Her eyes again answered that she expected he would, and she added simply, “When?”

“In the course of a day or two;” he replied quickly.  “I will send you word.”

She turned to go.  In his eagerness to open the door for her, he upset his chair, and with some confusion, that was actually youthful, he almost impeded her movements in the hall, and knocked his broad-brimmed Panama hat from his bowing hand in a final gallant sweep.  Yet as her small, trim, youthful figure, with its simple Leghorn straw hat confined by a blue bow under her round chin, passed away before him, she looked more like a child than ever.

The Colonel spent that afternoon in making diplomatic inquiries.  He found his youthful client was the daughter of a widow who had a small ranch on the cross-roads, near the new Free-Will Baptist Church—­the evident theatre of this pastoral.  They led a secluded life, the girl being little known in the town, and her beauty and fascination apparently not yet being a recognized fact.  The Colonel felt a pleasurable relief at this, and a general satisfaction he could not account for.  His few inquiries concerning Mr. Hotchkiss only confirmed his own impressions of the alleged lover,—­a serious-minded, practically abstracted man, abstentive of youthful society, and the last man apparently capable of levity of the affections or serious flirtation.  The Colonel was mystified, but determined of purpose, whatever that purpose might have been.

The next day he was at his office at the same hour.  He was alone—­as usual—­the Colonel’s office being really his private lodgings, disposed in connecting rooms, a single apartment reserved for consultation.  He had no clerk, his papers and briefs being taken by his faithful body-servant and ex-slave “Jim” to another firm who did his office work since the death of Major Stryker, the Colonel’s only law partner, who fell in a duel some years previous.  With a fine constancy the Colonel still retained his partner’s name on his doorplate, and, it was alleged by the superstitious, kept a certain invincibility also through the ‘manes’ of that lamented and somewhat feared man.

The Colonel consulted his watch, whose heavy gold case still showed the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined for its owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness of breath in his fob.  At the same moment he heard a step in the passage, and the door opened to Adoniram K. Hotchkiss.  The Colonel was impressed; he had a duelist’s respect for punctuality.

The man entered with a nod and the expectant inquiring look of a busy man.  As his feet crossed that sacred threshold the Colonel became all courtesy; he placed a chair for his visitor, and took his hat from his half reluctant hand.  He then opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

“A—­er—­slight refreshment, Mr. Hotchkiss,” he suggested politely.