ess in, and it determined in them another
long, mute exchange. "What do you mean to do?"

"Nothing."

"On your honour?"

"_My_ 'honour'?" his host returned with an accent that he felt even as
it sounded he should never forget.

It brought to his own face a crimson flush--he dropped his guarding
hands. Then as for a last look at him: "You're wonderful!"

"We _are_ wonderful," said Newton Winch, while, simultaneously with the
words, the pressed electric bell again and for a longer time pierced the
warm cigaretted air.

Mark turned, threw up his arms, and it was only when he had passed
through the vestibule and laid his hand on the door-knob that the
horrible noise dropped. The next moment he was face to face with two
visitors, a nondescript personage in a high hat and an astrakhan collar
and cuffs, and a great belted constable, a splendid massive New York
"officer" of the type he had had occasion to wonder at much again in the
course of his walk, the type so by itself--his wide observation quite
suggested--among those of the peacemakers of the earth. The pair stepped
straight in--no word was said; but as he closed the door behind them
Mark heard the infallible crack of a discharged pistol and, so nearly
with it as to make all one violence, the sound of a great fall; things
the effect of which was to lift him, as it were, with his company,
across the threshold of the room in a shorter time than that taken
by this record of the fact. But their rush availed little; Newton was
stretched on his back before the fire; he had held the weapon horribly
to his temple, and his upturned face was disfigured. The emissaries
of the law, looking down at him, exhaled simultaneously a gruff
imprecation, and then while the worthy in the high hat bent over the
subject of their visit the one in the helmet raised a severe pair of
eyes to Mark. "Don't you think, sir, you might have prevented it?"

Mark took a hundred things in, it seemed to him--things of the scene,
of the moment, and of all the strange moments before; but one appearance
more vividly even than the others stared out at him. "I really think I
must practically have caused it."

CRAPY CORNELIA

I

THREE times within a quarter of an hour--shifting the while his posture
on his chair of contemplation--had he looked at his watch as for its
final sharp hint that he should decide, that he should get up. His
seat was one of a group fairly sequestered, unoccupied