"On the fifteenth day of the coming August, I shall have reached thirty years. Before that day, the blow will fall upon her, and it is my fault. You know, Cranbrooke, that I do not fear death. What manly soul fears death? It is only to the very young, or to the very weak of spirit, the King appears in all his terrors. Having expected him so long and so confidently, I hope I may meet him with a courageous front. But Ethel! Ethel! "She will be quite alone with me this summer. Her mother and sisters have just sailed for the other side, and I confess I am selfish enough to crave her to myself in the last hours. But some one she must have to look after her, and whom can I trust like you? I want you to promise to come to us to spend your August holiday; to be there, in fact, when-- "In the meantime, there must be no suggestion of what I expect. She, least of all, must suspect it. I should like to go out to the unknown with her light-hearted, girlish laugh ringing in my ears. "When we meet, as usual, you will oblige me by saying nothing of this letter or its contents. By complying with this request, you will add one more--a final one, dear old man--to the long list of kindnesses for which I am your debtor; and, believe me, dear Cranbrooke, "Yours, always faithfully, "MAXWELL POLLOCK." "Good heaven!" exclaimed Stephen Cranbrooke, dropping the sheet as if it burnt him, and sitting upright and aghast. "So _this_ is the cranny in Pollock's brain where I have never before been able to penetrate." Later that day, Mr. Cranbrooke received another epistle, prefaced by the house address of the Maxwell Pollocks. "Dear Mr. Cranbrooke," this letter ran, "Max tells me he has extended to you an invitation to share our solitude _à deux_ in your August holiday. I need hardly say that I endorse this heartily; and I hope you will not regret to learn that, instead of going, as usual, to our great, big, isolated country-place in New Hampshire, I have persuaded Max to take a cottage on the shore of Frenchman's Bay, near Bar Harbor,--but not too near that gay resort,--where he can have his sailboat and canoe, and a steam-launch for me to get about in. They say the sunsets over the water there are adorable, and Max has an artist's soul, as you know, and will delight in the picturesque beauty of it all.