Mr. Bultiwell, for instance, had tried to deceive his
friend and had been found out, I imagine it is only fair that he
should have heard the truth."

"He must have been told it in a cruel way, though, or he would never
have committed suicide," the girl persisted. "I am quite sure that you
couldn't do anything in a cruel way, Mr. Pratt."

"I am going to be cruel to myself, at any rate," Jacob replied, "and
go over and start those foursomes."

Jacob rose to his feet. The girl's look of disappointment was so
ingenuous that he turned back to her.

"Won't you come with me, Miss Haslem?" he invited.

She sprang up and walked gladly by his side, chattering away as they
stood on a slight eminence overlooking the first tee, using all the
simple and justifiable weapons in her little armoury of charms to win
a smile and a little notice, perhaps even a later thought from the
great man of the day whose wealth alone made him seem almost like a
hero of romance. She was a pleasant-faced girl, with clear brown
eyes and masses of hair brushed back from her forehead and left
unhandicapped by any headgear to dazzle the eye of the beholder. Her
blouse was cut a little low, but the writer of the young ladies'
journal, who had sent her the pattern, had assured her that it was no
lower than fashion permitted. Her white skirt was a little short, and
her stockings were very nearly silk. She was twenty-two years old,
fairly modest, moderately truthful, respectably brought up, but she
was the eldest of four, and she would have fallen at Jacob's feet and
kissed the ground beneath them for a sign of his favour. Jacob, with
the echoes of that tragic story still in his ears, wondered, as he
stood with his hands behind his back, whether in those few minutes,
when he had taken his meed of revenge, he had indeed raised up a ghost
which was to follow him through life. More than anything in the world,
what he wanted besides the good-fellowship of other men was the love
and companionship of a wife. Was his to be the dream of Tantalus?
Here, young womanhood of his own class, eager, sufficiently comely,
stood striving to weave the spell of her sex upon him, with a lack of
success which was almost pitiable. It was the selective instinct with
which he was cursed. Something had even gone from the sad pleasure
with which he used to be able to conjure up pictures of Sybil. It was
almost as though the thought of her had ceased to attract him, and
with the pa