After all, it had been for his mother's sake alone.

And now--and now ?--his heart beat out another answer; and before his eyes two other eyes seemed to open, fearlessly, sweetly, divinely tender.

But they were no longer his mother's grave, gray eyes.
After the second pipe he remembered his letter.

It gave him something to do, so he opened it and tried to read it, but for a long while, in his confused physical and mental condition, he could make no sense of it.
Little by little he began to comprehend its purport that his resignation was regretfully requested by the governors of the Lenox Club for reasons unassigned.
The shock of the thing came to him after a while, like a distant, dull report long after the flash of the explosion.

Well, the affair, bad enough at first, was turning worse, that was all.