my boy!"

He clapped Wrayford resoundingly on the thin shoulder and then walked over to his wife, who was gathering up her embroidery silks and dropping them into an old-fashioned work-bag. Stilling took her by the arms and swung her playfully about so that she faced the lamplight.

"What's the matter with you tonight?"

"The matter?" she echoed, blushing a little, and standing very erect in her desire not to appear to shrink from his touch.

"You never opened your lips. Left me the whole job of entertaining those blessed people. Did n't she, Austin?"

Wrayford laughed and lighted a cigarette. "She was n't quite up to the mark."

"There! You see even Austin noticed it. What's the matter? Are n't they good enough for you? I don't pretend they 're particularly exciting; but, hang it! I like to ask them here-I like to give pleasure."

"I did n't mean to be dull," said Isabel, appealingly.

"Well, you must learn to make an effort. Don't treat people as if they were n't in the room just because they don't happen

to amuse you. Do you know what they'll think? They'll think it 's because you 've got a bigger house and more cash. Shall I tell you something? My mother said. she'd noticed the same thing in you lately. She said she sometimes felt you looked down on her for living in a small house. Oh, she was half joking, of course; but you see you do give people that impression. I can't understand treating any one in that way. in that way. The more I have myself, the more I want to make other people happy."

Isabel gently freed herself and laid the work-bag on her embroidery-frame. "I have a headache; perhaps that made me stupid. I'm going to bed." She turned toward Wrayford and held out her hand. "Good night."

"Good night," he answered, opening the door for her.

When he turned back into the room, his host was pouring himself a third glass of brandy and soda.

"Here, have a nip? Gad, I need it badly, after the shaking up you gave me this afternoon.” Stilling gave a short laugh, and carried his glass to the hearth, where he took up his usual commanding position. "Why the deuce don't you drink something, Austin? You look as glum as Isabel. One would think you were the chap that had been hit."

Wrayford threw himself into the chair. from which Mrs. Stilling had lately risen. It was the one she habitually sat in, and to his fancy a faint scent of her always clung to it. He leaned back and looked up at Stilling.

"Want a cigar?" the latter continued. "Shall we go into the den and smoke?” Wrayford hesitated. "If there's anything more you want to ask me about-"

"Gad, no! I had full measure and running over this afternoon. The deuce of it is, I don't see where the money 's all gone to. Luckily I've got plenty of nerve; I'm not the kind of man to sit down and snivel because he's been touched in Wall Street."

Wrayford rose again. "Then, if you don't want me, I think I'll go up to my room and put some finishing touches to a brief before I turn in. I must get back to town to-morrow afternoon."

"All right, then." Stilling set down. his empty glass, and held out his hand

with a tinge of alacrity. "Good night, old man."

They shook hands, and Wrayford moved toward the door.

"I say, Austin-stop a minute!" his host called after him.

Wrayford turned, and the two men faced each other across the hearth-rug. Stilling's eyes shifted uneasily in his flushed face.

"There's one thing more you can do for me, like a good chap, before you go. Tell Isabel about that loan; explain to her she's got to sign a note for it."

Wrayford, in his turn, flushed slightly. "You want me to tell her?"

"Hang it! I'm soft-hearted-that 's the worst of me." Stilling moved toward the tray, and lifted the brandy decanter. "And she 'll take it better from you; she'll have to take it from you. She 's proud. You can take her out for a row to-morrow morning-you can take her out in the motor-launch, if you like. I meant to have a spin in it myself in the morning; but if you 'll tell her-" Wrayford hesitated. "All right. I'll tell her."

"Thanks a lot, my dear fellow. And you'll make her see it was n't my fault, eh? Women are awfully vague about money, and if you appear to back me up, you know"

THE darkness had thinned a little when Wrayford scrambled down the steep path to the shore. Though the air was heavy, the threat of a storm seemed to have vanished, and now and then the moon's edge showed above a torn slope of cloud.

