“I took the thing out and read it,” Tembarom went on, uneasily, the emotion of his first novel-reading stirring him as he talked. “It kept me up half the night, and I hadn't finished it then. I wanted to know the end.” “Benisons upon the books of which one wants to know the end!” the duke murmured. Tembarom's interest had plainly not terminated with “the end.” Its freshness made it easily revived. There was a hint of emotional indignation in his relation of the plot. “It was about a couple of fools who were dead stuck on each other--dead. There was no mistake about that. It was all real. But what do they do but work up a fool quarrel about nothing, and break away from each other. There was a lot of stuff about pride. Pride be damned! How's a man going to be proud and put on airs when he loves a woman? How's a woman going to be proud and stick out about things when she loves a man? At least, that's the way it hit me.” “That's the way it hit me--once,” remarked his grace. “There is only once,” said Tembarom, doggedly. “Occasionally,” said his host. “Occasionally.” Tembarom knew what he meant. “The fellow went away, and neither of them would give in. It's queer how real it was when you read it. You were right there looking on, and swallowing hard every few minutes--though you were as mad as hops. The girl began to die--slow--and lay there day after day, longing for him to come back, and knowing he wouldn't. At the very end, when there was scarcely a breath left in her, a young fellow who was crazy about her himself, and always had been, put out after the hard-headed fool to bring him to her anyhow. The girl had about given in then. And she lay and waited hour after hour, and the youngster came back by himself. He couldn't bring the man he'd gone after. He found him getting married to a nice girl he didn't really care a darn for. He'd sort of set his teeth and done it--just because he was all in and down and out, and a fool. The girl just dropped her head back on the pillow and lay there, dead! What do you think of that?” quite fiercely. “I guess it was sentimental all right, but it got you by the throat.” “'Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye,”' his grace quoted. “First-class title. We are all sentimental. And that was the first, was it?”