r his glass, while he noticed
that Deringham emptied his at a gulp and refilled it with fingers that
seemed to shake a trifle.

"And your friend got away?" said somebody.

"No, sir," said Seaforth. "It was the other man. The one I knew had
his hand on the other's throat and his knife feeling for a soft place
when his adversary broke away from him. He did it just a moment too
soon, for while he was getting out through the bush the other one
dropped his knife and rolled over in the snow. He lay there a day or
two until somebody found him."

Seaforth rose and moved towards the cigar-box on the table. "And
that's all," he said.

"Dramatic, but it's a little incomplete, isn't it?" said the Englishman.

Seaforth smiled somewhat dryly, and once more glanced casually towards
Deringham. "It may be finished by and by, and I fancy the wind-up will
be more dramatic still," he said. "You see the man who would wait for
his enemy with only a knife in his hand while his life drained away
from him, is scarcely likely to forget an injury."

There was silence for several moments which was broken by a rattle, and
a stream of whisky and seltzer dripped from the table.

"Hallo!" said Forel. "Has anything upset you, Deringham?"

Deringham stood up with a little harsh laugh, dabbing It the breast of
his shirt with his handkerchief.

"I think the question should apply to my glass, but the room is a
trifle hot, and my heart has been troubling me lately," he said.

Forel flung one of the windows open. "I fancy my wife is waiting for
us, gentlemen, and I will be with you in a few minutes," he said.

Alton and Seaforth were almost the last to file out of the
smoking-room, and when they reached the corridor the former turned upon
his comrade with a glint in his half-closed eyes.

"You show a curious taste for a man raised as you have been in the old
country," he said. "Now what in the name of thunder made you tell that
story?"

Seaforth smiled somewhat inanely. "I don't know; I just felt I had to.
All of us are subject to little weaknesses occasionally."

Alton stopped and looked at him steadily. "Then there will be trouble
if you give way to them again. And you put in a good deal more than I
ever told anybody. Now you haven't brains enough to figure out all
that."

Seaforth laughed good-humouredly. "It is possibly fortunate that Tom
has," he said.

"Tom--be condemned," said Alton viciously, and Seaforth, seeing th