"Colonel Curmew is a funny man. He has, apparently, devoted himself to me, and I have the greatest difficulty in getting away from him long enough to take a stroll with Mr. Wallace. Such a funny, strutty, sentimentally elaborate little man!—with a rather horrid habit of staring. But he’s a crack shot, and popular here with the men. "Good night, "DIANA." She wrote next day, also: "Jim! My little Christine is in love—that’s what’s the matter! I _know_ it; I’m absolutely sure of it. And with—oh, ye humorous gods and dryads!—with your melancholy friend, Mr. Inwood. "And I want to tell you, Jim, that I don’t _like_ Mrs. Wemyss. She’s fat and selfish and—why does she drag that boy about with her all the time? I don’t believe he likes it. I don’t believe he’s so enamored of her. Maybe his low spirits come from too much of that fair and ample lady. I’m going to find out. I won’t have my little Christine ignored by any melancholy idiot who ever lived. "Write me what you know about Mr. Inwood. "How is Chance, and the twisted path, and little Miss Ellis? "Scott Wallace and I managed to shoot a grouse. We both fired, and neither of us were inclined to claim the poor, dead, little thing. A keeper put it in his pocket. Mr. Wallace and I are going to take up target shooting hereafter. "DIANA." He wrote: "Inwood is all right. Who _is_ Mrs. Wemyss? "JIM." A week later he heard from her: "I’ve found out from people in Keno. She was a Mrs. Atherstane—divorced hubby, and resumed her maiden name of Wemyss with the prefix Mrs. Did you ever hear of her? Scott Wallace and I detest her. "DIANA." He did not reply, partly because the constant recurrence of Wallace’s name in her letters had begun to annoy him—partly because what he had to say must be said to Inwood; and at that miserable young man he launched the following: "DEAR BILLY: "You’re a fine specimen. What are you, anyway—a lap dog or a Chow pup? Get rid of that woman! I don’t care whether or not you made an ass of yourself over her by sympathizing with her. Old Atherstane had no more mistresses than the majority of church pillars and public benefactors in town; and, anyway, it was not up to you to dry her weeps. "Don’t make any mistake—the ci-devant Mrs. Atherstane can look out for herself. She needs no consideration from you; she doesn’t deserve any, either. What kind of a woman is she, anyhow—taking advantage of a chivalrous and conscientious boy who never did more than hold her hand and pat it, at most, when she told him she was lonely and unhappy, and needed a good man’s moral support? "Rot! You’re not responsible for her. You’re not in honor bound to sit around and await her pleasure, now that she’s free to marry. She wouldn’t have you, anyway.