nutes later, as Tom and
Rupert were showing Latimer some books. "They are afraid of making me
unhappy by letting me know how serious it will be if everything is lost.
They care too much for me--but I care for them, and if I could do
anything--or go to anyone----"

He looked into her eyes through a curious moment of silence.

"It was not all jest," he said after it, "what I said just now. I am a
man who has words, and words sometimes are of use. I am going to give you
my words--for what they are worth."

"We shall feel very rich," she answered, and her simple directness might
have been addressed to a friend of years' standing. It was a great charm,
this sweet acceptance of any kindness. "But I thought you were going away
in a few days?"

"Yes. But I shall come back, and I shall try to set the ball rolling
before I go."

She glanced at Latimer across the room.

"Mr. Latimer--" she hesitated; "do you think he does not mind that--that
the claim means so much for us? I was afraid. He looked at me so
seriously----"

"He looked at you a great deal," interposed Baird, quickly. "He could not
help it. I am glad to have this opportunity to tell you--something. You
are very like--_very_ like--someone he loved deeply--someone who died
years ago. You must forgive him. It was almost a shock to him to come
face to face with you."

"Ah!" softly. "Someone who died years ago!" She lifted Margery's eyes and
let them rest upon Baird's face. "It must be very strange--it must be
almost awful--to find yourself near a person very like someone you have
loved--who died years ago."

"Yes," he answered. "Yes--awful. That is the word."

When the two men walked home together through the streets, the same
thought was expressed again, and it was Latimer who expressed it.

"And when she looked at me," he said, "I almost cried out to her,
'Margery, Margery!' The cry leaped up from the depths of me. I don't know
how I stopped it. Margery was smaller and more childlike--her eyes are
darker, her face is her own, not Margery's--but she looks at one as
Margery did. It is the simple clearness of her look, the sweet belief,
which does not know life holds a creature who could betray it."

"Yes, yes," broke from Baird. The exclamation seemed involuntary.

"Yet there was one who could betray it," Latimer said.

"You _cannot_ forget," said Baird. "No wonder."

Latimer shook his head.

"The passing of years," he said, "almost inevitably wipes out