"To tell you how glad, how happy, I am that it all ends like this; that the poor old man is free of his fancies and his fears, beyond both our pity and our laughter."

"Aye, he's earned rest, if there is to be rest for any of us!"

"And you can rest too. And you can laugh with us, and not at us. Isn't that, after all, a more human sort of laughter?"

She was smiling still as she gave him her hand, but he saw that tears stood in her eyes. The next instant she gave a little sob.

"Doctor Mary!" he exclaimed in rueful expostulation.

"No, no, how stupid you are!" She laughed through her sob. "It's not unhappiness!" She pressed his hand tightly for an instant and then walked quickly out of the house, calling back to him, "Don't come, please don't come. I'd rather go to Captain Alec by myself."

Left alone in the cottage, now so quiet and so peaceful, Beaumaroy mused awhile as he smoked his pipe. Then he turned to his labours – his final night of work in the Tower. There was much to do, very much to do; he achieved his task towards morning. When day dawned, there was nothing but water in the water-butt, and in the Tower no furnishings were visible save three chairs – a high carved one by the fireplace, and two much smaller on the little platform under the window. The faded old red carpet on the floor was the only attempt at decoration. And in still one thing more the Tower was different from what it had been. Beaumaroy contented himself with pasting brown paper over the pane on which Mike had operated. He did not replace the match-boarding over the window, but stowed it away in the coal-shed. The place was horribly in need of sunshine and fresh air – and the old gentleman was no longer alive to fear the draught!

When the undertaker came up to the cottage that afternoon, he glanced from the parlour, through the open door, into the Tower.

"Driving past on business, sir," he remarked to Beaumaroy, "I've often wondered what the old gentleman did with that there Tower. But it looks as if he didn't make no use of it."

"We sometimes stored things in it," said Beaumaroy. "But, as you see, there's nothing much there now."

But then the undertaker, worthy man, could not see through the carpet, or through the lid of Captain Duggle's grave. That was full – fuller than it had been at any period of its history. In it lay the wealth, the sceptre, and the trappings of dead majesty. For wherein did Mr. Saffron's dead majesty differ from the dead majesty of other kings?

CHAPTER XVII
THE CHIEF MOURNERS

The attendance was small at Mr. Saffron's funeral. Besides meek and depressed Mrs. Wiles, and Beaumaroy himself, Doctor Mary found herself, rather to her surprise, in company with old Mr. Naylor. On comparing notes she discovered that, like herself, he had come on Beaumaroy's urgent invitation and, moreover, that he was engaged also to come on afterwards to Tower Cottage, where Beaumaroy was to entertain the chief mourners at a midday repast. "Glad enough to show my respect to a neighbour," said old Naylor. "And I always liked the old man's looks. But really I don't see why I should go to lunch! However, Beaumaroy – !"

Mary did not see why he should go to lunch – nor, for that matter, why she should either, but curiosity about the chief mourners made her glad that she was going. The chief mourners did not look, at first sight, attractive. Mr. Radbolt was a short plump man, with a weaselly face and cunning eyes; his wife's eyes, of a greeny colour, stared stolidly out from her broad red face; she was taller than her mate, and her figure contrived to be at once stout and angular. All through the service, Beaumaroy's gaze was set on the pair as they sat or stood in front of him, wandering from the one to the other in an apparently fascinated study.

At the cottage he entertained his party in the parlour with a generous hospitality, and treated the Radbolts with most courteous deference. The man responded with the best manners that he had – who can do more? The woman was much less cordial; she was curt, and treated Beaumaroy rather as the servant than the friend of her dead cousin; there was a clear suggestion of suspicion in her bearing towards him. After a broad stare of astonishment on her introduction to "Dr. Arkroyd," she took very little notice of Mary; only to Mr. Naylor was she clumsily civil and even rather cringing; it was clear that in him she acknowledged the gentleman. He sat by her, and she tried to insinuate herself into a private conversation with him, apart from the others, probing him as to his knowledge of the dead man and his mode of living. Her questions hovered persistently round the point of Mr. Saffron's expenditure.

"Mr. Saffron was not a friend of mine," Naylor found it necessary to explain. "I had few opportunities of observing his way of life, even if I had felt any wish to do so."

"I suppose Beaumaroy knew all about his affairs," she suggested.

"As to that, I think you must ask Mr. Beaumaroy himself."

"From what the lawyers say, the old man seems to have been getting rid of his money, somehow or to somebody," she grumbled in a positive whisper.

