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CHAPTER XVII. Next day ii. poured: a. fine, soft, silent, autumnal rain, that wrapped1 the woods in a fleece of grey cloud. Ardel, with an impatient, despairing glance at the inexorable sky, led the Way after breakfast to the gymnasi- um. i The girls, delighted, as girls (Ll-E ways are, to ’ tory, ranged round the walls of the: great room with curious eyes fingers. and lthing worthy lcourse, of course, all that is readily of the lower animals. to flatter a hero, we say he has the courage of a lion or of a bulldog. . ‘x'e might say of a {rank-cock, or ’1. If we want bantain, or a. cockchal'er, and it Would still be flattery. in strength and speed, in quickness of eye and grace of limb, there are brutes with whom man can bear no comparison. l‘lis ‘intellect alone “Wade 3* “31110 ten'1'.*cr0\vns him monarch of creation; it his gloryâ€"the one to be admired. Of is his power, With great effort Jeannette liftediconrezied. liut to set admiration a few inches from the cocoanut n'iatâ€"lallame with life, to make the MOM} ting one of the huge dumbbells' which Ardel twirled so lightly, and let it drop again with a frightened little scream at its weight. she thrust her tiny recesses of a big pair of boxing heart throb with tii gle and the is needed. fierce enthusiasm, there ,some feat of strength and skill and ’I‘hen‘courage, Whether in killing or savâ€" fists into the ing matters not at all. Next to real fighting, the mimicry gloves, and stood facing him saucily of battle is the most exhilarating of in a charmingly with a. dancing light in her dark| eyes that made him long to catch her up and crumplo her in his arms. unscientific pose, lsp ctacles. The boxing of Ardel and Trevor was a delightful parody of the brutal business of the ring. The hits were For Lucy, the slim, bright ions quick as light, the touches soft as were the main attraction place. She took one up by the emâ€" bossed hilt, and the bright steel flickered as she switched it like a lady’s riding whip. “It’s such a dainty toy,” she said to Harry Trevor. "I love to see you men what you call ‘play’ with it. You could not kill a man with that little steel strip, of course!” He showed her the button at the top of the slim blade. “If that Were off, Lucy,” he said. “every touch were death. It’s a small thing, isn’t it, to stand beâ€" tween a man and eternity?” She Was dismayed at the very thought of it. "I shall never love to look at the deadly things again," she said. “Oh, don't let that frighten you! They are as harmless now as bean- stalks. The foil cannot break nor the button come off. They have of the thistle-down; yet the nervous force to fell an ox was held in check be- the air sang and hind each blow. Presently they flung aside the boxâ€" ing-gloves and took to the foils. All three were past masters of this most graceful of manly exercises. Wickham was esteemed the crack fencer of his regiment, and there was a vague rumor that he had in France hurt a man to death in a duel. He and Ardel were matched for a first bout, while Harry Trevor stood by as judge, closely watching the points. These two had never played together before this. I On the soldier's face, as he glanced up to the eager watchers in the alâ€" cove, there was a look of quiet con- fidence, touched with disdain for the civilian. Then steel rasped on steel, and each felt the other’s purpose, and frested his skill along the quivering been tested to a hundred times the lblfldes- The smile Passed “9111 strain we put. them to.” lllickham's lips. Half a dozen quick He bent, the blade till he held the passes with the clear tipâ€"tap of tinkâ€" puint with the hilt in his hands. Then he let it go, and it flew straight. with a swish. "You might as well try and snap whalebone,” he said. ling steel, and Ardel’s point eluded Wickham’s guard and shot home. "A hit! a palpable hit!” quoted Trevor, and the blades crossed again. Wickham.'s pride was roused. "Are you going to play with thcm'He put forth his utmost skill. It w now?” “I think so, though it’s very lit- tle use for any .of us to stand against Ardel. I’m a bit quicker, perhaps. I’m a great deal younger, you know,” with a mocking little smile, “but his strength is wonderâ€" ful. He has got an eye like lightnâ€" ing and a wrist of steel, andâ€"~- What a boaster I’m growing into!” “But you have not been praising yourself,” said Lucy surprised; “only Dr. Ardel.” ] "Oh! it’s the same thing!” he an- swered, smiling again that mocking, little smile. "You know that we two are one.” “Come along, girls,” cried