enza, I
reckon, but I won't have any nostrums brought to me. All I want is a
good fire."

Peter heaped up the fire until the room seemed to him like a furnace,
and then left the young man alone with his thoughts and his temptation,
which was assailing him a second time, stronger than before. He firmly
believed the devil was there, urging him to burn the paper, and held
several spirited conversations with him, pro and con, the cons finally
gaining the victory.

Late in the afternoon Jack's telegram was brought to him. "We'll be home
this evening."

"That means seven o'clock, and dinner at halfpast seven," he said to
Peter. "Send Sam with the carriage, and see that there are fires in
their rooms."

He had given his orders and then sat down to decide what he would do.

"I know the Old Harry is here with me, but his company is better than
none," he said, wishing he had a shawl, he was so cold, with the room at
90 degrees.

The short day drew to a close. Peter came in and lighted the gas, and
put more coal on the grate, and said Sam had gone to the station. Half
an hour later Howard heard the whistle of the train, and then the sound
of wheels coming up the avenue.

"Now or never!" was whispered in his ear, and his hand, with the paper
in it, went toward the fire.

There was a fierce struggle, and Howard felt that he was really fighting
with an unseen foe; then his hand came back with the paper in it, safe
except for a second scorch on one side.

"By the great eternal, it is never! I swear it!" he said, as his arm
dropped beside him and the paper fell to the floor.

There was a sound below of people entering the house. They had come, and
he heard Eloise's voice as she passed his door on her way to her room
with Amy. Was Jack there too? he was wondering--when Jack came in, gay
and breezy, but startled when he met the woe-begone face turned toward
him.

"By George! old man," he said, "Peter told me you were shut up with a
cold, but I didn't expect this. Why, you look like a ghost, and are
sweating like a butcher, and no wonder. The thermometer must be a
hundred. What's the matter?"

"Jack," Howard said, "for forty-eight hours I have had a hand-to-hand
tussle with the devil. He was here bodily, as much as you are, but I
beat him, and swore I wouldn't burn the paper. Read it!"

He pointed to it upon the floor at his feet.

"I had it pretty near the fire twice, and singed it some," he continued,
as Jack took it