not perceived the nature of her success, and was immensely supported by it. Her exhilaration was even more dreadful to him than the incomprehension he had been beating himself against all day.

"Milly," he said, "did I ever show you my mother's picture?"

"Is it that one in a leather frame on your bureau ?"

Again, was it possible he could be sensitive on so slight a point as that Milly should be already intimate with his personal belongings in her domestic capacity? "Yes," he said, with a sigh. Once he had compared this beautiful girl to Enid, who was so sweet and serviceable, and had sympathized with Geraint in his desire to "kiss the tender little thumb that crossed the trencher as she laid it down"; though as a matter of fact Milly's thumb was neither little nor tender, and she had been instructed by Mrs. Dansken never to let it cross the trencher.

"My mother was never anything but kind to any living soul, I believe. Do you think you could be fond of her, Milly? Have you looked at her face?"

"Yes," said Milly, listlessly. "She looks older," she hesitated,-" but that, maybe, is the way she's dressed."

66 The way she is dressed? Why, how should she be dressed?" Did Milly suppose his mother wore her hair in a fuzz on her forehead, like Mrs. Dansken, and dressed in nile-green silk? Then he remembered that the picture had been taken when she was in mourning. But it did not matter. He felt as if he should never speak of his mother again.

Milly was silent, feeling that she had missed the right words, as usual. She had not been thinking much of what she was saying. She had not got as far as Frank's mother yet. Frank saw she had sunk into that attitude of stolid watchfulness, with something reproachful in it, that all day had been his despair. Her triumph was cold. He looked at her, fair as she was, with a face of that simple but elusive type the masters felt for, with broad, soft touches, in palest chalks, on the margins of bolder conceptions; he thought of Andrea del Sarto, of Lydgate, of all the men who had wrecked their lives in such frail craft as this. He thought of that nameless youth who was surprised and stabbed as he stepped from a gondola after a night's delirious drifting-the youth who boasted that he had "lived." But he could not find the comfort of a prototype, either in romantic reality or in realistic romance. He was no Andrea, no Lydgate: he was not even a youth who had "lived"; he was merely the husband of Milly. As for the duel, it was the crowning act of this dreary little farcical

romance. He most certainly did not intend to hit Strode, and he doubted, on general principles, that Strode would be able to hit him, should the affair culminate in their pointing pistols at each other.

At a quarter to twelve Blashfield came to the door. "Strode will apologize," he said, "if you will give him a chance."

"I'll give him every chance when we get on the ground."

"He is downstairs now. He has come to himself. There's no sense in this meeting, you know."

"What do you want of me? It's a quarter to twelve now. Let him meet me where he said he would and we will shake hands. No, I won't go downstairs, Blashfield. I shall punch his head if I do."

"Are you going to be reasonable?"

"I have been reasonable. Strode was tipsy. Let him say so, when the time comes, and ask my pardon. I'm not going to hunt him up.” "I'll bring him up here."

"Thank you, I've no use for him up here. Keep an eye on him, Blasshy, if you 're afraid he won't stay with it."

"He is n't my man."

"Keep with him all the same. I'll meet you at the barber's."

The quarter-hour was passed. Frank had said to Milly that he would have to go out for a few moments; it was the little engagement he had told her he would have to sit up for. He would tell her about it, and make her laugh, when he returned. He himself laughed as he kissed her.

He was leaving the hotel when he met Hugh Williams, beaming with outstretched hand.

"The dance lets out early to-night," he remarked pleasantly. "I did n't know Mrs. Dansken was at home till I stumbled over Blashfield."

Frank decided, after a look at Williams, that Blashfield had kept the meeting quiet.

"Well, how's everything since I've been away? I've been asleep for two hours. Mrs. Dansken gave me some supper- and, by the way, I 'm mightily pleased that girl has gone." Williams had concluded to give Frank his "dose" while he could speak without apparent knowledge of all that had taken place in his absence, since it would never do to let Frank suppose he had been talked over. "What girl?"

"Come out here, Frank," said Williams; and when they were in the street he said, "You know who I mean- the Perfect Treasure. I met the partner of her brother. The brother turns out to be a husband. He was n't a particularly good one, it seems, and so she hedges a little and calls him—"

Frank clutched him by the shoulders. "Stop!" he panted, "you are talking about my wife."

The two men reeled apart and stared at each other.

"Curses on it, why did n't you tell me?" "Why did you open on me, before I could speak? Out with it now, to the last word!" "I have nothing to say about your wife, Frank."

“I'll have it out of you, I say."

Blashfield, who had been waiting for his principal, caught sight of him and joined them. He gripped him by the elbow. "Do you know what time it is?" he suggested.

