tread from porch to stairway. He went up to the first landing,
not knowing why, then roamed aimlessly through, wandering from room to
room, idly, looking on familiar things as though they were
strange--strange, but uninteresting.

Upstairs and down, in, around, and about he drifted, quiet as a cat,
avoiding only his wife's bedroom. He had never entered it since their
marriage; he did not care to do so now, though the door stood wide. And,
indifferent, he turned without even a glance, and traversing the hall,
descended the stairs to the library.

For a while he sat there, legs crossed, drumming thoughtfully on his
boot with his riding-crop; and after a while he dragged the chair
forward and picked up a pen.

"Why not?" he said aloud; "it will save railroad fare--and she'll need
it all."

So, to his lawyer in New York he wrote:

"I won't come to town after all. You have my letter and you know
what I want done. Nobody is likely to dispute the matter, and it
won't require a will to make my wife carry out the essence of the
thing."

And signed his name.

When he had sealed and directed the letter he could find no stamp; so he
left it on the table.

"That's the usual way they find such letters," he said, smiling to
himself as the thought struck him. "It certainly is hard to be
original.... But then I'm not ambitious."

He found another sheet of paper and wrote to Hamil:

"All the same you are wrong; I have always been your friend. My
father comes first, as always; you second. There is no third."

This note, signed, sealed, and addressed, he left with the other.

"Certainly I am not original in the least," he said, beginning another
note.

"DOLLY DEAR:

"You have made good. _Continuez, chere enfant_--and if you don't
know what that means your French lessons are in vain. Now the
usual few words: don't let any man who is not married to you lay
the weight of his little finger on you! Don't ignore convention
unless there is a good reason--and then don't! When you're tired
of behaving yourself go to sleep; and if you can't sleep, sleep
some more; and then some. Men are exactly like women until they
differ from them; there is no real mystery about either outside
of popular novels.

"I am very, very glad that I have known you, Dolly. Don't tint
yourself, except for the footlights. There are other things, but
I can't think of them; and so,