I'm here 'sometime.' I've got to be where there's life and action.
I'll never end by being common." He paused a moment, and on his face
there formed the peculiar heavy look that had confronted Clayton; a
mask that hid a determination, which nothing of earth could shake. He
finished slowly: "I'll either be something, or nothing."

Biographers leave the impression that at this time Burr was devoid of
prestige on earth. Politically, this is true; but respecting his
standing with the legal fraternity, it is wholly false. He had
influence, and he used it, securing the stranger a place in a New York
office, where his risk depended only upon himself. More than this, he
gave Ellis money.

"You can pay me any interest you wish," said he when the latter
protested.

Ellis had been settled a week. One evening he sat in the back room of
the city office, fighting the demon of homesickness with work, and the
light of an open fire. It was late, and he had studied till Nature
rebelled; now he sat in his own peculiar position, gazing into the
glow, motionless and wide-eyed.

He started at a tap on the door, and the past came back in a rush.

"Come in," he called.

Burr entered, and closed the door carefully behind him. Ellis motioned
to a chair.

"No, I won't sit down," said Burr. "I'm only going to stay a moment."

He came over to the blaze, looking down on the other man's head.
Finally he laid a hand on Ellis's shoulder.

"Lonesome, eh?" he inquired.

The student nodded silent assent.

"So am I," said Burr, beginning to pace up and down the narrow room.
"Do you know," he burst out at last, "this town is like hell to me.
Every hand is against me. There's not one man here, beside you, whom
I can trust. I can't stand it. I'm going to leave the country. Some
day I'll come back; but now it's too much." There was the accumulated
bitterness of months in his voice. "My God!" he interjected, "you'd
think these people never did anything wrong in their lives." He
stopped and laid his hand again on the other man's shoulder.

"But enough of this--I didn't come to make you more lonesome. I want
you to meet my friends before I go. You'll go out with me to-morrow
afternoon?"

There was silence for a moment.

"If you wish. You know what I am," said Ellis.

Burr's hand rested a moment longer.

"Good-night," he said simply.

Some eight or ten miles north of the beach, on the island of
Manhattan, stood Jumel home; a fine, white hous