aid quietly. Then she lifted
her hand to her throat. "Dear me! Have I lost my diamond pin?" she
added hastily. "I was sure I put it on. Please excuse me, while I
see if I left it in my room." And she ran swiftly out of the room.

Mrs. Dent broke the pause.

"Where was Mr. Weldon going?"

"To his hotel. I came out, just as they drove away, and I heard the
boy give the order to the driver."

"Which hotel was it?"

"I--Really, I don't remember. He used to go to the Grand."

"He seemed ill?"

"He seemed--" For an instant, Mr. Dent held the word in suspension.
Then he let it drop with a slow quietness which added tenfold to its
weight--"dead."

His wife's gentle eyes clouded.

"I am sorry. I liked the boy. He was good to me."

"I had thought Ethel liked him, too," her husband added a little
inconsequently.

"So she did in a way. But there have been so many others." The
mother sighed slightly. In her young days, there had been but one.
Now, remembering that one and watching him in the present, she found
it hard to comprehend Ethel's free-handed distribution of social
favors among so great a throng of admirers. There had always been
many; now, since her recent return from Johannesburg, the many had
become a multitude, and each of the multitude could show proof of
her liking. But Mrs. Dent recurred to the fact of Weldon's illness.

"Poor boy! Fancy being really ill, so far from home and in a hotel!"
she added slowly.

"It is one of the risks of a soldier," her husband reminded her.

"Yes, and the soldiers fought for us. Where would your mines have
been without them?" she suggested in return. "I really wish you
would telephone to the hotel and find out something more definite
about him."

Her husband looked covetously at the entree, just appearing in
sight.

"Now?" he asked.

She ignored the mockery of his tone.

"Yes, please," she assented quietly. "It will only take you a
minute."

It took him ten. When he came back into the room, his hat was in his
hand.

"I think I will go over to the Grand for a minute," he explained. "I
don't quite like what I hear."

"What did you hear?"

In the dim upper hallway, a girlish figure leaned far over the
railing and strained her ears for the reply. Then, noiselessly, the
door of her room shut again behind her.

"They tell me," Mr. Dent was saying; "that Weldon is there,
unconscious in his room. The boy brought him into the house in his
arms, and they have se