At breakfast Birmingham read the reply from his business man with profound satisfaction. At breakfast the Minister read a second cablegram with a sudden recollection of Birmingham's ominous words the night before. He knew that he would need no congratulations, for the prize had been snatched away forever. The cablegram informed him that he should not sail on Saturday, and that explanations would follow. For a moment his proud heart failed him. Bitterness flowed in on him, so that the food in his mouth became tasteless. What did he care that his enemies had triumphed? Or, that he had been overthrown? The loss of the vision which had crowned his life, and made a hard struggle for what he thought the fit and right less sordid, even beautiful; that was a calamity.
He had indulged it in spite of mental protests against the dangerous folly. The swift imagination, prompted by all that was Livingstone in him, had gone over the many glories of the expected dignity; the departure from beautiful and flattering England, the distinction of the return to his beloved native land, the splendid interval before the glorious day, the crowning honors amid the applause of his own, and the long sweet afternoon of life, when each day would bring its own distinction! He had had his glimpse of Paradise. Oh, never, never would life be the same for him! He began to study the reasons for his ill-success....
At ten o'clock that day the President informed the General of the Army in Mr. Dillon's presence that he had sent the name of Hon. Van Rensselaer Vandervelt to the Senate for the position of Chief-Justice!
THE TEST OF DISAPPEARANCE.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A PROBLEM OF DISAPPEARANCE.
After patient study of the disappearance of Horace Endicott, for five years, Richard Curran decided to give up the problem. All clues had come to nothing. Not the faintest trace of the missing man had been found. His experience knew nothing like it. The money earned in the pursuit would never repay him for the loss of self-confidence and of nerve, due to study and to ill success. But for his wife he would have withdrawn long ago from the search.
"Since you have failed," she said, "take up my theory. You will find that man in Arthur Dillon."