his mother, appealing to her not to worry about him, exonerating his father from all responsibility for his misbehaviour and promising an impossible success for himself and an end of all trouble for her in the near future. His hand, wet with perspiration, stuck to the pages as his pen trembled across them.
He wrote another letter to his uncle, returning the cheque with thanks. He ate bread and butter at midnight, chewing mechanically, his eyes fixed on the lamp; and then he went to his bed, alone, abandoned, with a sinking tremor of nervous apprehension that lay like a nightmare on him in the stifling darkness and heat of the room.
IX
He woke defiant. He ignored the implied reprobation of Bert Pittsey's silence concerning Conroy's departure, although he knew that Pittsey must despise him for having betrayed Conroy to his father. He ignored Conroy's upbraidings, received in a letter which he destroyed without reply. He arranged that Walter Pittsey should take the vacant share in the apartment, and made no explanation to his friend, although he could see that Walter expected one. He told himself that he had done what was right; and he did not care what anyone thought of it. He was going to live his own life in his own way.
In that mood of bitter isolation, a letter from Margaret in Leipzig came to him like a message of affec-
