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summoned, Melicent felt the effect of this stillness. It wore on her nerves, which had not entirely recovered from the shock of her experience on the previous night. Finally she could not stand it any longer. She opened the great door and went out on the terrace. The sun was quite warm and she walked slowly through the fading garden at the side of the house and on upon a path through the trees which took her to the Japanese garden.

    Granger was awaiting her. At least, he was there and it was the place he had appointed, yesterday, for their meeting; and she was aware more definitely than she had been the moment before that she had chosen this direction for the sake of finding him.

    "Good morning," he greeted her. "Now do you know what your job is?"

    "Yes," said Melicent. "I know."

    "What is it?"

    "I can't tell you."

    "As I expected." He accepted this refusal cheerily. "There's something else I can't tell you; but there's this I can," and he drew a businesslike looking automatic revolver from a pocket. "Arms have been issued, at least to me." He replaced the weapon. "Have you time to talk?"

    She went with him to a low stone seat; and she was more glad of his company than she betrayed; he seemed sane and competent and self-assured.

    "I hear Everitt's arriving," Granger observed.

    "Yes," said Melicent. Friendly as Granger was, she was determined to share no confidences with him, as much because of an instinctive caution as because of her pledge to Miss Cornwall.

    "He's a human one--perhaps the best of the lot," went on Granger cheerfully.
    "You'll like him. He's the oldest brother, next to Daniel, who died. Originally, there were six children; but you know one of them recently died?"

    "Yes; I know it."

    "It means a couple of hundred thousand extra a year for the five survivors; but puts them all even more on pins and needles."

    "What do you mean--pins and needles ?"

    "Because old Silas Cornwall's will was a joker. I can't figure out whether he hated his children or whether he wanted his will to be an inspiration to them; but the way he fixed it, they all share alike at first but, as they die, the shares of the deceased go to the survivors till there's only one left--and then he, or she, does whatever he pleases. It set them all off in the world's championship race to be the last survivor. It's pretty funny, because they're all trying different schemes to outlive the others."

    "What sort of schemes?"

    "Well, you're getting an inside view of Hannah's. Forty years ago, when the will was first made public, the various systems of the various sons and daughters to insure long life got plenty of publicity; one of them became a vegetarian; another one lived mostly on cheese; another one spent five years in a sanitarium getting herself in perfect physical condition. It was pretty funny then, I guess, but now they are all old and I suppose nature will claim them one by one in the next ten years. Hannah's pretty nearly the youngest and Hannah looks a bit rocky to me."

    "You haven't much feeling for them, have you?"

    "Why should I? The income of the estate is divided between them and makes them as rich as coots, anyway. It's just greed that makes them want to be last. Greed and a determination that their particular notion of disposing of their father's fortune will be the one that is carried out. They each have a different plan, you know; our employer's is the Greek idea; she's devoting herself to the business of living longest so she can build a university which would bring back Athens in its glory."

    "Yes," said Melicent, "she mentioned it."

    "Some of the others have even more dangerous ideas."

    "Dangerous how--to whom?"

    "To themselves probably. Dangle a couple of hundred million before a few enterprising beneficiaries, and somebody is likely to prove impatient. Take Professor Coleman, purely as an imaginary example. If Hannah Cornwall lives longest, he'll have the two hundred million some day not too far away for his