at is it, Nance--what if I was? Are you seeing another
Gratcher?"

"Bernal, quick, now--please! Don't worry me needlessly! Were you at Mrs.
Wyeth's to-day?"

Her eyes searched his face. She saw that he was still either puzzled or
confused, but this time he answered plainly,

"No--I haven't seen that most sightly cold lady to-day--more's the
pity!"

She breathed one quick little sigh--it seemed to him strangely like a
sigh of relief.

"I knew you couldn't have been." She laughed a little laugh of secrets.
"I was only wondering foolish wonders--you know how Gratchers must be
humoured right up to the very moment you puff them away with the deadly
laugh."

Together they went in. Bernal stopped to talk with Aunt Bell, who was
passing through the hall as they entered; while Nancy, with the manner
of one not to be deflected from some set purpose, made straight for
Allan's study.

In answer to her ominously crisp little knock, she heard his "Come!" and
opened the door.

He sat facing her at his desk, swinging idly from side to side in the
revolving chair, through the small space the desk permitted. Upon the
blotter before him she saw that he had been drawing interminable
squares, oblongs, triangles and circles, joining them to one another in
aimless, wandering sequence--his sign of a perturbed mind.

He glanced up with a look of waiting defiance which she knew but masked
all his familiar artillery.

Instantly she determined to give him no opportunity to use this. She
would end matters with a rush. He was awaiting her attack. She would
make none.

"I think there is nothing to say," she began quickly. "I could utter
certain words, but they would mean one thing to me and other things to
you--there is no real communication possible between us. Only remember
that this--to-day--matters little--I had already resolved that sooner or
later I must go. This only makes it necessary to go at once."

She turned to the door which she had held ajar. At her words he sat
forward in his chair, the yellow stars blazing in his eyes. But the
opening was not the one he had counted upon, and before he could alter
his speech to fit it, or could do more than raise a hand to detain her,
she had gone.

He sat back in his chair, calculating how to meet this mood. Then the
door resounded under a double knock and Bernal came in.

"Well, old boy, I'll be off to-night. The lawyer is done with me here
and now I'll go to Edom and finish what'