He had paid a high price but he could now look at his city without shame. This was a fortifying thought, but a lonely one, and it did not lead to constructive work. The days were listless and empty. Northrup got out his manuscript--there was life in it, he made sure of that, but it was feeble and would require intelligent concentration in order to justify its existence. But the intelligence and concentration were not in his power to bestow. After a few days he regarded his new freedom with strange exhilaration mingled with fear and distrust. So much had gone down in the wreck with Kathryn. So much that was purely himself--not her--that readjustment was slow. How would it have been, he wondered, back in the King's Forest days, had he not been upheld by a sense of duty to what was now proven false and wrong? One could err in duty, it seemed. He was free! He had not exacted freedom! It had been thrust upon him so brutally, that it had, for a spell, sent him reeling into space. Not being able to resume his work, Northrup got to thinking about King's Forest with concentration, if not intelligence. He had purposely refrained, while he was away, from dwelling upon it as a place in which he had some rights. He used, occasionally, to think of Twombley, sitting like a silent, wary watch-dog, keeping an eye on his interests. He had heard of the Maclin tragedy--Helen Northrup felt it wise to give him that information while withholding much more; that was, in a way, public knowledge. Things were at least safe now in the Forest, Northrup believed. This brought him to the closer circle. He felt a sudden homesickness for the inn and the blessed old pair. A kind of mental hunger evolved from this unwholesome brooding that drove Northrup, as hunger alone can, to snatch whatever he could for his growing desire to feed upon. He shifted his thoughts from Mary-Clare and the Heathcotes to Larry Rivers. Where was he? Had he kept his part of the bargain? What had Mary-Clare done with her hard-won freedom? Sitting alone under his dome of changing lights, Northrup became a prey to whimsical fancies that amused while they hurt. As the lighted city rose above the coarser elements that formed it, so the woman, Mary-Clare, towered over other women. Such women as Kathryn! The bitterness of pain lurked here as, unconsciously, Northrup went back over the wasted years of misplaced faith. The sweet human qualities he knew were not lacking in Mary-Clare. They were simply heightened, brightened. All this led to but one thing. Something was bound to happen, and suddenly Northrup decided to go to King's Forest! Once this decision was reached he realized that he had been travelling toward it since the night of his scene with Kathryn. The struggle was over. He was at rest, and began cheerfully to make preparations. Of course, he argued, he meant to keep the spirit, if not the letter, of his agreement with Larry Rivers.