he closed his office for
the summer and disappeared from the city. He had not treated a solitary
patient, nor had he been called in consultation by a single surgeon of his
acquaintance, although many of them professed friendship for and
confidence in him.

Six weeks later Simmy Dodge located his friend in a small coast town in
Maine, practically out of the reach of tourists and not at all accessible
to motorists. He had taken board and lodging with a needy villager who was
still honest, and there he sat and brooded over the curse that his own
intelligence had laid upon him. He had been there for a month or more
before he lifted his head, figuratively speaking, to look at the world
again,--and he found it still bright and sparkling despite his desire to
have it otherwise in order that he might be recompensed for his mood. Then
it was that he wrote to Simmy Dodge, asking him to sell the furnishings
and appliances in his office, sublet the rooms, and send to him as soon as
possible the proceeds of the sale. He confessed frankly and in his
straightforward way that he was hard up and needed the money!

Now, it should be remembered that Braden Thorpe had very little means of
his own, a small income from his mother's estate being all that he
possessed. He had been dependent upon his grandfather up to the day he
died. Years had been spent in preparing him for the personal achievements
that were to make him famous and rich by his own hand. Splendid ability
and unquestioned earning power were the result of Templeton Thorpe's faith
in the last of his race. But nothing was to come of it. His ability
remained but his earning power was gone. He was like a splendid engine
from which the motive power has been shut off.

For weeks after leaving New York he had seen the world blackly through
eyes that grasped no perspective. But he was young, he was made of the
flesh that fights, and the spirit that will not down. He looked up from
the black view that had held his attention so long, and smiled. It was not
a gay smile but one in which there was defiant humour. After all, why
shouldn't he smile? These villagers smiled cheerfully, and what had they
in their narrow lives to cause them to see the world brightly? He was no
worse off than they. If they could be content to live outside the world,
why shouldn't he be as they? He was big and strong and young. The fellows
who went out to sea in the fishing boats were no stronger, no better than
h