rence that it seemed she had not really seen him
at all. She was chatting vivaciously with Jimmy and Jimmy had been
laughing as raucously as a jackal--and so they had passed him by. The
event which had spelled tragedy for him; robbed him of sleep and
withered his robust appetite had not even lingered overnight in her
memory. The dirk was in Stuart Farquaharson's breast, but it was yet to
be twisted. Pride forbade his shaking Johnny Reb into a wild pace until
he was out of sight. The funereal grandeur of his measured tread must
not be broken, and so he heard with painful distinctness the next remark
of Jimmy Hancock.

"What in thunder's eatin' on Stuty--" (sometimes, though not encouraged
to do so, young Mr. Farquaharson's intimates called him by that shameful
diminutive.) "He looks like a kid that's just been taken back to the
barn and spanked."

"Did he?" asked the young lady casually, "I really didn't notice."

Ye Gods! He, wearing his misery like a Caesar's toga, compared by this
young buffoon to a kid who had been spanked! _She_ had not noticed it.
Ye Gods! Ye Gods!

Ten days passed and the visit of Conscience Williams was drawing to an
end. Soon she would go back to those rock-bound shores of New England
where in earlier days her ancestors had edified themselves with burning
witches. She would pass out of his life but never out of his memory. His
heart would go with her, but though it killed him he would never modify
the rigors of his self-appointed exile from her presence until an
advance came from her.

Each night he secretly stole over to a point of ambuscade from which he
could see the shimmery flash of her dress as she moved about the porch,
cavaliered by the odious Jimmy and his fellows. On these nocturnal
vigils he heard the note of her heedless laughter while he crouched
embittered and hidden at a distance. There was in those merry peals no
more symptom of a canker at her heart than in the carol of a bird
greeting a bright day. She did not care and when the one maiden whom he
wished to worship by years of noble deeds did not care--again the only
answer was "Ye Gods!"

These were not matters to be alleviated by the comforting support of a
confidant and he had no confidant except Cardinal Richelieu. The
cardinal was more frequently addressed as Ritchy and his nature was as
independent of hampering standards as his origin warranted. The
Cardinal's face--a composite portrait of various types of middle-