Ardel’s cheery voice, “get to your perch; the performance is about to begin.” They pased through a door masked in the upholstered wall, up a spiral stair of wrought iron to the alâ€" Careless of defence. like“ a lady’s boa- quick turn of Ardel's iron wrist the cove, furnished as, of no avail; he was quite out- classed. Ardel’s strength and quick- ness ware prodigious. His bladeâ€" point spun round the opposing steel and went in like a flash of light. His passes were so close and strong that they wrenched his opponent’s muscles like a blow. Another touch! the button struck full on Wickham's breast as if there had been no sword in the Way to hinâ€" der. ' Then he lost his coolness and forcâ€" ed the fighting. Quick as a serpent’s tongue Ardel’s point again and again darted past his guard. He lunged furiously in reply, with deadâ€" ly purpose in his thrusts, as though his blade’s point was naked and his dearest foe, and not his host and friend, Was facing it. Closer and closer he pressed, thrusting madly, Then with a doir. There, seated luxuriously at blade \vas wrenched from his hand, the low balustrade, they had a full, View of the friendly gladiators in“! the arena below. They were 'treml’iâ€" ling with excitement. Why is it that menwand women even more than menâ€"admire courage, physical strength and skill, beyond all other things in the world? Su- preme courage and contempt of death are the commonest attributes is tiers @dison. in four and sent flying against the padded "wall of the gymnasium“ a dozen yards away. For just one second Wickhams face was distorted by deadly passion, and he ground a fierce curse out betWeen his teeth. The next he laughed good humoredly at his own defeat. “No more at present for yours truly,” he said, as Ardel offered the food ? Then the Liver and Kidneys Have Failed to Perform Their Mission and You Need fir. @hase’s Kidneymhiver Pitts . ' .ng If you are not well there must be a reason for it. Most of the com~ inon ills of life arise from poison in the system. If you would be well you must remove this causo of dis- ease. The work of the blood is two- fold. 1t supplies nourishment to the body and collects the impure and poisonâ€" ous Waste matter. This poisonous material is removed from the blood by the action of the liver and kid- neys. When these organs fail the poison is carried back through the system in the circulation of the blood and causes disease. Where is your weak spot? Just there you may the echcts of poison in the system. It may be stomach trouble or lung trouble. kidney disease or heart disâ€" ease. but the beginning is with the inaction of the great filtering orâ€" gansâ€"the liver and kidneys. Nine-tenths of the ills of everyday first expect to feel. life may be cured by Dr. Chase’s Kidneyâ€"Liver Pills, because they set vthe liver, kidneys and bowels right and so cleanse and invigorate the system. Have you come to realize the imâ€" portance of keeping the bowels regu- lar and the liver and kidneys ac- tive? You will appreciate Dr. Chase’s Kidneyâ€"Liver Pills, not. only on account of their wonderfully promptness, but also for their last- ing effect on the system. They get ,at the very foundation of ill-health, land by removing the cause bring cure. Dr. Chase's Kidneyâ€"Liver Pills, the Iccnnfort of old age, one pill a dose, l2?) cents a box, at. all dealers, or lli'dmanson, Bates & 00., -Toronto. :To protect you against imitations, ithe portrait and signature of Dr. A. W. Chase, the famous receipt book author, are on every box. lhilt of his recovered foil. "I know lmy master when I meet him. Give Trevor a lesson. I’ll join the ladies and look on.” "He’s invulner‘able,’ he whispered to Lucy, when he mounted to the alcove, not without a note of latent malice in his voice. “You see, he gives his whole life to this kind of thing. Trevor is going to have a try now. I’ll bet a hundred to one on the big fencing master.” But, to Wickham‘s surprise, it preSently appeared that these two opponents; were far more closely Imutched. Coolness and judgment were with the younger man, though in physical strength and skill the el- lder was manifestly his master. | Again the steel blades clashed and 'glittered in quick motion, and the girls in the alcove watched the comâ€" bat entranced. Their sympathy Iseemed to inspire the combatants. I130th \vere at their best. Trevor, steadily on the defensive, twice par- ried a lightning lungc of Ardel's lthat had never failed before. Then 1it was Ardel’s turn'to grow excited. His foil darted and flashed hither and thither like the darting