ere burning, and in the dim, weird light, Mrs. LaGrange,
still elegantly attired for her interview with Harold Mainwaring,
lay upon the low couch near the grate, her features scarcely paler
than a few hours before, but now rigid in death. Upon the table
beside her, the supper ordered by the maid stood untasted, while
on the same table a small vial bearing the label of one of the
deadliest of poisons, but empty, told the story. Underneath the
vial was a slip of paper, on which was written,--

"I have staked my highest card--and lost! The game is done."

Terror-stricken, Hobson glanced about him, then pausing only long
enough to clutch some of the gleaming jewels from the inanimate
form, he stealthily withdrew, and, skulking unobserved along the
corridors, passed out into the darkness and was gone.

CHAPTER XXII

SECESSION IN THE RANKS

When Ralph Mainwaring and Mr. Whitney arrived at the club they found
young Mainwaring already awaiting them at their private table, but
it was far from a social group which sat down to dinner that evening.
The elder Mainwaring still preserved an ominous silence, and in his
dark, glowering face few would have recognized the urbane guest whom
Hugh Mainwaring had introduced to his small coterie of friends less
than three months before. The younger man, though holding a
desultory conversation with the attorney, yet looked decidedly
bored, while from time to time he regarded his father with a cynical
expression entirely new to his hitherto ingenuous face. Mr. Whitney,
always keenly alert to his surroundings, became quickly conscious
of a sudden lack of harmony between father and son, and feeling
himself in rather a delicate position, carefully refrained in his
remarks from touching upon any but the most neutral ground.

A couple of hours later, as the three with a box of cigars were
gathered around an open fire in Ralph Mainwaring's apartments, it
was noticeable that young Mainwaring was unusually silent. In a
few moments, however, his father's long pent-up wrath burst forth.

Addressing the attorney in no very pleasant tone, he demanded, "Well,
sir, what do you now propose to do about this matter?"

"It is to be a fight, then, is it?" Mr. Whitney asked with a smile,
knocking the ashes from his cigar.

"Yes, by my soul, and a fight to the finish. Understand, I will
have no time lost. This farce has got to be quashed at once, and
the sooner the better, so you may enter