“You just go ahead and get married, Dan,” laughed Conyers. “I have waited a good many years, and I am in no hurry. I belong to the great reading public, my hydra-headed master! There is no place for love in the study. Cupid is a poor penman.” It was a fortunate matter that Senator Alynton was busied for a week with the imposing obsequies of James Garston, for, the private funeral of Harold Vreeland was passed over with little remark by the man who had been his enemy. Alynton had been quieted by the return of the document, and now, no troublesome heirs of Garston could ever unearth the secret compact. Overspeculation and the pace that kills, told the whole story of Vreeland’s downfall, and a new golden sign, “Wyman & Endicott,” had replaced the last public evidence of Vreeland’s meteoric rise and fall, even before the sod rested upon the forgotten suicide. Two black-robed women met at the side of Senator James Garston’s coffin in a sad silence. The face of neither was visible, and when the last solemn words of public farewell were spoken, neither dreamed that under the two impenetrable crape veils were hidden the woman whom he had loved most, and the woman who had once loved him, with all the despair of a lost soul. There is a mercy in the freezing silence of death which often hides that which would only rend the more hearts already strained to the snapping of the last chord. Only those cheerful young club men, Messrs. Wiltshire, Rutherstone and Merriman, noted the proud eminence of Mrs. Volney McMorris as guide, companion and friend to the widowed ward of the dead Senator. The duenna was a skeleton key of society, fitting easily into every dead lock, and well oiled. “The little woman will have a great fortune,” said Merriman. “I hear that Garston has left a half of his wealth to her. It comes in very handy now, for, poor Vreeland was struggling in the breakers. “She will be a great catch in due time,” was the chorus, and, when they separated, each gilded youth had separately registered a vow to “make up” to Mrs. McMorris, and then to go in later for the golden prize, when that black crape had softened to lilac, and afterward in due time bleached out into cheerful white, with here and there a touch of returning color. And they all knew Katharine Norreys’ good points by a personal experience of the last fleeting twelve months. _Vae victis!_ The defeated suicide was borne away to an humble grave by a few of the men who had shared his brief prosperity. The three watchful club men, already secret rivals, were on hand, there to note, with surprise, the absence of the widow, who was reported to be “broken down by her guardian’s recent death” and “unable to appear.” And so, in the last mournful parade the star performer was absent. It was voted a dull affair.