He saw himself going back to the curious glances of the town, never to be to them the same as before.  To face them and look them down, to hear whispers behind his back, to feel himself watched and judged, on that far past of his.  Suppose even that it could be kept out of the papers; Wilkins amiable and acquiescent, Beverly’s confession hidden in the ruck of legal documents; and he stealing back, to go on as best he could, covering his absence with lies, and taking up his work again.  But even that uneasy road was closed to him.  He saw David and Lucy stooping to new and strange hypocrisies, watching with anxious old eyes the faces of their neighbors, growing defiant and hard as time went on and suspicion still followed him.

And there was Elizabeth.

He tried not to think of her, save as of some fine and tender thing he had once brushed as he passed by.  Even if she still cared for him, he could, even less than David and Lucy, ask her to walk the uneasy road with him.  She was young.  She would forget him and marry Wallace Sayre.  She would have luxury and gaiety, and the things that belong to youth.

He was not particularly bitter about that.  He knew now that he had given her real love, something very different from that early madness of his, but he knew it too late...

He looked up at Bassett and then sat up.

“What sort of news?” he asked, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Get up and put some cold water on your head.  I want you to get this.”

He obeyed, but without enthusiasm.  Some new clue, some hope revived only to die again, what did it matter?  But he stopped by Bassett and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Why do you do it?” he asked.  “Why don’t you let me go to the devil in my own way?”

“I started this, and by Heaven I’ve finished it,” was Bassett’s exultant reply.

He sat down and produced a bundle of papers.  “I’m going to read you something,” he said.  “And when I’m through you’re going to put your clothes on and we’ll go to the Biltmore.  The Biltmore.  Do you get it?”

Then he began to read.

“I, the undersigned, being of sound mind, do hereby make the following statement.  I make the statement of my own free will, and swear before Almighty God that it is the truth.  I am an illegitimate son of Elihu Clark.  My mother, Harriet Burgess, has since married and is now known as Hattie Thorwald.  She will confirm the statements herein contained.

“I was adopted by a woman named Hines, of the city of Omaha, whose name I took.  Some years later this woman married and had a daughter, of whom I shall speak later.

“I attended preparatory school in the East, and was sent during vacations to a tutoring school, owned by Mr. Henry Livingstone.  When I went to college Mr. Livingstone bought a ranch at Dry River, Wyoming, and I spent some time there now and then.