that his favorite should inherit the territorial honors of his house, may have given zest to his act of renunciation. Not that he had the least intention of giving his cousin a solid basis for despair for many years to come, for no mother ever nursed her babe more tenderly than he his weak but by no means exhausted chest. During his last interview with Elton in London he had assured his anxious relative that he was taking the best of care of himself, and that, in spite of blood-shot eyes and haggard cheeks, his disease was quiescent; although he had decided to start for Davos or some other popular climate before the advent of harsh weather. Davos is a word of hideous portent in English ears, but Gwynne had expelled it with all other cares from his mind, and on this night when he returned from Arcot feeling a far greater man than any of his house had ever dreamed of being, and with a song in his heart, the awful face of his cousin, whom in the shock of the moment he thought stricken with death, gave him the first stab of terror and doubt that he had experienced in his triumphant life. XV "Come up-stairs," said Zeal. "We are liable to interruption here." "Have they put you up decently?" asked Gwynne, with his mind's surface. "The house is rather full." "I shall 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.