Still without any definite purpose in mind he pushed on, and upon reaching the hotel he went in and registered for a room. The luncheon hour was past, but not even the long tramp had given him an appetite. Choosing the quietest corner of the lake-facing veranda he tried to smoke; but the tobacco had lost its flavor, and a longing for completer solitude drove him to his room. Here he drew the window shades and lay down, deliberately wishing that he might fall asleep and wake in some less poignant world; and since the week of strife had been cutting deeply into the nights, the first half of the wish presently came true. While the poignancies were still asserting themselves acutely, sleep stole upon him, and when he awoke it was evening and a cheerful clamor in the dining-room beneath told him that it was dinner-time. It is a trite saying that many a gulf, seemingly impassable, has been safely bridged in sleep. Bathed, refreshed and with the tramping stains removed, Griswold went down to dinner with the lost appetite regained. A leisurely hour spent in the restorative atmosphere of the well-filled dining-room added its uplift, and at the end of it the troublesome perplexities and paradoxes had withdrawn--at least far enough so that they could be held in the artistic perspective. Afterward, during the cigar-smoking on the cool veranda, he struck out his plan. In the morning he would send in town to Mrs. Holcomb for a few necessaries, and telephone to Raymer. After which, he would try what a fallow day or two would do for him; an interval in which he could weigh and measure and think, and possibly recover the lost sense of proportion. As the plan was conceived, so it was carried out. Early on the following day he sent a note to Mrs. Holcomb by one of the Inn employees; but the copy of the _Daily Wahaskan_ laid beside his breakfast plate made it unnecessary to telephone Raymer. The paper had a full account of the sudden ending of the lock-out and the resumption of work in the Raymer plant, and he read it with a curious stirring of self-compassion. As he had reasoned it out, there was only one way in which the result could have been attained so quickly. Had Raymer taken that way, in spite of his wrathful rejection of the suggestion? Doubtless he had; and on the heels of that conclusion came a sense of deprivation that was fairly appalling, and the healthy breakfast appetite vanished. Griswold knew what it meant, or he thought he did. Margery Grierson was gone out of his life--gone beyond recall.