Mustering one final rally of his volitional powers, Rollo approached the desk and registered as some one not himself before the very eyes of the clerk, who knew him well and laughingly became accessory to the subterfuge.
Once within the privacy of his room, the impulse to telephone to John Hampstead and tell that distracted man a thing which he would be greatly desiring to know, came again to the young man; but in part exhaustion and in part cowardice led him to postpone that simple act till he had slept, rested, thought.
A few minutes later, with shades darkened and clothing half removed, he buried his feverish head among the pillows and sought to bury consciousness as well. But the latter attempt was a failure, for the young man found himself prodded into the extreme of wakefulness,—thinking, thinking, thinking, until he was all but mad. Out of all this thinking gradually emerged one solid, unshifting fact. This was the character of John Hampstead. He, Rollo Burbeck, might be a shriveling, paltering coward; Marien Dounay might be only a beautiful fiend; but John Hampstead was a strong, unwavering man. John Hampstead would stand firm!
Buoying his soul on this idea, Rollie dropped off to feverish slumber. But the sleeper awoke suddenly with one question hooking at his vitals. Was any man physically equal to such a strain? Was John Hampstead still standing firm like the huge human bulwark he had begun to seem?
Shrill cries floated upward from the street, sounding above the persistent whang of car wheels upon the rails. These were the voices of the newsboys crying the noon edition.
Rollie rose uncertainly and tottered to the telephone, where he asked that the latest papers be sent up to him,
