nd the penitentiary. As you thought
probably was the case, your story is known all over town; though how it
has got such a wide publication in so short a time is more than I can
fathom. Men whom I would bank on; men to whom I have felt that I could
go in any conceivable extremity, have turned me down as soon as I
mentioned your name. The prison story is like a big, brutal, inanimate
mountain standing squarely in the way; and I--I haven't the faith
needful for its removal!"

Being under the deepest obligation to this dear young fellow who was
bruising himself for me, I said what I could to lighten his burden.
But in the midst of it he got up and reached for his hat and overcoat.

"I have just thought of something," he explained hastily; "something
that may throw a good bit of light on this thing. You sit right here
and toast your shins. I'm going out for a little while."

He was gone for the better part of an hour, during which interval I
obeyed his injunction literally, sitting before the fire and basking in
its home-like warmth; making the most of the comfort of it all before I
should again go forth to face an inclement world. When Whitley came in
and flung himself into a chair on the opposite side of the hearth his
dark eyes were blazing.

"Weyburn," he began abruptly, "what I have to tell you will stir every
evil passion you've ever harbored; and yet, in decent justice to you,
it must be told. Have you ever suspected that your fight for
reinstatement has been deliberately handicapped, right from the
beginning?"

"I have suspected it at times; yes," I returned. "But there is no
proof."

"There _is_ proof," he shot back. "By the merest chance I stumbled
upon it a few minutes ago. I went out with the intention of going to
Zadoc Haddon and making him tell me where he got the information that
you are the desperate criminal he professes to believe you to be.
While we were sitting here it struck me all at once that this thing was
being helped along by some one who had an object in view. At Haddon's
house the doorman told me that Haddon had an appointment with an
out-of-town customer and had gone to the hotel to keep it; and rather
than wait, I went over to the Hamilton House to try to find my man. I
didn't find him; but in the lobby of the hotel somebody found me. As I
was turning away from the desk after asking for Haddon, a heavy-set
young man, neatly dressed, stepped up and asked if my name was Whitle