What had prevented his dealing out to Ekstrom the punishment he had so well earned? That insatiable lust for loot of his. But for that damning evidence against him of the stolen necklace in his pocket he might have had his will of Ekstrom, and justified himself when discovered by proving that he had merely done justice to a thief who sold what he had stolen and stole back to steal again what he had sold.
Self-contempt attacked self-conceit like an acid. He saw Michael Lanyard a sorry figure, sitting stultified with self-pity … crying over spilt milk. …
Impatiently he shook himself. What though he had to-night forfeited his chances? He could, nay, would, make others. He must. …
To what end? Would life be sweeter if one found a way to restore to Cecelia Brooke her precious document and to smuggle back to Mrs. Arden her pilfered diamonds? Would this deadly ache of loneliness be less poignant with Ekstrom dead?
With lack-lustre eyes he looked round that cheerless room, reckoning its perfunctory pretense of comfort the forlornest mockery. To lodgings such as this he was condemned for life, to an interminable sequence of transient quarters, sordid or splendid, rich or mean, alike in this common quality of hollow loneliness. …
His aimless gaze wandered toward the door opening on the public hallway, and became fixed upon a triangular shape of white paper, the half of an envelope tucked between door and sill.
Presently he rose and got the thing, not until he