"I'll be with you in a moment, Blashfield; I want to speak with Williams-I'll be around."

Blashfield gave his arm another squeeze and ran off to the rendezvous.

"Frank," said Williams, "I can't take those words back, but you should allow for my ignorance. I've been gone a thousand years, it seems."

"You can say you believe me when I tell you those words are false."

Williams did not speak.

"Your silence, do you know, is insulting." "I have nothing to say about your wife, Frank," Williams repeated, "except that she is a very handsome girl and I hope you will be happy."

"It is kind of you to mention her beauty." "I think we had better not talk any more to-night. There's all to-morrow, you know." "I have no desire to talk, but I think there is something more for you to say.”

"What is it?"

"You will finish what you began to tell me, and then you will say whether you believe it is true."

"What does it matter what I believe? Go to your wife and find out the truth."

"Go to my wife, and ask her if she has had a child?"

"God help you, Frank. Go to her and learn to know your wife; and be thankful, whatever she is, that she is no worse. You 've got to know the truth, sooner or later. It's all over the camp to-night."

"What is the truth?"

"Go to her, man. Don't ask me. For God's sake, am I to tell you she has been a mother; that her child was born at the hospital; that its father deserted her before it was born? I'd have kept it from you with my life, but I told Mrs. Dansken two hours ago, before she went to the ball. It's all over the town by now, God forgive me!"

Frank could not have been sure that he heard the last words of his friend, or that he was the man who was being led up and down the street, brokenly, like one intoxicated or asleep.

The rage had all gone out of him, the flame that had driven him for the past five days, since the evening he was published before the household. In its place was a light-headed calmness, in which he could think of Milly with a strange indifference.

"Have you got any money about you ?” were the first words he said.

"Any money?" said Williams. “Do you want money to-night?

"Too late to desert her? She's been deserted once, you say?

Williams groaned, and they resumed their aimless walk.

"Did you say you had n't any money in your clothes?"

"I've got two dollars and a half."

"Don't get excited," said Frank; "I'm not out of my head. I'm going upstairs a moment. You need n't follow me. Can't a man speak to his wife?"

He went up swiftly to the door of his room. There was something he had yet to do; it was rather a crazy thought, but it chimed in with his fancy that he must not be ungentlemanly, whatever he meant by that. He stood a moment, listening by the door. The room was quiet. Could she be asleep on her wedding night-his bride without a history; the girl who within the year had suffered, in poverty and desertion, the agony of motherhood; who had buried her child; who had waltzed in his arms that night, a spectacle — how had he paraded his shame! This was why the ladies had retreated and the men had staid, those who were suited to the company of his bride. He prayed that she might be asleep.

Milly had been lying dressed and awake on the bed, when she first heard her husband's

step and knew that the moment she had been drifting upon had come, and that she must meet it, at last, with her lamp unlighted and the darkness of falsehood in her soul. She wondered if it might be possible for her to speak even now; but as Frank approached the bed the instinct of dread alone prevailed, and she lay still, scarcely breathing, and trembling like a hare in its form.

He stooped over her and thought that she slept; but with that horrible weak yet heavy beating of the heart going on inside his breast he would not have known if it had been death he looked upon, instead of sleep. In the hollow of her arm that was nearest him he deposited all the gold and silver he could find in his pockets, softly, one piece laid against another, not to waken the sleeper. He did not despoil himself further. His watch and the ornaments that completed his dress he kept upon his person. He looked at her once more, her face turned away from the little heaps of coin gleaming against the whiteness of her arm. The sight smote him, and yet what more did he owe her now?

Williams watched him as he came through the office. He stopped at the bar and asked for a glass of brandy; he drank it and then went over to the desk and spoke to the clerk, saying something about feeling the brandy in his head. His behavior struck Williams as simply idiotic under the circumstances, unless the boy had some purpose in making a fool of himself. He caught sight of Williams and smiled in a way that did not allay his friend's uneasiness. Hugh took him by the arm and said, speaking low as they stood by the door together:

"This is n't fair to her, Frank. You ought to give her a chance to explain."

"She can't explain now," said Frank, lightly. "She's asleep. And I have an engagement. Will you go up there and wait till I come back? The room is the one opposite the ladies' parlor. Stay round where you can hear her if she calls."

"Where in the world are you going? I don't like your engagement, at 12 o'clock at night." "A man can't help his engagements," said Frank. "You heard me promise Blasshy I'd be there. You were pretty rough on her, Hugh. You owe her a good turn. And if your friend's wife is n't all you'd like her to be, is that any reason you should n't stand by her?"

"I should prefer, just now, to stand by you." "So you will, if you 'll just wait, you know. Wait up there till I get back."

