"Ah, yes! so sad! And yet, perhaps, for the best. You know the poor girl had a hopeless passion for her legal adviser--the famous Arthur Poinsett! Ah! you did not? Well, perhaps it was only merciful that she died before she knew how insincere that man's attentions were. You are a believer in special Providences, Mr. Hamlin?" Mr. Hamlin (doubtfully): "You mean a run of luck?" Donna Maria (rapidly, ignoring Mr. Hamlin's illustration): "Well, perhaps _I_ have reason to say so. Poor Donna Dolores was my friend. Yet, would you believe there were people--you know how ridiculous is the gossip of a town like this--there are people who believed that he was paying attention to ME!" Mrs. Sepulvida hung her head archly. There was a long pause. Then Mr. Hamlin called faintly-- "Pete!" "Yes, Mars Jack." "Ain't it time to take that medicine?" When Dr. Duchesne returned he ignored all this little byplay, and even the anxious inquiries of Olly, and said to Mr. Hamlin-- "Have you any objection to my sending for Dr. Mackintosh--a devilish clever fellow?" And Mr. Hamlin had none. And so, after a private telegram, Dr. Mackintosh arrived, and for three or four hours the two doctors talked in an apparently unintelligible language, chiefly about a person whom Mr. Hamlin was satisfied did not exist. And when Dr. Mackintosh left, Dr. Duchesne, after a very earnest conversation with him on their way to the stage office, drew a chair beside Mr. Hamlin's bed. "Jack!" "Yes, sir." "Have you got everything fixed--all right?" "Yes, sir." "Jack!" "Yes, sir." "You've made Pete very happy this morning." Jack looked up at Dr. Duchesne's critical face, and the doctor went on gravely-- "Confessing religion to him--saying you believed as he did!" A faint laugh glimmered in the dark hollows of Jack's eyes. "The old man," he said, explanatory, "has been preachin' mighty heavy at me ever since t'other doctor came, and I reckoned it might please him to allow that everything he said was so. You see the old man's bin right soft on me, and between us, doctor, I ain't much to give him in exchange. It's no square game!" "Then you believe you're going to die?" said the doctor, gravely. "I reckon." "And you have no directions to give me?" "There's a black hound at Sacramento--Jim Briggs, who borrowed and never gave back my silver-mounted Derringers, that I reckoned to give to you! Tell him he'd better give them up or I'll"---- "Jack," interrupted Dr. Duchesne, with infinite gentleness, laying his hand on the invalid's arm, "you must not think of me." Jack pressed his friend's hand.