"Well, Wiggins is a good fellow, one of the very best," I remarked, as I absorbed these revelations, "and it is n't the girl's aunt he wants to marry." "He's a capital fellow," affirmed Jewett, "and that's why it's a sin this had to happen to him. There's no telling where this affair may lead him. There's something queer in the wind, all right. The chevalier has brother Bassford where he can't whimper; I rather fancy he feeds from her hand. His girls have n't any prospects except through the chevalier. Nice girls, so I'm told; but between the father with his vertiginous tendencies and a lunatic aunt who holds the family money-bags, I don't see much ahead of them. Miss Cecilia Hollister is living with her aunt; it's a sort of compulsory sequestration; she has to do it whether she wants to or not. I rather fancy it's to keep her away from Wiggins." "And the other sister; where does she come in?" "Not important, I fancy. Rumor is silent touching her. In fact I 've never heard anything of her. But this Cecilia is no end handsome and proud. Poor old Wiggy!" I was already ashamed of myself for having encouraged Jewett to discuss Wiggins's affairs, and was about to leave him, when he snorted, in a disagreeable way he had, at some joke that had occurred to him, and he continued chuckling to himself to attract my attention. My frown did not dismay him. [Illustration: He continued chuckling to himself to attract my attention.] "I knew there was something," he was saying, "about Miss Cecilia's younger sister, and I've just recalled it. The girl has a most extraordinary name, quite the most remarkable you ever heard." He laughed until he was purple in the face. I did not imagine that any name known to feminine nomenclature could be so humorous. "Hezekiah! Bang! That's the little sister's name. Bassford Hollister had been saving that name for a son, who never appeared, to do honor to old Hezekiah, the perambulator-chap. So they named the girl for her grand-dad. Bang! One of the apostles, Hezekiah!" I waited for his mirth to wear itself out, and then rose, to terminate the interview with an adequate dramatic dismissal. "You poor pagan," I remarked, with such irony as I could command; "it's too bad you insist on revealing the abysmal depths of your ignorance: Hezekiah was not an apostle, but a mighty king before the day of apostles." I left him blinking, and unconvinced as to Hezekiah's proper place in history. Wiggins, I learned at the office, had, within half an hour, left the club hurriedly in a cab, taking a trunk with him. He had mentioned no mail-address to the clerk. And this was very unlike Wiggins. CHAPTER II THE BEGINNING OF MY ADVENTURE Wiggins's strange conduct and Jewett's dark hints so disturbed me that the very next afternoon I again sought the Asolando Tea-Room, feeling that in its atmosphere I might best weigh the few facts I possessed touching my friend's love-affairs.