broom at the
head of the entering guest, longs to have it hit him, brush end on.
Moreover, it is a peculiarity of self-communion in the watches of the
night, to have the least lovely theory strike one as the more
unassailable. Therefore, without delay, Reed Opdyke adopted the belief
in Olive's conscientious devotedness to his welfare. Indeed, between
the pangs where the points of his new theory pricked him sorely, he
found plenty of room to wonder why the idea had not occurred to him
till then. What an insufferable ass he was, to have been thinking that
her frequent calls had been due to any other motive! He had been
looking upon himself, in spite of his flatness, as being to all intents
and purposes her social equal. Now, without warning, he was driven to
relegate himself to the lower levels of a sort of all-year Lenten
penance.

All-year! Yes, that was it. That was the secret of her failure to come
in, that day. Or, rather, for Opdyke was nothing, if not accurate, the
day before. It was to-morrow now. The clock had struck one, long ago.
Or was it half-past? He always did lose count, in those three
successive ones. Anyway, Olive's benevolent zeal had flagged a little,
before the demands made by a chronic case. Opdyke gritted his teeth
anew, as he acknowledged to himself that he was fast becoming
desperately chronic. Then his breath caught at the word. The worst of
his forecastings had never hit on anything so bad as that. And all the
others knew it; perhaps they had known it for some time. That was the
reason, of course, that the number of his calls had been falling off a
good deal lately; their charitable courage had ebbed and then ended
before so permanent a proposition.

Olive had known it, too; her father would have told her first of all.
And, until now, her loyalty had still held good. Dolph, too, would know
it. Indeed, they all of them had known it, all with the sole exception
of himself, the victim. They had known it and had talked it over
together, had talked him over, him, Reed Opdyke, late consulting
engineer for the Colorado Limited--

And then, across the stillness of the dusky room, there came a sound,
husky, strangled, a sound strangely like a sob.

Next morning, Opdyke faced the doctor, wan, but plucky.

"Doctor," he said; "I want those fellows to come up from New York
again, to look me over."

The doctor stared at him, a moment.

"What's the use?" he said then.

Reed's smile was grim.

"Tha