But in the densely massed shrubbery about the boat-house the night was still black, and Wrayford had to strike a match before he could find the lock and insert his key. He left the door unlatched, and groped his way in. How often he had crept into this warm pine-scented obscurity, guiding himself cautiously by the

"Good night. Here, Austin-there 's just one more thing. You need n't say anything to Isabel about the other business-I mean my mother's securities."

"Ah?" said Wrayford.

Stilling shifted from one foot to the other. "I'd rather put that to the old lady myself. I can make it clear to her. She idolizes me, you know-and, hang it! I've got a good record. Up to now, I mean. My mother's been in clover since I married; I may say she's been my first thought. And I don't want her to hear of this from Isabel. Isabel 's a little harsh at times-and of course this is n't going to make her any easier to live with."

"Very well," Wrayford assented.

Stilling, with a look of relief, walked toward the window which opened on the terrace. "Gad! what a queer night! Hot as the kitchen-range. Should n't wonder

hearing the stealthy lap of water through the gaps in the flooring! He knew just where one had to duck one 's head to avoid the two canoes swung from the rafters, and just where to put his hand on the latch of the door that led to the balcony above the lake.

The boat-house represented one of Stilling's abandoned whims. He had built it some seven years before, and for a time it had been the scene of incessant nautical exploits. Stilling had rowed, sailed, paddled indefatigably, and all Highfield had been impressed to bear him company and admire his versatility. Then motors had come in, and he had forsaken aquatic sports for the guidance of the flying chariot. The canoes of birchbark and canvas had been hoisted to the roof, the little sail-boat had rotted at her moorings, and the movable floor of the boat-house, ingeniously contrived to slide back on noiseless runners, had lain undis

turbed through several seasons. Even the key of the boat-house had been mislaid, by Isabel's fault, her husband asserted, and the locksmith had to be called in to make a new one when the purchase of the motor-boat made the lake once more the center of Stilling's activity.

As Wrayford entered he noticed that a strange oily odor overpowered the usual scent of dry pine-wood; and at the next step his foot struck an object that rolled noisily across the boards. He lighted a match, and found he had overturned a can of grease which the boatman had no doubt been using to oil the runners of the sliding-floor.

Wrayford felt his way down the length of the boat-house, and softly opening the balcony door, looked out on the lake. A few yards off the launch lay motionless in the veiled moonlight; and just below him, on the black water, he saw the dim outline of the skiff which Stilling used to paddle out to her. The silence was so intense that Wrayford fancied he heard a faint rustling in the shrubbery on the high bank behind the boat-house, and the crackle of gravel on the path descending to it.

He closed the door again and turned back; and as he did so the other door, on the land-side, swung inward, and a figure darkened the dim opening. Just enough light entered through the round holes above the respective doors to reveal it as Mrs. Stilling's cloaked outline, and to guide her to him as he advanced. But before they met she stumbled and gave a little cry.

"What is it?" he exclaimed, springing toward her.

"My foot caught; the floor seemed to give way under me. Ah, of course— She bent down in the darkness-"I saw the men oiling it this morning.'

"What's the matter?" he asked, listening also. "What did you hear?"

"I don't know." He felt her trembling. "I'm not sure this place is as safe as it used to be-"

Wrayford held her to him reassuringly. "But the boatman sleeps down at the village; and who else should come here at this hour?"

"My husband might. He thinks of nothing but the launch."

"He won't to-night, for I told him I'd seen the skipper roll up the awning, and put the launch shipshape, and that satisfied him."

"Ah, he did think of coming, then?"

"Only for a minute, when the sky looked so black half an hour ago, and he was afraid of a squall. It's clearing now, and there's no danger."

He drew her down on the bench, and they sat a moment or two in silence, her hands in his. Then she said wearily: "You 'd better tell me."

Wrayford gave a faint laugh. "Yes, I suppose I had. In fact, he asked me to." "He asked you to?"

