“Most of my romancing is set to the same notes--bank notes. It serves that purpose well enough. I sail day after to-morrow,” he added, carelessly. “So you are going to kick over the traces, eh? It’s lucky not to be tied so that you couldn’t break away.” “New York becomes more and more intolerable every day, and I feel that I must get out of it for awhile. I will still do some work on the magazine, of course. Wait; give me a light.” Andrews took the paper that Briarley had twisted and touched it to the gas jet above his head. It went out before it reached the cigar. With a gesture of impatience he looked around and found the matches. They smoked on, talking together for some time, Glenn toying with the paper in his hand, carelessly rolling and unrolling it. He got a glimpse of it, and said, quickly: “Look here,” passing it over. “Is this of much importance? Maybe you have burned the wrong thing.” “Oh, no! That’s nothing,” Briarley answered, with an indifferent gesture. “Albert Winston, the poor devil, is dead, and he died beaten. One man has no business to take a mortgage on another’s home, anyhow. I may be an unresponsive brute, but I couldn’t turn a woman and children into the street.” His throat was dry as he turned his back and laid the scorched paper over the flames. “We might as well finish it--let the ashes settle it.” “Do you mean to say that Winston died in poverty?” Andrews asked, as he got up to leave. “He hadn’t a dollar.” “Let me see; whom did he marry?” “Mildred Hughes,” Briarley hazarded, repeating her name calmly. “Oh, that’s so; I do remember her. Half the fellows at college were daft about her. Winston’s money won her, they thought.” “Where are you off to, now?” asked Briarley. Andrews turned. “I’ve got the ends of a million threads to wind up before I start.” “And some to break, no doubt.” “Let me hear from you occasionally,” Glenn said, as he grasped the other’s hand, and felt like adding, “I have guessed your secret, Briarley, my friend. Some men are heroes simply because they didn’t marry.” “I’ll try to come down to see you off. But if I shouldn’t make it, remember to get all you can out of life, my boy, and I wish you the best of good luck.” Andrews looked worn, overworked. Richmond Briarley had hoped that the returns from the opera would take some of the strain off of the ambitious fellow--but the unfortunate affair with Stephen Kent had ended that hope. CHAPTER IV. FOR two weeks Esther had been at the seaside. She had grown pale and tired from the ceaseless round of work and social play. This life had glamour, had charm, but no contentment. Her pleasure in it was not real. She entered it with the belief that it was sweet to love, natural to trust. There was nothing in life but faith and love. She was now in the midst of people who talked with a sceptical contempt of all that she had held sacred. They laughed at her simple faith in the old-fashioned morality taught her by cherished lips.