He watched the colonel as he made himself comfortable on the lounge, then he lighted a fresh cigar, tilted his chair against the wall and with head thrown back studied the ceiling. Watt Harbison made one or two tentative attempts at conversation, to which Gilmore briefly responded, then the young fellow also became thoughtful. He fell to watching the gambler's strong profile which the lamp silhouetted against the opposite wall; then drowsiness completely overcame him and he slept in his chair with his head fallen forward on his breast. Gilmore, alert and sleepless, smoked on; he was thinking of Evelyn Langham. After his interview with her husband that afternoon he had gone to his own apartment. His bedroom adjoined North's parlor and through the flimsy lath and plaster partition he had distinctly heard a woman's voice. The sound of that voice and the suspicion it instantly begot added to his furious hatred of North, for he had long suspected that something more than friendship existed between Marshall Langham's wife and Marshall Langham's friend. "Damn him!" thought the gambler. "I'll fix him yet!" And he puffed at his cigar viciously. He had made sure that North's mysterious visitor was Evelyn Langham, for when she left the building he himself had followed her. Out of the dregs of his nature this foolish mad passion of his had arisen to torture him; he had never spoken with Langham's wife, probably she knew him by sight, nothing more; but still his game, the waiting game he had been forced to play, was working itself out better than he had even hoped! At last he had Marshall Langham where he wanted him, where he could make him feel his power. Langham would not be able to raise the money required to cover up those forgeries, and on the basis of silence he would make his bargain with the lawyer. Gilmore pondered this problem for the better part of an hour, considering it from every conceivable angle; then suddenly the expression of his face changed, he forgot for the moment his ambitions and his desires, his hatred and his love; he thought he heard the click of the old-fashioned latch on the front gate. He remembered that it could be raised only with difficulty. Next he heard the sound of footsteps approaching the house. They seemed to come haltingly down the narrow brick path which the wind had swept clear of snow.