Covington stood in the doorway of the library as Alice slipped quietly into the room and took her place beside Eleanor and her father.  As he looked upon the three, forming a group into which he had almost entered, he realized the infinite distance which now separated them.  Their total disregard of his presence, Gorham’s lack of open resentment, Alice’s indifference,—­all told him that in their eyes he was only the pariah, beneath their contempt, suffered to remain there until he saw fit to rid them of his presence.  Yet he could not leave them thus.  Somewhere within him a something, until now quiescent, demanded recognition and insisted upon expression.  Why had it waited until now!  It was a changed John Covington who spoke from that doorway, when at last silence became unendurable.  The hard lines in the face had softened, and the previously insistent voice now betrayed realization of the present, and hopelessness for the future.  The fires of truth and love and faith and honor, which burned so brightly before him, at least touched him with their heat.  God pity him!

“It is all over, Mr. Gorham,” he forced himself to say.  “It is not you who have defeated me, it is I who have defeated myself.  I offer no defence.  I despised myself before I did this, I despise myself still further for having done it.  I could not believe you sincere,—­I could not believe any man capable of living the creed you preached.  I accept the penalty which you or other men may impose upon me.”

“You have imposed your own penalty, Covington,” Gorham replied.  “You, who have destroyed the way-marks to misguide others, now find yourself adrift because of your own act.  You are a young man.  If you are honest in what you now say, there is still hope for you.  Fight those overpowering ambitions which have brought you to the brink until you have them properly controlled, then guide your undoubted abilities along lines which men recognize as true.”

Covington bowed his head, and without a word disappeared.  As the outer door closed Alice turned to her father, but her thought was not of the man who had passed from their lives.

“You were that prospector, daddy?  Why did you never tell Eleanor?”

“I have tried to make her recognize me ever since we were married, dear.  I have tried to make her tell me the story, hoping that the repetition might recall in her heart some association which would link me with that past, sad as it was to her.  You never knew, Alice, of that experience when I went West in search of health, but now you know why I hurried back to Denver; why I kept myself constantly informed regarding the recovery and later life of this little woman who came into my heart during those days when she was passing through her agony.  I loved her then, but she was another man’s wife.  I knew when the court gave her back her freedom, and I lost no time in winning her at the first opportunity which offered.”