"Have you seen Norton Carr?" I asked here, and, "Have you seen Norton Carr?" I asked there--tracing him from lair to lair, and friend to friend, and thus found myself tramping out along the lower road that leads toward the west and the river. He had sent a telegram, I found in the course of my inquiry, which added a dash of mystery to my quest and stirred in me a curious sense of anxiety. The very feeling of that dull day, etched deep in my memory by the acid of emotion, comes vividly back to me. There had been no snow, and the fields were brown and bare--dead trees, dead hedges of hazel and cherry, crows flying heavily overhead with melancholy cries, and upon the hills beyond the river dull clouds hanging like widows' weeds: a brooding day. At every turn I looked for Nort and, thus looking, came to the bridge. It was the same spot, the same bridge, where, some years before, the Scotch preacher and I, driving late one evening, looked anxiously for the girl Anna. I can see her yet, wading there in the dark water, her skirts all floating about her, hugging her child to her breast and crying piteously, "I don't dare, oh, I don't dare, but I must, I must!" Of all that I have told elsewhere. I stopped a moment and looked down into the water where it reflected the dark mood of the day, and then turned along the road that runs between the alders of the river edge and the beeches and oaks of the hill. It was the way Nort and I had taken more than once, talking great talk. I thought I might find him there. And there, indeed, I did find him--and know how some old chivalric knight must have felt when at last he overtook the quarry which was to be the guerdon of his lady. "I shall take him back a captive," I said to myself. Nort was sitting under a beech tree, looking out upon the cold river. A veritable picture of desolation! He was whistling in a low monotone, a way he had. Poor Nort! Life had opened the door of ambition for him, just a crack, and he had caught glimpses of the glory within, only to have the door slammed in his face. If he had walked upon cerulean heights on Sunday he was grovelling in the depths on Monday. It was all as plain to me as I approached him as if it had been written in a book. "Hello, Nort," said I. He started from his place and looked around at me. "Hello, David," said he carelessly. "What brings you here?" "You do," said I. "I do!" "Yes, I'm about to take you back to Hempfield. The _Star_ finds difficulty in twinkling without you." I told him what Anthy had said, and of what I felt to be a new effort to control the policies of the _Star_. But Nort slowly shook his head. "No, David. This is the end. I have finished with Hempfield."