s warning as to cease to put up a fight; but he saw now that the
fight would be a hard one. There was again a period in which he weighed
the advantages of "going to the bad" with all sails set against a life
of useless respectability. Going to the bad had the more to recommend it
since he knew that Edith was in New York. His downfall might bring her
back to him, in some such way, from some such motive of saving or pity,
as that by which he himself had been brought to Maggie Clare.

The argument being in favor of Old Piper, Old Piper supported it. Chip
never forgot an evening when, as he staggered down the steps of the club
toward the taxi that had been called for him, he met Emery Bland, who
was coming up. He would have dodged the lawyer without recognition had
it not been for the latter's kindly touch on his arm, while a voice of
distress said: "Ah, poor old chap, what's this?"

He had just wit enough left to stammer: "Edith's in New York. Go and
tell her how you saw me."

With that he staggered on, knowing that he almost fell into the waiting
vehicle.

Worse days ensued--for nearly a week. Worse still might have followed
had they not been cut short suddenly. They were cut short by a note
which bore the signature, Lily Bland. It was a simple note, containing
nothing but the request that he should come and see her on one of a
choice of evenings which she named. He took the first one, which was
that of the day of the note's arrival.

He had hardly seen her since their talk at Mountain Brook in the
previous June. He had not gone again that summer to New Hampshire, and
on the two or three occasions on which he had visited Bland's house in
town she seemed to have retreated once more to her old place as the
spirit of the furniture. He had made efforts to get nearer her, but she
seemed to elude his approaches.

He knew she would not have summoned him without having something grave
to say, and saw that his surmises were correct by her method of
receiving him. She was not in the drawing-room, but in Emery Bland's
library, with a background of bindings of red and blue and green and
gold, a few Brangwyn and Meryon etchings, and one brilliant, sinister
spot of color by Felicien Rops. There was a fire in the monumental
fireplace, and as he entered, a log was just breaking in the middle and
spluttering, across the tall, richly wrought French dog-irons.

It was the room of the successful New-Yorker who delights in giving
hims