ROGER ENRIGHT BOUGHT THE SITE, THE PLANS AND THE RUINS OF Cortlandt from the government. He ordered every twisted remnant of foundations dug out to leave a clean hole in the earth. He hired Howard Roark to rebuild the project. Placing a single contractor in charge, observing the strict economy of the plans, Enright budgeted the undertaking to set low rentals with a comfortable margin of profit for himself. No questions were to be asked about the income, occupation, children or diet of the future tenants; the project was open to anyone who wished to move in and pay the rent, whether he could afford a more expensive apartment elsewhere or not.

Late in August Gail Wynand was granted his divorce. The suit was not contested and Dominique was not present at the brief hearing. Wynand stood like a man facing a court-martial and heard the cold obscenity of legal language describing the breakfast in a house of Monadnock Valley—Mrs. Gail Wynand—Howard Roark; branding his wife as officially dishonored, granting him lawful sympathy, the status of injured innocence, and a paper that was his passport to freedom for all the years before him, and for all the silent evenings of those years.

Ellsworth Toohey won his case before the labor board. Wynand was ordered to reinstate him in his job.

That afternoon Wynand’s secretary telephoned Toohey and told him that Mr. Wynand expected him back at work tonight, before nine o’clock. Toohey smiled, dropping the receiver.

Toohey smiled, entering the Banner Building that evening. He stopped in the city room. He waved to people, shook hands, made witty remarks about some current movies, and bore an air of guileless astonishment, as if he had been absent just since yesterday and could not understand why people greeted him in the manner of a triumphal homecoming.

Then he ambled on to his office. He stopped short. He knew, while stopping, that he must enter, must not show the jolt, and that he had shown it: Wynand stood in the open door of his office.

“Good evening, Mr. Toohey,” said Wynand softly. “Come in.”

“Hello, Mr. Wynand,” said Toohey, his voice pleasant, reassured by feeling his face muscles manage a smile and his legs walking on.

He entered and stopped uncertainly. It was his own office, unchanged, with his typewriter and a stack of fresh paper on the desk. But the door remained open and Wynand stood there silently, leaning against the jamb.

“Sit down at your desk, Mr. Toohey. Go to work. We must comply with the law.”

Toohey gave a gay little shrug of acquiescence, crossed the room and sat down. He put his hands on the desk surface, palms spread solidly, then dropped them to his lap. He reached for a pencil, examined its point and dropped it.

Wynand lifted one wrist slowly to the level of his chest and held it still, the apex of a triangle made by his forearm and the long, drooping fingers of his hand;