When Nan made up her mind, she acted with lightning rapidity. She would force Stuart to an avowal of love that would fix their relation beyond disturbance by the little singer. She had too fine a sense of values to permit herself to become entangled in an intrigue.

She could wait, and gain in power for the waiting. Her physician had told her that Bivens\'s days were numbered. Stuart had waited twelve years in silence; he could wait the few months more of her husband\'s flickering life.

But on one thing she was determined. Now that another woman had appeared on the scene she would not live in suspense, she must know that he loved her still, loved her passionately, madly as she believed he did. But he must say it. She must hear his voice quiver with its old fiery intensity. She wished this as she had never longed for anything on earth, and for twelve years she had lived in a magic world where she had only to breathe a desire to have it fulfilled.

Stuart had baffled and eluded her on every point when she had thought he was about to betray his passion. Here was something mere money had no power to command. Well, she had other powers. She would use them to the limit. She would no longer risk the danger of delay.

She had no difficulty in persuading Bivens to urge Stuart to visit their country estate in the mountains of North Carolina. The doctor had ordered him there to live in the open air.

The young lawyer refused to go at first, but Bivens urged with such pathetic eagerness he was compelled to accept.

It was a warm beautiful morning the last week in March when he alighted on the platform of the little railroad station on the estate, and took his seat beside Nan in her big touring car. The fruit trees were in full bloom, and their perfume filled the air. The hum of bees and the song of birds he had known in his boyhood thrilled his heart. He drew a deep breath of joy, and without a struggle resigned himself to the charm of it all.

"It\'s glorious, Nan!" he exclaimed.

"Your coming makes it perfect, Jim," she answered, tenderly, and turning to the chauffeur said:

"Drive for an hour before going to the house, Collins."

The chauffeur tipped his cap and the throbbing machine shot around a curve and swept along the river\'s edge down the green carpeted valley which stretches out for miles below the ramparts of the great chateau on the mountain-side above.

"There\'s the house, Jim!" Nan cried, pointing to the heights on the left.

Stuart could not suppress an exclamation of delight.

"Magnificent!" he said, with enthusiasm.

As the river made a graceful curve the great building swept into full view—a stunning pile of marble three hundred feet long, its tower piercing the turquoise sky in solemn grandeur. The stone parapet, on which its front wall was built, rose in massive strength a hundred feet from the ledge in the granite cliff before touching the first line of the white stones of the house itself.

At the end a formal garden had been built on the foundations of masonry which cost a hundred thousand dollars.

"What a background that row of live oaks make behind the garden!" he exclaimed.

"Don\'t they?" she answered. "You would hardly believe it, but we planted every one of those trees."

"Nonsense! They must be two feet in diameter."

"More; not one of them is less than three. We moved a hundred of them from the woods, without breaking the dirt from their roots—built special machinery to do it. I think Cal is prouder of those trees than he is of the house."

For an hour the car swept like a spirit over the miles of smooth macadam private roads Bivens had built. At each graceful turn his wonder increased at the luxurious outlay of millions which the little man had spent to gratify a whim.

From each hilltop, as the huge gleaming castle came into view from a new angle, revealing its marvellous beauty, he thought with a touch of pity of the shambling figure of the stricken man limping through its halls helpless, lonely, miserable. What strange pranks Fate plays with the mighty as well as the lowly! So frail was the broken body now he did not dare risk a cold by taking a ride with his wife.

The machine turned suddenly up a hill and glided through two iron gates opening on the lawn and the great white chateau loomed before them in a flash of blinding beauty. Stuart caught his breath.

Turning to Nan he shook his head slowly:

"Don\'t you like it?" she laughed.

"I was just wondering."

"At what?"

"Whether this is the Republic for which our struggling fathers fought and died? America you know, Nan, is the tall rude youth who saw a vision, made his way into the wilderness, slept on the ground, fought with hunger and wild beasts and grew strong by the labour of his right arm. It would be a strange thing if all he has learned is to crawl back to where he started and build a castle exactly like the one from which the tyrants drove him in the Old World."

"What a strange fellow you are, Jim." Her answer carried with it a touch of resentment. "This house is mine, mine—not America\'s—please remember that. Let the future American take of himself!"

"Certainly, I understand," he answered quickly, as the car stopped under the vaulted porte-cochère. "You wouldn\'t be a woman if you didn\'t feel that way. All right; I\'m in your hands. To the devil with the future American!"

"That\'s better!" she laughed.

Stuart shook hands with Bivens and was shocked to find him so weak.

The little man held his hand with a lingering wistfulness as he looked into his friend\'s strong face.

"You don\'t know how rich you are, Jim," he said, feebly, "with this hand that grips like iron. I\'d give millions to feel my heart beat like yours to-day."

"You\'ll get better down here," Stuart answered, cheerfully.

"I\'m trying it anyhow," he said listlessly. "Make yourself at home, old boy. This house is my pride. I want Nan to show you every nook and corner in it. I wish I could trot around with you, but I can\'t."

"As soon as you\'ve changed your clothes," Nan said, familiarly, "come down to the library and I\'ll show you around."

Stuart followed the man assigned as his valet to the electric elevator and in a minute stepped out on the fourth floor. He observed with a smile that his room number was 157.

"The idea of living in a huge hotel and calling it a home!" he mused, with grim humour. "Room 157; great Scott!............