Society, however, had
ceased to recognise him for a long time, and he did not seek it. For two
or three years he practised law now and then. He took cases, preferably
criminal cases, for which very often he got no pay; but that, too, ceased
at last. Now, in his quiet, sober intervals he read omnivorously, and
worked out problems in physics for which he had a taste, until the old
appetite surged over him again. Then his spirits rose, and he was the old
brilliant talker, the joyous galliard until, in due time, he became
silently and lethargically drunk.
In one of his sober intervals he had met Sally Seabrook in the street. It
was the first time in four years, for he had avoided her, and though she
had written to him once or twice, he had never answered her--shame was in
his heart. Yet all the time the old song was in Sally's ears. Jim
Templeton had touched her in some distant and intimate corner of her
nature where none other had reached; and in all her gay life, when men
had told their tale of admiration in their own way, her mind had gone
back to Jim, and what he had said under the magnolia trees; and his voice
had drowned all others. She was not blind to what he had become, but a
deep belief possessed her that she, of all the world, could save him.
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