he alley outside the stage door.

"I'm going to catch the ten-twenty," said Butler, jamming his hat down
firmly.

"Ain't you going to see the last act?" demanded the other, dismayed.

Butler lifted his right hand to heaven, and, shaking it the better to
express the intensity of his declaration, remarked:--

"I hope somebody will kick me all over town if I'm ever caught being
such a damned fool as this again. I honestly hope it! I've been made
ridiculous--a blithering fool! Why, you--you----" He paused in his
rage, a sudden wave of pity assailing him. "By George, I can't help
feeling sorry for you! Good-night."

Harvey hurried after him.

"I guess I'll take it, too. That gets us out at eleven-thirty. We can
get a bite to eat in the station, I guess."

He had to almost trot to keep pace with Butler crossing to the Grand
Central. Seated side by side in the train, and after he had recovered
his breath a bit, he said:--

"Confound it, I forgot to ask Nellie if it will be wise for her to
come out on Sunday. The heart's a mighty bad thing, Butler."

"It certainly is," said Butler, with unction.

At the station in Tarrytown he said "Good-night" very gruffly and
hurried off to jump into the only cab at the platform. He had heard
all about Blakeville and the wild life Harvey had led there, and he
was mad enough to fight.

"Good-night, Mr. Butler," said Harvey, as the hack drove off.

He walked up the hill.

CHAPTER III

MR. FAIRFAX

He found the nursemaid up and waiting for him. Phoebe had a "dreadful
throat" and a high temperature. It had come on very suddenly, it
seems, and if Annie's memory served her right it was just the way
diphtheria began. The little girl had been thrashing about in the bed
and whimpering for "daddy" since eight o'clock. His heart sank like
lead, to a far deeper level than it had dropped with the base
desertion of Butler. Filled with remorse, he ran upstairs without
taking off his hat or overcoat. The feeling of resentment toward
Butler was lost in this new, overpowering sense of dread; the
discovery of his own lamentable unfitness for "high life" expeditions
faded into nothingness in the face of this possible catastrophe. What
if Phoebe were to die? He would be to blame. He remembered feeling
that he should not have left her that evening. It had been a
premonition, and this was to be the price of his folly.

At three in the morning he went over to rouse the doctor, all the ti