If the world did not want him, he would leave the world. Perhaps he was a menace to it. Perhaps he should kill himself. But his burning, sickened heart refused once more to give up. Frenzy departed, then numbness. In its place came a fresh hope, new determination. Hugo Danner would do his utmost until the end. Meanwhile, he would remove himself some distance from the civilization that had tortured him. He would go away and find a new dream.

The sound of the locomotive was dead in the distance. He crossed the river on a bridge and went back to his house. He felt strong again and glad—glad because he had won an obscure victory, glad because the farce of his quest in political government had ended with no tragic dénouement.

They were electrocuting Davidoff and Pletzky that day. The news scarcely interested Hugo. The part he had very nearly played in the affair seemed like the folly of a dimly remembered acquaintance. The relief of resigning that impossible purpose overwhelmed him. He dismissed his servants, closed his house, and boarded a train. When the locomotive pounded through the station, he suffered a momentary pang. He sat in a seat with people all around him. He was tranquil and almost content.

XXIII

Hugo had no friends. One single individual whom he loved, whom he could have taken fully into his confidence, might, in a measure, have resolved his whole life. Yet so intense was the pressure that had conditioned him that he invariably retreated before the rare opportunities for such confidences. He had known many persons well: his father and mother, Anna Blake, Lefty Foresman, Charlotte, Iris, Tom Shayne, Roseanne, even Skorvsky—but none of them had known him. His friendlessness was responsible for a melancholy yearning to remain with his kind. Having already determined to go away, he sought for a kind of compromise.

He did not want to be in New York, or Washington, or any other city; the landscape of America was haunted for him. He would leave it, but he would not open himself to the cruel longing for his own language, the sight of familiar customs and manners. From his hotel in New York he made excursions to various steamship agencies and travel bureaus. He had seen many lands, and his Wanderlust demanded novelty. For days he was undecided.

It was a chance group of photographs in a Sunday newspaper that excited his first real interest. One of the pictures was of a man—erect, white-haired, tanned, clear-eyed—Professor Daniel Hardin—a procession of letters—head of the new expedition to Yucatan. The other pictures were of ruined temples, unpiled stone causeways, jungle. He thought instantly that he would like to attach himself to the party.