ness, but maddened by the sight of an overthrow
which carried with it the stifled affections and the admiration of his
whole life, gave a bound forward, opened his arms and--fell.

Orlando stopped short. Gazing down on his prostrate brother, he stood
for a moment with a gleam of something like human tenderness showing
through the flare of dying passions and perishing hopes; then he swung
open the door and passed quietly out, and Mr. Challoner could hear the
laughing remark with which he met and dismissed the half-dozen men and
women who had been drawn to this end of the hall by what had sounded to
them like a fracas between angry men.

XLI. FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING

The clock in the hotel office struck three. Orlando Brotherson counted
the strokes; then went on writing. His transom was partly open and
he had just heard a step go by his door. This was nothing new. He had
already heard it several times before that night. It was Mr. Challoner's
step, and every time it passed, he had rustled his papers or scratched
vigorously with his pen. "He is keeping watch for Oswald," was his
thought. "They fear a sudden end to this. No one, not the son of my
mother knows me. Do I know myself?"

Four o'clock! The light was still burning, the pile of letters he was
writing increasing.

Five o'clock! A rattling shade betrays an open window. No other sound
disturbs the quiet of the room. It is empty now; but Mr. Challoner, long
since satisfied that all was well, goes by no more. Silence has settled
upon the hotel;--that heavy silence which precedes the dawn.

There was silence in the streets also. The few who were abroad, crept
quietly along. An electric storm was in the air and the surcharged
clouds hung heavy and low, biding the moment of outbreak. A man who had
left a place of many shadows for the more open road, paused and looked
up at these clouds; then went calmly on.

Suddenly the shriek of an approaching train tears through the valley.
Has it a call for this man? No. Yet he pauses in the midst of the street
he is crossing and watches, as a child might watch, for the flash of
its lights at the end of the darkened vista. It comes--filling the empty
space at which he stares with moving life--engine, baggage car and a
long string of Pullmans. Then all is dark again and only the noise of
its slackening wheels comes to him through the night. It has stopped at
the station. A minute longer and it has started again, and t