"You've 'it it, sir, you've 'it it," said Wilton, without the vestige of a smile. "Not but what women has a lot to put up with, mind you; and there's times when they're as kind as kind. Still, wot I say is, a lot of 'em's never content unless they can have the upper 'and, and that's what's wrong with England." * * * * * Meanwhile, at Bath, the condition of Nicholas Jardine had given Zenobia cause for increasing anxiety. In the hushed and tranquil days that sometimes come with October, the leaves fall of their own volition, and with scarcely perceptible sound. Their hour has come, and, with a faint whisper or rustle of farewell, one by one they flutter down to mother earth. Thus also, the leaves of human life are ever falling--the sighing souls of men, obedient to the immutable design, passing from out the bourn of time and space. In those last days, when the certainty of the end came home to him, Jardine, for the first time, began to ponder on problems to which he had scarcely given a thought in the active years of his remarkable career. Perhaps in the silence of the days, and in the deeper silence of the nights, he asked himself unconsciously those same questions which, thousands of years ago, the Son of Sirach had framed for all time in language so expressive: "What is man, and whereto serveth he? What is his good, and what is his evil? As a drop of water unto the sea, and a gravel-stone in comparison of the sand, so are a thousand years to the days of eternity!" "All flesh waxeth old as a garment; for the covenant from the beginning is: Thou shalt die the death. As the green leaves on a thick tree, some fall and some grow: so is the generation of flesh and blood, one cometh to an end, and another is born." "Every work rotteth and consumeth away, and the worker thereof shall go withal!" One day the President startled Zenobia by asking for a Bible. She brought it wonderingly. He signed to her to read. And as she read to him, the sick man and his daughter looked up into each other's eyes with something like bewilderment. "Father," cried the girl passionately, as she closed the Book, "Why did you keep it from me? Why did you do it?" The dying man looked into her face with troubled gaze, and whispered something very faintly. Was it the word "Forgive?" A yet stranger and more terrible ordeal was in store for Zenobia. To her lot it fell to hear from her father's lips a confession that seared her to the very soul. This confession presently was embodied in his will, which two days later he dictated to his daughter. His mind was perfectly clear, though his hand could scarcely hold the pen. As a matter of precaution, he insisted that the doctor and the nurse should be the attesting witnesses. The will was sealed in an envelope, and placed under lock and key. When that was done, Zenobia, with set face, hurried to the nearest telegraph office and sent the following message to Linton Herrick: