With time on his hands, Blount squared himself at his desk and began to set his railroad house in order. Now that the dreadful step was practically taken, he was free to wind up the business of his office, leaving things in order for his successor. Once he had thought that he could not stay in the capital or in the West after the cataclysm. But now the manlier thought prevailed. A hard fate was making him his father's betrayer; but beyond the betrayal, with the bare duty done, he would take his place as his father's son, proving his love and loyalty by going down with him to any depth of infamy into which the cataclysm might drag him. Since there was much to be done in the winding-up task, the forenoon fled quickly, and the hands of the small paper-weight clock on the desk were pointing to a quarter of two when Blount snapped the rubber band upon the final file of referred papers. There were other odds and ends to be set in order, but he determined to let them wait until he had eaten. A scant half-hour in the club grill-room was all he allowed himself, and at a quarter past two he was back at his desk, preparing to make the cleaning-up task complete. Between four and five, Judge Hemingway had said; and Blount began on one of the odds and ends, which was the writing of his letter of resignation from the railroad service. He was enclosing the letter when there came a light tap at the office-door, and then the door itself opened to admit Patricia--a Patricia bright-eyed and determined, alluringly charming in her tightly veiled driving-hat, muffling motor-coat, and dainty gauntlets. "You?" said Blount not too hospitably. "I thought you said something about going to Wartrace?" "So I did, and so I am," she asserted, coming to sit in the chair last occupied by one Thomas Gryson. "And the others?" he queried. "They have just left; gone on ahead in the touring-car. I was deputed to bring you." "But I told you this morning that I couldn't go, and I can't!" he protested. She looked him squarely in the eye. "Evan, you don't dare tell me why you can't!" "Business," he pleaded. "That may be half of the truth, but it isn't any more than half." Then she made the direct appeal: "I wish you'd tell me, Evan. I know a little--just the little that Mrs. Blount has seen fit to tell me--and no more. There is trouble threatening; some dreadful trouble. I saw it yesterday when you were so miserable; I can see it in your eyes this minute." Blount got up and began to pace the floor so that she might not see his eyes. He was no more proof against such an appeal than any lover gladly ready to bare his soul to the woman chosen out of a world of women for his confidant and second self would be.