To Mr. Naylor's intense relief, Beaumaroy interrupted this conversation. "Well, how do you like this little place, Mrs. Radbolt?" he asked cheerfully. "Not a bad little crib, is it? Don't you think so too, Dr. Arkroyd?" Throughout this gathering Beaumaroy was very punctilious with his "Dr. Arkroyd." One would have thought that Mary and he were almost strangers.

"Yes, I like it," said Mary. "The Tower makes it rather unusual and picturesque." This was not really her sincere opinion; she was playing up to Beaumaroy, convinced that he had opened some conversational manoeuvre.

"Don't like it at all," answered Mrs. Radbolt. "We'll get rid of it as soon as we can, won't we, Radbolt?" She always addressed her husband as "Radbolt."

"Don't be in a hurry, don't throw it away," Beaumaroy advised. "It's not everybody's choice, of course, but there are quarters – yes, more than one quarter – in which you might get a very good offer for this place." His eye caught Mary's for a moment. "Indeed I wish I was in a position to make you one myself. I should like to take it as it stands – lock, stock, and barrel. But I've sunk all I had in another venture – hope it'll turn out a satisfactory one! So I'm not in a position to do it. If Mrs. Radbolt wants to sell, what would you think of it, Dr. Arkroyd – as a speculation?"

Mary shook her head, smiling, glad to be able to smile with plausible reason. "I'm not as fond of rash speculations as you are, Mr. Beaumaroy."

"It may be worth more than it looks," he pursued. "Good neighbourhood, healthy air, fruitful soil – very rich soil hereabouts."

"My dear Beaumaroy, the land about here is abominable," Naylor expostulated.

"Perhaps generally, but some rich pockets – what one may call pockets," corrected Beaumaroy.

"I'm not an agriculturist," remarked weaselly Mr. Radbolt in his oily tones.

"And then there's a picturesque old yarn told about it. Oh, whether it's true or not, of course I don't know. It's about a certain Captain Duggle – not the army – the Mercantile Marine, Mrs. Radbolt. You know the story, Dr. Arkroyd? And you too, Mr. Naylor? You're the oldest inhabitant of Inkston present, sir. Suppose you tell it to Mr. and Mrs. Radbolt? I'm sure it will make them attach a new value to this really very attractive cottage – with, as Dr. Arkroyd says, the additional feature of the Tower."

"I know the story only as a friend of mine – Mr. Penrose – who takes great interest in local records and traditions, told it to me. If our host desires, I shall be happy to tell it to Mrs. Radbolt." Mr. Naylor accompanied his words with a courtly little bow to that lady, and launched upon the legend of Captain Duggle.

Mr. Radbolt was a religious man. At the end of the story he observed gravely, "The belief in diabolical personalities is not to be lightly dismissed, Mr. Beaumaroy."

"I'm entirely of your opinion, Mr. Radbolt." This time Mary felt that her smile was not so plausible.

"There seems to have been nothing in the grave," mused Mrs. Radbolt.

"Apparently not when Captain Duggle left it – if he was ever in it – at all events not when he left the house, in whatever way and by whatever agency."

"As to the latter point, I myself incline to Penrose's theory," said Mr. Naylor. "Delirium tremens, you know!"

Beaumaroy puffed at his cigar. "Still, I've often thought that, though it was empty then, it would have made – supposing it really exists – an excellent hiding-place for anybody who wanted such a thing. Say for a miser, or a man who had his reasons for concealing what he was worth! I once suggested the idea to Mr. Saffron, and he was a good deal amused. He patted me on the shoulder and laughed heartily. He wasn't often so much amused as that."

A new look came into Mrs. Radbolt's green eyes. Up to now, distrust of Beaumaroy had predominated. His frank bearing, his obvious candour and simplicity, had weakened her suspicions. But his words suggested something else; he might be a fool, not a knave; Mr. Saffron had been amused, had laughed beyond his wont. That might have seemed the best way of putting Beaumaroy off the scent. The green eyes were now alert, eager, immensely acquisitive.

"The grave's in the Tower, if it's anywhere. Would you like to see the Tower, Mrs. Radbolt?"

"Yes, I should," she answered tartly. "Being part of our property as it is."

Mary exchanged a glance with Mr. Naylor, as they followed the others into the Tower. "What an abominable woman!" her glance said. Naylor smiled a despairing acquiescence.

