"But I sent you a reply wire?"

"Oh, yes--that's all right! But reply wires don't always clinch business. Yours arrived last night."

"I wonder if it was ever delivered!" grumbled Gwent--"It was addressed to the Plaza Hotel--not to a hut on a hill!"

Seaton laughed.

"You've heard all about it I see! But the hut on the hill is a 'dependence' of the Plaza--a sort of annex where dying men are put away to die peaceably--"

"YOU are not a dying man!" said Gwent, very meaningly--"And I can't make out why you pretend to be one!"

Again Seaton laughed.

"I'm not pretending!--my dear Gwent, we're all dying men! One may die a little faster than another, but it's all the same sort of 'rot, and rot, and thereby hangs a tale!' What's the news in Washington?"

They walked up the hill slowly, side by side.

"Not startling"--answered Gwent--then paused--and repeated--"Not startling--there's nothing startling nowadays--though some folks made a very good show of being startled when my nephew Jack shot himself."

Seaton stopped in his walk.

"Shot himself? That lad? Was he insane?"

"Of course!--according to the coroner. Everybody is called 'insane' who gets out of the world when it's too difficult to live in. Some people would call it sane. I call it just--cowardice! Jack had lost his last chance, you see. Morgana Royal threw him over."

Seaton paced along with a velvet-footed stride like a tiger on a trail.

"Had she led him on?"

"Rather! She leads all men 'on'--or they think she does. She led YOU on at one time!"

Seaton turned upon him with a quick, savage movement.

"Never! I saw through her from the first! She could never make a fool of ME!"

Sam Gwent gave a short cough, expressing incredulity.

"Well! Washington thought you were the favoured 'catch' and envied your luck! Certainly she showed a great preference for you--"

"Can't you talk of something else?" interposed Seaton, impatiently.

Gwent gave him an amused side-glance.

"Why, of course I can!" he responded--"But I thought I'd tell you about Jack--"

"I'm sorry!" said Seaton, hastily, conscious that he had been lacking in sympathy--"He was your heir, I believe?"

"Yes,--he might have been, had he kept a bit straighter"--said Gwent--"But heirs are no good anywhere or anyhow. They only spend what they inherit and waste the honest work of a life-time. Is that your prize palace?"




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