"Go on, then; I will wait: and don't be out all night."

Frank smiled back at his friend with that wretched, inconsequent smile.

Hugh was still uneasy, but the fact that Blashfield was concerned with Frank's engagement comforted him somewhat: his friend could not have any very desperate or tragic intentions, with Blasshy in tow.

The ladies' parlor was empty, but Williams was too restless to compose himself to solitary contemplation of its splendors. He walked the length of the hall, back and forth, pausing once at Milly's door when he thought he heard a sound of weeping. "Poor little fool," he said to himself, "I could be sorry for her if it was n't for Frank- - his life spoiled at twenty-four." He stood in one spot in the middle of the hall for some moments, thinking of his friend's future.

"And what is he up to now, I wonder?" He looked at his watch and saw that Frank had been gone three-quarters of an hour.

A window at the lower end of the hall was open and the wind blew harshly in, making the lamps flicker. He stepped down the hall to close it, and as the keen night air crossed his face he heard the report of a pistol. He went to the window and looked out. It was a high window, opening on the narrow fenced alley between the hotel kitchen and the open lot behind. The alley was lighted for a short distance by the lamps of late workers in the kitchen; beyond, as far as he could see in the direction of the shot, all was dark.

Williams found the door of a back stairway and ran down to a rear entrance opening upon the fenced passage. One or two of the hotel servants-there were but few up at that hour

stood bareheaded in the alley, in the light from the hot kitchen, staring into the blackness of the lot.

"What is it?" Williams asked.

"Some young fellows went past here a while back," one of the waiters said, peering ahead of him. "I do' know what they 're up to."

Williams crowded by him and met Blashfield, a few steps farther on, running, his face towards the light.

"Who is hurt?" asked Williams, seeing that something was wrong. "Embury."

"How-who did it ?"

Blashfield did not answer, but ran on. He gave money to one of the waiters, who disappeared and took himself the nearest way into the street.

Williams ran blindly forward towards a spot of light near the rear fence of the lot. There were figures moving against it; those nearest the light were motionless, but one was moving back and forth in a curious trot. A few steps brought Williams near enough to see that it was Strode, still in evening dress except that he had changed his coat for a reefing-jacket.

He grasped Williams by the hand and began a childish babbling. Hugh could not shake him off; he ran beside him talking excitedly.

"I thought you were the sheriff. I'm waiting to give myself up; but the boys will tell you, Williams, I never meant to fight. I had n't a thing against him. I offered to apologize. I was n't even heeled. The boys will tell you one of 'em had to lend me a pistol; I had n't a weapon on me."

"Let go of me, Strode. Where is he?" "I'm taking you there. He was bound to have the thing come off. You can ask the boys if I could help myself. I don't know how I came to hit him. I never meant to do it. And he never fired a shot. His pistol was cold. I think he was drunk, Williams, or else he 's off his head. Why, good Lord, it was nothing-what I said."

The figures by the spot of light moved aside and showed one that lay on the snow, in an angle of the fence, sheltered from the wind. A lantern at his feet shone upward upon his blanched hands and chin and throat.

"How are you now, Embury?" asked Strode, pressing up. "You ain't much hurt, are you?" Hugh put him aside. "Where is it, Frank?" he said. "Are you bleeding much?"

Frank groaned as Hugh passed his hand over the soaked clothing, feeling for the wound. "It was the brandy," he muttered. "You saw me take it, Hugh. Went to my head like-keep them off a minute," he whispered. "Has Blashfield gone for a doctor?" Hugh inquired.

"Yes," he was told. "We thought we had n't better move him."

“Well, step away, boys, a moment, will you? O Frank, I could curse myself to death, if that would save you!"

"I've got what I wanted. You'll hush up the talk, Hugh? Let them think it was the brandy- went to my head," he murmured wanderingly.

"Is there anything else, dear boy? You'll get a chill lying here."

"No I wanted to tell you-I 've got what I wanted," Frank repeated dreamily. "You must not think-that you-" He sighed, and gave up the effort to explain. "It was not happy," he whispered, trying to fix his eyes upon his friend's face. They could not hold the look; the meaning faded out of them, and he spoke no more.

"We must get him in," said Hugh. They laid him on an overcoat stretched upon the snow and carried him in, past the lights of the kitchen, by the servants' entrance.

"Not upstairs," Hugh whispered. They turned into the dining-room, where the tables were set in order again for the morning,

and laid him on the floor with a pile of cheap quilts from one of the waiter's beds under him.

The doctor had gone, commanding that Frank should not be moved, his slender chance for life depending on absolute quiet. It was a Leadville night, wind and sharp volleys of sleet succeeding the early hours of still darkness. From time to time the watchman came in and put coal noiselessly, with his mittened hands, upon the fire.

