law or medicine have been to him as a profession?

"Humph!" grunted Jack. "A great vacation that will be! But you _must_ be
careful, or you will not live out half your days. You've a look in your
face like the little chap I first knew."

The smile that crossed it then, Jack did not understand. It seemed to
Fred Lawrence that half his days would suffice, when Sylvie Barry was
his friend's wife.

"Yet you see the 'little chap' lived"--with an attempt at gayety.

"Yes. And, Fred, I am more glad than I can put into words, to know that
you have been so successful. It is just the career for you. It's odd
that a great commonplace, blundering fellow like me should have two such
artistic friends as you and Sylvie Barry."

The well-trained face did not blanch a muscle. He felt, with a flash of
subtile inner consciousness, that Darcy was studying him. Thank God, he
could stand before his friend free from a thought of treachery! All
these weeks he had walked over burning coals, but the smell of the fire
was not in his garments.

Jack thought it over long after Fred had gone. Why could not these two
people see! Surely they were meant for one another. It puzzled, it
almost fretted him. Sylvie was so peculiar, so changed in these few
weeks! What did it all mean?

And on Saturday when he was to go down to the beach, Fred pleaded some
urgent business to a neighboring city. He was not quite brave enough to
see them together.

"I have been meaning to go for some time," he said with gravity, "but I
did not like to think they would be alone over Sunday. Now that you will
be there, I certainly can spare three or four days."

"See here," returned Jack,--"wait until Monday. Come, we'll have a nice
day together down there on the sands. Sundays always seem so wonderful
by the ocean, with the grand chant forever in your ears. The very waves
are saying,--

"'Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.'"

But Fred Lawrence would not suffer himself to be persuaded.

CHAPTER XXIII.

JACK DARCY'S business-tour, while it had not been productive of any
great financial results, had restored his healthy mental equilibrium. He
found other firms were having it just as hard, and that the country was
still overrun with men willing to work for any wages. Prices were
certainly falling. All kinds of raw products were offered at the very
lowest figure; and, labor being so cheap, manufactured goods must
perforce be low. Men