saunders. You know what that means.

"You can see how it appears to Bassett. If he's found it, it's the big story of a lifetime. I thought he'd better be

When David said nothing, but sat holding tight to the arms of his old chair, Gregory reached for his hat and

"The thing for him to do," he said, "is to leave town for a while. This Bassett is a houndhog on a scent. They

all are. He is Bassett of the TimesRepublican. And he took Jud he took your nephew's automobile license

He got up dizzily, as Gregory said, "Goodevening" and went out. The room seemed very dark and unsteady,

and not familiar. So this was what had happened, after all the safe years! A man could work and build and

Bassett lounged outside the neat privet hedge which it was Harrison Miller's custom to clip with his own

bachelor hands, and waited. And as he waited he tried to imagine what was going on inside, behind the neatly

He was tempted to ring the bell again, pretend to have forgotten something, and perhaps happen in on what

might be drama of a rather high order; what, supposing the man was Clark after all, was fairly sure to be

drama. He discarded the idea, however, and began again his interested survey of the premises. Whoever

conceived this sort of haven for Clark, if it were Clark, had shown considerable shrewdness. The town fairly

smelt of respectability; the treeshaded streets, the children in socks and small crisplaundered garments, the

houses set back, each in its square of shaved lawn, all peaceful, middle class and unexciting. The last town in

the world for Judson Clark, the last profession, the last house, this shabby old brick before him.

He smiled rather grimly as he reflected that if Gregory had been right in his identification, be was, beyond

those windows at that moment, very possibly warning Clark against himself. Gregory would know his type,

The house door opened, and Gregory came out, turning toward the station. Bassett caught up with him and

"Old dog Tray!" he said sneeringly. "If your brain was as good as your nose, Bassett, you'd be a whale of a

"Don't bother about my brain. It's working fine today, anyhow. Well, what had he to say for himself?"

"We both get off together," he said, more amiably. "That fellow isn't Jud Clark and never was. He's a doctor,

Bassett eyed him. Either Gregory was a good actor, or the whole trail ended there after all. He himself had

felt, after his interview, with Dick, that the scent was false. And there was this to be said: Gregory had been

in the house scarcely ten minutes. Long enough to acknowledge a mistake, but hardly long enough for any

dramatic identification. He was keenly disappointed, but he had had long experience of disappointment, and

"I was after you, all right," he said, cheerfully. "But if I was barking up the wrong tree, I'm done. I don't have

to be hit on the head to make me stop. Come and have a sodawater on me," he finished amiably. "There's no

The reporter smiled. Gregory was holding a grudge against him, for a bad night and a bad day.

"All right," he said affably. "I'll see you at the train. I'll walk about a bit."

He turned and started back up the street again, walking idly. His chagrin was very real. He hated to be fooled,

and fooled he had been. Gregory was not the only one who had lost a night's sleep. Then, unexpectedly, he

was hailed from the curbstone, and he saw with amazement that it was Dick Livingstone.

"Take you anywhere?" Dick asked. "How's the headache?" "Better, thanks." Bassett stared at him. "No, I'm

just walking around until traintime. Are you starting out or going home, at this hour?"

He drove on, leaving the reporter gazing after him. So Gregory had been lying. He hadn't seen this chap at all.

Then why ? He walked on, turning this new phase of the situation over in his mind. Why this elaborate

fiction, if Gregory had merely gone in, waited for ten minutes, and come out again?

It wasn't reasonable. It wasn't logical. Something had happened inside the house to convince Gregory that he

was right. He had seen somebody, or something. He hadn't needed to lie. He could have said frankly that he

had seen no one. But no, he had built up a fabric carefully calculated to throw Bassett off the scent.

He saw Dick stop in front of the house, get out and enter. And coming to a decision, he followed him and

rang the doorbell. For a long time no one answered. Then the maid of the afternoon opened the door, her eyes

"Well, you can't see him. Doctor David has just had a stroke. He's in the office now, on the floor."

She closed the door on him, and he turned and went away. It was all clear to him; Gregory had seen, not

Clark, but the older man; had told him and gone away. And under the shock the older man had collapsed.

He sat up late that night again, running over the entries in his notebook. The old story, as he pieced it out, ran

It had been twelve years ago, when, according to the old files, Clark had financed Beverly Carlysle's first

starring venture. He had, apparently, started out in the beginning only to give her the publicity she needed. In

devising it, however, he had shown a sort of boyish recklessness and ingenuity that had caught the interest of

He had got together a dozen or so of young men like himself, wealthy, idle and reckless with youth, and,

headed by him, they had made the exploitation of the young star an occupation. The newspapers referred to

the star and her constellation as Beverly Carlysle and her Broadway Beauties. It had been unvicious, young,

and highly entertaining, and it had cost Judson Clark his membership in his father's conservative old clubs.

For a time it livened the theatrical world with escapades that were harmless enough, if sensational. Then,

after a time, newspaper row began to whisper that young Clark was in love with the girl. The Broadway

Beauties broke up, after a wild farewell dinner. The audiences ceased to expect a row of a dozen youths, all

dressed alike with gardenias in their buttonholes and perhaps red neckties with their evening suits, to rise in

their boxes on the star's appearance and solemnly bow. And the star herself lost a little of the anxious look

The story went, after a while, that Judson Clark had been refused, and was taking his refusal badly. Reporters

saw him, carelessly dressed, outside the stage door waiting, and the story went that the girl had thrown him

over, money and all, for her leading man. One thing was clear; Clark, not a drinker before, had taken to

drinking hard, and after a time, and some unpleasant scenes probably, she refused to see him any more.

When the play closed, in June, 1911, she married Howard Lucas, her leading man; his third wife. Lucas had

been not a bad chap, a goodlooking, rather negligible man, given to allday Sunday poker, carefully

valeted, not very keen mentally, but amiable. They had bought a house on East Fiftysixth Street, and were

looking for a new play with Lucas as costar, when he unaccountably went to pieces nervously, stopped

sleeping, and developed a slight twitching of his handsome, rather vacuous face.

Judson Clark had taken his yacht and gone to Europe, and was reported from here and there not too

favorably. But when be came back, in early September, he had apparently recovered from his infatuation, was

his old, carefully dressed self again, and when interviewed declared his intention of spending the winter on

Of course he must have heard of Lucas's breakdown, and equally, of course, he must have seen them both.

What happened at that interview, by what casual attitude he allayed Lucas's probable jealousy and the girl's

own nervousness, Bassett had no way of discovering. It was clear that he convinced them both of his good

faith, for the next note in the reporter's book was simply a date, September 12, 1911.

That was the day they had all started West together, traveling in Clark's private car, with Lucas, twitching

Bassett sat back and considered. He had a fairly clear idea of the conditions at the ranch; daily riding, some

little reading, and a great deal too much of each other. A sick man, too, unhappy in his exile, chafing against

his restrictions, lonely and irritable. The girl, early seeing her mistake, and Clark's jealousy of her husband.

The door into their apartment closing, the thousand and one unconscious intimacies between man and wife,

the breakfast for two going up the stairs, and below that hoteyed boy, agonized and passionately jealous, yet

Lucas took to drinking, after a time, to allay his sheer boredom. And Jud Clark drank with him. At the end of

three weeks they were both drinking heavily, and were politely quarrelsome. Bassett could fill that in also. He

could see the girl protesting, watching, increasingly anxious as she saw that Clark's jealousy was matched by

A queer picture, he reflected, the three of them shut away on the great ranch, and every day some new

Then, one night at dinner, they quarreled, and Beverly left the table. She was going to pack her things and go

back to New York. She had felt, probably, that something was bound to snap. And while she was upstairs

He had run, testimony at the inquest revealed, to the corral, and saddled a horse. Although it was only

October, it was snowing hard, but in spite of that he had turned his horse toward the mountains. By midnight

a posse from Norada had started out, and another up the Dry River Canyon, but the storm turned into a

blizzard in the mountains, and they were obliged to turn back. A few inches more snow, and they could not

have got their horses out. A week or so later, with a crust of ice over it, a few of them began again, with no

expectation, however, of finding Clark alive. They came across his horse on the second day, but they did not

find him, and there were some among them who felt that, after all, old Elihu Clark's boy had chosen the better

There was a big story to be had for the seeking, a whale of a story. He could go to the office, give them a hint,

draw expense money and start for Norada the next night. He knew well enough that he would have to begin

there, and that it would not be easy. Witnesses of the affair at the ranch would be missing now, or when

found the first accuracy of their statements would either be dulled by time or have been added to with the

passing years. The ranch itself might have passed into other hands. To reconstruct the events of ten years ago

might be impossible, or nearly so. But that was not his problem. He would have to connect Norada with

Haverly, Clark with Livingstone. One thing only was simple. If he found Livingstone's story was correct, that

he had lived on a ranch near Norada before the crime and as Livingstone, then he would acknowledge that

two men could look precisely alike and come from the same place, and yet not be the same. If not

But, after he had turned out his light and got into bed, he began to feel a certain distaste for his

selfappointed task. If Livingstone were Clark, if after years of effort he had pulled himself up by his own

bootstraps, had made himself a man out of the reckless boy he had been, a decent and useful citizen, why

pull him down? After all, the world hadn't lost much in Lucas; a sleek, not overintelligent big animal, that

He decided to sleep over it, and by morning he found himself not only disinclined to the business, but firmly

resolved to let it drop. Things were well enough as they were. The woman in the case was making good. Jud

was making good. And nothing would restore Howard Lucas to that small theatrical world of his which had

He shaved and dressed, his resolution still holding. He had indeed almost a conscious glow of virtue, for he

was making one of those inglorious and unsung sacrifices which ought to bring a man credit in the next

world, because they certainly got him nowhere in this. He was quite affable to the colored waiter who served

his breakfasts in the bachelor apartment house, and increased his weekly tip to a dollar and a half. Then he sat

down and opened the TimesRepublican, skimming over it after his habit for his own space, and frowning

over a row of exclamation and interrogation points unwittingly set behind the name of the mayor.

On the second page, however, he stopped, coffee cup in air. "Is Judson Clark alive? Wife of former ranch

A woman named Margaret Donaldson, it appeared, fatally injured by an automobile near the town of Norada,

Wyoming, had made a confession on her deathbed. In it she stated that, afraid to die without shriving her

soul, she had sent for the sheriff of Dallas County and had made the following confession:

That following the tragedy at the Clark ranch her husband, John Donaldson, since dead, had immediately

following the inquest, where he testified, started out into the mountains in the hope of finding Clark alive, as

he knew of a deserted ranger's cabin where Clark sometimes camped when hunting. It was his intention to

search for Clark at this cabin and effect his escape. He carded with him food and brandy.

That, owing to the blizzard, he was very nearly frozen; that he was obliged to abandon his horse, shooting it

before he did so, and that, close to death himself, he finally reached the cabin and there found Judson Clark,

She further testified that her husband cared for Clark for four days, Clark being delirious at the time, and that

on the fifth day he started back on foot for the Clark ranch, having left Clark locked in the cabin, and that on

the following night he took three horses, two saddled, and one packed with food and supplies. That

accompanied by herself they went back to the cabin in the mountains and that she remained there to care for

That, a day or so later, looking out of her window, she had perceived a man outside in the snow coming

toward the cabin, and that she had thought it one of the searching party. That her first instinct had been to

lock him outside, but that she had finally admitted him, and that thereafter he had remained and had helped

Unfortunately for the rest of the narrative it appeared that the injured woman had here lapsed into a coma,

But, the article went on, the story opened a field of infinite surmise. In all probability Judson Clark was still

alive, living under some assumed identity, free of punishment, outwardly respectable. Three years before he

had been adjudged legally dead, and the estate divided, under bond of the legatees.

Close to a hundred million dollars had gone to charities, and Judson Clark, wherever he was, would be

dependent on his own efforts for existence. He could have summoned all the legal talent in the country to his

The whole situation turned on the deposition of Mrs. Donaldson, now dead. The local authorities at Norada

maintained that the woman had not been sane for several years. On the other hand, the cabin to which she

referred was well known, and no search of it had been made at the time. Clark's horse had been found not ten

miles from the town, and the cabin was buried in snow twenty miles further away. If Clark had made that

Certain facts, according to the local correspondent, bore out Margaret Donaldson's confession. Inquiry

showed that she was supposed to have spent the winter following Judson Clark's crime with relatives in

A detailed description of Judson Clark, and a photograph of him accompanied the story. Bassett reread the

article carefully, and swore a little, under his breath. If he had needed confirmation of his suspicions, it lay to

his hand. But the situation had changed over night. There would be a search for Clark now, as wide as the

knowledge of his disappearance. Local police authorities would turn him up in every city from Maine to the

But it was not the police he feared so much as the press. Not all of the papers, but some of them, would go

after that story, and send their best men on it. It offered not so much a chance of solution as an opportunity to

revive the old dramatic story. He could see, when he closed his eyes, the local photographers climbing to that

cabin and later sending its pictures broadcast, and divers gentlemen of the press, eager to pit their wits against

ten years of time and the ability of a once conspicuous man to hide from the law, packing their suitcases for

No, he couldn't stop now. He would go on, like the others, and with this advantage, that he was morally

certain he could lay his hands on Clark at any time. But he would have to prove his case, connect it. Who, for

instance, was the other man in the cabin? He must have known who the boy was who lay in that rough bunk,

delirious. Must have suspected anyhow. That made him, like the Donaldsons, accessory after the fact, and

criminally liable. Small chance of him coming out with any confession. Yet he was the connecting link. Must

On his third reading the reporter began to visualize the human elements of the fight to save the boy; he saw

moving before him the whole pitiful struggle; the indomitable ranch manager, his heartbreaking struggle

with the blizzard, the shooting of his horse, the careful disarming of suspicion, and later the intrepid woman,

daring that night ride through snow that had sent the posse back to its firesides to the boy, locked in the cabin

His mind was busy as he packed his suitcase. Already he had forgotten his compunctions of the early

morning; he moved about methodically, calculating roughly what expense money he would need, and the line

of attack, if any, required at the office. Between Norada and that old brick house at Haverly lay his story. Ten

years of it. He was closing his bag when he remembered the little girl in the blue dress, at the theater. He

straightened and scowled. After a moment he snapped the bag shut. Damn it all, if Clark had chosen to He up

"It's a queer world, Joe," he observed to the waiter, who had come in for the breakfast dishes.

DURING all the long night Dick sat by David's bedside. Earlier in the evening there had been a consultation;

David had suffered a light stroke, but there was no paralysis, and the prognosis was good. For this time, at

least, David had escaped, but there must be no other time. He was to be kept quiet and free from worry, his

diet was to be carefully regulated, and with care he still had long years before him.

David slept, his breathing heavy and slow. In the morning there would be a nurse, but that night Dick, having

sent Lucy to bed, himself kept watch. On the walnut bed lay Doctor David's portly figure, dimly outlined by

He was wideawake and very anxious, but as time went on and no untoward symptoms appeared, as David's

sleep seemed to grow easier and more natural, Dick's thoughts wandered. They went to Elizabeth first, and

then on and on from that starting point, through the years ahead. He saw the old house with Elizabeth waiting

in it for his return; he saw both their lives united and flowing on together, with children, with small cares,

with the routine of daily living, and behind it all the two of them, hand in hand.

Then his mind turned on himself. How often in the past ten years it had done that! He had sat off, with a sort

of professional detachment, and studied his own case. With the entrance into his world of the new science of

psychoanalysis he had made now and then small, not very sincere, attempts to penetrate the veil of his own

unconscious devising. Not very sincere, for with the increase of his own knowledge of the mind he had

learned that behind such conditions as his lay generally, deeply hidden, the desire to forget. And that behind

"But to forget what?" he used to say to David, when the first textbooks on the new science appeared, and he

and David were learning the new terminology, Dick eagerly and David with contemptuous snorts of derision.

"You had plenty to forget," David would say, stolidly. "I think this man's a fool, but at that you'd had your

father's death, for one thing. And you'd gone pretty close to the edge of eternity yourself. You'd fought

singlehanded the worst storm of ten years, you came out of it with double pneumonia, and you lay alone in

It had never occurred to Dick to doubt David's story. It did not, even now. He had accepted it unquestioningly

from the first, supplemented the shadowy childish memories that remained to him with it, and gradually

Thus, the elderly man whom he dimly remembered was not only his father; he was David's brother. And he

had died. It was the shock of that death, according to David, that had sent him into the mountains, where

It was quite simple, and even explicable by the new psychology. Not that he had worried about the new

psychology in those early days. He had been profoundly lethargic, passive and incurious. It had been too

True, he had brought over from those lost years certain instincts and a few mental pictures. He had had a

certain impatience at first over the restrictions of comparative poverty; he had had to learn the value of

money. And the pictures he retained had had a certain opulence which the facts appeared to contradict. Thus

he remembered a large ranch house, and innumerable horses, grazing in meadows or milling in a corral. But

David had warned him early that there was no estate; that his future depended entirely on his own efforts.

Then the new life had caught and held him. For the first time he had mothering and love. Lucy was his

mother, and David the pattern to which he meant to conform. He was happy and contented.

Now and then, in the early days, he had been conscious of a desire to go back and try to reconstruct his past

again. Later on he knew that if he were ever to fill up the gap in his life, it would be easier in that

environment of once familiar things. But in the first days he had been totally dependent on David, and money

was none too plentiful. Later on, as the new life took hold, as he went to medical college and worked at odd

clerical jobs in vacations to help pay his way, there had been no chance. Then the war came, and on his return

there had been the practice, and his knowledge that David's health was not what it should have been.

But as time went on he was more and more aware that there was in him a peculiar shrinking from going back,

an almost apprehension. He knew more of the mind than he had before, and he knew that not physical

hardship, but mental stress, caused such lapses as his. But what mental stress had been great enough for such

Strain and fear, said the new psychology. Fear? He had never found himself lacking in courage. Certainly he

would have fought a man who called him a coward. But there was cowardice behind all such conditions as

his; a refusal of the mind to face reality. It was weak. Weak. He hated himself for that past failure of his to

But that night, sitting by David's bed, he faced reality with a vengeance. He was in love, and he wanted the

things that love should bring to a normal man. He felt normal. He felt, strengthened by love, that he could

"Don't be a fool," David had said. "Go ahead and take her, if she'll have you. And don't be too long about it.

"What I feel," he had replied, "is this: I don't know, of course, if she cares." David had grunted. "I do know

I'm going to try to make her care, if it if it's humanly possible. But I'd like to go back to the ranch again,

What he was thinking about, as he sat by David's bedside, was David's attitude toward that threatened return

of his. For David had opposed it, offering a dozen trivial, almost puerile reasons. Had shown indeed, a

dogged obstinacy and an irritability that were somehow oddly like fear. David afraid! David, whose life and

"You let well enough alone, Dick," he had finished. "You've got everything you want. And a medical man

But he had noticed that David had been different, since. He had taken to following him with his faded old

eyes, had even spoken once of retiring and turning all the work over to him. Was it possible that David did

He bent over and felt the sick man's pulse. It was stronger, not so rapid. The mechanical act took him back to

He had been lying in a rough bunk in the mountain cabin, and David, beside him on a wooden box, had been

bending forward and feeling his pulse. He had felt weak and utterly inert, and he knew now that he had been

very ill. The cabin had been a small and lonely one, with snowpeaks not far above it, and it had been very

cold. During the day a woman kept up the fire. Her name was Maggie, and she moved about the cabin like a

thin ghost. At night she slept in a leanto shed and David kept the fire going. A man who seemed to know

him well John Donaldson, he learned, was his name was Maggie's husband, and every so often he came,

After a long time, as he grew stronger, Maggie had gone away, and David had fried the bacon and heated the

canned tomatoes or the beans. Before she left she had written out a recipe for biscuits, and David would study

over it painstakingly, and then produce a panfull of burned and blackened lumps, over which he would groan

He himself had been totally incurious. He had lived a sort of animal life of food and sleep, and later on of

small tentative excursions around the room on legs that shook when he walked. The snows came and almost

covered the cabin, and David had read a great deal, and talked at intervals. David had tried to fill up the gap

in his mind. That was how he learned that David was his father's brother, and that his father had recently

Going over it all now, it had certain elements that were not clear. They had, for instance, never gone hack to

the ranch at all. With the first clearing of the snow in the spring John Donaldson had appeared again, leading

two saddled horses and driving a pack animal, and they had started off, leaving him standing in the clearing

and gazing after them. But they had not followed Donaldson's trail. They had started West, over the

mountains, and David did not know the country. Once they were lost for three days.

He looked at the figure on the bed. Only ten years, and yet at that time David had been vigorous, seemed

almost young. He had aged in that ten years. On the bed he was an old man, a tired old man at that. On that

long ride he had been tireless. He had taken the burden of the nightly camps, and had hacked a trail with his

hatchet across snow fields while Dick, still weak but furiously protesting, had been compelled to stand and

Now, with the perspective of time behind him, and with the clearly defined issue of David's protest against

his return to the West, he went again over the details of that winter and spring. Why had they not taken

Donaldson's trail? Or gone back to the ranch? Why, since Donaldson could make it, had not other visitors

come? Another doctor, the night he almost died, and David sat under the lamp behind the closescreened

windows, and read the very pocket prayerbook that now lay on the stand beside the bed? Why had they

burned his clothes, and Donaldson brought a new outfit? Why did Donaldson, for all his requests, never bring

a razor, so that when they struck the railroad, miles from anywhere, they were both full bearded?

He brought himself up sharply. He had allowed his imagination to run away with him. He had been depicting

Nevertheless he was conscious of a new uneasiness and anxiety. When David recovered sufficiently he would

go to Norada, as he had told Elizabeth, and there he would find the Donaldsons, and clear up the things that

He thought of Elizabeth, of her sweetness and sanity. He remembered her at the theater the evening before,

lost in its fictitious emotions, its counterfeit drama. He had felt moved to comfort her, when he found her on

"Not often. The theater deals in the dramatic exceptions to life. You and I, plain bread and butter people,

come to see these things because we get a sort of vicarious thrill out of them."

"A little jam, sometimes. Or perhaps they drop it, butter side down, on the carpet."

He had had to acknowledge that it might be. But he had been quite emphatic over the fact that most people

After a long time he slept in his chair. The spring wind came in through the opened window, and fluttered the

The week that followed was an anxious one. David's physical condition slowly improved. The slight

thickness was gone from his speech, and he sipped resignedly at the broths Lucy or the nurse brought at

regular intervals. Over the entire house there hung all day the odor of stewing chicken or of beef tea in the

making, and above the doorbell was a white card which said: "Don't ring. Walk in."

As it happened, no one in the old house had seen Maggie Donaldson's confession in the newspaper. Lucy was

saved that anxiety, at least. Appearing, as it did, the morning after David's stroke, it came in with the morning

milk, lay about unnoticed, and passed out again, to start a fire or line a pantry shelf. Harrison Miller, next

door, read it over his coffee. Walter Wheeler in the eightthirty train glanced at it and glanced away. Nina

There came to the house a steady procession of inquirers and bearers of small tribute, flowers and jellies

mostly, but other things also. A table in David's room held a steadily growing number of bedroom slippers,

and Mrs. Morgan had been seen buying soles for still others. David, propped up in his bed, would cheer a

little at these votive offerings, and then relapse again into the heavy troubled silence that worried Dick and

frightened Lucy Crosby. Something had happened, she was sure. Something connected with Dick. She

watched David when Dick was in the room, and she saw that his eyes followed the younger man with

And for the first time since he had walked into the house that night so long ago, followed by the tall young

man for whose coming a letter had prepared her, she felt that David had withdrawn himself from her. She

went about her daily tasks a little hurt, and waited for him to choose his own time. But, as the days went on,

she saw that whatever this new thing might be, he meant to fight it out alone, and that the fighting it out alone

She wondered, sometimes, if it was after all because of Dick's growing interest in Elizabeth Wheeler. She

knew that he was seeing her daily, although he was too busy now for more than a hasty call. She felt that she

could even tell when he had seen her; be would come in, glowing and almost exalted, and, as if to make up

for the moments stolen from David, would leap up the stairs two at a time and burst into the invalid's room

like a cheerful cyclone. Wasn't it possible that David had begun to feel as she did, that the girl was entitled to

a clean slate before she pledged herself to Dick? And the slate poor Dick! could never be cleaned.

Then, one day, David astonished them both. He was propped up in his bed, and he had demanded a cigar, and

been very gently but firmly refused. He had been rather sulky about it, and Dick had been attempting to rally

"I've had time to think things over, Dick. I haven't been fair to you. You're thrown away here. Besides " he

hesitated. Then: "We might as well face it. The day of the general practitioner has gone."

"I don't believe it," Dick said stoutly. "Maybe we are only signposts to point the way to the other fellows, but

"What I've been thinking of," David pursued his own train of thought, "is this: I want you to go to Johns

Hopkins and take up the special work you've been wanting to do. I'll be up soon and "

"Not at all," David retorted testily. "I've told you. This whole town only comes here now to be told what

"If you don't, it's because you won't face the facts." Dick chuckled, and threw an arm over David's shoulder,

"You old hypocrite!" he said. "You're trying to get rid of me, for some reason. Don't tell me you're going to

But David did not smile. Lucy, watching him from her post by the window, saw his face and felt a spasm of

fear. At the most, she had feared a mental conflict in David. Now she saw that it might be something

infinitely worse, something impending and immediate. She could hardly reply when Dick appealed to her.

"Are you going to let him get rid of me like this, Aunt Lucy?" he demanded. "Sentenced to Johns Hopkins,

"I don't know, Dick," she said, with her eyes on David. "If it's for your good "

She went out after a time, leaving them at it hammer and tongs. David was vanquished in the end, but Dick,

going down to the office later on, was puzzled. Somehow it was borne in on him that behind David's

insistence was a reason, unspoken but urgent, and the only reason that occurred to him as possible was that

David did not, after all, want him to marry Elizabeth Wheeler. He put the matter to the test that night,

wandering in in dressinggown and slippers, as was his custom before going to bed, for a brief chat. The

nurse was downstairs, and Dick moved about the room restlessly. Then he stopped and stood by the bed,

"A few nights ago, David, I asked you if you thought it would be right for me to marry; if my situation

justified it, and if to your knowledge there was any other reason why I could not or should not. You said there

"I don't know that. I know that whether she will or not is a pretty vital matter to me, David."

"But now you want me to go away. To leave her. You're rather urgent about it. And I feelwell I begin to

David clenched his hands under the bedclothing, but he returned Dick's gaze steadily.

"She's a good girl," he said. "But she's entitled to more than you can give her, the way things are."

"That is presupposing that she cares for me. I haven't an idea that she does. That she may, in time Then,

"That's the reason," David said stoutly. "She would wait for you. She's that sort. I've known her all her life.

She's as steady as a rock. But she's been brought up to have a lot of things. Walter Wheeler is well off. You

do as I want you to; pack your things and go to Baltimore. Bring Reynolds down here to look after the work

But Dick evaded the direct issue thus opened and followed another line of thought.

"Of course you understand," he observed, after a renewal of his restless pacing, "that I've got to tell her my

situation first. I don't need to tell you that I funk doing it, but it's got to be done."

"Don't be a fool," David said querulously. "You'll set a lot of women cackling, and what they don't know

"I'll not do it until we've gone into it together," he promised. "There's plenty of time. You settle down now

When the nurse came in at eleven o'clock she found Dick gone and David, very still, with his face to the wall.

It was the end of May before David began to move about his upper room. The trees along the shaded streets

had burst into full leaf by that time, and Mike was enjoying that gardener's interval of paradise when flowers

grow faster than the weeds among them. Harrison Miller, having rolled his lawn through all of April, was

heard abroad in the early mornings with the lawn mower or hoe in hand was to be seen behind his house in

Cars rolled through the streets, the rear seats laden with blossoming loot from the country lanes, and the

Elizabeth Wheeler was very happy. Her look of expectant waiting, once vague, had crystallized now into

definite form. She was waiting, timidly and shyly but with infinite content. In time, everything would come.

And in the meantime there was today, and some time today a shabby car would stop at the door, and there

would be five minutes, or ten. And then Dick would have to hurry to work, or back to David. After that, of

Now and then, at choir practice or at service, she saw Clare Rossiter. But Clare was very cool to her, and

never on any account sought her, or spoke to her alone. She was rather unhappy about Clare, when she

remembered her. Because it must be so terrible to care for a man who only said, when one spoke of Clare,

Once or twice, too, she had found Clare's eyes on her, and they were hostile eyes. It was almost as though

Yet, somehow, Elizabeth found herself not entirely believing that Clare's passion was real. Because the real

thing you hid with all your might, at least until you were sure it was wanted. After that, of course, you could

be so proud of it that you might become utterly shameless. She was afraid sometimes that she was the sort to

be utterly shameless. Yet, for all her halcyon hours, there were little things that worried her. Wallie Sayre, for

instance, always having to be kept from saying things she didn't want to hear. And Nina. She wasn't sure that

Jim was difficult. Sometimes he was a man, and then again he was a boy, and one never knew just which he

was going to be. He was too old for discipline and too young to manage himself. He was spending almost all

his evenings away from home now, and her mother always drew an inaudible sigh when he was spoken of.

Elizabeth had waited up for him one night, only a short time before, and beckoning him into her room, had

He had looked rather crestfallen at that, and before he went out he offered a halfsheepish explanation.

"I'd tell them where I go," he said, "but you'd think a pool room was on the direct road to hell. Take tonight,

now. I can't tell them about it, but it was all right. I met Wallie Sayre and Leslie at the club before dinner, and

we got a fourth and played bridge. Only half a cent a point. I swear we were going on playing, but somebody

brought in a chap named Gregory for a cocktail. He turned out to be a brother of Beverly Carlysle, the

actress, and he took us around to the theater and gave us a box. Not a thing wrong with it, was there?"

"Went around and met her. She's wonderful, Elizabeth. But do you know what would happen if I told them?

She felt rather helpless, because she knew he was right from his own standpoint.

She kissed him and he went out, leaving her to lie awake for a long time. She would have had all her world

happy those days, and all her world good. She didn't want anybody's bread and butter spilled on the carpet.

So the days went on, and the web slowly wove itself into its complicated pattern: Bassett speeding West, and

David in his quiet room; Jim and Leslie Ward seeking amusement, and finding it in the littered

dressingroom of a woman star at a local theater; Clare Rossiter brooding, and the little question being

whispered behind hands, figuratively, of course the village was entirely wellbred; Gregory calling round

to see Bassett, and turning away with the information that he had gone away for an indefinite time; and

Maggie Donaldson, lying in the cemetery at the foot of the mountains outside Norada, having shriven her

Out of all of them it was Clare Rossiter who made the first conscious move of the shuttle; Clare, affronted

and not a little malicious, but perhaps still dramatizing herself, this time as the friend who feels forced to

carry bad tidings. Behind even that, however, was an unconscious desire to see Dick again, and this time so to

impress herself on him that never again could he pass her in the street unnoticed.

On the day, then, that David first sat up in bed Clare went to the house and took her place in the

waitingroom. She was dressed with extreme care, and she carried a parasol. With it, while she waited, she

drilled small nervous indentations in the old office carpet, and formulated her line of action.

"I don't want to keep you, if you're busy," she said, avoiding his eyes. "If you are in a hurry "

"You sound alarmingly ominous." He smiled at her, and she had a moment of panic. "You don't look like a

"Doctor Livingstone," she said suddenly, "people are saying something about you that you ought to know."

"I felt you ought to know. Of course I don't believe it. Not for a moment. But you know what this town is."

"I know it's a very good town," he said steadily. "However, let's have it. I daresay it is not very serious."

She was uneasy enough by that time, and rather frightened when she had finished. For he sat, quiet and rather

pale, not looking at her at all, but gazing fixedly at an old daguerreotype of David that stood on his desk. One

that Lucy had shown him one day and which he had preempted; David at the age of eight, in a small black

When she had gone he went back and stood before the picture again. >From Clare's first words he had had a

stricken conviction that the thing was true; that, as Mrs. Cook Morgan's visitor from Wyoming had insisted,

Henry Livingstone had never married, never had a son. He stood and gazed at the picture. His world had

Characteristically his first thought after that was of David himself. Whatever David had done, his motive had

been right. He would have to start with that. If David had built for him a false identity it was because there

was a necessity for it. Something shameful, something he was to be taken away from. Wasn't it probable that

David had heard the gossip, and had then collapsed? Wasn't the fear that he himself would hear it behind

His thoughts flew to Elizabeth. Everything was changed now, as to Elizabeth. He would have to be very

certain of that past of his before he could tell her that he loved her, and he had a sense of immediate

Probably he would have gone to Lucy at once, but the telephone rang. He answered it, got his hat and bag and

went out to the car. Years with David had made automatic the subordination of self to the demands of the

At half past six Lucy heard him come in and go into his office. When he did not immediately reappear and

take his flying run up the stairs to David's room, she stood outside the office door and listened. She had a

premonition of something wrong, something of the truth, perhaps. Anyhow, she tapped at the door and

opened it, to find him sitting very quietly at his desk with his head in his hands.

"I have a headache," he said. He looked at his watch and got up. "I'll take a look at David, and then we'll have

But when she had gone out he did not immediately move. He had been going over again, painfully and

carefully, the things that puzzled him, that he had accepted before without dispute. David and Lucy's

reluctance to discuss his father; the long days in the cabin, with David helping him to reconstruct his past; the

He ate very little dinner, and Lucy's sense of dread increased. When, after the meal, she took refuge in her

sittingroom on the lower floor and picked up her knitting, it was with a conviction that it was only a

She heard him, some time later, coming down from David's room. But he did not turn into his office. Instead,

he came on to her door, stood for a moment like a man undecided, then came in. She did not look up, even

"About me." He stood above her, and looked down, still with the tenderness with which he always regarded

her, but with resolution in his very attitude. "First of all, I'll tell you something. Then I'll ask you to tell me all

She yearned over him as he told her, for all her terror. His voice, for all its steadiness, was strained.

"I have felt for some time," he finished, "that you and David were keeping something from me. I think, now,

"I was about," he went on, with his almost terrible steadiness, "to ask a girl to take my name. I want to know

if I have a name to offer her. I have, you see, only two alternatives to believe about myself. Either I am Henry

Livingstone's illegitimate son, and in that case I have no right to my name, or to offer it to any one, or I am

" or I am some one else, some one who was smuggled out of the mountains and given an identity that

Always she had known that this might come some time, but always too she had seen David bearing the brunt

of it. He should bear it. It was not of her doing or of her approving. For years the danger of discovery had

She got up, a taut little figure with a dignity born of her fear and of her love for him.

"I shall not betray David's confidence," she said. "Long ago I warned him that this time would come. I was

never in favor of keeping you in ignorance. But it is David's problem, and I cannot take the responsibility of

He knew her determination and her obstinate loyalty. But he was fairly desperate.

"It's as bad as that, is it?" he asked grimly. "Then there is something shameful behind it, is there?"

"No, no, Dick. Not that. And I want you, always, to remember this. What David did was out of love for you.

He has made many sacrifices for you. First he saved your life, and then he made you what you are. And he

Her voice broke and she turned to go out, her chin quivering, but half way to the door he called to her.

She heard him behind her, felt his strong arms as he turned her about. He drew her to him and stooping,

"You're right," he said. "Always right. I'll not worry him with it. My word of honor. When the time comes

he'll tell me, and until it comes, I'll wait. And I love you both. Don't ever forget that."

But long after David had put down his prayerbook that night, and after the nurse had rustled down the stairs

to the night supper on the diningroom table, Lucy lay awake and listened to Dick's slow pacing of his

He was very gentle with David from that time on, and tried to return to his old lighthearted ways. On the

day David was to have his first broiled sweetbread he caught the nurse outside, borrowed her cap and apron

"I hope your food is to your taste, Doctor David," he said, in a high falsetto which set the nurse giggling in

Even Lucy was deceived at times. He went his customary round, sent out the monthly bills, opened and

answered David's mail, bore the double burden of David's work and his own ungrudgingly, but off guard he

was grave and abstracted. He began to look very thin, too, and Lucy often heard him pacing the floor at night.

And so passed the tenth day of David's illness, with the smile on Elizabeth's face growing a trifle fixed as

three days went by without the shabby car rattling to the door; with "The Valley" playing its second and final

week before going into New York; and with Leslie Ward unconsciously taking up the shuttle Clare had

JUST how Leslie Ward had drifted into his innocuous affair with the star of "The Valley" he was not certain

himself. Innocuous it certainly was. Afterwards, looking back, he was to wonder sometimes if it had not been

precisely for the purpose it served. But that was long months after. Not until the pattern was completed and

The truth was that he was not too happy at home. Nina's smart little house on the Ridgely Road had at first

kept her busy. She had spent unlimited time with decorators, had studied and rejected innumerable

watercolor sketches of interiors, had haunted auction rooms and bid recklessly on things she felt at the

moment she could not do without, later on to have to wheedle Leslie into straightening her bank balance.

Thought, too, and considerable energy had gone into training and outfitting her servants, and still more into

But what she made, so successfully, was a house rather than a home. There were times, indeed, when Leslie

began to feel that it was not even a house, but a small hotel. They almost never dined alone, and when they

did Nina would explain that everybody was tied up. Then, after dinner, restlessness would seize her, and she

would want to run in to the theater, or to make a call. If he refused, she nursed a grievance all evening.

And he did not like her friends. Things came to a point where, when he knew one of the gay evenings was on,

he would stay in town, playing billiards at his club, or occasionally wandering into a theater, where he stood

or sat at the back of the house and watched the play with cynical, discontented eyes.

The casual meeting with Gregory and the introduction to his sister brought a new interest. Perhaps the very

novelty was what first attracted him, the oddity of feeling that he was on terms of friendship, for it amounted

to that with surprising quickness, with a famous woman, whose face smiled out at him from his morning

He formed the habit of calling on her in the afternoons at her hotel, and he saw that she liked it. It was often

lonely, she explained. He sent her flowers and cigarettes, and he found her poised and restful, and sometimes,

She sat still. She didn't fidget, as Nina did. She listened, too. She was not as beautiful as she appeared on the

stage, but she was attractive, and he stilled his conscience with the knowledge that she placed no undue

emphasis on his visits. In her world men came and went, brought or sent small tribute, and she was pleased

and grateful. No more. The next week, or the week after, and other men in other places would be doing the

But he wondered about her, sometimes. Did she ever think of Judson Clark, and the wreck he had made of

her life? What of resentment and sorrow lay behind her quiet face, or the voice with its careful intonations

Now and then he saw her brother. He neither liked nor disliked Gregory, but he suspected him of rather

bullying Beverly. On the rare occasions when be saw them together there was a sort of nervous tension in the

air, and although Leslie was not subtle he sensed some hidden difference between them. A small incident one

Leslie Ward had been rather annoyed. There had been no mistake about the recognition. But he passed it off

with that curious sense of sex loyalty that will actuate a man even toward his enemies.

Nevertheless he had a conviction that he had said something better left unsaid, and that Beverly Carlysle's

glance at her brother was almost hostile. He had that instantaneous picture of the two of them, the man

defiant and somehow frightened, and the woman's eyes anxious and yet slightly contemptuous. Then, in a

He had meant to go home that evening, would have, probably, for he was not ignorant of where he was

drifting. But when he went back to the office Nina was on the wire, with the news that they were to go with a

"For chicken and waffles, Les," she said. "It will be oceans of fun. And I've promised the cocktails."

"I'm tired," he replied, sulkily. "And why don't you let some of the other fellows come over with the drinks?

He did not go home. He went to the theater and stood at the back, with his sense of guilt deadened by the

knowledge that Nina was having what she would call a heavenly time. After all, it would soon be over. He

He had already played his small part in the drama that involved Dick Livingstone, but he was unaware of it.

He went home that night, to find Nina settled in bed and very sulky, and he retired himself in no pleasant

frame of mind. But he took a firmer hold of himself that night before he slept. He didn't want a smash, and

He lived up to his resolve the next day, bought his flowers as usual, but this time for Nina and took them with

him. And went home with the orchids which were really an offering to his own conscience.

But Nina was not at home. The butler reported that she was dining at the Wheelers', and he thought the man

Even for Nina that sounded odd. He took his coat and went out again to the car; after a moment's hesitation

Dick Livingstone's machine was at the curb before the Wheeler house, and in the livingroom he found

"Nina is having hysterics upstairs," Mr. Wheeler said, and continued his pacing.

"That's what I said," replied Mr. Wheeler, suddenly savage. "You've made a nice mess of things, haven't

Leslie placed the box of orchids on the table and drew off his gloves. His mind was running over many

"Oh, I will. Don't worry. I've seen this coming for months. I'm not taking her part. God knows I know her,

and she has as much idea of making a home as as" he looked about "as that poker has. But that's the

"She got a bill today for two or three boxes of flowers, sent to some actress." And when Leslie said nothing,

"I'm not condoning it, mind you. You'd no business to do it. But," he added fretfully, "why the devil, if you've

"I suppose I don't need to tell you that's all there was to it? Flowers, I mean."

Leslie was aghast and frightened. Not at the threat; she would go back, of course. But she would always hold

it against him. She cherished small grudges faithfully. And he knew she would never understand, never see

her own contribution to his mild defection, nor comprehend the actual innocence of those afternoons of tea

There was no sound from upstairs. Mr. Wheeler got his hat and went out, calling to the dog. Jim came in

whistling, looked in and said: "Hello, Les," and disappeared. He sat in the growing twilight and cursed

himself for a fool. After all, where had he been heading? A man couldn't eat his cake and have it. But he was

resentful, too; he stressed rather hard his own innocence, and chose to ignore the less innocent impulse that

After a half hour or so he heard some one descending and Dick Livingstone appeared in the hall. He called to

him, and Dick entered the room. Before he sat down he lighted a cigarette and in the flare of the match Leslie

got an impression of fatigue and of something new, of trouble. But his own anxieties obsessed him.

"I was a fool, of course. But it was only a matter of a few flowers and some afternoon calls. She's a fine

woman, Livingstone, and she is lonely. The women have given her a pretty cold deal since the Clark story.

"Isn't the trouble more fundamental than that, Ward? I was thinking about it upstairs. Nina was pretty frank.

She says you've had your good time and want to settle down, and that she is young and now is her only

chance. Later on there may be children, you know. She blames herself, too, but she has a fairly clear idea of

They sat smoking in silence. In the diningroom Annie was laying the table for dinner, and a most untragic

odor of new garden peas began to steal along the hall. Dick suddenly stirred and threw away his cigarette.

"I was going to talk to you about something else," he said, "but this is hardly the time. I'll get on home." He

rose. "She'll be all right. Only I'd advise very tactful handling and the fullest explanation you can make."

"What is it? I'd be glad to have something to keep my mind occupied. It's eating itself up just now."

"Have you happened to hear a story that I believe is going round? One that concerns me?"

"Well, I have," Leslie admitted. "I didn't pay much attention. Nobody is taking it very seriously."

