rrect action.
Viewed with full knowledge of all the surrounding circumstances, that
letter must be regarded as the noble outpouring of a chivalrous love,
honest, worthy, unselfish. Regarded without the illumination of the
complex conditions which called it forth, the letter was pregnant with
possibility of mischief.

It was addressed to Mrs. George Collins. And George Collins must not be
permitted to intercept it.

With the single resolve to frustrate Collins actuating his movements,
Whitmore went to his apartment, slipped on his topcoat, and left the
house. He paused at the corner to consult his watch. It was eleven
o'clock.

He was sufficiently acquainted with the city to know that over on
Seventh Avenue certain shops kept open until midnight. He had passed
them frequently after theater and observed the industrious proprietors
and barkers noisily soliciting trade on the sidewalk.

Down Fifth Avenue Whitmore swung at a rapid pace, turning west at
Forty-second Street. Through the swirling crowds at Broadway he threaded
his way, finally entering the gloomy thoroughfare that cuts a somber,
murky streak through the illuminated area of Times Square.

Even Whitmore, engrossed as he was in his own affairs, could not help a
feeling of depression as with a single step he emerged from the
throbbing life and light of Broadway into the shabby darkness of Seventh
Avenue. For nowhere in the big city is the contrast of its extremes
brought home so sharply as at this intersection of three busy
thoroughfares.

It is worth while to pause a moment in the blatant glare of that
monstrously hideous variety house, that architectural malformation that
defaces the northwest corner; or opposite in the shadow of the gray
illumined tower that mounts undaunted, a connecting ladder between earth
and sky. Especially profitable is it to pause a moment at the hour when
the neighboring theaters are discharging their crowds, and to glance
behind and beyond the furious activity that bewilders the eye and
dazzles the senses. If you have the eye to see and the mind to
appreciate, you will behold an illuminated canvas whereon is depicted,
within the limited area of your vision, everything that a great city
holds of wealth and poverty, beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, luxury
and squalor, purity and degradation, truth and falsehood. It is all
there, in this narrow environment, with the lights and the shadows
meeting and blending, as the noise from