on earth do you want to keep a pot-house for?"

"It's a way of earning your living, like another."

"Leads to misunderstandings, though. Didn't he ever mention me?"

"Yes; but I couldn't be sure you were the same man."

"Well, I wouldn't say I am; times have changed since then," said Trent. He replaced the frame and established himself on the rug, squaring his broad shoulders against the mantelpiece, apparently settling down for a comfortable gossip. "I was a bit of a fire-eater in those days. I remember one time we were out riding--"

The tale he told was one of those which modest men leave their friends to tell for them. It seemed to concern him no more than a casual newspaper paragraph about a casual stranger. "I couldn't do that now, you know," was his comment. He had quite forgotten his anger; indeed, he seemed to have worn out all power of sustained feeling, to be without shame as without vanity. He rambled on from story to story; presently he was pouring into their ears the tale of the scandal that had led to his retirement. Out it all came, in a curious mixture of indifference and maudlin self-pity. "That was the end of me," he said, staring at Gardiner with hazy, apathetic eyes. "I wasn't a bad sort of feller before--did one or two things a man might be proud of; but it was all up when I had to leave the old regiment. And just for the sake of a little devil who didn't care a rap about me--not a rap, I swear she didn't! Yes! it's the women who've been my ruin."

It was a melancholy exhibition. One might gather that he still presented a decent front to the world; whisky had loosened his tongue tonight, making him a traitor to himself, but he did not habitually drink. He said so, with unblushing candor. "It wasn't wine with me, you know; that was never my vice." He was, as Gardiner said, a good man gone wrong; but he had gone very far wrong. There was something cruel in the way the young man led him on to expose himself. Charity would have covered his sins, but cynicism drew them all out to look at. Denis's instincts were more healthy.

"Why don't you kick him out?" he said in an angry whisper.

"I'm not done with him yet. He amuses me."

"He makes me sick. It's beastly, Harry! You've no business to do it!"

"Think not? Now, he strikes me as fair game," said Gardiner, contemplating his 

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