ere's no luck for you at the tables to-day.
Let's go where we can forget the world, where we can lift the banner of
freedom and beat the drums of purpose. Come along, lad!"

Boyne had ceased to have his earlier allurement for Dyck Calhoun, but
his smile was friendly, his manner was hospitable, and he was on the
spot. The time was critical for Dyck--critical and dangerous. He had
lost money heavily; he had even exhausted his mother's legacy.

Of late he had seen little of his father, and the little he had seen
was not fortunate. They had quarrelled over Dyck's wayward doings. Miles
Calhoun had said some hard things to him, and Dyck had replied that he
would cut out his own course, trim his own path, walk his own way. He
had angered his father terribly, and Miles, in a burst of temper, had
disclosed the fact that his own property was in peril. They had been,
estranged ever since; but the time had come when Dyck must at least
secure the credit of his father's name at his bank to find the means of
living.

It was with this staring him in the face that Erris Boyne's company
seemed to offer at least a recovery of his good spirits. Dissipated as
Boyne's look was, he had a natural handsomeness which, with good care of
himself personally, well-appointed clothes, a cheerful manner, and witty
talk, made him palatable to careless-living Dublin.

This Dublin knew little of Boyne's present domestic life. It did not
know that he had injured his second wife as badly as he had wronged his
first--with this difference, however, that his first wife was a lady,
while his second wife, Noreen, was a beautiful, quick-tempered, lovable
eighteen-year-old girl, a graduate of the kitchen and dairy, when he
took her to himself. He had married her in a mad moment after his first
wife--Mrs. Llyn, as she was now called--had divorced him; and after
the first thrill of married life was over, nothing remained with Boyne
except regret that he had sold his freedom for what he might, perhaps,
have had without marriage.

Then began a process of domestic torture which alienated Noreen from
him, and roused in her the worst passions of human nature. She came to
know of his infidelities, and they maddened her. They had no children,
and in the end he had threatened her with desertion. When she had
retorted in strong words, he slapped her face, and left her with an ugly
smile.

The house where they lived was outside Dublin, in a secluded spot,
yet not far f