"Yes."

She sounded a sharp note of contempt. "The coward! he 's afraid!"

Wrayford made no reply, and she went on: "I'm not. Tell me everything, please."

"Well, he 's chucked away a pretty big sum again-"

"How has he done it?" "He says he does n't know. He's been speculating, I suppose. The madness of making him your trustee!"

She drew her hands away quickly. "You know why I did it. When we married I did n't want to put him in the false position of the man who accepts everything; I wanted people to think the money was partly his."

"I don't know what you 've made people think; but you 've been eminently successful in one respect. He thinks it 's his- and he loses it as if it were."

She shivered a little, drawing her cloak. closer. "There are worse things. on."

Go "Isabel!" He bent over her. "Give me your hand again." He lifted it and laid a long kiss on it.

"What was it-exactly that he wished you to tell me?" she asked.

"That you've got to sign another promissory note-for fifty thousand this time."

She drew a deep breath. "Is that all?" Wrayford hesitated; then he said: "Yes - for the present."

She sat motionless, her head bent, her hand resting passively in his.

He leaned nearer. "What did you mean, just now, by worse things?"

She paused a moment. "Have n't you noticed that he 's been drinking a great deal lately?"

"Yes; I 've noticed."

They were both silent again; then Wrayford said with sudden vehemence: "And won't-"

yet you

"Won't?"

"Put an end to it. Good God! Save what 's left of your life."

She made no answer, and in the deep stillness the throb-throb of the water underneath them was like the anxious beat of a heart.

"Isabel-" Wrayford murmured. He bent over to kiss her, and felt the tears on her face. "Isabel! I can't stand it! Listen to me-"

She interrupted him. "No; no. I've thought of everything. There's the boy -the boy 's fond of him. He's not a bad father."

"Except in the trifling matter of ruining his son."

And there 's his poor old mother. He's a good son, at any rate; he 's never hurt her. And I know her. If I left him, she 'd never touch a penny. What she has of her own is not enough to live on; and how could he provide for her? If I put him out of doors, I should be putting his mother out, too-out of the little house she 's so happy in."

"But surely you could arrange-there are always ways."

"Not for her! She 's proud. And then she believes in him. Lots of people believe in him, you know. It would kill her if she ever found out.”

Wrayford made an impatient movement: "It will kill you, if you stay with him to prevent her finding out."

She turned toward him and laid her other hand on his. "Not while I have you."

"Have me? In this way?" he echoed with an exasperated laugh.

"In any way."

"My poor girl--poor child!"

She drew back from him suddenly, with a quick movement of fear. "You mean that you'll grow tired-your patience will give out soon?".

He answered her only by saying: "My poor Isabel!"

But she went on insistently: "Don't you suppose I 've thought of that- foreseen it?"

"Well-and then?" he exclaimed with sudden passion.

"I've accepted that, too," she said. He dropped her hands with a despairing gesture. "Then, indeed, I waste my breath!"

She made no answer, and for a time they sat silent, side by side, but with a space between. At length he asked in a contrite voice: "You 're not crying, Isabel?"

He

He drew close, and put his arm about her again. her again. "Don't leave me yet, dear! You know I must go to-morrow." broke off with a laugh. "I'm to break the news to you to-morrow morning, by the way; I'm to take you out in the motor-launch and break it to you." He dropped her hands and stood up. "Good God! How can I go away and leave you here alone with him?"

"You 've done it often before."

"Yes; but each time it's more damnable. And then I've always had a hope-"

"A hope?" She rose also. "Give it up! Give it up!" she moaned.

"You 've none, then, yourself?" She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her.

"None- none?" he insisted.

"Only one," she broke out passionately. He bent over and sought for her in the darkness. "What is it, my dearest? What is it?"

"Don't touch me! That he may die!" she shuddered back.

He dropped his hands, and they drew apart instinctively, hearing each other's quick breathing through the obscurity.