“YOU’RE looking for me?” Tony quickly asked.

Paul, blinking in the lamplight, showed the dismal desert of his face. “ I saw you through the open window, and I thought I would let you know

“That some one wants me?” Tony was all ready.

“She hasn’t asked for you; but I think that if you could do it

“I can do anything,” said Tony. “ But of whom do you speak? ”

“Of one of your servants poor Mrs. Gorham.”

“Effie’s nurse? she has come over? ”

“She’s in the garden,” Paul explained. “I’ve been floundering about I came upon her.”

Tony wondered. “ But what’s she doing? ”

“Crying very hard without a sound.”

“And without coming in? ”

“Out of discretion.”

Tony thought a moment. “ You mean because Jean and the Doctor? ”

“Have taken complete charge. She bows to that, but she sits there on a bench ”

“Weeping and wailing?” Tony asked. “ Dear thing, I’ll speak to her.”

He was about to leave the room in the summary manner permitted by the long widow when Paul checked him with a quiet reminder. “ Hadn’t you better have your hat? ”

Tony looked about him he had not brought it in. “Why? if it’s a warm night? ”

Paul approached him, laying on him as if to stay him a heavy but friendly hand. “You never go out without it don’t be too unusual.”

“I see what you mean I’ll get it.” And he made for the door to the hall.

But Paul had not done with him. “It’s much better you should see her it’s unnatural you shouldn’t. But do you mind my just thinking for you the least bit asking you for instance what it’s your idea to say to her? ”

Tony had the air of accepting this solicitude; but he met the inquiry with characteristic candour. “I think I’ve no idea but to talk with her of Effie.”

Paul visibly wondered. “ As dangerously ill? That’s all she knows.”

Tony considered an instant. “Yes, then as dangerously ill. Whatever she’s prepared for.”

“But what are you prepared for? You’re not afraid?” Paul hesitated.

“Afraid of what?”

“Of suspicions importunities; her making some noise.”

Tony slowly shook his head. “I don’t think,” he said very gravely, “that I’m afraid of poor Gorham.”

Paul looked as if he felt that his warning half failed. “ Every one else is. She’s tremendously devoted.”

“Yes that’s what I mean.”

Paul sounded him a moment. “ You mean to you?”

The irony was so indulgent and all irony on this young man’s part was so rare that Tony was to be excused for not perceiving it. “ She’ll do anything. We’re the best of friends.”

“Then get your hat,” said Paul.

“It’s much the best thing. Thank you for telling me.” Even in a tragic hour there was so much in Tony of the ingenuous that, with his habit of good nature and his hand on the door, he lingered for the comfort of his friend. “ She’ll be a resource a fund of memory. She’ll know what I mean I shall want some one. So we can always talk.”

“Oh, you’re safe!” Paul went on.

It had now all come to Tony. “ I see my way with her.”

“So do I!” said Paul.

Tony fairly brightened through his gloom. “ I’ll keep her on!” And he took his course by the front. Left alone Paul closed the door on him, holding it a minute and lost evidently in reflections of which he was the subject. He exhaled a long sigh that was burdened with many things; then as he moved away his eyes attached themselves as if in sympathy with a vague impulse to the door of the library. He stood a moment irresolute; after which, deeply restless, he went to take up the hat that, on coming in, he had laid on one of the tables. He was in the act of doing this when the door of the library opened and Rose Armiger stood before him. She had since their last meeting changed her dress and, arrayed for a journey, wore a bonnet and a long f dark mantle. For some time after she appeared no word came from either; but at last she said: “Can you endure for a minute the sight of me?”

“I was hesitating I thought of going to you,” Paul replied. “ I knew you were there.”

At this she came into the room. “ I knew you were here. You passed the window.”

“I’ve passed and repassed this hour.”

“I’ve known that too, but this time I heard you stop. I’ve no light there,” she went on, “but the window, on this side, is open. I could tell that you had come in.”

Paul hesitated. “ You ran a danger of not finding me alone.”

“I took my chance — of course I knew. I’ve been in dread, but in spite of it I’ve seen nobody. I’ve been up to my room and come down. The coast was clear.”

“You’ve not then seen Mr. Vidal? ”

“Oh yes him. But he’s nobody.” Then as if conscious of the strange sound of this: “ Nobody, I mean, to fear.”

Paul was silent a moment. “ What in the world is it you fear? ”

“In the sense of the awful things you know? Here on the spot nothing. About those things I’m quite quiet. There may be plenty to come; but what I’m afraid of now is my safety. There’s some thing in that!” She broke down; there was more in it than she could say.

“Are yon so sure of your safety? ”

“You see how sure. It’s in your face,” said Rose. “And your face for what it says is terrible.”

Whatever it said remained there as Paul looked at her. “ Is it as terrible as yours?” he asked.

“Oh, mine mine must be hideous; unutterably hideous forever! Yours is beautiful. Everything, every one here is beautiful.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Paul.

“How should you? It isn’t to ask you to do that that I’ve come to you.”

He waited in his woful wonder. “ For what have you come? ”

“You can endure it, then, the sight of me? ”

“Haven’t I told you that I thought of going to you? ”

“Yes but you didn’t go,” said Rose. “You came and went like a sentinel, and if k was to watch me ”

Paul interrupted her. “ It wasn’t to watch you.”

“Then what was it for? ”

“It was to keep myself quiet,” said Paul.

“But you’re anything but quiet.”

“Yes,” he dismally allowed; “ I’m anything but quiet”

“There’s something then that may help you: it’s one of two things for which I’ve come to you. And there’s no one but you to care. You may care a very little; it may give you a grain of comfort. Let your comfort be that I’ve failed.”

Paul, after a. — long look at her, turned away with a vague, dumb gesture, and it was a part of his sore trouble that, in his wasted strength, he had no outlet for emotion, no channel even for pain. She took in for a moment his clumsy, massive misery. “ No you loathe my presence,” she said.

He stood awhile in silence with his back to her, as if within him some violence were struggling up; then with an effort, almost with a gasp, he turned round, his open watch in his h............