The Just and the Unjust | Page 6

he
was fully aware of this--as idle and as worthless as any young fellow
could possibly be; he was even aware that the worst Mount Hope said
of him was much better than he deserved. In those hours that were such
a new experience to him, when he denied himself other companionship
than his own accusing conscience; when the contemplation of the
naked shape of his folly absorbed him to the exclusion of all else, he
would sit before his fire with the poker clutched in his hands and his
elbows resting on his knees, poking between the bars of the grate,
poking moodily, while under his breath he cursed the weakness that
had made him what he was.
With his hair in disorder on his handsome shapely head, he would sit
thus hours together, not wholly insensible to a certain grim sense of
humor, since in all his schemes of life he had made no provision for the
very thing that had happened. He wondered mightily what a fellow
could do with his last thousand dollars, especially when a fellow
chanced to be in love and meditated nothing less than marriage; for
North's day-dream, coming like the sun through a rift in the clouds to
light up the somberness of his solitary musings, was all of love and
Elizabeth Herbert. He wondered what she had heard of him--little that
was good, he told himself, and probably much that was to his discredit.
Yet as he sat there he was slowly shaping plans for the future. One
point was clear: he must leave Mount Hope, where he had run his
course, where he was involved and committed in ways he could not
bear to think of. To go meant that he would be forsaking much that was
evil; a situation from which he could not extricate himself otherwise. It
also meant that he would be leaving Elizabeth Herbert; but perhaps she
had not even guessed his secret, for he had not spoken of love; or
perhaps having divined it, she cared nothing for him. Even so, his
regeneration seemed in itself a thing worth while. What he was to do,
how make a place for himself, he had scarcely considered; but his
inheritance was wasted, and of the comfortable thousands that had
come to him, next to nothing remained.
In the intervals between his musings Mr. North got together such of his

personal belongings as he deemed worth the removal; he was surprised
to find how few were the things he really valued. On the grounds of a
chastened taste in such matters he threw aside most of his clothes; he
told himself that he did not care to be judged by such mere externals as
the shade of a tie or the color of a pair of hose. Under his hands--for the
spirit of reform was strong upon him--his rooms took on a sober
appearance. He amused himself by making sundry penitential offerings
to the flames; numerous evidences of his unrighteous bachelorhood
disappearing from walls and book-shelves. Coincident with this he
owned to a feeling of intense satisfaction. What remained he would
have his friend Marshall Langham sell after he was gone, his finances
having suddenly become of paramount importance.
But the days passed, and though he was not able to bring himself to
leave Mount Hope, his purpose in its final aspect underwent no change.
He lived to himself, and his old haunts and his old friends saw nothing
of him. Evelyn Langham, whom he had known before she married his
friend Marshall, was fortunately absent from town. Her letters to him
remained unanswered; the last one he had burned unread. He was sick
of the devious crooked paths he had trodden; he might not be just the
stuff of which saints are made, but there was the hope in his heart of
better things than he had yet known.
At about the time Mr. Shrimplin was attacking his Thanksgiving turkey,
North, from his window, watched the leaden clouds that overhung the
housetops. From the frozen dirt of the unpaved streets the keen wind
whipped up scanty dust clouds, mingling them with sudden flurries of
fine snow. Save for the passing of an occasional pedestrian who
breasted the gale with lowered head, the Square was deserted. Staring
down on it, North drummed idly on the window-pane. What an
unspeakable fool he had been, and what a price his folly was costing
him! As he stood there, heavy-hearted and bitter in spirit, he saw
Marshall Langham crossing the Square in the direction of his office. He
watched his friend's wind-driven progress for a moment, then slipped
into his overcoat and, snatching up his hat, hurried from the room.
Langham, with Moxlow, his law partner, occupied two handsomely

furnished rooms on the