He drew Holt out into the hall, where Pepper waited.  Some one slammed the door and began to curse.

“That ends that,” said Colonel Pepper, as the three moved down the dim hall.

“It ends us, Pepper, but you couldn’t stop those guys with a crowbar,” retorted Dalrymple.

Lane linked arms with the boy and changed the conversation while they walked back to the inn.  Here Colonel Pepper left them, and Lane talked to Holt for an hour.  The more he questioned Holt the better he liked him, and yet the more surprised was he at the sordid fact of the boy’s inclination toward loose living.  There was something perhaps that Holt would not confess.  His health had been impaired in the service, but not seriously.  He was getting stronger all the time.  His old job was waiting for him.  His mother and sister had enough to live on, but if he had been working he could have helped them in a way to afford him great satisfaction.

“Holt, listen,” finally said Lane, with more earnestness.  “We’re friends—­all boys of the service are friends.  We might even become great pards, if we had time.”

“What’s time got to do with it?” queried the younger man.  “I’m sure I’d like it—­and know it’d help me.”

“I’m shot to pieces, Holt....  I won’t last long....”

“Aw, Lane, don’t say that!”

“It’s true.  And if I’m to help you at all it must be now....  You haven’t told me everything, boy—­now have you?”

Holt dropped his head.

“I’ll say—­I haven’t,” he replied, haltingly.  “Lane—­the trouble is—­I’m clean gone on Margie Maynard.  But her mother hates the sight of me.  She won’t stand for me.”

“Oho!  So that’s it?” ejaculated Lane, a light breaking in upon him.  “Well, I’ll be darned.  It is serious, Holt....  Does Margie love you?”

“Sure she does.  We’ve always cared.  Don’t you remember how Margie and I and Dal and you used to go to school together?  And come home together?  And play on Saturdays?...  Ever since then!...  But lately Margie and I are—­we got—­pretty badly mixed up.”

“Yes, I remember those days,” replied Lane, dreamily, and suddenly he recalled Dal’s dark eyes, somehow haunting.  He had to make an effort to get back to the issue at hand.

“If Margie loves you—­why it’s all right.  Go back to work and marry her.”

“Lane, it can’t be all right.  Mrs. Maynard has handed me the mitt,” replied Holt, bitterly.  “And Margie hasn’t the courage to run off with me....  Her mother is throwing Margie at Swann—­because he’s rich.”

“Oh Lord, no—­Holt—­you can’t mean it!” exclaimed Lane, aghast.

“I’ll say I do mean it.  I know it,” returned Holt, moodily.  “So I let go—­fell into the dumps—­didn’t care a d——­ what became of me.”

Lane was genuinely shocked.  What a tangle he had fallen upon!  Once again there seemed to confront him a colossal Juggernaut, a moving, crushing, intangible thing, beyond his power to cope with.