"That's not the point," Dick persisted. "I don't mind idle gossip. I don't give a damn about it. It's the statement

"I want to know one thing more," he said. "Nina told you, I suppose. Does I suppose Elizabeth knows it,

Dick turned abruptly and went out of the room, and a moment later Leslie heard the front door slam.

Elizabeth, standing at the head of the stairs, heard it also, and turned away, with a new droop to her usually

valiant shoulders. Her world, too, had gone awry, that safe world of protection and cheer and kindliness. First

had come Nina, whitelipped and shaken, and Elizabeth had had to face the fact that there were such things

as treachery and the queer hidden things that men did, and that came to light and brought horrible suffering.

And that afternoon she had had to acknowledge that there was something wrong with Dick. No. Between

Dick and herself. There was a formality in his speech to her, an aloofness that seemed to ignore utterly their

new intimacy. He was there, but he was miles away from her. She tried hard to feel indignant, but she was

Peace seemed definitely to have abandoned the Wheeler house. Then late in the evening a measure of it was

restored when Nina and Leslie effected a reconciliation. It followed several bad hours when Nina had locked

her door against them all, but at ten o'clock she sent for Leslie and faced him with desperate calmness.

To Elizabeth, putting cold cloths on her mother's head as she lay on the bed, there came a growing conviction

that the relation between men and women was a complicated and baffling thing, and that love and hate were

Love, and habit perhaps, triumphed in Nina's case, however, for at eleven o'clock they heard Leslie going

down the stairs and later on moving about the kitchen and pantry while whistling softly. The servants had

gone, and the air was filled with the odor of burning bread. Some time later Mrs. Wheeler, waiting uneasily in

the upper hall, beheld her soninlaw coming up and carrying proudly a tray on which was toast of an

Mrs. Wheeler, full and overflowing with indignation and the piece of her mind she had meant to deliver,

Late that night when Nina had finally forgiven him and had settled down for sleep, Leslie went downstairs for

a cigar, to find Elizabeth sitting there alone, a book on her knee, face down, and her eyes wistful and with a

"Aircastles, eh? Well, be sure you put the right man into them!" He felt more or less a fool for having said

that, for it was extremely likely that Nina's family was feeling some doubt about Nina's choice.

"What I mean is," he added hastily, "don't be a fool and take Wallie Sayre. Take a man, while you're about

"That's piffle, Elizabeth." He sat down on the arm of a chair and looked at her. "Look here, what about this

story the Rossiter girl and a few others are handing around about Dick Livingstone? You're not worrying

"Good for you," he said heartily, and got up. "You'd better go to bed, young lady. It's almost midnight."

"I'll tell you the truth, Les," she said. "I was worrying. I'm terribly fond of him. It just came all at once, and I

couldn't help it. And I thought he liked me, too, that way." She stopped and looked up at him to see if he

understood, and he nodded gravely. "Then today, when he came to see Nina, he avoided me. He I was

"Poor devil!" Leslie said. "You see, he's in an unpleasant position, to say the least. But here's a thought to go

to sleep on. If you ask me, he's keeping out of your way, not because he cares too little, but because he cares

Long after a repentant and chastened Leslie had gone to sleep, his arm over Nina's unconscious shoulder,

Elizabeth stood wideeyed on the tiny balcony outside her room. From it in daylight she could see the

Livingstone house. Now it was invisible, but an upper window was outlined in the light. Very shyly she

Louis Bassett had left for Norada the day after David's sudden illness, but ten days later found him only as far

as Chicago, and laid up in his hotel with a sprained knee. It was not until the day Nina went back to the little

house in the Ridgely Road, having learned the first lesson of married life, that men must not only be captured

He had chafed wretchedly under the delay. It was true that nothing in the way of a story had broken yet. The

Tribune had carried a photograph of the cabin where Clark had according to the Donaldson woman spent the

winter following the murder, and there were the usual reports that he had been seen recently in spots as

diverse as Seattle and New Orleans. But when the following Sunday brought nothing further he surmised that

He confirmed this before starting West by visiting some of the offices of the leading papers and looking up

old friends. The Clark story was dead for the time. They had run a lot of pictures of him, however, and some

one might turn him up eventually, but a scent was pretty cold in ten years. The place had changed, too. Oil

had been discovered five years ago, and the old settlers had, a good many of them, cashed in and moved

Bassett was fairly content. He took the night train out of Chicago and spent the next day crossing Nebraska,

fertile, rich and interesting. On the afternoon of the second day he left the train and took a branch line toward

the mountains and Norada, and from that time on he became an urbane, interested and generally

"I was reading the other day," said Bassett, "about the Judson Clark case. Have a cigar? Got time to sit

"Oil well supplies," said Bassett easily. "Well, in this article it seemed some woman or other had made a

"Well, I'll tell you about that." The conductor sat down and bit off the end of his cigar. "I knew the

Donaldsons well, and Maggie Donaldson was an honest woman. But I'll tell you how I explain the thing.

Donaldson died, and that left her pretty much alone. The executors of the Clark estate kept her on the ranch,

but when the estate was settled three years ago she had to move. That broke her all up. She's always said he

wasn't dead. She kept the house just as it was, and my wife says she had his clothes all ready and everything."

"Not necessarily. It's my idea she got from hoping to moping, so to speak. She went in to town regular for

letters for ten years, and the postmaster says she never got any. She was hurt in front of the post office. The

"Sure they did," said the conductor equably. "The cabin was no secret. It was an old fire station before they

put the new one on Goat Mountain. I spent a month in it myself, once, with a dude who wanted to take

pictures of bear. We found a bear, but it charged the camera and I'd be running yet if I hadn't come to

When he had gone Bassett fell into deep thought. So Maggie Donaldson had gone to the post office for ten

years. He tried to visualize those faithful, wearisome journeys, through spring mud and winter snow, always

futile and always hopeful. He did not for a moment believe that she had "gone off her head." She had been

faithful to the end, as some women were, and in the end, too, as had happened before, her faith had killed her.

And again he wondered at the curious ability of some men to secure loyalty. They might go through life,

tearing down ideals and destroying illusions to the last, but always there was some faithful hand to rebuild,

He was somewhat daunted at the size and bustling activity of Norada. Its streets were paved and

welllighted, there were a park and a public library, and the clerk at the Commercial Hotel asked him if he

wished a private bath! But the development was helpful in one way. In the old Norada a newcomer might

have been subjected to a friendly but inquisitive interest. In this grownup and selfcentered community a

And he had other advantages. The pack, as he cynically thought of them, would have started at the Clark

ranch and the cabin. He would get to them, of course, but he meant to start on the outside of the circle and

"I came here two years ago. I never saw Jud Clark. To get to the Clark place take the road north out of the

town and keep straight about eight miles. The road's good now. You fellows have worn it smooth."

"Must have written that down and learned it off," Bassett said admiringly. "What the devil's the Clark place?

"Sorry." The clerk looked at him sharply, was satisfied, and picked up a pen. "You'll hear the story if you stay

He spent the evening in going over his notes and outlining a campaign, and the next day he stumbled on a bit

"Why, yes. There used to be a Livingstone ranch at Dry River," she said, pausing with her carpet sweeper,

and looking at him. "It wasn't much of a place. Although you can't tell these days. I sold sixty acres eight

years ago for two thousand dollars, and the folks that bought it are getting a thousand a day out of it."

She sighed. She had touched the hem of fortune's garment and passed on; for some opportunity knocked but

"I'd be a millionaire now if I'd held on," she said somberly. That day Bassett engaged a car by the day, he to

"I'd just like to say one thing," the owner said, as he tried the gears. "I don't know where you're going, and it's

not exactly my business. Here in the oil country, where they're cutting each other's throats for new leases, we

let a man alone. But if you've any idea of taking that car by the back road to the old fire station where Jud

Clark's supposed to have spent the winter, I'll just say this: we've had two stuck up there for a week, and the

"Dry River's right, if you're looking for oil! Go easy on the brakes, old man. We need 'em in our business."

Dry River was a small settlement away from the railroad. It consisted of two intersecting unpaved streets, a

dozen or so houses, a closed and empty saloon and two general stores. He chose one at random and found

that the old Livingstone place had been sold ten years ago, on the death of its owner, Henry Livingstone.

"His brother from the East inherited it," said the storekeeper. "He came and sold out, lock, stock and barrel.

Not that there was much. A few cattle and horses, and the stuff in the ranch house, which wasn't valuable.

There were a lot of books, and the brother gave them for a library, but we haven't any building. The railroad

"He wasn't married. He was a sort of hermit. He'd been dead two days before any one knew it. My wife went

out when they found him and got him ready for the funeral. He was buried before the brother got here." He

glanced at Bassett shrewdly. "The place has been prospected for oil, and there's a dry hole on the next ranch. I

Bassett's last scruple had fled. The story was there, ready for the gathering. So ready, indeed, that he was

And that conviction, that things were coming too easy, persisted through his interview with the storekeeper's

wife, in the small house behind the store. She was a talkative woman, eager to discuss the one drama in a

"Henry Livingstone !" she said. "Well, I should say so. I went out right away when we got the word he was

dead, and there I stayed until it was all over. I guess I know as much about him as any one around here does,

The papers, it seemed, had not been very interesting; canceled checks and receipted bills, and a large bundle

of letters, all of them from a brother named David and a sister who signed herself Lucy. There had been a

sealed one, too, addressed to David Livingstone, and to be opened after his death. She had had her husband

"Let me see. Henry Livingstone died about a month before the murder at the Clark ranch. We date most

"How long did 'David' stay?" Bassett had tried to keep his tone carefully conversational, but he saw that it

"Well, I'd say about three or four weeks. He hadn't seen his brother for years, and I guess there was no love

lost. He sold everything as quick as he could, and went back East." She glanced at the clock. "My husband

will be in soon for dinner. I'd be glad to have you stay and take a meal with us."

"It's an interesting story," he said. "I didn't tell your husband, for I wasn't sure I was on the right trail. But the

David and Lucy business eliminates this man. There's a piece of property waiting in the East for a Henry

Livingstone who came to this state in the 80's, or for his heirs. You can say positively that this man was not

"No. He didn't like women. Never had one on the place. Two ranch hands that are still at the Wassons' and

No housekeeper then, and no son born out of wedlock, so far as any evidence went. All that glib lying in the

doctor's office, all that apparent openness and frankness, gone by the board! The man in the cabin, reported

by Maggie Donaldson, had been David Livingstone. Somehow, some way, he had got Judson Clark out of the

country and spirited him East. Not that the how mattered just yet. The essential fact was there, that David

Livingstone had been in this part of the country at the time Maggie Donaldson had been nursing Judson Clark

Bassett sat back and chewed the end of his cigar thoughtfully. The sheer boldness of the scheme which had

saved Judson Clark compelled his admiration, but the failure to cover the trail, the ease with which he had

"You say this David went East, when he had sold out the place. Do you remember where he lived?"

"I've got to be sure I'm wrong, and then go ahead," he said, as he got his hat. "I'll see those men at the ranch, I

It was about ten miles, along a bad road which kept him too much occupied for any connected thought. But

Dick's decision to cut himself off from Elizabeth was born of his certainty that he could not see her and keep

his head. He was resolutely determined to keep his head, until he knew what he had to offer her. But he was

very unhappy. He worked sturdily all day and slept at night out of sheer fatigue, only to rouse in the early

morning to a conviction of something wrong before he was fully awake. Then would come the uncertainty

and pain of full consciousness, and he would lie with his arms under his head, gazing unblinkingly at the

There was no prospect of early relief, although David had not again referred to his going away. David was

very feeble. The look of him sometimes sent an almost physical pain through Dick's heart. But there were

times when he roused to something like his old spirit, shouted for tobacco, frowned over his diet tray, and

fought Harrison Miller when he came in to play cribbage in much his old tumultuous manner.

Then, one afternoon late in May, when for four days Dick had not seen Elizabeth, suddenly he found the

He opened the door one afternoon to find her sitting alone in the waitingroom, clearly very frightened and

almost inarticulate. He could not speak at all at first, and when he did his voice, to his dismay, was distinctly

Suddenly he found himself violently angry. Not at her, of course. At everything.

"You?" he said. "What have you done? You're the only thing that's right in a wrong world. You "

He checked himself, put down his bag he had just come in and closed the door into the hall. Then he

stood at a safe distance from her, and folded his arms in order to be able to keep his head which shows how

"Elizabeth," he said gravely. "I've been a selfcentered fool. I stayed away because I've been in trouble. I'm

still in trouble, for that matter. But it hasn't anything to do with you. Not directly, anyhow."

He was too absorbed to notice the new maturity in her face, the brooding maternity born of a profound

passion. To Elizabeth just then he was not a man, her man, daily deciding matters of life and death, but a

"There is always gossip," she said, "and the only thing one can do is to forget it at once. You ought to be too

"There may be more than that. I don't know, Elizabeth," he said, his eyes on hers. "I have always thought I

He was moved to go on. To tell her of his lost youth, of that strange trick by which his mind had shut off

those hidden years. But he could not. He had a perfectly human fear of being abnormal in her eyes, precisely

but greatly magnified the same instinct which had made him inspect his new tie in daylight for fear it was too

brilliant. But greater than that was his new fear that something neither happy nor right lay behind him under

"I want you to know this, Dick," she said. "That nothing, no gossip or anything, can make any difference to

me. And I've been terribly hurt. We've been such friends. You I've been lying awake at night, worrying."

That went to his heart first, and then to his head. This might be all, all he was ever to have. This hour, and

this precious and tender child, so brave in her declaration, so simple and direct; all his world in that imitation

"You're all I've got," he said. "The one real thing in a world that's going to smash. I think I love you more

The same mood, of accepting what he had without question and of refusing to look ahead, actuated him for

He went about his work with his customary care and thoroughness, for long practice had made it possible for

him to go on as though nothing had happened, to listen to querulous complaints and long lists of symptoms,

and to write without error those scrawled prescriptions which were, so hopefully, to cure. Not that Dick

himself believed greatly in those empirical doses, but he considered that the expectation of relief was half the

battle. But that was the mind of him, which went about clothed in flesh, of course, and did its daily and

nightly work, and put up a very fair imitation of Doctor Richard Livingstone. But hidden away was a heart

that behaved in a highly unprofessional manner, and sang and dreamed, and jumped at the sight of a certain

small figure on the street, and generally played hob with systole and diastole, and the vagus and accelerator

nerves. Which are all any doctor really knows about the heart, until he falls in love.

He even began to wonder if he had read into the situation something that was not there, and in this his

consciousness of David's essential rectitude helped him. David could not do a wrong thing, or an unworthy

The new humility extended to his love for Elizabeth. Sometimes, in his room or shaving before the bathroom

mirror, he wondered what she could see in him to care about. He shaved twice a day now, and his face was so

sore that he had to put cream on it at night, to his secret humiliation. When he was dressed in the morning he

found himself once or twice taking a final survey of the ensemble, and at those times he wished very

earnestly that he had some outstanding quality of appearance that she might admire.

He refused to think. He was content for a time simply to feel, to be supremely happy, to live each day as it

came and not to look ahead. And the old house seemed to brighten with him. Never had Lucy's window

boxes been so bright, or Minnie's bread so light; the sun poured into David's sick room and turned the nurse

so dazzling white in her uniform that David declared he was suffering from snowblindness.

And David himself was improving rapidly. With the passage of each day he felt more secure. The reporter

from the TimesRepublican if he were really on the trail of Dick he would have come to see him, would

have told him the story. No. That bridge was safely crossed. And Dick was happy. David, lying in his bed,

would listen and smile faintly when Dick came whistling into the house or leaped up the stairs two at a time;

when he sang in his shower, or tormented the nurse with highspirited nonsense. The boy was very happy.

He would marry Elizabeth Wheeler, and things would be as they should be; there would be the fullness of

life, young voices in the house, toys on the lawn. He himself would pass on, in the fullness of time, but Dick

On Decoration Day they got him out of bed, making a great ceremony of it, and when he was settled by the

window in his big chair with a blanket over his knees, Dick came in with a great box. Unwrapping it he

"What folderol is all this?" David demanded fiercely, with a childish look of expectation in his eyes. "Give

He worked eagerly, and at last he came to the small core of the mass. It was a cigar!

It was somewhat later, when the peace of good tobacco had relaxed him into a sort of benignant drowsiness,

and when Dick had started for his late afternoon calls, that Lucy came into the room.

"Elizabeth Wheeler's downstairs," she said. "I told her you wanted to see her. She's brought some chicken

She gathered up the tissue paper that surrounded him, and gave the room a critical survey. She often felt that

the nurse was not as tidy as she might be. Then she went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Well, why shouldn't he?" he demanded truculently. "A good woman would be one more anchor to

She found that she could not go on. David was always incomprehensible to her when it came to Dick. Had

been incomprehensible from the first. But she could not proceed without telling him that the village knew

something, and what that something was; that already she felt a change in the local attitude toward Dick. He

In her love for Dick, Elizabeth now included everything that pertained to him, his shabby coats, his rattling

car, and his people. She had an inarticulate desire for their endorsement, to be liked by them and wanted by

them. Not that there could be any words, because both she and Dick were content just then with love, and

"Well, well!" said David. "And here we are reversed and I'm the patient and you're the doctor! And good

He looked her over with approval, and with speculation, too. She was a small and fragile vessel on which to

embark all the hopes that, out of his own celibate and unfulfilled life, he had dreamed for Dick. She was even

more than that. If Lucy was right, from now on she was a part of that experiment in a human soul which he

had begun with only a professional interest, but which had ended by becoming a vital part of his own life.

She was a little shy with him, he saw; rather fluttered and nervous, yet radiantly happy. The combination of

these mixed emotions, plus her best sickroom manner, made her slightly prim at first. But soon she was

telling him the small news of the village, although David rather suspected her of listening for Dick's car all

the while. When she got up to go and held out her hand he kept it, between both of his.

"I haven't been studying symptoms for all these years for nothing, my dear," he said. "And it seems to me

"Mind you," he said, "I don't know anything and I'm not asking any questions. But if the Board of Trade, or

the Chief of Police, had come to me and said, 'Who is the best wife for well, for a young man who is an

important part of this community?' I'd have said in reply, 'Gentlemen, there is a Miss Elizabeth Wheeler who

"Oh, do you think so?" she asked, breathlessly. "I love him so much, Doctor David. And I feel so unworthy."

"So you are," he said. "So's he. So are all of us, when it comes to a great love, child. That is, we are never

quite what the other fellow thinks we are. It's when we don't allow for what the scientist folk call a margin of

error that we come our croppers. I wonder" he watched her closely "if you young people ever allow for a

"I only know this," she said steadily. "I can't imagine ever caring any less. I've never thought about myself

When she had gone he sat in his chair staring ahead of him and thinking. Yes. She would stick. She had

loyalty, loyalty and patience and a rare humility. It was up to Dick then. And again he faced the possibility of

an opening door into the past, of crowding memories, of confusion and despair and even actual danger. And

Habit. That was all he had to depend on. The brain was a thing of habits, like the body; right could be a habit,

and so could evil. As a man thought, so he was. For all of his childhood, and for the last ten years, Dick's

mental habits had been right; his environment had been love, his teaching responsibility. Even if the door

opened, then, there was only the evil thinking of two or three reckless years to combat, and the door might

never open. Happiness, Lauler had said, would keep it closed, and Dick was happy.

When at five o'clock the nurse came in with a thermometer he was asleep in his chair, his mouth slightly

open, and snoring valiantly. Hearing Dick in the lower hall, she went to the head of the stairs, her finger to

Dick nodded and went into the office. The afternoon mail was lying there, and he began mechanically to open

Now that he had taken the step he had so firmly determined not to take, certain things, such as Clare

Rossiter's story, David's uneasiness, his own doubts, no longer involved himself alone, nor even Elizabeth

There was no evading the issue. What had once been only his own misfortune, mischance, whatever it was,

had now become of vital importance to an entire group of hitherto disinterested people. He would have to put

his situation clearly before them and let them judge. And he would have to clarify that situation for them and

He had had a weak moment or two. He knew that some men, many men, went to marriage with certain

reticences, meaning to wipe the slate clean and begin again. He had a man's understanding of such

concealments. But he did not for a moment compare his situation with theirs, even when the temptation to

seize his happiness was strongest. No mere misconduct, but something hidden and perhaps terrible lay behind

David's strange new attitude. Lay, too, behind the break in his memory which he tried to analyze with

professional detachment. The mind in such cases set up its defensive machinery of forgetfulness, not against

For the last day or two he had faced the fact that, not only must he use every endeavor to revive his past, but

that such revival threatened with cruelty and finality to separate him from the present.

With an open and unread letter in his hand he stared about the office. This place was his; he had fought for it,

worked for it. He had an almost physical sense of unseen hands reaching out to drag him away from it; from

David and Lucy, and from Elizabeth. And of himself holding desperately to them all, and to the believed

"Dear Doctor: I have tried to see you, but understand you are laid up. Burn this as soon as you've read it.

Louis Bassett has started for Norada, and I advise your getting the person we discussed out of town as soon as

possible. Bassett is up to mischief. I'm not signing this fully, for obvious reasons. G."

The Sayre house stood on the hill behind the town, a long, rather low white house on Italian lines. In summer,

until the family exodus to the Maine Coast, the brilliant canopy which extended out over the terrace

indicated, as Harrison Miller put it, that the family was "in residence." Originally designed as a summer

home, Mrs. Sayre now used it the year round. There was nothing there, as there was in the town house, to

She was a short, heavy woman, of fine taste in her house and of no taste whatever in her clothing.

"I never know," said Harrison Miller, "when I look up at the Sayre place, whether I'm seeing Ann Sayre or an

She was not a shrewd woman, nor a clever one, but she was kindly in the main, tolerant and maternal. She

liked young people, gave gay little parties to which she wore her outlandish clothes of all colors and all cuts,

lavished gifts on the girls she liked, and was anxious to see Wallie married to a good steady girl and settled

down. Between her son and herself was a quiet but undemonstrative affection. She viewed him through eyes

that had lost their illusion about all men years ago, and she had no delusions about him. She had no idea that

she knew all that he did with his time, and no desire to penetrate the veil of his private life.

"He spends a great deal of money," she said one day to her lawyer. "I suppose in the usual ways. But he is not

quite like his father. He has real affections, which his father hadn't. If he marries the right girl she can make

She had her first inkling that he was interested in Elizabeth Wheeler one day when the head gardener reported

that Mr. Wallace had ordered certain roses cut and sent to the Wheeler house. She was angry at first, for the

"Very well, Phelps," she said. "Do it. And I'll select a plant also, to go to Mrs. Wheeler."

After all, why not the Wheeler girl? She had been carefully reared, if the Wheeler house was rather awful in

spots, and she was a gentle little thing; very attractive, too, especially in church. And certainly Wallie had

She went to the greenhouses, and from there upstairs and into the rooms that she had planned for Wallie and

his bride, when the time came. She was more content than she had been for a long time. She was a lonely

woman, isolated by her very grandeur from the neighborliness she craved; when she wanted society she had

to ask for it, by invitation. Standing inside the door of the boudoir, her thoughts already at work on draperies

and furniture, she had a vague dream of new young life stirring in the big house, of no more lonely evenings,

She wanted Wallie to settle down. She was tired of paying his bills at his clubs and at various hotels, tired

and weary of the days he lay in bed all morning while his valet concocted various things to enable him to pull

himself together. He had been four years sowing his wild oats, and now at twentyfive she felt he should be

On Decoration Day, as usual, she did her dutiful best by the community, sent flowers to the cemetery and

even stood through a chilly hour there while services were read and taps sounded over the graves of those

who had died in three wars. She felt very grateful that Wallie had come back safely, and that if only now he

The service left her emotionally untouched. She was one of those women who saw in war, politics, even

religion, only their reaction on herself and her affairs. She had taken the German deluge as a personal

affliction. And she stood only stoically enduring while the village soprano sang "The Star Spangled Banner."

By the end of the service she had decided that Elizabeth Wheeler was the answer to her problem.

Rather under pressure, Wallie lunched with her at the country club, but she found him evasive and not

"You're twentyfive, you know," she said, toward the end of a discussion. "By thirty you'll be too set in your

"Of course not. But you have a good bit of money. You'll have much more when I'm gone. And money

At three o'clock that afternoon the Sayre limousine stopped in front of Nina's house, and Mrs. Sayre, in

brilliant pink and a purple hat, got out. Leslie, lounging in a window, made the announcement.

"Here's the Queen of Sheba," he said. "I'll go upstairs and have a headache, if you don't mind."

He kissed Nina and departed hastily. He was feeling extremely gentle toward Nina those days and rather

smugly virtuous. He considered that his conscience had brought him back and not a very bad fright, which

It was the great lady's first call, and Nina was considerably uplifted. It was for such moments as this one

trained servants and put Irish lace on their aprons, and had decorators who stood off with their heads a little

"What a delightful room !" said Mrs. Sayre. "And how do you keep a maid as trim as that?"

"I must have service," Nina replied. "The butler's marching in a parade or something. How nice of you to

Mrs. Sayre sat down, a gross disharmony in the room, but a solid and not unkindly woman for all that.

"My dear," she said, "I am not paying a call. Or not only that. I came to talk to you about something. About

"Wallace is. Of course, this talk is between ourselves, but I'm going to be frank, Nina. I want Wallie to

marry, and I want him to marry soon. You and I know that the life of an unattached man about town is full of

temptations. I want him to settle down. I'm lonely, too, but that's not so important."

"Well, for the last few days I have been wondering. She doesn't talk, you know. But she has been seeing

"Yes, but she's like that. I mean, she isn't ambitious. We've always expected her to throw herself away; at

A half hour later Leslie, upstairs, leaned over the railing to see if there were any indications of departure. The

door was open, and Mrs. Sayre evidently about to take her leave. She was saying:

"It's very close to my heart, Nina dear, and I know you will be tactful. I haven't stressed the material

A few moments later Leslie came downstairs. Nina was sitting alone, thinking, with a not entire1y pleasant

He looked down at her. "Now see here, old girl," he said, "you keep your hands off Elizabeth's affairs. If I

Dick stood with the letter in his hand, staring at it. Who was Bassett? Who was "G"? What had the departure

of whoever Bassett might be for Norada to do with David? And who was the person who was to be got out of

He did not go upstairs. He took the letter into his private office, closed the door, and sitting down at his desk

turned his reading lamp on it, as though that physical act might bring some mental light.

Reread, the cryptic sentences began to take on meaning. An unknown named Bassett, whoever he might be,

was going to Norada bent on "mischief," and another unknown who signed himself "G" was warning David

of that fact. But the mischief was designed, not against David, but against a third unknown, some one who

His first impulse was to go to David, and months later he was to wonder what would have happened had he

done so. How far could Bassett have gone? What would have been his own decision when he learned the

For a little while, then, the shuttle was in Dick's own hand. He went up to David's room, and with his hand on

the letter in his pocket, carried on behind his casual talk the debate that was so vital. But David had a

headache and a slightly faster pulse, and that portion of the pattern was never woven.

The association between anxiety and David's illness had always been apparent in Dick's mind, but now he

began to surmise a concrete shock, a person, a telegram, or a telephone call. And after dinner that night he

"Minnie," he inquired, "do you remember the afternoon Doctor David was taken sick?"

"He was a smallish man, maybe thirtyfive or so," she said. "I think he had gaiters over his shoes, or maybe

Poor old David! Dick had not the slightest doubt now that David had received some unfortunate news, and

that up there in his bedroom ever since, alone and helpless, he had been struggling with some secret dread he

"Aunt Lucy," he said, "do you know of anything that could have caused David's collapse?"

When he saw that she was only puzzled and thinking back, he knew she could not help him.

He was satisfied that Lucy knew no more than he did of David's visitor, and that David had kept his own

counsel ever since. But the sense of impending disaster that had come with the letter did not leave him. He

went through his evening office hours almost mechanically, with a part of his mind busy on the puzzle. How

did it affect the course of action he had marked out? Wasn't it even more necessary than ever now to go to

Walter Wheeler and tell him how things stood? He hated mystery. He liked to walk in the middle of the road

in the sunlight. But even stronger than that was a growing feeling that he needed a sane and normal judgment

He visited David before he left, and he was very gentle with him. In view of this new development he saw

David from a different angle, facing and dreading something imminent, and it came to him with a shock that

he might have to clear things up to save David. The burden, whatever it was, was breaking him.

He had telephoned, and Mr. Wheeler was waiting for him. Walter Wheeler thought he knew what was

coming, and he had well in mind what he was going to say. He had thought it over, pacing the floor alone,

"I like and respect you, Livingstone. If you're worrying about what these damned gossips say, let's call it a

day and forget it. I know a man when I see one, and if it's all right with Elizabeth it's all right with me."

Things, however, did not turn out just that way. Dick came in, grave and clearly preoccupied, and the first

"I have a story to tell you, Mr. Wheeler. After you've heard it, and given me your opinion on it, I'll come to a

"No. I don't give a damn for talk. But there is something else. Something I haven't told Elizabeth, and that I'll

Walter Wheeler drew himself up rather stiffly. Leslie's defection was still in his mind.

It is doubtful if Walter Wheeler grasped many of the technicalities that followed. Dick talked and he listened,

nodding now and then, and endeavoring very hard to get the gist of the matter. It seemed to him curious

rather than serious. Certainly the mind was a strange thing. He must read up on it. Now and then he stopped

Dick with a question, and Dick would break in on his narrative to reply. Thus, once:

"You've said nothing to Elizabeth at all? About the walling off, as you call it?"

"No. At first I was simply ashamed of it. I didn't want her to get the idea that I wasn't normal."

"Now, as I tell you, I begin to think I've told you that this walling off is an unconscious desire to forget

something too painful to remember. It's practically always that. I can't go to her with just that, can I? I've got

"There is. I didn't intend it. In fact, I was trying to keep away from her. I didn't mean to speak to her until I'd

cleared things up. But it happened anyhow; I suppose the way those things always happen."

It was Walter Wheeler's own decision, finally, that he go to Norada with Dick as soon as David could be

safely left. It was the letter which influenced him. Up to that he had viewed the situation with a certain

The result of some indecision was finally that Elizabeth should not be told anything until they were ready to

tell it all. And in the end a certain resentment that she had become involved in an unhappy situation died in

At ten o'clock the housedoor opened and closed, and Walter Wheeler got up and went out into the hall.

"Go on upstairs, Margaret," he said to his wife. "I've got a visitor." He did not look at Elizabeth. "You settle

They exchanged glances. Jim had been worrying them lately. Strange how a man could go along for years,

his only worries those of business, his track a single one through comfortable fields where he reaped only

what he sowed. And then his family grew up, and involved him without warning in new perplexities and new

troubles. Nina first, then Jim, and now this strange story which so inevitably involved Elizabeth.

"Don't worry about Jim, mother," he said. "He's all right fundamentally. He's going through the bad time

He watched her moving up the stairs, his eyes tender and solicitous. To him she was just "mother." He had

"I only want you to be happy," he said rather hoarsely. "You know that, don't you?"

She nodded, and turned up her face to be kissed. He knew that she had no doubt whatever that this interview

was to seal her to Dick Livingstone for ever and ever. She fairly radiated happiness and confidence. He left

Louis Bassett, when he started to the old Livingstone ranch, now the Wasson place, was carefully turning

over in his mind David's participation in the escape of Judson Clark. Certain phases of it were quite clear,

provided one accepted the fact that, following a heavy snowfall, an Easterner and a tenderfoot had gone into

the mountains alone, under conditions which had caused the posse after Judson Clark to turn back and give

Had Donaldson sent him there, knowing he was a medical man? If he had, would Maggie Donaldson not

have said so? She had said "a man outside that she had at first thought was a member of the searching party."

Take the other angle. Say David Livingstone had not been sent for. Say he knew nothing of the cabin or its

occupants until he stumbled on them. He had sold the ranch, distributed his brother's books, and apparently

the townspeople at Dry River believed that he had gone back home. Then what had taken him, clearly alone

and having certainly given the impression of a departure for the East, into the mountains? To hunt? To hunt

Bassett was inclined to the Donaldson theory, finally. John Donaldson would have been wanting a doctor,

and not wanting one from Norada. He might have heard of this Eastern medical man at Dry River, have gone

to him with his story, even have taken him part of the way. The situation was one that would have a certain

But instead of clarifying the situation Bassett's visit at the Wasson place brought forward new elements which

To Wasson himself, whom he met on horseback on the road into the ranch, he gave the same explanation he

had given to the storekeeper's wife. Wasson was a tall man in chaps and a Stetson, and he was courteously

"Bill and Jake are still here," he said. "They're probably in for dinner now, and I'll see you get a chance to talk

to them. I took them over with the ranch. Property, you say? Well, I hope it's better land than he had here."

"Comes a little late to do Henry Livingstone much good," he said. "He's been lying in the Dry River

graveyard for about ten years. Not much mourned either. He was about as closemouthed and

The description Wasson had applied to Henry Livingstone, Bassett himself applied to the two ranch hands

later on, during their interview. It could hardly have been called an interview at all, indeed, and after a time

Bassett realized that behind their taciturnity was suspicion. They were watching him, undoubtedly; he rather

thought, when he looked away, that once or twice they exchanged glances. He was certain, too, that Wasson

"Speak up, Jake," he said once, irritably. "This gentleman has come a long way. It's a matter of some

"That's not important," Bassett observed, easily. "What we want to know is if Henry Livingstone had any

"Then it's up to me to trail the brother," Bassett observed. "Either of you remember where he lived?"

"That's a trifle vague," he commented goodhumoredly. "Didn't you boys ever mail any letters for him?"

He was certain again that they exchanged glances, but they continued to present an unbroken front of

"What'd I tell you?" he asked. "Like master like man. I've been here ten years, and I've never got a word

"I'm a patient man." Bassett grinned. "I suppose you'll admit that one of you drove David Livingstone to the

He looked directly at Jake, but Jake's face was a solid mask. He made no reply whatever.

>From that moment on Bassett was certain that David had not been driven away from the ranch at all. What

he did not know, and was in no way to find out, was whether the two ranch hands knew that he had gone into

the mountains, or why. He surmised back of their taciturnity a small mystery of their own, and perhaps a fear.

Possibly David's going was as much a puzzle to them as to him. Conceivably, during the hours together on

the range, or during the winter snows, for ten years they had wrangled and argued over a disappearance as

He gave up at last, having learned certain unimportant facts: that the recluse had led a lonely life; that he had

never tried to make the place more than carry itself; that he was a student, and that he had no other

"Did he ever say anything that would lead you to believe that he had any family, outside of his brother and

"He never talked about himself," said Jake. "If that's all, Mr. Wasson, I've got a steer bogged down in the

On the Wassons' invitation he remained to lunch, and when the ranch owner excused himself and rode away

after the meal he sat for some time on the verandah, with Mrs. Wasson sewing and his own eyes fixed

"Strange thing," he commented. "Here's a man, a booklover and student, who comes out here, not to make

living and be a useful member of the community, but apparently to bury himself alive. I wonder, why."

"Yes, to start again. But this man never started again. He apparently just quit."

"Did the boys tell you anything about the young man who visited Henry Livingstone now and then?"

"I suppose they wouldn't tell. Yet I don't see, unless " She stopped, lost in some field of speculation where

he could not follow her. "You know, we haven't much excitement here, and when this boy was first seen

around the place he was here mostly in the summer we decided that he was a relative. I don't know why

we considered him mysterious, unless it was because he was hardly ever seen. I don't even know that that was

deliberate. For that matter Mr. Livingstone wasn't much more than a name to us."

"He was here at different times. When Mr. Livingstone died I suppose he was in his twenties. The thing that

She went on with her sewing, apparently intending to drop the matter; but the reporter felt that now and then

she was subjecting him to a sharp scrutiny, and that, in some shrewd womanfashion, she was trying to place

"I have never said this before, except to Mr. Wasson. But I believe he was here when Henry Livingstone

"No. He died of heart failure. There was an autopsy. But he had a bad cut on his head. Of course, he may

have fallen Bill and Jake were away. They'd driven some cattle out on the range. It was two days before he

was found, and it would have been longer if Mr. Wasson hadn't ridden out to talk to him about buying. He

found him dead in his bed, but there was blood on the floor in the next room. I washed it up myself."

"Of course," she added, when Bassett maintained a puzzled silence, "I may be all wrong. He might have

fallen in the next room and dragged himself to bed. But he was very neatly covered up."

"I don't know. He wasn't seen about the place. He's never been here since. But the posse found a horse with

the Livingstone brand, saddled, dead in Dry River Canyon when it was looking for Judson Clark. Of course,

that was a month later. The men here, Bill and Jake, claimed it had wandered off, but I've often wondered."

After a time Bassett got up and took his leave. He was confused and irritated. Here, whether creditably or not,

was Dick Livingstone accounted for. There was a story there, probably, but not the story he was after. This

unknown had been at the ranch when Henry Livingstone died, had perhaps been indirectly responsible for his

death. He had, witness the horse, fled after the thing happened. Later on, then, David Livingstone had taken

Except for that identification of Gregory's, and for the photograph of Judson Clark.... For a moment he

wondered if the two, Jud Clark and the unknown, could be the same. But Dry River would have known Clark.

He almost ditched the car on his way back to Norada, so deeply was he engrossed in thought.

On the seventh of June David and Lucy went to the seashore, went by the order of various professional

gentlemen who had differed violently during the course of David's illness, but who now suddenly agreed with

an almost startling unanimity. Which unanimity was the result of careful coaching by Dick.

He saw in David's absence his only possible chance to go back to Norada without worry to the sick man, and

he felt, too, that a change, getting away from the surcharged atmosphere of the old house, would be good for

For days before they started Lucy went about in a frenzy of nervous energy, writing out menus for Minnie for

a month ahead, counting and recounting David's collars and handkerchiefs, cleaning and pressing his

neckties. In the harness room in the stable Mike polished boots until his arms ached, and at the last moment

with trunks already bulging, came three gift dressinggowns for David, none of which he would leave

"I declare," Lucy protested to Dick, "I don't know what's come over him. Every present he's had since he was

sick he's taking along. You'd think he was going to be shut up on a desert island."

But Dick thought he understood. In David's life his friends had had to take the place of wife and children; he

clung to them now, in his age and weakness, and Dick knew that he had a sense of deserting them, of

So David carried with him the calendars and slippers, dressinggowns and bedsocks which were at once the

Watching him, Dick was certain nothing further had come to threaten his recovery. Dick carefully inspected

the mail, but no suspicious letter had arrived, and as the days went on David's peace seemed finally

reestablished. He made no more references to Johns Hopkins, slept like a child, and railed almost pettishly

"When we get away from Dick, Lucy," he would say, "we'll have beef again, and roast pork and sausage."

"You'll stick to your diet, David," she would say. "David, it's the strangest thing about your winter

Or it was socks she missed, or nightclothing. And David, inwardly chuckling, would wonder with her,

On the night before the departure David went out for his first short walk alone, and brought Elizabeth back

"I found a rose walking up the street, Lucy," he bellowed up the stairs, "and I brought it home for the dinner

Lucy came down, flushed from her final effort over the trunks, but gently hospitable.

"It's fish night, Elizabeth," she said. "You know Minnie's a Catholic, so we always have fish on Friday. I

hope you eat it." She put her hand on Elizabeth's arm and gently patted it, and thus was Elizabeth taken into

Elizabeth was finding this period of her tacit engagement rather puzzling. Her people puzzled her. Even Dick

did, at times. And nobody seemed anxious to make plans for the future, or even to discuss the wedding. She

But what chiefly bewildered her was the seeming necessity for secrecy. Even Nina had not been told, nor Jim.

She did not resent that, although it bewildered her. Her own inclination was to shout it from the housetops.

Her father had simply said: "I've told your mother, honey, and we'd better let it go at that, for a while. There's

But there were other things. Dick himself varied. He was always gentle and very tender, but there were times

when he seemed to hold himself away from her, would seem aloof and remote, but all the time watching her

almost fiercely. But after that, as though he had tried an experiment in separation and failed with it, he would

catch her to him savagely and hold her there. She tried, very meekly, to meet his mood; was submissive to his

passion and acquiescent to those intervals when he withdrew himself and sat or stood near her, not touching

She thought men in love were very queer and quite incomprehensible. Because he varied in other ways, too.

He was boyish and gay sometimes, and again silent and almost brooding. She thought at those times that

perhaps he was tired, what with David's work and his own, and sometimes she wondered if he were still

worrying about that silly story. But once or twice, after he had gone, she went upstairs and looked carefully

into her mirror. Perhaps she had not looked her best that day. Girllike, she set great value on looks in love.

She wanted frightfully to be beautiful to him. She wished she could look like Beverly Carlysle, for instance.

Two days before David and Lucy's departure he had brought her her engagement ring, a squarecut diamond

set in platinum. He kissed it first and then her finger, and slipped it into place. It became a rite, done as he did

it, and she had a sense of something done that could never be undone. When she looked up at him he was

However she had to take it off later, for Mrs. Wheeler, it developed, had very pronounced ideas of

engagement rings. They were put on the day the notices were sent to the newspapers, and not before. So

Elizabeth wore her ring around her neck on a white ribbon, inside her camisole, until such time as her father

Thus Elizabeth found her engagement full of unexpected turns and twists, and nothing precisely as she had

expected. But she accepted things as they came, being of the type around which the dramas of life are

enacted, while remaining totally undramatic herself. She lived her quiet days, worried about Jim on occasion,

hemmed table napkins for her linen chest, and slept at night with her ring on her finger and a sense of being

wrapped in protecting love that was no longer limited to the white Wheeler house, but now extended two

blocks away and around the corner to a shabby old brick building in a more or less shabby yard.

They were very gay in the old brick house that night before the departure, very noisy over the fish and

David's broiled lamb chop. Dick demanded a bottle of Lucy's homemade wine, and even David got a little

of it. They toasted the seashore, and the departed nurse, and David quoted Robert Burns at some length and in

a horrible Scotch accent. Then Dick had a trick by which one read the date on one of three pennies while he

was not looking, and he could tell without failing which one it was. It was most mysterious. And after dinner

Dick took her into his laboratory, and while she squinted one eye and looked into the finder of his microscope

When they left the laboratory there were patients in the waitingroom, but he held her in his arms in the

office for a moment or two, very quietly, and because the door was thin they made a sort of game of it, and

"How did you sleep last night?" he said, in a highly professional and very distinct voice. Then he kissed her.

"Very badly, doctor," she said, also very clearly, and whispered, "I lay awake and thought about you, dear."

"I'd better give you this sleeping powder." Oh, frightfully professional, but the powder turned out to be

When she slipped out into the hall she had to stop and smooth her hair, before she went to Lucy's tidy

It was Jim Wheeler's turn to take up the shuttle. A girl met in some casual fashion; his own youth and the

urge of it, perhaps the unconscious family indulgence of an only son and Jim wove his bit and passed on.

