Ah yes--even then the thing wasn't settled, even now that I had
recognized that Fox and the others were of no account ... What remained
was to prove to her that I wasn't a mere chattel, a piece in the game. I
was at the very heart of the thing. After all, it was chance that had
put me there, the blind chance of all the little things that lead in the
inevitable, the future. If, now, I thwarted her, she would ... what
would she do? She would have to begin all over again. She wouldn't want
to be revenged; she wasn't revengeful. But how if she would never look
upon me again?

The thing had reduced itself to a mere matter of policy. Or was it
passion?

A clatter of the wheels of heavy carts and of the hoofs of heavy horses
on granite struck like hammer blows on my ears, coming from the well of
the court-yard below. Soane had finished his bottle and was walking to
the cupboard. He paused at the window and stood looking down.

"Strong beggars, those porters," he said; "I couldn't carry that weight
of paper--not with my rot on it, let alone Callan's. You'd think it
would break down the carts."

I understood that they were loading the carts for the newspaper mails.
There was still time to stop them. I got up and went toward the window,
very swiftly. I was going to call to them to stop loading. I threw the
casement open.

* * * * *

Of course, I did not stop them. The solution flashed on me with the