tentative attempts at conversation, to which Gilmore briefly responded,
then the young fellow also became thoughtful. He fell to watching the
gambler's strong profile which the lamp silhouetted against the opposite
wall; then drowsiness completely overcame him and he slept in his chair
with his head fallen forward on his breast.

Gilmore, alert and sleepless, smoked on; he was thinking of Evelyn
Langham. After his interview with her husband that afternoon he had gone
to his own apartment. His bedroom adjoined North's parlor and through
the flimsy lath and plaster partition he had distinctly heard a woman's
voice. The sound of that voice and the suspicion it instantly begot
added to his furious hatred of North, for he had long suspected that
something more than friendship existed between Marshall Langham's wife
and Marshall Langham's friend.

"Damn him!" thought the gambler. "I'll fix him yet!" And he puffed at
his cigar viciously.

He had made sure that North's mysterious visitor was Evelyn Langham, for
when she left the building he himself had followed her. Out of the dregs
of his nature this foolish mad passion of his had arisen to torture him;
he had never spoken with Langham's wife, probably she knew him by sight,
nothing more; but still his game, the waiting game he had been forced to
play, was working itself out better than he had even hoped! At last he
had Marshall Langham where he wanted him, where he could make him feel
his power. Langham would not be able to raise the money required to
cover up those forgeries, and on the basis of silence he would make his
bargain with the lawyer.

Gilmore pondered this problem for the better part of an hour,