where
just under its edge, still wrapped in the soiled newspaper, sat the
gallon jug that Fallon suggested in case the greener saw fit to heed
his warning.

Bill smiled dreamily. Unconsciously his lips spelled out the words of
some head-lines that stared at him from the rounded surface of the jug:

POPULAR MEMBERS OF NEW YORK'S FOUR HUNDRED TO WED.

"Wonder who?" thought Bill. Reaching for his crutch, he slipped the end
through the handle of the jug and drew it toward him. He raised it to
his lap and the words of the succeeding line struck upon his brain like
an electric shock:

_Engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger Soon to
be Announced._

Feverishly his eyes devoured the following lines of the extended
heading:

_Time of Wedding Not Set. Will Not Take Place Immediately, 'Tis
Said. Prospective Bridegroom to Sail for Europe in Spring._

And then the two lines of the story that appeared at the very bottom,
where the paper folded under the edge of the jug:

NEW YORK, February 1. (Special to _Tribune_.)--As a distinct
surprise in elite circles will come the announcement of the
engage

He tilted the jug in frenzied eagerness to absorb every detail of the
bitter news, and was confronted by the rough, stone bottom which had
worn through the covering, leaving mangled shreds of paper, whose
rolled and mutilated edges were undecipherable.

Vainly he tried to restore the tattered remnants, but soon abandoned
the hopeless task and sat staring at the head-lines.

Over and over again he read them as if to grasp their significance, and
then, with a full realization of their import, he closed his eyes and
sat long amid the crumbled ruin of his hopes.

For he had hoped. In spite of the scorn in her voice as she dismissed
him, and the bitter resentment of his own parting words, he loved her;
and upon the foundation of this love he had builded the hope of its
fulfillment.

A hope that one day he would return to her, clean and strong in the
strength of achievement, and that his great passion would beat down the
barrier and he would claim her as of right.

Suddenly he realized that as much as upon the solid foundation of his
own great love, the hope depended upon the false substructure of her
love for him.

And the false substructure had crumbled at the test. She loved another;
had suddenly become as unattainable as the stars--and was lost to him
forever.

The discove