At midnight he stretched out on his bed without undressing, and went over the situation carefully.  He knew nothing of the various neuroses which affect the human mind, but he had a vague impression that memory when lost did eventually return, and Dick’s recognition of the chambermaid pointed to such a return.  He wondered what a man would feel under such conditions, what he would think.  He could not do it.  He abandoned the effort finally, and lay frowning at the ceiling while he considered his own part in the catastrophe.  He saw himself, following his training and his instinct, leading the inevitable march toward this night’s tragedy, planning, scheming, searching, and now that it had come, lying helpless on his bed while the procession of events went on past him and beyond his control.

When an automobile engine back-fired in the street below he went sick with fear.

He made the resolution then that was to be the guiding motive for his life for the next few months, to fight the thing of his own creating to a finish.  But with the resolution newly made he saw the futility of it.  He might fight, would fight, but nothing could restore to Dick Livingstone the place he had made for himself in the world.  He might be saved from his past, but he could not be given a future.

All at once he was aware that some one was working stealthily at the lock of the door which communicated with a room beyond.  He slid cautiously off the bed and went to the light switch, standing with a hand on it, and waited.  The wild thought that it might be Livingstone was uppermost in his mind, and when the door creaked open and closed again, that was the word he breathed into the darkness.

“No,” said a woman’s voice in a whisper.  “It’s the maid, Hattie.  Be careful.  There’s a guard at the top of the stairs.”

He heard her moving to his outer door, and he knew that she stood there, listening, her head against the panel.  When she was satisfied she slipped, with the swiftness of familiarity with her surroundings, to the stand beside his bed, and turned on the lamp.  In the shaded light he saw that she wore a dark cape, with its hood drawn over her head.  In some strange fashion the maid, even the woman, was lost, and she stood, strange, mysterious, and dramatic in the little room.

“If you found Jud Clark, what would you do with him?” she demanded.  From beneath the hood her eyes searched his face.  “Turn him over to Wilkins and his outfit?”

“I think you know better than that.”

“Have you got any plan?”

“Plan?  No.  They’ve got every outlet closed, haven’t they?  Do you know where he is?”

“I know where he isn’t, or they’d have him by now.  And I know Jud Clark.  He’d take to the mountains, same as he did before.  He’s got a good horse.”

“A horse!”