ny, his eyes glaring. "What is the matter
with my sister? What have you done to her?" His voice was like the growl
of a savage dog.

"Don't be a confounded fool, Tony," replied Jack. "You ought to know
what is the matter with your sister. You have had something to do with
it. And now your job is to see if you can make it up to her. To-morrow
morning, at seven o'clock, remember," he said curtly, and, turning on
his heel, he passed out.

It seemed to Jack as he drove home that life had suddenly become a
tangle of perplexities and complications. First there was Annette. He
was genuinely distressed as he thought of the scene through which they
had just passed. That he himself had anything to do with her state of
mind did not occur to him.

"Poor little girl," he said to himself, "she really needs a change of
some sort, a complete rest. We must find some way of helping her. She
will be all right in a day or two." With which he dismissed the subject.

Then there was McNish. McNish was a sore puzzle to him. He had come
to regard the Scotchman with a feeling of sincere friendliness. He
remembered gratefully his ready and efficient help against the attacks
of the radical element among his fellow workmen. On several occasions
he, with the Reverend Murdo Matheson, had foregathered in the McNish
home to discuss economic problems over a quiet pipe. He was always
conscious of a reserve deepening at times to a sullenness in McNish's
manner, the cause of which he could not certainly discover. That McNish
was possessed of a mentality of more than ordinary power there was
no manner of doubt. Jack had often listened with amazement to his
argumentation with the Reverend Murdo, against whom he proved over and
over again his ability to hold his own, the minister's superiority as
a trained logician being more than counterbalanced by his antagonist's
practical experience.

As he thought of these evenings, he was ready to believe that his
suspicion of the Scotchman's ill-will toward himself was due largely to
imagination, and yet he could not rid himself of the unpleasant memory
of McNish's convulsed face that afternoon.

"What the deuce is the matter with the beggar, anyway?" he said to
himself.

Suddenly a new suggestion came to him.

"It can't be," he added, "surely the idiot is not jealous." Then he
remembered Annette's attitude at the moment, her hands pressing his hard
to her breast, her face lifted up in something more than app