Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/89

 that of a gentleman. As Ashley returns his stare with interest the stranger turns and enters the hotel.

The incident is trivial, but it awakens curious emotions in Ashley, and absently overlooking his acquaintance's suggestion of a visit to the cafe, he says an au revoir and continues up Broadway.

"I have seen those eyes somewhere," he muses, "but hang me if I can recall where."

As, late in the evening, his assignment covered, Ashley is sauntering down Broadway, he is haunted by the vision of a bearded face surrounding a pair of piercing eyes. He even drops in at the Hoffman House and looks through the bar room, cafe and reading rooms, but the handsome stranger is not in view.

Ashley has been in Raymond once since he left it, the spring before, and he was kindly received by Miss Hathaway. But that was all. Not all his engaging manners and clever conversation could penetrate the reserve with which she surrounded herself, and he almost decided that she was indeed the marble which he professed to Barker to have solely interested him. Still, that pure white face, with its matchless blue eyes and the sad smile that occasionally lighted it, lingers vividly in his memory and will continue to linger until

He is at the Hemisphere office now. A very short time suffices to write and hand in his "copy" and then he lounges into the cable editor's room, with the inquiry: "What news from over the sea, Chance?"

"Nothing special except the insurrection in Cuba," Chance tells him. "Affairs are getting hot down there. You can judge of the magnitude of to-day's battle at Cienfuegos when you read that thirty Spaniards were killed and fifty captured."

"I should say so," laughs Ashley. "The average mortality per battle is three men killed and four wounded, is it not?"

The cable editor throws a handful of "copy" from him with a sniff of disgust. "One can never tell how far to trust this rot we are getting from Madrid and Key West," he says. "I wish the Hemisphere had a live man such as