f and Alton the room was empty.

"The fact is I'm awfully sorry," he said. "But how was I to know?"

The veins were swollen on Alton's forehead, and his eyes half-closed.
"Now," he said sternly, "I don't want to hear any more of that. I
think I told you the lady you saw here came in a few minutes ago on an
affair of business."

It was unfortunate that Alton had a difficult temper and his visitor no
discretion, for there are men in whom Western directness degenerates
into effrontery.

"Of course!" said the latter. "My dear fellow, you needn't protest.
Considering the connection between her employers and Hallam, who is
scarcely a friend of yours, that is especially likely."

Alton stood very straight, looking at the speaker in a fashion which
would have warned any one who knew him. "I figure you can't help being
a fool, but I want to hear you admit that you're sorry for it," he said.

He spoke very quietly, but it was unfortunate for both of them that the
other man, who was growing slightly nettled, did not know when to stop.

"I told you I was sorry--I looked in at an inopportune time--already,
and I'll forget it right off," he said. "Now that should content
anybody, because there are folks who would think the story too good to
be lost."

He got no further, because Alton stepped forward and seized him by the
collar, which tore away in his grasp. Then there was a brief scuffle,
a scattering of papers up and down the room, and Alton stood gasping in
the doorway, while his visitor reeled down the first flight of stairs
and into the wall at the foot of it. Alton glanced down at him a
moment, and seeing he was not seriously hurt, flung the door to with a
bang that rolled from corridor to corridor through the great silent
building, before he turned back into the disordered room with a little
laugh.

"I've fixed that fellow, anyway, and now I'd better go through those
plans until I simmer down," he said.

He picked up the overturned table and his scattered supper, while it
was characteristic of him that when an hour later he rolled up a sheet
of mill-drawings in a survey plotting of the Somasco valley, he had
forgotten all about the incident, which was, however, not the case with
the other man. In another twenty minutes he was also fast asleep, and
because men commence their work betimes in that country, had disposed
of several car-loads of Somasco produce before he breakfasted next
morning. During the day