"That's the whole story of the McBride murder. Now what do you think of my theorizing, Marsh; how does it strike you?" But Langham did not answer him. The gambler's words had brought it all back; he was living again the agony of that first conscious moment when he realized the thing he had done. He remembered his hurried search for the money, and his flight through the side door; he remembered crossing the shed roof and the panic that had seized him as he dropped into the alley beyond, unseen, safe as he supposed. A debilitating reaction, such as follows some tremendous physical effort, had quickly succeeded. He had wandered through the deserted streets seeking control of himself in vain. Finally he had gone home. Evelyn was at his father's and the servant absent for the day. He had let himself in with his latchkey and had gone at once to the library. There he fell to pacing to and fro; ten--twenty minutes had passed, when the sudden noisy clamor of the town bell had taken him, cowering, to the window; but the world beyond was a vaguely curtained white. He raised his heavy bloodshot eyes and looked into the gambler's smiling face. He realized the futility of his act, since it had placed him irrevocably in Gilmore's power. He had endured unspeakable anguish all to no purpose, since Gilmore knew; knew with the certitude of an eye-witness. And there the gambler sat smiling and at ease, torturing him with his cunning speech. CHAPTER FIFTEEN LOVE THAT ENDURES A melancholy wind raked the bare hills which rose beyond the flats, and found its way across half the housetops in Mount Hope to the solitary window that gave light and air to John North's narrow cell. For seven long days, over the intervening housetops, he had been observing those undulating hills, gazing at them until they seemed like some great live thing continually crawling along the horizon's rim, and continually disappearing in the distance. Now he was watching their misted shapes sink deep into the twilight. North, by his counsel, had waved the usual preliminary hearing before the mayor, his case had gone at once to the grand jury, he had been indicted and his trial was set for the February term of court. Watt Harbison had warned him that he might expect only this, yet his first feeling of astonished horror remained with him. As he stood by his window he was recalling the separate events of the day. The court room had been crowded to the verge of suffocation; when he entered it a sudden hush and a mighty craning of necks had been his welcome, and he had felt his cheeks redden and pale with a sense of shame at his hapless plight. Those many pairs of eyes that were fixed on him seemed to lay bare his inmost thoughts; he had known no refuge from their pitiless insistence.