“That’s part of the puzzle, Marsh, that’s the very hell and all of it.”

“Well, you have had your fun—­lots of it!” said Langham, swabbing his face.

North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief.

“Fun!  Was it fun?” he demanded with sudden heat.

“You took it for fun.  Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation.”

“Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that’s the pity of it!  I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!”

“That’s always a hard dose to swallow,” agreed Langham.  He was willing to enter into his friend’s mood.

“Have you ever tried to swallow it?” asked North.

“I can’t say I have.  Some of us haven’t any business with a conscience—­our blood’s too red.  I’ve made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident.  It’s the same with you, Jack.  You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there’s still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn’t burn bright enough to warm the premises.  But it’s there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough—­though I believe I’m mixing my metaphors.”

“Why don’t you say a pearl in the mire?”

“But that doesn’t really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster.  No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs.  That’s how I explain it in my own case, and it’s saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself.  I know I’d be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression.”

“Marsh,” said North soberly, “I am going away.”

“You are going to do what, Jack?” demanded the lawyer.

“I am going to leave Mount Hope.  I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!”

“Why, what’s wrong?  Going away—­when?”

“At once, to-morrow—­to-night maybe.  I don’t know quite when, but very soon.  I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand?  Before long I’ll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings.  I expect I’ll need the money—­”

“Why, you’re crazy, man!” cried Langham.

North moved impatiently.  He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans.

“On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason,” he said briefly.

“Of course you know best, Jack,” acquiesced Langham after a moment’s silence.

“You’ll do what I ask of you, Marsh?”

“Oh, hang it, yes.”  He hesitated for an instant and then said ’frankly.  “You know I’m rather in your debt; I don’t suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last.”

“I hope you won’t mention it!  Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough.”