as alone. He turned a moment towards the window before
he faced Gideon with inquiring but curiously-shining eyes.

"Well?" he said, hesitatingly.

"Do you know Kate Somers?" asked Gideon.

Hamlin opened his brown eyes. "Yes."

"Can you send for her?"

"What, HERE?"

"Yes, here."

"What for?"

"To marry him," said Gideon, gently. "There's no time to lose."

"To MARRY him?"

"He wishes it."

"But say--oh, come, now," said Hamlin confidentially, leaning back with
his hands on the top of a chair. "Ain't this playing it a little--just
a LITTLE--too low down? Of course you mean well, and all that; but
come, now, say--couldn't you just let up on him there? Why,
she"--Hamlin softly closed the door--"she's got no character."

"The more reason he should give her one."

A cynical knowledge of matrimony imparted to him by the wives of others
evidently colored Mr. Hamlin's views. "Well, perhaps it's all the same
if he's going to die. But isn't it rather rough on HER? I don't
know," he added, reflectively; "she was sniveling round here a little
while ago, until I sent her away."

"You sent her away!" echoed Gideon.

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because YOU were here."

Nevertheless Mr. Hamlin departed, and in half an hour reappeared with
two brilliantly dressed women. One, hysterical, tearful, frightened,
and pallid, was the destined bride; the other, highly colored, excited,
and pleasedly observant, was her friend. Two men hastily summoned from
the anteroom as witnesses completed the group that moved into the
bedroom and gathered round the bed.

The ceremony was simple and brief. It was well, for of all who took
part in it none was more shaken by emotion than the officiating priest.
The brilliant dresses of the women, the contrast of their painted faces
with the waxen pallor of the dying man; the terrible incongruity of
their voices, inflections, expressions, and familiarity; the mingled
perfume of cosmetics and the faint odor of wine; the eyes of the
younger woman following his movements with strange absorption, so
affected him that he was glad when he could fall on his knees at last
and bury his face in the pillow of the sufferer. The hand that had
been placed in the bride's cold fingers slipped from them and
mechanically sought Gideon's again. The significance of the
unconscious act brought the first spontaneous tears into the woman's
eyes. It was his last act, for when Gideon's voice was again lif