There had been mild contention in the Wheeler family during all the spring. Looking out from his quiet

windows Walter Wheeler saw the young world going by awheel, and going fast. Much that legitimately

belonged to it, and much that did not in the laxness of the new code, he laid to the automobile. And doggedly

"We can always get a taxicab," was his imperturbable answer to Jim. "I pay pretty goodsized taxi bills

without unpleasant discussion. I know you pretty well too, Jim. Better than you know yourself. And if you

Now and then Jim got a car, however. Sometimes he rented one, sometimes he cajoled Nina into lending him

"A fellow looks a fool without one," he would say to her. "Girls expect to be taken out. It's part of the game."

And Nina, always reached by that argument of how things looked, now and then reluctantly acquiesced. But a

night or two after David and Lucy had started for the seashore Nina came in like a whirlwind, and routed the

"Father," she said, "you just must speak to Jim. He's taken our car twice at night without asking for it, and last

"Yes. I hate telling on him, but I spoke to him after the first time, and he did it anyhow."

Mrs. Wheeler glanced at her husband uneasily. She often felt he was too severe with Jim.

"You know what I think about that, mother. I'm not going to have him joyriding over the country, breaking

his neck and getting into trouble. I've seen him driving Wallace Sayre's car, and he drives like a fool or a

It was an old dispute and a bitter one. Mr. Wheeler got up, whistled for the dog, and went out. His wife turned

"I wish you wouldn't bring these things to your father, Nina," she said. "He's been very nervous lately, and he

"Well, it's time Jim was fair to Leslie," Nina said, with family frankness. "I'll tell you something, mother. Jim

has a girl somewhere, in town probably. He takes her driving. I found a glove in the car. And he must be

"No. Somebody's he's ashamed of, probably, or he wouldn't be so clandestine about it."

"Well, it looks like it. Jim's a man, mother. He's not a little boy. He'll go through his shady period, like the

That night it was Mrs. Wheeler's turn to lie awake. Again and again she went over Nina's words, and her

troubled mind found a basis in fact for them. Jim had been getting money from her, to supplement his small

salary; he had been going out a great deal at night, and returning very late; once or twice, in the morning, he

Anxiety gripped her. There were so many temptations for young men, so many who waited to waylay them.

She raised herself on her elbow and looked at her sleeping husband. Men were like that; they begot children

and then forgot them. They never looked ahead or worried. They were taken up with business, and always

She got up, some time later, and tiptoed to the door of Jim's room. Inside she could hear his heavy, regular

There was an acrimonious argument between Jim and his father the next morning, and Jim slammed out of

the house, leaving chaos behind him. It was then that Elizabeth learned that her father was going away. He

"Maybe I'm wrong, mother. I don't know. Perhaps, when I come back, I'll look around for a car. I don't want

It appeared that he was. More than that, that he was going West with Dick. It was all arranged and nobody

She was hurt and a trifle offended, and she cried a little about it. Yet, as Dick explained to her later that day,

it was simple enough. Her father needed a rest, and besides, it was right that he should know all about Dick's

"He's being very polite about it; but, of course, in his eyes I'm a common thief, stealing "

A certain immaturity, the blind confidence of youth in those it loves, explains Elizabeth's docility at that time.

But underneath her submission that day was a growing uneasiness, fiercely suppressed. Buried deep, the

battle between absolute trust and fear was beginning, a battle which was so rapidly to mature her.

Nina, shrewd and suspicious, sensed something of nervous strain in her when she came in, later that day, to

"Look here, Elizabeth," she began, "I want to talk to you. Are you going to live in this this hole all your

"Hole nothing," Elizabeth said, hotly. "Really, Nina, I do think you might be more careful of what you say."

"Oh, it's a dear old hole," Nina said negligently. "But hole it is, nevertheless. Why in the world mother don't

manage her servants but no matter about that now. Elizabeth, there's a lot of talk about you and Dick

Livingstone, and it makes me furious. When I think that you can have Wallie Sayre by lifting your finger "

"That stodgy old house," she said, "and two old people! A general housework girl, and you cooking on her

"I wonder," Elizabeth said calmly, "whether it ever occurs to you that I may put love above houses and

servants? Or that my life is my own, to live exactly as I please? Because that is what I intend to do."

"Thanks," she said. "I wish you joy of it." And went out, slamming the door behind her.

Then, with only a day or so remaining before Dick's departure, and Jim's hand already reaching for the

shuttle, Elizabeth found herself the object of certain unmistakable advances from Mrs. Sayre herself, and that

The talk about Dick and Elizabeth had been slow in reaching the house on the hill. When it came, via a little

group on the terrace after the luncheon, Mrs. Sayre was upset and angry and inclined to blame Wallie.

Everything that he wanted had come to him, all his life, and he did not know how to go after things. He had

sat by, and let this shabbygenteel doctor, years older than the girl, walk away with her.

Not that she gave up entirely. She knew the town, and its tendency toward overstatement. And so she made

a desperate attempt, that afternoon, to tempt Elizabeth. She took her through the greenhouses, and then

through the upper floors of the house. She showed her pictures of their boat at Miami, and of the house at

"When you think," Mrs. Sayre said at last, "that Wallie will have to assume a great many burdens one of

these days, you can understand how anxious I am to have him marry the right sort of girl."

"He will have all I have, my dear, and it is a great responsibility. Used properly, money can be an agent of

great good. Wallie's wife can be a power, if she so chooses. She can look after the poor. I have a long list of

"That would be wonderful," Elizabeth said gravely. For a moment she wished Dick were rich. There was so

much to be done with money, and how well he would know how to do it. She was thoughtful on the way

downstairs, and Mrs. Sayre felt some small satisfaction. Now if Wallie would only do his part

It was that night that Jim brought the tragedy on the Wheeler house that was to lie heavy on it for many a day.

There had been a little dinner, one of those small informal affairs where Mrs. Wheeler, having found in the

market the first of the broiling chickens and some fine green peas, bought them first and then sat down to the

telephone to invite her friends. Mr. Oglethorpe, the clergyman, and his wife accepted cheerfully; Harrison

Miller, resignedly. Then Mrs. Wheeler drew a long, resolute breath and invited Mrs. Sayre. When that lady

accepted with alacrity Mrs. Wheeler hastily revised her menu, telephoned the florist for flowers, and spent a

Jim was not coming home, and Elizabeth was dining with Nina. Mrs. Wheeler bustled about the house

contentedly. Everything was going well, after all. Before long there would be a car, and Jim would spend

more time at home. Nina and Leslie were happy again. And Elizabeth not a good match, perhaps, but a

She sat at the foot of her table that night, rather too watchful of Annie, but supremely content. She had herself

scoured the loving cup to the last degree of brightness and it stood, full of flowers, in the center of the cloth.

At Nina's was a smaller but similar group. All over the village at that time in the evening were similar groups,

gathered around flowers and candles; neatly served, cheerful and undramatic groups, with the house doors

Elizabeth was watching Nina. Just so, she was deciding, would she some day preside at her own board.

Perhaps before so very long, too. A little separation, letters to watch for and answer, and then

The telephone rang, and Leslie answered it. He did not come back; instead they heard the house door close,

and soon after the rumble of the car as it left the garage. It stopped at the door, and Leslie came in.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I guess Elizabeth will have to go home. You'd better come along, Nina."

"Jim's been in an automobile accident. Steady now, Elizabeth! He's hurt, but he's going to be all right."

The Wheeler house, when they got there, was brightly lighted. Annie was crying in the hall, and in the

livingroom Mrs. Sayre stood alone, a strange figure in a gaudy dress, but with her face strong and calm.

"They've gone to the hospital in my car," she said. "They'll be there now any minute, and Mr. Oglethorpe will

They all knew what that meant. It might be too late to start in. Nina was crying hysterically, but Elizabeth

could not cry. She stood dryeyed by the telephone, listening to Mrs. Sayre and Leslie, but hardly hearing

them. They had got Dick Livingstone and he had gone on in. Mrs. Sayre was afraid it had been one of

Wallie's cars. She had begged Wallie to tell Jim to be careful in it. It had too much speed.

The telephone rang and Leslie took the receiver and pushed Elizabeth gently aside. He listened for a moment.

All through the long night that followed, with the movement of feet through the halls, with her mother's door

closing and the ghastly silence that followed it, with the dawn that came through the windows, the dawn that

to Jim meant not a new day, but a new life beyond their living touch, all through the night Elizabeth was

aware of two figures that came and went. One was Dick, quiet, tender and watchful. And one was of a heavy

woman in a gaudy dress, her face old and weary in the morning light, who tended her with gentle hands.

She fell asleep as the light was brightening in the East, with Dick holding her hands and kneeling on the floor

It was not until the next day that they knew that Jim had not been alone. A girl who was with him had been

Jim had woven his bit in the pattern and passed on. The girl was negligible; she was, she had been. That was

all. But Jim's death added the last element to the impending catastrophe. It sent Dick West alone.

For several days after his visit to the Livingstone ranch Louis Bassett made no move to go to the cabin. He

wandered around the town, made promiscuous acquaintances and led up, in careful conversations with such

older residents as he could find, to the Clark and Livingstone families. Of the latter he learned nothing; of the

One day he happened on a short, heavyset man, the sheriff, who had lost his office on the strength of Jud

Clark's escape, and had now recovered it. Bassett had brought some whisky with him, and on the promise of a

"All this newspaper stuff lately about Jud Clark being alive is dead wrong," he declared, irritably. "Maggie

Donaldson was crazy. You can ask the people here about her. They all know it. Those newspaper fellows

descended on us here with a toothbrush apiece and a suitcase full of liquor, and thought they'd get

something. Seemed to think we'd hold out on them unless we got our skins full. But there isn't anything to

"Yes. Dead. And when you find a man's horse dead in the mountains in a blizzard, you don't need any more

evidence. It was five months before you could see a trail up the Goat that winter."

"I suppose," he observed casually, "that even if Clark turned up now, it would be hard to convict him,

"Well, yes and no," he said. "It was circumstantial evidence, mostly. Nobody saw it done. The worst thing

"Nobody actually saw it done. John Donaldson came the nearest, and he's dead. Lucas's wife was still alive,

"I suppose if he did turn up you'd make a try for it." Bassett stared at the end of his cigar.

"We'd make a try for it, all right," Wilkins said somberly. "There are some folks in this county still giving me

The next day Bassett hired a quiet horse, rolled in his raincoat two days' supply of food, strapped it to the

cantle of his saddle, and rode into the mountains. He had not ridden for years, and at the end of the first hour

he began to realize that he was in for a bad time. By noon he was so sore that he could hardly get out of the

saddle, and so stiff that once out, he could barely get back again. All morning the horse had climbed, twisting

back and forth on a narrow canyon trail, grunting occasionally, as is the way of a horse on a steep grade. All

morning they bad followed a roaring mountain stream, descending in small cataracts from the ice fields far

above. And all morning Bassett had been mentally following that trail as it had been ridden ten years ago by a

boy maddened with fear and drink, who drove his horse forward through the night and the blizzard, with no

He found it practically impossible to connect this frenzied fugitive with the quiet man in his office chair at

Haverly, the man who was or was not Judson Clark. He lay on a bank at noon and faced the situation

squarely, while his horse, hobbled, grazed with grotesque little forward jumps in an upland meadow. Either

Dick Livingstone was Clark, or he was the unknown occasional visitor at the Livingstone Ranch. If he were

Clark, and if that could be proved, there were two courses open to Bassett. He could denounce him to the

authorities and then spring the big story of his career. Or he could let things stand. From a professional

standpoint the first course attracted him, as a man he began to hate it. The last few days had shed a new light

on Judson Clark. He had been immensely popular; there were men in the town who told about trying to save

him from himself. He had been extravagant, but he had also been generous. He had been "a good kid," until

liberty and money got hold of him. There had been more than one man in the sheriff's posse who hadn't

He was tempted to turn back. The mountains surrounded him, somber and majestically still. They made him

feel infinitely small and rather impertinent, as though he had come to penetrate the secrets they never yielded.

After an hour or so he determined to go on. Let them throw him over a gorge if they so determined. He got

up, grunting, and leading the horse beside a boulder, climbed painfully into the saddle. To relieve his

"It would be easier on both of us if you were two feet narrower in the beam, old dear," he said.

Nevertheless, he made good time. By six o'clock he knew that he must have made thirty odd miles, and that

he must be near the cabin. Also that it was going to be bitterly cold that night, under the snow fields, and that

he had brought no wood axe. The deep valley was purple with twilight by seven, and he could scarcely see

the roughdrawn trail map he had been following. And the trail grew increasingly bad. For the last mile or

It wandered on, through fords and out of them, under the lowgrowing branches of scrub pine, brushing his

bruised legs against rocks. He had definitely decided that he had missed the cabin when the horse turned off

It was built of rough logs, the chinks once closed with mud which had fallen away. The door stood open, and

his entrance into its darkness was followed by the scurrying of many little feet. Bassett unstrapped his

raincoat from the saddle with fingers numb with cold, and flung it to the ground. He uncinched and removed

the heavy saddle, hobbled his horse and removed the bridle, and turned him loose with a slap on the flank.

"For the love of Mike, don't go far, old man," he besought him. And was startled by the sound of his own

By the light of his candle lantern the prospects were extremely poor. The fir branches in the doubleberthed

bunk were dry and useless, the floor was crumbling under his feet, and the roof of the leanto had fallen in

and crushed the rusty stove. In the cabin itself some one had recently placed a large flat stone in a corner for a

fireplace, with two slabs to back it, and above it had broken out a corner of the roof as a chimney. Bassett

He set to work with the resource of a man who had learned to take what came, threw the dry bedding onto the

slab and set a match to it, brought in portions of the leanto roof for further supply for the fire, opened a can

of tomatoes and set it on the edge of the hearth to heat, and sliced bacon into his diminutive fryingpan.

It was too late for any examination that night. He ate his supper from the rough table, drawing up to it a

broken chair, and afterwards brought in more wood for his fire. Then, with a lighted cigar, and with his boots

He was aching in every muscle when he finally stretched out on the bare boards of the lower bunk. While he

slept small furry noses appeared in the openings in the broken floor, to be followed by little bodies that

moved cautiously out into the open. He roused once and peered over the edge of the bunk. Several field mice

were basking in front of the dying embers of the fire, and two were sitting on his boots. He grinned at them

and lay back again, but he found himself fully awake and very uncomfortable. He lay there, contemplating

his own folly, and demanding of himself almost fiercely what he had expected to get out of all this effort and

misery. For ten days or so men had come here. Wilkins had come, for one, and there had been others. And

had found nothing, and had gone away. And now he was there, the end of the procession, to look for God

He pulled the raincoat up around his shoulders, and lay back stiffly. Then he was not an imaginative man

he began to feel that eyes were staring at him, furtive, hidden eyes, intently watching him.

Without moving he began to rake the cabin with his eyes, wall to wall, corner to corner. He turned,

cautiously, and glanced at the door into the leanto. It gaped, cavernous and empty. But the sense of being

watched persisted, and when he looked at the floor the field mice had disappeared.

He began gradually to see more clearly as his eyes grew accustomed to the semidarkness, and he felt, too,

that he could almost locate the direction of the menace. For as a menace he found himself considering it. It

After a time the thing became intolerable. He reached for his revolver, and getting quickly out of the bunk,

ran to the doorway and threw open the door, to find himself peering into a blackness like a wall, and to hear a

With the sounds, and his own movement, the terror died. The cold night air on his face, the feel of the pine

needles under his stockinged feet, brought him back to sense and normality. Some creature of the wilderness,

a deer or a bear, perhaps, had been moving stealthily outside the cabin, and it was sound he had heard, not a

gaze he had felt. He was rather cynically amused at himself. He went back into the cabin, closed the door,

It was while he was stooping that he heard a horse galloping off along the trail.

He did not go to sleep again. Now and then he considered the possibility of its having been his own animal,

somehow freed of the rope and frightened by the same thing that had frightened him. But when with the first

light he went outside, his horse, securely hobbled, was grazing on the scant pasture not far away.

Before he cooked his breakfast he made a minute examination of the ground beneath the East wall, but the

earth was hard, and a broken branch or two might have been caused by his horse. He had no skill in

woodcraft, and in the broad day his alarm seemed almost absurd. Some free horse on the range had probably

wandered into the vicinity of the cabin, and had made off again on a trot. Nevertheless, he made up his mind

not to remain over another night, but to look about after breakfast, and then to start down again.

He worked on his boots, dry and hard after yesterday's wetting, fried his bacon and dropped some crackers

into the sizzling fat, and ate quickly. After that he went out to the trail and inspected it. He had an idea that

range horses were mostly unshod, and that perhaps the trail would reveal something. But it was unused and

overgrown. Not until he had gone some distance did he find anything. Then in a small bare spot he found in

the dust the imprints of a horse's shoes, turned down the trail up which he had come.

Even then he was slow to read into the incident anything that related to himself or to his errand. He went over

the various contingencies of the trail: a ranger, on his way to town; a forest fire somewhere; a belated hound

from the newspaper pack. He was convinced now that human eyes had watched him for some time through

the log wall the night before, but he could not connect them with the business in hand.

He set resolutely about his business, which was to turn up, somehow, some way, a proof of the truth of

Maggie Donaldson's dying statement. To begin with then he accepted that statement, to find where it would

lead him, and it led him, eventually, to the brokendown stove under the fallen roof of the leanto.

He deliberately set himself to work, at first, to reconstruct the life in the cabin. Jud would have had the lower

bunk, David the upper. The skeleton of a cot bed in the leanto would have been Maggie's. But none of them

Very well. Having accepted that they lived here, it was from here that the escape was made. They would have

started the moment the snow was melted enough to let them get out, and they would have taken, not the trail

toward the town, but some other and circuitous route toward the railroad. But there had been things to do

before they left. They would have cleared the cabin of every trace of occupancy; the tin cans, Clark's

clothing, such bedding as they could not carry. The cans must have been a problem; the clothes, of course,

could have been burned. But there were things, like buttons, that did not burn easily. Clark's watch, if he wore

It occurred to him that they might have disposed of some of the unburnable articles under the floor, and he

lifted a rough board or two. But to pursue the search systematically he would have needed a pickaxe, and

reluctantly he gave it up and turned his attention to the leanto and the buried stove.

The stove lay in a shallow pit, filled with ancient ashes and crumbled bits of wood from the roof. It lay on its

side, its sheetiron sides collapsed, its long chimney disintegrated. He was in a heavy sweat before he had

uncovered it and was able to remove it from its bed of ashes and pine needles. This done, he brought his

His first casual inspection of the ashes revealed nothing. He set to work more carefully then, picking them up

by handfuls, examining and discarding. Within ten minutes he had in a pile beside him some burned and

blackened metal buttons, the eyelets and a piece of leather from a shoe, and the almost unrecognizable nib of

He sat with them in the palm of his hand. Taken alone, each one was insignificant, proved nothing whatever.

Taken all together, they assumed vast proportions, became convincing, became evidence.

Late that night he descended stiffly at the livery stable, and turned his weary horse over to a stableman.

"He's got nothing on me," Bassett responded cheerfully. "Better give him a hot bath and put him to bed.

He walked back to the hotel, glad to stretch his aching muscles. The lobby was empty, and behind the desk

the night clerk was waiting for the midnight train. Bassett was wide awake by that time, and he went back to

"Oil! I'll tell you what I have struck. I've struck a livery stable saddle two million times in the last two days."

"J. Smith, Minneapolis," he read. Then he stopped and stared. Richard Livingstone was registered on the next

Dick had found it hard to leave Elizabeth, for she clung to him in her grief with childish wistfulness. He

found, too, that her family depended on him rather than on Leslie Ward for moral support. It was to him that

Walter Wheeler looked for assurance that the father had had no indirect responsibility for the son's death; it

was to him that Jim's mother, lying grayfaced and listless in her bed or on her couch, brought her anxious

questionings. Had Jim suffered? Could they have avoided it? And an insistent demand to know who and what

In spite of his own feeling that he would have to go to Norada quickly, before David became impatient over

his exile, Dick took a few hours to find the answer to that question. But when he found it he could not tell

them. The girl had been a dweller in the shady byways of life, had played her small unmoral part and gone

on, perhaps to some place where men were kinder and less urgent. Dick did not judge her. He saw her, as her

kind had been through all time, storm centers of the social world, passively and unconsciously blighting, at

He secured her former address from the police, a threestory brick roominghouse in the local tenderloin,

and waited rather uncomfortably for the mistress of the place to see him. She came at last, a big woman, vast

and shapeless and with an amiable loose smile, and she came in with the light step of the overfleshed, only to

"I'd have sworn " she muttered, and turning to the button inside the door she switched on the light. Then

"Now see here," he said pleasantly. "I don't know who you are mistaking me for, and I'm not hiding from the

police. Here's my card, and I have come from the family of a young man named Wheeler, who was killed

"Well, you fooled me all right," she said at last. "I thought you were well, never mind that. What about this

Wheeler family? Are they going to settle with the undertaker? Because I tell you flat, I can't and won't. She

owed me a month's rent, and her clothes won't bring over seventyfive or a hundred dollars."

As he left he was aware that she stood in the doorway looking after him. He drove home slowly in the car,

and on the way he made up a kindly story to tell the family. He could not let them know that Jim had been

seeking love in the byways of life. And that night he mailed a check in payment of the undertaker's bill,

On the third day after Jim's funeral he started for Norada. An interne from a local hospital, having newly

finished his service there, had agreed to take over his work for a time. But Dick was faintly jealous when he

installed Doctor Reynolds in his office, and turned him over to a mystified Minnie to look after.

She was only partially mollified when she found Doctor Reynolds was to have the spare room. She did not

like the way things were going, she confided to Mike. Why wasn't she to let on to Mrs. Crosby that Doctor

Dick had gone away? Or to the old doctor? Both of them away, and that little upstart in the office ready to

Unused to duplicity as he was, Dick found himself floundering along an extremely crooked path. He wrote a

half dozen pleasant, noncommittal letters to David and Lucy, spending an inordinate time on them, and gave

them to Walter Wheeler to mail at stated intervals. But his chief difficulty was with Elizabeth. Perhaps he

would have told her; there were times when he had to fight his desire to have her share his anxiety as well as

know the truth about him. But she was already carrying the burden of Jim's tragedy, and her father, too, was

"Until she can have the whole thing," he said, with the new heaviness which had crept into his voice.

Beside that real trouble Dick's looked dim and nebulous. Other things could be set right; there was always a

Elizabeth went to the station to see him off, a small slim thing in a black frock, with eyes that persistently

sought his face, and a determined smile. He pulled her arm through his, so he might hold her hand, and when

he found that she was wearing her ring he drew her even closer, with a wave of passionate possession.

But they assumed a certain lightness after that, each to cheer the other. As when she asserted that she was

sure she would always know the moment he stopped thinking about her, and he stopped, with any number of

"That's simply terrible! Suppose, when we are married, my mind turns on such a mundane thing as beefsteak

He stood on the lowest step of the train until her figure was lost in the darkness, and the porter expostulated.

He was, that night, a little drunk with love, and he did not read the note she had thrust into his hand at the last

moment until he was safely in his berth, his long figure stretched diagonally to find the length it needed.

"Darling, darling Dick," she had written. "I wonder so often how you can care for me, or what I have done to

deserve you. And I cannot write how I feel, just as I cannot say it. But, Dick dear, I have such a terrible fear

of losing you, and you are my life now. You will be careful and not run any risks, won't you? And just

remember this always. Wherever you are and wherever I am, I am thinking of you and waiting for you."

He read it three times, until he knew it by heart, and he slept with it in the pocket of his pajama coat.

Three days later he reached Norada, and registered at the Commercial Hotel. The town itself conveyed

nothing to him. He found it totally unfamiliar, and for its part the town passed him by without a glance. A

new field had come in, twenty miles from the old one, and had brought with it a fresh influx of prospectors,

That was his first disappointment. He had been nursing the hope that surroundings which he must once have

known well would assist him in finding himself. That was the theory, he knew. He stood at the window of his

hotel room, with its angular furniture and the Gideon Bible, and for the first time he realized the difficulty of

what he had set out to do. Had he been able to take David into his confidence he would have had the names

The almost morbid shrinking he felt from exposing his condition was increased, rather than diminished, in the

new surroundings. He would, of course, go to the ranch at Dry River, and begin his inquiries from there, but

not until now had he realized what that would mean; his recognition by people he could not remember, the

He knew the letter to David from beginning to end, but he got it out and read it again. Who was this Bassett,

and what mischief was he up to? Why should he himself be got out of town quickly and the warning burned?

Who was "G"? And why wouldn't the simplest thing be to locate this Bassett himself?

The more he considered that the more obvious it seemed as a solution, provided of course he could locate the

man. Whether Bassett were friendly or inimical, he was convinced that he knew or was finding out something

He was relieved when he went down to the desk to find that his man was registered there, although the clerk

reported him out of town. But the very fact that only a few hours or days separated him from a solution of the

He ate his dinner alone, unnoticed, and after dinner, in the writing room, with its mission furniture and its

traveling men copying orders, he wrote a letter to Elizabeth. Into it he put some of the things that lay too deep

for speech when he was with her, and because he had so much to say and therefore wrote extremely fast, a

considerable portion of it was practically illegible. Then, as though he could hurry the trains East, he put a

With that off his mind, and the need of exercise after the trip insistent, he took his hat and wandered out into

the town. The main street was crowded; moving picture theaters were summoning their evening audiences

with bright lights and colored posters, and automobiles lined the curb. But here and there an Indian with

braids and a Stetson hat, or a cowpuncher from a ranch in boots and spurs reminded him that after all this was

the West, the horse and cattle country. It was still twilight, and when he had left the main street behind him

he began to have a sense of the familiar. Surely he had stood here before, had seen the courthouse on its low

hill, the row of frame houses in small gardens just across the street. It seemed infinitely long ago, but very

real. He even remembered dimly an open place at the other side of the building where the ranchmen tied their

horses. To test himself he walked around. Yes, it was there, but no horses stood there now, heads drooping,

bridle reins thrown loosely over the rail. Only a muddy automobile, without lights, and a dog on guard beside

He spoke to the dog, and it came and sniffed at him. Then it squatted in front of him, looking up into his face.

He felt a little cheered as he turned back toward the hotel. A few encounters with the things of his youth, and

perhaps the cloud would clear away. Already the courthouse had stirred some memories. And on turning

back down the hill he had another swift vision, photographically distinct but unrelated to anything that had

He was riding down that street at night on a small horse, and his father was beside him on a tall one. He

looked up at his father, and he seemed very large. The largest man in the world. And the most important.

It began and stopped there, and his endeavor to follow it further resulted in its ultimately leaving him. It

faded, became less real, until he wondered if he had not himself conjured it. But that experience taught him

something. Things out of the past would come or they would not come, but they could not be forced. One

He stood at a window facing north that night, under the impression it was east, and sent his love and an

inarticulate sort of prayer to Elizabeth, for her safety and happiness, in the general direction of the Arctic

Bassett had not returned in the morning, and he found himself with a day on his hands. He decided to try the

experiment of visiting the Livingstone ranch, or at least of viewing it from a safe distance, with the hope of a

repetition of last night's experience. Of all his childish memories the ranch house, next to his father, was most

distinct. When he had at various times tried to analyze what things he recalled he had found that what they

lacked of normal memory was connection. They stood out, like the one the night before, each complete in

itself, brief, and having no apparent relation to what had gone before or what came after.

But the ranch house had been different. The pictures were mostly superimposed on it; it was their

background. Himself standing on the mountain looking down at it, and his father pointing to it; the tutor who

was afraid of horses, sitting at a big table in a great woodceiled and woodpaneled room; a long gallery or

porch along one side of the building and rooms added on to the house so that one had to go along the gallery

When, much later, Dick was able calmly to review that day, he found his recollection of it confused by the

events that followed, but one thing stood out as clearly as his later knowledge of the almost incredible fact

that for one entire day and for the evening of another, he had openly appeared in Norada and had not been

recognized. That fact was his discovery that the Livingstone ranch house had no place in his memory

He had hired a car and a driver, a driver who asserted that this was the old Livingstone ranch house. And it

bore no resemblance, not the faintest, to the building he remembered. It did not lie where it should have lain.

The mountains were too far behind it. It was not the house. The fields were not the proper fields. It was

He went no closer than the highway, because it was not necessary. He ordered the car to turn and go back,

and for the first and only time he was filled with bitter resentment against David. David had fooled him. He

sat beside the driver, his face glowering and his eyes hot, and let his indignation burn in him like a flame.

Hours afterwards he had, of course, found excuses for David. Accepted them, rather, as a part of the mystery

which wrapped him about. But they had no effect on the decision he made during that miserable ride back to

Norada, when he determined to see the man Bassett and get the truth out of him if he had to choke it out.

Bassett was astounded when he saw Dick's signature on the hotel register. It destroyed, in one line, every

theory he held. That Judson Clark should return to Norada after his flight was incredible. Ten years was only

ten years after all. It was not a lifetime. There were men in the town who had known Clark well.

Nevertheless for a time he held to his earlier conviction, even fought for it. He went so far as to wonder if

Clark had come back for a tardy surrender. Men had done that before this, had carried a burden for years, had

reached the breaking point, had broken. But he dismissed that. There had been no evidence of breaking in the

young man in the office chair. He found himself thrown back, finally, on the story of the Wasson woman, and

The reaction from his certainty in the cabin to uncertainty again made him fretful and sleepless. It was almost

He wakened late, and telephoned down for breakfast. His confusion had not decreased with the night, and

while he got painfully out of bed and prepared to shave and dress, his thoughts were busy. There was no

doubt in his mind that, in spite of the growth of the town, the newcomer would be under arrest almost as soon

as he made his appearance. A resemblance that could deceive Beverly Carlysle's brother could deceive

By the time he had bathed he had developed a sort of philosophic acceptance of the new situation. There

would be no exclusive story now, no scoop. The events of the next few hours were for every man to read. He

shrugged his shoulders as, partially dressed, he carried his shaving materials into the better light of his

With his face partially lathered he heard a knock at the door, and sang out a not uncheerful "Come in." It

happened, then, that it was in his mirror that he learned that his visitor was not the waiter, but Livingstone

"I beg your pardon," Dick said. "I was afraid you'd get out before I saw you. My name's Livingstone, and I

Bassett perceived two things simultaneously; that owing probably to the lather on his face he had not been

recognized, and that the face of the man inside the door was haggard and strained.

"That's all right. Come in and sit down. I'll get this stuff off my face and be with you in a jiffy."

But he was very deliberate in the bathroom. His astonishment grew, rather than decreased. Clearly

Livingstone had not known him. How, then, had he known that he was in Norada? And when he recognized

him, as he would in a moment, what then? He put on his collar and tied his tie slowly. Gregory might be the

key. Gregory might have found out that he had started for Norada and warned him. Then, if that were true,

this man was Clark after all. But if he were Clark he wouldn't be there. It was like a kitten after its tail. It

The waiter had laid his breakfast and gone when he emerged from the bathroom, and Dick was standing by

"I'm here, Mr. Bassett, on rather a peculiar " He stopped and looked at Bassett. "I see. You were in my

"For a headache, yes." Bassett was very wary and watchful, but there was no particular unfriendliness in his

"It never occurred to me that you might be Bassett," Dick said gravely. "Never mind about that. Eat your

"Will you have some coffee? I can get a glass from the bathroom. It takes a week to get a waiter here."

The feeling of unreality grew in the reporter's mind. It increased still further when they sat opposite each

other, the small table with its Bible on the lower shelf between them, while he made a pretense at

"First of all," Dick said, at last, "I was not sure I had found the right man. You are the only Bassett in the

place, however, and you're registered from my town. So I took a chance. I suppose that headache was not

"I'll ask you one more question. It may clear the air. Does this mean anything to you? I'll tell you now that it

>From his pocketbook he took the note addressed to David, and passed it over the table. Bassett looked at

"Before you read it, I'll explain something. It was not sent to me. It was sent to my to Doctor David

Livingstone. It happened to fall into my hands. I've come a long way to find out what it means."

He paused, and looked the reporter straight in the eyes. "I am laying my cards on the table, Bassett. This 'G,'

whoever he is, is clearly warning my uncle against you. I want to know what he is warning him about."

"I'll give you another name, and maybe you'll get it. A name that I think will mean something to you. Beverly

Bassett had an extraordinary feeling of unreality, followed by one of doubt. Either the fellow was a very good

"Sorry," Dick said slowly. "I don't seem to get it. I don't know that 'G' is as important as his warning. That

The reporter liked courage when he saw it, and he was compelled to a sort of reluctant admiration.

"You've got your courage with you," he observed. "How long do you suppose it will be after you set foot on

the streets of this town before you're arrested? How do you know I won't send for the police myself?"

"I know damned well you won't," Dick said grimly. "Not before I'm through with you. You've chosen to

interest yourself in me. I suppose you don't deny the imputation in that letter. You'll grant that I have a right

"Righto," the reporter said cheerfully, glad to get to grips; and to stop a fencing that was getting nowhere.

"I'm connected with the TimesRepublican, in your own fair city. I was in the theater the night Gregory

"Oh, quit it, Clark," Bassett said, suddenly impatient. "That letter's the last proof I needed. Gregory wrote it

after he'd seen David Livingstone. He wouldn't have written it if he and the old man hadn't come to an

understanding. I've been to the cabin. My God, man, I've even got the parts of your clothing that wouldn't

"Donaldson," Dick repeated. "That was it. I couldn't remember her name. The woman in the cabin. Maggie.

"No, thanks just the same. I'll ask you to be plain with me, Bassett. I am I have become engaged to a girl,

"I suppose I've begun wrong end first. I forgot about how it must seem to you. I dropped a block out of my

life about ten years ago. Can't remember it. I'm not proud of it, but it's the fact. What I'm trying to do now is

"You say I may be arrested if I go out on the street. And you rather more than intimate that a woman named

"Yes. You knew her," Bassett said slowly. At the intimation in his tone Dick surveyed him for a moment

"No. You didn't marry her. See here, Clark, this is straight goods, is it? You're not trying to put something

over on me? Because if you are, you needn't. I'd about made up my mind to follow the story through for my

own satisfaction, and then quit cold on it. When a man's pulled himself out of the mud as you have it's not my

"Out of the mud!" he said. "No. I'm telling you the truth, Bassett. I have some fragmentary memories, places

and people, but no names, and all of them, I imagine from my childhood. I pick up at a cabin in the

mountains, with snow around, and David Livingstone feeding me soup with a tin spoon." He tried to smile

and failed. His face twitched. "I could stand it for myself," he said, "but I've tied another life to mine, like a

"Suppose," Bassett said after a moment, "suppose you let that go just now, and tell me more about this this

gap. You're a medical man. You've probably gone into your own case pretty thoroughly. I'm accepting your

statement, you see. As a matter of fact it must be true, or you wouldn't be here. But I've got to know what I'm

doing before I lay my cards on the table. Make it simple, if you can. I don't know your medical jargon."

Dick did his best. The mind closed down now and then, mainly from a shock. No, there was no injury

required. He didn't think he had had an injury. A mental shock would do it, if it were strong enough. And

fear. It was generally fear. He had never considered himself braver than the other fellow, but no man liked to

think that he had a cowardly mind. Even if things hadn't broken as they had, he'd have come back before he

went to the length of marriage, to find out what it was he had been afraid of. He paused then, to give Bassett a

chance to tell him, but the reporter only said: "Go on. you put your cards on the table, and then I'll lay mine

Dick went on. He didn't blame Bassett. If there was something that was in his line of work, he understood. At

the same time he wanted to save David anything unpleasant. (The word "unpleasant" startled Bassett, by its

very inadequacy.) He knew now that David had built up for him an identity that probably did not exist, but he

wanted Bassett to know that there could never be doubt of David's high purpose and his essential fineness.

"Whatever I was before." he finished simply, "and I'll get that from you now, if I am any sort of a man at all it

He stood up and braced himself. It had been clear to Bassett for ten minutes that Dick was talking against

time, against the period of revelation. He would have it, but he was mentally bracing himself against it.

Bassett poured him a small drink, and took a turn about the room while he drank it. He was perplexed and

apprehensive. Strange as the story was, he was convinced that he had heard the truth. He had, now and then,

run across men who came back after a brief disappearance, with a cock and bull story of forgetting who they

were, and because nearly always these men vanished at the peak of some crisis they had always been open to

suspicion. Perhaps, poor devils, they had been telling the truth after all. So the mind shut down, eh? Closed

His own part in the threatening catastrophe began to obsess him. Without the warning from Gregory there

would have been no return to Norada, no arrest. It had all been dead and buried, until he himself had revived

"I'm not sure," he said. "It sounds familiar, and then it doesn't. It doesn't mean anything to me, if you get that.

Oddly enough, Bassett found himself now seeking for hope of escape in the very situation that had previously

irritated him, in the story he had heard at Wasson's. He considered, and said, almost violently:

"Look here, I may have made a mistake. I came out here pretty well convinced I'd found the solution to an

old mystery, and for that matter I think I have. But there's a twist in it that isn't clear, and until it is clear I'm

not going to saddle you with an identity that may not belong to you. You are one of two men. One of them is

Judson Clark, and I'll be honest with you; I'm pretty sure you're Clark. The other I don't know, but I have

reason to believe that he spent part of his time with Henry Livingstone at Dry River."

"I went to the Livingstone ranch yesterday. I remember my early home. That wasn't it. Which one of these

"I'm coming to that. I suppose you'll have to know. Another drink? No? All right. About ten years ago, or a

little less, a young chap called Judson Clark got into trouble here, and headed into the mountains in a

blizzard. He was supposed to have frozen to death. But recently a woman named Donaldson made a

confession on her deathbed. She said that she had helped to nurse Clark in a mountain cabin, and that with the

There was a short silence following that admission. To Dick, it was filled with the thought of Elizabeth, and

of her relation to what he was about to hear. Again he braced himself for what was coming.

"I suppose," he said at last, "that if I ran away I was in pretty serious trouble. What was it?"

"We've got no absolute proof that you are Clark, remember. You don't know, and Maggie Donaldson was

considered not quite sane before she died. I've told you there's a chance you are the other man."

The reporter was instantly alarmed. If Dick had been haggard before, he was ghastly now. He got up slowly

"No," Bassett said quickly. "Not at all. See here, you've had about all you can stand. Remember, we don't

"Well, there had been a quarrel, I understand. The law allows for that, I think."

Dick went slowly to the window, and stood with his back to Bassett. For a long time the room was quiet. In

the street below long lines of cars in front of the hotel denoted the luncheon hour. An Indian woman with a

child in the shawl on her back stopped in the street, looked up at Dick and extended a beaded belt. With it

"Yes. I knew him. He wasn't any great loss. It was at the Clark ranch. I don't believe a conviction would be

"Clark ran away," Bassett corrected him. "As I've told you, the authorities here believe he is dead."

"I told you there was a girl. I'd like to think out some way to keep the thing from her, before I surrender

"All right. If I'm not, they'll know. If I am I tell you I'm not going through the rest of my life with a thing

like that hanging over me. Maggie Donaldson was sane enough. Why, when I look back, I know our leaving

the cabin was a flight. I'm not Henry Livingstone's son, because he never had a son. I can tell you what the

Clark ranch house looks like." And after a pause: "Can you imagine the reverse of a dream when you've

dreamed you are guilty of something and wake up to find you are innocent? Who was the man?"

Shortly after that Dick said he would go to his room. He was still pale, but his eyes looked bright and

feverish, and Bassett went with him, uneasily conscious that something was not quite right. Dick spoke only

"My head aches like the mischief," he said, and his voice was dull and lifeless.

He did not want Bassett to go with him, but Bassett went, nevertheless. Dick's statement, that he meant to

surrender himself, had filled him with uneasiness. He determined, following him along the hall, to keep a

close guard on him for the next few hours, but beyond that, just then, he did not try to go. If it were humanly

possible he meant to smuggle him out of the town and take him East. But he had an uneasy conviction that

"My head aches like the mischief," he repeated. "Look in that grip and find me some tablets, will you? I'm

He made an effort and stretched out on the bed. "Good Lord," he muttered, "I haven't had such a headache

His voice trailed off. Bassett, bending over the army kit bag in the corner, straightened and looked around.

For a long time the reporter sat by the side of the bed, watching him and trying to plan some course of action.

He was overcome by his own responsibility, and by the prospect of tragedy that threatened. That Livingstone

was Clark, and that he would insist on surrendering himself when he wakened, he could no longer doubt. His

mind wandered back to that day when he had visited the old house as a patient, and from that along the

strange road they had both come since then. He reflected, not exactly in those terms, that life, any man's life,

was only one thread in a pattern woven of an infinite number of threads, and that to tangle the one thread was

to interfere with all the others. David Livingstone, the girl in the blue dress, the man twitching uneasily on the

The maid tapped at the door. He opened it an inch or so and sent her off. In view of his new determination

even the maid had become a danger. She was the same elderly woman who looked after his own bedroom,

and she might have known Clark. Just what Providence had kept him from recognition before this he did not

After an hour or so Bassett locked the door behind him and went down to lunch. He was not hungry, but he

wanted to get out of the room, to think without that quiet figure before him. Over the pretence of food he

faced the situation. Lying ready to his hand was the biggest story of his career, but he could not carry it

through. It was characteristic of him that, before abandoning it, he should follow through to the end the result

of its publication. He did not believe, for instance, that either Dick's voluntary surrender or his own disclosure

of the situation necessarily meant a conviction for murder. To convict a man of a crime he did not know he

had committed would be difficult. But, with his customary thoroughness he followed that through also.

Livingstone acquitted was once again Clark, would be known to the world as Clark. The new place he had so

painfully made for himself would be gone. The story would follow him, never to be lived down. And in his

particular profession confidence and respect were half the game. All that would be gone.

Thus by gradual stages he got back to David, and he struggled for the motive which lay behind every decisive

human act. A man who followed a course by which he had nothing to gain and everything to lose was either a

fool or was actuated by some profound unselfishness. To save a life? But with all the resources Clark could

have commanded, added to his personal popularity, a first degree sentence would have been unlikely. Not a

It came to him, then, in a great light of comprehension, the thing David had tried to do; to take this waster

and fugitive, the slate of his mind wiped clean by shock and illness, only his childish memories remaining,

and on it to lead him to write a new record. To take the body he had found, and the always untouched soul,

And with that comprehension came the conviction, too, that David had succeeded. He had indeed made a

He ate absently, consulting his railroad schedule and formulating the arguments he meant to use against

Dick's determination to give himself up. He foresaw a struggle there, but he himself held one or two strong

cards the ruthless undoing of David's work, the involving of David for conspiring against the law. And

He was more at ease in the practical arrangements. An express went through on the main line at midnight,

and there was a local on the branch line at eight. But the local train, the railway station, too, were full of

possible dangers. After some thought he decided to get a car, drive down to the main line with Dick, and then

He went out at once and made an arrangement for a car, and on returning notified the clerk that he was going

to leave, and asked to have his bill made out. After some hesitation he said: "I'll pay threetwenty too, while

As he turned away he saw the short, heavy figure of Wilkins coming in. He stood back and watched. The

sheriff went to the desk, pulled the register toward him and ran over several pages of it. Then he shoved it

"Yes. I took a little horseback trip into the mountains. My knees are still not on speaking terms.''

