any name they please as long as it amuses them. What difference does it
make? I am glad Hughie is coming up, I want some music. He puts the
mountains into music for me."

"And for me." She smiled and then sighed bitterly, gazing drearily into
the fire, now a bed of glowing embers. Then latent and feminine
curiosity stirred in her thoughts and voiced itself. "Why are you here?"
she said. "Why does a man like you stay here?"

His elbow rested on the arm of his chair, his chin in his hand, his gaze
too upon the fading embers. "I don't know," he said in a low voice, "I
had to come."

"Where from?" she still followed her instinct of curiosity.

"From the husks"--he turned his head and smiled at her--"from a far
country where I had wasted my substance in riotous living."

She frowned a little. She was not used to this type of man, nor had she
met any one who used hyperbole in conversation. At first she fancied
that he might be chaffing her, but she was too intelligent to harbor
that idea, so convincing was his innate sincerity; but nevertheless, she
meant to go cautiously.

Again she questioned him: "From what far country?"

He had fallen to musing again, and it is doubtful if he heard her. He
saw before him immense, primeval forests, black, shadowy; vast, sluggish
rivers, above which hung a thick and fever-laden air; trees from whose
topmost branches swung gorgeous, ephemeral flowers; and then long