He passed out into the night, and when the friendly darkness had closed about him, slipped a feverish palm across his eyes and thanked God that his season of despair was at an end.

He had suffered and endured but now he was safe! Before him the train, with its trailing echoes, had dwindled away into the silence of the spring night.

Scarcely conscious of the direction he was taking he walked down the track toward the iron bridge.

It was as if some miracle of healing had come to him; his heavy step grew light, his shaking hands became steady, his brain clear; in those first moments of security he was the ease-seeking, pleasure-loving Marshall Langham of seven months before.
As he strode forward he became aware that some one was ahead of him on the track, then presently at the bridge a match was struck, and his eyes, piercing the intervening darkness, saw that a man had paused there to light a pipe.

He was quite near the bridge himself when another match flared, and he was able to distinguish the figure of this man who was crouching back of one of the iron girders.