It was now my turn to be confounded. I, too, started to my feet, and not only my pipe, but my tumbler also, fell crashing to the floor. "The devil she is!" I cried. "She is--I swear she is--as true as I'm alive." At this moment I had more need of a good, long, low whistle than ever I had in my life before. But I didn't whistle. Even a whistle was useless here to express the emotions that I felt at Jack's revelation. I stood and stared at him in silence. But I didn't see him. Other visions came before my mind's eye, Horatio, which shut out Jack from my view. I was again in that delightful parlor; again Nora's form was near--her laughing face, her speaking eyes, her expression--now genial and sympathetic, now confused and embarrassed. There was her round, rosy, smiling face, and near it the sombre face of Marion, with her dark, penetrating eyes. And this winning face, this laughter-loving Venus-- this was the one about whom Jack rated as his Number Three. This was the one whom he asked to run off with him. She! _She_ run off, and with him! The idea was simple insanity. She had written him a letter--had she?--and it was a scorcher, according to his own confession. She had found him out, and thrown him over. Was not I far more to her than a fellow like Jack--I who had saved her from a hideous death? There could be no question about that. Was not her bright, beaming smile of farewell still lingering in my memory? And Jack had the audacity to think of her yet! "Number Three," said I--"well, that's odd. At any rate, there's one of your troubles cut off." "Cutoff?" "Yes." "What do you mean?" "I mean this, that Number Three won't bother you again." Jack stood looking at me for some time in silence, with a dark frown on his brow. "Look here, Macrorie," said he; "you force me to gather from your words what I am very unwilling to learn." "What!" said I "Is it that I admire Miss O'Halloran? Is that it? Come, now; speak plainly, Jack. Don't stand in the sulks. What is it that you want to say? I confess that I'm as much amazed as you are at finding that my Lady of the Ice is the same as your 'Number Three.' But such is the case; and now what are you going to do about it?" "First of all," said Jack, coldly, "I want to know what you are proposing to do about it." "I?" said I. "Why, my intention is, if possible, to try to win from Miss O'Halloran a return of that feeling which I entertain toward her." "So that's your little game--is it?" said Jack, savagely. "Yes," said I, quietly; "that's exactly my little game. And may I ask what objection you have to it, or on what possible right you can ground any conceivable objection?" "Right?" said Jack--"every right that a man of honor should respect." "Right?" cried I. "Right?" "Yes, right. You know very well that she's mine."