committed in ways he could not bear to think of. To go
meant that he would be forsaking much that was evil; a situation from
which he could not extricate himself otherwise. It also meant that he
would be leaving Elizabeth Herbert; but perhaps she had not even guessed
his secret, for he had not spoken of love; or perhaps having divined it,
she cared nothing for him. Even so, his regeneration seemed in itself a
thing worth while. What he was to do, how make a place for himself, he
had scarcely considered; but his inheritance was wasted, and of the
comfortable thousands that had come to him, next to nothing remained.

In the intervals between his musings Mr. North got together such of his
personal belongings as he deemed worth the removal; he was surprised to
find how few were the things he really valued. On the grounds of a
chastened taste in such matters he threw aside most of his clothes; he
told himself that he did not care to be judged by such mere externals as
the shade of a tie or the color of a pair of hose. Under his hands--for
the spirit of reform was strong upon him--his rooms took on a sober
appearance. He amused himself by making sundry penitential offerings to
the flames; numerous evidences of his unrighteous bachelorhood
disappearing from walls and book-shelves. Coincident with this he owned
to a feeling of intense satisfaction. What remained he would have his
friend Marshall Langham sell after he was gone, his finances having
suddenly become of paramount importance.

But the days passed, and though he was not able to bring himself to
leave Mount Hope, his purpose in its final aspect underwent no change.
He lived to himself, and his old haunts and his old friends saw nothing
of him. Evelyn Langham, whom he had known before she married his friend
Marshall, was fortunately absent from town. Her letters to him remained
unanswered; the last one he had burned unread. He was sick of the
devious crooked paths he had trodden; he might not be just the stuff of
which saints are made, but there was the hope in his heart of better
things than he had yet known.

At about the time Mr. Shrimplin was attacking his Thanksgiving turkey,
North, from his window, watched the leaden clouds that overhung the
housetops. From the frozen dirt of the unpaved streets the keen wind
whipped up scanty dust clouds, mingling them with sudden flurries of
fine snow. Save for the passing of an occasional pedestrian who breasted
the gale with