chance of slipping past the outposts; he
would never take her by surprise. Well--why not face her, then? What he
shrank from could be no worse than what he was enduring. He had pushed
back his chair and turned to go upstairs when a new expedient presented
itself. What if, instead of telling her, he were to let her find out for
herself and watch the effect of the discovery before speaking? In this
way he made over to chance the burden of the revelation.

The idea had been suggested by the sight of the formula enclosing
the publisher's check. He had deposited the money, but the notice
accompanying it dropped from his note-case as he cleared his table for
work. It was the formula usual in such cases and revealed clearly enough
that he was the recipient of a royalty on Margaret Aubyn's letters. It
would be impossible for Alexa to read it without understanding at once
that the letters had been written to him and that he had sold them....

He sat downstairs till he heard her ring for the parlor-maid to put out
the lights; then he went up to the drawing-room with a bundle of papers
in his hand. Alexa was just rising from her seat and the lamplight fell
on the deep roll of hair that overhung her brow like the eaves of a
temple. Her face had often the high secluded look of a shrine; and it
was this touch of awe in her beauty that now made him feel himself on
the brink of sacrilege.

Lest the feeling should dominate him, he spoke at once. "I've brought
you a piece of work--a lot of old bills and things that I want you to
sort for me. Some are not worth keeping--but you'll be able to judge of
that. There may be a letter or two among them--nothing of much account,
but I don't like to throw away the whole lot without having them looked
over and I haven't time to do it myself."

He held out the papers and she took them with a smile that seemed to
recognize in the service he asked the tacit intention of making amends
for the incident of the previous day.

"Are you sure I shall know which to keep?"

"Oh, quite sure," he answered, easily--"and besides, none are of much
importance."

The next morning he invented an excuse for leaving the house without
seeing her, and when he returned, just before dinner, he found a
visitor's hat and stick in the hall. The visitor was Flamel, who was in
the act of taking leave.

He had risen, but Alexa remained seated; and their attitude gave the
impression of a colloquy that had prolonged itself