the officer told a friend of his—the fellow who got the girl, after all—that the Spaniard was trying to bluff him out of the game—not out of the game of cards, but away from the girl. Anyhow, the count up and let fly a glass of liquor fair into the Englishman's face, just the way it's written in stories. Then there was a rumpus, the Spaniard spitting like a cat, and the other lad trying to smack him in the eye with his fist. But fists weren't considered good enough to fight with, in those days, and it wasn't polite just to pitch in when you felt like it. So they went right out, and off to a field at the edge of the town, and fought a duel with pistols. It was a moonlight night. It looked as if the Spanish count fired half a second too soon—anyhow, he put a hole smash through the Englishman's head. Well, that was too much for the other lads, drunk as most of them were, and they went up to the count and told him that if he wasn't out of the country before sunrise they'd hang him up by the neck like any common murderer. So he went. And he never came back again, as far as I ever heard."

"I guess that happened quite a while ago," said Marsh.

"Yes, a good many years ago. But I've heard that the old lady talked about it to the day of her death."

"And who was the man she married?"

"Just my grandfather—my mother's father. He was a young lawyer, or something of that kind."

"Well," said Marsh, with a sigh of relief, "that's nothing but ancient history. I wouldn't believe more than half of that even if I had been taught it in school, out of a book. If that's all you've got to say against the red crosses then they don't worry me a mite. Anyway, where's the Spanish count? You'll have to dig up a Spanish count, Jim, afore you can get any change out of me with little red crosses on a playin' card."

"Yes, that is ancient history," replied Harley, "and I won't swear to the truth of it. The duel is true enough, though, for my own father saw it written down in the records. But you've not heard the whole story yet, Davy. The real thing—the part that bothers me—is yet to come."

"By the great horn spoon!" exclaimed Marsh. "And it must be near ten o'clock! Hurry up with the rest of it, Jim—and if it's not any worse than what you've told I'll think you've been makin' a fool of me."

"The rest of the story is about my own father—and my own mother," said Harley. "Nell and I don't talk about it, even to each other; and this is the first time it's been told to any one outside the family. I'd almost forgotten it—till I saw that card to-night. Then it jumped into my mind like—like a flash from hell's flames."

David Marsh felt a sudden embarrassment, and quick chill at his heart.

"Maybe you'd rather not tell it, Jim," he said. "If it's anything bad I'll take your word for it."

"It is bad enough," returned the other, "but it is not disgraceful. I must tell it to you, Davy, and then you can think over what happened to-night and work it out for yourself. It's only right that you should know all that I can tell you—and then, if you think it all foolishness, it's your own funeral."

David could not see his companion's face in the darkness, though he fairly strained his eyes to make it out. He wet his dry lips with his tongue. "I'm listening," he said, and forced an uneasy laugh.

"My mother lived in St. John with her parents, until she married, and moved over to the Miramichi," began Harley. "My father's home was in St. John, too, when he was a young fellow; but he was a sailor in those days and so spent most of his time at sea. He was a smart lad, and no mistake—mate of a foreign-goin' bark when he was nineteen and skipper when he was twenty-one. His schooling had been good, and he owned some shares in the ship, so he wasn't one of the common run of shellbacks.

"When he first met my mother he was layin' off a voyage to recover from a dose of malarial fever that had got into his blood down in Brazil. He saw her at a party of some kind; and, not being troubled with shyness, he went right after her. She was a beauty, I guess, like her mother before her—and, like her mother again, there was a whole bunch of young fellows courting her. My father, though, was a fine, upstanding lad, with good looks, fine manners, and a dashing way in everything he did. So he sailed right in; but he didn't have everything all his own way, at first.

"I've heard my mother say that, Sunday evenings, as many as six young men would call at her father's house—and she was the only girl, mind you. But they'd all pretend to be pleased to see each other, and there would be singing, and piano playing, and cake and wine—yes, and the old gent would invite one or two of them into his library to smoke his cigars, and the old lady would talk away to the rest of them about the grand times in St. John when she was young. Sometimes she'd tell about how the navy officer and the Spanish count fought about her—and, of course, she'd mention the queer marks on the card. She called it a romantic story.

"Well, it wasn't long before my father thought he had the other fellows beaten out, so he popped the question. My mother said 'Yes'—and so the old people announced the engagement. They were pretty stylish, you see. My father was all cured of his malarial fever, by this time, and ready for sea again. About a week after my mother had given him her promise, and only a few days before he expected to have his ship ready for a voyage to the West Indies, he was walking home about ten o'clock in the evening and met a bunch of his friends. They were going to have supper at a hotel and then finish the night at card playing. Well, my father was a light-hearted lad, with a pocketful of money and a taste for jolly company; so he joined the gang. The game they played was whist. Suddenly my father jumped to his feet, his face as red as fire, and tore one of the cards into little bits and flung them on the floor.

"'You may consider that a joke—whoever did it—but it's a damn poor joke!' he cried. He was a good man, but sometimes he got boiling mad. Some of the lads asked him what was the trouble, and one young fellow picked up the scraps of the torn card and found the two red crosses. 'Some one here knows what the trouble is,' yelled my father, 'and if he'll just stand up and confess to his ungentlemanly joke, I'll smack him across the face for his trouble.'

"Nobody stood up, you may bet your hat on that; but when the lad who had picked up the scraps of card began handing them around, a lot of them began to laugh and jeer, and make fun of the sailor. Most of them had heard the old lady tell about the Spanish count, you know. 'Better make your will,' said one. 'That's a dangerous family to monkey with,' said another. 'Glad I'm not in your boots.' 'It's the Spaniard's ghost.' 'Better break it off, Tom, and look 'round for a safer wife.' 'The other chap who got the red marks was a sailor, too.'

"And so they shouted things at him until he was mad enough to kill somebody. But he couldn't tackle them all. So he called them a lot of hard names. He told them that the sailors aboard his ship had a better idea of a joke and better manners than they had. They began to quiet down, then, and some of them looked mighty red in the face, for every lad there considered himself something pretty extra when it came to style and manners. My father finished by saying that the trick they had played and the things they had said to him were insults to two ladies who had never done any of them a shadow of harm. Most of them jumped up and yelled that they knew nothing about any trick, and hadn't meant to insult any one; but my father just glared and sneered at them, and left the room. He was just a skipper of a sailing ship, but he had been brought up with pretty strict notions about manners, and insults, and those kinds of things.

"He had just reached the street when one of the others—a lad called Jackson—came jumping after him and grabbed him by the back of the neck. This Jackson was