unanswered; the last one he had burned unread. He was sick of the
devious crooked paths he had trodden; he might not be just the stuff of
which saints are made, but there was the hope in his heart of better
things than he had yet known.

At about the time Mr. Shrimplin was attacking his Thanksgiving turkey,
North, from his window, watched the leaden clouds that overhung the
housetops. From the frozen dirt of the unpaved streets the keen wind
whipped up scanty dust clouds, mingling them with sudden flurries of
fine snow. Save for the passing of an occasional pedestrian who breasted
the gale with lowered head, the Square was deserted. Staring down on it,
North drummed idly on the window-pane. What an unspeakable fool he had
been, and what a price his folly was costing him! As he stood there,
heavy-hearted and bitter in spirit, he saw Marshall Langham crossing the
Square in the direction of his office. He watched his friend's
wind-driven progress for a moment, then slipped into his overcoat and,
snatching up his hat, hurried from the room.

Langham, with Moxlow, his law partner, occupied two handsomely furnished
rooms on the first floor, of the one building in Mount Hope that was
distinctly an office building, since its sky-scraping five stories were
reached by an elevator. Here North found Langham--a man only three or
four years older than himself, tall, broad-shouldered, with an
oratorical air of distinction and a manner that proclaimed him the
leading young lawyer at the local bar.

He greeted North cordially, and the latter observed that his friend's
face was unusually flushed, and that beads of perspiration glistened on
his forehead, which he frequently wiped with a large linen handkerchief.