spark of an electric battery. The point shot suddenly past Trevor's guard, too swift to parry. But with a sud- den swcrvc, that bent his body like a bow, he let the thrust go by in empty space. The reply took Arrlel full in the breast. ’ “A hit!” cried Wickham delighted- ly to Lucy, who Watched with eyes and heart. “By Jove! young Tre- vor is his master after all.” He spoke too. soon. The touch put Ardel on his mettle, and Tre- vor’s last chance was gone. There |was no more impatience, no more 9 excitement. He stood like a rockâ€" impregnable. Three times his point went home past Trevor’s guard; twice he almost wrenched the foil's hilt from his grasp. Even to unâ€" skilled eyes the play was marvellous. The women, watching with staring eyes and lips half parted, scarcely dared to breathe; and Wickham, cyc- ing them keenly, saw that Lucy tri- umphed in Ardel’s victory, while Jeannette was hurt by the defeat of Trevor. The last bout was fought steadily to a close. More-than once the button on Trevor’s foil was withâ€" in a hair’s breadth of the broad chest of his opponent; but the parry came in the nick of time. At the last sharp prod from Ardel in the left side, Trevor dropped his point at last and threw his mask away. ! “Enough!” he cried panting, but smiling at his own defeat. “Nonsense, man,” Ardel retorted, "I’m hardly warm yet!” But Jean- nette impatiently struck the silver gong on the tea table in the alâ€" cove, as the herald flings down his mace. "I will give you just ten minutes to dress,” she called down to them, “and no tea for any one that‘s half a second late.” In ten minutes the transformed gladiators were seated in the alcove, sipping afternoon tea from egg-shell china. But Jeannette Was still brimming over with enthusiasm, though her sympathies seemed to have suddenly shifted from Trevor to Ardel. “Oh, it was glorious! glorious!” she exclaimed. “It sets one’s pulâ€" ses dancing to the glint and clash of the steel just like a real battle." “Not quite,” said Trevor and \‘l'ickham together. The same words, but there was a world of difference in the tone. “It's but a poor business after all,” Wickhain continued sneeringly; “a. game for boys to play and girls to look at. It has no touch of the glorious excitement of real war.” “The‘glorious excitement of the butcher's shop, Trevor rctorted, startling them all as he spoke so earnestly; startling Wickham most of all. “Are you a Quaker, Trevor?” he asked a little contemptuously. “I am a man,” the other answered. hotly, "who has no patience with the folly and savagery of war. I-l'ere vo are, poor helpless creatures that could not give life to a fly, and we think it glorious to slaughter men wholesale. Why, this same science of killing is the chief science of the World. Money and mind are lavish- ed on it. If any man makes a great discovery, the first thought is how he best can use it to kill other men. Men want to fly mainly that they may do their killing more readily.” "I did not speak of butchery, as you call it,” said Wickhain a little lsulkily. "but of civilized warfare.” I: "Civilized warfare! the grotesque etiquette of massacre! It’s wrong .to kill men with hot shot, but right to break them up with dynamite bombshells. It would be atrocious to poison a single soldier; but it’s quite in order to mangle a whole regiment with machine guns. When every deadly device has been tried to kill and mutilate men wholesale, deâ€" corum requires that surgeons should be provided to patch them up in de- tail. Where is the difference, I’d like to know, between civilized warfare and uncivilized murder, except in the magnitude of the crime? The mur~ dcrer kills one man, inflamed by some strong motive,â€"â€"it may be ‘some intolerable wrong; the. con- queror kills half a millionâ€"or rather he gets fools to do. his killing for himâ€"â€"for glory’s sake, that he may be named in, history as the most expert and successful murderer of his age.” "Don't call it murder,” Ardel in- terposed; “it’s fair play all round. The soldier risks his own lifeâ€"” “That's cold comfort to the man ' such hateful ‘â€"-_'-â€". WI;â€"â€"‘ he kills or mangles: to the wife or mother or children of the man he kills. You don't compensate them that the. man who took it was brave." “But there's the glory,” Ardel persisted. The other laughed contemptuously. “ 'The cackle. of the unborn about (the grave’â€"the silly wicked cackle that is the incitement to new crimes.” "Oh, that’s nonsense, Harry; you must know that’s nonsense. The men most praised, most thought about, and talked about, and writâ€" ten