For, when he strove to peer into the future, only an emptiness confronted
him. With Ekstrom accounted for finally and forevermore, there was nothing
to come but the final accounting of the Lone Wolf with that civilization
which had bred and suffered him.
One way presented itself to make that reckoning even. The Foreign Legion of
France asks no embarrassing questions of its recruits, and enlistment in
its ranks offers with anonymity a consoling certainty.
Thus alone might he find his way home to the heart of that enigma whence he
had emerged, a nameless waif astray in grim Parisian by-ways....
This vision of his end contenting him, he began to scheme a campaign
for the day that was simple enough in prospect: a little chicanery with
Stanistreet, a personal appeal to Crane to restore the passports of
Monsieur Andre Duchemin which must have been found on Ekstrom's body, a
berth on some steamer sailing for Europe, then the last evanishment.
One detail alone troubled him, his promise to the Brooke girl that she
should dine with him that night.
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