and its ball-room. Pleasure seekers could and did find here ample
facilities for entertaining themselves.

The second morning of the dark weather discovered two of the guests in
the oak-paneled smoking-room of Strathorn House. One of them brushed the
ash from his cigar meditatively and then stretched himself more
comfortably in the great leather chair.

"No fox-hunt or fishing for any of us to-day," he remarked with a yawn.

The other, who had been gazing through a window at a prospect of
dripping leaves and leaden sky, answered absently; then his attention
centered itself on the small figure of a boy coming up through the
avenue of trees toward a side entrance.

"Believe I shall run over to Germany very soon, Steele," went on the
first speaker.

"Indeed?" John Steele's brows drew together; the appearance of the lad
was vaguely familiar. He remembered him now, the hostler boy at the
Golden Lion.

"Yes; capital case coming on in the criminal courts there."

"And you don't want to miss it, Forsythe?"

"Not I! Weakness of mine, as you know. Most people look to novels or
plays for entertainment; I find mine in the real drama, unfolded every
day in the courts of justice."