Wayne listened in dogged silence as Walsh went into the details of Roger Craighill’s affairs. Much might yet be saved, Walsh held, if this new crisis could be bridged. Wayne chafed under Walsh’s recital; he would not help the old fellow with any expressions of sympathy; but Walsh had expected to address an unsympathetic ear, and he told his story to the end. “What I want you to do is to go home and give the old man a lift. I ain’t going to argue it with you. Wingfield and I start back at ten o’clock. If you do anything it will have to be done at once. You can come back here afterward if you want to. It ain’t been a bad place for you. Think it over.” He lighted a cigar, glanced at the clock tower, and walked away to find Wingfield, to whom Joe was disclosing the marvels of his native city. Wayne sat gloomily pondering what Walsh had said. Walsh’s own magnanimity in having gone to his father’s assistance had impressed him. The old hostility toward his father had lost its edge through successive defeats; but what struck Wayne to-night was the fact that a higher law of compensation than any within his grasp had taken the blade from his hands. He wondered whether it were possible that the ledger of life is self-balancing--whether in our own efforts to bring its accounts into agreement we can do more than confuse the items and blot the leaf. And so he turned it over and over in his mind, sitting there on the park bench, with the street sounds of the town drifting in upon him. * * * * * Jean crossed the park on her way to the post-office. Wayne sat erect as he recognized her tall figure in the path. The light of an electric lamp swinging among the trees fell full upon her, but her fine, proud carriage, the lifted head were unmistakable. His lips parted to call her; but she passed on unconscious of his nearness, and her step on the cement walk died away. His feeling of superstitious belief in her as an instrument of fate quickened, giving way to the remembrance of her own high courage, her simple belief in right for right’s sake, her faith that good may somehow come to all. He knew well enough what she would say if he put this new question to her. He sighed and struck his hands together, and went to tell Walsh that he would go back with him. * * * * * Wingfield’s story that Wayne had been visiting a friend on a Western ranch served admirably to explain his absence during the summer, and it accounted also for his rugged appearance. Both friends found the man they journeyed with to Pittsburg not the man they had known of old--quieter, more subdued, more given to wide-eyed dreaming.