he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him
alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!"

"Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to
give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask
Evelyn to meet him!"

A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door,
where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore.

There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the
new-comer, but the salutation was not returned.

"Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed
past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant
Gilmore's face turned livid with rage.

"I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made
no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the
street.

McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the
Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of
which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be
found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar
Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind.

He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom
any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man,
according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount