utraged heaven, and he, Eben Tollman, in
whom every feeling of the heart had turned to the gall of hatred, would
hurl the bolt.

But when he appeared at the breakfast table the next morning he brought
the only untroubled face to be seen there.

"I am going to New York this afternoon," announced Stuart somewhat
bluntly, and Eben looked quickly up, frankly surprised.

"Running down for a day or two? You'll be back, of course?" he inquired,
and the guest shook his head.

"No. I sha'n't be back at all."

"But your Broadway opening doesn't take place until October? Didn't you
tell us that?"

"Perhaps. I'm not going on that account."

"Then why not finish out your vacation?"

"I have finished it."

The host looked at his guest and read in his eyes a defiant dislike and
a repressed ferocity, but he chose to ignore it. The long-fostered
urbanity of his make-believe must last a little longer. But at that
moment Stuart's eyes met those of Conscience and he acknowledged a sense
of chagrin.

After all, he was leaving to-day and whatever his feelings, he had so
far been outwardly the beneficiary of Tollman's hospitality. Nothing was
to be gained, except a sort of churlish satisfaction, by assuming at the
eleventh hour a blunt and open hostility of manner.

"I'm sorry," suggested Tollman evenly. "I had hoped that we might have
you with us longer. You have brought a certain animation to the
uneventfulness of our life here."

Stuart changed his manner with an effort.

"Thank you," he replied. "But I've already over-stayed the time I had
allowed myself for a vacation. There are many neglected things to be
taken up and finished."

"You hadn't spoken of leaving us before." The regret in Tollman's voice
was sincere, because it was the regret of a trapper who sees game
slipping away from the snare, and it made him perhaps a shade over
insistent. "Do you really regard it as so important?"

For just an instant a gleam of anger showed in the visitor's eyes under
this questioning, and his glance, leveled straight at his host, was that
of a man who would prefer open combat to veiled hostility.

"Not only important," he corrected, "but vital."

"Of course, in that event," murmured Mr. Tollman, "there is nothing more
to say."

But an hour later as Conscience and Farquaharson sat on the terrace,
somewhat silent and constrained, Eben joined them with a deeply troubled
face.

"I've just come from the telephone," he announced