I had the situation in my fingers, and I felt myself grow taller with it. "Yes," I said harshly. Then I put my hand into my pocket, drew out the letter and handed it to her with a mocking bow. "I was asked to carry this letter back to you, and say that my brother's word is good enough for Nicholas Marsh." She took the envelope and stood twisting it in her slim fingers, while a light came up slowly in the land beyond her eyelids. Ward held out his hand for the letter. And then I looked to see her flutter like a pinned fly. She grew neither red nor white, but crossed to his chair and put the letter in his hand. He tore off the envelope and ran his eyes down the written page. "Your order for the money!" he cried; "this was not mentioned in our plan. What is this?" "That," said the straight young woman, "is a field order of the commanding general issued without the knowledge of the war department." Then I saw the whole underpinning of the scheme, and my heart stumbled and went groping about the four walls of its house. I tramped out of the room and down the stairway to the big window at the first landing. I stopped and leaned out over the walnut casement. El Mahdi stood as I had left him, staring at the far-off wall of the Hills; and below me in the garden old Liza stooped over her vines, not a day older, it seemed to me, than when I galloped at her long apron-strings on Alhambra the Son of the Wind. THE END * * * * * NEW FICTION THE FOREST SCHOOLMASTER By Peter Rosegger. Authorized translation by Frances E. Skinner. This is the first English version of the popular Austrian novelist's work, and no better choice from his writings could have been made through which to introduce him to the American public. It is a strange, sweet tale, this story of an isolated forest community civilized and regenerated by the life of one man. The translator has caught the spirit of the work, and Rosegger's virile style loses nothing in the translation. LOVE AND HONOUR By M. E. Carr. A thrilling story that carries the reader from the closing incidents of the French Revolution, through various campaigns of the Napoleonic wars, to the final scene on a family estate in Germany. The action of the plot is well sustained, and the style might be described as vivid, while the old battle between love and honor is fought out with such freshness of treatment as to seem new. DWELLERS IN THE HILLS By Melville D. Post. Mr. Post is to be congratulated upon having found a new field for fiction. The scene of his latest story is laid amidst the hills of West Virginia. Many of the exciting incidents are based upon actual experience on the cattle ranges of the South. The story is original, full of action, and strong, with a local color almost entirely new to the reading public. DUPES By Ethel Watts Mumford.