ridget," he whispered. "Into my room. Be quick!" He
retreated. He would employ her aid and swear her to secrecy. The Irish
know a great deal about fighting, he reflected.

"In the name av Hivvin, sor, what has happened to yez?" whispered
Bridget, aghast in the doorway.

"Come in and I'll tell you," said he, with a groan.

Presently a childish voice came clamouring at the locked door. He
heard it as from afar. Bridget paused in her ministrations. He had
just said:--

"I will take boxing lessons and physical culture of your brother,
Bridget. You think he can build me up? I know I'm a bit run down. No
exercise, you know. Still, I believe I would have thrashed him to a
frazzle if I hadn't stumbled. That was when he kicked me here. I got
this falling against the table."

"Yis, sor," said Bridget, dutifully.

In response to the pounding on the door, he called out, bravely:--

"You can't come in now, Phoebe. Papa has hurt himself a little bit.
I'll come out soon."

"I got my Sunday dress on, daddy," cried the childish voice. "And I'm
all spruced up. Has the nice gentleman gone away?"

His head sank into his hands.

"Yes, dearie, he's gone," he replied, in muffled tones.

CHAPTER IV

LUNCHEON

For several days, he moped about the house, not even venturing upon
the porch, his face a sight to behold. His spirits were lower than
they had been in all his life. The unmerciful beating he had sustained
at the hands of Fairfax was not the sole cause of his depression. As
the consequences of that pummelling subsided, the conditions which led
up to it forced themselves upon him with such horrifying immensity
that he fairly staggered under them.

It slowly dawned on him that there was something very sinister in
Fairfax's visit, something terrible. Nellie's protracted stay in town,
her strange neglect of Phoebe, to say nothing of himself, the presence
of Fairfax in her dressing-room that night, and a great many
circumstances which came plainly to mind, now that he considered them
worth while noticing, all went a long way toward justifying Fairfax in
coming to him with the base proposition that had resulted so seriously
to his countenance.

Nellie was tired of him! He did not belong to her world. That was the
sum and substance of it. As he dropped out of her world, some one else
quite naturally rose to fill the void. That person was Fairfax. The
big man had said that she wanted a separation, she wanted to provide