ength, and he was
wroth to see him lose all interest unaccountably.

"Ten and a string against your half a string," said Hillard, studying
the score. "I'll bet a bottle that I beat you."

"Done!" said Merrihew. Being on his mettle, he made a clean score of
twenty, five to go. "I can see you paying for that check, Jack."

But the odds tingled Hillard's blood. He settled down to a brilliant
play and turned sixty-one in beautiful form. There were several shots
which caused Merrihew to gasp.

"Well, it's worth the price of the bottle. If only you had had that eye
last night! We'll have the bottle in the alcove at the head of the
stairs. I want to talk to you."

So the two passed up-stairs to the secluded alcove, and the bottle
shortly followed. Merrihew filled the glasses with the air of one who
would like to pass the remainder of his days doing the same thing. Not
that he was overfond; but each bottle temporarily weeded out that crop
of imperishable debts, that Molochian thousand, that Atalanta whose
speed he could not overtake, having no golden apples. To him the world
grew roseate and kindly, viewed through the press of the sparkling
grape, and invariably he saw fortune beckoning to the card-tables.

"Now, then, Jack, I've got you where I want you. Who is she?"

"On my word, I don't know," answered Hillard, stirring restlessly.

"Then there is a woman!" cried Merrihew, astonished at his perspicacity.
"I knew it. Nothing else would so demoralize your nerve. Shall we drink
a health to her?"

Hillard raised his glass and touched that of his comrade. For the good
of his soul and the peace of his mind, he then and there determined to
tell Merrihew the whole adventure, without a single reservation.

"To the Lady in the Fog!" he said.

"Fog?" blankly.

"Well, the Lady in the Mask."

"Fog, mask? Two of them?"

"No, only one. Once I met her in the fog, and then I met her in the
mask."

"I'll drink to her; but I'm hanged if I don't believe you're codding
me," said Merrihew disappointedly. "This is New York."

"I know it; and yet sometimes I doubt it. Here's to the lady."

They drank. Hillard set down his glass; Merrihew refilled his.

"The whole story, Jack, details and all; no half-portions."

Hillard told the yarn simply, omitting nothing essential. He even added
that for three weeks he had been the author of the personal inquiry as
to the whereabouts of one Madame Angot. More than that, he was the
guilty