"Without one jot of reason. That's what made it so hopeless. And last night when I heard of this accident I put my pride in my pocket, and tried still again. It was the same thing over again. They seemed to take me for a crank, or paranoeic of some kind, up there at the hospital. And then I gave up. I felt I'd about reached the end of my rope. I thought it all over, quite calmly, and decided to end everything. I walked the streets half the night, then I sat down and decided to blow my brains out. But I couldn't do it. I was too much of a coward. I hadn't the courage." "That would have been very foolish," was my inadequate reply, for at a bound my thoughts went back to the night before and the scene in the square. "Well, what would you have done?" was the prompt and bitter challenge of the unhappy youth facing me. I thought for a moment before attempting to answer him. "Why," I temporized, "I'd have tried to get down to the root of the mystery. I'd have made some effort to find out the reason for it; for everything seems to have a reason, you know." Again I heard him emit his listless little scoff of misery. "There's no reason," he declared. "There must be," I maintained. "Then show me where or what it is," he challenged. "I will," I said, with sudden conviction. "There's a reason for all this, and I'm going to find it out!" He studied my face with his tired and unhappy young eyes as I sat there trying to fit the edges of the two broken stories together. It was not easy: it was like trying to piece together a shattered vase of cloisonné-work. "And how will you find it out?" he was listlessly inquiring. Instead of answering him, I looked up, fixed my eyes on him and asked another question. "Tell me this: if there is a reason, do you still care for her?" He resented the question, as I was afraid he would. "What concern is that of yours?" "If all this thing's a mistake, it's going to be some concern of yours," I told him. He sat there in dead silence for a minute or two. "I've always cared for her," he said, and I knew what his answer was going to be before he spoke. "But it's no use. It's all over. It's over and done with. There's not even a mistake about it." "There must be. And I'm going to find out where and what it is." "And how are you going to find that out?" he reiterated. "Come along with me," I cried a little presumptuously, a little excitedly, "and by ten o'clock to-night I'll have your reason for you!" My flash-in-the-pan enthusiasm was shorter lived than I had expected. The tingling and wine-like warmth soon disappeared. A reaction set in, once we were out in the cool night air. And in that reaction I began to see difficulties, to marshal doubts and misgivings.