"Come and sit down," he said. "I'm going to watch who goes in and out of here for a while."

Bassett followed him unwillingly to two chairs that faced the desk and the lobby. He had the key of Dick's

room in his pocket, but he knew that if he wakened he could easily telephone and have his door unlocked.

But that was not his only anxiety. He had a sudden conviction that the Sheriff's watch was connected with

Dick himself. Wilkins, from a friendly and gregarious fellowbeing, had suddenly grown to sinister

And, as the minutes went by, with the Sheriff sitting forward and watching the lobby and staircase with

intent, unblinking eyes, Bassett's anxiety turned to fear. He found his heart leaping when the room bells rang,

and the clerk, with a glance at the annunciator, sent boys hurrying off. His hands shook, and he felt them cold

and moist. And all the time Wilkins was holding him with a flow of unimportant chatter.

"All right. Now get this I want everything decent and in order. No excitement. I'll come out behind him,

and you and Bill stand by. Outside I'll speak to him, and when we walk off, just fall in behind. But keep

Bill wandered off, to take up a stand of extreme nonchalance inside the entrance. When Wilkins turned to

him again Bassett had had a moment to adjust himself, and more or less to plan his own campaign.

"Somebody's out of luck," he commented. "And speaking of being out of luck, I've got a sick man on my

"Too bad," Wilkins commented rather absently. Then, perhaps feeling that he had not shown proper interest,

"Tell you what I'll do. I've got some buisness on hand now, but it'll be cleared up one way or another pretty

soon. I'll bring my car around and take him to the station. These hacks are the limit to ride in."

The disaster to his plans thus threatened steadied the reporter, and he managed to keep his face impassive.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll let you know if he's able to travel. Is this is this business you're on confidential?"

"Well, it is and it isn't. I've talked some to you, and as you're leaving anyhow it's the Jud Clark case again."

"Sort of hysteria, I suppose. He'll be seen all over the country for the next six months."

"Yes. But I never saw a hysterical Indian. Well, a little while ago an Indian woman named Lizzie Lazarus

blew into my office. She's a smart woman. Her husband was a breed, dairy hand on the Clark ranch for years.

Lizzie was the first Indian woman in these parts to go to school, and besides being smart, she's got Indian

sight. You know these Indians. When they aren't blind with trachoma they can see further and better than a

"Well, she blew in. You know there was a reward out for him, and I guess it still stands. I'll have to look it up,

for if Maggie Donaldson wasn't crazy some one will turn him up some day, probably. Well, Lizzie blew in,

and she said she'd seen Jud Clark. Saw him standing at a second story window of this hotel. Can you beat

"That's what I said at first. But I don't know. In some ways it would be like him. He wouldn't mind coming

back and giving us the laugh, if he thought he could get away with it. He didn't know fear. Only time he ever

showed funk was when he beat it after the shooting, and then he was full of hootch, and on the edge of

"A man doesn't play jokes with the hangman's rope," Bassett commented, dryly. He looked at his watch and

rose. "It's a good story, but I wouldn't wear out any trouserseats sitting here watching for him. If he's living

he's taken pretty good care for ten years not to put his head in the noose; and I'd remember this, too.

Wherever he is, if he is anywhere, he's probably so changed his appearance that Telescope Lizzie wouldn't

"Probably," the Sheriff said, comfortably. "Still I'm not taking any chances. I'm up for reelection this fall, and

that Donaldson woman's story nearly queered me. I've got a fellow at the railroad station, just for luck."

Bassett went up the stairs and along the corridor, deep in dejected thought. The trap of his own making was

closing, and his active mind was busy with schemes for getting Dick away before it shut entirely.

It might be better, in one way, to keep Livingstone there in his room until the alarm blew over. On the other

hand, Livingstone himself had to be dealt with, and that he would remain quiescent under the circumstances

was unlikely. The motor to the main line seemed to be the best thing. True, he would have first to get

Livingstone to agree to go. That done, and he did not underestimate its difficulty, there was the question of

When he found Dick still sleeping he made a careful survey of the second floor. There was a second staircase,

but investigation showed that it led into the kitchens. He decided finally on a fireescape from a rear hall

window, which led into a courtyard littered with the untidy rubbish of an overcrowded and undermanned

hotel, and where now two or three saddled horses waited while their riders ate within.

When he had made certain that he was not observed he unlocked and opened the window, and removed the

wire screen. There was a red fireexit lamp in the ceiling nearby, but he could not reach it, nor could he find

any wall switch. Nevertheless he knew by that time that through the window lay Dick's only chance of

escape. He cleared the grating of a broken box and an empty flower pot, stood the screen outside the wall,

and then, still unobserved, made his way back to his own bedroom and packed his belongings.

Dick was still sleeping, stretched on his bed, when he returned to threetwenty. And here Bassett's careful

plans began to go awry, for Dick's body was twitching, and his face was pale and covered with a cold sweat.

From wondering how they could get away, Bassett began to wonder whether they would get away at all. The

sleep was more like a stupor than sleep. He sat down by the bed, closer to sheer fright than he had ever been

As the afternoon wore on, it became increasingly evident that somehow or other he must get a doctor. He

turned the subject over in his mind, pro and con. If he could get a new man, one who did not remember Jud

Clark, it might do. But he hesitated until, at seven, Dick opened his eyes and clearly did not know him. Then

he knew that the matter was out of his hands, and that from now on whatever it was that controlled the affairs

He got his hat and went out, and down the stairs again. Wilkins had disappeared, but Bill still stood by the

entrance, watching the crowd that drifted in and out. In his state of tension he felt that the hotel clerk's eyes

were suspicious as he retained the two rooms for another day, and that Bill watched him out with more than

casual interest. Even the matter of cancelling the order for the car loomed large and suspicionbreeding

before him, but he accomplished it, and then set out to find medical assistance.

There, however, chance favored him. The first doctor's sign led him to a young man, new to the town, and

obviously at leisure. Not that he found that out at once. He invented a condition for himself, as he had done

once before, got a prescription and paid for it, learned what he wanted, and then mentioned Dick. He was

"I'll admit he's got me worried," he finished. "He saw me registered and came to my room this morning to see

me, and got sick there. That is, he said he had a violent headache and was dizzy. I got him to his room and on

He was conscious of Bill's eyes on him as they went through the lobby again, but he realized now that they

were unsuspicious. Bassett himself was in a hot sweat. He stopped outside the room and mopped his face.

"Look kind of shot up yourself," the doctor commented. "Watch this sun out here. Because it's dry here you

He made a careful examination of the sleeping man, while Bassett watched his face.

"No. But I think not. I gave him a small drink this morning, when he seemed to need it."

Once more the medical man stooped. When he straightened it was to deliver Bassett a body blow.

"I don't like his condition, or that twitching. If these were the good old days in Wyoming I'd say he is on the

verge of delirium tremens. But that's only snap judgment. He might be on the verge of a good many things.

And against this commonsense suggestion Bassett had nothing to offer. If the doctor had been looking he

"That's my advice. I'll look in later, and if the stupor continues I'll have in a consultant." He picked up his bag

and stood looking down at the bed. "Big finelooking chap, isn't he?" he commented. "Married?"

"Well, we'll get the ambulance, and later on we'll go over him properly. I'd call a maid to sit with him, if I

were you." In the grip of a situation that was too much for him, Bassett rang the bell. It was answered by the

Months later, puzzling over the situation, Bassett was to wonder, and not to know, whether chance or design

brought the Thorwald woman to the door that night. At the time, and for weeks, he laid it to tragic chance, the

same chance which had placed in Dick's hand the warning letter that had brought him West. But as months

went on, the part played in the tragedy by that faded woman with her tired dispirited voice and her ash

colored hair streaked with gray, assumed other proportions, loomed large and mysterious.

There were times when he wished that some prescience of danger had made him throttle her then and there,

so she could not have raised her shrill, alarming voice! But he had no warning. All he saw was a woman in a

washedout blue calico dress and a fresh white apron, raising incurious eyes to his.

"I suppose it's all right if she sits in the hall?" Bassett inquired, still fighting his losing fight. "She can go in if

"Righto," said the doctor, who had been to France and had brought home some British phrases.

Bassett walked back from the hospital alone. The game was up and he knew it. Sooner or later In a way he

tried to defend himself to himself. He had done his best. Two or three days ago he would have been exultant

over the developments. After all, mince things as one would, Clark was a murderer. Other men killed and

paid the penalty. And the game was not up entirely, at that. The providence which had watched over him for

so long might continue to. The hospital was new. (It was, ironically enough, the Clark Memorial hospital.)

He was conscious of something strange as he entered the lobby. The constable was gone, and there was no

clerk behind the desk. At the foot of the stairs stood a group of guests and loungers, looking up, while a

Even then Bassett's first thought was of fire. He elbowed his way to the foot of the stairs, and demanded to be

"I don't know myself. I've got my orders. That's all." Wilkins came hurrying in. The crowd, silent and

To Elizabeth the first days of Dick's absence were unbelievably dreary. She seemed to live only from one

visit of the postman to the next. She felt sometimes that only part of her was at home in the Wheeler house,

slept at night in her white bed, donned its black frocks and took them off, and made those sad daily

pilgrimages to the cemetery above the town, where her mother tidied with tender hands the long narrow

That part of her grieved sorely, and spent itself in small comforting actions and little caressing touches on

bowed heads and griefstooped shoulders. It put away Jim's clothing, and kept immaculate the room where

now her mother spent most of her waking hours. It sent her on her knees at night to pray for Jim's happiness

in some youngman heaven which would please him. But the other part of her was not there at all. It was off

with Dick in some mysterious place of mountains and vast distance called Wyoming.

And because of this division in herself, because she felt that her loyalty to her people had wavered, because

she knew that already she had forsaken her father and her mother and would follow her love through the rest

"She's taking Dick's absence very hard," Mrs. Wheeler said one night, when she had kissed them and gone

Mr. Wheeler sighed. Why was it that a man could not tell his children what he had learned, that nothing

was so great as one expected; that love was worth living for, but not dying for. The impatience of youth for

life! It had killed Jim. It was hurting Nina. It would all come, all come, in God's good time. The young did

not live today, but always tomorrow. There seemed no time to live today, for any one. First one looked

ahead and said, "I will be so happy." And before one knew it one was looking back and saying: "I was so

"I'll take him around the block before I lock up," he said heavily. He bent over and kissed his wife. She was a

sad figure to him in her black dress. He did not say to her what he thought sometimes; that Jim had been

saved a great deal. That to live on, and to lose the things one loved, one by one, was harder than to go

He had not told her what he knew about Jim's companion that night. She would never have understood. In her

simple and childlike faith she knew that her boy sat that day among the blessed company of heaven. He

himself believed that Jim had gone forgiven into whatever lay behind the veil we call death, had gone shriven

and clean before the Judge who knew the urge of youth and life. He did not fear for Jim. He only missed him.

He walked around the block that night, a stooped commonplace figure, the dog at his heels. Now and then he

spoke to him, for companionship. At the corner he stopped and looked along the side street toward the

Livingstone house. And as he looked he sighed. Jim and Nina, and now Elizabeth. Jim and Nina were beyond

his care now. He could do no more. But what could he do for Elizabeth? That, too, wasn't that beyond him?

He stood still, facing the tragedy of his helplessness, beset by vague apprehensions. Then he went on

He lay awake for a long time that night, wondering whether he and Dick had been quite fair to Elizabeth. She

should, he thought, have been told. Then, if Dick's apprehensions were justified, she would have had some

preparation. As it was Suppose something turned up out there, something that would break her heart?

He had thought Margaret was sleeping, but after a time she moved and slipped her hand into his. It comforted

him. That, too, was life. Very soon now they would be alone together again, as in the early days before the

children came. All the years and the struggle, and then back where they started. But still, thank God, hand in

Ever since the night of Jim's death Mrs. Sayre had been a constant visitor to the house. She came in, solid,

practical, and with an everyday manner neither forcedly cheerful nor too decorously mournful, which made

her very welcome. After the three first days, when she had practically lived at the house, there was no

necessity for small pretensions with her. She knew the china closet and the pantry, and the kitchen. She had

even penetrated to Mr. Wheeler's shabby old den on the second floor, and had slept a part of the first night

there on the leather couch with broken springs which he kept because it fitted his body.

She was a kindly woman, and she had ached with pity. And, because of her usual detachment from the town

and its affairs, the feeling that she was being of service gave her a little glow of content. She liked the family,

too, and particularly she liked Elizabeth. But after she had seen Dick and Elizabeth together once or twice she

felt that no plan she might make for Wallace could possibly succeed. Lying on the old leather couch that first

night, between her frequent excursions among the waking family, she had thought that out and abandoned it.

But, during the days that followed the funeral, she was increasingly anxious about Wallace. She knew that

rumors of the engagement had reached him, for he was restless and irritable. He did not care to go out, but

wandered about the house or until late at night sat smoking alone on the terrace, looking down at the town

with sunken, unhappy eyes. Once or twice in the evening he had taken his car and started out, and lying

awake in her French bed she would hear him coming hours later. In the mornings his eyes were suffused and

On the third day after Dick's departure for the West she got up when she heard him coming in, and putting on

She found him with his coat off, standing half defiantly with a glass of whisky and soda in his hand. She went

"We've had enough of that in the family, Wallie," she said. "And it's a pretty poor resource in time of

"Nonsense," she said briskly, and flung it, glass and all, out of the window. She was rather impressive when

"I've been a fairly indulgent mother," she said. "I've let you alone, because it's a Sayre trait to run away when

they feel a pull on the bit. But there's a limit to my patience, and it is reached when my son drinks to forget a

He flushed and glowered at her in somber silence, but she moved about the room calmly, giving it a

"I don't believe you ever cared for any one in all your life," he said roughly. "If you had, you would know."

She was straightening a picture over the mantel, and she completed her work before she turned.

"Very well, then. I cared for your father. I cared terribly. And he killed my love."

She padded out of the room, her heavy square body in its blazing kimono a trifle rigid, but her face still and

calm. He remained staring at the door when she had closed it, and for some time after. He knew what

message for him had lain behind that emotionless speech of hers, not only understanding, but a warning. She

had cared terribly, and his father had killed that love. He had drunk and played through his gay young life,

She had left the decanter on its stand, and he made a movement toward it. Then, with a half smile, he picked

it up and walked to the window with it. He was still smiling, half boyishly, as he put out his light and got into

bed. It had occurred to him that the milkman's flivver, driving in at the break of dawn, would encounter

By morning, after a bad night, he had made a sort of doubleheaded resolution, that he was through with

booze, as he termed it, and that he would find out how he stood with Elizabeth. But for a day or two no

opportunity presented itself. When he called there was always present some gravefaced sympathizing

visitor, dark clad and low of voice, and over the drawingroom would hang the indescribable hush of a house

in mourning. It seemed to touch Elizabeth, too, making her remote and beyond earthly things. He would go

in, burning with impatience, hungry for the mere sight of her, fairly overcharged with emotion, only to face

Once he found Clare Rossiter there, and was aware of something electric in the air. After a time he identified

it. Behind the Rossiter girl's soft voice and sympathetic words, there was a veiled hostility. She was watching

Elizabeth, was overconscious of her. And she was, for some reason, playing up to himself. He thought he saw

"I'm on my way to see the man Dick Livingstone left in his place," Clare said, adjusting her veil at the mirror.

"I've got a cold. Isn't it queer, the way the whole Livingstone connection is broken up?"

"Possibly. But if you ask me, I don't believe Dick will come back. Mind, I don't defend the town, but it

doesn't like to be fooled. And he's fooled it for years. I know a lot of people who'd quit going to him." She

"He isn't David's nephew, you know. The question is, who is he? Of course I don't say it, but a good many are

She gave them no chance to reply, but sauntered out with her sexconscious, halfsensuous walk. Outside

the door her smile faded, and her face was hard and bitter. She might forget Dick Livingstone, but never

would she forgive herself for her confession to Elizabeth, nor Elizabeth for having heard it.

"What's got into her?" he inquired. And then, seeing Elizabeth's white face, rather shrewdly: "That was one

He straightened, and looked past her, unseeing, at the wall. "I guess I've known it for quite a while," he said

"He's a good fellow," he said, after rather a long silence. "Not that that makes it easier," he added with a

He sat down, and when the dog came and placed a head on his knee he patted it absently. He wanted to go,

"I've cared for you for years," he said. "I've been a poor lot, but I'd have been a good bit worse, except for

"Only last night I made up my mind that if you'd have me, I'd make something out of myself. I suppose a

She yearned over him, rather. She made little tentative overtures of friendship and affection. But he scarcely

seemed to hear them, wrapped as he was in the selfish absorption of his disappointment. When she heard the

postman outside and went to the door for the mail, she thought he had not noticed her going. But when she

He went away soon, and not after all with the feeling of going for good. In his sceptical young mind, fed by

When Wilkins had disappeared around the angle of the staircase Bassett went to a chair and sat down. He felt

sick, and his knees were trembling. Something had happened, a search for Clark room by room perhaps, and

He was totally unable to think or to plan. With Dick well they could perhaps have made a run for it. The

fireescape stood ready. But as things were The murmuring among the crowd at the foot of the stairs

ceased, and he looked up. Wilkins was on the staircase, searching the lobby with his eyes. When he saw

"You're mixed up in this somehow," he said sharply. "You might as well come over with the story. We'll get

With the words, and the knowledge that in some incredible fashion Dick had made his escape, Bassett's mind

"What's eating you, Wilkins?" he demanded. "Who got away? I couldn't get that tonguetied bellhop to tell

"Don't stall, Bassett. You've had Jud Clark hidden upstairs in threetwenty all day."

Bassett got up and towered angrily over the Sheriff. The crowd had turned and was watching.

"In threetwenty?" he said. "You're crazy. Jud Clark! Let me tell you something. I don't know what you've

got in your head, but threetwenty is a Doctor Livingstone from near my home town. Well known and highly

respected, too. What's more, he's a sick man, and if he's got away, as you say, it's because he is delirious. I

had a doctor in to see him an hour ago. I've just arranged for a room at the hospital for him. Does that look as

The positiveness of his identification and his indignation resulted in a change in Wilkins' manner.

"I'll ask you to stay here until I come back." His tone was official, but less suspicious. "We'll have him in a

half hour. It's Clark all right. I'm not saying you knew it was Clark, but I want to ask you some questions."

He went out, and Bassett heard him shouting an order in the street. He went to the street door, and realized

that a search was going on, both by the police and by unofficial volunteers. Men on horseback clattered by to

guard the borders of the town, and in the vicinity of the hotel searchers were investigating yards and

Bassett himself was helpless. He stood by, watching the fire of his own igniting, conscious of the curious

scrutiny of the few hotel loungers who remained, and expecting momentarily to hear of Dick's capture. It

must come eventually, he felt sure. As to how Dick had been identified, or by what means he had escaped, he

was in complete ignorance; and an endeavor to learn by establishing the former entente cordiale between the

room clerk and himself was met by a suspicious glance and what amounted to a snub. He went back to his

"I'll see you now," he said briefly, and led the way back to the hotel office behind the desk. Bassett's last hope

died when he saw sitting there, pale but composed, the elderly maid. The Sheriff lost no time.

"Now I'll tell you what we know about your connection with this case, Bassett," he said. "You engaged a car

to take you both to the main line tonight. You paid off Clark's room as well as your own this afternoon.

"I'll let that go. You intended to take the midnight on the main line, but you ordered a car instead of using the

"Livingstone was sick. I thought it would be easier. That's all." His voice sharpened. "You can't drag me into

this, Sheriff. In the first place I don't believe it was Clark, or he wouldn't have come here, of all places on the

earth. I didn't even know he was here, until he came into my room this morning."

"He had seen that I was registered. He said he felt sick. I took him back and put him to bed. Tonight I got a

The Sheriff felt in his pocket and produced a piece of paper. Bassett's morale was almost destroyed when he

"I see," he said. "Well, that explains why he came here. He was too sick to talk when I saw him. You see, this

is not addressed to him, but to his uncle, David Livingstone. David Livingstone is a brother of Henry

Livingstone, who died some years ago at Dry River. This refers to a personal matter connected with the

"All right, Hattie," he said. "We'll have that story again. But just a minute." He turned to the reporter. "Mrs.

Thorwald here hasn't seen Lizzie Lazarus, the squaw. Lizzie has been sitting in my office ever since noon.

"It was Jud Clark, all right," she said. "I knew him all his life, off and on. But I wish I hadn't screamed. I don't

"What did I tell you?" he said to Bassett. "Hell with the women that was Jud Clark. And we'll get him,

"When you left me, I sat outside the door, as you said. Then I heard him moving, and I went in. The room

was not very light, and I didn't know him at first. He sat up in bed and looked at me, and he said, 'Why, hello,

Hattie Thorwald.' That's my name. I married a Swede. Then he looked again, and he said, 'Excuse me, I

thought you were a Mrs. Thorwald, but I see now you're older.' I recognized him then, and I thought I was

going to faint. I knew he'd be arrested the moment it was known he was here. I said, 'Lie down, Mr. Jud.

Her voice broke; she fumbled for a handkerchief. The Sheriff glanced at Bassett.

"Now where's your Livingstone story?" he demanded. "All right, Hattie. Let's have it."

"I said, 'For God's sake, Mr. Jud, lie still, until I think what to do. The Sheriff's likely downstairs this very

minute.' And then he went queer and wild. He jumped off the bed and stood listening and staring, and shaking

all over. 'I've got to get away,' he said, very loud. 'I won't let them take me. I'll kill myself first!' When I put

my hand on his arm he threw it off, and he made for the door. I saw then that he was delirious with fever, and

I stood in front of the door and begged him not to go out. But he threw me away so hard that that I fell, and I

"That's all. If I hadn't been almost out of my mind I'd never have told that it was Jud Clark. That'll hang on

An hour or so later Bassett went back to his room in a state of mental and nervous exhaustion. He knew that

from that time on he would be under suspicion and probably under espionage, and he proceeded

methodically, his door locked, to go over his papers. His notebook and the cuttings from old files relative to

the Clark case he burned in his wash basin and then carefully washed the basin. That done, his attendance on

a sick man, and the letter found on the bed was all the positive evidence they had to connect him with the

case. He had had some thought of slipping out by the fireescape and making a search for Dick on his own

account, but his lack of familiarity with his surroundings made that practically useless.

At midnight he stretched out on his bed without undressing, and went over the situation carefully. He knew

nothing of the various neuroses which affect the human mind, but he had a vague impression that memory

when lost did eventually return, and Dick's recognition of the chambermaid pointed to such a return. He

wondered what a man would feel under such conditions, what he would think. He could not do it. He

abandoned the effort finally, and lay frowning at the ceiling while he considered his own part in the

catastrophe. He saw himself, following his training and his instinct, leading the inevitable march toward this

night's tragedy, planning, scheming, searching, and now that it had come, lying helpless on his bed while the

He made the resolution then that was to be the guiding motive for his life for the next few months, to fight the

thing of his own creating to a finish. But with the resolution newly made he saw the futility of it. He might

fight, would fight, but nothing could restore to Dick Livingstone the place he had made for himself in the

All at once he was aware that some one was working stealthily at the lock of the door which communicated

with a room beyond. He slid cautiously off the bed and went to the light switch, standing with a hand on it,

and waited. The wild thought that it might be Livingstone was uppermost in his mind, and when the door

"No," said a woman's voice in a whisper. "It's the maid, Hattie. Be careful. There's a guard at the top of the

He heard her moving to his outer door, and he knew that she stood there, listening, her head against the panel.

When she was satisfied she slipped, with the swiftness of familiarity with her surroundings, to the stand

beside his bed, and turned on the lamp. In the shaded light he saw that she wore a dark cape, with its hood

drawn over her head. In some strange fashion the maid, even the woman, was lost, and she stood, strange,

"If you found Jud Clark, what would you do with him?" she demanded. >From beneath the hood her eyes

"Plan? No. They've got every outlet closed, haven't they? Do you know where he is?"

"I know where he isn't, or they'd have him by now. And I know Jud Clark. He'd take to the mountains, same

"Listen. I haven't told this, and I don't mean to. They'll learn it in a couple of hours, anyhow. He got out by a

back fireescape they know that. But they don't know he took Ed Rickett's black mare. They think he's on

foot. I've been down there now, and she's gone. Ed's shut up in a room on the top floor, playing poker. They

won't break up until about three o'clock and he'll miss his horse then. That's two hours yet."

Bassett tried to see her face in the shadow of the hood. He was puzzled and suspicious at her change of front,

"How do I know you are not working with Wilkins?" he demanded. "You could have saved the situation

He was forced to trust her, eventually, although the sense of some hidden motive, some urge greater than

"You've got some sort of plan for me, then? I can't follow him haphazard into the mountains at night, and

"Yes. He was delirious when he left. That thing about the Sheriff being after him he wasn't after him then.

Not until I gave the alarm. He's delirious, and he thinks he's back to the night he you know. Wouldn't he do

the same thing again, and make for the mountains and the cabin? He went to the cabin before."

"You might, on foot. They'll be trailing Rickett's horse by dawn. And if you can get out of town I can get you

A feeling of theatrical unreality was Bassett's chief emotion during the trying time that followed. The cloaked

and shrouded figure of the woman ahead, the passage through two dark and empty rooms by pass key to an

unguarded corridor in the rear, the descent of the fireescape, where they stood flattened against the wall

while a man, possibly one of the posse, rode in, tied his horse and stamped in high heeled boots into the

building, and always just ahead the sure movement and silent tread of the woman, kept his nerves taut and

At the foot of the fireescape the woman slid out of sight noiselessly, but under Bassett's feet a tin can rolled

and clattered. Then a horse snorted close to his shoulder, and he was frozen with fright. After that she gave

him her hand, and led him through an empty outbuilding and another yard into a street.

At two o'clock that morning Bassett, waiting in a lonely road near what he judged to be the camp of a drilling

crew, heard a horse coming toward him and snorting nervously as it came and drew back into the shadows

"It belongs to my son," she said. "I'll fix it with him tomorrow. But if you're caught you'll have to say you

She gave him careful instructions as to how to find the trail, and urged him to haste.

He mounted and prepared to ride off. He would have shaken hands with her, but the horse was still terrified at

her shrouded figure and veered and snorted when she approached. "However it turns out," he said, "you've

The horse moved off and left her standing there, her cowl drawn forward and her hands crossed on her breast.

She stood for a moment, facing toward the mountains, oddly monkish in outline and posture. Then she turned

Dick had picked up life again where he had left it off so long before. Gone was David's house built on the

sands of forgetfulness. Gone was David himself, and Lucy. Gone not even born into his consciousness was

Elizabeth. The war, his work, his new place in the world, were all obliterated, drowned in the flood of

Not that the breaking point had revealed itself as such at once. There was confusion first, then stupor and

unconsciousness, and out of that, sharply and clearly, came memory. It was not ten years ago, but an hour

ago, a minute ago, that he had stood staring at Howard Lucas on the floor of the billiard room, and had seen

He moved and found he was in bed. It had been a dream. He drew a long breath, looked about the room, saw

the woman and greeted her. But already he knew he had not been dreaming. Things were sharpening in his

mind. He shuddered and looked at the floor, but nobody lay there. Only the horror in his mind, and the

instinct to get away from it. He was not thinking at all, but rising in him was not only the need for flight, but

the sense of pursuit. They were after him. They would get him. They must never get him alive.

Instinct and will took the place of thought, and whatever closed chamber in his brain had opened, it clearly

influenced his physical condition. He bore all the stigmata of prolonged and heavy drinking; his nerves were

gone; he twitched and shook. When he got down the fireescape his legs would scarcely hold him.

The discovery of Ed Rickett's horse in the courtyard, saddled and ready, fitted in with the brain pattern of the

Like one who enters a room for the first time, to find it already familiar, for a moment he felt that this thing

that he was doing he had done before. Only for a moment. Then partial memory ceased, and he climbed into

the saddle, rode out and turned toward the mountains and the cabin. By that strange quality of the brain which

is called habit, although the habit be of only one emphatic precedent, he followed the route he had taken ten

years before. How closely will never be known. Did he stop at this turn to look back, as he had once before?

Did he let his horse breathe there? Not the latter, probably, for as, following the blind course that he had

followed ten years before, he left the town and went up the canyon trail, he was riding as though all the devils

One thing is certain. The reproduction of the conditions of the earlier flight, the familiar associations of the

trail, must have helped rather than hindered his fixation in the past. Again he was Judson Clark, who had

Before long his horse was in acute distress, but he did not notice it. At the top of the long climb the animal

stopped, but he kicked him on recklessly. He was as unaware of his own fatigue, or that he was swaying in

He lay still for some time; not hurt but apparently lacking the initiative to get up again. He had at that period

the alternating lucidity and mental torpor of the half drunken man. But struggling up through layers of

blackness at last there came again the instinct for flight, and he got on the horse and set off.

The torpor again overcame him and he slept in the saddle. When the horse stopped he roused and kicked it

on. Once he came up through the blackness to the accompaniment of a great roaring, and found that the

animal was saddle deep in a ford, and floundering badly among the rocks. He turned its head upstream, and

Toward dawn some of the confusion was gone, but he firmly fixed in the past. The horse wandered on, head

down, occasionally stopping to seize a leaf as it passed, and once to drink deeply at a spring. Dick was still

not thinking there was something that forbade him to thinkbut he was weak and emotional. He muttered:

A great wave of tenderness and memory swept over him. Poor Bev! He had made life hell for her, all right.

He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to turn the horse around, go back and see her once more. He was

gone anyhow. They would get him. And he wanted her to know that he would have died rather than do what

The flight impulse died; he felt sick and very cold, and now and then he shook violently. He began to watch

the trail behind him for the pursuit, but without fear. He seemed to have been wandering for a thousand black

nights through deep gorges and over peaks as high as the stars, and now he wanted to rest, to stop somewhere

and sleep, to be warm again. Let them come and take him, anywhere out of this nightmare.

With the dawn still gray he heard a horse behind and below him on the trail up the cliff face. He stopped and

sat waiting, twisted about in his saddle, his expression ugly and defiant, and yet touchingly helpless, the look

of a boy in trouble and at bay. The horseman came into sight on the trail below, riding hard, a middleaged

man in a dark sack suit and a straw hat, an oddly incongruous figure and manifestly weary. He rode bent

forward, and now and again he raised his eyes from the frail and searched the wall above with bloodshot,

On the turn below Dick, Bassett saw him for the first time, and spoke to him in a quiet voice.

"Hello, old man," he said. "I began to think I was going to miss you after all."

His scrutiny of Dick's face had rather reassured him. The delirium had passed, apparently. Dishevelled

although he was, covered with dust and with sweat from the horse, Livingstone's eyes were steady enough.

As he rode up to him, however, he was not so certain. He found himself surveyed with a sort of cool

"Miss me 1" Livingstone sneered bitterly. "With every damned hill covered by this time with your outfit! I'll

"My outfit! I'll tell you this, son, I've risked my neck half the night to get you out of this mess."

It was then that Bassett saw something not quite normal in his face, and he rode closer.

"See here, Livingstone," he said, in a soothing tone, "nobody's going to get you. I'm here to keep them from

Dick sat obstinately still, his horse turned across the trail, and his eyes still suspicious and unfriendly.

"I don't know you," he said doggedly. "And I've done all the running away I'm going to do. You go back and

tell Wilkins I'm here and to come and get me. The sooner the better." The sneer faded, and he turned on

Bassett with a depth of tragedy in his eyes that frightened the reporter. "My God," he said, "I killed a man last

"Last night!" Some faint comprehension began to dawn in Bassett's mind, a suspicion of the truth. But there

was no time to verify it. He turned and carefully inspected the trail to where it came into sight at the opposite

rim of the valley. When he was satisfied that the pursuit was still well behind them he spoke again.

"Pull yourself together, Livingstone," he said, rather sharply. "Think a bit. You didn't kill anybody last night.

Now listen," he added impressively. "You are Livingstone, Doctor Richard Livingstone. You stick to that,

But Dick was not listening, save to some bitter inner voice, for suddenly he turned his horse around on the

He would have done it, probably, would have crowded past Bassett on the narrow trail and headed back

toward capture, but for his horse. It balked and whirled on the ledge, but it would not pass Bassett. Dick

swore and kicked it, his face ugly and determined, but it refused sullenly. He slid out of the saddle then and

tried to drag it on, but he was suddenly weak and sick. He staggered. Bassett was off his horse in a moment

and caught him. He eased him onto a boulder, and he sat there, his shoulders sagging and his whole body

"Been drinking my head off," he said at last. "If I had a drink now I'd straighten out." He tried to sit up.

"That's what's the matter with me. I'm funking, of course, but that's not all. I'd give my soul for some

"I can get you a drink, if you'll come on about a mile," Bassett coaxed. "At the cabin you and I talked about

"Now you're talking." Dick made an effort and got to his feet, shaking off Bassett's assisting arm. "For God's

sake keep your hands off me," he said irritably. "I've got a hangover, that's all."

He got into his saddle without assistance and started off up the trail. Bassett once more searched the valley,

but it was empty save for a deer drinking at the stream far below. He turned and followed.

He was fairly hopeless by that time, what with Dick's unexpected resistance and the change in the man

himself. He was dealing with something he did not understand, and the hypothesis of delirium did not hold.

There was a sort of desperate sanity in Dick's eyes. That statement, now, about drinking his head off he

hadn't looked yesterday like a drinking man. But now he did. He was twitching, his hands shook. On the rock

his face had been covered with a cold sweat. What was that the doctor yesterday had said about delirium

He did not need to guide Dick to the cabin. He turned off the trail himself, and Bassett, following, saw him

dismount and survey the ruin with a puzzled face. But he said nothing. Bassett waiting outside to tie the

horses came in to find him sitting on one of the dilapidated chairs, staring around, but all he said was:

"Get me that drink, won't you? I'm going to pieces." Bassett found his tin cup where he had left it on a shelf

It had an almost immediate effect. The twitching grew less, and a faint color came into Dick's face. He stood

up and stretched himself. "That's better," he said. "I was all in. I must have been riding that infernal horse for

He wandered about while the reporter made a fire and set the coffee pot to boil. Bassett, glancing up once,

saw him surveying the ruined leanto from the doorway, with an expression he could not understand. But he

did not say anything, nor did he speak again until Bassett called him to get some food. Even then he was

"I don't think so," Bassett replied, and went to the doorway. "No," he called back over his shoulder, "you go

He ate very little, but drank of the coffee. Bassett too ate almost nothing. He was pulling himself together for

the struggle that was to come, marshaling his arguments for flight, and trying to fathom the extent of the

Dick put down his tin cup and got up. He was strong again, and the nightmare confusion of the night had

passed away. Instead of it there was a desperate lucidity and a courage born of desperation. He remembered it

all distinctly; he had killed Howard Lucas the night before. Before long Wilkins or some of his outfit would

ride up to the door, and take him back to Norada. He was not afraid of that. They would always think he had

run away because he was afraid of capture, but it was not that. He had run away from Bev's face. Only he had

But he would have to go back. He couldn't be caught like a rat in a trap. The Clarks didn't run away. They

were fighters. Only the Clarks didn't kill. They fought, but they didn't murder.

"Well, you've been mighty kind, old man," he said. "But I've got to go back. I ran last night like a scared kid,

"I'd give a good bit," Bassett said, watching him, "to know what made you run last night. You were safe

"I don't know what you are talking about," Dick said drearily. "I didn't run from them. I ran to get away from

something." He turned away irritably. "You wouldn't understand. Say I was drunk. I was, for that matter. I'm

"I see," he said quietly. "It was last night, was it, that this thing happened?"

"I've been riding all night. I didn't care what happened. I knew I'd run into a whale of a blizzard, but I "

He stopped and stared outside, to where the horses grazed in the upland meadow, knee deep in mountain

flowers. Bassett, watching him, saw the incredulity in his eyes, and spoke very gently.

"My dear fellow," he said, "you are right. Try to understand what I am saying, and take it easy. You rode into

Had Bassett had some wider knowledge of Dick's condition he might have succeeded better during that bad

hour that followed. Certainly, if he had hoped that the mere statement of fact and its proof would bring

results, he failed. And the need for haste, the fear of the pursuit behind them, made him nervous and

He had first to accept the incredible, himself that Dick Livingstone no longer existed, that he had died and

was buried deep in some chamber of an unconscious mind. He made every effort to revive him, to restore him

into the field of consciousness, but without result. And his struggle was increased in difficulty by the fact that

he knew so little of Dick's life. David's name meant nothing, apparently, and it was the only name he knew.

He described the Livingstone house; he described Elizabeth as he had seen her that night at the theater. Even

Minnie. But Dick only shook his head. And until he had aroused some instinct, some desire to live, he could

"I understand what you are saying," Dick would say. "I'm trying to get it. But it doesn't mean anything to

Bassett tried new tactics. He stressed the absurdity of surrendering for a crime committed ten years before

"They won't convict you anyhow," he urged. "It was a quarrel, wasn't it? I mean, you didn't deliberately shoot

But Bassett saw that his determination to surrender himself was weakening. Bassett fought it with every

argument he could summon, and at last he brought forward the one he felt might be conclusive.

"You see, you've not only made a man's place in the world, Clark, as I've told you. You've formed

associations you can't get away from. You've got to think of the Livingstones, and you told me yesterday a

shock would kill the old man. But it's more than that. There's a girl back in your town. I think you were

But if he had hoped to pierce the veil with that statement he failed. Dick's face flushed, and he went to the

door of the cabin, much as he had gone to the window the day before. He did not look around when he spoke.

"Then I'm an unconscionable cad," he said. "I've only cared for one woman in my life. And I've shipwrecked

Sometime later Bassett got on his horse and rode out to a ledge which commanded a long stretch of trail in

the valley below. Far away horsemen were riding along it, one behind the other, small dots that moved on

"We'd better be moving," he said, "and it's up to you to say where. You've got two choices. You can go back

to Norada and run the chance of arrest. You know what that means. Without much chance of a conviction you

will stand trial and bring wretchedness to the people who stood by you before and who care for you now. Or

you can go on over the mountains with me and strike the railroad somewhere to the West. You'll have time to

To his relief Dick acquiesced. He had become oddly passive; he seemed indeed not greatly interested. He did

not even notice the haste with which Bassett removed the evidences of their meal, or extinguished the dying

fire and scattered the ashes. Nor, when they were mounted, the care with which they avoided the trail. He

gave, when asked, information as to the direction of the railroad at the foot of the western slope of the range,

and at the same instigation found a trail for them some miles beyond their starting point. But mostly he

They made slow progress. Both horses were weary and hungry, and the going was often rough and even

dangerous. But for Dick's knowledge of the country they would have been hopelessly lost. Bassett, however,

although tortured with muscular soreness, felt his spirits rising as the miles were covered, and there was no

By midafternoon they were obliged to rest their horses and let them graze, and the necessity of food for

themselves became insistent. Dick stretched out and was immediately asleep, but the reporter could not rest.

The magnitude of his undertaking obsessed him. They had covered perhaps twenty miles since leaving the

cabin, and the railroad was still sixty miles away. With fresh horses they could have made it by dawn of the

next morning, but he did not believe their jaded animals could go much farther. The country grew worse

He was anxious, too, as to Dick's physical condition. The twitching was gone, but he was very pale and he

slept like a man exhausted and at his physical limit. But the necessity of crossing the pass before nightfall or

of waiting until dawn to do it drove Bassett back from an anxious reconnoitering of the trail at five o'clock, to

"Let me ahead, Bassett," he said peremptorily. "And give your horse his head. He'll take care of you if you

Bassett was glad to fall back. He was exhausted and nervous. The trail frightened him. It clung to the side of

a rocky wall, twisting and turning on itself; it ran under milky waterfalls of glacial water, and higher up it led

over an ice field which was a glassy bridge aver a rushing stream beneath. To add to their wretchedness

mosquitoes hung about them in voracious clouds, and tiny black gnats which got into their eyes and their

Once across the ice field Dick's horse fell and for a time could not get up again. He lay, making ineffectual

efforts to rise, his sides heaving, his eyes rolling in distress. They gave up then, and prepared to make such

With the setting of the sun it had grown bitterly cold, and Bassett was forced to light a fire. He did it under

the protection of the mountain wall, and Dick, after unsaddling his fallen horse, built a rough shelter of rocks

against the wind. After a time the exhausted horse got up, but there was no forage, and the two animals stood

disconsolate, or made small hopeless excursions, noses to the ground, among the moss and scrub pines.

Before turning in Bassett divided the remaining contents of the flask between them, and his last cigarettes.

Dick did not talk. He sat, his back to the shelter, facing the fire, his mind busy with what Bassett knew were

bitter and conflicting thoughts. Once, however, as the reporter was dozing off, Dick spoke.

He dozed, to waken again cold and shivering. The fire had burned low, and Dick was sitting near it,

unheeding, and in a deep study. He looked up, and Bassett was shocked at the quiet tragedy in his face.

Dick slept for only an hour or so that night, but as he slept he dreamed. In his dream he was at peace and

happy, and there was a girl in a black frock who seemed to be a part of that peace. When he roused, however,

still with the warmth of his dream on him, he could not summon her. She had slipped away among the

He sat by the fire in the grip of a great despair. He had lost ten years out of his life, his best years. And he

could not go back to where he had left off. There was nothing to go back to but shame and remorse. He

looked at Bassett, lying by the fire, and tried to fit him into the situation. Who was he, and why was he here?

As though his intent gaze had roused the sleeper, Bassett opened his eyes, at first drowsily, then wide awake.

He raised himself on his elbow and listened, as though for some faroff sound, and his face was strained and

Something that had been forming itself in Dick's mind suddenly crystallized into conviction. He rose and

walked to the edge of the mountain wall and stood there listening. When he went back to the fire he felt in his

pockets, found a small pad and pencil, and bending forward to catch the light, commenced to write... At dawn

Bassett wakened. He was stiff and wretched, and he grunted as he moved. He turned over and surveyed the

small plateau. It was empty, except for his horse, making its continuous, hopeless search for grass.

David was enjoying his holiday. He lay in bed most of the morning, making the most of his one

afterbreakfast cigar and surrounded by newspaper and magazines. He had made friends of the waiter who

brought his breakfast, and of the little chambermaid who looked after his room, and such conversations as

"Well, Nellie," he would say, "and did you go to the dance on the pier last night?"

"Yes, violets. I put one away to remember you by. It was funny at first. I wouldn't tell him who gave them to

"That's right," he would say. "Keep him guessing, the young rascal. We men are kittle cattle, Nellie, kittle

Even the valet unbent to him, and inquired if the doctor needed a man at home to look after him and his

"Well," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "I'll tell you how I manage now, and then you'll see. When I want

my trousers pressed I send them downstairs and then I wait in my bathrobe until they come back. I'm a trifle

better off for boots, but you'd have to knock Mike, my hired man, unconscious before he'd let you touch

"Of course, there's my nephew," David went on, a little note of pride in his voice. "He's become engaged

recently, and I notice he's bought some clothes. But still I don't think even he will want anybody to hold his

He was quite happy and contented. He spent all afternoon in a roller chair, conversing affably with the man

who pushed him, and now and then when Lucy was out of sight getting out and stretching his legs. He picked

up lost children and lonely dogs, and tried his eye in a shooting gallery, and had hard work keeping off the

Then, one day, when he had been gone some time, he was astonished on entering his hotel to find Harrison

"You old humbug!" he said. "Off on a jaunt after all! And the contempt of you when I was shipped here !"

