professor softly.

"Hayden turned me down," went on Quimby. "The money was all gone. So I came back to Upper Asquewan—caretaker of an inn that overlooks the property my father owned—the property I squandered for a chance to save human lives. It's all like a dream now—those eight years. And it nearly drives me mad, sometimes, to think that it took me eight years—eight years to find it out. I'll just straighten things around a bit."

He moved away, and the men sat in silence for a time. Then the professor spoke very gently:

"Poor devil—to have had his dream of service—and then grow old on Baldpate."

The two joined Mr. Bland by the fire. Mr. Magee had put from his mind all intention of work. The maze of events through which he wandered held him bewildered and enthralled. He looked at the haberdasher and the university scholar and asked himself if they were real, or if he was still asleep in a room on a side street in New York, waiting for the cheery coming of Geoffrey. He asked himself still more perplexedly if the creature that came toward him now through the dining-room door was real—the hairy Hermit of Baldpate, like a figure out of some old print, his market basket on his arm again, his coat buttoned to the chin.

"Well, everything's shipshape in the kitchen," announced the hermit cheerfully. "I couldn't go without seeing to that. I wish you the best of luck, gentlemen—and good-by."

"Good-by?" cried the professor.

"By the gods, he's leaving us," almost wept Mr. Bland.

"It can't be," said Mr. Magee.

"It has to be," said the Hermit of Baldpate, solemnly shaking his head. "I'd like to stay with you, and I would of, if they hadn't come. But here they are—and when women come in the door, I fly out of the window, as the saying is."

"But, Peters," pleaded Magee, "you're not going to leave us in the hole like this?"

"Sorry," replied Peters, "I can please men, but I can't please women. I tried to please one once—but let the dead past bury its dead. I live on Baldpate in a shack to escape the sex, and it wouldn't be consistent for me to stay here now. I got to go. I hate to, like a dog, but I got to."

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