ave made a mistake."

Down he looks into his heart, whither he has not dared to search
before. He is homesick. Nobody loves Robert Chalmers. Nobody
respects Robert Chalmers. David Lockwin dead is great and good. How
about David Lockwin living?

His hands go deeper in his pockets at this. The motion rustles the
newspaper. He strives to shake free of the sheet. His eye rests on
the railway timetables.

He falls into profound meditation again. He considers himself
miserable. He is, in fact, happy, if absence of dreadful pain and
turmoil be a human blessing. At last his eye lights up, and the heavy
face grows cheerful.

"I will go to Chicago!" he says.

CHAPTER III

BEFORE THE TELEGRAPH OFFICE

Robert Chalmers is in Chicago this morning of the dedication, and has
slept well. He tossed in his bed at New York. He snores at the
Western inn.

He asks himself why this is so, and his logic tells him that nature
hopes to re-establish him as David Lockwin. There is a programme in
such a course. At New York there was neither chart nor compass. It
was like the Africa in mid-sea, foundering.

Now Robert Chalmers is nearing land. And the land is David Lockwin.
The welcoming shore is the old life of respectability. Banish the
difficulties! They will evaporate. Listen to the bands, and the
marching of troops!

He goes to the window. The intent of these ceremonies smites him and
he falls on the bed. But nature restores him. Bad as it is, here is
Chicago. David Lockwin is not dead. That is certain. He is not
pursued by the law, for another congressman has been chosen. David
Lockwin has tried to kill himself, but he has not committed murder.

Is it not bravado to return and court discovery? But is not Robert
Chalmers in the mood to be discovered? "What disguise is so real as
mine?" he asks, as friend after friend passes him by.

True, he wears a heavy watch-chain and a fashionable collar. His garb
was once that of a professional man. Now his face is entirely altered.
Gouts of carmine are spotted over his cheeks; wounds are visible on his
forehead. His nose is crooked and his teeth are misshapen. His voice
is husky.

He enters a street-car for the north. It startles him somewhat to have
Corkey take a seat beside him.

"Will this car take me to the dedication?" Chalmers makes bold to ask
the conductor.

"That's what it will!" answered Corkey. "Going there? I'm going up
myself.