It was past midnight when he got into bed and began trying to quiet himself for sleep. In his dreams he saw a fat man with a chorus girl hanging to his arm kicking his head about a bridge above a swiftly flowing stream. When he got down to the breakfast room the next morning Sue had gone. By his plate he found a note saying that she had gone for Colonel Tom and would take him to the country for the day. He walked to the office thinking of the incapable old man who, in the name of sentiment, had beaten him in what he thought the big enterprise of his life. At his desk he found a message from Webster. “The old turkey cock has fled,” it said; “we should have saved the twenty-five thousand.” On the phone Webster told Sam of an early visit to the club to see Colonel Tom and that the old man had left the city, going to the country for the day. It was on Sam’s lips to tell of his changed plans but he hesitated. “I will see you at your office in an hour,” he said. Outside again in the open air Sam walked and thought of his promise. Down by the lake he went to where the railroad with the lake beyond stopped him. Upon the old wooden bridge looking over the track and down to the water he stood as he had stood at other crises in his life and thought over the struggle of the night before. In the clear morning air, with the roar of the city behind him and the still waters of the lake in front, the tears, and the talk with Sue seemed but a part of the ridiculous and sentimental attitude of her father, and the promise given her insignificant and unfairly won. He reviewed the scene carefully, the talk and the tears and the promise given as he led her to the door. It all seemed far away and unreal like some promise made to a girl in his boyhood. “It was never a part of all this,” he said, turning and looking at the towering city before him. For an hour he stood on the wooden bridge. He thought of Windy McPherson putting the bugle to his lips in the streets of Caxton and again there sounded in his ears the roaring laugh of the crowd; again he lay in the bed beside Colonel Tom in that northern city and saw the moon rising over the round paunch and heard the empty chattering talk of love. “Love,” he said, still looking toward the city, “is a matter of truth, not lies and pretence.”