In beating about in his mind for a temporary refuge, he remembered a
downtown rooming-house to which he had once gone with Dirks, the foreman
at Bartlett & Bangs. Here he transferred his few possessions, and
persuaded Rose to tell the Bartletts that he had left town for an
indefinite stay. This he hoped would account for his absence until they
left for their summer vacation.
The ten weeks that followed are not pleasant ones to dwell upon. The
picture of Quin tramping the streets by day in a half-hearted search for
work, and tramping them again at night when he could not sleep, of him
lying face downward on a cot in a small damp room, with all his
confidence and bravado gone, and only his racking cough for company, are
better left unchronicled.
He fought his despair with dogged determination, but his love for Eleanor
had twined itself around everything that was worth while in him. In
plucking it out he uprooted his ambition, his carefully acquired
friendships, his belief in himself, his faith in the future. For eighteen
months he had lived in the radiance of one all-absorbing dream, with a
faith in its ultimate fulfilment that transcended every fear.
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