uniform, had closed the door noiselessly behind him. Two young girls,
one about eighteen and the other some four years her junior, both
possessing more than average good looks, stood timidly in the
background anxiously awaiting, together with their grief-stricken
mother, to hear the dreaded verdict.

The physician paid no attention to them, but paced up and down the
room, his manner stern and forbidding, his head inclined in deep
thought, as if bent under the weight of tremendous responsibilities. A
noted specialist in pulmonary troubles, Dr. Wilston Everett was well
past middle age, and his tall, erect figure, massive frame and fine,
leonine head, crowned by a mass of stubborn, iron-gray hair, made him
a conspicuous figure everywhere. His expression, stern in repose, was
that of a profound student; it was a face where lofty thoughts, humane
feeling and every other noble attribute had left its indelible
impress.

Mrs. Blaine watched him fearfully, afraid to intrude on his
reflections. Finally, summoning up courage, she stammered weakly:

"How do you find him--not worse, is he?"

The doctor made no reply, but for a few moments stood looking at the
three women in silence. He felt sorry for them--so sorry that it was
only by the exercise of the greatest self-control that he kept his
eyes from filling with tell-tale tears. Who, better than he, could
realize the full extent of the misfortune which had suddenly befallen
these poor people? It was almost the same as if it had happened to
himself. Was he not, indeed, one of the family? Had he not been
present at poor Blaine's wedding, brought each of these girls into the
world and played with them on his knees? Now they had grown up to be
young women, they looked upon him as their second father.

Blaine, poor fellow, little thought that the end was so near! That's
what he had got for giving up his life to the most exciting and
ungrateful profession in the world. He had worked himself to death for
a pittance, until, giving way under the strain, his constitution
completely undermined, he proved an easy victim for pneumonia. If he
had been less scrupulous, more of a grafter, if he had seen in his
profession only the money to be made out of it, he might have been a
rich man by this time. But he was honest, honorable to a fault. No
amount of money could induce him to take tainted money. No matter what
legal white washing he was promised, he would have nothing to do with
thieve