led; a strange smile the
lips alone made, but in which the glinting gray eyes took no share.

"For Van Morris is your best friend, after all. He will remember that
I told him, last night, 'One cannot be too careful'!"

She rose on tiptoe, whispered three words, and was gone before he
could frame one in reply.

Once more those ill-used bays got the whip fiercely; and they turned
the corner so short that Mr. Trotter Upton looked over his shoulder
with a grin, and remarked to the blaze-faced companion in his sulky
shafts:

"Nine hundred dollars' worth of horse risked with nine dollars' worth
of man! Van Morris better drive his own stock. G'long!"

VIII.

It was two o'clock when Mr. Andrew Browne had ridden forth to
recapture his plighted troth.

The shades of Christmas evening had now wrapped the city completely,
and the gilt clock upon his parlor mantel now pointed to six. Still he
had not returned; and still Van Morris's eagerness to test the issue
of his own tactics was too keen to let him leave their rooms. He had
even resisted the temptations of a gossip at the club, and was smoking
his fifth cigar--a thought-amused smile wreathing his lips--when the
chime of six startled him suddenly to his feet.

"How time flies!" he exclaimed. "And we are to dine at the Allmand's
at seven."

He tossed away his cigar, turned into his own apartment, and made an
unusually careful toilet. Then he looked into Browne's still vacant
room once more.

"Where _can_ he be?" he muttered. "By George! he must have bungled
fearfully if he did not pull through. He certainly had his lesson by
heart! But _she_ must not be kept waiting," and his face softened
greatly, and the deep, strong light came back into his eyes. "How
ceaselessly that old verse comes back to me! And now 'to put it to the
test' myself."

He turned to his escritoire, and took a small Russia case from the
drawer; then to the mantel, and carefully shook the dampness from the
two flowers he had placed there that morning. Putting case and flowers
carefully in his vest pocket, Van paused at the door, gave a long,
sweeping glance--with a sort of farewell in it--to the rooms; then
shut himself outside, still repeating _sotto voce_,

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small."

Metropolitan Christmas was abroad in the streets. Young and old,
grandsire and maiden, beggar and parvenu jostled one another on the
pave