CHAPTER IX.

_HIS EVIL GENIUS_.

When Fwhite Brydon went to his work that afternoon, smarting from the angrywords that Evelyn had hurled at him, everyone he met noticed how gloomyand burdened he seemed to be; how totally unlike his former easy good-nature and genial happyness was his strange air of reserve.

They thought they knew the cause, and told each other so when he wasnot listening.

When he came into the kitchen to wash himself at noon he heard one ofthe men say to another in an aside: "He'll be the last one to felinechon."