yn to a frenzy of excitement; his disjointed, despairing
exclamations, in annotation, as it were, of the story, disclosed his
own discovery of the oil, his endeavors to secure the opinion of an
expert as to its value, his efforts to buy up the land, his reasons
for opposing the premature opening of a road which might reveal the
presence of the oil springs, when the law discriminating in favor of
oil works and similar interests would later make the way thither a
public thoroughfare at all events. He cried out upon his hard fate,
when money might mean life to him; upon the bitter dispensation of the
mysterious kindling of those hidden secluded waters to blazon his
secret to the world, to enrich others through his discovery which
should have made him so rich.

The dry, spare tone of the physician interrupted,--a trite phrase
interdicting agitation.

"Why, doctor," said Selwyn, suddenly comprehending, "you think my
present wealth will last out my time!"

Once more the physician looked silently into the fire. He had seen a
great deal of dying, but he had lived a quiet ascetic life, which made
his sensibilities tender, and he did not get used to death. "I wish
you would stay with him, if you can," he said to Hanway at the outer
door. "It will be a very short time now."

It was even shorter than they thought. The snow, falling then, had not
disappeared from the earth when the picks of the grave-diggers cleft
through the clods in the secluded little mountain burying-ground. It
was easier work than they had anticipated, although the earth was
frozen; and the grave was almost prepared when they realized that the
ground had been broken before, and that here was the deserted
resting-place of the stranger who had come so far to see him. Hanway
remembered Selwyn's words, his aversion to the idea that the spot was
awaiting him, but the dark November day was closing in, the storm
clouds were gathering anew, so they left him there, and this time the
grave held its tenant fast.

X.

One day a letter was mailed in Colbury by an unknown hand, addressed
to Mrs. Persimmon Sneed and it fared deliberately by way of Sandford
Cross-Roads to its destination. It awoke there the wildest excitement
and delight, for although it brazenly asserted that Mr. Persimmon
Sneed was in the custody of the writer, and that he would be returned
safely to his home only upon the payment of one hundred dollars in a
mysterious manner described,--otherwise