icance. What he wanted was to catch the
secret sigh, the muttered word, the involuntary movement. He was too far
removed from this man still.

How should he manage to get nearer him--at the door of his mind--of
his heart? Sweetwater stared all night from his miserable cot into the
darkness of that separating closet, and with no result. His task looked
hopeless; no wonder that he could get no rest.

Next morning he felt ill, but he rose all the same, and tried to get
his own breakfast. He had but partially succeeded and was sitting on
the edge of his bed in wretched discomfort, when the very man he was
thinking of appeared at his door.

"I've come to see how you are," said Brotherson. "I noticed that you did
not look well last night. Won't you come in and share my pot of coffee?"

"I--I can't eat," mumbled Sweetwater, for once in his life thrown
completely off his balance. "You're very kind, but I'll manage all
right. I'd rather. I'm not quite dressed, you see, and I must get to
the shop." Then he thought--"What an opportunity I'm losing. Have I
any right to turn tail because he plays his game from the outset with
trumps? No, I've a small trump somewhere about me to lay on this trick.
It isn't an ace, but it'll show I'm not chicane." And smiling, though
not with his usual cheerfulness, Sweetwater added, "Is the coffee all
made? I might take a drop of that. But you mustn't ask me to eat--I just
couldn't."

"Yes, the coffee is made and it isn't bad either. You'd better put on
your coat; the hall's draughty." And waiting till Sweetwater did so, he
led the way back to his own room. Brotherson's manner expressed perfect
ease, Sweetwater's not. He knew himself changed in looks, in bearing, in
feeling, even; but was he changed enough to deceive this man on the very
spot where they had confronted each other a few days before in a keen
moral struggle? The looking-glass he passed on his way to the table
where the simple breakfast was spread out, showed him a figure so unlike
the alert, business-like chap he had been that night, that he felt
his old assurance revive in time to ease a situation which had no
counterpart in his experience.

"I'm going out myself to-day, so we'll have to hurry a bit," was
Brotherson's first remark as they seated themselves at table. "Do you
like your coffee plain or with milk in it?"

"Plain. Gosh! what pictures! Where do you get 'em? You must have a lot
of coin." Sweetwater was staring at the