unkempt and hideous old crone as black as night opened
the door for him. He left in the hall his hat and overcoat and a
little square box he had brought in his hand; and then he followed the
ebony hag up-stairs to Colonel Manning's room. Here at the door she
left him, after giving a sharp knock. A weak voice said, "Come in!"

Laurence Laughton entered the room with a quick step, but the
light-hearted words with which he had meant to encourage his friend
died on his lips as soon as he saw how grievously that friend had
changed. John Manning had faded to a shadow of his former self; the
light of his eye was quenched, and the spirit within him seemed
broken; the fine, sensitive, noble face lay white against the pillow,
looking weary and wan and hopeless. The effort to greet his friend
exhausted him and brought on a hard cough, and he pressed his hand to
his breast as though some hidden malady were gnawing and burning
within.

"Well, John," said Larry, as he took a seat by the bedside, "why
didn't you let me know before now that you were laid up? I could have
got away a month ago."

"Time enough yet," said John Manning slowly; "time enough yet. I
shall not die for another week, I fear."

"Why, man, you must not talk like that. You are as good as a dozen
dead men yet," said Larry, trying to look as cheerful as might be.

"I am as good as dead myself," said the sick man seriously, as
befitted a man under the shadow of death; "and I have no wish to live.
The sooner I am out of this pain and powerlessness the better I shall
like it."

"I say, John, old man, this is no way for you to talk. Brace up, and
you will soon be another man!"

"I shall soon be in another world, I hope," and the helpless misery of
the tone in which these few words were said smote Laurence Laughton to
the heart.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked with as lively an air as he
could attain, for the ominous and inexplicable sadness of the
situation was fast taking hold on him.

"I have a bullet through the lungs and a pain in the heart."

"But men do not die of a bullet in the lungs and a pain in the heart,"
was Larry's encouraging response.

"I shall."

"Why should you more than others?"

"Because there is something else--something mysterious, some unknown
malady--which bears me down and burns me up. There is no use trying
to deceive me, Larry. My papers are made out, and I shall get my
discharge from the Army of the Living in a very f