hings to do, and we close early to-day."

He got to his feet and went slowly out; and that was the last I ever
saw of him. I suppose he consulted an attorney, learned the hopeless
nature of his case, and took the first train back to Osage City. He
did not even wait for the funeral.

Few people, indeed, put themselves out for it. There was a sprinkling
of old family friends, representatives of the museum and of various
charities in which Vantine had been interested, a few friends of his
own, and that was all. He had dropped out of the world with scarcely
a ripple; of all who had known him, I dare say Parks felt his
departure most. For Vantine had been, in a sense, a solitary man; not
many men nodded oftener during a walk up the Avenue, and yet not many
dined oftener alone; for there was about him a certain self-detachment
which discouraged intimacy. He was a man, like many another, with
acquaintances in every country on the globe, and friends in none.

All this I thought over a little sadly, as I sat at home that night;
and not without some self-questioning as to my own place in the
world. Most of us, I think, are a little saddened when we realise our
unimportance; most of us, no doubt, would be a little shocked could
we return a day or two after our death and see how merrily the world
wags on! I would be missed, I knew, scarcely more than Vantine. It
was not a pleasant thought, for it seemed to argue some deficiency in
myself.

Then, too, the mystery of Vantine's death had a depressing effect
upon me. So long as there seemed some theory to build on, so long as
there was a ray of light ahead, I had hoped that the tragedy would be
explained and expiated; but now my theory had crumbled to pieces; I
was left in utter darkness, from which there seemed no way out. Never
before, in the face of any mystery, had I felt so blind and helpless,
and the feeling took such a grip upon me that it kept me awake for a
long time after I got to bed. It seemed, in some mysterious way, that
I was contending with a power greater than myself, a power
threatening and awful, which could crush me with a turn of the wrist.

Vantine's will was probated next morning. He had directed that his
collection of art objects be removed to the museum, and that the
house and such portion of its contents as the museum did not care for
be sold for the museum's benefit. I had already notified Sir Caspar
Purdon Clarke of the terms of the will, and the museum