THE ASHES OF SILENCE
Wallace and Harding were seeing all was secure in the bank before retiring for the night when a sharp rap sounded at the front door.
"Hullo, what's this?" Wallace exclaimed. "Will you see who it is?"
Harding went to the door and opened it. On the step Durham was standing.
"Oh, it's you, Durham. Come in," he said. "We've been discussing things or we should have been in bed an hour or more ago. What's the news?"
Without a word Durham stepped in and walked to the room where Wallace was waiting at the door. Directly he came into the light both Harding and Wallace uttered exclamations of surprise.
"Why, what has happened?" the latter cried. "My dear fellow—you look thoroughly done up—you are as haggard as a man of sixty. You've overdone it. Let me get you a whisky."
Durham shook his head and sat down, resting one hand on the table at his side, the other on his knee. His uniform was soiled and torn, his face lined and grey, and his eyes heavy as with a great weariness. The quick alertness he had shown when he was with them earlier in the day had gone; he looked, as Wallace had expressed it, an old, haggard man, listless, without vitality, lacking even the energy to talk.
The two stood watching him in silence, the same question in each one's mind—what could have happened to produce so great a change in a man in so short a time?
"Are you sure you won't let me get you something?" Wallace said presently as Durham neither moved nor spoke. "You are quite worn out. Won't you take——"