hall leave by the seven-o'clock train, and it must be three now. I
have no intention of going to bed."

"Is that wise? You look pretty seedy, old man. You haven't had a
hemorrhage?" He almost choked as he brought the word out, and yet he was
not in the least surprised when Zeal replied, tonelessly, "I had
forgotten I ever had a chest;" for his mind was vibrating with a
telepathic message which his wits attacked fiercely and without avail.

As they entered his room he pushed his cousin into an easy-chair and
turned up the lamp on the writing-table. Then he planted his feet on the
hearth-rug with a blind instinct to die standing.

"Fire away, for God's sake," he said. "Something has happened. You know
you can count on me, whatever it is."

Zeal, who was sitting stiffly forward, his hands gripping the arms of
his chair, laughed dryly. "You will be the chief sufferer. The others
don't count."

"Has my grandfather speculated once too often? Are we gone completely
smash?" Gwynne was rapidly assuring himself that he was now prepared for
the worst, that nothing should knock the props from under him again,
that it was the sight of Zeal's face that had upset him; he was not one
to collapse before the stiff blows of life.

"It is likely. Anyhow, if he lives long enough he'll make a mess of what
is left." He raised his head slowly, and once more Gwynne, as he met
those terrible haunted eyes, felt as Adam may have felt when he was
being bundled towards the exit of Eden. He braced himself unconsciously,
and after Zeal's next words did not relax his body, although his lips
turned white and stiff.

"I am going to kill myself some time to-day," said Zeal, in a voice so
emotionless that Gwynne wondered idly if all his capacity for expression
had gone to his eyes. "I should have done it several hours earlier, but
I felt that I owed you an explanation. You can pass it on to my
grandfather when the time comes."

He paused a moment, and then he too seemed to brace himself.

"I killed Brathland," he said.

Gwynne moistened his lips. "Poor old Zeal," he muttered. "It must be a
horrid sensation--"

"To be a murderer? I can assure you it is."

Gwynne's mind seemed to darken until only one luminous point confronted
it, the visible tormented soul of his kinsman. He walked over to the
table and mixed two tumblers of whiskey-and-soda, wondering why he had
not thought of it before. They drank without haste, and then Gwynne took
the cha