Harrison Miller was constrained and uncomfortable. He had meant to see Lucy first. She was a sensible

woman, and she would know just what David could stand, or could not. But David did not notice his

constraint; took him to his room, made him admire the ocean view, gave him a cigar, and then sat down

"Suffering Crimus, Miller," he said. "I didn't know I was homesick until I saw you. Well, how's everything?

Harrison Miller cleared his throat. He knew that David had not been told of Jim Wheeler's death, but that

Lucy knew. He knew too from Walter Wheeler that David did not know that Dick had gone west. Did Lucy

know that, or not? Probably yes. But he considered the entire benevolent conspiracy an absurdity and a

mistake. It was making him uncomfortable, and most of his life had been devoted to being comfortable.

"Things are about the same," he said. "They're going to pave Chisholm Street. And your Mike knocked down

"I hope he hasn't been in my cellar. He's got a weakness, but then How's Dick? Not overworking?"

But David was no man's fool. He began to see something strange in Harrison's manner, and he bent forward

"Look here, Harrison," he said, "there's something the matter with you. You've got something on your mind."

"No. He's all right, as far as I know. I guess I'd better tell you, David. Walter Wheeler has got some sort of

bee in his bonnet, and he got me to come on. Dick was pretty tired and well, one or two things happened to

worry him. One was that Jim Wheeler you'll get this sooner or later was in an automobile accident, and it

"Poor Jim," he said hoarsely. "He was a good boy, only full of life. It will be hard on the family."

But David was resentful, too. When his friends were in trouble he wanted to know about it. He was somewhat

"I'll go back and send him off for a rest," he said. "I'm as good as I'll ever be, and the boy's tired. What's the

"Look here, David, you know your own business best, and Wheeler didn't feel at liberty to tell me very much.

But he seemed to think you were the only one who could tell us certain things. He'd have come himself, but

it's not easy for him to leave the family just now. Dick went away just after Jim's funeral. He left a young

chap named Reynolds in his place, and, I believe, in order not to worry you, some letters to be mailed at

"To a town called Norada, in Wyoming. Near his old home somewhere. And the Wheelers haven't heard

anything from him since the day he got there. That's three weeks ago. He wrote Elizabeth the night he got

David was gripping the arms of his chair with both hands, but he forced himself to calmness.

"I'll go to Norada at once," he said. "Get a timetable, Harrison, and ring for the valet."

"Not on your life you won't. I'm here to do that, when I've got something to go on. Wheeler thought you

might have heard from him. If you hadn't, I was to get all the information I could and then start. Elizabeth's

"Yes!" David said thickly. "Trust your friends to make every damned mistake possible! You've set the whole

pack on his trail." And then he fell back in his chair, and gasped, "Open the window!"

When Lucy came in, a half hour later, she found David on his bed with the hotel doctor beside him, and

Harrison Miller in the room. David was fighting for breath, but he was conscious and very calm. He looked

He looked aged and pinched, and entirely hopeless. Even after his heart had quieted down and he lay still

among his pillows, he gave no evidence of his old fighting spirit. He lay with his eyes shut, relaxed and

passive. He had done his best, and he had failed. It was out of his hands now, and in the hands of God. Once,

as he lay there, he prayed. He said that he had failed, and that now he was too old and weak to fight. That

God would have to take it on, and do the best He could. But he added that if God did not save Dick and bring

Toward morning he wakened from a light sleep. The door into Lucy's room was open and a dim light was

burning beyond it. David called her, and by her immediate response he knew she had not been sleeping.

"Yes, David," she said, and came padding in in her bedroom slippers and wadded dressinggown, a tragic

When she had done so he put out his hand, fumbling for hers. She was touched and alarmed, for it was a long

while since there had been any open demonstration of affection between them. David was silent for a time,

"I'm not in very good shape, Lucy. I suppose you know that. This old pump of mine has sprung a leak or

something. I don't want you to worry if anything happens. I've come to the time when I've got a good many

Lucy nodded. Her chin quivered. She smoothed his hand, with its high twisted veins.

"I know, David," she said. "Mother and father, and Henry, and a good many friends. But I need you, too.

"That's why I called you. If I can get out there, I'll go. And I'll put up a fight that will make them wish they'd

never started anything. But if I can't, if I " She felt his fingers tighten on her hand. "If Hattie Thorwald is

still living, we'll put her on the stand. If I can't go, for any reason, I want you to see that she is called. And

"Yes. Have the statement read first, and then have her called to corroborate it. Tell the story I have told you

or no, I'll dictate it to you in the morning, and sign it before witnesses. Jake and Bill will testify too."

He felt easier in his mind after that. He had marshalled his forces and begun his preparations for battle. He

felt less apprehension now in case he fell asleep, to waken among those he had loved long since and lost

awhile. After a few moments his eyes closed, and Lucy went back to her bed and crawled into it.

It was, however, Harrison Miller who took the statement that morning. Lucy's cramped old hand wrote too

slowly for David's impatience. Harrison Miller took it, on hotel stationery, covering the carefully numbered

pages with his neat, copperplate writing. He wrote with an impassive face, but with intense interest, for by

Never, in his orderly bachelor life, of daily papers and a flower garden and political economy at night, had he

been so close to the passions of men to love and hate and the disorder they brought with them.

My brother, Henry Livingstone, was not a strong man," David dictated. "He had the same heart condition I

have, but it developed earlier. After he left college he went to Arizona and bought a ranch, and there he met

and chummed with Elihu Clark, who had bought an old mine and was reworking it. Henry loaned him a small

amount of money at that time, and a number of years later in return for that, when Henry's health failed,

Clark, who had grown wealthy, bought him a ranch in Wyoming at Dry River, not far from Clark's own

"Henry had been teaching in an Eastern university, and then taken up tutoring. We saw little of him. He was a

student, and he became almost a recluse. I saw less of him than ever after Clark gave him the ranch.

"In the spring of 1910 Henry wrote me that he was not well, and I went out to see him. He seemed worried

and was in bad shape physically. Elihu Clark had died five years before, and left him a fair sum of money,

fifty thousand dollars, but he was living in a way which made me think he was not using it. The ranch

buildings were dilapidated, and there was nothing but the barest necessities in the house.

"I taxed Henry with miserliness, and he then told me that the money was not his, but left to him to be used for

an illegitimate son of Clark's, born before his marriage, the child of a small rancher's daughter named Hattie

Burgess. The Burgess girl had gone to Omaha for its birth, and the story was not known. In early years Clark

had paid the child's board through his lawyer to an Omaha woman named Hines, and had later sent him to

college. The Burgess girl married a Swede named Thorwald. The boy was eight years older than Judson,

"After the death of his wife Elihu Clark began to think about the child, especially after Judson became a

fairsized boy. He had the older boy, who went by the name of Hines, sent to college, and in summer he

stayed at Henry's tutoring school. Henry said the boy was like the Burgess family, blonde and excitable and

rather commonplace. He did not get on well at college, and did not graduate. So far as he knew, Clark never

"The boy himself believed that he was an orphan, and that the Hines woman had adopted him as a foundling.

But on the death of the woman he found that she had no estate, and that a firm of New York attorneys had

"He had spent considerable time with Henry, one way and another, and he began to think that Henry knew

who he was. He thought at first that Henry was his father, and there was some trouble. In order to end it

Henry finally acknowledged that he knew who the father was, and after that he had no peace. Clifton his

name was Clifton Hines attacked Henry once, and if it had not been for the two men on the place he would

"Henry began to give him money. Clark had left the fifty thousand for the boy with the idea that Henry

should start him in business with it. But he only turned up wildcat schemes that Henry would not listen to.

He did not know how Henry got the money, or from where. He thought for a long time that Henry had saved

"I'd better say here that Henry was fond of Clifton, although he didn't approve of him. He'd never married,

and the boy was like a son to him for a good many years. He didn't have him at the ranch much, however, for

he was a Burgess through and through and looked like them. And he was always afraid that somehow the

"Then Clifton learned, somehow or other, of Clark's legacy to Henry, and he put two and two together. There

was a bad time, but Henry denied it and they went upstairs to bed. That night Clifton broke into Henry's desk

"He almost went crazy. He took the papers up to Henry's and wakened him, standing over Henry with them in

hand, and shaking all over. I think they had a struggle, too. All Henry told me was that he took them from

"That was a year before Henry died, and at the time young Jud Clark's name was in all the newspapers. He

had left college after a wild career there, and although Elihu had tied up the property until Jud was

twentyone, Jud had his mother's estate and a big allowance. Then, too, he borrowed on his prospects, and he

lost a hundred thousand dollars at Monte Carlo within six weeks after he graduated.

"One way and another he was always in the newspapers, and when he saw how Jud was throwing money

"As Henry had burned the letters he had no proofs. He didn't know who his mother was, but he set to work to

find out. He ferreted into Elihu's past life, and he learned something about Hattie Burgess, or Thorwald. She

was married by that time, and lived on a little ranch near Norada. He went to see her, and he accused her

downright of being his mother. It must have been a bad time for her, for after all he was her son, and she had

to disclaim him. She had a husband and a boy by that husband, however, by that time, and she was desperate.

She threw him off the track somehow, lied and talked him down, and then went to bed in collapse. She sent

"The queer thing was that as soon as she saw him she wanted him. He was her son. She went to Henry one

night, and said she had perjured her soul, and that she wanted him back. She wasn't in love with Thorwald. I

think she'd always cared for Clark. She went away finally, however, after promising Henry she would keep

Clark's secret. But I have a suspicion that later on she acknowledged the truth to the boy.

"What he wanted, of course, was a share of the Clark estate. Of course he hadn't a chance in law, but he saw a

chance to blackmail young Jud Clark and he tried it. Not personally, for he hadn't any real courage, but by

mail. Clark's attorneys wrote back saying they would jail him if he tried it again, and he went back to Dry

"That was in the spring of 1911. Henry was uneasy, for Clifton was not like himself. He had spells of

brooding, and he took to making long trips on his horse into the mountains, and coming in with the animal

run to death. Henry thought, too, that he was seeing the Thorwald woman, the mother. Thorwald had died,

and she was living with the son on their ranch and trying to sell it. He thought Hines was trying to have her

"Henry was not well, and in the early fall he knew he hadn't long to live. He wrote out the story and left it in

his desk for me to read after he had gone, and as he added to it from time to time, when I got it it was almost

"Judson came back to the Clark ranch in September, bringing along an actress named Beverly Carlysle, and

her husband, Howard Lucas. There was considerable talk, because it was known Jud had been infatuated with

the woman. But no one saw much of the party, outside of the ranch. The Carlysle woman seemed to be a

"Henry wrote that Hines had been in the East for some months at that time, and that he had not heard from

him. But he felt that it was only a truce, and that he would turn up again, hell bent for trouble. He made a will

and left the money to me, with instructions to turn it over to Hines. It is still in the bank, and amounts to

about thirtyfive thousand dollars. It is not mine, and I will not touch it. But I have never located Clifton

"In the last entry in his record I call attention to my brother's statement that he did not regard Clifton Hines as

entirely sane on this one matter, and to his conviction that the hatred Hines then bore him, amounting to a

delusion of persecution, might on his death turn against Judson Clark. He instructed me to go to Clark, tell

"Clark and his party had been at the ranch only a day or two when one night Hines turned up at Dry River. He

wanted the fifty thousand, or what was left of it, and when he failed to move Henry he attacked him. The two

men on the place heard the noise and ran in, but Hines got away. Henry swore them to secrecy, and told them

"From what the two men at the ranch told me when I got there, I think Hines stayed somewhere in the

mountains for the next day or two, and that he came down for food the night Henry died.

"Just what he contributed to Henry's death I do not know. Henry fell in one room, and was found in bed in

another when the hands had been taking the cattle to the winter range, and he'd been alone in the house.

"When I got there the funeral was over. I read the letter he had left, and then I talked to the two hands, Bill

Ardary and Jake Mazetti. They would not talk at first, but I showed them Henry's record and then they were

free enough. The autopsy had shown that Henry died from heart disease, but he had a cut on his head also,

and they believed that Hines had come back, had quarreled with him again, and had knocked him down.

"As Henry had in a way handed over to me his responsibility for the boy, and as I wanted to transfer the

money, I waited for three weeks at the ranch, hoping he would turn up again. I saw the Thorwald woman, but

she protested that she did not know where he was. And I made two attempts to see and warn Jud Clark, but

failed both times. Then one night the Thorwald woman came in, looking like a ghost, and admitted that Hines

had been hiding in the mountains since Henry's death, that he insisted he had killed him, and that he blamed

Jud Clark for that, and for all the rest of his troubles. She was afraid he would kill Clark. The three of us, the

two men at the ranch and myself, prepared to go into the mountains and hunt for him, before he got snowed

"Then came the shooting at the Clark place, and I rode over that night in a howling storm and helped the

coroner and a Norada doctor in the examination. All the evidence was against Clark, especially his running

away. But I happened on Hattie Thorwald outside on a verandah she'd been working at the house and I

"But she swore he hadn't been, and at the end I didn't know. I'll say right now that I don't know. But I'll say,

too, that I believe that is what happened, and that Hines probably stayed hidden that night on Hattie

Thorwald's place. I went there the next day, but she denied it all, and said he was still in the mountains. She

carried on about the blizzard and his being frozen to death, until I began to think she was telling the truth.

"The next day I did what only a tenderfoot would do, started into the mountains alone. Bill and Jake were out

with a posse after Clark, and I packed up some food and started. I'll not go into the details of that trip. I went

in from the Dry River Canyon, and I guess I faced death a dozen times the first day. I had a map, but I lost

myself in six hours. I had food and blankets and an axe along, and I built a shelter and stayed there overnight.

I had to cut up one of my blankets the next morning and tie up the horse's feet, so he wouldn't sink too deep

in the snow. But it stayed cold and the snow hardened, and we got along better after that.

"I'd have turned back more than once, but I thought I'd meet up with some of the Sheriff's party. I didn't do

that, but I stumbled on a trail on the third day, toward evening. It was the trail made by John Donaldson, as I

learned later. I followed it, but I concluded after a while that whoever made it was lost, too. It seemed to be

going in a circle. I was in bad shape and had frozen a part of my right hand, when I saw a cabin, and there

>From that time on David's statement dealt with the situation in the cabin; with Jud Clark and the

Donaldsons, and with the snow storm, which began again and lasted for days. He spoke at length of his

discovery of Clark's identity, and of the fact that the boy had lost all memory of what had happened, and even

of who he was. He went into that in detail; the peculiar effect of fear and mental shock on a highstrung

nature, especially where the physical condition was lowered by excess and wrongliving; his early attempts,

as the boy improved, to pierce the veil, and then his slowgrowing conviction that it were an act of mercy not

to do so. The Donaldsons' faithfulness, the cessation of the search under the conviction that Clark was dead,

both were there, and also David's growing liking for Judson himself. But David's own psychology was

"First of all," he dictated, in his careful old voice, "it must be remembered that I was not certain that the boy

had committed the crime. I believed, and I still believe, that Lucas was shot by Clifton Hines, probably

through an open window. There were no powder marks on the body. I believed, too, and still believe, that

Hines had fled after the crime, either to Hattie Thorwald's house or to the mountains. In one case he had

escaped and could not be brought to justice, and in the other he was dead, and beyond conviction.

"But there is another element which I urge, not in defense but in explanation. The boy Judson Clark was a

new slate to write on. He had never had a chance. He had had too much money, too much liberty, too little

responsibility. His errors had been wiped away by the loss of his memory, and he had, I felt, a chance for a

"I did not come to my decision quickly. It was a long fight for his life, for he had contracted pneumonia, and

he had the drinker's heart. But in the long days of his convalescence while Maggie worked in the leanto, I

had time to see what might be done. If in making an experiment with a man's soul I usurped the authority of

"I deliberately built up for Judson Clark a new identity. He was my nephew, my brother Henry's son. He had

the traditions of an honorable family to carry on, and those traditions were honor, integrity, clean living and

work. I did not stress love, for that I felt must be experienced, not talked about. But love was to be the

"It has worked out. I may not live to see it at its fullest, but I defy the world to produce today a finer or more

honorable gentleman, a more useful member of the community. And it will last. The time may come when

Judson Clark will again be Judson Clark. I have expected it for many years. But he will never again be the

Judson Clark of ten years ago. He may even will to return to the old reckless ways, but as I lie here, perhaps

never to see him, I say this: he cannot go back. His character and habits of thought are established.

"To convict Judson Clark of the murder of Howard Lucas is to convict a probably or at least possibly

innocent man. To convict Richard Livingstone of that crime is to convict a different man, innocent of the

crime, innocent of its memory, innocent of any single impulse to lift his hand against a law of God or the

For a month Haverly had buzzed with whispered conjectures. It knew nothing, and yet somehow it knew

everything. Doctor David was ill at the seashore, and Dick was not with him. Harrison Miller, who was never

known to depart farther from his comfortable hearth than the railway station in one direction and the Sayre

house in the other, had made a trip East and was now in the far West. Doctor Reynolds, who might or might

And Elizabeth Wheeler was going around with a drawn white face and a determined smile that faded the

The village was hurt and suspicious. It resented its lack of knowledge, and turned cynical where, had it been

taken into confidence, it would have been solicitous. It believed that Elizabeth had been jilted, for it knew,

via Annie and the Oglethorpe's laundress, that no letters came from Dick. And against Dick its indignation

Nina had taken to going about with her small pointed chin held high, and angrily she demanded that

"Don't think about him," she said. "He isn't sick, or he would have had some one wire or write, and he isn't

"Then he's in some sort of trouble. I want to go out there. I want to go out there!"

That, indeed, had been her constant cry for the last two weeks. She would have done it probably, packed her

bag and slipped away, but she had no money of her own, and even Leslie, to whom she appealed, had refused

"We're following him up, little sister," he said. "Harrison Miller has gone out, and there's enough talk as it is."

She thought, lying in her bed at night, that they were all too afraid of what people might say. It seemed so

unimportant to her. And she could not understand the conspiracy of silence. Other men went away and were

not heard from, and the police were notified and the papers told. It seemed to her, too, that every one, her

There had been that long conference behind closed doors, when Harrison Miller came back from seeing

David, and before he went west. Leslie had been there, and even Doctor Reynolds, but they had shut her out.

He seemed, sometimes, to be burning with a sort of inner anger. Not at her, however. He was very gentle with

And here was a curious thing. She had always felt that she knew when Dick was thinking of her. All at once,

and without any warning, there would come a glow of happiness and warmth, and a sort of surrounding and

encircling sense of protection. Rather like what she had felt as a little girl when she had run home through the

terrors of twilight, and closed the house door behind her. She was in the warm and lighted house, safe and

That was completely gone. It was as though the warm and lighted house of her love had turned her out and

She avoided the village, and from a sense of delicacy it left her alone. The small gaieties of the summer were

on, dinners, dances and picnics, but her mourning made her absence inconspicuous. She could not, however,

avoid Mrs. Sayre. She tried to, at first, but that lady's insistence and her own apathy made it easier to accept

than to refuse. Then, after a time, she found the house rather a refuge. She seldom saw Wallie, and she found

"Take the scissors and a basket, child, and cut your mother some roses," she would say. Or they would loot

the green houses and, going in the car to the cemetery, make of Jim's grave a thing of beauty and

Now and then, of course, she saw Wallie, but he never reverted to the day she had told him of her

engagement. Mother and son, she began to feel that only with them could she be herself. For the village, her

chin high as Nina had said. At home, assumed cheerfulness. Only at the house on the hill could she drop her

She waited with a sort of desperate courage for word from Harrison Miller. What she wanted that word to be

she did not know. There were, of course, times when she had to face the possibility that Dick had deliberately

cut himself off from her. After all, there had never been any real reason why he should care for her. She was

not clever and not beautiful. Perhaps he had been disappointed in her, and this was the thing they were

concealing. Perhaps he had gone back to Wyoming and had there found some one more worthy of im, some

one who understood when he talked about the things he did in his laboratory, and did not just sit and listen

Then, one night at dinner, a telegram was brought in, and she knew it was the expected word. She felt her

mother's eyes on her, and she sat very still with her hands clenched in her lap. But her father did not read it at

the table; he got up and went out, and some time later he came to the door. The telegram was not in sight.

"That was from Harrison Miller," he said. "He has traced Dick to a hotel at Norada, but he had left the hotel,

Then, some days later, she learned that Harrison Miller was coming home, and that David was being brought

back. She saw that telegram from Mr. Miller, and read into it failure and discouragement, and something

"Think safe?" she asked, breathlessly. "Then he has been in danger? What are you keeping from me?" And

when no one spoke: "Oh, don't you see how cruel it is? You are all trying to protect me, and you are killing

"Not danger," her father said, slowly. "So far as we know, he is well. Is all right." And seeing her face: "It is

nothing that affects his feeling for you, dear. He is thinking of you and loving you, wherever he is. Only, we

But when he came back on Tuesday, after seeing Harrison Miller, he was discouraged and sick at heart. He

"Not a trace," he said, in reply to the question in her eyes. "The situation is as he outlined it in the letter. He

elaborated, of course. The fact is, and David will have to see it, that that statement of his doesn't help at all,

unless he can prove there is a Clifton Hines. And even then it's all supposition. There's a strong sentiment out

there that Dick either killed himself or met with an accident and died in the mountains. The horse wandered

Over this possibility they faced each other, a tragic middleaged pair, helpless as is the way of middleage

"There is a rather queer element in it," he observed, after a time. "Another man, named Bassett, disappeared

the same night. His stuff is at the hotel, but no papers to identify him. He had looked after Dick that day when

he was sick, and he simply vanished. He didn't take the train. He was under suspicion for being with Dick,

and the station was being watched." But she was not interested in Bassett. The name meant nothing to her.

She harked back to the question that had been in both their minds since they had read, in stupefied

But he fought that sturdily. They had ten years of knowledge and respect to build on. The past was past. All

he prayed for was Dick's return, an end to this long waiting. There would be no reservations in his welcome,

Some time later he went downstairs, to where Elizabeth sat waiting in the library. He went like a man to his

execution, and his resolution nearly gave way when he saw her, small in her big chair and pathetically

patient. He told her the story as guardedly as he could. He began with Dick's story to him, about his forgotten

youth, and went on carefully to Dick's own feeling that he must clear up that past before he married. She

He fought Dick's fight for him valiantly, stressing certain points that were to prepare her for others to come.

He plunged, indeed, rather recklessly into the psychology of the situation, and only got out of the

unconscious mind with an effort. But behind it all was his overwhelming desire to save her pain.

"You must remember," he said, "that Dick's life before this happened, and since, are two different things.

"He was young then, remember. Only twentyone or so. And there was a quarrel with another man. The other

"Yes. You understand, don't you," he added anxiously, "that he doesn't remember doing it?"

In spite of his anxiety he was forced to marvel at the sublime faith with which she made her comment,

"Then it was either an accident, or he deserved shooting," she said. But she inquired, he thought with

She closed her eyes, but a moment later she was fighting her valiant fight again for Dick.

"But they let him go," she protested. "Men do shoot in the West, don't they? There must have been a reason

He let that pass. "Nothing was done about it at the time," he said. "And Dick came here and lived his useful

life among us. He wouldn't have known the man's name if he heard it. But do you see, sweetheart, where this

is taking us? He went back, and they tried to get him, for a thing he didn't remember doing."

"No, dear. He escaped into the mountains. But you can understand his silence. You can understand, too, that

he may feel he cannot come back to us, with this thing hanging over him. What we have to do now is to find

him, and to tell him that it makes no difference. That he has his place in the world waiting for him, and that

When it was all over, her questions and his sometimes stumbling replies, he saw that out of it all the one

thing that mattered vitally to her was that Dick was only a fugitive, and not dead. But she said, just before

Mrs. Wheeler looked at him, with the eternal surprise of woman at the lack of masculine understanding.

"Because, whether you think it or not, she will resent and hate that as she hates nothing else. Murder will be

He pondered her fiat statement unhappily, standing by the window and looking out into the shaded street, and

a man who had been standing, cigar in mouth, on a pavement across withdrew into the shadow of a tree box.

"It's all a puzzle to me," he said, at last. "God alone knows how it will turn out. Harrison Miller seems to

Outside, on the street, the man with the cigar struck a match and looked at his watch. Then he walked briskly

toward the railway station. A half hour later he walked into the offices of the TimesRepublican and to the

"Hello, Bassett," said that gentleman. "We thought you were dead. Well, how about the sister in California? It

"And it blew up on you! Well, there were others who were fooled, too. You had a holiday, anyhow."

"Yes, I had a holiday," said Bassett, and going over to his own desk began to sort his vast accumulation of

"Did you get anything on the Clark business at all?" he asked. "Williams thinks there's a page in it for

Sunday, anyhow. You've been on the ground, and there's a human interest element in it. The last man who

"You take it from me," he said, "the story's dead, and so is Clark. The Donaldson woman was crazy. That's

David was brought home the next day, a shrivelled and aged David, but with a fighting fire in his eyes and a

David had decided on a course and meant to follow it. That course was to protect Dick's name, and to keep

the place he had made in the world open for him. Not even to Lucy had he yet breathed the terror that was

with him day and night, that Dick had reached the breaking point and had gone back. But he knew it was

possible. Lauler had warned him against shocks and trouble, and looking back David could see the gradually

accumulating pressure against that mental wall of Dick's subconscious building; overwork and David's

illness, his love affair and Jim Wheeler's tragedy, and coming on top of that, in some way he had not yet

learned, the knowledge that he was Judson Clark and a fugitive from the law. The work of ten years perhaps

Both David and Lucy found the homecoming painful. Harrison Miller rode up with them from the station,

and between him and Doctor Reynolds David walked into his house and was assisted up the stairs. At the

door of Dick's room he stopped and looked in, and then went on, his face set and rigid. He would not go to

bed, but sat in his chair while about him went on the bustle of the return, the bringing up of trunks and bags;

but the careful smile was gone, and his throat, now so much too thin for his collar, worked convulsively.

He had got Harrison Miller's narrative from him on the way from the station, and it had only confirmed his

"He had been in a stupor all day," Miller related, "and was being cared for by a man named Bassett. I daresay

that's the man Gregory had referred to. He may have become suspicous of Bassett. I don't know. But a

chambermaid recognized him as he was making his escape, and raised an alarm. He got a horse out of the

"No, apparently not. The odd thing is that this Bassett disappeared, too, the same night. I called up his paper

Before Harrison Miller and Doctor Reynolds left him to rest, David called Lucy in, and put his plea to all of

"It is my hope," he said, "to carry on exactly as though Dick might walk in tomorrow and take his place

again. As I hold to my belief in God, so I hold to my conviction that he will come back, and that before I

before long. But our friends will be asking where he is and what he is doing, and we would better agree on

that beforehand. What we'd better say is simply that Dick was called away on business connected with some

So the benevolent conspiracy to protect Dick Livingstone's name was arranged, and from that time on the

four of them who were a party to it turned to the outside world an unbroken front of loyalty and courage.

Even to Minnie, anxious and redeyed in her kitchen, Lucy gave the same explanation while she arranged

"He might have sent me a postcard. And he hasn't written Doctor Reynolds at all."

"He has been very busy. Get the sugar bowl, Minnie. He'll be back soon, I'm sure."

"He'd better come soon if he wants to see Doctor David," she said, with twitching lips. "And I'll just say this,

She ate alone, painfully remembering that last gay little feast before they started away. But before she sat

"After this, Minnie," she said, "we will always set Doctor Richard's place. Then, when he comes "

Her voice broke and Minnie, scenting a tragedy but ignorant of it, went back to her kitchen to cry into the

roller towel. Her world was gone to pieces. By years of service to the one family she had no other world, no

home, no ties. She was with the Livingstones, but not one of them. Alone in her kitchen she felt lonely and

Lucy found David moving about upstairs some time later, and when she went up she found him sitting in

Dick's room, on a stiff chair inside the door. She stood beside him and put her hand on his shoulder, but he

That night David had a caller. All evening the bell had been ringing, and the little card tray on the hatrack

was filled with visiting cards. There were gifts, too, flowers and jellies and some squab from Mrs. Sayre.

Lucy had seen no one, excusing herself on the ground of fatigue, but the man who came at nine o'clock was

He wrote in pencil on the card, placing it against the door post to do so, and passed it to Minnie. She calmly

read it, and rather defiantly carried it off. But she came down quickly, touched by some contagion of

So it was that David and the reporter met, for the first time, in David's old fashioned chamber, with its walnut

bed and the dresser with the marble top, and Dick's picture in his uniform on the mantle.

Bassett was shocked at the sight of David, shocked and alarmed. He was uncertain at first as to the wisdom of

telling his startling story to an obviously sick man, but David's first words reassured him.

"Come in," he said. "You are the Bassett who was with Doctor Livingstone at Norada?"

"We know something, not everything." Suddenly David's pose deserted him. He got up and stood very

straight, searching eyes on his visitor. "Is he living?" he asked, in a low voice.

"No. He got away but you know that. Sit down, doctor. I've got a long story to tell."

"I'll get you to call my sister first," David said. "And tell her to get Harrison Miller. Mr. Miller is our

"The report we have had is that he was in a stupor in the hotel, and the doctor who saw him you got him, I

think said he appeared to have been drinking heavily. Is that true? He was not a drinking man."

There was another question in David's mind, but he did not put it. He sat, with the patience of his age and his

new infirmity, waiting for Lucy to bring Harrison Miller, and had it not been for the trembling of his hands

During the recital that followed somewhat later David did not move. He sat silent, his eyes closed, his face

"That's about all," Bassett finished. "He had been perfectly clear in his head all day, and it took headwork to

get over the pass. But, as I say, he had simply dropped ten years, and was back to the Lucas trouble. I tried

everything I knew, used your name and would have used the young lady's, because sometimes that sort of

thing strikes pretty deep, but I didn't know it. He was convinced after a while, but he was dazed, of course.

"I was done up, and I've cursed myself for it since, but I must have slept like the dead. I wakened once, early

in the night, and he was still sitting by the fire, staring at it. I've forgotten to say that he had been determined

all day to go back and give himself up, and the only way I prevented it was by telling him what a blow it

would be to you and to the girl. I wakened once and said to him, 'Better get some sleep, old man.' He did not

answer at once, and then he said, 'All right.' I was dozing off when he spoke again. He said, 'Where is

Beverly Carlysle now? Has she married again?' 'She's revived "The Valley," and she's in New York with it,' I

"When I wakened in the morning he was gone, but he'd left a piece of paper in a cleft stick beside me, with

Bassett took from his pocketbook a note, and passed it over to David, who got out his spectacles with

shaking hands and read it. It was on Dick's prescription paper, with his name at the top and the familiar Rx

"Many thanks for everything, Bassett," he read. "I don't like to leave you, but you'll get out all right if you

follow the map on the back of this. I've had all night to think things out, and I'm leaving you because you are

safer without me. I realize now what you've known all day and kept from me. That woman at the hotel

"I can't make up my mind what to do. Ultimately I think I'll go back and give myself up. I am a dead man,

anyhow, to all who might have cared, but I've got to do one or two things first, and I want to think things

over. One thing you've got a right to know. I hated Lucas, but it never entered my head to kill him. How it

"I made every effort to find him. I had to work alone, you understand, and from the west side of the range,

not to arouse suspicion. They were after me, too, you know. His horse, I heard, worked its way back a few

days ago. It's a forsaken country, and if he lost his horse he was in it on foot and without food. Of course

His voice trailed off. In the stillness David sat, touching with tender tremulous fingers what might be Dick's

last message, and gazing at the picture of Dick in his uniform. He knew what they all thought, that Dick was

dead and that he held his final words in his hands, but his militant old spirit refused to accept that silent

verdict. Dick might be dead to them, but he was living. He looked around the room defiantly, resentfully. Of

all of them he was the only one to have faith, and he was bound to a chair. He knew them. They would sit

No, by God, he would not be bound to a chair. He raised himself and stood, swaying on his shaking legs.

"You've given up," he said scornfully. "You make a few days' search, and then you quit. It's easy to say he's

dead, and so you say he's dead. I'm going out there myself, and I'll make a search "

He collapsed into the chair again, and looked at them with shamed, appealing eyes. Bassett was the first to

"I haven't given up for a minute. I've given up the search, because he's beyond finding just now. Either he's

got away, or he is well, beyond help. We have to go on the hypothesis that he got away, and in that case

sooner or later you'll hear from him. He's bound to remember you in time. The worst thing is this charge

"He never killed Howard Lucas," David said, in a tone of conviction. "Harrison, read Mr. Bassett my

Bassett took the statement home with him that night, and studied it carefully. It explained a great deal that

had puzzled him before; Mrs. Wasson's story and David's arrival at the mountain cabin. But most of all it

explained why the Thorwald woman had sent him after Dick. She knew then, in spite of her protests to

He paced the floor for an hour or two, sunk in thought, and then unlocked a desk drawer and took out his

bankbook. He had saved a little money. Not much, but it would carry him over if he couldn't get another

leave of absence. He thought, as he put the book away and prepared for bed, that it was a small price to pay

Dick had written his note, and placed it where Bassett would be certain to see it. Then he found his horse and

led him for the first half mile or so of level ground before the trail began to descend. He mounted there, for he

He felt no weariness and no hunger, although he had neither slept nor eaten for thirtyodd hours, and as

contrasted with the night before his head was clear. He was able to start a train of thought and to follow it

through consecutively for the first time in hours. Thought, however, was easier than realization, and to add to

his perplexity, he struggled to place Bassett and failed entirely. He remained a mysterious and

Then he had an odd thought, that brought him up standing. He had only Bassett's word for the story. Perhaps

Bassett was lying to him, or mad. He rode on after a moment, considering that, but there was something, not

in Bassett's circumstantial narrative but in himself, that refused to accept that loophole of escape. He could

And, with his increasing clarity, he began to make out the case for Bassett and against himself; the unfamiliar

clothing he wore, the pad with the name of Livingstone on it and the sign Rx the other contents of his

He tried to orient himself in Bassett's story. A doctor. The devil's irony of it! Some poor hack, losing sleep

and bringing babies. Peddling pills. Leading what Bassett had called a life of usefulness! That was a career

But underlying all his surface thinking was still the need of flight, and he was continually confusing it with

the earlier one. One moment he was looking about for the snow of that earlier escape, and the next he would

remember, and the sense of panic would leave him. After all he meant to surrender eventually. It did not

But, like the sense of flight, there was something else in his mind, something that he fought down and would

not face. When it came up he thrust it back fiercely. That something was the figure of Beverly Carlysle,

stooping over her husband's body. He would have died to save her pain, and yet last night no, it wasn't last

He was very thirsty, and water did not satisfy him. He wanted a real drink. He wanted alcohol. Suddenly he

wanted all the liquor in the world. The craving came on at dawn, and after that he kicked his weary horse on

recklessly, so that it rocked and stumbled down the trail. He had only one thought after the frenzy seized him,

and that was to get to civilization and whisky. It was as though he saw in drunkenness his only escape from

the unbearable. In all probability he would have killed both his horse and himself in the grip of that sudden

madness, but deliverance came in the shape of a casual rider, a stranger who for a moment took up the

shuttle, wove his bit of the pattern and passed on, to use his blowpipe, his spirit lamp and his chemicals in

When Dick heard somewhere ahead the creaking of saddle leather and the rattle of harness he drew aside on

the trail and waited. He had lost all caution in the grip of his craving, and all fear. A line of loaded burros

rounded a point ahead and came toward him, picking their way delicately with small deliberate feet and

walking on the outer edge of the trail, after the way of pack animals the world over. Behind them was a

horseman, rifle in the scabbard on his saddle and spurs jingling. Dick watched him with thirsty, feverish eyes

"Pretty early in the morning for a drink, isn't it?" he inquired. Then he saw Dick's eyes, and reached

reluctantly into his saddle bag. "I've got a quart here," he said. "I've traveled forty miles and spent nine dollars

He untied a tin cup from his saddle and carefully poured a fair amount into it, steadying the horse the while.

"Here," he said, and passed it over. "But you'd better cut it out after this. It's bad medicine. You've got two

Dick took the cup and looked at the liquor. The odor assailed him, and for a queer moment he felt a sudden

distaste for it. He had a revulsion that almost shook him. But he drank it down and passed the cup back.

"You've traveled a long way for it," he said, "and I needed it, I guess. If you'll let me pay for it "

"Forget it," said the man amiably, and started his horse. "But better cut it out, first chance you get. It's bad

He rode on after his vanishing pack, and Dick took up the trail again. But before long he began to feel sick

and dizzy. The aftertaste of the liquor in his mouth nauseated him. The craving had been mental habit, not

physical need, and his body fought the poison rebelliously. After a time the sickness passed, and he slept in

the saddle. He roused once, enough to know that the horse had left the trail and was grazing in a green

meadow. Still overcome with his first real sleep he tumbled out of the saddle and stretched himself out on the

ground. He slept all day, lying out in the burning sun, his face upturned to the sky.

When he wakened it was twilight, and the horse had disappeared. His face burned from the sun, and his head

ached violently. He was weak, too, from hunger, and the morning's dizziness persisted. Connected thought

was impossible, beyond the fact that if he did not get out soon, he would be too weak to travel. Exhausted and

He traveled all night, and the dawn found him still moving, a mere automaton of a man, haggard and

shambling, no longer willing his progress, but somehow incredibly advancing. He found water and drank it,

fell, got up, and still, right foot, left foot, he went on. Some time during that advance he had found a trail, and

he kept to it automatically. He felt no surprise and no relief when he saw a cabin in a clearing and a woman in

the doorway, watching him with curious eyes. He pulled himself together and made a final effort, but without

"I wonder if you could give me some food?" he said. "I have lost my horse and I've been wandering all

"I guess I can," she replied, not unamiably. "You look as though you need it, and a wash, too. There's a basin

But when she came out later to call him to breakfast she found him sitting on the bench and the pail

She called her husband from where he was chopping wood off in the trees, and together they got him into the

So it happened that the search went on. Wilkins from the east of the range, and Bassett from the west, hunted

at first with furious energy, then spasmodically, then not at all, while Dick lay in a mountain cabin, on the

bed made of young trees, and for the second time in his life watched a woman moving in a leanto kitchen,

He forced himself to think of this small panorama of life that moved before him, rather than of himself. The

woman was young, and pretty in a slovenly way. The man was much older, and silent. He was of better class

than the woman, and underlying his assumption of crudity there were occasional outcroppings of some

cultural background. Not then, nor at any subsequent time, did he learn the story, if story there was. He began

to see them, however, not so much pioneers as refugees. The cabin was, he thought, a haven to the man and a

But they were uniformly kind to him, and for weeks he stayed there, slowly readjusting. In his early

convalescence he would sit paring potatoes or watching a cooking pot for her. As he gained in strength he cut

Two incidents always stood out afterwards in his memory of the cabin. One was the first time he saw himself

in a mirror. He knew by that time that Bassett's story had been true, and that he was ten years older than he

remembered himself to be. He thought he was in a measure prepared. But he saw in the glass a man whose

face was lined and whose hair was streaked with gray. The fact that his beard had grown added to the terrible

maturity of the reflection he saw, and he sent the mirror clattering to the ground.

The other incident was later, and when he was fairly strong again. The man was caught under a tree he was

felling, and badly hurt. During the hour or so that followed, getting the tree cut away, and moving the injured

man to the cabin on a wood sledge, Dick had the feeling of helplessness of any layman in an accident. He was

solicitous but clumsy. But when they had got the patient into his bed, quite automatically he found himself

Later he was to realize that this was the first peak of submerged memory, rising above the flood. At the time

all he felt was a great certainty. He must act quickly or the man would not live. And that night, with such

instruments as he could extemporize, he operated. There was no time to send to a town.

All night, after the operation, Dick watched by the bedside, the woman moving back and forth restlessly. He

He had to stay on after that, for the woman could not be left alone. And he was glad of the respite, willing to

drift until he got his bearings. Certain things had come back, more as pictures than realities. Thus he saw

David clearly, Lucy dimly, Elizabeth not at all. But David came first; David in the buggy with the sagging

springs, David's loud voice and portly figure, David, steady and upright and gentle as a woman. But there was

something wrong about David. He puzzled over that, but he was learning not to try to force things, to let them

It was two or three days later that he remembered that David was ill, and was filled with a sickening remorse

and anxiety. For the first time he made plans to get away, for whatever happened after that he knew he must

see David again. But all his thought led him to an impasse at that time, and that impasse was the feeling that

he was a criminal and a fugitive, and that he had no right to tie up innocent lives with his. Even a letter to

Coupled with his determination to surrender, the idea of atonement was strong in him. An eye for an eye, and

a tooth for a tooth. That had been his father's belief, and well he remembered it. But during the drifting period

he thrust it back, into that painful niche where he held Beverly, and the thing he would not face.

That phase of his readjustment, then, when he reached it, was painful and confused. There was the necessity

for atonement, which involved surrender, and there was the call of David, and the insistent desire to see

Beverly again, which was the thing he would not face. Of the three, the last, mixed up as it was with the

murder and its expiation, was the strongest. For by the very freshness of his released memories, it was the

days before his flight from the ranch that seemed most recent, and his life with David that was long ago, and

When Elizabeth finally came back to him it was as something very gentle and remote, out of the

longforgotten past. Even his image of her was blurred and shadowy. He could not hear the tones of her

voice, or remember anything she had said. He could never bring her at will, as he could David, for instance.

She only came clearly at night, while he slept. Then the guard was down, and there crept into his dreams a

small figure, infinitely loving and tender; but as he roused from sleep she changed gradually into Beverly. It

was Beverly's arms he felt around his neck. Nevertheless he held to Elizabeth more completely than he knew,

for the one thing that emerged from his misty recollection of her was that she cared for him. In a world of

But she was never real to him, as the other woman was real. And he knew that she was lost to him, as David

As time went on he reached the point of making practical plans. He had lost his pocketbook somewhere,

probably during his wanderings afoot, and he had no money. He knew that the obvious course was to go to

the nearest settlement and surrender himself and he played with the thought, but even as he did so he knew

that he would not do it. Surrender he would, eventually, but before he did that he would satisfy a craving that

was in some ways like his desire for liquor that morning on the trail. A reckless, mad, and irresistible impulse

In August he started for the railroad, going on foot and without money, his immediate destination the harvest

The summer passed slowly. To David and Elizabeth it was a long waiting, but with this difference, that David

was kept alive by hope, and that Elizabeth felt sometimes that hope was killing her. To David each day was a

new day, and might hold Dick. To Elizabeth, after a time, each day was but one more of separation.

