o with you?"

"I'll find it."

"And you won't be too hard on him?"

"I'll be a father to him," said Hamlin demurely, as he opened the door
and stepped into the hall. But he hesitated a moment, and then turned,
and gravely held out his hand. Peg took it timidly. He did not seem
quite in earnest; and his black eyes, vainly questioned, indicated
nothing. But he shook her hand warmly, and the next moment was gone.

He found the room with no difficulty. A faint cough from within, and
a querulous protest, answered his knock. Mr. Hamlin entered without
further ceremony. A sickening smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of stale
dissipation, and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half-dressed,
extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was for an instant
startled. There were hollow circles round the sick man's eyes; there
was palsy in his trembling limbs; there was dissolution in his feverish
breath.

"What's up?" he asked huskily and nervously.

"I am, and I want YOU to get up too."

"I can't, Jack. I'm regularly done up." He reached his shaking hand
towards a glass half-filled with suspicious, pungent-smelling liquid;
but Mr. Hamlin stayed it.

"Do you want to get back that two thousand dollars you lost?"

"Yes."

"Well, get up, and marry that woman down stairs."

Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half sardonically.

"She won't give it to me."

"No; but I will."

"YOU?"

"Yes."

Folinsbee, with an attempt at a reckless laugh, rose, trembling and with
difficulty, to his swollen feet. Hamlin eyed him narrowly, and then bade
him lie down again. "To-morrow will do," he said, "and then--"

"If I don't--"

"If you don't," responded Hamlin, "why, I'll just wade in and CUT YOU
OUT!"

But on the morrow Mr. Hamlin was spared that possible act of disloyalty;
for, in the night, the already hesitating spirit of Mr. Jack Folinsbee
took flight on the wings of the south-east storm. When or how it
happened, nobody knew. Whether this last excitement and the near
prospect of matrimony, or whether an overdose of anodyne, had hastened
his end, was never known. I only know, that, when they came to awaken
him the next morning, the best that was left of him--a face still
beautiful and boy-like--looked up coldly at the tearful eyes of Peg
Moffat. "It serves me right, it's a judgment," she said in a low whisper
to Jack Hamlin; "for God knew that I'd broken my word, and willed all my
property to him."

She did not long