breath; he permitted his face to show signs of relief.
"Since my argument and knowledge carry so little weight with you," he
said with a fine air of dignity, "I am willing to let the courts
convince you, if you insist. But I do beg--"

Queed cut him short; he felt that he could not bear one of the old man's
grandiloquent speeches now. "There is one other thing that must be
mentioned," he said in a tired voice. "You understand, of course, that I
can live here no longer."

"My God! Don't say that! Aren't you satisfied with what you've done to
me without that!"

"I haven't done anything to you. Whatever has been done, you have
deliberately done to yourself. I have no desire to hurt or injure you.
But--what are you thinking about, to imagine that I could continue to
live here--on this money?"

"You contradict yourself twice in the same breath! You just said that
you would let the courts settle that question--"

"As to the Weyland estate's claim, yes. But I do not let the courts
regulate my own sense of honor."

Surface, elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands. Queed slowly
rose, a heart of lead in his breast. He had failed. He had offered all
that he had, and it had been unhesitatingly kicked aside. And, unless
long litigation was started, and unless it ultimately succeeded, Henry
G. Surface would keep his loot.

He glanced about the pleasant little dining-room, symbol of the only
home he had ever known, where, after all, he had done great work, and
been not unhappy. Personally, he was glad to leave it, glad to stand out
from the shadow of the ruin of Henry G. Surface. Nevertheless it was a
real parting, the end of an epoch in his life, and there was sadness in
that. Sadness, too, he saw, deeper than his repugnance and anger, in the
bowed figure before him, the lost old man whom he was to leave solitary
henceforward. Saddest of all was the consciousness of his own terrible
failure.

He began speaking in a controlled voice.

"This interview is painful to us both. It is useless to prolong it.
I--have much to thank you for--kindness which I do not forget now and
shall not forget. If you ever reconsider your decision--if you should
ever need me for anything--I shall be within call. And now I must leave
you ... sorrier than I can say that our parting must be like this." He
paused: his gaze rested on the bent head, and he offered, without hope,
the final chance. "Your mind is quite made up? You are sure
that