h were not always accurate in minor details
of contour, and sometimes made a mockery of the lesser water-courses,
involving him and his surveyors in endless complications.

Sometimes, toward evening, if the weather was mild, he and Portlaw took
their rods for a cast on Painted Creek--a noble trout stream which took
its name from the dropping autumn glory of the sugar-bush where the
water passed close to the house. There lithe, wild trout struck
tigerishly at the flies and fought like demons, boring Portlaw
intensely, who preferred to haul in a prospective dinner without waste
of energy, and be about the matter of a new sauce with his cook.

CHAPTER XX

A NEW ENEMY

One evening in April, returning with a few brace of trout, they found
the mail-bag awaiting them on the hall table; and Portlaw distributed
the contents, proclaiming, as usual, his expectation of a letter from
Malcourt.

There was none. And, too peevish and disappointed to even open the
heterogeneous mass of letters and newspapers, he slumped sulkily in his
chair, feet on the fender, biting into his extinct cigar.

"That devilish Louis," he said, "has been away for several of the most
accursedly lonely weeks I ever spent.... No reflection on you,
Hamil--Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn't see you were busy--"

Hamil had not even heard him. He was busy--very busy with a
letter--dozens of sheets of a single letter, closely written, smeared in
places--the letter that had come at last!

In the fading light he bent low over the pages. Later a servant lighted
the lamps; later still Portlaw went into the library, drew out a book
bound in crushed levant, pushed an electric button, and sat down. The
book bound so admirably in crushed levant was a cook-book; the bell he
rang summoned his cook.

In the lamplit living-room the younger man bent over the letter that had
come at last. It was dated early in April; had been written at Palm
Beach, carried to New York, but had only been consigned to the mails
within thirty-six hours:

"I have had all your letters--but no courage to answer. Now you
will write no more.

"Dear--this, my first letter to you, is also my last. I know now
what the condemned feel who write in the hour of death.

"When you went away on Thursday I could not leave my room to say
good-bye to you. Gray came and knocked, but I was not fit to be
seen. If I hadn't looked so dreadfully I wouldn't have minded
being ill