Ellis had been settled a week. One evening he sat in the back room of the city office, fighting the demon of homesickness with work, and the light of an open fire. It was late, and he had studied till Nature rebelled; now he sat in his own peculiar position, gazing into the glow, motionless and wide-eyed.
He started at a tap on the door, and the past came back in a rush.
“Come in,” he called.
Burr entered, and closed the door carefully behind him. Ellis motioned to a chair.
“No, I won’t sit down,” said Burr. “I’m only going to stay a moment.”
He came over to the blaze, looking down on the other man’s head. Finally he laid a hand on Ellis’s shoulder.
“Lonesome, eh?” he inquired.
The student nodded silent assent.
“So am I,” said Burr, beginning to pace up and down the narrow room. “Do you know,” he burst out at last, “this town is like hell to me. Every hand is against me. There’s not 330 one man here, beside you, whom I can trust. I can’t stand it. I’m going to leave the country. Some day I’ll come back; but now it’s too much.” There was the accumulated bitterness of months in his voice. “My God!” he interjected, “you’d think these people never did anything wrong in their lives.” He stopped and laid his hand again on the other man’s shoulder.
“But enough of this––I didn’t come to make you more lonesome. I want you to meet my friends before I go. You’ll go out with me to-morrow afternoon?”