“For luncheon,” began Portlaw with animation, “we’re going to try a new sauce on that pair of black ducks they brought in—­”

“In violation of the laws of game and decency,” observed Malcourt, shedding his fur coat and unstrapping the mail-satchel from Pride’s Fall.

“Shut up, Louis!  Can’t a man eat the things that come into his own property?” And he continued unfolding to Hamil his luncheon programme while, with a silver toddy-stick, heirloom from bibulous generations of Portlaws, he stirred the steaming concoction which, he explained, had been constructed after the great Sir William’s own receipt.

“You’ve never tried a Molly Brant toddy?  Man alive, you’ve wasted your youth,” he insisted, genuinely grieved.  “Well, wise men, chiefs, and sachems, here’s more hair on your scalp-locks, and a fat buck to every bow!”

Malcourt picked up his glass. “Choh” he said maliciously; but Portlaw did not understand the irony in the Seminole salutation of The Black Drink; and the impudent toast was swallowed without suspicion.

Then Hamil’s luggage arrived, and he went away to inspect his quarters, prepare for luncheon, and exchange his attire for forest dress.  For he meant to lose no time in the waste corners of the earth when Gotham town might any day suddenly bloom like Eden with the one young blossom that he loved.

There was not much for him in Eden now—­little enough except to be in her vicinity, near her at times, at intervals with her long enough to exchange a word or two under the smooth mask of convention which leaves even the eyes brightly expressionless.

Never again to touch her hand save under the formal laws sanctioned by usage; never again to wake with the intimate fragrance of her memory on his lips; never again to wait for the scented dusk to give them to each other—­to hear her frail gown’s rustle on the terrace, her footfall in the midnight corridor, her far, sweet hail to him from the surf, her soft laughter under the roses on the moon-lit balcony.

That—­all of it—­was forever ended.  But he believed that the pallid northern phantom of the past was still left to him; supposed that now, at least, they might miserably consider themselves beyond peril.

But what man supposes of woman is vain imagining; and in that shadowy neutral ground which lies between martyrdom and sin no maid dwells for very long before she crosses one frontier or the other.

When he descended the stairs once more he found Portlaw, surrounded by the contents of the mail-sack, and in a very bad temper, while Malcourt stood warming his back at the blazing birch-logs, and gazing rather stupidly at a folded telegram in his hands.

“Well, Hamil—­damn it all!  What do you think of that!” demanded Portlaw, turning to Hamil as he entered the room; and unheeding Malcourt’s instinctive gesture of caution which he gave, not comprehending why he gave it, Portlaw went on, fairly pouting out his irritation: