Ah, God! he had fallen again, again! Numbly he glanced at the mirror. The glass reflected heavy, unnatural eyes in which despair brooded like a cloud, a haggard face from which the freckles stared strangely forth from unaccustomed pallor. Slowly, painfully, his mind wrestled with the problem of the night before, a night unreal, peopled with phantoms that gibbered and peered from enshrouding blackness.
Dominated by another's master will, had he indeed emerged through shadows to victory, or was the episode in the Courier office merely a grateful, fleeting dream to accentuate the misery of waking? O'Byrn looked at his watch, it marked the hour of two. He had slept long, it seemed. How had he reached home, had he been in the Courier office at all the previous night?
However, what mattered it? What mattered anything in the shadow of this appalling thing which mastered him, which dogged him in times of fancied security, only to spring upon him unaware and rend him, leaving him sorely wounded again to painfully traverse for a season the path of duty? What mattered anything to one whose stumbling steps laid hold on hell?
Seizing hat and coat O'Byrn started for the door. His downcast gaze fell upon the yellow envelope. Absently he stooped and dropped the message, unopened, into his coat pocket. The landlady met him at the foot of the stairs and inquired kindly if he would eat something. He replied only with a gesture of utter repugnance. She looked after him as he went out, shaking her head sadly.
O'Byrn stumbled blindly out upon the street, blurred eyes blinking in dazzling sunshine of an ideal Indian summer afternoon. The warm, fragrant air was incense to the nostrils, the sky was of a heavenly blue. Micky closed miserable eyes to the glories of the day. The villainous old feelings, so well remembered, racked him cruelly. The odd depression which always followed his indulgence was bad enough, but now—
A dumb terror seized him. He hurried up the quiet street toward a busier thoroughfare, his ears strained for the cries of newsboys, even as the spirit within him grew sick for fear of disappointment.
In another moment his shoulders squared, his red head lifted with assurance in part renewed. For he could now see a thronged street; from afar he could fairly snuff the air of unwonted excitement. Now he beheld newsboys running here and there with early editions of the evening papers, their wares disappearing fast as April snows. The burden of their shrill cries was the exposure of the gang, with "follow-up" details upon the Courier's story. O'Byrn drew a long breath of relief.
Well, he should now be communicating with the office. He looked longingly toward a saloon. Throat and mouth were parched dry as desert sands. Resolutely turning away, he entered a drug store instead, purchased a bromide and then stepped into a telephone booth.
Securing Harkins' ear at the Courier office, he told the city editor that he felt pretty "shaky," and inquired if he were needed there. Harkins replied that it was expected he would rest for a couple of days and added some warm congratulatory words. O'Byrn thanked him, and with a bitter smile, hung up the receiver.
Stepping into a tobacco store he purchased some cigars, and as he handed the salesman a coin he remembered that he had not drawn his salary, due the day before. Walking to the Courier's business office he secured his money, accepting, with an odd indifference, the congratulations of some fellow employes there upon his brilliant coup.