y accented by Mrs. Van Loo, whether intentionally or not, and
he saw again as last night the full extent of his sentimental folly. He
could not even condole with himself that he was the victim of miserable
falsehoods that others had invented. SHE had accepted them, and had even
excused her desertion of him by that last deceit of the letter.

He drew out her photograph and again examined it, but not as a
lover. Had she really grown stouter and more self-complacent? Was the
spirituality and delicacy he had worshiped in her purely his own idiotic
fancy? Had she always been like this? Yes. There was the girl who could
weakly strive, weakly revenge herself, and weakly forget. There was the
figure that he had expected to find carved upon the tomb which he had
long sought that he might weep over. He laughed aloud.

It was very hot, and he was stifling with inaction. What was Barker
doing, and why had not Stacy telegraphed to him? And what were those
people in the courtyard doing? Were they discussing news of further
disaster and ruin? Perhaps he was even now a beggar. Well, his fortune
might go with his faith.

But the crowd was simply looking at the roof of the hotel, and he
now saw that a black smoke was drifting across the courtyard, and was
conscious of a smell of soot and burning. He stepped down from the
veranda among the mingled guests and servants, and saw that the smoke
was only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, that the chimney had
been on fire, and that it was Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom chimney, and that
when the startled servants had knocked at the locked door she had told
them that she was only burning some old letters and newspapers, the
refuse of her trunks. There was naturally some indignation that the
hotel had been so foolishly endangered, in such scorching weather, and
the manager had had a scene with her which resulted in her leaving the
hotel indignantly with her half-packed boxes. But even after the smoke
had died away and the fire been extinguished in the chimney and hearth,
there was an acrid smell of smouldering pine penetrating the upper
floors of the hotel all that afternoon.

When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorest to the
rooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and still littered
with charred ashes of burnt paper. "My belief is," said the manager
darkly, "that the old hag came here just to burn up a lot of
incriminating papers that her son had intrusted to her