o see Norman. He was surprised to find how much
he had aged in this short time. His hair was sprinkled with gray. He had
lost all his lightness. He was distrait and almost morose.

"You men here work too hard," asserted Keith. "You ought to have run
over to England with me. You'd have learned that men can work and live
too. I spent some of the most profitable time I was over there in a
deer forest, which may have been Burnam-wood, as all the trees had
disappeared-gone somewhere, if not to Dunsinane."

Norman half smiled, but he answered wearily: "I wish I had been anywhere
else than where I was." He turned away while he was speaking and fumbled
among the papers on his desk. Keith rose, and Norman rose also.

"I will send you cards to the clubs. I shall not be in town to-night,
but to-morrow night, or the evening after, suppose you dine with me at
the University. I'll have two or three fellows to meet you--or, perhaps,
we'll dine alone. What do you say? We can talk more freely."

Keith said that this was just what he should prefer, and Norman gave him
a warm handshake and, suddenly seating himself at his desk, dived
quickly into his papers.

Keith came out mystified. There was something he could not understand.
He wondered if the trouble of which he had heard had grown.

Next morning, looking over the financial page of a paper, Keith came on
a paragraph in which Norman's name appeared. He was mentioned as one of
the directors of a company which the paper declared was among those that
had disappointed the expectations of investors. There was nothing very
tangible about the article; but the general tone was critical, and to
Keith's eye unfriendly.

When, the next afternoon, Keith rang the door-bell at Norman's house,
and asked if Mrs. Wentworth was at home, the servant who opened the door
informed him that no one of that name lived there. They used to live
there, but had moved. Mrs. Wentworth lived somewhere on Fifth Avenue
near the Park. It was a large new house near such a street, right-hand
side, second house from the corner.

Keith had a feeling of disappointment. Somehow, he had hoped to hear
something of Lois Huntington.

Keith, having resolved to devote the afternoon to the call on his
friend's wife, and partly in the hope of learning where Lois was, kept
on, and presently found himself in front of a new double house, one of
the largest on the block. Keith felt reassured.

"Well, this does not look as if