"I must hurry back to Marie," she concluded breathlessly. "You must not delay. It may be that he is planning to leave town. If so, you must catch him before he starts." He placed his arm tenderly about her slight waist and led her to the foot of the stairs. "You will let me know as soon as you come in?" she pleaded. "Yes, and don't worry while I 'm gone." Arsdale did not take a cab. He needed a walk to clear his head. The air was balmy with the fragrance of growing things and he was sensitive to its influence as he had never been in his life. As he strode along he felt twice his normal size. And yet what a puppet he was as compared to this Donaldson who had been willing to take upon his shoulders the ghastly burden which had been his own. He himself might bear it to-day, but yesterday it would have crushed him. He had not realized how low he had sunk until he learned that it was considered a possibility that he might have committed such crimes as those. If at first the suspicion had roused his wrath, the sober truth that Jacques under the same influence was actually guilty had been enough to disarm him. The past was like a nightmare, and this Donaldson was the man who had found his hand in the dark and roused him. He quickened his pace. A small black dog nosing about the fresh dirt thrown from an excavation to his left attracted his attention to a new house which was going up. He glanced at the men at work and then stood still in his tracks. Down there, in his shirt sleeves, bent over a shovel was Peter Donaldson. It was impossible to believe, but he stared at the illusion with his hands getting cold. Then he turned back to the dog. It was the same pup Donaldson had brought into the house with him. He riveted his eyes once more upon the figure standing out among his fellow workers like a uniformed general in a rabble. He strode to the side of the foreman of the gang who stood near. "Who is that man down there?" he demanded. "Dunno," the foreman answered briefly, "he asked fer work this mornin' and I give him a job." "I 'm going to speak to him." "Fire erway." Arsdale clambered into the hole and reached Donaldson's side before the latter glanced up. When he did raise his head, it was with an easy, unembarrassed nod of recognition. "Good Lord," gasped Arsdale, "it _is_ you!" "Yes." Donaldson wiped his wet brow. He was not in particularly good training for such heavy work. "But what the deuce--" "I needed money for a night's lodging and took the first job that offered," he explained.