He went to sleep in his chair, his mind filled with
the dancing faces of dead women, Mary Underwood and
Janet and Sue, tear-stained faces calling to him.
When he awoke and shaved he went out into the street
and to another down-town club.
“I wonder if Sue is dead, too,” he muttered,
remembering his dream.
At the club he was called to the telephone by Lewis,
who asked him to come at once to his office at the
Edwards Consolidated. When he got there he found
a wire from Sue. In a moment of loneliness and
despondency over the loss of his old business standing
and reputation, Colonel Tom had shot himself in a
New York hotel.
Sam sat at his desk, fingering the yellow paper lying
before him and fighting to get his head clear.
“The old coward. The damned old coward,”
he muttered; “any one could have done that.”
When Lewis came into Sam’s office he found his
chief sitting at his desk fingering the telegram and
muttering to himself. When Sam handed him the
wire he came around and stood beside Sam, his hand
upon his shoulder.
“Well, do not blame yourself for that,”
he said, with quick understanding.
“I don’t,” Sam muttered; “I
do not blame myself for anything. I am a result,
not a cause. I am trying to think. I am not
through yet. I am going to begin again when I
get things thought out.”
Lewis went out of the room leaving him to his thoughts.
For an hour he sat there reviewing his life.
When he came to the day that he had humiliated Colonel
Tom, there came back to his mind the sentence he had
written on the sheet of paper while the vote was being
counted. “The best men spend their lives
seeking truth.”
Suddenly he came to a decision and, calling Lewis,
began laying out a plan of action. His head cleared
and the ring came back into his voice. To Lewis
he gave an option on his entire holdings of Edwards
Consolidated stocks and bonds and to him also he entrusted
the clearing up of deal after deal in which he was
interested. Then, calling a broker, he began
throwing a mass of stock on the market. When Lewis
told him that Crofts was ’phoning wildly about
town to find him, and was with the help of another
banker supporting the market and taking Sam’s
stocks as fast as offered, he laughed and giving Lewis
instructions regarding the disposal of his monies
walked out of the office, again a free man and again
seeking the answer to his problem.
He made no attempt to answer Sue’s wire.
He was restless to get at something he had in his
mind. He went to his apartments and packed a bag
and from there disappeared saying goodbye to no one.
In his mind was no definite idea of where he was going
or what he was going to do. He knew only that
he would follow the message his hand had written.
He would try to spend his life seeking truth.