about, are the men that Won big battles. History and poetry are full of them. Even yet We know all about the chaps before Homer’s time who prodded each other with spears and smashed each other with big stones round the walls of Troy, and that’s all we do know about those days or the men that lived in them. It’s the same thing all the way down through history. The big genâ€" erals are the great men; Alexander the Great, or Hannibal, or Scipio, or Napoleon in our own time, who came within an ace of. conquering all Europe. Lay your hand on your heart, Harry, and say you Would not be 0. Napoleon if you could." “I’d sooner be the devil,” he an- swered impetuously, “the cruellest devil of mediaeval history, who broiled live souls on a red-hot grid- iron, or dipped them shrieking in molten lead through all eternity. Naâ€" poleon was to my mind the foulest monster that ever defiled this beauti- ful world.” "You are thinking of the cruel way he treated poor Josephine,” cried Jeannette. He smiled in spite of his earnestâ€" ness. “No, Jen, I was not think- ing of that exactly. I don’t care two straws how he treated ‘poor Josephine’â€"a selfish wanton,” he muttered between his teeth. “My pity is not in the least for the ‘poor’ empress, deprived of her gol- den headgear, and of a husband, savage, sensual, and unfaithful. I was thinking of the men he made. corpses; the women he made widows; the children he made orphans; the happy homes he made desolate by the million. The pain and death and sorrow with which he wantonly filled the worldâ€"this one squat man with the brain and heart of a devil, this past master of war.” "By Jove, you’re right, Harry,” cried the converted Ardel; “war is a beastly business when you come to think of it. Beg pardon, old man” -â€"â€"to Wickhamâ€"“I quite forgot you were a soldier yourself.” It was not a very happy form of apology. But Wickham laughed pleasantly. “Oh, don’t mind me,” he said. "To tell you the truth, I’m not so keen on soldiering as I Was. I'd be glad to chuck the whole thing and ‘live, at home at ease’ if Trevor caught the quick glance at Lucy that finished the sentence, and her answering blush, and felt for an instant more murderous than was consistent with his theory. Jeannette’s gay voice made a di- version. “I-Iow is it, Harry,” she said, "that you are so fond of makeâ€"believe killing when you so do- test the reality? If swords are things, why do you love playing with them?” _ Ardel came promptly to the rescue of his favorite pastime; perhaps she guessed he would. "It’s the best sport in the‘ World,” he said “and I've tried most of” them. It keeps eyes and nerves and muscles all at full play together. There is not a trace of danger. If anything, it is too safe.” "I’m not so sure of that,” she answered, shaking her curly head wisely. “I was reading only this morning in the Times a paragraph about a man who was killed by what you call the button breaking off his foil. I mean off the other man’s foil. I did not like to say anything about it, but it frightened me the whole time I Was watching you.” But Ardel laughed good humoredâ€" ly at her fears. “Oh, there’s with my foils, made.” "I'm glad. I thought it the pret- tiest sight to look at possible. But I'llenjoy it even more the next time, when I’m not frightened.” gTo be continued.) honor, the no danger of that they are the best ra. prove to you than: Dr. yr» 3 3‘3 Chase's Ointmenticucertain 3,5 5 and absolute cure for each » and every form 0 telling, i bleedingand pmtru lug plies. the manufacturers have guaranteed it. co tes- nlahy in the daily press and ask yourneiglr mo whatthe thin am. You can me it and Egg, our mung bac if not cured. 600 a. box. at all colors or DEANEON,BATEG 6c Co..Toronto. End‘haso’s Qintment Columbus said the World Was round, And most of us declare That since his time we’ve often found It anything but Square. "But why do you go tramping through the country like this?” ask- ed the philanthropic lady. “Well, mum, the truth is,” replied the tramp, “I've heard that these ’ere Pullman-cars is rather stuffy." An Irishman who .had jumped into the Water to save a ' man from drowning, on receiving ten cents from the 'resmed‘ man, lOoked first at the ten cents and then at the man, saying, “lie jabers, I am overâ€" paid for that job.” l in units Dilllll. for that dear lost life by telling them THE STORY on THE RECOVERY OF IilISS FALFORD OF ST. ELIE. â€" She Says “I am Confident Thai Dr. Williams’ Pink, Pills Saved My Life”â€"I-Iope for all Weak, Sickly Girls. 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