His tired brain was vastly refreshed, but so far he could not concentrate it, even on the events of these eventful days.

He was still in the thick of them.

A sense of proportion was as yet impossible, and a consecutive review the most difficult of intellectual feats.

Langholm was too excited, and the situation too identical with suspense, for a clear sight of all its bearings and potentialities; and then there was the stern self-discipline, the determined bridling of the imagination, in which he had not yet relaxed.

Once in the night, however, in the hopeless hours between darkness and broad day, he had seen clearly for a while, and there and then pinned his vision down to paper.