re he forego this
opportunity of settling the question which had brought him here.

With a slight stammer but otherwise giving no evidence of the effect
made upon him by the passionate intensity with which she had urged this
plea, he assured her that his errand was important, but one so quickly
told that it would delay her but a moment. "But first," said he, with
very natural caution, "let me make sure that it is to Miss Doris Scott I
am speaking. My errand is to her and her only."

Without showing any surprise, perhaps too engrossed in her own thoughts
to feel any, she answered with simple directness, "Yes, I am Doris
Scott." Whereupon he became his most persuasive self, and pulling out
a folded paper from his pocket, opened it and held it before her, with
these words:

"Then will you be so good as to glance at this letter and tell me if the
person whose initials you will find at the bottom happens to be in town
at the present moment?"

In some astonishment now, she glanced down at the sheet thus boldly
thrust before her, and recognising the O and the B of a well-known
signature, she flashed a look back at Sweetwater in which he read a
confusion of emotions for which he was hardly prepared.

"Ah," thought he, "it's coming. In another moment I shall hear what will
repay me for the trials and disappointments of all these months."

But the moment passed and he had heard nothing. Instead, she dropped
her hands from the door-jamb and gave such unmistakable evidences of
intended flight, that but one alternative remained to him; he became
abrupt.

Thrusting the paper still nearer, he said, with an emphasis which could
not fail of making an impression, "Read it. Read the whole letter. You
will find your name there. This communication was addressed to Miss
Challoner, but--"

Oh, now she found words! With a low cry, she put out her hand in quick
entreaty, begging him to desist and not speak that name on any pretext
or for any purpose. "He may rouse and hear," she explained, with another
quick look behind her. "The doctor says that this is the critical day.
He may become conscious any minute. If he should and were to hear that
name, it might kill him."

"He!" Sweetwater perked up his ears. "Who do you mean by he?"

"Mr. Brotherson, my patient, he whose letter--" But here her impatience
rose above every other consideration. Without attempting to finish her
sentence, or yielding in the least to her curiosity or interest