rface only."

"Mine is the critical judgment of one who has studied him intimately,"
Aynesworth said. "Yours is the sentimental hope of one fascinated by
what she does not understand. Wingrave is utterly heartless!"

"That," she answered steadfastly, "I do not believe."

"You do not because you will not," he declared. "I have spoken because
I wish to save you from doing what you would repent of for the rest of
your days. You have the one vanity which is common to all women. You
believe that you can change what, believe me, is unchangeable. To
Wingrave, women are less than playthings. He owes the unhappiness of
his life to one, and he would see the whole of her sex suffer without
emotion. He is impregnable to sentiment. Ask him and I believe that he
would admit it!"

She smiled and regarded him with the mild pity of superior knowledge.

"You do not understand Mr. Wingrave," she remarked.

Aynesworth sighed. He realized that every word he had spoken had been
wasted upon this pale, pretty woman, who sat with her eyes now turned
seawards, and the smile still lingering upon her lips. Studying her
for a moment, he realized the danger more acutely than ever before. The
fretfulness seemed to have gone from her face, the weary lines from her
mouth. She had the look of a woman who has come into the knowledge of
better things. And it was Wingrave who had done this! Aynesworth for the
first time frankly hated the man. Once, as a boy, he had seen a keeper
take a rabbit from a trap and dash its brains out against a tree. The
incident flashed then into his mind, only the face of the keeper was the
face of Wingrave!

"DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST"

Wingrave and Aynesworth were alone in a private room of the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel. The table at which the former was seated was covered with
letters and papers. A New York directory and an atlas were at his elbow.

"I propose," Wingrave said, leaning back in his chair, "to give you
some idea of the nature of my business in this country. You will be able
then, I trust, to carry out my instructions more intelligibly."

Aynesworth nodded.

"I thought," he said, "that you came here simply to remain in seclusion
for a time."

"That is one of my reasons," Wingrave admitted, "but I had a special
purpose in coming to America. During my--enforced seclusion--I made the
acquaintance of a man called Hardwell. He was an Englishman, but he
had lived in America for some years, and had got in