"No; I noticed the '7' on his hat, of course, but never asked any
questions, for his face was strange. I didn't know. The name, when
you just spoke it, struck me rather queer. I--I used to know a Brant
in the Seventh, but he was much older; it was not this man."

She answered something, lingering for a moment at the door, but he made
no response, and she passed out silently, leaving him staring moodily
through the open window, his eyes appearing glazed and sightless.

Glencaid, like most mining towns of its class, was dull and dead enough
during the hours of daylight. It was not until after darkness fell
that it awoke from its somnolence, when the scattered miners came
swarming down from out the surrounding hills and turned into a noisy,
restless playground the single narrow, irregular street. Then it
suddenly became a mad commixture of Babel and hell. At this hour
nothing living moved within range of the watcher's vision except a
vagrant dog; the heat haze hung along the near-by slopes, while a
little spiral of dust rose lazily from the deserted road. But Hampton
had no eyes for this dreary prospect; with contracted brows he was
viewing again that which he had confidently believed to have been
buried long ago. Finally, he stepped quickly across the little room,
and, standing quietly within the open doorway, looked long at the young
girl upon the bed. She lay in sound, motionless sleep, one hand
beneath her cheek, her heavy hair, scarcely revealing its auburn hue in
the gloom of the interior, flowing in wild disorder across the crushed
pillow. He stepped to the single window and drew down the green shade,
gazed at her again, a new look of tenderness softening his stern face,
then went softly out and closed the door.

An hour later he was still sitting on the hard chair by the window, a