What remained for him? To sweep out of his life the shards of that beautiful thing that lay destroyed forever? To saunter on, with hypocritical smirk and affected nonchalance, down the empty declivity of professional habit, to an undesirable goal? To what end? Of what value had been his striving? A year ago he might have won her--no one else had had more than a slight hold upon her then. It had been that long denial that he had set himself that had undone him! What profit to him that he had won the mastery over himself, had cut the tentacle coils that were enwinding him? Of what had been the use? There darted through his racked mind the sorry jingle that Chilly had once roared in his rooms: "Money is dross, Loving is loss, There's never a crown that is worth its cross. Life is a toss, Dying is moss, But booze--Oh, bully old booze, is boss!" Why not "cut it all," as Chilly had longed to do? Plunge out along the numb, reckless way whose well-remembered mile-stones suddenly beckoned him--anyhow, anywhere, only to muffle the pain that plucked at him--to sodden and sink himself in blessed oblivion, like a stone in a pool! A thing that had lain torpid and dormant in the dregs of his being thrust up its head. It was as though a chain snapped in his brain, and what had been shackled there reared, savage and exultant. On the desk sat a photograph in a silver frame. Once he had been used to turn this face-down when that cabinet was opened a year ago! He picked this up and with a sudden wrench of his powerful fingers bent and broke it across again and again, crushing metal and board into a shapeless battered twist, and flung it into the fireplace. He snatched up a heavy paper-weight and with one blow smashed in the door of the little wall-cabinet. The glass fell in a shower of silvery tinkles to the floor. He seized the black bottle that sat there--with the rusty goblet--poured the latter to the brim and drank it off--once, twice, three times. He went into the main office. Its occupant was on his feet in alarm at the crash of shattered glass in the next room. "How much money is there on the premises?" The clerk looked in a drawer. "About sixty dollars. It's the last payment on--" "Give it to me," said Sevier shortly. He pocketed the wad of bills the other handed him. "I'm going on a journey--abroad," he said. "I may be gone some time--in fact, I know I shall. Don't forward anything, and close up the office till I return. You will draw, as usual, of course." In another moment he was giving directions--over the complaisant wire--to his bank. He had always kept his leisure clear by putting the small details of daily routine book-keeping, as he expressed it "on the other fellow"; however long his desertion, rent and camp-followers should be paid with regularity. Ten minutes later his valet, in a suit of spotless white linen, let him into his apartment.