etters and visits from Carlow people, and he had heard
the story of their descent upon the hospital, and of the march on the
Cross-Roads. Many a good fellow, too, had come to see him during his
better days--from Judge Briscoe, openly tender and solicitous, to the
embarrassed William Todd, who fiddled at his hat and explained that,
being as he was in town on business (a palpable fiction) he thought he'd
look in to see if "they was any word would wish to be sent down to our
city." The good will the sick man had from every one touched him, and
made him feel unworthy, and he could see nothing he had done to deserve
it. Mr. Meredith could (and would not--openly, at least) have explained
to him that it made not a great deal of difference what he did; it was
what people thought he was.

His host helped him upstairs after dinner, and showed him the room
prepared for his occupancy. Harkless sank, sighing with weakness, into a
deep chair, and Meredith went to a window-seat and stretched himself out
for a smoke and chat.

"Doesn't it beat your time," he said, cheerily, "to think of what's
become of all the old boys? They turn up so differently from what we
expected, when they turn up at all. We sized them up all right so far
as character goes, I fancy, but we couldn't size up the chances of
life. Take poor old Pickle Haines: who'd have dreamed Pickle would shoot
himself over a bankruptcy? I dare say that wasn't all of it--might have
been cherchez la femme, don't you think? What do you make of Pickle's
case, John?"

There was no answer. Harkless's chair was directly in front of the
mantel-piece, and upon the carved wooden shelf, amongst tobacco-jars
and little curios, cotillion favors and the like, there were scattered
a number of photographs. One of these was that of a girl who looked
straight out at you from a filigree frame; there was hardly a corner
of the room where you could have stood without her clear, serious eyes
seeming to rest upon yours.

"Cherchez la femme?" repeated Tom, puffing unconsciously. "Pickle was
a good fellow, but he had the deuce of an eye for a girl. Do you
remember--" He stopped short, and saw the man and the photograph looking
at each other. Too late, he unhappily remembered that he had meant, and
forgotten, to take that photograph out of the room before he brought
Harkless in. Now he would have to leave it; and Helen Sherwood was not
the sort of girl, even in a flat presentment, to be continually t