alone, he moved towards the seat just vacated by his wife.

"Come and sit down," he said, "and I will tell you a little story."

"Does she know it?" enquired Harkness, when they were seated.

"No."

"Then I don't want to hear it! You'd better keep it to yourself, I
reckon."

The Englishman gave a little laugh, and lapsed into silence--
thinking abstractedly.

"I should like to tell you some of it, for my own sake. I don't
want you to go away thinking--something that is not the fact."

"I would rather not have the story," persisted Harkness. This
American had some strange notions of a bygone virtue called
chivalry. "Give me a few facts--I will string them together."

Lord Storrel was sitting forward on his low chair, with his hands
clasped between his knees. They were rather large hands--suggestive
of manual labour.

"Suppose," he said, without looking round, "that a man is in a
street row in Dublin, when no one knows he is even in the town.
Suppose the--eh--English side of the question is getting battered,
and he hits out and kills a drunken beast of an Irish agitator.
Suppose an innocent man is accused of it and the right chap is