He has seen all—­all but Esther.  He starts blindly for Esther’s house once more.  As he walks rapidly southward, his own team comes up the avenue.  It is Esther within the carriage.  She looks at a man in gray business dress, with colored nose and a drunkard’s complexion.  She notes the large watch-chain.  She finds him no different from all other living men.  She is looking for David.  “Come back, my noble husband,” she sobs, “come back from the grave, or let me join you.”

A moment afterward she fears she may die before her work shall be done.  That was a sharp sting at her heart just then.

David Lockwin is frozen with that cold look.  The carriage is past.  He was on his way to Esther’s to tell her all.  If he had not risen out of his abstraction ere it should be too late, he would have confronted this cold lady—­this mature builder of cenotaph and hospital.

He is terrified—­a lover’s panic.  She does not love him, or she would have called to him as they passed.

So thinks David Lockwin, for he cannot see himself except as he once was.  People call him Chalmers when they address him, which is not more than once a day, but it is like the salutation to Judge Wandrell.  He does not call himself “Judge” nor sign himself “Judge.”  “My dear judge,” writes a friend.  “Your friend, H. M. H. Wandrell,” answers the same man.

It is easy for David Lockwin to answer to the name of Robert Chalmers.  He has found it totally impossible to become Robert Chalmers in fact.  He is David Lockwin, disinherited—­a picture of the prodigal son—–­but David Lockwin in every bone and muscle—­no one else.

Esther Lockwin has refused to know David Lockwin.

Sharp as may be his hurt at this event, he is, nevertheless, once more recalled to the expediencies.  If he shall be in hope of Esther, it would be well to escape from a situation so dangerous.

“And I am poor!  Why did I not think of that?  It was easy to marry her, because I was wealthy.  I am a poor man now.”  He repeats it over and over.

It would be well to hurry to New York and attend to that matter of the Coal and Oil Trust Company institution.  He could not go but for the lover’s hope of preparing something for the reunion.

Between Chicago and New York one may fall into a wide abyss of despair.  The late Honorable David Lockwin has tarried in Chicago, has assisted at the public dedication of his own cenotaph, has visited the David Lockwin Annex, has looked his own widow in the face.  His pride is torn out by the roots.  A man once exalted is now humbled.  And, added to the horrors of his situation, every fiber of his body, every aspiration of his spirit, proclaims his love of the woman who once wearied him.

His dilemma is dreadful without this catastrophe of love.  He thanks the fates that he is in love.  It gives him business.  He will not sell his claim against the ruined bank.  He will work as book-keeper.  He will wait and collect all.  Patience shall be his motto.  He will communicate with Esther through a spiritual medium.  He will—­better yet—­write to her anonymously.  Every day a type-written missive shall be sent to her.  He will have her!  It is all possible!