rd answered, "and if I'm to keep
awake I'd rather stay up."

Kelson looked at him curiously. "I hope the visit to your old home hasn't
been too much for you," he remarked with the limited sympathy of a strong
man whose nerves are not easily affected.

"Oh, no," Gifford assured him. "Although somehow I did feel rather out
of it. I have had rather a teasing day, but I shall be all right in the
morning, and am looking forward to a run round the scenes of my
childhood."

"Good," Kelson responded, relieved to think his friend's visit was not
after all going to be as dismal as he had begun to fear. "Well, Hugh," he
added gaily. "I have a piece of news for you."

"Not that you are engaged?"

Something, an almost apprehensive touch, in Gifford's tone rather took
his friend aback.

"Why not?"

"To Miss--the girl you were dancing with?"

Again Gifford's tone gave a check to Kelson's enthusiasm.

It was with a more serious face that he replied, "Muriel Tredworth, the
best girl in England. I hope, my dear Hugh, you are not going to say you
don't think so."

"Certainly not," Gifford answered promptly. "I never saw or heard of her
before to-night."

Kelson laughed uncomfortably. A man in love and in the flush of
acceptance wants something more than a lukewarm reception of the news.
"I'm glad to hear it," he responded dryly. "From your tone one might
almost imagine that you knew something against Muriel."

"Heaven forbid!" Gifford ejaculated fervently.

"You don't congratulate me," his friend returned with a touch of
suspicion.

Gifford forced a laugh. "My dear Harry, you have taken my breath away.
You deserve the best wife in the kingdom, and I sincerely hope you have
got her," he said, not very convincingly.

His half-heartedness, not too successfully masked, evidently struck
Kelson. "One would hardly suppose you thought so," he said in a hurt
tone. "I wish," he added warmly, "if there is anything at the back of
your words you would speak out. I should hope we are old friends enough
for that."

Gifford glanced at the worried face of the big, simple-minded sportsman,
more or less a child in his knowledge of the subtleties of human nature,
and as he did so his heart smote him.

"We are, and I hope we always shall be," he declared, grasping his hand.
"You are making too much of my unfortunate manner to-night, and I'm
sorry. With all my heart I congratulate you, and wish you every blessing
and all happiness."