He urged him to eat with tender solicitude, even gave him his famous recipe for a salad. No matter what our sympathy, our help for each other can seldom come any closer than skin or stomach, after all. "By the way," he said presently, "I hear that Swendon has bought a place up the Hudson. Can you tell me anything about him?" "I meet him everywhere," said Neckart. "The old man is failing fast. But he takes life just as he always did--like a boy let loose for the holidays." "And his daughter?" "She never comes into town: she is not a woman of society." "I remember the little Swede was no favorite of yours," noticing a certain reserve in Neckart's tone. "But I had an object in asking for her. Of course you would not be likely to know much about them: they are out of your line." "I have met the captain and his daughter several times during the year," said Neckart. "They were camping on the Maine coast last summer, and I stumbled into their tent one day. Miss Swendon fancied her father would grow strong on a diet of fish of his own catching. When the cold weather set in she took him to St. Augustine. I ran against him by the old fort the very morning I arrived, and in the spring we met at Omaha, and made the overland trip to California together. There is no kind of air and no kind of amusement which she has not tried, since she had the means, to give the old man his health back again. To no purpose, however." "Very odd!" the judge nodded mysteriously. "Very odd indeed about that property! Laidley told me the very night before he died that he had made a will leaving it in charity. Now, Jane inherited by virtue of a will made two years before. No other forthcoming. I suppose remorse seized him _in articulo mortis_. There was a curious thing occurred in that last interview of mine with Laidley.--How can I see Swendon?" interrupting himself. "Where is their house?" Mr. Neckart hesitated a moment: "I am going there this evening to dine and spend the night, and I will take you with me. It will be a surprise which the captain will like." "The very thing! Precisely! The truth is, Neckart--light a cigar--the truth is," lowering his voice and leaning over the table, "Laidley exacted a half promise from me that night which troubles me. The fellow died forthwith, you see, and so clenched it on me. He had a plan for Miss Swendon's future, and asked me to forward it. I thought he was going to cheat the girl, and paid little attention to it. But he did the clean thing after all, and then died promptly. I must say Laidley acted in a much more decent and gentlemanlike way than I expected. So, now I feel as if I owed it to the fellow to keep my word." Mr. Neckart nodded. He asked no questions, but scanned the judge's flabby face narrowly. Rhodes lifted one leg on to the other knee and nursed it. It was his confidential attitude. "It's a delicate matter, you see. Van Ness is concerned." "Van Ness, the antiquarian?"