The strangers – chief mourners, heirs-at-law, owners now of the place wherein they stood – looked round the bare brick walls of the little rotunda. Naylor examined it with interest too – the old story was a quaint one. Mary stood at the back of the group, smiling triumphantly. How had he disposed of – everything? She had not been wrong in her unlimited confidence in his ingenuity. She did not falter in her faith in his word pledged to her.

"Safe from burglars, that grave of the Captain's, if you kept it properly concealed!" Beaumaroy pursued in a sort of humorous meditation. "And in these days some people like to have their money in their own hands. Confiscatory legislation possible, isn't it, Mr. Naylor? You know about those things better than I do. And then the taxes – shocking, Mr. Radbolt! By Jove, I knew a chap the other day who came in for what sounded like a pretty little inheritance. But by the time he'd paid all the duties and so on, most of the gilt was off the gingerbread! It's there – in front of the hearth – that the story says the grave is. Doesn't it, Mr. Naylor?" A sudden thought seemed to strike him. "I say, Mrs. Radbolt, would you like us to have a look whether we can find any indications of it?" His eyes travelled beyond the lady whom he addressed, they met Mary's. She knew their message; he was taking her into his confidence about his experiment with the chief mourners.

The stout angular woman had leapt to her conclusion. Much less money than had been expected – no signs of money having been spent – and here, not the cunning knave whom she had expected, but a garrulous open fool, giving away what was – perhaps – a golden secret! Mammon – the greed of acquisitiveness, the voracious appetite for getting more – gleamed in her green eyes.

"There? Do you say it's – it's supposed to be there?" she asked eagerly, with a shake in her voice.

Her husband interposed in a suave and sanctimonious voice: "My dear, if Mr. Beaumaroy and the other gentleman won't mind my saying so, I've been feeling that these are rather light and frivolous topics for the day, and the occasion which brings us here. The whole thing is probably an unfounded story, although there is a sound moral to it. Later on – just as a matter of curiosity – if you like, my dear. But to-day – Cousin Aloysius's day of burial – is it quite seemly?"

The big woman looked at her smaller mate for just a moment – a scrutinizing look. Then she said with most unexpected meekness, "I was wrong. You always have the proper feelings, Radbolt."

"The fault was mine, entirely mine," Beaumaroy hastily interposed. "I dragged in the old yarn, I led Mr. Naylor into telling it, I told you about what I said to Mr. Saffron and how he took it. All my fault! I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke. I apologize, Mr. Radbolt! And I think that we've exhausted the interest of the Tower." He looked at his watch; "Er – how do you stand for time? Shall Mrs. Wiles make us a cup of tea, or have you a train to catch?"

"That's the woman in charge of the house, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Radbolt.

"Comes in for the day. She doesn't sleep here." He smiled pleasantly on Mrs. Radbolt. "To tell you the truth, I don't think that she would consent to sleep here by herself. Silly! But – the old story, you know!

"Don't you sleep here?" the woman persisted, though her husband was looking at her rather uneasily.

"Up to now I have," said Beaumaroy. "But there's nothing to keep me here now, and Mr. Naylor has kindly offered to put me up as long as I stay at Inkston."

"Going to leave the place with nobody in it?"

Beaumaroy's manner indicated surprise. "Oh, yes! There's nothing to tempt thieves, is there? Just lock the door and put the key in my pocket!"

The woman looked very surly, but flummoxed. Her husband, with his suave oiliness, came to her rescue. "My wife is always nervous, perhaps foolishly nervous, about fire, Mr. Beaumaroy. Well, with an old house like this, there is always the risk."

"Upon my soul, I hadn't thought of it! And I've packed up all my things, and your car's come and fetched them, Mr. Naylor. Still, of course I could – "

"Oh, we've no right, no claim, to trouble you, Mr. Beaumaroy. Only my wife is – "

"Fire's an obsession with me, I'm afraid," said the stout woman, with a rumbling giggle. The sound of her mirth was intolerably disagreeable to Mary.

"I really think, my dear, that you'll feel easier if I stay myself, won't you? You can send me what I want to-morrow, and rejoin me when we arrange – because we shall have to settle what's to be done with the place."

"As you please, Mr. Radbolt." Beaumaroy's tone was, for the first time, a little curt. It hinted some slight offence – as though he felt himself charged with carelessness, and considered Mrs. Radbolt's obsession mere fussiness. "No doubt, if you stay, Mrs. Wiles will agree to stay too, and do her best to make you comfortable."

"I shall feel easier that way, Radbolt," Mrs. Radbolt admitted, with another rumble of apologetic mirth.

