Shaughnessy had been wont to live in seclusion that was undisturbed save when he was minded to summon one or another of his crew. His lodgings occupied the upper floor of a small, two-story building, with unpretentious stores below, and few ascended the stairs that had not business with Shaughnessy and been called thither. Also, the boss had invariably taken his meals outside and so managed in all respects that once in his retreat, when he so willed, he was in unbroken seclusion. So it transpired that Shaughnessy, limp in the chair before the desk in his den, sat in grisly silence through the long night till the dawn which heralded his exposure; sat through the long day, with the sun's rays beating through the window upon his glazed, unwinking eyes; sat quietly, while men throughout the city cursed him for the masterly knave he had been, conferring together in plans of futile reprisal. So he sat, deaf, unheeding, beyond it all; while some men watched others whom they thought harbored him and others thought him gone. And so he was--to a far country, where they could not follow him. Even now, as he sat waiting for them, there was a sardonic look about his grim, relaxed jaws which might tell them, when they were finally come--summoned through the veriest accident to get him--that they were welcome to what was left. As O'Byrn walked along the crowded street, he passed some members of the gang, hurrying by with white faces and furtive eyes, cringing in the glare of publicity as if a lash bit deep into quivering flesh. Others he met who affected an exaggerated boldness which failed to hide their uneasiness. Some who knew O'Byrn shot glances at him that were white-hot with hate, one breathed a livid curse as they touched elbows. To all the tumult, the strident clamor of indignation, the scurrying hither and yon of scared, branded rats of men, O'Byrn remained curiously indifferent. As during his dictation of the previous night, he proceeded as if in a maze, with the air of a sleep walker, gaze dead ahead; no triumph in the eyes, only infinite weariness. For O'Byrn was confronted by the merciless logic of his fate, feeling the strangling grip of the enemy upon his soul. At times like these there was given him cruel realization at its full, the grim, prophetic knowledge that he must fight a losing battle to the end. Without knowing the source, he recognized the deadly taint of heredity in his blood. A hard road was his to travel, and--supremest sacrifice!--now he knew that in simple justice he must pursue it--alone. And the winds are bleak that howl about a solitary way.