e contents of her slim glass and rose. "Yes; and it
was a brave and generous and loyal thing for him to do. I supposed you
knew it. Jack has been too beastly to her; she was on the verge of
breaking down when I saw her on the _Niobrara_, and she told me then
that her husband had practically repudiated her. . . . Then she suddenly
disappeared; and her maid, later, came to me seeking a place. That's how
I knew, and that's all I know. And I care for Alixe; and I honour your
brother for what he did."

She stood with pretty golden head bent, absently arranging the sables
around her neck and shoulders.

"I have been very horrid to Captain Selwyn," she said quietly. "Tell him
I am sorry; that he has my respect. . . . And--if he cares to tell me
where Alixe is I shall be grateful and do no harm."

She turned toward the door, stopped short, came back, and made her
adieux, then started again toward the door, not noticing Lansing.

"With your permission," said Boots at her shoulder in a very low voice.

She looked up, surprised, her eyes still wet. Then comprehending the
compliment of his attendance, acknowledged it with a faint smile.

"Good-night," he said to Nina. Then he took Rosamund down to her
brougham with a silent formality that touched her present sentimental
mood.

She leaned from her carriage-window, looking at him where he stood, hat
in hand, in the thickly falling snow.

"Please--without ceremony, Mr. Lansing." And, as he covered himself,
"May I not drop you at your destination?"

"Thank you"--in refusal.

"I thank you for being nice to me. . . . Please believe there is often
less malice than perversity in me. I--I have a heart, Mr. Lansing--such
as it is. And often those I torment most I care for most. It was so with
Alixe. Good-bye."

Boots's salute was admirably formal; then he went on through the
thickening snow, swung vigorously across the Avenue to the Park-wall,
and, turning south, continued on parallel to it under the naked trees.

It must have been thick weather on the river and along the docks, for
the deep fog-horns sounded persistently over the city, and the haunted
warning of the sirens filled the leaden sky lowering through the white
veil descending in flakes that melted where they fell.

And, as Lansing strode on, hands deep in his overcoat, more than one
mystery was unravelling before his keen eyes that blinked and winked as
the clinging snow blotted his vision.

Now he began to under