Frank had not spoken since his fainting-fit when they carried him in. Towards morning he opened his eyes and turned them upon Hugh, with that look which those who have watched by the dying recognize as the approach of the final change-the look that obliterates personality, that makes the young face old and the old face young. Hugh saw that he wished to speak. He gave him the stimulant the doctor had ordered in case of a return to consciousness, and waited for its effect.

"Could you go up softly, before she wakes, and take that money away?" Frank whispered. Hugh thought that he was wandering. Presently he said, quite collectedly, "When you take me home, tell them everything. Perhaps they will not mind, if they know - I got what I wanted."

"Oh, my dear boy, was there no way out of it but this?"

"Not for me the murmured.

of the foolish," he

way But at the last the smile that dawned upon the still face was an awesome sight to see. Williams thought, as he dwelt and dwelt upon it, and tried to strengthen his faith and ease his pain by gazing, that if Frank's father and mother could but see that look, there must have been consolation, even for them, in that marvelous light shed by the unknown upon this wreck of the known.

When the smile, with its silent protest against grieving, had been put away out of sight, Hugh's pain returned; he saw all the wasted moments of retrieval, all the turning-points that had been hurried past.

Mrs. Dansken showed him a letter she had written to Frank's mother, bitterly accusing herself and giving minute details.

"You have n't said anything about what I did," said Hugh, when he had read the letter. "You did nothing that I was not responsible for."

"You can't tell the whole truth about this matter, Mrs. Dansken. Better leave it alone. I will tell them all that he wanted them to know."

"But they will never know his provocation." "They know their own boy- and would it comfort them to think we had muddled his

THERE have been dancers and dancing on the floor of the Clarendon dining-room since the night of Milly's début, but very few of the original Assembly ever appeared there again in pursuit of pleasure.

There was one corner of the room, over against the bench where Milly had sat at bay, that was haunted for those who helped to lay the young bridegroom there upon the floor, as it might have been, at her feet. Milly herself never entered the room again, nor willingly looked in the face of one of those who witnessed her entrance and her exit there. Six months after that evening the household at No. 9 had dispersed, and knew each other no more except by hearsay.

Blashfield continued on his amiable career westward until he reached Honolulu, where he married an heiress of the island, with a shade, it is said, of the liberally disseminated blood of the royal family in her veins. She is reported to be a beautiful woman, with a yard or more of darkest brown hair and a constitutional leaning towards the wearing of wrappers in the afternoon.

Mrs. Dansken continued to make Hugh Williams the confidant of her grief and repentance for the miscarriage of her relations with Embury, but in respect to Milly she could never be brought to accuse herself except for the fact of the girl's presence in the house. With no audience to applaud, Hugh ceased to try to make points against her in conversation. Before a year had passed he was the sole boarder at No. 9, and this time the arrangement was a permanent and exclusive one. Mrs. Dansken was a few years older than her philosophical husband, but his was the elder temperament. Hugh had parted with his best hopes, in the way of marriage, some time before he made the acquaintance of his Leadville landlady: he had always liked the merry, capable, honest little woman; he used to feel her wearinesses, her mistakes, and humiliations almost as if they had been his own; he did not mind her sharp tongue or her rowdy little ways,

and she made him, he believed, a better comrade in his wandering Western life than a delicately bred, supersensitive, romantic girl from the more carefully weeded ranks of society. But it was long since he had known any girl of this sort, and his ideas on the subject were somewhat vague.

Strode went to New Mexico, where the story of his having killed his man in a duel after a Leadville dance had preceded him, and won for him prestige of a kind he did not covet under the circumstances. He never had occasion to confirm the report which described him as a dead-shot and a dangerous man in a quarrel.

Milly went to live with Mrs. Black, who, with her gift for discerning what was best in those around her, discovered that Milly was "a born sick-nurse"-of the capable and restful, rather than the intuitive, kind. There was plenty of employment outside of the hospitals for Milly's powers during the succeeding season at the camp. Sometimes it was the mother of a young babe at some crazy cabin on a claim that the father was "holding down," perhaps with barricade and shotgun; sometimes a houseful of little children prostrated by an epidemic. Once it was a traveler overtaken at his hotel-a big stockraiser from Montana, in beaver overcoat and diamond pin, who perforce upon his recovery presented his pretty nurse with the life he was pleased to owe to her services. What Milly did with the gift, after she went back with him to his cattle-ranch, is not known. Mrs. Black was glad to have the girl off her mind, she said. "For a girl as pretty as that, who has n't learned to say either yes or no, is n't safe to have around in a place where there are so many men folks."

But