very,
and here in the Rhode Island town they had recognized him first. They
had no intention of relinquishing that distinction which goes with the
first clear heralding of a rising genius.

As Eben Tollman read these details in cold type, each note of their
eulogium scorched a nerve of his own jealous antipathy. Of course,
Conscience would take all this flattery, spread before her lover, as a
mark of genuine merit--as the conqueror's cloth of gold. It seemed that
he himself had succeeded in bringing Stuart on the scene only that the
woman might smell the incense being burned in his honor.

But Eben regulated his features into a calm and indulgent smile as the
two of them came across the clipped lawn.

They made a splendid pair with the sun shining on their wet shoulders;
the woman's neck and arms gleaming softly with the tint of browned
ivory; the man's tanned and strong over rippling muscles. Their drenched
bathing suits emphasized the delicacy of her rounded curves, and his
almost Hellenic fitness of body.

"I've been reading what the critics say, and my congratulations are
ready," announced the elder man calmly with a semblance of sincerity.
"It would appear that last night was a triumph."

For the next few days Stuart Farquaharson surrendered himself to the
_dolce far niente_ of salt air and sun and the joy of their reviving
influences. All contingent dangers he was satisfied to leave to the
future.

There was a new and spontaneous gayety in the woman's manner, but the
Virginian did not know that it was new. Eben Tollman, however, marked
the contrast and was at no loss in attributing it to its fancied cause.
He gave no thought to the truth that she was splendidly striving to keep
flying at the mast-head of her life the colors of artificial success.

So each in his own way, Eben and Stuart were deceived by Conscience, one
believing her indubitably guilty and the other thinking her
unquestionably happy.

In the elder man a ferment of bitterness was working toward the ends of
deranged deviltry--and its influence was all secret so that its tincture
of insanity left no mark upon his open behavior.

The difficulty of maintaining a surface guise of friendliness toward the
man whom he believed to be successfully wrecking his home might have
appeared insuperable. In point of the actual it was made easy--even a
thing of zest--by virtue of a lapse into that moral degeneracy which was
no longer sane. The growth of cr