Robert Chalmers is in Chicago this morning of the dedication, and has slept well. He tossed in his bed at New York. He snores at the Western inn.

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. Goûts 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.

“Lockwin was a pretty fair-sized man, like you. I guess you remind me of him a trifle. They was a fine pair. I never was stuck on him, for I was in politics against him; but somehow or other I’ve hearn the dame praise him so much, and he die in the yawl, and so on, until I feel like a brother to him. Just cut across with me,” as they leave the car. “Want a seat with the reporters? Oh, that will be all right out here. Say you’re from the outside where is it? Eau Claire? Say Eau Claire. Here is some copy paper. Sit side of me. Screw your nut out of my place, young feller,” to a mere sight-seer. “Bet your life. Don’t take that seat neither! Go on, now!”

David Lockwin is to report the dedication of his own monument. He trembles and grows thankful that Corkey has ceased to talk. The audience gathers slowly. David Lockwin wonders it he be a madman thus to expose himself. A memorial hospital! Did not Corkey speak of that? The David Lockwin Annex!

This is awful! Lockwin has not read a word of it. Ay, but the apartments are still at Gramercy Square. Why did he come? What fate led him away? What devil has lured him back? Hold! Hold! There is Esther! Lift her veil! Give her air! Esther, the beautiful!

The reporter for the Eau Claire paper groans with the people. His heart falls to the bottom of the sea. She loves him! God bless her! She loves him! Why did he not believe it at home? God bless her! Is she not noble?

“She’s a great dame,” Corkey whispers loudly. “Special friend of mine. You bet your sweet life I’d do anything for her. I’ll find that yawl, too!”

“The late honorable David Lockwin,” begins the pastor of the fashionable church.

“The late honorable David Lockwin,” write the reporters.

“The late honorable David Lockwin,” writes David Lockwin.

He grows ill and dizzy once more. The exercises proceed. He will fall if he do not look at Esther’s face.

“I know,” cries the shrill soprano, “that my Redeemer liveth.”

There comes upon the widow’s face an ecstatic look of hope. She will meet her husband in heaven, and he will praise her love and fidelity.

“God bless her!” writes the Eau Claire reporter, and hastily scratches the sentence as he reads it.

A messenger approaches the reporters. A note is passed along.

“I got to go!” whispers Corkey, “you can stay. They sent for me at the office. I guess something’s up.”

David Lockwin is only too glad to escape. He dreads to leave Esther, yet what is Esther to him? He will hurry away to New York before he falls into the abyss that opens before him.

“Do you suppose she loved her husband as much as it seems?” he asks.

“I wish she’d love me a quarter as much, though I’m a married man. Love him! Well, I should say!”

Corkey tries to be loquacious. But his dark face grows darker.

“Oh! it’s bad business. I’m sorry for her, and it knocks me out, I ain’t my old self. I got up feeling beautiful, and it just knocks me. I don’t think she ought to build no monument, nor no hospital, for it keeps her hoping. What’s the use of hoping? I’ll find that yawl. Curious about that yawl. Wouldn’t it be great stuff if he should show up? Wonder what he’d think of his monument and his hospital? A hospital, now, ain’t so bad. You could take his name off it. They’ll do that some day, anyhow, I reckon. I’ve seen the name changed on a good many signs in Chicago. But what’s a monument good for after the duck has showed up? Old man, wouldn’t it be a sensation? Seven columns!”

Corkey slaps his leg. He quakes his head. The little tongue plays about the black tobacco. He sneezes. The passengers are generally upset.

A substantial woman of fifty, out collecting her rents, expostulates in a sharp voice.

A girl of seventeen laughs in a manner foreboding hysteria.

The conductor flies to the scene.

“None o’ that in here!” he cries, frowning majestically on Corkey.

“Don’t you be so gay, or I’ll get you fired off the road,” answers the cause of all the commotion.

“Randolph street!” yells the conductor in a great voice.

The irate and insulted Corkey debarks with Lockwin.

“Pardner, I wouldn’t like to see him come back, though. I’d be sorry for him. Think of the racket he’d have to take!”

“What time does the train start for New York?” asks Lockwin.

“Panic! Panic! Panic!” is the deafening cry of the newsboys.

The two men join a crowd in front of a telegraph office. Bulletins are on a board and in the windows. Men are rushing about. The scene is in strange contrast with the sylvan drama which is closing far to the north, where the choir is singing “Asleep in Jesus.”

There is a financial crash on the New York Stock Exchange. Bank after bank is failing. “The New State’s Fund Closes,” is the latest bulletin.

“I got pretty near a thousand cases,” says Corkey, “but you bet your sweet life she ain’t in no bank. I put my money in the vaults.”

“Banks are better,” says Lockwin. He has a bank-book somewhere in his pockets. He pulls forth a mass of letters gray with wear. The visible letter reads:

“HON. DAVID LOCKWIN,
Washington,
D. C.”

His thought is that he should destroy these telltale documents. Then he wonders what may be in these envelopes. There flashes over him a new feeling a sharp, lightning-like stroke passes across his shoulder-blade and down his arm.

It is Esther’s handwriting, faded but familiar. The envelope is still sealed. It is a letter he got at Washington.

The man trembles violently.

“’Fraid you’re stuck?” asks Corkey.

The man hurriedly separates his bank-book from the letters. He displays the fresh and legible name of Robert Chalmers on the bank-book.

“I have a little in a New York bank,” he says.

Corkey looks on the book. “The Coal and Oil Trust Company’s Institution,” he reads, “in account with Robert Chalmers. Well, money is a good thing. Glad you’re fixed. Glad to know you. I’m fixed myself.”

Corkey examines the list of failures. “I’m glad you’re heeled,” he says.

A boy is fastening a new bulletin on the window.

“There you be, now!” says Corkey.

“The Coal and Oil Trust Company’s Institution Goes Down,” is on the bulletin.

“I’ll lend you money enough to git home,” says Corkey.

“Panic! Panic! Panic!!” bawls a large boy, who beats his small rivals ruthlessly aside and makes his way to Lockwin.

The man is still trembling. He is trying to put away his worthless bank-book and cannot gain the entrance of the pocket.

“’Ere’s your panic! Buy of me, mister. Say, mister, won’t you buy of me? Ah! git out, you great big coward!”

It is the sympathetic Corkey, smartly cuffing the invader.

“Strike somebody of your size, you great big coward! Ah! git out, you great big coward!”