"I have not. It is lost. I have looked for it high and low, and racked my memory in vain to know where I could have put it. When last I remember using it, I was talking to that unfortunate young Frere in the underwood. I wish I could find it--not for the sake of the stick, but because, under my circumstances, I don't want to forget things." "Well, every one forgets things at times--you will remember where you have put the stick when you are not thinking of it." "Quite true; I wish it didn't worry me, however. You know that poor Frere met his death in the most extraordinary manner. The man who killed him ran his walking-stick into his eye. The doctors say that the ferrule of the stick entered the brain, causing instantaneous death. Everett carried a stick, but the ferrule was a little large for the size of the wound made. Now my stick----" "Really, Robert, I won't listen to you for another moment," exclaimed Margaret. "The next thing you will do is to assure me that your stick was the weapon which caused the murder." "No," he replied, with a spasm of queer pain. "Of course, Maggie, there is nothing wrong, only with our peculiar idiosyncrasies, small lapses of memory make one anxious. I should be happy if I could find the stick, and happier still if this numbness would leave the back of my head. But your sweet society will soon put me right." "I mean it to," she replied, in her firm way. "You will marry me, dearest, on the twenty-fourth?" "Yes," she answered, "you are first, first of all. I will put aside my superstition--the wedding shall not be postponed." "Thank you a thousand times--how happy you make me!" Awdrey went home in the highest spirits.