Doctor Reynolds had become a fixture in the old house, but he was not like Dick. He was a heavy, silent

young man, shy of intruding into the family life and already engrossed in a budding affair with the Rossiter

girl. David tolerated him, but with a sort of smouldering jealousy increased by the fact that he had introduced

innovations David resented; had for instance moved Dick's desk nearer the window, and instead of doing his

own laboratory work had what David considered a damnably lazy fashion of sending his little tubes, carefully

David found the days very long and infinitely sad. He wakened each morning to renewed hope, watched for

the postman from his upper window, and for Lucy's step on the stairs with the mail. His first glimpse of her

always told him the story. At the beginning he had insisted on talking about Dick, but he saw that it hurt her,

The determination to live on until that return which he never ceased to expect only carried him so far,

however. He felt no incentive to activity. There were times when he tried Lucy sorely, when she felt that if he

would only move about, go downstairs and attend to his office practice, get out into the sun and air, he would

grow stronger. But there were times, too, when she felt that only the will to live was carrying him on.

Nothing further had developed, So tar as they knew. The search had been abandoned. Lucy was no longer so

sure as she had been that the house was under surveillance, against Dick's possible return. Often she lay in

her bed and faced the conviction that Dick was dead. She had never understood the talk that at first had gone

on about her, when Bassett and Harrison Miller, and once or twice the psychoanalyst David had consulted

in town, had got together in David's bedroom. The mind was the mind, and Dick was Dick. This thing about

habit, over which David pored at night when he should have been sleeping, or brought her in to listen to, with

A man properly trained in right habits of thinking and of action could not think wrong and go wrong, David

argued. He even went further. He said that love was a habit, and that love would bring Dick back to him. That

She believed that, of course, if he still lived. But hadn't Mr. Bassett, who seemed so curiously mixed in the

affair, been out again to Norada without result? No, it was all over, and she felt that it would be a comfort to

Elizabeth came often to see them. She looked much the same as ever, although she was very slender and her

smile rather strained, and she and David would have long talks together. She always felt rather like an empty

vessel when she went in, but David filled her with hope and sent her away cheered and visibly brighter to her

long waiting. She rather avoided Lucy, for Lucy's fears lay in her face and were like a shadow over her spirit.

She came across her one day putting Dick's clothing away in camphor, and the act took on an air of finality

So far they had kept from her Dick's real identity, but certain things they had told her. She knew that he had

gone back, in some strange way, to the years before he came to Haverly, and that he had temporarily

forgotten everything since. But they had told her too, and seemed to believe themselves, that it was only

At first the thought had been more than she could bear. But she had to live her life, and in such a way as to

hide her fears. Perhaps it was good for her, the necessity of putting up a bold front, to join the conspiracy that

was to hold Dick's place in the world against the hope of his return. And she still went to the Sayre house,

sure that there at least there would be no curious glances, no too casual questions. She could not be sure of

"Oh, well, I suppose I might as well go on. Do you ever think that if Dick had gone back, as they say he has,

Nina was watching her. Sometimes she almost burst with the drama she was suppressing. She had been a

small girl when Judson Clark had disappeared, but even at twelve she had known something of the story. She

wanted frantically to go about the village and say to them: "Do you know who has been living here, whom

you used to patronize? Judson Clark, one of the richest men in the world!" She built day dreams on that

foundation. He would come back, for of course he would be found and acquitted, and buy the Sayre place

perhaps, or build a much larger one, and they would all go to Europe in his yacht. But she knew now that the

woman Leslie had sent his flowers to had loomed large in Dick's past, and she both hated and feared her. Not

content with having given her, Nina, some bad hours, she saw the woman now possibly blocking her

"What I'm getting at is this," she said, examining her polished nails critically. "If it does turn out that there

was somebody, you'd have to remember that it was all years and years ago, and be sensible."

"I only want him back," Elizabeth said. "I don't care how he comes, so he comes."

Louis Bassett had become a familiar figure in the village life by that time. David depended on him with a sort

of wistful confidence that set him to grinding his teeth occasionally in a fury at his own helplessness. And, as

the extent of the disaster developed, as he saw David failing and Lucy ageing, and when in time he met

He spent hours studying the case, and he was chiefly instrumental in sending Harrison Miller back to Norada

in September. He had struck up a friendship with Miller over their common cause, and the night he was to

depart that small inner group which was fighting David's battle for him formed a board of strategy in

Harrison's tidy livingroom; Walter Wheeler and Bassett, Miller and, tardily taken into their confidence,

The same group met him on his return, sat around with expectant faces while he got out his tobacco and laid a

sheaf of papers on the table, and waited while their envoy, laying Bassett's map on the table, proceeded

carefully to draw in a continuation of the trail beyond the pass, some sketchy mountains, and a small square.

"I've got something," he said at last. "Not much, but enough to work on. Here's where you lost him, Bassett."

He pointed with his pencil. "He went on for a while on the horse. Then somehow he must have lost the horse,

for he turned up on foot, date unknown, in a state of exhaustion at a cabin that lies here. I got lost myself, or

I'd never have found the place. He was sick there for weeks, and he seems to have stayed on quite a while

"It's the answer to more than that," Reynolds said slowly. "It shows he had come back to himself. If he hadn't

"I lost him. He left to hike to the railroad, and he said nothing of his plans. If I'd been able to make open

inquiries I might have turned up something, but I couldn't. It's a hard proposition. I had trouble finding Hattie

Thorwald, too. She'd left the hotel, and is living with her son. She swears she doesn't know where Clifton

"No. She warned me. He was surly and suspicious. The Sheriff had sent for him and questioned him about

how you got his horse, and I gathered that he thought I was a detective. When I told him I was a friend of

yours, he sent you a message. You may be able to make something out of it. I can't. He said: `You can tell

"He is under the impression that his mother got the horse for you once before, about ten days before Clark

"Not for me," Bassett said decisively. "Ten days before that I was " he got out his notebook and consulted

it. "I was on my way to the cabin in the mountains, where the Donaldsons had hidden Jud Clark. I hired a

"Why the devil should she do that?" he asked irritably. "She didn't know who I was. She hadn't a chance at

my papers, for I kept them on me. If she did suspect I was on the case, a dozen fellows had preceded me, and

"Nevertheless," he finished, "I believe she did. She or Hines himself. There was some one on a horse outside

There was silence in the room, Harrison Miller thoughtfully drawing at random on the map before him. Each

man was seeing the situation from his own angle; to Reynolds, its medical interest, and the possibility of his

permanency in the town; to Walter Wheeler, Elizabeth's spoiled young life; to Harrison Miller, David; and to

the reporter a conviction that the clues he now held should lead him somewhere, and did not.

Before the meeting broke up Miller took a folded manuscript from the table and passed it to Bassett.

"Copy of the Coroner's inquiry, after the murder," he said. "Thought it might interest you..."

Then, for a time, that was all. Bassett, poring at home over the inquest records, and finding them of

engrossing interest, saw the futility of saving a man who could not be found. And even Nina's faith, that the

fabulously rich could not die obscurely, began to fade as the summer waned. She restored some of her favor

And by the end of September he felt that he had gained real headway with Elizabeth. He had come to a point

where she needed him more than she realized, where the call in her of youth for youth, even in trouble, was

insistent. In return he felt his responsibility and responded to it. In the vernacular of the town he had "settled

down," and the general trend of opinion, which had previously disapproved him, was now that Elizabeth

On a crisp night early in October he had brought her home from Nina's, and because the moon was full they

sat for a time on the steps of the veranda, Wallie below her, stirring the dead leaves on the walk with his

stick, and looking up at her with boyish adoring eyes when she spoke. He was never very articulate with her,

and her trouble had given her a strange new aloofness that almost frightened him. But that night, when she

"You're cold," he said almost roughly. He was sometimes rather savage, for fear he might be tender.

"Dead leaves?" he repeated, puzzled. "You're a queer girl, Elizabeth. Why dead leaves?"

"Nonsense. It's going to bed for a long winter's nap. That's all. I'll bring you a wrap."

"Here," he said peremptorily, "put this on. I'm not going to be called on the carpet for giving you a sniffle."

She stood up obediently and he put the big coat around her. Then, obeying an irresistible impulse, he caught

"I don't like it," was all she said. And because she did not want him to think she was angry, she sat down

again. But the boy was shaken. He got out a cigarette and lighted it, his hands trembling. He could not think

of anything to say. It was as though by that one act he had cut a bridge behind him and on the other side lay

all the platitudes, the small give and take of their hours together. What to her was a regrettable incident was

to him a great dramatic climax. Boylike, he refused to recognize its unimportance to her. He wanted to talk

"When you said just now that you didn't like what I did just then, do you mean you didn't like me to do it? Or

that you don't care for that sort of thing? Of course I know," he added hastily, "you're not that kind of girl. I

"I know how you feel now. But I know that people don't go on loving hopelessly all their lives. You're young.

You've got" he figured quickly "you've got about fiftyodd years to live yet, and some of these days

you'll be not forgetting," he changed, when he saw her quick movement. "I know you'll not forget him. But

"I wonder," she said, her eyes on the moon, and full of young tragedy. "If they are, if one can remember

"You're too deep for me sometimes," he said. "I'm not subtle, Elizabeth. I daresay I'm stupid in lots of things.

But I'm not stupid about this. I'm not trying to get a promise, you know. I only want you to know how things

are. I don't want to know why he went away, or why he doesn't come back. I only want you to face the facts.

I'd be good to you," he finished, in a low tone. "I'd spend my life thinking of ways to make you happy."

"You deserve the best, Wallie. And you're asking for a second best. Even that I'm just not made that way, I

When he looked at her her eyes had again that faraway and yet flaming look which he had come to associate

with her thoughts of Dick. She seemed infinitely removed from him, traveling her lonely road past loving

outstretched hands and facing ahead toward well, toward fifty years of spinsterhood. The sheer waste of it

He was about to repudiate the idea scornfully, when he sneezed! She got up at once and held out her hand.

"You are very dear to feel about me the way you do" she said, rather rapidly. "I appreciate your telling me.

He saw her in, hat in hand, and then turned and stalked up the street. Camphor, indeed! But so stubborn was

hope in his young heart that before he had climbed the hill he was finding comfort in her thought for him.

Mrs. Sayre had been away for a week, visiting in Michigan, and he had not expected her for a day or so. To

his surprise he found her on the terrace, wrapped in furs, and evidently waiting for him.

"I wasn't enjoying it," she explained, when he had kissed her. "It's a summer place, not heated to amount to

He knew her very well, and he saw then that she was laboring under suppressed excitement.

"I have something to tell you. We'd better go inside." He followed her in, unexcited and half smiling. Her

world was a small one, of minor domestic difficulties, of not unfriendly gossip, of occasional money

problems, investments and what not. He had seen her hands tremble over a matter of a poorly served dinner.

So he went into the house, closed the terrace window and followed her to the library. When she closed the

"Well?" he inquired. "I suppose " Then he saw her face. "Sorry, mother. What's the trouble?"

During August Dick had labored in the alfalfa fields of Central Washington, a harvest hand or "working stiff"

among other migratory agricultural workers. Among them, but not entirely of them. Recruited from the

lowest levels as men grade, gathered in at a slave market on the coast, herded in bunk houses alive with

vermin, fully but badly fed, overflowing with blasphemy and filled with sullen hate for those above them in

In the beginning he accepted their sneers with a degree of philosophy. His physical condition was poor. At

night he ached intolerably, collapsing into his wooden bunk to sleep the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion.

There were times when he felt that it would be better to return at once to Norada and surrender, for that he

must do so eventually he never doubted. It was as well perhaps that he had no time for brooding, but he

A feeling of unreality began to obsess him, so that at times he felt like a ghost walking among sweating men,

like a resurrection into life, but without life. And more than once he tried to sink down to the level of the

others, to unite himself again with the crowd, to feel again the touch of elbows, the sensation of fellowship.

The primal instinct of the herd asserted itself, the need of human companionship of any sort.

But he failed miserably, as Jud Clark could never have failed. He could not drink with them. He could not

sink to their level of degradation. Their oaths and obscenity sickened and disgusted him, and their talk of

The fact that he could no longer drink himself into a stupor puzzled him. Bad whiskey circulated freely

among the hay stacks and bunk houses where the harvest hands were quartered, and at ruinous prices. The

men clubbed together to buy it, and he put in his share, only to find that it not only sickened him, but that he

They called him the "Dude," and put into it gradually all the class hatred of their wretched sullen lives. He

had to fight them, more than once, and had they united against him he might have been killed. But they never

united. Their own personal animosities and angers kept them apart, as their misery held them together. And

as time went on and his muscles hardened he was able to give a better account of himself. The time came

when they let him alone, and when one day a big shocker fell off a stack and broke his leg and Dick set it, he

gained their respect. They asked no questions, for their law was that the past was the past. They did not like

him, but in the queer twisted ethics of the camp they judged the secret behind him by the height from which

he had fallen, and began slowly to accept him as of the brotherhood of derelicts.

With his improvement in his physical condition there came, toward the end of the summer, a more rapid

subsidence of the flood of the long past. He had slept out one night in the fields, where the uncut alfalfa was

belled with purple flowers and yellow buttercups rose and nodded above him. With the first touch of dawn on

the mountains he wakened to a clarity of mind like that of the morning. He felt almost an exaltation. He stood

It was all his again, never to lose, the old house, and David and Lucy; the little laboratory; the church on

Sunday mornings. Mike, whistling in the stable. A wave of love warmed him, a great surging tenderness. He

would go back to them. They were his and he was theirs. It was at first only a great emotion; a tingling

joyousness, a vast relief, as of one who sees, from a far distance, the lights in the windows of home. Save for

the gap between the drunken revel at the ranch and his awakening to David's face bending over him in the

cabin, everything was clear. Still by an effort, but successfully, he could unite now the two portions of his life

Not that he formulated it. It was rather a mood, an impulse of unreasoning happiness. The last cloud had

gone, the last bit of mist from the valley. He saw Haverly, and the children who played in its shaded streets;

Mike washing the o1d car, and the ice cream freezer on Sundays, wrapped in sacking on the kitchen porch.

Jim Wheeler came back to him, the weight of his coffin dragging at his right hand as he helped to carry it; he

was kneeling beside Elizabeth's bed, and putting his hand over her staring eyes so she would go to sleep.

The glow died away, and he began to suffer intensely. They were all lost to him, along with the life they

represented. And already he began to look back on his period of forgetfulness with regret. At least then he

He wondered again what they knew. What did they think? If they believed him dead, was that not kinder than

the truth? Outside of David and Lucy, and of course Bassett, the sole foundation on which any search for him

had rested had been the semihysterical recognition of Hattie Thorwald. But he wondered how far that search

Had it extended far enough to involve David? Had the hue and cry died away, or were the police still

searching for him? Could he even write to David, without involving him in his own trouble? For David, fine,

wonderful old David David had deliberately obstructed the course of justice, and was an accessory after the

Up to that time he had drifted, unable to set a course in the fog, but now he could see the way, and it led him

back to Norada. He would not communicate with David. He would go out of the lives at the old house as he

had gone in, under a lie. When he surrendered it would be as Judson Clark, with his lips shut tight on the

years since his escape. Let them think, if they would, that the curtain that had closed down over his memory

had not lifted, and that he had picked up life again where he had laid it down. The police would get nothing

But he had a moment, too, when surrender seemed to him not strength but weakness; where its sheer

supineness, its easy solution to his problem revolted him, where he clenched his fist and looked at it, and

When smoke began to issue from the cookhouse chimney he stirred, rose and went back. He ate no

breakfast, and the men, seeing his squared jaw and set face, let him alone. e worked with the strength of three

men that day, but that night, when the foreman offered him a job as pacer, with double wages, he refused it.

His going was without comment. They had never fully accepted him, and comings and goings without notice

in the camp were common. He rolled up his bedding, his change of undergarments inside it, and took the

The railroad was ten miles away, and he made the distance easily. He walked between wire fences, behind

which horses moved restlessly as he passed and cattle slept around a water hole, and as he walked he faced a

He was going out of life. It did not much matter whether it was to be behind bars or to pay the ultimate price.

The shadow that lay over him was that he was leaving forever David and all that he stood for, and a woman.

He cursed himself in the dark for a fool and a madman; he cursed the infatuation which rose like a demoniac

possession from his early life. When that failed he tried to kill it by remembering the passage of time, the

loathing she must have nursed all these years. He summoned the image of Elizabeth to his aid, to find it

eclipsed by something infinitely more real and vital. Beverly in her dressingroom, grotesque and yet lovely

in her makeup; Beverly on the mountaintrail, in her boyish riding clothes. Beverly.

Probably at that stage of his recovery his mind had reacted more quickly than his emotions. And by that

strange faculty by which an idea often becomes stronger in memory than in its original production he found

himself in the grip of a passion infinitely more terrible than his earlier one for her. It wiped out the memory,

even the thought, of Elizabeth, and left him a victim of its associated emotions. Bitter jealousy racked him,

remorse and profound grief. The ten miles of road to the railroad became ten miles of torture, of increasing

In Spokane he outfitted himself, for his clothes were ragged, and with the remainder of his money bought a

ticket to Chicago. Beyond Chicago he had no thought save one. Some way, somehow, he must get to New

York. Yet all the time he was fighting. He tried again and again to break away from the emotional

associations from which his memory of her was erected; when that failed he struggled to face reality; the

lapse of time, the certainty of his disappointment, at the best the inevitable parting when he went back to

Norada. But always in the end he found his face turned toward the East, and her.

He had no fear of starving. If he had learned the cost of a dollar in blood and muscle, he had the blood and

the muscle. There was a time, in Chicago, when the necessity of thinking about money irritated him, for the

memory of his old opulent days was very clear. Times when his temper was uncertain, and he turned surly.

Times when his helplessness brought to his lips the old familiar blasphemies of his youth, which sounded

He had no fear, then, but a great impatience, as though, having lost so much time, he must advance with

every minute. And Chicago drove him frantic. There came a time there when he made a deliberate attempt to

sink to the very depths, to seek forgetfulness by burying one wretchedness under another. He attempted to

find work and failed, and he tried to let go and sink. The total result of the experiment was that he wakened

one morning in his lodginghouse ill and with his money gone, save for some small silver. He thought

ironically, lying on his untidy bed, that even the resources of the depths were closed to him.

For days he haunted the West Madison Street employment agencies. But the agencies and sidewalks were

filled with men who wandered aimlessly with the objectless shuffle of the unemployed. Beds had gone up in

the lodginghouses to thirtyfive cents a night, and the food in the cheap restaurants was almost uneatable.

There came a day when the free morning coffee at a Bible Rescue Home, and its soup and potatoes and

For the first time his courage began to fail him. He went to the lakeside that night and stood looking at the

Up to that time he had given no thought whatever to his estate, beyond the fact that he had been undoubtedly

adjudged legally dead and his property divided. But that day as he turned away from the lake front, he began

to wonder about it. After all, since he meant to surrender himself before long, why not telegraph collect to the

old offices of the estate in New York and have them wire him money? But even granting that they were still

in existence, he knew with what lengthy caution, following stunned surprise, they would go about

investigating the message. And there were leaks in the telegraph. He would have a pack of newspaper hounds

The next day he got a job as a taxicab driver, and that night and every night thereafter he went back to West

Madison Street and picked up one or more of the derelicts there and bought them food. He developed quite a

system about it. He waited until he saw a man stop outside an eatinghouse look in and then pass on. But one

night he got rather a shock. For the young fellow he accosted looked at him first with suspicion, which was

"Captain Livingstone!" he said, and checked his hand as it was about to rise to the salute. His face broke into

a smile, and he whipped off his cap. "You've forgotten me, sir," he said. "But I've got your visiting card on

He bent his head and waited, but on no immediate reply being forthcoming, for Dick was hastily determining

on a course of action, he looked up. It was then that he saw Dick's cheap and shabby clothes, and his grin

"I think you've made a mistake, old man," Dick said, feeling for his words carefully. "That's not my name,

It had been Dick's custom to eat with his finds, and thus remove from the meal the quality of detached

charity. Men who would not take money would join him in a meal. But he could not face the lights with this

"Just a lift," he said, awkwardly, when the boy hesitated. "I've been there myself, lately."

But when at last he had prevailed and turned away he Was conscious that the doughboy was staring after him,

He had a bad night after that. The encounter had brought back his hardworking, carefree days in the army.

It had brought back, too, the things he had put behind him, his profession and his joy in it, the struggles and

the aspirations that constitute a man's life. With them there came, too, a more real Elizabeth, and a wave of

tenderness for her, and of regret. He turned on his sagging bed, and deliberately put her away from him. Even

Wallie stared at his mother. His mind was at once protesting the fact and accepting it, with its consequences

to himself. There was a perceptible pause before he spoke. He stood, if anything, somewhat straighter, but

"Positive. I talked to him. I wasn't sure myself, at first. He looked shabby and thin, as though he'd been ill,

and he had the audacity to pretend at first he didn't know me. He closed the door on me and "

"I don't believe it," he said slowly. "I think you've made a mistake, that's all."

"Not in so many words," she admitted. "He said I had made a mistake, and he stuck to it. Then he shut the

door and drove me to the station. The only other chance I had was at the station, and there was a line of cabs

behind us, so I had only a second. I saw he didn't intend to admit anything, so I said: 'I can see you don't

mean to recognize me, Doctor Livingstone, but I must know whether I am to say at home that I've seen you.'

He was making change for me at the time I'd have known his hands, I think, if I hadn't seen anything

elseand when he looked up his face was shocking. He said, 'Are they all right?' 'David is very ill,' I said. The

cars behind were waiting and making a terrific din, and a traffic man ran up then and made him move on. He

gave me the strangest look as he went. I stood and waited, thinking he would turn and come back again at the

"The blackguard!" he said. "The insufferable cad! To have run away as he did, and then to let them believe

him dead! For that's what they do believe. It is killing David Livingstone, and as for Elizabeth She'll have

to be told, mother. He's alive. He's well. And he has deliberately deserted them all. He ought to be shot."

"You didn't see him, Wallie. I did. He's been through something, I don't know what. I didn't sleep last night

"All right," he said, angrily pausing before her. "What do you intend to do? Let them go on as they are,

hoping and waiting; lauding him to the skies as a sort of superman? The thing to do is to tell the truth."

"Nothing very creditable, be sure of that," he pronounced. "Do you think it is fair to Elizabeth to let her waste

"You've got to be cruel to be kind, sometimes," he said oracularly. "Why, the man may be married. May be

anything. A taxi driver! Doesn't that in itself show that he's hiding from something?"

She sat, a small obese figure made larger by her furs, and stared at him with troubled eyes.

"I don't know, Wallie," she said helplessly. "In a way, it might be better to tell her. She could put him out of

He understood her, and nodded. When, after taking a turn or two about the room he again stopped in front of

"It's the devil of a mess," he commented. "I suppose the square thing to do is to tell Doctor David, and let him

He went upstairs soon after that, leaving her still in her chair, swathed in furs, her round anxious face bent

forward in thought. He had rarely seen her so troubled, so uncertain of her next move, and he surmised,

knowing her, that her emotions were a complex of anxiety for himself with Elizabeth, of pity for David, and

She sat alone for some time and then went reluctantly up the stairs to her bedroom. She felt, like Wallie, that

In the end she decided to ask Doctor Reynolds' advice, and in the morning she proceeded to do it. Reynolds

was interested, even a little excited, she thought, but he thought it better not to tell David. He would himself

"You say he knew you?" he inquired, watching her. "I suppose there is no doubt of that?"

"I see." He fell into profound thought, while she sat in her chair a trifle annoyed with him. He was wondering

how all this would affect him and his prospects, and through them his right to marry. He had walked into a

"I see," he repeated, and got up. "I'll tell Miller, and we'll get to work. We are all very grateful to you, Mrs.

As a result of that visit Harrison Miller and Bassett went that night to Chicago. They left it to Doctor

Reynolds' medical judgment whether David should be told or not, and Reynolds himself did not know. In the

"Something's troubling you," she said. "You're not a bit like yourself, old dear."

He looked at her. To him she was all that was fine and good and sane of judgment.

"I've got something to settle," he said. "I was wondering while you were singing, dear, whether you could

"When I sing you're supposed to listen. Well? What is it?" She perched herself on the arm of his chair, and

ran her fingers over his hair. She was very fond of him, and she meant to be a good wife. If she ever thought

of Dick Livingstone now it was in connection with her own reckless confession to Elizabeth. She had hated

"I'll take a hypothetical case. If you guess, you needn't say. Of course it's a great secret."

She listened, nodding now and then. He used no names, and he said nothing of any crime.

"The point is this," he finished. "Is it better to believe the man is dead, or to know that he is alive, but has cut

"Somebody from the village saw him in Chicago within day or two, and talked to him."

She had the whole picture in a moment. She knew that Mrs. Sayre had been in Chicago, that she had seen

Dick there and talked to him. She turned the matter over in her mind, shrewdly calculating, planning her

"I'd wait," she advised him. "He may come back with them, and in that case David will know soon enough.

Or he may refuse to, and that would kill him. He'd rather think him dead than that."

She slept quietly that night, and spent rather more time than usual in dressing that morning. Then she took her

way to the Wheeler house. She saw in what she was doing no particularly culpable thing. She had no great

revenge in mind; all that she intended was an evening of the score between them. "He preferred you to me,

when you knew I cared. But he has deserted you." And perhaps, too, a small present jealousy, for she was to

live in the old brick Livingstone house, or in one like it, while all the village expected ultimately to see

"I have something I ought to tell you, Elizabeth. But I don't know how you'll take it."

But Elizabeth made a small, impatient gesture. "I don't like secrets, Clare. I can't keep them, for one thing.

"All right," she said, and prepared to depart. "I won't. But you might just find out from your friend Mrs. Sayre

It was in this manner, bit by bit and each bit trivial, that the case against Dick was built up for Elizabeth. Mrs.

Sayre, helpless before her quiet questioning, had to acknowledge one damning thing after another. He had

known her; he had not asked for Elizabeth, but only for David; he looked tired and thin, but well. She stood at

the window watching Elizabeth go down the hill, with a feeling that she had just seen something die before

On the night Bassett and Harrison Miller were to return from Chicago Lucy sat downstairs in her

At ten o'clock, according to her custom, she went up to see that David was comfortable for the night, and to

read him that prayer for the absent with which he always closed his day of waiting. But before she went she

stopped before the old mirror in the hall, to see if she wore any visible sign of tension.

The door into Dick's office was open, and on his once neat desk there lay a litter of papers and letters. She

David lay propped up in his walnut bed. An incredibly wasted and old David; the hands on the logcabin

quilt which their mother had made were old hands, and tired. Sometimes Lucy, with a frightened gasp, would

fear that David's waiting now was not all for Dick. That he was waiting for peace.

There had been something new in David lately. She thought it was fear. Always he had been so sure of

himself; he had made his experiment in a man's soul, and whatever the result he had been ready to face his

Creator with it. But he had lost courage. He had tampered with the things that were to be and not he, but

Once, picking up his prayerbook to read evening prayer as was her custom now, it had opened at a verse

"I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before

She told him one of the few white lies of her life when she said: "He hasn't been well. He'll be over

tomorrow." She sat down and picked up the prayerbook, only to find him lifting himself in the bed and

She got up and went to the head of the stairs. The light was low in the hall beneath, and she saw a man

standing there. But she still wore her reading glasses, and she saw at first hardly more than a figure.

Then she put her hand to her throat and stood rigid, staring down. For the man had whipped off his cap and

Holding to the stairrail, her knees trembling under her, Lucy went down, and not until Dick's arms were

around her was she sure that it was Dick, and not his shabby, weary ghost. She clung to him, tears streaming

down her face, still in that cautious silence which governed them both; she held him off and looked at him,

and then strained herself to him again, as though the sense of unreality were too strong, and only the contact

It was not until they were in her sittingroom with the door closed that either of them dared to speak. Or

"He has been very ill. I began to think Dick, I'm afraid to tell him. I'm afraid he'll die of joy."

He winced at that. There could not be much joy in the farewell that was coming. Winced, and almost

staggered. He had walked all the way from the city, and he had had no food that day.

"We'll have to break it to him very gently," he said. "And he mustn't see me like this. If you can find some of

my clothes and Reynolds' razor, I'll " He caught suddenly to the back of a chair and held on to it. "I haven't

taken time to eat much today," he said, smiling at her. "I guess I need food, Aunt Lucy."

For the first time then she saw his clothes, his shabbiness and his pallor, and perhaps she guessed the truth.

"You sit here," she said, "and leave the door closed. The nurse is out for a walk, and she'll be in soon. I'll

bring some milk and cookies now, and start the fire. I've got some chops in the house."

When she came back almost immediately, with the familiar tray and the familiar food, he was sitting where

she had left him. He had spent the entire time, had she known it, in impressing on his mind the familiar

She stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, to see that he drank the milk slowly.

"I've got the fire going," she said. "And I'll run up now and get your clothes. I had put them away." Her

voice broke a little. "You see, we You can change in your laboratory. Richard, can't you? If you go upstairs

He reached up and caught her hand. That touch, too, of the nearest to a mother's hand that he had known, he

She bustled away, into her bright kitchen first, and then with happy stealth to the storeroom. Her very heart

was singing within her. She neither thought nor reasoned. Dick was back, and all would be well. If she had

any subconscious anxieties they were quieted, also subconsciously, by confidence in the men who were

fighting his battle for him, by Walter Wheeler and Bassett and Harrison Miller. That Dick himself would

She had been out of the room only twenty minutes when she returned to David and prepared to break her

great news. At first she thought he was asleep. He was lying back with his eyes closed and his hands crossed

on the prayerbook. But he looked up at her, and was instantly roused to full attention by her face.

"Yes, David. There's a little news. Don't count too much on it. Don't sit up. David, I have heard something

"David," she said slowly, "God has been very good to us. I want to tell you something, and I want you to

prepare yourself. We have heard from Dick. He is all right. He loves us, as he always did. And he is

He lay very still and without speaking. She was frightened at first, afraid to go on with her further news. But

suddenly David sat up in bed and in a full, firm voice began the Te Deum Laudamus. "We praise thee, 0 God:

we acknowledge thee to he the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting."

Dick, waiting at the foot of the stairs, heard that triumphant paean of thanksgiving and praise and closed his

"You heard him?" she asked. "Oh, Dick, he had frightened me. It was more than a question of himself and

She let him go up alone and waited below, straining her ears, but she heard nothing beyond David's first

Whatever lay underneath, there was no surface drama in the meeting. The determination to ignore any

tragedy in the situation was strong in them both, and if David's eyes were blurred and his hands trembling, if

He held out his hand, and Dick crushed it between both of his. He was startled at the change in David. For a

moment he could only stand there, holding his hand, and trying to keep his apprehension out of his face.

"Sit down," David said awkwardly, and blew his nose with a terrific blast. "I've been laid up for a while, but

I'm all right now. I'll fool them all yet," he boasted, out of his happiness and content. "Business has been

"Of course you'll fool them." There was still a band around Dick's throat. It hurt him to look at David, so thin

and feeble, so sunken from his former portliness. And David saw his eyes, and knew.

"I've dropped a little flesh, eh, Dick?" he inquired. "Old bulge is gone, you see. The nurse makes up the bed

Suddenly his composure broke. He was a feeble and apprehensive old man, shaken with the tearless sobbing

of weakness and age. Dick put an arm across his shoulders, and they sat without speech until David was quiet

"I'm a crying old woman, Dick," David said at last. "That's what comes of never feeling a pair of pants on

your legs and being coddled like a baby." He sat up and stared around him ferociously. "They sprinkle violet

Warned by Lucy, the nurse went to her room and did not disturb them. But she sat for a time in her

rockingchair, before she changed into the nightgown and kimono in which she slept on the couch in David's

room. She knew the story, and her kindly heart ached within her. What good would it do after all, this

homecoming? Dick could not stay. It was even dangerous. Reynolds had confided to her that he suspected a

watch on the house by the police, and that the mail was being opened. What good was it?

Across the hall she could hear Lucy moving briskly about in Dick's room, changing the bedding, throwing up

the windows, opening and closing bureau drawers. After a time Lucy tapped at her door and she opened it.

"I put a cake of scented soap among your handkerchiefs," she said, rather breathlessly. "Will you let me have

"Certainly he is going to stay," Lucy said, surprised. "This is his home. Where else should he go?"

But David knew. He lay, listening with avid interest to Dick's story, asking a question now and then, nodding

over Dick's halting attempt to reconstruct the period of his confusion, but all the time one part of him, a keen

and relentless inner voice, was saying: "Look at him well. Hold him close. Listen to his voice. Because this

"Then the Sayre woman doesn't know about your coming?" he asked, when Dick had finished.

"Still, she mustn't talk about having seen you. I'll send Reynolds up in the morning."

He was eager to hear of what had occurred in the long interval between them, and good, bad and indifferent

Dick told him. But he limited himself to events, and did not touch on his mental battles, and David saw and

noted it. The real story, he knew, lay there, but it was not time for it. After a while he raised himself in his

When she had come, a strangely younger Lucy, her withered cheeks flushed with exercise and excitement, he

She brought it, patted Dick's shoulder, and went away. David held out the paper.

"Read it slowly, boy," he said. "It is my justification, and God willing, it may help you. The letter is from my

Lucy, having got Dick's room in readiness, sat down in it to await his coming. Downstairs, in the warming

oven, was his supper. His bed, with the best blankets, was turned down and ready. His dressinggown and

Below, Doctor Reynolds came in quietly and stood listening. The house was very still, and he decided that

his news, which was after all no news, could wait. He went into the office and got out a sheet of notepaper,

Above, David lay in his bed and Dick read the papers in his hand. And as he read them David watched him.

Not once, since Dick's entrance, had he mentioned Elizabeth. David lay still and pondered that. There was

something wrong about it. This was Dick, their own Dick; no shadowy ghost of the past, but Dick himself.

True, an older Dick, strangely haggard and with gray running in the brown of his hair, but still Dick; the Dick

whose eyes had lighted at the sight of a girl, who had shamelessly persisted in holding her hand at that last

When he had finished the reading Dick sat for a moment with the papers in his hand, thinking.

"I see," he said finally. "Of course, it's possible. Good God, if I could only think it."

"It's the answer," David said stubbornly. "He was prowling around, and fired through the window. Donaldson

made the statement at the inquest that some one had been seen on the place, and that he notified you that

"It gives me a fighting chance, anyhow." Dick got up and threw back his shoulders. "That's all I want. A

chance to fight. I know this. I hated Lucas he was a poor thing and you know what he did to me. But I

never thought of killing him. That wouldn't have helped matters. It was too late."

"What about that?" David asked, not looking at him. When Dick did not immediately reply David glanced

"Perhaps we'd better not go into that now," David said hastily. "It's natural that the readjustments will take

"No," Dick said slowly. "It's not dead, David. And I'd better bring it into the open. I've fought it to the limit

by myself. It's the one thing that seems to have survived the shipwreck. I can't argue it down or think it

He tried to make David understand. He told in its sordid details his failure to kill it, his attempts to sink

memory and conscience in Chicago and their failure, the continued remoteness of Elizabeth and what seemed

to him the flesh and blood reality of the other woman. That she was yesterday, and Elizabeth was long ago.

"I can't argue it down," he finished. "I've tried to, desperately. It's a I think it's a wicked thing, in a way.

And God knows all she ever got out of it was suffering. She must loathe the thought of me."

David was compelled to let it rest there. He found that Dick was doggedly determined to see Beverly

Carlysle. After that, he didn't know. No man wanted to surrender himself for trial, unless he was sure himself

of whether he was innocent or guilty. If there was a reasonable doubt but what did it matter one way or the

other? His place was gone, as he'd made it, gone if he was cleared, gone if he was convicted.

"The town knows nothing. She knows a part of it. She cares a great deal, Dick. It's a tragedy for her."

"Even if other things were the same I haven't a right to see her, until I've got a clean slate."

"What about the police?" he inquired after a silence. "I was registered at Norada. I suppose they traced me?"

In response to questions about his own condition David was almost querulous. He was all right. He would get

well if they'd let him, and stop coddling him. He would get up now, in spite of them. He was good for one

"They can't prove it, Dick," he said triumphantly. "I've been over it every day for months. There is no case.

There never was a case, for that matter. They're a lot of pinheaded fools, and we'll show them up, boy. We'll

But for all his excitement fatigue was telling on him. Lucy tapped at the door and came in.

"You'd better have your supper before it spoils," she said. "And David needs a rest. Doctor Reynolds is in the

"Time for that later," David said. "I can't keep him out of my office, but I can out of my family affairs for an

So it happened that Dick followed Lucy down the back stairs and ate his meal stealthily in the kitchen.

"I've eaten in worse places," he said, smiling at her. "And sometimes not at all." He was immediately sorry

He broke as gently as he could the news that he could not stay, but it was a great blow to her. Her sagging

chin quivered piteously, and it took all the cheerfulness he could summon and all the promises of return he

"Won't you write her something then, Richard? She looks like a ghost these days."

And the finality in his tone closed the discussion, that and something very close to despair in his face.

For all his earlier hunger he ate very little, and soon after he tiptoed up the stairs again to David's room.

When he came down to the kitchen later on he found her still there, at the table where he had left her, her

arms across it and her face buried in them. On a chair was the suitcase she had hastily packed for him, and a

"You must take it," she insisted. "It breaks my heart to think Dick, I have the feeling that I am seeing you

for the last time." Then for fear she had hurt him she forced a determined smile. "Don't pay any attention to

me. David will tell you that I have said, over and over, that I'd never see you again. And here you are!"

He was going. He had said goodbye to David and was going at once. She accepted it with a stoicism born of

many years of hail and farewell, kissed him tenderly, let her hand linger for a moment on the rough sleeve of

his coat, and then let him out by the kitchen door into the yard. But long after he had gone she stood in the

In the office Doctor Reynolds was finishing a long and carefully written letter.

"I am not good at putting myself on paper, as you know, dear heart. But this I do know. I do not believe that

real love dies. We may bury it, so deep that it seems to be entirely dead, but some day it sends up a shoot, and

it either lives, or the business of killing it has to be begun all over again. So when we quarrel, I always know

The evening had shaken Dick profoundly. David's appearance and Lucy's grief and premonition, most of all

the talk of Elizabeth, had depressed and unnerved him. Even the possibility of his own innocence was

Through a side window as he went toward the street he could see Reynolds at his desk in the office, and he

was possessed by a fierce jealousy and resentment at his presence there. The laboratory window was dark,

and he stood outside and looked at it. He would have given his hope of immortality just then to have been

inside it once more, working over his tubes and his cultures, his slides and microscope. Even the memory of

certain dearlybought extravagances in apparatus revived in him, and sent the blood to his head in a wave of

He had a wild desire to go in at the front door, confront Reynolds in his smug complacency and drive him

out; to demand his place in the world and take it. He could hardly tear himself away.

Under a street lamp he looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock, and he had a half hour to spare before

traintime. Following an impulse he did not analyze he turned toward the Wheeler house. Just so months ago

had he turned in that direction, but with this difference, that then he went with a sort of hurried expectancy,

and that now he loitered on the way. Yet that it somehow drew him he knew. Not with the yearning he had

felt toward the old brick house, but with the poignancy of a long past happiness. He did not love, but he

Yet, for a man who did not love, he was oddly angry at the sight of two young figures on the doorstep. Their

clear voices came to him across the quiet street, vibrant and full of youth. It was the Sayre boy and Elizabeth.

He half stopped, and looked across. They were quite oblivious of him, intent and selfabsorbed. As he had

viewed Reynolds' unconscious figure with jealous dislike, so he viewed Wallace Sayre. Here, everywhere, his

place was filled. He was angry with an unreasoning, inexplicable anger, angry at Elizabeth, angry at the boy,

He had but to cross the street and take his place there. He could drive that beardless youngster away with a

word. The furious possessive jealousy of the male animal, which had nothing to do with love, made him stop

Then he smiled wryly and went on. He could do it, but he did not want to. He would never do it. Let them

live their lives, and let him live his. But he knew that there, across the street, so near that he might have raised

his voice and summoned her, he was leaving the best thing that had come into his life; the one fine and good

thing, outside of David and Lucy. That against its loss he had nothing but an infatuation that had ruined three

He stopped and, turning, looked back. He saw the girl bend down and put a hand on Wallie Sayre's shoulder,

and the boy's face upturned and looking into hers. He shook himself and went on. After all, that was best. He

felt no anger now. She deserved better than to be used to help a man work out his salvation. She deserved

youth, and joyousness, and the forgetfulness that comes with time. She was already forgetting.

He smiled again as he went on up the street, but his hands as he buttoned his overcoat were shaking.

It was shortly after that that he met the rector, Mr. Oglethorpe. He passed him quickly, but he was conscious

that the clergyman had stopped and was staring after him. Half an hour later, sitting in the empty smoker of

the train, he wondered if he had not missed something there. Perhaps the church could have helped him, a

good man's simple belief in right and wrong. He was wandering in a gray noman's land, without faith or

David had given him the location of Bassett's apartment house, and he found it quickly. he was in a state of

nervous irritability by that time, for the sense of being a fugitive was constantly stressed in the familiar streets

by the danger of recognition. It was in vain that he argued with himself that only the police were interested in

his movements, and the casual roundsman not at all. He found himself shying away from them like a nervous

But if he expected any surprise from Bassett he was disappointed. He greeted him as if he had seen him

"Doctor Livingstone telephoned me. Sit down, man, and let me look at you. You've given me more trouble

"Sorry," Dick said awkwardly, "I seem to have a faculty of involving other people in my difficulties."

"No, thanks. I'll smoke, if you have any tobacco. I've been afraid to risk a shop."

Bassett talked cheerfully as he found cigarettes and matches. "The old boy had a different ring to his voice

tonight. He was going down pretty fast, Livingstone; was giving up the fight. But I fancy you've given him a

new grip on the earth." When they were seated, however, a sort of awkwardness developed. To Dick, Bassett

had been a more or less shadowy memory, clouded over with the details and miseries of the flight. And

Bassett found Dick greatly altered. He was older than he remembered him. The sort of boyishness which had

come with the resurrection of his early identity had gone, and the man who sat before him was grave, weary,

"Well, a good bit of water has gone over the dam since we met," Bassett said. "I nearly broke a leg going

down that infernal mountain again. And I don't mind telling you that I came within an ace of landing in the

"I got out, because I didn't see any need of dragging you down with me. I was a good bit of a mess just then,

but I could reason that out, anyhow. It wasn't entirely unselfish, either. I had a better chance without you. Or

"Practically all. Not much between the thing that happened at the ranch and David Livingstone's picking me

"I suppose you would stake your life on the fact that Beverly Carlysle knows nothing of what happened that

At the cold anger in Dick's voice Bassett stared at him. So that was how the wind lay. Poor devil! And out of

the smug complacence of his bachelor peace Bassett thanked his stars for no women in his life.

"I'm afraid you misunderstand me, Livingstone," he said easily. "I don't think that she shot Lucas. But I don't

think she has ever told all she knows. I've got the coroner's inquest here, and we'll go over it later. I'll tell you

how I got onto your trail. Do you remember taking Elizabeth Wheeler to see "The Valley?'"

"Well, Gregory, the brother, saw you and recognized you. I was with him. He tried to deny you later, but I

was on. Of course he told her, and I think she sent him to warn David Livingstone. They knew I was on the

trail of a big story. Then I think Gregory stayed here to watch me when the company made its next jump. He

knew I'd started, for he sent David Livingstone the letter you got. By the way, that letter nearly got me jailed

"I'm not hiding behind her skirts," Dick said shortly. "And there's nothing incriminating in what you say. She

"Easy, easy, old man. I'm not pinning anything on her. But I want, if you don't mind, to carry this through. I

have every reason to believe that, some time before you got to Norada, the Thorwald woman was on my trail.

I know that I was followed to the cabin the night I stayed there, and that she got a saddle horse from her son

"That means that she knew I was coming to Norada. Think a minute; I'd kept my movements quiet, but

Beverly Carlysle knew, and her brother. When they warned David they warned her."

"If you had killed Lucas," Bassett asserted positively, "the Thorwald woman would have let the Sheriff get

you, and be damned to you. She had no reason to love you. You'd kept her son out of what she felt was his

"I've got a copy of the coroner's inquest here. It will bear going over. And it may help you to remember, too.

He got out a long envelope, and took from it a number of typed pages, backed with a base of heavy paper.

"'Inquest in the Coroner's office on the body of Howard Lucas,'" he read. "'October 10th, 1911.' That was the

second day after. 'Examination of witnesses by Coroner Samuel J. Burkhardt. Mrs. Lucas called and sworn.'"

He glanced at Dick and hesitated. "I don't know about this tonight, Livingstone. You look pretty well shot to

During the reading that followed he sat back in his deep chair, his eyes closed. Except that once or twice he

"I shall have to ask you some questions that are necessarily painful at this time. I shall be as brief as

possible. Perhaps it will be easier for you to tell so much as you know of what happened the night

"I cannot tell very much. I am confused, too. I was given a sleeping powder last night. I can only say

that I heard a shot, and thought at first that it was fired from outside. I ran down the stairs, and back

to the billiard room. As I entered the room Mr. Donaldson came in through a window. My husband

"No. I was on my knees beside Mr. Lucas. I think when I got up he was gone. I didn't notice." 9.

"Now I shall ask you one more question, and that is all. Had there been any quarrel between Mr.

"No. But I had quarreled with them both. They were drinking too much. I had gone to my room to

"I want you to tell what you know, Jack, about last night. Begin with where you were when you

"I was on the side porch. The billiard room opens on to it. I'd been told by the corral boss earlier in

the evening that he'd seen a man skulking around the house. There'd been a report like that once or

twice before, and I set a watch. I put Ben Haggerty at the kitchen wing with a gun, and I took up a

stand on the porch. Before I did that I told Judson, but I don't think he took it in. He'd been lit up like

a house afire all evening. I asked for his gun, but he said he didn't know where it was, and I went

back to my house and got my own. Along about eight o'clock I thought I saw some one in the

shrubbery, and I went out as quietly as I could. But it was a woman, Hattie Thorwald, who was

"When I left the men were playing roulette. I looked in as I went back, and Judson had a gun in his hand. He

said; 'I found it, Jack.' I saw he was very drunk, and I told him to put it up, I'd got mine. It had occurred to me

that I'd better warn Haggerty to be careful, and I started along the verandah to tell him not to shoot except to

scare. I had only gone a few steps when I heard a shot, and ran back. Mr. Lucas was on the floor dead, and

Judson was as the lady said. He must have gone out while I was bending over the body."

"No, sir. From what I gather he went straight to the corral and got his horse." 7.

"Well, she's wrong about that. She was there a little ahead of me. She'd reached the body before I got

"I want you to get this, Livingstone," he said. "How did she reach the billiard room? Where was it in the

He passed over a pad and pencil, and Dick made a hasty outline. Bassett watched with growing satisfaction.

"Here's the point," he said, when Dick had finished. "She was there before Donaldson, or at the same time,"

as Dick made an impatient movement. "But he had only a dozen yards to go. She was in her room, upstairs.

To get down in that time she had to leave her room, descend a staircase, cross a hall and run the length of the

livingroom, fortyfive feet. If the case had ever gone to trial she'd have had to do some explaining."

"I made a search early in the evening. I will not hide from you that I meant to conceal it if I

discovered it. A man who is drunk is not guilty of what he does. I did not find it. I went back that

night, when the people had gone, and found it beneath the carved woodbox, by the fireplace. I did not

"Get that, too," Bassett said, putting down the paper. "The Frenchman was fond of you, and he was doing his

blundering best. But the Sheriff expected you back and had had the place watched, so they caught him. But

that's not the point. A billiard room is a hard place to hide things in. I take it yours was like the average."

"All right. This poor boob of a valet made a search and didn't find it. Later he found it. Why did he search?

Wasn't it the likely thing that you'd carried it away with you? Do you suppose for a moment that with

Donaldson and the woman in the room you hid it there, and then went back and stood behind the roulette

"You made the second search because you had not examined the woodbox earlier?" 2.

"I'm going to find Melis," the reporter said thoughtfully, as he folded up the papers. "The fact is, I mailed an

advertisement to the New York papers today. I want to get that theory of his. It's the servants in the house

who know what is going on. I've got an idea that he'd stumbled onto something. He'd searched for the

revolver, and it wasn't there. He went back and it was. All that conflicting evidence, and against it, what?

But he saw that Dick was very tired, and even a little indifferent. He would be glad to know that his hands

were clean, but against the intimation that Beverly Carlysle had known more than she had disclosed he

presented a dogged front of opposition. After a time Bassett put the papers away and essayed more general

conversation, and there he found himself met half way and more. He began to get Dick as a man, for the first

time, and as a strong man. He watched his quiet, lined face, and surmised behind it depths of tenderness and

It was settled that Dick was to spend the night there, and such plans as he had Bassett left until morning. But

while he was unfolding the bedlounge on which Dick was to sleep, Dick opened a line of discussion that

cost the reporter an hour or two's sleep before he could suppress his irritation.

"I must have caused you considerable outlay, one way and another," he said. "I want to defray that, Bassett,

"Forget it." Then he grinned. "You can fix that when you get your estate, old man. Buy a newspaper and let

He bent over the davenport and put the pillow in place. "All you'll have to do is to establish your identity. The

institutions that got it had to give bond. I hope you're not too long for this bed."

But he looked up at Dick's silence, to see him looking at him with a faint air of amusement over his pipe.

"Don't be a damned fool," he protested. "It's your money. Don't tell me you're going to give it to suffering

humanity. That sort of drivel makes me sick. Take it, give it away if you like, but for God's sake don't shirk

Dick got up and took a turn or two around the room. Then, after an old habit, he went to the window and

"It's not that, Bassett. I'm afraid of the accursed thing. I might talk a lot of rot about wanting to work with my

hands. I wouldn't if I didn't have to, any more than the next fellow. I might fool myself, too, with thinking I

could work better without any money worries. But I've got to remember this. It took work to make a man of

me before, and it will take work to keep me going the way I intend to go, if I get my freedom."

Sometime during the night Bassett saw that the light was still burning by the davenport, and went in. Dick

was asleep with a volume of Whitman open on his chest, and Bassett saw what he had been reading.

'You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you shortlived ennuis; Ah, think not you shall finally triumph,

my real self has yet to come forth. It shall march forth overmastering, till all lie beneath me, It shall stand

Bassett took the book away and stood rereading the paragraph. For the first time he sensed the struggle going

on at that time behind Dick's quiet face, and he wondered. Unquestioned victory, eh? That was a pretty large

Leslie Ward had found the autumn extremely tedious. His old passion for Nina now and then flamed up in

him, but her occasional coquetries no longer deceived him. They had their source only in her vanity. She

exacted his embraces only as tribute to her own charm, her youth, her fresh young body.

And Nina out of her setting of gaiety, of a thumping piano, of chattering, giggling crowds, of dancing and

bridge and theater boxes, was a queen dethroned. She did not read or think. She spent the leisure of her

mourning period in long hours before her mirror fussing with her hair, in trimming and retrimming hats, or in

He was ashamed sometimes of his pitilessly clear analysis of her. She was not discontented, save at the

enforced somberness of their lives. She had found in marriage what she wanted; a good house, daintily

served; a man to respond to her attractions as a woman, and to provide for her needs as a wife; dignity and an

But she was restless. She chafed at the quiet evenings they spent at home, and resented the reading in which

"For Heaven's sake, Nina, sit down and read or sew, or do something. You've been at that window a dozen

When nobody dropped in she would go upstairs and spend the hour or so before bedtime in the rites of cold

cream, massage, and in placing the little combs of what Leslie had learned was called a waterwave.

But her judgment was as clear as his, and even more pitiless; the difference between them lay in the fact that

while he rebelled, she accepted the situation. She was cleverer than he was; her mind worked more quickly,

and she had the adaptability he lacked. If there were times when she wearied him, there were others when he

sickened her. Across from her at the table he ate slowly and enormously. He splashed her dainty bathroom

with his loud, gasping cold baths. He flung his soiled clothing anywhere. He drank whisky at night and

crawled into the lavenderscented sheets redolent of it, to drop into a heavy sleep and snore until she wanted

Then, seeing that they might go on the rocks, he made a valiant effort, and since she recognized it as an

effort, she tried to meet him half way. They played twohanded card games. He read aloud to her, poetry

which she loathed, and she to him, short stories he hated. He suggested country walks and she agreed, to limp

He concealed his boredom from her, but there were nights when he lay awake long after she was asleep and

looked ahead into a future of unnumbered blank evenings. He had formerly taken an occasional evening at

his club, but on his suggesting it now Nina's eyes would fill with suspicion, and he knew that although she

never mentioned Beverly Carlysle, she would neither forget nor entirely trust him again. And in his inner

He had thought that he had buried that brief madness, but there were times when he knew he lied to himself.

One fiction, however, he persisted in; he had not been infatuated with Beverly. It was only that she gave him

during those few days something he had not found at home, companionship and quiet intelligent talk. She had

He bought a New York paper daily, and read it in the train. "The Valley" had opened to success in New York,

and had settled for a long run. The reviews of her work had been extraordinary, and when now and then she

gave an interview he studied the photographs accompanying it. But he never carried the paper home.

He began, however, to play with the thought of going to New York. He would not go to see her at her house,

but he would like to see her before a metropolitan audience, to add his mite to her triumph. There were times

when he fully determined to go, when he sat at his desk with his hand on the telephone, prepared to lay the

foundations of the excursion by some manipulation of business interests. For months, however, he never went

But by October he began to delude himself with a real excuse for going, and this was the knowledge that by a

strange chain of circumstance this woman who so dominated his secret thoughts was connected with

Elizabeth's life through Judson Clark. The discovery, communicated to him by Walter Wheeler, that Dick

was Clark had roused in him a totally different feeling from Nina's. He saw no glamour of great wealth. On

the contrary, he saw in Clark the author of a great unhappiness to a woman who had not deserved it. And

That he was jealous of Judson Clark, and of his part in the past, he denied to himself absolutely. But his

resentment took the form of violent protest to the family, against even allowing Elizabeth to have anything to

"He'll buy his freedom, if he isn't dead," he said to Nina, and he'll come snivelling back here, with that lost

"Suppose I did something I shouldn't and turned up here with such a story, would you believe it?"

"No. When you want to do something you shouldn't you don't appear to need any excuse."

But, on the whole, they managed to live together comfortably enough. They each had their reservations, but

especially after Jim's death they tacitly agreed to stop bickering and to make their mutual concessions. What

Nina never suspected was that he corresponded with Beverly Carlysle. Not that the correspondence amounted

to much. He had sent her flowers the night of the New York opening, with the name of his club on his card,

and she wrote there in acknowledgment. Then, later, twice he sent her books, one a biography, which was a

compromise with his conscience, and later a volume of exotic love verse, which was not. As he replied to her

notes of thanks a desultory correspondence had sprung up, letters which the world might have read, and yet

He did not know that that, and not infatuation, was behind his desire to see Beverly again; never reasoned that

he was demonstrating to himself that his adventurous love life was not necessarily ended; never

acknowledged that the instinct of the hunter was as alive in him as in the days before his marriage. Partly,

then, a desire for adventure, partly a hope that romance was not over but might still be waiting around the

Probably Nina knew that, as she knew so many things; why he had taken to reading poetry, for instance.

Certain it is that when he began, early in October, to throw out small tentative remarks about the necessity of

a business trip before long to New York, she narrowed her eyes. She was determined to go with him, if he

It became, in a way, a sort of watchful waiting on both sides. Then there came a time when some slight

excuse offered, and Leslie took up the shuttle for fortyeight hours, and wove his bit in the pattern. It

"Has the handle of my suitcase been repaired yet?" he asked. He was lighting a cigarette at the time.

"I'll have to run over to New York tomorrow. I wanted Joe to go alone, but he thinks he needs me." Joe was

She was silent. Joe's going was clever of him. It gave authenticity to his business, and it kept her at home.

"Only a day or two." He could not entirely keep the relief out of his voice. It had been easy, incredibly easy.

"If you'll get your things out I'll pack them." She was still thinking, but her tone was indifferent. "You won't

She looked at him then, with a half contemptuous smile. "Yes," she said slowly. "I suppose you will. You'll

"Possibly. But we'll be rushing to get through. There's a lot to do. Amazing how business piles up when you

She sat before the mirror in her small dressingroom that night, ostensibly preparing for bed but actually

taking stock of her situation. She had done all she could, had been faithful and loyal, had made his home

attractive, had catered to his tastes and tried to like his friends, had met his needs and responded to them. And

now, this. She was bewildered and frightened. How did women hold their husbands?

She found him in bed and unmistakably asleep when she went into the bedroom. Manlike, having got his

He was lying on his back, with his mouth open. She felt a sudden and violent repugnance to getting into the

bed beside him. Sometime in the night he would turn over and throwing his arm about her, hold her close in

He had his good qualities. He was kind and affectionate to her family. He had been wonderful when Jim died,

and he loved Elizabeth dearly. He was generous and openhanded. He was handsome, too, in a big, heavy

She began to find excuses for him. Men were always a childlike prey to some women. They were vain, and

especially they were sexvain; good looking men were a target for every sort of advance. She transferred her

loathing of him to the woman she suspected of luring him away from her, and lay for hours hating her.

She saw Leslie off in the morning with a perfunctory goodbye while cold anger and suspicion seethed in

her. And later she put on her hat and went home to lay the situation before her mother. Mrs. Wheeler was out,

Nina watched her. She was out of patience with Elizabeth, exasperated with the world.

"Are you going to go on like this all your life?" she demanded. "Sitting by a window, waiting? For a man

"They're all alike," Nina declared recklessly. "They go along well enough, and they are all for virtue and for

the home and fireside stuff, until some woman comes their way. I ought to know."

"He went to New York this morning. He pretended to be going on business, but he's actually gone to see that

"Oh, wake up," Nina said impatiently. "The world isn't made up of good, kind, virtuous people. It's rotten.

And men are all alike. Dick Livingstone and Les and all the rest tarred with the same stick. As long as there

are women like this Carlysle creature they'll fall for them. And you and I can sit at home and chew our nails

In spite of herself a little question of doubt crept that day into Elizabeth's mind. She had always known that

they had not told her all the truth; that the benevolent conspiracy to protect Dick extended even to her. But

she had never thought that it might include a woman. Once there, the very humility of her love for Dick was

an element in favor of the idea. She had never been good enough, or wise or clever enough, for him. She was

Dismissing the thought did no good. It came back. But because she was a healthyminded and practical

person she took the one course she could think of, and put the question that night to her father, when he came

David had sent for him early in the evening. All day he had thought over the situation between Dick and

Elizabeth, with growing pain and uneasiness. He had not spoken of it to Lucy, or to Harrison Miller; he knew

that they would not understand, and that Lucy would suffer. She was bewildered enough by Dick's departure.

At noon he had insisted on getting up and being helped into his trousers. So clad he felt more of a man and

better able to cope with things, although his satisfaction in them was somewhat modified by the knowledge of

two safetypins at the sides, to take up their superfluous girth at the waistband.

But even the sense of being clothed as a man again did not make it easier to say to Walter Wheeler what must

Walter took the news of Dick's return with a visible brightening. It was as though, out of the wreckage of his

midd1e years, he saw that there was now some salvage, but he was grave and inarticulate over it, wrung

"Thank God for it, David." And after a pause: "Was he all right? He remembered everything?"

But something strange in the situation began to obtrude itself into his mind. Dick had come back twentyfour

"He is still a fugitive. He doesn't himself know he isn't guilty. I think he feels that he ought not to see her until

"Come, come," Walter Wheeler said impatiently. "Don't try to find excuses for him. Let's have the truth,

Poor David, divided between his love for Dick and his native honesty, threw out his hands.

"I don't understand it, Wheeler," he said. "You and I wouldn't, I suppose. We are not the sort to lose the world

for a woman. The plain truth is that there is not a trace of Judson Clark in him today, save one. That's the

When Wheeler said nothing, but sat twisting his hat in his hands, David went on. It might be only a phase. As

its impression on Dick's youth had been deeper than others, so its effect was more lasting. It might gradually

disappear. He was confident, indeed, that it would. He had been reading on the subject all day.

Walter Wheeler hardly heard him. He was facing the incredible fact, and struggling with his own problem.

After a time he got up, shook hands with David and went home, the dog at his heels.

During the evening that followed he made his resolution, not to tell her, never to let her suspect the truth. But

he began to wonder if she had heard something, for he found her eyes on him more than once, and when

Margaret had gone up to bed she came over and sat on the arm of his chair. She said an odd thing then, and

"I come to you, a good bit as I would go to God, if he were a person," she said. "I have got to know

"I try to. But it seems about six months since I was feeding you hot water for colic."

She sat still for a moment, stroking his hair and being very careful not to spoil his neat parting.

"You have never told me all about Dick, daddy. You have always kept something back. That's true, isn't it?"

"Here's what I want to know. If he has gone back to the time you know, wouldn't he go back to caring for

the people he loved then?" Then, suddenly, her childish appeal ceased, and she slid from the chair and stood

before him. "I must know, father. I can bear it. The thing you have been keeping from me was another

"It was so long ago," he temporized. "Think of it, Elizabeth. A boy of twentyone or so."

"I believe so, at one time. But I know positively that he hadn't seen or heard from her in ten years."

"All right, dear," he said. "I'll tell you all I know. She was an actress, and she married another man. That's all

there is to it. She's not young now. She must be thirty now if she's living," he added, as an afterthought.

"I don't know. Most of them aren't, off the stage. Anyhow, what does it matter now?"

Long after, he closed the house and went cautiously upstairs. She was waiting for him in the doorway of her

"I know it all now," she said steadily. "It was because of her he shot the other man, wasn't it?"

She saw her answer in his startled face, and closed her door quickly. He stood outside, and then he tapped

"Let me in, honey," he said. "I want to finish it. You've got a wrong idea about it."

When she did not answer he tried the door, hut it was locked. He turned and went downstairs again...

"Knows he was back here and didn't see her. Annie blurted it out; she'd got it from the Oglethorpe's

It took him some time to drag a coherent story from her. Annie had told Elizabeth in her room, and then had

told Margaret. She had gone to Elizabeth at once, to see what she could do, but Elizabeth had been in her

closet, digging among her clothes. She had got out her best frock and put it on, while her mother sat on the

bed not even daring to broach the matter in her mind, and had gone out. There was a sort of cold

determination in her that frightened Margaret. She had laughed a good bit, for one thing.

"She's terribly proud," she finished. "She'll do something reckless, I'm sure. It wouldn't surprise me to see her

But apparently she had not, or if she had she said nothing about it. >From that time on they saw a change in

her; she was as loving as ever, but she affected a sort of painful brightness that was a little hard. As though

For months Beverly Carlysle had remained a remote and semimysterious figure. She had been in some

hearts and in many minds, but to most of them she was a name only. She had been the motive behind events

she never heard of, the quiet center in a tornado of emotions that circled about without touching her.

On the whole she found her life, with the settling down of the piece to a successful, run, one of prosperous

monotony. She had reopened and was living in the 56th Street house, keeping a simple establishment of

cook, butler and maid, and in the early fall she added a town car and a driver. After that she drove out every

afternoon except on matinee days, almost always alone, but sometimes with a young girl from the company.

She was very lonely. The kaleidoscope that is theatrical New York had altered since she left it. Only one or

two of her former friends remained, and she found them uninteresting and narrow with the narrowness of

their own absorbing world. She had forgotten that the theater was like an island, cut off from the rest of the

world, having its own politics, its own society divided by caste, almost its own religion. Out of its insularity it

made occasional excursions to dinners and weekends; even into marriage, now and then with an outlander.

But almost always it went back, eager for its home of dressingroom and footlights, of stage entrances up

Occasionally she had callers, men she had met or who were brought to see her. She saw them over a

teatable, judged them remorselessly, and eliminated gradually all but one or two. She watched her dignity

and her reputation with the care of an ambitious woman trying to live down the past, and she succeeded

measurably well. Now and then a critic spoke of her as a second Maude Adams, and those notices she kept

But she was always uneasy. Never since the night he had seen Judson Clark in the theater had they rung up

without her brother having carefully combed the house with his eyes. She knew her limitations; they would

have to ring down if she ever saw him over the footlights. And the season had brought its incidents, to

connect her with the past. One night Gregory had come back and told her Jean Melis was in the balcony.

"Yes. What about it? He never saw me but once, and that was at night and out of doors."

"Sometimes I think I can't stand it, Fred. The eternal suspense, the waiting for something to happen."

"If anything was going to happen it would have happened months ago. Bassett has given it up. And Jud's

"Not at all. As long as he kept under cover he was all right. But if he is, I don't see why you should fool

yourself into thinking you're sorry. It's the best solution to a number of things."

"What? To see the best play in New York. Besides, why not allow the man a healthy curiosity? He was pretty

closely connected with a hectic part of your life, my dear. Now buck up, and for the Lord's sake forget the

"He saw me that night, on the stairs. He never took his eyes off me at the inquest."

She gave, however, an excellent performance that night, and nothing more was heard of the valet.

There were other alarms, all of them without foundation. She went on her way, rejected an offer or two of

marriage, spent her mornings in bed and her afternoons driving or in the hands of her hairdresser and

manicure, cared for the flowers that came in long casketlike boxes, and began to feel a sense of security

She had hardly given a thought to Leslie Ward. He had come and gone, one of that steady procession of men,

mostly married, who battered their heads now and then like night beetles outside a window, against the hard

glass of her ambition. Because her business was to charm, she had been charming to him. And could not

As the months went by she began to accept Fred's verdict that nothing was going to happen. Bassett was back

and at work. Either dead or a fugitive somewhere was Judson Clark, but that thought she had to keep out of

her mind. Sometimes, as the play went on, and she was able to make her solid investments out of it, she

wondered if her ten years of retirement had been all the price she was to pay for his ruin; but she put that

thought away too, although she never minimized her responsibility when she faced it.

But her price had been heavy at that. She was childless and alone, lavishing her aborted maternity on a

brother who was living his prosperous, cheerful and not too moral life at her expense. Fred was, she knew,

slightly drunk with success; he attended to his minimum of labor with the least possible effort, had an

expensive apartment on the Drive, and neglected her except, when he needed money. She began to see, as

other women had seen before her, that her success had, by taking away the necessity for initiative, been

That was the situation when, one night late in October, the trap of Bassett's devising began to close in. It had

been raining, but in spite of that they had sold standing room to the fire limit. Having got the treasurer's report

on the night's business and sent it to Beverly's dressingroom, Gregory wandered into his small, lowceiled

office under the balcony staircase, and closing the door sat down. It was the interval after the second act, and

He was entirely serene. He had a supper engagement after the show, he had a neat car waiting outside to take

him to it, and the night's business had been extraordinary. He consulted his watch and then picked up an

evening paper. A few moments later he found himself reading over and over a small notice inserted among

"Personal: Jean Melis, who was in Norada, Wyoming, during the early fall of 1911 please communicate with

The orchestra was still playing outside; the silly, giggling crowds were moving back to their seats, and

somewhere Jean Melis, or the friends of Jean Melis, who would tell him of it, were reading that message.

He got his hat and went out, forgetful of the neat car at the curb, of the supper engagement, of the night's

business, and wandered down the street through the rain. But his first uneasiness passed quickly. He saw

Bassett in the affair, and probably Clark himself, still living and tardily determined to clear his name. But if

the worst came to the worst, what could they do? They could go only so far, and then they would have to quit.

It would be better, however, if they did not see Melis. Much better; there was no use involving a simple

situation. And Bev could be kept out of it altogether, until it was over. Ashamed of his panic he went back to

the theater, got a railway schedule and looked up trains. He should have done it long before, he recognized,

have gone to Bassett in the spring. But how could he have known then that Bassett was going to make a

He had only one uncertainty. Suppose that Bassett had learned about Clifton Hines?

By the time the curtain rang down on the last act he was his dapper, debonair self again, made his supper

engagement, danced half the night, and even dozed a little on the way home. But he slept badly and was up

He wondered through what formalities L 22, for instance, would have to go in order to secure a letter

addressed to him? Whether he had to present a card or whether he walked in demanded his mail and went

away. That thought brought another with it. Wasn't it probable that Bassett was in New York, and would call

He determined finally to take the chance, claim to be L 22, and if Melis had seen the advertisement and

replied, get the letter. It would be easy to square it with the valet, by saying that he had recognized him in the

He bad small hope of a letter at his first call, unless the Frenchman had himself seen the notice, but his

anxiety drove him early to the office. There was nothing there, but he learned one thing. He had to go through

with no formalities. The clerk merely looked in a box, said "Nothing here," and went on about his business.

At eleven o'clock he went back again, and after a careful scrutiny of the crowd presented himself once more.

He had the letter in his hand. He had glanced at it and had thrust it deep in his pocket, when he felt a hand on

"I thought I recognized that back," said the reporter, cheerfully. "Come over here, old man. I want to talk to

But he held to Gregory's shoulder. In a corner Bassett dropped the friendliness he had assumed for the clerk's

"I'll have that letter now, Gregory," he said. "And I've got a damned good notion to lodge an information

"Forget it. I was behind you when you asked for that letter. Give it here. I want to show you something."

Suddenly, with the letter in his hand, Bassett laughed and then tore it open. There was only a sheet of blank

"I wasn't sure you'd see it, and I didn't think you'd fall for it if you did," he observed. "But I was pretty sure

"Just the same, I expect to see him. The day's early yet, and that's not a common name. But I'll take darned

"I'll explain that to you some day," Bassett said cheerfully. "Some day when you are in a more receptive

mood than you are now. The point at this moment seems to me to be, what does Melis know that you don't

"Not here. You may believe it or not, Bassett, but I was going to your town tonight to see you."

"Well," Bassett said sceptically, "I've got your word for it. And I've got nothing to do all day but to listen to

To his proposition that they go to his hotel Gregory assented sullenly, and they moved out to find a taxicab.

"I've got a right to know something," he said, "considering what he's done to me and mine. Clark's alive, I

"Then I'll trade you, Bassett. I'll come over with what I know, if you'll tell me one thing. What sent him into

Bassett reflected. The offer of a statement from Gregory was valuable, but, on the other hand, he was anxious

not to influence his narrative. And Gregory saw his uncertainty. He planted himself firmly on the pavement.

"I'll tell you this much, Gregory. He never meant to bring the thing up again. In a way, it's me you're up

against. Not Clark. And you can be pretty sure I know what I'm doing. I've got Clark, and I've got the report

of the coroner's inquest, and I'll get Mells. I'm going to get to the bottom of this if I have to dig a hole that

In a taxicab Gregory sat tense and erect, gnawing at his blond mustache. After a time he said:

"What are you after, in all this? The story, I suppose. And the money. I daresay you're not doing it for love."

"You wouldn't understand my motives if I told you. As a matter of fact, he doesn't want the money."

"Don't kid yourself," he said. "However, as a matter of fact I don't think he'll take it. It might cost too much.

"You're a capable person, aren't you? I'll bet you could tune a piano if you were put to it."

He carried the situation well, the reporter had to admit; the only evidence he gave of strain was that the hands

with which he lighted a cigarette were unsteady. He surveyed the obscure hotel at which the cab stopped with

The laugh he gave at that struck unpleasantly on Bassett's ears. But inside the building he lost some of his

To which Bassett grimly returned: "He's probably rather particular what he bites."

He was uneasily conscious that Gregory, while nervous and tense, was carrying the situation with a certain

assurance. If he was acting it was very good acting. And that opinion was strengthened when he threw open

He made no offer to shake hands as Dick turned from the window, nor did Dick make any overtures. But

there was no enmity at first in either face; Gregory was easy and assured, Dick grave, and, Bassett thought,

slightly impatient. From that night in his apartment the reporter had realized that he was constantly fighting a

sort of passive resistance in Dick, a determination not at any cost to involve Beverly. Behind that, too, he felt

that still another battle was going on, one at which he could only guess, but which made Dick somber at times

"Well, your friend here did that for you," Gregory said, and smiled across at Bassett. "He has his own

He took off his overcoat and flung it on the bed, and threw a swift, appraising glance at Dick. It was on Dick

that he was banking, not on Bassett. He hated and feared Bassett. He hated Dick, but he was not afraid of

"So here we are, again, Jud!" he said. "But with this change, that now it's you who are the respectable

The contempt in Dick's voice whipped the color to Gregory's face and clenched his fist. But he relaxed in a

"Don't worry, Bassett," he said, his eyes on Dick. "We haven't any reason to like each other, but he's bigger

than I am. I won't hit him." Then he hardened his voice. "But I'll remind you, Clark, that personally I don't

give a Goddamn whether you swing or not. Also that I can keep my mouth shut, walk out of here, and have

"But you won't," Bassett said smoothly. "You won't, any more than you did it last spring, when you sent that

"No. You're right. I won't. But if I tell you what I came here to say, Bassett, get this straight. It's not because

I'm afraid of you, or of him. Donaldson's dead. What value would Melis's testimony have after ten years, if

you put him on the stand? It's not that. It's because you'll put your blundering foot into it and ruin Bev's

It was to Bassett then that he told his story, he and Bassett sitting, Dick standing with his elbow on the

"I've got to make my own position plain in this," he said. "I didn't like Clark, and I kept her from marrying

him. There was one time, before she met Lucas, when she almost did it. I was away when she decided on that

fool trip to the Clark ranch. We couldn't get a New York theater until November, and she had some time, so

they went. I've got her story of what happened there. You can check it up with what you know."

"You were drinking pretty hard that night, but you may remember this: She had quarreled with Lucas at

"She went to her room and began to pack her things. Then she thought it over, and she decided to try to

persuade Lucas to go too. Things had begun all right, but they were getting strained and unpleasant. She went

down the stairs, and Melis saw her, the valet. The livingroom was dark, but there was a light coming

through the billiard room door, and against it she saw the figure of a man in the doorway. He had his back to

her, and he had a revolver in his hand. She ran across the room when he heard her and when he turned she

saw it was Lucas. Do you remember, Jud, having a revolver and Lucas taking it from you?"

"Well, that's how we figure he'd got the gun. She thought at once that Lucas and you had quarreled, and that

he was going to shoot. She tried to take it from him, but he was drunk and stubborn. It went off and killed

"She was afraid it wouldn't be believed. Look at the facts. She'd quarreled with Lucas. There had been a

notorious situation with regard to Clark. And remember this. She had done it. I know her well enough,

however, to say that she would have confessed, eventually, but Clark had beaten it. It was reasonably sure

"She had it in her hand. She dropped it and stood still, too stunned to scream. Lucas, she says, took a step or

two forward, and fell through the doorway. Donaldson came running in, and you know the rest."

"Not necessarily. Clark would be on trial. He's been indicted. He has to be tried."

"Why does he have to be tried? He's free now. He's been free for ten years. And I tell you as an honest

opinion that the thing would kill her. Accident and all, she did it. And there would be some who'd never

"That's a chance she'll have to take," Bassett said doggedly. "The only living witness who could be called

would be the valet. And remember this: for ten years he has believed that she did it. He'll have built up a story

"There's only one thing to do. You're right, Gregory. I'll never expose her to that."

"Not at all. I told you I wouldn't hide behind a woman. As a matter of fact, I've learned what I wanted. Lucas

wasn't murdered. I didn't shoot him. That's what really matters. I'm no worse off than I was before;

considerably better, in fact. And I don't see what's to be gained by going any further."

In spite of his protests, Bassett was compelled finally to agree. He was sulky and dispirited. He saw the

profound anticlimax to all his effort of Dick wandering out again, legally dead and legally guilty, and he

"All right," he grunted at last. "I guess that's the last word, Gregory. But you tell her from me that if she

doesn't reopen the matter of her own accord, she'll have a man's life on her conscience."

"I'll not tell her anything about it. I'm not only her brother; I'm her manager now. And I'm not kicking any

He was selfconfident and slightly insolent; the hands with which he lighted a fresh cigarette no longer

Bassett had to restrain an impulse to kick him out of the door. When he had gone Bassett turned to Dick with

He wandered around the room, restless and disappointed. He knew, and Dick knew, that they had come to the

end of the road, and that nothing lay beyond. In his own unpleasant way Fred Gregory had made a case for

his sister that tied their hands, and the crux of the matter had lain in his final gibe: "As a man sows, Clark, so

"Yes. Except that I wish I'd known about him when I could have done something. He's my halfbrother, any

way you look at it, and he had a rotten deal. Sometimes a man sows," he added, with a wry smile, "and the

Bassett went out after that, going to the office on the chance of a letter from Melis, but there was none. When

he came back he found Dick standing over a partially packed suitcase, and knew that they had come to the

"I'll get a job. I suppose a man is as well hidden here as anywhere. I can grow a beardthat's the usual thing,

Bassett made an impatient gesture, and fell to pacing the floor. "It's incredible," he said. "It's monstrous. It's a

joke. Here you are, without a thing against you, and hung like Mahomet's coffin between heaven and earth. It

He went home that night, leaving word to have any letters for L 22 forwarded, but without much hope. His

last clutch of Dick's hand had a sort of desperate finality in it, and he carried with him most of the way home

By the next afternoon's mail he received a note from New York, with a few words of comment penciled on it

in Dick's writing. "This came this evening. I sent back the money. D." The note was from Gregory and had

evidently enclosed a onehundred dollar bill. It began without superscription: "Enclosed find a hundred

dollars, as I imagine funds may be short. If I were you I'd get out of here. There has been considerable

"Now why the devil did he do that?" he reflected. He sat for some time, thinking deeply, and he came to one

important conclusion. The story Gregory had told was the one which was absolutely calculated to shut off all

further inquiry. They had had ten years; ten years to plan, eliminate and construct; ten years to prepare their

defense, in case Clark turned up. Wasn't that why Gregory had been so assured? But he had not been content

Then what was the answer? She had killed Lucas, but was it an accident? And there must have been a

witness, or they would have had nothing to fear. He wrote out on a bit of paper three names, and sat looking

Elizabeth had quite definitely put Dick out of her heart. On the evening of the day she learned he had come

back and had not seen her, she deliberately killed her love and decently interred it. She burned her notes and

his one letter and put away her ring, performing the rites not as rites but as a shameful business to be done

with quickly. She tore his photograph into bits and threw them into her waste basket, and having thus

She found very little to do. She was numb and totally without feeling. The little painful constriction in her

chest which had so often come lately with her thoughts of him was gone. She felt extraordinarily empty, but

She felt no sense of Dick's unworthiness, but simply that she was up against something she could not fight,

and no longer wanted to fight. She was beaten, but the strange thing was that she did not care. Only, she

would not be pitied. As the days went on she resented the pity that had kept her in ignorance for so long, and

had let her wear her heart on her sleeve; and she even wondered sometimes whether the story of Dick's loss

of memory had not been false, evolved out of that pity and the desire to save her pain.

David sent for her, but she wrote him a little note, formal and restrained. She would come in a day or two, but

now she must get her bearings. He was, to know that she was not angry, and felt it all for the best, and she

She knew now that she would eventually marry Wallie Sayre if only to get away from pity. He would have to

know the truth about her, that she did not love any one; not even her father and her mother. She pretended to

care for fear of hurting them, but she was actually frozen quite hard. She did not believe in love. It was a

terrible thing, to be avoided by any one who wanted to get along, and this avoiding was really quite simple.

On the Sunday after she had come to this comfortable knowledge she sat in the church as usual, in the choir

stalls, and suddenly she hated the church. She hated the way the larynx of Henry Wallace, the tenor, stuck out

like a crabapple over his low collar. She hated the fat double chin of the bass. She hated the talk about love

and the certain rewards of virtue, and the faces of the congregation, smug and sure of salvation.

She went to the choir master after the service to hand in her resignation. And did not, because it had occurred

to her that it might look, to use Nina's word, as though she were crushed. Crushed! That was funny.

Wallie Sayre was waiting for her outside, and she went up with him to lunch, and afterwards they played

golf. They had rather an amusing game, and once she had to sit down on a bunker and laugh until she was

So the weaving went on, almost completed now. With Wallie Sayre biding his time, but fairly sure of the

result. With Jean Melis happening on a twodays' old paper, and reading over and over a notice addressed to

him. With Leslie Ward, neither better nor worse than his kind, seeking adventure in a bypath, which was East

56th Street. And with Dick wandering the streets of New York after twilight, and standing once with his coat

collar turned up against the rain outside of the Metropolitan Club, where the great painting of his father hung

Now that he was near Beverly, Dick hesitated to see her. He felt no resentment at her long silence, nor at his

exile which had resulted from it. He made excuses for her, recognized his own contribution to the

catastrophe, knew, too, that nothing was to be gained by seeing her again. But he determined finally to see

She would know now that she had nothing to fear from him. All he wanted was to satisfy the hunger that was

Curiously, that hunger to see her had been in abeyance while Bassett was with him. It was only when he was

alone again that it came up; and although he knew that, he was unconscious of another fact, that every word,

every picture of her on the great boardings which walled in every empty lot, everything, indeed, which

brought her into the reality of the present, loosened by so much her hold on him out of the past.

When he finally went to the 56th Street house it was on impulse. He had meant to pass it, but he found

himself stopping, and half angrily made his determination. He would follow the cursed thing through now

and get it over. Perhaps he had discounted it too much in advance, waited too long, hoped too much. Perhaps

it was simply that that last phase was already passing. But he felt no thrill, no expectancy, as he rang the bell

It was peopled with ghosts, for him. Upstairs, in the drawingroom that extended across the front of the

house, she had told him of her engagement to Howard Lucas. Later on, coming back from Europe, he had

gone back there to find Lucas installed in the house, his cigars on the table, his photographs on the piano, his

books scattered about. And Lucas himself, smiling, handsome and triumphant on the hearth rug, dressed for

dinner except for a brocaded dressinggown, putting his hand familiarly on Beverly's shoulder, and calling

He wandered into the small room to the right of the hall, where in other days he had waited to be taken

upstairs, and stood looking out of the window. He heard some one, a caller, come down, get into his overcoat

in the hall and go out, but he was not interested. He did not know that Leslie Ward had stood outside the door

He was quite steady as the butler preceded him up the stairs. He even noticed certain changes in the house,

the door at the landing converted into an arch, leaded glass in the diningroom windows beyond it. But he

caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, and saw himself a shabby contrast to the former days.

He faced her, still with that unexpected composure, and he saw her very little changed. Even the movement

He saw that she was profoundly moved, and suddenly he was sorry for her. Sorry for the years behind them

She put her head against his shoulder, and cried unrestrainedly; and he held her there, saying small, gentle,

soothing things, smoothing her hair. But all the time he knew that life had been playing him another trick; he

felt a great tenderness for her and profound pity, but he did not love her, or want her. He saw that after all the

suffering and waiting, the death and exile, he was left at the end with nothing. Nothing at all.

When she was restored to a sort of tense composure he found to his discomfort that womanlike she intended

to abase herself thoroughly and completely. She implored his forgiveness for his long exile, gazing at him

humbly, and when he said in a matteroffact tone that he had been happy, giving him a look which showed

"I'm telling you the truth," he said, patiently. "There's one point I didn't think necessary to tell your brother.

For a good while I didn't remember anything about it. If it hadn't been for thatwell, I don't know. Anyhow,

To his intense discomfiture she began to cry again. She couldn't go through with it. She would go back to

Norada and tell the whole thing. She had let Fred influence her, but she saw now she couldn't do it. But for

the first time he felt that in this one thing she was not sincere. Her grief and abasement had been real enough,

"Suppose we don't go into that now," he said gently. "You've had about all you can stand." He got up

Her face worked. She continued to look up at him, piteously. The appalling truth came to him then, and that

part of him which had remained detached and aloof, watching, almost smiled at the irony. She cared for him.

Out of her memories she had built up something to care for, something no more himself than she was the

woman of his dreams; but with this difference, that she was clinging, womanfashion, to the thing she had

"Why should I? Just remember this: while you were carrying this burden, I was happier than I'd ever been. I'll

She got up, and he perceived that she expected him again to take her in his arms. He felt ridiculous and

resentful, and rather as though he was expected to kiss the hand that had beaten him, but when she came close

He patted her and let her go, and her eyes followed him as he left the room. The elder brotherliness of that

embrace had told her the truth as he could never have hurt her in words. She went back to the chair where he

After a time she went slowly upstairs and into her room. When her maid came in she found her before the

mirror of her dressingtable, staring at her reflection with hard, appraising eyes

Leslie's partner, wandering into the hotel at six o'clock, found from the disordered condition of the room that

Leslie had been back, had apparently bathed, shaved and made a careful toilet, and gone out again. Joe found

himself unexpectedly at a loose end. Filled, with suppressed indignation he commenced to dress, getting out a

shirt, hunting his evening studs, and lining up what he meant to say to Leslie over his defection.

Then, at a quarter to seven, Leslie came in, tophatted and morningcoated, with a yellowing gardenia in his

"Hello, Les," Joe said, glancing up from a laborious struggle with a stud. "Been to a wedding?"

"Some walk, I'd say," Joe observed, looking at him shrewdly. "What's wrong, Les? Fair one turn you down?"

He flung off his coat and jerked at his tie. Then, with it hanging loose, he turned to Joe.

"I'm going to tell you something. I know it's safe with you, and I need some advice. I called on a woman this

"That's not the point," Leslie declaimed, in a truculent voice. "I'm not defending myself. She's a friend; I've

"Well, you know the situation at home, and who Livingstone actually is. The point is that, while that poor kid

at home is sitting around killing herself with grief, Clark's gone back to her. To Beverly Carlysle."

He sat still, moodily reviewing the situation. His thoughts were a chaotic and unpleasant mixture of jealousy,

fear of Nina, anxiety over Elizabeth, and the sense of a lost romantic adventure. After a while he got up.

