it. But she loves you."

I stared for a moment at the dwarf as if he had been a reasonable being.
Something seemed to click inside my head, like a clogged cog-wheel
that had suddenly freed itself, and my mind went whirling away straight
through the past few weeks. I tried to smile, and I said:

"You are quite mistaken."

"Oh, no," he replied, wagging his Napoleonic head. "Anastasius
Papadopoulos is never mistaken. She told me so herself. She wept. She
put her beautiful arms round my neck and sobbed on my shoulder."

I found myself reproving him gently. "You should not have told me this,
my dear Professor. Such confidences are locked up in the heart of _un
galant homme_, and are not revealed even to his dearest friend."

But my voice sounded hollow in my own ears, and what he said for the
next few minutes I do not remember. The little man had told the truth to
me, and Lola had told the truth to him. The realisation of it paralysed
me. Why had I been such a fool as not to see it for myself? Memories of
a hundred indications came tumbling one after another into my head--the
forgotten glove, the glances, the changes of mood, the tears when she
learned of my illness, the mysterious words, the abrupt little "You?" of
yesterday. The woman was in love, deeply in love, in love with all the
fervour of her big nature. And I had stood by and wondered what she
meant by this and by that--things that would have been obvious to a
coalheaver. I thought of Dale and I felt miserably guilty, horribly
ashamed. How could I expect him to believe me when I told him that I had
not wittingly stolen her affections from him. And her affections? _Bon
Dieu_! What on earth could I do with them? What is the use of a woman's
love to a dead man? And did I want it even for the tiny remainder of
life?

Anastasius, perceiving that I paid but scant attention to his
conversation, wriggled off his chair and stood before me with folded
arms.

"You adore each other with a great passion," he said. "She is my
Madonna, and you are my friend and benefactor. I will be your protection
and defence. I will never let her go away with that infamous, gambling
and murdering scoundrel. My gigantic combinations have matured. I bless
your union."

He lifted his little arms in benediction. The situation was cruelly
comical. For a moment I hated the mournful-visaged, posturing monkey,
and had a wild desire to throw him out of the window and have done with
him. I rose