"Don't you dare to slander him," said Rose. "I know him better than he
knows himself, and I will not permit one word to be breathed against
him."

"He ought to be most proud of so lovely a champion. He must be the most
blessed man of all the earth," said Jack, looking fondly down upon her.
Then he added: "Are you very sure that nothing could ever come between
his love and you?"

"Why, Jack, how serious you are," the fair girl said. "Nothing, nothing,
can ever come to break my admiration for him. Death itself can but
suspend life for a little while. My Jack and myself will be loving each
other when this world shall be worn out and be floating in space, as does
a dead swan upon a lake."

Browning bent and kissed her again, said softly
"Amen," and went out.

The day wore away, and when dinner was announced, Browning had not
returned. Sedgwick went with Grace to the sitting room and remained
for a few minutes. Grace chided him upon being moody, and with all her
caressing ways tried to exorcise the evil spirit that was upon him, but
with poor success. Finally he asked her to excuse him, telling her he was
absorbed in a little matter not strictly his own, which he would tell her
all about after awhile.

She listened, and when he had finished, she put her arms around his neck,
and said:

"You see when confidence is withheld from me, I become violently angry,
and punish the culprit by going away." Then she kissed him, arose, backed
to the door, reached behind her, opened it, passed out, then kissing her
hand to him, closed the door.

Sedgwick went out, and at once repaired to the hotel where Jordan stopped
when in the city. He had been out of town following some whim, and
Sedgwick had not seen him since Derby Day.

Reaching the hotel, he learned that Jordan had returned, and soon found
him.

Jordan met him joyfully, explained why he had been away, that he was
thinking all the way home from the Derby that if he remained he might be
a burden to Sedgwick and his new friends; that the best thing to do was
to take no chances, and so he had been making the tour of Ireland.

Of that country he had much to say. "Yo' oughter go thar, Jim," he said.
"Thar's a people wot ken look poverty in ther face 'nd laff it ter scorn;
whar three squar meals a day ken be made on hope; whar wit grows on ther
bushes; whar ther air ez filled with songs 'nd full hearts fill ther
vacancy made by empty stomachs. It's ther most pathetic spot on