conscious of it, stood with one foot upon the
curbstone, his face upturned to the man with whom he was talking.

"Ay, it is true!" Isaac shouted. "She is your daughter, child of the
wife whom you hid away, ashamed of her because she came from the
people and you were an aristocrat. She is your child, but you will
never see her!"

Then those who watched had their fill of tragedy. They saw the puff
of smoke, the sharp, discordant report, the murderous face of the
man who leaned downward. They saw Sabatini throw up his hands to
heaven and fall, a crumpled heap, into the gutter. Isaac, with the
pistol to his own forehead, overbalanced himself in the act of
pulling the trigger, and came crashing down, a corpse, on to the
pavement. The crowd broke loose, but Arnold was the first to raise
Sabatini. A shadow of the old smile parted his whitening lips. He
opened his eyes.

"It's a rotten death, boy," he whispered hoarsely; "a cur's bullet,
that. Look after her for me. I'd rather--I'd rather hear the drums
beating."

Arnold gripped him by the shoulders.

"Hold on to yourself, man!" he gasped. "There's a doctor
coming--he's here already. Hold on to yourself, for all our sakes!
We want you--Ruth will want you!"

Sabatini smiled very faintly. He was barely conscious.

"I'd rather have heard the drums," he muttered again.

CHAPTER XXXV

MR. WEATHERLEY RETURNS

It was twenty minutes past nine on a Saturday morning when the
wonderful thing happened. Precisely at his accustomed hour, in his
accustomed suit of gray clothes, and with his silk hat a little on
the back of his head, Mr. Weatherley walked into his office, pausing
as usual to knock the ash from his cigar before he entered the
clerks' counting house. Twelve young men gazed at him in frank and
undiluted amazement. As though absolutely unconscious of anything
unusual, Mr. Weatherley grunted his "Good morning!" and passed on
into the private room. Arnold and Mr. Jarvis were busy sorting the
letters which had arrived by the morning's post. Mr. Weatherley
regarded them with an expression of mingled annoyance and surprise.

"What the devil are you doing, opening the letters before I get
here?" he exclaimed. "I'm punctual, am I not? Twenty-two minutes
past nine to the tick. Get out of my chair, Jarvis!"

Mr. Jarvis rose with a promptitude which was truly amazing,
considering that a second ago he had been sitting there as though
turned to stone. Mr. Weatherley w