dy speculating, manoeuvring, and taking sides. Who would be the
new Captain-general? Who would be strong enough to suppress the straining
ambitions of the many that the Empire might continue to flourish in its
integrity and gather tribute? It is the world-old cry around the palace
walls: Long live the new ruler--if you can find him among the curdling
factions.

They carried Hilary home that September night, when Sawanec was like a
gray ghost-mountain facing the waning moon, back to the home of those
strange, Renaissance Austens which he had reclaimed for a grim
puritanism, and laid him in the carved and canopied bedstead Channing
Austen had brought from Spain. Euphrasia had met them at the door, but a
trained nurse from the Ripton hospital was likewise in waiting; and a New
York specialist had been summoned to prolong, if possible, the life of
one from whom all desire for life had passed.

Before sunrise a wind came from the northern spruces; the dawn was
cloudless, fiery red, and the air had an autumn sharpness. At ten o'clock
Dr. Harmon arrived, was met at the station by Austen, and spent half an
hour with Dr. Tredway. At noon the examination was complete. Thanks to
generations of self-denial by the Vanes of Camden Street, Mr. Hilary Vane
might live indefinitely, might even recover, partially; but at present he
was condemned to remain, with his memories, in the great canopied bed.

The Honourable Hilary had had another caller that morning besides Dr.
Harmon,--no less a personage than the president of the Northeastern
Railroads himself, who had driven down from Fairview immediately after
breakfast. Austen having gone to the station, Dr. Tredway had received
Mr. Flint in the darkened hall, and had promised to telephone to Fairview
the verdict of the specialist. At present Dr. Tredway did not think it
wise to inform Hilary of Mr. Flint's visit--not, at least, until after
the examination.

Mr. Vane exhibited the same silent stoicism on receiving the verdict of
Dr. Harmon as he had shown from the first. With the clew to Hilary's life
which Dr. Tredway had given him, the New York physician understood the
case; one common enough in his practice in a great city where the fittest
survive--sometimes only to succumb to unexpected and irreparable blows in
the evening of life.

On his return from seeing Dr. Harmon off Austen was met on the porch by
Dr. Tredway.

"Your father has something on his mind," said the doctor, "and