Beaumaroy motioned his guests back to the parlour. His manner retained its shade of distance and offence. "Then it really only remains for me to wish you good-bye – and all happiness in your new property. Any information in my possession as to Mr. Saffron's affairs I shall, of course, be happy to give you. Is the car coming for you, Mr. Naylor?"

"I thought it would be pleasant to walk back; and I hope Doctor Mary will come with us and have some tea. I'll send you home afterwards, Doctor Mary."

Farewells were exchanged, but now without even a show of cordiality. Naylor and Doctor Mary felt too much distaste for the chief mourners to attain more than a cold civility. Beaumaroy did not relax into his earlier friendliness. His apparent dislike to her husband's plan of staying at the cottage roused Mrs. Radbolt's suspicions again; was he a rogue after all, but a very plausible, a very deep one? Only Mr. Radbolt's unctuousness – surely it would have smoothed the stormiest waves? – saved the social situation.

"Intelligent people, I thought," Beaumaroy observed, as the three friends pursued their way across the heath towards Old Place. "Didn't you, Mr. Naylor?"

Old Naylor grunted. With a twinkle in his eyes, Beaumaroy tried Doctor Mary. "What was your impression of them?"

"Oh!" moaned Mary, with a deep and expressive note. "But how did you know they'd be like that?"

"Letters – and the old man's description; he had a considerable command of language, and very violent likes and dislikes. I made a picture of them – and it's turned out pretty accurate."

"And those were the nearest kith and kin your poor old man had?" Naylor shook his head sadly. "The woman obviously cared not a straw about anything but handling his money – and couldn't even hide it! A gross and horrible female, Beaumaroy!"

"Were you really hurt about their insisting on staying?" asked Mary.

"Oh, come, you're sharper than that, Doctor Mary! Still, I think I did it pretty well. I set the old girl thinking again, didn't I?" He broke into laughter, and Mary joined in heartily. Old Naylor glanced from one to the other with an air of curiosity.

"You two people look to me – somehow – as if you'd got a secret between you."

"Perhaps we have! Mr. Naylor's a man of honour, Doctor Mary; a man who appreciates a situation, a man you can trust." Beaumaroy seemed very gay and happy now, disembarrassed of a load, and buoyant alike in walk and in spirit. "What do you say to letting Mr. Naylor – just him – nobody else – into our secret?"

Mary put her arm through old Mr. Naylor's. "I don't mind, if you don't. But nobody else!"

"Then you shall tell him – the entire story – at your leisure. Meanwhile I'll begin at the wrong end. I told you I'd made a picture of the hated cousins, of the heirs-at-law, these sorrowing chief mourners. Well, having made a picture of them that's proved true, I'll make a prophecy about them, and I'll bet you it proves just as true."

"Go on," said Mary. "Listen, Mr. Naylor," she added, with a squeeze of the old man's arm.

"You're like a couple of naughty children!" he said, with an affectionate look and laugh.

"Well, my prophecy is that they'll swear the poor dear old man's estate at under five thousand."

"Well, why shouldn't – ?" old Naylor began; but he stopped as he saw Mary's eyes meet Beaumaroy's in a rapture of quick and delighted understanding.

"And then perhaps you'll own to being sorry, Doctor Mary!"

"So that's what you were up to, was it?" said Mary.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE GOLD AND THE TREASURE

Old Mr. Naylor called on Mary two or three days later – at an hour when, as he well knew, Cynthia was at his own house – in order to hear the story. There were parts of it which she could not describe fully for lack of knowledge – the enterprise of Mike and Big Neddy, for example; but all that she knew she told frankly, and did not scruple to invoke her imagination to paint Beaumaroy's position, with its difficulties, demands, obligations – and temptations. He heard her with close attention, evidently amused, and watching her animated face with a keen and watchful pleasure.

"Surprising!" he said at the end, rubbing his hands together. "That's to say, not in itself particularly surprising. Just a queer little happening; one would think nothing of it if one read it in the newspaper! Things are always so much more surprising when they happen down one's own street, or within a few minutes' walk of one's garden wall – and when one actually knows the people involved in them. Still I was always inclined to agree with Dr. Irechester that there was something out of the common about old Saffron and our friend Beaumaroy."

"Dr. Irechester never found out what it was, though!" exclaimed Mary triumphantly.

"No, he didn't – for reasons pretty clearly indicated in your narrative." He sat back in his chair, his elbows on the arms and his hands clasped before him. "If I may say so, the really curious thing is to find you in the thick of it, Doctor Mary."

