"Yes. Don't you go humbugging about there."
"I don't know what you're up to, dear boy. What's your little joke?"
"There's no joke at all about it," said Jack, harshly. "Do you know who
Miss O'Halloran is?"
"Well, I know that she's the daughter of Mr. O'Halloran, and that he's a fine old fellow. Any further information, however, I shall be delighted to receive. You talk as though you know something about her. What is it? But don't slander. Not a word against her. That won't stand."
"Slander! A word against her!" cried Jack. "Macrorie, you don't know who she is, or what she is to me. Macrorie, this miss O'Halloran is that lady that we have been calling 'Number Three'."
It was now my turn to be confounded. I, too, started to my feet, and not only my pipe, but my tumbler also, fell crashing to the floor.
"The devil she is!" I cried.
"She is—I swear she is—as true as I'm alive."
At this moment I had more need of a good, long, low whistle than ever I had in my life before. But I didn't whistle. Even a whistle was useless here to express the emotions that I felt at Jack's revelation. I stood and stared at him in silence. But I didn't see him. Other visions came before my mind's eye, Horatio, which shut out Jack from my view. I was again in that delightful parlor; again Nora's form was near—her laughing face, her speaking eyes, her expression—now genial and sympathetic, now confused and embarrassed. There was her round, rosy, smiling face, and near it the sombre face of Marion, with her dark, penetrating eyes. And this winning face, this laughter-loving Venus— this was the one about whom Jack rated as his Number Three. This was the one whom he asked to run off with him. She! She run off, and with him! The idea was simple insanity. She had written him a letter—had she?—and it was a scorcher, according to his own confession. She had found him out, and thrown him over. Was not I far more to her than a fellow like Jack—I who had saved her from a hideous death? There could be no question about that. Was not her bright, beaming smile of farewell still lingering in my memory? And Jack had the audacity to think of her yet!
"Number Three," said I—"well, that's odd. At any rate, there's one of your troubles cut off."