falsity, not to have investigated were to invite decay;
and he pictured himself growing more unctuous, apologetic, plausible.
He had, at any rate, escaped the more despicable fate, and if he went to
pieces now it would be as a man, looking the facts in the face,--not as
a coward and a hypocrite.

Late one afternoon, when he dropped in at Mr. Bentley's house, he was
informed by Sam that a lady was awaiting Mr. Bentley in the library.
As Hodder opened the door he saw a tall, slim figure of a woman with her
back toward him. She was looking at the photographs on the mantel.

It was Alison Parr!

He remembered now that she had asked for Mr. Bentley's number, but it had
never occurred to him that he might one day find her here. And as she
turned he surprised in her eyes a shyness he had never seen in them
before. Thus they stood gazing at each other a moment before either
spoke.

"Oh, I thought you were Mr. Bentley," she said.

"Have you been waiting long?" he asked.

"Three quarters of an hour, but I haven't minded it. This is such an
interesting room, with its pictures and relics and books. It has a
soothing effect, hasn't it? To come here is like stepping out of the
turmoil of the modern world into a peaceful past."

He was struck by the felicity of her description.

"You have been here before?" he asked.

"Yes." She settled herself in the armchair; and Hodder, accepting the
situation, took the seat beside her. "Of course I came, after I had found
out who Mr. Bentley was. The opportunity to know him again--was not to
be missed."

"I can understand that," he assented.

"That is, if a child can even be said to know such a person as Mr.
Bentley. Naturally, I didn't appreciate him in those days--children
merely accept, without analyzing. And I have not yet been able to
analyze,--I can only speculate and consider."

Her enthusiasm never failed to stir and excite Hodder. Nor would he have
thought it possible that a new value could be added to Mr. Bentley in his
eyes. Yet so it was.

He felt within him, as she spoke, the quickening of a stimulus.

"When I came in a little while ago," Alison continued, "I found a woman
in black, with such a sweet, sad face. We began a conversation. She had
been through a frightful experience. Her husband had committed suicide,
her child had been on the point of death, and she says that she lies
awake nights now thinking in terror of what might have happened to her
if you and Mr.