"That wasn't my fault. I couldn't refuse to attend Mr. Saffron. Dr. Irechester himself said so."

He paid no heed to her protest. "In the thick of it – and enjoying it so tremendously!"

Mary looked thoughtful. "I didn't at first. I was angry, indignant, suspicious. I thought I was being made a fool of."

"So you were – a fool and a tool, my dear!"

"But that night – because it all really happened in just one night – the chief mourners, as Mr. Beaumaroy always calls them, were no more than – "

"Just a rather amusing epilogue – yes, that's all."

"That night, it did get hold of me." She laughed a little nervously, a little uneasily.

"And now you tell it to me – and I must say that your telling made it twice the story that it really is – now you tell it as if it were the greatest thing that ever happened to you!"

For a moment Mary fenced. "Well, nothing interesting ever has happened in my humdrum life before." But old Naylor pursed up his lips in contempt of her fencing. "It did seem to me a great – a great experience. Not the burglars and all that – though some of the things, like the water-butt, did amuse me very much – but our being apart from all the world, there by ourselves – against the whole world in a way, Mr. Naylor."

"The law on one side, the robbers on the other – and you two alone together!"

"Yes, you understand. That was the way I felt it. But we weren't together, not in every way. I mean – we were fighting between ourselves too – right up to the very end." She gave another low laugh. "I suppose we're fighting still; he means to face me with some Radbolt villainy, and make me sorry for what he calls my legalism – with an epithet!"

"That's his idea, and my own too, I confess. Those chief mourners will find the money – and some other things that'll make 'em stare. But they'll lie low; they'll sit on the cash till the time comes when it's safe to dispose of it; and they'll bilk the Inland Revenue out of the duties. The remarkable thing is that Beaumaroy seems to want them to do it."

"That's to make me sorry; that's to prove me wrong, Mr. Naylor."

"It may make you sorry – it makes me sorry, for that matter; but it doesn't prove you wrong. You were right. My boy Alec would have taken the same line as you did. Now you needn't laugh at me, Mary. I own up at once – that's my highest praise."

"I know it is; and it implies a contrast?"

Old Naylor unclasped his hands and spread them in a deprecatory gesture. "It must do that," he acknowledged.

Mary gave a rebellious little toss of her head. "I don't care if it does, Mr. Naylor! Mr. Beaumaroy is – my friend now."

"And mine. Moreover I have such confidence in his honour and fidelity that I have offered him a rather important and confidential position in my business – to represent us at one of the foreign ports where we have considerable interests." He smiled. "It's the sort of place where he will perhaps find himself less trammelled by – er – legalism, and with more opportunities for his undoubted gift of initiative."

"Will he accept your offer? Will he go?" she asked rather excitedly.

"Without doubt, I think. It's really quite a good offer. And what prospects has he now – or here?"

Mary stretched her hands towards the fire and gazed into it in silence.

"I think you'll have an offer soon too, and a good one, Doctor Mary. Irechester was over at our place yesterday. He's still of opinion that there was something queer at Tower Cottage. Indeed he thinks that Mr. Saffron was queer himself – in his head – and that a clever doctor would have found it out."

"That he himself would, if he'd gone on attending – ?"

"Precisely. But he's not surprised that you didn't; you lacked the experience. Still he thinks none the worse of you for that, and he told me that he has made up his mind to offer you partnership. Irechester's a bit stiff, but a very straight fellow. You could rely on being fairly treated, and it's a good practice. Besides he's well off, and quite likely to retire as soon as he sees you fairly in the saddle."

"It's a great compliment." Here Mary's voice sounded quite straightforward and sincere. An odd little note of contempt crept into it as she added, "And it sounds – ideal!"

"Yes, it does," old Naylor agreed, with a private smile all to himself, whilst Mary still gazed into the fire. "Quite ideal. You're a lucky young woman, Mary." He rose to take his leave. "So, with our young folk happily married, and you installed, and friend Beaumaroy suited to his liking – why, upon my word, we may ring the curtain down on a happy ending – of Act I, at all events!"

She seemed to pay no heed to his words. He stood for a moment admiring her; not a beauty, but a healthy comely young woman, stout-hearted, and with humanity and a sense of fun in her. And, as he looked, his true feeling about the situation suddenly burst through all restraint and leapt from his lips. "Though, for my part, under the circumstances, if I were you, I'd see old Irechester damned before I accepted the partnership!"

She turned to him – startled, yet suddenly smiling. He took her hand and raised it to his lips.

