he should reach the age of thirty. Of course, she ought to do something, she had often told herself, something radical and decisive; but she was too indolent, too definitely in a groove, too bored with herself and her surroundings, to take that keen interest essential to decisive action. So, with another sigh, she passed through the long window opening on the piazza, and thence to the lawn beyond.

Roger awoke just a minute too late to the fact that they had been alone together and that he had missed the opportunity he had been waiting for. He always preferred to approach Judith on money matters casually, and not as though the occasion were of his own seeking. It certainly was absurd for a man of his years and income to be kept in leading-strings by his own sister. However, there was no help for it, and Judith had always been a good sort, he would say that for her. He needed a cheque, and he might as well get it over with at once.

He found her in the garden, examining some flowers which had just been set out. Flowers were her one hobby, and he knew that a resort to them usually indicated a certain degree of boredom with those around her. But he went straight to the point.

"Say, sis, I'm running into town presently. Can you come in and draw me a cheque? Better make it five hundred this time, to keep me going a while."

"You lost again last night, Roger?"

"Lost?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Lord! Yes, I lost all right. The family resources can stand it, can't they?"

"How much?"

"Oh, don't ask me to figure now. My head's like a ship in a storm this morning. I don't know—lots."

"How much, Roger?"

"Oh, come on, sis, I'm in a hurry. Draw the cheque like a good girl ... let's talk about it to-morrow." Suddenly he caught the expression on his sister's face. It was an expression he seldom saw; one that he did not like. "Well, if you have got to have the horrible truth," he snapped petulantly, "I'm cleaned out ... absolute bust ... I still owe a few hundred to Faxon," he added reluctantly.

She sighed. "Again."

"Nothing's broken right for me. Absolutely nothing. You saw yourself the way the cards treated me last night."

Her eyes flashed. "You've got to be fairly sober to play a decent game of cards, Roger."

He looked aggrieved. "I was sober—almost. Sober enough, anyway. It was luck, I tell you—just the beastly rotten luck I always have. I never did have any luck, from the day I was born. Why, any other chap, with my chances ..."

"Roger," interrupted his sister shortly, as if she had not heard him at all. "Why do you find it necessary to throw away every cent you get? What's your idea?"

"My idea?"

"Yes. What's in your head about the future? What are you going to do with yourself? What do you think about—about—oh, things in general?"

He looked his bewilderment. "I'm afraid I don't quite connect, sis ..."

"I want to know if you've—well—I'd like to know ... just how you stand with yourself."

Her brother eyed her curiously. "What's struck you anyway?" he demanded. "What's happened to make you take on like this all of a sudden?"

"Nothing. It's not sudden. I've wanted to have this talk with you for a long time—not that it does any good ... we'll probably drag along the same old way." She sat thoughtfully silent for a moment. "I'll draw you a cheque, of course," she added listlessly. "You must pay up your debts at once. But you do worry me ..."

"Miss Wynrod?"

"What is it, Huldah?"

Roger stopped his discourse and the maid advanced with a card. Judith took it and knitted her brows as she read.

"Who is it, sis?"

"'Brent Good,'" she read, "'The Workman's World'"

"Well, he has got nerve," cried Roger. "That's that Socialist sheet, isn't it? Why, they take a crack at us once a week regular. And now they've got the gall to send a man out here. Tell him to go to the devil."

Judith turned to the maid. "Tell him that I am not at home, please, Huldah."

"I thought that would be the message," said a cheerful voice beyond the hedge, "so I didn't wait for it." A moment later a tall figure of a man emerged and took off his hat with an awkward bow.

"Good morning, Miss Wynrod." His bronzed, angular face, with its deep-set eyes and wide mouth, softened in a smile which was undeniably pleasing.

Judith surveyed his shabby figure, compounded of all manner of curious depressions and protuberances, and half smiled herself. His cheerfulness was infectious. Also, his appearance was almost comic, which was paradoxical in a representative of so savage an organ as The Workman's World. Then she recalled the circumstances of his intrusion, and when she spoke her voice was chill.

"I believe you heard my message."

"Clearly. But if you had known that I had come all the way out from the city on a very hot morning, merely to do you a favour, I don't think you would have given it." He surveyed her reproachfully. Then his lips parted again in a smile. "Won't you give me five minutes, Miss Wynrod—please."

Judith was no exception to the rule that curiosity is a dominant motive in human conduct. Besides, she had already succumbed to the curious stranger's magnetic geniality.

She hesitated. "Well ..." He took it to be acquiescence.

"Thanks very much. Now could I have this five minutes with you—alone?"

Roger frowned at the request, and winked at his sister.

"This is my brother. Anything that concerns me will concern him."

The stranger's demeanour was unruffled.

"I see. And I am very glad. What I have to say does concern your brother quite as much as it concerns yourself."

"Fire away!" interrupted Roger. Curiosity is by no means a distinctively feminine weakness.

The occupant of the shabby brown suit removed his almost equally brown straw hat and laid it on the grass.

"It's hot, isn't it," he smiled. It was difficult to resist that smile. Judith invited him to be seated. And although she herself remained standing, he accepted the invitation with alacrity. She marked that against him, although his next remark appeased her somewhat.

"It's a long walk up from the station," he said, carefully removing the abundant perspiration from his craggy forehead. "Pretty road, though," he added.

Judith was content to let him take his own time. But Roger was more impatient.

"You have something to say to us?"

"Yes," he admitted, "I have."

"Well...?"

Mr. Good looked from brother to sister. An expression of half-humorous dismay crossed his face, an expression which both of them caught, but neither understood. Then he drew a long breath and carefully folded his handkerchief. One long, lean forefinger shot out suddenly toward Judith, and the quizzical little smile vanished from his lips.

"You know, Miss Wynrod, of the terrible situation down in the Algoma mines. You know of the bloodshed, the pitched battles between strikers and mine-guards. And worst of all,"—With a rapid gesture, contrasting strongly with the languorous slowness of his movements before, he drew a folded newspaper from one of his bulging pockets—"You must have read this morning of the burning to death of twenty-two women and children—the families of the striking miners."

Judith had read the story. That is, she had glanced at the headlines, and realising the horror of their import, and at the same time feeling that there was no particular interest for her, had passed on to closer and less unpleasant interests. She remained silent before the tall stranger's accusing finger. Her curiosity was more piqued than ever. But Roger was angered.

"Well—and what of it?" he demanded with ill-concealed truculence.

The tall man turned his serious gaze on Roger.

"I suppose you are familiar with this terrible situation, too," he said, half interrogatively.

"Suppose I am. What of it. I say?" Roger knew nothing whatever about it, of course, and from the other