After an all but sleepless night, Hoag ate breakfast with the family the next morning, and announced his intention of running down to Atlanta for a day or so on business. Paul wanted to ask some questions pertaining to his work, but Hoag swept them aside with a turgid wave of the hand. “Run it yourself; it will be all right,” he said. “Your judgment is as good as mine. I don't feel exactly well here lately. I have headaches that I didn't use to have, an' I think I'll talk to a doctor down thar. I don't know; I say _maybe_ I will.” Riding to town, he left his horse at Trawley's stable, and going to the railway station below the Square he strolled about on the platform. A locomotive's whistle several miles up the valley announced that the train was on time. Approaching the window of the ticket-office, which was within the little waiting-room, he found the opening quite filled by a broad-brimmed farmer's hat, a pair of heavy shoulders on a long body, supported by a pair of gaunt jeans-clothed legs. “Yes, I'm off for Texas.” He recognized Purvynes's voice in cheerful conversation with the agent. “My brother says I ought to come. He's got a good thing for me out thar--land's as black as a hat, an' as rich as a stable-lot a hundred year old. He was so set on havin' me that he lent me the money to go on. So long! Good luck to you!” The head was withdrawn from the window; a pair of brown hands were awkwardly folding a long green emigrant's ticket, and Purvynes suddenly saw the man behind him. “Hello, you off?” Hoag hastily summoned a casual tone. The start, the dogged lowering of the head, the vanishing of Purvynes's smile, were successive blows to the shrinking consciousness of the inquirer. “Yes, I'm off.” Purvynes's eyes were now shifting restlessly. Then he lowered his voice, and a touch of malice crept into it as he added: “You see, I didn't have to do it on your money, nuther, an' you bet I'm glad. It's tainted if ever cash was, an' I want to shake every grain o' Georgia dust off my feet, anyway.” “I'm goin' as far as Atlanta,” Hoag said, tentatively. “I may see you on the train.” “My ticket's _second class_.” Purvynes shrugged his shoulders. “I'll have to ride in the emigrant-car, next to the engine. I reckon we--we'd better stay apart, Jim, anyhow. I want it that way,” he added, in a low, firm tone, and with smoldering fires in his eyes which seemed about to burst into flame. “All right, all right!” Hoag hastily acquiesced. “You know best,” and he turned to the window and bought his ticket. The agent made a courteous remark about the weather and the crops, and in some fashion Hoag responded, but his thoughts were far away.