bad or good. I called you to speak about Lucien Latimer. When
you go to him--you are going to him?"

"To-morrow."

"Then tell him to come and see me."

"I will tell him anything you wish," said Baird. "Is there anything
else?"

"Tell him I knew her," she answered, "Margery--Margery!"

"Margery," Baird said slowly, as if the sound touched him. "What a
pretty, simple name!"

"She was a pretty, simple creature," said Miss Amory.

"Tell me--" he said, "tell me something more about her."

"There is nothing more to tell," she replied. "She was dying when I met
her. I saw it--in her eyes. She could not have lived. She went away and
died. She--I----"

John Baird heard a slight sharp choking sound in her throat.

"There!" she said presently, "I don't like to talk about it. I am too
emotional for my years. Go to Mrs. Stornaway. She is looking for you."

He got up and turned and left her without speaking, and a few minutes
later, when Mrs. Stornaway wanted him to give an account of his interview
with the Pope, she was surprised to see him approaching her from the door
as if he had been out of the room.

His story of the interview with the Pope was very interesting, and he was
more "brilliant" than ever during the remainder of the evening, but when
the last guest had departed, followed by Mrs. Stornaway to the threshold,
that lady, on her return to the parlour, found him standing by the mantel
looking at the fire with so profoundly wearied an air, that she uttered
an exclamation.

"Why," she said, "you look tired, I must say. But everything went off
splendidly and I never saw you so brilliant."

"Thank you," he answered.

"I've just been saying," with renewed spirit of admiration, "that your
crossing with that Latimer has quite brought him into notice. It will be
a good thing for him. I heard several people speak of him to-night and
say how kind it was of you to take him up."

Baird stirred uneasily.

"I should not like to have that tone taken," he said. "Why should I
patronise him? We shall be friends--if he will allow it." He spoke with
so much heat and impatience that Mrs. Stornaway listened with a
discomfited stare.

"But nobody knows anything about them," she said. "They're quite ordinary
people. They live in Bank Street."

"That may settle the matter for Willowfield," said Baird, "but it does
not settle it for me. We are to be friends, and Willowfield must
understand that."

And such was the decisi