to this man, who
had ruthlessly and secretly robbed him of all that was dear to him,
and in such wise as to hold him up to ridicule, a scoffing jest, a
very good joke! So Walter considered it, and so doubtless would all
Colbury. It would have surprised Walter, but his sometime mentor's
cheek burned with shame for him.

No; the claims of "Fambly" were paramount. He gave it precedence, as
in the old days he had denied himself when "Fambly" dined at the
skillet, and the bone and the broken bit he took for his share. He
could not bring discredit upon it. He would not lift his hand against
it. It was the object of a lifelong allegiance, and he only marveled
that, since the uses of the loyalty were at an end, the empty life
should go on. He gazed mechanically at the padlock as he sat there
with his dreary thoughts, remembering with what different heart he had
turned the key. Ah, Happiness--to pass out from a door, and knock
there never again!

He rose at last, his burden adjusted to his strength. He had never
worked for thanks. It hardly mattered to him now how his efforts were
requited. And though he encountered treachery at close quarters,--of
his own household,--it was not in his heart to be a traitor to
"Fambly" and its obvious interests. So he too went out from the door
in the footprints of Happiness--likewise to return no more.

* * * * *

Walter Hoxon had not altogether ill-gauged the general proclivity to
deem all fair in love or war. He was accounted to have performed
something of a feat in the clever outwitting of his unsuspecting
rival, and to the minds of the many there was an element of the
romantic in this hasty wedding of the damsel of his choice almost
under the eyes of the expectant bridegroom. He had added to the
prestige of success in politics the lustre of valiance in the lists of
love, and he encountered laughing congratulations from his friends
and political supporters, which served much to reassure him and to
banish a vague and subtle anxiety as to public opinion that had begun
to gnaw at his heart. They all seemed to think he had done a very fine
thing, and that it was a very good joke, and he was soon most jauntily
of their persuasion. He could not know that here and there people were
saying to one another, aside, the words he had feared to hear in
reproach--that the swain whom he and his lady-love had conspired to
dupe was his brother, who had done everything for