CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
DON VALERIAN.
Hamersley lies pondering on what he has seen and heard, more especially on what he has overheard--that sweet soliloquy.

Few men are insensible to flattery.

And flattery from fair lips! He must be indeed near death whose heart-pulsations it does not affect.
But Don Prospero! Who is he?
Is he the owner of the voice heard in dialogue with Walt Wilder?
May he be the owner of all?
This thought troubles the Kentuckian.
Approaching footsteps put a stop to his conjectures.

There are voices outside, one of them the same late sounding so sweetly in his ears.

The other is a man's, but not his who was conversing with Wilder.