bout to close the door again when he stopped short, and, as if with
the flashing of some new thought, his whole face and figure sagged.

"What's the use?" he muttered disappointedly. "He probably knows this
combination, damn him, as well as I do!"

Anger rose in a quick flood and with a wrathful oath he flung the key
on the floor. His face was grimmer and more resolute than before as he
whirled about and rushed from the room. Already pale and drawn, it
went a shade whiter with the effort of will that kept him on his feet
and still moving. At the door of the drawing room his hands flew
upward to the height of his shoulders and doubled into fists. His
eyes were fixed in a blank stare and his face was working in a mortal
agony.

"Ah-h-h!" he gasped.

And then: "There!" he cried in a triumphant tone, as with one foot he
sent spinning across the room the chair beside which he had halted.
His breast was heaving and his breath coming hard as he looked this
way and that with wild eyes. Throwing open a window he put out his
head and caught the cold air upon his streaming face. The sky was
brightening with the promise of dawn.

"Good God!" he groaned as he turned back into the room. "Why did I try
to stick this out alone? Why didn't I do something, go somewhere, have
some of the fellows come here to an all-night game? Oh, I was
afraid--that's the truth, I was afraid--and you knew it, damn you, you
knew it!" he ended in angry tones.

In the library he looked wistfully toward his favorite easy chair, for
his knees trembled with weariness. "No, no, I must not stop. If I sat
down I'd go to sleep, and then----"

He wheeled about and started back. But he held his head higher and
walked with a more confident air. "I'm winning," he exclaimed, and
there was glad surety in his voice. "It was a close call, but I'm
winning! Get back to where you belong, you dog! Go back to where you
came from, damn you, and stay there! I've won, I tell you!" And he
stamped his foot and cried again, "I've won!"

But confident though he was of having won this victory, whatever it
might be, over the invisible enemy whom he seemed both to hate and to
fear, he did not yet dare to cease from his tramp. Back and forth he
still went; and presently, pausing beside the open window, he saw that
the sky was flushed with sunrise and heard the roar and rattle of
another day rising from the streets.

"A bath soon, and breakfast," he thought, "and then out for th