re you sure I wasn't
calling you, and you had to come?"

"Well, it was _en route_, anyhow; and you are always calling, if I must
tell you," he laughed. Suddenly he became grave. "I hear you call me in
the night sometimes, and I start up and say 'Yes, Di!' out of my sleep.
It's a queer hallucination. I've got you on the brain, certainly."

"It seems to vex you--certainly," she said, opening the book that lay in
her lap, "and your eyes trouble me to-day. They've got a look that used to
be in them, Flood, before--before you promised; and another look I don't
understand and don't like. I suppose it's always so. The real business of
life is trying to understand each other."

"You have wonderful thoughts for one that's had so little chance," he
said. "That's because you're a genius, I suppose. Teaching can't give that
sort of thing--the insight."

"What is the matter, Flood?" she asked, suddenly, again, her breast
heaving, her delicate, rounded fingers interlacing. "I heard a man say
once that you were 'as deep as the sea.' He did not mean it kindly, but I
do. You are in trouble, and I want to share it if I can. Where were you
going when you came across me here?"

"To see old Busby, the quack-doctor up there," he answered, nodding toward
a shrubbed and wooded hillock behind them.

"Old Busby!" she rejoined, in amazement. "What do you want with him--not
medicine of that old quack, that dreadful man?"

"He cures people sometimes. A good many out here owe him more than they'll
ever pay him."

"Is he as rich an old miser as they say?"

"He doesn't look rich, does he?" was the enigmatical answer.

"Does any one know his real history? He didn't come from nowhere. He must
have had friends once. Some one must once have cared for him, though he
seems such a monster now."

"Yet he cures people sometimes," he rejoined, abstractedly. "Probably
there's some good underneath. I'm going to try and see."

"What is it? What is your business with him? Won't you tell me? Is it so
secret?"

"I want him to help me in a case I've got in hand. A client of mine is in
trouble--you mustn't ask about it; and he can help, I think--I think so."
He got to his feet. "I must be going, Di," he added. Suddenly a flush
swept over his face, and he reached out and took both her hands. "Oh, you
are a million times too good for me!" he said. "But if all goes well, I'll
do my best to make you forget it."

"Wait--wait one moment," she answered. "Befo