It was these letters that put Quin's desire for flight into instant action. He must go where he would not be questioned or asked for advice. The mere mention of Eleanor's name was agony to him. It contracted his throat and sent the blood pounding through his veins. His hurt was so intolerable that he shrank from even a touch of sympathy. Perhaps later on he would be able to face the situation, but just now his one desire was to get away from everything connected with his unhappiness. In beating about in his mind for a temporary refuge, he remembered a downtown rooming-house to which he had once gone with Dirks, the foreman at Bartlett & Bangs. Here he transferred his few possessions, and persuaded Rose to tell the Bartletts that he had left town for an indefinite stay. This he hoped would account for his absence until they left for their summer vacation. The ten weeks that followed are not pleasant ones to dwell upon. The picture of Quin tramping the streets by day in a half-hearted search for work, and tramping them again at night when he could not sleep, of him lying face downward on a cot in a small damp room, with all his confidence and bravado gone, and only his racking cough for company, are better left unchronicled. He fought his despair with dogged determination, but his love for Eleanor had twined itself around everything that was worth while in him. In plucking it out he uprooted his ambition, his carefully acquired friendships, his belief in himself, his faith in the future. For eighteen months he had lived in the radiance of one all-absorbing dream, with a faith in its ultimate fulfilment that transcended every fear. And now that that hope was dead, the blackness of despair settled upon him. That fact that Eleanor had broken faith with him, that she was willing to renew her friendship with Harold Phipps when she knew what he was, that she was willing to give up friends and family and her inheritance for the sake of being with him, could have but one explanation. Quin used to tell himself this again and again, as he lay in the hot darkness with his hands clasped across his eyes. He used it as a whip with which to scourge any vagrant hopes that dared creep into his heart. Hadn't Miss Nell told him that she didn't care what he said or did, just so he left her alone? Hadn't she let him come away without expressing a regret for the past or a hope for the future? But, even as his head condemned her, his heart rushed to her defense. After all, she had never said she cared for him. And why should she care for a fellow like him, with no education, or money, or position? Even with her faults, she was too good for the best man living. But she cared for Harold Phipps--and with that bitter thought the turmoil began all over again.