rd and gown and Hillard as an old graduate, renewing his youth
at the fountains. What drew them together, perhaps more than anything
else, was their mutual love of out-door pleasures. Their first meeting
was followed by many hunting and fishing expeditions, and many long
rides on horseback. Take two men and put them on good horses, send them
forth into the wilds to face all conditions of weather and
inconveniences, and if they are not fast friends at the end of the
journey, rest assured that they never will be.

For all his aversion to cards, there was a bit of the gamester in
Hillard; as, once in his office, he decided on the fall of a coin not to
withdraw his personal from the paper. He was quite positive that he
would never hear that Voice again, but having thrown his dice he would
let them lie.

Now, at eleven o'clock that same morning two distinguished Italians sat
down to breakfast in one of the fashionable hotels. The one nor the
other had ever heard of Hillard, they did not even know that such a
person existed; and yet, serenely unconscious, one was casting his
life-line, as the palmist would say, across Hillard's. The knots and
tangles were to come later.

"The coffee in this country is abominable!" growled one.

"Insufferable!" assented his companion.

The waiter smiled covertly behind his hand. He had a smattering of all
tongues, being foreign born. These Italians and these Germans! Why,
there is only one place in the world where both the aroma and the flavor
of coffee are preserved; and it is not, decidedly not, in Italy or
Germany. And if his tip exceeded ten cents, he would be vastly
surprised. The Italian is always the same, prince or peasant. He never
wastes on necessities a penny which can be applied to the gaming-tables.
And these two were talking about Monte Carlo and Ostend and the German
_Kursaalen_.

The younger of the two was a very handsome man, tall, slender and
nervous, the Venetian type. His black eyes were keen and energetic and
roving, suggesting a temper less calculating than hasty. The mouth,
partly hidden under a graceful military mustache, was thin-lipped, the
mouth of a man who, however great his vices, was always master of them.
From his right cheek-bone to the corner of his mouth ran a scar, very
well healed. Instead of detracting from the beauty of his face it added
a peculiar fascination. And the American imagination, always receptive
of the romantic, might readily and forgiv