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"I have asked you," said Siward, rising, and very grave, "I have asked you to do the right thing Are you going to do it?"

"Is that a threat?" inquired Quarrier, showing the edges of his well-kept teeth "Is this inti to bespatter others with scandal unless I aovernors with the flimsy excuse you attempt to offerme pay for what you believe you know of my private life? Is it really intimidation?"

And still Siward stared into his half-veiled, sneering eyes, speechless

"There is only one na a quick involuntary step backward to the door as the blaze of fury broke out in Siward's eyes

"Good God! Quarrier," whispered Siith dry lips, "what a cur you are! What a cur!"

And long after Quarrier had passed the door and disappeared in the corridor, Siward stood there, frozen e that swept him

He had never before had an enemy worth the name; he knew he had one now He had never before hated; he now understood so to take this iven place to a ed and surged under the first flood of a mortal hatred That the hatred was sterile made it the more intense, and, blinded by it, he stood there or paced the roo but the wild cla but the smooth, expressionless face of the ht, seated in his chair by the , a deathly lassitude weighing his heart, he heard the steps of people on the stairway, the click of the ascending elevator, gay voices calling good night, a ripple of laughter, the silken swish of skirts in the corridor, doors opening and closing; then silence creeping throughout the house on the receding heels of departure--a stillness that settled like a h hall and corridor, accented for a few moments by distant sounds, then absolute, echoless silence And for a long while he sat there listening

The cool wind from the ocean blew his curtains far into the roo, only to rise again in the freshening breeze He sat watching their silken convolutions, stupidly, for a while, then rose and closed his , and raised theon the south for purposes of air