Ray Challoner’s brows gathered into a frown. “I am the nephew of the man who has just died,” he assented, “but I want to keep it out of the papers; it’s not a thing to comment on, don’t you know.” “It’s sure to get into the papers,” said the spokesman of the party. “We will have to write up something. It is much the best way to give us a correct account of it.” He turned to his companions for affirmation of this sentiment, and they both nodded assent, pulling their writing pads and pencils from their pockets as they did so. Challoner gave them an account to suit himself. It was just as well for the dear public at large not to know the exact truth as to know how matters actually stood. “That is all there is to tell,” he said, when he had finished, moving away from them down the steps. Hailing a passing hansom cab, Challoner hastily entered it, leaving the trio on the steps, still comparing notes. One of them, however, was staring after him with a strange expression upon his face, which had suddenly grown very white. “Boys,” he said, huskily, “ever since we have been talking to that fellow, I have been cudgeling my brain as to where I had seen him before, but my memory seemed determined to baffle me. I have it now; he is the despicable cur that engaged in that duel in Newport with John Dinsmore, fatally wounding the finest gentleman that ever lived. “You see, I only saw this Challoner--that’s his name--by dim moonlight, and on that one occasion only, so it was little wonder that I was a trifle mixed as to his identity. I was Dinsmore’s second, if you remember.” “Yes, we remember,” assented his companions, and one of them asked: “Can you tell us whatever became of John Dinsmore?” Jerry Gaines--for it was he--heaved a deep sigh that came from the very depths of his heart. “He was wounded in that accursed duel, as I have said,” he went on, slowly. “For some weeks his life was despaired of, and when he began to convalesce, he decided to take a trip South, partly to regain his health and strength, and partly to attend to another little matter which meant much to him in a pecuniary way. Well, he never lived to reach the end of his journey. There was a terrible railway accident; the train went over a high bridge, rolling down an embankment of something like a hundred feet or more, and all of the coaches caught fire. It happened at night, and when morning dawned, it was found that but a mass of charred timber, bones and ashes remained to tell the pitiful story. Dinsmore was not among the few rescued. That was his fate, boys, and Ballou and I have mourned for him like brothers from that day to this. We are the Trinity, the inseparable three, you know.” Brushing a tear from his eye, Jerry Gaines went on: