"A rough perch for northern birds!" said he to himself, and then was plunged again in his own affairs. The branches, arching above, shut out all prospect. He plodded on. The upper side of the mountain was a bald wall of rock. Where, part way up, the zigzag road abutted on this precipice it met a foot-trail to the summit, and at the same point an outer ledge of flat rock gave access to an excavation near at hand in the precipice. A wooden hut with a rude bench at its door stood on the ledge, the only legacy of a former miner. Durgan perceived that his new sphere was reached. He rested upon the bench and looked about him wistfully. He was a large, well-built man, with patrician cast of feature, brown skin, and hair that was almost gray. His clothes were beginning to fray at the edges. They were the clothes of a man of fashion whose pockets had long been empty. His manner was haughty, but subdued by that subtle gentleness which failure gives to higher natures. A broken heart, a head carried high--these evoke compassion which can seldom be expressed. He could look over the foot-hills to where cloud-shadows were slowly sailing upon the blue, billowy reaches of the Georgian plains. In that horizon, dim with sunlight, Durgan had sucked his silver spoon, and possessed all that pertains to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. The cruel war had wrapped him and his in its flames. When it was over, he had sought relief in speculation, and time had brought the episode of love. He had fought and lost; he had played and lost; he had married and lost. Out of war and play and love he had brought only himself and such a coat as is as much part of a man as its fur is part of an animal. After a while he unfolded a letter already well worn. He read it for the last time with the fancy that it was well to end the old life where he hoped to commence the new one. The letter was written in New York, and dated a month before. It was from his wife. "It is very well for you to say that you would not want money from me if I came to live in the south with you, but I do not believe you could earn your own living, and it would ill become my social position to acknowledge a husband who was out at elbows and working like a convict. I think, too, that it is cant for you to preach to me and say that 'it would be well for us to try and do better.' Is it my fault that you have lost all self-respect, refusing to enter good society, to interest yourself in the arts and all that belongs to the spiritual side of life? Is it my fault that a spiritually minded man has given me the sympathy which you cannot even understand? I desire that you never again express to me your thoughts about a friendship which is above your comprehension.