the sleep
of utter exhaustion, lay Stanley Armstrong. Time and again the boy's
heart and conscience had rebuked him for the estrangement that had arisen
between him and this man who had proved his best friend. Time and again
he had promised himself that he would strive to win back that friendship;
but well he knew that first he must reinstate himself in Armstrong's
respect; and how could he hope for that so long as he surrendered to the
fascinations that kept him dangling about the dainty skirts of Witchie
Garrison? Oddly enough the boy had hardly bothered his head with any
thought of what Frank Garrison might think of his attentions or
devotions, whatever they could be called, to this very captivating and
capricious helpmate. When a husband is so overwhelmed with other cares or
considerations that he never sees his wife from morn till night, society
seems to correspondingly lose sight of him. Down in the depths of his
heart the boy was ashamed of himself. He never heard Armstrong mentioned
that he did not wince. He knew and she knew that, coming suddenly upon
them as Armstrong had that tropic night on the Queen, he must have heard
her words, must have realized that some compact or understanding existed
between them, which neither Gray nor Mrs. Frank could palliate or
explain. It had not needed that episode to tell her that Armstrong held
her in contempt; and yet, when they chanced to meet, she could smile up
into his eyes as beamingly, as guilelessly, as though no shadow of sin
had ever darkened her winsome face. But not so Gray. He moaned in secret
over the loss of a strong man's confidence and esteem. He longed to find
a way to win it back. He had even thought to go to the colonel with his
trouble, make a clean breast of it, tell him the truth--that he had
fallen deeply, as it was possible for him to fall, in love with Amy
Lawrence; had hoped his love was returned; had found it was not--that she
had only a frank, friendly, kindly interest in him; and that, wounded and
stung, he had fretted himself into a fever at Honolulu, aided by Canker's
aspersions, and then--well--any man is liable, said Billy to himself, to
get smitten with a woman who tenderly and skillfully nurses him day after
day; and that's just what Witchie Garrison did. But somehow the
opportunity to tell him never seemed to come; and now, now that Armstrong
and himself were thus thrown together with the prospect of being in the
same room day and night for