For three days Banneker had had no letter from Io.

The first intimation of what had actually occurred came to him just before he left the office to dress for the dinner in his honor.  Willis Enderby had formally withdrawn from the governorship contest.  His statement given out for publication in next morning’s papers, was in the office.  Banneker sent for it.  The reason given was formal and brief; nervous breakdown; imperative orders from his physician.  The whole thing was grisly plain to Banneker, but he must have confirmation.  He went to the city editor.  Had any reporter been sent to see Judge Enderby?

Yes:  Dilson, one of the men frequently assigned to do Marrineal’s and Ives’s special work had been sent to Enderby’s on the previous day with specific instructions to ask a single question:  “When was the Judge going to issue his formal withdrawal”:  Yes:  that was the precise form of the question:  not, “Was he going to withdraw,” but “When was he,” and so on.

The Judge would not answer, except to say that he might have a statement to make within twenty-four hours.  This afternoon (continued the city editor) Enderby, it was understood, had telephoned to The Sphere and asked that Russell Edmonds come to his house between four and five.  No one else would do.  Edmonds had gone, had been closeted with Enderby for an hour, and had emerged with the brief typed statement for distribution to all the papers.  He would not say a word as to the interview.  Judge Enderby absolutely denied himself to all callers.  Physician’s orders again.

Banneker reflected that if the talk between Edmonds and Enderby had been what he could surmise, the veteran would hardly attend the dinner in his (Banneker’s) honor.  Honor and Banneker would be irreconcilable terms, to the stern judgment of Pop Edmonds.  Had they, indeed, become irreconcilable terms?  It was a question which Banneker, in the turmoil of his mind, could not face.  On his way along Park Row he stopped and had a drink.  It seemed to produce no effect, so presently he had another.  After the fourth, he clarified and enlarged his outlook upon the whole question, which he now saw in its entirety.  He perceived himself as the victim of unique circumstances, forced by the demands of honor into what might seem, to unenlightened minds, dubious if not dishonorable positions, each one of them in reality justified:  yes, necessitated!  Perhaps he was at fault in his very first judgment; perhaps, had he even then, in his inexperience, seen what he now saw so clearly in the light of experience, the deadly pitfalls into which journalism, undertaken with any other purpose than the simple setting forth of truth, beguiles its practitioners—­perhaps he might have drawn back from the first step of passive deception and have resigned rather than been a party to the suppression of the facts about the Veridian killings.  Resigned?  And forfeited all his force for education, for enlightenment, for progress of thought and belief, exerted upon millions of minds through The Patriot?...  Would that not have been the way of cowardice?...  He longed to be left to himself.  To think it all out.  What would Io say, if she knew everything?  Io whose silence was surrounding him with a cold terror....  He had to get home and dress for that cursed dinner!