The money had all been subscribed.  His own interest in the venture was enough to make him rich, and he was to be general superintendent of the new company, with Matheson as his manager of the mines.  All that was needed now was to complete the details of the transfer of the properties, perfect his organization, and set to work.  This for a time required his presence more or less continuously in New York, and he opened an office in one of the office buildings down in the city, and took an apartment in a pleasant up-town hotel.

* * * * *

When Keith returned to New York that Autumn, it was no longer as a young man with eyes aflame with hope and expectation and face alight with enthusiasm.  The eager recruit had changed to the veteran.  He had had experience of a world where men lived and died for the most sordid of all rewards—­money, mere money.

The fight had left its mark upon him.  The mouth had lost something of the smile that once lurked about its corners, but had gained in strength.  The eyes, always direct and steady, had more depth.  The shoulders had a squarer set, as though they had been braced against adversity.  Experience of life had sobered him.

Sometimes it had come to him that he might be caught by the current and might drift into the same spirit, but self-examination up to this time had reassured him.  He knew that he had other motives:  the trust reposed in him by his friends, the responsibility laid upon him, the resolve to justify that confidence, were still there, beside his eager desire for success.

He called immediately to see Norman.  He was surprised to find how much he had aged in this short time.  His hair was sprinkled with gray.  He had lost all his lightness.  He was distrait and almost morose.

“You men here work too hard,” asserted Keith.  “You ought to have run over to England with me.  You’d have learned that men can work and live too.  I spent some of the most profitable time I was over there in a deer forest, which may have been Burnam-wood, as all the trees had disappeared-gone somewhere, if not to Dunsinane.”

Norman half smiled, but he answered wearily:  “I wish I had been anywhere else than where I was.”  He turned away while he was speaking and fumbled among the papers on his desk.  Keith rose, and Norman rose also.

“I will send you cards to the clubs.  I shall not be in town to-night, but to-morrow night, or the evening after, suppose you dine with me at the University.  I’ll have two or three fellows to meet you—­or, perhaps, we’ll dine alone.  What do you say?  We can talk more freely.”

Keith said that this was just what he should prefer, and Norman gave him a warm handshake and, suddenly seating himself at his desk, dived quickly into his papers.

Keith came out mystified.  There was something he could not understand.  He wondered if the trouble of which he had heard had grown.