e--ah--I ought to apologize for speaking of unpleasant
things--if it might have an untoward ending. He merely remarked that all
injuries had possibilities of seriousness in them; he appeared in haste,
and anxious to get away, so I did not detain him, thinking he might have
an important case elsewhere. But it seemed as though he was not quite
frank, Gifford; as though, in fact, he evaded. I did not press it,
fearing to embarrass him, but I think he evaded."

Gifford also evaded. "He did not say anything which seemed evasive to me,
Mr. Denner. He was busy charging me to remember your medicines, and he
stopped to say a word about your bravery, too."

Mr. Denner shook his head deprecatingly at this, but he seemed pleased.
"Oh, not at all, it was nothing,--it was of no consequence." One of the
shutters blew softly to, and darkened the room; Gifford rose, and,
leaning from the window, fastened it back against the ivy which had
twisted about the hinge from the stained bricks of the wall. "I cannot
claim any bravery," the sick man went on. "No. It was, as it were,
accidental, Gifford."

"Accidental?" said the young man. "How could that be? I heard the horse,
and ran down the road after the phaeton just in time to see you make that
jump, and save her."

Mr. Denner sighed. "No," he replied, "no, it was quite by chance.
I--I was mistaken. I am glad I did not know, however, for I might have
hesitated. As it was, laboring under a misapprehension, I had no time to
be afraid."

"I don't think I quite understand," said Gifford.

Mr. Denner was silent. The room was so dark now, he could scarcely
see the young man's face as he stood leaning against one of the huge
bed-posts. Behind him, Mr. Denner just distinguished his big secretary,
with its pigeon-holes neatly labeled, and with papers filed in an orderly
way. No one had closed it since the afternoon that he had been carried in
and laid on the horse-hair sofa. He had given Mary the key then, and had
asked her to fetch the bottle of brandy from one of the long divisions
where it stood beside a big ledger. The little gentleman had hesitated to
give trouble in asking to have it locked again, though that it should be
open offended his ideas of privacy. Now he looked at it, and then let his
eyes rest upon the nephew of the Misses Woodhouse.

"Gifford," he said, "would you be so obliging as to take the small brass
key from my ring,"--here he thrust his lean hand under his pillow, and