ensued was
choked with a cough, and the tactless Hanway was moved to expostulate.

"I wonder ye ain't 'feared ter be hyar all by yerse'f hevin' the lung
complaint."

"Why, man alive, I'm well, or so near it there's no use talking. I
could go home to-morrow, except, as I have had the house built, I
think I'd better stay the winter in it. But before the cold weather
comes on they are going to send up a darky to look after me. I only
hope _I_ won't have to wait on _him_,--awful lazy nigger! He used to
be a porter of ours. Loafing around these woods with a gun on his
shoulder, pretending to hunt, will be just about his size. He's out of
a job now, and comes cheap. I couldn't afford to pay him wages all the
time, but winter is winter."

He was silent a moment, gazing into the fire; then Hanway, gloomily
brooding and disturbed, for the conversation had impressed him much as
if it had been post-mortem, so immediate seemed his companion's doom,
felt Selwyn's eye upon him, as if his sentiment were so obvious that
the sense of sight had detected it.

"You think I'm going to die up here all by myself. Now I tell you, my
good fellow, dying is the very last thing that I expect to do."

He broke out laughing anew, and this time he did not cough.

Hanway could not at once cover his confusion. He looked frowningly
down at the steam rising from his great cowhide boots, outstretched as
they dried in the heat of the fire, and slowly shifted them one above
the other. The flush on his sunburned cheek rose to the roots of his
dark hair, and overspread his clumsy features. His appearance did not
give token of any very great delicacy of feeling, but he regretted his
transparency, and sought to nullify it.

"Not that," he said disingenuously; "but bein' all by yerse'f, I
wonder ye ain't willin' fur the county road ter be put through. 'T
would run right by yer gate, an' ye could h'ist the winder an' talk to
the folks passin'. Ye wouldn't be lonely never."

For the first time Selwyn looked like a man of business. His eyes grew
steady. His face was firm and serious and non-committal. He said
nothing. Hanway cleared his throat and crossed his legs anew. The
thought of his true intention in coming hither, not his ostensible
errand, had recurred more than once to his mind,--to lay bare the
secret touching the visitor to Selwyn's remote dwelling, whom he could
not or would not identify; and if there were aught amiss, as the
mountaineer suspe