Harber got the leather case from the grip and took it at once to his own stateroom. When he returned, Barton seemed for the moment, with the commission off his mind, a little brighter. "No end obliged, Harber," he murmured. "All right," said Harber, "but ought you to talk?" "Won't matter now," said Barton grimly. "Feel like talking now. To-morrow may be--too late!" And after another pause, he went on: "The fine dreams of youth--odd where they end, isn't it? "This--and me--so different. So different! Failure. She was wise--but she didn't know everything. The world was too big--too hard for me. 'You can't fail,' she said, '_I won't let you fail_!' But you see----" Harber's mind, slipping back down the years, with Barton, to his own parting, stopped with a jerk. "What!" he exclaimed. Barton seemed drifting, half conscious, half unconscious of what he was saying. He did not appear to have heard Harber's exclamation over the phrase so like that Janet had given him. "We weren't like the rest," droned Barton. "No--we wanted more out of life than they did. We couldn't be content--with half a loaf. We wanted--the bravest adventures--the yellowest gold--the...." Picture that scene, if you will. What would _you_ have said? Harber saw leaping up before him, with terrible clarity, as if it were etched upon his mind, that night in Tawnleytown ten years before. It was as if Barton, in his semidelirium, were reading the words from _his_ past! "I won't let you fail! ... half a loaf ... the bravest adventures ... the yellowest gold." Incredible thing! That Barton and _his_ girl should have stumbled upon so many of the phrases, the exact phrases! And suddenly full knowledge blinded Harber.... No! No! He spurned it. It couldn't be. And yet, he felt that if Barton were to utter one more phrase of those that Janet had said and, many, many times since, written to _him_, the impossible, the unbelievable, would be stark, unassailable fact. He put his hand upon Barton's arm and gently pressed it. "Barton," he said, "tell me--Janet--Tawnleytown?" Barton stared with glassy, unseeing eyes for a moment; then his eyelids fell. "The bravest adventures--the yellowest gold," he murmured. Then, so faintly as almost to baffle hearing: "Where--all--our--dreams? Gone--aglimmering. Gone." That was all. Impossible? No, just very, very improbable. But how, by its very improbability, it does take on the semblance of design! See how by slender a thread the thing hung, how every corner of the plan fitted. Just one slip Janet Spencer made; she let her thoughts and her words slip into a groove; she repeated herself. And how unerringly life had put her finger upon that clew! So reasoned Harber. Well, if the indictment were true, there was proof to be had in Barton's leather case! Harber, having called the doctor, went to his stateroom.