ed on him, and the blue eyes read him to his innermost depths.

"You are still the headlong, impulsive boy, aren't you?" she said, not
altogether approvingly. "You are paying this out of your own money."

"Well, what if I am?"

"If you are, it is either a just restitution, or it is not. In either
case, I can not be your go-between."

"Now look here," he argued; "you've got to be sensible about this.
There'll be four of you, and at least two incompetents; and you've got
to have money to live on. I made Colonel Duxbury lose it, and--"

She stopped him with the imperious little gesture he knew so well.

"Not another word, if you please. I can't do your errand in this, and I
wouldn't if I could."

"You think I ought to be generous and give it to him, anyway, do you?"

"I don't presume to say," was the cool rejoinder. "When you have come
fully to your right mind, you will know what to do, and how to go about
it."

He crumpled the check, thrusting it into his pocket, and made two turns
about the room before he said:

"I'll see them both hanged first!"

"Very well; that is your own affair."

He fell to walking again, and for a full minute the silence was broken
only by the murmur of men's voices in the library adjoining. The Major
had company, it seemed.

"This is 'good-by,' Ardea; I'm going to-morrow. Can't we part friends?"
he said, when the silence had begun to rankle unbearably.

"You've hurt me," she declared, turning again to the window.

"You've hurt me, more than once," he retorted, raising his voice more
than he meant to; and she faced about quickly, holding up a warning
finger.

"Mr. Henniker and Mr. Young-Dickson are in the library with grandpa.
They will hear you."

"I don't care. I came here to-night with a heart full of what few good
things there are left in me, and you--you are so wrapped up in that
beggar that I didn't kill--"

"Hush!" she commanded imperatively. "Grandfather has not heard: he knows
nothing, and he must nev--"

The murmur of voices in the adjoining room had suddenly become a storm,
with the smooth tones of Mr. Henniker trying vainly to allay it. In the
thick of it the door of communication flew open and a white-haired,
fierce-mustached figure of wrath appeared on the threshold. For a moment
Tom's boyish awe of the old autocrat of Deer Trace came uppermost and he
was tempted to run away. But the wrath was not directed at him. Indeed,
the Major seemed not to see him.

"W