"Crime!" she answered briefly. "It deals with the lowest of the low. It suits the mood I am in. I am writing of things so terrible that they will hardly be credited. To get at my facts I have to go into the most depraved quarters, and associate with the canaille. But I am going to make a hit that has not been equaled in recent years!"
He smiled sadly.
"Roseleaf had the same expectation," he said. "And yet he tells me that he is doing nothing on that wonderful tale over which I have heard Gouger rave so often. He has reached a point where he can go no farther, and unless he rouses himself, all he has done is merely wasted time."
Millicent closed her eyes till they resembled those of a cat at noonday.
"Keep watch for mine," she said. "It will be all I claim for it."
During the winter Mr. Weil was in California. As spring approached he returned to the East and visited a well known resort in North Carolina, where by one of those curious coincidences that happen to travelers, he found himself placed at table exactly opposite to Mr. Walker Boggs. The ordinary salutations and explanations followed, and then Mr. Boggs alluded to a more interesting subject.
"I think I can surprise you," he remarked, "by something that I learned the other day. Mr. Fern and Miss Daisy are living within five miles of here."
It was certainly news, and entirely unexpected at that. Those people might be in Greenland, for all Archie had known, and indeed he had supposed they were on the other side of the ocean. He listened with interest while Boggs went on to say that they had hired an old plantation house and grounds and were living a strictly secluded life. The narrator had seen them in one of his drives through the country, and had talked a few minutes with Mr. Fern; but—and he said it with a touch of pique—he had not been invited to visit them, nor had any apology been made for the neglect.
"By George, I thought it rather tough!" he added, "considering the way you and I got him out of that nigger's clutches."
"But you must remember what he has since endured," replied Archie, mildly.