out Mrs Bosenna."

"Stow that," growled 'Bias. "If you've come here to crow--"

"The Lord knows I've not come here to crow. . . . I've come to tell you,
as man to man, that I don't hold 'twas a pretty trick she played us over
them two hundreds. You may see it different, and I hope you do.
I don't bear her no grudge, you understand? . . . But if you've still a
mind to her, and she've a mind to you, I stand out from this moment, and
wish 'ee luck!"

'Bias stood up, stiff with wrath.

"And the Lord knows, Cai Hocken, how at this moment I keep my hands off
you! . . . Wasn't it bad enough before, but you must stand patronisin'
there, offerin' me what you don't want? First I'm to ship in your
sarvice, eh? When that won't do, I'm to marry the woman you've no use
for? And there was a time I called 'ee friend! Hell! if you must
poison this garden, poison it by yourself! Let me get out o' this.
Stand aside, please, ere I say worse to 'ee!"

He strode by, and up the garden path in the gathering twilight.

Poor 'Bias!

Poor Cai, too! His renunciation had cost him no small struggle, and he
had meant it nobly; but for certain he had bungled it woefully.

His heart was sore for his friend: the sorer because there was now no
way left to help. The one door to help--reconcilement--was closed and
bolted! closed through his own clumsiness.

It had cost him much, a while ago--an hour or two ago, no more--to
resign his pretensions to Mrs Bosenna's hand. The queer thing was how
little--the resolutions once taken--Mrs Bosenna counted. It was 'Bias
he had lost.

As he sat and smoked, that night, in face of Mrs Bowldler's fire-screen,
staring at its absurd decorations, it was after 'Bias that his thoughts
harked--always back, and after 'Bias--retracing old friendship
faithfully as a hound seeking back to his master.

'Bias would never think well of him again. As a friend, 'Bias was lost,
had gone out of his life. . . . So be it! Yet there remained a 'Bias in
need of help, though stubborn to reject it: a 'Bias to be saved somehow,
in spite of himself, an unforgiving 'Bias, yet still to be rescued.
Cai smoked six pipes that night, pondering the problem. He was aroused
by the sound of the clock in the hall striking eleven. Before retiring
to bed he had a mind to run through his parcel of bonds and securities
on the chance--since he and 'Bias had made many small investments by
consent and in common--of finding some hint