avid and Lucy gone, and the
old house abandoned, or perhaps echoing to the laughter of Reynolds'
children.

He had moments when he wondered what would happen if he took Beverly at
her word. Suppose she made her confession, re-opened the thing, to fill
the papers with great headlines, "Judson Clark Not Guilty. A Strange
Story."

He saw himself going back to the curious glances of the town, never to
be to them the same as before. To face them and look them down, to hear
whispers behind his back, to feel himself watched and judged, on that
far past of his. Suppose even that it could be kept out of the papers;
Wilkins amiable and acquiescent, Beverly's confession hidden in the ruck
of legal documents; and he stealing back, to go on as best he could,
covering his absence with lies, and taking up his work again. But even
that uneasy road was closed to him. He saw David and Lucy stooping to
new and strange hypocrisies, watching with anxious old eyes the faces of
their neighbors, growing defiant and hard as time went on and suspicion
still followed him.

And there was Elizabeth.

He tried not to think of her, save as of some fine and tender thing he
had once brushed as he passed by. Even if she still cared for him, he
could, even less than David and Lucy, ask her to walk the uneasy road
with him. She was young. She would forget him and marry Wallace Sayre.
She would have luxury and gaiety, and the things that belong to youth.

He was not particularly bitter about that. He knew now that he had given
her real love, something very different from that early madness of his,
but he knew it too late...

He looked up at Bassett and then sat up.

"What sort of news?" he asked, his voice still thick with sleep.

"Get up and put some cold water on your head. I want you to get this."

He obeyed, but without enthusiasm. Some new clue, some hope revived only
to die again, what did it matter? But he stopped by Bassett and put a
hand on his shoulder.

"Why do you do it?" he asked. "Why don't you let me go to the devil in
my own way?"

"I started this, and by Heaven I've finished it," was Bassett's exultant
reply.

He sat down and produced a bundle of papers. "I'm going to read you
something," he said. "And when I'm through you're going to put your
clothes on and we'll go to the Biltmore. The Biltmore. Do you get it?"

Then he began to read.

"I, the undersigned, being of sound mind, do hereby make the following
statement. I