He began, automatically, to dress for dinner. Joe moved around the room, rang for a waiter, ordered orange

juice and ice, and produced a bottle of gin from his bag. Leslie did not hear him, nor the later preparation of

the cocktails. He was reflecting bitterly on the fact that a man who married built himself a wall against

romance, a wall, compounded of his own new sense of responsibility, of family ties, and fear.

"Drink it, old dear," he said. "And when it's down I'll tell you a few little things about playing around with

He went home the following day, leaving Joe to finish the business in New York. His going rather resembled

a flight. Tossing sleepless the night before, he had found what many a man had discovered before him, that

his love of clandestine adventure was not as strong as his caution. He had had a shock. True, his affair with

Beverly had been a formless thing, a matter of imagination and a desire to assure himself that romance, for

him, was not yet dead. True, too, that he had nothing to fear from Dick Livingstone. But the encounter had

brought home to him the danger of this oldnew game he was playing. He was running like a frightened

He thought of various plans. One of them was to tell Nina the truth, take his medicine of tears and coldness,

and then go to Mr. Wheeler. One was to go to Mr. Wheeler, without Nina, and make his humiliating

admission. But Walter Wheeler had his own rigid ideas, was uncompromising in rectitude, and would

understand as only a man could that while so far he had been only mentally unfaithful, he had been actuated

His own awareness of that fact made him more cautious than he need have been, perhaps more

selfconscious. And he genuinely cared for Elizabeth. It was, on the whole, a generous and kindly impulse

that lay behind his ultimate resolution to tell her that her desertion was both wilful and cruel.

Yet, when the time came, he found it hard to tell her. He took her for a drive one evening soon after his

return, forcibly driving off Wallie Sayre to do so, and eying surreptitiously now and then her pale, rather set

face. He found a quiet lane and stopped the car there, and then turned and faced her.

"How've you been, little sister, while I've been wandering the gay white way?" he asked.

Not quite all right, I think. Have you ever thought, Elizabeth, that no man on earth is worth what you've been

"I'm all right, I tell you," she said impatiently. "I'm not grieving any more. That's the truth, Les. I know now

that he doesn't intend to come back, and I don't care. I never even think about him, now."

He tried to meet her eyes, failed, cursed himself for a fool. "He's alive and well, Elizabeth. I saw him in New

York." It was a full minute before she spoke again, and then her lips were stiff and her voice strained.

"I'm going to tell you something, Elizabeth. It's not very creditable to me, but I'll have to trust you. I don't

want to see you wasting your life. You've got plenty of courage and a lot of spirit. And you've got to forget

He told her, and then he took her home. He was a little frightened, for there was something not like her in the

way she had taken it, a sort of immobility that might, he thought, cover heartbreak. But she smiled when she

Bassett was having a visitor. He sat in his chair while that visitor ranged excitedly up and down the room, a

short stout man, well dressed and with a mixture of servility and importance. The valet's first words, as he

"No and yes," Bassett said genially. "Come and sit down, man. What I mean is this. I am a friend of Judson

"You are a friend of Mr. Clark's? Then the report was correct. He is still alive, sir?"

"I am glad of that. Very glad. I saw some months ago, in a newspaper where is he?"

"In New York. Now Melis, I've an idea that you know something about the crime Judson Clark was accused

"She admits it, as the result of an accident. She also admits hiding the revolver where you found it."

"I want you to think back, Melis. You saw her go down the stairs, sometime before the shot. Later you were

confident she had hidden the revolver, and you made a second search for it. Why? You hadn't heard her

testimony at the inquest then. Clark had run away. Why didn't you think Clark had done it?"

"Because I thought she was having an affair with another man. I have always thought she did it."

"I'll tell you. She went West without a maid, and Mr. Clark got a Swedish woman from a ranch near to look

after her, a woman named Thorwald. She lived at her own place and came over every day. One night, after

Mrs. Thorwald had started home, I came across her down the road near the irrigator's house, and there was a

man with her. They didn't hear me behind them, and he was giving her a note for some one in the house.

"That's what I thought then, sir. It wasn't my business. But I saw the same man later on, hanging about the

place at night, and once I saw her with him Mrs. Lucas, I mean. That was in the early evening. The

gentlemen were out riding, and I'd gone with one of the maids to a hill to watch the moon rise. They were on

"I think it was the same man, if that's what you mean. I knew something queer was going on, after that, and I

watched her. She went out at night more than once. Then I told Donaldson there was somebody hanging

"Yes. I hadn't thought of that. The Thorwald woman heard the shot and came back. I remember that, because

"I located it the first time I looked for it. Donaldson and the others had searched the billiard room. So I tried

the big room. It was under a chair. I left it there, and concealed myself in the room. She, Mrs. Lucas, came

"You must remember this, sir. I had been with Mr. Clark for a long time. I knew the situation. And I thought

that he had gone away that night to throw suspicion from her to himself. I was not certain what to do. I would

Bassett was satisfied and fairly content. After the Frenchman's departure he sat for some time, making careful

notes and studying them. Supposing the man Melis had seen to be Clifton Hines, a good many things would

be cleared up. Some new element he had to have, if Gregory's story were to be disproved, some new and

He got up and paced the floor back and forward, forward and back. There was just one possibility, and just

one way of verifying it. He sat down and wrote out a long telegram and then got his hat and carried it to the

He received a reply the following day, and in a state of exhilaration bordering on madness packed his bag,

and as he packed it addressed it, after the fashion of lonely men the world over.

"Just one more trip, friend cowhide," he said, "and then you and I are going to settle down again to work. But

He put in his pajamas and handkerchiefs, his clean socks and collars, and then he got his revolver from a

drawer and added it. Just twentyfour hours later he knocked at Dick's door in a boardinghouse on West

Ninth Street, found it unlocked, and went in. Dick was asleep, and Bassett stood looking down at him with an

To Dick the last day or two had been nightmares of loneliness. He threw caution to the winds and walked

hour after hour, only to find that the street crowds, people who had left a home or were going to one,

depressed him and emphasized his isolation. He had deliberately put away from him the anchor that had been

Elizabeth and had followed a treacherous memory, and now he was adrift. He told himself that he did not

He was homesick for David, for Lucy, and, with a tightening of the heart he admitted it, for Elizabeth. And he

had no home. He thought of Reynolds, bent over the desk in his office; he saw the quiet treeshaded streets

of the town, and Reynolds, passing from house to house in the little town, doing his work, usurping his place

in the confidence and friendship of the people; he saw the very children named for him asking: "Who was I

named for, mother?" He saw David and Lucy gone, and the old house abandoned, or perhaps echoing to the

He had moments when he wondered what would happen if he took Beverly at her word. Suppose she made

her confession, reopened the thing, to fill the papers with great headlines, "Judson Clark Not Guilty. A

He saw himself going back to the curious glances of the town, never to be to them the same as before. To

face them and look them down, to hear whispers behind his back, to feel himself watched and judged, on that

far past of his. Suppose even that it could be kept out of the papers; Wilkins amiable and acquiescent,

Beverly's confession hidden in the ruck of legal documents; and he stealing back, to go on as best he could,

covering his absence with lies, and taking up his work again. But even that uneasy road was closed to him.

He saw David and Lucy stooping to new and strange hypocrisies, watching with anxious old eyes the faces of

their neighbors, growing defiant and hard as time went on and suspicion still followed him.

He tried not to think of her, save as of some fine and tender thing he had once brushed as he passed by. Even

if she still cared for him, he could, even less than David and Lucy, ask her to walk the uneasy road with him.

She was young. She would forget him and marry Wallace Sayre. She would have luxury and gaiety, and the

He was not particularly bitter about that. He knew now that he had given her real love, something very

He obeyed, but without enthusiasm. Some new clue, some hope revived only to die again, what did it matter?

"Why do you do it?" he asked, "Why don't you let me go to the devil in my own way?"

He sat down and produced a bundle of papers. "I'm going to read you something," he said. "And when I'm

through you're going to put your clothes on and we'll go to the Biltmore. The Biltmore. Do you get it?"

"I, the undersigned, being of sound mind, do hereby make the following statement. I make the statement of

my own free will, and swear before Almighty God that it is the truth. I am an illegitimate son of Elihu Clark.

My mother, Harriet Burgess, has since married and is now known as Hattie Thorwald. She will confirm the

"I was adopted by a woman named Hines, of the city of Omaha, whose name I took. Some years later this

"I attended preparatory school in the East, and was sent during vacations to a tutoring school, owned by Mr.

Henry Livingstone. When I went to college Mr. Livingstone bought a ranch at Dry River, Wyoming, and I

"I learned that I was being supported and sent to college from funds furnished by a firm of New York

lawyers, and that aroused my suspicion. I knew that Mrs. Hines was not my mother. I finally learned that I

"I felt that I should have some part of the estate, and I developed a hatred of Judson Clark, whom I knew. I

made one attempt to get money from him by mail, threatening to expose his father's story, but I did not

"I visited my mother, Hattie Thorwald, and threatened to kill Clark. I also threatened Henry Livingstone, and

his death came during a dispute over the matter, but I did not kill him. He fell down and hit his head. He had

"My fostersister had gone on the stage, and Clark was infatuated with her. I saw him a number of times, but

he did not connect me with the letter I had sent. My fostersister's stage name is Beverly Carlysle.

"She married Howard Lucas and they visited the Clark ranch at Norada, Wyoming, in the fall of 1911. I saw

my sister there several times, and as she knew the way I felt she was frightened. My mother, Hattie Thorwald,

"Up to that point," he said, "I wrote it myself before I saw him." There was a note of triumph in his voice.

"On the night Lucas was killed I was to go away. Bev had agreed to give me some money, for the piece had

quit in June and I was hard up. She was going to borrow it from Jud Clark, and that set me crazy. I felt it

"I was to meet my mother in the grounds, but I missed her, and I went to the house. I wasn't responsible for

what I did. I was crazy, I guess. I saw Donaldson on the side porch, and beyond him were Lucas and Clark,

playing roulette. It made me wild. I couldn't have played roulette that night for pennies.

"I went around the house and in the front door. What I meant to do was to walk into that room and tell Clark

who I was. He knew me, and all I meant to do was to call Bev down, and mother, and make him sit up and

"I swear I wasn't thinking of killing him then. I hated him like poison, but that was all. But I went into the

livingroom, and I heard Clark say he'd lost a thousand dollars. Maybe you don't get that. A thousand dollars

"That sent me wild. Lucas took a gun from him, just after that, and said he was going to put it in the other

room. He did it, too. He put it on a table and started back. I got it and pointed it at Clark. I'd have shot him,

"I want to exonerate Bev. She has been better than most sisters to me, and she has lied to try to save me. She

came up behind me and grabbed my arm. Lucas had heard her, and he turned. I must have closed my hand on

"I was in the livingroom when Donaldson ran in. I hid there until they were all gathered around Lucas and

had quit running in, and then I got away. I saw my mother in the grounds later. I told her where the revolver

was and that they'd better put it in the billiard room. I was afraid they'd suspect Bev.

"I have read the above statement and it is correct. I was legally adopted by Mrs. Alice Ford Hines, of Omaha,

and use that signature. I generally use the name of Frederick Gregory, which I took when I was on the stage

Bassett folded up the papers and put them in the envelope. "I got that," he said, "at the point of a gun, my

friend. And our friend Hines departed for the Mexican border on the evening train. I don't mind saying that I

Dick refused to drink. He was endeavoring to comprehend the situation; to realize that Gregory, who had

"Poor devil!" he said at last. "I wish to God I'd known. He was right, you know. No wonder "

"I saw Melis, and learned that Hines was in it somehow. He was the connecting link between Beverly

Carlysle and the Thorwald woman. But I couldn't connect him with Beverly herself, except by a chance. I

wired a man I knew in Omaha, and he turned up the second marriage, and a daughter known on the stage as

Bassett was in high spirits. He moved about the room immensely pleased with himself, slightly boastful.

"Some little stroke, Dick!" he said. "What price Mr. Judson Clark tonight, eh? It will be worth a million

"It wasn't necessary to go into that. I didn't know Look here," he exploded, "you're not going to be a

"I'm not going to revive Judson Clark, Bassett. I don't owe him anything. Let him die a decent death and stay

"Oh, piffle!" Bassett groaned. "Don't start that all over again. Don't pull any Enoch Arden stuff on me,

Suddenly Dick laughed. Bassett watched him, puzzled and angry, with a sort of savage tenderness.

"You're crazy," he said morosely. "Darned if I understand you. Here I've got everything fixed as slick as a

whistle, and it took work, believe me. And now you say you're going to chuck the whole thing."

"Not at all," Dick replied, with a new ring in his voice. "You're right. I've been ten sorts of a fool, but I know

now what I'm going to do. Take your paper, old friend, and for my sake go out and clear Jud Clark. Put up a

Lucy Crosby was dead. One moment she was of the quick, moving about the house, glancing in at David,

having Minnie in the kitchen pin and unpin her veil; and the next she was still and infinitely mysterious, on

her white bed. She had fallen outside the door of David's room, and lay there, her arms still full of fresh bath

towels, and a fixed and intense look in her eyes, as though, outside the door, she had come face to face with a

messenger who bore surprising news. Doctor Reynolds, running up the stairs, found her there dead, and

But David knew before they told him. He waited until they had placed her on her bed, had closed her eyes

and drawn a white coverlet over her, and then he went in alone, and sat down beside her, and put a hand over

"If you are still here, Lucy," he said, "and have not yet gone on, I want you to carry this with you. We are all

After a time he went back to his room and got his prayerbook. He could hear Harrison Miller's voice

soothing Minnie in the lower hall, and Reynolds at the telephone. He went back into the quiet chamber, and

"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept "

He was very docile that day. He moved obediently from his room for the awful aftermath of a death, for the

sweeping and dusting and clean curtains, and sat in Dick's room, not reading, not even praying, a lonely yet

indomitable old figure. When his friends came, elderly men who creaked in and tried to reduce their robust

voices to a decorous whisper, he shook hands with them and made brief, courteous replies. Then he lapsed

Only once did he seem shaken. That was when Elizabeth came swiftly in and put her arms around him as he

sat. He held her close to him, saying nothing for a long time. Then he drew a deep breath.

He was the better for her visit. He insisted on dressing that evening, and on being helped down the stairs. The

town, which had seemed inimical for so long, appeared to him suddenly to be holding out friendly hands.

More than friendly hands. Loving, tender hands, offering service and affection and oldtime friendship. It

moved about sedately, in dark clothes, and came down the stairs redeyed and using pockethandkerchiefs,

When they had all gone Harrison Miller helped him up the stairs to where his tidy bed stood ready, and the

"What about word to Dick, David?" he inquired awkwardly, "I've called up Bassett, but he's away. And I

don't know that Dick ought to come back anyhow. If the police are on the job at all they'll be on the lookout

David looked away. Just how much he wanted Dick, to tide him over these bad hours, only David knew. But

"I guess I can fight this out alone, Harrison," he said. "And Lucy will understand."

He did not sleep much that night. Once or twice he got up and tiptoed across the hall into Lucy's room and

looked at her. She was as white as her pillow, and quite serene. Her hands, always a little rough and twisted

"You know why he can't come, Lucy," he said once. "It doesn't mean that he doesn't care. You have to

remember that." His sublime faith that she heard and understood, not the Lucy on the bed but the Lucy who

had not yet gone on to the blessed company of heaven, carried him back to his bed, comforted and reassured.

He was up and about his room early. The odor of baking muffins and frying ham came up the stairwell, and

the sound of Mike vigorously polishing the floor in the hall. Mixed with the odor of cooking and of floor wax

was the scent of flowers from Lucy's room, and Mrs. Sayre's machine stopped at the door while the chauffeur

David went carefully down the stairs and into his office, and there, at his long deserted desk, commenced a

The thought that he was going home had upheld Dick through the days that followed Bassett's departure for

the West. He knew that it would be a fight, that not easily does a man step out of life and into it again, but

after his days of inaction he stood ready to fight. For David, for Lucy, and, if it was not too late, for

Elizabeth. When Bassett's wire came from Norada, "All clear," he set out for Haverly, more nearly happy

At the Haverly station the agent stopped, stared at him and then nodded gravely. There was something

restrained in his greeting, like the voices in the old house the night before, and Dick felt a chill of

apprehension. He never thought of Lucy, but David... The flowers and ribbon at the door were his first

intimation, and still it was David he thought of. He went cold and bitter, standing on the freshly washed

He went into the house slowly, and the heavy scent of flowers greeted him. The hall was empty, and

automatically he pushed open the door to David's office and went in. David was at the desk writing. David

"David !" he said brokenly. "Dear old David !" And was suddenly shaken with dry, terrible sobbing.

There was a great deal to do, and Dick was grateful for it. But first, like David, he went in and sat by Lucy's

bed alone and talked to her. Not aloud, as David did, but still with that same queer conviction that she heard.

He told her he was free, and that she need not worry about David, that he was there now to look after him;

and he asked her, if she could, to help him with Elizabeth. Then he kissed her and went out.

He met Elizabeth that day. She had come to the house, and after her custom now went up, unwarned, to

David's room. She found David there and Harrison Miller, and it was a moment before she realized it

Dick by the mantel. He was greatly changed. She saw that. But she had no feeling of pity, nor even of undue

surprise. She felt nothing at all. It gave her a curious, almost hard little sense of triumph to see that he had

gone pale. She marched up to him and held out her hand, mindful of the eyes on her.

"Mother sent over some things. I'll give them to Minnie," she said, her voice clear and steady. She went out,

She was puzzled to find out that her knees almost gave way on the staircase, for she felt calm and without any

emotion whatever. And she finished her errand, so collected and poised that the two or three women who had

Mindful of Mike, they withdrew into Lucy's sittingroom and closed the door, there to surmise and to

wonder. Did he know she was engaged to Wallie Sayre? Would she break her engagement now or not? Did

Dick for a moment think that he could do as he had done, go away and jilt a girl, and come back to be

To Dick Elizabeth's greeting had been a distinct shock. He had not known just what he had expected;

certainly he had not hoped to pick things up where he had dropped them. But there was a hard friendliness in

it that was like a slap in the face. He had meant at least to fight to win back with her, but he saw now that

there would not even be a fight. She was not angry or hurt. The barrier was more hopeless than that.

David, watching him, waited until Harrison had gone, and went directly to the subject.

"Have you ever stopped to think what these last months have meant to Elizabeth? Her own worries, and

always this infernal town, talking, talking. The child's pride's been hurt, as well as her heart."

"I thought I'd better not go into that until after until later," he explained. "The other thing was wrong. I

knew it the moment I saw Beverly and I didn't go back again. What was the use? But you saw her face,

"That looks as though she cared!" he said. He had gone very white. After a time, as David sat silent and

thoughtful, he said: "After all, what right had I to expect anything else? When you think that, a few days ago,

I was actually shaken at the thought of seeing another woman, you can hardly blame her."

"I know now I think I knew all along, but the other thing was like that craving for liquor I told you about

I know now that she has always been the one woman. You'll understand that, perhaps, but she wouldn't. I

would crawl on my knees to make her believe it, but it's too late. Everything's too late," he added.

Before the hour for the services he went in again and sat by Lucy's bed, but she who had given him wise

counsel so many times before lay in her majestic peace, surrounded by flowers and infinitely removed. Yet

she gave him something. Something of her own peace. Once more, as on the night she had stood at the

kitchen door and watched him disappear in the darkness, there came the tug of the old familiar things, the

home sense. Not only David now, but the house. The faded carpet on the stairs, the old selfrocker Lucy had

loved, the creaking faucets in the bathroom, Mike and Minnie, the laboratory, united in their shabby

strength, they were home to him. They had come back, never to be lost again. Home.

Then, little by little, they carried their claim further. They were not only home. They were the setting of a

dream, long forgotten but now vivid in his mind, and a refuge from the dreary present. That dream had seen

Elizabeth enshrined among the old familiar things; the old house was to be a sanctuary for her and for him.

From it and from her in the dream he was to go out in the morning; to it and to her he was to come home at

The dream faded. Before him rose her face of the morning, impassive and cool; her eyes, not hostile but

indifferent. She had taken herself out of his life, had turned her youth to youth, and forgotten him. He

understood and accepted it. He saw himself as he must have looked to her, old and worn, scarred from the last

Lucy was buried the next afternoon. It was raining, and the quiet procession followed Dick and the others

who carried her light body under grotesquely bobbing umbrellas. Then he and David, and Minnie and Mike,

went back to the house, quiet with that strange emptiness that follows a death, the unconscious listening for a

voice that will not speak again, for a familiar footfall. David had not gone upstairs. He sat in Lucy's

sittingroom, in his old frock coat and black tie, with a knitted afghan across his knees. His throat looked

withered in his loose collar. And there for the first time they discussed the future.

"You're giving up a great deal, Dick," David said. "I'm proud of you, and like you I think the money's best

where it is. But this is a prejudiced town, and they think you've treated Elizabeth badly. If you don't intend to

"Never," Dick announced, firmly. "Judson Clark is dead." He smiled at David with something of his old

humor. "I told Bassett to put up a monument if he wanted to. But you're right about one thing. They're not

"On the other hand, I don't want to make it uncomfortable for her. We are bound to meet. I'm putting my own

feeling aside. It doesn't matter except of course to me. What I thought was We might go into the city.

But he found himself up against the stone wall of David's opposition. He was too old to be uprooted. He liked

to be able to find his way around in the dark. He was almost childish about it, and perhaps a trifle terrified.

He helped David up the stairs to where the nurse stood waiting, and then went on into his own bedroom. He

surveyed it for the first time since his return with a sense of permanency and intimacy. Here, from now on,

was to center his life. From this bed he would rise in the morning, to go back to it at night. From this room he

would go out to fight for place again, and for the old faith in him, for confiding eyes and the clasp of friendly

He sat down by the window and with the feeling of dismissing them forever retraced slowly and painfully the

last few months; the night on the mountains, and Bassett asleep by the fire; the man from the cabin caught

under the tree, with his face looking up, strangely twisted, from among the branches; dawn in the alfalfa field,

and the long night tramp; the boy who had recognized him in Chicago; David in his old walnut bed,

shrivelled and dauntless; and his own going out into the night, with Lucy in the kitchen doorway, Elizabeth

and Wallace Sayre on the verandah, and himself across the street under the trees; Beverly, and the

illumination of his freedom from the old bonds; Gregory, glib and debonair, telling his lying story, and later

All that, and now this quiet room, with David asleep beyond the wall and Minnie moving heavily in the

kitchen below, setting her bread to rise. It was anticlimacteric, ridiculous, wonderful.

After Reynolds came up he put on a dressinggown and went down the stairs. The office was changed and

looked strange and unfamiliar. But when he opened the door and went into the laboratory nothing had been

altered there. It was as though he had left it yesterday; the microscope screwed to its stand, the sterilizer

He was content. He would fight and he would work. That was all a man needed, a good fight, and work for

One thing Dick knew must be done and got over with. He would have to see Elizabeth and tell her the story.

He knew it would do no good, but she had a right to the fullest explanation he could give her. She did not

He meant, however, to make no case for himself. He would have to stand on the facts. This thing had

happened to him; the storm had come, wrought its havoc and passed; he was back, to start again as nearly as

He went to the Wheeler house the next night, passing the door twice before he turned in and rang the bell, in

order that his voice might be calm and his demeanor unshaken. But the fact that Micky, waiting on the porch,

knew him and broke into yelps of happiness and ecstatic wriggling almost lost him his selfcontrol.

There was no particular warmth in his voice, but no unfriendliness. He stood by gravely while Dick took off

"I'd better tell you at once," he said, "that I have advised Elizabeth to see you, but that she refuses. I'd much

prefer " He busied himself at the fire for a moment. "I'd much prefer to have her see you, Livingstone. But

He sat down and stared at the fire. Dick remained standing. "She doesn't intend to see me at all?" he asked,

An unexpected feeling of sympathy for the tall young man on the hearth rug stirred in Walter Wheeler's

"I'm sorry, Dick. She apparently reached the breaking point a week or two ago. She knew you had been here

and hadn't seen her, for one thing." He hesitated. "You've heard of her engagement?"

"I didn't want it," her father said drearily. "I suppose she knows her own business, but the thing's done. She

sent you a message," he added after a pause. "She's glad it's cleared up and I believe you are not to allow her

"Confound it, Dick, I'm sorry. I've fought your battles for months, not here, but everywhere. But here's a

battle I can't fight. She isn't angry. You'll have to get her angle of it. I think it's something like this. She had

built you up into a sort of superman. And she's well, I suppose purity is the word. She's the essence of

purity. Then, Leslie told me this tonight, she learned from him that you were back with the woman in the

"There's no use going to him. He was off the beaten track, and he knows it. He took a chance, to tell her for

"When I first began to remember," he said, "I wanted whisky. I would have stolen it, if I couldn't have got it

any other way. Then, when I got it, I didn't want it. It sickened me. This other was the same sort of thing. It's

He went away soon after that, back to the quiet house and to David. Automatically he turned in at his office,

Ann Sayre was frankly puzzled during the next few days. She had had a week or so of serenity and

anticipation, and although things were not quite as she would have had them, Elizabeth too impassive and

even Wallie rather restrained in his happiness, she was satisfied. But Dick Livingstone's return had somehow

It had changed Wallie, too. He was suddenly a man, and not, she suspected, a very happy man. He came back

one day, for instance, to say that he had taken a partnership in a brokerage office, and gave as his reason that

he was sick of "playing round." She rather thought it was to take his mind off something.

A few days after the funeral she sent for Doctor Reynolds. "I caught cold at the cemetery," she said, when he

had arrived and was seated opposite her in her boudoir. "I really did," she protested, as she caught his eye. "I

"You can't blame us. Particularly, you can't blame me. I've got to know something, doctor. Is he going to

"Isn't he going to explain anything? He can't expect just to walk back into his practise after all these months,

"I don't see what his going away has to do with it. He's a good doctor, and a hard worker. When I'm gone "

"Yes. I may live here, and have an office in the city. I don't care for general practise; there's no future in it. I

"I want to know something, and only you can tell me. I'm not curious like the rest; I think I have a right to

"Look here, Mrs. Sayre. You've confided in me, and I know it's important to you. I don't know a thing. I'm to

stay on until the end of the week, and then he intends to take hold. I'm in and out, see him at meals, and we've

had a little desultory talk. There is no trouble between the two families. Mr. Wheeler comes and goes. If you

"He isn't going to explain anything? He'll have to, I think, if he expects to practise here. There have been all

He met Elizabeth on his way down the hill, a strange, brighteyed Elizabeth, carrying her head high and a bit

too jauntily, and with a sort of hot defiance in her eyes. He drove on, thoughtfully. All this turmoil and

trouble, anxiety and fear, and all that was left a crushed and tragic figure of a girl, and two men in an old

It would be a fight. Reynolds saw the village already divided into two camps, a small militant minority,

aligned with Dick and David, and a waiting, not particularly hostile but intensely curious majority, who

Elizabeth Wheeler was an unconscious party to the division. It was, in a way, her battle they were fighting.

Late that afternoon Ann Sayre had her first real talk with Wallie since Dick's return. She led him out onto the

"I can see you are not going to talk to me," she said. "So I'll talk to you. Has Dick Livingstone's return made

"She's just the same to you? You must tell me, Wallace. I've been building so much."

She realized the change in him then more fully than ever for he faced her squarely and without evasion.

"There's no change in her, mother, but I think you and I will both have to get used to this: she's not in love

"I don't know." He took a turn or two about the terrace. "I don't think it is, mother. I don't think she cares for

anybody, that way, certainly not for me. And that's the trouble." He faced her again. "If marrying me isn't

going to make her happy, I won't hold her to it. You'll have to support me in that, mother. I'm a pretty weak

That appeal touched her as nothing had done for a long time. "I'll help all I can, if the need comes," she said,

David was satisfied. The great love of his life had been given to Dick, and now Dick was his again. He

grieved for Lucy, but he knew that the parting was not for long, and that from whatever high place she looked

down she would know that. He was satisfied. He looked on his work and found it good. There was no trace of

weakness nor of vacillation in the man who sat across from him at the table, or slammed in and out of the

But he was not content. At first it was enough to have Dick there, to stop in the doorway of his room and see

him within, occupied with the prosaic business of getting into his clothes or out of them, now and then to put

a hand on his shoulder, to hear him fussing in the laboratory again, and to be called to examine divers and

sundry smears to which Dick attached impressive importance and more impressive names. But behind Dick's

And there was nothing to be done. Nothing. Secretly David watched the papers for the announcement of

Elizabeth's engagement, and each day drew a breath of relief when it did not come. And he had done another

thing secretly, too; he did not tell Dick when her ring came back. Annie had brought the box, without a letter,

and the incredible cruelty of the thing made David furious. He stamped into his office and locked it in a

drawer, with the definite intention of saving Dick that one additional pang at a time when he already had

It was a battle without action. Each side was dug in and entrenched, and waiting. It was an engagement where

the principals met occasionally the neutral ground of the streets, bowed to each other and passed on.

The town was sorry for David and still fond of him, but it resented his stiffnecked attitude. It said, in effect,

that when he ceased to make Dick's enemies his it was willing to be friends. But it said also, to each other and

behind its hands, that Dick's absence was discreditable or it would be explained, and that he had behaved

It looked away, but it watched. Dick knew that when he passed by on the streets it peered at him from behind

its curtains, and whispered behind his back. Now and then he saw, on his evening walks, that line of cars

drawn up before houses he had known and frequented which indicated a party, but he was never asked. He

It was only when the taboo touched David that Dick was resentful, and then he was inclined to question the

wisdom of his return. It hurt him, for instance, to see David give up his church, and reading morning prayer

alone at home on Sunday mornings, and to see his grim silence when some of his old friends were mentioned.

Yet on the surface things were much as they had been. David rose early, and as he improved in health, read

his morning paper in his office while he waited for breakfast. Doctor Reynolds had gone, and the desk in

Dick's office was back where it belonged. In the mornings Mike oiled the car in the stable and washed it, his

old pipe clutched in his teeth, while from the kitchen came the sounds of pans and dishes, and the odor of

frying sausages. And Dick splashed in the shower, and shaved by the mirror with the cracked glass in the

The house was very quiet. Now and then the front door opened, and a patient came in, but there was no

longer the crowded waitingroom, the incessant jangle of the telephone, the odor of pungent drugs and

When, shortly before Christmas, Dick looked at the books containing the last quarter's accounts, he began to

wonder how long they could fight their losing battle. He did not mind for himself, but it was unthinkable that

David should do without, one by one, the small luxuries of his old age, his cigars, his long and now

He began then to think of his property, his for the claiming, and to question whether he had not bought his

peace at too great a cost to David. He knew by that time that it was not fear, but pride, which had sent him

back emptyhanded, the pride of making his own way. And now and then, too, he felt a perfectly human

desire to let Bassett publish the story as his vindication and then snatch David away from them all, to some

luxurious haven where that was the point at which he always stopped where David could pine away in

He occupied himself then with ways and means, and sold the car. Reynolds, about to be married and busily

furnishing a city office, bought it, had it repainted a bright blue, and signified to the world at large that he was

at the Rossiter house every night by leaving it at the curb. Sometimes, on long country tramps, Dick saw it

By Christmas, however, he realized that the question of meeting their expenses necessitated further

economies, and reluctantly at last they decided to let Mike go. Dick went out to the stable with a distinct

sinking of the heart, while David sat in the house, unhappily waiting for the thing to be done. But Mike

"And is it discharging me you are?" he asked, putting down one of David's boots in his angry astonishment.

"I'm not thinking about pay. I'm not going, and that's flat. Who'd be after doing his boots and all?"

David called him in that night and dismissed him again, this time very firmly. Mike said nothing and went

out, but the next morning he was scrubbing the sidewalk as usual, and after that they gave it up.

Now and then Dick and Elizabeth met on the street, and she bowed to him and went on. At those times it

seemed incredible that once he had held her in his arms, and that she had looked up at him with loving,

faithful eyes. He suffered so from those occasional meetings that he took to watching for her, so as to avoid

her. Sometimes he wished she would marry Wallace quickly, so he would be obliged to accept what now he

He had occasional spells of violent anger at her, and of resentment, but they died when he checked up, one

after the other, the inevitable series of events that had led to the catastrophe. But it was all nonsense to say

that love never died. She had loved him, and there was never anything so dead as that love of hers.

He had been saved one thing, however; he had never seen her with Wallie Sayre. Then, one day in the

country while he trudged afoot to make one of his rare professional visits, they went past together in Wallie's

bright roadster. The sheer shock of it sent him against a fence, staring after them with an anger that shook

Late in November Elizabeth went away for a visit, and it gave him a breathing spell. But the strain was telling

on him, and Bassett, stopping on his way to dinner at the Wheelers', told him so bluntly.

"You look pretty rotten," he said. "It's no time to go to pieces now, when you've put up your fight and won

After dinner at the Wheelers', when Walter Wheeler had gone to a vestry meeting, Bassett delivered himself

"That's how I see it," he finished. "He's done a fine thing. A finer thing by a damned sight than I'd do, or any

of this town. He's given up money enough to pay the national debt or nearly. If he'd come back with it, as

Judson Clark, they wouldn't have cared a hang for the past. They'd have licked his boots. It makes me sick."

"You too, I think, Mrs. Wheeler. I'm not attacking you on that score; it's human nature. But it's the truth."

"They'll drive him to doing it yet. He came back to make a place for himself again, like a man. Not what he

"You can't get away from this, Mrs. Wheeler. So long as she stands off, and you behind her, the town is going

to take her side. She doesn't know it, but that's how it stands. It all hangs on her. If he wasn't the man he is, I'd

say his salvation hangs on her. I don't mean she ought to take him back; it's too late for that, if she's engaged.

But a little friendliness and kindness wouldn't do any harm. You too. Do you ever have him here?"

"Well, be friendly, anyhow," he argued. "That's not asking much. I suppose he'd cut my throat if he knew, but

I'm a straighttothemark sort of person, and I know this: what this house does the town will do."

"I'll talk to Mr. Wheeler. I don't know. I'll say this, Mr. Bassett. I won't make her unhappy. She has borne a

But Margaret did not think so. She was so very calm. She was so calm that sometimes it was alarming.

"He gave her a ring, and the other day I found it, tossed into a drawer full of odds and ends. I haven't seen it

Elizabeth came home shortly before Christmas, undeniably glad to be back and very gentle with them all. She

set to work almost immediately on the gifts, wrapping them and tying them with methodical exactness,

sticking a tiny sprig of holly through the ribbon bow, and writing cards with neatness and care. She hung up

wreaths and decorated the house, and when she was through with her work she went to her room and sat with

Wallie had sent her a flexible diamond bracelet as a Christmas gift and it lay on her table in its box. She was

On the morning before Christmas Nina came in, her arms full of packages, and her eyes shining and a little

frightened. She had some news for them. She hadn't been so keen about it, at first, but Leslie was like a

madman. He was so pleased that he was ordering her that sable cape she had wanted so. He was like a

Elizabeth kissed her. It seemed very unreal, like everything else. She wondered why Leslie should be so

excited, or her mother crying. She wondered if there was something strange about her, that it should see so

small and unimportant. But then, what was important? That one got up in the morning, and ate at intervals,

and went to bed at night? That children came, and had to be fed and washed and tended, and cried a great

She wished she could feel something, could think it vital whether Nina should choose pink or blue for her

layette, and how far she should walk each day, and if the chauffeur drove the car carefully enough. She

wished she cared whether it was going to rain tomorrow or not, or whether some one was coming, or not

coming. And she wished terribly that she could care for Wallie, or get over the feeling that she had saved her

After a time she went upstairs and put on the bracelet. And late in the afternoon she went out and bought

some wool, to make an afghan. It eased her conscience toward Nina. She commenced it that evening while

she waited for Wallie, and she wondered if some time she would be making an afghan for a coming child of

Suddenly she knew she would never marry him. She faced the future, with all that it implied, and she knew

she could not do it. It was horrible that she had even contemplated it. It would be terrible to tell Wallie, but

not as terrible as the other thing. She saw herself then with the same clearness with which she had judged

Dick. She too, leaving her havoc of wrecked lives behind her; she too going along her headstrong way,

That evening, Christmas eve, she told Wallie she would not marry him. Told him very gently, and just after

"I don't know what's come over you," he said morosely. "But I'll let you alone, if that's the way you feel."

In a way he was prepared for it but nevertheless he begged for time, for a less unequivocal rejection. But he

"I don't want to go over and over it, Wallie. I'll take the blame. I should have done it long ago."

She was gentle, almost tender with him, but when he said she had spoiled his life for him she smiled faintly.

"You think that now. And don't believe I'm not sorry. I am. I hate not playing the game, as you say. But I

don't think for a moment that you'll go on caring when you know I don't. That doesn't happen. That's all."

"Do you know what I think?" he burst out. "I think you're still mad about Livingstone. I think you are so mad

But she only smiled her cool smile and went on with her knitting. After that he got himself in hand, and

perhaps he still had some hope. It was certain that she had not flinched at Dick's name told her very

earnestly that he only wanted her happiness. He didn't want her unless she wanted him. He would always love

"Not always," she said, with tragically cold certainty. "Men are not like women; they forget."

She did not tell the family that night. They were full of their own concerns, Nina's coming maternity, the

wrapping of packages behind closed doors, the final trimming of the tree in the library. Leslie had started the

Still night, holy night, and only in her was there a stillness that was not holy.

They hung up their stockings valiantly as usual, making a little ceremony of it, and being careful not to think

about Jim's missing one. Indeed, they made rather a function of it, and Leslie demanded one of Nina's baby

"I'm starting a bank account for the little beggar," he said, and dropped a gold piece into the toe. "Next year,

He put his arm around Nina. It seemed to him that life was doing considerably better than he deserved by

him, and he felt very humble and contrite. He felt in his pocket for the square jeweler's box that lay there.

After that they left Walter Wheeler there, to play his usual part at such times, and went upstairs. He filled the

stockings bravely, an orange in each toe, a box of candy, a toy for old time's sake, and then the little

knickknacks he had been gathering for days and hiding in his desk. After all, there were no fewer stockings

this year than last. Instead of Jim's there was the tiny one for Nina's baby. That was the way things went. He

He sat back in his deep chair, and looked up at the stockings, ludicrously bulging. After all, if he believed that

He gave and took away, then he must believe that Jim was where he had tried to think him, filling a joyous,

After a while he got up and went to his desk, and getting pen and paper wrote carefully.

"Dearest: You will find this in your stocking in the morning, when you get up for the early service. And I

want you to think over it in the church. It is filled with tenderness and with anxiety. Life is not so very long,

little daughter, and it has no time to waste in anger or in bitterness. A little work, a little sleep, a little love,

He locked up the house, and went slowly up to bed Elizabeth found the letter the next morning. She stood in

the bleak room, with the ashes of last night's fire still smoking, and the stockings overhead not festive in the

gray light, but looking forlorn and abandoned. Suddenly her eyes, dry and fiercely burning for so long, were

wet with tears. It was true. It was true. A little work, a little sleep, a little love. Not the great love, perhaps,

not the only love of a man's life. Not the love of yesterday, but of today and tomorrow.

All the fierce repression of the last weeks was gone. She began to suffer. She saw Dick coming home,

perhaps high with hope that whatever she knew she would understand and forgive. And she saw herself

failing him, cold and shut away, not big enough nor woman enough to meet him half way. She saw him

fighting his losing battle alone, protecting David but never himself; carrying Lucy to her quiet grave; sitting

alone in his office, while the village walked by and stared at the windows; she saw him, gaining harbor after

She thought he was at the early service. She did not see him, but she had once again the thing that had

He was there, in the shadowy back pew, with the grill behind it through which once insistent hands had

reached to summon him. He was there, with Lucy's prayerbook in his hand, and none of the peace of the day

"0 God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of Thy Son "

David was beaten; most tragic defeat of all, beaten by those he had loved and faithfully served.

He did not rise on Christmas morning, and Dick, visiting him after an almost untasted breakfast, found him

"I'm all right," he asserted. "I'm tired, Dick, that's all. Tired of fighting. You're young. You can carry it on,

Later he elaborated on that. He had kept the faith. He had run with courage the race that was set before him.

He had stayed up at night and fought for them. But he couldn't fight against them.

Dick went downstairs again and shutting himself in his office fell to pacing the floor. David was right, the

thing was breaking him. Very seriously now he contemplated abandoning the town, taking David with him,

and claiming his estate. They could travel then; he could get consultants in Europe; there were baths there,

The doorbell rang. He heard Minnie's voice in the hail, not too friendly, and her tap at the door.

When he opened the connecting door he found Elizabeth beyond it, a pale and frightened Elizabeth,

breathless and very still. It was a perceptible moment before he could control his voice to speak. Then:

"I suppose you want to see David. I'm sorry, but he isn't well today. He is still in bed."

But he was not fooled at all. Not he. He had been enough. He knew why she had come, in the kindness of

heart. (She was so little. Good heavens, a man could crush her to nothing!) She had come because she was

sorry for him, and she had brought forgiveness. It was like her. It was fine. It was damnable.

"Is this a professional visit, or a Christmas call, Elizabeth? Or perhaps I shouldn't call you that."

"You know what I mean. The day of peace. The day what do you think I'm made of, Elizabeth? To have

"You've been to church, and you've been thinking things over, I know. I was there. I heard it all, peace on

earth, goodwill to men. Bosh. Peace, when there is no peace. Good will! I don't want your peace and good

"No. A thousand times, no," he said violently. Then, more gently: "I'm making a fool of myself. I want your

"You frighten me, Dick," she said, slowly. "I didn't come to bring forgiveness, if that is what you mean. I

"Will you listen to me for a moment, Dick? I am not good at explaining things, and I'm nervous. I suppose

you can see that." She tried to smile at him. "A a little work, a sleep, a little love, that's life, isn't it?"

"Work and trouble, and a long sleep at the end for which let us be duly thankful that's life, too. Love? Not

Hopelessness and despair overwhelmed her. He was making it hard for her. Impossible. She could not go on.

"I did not come with peace," she said tremulously, "but if you don't want it " She rose. "I must say this,

though, before I go. I blame myself. I don't blame you. You are wrong if you think I came to forgive you."

She turned to him, with her hand on the door knob. "I came because I wanted to see you again."

"And why did you want to see me again? You can't still care for me. You know the story. You know I was

here and didn't see you. You've seen Leslie Ward. You know my past. What you don't know "

He looked down into her eyes. "A little work, a little sleep, a little love," he repeated. "What did you mean by

"Just that," she said simply. "Only not a little love, Dick. Maybe you don't want me now. I don't know. I have

Bassett was at his desk in the office. It was late, and the night editor, seeing him reading the early edition, his

"Sometime," he said, "I'm going to get that Clark story out of you. If it wasn't you who turned up the

"Have it your own way," he said indifferently. "You were shielding somebody, weren't you? No? What's the

Bassett made no reply. He picked up the paper and pointed to an item with the end of his pencil.

When the night editor walked away, rather affronted, Bassett took up the paper and reread the paragraph.

"Mr. and Mrs. Walter Wheeler, of Haverly, announce the engagement of their daughter, Elizabeth, to Doctor