XXVII THIRLWELL'S DULLNESS

XXVIII STORMONT TRIES A BRIBE

XXIX GEORGE REPROACHES HIMSELF

XXX A CHANGE OF LUCK

XXXI THIRLWELL'S REWARD




CHAPTER I

THIRLWELL MAKES HIS CHOICE


Dinner was nearly over at the big red hotel that stands high above the
city of Quebec, and Thirlwell, sitting at one of the tables,
abstractedly glanced about. The spacious room was filled with skilfully
tempered light that glimmered on colored glasses and sparkled on silver;
pillars and cornices were decorated with artistic taste. A murmur of
careless talk rose from the groups of fashionably dressed women and
prosperous men, and he heard a girl's soft laugh.

All this struck a note of refined luxury that was strange to Thirlwell,
who had spent some years in the wilds, where the small, frost-bitten
pines roll across the rocks and muskegs of North Ontario. One lived hard
up there, enduring arctic cold, and the heat of the short summer, when