But the days passed, and though he was not able to bring himself to leave Mount Hope, his purpose in its final aspect underwent no change.  He lived to himself, and his old haunts and his old friends saw nothing of him.  Evelyn Langham, whom he had known before she married his friend Marshall, was fortunately absent from town.  Her letters to him remained unanswered; the last one he had burned unread.  He was sick of the devious crooked paths he had trodden; he might not be just the stuff of which saints are made, but there was the hope in his heart of better things than he had yet known.

At about the time Mr. Shrimplin was attacking his Thanksgiving turkey, North, from his window, watched the leaden clouds that overhung the housetops.  From the frozen dirt of the unpaved streets the keen wind whipped up scanty dust clouds, mingling them with sudden flurries of fine snow.  Save for the passing of an occasional pedestrian who breasted the gale with lowered head, the Square was deserted.  Staring down on it, North drummed idly on the window-pane.  What an unspeakable fool he had been, and what a price his folly was costing him!  As he stood there, heavy-hearted and bitter in spirit, he saw Marshall Langham crossing the Square in the direction of his office.  He watched his friend’s wind-driven progress for a moment, then slipped into his overcoat and, snatching up his hat, hurried from the room.

Langham, with Moxlow, his law partner, occupied two handsomely furnished rooms on the first floor, of the one building in Mount Hope that was distinctly an office building, since its sky-scraping five stories were reached by an elevator.  Here North found Langham—­a man only three or four years older than himself, tall, broad-shouldered, with an oratorical air of distinction and a manner that proclaimed him the leading young lawyer at the local bar.

He greeted North cordially, and the latter observed that his friend’s face was unusually flushed, and that beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead, which he frequently wiped with a large linen handkerchief.

“What have you been doing with yourself, Jack?” he demanded, sliding his chair back from the desk at which he was seated.  “I haven’t had a glimpse of you in days.”

“I have been keeping rather quiet.”

“What’s the matter?  Liver out of whack?” Langham smiled complacently.

“Worse than that!” North rejoined moodily.

“That’s saying a good deal?  What is it, Jack?”

But North was not inclined to lay bare his heart; he doubted if Langham could be made to comprehend any part of his suffering.

“I am getting down to my last dollar, Marsh.  I don’t know where the money went, but it’s gone,” he finally said.

Langham nodded.

“You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it’s been a perfectly good little time, too!  What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?”