particularly suited, and in spite of lacking enthusiasm he had become
unquestionably a better lawyer than the country attorney he had
succeeded.

Just now his mind was filled with unease. The matter of his forthcoming
interview with a child of sixteen years had only small place in the
affairs which disturbed him. His real concern was for his friend, Leslie
Standing, and the disaster, which, in a seemingly overwhelming rush had
befallen at far-off Sachigo. Again his trouble had no relation to these
things as they affected his own worldly affairs. It was of the man
himself he was thinking.

He knew it all now. He had painfully learned the complete story of
disaster. And, to his sturdy mind, it was a deplorable example of almost
unbelievable human weakness.

Standing had conveyed his final determination to abandon his Labrador
enterprise in the correspondence which had passed between them during
the three months which had elapsed since the funeral of his wife and
stillborn child. And during that time their friendship had been sorely
tested. There had been times when the lawyer's native patience had been
unequal to the strain. There had been times when his temper had leapt
from under the bonds which so strongly held it. But for all the ordeals
of that prolonged correspondence, for all he deplored the pitiful
weakness in the other, his friendship remained, and he finally accepted
his instructions. But the whole thing left him very troubled.

As the hour of noon approached, his trouble showed no sign of abatement.
It was the reverse. There were moments, as he sat in the generously
upholstered chair before his desk, in the comfortable down-town office
which overlooked Abercrombie's principal thoroughfare, that he felt like
abandoning all responsibility in the chaos of his friend's affairs. But
this was only the result of irritation, and had no relation to his
intentions. He knew well enough that everything in his power would be
done for the man who never so surely needed his help as now.

He refreshed his memory with the details of the deed of settlement for
the abandoned stepdaughter. Then, as the hands of the clock approached
the hour of his appointment, he sat back yielding his whole
concentration upon those many problems confronting him.

What, he asked himself, was going to become of Standing now that he had
cut himself adrift from that anchorage which had held him safe for the
past seven years? He strove to follow