n, and when he had finished the first paper he turned to the
next. There was a gap of three days, but the Opal Cement "Investigation"
still held the centre of the stage. From its complex revelations of
greed and ruin his eye wandered to the death notices, and he read:
"Rainer. Suddenly, at Northridge, New Hampshire, Francis John, only son
of the late...."

His eyes clouded, and he dropped the newspaper and sat for a long time
with his face in his hands. When he looked up again he noticed that his
gesture had pushed the other papers from the table and scattered them at
his feet. The uppermost lay spread out before him, and heavily his eyes
began their search again. "John Lavington comes forward with plan for
reconstructing Company. Offers to put in ten millions of his own--The
proposal under consideration by the District Attorney."

Ten millions... ten millions of his own. But if John Lavington was
ruined?... Pazon stood up with a cry. That was it, then--that was what
the warning meant! And if he had not fled from it, dashed wildly away
from it into the night, he might have broken the spell of iniquity, the
powers of darkness might not have prevailed! He caught up the pile of
newspapers and began to glance through each in turn for the head-line:
"Wills Admitted to Probate." In the last of all he found the paragraph
he sought, and it stared up at him as if with Rainer's dying eyes.

That--_that_ was what he had done! The powers of pity had singled him
out to warn and save, and he had closed his ears to their call, and
washed his hands of it, and fled. Washed his hands of it! That was
the word. It caught him back to the dreadful moment in the lodge when,
raising himself up from Rainer's side, he had looked at his hands and
seen that they were red....

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