o arrive at such a conclusion as this
might be to judge hastily and cruelly of a man who was perhaps only
guilty of a want of delicacy of feeling. Mr. Rayburn honestly did his
best to assume the charitable point of view. At the same time, it is not
to be denied that his words, when he answered, were carefully guarded,
and that he rose to take his leave.

Mr. John Zant hospitably protested.

"Why are you in such a hurry? Must you really go? I shall have the honor
of returning your visit to-morrow, when I have made arrangements to
profit by that excellent suggestion of yours. Good-by. God bless you."

He held out his hand: a hand with a smooth surface and a tawny color,
that fervently squeezed the fingers of a departing friend. "Is that man
a scoundrel?" was Mr. Rayburn's first thought, after he had left the
hotel. His moral sense set all hesitation at rest--and answered: "You're
a fool if you doubt it."

V.

DISTURBED by presentiments, Mr. Rayburn returned to his house on foot,
by way of trying what exercise would do toward composing his mind.

The experiment failed. He went upstairs and played with Lucy; he drank
an extra glass of wine at dinner; he took the child and her governess
to a circus in the evening; he ate a little supper, fortified by another
glass of wine, before he went to bed--and still those vague forebodings
of evil persisted in torturing him. Looking back through his past life,
he asked himself if any woman (his late wife of course excepted!) had
ever taken the predominant place in his thoughts which Mrs. Zant had
assumed--without any discernible reason to account for it? If he had
ventured to answer his own question, the reply would have been: Never!

All the next day he waited at home, in expectation of Mr. John Zant's
promised visit, and waited in vain.

Toward evening the parlor-maid appeared at the family tea-table, and
presented to her master an unusually large envelope sealed with black
wax, and addressed in a strange handwriting. The absence of stamp and
postmark showed that it had been left at the house by a messenger.

"Who brought this?" Mr. Rayburn asked.

"A lady, sir--in deep mourning."

"Did she leave any message?"

"No, sir."

Having drawn the inevitable conclusion, Mr. Rayburn shut himself up in
his library. He was afraid of Lucy's curiosity and Lucy's questions, if
he read Mrs. Zant's letter in his daughter's presence.

Looking at the open envelope after he had taken o