ss, one was for Meredith.
Jim carried them upstairs, left the three with his master's guest, then
knocked on his master's door.

"What is it?" answered a thick voice. Meredith had not yet risen.

"A telegraph. Mist' Tawm."

There was a terrific yawn. "O-o-oh! Slide it--oh--under the--door."

"Yessuh."

Meredith lay quite without motion for several minutes, sleepily watching
the yellow rhomboid in the crevice. It was a hateful looking thing to
come mixing in with pleasant dreams and insist upon being read. After a
while he climbed groaningly out of bed, and read the message with heavy
eyes, still half asleep. He read it twice before it penetrated:

"Suppress all newspapers to-day. Convention meets at eleven. If we
succeed a delegation will come to Rouen this afternoon. They will come.

"HELEN."

Tom rubbed his sticky eyelids, and shook his head violently in a Spartan
effort to rouse himself; but what more effectively performed the task
for him were certain sounds issuing from Harkless's room, across the
hall. For some minutes, Meredith had been dully conscious of a rustle
and stir in the invalid's chamber, and he began to realize that no mere
tossing about a bed would account for a noise that reached him across
a wide hall and through two closed doors of thick walnut. Suddenly he
heard a quick, heavy tread, shod, in Harkless's room, and a resounding
bang, as some heavy object struck the floor. The doctor was not to come
till evening; Jim had gone down-stairs. Who wore shoes in the sick
man's room? He rushed across the hall in his pyjamas and threw open the
unlocked door.

The bed was disarranged and vacant. Harkless, fully dressed, was
standing in the middle of the floor, hurling garments at a big
travelling bag.

The horrified Meredith stood for a second, bleached and speechless, then
he rushed upon his friend and seized him with both hands.

"Mad, by heaven! Mad!"

"Let go of me, Tom!"

"Lunatic! Lunatic!"

"Don't stop me one instant!"

Meredith tried to force him toward the bed. "For mercy's sake, get back
to bed. You're delirious, boy!"

"Delirious nothing. I'm a well man."

"Go to bed--go to bed."

Harkless set him out of the way with one arm. "Bed be hanged!" he cried.
"I'm going to Plattville!"

Meredith wrung his hands. "The doctor----"!

"Doctor be damned!"

"Will you tell me what has happened, John?"

His companion slung a light overcoat,