lf up here in
a consumption hut, and getting a beautiful woman to wait on him and
'take him his food'! It beats most things I've heard of! Dollar
sensation books aren't in it! I wonder what Morgana Royal would say to
it, if she knew! He's given her the slip this time!"

Half-way up the hill he paused to rest, and saw Seaton striding down at
a rapid pace to meet him.

"Hullo, Gwent!"

"Hullo!"

The two men shook hands.

"I got your wire at the beginning of the week"--said Gwent--"and came
as soon as I could get away. It's been a stiff journey too--but I
wouldn't keep you waiting."

"Thanks,--it's as much your affair as mine"--said Seaton--"The thing is
ripe for action if you care to act. It's quite in your hands, I hardly
thought you'd come--"

"But I sent you a reply wire?"

"Oh, yes--that's all right! But reply wires don't always clinch
business. Yours arrived last night."

"I wonder if it was ever delivered!" grumbled Gwent--"It was addressed
to the Plaza Hotel--not to a hut on a hill!"

Seaton laughed.

"You've heard all about it I see! But the hut on the hill is a
'dependence' of the Plaza--a sort of annex where dying men are put away
to die peaceably--"

"YOU are not a dying man!" said Gwent, very meaningly--"And I can't
make out why you pretend to be one!"

Again Seaton laughed.

"I'm not pretending!--my dear Gwent, we're all dying men! One may die a
little faster than another, but it's all the same sort of 'rot, and
rot, and thereby hangs a tale!' What's the news in Washington?"

They walked up the hill slowly, side by side.

"Not startling"--answered Gwent--then paused--and repeated--"Not
startling--there's nothing startling nowadays--though some folks made a
very good show of being startled when my nephew Jack shot himself."

Seaton stopped in his walk.

"Shot himself? That lad? Was he insane?"

"Of course!--according to the coroner. Everybody is called 'insane' who
gets out of the world when it's too difficult to live in. Some people
would call it sane. I call it just--cowardice! Jack had lost his last
chance, you see. Morgana Royal threw him over."

Seaton paced along with a velvet-footed stride like a tiger on a trail.

"Had she led him on?"

"Rather! She leads all men 'on'--or they think she does. She led YOU on
at one time!"

Seaton turned upon him with a quick, savage movement.

"Never! I saw through her from the first! She could never make a fool
of ME!"

Sam Gwent gav