e under
a weight, and then some one rapped softly on the door.

Gilmore waited an instant; the rap was repeated; he stepped to the door,
shot the bolt and opened it. The storm had passed; it was now cold and
clear, a brilliant, starlit, winter's night. He saw the man on the porch
clearly as he stood there with the world in white at his back. Gilmore
instantly recognized him, and his hand came from under the tails of his
coat; he closed the door softly.

"What sort of a joke is this, Marsh?" he demanded in a whisper.

"Joke?" repeated the lawyer in a thick husky voice, as he took an
uncertain step toward the gambler.

"Your coming here at this hour; if it isn't a joke, what is it?"

Gilmore saw that his face was flushed with drink while his eyes shone
with a light he had never seen in them before. He must have been abroad
in the storm for some time, for the snow had lodged in the rim of his
hat and his shoulders were still white with it; now and again a paroxysm
of shivering seized him.

"Whisky chill," thought the gambler. "Come in, Marsh!" he said, but
Langham seemed to draw back instinctively.

"No, I guess not, Andy!" and a sickly pallor overspread his face.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded Gilmore.

"I want to see you," said the other. "I can't go home yet." He swayed
heavily. "I need to talk to you on a matter of business. Come on
out--come on off of here;" and he led the way down the porch steps.
"Whom have you in there with you?" he questioned when he had drawn
Gilmore a little way along the path.

"The colonel and Watt Harbison."

"No one else?"

"No."

"Do they know I'm here?"

"I guess not, they were asleep two minutes ago."

"That's good. I don't want to see them, I want to see you."

"Wouldn't it keep, Marsh?" asked Gilmore.

"No, sir, it wouldn't keep; I want to tell you just what I think of you,
you damn--"

"Oh, that will keep, Marsh, any time will do for that; anyway, you have
told me something like that already! When you sober up--"

The Just and the Unjust

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