"Hush! Not another word! Good-bye, my dear Mary!"

The next day, as Mary, her morning round finished, sat at lunch with Cynthia, listening – or not listening – to her friend's excusably eager chatter about her approaching wedding, a note was delivered into her hands:

"The C.M.'s are in a hurry! She's back! The window is boarded up again! Come and see! About 4 o'clock this afternoon. B."

Mary kept the appointment. She found Beaumaroy strolling up and down on the road in front of the cottage. The Tower window was boarded up again, but with new strong planks, in a much more solid and workman-like fashion. If he were to try again, Mike would not find it so easy to negotiate, without making a dangerous noise over the job.

"Such impatience – such undisguised rapacity – is indecent and revolting," Beaumaroy remarked. He seemed to be in the highest spirits. "I wonder if they've opened it yet!"

"They'll see you prowling about outside, won't they?"

"I hope so. Indeed I've no doubt of it. Mrs. Greeneyes is probably peering through the parlour window at this minute and cursing me. I like it! To those people I represent law and order. If they can rise to the conception of such a thing at all, I probably embody conscience. When you come to think of it, it's a pleasant turn of events that I should come to represent law and order and conscience to anybody – even to the Radbolts."

"It is rather a change," she agreed. "But let's walk on. I don't really much want to think of them."

"That's because you feel that you're losing the bet. I can't stop them getting the money in the end – that's your doing! I can't stop them cheating the Revenue – which is what they certainly mean to do – without exposing myself to more inconvenience than I am disposed to undergo in the cause of the Revenue. Whereas if I had left the bag in the water-butt – ! All your doing! Aren't you a little sorry?"

"Of course there is an aspect of the case – " she admitted, smiling.

"That's enough for me! You've lost the bet. Let's see – what were the stakes, Mary?"

"Come, let's walk on." She put her arm through his. "What about this berth that Mr. Naylor's offering you? At Bogota, isn't it?"

He looked puzzled for a moment; then his mind worked quickly back to Cynthia's almost forgotten tragedy. He laughed in enjoyment of her thrust. "My place isn't Bogota – though I fancy that it's rather in the same moral latitude. You're confusing me with Captain Cranster!"

"So I was – for a moment," said Doctor Mary demurely. "But what about the appointment, anyhow?"

"What about your partnership with Dr. Irechester, if you come to that?"

Mary pressed his arm gently, and they walked on in silence for a little while. They were clear of the neighbourhood of Tower Cottage now, but still a considerable distance from Old Place; very much alone together on the heath, as they had seemed to be that night – that night of nights – at the cottage.

"I haven't so much as received the offer yet; only Mr. Naylor has mentioned it to me."

"Still you'd like to be ready with your answer when the offer is made, wouldn't you?" He drew suddenly away from her, and stood still on the road, opposite to her. His face lost its playfulness; as it set into gravity, the lines upon it deepened, and his eyes looked rather sad. "This is wrong of me, perhaps, but I can't help it. I'm not going to talk to you about myself. Confessions and apologies and excuses, and so on, aren't in my line. I should probably tell lies if I attempted anything of the sort. You must take me or leave me on your own judgment, on your own feeling about me, as you've seen and known me – not long, but pretty intimately, Mary." He suddenly reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out the combination knife-and-fork. "That's all I've brought away of his from Tower Cottage. And I brought it away as much for your sake as for his. It was during our encounter over this instrument that I first thought of you as a woman, Mary. And, by Jove, I believe you knew it!"

"Yes, I believe I did," she answered, her eyes set very steadily on his.

He slipped the thing back into his pocket. "And now I love you, and I want you, Mary."

She fell into a sudden agitation. "Oh, but this doesn't seem for me! I'd put all that behind me! – I – " She could scarcely find words. "I – I'm just Doctor Mary!"

"Lots of people to practise on – bodies and souls too – in the moral latitude I'm going to!"

Her body seemed to shiver a little, as though before a plunge into deep water. "I'm very safe here," she whispered.

"Yes, you're safe here," he acknowledged gravely, and stood silent, waiting for her choice.

"What a decision to have to make!" she cried suddenly. "It's all my life in a moment! Because I don't want you to go away from me!" She drew near to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. "I'm not a child, like Cynthia. I can't dream dreams and make idols any more. I think I see you as you are, and I don't know whether your love is a good thing." She paused, searching his eyes with hers very earnestly. Then she went on, "But if it isn't, I think there's no good thing left for me at all."