ack as he stood there. He was face to face again with
the tragic mystery which had seemed to end in utter silence. The man
turned his face so that it was plainly to be seen--sallow, rugged, harsh
in line. The same face, though older, and perhaps less tragic--the face
of the man he had left alone in the awful, desolate stillness of the
empty room.

The next moment he turned away again. He and his companion passed round a
corner and were gone. Tom made no attempt to follow them.

"There is no reason why I should," was his thought, "either for Sheba's
sake or his own. She is happy, and he feels his secret safe--whatsoever
it may have been. Perhaps he has had time to outlive the misery of it,
and it would all be brought to life again."

But the incident had been a shock. There was nothing to fear from it, he
knew; but it had been a shock nevertheless. He did not know the man's
name; he had never asked it. He was plainly one of the many strangers
who, in passing through the Capital, went to visit the public buildings.
The merest chance might have brought him to the place; the most ordinary
course of events might take him away. Tom went back to Dupont Circle in a
thoughtful mood. He forgot the claim and the Senator who had had no
leisure to hear the statement of his case.

Rupert and Sheba were waiting for his return. Rupert had spent the
afternoon searching for employment. He had spent many a long day in the
same way and with the same result.

"They don't want me," he had said when he came home. "They don't want me
anywhere, it seems--either in lawyers' offices or dry-goods stores. I
have not been particular."

They had sat down and gazed at each other.

"I sometimes wonder," said Sheba, "what we shall do when all our money is
gone--every penny of it. It cannot last long now. We cannot stay here and
we cannot pay our way back to the mountains. What shall we do?"

"I shall go out every day till I find something to do," said Rupert, with
the undiscouraged fervour of youth. "I am not looking for employment for
a gentleman, in these days; I am looking for work--just as Uncle Matt
is."

"He chopped some wood yesterday and brought home two dollars," Sheba
said. "He made me take it. He said he wanted to pay his 'bode.'"

She laughed a little, but her eyes were wet and shining.

Rupert took her face between his hands and looked into it adoringly.

"Don't be frightened, Sheba," he said; "don't be unhappy. Lovely darling,