lowered his feet, wheeled about in his chair,
drew pen, ink, and paper before him on the desk, and began to write
rapidly only a few lines, and the letter was done, and signed, and
sealed, with grim satisfaction; then he gathered up his scattered
missives, and locked them away carefully.

"I won't go back," he muttered, picking up his pipe once more. "I
wouldn't go now for a kingdom; I won't be put to rout by a woman, and
that is just what it would amount to. I'll see the play played out, and
I'll stay in W----."

Again the smoke puffed out from the black pipe; again the heels were
elevated, and, drawing some papers toward him, Dr. Heath began to absorb
the latest news, looking as little like a jilted lover or a despairing
swain, as possible.

Presently the office door opened to admit a tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed
young man, of aristocratic bearing and handsome countenance, but looking
extremely haggard and heavy eyed.

Doctor Heath turned his head lazily at the sound of the opening door,
but seeing who his visitor was, he laid his pipe aside and arose with
kindly alacrity.

"Come along, Ray, old fellow," he said cheerily, "why you look as if the
witches had made your bed."

"It's about the way I feel, too," said the new comer, dropping wearily
into the easy chair pushed toward him. "Heath, you are a good fellow,
and I can't blame you for thinking me a cad. Don't stop your smoke."

"Why as to that," replied the doctor, easily, and taking a long pull at
his pipe, "we are all cads, more or less, in certain emergencies, and
yours was an unusually severe blow. We all have to take them in some
shape or other, at one time, or another; these soft hands hit hard,
but--it's the penalty we pay for being sons of Adam. Although now that I
come to think of it, I can't recall that I ever insisted upon being a
son of Adam."

"Why!" said Raymond Vandyck, opening his eyes in languid surprise, "you
talk as if _you_ had received one of those hard hits."

"So I have, my boy; so I have," he replied _debonairly_. "If I were a
woman I would get out a fresh handkerchief and tell you all about it.
Being a man I--smoke."

Young Vandyck sighed heavily, and picked up a newspaper, running his eye
listlessly over the columns. Here was another upon whom the flight of
Sybil Lamotte had fallen a heavy blow. He had loved Sybil since they
were boy and girl, and lately for a few short months they had been
betrothed, then Sybil had asked to b