pitied--the victims wept over and ranted about by altruists and
economists; and how gladly he would have taken up the load of any
one of them, if only he might have shaken off his own! But, no--
the iron circle of consciousness held them too: each one was
hand-cuffed to his own hideous ego. Why wish to be any one man
rather than another? The only absolute good was not to be . . .
And Flint, coming in to draw his bath, would ask if he preferred
his eggs scrambled or poached that morning?


On the fifth day he wrote a long urgent letter to Allonby; and
for the succeeding two days he had the occupation of waiting for
an answer. He hardly stirred from his rooms, in his fear of
missing the letter by a moment; but would the District Attorney
write, or send a representative: a policeman, a "secret agent,"
or some other mysterious emissary of the law?

On the third morning Flint, stepping softly--as if, confound it!
his master were ill--entered the library where Granice sat behind
an unread newspaper, and proferred a card on a tray.

Granice read the name--J. B. Hewson--and underneath, in pencil,
"From the District Attorney's office." He started up with a
thumping heart, and signed an assent to the servant.

Mr. Hewson was a slight sallow nondescript man of about fifty--
the kind of man of whom one is sure to see a specimen in any
crowd. "Just the type of the successful detective," Granice
reflected as he shook hands with his visitor.