He asks himself why this is so, and his logic tells him that nature hopes to re-establish him as David Lockwin.  There is a programme in such a course.  At New York there was neither chart nor compass.  It was like the Africa in mid-sea, foundering.

Now Robert Chalmers is nearing land.  And the land is David Lockwin.  The welcoming shore is the old life of respectability.  Banish the difficulties!  They will evaporate.  Listen to the bands, and the marching of troops!

He goes to the window.  The intent of these ceremonies smites him and he falls on the bed.  But nature restores him.  Bad as it is, here is Chicago.  David Lockwin is not dead.  That is certain.  He is not pursued by the law, for another congressman has been chosen.  David Lockwin has tried to kill himself, but he has not committed murder.

Is it not bravado to return and court discovery?  But is not Robert Chalmers in the mood to be discovered?  “What disguise is so real as mine?” he asks, as friend after friend passes him by.

True, he wears a heavy watch-chain and a fashionable collar.  His garb was once that of a professional man.  Now his face is entirely altered.  Gouts of carmine are spotted over his cheeks; wounds are visible on his forehead.  His nose is crooked and his teeth are misshapen.  His voice is husky.

He enters a street-car for the north.  It startles him somewhat to have Corkey take a seat beside him.

“Will this car take me to the dedication?” Chalmers makes bold to ask the conductor.

“That’s what it will!” answered Corkey.  “Going there?  I’m going up myself.  I reckon it will be a big thing.  Takes a big thing to git me out of bed this time of day.  I’m a great friend of Mrs. Lockwin’s!”

“You are?”

“That’s what I am.  I was on the old tub when she go down.  May be you’ve heard of me.  My name is Corkey.”

“Clad to meet you.  My name is Chalmers.  I have read the account.”

“Yes, I’ve got tired of telling it.  But it’s a singular thing, about Lockwin’s yawl.  Next week I go out again.  I’ll find that boat, you hear me?  I’ll find it.  I tell the dame that, the other day.”

“Mrs. Lockwin?”

“I tell her the other day that I find the yawl.  I’ll never forget that boat.  Lord! how unsteady she was!  I’m sorry for the dame.  Women don’t generally feel so bad as she does.  It’s a great act, this monument—­all her—­every bit!  These prominent citizens—­say, they make me weary!  You’ve heard about the hospital—­the memorial hospital.  She blow hundred and fifty thousand straight cases against that hospital—­the David Lockwin Annex.  Oh, it’s a cooler.  It’s all iron and stone and terra cotta.  She’s spent a fortune already.  She doesn’t cry much—­none, I reckon.  But no one can bluff her out.”

Robert Chalmers is pleased in a thousand ways.  He is so glad that he scarcely notes the facts about the annex.  Since he was cast away no other person has talked freely with him.  The open Western manner rejoices his very blood.